#earl geier

[oldschoolfrp]

Encounters in New Orleans, Eric W Haddock's supplement for the Dark Conspiracy RPG, GDW, 1991, with Paul Daly and Earl Geier illustrations. Much of this book reminds me of meals I've enjoyed in NOLA. Don't forget to suck the head.

[baldursgateconceptart]

Selûne and Shar Battle

Art for Faith & Avatars

Art by Earl Geier

[semiconductorwave]

Illustration by Earl Geier

[shadowron]

The Final Summary of A Killing Glare for Shadowrun (1st/2nd Edition)

The Adventure

Prelude: The Adventure I Know Nothing About

Part 1: The Adventure That Might Be Better Than I Initially Thought

Part 2: Another Adventure That Should Just Involve The Detective

Part 3: An Adventure With An Interesting And Intricate Backstory

Part 4: The Actual Adventure

Part 5: The Tangled Plot Web

Part 6: Game On! The Finale

Art Posts

Larry MacDougall

Earl Geier

Geoduck News

[vintagerpg]

Call of Cthulhu is not a game that needs a monster manual. Monster manuals are for games of an entirely different temperament, where random encounters happen frequently and strength of arms wins victories and piles of monsters are needed to make for ever more bellicose triumphs. If you were to put the same amount of monsters in a Call of Cthulhu session that you do a Dungeons & Dragons session, you’d kill all the players off in short order.

However, just because monster books aren’t particularly useful for Call of Cthulhu doesn’t mean they aren’t desirable. This is the Creature Companion (1998), which largely reprints two previous books with less interesting covers, Ye Booke of Monsters volume one and two. It basically collects every monster used in Call of Cthulhu games to that point, plus a good number of beasties collected from various notable Mythos stories (like TED Klein’s Shugoran). They’re presented in Monster Manual format – description, stats and illustration by Earl Geier, who does a fantastic job (but I couldn’t reproduce his illustrations well enough to do them justice, alas).

The upside of a book like this is monsters. I love monsters. The downside of a book like this is seeing the patterns at play in the narrative. Everything has an improbable name. Everything is some variation of a tentacle monster. Viewed en mass, these things aren’t scary any more, they just become sets of tropes endlessly rearranged. It is hard to tell many of them apart. I am surprised it didn’t drive Geier to quit. Which isn’t to say its bad – its not! But it is a bit overwhelming.

[shadowron]

The Sites of the Sprawl in Sprawl Sites for Shadowrun (1st Edition)

Sprawl Sites.

The Greatest Roleplaying Supplement Book of All Time.

Maybe you’re writing your own adventures. Maybe your players decide to mess with the GM and want to go to the mall to buy balloons. Or maybe, in true RPG tradition, you want to start them off in a…

Bar

Your runners will take one of the booths in the back. Always in the back.

There is never going to be a scenario where your PCs go into a bar and Nothing Happens. Something will always Happen. You meet with a contact. You connect with Mr. Johnson. You are trying to relax after a run when a pack of wiz-kid gangers decides to start trouble. Always keep your Ares Predator II ready.

Meet Cleg. He will provide your runners with all the food and drink they will consume in game, so tip well.

Small Restaurant

“Welcome to Bee Burger, would you like to try our new Honey-Blasted SoyBeef CyberBurger with Cheese?”

Small Corporate Office

They really keep the wage-slaves in tiny cells, don’t they?

Cheap Hotel

Though it’s not like the runners can really talk.

Body Shop/Clinic

Encouraged by the presence of sinks, discouraged by the absence of bathrooms.

[shadowron]

The Art of Earl Geier in A Killing Glare for Shadowrun (1st/2nd Edition)

Also seen in...

Ivy & Chrome

Missing Blood

[vintagerpg]

Now, the last two days posts may have left you thinking “Well, this is all fine and good, Stu, but what’s this cult fantasy movie have to do with RPGs?”

Behold: Outworlder (2018), an indie RPG based on Krull by @Richardson.Games  (AKA @Suitorsclub, who also brought us the dystopian gangwar RPG Deathblow). This is the good stuff, folks.

As with all things Krull, I love that this exists. It is just such a specific thing for specific people (like me, I guess) and it does what it does extremely well. Namely, channel the core awesomeness of the movie into a pretty light RPG that builds on and expands the core premise. Which is impressive, considering it is 24 pages.

Key mechanical thing of interest is the GM, called the Seer. In the movie, several attempts are made by seers to detect the machination of the titular outworlder, the world-devouring Beast, and the results direct the action of the heroes, so it makes sense to cast them as the GM. But unlike most games, the Seer acts both as a traditional GM and as a character in the story, using their powers to help direct the players. Their attempts to discern puts them in conflict with the Beast, a villain that they, as GM, do not have complete control over (!). Depending on the power of the Seer, which changes due to in-game events, and the overall attention the players have attracted from the Beast, the Beast can attempt to blind the seer or actively harm (or, perversely, bestow gifts to) the players. It is an extremely exciting mechanic.

I don’t know what the odds are that I am going to ever find enough Krull enthusiasts to run this for, but the other great thing about this book is the art, which is all by Earl Geier and is 100% awesome and justified my ownership even if I never get to play it. Henry just reprinted this, so if you dig Krull, go snatch it up!