Spes Magna Games

The amazingly talented Darren Calvert sent me some of the art he’s doing for The Case of the Purloined Princess. Gaze upon his works, ye mighty, and be wowed!

A few people kept telling me that I’d look great on webcam talking about Rewarding Roleplaying. Well, that’s not quite accurate. It wasn’t a few people. It was really just one person, but I generally trust my own advice, so I took a stab at it:

I also took the plunge into Facebook. The jury’s still out on this one, but it does seem to be a good way to stay in touch, get acquainted with new people, et cetera.

Quid Novi? VII and Versatile Performer Redux, this month’s QN? bonus PDF, get their finishing touches this week. The schedule has them both being ready to go out Sunday, March 21. After that, the short adventure to be included with Fencing & Firearms will be finalized, and then the new, improved F&F goes on sale.

That’ll leave The Case of the Purloined Princess, which, to be honest, looks like it’ll see release in early April rather than late March. I’m a little disappointed with myself about this, but it’s better that TCotPP be released later than planned rather than it being rushed along and put out for sale before its time.

Finally, don’t forget the Quid Novi? subscriber drive contest currently going on. There’s still plenty of time to get your fellow gamers to sign up for Quid Novi?.

Buy Rewarding Roleplaying for $1.50 US (or $1 US for Quid Novi? subscribers).

This isn’t the playtest Rewarding Roleplaying that Quid Novi? subscribers helped fine tune. This is the new, improved Rewarding Roleplaying that links player-created roleplaying goals to a robust Action Point system.

How does it work? Easily and well!

You, the player, define certain roleplaying goals for your character. These can be traits, personality quirks, and objectives. Your DM works these goals into upcoming adventures. When you play your character in such a way as to act and react based on your goals, you get Action Points.

Action Points are powerful tools that help your character accomplish heroic feats. They soften the fickle whims of Fortune and give you greater control over your character’s fate.

And Rewarding Roleplaying isn’t just a boon for players. It’s good for DMs too. With Rewarding Roleplaying, DMs have a fair system to reward players for roleplaying. The Action Point system helps alleviate the perceived need for DMs to fudge dice rolls. Now when a player’s unlucky roll threatens disaster, that player can Action Point a way out.

Rewarding Roleplaying is compatible with 3.5 and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Click over to the Purchase page with the tab above and ratchet up the drama and excitement of your game today!

One-half of sales from Spes Magna products are donated to help the Mission of Yahweh, a faith-based shelter located in Houston, Texas, that empowers, enriches, and restores the lives of homeless women and children and provides outreach services to low-income families in our neighborhood.

Just a quick update today. Busy, busy, busy.

The writing’s picked back up again. I’m still not getting quite as much done as I want/need to, but at least there’s progress. Recently, I statted out the bad guys for the short adventure to be included with Fencing & Firearms. Doing so gave me an excuse to dust off and update my old Unseelie Template.

The unseelie are creatures who’ve been seduced by the dark side of nature. For them, nature is blood red in tooth and claw, more a source of fear than a world of beauty. Many unseelie were normal fey, but others were once non-fey creatures who have given themselves over to the forces of darkness. As Duhnmair, a fey knight, describes in a play-by-post game I’m running, “The Unseelie revel in the darker side of nature. They reject the beauty and creativity that balances the destructive force of a storm or the red fangs of a predator. Their leaders seek to plunge the world into chaos where failure would be the only sin.”

I’m a big fan of adventures that include re-usable material, and a new template fits the bill. Even after the adventure is over and the villains defeated, the Unseelie Template can be used again, applied to different creatures. This template is also a way to get more fey into your game. I’ve never quite understood why the fey seem to get so little consideration in the rules. Folklore and literature are rich with stories about the Little People and the wonderful and terrible things they do to mortals. When I get around to working in earnest on the Novus Mundus campaign world, the fey will certainly be more prominently displayed than fantasy RPG staples such as orcs.

I’m also wonderfully pleased that I’ve received my first official Quid Novi? submission from a subscriber. I read the submission over yesterday, and it is good. As a result, Quid Novi? VII will feature ostriches and emus as the Chance Encounter of the month. Both animals will strut forth fully Pathfinder-compatible and will include what you need to use them as animal companions and mounts. Soon you will finally be able to run that much longed-for Ostrich Riders of the Brazen Plains campaign. A big thanks to Spes Magna supporter Alzrius!

On the bummer front, response to my subscriber-drive contest has been minimal. Of course, it’s only been a little less than a week, so there’s still lots of time. My Quid Novi? subscribers are a big part of my strategy for success with Spes Magna Games. They are the backbone of this little venture of mine, being the folks that I hope will become avid fans (and customers) of Spes Magna products in the future.

So, my wonderful subscribers, let’s get more people to sign up for Quid Novi?! It’s free, fun, and soon will include really large birds.

It’s March 9 already, and I’m still behind with writing, editing, and some website-related work. It isn’t helping that I’ve finally discovered Hulu. In particular, I’m thoroughly enjoying The Lone Ranger. I used to watch the adventures of that fabulous masked man in syndication when I was a kid. I remember owning Lone Ranger, Tonto, and Silver action figures. I don’t think I had Scout, so I’m guessing my Tonto walked everywhere. Fortunately for my time management, Hulu only has twelve episodes of The Lone Ranger available, and I’m just about half through them.

On the work front, I am done with Rewarding Roleplaying and Fencing & Firearms. I’ve started on the Five-Room Dungeon that will be included with F&F. Darren Calvert emailed me yesterday and told me he is getting ready to put finishing touches on the cover for The Case of the Purloined Princess. I’ve looked at the roughs he’s done, and they’re delightful. I really need to upload some images to the site for the world to see. That’s one more thing for my list.

Speaking of The Case of the Purloined Princess, work has slowed to a crawl on my end. I’ve got to get back on track. I’ve been saying product would be released for sale this month. At the rate I’m going, that’s going to end up happening closer to April and than to February.

I’m also working on the Quid Novi? subscriber bonus PDF for March. It should be available with the March 21st issue. This month, I’m offering an alternate version of the bard’s Versatile Performer class feature. The Versatile Performer class feature for bards is a bit confusing. It’s meant to make the bard better at certain skills that seemingly correspond with different types of Perform, but the actual mechanics of the class feature are muddled. Versatile Performer is also a bit on the uninspiring side. It’s an attempt to boost the bard’s role as skill monkey while keeping to the theme of bard-as-performing-adventurer, but Versatile Performer just sort of seems to miss the mark.

The new subscriber-only PDF presents an alternative system for Versatile Performance that draws upon terminology related to music, dance, acting, and rhetoric. For example, a bard could learn Accelerando. This ability lets the morale bonus provided by Inspire Courage also apply to Reflex saves. Furthermore, when the bard reaches 5th level, affected allies gain a +5-foot bonus to base speed.

Speaking of Quid Novi? subscriber PDFs, it looks like Monsters & Magic Items of Greek/Roman Myth is the winner for April. I’ll add the other two to the project queue for May and June. Also, don’t forget about the subscriber-drive contest that’s going on right now.

Well, that’s it for this post. I’ll be back in a few days.