Caverns and Catacombs Playtest Character Sheets

Alright! Took me about a week, but I think I’m pretty much done with the pre-made character for next month’s playtest. There are four characters, each one basically designed specifically for the person who will be playing them. You’ve got the mage, Baran Zhuul, a bastard son of noble birth who turned to magic for power. Then there’s Brother Eldar Envaris, an elven cleric who serves the Elf Mother as a wandering healer and witcher. Next is Macklin “Mack” Snow, a halfling rogue who is loosely tied to the Thieves Guild and is posing as something he isn’t (like a candle maker or something – I’m going to let the player decide). Finally, Dreg Yurick is the resident dwarf fighter, a bounty hunter who is trying his hand at a bigger score as a dungeoneer.

Each character sheet is 11×17 and is meant to be printed double-sided with the rules summary on the back. My plan is to introduce them to the Isle of Dread, which will play host to the group’s adventures throughout the playtesting future (or until we get bored of it). Next thing to work on is the DM’s screen I’m going to use for the session.

Click here or the image below to download the PDF.

 

Premade Character for Caverns and Catacombs

 

Quick Level Zero Mock-Up for Caverns and Catacombs

So, you’ll probably notice that all of my stuff lately is built off of the same (or very similar) systems. I feel like I have a pretty solid system forming, based (of course!) off of World of Dungeons.

Caverns and Catacombs is going to be my version of Advanced World of Dungeons meets Dungeon Crawl Classics. Here is a simple mock-up I did for some playtesting.

 

It’s been too long and Advanced World of Shadows via Facebook (?!)

So, it’s been over a year since I last posted anything on my blog. Sadly I admit I didn’t accomplish anything during 2013. But, I did do a lot of creative thinking and development, and I’m pretty sure I’m getting really close to nailing something down. I think part of my problem is always working alone – I spend too much time critiquing my own work and not enough time talking to people about what I’m working on.I have a ton of notes and half-finished games on various hard-drives now, so instead of continuing to let this blog sit dormant, I figure I’ll start posting some stuff every day, no matter how unfinished it is. It’ll be easier for me to reference in the future, maybe it will inspire someone, or maybe someone will inspire me. Who knows?

Anyways, I’ll start with the most recent thing I’m working on: Advanced World of Shadows! Or, what I’ll be calling it for the time being: Shadows of the Sixth World. This project started as a desire to get some game sessions running online, since one of our players now lives in Washington DC. We decided to play over Facebook(!) and it’s actually working quite well – everyone is highly connected to Facebook so it keeps everyone involved.

The system is a slightly advanced version of World of Shadows (which you can find in a link on this blog), which is based off of John’s World of Dungeons, which is based off of Sage and Adam’s Dungeon World, which is based off of Vincent’s Apocalypse World.

Here is the Character Sheet, made into a fillable PDF form for online play:

Here is the PDF containing character creation information:

 

The Streets of Mos Eisley Playset – Version 2.1

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

It is the height of the galactic civil war and a dark time for the galaxy. The tension between the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance continues to escalate into the year. The Battle of Yavin and the destruction of the death star are critical successes for the rebellion. A new hope is born. Infuriated by the defeat, Emperor Palpatine viciously lashes out against many of the Outer Rim worlds thought to be harboring people loyal to the rebel cause. The dusty desert planet of Tatooine is no exception. In the city of Mos Eisley, celebration erupts in the streets as news of the rebel victory at Yavin leaks out, but Imperial Storm Troopers open fire on the raucous crowd, inciting a riot that gets out of control and spreads throughout the whole city.

An Imperial police crackdown falls into effect immediately, but the Storm Troopers are highly outnumbered despite the presence of a fully staffed garrison base in the center of the spaceport. The chaos in the city creates for an opportunity rebel militia and criminal elements in the area. The local gangs and mercenary houses use the confusion of the riot to strike at each other, spurred by various feuds and grievances. At the same time, local rebel forces begin to skirmish with the imperial occupancy while recruiting more and more disgruntled people to the cause. It‟s a turbulent time in Mos Eisley and the power players are making their moves, so look sharp, keep your blaster close, and never strike a deal with a Hutt.

Oh, and may the force be with you.

This is my latest project. It’s a quick-play hack set in the Star Wars universe during the peak of the galactic civil war, just after the destruction of the first Death Star. It is directly influenced by Michael Wight’s Streets of Marienburg Playset which is a reskin for John Harper’s World of Dungeons, which is a distilled version of Dungeon World by Sage LaTorra and Adam Koebel. Ultimately, it’s all based on Apocalypse World by Vincent Baker. The art has been shamelessly borrowed from Wookiepedia.

Click here to download v2.

Click here to download v2.1 (Now with more droids!)

 

These are Perilous Worlds!

Well, since things are a bit quieter in my life right now, I’ve had some time to work on a project and I think I need to spend a little more time posting on my blog. Rather than hiding the project and working on it all lonely-like, I figure I should put it out there, get some feedback, maybe score a playtester or two. I call it “Perilous Worlds”. It’s sort of a mash-up of a bunch of awesome games under the veneer of old-school dungeon delving fantasy adventure.

Here’s the download!

I started a feedback discussion at story-games here. Feel free to drop any comments, complaints, and praise there.

 

World of Shadows

So, recently John Harper released a mini-game called World of Dungeons to help push the Dungeon World Kick-Starter campaign. Story-games has been buzzing about it a lot lately. I showed it to a few members of my gaming group (now that I’m back in South Florida…ugh) and they seemed really interested, but didn’t really want to get into any sword and sworcery stories. So, since I’ve been itching to get them running the shadows in Seattle, I made a pretty much straight up trace I call “World of Shadows”.

I had to be a little more descriptive with the rules for my group than John was in the source content. Credit where credit is due: J. Harper and C. McDowell for World of Dungeons, which is a derivative of Dungeon World by Sage Latorra and Adam Koebel, which is in turn a derivative of Apocalypse World by Vincent Baker.

Download it here.

 

Shadow-Hack!

Although the past few months have been pretty crazy, I managed to spend some time on my latest project which I’ve dubbed “Shadow-Hack”. It’s a mashup of Shadowrun and Old School Hack. If you find yourself itching for some Shadowrun fun but aren’t crazy about wading through all the rules, try out Shadow-Hack. If you want, leave me some feedback on the story-games thread here. Below is a link to download the PDF document.

Download PDF

 

Danger Patrollin’, Old School Hackin’, Shadowrunnin’, and More!

Hey again!

The gears of creativity are still turning, albeit at a slightly slower pace. Still, I have a couple of cool things to share. First, a week or so ago, a few buddies came over the house and we got a decent game of Danger Patrol going.  It was my first foray into table-top gaming (with the exception of Settlers of Catan, which my wife is kind of addicted to) in about a year, so it was refreshing. I really enjoyed the light rules, player participation, and lack of prep. You can read the Actual Play thread over on story-games, here. Alas, it’s kinda long though.

I’ve also been playing around with the simple rules-system that I’d been using for NYC2123. I’d like to take those rules and apply them to an original game idea. I had a throw-away concept in my head about a setting where the seas have risen above the land, and humanity survives on flotillas of hydro-scrapers. Here’s a sneak peak of a character sheet design…

The art is by Bradley Bleaker. I found a cache of character body-shots we purchased from him back in 2007 for a post-apocalyptic game we were attempting to go commercial with. Lo and behold, nothing ever came of that project, so I figure why let the art go to waste?

Most recently, my group has expressed the urge to get some Shadowrunning going next time we’re all able to get together. To be perfectly frank, Shadowrun is the shit. I love it. It’s my all time favorite. But I don’t have the time or the doctorate necessary to fully comprehend those rules, so I’m keen on using other rules with that setting (see my D&D4E hack).  I’m not really interested in going the SR-D&D4E route again, so I figured I’d try something different. I’m going to take a crack at a Shadowrun reskinning for Kirin Robinson’s Old School Hack. Here is my rough draft for the first of many character sheets I plan to make.

OSH Street Samurai (11×17 Full Page PDF)

Yes, currently it is in portrait 11×17 and that’s how I plan to print them out when we play, but I promise to make the single sheet into two 8.5×11’s for a folder-spread set up or to print them front and back. If I get some feedback and people seem interested, I’ll probably make up a full OSH Shadowrun booklet.

 

And I burst forth with scads of role-playing sweetness…

So, for the past twelve years, approximately, I have been hard at work creating different homebrew systems and game hacks for dozens of different role-playing and story-telling games. I think myself a fairly creative individual, but I’m definitely scatter-brained. I have made some pretty neat stuff, but most of my work has gone the way of the dodo bird, however, getting lost in seas of papers that eventually get tossed into the recycling bin when I get into a moving frenzy.

So, rather than archive all the cool (at least I think it’s cool) stuff I’ve come up with recently, I’ve decided to start up this blog to share the fruits of my labor. Hopefully, someone out there will find this stuff to be worth checking out and leaving me some feedback. As I continue to find creative bursts here and there, I’ll keep posting stuff I come up with.

Thanks for stopping by!