One Stat To Rule Them All?! - The Revolution By Night - Commentary on The Nightshift Companion Kickstarter

 So looking around Timothy Brannon's Otherside blog about his & Jason Vey's Night Companion Kickstarter.  But what struck me is this little nugget of information that Tim, ' Guidelines to convert your game to a unified mechanic: both d20-based and percentile-based options are covered'. 

This little nugget smells of something that I've noticed for years now. That is that many folks converted 'Call of Cthluhu' rpg adventures to their favorite horror games. Now I doubt that either author would try to violate the copy right or trade mark of any rpg company. But what they have done is actually allowed DM's to create a set of unified rpg rules that allow the DM to convert their favorite horror adventure into their own campaign. 

But what it really means is that the OSR B/X driven horror rpg is controlled by the players & the DM. There are a wide variety of options on the table top for the PC's. 
There are enough other horror rpgs on the OSR market place that can & will allow the DM to construct their own campaign on their own terms. This is an important factor in the tool box approach to horror gaming. 


Over & over again we see this type of rpg system that allows the DM to pick & choose from another of OSR or even Non OSR sources to add to their base 'Night Shift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars' rpg. This was something that occurred to me when recently we were writing up guidelines for using Miguel Ribeiro's 'Welcome to Saint Cloud' the author's horror themed homage adventure to Twin Peaks. 

'Welcome to Saint Cloud'  is a solid NPC & encounter setting adventure so this means that its adaptable to Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars rpg. Even though these two rpg supplements are not from the same publisher the Nightshift Companion will be able to handle many of the elements of the Actual F*cking Monsters rpg. 'Welcome to Saint Cloud'  is a love letter to David Lynch's films especially 'Twin Peaks'. Its a very surreal adventure which takes advantage of the magick lodge TV show element. Over the last couple of months I've been mapping out several campaign notes using 'Welcome to Saint Cloud' :

1. A cast of ecentric NPC's capable of killing each & everyone of the PC's. 
2. A US  North Pacific  adventure that takes full advantage of the occult nature of 'Welcome to Saint Cloud' :
3. Several adventure hooks that could be incorporated into Nightshift to hook the PC's into a campaign 'Welcome to Saint Cloud' :
4. The Lynchian elements could be the premiere of the Nightshift monsters that provide a shocking adventure element. 
5. I believe the Nightshift Companion is going to be absolutely essential to running 'Welcome to Saint Cloud' .

The Nightshift Companion Kickstarter is going to be on for another 28 hours here. So why does this matter?! Well it matters to me because I backed this particular kickstarter.