hmh v4

"Hand of Oblivion" class first look

Hands of Oblivion are a new character class for "What Comes After", and are essentially warrior monks of the Great Ruined World. 

They can use Low-Tech ranged weapons, but primarily rely on unarmed attacks, which deal damage as if a Melee weapon was equipped.  These unarmed attacks also deal exploding damage from first level.

Hand Special Abilities involve mystical and martial arts.

"Savage" character template page and notes on "What Comes After"

The finished "Savage" illustration has been added to the character class template page.

Federico Saladino asked, in a G+ post, how "What Comes After" differs from "The Wasted Hack".  The following is (are) my response(s).

Federico, most of the changes began when I was writing "Future Maxx", and started expanding on the rules from "The Wasted Hack" to fit the sci-fi setting. Early on these changes had a lot to do with "porting over" changes in gear customization from the sci fi rules, but also resulted in reworking the way playable species work.

In "The Wasted Hack", there are no playable species, only classes, but I added playable species as a "bolt on" mechanic in "Miserable Wrecking Wreckers" and based this on the rules I had made for adding fantasy races/ species in The Unearthed Hack. These rules have been reworked/ expanded in "Future Maxx", based on the method used in Future Maxx.

The "Infected" class is no longer a class, but now a playable species using these new rules, as well as several types of mutated animals. All characters can still gain new mutations when they level up/ are exposed to mutagens, but I have stopped short of adding a "mutant" playable species. I made this decision because mutants are the rough equivalent of orcs, and in that sense, most characters are "half-orcs", having some form of mutation by the time they reach 10th level.

I have also included the "Hunter" and "Low-Life" classes from Waste-Land Beasts/ Miserable Wrecking Wreckers in the core rules, and have added the Cavalier (driver) and "Hand of Oblivion" (Waste-Land Warrior Monk) classes.

Several minor changes to the Wasted Hack rules have also been implemented to address some balance issues, or to facilitate compatibility with new rules.

Rules for gaining "Improvement Points" to reach new levels, as opposed to leveling up "once per session" have been added. I liked the "once per session" rule from The Black Hack, but it kills the motivation for side quests, as you needlessly expose your characters to risks for no reward aside from dangling the carrot of a special item over their heads. Being able to gain experience and help advance your character for taking on side quests, or powerful npc's works well in the new system.

Vehicle rules are now included in the book. Currently there are 16 pages revolving around driving rules/ vehicle creation and customization. I am re-writing some of these rules to work better with "What Comes After" as they were originally written for "the Wasted Hack". That is not to say that they wont work with The Wasted Hack in the end, they will just flow better with the new rules and share some common language.

Degrees of Success: I am expanding these rules both for in-combat and out of combat situations

Levels 11-15: the "Legends of the Wasted-World" rules allow characters to continue advancing past the previous level cap. This section is included in the Game Master's Guide, and will include a new "Epic" action die with powerful special abilities for each class to choose from, as well as rules for facing more powerful foes and challenges.

In that last paragraph I reference a "Game Master's Guide". "What Comes After" will be split into two books. The Players Guide will contain all core rules/ vehicle rules, character creation rules/ mutation rules and basic equipment and gear. It is already over 100 pages.

The Game Master's Guide will have all the rules from the "game master's section" of the Wasted Hack, but expanded.

The Player's Guide is nearly complete, and I will offer more information regarding the Game Master's Guide as I dive into it, but you can expect it to include more support for a game master, as well rules for running a game in the Great Ruined world. In The Wasted Hack, I tried to keep the setting info to a minimum, but the Game Master's Guide will (hopefully) paint a fuller picture of the "Great Ruined Word", including locations/ factions/ powerful NPC's, etc.

Again, these are just some of the changes off the top of my head. I have also begun creating new artwork to reflect some of the changes from "The Wasted Hack" to "What Comes After".

-Aaron

One thing that I forgot to mention. When I was first writing "The Wasted Hack", characters could not level up until they visited a "Scrivener" to get their exploits tattooed on their body. These marks would serve as an indication of a character's level to others and perhaps carry some social benefits depending on what the character/player chose. I eventually cut it from the book, but will be including something similar in "What Comes After. "Marks" will not be required for leveling up, but special marks can be earned from settlements and outposts, and even ravager gangs if the characters are being played as villains.
The tattoos, or "marks" use an extremely rare ink laced with an otherworldly substance (rich with cosmic energy from Future Maxx). These marks will provide small bonuses/ abilities along with CHA bonuses when appropriate. ( a Mark depicting the slaying of a giant winged lizard would likely impress civilized folk and raider clans alike, while a mark depicting the destruction of a settlement wont sit well with civilized folk, but might grant a CHA bonus with other villainous types.
The presence of Cosmic energy in "What Comes After" is just another small way the three games will be connected, but these rules will be presented in the Game Master's guide. To the characters, it's just "magic ink".
The connections between the games are also "optional rules". "What Comes After" can be played as intended, as part of the "Future Maxx" galaxy/ game setting, or simply be used in a skinned out version of your own town after the "Great War". My idea is to be able to present more of my vision for the world without forcing anyone to "buy into it" to play the game. Don't like using non-human species? Then simply restrict advancement to class and universal skills. Want to play a species not included (like straight up Mutants?), there will be guidelines for that in the Game Master's Guide. The game is being built in a modular fashion so that rules like this can be added or removed to suit the play-styles and preferences of the players and game master.

And something that I also forgot to mention in both of those responses was the inclusion of exploding damage at level 6 to help characters keep pace with more powerful foes, and the ability to switch to a second class at level 6 as well.

Savage illustration update for "What Comes After".

One of the things that is changing from "The Wasted Hack" to "What Comes After" is artwork.  I am still keeping the same style (which involves a painfully slow process using Illustrator), but as the books grow in size, so does the need for new images.  I am also working on creating new images based upon those found in The Wasted Hack. 

The image to the left shows a redesign for the "Savage" class illustration from "The Wasted Hack". For now I have the original images as placeholders, but will include all new art. or variants on the original art for important illustrations. 

"What Comes After": Non-Human Species

All of the species (human and non-human) have been detailed, and given unique specials to chose from at creation and during level-up. The only thing that remains before this section is totally finished is the completion of images for each. The pages are structured in the same manner as the Lizard- Folk featured in the image.

Each species has some possible adjustments to attribute stat scores, Passive abilities inherent to all members of the species, and basic and advanced specials included.

As mentioned in a previous post, the playable species include Human, Infected, Gato (cat-folk), Mongrel (dog-folk), Ratlings, Ravens (bird-folk), Lizard-Folk, Scimmia (monkey/ ape folk), Robots, and Fungoids. That's ten species and seven character classes for 70 possible combinations of characters (with an eighth character class possibly making it in as well).

"What Comes After": Human Specials

In "The Wasted Hack", all characters are human, with the slight exception of "Infected", which are a variation of human.

In "What Comes After" there are several species (as indicated in the previous post) with unique abilities and features.

Humans gain an extra stat point to place wherever they choose during character creation, and also gain a bonus Luck Point at the start of each play session. This gives them two Luck Points to start each time the players sits down at the table, or in front of the computer screen I suppose.  As this doubles the chances that a character will have a spare Luck Point left over at the end of the play session, it increases the chance that the character will gain the 5 Improvement Point bonus.

While this is a small bonus, and totally dependent on the player saving a Luck Point, it is a something of an approximation/ homage to the red box where humans leveled up faster than "demi-humans".

As far as humans go, I was prepared to leave it at that, but considering the other character types gain new specials based upon their species, I thought I should work up some Basic and Advanced specials just for humans, as seen in the image above (or to the left depending on your display).

Invisible Ruck-Sack is a reflection of the imbalance of power and agency in the Great Ruined World. The non-human species come with a lot of perks, but they are almost always marginalized to some degree in human society. This special reflects that sad reality.

Hubris is a variation of a Special I developed for Future Maxx called "cocky".

Compassion is a selfless Special that allows a character to aid another through a "meta-game" channel.  Of course this could be purely tactical, and advantageous to the using character as well. I should/ will edit this special to include the tag "Pyrrhic".

Fast Learner is handy for gaining two lower powered specials for the price of one, and many of the Universal Specials function as skill sets.

Dumb Luck is one my favorite specials I worked up for "Future Maxx", and is pulled directly from those rules.

Hell-Bent reflects the tenacity of humans, to pursue a goal against odds and without regard for the consequences.  I developed this for "What Comes After", but will also use it in "Future Maxx" for the human specials. I originally wanted to make this special benefit the character at the expense of others, but that edges into the "Low-Life" character class abilities, and I like it as it stands.

What Comes After: Playable Species

The second edition of "The Wasted Hack" continues to receive the "Future Maxx" treatment with updates and additions to the rules based on things developed for its sci-fi counterpart.

There are now several playable species a character can choose from aside from the original "human", which, when combined with classes gives players 60 different combinations to choose from.

Each of the new species has changes to the "character/ class template itself", such as bonuses and penalties to starting stat points, and some passive abilities associated with the creature type (natural armor/ bonus to spot/ etc.) as well as a subset of Basic and Advanced specials specific/ exclusive to the species.

The playable species now include: Human, Infected, Gato (cat-folk), Mongrel (dog-folk), Ratling, Raven (bird-folk), Lizard-Folk, Fungoid, Scimmia (chimpanzee/ ape-folk), and Robot.

Playing a non-human species can have some drawbacks, such as being discriminated against in certain settlements or even strongholds that hold to a purist/ human-first viewpoint, as well as being targeted first in combat by hostile "monster" versions of their species.

Between Class Specials, Universal Specials, and Species Specials, there are loads of ways to customize each character from level 1 to level 10, and with the addition of "Legends of the Wasted-World" rules, characters may continue to progress to level 15, gaining access to "Legendary" specials starting at level 11.

What Comes After: Classes

The Classes in "What Comes After" have been reformatted a bit from "The Wasted Hack".  Some of the specials have been tweaked, while others have been moved to "Universal Specials" if they were common across all classes.  A few new specials (from Future Maxx) have been included for classes as well.

The layout has been changed, with alignment to a baseline grid.

As much as I loved the ScreamQueen font from Blambot, having to make outlines of every single instance of it (per the license) was a daunting affair when making "The Wasted Hack", and Sigmar One (the replacement font) was the font I originally used when The Wasted Hack was being created as a card game some years ago.

The Infected Class has been removed, with Infected now a playable species across classes.  The species still retains the relevant Special Abilities associated with the class from The Wasted Hack.

All of the additional classes (BeastHunter, Low-Life, and Cavalier (driver)) that were included in other books (published and unpublished) have also been included in What Comes after, as well as playable species.

It will now be possible to play an Infected Low-Life, Ratling Scavenger, or even a Robot Savage.

Wasted Hack Second Edition: "What Comes After"

I have been hard at work on Future Maxx, and have nearly completed/ expanded the existing rules from "The Wasted Hack".  I have mentioned wanting to put together a second edition of "The Wasted Hack" in G+, to take advantage of the improvements I have made.  I have begun laying out the second edition of The Wasted Hack alongside "Future Maxx". 

The second edition will get a new name along with all the other improvements:  "What Comes After"

"What Comes After" will be designed to fit neatly with "Future Maxx, as they are connected games, and will feature new rules explaining how they work together, and some game master notes about how the "Great Ruined World" is not exactly earth, even though the inhabitants think it is.

"What Comes After" will also pull from Waste-Land Beasts and Miserable Wrecking Wreckers.

So I am one small step closer to my goal of having a trilogy of games:  "What Comes After", "Future Maxx", and "Wolf Thrower", with all three set within the "War-Torn Galaxy".

Future Maxx First Look: Spacer Class (with Human Variant)

These three pages represent the beginning of the Spacer Character Class.  The first and second pages (12 and 13) apply to all spacers, while the third page (14) includes specials only available to Human Spacers.  Each of the eight Life Forms have (or will have) a page with 4 unique basic and advanced specials to choose from, just at the Human Spacer does.

There are also Universal Specials that any Class/Life form combination can choose from in place of selecting a basic special at creation or when leveling up on odd levels.
Also working out a leveling/ improvement point system where characters can engage in short side-treks to grab some advancement points towards the next level. Looking at having a full adventure count towards 50 points with a chance to earn more, and side treks ranging from 5-10 each. The threshold to level up being somewhere between 60-70 points so it is possible to level up with each adventure, but not guaranteed, and characters can "grind" a level doing several short missions.  -Aaron

more old comics from the draconian elementary charter school

old comic #2

Did I mention that I hated this school?

Old Comic

I was digging through my hard drive looking for something, and came across this old cartoon I made when I was teaching in an urban school a couple years ago... Man I loved those kids but hated that wrecking school.

Guard Duty is out now

I told my wife I wouldn't come to bed at 4:00 am again. I crept under the covers at 4:40, so technically I wasn't lying, it certainly wasn't 4:00.  The sun was coming up and as I tried to adjust the curtain to make certain it wouldn't look like the sun was already coming up as I finally called it a night the dog spotted a rabbit from the living room window, started barking, and I got busted.

The upside to all of this is that I was able to make a cover for "Guard Duty", and pull the text out of the "Bubb's Diner" file to create a stand alone "multi-path/ choose your own" style adventure that serves as a prequel to "Bubb's".

The reader plays the part of Randal, an NPC that is embedded in the player character party at the onset of the adventure.  The idea behind creating it was to make the characters a bit more familiar with the setting, and of course Randal.

My playtest group was terrible to Randal, using him as a pack mule and a meat shield, even taking his unique weapon right from the start. I tried to dish out a little karma by having Randal shoot one of them in the rear end during a tense firefight, but in the end he was treated as fairly one-dimensional by the players.  The thought of having them read a short adventure where they play as him occurred to me only after running the adventure. Perhaps they would have more empathy for him if they did?

I was able to use the story to cram in lots of little bits about the setting as well, so that players can be a bit more familiar with "The Downs", an underground town with three levels (Copper, Silver, Strontium). The lower levels are off limits to first level characters ( the characters the adventure is aimed at) as they are reserved for the elite merchant class. Above ground scavengers pick through the ruins of a ruined city in hopes of finding enough salvage and scrap to trade in for food.

The rich get richer and the poor barely survive.  It's a miserable existence for most. 

There are a few false endings that are either "red herrings" or actually give some clues as to the rest of the adventure, or are nods to another one of my books.

Writing a multi-path adventure was a lot of work, even for one this short, but I have had some prior experience with the process using Inklewriter when it was a thing.

Still, it was a lot of fun, and helped me get into Randal's head, which would also have been useful before GMing the play session, so I think it is a pretty good resource for Game Master's as well.

Of course there are ending codes as well. These are designed to track the impact of a player's choices on the adventure.  As "Bubb's Diner" takes place around a month or so after the events of "Guard Duty", the setting might be slightly different by the time the player characters inhabit it.  Of course we can assume that Randal survives, but this might not be the case for everyone.

I put it up on RPGNow as a free download.  I would just drop it download folder and link to that, but I want the "Mature" filter, as Randal is a bit of a boozehound and there are frequent references to that as well as using "stims" to fight a hangover, all of which was inspired by my players characters and their choices while in The Downs.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/244797/Guard-Duty

I have had a few projects hanging over my head that have prevented me from really digging in and finishing up the vehicle rules as well as "Bubb's Diner", but I am working through them as fast as I can. It was all I could do to get "Guard Duty" wrapped up, and that's largely because I did most of th work on it over a year ago and it was gathering dust on my hard drive.

Things to do/ have done

Son's 4th grade yearbook for school- finished two days ago!
One Page Dungeon Contest- Tons of emailing to sort prizes, so still ongoing.
2018 One Page Dungeon Compendium PDF- completed
2018 One Page Dungeon Compendium Print on Demand. 80% done.
Logo for local farmers market- maybe 50% done with this project
Design related projects for my job (which sadly does not involve this sort of thing normally) - should be wrapped up by the end of the weekend.

All of these projects represent a "Scrap-ton" of work, and they are all done on a volunteer bonus, meaning I still have to drag myself into work everyday but just know that I really do want to finish up Bubb's and the Vehicle rules as soon as I can.  I appreciate your patience as I work through that list above.

-Aaron

Wolf Thrower

I am working on the vehicle rules for The Wasted Hack, but I am also working on something else, aside from the One Page Dungeon Contest.

Currently there are nine playable classes (three warrior types, two types of clerics, two types of thieves, and two types of wizards).

Classes have nine basic and nine advanced specials to choose from, and a whole slew of universal specials, which is a slight upgrade from The Wasted Hack.

Classes gain exploding damage at level five, to keep up with high HD monsters, and the ability to upgrade damage to use multiple smaller dice (increasing the likelihood of exploding damage at these higher levels).

I have been working on this since I started the Wasted Hack, it was meant to page-for-page parallel development but it fell behind pretty quickly.  I am only working on this project intermittently, while I devote most of my focus on the vehicle rules, but once they are done, I will likely work on this exclusively for a bit as it is capturing my imagination.

I received the print proof for "The Unearthed Hack", and the page numbers were cut off. Also, it seemed so short that I would likely need to add several pages before I felt good about making it "Print On Demand", even if the page numbers had not been fragged.  In many ways it served as a precursor to the fantasy game, and many of the elements will be adapted and pulled over to "Wolf Thrower" in the end.

What's in a name? the title "Wolf Thrower" comes from the lore of the earliest humans, struggling to survive in the Blood-Soaked Plains, and comes directly from the earliest human hero.

In reality, my brother was visiting, and I asked him if he needed me to get anything ahead of time. He asked me to buy "wolf thorn" body wash as he couldn't bring it on the plane.  The phone connection was poor, and I thought he said "Wolf Thrower". The name stuck with me.

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The Deadline for the 2018 One Page Dungeon Contest is May 1st, by midnight UMT

Visit dungeoncontest.com for more details, and grab a free copy of the submission guide HERE.

The One Page Dungeon Contest Ate My Life!

So I had hoped to put out the vehicle rules for The Wasted Hack by now, but I have been incredibly busy with managing the 2018 One Page Dungeon Contest that I haven't had a chance to work on anything else (with one exception as noted below). 

We have a lot of sponsors this year, and a treasure trove of prizes, so if you have not submitted an entry, this is the year to do it! 

You can grab a free copy of the submission guide HERE, and check out my www.dungeoncontest.com website for more information regarding the contest.

The deadline is May 1st, by midnight UMT. There is a handy countdown clock on the website to let you know just how much or little time is left to get a entry sent in.

The contest judging and the awarding of prizes should wrap up around mid-May, and then I will be able to devote my time to wrapping up Bubb's Diner, and the vehicle rules.  In the meantime, I have about five hundred new ideas that I simply can't spare the time to explore, but I am looking forward to diving into all of this soon.

I was able to put together the print edition of "The Unearthed Hack" before the contest went full blown, and it has been sitting in "your entry has been sent" limbo for what feels like forever. However, it did finally get approved, and I will be sending off for a print proof copy.

-Aaron

Armor Plating Rules for "Ten Liter"

The page featured in the image covers Armor Plating and Armor Dice, which need to be degraded by heavy damage before a vehicle starts to take damage to its Hit Points.

Armor Plating also negatively affects a character's attempts to control a vehicle (by making drive (DRV) tests, which is a new derived stat.

I originally had two separate categories, Speed and Handling, and each were tracked independently as bonuses or penalties to a characters DEX test to drive, but tracking and calculating all of that was a pain in the butt, so I abstracted everything down to a simple DRV modifier.  A vehicle will have a total DRV modifier based on its stock value and any modifications that have been made, and this total value can be negative (a bonus to DRV test) or postive (a penalty to DRV tests). 

Driving the armored compact car featured on the page would not be pleasant, with +2 penalties on every DRV test (used to escape pursuit, catch another vehicle, avoid damage, inflict damage with ramming and hard mounted weapons, etc.)

Wasted Hack Vehicle Rules: New Cover Image Process

Pulling sketch in from Clip Studio to Illustrator and

re-drawing it with the pen tool/ adding pistons and rods.

Pulling into Photoshop, outlining and filling blacks with 

white in prep for cover.

Adding the new image to the existing cover file/ tweaking the size

and arrangement of text.

The Wasted Hack, Waste-Land Beasts, and Miserable Wrecking Wreckers now in print!

Print on demand versions are now available!

The Wasted Hack Print Edition

Waste-Land Beasts and How to Kill Them Print Edition

Miserable Wrecking Wreckers Print Edition

The three can also be found in a bundle that reduces the total price by $1.50.

The Great Ruined World Bundle