A second irish RPG

wombat

Just after Gaelcon last year I mentioned that I was working on something to make up for the dire scenarios I'd written back then. Well here it is.

Unholy Wars, an RPG of conspiracy and investigation where ordinary people get caught up in webs of intrigue that have been spun over centuries.

Featuring:
A fast (and lethal) combat system
Speedy character generation
An original setting (or as original as it can be since its contemporary)

I've been working on it for years with a friend and barring another disaster (last time it was this close to finished the laptop and backups were stolen) it should be finished and released in spring of next year. Right now we're veering into the proofreading and debugging stages.
Its going to be free to download OR you can buy the PDF and the proceeds will go to charity.

A gallery of the various bits of artwork is at:
http://spankywombat.deviantart.com

I think I'll wait until I finish the book before going on about expansions

Sarky

Ah, so that's what the art was for. Nice. I eagerly await the game itself.

Specky

Can't wait to have a chat over the weekend, should't be all that hard to find me/us. The art does look nice.

wombat

I won't be doing the full gaelcon weekend experience this year thanks to my forgetting all about it and spending all my money in the first week of the month but I should be around on the saturday, I was going to make a point of calling over to see you folks to have a chat. I've been writing this thing on and off for a few years now and while that doesn't make me any sort of expert on the whole thing I thought I might be able to throw a few of the resources I've used in the past couple of months your way.
Not in a "I've been doing this for ages you young whippersnappers, listen to my words of wisdom" sense, more in a "I've screwed up in the following manners and here are some of the files I found handy" kind of way.

wombat

Sarky wrote:

Ah, so that's what the art was for. Nice. I eagerly await the game itself.

Early next year with any luck at all like I said. I'm well into writing up the skill section, the most tedious life-sucking bit of all, particularly since I spent a month doing it previously only to have the god damned laptop it was all on stolen. I've got a webpage for the game and everything, unfortunately I've not had the chance to get the nameservers and whatnot set up, so thats something that should be appearing sometime soon too.

Specky

Not in a "I've been doing this for ages you young whippersnappers, listen to my words of wisdom" sense, more in a "I've screwed up in the following manners and here are some of the files I found handy" kind of way.

Splendid! I look forward to it. Useful nuggets are always appreciated.

See ya there

Sarky

Well, useful nuggets and hilarious stories of the hideous pain and suffering the creators went through. It's all good...

wombat

I wouldn't say there was much hilarity attached to the stories - unless you like stories ending in "but by then I'd already started formatting the disk". If theres an activity in the gaming sphere less fun than writing out the rules then I want to hear about it

Sarky

Dying during character creation. OH, D&D, you used to be such a harsh mistress...

wombat

In the continuing absence of a real webpage (still having nameserver problems if you care), you can see some of the weapon illustrations
here

It isn't quite complete yet, I still have to do some of the more classic firearms like revolvers, blunt weapons, the UZI or the Tec 9 and a few others I can't remember the name of offhand.

You can see the cover here

Specky

They're beautiful! Do you have any heavy weapons?

wombat

I should do soon. One of the firearms skills involves big guns or vehicle mounted weapons. Now while the background leans away from characters having access to that kind of firepower there's always the chance that a GM will want to allow the players to have the big guns or they'll be playing as army infantry units or some such. So with that in mind, I'll be doing up some illustrations for:
Minigun
M249 Light Machine Gun (The Para from counterstrike I think)
Bazooka
Mortar
and a bunch of others I can't remember the sodding names of right now.

I'm also a bit lacking in the melee weapons side of things. I know no one needs a picture to show them what a baseball bat looks like but I just feel like I should do it for the sake of completion.

wombat

MCD P90, thats the one. Also on the way (once I dig out the models) are more exotic weapons like Katanas, Jitte, numchucks, chains, whips and so on. We're trying to cover a pretty wide range of ways to injure your opponents.

wombat

Heavy weapons and more are at the same site as before. I'm going to have to find somewhere better for this because pics.livejournal is being a right pain in my hole.
Gallery page 2

wombat

The very first public draft of Unholy Wars is here (or from here in case geocities gets stroppy about linking directly). It's the start of the character generation section rather than the actual start of the book but I figured it'd make more sense to find out what game terms I'm actually using instead of writing it in the introduction and forgetting about it later and making things stupidly nonsensical.

brass

Whats the premise behind the setting?

I likes fluff before system.

wombat

Well, the gist is that the characters are (or were) regular people who have somehow gotten caught up at some level in the intrigues and schemes of a number of secret groups and societies. Maybe they got too curious about the Masons and lost their job or they're simply pawns of something much bigger. Some of the groups regularly use street gangs as private armies against other similar secret groups in an effort to exert their influence on the neighbouring territories. Think Dan Brown's DaVinci Code or Angels and Demons, the X Files, Millennium, Oliver Stone's JFK, the Firm, the Game - anything where people trying to uncover the truth get crapped upon from on high.

Or you have your "realistic" games where the characters could be members of a US army unit in Iraq or Afghanistan. Or Freedom fighters in any number of third world countries. That sort of thing appeals to some people. Or you could adapt any number of TV show settings to the game without any difficulty - the Shield springs to mind. The system and background will hopefully (eventually) support all that.

I'm doing system first because otherwise I'll just spend all my time on setting and chuck the system in at the end as an afterthought

AL][EN

sounds great, what kind of system is it based on? D20? D6?

wombat

'AL wrote:

[EN']sounds great, what kind of system is it based on? D20? D6?

A new one developed by a friend of mine ages back based on the D12 (for no other reason than he thought that particular die type was under represented - though it works really well regardless.
Stats have seven levels. Skills have five levels. One is the lowest, seven (or five) is the highest. To resolve a task roll <skill level> number of dice and try to get under the stat level with at least one of them. The more dice that get under the stat, the more you can play with the results - so in combat for example, extra successes let you alter the hit location.

It's REALLY simple and character generation is pretty fast, 15-30 minutes tops. It being free and a PDF will mean that GMs can have several copies of the book handy if needs be, which tends to make things easier.

Sarky

wombat wrote:

A new one developed by a friend of mine ages back based on the D12 (for no other reason than he thought that particular die type was under represented).

Damn straight! Testify!

I bought a dozen of them before realising that they were mostly only good for D&D greataxes.

Specky

I was severely tempted by some D30s a little while ago....they're like D20s only with 10 whole extra sides!! rolllllllll.............now stop rolling.........is this table level..........oops.....quick grab the dog/baby/cat/hamster.....

wombat

Sarky wrote:

Damn straight! Testify!

I bought a dozen of them before realising that they were mostly only good for D&D greataxes.

Usually we just throw them at people who make stupid mistakes in the game. Whenever we hear the line "Right, I jump out of hiding at them all" everyone reaches for a couple of them.
D4s are better for leaving a bunch of them outside someone's bedroom door. You'll get woken up by the screams when he gets up to go to the bathroom in his bare feet but it's well worth it. Them and the old Warhammer goblins with spears.

LoLth

Sarky wrote:

Damn straight! Testify!

I bought a dozen of them before realising that they were mostly only good for D&D greataxes.

or longsword vs large creatures back in the days of real dice rolling......