Contact Information:

jay@vanishingtowerpress.com

Friday, December 1

Ye Olde English Random Name Generator

While Forgive Us has a nifty table for generating random names for your Norwich adventures, with only twenty surnames and first names I started getting some repetitive results as the campaign marches on.  I needed something which would give me many more names. Like thousands!

Fortunately sites like Last Gasp provide the answer with the ability to make your own home-grown random generator of whatever you like!

While this way cool tool does have some built in limitations, Zak S. recommends Text Mechanic web site. It allows you to generate text files of every combination of table entries so you can import this back into your random table generator and avoid its individual table entry limits.

I then googled seventeenth century names to compile a large list of names. This has given me over 22,000 possible male names and just over 10,000 female names.

I'm trying to get the links to work right here in blogger and having some difficulty so bear with me.



Saturday, November 25

PC and NPC Combat Tracker for Clockwork & Cthulhu

I've created a Combat Tracker PDF doc so that I can better track initiative and turn progress for running combat during my Clockwork & Cthulhu campaign. 

Specifically character's Dexterity as well as six boxes to be used to track reload rate for a character's black powder firearms. Whether you tick off boxes or write in what combat turn they expect to be reloaded and ready to fire. These boxes are intended to coordinate with the three sets of twelve boxes in the doc's footer. A regular combat turn is 5 seconds and so 12 turns gives you a minute. I usually tick off boxes for the character in question because sometimes their reloading may be interrupted before they finish.



There is a box for tracking decreasing Hit Points and Sanity while the usual lines are available for pertinent skills related to their combat capabilities. There will be a permanent link for the document on the "Summonings" page of the blog so you can come get it anytime. For those who frequent the BRP Central forum it will be up in the downloads section as soon as I can get it in there. 

Sunday, November 19

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.


Saturday, November 18

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!