July 24, 2012

Open Dev: Stealing SEVEN part 1

Stealing SEVEN is a BLACK SEVEN genre pack for emulating the fast-paced fiction of heist shows and movies. While I’m a big fan of both the Leverage TV show and the Leverage RPG, I’m aware that it’s a close-enough design space to BLACK SEVEN to make for an interesting genre hack.

In this series of blog posts, I’m going to break down my development process. While you could probably run Stealing SEVEN with these notes when I’m done, the full version will use these posts as an outline to make a full BLACK SEVEN genre pack. I actively want feedback, and while I can’t guarantee that I’ll agree with any given idea, I will read and consider each one.

The first thing to work out when hacking any game on a structural level is what does what. That requires a top-down, holistic approach. Once I’ve got this worked out, I can look at how to systematise the necessary changes.

BLACK SEVEN breaks down the stealth-action genre into a number of rounds of “break in to facility, neutralise guards, steal shit”, with the final round being a make-or-break affair. The con/heist type of story would instead be “identify weak point, work to exploit weak point, steal shit”, with the stolen shit informing how the denouement actually plays out.

Read more... BLACK SEVEN gaming lazyweb Open Dev self-publishing for stoats

July 23, 2012

Æternal Legends Sale

Æternal Legends is 25% off as part of the Christmas in July sale on DriveThruRPG!

It’s down to less than £3, which makes it cheaper than buying me a pint in person. If you’re one of those American types, it’s less than $4.50. I don’t know what $4.50 buys, but I bet most of the things on that list are less awesome than Æternal Legends.

aeternal legends gaming

July 10, 2012

ANIMUS Virtual History

A few weeks ago, I updated ANIMUS with a new set of rules for running the setting as a Virtual History within the world of BLACK SEVEN, either to train new Agents or to send experienced Agents into the past to discover new secrets.

If you bought ANIMUS through DriveThruRPG, you can get the new rules from the product page.
The virtual history rules are also in the main rulebook, if you re-download that—including the ePub and mobi versions of the book.
If you acquired ANIMUS through another outlet, or just like downloading directly from this site, you can download the Virtual History rules in PDF here.

Read more... BLACK SEVEN Download free gaming

May 29, 2012

BLACK SEVEN Chase Rules

I’ve written a set of chase rules for BLACK SEVEN. Your Agents can try to catch the enemy scientist through rush-hour traffic, or run for their lives from an exploding building.

If you bought BLACK SEVEN through DriveThruRPG, you can get the chase rules from the product page.
The chase rules are also in the main rulebook, if you re-download that—including the ePub and mobi versions of the book.
If you bought BLACK SEVEN through another outlet, you can download the chase rules in PDF here.

BLACK SEVEN Download free gaming

April 28, 2012

ANIMUS Released

Do you like BLACK SEVEN? Do you like games like Assassin’s Creed, Prince of Persia, or the Thief series? They’re the main influences behind ANIMUS, the first genre pack for BLACK SEVEN, which brings stealth-action gaming to the warring cities of Renaissance Italy, replete with moss arrows, throwing-knives, and spring-loaded wrist-blades. It’s also got optional rules for magic.

It’s available from DriveThruRPG now!

Fera Translation Guide

The Werewolf Translation Guide had to focus on the werewolves at the heart of both Apocalypse and Forsaken, and didn’t have the space to talk about alternative shapeshifters. I know that the Fera of Apocalypse have a lot of fans (myself included), so I got permission to take the bare-bones conversion rules from the first draft and release them online.