Rick Swan's The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games

I was recently reunited with Rick Swan's The Complete Guide of Role-Playing Games. I had a copy in high school, but lost it somewhere along the way. The book's premise is simple: it's a collection of Rick Swan's reviews of the rpgs that had been published by that point in time, by which I mean 1990. Each game covered gets an entry describing what it is about, its level of complexity, and how good it is overall. 

Underneath that, though, is a fascinating snapshot of an era now long gone.

When I had a limited number of games available to me back then, based solely on what the local stores were willing to carry, the book was a revelation; it showed you just how expansive the rpg hobby was and had been since its inception. The book is full of games I would never have heard of otherwise. Who among us has ever played Swordtag? Or The Morrow Project? Or Sandman? I've met some Skyrealms of Jorune fans over the years, but Expendables? Never.

Returning to Swan's book now renders it a map of how batshit insane a lot of early rpg design really was. Check out KABAL's rules for determining your character's height:

Similar instances of madness: if you wanted to play a character of a gender opposite your own in DragonQuest, you had to roll for permission. The lowest end character type in the James Bond rpg has you spending 3000 points at character creation. Timeship apparently doesn't have rules for time travel.

If nothing else, The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games is a good reminder that your favorite game, yes, the one you think is the new revolutionary hotness, may also disappear beneath the shifting sands of time.

The Nightside

The Nightside is one of the additions to the revised Krevborna setting book that I'm most proud of. The idea of a dream-like realm of aestheticized horror has its appeal as a point of contrast from Krevborna's more standard Gothic atmosphere. Inspired by things like Thomas De Quincy's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and films like Jean Rollin's Fascination and Jim Henson's Labyrinth, the Nightside offers a change of pace where you can explore the thin boundary between the real and the unreal.

The Nightside

Among other more mundane intoxicants, Veil’s sordid drug dens peddle midnight bell, a greenish-gold, magically enhanced opium that allows the user to travel to the Nightside—a phantasmagorical dream of Veil as it was in better times. 

    • When midnight bell is smoked in Veil, one’s mind leaves their body behind as an inert and insensible husk in the "real" world as their spirit is clothed in new flesh to wander and explore what the town’s residents call the Nightside. 

    • The Nightside is an endless aesthetic dream; in the Nightside’s version of Veil, it is always the height of wondrous night, the stars emit their luster in the darkened sky, the city is lit by thousands of paper lanterns, and the shining outline of the Shadow Moon presides over all. 

    • Where the real Veil is a land of poverty and deprivation, the Nightside is a world of glamour, decadent pleasures, and thrill-seeking.

    • Nothing is ordinary in the Nightside—everyone is beautiful, fashionable, and stylish. 

    • Sebastian Lee, an androgynous dandy never seen without his ornate cigarette holder, a foppish hat, and his crystalline walking stick, is the undisputed king of the Nightside’s electrifying nightlife. 

    • “Sebastian Lee” is a guise adopted by the Goblin King of the Unseelie fey.

    • Nightmarish monsters are born from the hazy smoke of burning midnight bell, which hangs in the air as a persistent miasma always fraying the edges of reality. 

    • The Nightside is entrapping; nothing but a yawning void exists beyond the forest that encircles the Nightside’s dream-like fantasy.

    • Smoking midnight bell is a vice known colloquially as “tolling the bell.”

    • Those who partake of midnight bell always eventually awaken from the Nightside’s lurid fantasia and must seek enough coin for another dose if they wish to return.

    • Few can resist the allure and mystique of Veil’s illusory echo, and those who try are wracked with the pains of withdrawal. 

    • If a mortal expires within the dream of the Nightside, their body also dies amid the squalor of its “real” iteration. 

PLANET MOTHERFUCKER IN PRINT

I used my own instructions (here) and printed myself a copy of PLANET MOTHERFUCKER: SATANICO PANDEMONIUM EDITION. 

It turned out great!

You know it's free, right? Check it out if you missed it.

I've seen one other person's personal copy, but I want to see ALL of them. If you do a print version of the book, I wanna see what kinda cover you knocked out for it. Send images to totgad @ gmail dot com. 

People who send in pics of their print copy might get something cool & free in their inbox in a couple months, just sayin'.

Tip jar if you want to encourage this sort of thing.

Lycans

I've begun figuring out what a "lycan" (aka Werewolf Lite) should look like mechanically in my Savage Worlds Krevborna games. Here's what I've come up with for an ancestry that has the werewolf flavor without being as busted-for-normal-campaigns and inconvenient-to-play as the werewolf rules in the Horror Companion.

Lycans

Also known as “wolfbloods,” lycans are folk who have inherited the curse of lycanthropy in a minor, but persistent and incurable, form that sets them apart from other mortals. Lycans appear to be members of other ancestries, but their bodies possess obvious bestial traits, such as sharp teeth, yellow eyes, or hair as thick as a shaggy pelt. When angered, a lycan’s form becomes more animalistic and fierce. 

Lycans as Savage World Ancestry

Lycans can usually pass as normal humans unless they are under close scrutiny. As a limited free action, they can transform into a more bestial, wolfish state; while in this form, they gain access to their Bite and Claw ancestral abilities.

Accursed Ancestry: Lycans suffer a -1 penalty to all Spirit rolls.

Bestial Rage: The beast is always ready to spring forth and cause carnage. All lycans possess the Berserk Edge.

Bite: In their bestial forms, lycan fangs cause Str+d4 damage and may be used on grappled foes.

Bloodthirsty: Lycans never takes prisoners unless under the direct order of the person they consider the leader of their "pack." 

Claws: In their bestial forms, lycans have claws that cause Str+d6 damage and are AP 2. 

Easily Angered: Lycans subtract 2 when resisting Taunt attacks.

Heightened Sense of Smell: A keen sense of smell gives lycans +2 to Survival rolls made to track if the target has a scent and the trail is no more than a day old.

Hunted: Lycans must always be wary of monster hunters who might mistake them for full-blooded werewolves. 

Low Light Vision: Lycans ignore penalties for Dim or Dark illumination (but not Pitch Darkness).

Monstrous Weakness: Attacks made with silvered weapons deal +4 damage against Lycans.

Konrad Draghul and Kassidy Durango

Two NPCs in Krevborna. First up is a take on the classic "dhampir vampire hunter"--my variation is, "make him a vengeful twink." (Happy Pride Month, everyone.) And then we've got everyone's favorite boots and leather cowgirl. (Happy Pride Month, everyone.) Seriously, I've written short stories about Kassidy.

Konrad Draghul

Konrad Draghul is the bastard child of Count Magnus Draghul. Konrad was sired upon a serf in Myrkrania; he was born a dhampir. Before his mother succumbed to a disease hastened by their poverty, she told her son the secret of his heritage. Enraged that his father had abandoned them after a loveless affair with his mother—a dalliance that Count Magnus soon forgot—Konrad vowed to become the sworn enemy of all vampires.

    • Appearance: His features have a feminine cast, especially his head of unruly blonde curls, and he radiates physical prowess.

    • Personality: Despite his desire to be different from his father, he can be snide and stereotypically aristocratic.

    • Motive: The only thought that brings him joy is imagining what it will feel like when he plunges a stake into his father’s heart.

    • Flaw: A particularly handsome man can distract him from his quest—but only momentarily.

Kassidy “Deathshot” Durango

Kassidy “Deathshot” Durango hails from a long line of members of the Knights Labyrinthian; her mother, in particular, was a famed gunslinger and High Warden of Fort Gilead. The last of her line, Kassidy Durango continues the family trade of protecting pilgrims traveling the wilds and righting wrongs where she can.

    • Appearance: Kassidy is a freckled woman with long brown hair and a crooked smile.

    • Personality: Despite the bloody-mindedness with which she pursues her mission, Kassidy is quite philosophical and loves to discuss the great mysteries of life. 

    • Motive: Kassidy feels evil is likely to triumph in the world, but she feels compelled to fatalistically wage war against darkness regardless of the eventual outcome.

    • Flaw: Kassidy is plagued by an infirmity called blisterlung that sometimes causes her to be monetarily incapacitated as she coughs up blood.

The Gang Wards

I feel like too few Gothic Fantasy settings really do much with the fear of criminality and banditry that suffuses much of the early Gothic canon. Veil is, of course, filthy with criminal activity, and the city's gangs form the largest locus of power in the city. The following gangs draw inspiration from The Witcher, Dishonored, Gangs of New York, various Batman comics, and Fallen London.

Also, that time that juggalos were deemed a gang by the feds wormed its way in there.

The Gang Wards

Four gangs ruthlessly compete against each other for territory, wealth, and power in the fallen city. Unfortunately, the people of Veil are often caught in the crossfire as the gangs make war against each other. The following gangs hold multiple wards of the city under their control:

The Butcher Boys

    • The Butcher Boys are dwarven thugs feared for their use of violence, terror, and intimidation. 

    • The Butcher Boys operate protection rackets and offer their services as bodyguards. 

    • Members of the Butcher Boys are immediately recognizable by the bloodstained leather aprons they wear.

The Firebrands

    • The Firebrands are a gang involved in the production and sale of patent medicines of dubious efficacy, the operation of brothels, burglary, and arson. 

    • The Firebrands are notorious for hurling flasks of flaming oil in combat and setting their blades alight prior to engaging in skirmishes. 

    • The boss of the Firebrands is Jackdaw, a ruffian who claims to have once been a surgeon of repute.

The Harlequins

    • The perverse Harlequin gang are motley-clad miscreants who run gambling houses and fighting pits throughout Veil. 

    • Their leader, Cyprian Wilde, is a disgraced nobleman who uses his inheritance to bankroll the gang’s criminal ventures. 

    • They disfigure the faces of those who cross them.

The Seamasques

    • Veil’s river and its stretch of coastline is dominated by the Seamasques, barbarous pirates and smugglers.

    • They also sell their services as mercenaries.

    • The Seamasques are led by Gretha Sigurdsdottir, who is in turn guided by her lover Iska Gaskill, a Polnezna fortune teller with the gift of foresight.