DEADLINE rules draft + play report

I got a great response on the socials to yesterday’s post about my new game DEADLINE (get up to speed here), thanks to everyone who commented, shared and offered their own thoughts and ideas! It’s super early days but everyone’s reaction has me energised to get to work on this thing.

I figured I might as well share the draft rule book so far, such as it is - this is very sketchy but has all the basic mechanics and should be enough to run the game on (you’ll have to supply your own adventure for now though, sorry!).

Here’s a google doc with the first version of the game.

Like I said everyone’s feedback and ideas have been really awesome and helpful, so if you have any comments, questions, etc about the game now that you’ve read it (especially if you manage to play it!) I’d love to hear them.

The final version will obviously have more mechanics and content than this sketch version, so if you have some thoughts about what you’d like that extra stuff to be let me know that too! Comment on this post, hit me up on Twitter, email me, whatever (my email is in my twitter bio).

I also wrote up a little play report, the idea being that something like this could maybe be included in the final version of the book to help teach the game.

Honestly I think I’ve laid out the rules pretty clearly in terms of giving readers an idea of how gameplay works, but maybe something like this could be useful? It’d be edited down and changed up of course, as with everything the paint is very wet here.

Anyway here’s a Mission Report, with GM advice-type commentary.

Enjoy!(?)

Mission Report: Room 106

 

The best Agents learn from the best. Study the following mission report from Agent 1, and try to find techniques you can utilise when playing your own game.

 

In this mission, Agent 1 is in a hotel room, behind enemy lines, where she must meet with a supposed defector from the other side who claims to have important information.

 

As the Agent who has prepared this mission for the other player, Agent 1 currently has all the info, while the Operator has none. Her first objective is to get the Operator on the same page so that he can play along too.

 

Agent 1: “Ok, so for this mission, I’ve been sent to a hotel room to meet someone and get some secret info. This is our first mission so let’s just work it out as we go.”

 

Here, Agent 1 is just a player, talking to her friend and explaining the premise of the game. The easiest way to get key information across to someone is always to just tell them! At the very least, an Operator will need to know the objective of a given mission.

 

Operator: “Cool, makes sense.”

 

Agent 1: “Operator? This is Agent 1. I’m approaching the room now.”

 

Now, Agent 1 is speaking in-character. This can be a fun way to bring players into the game, but it isn’t always necessary. The key is to communicate clearly, whether or not you’re acting a role.

 

Operator: “…”

 

Here, the Operator is pausing, unsure of what to do. That’s because Agent 1 hasn’t yet given them enough information to go on. They know their overall objective, but not what to do to get to it, or what obstacles might be in their way.

 

Agent 1: “Shall we check if the room is secure? I don’t trust these people…”

 

Now, Agent 1 has given the Operator an actionable prompt. She’s not telling them what to do, or doing the thinking for them, but she’s given them a clearer, immediate goal.

 

Operator: “Ok, uh, listen at the door?”

 

Agent 1 has all the mission info, and she knows there’s nothing in the room that could be heard through the door. But the Operator doesn’t know that, and is making a pretty sound judgement based on the small amount of information they have.

 

Agent 1: “Good thinking, Operator… No, I don’t hear anything. Let’s proceed.”

 

What just happened was an example of the basic cycle of play in DEADLINE. The Agent described a situation, the Operator made a call on what to do next, and the Agent made a decision about how those actions would play out. Everything that happens in your game will be some variation on this basic pattern.

 

Operator: “And then you get shot as soon as you open the door.”

Agent 1: “Ha, yeah, that would be terrible!”

 

They’re only joking, but the Operator has just given an example of how an Agent could disrupt that basic cycle of play and possibly ruin their game. If there really was someone waiting with a gun behind that door, it would be the Agent’s responsibility to telegraph that danger somehow. Footprints, noise from the room, or a suspicious individual seen earlier might be good clues.

 

Then, if the Operator did make the mistake of letting the Agent proceed without caution, it would be their mistake for not paying attention, not the Agent’s for communicating poorly. If an Agent ever realises they’ve misspoken or left out a crucial detail, they can always just apologise and backtrack a bit.

 

Operator: “Ok so are you in the room now?”

 

Agent 1: “I’m in. Looks like a pretty standard hotel room… I don’t see anything suspicious…”

 

Agent 1 knows that the room is bugged because she has all the details of the mission noted down, but within the game, the Agent wouldn’t know this information. Part of the fun is for the Operators to work out what’s going on themselves and investigate the mystery.

 

Operator: “Ok… So, I guess we just wait here for this meeting?”

 

Looks like the Operator hasn’t guessed the room might be bugged. Somebody familiar with spy stories might jump to that conclusion, but in this instance Agent 1 simply hasn’t communicated the situation clearly enough. Just like the assassin example, she should have left some clues lying around.

 

With a bit more time to think, or if she was playing this mission again with someone else, Agent 1 might add to her notes, reminding herself to describe the room as being in disarray, as if someone had been in there before. That might work as a clue.

 

Agent 1: “Well, like I said, I’m not sure we can trust them… maybe we should search the room?”

 

For now, Agent 1 is thinking on her feet. Telling the Operator what to do next isn’t a perfect solution, but at least she didn’t reveal the surprise. Now the Operator knows to search, but they don’t know what for, so they’re still able to play the game by coming up with their own plan. If Agent 1 just led them through the mission step by step, they wouldn’t be playing the game along with her.

 

Operator: “Oh, yeah, there might be traps. Or bugs or something. Ok, uh… Agent 1, search the room.”

 

Agent 1: “Where should I look? There’s not much in here, just a bed, some lamps, a chest of drawers and a mirror. And there’s the bathroom next door.”

 

Now, the Operator can play the game. They have agency, information, and can make their own decisions. Agent 1 knows where the bug is, so it would be no fun if she picked where to search.

 

Operator: “Well, it says on the character sheet that you have Investigation… So can I use that?”

 

Agent 1: “You could, but that would advance the DOOMSDAY clock. Maybe it’s best not to risk it.”

 

Operator: “Ok, I think I get it. So rolling dice is dangerous, huh. So what do I do instead?”

 

Agent 1: “I’m the Agent, you’re the Operator. Just tell me where to search and I’ll get to work.”

 

Good work, Agent 1. Here, she’s reminding the Operator of the core tension of the game. Just running in blindly and using the Agent’s training to solve every problem will only end badly. She’s encouraging the Operator to rely on LIFELINE more, think creatively and come up with their own plans. That’s going to make for a more engaging and rewarding game.

Operator: “Start with the mirror. It might be one of those two-way mirrors, where they can see you from the other side.”

 

That’s a good idea from the Operator! In this case, though, it’s just a mirror. However, since Agent 1 knows that this part of the mission is about finding a bug, she decides to reward the Operator’s clever thinking.

Agent 1: “No, it’s just a mirror… It comes away from the wall. Wait a second… You hear a kind of cracking sound, then I whisper through the LIFELINE… It’s a bug! They’d hidden a listening device behind the mirror.”

 

In Agent 1’s notes, she’d just written that there is a bug in the room. That fact wasn’t going to change. But what wasn’t particularly important was where exactly the bug was. By deciding in the moment that it would be behind the mirror, Agent 1 made the Operator feel good for trusting their instincts, and also saved a lot of time instead of checking every piece of furniture one by one.

 

Agent 1: “Ok great! You found the bug. That was the first obstacle I had planned. Sorry, that was a bit simple, it should get more interesting from here on.”

 

Operator: “No, it’s cool! I get the game a bit better now, and I feel like we’re in a spy thriller. I’ll check every room that I can for bugs from now on!”

 

Agent 1: “I liked your two way mirror idea too, I might steal that…”

 

Be careful changing details last minute. An Agent is the Operator’s eyes and ears into the mission, and so something only becomes true from the Operator’s perspective once the Agent communicates it. As well as communicating information regularly and in detail, an Agent needs to keep the world of the mission consistent.

 

If an Operator feels like reality is shifting, or that things only appear or exist for their benefit or to make the mission difficult, they won’t have any fun. Agent 1 could have decided that the mirror really did have a window or camera behind it, but that’s not true to the mission she’s playing here. Sticking to her notes helps her keep the mission’s reality feeling real. Besides, improvising a whole other mystery she hadn’t planned for would be a lot of work!

This part of the mission is now over. An obstacle has been identified and overcome. It’s a small victory, but now both players understand how to play better, and can use that knowledge in future missions.

 

Nobody starts out as a world class agent. The best way to learn is on the job. Start playing, work things out as you go, make mistakes and have fun.

oh god not another one

BUTCHERY is in its final stages of development, Paradice Arcade is a go (and will have a small Kickstarter later this year for its first “non-mini” game!), and GRAVEROBBERS is pootling  away in the background as ever.

Obviously, my game design brain cannot let me rest, and so another brand new project is needed. I tweeted about this and a couple of folks seemed interested, so I figured I might as well spill the beans even at this early stage of development. I think there’s some value to doing things relatively out in the open, letting people in from day 1 as it were. Anyway.

Announcing DEADLINE.

DEADLINE is a set of rules and tools (I’ve stopped calling rulesets “games” for the same reason that a LEGO kit with a spaceship on the front doesn’t market itself as a toy spaceship) for tabletop roleplaying adventure games (like, OSR or whatever) in an underworld of intelligence that never was, inspired by the superspy thrillers and Cold War chillers of the 1960s.

Spies. It’s a spy game.

The idea came because I wanted to do a game, any kind of game, where the players are the shadowy intelligence agency that oversees these classic secret agent capers. That seemed fun to me - being in a kind of “mission command” position, as M or Q or whoever, the folks the movie cuts back to when the spy talks into their earpiece, looking at maps and personnel files and overseeing operations.

I like heists for the same reason, hence GRAVEROBBERS - a plan coming together and being executed under pressure, while your enemies are, hopefully, none the wiser.

I tried doing a board game, and bounced off a few ideas, then decided on an RPG. The fun bit of RPGs for me is the adventure game aspect, exploring a situation or world, collecting and utilising information and items, devising and executing your own plans. That’s the whole point of the games I play and make, and those elements of the playstyle at least seemed like a good fit for the genre.

As I saw it, though, there were two big problems with doing a spy adventure game. I think I’ve fixed them?

The first is that James Bond (who honestly didn’t come into my head until later, my first points of reference were The Man from UNCLE and Spy x Family and the less fashy Tintins) works alone. There are tons of workarounds to this though.

The obvious would be to ignore it and do a team narrative (Mission Impossible does this great already) but there are already RPGs that do this and it seemed a bit obvious. Since I had it in my head to focus on the agency over the agent, I could’ve done a Jason and the Argonauts with one OP character and their lackeys/support, but that just doesn’t seem fun to me. Given the option, everyone would want to be Bond.

So in DEADLINE, the GM role is fulfilled by the person playing the Agent. They have something called the LIFELINE system, an in-universe device that keeps them in constant contact with HQ. The players are still controlling the character in the exact same way they’d control adventurers in D&D, and the GM still has the same job - describe situation, players make decisions, describe how situation develops - so gameplay is exactly like a typical OSR or adventure type game. The only difference is how it’s couched in the fiction. The GM isn’t reporting on the situation as a semi-omniscient arbiter of the action but as the agent in the field, and the players aren’t making decisions as the characters in the field but as, in-fiction, semi-omniscient arbiters of the action.

I can’t quite picture how difficult or not this will be for players used to other games to get to grips with, but to my mind it’s pretty simple? “You enter a room, there’s a locked door” becomes “I’ve just entered the room, looks like there’s a locked door, over”. “I wanna try my lockpick on the door” becomes “Agent 99, you should have been outfitted with a lockpick for this mission, disguised as a fountain pen. Try it on the door.”

And LIFELINE being a Thing That Exists draws attention to the primary play mechanic of ttrpgs - communication. I hope this will encourage GMs and players to be more open and talk through descriptions and plans more, leading to better play! Also I hope changing “you have to be the GM” to “you get to be a cool spy” makes more people want to be GMs :D

The other Big Problem with playing an OSR game as James Bond, other than that there’s just one of him, is that he’s really good at everything. He has bad luck and loses fights, but he always wins overall, and his basic capabilities as a character far outstrip, say, a level 0 farmer in DCC. We never doubt the danger, but we also never doubt that he’ll succeed at anything he attempts. Not exactly “roll a d20 and see what happens” material.

OSR games enforce the playstyle I mentioned above - planning, creative problem solving, careful exploration - through not only making the world perilous, but the characters frail. A secret base under a volcano is a perilous dungeon, but Sean Connery is more than up to the task, removing that sense of threat and therefore the tension that necessitates an “adventure” playstyle.

I’m sure there are other ways to solve this, but in DEADLINE I decided to mechanise the concept of threat. This might seem abstract and game-y, but RPGs have been doing it from the start with HP - only HP focuses on physical threat. I took a leaf from GRAVEROBBERS, where Luck (“HP”) can be lost through the treat of being caught as well (it’s a stealth game), and in which any failed roll results in loss of Luck (thereby discouraging rolling and encouraging creativity, more on that here) and took it one step further.

Now, all rolls result in the game’s equivalent of HP loss, advancing the DOOMSDAY clock closer to failure (hit midnight and it’s game over, roll up a new agent). There are two big differences - you don’t know how far you’re going to advance the clock (that’s what the roll is for), and all rolls succeed.

In the fiction it’s abstracted as the Agent “falling back on their training”, basically the agency throwing their hands up and leaving it to Bond to do his thing (which literally matches what the players are doing! ludonarrative assonance, yum), who succeeds at the given task but in his own reckless, cool-guy way, which can alert attention or leave clues or otherwise jeopardise the mission. You can explore the area, find clues, investigate and devise a plan, all without rolling - or you can roll and hope for the best.

This puts the players firmly in the role of those folks back at HQ, trying desperately to find answers and keep the situation under control, with a highly skilled but strong-willed agent in the field enacting their orders - to the letter, if with a little flair. If you’ve seen any Bond movies, or any of the similar things I’m drawing from here, you’ll recognise the dynamic. I’m hoping players of DEADLINE will too.

Also, mechanising the threat means the Agent (GM) doesn’t have to stat enemies or anything, just make up a cool mission. That, and I’m going to give notes and a few random tables and whatnot - I foresee DEADLINE being very easy to run.

And, uh, that’s it? That’s almost the whole game mechanically, it’s very light, just how I like em. As I said I’m working on a draft rulebook, if you like the idea of this and want to see more then yell at me about it and I’ll oblige.

Stay tuned for more, I guess?

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UFO Grab! Minimart Mischief

Hey folks!

Briefly raising my head from the BUTCHERY grindstone to let you know about the new Paradice Arcade game that just launched - UFO Grab! Download link riiiight here.

Check the tag for more info on Paradice - basically, these are my non-ttrpg games, and you can play all of them with just a pencil, 2d6 and some loose change. UFO Grab is a minigame, all on one page, for 1 or 2 players. Hope you enjoy it!

I’ve said more about this elsewhere, but I recently lost my day job due to COVID. Posts on here will be pretty much paused while I look for work, and other than the projects I’ve already got in the pipeline (like those mentioned above) I won’t be putting much stuff out for the foreseeable future.

If you can and would like to help me out a bit, consider getting this new game, or some of my other stuff maybe! Also you can hire me, business enquiries to graverobbersguide at the gmail dot the com.

Stay safe! Speak soon x

Paradice Arcade

Folks,

I’m thrilled to announce the launch of Paradice Arcade!

• A label for my not-ttrpg tabletop games!

• Analog arcade, digital distribution. Download and start playing.

• Every Paradice Arcade game can be played with just the downloadable instructions, a pencil, some spare change, and a pair o’ dice. (That’s 2d6 to you RPG nerds!)

• Beginning with a series of one-page black ‘n’ white minigames! All kinds of genres, styles and player counts, experimenting with the Paradice format.

I’ve been working on various games in this series for over a year now - and some have been in development for a while before that! I’m super excited to make these little games into fun, complete finished products that you can enjoy for yourselves.

If you liked GoGoGolf, this series is something of a spiritual successor. The same emphasis on tight, light mechanics and focus on fun, with art and graphic design as good as we can get ‘em.

Bespoke analog gaming in bite size digital packages.

The first game from Paradice Arcade is Sky Pirate Solitaire, a 1-player roguelike with RPG and classic arcade elements, fully illustrated and hand-drawn by prominent OSR-adjacent artist Sam Mameli, aka skullboy!

If you like the work Sam’s done for RPG hits like Troika! and Questing Beast as well as his own awesome projects, you’ll be blown away by the art and design he’s cooked up for this project.

You can get Sky Pirate Solitaire right here.

...And we have a whole lot of games still to come!

For now, the best way to keep up with Paradice Arcade is to follow @ParadiceArcade on Twitter. I’ll also post on this blog whenever there’s a new game or a big announcement!

If you like anything I’ve made so far, I sincerely hope you’ll enjoy these odd little games. I have some bonkers stuff lined up for this first series and beyond, and I’m so so excited to share it with you all.

Thank you!

Happy gaming xox

My Top 3 Non-Violent Quest Hooks

If you’re playing a classic, “challenge-based” adventure RPG, you’re going to want things for your players to do that don’t involve the often deadly combat rules killing them. And if you’re playing a more combat-focused modern game, your players might want a change of pace from slaughtering monsters now and then!

Here are three types of quest “hook” I put in front of my players all the time. Remember that in a sandbox game there’s no guarantee they’ll go for these, but you never know. Pop these in your world and your players may surprise you.

The Sudden Proposal

Your players rescue the prince from the dragon’s tower, or save the daughter of the hog-folk chief. As well as a substantial reward, the most eligible among their party is presented with a dramatic proposal... of marriage!

The best thing about a proposal is that anything your players do when faced with it can have interesting consequences for your game going forward. Whether they accept, decline, or hatch some other scheme, they’re planting seeds for future events in your world. I wrote a bit in this short post about different angles you can take with a proposal hook depending on the tone of your game.

The Production Crew

A local playwright wants to put on a new theatrical event - or needs to, at the behest of an execution-happy monarch, if you want to raise the stakes - but all they have is a script. Your players will need to provide the rest: props, actors, special effects and the like.

This resembles a classic fetch quest, but manages to avoid the drudgery of those kinds of tasks by allowing the players to decide what items they’ll need and how best to get them, and then execute those plans themselves. Player-driven adventure is something ttrpgs excel at facilitating, so lean into it! Give vague prompts like “we need a monster for the final act” or “the fanciest costume you can find”, and let your players interpret their mission creatively.

There’s a similar prompt involving the world’s first cinema in my free micro-setting Calliope. (In fact, Calliope is entirely made up of non-violent adventure prompts, should you want any more!)

The Impossible Foe

The players need to get somewhere, or retrieve some item, etc. But in their path, set against the completion of this important task for their own reasons, is an enemy like none the party have faced yet... something or someone far beyond their fighting abilities.

I haven’t talked much about Combat As War on this blog, I guess because it’s such a simple idea that I kind of take it as a given, but if you need a primer Ben over at Questing Beast has a great introductory video on the concept. Pitting your players against a foe they simply can’t beat head-on forces them to think creatively and come up with other options. Let them use the world around them, hatch schemes, try communication, trickery or bribery. Don’t be afraid to really stack the odds against them - players will always surprise you with their ingenuity and ideas.

*

Combat will always be an option in ttrpgs, because the medium runs on freedom and player agency. To (heavily!) paraphrase Zedeck Siew’s great thread on colonialism in D&D, taking a non-violent option when violence is also an option is a moral decision, but it becomes a mercenary one when non-violence is the only given path.

Some of your most interesting and memorable adventures, and the very best of tabletop gameplay, will happen when you play against the restraints of the system and fiction and forge your own solutions.

Journeylands, for now

Just a quick update,

I’ve removed the public play test version of Journeylands from my Gumroad store. It’s still available for free, just now it’s in a google doc. Access it right here if you want it. There are a bunch of resources for it on this blog, check the journeylands tag for those posts.

As I’ve said before, I’d love to return to Journeylands, probably gut it and update the mechanics, and release it with a bunch of setting stuff in a kinda UVG style thing. I just don’t have the time, and definitely don’t have the budget. I moved it from Gumroad because there are better things on there now and I don’t think it’s up to that standard!

Also re: the Gumroad store, I’ve set the minimum price of my Graverobber’s Guide to Slimes for 5th Edition to £3, up from free. I’ve barely made any money off it ever, and I don’t really do 5e stuff (fuck WotC), but it’s good and if people want it I might as well get something for it :P

That’s it for now! Just cleaning house. More to come~

Scraps for GRAVEROBBERS

I continually revise my idea of what the eventual, full release of the GRAVEROBBERS system (free alpha version here) will look like. Sometimes I want to create an entire baroque gothic town of potential heist locations with blueprints and secret sewer tunnels and criminal contacts et al. Sometimes I feel like the current Bare Bones Edition might be the best and truest expression of the system.

Right now I’m leaning towards something like: the Bare Bones, a small but dense starter adventure with extensive Prep section, and a big wad of pages in the middle with extra rules, hacks and commentary.

Stuff like these:

Alternate Odds Generation

Some players won’t want to roll completely randomly for their characters’ Odds. They might not like the chance of being exceedingly unlucky in an area of expertise, or they might have a vague idea of who their character “should” be and want their higher and lower numbers to be distributed a certain way.

Here’s another way - it instantly creates a character that’s just over the threshold of not dying to a >13 total Odd score, but the fixed numbers mean it won’t ever produce characters much more lucky than that minimum. Those are for gamblers.

Your alternative:
- Roll a die and put that number in an Odd of your choice.
- Flip the die over, and put that number in a different Odd.
- Repeat for the remaining two Odds.

[btw this is how stat generation works in BUTCHERY, my zinequest project that Kickstarted back in Feb. That’ll be out in a few short months!]

Encumbrance

By default, characters in GRAVEROBBERS can carry however much stuff makes sense. Work it out, as with most things, through standard play.

If the Judge wants to keep tabs on things or enforce a greater sense of danger, use the following rule:

A player character has six inventory slots for useful items, with one item generally taking up one slot. Collections of smaller items, such as the Grifter’s pouches of goods, take up one slot each, while very large, cumbersome or noisy items such as swords or cockatrice eggs might take up two. Another person, or a corpse, takes up three, plus any weight on that person. Carrying something big between multiple people splits the weight evenly, but those carrying the item can’t make rolls without dropping it.

If a character carries items that would take up slots but they have no slots left, remove a die from any Finesse or Fortitude rolls that character makes for each slot the extra items would take up. If a character carries enough items that they no longer have dice for Fortitude rolls, they are weighed down and completely unable to move.