Danger in Dunsmouth, a scenario I wrote for Adamant Entertainment’s excellent ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying game, hit the virtual shelves today. Here’s the intro:

A trio of witch-sisters has put the New England town of Dunsmouth under their spell. The three wicked siblings are using the ensorcelled citizens to summon an ancient evil from the Atlantic’s murky depths to destroy mankind and set themselves upon thrones as queens of the world!

As humanity’s only hope, the heroes must infiltrate the coastal cult, find out where the charming ladies are hiding, and put an end to this arcane insanity before it’s too late!

Can the heroes stop the denizens of Dunsmouth from summoning a subaquatic cephalopod or will mankind fall victim to a terror older than time?

Find out in… “THE DANGER IN DUNSMOUTH!”

If you’re familiar with Steve Kenson’s rules-light take on four-color superheroes already, you know ICONS delivers a fast-paced and fun time at the gaming table. If you’re not, but are a fan of RPGs such as the Marvel (FASERIP) Game from the 80s, you have to give ICONS a spin. It’s a blast to play.

Check out my take on eldritch horror in the comic book universe with Danger in Dunsmouth, now available at DriveThruRPG and RPGNow.

I’m very excited to announce that Reactor 88 Studios is producing a film based on my property Little Fears. Filming is slated to start within the next year. I’m writing the script and will work hand-in-hand with Darren Orange and company throughout the process.

If you’re not familiar with Little Fears, a game about kids fighting back against the monsters from Closetland, I invite you to check out the official website where I will post news and updates as pre-production begins.

I released the original Little Fears game in 2001 and have been amazed at where that game has taken me. The reboot, Little Fears Nightmare Edition, was released October 2009 and I have some big plans for it. 2011 is shaping up to be an exciting year.

Ethan from Gamer’s Haven interviewed my good friend and convention-partner-in-crime T.S. Luikart a while back, and the podcast is now available for your listening pleasure.

T.S. has done some amazing work in the tabletop industry over the years with credits on Green Ronin‘s comic-based Red Star and Nocturnals campaign settings for Mutants & Masterminds and the Dragon Age RPG (based on the popular video game). His next big credit, the Dragon Age scenario Blood in Ferelden, is out now in PDF (and soon in print).

Check out the interview with California’s golden boy here.

The past couple weeks have been fairly busy as I prep and execute some personal projects and prospective larger projects. One of those I’m most proud of is the work I’ve been doing to support Little Fears Nightmare Edition. It’s a great game that I love dearly and I’ve finally managed to make the time to release support material for it. First is the Campfire Tales line of standalone ready-to-use episodes and next after (well, during as Campfire Tales is a monthly release) is Book 2 in the LFNE line, titled Among the Missing. No date on that one yet but I’ll update the official Little Fears site when I do.

For those interested, you can get Campfire Tales #1: Beggars Night in PDF format over at DriveThruRPG.

A couple months ago, I had the honor of proofreading Hamlet’s Hit Points, the new work by esteemed game designer Robin D. Laws. In the book, Robin discusses how stories work and codifies the aspects that you find over and over again, the pillars of storytelling. He also dissects three classic stories in very different genres (Dr. No, Casablanca, and the titular Shakespearean work) by putting his code into practice. And all of this is done with an eye toward tabletop gaming.

Gameplaywright, of The Bones and Things We Think About Games fame, released the book at GenCon and it quickly sold out. If you have an interest in stories, games, and especially stories in games, and you missed your chance to get it at GenCon, you can get the book now straight from the publisher.

I’m always looking for solid texts on story and this is a good one. That it’s by a designer I know and respect makes it that much better.

I rolled home late Sunday night still riding the high from five glorious days spent catching up with old friends, making new ones, and playing some games. I came to GenCon for the sole purpose of seeing friends and kept that as my priority throughout the show. Still, I talked some business, landed a few gigs, and made some new connections, all of which is like piling cherries on top of a cherry-frosted cherry cake already dripping with cherry liqueur.

Little Fears Nightmare Edition sold out at 3:30 on Sunday (seems I brought just the right amount of copies) and, though I didn’t witness most of those sales, I was present at a few who received the new edition with a lot of enthusiasm. If you missed picking it up at the show, it’s available through the official site and select retailers in hard copy and through DriveThruRPG in PDF.

GenCon is a magical event. I’m renewed and reinvested in the hobby and industry that has been so good to me. After a long time away, it’s good to be back. Let’s see what the future brings.

I was turned onto Alternity about this time last year. Though I forget the source of the initial spark, the fire caught quick and burned bright. I read everything I could on it, scouring Wikipedia, online reviews, and the excellent fan community website AlternityRPG.net. Something about the game hooked me and, through resources such as Noble Knight, gifts from very generous friends, and the occasional rare find at used book stores, I’ve managed to collect almost everything that was released for the line.

You could say I’ve become quite the fan. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance yet to play it. I haven’t even made a character. But I’m going to fix that last part right now.

A Bit about Alternity
Designed by Bill Slavicsek and Richard Baker, Alternity was TSR’s sci-fi cousin to its fantasy titan Dungeons & Dragons. Two books form the basis of the system, the Player’s Handbook and the Gamemaster Guide, with supplements rounding out the core concept and a handful of campaign settings that tort the system towards various ends.

Alternity is a generic system, as much as any system can be generic, and differentiates itself from its cousin in a couple notable ways. The first is a roll-under system, which has a penalty- and bonus-focused step system where a player rolls a control die (d20) and another die (anything from d4 to 3d20) and either adds or subtracts that second die from the control die based on situational modifiers and whatnot. The second notable is an experience system based on achievements, wherein characters get access to bigger and better things (such as leveling up skills and abilities) by completing certain goals throughout a game session. It’s a subtle touch, but given its place in history, a much-needed one. Oh, and a third is its initiative system, called Action Check, which has this cool four-phase system for determining who acts when. I won’t get into it too much here but more information can be found online. I really like that set-up for actions.

The Alternity game line lived for just over two years. During its development prior to release, its parent TSR was bought out by Wizards of the Coast, and then, in 2000, Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition introduced d20 and its open gaming license and changed the face of popular gaming. Though the Alternity system was a casualty of that shift, parts of it did live to see the light of day yet again.

Campaign Settings
Four official campaign settings were released: two original, one classic, and one licensed.

The first original setting, Star*Drive, took the Alternity to its logical space opera extension. Star*Drive concerned itself with life in the Verge and had all the juicy space opera bits you could want: exotic locales, strange alien races, fragile alliances, and far-reaching political machinations. This was the most supported of all the Alternity lines.

The second original setting, Dark•Matter, took Alternity to a rather unexpected place: modern conspiracy horror. Four books were released for this setting but they’re good stuff: the main campaign setting, a weapons and equipment guide, a lengthy scenario, and a brilliant monster book called Xenoforms.

The third setting was the revival of the venerable post-apocalyptic stage, Gamma World. This was the setting’s fifth incarnation and also its shortest as it only saw one book, the core book, released.

The fourth and final setting was StarCraft, based on Blizzard Entertainment’s wildly popular eponymous real-time strategy game for the PC. Released as a box set, the product included a couple booklets and some dice, everything you needed to play the game. It used a streamlined (for some, stripped down) version of the Alternity rules.

The two signature Alternity settings were brought back under d20 Modern and d20 Future respectively.

Let’s Make a Character
For the character collection today, I’ve chosen my favorite of the official campaign settings, Dark•Matter. In Dark•Matter, you are an agent of the Hoffmann Institute, a shadowy global conspiracy that studies the true history of the world, collects and catalogs bizarre finds, and protects all us regular folk from things that bump and snarl and drive mortals beyond the brink of madness.

It’s like Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook, the authors of the core book, read my mind and wrote a game specifically to draw me in. (And, given the concept, maybe they did. *cue theremin music*)

Game: Dark•Matter
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
System: Alternity
Books Needed: Alternity Player’s Handbook, Dark•Matter Campaign Setting Core Book

Note: Character creation rules are contained within the Alternity Player’s Handbook with additional skills, perks, and flaws presented in the Dark•Matter main book. According to page 20 in the aforementioned Player’s Handbook, you can create a character in nine steps. Also, though Dark•Matter includes its own version of the character sheet, I’m using a generic Alternity sheet as that’s what I can print from PDF.

Let’s begin!

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Last year, my good friend Matt McElroy (of Flames Rising fame) put together a fiction compilation in support of design studio 12 to Midnight‘s excellent Pinebox, Texas game setting (now published by the fine folks at Pinnacle Entertainment Group). The resulting book, dubbed Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas, attracted some great talent notwithstanding my own contribution, a story of skinshifting and strange dates called “Lovable Creatures.”

The book is so good, in fact, that the folks who head up the tabletop gaming industry’s preeminent awards, the Ennies, saw fit to nominate it for Best Regalia. Yep, I can now say I’ve contributed to some of the finest regalia in gaming. Another dream to check off the list!

Anyway, if you haven’t your own copy of the book, check out some excerpts and author bios over at the official site. You can buy the book in digital or physical form, whichever suits your fancy.

Public voting begins next Friday, July 16th so cross your fingers and toes and make your voice heard! (And while you’re at the site, check out the nominations for other excellent gaming products such as Eclipse Phase and Supernatural!)

Last September, I managed to convince the folks at Gameplaywright that I was worthy of being included in their next book. Their previous publication, the well-received Things We Think About Games, was buzzing around the gamer zeitgeist with supersonic speed and I knew I wanted to hop whatever train was leaving their station next.

For those who don’t know, Gameplaywright is the venture of two of tabletop gaming’s brightest stars, Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball. Through my serpentine path through gaming industry, I managed to connect with Jeff years ago. When I heard his outfit was putting together a new thing, I got in touch with him. He put me in touch with Will, who was heading up the next book, a collection of dice stories called The Bones. Will had a pretty full roster, which included smarter and more renowned folks than myself, but was open to hearing my idea.

I pitched him a manifesto, a defense of my favored randomizer: the six-sided die. Will and I hashed out the specifics and I set pen to paper. A couple weeks later, “The Die of the People – A Six-Sided Manifesto” was born.

Will was an amazing editor, cheerleader, and guide. I’d contribute to any book for which he’d have me.

Before you think me hyperbolic in my enthusiasm or insincere in my modesty, check out who I’m sharing page space with: Keith Baker, Greg Costikyan, Ray Fawkes, Matt Forbeck, Pat Harrigan, Jess Hartley, Fred Hicks, Kenneth Hite, John Kovalic, James Lowder, Russ Pitts, Jesse Scoble, Mike Selinker, Jared Sorensen, Paul Tevis, Monica Valentinelli, Chuck Wendig, and Wil Wheaton. Having my name on the list is humbling, to say the least.

Anyway. The Bones. It’s a book about dice. But not about the technical nature of dice. Not math, not chances. It’s about people, traditions, and superstitions. It’s about dice and gamer culture. I have the limited edition hardcover and, though I haven’t read it cover to cover yet, what I have read has been amazing. The standard edition is coming out at the end of this month. I highly recommend you pick it up for yourself, a gamer friend, or anyone who’s interested in games, culture, or the weirder parts of history.

Back before my life took a turn for the crowded, I promised I’d make a new character every week from one of the games in my roleplaying library. Okay, I’ve lost some time but let’s not dwell on such things.

For character collection this week, I’ve chosen one of my favorite games, R. Talsorian‘s follow-up to their hit game Cyberpunk 2020, a strange little dark future-anime-superheroes gem called Cybergeneration.

Originally a supplement for its older brother, Cybergeneration became its own game with the expanded 2nd Edition released in 1993. The corebook was followed by three rules and setting expansions (the “Documents of the Revolution” supplements which you’ll know because they all end in -Front) and an introductory adventure called Bastille Day. Ten years later, Firestorm Ink picked up the license and released a player’s guide called Generation Gap, a sourcebook/adventure called Researching Medicine, and a recent PDF called Mile High Dragon which presents a new city setting. All seven physical books are available through places like Noble Knight et al. If you’re inclined to the genre, or just like well-written games that do new things, they’re a great investment.

Cybergeneration is a weird game that I believe was, like a lot of Mike Pondsmith/R. Talsorian’s work, ahead of the curve and ahead of its time. While I have no idea of the sales data for the line, I think the shortage of supplements (compared to Cyberpunk 2020) speaks volumes (no pun intended). This is a shame, because there are a lot of good ideas in the game, not the least of which is the unique way the game engages the reader and leads them through character creation.

Which is what we’ll get to right now.

Game: Cybergeneration
Publisher: R. Talsorian Games
System: Interlock
Books Needed: Just the main book

In an alternate timeline to the classic Cyberpunk 2020, the sub-18 children of 2027 fight for survival on the mean streets of the ISA. On top of dealing with puberty, insecurity, and feeling like guppies in the shark tank, they must evade the BuReloc goons whose duty it is to neutralize any of them who pose a threat. See, these kids have been exposed to something called the Carbon Plague. Nasty little bug that kills any adults it infects. The kids, it just changes. And not peach fuzz and squeaky voice changes but crazy superhero-type biz. Meat that turns into metal, souls that infect machinery, that kinda stuff.

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