Miserable Wrecking Wreckers coming soon!

It's back to the drawing board for me, or in this case, back to Clip Studio Paint/ Illustrator/ Photoshop.
While waiting for the print proof copies for "The Wasted Hack" and "Wasteland Beasts and How to Kill Them" I have a few days to work on other "Wasted Hack" titles.  To the left is the cover of the next release, "Miserable Wrecking Wreckers".  It is a collection of "Named Foes", or Enemy NPC's that can be used as needed.  They have been created using the "Creature Customization" tables found in "Wasted Beasts".  Each will have its own illustration and page (hence the "drawing board" reference above).

Some of these Bosses and mini-bosses will be based on new monsters, and the book will have a bestiary listing these new foe types in the same format as the two previous books.

There is also a new Character Class included, the "LowLife".  Lowlifes are similar to Scavengers in some ways, but they have several Specials and Abilities that allow them to steal buffs, advantages, even Luck Points, from other characters, as well as talking their way out of trouble. They are excellent at sneaking and hiding, and pretty good with stabbing and throwing weapons as well.

Other News:

"Bubb's Diner": This was envisioned to be around 24 pages has 64 pages of material already in layout, so there is that. I swiped some of the art assets from it to include in the revised version of "The Wasted Hack". so I will have to create some new art and edit the whole thing down. I think I will go with three key encounters, and then sandbox the rest of the adventure. The book will contain a new playable class that the characters may unlock access to depending on their choices: Lizard Folk.

"Ten Liter Vroom & A Ballistic Therapist": The vehicle rules were already completed before I revised the rule system and incorporated Action Dice and Degrees of Success in The Wasted Hack, so I need to incorporate all of that, and update the "Driver" class to reflect these changes as well.  Most of the artwork is done for this, so it's pretty close...

"Clanking Doom": All the playtesting session are complete, as well as several of the key art assets. The book is in layout, but is in earlier stages. This book will feature an new playable class that the characters can unlock depending on their choices "Citiz3n" (robots).

Future Products: 

Setting Book: I have lots of notes for a default setting for the game, much of it I had to pull out of the core rule book to keep it setting neutral. This will include everything from key settlements and strongholds to factions and key players in the world.

Wasteland Beasts II: Lots of monster ideas that I could not fit in anywhere else.  There will be a sequel

Fantasy Setting:  When playtesting, we go back and forth between the Post-Apocalypse and and Fantasy, testing the rules in both settings.  I have been parallel developing a fantasy game along side "The Wasted Hack", and I really love it.  I look forward to working on this, but I need to support The Wasted Hack first.

Space Opera: Uh, yeah.  I have loads of notes from a game in this genre I was working on for use with the FATE rules.  It is very similar in feel to "The Wasted Hack", just in space.

Sci-Fi Monster Book:  Yep.  I started working on this along side "Waste-Land Beasts". It is sitting on the "shelf" right now though.

Espionage: Yes, its true. I have worked on some ideas related to a spy themed game including a "shot table" similar to the "Out of Action" table.  This one is really in the concept stage, but one day when I have the brain space and time it could become a reality.

I have been thinking... If I could sell, oh, I don't know, around 500,000 copies of my existing titles, then I could quit my job and just work on all of these things all day long.  What do you say? Who is with me on this?  #WastedLife?  Maybe #Fundfrosty? #Pleadingwrecker perhaps?  If we all work together promoting this...Hello? It got awfully quiet in here...Oh well, can't blame a guy for trying and I guess maybe I was half-kidding (not really:) ).

Well, if you did read this far, I can throw you a bonus piece of artwork for the fantasy setting. This is a cover concept, but the final will probably include an image with a smaller title.

- Frost

The Wasted Hack is now Available!

The Wasted Hack is now (finally) available!  The finished book weighs in at 100 pages! 

You can find it HERE!

The Wasted Hack is a “Pen and Paper” role playing game made using "The Black Hack" by David Black that uses dice and character abilities to resolve conflicts and overcome challenges in a Post-Apocalyptic world.

Players assume the roles of survivors in this ruined world, with varied backgrounds and abilities at their disposal. Play as a brutal Savage, disciplined Veteran, crafty Scavenger, or baleful Infected. 

This 100 page book contains rules for Action Dice that fuel special abilities for each class that can be acquired as the characters level up, a wide array of mutations the characters can develop over time, weapons, armor, and gear, varying degrees of success, hirelings, character vs. character combat, waste-land beasts to oppose your players, printable monster cards, Marvelous Items including Future-Tech, Relics, Lost Marvels and Schematics, and more!

I have also updated "Waste-Land Beasts and How to Kill Them" to match the A5 format, as well as the new rules introduced in "The Wasted Hack"  The "BeastHunter" class has been completely reworked to match the Action Die mechanics of The Wasted Hack as well

I have put the two books together in a bundle, and shaved a buck off the total price for the pair. It is HERE!

To the left is the final version of the character sheet that I included in the book. It incorporates the variable degrees of success mechanic by recording the stat values, and then recording 1/2 of the stat in the second hex.  Rolling under this value is not just a success, but a "Good" success, and of course rolling a natural 1 is a "Great" success.  This was something that came about in playtesting and was a big hit with my group.

"Ten Liters" and the Cavalier Class

As "The Wasted Hack" broke 100 pages, it became clear that I would be forced to make some tough choices as to content.  I went back and forth about adding vehicle rules, but in the end, they aren't extremely necessary for "The Wasted Hack", and fit nicely into a supplement.

"Ten Liter" contains all the rules for vehicle combat, ranging from the ultra simple rule of just using Dexterity for everything, to the "standard rules" which use Speed and Handling modifiers to Dex checks based upon the type of vehicle, and its various upgrades.

Also included in "Ten Liter" is a new playable class, the Cavalier.  Cavaliers specialize in driving stunts and vehicle maintenance and repair, but still pack a wollap in melee combat. If the Players are going to use vehicles to get around the Great Ruined World, then no party should be without a Cavalier!

"Ten Liter Vroom & A Ballsitic Therapist" is nearly complete, with rules for upgrading vehicles (engines, fuel tanks, suspensions, and tires), new rules for Armor Plating, Heavy weapons (that deal double damage vs pedestrians), crashes, and repair and maintenance. The only thing missing is a "bestiary" of enemy vehicles.

"Ten Liter" is holding everything up right now.  The Wasted Hack is essentially complete aside from a rigorous proofreading.  I want to release them both at the same time, so I can offer a bundle.  "Ten Liter" isn't a skeezy "cash grab", it will be cheap, and even cheaper when bundled with "The Wasted Hack".

Clanking Doom (and the baleful machinations) Playtest

My stalwart gaming group, fueled by Aldi brand chips in many varieties as well as several two liters of soda arrived at my house while I was trapped in an interview for a new position at my job that was running long (like two hours long).

I got the new job, which is more closely aligned with my background (teaching elementary school for the past five years in an urban school), and the guys all crowded into my basement and passed around the guitar I keep next to my computer desk to make the group listen to my acoustic renditions of eighties hits while visiting the bar/ tavern in The Downs from the previous adventure.  I missed the the jam session, but we did get through some of the adventure before everyone had to head home. Tomorrow night we should be able to conclude Clanking Doom, and then one more adventure (reclaiming the fallen fortress which is actually a refinery in Smitherine)  before they unlock vehicles!

Last time we played, The party members where enjoying the spoils from their previous adventure. They were given an apartment on the second level of The Downs (Silver), as well as the official titles of "Agents", but were soon tasked with investigating the claims of a heavily damaged robot (robot torso actually) about a madman seeking to overtake the world with an army of robots.  One of the characters had to wear the legless robot as a backpack, and they set out Northeast into the the Hex Zone known as "Bulwark" to find the lair of the maniac.  The party encounters soldiers that had run a group of Mutants (I always type orcs when I want to write "mutants", and have to backspace and correct it) into a small cavern.  The soldiers didn't want to go in after them, and were forced to wait long enough to ensure the Mutants starved or bled to death, but offered some credits to the characters if they would go in and finish them off.  The characters accepted, and slaughtered the Mutants in the end. They recovered an explosive grenade from a tripwire trap, and the Scavenger character Merle nicked two wedding bands off of skeletons found by crawling through the back window of a ruined car jutting out of one of the cavern walls (He kept these rings a secret, greedy bastard that he is).

The Party found the entrance to the Manufactory, and solved a puzzle to gain entry with help from the robot torso.  Once inside, they met Ors Keye, a cyborg scientist that had been preserved in cryogenic sleep since before the End Times War.  There were other scientists as well, but he claimed they did not survive the process.  Ors is a condescending jerk, and a lot of fun to roleplay, taunting the players/ characters and forcing them to jump through hoops to proceed through a training facility for robots.

Ors has near total control of the facility, but cannot access certain panels needed to assemble a large battle Mech that he can command, so he forced the characters to access the panels in order to gain access to the next area in the Manufactory. The party managed to survive several traps, overcame two fairly difficult logic puzzles, and defeated the first group of battle robots Ors sent to test against them.

So far they have sent both arms to a level below, which are being assembled to "Clanking Doom".

Ors will continue to send improved versions of his battle bots until the party reaches the end.

If they are successful, they will liberate a group of robots meant to aid humans in the reconstruction of the ruined world. These robots, known as Citiz3ns, will become a new playable character class at the end of the adventure, just as Lizard-Folk became a new class at the end of the last adventure (Bub's Diner).

In the coming adventure, the players will do battle with Clanking Doom, a multi-stage foe with hit points for each body part.  They will be able to trick the robot, being controlled by Ors, into destroying a wall that leads to Ors's isolation chamber.  I can reveal this in a blog post because I have kept this blog a secret from my players...

They will be forced with the decision to kill Ors, or keep him alive as he may have information about the past that is valuable, although he has already confessed that something when wrong with his cryogenic hibernation and is in fact, quite insane. The desire to kill him should be pretty strong, as I have really played him up to be quite a jerk...