Disposable Future!

Now live on Kickstarter!

Disposable Future is a dystopian cyberpunk RPG using mechanics from Into the Odd. In this role-playing adventure game, you and the other PCs start as roommates sharing one crummy apartment in the slums of New-Cleveland. You have $20 in your pocket, rent is due in four days, and you owe thousands of dollars to someone powerful and unforgiving. You’ll take any sketchy job that comes your way, even if it means taking the bus to a hit. 

I've been playing this game on-and-off with friends for a few years now, and it's been a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to finally sharing it with the rest of the world. As of this writing, the campaign has reached it's funding goals. I'd really like to hit both my stretch goals so I can include a starter adventure ("These Machines Kill Fascists") and upgrade the interior art for color. 

So please, give it a look, and maybe share the link with others. As always I appreciate your support!

 So do I only post on this blog to promote Kickstarters anymore? It seems like that may be the case.

Anyway…

Fantastical Classes: Blobs vs. Blades
Now on Kickstarter!

Fantastical Classes: Blobs vs. Blades is a collection of brand new character classes for old-style fantasy roleplaying adventure games. Specially designed for use with Old School Essentials, this book contains six exciting character classes that you didn’t even know you needed! All of them are lovingly written and illustrated by your old friend Joshua LH Burnett.

The book features six new classes, some of which are directly inspired by beloved classic JRPG video games. If we hit our stretch goals, I’ll add even more classes!

• Adept: Adventuresome scholars of all things magical that can use both arcane and divine spells!
• Blob: Small gelatinous monsters that come in a variety of lurid colors!
• Dancer: Charming performers whose dancing lets them tap into the primal forces of magic!
• Fury: Highly-mobile skirmishers who specialize in using two weapons at once!
• Ophidian: Venomous skulkers whose blood carries the influence of the ancient Serpent Men!
• Swordmage: Doughty warrior-wizards who can channel arcane magic through their blades! 

Check it out on Kickstarter!

Spread the word! Wake your neighbors! 

Crepuscular #2: Triumph Over the Grave!

So, did I finally post on the blog after 10 months of absence just to plug my new Kickstarter?

Yes.

Do I feel a little guilty about that?

Also yes.

But hey kids, I have a new Kickstarter!

After putting it on the back burner for way too long in order to work on other fun projects, I am finally bringing Crepuscular #2 to the world!

CHECK IT OUT!

This time the adventure "Triumph Over the Grave" focuses on a 0-level funnel crawl. I don’t rightly know if this is the only 0-level adventure that’s set up as a hex-crawl, but they’re very rare if they are out there. Also, you start of this adventure dead! If you can crawl your way out of the afterlife, you’ll get to start your new life as a 1st level adventurer. Neat right?

I’ve also got a lot more information about the Crepuscular City of Xothma-Ghul in the book. It’s neat how that city started out as your basic Lankhmar expy and has morphed into this weird dystopian almost-cyberpunk city where I basically just slather on my snarky social satire and sneering distrust of institutions. But, y’know, it’s me, so it’s weird and kooky and fun.

Also it’s gonna be in color! How cool is that? This will be my first big project in full color (aside from the QAGS version of Leopard Women) and I’m super excited to see how it looks. Comix Wellspring prints some good looking color comics, so I’m sure it will look fab.

Anyway, give it look-see and spread the word! It’s already hit funding, but I have family dental bills to pay and need the extra dosh!

Spread the word! Wake the neighbors!

And I’ll actually post some more stuff on this here blog soon. I promise. Seriously.

Leopard Women of Venus is Now Available!

Through plague, through panic, through unrest, we finally pulled it off!

Leopard Women of Venus is now available in PDF!

Leopard Women of Venus (LWoV) is an update of the feverish science-fantasy setting Leighton Connor and I originally wrote 10 years ago for QAGS. It's based on the bizarre and unique comics of pre-code Golden Age cartoonist Fletcher Hanks!

This exciting new version is written for Dungeon Crawl Classics and includes tons of new content!

• Three complete new Patrons: Stardust the Super Wizard, Fantomah the Jungle Goddess, and SPANDO (from Anne Hunter)
• The fearsome Leopard Woman class. 
• Dozens of new of monsters.
• A 0-level funnel (Saucer Full of Secrets) and Level-1 adventure (Mine of the Moglugs).
• Updated and expanded background and setting information. 
• Brand new art from Erol Otus, Matt Kish, Bradley K. McDevitt, Evlyn Moreau, Juan Navarro, Diogo Nogueira, and James V. West (also Leighton and I). 
• So many random tables!
• And just, like, a whole bunch more. 

It's awesome. You'll love it. Go check it out!

Print on Demand is coming soon!

Also... listen to me talk about this and a bunch of other things over on the Spellburn Podcast!

Them's Monsters! Now on Sale!

Them's Monsters! is now available as a PDF thru DriveThruRPG!

This zine is full of monsters for your Dungeon Crawl Classics games, and includes the Dungle--a new class that lets you play a hardy little beetle-person. 

There's also a short "Moonblossom & Chance" comic, a new one-page funnel dungeon "Grist for the Mill," and a whole bunch of my trademark weird fantasy play-it-straight absurdism.

You can also purchase the physical zine thru Goodman Games, or just--y'know--reach out to me thru Twitter (@bernietheflumph).

Check it out!

I swear to god I will have new game content posted here soon. Promise!

Last 48 Hours for "Leopard Women of Venus" Kickstarter!

Unrestrained self promotion!

As of this writing, Leopard Women of Venus of Venus has less than 48 hours left in its Kickstarter campaign. It's been a wild ride!

We've hit our first stretch goal, and we'll be able to hire Stefan Poag to do art for the book. That's super exciting!

I'm very much hoping that we'll reach the $4000 dollar mark, so we can bring my friend Anne Hunter (DIY & Dragons) onto the team. Our plan is to have her write a new supernatural patron for book--some kind of powerful super computer connected to the Caverns and the Science Robots. Anne talks at length about her ideas on her last blog post: "I Shall Destroy All Civilized Stretch Goals." A mixture of Futurama and Star Trek? Yes please!

The LWoV Kickstarter runs through November 20.
CHECK IT OUT!

Leopard Women of Venus: now on Kickstarter!

If the blog has been quiet lately, it’s because we’ve been very busy down here in the Flumphwerks. And what we’ve been busy with is Leopard Women of Venus!

THE KICKSTARTER IS LIVE!

I’ve talked about Leopard Women of Venus (LWoV) before, but I’m going to go into a bit more detail here. LWoV is a psychotronic sci-fi setting based on the works of cult-favorite Golden Age cartoonist Fletcher Hanks. I’ve called Fletcher Hanks the “Ed Wood of old comics,” because his imagination outpaced his talents. His artwork is weird, often grotesque, and his stories are simple, lurid, and violent. But there’s a weird, fever-dream imagination behind them that really speaks to some core part of me and Leighton’s (my co-writer) creative muses.

Leighton Introduced me to Fletcher Hanks around 2010, when he showed me a few pages out of I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets, the first volume of Hanks’s collected works. I was intrigued, and over the next year or so we put together a setting book for QAGS called “Leopard Women of Venus” all inspired by this initial panel:

Years went by, and now Leighton and I decided to update and rewrite LWoV for Dungeon Crawl Classics. The weird pulpy insanity of Hank’s sci-fi, superhero, and adventure stories lend them selves well to the amped-to-eleven nature of DCC.

How Do You Make a Game Based on Fletcher Hanks?

That’s a good question. If you’re familiar with Hanks’s work, you know that he’s not big on world building, or character development or even plot. Most Hanks stories are only 6 to 8 pages long. A villain executes some crazy scheme, and out overly-powerful hero swoops in and brutally murders them in the name of justice. This brutal justice is often meted out in creatively disgusting fashions. In the hands of a more focused writer, the punishments would be ironic, but for Hanks they’re just weird. Occasionally there’s a small setback for the hero that he has to overcome to complete that W-shaped plot, but for the most part the stories are simple and direct.

Since there’s not a lot to base a game world on, Leighton and I used Hanks’s work as a springboard for our own imagination. We put all of Hanks’s best known characters (Stardust, Fantomah, Space Smith) as well as his most used tropes (giant insects, fear of spies, bug-eyed monsters, toxic jungles, bodily mutation or mutilation), put them in a big ol’ blender, then mooshed that psychotronic slurry into a cohesive sci-fi setting.

Fantomah and Stardust are omni-powerful, nearly godlike beings, so they work perfectly as Patrons. The jungles of Venus are ruled by giant spiders. Uncanny chemical deposits spawn strange mutations in humans, animals, and plants. Monsters crave human flesh. And the struggling human settlements must always be on the lookout for enemy agents.

On top of that we layered our own creations. The human settlements of Palna, Avrok, Otram, and the Caverns are all terrible places to live, each with cultural baggage amped up to toxic levels. The Humanoid Coalition is the one real force of good on Venus, dedicated to bringing something like balance between the human factions and getting them to work together against the apocalyptic threats to the planet.

If you’ve read anything else that I’ve written, you know what to expect from LWoV. It’s not a comedy setting, per se. But we take a ridiculous premise and deal with it straight. It’s weird, and a maybe a little disturbing in places, but not distressing. It’s quirky, and there are some jokes, but it’s not funny-ha-ha. It skews towards “gonzo” but there’s an internal logic to things (mostly).

The Team!

This is already getting too long, and I didn’t really want to turn it into a commercial. But I want to tell you about the artists and editors we have lined up. Aside from Leighton and I, we have a great group of illustrators lined up: Brad McDevitt, Juan Navarro, Evlyn Moreau, Diogo Nogueira, James V. West, Matt Kish, and the legendary Erol Otus! Additionally, we’ve got two great editors to catch all the typos and comma splices and make sure our sentences make sense: Steve “Dollar Sign” John$on and Fiona Geist.

And so…

You guys, I’m very excited about this book. We’ve added so much more to the original QAGS version while tightening up stuff that just doesn’t work any more. DCC is a great fit for LWoV, and I badly want to get it out to the world!

You can check out the free preview zine to get a taste of LWoV right HERE.

You can check out the Kickstarter right HERE.

I’m sure I’ll talk about the project more here over the next few weeks. But come back next time for more Troika stuff!

Draugr & Draculas now on Drivethru RPG!

It’s been a busy couple of months here down in the Flumphworks. A lot of projects coming through and/or being launched. I’m at least two sessions behind on my campaign updates. At the very least. But like I said, projects are wrapping up and coming out. For instance…

Draugr & Draculas is now available on DriveThru RPG!

Dr&Dr is my 64-page OSR zine that includes…

• Information on Draugr
• The Draugr Karl class
• The Pagan’s Well dungeon
• Satanic Pacts
• Information on vampires
• Count Dracula, his castle, and his minions
• The Vampire Hunter class
• Elizabeth Bathory and her Blood Magic
• New spells and magic items

I have very, very few print copies left for sale, but I have more on order. I have a Gumroad store I’m setting up where you’ll be able to get them soon (or, y’know, contact me directly).

Draugr & Draculas is only $7.00 on DrivethruRPG.

Next up… Leopard Women!

Draugr & Draculas--Now on Kickstarter!

This morning, I launched my first Kickstarter project, as part of this February's Zinequest promotion. Draugr & Draculas is a traditional one-color 5.5" x 8.5" zine for old-style roleplaying adventure games.

From the Kisckstarter page...

Dracula, king of the vampires. Vampires, the most noble of undead. For too long these classic monsters have been tweaked, bent, and reimagined to where they no longer resemble the classic bloodsuckers of old. But no more! Draugrs & Draculas brings the vampire back to its evening-wear-clad glory. Retro Draculas for retro RPGs! The kind that would make Lee and Langella proud.

Also, just for fun, we've got some undead vikings.

WHAT IS THIS?
Draugr & Draculas is a one-off zine for old-stye/OSR roleplaying adventure games. Dr&Dr focuses on vampires, undead, and spooky horror magic for use in your own fantasy RPG campaigns. The zine will be entirely written and illustrated by me, Josh Burnett. In accordance with the Zine Quest guidelines, Draugr & Draculas will be a 5.5” x 8.5” zine, staple-bound and printed in black-and-white. I estimate it should clock in at around 24-32 pages.

What's in the zine?

• Count Dracula himself, as well as his origins and current motivations
• Details on Dracula's lesser servants
• Dracula's deadly rival, Elizabeth Bathroy
• Draugr—northern undead of varying degrees of power
• The Draugr class
• Rules for magic users striking a deal with the Devil
• New magical items of perilous power
• Pagan's Well, a small dungeon full of traps and treasure
• And whatever else I can fit in this thing.

This is my first Kickstarter, so I'm playing it safe with only a few simple pledge levels and no stretch goals. I have another Kickstarter planned later in the year that will be much more ambitious (stay tuned!).

Check out Draugr & Draculas here!

My Current Projects

It’s continued to be a busy and exciting time down here in the flumphwerks. Almost immediately after releasing Crepuscular #1, I had a bunch of new projects come across my desk. I was really hoping to get Crepuscular #2 (Dungeon Chow Classics, aka “We Eat Monsters”) out before Gencon, but sadly I don’t see that happening. I am, however, working on a super-secret ashcan project that I should have ready for Gencon, so I’ll have something fun to share in Indianapolis.

So let me share all the fun stuff that all the little flumphs are working on around here.

If you follow me on G+, Facebook, or Twitter, you’ve probably seen that I’m doing a comic project with Leighton Connor again. Leighton and his daughter Abi co-write a delightful sci-fi fantasy adventure comic called Electric Team with illustrations by the one-and-only Samantha Albert. Sam’s taking a break, so Leighton decided to write a side-story featuring Bart Hill, the Golden Age (and public domain) Daredevil. He asked me if I wanted to do the art, and I could hardly say no. I get to draw Daredevil punching dinosaurs, so it’s been real fun.

Pow! Take that, you velociraptor you!

I’ve done a bunch of work for Mark Taormino (Maximum Mayhem Dungeons/DarkWizard Games) in the past, and he just wrapped up another successful Kickstarter. He’s got me signed up to do some more character sheets for the new project, so that will be in the works soon.

Of course, Gencon is lurking closer and closer. I’m running three games again this year, and I need to prepare for that. I always like to make cool character sheets and other table artefacts for my Gencon, so I need to get that completed as well. My games have all sold out(!) but here’s a look at what I’m running:

Hobomancers in Space!
Escape from Dino Island!
Warlock High School

As I've said before I’m still cobbling together the new funnel for Crepuscular #2 which I hope to playtest soon. The secret Gencon project is also in the works, and I’ve got most of the hard part done for that.

Add caption

I’ve been a busy dude.

While I’m here, reviews have started to come in for Crepuscular#1 and Crypt of Morgrath.

Daniel Bishop was good enough to review them both on DCC Trove of Treasures, and I was super flattered by his kind words. Thank you, RavenCrowKing!

Sanctum of the Snail at DCC Trove of Treasures
Crypt of Morgrath at DCC Trove of Treasures

Over at Beyond Fomalhaut, Gabor Lux also reviewed Sanctum of the Snail and had some very nice things to say about it. You all should check out his 'zine, Echos from Fomalhaut. It's pretty awesome and has some badass dungeons.

Swords & Serpents! (A Mr. Amazing Comic Adventure!)

My good friend Leighton Connor draws a lot of comics. His current comic is The Electric Team. He co-writes this post-apocalypse sci-fi/fantasy all-ages adventure comic with his school-age daughter Abby, and it is drawn by Samantha Albert. If you like Adventure Time or Steven Universe, you'll no doubt enjoy The Electric Team, and you should check it out.

The Electric Team recently wrapped up its third chapter, and Leighton wanted to give Samantha a break while also branching off and exploring some solo stories about the individual characters. Leighton asked if I was interested in illustrating a solo story he wrote about the lightning-powered science hero Mr. Amazing. Well, of course I said yes!

As of this writing, we're in the middle of Swords & Serpents, wherein Mr. Amazing meets the barbarian warrior Druuj the Slayer and confronts evil Snake Men. You should go read it now. Tell your friends! Tell everybody!

This isn't the first time I've worked with Leighton. I produced the Thoroughly Thurl spin-off story for his Laser Brigade space opera comic. I also wrote and drew part of the Hate Frog vs. Drip-Drop Man fight from his wonderfully funny and surreal Fuzzball & Scuzzball comic (my favorite of his comic projects). And, of course, together we co-wrote the beloved RPG sourcebook Leopard Women of Venus.

Steampunkery (A Pocketmod Mini-RPG)

Over on Google Plus, +Matthew Bannock is having an Steampunk RPG deigns contest.

"The main objective is to create a table top role playing game with a distinctively steampunk feel. 
The bonus objectives include using a deck of cards, and having an optional Pocket Mod format."

These are the kinds of challenges I like, and limitations often lead to creativity. I've been brainstorming this idea for a couple of weeks, and I now I'm going to squeak in on the next to last day with my card-based pocketmod steampunk RPG, Steampunkery.

Download the Pocketmod PDF of STEAMPUNKERY Here!

The complete text is directly below. If I get enough interest, I might expand on it later. 

Enjoy! "Rock out with your cogs out!"


STEAMPUNKERY
By Joshua LH Burnett

About the game
You play a sexy-dangerous badass in Faux-Britannia, a world of high-romance, adventure, and crazy steam-powered supertech.

What you need

This booklet, a deck of cards without jokers (for the players), some tokens (for the GM), paper and pencils.

Your Character

Concept

Describe your character in just a couple of words. Your high concept is what you “do” in the world. It's your job, your character class, your archetype.

Examples: Steam Knight, Dandy Scientist, Debutante Adventurer, Dirigible Pirate

Suits

There are four Suits that describe the techniques, skills, and approaches you use to overcome challenges. You will have a Strong Suit, which you are very good with, and a Weak Suit, that you're not very good with at all. Each Suit corresponds to a suit in the card deck. 

Steam (Diamonds)

Use Steam when you solve a problem using science and technology, especially crazy steam-powered retro-romantic technology.

Examples: Shooting a steam rifle, flying an ornithopter, reprogramming a difference engine

Punk (Spades)

Use Punk when you solve a problem using direct, aggressive, physical action. 

Examples: Leaping a chasm, punching a guy, wrestling a bear

Grace (Hearts)

Use Grace when you solve a problem subtlety, charm, guile, and charisma. 

Examples: Seducing a guard, sneaking into a building, impressing the Queen

Wit (Clubs)

Use Wit when you solve a problem using brains, occupational training, and education. 

Examples: Identifying a poison, breaking a code, performing surgery

Choose one of these Suits as your Strong Suit and mark it with a star. You will be extra-competent with your Strong Suit. Chose another as your Weak Suit and put a line through it. You will never be able to take actions related to your Weak Suit. 

Name

Come up with a name and write it down. Make it fancy, heroic, and/or distinctive!

Examples: Lady Felicia Merriweather-Smythe, Doctor Thaddeus Q. Pneumatic, Brigadier Henry Lloyd Abernathy III

That's it!

Seriously, that's it.

Playing the Game

Roleplaying is a conversation between the GM and the players. The GM describes what is going on and asks the players how they respond. The GM describes what happens as a result of the players' actions, and the conversation continues. Dungeon World, Apocalypse World, and Monsterhearts, describe this in detail. Check out those games.

At the start of every adventure, the players will draw a hand of 5 cards from the deck. This hand size might grow or shrink as your character suffers failures and achieve successes. If the players go through all the cards in the deck, reshuffle the discards. The GM never uses cards. 

Occasionally a character (PC or NPC) will do something that another character doesn't want to happen. When that happens we have a  Challenge. 

Challenges

Depending on how difficult the challenge is, the GM will draw 1-8 Challenge Tokens

The GM describes the scene and what is happening and asks the players “What do you do?”

One or more players describe what actions their characters are taking, and what Suit they are using. 

The player plays cards from his hand, trying to get a total of 11.

If they character's Concept would help them with this action, they can discard and redraw as many cards from their hand as they'd like, all at once, before playing their cards. 

Aces count as 1.

Face cards count as 11.

If your action falls under your Strong Suit, you can play cards from any suit (even your Weak one), as long as you play at least one card from your Strong Suit. 

If your action falls under a Suit that is neither Strong or Weak, you can only play cards from that specific suit. 

You cannot undertake actions that fall under your Weak Suit. You'll have to find another way to overcome the Challenge. 

If you make 11 with...

1 card: You succeed with exceptional style. The GM looses 2 Challenge Tokens. If you used your Strong Suit with this action, your hand size increases by 1.

2 cards: You succeed and get closer to your goal. The GM looses 1 challenge token. 

3 or more cards: You succeed at cost. The GM loses a Challenge Token, and you reduce your hand size by 1.

If you cannot make 11 at all: You suffer failure. The GM doesn't lose any Challenge Tokens, and you reduce your hand size by 1. Discard your entire hand.

Draw cards from the deck to refill your hand after each play. 

If the GM looses all their Challenge Tokens, then the PCs have overcome the challenge. 

If a PC's hand size is reduced to 0, they are out of the game―dead, comatose, captured, or too depressed to continue.

"Hobomancer Companion" is here!

I'm very proud of this.

Hobomancer Companion is the first supplement for the Ennie-Winning game Hobomancer from Hex Games. I worked on this for about a year, and I'm very happy with how it turned out. New monsters, new powers, and an all new adventure for your Hobomancer campaigns. The delightful Jeff Johnson and I did the interior art, and Jeff also made the kick-ass cover.

The book is now on sale at RPGnow for $4.99. Go check it out!

Leopard Women of Venus, in Color!

So a while back, my friend Leighton Connor and I wrote and illustrated a book for QAGS called Leopard Women of Venus, a gonzo-sci-fi setting based on the works of Fletcher Hanks. Leighton recruited  Lindsay Hornsby to help out with art, and I think her style really meshed well with ours.

We've wanted to do a print version of the book for a while, and it finally looks like that's coming together. One of the things we wanted to do was print the thing in color, which meant we needed color versions of all the black-and-white (and red) interior artwork. That job is finally done! Hopefully we'll have a dead tree editions of this thing available soon!

Check out some of the color art below!

Leighton Connor:

Lindsay Hornsby:

Roy the Space Robot [PocketMod Comic]

So my buddy Leighton Connor does this groovy sci-fi comic, Laser Brigade. I love it, and you should check it out.

A while ago he asked a bunch of his cartoony friends (like me) to chose of the Laser Brigade characters and do a solo adventure comic about them. LC bade us draw our comics straight-to-ink, no pre-pencils or post-production, in these little 24-page 4"x6" sketchbooks, the same way he does his Laser Brigade comic. I was excited to play in LC's sandbox, so I did a comic about his character Thurl. In the comic, I introduced a couple of new characters, a psychic warrior named Vina, and a jive-talking robot named Roy.

Jump ahead to last night after work. I was waiting for my ride, and I had some time to kill. I had forgotten to bring my book, but I had some pens in my jacket, so I folded up a vacation request form and spent the next 30 minutes making a little pocketmod comic about Roy.

It was a fun little diversion. When I got home, I scanned the comic into my computer, used my layout program to add the pocketmod foldy-cutty lines, and turned it into a PDF. Now I'm going to share it with you! ENJOY!

Spy Racers! [QAGS]

Spy Racers is here! Hex Game's new supplement for Sex, Lies and Ultraspies features rules for super-powered cars for your super-powered spies. I totally want to hack it to do a M.A.S.K. game.  Robert McCabe wrote it. Jeffrey Johnson and James Hornsby did interior art. I did layout and cover art.

Check it out!