Spes Magna Games

The Bishop’s Secret, written for White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game, was released to my few Patrons yesterday. This short adventure was written in hopes that it could dropped into your Old School game with minimal changes.

This marks my third release of Dangerous Places for OSR Systems. The first, Narvon’s Stair, is available to everyone for nothing more than the time it takes to download. Last month saw the arrival of Goshahri: The City in a Cave, a ruin in the process of being restored by miscreants under the iron fist of the Bandit King. I plan to return to Goshahri for at least one more adventure.

For March, I’m going to shift away from fantasy into horror with The Strange Case of the Bell Witch Bootleggers, a one-shot descent into madness and terror written for The Cthulhu Hack. I also still plan on fleshing out Goshahri a bit with The Harpy’s Nest, a more detailed description of a location in the aforementioned release that go short shrifted because I didn’t manage my time well enough.

You can get in on the Old School action by becoming one my patrons. It won’t ever cost you more than $1 a month.

In other news, I think I’m nearly ready to release The Four Color Hack. It’s changed quite a bit from its initial pay-what-you-want release. I’ve got one last section to write in which I’m including an assortment of villains and threats. I’ll also probably include a short, introductory scenario. Part of me would like The Four Color Hack to be available print-on-demand, but I’m not sure I can figure out how to correctly format, et cetera, the necessary files. I’m looking at Lulu, which seems to have a pretty user-friendly set up. Maybe during the downtime of Spring Break I can give it a go.

I have two other major (for me) projects that I need to finish. The first is the long-neglected Boogie Knights of the Round Table in which the heroes fight the Man with the powers of song and dance. No, really. I’ve run one playtest of the system to rave reviews. I’ve also dusted off an idea I had for a fantasy game involving real-world children transported to a world of twisted fairy tales very much inspired by Grimm and Little Fears. Unfortunately, my original work on it quickly displeased me, and I abandoned the project, but it’s back now with a simpler system built on The Black Hack.

So, in short, I’ve got some big (for me) plans for 2017, and I seem to be off to a good start. Huzzah.

Tags: Dangerous Places, TFCH, The Black Hack, The Cthulhu Hack

As mentioned earlier this week, I’ve uploaded an updated playtest version of The Four Color Hack, implementing some changes based on playtesting and feedback. One thing that didn’t get changed in the update was lifting capacities for heroes. In the current playtest version, I think those lifting capacities are too low. They just didn’t seem super-heroic enough; this was bugging me, and I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of the bug. As is the case when I face things that bug me, it helps to ignore the issue for a bit and then return to it with fresher eyes.

Notice the two tables to the below-right. The first shows the overhead press for heroes who do not have super-strength. It dawned on me that the only characters in the game that have a STR Stat are the heroes. Villains don’t have Stats such as STR or INT or CHA. With this in mind, I chucked the d20 System, which is from where I took the overhead press amounts in the first draft of the table.

Instead, I fell back on the third edition of DC Heroes and those old Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe comic books. As you can see, even a hero with an “average” STR of 10-11 is quite strong with an overhead press of 200-250 pounds.

For super-strength, I got rid of the multiplier. Instead, a Hero Die gives a hero a specific level of super-strength as a defined weight. Thus, a hero with Super-Strength d8 has an overhead press of 5 tons. De-linking STR and super-strength this way makes it possible to have a hero who excels in hand-to-hand combat (meaning has high STR), but who isn’t necessarily super-strong. It also makes it possible to have a hero who can shift quite a bit of weight (say, Super-Strength d12), but who has only average skill in hand-to-hand combat (say, 10 STR).

The other item that was on my list of problems regarding the rules was how to handle on-going effects created by the use of powers. Professor Positron had Positronic Energy Control d12. He packs a lot of power with his ability to control positrons. Can Professor Positron surround a villain in a positronic force bubble? Sure. The player just needs to describe the effect and make a Stat check. If he succeeds, the villain is trapped by a Positronic Bubble d12.

This bubble lasts as long as Professor Positron maintains the effect or until the villain escapes/destroys/whatevers the bubble. While the positronic bubble is in effect, Professor Positron no longer has Positronic Energy Control d12. Instead, he has Positronic Energy Control d10. The concentration, energy expenditure, et cetera, has temporarily reduced Professor Positron’s ability to control anti-electrons. When the Positronic Bubble d12 goes away, Professor Positron’s power returns to its previous level.

This system for on-going effects seems flexible enough, and it taps into the idea that dice upgrade and downgrade, as well as the idea that a larger die can be traded for two smaller dice. Thus, Professor Positron could conceivably trap two different villains in two different Positronic Bubbles, but each bubble would be d10 instead of d12, since 1d12 equals 2d10.

In news unrelated to TFCH, work progresses on Goshahri: The City in a Cave, a site-based adventure setting due to be released to Patrons only before the end of January. If you’ve not checked out my Dangerous Places, please do so. You’ll find the first adventure, Narvon’s Stair, which was released for the whole world in December. If you like what you see, think about committing $1 a month and become one of my Patrons.

Tags: Dangerous Places, TFCH

Well, the holiday season has ended. My two or so weeks off for Christmas and New Year’s proved productive. I ran a Twelve Days of Christmas sale for select titles. I offered a bundle full of monsters for the OSR. I made a meat pie out of a hobbit. I wrote a few supernatural-influenced classes for WWII: Operation WhiteBox and posted those links on G+ and other Internet places. I started work on Heroes of Mirelyn’s Skyrealm, a White Box fantasy campaign that hope kicks off this coming Sunday. I started converting Chance Encounters for use with Dungeon World. I released The Four Color Hack, a playtest set of rules for superheroic roleplaying. I’m gearing up to produce the second iteration of those rules in response to feedback from players and readers.

I launched Dangerous Places, my Patreon site. For $1, you get about one short scenario a month, formatted into a printer-friendly PDF complete with hand-drawn maps. I’ll post the PDF link via patron-only message. I’ll post the maps without the scenarios separately for the public. My first few maps have been posted. So too has Narvon’s Stair, a low-level adventure for Swords & Wizardry, which is available to everyone, Patron or otherwise.

Now I’m working on Goshahri: The City in a Cave, which should be ready by the end of January. Goshahri outlines the city in a cave, the domain of a ruthless bandit king. The city and many of its denizens are described in broader strokes. The strokes get finer in Jail Break!, the mini-adventure included as part of Goshahri. The table at the right provides some random hook ideas to get adventurers involved. I plan to revisit the city in a cave at least a few more times in coming months, detailing certain sections and providing more short adventures set in the bandit king’s domain.

If you’ve not already done so, check out Narvon’s Stair. If you like it, consider becoming one my patrons. It’s risk free. I produce nothing? You pay nothing. Drop me from your patronage whenever you want.

Huzzah.

Tags: Dangerous Places, Narvon's Stair, TFCH, The City in a Cave