Tales from the Loop by Simon Stålenhag, Nils Hintze & Tomas Härenstam

[james_davis_nicoll]

Tales from the Loop by Simon Stålenhag, Nils Hintze & Tomas Härenstam

A Swedish roleplaying game set in a weirder 1980s. No need to fear death but there’s plenty of trauma.

Comments

[estrevan]

I ran the Four Seasons of Mad Science campaign just pre-pandemic and it was a lot of fun. I think you over-emphasise the melancholy - not that you couldn’t run it as yet another grim and gritty game if you wanted, but it works best for me as a background element to keep the stories grounded.

(And as for the uselessness of adults - that’s obvious to children, even if adults generally forget.)

[philrm]

Did you see the Amazon Tales From the Loop tv adaptation? Overall it was very good, but the main affect was a profound melancholy. (I don't mean to imply that was a bad thing.)

[(Anonymous)]

I don’t really do streaming services but I can imagine the effect. And if I’d been running the Mystery Landscape rather than a linear campaign then I think there would have been more room for melancholy. As it was, I took my cue from children’s TV of the late 70s/early 80s, which ran more to folk horror than melancholy