Tuesday 31 August 2021

The Ten-Year Clips Show of False Machine

Do you know I have a Kickstarter on?

I do indeed have a Kickstarter on.

3 days left from the date of this addition. (08/09/2021)

Click the dancing bug if interested;

 

Ok now back to the post.






I spent so long putting this together I forgot to introduce and title it.




On Sunday it was ten years since I began blogging. I asked people what they wanted and they basically wanted everything, so here is a bit of everything, a journey through ten years, from 2011 to 2021, with highlights and a dab of commentary.

Dip in for a link if you like the look.

2011 - 2012  Birth

 
J.M.Szance


Teens! Reading! I ran games!
 
I think I ran more games for more people and more different *kinds* of people in 2011 to 2013 than I have in all the years since. In fact my first post, the Vampire Table.
 
The Teens games. The Apocalypse World group. I ran storygames!
 
My first big post; Monsters of Incompetence and Atomic Bread pretty much set the tone for whatever this blog is about
 
Oh god the teens, you can try here for a start 
 
 

 

October 2012 - Veins

 
Fritz Schwimbeck

Here is where I start writing Veins of the Earth
 
From October 2012 to march 2013 its largely veinsposting
 
In June 2013 we get the notable Fuck Information Design html and 'Art In Games'. 
 
 
 
 

2013 - Writing And Playing


Aki Akbar Sadeghi
 

I think for much of this period though I wasn't running many games, I was playing in a lot and I was writing a lot.
 
For real-life employment I quit my last non-temporary job in June 2013 after a meltdown. I had other temp jobs since but this was my last 'real' job.
 
Here in 2013 is the begging post that lead to Maze of the Blue Medusa, oh how PLEASED I was to be involved with that
 
 
Here is an oddity, attempting to re-write 5e powers in a gritty old-school style.
 

In 2013 a brief excursion into talking about minis-as-sculpture begins here with Jesus Likes Your Backpack. 
 
 
A final curiosity from 2013 is Ye Ugly Face Clubb, a post which was once linked to from *The New Yorker*....
 
 
 
  
 

2014 - The Derp Nerd Rises


Richard Corben


Black Glass, a prose piece from march 2014 which ended up in Veins in altered form, got popular on Reddit
 
I immediately poste incomprehensible darkness rules to get rid of the redditors. Just post poetry, its like bug spray for a blog.
 
Did you know I did a damn TRAILER for Deep Carbon Observatory before it came out? I did this thing on a fucking Toshiba laptop that was overheating, using only free download editing software and publicly available video along with scraps music for the soundtrack. Fuck old Patrick was HARDCORE, what a fucking chad.
 
AND BEHOLD I LIVE! Deep Carbon Observatory released! (A print copy would become available later).
 
In early 2014 you can see this rashamon-style play report- this was the high point and mid point of player games with Zak and the G-plus crowd online
 
And in summer 2014 I finally finish reading Rebecca Wests 'Black Lamb, Grey Falcon' and do this pretty decent review.
 
Honestly for everything in 'Fire on the Velvet Horizon' I think the Paladins of the Fall was probably the best, you can read a fragment of their entry here, I still don't know entirely where it came from.
 
The end if 2014 and the conception of Broken Fire Regime! A long time ago!
 
 
 
 
 

2015 - Mainly Writing And Breakdowns


Harry Clarke


The breakdowns largely happen offscreen, this was a quiet year for posting but I felt like I was doing a lot in the background.
 
Also this year at the mid point I got a temp job working for Barclays, which I got fired from within a few months, BUT, this was the last time I was deep in my overdraft on my main account.
 
Since university in 2001 I had never actually had 'money' on my main account, just varying levels of overdraft - but since mid 2015 I have actually had money, not much, and I still have my student debt looming over me but better than nothing (literally in this case).
 
 
2015 also brought us....
 
Strange Grains, a post Kenneth Hite liked
 
An actual trailer for Fire on the Velvet Horizon. Chad Patrick strikes again, I actually forgot I did that.
 
SLOW HEROES. the first mention of snail knights. (Will they ever return?)
 
This still brilliant interview with Dungeon Smash about FIRE. I follow this guy on Instagram and he is still fighting fires! more than ever actually I think.
 
The Greatest Image Known To Man
 
And the River of Drowned Queens. Short but sweet. Think I did good on that one.
 
 
 
 
 

2016 - Flowers in the Frost


Victor Vastnetov


The year starts with this... OPTIMISTIC prediction of future releases.
 
The Glass Dungeon Concept eventually became the maze of glass rooks in Silent Titans.
 
Who Will Stop the Worlds Most Evil Dog, written in a fume of time over about an hour.
 
Maze of the Blue Medusa came out. I was in something of a STATE at the time... I was actually in the middle of braking up with my girlfriend at the time and moving house, and having a meltdown at yet another call centre job, abut I did (appropriately) find time to write about Stephen Pynes excellent book about Antarctica.
 
AND, strangely, in the same month, to write this pretty good post inspired by a book on neuroscience Arnold sent me.
 
Ha! Turns out I was actually running a game; the Isles of the Imprisoned Moon. You can find a few play reports scattered about and here is a little artifact of the last few years of G+.
 
After moving from Liverpool, my exploration of the Wirral begins with me travelling about, looking through History books and transliterating Gawain because I was sad.
 
that takes us all the way to the end of 2016, capped be reviews of Blood in the Chocolate and Broodmother Skyfortress
 
the autumnal hours of the culture are gathering, a year of crisis begins....
 
 
  
 
 

2017 - CATACLYSM!!!


Stanislaw Ignacy Witkeiwitz 


Despite it being a nightmare year I manage to start it with a post I am still very proud of; The City of Infinite Ruin.
 
Where the fuck did the idea of wizards living in towers come from? this meeting of great minds from G+ is the last of these collections and attempts to answer just that question.
 
My attempt to 'Map the OSR' caused me a fair amount of trouble. I called it a 'living document' but never went back to it.
 
Robespierre loves Tarts, did you know? Discover more here.
 
I talk about the fucking ennies. I would end up going to these awards to watch 7th Sea win everything #stillbitter
 
September 2017! I have a total meltdown, cut my ties with Zak, tell all of you to go fuck yourself and spend five months going through the Farie Queene, resulting in this actually pretty good review in 2018!
 
 
 
 
 

2018 - By the Fingernails

Agnes Miller-Parker
 

I literally have nothing else to do so try to continue writing and making things. ITS THAT OR THE CALL CENTRE.
 
The Great Crystal Debate haS since been lost I think - Kiel took it down, but in it I take arms against the krystaphiles in our culture.
 
May 2018 and we have another drama, the details lost in the fall of the G+
 
June 2018 - Nightmares in Syr Darya. I think this is the last game I actually *ran*. man it was a while ago.
 
A pretty decent review of Amber Diceless, a seminal but annoying text.
 
Just before the end of the year I bring forth the cursed word; ARTPUNK. (I'm still sure I am not the first to use this, others are to blame!)
 
And then the Silent Titans kickstarter begins...
 
The Patrick of 2013-2016 is basically dead or near-dead at this point. Will anything survive or grow in his place?
 
 
 
 
 
 

2019 - Birth of False Machine Publishing



Peter Klucik

I start working for Eldritch Foundry, there is actually a book, or a books worth of material. I have maybe the only test print but it does exist!
 
About here I am getting back into Warhammer and painting. this interview with Kevin Chin is still EXCELLENT.
 
I try to make interesting Halflings, and Gnomes for Eldritch Foundry, and recognise my own worst qualities in the Horus Heresies best character. (My mum did not like this post.)
 
I travel to Canada LITERALLY TO PLAY AND OUT OF PRINT WARGAME.
 
And I still like this concept for a fantasy-esque tv series.
 
After fucking up my first attempt at the Kickstarter and falling into despair, my co-creators encourage me to try again. And I FINALLY finish Jon Petersons ‘Playing at the World, HE SAID HE LIKED THIS REVIEW ON TWITTER!
 
The Prospero. An adventure, or actually a game now, which may one day exist.
 
And I end the year considering the rules of artificial intelligence as applied to golem, and shitting on JJ Abram’s Star Wars.
 
I think I also watched ‘cats’ at about the same time and it was a glorious mindfuck.
 
 
 
 

2020 - I Sell You The Same Thing Again


Horacio Salinas Blach 

Its 2020 and the long brewing remaster of DCO is in the works. At the same time at the urging of Ram I read the Mahabharata and decide that I am not a fan (of its moral message, assuming I even understood it).
 
I begin to wind up work for Eldritch Foundry . This fragment is an important one, and we get maybe the last of the big community posts? in which we all think about dungeon design by making the worst dungeon ever. This got Zedeck to repeat the phrase ‘camouflaged rape engines’ on twitter, something for which I will ever be proud.
 
This post, gets big traction on…. twitter (pre first cancellation, I will be dead to these people by the end of the year), and becomes part of a series in which I think about creating a form of D&D for families and children. Think you may still be able to find a version of the design doc on my blog.
 
Did you know the Streetfighter RPG was actually really well made? Well you do now, find out more here.
 
 
In July the first post mentioning 'Queen Mab' is here. I start weebing here, and get cancelled by twitter about the same time.
 
I ride out the year making monsters
 
 
 

2021 - That's This Year!


Peter Jones


The year is pretty slow as I eventually decide I need to put Goose-Gold and Goblins aside to try to work on active projects, especially Demon-Bone Sarcophagus, the first part of Broken Fire Regime
 
February is surprisingly active though with a review of the colour revolution, (part of my increasing interest  in colour and camouflage). The dungeon poem challenge and its results.  
 
I discover Daphne DuMaurier  and continue to harass Games Workshop with my thoughts on what they should be doing = MORE BEASTMAN SLASH FIC.
 
I read Gormenghast, (still reading it actually), and this is also the year I actually get up to date with EVERY Horus Heresy novel, and decide to talk about that series in EVEN MORE depth.
 
And begin the…
 

 Kickstarter for Demon-Bone Sarcophagus!!!!!!!

 
 
 
 
 
 

8 comments:

  1. Hell yeah. I've been here since 2015, and while your content has definitely shifted, I've been enjoying it all 6 years.

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  2. The heavens part, celestial trumpets and showers of laughing gold, animals of both fang and cud unite in celebrous dance, even the rock, from sky spite-ing mountain to humble road stone , bring joyous undulating song to you Patrick and your throne of thought

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  3. I remember the Greatest Image Known to Man, but I missed the interview with Dungeon Smash. Great interview; his descriptions of fire are so lucid. Harrowing stuff. I have family in Colorado and Wyoming so reading the interview really made me grateful for the guys who fight fires out west.
    The Paladins of the Fall was another post I missed. Beautiful and poetic, and more than that it’s the kind of work that I think inspires others. Or inspires me, at least. I will have to pick up Fire on the Velvet Horizon – it’s one of the few pieces you’ve done that I do not have.
    And then - Ye Ugly Face Clubb – another one I’d missed. At one point I did a table purely for NPC quirks, stuff like “picks nose, “looks perpetually surprised,” “Flowing, beautiful hair that they constantly stroke,” and “talks like they have to pass gas and are trying very hard not to.” The idea was to try to add a little bit of character to the random NPCs I hadn’t pre-generated. If the players stopped some random dude on the street to ask questions, or interacted with an innkeeper or a guard, or whatever, I had a way to differentiate them and make them at least a LITTLE more memorable quickly with one to three rolls on this table. Ye Ugly Face Clubb reminded me a bit of that, and also made me wonder – is there more of this stuff somewhere? I’d love to see it if there is!
    Anyway, wonderful stuff. I didn’t find this blog until 2016 or so, but it’s one of my regular stops at this point. I’ve come to enjoy it immensely and am very grateful to you for doing it. Thank you so much for sharing your ideas with us – and for such a length of time and so consistently.

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  4. Well I've put 'Black Lamb & Grey Falcon' on the reading list, it sounds great. I got inklings of 'The Peregrine' from your review - am I off base there?

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  5. There's tons of great stuff in your blog, Patrick, many thanks for all of it. Let my highlight the Rumble City posts as particular favourites.

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  6. Awesome!!! I never read your blog before 2018 so the highlights reel is great!

    Re: Amber, I played the game very briefly in college. It is fascinatingly simple. I don’t feel it has much in common with modern storygames tho, because of both the heavy PvP “outwit the other players” focus, and the total lack of out-of-character meta narrative tools.

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  7. Missing the critically underrated To Steal a Sun (http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2020/12/to-steal-sun-full-adventure.html).

    Does this archivist even know his P. Stuart?

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  8. Really really enjoying working my way through this spelunk. I want more teens content! Today I was channelling the energy of the teens through the Jumblies, who at some point will be found rolling in the streets of Abermawr singing Call Me Maybe.

    BTW the link to Fuck Information Design is broken.

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