#tales from the loop

[tales-from-hometown]

[unknownorigins-uo]

place yourself on my robotgirl transition goals not ternary graph. (uses 3 lines instead of 1 point as the 3 variables dont neccesarily add to 100)

blank copy below:

[vintagerpg]

Oh man, Out of Time (2019) is so good. I like the smaller mysteries and short arcs, but by the time this came out I was really hankering to see what an extended play Tales from the Loop mystery looks like and holy wow this delivers. It’s full to the top with the sort of stuff that is gonna have your players knocking over chairs and howling.

Before I get to the meat of it, though, let me talk about the general material in the back of the book. First is a collection of locations for a Mystery Landscape, TftL’s free-form, hub-based sandbox play, which basically provides places for players to explore and organically tease out mysteries. There are also more formal scenario seeds, mostly feeling keyed to the teenager version of the game, Things from the Flood (there is one about symbiotic sex aliens and another in which the Loop’s gravitron gain sentience. Finally, there is the mystery machine, a nicely designed set of tables for generating new mysteries. These three things alone could have been a really hand book!

The campaign is spread across three chapters that likely will not feel interconnected, at first. As the title of the book implies, the story involves time travel. I don’t love time travel as a general rule but the way this is structured around a central mystery and, later, a very high stakes endgame, makes it work. Oh, and it features a villain who is also a key ally, and I won’t tell you in which order. The way they constantly appear and reappear with different agendas and forms is just, absolutely delightful. Plus, we finally get to go into the Loop facility. PLUS, plus, the second scenario takes place at summer camp. In the ’60s. ARGH, so good.

Again, the game is butting right up against territory that I feel like is firmly under control of Delta Green, but never feels like a horror game. It’s a mystery and it is an adventure in the truest sense and the ways in which the game sticks to that is really fascinating to see.

[racsow]

I need to get everything Simon Stalenhag has ever drawn framed (read: tattooed)

[sci-fi-gifs]

Tales from the Loop 1.01 "Loop"

[redlettermediathings]

[grimm-the-tiger]

My favorite works of fiction described as badly as possible, part 5:

Kids explore a Ghibli apocalypse. Sometimes evil seafood tries to eat them. Also, hell. (Sky: Children of the Light)

The Happening but with wizards and coherency. (Uprooted)

The worst fucking weather you can think of. (Stormlight Archive)

Living defibrillator runs from the cops and capitalism. (Michael Vey)

Average DND party fights dragons and causes problems. (Legend of Vox Machina)

Lady beats up white guys in feudal Japan. (Blue Eye Samurai)

Russian witch fights her shitty boyfriend to save her even shittier boyfriend. (Shadow & Bone)

Franz Kafka presents: The United States Air Force. (Catch-22)

The British starve to death in the Arctic again. (Frostpunk)

Prometheus starts matchmaking as a ploy to kill Zeus. (Kaos)

Depressed guy going through a terrible breakup becomes a nihilist after the worst acid trip imaginable. (Vide Noir)

Four hobos, a child, and this freaky dog they found break into a dungeon to fight pervert monsters and starve to death (alt: Finnish guy tests how much bullshit he can get away with putting in a game before Steam puts its foot down). (Fear & Hunger)

Scientific laboratory violates every law of workplace safety, reality, and basic common sense for shits and giggles. (Tales From the Loop)

Previous:

Part 1 

Part 2 

Part 3 

Part 4

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played TALES FROM THE LOOP ?

By Free League Publishing

In 1954, the Swedish government ordered the construction of the world’s largest particle accelerator. The facility was complete in 1969, located deep below the pastoral countryside of Mälaröarna. The local population called this marvel of technology The Loop.

In this roleplaying game, you play teenagers in the late 1980s, solving Mysteries connected to the Loop. Choose between character Types such as the Bookworm, the Troublemaker, the Popular Kid and the Weirdo. Everyday Life is full of nagging parents, never-ending homework and classmates bullying and being bullied. Explore the secrets of the Loop in two main game settings – one based on the Swedish Mälaren Islands, the other on Boulder City, Nevada.

The Mysteries let the characters encounter the strange machines and weird creatures that have come to haunt the countryside after the Loop was built. The kids get to escape their everyday problems and be part of something meaningful and magical – but also dangerous.

[teleeportedbread2233]

the next time I see AI in the Simon Stalenhag tag I'm gonna fucking kill somebody

[damiendipinto]

TALES FROM THE LOOP (2020)

[tales-from-hometown]

[meziniart]

You can hold my hand if no one's home

[vintagerpg]

Our Friends the Machines (2017) seems like a pretty key companion to the Tales from the Loop rules. There are scenarios, of course (more on them in a moment), but it’s the final, relatively brief chapter that I see as the crucial one: it provides rules for sticking a Loop under your hometown. That’s, I think, the ideal mode of play for Tales from the Loop. I love Stalenhag’s art and how it fuels the feel of the game, but at the end of the day, the winter twilight of his paintings represents his nostalgia trip. With a little work, guided by this chapter, you can make Tales from the Loop so much more personal. I’ve done it both ways and the North Jersey Loop looms larger in my mind than the Swedish one.

Anywho, in addition to the hack chapter, we have three scenarios, a mixtape of scenario seeds and four closer looks at some of the machinery that shows up frequently in Stalenhag’s paintings. The first scenario involves a rogue a.i. infiltrating a toy factory and, through manipulation of chipped human workers, distributing itself into a new line of action figures. I like this one a lot, and appreciate how it gets close to the horror line, but never crosses it. Same with the very similar second scenario, in which a PTA president under the influence of some malicious software, brainwashes a town with subliminal messages. The only cure? Horror movies and heavy metal music, which the adults in town are confiscating. I love this one. The third one gets into the idea of the Loop as a conduit for interdimensional entities. This is highly implied in the source material and the rulebook and I am into it, again, because it never quite becomes a horror show like Stranger Things. It’s more like…hm. My Science Project, maybe? But it is held back by the fact that I can’t really picture the entities and the book is dependent on recycling Stalenhag’s art so…no illustration. Booo.

I do have to note that while most if not all this art appears in Stalenhag’s two narrative art books, I don’t mind it being recycled here. Deploying it in the layout here changes it somehow. It doesn’t feel fresh, exactly, but it also doesn’t feel stale.

[woodtoc]

Hihihihiihi

[spockvarietyhour]

Gatehouse

[cswiftrock]

I don't enjoy ranting against movies, tv, and whatnot, at least not online, but I do want to quickly say something to those who may listen.

If you are interested in The Electric State, I recommend checking out the original art book instead of the recently released movie by the Russo Brothers. The art book is made by Simon Stålenhag, who also created the amazing Tales from the Loop, and has a phenomenal, dark story about technological advancements, and its adoption by large corporations leading to an apocalypse that can only be brought on by the capitalist desire for infinite growth. This really isn't shown in the movie and, because of this, it feels toothless. Stålenhag's work shouldn't feel like this, and it honestly deserves a better adaptation than what the Russos made.

So ya, you'll be getting WAY more from the art book than you would the movie, and you'll also be getting your hands on the art work, which is gorgeous and at times quite creepy (which is Stålenhag's bread and butter if you're not familiar with his other works).

Also, much like Tales from the Loop, there's going to be a TTRPG for The Electric State, and if it's anything like the Tales RPG it's going to be incredible.

That's all I wanted to say. Check out the book, skip the movie.