Cowboy Bebop RPG

Ok 3, 2, 1

Let’s Jam

Use my Bell Peppers and Beef money mechanic.

Starting Money:

1. 0

2/3: 1

4/5: 2

6: 3, must spend at least 1.

Start with one ship, spend 1 Money on smaller sub-ships (during character creation only - normally, ships are super expensive).

Can spend into negative numbers at any time - while in negative you are in debt and must complete missions to gain a positive Money score. (Positive Money score needed for any purchase.)

Call 1 Money “a couple thousand woolongs”.

Use a base of the GRAVEROBBERS system, with the following changes:

Characters have a fifth Odd, called Fortune. Your Fortune is the number on the other side of the die fro the value of your lowest Odd.

(Optional: reroll 1d6 for a new max fortune every mission, or each time you visit a fortune teller/online mystic/etc.)

Or:

(Optional: spend 1 Fortune to make a lucky thing happen. Do not restore spent Fortune.)

Crimes are now The Past. What did you do that you can’t escape from?

1. Syndicate. Revolver, +1 Violence

2. Lowlife. Knife, +1 Will

3. Cop. Metal arm or revolver, +1 Fortitude

4. Gambler. +1 starting Money score, +1 Finesse

5. Hacker. +1 Finesse, +1 Will

6. Drifter. Always reroll Fortune and take the higher

When Luck runs out, The Past catches up with you. Roll Fortune to survive (restore Luck and reduce max Luck by 1). If max Luck = 0 or you don’t survive... You gotta carry that weight.

Prep Phases are time spent aboard ship or in ports between jobs. Job Phases see you and your crew trying to apprehend bounty heads. Structure tends to be: get a hit on a general location and go there, investigate, locate, aim to apprehend leading to fight/chase/escape/scheme/peril.

Shucks Howdy! A Bounty Generator:

Draw from a full deck, or from your Prep Deck for extra spice (replace cards after)

1. Gambler, reward 2 Money

2. Lowlife, reward 1 Money

3. Crooked Cop, reward 3 Money if word doesn’t get out

4. Hacker, reward 2 Money

5. Con Artist, reward 2 Money

6. Joyrider, reward 1 Money

7. Eco-Terrorist, reward 3 Money

8. Ex-Syndicate, reward 3 Money

9. Syndicate, reward 4 Money

10. Someone from The Past...

Hearts: You know some key info

Diamonds: +1 Money for the reward

Clubs: Their weapons/loot are fair game

Spades: You’ve got a read on their ship

J: Draw again, -1 Money

Q: Draw again, -1 Fortune (each)

K: Draw again, -1 Money for the reward

A: Draw again, +1 Money for the reward

Main ship: 6 Hull (works as Luck, 1 Money for a full repair). Odds are Endure, Evade, Escape and Engage.

Sub-ships: work off the pilot’s Odds: Finesse to manoeuvre, chase and race, Violence to attack, Will to do something stupid that just might work, Fortitude when the ship could go down (succeed and keep flying - the ship will need 1 Money for a full repair either way)

the smallest adventure game

Because I don’t already have enough projects to be getting on with*, I’ve come up with a small (ha!) personal project I’m going to be undertaking in my spare time**. Using the framework of my “borrowers”-style game, it’ll be a solo version for one young person to play on their own. I’ll print it very small, fold it up, put it in a mints tin with the tiniest dice I can find and all the Starting Items, and probably keep it or give it away for free at a convention if i ever do one.


* a disgusting lie
** not a real thing that exists

The rules

Pretty much the Exact same as the original game, will tweak resolution mechanic to support some Stats. Don’t really need much more to make it work solo since the D the DM would be M’ing is pre-M’d.

(Sidenote: Someone translated the original game into French?! So that’s a thing that’s on the internet somewhere. Don’t remember what the name was but it was a solid translation choice from “borrower”. I miss G+.)

Character creation

A fun quiz that also functions to fit the character to the Dungeon and makes sense in-fiction. So questions like “If your home has pets, get +1 Animal Friend for each pet; if not, get +1 People-Dodger for each person”

or

“Get +1 Climber; also, imagine you were very small and decide what the easiest thing in your home would be to climb to the top of. This is probably what the Brownie practiced their climbing on, so get +2 __ Climber (Bookshelf Climber if it’s a bookshelf, Armchair Climber if it’s an armchair, etc)”.

Starting items

Literal items in the mints tin. A button, a needle, some thread, an old board game piece, etc. No descriptors like how the needle “is” a sword - it’s not, it’s just a needle - so the player can more easily make up a load of mischievous uses for each item. The Brownie can do whatever makes sense with them.

also

Maybe a figurine or some tiny clothes/furniture or something as a fun surprise

Pirate Campaign: Zodiac

I’m running a 5e quarantine campaign for a couple of mates. That means blog content!

We’ve had two sessions so far, and I’ve just drafted up a GM’s Oracle for the campaign. I think the most useful thing here for you as readers is for me to briefly run through the process of making it before I share the end result.

I’ve been reading a lot (a lot) of One Piece during isolation. Could go into a whole rant here about how it’s maybe the best current example of pulp fantasy fiction, and therefore an absolute treasure trove for GMs looking for inspiration, but I don’t want to have to tag this post as “weeaboo nonsense”. Point is, I asked my group if they’d be up for a pirate campaign.

Had a chat about what kind of campaign we were feeling (5e, heroic, starting at level 10), left them to do characters and prepped a prison break as an intro. After two very dramatic sessions, they’re on a stolen navy ship, bound north to the Tropic of Storms (basically the Grand Line from One Piece), my excuse for some island-hopping pirate adventure.

All the “world building” I’d done so far was all the building a world for a tabletop adventure game needs - justification for the adventures and locations the player characters come across to inform their actions and lend them weight and consequences.

Decided on a GM’s oracle to help structure my writing for future sessions, and bring the players in on world building a bit. The concept for this one is a d8 table of constellations, with each zodiac entry being something of an in-universe god or spiritual force.

I let the two players each come up with their own entry, asking them what fictional star sign they reckon Might suit their characters, and elaborated on their ideas. Zantor (real name not given), the smooth-talking necromancer with ideas above his station, was born under the Doctor, a death-like figure who oversees life and death equally. Bradwood, the painfully easygoing half-water-genie monk, was born under the Eye, this setting’s “god of storms”.

Taking those as the first two entries in the table, I fleshed out the rest of the eight entries. Table and notes below.

	Zodiac	Sea of...	Symbol
1	The Doctor	Death	Skull & Crossbones
2	The Maw	Feasts	Teeth/ mouth/ a shark’s tooth, or a whirlpool/spiral
3	The Rope	Trials	The Bound Arm (upright forearm with rope twisted round it, grasped in a fist)
4	The Flute	Beasts	Traditional ocarina/flute
5	The Magician	Falsehoods	Inverted diamond/gem
6	The Cross	Bounty	An “X”
7	The Eye	Storms	Eye
8	The Newborn	Rebirth	A star (depicted inverted in modern times), or a black circle (the new moon)

So.

- the “sea” thing is kind of like a god’s “domain”, but also refers to a literal sea along the Tropic (which is like the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn irl, a band of sea around the world). Exception is the Newborn, whose physical domain has been turned into an artificial landmass.

- this leads in to something I’ve had fun doing with this, which is retrofitting pirate-y terms and legends into this world. So, since only seven of the zodiac entries have literal oceans associated, we get the phrase “seven seas”.

- Some more of these because they’re fun - the eight Zodiac entries are the “pieces of eight”, the Doctor’s symbol gives us the pirate flag, the “X” symbol representing the Cross and the Sea of Bounty gives us “X marks the spot”... Also the Newborn doesn’t have a literal constellation in the sky, but is for babies born under a new moon - the black circle gives us the legend of the black spot.

- More on the physical seas - they run in order west to east, with the line between the Sea of Death and the Sea of Rebirth being this setting’s equivalent of the GMT meridian line. That’s what the antagonist global naval government is called too, the Meridian.

- There’s another column on the table, the seven pirate lords called the Seven Dragons, one associated with each sea (and the Admiral of the Meridians for the Sea of Rebirth), but... spoilers.

This table’s going to be used for inspiration as I come up with new adventures, and for whenever I need a spark of an idea while running the game. As discussed in my GM’s Oracle post, using this table as the basis for the campaign should tie the whole thing together thematically. Mostly though, I’m happy with the structure I’ve given the world. All those details flowed naturally from the base of this table, and the whole thing took like half an hour to devise.

I ran the first two sessions before writing this. Let’s see how things go from here now that I have an Oracle to fall back on!

Our Story So Far

Our heroes, having played their trade in the remote south-eastern seas up to 10th level, started this game just south of the Sea of Death, in waters patrolled by lower-level Meridians and local pirate gangs. They want a ship to take them north to the Tropic of Storms, each with their own impossible quest - Zantor wants to find the Fountain of Youth, and Bradwood seeks his father, a legendary water genie.

We start in Roguetown, in a dingy pirate bar. They meet Johnny Fishbreath, who until recently served on a ship in the Tropic - his captain, Cpt. Calhoun, is being held in a Meridian maximum security prison called Heaven’s Gate, awaiting execution.

After much posturing from Zantor, Johnny agrees to sail them close to the prison, but no further. Bradwood swims ahead, and, finding no guards outside, gives the signal to Zantor to approach in a boat.

A daring prison break ensues. Lots of fighting and sneaking, some choice spells were cast. A big monster. You should’ve been there.

A few details about the setting are learned - the team seems particularly interested in the 108 Poisons, legendary venoms that grant the infected great power at a price, as seen in the prison’s Warden (who very nearly killed Zantor before he was Bigby’s Hand-ed to fuck).

Our heroes are now on the run on a stolen Meridian ship under Captain Calhoun, their new crewmates her fellow inmates. They sail north, for the Tropic of Storms, and adventure, now branded as pirates.

Hideo’s World

My second official pamphlet adventure for the Ennie-award-winning Mothership RPG is now available to download!

I had tons of fun writing this for the Mothership team. It’s very *me*.

- Vaporwave dungeon crawl through the menu screen of an obsolete video games console!
- Plugs in to the fantastic MoSh adventure A Pound of Flesh, or works as a standalone!
- Just like the last pamphlet, an original audio track is included!

Download here.

Emergency Broadcast

All together now...

COVID-19/
Ohhh, my hands are so clean/
At this mooo-ment!/
I’m in quaaar-an-tiiine!

As you may have noticed, there’s not much to do right now other than stay indoors, sit back and laugh as capitalism flails about, struggling to right itself like an upended tortoise. I hope this post finds you all well.

Things in Casa Graverobber are strange at the minute, but only insofar as strange is the new normal. There isn’t much gaming to be had, given that the particular kind of gaming I espouse here involves the opposite of social distancing. Oh, and my day job is kaput. (They’re “looking into” the government grant for folks who’ve lost their work hours. I’m fine. This is fine. I’m fine.)

Being indoors all day with little else to do does have its benefits - I’m hard at work on the various projects that I’ve got going on behind the scenes. Well... sort of. Turns out a global pandemic is a bit of a drain on the psyche. So, and this is for anyone who needs to hear it: there’s no point expecting yourself to be normally productive under such abnormal conditions. This isn’t Tuesday, this is an unprecedented upset to the status quo, and us creative types particularly shouldn’t feel pressured to come out of our caves once the dust clears clutching an opus in our ink-stained fingers. You can just survive. That’s enough. You’re enough.

But yeah, doing a bit of work. Thing is, it’s all background stuff - I’ll pop things on the blog here and there if they’re worth the attention, but without an ongoing game I’m short of useful material. Patreon supporters know I’ve been tinkering with making solo games for a while, and that tree will bear fruit some time in the next month or two, pandemic permitting. So, something you can play on your own! Couldn’t’ve timed it much better, as it happens. Haha.

If you backed BUTCHERY, expect the finished e-zine by the end of the year, as promised. It might be a little shabby round the edges, but it’ll be good. Also working with some very cool people on a little something for the game’s future, but you won’t be hearing about that for a long time.

That’s about it from me! Sorry it’s not much. Take care of each other, stay indoors. I love you.

GRAVEROBBERS Bare Bones Edition - update 0.1 patch notes

I just updated the “alpha” version of the GRAVEROBBERS system, my set of rules and tools for tabletop roleplaying games of stealth and sedition.

I thiiiink Gumroad might have sent out an email to folks who’ve downloaded it before saying there’s a new version? Maybe? Maybe not?

In any case, here’s what’s changed:

- Replaced the Murderer Crime with the Fence

The Murderer was kinda boring and never sat right with me - the ominous tone was fun for a moment but didn’t seem nearly as gameable as the other Crimes, plus it focused on Violence - pretty much the game’s antithesis.

The Fence as a title doesn’t carry the same weight (I think all the other Crimes more or less sound like something the character would get yelled at them in the street: “Traitor!” “Heretic!”. Fence not so much) but is way more interesting and gameable. Managed to squeeze a d6 table in there too, so you have variable starting items!

- Updated Tools of the Trade

Some minor changes to existing Crimes. The Harlot now starts with a hand mirror - a classic adventurer’s item! Vagrants get string, which is like a lesser version of the Burglar’s rope for tying things or could make a fuse. Traitors get some paper to go with their writing set.

The Heretic gets a ceremonial dagger - which now means the Fence is the only “unarmed” Crime. Not sure how I feel about all the knives... but they’re flavourful and a great drastic, dramatic final option. Plus, bad Odds in Violence is discouragement enough from resorting to it, and sharp implements can always be used to other ends.

- Renamed the Authority to the House

Pure semantics. “The House” has been a contender for a while and after some thought I’ve decided it’s the better option. Feeds into the casino motif and has a more subtle ominous-ness than the Authority, I think.

- General text and readability changes

Some very minor changes in text, plus I put Unicode symbols for dice in place of some clunky phrasing about how many dice are needed to roll. I’ve been using the Unicode dice symbols a lot lately for bits and pieces in BUTCHERY - super easy to parse and breaks up a wall of text. MORE 👏 EMOJI 👏 IN 👏 GAMES! 👏



Enjoy your new coffin of scraps! Feedback and play reports are as always more than welcome - hit me up here or on Twitter.

BUTCHERY GM Advice(?)

The following will not make it into the final BUTCHERY zine (still time left to back I think??) because the zine format is too svelte to warrant a DMG and I also think writing actual, practical GM advice is a task somewhere between Herculean and Sisyphean (most people seeking it don’t need GM advice they just need life advice, and the best actual GM advice is learned through play).

Still, here’s a thing:

from Dark Cloud - not a direct inspiration for BUTCHERY but it shows up in almost everything I make so

Narrator Styles

The way the Narrator approaches their role is up to your group and specific to your game. Here are some ideas to get your started.

Old School Style

Classic tabletop adventure games leaned heavily on the conversation aspect of gameplay. In the olden days of the 1970s, rules and tools involving dice and numbers were only used as a fallback to adjudicate perilous situations or inject randomness into the proceedings for fun.

To play in an Old School style, the Narrator should present tricky obstacles of all kinds within the fiction - social, physical, mental, etc - and allow the players to come up with creative solutions. Players who think outside the box, work together and make cool things happen don’t have to roll dice; just use conversation to progress the fiction. They might not even end up fighting most monsters!

Storygame Style

Some tabletop games focus on creating a narrative around the table - not just playing around within a fiction, but making the events of that fiction look like a structured story during play. This can be tough for casual gamers, but is great for players who like writing, acting or improv!

Storygames like using rules and tools to govern aspects of the characters that are key to the stories being told; not just rolling for physical danger like the rules in BUTCHERY suggest but during “social” scenes as well. What if a butcher’s Alignment affected their personality, and they had to roll Ritual-style checks to determine how they acted in certain scenes? That could generate a lot of conflict or other interesting events to build a story from.

Modern Style

Mainstream games like those you see on big online streams often include tropes from video games, like stats that go up with each “level” a character attains, or more structured stories that allow the game to focus on the rules rather than working out events through conversation alone.

You could make a game using BUTCHERY more like these kinds of games by letting characters improve their Skill Levels over time, perhaps offering “experience points” to spend each time you play. Focus on the hunt, and make sure you have a dramatic and interesting combat scenario to spring on your players at the end of each game.