I am honored and humbled to be a finalist this year on the 200 word RPG challenge. There are a lot of amazing games people have created who are part of the finalist selection, and it blows me away to be considered among them. I thought I’d share my entry here in a pritified version. It’s called Time Travel Thaw, as is probably obvious.
After a lot of work, editing, reworking of game systems, and so on, I’m happy to say the new version of the game text is complete and ready for anyone to view. I’d include a change-log, but it’s easier to say pretty much everything except for the core rolling mechanic has been reworked.
While putting the finishing touches on the latest incarnation of The Young and the Brave, I took a short break to work on a totally unrelated game called Bottle Cap Throttle. Bottle Cap Throttle is a game about flicking bottle caps around a table to simulate drunken, post-apocalyptic loons driving around a battered wasteland. You drive with bottle caps, you fight with bottle caps, you make skill checks with bottle caps… you get the picture. Grab the short pdf below to check it out.
Well, after getting some excellent critical advice on the game system from someone who knows what they’re talking about, I’ve decided to make major edits to the next version of the game. It may as well be a whole new beta considering how different (read: streamlined) it will be.
Very excited about these changes!
The eight (and final) episode of this campaign arc. The party does some time traveling, battle a boss, and meet a celebrity of sorts. The first 20-30 seconds of spoken audio have an echo because two of the microphones were temporarily right next to each other, but that ends quickly. It’s still not the best audio out there, but if you aren’t too picky about that sort of thing, the issues are easily ignored.
This is the last episode of this series, and I’m unsure when or if I’ll be uploading more. I will continue fine tuning the game and sooner or later I hope to do the old graphic design thing on it and pretty up the rules, but for now, it is easily playable and enjoyable in its current state.
The intro and outro music on this episode is Orange Jacket by John Fletcher, and can be found in the creative commons section of Soundcloud.
After far too long, we were able to record another session here. The party makes their way to an ancient temple with hopes of restoring magic to all humans regardless of age, but does the villainous Sammy have something else in store for our heroes?
This weeks intro/outro music is from Gundatsch with their song Nokoko which can be found in the creative commons section of Soundcloud.
Some more changes to the rules to help speed up combat and to give the players more options in how they approach combat. The initiative changes should allow for more tactical decisions on the players’ and GM’s side. The changes to critical rolls and dodging were first mentioned in the February 24th post of this year, but have finally been implemented into the rules.
The Young and the Brave [beta v0.85] Use the version below instead.
Slightly unrelated, but I hope to have a new Actual Play episode up soon. Just having a hard time getting everyone together for a session. I’m sure you all know what that’s like if you’re a grown up with a job.
Edit: Slightly updated version that fixed a weird layout problem.
The Young and the Brave [beta v0.851] Use this version.
The biggest change to this version of the rules is the elimination of attribute requirements (aka prerequisites) based on the feedback of one of my play testing groups. I was a bit hesitant when it was first suggested to me, but the idea really grew on me over time, and I think this will really free up players to have more fun in character creation. Additionally, this should greatly simplify the character creation process, which was one of the more complicated/time consuming aspects of the game. This also has a small benefit in reducing the page count by a bit, which doesn’t mean much for an electronic document, but it still makes me happy.
Attribute requirements for weapons and armor are still in effect as for now, as I’m still considering whether to keep them or not.
There may be some residual text in the document referring to attribute requirements that will be removed in the final version of the text. Basically, I need to re-read the whole thing, and I’d rather hold off on that until most/all mechanical changes have been implemented.
I haven’t applied the changes from my February 24 post regarding critical rolls and dodge mechanics, but that his how I’ve been running the game in play testing, and those rules will be added to the text with the next major update. Additionally, that update might include changes to the initiative system to either incorporate a speed or dexterity check, or to simply leave it to the players to decide combat order.
Changelog
With this successful recording this time around, our heroes get some new goodies (finally some loot), meet the Buck, have a new boss to contend with, and meet up with an old friend. Also, for the record, I mistook MacGyver actor Richard Dean Anderson with Tom Selleck… for some reason.
This weeks music is a song from Mr. and Mrs. Smith called Records on a Dirty Shelf and can be found in the creative commons section of Sound Cloud.
Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, and I guess it fell to the sooner. I screwed up the recording of last week’s game (I have no idea what I’m doing with audio recordings) and only recorded my end of the conversation. So instead of forcing my players to reenact the whole episode, I wrote down their day’s adventure in a short form and will be posting it below. Sorry I couldn’t provide you all with the audio, but hopefully this will teach me to be more attentive in future recordings. What follows is a (sort of) brief description of the events of our last session.
After learning that the citizens of the supernatural district are less than appreciative of seeing human children in their neighborhood (since it was human children who destroyed the place), the party decides to move their base of operations to the outskirts of town, where an old, abandoned farm house serves as a makeshift meeting area. They send out a text to all the kids in the area, asking them to meet there and discuss future plans. As the crowds gather in front of the old building, Reginald addresses them, filling them all in on the destruction of the old base, and encouraging them to stick together in groups as both the Supers and Technos guilds are still fighting in the streets. They also keep their hostages from the Initiated base attack tied up in one of the rooms of the house.
As he’s winding down the speech, they are approached by Violet, the Blades assassin who killed the Technos leader, and whom they later rescued from the Technos base. She offers them a deal. She reveals the location of Jack (the leprechaun working with the Supers who betrayed them) and the rest of the Supers in town, and in exchange, they give her the crystal that negates the influence of magic which they captured from the Technos earlier in the campaign.
After a bit of negotiating they agree to her terms, and she leads them to 3D’s World – an old, second rate arcade with an animatronic animal show (basically a Chucky Cheese like place… I’d just watched some let’s plays of 5 Nights at Freddy’s) that went out of business about five years prior. The group sneaks into the building expecting a fight with the Supers, only to find that something has caused the animatronics to come alive and attack the Supers’ hiding within (again, 5 Nights at Freddy’s… you get the idea). They allow the few remaining Supers to escape while confronting Jack, who rather than face the party tries to make a run for it, only to be killed by one of the robotic monsters. They are able to learn that Jack was not in charge however, and that he was getting his orders from some unknown mastermind.
The party considers taking the creatures on themselves, but then decide running away is a more enticing approach to the situation. Before making their escape however, they discover a USB stick in the room where they found Jack.
They take the USB stick to Salix’ home where they discover it has all of Jack’s instructions about setting up the Initiated, pitting them against the Technos, and eventually forcing them to defend the supernatural district from the Technos attack, while their base is destroyed by the Supers. It becomes apparent that even the Supers were used by whoever was giving the orders to Jack, and the whole thing was meant to weaken all three groups in town. All that’s missing now is the identity of the mastermind behind the whole setup.
Violet tells them she knows who is behind all of this, as she herself was hired by this mysterious person for assassinating the Technos leader, and though initially she tries to get them to offer something in return for the information, they eventually get her to agree to sharing what she knows as part of the deal for the magic nullifying crystal.
She tells them that the whole thing was orchestrated by a boy named Sammy… the very same Sammy most of the party battled at Camp Candlewood earlier in the summer over the ancient remains of the fountain of youth. Though Sammy was defeated at the camp, he managed to get away with the last remaining bit of magical water, something that could keep a child young for decades, thus allowing them continued access to magic (since, after all, they lose their powers as they get older). Violet gets her crystal in return for the information, and stores it in a special case that prevents the crystal from nullifying the magic in its immediate area. She also decides to stick around and see where this all leads, and hangs around the new base.
Rachael (basically their driver) tells them she found James’ (their now dead local leader) emergency journal which contains contact information for high ranking, out of town Imitated. They send off an email to the closest contact, explaining what has happened thus far in their neighborhood, and requesting help. The email they get in response promises aid, but suggests that it was their fault that things have gotten so bad in their town.
The next morning, they head over to the Supernatural district to speak with Waters and let him know that his brother Jack is dead, and was behind the destruction of their neighborhood. Waters promises to aid them with their hunt for Sammy and says he’ll have something for them in a couple of days.
With nothing left to do but wait for Waters’ promised aid and the arrival of more Initiated, they decide to scout the outskirts of the old wood, where Violet believes Sammy has made his base. The old wood is dark and foreboding, and rather than entering unprepared, Reginald consults a broken see and say toy which essentially works as an Oracle in providing advice/clues. The toy tells them:
Wander the wood with bread crumbs in hand,
a chicken legged hut is where you will land.
And that is where we left off on their adventure.
The Young and the Brave 