Contact Information:

jay@vanishingtowerpress.com

Wednesday, June 29

USR Sword & Sorcery 3.01 on RPGNow

The USR Sword & Sorcery rule book is now only available at RPGNow All my future game stuff which includes any art will be posted there. I'm trying to respect the Fair Use laws and am repackaging my USR PDF's with non copyrighted art.


Western, Cyberpunk, Fear & Loathing, these will all get a make over and will be coming out shortly. The Western USR rules actually should be available by tomorrow, so stay tuned!




Thursday, June 23

Western USR preview

For those requesting a look at my hack of Scott Malthouse's USR for playing western themed rpg's here you go.




Sunday, June 5

USR NPC Sheet

I just posted a useful NPC character sheet for your USR game to the Summonings page of the blog.




It has two sheets per page and should be printed longways (landscape).


Tuesday, April 5

So I used tMfBSaT for my first time playing Traveller

and I pretty much killed all the Player Characters. One survived.

I've always wanted to play Traveller, but never got the chance. Never really had a good idea to hang a starting Traveller game around it either.

That changed when I purchased Lamentations of the Flame Princess' The Monolith from Beyond Space and Time. I was like three page in and was sold on running this as straight sci-fi. Reading blog posts about playing Traveller straight out of the box got me really excited about doing this as well.

So I set up a Classic Traveller community stating I wanted to run a game of Classic Traveller based on the movie Alien and see what would happen.

It works. It works really well. Now the players may disagree. I probably could have done a better job, but I think the LBB's and this module are made to go together like Gieger and heroin.

Friday, April 1

USR Sword & Sorcery Rules

[06/21/16] Edit: All my USR products are now only available on RPGNow for sale. Look for future announcements on this blog for new rule books and adventures using the USR game mechanics.

With the addition of magic and magical research rules I have finally completed my USR Sword & Sorcery rpg based on Scott Malthouse's (U)nbelievably (S)imple (R)oleplaying system.

I've also added wilderness and city encounter tables, and a table to see if the city burns down when the PC's (and they will) start lighting things on fire when causing trouble in the more civilized parts of your game world.



Don't forget to download your Crypt Keeper ref sheets at RPGNow as well! Found in the introductory adventure Shrine of the Keepers, it also includes a USR character sheet.

Saturday, March 12

USR World of Xoth Ref Sheet

Working on some referee sheets for my USR Sword & Sorcery game set in the World of Xoth. The untold misery I have caused my players flipping through my homebrew notes for the necessary game materials may now come to an end...

This document is now available on RPGNow. I've added Wilderness and Sea Travel information as well as a Wilderness and Civilized Encounter checks, not to mention a USR Sword & Sorcery Character Sheet!



The full random tables have Wilderness and City encounters, Magical Research Encounter table, and a table to see what happens when your PC's start fires within a city!

Friday, March 4

OD&D for BRP

Here is my suggested hack of Chaosium's Basic Role Playing system for original Dungeons & Dragons.



Roll 3d6 in order for your PC's attributes, except Intelligence (2d6+6). These are the eight basic attributes to be rolled; Strength, Constitution, Size, Intelligence, Power, Dexterity, Appearance, and Education.

Additional attributes are Sanity, Effort, Stamina, and Hit Points. These are figured per the normal rules found in the Basic Roleplaying book.

Skill Category bonuses are assigned the full value of your PC's attribute. For example; Intelligence is the Primary characteristic for Mental Skills. A PC with an Intelligence of 13 would add +13% to all the skills base values. Whether or not a PC can use a particular skill is entirely at the discretion of the the referee.

After your PC's attributes are written down you can chose your character's class. They are Fighting Man, Magic User, Cleric and Thief.

The Fighting Man adds +25% to any one of the four Combat skills. The Martial Arts skill starts at (STR+INT+DEX)% base value for the Fighting Man

The Magic User has the ability to read magic, and this is reflected with a +25% to Knowledge (Magical) skill. This skill begins at (POW+(INT or EDU))%.

Clerics have the power to turn undead at 25% plus POW. They also receive the ability to cast divine spells when their Knowledge (Divine Magic) reaches 51%. This skill begins at (POW+(INT or EDU))%.

Choosing the Thief class grants the PC +25% to the Climb skill.

That's it. The details of a magical character's spells and capabilities will need to be hashed out with the referee.

If a player wants his new PC to be a race other than human consult with your referee to establish racial abilities and restrictions.

"Leveling" is handled via standard BRP rules. To improve your character's skills you need to use them during the game, learn them during the game, and find ways to get trained in them during the game, etc.