Tommy Brownell reviews Squawk

Tommy Brownell reviewed the Squawk RPG on his "Most Unread Blog Ever" site.  His blog posts tend to get reposted elsewhere, so this is great for us.

If you haven't read Tommy's blog before, I strongly recommend it.  He tends to cover a very wide range of pen and paper RPG material, and gives thorough reviews on everything he covers.

Gafflings

The second intelligent species we designed that ended up in Squawk was the Gaffling. Here is a document that describes them and shows various illustrations you may not have seen before.  We have always been big on intelligent dinosaurs, even when our games were not primarily about intelligent dinosaurs.  In those games, the Gaffling was our "intelligent dinosaur" species.

Myrmidon Design

The oldest Squawk intelligent species design is probably the Myrmidon. Seth's first sketch of what would later become the Myrmidon was probably done in the late 1980's, shortly after playing Shadow of the Beast on the Amiga.  For the first years of the creature's gaming life it was referred to as the "skeet" and had 4 arms and 3 eyes.  Here are sketches showing variations on the Myrmidon design over the years (not in chronological order):

Press Release

The Squawk RPG is a science-fiction role-playing game for 3 to 5 players (including Game Master). Players control intelligent avians, dinosaurs and other reptiles who explore the Abaddon planetary system and it's many unique worlds, cultures and technologies. They overcome extraterrestrial monsters, wild dinosaurs, space pirates, and other savage perils along the way.

Half of the Squawk RPG is a campaign (a series of adventures) that allows Game Masters to run the game with minimal preparation time. The campaign allows players to follow a central plot, or explore the Abaddon system, moving freely in many directions. The campaign includes more than 100 possible encounters to challenge the players, depending on which parts of the Squawk RPG universe they decide to explore. Random encounter tables for each world - and rules that allow players to search for specific encounters - keep the campaign new and exciting even when the same group of players have played the campaign before.

The Squawk RPG uses the simple and easy-to-use Scratch Role-Playing System, which is included in the book. Navigation maps help readers explore the planets and moons of the Abaddon system easily. Over 100 illustrations of creatures, technology and places help readers visualize this unique setting. Experienced tabletop gamers will be able to play this game within minutes of opening the Squawk RPG book, and this is an ideal role-playing game for new players as well.

You can buy the paper Squawk RPG book at these sites:

(CreateSpace gives us the highest commission.)

Amazon.com

Or you can buy the Squawk RPG e-book at these sites:

If you run a shop or store, e-mail us at squawk@gameartsguild.com so we can get you books at an appropriate price for your business.

Martial Arts & Tres Espadas

You may have noticed that Martial Arts is a common theme in our games. Over half the Game Arts Guild has full contact martial arts experience, and some of us have internal martial arts experience with Aikido and Tai Chi.  Lately some of our members have been involved in a full contact weapon sparring club called "Tres Espadas." Seth (The Serpent Lord) is thinner of the two fighters in this video:

• http://espadastres.blogspot.com/2010/11/naginata-vs-glaive.html

I am the thinner of the two fighters in these videos:

• http://espadastres.blogspot.com/2010/07/staff-vs-buckler-from-20100710.html
• http://espadastres.blogspot.com/2010/07/knife-vs-knife-liver-kick.html  (knife vs. knife segment)

And the larger guy we are both up against in all three of those is a playtester mentioned in the acknowledgement section of the Squawk RPG book.  The guy in the black shirt in these two videos is a Game Arts Guild member:

• http://espadastres.blogspot.com/2010/11/mace-vs-stick.html
• http://espadastres.blogspot.com/2010/11/falchion-vs-cutlass.html

And last but not least, here's a battle between two Game Arts Guild members in the cold November rain:

• http://espadastres.blogspot.com/2010/11/weapons-upgrade.html

Notice that the footage above is not LARPing, but a martial arts exercise.

RPG Now and DriveThruRPG

We will officially be doing a press release soon, because the Squawk RPG is on Amazon, on RPG Now: 
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=85789 
and on DriveThruRPG: 
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=85789 
so people can now purchase the book in paper or electronic form. We are still trying to figure out how to make this accessible to brick-and-mortar RPG shops.  If you run a brick and mortar store and want copies of the Squawk RPG on your shelf, e-mail us at squawk@gameartsguild.com , and we'll figure out how to get you those books at a price that should work for you.

The Truth vs. the Correct Answer

When you are playing Squawk, the GM's answers to players who's characters are trying to determine the origins of their universe should be something like "no one is sure.  There are no fossils to verify evolutionary theory, and there is a missing link of machinery when it comes to microorganisms and nanobots."  That is the correct answer; "Squawk is something of an alternative universe where large mammals just don't exist," or "Squawk takes place so far away that it is completely unrelated to Earth" are other explanations used previously.  (For more information on how to treat this topic while playing the Squawk RPG, see the last blog post "Squawk's Creation Debate.")

However, when we were working on this book, there was a graphic we used to keep in mind from our own personal designer's perspective what the "real context" of Squawk is.  Basically Squawk takes place about 5 million years ago in another part of the Milky Way Galaxy:

The Terraformers (a type of biomechanical robots called "Golems") were critical to life being spread throughout the worlds of Abaddon.  So both sides of the debate mentioned in our last post are right: the origins of life in Abaddon depended on biomechanical robots, and most of the life there evolved one way or another.  The "good guys" (Symbiotic Order) are more-right, but the Clockmakers are not completely wrong.

Squawk's Creation Debate

One of the big political issues in Squawk is an argument about the origins of life in the Abaddon system. One side of the argument is the Symbiotic Order's view, and the other is basically the Monopolis Corporation's view. Abaddon lacks rich fossil records because life really hasn't been there that long. Therefore the question of "intelligent design" for Squawk characters is  twisted - on one side the religious order believes in Evolution, and on the other side the areligious corporate scholars have come to the conclusion that life has been intelligently designed. Here's a "poster" Seth made a while ago but didn't end up in the book, which is relavent to the "Debate at Ariel University" encounter in the Squawk RPG (p.130): Debate Poster

Logo updated

We have updated our official logo.  The previous one had a very "Vegas" looking design because it had 2d6 and no d20.

Squawk Hex Mat and Tokens

Here's a new hex mat and tokens for playing Squawk with the Grid rules. The 8.5" by 11" hex mat is divided into 1" wide hexes. You may need a few pages this size for big battles. Click on the image to download both the hex mat and the tokens as a single PDF.

Indexed & back in stock

The Squawk RPG book was "out of stock" on Amazon for a little while because we were polishing the book with an index, some slight cover changes, and many grammar corrections.  Amazon says it is now "in stock" again.

Props for Scratch Grid Squawk

We decided not to focus on using the Scratch RPS's Grid rules in the book; we included the grid rules for those who would want them, but the book isn't focused on supporting those rules. Here are some props for a Skand, Titan, and Lyndwrym:

(These were in turn made from 3D models in Blender before this book project started, models for a Squawk RPG computer game we worked on some years ago.)  And if you don't have any hex paper, we made some of that as well: