All Alone and Blue

My regular Wednesday night group decided to skip this past week's get together, largely due to exhaustion and a couple players being away because of personal and/or work obligations.

As a result, the Smurfs RPG one-shot I had planned will have to wait for another time. It's OK. I'm cool with it. No worries on my end. 

...Oh who am I smurfing? I want to play Smurfs! I'm smurfing at the bit! Chomping at the smurf? You smurf my meaning, right?

Wait...this is the perfect opportunity to try out something I've been pondering for a while now; a Smurfs RPG Solo Adventure!

I first mentioned this idea back in November of last year, in a post titled Blue Plate Special. The basic smurf of it is that I would use/focus on a single Smurf as my Player Character but have them accompanied by a rotating cast of additional Smurf companions. 

There are some rules on pages 30 and 31 of the Smurfs RPG Core Rulebook regarding playing a Smurf with a 'Sidekick' and I kind of extrapolated my Solo rules from there...at first.

The smurf of it is that a Smurf with a Sidekick isn't exactly what I had in mind for a Solo Smurfs RPG. I wanted the NPCs to have a little more to them. Less Sidekicks and more Supporting Characters I suppose. 

For the star of this Solo smurfy outing, I went with my original character Smurfcornflower, first created for The Smurfs and The Palace of the Silver Princess. I just adore her and she makes an excellent central character thanks to her Potion Making talents; needing to make a Potion, having to find the right ingredients, having to cure the effects of a botched potion, and the like all make good catalysts for an adventure.

I rolled randomly off a table I created to determine which companion Smurfs would be joining her and then wrote them up as follows: Create the NPC as per Sidekicks. Then add/expand upon elements of the character that might be prudent to know for an adventure such as Best Stat, Worst Stat, their Advantage, a Signature Item of Equipment, and a short description of their personality and motivation. 

Basically, a Smurf Companion is more than a Sidekick, less then a full Player Character write-up.

In practice, I made all of the choices for my 'Solo Smurf', while the other NPC Smurfs were guided by a mixture of my decisions and random rolls. I also generated the adventure randomly and used die rolls to determine a lot of the elements within the adventure. 

In upcoming posts I will detail the characters, the adventure, and the far too detailed plans I created for Smurfcornflower's Mushroom Cottage. 

Smurf you later!

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Barking Alien

A very Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there with the utmost appreciation and love for all you do!

This Is The May - From Shadow Lords to Baby Yodas

Today in a galaxy far, far away...

It is May the 4th once more, or as I like to call it, 'Secular Star Wars Day'. 'Orthodox Star Wars Day' being May 25th of course, the actual day the first Star Wars film was released. 

Nonetheless, this is the day we Star Wars fans celebrate George Lucas' creation; a universe of strange aliens, clever droids, fantastic creatures, distant planets, and of course, The Force.

This year, there is a lot to celebrate too, as we currently have the animated series Maul: Shadow Lord and will be getting The Mandalorian and Grogu on May 22th, the first Star Wars film in theaters in 7 years. 

As the date approached, I started to get an idea for a Star Wars RPG that leaned even more heavily into the cinematic, often over-the-top nature of things like the Star Was computer and video games, the animated series such as the current and awesome Maul: Shadow Lord, and one of my personal favorite projects, Star Wars Visions. 

A few weeks ago (roughly), I had the chance to play in a game of Outgunned, a rules-lite cinematic 'Action Film' RPG by a company called Two Little Mice. The one-shot was run, quite excellently, by my friend Nick, a member of my Wednesday evening group. I liked it, a lot, though I couldn't resist the desire to tweak and modify the game for an even greater potential. One thing I wanted to be able to do with it was adapt it to other genres and settings such as...hmmm.

The day after the game I started writing up some notes for an Outgunned powered Star Wars game. While the official supplements for Outgunned, Action Flicks and Action Flicks Vol. 2 respectively, each contain Star Wars-like setting options and additional rules for 'Star Raiders' and 'Star Knights', I decided to try building my version of Outgunned Star Wars from scratch. Sort of.

I did read through the Action Flicks homage versions and they did indeed inform some of my ideas and choices going into the project. I also used Twitter's Grok AI to see what different variations of my proposed adjustments would be like. In the end, I'm pretty happy with what I've got. It isn't a full-on new game by any means but rather a functional way of using a particular set of already established rules to run an already established setting. It's the work of a fan of two things hoping to merge them together. 

I'll be making a series of posts across the month of May - Star Wars Month! - detailing my ideas under the working title...

Happy May the Fourth and beware Revenge of the Fifth.

Remember, The Force will be with you, always.

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Barking Alien

A Blue Dilemma

This past Wednesday I received an email from Maestro Media indicating my physical, hardcover copy of The Smurfs The Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook has shipped and is on its way to me as we speak.

Hopefully the package will include the custom dice I added on 'cause who could resist a bunch more themed 6-sided dice, right? (See previous post)

I also got to run a Smurfs one-shot with most of my regular Wednesday night group, my first time running or playing it this year. Next week the group make up will be a little different - the one person out this week will be back but one or two others will be out - so I'll be running it again [with a new scenario] so everybody gets to experience the magic.

This is awesome and I couldn't be happier. Well...unless...unless I could get a full campaign going I suppose. 

In addition to adoring this game for the comedic elements and really liking the mechanics, its turning out to be something I didn't expect...a Fantasy RPG that I enjoy. Crazy right? 

The reason for this can be, at least partially, attributed to my deep dive into the Smurfs' comic book origins, as well as French and Belgian folklore. A curious item I just picked up is a Smurfs 'Graphic Novel' called The Smurfs Monsters, a collection of Smurfs comics that each feature our favorite little blue people facing various fantastical creatures. I feel a potential 'Monster Manual' coming on, taking these beasts and beings and giving them write-ups in the Smurfs RPG. If the cover is any indication, I'm going to be getting some very interesting looking critters. 

If the game has a flaw it's that one of my favorite aspects, creating your very own personal Mushroom Cottage, is difficult to work into play. As I gain more and more experience with the game, I realize this element truly shines in a campaign and is rather tricky to implement during one-shots or even two-parters. 

Usually, the PC Smurfs go on some adventure that takes them out of the village and don't return home until the scenario is complete. Perhaps they are chasing Gargamel, who just captured some Smurfs. Maybe Papa Smurf has sent them out to gather a rare magical ingredient. Whatever it is, the Smurfs are going away from their Smurfhouses and only coming back to them if they finish their quest or get totally Smurfed! 

I imagine in a long term campaign, more adventures and general activities would be occuring in and around Smurf Village and Smurfy Grove. Because of this, characters would be visiting their Mushroom Cottages (and each others') far more often. This, combined with the usefulness of the mechanical bonuses supplied by Smurfhouse, would make the inclusion of these homes more appealing to the PCs and more vital to the success of particularly difficult scenarios.

I've noticed that some players take the idea of a Smurfs RPG 'seriously', while others default to assuming they're playing a silly, comedic 'break' from their regular, more meaningful campaign. This makes sense given the natural of one-shots combined with the Smurfs themselves being comical characters from comic book and animated origins. As someone who has run and played some dramatically rich 'humorous' games, I think that given an open mind and a full campaign, I could get some great Roleplaying and World-Building moments from the Smurfs RPG with little trouble. 

These are just some thoughts I find myself having on a lazy Sunday in May. More to come, not to mention an idea for a new professional project. 

Smurf strong and stay tuned!

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Barking Alien

The Smurfs depicted are all original, Player Character Smurfs; all the ones I've seen so far in the Smurfs RPG games I've run and played [that I could remember]. They are:

Row 1 (L-to-R): Fisher Smurf, Adventure Smurf, Science Smurf, Lookout Smurf, Sir Smurfsalot aka Questing Smurf, and Champion Smurf.

Row 2: Smurfamaryllis, Suave Smurf, Apathy Smurf, Smurfcornflower, Brash Smurf, Smurfhoneysuckle, and Gamer Smurf.

Row 3: Smurfpepper, Helpful Smurf, Spelly Smurf, Frontier Smurf, and Smurfanise.

UPDATE: May 4th, 2026, 3:30 pm.

I got it! It is here! 

The Dice Man Cometh

Gamers love dice. I'm a gamer so, ergo, I should also love dice. And I do...kinda.

Not gonna lie, these are beautiful.

Rant incoming...

Recently, I've been on the look out for a Fantasy RPG and a lot of new Anime/Manga/JRPG inspied ones have been promoted via Kickstarter, Backerlit, and Gamefound. Last Arc: Tactics Analogue, Legends of Akeroth, and Twilight Sword spring immediately to mind. Unfortunately, nearly all of these games share one element in common that really turns me off. I've been disappointed when I look past the pretty pictures and nifty settings and into the mechanics; a lot of them use multiple die types. 

I have grown to dislike games that use all the different polyhedrons. I prefer it when a game uses just D6s, or just D10s, or even just D20s (though that tends to be my least favorite die - too swingy). Pools of the same die are fine by me (preferred in fact) but using six or more different types just feels unnecessary and inelegant.

I know this isn't the case but I equate using all the dice with the clunky, limiting, inefficient games of yore. Given the many and varied ways I've seen the idea of 'only D6s' used to create systems from the complexity of Champions to the simplicity of Smurfs, my gut reaction to those developing a game with six different shaped dice is, 'Why? It isn't needed. There are easier ways to go about this.'

It's not just Fantasy games either but I did starting thinking about this more and more as I went on a quest to find a game to go on a quest with. The upcoming Superhero RPG from Free League, 'Invincible', based on the Image comic book and animated streaming series of the same name, uses only 6-sided dice but the recently announced Justice League Unlimited RPG uses all of the [basic] types. This instantly put a little frown on my face. I really like Invincible but I don't want to like more than my beloved DC Comics and from a cursory glance at both...I do!

Frustrated by the dynamics of this situation I did the unthinkable, though more as an experiment than anything else, and put a host of very specific criteria into an AI language program, asking essentially, 'Can you make a Fantasy Tabletop Roleplaying Game with no Classes or Levels, Rules-Lite but suitable for Long Term Campaign play, that utilizes only 6-Sided Dice in its mechanics?' I expected to get junk but thought it might inspire me to create my own from scratch once I saw how bad the result was.

To my utter shock and dismay, the AI created a damn good, playable game. It was almost perfectly what I wanted. I did have to make a tweak here and a modification there but overall I was very impressed. I thought, 'so an AI can make a really cool D6s only Fantasy RPG but no creative person in the gaming industry can?'. Now I know I'm being hyperbolic and I don't mean that literally but...well...its not completely unfounded either.

Most of the D6 only games lean towards Science Fiction or Superheroes: ALIEN, Champions, Star Wars, Tales from the Loop, Traveller, and the various incarnations and variations of Ghostbusters from the original to InSpectres to my kitbashed hybrid. While I am sure there are Fantasy TRPGs that use D6s, few seem to hold the kind of charm for me that any of the aforementioned games (except the Smurfs that is). 

My favorite Medieval Fantasy experience has come from Ars Magica, traditionally using only D10s. I think Modiphius's 2D20 System might make for a good Fantasy game but I have yet to test that theory. 

Anyway, those are just some thoughts that have been on my mind recently so I thought I'd shout them into the void. If you stayed to actually read through this you are a true Barking Alien fan and/or should probably seek professionally help. 

Talk again soon,

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Barking Alien

Where My Head Is At

First, my apologies for the long delay between posts and what appears to be my own RPG internet challenge left uncompleted.

It appears to be that way because, as of this writing, it is indeed, incomplete. I haven't finished the RPG Campaign Tour Challenge I created back in February of this year and while there are a variety of reasons for both this, that's not [exactly] what this post is here to address. 

It is related though. It's more to discuss why I haven't blogged at all. I mean, it wouldn't be the first time I didn't finish an internet challenge. Surely I could just post my apology and move on, right? Well...no.

I have had a lot on my mind lately, both personally, professionally, and in the area of Tabletop RPGs. Unfortunately, my combination of ADD, Anxiety, and a connected Task Paralysis state meant that I could not start writing about anything else if the challenge wasn't fully done. I couldn't post at all due to the RPG Campaign Tour Challenge being unfinished but my brain being full of other subjects and ideas such that I couldn't focus on the subject at hand to complete the challenge.

A self-inflicted Catch-22. A vicious cycle.

So what about this post here? This is a post and its not an installment of the RPG Campaign Tour Challenge. You're correct and that is how I'm planning to get around my own mentally induced hurdle. It's just Part 1 of my plan though.

Part 2 is the trickier bit; I will be posting some other RPG thoughts I've been having, and there are a lot of them, but I do intend on getting back to and completing the challenge. When I do, when all 28 entries are totally finished, all the related posts will be dated for February 2026, including the two entries I did in March. For me, this enables my to 'Start Fresh' but also feel like I did what I set out to do. It will also make it easier for both you the reader and for me myself, to locate the challenge entries for any future reference. 

Does that make sense? Probably not but it makes sense to me.

Thank you for your time, your patience, and your continued interest and viewership. 

We'll talk again soon,

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Barking Alien