The first official adventure for the DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND game has now been updated to use the official DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND rules.

THE SLAVE QUEEN OF THE RUINED CITY

These rules feature all-new variations on skills like Diplomacy and Intimidate, a revised, streamlined damage system, and completely revamped systems for Reputation, supernatural powers and Recovery. This hard work has been done mostly by the amazing group over at the True20 forums, whose creativity and intelligence has made an already great game even better. It's been inspiring working with that crew, and the game wouldn't be half as cool as it is without their efforts.

The SLAVE QUEEN OF THE RUINED CITY has been run at numerous events, in cities around North America, and it's never failed to provide a great afternoon's entertainment. This package includes maps, sample characters, handouts -- along with the online rules it's everything you need to start playing DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND.

Well, except for some friends. You have to provide those yourself.

Labels: DinoPirates, Games

AT LAST!

The DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND complete rules are now available online. This is a full-blown system reference document for the game, and includes absolutely everything you need to run your own DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND adventures. Create characters, resolve challenges and get on with the cool part of the story-telling. All you need is here. Now. Free.

Except of course for the setting. That's still underway.

But this is a big step for the DINO-PIRATE faithful. Combined with the release last year of SLAVE QUEEN OF THE RUINED CITY, you can now play this legendary game in the comfort of your own home. Without needing to invite me over.

Although I am available for most of January, if you have a last-minute booking you want to make. My rates are very reasonable.

Labels: DinoPirates, Games

Been sick for a few days and coming off that, I'm feeling rambly. Realised I never posted a GenCon report -- so here you go, point form:

• Wireless Connectivity at GenCon sucks like something that sucks a lot.


• Hurray for Paul coming all the way from AFGHANISTAN just to help me demo a very cool game that I'll be talking a lot more about Real Soon Now.


• REFORM SCHOOL NINJA GIRLS was actually MORE fun than it sounds like. I know you're skeptical, but I was there, and you weren't, so I know. MORE fun. Where else can you have ninja chicks cutting boats in half, dressing up like geishas, and building giant transforming Godzilla robots? Only in DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND, I'm telling you.


• I'm not as good at improvising adventure stories at three o'clock in the morning as I wish I were.


• I am, however, a phenomenal impersonator of Scooby-Doo. I may have found my life's calling.


• It's important to know you can't recreate improvisational greatness. Trying to do it again, once it's been done, is a fool's game.


• I missed JD.


• It's entirely possible to spend almost nothing at GenCon on anything game-related and still have a great time. Assuming you spend a sufficient quantity on alcohol. Or, even better, your roommates do.

I'm sure that answers all your questions. The good news is that all four DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND games went like stink, largely due to the fantastic players at every session.

I also picked up a comic book for Steph that has turned out to beat expectations: Artesia. I met the creator and seemed like a nice enough guy, and the art was very compelling, so I picked up a hardcover compiled and brought it home and I've just now read it and I have to say, I'm planning on collecting the rest. Mark Smylie has really done his research and produced a fantastic story that feels deeply rooted in a world that operates on different assumptions than ours.

Too often fantasy authors produce cultures that operate according to the assumptions that drive our modern world, with ideas on justice or morals or social structure that don't reflect the trappings of the world they're supposed to be a part of. I'm no historian (Hi Stuart!) but even a little bit of research can make most modern fantasy writers pretty much unreadable.

So DON'T LEARN ANYTHING, for crying out loud! It only leads to trouble.

Unless you're Mark Smylie. You keep reading, Mark. Anyway, Artesia was a welcome acquisition and marks a new story for us to obssess over. Hurrah.

In other news, the game we demoed that I'll soon be telling you all about received a solid going-over and some basic usability issues were uncovered that determined craftsmen are even now working hard to eliminate. Determined. Hard. Honest.

And finally, the rules for DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND have finally begun to stabilize. The stunt mechanic is solid now, as is the damage system (thanks, Baduin), and I'm working now with the clever crew over at the True20 forums to normalize the powers and the Fatigue mechanic. Once we're reasonably sure we have something that works, the full rules will become available online, and then ANYONE can play this game. Oh, yeah. DINO-PIRATES for everyone.

Also a quick shout-out to the Boston gang for some fantastic games and good times. Especially K and J, who were kind enough to put me up for a couple of nights. They did, however miss the comical moment where I was walking around downtown Boston and suddenly said, "Hey! This is the same Boston the Bruins play in!" Carl was amused.

So there you have it. GenCon 08. Nothing but good.

Labels: DinoPirates, Games

She's been promised for months, but at last here she is. THE SLAVE QUEEN OF THE RUINED CITY is the first official DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND product available anywhere! On sale now at YourGamesNow.com for the low price of $6.00!

With a fantastic cover from Claudio Pozas (who also provided a number of full-colour character illustrations), this True20 adventure provides plenty of thrills and chills, along with seven sample PCs, two 1"-scale maps of key encounters, new monsters, and handy NPC stat charts, all designed to make the job of turning these 32 pages into an evening's entertainment as painless as possible.

THE SLAVE QUEEN OF THE RUINED CITY promises pulpy goodness from start to finish. This adventure includes all five of the necessary elements for any DPoNI adventure:

• Dinosaurs


• Pirates


• Ninjas


• Monkeys


• Robots

We're awfully excited about this release, and it's only the first in what promises to be a long line of thrill-laden products from Scratch Factory Productions. This release of THE SLAVE QUEEN OF THE RUINED CITY uses the standard True20 rules, but soon we'll be making the official DPoNI rules available and when that happens, you'll see a revision to this adventure to use those.

Just read the opening paragraphs and if they don't grab you, then what are you hanging around here for, you snot-nosed brat?

Hidden amongst the tangled archipelago off the coast of the Empire, the cliff-ringed haunt of the legendary SLAVE QUEEN is one of the most feared and storied of all. Legend says she lives in barbaric splendour amongst her pathetic thralls, always seeking more captives to bend to her will. Night and day, hellish screams echo out from the high cliff-side caverns. Even in the thrashing midst of a storm like the one you're sailing through, you can hear those screams.

Even over the crash of your ship running aground on the knife-like rocks beneath her cliffs. Your ship is taking on water. The captain just fell overboard. Things don't look good.

Huh? If that doesn't sound like the right way to start an adventure, I don't know what to tell you. I mean, either I had you at SLAVE QUEEN or I didn't, is pretty much my thinking.

Labels: DinoPirates, Games

Well, the response has been pretty overwhelming. In the first few days of GenCon event scheduling, I've posted three separate DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND sessions, and all three filled up in moments. This is not only thrilling but completely terrifying for me. I'll be DMing all sorts of people whose big brains I'm in awe of, and whose DMing skills are legendary.

What if I suck?

Geez. Now I actually have to DO something.

But seriously, this is great. Lots of people are keen to get on the DINO-PIRATE wagon. Hope I live up to their expectations.

How many sleeps now till August?

Labels: DinoPirates, Games

I'll be posting Film Fest notes over the next few days as Steph and begin our yearly descent into cinematic overload, but for now I thought you should know this:



Of course, once you know that, well, you immediately realise that's only part of the story. Sure, that's easy enough to understand, but if you saw that on, say, a T-shirt, you might only scratch your head in confusion. Which is where this comes in handy:



What do mean, what do I mean? What? I'm just saying. If you saw that on a T-shirt, well, then you'd know, right? You'd just know. Nobody would have to explain it to you. Nobody would have to draw you a picture. You're clever that way.

Labels: DinoPirates, Games

Little update on the world of DINO-PIRATE goodness:

Our first DINO-PIRATE product, THE SLAVE QUEEN OF THE RUINED CITY, is into its third and hopefully final round of playtesting with games running this week. Release of this puppy may be a while as we haven't yet worked up any useful art for it and who knows how that'll work out?

A good cover is critical in this business -- nothing attracts the eye more than a shiny cover.

The preceding playtest rounds have been instructive -- it's always interesting to see the things that other people pick up on your work. My blindness to my own errors is pretty spectacular -- I'm not at all sure how exactly I came up with some of the numbers on the PCs but they were broken all over the place.

And I discovered that nowhere had I actually DESCRIBED the situation in the adventure -- the whole thing takes place underground but since I'd never mentioned that, some of my playtesters naturally had no idea and so their games ran quite a bit differently than I'd imagined.

Revisions made and newest version sent out. Slowly but surely DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND is becoming a reality...

Labels: DinoPirates, Games

So we had another successful run of THE SLAVE QUEEN OF THE RUINED CITY on Saturday with a trio of almost-complete strangers. I say almost because one of the fellows signed up turned out to be none other than Andrew! Andrew!

Allow me to explain a little further. Far back in the distant past (the era known to historians as "the 80's") Glenn and I decided to join forces and run a campaign at the university D&D club. We were in high school at the time, which made us a bit of a novelty at the club, as did our joint DMing process. Nevertheless, we gathered a good-sized group (at times gigantic) and ran a variety of folks through a campaign we'd more or less outlined in our heads from the beginning.

We hadn't really figured out WHAT was going to happen, but there was this bad guy, the Necromancer, who'd taken over a cult of druids and gotten them performing rituals and whatnot in order to free him from the millenia of bondage in which he'd been placed, yada yada yada. The usual stuff. We were in the middle of geeking out over Glen Cook's Black Company books, and so much of the campaign traded heavily on those influences. At least my contributions did.

The campaign went on for a goodly number of years. I think we launched it in 1985 or so, and I THINK it wrapped up in 1990. Glenn probably remembers better than I (that sentence is almost always true (for any value of Glenn)).

ANYWAYS, the reason I'm dredging up all this ancient history is so you understand when I tell you (as I am about to) that Andrew played in the final few years of that campaign. And then I moved to Japan. And never saw him again.

So I haven't seen Andrew (or even heard from him) in something on the order of SIXTEEN YEARS.

To say the least, I was surprised.

And delighted.

And as they say, a splendid time was had by all. And I learned yet more about running True20 games. For example, my NPC Record Sheets work GREAT. I've got another coming for minions -- even more fun! I am still frustrated by a lot of aspects of the True20 rules presentation -- it's just a pain in the butt working things out. Once you have them sorted, game play is fast and fun, but the rules are often very poorly explained, or hampered by outright errors in the text, and so for us newbies it's frustrating.

But it was a lot of fun. The adventure needs more scope for role-playing and less combat -- this game was pretty much four hours of wall-to-wall combat. That's not at all a bad thing, and nobody complained, but it needs some tweaking. Next playtest will required SOMEBODY else to run it. I will hunt down some poor sap and their pitiful protests I will heed not at all.

DINO-PIRATES is coming together. The first "official" DINO-PIRATES release will likely be this adventure. An adventure is an easy thing to compartmentalize, provides value even to folks who aren't interested in the setting, and can provide plenty of hooks and hints to gain the interest of said folks. A GOOD adventure, anywa, so I'm working hard to make SLAVE QUEEN as good as any adventure can be.

Stay tuned!

Labels: DinoPirates, Games