All posts by Seamus Conneely

An escaped Mad Adventurer on the loose! After playing tabletop RPGs for a decade and a half and GMing for most of that I turned my hand towards writing for/about them! Since then I've added another decade on top of that, oh gods. I got my start with the Gaming Security Agency, and then joined the Mad Adventurers Society for a few years before setting up CHG. I write about games here, have written for games such as Transit: The Spaceship RPG and materials published by Raging Swan Press and Beer Star Games, and have written entire games such as Lost Among The Starlit Wreckage. You can find me personally @RGM79Ace or under cannibalhalflinggaming on the various socials.
Articles, Solitaire Storytelling

Solitaire Storytelling: The Librarian’s Apprentice

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Infinite, ever-shifting, and sometimes dangerous, the Library exists in the space between worlds and times. Among the many who call it home are the Librarians, and only those who truly understand it may join their ranks. I seek to do so.

The path of a Librarian’s apprentice is a long one. My current task is designed to test my skills at traversing the Library and finding information. If I retrieve the six documents requested by my Librarian before the day is out, I will have completed one more step on my journey.

I think I’ll be okay. After all, I stumbled into the Library on my own and survived in the stacks for a while, dodging all manner of dangerous tomes and trespassers. Now I actually have training as an apprentice and the help of my familiar. the tumblefluff Dog ear, a library spirit who helps me navigate the stacks. That doesn’t mean it’ll be an easy task; after all, as the library itself once whispered to me, there are more things twisted here than plots.

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Articles, Editorial

Hero Forge Custom Dice Kickstarter Review

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Hero Forge did its first Kickstarter more than ten years ago to launch a custom miniature printing business, and launched a second one to bring color to their minis. In between and after the fact the platform has continued to add more and more options to their catalog: new items, species, materials, and so on. Now Hero Forge has a third crowdfunding effort, and it’s focused on what you use to determine your miniature’s fate: the dice.

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Articles, Editorial

Role-Playing Games in Psychotherapy: A Non-Therapist’s Review

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While roleplaying games can certainly allow players to explore certain things and work through some stuff, an important axiom to remember is that your GM is not your therapist. Therapy is a serious business, and you shouldn’t be unloading your psychiatric needs on someone who is not trained to handle it (or try taking on those needs yourself, if you’re the GM), for their good and your own. Unless, one supposes, they were your therapist first, and are now running a game for you as part of your usual appointment.  Such is the purpose behind Role-Playing Games in Psychotherapy: A Practitioner’s Guide by Daniel Hand.

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Articles, Editorial

Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn – Cyberpunk RED Campaign Review

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For decades of R. Talsorian Games’ Cyberpunk line (both in realspace since 1992 and in-universe since 2011), The Forlorn Hope’s been a bar where those Night City denizens who refuse to play by the Corporate rulebook go to unwind, connect, and reaffirm their humanity. But today (2024/2045), in the Time of the Red, The Forlorn Hope’s in trouble! Will this classic Night City institution die a whimpering death or survive and thrive, helping the next generation of cyberpunks navigate life on The Edge? Well in game that’s a question only you and your Crew can answer… but in the real, we’re going to be seeing how Tales from the RED: Hope Reborn can answer the same question!

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Articles, Indie Frontiers

When The Walls Fall Review – Fallen Cities and Falling Dice

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The ancient city was originally founded as a place of study; a great library was its first building, and it remained ever its heart. However, the city grew to form the core of an unspeakable ritual, powered by harnessing a long forgotten god. Eventually, its distant neighbors could not tolerate the ideas it was spreading, and they attacked. That was when the walls fell, leaving a ruined city with a defaced statue at its heart… and broken roads, spreading corruption, and fanatics of that forgotten god bleeding out of it into the countryside…

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Articles, Solitaire Storytelling

Solitaire Storytelling: No-Tell Motel Pt. 1

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Every night at the Stellar Motel is a menagerie of the human condition. From my place behind the desk and some plexiglass, I watch elites and lowlives rub elbows, get into fights, and fall into each other’s beds. Last night was different: one of our guests was murdered, and no one seems much interested in finding out who did it or why.

As part of my job as the overnight clerk of the ‘No-Tell Motel‘ I’m supposed to help maintain the privacy of the guests, but I’m also supposed to keep an eye on them. The cops aren’t going to bother much with this, but now we’ve only got fifteen regulars left, and I’m sure it had to be one of them that did the killing. I’m going to have to watch them all like a hawk, because I’ve only got one chance to get this right.

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Articles, Solitaire Storytelling

Solitaire Storytelling: The Cog That Remains

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Mecha, giant robotic weapons of war, fly among the stars and stride across battlefields controlled by pilots – brave, terrified, determined, desperate – who will write the history books with beam fire and missile barrages. That is not my role.

My name is Armand Schole, and I’m the Chief Mechanic aboard the CHS Bern. It’s my job to repair, maintain, and maybe even upgrade a Mecha in-between missions. In doing so, I keep the Mecha in the fight. In doing so, I keep the Pilot alive. At least, that’s the goal.

In reality the supplies are never as plentiful as they should be, the allies not as dependable. I know better than anyone how fragile a Mecha can be. I know that the Pilot is not yet a legend, but an all-too fallible human being. I’ll do the best I can, it’s my job after all, but I’m  all too aware how likely it is that when it comes to this weapon of war I’ll be…

The Cog That Remains.

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Articles, Editorial

A Brief PAX Unplugged 2024 Retrospective

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I haven’t been able to attend every PAX Unplugged, but I was there at the start and as the convention circuit has grown back I’ve actually managed to chain a few of them together. In addition to noting as many familiar faces and games as I could manage for a middle-of-the-night article, I wanted to write about some of my own experiences now that the 2024 iteration is over to highlight a few things. Also, Aaron has been doing five-year retrospectives about Crowdfunding Carnival for a while now, so why not do a seven-year con one of my own?

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Articles, Editorial

Cannibal Halfling’s Reviewed Games at PAX Unplugged 2024

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Cannibal Halflings are once again haunting the halls of PAX Unplugged, and once again we’re seeing a lot of familiar faces (and games). There’s… so darn much, there’s no way I’ll cover everything we’ve even already looked at, never mind everything at Unplugged that is worth checking out, but hey, got to start somewhere, right?

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