Tag Archive | "indie rpgs"

Yay! Vote Now! Celebrating an ENnie Award Nomination

Posted on July 17, 2023 by

The 2023 nominees for the ENnie Awards have just been announced, and I’m proud to mention I’m a finalist for the 2022 Level 1 Anthology from 9th Level Games along with a slate of fantastic folks! The full contributor list for the ENnie Award-nominated 2022 Level 1 Anthology is: Gabrielle Rabinowitz, Evlyn Moreau, Dustin Winter, […]

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Women are Werewolves: On Designing Queer Games

Posted on November 23, 2021 by

Women are Werewolves is a card-based story game where players take on the roles of nonbinary characters who belong to a family that believes only women transform into werewolves. Throughout the game, characters explore their relationships to gendered spaces and family traditions. They also explore their relationships with their queer and non-queer family members. The game asks you to navigate the various gendered traditions your family engages in and deal with the awkward questions, misguided assumptions, and occasional microaggressions that come with it. At its heart, Women are Werewolves is a game about discovering your boundaries and whether you can find, or make, a space for your authentic self within a family that might not understand you.

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First Mechanics Reveal: Mundane Magic RPG

Posted on December 10, 2020 by

Lysa Penrose is known as a writer and story creator for Wizards of the Coast, community manager of all things Dungeons & Dragons, and even a witch slinging tarot tutorial videos. In this post, Lysa shares how she combined these experiences and more into an upcoming narrative roleplaying game, Mundane Magic.

My first experience with tabletop roleplaying games happened by accident. I was between jobs, a leap-of-faith career change, my ex-corporate life funding a year off to soul search like a millennial stereotype. In a depressive fog of YouTube binging and self-doubt – hey, major change is scary! – I stumbled across the first episode of Critical Role. Curiosity got the better of me when faced with this odd 4-hour video. My mind and imagination had discovered Dungeons & Dragons, and I tipped over the precipice and into the rabbit hole….

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We Die Here by Steffie de Vaan

Posted on June 24, 2019 by

We Die HereI was fifteen at the time of my first escape. Made friends with a passing biker girl and persuaded her to give me a lift. I got sick the moment we left the diner on the outskirts of town behind – just this overwhelming vertigo and the sensation of falling endlessly. I threw up in my borrowed helmet. The biker girl insisted we rest at the diner while I recovered, then made off without me.

I tried six more times since, each on the anniversary of my first attempt. It never worked. The last time I got an emergency call from my father – my sister had been in an accident – could I come to the hospital? I knew that was the town’s way of telling me it had enough: Stay, or I will kill your family.

So I stayed, even after my parents died in the locust plague, and my sister was lost when the clowns came. It never occurred to me I could leave now – whatever fueled my youthful rebellion was just…. Gone.

My anniversary is coming up tomorrow though, forty-five years after that first ride. My biker girl is back in town too, all lines and grey hair, retracing the steps of her youth. She apologized for leaving me all those years ago, and offered to try again. We’re leaving tomorrow. I told her not to stop, not to turn back no matter what. I am leaving this town dead or alive.

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Horror in the Mundane

Posted on April 4, 2019 by

Hi all, my name is Liz and I’m the owner of Angry Hamster Publishing. In May 2019 our newest game Afterlife: Wandering Souls launches on Kickstarter and the Flames Rising blog was kind enough to let me write a guest post about the game and what horror could mean to player characters.

The premise of Afterlife: Wandering Souls (AWS) is: You die, but you don’t end up where you are meant to go – Heaven, Hell, reincarnation, a great nothingness. Instead, you are transported to the Tenebris – a giant scorching desert reaching into eternity. You travel the Tenebris entering into different Limbos (worlds) in search of memories from your past life and struggling to come to terms with who you were and what you lost.

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Return to Wonderland and more with Elizabeth Chaipraditkul and Steffie de Vaan

Posted on January 14, 2019 by

We’re Elizabeth Chaipraditkul and Steffie de Vaan, and we wanted to tell you about our newly launched RPG Patreon. We’ve been active in the RPG industry for some years now. Liz was the lead developer for the Crescent Empire book for 7th Sea, author of the Book of Lore for Bluebeard’s Bride, and owns her own Indie company Angry Hamster Publishing which published Witch: Fated Souls. Steffie wrote for the Changeling the Lost 2nd Edition Corebook, Beckett’s Jyhad Diary (Vampire: the Masquerade), and is the developer for Promethean: The Created and the upcoming Legendlore RPG. So you’d think we have lots of creative outlets. And we do. They’re just… still not enough. Hence our Patreon, to finally release our bottled ideas into the world.

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KOBOLD Guide to Gamemastering is available now from Kobold Press

Posted on April 20, 2017 by

Decades of GMing Experience at Your Fingertips!

“Kobold Press builds on its excellent track record with another great release—new and provocative.”
—Mike Mearls

Whether it’s advice from grognards who were running games at the dawn of RPGs, or suggestions from the new generation of game designers, these 21 essays by experts are here to help you improve your GMing skills and create fun, amazing, memorable campaigns that’ll be talked about for years.

In this book, master GMs and storytellers give you advice about solo campaigns, shy players, cell phones, and making rulings on the fly. Are you unprepared for the game you’re running half an hour from now? Did you accidentally kill all the PCs? Do you want to run a game for kids? Did the plot take a sudden turn and the PCs have gone into uncharted territory? We’ve got you covered.

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Writing and Worldbuilding with the Pip System

Posted on March 26, 2017 by

The Pip System is a roleplaying system published by Third Eye Games and used in games such as Mermaid Adventures, Infestation: An RPG of Bugs and Heroes, and Camp Myth.

It was just recently released on Kickstarter, and I cannot be more excited. I had the opportunity to be on the writing staff for the book, and it was my first opportunity to work in a group writing format. I wanted to share with you some of the highlights for the Pip System and talk about my experiences with this amazing writing staff.

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Writing the Other Sans Fail Class Registration Now Available

Posted on January 29, 2017 by

Writing the Other Sans Fail with Monica ValentinelliWriting Inclusive Games: Creating RPGs Sans Fail teaches game writers crucial skills and industry knowledge to facilitate better representation. Instructors Monica Valentinelli, from FlamesRising.com, and K. Tempest Bradford will cover Stereotypes and Tropes related to Race and Ethnicity, Disability, Gender and Sexuality, Religion, Class, and more, plus strategies for building characters and worlds while avoiding engaging in stereotypes or cultural appropriation. The course covers tips and tricks to addressing problems on your team, how to better facilitate conversation with your game developer, and sample art notes that are occasionally asked of writers.

The class is appropriate for all game writers from all backgrounds and any skill level.

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Monster Monday: Punch the Maker-Killer

Posted on July 18, 2016 by

Today, FlamesRising.com is pleased to present you with a preview of Punch the Maker-Killer, a monster from Arc Dream Publishing’s Puppetland by John Scott Tynes. The PDF is on sale now, and the hardcover edition will be available in October.

Puppetland is a storytelling game. You play a valiant puppet who speaks aloud every word you say. You speak for your puppet and the Puppetmaster says the rest. You surprise each other at every turn, collaborating moment by inspired moment to unlock your own creativity and find the puppet within. This lavishly illustrated edition of Puppetland has been significantly revised and expanded. It includes a grim storybook fable of the Maker’s foul murder; the true story of the creator’s life in Puppetland; and new Tales ready to be played, written by a brilliant collection of authors.

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As Atlantis falls, how will you use your fate?

Posted on February 14, 2016 by

As Atlantis falls, how will you use your fate? Where will you stand in the face of the coming wave? Chariot is a fantasy role-playing game set just before the final fall of an occult, theosophical Atlantis tempered by my boyhood imagination. It uses Tarot cards rather than dice, and has a heavily occult and […]

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Demon Hunters: A Comedy of Terrors available now!

Posted on December 28, 2015 by

Vampires infesting the mayoral office. Lycanthropes prowling the suburbs. Another kraken making its way upstate along the river. Crazed cultists masquerading as door-to-door religious nuts. Every one of them edging the world one more step toward the next demonic apocalypse.
In your line of work, that’s called Tuesday.

You are an agent of the Brotherhood of the Celestial Torch, hand-picked to serve as Earth’s first and last line of defense against the servants of Darkness. Oh sure, there are others in the Brotherhood who seem more hand-picked than you were, and yes, you probably only work out of a small office somewhere in Michigan or Wyoming or South Dakota, but when it comes to dealing out the damage to the infernal instruments of Hell taking over that shopping mall or the Craz-E-Mart, the buck stops with you.

Lock and load, baby.

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Chill 3rd Edition from Growling Door Games

Posted on April 30, 2015 by

Every one of us is weak: mere ants against the stalking giants that have brought us to our knees. Even when we work together, the Unknown is bigger than us, better armed, and better prepared for what’s to come. We have no real advantage, and our greatest victories have been nothing but the monsters toying with us before they descend to feast. Our fight is hopeless.

This is how we’re going to win.

—Hayat Nejem, “How to SAVE the World”

The uneasy feeling that creeps up your spine as you walk down a darkened hallway. The way your footsteps echo oddly on a deserted street at night, as though there was someone walking somewhere behind you. The shape you see out of the corner of your eye when you’re home alone.

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Night Witches RPG from Bully Pulpit Games

Posted on March 21, 2015 by

TONIGHT WE FLY

There was a night bomber regiment in World War Two composed entirely of women. Natural-born Soviet airwomen.

These 200 women and girls, flying outdated biplanes from open fields near the front lines, attacked the invading German forces every night for 1,100 consecutive nights. When they ran out of bombs they dropped railroad ties.

To each other they were sisters, with bonds forged in blood and terror. To the Red Army Air Force they were an infuriating feminist sideshow. To the Germans they were simply Nachthexen—Night Witches.

Night Witches is a tabletop role-playing game about women at war.

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Darkly Through the Labyrinth RPG available now from Abstract Nova

Posted on October 6, 2014 by

In the 1980s, a moral panic swept the United States. Rumors swirled of a vast underground network of devil worshippers, and claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse flooded the airwaves. Role-playing games were gateways to black magic, and backwards messages, hidden in heavy metal music, spurred teenagers to Satanism or suicide. The devil was everywhere and something needed to be done. In response to growing public fears, the FBI assembled a taskforce to investigate occult activity.

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Monsterhearts RPG Review

Posted on February 9, 2014 by

Monsterhearts should come with two warning stickers. The first is “Warning: This is a game for mature gamers and deals with adult themes.” It doesn’t have this because that sort of warning fits the Book of Erotic Fantasy rather than a genuinely mature take on the subject matter. It has lead to some of the most intense and immersive experiences I’ve ever had roleplaying, but I refuse to play it with my main tabletop roleplaying group.

The second is “Warning: This game can go into uncomfortable territory. Discuss expectations and respect boundaries.” It doesn’t have this, and Monsterhearts is the only game I’ve played that’s imploded when it has become clear that one player doesn’t know the meaning of the word “consent”. Better there than in real life.

So what is Monsterhearts? Monsterhearts is based on the Apocalypse World rules and claims to be about “The messy lives of teenage monsters”.

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2013: Our Year in the Horror Mines

Posted on December 31, 2013 by

We’re Lillian Cohen-Moore and Ryan Macklin, a couple in Seattle who love to play with horror. You might know us from our work on the recent Mage: the Ascension books that focused on factions within the Technocratic Union. What you might not know, though, is that we met and bonded over playing another horror game: Don’t Rest Your Head. Horror and dark fantasy is near and dear to our hearts, and Flames Rising wanted to give us a moment to talk about our time working as a couple in horror gaming.

During our time with the Technocratic Union, horror was a subtle constant throughout the books. Since we live together, we could turn around in our desk chairs to propose ideas for how to keep the horror elements in the Technocracy from becoming cartoonish, like some of the early material for them.

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Pandemonio from Neoplastic Press available now!

Posted on October 31, 2013 by

THE LAST WAR HAS BEGUN

Demons feed on innocent souls while angels obliterate cities. Humans are caught in the middle: possessed, devoured, judged, damned.

The world needs a hero. Unfortunately, there aren’t any, so what the fuck, you might as well give it a try.

You’re a Disciple, a supernatural warrior on the front lines. Wielding bizarre magics like Sexpletive, Death Panel, Photobomb, and Gunfetti, you must hunt down these merciless predators and rescue innocent civilians without losing your grip on the tattered vestiges of your humanity. How far will you go to destroy your enemy? Will you resort to cannibalism? Are you certain? Listen, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

Pandemonio is available now at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop!

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Never Unprepared Review

Posted on August 7, 2012 by

Due to being a full time student for the last 18 months, I’ve not been very active in writing reviews for Flames Rising. I’d also retired from gaming for more than a year due to said schooling, but recently I’ve come to realize that gaming is too much a part of my being; it’s far too hard wired in me as a creative outlet to be able to give it up forever, much less for years at a stretch. So for the last few months I’ve been trying to make it work again, taking up the gauntlet as a weekly Game Master. But I couldn’t do it like I used to; changes in how I managed my Game Master duties needed to be made, and so I’ve been trying different things to varying results.

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You Say You Want a Revolution?

Posted on May 14, 2012 by

Farewell to Fear ArtOur new game, Farewell to Fear, is a dark fantasy game about revolution and enlightenment taking people out of the darkness. Your players choose a thing about the world they want to change, and they set out to change it. As we design Farewell to Fear, I’ve tried to keep this at the front of every effort. I’m tackling this through three main avenues, game mechanics, setting writing, and art direction.

In the game mechanics, revolutions are at the forefront. Change needs to drive advancement. So, our entire system is based on building solutions to massive problems, and using thinking and preparation to tackle otherwise overwhelming problems. As the game progresses, characters grow and evolve through their engagements with change.

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