We have a new design essay from David Hill Jr. In this essay David tells us about developing the Forsaken Chronicler’s Guide, which is the latest supplement for the Werewolf: the Forsaken RPG from White Wolf.

A Storytelling Game of Savage Fury

We’re coming up on the release of the fourth volume of Forsaken Chronicler’s Guide, so I thought I’d give a bit of insight into the development process for this particular project.

A couple of years ago, I pitched the idea of a Chronicler’s Guide for Werewolf: the Forsaken to Eddy Webb. I knew Forsaken was a bit more of a niche game, so the Alternative Publishing model might fit a bit better than a traditional, full release. In my pitch, I wanted to give the most bang for the customer’s possible buck, so I kept the chronicle sizes smaller, and focused on trying to provide as much inspiration and as many ideas as possible. Eddy got back to me, and instead of having me write the product in the way I did the previous Invite Only, he asked me to develop it and choose a crew of writers. I wasn’t a stranger to development work after production of my own Maschine Zeit, so I accepted the offer.

In selecting writers, I chose to go with the same initial idea; bang for the customer’s buck. So I chose writers I knew could pack a ton of content into a small amount of wordcount. Chuck Wendig is just about the punchiest writer I’ve ever read, and he has a great track record with Forsaken. Stew Wilson, Filamena Young, and Matt McFarland also each had some really great previous Forsaken material that I thought pushed the boundaries of the game and made people think in different ways about what Forsaken meant. John Kennedy and Will Rotenberry were both writers new to writing for Forsaken, but ones I’d worked with in some capacity in the past, and I knew they each had a penchant for bringing fun ideas to the table. I pitched about ten ideas to the group, and let them pitch back. Ultimately, we chose the top thirteen selections from the pool. The initial goal was twelve, but Stew Wilson’s system hack was so interesting, I had to find space for it.

The other big difference between this product and your traditional Forsaken book is that the setup is a four-volume series, instead of just a single, cohesive book. When determining how to split up the volumes, I looked to the basic nature of the game (a Storytelling Game of Savage Fury.)

Our first volume was all about ripping out chunks of what we knew as Forsaken. We stripped out the structure and self-control by presenting coming of age stories, stories where werewolves had no control of their changes, and asked how Forsaken would reconcile being without packs.

Then, we moved to fill the void and shove new things in. We added systems for emphasizing the animism and the hunt inherent in the setting. We added a method for resolving conflicts with nonlethal challenges. Then we added a new duty to the Forsaken by making them freedom fighting underdogs.

For volume three, we twisted the reader’s perceptions of what Werewolf is supposed to be. We set stories in ancient Sumer. We turned the game into one less focused on a literal hunt, and more on the hunt for love and lust. Then, we explored what worldwide structure might mean for the Uratha.

In the final volume, we focused on shredding the rules systems and using the game mechanics to offer whole new play styles. Here, we offer a new system where almost every single trait in the game is replaced by Renown, to emphasize the social dynamic of the Forsaken. We introduce a whole new type of pseudo-werewolf called the Wild Children, which are people full of intensity, that live to fuck and fight whenever possible. We explore removing the spirit world and replacing that focus of the game with a heightened attention to pack loyalty. Then lastly, we completely restructure the Gift system, into something more fluid and customizable.

The whole process was inspiring. When I heard pitches for these various chronicles, my first question was, “how can we make this more ambitious?” My primary goal was to challenge my writers to fit more and more content into a small space. I feel this led to thirteen very tight chronicle ideas, where not a word was wasted. My second main goal was to emphasize every single chronicle idea with some sort of mechanic or another. I’m of a mind that game mechanics inform play style, so I wanted to exhibit how a mechanical tweak could better emphasize the concepts we were expressing. Those were more conceptual goals, compared to the biggest challenge I gave myself.

The third and most difficult major goal I wanted to achieve was giving new reasons to enjoy Forsaken. This was twofold; Forsaken fans deserve new material and new ideas, but the harder side of that goal was making a product that could make someone think twice about a wavering or non-existent interest in the game. I wanted to offer people that wouldn’t have given Forsaken a chance, something they could cling to. This is a big part of why some of the chronicles listed take a completely left-field approach. Urban fantasy and romance have never really been addressed by Forsaken. We wanted to change that, for the player that might give it a try. Forsaken is a very gritty, street-style game. We wanted to offer some appeal to the player more interested in bigger, epic-style play.

So far, we’ve gotten some outstanding feedback. I think we’ve done our job in helping people to think differently about Werewolf the Forsaken. As far as I’m concerned, a Chronicler’s Guide should really be about empowering the players to take ownership of their game, and cater it to their specific wants and needs. Since the roleplaying hobby first started, hacking your game and designing house rules was essential to personal enjoyment. Forsaken Chronicler’s Guide offers a number of ways we’ve done that at our tables, and hopefully helps you do the same at your tables.

We’d love to hear what you think, and how Forsaken Chronicler’s Guide has helped shape your games.

David A Hill Jr – 2011

You can find more of David A Hill Jr’s work, including his new release, Amaranthine, at Machine Age Productions.

Related posts:

1. Werewolf the Forsaken Chronicler’s Guide
2. Forsaken Chronicler’s Guide Part 1: To Isolate
3. Coyote Falls SAS for Werewolf: The Forsaken

Game Designer, David Hill jumps into our design essay series with some notes on the development of the Maschine Zeit RPG. David tells us about some of the cinematic inspirations for the setting of this new RPG as well as the goals that went into the initial development of the system.

Ghost Stories on Space Stations

When I advertise Maschine Zeit, I call it, “Ghost Stories on Space Stations.” I wanted to talk briefly on that. Over the years, there’s been this sub-genre of horror films that are fundamentally haunted house stories, set in science fiction environments. The sub-genre really got its chops with the release of Ridley Scott’s masterpiece, Alien. Looking around at various RPGs, I didn’t feel that the genre had been properly emulated, so that’s what I’d set out to do. What this resulted in was an RPG that, in my opinion, shares a number of conventions with popular games, while eschewing many.

The first and most important element of Maschine Zeit is that I wanted to trust players. I didn’t want game statistics to get in the way of telling the stories the players want to tell. My opinion is that the players know the genre, and we can trust them to run with that. Therefore, the system was designed enable that sort of thinking. Players have the option to be completely successful on almost anything they wish. It doesn’t have to be a specific type of action. There are certain parameters you’d have to meet, but a little creativity allows for sufficient openness. This rule is governed by a resource management system that allows for certain chances of success, at the player’s choice.

Secondly, players tell the story. We have a GM role –the Director – but the default play style has the Director and players improvising the whole story. Every time a player does something dramatic with their character, they have a chance to control elements of the story. For instance, if your character risks leaping over a chasm in order to save another from falling to their death, you might get to control three other elements of the scene. The lights in the station might flicker to life, you might see hint of the mineral you came to salvage and the emergency bulkheads might close off the chasm. This rewards risk, and allows the players to drive the plot and develop the story’s direction.

Now, these specific things could actually apply very well to any dramatic game. A friend told me that he’d love to see the system used for a romantic comedy, for instance. Those elements were used as a canvas for a few very specific horror elements.

First, we don’t have equipment lists. The way I see it, equipment is a resolution to a conflict, and that’s handled just fine by the system. If you’re making a roll to resolve a conflict, it’s just as easy to say you have the necessary tool available. If the roll fails, the tool might be either missing or not available. In a horror film, this would represent the flashlight’s batteries running out at the worst possible time, or maybe it was dropped and cracked. The character’s gun might be waterlogged.

Second, we approach everything as an environmental hazard. Mechanically, there’s no significant difference between a malicious ghost and a fall against a rusty corner of sheet metal. We didn’t bother with a combat system, per-se. Everything’s handled by the same basic resolution mechanic. Killing or otherwise destroying threats is very difficult and very dangerous. You don’t see characters in Alien taking out the monster in Act I now, do you?

These are just a few of the major considerations we made. On the setting side, I wanted to leave it wide open. There’s a timeline that explains the basics, giving ideas why there are ghosts, and why there are haunted space stations for the characters to explore. The goal though was to present all setting information as in-character, and very biased, so there’s no stated truths. Since the game forces the players to improvise, we wanted to leave plenty of holes for them to fill. There are newspaper clippings, blogs and other bits that each seed their own stories. Most of them, you could print out and hand over to the players to prompt improvisation. We’ve used some to spark entire game sessions. To best facilitate this style, each one of the items was written by a different author. We have some amazing talent in the setting chapter, including Jennifer Brozek, Chuck Wendig, Eddy Webb, Stew Wilson, John Kennedy, Filamena Young and others. I think each writer’s voice and personality really came out.

Lastly, we wanted to present the game in unique formats. From the outset, I’ve offered custom 1gb flash drives, emblazoned with the game’s logo. The digital version of the game (including the one on the flash drive,) includes all the game’s text in HTML5, for ease of use on netbooks, iPads, cellphones, and whatever else you might want to use it on.

That’s Maschine Zeit. Do you like Event Horizon, Pandorum or Alien? Have you ever wanted to see that sort of visceral experience emulated around a table? Hopefully, we’ve made the game for you. It’s the first official title from Machine Age Productions, and it’s just been released with some positive attention. You can pick it up at RPGNow.com, hardcovers are coming soon and we’ll have a full allotment at the Indie Press Revolution booth at Gen Con.

David A Hill Jr. – 2010

Related posts:

1. SJGames Week: Awful Green Things From Outer Space Review
2. Dr Who: Adventures in Time and Space Review
3. Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space Review

Available at RPGNow.com

Hard Helix is a series of scenarios for Mutant City Blues, written by Robin Laws. The whole thing clocks in at 78 pages, including intro text and all that. This is to say, the scenarios are compact. I’ll lay it out on the table; this is a good thing. If you’ve read my review of Mutant City Blues, you’ll know that I greatly appreciate the design concepts presented. Hard Helix keeps those up. It’s a supplement packed with content from beginning to end. Robin doesn’t waste words, here.

The first adventure is Hard Helix, something of a political exercise. It has a relatively large cast, and sets up some interesting ‘canon’ characters for the setting. If anything, the scenario is good to establish the game world with more specifics than the core book.

The second is The Vanishers, an investigation into a super-powered mob family that robs a jewelry store. There’s read aloud text for a cheesy ‘cash for gold’ group that really helps to set the stage, it also gives enough of a primer on the way a mafia group works without being info-dumpy and condescending.

The third is Super Squad, which presents the characters with a group of corrupt super police. In addition to the normal investigation steps, this scenario has the characters intervene and try to manage a riot, which is an aspect of police work I rarely see addressed in RPGs.

Lastly is Cell Division, a more diverse scenario presenting a group of mutant supremacist terrorists.

As I said, no words wasted. Background information for these scenarios is a couple of paragraphs at most. I could see running these kits with very little – or no – preparation. The kits come with clues, twists, suspects, everything right there. Since they run about fifteen pages each, they’re a breeze to just read through and digest. Also, each scenario has a quick reference for all the various NPCs and their basic roles. That’s super useful. There’s some nice rules additions to suit the various scenes, including more complicated driving and automatic weapon fire rules, these are simple but interesting enough to add something to the scene, and the Gumshoe system as a whole. On top of it all, Robin’s offered a chart that shows the various investigative abilities, and how much they’re used in the scenarios. This allows you to cater character creation to the scenarios. Kudos.

Gumshoe is a system that does one thing very well: Handle investigation stories. Hard Helix was written to accommodate that. If you’re interested in Mutant City Blues, and you want a strong introduction to the types of stories it’s good at, Hard Helix is a great supplement. In pure written content, it’s a 5/5. The art’s passable, nothing I’d write home about (2/5.) While it’s not full of flowery text to engage the reader, it does its job very well, and it doesn’t waste space. The one thing I think it does very well is show you the flow of a Gumshoe story, which is one thing I’m not sure Gumshoe products do on their outsets. The scenarios do exactly what they set out to do.

Review by David Hill

Related posts:

1. Ashen Stars RPG Review
2. Pelgrane Week: Top 10 Gumshoe RPG Reviews
3. Mutant City Blues RPG Available Now from Pelgrane Press

Available at RPGNow.com

Unstoppable maniacs. Gratuitous violence. Nail-biting suspense. Oversexed camp counselors.

Slasher Flick is just over 100 pages, an RPG all about octopi. (That’s actually not true.) It’s written and designed by Cynthia Celeste Miller, produced by Spectrum Games. The game is called Slasher Flick. The pages are edged with blood. It’s not a game about serious exploration of the serial killer phenomenon, it’s not a strategy wargame. It’s a game about sitting around a table, having a night like one spent with an actual slasher movie, only in RPG form.

What It Is

Slasher Flick is simple and focused in nature. Mechanics focus on the drama and tropes of the genre, instead of “killing the bad guy.” Characters are more likely to think the sound of the villain sneaking up is the wind, than a sign that they need to go monster hunting.

What I Think

I think Slasher Flick does a wonderful job defining what it is, and what it isn’t. In fact, it does better than many modern RPGs. It’s unapologetic in its narrow scope. It’s very faithful to the genre, and doesn’t try to bend it to accommodate the RPG norms, instead bends the RPG norms to accommodate the genre. It devotes a number of pages to trope ideas, that alone makes it an amusing read.

There’s a nice list of classic films, and commentary on what they do for the genre and how their themes can add to the game. Evil Dead got no love. That is unacceptable. Although Slasher Flick focuses more on single-killer films, I don’t think you get better films full of dead teenagers than ED.

The Setting

The setting is all but nonexistent, you are expected to build your own with some of their tools. The tools are many though, the system and ideas really give a full kit to build an excellent atmosphere.

The System

The system uses 6, 8, and 10-sided dice. Characters have four basic Attributes, Brawl, Finesse, Brains, and Spirit, and each has three possible ratings, Poor, Normal, and Good. Most other traits are handled as “Positive Qualities,” and “Negative Qualities.” Characters receive “genre points” for acting true to genre, which is a nice idea for a game where it’s actually counter-intuitive to do what’s in your character’s best interest. Genre points can help give edges later on, or can cause other table-turning scenarios.

Challenge resolution is a pretty simple system, Attribute ratings determine the die type used. You roll four of that type of die, if two dice turn up the same number, the action succeeds. Qualities add or subtract dice as the situation dictates. My only problem with this resolution mechanic, and it’s a little one, I just don’t have that many d8s. Most of my players have one each, if any. I have three personally. A small number of other permutations exist, but they’re really just additional seasoning on the rather simple mechanic. It seems a little difficult to explain to new players, but it’s far easier than the bulk of RPGs out there.

Characters even come in multiple types, reflecting their importance to the story and their chances of death. In fact, players play multiple characters. Each player gets a primary character, secondary characters are split amongst the cast. Tertiary characters (NPCs,) and the Killer get treatment by the Director (GM.) This method of play allows each player to get in on some nice death scenes, even if their primary character doesn’t die. The Killer character doesn’t actually have stats, which I think is a nice way to reflect the nature of the genre.

The game really picks up with Kill Scenes, which are confrontations with the murderer. The method is highly narrative, in a loosely turn-based style, where characters accumulate “survival points,” until they reach a goal that allows escape or temporary victory against the Killer. Characters start with either 0 or 1 survival point, gaining them after successful actions, losing them after failed ones. This can lead to quick kills and drawn-out chases, very much horror movie faire.

Story Telling

The game is all about story telling, and it doesn’t fail. All the systems are made to facilitate that. Some are a bit more complex than I might like, but don’t really slow the game down. The book is full of ideas for how to tweak things for genre, and how to solve small problems that might arise.

Players make supporting cast members, and pass them around. Every character has at least one negative trait, positives are very limited. There are “special abilities,” that involve things like taking stupid actions, coming back for one last swing, and dumb luck. Clearly thematic in design. Stereotypes play heavily into character design.

The goal was for all elements to support the telling of a genre-appropriate story, and I really can’t find any place where it doesn’t do just that.

Presentation

The art is very funny. It’s not Da Vinci, but it conveys what it’s supposed to. Each chapter gets a fake horror movie poster, each is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.

Who Would Like It

Anyone who has yelled at their television, telling the on-screen cast how they should behave for optimal survival. This gives you the chance to be those morons. I’m sure most gamers have had these moments, I can say that most gamers should probably at least get one good night’s gaming out of this one.

Who Wouldn’t Like It

It’s not a hard or crunchy game, by any stretch of the imagination. It’s not made to “win.” In fact, it’s made to die in some of the coolest ways possible.

Final Assessment

3/5 It’s a fun read. It’s well-written, it’s well-edited, and it conveys every message it’s supposed to convey. It doesn’t take a lot of planning, it’s definitely a good, “what are we gonna play tonight” style game. I don’t see a whole lot of replay value, but there’s a lot of potential for a fun one-shot. It’s not versatile, but it doesn’t pretend to be. It’s well worth the few dollars for the PDF, and some of the ideas and material could be easily adapted to other games for a bit of flavor.

Slight side note: I think the game would serve to benefit from a half-page secondary character sheet.

Review By David A Hill Jr

Related posts:

1. Slasher Flick – Horror Island Now Available!
2. Spectrum Games releases Slasher Flick RPG

Freelance author David Hill and artist James Lannan bring us a new monster for the Halloween Horror collection today. These little creatures may seem harmless, but they can certainly become vicious from time-to-time.

Just be careful next time you go exploring in the junkyard…

Skulkers-in-the-Piles

Created by David Hill
With Art By James Lannan

Introduction
Skulkers-in-the-Piles, sometimes called “The Refuse,” are vaguely humanoid marsupials that live in and around human trash. They occupy areas where trash accumulates, particularly when finding solid waste in bulk. In recent years, experts suspect that Skulker populations have dwindled, but that is a difficult assertion, as the creatures are remarkably good at hiding in their junk pile empires.

Skulkers have fascinated humans for many years. They have appeared in the folklore and art of urban people, often mistaken for large reptiles or rodents. Children tell stories and draw these pictures, as the creatures have a mysterious way of veiling themselves from the minds and memories of adults.

Physical Description
Skulkers are diminutive, bipedal creatures, with a sharp and angled bone structure. The average adult reaches no more than two feet. They are rarely seen from up close, and reports widely vary as to their details. Many have small bony spikes, irrelevant of their genetic source. Most have between twenty and fifty teeth of random shapes and sizes. Most Skulkers have four fingers and toes on each limb, but this number varies from a low end of two digits, to an upper end of eight in rare cases.

Skulkers have terrible vision, but are able to navigate effortlessly with an unknown sense. Their vision seems to be based on movement and size, they regularly mistake creatures of similar sizes, often treating human children as their own kin.

Types of Skulkers
Cryptozoologists identify four types of Skulkers, primarily separated by flesh color and toughness. Moss Skulkers and Wood Skulkers are the most common, named for their green and brown appearances, respectively. Ash Skulkers are a dead gray tone, and are typically regarded as the most violent. Mustard Skulkers are the least common; additionally, they are the smallest.

Behavior
All Skulkers are shy, nervous, and easily frightened. Most will run before attacking, however the Ash Skulker breed will attack in any instance where they outnumber their assailants, ambushing and stripping bones for use as strong building materials. Urban folklore has them as terrible, human-eating monsters. This rumor is largely unfounded, as their diet is centered almost exclusively on molds and fungi. They do not speak, and its unknown if their chittering and hissing are rudimentary forms of communication.

Often, Skulkers build makeshift idols and thrones to exalt their leaders. Communities choose leaders simply for their ability to keep hold of the central idol, and are temporary in nature. They practice a sort of religion, but it is indiscernible as anything more than a possible imitation of human practice. All activities center on the leader, they bow, chant, and leave excessive offerings of food at his junk pile.

They live in families in makeshift hovels of solid waste, prizing above all things that are already suitable shelters, such as automobiles and barrels.

Reproduction
Mating is a very violent process, communities have far more males than females and contests for mates result in many male fatalities. Most mating rituals revolve around being able to climb to the tallest piles of garbage possible, defending their positions while others fight their ways up.

Females are no different in size and body weight, with the addition of a pouch on their torsos. Newborn Skulkers spend about four weeks in the pouch with roughly one to eight other littermates. Unlike most marsupials, newborns look almost identical to adults without fingers and toes until about four week, at which time digits break loose of the limbs, similar to the growth of amphibian limbs.

Relations with Humans
In almost every situation, Skulkers run from humans. They are experts at hiding and are often mysteriously forgotten by adult witnesses. Sometimes colonies take in wandering toddlers or baby rats, raising them as their own. The rats usually spend their entire lives with the colonies, sharing similar diets. The children usually die of infections, but sometimes reach maturity and take up roles as leaders amongst the creatures, universally accepted as the superior creatures due to their sizes and the Skulkers’ lack of racial judgment.

In these rare cases, the Skulkers are universally vicious. The colonies will go so far as to fight with and absorb other colonies, hording food and stealing prime building materials from fallen enemies. The human children rule by brute force, maintaining loyalty through terror. In some cases, the humans eventually attempt mating with the Skulkers, but no evidence exists that this has ever successfully produced offspring.

Yet…

About David Hill
A freelance writer based out of the Philadelphia area. His particular poison is down-to-earth, socially-aware fiction and gritty horror, with a quiet love of cyberpunk and whatever catches his attention. Currently, he’s working on an upcoming Werewolf: The Forsaken supplement. He hates writing biographical pieces about himself, and would likely describe himself as a egomaniacal jerk with socialist tendencies. Observant as he is, he’s probably right. You can find information about him at davidhill.wetpaint.com.

About James Lannon
James C. Lannan is a graphic designer, web designer and part-time doodler. His graphics and designs have been used for countless advertisements and web pages. He excels at photo manipulation, spacial arrangements, contrasts in color and subject as well as creating balance and harmony in his compositions. His works have been included in small local shows and has taken first and second place in art competitions for his abstract and cubism inspired paintings. James is an all around well rounded artist who has formal art training as well as some unconventional artistic experiences. He is currently open for any freelance work. More can be learned about James at www.jlannan.com.

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1. Halloween Horror: The Meh-Teh
2. Halloween Horror: The Scarecrow
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