Ghost (Trainee)

writer. game designer. va. magnus archives. mechanisms. thirteen storeys. macguffin & co. generally won't answer asks about magnus or mechs stuff. won't answer most asks, tbf - I get quite a lot

[jonnywaistcoat]

So, since I have returned to this site, I’ve seen a few people going “oh no! what if Jonny looks at My Posts with the judgemental eyes of The Creator?! what if he reblogs me out of nowhere to the scorn of millions?”

Thus, in the interests of assuaging the growing Climate of Fear, I have composed the following

List of ways Jonny will be interacting with Tumblr dot com

Things Jonny will do

Shitpost / reblog shitposts

Answer asks that catch my fancy

Promote current projects or appearances

Things Jonny MIGHT do occasionally if the mood takes him

Quietly browse tags of finished projects (Magnus, Mechs, etc.)

Engage with posts that specifically @ me

Things Jonny almost certainly won’t do, but not going to swear to it

Answer asks about past projects (I’ve done plenty of Q&As and prefer to let them stand on their own)

Meaningfully engage with fandom stuff

Things Jonny will NEVER do

Look at anything tagged #do not archive

Let you know whether or not I have seen your weird post about me or my work. You will never know.

Hope that clears things up and establishes that you have nothing to fear from my presence here. It’s fine. Go about your business. All is well.

[macguffinandco]

THE TEAM BEHIND THE BAD YEAR!

Let’s take a look at the creatives behind The Bad Year - MacGuffin and Co’s Kickstarter spanning 53 horror investigation adventures for any RPG system, playable as one-shot mysteries, concise arcs or a year-long interwoven campaign.

@sashasienna and @jonnywaistcoat - Project Creators! Near everything within The Bad Year comes from their minds put to paper!

@kingcael  - Project Artist responsible for all the fantastic images you’ve seen already in the preview copy and social media posts. Cael will also be providing 4 extra double-spread illustrations as per the Kickstarter reaching the stretch goal.

Jogbrozin - Jog will be creating a map of the city. This will be used as endpapers in the book in addition to being an art print for The Works and Hallowcroft Residency tiers.

@tincanaudio - Amber of Tin Can Audio will be creating a soundtrack for The Bad Year with noir doom-jazz vibes!

And in addition, M (me!), the social media manager is here to catch your questions about The Bad Year!

IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THE BAD YEAR IS YET… Please head to our Kickstarter here and take a look as we head into our final week!

[orlandozelous]

Jonathan is doing book tours! I am so excited!!

[jonnywaistcoat]

About The Bad Year, I'm curious what inspired you to make the generic setting of the book be 1990's Massachusetts. Aside from the Arkham Massachusetts connection certain aspects of the preview seem to have it feels surreal to see both my home state and my real last name in the book seemingly off of nothing but a whim. Crazy excited for it regardless though, can't wait to subject my players to horrors unimaginable.

Interestingly, it wasn't a matter of inspiration, but of triangulation. We wanted to set our mysteries in a place that could comparatively easily be moved to the two most popular junctions for cosmic horror roleplaying: 1920s-30s America (thanks to all the Cthulhu Mythos games) and the modern day.

Location wise, North America was obvious as its the location of most Lovecraft-era games, and it works fine for almost anywhere in the modern day as the US has exported so much of their culture that it can be moved countries with comparative ease on the modern day. We also wanted somewhere that got real seasons and weather (sorry California) and had a lot of history to it, which placed us in New England. Putting our fictional cosmic horror city in Maine felt just a fraction too on-the-nose, so we moved it to Massachusetts. I was also considering doing some witchy stuff in it at one point and so the proximity to Salem would have had some resonance, but we dropped thst pretty early.

Picking the year was all about technology. If we had to write adventures that could be sent back to the 1920s or pulled forward to the 2020s, then we needed to make sure that we weren't forgetting or erasing modern technology, but we also weren't making it the cornerstone of any adventures. After some back-and-forth, we landed on 1998: the internet and mobile phones both existed and were widely used, but they weren't so essential to every aspect of life that you couldn't live without them. Plus, the whole "end of history"/end of the millennium thing really locked in with the vibe we were going for.

Also, The X-Files and Buffy, two of the biggest monster-of-the-week shows of all time, were both late 90s, so it just kinda felt right.

[macguffinandco]

What's So Good About The Bad Year?

Loads of things, but I (Sasha) want to talk about my favourite thing about The Bad Year, which is all the different ways you can play it.

So, The Bad Year is a collection of 53 system-neutral, one-page horror investigation adventures that look like this:

All the clues and the links between them are on one side of the page, with a more detailed breakdown on the other. The idea is you can open it to any double page spread and be able to run that adventure with everything you need right in front of you.

But wait! There's more!

There's also a small section at the bottom of the clue map called "Links" which lists every recurring storyline, NPC and location that features in the mystery, along with the page numbers of every other mystery they appear in. So you can easily find all the entries in one of 7 (seven!) recurring plots and run them as mini-campaigns (or just pick one recurring NPC and follow them through the course of their own really bad year, if you want).

One of those plots - THE GRAND OCCULTATION - is basically the A-plot of the whole book. It's told over 13 adventures, so you can easily run it as monthly sessions over a year, and it explains why exactly this year is so very bad.

BUT WAIT! There's even more!

You can, of course, run each one of the 53 adventures, one after the other, to get the full, year-long, interconnected detailed campaign. And, if you start it and end it in Halloween week, every single adventure will be themed to the actual week of the calendar year that you play it in.

The planning that's gone into this book is wild and there are some intense spreadsheets behind it. Both the clue map format and the one-shots-but-also-interconnected-campaign were @jonnywaistcoat's idea and I am endlessly impressed with them. I think everyone else should be impressed with them too. Maybe check out our Kickstarter if you think it sounds as cool as I do.

The Bad Year

53 horror investigation adventures for any RPG system, playable as one-shot mysteries, concise arcs or a year-long interwoven campaign.

[jonnywaistcoat]

Sorry if this is a silly question or if it's already been answered, but will "The Bad Year", will it be available for purchase after the Kickstarter is finished else where?

It will be, yes. Whether it's available in your local game shop depends on the whims of retailer distribution, but at the very least you'll be able to buy a copy from the MacGuffin & Co. webstore

I will say that higher tier rewards, like the badge or the art prints or (obviously) the one where we name a doomed NPC after you, are only available through the crowdfunding campaign. You also get a thank you at the back if you help fund it and it usually ends up being a little bit cheaper all told.

[jonnywaistcoat]

The Bad Year is live!!!

So, me and Sash have been working on a little TTRPG project for a while - a collection of 52 (well, techincally 53) one-page Horror investigation adventures that go one-a-week for a whole year!

And the Kickstarter for it is now live!

It's legitmately really really cool and you can play it with any horror investigation TTRPG (including one that may rhyme with Conte Mook's Agnus Marchives RPG), so please do go check it out!

Oh, and if you want a closer look - check out the preview version!

[jonnywaistcoat]

[macguffinandco]

THE BAD YEAR - LIVE NOW ON KICKSTARTER!

The shadow of a once-in-a-millenium stellar conjunction has fallen over the city. For one year the dead will not sleep easy in their graves, strange and unnatural monsters will walk the woods and alleyways, and long-forgotten cults will bring their terrible plans to fruition.

Only a small group of die-hard investigators stand between the city and certain doom…

LEARN MORE & BACK NOW ON KICKSTARTER!

[jonnywaistcoat]

The Bad Year is live!!!

So, me and Sash have been working on a little TTRPG project for a while - a collection of 52 (well, techincally 53) one-page Horror investigation adventures that go one-a-week for a whole year!

And the Kickstarter for it is now live!

It's legitmately really really cool and you can play it with any horror investigation TTRPG (including one that may rhyme with Conte Mook's Agnus Marchives RPG), so please do go check it out!

Oh, and if you want a closer look - check out the preview version!

[jonnywaistcoat]

You can indeed since it is literally a monster every week! :D

[jonnywaistcoat]

The Bad Year is live!!!

So, me and Sash have been working on a little TTRPG project for a while - a collection of 52 (well, techincally 53) one-page Horror investigation adventures that go one-a-week for a whole year!

And the Kickstarter for it is now live!

It's legitmately really really cool and you can play it with any horror investigation TTRPG (including one that may rhyme with Conte Mook's Agnus Marchives RPG), so please do go check it out!

Oh, and if you want a closer look - check out the preview version!

[macguffinandco]

THE BAD YEAR - Kickstarter Pre-Launch Page Open NOW!

The Bad Year contains 53 horror investigation adventures for any RPG system, playable as one-shot mysteries, concise arcs or a year-long interwoven campaign.

Keep your eyes peeled on our social media channels over the coming weeks for information, previews and more!

Head to our Kickstarter page and sign up to be notified on launch!

Art by @kingcael

[jonnywaistcoat]

Me and Sash have been working in this for a while, and I'm really excited to be putting it out there - a whole year's worth of system-neutral TTRPG horror investigations that can be played with games like The Magnus Archives RPG, Call of Cthulhu, Monster of the Week, Delta Green or more!

Check it out here, and have a look at the preview that covers the first 16 adventures!

[jonnywaistcoat]

So, I think it's very important to have plenty of things in your life that are just for you and your friends, and aren't turned into "content".

Miniatures is generally one of those things, but I've been working on this ork Speed Freeks army for 40k since the start of the year and I'm actually REALLY proud of them, so you know what? I'm showing them off in public.

Forgive the quality of the photos and paintjobs - I have neither the equipment or skill for photographing miniatures, and my painting has always been more enthusiastic than neat (it's the modelling I love, and I'm often in too much of a rush to get them painted up really well).

Anyway, hope you like 'em. 'ERE WE GO! 'ERE WE GO! 'ERE WE GO!

Oh, image limit. Hang on!

[jonnywaistcoat]

And the rest

[jonnywaistcoat]

So, I think it's very important to have plenty of things in your life that are just for you and your friends, and aren't turned into "content".

Miniatures is generally one of those things, but I've been working on this ork Speed Freeks army for 40k since the start of the year and I'm actually REALLY proud of them, so you know what? I'm showing them off in public.

Forgive the quality of the photos and paintjobs - I have neither the equipment or skill for photographing miniatures, and my painting has always been more enthusiastic than neat (it's the modelling I love, and I'm often in too much of a rush to get them painted up really well).

Anyway, hope you like 'em. 'ERE WE GO! 'ERE WE GO! 'ERE WE GO!

Oh, image limit. Hang on!

[jonnywaistcoat]

Hey Jonny! Wanted to express my appreciation for Odd Jobs (it actually might be my fav rpg product I own!) and ask if there’s a chance there will ever be a volume 2? Love all the work you do!!

Absolutely - we've been working on volume 2 (titled You Are Here) for a couple of year now, and are hoping to launch it in 2027. If you're interested, a bunch of the micro-settings that will be in the second volume are already available on our Patreon right now, including:

Sewer Rats - Play as disaffected teenage goblins, kobolds, toadfolk and undead, hanging out and having feelings in the sewers of a Fantasy city.

Welcome to Port Pleasant - Wake up in the idyllic island prison of Port Pleasant, where everything's lovely except you can never leave.

The Show Must Go On - Become part of a mysterious and sinister(?) travelling circus as it travels around the Dustbowl-era American midwest.

Murder at Mist Tree Manor - Solve a murd- Uh, two murders at- Oh wait, uh... Solve a bunch of murders when your famous detectives are snowed into the picturesque Mist Tree Manor.

Gnome-Man's Land - Defend your garden! After a suburban house is inherited, play as the critters and ceramic gnomes who live in the garden as you to protect it from realtors and developers.

White Space - A strange, impossible portal leads to an icy and barren alien world. You are part of the research team investigating, and trying to determine if this place is truly ae lifeless as it seems...

Waystation Marlowe - You are the low-ranking alien ambassadors to a backwater section of the galaxy, living on the only space station there and squabbling amongst youselves. At least, until that part of the galaxy suddenly gets much more important.

[jonnywaistcoat]

What do you think about people using Magnus Archives statements for dramatic interpretation pieces?

Very much in favour - they were written to be read out, so it makes sense!

[rqbossman]

5 Hours left!

Last chance to get in on the kickstarter for the Magnus Archives board game made by the creators of Coup, Resistance and Avalaon! Fun fact, I honestly did an early review and gave the feedback "just the right amount of harrowing." @jonnywaistcoat approved: "sufficiently wet"

The Magnus Archives Mysteries

Six new playable mysteries based on the hit podcast by Rusty Quill. From the publisher of Coup, Resistance, and Avalon.

[jonnywaistcoat]

Grab it while ya can - it's good stuff

[jonnywaistcoat]

US cover reveal for The Burn Line

A bunch of you over the Atlantic have been asking me about the American edition of The Burn Line, and until today I've only been able to give a sort of knowing smirk.

But no longer! Check out this FANTASTIC cover from Poison Pen Press, who are putting the novel out across the pond.

Oh, and if you're keen to read an excerpt - check out the announcement in Reactor Mag.