Format Issues

 I've got the first draft play test rules for Hellspawn & Horror written. This is the urban fantasy/horror supplement. Unlike d20 Modern's Urban Arcana, I'm going a bit more of a dark route. More along the lines of a Stephen King or Clive Barker novel. There is magic, there are spellcasters (Acolyte = Cleric, Mage = Magic-User in D&D terms), there are fairly typical D&D style monsters...but more in the horror range than general vanilla fantasy range, and of course there are magic items including modern weaponry and devices with magical twists. 

This weekend, we're gonna give these rules a spin. 

I've been writing up the adventure on my computer rather than by hand (which I usually do). It's given me a good idea of the format I should use to make my normally piecemeal and incomplete adventure notes into something that others could use. I've figured out a good information nesting system and where to use bold, underlines, and italics to highlight key information. Also how to note difficulties for general proficiency checks, monster stat blocks, and XP for various tasks. 

Already, I'm regretting dropping the "soft sciences" from the proficiency list. Well, psychology made the cut, but the history/anthropology/linguistics etc. humanities got folded into the science proficiency a while back, when I was streamlining. Possibly because I've been watching Stargate SG1 on Netflix, and Daniel and Sam are both scientists but very different scientists, but mostly because of the way I'm breaking down tasks in this adventure. I'll probably include it as a sample adventure in the book, so I won't spoil it now. But I've had to note things that should be about culture/language as requiring science checks if careful dialogue doesn't provide the answers, and other things that are definitely hard science (physics, chemistry, etc.) as also science checks. And one place I used psychology instead of science for a more "humanities" themed problem, as science didn't seem right at all. 

So I think I need to make one final rules revision, adding back in a "soft" science proficiency. The only problem is what to call it. Humanities is appropriate, but maybe too academic. Linguistics or sociology could work, but each is only part of what the proficiency covers. Maybe culture would work. That could cover language, history, cultural knowledge, art, etc.

If I do add it in, I'll need to modify the classes and starting occupations, but that won't be too hard. I've done it before. And it may distinguish a few of the starting occupations a bit more, as well. 

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Side note: My cover artist is working on the cover for Cryptids & Conspiracy. From the sample she sent me the other day, it's also going to look great.  And I need to get back to my interior artist for the Core Rules. He's also really good, and fast, too. Even with the small rules change, and the need to get the examples for all the rules written, and a bunch more interior art, and editing and layout, I think maybe I can get the Core Rules out before the end of the year. If not, then very early next year. 

Visiting Historical Sites

 Two weeks ago, at the beginning of October, my family took a trip to Japan to celebrate my mother-in-law's 80th birthday. We were originally thinking about going to Osaka, but due to the very good exchange rate between the won and the yen, prices for flights to Japan were really expensive over the summer. Luckily, the overnight ferry prices were unchanged. Rather than go to Osaka (there is a ferry), I saw that there is one to Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture. Shimonoseki is the southwestern-most point of the main Japanese island of Honshu. I'd been through it on the shinkansen, but never explored the city. So we decided to give it a try. 

Shimonoseki, or at least the area around the port and JR station, is fairly typical for a small Japanese city. And according to my research, there's more shopping/entertainment/stuff to do up around the shinkansen (bullet train) station in the north-central part of the city. But it was just as easy (maybe easier) to take the 15 minute train ride to Kitakyushu city, across the water in Fukuoka Prefecture. The d24 I posted about was purchased in Kitakyushu. In addition to all the shopping, we did visit Kokura Castle, which was pretty nice.

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to go in the castle. But since it's been rebuilt, it's a museum inside and at least to me, not as interesting as when a castle has been (mostly) restored to what it was originally like. There is apparently an Augmented Reality escape room game you can play, trying to get out of the castle as it is burning down. But my mother-in-law was tired from all the shopping, my wife had more shopping she wanted to do, and we were all hungry. So maybe next time. And that was day 1 of the trip, for the most part. 

Day 2, we went around Shimonoseki to see some of the historical sites. And there are some important ones in Japanese history. 

First up, Dan-no-Ura, where 800ish years ago, the Minamoto (Genji) decisively defeated the Taira (Heike) in a large naval battle, allowing the Minamoto to set up the first shogunate at Kamakura. Additionally, in the 1860s, an armada of European and American warships bombarded Shimonoseki from the straits, until local officials were forced to open the port to international trade. There is a memorial to both naval actions in the same park. There's also a walking tunnel beneath the strait from the park to Kyushu, which my younger son and I wanted to take, but my mother-in-law didn't want to do that much walking. Again, maybe next time. 

 

 After that, we took a boat to Ganryujima, the small, uninhabited island where the famed swordsman Miyamoto Musashi fought his third famous duel against Sasaki Kojiro. The boat ride was fun, and the island was peaceful and relaxing. 

After getting back to the city, it was time to pack up and get back to the ferry terminal, but after the check-in, we had several hours before boarding. So I took the boys to the Kaikyo Yume Tower, which was just a couple of blocks from our hotel, which was a couple of blocks the other direction from the ferry terminal. 

One of the pictures from up in the tower. Dan-no-Ura is where the bridge crosses the strait. We got on the boat to Ganryujima at the dock just to the left of the ferris wheel (not that you can really see it in this photo). 

And here's Ganryujima, seen from the tower. 

Here's the tower itself, photographed the night before. 

I know there are a few people reading the blog who are also into Japanese history, so hopefully you found this interesting. 
 

The Eternal Question

 Well, not THE eternal question, but one that always comes up when I design a game meant for public consumption. 

 How much "introduction to RPGs" does a game need? 

I've immersed myself in these games for 80% of my life. I play them. I read them. I modify them. I write them. It's second nature to me. 

And, I'm in a bit of an information silo regarding them. I have some friends who are new to RPGs and some who have never played them at all. But most of my gaming friends know what they're getting into if they pick up an RPG. 

But I'm also practical. I write OSR games. Not quite what the OSR has become in the past 5 years or so (I feel narrative gaming is co-opting the scene but that's just the way things go, this is not a complaint about that, just an observation). But still, most folks who know about me as a blogger or game designer are OSR folks, and they, like me, already know RPGs. 

So my intended audience doesn't really need a lot of hand-holding text to explain just what an RPG is, or the basic concepts involved. 

BUT... 

There were people who complained about Chanbara not having the hand-holding sections to it. My little niche of a niche of a niche hobby game found its way into the hands of some people who were new to RPGs and would have appreciated a bit of intro to this style of game. And it is a big departure from most games people are familiar with, even if they're immersed in CRPGs or MMOs. 

Also, I feel like I've got a solid game in Missions & Mayhem. Something that is simple enough to play easily, but adaptable enough to fit lots of different genres. I have no illusions of it being able to fill every genre well, but it was designed as a tool box and it works as one. It has potential to catch on beyond my little corner of the OSR space. Not Shadowdark/OSE levels, but I expect it to be a lot more popular than Chanbara (Flying Swordsmen got a lot of traction, but it was completely free so I can't really compare it).  

 I'm not worried about space constraints. Right now, the M&M core book is 82 pages in draft form. And that is with me leaving some pages mostly blank to be filled in later. If I add a sample adventure or two, and a bit of hand-holding introductory text at the beginning, I'm probably still going to be under 100 pages. 

So I guess I should probably add some at least rudimentary "what is an RPG" text before the "what is this game" text at the beginning to help folks out. It never hurts to have it. Veterans can skip over it. New folks will appreciate it. 

 

Thanks for reading along as I debated this with myself. I was hoping to get at least two of the campaign modules ready for release along with the core book, but the way things are going, I could have the core ready to go before the end of the year (assuming the guy I found to do interior art can pump it out quick enough, and after the first order I gave him, I think he can). I may just release the core book this year, then put out the first couple campaign modules next year and the rest in 2028. 
 

Hairfoot Jousting

Yesterday, I got together with some friends to try Hairfoot Jousting, a tactical (sort of) miniatures game. It was a lot of fun. My son Flynn and I were a team against Justin  Alan, and James. We lost, but our dog-riding hobbit lasted a heck of a long time after he should have beed out! 

Dice For Cheap!

I'm visiting Japan again, to celebrate my mother-in-law's 80th birthday. At a Seria 100-yen shop yesterday, I found sets of polyhedrals for 100 yen each! And a single d24! 

I restrained myself to only the three sets in the photo, but would have gotten all the d24s if they had had more. 

And considering, i DID buy all the d24s they had in stock.

The Big Reveal (Missions & Mayhem Core Rules Cover Art)

 I think I mentioned before how I met this artist, but if not, I'll repeat myself. A few months ago, my wife started taking classes to learn watercolor painting to supplement her calligraphy art. The teacher, Lee Hyunjung, has a studio about three blocks away from our apartment. While I was looking on Fiver for possible artists to contact for cover art, my wife suggested we talk to her art teacher. So we did.

I hired her, gave her the details of what I wanted and some reference pictures, and she would contact us at each step of the process to make sure she was executing my vision. 

She knocked it out of the park, in my opinion. 

Then, with some advice from various friends, including Jeremy Hart who has a background in graphic design and my son Flynn who's artistic among his many other talents, I decided on the layout for the title text. After quite a bit of experimentation.

And now, without further ado, I present the cover page for Missions & Mayhem's Core Rules book: 

 

I've commissioned Hyunjung to paint the cover for Cryptids & Conspiracy next. 

Is there anybody out there?

 Looks like, about a week ago, Blogger's feed system went down. My list of blogs I follow hasn't updated in that time, and the last two posts I've made still haven't cracked 100 views. So I assume no one is seeing the links to my blog, either. 

I don't know if this is just one of those technical glitch things that happens sometimes and will get resolved soon, or if Google's actively trying to kill off the blog scene to get everyone onto who knows what (probably some AI assisted bullshit that no one wants but everyone will end up adopting because Google makes it impossible to do otherwise). 

 For the meantime, I'll be using Old School RPG Planet to check other blogs.  It's up to date as of the time of me posting this blog. 

Missions & Mayhem Cover Art is Done

 My artist, Lee Hyunjung, has finished the cover art for the Missions & Mayhem core rulebook. I'm still playing around with fonts and layout for the title, so I'm not revealing the picture now, but I'll build a bit of anticipation. 

I've shown it to quite a few friends and family, and everyone is impressed by it. Solid details, vivid colors, and it fits the 70s through 90s action movie vibe that inspired the game. Actually, it's also a bit reminiscent of modern video game cover art as well. Not that games technically have covers anymore, since they're just digital downloads for the most part. But you know what I mean.  

And two hours ago, I commissioned Hyunjung to start work on a cover for Cryptids & Conspiracy. 

Now I need to secure some interior art. There's a guy up in Seoul, Jeff Witty, who's doing a lot of work for Dungeon Crawl Classics these days. He likes the general idea I pitched for interior pictures, but he's too busy. So maybe I'll see if Hyunjung could do some black & white interior art (yeah, I'm going old school RPG style with this one). I've also scouted out a few potential artists on Fiver that I plan to contact. 

Oh, and I've gotten some art from Jeremy of course (that's Jeremy Hart, or JHIllos) for monsters/aliens/mutants in the various campaign books. 

There's also some decent free to use (Creative Commons) character art I've found out there that I can use for a few filler illustrations. 

So, time to start re-writing the rules in a way that will be easy for folks besides me to understand and run. I've been trying to keep everything as brief as possible for the play test, so I don't need to reprint a huge document every time I make major changes. I'll revise things and not worry quite so much about the space they're taking up. Unlike Chanbara, this is NOT going to be a mere 64 pages. Although I also don't expect I'll go over the 128 pages of Flying Swordsmen. At least not for the core rules. 

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In other M&M news, Sunday was another play test. Bughunts & Bedlam, we tried out giving everyone power armor and a lot of big guns, and throwing a bunch of bugs at them as they defend a colony complex. Getting everyone's power armor loadout/setup took longer than expected, so the colony defense will continue next session. And it showed me that I need to make a special character sheet addition for power armor management. 

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In other other news, print copies of the Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins Ruby Players Rules book arrived on Friday. On Saturday, I ordered small print runs (10 copies each) of the rest of the line, so I will have copies to sell at the upcoming book fair at Gwangan Beach (next month). The Korean PoD service I found is cheap and quick, so I expect to have the books this Saturday, or next Monday at the latest. 

____________________________ 

Oh, and one final note back to Missions & Mayhem: I'm working on the Urban Fantasy supplement, Hellspawn & Horror. Unlike d20 Modern's Urban Arcana, which had the conceit of D&D monsters living among us, this is more like Stephen King/Clive Barker/Jim Butcher/Anne Rice, Blade, Ultraviolet, Friday the 13th The Series (anyone else remember that one?), From Dusk til Dawn, or whatever modern monster-hunter (horror) fantasy you want to play out. So no bugbears working the register at 7-11. Just vampires, werewolves, fae, nasty demons, and the occasional dragon that you need to track down and shoot with your M-16 or battle with a holy sword you recovered from a ruin in Antioch. 

Another trip 'round the Sun

 Another blog-versary is here. Nothing big to say at the moment. I'm too busy. The semester has stared, I'm working on another academic paper, painting minis, working on the Hellspawn & Horror module for Missions & Mayhem (modern urban fantasy/horror), the artist is finishing up the cover art for M&M, and Justin and I are considering doing a board game/war games focused event this fall rather than an RPG one. 

Oh, yeah. And my son is working on a short film (comedic zombie apocalypse story) and wants me to play the redneck bartender. Should be fun. 

Anyway, I'll try to knock out posts here on the blog when I can. For at least one more year. Hopefully more. 

Selling Physical Books

 Because of the SummerCon and the start of the semester, I've been pretty busy the past two weeks. I was going to post about a recent YouTube video from the Mystic Arts channel where he seemed to not quite get what OSR is (or, as I was thinking, maybe OSR has moved on from what it once was and he's right and I'm stuck in the past). But Ben from Questing Beast made a response video with Dađi that addressed most of what I was thinking of writing about. 

So we move on. A few days ago, Richard was asking if I was ever planning to release a PoD version of Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins. Honestly, formatting Chanbara for DriveThru was a bit of a chore, and the books are just Pay-What-You-Want anyway, so I never planned to. But he said he'd like copies if I ever did. 

A little earlier, Justin had mentioned that he's going to be involved in a book fair again in October.  He asked if I wanted to sell some copies of Chanbara or some adventures or whatnot. I ordered some copies of Chanbara from DriveThru. They arrived two days ago. 

Anyway, Justin and Richard got me thinking again about Korean PoD options. I looked at a couple of sites, and found one that looked simple and easy. Especially since they said they could accept PDFs created in Word, not just ones made InDesign or Scribus or whatever.  I'm using LibreOffice, but that should work, right? We'll see!

As implied there, I have re-formatted the TS&R line (well, not the rules reference books, but very few people download those anyway). I still have a little work do do on the covers for some of the books, but I'm almost there. Last night, I ordered copies of the Ruby Players Rules. 

The service can print 2 copies, or multiples of 10 only. I should have played it safe and ordered two, but went ahead and ordered 10. I know Richard will buy one. If Justin can sell two more at his book fair, that will reimburse me for the printing costs. It was 50,000 won (40 page softback, with single-side cover printing) including shipping (3,500 won), which at the current exchange rate is about $37. 

The website estimated they'd ship on Wednesday so I should have them by the end of the week. If they're good enough quality, I'll order the other TS&R line of books to be printed. I know Justin won't sell them all, but I can sell one set to Richard, keep one set for myself, and what Justin can't sell this time I can try to sell at a future book fair or game event. Some of my regular players might be interested in getting their own copies as well.  

SummerCon Experiences

 The TTRPG in Korea Discord group had another online con this weekend. 

 On Friday evening, I played in a Shadowdark game, set in I6 Ravenloft. This was my first experience with Shadwodark, but of course I know Ravenloft pretty well. This game was really fun. I was playing an elf wizard who had the "ranger" background. And I had both magic missile and acid arrow on my spell list. So with the DM's permission, I had an energy bow like Hank from the D&D cartoon that I fired my spells from. 

We explored the castle, managed to find the history book and sun sword, just before the GM's timer ran out and Strahd appeared. We were down in the crypts. The sun sword did so much damage that Strahd died in two rounds. Of course, our fighter was charmed by Strahd, but with advantage on rolls from our Seer and Cleric, and a dispel magic from me, the fighter broke the charm and put down Strahd. And just before the time limit for the session, too! 

Saturday morning, I ran a Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins Ruby game. I had two players, so they each got to run 2 PCs. They also had money to hire plenty of hirelings, so they took advantage of that. They were searching an ancient elven tomb for treasure, encountering lots of traps, some bugs, some undead. They avoided the gelatinous cube. They avoided some traps, fell into a few, and solved several puzzles/challenges to get the treasure at the end. Only one halfling man-at-arms died. 

Saturday afternoon, I was a player in a game of Free League's Alien RPG. The GM had asked us all who our favorite characters were (besides Ripley or Jonesy), or at least who we'd like to play. I was Hudson from Aliens. Riley was Kane from Alien. Oz was Hermit from Alien Earth, and W1ng was Rusten Quinn from Alien vs Predator. This was also my first time playing FL's Alien game. 

Hudson was the only one to die, getting firebombed by Kane while the alien was dragging him away.  

It was really fun, but while the general task resolution mechanic is solid, the whole stress/freakout/losing control/panic system seemed a bit clunky and kinda slowed down the game. 

I think I mentioned that my Saturday evening workshop on exploration-focued play was canceled from lack of interest. When I canceled, there was a DCC game at that time in need of players so I said I would play. But yesterday morning, my wife got upset that I was going to be gaming all day on the computer and ignoring the family. So I bowed out of that game. Luckily, others had also joined, so the game went on without me. 

Finally, this afternoon (Sunday), I was a player in a Mothership game. This was maybe my fourth or fifth time to play Mothership, and I have to say I really like this game. It's got the similar vibe to Alien, of course. And while the general mechanic (percentage checks) is fine, Alien's die pool system is maybe a bit more fun. But the stress/freakout mechanics in Mothership are a lot simpler than Alien, at least from my experience as a player only. 

We were up against a cold, uncaring computer AI, who wanted to eliminate us to complete the ship's mission. I was playing an android, and towards the end of the session, the AI took over my body. Scott (the GM for this game) fed me some lines here and there and let me continue on as the corrupted android, while the players thought they'd reset me but weren't quite sure. It was pretty fun, but in the end the AI made my android body end its existence. So it goes. 

The final Sunday evening session is going on right now, but obviously I'm not in any of those games. It was a pretty fun con, but I had lots of technical issues this time, so I may take a back seat next WinterCon. Playing face-to-face is more fun anyway. 

Font Testing

I've been using a title font for my drafts of Missions & Mayhem since the beginning (more or less), but talking to Jeremy about using some of his monster art last night, he asked if I had a logo for the game yet. I didn't. So I made up a simple logo in GIMP. 

Today, I figured I'd test a few other font options to see if I liked any of these others better. I think I'll stick with my initial font, called Gunplay/Gunplay 3D. But I figure I might as well stick the tests up here to see what people think. 

If you've got any preference, or suggestions for the logo as a whole, please let me know what you think. 

 

 

Gunplay font, no border

Gunplay font, border

Jeremy suggested TTRPG instead of just RPG

 

And then the ones I made today: 

Action Force

HP PSG

MisterEarl

Weathered Solid

 

IM FELL English

Edit/Update: After discussing designs and swapping ides with Jeremy a bit more, I came up with this: 

Along with an inverted color version for the inside title page: 

 Pretty sure this is what I'll go with. Gunplay 3D for the main title, Gunplay for the subtitle. 

Thanks to Jeremy, PatrickW, Anzon, and my son Steven for the feedback. If anyone else has some feedback though, please let me know!

Blog Readers, Satisfy My Curiosity Please

 Today, I was chatting with Richard (who runs CoC). He will be in my TS&R Ruby con game in a week and a half. He said he was thinking of running a TS&R Ruby campaign himself. He asked me if I knew anyone who was running TS&R (Ruby or Jade) besides myself. 

I told him I know a fair number of people have downloaded the books, but I haven't heard of anyone running it besides myself. 

Will Richard be the first person to run it besides its creator? If any of you have run it, or know someone who has, please let me know.  

"Universes Beyond" Seriously?

 So the big announcement from WotC was that they're rolling out "universes beyond" content for 5.5e. 

I think most of my blog readers know this. They also probably know I'm not WotC's target demographic. But here's my thoughts on this anyway. 

First off, is anyone surprised? Since the days of 2E, when TSR was cranking out the setting products, they realized that people love these. People want books of lore that they can dive into and study, and use as the base for their campaign. And every major edition has seen re-releases, with updated stat blocks/content, for many of these settings. 

So we're getting a new 5.5e Dark Sun, and Dragonlance, and there's probably already Forgotten Realms since that's their main setting anymore. But they're also doing World of Warcraft (like someone did back in the d20/SRD/OGL days) and Star Wars (like they did back in the d20/SRD/OGL days AND the 4E days) and probably some Final Fantasy or Diablo (again, they did that back in the day) or Marvel Supers tie in content. Just like with Magic: the Gathering. 

I'm aware of the MtG tie in sets, with Marvel, Final Fantasy, etc. I haven't bought Magic cards in around 20 years now. Maybe a bit longer. So I don't really care what they're doing with the game. It's always been more about milking the random pack dollar than about the game itself, but I got out and haven't looked back. And now, with D&D (official D&D anyway), I'm also out. 

So I really don't care if WotC is going back to try again with the old campaign settings and with brand tie-ins. They're trying to make a buck, and from what I hear the "Universes Beyond" thing is making them a ton of money through MtG. So it makes sense from a business standpoint to try it with D&D. 

From a player/fan perspective, I think this is a bad idea. They tried to make D&D the be-all-end-all of RPGs, not just the 800lb gorilla of them. We had all these official, licensed, and unofficial nerd media tie-ins 25 years ago. And a lot of them sucked. 

A lot of those old tie-ins (Wheel of Time, Star Wars, Warcraft, Diablo, various superhero properties, various non-supers comics, all sorts of video games, and just about every fantasy/sci-fi book or movie franchise) needed to either twist the rules of the game to fit the media property, or else needed to twist the media property's "canon" to fit the game mechanics. 

Sure, a few instances, things worked out pretty well. The Diablo stuff fits right in with D&D, because those games were heavily inspired by D&D to begin with. The d20 Star Wars games were pretty poor representations of the media, to be honest. The WEG d6 is of course my favorite, but I've heard good things about FFG's current game. I don't know many who look back fondly on d20 Star Wars (there are some, but not many). And does anyone seriously think 5E D&D will be a better fit? 

Anyway, I'm gonna keep doing my thing. WotC will keep doing theirs. And they'll probably make a ton of money making sub-standard game products with big franchise tie-ins. I'll make a pittance making substandard game products without the big franchise tie-ins (but with enough references to them, wink-wink). And I'll be happy. 

Because why do I need WotC to do any more of my imagining for me? 

Hitch a Ride to Arcturus

 This weekend, I wrote up a more detailed description of my (very silly, not likely possible, but plausible enough) faster than light travel system for Bughunts & Bedlam. In addition, I came up with some technobabble to explain FTL communication as well, cribbing a bit from Star Frontiers. 

Star Frontiers has FTL at a speed of 1 light year per day, so I went with that for military or "elite" ships, and one light year per week for freighters, colony ships, or other pleb options. The one light year per week rate was suggestive of Alien, where they had a 10 month trip from Zeta Reticuli (40ish light years from Earth) to get home. 

And of course, FTL can warp your brain unless you're in hypersleep. There are now rules for space madness and how to treat it. 

 I had already made a blurb about the setting, where humans have 23 active colonies and 5 failed attempts, and had explored out about 100 light years from Earth. A bit of Google/Wikipedia work gave me a bunch of potential systems with exoplanets that could be colonized. Plus, I remembered that I had a couple of alien species in Cryptids & Conspiracy that have nearby home worlds. 

So I made a big chart of about 30 systems and the distance in light years (rounded up if a decimal of 0.1 or more due to the way the FTL drive works in 1 light year-ish jumps). This took some time. After a lot of slow Googling and math, and a webpage that said it had distances that most turned out to be inaccurate, I gave in and turned to AI. I asked it to generate distances from one target system to all of the other systems. I found discrepancies with that webpage. Then I found discrepancies within the AI output. 

Eventually, I asked AI to make me a spreadsheet with all of the systems. Then I found a game on Steam called SpaceEngine that shows distances from system to system. I went in and did a bit of random checks, and found the final AI numbers to be close enough of a match. So assuming the SpaceEngine people know what they're doing, and that the AI did the math more or less correctly, I've got my travel/communication chart. 

A subspace message (one way only) takes 1 hour per light year. 

A military or high end ship crosses 1 light year per day (no relativity effects for reasons, but you're probably in cryosleep anyway). 

A blue collar working ship crosses 1 light year per week. The chart just has rounded up light year numbers, so it works for all three purposes. 

I'm not proud that I turned to AI for help. I'm usually against it. But it did save me MANY hours of boring labor. And I am NOT using it for text (rules or flavor), or art. 

 Now that the FTL rules are done, I'll add a few options for GMs that want warp drive, hyperdrive, orbital jump gates, or terrestrial stargates in their games.  

 ________

Oh, and an update on the cover art. The artist sent me the first sketch of the two characters that will be front and center on the cover. It looks really good. No notes. I'd given her pretty specific art direction and reference pictures of what I wanted. Now, we wait to see how she fills in the background!  

 

Combat Math in Missions & Mayhem

Yeah, another math post about the mechanics of Missions & Mayhem. These (here, here, here, and here) get a lot of reads, but rarely much comment. I assume either that means people don't want to comment on something they're just reading about but haven't played, or else everything I'm posting seems alright to them so they have not much to say. Either way, there seem to be no egregious math that would elicit corrections so that's encouraging. 

I was reading Eric's thoughts on a single saving throw (Swords & Wizardry style). It got me thinking about the math behind my saving throw system, and the combat mechanics more broadly. 

Following d20 Modern, M&M has Fortitude (modified by Constitution), Reflex (modified by Dexterity), and Will (modified by Wisdom) saving throws. Originally, I gave each class lowering target numbers for each save, the way classic and advanced D&D do it. If you multiclassed among the various Heroic Classes, you took the best value. But then when I started adding Advanced Classes in the campaign modules, I had wonky math going on. 

So, I've changed it to be more like the original. Now, each class provides bonuses to the die roll, along with ability modifiers. If you multiclass, you just add the new modifiers to your save values. 

Unlike the original D&D saves with different target numbers depending on the type of save and your class/level, or the d20 system that I'm riffing on which had varying target DCs for different types of saving throw, there is one constant and unchanging save target number: 16. 

This gives someone with no bonus (average ability score and no class modifier) a 25% chance to succeed on any saving throw. 

Combat, for comparison, uses ascending AC with the base AC as 11. So rolling a flat d20 with no bonus to hit, and the target has no armor or Dexterity adjustments, and no situational modifiers, you have a 50% chance to hit. 

These numbers seem like a good base to work from for me. 

It also means that area of effect attacks (spray autofire, grenades, etc.) need to hit AC 11 to affect the appropriate area. There's a "grenade bounce" check to see where the effect actually lands on a miss, which still might affect some of the intended targets. And then the targets get saving throws to avoid or mitigate the effects. 

Again, the math works well, giving I think, fair odds for combats in the game.  

 

TTRPG in Korea's Online SummerCon 2026

 SummerCon 2026 is approaching. It will be on August 28th to 30th, KST (GMT +9). 

We have a lot more games than gamers, apparently. Maybe lots of folks are on vacations at the end of the summer. Whatever the reason, we have a lot of games with open spots. So we (I'm part of the organizing committee) have decided to open up the Con to people outside Korea. 

 If anyone reading is interested, check out our registration page on Warhorn. You'll need to register with Warhorn, and the Con is on Discord (plus various VTTs at each GM's preference) so you'll also need to join the TTRPG in Korea Discord server at least until the end of the conference. 

SummerCon Registration 

https://warhorn.net/events/korea-summercon-2026

TTRPG in Korea

https://discord.gg/5P7pM7Vpn 

I'm running a Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins Ruby game, and I've got the Exploration Focused Play workshop as well, both on Saturday. The only person yet to sign up for the workshop is also on the organizing committee, so I may cancel that and just chat with him about the topic one-on-one sometime. But there's still a week to sign up, so maybe it will get a little more interest. 

There is a wide variety of games, old school, new school, traditional, narrative, cozy, etc.  

Movie Review - Spider-Man Brand New Day

 I saw the new Spider-Man film a few hours ago, and I really liked it. Here's a bit of spoiler-free review. 

First off, for the moms worried about cursing in the movie, there's quite a bit, most (all?) of it coming from Frank Castle/Punisher. So be warned. Not like Kevin Smith film, Blues Brothers, or The Big Lebowski levels of cursing, but a lot compared to any previous Spider-Man film.

The movie is very busy. There's a lot of characters, a lot going on, and yet it doesn't feel rushed. It's a character-driven story just as much as it is plot-driven. And the main characters all get moments to grow and develop during the film. Some more than others, of course, but there are lots of character moments. Also, lots of what I assume are more subtle tie-ins to future MCU films/shows than in some of the previous projects. But no spoilers. 

Destin Daniel Cretton has a great eye for capturing motion and getting dynamic fight scenes. There's a reason Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is high up on my MCU list of great films. And while there's a lot going on in this film, it feels like a cohesive story. 

To be honest, it felt like the way monthly ongoing comic books (used to? I haven't kept up) structure stories. The first act of the movie has Spider-Man/Peter Parker juggling personal and work-related problems, and he's up against Scorpion and the Punisher (sorta). Then the middle act involves Spidey dealing with the Department of Damage Control, the Hulk, continuing personal problems, and Sadie Sink's character. The third act brings the Punisher back in and resolves most of the conflicts, personal and villain-related. It's got plenty of open threads for future stories, though. It felt like the way a 3-part comic arc is scripted. 

So kudos to Marvel/Sony for getting out another character-focused superhero movie. After this film, Thunderbolts*, and Daredevil Born Again, I've got high expectations for Avengers: Doomsday later this year.  

 

Total Party Capture

Today was the third linked adventure for play testing Bughunts & Bedlam, following on the previous two planetary mine investigations. Today's session was all aboard Longinus Station, in orbit around planet RX-55. 

During the first investigation (krytes from the movie Critters invaded a mine), one of the station technicians was an oddball.  What the PCs didn't know is that a Puppeteer, a mind-control bug based on Heinlein's Puppet Masters but also Ceti eels from Wrath of Khan, the brain parasite aliens in TNG's Conspiracy episode, and any other creatures that latch on to your brainstem and then control you, had taken control of the technician. And there was a crate full of them waiting to infest the rest of the crew. 

Session two (battling Alien Bounty Hunters and Coeurls), when they returned to the station, a few more people were odd. 

This session, they set out to find out who was mind controlled, or a secret synthetic, or maybe a doppelganger type shapeshifter. It actually didn't take long, as early in the session Jada's Hero Sarah went off with one of the infected crew members, who took her to the cargo storage area to try to infect her. She avoided that, but the infected scientist got away. Charles and Steven's Heroes Magnum and Conner (respectively) were looking for clues and not finding much, when suddenly there was an alarm. Someone had sabotaged part of the engineering section. They went to help patch it up, but failed their rolls. The first infected tech showed up to "fix" the situation. 

Our heroes met up with each other and took one of the security officers (compromised!) to confront the station medic, who they knew had acted oddly. There was a fight, but both infected crew were subdued. Sarah  performed surgery to remove the medic's puppeteer, but failed to remove the security officer's. Another alarm went off in the loading dock during the surgeries, but they ignored it. Finally, a decompression event happened in the maintenance bay. 

They put on oxygen masks and went to see what they could do. All of the remaining infected crew (five of them) were waiting. Unfortunately for our crew, Steven was tired (and maybe a bit bored of mostly talk talk talk) and fell asleep at the table. So Connor was out of this final battle. And it went sideways quickly. One tangler grenade wrapped up the infected admin guy with a rifle. Another wrapped up more. The remaining infected crew fired stunners, but didn't take out the Heroes. One last tangler grenade missed, and the bounce roll showed that it came right back at the Heroes. They both failed their saves. 

So, all the Heroes were captured, and they and the remaining uninfected crew became hosts for puppeteers. 

They should have destroyed the case the puppeteers came in when they had the chance! 

_______

Luckily for the players, we're running play test games, so despite the horrible end, the PCs will be back next session for more. And they leveled up, with Sarah taking the Xenologist advanced class, and Magnum taking the Trooper advanced class. I'll get Steven to level up his PC later, and Denis and Justin can level up their Heroes next session. 

Serendipity (III)

 At the beginning of the year, my wife started learning Korean calligraphy. Then, a few months back, she found an art teacher to teach her watercolor painting to decorate the calligraphy designs. My wife came home from her art class the other day and said she mentioned to the teacher that I was writing an RPG book. The art teacher offered to do some art for the book. 

So we messaged a bit, and then went to talk to her a couple of days ago. 

She's now working on a design for cover art for Missions & Mayhem. It will be a full color acrylic painting, if we do commission her for it. Her work that I've seen is very good, and we shared some concept art, other modern-ish RPG cover art, etc. along with some reference art for the characters that will grace the cover. 

She said she can also do black and white line art fairly easily, so I'll probably commission some more interior art pieces from her later. 

Another artist in Seoul, Jeff Witty, has been doing a lot of art for Dungeon Crawl Classics lately. We've also talked, and he likes my concept for art to highlight the character classes, but he's pretty busy with commissions already. Hopefully, I'll be able to snag a few pictures from him as well.

There's no monsters in the core book, but I'll of course be commissioning some monster art from my buddy Jeremy Hart for the campaign module books. I want to support him as much as possible, too.

I'm pretty excited to see what the art teacher does with the concept I gave her. And once I've got the cover art, it will be a lot easier to start promoting the books. Other than revising some "how to play" and "how to run the game" sections, the main Missions & Mayhem core rules book is done. I'm pretty happy with how it plays, and I don't expect to make more than tweaks to the game from here on out.