Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran

@bad-quail

He/They. Librarian by day. Tabletop games artisan some of the rest of the time. Purveyor of fine PDFs at . Logo by John W. Sheldon.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· 8d

Cats don't love you? This dude rests his head on my mouse arm when I'm doing computer tasks. I am his happy place.

A cat sitting in the lap of a person working on the computer. His fuzzy head rests against the wrist of the person's mouse arm.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· 9d

Ooo. The page design has a lot of details that feel like artifacts of the layout process. I quite like it.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· 9d

Do you pay my Wages of Sin?

A hand grasping Wages of Sin: a hardcover supplement for the Mothership tabletop roleplaying game. With a black iron on patch with a graphic of a hand and lips making a "hush" motion with the text "do you sign my paychecks?".

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· 12d

Thinking of trying out some variant of the Wolves Upon the Coast hexfill method for a Mud+Laser campaign. Preparing a letter-size map for experimenting using a variety of Highland Paranormal Society Hex Kit assets. (WUtC Hexfill blog post: lukegearing.blot.im/wolves-upon-...)

A 12 x 12 hexmap depicting a lush area in the southeast becoming a barren area to the northwest, with some scattered mountains dividing them.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· 28d

Mud + Laser certified "good."

A screenshot of an Itch-dot-io ratingg from user pinpanar9. 5 stars and the comment "good".

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Jul 4

Large? This MFer has its own gravity.

An American cinema large popcorn with mandatory accompanying Icee frozen soft drink.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Jun 25

The trek to the con in the middle of two other cons commences.

A man with fluffy hair in a denim vest, thick rimmed glasses, and a seafoam green flo mask pro.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Jun 25

Suitcase Sphinx.

An orange and white creamsickle tabby cat meows plaintively on top of a hard plastic suitcase.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Jun 12

sloth and mischief

Two orange hands hits tabby cats lounging on a bed.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· May 8

And, just now, I discovered a use of "Fiction First" in Masks: A New Generation (2016). Here, it's used to add context to the "to do it, do it" ethos of Apocalypse World. A lot of references I find to "Fiction First" in rulebooks are like this. Used more like a slogan than a term of art.

A passage in the 2016 PbtA superhero game Masks, reading:

Often when you trigger a move, you roll dice to see what happens next.
These are the only times you roll dice in the whole game. You might want
to roll dice to resolve a situation at other times—don’t, until you’ve actually
done something in the game that triggers a move. Sometimes you might want
to trigger a move and go straight to rolling without describing any action in
the fiction—don’t, until you’ve done something in the game that triggers it.
Fiction first.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· May 8

The reply is discussing playing The Burning Wheel, and by "Fiction First," they seem to refer to making decisions based on what makes the most sense for your character in the fiction rather than what's mechanically optimal. Also, how the FoRK mechanic links narration and mechanics.

An RPG dot net post, reading:

"Fiction first" is our guideline. Sometimes it bites, because you don't always get to do the most mechanically optimal thing, but them's the breaks. The roleplaying affects all aspects of the game (though I can freely admit it does tend to affect combat a tad less, since it's the more rigorously defined in terms of mechanics). In Burning Wheel (which we play a lot these days), it's worthwhile to put some effort into your descriptions of what you're doing, even if it's a non-social and non-combat roll like navigating through a forest, because that's how you earn extra FoRK dice! By bringing up related skills in the roleplay of the action you're performing you can add a die per related skill to the roll. If you just said, "I want to navigate through the forest," and left it at that, I'm not even sure I'd let you roll without telling me how you were going about it, and even if I did you certainly wouldn't qualify for any bonus FoRK dice (which make the task easier).

-B

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Apr 28

This time the Fox King's get sought to win the People's Favor with the even hand of law. Alas, the Chancellor won the day again with hoarded treasures.

A game of Oath. The red fox pawn occupies the Tribunal with a warband and a keep.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Apr 21

Played Brink for the first time last night. An interesting mix of worker placement and area control, with a bit of set collection and tableau building. Would play again (I won 😋).

An endgame board state of Brink. A bunch of colored cardboard hexes on a stark black board with colorful plastic spaceships distributed around.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Apr 14

Chronicle, Volume 1, Appendix I—The Fox King
The denizens of the provinces still tell tales of the Shrouded Wood and the Crimson Path Rebels who haunted its boughs. Of their leader, the Fox King. An acerbic sorcerer who wore the face of the True Chancellor. Whose magics ruled the beasts of the wild and horse of the steppe. Who sought to win the hearts of the people with a spell. And whose power was ultimately undone by the secret word locked away in the Chancellor's impenetrable Cradle.

The Crimson Path is long grown over. The Shrouded Wood felled for firewood. Yet in the provinces they say the Fox King's pups yet stalk the night, practicing on chickens what they intend for the Chancellor's get.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Apr 14

Got a game of Oath in tonight. The Chancellor managed to beat the Red Exhile in a race to victory. The result coming down to a die roll at the end of turn 6.

An exhile board in Oath. A foxy swordsman bears the Banner of the People's Favor.

The board of a game of Oath. The Red Exhile hides with a large warband in some spooky woods while the Chancellor protects their Banner of the Darkest Secret in a cliffside fortress.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Apr 4

Always a joy to get Illimat to the table. It's a lovely little trick-adjacent card game with a slightly witchy vibe. Plays excellently at 2, 3, or 4 players in about 45 to 90 minutes.

A witchy-looking card game played in a black and white cloth mat with a box in the center.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Mar 26

Work from home lunch. A thin crust pizza. Sauce, jarred bell pepper, and black olives on a flour tortilla. Cooked in a skillet under the broiler.

A thin crust pizza with red pepper and black olives.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Mar 24

It's just a tiny bit creepy when you subsume a protoframe huh? #Warframe

A teenage girl in a sci-fi getup with some kind of antimatter reactor strapped to her chest being absorbed into a horrible alien flesh wall.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Mar 21

Last night played Root for the first time in ages. Played the Hundreds against the Alliance, Dynasty, and Conspiracy. Thought I had a pretty good showing for not having played in something like 7 years.

An end game state of the strategy board game Root. Red rat meeples are all over the map, crowding out green mice, blue raptors, and purple corvids. The score track shows that the crows won.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Mar 18

Behold: softness.

A white-and-orange creamsickle tabby cat, belly up on a green bed spread.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Feb 25

Tinker. Tailor. Soldier. Spy.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Feb 16

Of all the first round of Bloggies mashups, having to make this decision is criminal. You should read them both. Hot damn.

A screenshot of the first round of Bloggies: Theory posts. "The Language of D&D Imply a Specific Setting" against "There is a point to Tom Bombadil (or how I approach lore)."

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Jan 14

Drifted from Soulframe to Warframe lately, and just did The New War quest last night. Kind of wild they dropped a ~5 hour single player campaign that opens with vignettes where you play random mooks in the world and mostly doesn't use your progress from core gameplay.

A pale teenage girl with a black bob haircut wearing cybergoth makeup and a yellow-and-black spacesuit has a mental breakdown in the dark.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Jan 9

We should improve society somewhat.

An Early Modern woodcut depicting a crowd cheering a person being tortured on a breaking wheel. The image is overlayed with a blood red transparency layer with the text "Break the Blood Machine" in an archaic blackletter font.

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran@bad-quail· Jan 3

Played FRACTAL for the first time yesterday. About one half a Twilight Imperium I'd say. And some stuff I like better. I tied for second place. First place researched some tech that got them +2 VP on every objective and kind of ran away with the game.