This weekend I was honoured to be able to run a tabletop RPG workshop during the 2018 Symposium for International Languages and Knowledge which was held at Walailak University at Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand. Last year, SILK 2017 was held here in Perlis and was featured on the blog as well. Here are some photos of the event with an actual play report of the game that I ran for the Thai students. The little abstract for the workshop which I submitted a couple of months earlier appeared in the programme book for the symposium. Parallel talk session were underway when I went to scout the room where I was due to run the workshop. I quickly set up the table and then did some last minute game prep for the coming participants. Besides showing off the diversity of RPG systems, these book covers displayed side-by-side on the table can […]
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I never leave home without Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments From the Rim
All the tabletop RPG actual play report write-ups on my blog over the years, from Star Wars RPG to Call of Cthulhu to Eclipse Phase to Night’s Black Agents to BareBones Fantasy to Doctor Who to The Laundry RPG. More to come in the future!
Note: All posts herein are arrayed latest first and earliest last.
EOTE: Dude! Where’s My Starship?
It began as a impromptu invitation to a roleplaying game (RPG) session. Suddenly there I was running a short Star Wars Edge of the Empire scenario for my colleague Rizal at my office. Commandeering Oskara’s character folio, Rizal became the human male bounty hunter known as Riz who owns the YKL-37R Nova Courier named Glamorous Hedgehog manufactured by Gallofree Yards. Edge of the Empire Dude! Where’s My Starship? The previous day, Riz arrived at Port Emerald in the Ord Mantell system. He accomplished a mission to retrieve a family heirloom for a local entrepreneur and earned four thousand credits. He was gleeful of his new-found wealth and booked a nice room at a two-story old tavern-style bed and breakfast at the very edge of the mesa that housed Port Emerald, overlooking three landing platforms. The Glamorous Hedgehog was parked upon one of the platforms. Money The Bright Jewel sun was shining […]
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Mini Six: The Vanishing at Kuala Perlis
Plans are underway at work to create a tabletop RPG actual play video web series to be posted online. Initiated and managed by Bazli, it would be our push to promote role-playing games (RPGs) as language learning tools that would not only be holistic and comprehensive, but fun and immersive when done right. My task is to run the session as a gamemaster (GM) and Bazli will cut the video into encounter-sized bits to be uploaded. To begin with I ran the participants an impromptu session of Mini Six using the pregenerated templates I created for the Doom Agents class. Like the students before them, the participants took the roles of international agents sent on a mission to investigate extraordinary occurrences. Mission Report (in brief) Six agents were sent to Kuala Perlis to look into a phantom island that appears after sunset between the Kurong Tengar beach and Langkawi. A fishing […]
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Mini Six: Rescue in the Rainforest
Mini Six: Doom Agents 03 Rescue in the Rainforest Last time on Doom Agents, four operatives sent to investigate the Eternitech factory deep in the South American rainforest located by the Amazon river had been captured by Eternitech’s security forces led by Hideo Eguchi. After an enemy flashbang grenade did its job in the store room where they were laying an ambush, the four agents found themselves each tied to a chair in the Eternitech factory floor, specifically on a conveyor belt that would lead to a shredding machine. Dramatis Personae Agent Trolala Zelimkhanov, a Chechen driver – Nasha and Nurul Ain Agent Nancy Nassirian, an Iranian fixer – Athirah and Sabrina Agent Adam Mbokota, a South African shooter – Syafiq and Weng Zun Agent Adrien Nicolas, a French hacker – Malvinder and Asyraaf Agent J. Johnson Jonathan, a Nepalese hitter – Alif Agent Harry Wilson, a British talker – […]
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SWD6: The Battle of Corulag (Instance B)
Star Wars D6 The Battle of Corulag Instance B This Star Wars RPG game session (D6 system) was the first of two that I ran today using the same scenario I quickly devised yesterday for my English language classes. It was to see how different two different groups of students would play through the same adventure in the same day and if I could cope with both. The scenario was also written so the students would be able to discuss compare and contrast essays however because I started the class with an hour of presenting the conventional syllabus, we only had 45 minutes before time was up, thus we were unable to complete the scenario. The session I ran earlier in the day can be found here. Dramatis Personae Sergeant Jadoo, Human male outlaw – Lutfi Fetty, Human female bounty hunter – Pei Yong Broboroi, Human male failed Jedi – […]
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SWD6: The Battle of Corulag (Instance A)
Star Wars D6 The Battle of Corulag Instance A This Star Wars RPG game session (D6 system) was the first of two that I ran today using the same scenario I quickly devised yesterday for my English language classes. It was to see how different two different groups of students would play through the same adventure in the same day and if I could cope with both. The scenario was also written so the students would be able to discuss compare and contrast essays however because I started the class with an hour of presenting the conventional syllabus, we only had 45 minutes before time was up, thus we were unable to complete the scenario. The session I ran later in the day can be found here. Dramatis Personae Paragas, Human male bounty hunter – Haziq Vyruz Girl, Human female outlaw – Ganageswari KC, Human male brash pilot – Ong […]
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Force and Destiny: The Lost General
Force and Destiny: The Lost General As role-playing practice for my English theatre arts class, I ran a FFG Star Wars RPG session for the students. If playing a space swashbuckling character who might also be an alien or a droid does NOT stimulate their acting chops, I have no idea what will! Although it was technically a Force and Destiny game, we had character types from Edge of the Empire too, thanks to the Legends of the Galaxy pregenerated character sheets. It was the same pregen sheets I had used in a class earlier in the year. Dramatis Personae Merick, female Zabrak Guardian/Armorer – Veronica and Siew Yee Malea, female Human Warrior/Starfighter Ace – Haziqah and Syafikah Koogik, female Rodian Explorer/Big Game Hunter – Syakirah Byt, female Twilek Technician/Outlaw Tech – Nadhira Kree, female Human Smuggler/Pilot – Amelia Flames, female Droid Soldier/Commando – Siti Aisyah Martial Law on Zaadja! With the Empire clamping down hard on the remote system such […]
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Mini Six: Debacle in the Amazon
Mini Six: Doom Agents 02 Debacle in the Amazon This marks the first time my students have played a second game in a single campaign, although they all played new characters because of a TPK in their first session. Dramatis Personae Agent Trolala Zelimkhanov, a Chechen driver – Nasha and Nurul Ain Agent Nancy Nassirian, an Iranian fixer – Syafiq and Weng Zun Agent Adam Mbokota, a South African shooter – Athirah and Sabrina Agent Adrien Nicolas, a French hacker – Malvinder and Asyraaf A year after the incident in Fukushima, a fresh new group of agents were sent deep into the Amazon in South America. Command was suspicious of the construction of a manufacturing plant owned by the multi-national corporation Eternitech located by the Amazon river. Trolala Zelimkhanov, the elegantly dressed agent, drove their pink Ford Ranger along the private road that would take them to the Eternitech factory. […]
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Mini Six: The Seaside Catastrophe
And so it came to pass that I was given the opportunity to present my ideas for tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) as a language learning tool to the workplace. During the workshop, I also ran a Mini Six session for the participants. For the first time ever, I gamemastered (GM) an RPG session for colleagues, which was something I never thought I would do. This entry chronicles the epic events that transpired in-game during the session: Mini Six: Agents of CIL The Seaside Catastrophe If this actual play report sounds familiar, then it is because it is the same scenario I ran for my class last month. This time though, the pregenerated player characters (PCs) consisted of a whole new mix of agents. Dramatis Personae Alex and Farahhein as Agent Mustonen the Finnish combat medic Sareepa and Masturah as Agent Khoo the Malaysian sniper Ivy and Angela as Agent Takeuchi […]
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Mini Six: A Day By The Sea
Mini Six: Doom Agents 01 A Day by the Sea For the third time I ran a tabletop RPG session for my class using the Mini Six system, and this time I have integrated it with the English curriculum we had. The week’s lesson theme was Natural Disaster and I also had to teach them about Descriptive Essays. The RPG became a teaching tool in this situation, because students were able to interact verbally with each other in the context of the narrative. I did some research on the seaside towns in Fukushima, Japan to prepare for the session. During the game they also had to roll dice to determine that the action they declared succeeded or failed. And then had to write their game experiences as in-universe stories for homework using a structured set of questions I sent them via Google Forms. Dramatis Personae Sabrina as Berry, the scientist Athirah […]
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SWD6: Out of the Red
Time is the Hunter Episode 06: Out of the Red Continuing the adventure I ran for Ain and Irfan last December… Bounty hunter Jax Hunt and amnesiac lady who called herself Iris Helena were waiting in the Corellian Engineering Corporation VCX-100 light freighter assigned to them, the Screeching Arrow, by the rebel fleet when the Togorian rebel coordinator Meow Skywalker came to them with a job: “The mission will require you to travel to the Chandrila system in the Core Worlds to extract Imperial bureaucrat Ton Kelauae, his wife Aklu and his daughter Wencie. Land at Nayli Spaceport. The Kelauaes are holed up in Apartment 7C, Blackback Building. The Empire is looking for them and it will be a matter of time before they are discovered. Get to them before the Empire does and bring them back here.” Then they went off on their mission… And Now, a Standoff! […]
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BFF: The Free Wizards of the Clave
The last day of Ramadhan, Irfan taught cousin Aiman to play RPG, specifically BareBones Fantasy (BBF). With the Eid Tabletop RPG Travel Pack I brought, I gamemastered an impromptu session for the cousins in the morning. Irfan tweaked his old player character (PC) Jake Hastur to be the Halfling wizard Drego Andre. Aiman adapted a pre-generated character from the BBF rule book to be an Elven wizard who called himself Johnson Jones. Session 01: The Cave in the Clave The Crossing The two free Wizards Drego and Johnson were travelling the thick woods on foot in the Emondran Clave of the Keranak Kingdoms. (Presumably Johnson is an Emon Elf.) It was getting dark but there was no place for them to hole up and camp. There were large trees and thick brush everywhere. They came across a river which flowed dangerously fast. If you fell in the water, you would […]
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Force and Destiny: Jungle in the Sky
I was finally able to run another role-playing game session for my students for an English Language speaking exercise, the first for this semester. Probably no other games will be run because it is already quite late in the semester for other sessions. Students will be concentrating on their finals. Although it was technically a Force and Destiny game, we had character types from Edge of the Empire too, thanks to the Legends of the Galaxy pregenerated character sheets. Force and Destiny: Jungle in the Sky The GALACTIC CIVIL WAR rages across the Empire! Thousands of suspected rebel agents have been rounded up and imprisoned by the IMPERIAL SECURITY BUREAU in secret prisons across the galaxy. Many innocent citizens have disappeared because of the Empire’s evil wrath, including SENATOR GAR LODOS from the DURO system. With little time to spare, the REBEL ALLIANCE has sent an extraction team to […]
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All Night’s Black Agents Artwork on the Blog
The other RPG campaign I played in more-or-less regularly with the Gamers of Kuala Lumpur crew is Night’s Black Agents where we played an group of international freelance agents with contacts with various countries’ espionage network who were embroiled in a plot to take over the world. With dogs. Who might be sentient vampires. Also, an infectious hemovirus pathogen. Here are all the drawings I made for various actual play reports I wrote for the campaign on this blog.
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All Eclipse Phase Artwork on the Blog
Over the years I drew pictures for the actual play reports of Eclipse Phase that I played with the GOKL crew, I have never collected all the artwork in a single post… until now. Click on the images to expand them. So many other occurrences that I did not during various earlier GMing sessions before I started writing the play reports, such as… Cable tumbling down Olympus Mons for two sessions — at least the team breaking Hokusai out of a sushi bar driving with neo-chimpanzee trucker BJ the Bear that time Bishop was sleeved in the neo-corvid morph (a.k.a the “chicken suit”) for a reconnaissance mission at the 2309 Mr. Spock asteroid habitat in the Belt which turned into a one-man battle scenario while the others watched remotely from their ship and that one time the team travelled to a protected section at the centre of Mars, discovered […]
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EOTE: Problem Child
Edge of the Empire: Problem Child Dramatis Personae: Amri as Grabow, male Wookiee doctor Ijam as Matwe, male human smuggler pilot Fazrie as Lumpy, male Wookiee mercenary soldier Just as it was more than 20 years ago in Sitiawan when a bunch of unfamiliar people asked if I could run Star Wars RPG for them, here I am in the same situation in Sitiawan where online friends I have never met before asked me to run a Star Wars RPG session for them! No big deal to me: it is a great way to make lasting friends! Unfamiliar with any form of Star Wars RPG, I brought the Edge of the Empire and Force and Destiny rulebooks along with some sourcebooks, the FFG narrative dice set, Force tokens and my trusty homemade paperminis. I forgot to bring the percentile dice so I used the phone dice roller app. I thought […]
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