Michael Garcia is currently working on a fantasy RPG using Chad Underkoffler’s PDQ rules. This yet unnamed game is planned to be released as a 64-page print book. But he also intends to release some stuff for free (like his awesome FATE/FUDGE character sheet).

For more information on Quick & Dirty Games, you should check out the official website! By the way, I helped Michael with the website and logo, and we are going to release a free game I have written soon. So stay tuned!

Related posts:

1. Updated Dungeonslayers website
2. The ENnies and Quick-Start Rules
3. First Look: Swords & Wizardry Quick Start

The character sheet was created with the PDQ system in mind, so if you want to play Ad Astra with any other system, you’ll need to create your own sheets. You can download the characters sheet as a PDF document here.

Related posts:

1. Warrior, Rogue & Mage: Character sheet!
2. Sneak peek: Dungeonslayers character sheet
3. Ad Astra PDQ character creation

QotMRs is available either as PDF or as softcover book. The first is available at RPGNow and costs $8.95, the printed version, that you’ll get at Silver Branch’s Lulu storefront, will set you back $16.50. For your hard-earned money you get a 72-page book with a nice full-color cover. The rest of the book is b/w but features some great artwork and the standard two-column layout. All in all it’s a pretty good looking book considering the low price.

Silver Branch advertises Questers as “The lighter side of traditional fantasy gaming. In less than 80 pages.” And if you expect a rules-light fantasy games you’ll be pretty happy with your purchase. But if you expect it to actually be funny, you’re out of your luck. Don’t get me wrong, Questers is not a bad game, especially when you look for a good example on how you could use the PDQ rules in a fantasy setting. But neither the writing nor setting of Questers is more than mildly funny or even original.

The strong point of the book are definitely its rules. The designers of Questers took the core PDQ rules and added a lot of additional rules to allow an almost D&D-like gaming experience. Each character in Questers can choose between one of the five basic races (Humans, elves, dwarves, orcs and hoblings) and even has a level (something unheard of in core PDQ). Each non-human race gets a Racial Quality that works like a cluster of normal qualities even including weaknesses.
Although the addition of racial qualities makes the rules a bit more crunchy than core PDQ, it’s an interesting concept that works well within the fantasy genre. Halfbreeds like Half-Orcs, Half-Elves, etc. can choose which Strengths and Weaknesses they inherit from their parents. So not every halfbreed character is exactly the same.

Another intersting addition to core PDQ are Questers’ magic rules. Characters can choose Spells from three different camps: miracles, thaumaturgy and mysticism. Each spell is its own arcane quality. Players are basically free to create their own spells but player and GM should make sure that the spells are a) not too broad nor too narrow and b) do have a proper application in the campaign to be played.  At the core of the magic system is the Magic Effects Table which helps the GM to decide which target number is appropriate for any given action. 

Another nice touch is the addition of a small bestiary complete with a list of monster qualities. It should be pretty easy to create hundreds of monsters using the examples in the book.

The setting of Questers is the weak part of the book. The world of Median is a generic high-fantasy setting with a standard pantheon of Greater Gods like Elal, god of sky, weather, strength and rulership, and an endless army of Lesser Gods that can be actually created by players on a whim. This is an interesting idea, although I fear that this could actually become problematic for the GM if the players go mad doing this.
The main continent of Median is Ludor, a place that is home for your standard fantasy realms like the north-african-inspired Ar-Karap, the League of Groth, where obviously all the goths of Ludor live and asian-inspired Tek Wei. All in all you get a continent that contains all the usual fantasy tropes. If you want to play a horned-helmeted viking, you probably hail from Valharia, and most elves call Yrsiriel Forest their home. 

The book is concluded by some sample characters, the aforementioned bestiary, a short game masters section with some tips on how to run Questers and a sample adventure.

When I have to judge Questers I am a bit torn. I love the idea of a PDQ-based fantasy RPG and I think Questers shines in some areas especially in how the rules have been implemented but it also falls short in a lot of other things. Especially the setting is a bit bland and the tone of the game is not as funny as it could have been. As a tongue-in-cheek fantasy RPG it fails but it’s a great fantasy RPG toolbox and with a very low price to boot!

Related posts:

1. Review: Realms of Cthulhu
2. Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide – A first look
3. Why I fear the Forgotten Realms …

Take a space ship for example. In one of my early posts about the Ad Astra setting I posted the D6 Space stats for the Theseus Starfighter. Let’s now have a look at how we could rebuild this starfighter using PDQ rules:

Let’s first start with the vehicle type. Every vehicle should have at least one quality that designates the basic type of the ship. This quality should start at Average [0]. The GM can of course choose to improve this quality if the vehicle is exceptional for its class. So we write down Average Starfighter [+0]. I imagine the Theseus fighter as an old workhorse model that has been in use for quite some time now. So I assign Good Workhorse [+2]. The fighter should neither be very fast or have superior armor, but I think Average Armor [+0] is in order. We shouldn’t forget that we need some qualities written down, so that the fighter can take a beating. Finally I add the weapons as Average Medium Lasers [+0] and Good “Artemis” Missile Launcher [+2]. Finally lets add a weakness to make the design a bit more interesting. Since it’s an outdated model it’s not up to par with some of the more fancy designs. So, we add Poor Outdated Model [-2] as last quality. Ok, let’s review our design:

Theseus Starfighter
Average Starfighter [+0]
Good Workhorse [+2]
Average Armor [+0]
Average Medium Lasers [+0]
Good “Artemis” Missile Launcher [+2]
Poor Outdated Model [-2]

In order to totally disable the ship you’ll need 16 hits, which is pretty decent for a starfighter. The pilot can also decide to reduce the Armor or Workhorse qualities by one level in order to “take it on the chin” and ignore all damage from a single attack.

So, how does starship combat work? It works just like normal combat. But pilots may use both their own and their ship’s qualities. For example a pilot with the Good Starfighter Pilot [+2] quality wants to fire a volley of missiles at an enemy craft. He can add not only the bonus from his piloting quality but also the bonus from the weapon he used. In this particular case he rolls 2d6+4. In most cases player and GM should be able to decide which qualities and weaknesses are relevant for any given action.

Related posts:

1. Ad Astra: PDQ vs. D6 1:0
2. Ad Astra PDQ character creation
3. House rules for Swords & Wizardry

Both the free PDQ core rules PDF and the PDQ# PDF don’t come with any magic or psionics rules, but I own both Quester of the Middle Realms and S7S, that come with some additional PDQ rules like magic, vehicular combat (in the case of S/S) and more. But again I won’t just copy the rules from those books. But there is a nice table of modifiers for magic effects that I can use for psionic effects, too.

So, let’s talk about character creation for Ad Astra works. Every character consists of a name, a description (including such things like looks, biography, etc.), a weakness and a couple of qualities. Each character also starts with a fate point and 0 experience points. Currently I plan to use fate points mainly to allow players to save their characters in situations they usually would have died (like when they botched a climbing wall, hundreds of meters above ground for example), but perhaps I will allow more uses when I get more comfortable with the system.

Every character starts with a Past, Motivation and Nationality quality. That’s something I took from PDQ# and it helps fleshing out the character tremendously. My players where quite creative when they came up with their pasts and motivations, so this will surely be a very exciting campaign. All those qualities start on Good [+2].

The eligible Nationalities are Gaian Republic, Tovenaar Empire, Akkathon Federation, Venshran Principality and SpaceCorp Corporate State. The Nationality quality gives the character a bit more background and allows him access to a wide range of knowledge about their home planet, home region, local politics, et cetera. Nationality starts on Good [+2], too.

Aside from Past, Motivation and Nationality, my players were allowed to choose four additional qualities at Good [+2]. A special quality is Esper, since it gives access to psionic abilities. Esper starts a Average [+0], thus making esper characters a bit weaker than their mundane counterparts. But since the psionic talent is very versatile, I think it’s fair. Esper can be used to use such powers as telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, psychometry, far seeing and many more.

In order to start with a quality higher than Good [+2] you have to forfeit one of the other qualities. For example: You want to start with Good [+2] Esper, so you have only two additional qualities left to choose (in addition to your Past, Motivation and Nationality) of course).

Another important character aspect is his weakness. Every character has one weakness quality and it starts at Poor [-2]. The weakness is a constant story hook and usually leads to downshifts when a characters weakness hampers his actions. But there may be cases when the weakness could also be a strength of  a character. For example a curious character may overhear a conversation someone else would have missed.

Alas I forgot to copy my player’s characters, so I will have to post their stats after our next session. So stay tuned for that!

Related posts:

1. Improve Your Game: Character creation as a team effort
2. Ad Astra: Starships using PDQ rules
3. Starblazer Adventures: Our character creation session

Two of my players wanted to play espers, so I told them that one of the qualities they could choose, has to be Esper and that this quality would start at Average (0) instead of Good (+2). This makes espers a bit weaker (they can’t soak as much damage as others) but the versatility of the esper quality should make up for it.

As for vehicular/space combat I think of giving each vehicle/space ship a couple of qualities and a weakness of their own. Or I try to adapt the S7s rules for vehicular combat to space ships, when my approach doesn’t work out. When I remember correctly another S7S fan has already started a Star Trek conversion for PDQ, so perhaps I can borrow a few ideas from that project.

But fans of the D6 system should not worry, I haven’t abandoned D6 altogether. It is possible that we’ll return to using D6 at a later date and perhaps I will at least release some of the D6 stuff I’ve created so far for you to use.

Related posts:

1. Ad Astra: And so it begins… (Part 2)
2. Dungeoncraft: Ad Astra!
3. Ad Astra: Starships using PDQ rules

So, what am I doing right now? Aside from going to work and all that stuff, I waste a lot of time surfing the net and looking for inspiration for my projects. I really should be working on my SF campaign setting Ad Astra, but since I now entered the phase where I have to create the “crunchy” parts, things get more complicated. It’s pretty easy for me to churn out pages of fluff, but modifying d6 Space’s Metaphysics or d6 Adventure’s Psionics to suit my needs is harder than I thought. I also need stats for gear, weapons and a lot of space ships before I can even think about running the game. I hope my players can wait for a few more weeks.

I am also still reading “Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies“. The setting is awesome. What surprised me the most is that the nations of the 7 Skies are actually unique and not just fantasy versions of European nation in the 17th century. I also can’t wait to try out the PDQ# system that S7S uses.

I also bought a copy of “Questers of the Middle Realms” on RPGNow, a humorous fantasy RPG using the PDQ rules. The setting, the “Middle Realms” is a bit generic, but QotMR shows that PDQ can be used even in a high-fantasy campaign.

That brings me to my PDQ Horror project. Inspired by Chgowiz’ posts about the solo games with his wife, I decided to start a solo game with my girlfriend. I wanted to try something new and after some consideration we chose contemporary horror for the setting and PDQ (or perhaps PDQ#) for the rules. Alas I am still struggling with the basics of the setting, since I don’t want to repeat all classic horror clichés. But it’s pretty hard to be truly original.

Stargazer signing off!

Related posts:

1. Update on the status of “Ask the Stargazer!”
2. Ad Astra update
3. Open D6 update!

Stargazer: At first I want to thank you for taking your time to answer some of my questions. Can you tell us a bit about yourself? What was the first RPG you played and what made you enter the “industry” so to speak?

Chad: The first RPG I ever played was BASIC D&D, back in 1981. I continued to roleplay throughout junior high, high school, college, and afterward.

I entered the industry in 1998. I had been participating on a GURPS-based mailing list, and was writing/statting various things for posting there. Someone mentioned to me that my writing was pretty good, and I should submit some of my stuff to PYRAMID ONLINE, the Steve Jackson Games magazine.

I did. They accepted it. I got paid. I wrote something else. They accepted it. I got paid.

I kept repeating that, and eventually gained a regular column on PYRAMID. After that, I started branching out and writing stuff for other games and companies.

Stargazer: The Atomic Sock Monkey Press site only lists you as staff. Is the Monkey King doing all the work alone with his two cats or do you have some uncredited Monkey Minions hidden in your basement?

Chad: Well, for the most part (except for artwork and editing), up until the release of THE ZORCERER OF ZO, I pretty much *did* do all the work myself. Writing, layout, the business end… It was a lot of work.

Stargazer: Recently your latest work “Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies” has been released as hardcopy and PDF. Can you tell us what S7S is about? What makes the world unique?

Chad: S7S is all about style — swashbuckling style! While Justice may be blind, Luck definitely keeps a lookout for flashy and fun folks!

It’s a world shaped like a snowglobe, with floating islands hovering within, and skyships travelling between them.

Stargazer: Now that S7S is done, have you already started working on your next project?

Chad: No, actually. I am taking a long break from “writing or game design with an eye towards publication” — instead I want to play more, design for fun, and write for fun.  In essence, a short sabbatical.

Stargazer: For S7S you worked with Evil Hat Productions who are publishing the game for you. When I am not mistaken you self-published all your other games, so what lead to the decision to cooperate with Evil Hat this time?

Chad: I discovered a few years ago that the business and production details weren’t as fun for me as they used to me. I’d gleaned all of the fun and interest I could out of them over that time, which was a useful education.

Also, I realized I just wasn’t as *good at it* as other people… So I went looking for people who are good at it. Thus, my new association with Evil Hat.

Stargazer: When I first read the PDQ rules some time ago, PDQ’s qualities reminded me of a lot of FATE’s aspects. Another system with similar mechanics is S. John Ross’ RISUS. Is this coincidence or was PDQ inspired by FATE and/or RISUS?

Chad: RISUS was definitely an influence on PDQ, if not exactly an inspiration — I’d already banged together a few ideas (inspired by OVER THE EDGE and possibly on misremembered elements of FUDGE, FATE’s precursor) for PDQ on my own before I came across it. But yes: RISUS helped.

FATE — along with ADVENTURE! — has had a couple effects on PDQ, mostly after I read SPIRIT OF THE CENTURY. You can see the influence on the basic game engine of PDQ when you look at PDQ#, the freebie version of S&S’s rules.

Stargazer: PDQ has a quite interesting damage mechanic. Can you tell us a bit about that and how did you come up with the idea?

Chad: Hit Points are boring. I wanted something that was not boring. I also wanted some player choice in assigning damage. I wanted a player to be able to sacrifice elements to keep going. I didn’t want an immediate death spiral.

When you take damage, you reduce one or more of your choice of Qualities. This permits a player to attempt to keep his or her character’s effectiveness optimized for whatever conflict the character is in as long as possible. (As Rob Donoghue has thumbnailed it: “You can punch Spider-Man in the girlfriend!”)

Stargazer: S7S is not the only game that uses the PDQ rules. Could you give us a small overview over the other PDQ-driven games?

Chad: From ASMP:
Dead Inside – You’ve lost your soul. What will you do to regain it?
Truth & Justice – Simple. Speedy. Super.
Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot – A simple, silly fighty game.
The Zorcerer of Zo – Fairy tale adventures in the zantabulous land of Zo.

From other companies:
Ninja Burger – The world’s only fast-food chain run by ninja is looking for new recruits!
Questers of the Middle Realms – The lighter side of fantasy gaming. In less than 80 pages.
Jaws of the Six Serpents – Sword and sorcery, and the darker side of fantasy.

Stargazer: With S7S you took an Open Design approach and blogged about the development process. How did this approach change the way you work on a new game? Are you going to post about your next project, too?

Chad: The biggest change, I think, was a certain reduction of the pressure I put on myself. You know, keeping my next secret project secret, and stressed because I couldn’t really talk to anyone about it. All that, and I sometimes got really useful comments!

When I get back to it, yeah, I probably will.

Stargazer: During the last years a couple of companies have jumped the OGL bandwagon and released their rules system under Wizard of the Coast’s Open Game License. PDQ is still pretty much closed although you give away the core rules for free on your site. Do you have plans to release the PDQ core rules under an open license in the future?

Chad: Actually, it’s better to say that PDQ is a FREE BUT CLOSED license at this point. That means that basically I need to see what the heck people want to put out commercially under it, before I give permission to do so. Add in system credit and a free ad page for ASMP, and that’s all I ask for.

However, for my part, I give licensees several things: access to a private email list of other licensees or potential licensees, my personal insights into gaming and game design, an established game brand, and whatever attention I can bring to their work.

Stargazer: And what is your stance on fan-created works based on PDQ?

Chad: Love them. Buy if you want to sell something, drop by and ask for a license.

Stargazer: Recently WotC stopped all PDF sales because of piracy. Have you had any problems with piracy of your products so far and are you thinking about going print-only, too?

Chad: I have no idea if ASMP’s PDFs have been pirated. Most of them are pretty cheap as it is. But it’s possible.

Listen: you’re not going to be able to stop pirates from pirating. So why blow a gasket about it. Stop it when it comes to your attention; defend your IP; but no measures will stop someone from scanning a hardcover book if they really want to.

Going print-only would be economic suicide for a micro-publisher — make that a NANO-PUBLISHER — like me. PDFs are the most cost effective products I make.

Stargazer: Thanks for answering those questions and enjoy your sabbatical!

Related posts:

1. “Blog of a new RPGer” interview
2. Interview with Andrew Modro aka Corvus
3. Interview: Bill Coffin

Skyships ply the 7 Skies, soaring from Cloud-Island to Cloud-Island for conquest, espionage, trade, and piracy. Kingdoms clash, cultures collide, and secrets abound. Heroes and villains roam Above the Blue, seeking action, intrigue, adventure, and style. Will you be one of them?

On the offical S7S site you’ll find additional information about the game including a free version of the PDQ rules used in the game and a 10-page PDF with background information on the campaign world.

Related posts:

1. Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies
2. Eclipse Phase available at RPGNow
3. Swords & Wizardry Reference Sheets now available at RPGNow

But the free rules available on the site lack rules for supernatural effects like magic or psionics. But both should play a role in the campaign I’ve planned, so do you guys have any idea how a simple magic system in PDQ could work? Magic should mainly be spell/ritual based much like in the “Call of Cthulhu” game. And psionics should mostly be ESP. The easiest way would be to make magic and psionics just another qualities and just improvise. But I think especially ritual magic would need a bit more background.

So my question to you is: how would you make magic work in PDQ?

Related posts:

1. Vaede Mecum of Magic released for free
2. Words of Power, part two of the Ultimate magic playtest…
3. Another take on magic items

So, what’s Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies about? Here’s an excerpt from the Atomic Sock Monkey website:

Skyships ply the 7 Skies, soaring from Cloud-Island to Cloud-Island for conquest, espionage, trade, and piracy. Kingdoms clash, cultures collide, and secrets abound. Heroes and villains roam Above the Blue, seeking action, intrigue, adventure, and style. Will you be one of them?

Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies
*Written by Chad Underkoffler
*Art by Greg Holkan & Scott Kane
*Layout by Fred Hicks

Wow, that sounds really intriguing! The game is driven by the Prose Descriptive Qualities (PDQ) System Core Rules which reminded me a bit of FATE. I had to admit that I haven’t had the time to check the PDQ rules out completely but PDQ’s Qualities (or Fortes as they are called in PDQ#, the Swashbuckling version of PDQ) have a lot in common with FATE’s Aspects, but that’s perhaps just me. You can get both the PDQ and PDQ# rules as free PDF documents on the Atomic Sock Monkey website’s Freebies section.

Related posts:

1. Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies now available over RPGNow
2. Status update
3. Fun with Wordle