Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery Cover Concept

Work continues on exploring what a game publisher and creator is like. This. is. a. lot. of. work. I'm approaching it like an art project. And my process is building things out and see what I find, throw out what doesn't work, and hope to Hades I stumble upon a legitimate aesthetic. Working with Jeremy Hart's commissioned illustration I've come to this basic "blocking" of the book's cover to date.  I've added an additional block of text on the back cover (left side of image) with the game's elevator pitch. 

Feel free to rip this to shreds:) No, any design advice you want to throw my way while I share the layout journey is glad and well accepted. This cover design is my attempt to get to "know" the tools I have at my disposal. For the cover it is a b/w illo large enough to wrap-around. What you see here is a close-up of the image, not the whole thing. The full drawing will get a suitable splash page inside the book. Title/text is the other tool and bands of color the final. Trying to draw limits. I'm shit with time management so if I give myself a limited palate I hopefully shorten the wandering around in the woods lost period which I looove and get some product eventually pushed out.

World of Xoth Official USR Sword & Sorcery Setting!

Vanishing Tower Press is happy to announce The World of Xoth is now the official setting for Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery! 

As this was the birthing place of my USR hack for Conan inspired adventures, I am pleased to incorporate this rich sword and sandal setting to the new edition!

In all actuality this just means the use of proper and place names found in Xoth, but allows me to set the three adventures in the new book in a proper setting. With Thulsa's free Players Guide to the World of Xoth any new referee will have all they need to start running pulp fantasy adventures in a lightly-realized game world begging for the heavy hand of an inspired Crypt Keeper!

Are there days more finer?

Than receiving commissioned work for your DIY gaming project? Today I received my art pieces from Jeremy Hart for Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery. This means I now have my artwork from Jeremy, and Michael Gibbons. Zak Smith, and Athan Kirk have submitted their written work (Mass Combat Rules and the adventure Race of Sorrows respectively), leaving only Gennifer Bone's surprise art pack and then me to put it all together (and Jens D to edit the mess!).

One of the assignments I gave to Jeremy Hart is to provide page treatments. This is a term I made up myself. I don't know what the official book publishing name for this is but I'm talking custom footers, chapter headings and column dividers. This is a blatant attempt to make my purchasing dollars go farther. Pay for an art image which can be used more than once. Here is a preview.

I'm hoping these repetitive images will help give the final book the brutal physicality I've always enjoyed in my Sword & Sorcery literature. 

North Texas Game Convention Mass Combat

I will be debuting the new Mass Combat rules for Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery at this time slot and there are a couple of seats available.

No dungeon crawling, no city intrigue, no ordained gease delivered by angles. 

Just heavy metal field of slaughter fun as God and Gygax intended!

One of the holes in my TTRPG experience has been delivering the thrilling event which is a set piece battle for the involved characters. I'm not saying this is a difficult design challenge, I'm saying it is an encounter I never found rules which made me sit up and say fuck yeah that is straight up Supernaught.

Oh yeah there are plenty of Mass Combat rules available for your role playing game you are saying. Yes they are. But they are all shit. Gygax and TSR fell back on their wargaming roots. I don't think they could have come about it any other way. Dungeons & Dragons was born by leaning on reverse engineering miniature wargame rules. Not all of it, there is a hot streak of brilliance which birthed the whole hobby, but there seems to be a fall down with all creators of table top rpg's shoving a mass combat encounter back towards a structured mechanic. Every. Single. Method. for mass combat in a role playing game is glued to a figurine. I've never got over the disconnect this kicks me with. If I can sit and talk for over two years with my players and go on the most amazing adventures why the hell do I need to field a battery of painted miniatures and codified dense rules and tables for an event, an encounter, which is in the grand scheme of things, brief?

Think about it, role playing games took off because the gaming experience expanded like the big bang when the rules dropped. It is easy to get into confused thinking on this. The current political climate shows what an aggressive disease language can become. How it can hold down and bad drunk road accident flash thought. I just got back from a trip to Washington D.C. and I viscerally know what a Constitution means to me. A scaffolding and framework of brilliance which moves and breathes with a populace because it was put together by smart people. Then the rest of us come in and cast bronze and idolatrize. Walking through Mount Vernon and Monticello in the same day I know which house I would hang my hat. The founders lifted a suggestion brilliantly knowing it becomes transcended by live play, understood that it would.

I believe Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery's new mass combat rules get rpg's one step closer to this ideal of immersive, emergent table top play for a mass combat encounter, a reliable tool for the harried referee to kick it fast like any other encounter the group starts to get good at. Why am I so confident? Cause I didn't make it. Because I asked for help, professional help, and paid for it. 

Come be the judge. Sit down and battle early Friday my wild eyed Valkyrie!

State of the Press!

Vanishing Tower Press has finally put the POD copy of Anthropomorphic USR to bed. This new file cleans up some typos, fixes the graphic images which didn’t print and adds tables at the back. I also added Character Advancement and Experience Point rules to the game. This is a 5” x 9” formatted book and packs a lot of game in a small package.

The big news for me, as well as the Press, is I completed my certification exams last week and no longer have to study for real life corporate stuff. More money in my pocket and more time on my hands, hellz yes!

The commissioned work for Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery is starting to trickle in and I am excited about this game book. Original art and original content are going to make this beast shine! I have in hand completed mass combat rules and they will get their debut play test at the North Texas Gaming Convention. There are only three seats left in one of the games I will be running so if you want to get your savage sword of mass battle on sign up now!

The Big Black Book of Sorcery is being taken up again. This is going to be an amazing piece of Heavy Metal Sword & Sorcery which will make another gruesome POD edition to the USR S&S line.

Somewhere in all this Fear & Loathing in Fat City and Broke Down in Bug Town will get completed. My intent is to have my editor sort out the existing rules for Fear & Loathing USR and Western USR then bolt on these two introductory adventures. All this will be combined into one POD book of awesome sex and guns for the discriminating table top rpg’er.

Anthropomorphic USR Rides Again! Session Report #4

This session brought two PC's out of Capital City and away from the shores of Lake Eerie to the hot desert country of southern New Mexico. One of the PC's was new to this “side” game I run when the regular session of Clockwork & Cthulhu is running light of players for the scheduled game. He was a bit skeptical of playing a homemade furry animal and other strangeness game, but threw himself in with gusto. Since Anthropomorphic USR runs on the (U)nbelievably (S)imple (R)oleplaying chassis he had a character made up in around five minutes or less. So Bob the Platypus joined Gorilla Dave and the agents of CHROME in their attempt to get to the bottom of the PC's kidnapping from the zoo, their genesis into enhanced beings, and who is behind all this madness. CHROME, understandably, finds secret underground genetic labs complete with nuclear reactor rather dubious. Not to mention posing unacceptable safety concerns for the two million plus inhabitants of Capital City!

I used the PC's Specialisms as jumping off points for starting the session. Bob chose Detective +2 Wits as one of his Specialisms so he was put to work pouring over the data CHROME had gathered from the destroyed lab and the zoo's security cameras and computer logs. The result of this research revealed the zoo's security system was hacked from an IP address in Moriarty, New Mexico. This happened to be the last known whereabouts of Cybermind, a notorious criminal computer hack. If Special Agent Scott Roger Scott could tie Cybermind to the zoo kidnapping he would be able to do what the FBI failed to, bring this international bad guy down!

The PC's were outfitted in the latest CHROME livery, stretchy combat suits which provided +2 Damage Resistance. Bob armed himself with a short katana and an auto pistol while Dave stuck with his robot-head helmet and acidic poo-flinging powers. S.A. Scott was in charge per usual and assigned four other agents to round out the squad. They boarded a chartered jet out of Capital City airport and flew down to Albuquerque. Bob and Dave wanted to approach the target at night, so after the sun set they rolled out of town in a nondescript van provided by the Albuquerque field office. Their ultimate destination being the abandoned amusement park and ghost town of Snake Gulch.

I started making my USR hacks in an attempt to leverage my existing setting books while at the same time doing away with crunchy rule sets. For Anthropomorphic USR I am digging through my old Champions material I purchased in the early two thowws, more for nostalgia than anything. Some of you may recognize Snake Gulch as from Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth. Coupled with the Millennium City source book you would think I would have all I need to run some fantastic Supers action. They both retailed for $24.99, but scored them each for $10.00. The game store in my parent's town was going out of business so everything in the place was slashed. Both books are rather nice to look at. Glossy cover, fine production values and each one over a hundred pages long.

I had to really dig through these Hero published books with a highlighter to find useful text. Text which would invoke the feel of four colored comics. There wasn't much to highlight actually. Many maps of locations, stats of the major NPC's to be met along the way. The usual long and pointless backstories of the villains, snore. This is the adventure, the city book, well maybe more useful. It gives me a street map. What? There is organized crime in the city? Street gangs? I never would have thought!

I have to say the DIY OSR products being produced over the last six or more years have really shined a light on the poor utility of standard RPG products that are usually on offer. Once you use Vornheim, the Complete City Kit in like every game you run the pages of useless information in your usual city guide can just make you angry. I recently used AugmentedReality, The Holistic City Kit For Cyberpunk Games, majorly influenced by Vornheim, (at PWYW it way punches above its weight) to prep for my next Classic Traveller session. It took me seconds with random rolls on a few tables and I had an adventure outline, all hooky, which could sustain open, sandbox play as well as providing enough color to breath life into my game environment. It seems a game like Champions, which Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth and Millennium City were written for rests on the thick, crunchy combat rules. No need for imaginative content because the game will grind to a halt as soon as combat starts. It's what I remember back in high school and it is what I experienced again at GenCon last year. Which misses out on a lot of what supers role playing has to offer. So I guess on my list of RPG projects to complete now I must add Supers City Kit and Supers Secret Hideout Kit to give poor GM's like myself a chance out there. A chance to do what we do best; take some interesting game elements and run fast with your players, letting them move the action and drive the story. Once you strip the stats from Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth you are left with a predictable railroad led by bread crumbs to standard set pieces. Ugh.

There is actually one interesting bit. The opening gambit is set at an old west theme park. I got rid of the original Viper staff and replaced the characters with automatons. Old and unused the PC's came at the place at night and started poking around. Bob headed straight to the Sheriff's office. After listening to the automaton brag about the good old days running with Wyatt Earp and the like Bob liberated the robotic sheriff of his badge, hat, boots and six shooter. A three foot platypus with spurs a jingling now hit the streets of Snake Gulch, bad ass Ape and several CHROME agents in tow, determined to sniff out the bad guys!

They eventually entered the saloon where they found tracks into the cellar. Here the automatonic poker players activated, started accusing each other of cheating, and one stood drawing his smoke wagons squaring off with the PC's. The novelty of the situation quickly wore off when the robot started squeezing off live rounds. After taking out the stiff limbed robot it did not take long for the PC's to find the secret cellar entrance to a more modern part of the theme park. With different use of their Specialisms and reacting off of their die rolls they eventually penetrated secure doors and found what could only be described as a complex computer lab plus living quarters. Surely this was Cybermind's secret hideout. But where was he? 

The PC's did subdue a man in army fatigues, horribly disfigured, green skin, frothing mouth filled with fangs, the usual. He was able to draw blood on Bob the Platypus. Hopefully he isn't infectious. A difficult hand to hand struggle ended with gorilla Dave dropping the bed on top of the disfigured army guy. The ID scan done by the CHROME agents came up empty. Was this Cybermind? Has he been so transformed the ID scan cannot recognize him? Two of the CHROME agents carried out the unconscious stranger while the rest of the squad penetrated further. Here the PC's encountered the central computer room, in alert, plus all the wires in the room, from the computers, lights, generators, bound into a central form crackling with electricity. It forms facial features and speaks! “My specimens, my children you have returned!”

Now your average Champions combat, let's see, with two agents, two heroes and a big bad could take like an hour to run. We had six minutes left in the session. Instead of counting hexes, tracking endurance and stun the PC's could concentrate on how to take out their unknown adversary. The strange creature could make multiple attacks, striking out with various electrical cords. One of the CHROME agents was fried to death before Bob the Platypus, still wearing a cowboy hat and badge, was able to cut the main power cable. Gorilla Dave soaked damage from electric cord creature so it took a coordinated team effort to take down the creature. Here the session ended and began my game design deliberations.

There is a few things to tweak and/or modify with my rules set. That is to be expected. The big takeaway, for me, is to stop looking at adventure and game books for game and adventure material. Unless they are being done with this OSR spirit, of trying to facilitate the GM at the table in real time, the shit is useless. Today's session got more mileage out of the PC's leveraging small bits of color than anything else out of these once expensive game books. For source material I need to go to source material! Much like I did with USR Sword & Sorcery the best bet for good gaming “stuff” is go read the actual comics which got me excited in supers to begin with. That and making stuff up myself, Nuff said!

Athan Kirk Wins the $200.00 Writing Contest

I posted a request for submissions for one of the adventures which will be included in the upcoming release of Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery. I received three total submissions; one from Garrett Norman, another from Machine Mandala and the last at the deadline by Athan Kirk. I also received derisive comments from the peanut gallery along the lines of being exploitative, breaking laws and going to get myself sued?!?

Garrett Norman put it best; "...don't let the whiny redditors who wrote 500 words on why your contest sucked instead of 1000 words for a contest entry get ya down."

Athan wins hands down because he submitted an 11,858 word, 34 page adventure submission! Talk about over delivering! 

Thanks to all three of you for participating in this writing experiment and congratulations to Athan, Vanishing Tower Press' first paid writer! 

Anthropomorphic USR POD, Almost

Nothing more exciting than a mail call with your latest POD game book!

My proof of Anthropomorphic USR arrived and while it has some graphic errors which need to be fixed I am pleased with Vanishing Tower Press' third POD title. 

This is a revamped version of my old PDF file with a rewrite of the healing rules. I also improved the layout for the introductory adventure "The Terror of Central". All in all Anthro USR contains character creation rules specific for playing talking superpowered animals, super cool equipment rules, simple vehicle combat mechanics, Game Keeper campaign notepad and custom character sheet. Did I also say it comes with an intro adventure!

I even went for color printing. There is not a lot of full color art but the splashes of colored graphics in the pages makes it a more enjoyable rule book overall. 

It is in an A5 size format, the same as Wormskin. I want to increase the inside "gutter" as well so you don't have to bend at the spine so much. The column text just ends up being too close to the center and detracts from the overall look. Hopefully I will be able to do this without reformatting the entire freaking document. The formatting issues with some of the graphics should be easy to fix. It does point out I need to check all these embedded files before I order my proof. Not having a properly format graphic kicks back a general public release like another two weeks, sad.

It will be up for sale on Drive Thru for $5.99 and this price includes the PDF too. The PDF is currently available if you can't wait. It doesn't have the graphic fails. But I find having hard copies of DIY game books one of the coolest things to happen in role playing games since their inception so the best bargain is to wait to order when the POD becomes available. 

Here is a photo giving an example of image fixes I need to make.

The most egregious flaw is in the adventure. I have a two page color spread with the stats for Mindless Clones and Security Robots. The center spread image came out, but the boxed stats of the NPC's is blacked out. Not cool. Once again, the PDF doesn't have these flaws if you want to start playing today!

$200 Adventure Writing Contest!

I am offering a $200.00 prize for a 1,000 word adventure which will be included in Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery.

Here is the pitch; Race of Sorrows, a "Faction Kit" adventure culminating in a championship horse race. The text should focus on the various NPC's scheming to win. The "best" rider is a poor peasant underdog now kidnapped by an alchemist. The alchemist has a process to steal the rider's skill and transfer their abilities into the alchemist's own jockey.

The adventure should facilitate the Crypt Keeper in allowing the PC's to involve themselves in the adventure in any way they see fit. I'm looking at +Zzarchov Kowolski 's Scenic Dunnsmouth as an example of what I have in mind. This would allow the PC's to champion the underdog, scheme with any of the cheating factions or just straight up try to uncover who the fix is on and bet accordingly. 

There is one site location which needs to be considered; the alchemist's abode, but how this is presented is up to your interpretation. 

Don't worry about game stats or anything about pari-mutuel wagering. I've spent way too much time at the track so I have payout resolution covered. 

The race should be a procedural "saving throw" to achieve a winner.

Submission deadline is March 16, 2018 so four weeks. Winning criteria is completely subjective; it will be what I like best. At a thousand words this works out to twenty cents a word. Going over the word count is okay, but does not increase my stake. But a thousand is minimum for consideration. Unless you are absolutely genius and your submission stands head and shoulders above the rest!

Who wants the bloody crown of victory and skin me out of my jaw teeth!

Submissions can be sent to me here on G+ or jay@vanishingtowerpress.com.

USR Sword & Sorcery spotted in the wild!

+Brian Isikoff flashed on Google+ he was considering USR Sword & Sorcery for running +Mike Evans Ennie Award Winning setting Hubris!

That. Is. So. Cool!

Western USR review sort of...

I actually took down my various PDF's for USR as I thought they all needed some heavy editing and didn't want someone to pay for a set of rules which didn't work.

But Western USR does work. Sure it need some polish. +Andrew Domino has recently discovered the awesomeness of USR and has delivered many useful blog posts on how to create different characters and campaigns with this universal system. He commented on my interpretation of Westerns with my Western USR rules set. Seems he liked my addition of a Speed attribute to the standard attributes listed in the game.

Besides the fact he interpreted the rules wrong in comparison to the speed of a knife versus gun, I am immensely pleased with more looks and critiques on how I use +Scott Malthouse 's lovely set of minimel rules mechanics.

I created Western USR with TSR's Boot Hill 1st edition in my hands. Speed was about the only thing out of the TSR rules I took away which needed to be captured. When mere humans meet hot lead who shoots first is all that matters. I'm finding more and more detailed tactical scenarios do not add to the game. As long as I can answer the question of how far away the target is I think players fill in the rest of the details on the combat environment. Players like to try and control the combat turn to their favor obviously. I like to try and rush combat events so as to make players feel out of control what happens next when the guns and blades come out. With Western USR I tried to construct the combat rules so instant death happens when cool heads do not prevail.

Try the game out and let me know what you think.

The Big Black Book of Sorcery is being drafted

Most likely the next POD publication from Vanishing Tower Press in 2018 will be The Big Black Book of Sorcery. So far the draft is indicating a 72 to 96 page softcover 8.5" x 11"  publication with sixty two new items of magic; whether they be magical items, terrible incantations, or demons of the void. What they all provide is mind blasting, soul seering sorcery for your USR Sword & Sorcery world!

The art in this book will be more of the royalty free line art which has graced the two other USR Sword & Sorcery publications. The contents of this book will not be included in the upcoming Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery. This book is its own thing and will try and further my vision for USR Sword & Sorcery gaming. I'm laying it out as I write out the specific spell details and mechanics. I don't have any set process so each one of these books comes out with their own amateurish look and hopefully one day will be purchased in a discount bin of obscure role playing games by some exploring gamer with next to no money in their pocket.  

USR Sword & Sorcery Deluxe has an Editor!

Taking the recommendation of successful DIY producers I have engaged the services of an editor for my next POD publication. It makes eminent sense to provide a clean text document competently polished by an experienced hand before evocative art is committed to a final product.

+Jens D. the creator of Monkey Business, a procedural junglecrawl, and The Disorientated Ranger blog has agreed to throw his prodigious talent behind USR Sword & Sorcery Deluxe for a princely sum therefore guaranteeing a usable, coherent, free-wheeling rules set for fantastic pulp-fantasy adventure!

Consider this an art-free version of a USR Sword & Sorcery game complete with new adventures, genre-specific magic system, bestiary, seafaring and mass combat rules. Everything a Crypt Keeper will need to start their own USR Sword & Sorcery campaign world.

Essentially USR Sword & Sorcery Deluxe will be the core rules and Horrors Material & Magic Malignant put together along with new adventure content and mass combat rules suitable for role playing pulp fantasy engagements; whether on land or sea.

Release date is set for August 2018 and if there is enough interest in the book I will commission original black and white line art appropriate for the genre.

So 2018 is a year to improve the presentation of USR Sword & Sorcery along with including more grisly adventures. More like it, get a core book I can be really happy about so I can stop fussing and move on to more adventure writing!

Sword & Sorcery Random Background Generator

Rolling for your starting character's background in USR Sword & Sorcery is really easy. Done in two rolls. The work comes from the Player and the Crypt Keeper agreeing on what the background details mean. 

Still, Logan Knight's Random Table Generator is so simple to use I can't but help automate this process with the - 

USR Sword & Sorcery Random Background Generator

Vanishing Tower Press now has a web site!

It is up and running, and will be evolving and improving as I go ahead and give my game stuff its own space.

Vanishing Tower Press will now be the only place to purchase PDF files of USR Sword & Sorcery, Horrors Material & Magic Malignant, Anthropomorphic USR, Fear & Loathing USR and Western USR.

The POD versions of USR S&S and HM&MM are still available on DriveThruRPG and the site links to the order page if this is the product you want. Purchase of either POD softcover book entitles you to the PDF as well so verifying your purchase with your customer number from One Book Shelf seems the simplest way to go for now.

At some point I will consider making a print run and sell the softcover books directly, but currently using a POD service is just the easiest way to go to get hardcopies printed and shipped.

The site will continue to see new adventure products added to the core rulebooks I've created.

Game On!

Unbelievably Simple Roleplaying is copyright Scott Malthouse and Trollish Delver Games.

Artist Call for USR Sword & Sorcery Complete

[EDIT: 11/19/2017] My post here is poorly stated. The artist get's paid up front from a successful Kickstarter. How I wrote it yesterday makes it sound like the artist needs to hope the book sells to get paid. No, no, no. The project only happens if I know the subcontractor is covered.

As I toil away on the Big Black Book of Sorcery for USR Sword & Sorcery I can't help but think I would like a nice hardcover edition of the game. And it would have everything in it produced to date; the core rules, the new supplement, plus the BBBoS as well as the double stack adventure pack I'm working on for more adventures in the world of USR Sword & Sorcery. It would be USR Sword & Sorcery Complete. 

So I want an artist. I want original artwork which pays tribute to the Ernie Chan drawing and inking which sucked me into Savage Sword during the seventies as well as the indelible stamp of Frazetta and Vallejo which defined the image of Conan to me as a teen. 

And I have no money so the artist who throws into this mad scheme would have to take 50% of profits from the completed work. How I see this working is I complete the text document, then an initial Kickstarter campaign to cover costs of printing and art (there is a local professional press - Gran Farnum) and then sell 400 copies to make a profit however small and call it good.

So if you would like to be the defining artist of USR Sword & Sorcery Complete contact me at your convenience @ +Jay Murphy. Two out of three books are currently complete and available for sale so text on the expanded magic and adventures is underway so by the end of January written content could well be done. Then layout, funding, and press!

USR Sword & Sorcery runs at TridentCon 2017

+Pete Segreti was one of the original playtesters for USR Sword & Sorcery and a fan of +Scott Malthouse 's rules-lite mechanics USR in general. This morning he had a full table make a successful run at the introductory adventure found in the rules Shrine of the Keepers!

Never has been seen a more blackhearted bunch of thieving dogs I say!

Pete posted about his experience here. It sounds like much pulpish reaving was accomplished. I wonder if the PC's don't mind leaving the city of Tizuk since their ill-gotten gains will find no buyers within the city walls...?

Anthro USR NPC's

Here are the stats I've used for the NPC's the players have come across so far in our "side" campaign game;

CHROME Agents

A8 W6 E6 H5 S. Group Tactics +2A.

Combat Armor +3DR, Auto Pistol(ROF3).

Special Agent Scott Roger Scott

A8 W6 E6 H6 S. Fire Arms +2A, Investigation +2W.

Combat Armor +3DR, Auto Pistol(ROF3).

Capitol City Cop

A6 W6 E6 H6
Auto Pistol(ROF3), Handcuffs, Radio.

Willow Paiva

A6 W8 E8 H4 S. Candle Making +1A, City Knowledge+1W.
Backpack, 1/8 Weed.

Ava Gabrielle, MD(Animal)

A6 W8 E6 H6 S. Big Animal Vet +2W.

Anthropomorphic USR AAR 3

Scheduled game of Clockwork & Cthulhu did not fire today so it was time for another edition of Yak n Ape with Anthropomorphic USR.

We started right where we stopped last time, with the PC's riding the subway out to the zoo. Willow, the candle maker they met on the subway, finally figured out the PC's were not human, but she stuck to her hippie values and offered to show them the way. The subway stop was a small station with few passengers and they were watching the late breaking Capitol City news. Some kind of explosion downtown, city wide blackout has occurred. Authorities are warning people to evacuate a specific area of Capitol Market, and the source of the explosion is unknown at this time.

The PC's quickly made themselves scarce and hurried down the night time streets of Royal Oaks to the zoo. They said goodbyes to Willow and scrambled onto the zoo grounds. They soon encountered the zoo's Big Game Vet Ava who was shocked to see her animals transformed so. She was sure Yak n Ape were two of the four animals stolen from her two weeks ago. The Yak exhibit was not so much being remodeled but the site of a crime scene investigation by Chrome and the Capitol City Police.

Ava takes blood and tries to push sedatives on them. She wants to knock the PC's out and call the authorities because she doesn't know what to do with talking walking genetically altered animals. The PC's are wise to such ploys so she eventually excuse herself and calls the cops.

Here the PC's get up and try to leave. Outside near the front of the gate two SUV's pull in disgorging locked and loaded dudes complete with ear mic and tactical assault weapons. Not heeding orders to stop the black ops agents light up the PC's with fire. But instead of bullets they are cut down by tranquilizer darts. They come to back in the vet's lab, but this time securely tied down. The PC's are unable to pass a successful test of strength to break free. Special Agent Scott Roger Scott is talking to an anxious Ava as his men load the PC's on board a van. The PC's are put under again after brief questioning and come to in a different facility being faced with Special Agent Scott again. He wants to know what the two of them have to do with the explosion downtown. Seems he has a small nuclear core meltdown under the streets of Capitol City same time these two clowns start choking cops in the subway tunnels. The PC's say yeah they know all about it. Saw the whole thing happen. This gets Scott excited. He is going to take the PC's back into the underground lab and show him where the meltdown occurred. He plans to get concrete pumped onto the leaking nuclear pile after the scene of the explosion is examined. He wants the city street paved over and traffice running within twenty four hours. Official line is a neglected gas main ruptured causing terrible underground destruction. Fortunately no loss of life had occurred due to the blast, but there where fatalities caused by the ensuing blackout.

The PC's are forced to suit up and enter the lab. After going over the complex it is apparent most of the on site hardware is cooked. CHROME science agents collect all the samples and data they can from the scene before the concrete pumping commences. Finding the burnt out nuclear hole is not too difficult. With the radiation signal and black pit and all. Scott was radioing in where to send the pumping truck when horrible tentacles reached out and attacked. A seething toxic genetic monstrosity, five tentacled in all, gropes for the ceiling above ripping stone and concrete in its slavering madness. Fifteen feet across with a gaping maw, it first grabs Yak but is unable to hang on. Yak sweeps the room with autofire after using his terrible powers of the mind to acquire the gun, but does not know how to operate a gun at all. CHROME agents have better luck and rip up the monster. Angered by the blinding poo of Ape the monster grabs Ape from the wall and swallows him whole. The Ape fights back and forces the beast to put back what it had just ate. A final blast from the agents and the beast lay dead.

The team was ordered to wrap it up and head back to CHROME HQ here in Capitol City. With the nuclear waste being buried it was time for Scott to try and get answers out of Yak n Ape and what he is actually looking at. The operation or perhaps the facility is referred to as “Central”. What it is and what it wants are two questoins Scott wants answers to. For their corporation he could promise safety to the PC's, safety from those who altered them. The PC's were skeptical about any offers of safety on their behalf and wanted to know if they could make a phone call. Scott agreed and Yak called Willow the hippie candle maker down to Chrome offices and corroborate his story. She was kind of shocked to hear from him, actually Yak was shocked I wanted to role play this, but yes I did so Willow would try and get down there during her lunch break. Here I called it because I did not know what should happen next. Feel free to offer suggestions which way the campaign should go. I like to offer various avenues players can choose from. Scott wants to run down Central, he has the PC's so starting a hunt for their target would be in order. Maybe that is enough for initial adventure material?

Tres Leches Fear & Loathing

Herein is the final chapter in this the first playtest of Fear & Loathing in Fat City for Fear & Loathing USR.

The next day found the PC's ripping it up on Horse Mountain and role played their way into losing Carol on the backside of the ski resort in gnarly out of bounds terrain. Peachy and the Dude followed her tracks out but got caught in an avalanche. Finally they reached a forest road where it looked like Ross got picked up on a snow mobile and was gone. This royally pissed the duo off and before they could decided what the hell was going on the headlights from a couple of more snowmobiles illuminated Dude and the Peach.

 

They were angling for a ride from the two strangers but when they pulled guns it became evident they weren't there to give our PC's a ride. A hilarious, accidental on cue “I thought you had the gun!” back and forth between Peach and the Dude allowed an initiative roll where Peach managed to draw the .32 they took off of Latin and get a shot off first. Dude went for the mad grapple on the other hired gun and managed to tie him up long enough for Peach to point the gun at him after blowing away hired gun #1. Hired gun #2 gave up at that point and the PC's were able to get the sordid details out of him. 

Seems Curtis Ross Sr. is running for sheriff and if it is found out his daughter has been living trans-gendered all these years, and recently underwent a sex change operation Curtis Ross, real estate magnate, would kiss his political career goodbye. He would also see Carol's sports franchise goes up in smoke overnight. Somehow Bishop, the Ross's managing editor, had come up with Carol's medical file. In good faith the eager journalist confronted Mr. Ross about having to release a story. That would affect his boss, and his employment. But you know, what are we going to do about this… ? Ross didn't get rich being indecisive. He stove in Bishop's face right before his daughter rolled into town. Of course this left Mr. Ross with the hassle of hiding his murderous act. I sure didn't know what the middle-aged millionaire should do.

When the PC's showed up and started being super helpful and all Ross decided the PC's had to go. Carol could see the wisdom in dad's thinking too. The PC's just know too damn much. Maybe take them out skiing? Get them into some technical terrain? Accidents happen in the backcountry all the time. Just to be sure have a couple of reliable hands keep an eye on things, tie up any loose ends.

The PC's were once again caught wondering what to do. “What do we care, what's in it for us?” they asked themselves and me. 

Good questions and one I didn't have a good answer for. Stalling for time I asked the PC's to go through the cast of characters they had encountered, or not, so far on the adventure. In a round about way we got to the Environmental Cowboy who lived in a mountain cabin not far from where they were at. He had come up in the narrative earlier. He was a trust-funding law school grad who was leading the charge to have Carol's televised alpine descent canceled. He has a court injunction until an environmental impact study can be completed. Carol says it is all just sexist bullshit. But either way he is a (m)NPC they haven't interacted with. The PC's commandeer the snow mobiles, take all the guns and leave hired gun #2 with his dead buddy on the snowy road determined to find Environmental Cowboy's remote cabin. Upon arriving they are greeted by barking dogs and Roger Kinrock, an independently wealthy and fiercely independent outdoors man.

This was the two and half hour mark and not only did I not have a handle on this NPC I did want to get some feedback from my players before we called it a night. I told them as much. It was kind of a shame. We had hit the perfect spot for the game's climax, but I confessed I didn't know which way I should go with Kinrock. Instead of forcing a poorly improved ending I wanted to use what time we had left to critique the rules, the adventure and our overall play.

Being awesome they agreed and provided a frank bull session on some of the fun and frustration to be had with a “modern” rpg campaign. The good news was the adventure delivered on genre expectations. The PC's felt it wasn't lack of interesting events popping off to engage, but wondering what was the next move was part of the role playing challenge. I was also concerned about how the inherent “off-color” content of the genre would play. Having sensitive real life topics such as racism, sexism, transphobia as mere plot elements in a game may generate play which inadvertently offends someone at the table. I only had to mention this as one of my initial concerns during this critique because I was fortunate enough to play the session with grown ups. The PC's were able to discuss content and play, as it came up, resolve any issues of what was appropriate for entertainment and what wasn't and the game moved on.

I really only brought it up so as to honor their excellent skills. Remember these two players had never met, let alone play this game with some clearly loaded content, and they breezed through it and kept the loose improve heavy game session on track.

So yeah I confessed I didn't know if I should go all horror, death trap in the woods with this guy, or he is for real and knows who they can trust in Fat City… and that I really wanted their thoughts on the matter. Having the guy turn into a mad serial killer would of worked for them it seems. They didn't think it would have been over the top. I don't know, I thought it was a little cliche. I can't remember all their good feedback. It was spot on, that I can tell you. I think they even resolved the Environmental Cowboy nicely for me. I can't remember. It was late. But Fear & Loathing USR delivers what it says on the tin, Player Approved!