The Other Side Blog is a game design blog from Timothy S. Brannan, author of the Ghosts of Albion RPG and contributor to many horror themed RPGs. Follow his thoughts on game development or even just game playing. Named after the author's 10+ year old website "The Other Side".
Composure is not the same thing as calm. There is a difference between having composure and being calm. Calm is the absence of fear. Composure is when you are terrified, angry, heartbroken, or worn out, yet you are aware of all the eyes on you. So you take a breath, put your back straight, and level your voice. You get on with what has to be done. I would say that is very Jackson. In Jackson, IL,…
Endurance is not glamorous, but it is what is needed. It's not in the dramatic speech before the monster makes its entrance, or in the final fight and the big spell. It is in the aftermath. The next morning comes, and one has to get up for school or work, field questions, and put on a poor show of lying to adults, all while making an effort not to let on that the sound of something scratching at…
Vera is a character I keep seeing differently with regard to the world she is in. Take Jackson, IL for instance. There you have Vera Rook as a rival; she is sharp and selfish, with a dangerous edge to her because she will do as she pleases. Yet Jackson allows for some development. When, in the future, she becomes Megan’s adoptive mother and uses the name Vera Connors, my view of her shifts. The…
Today is Jenny Everywhere Day ! I make no excuses for it. I love Jenny Everywhere. I love the character, I love the concept, and I love how and why she was created, and just all of it really. Today is the day we celebrate Jenny in all her multitudes. And we celebrate by contributing to her lore. First and foremost, I must include her license. I don't do this because I have too, I do because it is…
Strain is what happens before something breaks. In Jackson, IL, everyone is under some kind of strain. The students are trying to act normal. The parents who know less than they think, or the ones who know more than they let on. The teachers pretending the old building is just old. The witches holding wards, secrets, friendships, and bad dreams together with both hands. It is good for horror…
Another Witchcraft Wednesday. Let's talk about my favorite witch. In most versions of Larina, she has lost both of her parents. I have used that for nearly forty years now, and honestly, I have come to realize it is a little lazy. Dead parents are easy character development. Too easy, sometimes. They explain the pain, clear the stage, and give the hero a wound without making the writer work too…
Tact is not lying. That is worth remembering in Jackson, IL, where everyone is keeping secrets, everyone knows more than they are saying, and half the adults in town have perfected the art of saying nothing with a pleasant smile. But for a witch, the definition changes. Tact is in the knowing; it is understanding when the truth is of service and when it will do nothing but wound. It means a…
Jackson, IL is full of secrets . What small town doesn’t? There are the family, school, and church kind of secrets. The sort of things that are common knowledge yet never voiced, or at least put out of mind because to remember them would be to have to deal with them. Then there are the older ones in Jackson. They can be found in the high school or the library stacks, in old houses and derelict…
There is a certain kind of privilege in Jackson, IL and it comes with a name. Vale. Thompson. Morgan. These are old families, respected families, the sort of names people recognize before the person attached to them has said a word. That matters in a small town. A name can open doors, smooth over questions, excuse bad behavior, or make adults listen when they might ignore someone else. Stephanie…
Resolve is doing the thing anyway. Not because it is easy. Not because it is fun. Not because anyone is going to thank you for it. Sometimes resolve means standing there when every sane instinct says to walk away, go home, lock the door, and let someone else deal with the nightmare. Cases in point: Larina Nichols and Vera Rook of Jackson, IL. Larina does what she believes is right, even when it…
Mercy is the hardest magic for a witch to learn. Any witch can curse. Any witch can hex. Any witch can call down fire, rot, silence, madness, or whatever else the old books and older powers are willing to teach her. Mercy is different. Teenaged Larina is powerful, loyal, brilliant, and brave. But she is not famous for her impulse control or her anger control. Sometimes she sees the cruelty, the…
Learning and dealing with occult magic is all about reach . It reaches across the veil, into dreams, through mirrors, down bloodlines, into old books, forgotten places, and the spaces between worlds. It is not always about power. Sometimes it is about contact. That is what makes it dangerous. The Witch Queen Larina of West Haven knows this better than most. The white streak in her otherwise red…
It is Witchcraft Wednesday, so let's make today witch-focused. Every witch carries a burden. For some it is knowledge, either learned through books or experience. For many it is power. And for others still it is the terrible understanding that the world is larger, older, stranger, and crueler than most people will ever know. Larina carries the burden of knowing what is really out there. Faye…
Today we move over to Rowan's boyfriend, Andy. Anderson Thompson has Charm . Not in the slick, silver-tongued way one usually associates with the elites. Andy's charm is quieter. Maybe because of who his family is, he has developed his own way of dealing with people. He does this by raising others up. He is the kind of person who makes others want to be better because they are sure that is what…
Rowan Abigail McGowan has Poise . Not the finishing school kind. Far from it. Not the "walk with a book balanced on your head" kind. Rowan has more skill balancing a saddle and a sack full of feed while avoiding the usual hazards of a horse barn. No, Rowan's poise is the kind you get when the dead are restless, the living are scared, and someone has to ride into the middle of all of it. As a…
Stephanie Wren Vale is 5'5" tall. Not short, but not exactly physically imposing either. Yet when Stephanie walks into a room, everyone notices. More importantly, they relax. She has the sort of presence that fills the room beyond her 5 feet 5 inches, and she makes people feel, "Ok, good, Stephanie is here." That is her stature . It's not just height, it is how she holds herself. It's not power in…
Today's prompt is Discipline . The daily discipline of writing mirrors the witch’s discipline of spellcraft, where one missed word can turn a charm into a curse. I try to write every day. I often take the weekend off, but I still do a lot of writing. I honestly just can't stop. I see the same quality in the witches in my games, namely they have to keep practicing their magic. Take one of my…
I love public domain and open source characters. More specifically, I love characters that creators can pick up, reinterpret, remix, and send off in completely new directions. I have a particular fondness for the kind of character a creator can take in hand, put my own spin on, and send off down an entirely different path. I put that to use with Jenny Everywhere , or "The Shifter" as she is…
A while back, when I was talking about my witch Elowen Hale , I said that the Daggerheart playtest witch played a big role in who she is and what her character was like. I also said then, "When the new Dread add-on for Daggerheart is out, I'll come back to this and detail a bunch of witches." Well. It is out now . And it's not just witches; it has warlocks as well. Elowen Hale I have posted Elowen…
The new Daggerheart set is out, Hope & Fear , and of course I had to grab it. It features new domains and the new Witch and Warlock classes. There are Standard and Deluxe editions; I grabbed the Deluxe. The new witch and warlock classes are just two of four total. With 2 subclasses each. From Gilmore's Glorious Goods , no less. Critical Role fans will appreciate that. The set is really gorgeous. I…
One of the central design ideas behind Advanced Witches & Warlocks is something that, in retrospect, seems obvious to me. The Witch is not a Magic-User in a black dress. She is also not a Cleric with better eyeliner. I have joked about that distinction before, but there is a real design issue behind it, one that gets to the heart of what I want the Witch to be in Advanced Witches & Warlocks . From…
What's on the tabloid news racks at your local grocery store in August of 1985? Jackson, IL is not ready for this! This is gold for my Jackson, IL NIGHT SHIFT Night World and Weirdly World News introduced in the Night Companion . Article text. SATANIC LESBIAN WITCHES INVADE SALEM, ORE! Is Middle-America Next? By Sean Ridire , Weirdly World News Chief Staff Writer SALEM, ORE.: It was a strange…
With Advanced Witches & Warlocks, I have had in mind a certain goal: to give the witch traditions the weight of actual occult practice. I do not want it to be a matter of "this witch has fire, that one has healing." There is more to it than that; it is about how one comes to terms with magic and divinity, with their coven, the world, and the self. In pursuit of that, I have been drawn back to an…
I am back from EGG Con this past weekend, and it was fantastic. I sold a lot of books and played a few games. Heidi Gygax Garland and Erik Garland did a hell of a good job with the Con. Reminds me of Gary Con in its early days. It is kind of small, but I hope it grows; it is really a great con. Jackson, IL I got to play some NIGHT SHIFT in Jackson. I ran a session of " For Whom the Bell Tolls ."…
The Satanic Panic and the Secret Appeal of Forbidden Books I am currently reading Manly Wade Wellman for my Witches of Appendix N . He has a lot of occult investigators and talks a lot about dangerous occult texts. There is a strange magic to being told a book is dangerous. Not real magic. Not the kind the pamphlets warned us about. Not the sort of thing that appears when you mispronounce…