Sticky: Where to buy and where to find me.
You can buy Postmortem Studios products at:
RPGNOW/Drivethrurpg/Paizo/Yourgamesnow/E23
Lulu (hardcopy)
You can find me at the following locations:
Personal LJ / Twitter/Myspace/Facebook/Tribe /RPGBomb/ Yahoogroup/LinkedIn
We have a hosted forum at UKRoleplayers:
Postmortem Studios Forum
NEWS
It's been an extremely busy month here at Postmortem Studios, two conventions in one month will take it out of the best of us and Indiecon and Dragonmeet were no exceptions. Both events were bedevilled by problems beyond anyone's control. Indiecon was located next to some of the hardest hit areas in the heaviest rain and worst flooding seen in many years in the UK but somehow survived - though we all got very wet and the third day of the con was held in Oz. Dragonmeet was similarly assaulted by weather issues as well as the vagueries of trainline maintenance and stoppages on the underground. Luckily I sold a boatload of stuff and didn't have to carry so much all the way home. All things considered a great success and - yet again - money and time willing I do hope to make more conventions in the coming years.
Indiecon saw successful playtesting of the FATE powered Agents of SWING as well as some new adventures for Blood! and '45 which should be appearing on RPGNOW in PDF form before too long.
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NEW PRODUCTS
Because I've been doing so much freelancing for other companies there hasn't been a lot of activity with new products this month. However we do have a good selection of new Clipart Critters by the inestimable Brad McDevitt, including some new bundles so that you can pick up some very decent art on the cheap as props for your game table or for you to use in your own gaming publications. Don't forget to check out the work of our other artists as well.
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STAY IN TOUCH
Over on our journal/website there's an ongoing poll game, like a choose your own adventure game with multiple participants, this one based around a zombie apocalypse using the Blood! system and with you playing a British teenager caught up in the events as they unfold. Participate there and also keep an eye on news, events, sales information, reviews, publishing partnerships and so on.
You can also find me on...
Twitter
Facebook
Roleplaymedia
RPGBomb
Myspace
Or you can drop me some feedback in the comments on the website, or by good old fashioned e-mail to grim@postmort.demon.co.uk
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SECRET SALE
There will be a secret sale one day this month for 24 hours... keep your eyes peeled on the website and on Twitter for more information!
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DIRECT MAIL ORDER
I have leftover product from the convention sales and I do, really, need to clear the decks ready for the new year so these are being offered for mail order direct from me. Contact me via e-mail, listing the products that you're interested in and we'll arrange payment (preferably Paypal) and delivery. Available products include:
Hentacle £8.00 / $12.00
Hentacle: Sloppy Seconds £3.00 /$4.50
Hentacle: Three's an Orgy £3.00 /$4.50
All three together - £12.00 / $18.00
These are the last hardcopies of Hentacle that are likely to be sold, at least in this form. Supplies of Three's an Orgy are extremely limited. Please keep in mind that Hentacle and its supplements are STRICTLY for those over 18.
Cthentacle £15.00 / $23.00
Cthentacle: The Dunbitch Horror £5.00 / $7.50
Both together £18.00 / $27.00
Please keep in mind that Cthentacle and its supplements are STRICTLY for those over 18.
100 Dark Places, 100 Fantasy Adventure Seeds, 100 Planets, 100 Kingdoms, 100 Horror Adventure Seeds. '45: Psychobilly Retropocalypse, Bloodsucker: The Angst - £12.00 / $18.00 each.
Buy three or more together and they're £10.00 / $15.00 each.
Bloodsucker: The Juice, @ctiv8 - £8.00 /$12.00 each.
Buy Bloodsucker: The Angst and Bloodsucker: The Juice together for £18.00 /$25.00
Blood! - £15.00 / $23.00
I also have limited numbers of copies of Origins of the Specious, the comedy book I did for Mongoose Publishing and these are available for £15.00 / $23.00 as well.
Postage is £2.00 to the UK and $5.00 international.
Have a lovely holiday season and be good enough to spread some of that festive cheer (and money!) in my direction,
Love
Grim
Postmortem Studios
I can't give you a full and shiny report on Indiecon because I've written up a full-on report for Polymancer magazine and it'd be bad form to say too much about it here in a professional reporting capacity - and the same's likely to get in the way for Dragonmeet! Still I can talk about what I did and my experiences there as Postmortem.
Last year the weather was pretty rough but this year we were right there as some of the worst weather for many years struck England with flooding and gales and all sorts of warnings and threats of doom. It was pretty rough, but also - in a pervere way - a lot of fun.
We were at the con for the full span and with the cost split between all of us Indiecon represents a fantastic deal, Thursday night to Monday morning in an excellent chalet - that's actually warm, snug and clean - for what came to around £50 a head for six of us. Unlike a lot of cons the accomodation is excellent and you can actually get a decent night's sleep.
On the plus side Indiecon is great for running demo games and getting a good buzz for your games. People are game to try just about anything and I was very, very pleased to see two of my games from the previous year being played independently by people, Invaderz and Blood!. We ran another demo game of Blood! that went pretty well, but only ran it once this time, we also ran two playtest sessions of Agents of SWING and the feedback was invaluable, as was the fun I had in the couple of instances that I did get to play. It's unfortunate that I was - and usually am - stuck minding the stall and so can't run more demos or get involved in more games, something I'll have to work on correcting for 2010 because, oh yeah, we're going again.
On the downside - and this was the problem last year as well - it's not a very good, yet, from a commercial point of view. Both years I've barely broken even on sales and while there was higher attendence this year I think the combination of the economy and the weather drove off what was, essentially, my profit margin in both people's reticence to buy and the walk-through attendence that could have been there. Hopefully we'll be lifted out of that a bit by next year.
The organisation was much better this year and I think an event of this nature can only continue to grow and grow and deserves to, a great showcase for UK games development in general and UK indie games in general.
Player: Character: James Ryde Department: 12 (Espionage) Past: Military Intelligence Cover: City Businessman Refresh: 6 Aspects: Department: The notorious Spy, James Ryde. Past: Won the Military Cross for bravery Cover: I do love my expensive toys. Impeccably dressed at all times. Known for my dry, sarcastic wit. I went to A sophisticated English Gentleman A refined (and expensive) palate. Great (+3) Skills: Weapons, Social Standing. Fair (+2) Skills: Driving, Fists, Guns, Investigation. Average (+1) Skills: Alertness, Athletics, Burglary, Contacts, Pilot. Stunts Linguist: Knows French, German, Italian, Spanish and Latin. Ready for Anything: Alertness counted one higher for initiative. Danger Sense: When ambushed you may take a full defensive action at +2, whether surprised or not. Close at Hand: Never takes a supplementary action penalty for drawing his weapon. Gadgets: Saville Row Suit: +1 Shift to appropriate interactions. Sword-Brolly: +2, concealed weapon. Bowler Hat: Counts as light armour (-1), Medium armour (-2) if used in a defensive actions, can be thrown one zone as a +1 weapon. Fate Points: 6 Physical Stress: OOOOO Composure Stress: OOOOO Social Stress: OOOOOOO |  |
1. Savagely Edit the Rules Descriptions.
Spirit of the Century and Starblazer Adventures are both weighty, weighty tomes in their respective sizes and while FATE is - ostensibly - a simple, narrative oriented system but sprawls like a demented monster over a huge number of pages. I'm a guy that likes to concentrate on background and feel and rules bogging down a book too much just isn't on. I'm going to assume that my readers have a passing familiarity with RPGs and so won't be quite so explicit and long-winded in explanations. I'll also try to avoid repetition.
2. Less Illustration, More Typography
I want Agents of SWING to be a stylish product, but also quite minimalist, a wipe-clean, plastic-fantastic, white formica, 60s future-vision. So I'm going to cut back on the illustration and use a lot of silhouette/flag/pop art imagery and work harder on the presentation and layout of the text, using that to greater effect. There will be illustrations for the example character dossiers though.
3. Streamline Character Creation
I think there'll be less emphasis on character advancement and characters need to be reasonable powerful at the start, roughly equivalent to the Standard Campaign level in Starblazer Adventures. I'll also drag some of the character generation options back towards a more traditional RPG role, less group creation, we already have our group-hook in the game setting and other than a few teams and partnerships, many of the heroes in the source material were skilled loners. If people want to play the IM Force or The Champions or whatever, players can do that anyway. It doesn't need to be worked into character generation here.
Important elements of a character would be:
- Career - Prior to joining SWING
- Cover - Their cover identity
- Section - The section of SWING they're attached to.
4. Decouple Stunts from Skills
At least as much as possible. The cross referencing in SOTC and SB can be a bit of a son of a bitch, a few stunts - obviously - need to be related to a skill, but others don't necessarily and getting rid of the need would free things up and make referencing easier.
5. More Stress?
You've got physical stress and composure, but perhaps add something in for social standing? 60s Britain (the default) is still a class concious society, more so than today, and scandals had more power then to harm than they do now. An ill regarded agent could be in trouble in many situations and this is distinct enough from composure to warrant its own treatment I think.
6. Gadgets
These need a big treatment, both for Bondian style gadgets and for the potential widgetry of villains.
7. Rationalise Skill Descriptions
Slim them down, they're very long right now and could be covered in much less space IMO.
8. Separate Out Special Rules
Special rules for car chases etc need to be in their own sections, not intermingled, muddling things up a bit.
9. Allow the Attacker to Choose Consequences?
Might be a little harsh, but allowing the victim to choose the type of consequence and the attacker to choose the actual consequence pushes narrative control more interestingly I think.
10. Skills Pyramid?
I don't particularly see the need to stick to the Pyramid arrangement for skills, it kind of got in the way of making Doc Savage-alikes and I don't particularly see why it should be kept.
11. Psi/Super Abilities
Essential to replicate some of the material from the time but I don't want to overemphasise it. Perhaps a few examples and expand on the material later in another book? Same could be done with gadgets.
12. Organisations?
Villainous organisations need to be detailed as do the various sections of SWING and the rest of the conventional intelligence community, a few examples perhaps and then expand on the rules in a separate book.
13. Clue Based Plot Structure?
I'd like to mix in some of the plot stress ideas in SB with some of the ideas from Gumshoe, perhaps plot stress advancement from section to section, splitting up adventures into investigative sections, interrogations etc which yield points of 'plot stress' that advance the game towards its conclusion.
14. Profit.
- Started reading through STARBLAZER ADVENTURES (my preferred implementation of FATE) with an eye to simplifying things a little, slimming it down and using it as the rules for Agents of S.W.I.N.G. (The 60s - 70s mash-up action game).
- Uploaded more Clipart Critters which will be coming out over the rest of the month. If you want to get some very good, and very chea, art to support your games or for your gaming projects, be sure and check it out HERE.
- Half finished writing up the zombie apocalypse demo scenario for Blood! which I wrote for Indiecon last year.
- Proofread the next installment in The Life of Angst, Chav: The Knifing, and commissioned the art.
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