A Girl Called Samson - book review

 

I am going to deviate slightly from my usual gaming topic today. I have a 'mini book club' with a friend and she likes to read books I typically would not. We selected this book recently, a fictionalized version of a true story. A young woman caught up in the American Revolution who disguised herself as a young man to fight the British. I had read many Rev War books but few managed to bring the war to life, oddly from the viewpoint of a women, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

 

While this version of history is slightly romanticized (especially the ending), but I very much enjoyed this read, enough that I went digging into the actual history and the circumstances around Deborah Samson's stint as a young man in the war. 

History is amazing and our lives are enriched by learning about what has happened before us:
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/deborah-sampson

Pick up the book up here:
Amazon.com

Sector Nine on itch

 

Gosh, way way back in 2017 I made this zine. This was the year I retired from the Army and in August I took a new job, essentially the COO for a medical device startup. - serious money (like twice my Army salary) but also 10x the stress, global travel, managing the US operations for the company). Life suddenly became hectic and this project like so many others fell to the wayside. In digging around and looking at Star Wars options I came across this and though I should probably drop it on itch.io so others could see it. I really had a great time writing this one and putting it together with art, planets, maps, and NPCs. I even managed to run a few sessions in this setting before the world caught up with me.

I simply love the space pulpy feel of dashing heroes saving damsels (and worlds!) from vile evildoer scientists bent on world domination. 

You can check it out here.

White Box.....Star Wars???

Ok, I admit I am a Star Wars fan, always liked it far better than Star Trek's bizarre utopian dream that always seemed far less possible than space knights with laser swords. Call me silly. Anywhos, I have been running around the last few weeks reading this RPG, that one with the sexy cover, one over there, these two here....trying to something simple I could use for my solo gaming, but also something robust and loose enough that it could encompass the world of Star Wars. 

And just to be clear here, Star Wars to me is in reference to the original three films, plus Rogue One and to a degree, Solo. The rest of that nonsense does not exist. In my SW world, Leia was perfect and beautiful, loved Han with all her heart, Han was a scoundrel with a heart and would die for his friends, Luke was an incorruptible brave warrior who knew that he could not just sit around while the Empire tormented all the people.

So I have been in a quandary the last few weeks what to do. No system I looked at: Black Star, WEG d6, ICRPG, Fate Accelerated, Tiny Frontiers, etc etc etc seemed to fit my needs. So, I gave up.

Then today while out on my deck listening to the rain I suddenly had a thought. Why not just use White Box? James Spahn made White Star, which has many bits that are SW with the serial numbers rubbed off, even then I do not think I even need that much. This got me to thinking why I like White Box for my solo games, what draws me to WB? It is a simple, straightforward chassis to run games. I also feel it is easily malleable into whatever genre you might want. What is Han Solo, but a rogue with a particular set of skills. Luke, a cleric maybe? In any case, for me the first thing is visualization. So what to do? 

So I made White Box Star Wars character midicards! 

I am going to let these sit a while, do some test prints and any needed adjustments, then I am hoping I can get a solo WBSW game going!

White Box FMAG Character Cards

I have posted these before but I wanted to make sure these were not lost among my blog twenty years from now so I posted my character cards over on Itch to make sure they are and will always be available. These will print on either a 4x6 card or letter sized printer paper...sorry UK folks with your weird paper sizes!  ;-)

https://mattjackson.itch.io/white-box-fmag-character-cards

Willowford map available!

I have finished the Willowford map and uploaded to Itch.io for download, the file is available in jpg and pdf, is free (or toss me a buck if you insist). I hope you like it, and yes, my little band of dogooders will be venturing here soon!

https://mattjackson.itch.io/willowford-map-white-box

Willowford redux

 

I have been working on a rework/update of the Willowford map that was used in Jamee Spahn's White Box Omnibus book that included the Willow Valley Gazetteer. I thought I would post an in-the-works image so you could see where I was at. I ended up rotating the map slightly so that I could add a little bit more of the forest tree is south east and add a small lake. You can see the original map behind the original as a template so I can make sure I get all of the locations correct.