Acquisitions Incorporated Returns To Aus - With the Brand New Arkham Horror RPG! I've been playing Arkham Horror stuff for decades at this point - and like the moist and shapeless creatures it depicts, the game itself has taken many forms over the years and has somehow, impossibly, remained good. A living card game? Absolutely. Dice, somehow? Great, incomprehensibly so, and I am forced by the disease I have to tell you that divination using dice is called "Astragalomancy." But they aren't done, they go wide with the mythos: social deduction? Also yes. Co-op adventure? This too. But!
But.
When I saw that Edge Studio was working on an Arkham Horror RPG, I felt confident in it because they'd also given us the most recent Star Wars RPG which is one of the coolest experiences I've ever had at a table. We ran an AcqInc game of it at PAX Aus back in 2017 without even a deal under it - we just loved the system, and felt sure that more people should see and play it. I thought they might be using their dice system from Star Wars in Arkham Horror, a system that already feels like fortune telling and so would be a cool vibe out the gate. But no! What they have done is even cooler - and it's one of the cleanest, most legible systems I've ever seen. It takes big swings and has an indie RPG heart. A dice pool that also represents your health - a pool that gets slowly corrupted by horror? Yes, please. Yes!
We are delighted that their mothership Asmodee chose to sponsor this performance, but I'm even more glad they gave us a copy of the book early. If you are there or in Aus, you can see it all on Fri, Oct 11, 2024, from 8:30 PM - 10:30 PM in the Main Theatre. If you're in Seattle, it'll be half past Midnight on the same day. I'm always surprised when I go down there to remember that the Earth is a sphere. Kris Straub will once again be at the head of the table, making us picture incredibly scary things, and anything we don't picture he draws and those are also scary. His horror chops I think are well known at this point, I was a Day One fan of Broodhollow of course, but is also - if you can believe it - the creator of the ultra-hypher horror megamemes like the creepypasta Candle Cove and Local 58, and is considered the father of Analog Horror.
The remainder of our esteemed table is as follows:
Ryan Hartman as Bertram "Donald" MacDonald, an Adventurer steeped in wealth and privilege, home from his gallivants and ready to slum it up and scrap with the little people.
We are delighted to have Laura Stringer back at the table, whose last turn on the AcqInc stage was one of the most terrifying descents I have ever seen. She will be manifesting Hale "Benny" Marion, a non-denominational exorcist - though he would say he's a "building contractor." As a Mystic, he's someone with an intuitive, even practical grasp of things others barely comprehend.
And we could not be more pleased to invite Mr. John Robertson, who PAX Aus attendees almost certainly remember from his absolutely killer performances of the world's only live-action videogame, The Dark Room. He will be joining us in the guise of Cpt. Mike Captain, a resilient Survivor and smuggler whose zeppelins keep crashing under mysterious circumstances.
Of course, I will be at the helm of another version of Omin Dran - a man of indeterminate age and origin, operator of the Acquisitions Incorporated Detective Agency - who seems to have a particular fascination with, and perhaps for, incomprehensible powers. A Seeker of answers and even more terrible questions, he's the only one who seems to remember just how many times he's been annihilated. He could use a break.
I'll see you there!
(CW)TB