Venture Forth Brave Traveller

Section of the FFTP map of Pralia, made up of Imperium (verdant northern highland Capital), Appadium (wooded western port town & island) & the Southlands (desert with delta & a great river).
Slice of a very old map I co-created for one of my first online roleplays, Final Fantasy: The Prophecy ©G. B. Bard
"That blog you started... bit quiet ain't it? Still only a single post up? What's up with that? What's yer agenda, oddball?" I hear you whisper ominously.

Cheers, imaginary mind sceptics. This is of course, exactly what an overworked, scatter-brained writer longs to hear whilst trying to get their site up-to-scratch. 😑 Well, I have been thinking over a few ideas in the last couple weeks, covering recent movies, film festivals, roleplaying, books, tea appreciation and a few odd think-pieces. Some of these, like the upcoming TTRPG core rulebook reviews, I hope will be an ongoing series of blog posts, whilst there may also be a few interesting one-off articles.

Roleplaying And All That Jazz

I've long been a fan of Vampire the Masquerade and other World of Darkness game lines. I respect the hell out've what they did for the wider roleplaying scene and enjoy reading & chatting the expansive lore with folks (and really enjoy the videogame stories that have been built in this world setting). But when personally playing, I was always more drawn to the build-your-own-lore approach of the New WoD/Chronicles of Darkness. My first IRL table-top experience was a wild west Fae campaign, drawing inspo from 'Dark Ages: Fae', combining bits of fluff/backstory from 'Changeling: The Dreaming', but run on 'Changeling: The Lost' gameplay and core mechanics. It was a wonderful mish-mash of play, but really immersive. Then a few years later myself and the flatmates were asked to be part of a 'Geist: The Sin-Eaters' campaign, which sadly fell through regarding player/DM availability. Yet it gave me a chance to read the 'Geist: The Sin-Eaters' sourcebook... I fell head-over-heels in love with the whole concept, and the rest is history.

Image of the Chronicles of Darkness logo against a grey-blue & navy backdrop reminiscent of moonlight over darkened rooftops. The text is glitchy and looks like silver metal.
Chronicles of Darkness Logo ©Onyx Path Publishing

For the articles, I hope to read through all first edition core books in release order, create a character in-setting whilst reviewing the playability and storytelling style of each:

TITLE YEAR
New World of Darkness Core Rulebook (Mortals) 2004
Vampire: The Requiem 2004
Werewolf: The Forsaken 2005
Mage: The Awakening 2005
Promethean: The Created 2006
Changeling: The Lost 2007
Hunter: The Vigil 2008
Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2009
Mummy: The Curse [TBC] 2013
Demon: The Descent [TBC] 2014
Beast: The Primordial [TBC] 2017
Deviant: The Renegades 2021

I'm hoping to get hold of copies of 'Mummy: The Curse' & 'Demon: The Descent' in the near future, but am tentative about acquiring/reviewing 'Beast: The Primordial' because of the shitshow surrounding the sourcebook's author. Might review if I can find it cheap enough second-hand, but I'd not be disappointed to skip it if needs be. Otherwise, I've got all the others and am more than ready to dig in.

There might also be a few core rulebooks from other systems I review as standalones. I've recently acquired the core rules for 'Fallout: The Roleplaying Game' from Mōdiphiüs, which I'm actually really hyped to read. Fallout is hands-down one of my favourite settings in videogames, (is it just me, or is there nothing more relaxing than running around the tunnels of the Washington Metro sniping things in VATS?) but I'd long avoided it in table-top form. I was still under the impression rulesets still relied on the overly stat-heavy GURPS percentiles, which made fights number-crunch central. Thankfully, this seems no longer the case.

Picture of the sourcebook for Fallout: The Roleplaying Game. The book is designed like the back of a Vault jumpsuit, blue with the golden appliqued number of the '111' Vault.
My hand proudly holding up the core rulebook of Fallout: The Roleplaying Game, still sealed in clingfilm. ©G. B. Bard

That also brought to mind a discussion I had with some other TTRPG writers about simplifying gameplay mechanisms for accessibility. I'd quite like to write up a piece on the differences between Computerised RPGs (which do all the maths instantaneously), and pen & paper RPGs which need simple but unique manual systems to rope in new players. Also with the demands of different systems, how can we as indie creators develop truly rules-agnostic resources? Some interesting topics shall be up for discussion, and I'll see if I can pull in some other voices from the indie RPG scene for this.

We'll See You On The Silver Screen

After attending Glasgow Film Festival in late February, I'd kinda like to do more in-depth reviews of the films than I managed to do over on Bluesky. Some of the movies were really grand and the experience overall was stellar. Would be nice to have a whole post pulling the event together before I start hitting up movies at Edinburgh International Film Fest in August.

GFF Logo, it states Glasgow Film Festival in black block letters, with a box/screen shape after the word 'Glasgow'. Bubbles with graphics float around. There is white text stating GFF runs from 26 Feb - 9 Mar 2025.
Logo of GFF 2025, the 21st iteration of the event. © Glasgow Film Festival

I'd also quite like to write up a few reviews of recent movies in general. For example, some standouts of the year that strangely happen to be Vampire media from minority perspectives - a very strong genre this year so far.

Books, Tea & Ponderings

I've a few strong book series recommendations that I've picked up over the last few years. Would like to bundle some of them together in a recommendations post. I have yet to finish my reading of the Lonely Planet LGBTQ+ Travel Guide, which I went to the launch of. That would make a good lil' review. Additionally, much as I'm not a Booktuber (and have never been very comfortable on camera), I would like to participate in Mari Nes and Sam from Thoughts on Tomes 'Get To Know My Taste' Tag... even if it's by blog rather than vlog. I am always more than happy to write about bookish things. 📚

More general article ideas include a piece on choosing an ethical newsletter/blog platform, fine tea indulgence and why you should consider tea appreciation, a terminology take-down on whether the art of critique has earnt itself a bad name, and a measured response to Alex Avila's video on 'AI Wars: How Corporations Hijacked Anti-AI Backlash' (which is full of valid insights, but has in turn received negative reaction from artists & creatives). I know how murky the waters of AI opinions are at the moment, but changes around UK copyright law has specifically been something I've had to weigh in on with my local MP already. So yeah, something I'm willing to go to bat on a little.


Today is IDAHOBIT, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersex-phobia and Transphobia. Whilst the world's been a hectic, dark mess of late, I've been doing what I can to keep engaged through contacting local politicians; encouraging network activism at work; supporting local artists, Trans mutual aid funds and legal causes to stand against the encroaching fascist policies which endanger us. Much love to my Trans comrades out there protesting today! I hope your glorious toplessness in front of Parliament finally brings some positive media coverage. That's what we call gettin' the girls out for a good cause! Even just being there, listening to & supporting yer Trans pals now is important. 💕