Monday Musings #156 🤬
Happy Muse-a-versery!
Good Monday, Gamer!
The very first Monday Musing — June 26, 2023, released from the Substack paywall today — has 🤔 standing in for the 🤬 that would eventually take over. It was about Cortex Prime wrangling, Wizard Time, returning to Jorune, and budgets.
Three years and 155 more Mondays later, here we are.
🤬 Lifted: Primed by CORTEX. FINALLY.
In Musings #1, I was wrangling Cortex Prime mods for Lifted. Trying to figure out which ones to turn, which ones to leave alone, which ones would make the game feel like a superhero game I wanted to run. Took about three years of running it at tables, tearing it apart, rebuilding it, running it again. Mostly in the wrong direction.
My mods: Relationships (asymmetrical, evolving, a full Hx), Entanglements (personal complications as the cost of advancement), and Antagonists (the whole back half of the book, frankly). Plus the contest and test spine that Cortex gives you when you strip out what you don’t need.
🤬 GRIMOIRES, AND THE LONG WAY ROUND
The wizard energy never left. It just took a left turn into a CRPG prototype I’ve been calling Grimoires — a Vance-inspired mage game where magic is scarce, weird, and requires study. I started prototyping in DragonRuby. I’ve since moved to SDL3 and C++. The prototype is rougher but more real. Turn-based battler with TTRPG mechanics in the engine.
Alongside it, a smaller demo-thing called Zero Day Heroes. Different register — closer to a quick-play proof of concept. Two things building at the same time, which is its own kind of madness and also exactly how I’ve always worked.
The zero-budgeting angle has evolved too. In Musings #1 I was running a Google Sheet. Now I’m running a Docker Rails app I built and am currently dogfooding. The GM who codes continues to be his own worst client.
🤬 JORUNE.
Still want it. Still out of reach. That’s the whole update.
🤬 JUDD, AND SORCERER.
Judd Karlman is still one of my very good friends and Sorcerer is still one of the GOATs.
🤬 A BAD DREAM.
I had a dream recently where I was playing Cyclops in a Champions game. Not a very good version of Cyclops. The GM in the dream was yelling at me that I was playing Cyclops wrong and didn’t know how to play Champions. 🤷🏾
🤬 CURRENT MUSINGS
Project Hail Mary. Finished watching it — what a good story, what solid reveals. Going into the novel next, hoping the movie left out depth and tangents. They often do.
Dragonbane. Got my Free League box of hernias over the weekend. Been scanning through it and it’s doing things I wasn’t expecting. Might be what we play at my IRL table after we wrap Occulted KC: Monster of the Week.
Rich Rogers and I are teaming up for Wild Talents: The eXorcists — an X-Men-style game set post-Krakoa. We’ve got a team: Old Man Creed, Polaris, Pixie, and Mimic. All misfits. One-Roll Engine supers. Should be X-citing!!
🤬 DAD STUFF.
I’ve got what feels like a side gig trying to help my newly high school-graduated kid find his footing. It’s a thing. Half the time I think I should just get him on the path to being self-employed. Like dad. The job hunt is REALZ.
Three years of Mondays. Thanks for being here.
Catch ya in the next post.
