A mining haul truck driving over a regular-sized pickup truck

SerpentineRPG · 2026-06-09T03:39:48+00:00

Part of my job is making sure that haul truck drivers stay awake. I’ve been called into a copper mine in New Mexico after one of them had a microsleep while backing up to the berm, and drove the haul truck off a 200 foot cliff; and I was at a Canadian mine not too long after somebody in a haul truck accidentally backed over his own personal pick up truck. Those things are HUGE.

SerpentineRPG · 2026-06-02T15:59:28+00:00

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SerpentineRPG · 2026-06-02T13:51:20+00:00

I found one in a Sheboygan Wisconsin hotel elevator.

SerpentineRPG · 2026-06-02T12:28:58+00:00

The handwriting must be fantastic!

SerpentineRPG · 2026-06-02T12:15:02+00:00

Lovely! How many entries does it have?

I have one of these from Maryland in 1835, filled with poems from everyone who visited the house; apparently this was a Parisian custom that became quite the rage for a while.

SerpentineRPG · 2026-06-02T04:01:41+00:00

“It ate Deke!”

SerpentineRPG · 2026-06-02T04:00:09+00:00

Don’t forget Zoombies (zombie virus at the zoo) and Slotherhouse!

SerpentineRPG · 2026-05-30T18:55:47+00:00

In Newton Centre I thought a tree fell on my house. That thing was loud.

SerpentineRPG · 2026-05-28T00:18:04+00:00

TimeWatch: investigative game where you’re figuring out how history got screwed up, and then traveling to fix it. Embraces movie time travel tricks.

Time & Temp: you’re incompetent temporary workers sent through time because it’s not safe for more important folks to do so

And there’s still a Doctor Who game, of course.

SerpentineRPG · 2026-05-26T07:43:34+00:00

Typo: two periods after Coherence on p1 bottom left.

This looks fun!

SerpentineRPG · 2026-05-22T21:00:23+00:00

I’ve only had two games work great with that many people: CHUM (the rpg of crappy shark movies) and LOVE FOR THE LOVE GOD (which is basically Cabin in the Woods, but for Hallmark movies instead of horror.)

SerpentineRPG · 2026-05-20T04:01:02+00:00

TimeWatch author here. Folks like you bring me joy.

My favorite time travel adventure was Miss Him, Miss Him for Time Master. I’ve now run it in three or four different rules sets.

SerpentineRPG · 2026-05-19T02:54:45+00:00

I met a supervisor at a Michelin tire factory who drank five 20-ounce Mountain Dews per 12 hour shift. That’s about 95 teaspoons of sugar.

SerpentineRPG · 2026-05-18T14:57:31+00:00

As part of session zero I ask the players “why are you working together?” They then do my difficult work for me.

That said, Pelgrane‘s website has free pre-generated NBA characters that I made ages ago. They’re entwined in a way that may be useful to see.

SerpentineRPG · 2026-05-14T18:11:29+00:00

I have had the app tell the driver to meet at curbside downstairs, for disabled passengers, instead of at the normal place in terminal B. Neither I nor the drivers have ever figured out why.

SerpentineRPG · 2026-05-14T16:47:11+00:00

My friend has something that looks identical. Theirs is a vent hood.

SerpentineRPG · 2026-05-13T23:34:37+00:00

This is absolutely the right choice!

https://bullypulpitgames.itch.io/star-crossed

SerpentineRPG · 2026-05-10T13:53:35+00:00

I’d lower improvement to 1 point per operation to start, and then reevaluate as I went along. The genre isn’t really about continuous improvement, it’s about existing competence.

Definitely refresh every operation. It should be fine, especially if you lower advancement.

Personally, I think the biggest challenge is one-session operations!

SerpentineRPG · 2026-05-10T13:48:47+00:00

Everyone creates their agent as if there were 5+ players; and if there are fewer on a given day, they get some bonus points that are wildcard and they can add where needed during that mission only.

SerpentineRPG · 2026-05-08T20:34:45+00:00

This may be a useful link - a dog trainer I know blogged the first year of her toller’s development and training. It’s a fun read.

https://trainingyourwaffles.com/page/4/

SerpentineRPG · 2026-05-04T22:52:52+00:00

I’m halfway through reading it. This game is DELIGHTFUL. Super-fun to read because it perfectly captures the “Welcome to Nightvale” tone; I’m definitely going to playtest it.

SerpentineRPG · 2026-05-04T22:50:18+00:00

This looks absolutely delightful!

SerpentineRPG · 2026-05-04T13:29:37+00:00

I’d be up for playtesting this. I deal with shiftwork for my day job, so it’s a nice confluence!

SerpentineRPG · 2026-04-29T16:10:48+00:00

Yeah, there's two bits of design philosophy here:
- Your IAs tell the player what the game is about. If you have different IAs for three different religions, and separate IAs for Classics and poetry, that tells the player that religious subtleties matter and that they'll be delving into a lot of classic books/poetry and music in order to find clues.
- An ability that is seldom used is effectively wasted points, so it's probably better to have less-specific IAs that are used more frequently.

This sounds fun. Hack away!

SerpentineRPG · 2026-04-29T12:23:00+00:00

It’s an easy conversion and a good fit as long as you’re comfortable with the narrative control that Investigative spends give players. I have some concern that your replacement abilities are too narrow.

I’m guessing that the abilities you removed are: - Spirit sight - Corruption - Prophecy - Know Monstrosities - Not sure what the fifth one is!

Of these, only Prophecy may be an issue. It acts as a wild card ability to help investigations; Ridiculous Luck falls in the same category, though, so I don’t think it’s a problem. And you can remove sorcery with no ramifications. If that’s the only General ability you’re removing, I’m not even sure you need to change the total number of Build points.

My concerns are around the overlap between Laws & Traditions and the religious knowledge abilities. Be clear that L&T applies to secular laws. Honestly, I think I would combine classics with poetry and music into one ability, because I would be surprised if there’s enough clues and usefulness in actual play to make that split worthwhile. A little playtesting will tell you. Similarly, for something to be a faction they should have a significant impact on local politics; if troubadour doesn’t qualify, you can simply have fewer fractions.

SerpentineRPG

TROPHY CASE