Skip to main content

Next Project (Lies)

 I've been talking to SJ Games about some writing for them for the near future, and in lieu of saying anything true or interesting about it, I can now announce the falsehood that my next project will be a collaboration with Peter Dell'Orto, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Locations: Orc Ninja Dungeons of Venice.

As you know, Timmy, Venice is a city built on pilings, landfill, and small islands, all at sea level (or, in times of very rough weather, slightly below). Common belief is that it's essentially impossible to dig down in Venice, since the water table is inches or at best a couple of feet below the surface. However, during from a little after the Fourth Crusade to the 17th century, when Drebbel submarines were used to clear out the tunnels, orc ninja were able to use this as cover. Extensive semi-aquatic dungeons were constructed from the Arsenal to the Rialto, allowing them to pass unseen around the city using snorkels to survive the trip, while painters like Titian and Giorgione were employed to conceal dungeon doorways with paintings of stairways going up so convincingly that Venetians accidentally entered the orc ninja dungeons just thought it was a very humid day. These structures were long believed impossible and were so well hidden that some believe to this very day that they never existed.

Topics we'll be covering include: 

  • the dwarf ninja of Florence and elf ninja of Napoli
  • extended towel rules extending the textile listings from GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Treasures 1
  • Doge vs. dodge scores
  • Clockwork ninja torpedoes for use in flooded tunnels
  • integrating collapsed versions of the San Marco campanile into Felltower campaigns
  • Monster stats for dire turkeys found at the Fondaco dei Turchi
  • extra damage from ice forming around ethnic cool weapons while underwater. 

Also, since a munchkin in RPGs has traditionally been defined as a player who, when making a character for a game about political intrigue in Renaissance Italy, wants to play a ninja, we're looking at a GURPS-Munchkin crossover. Look for it wherever fine vaporware is sold.

 

Comments

Peter D said…
At least you didn't mention the Secret Spongebob Level.

Popular posts from this blog

More Nattering About Writing Historical RPGs

omeone made the mistake of asking me to expand on some things I'd said about writing historical rpg material, so you all must suffer for it. I write a lot of historical rpg stuff as well as entirely fictional setting material. So why make historically themed games rather than just making stuff up? Well, because it's an effective way of achieving the purpose of writing settings and adventures in general. The purpose of settings and adventures, I would aver, is to give players things to do in a convincing context. Convincing context doesn't necessarily mean realism. Players have different levels of understanding of what's "realistic" in different situations and are more or less sensitive to how closely those situations adhere to reality. For example, I'm a history and culture guy. Put me in SF campaigns (which happens with some regularity) and the specifics of how reaction drives, orbital mechanics, and subatomic physics work entirely escape me. I don't,...

Stuff I Wouldn't Do With Purchased Minis

One of the great things about the advent of 3d printing, when it comes to gaming, is that it allows me to take more risks and try stuff I wouldn't do otherwise. Take, for example, experimenting with painting techniques. Maybe I want to see what an unusual color scheme would look like or try doing an odd way of achieving an effect. Factory-made miniatures are expensive. Too expensive for me to risk it. Which, as someone who's not very good at painting minis and needs lots of practice, is one reason I've never gotten into them. I don't feel like I can afford the implied expense of getting better. Enter 3d printing. With the right files, I can print as many minis as I can like and mess around with them to my heart's content. Mess one up? That's fine. Resin isn't cheap , but it doesn't cost nearly as much as pre-made molded plastic. I can take it as a learning experience and move on. Which brings me to messing around with some Car Wars minis. I'd been m...

Ferrous Metal Food Fighting Guy!

(This is something I wrote up some years back. I'm putting it here so I can find it more easily when I want to. Though it's rather silly, it's also where I came up with the idea of high-quality materials which don't provide a bonus to the craftsman's skill, but do add to the margin of success, a mechanism which later appeared in the crafting rules in GURPS Low-Tech Companion 3 .) One of the things not to be found in GURPS 4e is extensive rules for competitive cooking. If two cooks of steely resolve rise up to face one another across a cooking coliseum, the GM can only fall back on hand-waving and contests of skill. This article fills that much-needed gap. GURPS chefs can now stage furious contests wherein they construct fanciful dishes, the more elaborate the better, and prove whose cooking rules the day. To the kitchen! Procedure These rules provide guidance for attempting to cook complex dishes and comparing their quality when the cooking is done. A che...