Category: Games

These are games. Things like reviews, recommendations, game design projects and more. Anything that sits at the same table as my passion for games of tabletop and vidya.

Nicest Detectives

Nicest Detectives is a low rules ttrpg for playing detectives who are clumsy, have families, and still find a way to succeed (whether that changes the world or not, is open to interpretation). For reference, this game is about detectives like those in The Nice Guys (2016).

You can play detectives from any timeframe, as long as everyone agrees to be in the same timeframe.

To Make Your Detective

Each detective has three stats: Person, Family, and Luck. To create a character, distribute 7 points across these three stats. The max any single stat can be is 6. Having a high Person means you are skilled and have a good vibe to what you do. Having a high Family means that you have good relatives, dependable friends, and resourceful colleagues.

Whenever either Person or Family hit 0 after a roll, raise Luck by 1. Having a 0 in Person or Family means your burnt out or you have stressed your relationships as far as you can until you put some time into them. Gain 1 in the stat you work to improve/repair.

Dice Rolls

There are a few times when players roll dice, here they are:

  • When your detective needs weapons, gear, resources, then they roll d6+Luck+FAM (family).
  • When your detective needs to meet contacts, figure out what a clue means, or shmooze it at a party, then they roll d6+Luck+PER (person).

These are examples of two types of actions where stats are added to the dice roll as modifiers. Even without modifiers, all actions are rolled using this rule…

When a P.I. acts, roll LUCK (d6+luck). P.I.’s always succeed (unless the player doesn’t want to). P.I.’s take the changes to their stats based on their roll result, & pick which tags are used to flavor their actions. The other players will ask questions about how it goes down. The GM will play as anyone met, and describe what happens when things go wrong.

  • On a 7+. +1 to BOTH FAM & PER. Choose flawless or stumble.
  • On a 6. +1 PER. Choose tricky or some say skilled.
  • On a 5. +1 FAM. Choose stealing helped or family’s supportive.
  • On a 4. +1 to ANY STAT. Choose Vices can be virtues, or tactics can be distracting.
  • On a 3. -1 PER. Choose underestimated or ignored.
  • On a 2. -1 FAM. Choose bad at cover ops or got a cousin.
  • On a 1. -1 BOTH. Choose sacrifice or failure.

Max out a Stat

Whenever you max out a stat, something big happens. Something BIG. For luck this means that you skip ahead in the adventure, luck is reduced to 0 when this happens for the detective who triggers the skip in the adventure.

For Person, it means that your image cannot be tarnished, it is perfect in how it is. If anything goes against your character, or something comes up that is out of character, you risk your whole persona falling apart. If it falls apart, then person goes down to 1. Circle it, you can’t roll person until you make a big show about who you really are.

For Family, it means that your family relies on you and you rely completely on them. If something threatens them because of your work and you can’t get there fast enough or comfort them, then they need a break. If this happens, then family goes down to 1. Circle it, you can’t roll family until you do something for them.

New Sessions

Whenever a new session is started, rearrange and redistribute your stats scores using what you currently have on your character sheet. If you do this, the session starts with the player describing an event that occurred between sessions to explain why one of the stats increased or decreased.

Core Design

The core rules of Nicest Detectives is that players succeed. Detectives succeed until the players decide they aren’t succeeding. The drama comes from the mysteries that are being investigated and the people they are up against. Adventures are supposed to be planned as most mysteries would for role-playing games. A mix of antagonists and clues and hints.

When making up a clue, give it some hints to where it leads. These hints can only be gotten when the players find and talk to the person it is linked to. The clues are items and documents. The clues always lead to the answer for the mystery, about who did what and why they did it.

Getting enough clues and making sure that no one is able to pry them from your hands is how you solve the mystery and win the game.

Catalogue: Goat Horn the True Wind-strument

An illustrated PDF of this creature entry can be found on my Patreon and is accessible to Patrons :)

As any breeze would say if it had a mind and words to speak it would shriek to all its leader. The magnificent and terrifying horn of the wild goat Odirius. Every breath shouted through its twisted bodied form is a shout of action, a summons to war in the sky. Bring your mightiest strength eastern and western winds and ride on the cloud chariots. Whip the blue until it is purple, a sky full of blood and lightning crackling down to the earth.

This is the power of the horn of Odirius. The wild goat Odirius would be what is called the grandmother of all hooves beasts, even the lesser forms of hellions and demons claim a bloodline that stretches back in time to Odirius. The goat when it was alive held a massive pack of its young that would jump, trample, and bite any that opposed their grandmothers will to roam and be free. They would wander the world keeping all of the grass and hay short. That is why they can no longer grow to the heights of buildings, because Odirius bit their tallness out of them.

Then, on a later day when Odirius was growing older and older. The horde of munching horned beasts was led to the tallest mountain in the world, whose steps were too tall for any creature to climb. Every creature that is, except for Odirius. On this day, Odirius slept under the empty night sky and taught their young all of the stars in the sky, and to which they must each listen to for commands. For the devils it was the stars below, for these goats it was Three Horns Constellation which took the shape of three spiraling goat horns. Lastly before they all fell asleep together, Odirius took their ability to speak and language but silence or bleats (this is one way to determine a devils lineage). This was so that they may have some peace, rather than ask more questions and keep the grandmother goat up all night before her ascension.

As the sun peaked over the edge of the horizon, Odirius was gone. Bits of stone and sand rained from the mountains wall. A flash was seen in the sky, and then drifting down from clouds in a beam of light three items fell. Two horns as large as any single person, and a pelt which matched Odirius’ fur.

The beasts of Odirius scattered across the world to their homes under their stars, on the orders of their celestial caregivers after hiding the relics of Odirius. Whose two horns each summoned the forces of the sky from either the East or the West, and a pelt which could if worn hold any creature in its place against all forces.

Horns of the East or West

This horn is massive and would require either a cart or multiple carriers to move. If any breath is blown into the tip of the horn (while outside under the sky) a cacophonous blaring goat bleat would ring through the air for hundreds of miles around, so far and booming would its sound be that it would ring as of it came from every direction at once. It can only be used once per month, when used roll 2d6. On a 6 or less hold 1. On a 7-9 hold 2. And on a 10 or more hold 3. Spend hold one for one for any abilities off this list after rolling:

  • Wind gusts of giant strength, anything not tied down is moved 120 feet in the opposite direction of the horns name (easterly horn moves objects and persons towards the west).
  • Lightning crack, pick a target. They Xd6 damage. Where X is equal to tens column of their health +1. For example, a character with 20 Hit Points would take 3d6 damage. A character with 4 Health blocks would take catastrophic damage or a 1d6. This is life threatening damage.
  • Water pours in, raining sideways so hard that it hurts. Movements are slowed to a grinding halt, movement now requires a main action as well for everyone in an area the size of a small town. Fighting requires a movement action now as well. The rain will pour like this under a sky so dark it appears to be a starless night for 6 hours. On hour 6, flooding will occur in any low areas halting any armies and requiring the efforts of townsfolk to stop major damages. An unprepared force will take 48 hours to deal with this issue, most prepared forces will take 24 hours. As soon as the rain is gone, a hot sun will beat down on the water. Making the air heavier and heavier as the humidity rises.
  • A fog thicker than any other rolls in and surrounds the battlefield, it can cover the size of a small to medium sized town in area. The fog is so thick that no one can see more than 10 ft ahead of themselves (unless they see using infrared vision). This fog will hang in the air for 24 hours. It can only dispelled using magical means.
  • Giant columns (1’ diameter, 10’ tall) of ice fall from the clouds in the sky. In a circle of 40 ft each person within has a 75% chance of being hit. Those hit take damage equal to a great sword (1d10 or weapon equivalent), those not hit lose their next action as they are too preoccupied with avoiding falling ice shards.
  • Flying from the direction of the horns name come a cloud of birds. Birds of all shapes and sizes swarm in the sky like a den of cockroaches that clambers one on top of another and creates a shadow that covers the battlefield. Each turn until the end of combat, all enemies have a 20% chance of being attacked by birds, on their turn if it is determined they will be attacked they must choose whether to spend their main action avoiding damage from the birds, or take 1d6+1 damage (or a dagger+1 equivalent). The birds will disperse at the end of combat.

From what isn’t picked by the player, the Game Master may choose one result to use against the player characters or their companions and allies.

As a note there are two horns, one that controls the power of the sky’s that come from the east and the one from the west. They both have the same abilities but if used at the same time and choose the same abilities, they cancel each other out.

Pelt of Odirius

When this massive furry pelt is worn the wearer is held in place by its weight. No force magical or mundane would be able to make them move unless the pelt was taken off of them, or they moved themselves. This property means that anyone who wears the pelt, could functionally walk up walls and be immoveable from any outside force. They could also stand on a rock out at sea and ships would be destroyed by the pelts strength, the wearer would also be mushed inside the fur though since it provides no tactical or armor protection.

Additionally any cold regardless of how strong or magical cannot penetrate its fur. This fur would comfortably also function as a tent for up to 4 human sized people, who would be able to walk around within its tent, but no one would be able to from the outside move said tent.

Monsterary: Sun’s Flame Knight

An illustrated PDF of this creature entry can be found on my Patreon and is accessible to Patrons 🙂

A low hanging cloth with singed edges barely billows, despite the never-ending smoke that pours out of the pores across the glowing chainmail that wraps the figure. These chains bend under the heat and pressure of tightly fastened plates curved in a human form. The symbols smeared across the burned armor, appear by inhuman hands, no prints or flesh scratched these symbols.

The Sun’s Flame Knight burns in its armor tall and thin, a tightly bound furnace that pours out smoke and flames. Lights inside give an angelic look when observed in delirious thought. But at the edge of a horizon apart a viewer may see the whipping flames of a hell that has been condensed and weaponized. With only a purpose to wield the glowing blade of the First Stolen Sun in order to punish and uphold the Master Whisperer’s law.

Fear the warrior whose gaze burns long and without falter. Who moves with practiced grace that provides a speed that turns traditional swordplay into a barrage of swings that cuts the air as fast as a hummingbird beats its wings. Only pausing between furies to evaluate how best to eviscerate the enemy, then burn the evidence until it is blacker that space and indistinguishable in texture from the soil.

May the allure of a warm flame and a beacon on the horizon trick your heart into thinking the end to a tortured life is in sight. For even on the rivers of hell a warm flame dances at the final rest stop to the eternal destination.

Statistics

Type: high planar, angelic.

HD: 5

Armor: as Plate

Move: 35 feet

Intelligence: 16/20

  • Precise
  • 2/day: can make an additional action before any character at any time.
  • The sun’s flame knight is made of fire and speaks only in the sounds of whooshing wind and crackling logs. They can unite to a council meeting of other flames using a single finger as if it is wood burning. Burning the prime words (words that translate to all phrase and depths within their first language) into any surface.

Alignment: the sun is the lord, the flame the commander an ally. Any and all allies of The Nightlanders is a foe.

Tactics: methodical, careful with intent and thought. Fights enemies, retreat over death unless under specific orders or dire stakes.

Attacks:

  • 2 attacks per round.
  • Sunblade: 1d10+2; or heavy sword+2. Damage ignores armor as the blades searing light pierces all surfaces.
  • Crackling Frenzy: 4/day, Take 3 main actions on next turn. Damage on all effects is halved for these actions. Sparks fly from a gauntlets flourish, the speed gained through practiced movements comes at the cost of distinguishable tactics being clearly signaled.
  • Overflowing Flaming Tongue: 3/day, Spewing flames from the grates in the scorched helmet, target takes 1d8 damage per round for 3 rounds.

Defense:

  • Deflect: blade attacks against the knight that miss leave an opening, the knight does a basic attack at this moment, rolling twice and using the worst of the two to determine effect.
  • Burning Glare: A strong glint sparks off the shield, a reflection of the sun honed to a daggers point to pierce foes eyes. In sacrifice of a move action, a targets next action has disadvantage.

Special:

  • Can only be destroyed forever using the Sea King Mary’s tears.
  • The Knight glows orange like the embers of a fire in a shadowy forest. This light pierces holes from another dimension, from an age of fire, into the world we traverse. Over the soldier’s entire body, these portals are visible but send eyes and minds reeling into a white haze when stared into.
  • Just like the shining lights of hell at the end of the rivers of shackled flesh, the knight burns as a spiritual signal. A tower in the living world, a world unknown to them, with the trait of mortality which is alien in form and habit. Within 6 miles of the knight’s presence, but only at night, 1d100 dead turn to undead. Roll 1d100 for cities, and roll 1d10 for the countryside (unless reason for bodies to be plentiful is present).

Affiliations

There are some that the Sun’s Flame Knight is connected to, as they are a knight of their own realm and had to spend time in court. Fiddling and navigating the politics of those above and in command or against their own commander.

Flame Commander:

The commander is a solid flame that does not flicker but holds a curved shape with sharp edges. Its commands are issued as sternly as laws of nature and are expected to be upheld in a rigid fashion to how gravity brings apples to fall. A consistency is expected and if not met, punished by extinguishing a soldier. Squishing its heat until it is only coals, wiping away memories and thoughts before kindling the flame back to a young roar. Bringing executed soldiers back to life so that they can forget, cease to exist, and their own physical properties can be reused for another.

The Flame Commander does not care for the individual personalities of their soldiers. The only way that control is maintained is by puppeteering and threats of recycling.

The flame that heats each flame knight or soldier is linked to the flame commander, the commander holds absolutely still in their person in order to make its movements and silent commands known through manipulating the waves and flashes of light of those being controlled. At any point the flame commander can starve an individual linked to the larger flame of air and its energy that is shared. Making them so weak as to collapse under even the weight of their armor.

Unless this link is broken, and sufficient fuel is provided to maintain the energy needed to live, every soldier under the Flame Commander is chained to the army of Hell for all time.

Prime Tree Wood Chunk: the prime tree was the first tree from which all others sprouted. It has long since become lost to the soil, but some of the excess tree clippings that were not used to start the world’s forests were coveted and stowed away by Primordial Collectors. These individuals hide and catalog in personal collections away from prying eyes original progenitors of the world’s materials. They hold in hiding the original seeds which when planted create spiraling and widespread veins of gold.

First Stolen Sun:

Far back in time, before people were ever born or even could think of a name for the blazing beauties that stand ever present in the summer sky. With their gaze coming down and embracing every creature that would ever live. Before we knew the love of warmth and a breezy summer at a swimming hole. Where friends could jump into the water and not be cold, but refreshed so long that the memories of childhood could be a warm blanket in old age.

Before all of this, the Flame Commander was young and brash, there was no king and rulers in the planes of existence just warring bands of elements and essence. The war band of the young spark found the first sun and captured it in a net of stars. This is where the first stolen sun changed into its second form, that of a horse of fire, with the sun changed into a conquerable form the war band cast a spell of chains onto the horse. And it was lead to where the future throne for the Flame Commander would be erected, buried in a hole deep into the stone with only a small piercing faucet cutting through its flesh on one end.

With this turned on, the Flame Commanders weapon smiths can harness star fire to create sunblades. Swords that whip flames and make spotted the eyes of any enemy.

One day, someone may rescue the First Stolen Sun. But only a siege on the black citadel of fire in the volcano Matdrick could make such events occur. It is tempting though? To save a sun? The one that sparked so many others. Certainly the reward for such a task from the Council of Orion would be grand.

Sunblade: burning, blade, damage of a great sword +2 fire dmg. To wield this blade without damage or penalty requires an insulated stone gauntlet which only elemental weapon smiths can forge. If the wielder is made not of flesh, then the blade can be held if they can withstand the temperature (d4 damage per turn held). Spend a main action and choose 1 effect:

  • Next attacks damage ignores armor.
  • The targets next action has disadvantage. They roll twice and take the worst.
  • Fire breath: attack as normal, if you succeed instead of doing the damage of the sword, target will take d6 fire damage per turn for d4 turns.

Master Whisperer:

Lurking in the shadows of dreams and stones, the master whisperer speaks over and over again the laws unwritten. Slay for me, the cold voice groans. Every so often the fingers move like snakes in sand. Darkness clings to the pale skin as the void attempts to pull back the escapee.

My words are unwritten, they speak truths which will bury themselves deep into your being. Act for me. These are the rules the Master Whisperer lays.

Rules from the Master Whisperer creep in only when an individual has fought in 10,000 skirmishes, brawls, and melees. The bloodlust of those without blood but who only see it tempts the Master Whisperer who drinks what comes filtered through the earth and that was wrought of violence “in the name of”.

To some the Master Whisperer will make bargains… But to others, those of elements and essences only commands are uttered.

Heed the Call: At a stone after a long fight a murmur is heard. You are resting and blood pools into the dirt. A leathery voice speaks softly to you “Skin the hundred headed serpent Poison Fang, and give the skin to the Warlord Adam Kraith. Do this and I will allow you to speak once across time and space through the shadows”. If this quest is completed, the Master Whisperer will offer this favor once, for each other completed another is granted. The ability to speak a phrase through the shadows to anyone anywhere in the world awake or dreaming.

The Master Whisperer does this, because the harm will always outweigh the benefit, words from shadows are fearsome beasts of horror not advisors of good fortunes.

RPG Creature: The Black Ocean

This is a creature for fantasy and horror scenarios.

Note to reader: I am currently over halfway finished reading The Fisherman by John Langan. It is very incredible and seems to me to be like a weird-fantasy or Cthulhu-esque horror scenario with what is going on in the book. I won’t spoil it, but something that is talked about as just a very minor thing at the moment, not even being the big monster or the grand antagonist is a black ocean. The ocean seems incredibly terrifying especially to me, as it can be a vast entity of terror that fills any shape that can dare to hold it. This monster write up is partially inspired by the black ocean where the fisherman casts his lines in Langan’s book.

An unending rage

There are times when the adventuring party will go out to sea or to any body of water and will find a rocky section. This is not the black ocean. The fiercest hurricane’s waves are nothing compared to the depthless rage that is contained in this oceans waters.

How you can tell you have are at the black ocean:

  • Crashing waves that quake across the coast and over the water. Although there is no sign of bad weather or winds as there is a clear sky.
  • Peering into the waters you sense endless depth. Like looking into absolute darkness, you can sense the endlessness of it but cannot see past its walls.
  • On the edges of the water, off the coasts on the rocks lining its edges will be bone dust and shredded flesh. Any fish that is in this water has high chances that it will be shredded apart by its waves until it is entirely unrecognizable. Just bits of rotten fish flesh on whiter than any sands coasts.

Interacting with the water

No vessel can go over the black ocean, any that even attempted to would be likely destroyed or crushed within its grip. But, rumor has it that sacrifices to the ship of the dead may bring forth a vessel that will carry you to its opposite shore. Travelling on this ship is also rumored to take from you, because if the sacrifice is not large enough then the ship will crash itself on a pile of stones in its center. The water’s waves wiping whatever doesn’t starve off the rock in a single day, no blood even appearing in its dark waves.

When a creature not of the black ocean treads even a step into the waves. The waves will lick and grasp at the individual dragging them from an inch of water into the ground. Breaking bones with every wave’s crash, pounding their form into the rocks underneath the yellow foam coming from each pillar where waves meet. It appears like the sea is foaming at its mouth when someone touches it and is consumed. The body will very shortly, after screams and drowned words, be visible as the water retreats. All blood and liquids within the form have been removed entirely, a dried and desiccated corpse remains. Then a final wave will splash along the shore, dragging what remains into the depths below.

If anyone goes under the waves, it is absolute darkness. It is impossible to see through even using magical means. Anyone trapped under the waters will be spun and disoriented by the undercurrents. Unable to sense until the hands latch on, the murmurs of the dead bodies that have sunk below ring true as they reach up to latch onto those who find themselves with their head submerged. These bodies are lifeless, but the black ocean’s currents manipulate their forms so that they twist and snap to take perform its actions. Treat this as you would a very difficult grapple.

Learning about the ocean

The black ocean is only mentioned in the most obscure texts, and even then only mentioned in passing in reference to when the world was born. An ocean that was primordial and later enraged as it sunk below the world into a land filled with darkness, bare forests, and beaches that hold its edges in.

When the black ocean is discovered or comes up in play, here are some questions that could be worth answering or finding answers to:

  • What beast is rumored to live trapped beneath the black ocean’s waves?
  • Who has forged a path to the black ocean in the past?
  • What warnings are found carved into the stones at the black ocean’s shores?
  • What happened when a sample of water was taken from the black ocean?

Black Ocean – Stats

Type: cosmic force,

HD: endless.

Armor: why even ask? This is an ocean.

Intelligence: Unable to be determined. Any sign is incomprehensible as it is a force of energy beyond our scale. It has a sense of scale like looking and gazing at a night sky full of stars.

Align(ment): all are destroyed in the black ocean except for the Sea King Mary and the Ship of the Dead.

Attacks:

  • 1+(1 per character in the ocean) attacks / round
  • Crashing Wave (1/round per character caught): any characters in the black oceans water will lose 25% of their HP for every round in its grasp. No roll is made, attacks always land. A prepared defense will halve the damage dealt.
  • Dragging Maw (2/round): any characters in the water will be pulled 3x their movement speed further from the shore or any safety.
  • Truth Trance (1/round): target will hear disturbing truths and secrets about their lives. Secrets only the dead or themselves may know, these are dark enchanted words spoken in a speech that resembles the sound people make when they are drowning. Coughs and gurgles. This trance makes it so a character cannot move on their turn or act, the trance is broken when the target is touched or shook.

Defenses:

  • Attacks against have no effect.
  • Any items that touch the water have a 90% chance of being pulled in with unmatched strength, characters who hold these items will find letting go in time before being pulled a medium difficulty check. Items cannot be pulled from the water and have a 65% chance of being completely destroyed.

Special Qualities:

  • Entities that are aligned with the black sea have 6x their normal speed when moving under its waves.
  • Characters caught in the water cannot defend any attacks made against them. Any defense made will double damage done by the black ocean against them.
  • Character caught in the water cannot escape it without assistance from an outside force. Even that task would be treated as incredibly difficult, and any success would come at grievous costs.

Upcoming Projects!

Did you enjoy Runaway Hirelings, a 30-ish page tabletop role-playing game from whenever time ago? (It was 1 year Thomas omg.) Well, do you also want to know what I am working on getting shoved out the door with kisses and a packed lunch?

Here it is! This is the blog post for you. The one that has some descriptions and pitches of games and products that I have coming out in the near future. Including a game zine filled with shorter games that I have worked on, a Runaway Hirelings hack/reskin, and my artbook for 2018!

Office Murder Party

Day One: Drink coffee, gossip about packages delivered inside the office. Day Two: CEO starts rambling over the intercom at odd intervals about “Armor plating over the windows so that the drones who work in this office building can’t escape when I take it over.”

No one is certain what this means. Then, all of a sudden the windows go dark and the speakers crackle alive with a command, “Create a Civilization.” Now, as interns are trying to escape a wild mailroom boy, fuelled by panic and potentially drugs filtered in through the vents, you must make it to the first floor lobby. That is where freedom is.

Will you draw the Watercooler desert location from the Office deck? Or an Executive Challenge, where you are punished for not jousting in the portable escalators? In Office Murder Party, the Office deck is a deck of cards that brings forth areas to explore, emergency situations to intrude on whatever is going on, and Executive Challenges. This deck is assembled at the beginning of play by the players and determines what challenges come up during the game session, while the players control their office workers and introduce strange and troubled NPCs to this lockdown mega tower in downtown Desert Vista.

Office Murder Party is a role-playing game that is inspired partially by: The Belko Experiment, The Office, and Sunset Overdrive, injected with the default silliness of Runaway Hirelings.

Game Specs:

  • Single session game
  • 1.5 to 2.5 hour game session
  • 3-6 Players recommended
  • Original Game System

2018 Artbook

At the end of the year 2017, a book came out in paperback with a plain white cover with a little doodle in the center. This was a collection of my 2017 sketchbook pages and zines that I had put together in a paperback form.

Well, here we are, it’s 2019, and I have my 2018 artbook coming out. But this time it will be hardcover, 6 in. x 9 in., and it will have a ton of creative captions. Almost all of them have nothing to do with what the art is inside. These captions are just descriptions of some of the images in the book, not from when the image was created, but of what I see in them now as I am assembling this artbook.

At over 185 pages of words and black and white drawings, you can flip through stranger and more rubbery drawings that I have done, stripped from my personal sketchbooks, a lot of which have not been shared online. So prepare for some weirdness and check out this new artbook.

Page Spread from the 2018 Artbook.

Book Specs:

  • Artbook containing sketchbook art from 2018
  • With unrelated caption text littered about
  • 185+ page black and white hardcover book

My Assorted Art 2017 book can be purchased in print here and digitally overhere . My 2018 Artbook will be coming out on lulu for the print copy, and itch.io as well (did you know that you can follow creators on itch.io? Well you can! Follow me for notifications!).

Game Sack vol. 1

Here are some of the zine sized publications that I have previously put out. Game Sack is bigger than all of them.

I have written a few smaller games, some super short games, and others are of a sort of interesting length that I wouldn’t just publish on their own. So this is what I am going to do with them: give them layout and a little bit of art, then print out a bunch of them on a laser printer and make them into a zine.

It’s a zine of small games! Games about pancake dates, and tree spirits talking about whether they should reveal themselves to humans! A game where magic items make the adventurer! A game where you rush out the kitchen at the inn trying to get ingredients, so you don’t disappoint the master chef of the Whisper Willow Inn and Rest Stop.

Be prepared for a zine of small games of varying silliness and length. Some of which have been previously released through my Patreon, but here they are rewritten and with a little more polish!

Book Specs:

  • Short Game Collection
  • Zine (size and production)
  • Assorted Genres

This game will be coming out in PDF over here on itch.io and also drivethrurpg when it comes out. To make sure that you don’t miss it and get notified of its release, may I recommend subscribing to my mailing list? There is a form at the bottom of the page.

The Magic Hour

Brie Beau Sheldon (designer of Let Me Take a Selfie and the TTRPG Turn!) and Thomas Novosel (fantasy illustrator and designer of Runaway Hirelings) team up to create a fantasy adventure that takes place in an incredibly small town at the edge of the oldest segments of the forest…

People have been going missing at dusk. Surrounded by forests on the outskirts of the county, and just beyond the fingertips of the capital guards reach, something has been coming and taking people. Not a single glimpse has been caught of the perpetrators, but something needs to happen. A gang has moved in to investigate, but it is taking too long; everyone is worried and unsure of what to do. There aren’t a lot of lives to spare in a small town, and soon it won’t even be occupied by ghosts.

In this fantasy role-playing game adventure, players form a party and investigate the recent disappearances. Meet a wide variety of characters, each having things to say about what is going on. You will encounter the strangeness of a quiet forest, and soon understand that silence should always be concerning – especially when your ears are looking for a sound to hear from between the old trees. Listen carefully for something… anything. But dread what you suspect you may hear, a scuffle at dusk, followed by a buffeted wind.

The Magic Hour is an system agnostic fantasy adventure meant to either kickoff a new campaign or be one night of investigations and adventure.

Adventure Specs:

  • System Agnostic
  • Fantasy Adventure
  • One Session length

Follow me for updates and release information!

So that’s what’s next up from me and you can keep up with these projects and more by signing up for my newsletter and following me at itch.io. If you enjoy anything I’m releasing, please let me know! I love to support podcasts and blogs that feature my work and work by other awesome designers.

I am also always available through DM’s on Twitter, if anyone has any questions for me, or media inquiries.

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Runaway Hirelings

Runaway Hirelings digital and print cover.

Runaway Hirelings is a silly game for those who like to play weak characters who fail, cannot hope to even bruise anyone in a fight, and want to play dungeons as the Demi-Lich intended. Really weird descriptions of rooms that could never be mapped on a grid, and rooms meant to be run through screaming.

In Runaway Hirelings, players take on the role a hireling whose boss has died leaving them in the final room of the dungeon. They now have to make their way out of the dungeon without any heroes to defend and fight for them. Hirelings will die, and other hirelings will be found that were lost along the way.

… what started as Wirdum, the Lost City of Cogs, and home to an unstoppable mechanical army slowly morphed into a multi-millenia-old, ruined theme park with broken animatronics and an unstoppable army of maintenance and cleaning mechanicals.

James F.
Print copy of the game, photographed on haunted staircase.

Game Stats

  • Preparation Required: Game-Master needs to read the rules. Handouts are made available to all Players, and 4 six-sided dice are to be shared at the table.
  • Playtime: 1.5 hours – 2 hours.
  • Players: 1 Game-Master, and 1-5 player characters (as Hirelings).
  • Digital Contents: Rules book PDF’s and Handouts PDF. Rules are 36 pages (with blank pages left in for zine printing). An additional no-art compact version of the rules is also included for easy printing at home.

This game was intended to be read and then played in the same day, picked up and brought to the game table as quick as possible with little preparation.

Where to Buy

  • Print and/or Digital: You can get it from DrivethruRPG here.
  • Alternatively, you can purchase a digital copy through itch.io using the button below. Purchasing here is how you can give me tips, as well as on itch.io I receive a larger cut of each sale.

MORE for Runaway Hirelings

  • Player Handouts; this includes rules reference pages and character sheets for use in play. They can be downloaded for free from here.
  • Extra Sauce #1; Extra Sauce is additional rules and mechanics for RH. The first includes Dungeon Templates and an updated version of the playtest 0.5 dungeon “The Needlelands”. You can get the PDF for free here.
  • Extra Sauce #2; This extra sauce contains the weirdometer, some rules to help with adding cosmic strangeness and alien old ones to your game. Also contains a new dungeon template “The Temple of Al-Guratt” and a new hireling called the Candlekeeper. You can get the PDF for free here.
Booklet is opened to a page that has a picture of a person falling shirtless with a sword in a splotchy ink art style. The opposite page has the rules for The Dunarch player.
A page from a print copy of the games rules, photographed on my stairs.

Press & Podcasts

Our game involved a lowly farmer creeping along the floor with a barrel over his head pretending to be a worm to escape sentient statues, a torchbearer seducing a red dragon, a fool giving a lecture on the merits of a potato stuck on a stick as a form of art criticism as so much more. It was one the most hilarious games I’ve played in a while. You should all totally go get yourself a copy, and play the heck out of it.

Abigail L.

Credits

Text, art, and layout for Runaway Hirelings is by Thomas Novosel. The game full release was edited by Owen Kerr and Jarrett Crader.

Development History

This development history is written so that people who were not around when I talked about this game back on Google Plus can look through earlier iterations of the game before publication. I think, personally of course, that most earlier versions of the game were barely playable. But each version and draft was crucial to forming what would become the end product. My little silly fantasy game about trap pokers in caves.

  • Original Micro Game; Runaway Hirelings was originally written as a micro game for a fantasy game design challenge that involved making a fantasy rpg that didn’t use warriors, swords, or the traditional fare you would find in D&D inspired games. The original micro game can be downloaded here.
  • Playtest Version 0.2; this is the original playable version of the expanded game that was used for the first couple games of play-testing. The quality may be bad, but it is because it is a scanned version of my personal printout that I used. It can be downloaded here.
  • Playtest Version 0.5; this is a publicly released playtest version of the game that was put out as the first post on my Patreon to patrons. It pretty cleaned up, and much better, but still noticeably different from the final version of the game. It can be downloaded here.
  • Unrelated Development Videos; early on in development I started working on notes videos where I talked about some of the early ideas. While I didn’t continue the series throughout all of development, it still might be interesting to watch. You can watch them here.

The micro game was released in early 2016, early writing for an expanded version started a few months afterwards. All of the art in the final game was done in October 2017, the original art style that was going to be used was traded in for an art style that I was using while doing Inktober, making use of a Pentel brush pen. Final notes were made and the game was released January 2018.

Influences

Runaway Hirelings is a game that plays with the tropes of comedic-ly incapable people who work for mighty heroes. They can’t do much and often fail at whatever they do in tabletop role-playing games. That is where the hirelings come from.

As for game mechanics, Runaway Hirelings was inspired by two games:

Apocalypse World by D. Vincent Baker and Meguey Baker for its writing style and rules presentation, the idea of writing rules as individual if then statements came from here. Apocaylpse World also lead me to treat the rules book as the GM manual, and to create handouts to act as the core way that players would interact with the game. This turned out to lend itself well to my core design desires for the game. That it be quick and easy to pick up and play, as well as teach.

The tone of the character funnel from the game Dungeon Crawl Classics from Goodman Games was a primary setting influence. My knowledge of the game came from the art in the rulebook which presented chefs stabbing skeletons, and the actual play episode from Role-Playing Public Radio playing through one of the game’s published adventures fueled the main purpose and plot of Runaway Hirelings as a game. Low powered characters dying left and right while fumbling to survive in a comedic dungeon run.

Sales Reports

This section includes my copies sold, and any notable sales events. As of right now (July 2020) the Total Number of Copies of Runaway Hirelings sold is 946 copies.

  • Release month: 30 total copies sold
  • Release month of the One Shot Podcast Actual Play: 22 copies sold.
  • Pay-What-You-Want month: 52 total copies (average: $1.70 ea.).
  • Tabletop itch.io Selects Bundle: 495 total copies.
  • Lifetime itch.io: 509 copies.
  • Lifetime DriveThruRPG: 267 copies.
  • Lifetime Gumroad: 20 copies.

I update this post from time to time with new and updated sales numbers for the game. So if you are curious about how this increases, check back later!

Sword Arms and Spellbook Brains

Each player has a character, that character is an adventurer, a collector of magical treasures. A hero with a hoard of treasures so large that their individual strength and power is defined by powers contained in enchanted boots and wizard hats.

Characters

To create a character do the following:

  1. Make up a name and choose whether you are a wizard or a hero.
  2. Roll 2d6 for each of your attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma). The higher you roll, the better you are in that attribute.
  3. To determine how many Hit Points a character has, roll 2d6+4.
  4. Each character has 6 equipment slots, each of these equipment slots can only be filled by magic items. Each of your magic items can be selected from a magic item list in your favorite fantasy role-playing game, or you can come up with each magic item as you need to do something. The limitations for magic items are endless, but they must have specific powers, invisibility boots are great, bottles full of wishes won’t work.
  5. For each magic item assign it to a tier, the tier that it is on is equal to the the modifier used for attribute checks when using a magic item. Each character can have the following items for each tier:

 

Tier 1st 2nd 3rd 4th
Number of items 1 1 2 2

Magic Items

You can also just choose items off this list (player chooses what tier each item is):

  • Mini Mimic: A mimic on a necklace, rip it off and toss it onto the ground to have it grow to a full size mimic as your familiar.
  • Unipig the Man: A pet pig who can speak and mystify humanoids with its wild dancing. It can also talk.
  • Tenta-Boot: A single left foot boot that has a sticky tentacle which can stretch and move around on the wearers command.
  • 5 Eye Gauntlet: A glove which shoots lasers, a different laser for each of the five finger tips eyes.
  • Memory Hat: A hat which when activated can record the voice of a monster or character (its loudness, tone, manner, etc), the user may utter a sentence using a voice that was recorded. Once that sentence is uttered, the voice is no longer able to be used unless attained again.

Or items from the Assorted Equipment Art zine (free in PDF here).

Rules

  • Attribute checks: If performing an action without the aid of a magic item, roll 1d6+5 versus applicable attribute, roll under to succeed. Rolling over causes failure, in combat this means damage. If you are using a magic item, roll 1d6+(item’s tier) versus applicable attribute, roll under to succeed.
  • Attack rolls: If attacking another character or monster, roll 1d6+(5 if using a non magical weapon, the item’s tier if magical) versus the targets Dexterity. Rolling under the targets dexterity results in a successful attack, a failed attack results in the attacker taking damage, this is how monsters make attacks.
  • Damage: damage done by characters is the margin of success for the attack roll. Damage cannot be done by a character unless it involves a magic item being used. Monsters have magical defenses which cannot be countered without a magic item!
  • Death: a character dies when it has no hit points left, but if someone has a magic item that can resurrect characters…

Monsters

  • Monster Attacks: monsters make attacks when a character fails an attack, in these attacks monsters do damage equal to a monsters tier+margin of failure. Monsters can do attacks on their own as well, but for those attacks they must roll 1d6+(monster tier {ranges from 1st to 5th}) versus their targets Dex. The damage a monster does with this attack is equal to margin of success.
  • Making Monsters: use monsters from your favorite D&D or OSR book, give each one a set of attributes, trying to make them go from 1-12 for each one. Just eyeball it.

Example Monsters

  1. Goblin: a man who has an allergic reaction to emerald encrusted collar jewelry, but the jewelry is either locked onto their neck or they have gotten too large to fast to take off the jewelry. Their fingernails and fingertips no longer are there as they have tried to pick at the collar, they have fine bones for claws. HD: 1 DMG: d6

Notes

  • Turns: each character and monster when in combat has 1 turn for a round and go in order according to initiative (2d6, highest to lowest).
  • Movement: characters move 20 ft. in one turn, attacks must be made within range specified by magic item or that makes the best sense. It should be pretty obvious if you are close enough. Same goes for regular weaponry.
  • Healing: Characters can heal using magic items that have healing powers or by taking a short rest (returns 5 HP for a 4 hour break).