Happy Saint Patrick's Day to one and all! From fantasy to cyberpunk to the cartoon lands of action, we're wandering all over the realm of gaming and imagination today, which seems extraordinarily appropriate. This week's Picks include a couple of massive bundle deals, which might disappear at any time, so I highly recommend you grab them as soon as you can. The last vestiges of GM's Day celebration are fading into mystical nothingness, much like the leprechaun's pot o' gold...
STORY, PLEASE!
Gaming for kids is a thing I’ve been very proud to see (and be a part of) building over the last few years. Monte Cook Games did a great job breaking even more new ground in this field with their charming and well-crafted No Thank You, Evil! Fans of this line will be grateful for this new expansion, a deck-driven system to help those running the game (including young, burgeoning new Game Masters) pull together great stories for their friends and loved ones. More brilliant work from the extraordinary Shanna Germain.
Create fantastic, whimsical adventures for your No Thank You, Evil! game
Someone stole all the robot waiters from The Cake Is a Pie, a famous cake and pizza restaurant. Clues lead to an alien factory where everyone looks the same. Can the players overcome obstacles and hazards, confront Joe the Giant, and solve the mystery to return the robot waiters?
Journey into Storia in adventures of your own design! Combine an engaging STORY card with one or more cool PLACE and PERSON cards to outline your quest. Then give your adventure a surprising TWIST, and maybe some fun and useful STUFF. There are even maps and handouts! Pick cards, draw them at random or mix and match. Create a great story with all the details you need—in minutes!
This expansion requires the No Thank You, Evil! game to play.
PARADISE LOST
Whether you’re a Deadlands: Reloaded fan (playing it Savage Worlds style), or an aficionado of Deadlands Classic, the “Night Train,” John Goff, has something very special for you with this adventure. Statted for both, this is one of the many great adventures written by the man who knows the Weird West very well.
In the Weird West, not all tracks show up on a map, and not all trains are scheduled. During the Great Rail Wars, an unexpected whistle in the night usually meant bad news, and for Paradise, Idaho, it still does. An unscheduled train is rolling into the station, it’s bringing Hell with it–just maybe not the one you’d expect given the author of this nightmare, John “Night Train” Goff.
Slap on your six-guns and help the residents of a peaceful mining town square off against a powerful foe from Deadlands’ future…and past!
This adventure requires the Deadlands Classic game system to play OR Deadlands Reloaded—it’s dual statted for both!
SHADOWRUN: BOOK OF THE LOST
The days of Full Campaign In Hand are back in force, as more and more Game Masters find they appreciate a well-crafted pre-loaded campaign to dive into and run for their groups. I predict this is a trend we will see more and more of, including with core game releases. Catalyst bets heavy on the idea with this one for Shadowrun – doubling down on their Sixth World Tarot to craft some serious long-term storytelling and adventure around specific images.
No Longer Hidden
The Bastard, upright. A man in clown makeup stands in a broken skyraker window over another man on the verge of a long plummet. Near the clown’s hand, a white rose. Opportunity, adventure, but also mania and frenzy. 404, upright. A woman crouches on the edge of a rooftop, holding a white rose. In the distance is the image of a woman in a red dress. Destruction, failure, collapse. Queen of coins. A woman in a red dress, lounging amidst luxury. She has material wealth but emptiness of soul. Upright, she is opulence, magnificent. Inverse is suspense, fear.
Opportunity and adventure abounds. Destruction and failure loom. Will the result be magnificence—or fear?
Book of the Lost takes the intricate art of the Sixth World Tarot and turns it into stories and campaigns for Shadowrun players. Full of plot hooks and adventure seeds, this book is a treasure trove of ideas, mysteries, and enigmas that can make memorable games. Open it and explore knowledge that had been lost but is now, here, rediscovered. And waiting for you.
Book of the Lost is for use with Shadowrun, Fifth Edition, and can easily be used with Shadowrun: Anarchy with minor NPC adjustments.
Cartoon Action Hour 15th Anniversary Pack
So I just got the following very cool message in my inbox from Spectrum Games:
“Buy the Cartoon Action Hour: Season 3 rulebook PDF and get all twelve of the currently released supplements for free! That’s right… we’re celebrating the 215th anniversary of Cartoon Action Hour by offering you the entire PDF collection for less than $15 as a bundle. You’ll get material from some of the biggest names in the industry, including Steve Long, Shane Hensley, John Wick, Eddy Webb, Matt Forbeck, Jason L Blair and Rob Wieland.”
Grab the Crunchy Frosted Sugar Cocoa Bombs! It’s time to dive all in for the Cartoon Action Hour!
PS – In Hexslinger, there’s a certain Fort Fannon, put in there by my friend Shane…
Remember those bygone Saturday mornings and weekday afternoons spent in front of our television sets back in the ’80s? Remember how we watched the eternal struggle between the forces of good and evil unfold right before our young eyes as our heroes stopped at nothing to out the kibosh on the seemingly endless machinations of the villains? Remember how these wondrously cheesy shows drw us in and spoke to us on a personal level, all the while trying to sell us action figures?
We remember it too!
Cartoon Action Hour: Season 3 is the third edition of the game that was nominated for “Best RPG” at the 2004 Origins Awards. The game faithfully and meticulously emulates the action-adventure cartoons of the 1980s, using “cartoon logic” as the basis for every aspect of the system. This is not just a universal game that just happens to be adorned with genre-appropriate art. Every single design decision was made with the purpose of bringing to life the retro-toons of yesteryear, right at your gaming table.
Everything you need to play Cartoon Action Hour is included in this full-color rulebook. Some of the features include:
Sleek and Exciting Game System: You roll a d12 and add one or two ratings to it. That’s the core of the system, making it extremely easy to jump right into the animated fray. Every nuance of the system (transformation, vehicles, playsets, etc.) utilize the same game mechanics as a whole.
Action Scenes: In Cartoon Action Hour, there is no “combat system”. In its place is the “action scene” system, which covers far more than just a slugfest or a laser-filled shootout. Violence is de-emphasized and players are rewarded for making indirect attacks of a less overt nature (“I shoot the tree branch, so that it falls on top of the enemy!”). Characters can be given Setback Tokens, representing anything from physical damage to confusion and everything in between.
Series Creation: The GM and the players work together to construct the series via the series creation system, which includes character creation. Speaking of which, creating characters has never been this easy in previous versions of the game, as the bookkeeping is now very minimal indeed.
Sample Series: The book includes eight series seeds and one more detailed sample series.
26-Page Action Scene Example: This ultra-detailed example of an action scene answers any question you care to ask.
Preface by Flint Dille: The legendary cartoon writer offers up an insightful preface that discusses the way cartoons were created in the 1980s.
Jon Brazer’s Big Book of Everything
`Tis a good day to be savin’ a bit o’ green, and you’ll save plenty of it with this rather insane deal. Every single thing JBE created for the Pathfinder system from 2009-2016 is available in this single $20 compilation. That’s over $200 of stuff at well over 90% off. Grab it before you can’t – like a leprechaun’s pot o’ gold, ye know?
With less than 24 hours to go before the end of the GM’s Day sale, now is a great time to pick up JBE’s Big Book of Everything. For $20, you can grab everything Jon Brazer Enterprises produced for Pathfinder from 2009 though 2016 for more than 90% off the regular price. All told, this includes over:
-----
So, yes, with a name like mine, you might imagine I plan to celebrate today in a fine way. Of course, being who I am, that includes gaming, and I am honored to be a Guest of KoboldCon, along with my friend and Industry Great, Frank Mentzer (He Who Crafted the Red Box).
Naturally, I'll be running Freedom Squadron - four sessions, in fact, all of which are tied together. This will be the RPG iteration of the VENOM Assault board game mission, "Kingpins of Crime." There's a good chance the heroes of Freedom Squadron will be dealing with this fine fellow, El Guapo!
Hope you have a grand adventure or three this weekend, and Happy Saint Patrick's Day!
The Adventure Continues...
Note that I use affiliate links in all my posts as a way to generate additional revenue for my efforts; I make my Picks and other article choices, however, based on the desire to share a wide variety of things with you. Thank you for your support.
Sean Patrick Fannon
Writer & Game Designer: Shaintar, Star Wars, Savage Rifts, much more
Please check out my Patreon and get involved directly with my next projects!
STORY, PLEASE!
Gaming for kids is a thing I’ve been very proud to see (and be a part of) building over the last few years. Monte Cook Games did a great job breaking even more new ground in this field with their charming and well-crafted No Thank You, Evil! Fans of this line will be grateful for this new expansion, a deck-driven system to help those running the game (including young, burgeoning new Game Masters) pull together great stories for their friends and loved ones. More brilliant work from the extraordinary Shanna Germain.
Create fantastic, whimsical adventures for your No Thank You, Evil! game
Someone stole all the robot waiters from The Cake Is a Pie, a famous cake and pizza restaurant. Clues lead to an alien factory where everyone looks the same. Can the players overcome obstacles and hazards, confront Joe the Giant, and solve the mystery to return the robot waiters?
Journey into Storia in adventures of your own design! Combine an engaging STORY card with one or more cool PLACE and PERSON cards to outline your quest. Then give your adventure a surprising TWIST, and maybe some fun and useful STUFF. There are even maps and handouts! Pick cards, draw them at random or mix and match. Create a great story with all the details you need—in minutes!
This expansion requires the No Thank You, Evil! game to play.
PARADISE LOST
Whether you’re a Deadlands: Reloaded fan (playing it Savage Worlds style), or an aficionado of Deadlands Classic, the “Night Train,” John Goff, has something very special for you with this adventure. Statted for both, this is one of the many great adventures written by the man who knows the Weird West very well.
In the Weird West, not all tracks show up on a map, and not all trains are scheduled. During the Great Rail Wars, an unexpected whistle in the night usually meant bad news, and for Paradise, Idaho, it still does. An unscheduled train is rolling into the station, it’s bringing Hell with it–just maybe not the one you’d expect given the author of this nightmare, John “Night Train” Goff.
Slap on your six-guns and help the residents of a peaceful mining town square off against a powerful foe from Deadlands’ future…and past!
This adventure requires the Deadlands Classic game system to play OR Deadlands Reloaded—it’s dual statted for both!
SHADOWRUN: BOOK OF THE LOST
The days of Full Campaign In Hand are back in force, as more and more Game Masters find they appreciate a well-crafted pre-loaded campaign to dive into and run for their groups. I predict this is a trend we will see more and more of, including with core game releases. Catalyst bets heavy on the idea with this one for Shadowrun – doubling down on their Sixth World Tarot to craft some serious long-term storytelling and adventure around specific images.
No Longer Hidden
The Bastard, upright. A man in clown makeup stands in a broken skyraker window over another man on the verge of a long plummet. Near the clown’s hand, a white rose. Opportunity, adventure, but also mania and frenzy. 404, upright. A woman crouches on the edge of a rooftop, holding a white rose. In the distance is the image of a woman in a red dress. Destruction, failure, collapse. Queen of coins. A woman in a red dress, lounging amidst luxury. She has material wealth but emptiness of soul. Upright, she is opulence, magnificent. Inverse is suspense, fear.
Opportunity and adventure abounds. Destruction and failure loom. Will the result be magnificence—or fear?
Book of the Lost takes the intricate art of the Sixth World Tarot and turns it into stories and campaigns for Shadowrun players. Full of plot hooks and adventure seeds, this book is a treasure trove of ideas, mysteries, and enigmas that can make memorable games. Open it and explore knowledge that had been lost but is now, here, rediscovered. And waiting for you.
Book of the Lost is for use with Shadowrun, Fifth Edition, and can easily be used with Shadowrun: Anarchy with minor NPC adjustments.
Cartoon Action Hour 15th Anniversary Pack
So I just got the following very cool message in my inbox from Spectrum Games:
“Buy the Cartoon Action Hour: Season 3 rulebook PDF and get all twelve of the currently released supplements for free! That’s right… we’re celebrating the 215th anniversary of Cartoon Action Hour by offering you the entire PDF collection for less than $15 as a bundle. You’ll get material from some of the biggest names in the industry, including Steve Long, Shane Hensley, John Wick, Eddy Webb, Matt Forbeck, Jason L Blair and Rob Wieland.”
Grab the Crunchy Frosted Sugar Cocoa Bombs! It’s time to dive all in for the Cartoon Action Hour!
PS – In Hexslinger, there’s a certain Fort Fannon, put in there by my friend Shane…
Remember those bygone Saturday mornings and weekday afternoons spent in front of our television sets back in the ’80s? Remember how we watched the eternal struggle between the forces of good and evil unfold right before our young eyes as our heroes stopped at nothing to out the kibosh on the seemingly endless machinations of the villains? Remember how these wondrously cheesy shows drw us in and spoke to us on a personal level, all the while trying to sell us action figures?
We remember it too!
Cartoon Action Hour: Season 3 is the third edition of the game that was nominated for “Best RPG” at the 2004 Origins Awards. The game faithfully and meticulously emulates the action-adventure cartoons of the 1980s, using “cartoon logic” as the basis for every aspect of the system. This is not just a universal game that just happens to be adorned with genre-appropriate art. Every single design decision was made with the purpose of bringing to life the retro-toons of yesteryear, right at your gaming table.
Everything you need to play Cartoon Action Hour is included in this full-color rulebook. Some of the features include:
Sleek and Exciting Game System: You roll a d12 and add one or two ratings to it. That’s the core of the system, making it extremely easy to jump right into the animated fray. Every nuance of the system (transformation, vehicles, playsets, etc.) utilize the same game mechanics as a whole.
Action Scenes: In Cartoon Action Hour, there is no “combat system”. In its place is the “action scene” system, which covers far more than just a slugfest or a laser-filled shootout. Violence is de-emphasized and players are rewarded for making indirect attacks of a less overt nature (“I shoot the tree branch, so that it falls on top of the enemy!”). Characters can be given Setback Tokens, representing anything from physical damage to confusion and everything in between.
Series Creation: The GM and the players work together to construct the series via the series creation system, which includes character creation. Speaking of which, creating characters has never been this easy in previous versions of the game, as the bookkeeping is now very minimal indeed.
Sample Series: The book includes eight series seeds and one more detailed sample series.
26-Page Action Scene Example: This ultra-detailed example of an action scene answers any question you care to ask.
Preface by Flint Dille: The legendary cartoon writer offers up an insightful preface that discusses the way cartoons were created in the 1980s.
Jon Brazer’s Big Book of Everything
`Tis a good day to be savin’ a bit o’ green, and you’ll save plenty of it with this rather insane deal. Every single thing JBE created for the Pathfinder system from 2009-2016 is available in this single $20 compilation. That’s over $200 of stuff at well over 90% off. Grab it before you can’t – like a leprechaun’s pot o’ gold, ye know?
With less than 24 hours to go before the end of the GM’s Day sale, now is a great time to pick up JBE’s Big Book of Everything. For $20, you can grab everything Jon Brazer Enterprises produced for Pathfinder from 2009 though 2016 for more than 90% off the regular price. All told, this includes over:
- 150 new and varied monster
- 150 new spells
- 130 new magic items
- far more than 200 new class options like archetypes, bloodlines, mysteries, orders, spirits, talents, discoveries, tricks, and animal companions
- countless feats
- 30 new vehicles
- 35 new traps
- 20 new and expanded playable races
- and much much more
-----
So, yes, with a name like mine, you might imagine I plan to celebrate today in a fine way. Of course, being who I am, that includes gaming, and I am honored to be a Guest of KoboldCon, along with my friend and Industry Great, Frank Mentzer (He Who Crafted the Red Box).
Naturally, I'll be running Freedom Squadron - four sessions, in fact, all of which are tied together. This will be the RPG iteration of the VENOM Assault board game mission, "Kingpins of Crime." There's a good chance the heroes of Freedom Squadron will be dealing with this fine fellow, El Guapo!
Hope you have a grand adventure or three this weekend, and Happy Saint Patrick's Day!
The Adventure Continues...
Note that I use affiliate links in all my posts as a way to generate additional revenue for my efforts; I make my Picks and other article choices, however, based on the desire to share a wide variety of things with you. Thank you for your support.
Sean Patrick Fannon
Writer & Game Designer: Shaintar, Star Wars, Savage Rifts, much more
Please check out my Patreon and get involved directly with my next projects!
