Sasha Sienna

[airwar]

we used to turn the tv on and just watch whatever was on there

[correctopinionhaver]

[mintypineapple]

Yes, it was frequently The Simpsons.

[thememedaddy]

[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.

[louisegluckpdf]

next dynamic were sexualizing is that of a bull and a toreador

[star-thief]

[macguffinandco]

Today marks 2 weeks since we launched the Kickstarter for The Bad Year!

To see what’s been achieved so far, take a look here!

And to see what’s coming… stay posted!

[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.

[markovchaingang]

hey you. teenage girl writing in her diary. quit talking about the boy you have a crush on and start writing about the current political situation, the valuation of currencies, and the level of technology your people hold. your diary might be the only piece of evidence our society existed after nuclear war fries all of our data backups. future historians don't need to know about damian, they need at least a secondhand accounts of the great water wars and whether or not your leaders truly did worship a deity called "the free hand of the market"

[mothnem]

Keep writing about your crush Teenaged Girl. About your clothes, and how that other girl wore the same dress as you. Paint me a picture of what you were like.

[enchantedlantern]

Historians are going to hear about Damian and they're gonna LIKE IT

[therealbeachfox]

Make those future Historians reverse engineer the socioeconomic hierarchies of the 21st century from dreamy descriptions of Damian's current fashions. It's giving them enrichment.

[vaspider]

Talk about the things you want to talk about. You never know what mysteries your diary might solve in future generations bc you are the only person who talks about something that other people thought was too obvious to talk about, like whatever that third condiment dish that used to be on the table with salt and pepper was for.

[hesperie-s]

[victusinveritas]

[x-v4mp3y3lin3r-x]

I view reading fantasy/sci-fi stuff as "this work of fiction is being translated into english so that I can understand it, meaning some phrases should not be taken literally" lord of the rings style, and then I meet people who nitpick every word or phrase that "shouldn't exist in this story" and I'm like wow you guys are truly miserable and unimaginative. and also you tend to assume that english words all popped up in the 19th century and you never bother to check the etymology of the words you're claiming "shouldn't exist in this universe"

like sorry but in an apocalyptic alternate-universe earth, the phrase "train of thought" is plausible even in a world without locomotives, because the word "train" comes from the 14th century, and it meant "to drag"

that's why we call dress trains "trains". because they drag. the word wasn't invented for locomotives.

y'all say shit so definitively like idk man I think it depends. the english language is OLD AS FUCK. a lot of words you believe are modern just aren't

[macguffinandco]

All ready to go at UK Games Expo, table 3A-165 this weekend!

[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.

[uktabletopindustrynetwork]

Follow the Stamp Quest trail to Third Vault Yarns a.k.a. Johnson Ofair (4-1007) this UKGE. Third Vault Yarns was born out of a passion for geeky things and emotive colour. The perfect place to interweave a love of science fiction and fantasy with a deep connection to knitting and playing with colour. Find their work here: www.thirdvaultyarns.com

[thememedaddy]

[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]

[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

[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!

[sashasienna]

The Bad Year is alive!

Jonny and I have been working really hard on our next game book, The Bad Year and the Kickstarter is now live!

What's The Bad Year?

It's a collection of 53 system-neutral, urban gothic supernatural horror investigation adventures for RPG systems like Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulu, The Cthulhu Hack, (anything with Chthulu in the title), Delta Green, and The Magnus Archives RPG.

Is it Good?

Yes!

Will I like it?

You'll love it if you like three or more of the following things:

supernatural horror

modern urban gothic horror

investigative TTRPGs

one-page adventures that are really easy to run

The Magnus Archives

MacGuffin & Co.

Me

Jonny

one-shot RPG sessions

long, sprawling RPG campaigns

tight, short RPG campaigns

If you like less than three of these things, The Bad Year isn't for you.

Hang on, that's like three different kinds of RPG campaign!

My favourite thing about The Bad Year is how it's been designed with multiple ways to play. Each adventure can be played as a standalone one-shot, or as part of a campaign - either by following specific links between recurring NPCs, locations and storylines, or as part of a big, interconnected, year-long campaign. It's really cool!

Can I have it?

Yes, please! It's up on Kickstarter right now:

The Bad Year

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