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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Sometimes you just need to crush a head to show you mean business. Kick down that door, kick butt, don’t bother taking names, that’s what I’m talking about. When you find out you are in over your head, distract, dodge, defend, and then get the hell out. Fast swords, fast brains, and fast mouths – that’s what you need.
Head Crushers a simple RPG about fantasy action-adventure, is now available through Drive Thru RPG. It’s a stripped down, easy to play game for straight-ahead fantasy adventures. The philosophy is customizable characters but minimal rules. There might be some ambiguity, but that’s a feature, not a bug – figure out how it works best for your group, then barrel on ahead.
Below is an example character sheet to give you some idea of what you are getting into, but if you’ve played any of my games in the past, you have a good idea, but to break it down, characters in HeadCrushers are based on Qualities and dice – the former provides the description and the latter are used for resolution, called a Test. Players roll dice against the GM, and no matter how many dice are rolled, each chooses only two – one for Success and one for Effect. Even if you roll six dice, only two of them are important, but rolling more dice increases the chance that one of them will be good.
The highest result wins at Success, which means that it’s better to have a bigger die than a smaller one because they generally get the bigger numbers. Die-type is used for Effect, so the result on the die is unimportant, only it’s number of sides. So for Success, a 7 rolled on a d8 beats a 5 rolled on a d10, but for Effect, you need to go big, so a d10 is better than a d8.
You can find HeadCrushers here.
Coming to my Patreon in September will be HeadCrushers: an RPG of Fantasy Mayhem. This is a very simple system – more simple even than Sword’s Edge – that is designed for quick, loud fantasy adventures but which can be easily adapted to other genres. This was directly inspired by the fantastic Skullkickers comic, which you can read online but which is available in print.
I would greatly appreciate your support to my Patreon. HeadCrushers will be coming to the regular venues for sale in around October, but it’s cheaper if you get it through the Patreon.
Welcome to 2013. Watch your step.
A summary of 2012? I reached the culmination of one spurt of design energy with the release of “Suffer the Witch” for Kiss My Axe, and then lay fallow (save for finishing some short stories) until I got the bug again and made an initial stab at Centurion: Legionary of Rome, which led to Head Crushers, which led to a quiet period when I hit an impasse in the design, and then the recent decision to move forward with a new design of Centurion through crowd-funding.
2013 will hopefully bring a completed Centurion by Gen Con (did I mention I’m definitely attending this year? Yay me!). Over the Christmas holiday, I also started seriously thinking about reviving Head Crushers and releasing it as a short, maybe 30-page product, for about $1.99. The question becomes can I clean it up to an acceptable level without interfering in my Centurion work. On this, I will promise nothing, just tease.
And the big news for the New Year? Sword Noir: a Role-Playing Game of Hardboiled Sword & Sorcery has finally reached profitability. The total budget for Sword Noir was $ 1338.59, and as of 31 Dec 2012, the revenue from it has reached $ 1,339.37. Okay, not even a dollar of actual profit yet, but at least it is in the black. Sword Noir was released 3 Apr 2011, so it’d just under two years to pay it off. That’s earlier than expected, but not by much.
I don’t expect Kiss My Axe to move into the black for another two years at least. No one hold their breath, please.
Total Sales for December 2012
Arcane Kingdoms
Arcane Kingdoms, 1
Covert Forces
In Her Majesty’s Service, 1
Other
Line Zero, 1
Operation Nearscape, Free Product, 1
Sword’s Edge System
Crossing the Millers, 3
Kheufer Scrolls, 5
Kiss My Axe, 2
Suffer the Witch, 4
Sword’s Edge System, Free Rules, 14
Sword Noir, 5
Total Sales to Date
Albenistan
Albenistan: Election Day (Modern Dispatch 113): 32
Khorforjan Gambit: 105
Qalashar Device: 118
Raid On Ashkashem: 159
Arcane Kingdoms
Arcane Kingdoms: 41
Gifts of the Elder Gods: 36
For Simple Coin: 57
Charity Products
Relief Effort: 55
Covert Forces
Canada’s Combined Security Reconnaissance Section: 101
Covert Forces: 100
Covert Forces Redux: 164
In Her Majesty’s Service: 139
Other
Cyber-state Avatar Toolkit: 36
Line Zero: 36
Operation Nearscape, Free Product, 325
Sword’s Edge System
Crossing the Millers, 102
Kiss My Axe, 138
Suffer the Witch, 78
Sword’s Edge System, Free Rules 1179
Sword Noir 356
The Kheufer Scrolls, 149