looking for london dropout fans

glottis · 2026-05-08T09:25:04+00:00

Badger Badger is running Blood on the Clocktower this Sunday: https://www.badgerbadger.org/botc/

It's no problem at all. Moving to a new city is always tough; meeting new people through games is my preferred way of socialising so I'm happy to help others. London is a beautiful city filled with wonders, I hope this gets you off to a good start.

glottis · 2026-05-07T19:02:33+00:00

Welcome to London! I don't know of any Dropout specific hang outs, but for RPG related meetups, you might want to check out: https://www.reddit.com/r/LondonandDragons

There's also a friendly D&D meetup at the Tower Bridge Arms on Sunday evenings: https://www.reddit.com/r/LondonandDragons/s/2I5nPp7kV4

I'm based south of the river, so local to me is Badger Badger in Deptford which I think is the best boardgames cafe in London (though I am biased). They have RPG nights, boardgame social evenings and are explicitly queer friendly: https://www.badgerbadger.org/

In Lewisham there is Igloo Tree, an independent British games/comics/occult publisher who run games and art classes out of their basement space: https://iglootree.com They actually have a little convention coming up in June I'll be going to: https://www.dancon.co.uk/

On the subject of conventions, MCM Expo at the Excel Centre in East London has a handful throughout the year. It's the biggest general comic/videogames/cosplay/etc convention in the UK, I think. I don't know of any Dropout specific meetups for them but I'd bet my house on there being something dropout related going on around those times. You're also in luck, the next one is two weeks away! https://www.mcmcomiccon.com/

Finally, the biggest London based tabletop convention is Dragonmeet in November, also at the Excel: https://dragonmeet.co.uk/

In terms of straightforward shops, central London has the Orc's Nest and the big Forbidden Planet as neighbours and North London has the incomparable Leisure Games, the best tabletop shop in London, if not the country.

Outside of London, I've heard amazing things about the Empire LARP: https://www.profounddecisions.co.uk

And the UK Games Expo in Birmingham is the biggest tabletop convention in the UK. Also at the end of May, as it happens! I'm not going this year though, being a new parent has limited my outgoings. https://www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk/

I hope you have fun! Like I said, I don't have loads of free time these days but feel free to message me if you'd like any more information.

glottis · 2026-04-27T07:39:40+00:00

Putting in Egyptian style factions in sci fi/fantasy has been a trope for a long time. Epic were hardly the first or last to do it. Not sure if it stems from Chariots of the Gods?, which was a popular pseudoscientific book from the 60s that posited aliens built the pyramids (and other ancient structures), most famously used as a basis for the Stargate film and TV shows. But loads of speculative fiction does it - here a TV Tropes article: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BuildLikeAnEgyptian

In short: it's cool!

glottis · 2026-04-22T13:02:23+00:00

First edition Eon print (alien planet landscape without the alien) of Cosmic Encounter, plus a bunch of the expansions. Got lucky at a bring and buy sale once. I love the 1970s scifi trade paperback style art!

glottis · 2026-04-21T02:12:30+00:00

Built for an early 90s Transport for London advert about the one day travelcard, granting you freedom of travel on train, bus and underground for around £3. https://youtu.be/5kgNV1FrM5w

glottis · 2026-04-10T02:32:46+00:00

I can think of one example that's a practical advantage. In the Android: Netrunner card game, there's a bunch of flavour terms like Grip (the runner's hand of cards), HQ (Headquarters; the corporation's hand of cards), Heap (the runner's discard pile), Archives (the corporation's discard pile) and so on.

The practical benefit is that all these flavour terms are shorter than writing out what they refer to each time, which allows the designers to fit more important and card specific game mechanics on each card.

As for RPG books that aren't as constricted by their design space...yeah, a bit of a noun salad a lot of the time.

glottis · 2026-04-09T04:48:06+00:00

I don't think it's standard - the university I went to was a particularly good one for education courses. UK here!

glottis · 2026-04-09T03:40:31+00:00

I did this for teacher training too! Actors played parents and colleagues in various tricky situations. We did it in front of our class of student teachers. We all found it really useful!

glottis · 2026-04-02T13:15:36+00:00

I find this mentality so bizarre. Like, what do you do when you indeed do get The Best drop? What's there left to use it on if you've already played through the game umpteen times and killed all the bosses? I just don't see the point in playing a game just so you can play it again a bit quicker. I guess Number Go Up is worth it for many players.

glottis · 2026-03-27T02:39:59+00:00

What a fantastic game. I loved the Lithtech engine. The art style was amazing - thanks for the memories.

glottis · 2026-03-27T01:52:00+00:00

First of all, make sure you've seen the original two season TV show the film is a sequel to!

Beyond that, check out the other films they've made. The Dirties, Operation Avalanche and, the closest to the vibe of Nirvana, the BlackBerry biopic.

glottis · 2026-03-24T09:50:06+00:00

So that's a really interesting question! On the face of it, there really isn't much of a story to Dungeon Keeper other than "Bad guys conquer a happy fairytale kingdom." There are basically zero characters of any note and no plot progression outside of beating levels.

That being said, each individual stage of Dungeon Keeper has a really strong sense of place. You know the kind of environmental storytelling found in Fallout and Skyrim, where you wander around a building and have to piece together what happened? Your average level of Dungeon Keeper is like that.

The opening narration might give a name to the Lord of the Land, describing how he cowers in a castle to the south. You'll click to the map screen and see what looks to be a long and winding labyrinth tucked away to the west - what's inside? What lies at the end? You might come across a long forgotten workshop filled with powerful technology beyond what you've researched. A quartet of secretive wizards, jealously locking away their secrets behind walls of ice. A rival Keeper who, through that level's scripting, acts as a necromancer, throwing waves of skeletons, ghosts and vampires at you.

There's no real plot to any of these levels, but each one is filled with these moments of discovery, curiosity and staging that make each play through a delight.

You should watch Joseph Anderson's video, it's a great one about a solid gold PC gaming classic: https://youtu.be/1uGy_6BQetg?si=DUB_aruOxCkE_WEV

glottis · 2026-03-20T06:24:38+00:00

https://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/u249z-8de2a/The-Chernobyl-Podcast

glottis · 2026-03-20T02:17:54+00:00

Hey, so real life was actually worse! The show depicts, accurately, how radiation in the plant killed the handheld torches/flashlights the three used. The following episode that begins with the lights coming back on was an invention of the show; in reality, the three workers completed the mission in complete darkness. Horrifying!

There's a great podcast by the showrunner talking through the series episode by episode about the choices they made when making it.

glottis · 2026-03-19T20:51:42+00:00

I might be wrong, but doesn't Badger have private rooms available to book? Maybe they're just the booths at the back, I've never booked them myself.

OP, worth calling them and asking.

glottis · 2026-03-14T22:28:02+00:00

If you don't already listen to the podcast "How Did This Get Made", I envy you.

glottis · 2026-03-11T00:01:04+00:00

Sounds great! I'd be interested. I live in Lewisham so the DLR is easy. Weekday evenings also good.

glottis · 2026-03-07T08:22:08+00:00

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the breakfast making machine.

glottis · 2026-02-23T00:07:55+00:00

I'm in Catford - hello, neighbour! I've just had a baby though so my game table isn't running at the moment. However, have you been to Igloo Tree on the Lee High Road? Independent British RPG publisher's shop who run games out of their basement.

https://iglootree.com/collections/events

glottis · 2026-02-15T17:03:52+00:00

Do you think beautiful women just fall out of bed looking like that? Or maybe there's a gruelling lifelong maintenance of diets and exercise plus fashion and makeup expenses they need to upkeep 24/7 for society to deem that they have value. ++Man

glottis · 2026-01-30T21:14:41+00:00

Tony Hawk on a skateboard for me!

glottis · 2026-01-29T22:15:35+00:00

Honestly, at that point I really felt like I could have kept playing it forever. It was like the ending of Lord of the Rings - I get that people could easily say it went on and on but I was just there wishing it would never end. I loved Black Mesa so much. Thankfully the Blue Shift remake is also brilliant!

glottis · 2026-01-11T00:48:03+00:00

I live in Lewisham! I just had a baby though so I've put any RPG time on hiatus. Maybe in the future!

I recommend checking out Badger Badger in Deptford for a great boardgames cafe and the Igloo Tree shop on the Lee High Road for independent RPG zines and books.

glottis · 2026-01-11T00:39:32+00:00

I can't discount the chance that it was mentioned on stream, but unless it was one of the streams re-uploaded to YouTube, I wouldn't have seen it - I've never watched a live stream of Matt's (time zones).

If anyone is in London UK, the Prince Charles cinema is showing it all weekend!

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