HEX is a one page solitaire game by Jeff Moore, an established game designer and author on 1km1kt.net. HEX soon after it was created, inspired the author to issue The Character Sheet is the RPG Challenge, that has been on now for two years running, with 27: The Character Sheet Is The RPG Challenge II currently going, issued by Errin Famiglia. This game was one of the first that I ever downloaded from 1km1kt.net, and I’m glad I did. I was attracted by HEX as a solitaire one page dungeon adventure, featuring random dungeon generation, complete with encounters, treasures and goals. Its single page also holds a character sheet with XP advancements, all the rules needed for play and even the game’s dialogue: “A curse has infested an ancient keep near your town. The evil magic has filled the keep with monsters. Can you save your home from this Hex?” -a powerful hook.

HEX is an amazingly whole game, simple and clear in its one page presentation. The questions that are asked at the end of the game, should you roll 9 and Exit the Dungeon, along with the author’s encouragement to “Chronicle your adventures!” gave me the idea to write this review and include the following play record with my analysis.

So, I played HEX and after a few minutes of rolling dice and taking notes here is what I came up with:

Play Record 1

turn 1 Roll 5 Room Monster Corridor Action Fight Result H-1,E-1,X+1 HEX 5,5,1 lvl 1 Keys

turn 2 Roll 4 Room Monster Room Action Fight Result H-1,E-1,X+1 HEX 4,4,2 lvl 1 Keys

turn 3 Roll 6 Room Treasure Action Roll 2 Result get keys+1 HEX 4,4,2 lvl 1 Keys 1

turn 4 Roll 4+1 Room Monster Corridor Action Run Result move on HEX 4,4,2 lvl 1 Keys 1

turn 5 Roll 6+1 Room Stairs Down Action — Result lvl +1 HEX 4,4,2 lvl 2 Keys 1

turn 6 Roll 6+1 Room Stairs Down Action — Result lvl +1 HEX 4,4,2 lvl 2 Keys 1

turn 7 Roll 4+1 Room Monster Corridor Action Run Result move on HEX 4,4,2 lvl 2 Keys 1

turn 8 Roll 2+1 Room Empty Room Action Rest Result H+1,E+3 HEX 5,7,2 lvl 2 Keys 1

turn 9 Roll 5+1 Room Treasure Action Roll 1 Result get keys+1 HEX 5,7,2 lvl 2 Keys 2

turn 1 Roll 3+2 Room Monster Corridor Action Fight Result H-2,E-2,X+1 HEX 3,4,3 lvl 2 Keys 2

turn 11 Roll 5+2 Room Stairs Down Action — Result lvl +1 HEX 3,4,3 lvl 3 Keys 2

turn 12 Roll 3+3 Room Treasure Action Roll 5 Result get X+3 HEX 3,4,6 lvl 3 Keys 3

turn 13 Roll 5+3 Room Boss Action lose Result H-6,E-6,X-1/2 HEX -3,-2,3 lvl 3 Keys 3

Results

I earned 3 experience points, I coudn’t buy any upgrades to magic weopon or magic armor.

I reached the 3rd level.

I found 3 keys.

I faced the level 3 boss. (evil Vampire)

I was forced to flee the dungeon after 13 turns of play.

Analysis

Even though I lost, I enjoyed playing, and in real life I feel like I gained experience points, because I learned a few things and I was inspired by the concept. Now I am working on my own game Dungeoneers RPG! Unfortunately, the “Keys and Level” system for rolling on the Dungeon table, borrowed from Doom Semper Fidelis has a few small flaws as implemented in HEX. In order to have the opportunity to regain Health or Endurance, you must roll 1 or 3 on the Dungeon table. That means if you find a Key (meant to be a “Treasure”), you lose a chance to heal -and once you have a chance to roll a 9 and exit the Dungeon successfully (keys +3), you can’t heal at all. That could be a problem, because monsters always do damage if you fight them, and you can’t avoid taking damage from Traps or a Boss. If you gain even more Keys, it becomes possible to roll off the table. It also looks like it might be possible to roll too many 7′s and quickly reach way too high of a dungeon level, and therefore have the monsters, traps and boss become impossibly deadly. Making the “stairs down” optional until the character chooses to leave the level might help this last issue.

The game simulates some of the plot from BOGGY CREEK II: AND THE LEGEND CONTINUES a movie that can normally only be survived by watching it as an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3. The legend of the Fouke Monster aka the Big Foot of Arkansas aka the Creature continues and continues in the movies and you just want it all to end. The RPG took the hokey events of the movie and turned them into a “serious” game with out the humor of MST3K or the flaws that made the movie worthy of an MST3K episode. In the game, you want the search for the Creature to continue as you explore Murky County,gaining bonuses.This is because meeting the Creature is deadly, especially if you aren’t “prepared” with the various bonuses. Most of the places you search in Murky County will either send you on further along your search, present danger or provide opportunity and sometimes all of these. Many places are different depending on whether it is day or night. This increases both the amount of possible play and the length of time you could play this single page with out getting bored or seeing the same things happen.

Murky County’s creator, Errin Famiglia, is a prolific game designer on 1k1mkt.net and the person responsible for The Character Sheet Is The RPG Challenge II 27. The one page game is growing into a new cutting edge genre of role playing games, and solo RPG games, such as THE CREATURE OF MURKY COUNTY RPG definitely have a place in it.

Here is my play records for two games:

Play Record 1

Physical 6 Mental 6 Spiritual 4 Class: Professor
Status: wounded twice, horrified
1 roll 3 Lone Stretch Of Road, roll 3 day, roll 4

2 roll 3 Lone Stretch of Road, roll 6 night, roll 6 Creature Encounter
Creature Encounter:
roll 3 + Physical 6 = 9 < 11 I am wounded, roll 6 + Mental 6 the Creature is Outsmarted, roll 4 + Spiritual 4 = 8 I am Horrified

3 roll 4 Desolate Farmhouse, roll 3 night, roll 5

4 roll 6 Murky Creek, roll 1 Murky Creek Swamplands, I don’t camp here overnight

5 roll 4 Desolate Farmhouse, roll 1 day, roll 4

6roll 6 Murky Creek, roll 4 The River Bottoms, roll 6 Creature Encounter
Creature Encounter: roll 3 + Physical 6 = 9 < 11 I am wounded for the second time, so I lost.

Play Record 2

Physical 5 + 1 + 1 + 1 final 8 Mental 4 + 2 + 1 =final 7 Spiritual 6 + 1 = final 7 Class: Professor
Status: wounded, stop being wounded, horrified no longer horrified,
1 roll 3 Lone Stretch Of Road, roll 4 day, roll 2

2 roll 6 Murky Creek, roll 5, Old Man Crenshaw’s Place, roll 1 I am wounded

3 roll 4 Desolate Farmhouse, roll 4 night, roll 3

4 roll 6 Murky Creek, roll 5 Old Man Crenshaw’s Place, roll 2

5 roll 1 The Town Of Murky, roll 5, Post Office, roll a die the next time

6 roll 6 Murky Creek, roll 2 Murky Creek Swamplands, camp here overnight, roll 3

7 roll 5 Murky Creek, roll 6 The Creature’s Den, roll 5

8 roll 5 Murky Creek, roll 4 The River Bottoms, roll 5

9 roll 1 The Town Of Murky, roll 2 General Store

1 roll 6 Murky Creek, roll 3 The River Bottoms, roll 1, roll 4 + 1 physical

11 roll 2 The Town Of Murky, roll 1 Local Library, roll 3, Physical + 1

12 roll 4 Desolate Farmhouse, roll 1 day, roll 5

13 roll 5 Murky Creek, roll 3 The River Bottoms, roll 5

14 roll 1 The Town Of Murky, roll 5 Post Office, roll 6 Mental + 2, no more bonus here

15 roll 6 Murky Creek, roll 3 The River Bottoms, roll 1, roll 4 < 6, Physical + 1

16 roll 2 The Town Of Murky ,roll 3 Police Station, roll 6 Search Old Man Crenshaw’s Place instead.
16 Search Old Man Crenshaw’s Place roll 6 search The Creature’s Den instead,The Creature’s Den roll 6
16 Creature Encounter: roll 4 + Physical 7 = 11, I end the Encounter

17 roll 6 Murky Creek, roll 2 Murky Creek Swamplands, camp here overnight, roll 1 Physical + 1

18 roll 1 The Town Of Murky, roll 4 Doctor’s Office I stop being wounded

19 roll 4 Desolate Farmhouse, roll 3 night, roll 4

2 roll 3 Lone Stretch Of Road, roll 5 night, roll 6 Creature Encounter roll 5 + Physical 7 = 12 the Creature is beaten, roll 6 + Mental 6 the Creature is outsmarted, roll 4 + Spiritual 6 = 1 I am horrified

21 roll 1 The Town Of Murky,roll 6 Old Church I am no longer horrified

22 roll 2 The Town Of Murky, roll 3 Police Station,roll 4 search Desolate Farmhouse instead,
22 roll 5 night, roll 1,roll 4 < 6 Spiritual + 1

23 roll 6 Murky Creek, roll 5 Old Man Crenshaw’s Place, roll 4 Physical + 1 Mental + 1 Spiritual + 1, no more bonus here

24 roll 6 Murky Creek,roll 6 The Creature’s Den,roll 1 Creature Encounter
24 Creature Encounter roll Creature Encounter roll 6 + Physical 8 = 14 the Creature is beaten, roll 6 + Mental 7 = 13 the Creature is outsmarted, roll 5 + Spiritual 7 = 12 the Creature is dominated Victory!

Analysis

The longer you survive in Murky County, the better your chances of gaining the sometimes required bonuses to beat the Creature. The higher your scores are the more likely it is that you can take advantage of an opportunity to gain bonuses.The Creature, Old Man Crenshaw and other dangers through out the game add a strong element of risk.The Creature is a powerful and elusive boss type since it takes above average scores in all areas obtained through game play to beat, outsmart and finally dominate the Creature, while as the Creature can easily wound,traumatize and horrify you with each failed rolled.

the game is copyright by Errin Famiglia, this review is copyright 27 John Lennon Goodwin, but please feel free to copy or repost unmodified

Being a new host, game master (GM), dungeon master (DM), storyteller can be a daunting task, you run everything that is not the players, themselves. This is where the initial problems begin. You may be thinking to yourself: “This is my game.” You couldn’t be more wrong. I won’t say you won’t encounter the odd group willing to do as you please, but that is the exception not the norm.

So, where do you begin? I’ll assume you’ve acquired a game you and your players enjoy; hopefully you’ve played it as a player. I’ll further assume that the setting is built in or you are using one already developed. Now comes the hard part.

What do they players want to do? I don’t know and odds are you don’t either. You should begin by asking the players what type of stories they enjoy. Some players like combat, some like social maneuvering, some like thinking and analyzing, some like to rush in. You probably won’t be lucky enough to have a group who agrees. So, try to make note of what everyone wants and what they absolutely don’t want. One method I use, it gets the players thinking in character, is to ask them what they envision their character doing in the game. At first just ask and let them set the scene, if they seem at a loss for ideas, give them specific scenes.

Now that you know what the players expect, you are ready to start on the first story, right? Probably not. You are ready to start on what will most likely be a discarded draft of the first story but go ahead and write down your ideas. As you write, think of how you will position and manipulate the players so that they get what they want and you tell the story you want. If your draft is good, consider a writing career. Everything you just wrote will not work out how you planned. If it does, you are either a savant or you forced the players into specific actions, and they normally don’t like that. It really won’t matter though since that draft won’t be played.

Using the draft you just created, make a list of only the most important ideas and concepts. You will only need one or two important events in the first game. These events should not be “the thing” that you really want to make a part of the game. It should be mildly important people, knowledge, items, etc. You want to first game to be something other than fluff but you don’t want your dreams crushed in the first game. Remember, this should be fun for everyone.

You may fill the need to mention the secret information vaguely or let the players catch a glimpse of the main villain. Don’t. As your first game, you can’t be sure how things are going to go. Nothing will anger your players more than changing the rules in mid-game or obviously lying about some of your rolls. You should be prepared to treat the first game as a learning experience. Something, if not everything, will go wrong. That’s why you hold back the “good stuff.”

In closing, there are a few important ideas I want to re-enforce and few new ones. You and the players have the same goal: to enjoy yourselves. Your ideas will work far better in your imagination than they will in play. Your first game will most likely not go exactly as planned. There are no simple and easy solutions to problems you face as a host. Just because it is fair, doesn’t mean the players will think it is. I’m not an expert, no one is. There is always opportunity learn and what works for me may annoy you to no end. So, finally, get out and play, give it your best and everything should work out.

Thanks,

Keeton

Hi all, I first let me say that I have enjoyed reading your blogs for the past few months.

I am one of the founding members (sounds more impressive than it is) of Ironwood Omnimedia Company. We created the E-RPG system and we are ready to fully release the Fantasy Sagas (shortly).

Now, I was wondering if you’d like to get a crack at our game before we release it. No holds barred; good or bad (we hope is good) we want to hear your criticism and hopefully you’ll tell your readers about it.

I look forward to your response.

Regards,

Willie Santana, MGRM
Chief Operations Officer
Ironwwood Omnimedia Company, LLC

1KM1KT is all about free RPG games. We publish them online, we promote them, and we even have a forum for developers to chat back and forth. This is great, but we’ve come to realize that we’re really missing out on one of the coolest aspects of role playing – development.

RPG Laboratory is geared specifically for this aspect of gaming. So much so we felt a new site was in order (plus it gets old looking at that same orc picture day in and day out).

With RPG Laboratory, you own and maintain your own section of the website where you can write campaign material, flesh out game mechanics, or talk about your project. It’s yours to work on and yours to control with as little or as much assistance as you want.

Open Source

Role playing games are for sharing. A lot of people have already invented the wheel, and the same is true with RPGs. RPG Laboratory is based on the open source philosophy quickly becoming popular in the software industry that promotes idea sharing and community improvement. Unless you’re planning to make a profit, the work you find on RPG Laboratory is OK to use in your own creation. It can be modified to suit your needs or used as-is.

It’s Free

One of the things that’s made 1KM1KT so popular is that we don’t charge for anything. The same goes with RPG Laboratory. Show your support for 1KM1KT and sign up for an account now. We need as much feedback as possible, so please let us know what you think.

Panty explosion is a psychic schoolgirl adventure game. Each player takes the role of a normal Japanese student. One of you, perhaps more then one of you, is a psychic with devastating and terrifying powers. You can find out more about the game on our site (www.atarashigames.com) or by reading the discussion over the games development from earlier this year at the Forge.

Right before Gencon I got together with my younger brother Nick and some friends to play Panty Explosion. Nick had helped play test the game and was eager to take the role of Superintendent and set up a game. I was happy to take on the role of a Student, as were Woody and Gabe, who had never played before.

I’ve been telling people that a game of Panty Explosion can be played in just 2 hours, and for this game I wanted to put that to the test. Nick was also doubtful that Panty Explosions conflict resolution system could work well for a hard-core combat scene, so he decided he would try that out as well. We played just one session before I got to busy preparing for Gencon. We picked up the game again the week after I got back from Indy.

Creating Students

First off we sat down to create some Students. I’ve found that PE works best with 4-5 players (plus a Superintendent), but when our 4th player failed to show we decided to make do with three . Here’s who we came up with.

Chio Maeda Chio is well liked and athletic. Her highest Godai element is Air and her lowest is Fire. Chio chose Yumi as her best friend and Yoko as her rival. The agendas she choose for this game are “get revenge on Teacher”, and “steal a carton of cigarettes”.

Yumi Endo Yumi is quiet and reserved. She comes from a rich family and is allowed to indulge in her interests in clothing, games and doujinshi. Her highest Godai element is Water, while her lowest is Earth. Yumi chose Yoko as her best friend and Chio as her rival. The agendas she chose are “wants to get Yoko a new boyfriend” and “wants to kiss a psychic”.

Yoko Nakamura Yoko is tougher and stronger then her friends, but is often teased because of her weight. She’s on the championship winning girls softball team and isn’t afraid to stand up to bullies. She’s also a psychic, but doesn’t know it. Her highest Godai element is Fire, while her lowest is Void. Yoko chose Yumi as her best friend and Chio as her rival. The agenda she chose is “wants to get payback at Teacher for getting her suspended from the team”.

Character creating in PE was designed to be fairly fast and simple. Gabe and Woody breezed through creating their Students very quickly, but it took me quite awhile to decide what I wanted to do.

Nick had us draw to see which one of us would be psychic. The identity of the Psychic is supposed to be secret until it is revealed during the game, but it took us only a few minutes to realize that Yoko was the groups psychic.

After we finished our students we voted for popularity. Yoko was most popular and Yumi was least.

Creating the School

Nick described his ideas for the school to us, telling us that there was a big school festival coming up where our club (we had decided we were all in the board game club) had challenged another to both a cake eating contest and a 3-legged race. Nick also mentioned that a few girls from the swim team had gone missing over the last few days. We took this to be our first hint at the Demon that we would confront later.

We didn’t want to clutter up the school with a lot of characters, but we made sure to include our homeroom teacher, Ms. Kuji. We decide that Ms. Kuji was a real bitch, and openly despised all of our Students. We also create the Canadian exchange student Mark, the only male member of the board game club.

The Game

The game started just before the school festival. We discovered that the board game club needed to recruit some more members or we wouldn’t be allowed to compete in any of the festivals contests. Running around the festival recruiting members (often stealing them from other clubs) gave us plenty of opportunities to use both our Air and Void dice to convince Students to join our club. Chio failed at her role to recruit an attractive young man, and her rival described how Chio’s boyfriend Rafu spotted her talking to the good looking student and in a jealous rage came over and started yelling at her in front of the entire school. Chio had spent all her Air and Void dice convincing students to join the club, so she didn’t have any left to try to reason with Rafu. Instead of spending her one Fire die to try to argue with him Chio spent some Earth dice to ignore him and walk away. She failed, and her rival got to describe how Rafu yelled at her some more and slapped her hard across the face. This is when Yoko decided to enter the conflict. With her softball bat in hand Yoko pitched a softball to herself and took aim for the back of Rafu’s head. She decided to use her Psychic powers to enhance the action as well. She succeeds and her best friend described how she hit the ball out of the air and slammed it right into the back of Rau’s head. Because it’s a psychic action we also described how the air sizzled with static electricity and a ghostly trail of light followed the ball as it impacts against Rafu’s head. The crowd is stunned at this blatant display of psychic powers, as are our Students, who had no idea their friend was a psychic. Yoko herself is confused and disturbed by this first ever manifestation of the psychic powers she didn’t even know she had. Later that day we would participate in and win both the cake eating contest and the 3-legged race, but the students from other classes were wary of us, and we could here mutterings and rumors going around about Yoko being a psychic.

We ended our session at that point. It had been about 2 hours, and we all felt that was a good place to stop for the day. We had gotten caught up in the school festival and recruiting new members to join our club, and had never gotten around to completing our Agendas or discovering the Demon. We decided to save that for our next session.

The next session started up a few days later with a commotion in the hallway that drew both students and teachers out to investigate. The bloody remains of a student were found stuffed into her small locker. Later that evening our Students snuck into the school to investigate the locker and see if it was connected to the missing girls from the swim team. We had decided that there had been some nasty rumors going around since Yoko’s display of psychic powers the other day. Some of the students and teachers were blaming Yoko (and us!) for the disappearances. It was only a matter of time before the government showed up to haul us away, so we had to act fast and find out what was really going on.

This session had everything that makes Panty Explosion really exciting. A really scary confrontation with a demon possessed janitor in the dark school hallways was just a preview of the conflict that came later, an all out struggle in the locker room and showers with a dog like Yama-Inu demon that could travel between lockers. To everyone’s surprise (including my own) the fight with the Demon was incredibly rich and detailed, and the conflict resolution system worked very well for what was essentially an extended combat scene. Yoko used her powers to make the demons head explode, but that barely slowed the creature down, and its head quickly grew back. After suffering some truly terrifying wounds (the Demon locked its jaws around Yumi’s head and tried to swallow her, and also chewed much of the skin off Chio’s arm) we trapped the creature under a garbage can. It struggled for a while, but without a new body to posses and drag into a locker it eventually died and crumbled to dust. We called Chio’s asshole boyfriend Rafu, who grudgingly agreed to come and pick us up at the school and take us to the hospital.

During the confrontation we got a few chances to resolve some of our Agendas. Both Chio and Yoko found clues that led them to believe that our homeroom teacher was somehow connected with the Demon and the disappearance of the swim team. In the next game we play they’ll use that information to take their revenge on Ms. Kuji. Yumi was able to complete both of her agendas in one go. Now that she knew Yoko was a psychic she found herself very attracted to the other girl. In a quiet moment between the demons attacks she took a chance and kissed her friend. Yumi has decided to abandon her agenda to find Yoko a new boyfriend and now wants to become Yoko’s girlfriend. We’ll see how that goes over in our next game.

After

Over all I think the 2 sessions were a big success. Each was played out in about 2 hours, which I think is the perfect amount of time for a game of PE. We also discovered that combat in Panty Explosion could be really nasty and fulfilling, and I think we’ve forever banished the idea that PE is “just a relationship game”.

This game gave me a chance to address some of my own questions about the game. In past sessions I’ve done a poor job of using the scene creation and traits rules, so I made extra effort to use them in this game. The scene creation rules were quick and easy to use (as intended), with each player contributing elements to the scene that they wanted to explore. If a scene wasn’t creepy enough we made it creepier. If a scene needed another character we invented one on the spot. That was a lot of fun and a good reminder of how important those rules are to the game.

Overall I had a lot of fun, and I’m happy to have proven that you can play a fun game of panty Explosion in just 2 hours. Despite that, I think our future games may stretch a little longer. We’re growing more comfortable with our Students and we have a lot of neat scenes to explore and Agendas to follow up on. I think we’ll be playing these Students for awhile.

Here’s a look at some things that came up during our game.

Agendas: When you start a game of PE each player selects one or two Agendas. these are goals that the player works toward during the game. Completing your Agendas gives you the option of selecting a new Trait at the end of the session, while leaving your Agenda uncompleted empowers the Demon that you have to face. One of things I discovered with this game is that it’s really important to let new players know that they should be working toward their Agendas. As a result of this I was very focused on my Students Agendas, creating scenes and situations that I could take advantage of to see them completed. The other players became wrapped up in chasing down the Demon and ended up putting their Agendas aside or forgetting about them. Which is okay. But I think I let my friends who were unfamiliar with the game down because I didn’t explain why completing your Agendas is worthwhile. Because I was the only player really pushing their Agenda the game became very me-centric, with the Superintendent introducing his Demon stuff as seemed appropriate. If Woody and Gabe had known to persue their Agendas the game could have, and almost certainly would have gone in a different direction.

Conflict resolution: PE uses a simple success/failure die system to resolve conflicts. once success or failure is determined the result is described by the players Best Friend or Rival. In this game we were a little sluggish at this first. As our Students were hunting around and trying to convince their classmates to sign up for the board game club the descriptions of our successes and failures started to become more interesting. When Woody’s character Chio failed at an attempt to recruit a popular student her best friend (Gabe) got a chance to invent her jealous asshole of a boyfriend. I think this was the point where the idea of describing other players success and failure really clicked with everybody. Woody’s second failure, Chio’s attempt to get away from her boyfriend), gave Gabe a chance to escalate the scene from an argument to a fight by having the boyfriend slap Chio hard across the face in front of everyone. The description of the action didn’t just include the physical blow. Gabe went into detail about Chio’s embarrassment at being struck in front of the entire school, and how many of her friends turned away or stood by and did nothing. Our group latched on to humiliation as a theme for our game, and almost every description covered not just the physical act that was being performed but also the emotional and social impact of the action.

We definitely went for a style of play where the descriptions of actions led right into brand new conflicts. When Gabe brought his Student Yoko into the same scene and used her psychic powers on the boyfriend I got to describe not just the action but the crowds fear and revulsion. Based on that description we decided that the entire school would become suspicious of Yoko and her alleged psychic powers, and start accusing her of killing the missing swim team. This gave us a sense of urgency and direction. We had to discover what had actually happened to the swim team and clear Yoko’s name.

Best Friends and Rivals: For some reason in our first session we had a lot of trouble remembering who our best friends and rivals were. This led to a lot of confusion and a lot of bewildered looks when someone was asked to describe their best friend or rivals action. Early in the first session we had a lot of slow down because we kept having to check our notes to see who was supposed to be describing what. We chose new Best friends/rivals for our second session and almost immediately the problem went away. I know part of the confusion came from odd dice rolls. Woody kept failing at his roles and because of this the player playing his best friend never got a chance to describe one of his successes. When Woody finally did succeed we sat around the table for several seconds staring at the player who was supposed to describe his action before one of us had to nudge him and tell him he was on. Similarly, I kept succeeding at all my rolls and my Students best friend found himself describing my actions so often that he started describing every ones actions. I hadn’t encountered this kind of confusion with the best Friend/Rival mechanic before, and I think if this becomes a problem in future games (it didn’t happen in our 2nd session) then I’ll make name tags or something.

Building scenes: This was something that I wanted to focus on in these sessions, and I’m really glad I did. In PE players work together to build the 5 aspects of a scene. This is supposed to be a quick and easy process, but it took us awhile to warm up to it. The first few scenes were mostly created by myself or Nick, but Woody and Gabe started contributing soon enough, and by the second game we had adopted n alternative system where each of us suggested an aspect of the scene based on our most powerful Godai Element. This was an interesting alternative to the normal method and one that I think we’ll continue in future games. One of us (often the superintendent) would suggest a location for the scene. Woody would tell us about the people tat were in the scene, Gabe would describe what was happening and I’d finish up by designating the mood. We would then decide as a group if there scene had any supernatural or strange elements. By the middle of the second session we had become comfortable enough with the process as a group that we were able to create a scene in just a few seconds. This led to a number of interesting scenes, including the final confrontation with the demon that took place in the schools showers with the lights out. Scene creation very quickly became a series of attempts to out do each other, and as a result the scenes became more interesting, unconventional and bizarre. We also took advantage of scene creation to introduce new conflicts into existing situations. In one of the last scenes of the game, where the girls escaped from the school and headed for the hospital) we set the scene by having Chio’s call her asshole boyfriend and have him pick us up in his car. We hadn’t seen the boyfriend character since the first session so bringing him back in created a real nice conflict (Chio ended up breaking up with him in the hospital parking lot) and gave us a nice sense of closure.

Roleplaying: This was the tough part. Gabe didn’t actually want to play Panty Explosion. The idea of pretending to be a 15-year-old Japanese girl does nothing for him. So it was kind of a tough sell. Fortunately he warmed up to the idea that PE is an adventure game, with Demons and psychics and all that. But we still had a bit of trouble getting into character (myself included) and any scene that brought our students gender or sexuality to the forefront was a little strained. Of course this got better as we went along, but we kind of hit a wall when I suggested that Yumi had become attracted to Yoko once Yoko revealed her psychic powers (kissing a psychic was one of Yumi’s Agendas). This kind of situation can be difficult, and I didn’t want to push it and make anyone uncomfortable. I decided to play the scenes involving Yumi’s attraction to Yoko as comedy, and everybody seemed to respond fairly well to that. Woody didn’t have much trouble playing out Chio’s relationship with her boyfriend, which was mostly antagonistic. But as a group we ended up staying away from the “schoolgirl” part and stuck closer to the “psychic adventures” aspects of the game. Which is okay I guess. PE can be played a number of different ways, and certainly you want everyone in your group to be comfortable with the game. And there’s definitely a… taboo(?) with some people ( a lot of people) around playing girls, especially girls that do girly things. Or feminine things. Or express sexual interests. Or whatever. In future games I want to be able to show my fellow players that it’s okay to explore these parts of their characters, especially since these aspects are very big parts of the traditional psychic schoolgirl genre.

Combat: Nick didn’t think the PE resolution rules would work for combat. Or at least not for anything engaging or interesting. I’ve never taken a game in that direction myself so I was eager to see how it would go. A lot of people at Gencon wrote off Panty explosion as a :relationship game” (I wasn’t even aware that there was a stigma there, but apparently there is). Gabe was concerned that our characters would just sit around and talk to each other and nothing interesting would happen. Nick told us tat he would be focusing on combat for this game, but I think we were all a little surprised when the entire second session became essentially two long fight scenes. This was very enjoyable. We very quickly took advantage of our roles as Best Friends and Rivals to either inflict horrible wounds on other players or have them perform incredible acts of bravery and desperation. Every description of a success became a daring last minute save or a lucky hit with an unconventional weapon, while every failure was a near death experience. I had suspected that a good combat would rely on the players realizing that their only limits would be what they could describe, and Gabe and woody picked up on this almost immediately. we also put the scene creation rule to good use to create some really neat situations to fight the Demon in. For the final confrontation we described how a power outage had left the locker rooms showers in complete darkness. Water poured from both the shower heads and cracks in the walls as we stood in ankle deep water desperately waving our one flashlight around trying to spot the demon that was stalking us.

Of course the downside to combat was that in a life or death situation failure means death. It took a few minutes for everyone to see that improvisation was the key. Twice Gabe had the opportunity as my Students rival to describe how Yumi was brutally killed, but both times he chose instead to have her seriously wounded or thoroughly humiliated. Again, combat quickly became an attempt to out do each other in our descriptions.

Things we missed: We completely forgot about Traits. I think only one of us called on a Trait the entire game. This isn’t a big deal, but Traits are valuable and we had plenty of chances to use them. We also completely forgot that a known Psychic could not be the most popular girl, and as a result Yoko remained most popular for much of both sessions. We only took two popularity votes, one at the beginning of each session. Normally a game will have 2 or three votes, but i think this was okay because each session took place over a very short amount of time. this did mean that I was stuck being least popular for the entire game, but I rolled remarkably well and didn’t suffer for it.

Overall I am very pleased with these sessions. I think the other players enjoyed themselves, although I know Woody said he wished we had played longer. I like the simplicity of a 2 hour session. to me it gives the game a movie like quality. But I think most of the people I play with prefer a longer and more involved game. I’ve proposed that in the future we play 2 episodes a night. One before dinner and one after. That makes sense to me, although I think I may be working toward a personal aesthetic that no one else cares about.

Once you create an original piece of work, you own the copyright until you sell those rights or die (lots of interesting details on the death part, but we won’t dwell on it).

Q: What guarantee do I have that I will receive credit for my own work?

None really. Although you can uphold a copyright claim in a court of law, the expense is almost never worth it. The movie and music industries are fighting this battle on a daily basis. However, before you put your work back on the shelf, I will tell you that the inherent goodness of people (or their overiding fear of prosecution) keeps most people from using your work and claiming ownership without your permission. At 1km1kt, one of the tenets of our site is actually to encourage people to take and republish elsewhere with the stipulation that they must give credit where it is due.

Q: Are there any preliminary steps I should take to secure my own work prior to submitting it to you?

You can put that little © thing and a date on it if you like (most people do), but it’s just a reminder for others – either way you still own the work. Owning a copryright to a piece of work means it’s illegal for someone else to copy it without your permission. That’s really all there is to claiming a copyright. If you really want to go crazy, you can do something to prove that you created the work first in case you ever go to court, like taking it to a notary.

These are just two of the high points – there’s more that goes on and this is not meant to be specific legal advice, but should be sufficient for most small press RPG game publishers. Theft of copyright is a fact of life, but I would encourage our readers to devote their time to making something worth stealing and showing it to the world rather than living in fear of having it taken from them. I’ve been doing this long enough to know that most of the time goodwill begets goodwill.

Get hardcopies or the free download here
Visit Cult of Cthulhu press

Thanks to OgreCave.com for producing and publishing the interview.

These are their stories.

Contagion: War Stories is a short fiction anthology from Aegis Studios. This anthology contains thirteen stories of horror and strife, written by some of today s newest up and coming authors. Based on the Contagion roleplaying game, this anthology contains tales of the soldiers, bystanders, and victims of the War between Heaven and Hell.

Contagion: War Stories features masterfully executed tales by Anthony Andorra, Chris Delloiacono, C.T Gerow, MaGnUs, Kenneth Mack, Royal McGraw, Vernon Bo McGuffee II, Luke Pierce, Christopher J Pisano & Brian Koscienski, Cathleen Stark, ssg, and Contagion developer Travis Legge.

Contagion: War Stories features interior art by Alex Rodriguez, Vernon Bo McGuffee II, and Travis Legge.

Coming November 3th, 2005. 2 pages. Cover Price: $1.99 plus shipping and handling

To commemorate this earth-shattering news, we have posted a free sample chapter from War Stories on our yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Contagionwarriors All you need to do is join up, and you can download this FULL chapter for free!

Tell your friends, Contagion: War Stories is coming soon!

http://www.aegisstudios.net

Patchwork Universe is an online storytelling and roleplaying shared universe experiment, created by author Rhiannon Lassiter in association with a team of writers, roleplayers and game designers from around the world. It is an exercise in co-operative storytelling taking advantage of a variety of internet utilities to link and branch storylines across a group of widely variant locations and involving characters with disparate abilities, intentions and paradigms.

“Once upon a time a group of entities who called themselves Gods discovered or created an area of space they could control. To this place they brought small patches from a variety of worlds, each chosen for one particular person who had caught the interest of the Gods. Over time, more segments of worlds were brought to the patchwork and some of the original patches vanished, while others remained for long enough to discover some of the secrets of the universe. It was proven that time, space, and even death were all under the control of the Gods but their purposes in creating the patchwork remained a mystery.” ~ The Patchwork History

Patchwork had a beta-test phase in 24 and was officially launched in July 25. To find out more about the game please read the starting information. To join the game for free please fill in the signup form. Once your form has been submitted you will be emailed by a member of the current team of gamesmasters to discuss your character and then registered on the forums by the webmaster with your own character and patch.

“The patchwork today is reasonably peaceful, although travellers are less inclined to small talk, since most are occupied in furthering their own aims and ambitions. New patches are appearing at a considerable rate and although seasoned travellers will often stop to give some advice to newcomers, this can come at a price… Those attempting to understand the current divine agenda have proposed a number of names for this age. Is it the age of aliens, or of cats, or perhaps the beginning of a second age of heroes? There appear to be shifting alliances among the Gods and while some appear to be taking a back seat, others are increasing their activity. As always in the patchwork, the future is uncertain.” ~ The Patchwork Today

Did you ever stumble on one of your own friend’s blogs and find out that they’re way more/less interesting than you ever imagined? Here’s one of mine. Let’s send him a thousand readers so he thinks he’s cool. Better yet, let’s send him a thousand e-mails telling him. Or just check out the blog – it’s surprisingly interesting.

This message is intended to inform our visitors that we are based in the Dallas, Fort Worth area of Texas and are currently expecting some involvement with hurricane Rita over the next few days. Although we are not anticipating power outages or things of that nature, they are certainly a possiblity. If you notice any problems with the site rest assured that we are monitoring the situation and any problems will be resolved as quickly as possible.

Wish us luck, and send your good thoughts out to our evacuee friends from Houston as well as the already uprooted Katrina refugees. Remember you too can help, and every little bit is important.

With that in mind, this is the official announcement that 1KM1KT is open to hosting your RPG contest or project. We want to hear about anything and everything you have in mind to get people motivated and more involved in the hobby. Check out our submissions page for details, and send us your ideas today.

Travos took a deep breath as he approached the man. Today would be the first day of a grand adventure.

“How do I use the games on this site?”

Many gamers today relate role-playing games to computer games. The computer role-playing game (abbreviated RPG) is actually a migration of a game that people can play together around a table. The migration from tabletop to computer is a popular trend in gaming. Many games have made this transition. When is the last time you saw someone playing solitaire at a table with a deck of playing cards? When is the last time you saw someone play solitaire at their computer?

Like solitaire, computer RPGs and MMORPGs began life at the tabletop. This site is full of various rules systems and mechanics for playing the tabletop version of an RPG. When you click on one of the game documents provided on this site, you receive a set of guideline for playing your own role-playing game at home with your friends.

Most of the game documents available here assume that you as “the reader” have some experience with this kind of RPG. This article is intended for those people who find their way to this site and have never played an RPG at the tabletop before.

Tabletop Role-playing Basics

“How does it work?”

Imagine that you are sitting around your dining room table with a few of your friends. One of your friends is describing a scene to you:

You are standing in front of a small keep. The keep is a strong looking stone structure in good repair. On the other side of the road opposite the keep is a wagon. The wagon is open and various items have been laid out on it for display. It looks like there may be some articles of clothing and also some basic weapons here. A few people stand near the wagon keeping an eye on it and its contents. Beyond the vender wagon there is a tree line, the beginnings of a forest. You think that you can see some kind of animal tracks in the ground near the trees. On the road ahead of you a man is approaching. He is dressed in chain armor and the heraldry on his surcoat indicates that he is affiliated with the keep behind you. You think that he might be a castle guard. He is heading your direction and appears to want to speak with you. What do you do?

GAME MASTER (GM) or DUNGEON MASTER (DM)

Most tabletop RPGs assume that one person will take the role of a special kind of player called the Game Master. This person will describe the game world to the other players, set the scene for them and help them to “visualize” in their imaginations where their characters are and what they are doing at the moment.

CHARACTERS or PLAYER CHARACTERS (PC)

The other players each adopt the role of a singular character within the game world. These players (generally from 2 to 4 in number) will listen to the descriptions provided by the GM and respond to the GM’s descriptions by answering the question, “What do you do?”

Jennifer responds to the GM’s description. “I want Travos to go look at the animal tracks to see what they are, but since this guy seems like he wants to talk to me, I’ll wait to do that for a minute and go up to him. Travos will walk up to the castle guard and say, *Greetings, sir. Are you a guard here at this keep?*” Jennifer speaks on behalf of her character, Travos and addresses the guard that the GM has described to her.

Other players around the table will each take a turn to describe the actions of their characters. This is how role-playing around a tabletop works.

The Game Master will have a set of “encounters” in mind before the game session begins. These encounters are meant to provide an impetus for the other players and to give their characters some motivation to take action. The string of encounters and player responses when taken together will work to tell a sort of adventure story.

“Interesting, but what makes this a game?”

RPGs are generally meant to simulate dramatic adventure stories. Adventure stories are often filled with perilous action sequences that endanger the heroes of the story in some manner. To simulate this sense of danger an element of uncertainty is introduced into the game play.

Before there were RPGs there were miniature battle games. War game simulations that used miniature figures to represent troops have been used by combat tacticians for centuries. These war simulations evolved over the years into battle games played by hobbyists. At first the intent of these games was to recreate historical battles. Then, thanks largely to the popularity of a fictional work of magical high fantasy called, “The Lord of the Rings” players began to introduce more fantastical elements into their battle simulations.

This was the beginning of an evolution that was to become the modern RPG. It is important to note the origins of this hobby because it will help to explain the other primary focus of an RPG.

COMBAT

The guard steps up to you. He wears concern on his face and diverts his gaze over to the tree line and into the forest. “Greetings …” He addresses you. “I was told that help might be coming. The wolves have grown very active recently and people have grown afraid. Conflict with the kingdom to the north has the castle guard worn thin and we haven’t the manpower to deal with the problem. The baron has placed a bounty on wolf pelts in hopes that enterprising mercenaries and trappers might journey here and help to thin the population.”

Assuming the player characters decide to accept this challenge, the above encounter is meant to provide the PCs with a reason to venture out into the forest and do battle with wolves. In most role-playing games combat is very structured and played in turns just like any other game a group of people might play around a table. On their turn each PC could roll some dice and consult the rules of the game to determine if they were able to hit and injure the wolf. The GM would also take a turn on the wolf’s behalf rolling dice to try to hit and injure one of the PCs.

The rules about how combat works and what the numbers mean when you roll dice vary greatly from game to game. This is what the rules documents are about. There are different ideas for generating numbers and resolving conflicts. There are also many different settings and backgrounds. Maybe the PCs will pretend to be brave knights and warriors in a medieval world filled with dragons and magic. Maybe they are super powered vigilantes who don spandex costumes to patrol the streets of a modern city and fight to keep it free of crime. Maybe they are star faring pirates who travel in a space ship from planet to planet looking for treasure.

THE RULES IN PLAY:

Jennifer has told the GM that Travos would accept the guard’s suggestion and venture into the forest in search of wolves. She has told the GM that Travos is following the tracks he saw earlier and that he is keeping his eyes peeled for danger.

The GM tells Jennifer that a gigantic wolf has jumped out from the underbrush to attack her.

The GM tells Jennifer to roll to see who goes first.

The GM rolls for the wolf and Jennifer also rolls. Jennifer rolls higher so she gets to go first.

Jennifer explains that she wants Travos to try to hit the wolf with his sword. The GM tells Jennifer what she must roll in order to hit and she rolls her dice. The roll is high enough so Travos hits the wolf with his sword.

Jennifer rolls more dice to determine how much damage the sword blow does to the wolf and the GM reduces the wolf’s “life” by the damage amount.

Both the GM and Jennifer have note paper in front of them. On this paper are various pieces of information. Like how much damage Travos’ sword inflicts or how much “life” the wolf has.

It’s now the GM’s turn and he describes to Jennifer how the wolf lunges back at Travos and tries to bite him. The GM rolls the dice but doesn’t roll high enough for the wolf to hit Travos so Travos evades the attack and his able to take his turn again.

Jennifer rolls to hit the wolf again and rolls high enough to hit. She rolls damage again and the GM reduces this additional damage from the wolf’s remaining “life.” This new damage drops the wolf’s life total down to less than zero and the GM reports to Jennifer that the wolf falls to the ground lifeless and defeated.

“How does the GM know what number Jennifer needs to roll for Travos to hit?”

“How does the GM know how much “life” the wolf has? How much damage a sword does?”

That’s what the RPG rules are for. Rules will answer these questions and make it possible for the Player Characters and the Game Master to simulate all manner of physical conflicts.

If you can, find someone who has played a tabletop RPG before and ask them to be your GM. If not, review this introduction again, and read the rules presented in any one of the free game downloads. Once you think you have a good “feel” for how things should go in your head, give it a try. There is no teacher better than hands-on experience. Oh, and feel free to post questions in the forums here. We love questions!

“Why play this way… why not just play a computer game?”

The Game Master has the freedom to create any manner of story they can imagine. The Player Characters can respond to the situations presented by a living Game Master in ways a computer could never predict. Tabletop RPG’s are about creative freedom. This method of gaming also offers a level of social interaction unequalled by the computer world of instant messages.

There is nothing better than sitting down around the table with a few friends, ordering a pizza or two and losing yourself in a world of fantastic adventure. You will build memories together that will last the rest of your life.

Naturally, this type of e-mail has mixed emotions for me. On the one hand, I’m thrilled that one of our members has made the leap from RPG enthusiast to published author, and it makes me happy to think that maybe our site contributed to their success in some small way. On the other hand, We’re always sad to have to take down our precious online RPG content – especially when it’s something we’ve really enjoyed.

I guess for now we’ll have to continue to settle for the idea that we’re doing our job of getting the word out there for RPG authors. That said I’d like to take this opportunity to salute all of the members of 1KM1KT, both past a present, who have had the gumption to get out there and take their work to a higher level.

However, the good horror rpgs' I mean the really good ones, knock my socks off and rank as some of the best rpgs ever produced. The key to being one of the great rpgs is twofold: 1) the rpg has to have a great setting, and 2) the rpg has to lend itself to some great gamemastering. Now, as a setting junkie, we’ll address this first. The best horror rpgs are going to be the ones with the great settings. The second part of my criteria is much harder for me to articulate since the game needs to lend itself to a good gamemaster using the rpg and forming it into something creepy' something scary. Rules, setting, mood, and, most importantly, a good gamemaster are the things that make an rpg lend itself to good gamemastering (a bit circular, I admit).

So, with a concentration on my first criteria, but with an eye towards my second let’s get to the meat-and-potatoes of this article:
My Top Five Horror rpg settings
Honorable mention:

Nightmares of Mine (I.C.E)- not actually a setting, and just barely an rpg supplement, this book is absolutely invaluable to a horror gamemaster. Ken Hite hits a homerun in his analysis of the horror genre and advice on how to treat it with respect in horror rpgs. Buy this book if you run (or want to run) a horror rpg.

Kult 3rd ed. (Paradox Entertainment)- Three incarnations and still going strong. It takes a heavy dose of Gnosticism and the creepy parts of Christianity to create a nifty dystopic otherworld. Think Hellraiser and you are not far off.

Wraith (White Wolf): Someone else said it better than I ever could: Wraith I the greatest game no one plays. While it has some wonderfully creepy ideas, the mechanics and weird setting hurt the playabilty of the game.

Obsidian (Apophis Consortium): So close, yet so very far.

5. All Flesh Must be Eaten (Eden Studios). The zombie survival rpg. Anytime you think of a game that will feature zombies heavily, this is the game that should be at the top of most lists. AFMBE is a toolbox game, everything you want or need to run the game is in the core book. Right from the start AFMBE presents a lot of options for creating zombies and the book is that much stronger for all those options. I am a fan of zombie flicks, and it took me a while to finally admit AFMBE is the game for zombies- but it really is. Eden did a great job with the game.

The Unisystem engine for AFMBE is quite solid and there are a lot of people who think the Unisystem engine is second-to-none. Part of the reason AFMBE is such a good game is how seamlessly it works with the Eden engine. From tense escape sequences to full fledged firefights, Unisystem handles the possibilities of AFMBE well.

The art in AFMBE is great. I am under the understanding that AFMBE was co-imagined with Christopher Shy, and his stellar artwork is all over AFMBE (including the cover). Interspersed with some solid pencil work, the feel that AFMBE conveys is quite appropriate for the genre. The writing is pretty mechanical, with the occasional additions for color. All-in-all, AFMBE does a fine job in creating the basics for games with zombies.

My problem with AFMBE is that it is too general. There are options for settings (some of which are great, others are uninspiring) but nothing that reallt defines AFMBE as a great horror game. The addition of some really off-the wall options (while useful), and some really kitsch settings hurt the ability to really create a creepy atmosphere. As a toolbox AFMBE has no equal, as a horror rpg it has potential, but is left behind.

The current in-print version of AFMBE is the 2nd edition. Either edition is okay though- the tweaks to 2nd edition are nice but not a deal-breaker. The supplements are all solid with one exception. I would avoid the Book of Archetypes 2 (it is too repetitive and uncreative when compared to the 1st).

4. Orpheus (White Wolf). I really, really like Orpheus. It was developed by one of most favorite personalities in the rpg industry, Lucien Soulban. Mr Soulban has been the creative force behind some of the best rpg supplements in existence (Vimary for Tribe 8 and Montreal by Night to name two). When I heard he was going to be at the helm of the 6-book limited run of the Orpheus line, I could not have thought of anyone better for the job. Much to my delight, Mr. Soulban did an excellent job with Orpheus.

Orpheus is a full game line, setting, and epic adventure wrapped up in a tidy 6-book set (the core book and five supplements). The game’s setting almost begs for some great games to be run. Basically, you play operatives for a private company (the Orpheus Group) that hunt ghosts. The thing that makes Orpheus stay in business is the fact that its operatives can project their souls into the spirit world- ensuring their “ghostbusting” lends results. Of course, this is a White Wolf game, so you as PCs you get all sorts of nifty powers to go along with projecting your soul.

The successor to the Wraith line (see above), Orpheus was, in my opinion, a successful way of making Wraith playable. Much of the backstory and metaplot of the Wraith line carry over into Orpheus, slowly bleeding over into a truly marvelous campaign. As the campaign unfolds over the five supplements, new powers, new character options, new enemies, and new revelations are revealed- making the Orpheus line fit together seamlessly. Because the supplements work so well together and help create a full campaign that progresses over time, Orpheus is arguably the best use of metaplot used in an rpg. Quite useful, especially for a horror rpg.

Orpheus is at times Creepy, mysterious, and tense. The art is largely quite good, some of the best art in a White Wolf line, ever. More importantly, the art reflects the text quite closely (something I really appreciate)- helping create an idea of what the horrors of Orpheus look like. A nice touch, really. The text is filled with lots of color entries, balancing the art to help add even more description to the world.

The place where Orpheus trips up as a horror rpg is in the non-horror elements that creep in to most of the supplements. Some of the creatures that are introduced are patently not scary or creepy- but simply silly. Also, as the plot progresses Orpheus moves away from its horror roots to be a bit more of an action-adventure game- which hurts the mood set by earlier books. Understand, this is the goal of the Orpheus line- to grow and change with the metaplot. However, taken as a whole, Orpheus loses too much of its horror roots to be ranked as one of the top three horror prgs.

3. Call of Cthulhu (Chaosium and various publishers). The father of all horror rpgs. HP Lovecraft was as much surrealist as horror writer, and the two aspects of his writing work remarkably well together- not only in his rendition of the Dreamlands, but in creating creatures that man was not supposed to know. Many of the tropes and core assumptions found in subsequent horror rpgs first started with Call of Cthulhu. There are reams and reams of discussion on Call of Cthulhu and HP Lovecraft’s work, so I will refrain from going to deep into the relative merits of the game. Rest assured, it is a nifty setting that works exceptionally well with the BRP (Basic Roleplaying) system.

Call of Cthulhu is a great setting that, unfortunately, has not aged well. Cthulhu is no longer scary in my mind. Unfortunately, through no real fault of Call of Cthulhu, the Mythos just isn’t mysterious anymore. Part of what makes the mythos great as antagonists is the mystery that surrounds them- they are supposed to be unknowable- beyond the understanding of normal men. However, to get the feeling of mystery and awe that Call of Cthulhu elicited over a decade ago, you have to start moving beyond the mythos as defined by Lovecraft or start anew with a new setting (as we will see below). CoC is a victim of its own success.

Don’t get me wrong, CoC can still be run as a scary rpg, but it takes a lot of work on the part of the GM and a savvy group to help move beyond what they already know and assume about the mythos to get really scared by a game. The key is having a really good gamemaster that understands the themes behind Lovecraft’s work- however; a gamemaster of that skill could make any horror game scary. In CoC’s case a good gameaster is more necessary than most other games- and so it gets the third spot.

2. Delta Green (Pagan Publishing). Delta Green is Call of Cthulhu, updated and made sexy (“sexy” like in the smoldering eyes of a goth chick who you know is nothing but trouble). Delta Green is widely regarded as one of the best rpgs on the market, and deservedly so. DG takes the tropes and themes of CoC and uses them to take the mythos into new and exciting (and mysterious) directions. The end result is a new game that brings the tense and terrifying atmosphere of Call of Cthulhu back. Still based on the standard (if uninspiring) BRP system, the real gem of this game is the setting.

In Delta Green you play a government agent (or other suitably well established PC) that is slowly confronting the mythos. Delta Green is a disgraced secret branch of the U.S, government that is now part of a grand conspiracy that fights the mythos. Delta Green is a loose alliance of likeminded individuals (of which the PCs form a cell) that have seen things that should not be and whose lives have changed as a result. Delta Green is about mystery and discovery, and the ultimate costs for those discoveries. There are malevolent intelligences at work against Earth, and the PCs are the unwitting vanguard that fights against those intelligences.

The genius behind Delta Green is that it gives the characters the mundane tools to defeat the mythos- and it falls to the PCs to discover that those tools are still inadequate. Minor aspects of the mythos are emphasized in DG, giving the mythos a bit of a different feel' different enough to make it new and cryptic. Moreover, there are new aspects to the mythos that are introduced, and are done in such a way as to blend with the existing mythos wonderfully. The key is that the writers (some of the best in the business) understand the background to the Lovecraftian mythos and can extrapolate the horror inherent in that background.

Delta Green’s setting is spectacular. If it is the setting that really makes a horror rpg scary, you simply cannot go wrong with Delta Green. The only reason this is not number one is that I think my number one choice holds to the horror genre a bit more firmly- not straying into possible action/adventure as can potentially happen with Delta Green.

1. Little Fears (Key 2). This is my favorite horror rpg, bar none. Jason Blair, the man behind Key 2 is one of my favorite writers/developers along with Lucien Soulban- and part of the reason I like both of them is my unending respect for how they handle the horror genre. With Little Fears Mr. Blair created the definitive horror rpg, staying firmly within the genre while creating a wonderfully evocative setting and suitably colorful system to complement the setting. Little Fears is amazing stuff.

In LF you are a child no older than 12. You face a frightening world, literally. The fears f your childhood are real, and they have a very malevolent reason for wanting your child PC dead (or tortured, or whatever). Shadows are things to be avoided. Under the bed the breathing you thought was the wind is actually the creature’s breath your mom told you does not exist. The closet is' well, lets not even talk about the closet. As a child, you stand alone. In LF your PC is under-equipped, under-trained (obviously), and with none of the resources of society to help you in your desperate fight. Now that is a horror setting.

One of the big things that makes Little Fears my favorite horror rpg is the gaming system. Basically, it is a rules light system that relies more on description and imagination to help drive task resolution. The character sheet is suitably simple but also help create the right atmosphere of isolation and helplessness (honestly, I can’t think of another character sheet that helps promote the feel of the game better than the little two page character sheet in the back of LF).

The writing in LF is suitably creepy and disturbing. The art is overall pretty good, and again, follows the text pretty closely. Little Fears is one of the few games I really consider a product that should only be used by mature gamers- simply for the disturbing themes it promotes. Little fears has all the elements of a great horror rpg- good art, great and descriptive writing, a suitable system, and an amazingly horrific setting.

Get a good GM, turn off the lights, and play a game or two for Little Fears. You will be part of those rare games that you end up bragging about at conventions.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to pop over to the forums and voice your opinion.

Thanks, and see you in a bit.

Chris Gunning

You gotta have a website!

If you’re going to succeed in marketing your product online, you’ll need a website. Nothing fancy at first, maybe just a few pages describing who you are, a little about your product and where to buy. Sites that have been around a long time have more impact on marketing tools like search engines, so register a domain name, get some web hosting or a dedicated server, and build your site as soon as possible. Here are some links I used when building 1km1kt:
Web hosting:

When I first built 1KM1KT, I knew I was going to need a webhost. I spent a lot of time reading reviews and trolling the webmaster forums for a good deal and eventually found what I was looking for with Lunarpages Web Hosting. Lunarpages offers pretty much everything you need to start a website with plenty of room to grow when you’re ready. They had lots of storgae space, bandwidth, and the tech support is really good. They also came with lots of extras like php, mysql databases, add-on domains, unlimited e-mail accounts and the most intuitive control panel I’ve come across to date.
Payment:

Although our website is free to the public, we occassionally have to make or receive payment. Our preferred method is the Paypal Business account which is free to open and allows us to make payments to online merchants as well as receive them from other Paypal members. The Paypal service also allows us to accept straight credit card payments when the need arises.
Domain name registration:

Since you’ll have to have a domain name (like ours – 1km1kt.net) check out GoDaddy. Their prices are reasonable and you’ll have full control over every aspect of the domain. I like GoDaddy because they’ve been a pioneer in the industry and aren’t a small time domain registration reseller like you’ll find everywhere else.
Site design and maintenance:

Random Development is a group of freelance webdesigners that can help with site design, maintenance, management, and programming. They operate their own webserververs if you want them to host your site and are a consistent source of good advice for us.
Driving the traffic
There are two primary ways I’ve found to drive traffic to your website – pay per click advertising and banner ads. With pay per click and banner ads it’s just a matter of shelling out the bucks to bring traffic to your site. Here’s what we’ve found works best:

Google is the first place anyone looking to advertise online should begin. Their system is simple to use, ads are placed immediately, it’s affordable for most topics and managing campaigns is simple. With a five dollar down payment, you can be on your way in about 15 minutes. This tool is extremely powerful for bringing customers to your site, so be sure you’re only paying for Google placement for people who will buy your products.

Banner ads, on the other hand, are a little less scientific. Purchasing a banner ad on a website can be a crap shoot with the amount of traffic and buyers you’ll receive. When hunting for banner advertisers, try typing in keywords and phrases that you think potential buyers would use to find your type of product into your favorite search engine. Start looking into the advertising costs of any website found in the top ten positions for your keyword. These will most likely give you the highest return on your investment.

The big advice to consider with an online advertising campaign is to keep your target audience in mind and to carefully monitor your return on investment verse your advertising costs.

Keeton

A key factor in any role-playing game is the 'willing suspension of disbelief.' This is what allows players to envision themselves as heroes doing great deeds, rather than students or business people gathered around a table with their friends. Anything that can help this 'suspension of disbelief' adds to the roleplaying experience.

People do many different things to try to enhance this suspension. Sometimes people may dress in a sort of costume, which can be representative (for example, a person wearing a shirt with long, loose sleeves when playing a magic-user) or more literal, such as a player wearing a long robe and carrying a thin stick to wave whenever a wand is called into play. Many groups use music as a background, to help set a mood and block out the sounds of everyday life. Dimming the lights and adding candles to a room could also suggest a medieval, fantasy, or horror feel. All of these possibilities boost the imagination through the use of the body's senses.

Another way to go about it is to simulate the use of the senses through the imagination. By describing what is seen, smelled, heard, touched, or even tasted in a scenario, a Game Master can help move his or her players, in their minds, away from the mundane world and into some other world altogether. Individuals usually each have one or two senses which are stronger than the others, or 'dominant.' Sometimes a person's speech patterns may give a clue to his dominant sense. For example, someone who says, 'I see what you're saying,' probably has seeing as her dominant sense. On the other hand, 'I hear you' might indicate that hearing dominates. Using 'That stinks!' to describe a bad situation could be the choice of a person with a dominant sense of smell.

Because people are different, it's important for GMs to use descriptions that appeal to every sense. That would help stimulate the imaginations of all the players in a game, regardless of their dominant sense. Like the players, GMs also have a dominant sense, and it's easy to give descriptions that include only the senses important to them. A really good description could emphasize two or more senses, but a variety is what is important.

In fantasy RPGs, the Dungeon is the classic adventure location. Many GMs really enjoy drawing up complex maps and filling the dungeon with dangerous creatures, but their imaginations falter when it comes to describing the areas where there are no encounters.

It's hard to explain how there could be a monster living in every room. Magic might make it possible, but it threatens the suspension of disbelief. What, then, is to be said about the rooms that are empty?

Player: 'Do we see anything in the room?'
GM: 'No, it's empty.'
Player: 'There's nothing in there at all?'
GM: 'Well, there's some dust on the floor.'
Player: 'Dust! Are there any footprints in it?'
GM: 'No! It's just dust! What part of empty do you not understand?'

How much better instead to fill the emptiness with a little creativity!

Some descriptions could be geared to people who like to visualize the setting surrounding their characters.

'At an intersection of corridors, your flickering light reveals a charcoal mark upon the wall. It appears to have been made by either a stick plucked from a fire or from the burned out stub of a torch. The smeared mark is about five feet from the floor and forms an arrow that points back the way that you have come. There is no indication as to who could have made it.'

'You come across a backpack that appears to have been ripped open by a clawed hand and teeth. Its worthless contents have been scattered around, torn, and trampled. There are scraps of cloth, a broken flask and some straps of leather but nothing of value. There is also nothing to indicate who the former owner was nor who (or what) the vandal may have been.'

Other descriptions could set the scene with sound:

'The moss is deep, and growth covers walls and floor. Your voices all sound deadened and seem to fall lifeless and still just a few feet away from you.'

'You hear a sound like sobbing and whimpering echoing through the corridor. It is distant and the source is unclear.'

This description could suggest mystery to the person who favors the sense of smell:

'A hint of an odor teases your senses. It is a rich, slightly sweet smell, possibly incense. Just a whiff comes to you, and then the scent disappears.'

Be alert for occasions when a description could appeal to more than one sense.

'You have entered what was once a finely decorated room A faded tapestry depicting a woodland scene is now frayed but hints at former luxury as do the desk, chair, and table. Dim light reflects off the very tarnished silver and brass fittings. A slightly sweet smell of decay permeates the room.'

'The air is damp and cool and the smell of mold torments your nostrils. The light casts deep shadows and you peer ahead into the darkness beyond. The shadows are unyielding of their secrets and as you strain to listen, all you can hear is the creak of leather and clink of mail as your comrades shift their weight. Everything else is very still.'

Opportunities for description can be found in any setting, not just fantastic dungeons. How many adventurers have wandered through a town or city and asked, 'So, what do we see as we walk down the street?' This is the perfect place for a description of sensations that can engage the players' imaginations and pull them out of their mundane existence into a world of heroism or fantasy! Just a few words can be enough to stimulate the imaginations of players and Game Masters alike.

About the author: Vicki Potter writes and edits material for Tabletop Adventures, which publishes the 'Harried Game Master' line of products. TTA is producing books with brief, colorful descriptions to assist Game Masters who, for whatever reason, find themselves short on time or creativity. The first was 'Bits of Darkness: Dungeons' (quoted above), which details things to be experienced in a fantasy dungeon setting. Coming in Winter 24 will be 'Bits of Darkness: Caverns' which will describe some of the wonders and horrors of underground exploration. In 25, 'Shards of the City' will explore the fantasy urban street-scene, with sensations galore for the wandering adventurer. Visit TTA online at www.TabletopAdventures.com. Copyright 24, Tabletop Adventures, LLC.

Because D2 lends itself to fantasy settings, expect to see a focus on fantasy this time around. While D2 does have some nice entries in the non-fantasy genre, it is the fantasy settings that really stand out in terms of D2 quality.

My biases up front; I like deep settings with lots of supplements. I am a collector more than I am a player (much to my chagrin), so rpgs with lots of high quality books are more of an asset to me than single “core” books. Right or wrong, I see lots of supplements as a sign of a healthy line. And with lots of supplements come lots and lots of ideas, most of which, I assume, help flesh out the world. I also like settings that twist standard assumptions into new ways. As you can tell from my July article (Sci-Fi Settings) I not only dig in-depth settings but also setting innovation and quality production values.

(A bit of a disclaimer: due to the open gaming nature of D2 this article looks at D2 and OGL products together as one family)

So, knowing all that, here are this month’s rankings.

My Top Five D2 settings.

Honorable mention:

Iron Kingdoms (Privateer Press)- While a great game, I helped write parts of the setting and so I remove it from contention.

Oathbound; Domains of the Forge – A setting specifically designed to handle characters from various worlds. A bit like Planescpae meets Fraggle Rock meets the Running Man (no joke). There are a lot of goofy elements and some occasional bad editing gaffes that keep it just off my top 5.

Eberron (WotC)- nifty setting that still needs more definition before I can rank. The core book is great, but the quality of the supplements has yet to be decided.

Warcraft (Sword and Sorcery)- a quality translation of the wonderful CRPG. The key to this line is that the supplements are getting better (not worse as is the norm) as the line continues.

5. Forgotten Realms (WotC). This is the quintessential D2 kitchen-sink game. It has taken me a number of years to come around to really enjoying Forgotten Realms. Originally I played in Ansalon (Dragonlance) and for a long time Forgotten realms lacked the luster of Dragonlance. However, with D2 and the reproduction of Forgotten Realms as the flagship setting of Wizards of the Coast, I ended up buying the core book and have never regretted the purchase. 3/3.5E Forgotten Realms has some absolutely spectacular plot elements highlighted by a series of books that are, arguably, the highest quality rpg products on the market. In all honesty, the 3E Forgotten Realms books are beautiful and the art is extremely evocative.

While kitchen-sink setting are usually not my preferred settings, 3E Forgotten realms does everything just right to get me to really want to play in Faerun. The introduction of the Shades (elite Shadow corrupted humans) and the Kir-Lanan (anti-divine gargoyles) were two small additions that really caught my attention. The fleshing out of the Thayans to more than simple evil magic users has also helped make Faerun a much more interesting and compelling setting. All told, there is a lot of interesting plotlines presented in the core 3E Forgotten realms book- so much so and of such a quality that I can overlook all the craziness thrown in to really focus on the interesting aspects.

4. Conan (Mongoose Publishing). Who doesn’t dig Conan? This is a largely faithful translation of the original Robert Howard stories into the D2 mechanic. Usually, I am very skeptical of Mongoose. They really seem to rush their products and end up with some inferior products. Case in point, is the first edition of Conan (Hyborean edition). Riddled with errata, the game was seriously hampered in playability. However, Mongoose immediately made good on their promise to remedy the situation and, in time, released a new edition (Atlantean edition) with cleaned up rules and text. All that said, Conan D2 is a nifty setting.

There are some fundamental changes to the D2 mechanic as presented in the PHB, but still, Conan D2 is at its heart, a 3E game. Conan takes sword and sorcery, distills it down into its core elements and then rebuilds according to Howard’s compelling setting. It is a world of Barbarian kings, eldritch and sometimes uncontrollable magic, and of adventure. There is a rawness to Conan that is reflected very well in the D2 game that I really enjoy. Strikes against Conan are the original problems with errata as well as it being a licensed setting- in the end, while it is a worthy addition to the Conan body of work- my preferences lean towards original settings.

3. Scarred Lands (Sword and Sorcery Games). This is a very compelling setting that a lot of people have missed. The body of work so far is impressive, and while some of the books could do with a re-write (rather than a simple edit) the vast majority of what is out there for Scarred Lands is really interesting and fun. The Scarred Lands take some of the best parts of the Forgotten Realms, like the conflict between the Gods, and really highlights those elements. Scarred Lands as a setting, is interesting because of the way it was created. Rather than trying to force an existing idea of a setting into the D2 mould (such as with Conan) the designers looked at the core mechanics of 3E and designed a world that helped make sense of those mechanics. Thus, alignment makes a lot of sense in Scarred Lands. Similarly, the various classes each fit very nicely into the Scarred Lands setting- something that just about every other setting fails to do. Druids, Paladins and Monks, normally an afterthought in D2 settings, each play integral roles in the Scarred Lands. I really like the integration of the classes.

Scarred Lands as a whole is an interesting place to adventure. A land recently ravaged by a war between the gods and their followers, the world is still trying to recover. This is post-apocalyptic fantasy at its best, where the heroes do what they do because the designers made sure to emphasize that the world really needs heroes. The Scarred Lands is very big (4 full continents and counting) and there is a lot of room for adventuring to be had- certainly a plus for any role-player.

The downsides are few but important. There are a number of edits and errata many of the books need. Similarly, like I mentioned above, a couple of the books are simply not very good and hurt the playability of the setting. Still, the overall quality of the setting outweighs much of these problems (indeed, it is that much fun IMO).

2. Rokugan (Alderac Entertainment). I loved the original Legend of the 5 Rings but really hated the 2nd edition and I stopped paying any attention to the setting as 1st edition was left behind. Then, Rokugan came along as part of the redesigned D2 Oriental Adventures and I was a very happy boy. D2 and Rokugan mesh quite nicely. The new classes all fit the pseudo-Japanese style of Rokugan and I really dig the inclusion of the Courtier as a core class (showcasing that D2 is not only about hack-and-slash). Even more appealing is the Samurai core class, the Daisho ability really makes them the highlight of the setting while not quite overpowering fighters as a useful combat class.

Rokugan is a lot like Japan of the warring states era (Sengokujidai), except in this world, you have magic and the gods playing their role. Populated by a handful of Great Clans under the direction of the Emperor, the world is a constant flow of shifting alliances, border skirmishes and political intrigue. Humans are the primary race, with all other races marginalized. No quick synopsis of Rokugan would be complete without mentioning the Shadowlands – a corrupted land to the southwest where a broken and vengeful god plots his revenge against humanity.

The supplements have all been extremely useful. The “Way of” books have done a nice job of covering the various and disparate aspects of Rokugani society and the “Secrets of X” books did something that the previous Clan books did not- help define the landed regions of Rokugan as well as give a little more definition as to what life in the Clans is like. Overall, Rokugan is a very deep setting, with complex alliances and plotlines that all but scream to be role played. This is a setting where the characters can become bigger than life because the world almost begs them to develop into deadly Ninja, honorable Samurai, crafty Courtiers, and mysterious Gaijin.

Rokugan has some of the most interesting and detailed NPCs around. Where other settings are set around compelling wars, conflicts or regions, it is the personalities behind the NPCs of Rokugan that really give the setting shape. I once heard that the original developer saw the whole plot unfold before his mind’s eye because of his vision of one of the core NPCs, Bayushi Kachiko.

The downside to Rokugan is the same as its biggest asset; the involved world. The body of Rokugan info, from the original 1E and 2E games and from the constantly evolving Collectable Card Game. Simply put, if not played with an eye to consistency, the world can potentially overwhelm the GM or the players. Still, recognizing that the world of Rokugan grows and changes just as the characters do helps put the style of play into context- and if you take the time to get into the world, it ends up being very rewarding.

1. Midnight (Fantasy Flight Games). This setting is head and shoulders above the rest, IMO. I have a penchant for dark and gritty settings, and they do not get any darker or grittier than Midnight. The best description of Midnight is Middle earth if Sauron won. That one line description alone creates all sorts of interesting roleplaying opportunities- add to that a very well thought out world, nifty classes, some fun new mechanics, and you get my favorite D2 setting.

The default playing style is a group of PC freedom fighters- fighting the good fight in an unconventional way against the forces of darkness that seemingly stand on the verge of victory. Everything else aside, the oppressive setting immediately creates some difficult questions- such as where the term freedom fighter vs. terrorist diverges. Also inherent in the setting are questions such as who is an enemy or potential ally and if victory is really an attainable goal against such a powerful evil. All told, it is these difficult and complex questions that really make Midnight shine.

To its credit, Midnight goes beyond these implied questions to help develop the world in a very fascinating way. Even without Izrador (the dark God) and the forces of Shadow, are the conflicts between the various races and cultures. In the core book alone we get a lot of information of the peoples of Midnight, providing a good deal of useful tidbits to help make a number of different types of characters (including, naturally, evil ones). Beyond the core book are a host of solid supplements. One thing that I really like about Midnight is that FFG has focused on creating a regular series of low cost but useful supplements. Most Midnight supplements hover around $16 and focus on things like Midnight specific monsters, magic, locations, and heroes. The art is pretty good throughout the line and very consistent, a big plus in my book. Oh, and one of the supplements is a boxed set- how cool is that?

The new mechanics in Midnight are second to none. Magic is pretty radically changed in the setting, fitting in nicely with the desperate feeling that should be core aspects of any heroic campaign. To help offset the nastiness of the setting, PC heroes have access to “bloodlines,” s sort of destiny mechanic (such as “steelborn” and “beast friend”) that grants bonuses as the character advances. Bloodlines not only help grant useful and setting appropriate bonuses, but also help further define a Player’s character from other characters of the same class. Nifty.

The only issues I have with Midnight are that the bindings of some of the core books were pretty poor. I take good care of my books, but still had to send my copy of the Core book to Fantasy Flight to get a replacement (and like Mongoose, FFG was more than prompt in helping me get a new replacement copy). I also feel that the signature adventure “Crown of Shadow” is pretty weak- especially for a setting that is popping at the seams with great campaign ideas.

All in all though, Fantasy Flight has a winner on their hands. I cannot recommend Midnight highly enough.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to pop over to the forums and voice your opinion.

Thanks, and see you next month.

Chris Gunning

Chris Gunning writes copy for the “one thousand monkeys, one thousand typewriters” website, where they accept open submissions and provide publication resources for artists and writers in the fantasy, science fiction, and role-playing genres. His site can be found at: http://www.1km1kt.net

Character Description

Character description invloves describing characters using various descriptors (skills, for instance), and assigning values to them, usually numbers. A quick list of ways in which a descriptor can be described:

• Quantative- a number. A quantity.
  • An integer.
  • A percentile value.
  • A range. Such as 1d8 (1-8). More on random number generators later.
• Qualitative- anything that it not measurable as a quantity. A quality.
  • A concrete value, such as “female”.
  • An abstract value, such as “unlucky”.
  • A general value, such as “elf”.
  • An adjective, such as “strong” and “very strong”.

Now some discussion of distribution of these descriptors. RPGs tend to divide descriptors into attributes and skills (though most use different terminology). Attributes are descriptors which describe the character’s raw abilities, while skills are their training and experience. There are actually several generic categories:

• Attributes- quantative descriptors representing raw abilities.
• Skills- quantative descriptors representing training and experience.
• Advantages, Disadvantages, and Quirks- qualitative descriptors representing almost anything.
• It seems worth noting that D&D has categories for attribute-type quantative descriptors, attribute-type qualitative descriptors, skill-type quantative descriptors, skill-type qualitative descriptors, various assumed descriptors (see below), plus assorted odds and ends (such as Size), plus whatever the magic system is. This is a stark example of mediocre game design. RULE OF THUMB: If a game system needs a separate system for magic, you should probobaly ditch it.

Now some assorted descriptor anomalies and peculiarities:
Assumed Descriptors: Almost all RPGs do not list many descriptors, but simply “assume” them. Take D&D for instance:
Assumed Descriptors in D&D

• Height, weight, others such as hair and eye color
• Gender
• Alignment (!)
• Religion

It is my humble opinion that you should never, ever use these, because you can’t assume anything. According to this, dragon characters have hair colors, and worse, centipedes have religion. And that’s without even stepping out of the fantasy genre! These may be okay in genre-specific RPGs if carefully thought out, but never, ever in universal RPGs.
Adjectives as opposed to numbers: Many RPGs (such as FUDGE and The Mirror, couldn’t find a link, sorry), choose to use adjectives instead of numbers for their quantative values, on the grounds that they tell you more about the character. What these RPGs fail to do is work the adjectives into the game system seamlessly. They essentially use the adjectives as a subsititute for numbers, and in the case of The Mirror, as a thinly disguised range pretending to be an adjective. I have yet to see a system using well-designed adjective-based quantative values.

Action Resolution

Action resolution involves weighing various descriptors of PCs, NPCs, and outside forces to arrive at a conclusion which determines logically the outcome of a certain situation.
Data Processing: Action resolution is all about processing data. You get data from character description and then you do things with it with action resolution. A successful action resolution is one that provides realistic results and covers as many situations as possible with as much speed as possible. The features you look for in an action resolution system look eerily similar to those you look for in a computer:

• Processing a wide variety of data.
• Producing high-quality results.
• Processing data quickly.

At this point, I will burden you with one of the design epiphanies I have had in recent months: You can gain a lot by thinking outside of the box. You can probobaly gain more by stepping out of the box and finding what is already there. For instance, talk to a programmer about RPG design and you will probobaly get some good insight on RPG design drawing ideas from, say, Object Oriented Programming. Talk to a philosopher about RPG design, you will get concepts drawn from philosophy. This advice may be less useful, though, because philosophy is rarely as concrete as programming. Therefore, I conclude that one can draw an infinite amount of inspiration for RPG mechanics by looking at existing logisitical schemes. Let’s take an example; our timekeeping system.
Timekeeping is about measuring numbers; therefore, we will be using the logic scheme used to divide up time to divide up quantative values. Instead of measuring values on one scale, we divide them up into seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, etc. This means we can now have a value of 6 be a value of 1 with a higher unit. Incidentially, this system is highly impractical, so we adapt it. We use base 1 units. Now we can shave some zeroes off of round numbers by using higher units. This is a nice rules fragment, if we can work it into the system; working-in is the main difficulty of adapting existing logic schemes.
Okay, that huge tangent complete, back to action resolution.
Randomization: Almost all RPGs have some way of introducing random factors to action resolution, usually using dice (and with good reason; dice are one of the more practical and powerful random number generators out there). Most systems that advertise themselves as diceless use cards or some less convenient random number generator. This silliness falls into the same category of using adjectives instead of numbers; unless you can make it work, don’t do it! Anyway, back to random numbers. There is an incredible amount of detail that I could go into on this (see John Kim’s dice mechanics article for said detail), but I won’t. For now I will just cite a few things I find interesting:

• Ranges: Like those things in The Mirror where you have just a die roll for each of your descriptors. This is a very good method of randomization (aside from the cost of dice) if you can make it work, which is easier to pull off then the other schemes I have said that about. The nice thing about this is that if randomization uses any random number generation, everything is a range. So, if you can come up with a practical way to initiate the generation of any range in one step, all action resolution will be one-step. The trick is finding a number generator that can do this pratically.
• Varying Degrees of Randomness: Some RPGs put more weight on the random number generators than others. In some RPGs^D&D, this can vary based on the situation, which is more a result of poor design than intent. However, there is something very good in here. While there is clearly no determinable answer to how random your game should be, there are three answers, one of them inspired by the silliness of D&D:
  • Variable Randomness: The randomness varies logically by situation, much like D&D, except D&D varies randomly like an electrified hula dancer. What we want is an RPG where the degree of randomness is based on the degree is randomness that is logical. Someone let me know if you figure this one out.
  • Customizable Randomess: The GM can determine how random they want their game. This is a tough one, but I pulled off a similar thing in my RPG by letting the GM vary how precise they wanted to measure player abilities.
  • A Combination of Both: If the GM can vary the randomness on a case-by-case basis, then they can fit not only their preference, but realism also. This may be the best solution, and also the hardest to make workable. It does present all sorts of opportunities for imbalance. Suggestion: Character stats are based on a die and a number added to it, such as 1d4+6. Well, if the GM could vary this by taking 1 away from the number to be added and adding 2 to the sides of the die, then he could vary how much of it was random. For instance, 1d4+6 could become 1d6+5 if he wanted more randomness, or 1d2+7 if he wanted less randomness. This is impractical on several levels, but just an attempt to prove that you can come up with mechanics to accomplish this stuff.

Now, a graphic:

It turns out that this graphic is not only as cute as a button, but describes the layout for the rules scheme of almost any RPG. I used a few new terms here, so let’s take a look at them:

• Generic Descriptors: Descriptors which apply to all characters, or at least most. Like ability scores in D&D.
• Specific Descriptors: Descriptors which make a character unique, or at least less generic. Like skills in D&D (and feats, and class, and spells, and..)
• Data Acquisition: Before it can process data, the action resolution system needs to get some data. What data does it use? Is it quantative or qualitative? What kind of quantative or qualitative?
• Data Acquisition: Before it can process data, the action resolution system needs to get some data. What data does it use? Is it quantative or qualitative? What kind of quantative or qualitative?
• Variables: The information about the outside world that the resolution system acquires. While descriptors are predefined, this is more interesting because you need to figure out how you want to describe the variables. It is generally a good idea to make it as similar as possible to the way the descriptors work, for easy compatability.
• Factor Weighing: You need to figure out how the data acquired will interact. For instance, most systems use “the highest number wins” (and there is nothing wrong with this). Straightforward and modeled after reality are good traits to go for.
• Random Number Generation: To add that element of uncertainty. The value of random number generation is debatable, but you should all of the aforementioned factors if you intend on using it.

In conclusion, there are an obscene amount of ways in which you can design your RPG, and no shortcuts, but working on one piece at a time and keeping your goals in mind while doing so will probobaly end you up with a good RPG. Also, study up on RPG mechanics. The better you understand how RPGs work, the more easily you will be able to build them.

This article by Nick, who thinks he may have made an RPG for everyone: http://wtism27.tripod.com/carps/ Don’t be afraid to tell him if he’s wrong. You can contact him at nw.thomas@att.net.

This month we’ve had visits from Germany, Canada, The United States, France, Belgium, Sweden, Poland, Spain, Brazil, Colombia, The United Kingdom, Great Britain, Australia, Austria, Thailand, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Mongolia, New Zealand, and Venezuala to name just a few!

Tell us about it in the forum!

Once in a while, you come across an rpg that is worth more than just one read. Heaven and Earth, 3rd edition is just such an rpg. I’ve had the fortune to get access to a pre-release copy of the newest version of Heaven and Earth, 3rd edition and from my two initial read throughs, I can honestly say I am looking forward to the full release! This game is worth checking out, if only because it breaks free of a number of the typical assumptions other rpgs make.

Some of you may remember a television show from the mid-9′s called American Gothic. The story was about a small town out in South Carolina where weird things seemed to be the norm. Specifically, the story revolved around the Sheriff of the town who had connections to Hell and with a young and innocent kid who was the focus of much of the Sheriff’s machinations. All told, it was a great series that focused on a subtle battle between good and evil in a setting so innocuous it became compelling. I think very highly of American Gothic. Much to my happiness, I think I have found an rpg equivalent to the American Gothic series!

Heaven and Earth, 3rd edition is set in a small town called Potter’s Lake. The town is a lot like Mayberry R.F.D except that it serves as a sort of spiritual magnet for the weird. The thing is, the people of Potter’s Lake as a whole don’t seem to realize that there home is also a haven for the bizarre. They go on living their lives despite the large number of missing persons reports, spontaneous psionic manifestations, and a very healthy and robust series of hauntings. Basically, Potter’s Lake is a town where the creepy little rumors that circulate through the pre-teen crowd are all true.

Let me start by saying that Heaven and Earth touches on a lot of my favorite aspects of a well written setting. I am a sucker for settings that go for detail rather than generics. Heaven and Earth, 3rd edition takes the time to set up Potter’s Lake as a living and breathing setting, going so far as to not only detail the various locales of interest but also to give bios and backgrounds of 25 of the more intriguing people of the town. I like this kind of detail – a lot. It makes the job of the GM a whole lot easier and makes the environment for the PCs significantly more compelling.

Characters

Players of Heaven and Earth, 3rd edition create normal characters. That’s right. The game strongly suggests that exceptional or weird characters are not the default type of PC (as opposed to just about every other rpg on the market). Instead, the game provides character creation rules to help build normal PCs – doctors, park rangers, mechanics, school bus driver, etc. The key to divergence in PC generation from most other rpgs, is that the weirdness of Potter’s Lake is wonderfully juxtaposed by the mundane PCs. As the PCs grow and advance they get a chance to uncover the various secrets of Potter’s Lake, and with some good roleplaying, become just as odd as the rest of the town. This is another aspect of the game I really enjoyed.

Heaven and Earth is the first RPG that I know of that encourages normal starting characters with the implied promise that the setting and gaming will be interesting enough to keep the players motivated. Considering the compelling back story to Potter’s Lake, I have no doubt about this promise!

Storyline

The back story to Heaven and Earth is one of its biggest strengths. Potter’s lake is weird. Its inhabitants are weird. However, there is a reason for all the weirdness, and it is a good one! Basically, all the oddities of Potter’s Lake link back in one way or another to the big secret behind the town – the secret that the entire game is based on. During my first read I was a little worried that the game wouldn’t justify why the weirdness seemed to make a home in Potter’s Lake, but my fear ultimately proved unfounded. Without ruining the mystery behind Potter’s Lake, let us suffice to say that it is becoming a pivotal battleground for the future of humanity!

And the best part? Heaven and Earth, 3rd edition assumes that the players are going to find out about the secret of Potter’s Lake. Instead of hiding the back story from the GM or the players, the game is built around the idea that, in time, the PCs will uncover the secret and work with it to their own ends. The most interesting parts of a lot of rpgs are their hidden secrets, and too often those secrets are withheld from the GM or remain undiscovered by the players.

Mechanics

The mechanics to Heaven and Earth, 3rd edition are pretty simple and encompass about 1 pages including combat. Basically, the harder a thing is to do the smaller the die type your PC has access to. Something easy will get a D2, while something damn near impossible will get a D4. There are of course modifiers for a character’s experience with the task based on the individual PC’s stats. There is also a nice little fate mechanic called “Destiny.” By expending one point of Destiny a character can re-roll a failed attempt, or with two points of spent Destiny, automatically pass a check. Two points of Destiny, while expensive, can be extremely useful for those situations where you are only rolling a D4. All in all, the mechanics of Heaven and Earth, 3rd edition walk a fine line between rules-lite and rules-heavy. There is a certain emphasis away from combat, so combat-wombles may want to stay clear (though, it should also be noted that the setting is not very combat friendly either).

Heaven and Earth, 3rd edition, while focusing on mundane starting PCs, does have rules for all sorts of supernatural events and creatures. Inside there are rules for spirits, mages (which operate metaphysically a lot like White Wolf’s Mage: The Ascension in that belief and will can warp reality), the Gifted (Heaven and Earth’s take on psionics), the Goetia (ancient spirits connected to some aspect of reality), Secret Societies, Angels, and Demons. There is a lot for Heaven and Earth to cover, and it does so quite well with specialized rules for each creature.

The big problem is that I really wanted to see the same loving attention to detail that was paid to the setting carried over to the creatures and spirits that live there as well. Unfortunately, clocking in at almost 13 pages there just was not enough room. However, it does whet my appetite to see what supplements will be coming out from Abstract Nova – if only to further define these creatures and their complex relationships with the people of Potter’s Lake.

Credits

Something else I really dug about Heaven and Earth, 3rd edition are the writers. Lucien Soulban, my all time favorite rpg writer, helped work on this version- a nice surprise for me when I leafed through the credits. Also credited are Lee Foster, Michelle Lyons, James, Maliszewski, and John R Phython. I am familiar with Lyons and Maliszewski (as well as Soulban) who are experienced rpg authors. Their background shows through in the enjoyable and entertaining style of the book’s writing. The prose and style of the writing is quite good, and the language is very accessible.

Art

The art of Heaven and Earth, 3rd edition is above average, but not spectacular. I did appreciate that all the NPCs received their own portraits, obviously drawn by artists familiar with the text. In each case, the NPC’s picture reflects their occupation and general description, helping to bring the character to life visually. In fact, throughout the book the art largely reflects the writing specific to the page which is something I always appreciate. The art is solid and in a few cases like the NPC portraits mentioned above, really helps to bring the text to life. The cover is very pretty, but I noticed that the person featured on the cover has his eyes pointing in two different directions. While I think the funky eyes are intentional (the rest of the picture is very clean and symmetrical when it needs to be – leading me to think the artist would not have neglected the focus of the picture’s eyes) they get to me. I just do not dig on the two directions of the guy’s eyes – they make me go a little bit cross-eyed myself!

Conclusion

In the end, I was very pleased with Heaven and Earth, 3rd edition. It definitely seems to have been worth all three iterations. I liked this game a good deal, and encourage anyone that is looking for a little twist to their roleplaying experience to look into it. All the elements are there to make a game with Heaven and Earth a very enjoyable and refreshingly different experience.

I highly suggest looking for Heaven and Earth when it comes out in September.

The goal of this column is not to review the rpgs I discuss here since I have no doubt that they all have been reviewed before. No, instead with “Off My Shelf” I would like to take the opportunity to compare and contrast what parts of the rpgs I like and dislike and hopefully encourage discussion as well as encourage gamers who are unfamiliar with the rpgs in question to take the time and check them out. If you are a sports fan, you may be familiar with ESPN.com's “Power Rankings.” If so, you have a pretty good idea of what I am looking to do with “Off My Shelf.”

As this column grows and progresses, you will get a feeling for who I am. With any luck, this will be more than a self-masturbatory project and will involve some discussion as to what I missed, what I ranked incorrectly, and generally helps prompt some lively discussion on the better qualities of the better rpgs out there. So, to help avoid making this a pointless narcissistic exercise, I strongly encourage anyone that agrees or disagrees with me to post their thoughts on the 1km1kt rpg forums. So, please, if you have any comments, feel free to share them.

So, rather than blather on, let me start this month with one of my all-time favorite rpg genre:

Honorable mention:

• Stardrive (TSR) – solid and fun kitchen sink game.
• Fading Suns – Similar in feel to Dune, but with aliens and arbitrary splats that I don't like much.
• Traveler (SJGames) – the grand-daddy of sci-fi rpgs that I still buy loyally. The GURPS presentation is the best, IMO.

My Top Five Sci-Fi rpg settings

5. SLA Industries (Nightfall/Hogshead) – SLA Industries is a very dark rpg put together by a bunch of Brits. All in all, it is everything, in my opinion, that Warhammer 4K should have been. It is gothic, brooding, powerful, and generally oppressive. However, I take all those qualities as a good thing. SLA Industries challenges the players to come up with some nasty characters- equal part Rifts and Vampire. The game also fully embraces powergaming as a core aspect and instead of letting that style of play overwhelm the setting, SLA Industries is able to ensure that as bad ass as your character may be, there is assuredly at least a couple others out there just a little bit more bad ass.

I really like the tone and feel of SLA Industries and I really like how it encourages players to play badasses in the same way Exalted does the same for fantasy players. The editing is a bit sloppy and the sentence structure can get awkward at times keeping this as my number 5. I also feel like the powergaming aspect of the game does get a bit too much at times- a little restraint on some parts of the setting would have been welcome. Even with my problems, the presentation is solid and the world is fascinating.

Anyone interested in SLA Industries should be forewarned that there is a hidden backstory to the game that has been the core of some very nasty flamewars on the net. I like the backstory, but think the SLA Industires settings stands on its own merit without the beackstory. A little searching on the world wide web will turn up the backstory, and it is, indeed, nifty, but it has been the source for all sorts of consternation on the part of GMs, players, and the designer. You have been warned.

4. Jovian Chronicles (Dream Pod 9) – Jovian Chronicles (JC) is a skillful blending of hard sci-fi and mecha with just enough pulpy goodness to make sure the setting encourages gameplay a lot like the Gundam episodes that inspired the game. I like the feel of JC and I really like the larger-than-life mecha. In fact, JC has some of the best presented vehicles of any Sci-fi rpg and considering the genre, this is a major asset to the rpg. JC is supported well with a number of supplements that cover the different planets and vehicles of the setting. I respect JC for being a game that avoids dealing with FTL drives, and instead recognizes that the solar system can certainly be big enough to encourage all sorts of adventures. Plus, the politics of JC is quite juicy; a cold war between Jupiter and Earth looms and the inner planets play off one another to gain advantage. Venus is especially appealing to me, a hyper-modern militarized Japanese-like society- it plays a delicate game working with and against the Earth Imperialists.

The detractions of the Jovian Chronicles setting are the imbalanced presentation of the setting. As the supplements were developed (basically from SolaPol onwards) there was a shift in the Earth-as-simple-and-direct-bad-guys to Earth-as-potentially-misunderstood-and-not-as-bad-imperialists. There is also some really horrid numbers editing in the mechanical catalogs (vehicle books) that make the utility of some of the ships are bit harder to utilize- taking away from the setting as a whole. Still, the presentation and the sheer fun of the setting override the downsides.

3. Transhuman Space (Steve Jackson Games) – I am so very fond of this setting. When I first heard about it I thought it was an intriguing idea that would probably not translate well into a setting. Boy, was I wrong. Transhuman Space (THS) is all about taking the modern world and fast-forwarding it. The designer, David Pulver, seems to have taken all the really interesting bits from Popular Science and mixed them together into a setting. Technology is at believable levels, social and political development make sense (and, in some cases, do not make much sense- which, I think, is very appropriate), and the general presentation of one possible future for mankind is riveting reading. Transhuman Space does not pull any punches- rather, it seeks to explore the weird technology and society of the future. Philosophy, memetics and religion play major roles in THS- something I think is handled by the game quite well. I am also quite fond of the presentation of Artificial Intelligences and Ghosts/Emulations as potential PCs. All in all, Transhuman Space is the setting for those of us that like our sci-fi hard. An absolutely amazing setting.

While I am trying to stick to the merits of a setting independent of anything else, I must say that the art in the core THS book by Christopher Shy is both appropriate and evocative. THS is quite surreal at times, but just recognizable as to make it playable- and Shy's art complements that feel perfectly.

My minor problems with THS are the goofiness that plays into the setting (I really dislike humor that I can label 'goofy'). There are some really weird and humorous things inserted into the setting that I feel breaks the continuity of the setting. Sure, it helps lighten the mood of an otherwise very (VERY) serious rpg, but humor in rpgs needs to be very thoughtful and well done- and the occasional bits of humor in THS feels more like an afterthought or shallow parody of the modern era- neither of which I feel took a lot of time to think up and detract from the hyper-evolved setting of THS. Luckily, these spates of humor are few and far between and are pretty easy to ignore.

2. Blue Planet (Biohazard/Fantasy Flight Games) – I will forever be indebted to Fantasy Flight Games for taking the steps to make sure Blue Planet received the support it deserved after the untimely demise of Biohazard games. Blue Planet is another relatively hard Sci-fi game (see a pattern?) that focuses in depth on the development of a single planet (in this case Poseidon). I particularly like how Blue Planet does not seek to provide us with a whole grocery list of planets and star systems, and instead works to make their fictional setting as compelling as it can be. Like my admiration of JC for staying within the Solar System, I like Blue Planet even better for taking the philosophy of setting development one step further. Poseidon is one of the (if not the) most thoughtfully well developed single planet in rpg history.

The development of the ecology in Blue Planet and the interactions between native and Earth species are stories just waiting to be told. The technology is all sufficiently advanced while still recognizable to present any tech-head with the gadgets and gears to have a blast. The mysteries behind the aborigines are presented in such a way as to make it clear that potential players are to avoid that information while still being readily accessible to Game masters. The presentation of cetaceans and genetically altered humans is great and worth a look alone (Ancient Echoes is one of my all time favorite rpg supplements). All in all, a great setting that gets into the nitty-gritty of what makes an alien world interesting.

The only reason Blue Planet is not number one is my predilection for space opera. Otherwise, Blue Planet has just about everything a gamer could want.

1. Heavy Gear 2nd edition (Dream Pod 9) – Dream Pod 9 really does put out some quality settings. While the support can be haphazard in quality, the ideas behind the settings are second-to-none, and in my opinion, Heavy Gear is the pinnacle of merging fun ideas, mecha, science, space travel, politics, and space opera into a single compelling setting. The default setting, both pre- and post- advancement of the metaplot (which I will not spoil), is just dripping with campaign ideas.

Heavy Gear has, arguably, the best support of any sci-fi rpg out there (except for maybe Traveller). The thing that really gets me jazzed about Heavy Gear is the consistently interesting and coherent setting that is put together through the supplements. Not only do we have a very detailed core world in Terra Nova, but we also have the benefit of getting some detailed support for Caprice (a great setting in and of itself) and then some nice general support for a number of the other planets involved in the Heavy Gear setting. Heavy Gear creates a setting worthy of some great campaigns and is admirably established to handle all types of adventures- from military, to political, to criminal investigation, to exploration, to espionage, to just-about-whatever. Heavy Gear also presents an interesting political atmosphere that encompasses multiple factions on Terra Nova as well as a complicated web of alliances and enemies throughout the other colonies and Earth. I really like the political atmosphere of Heavy Gear.

The presentation of the technology is absolutely wonderful, with options for the military minded who dig on field variants of established vehicles, to people less interested in tech and happy to work with general stats for “generic 9mm Gyroc Pistol.” The high quality of Dream Pod 9's ability to translate science and mechanics into an interesting vehicle (highlighted by the Heavy Gears themselves) really shines through in the setting. And the Gears? They are probably the coolest and most believable mecha I have encountered.

I also enjoy the consistently high quality of the supplements. Each supplement dissects different parts of the Heavy gear universe and does so in such a way as to make each sub-section worthy of attention and campaign ideas. There is a lot to work through in the Heavy Gear body of work, but it is all worthwhile and each part helps craft a compelling larger picture of multiple worlds locked together in their respective destinies. In Heavy Gear, the sum of the overall picture is much larger than the component (and high quality) supplements.

I will say that Heavy Gear does have some problems, most of which involve the metaplot, but these metaplot generated quirks often work out to a better setting. Most notably, the advancement of the metaplot started before all the nations of Terra Nove were detailed- normally this would drive me nuts. However, the advancement of the plot made it so the last nation detailed, the Eastern Sun Emirates, is presented in a more fascinating situation than if it had been detailed solely before the metaplot was advanced. Additionally, the metaplot helped ensure we got to other planets- and thus, what helped move Heavy Gear into a game that both detailed a core world (Terra Nova- the default setting) as well as a web of other interesting planets. So, to Heavy Gear's credit, what would normally be a negative helps push the setting forward into better supplements.

For what it is worth, I am not as fond of Heavy Gear 3rd ed (linked to SilCore)- the support for the setting has been lackluster. If you want a spectacular sci-fi setting that gives you options and encourages some nifty gaming, then go find yourself a copy of Heavy Gear 2nd edition- I seriously doubt you will be disappointed.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to pop over to the forums and voice your opinion.

Thanks, and see you next month.

Chris Gunning
Chris Gunning writes copy for the “one thousand monkeys, one thousand typewriters” website, where they accept open submissions and provide publication resources for artists and writers in the fantasy, science fiction, and role-playing genres. His site can be found at: http://www.1km1kt.net

But what is Exemplar? Well, Exemplar is a light-RPG set in the far future, where humanity is spread across several stellar systems and it is ruled by the Intergalactic Government and Church (IGAC). The player characters play powerful characters either in the employ of IAGC or fighting against it. Within this framework, everything is geared toward making combat fast and furious. Downtime is frowned upon. In fact, the overall tone of Exemplar has a very Paranoia-ish feeling, with situations and events relying heavily on the whims of the GM. This can be immensely fun for a few sessions, but doesn’t lend itself well to a long campaign.

The game itself clocks in at 32 pages, half of which details the rules for character creation and combat, the other half covers NPCs and details a short scenario. The first thing to notice is that Exemplar is played with 1-sided die. That’s it, no other dice needed. Secondly, the dice are only used during combat or whenever a character attempts to perform some action whose outcome is unknown. Everything else is done using points. We’ll get to that. Let's start with character creation.

Creating Your PC

A character in Exemplar consists of a unique set of ability scores, one set for physical (Styles) one for mental (Metaphysics). A point buy system is used to determine the initial starting points for each ability. Styles increase in increments of 5, while the Metaphysical ones increase by 1. Additionally, Styles whose score is 15 or above have Talents associated with them. A Talent is a field of the Style in which the character excels. For instance, a character may choose the knife-fighting Talent for his Prowess Style. A Talent adds a bonus to a characters combat roll when used. A character’s combat abilities are split into Melee and Missile. One of these will be the best score between Prowess and Wits, while the other will be the lease, or, each may be the average of Prowess and Wits. Also associated with Melee and Missile is a favored move. A favored move is concatenation of a combat move, a weapon and its results (single target, light wound, pistol). This leads to one negative about this game. The rules could stand a good going over. Some things, see favored moves, aren’t necessarily explained well, or at all. Its obvious a lot of time and effort has been placed into this game, a little more would make understanding it easier. Characters that have points in the Metaphysical attribute Insight may also learn a Technique. Techniques are akin to feats and allow a character to perform certain actions such as adding bonus to himself for combat or causing a penalty to an opponent in combat. Two other unique ‘attributes’ a character has are Plot Points and Nemesis.

Spending a plot point allows a player to take over the story for a particular encounter and affect the situation in some manner that doesn’t involve controlling other PCs or Named NPCs. Anything else is fair game. Plot points regenerate at the beginning of each session so they should be used liberally. This is an interesting twist which gets the characters more involved in creating the scenes played.

Nemesis is basically fate. As a character progress upwards, he gains Nemesis points. Nemesis points can be used to affect the outcome of die rolls. When used this way, a check box is marked next to Nemesis. 5 marked boxes cause Nemesis to increase by 1 point. When Nemesis is at 5 and its 5th check box is marked, it goes back to 1, not 6. However, the GM must decide on a Fate for the PC. Using Nemesis points brings a character closer to his Fate. When the Fate Nemesis is at 5 and the 5th box is marked, a character becomes free from Nemesis entirely, but gains permanent bonuses to certain abilities. The odd thing is, while the rules make it sound like a character’s Fate is a bad thing, there is no way to actually meet his fate. A character will hit the magic 5th box and be free from Fate entirely. The Nemesis section, while interesting, needs some re-tooling to make it work better.

Combat

Combat itself is fast-paced with a unique mechanic for determining hits and misses. Basically, combat begins when one character decides to attack another character. This may be at range or in close quarters combat. The initiator decides on a number of dice he wants to roll. He then adds any bonuses (subtracts dice) or penalties (adds dice) then rolls. He must roll his appropriate combat rating (Melee or Missile) or less. If he makes his roll, then the opposing character rolls, using at least the same number of dice as the initiator. The first person to miss his roll gets hit. Bonuses and penalties are subtracted or added depending upon a character’s Talents, role-playing, favored moves, assistance from others or Techniques. The first to miss a roll gets hit and damage is dealt. The victim now becomes the new initiator.

The first interesting thing to note is that making a roll does not mean a hit. In fact, it means your opponent misses you. This seems counter-intuitive. Secondly, a bonus means subtracting dice from the number you roll, thus making it easier to roll below your rating while a penalty means adding dice making it harder. This is also counter to the usual meanings of bonus (get something) and penalty (lose something). While the combat mechanic is certainly different, the counter-intuitive nature can make for confusion. It could be re-worked to achieve the same affect, but in a more natural manner.

Damage is dealt when a player misses his roll. The winning player gets Effect Points equal to the number of unmodified dice he rolled. Also, if a special type of attack was used (heavy, light, favored move) then adds/subtracts appropriately. These EP are then spent on one of the following effects: Wound, Disarm, Push, Other (GM approved). The number of EPs spent on an effect is the chance out of 1 the effect occurs. The player then rolls a 1-sider and if his roll is less than or equal to the EPs spent, the appropriate action takes place. Additionally, each effect also has an effect when the roll is unsuccessful. This leads to another interesting feature of this game. There are no hit points. As seen in the above list, characters don’t take damage, per se. They have things happen to them, being knocked down or knocked out are common. Death seems to not be an option. The Other category may be a catch all, but allowing Death as an effect of one hit makes combat very short, not to mention lethal. While keeping in the apparent spirit of the game, it may not be fun for anything other than a one or two session campaign.

The Rest of the Story

The remaining portion of Exemplar details various NPCs, the history of the IGAC and a short description of its military order, worlds and governance. The included scenario is short and details the mutiny of pro-revolution forces onboard an IAGC starship.

Exemplar relies heavily upon the GM to make snap decisions in game about the difficulties of actions and what the appropriate outcomes are. Also, the GM must work to keep the action going and to ensure that stuff blows up so that the PCs can advance. This is definitely not a setting for an inexperienced GM. In fact, a group’s enjoyment from Exemplar will lie entirely in the hands of the GM. Although not meaty enough for a long term campaign, Exemplar, with some work on the GM’s part, should provide enough entertainment for a few sessions break from a group's normal gaming campaign.

So, why do a contest for StickGuy? There are a number of reasons:

Basically, we are doing this for the exposure.

1km1kt.net is still a very new site, and a lot of the people that deal with the site on a regular basis are the ones that helped put the site together. I’d like to see the website forums and contribution increase, and I can’t think of a better way to encourage the kind of people we want at 1km1kt.net to drop by than through a contest that asks people to have a little fun writing and use up a little bit of their creative juices. If we can get some people to drop by the site, post once in a while (maybe ask a few questions about StickGuy or whatnot), and generally help the site prosper, then great. We like 1km1kt.net and we hope other people will as well. Even better, if we can help make 1km1kt.net a haven for freelancers of all types, then we will be quite content with the site. The key, of course, is that we need creative people to drop in and help make a community here.

Basically, we are doing this because it is fun.

Honestly, this is a major reason for the setting contest. StickGuy is a fun little rules-set. It surely is not the end-all-be-all of role playing games nor is it even the best example of a rules-lite rpg. What it is though, is fun (and free). I think it is a versatile rules-set and want to see if anyone out there agrees. So, by putting together the setting contest we are encouraging people to play around with StickGuy, have a bit of fun, and put together some material that will help the StickGuy rpg grow. I think it will be fun to read all the entries and share them with other roleplayers out there. I think it will be fun to talk a little StickGuy on the forums. I think it will be fun to talk about all the oddball settings people will come up with. And, in the end, I think it will be a lot of fun deciding which setting takes the cake (in this case $4U.S.).

Basically, we are doing this to see if we can do it.

1km1kt.net is really a one man show. Keeton Harrington, a good friend of mine, is putting a lot of effort into the site as a bit of a pet project. StickGuy is my pet project' something that came about late one evening after I got home from working in a movie theatre. In both cases, our little labors of love have grown about as far as we can push them on our own' now it is time to see if we can encourage 1km1kt.net and StickGuy to grow even further. It’s a bit of a challenge, but Keet and I are not ones to give up.

So, here we are, offering a bounty of forty bucks to whoever can put the best setting for StickGuy together' and in the mean time, help us at 1km1kt.net complete a few personal goals of our own.

Thanks for your time,

Chris Gunning
Shapeshifter13@hotmail.com
-SPQR

Chris Gunning writes copy for the 'one thousand monkeys, one thousand typewriters' online publishing group, where they accept open submissions and provide publication resources for artists and writers in the roleplaying game, fantasy, and science fiction genres. His site can be found at: http://www.1km1kt.net

Ultimately, everyone expects something slightly different from an RPG. This may be why there are so many RPGs out there. Everyone who is competent enough to do so makes an RPG which will fit their preferences.

From this, we can deduce that it is impossible to create an RPG which will be good in everyone’s eyes. It is safe to say that it is impossible to please everyone, and therefore impossible to make an RPG everyone will enjoy, especially with many people having mutually exclusive desires in an RPG.

Despite this, I believe it is possible to make an RPG that will please most people. How, you ask? It takes some cleverness, to be sure. Despite everyone having different specifications, there are a number of points which most people can agree on (should be simple, should be realistic, should be balanced, etc). Therefore, make an RPG with all of these traits, and you have made a pretty awesome RPG. Of course, anyone who has ever made an RPG before will know how hard it is to make these traits coincide. I will now go on a brief tangent to elucidate on this point.

Fabien Ni?oles’ System Color: A typology of RPG mechanics states that all RPGs can be measured on the basis of Fluidity, Consistency and Immersivity. Fluidity is the speed of resolution, angle of the learning curve, adaptability, and general unobtrusiveness of the mechanics. Consistency is the game balance, realism, and general solidity of the mechanics. Immersiveness is an abstract concept not related to mechanics, so we will leave it out of the discussion. Anyway, so we have the criteria of solidity and unobtrusiveness. Making the rules lightweight and fewer adds to unobtrusiveness, but detracts from solidity. Making the rules more precise and comprehensive adds to solidity, but detracts from unobtrusivness. Thus, we are still stuck with mutually exclusive goals! Countermanding this rule is the challenge of the RPG designer; cramming in as much solidity as possible without pushing out unobtrusiveness, and vice versa. This requires clever and innovative mechanics. Thus, originality is a virtue in RPG design, not just because of copyright issues, but because creativity in mechanics design truly makes the RPG better.

Our tangent has wandered back towards a solution! But the question remains unanswered: what makes an RPG good? The answer is pretty obvious; see if you can figure it out.

The more people an RPG pleases, the better it is. There. We have a general, neutral, blanket statement defining a good RPG.

Now let’s take it one step further and figure out what will make the most people happy. In order to do this, we will refer to the GNS player model. For the benefit of those who have never heard of it, let me go on another tangent to summarize it. The GNS model described three types of players; Gamists, Narrativists and Simulationists. Gamists play the RPG like any other game; their sole goal is to gain wealth, power and fame. They see their character as a collection of powers optimized for the acquisition of more powers. They will take advantage of loopholes in the rules for power. Gamists are usually not picky about mechanics, but, as with everyone else, solidity and unobtrusiveness are virtues. Narrativists focus on the storytelling and roleplaying aspect of the game more so than others. They are the type who is least concerned with the mechanics. Ironically, they also tend to be the pickiest about their systems. Unobtrusiveness is an enormous concern for Narrativists, but solidity is also important, though never at the expense of unobtrusiveness. Narrativists also tend to be very picky about any rules which limit their actions (such as the combat system in D&D). Simulationist is a much more abstract and complex category. Simulationists essentially want to do something in the RPG that they can’t do in real life, such as have a gunfight with aliens and robots in a dark alleyway on a space station. This is a huge and diverse category, so it is impossible to generalize as to their rules preferences.

Okay, now we have the GNS model defined, we can continue with our discussion. In order to please as many people as possible, you have to make rules which will accommodate each of these three styles. You have to have mechanics which have enough solidity to them to put focus on to please Gamists. These rules also have to be unobtrusive and open-ended to please Gamists. Finally, the rules have to be able to handle extremely unusual situations and be unobtrusive and solid to please Simulationists. Not possible? In the immortal words of Johnny Depp, “Not impossible- just not *probable*”. Still, it’s quite a challenge. So how do we do it? A recipe for a really good RPG:
# Start by identifying your goals. If you can specify exactly what you want, it will be that much easier to achieve.
# “Borrow” things that worked in other RPGs. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
# Where nothing works as well as you want it to, make up your own rules that other RPGs will want to borrow.
# Once you have perfected all of the things other RPGs do, add more features!
# Having achieved your objectives, make some harder ones and redesign the RPG to achieve them; an RPG is never completed; only abandoned.

Remember, we don’t truly need an RPG that works for everybody. It’s worked fine so far having an RPG for every group of roleplayers. But it would be nice to have a banner which everyone across the GNs model could unite under, wouldn’t it?

This article by Nick, who thinks he may have made an RPG for everyone: http://wtism27.tripod.com/carps/ Don’t be afraid to tell him if he’s wrong. You can contact him at nw.thomas@att.net.

Naturally, my first concern is that someone has uncovered my secret plan to use mass printing of open-source RPG’s to influence the economic development of a certain third world country so that I can corner the import market on tin and tin-products.

My second thought was that it’s just someone like me who’s into RPG’s, gets bored at their job, and has access to a computer. If you fit that description, drop us a line. We’d love to hear about what you do, what you’re into, and any suggestions you might have to kill time on a Thursday afternoon before five.

So you suck at writing. Does it really matter? Yes it does. Despite all your great ideas, fabulous stories, and background information, if you can’t put together a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight, your RPG isn’t going to be read by anyone. That’s not to say that a few people won’t thumb through it (like your mom and the lonely guy at the RPG store who makes fun of everything), but the majority of the audience you’re trying to reach will get a headache, put your book back on the shelf, or click the back button and move on.

Maintaining readability in your work isn’t the easiest part of the job, but it isn’t the hardest either. Pay some attention to these six tips on copy editing and you can turn an unreadable mess into something you’ll be proud to show the world.

1. Think about what you are going to say. Brainstorming is a great idea and is very effective. When it comes time to put fingers on the keys though, take a moment to organize your thoughts. Things like introductions and setting backgrounds go first, main concepts and rules second, footnotes and afterthoughts go last. Divide your work up into sections and categorize all of your ideas before you begin writing. You’ll be able to go back and add stuff later, but this will get you started. When you finish writing, go back rename the sections – call them chapters.
2. Spell check your work. Not just with the automatic spellchecker either. Go through and read your work just like you would if you had picked it up off the shelf for the first time. When you find mistakes, circle them, make corrections, back up a few paragraphs, and begin reading again. This will help you to not to not only make sure your spelling is spot on, but will also give you a chance to improve the readability of your work.
3. Check your grammar. Again, not just with the automatic grammar checker! Your computer may be able to help you with your spelling, but it’s horrible at grammar. Trust me. To check your grammar go back through your work from the beginning – the very beginning starting with the title – and re-read it for grammar mistakes. Do it just like you did the spelling part and pay attention to the organization and overall document flow. Do not try to do both spelling and grammar at the same time – you’ll miss something. If you just don’t feel comfortable editing your own grammar, make friends with a good copy editor.
4. In fact, step four is all about making friends with a copy editor. At the very least find someone else who will read your work and give you honest critiscm. Avoid your grandmother and anyone who works beneath you in your office. Find the guy who will tell you when your fly is open and ask him. If he knows nothing about roleplaying games, even better. Remember, your game my fall into the hands of the uninitiated someday and needs to stand on its own merit.
5. Re-read your own work. Read it again. Read it a fourth time and a fifth. Make minor changes and put it on the shelf. Re-read it after a few days. Put yourself in the mindset of your target audience and read like they will. Any good editor will look at your work in as many ways as possible before they let you release it to the world. If youvre trying to save yourself some bucks you’ll have to do it yourself.
6. This one is the hardest. Know when to quit. I can’t teach you how to know when your done editing, so you’ll just have to figure it out on your own. The goal here is to reach the perfect point of refinement in your work where any changes will just make it different, and not necessarily better. Experience is the only way to learn this one. If you do get stuck, drop me a line.

By the way, if you catch the obvious (read: not overtly technical) grammar mistake in this article, e-mail me for your prize.

Update 7/24/4 – Congratulations to Vicki P. for being the first one to spot the error! The official contest is now closed, but feel free to let me know if you find the mistake and I will bestow my props onto you.
Keeton Harrington is Director of the “one thousand monkeys, one thousand typewriters” online publishing group, where they accept open submissions and provide publication resources for artists and writers in the roleplaying game, fantasy, and science fiction genres. His site can be found at: http://www.1km1kt.net

Get it up. Find a home for your work ASAP. You can publish your own website, or you can submit it to a publishing group like 1KM1KT to put it online for you for free. Either way, your work needs to be posted somewhere where people can check it out.

Tell your friends. Start with the people closest to you. Most of the time, they'll be happy to pass it on to anyone who may be interested. Think about all the people you know who have never met each other. Chances are you have a huge network of people at your fingertips that you don't even know about!

Give yourself credit. Take a moment to add credits and a link to your work as a signature line for e-mail, online forums, or anywhere else you may have that option. Here's what I use:

Keeton Harrington
Director – 1KM1KT
One Thousand Monkeys, One Thousand Typewriters

http://www.1km1kt.net

Get Googled. Take 15 minutes to submit your webpage to the big search engines. If someone else is hosting your work, just submit the URL where your work is located. It would look something like this: http://articles.1km1kt.net/expose_your_rpg_online.php

Here are some of the most popular search engines to get you started:
# Google

# Yahoo!

# Ask Jeeves

# AllTheWeb

# Hotbot

Read more about search engines here

Find the collectors. Lots of sites collect links to free RPG's, RPG's in a specific genre, RPG's based on movies or books, etc. Browse the internet and see if anyone is collecting your kind of work. Don't be shy about contacting these sites to be added to their lists. Most of the time, they're hobbyists like you and will be glad to post your link. Publish an article. RPG and publishing websites are always looking for fresh new material for their readers. Write and submit an article with a tagline linking the work you'd like to promote and a little information about yourself. 1KM1KT currently publishes a syndicated news feed that can potentially go to hundreds of websites. You can learn about writing for the 1KM1KT news feed here

Exchange Links. Contact other websites with similar content and ask them if they'd like to exchange links. Link exchanges can boost internet traffic and offer sites a chance to tap into new viewers. If 1KM1KT is hosting your work, just let us know who is linking to your work, and we'll add them to our links section.

With the examples above you can see that the internet offers a variety of free resources for aspiring authors. Using some of these simple techniques you can greatly increase public interest in your work and advance your career as an independent author. We wish you the best of luck and we look forward to seeing you online!

Keeton Harrington is Director of the 'one thousand monkeys, one thousand typewriters' online publishing group, where they accept open submissions and provide publication resources for artists and writers in the roleplaying game, fantasy, and science fiction genres. His site can be found at: http://www.1km1kt.net

The answers here are simple. People, especially those in the roleplaying community, are fickle. We have school, work, parties to go to, spouses, children, deadlines, tivo, co-workers, and puppies to deal with. In short, we have busy lives. It's a safe bet that most roleplayers would love to try out a new roleplaying game or talk about the latest RPG trend, but don’t have the time to track them down. Most of the time if these things don’t come directly to us, they get buried under the internet and are never heard from again. Here are six simple steps that will give your work a fighting chance on the internet:

Make it public. Unless you're a big time author with publishing contacts and backing, you're probably going to need to do some pro-bono work to get your name out there. Try posting free versions of your work for people to try. Once it catches on, use your existing fan base to leverage new ideas, go commercial, or sponsor an event.

Free is free. Take advantage of all the free resources on the internet to expose your work. Many of them come with few or no strings attached and can only help you. What have you got to lose? Check out this article from 1km1kt for a list of free internet publishing ideas: 1KM1KT: Expose Yourself

Don't make them come to you. If you make your audience seek you out, you'll wind up all alone. You have to go to them. Every successful organization uses some form of advertising to attract interest. Word of mouth, e-mail campaigns, search engine rankings, forum postings, etc. Something as simple as attaching a link to your work as your e-mail signature or forum signature can have a measurable impact!

Get involved. The best way to get people interested in you is to be interested in them. Take time to find people with the same interests as you and partner with them. Try asking other people for advice or talking to them about their work. They'll appreciate the attention and sooner or later they'll get around to asking you what you're into.

Stick together. There are lots of fish in the sea, and it can be very difficult to do everything yourself. Try to find other individuals or groups that can help you promote your work. If you can't find a group, try forming your own. People respond to initiative and leadership.

Be professional. Read your work. Think about what you say before you say it. Treat everything you release to the world – from e-mails to rpgs to forum postings – as though it will be the only reference your readers have to check you out. This is very often the case.

Keep moving. Don't make one big push for exposure and wonder why your response was lukewarm. Instead, make your efforts constant over a long period of time. You'll regarded as a stable author with something to offer instead of a flash in the pan.

Take these concepts and make them your own. With a little creativity and effort, you can put yourself out there and take a shot. You may be surprised where it takes you.

Keeton Harrington is Director of the 'one thousand monkeys, one thousand typewriters' online publishing group, where they accept open submissions and provide publication resources for artists and writers in the roleplaying game, fantasy, and science fiction genres. His site can be found at: http://www.1km1kt.net

Directories ' The first thing we do when we get a new submission is to submit it to the major directories. Those are the Looksmart Directory and the Open Directory Project. We’re a member of the Looksmart Directory and a contributor to the ODP, so our submissions are reviewed and posted pretty quickly.

Search Engines – This one we don’t mess with too much because we don’t have to. If you’re familiar with Google Pagerank system, you know that the higher your pagerank, the more importance Google (and most other search engines) places on your page. Our site ranks pretty well which means that most of the search engines out there scans the site regularly to see what’s new and add it to their search results. That means that any work posted to 1KM1KT is almost immediately reviewed and made available to the general public!

Link Exchanges – These are our favorites. We take the latest submissions and forward their links to our favorite RPG websites who then make the links available to their audiences. We target only the websites we think are cool, and it’s all done in a very personal way so we can maintain the quality of the sites that represent our authors and vice versa. This not only increases your exposure, but improves the 1KM1KT pagerank which means your work gets a lot more general traffic as well.

The RSS feed – This one is pretty cool. If you’re familiar with RSS technology (used in weblogs and news engines throughout the internet) you know that instead of sending out a weekly or monthly e-mail newsletter, a site with an RSS feed can simply update their feed and have their content distributed to anyone with an RSS reader or syndicate it to every site carrying the 1KM1KT feed. It’s really cool technology, and it’s changing the internet. Trust us on this one.

Those are the big ones. Of course, we’ve been doing this for a while now, so the industry contacts don’t hurt. Frankly, what we do can be reproduced by anyone looking to self-promote their stuff, and we encourage our authors to do just that! Just get your work posted, either on your own or on our website, and get cracking! If you find a good way to promote your work that we should be doing, please let us know!

When submitting a work for online publication, take a moment and decide what you are trying to accomplish. Among other things, the choices you make should reflect the audience you want to attract, the control you’ll have over your work, and the type of exposure you’re looking for. The big points to remember are this:

• Content is King. No matter how much traffic a site may be able to offer you, if it’s not the right kind it does you no good. Don’t bother submitting articles to websites that have nothing in common with your work, or that are overly generic. A good rule of thumb is that if a website doesn’t interest you, it probably won’t interest anyone who would want to look at your work.
• Rules of the Road. Be sure to carefully consider a website’s submission policies before committing yourself. Although most online services will allow you to maintain your copyright privileges, they may ask for permission to resize and reformat your work and in some cases even edit it to reflect the theme of their site.
• Pick your battles. Choose from online newsletters, ezines, and web catalogs that will present your work in a positive light. Although any exposure is good exposure, invest your time in submitting to sites that promote artists and their skills rather than the products they have to offer.

Examining yourself is the first step, but the submission process will be the most difficult. Use a popular search engine to find websites that deal in your particular genre. Look over the work they currently have on display, and submit carefully according to their instructions.
Websites like: deviantart.com, breedart.org, and digitalart.org are well designed sites that promote conceptual and graphic art while rpg.net, sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com, and thealienonline.net are geared toward the written fantasy/science fiction audience.
Used with care, the internet can be a powerful tool to introduce an artist to the public. Exposure on the internet can lead to job offerings, commissioned work, valuable professional criticism, and resume building. More importantly it can be a source of pride for any artist trying to make an impression and leave their mark on the world.

Keeton Harrington is Director of the “one thousand monkeys, one thousand typewriters” website, where they accept open submissions and provide publication resources for artists and writers in the fantasy, science fiction, and role-playing genres. His site can be found at: http://www.1km1kt.net