Nefarious lost in the woods

Nefarious will not return to Squawk 2nd Edition because she is exactly the same character as "The Old Crow," a major character in The Dark Woods. We started working on Squawk while we were first developing The Dark Woods, which is why the character was in both settings. We are tweaking and refining the setting in the Squawk 2nd Edition in other ways as well.

Squawk 2E Update: RPS, part 3

Making character development more balanced highly influenced this 2nd version of the Squawk RPG's core game mechanics much earlier on in development than with previous role-playing systems we have worked on. Back to that "size = damage" concept alluded to in our last post, it makes sense from a narrative standpoint to have one weapon (say a katana) do a lot more damage than another weapon (like a ninja throwing star.) In a lot of role-playing systems it's easy to generate characters with character points overly invested on the ninja stars instead of katanas, throwing off the over all balance of the game. In the Squawk RPG 2nd Ed. we've erred on the side of fool-proofing over flexibility; it should be a lot harder to screw up your character by misappropriating CP. (This is to a greater degree than in the "Scratch RPS" that the 1st Ed. and The Dark Woods is based on.)

Squawk 2E Update: RPS, part 2

In the past when we have made role-playing games, we have usually started off with game mechanics in an effort to make a sort of "universal" role-playing system, and then applied that universal system to a specific setting. However this time with the Squawk 2nd Edition, we focused on making sure the setting has come first, and that the rules serve to describe the setting.

For example, in Squawk the main factor that determines how much damage a character does is the size of his species (because we are talking about intelligent dinosaurs here.) In the Squawk 2E RPS rules the biggest factor for character damage in indeed the size of his species (even though this might not make sense in a typical fantasy RPG setting for example where all the PC races are some variation of hominid.)

Squawk 2E Update: RPS

With the Squawk 2nd Edition, we've decided on a role-playing system that is more visceral than Scratch. (It is almost like a highly simplified updated version of Mano a Mano heavily influenced by Scratch.) Unfortunately this will add at least months to Squawk 2E development, and we'll be lucky to have the game done this year. We will post here on the blog as we are looking for proof readers and play testers.

TDW Reference Document

We want as many people playing The Dark Woods Role-Playing Game as possible, so we have put enough of The Dark Woods up on our content wiki so that anyone can play the game. We still want you to buy The Dark Woods to support our efforts, but even if you don't we still want you the play The Dark Woods. Also this wiki version should be a handy resource even for those who normally use the paper book, even though it doesn't have all the content the book and PDF does.

Tommy reviewed The Dark Woods

Our favorite Role-Playing Game critic, Tommy Brownell, has reviewed The Dark Woods here:
http://mostunreadblogever.blogspot.com/2012/06/tommys-take-on-dark-woods.html

We think it is a fair review and an accurate assessment of The Dark Woods RPG. Yes, in case you are wondering, it was originally a board game design (a board game/RPG hybrid, the original prototype in the early/mid 90's used a lot of 3x5 cards.)

Two for the price of one

If you buy the Soft-Cover version of The Dark Woods core rule book ($7.99,) the PDF is now FREE (now normally $3.99.)

The Dark Woods in soft cover print

You can now get The Dark Woods in soft-cover format from DriveThruRPG here: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/101224/The-Dark-Woods The core rule-book is $7.99 , the PDF is $4.99, and together they are only $9.99 .

Knights of The Dark Woods

Tired of always being labeled "the bad guy?" Want to know more about the mysterious "Order of Thanatos" alluded to throughout The Dark Woods RPG? Wait no longer, now you and your team members can play Knights of the Order of Thanatos here: Order of Thanatos (team association)

Squawk 2E under development

We have officially started working on the 2nd Edition of the Squawk Role-Playing Game. We seriously intend to finish before the end of the summer, we know exactly what we want to do with it (make it easier for GMs to use: more scripted, less spaceship combat.) We are looking for volunteer proof readers (between 150 to 200 pages,) so if you can help with this please e-mail squawk@gameartsguild.com

Trolls of The Dark Woods

Another race we weren't able to polish up in time for The Dark Woods book was trolls. Here is a playable variation of trolls we came up with: Trolls of The Dark Woods

Vampires of The Dark Woods

We worked on vampires for The Dark Woods, but they got culled when we were trying to finally finish up the project. Well, now here is a playable variation of the vampires we came up with for The Dark Woods: Vampires of The Dark Woods

TDW Sale: one for the price of none

We have officially lowered the price of The Dark Woods PDF to $0.00 until the printed version of the book is available for sale online. At that time we plan to return to the price of $4.99 for the PDF: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/101224/The-Dark-Woods

Evade text clarified

In The Dark Woods, we have changed the description of the "evade" action on page 7. Here is the old confusing text:

Evade allows a character to to add a movement ability level to his agility and strength until his next turn or until he is held, whichever comes first. A character without one of those abilities can also evade, but his agility and strength do not change.

Here is the new text which should be more clear:

Evade allows a character to add the level of one of his movement abilities to his agility and strength until the end of his next turn or until he is held, whichever comes first. A character with no movement abilities can also evade, allowing him to escape on his next turn if he is not held, but his agility and strength do not change.

We worked hard on these 32 pages for over a year, and we don't expect any more changes like this, but you never know.

Character Generator Update for TDW

We've updated The Dark Woods character generator to have the exact same layout as is in the character sheet in the book: http://gameartsguild.com/tdw

It also has details on what each ability is used for built into the ability selection menu, to help you save time when generating characters. It also has a separate tab for the minions character sheet.

50 Free TDW PDFs

If you or anyone you know wants a free copy of The Dark Woods RPG, have that person e-mail squawk@gameartsguild.com saying they want a copy, and we'll send them a coupon by e-mail for a free download from DriveThruRPG. We decided to give out 50 copies for free before the printed book comes out in a month or two (PDF normally costs $5.)

The Dark Woods PDF: $5

We released the PDF version of The Dark Woods today. Within weeks we'll also be releasing a book version on DriveThruRPG as well. At that time we'll be offering a discount to people who want to buy both the book and the PDF at the same time.

Here is a promotional video for The Dark Woods:


Here's our official The Dark Woods website: http://gameartsguild.com/content/index.php?title=The_Dark_Woods

New tileset on Open Game Art

We've been experimenting with HandS2D and content from OpenGameArt.org. As a result Seth expanded an existing tileset and released it here: http://opengameart.org/content/isometric-64x64-medieval-building-tileset

MiniMaM

The natural heir to the now mostly inactive Free Game Arts is http://OpenGameArt.org . Today we released an older 2D RPG experiement we did in Pygame called MiniMaM: http://opengameart.org/content/minimam-fantasy-rpg-characters

The Dark Woods testing has concluded

The inclement weather in Seattle has allowed us to finish all our testing for The Dark Woods. Thanks to everyone who was able to help with this. We still have some text, index and cover adjustments to make, but it's clear to us that we have nailed the balance and game mechanics now.