Tales from the Loop

After Covid, it has taken us quite a while to return to a fully offline gaming group. Mainly because at the end of the lockdown, we were playing a game of Witchlight for 5e that required us to stay online, as the GM of that particular game was much more available online than off. 

That campaign ran for what was basically 2 years, but is now completed. 

Now that we are back to a face to face set-up, there are games that I did not want to run online that have now moved up to the front of the line. Some were because I didn't think online was the best interface to use: like Kids on Bikes; or Masks of Nyarlathotep (I have far to many props to waste on an online game), and some were because there were players that stepped back from online play that I wanted to include in the game. 

One game that I was putting off was Tales from the Loop, and that was because of both above reasons. Now we have started a campaign of this game, the UK based set of mysteries "They Grow up so Fast". We've had a session zero, and run the first 'Mystery' of the campaign. It is going well, but there are many subtleties to the game that I have not yet fully mastered. If this spurt of blogging lasts long enough, I may write an actual review. What I do want to include in this post, are some handouts and character sheets I've been working on.

I was looking for character sheets to print off, when I came across this blog post, with the insanely inspired idea or making a character sheet on the insert for a cassette. There were a couple of fixes to make on the pdf, where words had not been fully translated to English, so I fixed that, and I'm making the document available here (full credit to the original artist and creator, I only fixed spelling and a couple of text boxes that were inaccessible).

After this, a quick search online showed me there wasn't really anywhere in town selling empty cassette cases, however, the resurgence in cassettes as a medium means that for the very low price of 75 cents each, I was able to get some cases sent from an Ontario company. In orange no less. A perfect fit for Tales from the Loop.

One use of the coloured printer later, and here we go.

A golf pencil fits perfectly inside each box, as do the d6 required to play. Et voila, the perfect gift for each of my players.

And this, dear reader, is one of the reasons I'm happy to move from online to offline gaming.