Category Archives: Projects

CyberNoir: Agendas and Principles

Some people think you should start with these first for your hack.  Here’s what I’ve been kicking around for CyberNoir.  Most of these are just reskins of the Apocalypse World stuff, with the exception of calling out Being Generous with Information, and some drilldown into what this setting is.



Embody the cybernoir nature of the world.

Keep your world authentic to your cybernoir sensibilities. Portray a plausible and internally-consistent world, and your players will take it seriously.


Embroil the characters in a web of crime and intrigue.

Set up the Crime Web, get the characters hooked into it, and watch as they attempt to unravel the whole thing.


Play to find out what happens.

Your job is not to craft a masterful story arc. It is to set up the situation, wind up the PCs, and watch them go to work. When you allow the unexpected to happen, you get truly exciting play.




Always say what honesty demands.

Honesty, and the rules, demand you show fidelity to the rules, to the results of the players rolls, that you stay true to the principles, and be open, honest, and fair in your interactions with the players.


Be Generous with Information.

This is a mystery game. The players can’t solve the mysteries without clues. So you should be giving, even overly so with information. You have the advantage of knowing all the answers. Mysteries are meant to be solved, and secrets are meant to be revealed.


Think Cyber.

Consider your specific Shocks and other examples of futurism. Whenever you introduce a setting element, think of ways to emphasize the fact that the characters are living in the future. Exaggerate aspects and current trends, especially those you view as negative.


Think Noir.

Play up the dark aspects of the world, the corruption, the moral ambiguity, and confusion.


Everyone is Expendable.

Don’t protect your NPCs. They are not there to provide physical challenge to the PCs, but rather moral challenge.


Everyone is Human.

Any NPC you introduce, give them a name, a motive, and think a little bit about life through their lies. What do they want? How do they fit into things?


Collaborate With Your Players.

Allow, or prompt the players to provide setting input. This way, you’ll all feel ownership of the setting, and your players will feed you ideas you never would have thought of.


Take What They Give You and Run With It.

Once the players give you input, take it, expand upon it, and make it your own. Turn up the Cyber and the Noir.


Be a Fan of the Players and their Characters.

We’re all here to have fun, right? The players are not your adversaries, and neither are their characters. Look for what makes those characters awesome and embrace it. Give them a chance to shine, and don’t try to grind them down.


Think About the Big Picture.

Keep your Crime Web map in hand. Between sessions, or whenever you have a spare moment, take a look at it, and consider how events onscreen affect those actors offscreen.


Zoom in on the Little Details.

Take moments here or there to showcase the little details. Sometimes this can draw attention to a useful clue, but often it’s just to show off the setting and characterization.


Sometimes, Delegate the Big Decisions

To play to find out what happens, you need to give up some of the big decisions. Let your NPCs make them in character. Put them on your player’s hands. You can even roll for it.


Address yourself to the characters, not the players.

Keep the players rooted in the fiction, and the players immersed in their characters.


Play by the rules, think in the fiction.

When you make a move, make it about the fictional content of the move. Never say a name of a move you’re using, instead say what happens. It should seem seamless to the players. This goes for players too- when they use moves, think in the fiction- what’s going on?


Draw Maps Like Crazy.

Maps. Draw them.

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Good News For People Who Like Publishing News

Good news everyone!  My games are now available through both Lulu and Drivethrurpg.  You can check out my Drivethrurpg profile right here.

Heroic Threats Kickstarter is Live

My D&D Heroic Threats kickstarter is live!  Check out the kickstarter page:

Heroic Threats is a collection of 110 monsters, levels 1-10 for use in D&D 4th edition.  With Kickstarter, a PDF can be yours for only $3!

As a blog exclusive, if I get comments from 10 users here, I’ll talk about the Smokemen, one of the new monsters in Heroic Threats.

All Quiet on the Western Front

If you’ve been wondering why my blog has been so silent, it’s because I’ve been working away at an Apocalypse World hack: Apocalypse West. You can check out all my work for it over on Barf Forth Apocalyptica.

Some Thoughts about that Casino Game







Special Abilities:

New Type of Scene, The Regroup Scene:


Putting it All on the Line:

Things to Do:
Write more Casino Playlists.
Thing about Chip economy.

Future Fantasy: Skills

The Future Fantasy Skills document is live. Thanks to everyone who made suggestions about the first batch of skill musings (especially Abram.)


Future Fantasy: The Overwatch

The Overwatch represents my first attempt at designing a leader. Man, leaders are tough to design. I feel like I’m really all over the place on this, with lots of powers that feel more defendery or controllery than anything else. However, I feel like I am tapping some cool design space with the Communications Tap and the focus on Immediate Actions.

Anyway, Overwatch!

Wicked Nights Playtest Results

I ran a playtest tonight of Wicked Nights, my vampire IAWA hack. Good times- horribly grotesque situation, morally dreadful characters, and some horrible events. (Wasn’t too much in the way of gross imagery in play, but there was certainly the potential for it to go there.)

Rules wise, we tested Use It, Risk It, and my Simplified NPC Dice rules. Use It Risk It was a hit, and I enjoyed the ease of use of Simplified NPC Dice. I think I want to put both to further practice, but they showed promise.

The creating vampire rules seemed good- it puts the player doing it in quite a bit of a risk, making you vulnerable. Also, the vampires seemed sufficiently inhuman and nasty. Good deal.

Good playtest. Looking forward to more!


Here is the big secret project I’ve been working on: WAR!

It’s mass battle rules for D&D 4th edition, using the standard skirmish combat rules, and expanding them outward, including rules for standard units, player character commanders buffing their units, and an antagonistic army- gnolls!

future development is going to add more bad guy armies and expand the scope towards the paragon tier. But right now, you can play a war with this right out of the box at the heroic tier and kill hundreds of gnolls.

Skills in Future Fantasy

One of the things that impressed me about 4th edition upon seeing it for the first time was the sheer tightness of the skill list- compared to 3rd Edition yes, but against skill lists in general. At 17 skills, it clocks in tighter than even the Awesome Adventures skill list. So, any tinkering with that should be done carefully. Additionally, the GSL gives some restrictions- you can’t fundamentally change a skill, but you can add to it, and you could imply that it wasn’t used- this is easy to do, simply by not making it a class skill for any class.

What skills are needed in the Future, and which one’s aren’t? The things I want to add off the top of my head involve some sort of Computer skill, a modern politics/knowledge type thing, and maybe a Science skill and a Repair skill. There’s clearly some overlap between Repair and Thievery- maybe you can use Repair to disable devices too, but it’s far better for fixing them than Thievery is, and you lose the ability to pick pockets. Computers is sort of datagathering in the sense of Streetwise, and security defeating in the sense of Thievery. Science fits well as a knowledge skill in the vein of Arcana, Nature, etc. Politics is the odd-man out- should it roll into History? It would be easy to add a “Current Events” note to use of the History skill, but saying “I’m rolling History to figure out what I know about Megacorp XYZ” sounds weird.

On the other hand, is there anything that should be taken out? The only one that jumps out is Religion- the gods and the divine play less of a role in Future Fantasy, and knowledge of cults and the like can therefore fall under Arcana (or History). Related knowledge likewise falls under Arcana.

Get rid of one skill but add four? 3 of the 4 are all techy skills, kinda sorta, which makes playing such a character a big investment, unless all the Tech classes get tons of trained skills. Something to think about.