Dear Apocalyptians!

Dear Apocalyptians!

Dear Apocalyptians!

I hereby present you with a unique opportunity to behead Marie Antoinette herself for just a few bucks! It goes without saying that I suggest such an act not for mere bloody entertainment but to save countless innocent lifes from the undead queen’s devilish intrigues! Satisfaction guaranteed!

In other words, I’ve just released All Heads Are Off, a two-layered mystery for Monster of the Week and other tabletop RPGs about a scheme of beheaded, undead French aristocrats. It’s available on DriveThruRPG:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/267441/All-Heads-Are-Off

Dear Patrons

Dear Patrons

Dear Patrons,

I hereby present you with a unique opportunity to behead Marie Antoinette herself for just a few bucks! It goes without saying that I suggest such an act not for mere bloody entertainment but to save countless innocent lives from the undead queen’s devilish intrigues! Satisfaction guaranteed!

In other words, I’ve just released All Heads Are Off, a two-layered mystery about a scheme of beheaded, undead French aristocrats. It’s available on DriveThruRPG:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/267441/All-Heads-Are-Off

Dear patrons, there’s another discount on my MotW mysteries on RPGNow – The Haunted Case of Eleonore Zugun, Blood in…

Dear patrons, there’s another discount on my MotW mysteries on RPGNow – The Haunted Case of Eleonore Zugun, Blood in…

Dear patrons, there’s another discount on my MotW mysteries on RPGNow – The Haunted Case of Eleonore Zugun, Blood in Budapest and It’s Still Sparta 🙂

Sorry I’m posting only such announcements lately, I’m terribly busy. Hope to share with you my crazy PokĂ©mon/Rippers crossover mystery soon, it’s a totally non-commercial project that’s been on my mind for too long…

https://www.rpgnow.com/browse.php?keywords=marek+golonka+monster+of+the+week&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=

https://www.rpgnow.com/browse.php?keywords=marek+golonka+monster+of+the+week&x=0&y=0&author&artist&pfrom&pto

Dear Apocalyptioans, my dual mystery “It’s still Sparta” for Monster of the Week joined the Halloween sales on…

Dear Apocalyptioans, my dual mystery “It’s still Sparta” for Monster of the Week joined the Halloween sales on…

Dear Apocalyptioans, my dual mystery “It’s still Sparta” for Monster of the Week joined the Halloween sales on RPGnow in the last moment 🙂 It’s an experimental mystery where your players first play as ancient Spartan heroes in a gigantic flashback and then try to finish the Greeks’ monster hunting business as their usual Hunters. It’s always been great fun to run and play – please give it a try 🙂

https://www.rpgnow.com/product/250707/Its-still-Sparta

You can also find Mark Tygart’s review here: https://catsoftindalos.blogspot.com/2018/08/its-still-sparta-monster-of-week.html

https://www.rpgnow.com/product/250707/Its-still-Sparta

Dear Patrons, my dual mystery “It’s still Sparta” joined the Halloween sales on RPGnow in the last moment :) It’s…

Dear Patrons, my dual mystery “It’s still Sparta” joined the Halloween sales on RPGnow in the last moment 🙂 It’s…

Dear Patrons, my dual mystery “It’s still Sparta” joined the Halloween sales on RPGnow in the last moment 🙂 It’s an experimental mystery where your players first play as ancient Spartan heroes in a gigantic flashback and then try to finish the Greeks’ monster hunting business as their usual Hunters. It’s always been great fun to run and play – please give it a try 🙂

https://www.rpgnow.com/product/250707/Its-still-Sparta

You can also find Mark Tygart’s review here: https://catsoftindalos.blogspot.com/2018/08/its-still-sparta-monster-of-week.html

https://www.rpgnow.com/product/250707/Its-still-Sparta

Dear Apocalyptians!

Dear Apocalyptians!

Dear Apocalyptians!

I’m working on a series of Monster of the Week mysteries called Monsters of Europe. They began as my humble protest against the Americanization of the Modern Monster Hunting genre and developed into a series of experiments with MotW rules and PbtA principles in general.

They present situation but don’t tell stories, each provides deeply personal motivations for the monster hunts. Two of the three already published contain loads of custom moves to color the threats while the third one, “It’s still Sparta!”, starts with a gigantic teaser with players controlling temporary characters given to them like Love Letters.

I’m putting lots of heart and thought into each of those mysteries and I hope you’ll find them interesting. So far my 25+ test players for various mysteries from this series loved all of them 🙂

They’re published by GRAmel and available on DriveThruRPG, link below:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?keywords=monster+of+the+week+marek+golonka

GRAmel has just published “It’s still Sparta!” – my crazy experimental mystery for MotW.

GRAmel has just published “It’s still Sparta!” – my crazy experimental mystery for MotW.

GRAmel has just published “It’s still Sparta!” – my crazy experimental mystery for MotW.

In this two-mysteries-in-one the players first become ancient Spartans and die heroically, “300”-style, to defend their homeland against immortal monsters, then take control of their regular hunters and face the monsters once more in our times. My players loved it, I’ve got a feeling you might as well 🙂

https://www.rpgnow.com/product/250707/Its-still-Sparta

Excitement! Excitement!

Excitement! Excitement!

Excitement! Excitement!

Seems that the third mystery in my “Monsters of Europe” line will be out on Friday! “It’s still Sparta” approaches!

It’s a crazy two-layered story with players first becoming ancient Spartan warriors for a while and dying heroically to protect their city ant then inheriting those warriors’ memories as the regular hunters and, you guessed it, having to save Sparta again. Expect meddling Muses, ambitious archaeologists, classic “one down, two regrow” monsters, dangers of historical reenactment and much more mess the hunters will have to clean.

And, by the way, it will be much more concise than previous installments – about 13 pages as opposed to 27 or 35. Less focused on providing a detailed setting, more on suggesting a unique mode of gameplay. I did my best to make sure less is more here 🙂

Love letter from a medusa!

Love letter from a medusa!

Love letter from a medusa!

I’m writing down a medusa mystery I once run. I assumed there that there should be a fair chance of a hunter getting petrified but petrification shouldn’t be an insta-kill, just a twist in the player’s agency. I decided a hunter turned to stone can roam as a spirit and becomes a poltergeist of sorts. In play I’ve managed it more or less intuitively but now for the print&play I’m preparing a “love letter” (in PbtA meaning) with rules for petrified characters. Do you think they are relatively fair and interesting? I’ll be glad for feedback!

You feel as if in a strange out-of-body experience. You are floating a few feet above the ground, looking at your own body… a body that’s been turned to stone!

It seems that when this strange Medusa petrifies her victims at least the spirit remains aware of its surroundings. Maybe you could even try to influence the world around you or contact others…

While you are turned to stone your spirit can freely roam up to about one mile from your body. You temporarily gain the Incorporeal move from Monstrous playbook. You can also move light unattached objects – up to about half pound – and whisper into ears of people who know you. You can’t, however, do anything that requires physical interaction with heavier objects or people.

You can also do any of the actions listed below. When you do, roll +Cool or +Weird (you choose). On 10+ you do it, no problem. On 7-9 choose a glitch as if you were using magic. On a miss, choose: you either do it in a warped way that could be very dangerous to people you hold dear – the Keeper invents the nasty details – or you manifest as a transparent, spectral version of yourself while you do it and for a few minutes thereafter.

*Speak with or talk to somebody who doesn’t know you

*Move telepathically a nearby object, maybe hurling it as a weapon (1- to 3-harm depending on its weight)

*Make people who aren’t aware of your ghostly presence feel a particular emotion when near to your petrified body

Your petrified body has 1-armor now but it can be healed only by magic.

Hi!

Hi!

Hi!

Some time ago I’ve posted a move for exploring a haunted escape room. I’ve finally tested it and it was a bit too simple, my players expected a more detailed simulation of escape room experience. That’s a new version I hope to test on them one day. It has become quite a minigame but it seems that’s what my dear players want.

HAUNTED ESCAPE ROOMS

When inventing a haunted escape room, think of three things:

-What is its theme?

-How is it haunted and what happens if the visitors don’t solve it on time?

-What are three hardest riddles?

Assign each of those riddles difficulty ranging from -2 to +1. The average should be around -1. In play add the number of Hunters to this difficulty – so with 4 hunters -2 becomes 2 and +1 becomes 5.

SOLVING THE ROOM

When the hunters enter the room, describe its general feel and the hardest riddles. Then one of hunters rolls +Sharp. On 10+ they hold 3, on 7-9 they hold 2 and on a miss 1. They can spend 1 to know the difficulty of one of the riddles or get a vague idea about what will happen if they won’t solve the room on time. For riddles they don’t analyze that way give them difficulty either 1 too high or 1 too low, of course without telling how is the number wrong.

Then each hunter rolls +Sharp or +Cool. This roll represents their contribution to solving or investigating the room. On 10+ they hold 3, on 7-9 2 and on a miss 1. Each hold can be spent either to work on one of the riddles or to investigate what’s wrong with the room. Put holds spent by all hunters on each riddle in separate stocks. Then the hunters who spent their holds to investigate the room ask one question about the room’s foul secrets from Investigate the Mystery or Read a Bad Situation lists per hold spent.

Finally you compare each hold stock with the real difficulty of each riddle. If they gave enough holds to solve all of them, they are free far ahead of the timer and suffer no ill effects of the room’s curse. If they solved two riddles, they make it seconds before the time runs out and the room’s curse brushes them but it’s nothing serious. If they solved even less riddles they run out of time and are at the room’s mercy.

*

The room from my session was lair of the Wawel dragon, a monster from Cracow legends. When the time to solve the room run out the dragon’s ghost manifested itself in the room and scared the hell out of visitors – officially it was just a projection and recorded noise, of course. He was then able to haunt their dreams, feeding on their fear even further, and once enough people were haunted that way he could return to corporeal form. Hunters’ fears are, of course, especially nutritious.