Homicidal Transients: A Funny Little Role-Playing Game

One of the best things to come out of Google+, besides all of the great ongoing discussion about gaming, is a funny little role-playing game from A. Miles Davis called Homicidal Transients. I use "funny" because it is applicable in a couple of uses of the word: humorous and peculiar. I mean both of these in a good way.

There is a lot of good stuff to be found in this little game (weighing in at a whopping 41 digest-sized pages). This is a game that works at the digest size, instead of inflating page counts for games that most likely should have been done at a traditional page size.

In this game you play homicidal transients, pretty much like it says on the tin. This isn't a game mocking the homeless or making homeless people into some sort of reprehensible figure. This is not Bumfight The RPG. And, having been homeless in the past, I can say "thank God for that." Playing a transient has absolutely nothing to do with being a homeless person, although it could if you wanted it to. I know, that's a bit of a weird double standard. I have nothing against playing or portraying a homeless person in a role-playing game, as long as it isn't done in an exploitative or insensitive manner. I don't think that Homicidal Transients does either of those things.

There's not a lot to this game, so if you need a game that has a lot of rule, or that has a lot of rules to enforce a certain mode or style of play...this game is not for you. If you like a rules light framework that will allow you a lot of freedom within those rules to do cool and interesting stuff...this just might be the game for you.

Characters are defined by a handful of skills (five of them in all), two traits (homicidal and transient), and a level. Level works pretty much as a bonus to your attempts to have your character do something. Homicidal and Transient give your character special talents and abilities. The skills work much like the skills in any other RPG that you may have seen or played. There are no attributes.

The game uses a single for combat, skills, tests and everything else. The cool thing is that it uses a pool of whatever dice you have the most of sitting around. Everyone uses the same dice, but the game isn't linked to the use of one particular die type. I think that is one of the qualities that would make Homicidal Transients a good game for pick up play. Skills do not seem to have levels, as much as they have modifiers due to the talents that your character has (not to mention situational bonuses). This part of the rules is a little bit confusing, as you aren't really told if there is a bonus from skills (or I somehow managed to miss it), or if you just use bonuses given from talents. That could stand to be better explained in the rules.

While I don't mind it (maybe because I am mostly a GM), someone out there will be upset by the rules for experience: "Go up a level whenever the GM says so." I wouldn't play in a group where there isn't trust between the players and the GM (and I cannot fathom why someone would play in a group like that), so I don't have a problem with a rule like this.

The rest of the game is rounded out by "magic" powers, monsters, equipment and vehicles, and all of those other things that are expected in a role-playing game. There is no setting, implied or otherwise, in the game, which allows you to tack on your own setting to the system. I can see using this for cyberpunk-styled games, or games in the style of something like Battle Royale. Or pretty much any game that consists of beating things until they are dead. I'm sure that there is (or will be) a D&D hack of Homicidal Transients out there someplace.

This is a good game. A very good game for someone's first time at professionally designing a role-playing game. As with any rules light game, there will be speed bumps as a play group realizes that much of what happens at the table will need to be figured out as you go, by on the spot rulings rather than explicit rules. I think that is a good thing for a game because it allows a GM flexibility for those unorthodox situations that players are so good at creating for their characters (and the GM's world). This is a game that you should have on your shelf (virtual or otherwise) if you want something light and flexible that you can use to get a game going fast, and that gets out of the way and allows the group to get to its fun. I'm glad that I have a copy of Homicidal Transients and you should want one too. The link at the very top of this post points to where you can buy the game in print or PDF (it is an affiliate link but that also helps to track down games that I can talk about with you here at the blog).

Tasting A Maca Chocolate Bar

Because I don't just talk about games and music but also other things that cross my mind, I'm going to talk about a chocolate bar that I ate today, the Maca Chocolate from Vega (a Canadian nutritional company).

Totally not shilling on this, I was given a sample bar after my mother was at a health foods show in D.C. this past weekend.

According to Wikipedia maca is:

In Peru, maca is prepared and consumed in several ways, although traditionally it is always cooked. The freshly harvested hypocotyl can be roasted in a pit (called huatia), and this is considered a delicacy. Fresh roots are usually available only in the vicinity of the growers. The root can also be mashed and boiled to produce a sweet, thick liquid, dried and mixed with milk to form a porridge or with other vegetables or grains to produce a flour that can be used in baking. If fermented, a weak beer called chicha de maca can be produced. In 2010 a US based brewery called Andean Brewing Company, became the first company to produce and commercialize beer made from Maca under the brand KUKA Beer. The leaves can also be prepared raw in salads or cooked much like Lepidium sativum and Lepidium campestre, to which it is genetically closely related.

A lot of that makes no sense to me as a layman, but it is still interesting. Allegedly a energizer and revitalizer, it was used by Incan warriors before going into battle. It also was purported to have "male enhancement" properties, but anyone who watches any of the food travel shows on television will see similar claims for many foods around the world. This is, however, and interesting historical tidbit that can be used in a number of ways by the resourceful and geeky.

I wasn't that impressed by the consistency of the bar. I found it a bit too hard, and I like more suppleness in my chocolate. It was also a bit more bitter than I like in a dark chocolate. The taste was comparable to the Vosges Creole Bar, which I felt was made entirely too bitter by the inclusion of the chicory. I didn't really notice any energizing effects of the bar. Would I track this down and buy one on my own? Probably not. I feel that I can get better chocolates with a comparable cocoa percentages that have a better taste and feel. However, if you're looking for some interesting verisimilitude for warriors in a historic setting you now have some starting research points.

Dorkland! Roundtable with Trey Causey

If you don't already own a copy of Trey Causey's excellent Weird Adventures, why don't you? I consider it an equivalent to the old WEG (now published by Precis Intermedia) book Bloodshadows. It has a mix of pulp fiction, traditional gaming fantasy and comic book fun all in one affordable package. The book is almost all system agnostic setting material, with what little writeups there are done in the style of Swords & Wizardry) and details a world where the paradigms of the heroic pulps and traditional high fantasy smash into each other like a J.G. Ballard car crash of gaming inspiration. Seriously, if you don't own a copy go here to RPGNow and pick up the PDF at least (although I really recommend getting a print copy).

Now that you've clicked the link (and yes that is an affiliate link, my future reviews thank you), you can watch Trey and I talking around the Dorkland! Roundtable.

There needs to be a licensed Warlord RPG. Someone with a real amount of money needs to get onto it, and then hire Trey to work on it.

Judge Dredd: The Judge Child Quest

Judge Dredd is always a bit weird, particularly to those used to American comic books. Judge Dredd is sarcastic, sardonic, satirical and many other things that start with an S. Yes, the comic lampoons American culture on a regular basis, but that is a good thing. Sometimes it is good to have that outsider's view on what out culture looks like.

The Judge Child Quest begins with a dying PSI Judge and a prophecy: the child who bears the eagle mark will save Mega-City 1. In the future world of Judge Dredd civilization is in the hands of the Justice Department, and the Judges who stop crime and judge the offenders. A Judge is a combination police officer, judge and executioner. Their word is final. Their word is Law.

Part of the reason why I like the Judge Child Quest is because it goes across space and shows a much wider view of the setting than what we normally get in a Judge Dredd story. The story starts in Mega City, where the dying PSI Judge issues his prophecy and starts Dredd on a journey that goes to the Cursed Earth (the part of American still in ruins from the nuclear war that nearly decimated the world in the past) to Texas City to weird planets beyond the solar system.

Dredd sees a great variety of people at their best, and at their worse. Even more, the Judge Child Quest causes a great deal of growth in the character of Dredd. I do not think that the person Dredd was at the beginning of the story would have done what the Dredd at the end of the story did. Dredd always puts the well-being of Mega-City 1 before his own, but in this case Dredd puts a lot on the line, knowing that he has to do what is right for Mega-City 1.

I really suggest checking out the Judge Child Quest, if you haven't already read it. It is one of the best of the Judge Dredd arcs that I have been able to read. If you haven't read Judge Dredd, or your only exposure to the character is from the terrible Sylvester Stallone movie, I really recommend checking it out. DriveThruComics has a good selection of 2000AD magazines and other select Judge Dredd collections available in PDF form (currently on sale at the time of this writing). Yes, there is an affiliate code. It helps feed what I can write about on this blog.

Dorkland! Roundtable With Engine Publishing

We talked about their current book Never Unprepared, and how the Engine Publishing/Gnome Stew people go through the process of creating one of their books.

We also spent time talking about their influences as writers and gamers, as well as their love for older games. Martin's project to blog about the books from Appendix N of the AD&D DMG is a particularly interesting one that I plan to follow and see where he goes with it. Again, I had a great talk with talented creators and I am enjoying the insights that these Roundtables are giving me into the creative processes of other gamers and designers.

An Early Look At Nova Praxis

I was able to get an early look at the playtest documents for the upcoming Nova Praxis game from Void Star Games. They have a Kickstarter in the works (and if you are reading this blog post from the future it could be already happening or finished).

Nova Praxis is a transhumanistic science fiction game that uses Void Games Stands of Fate variant of the Fate rules as its underlying game engine. Transhumanism is a burgeoning genre in tabletop role-playing. Steve Jackson Games tilled the soil years ago with their Transhuman Space game, a game that featured collaboration between game designers and futurists to make a transhuman setting that seemed a probable extrapolation of the current world into a future one. Eclipse Phase by Posthuman Studios also goes over this ground, but adds an element of horror to the transhumanist SF. Both of these are strong games, with strong followings, that would be difficult for a new game to surpass and set its own ground.

Some would say: Do we really need another transhumanist role-playing game? I think that's a dumb question because, at it's heart, transhumanism should be an extrapolation of today into a probably and plausible tomorrow. As today changes, so should the tomorrows keep pace.

Dorkland! Roundtable With Gareth Skarka

I seem to have fallen behind on posting the videos of my Dorkland! Roundtables here to my blog. Honestly, I thought that I had already posted this. I had a talk with Gareth Skarka of Adamant Entertainment recently. One thing that you'll notice is that this discussion took place before the announcement that ownership of the Icons role-playing game was transferred back to creator Steve Kenson from Adamant.

We talked about a few things on the Roundtable, but a lot of time got spent talking about pulps (you can see the stack of Doc Savage reprints behind Gareth's head in the thumbnail), and James Bond. We also spent a bit of time talking about the James Bond RPG (put out in the 80s from Victory Games, an imprint of Avalon Hill). Apparently the talk of James Bond has sparked some discussion of the game over on Google Plus.

As I've said before in my commentary on these discussions, I am enjoying the process of talking with other game designers and publishers. It is interesting to get into their heads a little bit and see what influences them as writers and designers. This discussion with Gareth is not different. I think that we get a little bit of a peek into how he thinks as a designer, and what motivates him to design.

New Spells for Your Swords & Wizardry and Old School Games

I like spells in my fantasy games. I like the feeling of magic and wonder that they bring to a world. I also like for the players in my games to have options for their characters. The linked PDF has 26 spells that are new to Swords & Wizardry, converted from the SRDs of OpenQuest and the Renaissance system. I am pretty sure that none of them have appeared in an old school or d20 game. The spells are split between Cleric and Magic-User spells, so there is something of use to either class.

Some of these spells are a bit non-traditional, but that is why I am sharing them.

The PDF can be found here.

Blood and Treasure: Player's Tome in Review

I received a comp copy of the PDF of John Stater's latest game: the Player's Tome for Blood & Treasure. I have to say that I like what I am seeing. This isn't a retroclone, it is something that might be better classified as a "second wave" OSR game. Instead of trying to recreate an earlier edition of an out-of-print game, like most in the OSR had done previously, John has taken the know-how that he gathered while developing material for various versions of Swords & Wizardry, as well as working on the Tome of Horrors Complete for Swords & Wizardy, and has applied what he has learned to the d20 3.x SRD.

Like I said, he isn't recreating another older ruleset, he is taking the approach of simplicity and utilitarianism that is a hallmark of so much OSR work and he looked at how he could simplify the 3.x SRD material and still keep it as something that is recognizable as being derived from those rules. Has he succeeded?

I think that he has. Obviously, I'm not getting the full game from just the Player's Tome but there is enough of the game in there for me to come to some conclusions. This isn't the work of someone who hates modern games. Far from it, this is the work of someone who loves fantasy gaming but doesn't like the complexity that comes with a lot of contemporary games. That's a mind set that I can completely relate to. The whole reason for my jump into retro-gaming over the last couple of years is because I had gotten tired of the complexity of a lot of the games out on the market today, and wanted games that were simpler. This lead me to games like Swords & Wizardry and OpenQuest and Warrior and Wizard.

This isn't a perfect game, but few are. The game itself is definitely strong, and complete. The layout of the book is a bit lackluster, and the fonts are a bit small. I'm sure that was a choice so that page count could be reduced, but these eyes aren't as good as they used to be (particularly with reading PDFs). The art is a mixed bag, but the "iconic" character art for each of the character classes is phenomenal, which might be why some of the other art left me a bit cold. I also have to say that the iconic character art is some of the most inclusive art that I have seen in a fantasy game in a while.

Presentation aside, the rules are strong. John has streamlined a lot of the complexity down to a manageable level. At the same time he has kept the elements that are recognizable as being a part of the 3.x rules. Feats are still a part of the game, streamlined dramatically, and optional. Skills have taken a cue from some of the ideas coming out of the OSR and are based off of saving throws. This is a mechanic that I liked when I first saw it on a gaming blog, and I like the variation on the theme that John has done for Blood & Treasure. There are plenty of spells (most of the book is taken up with spell lists, even though the spells too have been streamlined), which fixes something that I don't like about a lot of old school clones. In their desire for fidelity to the source material, I think that magic-users and clerics tend to get shortchanged. It is nice to see that there is plenty of magic to go around.

This is a great game that a lot of people are going to be talking about for a long while.

Should you buy this game? Hell, yes. Organization and presentation aren't the best, but I'm sure that this will change with future editions. For a game done by an amateur layout person (since there is no layout credit in the book, I am assuming that John did the layouts himself), the book could have looked a lot worse. Underneath that, however, there is a strong fantasy gaming engine that more than makes up for any shortcomings in presentation. Blood & Treasure is the next Castles & Crusades, and I think that publishers like Troll Lord need to look out because there is some serious competition for them to be found in this game. Don't just take it from me, however. Go out now (there's a handy link at the top of this post) and buy yourself a copy of Blood & Treasure. You won't be sorry.

Howard Chaykin's Black Kiss [NSFW]

With Chaykin's follow-up mini-series, Black Kiss II, finally hitting comic stores, I thought it would be a good time to (finally) get my post about the original Black Kiss up on the blog and out into the world. Black Kiss came out from Vortex Comic in the late 80s. Vortex was a Canadian publisher that also brought us Dean Motter's Mister X. The Vortex books were ahead of their time, in one way or another, and very cutting edge. Which is likely why a creator like Chaykin would be interested in working with them.

This post is based on the Thick Black Kiss collection of the miniseries that Vortex put out in the 90s.

Dorkland! Roundtable: BRP Edition With Ben Monroe and Jason Durall

On a very special Dorkland! Roundtable with Ben Monroe and Jason Durall we talk about Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing System and the upcoming standalone BRP fantasy game, Magic World.

We spend a lot of time talking about why we like BRP, what drew us into the system in the first place and other topics of generally dorky conversation. A map is shown to us by a member of the upcoming generation of roleplayers, as well. It was a lively conversation, and much more fun than the last time that I talked with Jason on here. Before Hangouts on the Air because a thing, Jason was on my first Dorkland! Roundtable, which was a bit of a fiasco for a good number of reasons. But it also shows just how much things have changed, technology-wise, with Google+ in the last few months.

Magical Origins and Icons Superpowered Roleplaying

This blog post sprung out of a Google+ post that I made the other day. One of my favorite things in comics has always been the magical characters from Doctor Strange to Zatanna to Doctor Fate to John Constantine to Sargon to Doctor Occult. I like the fact that they are a little bit weirder than your "regular" super-heroes, that they don't always wear tights, and that their adventures are a bit more fantastic.

I wrote up a couple of new Origins for Adamant Entertainments Icons role-playing game. Actually, I wrote up more than a couple but I thought that I might save those for another blog post, or perhaps some other use. If you haven't played Icons, you should check it out. Designed by super-heroic gaming guru Steve Kenson (creator of Mutants & Masterminds and other super-hero games), Icons is a lighter approach to super-heroes, inspired by the Marvel Super-Heroes game of the 80s from TSR, as well as the Fudge and Fate RPGs. This is a game that is designed for pick up play so that you can get characters up and going with a minimum of effort and fuss. This game has a fun and novel approach to its subject matter, and I think that any one interested in super-hero comics and role-playing should have a copy of Icons on their book shelf.

Origins are sort of the archetype for a character in Icons. It represents the type of super-hero that your character is. Magically-oriented super-heroes have just as many options of types as do their non-magical brethren, if not more. In this article, I will give you a couple that will let you get started into integrating magical heroes into your Icons games.

Old School Caster: The hero has been around since the Golden Age of heroics, slinging spells and taking names. The character probably knew the parents and grandparents of many of the heroes operating today. Unlike a lot of younger magicians, honor and rules are very important to this hero. In the world of magic, knowledge is power, so the character gets two additional specialties.

Altered State: The hero was once human, but the supernatural world has changed them into something...other. The character is now a creature of magic of some sort, from an elemental being to a living plant to a magically animated golem. Raise two of the character's abilities by +2 and give them an additional aspect.

The (Un)dead: The character died, but that state of being does not stop someone from becoming a hero. Now serving a higher (or sometimes lower) power, the character has been given a new "life" and a mission to go with it. Increase two of the character's abilities by +1 and give them an additional aspect to cover their (un)life.

Aspects and Magical Origins
You will probably notice that these new Origins give characters more Aspects than more "normal" starting characters under the basic Icons rules, and there is a reason for that. The magical community in super-hero comics tend to be more maladjusted than most regular super-heroes (outside of mutants, at least). Icons has an excellent mechanic for dealing with that with Aspects. Challenges work well to simulate the social and psychological tolls that the world of magic can take on a hero. Yes, it gives magical heroes a bit more determination to play with but that will not always offset their other problems.

Normal super-heroes often find magical heroes unsettling, for one reason or another. That has to do with the magical world and its dangers being so much stranger than what regular heroes have to deal with. Magicians and demons rarely have the desire to rob banks or kidnap people. The normal super-heroes are lucky to deal with that. The magical heroes get to deal with the reality incursions of elder gods and demonic entities that live within left angles.

Magical Specialties
Just to give your new magical hero a little bump, here are a couple of magical/occult specialties to give them a little more juice.

Demonology: The hero has received training in demons, their workings and the realms in which they live. Add their specialty bonus to tests dealing with these subjects.

World of Magic: Magicians tend to know the mover and shakers, human and otherwise, in their community (both good and evil). Add their specialty bonus to tests dealing with knowing who might consider a place within their territory, what witches may sell potions in a city, and other similar tests of knowledge.

Legend Lore: In a world where gods actually walk the Earth and magic exists, knowledge of the legendary past of the world and some of these beings can come in handy. Add the character's specialty bonus to tests about the myths, legends and folklore of the world.

Valiant Masters: Bloodshot Vol. 1 To See October Release

The series that laid the foundation for the "Summer of Valiant" is finally back in print! Valiant is proud to present an advance preview of Valiant Masters: Bloodshot Vol. 1 HC - Blood of the Machine - the first in an all-new line of deluxe hardcovers collecting classic stories of the original Valiant Universe! 

 

Once, he was the hired killer known as Angelo Mortalli. Now, there is only Bloodshot. Brought back from the grave by the government scientists of Project Rising Spirit, Bloodshot is powered by microscopic nano-machines that can repair all injuries and maximize his physical potential. But the nanites can't replace his lost memories – or help him shake the feeling that he was once anything but a hero. Atoning for his sins in a world he no longer knows, can the man now called Bloodshot recover the secrets of his past? And survive his deadly first encounters with the likes of the Eternal Warrior, Ninjak and Rai along the way?

 

Collecting Bloodshot's best-selling debut with the original series coloring, the inaugural Valiant Masters volume re-presents Bloodshot (1992) #1-8 by fan favorite writer Kevin VanHook and comics legend Don Perlin for the first time anywhere! Plus no fan will want to miss "The Tablet" - a brand new tale of the VH1 Valiant Universe starring Bloodshot and the Eternal Warrior by the classic creative team of VanHook, Perlin, and Bob Wiacek!

Rediscover the series that defined a generation when the Valiant Masters: Bloodshot Vol. 1 HC - Blood of the Machine arrives in finer comics shops everywhere on October 24th!

 

VALIANT MASTERS: BLOODSHOT VOL. 1 HC - BLOOD OF THE MACHINE (AUG121341)

Written by Kevin VanHook

Art by Don Perlin, Andrew Wendel and Ted Halsted

Cover by Barry Windsor-Smith

$24.99/Rated T+/200 pgs.

ON SALE OCTOBER 24th

 

 

Squeezing A Bit More Out Of Your Old School Fighters

For me, as a designer, I think that the best "content" comes out of play. Whether it is making adjustments to a game to better fit everyone's styles, or coming up with new mechanical bits and bobs to give a little more something to player's characters. This is the second batch of character options that I have come up with for our weekly Swords & Wizardry game, but it can just as easily work for Labyrinth Lord as well. I came up with the method that I am using previously to add some zing to clerics, and the method works for other character classes as well.

Basically what I am doing is offering up an additional class ability, one that the player gets to pick for their character. It adds some new special abilities and a bit of customization to a character. The player picks one Fighter Style during character creation, and is stuck with it for the duration of their character. These styles also add a bit of flavor to your character, giving you (as the player) some story and background hooks into the character. This can end up helping with the role-playing of your character as much as it can help with the gaming of it.

I know that this is going out of the boundaries of old school play, for some, but my approach is that I am looking for a simpler approach to gaming, which games like Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord supply for me, which I can then customize to fit the needs that the group and I have for play. So far that has meant bolting on this rudimentary advantage system onto the character classes. This approach has worked well with our party cleric, without making it out of proportionally more powerful when compared to the other characters in the group. It may not work for everyone, but it works for us.

Dorkland! Roundtable With Kyrinn Eis

I spoke with Kyrinn Eis earlier this week on my Dorkland! Roundtable.

It was a good talk. We talked about gaming, Saturday morning SF television in the 70s, and how Google+ is impacting people's gaming and talking about gaming.

Google+ Actual Play Archive

I have put up a new page (linked in the menu at the top of the screen) to archive some of the actual play going on over at the G+ social media site. Click on it to see links to actual play videos that have been made by the people using Google Plus for their "tabletop" role-playing needs. There is a link on the page to a thread on G+ where you can leave your links, if you want to be added to the archive. With any hope, we will see this page swell dramatically.

If scrolling up is too much, here's a link to the page: http://dorkland.blogspot.com/p/google-actual-play.html This is a static page (rather than a blog post) that I will update as people share their links with me.

Five Magical Items For Your Fantasy RPG Campaigns

I try to keep these fairly system neutral. so that you can easily pop them into the game system of your choice. I like magic items with interesting qualities to them, and I think that these reflect that. They have been influenced by various media sources, that you will probably recognize.

I hope that these magic items spark something for you in your games. If you use them, let me know.

The Dorkland! Roundtable with Quinn Conklin

Last week I talked with Quinn Conklin of Occult Moon on my Dorkland! Roundtable. His was an interesting talk, personally, because both his career as a designer and these Roundtables got their start because of Google Plus. I don't think that I can say often enough what a great tool that this site is becoming for gamers and gaming. The quality and quantity of discussion via G+ is the best that I have encountered online, better than message boards or any other social media site.

There are a lot of people who are saying that Google+ is a wasteland, that no one is out there using it or talking on it, but they obviously aren't tabletop RPG gamers. You can find a link to my G+ profile in the sidebar of the blog, or at the bottom of this post. If you enjoy the blog, and haven't connected with me over on Google+, you should go ahead and do so now.

I can be found on G+ at http://gplus.to/chrishelton. If you add me to one of your circles and don't have something that identifies you as a fellow gamer then please send a private message so I can add you back.

Kickstarter Crack: Are RPG Publishers Going Down A Rabbit Hole?

Every day we all see announcements of new Kickstarters, or publishers/designers saying that they've submitted Kickstarters, or that they are planning one. It is a goldrush as publishers, and wannabe publishers, see the dollar signs that some are getting and want a piece of the pie. I had figured originally that in a couple of years we would reach the saturation point and Kickstarter would lose its luster, now I'm not so sure that the tipping point is all that far away.

We have had a couple of high profile RPG Kickstarters fail to materialize after a couple of years: Gary Sarli's e20 has been plagued with alleged behind the scenes issues, nearly from the beginning, and Phil Brucato's Powerchords is apparently in a limbo-like state since achieving funding in 2010. Yes, I know, there will be defenders of both of these Kickstarters that will likely come out of the woodwork, but I still say that a 2-year gap after reaching funding with no product in sight is inexcusable. With the rush for money that is going on with Kickstarter and people wanting to publish, I think that this is really only the tip of the iceberg. When you have people who do not have any sort of business background, working off of the basis of their "awesome" ideas, who are suddenly hit with the fees and taxes that come with having a real business it is going to be easy for them to get overwhelmed and burn out as well. Considering the history of a lack of business training that we have in the RPG business, there could be a lot of these coming up in the future. Like I said in a recent post here, there are too many (both fans and publishers) who value enthusiasm over professionalism, and this is going to bite Kickstarter backers on the ass.

True, I want creators and designers who are excited about their upcoming and current projects, but enthusiasm without professionalism, or even some sort of track record, doesn't mean that things are going to get done. This also leads to Kickstarter overload, with publishers announcing one Kickstarter after another, sometimes launching a new project before the previous one reaches its final stages of coming to market. Enthusiastic, yes...but is it practical? I don't really think so, plus it starts to lead to a fatigue and the fans start to believe that publishers see them as nothing more than a piggy bank. This attitude is already surfacing around the various social media outlets as gamers are saying "Enough!" to the grind of Kickstarter projects.

The enthusiasm angle also has the added danger of self-selecting for your existing audience. If you know who your audience is, and you know what they want, you end up selling the same things to them over and over again, at the exclusion of a broader market. This ends up creating a look of success to your Kickstarters, but there's no further buzz or market share gained, which is one of the strengths of Kickstarter if you plan on getting your product into distribution.

A year ago I would have said that Kickstarter was the savior of RPGs, allowing projects that would never have seen the light of day to have a chance at getting published. Now, I'm not as certain about that as I used to be. Publishers need to start pacing themselves, particularly in this economy, and realize that every Kickstarter isn't going to be like Traveller5 or Ogre. Yes, there's money to be made to get projects off of the ground, but now we are even seeing projects that announce their stretch goals out of the gate. The assumption being that gamers are going to kiddy up the money. A couple of these projects have had to revise their pre-announced stretch goals, or offer up further bribes to get people interested.

Sloppiness also plagues Kickstarter projects. The reason why I made my Enthusiasm post (linked about) was because I encountered a poorly written Kickstarter project from them, not to mention poorly thought out. A "stealth" Kickstarter like theirs, they are Kickstarting a new printing of their Swords & Wizardry Complete book and yet one of the pledge levels is for a new version of their Monsters book) leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Subsequent communication with whomever answers the mail on their Kickstarter account didn't do much to help that feeling. Ultimately, I chose to not support their Kickstarter, even though I would have liked the books that they were offering. I'm sure that some people will think that there's nothing wrong with adding a stealth Kickstarter to a publisher's existing project but I think that is just another example of the money-grab mentality that is surfacing. I will admit that this mentality isn't unique to those with RPG-related project, it is just that those are the ones that I am watching.

I do not think that Kickstarter is a bad thing. I still think that it will be able to help a lot of publishers get their projects into the hands of gamers that would not have otherwise seen them. I do think that publishers need to exercise more caution and forethought, and a little less enthusiasm on the part of their projects. I'm sure that this isn't going to be a popular or widely-held opinion within gaming circles, but it has been percolating in my head for a while and I think that it finally needed to be released into the wild. Hopefully this spawns some debate and thought on the subject before more gamers get burned on overly enthusiastic projects that never see the light of day.

Garth Ennis And The Shadow

I made one of my irregular stops to the comic store today. Unfortunately they didn't have the book I went to find (Chaykin's Black Kiss II, but I guess you have to go on new release day for things like that), but I decided to pick up a couple of issues of Dynamite's new version of The Shadow. I would have picked up more than the first two issues, but unfortunately the store didn't have any copies of number 3. The first arc of this new book is a story called "The Fire of Creation." I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum, but since these books are already a few months old now I am pretty sure that most of the people who want to read them already have. If you aren't one of those people, you might not want to read past this point.

Dorkland! Roundtable with Jacob Wood

I talked with Jacob Wood of Accessible Games about his upcoming game Psi-Punk (currently going through it's Kickstarter). As of the time of this posting, he is at 34% of his goal for his Kickstarter. I like the Fudge system, and I like cyberpunk stuff, so this is a Kickstarter that I endorse and think that you should check out and put your money into.

This is the video of the Roundtable with Jacob:

In addition to talking about his Kickstarter, we had a very interesting and enlightening discussion about issues of accessibility for handicapped people in gaming. Jacob talked about issues that he has with commercial PDFs and the problems that he often has with them in reading software for the blind. I learned some important things about accessibility, I think. Jacob also discusses accessibility issues at his blog and reviews materials on the basis of its accessibility for handicapped gamers. Really, some good stuff.

Like I said at the top of this post, I hope that you check the link to his Kickstarter and show it some love.

Enthusiasm and Professionalism in Tabletop RPG Publishing

About this time last year I wrote a post about publishers rushing games in order to have them for sale at Gen Con, only to have to release a new edition within months because the rush job missed so many errors. The business of RPG publishing sometimes seems to forget the fact that there's more to this than just having something to sell at Gen Con.

The polar opposite of this attitude is the "hobbyist," those who publish because they love games more than they understand how a business really works. A good example of this would be the current (as of the date of this post) Kickstarter being run by Frog God Games for a new edition of their Swords & Wizardry Complete, in hardcover format. They previously released a hardcover edition that was marred by printing errors and poor follow up and customer service. I guess some lessons are difficult to learn.

I do not think there is any nobility in publishing something from the stance of being a hobbyist, so if your responses to this opinion post are based from that mindset don't bother.

The Fungi That Walk Like Men, A Labyrinth Lord Monster

The Fungi That Walk Like Men

No. Enc.: 2-8
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 30' (10')
Armor Class: 6
Hit Dice: 4
Attacks: 2, special
Damage: 1d6
Save: F4
Morale: 10
Hoard Class: I
XP: 100

Spore Cloud: Once every three rounds a Fungus can fill a 10' x 10' area with its fungal spores. This takes the form of a yellowish-grey cloud that emanates from the Fungus. Everyone within range must make a Saving Throw versus Poison. If the save succeeds, characters are coughing and blinded by tears for 1-4 rounds, during which they are at -1 on all rolls. If the save fails, characters take 1d6+1 damage from breathing in the spores. When killed, a Fungus will explode into a spore cloud that is twice the size of their normal cloud.

While the origins of The Fungi That Walk Like Men are unknown, it is believed that they were the creation of a wizard looking for ways to protect himself and his tower from attacks. Fungi reproduce via spore, and each time they use their spore cloud there is a 1 in 6 chance that 1d6 of the spores grow into new Fungi within 8-10 days. Fungi exist best in dark, dank locations like deep dungeons or the depths of forests. The appearance of a Fungi is vaguely bipedal humanoid, of about 5-6 feet in height, but the shape is formed from various mushrooms, molds and fungi held together in a humanoid shape. They are not very intelligent but can recognize people and follow very simple orders. They have no method for speech, nor have the developed any method of communication. They do not use tools or weapons, mostly because they cannot hold them.

Simple Random Treasure Table

You ever have that moment when you need to figure out how much money was in a room, or on some monsters, and forgot to figure it out in advance? Use this simple d4-based table to make up some quick treasures. All this table does is figure out the money that they have on them. You can use this table in two ways, you can roll once and then just move across the line of the table, or you can make two rolls. If you make two rolls, use the first roll to determine the first two columns, and the second roll to determine the second two columns. You could roll 4 4-siders and then just use one die for each column. This would give the most random of results, and might even work best.

If you want to go faster, just ignore the last column and assume the treasure is in gold (unless you're using Lamentations of the Flame Princess, then silver is the standard).

d4 roll	die to be rolled	number of rolled	multiplier	currency
1	d4	4	x3	CP
2	d6	3	x2	GP
3	d8	2	x1	EP
4	d10	1	x0	PP

Now you have a fast way to find out what's inside their wallets, after fighting some monster in the dungeon.

The Nothingface: OSR Blogosphere Monsters Project

The Nothingface is a monster for Swords & Wizardry that I did a write-up for over on Google+ a few months back. This is a slightly updated and cleaned up version of that initial posting. The monster was inspired by a song/album by Voivod that I used to listen to a lot, back in college. I decided to clean this up and post it to my blog after reading about the OSR Blogosphere Monsters Project. I figured that a creature this horrid deserved to be inflicted upon others. Converting this monster from Swords & Wizardry to another retroclone like Labyrinth Lord or Lamentations of the Flame Princess should be easy enough for referees of those games.

This particular write-up is for Swords & Wizardry Core.

The Nothingface
Hit Dice: 8
Armor Class: 7 [12]
Attacks: 2 claws (2d6)
Saving Throw: 8
Special: The unnaturalness of the Nothingface requires a saving throw when you first encounter it, failure causes a character to freeze up and be unable to do anything for 1-4 turns. Their extraplanar nature makes them immune to normal weapons.
Move: 10'
Alignment: Chaos
Challenge Level/XP: 10/1,400

The Nothingface is a vaguely humanoid creature with spindly, elongated arms and legs with swollen joints and longer than normal, thin fingers and toes. The nails on their toes make a faint scratching/scraping sound as they walk. Their body hair is sparse and pale and their flesh is, at best, pallid. The remarkable feature of a Nothingface is the void where their face should be. This void is a frightening lack of a face that the observer's mind attempts to fill in but cannot.

A Nothingface is extraplanar and summonable with the right spell. Their resilience and doggedness make them popular as guardians of a dungeon, even if they are likely to turn on their summoner. Typically only one appears when summoned.