Newt

Congratulations to Ian and the rest of the Chaosium team for getting this out

Its warmed the cockles of this old HQ Narrator's heart and as a publisher made my head explode with the possibilities 

Thank you for bring back a game that I loved and meant a lot to me from the last decade and for giving it a future going forward

OQ3 is very much its own thing and based off Legend OGL SRD. Its a big happy Fantasy Adventure FRP with a few modern bells and whistles. Its a base system that I, and others, can write adventures/settings pretty straight out of the book. It will be OGL and there will be an online SRD  and a word doc SRD. 

Skyraiders is its own thing. I wrote the rules base quickly over two days and while it has many similarities to OQ3, it is a bit more experimental in places. Its also written from scratch, and I won't be releasing it under the OGL. Other self contained D100 games from me and other D101 writers will probably use the underlying system, which I'm calling the D101-System.

18 minutes ago, Prime Evil said:

We're hoping you will *beat* these production values! 

Will you be kind if this one-man publishing house doesn't ?

Its one of Ospreys line of RPGs so marketing will be kinda last minute, it's not out until September 2020 according to Amazon page.

11 hours ago, rsanford said:

I don't have any RPGs from Osprey but I have read a number of their military books and the content and production or first rate. If anyone (besides Newt) can make OpenQuest shine it will be Osprey.

It does raise the bar for OpenQuest 3's production values, gulp! :D

Crikey, couple of days has become a couple of weeks! How time flies.

Ok short version:

OpenQuest 3 after a pause is being worked on. I was hoping to have it done by now but I got engrossed in updating the Organisations chapter - which is all the rules/info for what other games call Cults or Factions. There's the unified magic list needs trawling through as does the monster chapter, which may ore may not get a radical overhaul. Then I'll have a playtest version which I push out and we will have an open playtest, which will probably last until the summer when I take the game to Kickstarter. 

OQ will still be Legend OGL based. I briefly flirted with the idea of it going BRP-OGL, but decided against throwing 2 years worth of work under the bus. Also OQ3 has diverged quite significantly from BRP that it wasn't a straightforward "engine" switch, of taking out the core mechanics of OQ and switching in the equivalent BRP-OGL. 

As well as OQ continuing to be Open Gaming Content, I've looked at how I support 3rd Party publishers. Since OQ2 Refreshed came out in 2016 I've been swamped with other work and life stuff, and haven't really been as supportive as I feel I should have been. So when OQ3 comes out there will be a freely available SRD and a website to support it (check out openquestrpg.com if you want a sneak peak :). 

As well as OQ3, I'll be publishing stuff like Skyraiders of the Floating Realms using an even more striped down D100 system, that I'm causally calling the D101-System. This won't be OGL, I wrote it from scratch - and while it has ideas from OQ its its own system. D101-system releases will be even more experimental than OQ, which is partially why I'm making its own thing.  Also since after 10 years of publishing my goals as a publisher have changed. 

I've also got a Mythras Gateway license which I'm going to be putting out an adventure/setting book called the Isle of the Dead later this year. I'm also looking and doing other bits and bobs for it.

This means the OpenQuest RPG Adventures Patrenon has got a name change to D100 RPG Adventures , since I'll be using it to support not only OQ, but also Skyraiders and Mythras adventures. if you are a Patron I'll be doing a furher update about how this changes what I'll doing for it. Which is big news in itself

Just in case anyone is wondering if OpenQuest 3 is still a thing, the answer is yes and I'll be making an a fuller announcement of where I'm up to in the next couple of days

I'll have to check this out  I've recently got back into online gaming and was considering using Roll D20, since its commonly used.  With OQ3 on the way perhaps now is the time to consider support. . 

If anyone finds anything that is ready made please let me know. 

Just under a day and a half to go on the campaign. I've posted two blog posts about Skyraiders;

First off a small bit of gaming fiction that introduces the setting of the Floating Realms and give an idea of the tone and scope of the game. 

• The Voyage of the Flying Circus

Then there is a character sheet of a starting character

• Janic the Bard.

I've had a Mythras Gateway license for some time now and this is the year I dust it off and use it.

A sneak peek of what I'm up to is  featured in the Grogzilla fanzine I've already funded as part of Kickstarter's ZineQuest 2, and this article on my Sorcerer Under the Mountain goes into detail.

• Six for Mythras.

20 hours ago, g33k said:

Is this 1-100 d%, or is it 0-99?

I ask because of using Doubles; you have the problem of 99+00 being adjacent, both fumbles, and over-represented as fumbles...

Nothing with a roll of 10 or under can EVER get a Crit, and a 95%-skill Master has a huge portion of their misses as actual Fumbles.

 

The "obvious" solution is to make d100 into 0-99, which distributes doubles linearly in the rolling range; 00 becomes an always-crit best roll,  99 an always-miss fumble.

Its 1-100% with no skill going over 100 (which is considered mastery). Sure mathematically 10% and lower will never get a critical, but such low skills in my opinion shouldn't get one anyway.

Also 99 & 00 in the D101-System aren't automatic fumbles. If you are in the 100% range they are criticals, and the tiny advantage of two more crits at the upper end of the distribution makes sense,

Skyraiders is designed to be broadly compatible with other d100 systems, so if the way it does certain things does jelln't with you can swoop in you favourite subsystem. But its not a BRP Clone. BRP/RQ/early Chaosium systems are an inspiration but not the only ones

Ok the adventures have now funded and I've added a set of three simple stretch goals. 

£800 The Crew of the Flying Circus + The Associates of Dr Dee. Pre-made characters for your games of  Skyraiders and for Wigan Pigs (the adventure in Grogzilla) respectively in pdf format. Delivered as a pdf, separate to the zine. 

£1000 Creatures of the Floating Realms. A collection of twenty monsters for Skyraiders of the Floating Realms Delivered as a pdf, separate to the zine. 

£1100 Five Personalities of the Floating Realms - Five non-player characters designed to reoccurring patrons, foils or even enemies for your games of Skyraiders.  Delivered as a pdf, separate to the zine. 

I'm aiming to get these stretch goals written up and delivered with the main zine in April. 

Yes I have gone with doubles for crits and failuers :)

Yes this is a distillation of OQ3 re-written from the ground up, I literally opened up a Word Document the day after I did my tax return (in one day rather than five) determined to write down how I run D100 at my table, no more no less,. How this affects the future of OpenQuest I'll be making a formal announcement about it soon ;)

Currently funded as part of D101’s ZineQuest2 Two for One Zine Kickstarter along with Grogzilla issue 1. It is a zine sized RPG, which is the first pass of about 40-50 A5 pages tidied up, so it is playable. It’s a Zero Edition, with the full first edition coming this summer as a fully kickstarted game.

• Skyraiders of the Floating Realms on ZineQuest

It comes in two blended-bits :

• A colourful and action-packed setting, The Floating Realms.
• A concise d100 system.

The Floating Realms

I wanted a setting that is immediate, easy to explain and sucks the players in. I know the idea of adventurers travelling from one sky island to the next in a post-apocalyptic setting, in search of adventure and loot gets me going. It has done since I came across Skyrealms of Jorune. There’s lots of weird fun fantasy game juice packed into even the Zero Edition. Peter Frain has pretty much nailed the spirit of the game in his front cover of two adventurers at the prow of a Sky Ship, with the New Sun and the Dead Moon in the background.

The D101-System

At the beginning of the year, I sat down and over two days wrote a 20-page concise D100 system. It's written from the ground up, not from a SRD, because I wanted to get my idea of what I wanted from a D100 across. If you are familiar with OpenQuest it’s a continuation of many of the ideas I introduced in that game.

Characteristics are still the familiar building blocks, except for Size which I’ve dropped,  randomly rolled. I’ve dropped Size from the usual D100 list of characteristics because I never use in my games. Characteristics as well as being the basis of Hit Points (now Constitution) and being used to work out Bonus Damage, characteristics determine the starting values of skills, usually two relevant characteristics for each skill.

Characters have a previous career, which sets them up for play with a set of skills and three magic spells since everyone on the Floating Realms knows a bit of magic, and a default set of starting equipment. They are then individualised with by allocation of small number points to skills they haven’t already advanced with their career, and players get to pick an additional spell. They advance in free form manner, earning Improvement points that the player can spend on the skills and magic they want, as well as gaining contacts, skills and magic through completing missions for their organisations.

There’s one Skill test system. The skills list is short and concise, even compared to OpenQuest, and the system of simple difficulty modifiers is even more aggressively applied. In any given situation only one difficulty modifier applies from a set range (-40%, -20% , +20%, +40%).  And modifiers from magic trumps mundane situational ones.

Opposed skill tests are now so that only player rolls their skill, which is modified up or down if their opponent is more or less skilled than them. I realised I’ve been doing this instinctively for years since it gives similar results to both sides rolling and takes the pressure off me as Referee.

It has one magic system, one list of spells, and no magic points. Instead, you roll against Magic skill to see if the spell is successful and if you fumble the character can not use it again this gaming session. There’s a shortlist of straightforward and powerful spells in this version of the game.

Combat is straightforward, with characters acting in the order of the skill they are using, from highest to lowest, so characters who are more skilled get act first. There’s still attack rolls, followed by defensive reactions to prevent. Armour has a dice armour value, and weapons do damage ranging from 1d4 to 1d12. There are no hit locations.

I’ve moved the system away from resource management and ditched a lot of fiddly numbers. There are no equipment lists and counting of coins and the magic pointless magic system is another example of this.  If it's necessary to know the outcome, a simple skill test is applied to resolve the situation. So, for equipment acquisition the Referee either says yes to reasonable requests and moves on or makes the player perform a successful Trade skill test, modified for availability in the character’s current location, to gain the item they are after.

Overall this is a heavily modified version of OpenQuest, to the point that it’s become its own thing. Its been written from the ground up, and I won’t be releasing it under the OGL. If I had to give the system a name, I’d call it the D101-System 😊

In addition to the stuff pointed out above, there's also The Beard of Lhankor Mhy. An adventure for 13th Age Glorantha by Guy Milner in Hearts in Glorantha #7

On his blog there's his update version of Gringle's Pawn Shop and Sting of the Scorpion Queen adventures, as well as general commentary.

• Guy Milner's Gloranthan Stuff on his Burn After Running Blog.

Ok this one has moved fast, and already funded, the next stretch goal is a little zine sized D100 Fantasy Adventure RPG I've been working on called Skyraiders of the Floating Realms.

Its a maximum gaming fun concise D100 with a punchy immediate fantasy setting, centred on adventurers travelling and exploring the Floating Realms of the title using Sky Ships and other methods.

I explain a bit more in this update.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/645319106/grogzilla-1/posts/2760689

As I said its already funded, and I'm now funding two quick adventures as final stretch goals. 

Here's the front cover by Peter Frain.  

Now on ZineQuest 2: Grogzilla, briefly seen at Grogmeet 2019 now getting a proper printing. It’s full of fire-breathing three-headed skyscraper-sized giant lizards  (stats for D100, OSR, and Monkey!), articles for Mythras, and a mini-adventure sequel to the Road to Hell (for Swords and Wizardry) amongst other things. And It will grow in page count as we hit stretch goals.  

Of interest to the D100 fan is the the stats for Grogzilla himself, and Mechazilla (its sci-fi incarnation for River of Heaven). Also for Mythras fans there's a sneak peek of an adventure book I'm writing for the game that will be released later in the year in the form of the Six Traveller's Culture. The next stretch goal is for a full cult write up of one the Six.

The zine is done, even the stretch goals and will ship shortly after the campaign closes.

Also when the last current batch of stretch goals fund, I've got something very special for D100 fans lined up as the next stretch 

• Grogzilla on ZineQuest 2\Kickstarter.

Not at present....stay tuned. 

I got to play River of Heaven, the Guns of Olympus Mons, at Winter Con 2020 at Fanboy3 in Manchester last weekend just gone. On a personal level, it was great to play in a game with Jon Ossoway, a man who knows his Sci-fi troupes inside out. As a publisher of River of Heaven, it was great to be playing the game with John and seeing exactly how it ticks with the author running it.

The set up was simple and direct. The Renoucers, a sort of Fascist Luddite paramilitary movement who are out to stop the rise of AI, had taken over a military base on Olympus Mons, which is a huge extinct volcano on Mars. Since said base controls the planet's defence grid, our team of Marines were going in hard and fast using drop-pods to take it out. So cue a fast-paced military-techno-thriller, with much sneaking about, hacking into systems, taking out guards from a distance, as well as the all-out firefights you'd expect. John had included some hooks in the character's backgrounds which led to some great roleplaying from the players, so it wasn't all grunts-n-gunplay. I had fun 'weapons-testing' the power armour and a quite frankly scary array of guns and grenades our characters were equipped with. My favourite one was the Smart Grenade, which can be programmed to have a delayed explosion ("Hey Google, set explosion for 30 seconds after impact") and to only go off when near actual combatants, not say, civilians

The best thing of all was that it felt like we were in a distinct Sci-fi universe, not a cheap knock off Star-Wars, Star Trek or Aliens.

Nada, Natch, Nothing...I'd imagine its a place holder. I found another one another booksellers site.

The key to understanding this is that the Critical and Fumble effects are coming from the results of the Caster's Magic Casting skill test not the target's resistance test.

I should have added that as an extra bit of explaination. This is the relevant bits from Magic Casting rules in the Magic chapter.

Quote

Critical Success

A critical success on a Magic Casting test means that the caster has been able to control the flow of the magic particularly effectively.

The result for a critical effect is given for each spell after its description, but usually the spell’s effect is usually maxed out or extended. So for example for an offensive spell that does damage it will do the maximum damage.

Fumble

A fumble on a Magic Casting test means that the caster has been unable to control the flow of the Magic. As well as the effect given at the end of the spell’s description the character may not use that spell for the remainder of the gaming session.

Note in OQ 3 there are no magic points, so fumbles (which happen on a failed roll where the tens and units dice match) manage when the caster runs out of spells.

Also opposed skill tests have changed in OQ3. Here's the rules and example from the draft:

Quote

Opposed Skill Tests

This type of skill test occurs when the player character has an opponent, such as non-player character, who opposes their efforts.

It uses the same procedure as a Basic Skill Test, but when the Referee considers situational modifiers (see Basic Test Procedure Step 5), they compare the modified skill of the player (after situational or modifiers from magic has been added to their skill) vs the modified skill of the opposing character.

• If the opponent’s modified skill is higher than the character’s modified skill by up to 50%, apply a -20 modifier.
• If the opponent’s modified skill when compared with the character’s modified skill is over 50%, apply a -50 modifier. 

All the rules that apply to Basic Skill Tests, such as fumbles, failing forward, critical successes, automatic success and failure, apply to Opposed Skill tests.

Rurik Recklessly Sneaks Past the Watch

This is a worked example of an opposed skill contest.

It’s curfew in the big city and Rurik fancies going to the after-hours drinking session at a local tavern. As he heads down the street towards the alehouse. On the way he sees a member of the city’s police force, the Watch, walking up the opposite side of the road. Rurik, being Rurik, decides to sneak past the watchman, by creeping up the dark side of the road.

The Referee calls for a Deception skill test from Rurik since this skill deals with sneaking. Rurik’s Deception skill is only 22% as he is big, clumsy and trained as a warrior and not a thief. Fortunately for Rob, Rurik’s player, the Referee decides that being on the dark side of the street significantly helps Rurik, making the test simple (+20%), which means that Rurik’s Deception is now 42% for this test. This is fortunate for Rurik because the watchman’s Perception is 40%, because this is what he does for a living every night, If Rurik had not bothered to move through the shadows,  the Referee would have applied a -20% modifier to Rurik’s Deception  due to Watchman having a higher Perception skill.

Rurik's player now makes the skill test using a D100 dice.

•  If Rurik’s player  rolls a 7, he succeeds and Rurik sneaks past the watchman on the darkened side of the street.
•  If Rurik’s player rolls a 65 and fails. The watchman spots a shape in the shadows and heads over to investigate.
•  If Rurik’s player rolls a 33, a critical, Rurik quickly runs by the Watchman in record time.
•  If Rurik’s player rolls a 66, a fumble, Rurik makes so much noise that all the local Watch hear him and come to investigate!

Downloaded and looking good from a quick skim

28 minutes ago, Prime Evil said:

I'm keen to hear what your plans for third-party publishers are. I'd love to adapt some of the spells I originally designed for Legend (bearing in mind that OQ is a lighter rule system).

I'll be unveiling them when I open up the public playtest.

As for spells, while OQ core I'm currently working on tidying it up and keepign the overall list as short as possible (as I've done in previous editions), its all now one big spell list and I've added critical and fumble results, so people new to the system have something to work with.  Also makes OQ 3 magic a bit more  risky.

Quote

Befuddle
Type: Offensive.
Resist (Persistence).  

On a failed resistance roll the victim of this spell is left confused and incapable of rational thought.  The affected target may not cast spells and may only take non-offensive actions. The target may run if they so choose and may dodge and parry normally in combat, though they may not make any attacks unless they are attacked first.

This spell is effective against humanoids and natural creatures. Other creatures (such as spirits or magical beasts like dragons) are not affected by this spell.

• Critical: The spell completely overcomes the Target, who may not roll for resistance or take any action (even non-offensive ones) except babble incoherently rooted to the spot for the duration of the spell.
• Fumble: The spell backfires and effects the caster who must make a resistance test. On a successful test the spell effects them as per normal casting success. On a fail the effects are as for a Critical above.

A bit of fiddling about the other day and I have a logo for OQ 3

On 11/24/2019 at 10:13 PM, Prime Evil said:

I wonder if this will encourage Cakebread & Walton to revise Renaissance (hint, hint)? That would be cool...

It would be cool, but bare in mind Ken (Walton) is still recovering from a pretty serious cancer operation, which is why you've not heard from the dynamic duo in a while.

I'm putting plans together to better support 3rd Party OQ3 publishers, that I'll be unveiling really soon