Thursday, June 6, 2019

Star Crawl Rodents


Over on the Facebook Dark Trails group, Michael Harrington wrote up a DCC Mouseling race. I love the sci-fi/fantasy trope of anthropomorphic animal races & I think mice fit in well with Star Crawl's Prime Apes, Bugs, and Avians. After some minor tweaks to bring it closer to existing races, I'm happy to share the Rodent Race Template!

Rodent Race Template

Thursday, May 23, 2019

Dark Trails (and Space Cowboy!)

Image result for dark trails

If you're not already a backer, you should go right now and back the Dark Trails Kickstarter. Dave Baity is an amazing guy and a pillar of the DCC community. He's worked for years perfecting what will no doubt be an incredible book: you won't want to miss out on this game!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2059365241/dark-trails-rpg

Inspired by Dark Trails, I've created a new Star Crawl class, the Space Cowboy! This is a gunslinger inspired by "space western" characters like Firefly's Captain Reynolds and Cowboy Bebop's Spike.

This is a first draft of the class, completely untested. I'll be playtesting it & will likely include a revised version in a future release. I'm eager to hear your thoughts if you try it out in your own games!
Space Cowboy Rule Sheet
Space Cowboy Character Sheet


Space Cowboy

Bounty hunters, duelists, and trackers: space cowboys ride the wild frontiers of space, surviving with guts & guns. Though valued by most crews for their combat prowess, they are just as likely to strike out on their own. When creating a space cowboy, high Agility and Luck statistics will be especially helpful.
Hit Points: Space cowboys gain 1d10 hit points at each level.
Quickdraw: Space cowboys are always ready for trouble and don’t hesitate to throw the first punch. They add their level to Initiative checks.
Trick Shot: Making their living at the end of a gun, space cowboys are the undisputed masters of firearms. The Trick Shot die should be rolled when a space cowboy makes a ranged attack. This result is added to all ranged attack and damage rolls this round (cumulative with any other bonuses).  Before making a ranged attack roll, a space cowboy may declare a Trick Shot. This can be a special maneuver specific to the situation such as shooting a gun out of the target’s hand, reflecting a photon beam off a mirror to hit the target in the back, or the “road agent spin” (flipping a gun being surrendered to make a surprise attack). If the Trick Shot die roll is 3 or higher and the modified attack roll is a success, the space cowboy pulls off the shot. If no special maneuver is attempted and the space cowboy gets a critical hit, add the Trick Shot die roll to the final result on the critical hit table.
True Grit: Space cowboys are just tougher than most other folks, able to survive situations that would lay most low. Any time a space cowboy spends a Luck point to modify a saving throw result, roll their Trick Shot die and add the result to the saving throw total. 
Tracking: A space cowboy gains +1 die type when attempting to track, follow, or otherwise find a target (typically resulting in a d24 for such checks).
Lone Wolf: The space cowboy is accustomed to fighting against the odds. In situations where foes might gain an advantage for attacking in numbers (such as flanking bonuses or pack fighting special abilities), they do not gain such benefits against the space cowboy.

  
Space Cowboy Level Advancement
Level
Attack
Crit Die/ Table
Action Dice
Ref
Fort
Will
Trick Shot Die
1
+1
1d10/II
1d20
+1
+1
+1
d3
2
+1
1d12/II
1d20
+1
+1
+1
d4
3
+2
1d14/II
1d20
+2
+2
+1
d4
4
+2
1d16/II
1d20
+2
+2
+2
d5
5
+3
1d16/II
1d20+1d14
+3
+3
+2
d6
6
+3
1d20/II
1d20+1d16
+3
+3
+2
d6
7
+3
1d20/II
1d20 (x2)
+4
+3
+3
d7
8
+4
1d24/II
1d20 (x2)
+4
+4
+3
d8
9
+4
1d24/II
1d20 (x2)
+5
+4
+3
d8
10
+5
1d30/II
1d20 (x2) +1d14
+6
+5
+4
d10





Monday, March 4, 2019

Gary Con XI Swag




If you'll be at Gary Con XI this week, be sure to keep an eye out for some exclusive Tuesday Night Fiend Club swag! I've got Star Crawl Stickers, TNFC/ Pittsburgh DCC poker chips, and a special mini-zine (more on that below). I'll have some of each for every player in the games I'm running, plus a bunch to hand out to folks I meet.

The stickers & chips will only be available in person, but you can get the Random Alien Generator mini-zine right now!
Star Crawl Random Alien Generator Mini-Zine
For best results,change the print settings to print actual size (don't shrink to fit).
Once printed, follow the folding instructions below (if you have any trouble, do a search for "folding minizine": this is a pretty standard layout).

Image result for folded zine

Monday, February 18, 2019

Ghostlike Crime

Project image for Ghostlike Crime: An RPG Zine of Modern Weirdness

If you're here, you're probably exactly the sort of gamer that would be into Ghostlike Crime. This zine looks amazing, with wild "what lies just beneath the surface" rules for DCC. Kane does a much better job of selling the project than I could, so head over to the Kickstarter page & check it out. I know the creator and can vouch that he's an awesome guy and incredible gamemaster. If this zine captures even a small sliver of his mind, it'll be unbelievable. And that's before you get to the three amazing artists he's got lined up: it's worth clicking over to the Kickstarter page just to see some damn cool art.

Ghostlike Crime

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Legacy of Lethality: 2018 LL Campaign Stats


As I've discussed in the past, I run a pretty lethal Labyrinth Lord campaign for my home group. Here are the full campaign stats to date, accurate as of December, 2018.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1tPStVCDxrZ21xlr4mfHTd_M5N_hn-_Ov

These stats are for the campaign that started in December of 2011, played roughly every other week. In 2018, we had our lowest number of sessions, in large part due to focus on final playtesting of Star Crawl. However, I did get to mark an item off my gaming bucket list: last year, we completed the Queen of the Demonweb Pits, capping off our run through the entire AD&D super-campaign series. With the same group (and a few characters surviving throughout), we went through the complete Temple of Elemental Evil (T1-4), then into the Slavers series A1-4), Against the Giants (G1-3), and the Descent into the Depths (D1-2, Q1). Sure, it took 6 years, but I think that's a hell of an accomplishment. Major thanks to the players who made it possible: Mike, Allen, Dave, Brad, Josef, Aaron, John, Christopher, and Dan. Thanks guys, you're awesome.

Monday, February 4, 2019

Glowburn Podcast


Image result for glowburn podcast

I am honored to be the special guest on the latest episode of Glowburn, the premier podcast dedicated to Mutant Crawl Classics. They gave me a great opportunity to If you haven't listened to the show, you really should give it a try: Forrest, James, and Marc have great chemistry and really know their stuff. It was great to join in the fun and get a chance to discuss Star Crawl.

And a special bonus: James created a new Race Template just for this episode. Here's the official race template for  Merchant Races!

Friday, January 4, 2019

Star Crawl Review on Sanctum Secorum

Image result for sanctum secorum

The team at Sanctum Secorum did an excellent review of Star Crawl on their latest episode. If you haven’t gotten the game yet & still have questions about what makes Star Crawl special, they do a great job hitting some of the high points.

Sanctum Secorum is a superb podcast hosted by some awesome folks: their catalog is definitely worth exploring. Each week, they dive into a different piece of classic genre fiction, discuss its impact, and present some ways it could be used in your game.

http://sanctum.media/blog/index.php/2019/01/03/sanctum-secorum-42-arena/