Author: Daniel Lewis

An AW hack by Jason Morningstar dealing with sexism in an obscure historical setting?  I’m calling it now.  This game wins every indie rpg award of 2014.

http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/news/2014/03/21/press-release-bully-pulpit-games-announces-night-witches/

I’m really digging Grant Howitt’s games.  This one’s about a gang of criminals getting together for the “one last job” that will leave them set for life.  

The character creation has a really cool “getting the gang back together” vibe to it and one of the central mechanics involves characters trash talking each other about how old and washed up they’ve become.

http://lookrobot.co.uk/2014/02/12/one-last-job-rpg/

Jason Morningstar says LARPing is cool now so who am I to argue?

http://bundleofholding.com/index/current

All of my Kickstarters are bearing fruit at the same time.  It’s a shame I will probably never play this one.  The setting is great, sort of one part Exalted and one part American Gods, but it is way too crunchy for me to ever get it to the table.  If only it had reached the Fate conversion stretch goal there would have been hope…

Do you like RPGs but feel like conflict should be decided less by character stats and more by which player can write the best haiku?  

Boy, do I have good news for you!

http://lookrobot.co.uk/2014/01/24/warrior-poet-now/

It has arrived.  Prepare your hearts!

There is a lot of stuff to like about Technoir (and if we’re being honest, a few things that could be better).  Most of it has been addressed in other posts, so I won’t go into it again, but something that wasn’t discussed is the fact that it has arguably the best system for generating satisfying noir plots on the fly with zero prep.

You start with a list of 36 possible plot elements.  Six each of connections (“friendly” NPCs), items, locations, factions, threats, and events.  At the beginning of the game, the GM randomly selects 3 of these items and links them somehow to form the mission seed.  A few of the connections might also get added during character creation, but in general, at the start of the game, the plot map is pretty sparse.  There should be enough for the PCs to have something to start investigating, but the big picture isn’t there yet.  

So the PCs hit the library and start their investigation…wait, no.  That would be super boring and make for a terrible game.  No one wants to roll dice to see if their characters can properly use the Dewey Decimal System, so in Technoir, if you want information, you find someone who knows something and make them tell it to you.  The NPCs are plot pinatas; it’s the PCs job to punch them hard enough to make clues fall out.  

As the GM, whenever you need to give the players a clue, you check the handy table for whichever NPC they are talking to, roll a die, connect the randomly selected element to the plot map, and point the characters in that direction.  Then you connect the NPC to the plot map as well, so the more the PCs deal with an NPC, the more deeply connected to everything he becomes.  This same idea applies to every node on the map.  If the PCs don’t follow up on a clue, it doesn’t get any more connected and remains on the edges of the plot, but if they latch onto something and decide to investigate, the mechanics ensure that it will become important to the story.  

There are so many more elegant features that I could continue to ramble on about, like how ignored clues can be used to form the seeds of future games, or how different transmissions can be combined for campaign-length games with world-spanning conspiracies.  But instead, I will just say that if this sounds at all interesting to you, you should really check it out.  The plot generation system was one of the main things that attracted me to this game in the first place and I was really happy to discover that it worked as well in actual play as I had hoped.

Here’s a write-up about American Freeform that I have been meaning to post for a while.  Interesting look at what a lot of indie designers seem to be experimenting with.  

I still can’t see myself LARPing, though.  Not even if Jason Morningstar tells me to.

http://lizziestark.com/2013/11/18/introducing-american-freeform/

I don’t want to say this is the greatest Fiasco playset ever, so I’ll just say I’m 99.9% certain this is the greatest Fiasco playset ever.

Originally shared by Bully Pulpit Games

For all of you here in the Fiasco community, here’s a new special release playset to take home for the holidays! 

One day you are miserable experiments, destined to have your brains extracted to see what makes you tick, and the next you are blinking in the sunlight, smelling new smells that aren’t disinfectant and terror, dumped on a lawn by kids in balaclavas.

Now you are free, and you know how rats are supposed to live, and what the dangers of a rat-centric lifestyle are. Behind you is a gleaming tower full of terrible people who did unspeakable things to you and your friends. In front of you is a forest full of encyclopedic dangers you can name but whose scent is entirely unknown. On either side are others like you, rats you lived with, nearly died with, got really smart with. Rattus norvegicus, Sprague-Dawley strain, mostly the offspring of a very special pair named Linda and Milky.

This playset was inspired by Secret of NIMH, Plague Dogs, Watership Down, and other great modern fables. It includes a custom Tilt, which is highly specific and recommended. We hope you enjoy it!

http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/news/2013/12/17/fiasco-playset-special-rat-patrol/