GOZR Pre-Launch

GOZR Kickstarter pre-launch is live. Bookmark it!

Weirdos. Guns. Wizards, Robots. Monsters. Random tables. This one has it all. Organized in a handy-dandy chaotic explosion of hand-drawn madness.

More info on my website.

Budda Budd!

 

A GOZR image. Not part of the book, but perhaps it'll go into the next one or be a poster in the Kickstarter.

GOZR Kickstarter Coming

I'm happy to say I'm working with Peter Regan of Squarehex to do a GOZR Kickstarter! I was on the fence about doing this, but Peter's experience won me over.

Details will be announced soon. The KS will offer your choice of soft or hard cover. It'll be nice. Stay tuned.

GOZR Lulu Copy

I got my print proof of GOZR today! It looks pretty slick. However, my main issue is that Lulu charged about three times as much for these as they cost from Ka-Blam. I am not sure why. So I've ordered some copies from Ka-Blam too. When they come in I'll compare the quality and then I'll know. In the end, unless Ka-Blam has went downhill since last time I used them, I'll probably just use them for POD.

2022

Here we are in a new year! Well.. we're 3 months into it now, I suppose. I'm always a little behind the times. Anyway, what do I want to accomplish, creatively, in 2022? Let's explore this question.

I love to do a few things, generally:

1. Draw stuff. Whatever the fuck I want to draw. I hope to do this as much as possible in 2022.

2. Make shit up. The great magic of RPGs is their potential. Every game could be a million and one things. I want to make up a million and one things.

3. Publish stuff. I have been self-publishing books and zines and comics since 1988 (87??). It fills me with joy and pride to hold the finished book in my hands. I do not believe I published anything in 2021 so I'm really hoping to get some books out in 2022.

So far this year I've been mostly focused on design, writing, layout for a few books. At this time, there are at least 3 books I could finish and publish this year. GOZR (finished, just working on the publishing end), Doomslaker B/X (tons of work, mostly done), and Hellion Cross (my third Troika! book, probably 75% complete).

I have this crazy notion that not only might I publish those 3 books in 2022, I might also publish a 4th book... a pinup art book. But that's a distant possibility. I have the material, of course.

This all depends on my energy and focus. But I can tell you that GOZR is done and will be out in the world within a few weeks. The other books are largely finished, but still need a lot of work. So who knows? By next month I might be in a death metal band living in Spain. I dunno.

Blue Gooz

Here's a blue gooz with their spiffy helmet.

The game is finished. Now I'm considering the ways in which to publish it. Current thinking is to get it printed through Mixam and sell via Etsy. This feels like a fairly simple way to move forward. The reason I haven't went POD, which I do prefer, is because of the lack of the ability to print inside covers.

I could go with a comic printer, like Kablam or ComiXpress. But then I'm outside of the insular TTRPG community.

Still thinking.

Basingstoke's Butterfly Knife

There was a very crucial weapon missing from GOZR. A mistake I have now corrected.

What's a sci-fantasy full of ugly gooz going to be without a god damn butterfly knife?

Thanks to Chuck Whelon, this guy has a name:

Basingstoke

Luck Mechanics

LUCK MECHANICS

GOZR includes a meta-game system of GOOZ. GOOZ is luck points. Every game using luck points has its own name for the mechanic. Mörk Borg calls it Omens, DCC has the Luck ability, Top Secret had Fame and Fortune, modern D&D has Inspiration, etc. These are all different systems but the core idea of luck points is that it is a player’s resource, not embedded in the root mechanics of the game-story. Meaning this is a rule that is applied outside the story itself... thus a meta mechanic.

I love luck points. I have included them in every game design or campaign I’ve ran since probably 2008 or so. In my experience, this type of mechanic has been universally enjoyed by players. When I play a game that I’m not running, I always feel weirdly constrained if there is no luck point type of mechanic in use. For example, when playing classic D&D you have moments where your image of what's happening is epic but you roll a god damn 2. Ok, fine. It's a game. But if I have the option of expending a meta resource like a luck point and re-roll that die, I'm a much happier player. Even if I miss the second roll too.

One of the coolest things about a luck point system is that you can have one that will literally work for any game. Very simple: You have 3 Luck Points. They replenish between adventures, sessions, or at whatever cadence makes sense for the game. You spend 1 to re-roll a die of your choice. That's it. Drop it on Runequest, Warhammer, D&D, Paranoia, Star Wars, or whatever you like. It's not enough to break anything but it is enough to give players a little knob to turn... which feels pretty good, actually.

Some common arguments against luck points:

"The dice already account for luck"

This one is weird. Because luck points are necessarily meta - they are not embedded in the basic mechanics. They are a player-facing resource, not a character-facing resource. They exist on top of the normal rules. So the normal dice rolls, while they do of course have randomness and therefore you can "get lucky" are not at all the same damn thing.

"Players need to just deal with bad outcomes"

This is just bullshit nonsense. It's a game. People carve out time to sit and have a fun time. Especially if its an adventure game where the player anticipates being heroic or awesome, then why on earth would a GM want to go out of their way to make that outcome less likely? Of course you don't have to add luck to your games, but actively opposing it could be a sign that you're being a dickhead if your rationale is "suck it up buttercup".

"Luck mechanics break the game"

Not if you account for their use. If me being able to re-roll a few dice per session breaks your game then maybe its your game that has a problem. I dunno. Of course this depends on the game. I'm thinking of a fairly narrow style of gaming (adventure gaming). I'm sure there are types of games where, perhaps, only a few dice rolls are made at all and being able to re-roll them skews the results away from the intended experience. I can understand that.

But D&D is not that kind of game. Luck points do not break D&D nor any similar kind of game.

When I designed GOZR’s GOOZ system I made decisions about the core game mechanics to lean them slightly toward the difficult/lethal side. GOOZ is on top of that, providing players with a potent way to skillfully and artfully avoid some of the pain that the system might bring. It’s a swingy system, which is why giving players a meta currency is important. The nasty assassin robot got initiative and might one-shot kill you? FUUUCK THAT. Spend a GOOZ to steal the initiative. But oops… you spent your last GOOZ a few minutes ago to do a wicked stunt. You might be fucked now.

But at least you had a god damn choice, right?

Jon Peterson has a great post about the history of luck mechanics here.

GOZR is RISING

OK, time to let the Doomslakers B/X book simmer for a bit while I circle back to fuckin' GOZR!

The pages are back on my drawing board for hopefully final edits. Maybe I can put this bastard out into the wild soon. I had taken a step back from it while playtesting was happening and in order to give myself some breathing room. Now I'm feeling it again and things are looking up for the ugly gooz.

During playtesting, I would update the document with rules tweaks and clarifications and name each iteration alphabetically. I am super duper thankful that my friends Andy Solberg and Dyson Logos each ran GOZR for different groups and provided valuable feedback. I was a player in Andy's game, which as a real stress test for the system as we adventured around Andy's wonderfully silly Gooz York. I think Dyson's playtest, which I wasn't in, was more directly based on the Den sequence from Heavy Metal - probably the chief inspiration for GOZR in the first place.

Doff Holtzwagger

This is my character, Doff Holtzwagger, from Mike Evans' DIY game. He's a real asshole. He might die, and that's probably ok. (Doff, not Mike. Mike is good.)