Old Skulling

Artwork by Louis Glanzman Well, since I posted about mundane weapons on Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells , I thought it was only coherent that I would post about armors and shields next. As with weapons, highly advanced armors and shields are not commonly available, and are treated more like treasure to be sought than merchandise to be bought. And many cultures still favor the use of the good ol' sword, hammer or axe, so shields are still quite useful. By the way, I changed how shields work. This make it more useful for players with a high Physique and put the responsibility of using the shield rules on the players instead of on the Referee. As usual, the text below is still a draft, and maybe modified in the final version.

Artwork by Louis Glanzman Although Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells is a Science Fantasy RPG, I want it to be a post-apocalyptic sword and sorcery amongst the stars kind of scifi. So all the fancy and colerful advanced tech will be pretty rare, almost like magic items in a sword and sorcery game. So we will have pistols, rifles, shotguns and all that stuff, side by side with swords, axes, spears and bows. Laser guns are like ancient relics, some may believe they never really existed. Below I present the draft text for the mundane weapons part. Nothing really fanciful, but I wanted to show work is being done!

Artwork by Louis Glanzman How about another small preview on what I am working on? Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells draft document is at the moment with 64 pages, and I don't think I've reached its middle yet. This is going to be my biggest project so far. It will basically combine content of Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells , it's Addendum , some updates and modifications, a lot more examples to make it more user friendly, especially for beginners, and a bunch of generators and genre information. Today I present my initial draft of cyber implants. As with other Advanced Technological gear, they are going to be pretty rare and will probably require some form of quest/adventure to be acquired. Galactic Overlords don't like the prospect of their subjects using technological advanced devices.

"You! You just died!" - Photo by Douglas Fóis When I first started playing RPGs, I would try to prepare for every possibility I could think of. I almost tried to write "Gamebooks" to run as adventures, with numbered index cards and sayings like "if players try to do this, go to card 15" or something. It was exhausting, and mostly useless. Players will do things can't ever imagine ourselves. And that's awesome! So I needed to come up with a method that could provide me with enough information so that I could run a game, but not so much that I would lose more than half of it because it never really appeared in the game. Preferably something that could take as little time as possible. So, taking inspirations from many sources (which I can only remember now as Tome of Adventure Design, The Lazy Dungeon Master and Fiasco), I came up with what I call the Adventure Structure method, and it works as follows.

Artwork by Louis Glanzman I won't be using the usual system for monetary control on S olar Blades & Cosmic Spells . I want the game to focus on action and adventure, bot accounting. So I opted to use an abstract way of handling Credits, the acquisition of goods and the loss of money that happens in between adventures. What follows is the current draft of this system. This is based on a similar system presented on Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells - Addendum . Credits Everything has a price in the perilous worlds of Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells. However, this game chooses a more abstract approach to the bookkeeping of expenditures and credits. Thus, every character has a Credits score (and the standard value of it is 2) and when they are purchasing something, be it an item or a service, they make a Credit Roll . This consists of rolling a d6 and obtaining a value equal to or under the current Credits score. A success means the purchase was made without much probl...

Artwork by Louis Glanzman I guess it's time to post the last character Archetype for Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells , the one who will meddle with the weird powers of cosmic sorcery of the even rarer psionics: The Gifted (although many will sewer the correct term should be The Cursed). This is also just the draft text, you know the drill.

Artwork by Louis Glanzman I am away from my computer for sometime, but I am still writing stuff for Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells . Today I am sharing the draft text for the Archetype called The Smart, which is like a do it all technician, scientist sort of guy. The Smart If something goes wrong with a computer or engine, it’s you who they call. For some reason, you just have a knack for technology and machines. Even if they’ve never seen a device, it’s usually just a matter of time until they figure how it works and how to fix it. And if they give you a few more hours you can even make some improvements! The Smart is a character focused on the use of technology and machines. They make great assets to an age where although technology is ever present, it’s not truly understood, and many of its secrets are forgotten. In combat they are invaluable allies, improving the effectiveness of weapons and vehicles, as well as being capable of making repairs to them when they ar...