Our new game, Farewell to Fear, is a dark fantasy game about revolution and enlightenment taking people out of the darkness. Your players choose a thing about the world they want to change, and they set out to change it. As we design Farewell to Fear, I’ve tried to keep this at the front of every effort. I’m tackling this through three main avenues, game mechanics, setting writing, and art direction.

In the game mechanics, revolutions are at the forefront. Change needs to drive advancement. So, our entire system is based on building solutions to massive problems, and using thinking and preparation to tackle otherwise overwhelming problems. As the game progresses, characters grow and evolve through their engagements with change.

We have a new design essay from David Hill Jr. In this essay David tells us about developing the Forsaken Chronicler’s Guide, which is the latest supplement for the Werewolf: the Forsaken RPG from White Wolf.

We’re coming up on the release of the fourth volume of Forsaken Chronicler’s Guide, so I thought I’d give a bit of insight into the development process for this particular project.

A couple of years ago, I pitched the idea of a Chronicler’s Guide for Werewolf: the Forsaken to Eddy Webb. I knew Forsaken was a bit more of a niche game, so the Alternative Publishing model might fit a bit better than a traditional, full release.

Game Designer, David Hill jumps into our design essay series with some notes on the development of the Maschine Zeit RPG. David tells us about some of the cinematic inspirations for the setting of this new RPG as well as the goals that went into the initial development of the system.

When I advertise Maschine Zeit, I call it, “Ghost Stories on Space Stations.” I wanted to talk briefly on that. Over the years, there’s been this sub-genre of horror films that are fundamentally haunted house stories, set in science fiction environments. The sub-genre really got its chops with the release of Ridley Scott’s masterpiece, Alien. Looking around at various RPGs, I didn’t feel that the genre had been properly emulated, so that’s what I’d set out to do. What this resulted in was an RPG that, in my opinion, shares a number of conventions with popular games, while eschewing many.

Hard Helix is a series of scenarios for Mutant City Blues, written by Robin Laws. The whole thing clocks in at 78 pages, including intro text and all that. This is to say, the scenarios are compact. I’ll lay it out on the table; this is a good thing. If you’ve read my review of Mutant City Blues, you’ll know that I greatly appreciate the design concepts presented. Hard Helix keeps those up. It’s a supplement packed with content from beginning to end. Robin doesn’t waste words, here.

The first adventure is Hard Helix, something of a political exercise. It has a relatively large cast, and sets up some interesting ‘canon’ characters for the setting.

Slasher Flick is just over 100 pages, an RPG all about octopi. (That’s actually not true.) It’s written and designed by Cynthia Celeste Miller, produced by Spectrum Games. The game is called Slasher Flick. The pages are edged with blood. It’s not a game about serious exploration of the serial killer phenomenon, it’s not a strategy wargame. It’s a game about sitting around a table, having a night like one spent with an actual slasher movie, only in RPG form.

Slasher Flick is simple and focused in nature. Mechanics focus on the drama and tropes of the genre, instead of “killing the bad guy.” Characters are more likely to think the sound of the villain sneaking up is the wind, than a sign that they need to go monster hunting.

Review By David A Hill Jr

Freelance author David Hill and artist James Lannan bring us a new monster for the Halloween Horror collection today. These little creatures may seem harmless, but they can certainly become vicious from time-to-time.

Just be careful next time you go exploring in the junkyard…

Skulkers-in-the-Piles

Created by David Hill
With Art By James Lannan

Introduction
Skulkers-in-the-Piles, sometimes called “The Refuse,” are vaguely humanoid marsupials that live in and around human trash. They occupy areas where trash accumulates, particularly when finding solid waste in bulk. In recent years, experts suspect that Skulker populations have dwindled, but that is a difficult assertion, as the creatures are remarkably good at hiding in their junk pile empires.

Skulkers have fascinated humans for many years. They have appeared in the folklore and art of urban people, often mistaken for large reptiles or rodents. Children tell stories and draw these pictures, as the creatures have a mysterious way of veiling themselves from the minds and memories of adults.