Role-Playing Game Design and Publishing
It’s been quiet here—no surprise there—but I have been steadily moving forward on a collection of projects.
If you haven’t been tracking it, the Kickstarter for Nefertiti Overdrive 2.0 was successful. The text is written, but it’s now going through a cultural consultant, it then needs to go through an editor, get set for layout, and then have an index completed for it before it’s released. That’ll probably be the end of the summer or early fall 2024.
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Back in 2015, Sword’s Edge Publishing crowdfunded Nefertiti Overdrive: High Octane Action in Ancient Egypt. It has since been one of SEP’s most popular games. So much so, that we had an update in 2022. That’s only two years ago, but the 2022 update was a “soft” update—most of the text did not receive a revision or a review.
SEP is currently seeking to finance a real update of Nefertiti Overdrive, including having both a cultural consultant and an editor have a go at the text. Further refinement of the mechanics led to the decision to work on a further update, and the funds will also help to format a print version—which the soft update never had—including getting the text properly indexed.
If you have enjoyed Nefertiti Overdrive, I hope you’ll help us deliver Nefertiti Overdrive 2.0. Please consider supporting the Kickstarter or spreading the word about it.
You can find the Nefertiti Overdrive 2.0 Kickstarter at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1153118353/nefertiti-overdrive-20
Here’s the Quickplay!
Pretty sure I made that joke last time I ran a Kickstarter for Nefertiti Overdrive. That was long ago enough to no longer count. But I am—once again—wading into the crowdfunding morass. Not thrilled with that, but I am thrilled with the opportunity to improve Nefertiti Overdrive.
And if you haven’t seen the game, the Quickplay is now available.
I’m back, and I’m bringing Nefertiti Overdrive with me!
Nefertiti Overdrive may be the game I’ve written that I hear about the most. It may be the concept—high octane action in Ancient Egypt. Maybe it’s the mechanics, heavily influenced by Cortex though not a Cortex game. Maybe it’s just the title. For whatever reason, people seem to remember Nefertiti Overdrive.
And I have a fondness for it to. It has generated some pretty amazing memories, with players really getting extravagant with the story-telling because they were not just given licence, but rewarded for doing so.
Why am I bringing up Nefertiti Overdrive? Because I am working on it again. I needed to do a print run, and in conversations with a very smart person, I decided I should crowdfund this and aim for offset printing and even a hardcover version.
If I’m going to crowdfund, I might as well take the chance to revisit the rules. My previous update did not fully satisfy me, and I had a lot of changes that I had noted needed to be made. Now I have a chance to make those changes. I’m in the process of doing that right now.
And since I’m crowdfunding, I can get some help improving the text. Maybe even get some more art—though I am hoping I can use the amazing art by Kieron O’Gormon from the original, which was really iconic.
However this happens and whatever form it takes, there’ll be a new Nefertiti Overdrive and there’ll be a Kickstarter to fund an offset print run.
You’ll see it here—or maybe on Bluesky—when this moves forward at all.
And if you have ideas for podcasts or anything like that you think I should get on, let me know and let them know too!
Anyone who has intersected with me or my work probably knows by now that I’m posting chapters from The Cyclops Banner: A Bloody Crown—a second-world fantasy inspired by the First Scots War of Independence. As I’ve posted chapters at Sword’s Edge, I’ve posted game stats for many of the chief characters.
Today, it’s Alec’s turn. Alec Ulvarsson is a lieutenant to the captain-general of the Unicorn Banner, a native of the kingdom of Kellalh, and a veteran mercenary soldier. He is one of the key point of view characters through the novel. He no longer sees himself as a mercenary, since mercenaries fight primarily for money. He says he’s a soldier and that he is now fighting for an ideal—a free Kellalh.
(more…)As mentioned earlier, I’m posting chapters from The Cyclops Banner: A Bloody Crown, a novel I wrote. It’s a second-world fantasy inspired by the First Scots War of Independence.
As I post chapters, I’m also going to post game stats for many of the chief characters here, on the Sword’s Edge Publishing website.
Rhona Argusdottir Trevean, after the death of her father, embodies the resistance for the kingdom of Kellalh, under occupation by neighbouring Surraev for going on 15 years. Her father, the Old Baron, was the last holdout in his isolated province of Selcost, and with him gone, she is his heir. Except traditionally in Kellalh, women can’t inherit.
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There’s been some . . . issues with Wizards of the Coast recent handling of the Open Game Licence, the licence that SEP published almost all of its first products–many of them under the d20 sub-licence. I still have a bunch of OGL products out there, some of them very recent, using newer rules’ sets.
But the recent attempt to pull the rug from under creators by WotC, probably to please their corporate masters at Hasbro, has soured me on the OGL entirely. I invested a lot of time into these products, and a bunch of them are not anywhere near paying that off, but I’d rather just be done with them and snip that cord. Get free of it.
(more…)In 2023, over on my personal site, I’m going to be posting chapters from The Cyclops Banner: A Bloody Crown, the novel I recently finished. It’s a second-world fantasy inspired by the First Scots War of Independence.
As I post chapters, I’m also going to post game stats for many of the chief characters here, on the Sword’s Edge Publishing website.
One of the first characters you are going to meet is Cristobel vel Lupus, Count Terenquist and Captain-General of the Free Company of the Unicorn Banner. He is a key protagonist whose presence has an outsized impact on events in the story.
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Listen, 2022 wasn’t the best, but it was better than 2021! I’m hoping that 2023 will continue the improvements. Part of it is that I’ve been able to publish a few adventures and update a few games, bringing products more in line with my hopes. Nothing’s perfect, but I think the products are better.
So I’m tentatively looking forward to 2023. And so why not offer a sale as 2023 arrives?
Just in case there’s some SEP stuff on your list that you’ve been thinking of buying, I’m running a sale over at itch.io that runs into the first week of 2023.
You can find it here: https://fraserronald.itch.io/G8DNCTP3UV
I’m feeling better . . .
I am in the middle of playtesting a new game. For those who used to support my Patreon, it is based on the Quantum and GOD setting, but now called the Lost Earth. I don’t think it will ever see the light of day, simply because of the cost of bringing it out along with its setting, and the system is derived from its setting, so I don’t think I’d be happy releasing it separately.
I said the same thing about League of Misfits, so who knows.
Anyway, the playtest is not only helping me with the system, but also helping me with myself.
My formative RPG experience was D&D—AD&D, 2E, and 3/3.5. Until the early 2000s, I almost exclusively played D&D—a bit of Top Secret, some Gamma World, Some WEG Star Wars and a bit of Champions was the sum total of my RPG experience.
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