Know your community: The Fantasy & Sci-Fi Readers Lounge
-This is our regular feature in which we get to know communities around the world (and the internet) dedicated to celebrating escapism. In our January issue, we caught up with one of Facebook’s largest Dungeons & Dragons communities. In February, we got to know one of the stalwarts of London’s wargaming scene. This issue, we chat to Cheryllynn Dyess and Rennie St. James, administrators of the Fantasy & Sci-Fi Readers Lounge, a 2,100 strong community group dedicated to sharing great books. Hello and…
Live streaming TTRPGs: a new immersive experience
-Tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) now have supporting technical tools that enable the entire game playing experience to be shared online; streaming the roleplaying action whilst also displaying the game’s status and mechanics. This enhances engagement with the watching viewers, who get to see the full picture of the gaming world. We look at this developing phenomenon and speak to an experienced gamesmaster (GM) to find out more. TTRPGs are becoming increasingly popular. The move from roleplaying games being the hobby of fringe groups…
Cosmic horror: the existential fiction we all need right now
-In a recent interview on BBC Radio 4, sci-fi author and giant of cyberpunk William Gibson noted that society seemed to be averting our gaze from the future. “How often do you hear anyone invoke the 22nd century? Even saying it is unfamiliar to us. We’ve come to not have a future.” It’s not madness to ask if we even have much of a future at all. Fans of seminal superhero deconstruction Watchmen by Alan Moore will be familiar with the Doomsday Clock; the…
Coppers and cobblestones: running an urbancrawl campaign
-Prepwork. What a dirty word. Of course, every gamesmaster (GM) in the world has had a session they’ve entirely ad-libbed after a week of just not having the energy to prepare. But to stay consistent and have a decent campaign, you do need to prep, otherwise eventually the players find you out. It’s the part of the hobby that feels like homework, and I’ve yet to meet a GM who would rather prep than just play the damn game. But this article is going…
Original fiction: Echoes
-A tale told (under protest) by Bard Hiro J Kilorno of Travis Waypost (approximately three weeks from the borders of the Commonwealth). I love telling tales. Tall ones, usually. Some though you just don’t tell, right? Public safety is something of a joke these days, but sometimes you gotta pass on the warnings. This one came to me in the strangest of ways. Two weeks before my last ship out as crew of the Lio-Chan Yu, a passenger ship chartered to pick up…
Being an eBay eagle
-In 1990 I bought my first Games Workshop miniatures. I tried to paint and glue them and made bad choices, as most do when they start out. The wrong glue, cheap paint, lack of colours, a bad brush: all can ruin what you’re trying to do. Many of those miniatures are in a bag of shame, waiting for me to one day go back and help them. Slowly, I learned better techniques. I bought better paint, took care of my brushes, and established a…
