RPG Fridays: Ground Control to Major Chris

It has been a crazy year with a lot of highs (Harlem Unbound) and numerous lows (45, closing doors, and building walls). I've been doing a mental rundown of the year with the faint sound of Bowie playing in the background. In some ways, I feel like I've been floating in space since we funded our Kickstarter. Real life took over in a lot of ways, and I haven't had the time to devote to reaching out to the gaming community and pursuing other gaming-related projects in the way I wanted. The end of the year is looming, and I'm thinking about Darker Hue's mission,  some of the projects I was lucky enough to be on, and a lot of people I met over the last year. 

So now it's time for Harlem Unbound to ship (next month, fingers crossed!), and it will soon be in the hands of all those great people crazy enough to believe in this project. People who believed the Harlem Renaissance and Lovecraftian horror could merge into something great that previously has been sorely overlooked and dubiously depicted.  My mind is ablaze with what comes next. I have a lot of ideas (too many, if you ask my wife),  but time is always the control factor.  Right now, I am focusing on the last scenario for Harlem Unbound, a digital special for backers.

And with the books being shipped out next month, I am going to be doing Harlem Unbound Mondays until the book reaches everyone. That's right, a quick 140 character scenario seed for those looking to get started playing! Look for it on our Twitter feed.

Then, tomorrow...tomorrow and tomorrow for our next project. And I think my spaceship knows which way to go.

Gen Con 50: Where You Can Find Me (and please do, with scotch)

It's been a really busy year--just looking at my blog since Gen Con 49 tells me that. This is only my fourth blog post since then... But fewer posts hopefully means more work, and my energy has really been focused on the Darker Hue Studios mission. 

If you are looking for me at Gen Con 50, send me a tweet, DM me, or swing by the Pelgrane booth. If none of that works, you can probably find me enjoying the Omni hotel bar. 

You can also find me appearing on a few panels or doing that silly thing called running a game. Details below:

The Hangman's Well
Thursday/Friday/Saturday, 1200 - 1600
Horror & madness in the Wild West. A new game for 2017.

One GM, One Player Masterclass
Thursday, 1600 - 1700
GMing for one player, or playing solo with the GM, poses a special set of challenges. The design team behind Cthulhu Confidential teaches the tricks & techniques of this intense, rewarding format.

Investigative Roleplaying Master Class
Saturday, 1600 - 1700
Mystery scenario masters Kenneth Hite, Robin D. Laws, & Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan (and me! I'll be there too!) train their magnifying glasses on clue-gathering adventures to reveal the unlikely suspects behind your tabletop woes.

Black Letter Game
Sunday, 0900 - 1400
A mysterious round that serves as the culmination to all that has gone before, for those secretly marked as worthy.

See you in Indy,
Chris

Lapsed No More?: The Doctor and Bill

Many of you know that I have talked some shit about Doctor Who recently. I consider myself a lapsed Whovian, struggling with casting choices and story development the past couple of seasons. So, take that all in when I say:

This was the best episode of
Doctor Who I have seen in years, 

and definitely Peter Capaldi's best episode (and by far better than nearly every Matt Smith episode). That's the bottom upfront. We may dip into spoilers from here out. So for those who haven't seen it, go. Watch it. Come talk to me about it!

Bill Potts, Pearl Mackie,  is fantastic! I love that they did not shy away from her sexuality; in fact, her doomed relationship was one of the two core plot elements. The second key plot element is not the Doctor, his mysterious vault, or how Professor Chronotis (The Doctor) has taught at the university for 50+years.

The episode actually explores the horror of how a banal existence can crush people if they don't seek a journey of self-discovery.

Go with me for a second. Look at Bill: she’s brilliant, strong-willed and actively seeking something meaningful in her life (like so many of us). She literally has an interview with the Doctor (The Timelord Victorious, The Thing Monster’s Fear, etc…etc…etc.) and gets the chance to be taught by him. Then life goes on, unchanged for months, and seasons pass. It’s Bill’s love life that rips them out of that banality. The banality for Bill and the Doctor is different. Bill’s is being trapped without love and the Doctor's is how he refuses to be the Timelord, and instead chooses to be a safe keeper.

The pacing of the episode is dynamic, the chemistry between characters feels right, and it has me wanting to rewatch the episode -- something I have not done since David Tennant and a few other key classical episodes.

Despite my love for this episode, I, of course, have some issues -- Why is Bill, the only PoC in the episode, a lunch lady? Why be coy about a vault with "something" in it?

But now, this episode is my jumping on point for any non-Doctor-Who fans. Some of you may know, I had a massive video screen at my wedding, silently playing a few episodes of Doctor Who, Deep Space 9 and Firefly on repeat behind the best wedding band in Philly. Why? Well, besides the fact that sci-fi is life, that was enough to hook at least three people on the shows. 

I am looking forward to the next episode. Don't disappoint me, Doctor.

Noir Wednesday: The Maltese Falcon Recast

I am working on my third scenario for Langston Wright (Cthulhu Confidential), an African American veteran fighting Mythos horrors in 1940s Washington DC.  Writing in this shadowy, corrupt world of politicians and detectives makes me wish there was more diversity found in the noir genre. I know my Mosley and Hines, but that's a short list. 

However we are in the age of the remake, so it's only a matter of years before it happens...is it too much to ask for some blind casting? This got me thinking about who would I recast in one of the greatest noir films ever, The Maltese Falcon...

Chad Coleman (Sam Spade)
Ruth Wilson (Ruth Wonderly/Brigid O'Shaughnessy)
Karen David (Iva Archer)
Bill Hader (Joel Cairo) 
Tony Leung (Lieutenant Dundy)
Sara Rue (Effie Perine)
Vincent D'onofrio (Kasper Gutman)
Idris Elba (Detective Tom Polhaus)
John Cho (Miles Archer)
Martin Freeman (Wilmer Cook)
Michael Pena (Luke)
Octavia Spencer (District Attorney Bryan)
Denzel Washington (Captain Jacobi)

All right. Back to Cthulhu Confidential and listening to my noir mix.
 

GenCon in the Rearview

This was the greatest GenCon for me to date! Hands down. I mean professionally, personally and spiritually. So many things happened and it is impossible to sum them up or this feeling of joy. Good job writer, saying you don't have words to describe something and then using words to talk about that (a comment from a redline). As a staunch member of the once-bitten thrice-shy club, I am hesitant to talk about my GenCon in fear of it all being a fevered dream moments away from being shattered. But alas, here's tempting fate...

First off, I got to hang a bit with my crew, You Too Can Cthulhu. It is always a pleasure to see them and do an annual huddle for the Black Letter games. This was my first year going to the Diana Jones Award and dipping my toe into the professional world of game design at GenCon. I also attended the Ennies with the Pelgrane Press gang and watched them sweep up awards for all of the hard work they have done. It was galvanizing and spectacular to watch. 

The days were filled with running the two games I wrote: Old Business in a New Town (Trail of Cthulhu) and Lost Legends: Utopians (Call of Cthulhu). Both got rave reviews from the players and they introduced a crop of new players to Trail of Cthulhu, and exposed others to the wonders of 7th Edition Call of Cthulhu. I gotta add in some player feedback and then shelve those scenarios until they are up on the site. 

It was fantastic to meet a host of new friends and colleagues, and finally meet some of the old ones in person. A special thanks to the Pelgrane crew for the warm welcome and LATE nights of drinking, joking and general geekery. Hopefully I embarrassed myself only minimally (doubtable).  

I referenced this already on social media, but it keeps playing through my brain, because it is why I do this: to make gaming a safe space for my daughter and other people of color. To have a young black woman tell me this was her first GenCon and my game is the reason she will be back next year, makes the crazy hours of writing and researching worth it (my wife Jill may disagree having to deal with the light of a computer screen peaking under the door while she sleeps).  

So many other things happened, so many people to shout out to and games to play. Instead, I am going to spend time recuperating (writing), avoiding the con crud and start planning my games for next year. No matter what happens, I will always remember this GenCon and this gaming high.