Graham Walmsley

Dark Ronin is a Cthulhu Dark hack about Ronin in feudal Japan.

Long ago, the world was in balance, and Owlbears lived together happily. Then humans came, scattered the Owlbears and destroyed the balance.

In Owlbear: Fragile Duality, you play Owlbears who roam the Borderlands, searching for other Owlbears and restoring balance to the world.

Starting the game

To start the game, the GM describes the Owlbears entering a region where something is out of balance. For example:

“You enter a forest. In the distance, you can see humans constructing a castle. You hear them sawing down trees to make room for the castle.”

He also describes other Owlbears nearby, but presently out of reach:

“Sometimes, you hear an Owlbear cub scream, as they kill it to make the castle safe.”

The Owlbears must react: taking whatever steps are necessary to restore the region to balance and reunite with their fellow Owlbears.

“We creep up and observe the humans, making an attack formation.”

And the GM should attempt to provoke the players by using their Marks:

“You see a group of humans, talking and relaxing after a morning?s work. One is wearing a jacket which is, unmistakably, made of Owlbear cub fur.”

Euthymia is a game set in a dystopian future, eerily similar to the world today. Can you regain your humanity? Or will you be crushed by The Committee? Can you even handle being human?

Euthymia is a game set in a dystopian future, eerily similar to the world today. To play, you need:

• A bottle of drink to share. This should be a special drink that everyone likes. It should have a utopian feel: perhaps a bottle of good wine or cream liqueur. You will drink one bottle every session (see below).
• An identical glass for each player.
• A clock or watch. A ticking egg-timer or a clock with a countdown function is ideal.
• A pack of cards.
• One copy of the character sheet, at the back of this booklet, for each player.
• Pens.

Euthymia is played in ten sessions, each lasting one hour. These sessions are referred as hours: the first hour, the second hour and so on. Despite this description, the sessions do not run back-to-back and are likely to be spread over several evenings.

This game is a bit shit but it has a Dreidel in it and you can’t argue with that.

The team of characters will now go on an adventure.

Whichever player arrived last will start off as the Dudgeon Master. Whenever a player becomes the Dudgeon Master, he doubles his gold.

The Dudgeon Master begins by describing an ancient dungeon:

?You see a tunnel, lit by a flickering torch?

It is then the job of the other players to do anything but proceed with the adventure. Whatever stupid actions they come up with, the Dudgeon Master must either:

• Respond to the action
• Tell them to spin the dreidel (whatever the result, it will have no effect)
• Attempt to interest them in something else (which he won?t)

DM: ?You see a tunnel, lit by a flickering torch?

Player 1: ?What sort of torch??

DM: ?Beeswax.?

Player 2: ?I check for bees?

DM: ?Spin the dreidel.?

Player 2: ?Gimel!?

DM: ?There?s no bees.?

Player 1: ?That beeswax must have come from somewhere.?

DM: ?You hear a noise.?

Player 3: ?Does it sound like bees??

DM: ?No.?

Player 1: ?We ignore it.?

The players should fire comments and stupid questions at the Dudgeon Master in anattempt to throw him.

If at any time the Dudgeon Master is lost for words or responds inappropriately ? as judged by the players* ? he stops being the Dudgeon Master and the player to his left becomes the new Dudgeon Master.

This carries on until someone wants to hit something.

Get Out, Get Away, Get Wise, Get Back, Get Even is a game about running for your life. It is inspired by movies such as The Fugitive, North By Northwest and The Thirty-Nine Steps.

This game was written in 24 hours, starting at 2pm on 1 September 25 and ending before 2pm on 11 September 25.

It is an entry for Ron Edwards? ?Ronnies? competition, which challenged the entrants to design a roleplaying game based on two of the following words: Suburb, Hatred, Girlfriend and Rat. I chose Suburb and Hatred.

The idea of narrating a story with a known ending is stolen from Paul Czege?s game My Life With Master. Many other things are stolen from that game too.

The structure of the chase story is stolen from Joseph Campbell?s ?Hero?s Journey? story structure, outlined in his book ?The Hero with a Thousand Faces?. I learnt the structure from Christopher Vogler?s book ?The Writer?s Journey?.