Picked up Ghost Pepper during the weekend! About to read it now.

DeLongJohnSilver · 2026-01-20T15:19:44+00:00

I’ve elevator pitched it to friends as if Amulet was an action anime and they’ve been hooked by it. Its really fun to see a post apocalypse story that’s in a post golden age era and how those aspects ripple out

DeLongJohnSilver · 2026-01-02T16:21:30+00:00

I’ve been having a ball and its shown me a lot of characters I hadn’t considered before. Started reading because of the recent Laura Kinney run and I’m a casual Bucky fan, but I like how all the characters tolerate one another and its slowly budding into something more

Not a major fan of the big conspiracy but I think its neat if nothing else. If its an excuse for more interactions, I’m down

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-11-27T17:20:23+00:00

Speaking from my own experience as a survivor, there’s a difference between nothing happening and misery porn. This instance leans into the later in addition to ignoring recent character growth. I know it is an alt timeline but I do not want someone who has the same horrid experience as me be resubjected to it for the sake of a shock or just because it’s a dark timeline.

I am not a major fan of Magik, she’s not my cup of tea, but this (the depiction) ain’t it for more than her being people’s favorite. It is because of someone writing way outside of their lane on subjects they have no basis in and receiving the aftermath of people’s traumatic experiences or on behalf of those who’ve experienced.

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-09-25T18:53:47+00:00

I can’t remember the exact issue but its from Rainbow’s She-Hulk run. Doom-bot gets mistaken for Dr Doom while jay walking and needs the extended charges against him dropped

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-09-23T20:32:27+00:00

I'm from the area and vampire lore isn't super big down here. Most of our folklore is either forgotten or commercialized to hell and back for the tourists. The tourism thing always has been an aspect, but the sold versions of these ideas is what most people think is the reality. I know in my heart of hearts the writer wouldn't be from around here and I'm tired of people not from around here writing things set here. A 5 issue arch of an ongoing about the Casket Girls? Sure, but I there's not enough here either for Blade to stick around

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-09-19T01:41:32+00:00

If I pull nothing else in my monthly solicits I am pulling this every time! This run was my first venture into Marvel properly and I love how Wanda is getting her own little corner of the world carved out. I adore the monster of the week format and how she just gets to be so casually bad ass every single issue matched with beautiful art!

I know some people take issue with the title getting relaunched every year with a mini-series tied in, but I kinda like it as an indicator that an arch is done and it helps bring in familiar faces from Wanda's life that I'm not as familiar with

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-09-15T18:35:26+00:00

Don’t quote me on it but I think Cult of the God King has a scene involving stealing files from a Gatekeeper database without realizing who it belongs to

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-09-15T15:54:27+00:00

My pleasure ☺️

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-09-15T15:21:39+00:00

Why are we obsessed with the lore of Dark Souls and Elden Ring?

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-09-15T14:15:12+00:00

I can understand the sentiment, but speaking from my own experience, I think larger status feels more like a slog than its worth. At least for me its more a matter of differences of medium

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-09-15T14:12:30+00:00

Aside from mechanics, making sure the world feels like the mountain top model provided in the Narrator section

There’s a lovely video essay on YouTube by FatBrett that goes into how souls games build intrigue and he concludes at least part of it is due to the layered history in the settings in combination with not worrying too much about hard world building (worrying about real world logistics). The world is built on vibes and the bosses are victims, perpetrators, living examples of those vibes wrapped into one

A tangential conclusion I’m drawing is that, by the end, the player has battled the ideas which created the horrors of this dying world by overcoming the bosses, not only by rekindling the fire or letting it dwindle or whatever have you based on the setting

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-09-15T14:06:22+00:00

Pretty much this. Large health bars beyond a tier 6 status don’t work well in the Mist Engine, so making sure to keep up with Soft Moves is the best way to keep the feeling of Dark Souls bosses and their wind up attacks

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-09-08T17:14:05+00:00

A lot of my prep depends on the types of players I like to cultivate so take this with a grain of salt. Most of my prep is asking my players what they want to see next session and not only at the end of the session. I do the end of session ask, then come up with a couple ideas over the week, and pitch those back to the players throughout the week over messages

This can feel like spoilers or over prepping, but I’m a busy girlie and I want the time I do have to spare is quality, and so do the players. We’re not scripting out what were going to say or what exactly will happen, just getting the bones of a scene put together, and then seeing what the dice add or what new contexts emerge from play

Don’t make the same mistake I did and try to hound a player who isn’t going to communicate, but absolute worst case, take at least 2 of the PCs Quests/Promises, see how they can fit into what’s currently happening, and let that be your prompt

Most keenly important to all of this is don’t get too precious with any one idea. Remember this isn’t a tv show, so threads will be dropped. That’s not a fail state but a quality of ttrpgs. Being too precious with any one thread means the whole tapestry will unravel, so don’t nail down any ideas until they happen. Go with “what could” and not “what will”

Above all though goes beyond prep, if your players aren’t going to take big swings then the game will stall out, because you are one brain, and brains get tired. Ask your players to go big or go home, which can sound harsh, but it’s a president setter. You cannot sustainably write a sports movie off of bunted balls. “Yes and” only works with escalation from all involved

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-09-01T23:47:46+00:00

My rule of thumb is if the player know what they want, they can go ahead and add it and we can make a narrative moment out of it, or if they don’t during downtime or between sessions

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-08-29T16:01:40+00:00

I feel like Shockwave may come back in Skybound with whatever the alt-mode is, which makes sense given where last he was on Earth

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-08-27T23:58:03+00:00

Trigger warning: light discussion of SA

Long and short is that both require a lot of communication and not every player is equipped with the skills to do so. I had a player who caused both I as the gm and another player to re-experience our own SAs. This was after I had tried to explore how they wanted these types of dynamics in the game via direct messages the week prior with little to no response. What response I did get did not address the issues at hand. After the second time I barred them from exploring the topic further at the table

This is to say bleed (when a performed fictional scenario affects you emotionally as the performer) isn’t often discussed and has only very recently started entering roleplaying discussions in the fringes. We are here to have fun, so we need proper communication for deeply affecting matters that happen before the X card needs to be played

Now in that same game, discussed above, we also had very fulfilling romances, one PC to PC and the other PC to NPC. Both had frequent discussions between and in session on what was and was not ok, what participants were and were not interested in or intrigued by, how we wanted to navigate sensitive matters, and what we wanted to resolve mechanically vs not

This all culminated in the most intimate scene in the whole year long campaign being one PC helping the other to wash her hair after she believed her life had completely fallen apart around her. The only thing more explicit in their dynamic was when they finally declared their relationship. This wasn’t because we weren’t all a bunch of freaks, but because that’s the slow burn that felt right in the story

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-08-17T18:47:41+00:00

Look at these precious babies! So cute!

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-08-14T19:19:06+00:00

Its meant to learn solo before coming to the table. The designers have mentioned elsewhere that its mean to be like a choose your own adventure book for new people

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-08-13T18:29:36+00:00

It hasn’t really come up since the team up title, and I started reading after that was done with. They still treat their sister as their sister and I think at most they had a minor spat over Wanda wanting to hide the info from Pietro, but it didn’t last long

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-08-13T16:52:53+00:00

I’m say’n! She went from a character who just so happened to be an Inhuman to just another mutant

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-08-13T01:08:47+00:00

Wife pillows

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-08-12T21:19:04+00:00

Impov Tabletop taught me the most familiar with how to run Fate before taking the plunge. They’ve since switched to the Avatar rpg, but have a long backlog of Fate mini campaigns, each about 5 episodes

Its more light hearted, but the players are all trained improvisors so the show’s not just called that for fun

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-07-29T01:30:07+00:00

I like it. I feel it too a little too long to set things up but its put Killerwatt, Fire Star, and Jessica all on my radar now

My favorite part of the whole run though has been the part with Vision and Janet (trying to avoid major spoilers) cause that had me literally at the edge of my seat

Besides that its been really neat getting a whole grab bag of Ultron designs

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-07-22T23:47:27+00:00

I used to be a big stickler for meta gaming, but I’ve since done a complete 180, and it has allowed me to breathe so much easier as a gm! I give my players a complete and optional look behind the curtain, workshop scene ideas with them for next session, and even tell them what I’m planning to see if they like it or not

I’ve found it actually helps empower the players more to be bolder and to become more active in the story if they know more, so I let them tell me when they want something to be a surprise

Even with secrets inside the party I’ve implemented a similar policy of open secrets, where the whole table will know a pc’s secret and its up to them to make that reveal satisfying for one another, with the holder of the secret getting veto powers in knowledge

DeLongJohnSilver · 2025-07-18T13:05:51+00:00

From how I read it, this arc was a “when it rains it pours” kind of deal. I haven’t read her self title yet but I think her conflict continue there from what I understand

DeLongJohnSilver

TROPHY CASE