Mad Brew Labs

Yesterday was an interesting day for tabletop roleplaying games and crowdfunding (or at least interesting for me). I managed to publish my Age of Patronage article just as the Gamerati published an edited video of Lisa Stevens, CEO of Paizo Publishing, answering a question I submitted for a Google Hangout that Peter Adkison read to her.

I had asked for her thoughts on patronage and its impact on the tabletop gaming industry. I also asked if Paizo might ever utilize crowdfunding and she alluded to something to come in the near future. Then late last night Gamerati dropped a link to the Kickstarter below in the comments of the video. [UPDATE: Sometime in the night, the preview for the Kickstarter was taken down, but I did manage to grab the video and the important bits of the proposal and they are contained below. I'll leave the hyperlink in for posterity's sake.]:

From the Pathfinder MMO Technology Demo Kickstarter:

Our First Step

This Kickstarter will fund the Technology Demo of the Pathfinder Online Massively Multiplayer Online RPG.  The Technology Demo will be fully playable, integrating account management, character creation, a virtual world server, multiple simultaneously connected clients, middleware used for rendering landscapes and characters, basic game mechanics, and player communications.  The demo will only support a few simultaneous users exploring a couple of small locations, so the general public won’t be able to play it, but we will produce a short video of the demo that everyone will be able to experience, and a special longer video exclusively for backers of this Kickstarter.

Your support of the Technology Demo will help us raise awareness of Pathfinder Online and will show potential investors what the game is really about.  Funding this demo will also signal to potential partners that Pathfinder Online has an audience that’s large enough and dedicated enough to allow the long-term success of the MMO. Nothing speaks louder than a ton of people putting up money to show their support of a new concept—that’s the genius element of Kickstarter!

What Do I Get?

Since this Kickstarter isn’t meant to fund the final video game, we had to think outside the box a little bit. Pathfinder Online is based on the world created by Paizo Publishing for their tabletop Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, so we thought it would be pretty cool to work with Paizo to create an RPG book that details one of the locations that Pathfinder Online characters will start in. We settled on the town of Thornkeep—that’s the very same “hive of scum and villainy” that the Pathfinder Online community named in our first online poll back in January! To make Thornkeep come alive, we’ve enlisted the talents of veteran game designer Rich Baker. Rich is going to give you everything you need to run a Pathfinder RPG game in Thornkeep, including the surrounding woods and a detailed dungeon below the ruins upon which Thornkeep was built. This very same dungeon will also be built as part of our technology demo, providing a great window into how tabletop design will make the transition to the digital medium.

And that’s just the first half of a 64-page book! The remaining sections will be written by our Pathfinder Online design team, letting you into Goblinworks’ design philosophy and giving you inside information gleaned from the development of our technology preview. The Thornkeep book will be produced to Paizo’s usual quality standards—perfectbound, printed in full color, with lots of all-new original artwork, including a brand new beautiful cover painting by fan-favorite Pathfinder artist Wayne Reynolds (the cover you see here is a mock-up).

We didn’t stop there either! We’ve built up a wide range of Goblinworks-themed merchandise, from posters and T-shirts to an entire day spent playing Pathfinder and dining out with the Goblinworks staff at one of the world’s finest restaurants! We have a reward level for every pocketbook, so give them a look and tell us what you think!

Listening to: Mastodon – Blood Mountain – This Mortal Soil

Mummy Outlaw concept art for Weird West Minis

Societal trends usually ebb and flow like the swing of a pendulum and we’re seeing the beginning of the return swing for the system of funding creatives known as patronage. The arts would not be where it is today, or at least not have such a rich history, without the practice of patronage. Since the beginning of recorded history, the wealthy, powerful, and influential have supported creatives via commission.

Patronage peaked during the Renaissance period, with the huge wealth of the Vatican funding many a famous painter and sculptor (see the namesakes of my beloved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). While patronage never went away, the Industrial Revolution and subsequent commercialization of creativity certainly changed the way society generated and experienced the arts.

Recently, there has been a resurgence of the patronage model. Only today, it’s not only the upper class that can participate, anyone with the means to electronically deposit a dollar can enjoy luxury of supporting projects which they find interesting. With services like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, creators and patrons can connect with ease.

An Answer to Piracy?

One of the primary advantages to funding a project using a patronage model/service is that it cuts out the middleman. This means the creator can potentially (see Pitfalls below) earn more from a successful project and it also allows for a direct connection between the creator and her audience. This connection can lead to some interesting collaboration and personal relationships should the creator take advantage of it.
Interestingly enough, a well-conceived and successful patronage project could even alleviate most of the concerns creators have for piracy. If you get compensated up front, then who cares if the product is eventually pirated… consider it free advertising for your next project.

Pitfalls of Patronage

Beyond cutting out the middleman and possibly earning a greater return on your investment, using the patronage model doesn’t actually alleviate creators of many traditional problems of producing a product. In fact, it may place many of the traditional concerns on the shoulders of the content creators. For instance, marketing is something that will still be important.

Creator

Below is a list of new problems specific to running a Kickstarter (or IndieGoGo) campaign (for a actual example see Star Command):

• Inaccurate calculations/predictions
• Keep in mind that the service (and Amazon for Kickstarter) takes a cut
• Overly ambitious rewards will cut deep into your funding
• Be aware of the hidden costs of publishing/manufacturing/shipping
• Lost payments
• Incorrect cardholder info can result in lost backers
• Insufficient funds will also prevent backers from sending funds
• Lost faith
• Failed projects can drive potential patrons away, narrowing the pool of potential backers
• Failing to meet campaign promises could very well open a project up to litigation

Patron

Much like pre-ordering a game, album, or book, since the product is not finished (and therefore available for inspection) there are no guarantees… only it will probably be more difficult to recover lost monies:

• No guarantees
• Time
• Quality
• Complete

RPG Related Projects of Note

Here are some open patronage projects I’m currently interested in that I think my readers may also find worthy of their backing:

• Weird West Minis – 28mm Weird minis for the Weird West RPG
• Prismatic Art Collection – Diversity in fantasy illustration
• Rappan Athuk- Return of Necromancer Games’ megadungeon for PFRPG & S&S
  

  Rappan Athuk Kickstarter

• Curse the Darkness – a postapocalyptic RPG about identity, memory and hard choices
• Pure Steam – A steampunk toolkit for the Pathfinder RPG
• Lamentations of the Flame Princess – Get the LotFP old school stuff in hardcover
  

  Lamentations of the Flame Princess Hardcovers

Listening to: Soul Coughing – Songs in the Key of X – Unmarked Helicopters

Oh how I’ve tricked the villagers beyond my dilapidated walls. No horrors have crept out of my laboratories for some time, and the peasants have been lulled into a false sense of security. But I’m still lurking… deep beneath the ruins above.

The Rumors of My Death…

Not that I really think anyone cares, but I’m still lurking around the blogosphere and various social networks. I’m still very much immersed with all things roleplaying, but have not had much to say and not a lot of time to say it anyways. IRL, my career in software development has snowballed and I find I no longer have the time I used to devote to writing for Mad Brew Labs.

The Night’s Watch

Something else taking up time is a new podcast I’m co-hosting for Bald Move: The Night’s Watch. My co-host, A.Ron Hubbard, and I are covering Game of Thrones television series, HBO’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice & Fire. Tomorrow, our coverage of the season 1 finale will go live at baldmove.com and on iTunes. If you want to find out more, check out the blog feed, fan us on Facebook, tweet at us @BaldMove, or circle us on Google+.

A New Outlook on Gaming

Of course the lack of time is just part of the equation. I also find myself in new territory as far as gaming is concerned. I no longer search for satisfaction in published systems (though still have fun playing them); instead find myself more interested in my own rules. I’m not creating new mind-blowing concepts, I’m just making familiar mechanics work the way I want them to and find I gain a great deal of fulfillment in doing so.

Late last year, I failed a 24 hour RPG challenge, but that initial concept is now in use at my table. I’ve often thought about writing about the process, but feel it would mostly fall on deaf ears. Maybe once I get the document edited to my liking, I’ll publish it here and explain some of the design choices I made.

Future Contributions

As I settle into a new work schedule, I hope to begin integrating time to return to writing and creating stuff for this hobby, so don’t delete me from your feeds just yet. I’m re-writing my free Pathfinder RPG online character creator, VentureCaptain.com from the ground up, but this time I’m building it with accounts in mind and as a subdomain of a much larger site: GamingKeep.com.  GK will roll up all the RPG-related web apps I’ve worked on using an integrated account system.

So if you liked my Savaged Tools (a Savage Worlds dice roller, initiative draw, and logging tool), you’re going to see some similar (and expanded) functionality for PFRPG too. It’s all pie in the sky, and honestly, could end up in the geek project graveyard, but I’m working on the infrastructure now. I even plan on putting tools for my own RPG on GamingKeep, so as long as my interest in my homebrew continues, so will work on this site. I won’t even deign to put a timeline on the project, but I hope to have the site updated within six months (it is only me, and I have a new day job, after all).

I’ve received several questions concerning the Wild West logo I created for Wild West Weeks. I created it from scratch (but not the fonts) using Illustrator for most of the heavy lifting and then some post-production work in Photoshop Extended. I have the CS4 version of both.

Since I don’t have the history (I often discard the history from Illustrator and Photoshop to reduce the file size) from where I created the basic outline of the sign, I’ll make a new one. First, you need to decide on the orientation and then we can throw some basic shapes together. Or you could purchase some gorgeous panels from Letterhead Fonts (you can see where the American Panel 2 inspired my design).

Step 1 – Basic Shapes

For this tutorial, I’m going to make a vertical panel. So I’ll start by throwing down a rectangle and then I’ll add a couple of circles and an oval (using the Rectangle & Ellipse tools). The stroke is 5 points and I’ve left the fill color as transparent so you can see the different shapes.

Step 1

Step 2 – Add & Subtract

Next, I pick a nice fill color, a medium green (I used #17823E, but you can select whatever you like), and I select all and then Unite (Pathfinder menu) the shapes into a single mass. Next, I’m going to draw a couple of ovals on either side and Minus (Pathfinder menu them from the compound shape.

Step 2a

Step 2b

Step 3 – White Border

Now we’ll select the shape and Offset the path (Object > Path > Offset) by -20 pixels. I like to keep everything in separate layers, so I drag the new shape into a new layer and then set it’s fill to white.

Step 3

Step 4 – Copper & Shadow

This step is nearly identical to step 3. Offset the path by -12 pixels. Then we’re going to pump the Stroke up to 10 and select a copper color (#C7A571) for it and a darker green color (#144221) for the fill.

Step 4a

Now copy this new copper trimmed shape and Paste in Front (Edit). Set the stroke to empty and the fill to our original green color. Now Feather (Effect > Illustrator Effects > Stylize) that fill 50 pixels. This creates that nice worn fade in the color.

Step 4b

Step 5 – Text

Now pick a couple of complimentary fonts and add your titling to one or more new layers. I’m using the Saloon and Billy Argel fonts from dafont. If you have issues with saving after using some fonts, try selecting the text and converting to outlines (Type > Create Outlines or Ctrl+Shift+O).

Step 5

Step 6 – Hooladanders

Scrollwork, flourishes, hooladanders… whatever you call those decorative bits are next. Unfortunately, I didn’t make my own; I bought a couple of vector packs from Go Media Arsenal a when I was working on my degree which I put to use in the Wild West Weeks logo. In this instance I’m using a free vector set from Free-Vectors.com. Though smart use of the Pen tool and it’s Bézier handles and then Reflecting copies would net the same result.

Step 6

Next time, I’ll bring the logo into Photoshop for post processing.

Wild West Weeks

• Welcome to Wild West Weeks
• Wild West RPG Database
• Into the Far West
• Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier
• Deadlands Reloaded
• Red Dead Redemption
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Part 1
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Core Mechanics
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits I
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits II
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits III
• Wild West Minis Database
• Legends of the West RPG: Vitality & Experience
• Tunes of the Weird West: Ghoultown
• Wild West Logo Design, Part 1

Listening to: Steve Earle – Copperhead Road – Devil’s Right Hand

[WARNING: Some people may find the following offensive. If you do, you were warned... do not whine about it in the comments.]

Merry Krampus by Steven Austin

Since time before the charlatan they called Christ walked the deserts outside Babylon, I have fed upon the terror and the bones of unruly children. My legend is immortal and I shall continue to feast on disobedient pups and wash my feet in their blood. Though my reputation ensures many a child grows into honorable adults, I fear that there are too many bad apples for me to sink my teeth into. Alas, though my power holds, its reach is not far enough and this world shall forever grow worse under the ravages of bad seed.

Background

The Krampus is a Slasher of Legend and he roams the World of Darkness every Yuletide in search of miserable little juveniles in need of punishment. In the beginning, the Krampus would only visit children in the night and sneak into their rooms to scare them. Though, as his legend grew, so did the terror and ghastly stories connected with him. His legend began to change his method of operation.

Over centuries, the Krampus was shaped by the stories parents told their children to encourage good behavior and he grew from a simple frightener of the night into a horror that fed upon wicked children. What behavior attracts the Krampus variable and depends on the stories parents tell their children. Should a child defy a parent’s wish which was communicated in the Krampus story, then there is a chance the Krampus will attempt to collect the child during Yuletide, though the Krampus prefers the flavor of bullies, liars, and teenagers of any sort.

What exactly constitutes a child in the Krampus’ eyes is determined by the culture, in most areas this begins when the child starts school (around 5 or 6) and ends when they are legally an adult (anywhere between 16 and 21 years of age). The Krampus can appear anywhere, but it is strongest where it’s stories are more prevalent. Austria and Bavaria are predominant in Krampus sighting; however, the Krampus often visits American towns where there is a large concentration of Germanic culture.

Appearance

The Krampus is vaguely human and is covered in short white fur (often splattered with the blood of bad children) and carries a massive wooden bucket chained to his back. The bucket is often filled with the appendages and blood of recent victims and both the bucket and its chain are used as weapons.

The Krampus also has an elongated tongue that constantly lolls out of its mouth and with which he alternatively frightens children or tempts women. He also has two twisted horns protruding from his forehead.

Storytelling Hints

The Krampus can only target children that have defied parents that have threatened their children with his legend. The Krampus is truly immortal as long as his stories continue to be told to children and should he ever be reduced to zero health, he dissipates in a cloud of coal soot and returns to his ways the next Yuletide.

The Krampus believes he is doing the world a favor and that his activities makes the world a better place. He thinks his presence inspires children to grow into good, responsible adults while he culls the bad seed from the world. He often monologues about such things when he claims rotten children to torture.

The Krampus is known for more than his thirst for misbehaving children and is known for his lust for the ladies and his obsession with cleavage in particular. A woman can attempt to persuade the Krampus to leave a particular child alone with a Seduction (p84-85 World of Darkness core rulebook) roll. For this particular roll, equipment rating is determined by the woman’s bust size (Storyteller’s discretion on how many dots).

Bad Bucket of Blood

This bucket can be spun around as an All Out Attack that targets all opponents in a 3 yard radius and it also counts as a Close Combat attack (Strength + Weaponry).

• Damage 4
• Bashing (-2)
• Knockdown 1
• Knockout 2
• Area Affect 3
• Size 4 (-4)
• Two-Handed (-1)

Chains of Castigation

The chain connected to the Bad Bucket can be used as a weapon by itself. A successful attack causes continuous damage as the sins of the victim burn her flesh. The Krampus gains the benefits of specializing in the Bad Bucket, Favored Weapon, and Weaponry Monomaniac as these chains are actually considered part of the Bad Bucket and are just an alternate use.

• Damage 1
• Lethal
• Continuous Damage 1
• Range 3
• Size 3 (-3)
• Two-Handed (-1)

Be sure to visit Nevermet Press as they have kindly commissioned the art and organized the Krampus Karnival.

Listening to: DevilDriver – Beast – Shitlist

When crafting or playing in the Weird West, it’s often handy to have some inspirational tunes spinning in the background. The band that I immediately think of for Weird West warbles is Ghoultown.

Ghoutown with Elvira

Their catchy hymns manage to strike a particular chord of the strange and horrific that is perfectly suited to a Weird West adventure. From tales of drinking with the dead to serial killers aboard trains, you can never go wrong firing up a track from one of their albums.

Life After Sundown

The flavor of their music is firmly in the realm of rockabilly/psychobilly; which means you get a fusion of hard rock riffs and lyrics mixed with blues and classic western guitar twang. Their is also a strong influence from south of border with a strong influx of mariachi inspired brass.

• Boots of Hell – 1999
• Tales From the Dead West – 2000
• Give ‘Em More Rope – 2002
• Live From Texas! – 2004
• Bury Them Deep – 2006
• Life After Sundown – 2008
• Skeleton Cowboys (vinyl) – 2008
• Mistress of the Dark – 2009

Their style eventually attracted the Mistress of the Dark, Elvira, to seek a theme song and video from the psyhobilly rockers from Texas. And for Vampire fans out there, their gig posters actually appeared in the 2004 Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines PC game. Well, enough of my wailin’s, I’ll their music speak for itself.

Wild West Weeks

• Welcome to Wild West Weeks
• Wild West RPG Database
• Into the Far West
• Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier
• Deadlands Reloaded
• Red Dead Redemption
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Part 1
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Core Mechanics
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits I
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits II
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits III
• Wild West Minis Database
• Legends of the West RPG: Vitality & Experience
• Tunes of the Weird West: Ghoultown

Listening to:  Ghoultown – Skeleton Cowboys – Hog Trail

Wild West Weeks

I haven’t given up on my 24 Hour RPG, Legends of the West, even though I didn’t make it within the time limitation. Here are two more Traits, Vitality (and Wounds) and Experience. Vitality is integral the Wounds system and determines what kind of beating a character can take while Experience is the currency of character improvement.

VITALITY & WOUNDS

Injury, disease, famine, and other ailments are a daily concern for people living in the frontier. Medicine and doctors are not as ubiquitous as they are in the urban areas of the East. The Trait that governs injury and general health is Vitality. Vitality is calculated from adding a character’s Body Resistance with her size and a static value. The default and minimum static value is five, but Judges can adjust this value to make the game more forgiving. Humans have a default size of five.

Whenever a character suffers injury, if the amount of injury meets or exceeds her Vitality score, then she suffers a Wound. For every Variance of Success, the character suffers an additional Wound. For every Wound, a character must apply a negative one modifier to all Action Rolls. A point of Grit may be spent to ignore Wound modifiers for a single Action Roll.

Miniatures and terrain are not for everyone, but many gamers like to enhance the visual experience of their game or require physical portrayals of the action for tactical reasons. If you’re looking for miniatures and terrain for a Wild West game, look no further, this article is your ultimate resource. I will highlight few of my favorite figures/lines.

At the end of the article you can find a Wild West Miniatures Database that compiles 75+ different miniature and terrain lines to fit the needs of anyone gaming in the American Old West. If you know of a manufacturer that isn’t on that list (or find that one of my links are broken), do not hesitate to inform me.

Witchtown Tales

Witchtown Tales documents a private Old West miniature collection. It shows some excellent paint schemes for figures as well as terrain. However, one of it’s best resources is its manufacturer scale comparison page.

Old West Scale Compare

Dixon Miniatures

Dixon has a solid range of figures and considering that the same figure can come with multiple head variants, it makes their line surprising large. I think my favorite mini from Dixon are the Lying Wounded and Lying Dead figures.

Lying Dead

Noon Stage

Blue Moon Manufacturing

Blue Moon’s lineup features a lot of famous names from the legendary West. The Earps, the James, and most of the names you hear while watching Tombstone are there.. I really like the Tombstone Civilians set and the Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane pack. Of particular coolness is Blue Moon’s Wagons Ho! line.

Tombstone Civilians

Wargames Foundry

The Foundry probably has the most expansive selection of Old West miniatures available. I especially like their Townsfolk and Mountain Men lines. For the gamer with deep pockets, they have two excellent army packs. The Plains War Indian Army comes with 99 figures (51 horses), but will set you back $450.

Yellowstone River Mountain Men

Black Scorpion

Black Scorpion has some of the most gorgeous Western themed lines available. They are a little taller than your average heroic sized minis (32mm vs. 28mm), but those extra millimeters allows for some additional detail. Particularly, I like the Billy the Kid and Bobba Fat Mexican sculpts.

Bobba Fat Mexican

Eric Hotz

Hotz’s Whitewash City is probably the most affordable, dynamic and re-usable terrain available for Old West gaming. It’s cardstock, but that means you can easily modify the images to change up the look and feel of building. I also like the game mat they have as a base for building an Old West town.

Whitewash City

Hovels, Ltd.

Hovels provides their resin buildings either plain or already painted. In addition to the 25mm Wild West line, they also have an American Civil War line which could easily be used in an Old West setting. My particular favorite is the Grand Hotel.

Grand Hotel

Roll Your Own

For the crafty gamer, you could also build your own terrain out of balsa wood or cardstock. A tutorial by David Marshall and another from Dave Bezio should give the DIY gamer a good place to begin.

Davestown Balsawood

Wild West Minis DB

Wild West Weeks

• Welcome to Wild West Weeks
• Wild West RPG Database
• Into the Far West
• Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier
• Deadlands Reloaded
• Red Dead Redemption
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Part 1
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Core Mechanics
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits I
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits II
• 24 Hour Old West RPG, Traits III
• Wild West Minis Database
• Legends of the West RPG: Vitality & Experience

Listening to: Toy Story 2 Video Game OST – Al’s Penthouse