Another Fantasy RPG bundle - Operation Unfathomable

This is a bundle for Operation Unfathomable, an "Old School Revival" (e.g. D&D-like) RPG setting from The Hydra Cooperative (Heil Hydra?) which uses the Swords and Wizardry rules set (not included) and played for laughs. One of the supplements is a conversion to the Dungeon Crawl Classics rules which are probably better known. One supplement, a book of random tables,  has been in a previous bundle, everything else is new.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Unfathomable

I'm not really the intended market for this since I don't play fantasy RPGs any more, but it's nicely presented and does seem to be reasonably funny. I suspect that if I was running it I might find the constant humour a little grating eventually, but it's not nearly as bad as some other "funny" RPG material that comes to mind. It's pretty cheap and if you're in the market for this sort of thing it's probably worth a look.

Freeform RPG Idea

I've been trying to come up with a good tabletop RPG idea for the Continuum RPG next month, but the best idea I've had so far isn't really ideal for an RPG; it would work much better as a freeform game with a couple of dozen players discussing things, making deals, etc. etc. That's not something I want to run myself, so here's the idea in case someone wants to do something with it. I should mention that this was inspired by one of the panels I was on at this years Eastercon, a discussion of magical education and safety in various fantasy settings.

OFSTED Hogwarts Pigboils (or whatever).

Briefly, the idea is that somehow a magical school of some sort (which would probably not be closely based on Hogwarts for legal reasons, and because players would know too much about canon characters) has fallen under the sway of the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (OFSTED), the British government body that rates schools as being fit for purpose etc., publishes reports on their good and bad points, and can impose sanctions etc. in extreme cases. This might be part of magic becoming common knowledge, or might be a special deal between secretive magic-users and the British government. As part of this there should be an OFSTED inspection every few years, typically lasting three days with a minimum of two working days notice beforehand (five days with two months notice before the inspection prior to 2005), with several inspectors in the school watching lessons, interviewing teachers, and inspecting the schools records. Also, typically, the school management tries to game things to present the school in the best possible light, with a lot of running around and hastily covering up the worst cracks between announcement of the inspection and the actual event.

For a freeform some of the players would be members of the school staff and management team, others would be the OFSTED team, school governors, students, possibly the press and other interested bodies, etc., trying to game things to get the best possible results from their point of view. e.g. the OFSTED people would probably want to make sure that they get the truth about the school (unless one of the inspectors is in the pay of a rival or something), the school staff probably want to show the school in the best light (unless there happens to be a whistle-blower or something), and everyone probably wants to get through it with a minimum of stress. All of them would have multiple problems to deal with - for example:

- One of the inspectors might be told that some of the support staff are zombies and given the job of assessing their safety, might have to follow up on an anonymous report that some of the food given to students is magically recycled from food that was unfit for human consumption, and cope with a student who seems to be trying to slip them a love potion.
- A teacher might be trying to cover up an appalling safety record and blatant favoritism towards a particular school house or ethnic group, while trying to spoil the chances of another teacher who is the best candidate for a coveted promotion.
- One of the school administrators might be siphoning money out of the school for their own purposes, while trying to expose one of the inspectors as an undercover reporter

And so forth.

You'd need some magic rules, of course, and a mechanism for handling things like class inspections etc., but I'm definitely not the person to put it together.

The things a standard OFSTED inspection covers includes

Delivery of the core curriculum (English, maths, science etc.)
Teaching practices
Delivery of any special curriculum that the school is supposed to be especially good at (e.g. a performing arts school might have inspectors for music, drama, etc.). A magical school would have to have someone - or more likely multiple qualified people - inspect the quality of their magical education. To avoid bias they should preferably not be former students or teachers at the school.
Safeguarding of the students (e.g. accidents, welfare problems, etc.)
The premises - safety, fitness for purpose, etc.
The management - policies, adherence to good working practices, etc.

All of this can be VERY stressful for everyone involved, with teachers working hugely extended hours to get everything done, and the inspectors faced with thinly-veiled hostility in most of their encounters during inspections. After which they have to produce their reports and eventually rate the school as Inadequate, Satisfactory, Good or Outstanding. The OFSTED result can have a big impact on the school's future.

There's a lot more about the process here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ofsted

And if anyone wants to put in the work on this, I did actually work in education for 40+ years (though not as a teacher, thank Cthulhu) I'll be happy to take a quick look at anything you put together.