Newt

Be a wild Barbarian, a deadly Fighter, a soul-torn Sorcerer or a sword sharp canny Thief, fighting evil tyrants and foul demons in a world rapidly dying and heading towards its final nemesis.

Crypts and Things (C&T) is a Swords and Sorcery Roleplaying game based upon the Old School Rules of the 70s/80s. It also draws upon the British fantasy games and game-books of that period to bring a distinctly dark and dangerous feel to the game.

It was originally released back in 2012. After three years of being available I'm looking to remake the book and need funds for production costs.

• Crypts and Things Remastered at Kickstarter

There's a variety of reasons I'm not going to go into publically, none of which are sinister by the way, which add up to the fact that I simply don't want to publish either the Book of Glorious Joy & The Company (and the narrative game Worlds of Wordplay) anymore.

Both titles have had their day, sales are virtually zero now, and by droping them I'm focusing my energies on the other titles I publish or new titles I'm about to publish

Last chance to buy The Book of Glorious Joy, Jamie ‘Trotsky’ Revell’s fan version of the Gloranthan West with a focus on the Kingdom of Loskalm.

As of the end of this month it will no longer be available. Currrently heavily discounted in both print and pdf on DriveThruRPG.com

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/9 ... orious-Joy

I no longer want to publish it

Just a quick note to say that after the end of this month The Company will no longer be available for sale.

Its available at the pdf is avaialble at the special price of $5 over at DriveThruRPG.com

• The Company  on sale at DriveThruRPG.com for the last time.

Grab it before the 28th Feb when its gone FOREVER!

Hi Newt,

 

I've started to read River of Heaven. (And I like what I'm reading )

 

I have two questions.

The first is not really about rules, and maybe I missed the information:

What is the River of Heaven?

 

The second question is about the point based characteristics process during character generation.

In page 23, a baseline human has 8 points to each characterics, to which you had 30 points where you what.

So 8*9+30 = 86

 

but in the example page 34, for Miriam who is a baseline human, we have:

STR 16 CON 12 SIZ 10 INT 13 POW 10 DEX 16 CHA 14

So 16+12+10+13+10+16+14 = 91

 

The repartition according to the text is STR +8, CON +2, DEX +8, POW+2, INT+5 CHA+4

So 29 points and a base for baseline human:

STR 8, CON 10, SIZ 10, INT 8, POW 8, DEX 8, CHA 10.

 

So what is the "official "base" for a baseline human?

 

And what is the "recommanded" based? I would tend to prefer the higher one, but Were there some side effects of having stronger characters?

1. River of Heaven is the name that the Chinese give to the Milky Way

2. The official Baseline for Baseline Humans is 8 per characteristic and is clearly stated on p.21 and p23.

1. Page 112 - Area attacks, does this work?

Roll damage, say 3d6, total 14, compare with armour, say 8. 'If the damage overcomes the armour rating' - as it does in this case, (14>8), then damage inflicted is full, less half the armour rating (4) so actually total damage to HP = 14-4 = 10.

Ok, 'if the armour succeeds', say damage rolled is 7 vs. armour 8, 'the armour protects fully with any penetrating damage deducted from HP'.

 

However, if the armour 'protects fully' by presumably being rated higher than the total of the damage 9as in 8>7 above), unless the weapon has a PV value there IS no penetrating damage. On page 113 it states that area effect weapons with a PV value only apply to direct hits. So, presumably if damage does not exceed armour rating and PV doesn't count, the damage in that case will always be zero (making the 'with any penetrating damage deducted from HP' statement on page 112 redundant)?

 

Roll

 

2. Grenades - do these always have a 3m blast radius? What about larger 'artillery' - blast radii for missile etc. these aren't listed.

 

3. The good old discussion about movement options still isn't clear to me. Are the options listed on page 107 exclusive: i.e. you can either:

 

Change Stance (and presumably react/ attack) OR

Fighting Retreat (move from contact up to score plus one attack OR one reaction) OR

Move (with one attack and one reaction) OR

Sprint (Dodge only, double move)

 

Is Charge also instead of one of these exclusive moves or can it be combined with one of the above?(given that you get an attack and a double move, but forsake your reaction)

 

At the core of the question really is, what is the maximum distance someone can cover in one turn, is it two times their move rate (from Sprint or Charge) or are they allowed to do these AND get a free move?

 

4. Multifire - VERY confused by this. On page 111 under 'firing bursts' it refers to 'each additional shot fired in a burst'. Given that you can fire one shot OR burst for each ROF point for a weapon, I have taken it that if you have an FA weapon with a ROF of three you can make three attacks in the round, each of which could be a burst. Where does it say how many rounds (shots?) are fired in a burst to inform the calculation for 'each additional shot fired in a burst' increasing the shooting skill by 5%?

 

Also, when it says 'if the attack succeeds, roll to see how many shots hit the target' - roll what?

 

If the assumption is that you can effectively empty a mag in one round, say split between three bursts, you might be adding 20 rounds to each burst, pretty much guaranteeing a doubling of your chance to hit, and then what? Am I then just making a random die roll to see how many rounds hit - say on 1d20. If I roll a 20, am I then rolling the damage 20 times? I assume not else auto weapons would be instant killers every time. The rules must have intended something else, but what? I can house rule this stuff just fine but I'd like to know what the authors actually intended here. A worked example would help!

 

5. Pump action shotgun. Is pumping the weapon considered a 'load' action, or something you can do as part of your attack (effectively making it a Semi-Auto weapon in rules terms)?

 

6. Suppressing fire - I declare suppressing fire, my opponents run into it. As written, they are hit automatically - no roll required? I'm assuming this can't be right, else it's harder to hit a target that you are aiming at (normal ranged attack) than it is to hit them with suppressing fire?

 

7. Panic fire - this isn't very clear. Let's say I'm surprised by gunfire and I panic. Have I read it correctly that this means all my own ranged attacks back are halved in chance until I run out of ammo? What then?  How long does it last? do I get a chance to re-assess the situation and get back under control. What if I'm armoured heavily and the incoming fire is so weak as to be almost meaningless other than by Critical. Can I figure this out and check my panic?

 

8. Critical Hits and ignoring armour. On page 108 it says I do max damage with a crit, and double any PV value, but don't ignore armour. If my opponent attempts to dodge however (page 109), and fails, now armour IS ignored. Are these two rules in conflict?

 

Thanks for any time you can give to answering these queries,

 

Regards,

Guy

Here's my answer's

1. You knock down the armour protection value by the Penetration Value first (PV value isn't actually mentioned in the Area Fire rules, but if you have a PV for a weapon you should always do this).

Then you roll damage and compare.

2. I can only see one Grenade area effect being quoted for Electro Magnetic Grenades on p88. As for the missing areas for missiles etc. I would take this as one of the areas where the OQ rules go abstract and rely on GM rulings.

3. If you use either sprint or charge you loose your standard Free move.  So the most you can move is double your move rate.

4. It’s a reload action.

5. No limits on the amount of rounds fired in a burst , so the player can state how many rounds in each burst. If using the ROF rules, then they state how many rounds in each burst. Roll for attack and if hit, roll a dice compatible with the number of rounds fired (so if I fire six I roll a d6, 17 roll a d20 counting results of 18-20 as 17 etc) to determine the number of rounds hit.

6. Yup the rules as written are correct, but what you have to remember is that the shooter has just emptied their magazine that round. Next round the air clears and the supressed characters can get up and start moving about. And yes if the characters are unlucky enough to be out in the open they've been hit by one of the bullets in this current

7. I would allow you to roll Resilience again if the situation changes, as of Games Master’s Advice on p38 ( the very last paragraph).

8. No these two rolls are not in conflict. They are two separate rulings for two separate instances. One is what happens on a critical attack, the other is what happens on when you fumble a Dodge.

Hope that helps.

No its not a typo. You are taking TL to mean the TL of then Nanoforge, which its not. Its the Tech Level of the object being produced, so the more complex the item the higher its TL.

Hi Guy

Just to let you know I've noticed this and I'm working on an 'official' answer to your questions, I'll get back to you in the next couple of days.

Waking from Vitrification is never a pleasant experience, but it is an unavoidable part of interstellar travel. With your first waking thoughts comes the usual wave of nausea and disorientation, a sense of drowning - but your training kicks in - you are not drowning. You are submerged in impact gel, and you are experiencing the usual temporary sleep sickness brought on by the cryopreservation process.

As the impact gel drains away you sit up in the cryopod. All around are rows of identical glass capsules that fill the cryovault of the interstellar stepship Cape Verde. Each is bathed in a pale blue light, each with tubes and cables snaking down to conduits in the floor. Several are already open, and you see other individuals looking as dazed and confused as you feel.

Long moments pass, during which several thoughts occur to you:

You are in zero-g.
The medical team who normally help you through the revival process are nowhere to be seen.
The throbbing pain behind your eyes is getting stronger.

Something is very, very wrong.

REUNION is an introductory adventure for the River of Heaven Science Fiction Roleplaying Game. As well as 1-2 sessions of play, aboard a high-tech Spaceship that has been boarded by enemies unknown, the book comes with 6 pre-generated characters so you can pick up and play. Also suitable as the beginning of a campaign, were the players create their own characters, since it plunges the characters into the heart of an incident which may have lasting repercussions.

It is available in Pdf, Print and Print/Pdf bundles over at DriveThruRpg

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/141703/Reunion

Here's the cover by Peter Frain

I've read up to the first part of the Skills section.  Funny, I've used 10% as the Critical Success chance for 20 years now.  I was introducing the BRP system to three newbie gamers and I wanted a simplified approach.  It worked so well, I never went back to the RAW.  This is my first real look at the OpenQuest system, or is it modified even more for the RoH book?  Either way, I'm getting a very familiar feel -which is good.  The older I get, the less enthusiasm I have for learning new RPG systems. 

RoH uses OQ as a base and then adds to it. If you want to see OQ rules checkout the OQ Srd

http://openquest.d101games.com/openquest-srd/

Hey Newt, congratulations on getting pick of the week on drivethru and being one of their top sellers.

One thing tho, they mentioned that the game system was "SYSTEM: Unique system (OpenQuest)" and only mentioned its connection to d100 deep within the description. Was this an error or deliberate? Wouldn't showing its parentage and connection to the d100 universe more clearly enhance the possible sales?

This was down to Drive Thru who made up the news item from a combination of the product description and their own information.   I categorise OQ and its child games/supplements as "Broadly compatible with other D100 games" out of honesty and respect for other D100 publishers' trademarks.

I'm liking what I've read so far, feeling very good about getting this in print, so I can show it off to my gaming friends. 

 

Newt, would it be possible to get a printer friendly character sheet?  That space background will eat up a lot of ink, especially with a two-page character sheet. 

Yup I'll get on it over the coming week

Thanks for the compliments. Getting River of Heaven out the door has taken a long time (John started writing it in 2008 ) so its nice to see folk picking it up and enjoying it

Christmas has come early for D101 Games this year, since our latest full RPG , the Science Fiction Adventure Game, River of Heaven is now available in Pdf, Print (hard and soft covers) and Print/Pdf bundle from DriveThruRpg.com.

• Buy River of Heaven from DriveThruRpg.com

It is the dawn of the 28th Century.

The Third Renaissance, or Bright Age as future historians will call it, is at its zenith.

After the catastrophic first contact with extra-terrestrial life that led to the horrific Solar System war, humanity clawed its way back from the brink and finally reached the stars. For millions of people, Earth’s sun is no more than another star in the night sky, a mote of light, a spiritual birthplace that they will never visit in their lifetimes.

It has been over a century since the Machine Civilisation gifted humanity technological marvels such as the Visser Cube, allowing wormhole travel across the vast chasms of interstellar space. Now interstellar distances grow ever shorter. How the myriad of splintered cultures view this gift varies. Some see it as a blessing, a way to draw humanity into a united whole. Others see it as a curse, robbing them of their individuality. And then there are those who would use it as a means to subjugate humanity and impose their own will upon all…

Across the river of heaven, humanity clings to a scattering of islands in a sea of stars. Players can take on a multitude of roles in this future: a crew member on an interstellar trader, a member of the mysterious Engineers’ Guild, a body-hopping Intercessionist agent – out to manipulate human cultures to its own secret ends, a Renouncer Zealot – intent on destroying Artificial Intelligence in all its forms, or perhaps one of the Reclaimers – planetary engineers dedicated to terraforming any viable planet they happen upon…

River of Heaven uses D101 games’ OpenQuest rules engine; a sleek and streamlined D100 rule set that enables you to maintain the tempo of your stories whilst keeping the rules simple and in the background.

In the core rulebook you will find:

The OpenQuest rules engine tailored to a hard sci-fi setting.

Simple Character generation

Enabling you to go from concept to fully finished character as quickly as possible.

Augmentations

Humanity has found many ways to improve upon what nature created. Quickly augment your character with the latest biotech/nanotech upgrades.

Equipment

All the weapons, armour and other types of equipment your character might need to go adventuring in the 28^th century.

Transportation

Information on how to get around the River of Heaven universe, be it lowly pack animal on a frontier dirt farm or an interstellar trader equipped with exotic stellar-tap drive.

Background

In addition to a timeline spanning 1000 years of future history, River of Heaven includes an introduction to the Bright Age, the default play setting for the game. It also includes a campaign setting – the Kentauran Hegemony – and information about all the colonised star systems at the start of the 28th century.

Adventure Seeds

Ideas for adventure ideas set in the River of Heaven universe, covering a wide range of styles and themes.

Friends and Foes
An A-Z list of lifeforms that may be encountered by the player characters during their adventures. It includes humans from the various divergent cultures and castes, mundane animals encountered on many worlds of humanity, and some more exotic creatures too.

Written by John Ossoway.

Cover by Jon Hodgson

Just a quick update to let you know OpenQuest is my primary concern over the next couple of weeks off work during the Christmas Holidays.

I've got all the content for OpenQuest Adventures now, and its time for a really hard edit and in some cases a rewrite. Artists have been waiting for some time and I'll be commisioning art hand in hand with doing the edit. 

The OpenQuest SRD is about 40%-50% done at the moment. Its been a challenge, transforming something designed and writing with print in mind that works as a set of webpages. 

By the end of this year I hope to have released the SRD and be able to give you a clear update about when OpenQuest Adventures is going to be delivered (I've a few unknowns like the art work, and proofing).

There will be a bigger "State of D101 Games update - D100 highlights" in the early new year, which should have some OpenQuest annoucements in it

Have a happy Mid-Winter break

I still can't believe I can go up to my bookshelf and pull out to read (giving myself a hernia in the process)

Yup Nick's right there - River of Heaven is where its at the moment.  But the plan is to make an announcement about what D101 Games is doing with Cthulhu Rising in the New Year.

To celebrate Halloween for the next 24 hours (12pm Friday 31st October - 12pm Saturday 1st November GMT), I'm having a small sale of our most terrifying titles.

For D100 fans the Zombie Apocalypse that is Life and Death is 50% pdf and 25% off Print/Pdf bundle. Life and Death only requires OpenQuest Basics to run it, which is a free pdf or low cost book, and with pre-generated characters you can easily pick up and play it and have a ghoulish time this Day of the Dead.

Life and Death

OpenQuest Basics

Also the following Crypts and Things titles are on 50% off for their PDF.

Crypts and Things rulebook

UK S01 Blood of the Dragon

UK M1 Tomb of the Necromancers

 

To celebrate me getting the Guide of Glorantha and my birthday, all D101 Games’ Gloranthan titles are 50% off in Pdf for the next 24 hours (that is from 12pm Sunday 26th today to 12pm Monday 27th tomorrow GMT).

That means you fill can out gaps in your collection or if you’ve not come across our Gloranthan offerings before pick them up at a bargain price

• Hearts in Glorantha one day 50% off sale at Drivethrurpg.com

Also I’ve added a new  Hearts in Glorantha Bundle which includes issues 1-5, so you can get issue 1 free and issues 2-5 with 50% off (until the sale ends)

• Hearts in Glorantha Vol 1 Issue 1-5 Bundle

And here's the free version of Renaissance.

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/97426/Renaissance--D100-black-powder-SRD

You can check out the core of the system for free, via the OpenQuest Basics system

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/127007/OpenQuest-2-Basic-Edition

I've got the artless draft because I backed the Guide and it works on three levels.

As a complete standalone RPG for Glorantha. There's enough detail in the book to run straight away, and then move onto say Sartar for additional detail on cults.

As a Glorantha specific version of HeroQuest, it gathers all the character gen & magic info from Sartar and Pavis, streamlines and slightly amends the system, gives lots of Glorantha specific examples and really makes it work for Glorantha.

As a Glorantha resource. Even if you want to quickly convert Glorantha to another system, say FATE or RQ, there's enough detail on Dragon Pass and how magic works (including HeroQuesting)  that you've got all the fluff text you need to show and explain how the world works.

Broadly speaking its on the level of the old RQ2 rulebook, but because HQ is such a light system they've crammed in more Gloranthan info.

I discontinued development of it about 6 months after announcing it to the World. 

One of the reasons why I don't announce stuff now until I have the first draft done.

OpenQuest Basics is sort of the spiritual successor to it.

Its part of  a big epic ruin... doncha know they built big in antiquity

I would make it more a conversation between the player setting the trap and the referee. Then the modifiers to detect/avoid and result from that and the Skill of the Character.  This is because in OpenQuest the rules explicity state that given time the character can easily perform that skill to the best of their ability.

For example

Nick the Novice (Mechanism 10%) can easily set up a basic trip wire, which is Easy (+25%) to detect and avoid and merely trips up any creature that falls foul of it. However adding a bell for an alarm is bit beyond him, so requires Mechanism roll to succeed. If he fails the trap merely falls appart as he's puttng it togeter or fails to work when triggered.

Meanwhile Melanine the Mistress (Mechanism 120%) can set up with ease a whole fiendish (difficult -50% to detect and avoid) set of alarm bells, slashing blades and tripwires without breakng a sweat or more importanly for the player wthout having to roll.

I suspose I should really give examples of what each ability level of skill can achive, Stormbringer 1-3rd edition does this, but its really one of those areas where the Ref earns their keep.