Art Preview: Next Year's Projects

I've got quite a few projects ready to go and waiting for art, most of which will be released early next year. I thought I'd give you a preview here, let you know what to expect.


Fursona
Fursona will be an absolutely huge anthro character creation guide. The text is pretty much good to go, and I'm waiting on a few more peices of art. Here's a preview my newest artist, Jessica Block did. I found her on Fur Affinity, a furry fandom site, and her gallery is over on my blog roll.
Isn't that aye-aye anthro fucking adorable? Anyway- they'll be a quite a few similar peices and some well chosen stock, and Fursona will be out.

Otherverse America Unlimited Edition




Art is still coming in for this complete revamp of the original release. Here are some peices by Mark Hyzer, whose amazing pencil work I spotlighted a couple of weeks ago. I'm going to have as much Hyzer art as I can afford. This guy draws cyber-tech better than anybody I've ever worked with. Check out his vision of the Covenguard Advanced Class- a breed of cyborg bodyguards that protect Choicer priestesses.



Felix Gaona, another cool artist I found will be doing an action shot of two of our major setting NPCS- Roe Athene and Artemis, battling to the death in the Boston snow. I expect a rough draft of that soon, and I'll post it up here, and absolutely can't wait to see the final version.

Also Amanda Webb will (Of course) be contributing, since she's already done so much good work for Otherverse America. Take a look at her rendition of Lifer culture.




Amanda (in between taking care of her new boy, Liam) has also done some absolutely kick ass renditions of some Covenant priestesses. She keeps doing these amazing riffs on Mucha that really add alot of texture to the culture and the setting. As you can see from all this cool art, one thing Otherverse America is not is generic. It's got some flavor to the setting.

Battlechangers

Battlechangers is the name I decided on for the Transformers homage RPG. Right now, I'm about 70% finished. It's going to be a quick, fun introductory RPG based on the spirit of the G1 cartoons. If anybody wants a draft of the system to help me play test this puppy, drop me a line at christopherafield@hotmail.com

I just put in an order for some art for this one, and expect Battlechangers late spring of next year, maybe a bit earlier. It's a nice antidote to the preverse sexuality of Black Tokyo and the serious political sci-fi in Otherverse America- just good goofy fun. The system and setting is practically writing itself.

A couple of notes on the Battlechangers RPG. It's going to be a diceless system where effort and resource expenditure counts for more than luck. Character creation is point based. Assign attributes in the vein of the Tech Specs on the old Transformers box cards, then pick a role for your robot (Diplomat, Scout, Warrior, ect) that determines your skills, pick an alternate mode or two, and buy some gadgets. I figure character-generation will take about 5-10 minutes, maybe less for experienced gamers.

I'm shooting for 100 pages or so, and I've already got some idea for future splats. I'm having a great time writing this wild idea I just had last week, and I hope you'll buy it and enjoy playing it just as much.


The Black Tokyo Franchise

Black Tokyo has turned into my best selling release by far. I've got a couple of upcoming projects in that world. First off, we'll have Black Tokyo III out around year's end! Expect another 20,000 words of perverse content, including bunches of new spells, a dozen new monsters, some new races and a new advanced class- The Assault Witch- a military magic user and expert demon killer. Check out the cool artwork Amanda gave me for that one:


I've got a few other ideas for stories in the Black Tokyo universe.

1. First, I want to a Pathfiner compatible fantasy project set in the Tatakama- the parallel reality where most of Black Tokyo's gods and demons come from. Basically, think Oriental Adventures with a shit ton more tentacle rape. It'll be fun adapting some of Black Tokyo's best concepts to the new rule set, plus a project like this will definately attract some attention, both good and bad.

2. I want to do a D20 Modern sourcebook for B.T. focusing on America, and playing
gajin characters. The one problem with this, is I've already said alot of what I feel needed to be say about American culture in Otherverse America. So what kind of satire can I do in BT's freakishly sexy storyline? I'm tempted to play with the Japanese perception of Americans pretty heavily- especially how we're portrayed in anime. I've got a few other ideas, especially the basic concept of American military techno-magic, but nothing's geled yet.

I haven't started writing these projects yet, so don't expect them any earlier than late summer or early fall.

Anyway, as you can see, I've got a lot to do.
Have a good Solstice,
CHRIS

Some Black Tokyo Inspiration

Here are a couple of news stories I saw today at my usual favorite sites. They deal with some subjects I broached in Black Tokyo and BT II: Chastity and Depravity. It's kind of interesting seeing major media attention paid to some of the wierder aspects of Japanese culture.

Enjoy the links.

http://www.newsarama.com/php/multimedia/album.php?aid=40634

http://io9.com/5713121/i-paid-a-woman-to-be-my-friend-at-a-tokyo-maid-cafe?skyline=true&s=i

Finally, a video that should inspire anyone looking to build characters with the upcoming Fursona character builder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck14LKBI9GM

Enjoy the content.
Talk to you later, with an update on some artwork I've recieved and some info on upcoming projects.
CHRIS

Chasing Something

So I'm waiting.
I'm waiting on art for Otherverse America Unlimited Edition. I'm waiting on art for Fursona. I'm waiting on Louis to finish the edits on Pirates. Waiting. No projects on deck, nothing urgent.
I'm playing around on The Transformers Wiki. I spend two days reading the minutia of a franchise I thought I knew well, and learning the Transformers brand is a lot fucking crazier than I ever knew.

So I sit down, and start writing, and all of a sudden, the hours and days are flying by. I'm chasing something undefinable, but I'll know it when I catch it. I've had an idea.

I've seen Transformer homage games before Mecha-Morphosis for D20, Transmetals for Spycraft 2.0, a few indy games like Gear Shift that tried and never really captured the feel of the cartoon. So I'm going to take a stab at my own system.

The last time I created a non-D20 game system from whole cloth was Against the Darkness by Tabletop Adventures. ATD is one of my best selling and best reviewed products to date, easily on par with Black Tokyo and Black Tokyo II. It's one I sold to Vicki Potter a few years back, and I really wish I kept the rights to. Still, it's a game I'm proud of, espeically since I wrote the first draft in about 2 days. Yep, I had a movie marathon with my brother- the Exorcist Series and the Order (the one with Heath Ledger, not Van Damme) and I got inspired to write this thing.

So I'm feeling a similar bit of inpsiration. I'll take the next week or two and write up my Transformer homage, send it out for playtesting and gather some art and release it.

That's one thing I love about RPGnow. Even before I wrote professionally, I spent about 5-6 hours every day, just writing. I still basically pull a full shift at the end of every day infront of my lap top- even when I don't really have anything to say, I still write SOMETHING just to keep in the habit. Aside from the week I buy a new video game or DVD collection, a few days of the year dedicated to a comic con, Thanksgiving or Christmas/Yule, I'm writing. Anyway, the cool thing now, about the PDF publishing industry, is anytime I get a wild ass idea like my Transformers game, I can write for a while, put something up and make some money off it.

It's gratifying to say the least.

Anyway, talk to you later.

A very small pic of some very cool artwork.

The image above is a cell phone pick of some art I'm comissioning for Fursona. It's by a pretty great new artist named Jessica Block. I found her on Fur Affinity a couple of weeks ago, as part of an open call for furry artists for the project. I'll be adding her Fur Affinity gallery over to the blogroll at right.

I can't wait to see the color version.
CHRIS

Furries, Heroes and Bastards

So right now, I'm putting the finishing touches on the revised Freeform Anthropomorphica, which I will probally release as "FURSONA: The Definitive Guide to Creating Anthro Heroes". The new draft is currently 117 pages, about 42,000 words, as opposed to the original edition, which was about 23,000 words. Right now, I'm trawling Fur Affinity in search of artists in the community who work good and work cheap. I think I've found a couple of really good potential artists, and I've got enough in the art fund from Black Tokyo II to comission a relative shitload of new art.

This will be fun. As deep as the orignal Freeform Anthro was, Fursona is deeper. FA included 10 templates for Anthro characters- this revision has 20. I added a few new orders, got a little deeper into the psychology and culture of furry fandom, and have added a bit more world building info.

The biggest change between FA and Fursona is that character creation is now point based. After picking your Order, each character gets 4 points to play with (one of the reasons I went with a 4 point system is I don't like systems that are math heavy and use huge numbers for false granduer. For instance, if every advantage in your game costs 5 points and you have 20 starting character points, you're at the same place my system is, just with inflated numbers.)

Minor racial traits now cost 1 or two character points, Major traits cost 3 or 4, and if an Order has a particular Major trait as Favored, it knocks 2 points off the buy cost. The bird Orders, for instance, get Winged Flight at a discount, so they can pick it up for a point, and still have 3 points to play around with. This revision adds a TON of flexibilty and opens up some interesting design space.

I'm also working on Pirates of the Bronze Sky still. Last night I sent Louis a few monters and ecology notes, and I've been playing with the equipment section a bit. A few final tweeks to the feats, a revision with any changes Louis wants implemented, a few more monsters and peices of gear, and this one will be good to go.

Also, I'm still collecting art for Otherverse America Unlimited Edition, and I keep puttering around with rules info and setting details, but right now I'm working more on fantasy.

So I've got a few ideas I'd like to share with you.

First. I fully expect Fursona to be a Top 5 or maybe even a #1 seller on RPGnow. The first abortive release sold incredibly well, and this draft is going to be better. So sooner or later, I want to release a similar character builder for Undead heroes. I have a feeling that one will sell very well too.

I wonder if instead of releasing a completely generic character builder like GURPS or Mutants & Masterminds or BESM, releasing individual builders based around a specific genre of creature might now be the way to go? If I did a Freeform Undead sourcebook, it would have the same mechanical elements: There would be Orders, Minor and Major Racial Traits and Disadvantages as with Fursona, but the mechanical elements and flavor text would be specifically designed for building Undead. Instead of releasing a generic character builder that does multiple things satisfactorialy, I'd be releasing multiple character builders that each do one thing, but does that one thing amazingly well. I could actually see myself selling a line of character builders in the vein of Fursona: furries, undead, robots, aliens and mutants... all the highly customizable and infinitely fun races that fantasy and sci-fi have to offer.


Anyway, that's something I want to get working on in the coming year.

Another thing I want to do, after Black Tokyo III hits is a Pathfinder sourcebook for the setting. In Black Tokyo, I've mentioned the Tatakama again and again, this twilight half world where monsters and demons come from. It's always been a sorta vaugely definsed "Oriental Adventures" style D&D Setting, and now that I'm more comfortable with Pathfinder, I want to detail some of it. I also want to go through and convert Black Tokyo content to Pathfinder.... not just a boring translation, but a sorta through the looking glass effect, where we see the Tatakama perspective on the Black Tokyo setting.

One thing I want to do, and I'll have to get working on this is contact Paizo, say hey, this is what I want to do... I want to do a PFRPG version of Black Tokyo in all its hentai glory, I want to put in everything, including the stuff that even squicks me out and see what sticks and I want to put the Pathfinder Compatability Logo on it, not just the 3.5 OGL sticker with a little note upfront saying "yep, this plays well with Pathfinder."

I have a feeling they'll say not just no, but no fucking way, but I figure it's worth a shot. Despite all the sex and shock value fetish content and gore, there's a pretty good story under there, and I figure Mark and I have been way more responsible about not marketing to kids than we've needed to be, so who knows? If Paizo says no to their logo, releasing it as a straight OGL fantasy product isn't a big deal, but I would like the legitimacy the Pathfinder logo gives the release.

So finally, here's an idea I've been kicking around at work today. I've been wanting to revise D20 Modern in line with Pathfinder for a while now, and I think I've got an idea on how to do it.

What if instead of the attribute based Basic Classes (Strong Hero, Fast Hero, Smart Hero, ect) you just have classes based on how the characters perfer to solve problems. You might have Brute Force Heroes (brawlers and fighters, martial artists), Manipulative Heroes (social interaction), Stealthy Heroes (spies, ninjas, theives), High Tech Heroes (gadgeteers, hackers, weapons experts, pilots) and the like. Treat your preferred hero type, which is really your comfort zone, as an Order like in Fursona. That basic hero type determines your BAB progression, saves and skill points.

Each hero type gets a few build points each level to buy major and minor class abilities,and like in Fursona, your hero type/Order gives you a break on the cost of Major abilities. Anybody can buy anything though, if they meet the prerequisites.

Finally, at each level, you can pick talents from either the Hero side or the Bastard side. Hero talents would be more defensive, helpful and give you new non-combat tactics to use, while Bastard talents focus on directly putting the hurt on your enemies. Whichever you have more off determines your character's outlook and interaction.

I can off the top of my head see the differences: I can see Capt. America as a Brute Force Hero with his focus on defensive abilties and non-lethal takedowns, while Wolverine would be a Brute Force Bastard. Vic Mackie is like an Investigative Hero/Brute Force Bastard. John Constantine is a Manipulative Bastard/Magical Bastard. The classic movie James Bond is a High Tech hero with his cool gadgets, while the Ultimate Universe Iron Man would be a High Tech Bastard, since so much of his super-tech can put a direct hurting on other people.

(The mention of High Tech heroes above brings up one other concern: tech levels. In my revised D20 Modern, the Modern and Future rules run together, and with the corebook, you should be able to play anything from Unforgiven to Sister Alice, in other words, from Wild West tech to completley insane godlike post-humanity a million years into the future. So naturally, a "High Tech Hero" in a Wild West setting is going to look a hell of a lot different from a High Tech hero in a 1980s campaign, or in Otherverse America's 2107 or in Galaxy Command's 3478. How to limit the tech levels appropirately, yet have the character type be playable in all the myraid genres D20 Modern and D20 Future encompass is a big question I'd have to adress.)

Of course, the problem of multiclassing rears its head. In Fursona, you pick your Order once at character-generation, and it never changes. In the revised modern system, you pick your Hero type upto 20 or maybe even 30 times, and it can change every time. So obviously there are a few kinks to work out, but I think this is a good starting place. Drop me a line below to let me know what you think of the nascent "Heroes & Bastards" system.

Blessed Be,
CHRIS

Wierd sex dream

So guess who I had a sex dream about last night? That's right, the ever sexy Domino of X-Force. Kinda cool.

Art Preview Otherverese America Unlimited Edition

The following two sketches are works in progress that will be used in the revised Otherverse America. I just got them earlier today, and thought I'd show them off. The top image is by Amanda Webb, who like myself, is a huge Alfonse Mucha fan, and is using that as a major inspiration for Choicer characters. The bottom is by a new artist named Mark Hyzer, whose blog I'll be adding over to the right soon. Isn't it amazing? That's one bad ass Lifer right there. Can't wait to see it in color.

Also, I'm posting this from my new laptop!
CHRIS