Rotted Capes: The Superhero Zombie RPG just announced!

[fireinthedust]

Hello,



The free RPG Day download we have available is for our Origins Award Winning RPG, Arcanis World of the Shattered Empires (Best RPG of 2011).

We don't have one for Rotted Capes yet.

While the system used in Rotted Capes is a derivative of the system that powers Arcanis - it's changed enough that reading one would only give you a vague idea of how the other works. I'm a firm believer in making sure that the rules fit the genre/setting we're creating and don't buy into the 'one size fits all' theory for gaming.

Best,

Interesting point, and I htink I know where you're coming from. Would you say you're not a fan of, say, a Rifts-style or even d20 style approach to gaming?

I find that interesting from a Superhero game point of view. Champions and M&M have been designed to cover just about *any* type of character, and as a result designing them has to accommodate that.

Then again, I believe the Marvel Heroes game by Hickman was pretty simple (a couple dice added together, but not much beyond that).

What kinds of characters can be made with the game?

 

[PCIHenry]

Hello,

Interesting point, and I think I know where you're coming from. Would you say you're not a fan of, say, a Rifts-style or even d20 style approach to gaming?

I've been playing RPGs since 1977 and back then it was considered "fun" to open up a new game and see what new system it used to create a new player experience. In my view, many of the new players who started with D20 (at least those that I have interacted with) perceive a one-game-fits-all because at one point, it seemed that just about every game was converting to D20 (such as L5R, Deadlands, etc).

Because of this introduction to gaming, most players were left with a "why-do-I-need-to-learn-a-new-system" mentality, which is a shame, IMO. Now, by the same token there are many other "older" gamers with the same viewpoint but mostly because they either don't have the time nor the inclination to learn a new system.

Obviously, the above is just my opinion, but as I (luckily) don't publish games to put food on the table, I have the luxury of creating, writing and publishing games that I find enjoyable, as well (hopefully) that others will as well.

Now, that being said, there is a lot of merit to making players feel comfortable in playing your games, and as much as possible, we tried to accommodate those who had taken the time to learn our new Arcanis rule set by modifying the core system to power Rotted Capes. That being said, I was ready to make something brand new if the modified Arcanis system could not create the player experience I was looking to showcase.

What kinds of characters can be made with the game?

We purposely left out magic-types, mostly for space considerations, as well as creating an alien super-hero, but that was because of story constraints. Besides those two caveats, you can create just about every type of super hero out there. Obviously, to make a Super Man type Hero, you'd need to allow players a lot more lee-way in the number of powers, attribute points, etc, but it can be done.

The sample setting and recommended power level allows you to create anything from a Punisher level Hero to the original 1960's type of Marvel heroes; by that I mean that they suffered from "Power Burn Out" if they used their powers too much - (happened to the Human Torch all the time in those early issues).

But if you want to run a higher power campaign, Rotted Capes will allow you to do so as well.

Best,