Mikel L. Matthews Jr.
banner
improvgm.bsky.social
Mikel L. Matthews Jr.
@improvgm.bsky.social
1.1K followers 1.1K following 1.4K posts
Improvisor, actor, director, GM, stand up https://linktr.ee/mikelmatthewsjr
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
If Smallville were still directly available, that one (probably). As it is, you'd have to put it together with Cortex Prime, which is easy---if you know Cortex.

Aces & Eights is a trad game so there are things they'll likely be used to but it's got a lot of cool systems in it.
I really enjoyed Aces & Eights. It's extremely crunchy but does wild west extremely well if you want a Red Dead 2 feel.

When I've done a more Deadwood style game, I used Cortex Prime/Smallville to have one that felt more like a TV show.
Reposted by Mikel L. Matthews Jr.
Jules: Bangin' a dude, and givin' a dude a hug with hairplay ain't even the same fuckin' thing.

Vincent: It's the same ballpark.

Jules: Ain't no fuckin' ballpark neither, ain't even the same sport.

Vincent: Your wife let you give a lady friend that kinda hug?

Jules:

Vincent: 🤨

Jules: fuck you
Excellent thread
Listening to people say D&D has no negative bearing on the indie creative space at large has me tweaking.

This is a creative monopoly unlike anything seen before or ever. I have a list of marketing outreach channels where 95 out of a 100 contacts exclusively cover D&D/OSR (D&D adjacent)...
Reposted by Mikel L. Matthews Jr.
Need to record the last part of the #OlitW finale but the content warnings so far are: themes of being watched without your knowledge, cannibalism, death by organ failure, bullying, murder of a teenager, men yelling, interactions with law enforcement, gun death, body horror

So it's going great!
Reposted by Mikel L. Matthews Jr.
Reposted by Mikel L. Matthews Jr.
Reposted by Mikel L. Matthews Jr.
daniel @dnl.ink · 22h
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE

SECOND INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE OVER ZOOM TO MEET MORE OF THE TEAM

UNFORTUNATELY, YOU HAVE NOT BEEN SUCCESSFUL ON THIS OCCASION, BUT WE HOPE YOU'LL APPLY FOR FUTURE POSITIONS WITH THE VAMPIRE
Reposted by Mikel L. Matthews Jr.
Reposted by Mikel L. Matthews Jr.
Between believing violent crime is high while it’s as low as it was in the 60’s, the “shoplifting” panic, this, and more, one must understand that the majority of America is living in a completely constructed, terrifying reality untethered from actual world.
Reposted by Mikel L. Matthews Jr.
I love how Rep. Joe Neguse reframed this question.
Reposted by Mikel L. Matthews Jr.
Smallville isn’t set up for troupe style play as a default but it was an easy fit.

The characters create their Magi/Companions and the grogs are usually a stat block that they or I may modify.

In Smallville, they’d do the stats for the character on the Relationship Map they chose.
If you want to think of it as an ensemble TV show where certain characters are more important but might not get as much screen time, and it’s willing to focus on minor characters that pop up, too, that’s not a terrible way to discuss it.
Unless they have something specific their characters are doing, I’ll usually bring in what’s happening.

“Today, you’re all playing some of Penn’s troubled, lycanthropic servant grogs.” For example.
Or
“Lir’s going to be visiting the other Covenant. Everyone else, choose grogs or a companion.”
Boss fights and dungeons aren’t really how games I run work.

But sometimes we have a few sessions with the same people because it takes longer. We had a great one with 4 grogs in the nearby city that went two sessions—-they brought in one of the Magi in the 2nd. (Who was pissed IC. Delighted OOC)
People end up where they end up. They might still be traveling during the next session, a season might pass (Ars Magica uses seasons), or we might use whatever characters make sense after last session.

Ars Magica uses the community in the Magi’s Covenant. In Smallville, it was a relationship map
Troupe Style lets Neassa’s Magi travel with a companion and a bunch of grogs to research werewolves one session. Then a bunch of (different) grogs gets in trouble in the nearby town the next. The session after, the players choose which characters try to solve the problem made the PCs last session
Ars Magica is the originator of Troupe style, I believe. It’s quite a bit different from West Marches because it’s the same group of players each time and it’s not a “go where you want” kind of story (though it could be).
Reposted by Mikel L. Matthews Jr.
Hey man, if you hadn’t relied on robots to do all your creative, maybe you’d have a better framework of taking critique that your game looks like ass.
Reposted by Mikel L. Matthews Jr.
Can't overstate how fucked up it is that unraveling what is arguably the greatest achievement in the history of humanity is now a motivating issue of one of the two dominant parties in the U.S.
FL is moving forward w/ plan to end all childhood vaccine mandates. Starting with hepatitis B, chickenpox, and the bacteria causing meningitis and pneumonia. Then next year GOP FL legislature is expected to revisit 1977 law re: whooping cough, measles, polio, rubella, mumps, diphtheria, and tetanus.
I put an example further down in the thread
In troupe style you’re often just ru Ning one character at a time but you switch those characters each session.
So this was the credits song for Dispatch episode 4 and I’ve been listening yhe hell out of it

youtu.be/yUnq-BPyX_8?...
Little Light - Dispatch - Ending 4 OST
YouTube video by Slyje
youtu.be