This is the first in a new series of short (2 page), system-neutral supplements from Moebius Adventures designed to provide easy locations to drop into your fantasy campaign, complete with hooks, NPCs, and a few surprises. As the first One Spot product, it is free of charge to let you get a feel for how the series will work.

Each One Spot product offers the following:

• One page full of player-appropriate information, including overview details, what and who to expect, along with a pair of images to set the scene.
• One page full of GM-appropriate information, including NPC details, a map of the location, encounter/hook ideas, and a random table to help define what sort of relationship a PC may have with the place.

Each product can then be used independently or together to help busy GMs add details to their worlds without a ton of work.

Pick a spot, drop it in, and roll!

Get your copy for free today at DriveThruRPG or RPGNow and let us know what you think!

Related articles

• DriveThruRPG’s GM’s Day Sale 2013! from Life and Times of a Philippine Gamer
• Ten Links in the Chain: Publisher News (26-JAN-2012)
• Concerning DriveThruRPG/RPGNow Reviews
• March 4 is GM’s Day

That’s right. Moebius Adventures will be rebooted in Q2 2013.

New products. New goals. More fun.

At least that’s the goal!

Thanks for your patience and I wish you all a very Happy Holidays!

–Fitz

Evidently I’ve been busy!

Articles

• How do I review a product?
• The Gassy Gnoll: RPGNow/DriveThruRPG’s POD vs. Lulu
• Interview: Hannah Lipsky of Chaotic Shiny and Chaotic Shiny Productions
• The Gassy Gnoll: Living Documents Transitioning to Finished Products
• Going to the Store: Vlog #1 – Petries’ Family Games

Reviews

• Dragon Chow Dice Bags
• Book of Beasts: Monsters of the River Nations
• Visions of the Oracle
• Courts of the Shadow Fey
• Kobold Quarterly Issue 16
• Mince Pies & Murder
• Adventure Idea Factory
• The Cavalier’s Creed
• Martial Cultures: Arytis
• Tales of the Old Margreve
• 650 City Encounter Seeds & Plots

Related articles

• New Review on GKR: 650 City Encounter Seeds & Plots (moebiusadventures.com)
• New Articles on GKR: Review of Tales of the Old Margreve and interview with Cameron of Petrie’s Family Games (moebiusadventures.com)
• New Reviews on GKR: The Summoner’s Circle and Warrior, Rogue, & Mage (moebiusadventures.com)
• Quick Review: Adventure Idea Factory from Troll in the Corner ” Role Playing Games (trollitc.com)
• The Nameless City from Ostensible Cat (xyanthon.blogspot.com)

First, death doesn’t just happen to the PC or their fellow party members, but to the NPCs and monsters slain along the journey. Especially in fantasy RPGs, it seems every game I’ve played in we focus on “clearing the dungeon” or “eliminating the threat” – but basically we’re talking about killing critters, monsters, and people who get in our way. It’s just accepted as part of the equation.

Unfortunately, computer roleplaying games (CRPGs) have created an environment where you slaughter in-game monsters wholesale and pick up the loot left behind. There’s no conscience or consciousness of killing because they’re pixels on a monitor or TV screen.

When you play in a good campaign, there are costs associated with death. And for those new gamers who come from the CRPG world, it’s often a harsh reality when the morals, ethics, and laws of the world you’re playing in become relevant. Even forgetting the philosophical aspects of death, there are the practical aspects. Kill someone who tried to kill you and then figure out what to do with the body… Kill more than one  and the problem compounds. Eventually those costs come due in tabletop gaming.

Second, the death of your own character can be an interesting experience. I’ve had it happen so quickly after the character was created that it didn’t register and I’ve had it happen in longer campaigns where it was by choice, going out in a blaze of glory, or by happenstance, where I wasn’t ready to let the character go.

In a Battletech campaign, I went through the trouble of not only creating a character and customizing a ‘mech, but finding a miniature for the campaign. (In my gaming experience, buying a miniature for me tends to mean certain doom for the character.) In the first mission, we were doing a HALO entry to take out some target on the planet. I botched my roll and burned up on entry into the atmosphere. End of character and ‘mech. Thank you very much. As I recall I spent the rest of the night reading in a corner and watching the game roll by in my peripheral vision.

Another time in a “3 million and 1″ D&D 2e campaign (high-level characters constructed with 3,000,001 XP), we ran the campaign for a long time and eventually had to go out in a blaze of glory. We stood atop the battlements with a dwarven archer in plate mail (we called him Tin Can or TC for short), who we Hasted a few times and watched as he mowed down part of the army charging the walls. I don’t specifically recall how my wizard died, but I’m sure it was glorious.

But my favorite death story features a Palladium FRPG campaign. I was playing a mage and my friend was playing a ranger. It was just the two of us against the forces of darkness and we had many amazing adventures (including exploring a bit of the Temple of Elemental Evil). The end came when we were ambushed by a wolfen in the mountains. We tried. But this thing was too good and we were too unlucky. We bled out on that mountain pass and I will forever miss that character.

Sometimes a good PC can get under your skin. The best characters bring out parts of yourself you don’t even know are there until you play them. And when one of those characters dies, it’s like losing a little part of yourself.

Ultimately life and death in RPGs comes down to that factor for me. The goal is to roleplay a character to such a level that it’s a part of you and yet apart from you. Good characters should be easy to slip into, like a pair of old slippers worn for years. And when they die, you should feel something. When your companions die, you should feel something. It doesn’t have to be life altering, but the passion needs to connect you in some ethereal way with your alter ego in game.

Great topic for this month’s RPG Blog Carnival. And a big thanks to Campaign Mastery for hosting!

Related articles

• RPG Blog Carnival: Life and Death in RPGs… – Pt. 1 – Life (moebiusadventures.com)
• RPG Blog Carnival March Part 1 – Life and Death in RPG @ Campaign Mastery from The Dump Stat (thedumpstat.blogspot.com)
• Life and Death in RPGs from Tower of the Archmage (towerofthearchmage.blogspot.com)

Let’s start with Life, and then we’ll work on Death in the next post.

Image via Wikipedia

For me, “life” in RPGs is more than deciding who lives and dies in a combat or trying to keep my PCs alive. It’s the roleplaying side of the house that keeps me interested and excited. So I try to define more than what a character can do and delve into why they can do it, when they learned it, and how they learned it or use it.

In the original Moebius Adventures system, we broke character creation into two large chunks – Childhood and Professions. Childhood covered everything up to age 12 or 14. And a character’s childhood might be very different than their choices of Profession. Look at a character like Conan. He was a normal child until he watched his family and village get slaughtered and was then taken as a slave. You think that might have shaped his attitudes, knowledge, and skills a bit?

So I propose that when folks are creating characters that they think about it in those two major buckets. What did the character learn as a child that has stuck with them into adulthood? And what choices might they have made as far as their professions go (or what choices were made for them)? Obviously not all skills you learn as a kid are useful. But many we continue to develop throughout our entire lives.

You could even go so far as to build in a tree of known associates. Who did your character grow up with? Have they kept in contact with any of those folks? Or did they part ways? Was it an amicable departure or one with enmity? Is it someone you might encounter during a game? What happens if a childhood enemy faces you as an adult? How is that different from a random monster encountered in an adventure?

Perhaps your character did or didn’t have a great family life growing up and they simply wanted to get out and explore the world or get away from what they knew before… What events shaped the decisions to learn particular skills? Did your parents teach you to forage and hunt or were you orphaned early on and forced to scrounge for food, learning what you could to stay alive? Did you gain any scars from early practice of weapons skills? Did you witness the death of a family member that you still seek revenge for years later (think Inigo Montoya)?

Not only do you end up with a basic history of your character to go with the skills they have, but you end up with contacts you can leverage in-game and that your GM can use to help tie things together and make them easier to relate to for your character. It works to the benefit of both the player and the GM to develop more backstory to better inform future events.

Yes, I know that D&D only gives you a few skill points here and there. Other games have the same issue. But slot a third or even a half of those skills towards defining your knowledge from childhood and you’ll end up with a better idea of where your character came from.

Next time we’ll talk about Death in a variety of ways. Stay tuned for part 2!

Related articles

• Life and Death in RPGs from Tower of the Archmage (towerofthearchmage.blogspot.com)
• RPG Blog Carnival March Part 1 – Life and Death in RPG @ Campaign Mastery from The Dump Stat (thedumpstat.blogspot.com)
• Life and Death in RPG – March 2011 RPG Blog Carnival (campaignmastery.com)
• RPG Blog Carnival – Spirits of the 7th Sea Pt. 1 from The Dump Stat (thedumpstat.blogspot.com)

When I first published the Moebius Adventures Core Rules book back in 2007, I gave away more than 1100 copies in a big promotion RPGNow was having that Thanksgiving. Since then I have sold 3 copies. Not a biggie, as like most independent writers/designers I honestly wasn’t planning on making a mint doing what I love. (By the way, if you’d like to purchase a copy for $3 off, click here.)

But the more interesting stats for me revolve around the freebie I put out about the same time. The Moebius Adventures Core Rules Sample Adventure amounts to one chapter in the Core Rules book that details a quick spin through roleplaying and combat in the system.

Again through RPGNow, I had 161 downloads in 2007, 113 in 2008, 65 in 2009, 56 in 2010, and 6 so far in 2011.

What does this show? It shows that people are looking at freebies at RPGNow, even really old ones like mine, and that could possibly lead to future sales down the line.

I’m not convinced that this will lead to sales of my next project, whenever I actually get it done. But it does convince me that I will be putting out a freebie PDF ahead of the project (probably a short PDF of NPCs & Creature stats) to try and gain a bit of traction.

Question: How are other small publishers using freebies to drive product interest? And is it working for you? Call me curious.

Do you live in Colorado Springs, CO? Do you have a gaming group? Or are you looking for one?

I’m looking for a group that I can play tabletop roleplaying games with and possibly GM a campaign using the rules for Warrior, Rogue, and Mage in my setting of Immortals’ Wake that I’m currently writing a supplement for (Immortals’ Wake: Rivergate).

It seems like I’ve been roleplaying forever – from the early days of Dungeons & Dragons back in junior high school (1983) to playing the James Bond Roleplaying Game from Avalon Hill in high school to the many different games I played in college…

Image via Wikipedia

• Battletech
• Call of Cthulhu
• Dungeons & Dragons
• Car Wars
• Toon
• Palladium Fantasy Roleplaying Game
• Ninjas and Superspies
• Cyberpunk 2020
• and more…

After college, I even added a few more to the list:

• GURPS
• Vampire the Masquerade
• Werewolf
• Heavy Gear
• Traveller
• Hero
• Moebius Adventures – The Age of Phaedrus
• Moebius Adventures – Covert Directives
• Moebius Adventures – Immortals’ Wake
• and probably even more that I can’t remember…

Unfortunately, my last roleplaying group fell apart a few months ago, my online campaign idea fell apart due to lack of interest, and I am looking for something a bit closer to home (i.e. in the Colorado Springs area).

I haven’t GMed for a few years, but I’d love to run a campaign in Rivergate using the Warrior, Rogue, and Mage rules from Stargazer Games.

Anybody have a slot open for an aging gamer? I can commit to a session every other week if I’m running one, but might be able to squeeze a weekly session in as a player.

Thanks for your time!

–Fitz

Related articles

• The folklore of roleplaying games from Trollish Delver (trollishdelver.blogspot.com)
• Is It Roleplaying, or Is It Roleplaying Game? from Roles, Dice and Fun (mortengreis.wordpress.com)
• Ditch the Screen: Open Metagaming Is Good For Roleplaying from Nevermet Press (nevermetpress.com)
• GM Interview: Jared from Roleplaying Tips (roleplayingtips.com)

To enter the outpost, you must cross through a set of reinforced oak doors and then an iron portcullis. Set in the middle of the walls is one large building that serves as barracks, armory, and stable. The relatively small size of the contingent (fifteen to twenty at any given time) uses the fortified outpost as their base as they patrol the area and collect taxes due.

Though Rivergate is on the edge of the Dominion of Kwela, the Brigade keeps an eye on Dominion interests in the region. Those interests include ensuring the safety of travelers along the road, collection of taxes, transport and delivery of tax monies to the capitol, and helping with town security when asked. The Brigade is on good terms with the Reeve Lelas in town, but at odds with the Town Council over use and disbursement of tax money.

Each cart that enters or leaves town is assessed a tax by the Kwelan guards on duty. Two scribes work at the outpost and handle the assessment and collection of taxes owed to the Dominion and the town. Carts may be charged anywhere from 5 sp for a half-full cart to 10 sp for a full cart, with additional costs for weapons shipments. Merchants delivering goods are given a parchment note indicating that taxes have been paid so they only have to be charged once.

All silvers collected are split between the town and Dominion coffers. A vault exists within the outpost that is guarded day and night. Once a month the proceeds are divided and delivered to the Town Council and the Kwelan capital of Volu.

In addition to the collection and disbursement of taxes, the Brigade patrols the roads leading from Rivergate to the crossroads about 50 miles east of the outpost. At any given time there may be one or two patrols along the road on a 3 or 4 day rotation to the inn at the crossroads – The Spinni Inn.

For a list of NPCs, see after the jump…

NPCs

Commander Ossam Frye – leads the contingent

Mr. Horace Tin – lead assessor

Sgt. Manfred Copland – keeps the outpost running smoothly

Average Brigade Soldier

Related articles

• Immortals’ Wake: Top Ten Things to Know About Rivergate (moebiusadventures.com)

Here’s option #1:

Apprentice Mage

Attributes: Warrior 2, Rogue 3, Mage 5
HP: 8, Mana: 10, Defense: 6
Skills: Alchemy, Blunt, Thaumaturgy
Talents: Familiar (Raven)
Spells: Frostburn, Healing Hand
Trappings: Mage robes, Staff, pouch with 2d6 silver pieces

Here’s option #2:

Here’s option #3:

Apprentice Mage

Though #3 is more work, I’m kind of partial to the look of #3 simply because the info is broken up a bit more.

What do you think?
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

(Note that the Apprentice Mage stats above were copied from page 3 of the Warrior, Rogue & Mage Core Rulebook from Stargazer Games. You can get more details about WR&M here.)

–Fitz

Related articles

• Rivergate Campaign Begins… (moebiusadventures.com)
• NPC Time: Dyn the Dockmaster and Isimi (moebiusadventures.com)
• Kicking Out The Stat Block Jams from Destination Unknown (unknownzine.blogspot.com)
• Resolute, Adventurer & Genius has been released! from Stargazer’s World (stargazersworld.com)

Just wanted to pass along that there’s some new content over at Game Knight Reviews. My review of Tales of the Old Margreve from Open Design went live Monday and my video interview with Cameron Crawford of Petrie’s Family Games went live today.

Tales of the Old Margreve offers all the charm of Tolkien‘s Mirkwood with the awareness of a living, breathing organism. Within the Margreve it offers its own rules for what is and what isn’t possible and woe be to those who get on its bad side…

And in my video interview with Cameron at Petrie’s Family Games, we discuss his store, current events, and his perspective on his customers. If you’re ever in Colorado Springs, be sure to drop by for a unique family-friendly game store with a little bit for everybody!

Check out these articles and much more over at Game Knight Reviews!

Have a great weekend!
–Fitz

Related articles

• New Review on GKR: 650 City Encounter Seeds & Plots (moebiusadventures.com)