Gen Con 2024 Recap – Part Two

Flashback to Thursday (Day 1)

If you missed Part one, you can find it here.

In writing this blog, I realized I left out one of the things we did on Thursday, and that was to attend the Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman Dragonlance 40th Anniversary Panel. I ended up getting there about 1/2 way through it (which meant I needed to pick up my copy of the book at the booth rather than at the panel, but luckily that process was smooth enough), but I was still able to listen to them talk about about the journey to this point… though, every time they said 40 years I felt a little bit older. Chronicles were some of the very first novels I read once I discovered the joy in reading. In many ways Dragonlance was more of a gateway to roleplaying than anything else I’d done, enabling me to see exactly what it meant and how these numbers and names on a few sheets of paper could be transformed into living/breathing characters. A process I still try to employ in my writings.

We all went into the panel thinking this was the last ride for the duo of authors within this world, so imagine our surprise when later that day it was revealed they’d be writing in Dragonlance once more, this time going way back in time to Huma.

I haven’t started in on the new trilogy yet, but now that this 3rd book is in my hands it is next on the reading list!

 

 

Friday (Day 2 cont.)

Old Gods of Appalachia

We pick up with my favorite session of the weekend. Horror games are not something I get a lot of opportunity to play overall. In my experience they seem to lend themselves more to shorter campaigns (stories), or perhaps it is just I’ve only been a part of a handful that have lasted longer than a few sessions. Whenever these sessions open up, I’m excited to see what opportunities they might provide.

The other thing I’ve definitely noticed about any horror or horror adjacent game is you have to have buy in from the players. And by that I mean you need to all be on the same page as to whether you are going to take it seriously or if you are going to effectively do a version of Scary Movie (or insert your Horror B-movie of your choice). We were lucky on Friday night (plus the best horror games are done at night, right?) where we had an excellent GM. His ability to set a scene and weave the right amount of tension throughout the session really made for an excellent experience. And all six of the players were pretty much bought in on the story. While there were definitely a few moments of laughter, it did exactly what you wanted it to do, give you a tiny pause from the impending doom that certainly awaited you.

We played the adventure “Best Leave Them Ghosts Alone” and without giving any spoilers, I felt like it had room within it for everyone to have a moment to shine. The story had some combat but also allowed for the roleplaying moments I really appreciate during these gaming weekends. After the game we spoke with the GM for a maybe twenty minutes and looked at the various products Monte Cooke had to offer. I thought about buying the book, then thought I shouldn’t, then we left the room… only for me to get about 10 feet and say f- it, and go back and buy it. I’m looking forward to reading through it and maybe get one of those short campaigns going at some point.

 

Saturday (Day 3)

13th Age

I was listening to the podcast Reading D&D Aloud when I heard Rob Heinsoo, co-designer on the 13th Age RPG. They had just finished up their Kickstarter for the 2nd edition, and in discussing the system he mentioned something called a Escalation Die, where every round it increased by 1 and added to your To Hit rolls in an effort to both end combat a little quicker and increase the ability of the heroes to potentially win the fight. I’d never heard of such a thing, and it made me wonder about the system in general.

Saturday, as originally planned, had a lot of free time with Daggerheart being the only game we’d secured to start. When I mentioned this to Egg, he said he might be able to get us a game of 13th Age through some of his media side contacts. Sure enough, we secured a two hour session… with Rob Heinsoo!

Normally with two hour sessions you get pregenrated characters, but Rob wanted us to see a bit of the character creation, so while the abilities and powers had been listed out on the character sheet – the “cool stuff” was coming up with our “One Unique Thing”. Basically, 13th Age has you come up with something extremely special about your character, and in theory, it could be anything you’d like. Anything is a large box to figure out, so Rob gave a couple of examples (which I wish I could remember them all), but the one that told me you could dream big was:

I am a former god who has fallen from the patheon.

I mean, you can’t get much bigger than being a god.

So we went at coming up with our Unique thing. Egg had his bard whose instruments were from skinned trolls (so the playing kept them from fully regenerating). Lee had a Draconian whose claws were his weapons. And I was playing an Elf Ranger…

As an aside, I’ve thought about Elves in our roleplaying games. Here are beings who are effectively immortal. And I always wonder how they could possibly live so many lifetimes without going mad from the pain and loss of loved ones. From the sheer amount of memories weighing them down. In my mind, I’ve thought it might be cool if every 100 years or so you must return to your homeland and have a Renewal Ritual performed that would excise some of those memories from you. It might not be a complete mind wipe, but by reducing some of your experiences, it would let your mind reorder itself.

In that vein, I said my Elf had forgone such a Renewal and now suffered from swiss cheese brain. All those memories are in there, but they come and go as they pleas making it so there would definitely be a lot to roleplay if this was an ongoing campaign.

Rob listened to each of our Uniques and you could see his mind racing to find threads to potentially use as well. Even though this was a 2 hour session, I felt like he’d have come up with a full campaign based on some of those ideas.

The actual play was a brief encounter where we fought some wannabe dwarves and got to experience 13th Age a bit. Given the lineage to D&D we had a leg up on much of the terminology, but it was still interesting to see how things like the Escalation Die worked. I liked that even if you missed in an attack, you still did some damage (3 for my character). Having damage be more based on your level and not on whether you had a Longsword or Short Sword worked well – one less thing to track, I think.

Rob Heinsoo has such an exuberance for the material (and for roleplaying in general) you couldn’t help but be sucked in by him. I’m a bit envious of any of those who get to have him as their GM for that reason. I’d like to thank him for taking the time to do the session with us, and show us a little bit about the game itself. They are still finishing up the 2nd edition (but you can still pledge here), but I’m super interested in seeing how it turns out.

Deadpool Roleplays the Marvel Universe

I still remember the good old days where if you played Marvel then there was a huge chart that needed referencing. This session had no huge chart… so I guess we need to figure out how to play this game?

Another 2 hour session, but there were a couple of roleplaying style opportunities within but mostly focused on the combat systems. Which appeared to work… fine. I did like that you roll 3 6-sided dice with two white and one red. The Red one has a MARVEL logo as the 1, but if you roll that it acts as a 6 and a Fantastic (critical) on which many of your powers and abilities do something extra with. I played Winter Soldier, so mostly it was a damage enhancer. Damage also keyed off whatever number was on the red dice.

There were really 2 “bad” things for this scenario:

The first was the example characters were Miles Morales, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Winter Soldier, Annabelle Riggs… who? Egg had her as his character and asked me (the comic guy) if I knew anything about her. We later figure out she has about 25 total appearances before this, and I have read a total of ZERO.

Look, in the main game if you want to stat out the lesser known characters – great, go to it. But at a convention, we should really focus on name recognition first.

The second “bad” was the character of Dagger (which Lee had). Her powers affect an ability stat called FOCUS, which is what you draw on to use your super powers. However, in this scenario we are going up against Gun Thugs and Taskmaster, who are melee types… which meant her powers weren’t going to do very much at all. Again, in a longer session/campaign, someone who can make it so the villain can’t use their powers because it has been depleted makes a ton of sense, but in this environment it was more of a feel bad.

Overall I thought the system worked well enough and would actually love to go through character creation just to see how that worked.

Daggerheart

Which brings us to the last game of the night and the trip. This is the Critical Role system which is still in a Beta (if I understood correctly) so this version may be vastly different when it is released in 2025.

I mentioned that sometimes the players and the GM mess really well at a convention and the game takes on a really good flare of its own. For me, this was another example of it. I think this was fostered as well by the fact that while we had the combat moments, we probably had a bunch of moments which allowed us all to focus on roleplaying. In fact, I made a decision that had I known how long the scene was going to last, I might have not done it.

My character was a Cat person, ranger type (a lot of that going around on Saturday for me apparently). Another of the party was a more grizzled veteran. After our first battle, someone asked him for pointers for the dinner we were going to have and he gave a couple of nice answers… so I said – “Remember the scene in Jaws where the kid mimics his dad while they are at the dinner table… that’s going to be me at this meal”. However, I’m not used to playing in person, being an online player these days, but then it occurred to me – I could just act it out.

So I did. The other side of the table noticed it immediately (the person I was copying sat to my left), but soon enough he not only realized what I was doing, he started f-ing with me. Dangling his arms, crossing them in weird ways, and placing them on the table in random ways. I was having fun, Egg snapped a picture of us at one point, and it was a good bit that really didn’t distract (too much) from the other players moments as well.

And the scene lasted for over an hour.

That’s a long time to keep up the bit. When we finally reached a scene change, I offered an apology to the guy “I hope I wasn’t annoying you.”

“Not at all. I appreciate your commitment to the bit.”

“Yeah, if I had realized I’d need to keep doing it for that long, I might have made a different choice!”

As to the system, there were things I liked and other things I’m not entirely sure of. Instead of a D20, you rolled 2d12s for skill and combat checks with one being a HOPE dice and the other being a FEAR dice. If you succeeded and the HOPE dice was higher, you accomplished your goal and got a HOPE point to spend on one of your abilities. It seems like another thing to track (and it is) but it also feels like something you’ll actually use a fair amount as opposed to Inspiration (which I never remember). Other things had to do with the damage/armor system which I think could be streamlined a little more. Egg’s character died toward the end of our adventure and it seemed like the rules did him no favors there.

Overall, I really liked the session. I liked aspects of the system. And the GM and players were great to play with. A win!

 

Sunday (Day 4)

Always a somber day no matter what convention you’re at. Some Sundays are a sort of sprint through the Dealer’s Hall in order to see the 4 or 5 rows that we’d somehow not managed to get over to during the weekend. This time was not one of those. Since most of our games started around 2PM, we actually had a good amount of time to make our way through the maze and see everything we wanted to see (a couple of times). After a final pass and couple of goodbyes, we made our way back south to Atlanta where I managed to walk in my front door at about midnight (much, much shorter drive on the way back).

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Gen Con 2024 Recap – Part One

 

Wednesday (Day O)

Normally we take a very leasurely pace going from Atlanta to Indianapolis, making stops for food, gas, and then normally for stop at a couple of toy/comic style stores. It turns a calculated 8 hour drive into around a 11 or 12 hour drive, but we’re so excited for the coming weekend it is well worth it. However, for some reason the drive took nearly 16 hours. We left Atlanta at 6:30 and arrived in Indianapolis around 10 or 10:30. We may have hit a time warp somewhere in there, I’m not entirely sure.

The other thing that I should note is we weren’t as lucky in our hotel placement as last year (where we were across the street from the convention center). Not that the Sheraton wasn’t nice or anything, but after a day of walking around and playing games, you kind of want to be able to get to your room sooner rather than later. The Sheraton must have moved by one block ever night as it always seemed one block further away than I remembered.

Thursday (Day 1)

Wizards of the Coast are in the process of preparing for the big release of One D&D (D&D 2024) in about a month’s time. While I think it might be nice to have the release at the 50th year of D&D celebration at Gen Con, the logistics didn’t work out. Instead they had 3000 copies (750 each day of the con), but instead of doing the same as the Lorcana release last year which created all sorts of problems, those interested had to be online at 7:00 AM and try to obtain a ticket there.

Lee, Egg, and I all discussed this. We’d love to have a shot at the Players Guide, but we also know that waking up that early is THE SUCK. I basically said that if I happen to wake up to pee and it is 6:50, then I’ll give it a try.

I woke up at 6:45… and hit the submit button as the clock turned to 7:00. The I watched the working circle on the phone spin and spin. Egg was wait listed at 900, Lee was higher I think… but mine said 275. Then it said 200. 150.

Was it actually going to happen?

Of course not. That’s not how my luck works. The odds were stacked against us anyway.

The rest of the con I woke up at 7:02 and 7:30, and 9:00… so I only tried the once.

1879

If it is somewhat Steampunk, you have my interest. Somewhere along the way of signing up for events months ago, I mentioned this one to Egg and he secured us a 4 hour block. It turns out the GM actually writes for the game (I did not write his name down, otherwise I would give him a shout out) which was really awesome for us since we had never played it. Many times the games may have a GM who knows the system only a little bit. That was not the case here.

1879 is a game where you have 3 factions struggling against each other on a distant planet in another solar system. Thousands of years ago a portal opened on Earth and the Babylonians went through and set up their own society while encountering and defeating the local lizard man population. Then the portal closed until the 1800s when it opened in Victorian Era Britain. Britain then did what they did during those times, which is colonize this new location.

The game can kind of take on a couple of different options depending on which civilization you want the characters to be from. The GM told us the previous year the players had played Lizard-folk. This time we were the Babyloanians dealing with the British.

The game was fun, though the system kind of felt like it was doing a little bit of everything. It had D&D style attributes, but then there were different dice used in your attack rolls (say d8+d6). It was fine but likely not a system we’d want to play regularly in our home game.

Cyberpunk Edgerunner

If Steampunk is my thing, Egg has a similar affinity for the Cyberpunk genre. The GM summed up the game in a very succenct way: You just have to give the characters enough money to pay 1 month’s rent and you will always have something for them to do. In the rebellion against the establishment, it is truly the rent which holds the biggest sway over our lives. The adventure itself was well done.  Some big corporate project manager decided our tenant building would be cheaper to buy and put up a new cell tower.

This would not stand!

Highlights of the session was Egg’s rocker getting a Nat. 20 when winging an empty bear bottle at the suit’s car and landing perfecting through the sunroof. Our group deciding to take the battle to the Project Manager’s house by posing as garbage men. Us finding him in a compromising position early in the morning. Me raiding his fridge for all sorts of expensive food and alcohol. And finally extracting the appropriate amount of revenge before slinking back to our side of town.

The only bad thing was we probably stole too much money from the PM, as I had enough to pay my rent for at least 2 months!

 

Friday (Day 2)

Shadowdark

We don’t play a ton of OSR style games in the home group. Our default ends up being 5e for the most part with the occassional White Wolf style games coming in second. But we were all interested in seeing the game that would end up sweeping up at the Ennies later that evening.

Given its lineage, it was easy enough to slip into as being D&D players we have a common language. We were playing pre-generated characters which helped us jump right into the game itself. Tasked with destroying an enemy fortress’s heavy balista, we encountered a world that had to make immedaite adjustments to the lack of darkvision for dwarves and elves with firefly style beetles trapped in overhead lights. A clever solution to a problem which doesn’t really exist in regular D7D settings.

In addition, setting up the turn order at the start of the game and just rotating through that kept the combat and non-combat moves flowing easily. At no point did you feel like you didn’t have some level of impact on the game. However, there was one tense moment where the Real-Time aspect of Shadowdark nearly snuck up on us. We had to set explosives to blow up the weapons and those would go off in 10 minutes. Literally 10 minutes of real time would have them explode. Which meant that we needed to get through another full turn to ensure Lee’s character was actually able to make it out. We were so engrossed in playing, there were about 3 minutes on the timer when I realized it and noted we might not want to monologue anymore and get to Lee’s turn!

Egg ended up buying a copy of the game, so I’m interested in seeing how the book presents the game and how any of those things might be used in any of our games (D&D or not).

Transformers

Transformers is my childhood toy. While the Star Wars movies captured my imagination, I had far more Transformer toys than I ever had for Star Wars. Issue 4 of the Marvel series was the first comic book I remember buying, even before I even really knew comic books were a thing that existed. I experienced the pain that every young chiuld hopes to avoid when their grandparents, who don’t even understand these cars who change into robots thing might be, buys you an assortment of Go-Bots for Christmas… scarring you well into your 40s.

As to the game, this was a two hour introduction session. Which most of the time I think those aren’t going to really allow you enough time to do more than an encounter or two. It doesn let you get a glimpse at the system, which is kind of the whole point in a lot of these cases. We did get to see some of the system which also uses addition dice (including a D2 – so flip a coin). One of the things I’m not sure I like is if you don’t have a proficiency in a skill, then you are rolling at disadvantage immediately. It is a bit of a “feel bad” for me. Heck, I already don’t have any skills in a particular thing and now I get an additional penalty as well.

While the system didn’t wow me, we did have a moment that was a bit odd. As we went around saying our names, one of the players said “TireIron”. I’m jotting down the character names and didn’t think anything of it since I could very well see a Transformer having that name. However, his buddy sitting beside him was like “that’s not your name… your name is on the first line of the character sheet”. It struck me as odd at the time, but the more and more I think about it, I’ve been struggling to make sense of it. Since we were in Kindergarden, we’ve been taught to put our name at the top of the page. It’s my default at this point. So… if TireIron wasn’t written at the tip-top of the page, why would you grab a word from some other random area of the character sheet?

Who knows?

***

Check back in for part 2 next week where there will be Cats, Giants, Frogs, Deadpools, and very, very Old Gods.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Gen Con 2023 Recap – Part Two

 

You can find part one here.

We left off on Saturday afternoon. A quick bite and it was off to…

Zombie World

We played in Lucas Oil Stadium, down on the field, which for a fan of the NFL is always a cool experience. This was the game we wondered most about since it was run entirely through cards instead of dice (based on the Powered By the Apocolypse system). But it worked extremely well. Having the deck there made combat run really quick, and it made for a very easy setup experience when we were pulling out backstories and tragedies, which helped craft the narrative for the players but also had a real tangible affect on the gameplay. The deck of NPCs was nice as well, since the GM was able to lay things out that much quicker. Even the act of figuring out our location and issues were done through a “draft” where each one took a chance to mark down something about the base. What kind of base, what our strengths were, what our liabilities might be, etc. It meant that we were able to get into the game pretty quick.

As to the game itself, we had a pretty good group, and with the scenario that was set up (Lee’s character was attempting to overthrow the people in charge and the rest of us needed to break him out of confinement before his execution), we actually did a fair amount of role-playing to the point that our GM made note of only having maybe 45 minutes left and we hadn’t encountered any zombies.

Which, like the best zombie stories, the monsters might have been us all along.

Saturday (Day 3)

Things from The Flood

A sequel to Tales from the Loop that exists in a damaged 1990s era. You’re still playing kids, though these kids are more on the older side (among our Players we stuck to mostly 15 year olds). But instead of new technology that is all bright and shiny, the world experienced a Flood, and now that technology has some sort of blight attached to it. Where Loop is about wonder from the innocence of a child, I feel like Flood is the step we all have to make in realizing the world isn’t always the nicest place. That means rebelling against that world.

Like Loop or Alien or any of Free League’s games, the system just works really well. With both a simplicity to it, but also allowing you to court doom by “pushing” your dice rolls, but only if you then take Stress. We avoided being eaten by a T-Rex, avoided getting run off the road by a Johnny Cab (effectively from Total Recall), and stopped the world from experiencing a complete meltdown of time… all the while saving out classmate from certain doom.

All in the day’s life when you’re in the Flood.

Pirate Borg

One of the Mork Borg inspired games, this one took place during the Golden Age of Piracy… in a Dark Carribean. All sorts of nasty monsters roamed the land and seas. Ghost ships attacked without warning, and strange ruins might lead to your doom or treasure to last you forever.

This one made full use of minatures, which was a nice thing to see at the convention. Since my group only plays online, I’m not sure when the last time we had minatures during a game.

The overall character setup was fairly straightforward and contained on one sheet of paper. However, if you are unfamiliar with how you are supposed to proceed, there are a couple of spots which weren’t quite as intuative as you might think, causing a couple of us to stumble a bit. Since the game is very OSR, there are limited hit points and the likelihood of a character dying pretty much seems assured. In fact, Egg’s characetr began with one whole hit point. Luckily, the GM was prepared and when Egg died, his character came back as a Skeleton (so we was able to continue playing with the rest of us).

Having played AD&D 1st edition for a long time, I am familiar with how deadly it can be, so I think that makes this game more of one to be enjoyed at a convention and less like one that would work with a campaign.

Sunday (Day 4)

Sunday is the day of trying to get any last part of the Dealer’s Room seen before we head out around 1-2 in order to not get home too late (after it was all done and the driving was done, I entered my house around 12:30-ish, so one of the earlier times for sure). We all noticed the number of signage that mentioned selling out of something. Whether that was books or accessories or what-have-you, it was both impressive how many we saw (much more than any of us had seen in previous years). Which I take as a good sign that people were ready to support gaming and art and anything and everything else that was there during the weekend.

I’m already looking forward to next year!

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Gen Con 2023 Recap – Part One

Didn’t actually realize it until I began writing these blogs, but this was my 5th year attending Gen Con. I can remember talking about going for years and years as this thing that maybe could happen. So to not only have been able to go, but to be able to make it somewhat yearly as my own form of a “guys’ trip” has been really cool to consider.

Wednesday (Day O)

The drive up was fairly uneventful. We arrived at the Hyatt just across the street from the Convention Center and got settled in fairly quickily. In previous years we’ve spent time in hotels that were a few blocks away to ones across the street. Obviously across the street is the best, but I hadn’t considered how good of a placement this year’s hotel turned out to be. You had access to the convention center. We were on the Stadium side for that one event (which was one of the later ones), so the walk back wasn’t so bad. But the biggest thing is all of the food was on the end where we were staying. It’s one thing to have to walk a few blocks back and forth to your hotel and then a few more blocks to potentially get to food, but this location made everything very convienent overall.

However, while it was better this year, I do have to ask why some of the resturants don’t bother to stay open later during Con Week? When Dragon Con sets up shop in Atlanta, I feel like everything stays open until at least midnight, if not much later. Multiple resturants closed by 11 that week. I’ve never understood that.

Thursday (Day 1)

We began shortly after the initial rush of people that had gathered outside the Dealer’s Room to get Lorcana cards. I am apparently completely out of touch with card games not named Magic the Gathering, so I had no idea that Disney had a card game coming out, much less that there would be the level of demand where people would begin lining up at 6 PM to get cards the following day.

But as we entered the Dealer’s Room around 10:45 AM, I was unaware of any of this. So when we literally couldn’t make it down Aisle’s 100 and 200, worry began to set in. We figured that Gen Con would likely be back to roughly its pre-Covid attendance this year (and it actually exceeded it – over 70,000), but to have Thursday be so packed that we couldn’t manuever set a bad presedence in our minds. If Thursday was going to be bad, what would Friday and Saturday look like? In some ways it is a bit of a struggle to make it through the Dealer’s Room in the one or two hour bursts. Sunday ends up being the catch-all for last minute shopping, but we were concerned about the next couple of days.

Mothership

Mothership was/is one of those games who really just found its niche in the roleplaying space. The idea of playing in a horror space setting (think Aliens or Event Horizon) with a fairly straightforward system is definitely appealing. A couple of years ago I ran a game for our group that tried to focus more on a John Carpenter’s Thing vibe of “Who do you trust”. I think I did an OK job, but overall didn’t manage to quite hit the beats I wanted to. I’d wanted to play it ever since just to see how someone else ran the game.

The one concern I’ve had is I wasn’t sure how exactly a longer campaign might go. As with any horror based game, characters are supposed to die or go insane, which makes investing in your character a little more difficult. It felt like more of a One Shot style game, perfect for conventions.

This game was a little less horror and much more straightforward story of Salvagers trying their best to make their way from shitty job to shitty job. The game played pretty much how I remembered it, though maybe our rolls were better than average as during the firefights, none of our people died. If not for the suicide run that one player made while piloting a captured ship we might have all survived. Sadly, his ramming of the enemy spacecraft ended up killing three of our crew.

Lucky for me, I wasn’t on the doomed ship!

The key though was that after this one session, I could see a little bit better how a longer style storyline might go where you lean a little less hard on all the horror monsters and instead let the dread simmer in the background as best you can.

Stealing Stories for the Devil

This is the game I could see running like it was a tv show. Setting up your overall storyline and then having the big payoff after 12 or so “episodes”. The basic idea for the game is that you are time travelers from the future who have become stuck in the current era of Earth. Time is breaking down due to the existence of certain anomolies. These items create a version of a world where the impossible is possible and where time exists differently. The heroes job is to discover what the item is and remove it from the area (which will revert things back to normal).

What transpires within play is that as a group we effectively created the scenario: A Costco where time had slipped such that it was always both Halloween and Black Friday at the same time. We would need to work as a team in order to extract the 8 foot tall skeleton from the premises. And since all that really required was lying really well… that ended up creating a bunch of really goofy and fun scenes spread out amongst all of the players.

Like I said, I really enjoyed this one and could see running a short campaign with the system.

Friday (Day 2)

Pretty much each day was much the same. We’d grab food somewhere, head into the Dealer’s Room and see as much as we possibly could before our first game took place. Food, if there was time, between the games, and then rush off to the night game. The only bad was not being able to meet up with a few people as most of the time we were either in a game or on our way to a game (which is certainly the whole point), but it is nice to catch up sometimes as well.

Deadlands: Weird West (Classic Edition)

Next on the list was a game I was looking forward to. I’m a big fan of Weird West style stories and Deadlands is really (as far as I know) the granddaddy of that genre within RPGs. However, you should always read the fine print. We thought we’d signed up for the current edition of the game (the Savage Worlds version) but instead we found out that we were going to be playing in a 1st edition version of the game.

There is a lot to the overall world of Deadlands. I supported the Savage Worlds Kickstarter and have read some of the book, but that’s about as far as my knowledge base will take me. So it can be a lot to dump on a bunch of players. That said, I understand why 1st edition rules might be considered too cumbersome. There were so many things to do. Some characters had decks of cards to help with their abilites. There was another deck of cards that you used for initiative. You had your bennie chips that could help alter dice rolls. There were dice rolls where you only took the best score and others where you definitely wanted to roll a ton. Once you hit someone, you rolled again to potentially figure out if it was a head shot or body shot.

Too much stuff going on honestly.

This is a game where we were very lucky to have a GM who knew the system, but in the end the system really felt overly complex. After the game we definitely talked about places you could just cut out potential rolls (and rules). I’d love to play in the world, but I don’t think I need to play 1st Edition again.

***

Check back in for part 2 next week where there will be teenagers in a Flood, zombies in a hospital, and pirates on the seas!

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Gen Con 2022 Recap – Part Two

 

This is the second part of my latest trip to “The Best Four Days in Gaming”, Gen Con. Part 1 can be found here.

 

Day 3

It all came down to this. In previous years we’d try to only do 2 games a day. We’re not big on trying to get up at some way too early hour of the morning to make a game. We’ve tried that in the past and regretted it. Of course, most nights we’re not actually asleep until close to 3 in the morning, so that might have something to do with it.

However, this Day 3 we had 3 games to look forward to, including a game from Midnight to 2 AM.

Dread by The Impossible Dream

 

Dread is a roleplaying game we’d heard about before and was always on our shortlist of games to play. You see, it doesn’t use dice or cards or tokens or anything like that to determine if you are successful or you fail. Instead, you use a Jenga game to do that.

You need to fight off the zombie in front of you, make a pull from the tower. You need to see if you can shut the door before the grenade you threw goes off. You need to make two pulls.

And so it goes as you make your way through the game. Each time the easy pulls are disappearing leaving only harder and harder ones. Until finally the tower is too unwieldy and someone’s pull topples things. Then, well then you’re dead. And we rebuild the tower and somewhat reset a portion of the game state you were in before (we were on our 17th pull the first time the tower toppled, so when we reset it, we had to make 13 pulls).

The good is that the tension definitely builds throughout the session. You find yourself pulling for your teammates. If you are lucky, one of your companions will be REALLY good at Jenga and can save the team’s ass on more than one occasion. All of that is excellent and adds a level to the horror game that other games attempt but can’t duplicate with dice rolls/

There is some bad though. We had a 5-hour session, and our tower fell at the hour and a half mark, killing that player’s character. So they were out for the rest of the game. I guess they could leave, but since you are with your friends, you kind of want to stick around, but you are just an observer and have no impact on things any longer. It would be nice if there was a way around that. Secondly, you are offered choices in the game and learn something more if you make a pull. Part of the fun is getting in there and trying it out. Heck, I’d never touched a Jenha tower before in my life. However, we had one player who appeared to never want to make a pull. He’d talk a big game when someone else was pulling. He would offer suggestions, but when it came time for him to do something, he bailed.

Every time.

Now we all have different ways to play roleplaying games. And maybe this player had decided that they wanted to try to get through a game without making more than three pulls the whole time or something, but it came across as… well, I have words for it, but I’ve said enough I think.

Dread is one I can see doing for a party game for sure.

 

Never Going Home by Wet Ink Games

 

Never Going Home is a game where you are playing soldiers in a World War 1 where something terrible has been freed/released/brought into the world due to the war. Now, as men on the front line you not only have to deal with the horrors of the war but also the horrors from other worlds. Sadly I’m not sure I got the best version of this particular game. The GM was still learning the system, so there was a little bit of a delay on the front end, and then… well, one of our players was… something else entirely.

When you are playing in a roleplaying game there is a constant push/pull on the camera time a player gets to have in a game. The best games are ones where everyone gets the spotlight on them for about the same amount of time so that they can enjoy themselves. And part of being a good player means that sometimes you have to be good with someone else having that focus on them.

However, for this game we had a player among us who didn’t appear to understand that at all. He was there to be the star of the story and run roughshod over the rest of us. If there was a split second where there was any pause, any bit of silence, you had to jump on it, otherwise he’d jump back in front of the camera. Had his play been more in line with something that is supposed to be grim and gritty, it might not have been so bad, but instead he was the comic relief.

And then, as sometimes happens in war, his character died. I must admit that I inwardly smiled because I thought “while he’s making a new character, someone else will have a chance to shine”. Sadly, it didn’t take him much time to find his replacement character, someone who apparently didn’t have a gun… in WW1… on the front lines… just… didn’t have one. He never volunteered exactly why he might not have a weapon, but I can tell he was hoping one of us would have asked him (we didn’t).

His antics were enough that two of the other players left mid-game. One didn’t come back from a bathroom break (he gave a flimsy excuse) while the second one literally just picked up his stuff and left in the middle of the game. Never seen that before.

So… that was a game we played. I wouldn’t mind trying it again sometime, just with different players.

 

 

Mazes at Midnight by 9th Level Games

In a strange twist, Egg Embry was tagged into duty to run a game. So Lee and I, along with another couple got our indoctrination via someone we play with weekly. Last year at Origins the best game we played was with 9th Level’s Polymorph system: you get one die, a d4, d6, d8, d10 and everything you do is via that one die. It is very simple and intuative and really is focused on being able to succeed most of the time. Heck, we were playing ancient heroes awakened to put down a Lich and Dragon we’d previously defeated eons ago.

But the best part was we played in the dark with flashlights and glowing dice to help illuminate our way. Music played in the background. It was a real event, and one that everyone bought into completely. The best games are those where everyone is having a good time, and this had that all across the room.

Again, 9th Level Games knocks it out of the park, and for me, comes away with the best game of the convention.

***

Even in the games where we might not have had the best time, hanging out with friends, getting to play games, and just see all the talented people with their various games out there is a nice way to recharge some of my own batteries. And it has me jonesing to play some more when I can!

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

Gen Con 2022 Recap – Part One

After a lost year in 2020 and us opting for Origins instead last year, we picked back up on the pilgrimage back to Indianapolis, Indiana for “The Best 4 Days in Gaming”. From the announced attendance of over 50,000, it appears that things are returning to pre-2020 attendance levels. And that could be felt in both the crowds and our hotel location.

Day 0

Before we get to the actual convention itself, a few words on the process this year. We arrived Wednesday night and figured we could go ahead and pick up our badges and show our vaccination cards leaving the rest of our time for gaming and whatnot. Since we’d rolled over our 2020 badges to this year, I don’t think there was an option to have them mail the badge to us like in previous years. Let me say that paying an extra $10 is well worth avoiding what was a 45-minute line on Wednesday evening. But that would turn out to be the shorter of the lines, as the one to show our vaccination information stretched throughout the convention hall, doubling back on itself. Even finding the end of the line was an accomplishment. While the line mostly moved, it still felt as if our lives hadn’t existed before the Line and when we died, others would simply step over our bodies and continue on the never-ending sequence.

(There is a horror story somewhere in here.)

After an hour and 15 minutes, we wound through the hall and entered the room, showed our information, and then decided that it would be great to find some food.

As Hooters was within sight, we attempted to eat there. I say attempted because we arrived about 20ish minutes before they closed. A fact they let us know multiple times. “We close at 10.”

I understand that they might be short-staffed, but considering you have a convention in town, maybe a bar might want to stay open a little later? Maybe?

“We close at 10.”

We took our food to go and headed back to the hotel.

One last aside… Gen Con uses a lottery system to determine housing. The earlier in the day your time is, the closer your hotel is going to be. With three of us you’d figure at least one would have a decent time, but this year we did not have the luck. The hotel, while nice, ended up around a 15-20 minute walk. And let me say, that when you’ve been walking all over all day, the last thing you want is another 20 minutes of walking before you can get back to the room. Maybe we need to keep an eye on the hotels throughout the year to see if perhaps some closer hotel rooms become available.

With the location we had, we were also on the far side of the convention center which limited some of our food options. Let’s just say we ate at the same pair of restaurants about 5 times over the time we were there.

 

Day 1

Before we’d even arrived at the convention, we’d been informed that due to a shortage of Game Masters, one of our sessions had already been canceled, leaving us with an odd schedule of 1 game Thursday, 1 game Friday, and then 3 games on Saturday. Looking for the silver lining, it meant we’d get most of our Dealer’s Hall stuff done on Thursday, allowing us to strategically attack the booths later in the weekend if there was something we wanted to buy. It was pretty packed with vendors with the occasional empty booth area for some last-minute cancellations (I think around 10 at most).

Day became night and we were onto our first game session:

Fallen Heroes by Magpie Games

 

An Urban Fantasy Horror Game where you take on the role of one of the supernatural (or supernaturally touched) people in the city. We had Fae, someone who’d sold their soul, a ghost, a wizard hunter, and a gambler who had psychic powers. Using the Powered By The Apocolypse game, one of the things I thought worked really well was the ties we came up with between our characters. You might owe another character a Debt in the game which meant they could potentially use it to perhaps convince you to do something to help them (or hinder someone else). But that whole sequence worked really well as everyone had some reason to know each other AND also have reasons to want to work together (which can be an obstacle in any one-shot style game).

There was also a Corruption Mechanic that looked interesting for more of a campaign. You can gain access to other powers at the cost of your soul – and eventually, if it gets too much, then you become an NPC. Again, more of a long-term thing, but I can see it being something cool as the story progresses.

Overall, I liked the game and really enjoyed the session.

 

Day 2

More dealer’s hall and then we made our way to our second game.

Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary by Onyx Path

 

We’ve played a few of the World of Darkness games over the years, but somehow none of us had ever played Wraith. The idea that you’d roleplay someone who has died and now has to deal with all sorts of horrific things on the other side is definitely intriguing. I’m reminded a little bit of the scenes in What Dreams May Come where Robin Williams has to descend into the more hellish portion of the afterlife – stepping on the undead/lost souls.

Overall the game feels interesting, though this actual session mostly focused on the Shadows. The Shadows are the dark voices in each of us which compel us to go against our better interests. In this game, we had 5 players as PCs and then 2 others who acted as our Shadows. While an interesting dynamic (especially since if you aren’t careful, the Shadow will take over), the big problem is that if the Shadow takes over, there isn’t much the PC can do to retake control. This means you are on the sidelines for as long as it takes to kill yourself. At the con, this creates a bit of a  Player vs. Player dynamic which adds a layer to the game, but I’m not sure how well it might work outside of that particular setting. Again, thinking about longer stories, it might be better for the GM to handle the interaction.

***

That was our first two days, leaving a jam packed Saturday featuring 3 games! Part 2 will be up next week!

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

RPG TV Friday – The Witcher, The Expanse, The Wheel of Time, Hawkeye, and Star Trek

It’s RPG TV Friday, December 17, 2021! The number of TV options with tabletop roleplaying games to check out this week/weekend is mindblowing! The Witcher, The Wheel of Time, Star Trek: Discovery, Hawkeye, and The Expanse all of new episodes. In addition, they have RPGs that you can pull out and use for your own stories set in those universes!

Netflix’s The Witcher Season 2 dropped. If you can’t watch, play with R. Talsorian Games’ The Witcher Pen & Paper RPG, an excellent fantasy game that recreates the world of the TV series, the video games, or the books, as you see fit. At d20 Radio, I talk about Lords and Lands: a Witcher TRPG Expansion.

Amazon’s The Expanse Season 6 Episode 2 dropped. Green Ronin Publishing’ The Expanse Roleplaying Game does an amazing job of recreating the show and the books. Since this is the last season of the show, the rest of the story (the three remaining books) will have to wait until the next project. But your table can play them out using Green Ronin’s AGE system to give the story a universe shattering conclusion.

Amazon’s The Wheel of Time Season 1 Episode 7 dropped. While there’s nothing in print at the moment, I talk about the Dungeons & Dragons’ version of the world from 2001 and 2002 at d20 Radio. If you’re a fan of the books and TV show, the RPG is worth digging up.

Paramount+’s Star Trek: Discovery Season 4 Episode 5 dropped. Modiphius Entertainment’s Star Trek Adventures will add Discovery to their list of games soon. In the meantime, your gaming group can play in the Star Trek universe, dealing with all of the Federation’s problems using Modiphius’ existing RPG.

Disney+’s Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye Season 1 Episode 5 dropped. While there have been a number of Marvel RPGs from TSR to Marvel to Margaret Weis Productions, there’s a new one coming from Marvel (again) and written by Matt Forbeck, Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game: Playtest Rulebook, which you can preorder on Amazon. If you want to roleplay through the Marvel universe, you have a variety of options to suit your play style.

#RPGTVFriday

 

Egg Embry participates in the OneBookShelf Affiliate Program, Noble Knight Games’ Affiliate Program, and is an Amazon Associate. These programs provide advertising fees by linking to DriveThruRPG, Noble Knight Games, and Amazon.

PRESS RELEASE: Battle Box Dice Roller: Reclaiming Time in Tabletop RPGs

Kickstarter coming soon for dice-rolling aid

Coming soon to Kickstarter is the Battle Box Dice Roller, the biggest improvement to dice-rolling at the table since the invention of the dice tower. Most tabletop RPGs require rolling multiple dice for attacks, modifiers, damage, and bonus damage sources. The Battle Box lets players roll them all at once for each attack, potentially saving 15 seconds or more per player per turn. It also provides a convenient place to note dice-roll modifiers, reducing the amount of time spent cross-referencing or double-checking character sheets. Over the course of a single combat-heavy game session, that can add up to nearly half an hour.

Designed by a D&D player for D&D and other tabletop RPG players, the Battle Box is a transparent plastic box with 5 compartments to roll dice in, and a slot on the lid where a ½” (~12.7 mm) high strip of paper with labels can be inserted. No special materials are needed. A strip cut off the edge of a standard sheet of paper and labeled by hand will work, making updates for use with multiple characters and changes over time a snap. The paper is held in a slot by a pair of tabs that go over it, plus small nubs at each end to keep it from sliding out of place easily.

A typical D&D player might label the box as such:

Attack d20+5 | Adv D20+Bless d4 | 1d6+4 piercing | 1d6 poison | 3d6 sneak attack

This rolls all dice for an attack at one time, separated by type and labeled by the player for easy accounting when dealing with enemies with resistances or vulnerabilities to specific damage types. The label also removes the need to cross-reference to a character sheet to determine what needs to be added to the to-hit or damage rolls.

Players in non-D&D systems can label this however they want for easy use when rolling 2d10 to as a d100, or whatever other dice combinations are needed. The individual compartments easily accommodate up to 4 dice each.

Designer Jonathan Hightower explains it like this:

“I have a lot of fun running my Dungeons & Dragons games, especially higher-level games where there’s a lot going on and a lot of attacks being thrown around. I typically have larger party of five to six players. I noticed that it would usually take time for people to pick out and roll the appropriate dice to attack, then cross-reference to their character sheet, then roll again for damage and cross-reference again to see what to add.

Even for someone who rolls all of their dice at once, separating out three or four different types of results, like attack versus regular damage versus damage from being a holy weapon versus the weapon also being on fire takes time. I tried to figure out how to make things more efficient, so we could spend more time playing and less time waiting on dice-rolling and math, and this was the result. It’s a simple concept, but I couldn’t find anything like it on the market.”

Design work for the Battle Box is complete, and a US-based manufacturer has been selected. The Kickstarter is expected to launch in June 2021. The pre-launch page can be followed at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/battlebox/battle-box-a-dice-rolling-aid

PRESS RELEASE: Symbaroum for 5E on Kickstarter April 13

Symbaroum for 5E Coming to Kickstarter April 13

Sign Up to be Notified!

The acclaimed world of Symbaroum has enticed and fascinated fans of tabletop roleplaying games since the launch in 2016.  Now this dark and mysterious world welcomes new adventurers, with an adaptation for 5E of the Symbaroum Player’s Guide, Game Master’s Guide and Bestiary.

The Kickstarter campaign will start April 13 at 3pm CET/9am US Eastern, and will offer a wide range of pledge levels, spanning from digital-only to an exclusive three-piece Collector’s Edition.

Of course, there will be numerous stretch goals to unlock, to grant extra value to the pledges of everyone supporting the project. Follow the link below to to register for news and notifications, and you will not miss the grand opening!

ABOUT SYMBAROUM
At the heart of Symbaroum lies the dark forest of Davokar that calls out to be explored, for the trees are covering the remnants of an empire which fell into ruin long ago. But the road into its depths lays far from open and the shadows beneath the foliage are fraught with danger.

Join the adventure in this brand-new 5E adaptation of the dark fantasy game Symbaroum. Explore the vast forests in the hunt for treasures, lost wisdoms, and fame. Seek out the barbarian clans to trade or plunder. Establish your base of power among princes, guilds, or rebellious refugees in the capital. And try and survive encounters with trolls, dark-minded beasts, and undead warlords.

But always remember the warnings spoken by the wardens of the forest. Tread carefully and do not disturb the ruins of old, for ancient evil stirs in its sleep.

The horrors of Davokar are about to awaken…

Ruins of Symbaroum 5E Teaser Trailer – Soon on Kickstarter!
What to Expect

Optional Rules: To emphasize the dark fantasy nature of the setting, new rules for traveling and rests, social challenges, magic, and Corruption are introduced. Alignments are (as a default) removed from play.

New Origins: Aside from familiar folks such as humans, elves, and dwarves, the Symbaroum game world lets you create PCs and NPCs who are changelings, ogres, goblins, trolls and even a particular form of undead.

New Classes: The Ruins of Symbaroum Player’s Guide presents the classes Captain, Hunter, Mystic, Scoundrel and Warrior – each with between four and seven approaches/sub-classes, and all of them with customized features up to lvl20.

Try It Now!
Since about six months back, there is a 109-page condensed Symbaroum 5E PDF available for free download from DriveThruRPG. It was designed as a proof of concept – meant to provoke a reaction from potential players, from within the established Symbaroum community as well as from the broader family of tabletop roleplaying gamers. And the response has been amazing!

With this free PDF, you can try out Ruins of Symbaroum:

  • Setting introduction, including a map of the game world
  • Customized rules for Shadow, Corruption and Rest
  • Two new origins (Goblin and Human) with traits and backgrounds
  • Three new classes (Mystic, Scoundrel, Warrior) with four new approaches
  • The tutorial adventure The Promised Land, introducing the setting & new rules
  • Four pre-made lvl 1 player characters
  • The bonus scenario Blight Night and updated lvl 2 PCs
Join our adventures on the Free League Youtube and Twitch!
Twitch www.twitch.tv/freeleaguepublishing
Youtube: www.youtube.com/c/FreeLeaguePublishing
This Weeks Streaming Schedule
Tuesday March 30 at 9pm CET/3pm EDT
Coriolis: Mercy of the Icons Actual Play
Brother Ramas gave K’Shar a secret communicator. What conspiracy will be revealed, or is it just a way for the Samaritans to track down our pesky crew?
https://www.twitch.tv/freeleaguepublishing 

Wednesday March 31 at 5pm CET/11 am EDT
FREE LEAGUE MONTHLY UPDATE!
Join Free League CEO & co-founder Tomas & Youtube-maestro Doug for the monthly update on all things Free League! The Q&A includes the latest about Symbaroum, ALIEN, The One Ring & more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euaRMKHoyLw

New Videos

Tabletop Gaming Spring Showcase 2021: Free League Publishing
Our very own Tomas talks about what’s coming up for Free League this year!
Find out more about Tales From The Loop – The Board Game, ALIEN, Twilight: 2000, The One Ring, Vaesen & Symbaroum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi_46-nIoFk 

Symbaroum: Alberetor – The Haunted Waste Video Q&A
Brave adventurer, find out more about Alberetor – The Haunted Waste, the coming adventure in the Chronicle of The Throne of Thorns, for the praised dark fantasy tabletop roleplaying game Symbaroum. Co-creator and lead writer Mattias delves deep into the new adventure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=layopk9Ehog

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Love’s Labour’s Liabilities – Postscript

So we are about a week past the end date of our submission for Kickstarter’s ZineQuest 3. How did it end up?

 

I think Stress was the watchword on this project with most decisions that we made focusing on how to limit the amount of stress we would have in running the Kickstarter, hitting our goals, and fulfilling the Kickstarter. So you’re going to see that word a lot in the recap below.

As I noted in my Kickstart the Game post, we reached our goal in about 5 hours which made it a lot less stressful (see, there’s that word!) than our first attempt at doing a Zine back during ZineQuest 1. During that campaign, we funded in the last hour or so which meant that for the entire duration of the Kickstarter we were constantly checking and double-checking the webpage. Now, this is a normal part of a Kickstarter… or at least for me it is, but it can’t be both distracting and at times deflating. You get the little highs when you check and the number goes up, but it is almost worse when the number just sits there, mocking you.

In comparison, Loves’ Labour’s Liberated’s (LLL1) goal was set at $1000 and Love’s Labour’s Liabilities’ (LLL2) goal was set at $400.

Why the difference in goals? Well first was the hope that we might fund earlier in the process and not get down to the last few minutes not knowing whether it was going to fund or not. The second was that we knew more about the process. Going into LLL1, between the 3 of us, only I had run a Kickstarter before and that was for the Gilded Age Graphic Novel. This was an RPG-related item that we were still figuring out. And we wanted to set what we thought was an achievable goal… technically we weren’t wrong. But with LLL2, we had learned what to do and what not to do.

Finally, there was the biggest reason for only having a $400 goal. We gave away LLL2 (pdfs) to all the LLL1 backers for free. Why did we do that? Well, we were late on delivering LLL1.

Really, really, really (add about 100 more “really”s and you start to get the point) late. We all dropped the ball on that and really there was no excuse for it.

This giveaway was an additional attempt to make up for all those delays. However, this created a different sort of problem: If you give away the zine to your previous backers then you are going to have to pretty much find all new backers for the new Kickstarter. Normally, when you do sequels to previous Kickstarters, you are counting on some percentage of backers to follow you to the next project. During LLL1 we had 81 backers. Doing things this way meant we were kind of starting from scratch with this one.

I should note that about a dozen backers for LLL2 had also backed LLL1, so it didn’t completely eliminate some repeat customers.

Of course, we didn’t know what to expect, so the $400 with a potential for some stretch goals made a ton of sense. And again, funding so quickly really let us focus on getting the word out rather than worrying so much on the $$.

This brings us to the single biggest difference between LLL1 and LLL2, we had completely finished LLL2 before the campaign went live. Obviously, we needed to have it done to deliver to LLL1 backers, but it was a conscious decision by all of us that we needed to get out in front of this so that there would be no question in anyone’s mind whether they’d have to wait a year or more to receive what they’d paid for. In fact, as we look to the future, I believe this is the best way to do any additional Kickstarters we run.

When LLL2 was all done, we actually eclipsed LLL1 in both total backers and total dollars:

LLL1 – 81 Backers for $1018

LLL2 – 86 Backers for $1134

This amount allowed us to unlock 3 stretch goals which were Bonus Art X-Cards for use at your gaming tables.

We delivered the updated LLL2 pdf immediately upon the campaign ending, and are now in the process of getting the dedications put into the pdf before it gets sent out to the printers. After that, the three of us will get together and pack up the zines and stretch goals to send out to the backers (which looks like it will happen the first weekend in March). All of this means that potentially everyone will get their Zines within about 5-6 weeks of the campaign ending.

***

Now what?

We’ve started talking about what a LLL3 might look like. I know Egg is looking to do another non-5e Zine at some point down the road on his own. And recently I’ve become enamored with the idea of maybe branching out from a 5e zine and looking at some of the other systems. Not sure exactly when any of those will be done, but I’m looking forward to working on them!

For all of you who backed either Kickstarter, I just want to thank you again for placing your faith and your hard-earned dollars behind these projects. The ability to do this is really the fulfillment of some dreams that we’ve all had since we first discovered roleplaying games.

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

 

PRESS RELEASE: Take to the clouds with Sky Islands

Aether Studios has set a new standard for STL publishers of tabletop gaming. SKY ISLANDS, the studios 3rd Kickstarter, takes fans above the clouds and into the steampunk metropolis of Aethertowne. To celebrate the launch, they are giving away a free 3d printable skyship, The Corsair, to all who check out the campaign on Kickstarter.

Studio co-founder Will Walker said of the project: “Our team has been working on this project for almost 3 years. Colin Christenson, our cofounder, started this project in 2018 shortly after we founded the studio. Along the way he helped his wife Liz bring their son Alex into the world. As our studio has grown, so has little Alex. All of us at Aether Studios are committed to making this project a success for him.”

SKY ISLANDS is filled with 3d printable terrain for cliff peaks that reach above the clouds, cities of steam, and skyships to pierce the heavens. The Kickstarter includes hundreds of models, including 30 miniatures in the core set. All of the models print without supports.

This is Aether Studios 3rd Kickstarter. Their two previous Kickstarter projects dealt with Swamp and Jungle settings from the World of Aach’yn series. Those two previous efforts raised a combined $40,000 for the studio and their design partners. Those numbers appear well on the way to being dwarfed by the current campaign, which generated over $10,000 on the first day.

The Kickstarter features several lines of miniatures, including a diverse human-birdfolk tribe, cosmopolitan miniatures for the city, and elemental creatures of sky, rock, and air. To cap off the miniatures in the core set, they also have a giant Cloud Dragon from Greek sculptor Nasos Maloudis

“This is the biggest project I’ve ever worked on” said Nasos Maloudis, the primary miniature sculptor for the Kickstarter. “The opportunity to bring so much of our best work to our fans and make them happy is why we do this.”

You can check out the Kickstarter and get the Corsair skyship free at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aetherstudios/sky-islands-3d-printable-terrain

PRESS RELEASE: Blacklist Games Announces Lasting Tales

“A cooperative tabletop miniatures game for 1-5 players by Mark Latham.”

Los Angeles, CA – Feb 3, 2021.

The world of Aetha was free of evil throughout its history. Since the Unthroning—when the gods were bound to the world through divine treachery—the power of Light was conceived, and in turn the Shadow was born, ushering in the malign force of evil to corrupt and inspire those mortal beings desperate enough to give in to its call. It is now the dawn of a new age, and the lands of Aetha are held under sway by the new struggle between good and evil, Light and Shadow. The call to adventure is ringing out louder than ever, and those brave enough to stand against the legions of Shadow will be the heroes of lasting tales for ages to come.

Blacklist Games is thrilled to announce Lasting Tales, a cooperative tabletop miniatures game for 1–5 players. Designed by acclaimed game designer Mark Latham (The Walking Dead: All Out War, The Elder Scrolls: Call to Arms), Lasting Tales lets players create their own heroes and embark on an epic campaign, linking game sessions together to create a rich story set in a classic fantasy world.

Inspired by pen-and-paper roleplaying games and tabletop skirmish games, Lasting Tales is a fully cooperative experience in which every player is the hero in their own tale, battling the enemy on their own or with their friends, and crafting their legend through the variety of events they’ll stumble upon during their journeys.

The Lasting Tales book contains all the rules you need to play the game, including hero creation, adversary profiles, campaign rules, scenarios, as well as a full narrative campaign—or Tale—and pre-made heroes to get new players right into the action! A game of Lasting Tales will also require a handful of standard six-sided dice, a tape measure or ruler, and miniatures. Fortunately, Lasting Tales is a miniatures-agnostic game, meaning players can use any fantasy miniatures in their collection.

Alternatively, Blacklist Games offers official miniatures for Lasting Tales in the form of our Fantasy Series miniatures line. Additionally, official Lasting Tales terrain will be available through Black Site Studios.

Lasting Tales launches its Kickstarter campaign on March 30, 2021, at 12:00pm EST and will offer exclusive price points and stretch goals for backers worldwide, as well as an optional set of compatible miniatures in the form of Fantasy: Series 2, the next in Blacklist Miniatures’ line of popular miniatures sets.

Visit https://www.blacklistgamesllc.com/lastingtales for more information and previews as we lead up to launch day.

Media Release: New to Roll20 – Dead Light and Other Dark Turns

The Call of Cthulhu release Dead Light and Other Dark Turns is now available on Roll20!

Two unsettling encounters on the road…

Dead Light and Other Dark Turns contains two scenarios for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition dealing with the theme of roadside adventure, along with six story seeds for the Keeper to expand and develop.

$14.99

Dead Light – In the classic Dead Light scenario, now revised, a chance encounter with a distressed young woman leads the investigators into the hideous aftermath of a crime gone terribly wrong.

Saturnine Chalice – In the brand-new Saturnine Chalice scenario, seeking help from a nearby homeowner after their vehicle runs out of gas traps the investigators in a house where nothing is quite what it seems.

Roll20 enhancements include :

  • All maps, handouts, art, and character sheets fully integrated and ready for the virtual tabletop.
  • Maps with GM layer information and dynamic lighting support (requires plus / pro subscription).
  • Dead Light Module (2-5 investigators plus Keeper)
  • Saturnine Chalice Module (2-5 investigators plus Keeper)
  • Scenario Seeds Addon (6 scenario seeds to help create your own scenarios)

What the Critics say about Dead Light and Other Dark Turns

“A strong, lean collection that provides a lot of high-quality playtime… a definite recommendation for keepers and players across the spectrum of experience.”
— Never Read the Latin, Review – Dead Light and Other Dark Turns.
“STYLE 5, SUBSTANCE 5 – Saturnine Chalice… is one of the best adventures of this length ever written for Call of Cthulhu, and a new favourite to pull on unsuspecting players, especially new ones… The plot will make jaws drop. It is sinister, it is devious, it is complex, it is evil. Dead Light is better than the first time, the six adventure hooks offer interesting ideas, both formulaic and exotic, and… what more does an adventure collection need to do anyway?”
— Antonios S., RPGNet Review – Dead Light and Other Dark Turns.

Play Call of Cthulhu with Roll20!

Throughout 2021 we’ll be adding more Call of Cthulhu releases to Roll20 on a regular basis. Other current titles include:

For useful tips and advice about playing Call of Cthulhu and other Chaosium games online, see our helpful Getting Started with Online Gaming guide.

PRESS RELEASE: The 13th Fleet

Starting Feb 1st on KS, The 13th Fleet is a sci-fi RPG of dark humor and treachery.

Using a standalone version of the Forged in the Dark system, it’s the story of questionable starship Captains and their dwindling supply of Redshirts trying to stay alive behind enemy lines, despite a pursuing armada and their own backstabbing.

The comedic setting and structured rules facilitate an occasionally adversarial game, where the only way Captains can relieve dangerous Stress is to cause each other Entanglements.

It’s a mix of Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet series, Blades in the Dark, Paranoia, Junta, and a Mirror Mirror FASA Star Trek setting.

While ZineQuest3 rules require a black and white saddle stitched booklet, additional pledge levels include digital assets of illustrated card decks to replace several charts in the game for playing on Roll20 (like we kind of all should be). ZineQuest also stipulates that the KS campaign can only run for two weeks, so the window to back this project is relatively narrow.

I’ve included samples of the KS header, order of play, and some samples of digital assets. While ZineQuest tends to run a little NSFW, I promise that Insult card is as adult as this game gets.

The campaign is at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/639598290/the-13th-fleet

PRESS RELEASE: Under the Seas of Vodari Kickstarter Launching February 3rd, 2021

Under the Seas of Vodari Kickstarter Launching February 3rd, 2021

Dive into a world full of action and adventure set beneath the waves of Vodari or your
own 5th Edition campaign world.

Under the Seas of Vodari is Tribality Publishing’s follow-up to the successful The Seas of Vodari Kickstarter. This full-color, 200+ page book will be available in both hardcover and PDF. Gamemasters will find support to run a single adventure or entire campaign in an underwater world full of interesting locations, NPCs, factions, adventure hooks, and monsters. Players will find tons of options for creating undersea characters or equipping their surface-dwelling adventurer for a single adventure.

The Undersea World of Vodari
Long ago, in the world of Vodari, a vast continent was annihilated and all but the outer edge of the continent sank to the bottom of the sea. The devastation left only a scattered few to start rebuilding civilization on a ring of islands and in the seas beneath…
Under the Seas of Vodari shares the swashbuckling inspiration of the original The Seas of Vodari book, but moves the stories underwater. You’ll find all the iconic things you expect in a fantasy setting, but the familiar becomes surprising, alien, and even terrifying.

● Dungeons are found below the waves, in the form of caves, shipwrecks, and lost temples.
● You’ll find variety and wonders, ranging from sprawling trade cities stretching from the seafloor to above the waves to the unexplored Wild Seas full of strange creatures and other dangers.
● The underwater world is a challenging environment where danger can come from any direction,
especially in the crushing pressure, frigid water, and inky darkness of the Midnight Depths.
● The most dangerous monsters are found below the waves, adapting to this alien environment in ways that will surprise and terrify players.

The undersea world holds the coral-spired homes of the vodas, the deepsea trench mines of the dwarves, the kelp forest villages of the elves, the carved seabed homes of the merfolk, and the sprawling cosmopolitan cities of Avalsi. It also has war camps full of sahuagin reavers, the trophy-marked territory of the merrow, gargantuan sea monsters, and ancient dwellers of the deeps.
Vodari’s underwater world is deep and full of people and places to visit as you leave the coast and descend through the Sunlit Seas, Twilight Waters, and Midnight Depths. The world beneath the waves is full of factions, characters, locations, and adventures. Just like The Seas of Vodari, all undersea locations are modular by nature and the book is designed for you to use as a detailed setting or to pick and choose what you like for your own game world.

What’s In the Book
Under the Seas of Vodari will provide you with tons of material to run an entire undersea campaign or just a single adventure…

An Undersea World to Explore
● A gazetteer full of factions, NPCs, locations, and adventure hooks providing you with countless
people and places for your players to interact with.

Player Options
● 12 race/lineage options including cecaelias, sea dragonborn, sea dwarves, grindylows, merfolk,
selkies, sirens, tiburons, and vodas.
● 13 subclass options including the Path of the Wild Seas, College of the Deep Dreamer, College of The Sunlit Seas, Ocean Domain, Circle of the Sea, Way of the Dancing Current, Oath of the Waves, Leviathan Hunter (Ranger), Dreadmask (Rogue), Scavenger (Rogue), and the School of Bloodbinding.
● Undersea themed backgrounds and feats.

Undersea Equipment, Vehicles, & Mounts
● Armor (seaweave, sharkskin, chitin, and more) and weapons (spearguns, harpoons, and more).
● Undersea gear, tools, trade goods, and trinkets.
● A collection of undersea vehicles which include sleds, chariots, and submersibles.
● An expanded undersea mounts list including dolphins, giant seahorses, manta rays, killer whales,
and sharks.

Magic
● New spells geared towards underwater combat and exploration for both surface-dweller and
aquatic adventurers.
● Undersea themed magic items, including powerful ancient relics.

Allies & Adversaries
● NPCs for your players to befriend as allies or face as adversaries.
● Stat blocks for 17+ undersea beasts including fish, dolphins, jellyfish, otters, seals, stingrays, and
whales.
● Monsters to challenge, amuse, and terrify your players including brain coral, deep anglers, sea
serpents, and strangling seaweed.
● Ancient and gargantuan leviathans of legend with high challenge ratings.

Gamemaster Tools
● Random tables for exploring undersea settlements and the wild seas between.
● Rules and advice for underwater combat and chases.
● Underwater hazards such as frigid water, crushing pressure, poisonous waters, air pockets,
currents, volcanoes and vents, and more.

The Sunken City of Zuroth
● Our dersea adventure designed for heroes from above or below the waves.
● Designed for levels 3 to 5 with notes for scaling provided.
Under the Seas of Vodari is already 80% complete! Everyone who backs this book will receive a copy of our 168-page Under the Seas of Vodari Quickstart Guide and won’t have to wait until the final book is ready to get started.

Visit the Under the Seas of Vodari Kickstarter page and begin your undersea adventure.

PRESS RELEASE: City of Flesh RPG Zine

City of Flesh is a tarot-based femmecore roleplay zine set in the rotting womb of a dying colossus. Launching on Kickstarter for ZineQuest3 on Thursday February 4th!

Nagara, the City of Flesh, is old and dying, and you are the only one who can ward off its Doom.

City of Flesh is a tarot-based roleplay game where you play one of the Midwives, a person imbued with primordial energy, tasked with staving off the end of the world as you know it. With your group and a tarot deck, you create the city of Nagara and its unique locations. Each session the characters inch ever closer to a Doom they’re working tirelessly to prevent, but must inevitably face as the chronicle ends.

The game has the dark horror feeling of a dungeon crawl, while focusing on mechanics that drive in-game drama and push personal stories. You’ll get embroiled in the various wars raging between guilds in the city and try to secure a bit of personal peace, before all your efforts crumble around you.

Delve into a game that takes inspiration from grimdark fantasy combining it with feminine imagery to create an immersive gore-splattered roleplay experience where you delve into the dreams of a sleeping colossus and tear through fleshy reality to make your own fate.

City of Flesh was created by Steffie de Vaan and Elizabeth Chaipraditkul. They are looking for €1,500 to bring this project to life. The zine will be 50+ pages, A5 sized, with a full colour cover and black and white interior.

Steffie de Vaan is a Dutch author and developer of role playing games and short stories. She developed the Legendlore RPG and V5: Fall of London, and has written for many other settings including Vampire the Masquerade, Changeling the Lost, Exalted, and Harlem Unbound.

Elizabeth Chaipraditkul is the owner of Angry Hamster Publishing and her new game Afterlife: Wandering Souls won an Indie Groundbreaker Award for best setting in 2020. She was the lead developer of the Crescent Empire book for 7th Sea by John Wick Presents, and has written for companies such as Onyx Path Publishing, Chaosium, and Modiphius Entertainment.

Find City of Flesh on ZineQuest3

PRESS RELEASE: New RPG Set in World of Avatar: TLA & TLoK (Magpie Games)

Magpie Games Inks Deal with ViacomCBS Consumer Products for Roleplaying Game Based On Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra

Albuquerque, NM–February 03, 2021–Magpie Games has secured a multi-year licensing agreement with ViacomCBS Consumer Products to produce a tabletop roleplaying game set in the world of Nickelodeon’s animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra.

“The stories of Avatar are so moving for us because they are joyous and heartbreaking,” says Mark Diaz Truman, CEO of Magpie Games. “We’re incredibly excited to bring the tales of brave benders and loyal friendships to tabletop roleplaying games; we know so many fans of both series have been waiting years for this moment! We’re also thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Asian designers like James Mendez Hodes to bring the world of Avatar Aang and Avatar Korra to life in a way that’s true to the authentic, diverse spirit of both shows.”

“We believe Magpie Games is the ideal partner to develop a roleplaying game based on Avatar: the Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra” says Pam Kaufman, President, Global Consumer Products, ViacomCBS. “Their commitment to supporting diverse content from diverse creators along with their exceptional game product made them the right choice to bring the world of Avatar to tabletop roleplaying games.” For other fund games to try, here you will find the aloha christmas slot game.

This roleplaying gameis a unique opportunity for fans of the show to return to a beloved setting—this time as the heroes of the story! Rising to meet their destiny, players will make characters using playbooks—templates that help players build and play compelling protagonists in the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra. Together they might protect local merchants from the Triple Threat Triad in Republic City, travel through a spirit portal to rescue a child taken into the Spirit World, negotiate peace between feuding communities within the Earth Kingdom, or pursue mysteries (and villains) that arise throughout their adventures!

The roleplaying game’s Core Book is slated for a February 2022 release with two supplements to follow in August 2022 and February 2023 titled Republic City and The Spirit World respectively.

Click here to learn more.

Kickstart the Game – Love’s Labour’s Liabilities

Check out Leland Beauchamp’s, Egg Embry’s, and John McGuire’s 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons Zine!

We live, we love, and sometimes we lose. All are part of life, and yet the last part is the thing that will not only knock us to the ground but put so much weight on our chest that we may never find a way to get back up again.

***

So I am a part of a new Kickstarter…

And for the first time, it is a sequel to something I’ve already contributed to:

Love’s Labour’s Liabilities.

You can check it out here.

***

We launched on Monday around 11 AM and by the time I’d gotten back from a doctor’s appointment at 2:30 PM, we had funded! It was a modest goal this time of $400, but there is definitely a huge sigh of relief when you hit your goal. It makes it so that you can actually enjoy the ride a little bit more. We’ve now begun to focus on Stretch Goals which will be a bonus X-Card for use at your table.

This year marks the 3rd annual (I’m assuming) Kickstarter Zine Quest for the month of February. What’s Zinequest you might ask? Well, if you cast your mind back to the 60s or 70s or 80s when you would go into a record shop or comic shop or gaming store and had those pamphlet looking things sitting there that were put together by hand… that’s basically what a Zine is. Yes, today we have programs that allow it to be done a bit easier, but the goal is the same. These are ideas that have been percolating since our successful Kickstarter of Love’s Labour’s Liberated during Zine Quest 1, and that Do-it-Yourself attitude has gotten to us again.

But we learned from the last Kickstarter. This time the whole thing is completely done and ready to go. So the only thing you will have to wait on is the actual printings, but the day after the campaign ends, you’ll have your pdf!

***

This time we are focusing on more of a darker part of the love relationships… the loss part… the obsession part…

It seems like when I’m thinking of ideas for the backstories for any characters I play, I drift toward those who might have a little bit of darkness in them. Perhaps there was an unrequited love, perhaps there was something more devious at hand. That’s what we’ve tried to provide for players in this Zine. A Broken Hearted Monk. An elemental force of nature obsessed with it’s Warlock. New spells, magic items, and much more. All options for bringing even more depth to your 5th Edition games.

***

Like I said on the first Zine Quest we did, you never know who is going to potentially read your work. My hope is that everyone who gets it and reads it is able to use at least one thing from it in their home games.

I hope you take the opportunity to check out the Kickstarter!

***

John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.

He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!

Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.

His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.

He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com

PRESS RELEASE: Backwater: Southern Gothic Horror Tabletop Roleplaying (TTRPG)

Backwater is a southern-gothic horror tabletop roleplaying game in the style of survival horror. Its Kickstarter campaign launches on January 25th, 2021 at 8:00 PM CST. In Backwater, you play as a warden—a roaming peacekeeper—in the post-apocalyptic South. You’re tasked with keeping order at civilization’s southern reach: Backwater ward, a post-apocalyptic region that spans the Old World’s Louisiana, Mississippi, and southern Arkansas. Your job is to wander among the bogs, quell conflicts between towns and families, and keep monsters at bay.

A warden encountering a swampfiend at dusk. Art by Natalie de Corsair

The game’s southern gothic genre places characters in a southern U.S. setting, where the decaying structures and deteriorating aristocratic families reflect society’s superficial values and moral degradation. Outside civilization, monstrosities—abnormally large and aggressive beasts—roam, and mysterious monsters haunt Backwater, including conventional creatures of gothic horror as well as original creatures, like Gores, skinless humanoids who hunt unsuspecting travelers at night, and Hollow Men, slow-moving humanoids covered in in fungal growths who travel in hordes.

A hungry Hollow (left) and a wounded Gore (right). Art by LA Draws.

The game system is original, and it was designed for streamlined D20 rolls, flexible yet thorough character creation, and an abundance of skills that they can use. Characters are not nearly so invincible as they are in fantasy games, and they’re not so limited as in cosmic horror. Players can choose between four types of wardens: Savants (the brains and the faces), Seekers (the explorers and thieves), Seers (the psychics and magic users), and Slayers (the ranged and melee fighters). Their wardens quickly become more proficient in skills every time they level, and they gain new abilities every four levels. Characters can also advance by completing “achievements,” minor bonuses that they gain by accomplishing specific tasks during gameplay.

Left to Right: A Seeker and her wolfhound companion, a Seer and his whisper lantern, a Savant with a book and a bonesaw, and a Slayer with a bayonet. Art by Natalie de Corsair

Pledges are rewarded with the core rulebook (interactive, hosted eBook) and early access to the Systems Reference Document (SRD). Backers can also purchase add-ons, which include the hardcover core rulebook and the Backwater Adventures modules, among other enticing items.

Links:

 

-=-=-=-

The following paragraphs are taken from the campaign page:

 

A Statement on Race and Racism

We plan to use Kickstarter funding to commission sensitivity readers to edit for racist and ableist content. Much southern gothic fiction has confronted the South’s ugly history of racism. It has sought to undermine idealized, antebellum values relating to slavery, reflecting society’s moral decay in crumbling buildings and conflict-filled families. It’s a pointed focus of more recent works within the genre, as some early literature reinforced racism in the process of confronting it. Racism is not a theme in BackwaterBackwater seeks a careful balance: to establish a setting in which everyone can comfortably roleplay, without erasing or ignoring centuries of oppression.

The American Lands emerged from the apocalypse just as racially and ethnically diverse, by modern day’s standards, especially in New Orleans where many residents descend from African American and/or Haitian, German, French, or Spanish, Vietnamese, and Native American ancestry. Many stereotypes and inequities built around skin color and regional ancestry faded after The Old World ended in Backwater—they are not built into the game. Of course, figurative ghosts of slavery and racial oppression haunt the American south as a setting, including its structures, monuments, and cemeteries. We cannot forget this history or pretend that it did not happen, and we strongly encourage game masters to carefully consider the implications of custom settings before running a game. If a game master is uncertain, we suggest they converse with their players first and use a technique like John Stavropoulos’s X-Card system to edit out uncomfortable or triggering content.

 

A Statement on Disability

Backwater departs from southern gothic fiction in its treatment of characters with deformity, disfiguration, and disabilities. Although characters with short or tall stature, missing limbs, and affected cognition are commonly represented in southern gothic literature, some fiction including southern gothic, sci-fi, and fantasy depicts deformity and disability in the style of the “grotesque,” which invites audiences to gaze with fear, pity, or disgust. A common theme in southern gothic dictates that bodily disability is an external manifestation of an inner or regional corruption of morals. More recent literature seeks to disrupt these ableist notions. We hope Backwater can do the same while representing a diversity of people with disabilities.

As in reality, the people of Backwater have disabilities; many of these disabilities are invisible; and they make people unique without necessarily defining them. Physical, cognitive, and psychological disabilities are even more ubiquitous as a result of The End and the American Lands’ harsh environment. Backwater represents a world where disability does not necessarily equate to suffering and people with disabilities are consciously represented—not only as victims and villains but also as heroes and everyday characters. We recognize that our efforts do not explicitly confront ableist notions or perform advocacy, but we do hope the game represents disability respectfully. We encourage game masters to carefully consider how/whether they incorporate these themes in Backwater, perhaps beginning a discussion with the players and ensuring that they do not accidentally represent disability or deformity as the “grotesque” of bygone art and literature. Again, a game master and participants may wish to use a method like John Stavropoulos’s X-Card system to edit out uncomfortable content.

Press Release: Grab your free preview of Crystalpunk, a magic-fueled future for D&D 5e

Grab your free preview of Crystalpunk, a magic-fueled future for D&D 5e

Plus Three Press recently announced the launch date of their upcoming Kickstarter project – Crystalpunk, a futuristic D&D campaign setting where spells, souls, demons, and infused crystals fuel brutal, unique technology. There are two free previews of Crystalpunk that you can get right now for free: a new class perfect for creating cyborgs and mutants called the Evolutionist, and a short story set within the world: the Soul Thief.

The campaign setting launches on Kickstarter February 3rd and aims to answer the question – “What would a fantasy setting look like in a dark future?” It will include a unique neo-noir world with corporate cults and magic-powered megacities, new character options including races, subclasses, spells and equipment, and everything else you’ll need to run campaigns in a magic-fuelled future. You can learn more about Crystalpunk at Plus Three Press’s website.

Media Release: New Gamemaster Month 2021 has commenced, and RuneQuest is one of the featured games

MEDIA RELEASE – for immediate release

This month is New Gamemaster Month, and we’ve joined our friends at Monte Cook Games, Evil Hat, Pelgrane Press, Arc Dream, and Atlas Games in providing a step-by-step hands-on process that guides prospective GMs up to and through their first game, with plenty of inspiration and advice along the way.

RuneQuest is Chaosium’s featured game for New Gamemaster Month. Download the RuneQuest Quickstart Rules and Adventure for free, or order a Print or POD copy with a 25% discount this month (you also get the PDF free).

Chaosium vice president Michael O’Brien told EN World:

“We’ve enjoyed taking part in New Gamemaster Month for several years now. For this time round we’re featuring our fantasy roleplaying game RuneQuest. In addition, we appreciate that now more than ever, it can be difficult for people to get together in the same place to play.

So in our New Gamemaster Month materials we’ve included some helpful information for first-time GMs who are going to do this online (on Zoom, Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, etc.) We want to make a new GM’s first online experience running a game as easy and as fun as it would be at regular tabletop gaming, around a table!”

The New Gamemaster Month pitch to prospective first-time GMs is:

“Have you thought about GMing—maybe always wanted to give it a shot—but haven’t quite taken the plunge? What if we told you that by the first week in February, you could be an honest-to-goodness GM—and it’ll be easy!”New Gamemaster Month has officially kicked off:

So take a New Year’s resolution to join us, and finally make that leap into GMing! 

Contact information:

Press Release: PATHFINDER® FOR SAVAGE WORLDS COMING TO KICKSTARTER JANUARY 2021

MEDIA ALERT: MODIPHIUS ENTERTAINMENT ANNOUNCES DECEMBER 2020 PRE-ORDER DATE FOR DUNE: ADVENTURES IN THE IMPERIUM ROLEPLAYING GAME

MODIPHIUS ENTERTAINMENT ANNOUNCES DECEMBER 2020 PRE-ORDER DATE FOR DUNE: ADVENTURES IN THE IMPERIUM ROLEPLAYING GAME
Cover reveal heralds December pre-order and advance preview
London. 24h November. With a pre-order launching the second week of December 2020, the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium roleplaying game challenges you to take control of Arrakis and the power of the spice Melange.
Be the first to set foot on Arrakis. The Dune: Adventures in the Imperium roleplaying game takes you into a far future beyond anything you have imagined, where fear is the mind-killer so be sure to keep your wits about you. The Imperium is a place of deadly duels, feudal politics, and mysterious abilities. Noble houses constantly politic for power, influence, and vengeance in a universe where a blade can change the fortunes of millions. Build your house, carve your place in the universe, and fight for the Imperial throne. Take your characters on a journey through the worlds of the seminal Dune sci-fi book series from Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert, and Kevin J. Anderson, inhabiting elite agents working for noble houses where mentats, swordmasters, spies, Bene Gesserit sisters, devious advisors, or even desert Fremen join together to follow your banner.
Whoever you choose to be, remember that those that control the spice control the universe.
Those who sign up to the Dune tabletop roleplaying game pre-order will be able to claim a PDF preview of the core rulebook before the Spring launch and the pre-order will be available through local retailers as well as the Modiphius webstore.
Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme (Kult, Magic: the Gathering) illustrated the stunning art cover and fans will also have the opportunity to show their allegiance to House Atreides, House Harkonnen, or the Imperial House Corrino with three special collector’s edition covers. To supplement these, you can expect a gamesmaster screen, journal, and dice set accessories with more releases for 2021 to be announced.
As we approach the pre-order, sign up to get exclusive previews of more incredible art and insight into the game at:
Join the conversation at:

Media Release: Alone Against the Tide – Chaosium releases new solo adventure for Call of Cthulhu

Here’s something new to play if you’re staying in over Thanksgiving – our latest Solo Call of Cthulhu release, Alone Against the Tide.

Buy the Alone Against the Tide PDF from Chaosium.com now, get the full price of the PDF off the physical product when it’s out in the new year (March).

SOLITAIRE ADVENTURE BY THE LAKESHORE

What has Professor Harris’ research got to do with the strange green fog enveloping the town? Who are the menacing, dark-suited men that arrived on the ferry with your investigator? And, why is a Buddhist monk visiting Esbury, a town more used to entertaining New England’s wealthy elite?

Take on the role of an investigator traveling to a remote lakeside town where strange things are happening. Decide your path through the story, and the fate of the citizens of Esbury!

Alone Against The Tide is a solo scenario. All you need is this book, and your copy of the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set or Keeper Rulebook, some dice and pencils, and you’re ready to begin your horrific trip to the lakeside town in Massachusetts!

Solo Call of Cthulhu scenarios are also perfect for playing with a friend or partner – read the story aloud, make choices, roll dice, and explore the story together!

Alone Against the Tide

Publisher: Chaosium
Ruleset: 7th Edition Call of Cthulhu
Year Released: 2020
Format: Full Color PDF
Page Count: 86
ISBN: 978-1-56882-351-5
Author: Nicholas Johnson
Cover Artist: M. Wayne Miller
Interior Artists: Doruk Golcu, Andrey Fetisov
Layout: Nicholas Nacario

PDF: $6.99
MSRP for Softcover: $14.99 (Mar 2021)

Contact information:

CHAOSIUM INC.
Michael O’Brien
mob@chaosium.com
chaosium.com

###

Our award-winning roleplaying games, boardgames, and fiction have been acclaimed as some of the most engaging and innovative of all time. For more than forty years, Chaosium Inc. has captivated gamers, readers, and mythic adventurers worldwide.The Chaosium was founded by visionary game designer Greg Stafford in 1975.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChaosiumInc
Our forums: http://basicroleplaying.org
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Chaosium_Inc
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com.au/chaosium
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chaosium
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ChaosiumInc
Twitch TV: https://www.twitch.tv/chaosiuminc

Media Release: The ALIEN RPG Launched on Virtual Tabletop Platforms – Stay Alive If You Can

Free League Publishing

Free League Publishing logotype

 

​The ALIEN RPG Launched on Virtual Tabletop Platforms – Stay Alive If You Can

Free League Publishing – Oct 27, 2020 14:00 GMT

 

“I can’t lie to you about your chances, but … you have my sympathies.”

Space is vast, dark, and not your friend. Now you and your crew can explore the ALIEN universe through virtual tabletop gaming. The award-winning official ALIEN RPG was launched today on two VTT platforms: Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds.

At Roll20, you can find a virtual tabletop version of the ALIEN RPG Starter Set, including all the rules you need to play and the full-length cinematic scenario Chariot of the Gods, written by scifi author Andrew E.C. Gaska. On the platform you can also find the scenario Destroyer of Worlds, a sequel to Chariot of the Gods also written by Gaska and requiring only the Starter Set to play.

On Fantasy Grounds, you can find the ALIEN RPG core rulebook, a full conversion of the hardcover book of a massive 392 pages, as well as the Chariot of the Gods and Destroyer of Worlds scenarios.

All modules are fully integrated with the VTT platforms, with online maps and diagrams, player handouts ready to share, online character sheets, customized virtual dice roller, and more.

The core rulebook for the official ALIEN roleplaying game was released in December 2019 in partnership with 20th Century Studios. The game immediately sold out its first print run and swiftly entered the Top-5 list of best-selling tabletop RPGs in the fall of 2019. It won the ENNIE Award for Best Game 2020 and the People’s Choice Award for Best RPG at the UK Game Expo. The game is currently being translated into seven languages.

The award-winning Tales From the Loop RPG was the first Free League title to launch on Roll20, and the Symbaroum dark fantasy RPG is available on Fantasy Grounds. More games from the game portfolio will be launched on virtual tabletop platforms in a near future.

[For review copies or interview requests, please email to pr@frialigan.se]

GEN CON HALLOWEEN STREAM: ALIEN

Join  the Gen Con Halloween Gaming Weekend, Oct 30-31!
Watch a live play of ALIEN: The Roleplaying Game, get spooky at the Gen Con watch party, and play the Alien RPG on the Gen Con Discord. https://www.twitch.tv/gencont

Alien RPG – Review quotes:

“Move over, Dungeons & Dragons, Swedish publisher Free League has released Alien: The Roleplaying Game, and it is as great as it is terrifying.”
–TheGamer

“The real horror of Ridley Scott’s seminal sci-fi flick Alien has always been the creeping, slithering fear of the unknown. It’s impressive, then, that Free League has been able to craft a tabletop roleplaying game that can conjure up that same pitch-dark dread from the safety of your kitchen table.”
–Dicebreaker

Free League Publishing is a Swedish publisher dedicated to speculative fiction. We have published a range of award-winning tabletop role-playing games and critically acclaimed art books set in strange and wondrous worlds.

Our game portfolio include the official ALIEN The Roleplaying Game (Gold ENNIE for Best Game 2020), the Nordic horror roleplaying game Vaesen, the pitch-black apocalyptic fantasy RPG Mörk Borg, the alternate ’90s Things from the Flood, the alternate ’80s Tales from the Loop (winner of five ENNIE Awards 2017, including Best Game), the sandbox retro fantasy Forbidden Lands (winner of four ENNIE Awards 2019), the postapocalyptic Mutant: Year Zero (Silver ENNIE for Best Rules 2015), the space opera Coriolis – The Third Horizon (Judge’s Spotlight Award 2017) and the dark fantasy game Symbaroum.

We have also published the art books Tales from the Loop, Things from the Flood and The Electric State by internationally acclaimed visual artist Simon Stålenhag, as well as the illustrated edition of the Lovecraft classic The Call of Cthulhu by the praised French artist François Baranger.

Website: www.freeleaguepublishing.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/FriaLigan
Instagram: http://instagram.com/frialigan/
Youtube: www.youtube.com/c/FrialiganSe
Twitter: http://twitter.com/FriaLigan
Twitch: www.twitch.tv/freeleaguepublishing

 

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Media Release: Community Ambassadors appointed for Chaosium’s Miskatonic Repository and Jonstown Compendium

Chaosium has appointed Community Ambassadors for its Miskatonic Repository and Jonstown Compendium community content programs on DriveThruRPG.

The Miskatonic Repository is Chaosium’s platform on DriveThruRPG for independent creators of gaming material for the Call of Cthulhu tabletop roleplaying game. It was launched in December 2018. The Jonstown Compendium, established in December 2019, fulfils the same function for RuneQuest and Greg Stafford’s world of Glorantha.

The success of these fan-driven programs is evident by their thriving communities of creators and the rapidly growing number of titles available, with more added every week.

Allan Carey (below left) is the Miskatonic Repository Community Ambassador and Nick Brooke (below right) is the Jonstown Compendium Community Ambassador.

On Chaosium’s behalf, they will act as a first point-of-call and helpful sound board for prospective Miskatonic Repository and Jonstown Compendium content creators.

They can provide advice with the various aspects of creating and publishing a community content work, including ideas generation, IP issues, writing, editing, art direction, layout, publication, and preparing a title for print-on-demand. They can also direct queries to the appropriate person at Chaosium or DriveThruRPG if need be.

Chaosium vice president Michael O’Brien said:

“Nick was recently awarded the Greg Stafford Memorial Award for Gloranthan Fandom for 2020 for his passionate advocacy of the Jonstown Compendium. We’re happy to formalise that advocacy with this appointment.

And Allen is a highly experienced and award-winning content creator with a deep and dedicated love of the Call of Cthulhu RPG.

We are pleased to have both on board to work directly with our growing band of independent writers and artists at DriveThruRPG.”

What is the Miskatonic Repository?

Under The Miskatonic Repository community content license, Call of Cthulhu fans can make their own work for use with the game line available to the public, using guidelines, templates, and art provided by Chaosium.

What is the Jonstown Compendium?

Under the Jonstown Compendium community content license, fans of Greg Stafford’s world of Glorantha can sell and share their own material on DriveThruRPG.

Check out the Jonstown Compendium Guidelines and start creating!

Contact information:

CHAOSIUM INC.
Michael O’Brien
mob@chaosium.com
chaosium.com

###

Our award-winning roleplaying games, boardgames, and fiction have been acclaimed as some of the most engaging and innovative of all time. For more than forty years, Chaosium Inc. has captivated gamers, readers, and mythic adventurers worldwide.The Chaosium was founded by visionary game designer Greg Stafford in 1975.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChaosiumInc
Our forums: http://basicroleplaying.org
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Chaosium_Inc
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com.au/chaosium
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chaosium
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ChaosiumInc
Twitch TV: https://www.twitch.tv/chaosiuminc

PRESS RELEASE: Acheron on Kickstarter

Acheron

“They say whoever controls the flow of history, can write the future. For centuries, The Council has curated the past. But now they are silent, the Reclamation Act ratified, and history once again open to study. The future has yet to be written and the pen is in your hands.”

Kickstarter Link – https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/acheronrpg/acheron-a-grimpunk-tabletop-rpg

What is Acheron?

  • At its core Acheron is about sacrificing your humanity, both temporarily and permanently, to fight against the horrors that inhabit the world. Whether they be cultists, madmen, beasts, or the strange Outsiders.
  • Mystery, monsters, and magic collide in this 1930s era setting where The Government controls the path of History, Factions war for resources, and The Wall looms forever upon the horizon.

Mechanics

  • We think tabletop role-playing should be just as focused on Roleplay as it is on combat.
    • To that end we have implemented a free-form progression system that allows players to build nearly any character they can imagine, from a blind telekinetic to a Demon infested pacifist.
    • Merits and Flaws allow players to spend or receive experience to gain major, character defining bonuses or detriments.
    • A realistic Sanity system allows characters to experience three major categories of trauma: Moral, Violent, and Supernatural. It also allows them to regain sanity through different means such as comradery with friends and psychological treatment.
      • Our Sanity system reflects the fact that this is a mature game with mature themes. It’s important that Players and Game Masters have the opportunity to explore these themes but should also be aware of their potentially triggering nature.
    • There is a huge range of the types of characters that can be created and how they may progress and evolve throughout a campaign will always be different.

 

  • Simplified Realism informs all parts of Acheron. This has led to the implementation of deadly, gritty combat and creation of a believable world and cultures.
    • On average a player starts with 6 health, and a 9mm pistol deals 1d10 damage.
    • Cover and armor play a large roll in combat. Without taking them into account one will surely parish.
    • Many weapons can penetrate armor and cover can be destroyed.
    • A large variety of statuses, both physical and mental, can change the flow of combat and a game session.
    • No one enjoys their character dying due to an unlucky roll, however. So, we’ve implemented a Die Hard system where players can choose to take permanent flaws to keep their character alive.
    • Magic and Mancies (Mancies are akin to sorcery in other settings), are an integrated part of the world and can be used for both Roleplay and combat.

Inspirations

  • Call of Cthulhu, Lovecraft, and Cosmic Horror
    • Bloodborne is an amazing game with an amazing atmosphere. It inspired a major faction in the world (The Hunters Guild) and many of the more classical monsters in our world.
    • Call of Cthulhu has had many iterations but it’s use of Sanity as a primary concern for players inspired us to iterate and bring it to the forefront of Acheron.
    • Lovecraft and other Cosmic Horror was the basis for the Wall, planes of Magic, and Outsider enemies within the world. Giving our setting a strangeness that cannot be understood or fathomed by normal people without suffering madness.
  • Strong foundation from Dungeons and Dragons 3.5
    • 3.5 D&D set the standard for d20 based tabletop roleplaying games. It influenced our core stats and the way skills function and progress in the game.
  • World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness
    • World of Darkness was the foundation of our free-form progression system and using experience points to create and advance your character.
  • Dishonored and the SCP foundation
    • Dishonored has an atmosphere we wanted to give to our world, where even the city streets can be oppressive yet there is still a wealth of culture, history, and sense of discovery.
    • The organizations and large body of work the SCP foundation has produced inspired a lot of the secretive aspects of our Government and other factions.
    • Both Dishonored and SCPs were huge influences on our Outsider enemies which can at times be stranger than the Eldritch horrors which roam the world.
  • The Witcher 3
    • The monsters in the Witcher all have a weakness you can exploit if prepared, we wanted to emulate this fact to give the enemies you fight more depth.
  • Numenera
    • Value of simplicity in gaming and putting the focus on Roleplay.
    • Numenera also influenced the way characters level up in Acheron. Instead of getting experience from every monster killed or objective performed you gain it for completing milestones along a quest.
  • Science and History
    • Our core team is composed of a Biologist, Engineer, and Anthropologist. For these reasons we have focused on crafting systems and lore that are realistic and believable. Many historical events, such as the Civil Rights movement, suffrage movement, and Anarchism movement of the early 20th century as well as the governmental reaction to those movements were huge influences on the world of Acheron. As were the industrial revolution and tycoons of the time.

The World

  • Acheron is set in a 1930’s era world dominated by a singular Government and many powerful factions.
  • The totality of the world is surrounded by a massive Wall, thought impenetrable until the Breach which erased centuries of progress and loosed countless horrors into the world.
  • The world is broken up into Districts, all ruled by the Government. However, each has its own Governor, laws, culture, and systems of governance.
  • At the center of the world, in the Central Districts, most do not believe in magic or monsters while those on the fringes of society know the truth about magic, or at least a part of it.
  • History has been covered up and curated since the Breach. Now is the first time it is legal to study the past. This has led to a new age of adventure and societal renaissance. The Reclamation Act, our inciting incident, is the driving force for this shift in culture.
  • Magic has grown stronger in the world after the Breach. All domains of which have their own flavor.
    • Arcane – Anti-magic, direct damage, and buffs for allies. Uses the Arcane energy found in Ley Lines which crisscross the world.
    • Fay – Situational and sly. Controls the lines of fate and allows for trickery and rerolling failed checks.
    • Spirit – As varied as nature. Spirit magic allows for many play styles and has three modifiers for every spell based on the leaves, trunk, and roots of the world tree.
    • Demonic – Fast and dirty. Demonic magic is about hurting the enemy more than you hurt yourself.
    • Eldritch – Terrifying for both the caster and enemy. Sap Sanity and tear at the mind of your enemy ignoring the mundane defenses people surround themselves with.
  • Mancies are inhuman abilities that allow seemingly normal men and women set fire to buildings, persuade even the most stubborn enemy, and move objects with their minds.

“Though the majority of citizens don’t even believe in magic, magical ability is possessed by many in the world of Acheron. Many different organizations and peoples have differing ideals concerning the use of magic. Some say it’s not real but are still cautious and hateful of anything they can’t understand while others believe in its existence but believe it is a corrupting force used for evil.”

The Races

Three “Races” inhabit the world of Acheron: Humans, Darkleechers, and Soulmenders. Each with their own pedigrees.

Humans:

  • Diverse of heredity and place of birth but largely uniform in overarching culture since the Governments rise to power.

  • Creative and curious humans have an eye constantly towards the future. 

  • Humans have many outliers and no singular direction of action unlike other pedigrees such as the Ellsons.

War Born:

  • An ancient, tribal people who manage to retain slivers of their unity even under the boot of the Government. 

  • War Born honor and express their heritage though they know little of it.

  • War is ingrained into every facet of their society from dance and storytelling to education and play. 

Grey Blood:

  • The most diverse of all great families, the Greys believe in passion. Marrying, generation after generation, to the most brilliant and ingenious minds of the age.

  • Estranged and odd compared to their counterparts, the Greys are generally seen as outsiders by the masses despite their diversity.

  • A great stain blemishes the Grey bloodline, the opening of the Breach by one of it’s once most enlightened ancestors.

Ellson House: 

  • Older than the Breach and Government, the Ellson house has stood the test of time.

  • Closed off and suspiciously similar of feature, this family has kept itself in power by controlling the majority of banking across nearly all districts in Acheron.

  • Aristocrats often thought to be stuck in a bygone age, the Ellsons play for future reward, never allowing themselves to be bogged down by today’s issues.

Gripes of the Church:

  • Gripes are children born to those in the Twin God’s clergy.

  • Raised as servants of the Church they may become priests to spread the holy word or Pariahs to protect the faithful.

  • Those among the Gripes with gender neutral features are prized and hermaphrodites honored as the highest human form of Nyx, goddess of chaos, and Darium, god of order.

Exalted:

  • Exalted were once outcasts, lepers, plague victims, outlaws, and banished. Their exile under the shadow of the Wall has twisted and mutated them for generations. Now they are barely recognizable as human in origin.

  • Often Exalted will form conclaves and extensive “families” that perform the dirty work in civilized society others shy away from. Primarily this takes the form of great executioner lineages.

  • Now, with the Reclamation Act passed, Exalted may walk city streets freely for the first time in memory and become a greater part of the society they’ve been shunned from for so long. 

Fae Darkleecher:

  • Colorful of skin and personality, Fae Darkleechers are often outgoing and boisterous which their subculture reflects.

  • Known as the most exotic Darkleechers the Fae often integrate freely into human society where invited or live among Darkleechers as artists, philosophers, and intellectuals.

  • Their natural connection with Fae magic and Line of Fate make them quite crafty and drawn to mysticism such as horoscopes and fortune tellers.

Spirit Darkleecher:

  • Spirit Darkleechers are as diverse both in looks and culture as nature itself.

  • Often these Darkleechers are known for their wisdom but are also known as feral and dangerous among many closed-minded human groups.

  • A deep connection with the natural world and spirit realm give them a great amount of empathy for all living things but can also lead to a stoic cold heartedness for humankind.

Demonic Darkleecher:

  • The most human, both in looks and culture, Demonic Darkleechers are often seen mixing freely between both Human and Darkleecher society.

  • Generally they work as businessmen, lawyers, accountants, and managers. But they are also known for propping up the Freeman family with their hard, back breaking work in factories and fields.

  • Connection with the Demonic plane has given these Darkleechers a strong constitution and that constitution has allowed them to garner a strong sense of community.

Eldritch Darkleecher:

  • The most alien of all Darkleechers, the Eldritch cousins are often positioned deep within Darkleecher society or at the fringes of Human society. Although this is often not by choice.

  • Sly and suspicious due to their connection with the Eldritch plane they also have great insight into people, places, and all things unseen by other eyes.

  • These Darkleechers see themselves as doing the dirty work others do not in many cases, acting as fixers, assassins, and smugglers. However, this is just as often not the case.

Soulmender:

  • Soulmenders are not truly a race of their own and instead are born by capturing a soul within a Soulmetal phylactery. This soul can belong to a Human or Darkleecher.

  • Once the soul is captured however, the being loses all memory of who they were and what they have done. Some skills remain but the mind is blank of all connections.

  • This blankness leads many to call Soulmenders monsters while others welcome those saved from death as dear family and friends.

“Darkleechers appeared shortly after The Breach; hundreds of thousands washed up upon the shores without any memory of where they had come from or who they were. The Human population was split on the issue of what to do with them in many places, while others chose to treat them as a pest to be eradicated. Most people thought that Darkleechers were a dark omen, marking great misfortune to come. There were riots in the streets, mass lynchings, inhumane experiments by science cults, and a wave of mass hysteria. Eventually, the Government intervened, resulting in the First Race War. This treatment molded Darklenchers to distrust, to hate, and to become more cunning than the humans who terrorized them.

Factions

The Government: The Government is run in name by the National Republic House, which consists of five representatives from each District (Anarchist or otherwise). In reality it is ruled by the Council of Thirteen, never seen but always felt. The Council influences everything though Cerberus, the heads of the Agents, National Police, and Paranormal Research division. On the whole people trust the Government in the Central Districts, however Anarchy brews everywhere, and allegiances to the Government are weak in Districts dominated by other factions. The Government would never admit openly that many place their loyalty elsewhere and does what they can to curb dissenters at every level. The Government fights against disorder, watches the Mages, chains the Mancers, and makes sure the nightmares of the world remain at its fringes.

Church of the Twin Gods: When the Martyrs gave their lives for Unity no one thought the Church of the Twin Gods would be the result. However, hundreds of years later the followers of Nyx, Goddess of Chaos, and Darium, God of Order, find themselves sharing the same roofs and working side by side to spread the teachings of the Twin Gods. These teachings are canonized in the Central Districts but more fringe Darium and Nyxian cults can be found in many townships and cities preaching radical beliefs. On the whole the Church values balance of person, where both God and Goddess have equal influence. Therefore, many within The Church try to make themselves more androgynous and hermaphrodites are praised and groomed with care by clergy.

Greys: A lineage born out of pragmatism, the Greys are a family who have become the leaders in industry, science, medicine, philosophy, art, and more. It is through marriages to the most brilliant and dedicated people, generation after generation, that this dominance has occurred. Grey’s attempt to breed with whoever is a protege in their field, no matter what that field is. For this reason, the Grey family is highly mixed in race and social origin. Even Darkleechers and Exalted have made their way into the Grey family. Pragmatic, brilliant, odd, eccentric, dedicated. All these words can be used to describe the Greys. Brutal, absentminded, and unethical are also words that describe many in the family.

Ellsons: An old family, so ancient in origin their history has been lost even to themselves. Ellsons own the majority of banks in all Districts. This gives them the finances to stay in power, even in places where they are unwanted. Generationally minded, they’ve invested in mining precious stones and metals, acquiring art and artifacts, and most recently historical research. Many branches spread out from the Ellson tree, but they all share the same trait of cold calculation that has kept them on top for centuries. They enact their power through their banks, schools of Mathematics, and Tax Collectors – persons trained since childhood to calculate risk and reward on a deadly level and see that debts are paid in gold or blood.

Freemen: The Freemen fought long and hard for their place in the world. Darkleechers who unified after several bloody wars with humanity, the Freemen hold the major crop producing Districts in Acheron. With permission from the Government of course. They value their space, preferring to live a more rural lifestyle. Art, history, and a varied culture are important to the Freemen who feel they have been suppressed for generations. Segregationists mostly, the Freemen live their lives outside the Central Districts farming, fishing, shipping, and more. This, and their innate connection to the magical planes, makes them more likely to partake in magical rituals, spirit healing, and other customs many Humans generally don’t believe in.

Historians of Galilee: An ancient cult of Historians and Researchers. They are perhaps the only group as Dogmatic about studying ancient artifacts and technology as the Greys. While the study of history was banned for generations the Historians of Galilee disobeyed, researched, discovered, and were executed for it. Now that the Reclamation Act has passed and History is open to study once more, many have joined the ranks of the Historians. Universities of all types employ their ranks as professors and researchers, many of which had never been a part of the group, at least officially, until recent years. Their dogmatism is feared by many who think history should be laid to rest, and the Church of the Twin Gods see them as a religious cult. On an individual level however, the Historians seem to want one thing above all else, truth.

Hunters Guild: Many in the world think monsters are just bedtime stories, things that people made up because of too many nights spent in the dark. But Hunters know beasts roam the world and do everything they can to fight against them. Those from all walks of life become Hunters. Many Greys, Ellsons, Servants, and Farmers have walked the same halls, hunted the same game, all without care for their previous station. Hunters keep the world safe in a way the Government attempts to, but too often fails at. Many powerful people fund the Guild or are a part of it. They operate within the law, mostly, but don’t let anyone stand in their way if a Beast needs to be slain.

Wexler Investigation Agency: A relatively new faction on the playing field. The Wexler Investigation Agency gives smaller factions the strong-arm big players have always enjoyed, for a price of course. Their ranks are ex-cops, private investigators, magicians, Mancers, and even Exalted. The pay is good and morals loose. While they would never admit it, the Wexlers deal in death just as much as security and investigation. However, many of their rank still have clean hands and those who don’t get lost in the crowd, buried in bureaucratic anonymity and red tape only Government Agents can cut through with ease.

Game Size and Content

  • Acheron’s Core Rulebook aims to be an all-encompassing package.
    • This includes what would normally be found in a “Players Handbook”
    • What would normally be found in a “Game Masters Guide”
    • And what would normally be found in a “Bestiary”
    • A dozen pre-generated characters
    • And at least one Module and game hooks to get players started.
    • We would like to include more extensive expansions in the future but are focused on making a complete package out of our core rule book.
  • We also aim to deliver gorgeous character art, environmental art, and maps.
  • In addition to all the above content we have a list of extensive, optional rule which can increase and decrease the difficulty of different aspects of the game according to what Game Masters and Players prefer.
  • In the same vein, we have done our best to make sure different mechanics, such as Magic and Mancies, could be cut away completely while still allowing Players and Game Masters a complete experience. We did this because we know many like to play games in their own worlds and while the setting is ingrained with our systems, we also wanted to make our systems portable.

Types of Games Acheron is Suited For

  • Acheron, as mentioned above, is a mature game. This is due to the themes that are in the world. However, we also focus on fun and think a lot of different game types can be enjoyed by players in our world.
  • Adventure: History is open to rediscovery! This opens a lot of doors for daring, Indiana Jones like adventures where you’re trying to beat other groups, or even whole factions, to the punch.
  • Mystery: Magic, Mancies, and even typical abilities lead to many options for mysteries. We have ghosts, artifacts, monsters, murders, organized crime! If it can be investigated, we have it covered.
    • On this note our abilities, monsters, magics, etc. can all be mistaken for others by design. This makes it necessary for players to investigate even if it’s a quest as simple as “a monster is terrorizing this village.”
  • Horror: There are a lot of different settings and creatures in the world. Many cults and madmen. Horror of almost any type can be played in Acheron and the Sanity system, we believe, does a good job of allowing whole campaigns to be Horror based with little to no combat.
  • Thriller/Spy: With the many factions, abilities, and roleplay options in Acheron we think that thriller and spy games are a great fit! While PvP is not necessarily promoted in our system we do keep it in mind while balancing so double or triple crosses can happen while playing games where factions are at war, even if the war is cold.

Kickstarter Link – https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/acheronrpg/acheron-a-grimpunk-tabletop-rpg

About Dark World Studios

Dark World Studios is an independent game developer with a small core team of three individuals. We are a Biologist, Engineer, and Anthropologist. Our backgrounds inform the worlds and systems we create. We also have a support network that includes several artists/play testers with their own informative backgrounds such as ex-military and geology. While Acheron is our first major project, we’ve had experience designing other, forever unknown worlds and systems, both independently and together. It is our hope to deliver an intriguing and fresh experience to both new players and veterans alike.

PRESS RELEASE: Get Spooky this Halloween, back the Gruesome Ghoulies™ RPG Kickstarter

Concord, CA — October 1, 2020 – Randy Angle launches the Gruesome Ghoulies™ RPG Kickstart campaign, visit www.gruesomeghoulies.com. Gruesome Ghoulies™ is the spooky tabletop role-playing game of cartoon hijinks. Be a ghoul. Solve mysteries. Drive a hot rod. Play in a rock & roll band. Inspired by the cartoons and kid’s sitcoms popular in the 1960s and 1970s.

Originally a one-page RPG submission for a gamejam on Itch.io, this 64+ page version will have more gameplay, adventures, and spooky artwork and only possible with the support of Kickstarter backers. You can play the FREE one-page RPG version this Halloween – link on the Kickstarter page

This funny, non-violent game of slapstick cartoon hijinks uses a fast resolution system called, VERSES ROLL. It is easy to generate a new ghoulie character and be playing in a schtick (a cartoony adventure) in minutes. This makes Gruesome Ghoulies™ RPG the perfect holiday one-shot game, pick-up game when a party member is missing, or for convention fun.

About Randy Angle

Randy Angle, the Grand Poobah of Hoppsbusch, is a game designer and imagineer on over 100 video games, toys, and tabletop role-playing games. In a career spanning more than 40-years and working on brands like: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Top Gun, LEGO, Lord of the Rings, Dungeons & Dragons, Nicktoons, CLUE, SpongeBob, Scooby Doo, Zorro, Deal or No Deal, 1 vs 100 and many original titles. Hoppsbusch was founded 37-years ago and is Randy’s self-publishing business where he makes tabletop RPGs that are SMAFF: Smaller, Faster, and Funnier. For more information please visit www.hoppsbusch.com.

PRESS RELEASE: Andrews McMeel Publishing Launches Flames of Freedom Kickstarter Campaign

Kansas City, MO (October 5, 2020) – Andrews McMeel Publishing (AMP) announces the launch of a Kickstarter campaign for Flames of Freedom:  Grim & Perilous RPGeffective October 5 – November 4, 2020. Backers of the campaign will have the opportunity to gain early access to game material, play in their own quickstart scenario, and contribute to Flames of Freedom custom incentives.  An American Gothic horror role-playing game, Flames of Freedom is powered by ZWEIHÄNDER RPG.

“We are excited to be a part of this collaborative venture, with Daniel D. Fox leading an exceptional, diverse team of developers to bring Flames of Freedom to life,” said Kirsty Melville, president and publisher of AMP.  “The Kickstarter campaign will enable us to enhance the immersive experience, generate engagement and excitement with players, and augment the experience beyond the publication of the book, slated for release in August 2021.”

Flames of Freedom is set at the dawn of the American Revolutionary War of 1776, as a tangled web of conspiracy spans North America. In the war for survival, creed, color, culture or gender do not matter – all stand together – as the Rebels take up arms against the British Empire. But even as the Revolution has begun, something far more mysterious is brewing in this treacherous world.

Agents of the occult entreat both the Continental Army and Loyalist Red Coats. Freemasons conspire in the City of Brotherly Love. Maryland is in the throes of a witch hunt by the Knights Templar. Amid the chaos, other grim fairy tales have emerged populated by witches, devils, ghouls, and an ancient enemy seeking to consume all.  In this land, players’ grim & perilous tale hangs in the balance – to conquer – or be conquered.

Thoroughly researched by Richard Iorio and enhanced by an exemplary development team led by Fox, Flames of Freedom explores a range of cultures beyond traditional European influences of early America. With considerable attention and diligence, the game was designed, developed and produced by a multicultural team of diverse identities, beliefs and orientation, with Black cultural consultants, Indigenous writers of the nations represented in the work, and RPG safety and trauma experts contributing to its creation.

About Andrews McMeel Publishing
Andrews McMeel Publishing is a division of Andrews McMeel Universal, a global, independent and integrated media partner to creators of inspirational content, comics, and illustrated humor. It distributes creator content through global syndication; book, calendar and greeting card publishing; digital consumer experiences; and entertainment licensing.  For more information, please visit andrewsmcmeel.com.