Jagash

I’m in the midst of layout for my game, and I was pleased to see the release of Always/Never/Now by Will Hindmarch. It’s part of a trend of excellent professional game designs that can be played by a gamer on a budget, or examined in detail by any budding designers out there. This blog post is meant to be a repository of sorts, with links to where you can find these gems. If you know of other professional games that should go on this list, add them in the comments!

Lady Blackbird

by John Harper of OneSeven Design. This is a Steampunk Fantasy, of magic wielding nobles, rogue airship captains and warp-blooded goblins. It’s one of the most elegant game designs I have seen, with remarkable amounts of rich setting detail crammed into a mere 16 pages. It won the 2010 ENnie Awards for best Free RPG, and deserved all the praise. You can find it over at http://www.onesevendesign.com/ladyblackbird/

Old School Hack

by Kirin Robinson. Take a classical Red Box version of D&D. Add in some of the best innovations from 4^th Edition, story game principles, OSR expertise and excellent graphic design. It won the 2011 ENnie Awards for best Free RPG for a reason. http://www.oldschoolhack.net/

Mythender

by Ryan Macklin. It’s a roleplaying adventure game about stabbing gods in the face and falling to divine corruption. This is a crunchy, epic game with the best of modern design principles. If you want to examine a game that creates a certain mood through the use of components/mechanics, take a look at Mythender.

http://ryanmacklin.com/mythender/

Archipelago III

by Matthijs Holter. This is one of the games inspired by the Nordic Larp tradition, and has some different divisions of GM responsibilities. If you like The Wizard of Earthsea or Fiasco, definitely take a look at this! http://norwegianstyle.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/archipelago-ii/

Always/Never/Now

by Will Hindmarch. Cyberpunk stories, based on the framework of Lady Blackbird and including some novel adventure-design mechanics worth your attention. Chock full of goodness and worth your while. http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/114457/Always-Never-Now

Fate Core

by the folks at Evil Hat, will soon be available over at http://www.faterpg.com/

I know there are more out there, so please post the info in the comments and reshare this blogpost!

The first part of the Kickstarter campaign has closed. In some ways, this was the most exciting part of the process, seeing tangible support for my “little” game. It’s also been a little tiring, as if I was attending a very subdued month-long game convention. Overall, it’s been a blast thanks to all of the backers.

Now to business. We raised a total of $11,668, which means that I will be producing a number of things for all 475 of you.

PDF’s of the final version of the Game, both in “display” and “print” formats.
Epub and Mobi versions
Physical printed copies of the game, delivered to backers and chosen libraries/schools. d. Halfling Burrow Dice Bags
Human Keep Die Bags
Dragon’s Hoard Dice Bags
Extra payments for my editors and artists (Partially complete)
New cover art
A Quickstart Bundle for each of the three settings
The Digital Campfire MP3
A Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (CC BY)
An expanded, revised and potentially art-filled version of the “Spark in Fate Core” article of collaborative World Building.

That is a lot of stuff and I want to deliver as quickly as I can possibly manage without allowing the quality to suffer. It will apparently take about 2 weeks before all of the payments clear and before I am able to send the surveys out. At the end of the month, I will begin sending out the surveys to collect information, and I plan to prepare the final revision to the text so I can start the layout process at the beginning of May.

Exciting times!

Kickstarter Roundtable: Presented by Fred Hicks and Brennan Taylor.

In this intense workshop, we will explore the ins and outs of using Kickstarter as a crowdsourced fundraising platform. Topics will include best practices for making videos, for customer contacts through updates, etc.

Regrets from Cindy Au and Joshua A.C. Newman on account of hurricane.

Episode20-Kickstarter_Roundtable.mp3 [ 1:43:38 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I am very happy to announce that I have launched the kickstarter for the Spark RPG right over here.

It’s been more than a few years of work, and it’s taught me an incredible amount. The game evolved drastically over the years, and the hundreds of hours of playtesting really helped refine the game into what it is today. This process has taught me how to kill my darlings and accept constructive criticism, which I know will help me over the years to come. The game is finally ready, and as close to perfect as I can manage.

If you back the kickstarter at any amount, you will get full access to the nearly final version of the text. It needs some layout, additional art and extra content from the kickstarter backers, but it’s otherwise complete.

Now I just wait, and hope that enough of you fine ladies and gentlemen are willing to support me during this campaign.

Thank you very much.

LARPs aboard submarines? LARPs about having cancer? Join us for a journey inside the fascinating high-art gaming scene of Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. They play in submarines, nuclear reactors, and in custom-built shanty towns. They get government grants to LARP! Welcome to the arty world of Nordic LARP, where intense emotion, minimal mechanics — including safewords — and fabulous scenery rule the day. Join ‘Leaving Mundania’ author Lizzie Stark and game designer and Industry Insider Guest of Honor Jason Morningstar for a journey inside this fascinating high-art gaming scene.

Episode19-Introduction_to_Nordic_Larp.mp3 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Free & Final Professional RPG’s for Game Designers

Lady Blackbird

Old School Hack

Mythender

Archipelago III

Always/Never/Now

Fate Core

The Spark Kickstarter is complete!

Episode 20 – The Kickstarter Roundtable

Spark RPG – The Kickstarter

Episode 19 – Introduction to Nordic Larp