Hollowpoint Playtest – Setting the Scene

NOTE: There’s been a bit of a change of plan on how this is going to work. This update is going to cover the basic rules and the setup of the session. That’s just so I can get something posted. The following update will involve a detailed report on the actual game, written as a report to the Board of Directors of the Firm (the organisation the player characters work for). My housemate suggested taking this different approach to it as a way to potentially work around my writer’s block. We’ll see how it goes. It’s a public holiday here tomorrow, so I’ll get up early, have some eggs benedict for breakfast and try to get cracking on it. Fingers crossed. .

Hey guys, thought it was time I get something posted. It’s been longer than I intended again, as recovery from my accident and sorting out insurance took far longer than I expected. At this stage I’m still going to be without my scooter for at least a couple of weeks, and it’s making life awkward as hell in the meantime. I do have a loaner, but it’s a tiny little 150cc, and has trouble cracking 80km/h, so I only really use it to get to and from work.

Anyway, I’m still working on the campaign journal and starting to realise it may be a long time coming, but it’ll get there eventually. In the mean time, I thought I’d share some details on a playtest we ran a couple of weeks ago for a game I picked up a month or so ago, Hollowpoint. It’s an indie RPG produced by VSCA, the same guys who made the hard science fiction FATE setting Diaspora. Rather than using the FATE or FATE Core system though, Hollowpoint uses its own system, based on building matching sets of d6s from a dice pool. It’s a fast paced, cinematic, brutal little system, and is specifically designed to emulate high violence movies, television series and comics. In fact, the book calls out some of my favourite films and graphic novels as inspiration, including Reservoir Dogs and 100 Bullets.

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Sigh

Writer’s block is something I am heartily sick of.

I’ve been nearly done with the Hollowpoint write-up for almost two weeks now. I’ve missed the funding windows on most of the Kickstarter campaigns I wanted to talk about. I haven’t managed a single new word on the Reign of Winter journal. Every time I try to write something, I get a few words in, at most a paragraph, and then compulsively delete it because it doesn’t feel right to me. I try to think of new things to write about to just get me working again, and my brain gives me snippets of the work of Tennyson, Yeats and Coleridge (for those of you who didn’t go to high school with me, the last is a form of cruel torture. I hate Coleridge’s work, with the exception of Kubla Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner), and fragmented dialogue from Titus Andronicus.

Sadly, that’s all I have to say right now.

Sorry.

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Written while listening to my heart pounding and my mind screaming. Also some Chevelle, but mostly the mental screaming thing.

A brief status update

Hey guys,

Just wanted to give a very quick update on what I’m up to at the moment, since I still haven’t got the first part of the campaign journal for Reign of Winter: The Snows of Summer up. Rest assured, it’s being worked on, it’s just taking far longer than I’d hoped. I’m also having people review it as I write it, to help make sure that the writing style isn’t too painful to read.

In the mean time, I’ll be doing another Kickstarter roundup in the next few days, as I’ve seen some more projects I feel deserve some love. I’m also beginning to prepare a short run campaign using the Hollowpoint system, which is a very quick and simple indie RPG that focuses on cinematic storytelling and high violence capers. Think movies like Reservoir Dogs, and comics like 100 Bullets. As I start getting that ready, I’ll be preparing updates on the setting and basic story of the campaign as well as looking at how the system works. Other than that, I’m working on Project Helleborus again, on and off as I get time, so there may be some more Cooking the Cosmos at some point in the next few weeks. No guarantee on that though. When I have the time to put some descriptions for a few characters together, and the money to get the art commissioned, I’ll also be doing two or three more updates for The Unusual Suspects.

That’s it for my plans for the next few weeks or so. I’m not sure if Jimbles has anything in store for the blog at the moment, given that he’s been rather ill lately, so it could be a little while until we hear from him again.

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Written while listening to Dead Letter Circus’ new album, The Catalyst Fire. They’re an Australian alternative rock/metal band with a really unique sound, and I highly recommend checking them out. My favourite song off the new album so far is Alone Awake, which you can listen to here. The chorus has been running through my head a lot the last few days…

Please don’t fade,
Now that I’ve seen who you are
There’s not enough of you here today
And this world needs you
Please don’t change
Now that I’ve seen who you are
There’s not enough of you here today