Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everybody! This is the first time in a few years that we've actually had a significant number of people come trick-or-treating around. We actually managed to make a dent in our candy supply. Fortunately we were prepared and actually went through the effort of wearing costumes this year as well:

This is NJ dressed up as scientist-princess bubblegum. And this was me:

This costume started out as a fairly elaborate idea that gradually got pared down as bits didn't fall into place or proved impractical. Originally it was going to be a burlap sack with a yellow smiley face painted on the front and a bloody apron. All these items could have been easily and cheaply obtained online with proper planning and forethought...but instead I tried to get them through thrift-store browsing, something that proved oddly impossible. The final result is not nearly as impressive and sadly, turned into a completely unintentional "evil walmart" costume without my realizing it until afterwards. Ah well, always next year.

So...been quiet recently. Lots of work with a new position at my "real" job. Also been working to try and get things together for some future plans...so not much time for blogging. Sadly it'll be a while before I get around to checking out the latest D&D Next news or anything similar. But hopefully there will be good news soon.

Shameless Plug: The GM’s Field Guide to Players

Or perhaps the proper term is "second-degree plugging". I just wanted to point folks to the GM's Field Guide To Players. It's a sourcebook on how to know and handle your players as a GM with cover art by my lovely wife, NJ Huff.

This is especially good news since NJ is still recovering from a significant injury which has prevented her from working on her art for about a year. So completing this piece of art was a big deal for her (and getting paid for it didn't hurt). Since you probably can't see much of the cover above, here's a larger version (click for full-size).

NJ will also be working on a new cover for Jade Arbuckle's other book, so I'll make sure to include that in the future. So, check the book out and any RPG authors out there should certainly keep NJ in mind for their own projects.

Getting Organized: RPG Chopshop

I'm trying to sweep up a bit, get things organized and so on. So I'm going to create a few posts where certain categories can be easily stored. This post will serve as the repository of all my RPG tinkering and system conversions.



PDQ

• Costume Quest For PDQ 
•  An unofficial table-top conversion of Double Fine's awesome Halloween game. 

• PDQ# for Star Wars
• A brief guide for using PDQ# to play Star Wars
• PDQ Exalted 
• An over-ambitious Exalted conversion, includes charms and sorcery for Solars, Lunars, and Dragon-Bloods
• Tomb Of Horrors for PDQ 
• The Tomb of Horrors with rules for PDQ, Pathfinder and Savage Worlds.

 

Savage Worlds

• Dark Sun For Savage Worlds 
• The burnt world of Athas for Savage Worlds. Includes races, arcane backgrounds, edges and powers.
• New Powers 
• Some new powers for Savage Worlds. 
• Savage Worlds: Aberrant
• A super-hero system for Savage Worlds based on White Wolf's Aberrant setting. 

• Savaged Eberron
• The Eberron setting for Savage Worlds, includes races, edges and arcane backgrounds. 

Tentacles, Nazis and PDQ!

I come bearing awesome news today. Have you heard of Achtung! Cthulhu? It's a very interesting Lovecraftian setting taking place in the shadows of World War Two. The first A!C product has already been released, the first in a series of episodic adventures for a campaign of tentacles and mad science called Zero Point. The first adventure is called Three Kings and it's been released for both Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu RPG and for Reality Blur's Realms of Cthulhu Savage Worlds system.

Well, soon there will be another version of Three Kings, this time for PDQ and it'll be done by me! Well, at least the mechanics will, the adventure itself will still be Sarah Newton's great original adventure. However, A!C for PDQ is going to be more than just a converted adventure, it's going to be a stand-alone product featuring a new iteration of the PDQ system that I have tweaked for Lovecraftian horror. So it's a great, two-in-one package: a new version of everyone's favorite fast and flexible system along with a great adventure fighting Nazis and things Man Was Not Meant To Know.

Just to give you a taste, here are some things that you can expect in this new version of PDQ:

• A grittier, deadlier system for damage and recovery for "traditional" Cthulhu-themed gaming, but including rules to adjust the dials for a pulpier, action game. 
• A system for vehicles and scale for when you need to mow down deep ones with a tank or dog-fight shantak birds. 
• An easy-to-use system for fear and madness. 
• A simple system for weapons and equipment that helps emphasize the deadliness of WW2 while avoiding excessive rules or record-keeping. 
• And of course, that's not all. 

If you want to hear more about A!C check out Modiphus' facebook page or this podcast interview. I look forward to bringing you more news as it gets closer to the release date.