Stargazer's World » Freebies

Feb-Wu-ary!

Stargazer — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:49:07 +0000

Third Eye Games’ Eloy Lasanta just reminded me that February 2012 is the 2nd Annual Wu Xing Giveaway Month. So what does that mean?

At first you get a free copy of Wu Xing: The Ninja Crusade with any purchase over $5 at the Three Eye Games’ online store. Aside from that you also get 4 chances per day to win a free PDF copy of this fine game. Here’s what you have to do (quoted from the official site):

1. Follow us on Facebook: Fans of Wu Xing on Facebook can post daily to the Third Eye Games Page (answering random fun questions about Wu Xing) and receive 1 entry into the daily drawing. Find our Facebook page HERE.
2. Follow us on Google+: Fans of Wu Xing on Google Plus can post daily to the Third Eye Games Page (answering random fun questions about Wu Xing) and receive 1 entry into the daily drawing. Find our Google Plus page HERE.
If you answer both the Facebook and Google question, the answers have to be different.

3. Tweet about the Giveaway: Be sure to follow @ThirdEyeGames on Twitter and retweet the Daily Giveaway posting to your Twitter to earn 1 entry into the daily Drawing.
4. Join the Newsletter: Any fans that have signed up for the newsletter automatically receive 1 entry for each drawing. Increase your chances of winning just by clicking HERE.

The lucky winners will be announced on the official Third Eye Games site.

Dungeonslayers: First sneak peek at the 4th Edition

Stargazer — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:30:24 +0000

Reports that the English version of Dungeonslayers 4 is vaporware are highly exaggerated. DS 4 is alive and well and Christian Kennig has released the updated character creation as a teaser today!

The 10-paged PDF contains the character creation rules, hints at the new hero classes that you can pick after reaching level 10 and gives you the opportunity to check out the artwork and layout of the upcoming book.

By the way, the German version of the game is available in a very cool boxed set, or as a free PDF version. So if you can speak German, why not check it out now?

Get Kobold Quarterly #14 for free

Stargazer — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:58:58 +0000

Back in August 2010 I wrote the following about KQ#14:

Currently I play none of the games which are regularly covered by Kobold Quarterly, but so far I’ve enjoyed reading every issue I got my hands on. Aside from a lot of material for games like D&D 4th Edition, Pathfinder or even Dragon Age, a large portion of the magazine contains articles that apply to any fantasy game. And in most cases the game-specific articles can be at least be used to inspire. And because of that Kobold Quarterly can truely be called “The Switzerland of the Edition Wars”!

Recently Open Design LLC decided to give away KQ #14 for free. Just go to the Kobold Quarterly store and use the code “KoboldWelcome” at the checkout! This offer is valid until February 14th 2012. So what are you waiting for? Get you free copy now. It’s definitely worth it!

Freebies: Renaissance

Stargazer — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:24:59 +0000

Yay! I have been waiting for this since I first read about it: Renaissance is a free roleplaying system designed for historical and fantasy games in, as the authors put it, “age of blackpowder weapons”. It was created by Peter Cakebread and Ken Walton who are known for Clockwork & Chivalry 1st Edition and Abney’ Park’s Airship Pirates. Renaissance is based on D101 Games’ OpenQuest which itself is based on Mongoose Publishing’s Runequest SRD.

The 139-paged PDF contains all the rules needed to play, two magic systems and a bestiary. Kudos to Cubicle 7 and Cakebread & Walton for releasing the rules for free. The PDF doesn’t contain any artwork, but that’s negligible especially since the PDF is mainly meant as a System Reference Document. The rules of the game can be used under the OGL.

If you are a fan of Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying and Runquest, you actually have the choice between quite a few different rule variants now. There’s Renaissance, Mongoose Publishing’s Legend, D101 Games’ OpenQuest, Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying and Goblinoid Games’ GORE. All those games are more or less compatible, so you can use material designed for one game in the other with ease.

Renaissance looks pretty interesting because it was created with the Renaissance era in mind. The magic system also looks pretty unique. If you’re looking for a skill-based RPG with a percentile dice mechanic, you should definitely check Renaissance out!

Freebies: Atomic Highway

Stargazer — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:09:01 +0000

Atomic Highway, an excellent post-apocalyptic roleplaying game written by Colin Chapman is now available for free! Here’s what Colin has written in the announcement on the official Radioactive Ape Designs site:

RIDE FOR FREE!
The Atomic Highway pdf is now free to download! Atomic Highway and its fans have been really good to me these two years since its release, so I felt it was time to release AH into the wild, so to speak. Now, anyone who wants to check it out can grab it for free at DriveThruRPG, in perpetuity.
Grab it from DriveThruRPG!

And while you’re there, Irradiated Freaks is now down to $4.99. What have you got to lose?

Atomic Highway is my favorite choice when it comes to post-apocalyptic RPGs and the underlying V6 Engine could work great in other genres as well. I am still hoping that Colin will release a generic V6 rulebook one day for us to tinker with. In the meantime, you should check out AH, especially now that it’s free! If you want to learn more about AH, please check out my post about it.

Update: WR&M in Spanish

Stargazer — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 11:29:21 +0000

Yesterday I got the final PDF of the Spanish translation of WR&M. I have to admit I can’t judge the quality of the translation since I don’t speak Spanish, but I am very happy with the layout and the artwork of this book. The guys from Arcano XIII really put a lot of work into this project, there’s no doubt about that.

When everything goes as planned they’ll officially release it on their blog on the upcoming weekend. I’ll update this post with a link to the PDF as soon as it goes life.

Tricks or Treats at the spookiest RPG Download Store!

Stargazer — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:30:49 +0000

DriveThruRPG is wishing us all happy Halloween by giving away a couple of free products. They’ve hidden pumpkins all over the site that you can click on. It will be either be a treat (an awesome free product) or a fun trick. Of course the free products are mostly horror based and the treats I’ve found so far are not too shabby. So, head over to DriveThruRPG right now and look for the treats. Feel free to post some tips where to look here or at the DriveThruRPG Facebook page!

UPDATE:
These are the products I’ve found so far:

Little Fears Nightmare Edition
Profane Miracles
The Best Little Hellhouse in Texas
ICONS: Murder of Crowes
Supernatural Adventures
~~Living in a Zombie Land – Halloween 2011~~ (This was actually a trick!)
All Flesh Must be Eaten Revised
100 Horror Adventure Seeds
Midnight Harvest
Kobold Quarterly #15
Werewolf: The Apocalypse (Revised Edition)

I actually believe that might be all of them, because the site mentions 13 pumpkins and I found three “tricks”.
They are actually pretty easy to find. Just make sure you explore the DriveThruRPG site thoroughly and don’t forget in your account page!

Mistborn

Stargazer — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 05:11:05 +0000

Yesterday Crafty Games released its Mistborn Adventure Game Primer on DriveThruRPG for free. I have to admit I haven’t followed the development of the Mistborn Adventure Game at all. I haven’t heard of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn novels before and I thought it was just another run-of-the-mill fantasy series. Oh boy, was I wrong.

I also expected the game using Crafty Games’ Fantasy Craft system. I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that the game uses an all new system. Don’t get me wrong, I like Fantasy Craft. It’s a very cool rule system and I think more people should check it out. But it always was a bit too rules-heavy for me. It’s basically on the same crunch level as Pathfinder or D&D 3.5, but I just don’t have the time for such rules anymore. I want my game rules to be light. But I digress.

So yesterday I downloaded the aforementioned primer to see what all the fuss was about. And I was blown away. The rules are really, really light-weight and have a very narrativist feel to them. That was something I haven’t expected, but I like it. I like it a lot. I think I have to “borrow” some of their ideas for the game I am currently working on. I hope the Craft Games’ guys don’t mind.

I also quickly realized that the game was no classic fantasy but sounded very unique and the world had some Victorian feel to it. At least that’s what the interior artwork reminded me of. I think I’ll have to get one of the Brandon Sanderson novels soon to learn more about the world. I already downloaded an excerpt from the Kindle book, but I haven’t had the time to give it a closer look.

Alas there are a few things I don’t really like about the primer. The description of the rules is terribly vague. I had to read the paragraph about how to read the dice results several times before I had a faint idea how it’s supposed to work. It get even worse when it comes to conflict. There’s talk of “action dice” you get, but there’s no explanation what these dice are, how many you get, and so on. Perhaps a few examples would have helped.

But overall the primer did what is was intended to do: it piqued my interest. It made me interested not only in the game, but also in the novel series. And I definitely recommend you check it out.

First Look: Anima Prime

Stargazer — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 09:32:20 +0000

Yesterday night I was browsing RPGNow in hopes of finding an interesting RPG I haven’t heard about yet. With thousands of titles on the site, it’s actually pretty easy to find stuff I haven’t seen before. What finally caught my interest was a game by the name of “Anima Prime – Steambots and Mega Swords”. Obviously the author of the book, Christian Griffen, set out to write a pen & paper game inspired by the Final Fantasy series of video games as well as Avatar: The Last Airbender and similar anime shows. It was just $10 and looked like I could like it, so I bought it.

While flipping through it I noticed that the game has been licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 US License. That means you can take the rules and design your own game around it and even sell it as long as you share it under a similar license and give the author of Anima Prime proper credit. You can also share material you wrote for Anima Prime under the same conditions. That’s always nice, especially because CC is much less complicated to work with than the OGL. There’s also a free edition available at the official site that comes in a simpler layout and without the artwork, but aside from that it should contain the same content as the paid version.

From what I’ve seen so far, the rules are not too complicated and the dice pool system it uses seems to work fine. Combat is a bit more elaborate and allows the characters to perform fancy moves, summon “eidolons” and there are “soulbound weapons” at the characters’ disposal.

The artwork and layout are pretty nice, especially if you are in the manga style. The 196-paged PDF also comes with a setting for you to play in, but the rules also contain quite a few tips on how to create your own setting.

All in all Anima Prime looks like a fun game. I’ve always wanted to run a game in a Final Fantasy-inspired world and it seems as if Anima Prime could handle this perfectly. If you are even remotely interested in the genre, you should at least check the free version out.

Freebie: Système Alamänder

Stargazer — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 09:47:43 +0000

On the D101 Games site I found a link to a free OpenQuest-based game. The game is obviously set into the world of a French fantasy book series by Alexis Flamand which combines humor, criminal mysteries and fantasy – or at least that’s what I think the French descriptions said.

The 44-paged “Système Alamänder” is a beautifully laid out PDF that makes me wish I was fluent in French. Alas I am not, so the only thing I can do it look at the pages and admire them.

In the case you speak French and if you have perhaps even heard about the book series you should have a look at the “Système Alamänder” and after that please come back here and let me know what you could learn about it.

Damn, I wish my games were looking that great!

Two new WYRED releases

Stargazer — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 06:58:56 +0000

I think I have talked about WYRED before. It’s a cyberpunk roleplaying game written by R.E. Davis aka Rev.Lazaro and powered by the Wyrm System. Today he released two new versions of it:

Rough Draft 5 is the final iteration of the normal d6-based rules. But he didn’t stop there. Rough Draft 6 uses a new d12 mechanic, which is something I actually planned for the SF variant of Wyrm. From what I’ve seen WYRED has a lot of promise and if you are into the genre you definitely should check it out!

You can get the details on both releases here.

Free FATE

Stargazer — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:04:05 +0000

Recently I decided to switch to Free FATE for my current FATE games. This has mainly three reasons:

It’s free. We used Starblazer Adventures before, which is an awesome FATE game, but I just can’t expect all my players to get the book.
It’s short. With just 48 pages is much more compact than most other version of FATE. Of course it doesn’t genre-specific rules, but I can easily use what I need from other FATE games.
It’s available in German. One of my players don’t speak English at all, so I had to translate everything for him. Especially when it comes to stunts this can become quite the task.

Some people might say that my first reason is moot, since not every player needs a copy of the rules. That’s of course true, but some players are interested in reading the rules themselves – which I support if possible – but I just couldn’t lend them my book because I needed it to prepare for the next session. And SBA with it’s 600+ pages is not what I would consider “light reading”.

Free FATE is basically the shortest version of FATE I could find that doesn’t oversimplify things. I especially like the way stunts are handled. Instead of listing dozens of individual stunts Free FATE provides you with guidelines for your own stunts.

From what I’ve seen so far the rules presented in Free FATE are 100% compatible to Starblazer Adventures. So the switch from SBA to Free FATE should be pretty painless.

By the way, Free FATE is one of the few games where the German translation is actually better looking than the original one. While R Grant Erswell did a great job collating, modifying and augmenting the FATE rules, he’s layout skills are not up to par. It would be awesome if Kathy Schad, who did the layout for the German translation, would give the English original a facelift as well.

[Freebies] FU: the Free, Universal Roleplaying Game

Stargazer — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 10:00:26 +0000

Recently I discovered FU, the free, universal roleplaying game by Nathan Russel.

At the core of FU are Descriptors. Descriptors are adjectives or short sentences that descibe one aspect of the character. Each character has four Descriptors: Body, Mind, Edge and Flaw. Examples for the Body Descriptor may be Nimble, Tough, Fragile. A character’s Edge may be “Use Bull Whip” or “Read Minds”.

In addition to that each character gets to pick two pieces of equipment that are described by an adjective and a noun like “Fancy Dress”, “Ancient Pocket Watch”, “Faithful Horse”.

The task resolution system is very elegant, easy and deeper than you would expect. Basically you roll a d6 and consult a chart (see image below).

When the circumstances, your descriptors or your equipment make the task at hand easier or harder, you get to roll more or less dice. If you are facing favourable conditions the highest die roll is kept as the result. If you are facing unfavourable conditions the lowest die result is kept.

The system also has a meta-game currency called FU points that you can spend to get rerolls or extra dice. You get back spent FU points by doing cool stuff and roleplaying your character.

The whole FU RPG fits into a 23-paged PDF, is free and there’s even a license that allows you to create your own games based on FU.

I haven’t played FU yet, but I think it could be perfect for one-shot games, especially when you don’t want to bog down things by a lot of rules. It might also be a great way to introduce people (including kids) into roleplaying. Character creation should be done in mere minutes and then the fun can begin!

The only drawback that I have seen so far is that the game has no rules for character advancement, but I think that can be easily remedied by adding additional Descriptors or acquiring additional Gear after each session.

The PDF contains a free pulp scenario called “Race to the Temple of Tot” and an appendix with example descriptors. The official website also has two variants available for download: “May the FU Be With You” (a Star Wars hack) and “I know Kung-FU” (a Matrix hack).

If you’re looking for a free and easy to learn game to run a one-shot game in any setting, look no further than FU!

New Airship Pirates downloads

Stargazer — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:06:20 +0000

There’s now new Airship Pirates material available at the Cakebread & Walton website: deck plans of the Pirate Ship Cordelia, as well as maps of the North American Wastes and the Sierra Nevada area.

If you are still waiting for your copy of the rulebook to arrive, you at least get some more material to check out while waiting. And if you already own Airship Pirates don’t forget to have a look at the errata available there as well.

Victorian & Steampunk Name Generator

Stargazer — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 09:00:13 +0000

I am terrible when it comes to coming up names for my characters. So whenever possible I make use of random name generators. As I mentioned several times before I am currently waiting for my copy of Airship Pirates to arrive. Alas I don’t know above the setting yet to make plans for a campaign, I already started looking for a tool to help me to create names for NPCs. Luckily I stumbled upon Spencer Rhodes’ Victorian & Steampunk Name Generator.

The web-based generator allows you to generate up to 15 randomly generated male or female names suited for a game set into the Victorian Age (or a Steampunk equivalent). You can choose between the various social classes. I am sure this random name generator will be invaluable for me in the future!

Freebies: Who Watches the Watch Fires (AGE System)

Stargazer — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 10:00:29 +0000

I am truly amazed how much third-party support Green Ronin’s AGE system has been getting lately. There are of course numerous fan supplements, adventures and conversions on the ‘net, but a good portion of support has come from our good friends at Open Design LLC.

The upcoming Midgard Campaign setting will come with full support for that game system, Kobold Quarterly regularly has interesting articles for fans of the system and they recently released a Midgard Bestiary for AGE.

They latest release is “Who Watches the Watch Fires”, a complete free adventure for beginning characters written by Jonathan Roberts and converted to the AGE system by Josh Jarman.

The watch fires of Friula warn against invaders, because Friula’s small army relies on the surrounding badlands to defend the city and its sparse farmland. Any attackers must cross treacherous hills and travel a road rife with blind gullies and steep canyons. Even a modest force can bleed aggressors white long before they reach the city gates—but only with enough warning.

A line of watch fires stands along the southern road to Starlight Keep and the Sticks of Trombei. At the first sign of an invasion, the guards light the fires, the city locks its gates, and the banners of Friula ride out to thwart the invading army.

But now, the watchfire keep has been taken by treachery, and your heroes discover the betrayal by chance. Can your heroes retake it in time—and light the watch fires?

You can download this free adventure for the AGE system set into the Midgard campaign setting at the KQ online store. A D&D 4th Edition version appeared in KQ #18.

From Weird West to Barbarians of the Future

Stargazer — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 10:00:11 +0000

Today I want to share a couple of things I stumbled upon during the last days.

Tomb of the Overfiend
Weird West is definitely one of coolest old-school games ever conceived. It’s extremely rules-light, but contains a lot of weird west goodness. Recently Stuart Robertson, creator of that fine game, released a free one-page adventure based on an excellent map by Matt Jackson. And even if you’re not into Weird West you can easily use it for other old-school games as well.
Ashen Stars Theme Music
James Semple who has done several soundtracks for Gumshoe games in the past, has composed a theme music for Robin D. Laws latest game, Ashen Stars. I really hope this is the first sign of a full Ashen Stars soundtrack to come. You can listen to the rather short theme tune here.
Barbarians of the Future
You probably might already have heard about Barbarians of Lemuria, Simon Washbourne’s Sword & Sorcery RPG. While I haven’t tried the game yet, it’s among the games I have to give a try at least once. Some people actually call it one of the best RPGs of the genre. Obviously the system used in BoL can also be easily be used in other genres. There’s Jabberwocky Productions’ post-apocalyptic setting-expansion Barbarians of the Aftermath for example.
A while back rpg.net forum member Maxwell Luther created a free PDF supplement for BoA that allows players and the GM to experience adventures in the grim-dark future of the Warhammer 40,000 universe (with the serial numbers filed off). If you are interested in both BoA and the WH40K universe, you should definitely give it a look. You can download the 42-paged PDF here.
Expedition RPG
Fellow RPG blogger Dennis N. Santana has recently released an early playtest edition of his Expedition RPG. I haven’t had time to give it a closer look, but according to Shaun Welch’s playtest reports (part one & part two), he and his players not only had fun with the fast character creation system that allows truly unique character concepts, but also very much enjoyed the combat rules. From what I’ve seen Expedition contains a lot of interesting ideas that set the game apart from the majority of fantasy games. If you’re looking for something new, why don’t you give it a try. It’s free and obviously pretty polished for a game still in its alpha stage.

Freebie: Stars Without Number Sheets

Stargazer — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 10:00:26 +0000

We actually planned to bring you some belated GenCon coverage this week, but as it seems Sunglar has some serious computer problems right now. So I had to look for something cool and interesting to share with you instead. Totally unprepared I checked the feeds I subscribed in Google Reader and stumbled upon a post by John Harper on his blog “The Mighty Atom”. Yes, he’s the same guy who has written Lady Blackbird and a few other cool indie games.

Recently he has discovered Stars Without Number, and since he planned to run a game with it, he just had to create his own custom sheets.

The PDF he created contains not only class sheets for the Expert, Warrior and Psychic, a starship record sheet, planet sheet and faction files. If you’re interested in running that game, you should definitely check out John’s sheets. And while you’re at it, let him know if you like them!

What time is it? Jade Regent time!

Sunglar — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 10:00:45 +0000

I just got an e-mail from Paizo promoting their upcoming Adventure Path, Jade Regent. Curiously I organized my RPGs today (part of the ongoing get the library back into a semblance of normalcy project) and I gave Pathfinder its own very own shelve; before it used to be grouped with all the other D&D editions. Looking over the Pathfinder Adventure Paths I noticed that I won the very first one, Rise of the Runelords (I got the first part at Gen Con when I went for the first time) and then a smattering of issues here and there, mostly when a topic they covered appealed to me.

I am NOT their market for adventure paths. I rarely, if ever, play pre-published adventures. I may read the occasional one for an idea, stealing a map here, a trap there, but let’s just say the last adventure I ran ALMOST straight from the book was an AD&D 2^nd edition adventure. Still I find the format Paizo uses intriguing because each adventure installment is accompanied by other gaming material. I have also recently become more interested in Golarion. While I doubt I will ever run a game in that setting, it’s one of those worlds I love reading about for inspiration and just for the sheer fun of it.

One thing I love from all adventure paths is the free Players Guide! Who doesn’t like a freebie! This one is no different. This time around the traits are tied to some key NPCS. The NPCS are very nice and can be used for any campaign. The guide also has rules for caravans. Yes you read that right, caravans… Their statistics, events, job, combat, the idea seemed farfetched at first but for a campaign where the PC will be making the long journey overland to a distant land it seems like a good mechanic to add. I will need to read it better to see how I could put this to use. Interesting!

So if you like adventure paths and are interested in one out of the adventures of Marco Polo, and you want to visit the distant Asian themed lands of Golarion, this Adventure Path may just be up you alley. Me I’m sitting down to read the Player’s Guide. Enjoy…

PS- As I was re-reading this post for typos I noticed I had originally written Rise of the Rune Lords as RIDE of the Runelords… That adventure path would have been very different if the protagonists were a bunch of Harley ridding guys with big beer bellies. Just saying…

New Savage Worlds Test Drive… and more!

Sunglar — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 10:00:27 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about just how excited I was about the new Savage Worlds Deluxe. When the book was available for pre-order I splurged and ordered the Print+PDF copy with the cards and arranged to pick it up at Gen Con. I downloaded the PFD and have been devouring it. I must say it is not a radical change, and I didn’t expect it to be. Is it perfect? No, but I think it’s an improvement. I really should write a proper review… But I digress.

I want to run a one-shot for my players, and maybe even dare run a game in Gen Con, so I was doing research online about resources available and was pleasantly surprised what I found this: The Wild Hunt

Michael mentioned it on his Free RPG Day post as Pinnacle’s freebie. I knew it was a sample adventure but I had totally missed it also included the latest Savage Worlds Test Drive. (Can you say clueless blogger?). The concept of the Test Drive was actually my first introduction to the Savage Worlds RPG. I was visiting Florida and while shopping at Sci-Fi City I was given one of the older versions of the Test Drive. It intrigued me and it led to my eventual acquisition of the game.

So This latest version of the Test Drive rules with an adventure, characters, standees, handouts, is a GREAT download if you want to learn more about the game, or to hand out to players who you think may be interested. I have been a fan of previous versions, this one is no different.

If you are undecided about the new Savage Worlds Deluxe rules Pinnacle has posted handouts on the Interludes and Chase rules that you can check out. Good times for Savage Worlds fans!

A Wanderer’s Romance now available

Stargazer — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 04:35:21 +0000

SoogaGames and Stargazer Games are proud to announce that Christopher McDowall’s game “A Wanderer’s Romance” is finally available for free from DriveThruRPG. So what’s this game about?

The world began as nothing but ocean. The Origins raised up a million colourful islands, anything larger than a few dozen miles being swallowed by the envious deep. Some of these immaterial beings chose to take a physical form and live in the varied lands they had created, eventually settling into the forms of men and beasts. Our ancestors.

The Origins that did not take physical form paid a great cost. They were left unable to affect their world directly, relying upon influencing men with words and knowledge. Their teachings led to our understanding of elemental balance, the formation of the thousand Legendary Styles and the universal code of combat that define our world today.

You are a great man or woman. An errant trained in both the noble art of combat and in contests of body and mind. Drifting from one island to another, you have your own philosophy on life and the power to enforce it.

A Wanderer’s Romance is a game of martial art duels and tea-making contests set in a world of unnatural islands on an endless sea. It draws on its Wuxia influences but focuses on a character driven game with scope for incredible environments and a true sense of exploration.

Features of the game include:

A fast, simple and easy to learn system for task resolution that spreads consistently across duels, contests, activities and group tests.
Dozens of combat styles for characters to learn as well as countless other types of contest they can specialise in.
A setting outline designed for maximum creative freedom. Every group’s world will be different but will share in similar themes.
Multiple ways to support your allies from teaching them lessons in defeat and envigorating them through activities to training them in combat styles and preparing tea and food that will balance their elemental forces.

By the way, the beautiful artwork in the game was created by Pavel Elagin and was used with permission. Check out his portfolio for more examples of his art!

What I am working on right now

Stargazer — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 12:18:11 +0000

I recently had a couple of long weekends that allowed me to work on several projects. One of these projects has been Jay Steven Anyong’s BADASS which we released some time ago. Now that the game is released I had some time to work on some other projects.

A Wanderer’s Romance
A Wanderer’s Romance is a wuxia-style game written by Chris McDowall of SoogaGames. A long time ago he already asked me to do the layout of one of his games but alas I always had to put this off. But last Thursday I sat down and finished the layout. Of course there are still a few errors to fix, but I hope we can release this game in the coming days/weeks. It’s quite different in style from BADASS but I am definitely as excited!

Pavel Elagin allowed us to use his awesome artwork, which really helps to let “A Wanderer’s Romance” shine.

One Thousand and One Posts – Best of Stargazer’s World
When we hit the 1000th post milestone at Stargazer’s World a while back I asked the readers for their help: “What are your favorite posts?” The idea was to compile the best posts into some kind of blog anthology. Alas the feedback was quite limited, but I didn’t want to let the project die. So I picked some of the most popular, most controversial and interesting posts and started to work on “One Thousand and One Posts”.

Please note that the pictures above are taken from a very early draft, so there might still be changes. But I definitely love the cover artwork created by Vlad Gerasimov who gave me permission to use his artwork as long as I don’t sell the PDF. Since I always give my work away for free, this should be no major hurdle.

Aside from that I still have a couple of game design things brewing at the moment. Alas I am not ready to talk about those, because I don’t want to repeat the Gears debacle…

Get your Free RPG Day swag today!

Stargazer — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 10:00:59 +0000

As you you may already know last Saturday was Free RPG Day. Alas not all of us had the opportunity to go to a participating FLGS to pick up some nice freebies, socialize with fellow players, and participate in a game or two. But some of the publishers which provided free adventures, free quickstart booklets etc. also released them in electronic format. Here’s what we found so far:

Alderac Entertainment Group

Legacy of Disaster L5R adventure

Eden Studios

All Flesh Must Be Eaten: The Walking Dead

Green Ronin

Dragon Age RPG Quickstart Guide PDF

Paizo

Pathfinder Module: We Be Goblins!

Pinnacle Entertainment Group

The Wild Hunt

White Wolf

Nightmare on Hill Manor

When I am not mistaken a few of the other participating publishers usually release their freebies in PDF form some time after Free RPG Day, so I might add a few more entries to this list later. If I missed anything that’s already out there, please let me know in the comments below!

I also want to thank all participating publishers for their participation in Free RPG Day!

My gift to the Fudge community

Stargazer — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 18:19:25 +0000

As I mentioned a while ago I had some plans to run a Fudge Day event this year. Alas several things went wrong and so this never happened. So I was looking for another way to spread the word about Fudge with other gamers. In the end I came up with a one-page version of “Fudge in a Nutshell”. “Fudge in a Nutshell” basically gives you all the information needed to understand Fudge in a condensed format. But the original version needed two full pages, so I removed a few sections that are not necessarily needed, put my layout skills to work and fit everything onto one page!

The result of my efforts can be downloaded here. The PDF document contains the one-paged “Fudge in a Nutshell” and the Open Game License. Printed out this makes the perfect handout for con games! I’ll definitely print a couple of those out and share them with my RPG pub meeting regulars next month!

Ready to become the BADASS you always dreamed to be?

Stargazer — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:32:09 +0000

Stargazer Games and Jay Steven Anyong, the Philippine Gamer, are proud to announce the release of BADASS, the game that kicks logic in the face, twists its arm behind its back and makes it cry for its momma.

It makes me tremendously proud that Jay asked me not only to do the layout for his game but also wanted me to release it as a Stargazer Games product.

The 28-paged PDF is available for FREE from DriveThruRPG. So, what are you waiting for? Download the PDF and become the Badass you always wanted to be!