Beneath the Missing Sea: A Tale Best Left Buried RPG review

It is a way I have of driving off the...

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Goddamn, I can't tell if you love or hate this game, but you certainly burned out a thesaurus writing this review!! While I love hyper-thematic RPG sourcebooks there does need to be at least the bones of a good RPG system in there or it might as well be a D20 or whatever supplement. I feel like a lot of games like this that rely heavily on eldritch fantastical art and atmospheric encounters need a narrative source to put everyone on the same page. Lovecraft based games have been doing this for decades, so whenever someone wants to put their spin on that type of storytelling I just want to read the novel that they are drawing from.

Steampunk, which seems to be fading (??? in the absence of cons I can't tell anymore) always seemed to be an aesthetic in dire need of a really good source novel. This type of material feels the same to me.

jason10mm wrote: Goddamn, I can't tell if you love or hate this game, but you certainly burned out a thesaurus writing this review!! While I love hyper-thematic RPG sourcebooks there does need to be at least the bones of a good RPG system in there or it might as well be a D20 or whatever supplement. I feel like a lot of games like this that rely heavily on eldritch fantastical art and atmospheric encounters need a narrative source to put everyone on the same page. Lovecraft based games have been doing this for decades, so whenever someone wants to put their spin on that type of storytelling I just want to read the novel that they are drawing from.

Steampunk, which seems to be fading (??? in the absence of cons I can't tell anymore) always seemed to be an aesthetic in dire need of a really good source novel. This type of material feels the same to me.

Hahaha no Thesaurus but I may have been reading too much Patrick Stuart before bed of late.

The BLB system is actually really cool. It has a few innovations such as the 'Grip' system (a kind of sanity as currency spin a little like DCC's spellburn in implementation but more universal) as well as a cool premise. I just felt the initial ruleset booklets were lacking a little thematic flavour but with a range of modules/sourcebooks out now there is plenty of inspiration to draw upon. I have some others in the mail so they might well feature here in future too.

BTMS itself is definitely not Eldritch and atmospheric at the cost of playability. It's actually quite conventional compared to some of the more esoteric veins, titans and observatories out there. It just happens to masterfully conjure up a world in microcosm tucked into the dry bed of the basin. Plus as soon as you start throwing doomed mariners, albatrosses and salt encrusted ruin into anything then the salt water tends to immediately rush to my appendage. (See also 'Sea Evil' by EEE)

So what is a "hexcrawl" anyway? I'm imagining it is a freeform sand box type adventure where you wander a map and each hex could have a new event, but there is no arcing overplot to worry about. Kinda like a lot of the old school DnD modules before the metagame took over.

That’s the basic idea. Explore an uncharted wilderness full of weirdness. Any plot develops organically out of play.

Essentially yeah. However in this case there is a definitely a plot/mystery to be discovered/unravelled. There are numerous ways it might transpire and be resolved however, if at all. More work for the Doomsayers but more emergent possibilities for the players

Hah, remember when being a DM meant you just rolled dice for the monsters? Now they gotta provide a dozen distinct voices, manage several player specific plot arcs, set up improv encounters on the fly, and be reasonably attractive and photogenic for steaming

jason10mm wrote: Hah, remember when being a DM meant you just rolled dice for the monsters? Now they gotta provide a dozen distinct voices, manage several player specific plot arcs, set up improv encounters on the fly, and be reasonably attractive and photogenic for steaming

Kids these days. They just need a good stint in the Army to sort them out. When men were men and women were men and games were men. Get off my lawn.

I don't think anything has fundamentally changed about running a game. A good DM always brought character and improvisation to the table when bringing what is essentially a block of numbers and a map to life. In fact, in a lot of ways things have come full circle with the osr and zine culture at the moment. As far as being telegenic-am I the only one who thinks Matt Mercer looks like a cross between the singer in a Christian rock band and Billy Mitchell? :/

Ditto on Christian rock band guy for Matt Mercer.