Squallings of Ghostman

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Savage Worlds Gambling tweak

Sure, the gambling rules in Savage Worlds work, and they work pretty well, but there isn't an elimination factor except for actually tracking money, and when you run out, you're out. I set out to abstractly simulate a Texas Hold 'em style elimination tournament, and I think these rules would work for most any poker game, and maybe even other gambling types. I haven't really run its paces for other games like blackjack or Pai Gow. I had a specific scenario I wanted to play out; the gambling rules didn't quite cut it. These rules are inspired by the chase rules and the dramatic task rules and with the use of the cards. I had posted this on the Pinnacle forums at one point, but I've made some changes since then.

Background

I used this in a game where only one PC had gambling or was interested in gambling, and I had set up a situation where he was in a game to attain a particular item. Using the idea of players running NPCs, I created some other NPC gamblers and had all the players gambling, but with NPCs - and extras at that. I merely facilitated and everyone got to play. This was a huge success because in a lot of roleplaying situations, only one character cares about gambling (typically, maybe you'll have a cheating duo), and if he wants to ply his trade, everyone else is bored, or the GM has him make a few rolls for the night of gambling, and everyone moves on. Every player gets in on the fun. The gambling character was trying to win a specific item by winning the tournament. What was interesting was the fact that all the players wanted the PC to win, but played their NPC true to form rather than manipulating them to let the PC win.

On to the rules, already, jeez!!

Overview:

Each round simulates a few hands of poker, not a specific number of hands or even time period.
Each round is resolved with a SINGLE card, determined like Savage Worlds initiative rules. Except for the Joker - see below. If you are holding the Ace of Spades, you know you are going to win. The point of getting additional cards is to get more chances to win.
When a Joker is dealt out, it is immediately revealed and 2 cards replace it. It does not give the gambler any bonuses to rolls. It also causes a reshuffle of the deck.
Obtain more cards by rolling gambling checks and vs. rolls with Persuasion and / or Intimidation. If no one opts to roll against you for Persuasion and / or Intimidation, the Target Number (TN) is 4.
Clubs are complications; if you do not win, you are out. If you are knocked out, the player who won that round gets your chips. This simulates an ‘all in’ move.

Anything in italics are my comments, views and / or opinions based on playing this out a few times.

Detailed Breakdown:

First off, deal everyone playing a card. Players should look at it, but keep it hidden. This card is critical... If you have a high card like an Ace or a King, you may not want to cheat.

Decide if you're going to cheat or not cheat; this is open knowledge to the players. This is Out Of Character Knowledge; players may not react to it. Using two colors of hidden stones may be a good idea - one red and one green, everyone puts one in their hand - red indicates cheating - and reveals at the same time. This may reduce the "ah, hell, if everyone else is cheating, I might as well" behavior.
Each player rolls on the gambling skill. A success and each raise earns another card. If you roll a 1 on your skill die and you are cheating, you are caught. Best situation is that you will be kicked out of the game forfeiting all monies; worst situation, well, we'll leave that up to your GM.
Persuade and / or Intimidate. One character (per skill) can choose to use their people skills to gain an advantage. Initiate either one of these skills with a roll at -2 (everyone expects some table talk.) Roll the intended skill; then anyone can choose to counter you with an opposed check. If you hit with a raise (4 over the highest other player), you get another card; no additional cards are dealt for extra raises. Or if no one chooses to counter you and you get a standard success (TN 4), you get a card. A maximum of 2 additional cards (1 for persuasion, 1 for intimidate) can be dealt out per round. If a character doesn’t have the skills to counter the roll, then Persuasion is countered with Smarts -2, and Intimidation uses Spirit -2. This simulates Table Talk, Chip Stacks, Lucky Hands, etc.
Reveal cards. Highest card wins. Ties are broken in reverse alpha order (SHDC). Ace of Spades is the highest card, 2 of Clubs is the lowest. Winner receives a chip. Clubs are complications; if you do not win, you are eliminated. When you are knocked out, the player who knocks you out gets your chips. This simulates an ‘all in’ move.

Additional card rules:

Jokers are immediately shown face up; that player gets 2 additional cards: 1 as a bonus, 1 to replace the Joker.
Play a predetermined number of rounds or number of chips. The most chips after the number of rounds, or the first to a number of chips, will show the winner. (5 rounds or 3 chips is my suggestion.) If it is an elimination tournament, play until one player is left with chips after a minimum number of rounds (again, 5 is recommended). This could mean that if at the end of 5 rounds of an elimination tournament, one player has 5 chips, he would win. Or if only two players had chips, and one chances with a high club, the other player eliminates them and wins the tournament. Players with no chips can be assumed to have been eliminated through standard chip erosion.

You can use the standard SW gambling payout using this system, although it's a little cumbersome for that. First have everyone agree on the stakes, depending on your monetary system, you could use as the "win", $10, 6 gold coins, 40 credits, etc. The lowest card pays the highest card the difference times the stake. The next lowest pays the second highest the difference times the stake, and so on. If there’s an odd man left in the middle, he breaks even. This simulates a per-hand case.

Setup:

Bob and Lucy are gambling PCs in a tournament; the GM has either specific opponents (could be extras or wild cards) or generic ones. Depending on the situation, the other gamblers could just be straight up d6 average people, or each one could have customized gambling, Persuasion and / or Intimidation skills. I would recommend not giving an NPC both Persuasion and Intimidation. The game is going to be a 3 round minimum elimination tournament. The NPCs in play are Chuck and Penny, both with a Gambling of d8, Chuck with Intimidation of d6 and Penny with Persuasion at d8. Bob has Gambling at d10 with Intimidation at d6, and Lucy Gambling at d4 and Persuasion at d6 (+4 for both attractive edges).

Example of play:

Deal cards:
Bob Red Joker Lucy 10S Chuck 4D Penny 8H - Bob immediately shows the Joker and he gets 2 replacement cards: 10C and 2C.
Cheating:
Bob has received only club cards, so he's going to cheat. Lucy is not going to chance it. Chuck has a low card, so he's going to cheat. Penny also decides to cheat.
Gambling rolls:
Bob (+2 for cheating) rolls a 4 and a 3 on his wild die, with a +2, so 6 is his best result. This earns him one more card - 5D. Lucy rolls a 6 and a 10 with both her skill and wild die acing. The 10 earns her 2 cards; 7S and 4C.Chuck (+2 for cheating) rolls a 5, plus two is 7, earning one card: KC. Penny (+2 for cheating) rolls a 2, for a total of 4 which earns one card, an AH.
Persuasion / Intimidation phase:
Bob still doesn't like his cards, and decides to Intimidate (-2 for initiating it) and rolls a best result of a 0. Lucy doesn't roll. Chuck rolls a 3. Penny doesn't roll. Because of Bob's total of 0, and Chuck's roll of 3, no one earns a card for Intimidation because there is no 4 or greater difference.
Lucy decides to Talk Up the table with Persuasion (-2 for initiating) and gets a best result of 6. Bob doesn't roll. Chuck doesn't roll. Penny decides to try to outsmart Lucy and rolls a 15! This earns Penny a card for Persuasion: 3D.
Card Choices
Bob decides the 10C isn't good enough to win and a Club would eliminate him, so he opts to show the 5D. Lucy 10S. Chuck thinks the KC is good enough to win, so he takes a chance with it. Penny shows the AH.
Resolution:
Bob goes on to the next round. Lucy also goes on to the next round. Chuck is eliminated due to the King of Clubs; he made a tough choice and is out. Penny wins the round and a chip.

This abstractly shows several hands of poker where at the end of the round of gambling, Penny is obviously doing well, Chuck played poorly (and was out pretty early in the night), whereas Bob and Lucy are playing competently holding their own.

Hellfrost mini-campaign

Hellfrost Mini-Campaign - To Karad Kahn

More reports from my monthly game at Red Castle Games. After a few one-shots, I decided to start a mini-campaign for the HellFrost setting from Triple Ace Games.

Inspiration / Rune Magic

What inspired me originally was when I was looking through the Player's Guide when I first got the Hellfrost books. I was reading, to learn and plan some possible character concepts, when I ran across Rune Magic. I had already planned to make an Elementalist and when re-reading the magic section, I took another look at Rune Magic. I decided that to make a Magic User who relied purely on Rune Magic would spin into advancement tedium as each Rune requires its own skill to advance.

Additionally, each Rune only provides 3 specific spells, and some of them (Boost/Lower Trait) are very limited to the Rune type. So I tucked that into the back of my mind and focused instead on my Elementalist for our pending game. Afterwards, I would look at Rune Magic, Frost Dwarves and explore some more ideas.

Eventually, I went back to read up the Rune Magic again. I thought it would be pretty neat to make a party of all Frost Dwarves, each with their own Rune to cast magic. (If you pair the Rune with your Profession, you get a boon to your skill set with some points put into the magic of the Rune.) I made 8 Dwarves, each with a unique Rune that was coupled with his skill set. For example, I gave the leader the Communication Rune, the archer the Arrow Rune, the Thief the Stealth Rune, Fighters got the Cut Rune and the Battle Runes, etc. I did 2 non-Rune Magic users: a Skald (Hellfrost's Bard) and a Cleric. Even though there was a Healing Rune, I wanted a full Cleric.

Now that I had a party, I needed them to do something. I started reading the Gazetteer about Dwarves and their cities and found an interesting snippet: The capital city of Karad Kahn has not been heard from since before the "Ice Rise" (515 years or so) - the event that ended the Blizzard War. Also during the Blizzard War, another city, Karad Dahn, was found collapsed, with all the population under it. To this day, there are a few hundred Dwarves posted there to keep out any would-be looters. I figured that the party may be doing some of their own looting, calling it artifact retrieval or something, and one of my party found an interesting item: a book, the journal of the ruler of Karad Dahn from 500 years ago. Reading this journal, the Dwarf thinks that whatever happened here 500 years ago might have happened to Karad Kahn. He gathers a few of his stout friends and travels to Karad Zor to do some research and maybe get some support for reclaiming Karad Kahn.

The Campaign

Starting off with 10XP Frost Dwarves, I got them on the road, into a traveling adventure, one that took them a little out of their way, but earned them some XP. It was 'The Vermin Lord' adventure for which I had a beautifully hand drawn map (made by my own partner Meran niCuill). I had short-cut a bunch of adventure hooks and basically threw them into the adventure with rat swarms and a local food shortage. They were hooked in the middle of the written adventure by a dead messenger whose message they felt responsible for delivery. This led them to a town overrun with rats and then into an abandoned temple there. Inside, were two major bad guys, the Rat King and Gautrek, the Pestilence Lord. Walking into an ambush, they fought valiantly to overcome the odds. Gautrek ended up escaping.

With that experience under their belts, [XP!] the Frost Dwarves made Seasoned rank. A few random encounters later, they found themselves at Karad Zor, the Dwarven city located halfway from Karad Dahn to Karad Kahn. Here they took advantage of the library, researched items from the journal, and read up on several Hellfrost beasts, hoping to gain an advantage in any fight they might have against these forces that the journal hinted at. Other notes in the journal led them to believe that Karad Kahn and Karad Dahn were attacked in a similar manner - from underground.

As things were made clearer, the ground started shaking and a hole opened up with a massive Bore Worm breaching through the library of Karad Zor. The heroes sprang into action, attempting to stop the initial force. This was a pretty major battle which, again, the Dwarves managed to overcome. After the battle, a few scouts were sent into the tunnels, only to return with news of an advancing underground army of Worms. They had little time to prepare for a siege, but with some good ideas for planning, the battle began.

I used the Savage Worlds Mass Combat rules for this. The population of the Dwarven City was greatly outnumbered, but they had the home turf advantage. I actually ran the rules incorrectly, but the outcome ended up with both armies being decimated, with the Dwarves managing to survive the slaughter, leaving mostly women and children in Karad Zor. In the aftermath, because most Dwarves lived in Karad Zor, we calculated that this attack killed about 50% of the Dwarves on the continent, a very heavy price. A supplemental army was recalled from abroad, so the players chose to press the attack to try to retake Karad Kahn. I gave them a choice to go with another mass battle or to go a different route - attempt to get into Karad Kahn using the army as a distraction to face the Paladin of Thurm and the mighty Hellfrost Dragon that had taken over Karad Kahn. They opted to go into the single combat with the Paladin and the Dragon. With a few extras in there, the battle was actually pretty short, with the Dwarves taking minor damage, one incapacitated and a few wounds all around.

Afterthoughts

I originally planned the Dwarves to continue to Karad Kahn in an overland route, but since this was a monthly game, I had already spent 6 months getting to Karad Zor, and felt it was time to move on. I moved the battle to Karad Zor instead. There would have been a lot of interesting in-game persuasion to get Karad Zor to put up an army to make a siege of Karad Kahn, and the overland travel would have been mostly short cut since a traveling army wouldn't really run into any random encounters. I really wanted to end the campaign, but not just stop it cold with no ending. After all is said and done, I am happy with the results.

Some observations on running a monthly game at a game store:

I get a lot of player variety. I get folks who only show up for one session to learn the system, some are curious about the big map I have laying on the table, and some repeats showing up almost every month. A campaign doesn't fit this model as I am continually re-capping the previous sessions to players who have zero background in the plot.

Due to time constraints on players and having new players, I have to extend my adventures. Adventures that I think will wrap up in one night, typically take two. This is usually because of new players and generally the pace of the game is a slower than when playing with a set of knowledgeable players.

On the plus side, I think I have introduced quite a few people to the Savage Worlds system and I know that several people have bought the rulebook and maybe a Companion or two.

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Breaking Murphy

As I've been running a monthly game of Savage Worlds at a local game store for almost a year now, I think it's time to start posting some play reports, reviews, thoughts, and pictures from these sessions. I'll start the wrong way and begin with the last one, and work my way backwards. At least until I find a reasonable stopping point. Or I get bored, which is more likely.

This month we visited Wellstone City, a modern urban crime setting from Silver Gryphon Games. Wellstone City is an island in the state of Louisiana, with a long, rich history. But right now, it's full of crime. Three major organizations, several smaller organizations, street gangs, SWAT, and police make for a rich environment in which to play. SGG has quite a few adventures ready-to-run for a reasonable price. RPGNow seems to have a better selection right now for their Wellstone City adventures for sale. I ran "Breaking Murphy". It's a bank heist of the Murphy Savings and Loan. I also had on hand a printed map of the bank from Fabled Environments. This I got printed in large format at a local copy shop for $9. RPGNow has a Breaking Murphy bundle with the adventure and the map. Okay, enough talk of product and sales; on to the game!

Some more preamble: I love crime fiction. Pulp Fiction, Sin City, Leverage, White Collar and more. Thieves' World (a 70s fantasy short story collection, my long time love) fits in pretty well, too. I don't necessarily want to run a game of bad guys being bad guys, but bad guys taking out badder guys for a good reason is different. Or a bad guy trying to be good, but it's just not in the cards for him, so he's constantly in trouble or struggling against a boss or something. I don't really have a vision for a perfect game, but I do have a vision for good games. This game, "Breaking Murphy", really struck true for a good time, and it keeps everyone on their feet and thinking.

To restate, the adventure is a bank heist of a bank called Murphy Savings and Loan. It's a pretty straight set-up; a call comes in and the characters have a day to plan a heist. There's some hand waving about how this heist has been hinted at, so the characters have done some preliminary research, but not enough for "go" time. Now it IS "go" time, and the characters need to have the contents of a safe deposit box in under 24 hours. The adventure is written to make the call to the characters early in the morning, and the heist happens that day, usually in the afternoon. So, I botched that; the players figured out that they could go when the bank opens (or rather, before) and get the goods before it got busy. That was their plan.

Now, a bank heist is done in the movies quite a bit, and there are always the random elements of heroes, a pregnant lady, a parade or other events that mess up the best of plans. "Breaking Murphy" uses a random event generator that has 52 events that can happen. This, of course, uses a deck of cards to determine which events occur. The adventure has 4 card pulls to toss a jumble of shit at the players. I actually had 4 sets of 4 events each; we randomly picked one before the game started.

Meet the Players / Characters

Paul Green, Cracker - Played by Brian (Code name John Kennedy)
Marcus Wellington, Sniper - Played by Kevin (Code name Billy Clinton)
Nick Sparks, Demolitions - Played by Andy (Code name George Washington)
Ivan Gormanski, Enforcer - Played by Aaron (Code name Teddy Roosevelt)
Petrov Gormanski, Enforcer - Played by Chris (Code name Dick Nixon)
Greg "Buzz" Danzer, Wheelman - Played by GM as an NPC (Code name George Bush)
The code names were used instead of their real names. Duh.

Planning and Scouting

The group started with a planning phase, continued with a scout phase, another planning session, and finally, the execution phase. The first planning phase was to decide how to do some scouting before they have to pull the job on the following day. The scouting goes fairly well; Ivan and Petrov go in to open an account, an investment CD. They get the layout of the bank and a run of the employees. Paul goes in (he's the cracker) under the guise of renting a safe deposit box. During the conversation, the bank manager Marcos, thinks he can upsell to the vault safe deposit box over the standard ones. This is exactly what Paul wants. They go into the vault for a look around. This pretty much ends the scouting session, and the next planning session evolves to a 'just before the bank opens' strong arm heist. They'll grab the bank manager as he arrives at the bank, go in and take care of it with minimal witnesses or additional people who could bungle up the job.

Images not taken during the actual game; I mocked them up in my game room. They do accurately reflect the minis during the game. In my game room, we added trees, but otherwise it is the same.

Job Execution

A crisp summer morning and the crew finds themselves across the street in a diner's parking lot. The bank is nestled on the edge of a business park; around the business park are several restaurants and coffee shops. Sharp eyes fall upon a van down the street; it's got a logo of some celebrity reality show and there are plenty of cameras around, not yet rolling but the crew is checking and prepping their equipment. Paul's curious nature gets the better of him and he goes to check out the van and camera crew. They tell him they're there to film "a day in the life" of a famous musician, Harry Connick, Jr. He's a Louisiana native, didn't you know? Some idle chit chat and Paul's back at the car. (This is one of the random events I pulled - a reality show filming. They are supposed to enter the bank during the job, but... I had to improvise a bit.)

Finally, the bank manager's car comes into view; the gang's car gets fired up and ready for action. As soon as the bank manager, Marcos, parks, the gang's car is immediately driven up to and stopped behind it. They jump out. Marcos immediately locks his car doors and waits for the inevitable. Ivan rushes the car, punching and smashing out the window. He grabs for Marcos and cannot quite reach him. He reflexively opens the car door and grabs Marcos, dragging him to his feet on the parking lot pavement. Petrov searches Marcos and strips him of keys, phone and anything else he finds.

Keys are tossed to Paul and they all make their way to the front door. Using the keys, Paul opens the door and together they enter the empty bank, with the sound of the entry alarm beeping for attention. Nick convinces Marcos that if he does everything they say, he'll be safe and unhurt. Ivan threatens Marcos with much harm if he doesn't comply. Marcos steps over, enters a code and the alarm stops beeping. The gang leads Marcos to the door for the hall that leads to the vault. Buzz contacts the team saying he's monitoring the police scanner and that a bomb threat has been called in for the area, for one of the buildings in the business park. Cops are coming in, and soon. Lots of cops. (Random event #2, BTW.) Nick casually pulls out a burner phone, dials a number and says, "Someone will have to go check THAT out, too." A few miles away, an explosion blows a wall out of an abandoned restaurant building, causing several calls to the police.

The gang get to the secure hallway door, which is locked with a badge reader. Marcos says his badge is in his desk in his office. Paul still has the keys, so he goes and retrieves it. While Paul is leaving Marcos' office with the security badge, a car pulls into the parking lot.

Stationed by the front door, Marcus tells the gang about the well-dressed Italian man, who stepped out of the vintage muscle car he had pulled up in. He is now walking up to the bank.

"Who the hell is that?" presses Ivan.

"Um, C-C-Carlo, I-I-I have an appointment w-w-w-with him before the bank opens; he's on the b-b-board of trustees", stutters Marcos. (Random Event #3.)

Carlo slows down, and is staring hard into the bank. He stops, reaches into his coat for something, and steps behind a corner for cover, showing that he's noticed them. He keeps his eye on the inside of the bank as he dials a number on his cell phone, puts it up to his ear, and pulls out a pistol.

Inside the bank, Marcus backs away from the door, away from Carlo's viewline, and heads towards the rest of the folks who have made it to the vault. It takes little convincing to get Marcos to do the combination on the vault. It only takes him one try. The vault opens; Petrov and Ivan pull Marcos to the side, while Nick and Paul enter the vault, locate box #42, and get to work. Paul has one of the two keys, and has to pick the other lock. It takes him less than a minute. The box is pulled out and opened on a table in the vault. Paul opens it, and they are staring at a metal briefcase with a black LED screen attached to the side of it. The screen flashes a few times and the number "00:48" pops up on the screen. It changes to "00:47"; then "00:46". Nick looks at it, quickly determines the case is booby trapped with a bomb, rolls up his sleeves, and gets to work.

Paul announces, "There is a bomb."

Marcos freaks out, breaks away from Ivan, and starts running into the bank lobby. Ivan gets a quick punch in, knocking Marcos out. Pissed off, Ivan draws his knife, kneels down and cuts Marcos across the throat, ending the poor man's life in an instant. Petrov laughs, Paul and Nick are aghast with the sudden action, but soldier on.

After a tense 30 seconds or so, Nick manages to defuse the detonation. Nick takes the briefcase, complete with contents and the defused bomb, and the gang heads towards the back fire exit. Paul calls Buzz for a pick up at the door.

Buzz pulls into the parking lot, heading around the building towards the back door, when Carlo (remember Carlo?) aims and fires at Buzz. The driver's window glass drops in a cascade of chunks and Buzz takes a wound in the shoulder, impairing his driving a bit. He gets to the emergency fire door, which bursts open, with Paul, Marcus and Nick rushing out, getting into the car. Behind them, the fire alarm starts screeching. Petrov and Ivan reach the front door, unlock it and engage Carlos in a fire fight.

The camera crew hasn't been able to resist all this brouhaha and has been filming the action for sometime now. The crew is driving closer for a better view of the scene.

After several exchanges of gunfire, Carlos goes down in a bloody heap. Ivan opens up with his submachine gun on the van full of the production crew to try to scare them off. It works pretty well. Buzz attempts a fancy maneuver to get the gang's car around quickly, the bullet in his shoulder preventing a successful "bootlegger". Buzz limps the car around, making it over to Ivan and Petrov, who pile into the car. Peeling out, Buzz drives into traffic and threads his way through the streets to get out of the area as quickly as possible. A chase ensues with three cop cars. Bullets are fired from both sides, with one from Marcus in the engine block of one of the cop cars, not enough to stop it cold, but definitely enough to drop him from the chase. A few turns later and Buzz manages an escape from the other two cars.

That's the end. It was good to use the Savage Worlds chase rules at the end - something I hadn't planned on, but it worked out pretty well. Have I mentioned that I love the Savage Worlds system?

Friday, May 24, 2013

Kickstarter!

Kickstarter. You know it. You love it. And you hate it. As do I.

I'll give you a run-down of my Kickstarter activity, because I know you are riveted to your seat to know what I put my money into. It's like voting.

First off, I have a 100% success rate. Meaning, I've not gone into a project and had it fail. They all got successfully funded; many of them much more so. I'm not going to bore you with a list of them - oh wait, I am. But I'll try to entertain you with some colorful commentary of the cooler projects, and my take on them.

Let's try a cut and paste... frelling hell, it worked. Yay, Blogspot! Aaaand after some HTML editing, and reversing the order... Ok, here we go...

Deadlands Noir
First ever to join... Still waiting on the printed product and some physical rewards. This was fun because several from my game group joined as well. This was the hook.

No Security: Horror Scenarios in the Great Depression
I felt this was a great kickstarter; the guy wants to release his game scenarios for free, to everyone. Backers get bonus bits. Most of these have already been written, and I even got my limited edition mini! And the scenarios should be usable in Realms of Cthulhu!!

Nightmare Magazine
One of Meran's. She's getting them in her email and has been enjoying them.

Dwarven Adventurers Box Set
These were cool, watching the designers show the new designs and such.. The actual product was nice; I have painted a few of them. They come in handy for my monthly HellFrost game.

OUYA: A New Kind of Video Game Console
This was the coolest, I thought. An Android-based gaming console... So small I can travel with it! Currently, they are shipping as I write this, but I haven't gotten any notification that I will get mine soon.

Reaper Miniatures Bones: An Evolution Of Gaming Miniatures
This was a big one.. We went in balls deep on this one, getting almost all the extras / stretch goal minis. We are expecting over 300 miniatures - some not so miniature: a few of those dragons are pretty big!

Wild Card Creator
Because I am a Savage Worlds whore, I supported this. I use Hero Lab, but I wanted to see how this guy was going to support importing PDFs of the product I already owned. He's still working on it, and I'm still using Hero Lab.

Deadlands: Raven Graphic Novel
Again, Savage Worlds related, and a comic! Best of both worlds. Issue #3 (of 4) should be released soon.

tremulus: a storytelling game of lovecraftian horror
Because I liked Fiasco, and because I generally like everything Reality Blurs (Sean Preston) does. This looks great, but we need to find someone to run it well to understand it better. Currently waiting on the printed product, which should be soon according to updates.

Cthulhu Playing Cards
This was the first deck of cards project. I have Savage Worlds "Realms of Cthulhu" and thought this would be a great deck to use for it. I was right.

Savage Outfitter - Savage Worlds Has Gone Digital
Another Savage Worlds software product. It was cheap and comes with online tools to manage your stuff from anywhere... I actually don't have high hopes for this one - they still don't have the Character Creator done. Hero Lab to the rescue!

Hellfrost Land of Fire - Arabian Nights RPG Fantasy Setting
Savage Worlds Whore.. I love HellFrost, and now they have added a continent.. I guess it's like World of Warcraft (which I don't play); add a new continent, and everyone will jump to it. We'll see.

Fearful Symmetries: An Anthology of Horror
Ellen is a FaceBook friend of Meran's and I met her in New York when I was there. We like her stuff and wanted to support her. It should be good readin'.

Mine Kafon
This is just cool... A tumbleweed landmine finder / detonator. We jumped in and got some lights made from the end disc bits. Should be cool over our wet bar!

The White Rabbit Playing Cards
Another deck.. the art is pretty cool. Haven't received it yet, but it should be close to shipping.

SEED: The Untold Story, Documentary Film
Got it, and I haven't watched it, but I think Meran has.

Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk
Savage Worlds whore part... 4 or 5 depending if you count the card decks, because SW uses cards.. Anyhow, 1.0 was good but I never bought the book - we got the PDFs for free!

Dicecards: The World's Geekiest Dice Bag in a Deck of Cards
I got the 'print it yourself' option and there should be an Android app, too. This was just interesting.

Achtung! Cthulhu - The WW2 Keeper's & Investigator's Guides
More source material for gaming... Realms of Cthulhu again...

The Tomorrow Girl: Dresden Codak Volume 1
Meran wanted this one; I think it'll be pretty cool.

Albino Dragon's Synthesis Cyberpunk Playing Cards
Another deck of cards, to go with the Interface Zero 2.0 - even though I got the stretch goal deck of cards in that one, too... too many decks of cards? Not possible!

Harry Palmer: Starstruck - or "Old Proldiers Never Die"
This looks great! and Lee Moyer is coloring it. He's a neat guy and a great artist.

FlashCity Stories, a Cyberpunk Flash Fiction e-Book
More Cyberpunk! Source material for Interface Zero. And only a dollar!

The Name of the Wind Playing Cards
Because we seem to be supporting all these guys' projects... We love card decks and Patrick's books, too.

TRAKLINE: A new kind of belt for men
Pretty cool... no more holes, it's a slick (as in good design, not friction) slider grip track... if that makes sense..
There's the link; go look for yourself.

Girl Genius Volume 12 Printing and Reprint Frenzy!
Because it is fricken' Girl Genius!

Low Life; The Rise of the Lowly, Core Rulebook
As I said before, I am a Savage Worlds whore. I bought this book already, and he's redoing it a bit.. so I am just in it for the PDFs.

So there you have it: My Kickstarter Habit. By the way things look, I'll be doing this for a while...

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Stumptown comic fest

Portland, Oregon! Stumptown Comics fest!

Meran and I decided to go. Mostly because Meran found out that two of the guests were two of her favorites in the comic book universe. We went to get books signed by Phil Foglio (Girl Genius, Myth Adventures) and Bill Willingham (Elementals, Fables). We also met quite a few new artists, new books and met some folks that we knew about, but didn't catch our eye in the original guest list. Christopher Herndon is one of those folks - great guy, great artist and a lot of fun to chat with.

We prepared for the worst.. We've been to a few local comic / book / self-publishing shows here, but with these big names, it's gonna be crowded.. I mean not SDCC-crowded, but I made sure we padded our time to prepare to wait in lines for book signings and prioritized all the books so that if there was a limit, we knew what we were willing to forgo.

Well, seeing as how this was in Portland, OR, and not San Diego; there were virtually no lines, and no limits!

First stop was Phil Foglio (We walked past Bill's spot as he hadn't showed up yet). In preparation for this, I had drudged up an old TPB of the Myth Adventures Volume One for Phil to sign, and dammit, he had a hardcover of volume one AND two.. So, we bought that, and a pin [awesome!], and 2 novels.. and probably something I am forgetting.. [a Girl Genius bag] All in all, Phil got a good sale and we got all our books signed. He was fun to talk to as well. I forgot to get a picture...

Next, we backtracked to where Bill was sitting and started chatting with him. We started pulling books out for him to sign, and he was happy to do it. Meran had a good conversation with him [fangirl!!], while I was managing the books, plastic covers and the 'to do' and 'done' piles. We had quite a few for him to sign.

With those two main stops done, we started walking the aisles of exhibitors. We took way too much time with Christopher Herndon, but I think he enjoyed the time as much as we did. We found Evan Daum of webcomic Rice Boy fame; Meran almost squee'd!

That was our day. We had fun, and got some good books signed by some good folks.