RPG Stuff

I don't really do the game design thing anymore, but here's a run-down of game products I've written or contributed to significantly. It's in reverse order, newest first, with a few thoughts from me about each one. For a more formal summary, click the link at the bottom of each one.


TerrorHog 
Includes my version of the Crawlspace rules and a scenario and the only RPG drinking game that I'm aware of.


Qalidar: Qritter Qatalog
I'm not sure I can come up with enough self-indulgent blather about this to get the text down past the bottom of the picture. Maybe extra line breaks will help.

This is a monster book for Qalidar colon etc. all those subtitles.

It has all the monsters from the previous books plus some new ones.

I'm glad I finished it. Putting it together was a nice break, but now I really need to get back to work on The Nameless Way.

See the blurb and download it here or buy a print copy here.


Qalidar: The Fire Within
I had almost given up on this one. A while back, I decided that, instead of working towards a big "real Qalidar" book, I was going to continue to expand on the Basic book. The first order of business, naturally, would be to add in the rules that had had been left out, most importantly the remaining level progressions, but also the complete chapter on Organizations. I also wanted to give it a theme, because that stuff sounds kind of dry all by itself. Part of my plan for the complete Qalidar book was that the intelligent species would each have their own section instead of being mixed in with the miscellaneous critters section, so I decided to use one of those for the theme. I was always fond of the Stardust, so I picked them.

See the blurb and download it here or buy a print copy here.


Qalidar: Resistance Basic Book
I was never really satisfied with the Quick Start thing. It just wasn't really what I wanted to have out there, considering how much the pace of this project has slowed. Also, there was a minor thing that rubbed me the wrong way. Looking at the "also bought" line, I realized that I was mostly giving it to people who just snarfed up everything free and didn't even read it. Anyway, I wanted to offer a more complete book, something I could put out in stores as an enticement, and would also allow people to really play the game, not just run one sample adventure.

See the blurb and download it here or buy a print copy here.


Qalidar: Resistance Quick Start
This Quick Start package contains a complete scenario, pre-generated characters, and all the rules you need to to play the game. A separate Player's Pack file is included so GMs can show the rules to players without giving away any surprises. In addition to all that, we've thrown in a third file, a version of the preview edition from Gen Con 2013. We took out the exclusive sample adventure and the art, but otherwise it's a complete copy of the prototype game. (You won't need the prototype file to run the quick start; it's just a bonus.) To download a copy, don't click anywhere. It's gone.

Snow
This is another multi-system experiment, and I'm much happier with this choice of systems than I was with previous groups. This one is for Pertyon RPG (of course), Basic Fantasy, Labyrinth Lord, and Tunnels & Trolls. The setting is a mountainous slope in a blizzardy version of the Storm (from Qalidar). I've adapted several concepts from Qalidar to the assortment of rule sets in this adventure.

To buy it in print on Amazon, click here.
To buy it in PDF, click here.


The Ephemera Furnace
This is a Tunnels & Trolls scenario I wrote for the Halloween issue of Elder Tunnels. It's a gothic adventure with a cursed knight and some monsters made of disembodied parts, a sinister whisperer, and lots of (hopefully) creepy stuff going on. Writing for Tunnels and Trolls is fun because it's so easy to go wild with the new creations. It's also lots of fun to play, but somewhat less fun to GM because of the huge numbers you have to add up on the spot. I've got one more T&T adventure planned, and then I'm mostly focusing on developing the Peryton System and leaving the T&T to Tom and his people.

To read the official blurb or buy a copy, click here.


Pits of Paneris
This was an experiment that I'm not planning to take much farther, although I think Tom is. The idea was to write a short story and then provide a sort of toolkit for gamers (Peryton RPG and Pathfinder in one, True20 in the other) to build adventures in the immediate area, involving the same characters. I thought this one came out well, but sales were no better than for our other adventures, which kind of suggested to me that my fiction would be better invested with other publishers who will pay me for it rather than gamers who seem to think of it as padding. The other thing I learned is that I never want to write another Pathfinder adventure, ever. Yeesh. Being Pathfinder-compatible may have helped sales a little bit, but not enough to make it worth slogging through all those gigantic stat blocks.

To read the official blurb or buy a copy, click here.

Echo of Mandala
Qalidar is a sort of meta-setting I've been using for years, and finally managed to put together for the Peryton RPG. I originally put out a version of it in 2008 for another system. I had become enamored of the idea of making things compatible with an already-established game, so I looked at my options and decided I liked True20. Lesson learned: if you're going to support someone else's game, make sure you're not the only one. I still like True20, but I wish I had just stuck with my own game from the start. This is also going to form the underlying cosmos for a whole new game.

To read more about it or buy a copy, click here.



Peryton Fantasy RPG
I put these rules together originally just for myself, and then I decided to publish it in 2005 because, hey, looked like fun, and the rules made more sense than the other stuff I was seeing out there. My first run was a bit premature, needed a lot of trimming. The current one works a lot better. It still has a couple of minor editing issues, but I have yet to run into anything that makes it difficult to follow the intent.

And I'm pretty pleased with it. It's a great little generic D&D-type game with some fun new mechanics and a touch of its own flavor. I can, at least, say that it does what I wanted it to do, and I'm enjoying playing it and developing new material for it. However, I've been kind of itching to take these mechanics and create something a little bolder, a game with a more distinctive flavor, you know, like Eclipse Phase or Hellas except not at all like Eclipse Phase or Hellas.

To read the official blurb or buy a copy, click here. There's also character sheets and stuff like that.