NerdBurger Games has a Good Strong Hands RPG supplement on Kickstarter. With a new book coming for his Ennie nominated gaming system, I talked with Craig about Good Strong Hands in 2020, so I wanted to learn about the next step in this setting and system.
EGG EMBRY (EGG): You were nominated for an Ennie Award for Good Strong Hands. First, congratulations! Second, for those that don’t know, what is Good Strong Hands (GSH) about?
CRAIG CAMPBELL (CRAIG): Thanks for chatting with me. Good Strong Hands is a fantasy RPG where you portray fantastical creatures working to save their fantastical world from destruction by a faceless, malevolent entity known as the Void. It’s heavily inspired by 80s movies like Legend, Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Willow, and – in particular – The Neverending Story.
EGG: You’re on Kickstarter with a supplement to GSH. What’s the pitch for What Is Light Without Dark?
CRAIG: Good Strong Hands is set in the land of Reverie, whose denizens have been fighting the Void for centuries. During that time, parts of Reverie have been lost in the struggle. Some realms have been torn away by the Void, others destroyed and reconstituted elsewhere, and some have always been disconnected. Along with those realms, whole groups of folk and their old magics have been lost to those living in Reverie. What Is Light Without Dark reveals those lost realms, folk, and magics for use in your GSH games.
EGG: I’m going to ask a question for clarity, the Kickstarter is titled What Is Light Without Dark RPG. The book has a different title – No “RPG.” Is this a supplement to GSH or a standalone RPG?
CRAIG: It’s a supplement that requires Good Strong Hands to use. The “RPG” included in the title is to help folks who might simply be searching Kickstarter for RPGs.
EGG: That’s fair. You attended the Ennie Awards at Gen Con 2022. What was GSH nominated for? What was the experience like? Who’d you meet at and after the ceremony?
CRAIG: Good Strong Hands was nominated for Best Rules and Best Family Product, both of which it lost to very deserving products. This was my first time attending the Ennies and it was sort of surreal. Seeing all those great games and accessories up on the screen and hearing the designers, producers, publishers, and artists accept their awards. It was a wild time. Simply seeing my little homage to the 80s fantasy movies I grew up on mentioned in the same breath as so many other great games was exceedingly humbling. I volunteered to be an “Ennie Dream Date” so I was at a front table with a couple of my teammates and a fan who got a bunch of swag and hung out with us. After the ceremony was over, my friends and I had a remarkable encounter with a celebrity that I recounted here.
EGG: Who are you working on this project with you?
CRAIG: Vincent Harper (editor) and Todd Crapper (graphic design and layout), who worked on GSH, came back for this supplement. Unfortunately, Serena Malyon, who did the art for GSH, was unavailable to take on the project. A search of about 20 or so artists led me to Moira Leclerc, who knocked the illustrations out of the park. All of these folks put their all into this product, and it shows. It’s a gorgeous book.
EGG: Tell me about GSH’s Roll-Track System used in GSH and WILWD?
CRAIG: Your character has four traits (Body, Mind, Charm, and Heart), each rated between 1 and 4. To make a trait check, you roll a number of dice equal to the rating of the appropriate trait versus a target number between 4 and 6. The number of successes determines how things turn out. Each character also has three tracks of check boxes where they build up currency (each Roll-Track game is a little different in these tracks). For GSH, you have a skill track (fill it up to advance your character), a spirit track (spend these points to gain various bonuses), and a shadow track (fill this up and your character gains a corruption, a dark power with a price). If you get 0 successes on your trait check, you fail at the task and suffer a complication, but mark 1 skill. If you get exactly 1 success, you perform the task and mark 1 spirit. If you get 2 or more successes, you perform the task with a boon (special perk), but you mark 1 shadow and fall closer to corruption. If you have three corruptions and fill your shadow track again, your character is lost to the Void and becomes a scion of the destroyer. And there are special abilities and ways to gain and lose dice on those checks. All sorts of fun stuff, but not overly complex.
EGG: You have a free preview of GSH in Good Strong Hands Quick Start. What does it cover in the rules?
CRAIG: The quick start includes the complete rules, four character playbooks, and a few 2-page adventure outlines. It’s a pretty comprehensive package that gives you a good sense of the game.
EGG: Are you planning from GSH supplements?
CRAIG: I’d love to do another supplement. A “trilogy of books” seems really appropriate for a game based on movies. Maybe another rules expansion. Or maybe an adventure path. I’m still mulling it over.
EGG: Beyond this project, what else are you working on?
CRAIG: The real excitement this year is in NerdBurger Games having its own booth at Gen Con for the very first time. I’ve got nine team members coming with me, doing everything from helping at the booth to running over two dozen game events in the Indie Game Developer Network game room. Beyond that… The next big item on the NerdBurger Games docket is CAPERS Cyberpunk, currently in final playtesting. Tentative Kickstarter late this year. It’s sort of the bookend to the CAPERS universe, begun with the original CAPERS game, which is about superpowered gangsters in an alternate 1920s, and expanded with some supplements that take you to later decades. In CAPERS Cyberpunk, you play cybered up, superpowered criminals in an alternate 2020s where superpowers and technology have given rise to the megacorps. It’s a very punk game in that it’s all about fighting the system and trying to make a difference for those who are oppressed. The criminals of the 1920s have become humanity’s saviors in the 2020s.
EGG: I can’t wait to try out CAPERS Cyberpunk!Thanks for talking with me. Where can fans learn more about your project and keep up with you online?
CRAIG: I’m @NerdBurgerCraig on Twitter and dice.camp on Mastodon. My website is NerdBurgerGames.com and everything is available on DriveThruRPG.
What Is Light Without Dark RPG from NerdBurger Games
EGG EMBRY (EGG): You were nominated for an Ennie Award for Good Strong Hands. First, congratulations! Second, for those that don’t know, what is Good Strong Hands (GSH) about?
CRAIG CAMPBELL (CRAIG): Thanks for chatting with me. Good Strong Hands is a fantasy RPG where you portray fantastical creatures working to save their fantastical world from destruction by a faceless, malevolent entity known as the Void. It’s heavily inspired by 80s movies like Legend, Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Willow, and – in particular – The Neverending Story.
EGG: You’re on Kickstarter with a supplement to GSH. What’s the pitch for What Is Light Without Dark?
CRAIG: Good Strong Hands is set in the land of Reverie, whose denizens have been fighting the Void for centuries. During that time, parts of Reverie have been lost in the struggle. Some realms have been torn away by the Void, others destroyed and reconstituted elsewhere, and some have always been disconnected. Along with those realms, whole groups of folk and their old magics have been lost to those living in Reverie. What Is Light Without Dark reveals those lost realms, folk, and magics for use in your GSH games.
EGG: I’m going to ask a question for clarity, the Kickstarter is titled What Is Light Without Dark RPG. The book has a different title – No “RPG.” Is this a supplement to GSH or a standalone RPG?
CRAIG: It’s a supplement that requires Good Strong Hands to use. The “RPG” included in the title is to help folks who might simply be searching Kickstarter for RPGs.
EGG: That’s fair. You attended the Ennie Awards at Gen Con 2022. What was GSH nominated for? What was the experience like? Who’d you meet at and after the ceremony?
CRAIG: Good Strong Hands was nominated for Best Rules and Best Family Product, both of which it lost to very deserving products. This was my first time attending the Ennies and it was sort of surreal. Seeing all those great games and accessories up on the screen and hearing the designers, producers, publishers, and artists accept their awards. It was a wild time. Simply seeing my little homage to the 80s fantasy movies I grew up on mentioned in the same breath as so many other great games was exceedingly humbling. I volunteered to be an “Ennie Dream Date” so I was at a front table with a couple of my teammates and a fan who got a bunch of swag and hung out with us. After the ceremony was over, my friends and I had a remarkable encounter with a celebrity that I recounted here.
EGG: Who are you working on this project with you?
CRAIG: Vincent Harper (editor) and Todd Crapper (graphic design and layout), who worked on GSH, came back for this supplement. Unfortunately, Serena Malyon, who did the art for GSH, was unavailable to take on the project. A search of about 20 or so artists led me to Moira Leclerc, who knocked the illustrations out of the park. All of these folks put their all into this product, and it shows. It’s a gorgeous book.
EGG: Tell me about GSH’s Roll-Track System used in GSH and WILWD?
CRAIG: Your character has four traits (Body, Mind, Charm, and Heart), each rated between 1 and 4. To make a trait check, you roll a number of dice equal to the rating of the appropriate trait versus a target number between 4 and 6. The number of successes determines how things turn out. Each character also has three tracks of check boxes where they build up currency (each Roll-Track game is a little different in these tracks). For GSH, you have a skill track (fill it up to advance your character), a spirit track (spend these points to gain various bonuses), and a shadow track (fill this up and your character gains a corruption, a dark power with a price). If you get 0 successes on your trait check, you fail at the task and suffer a complication, but mark 1 skill. If you get exactly 1 success, you perform the task and mark 1 spirit. If you get 2 or more successes, you perform the task with a boon (special perk), but you mark 1 shadow and fall closer to corruption. If you have three corruptions and fill your shadow track again, your character is lost to the Void and becomes a scion of the destroyer. And there are special abilities and ways to gain and lose dice on those checks. All sorts of fun stuff, but not overly complex.
EGG: You have a free preview of GSH in Good Strong Hands Quick Start. What does it cover in the rules?
CRAIG: The quick start includes the complete rules, four character playbooks, and a few 2-page adventure outlines. It’s a pretty comprehensive package that gives you a good sense of the game.
EGG: Are you planning from GSH supplements?
CRAIG: I’d love to do another supplement. A “trilogy of books” seems really appropriate for a game based on movies. Maybe another rules expansion. Or maybe an adventure path. I’m still mulling it over.
EGG: Beyond this project, what else are you working on?
CRAIG: The real excitement this year is in NerdBurger Games having its own booth at Gen Con for the very first time. I’ve got nine team members coming with me, doing everything from helping at the booth to running over two dozen game events in the Indie Game Developer Network game room. Beyond that… The next big item on the NerdBurger Games docket is CAPERS Cyberpunk, currently in final playtesting. Tentative Kickstarter late this year. It’s sort of the bookend to the CAPERS universe, begun with the original CAPERS game, which is about superpowered gangsters in an alternate 1920s, and expanded with some supplements that take you to later decades. In CAPERS Cyberpunk, you play cybered up, superpowered criminals in an alternate 2020s where superpowers and technology have given rise to the megacorps. It’s a very punk game in that it’s all about fighting the system and trying to make a difference for those who are oppressed. The criminals of the 1920s have become humanity’s saviors in the 2020s.
EGG: I can’t wait to try out CAPERS Cyberpunk!Thanks for talking with me. Where can fans learn more about your project and keep up with you online?
CRAIG: I’m @NerdBurgerCraig on Twitter and dice.camp on Mastodon. My website is NerdBurgerGames.com and everything is available on DriveThruRPG.
What Is Light Without Dark RPG from NerdBurger Games
- END DATE: Thu, May 25 2023 7:00 PM EDT.
