Laser Ponies! 10-Days left on Kickstarter!

My friend and Leopard Women of Venus co-creator Leighton "Laser Brigade" Connor is currently kickstarting the 2nd Edition of his "RPG for Everybody" Laser Poines!

Laser Ponies was originally published in 2009 as a supplement for QAGS. This new edition still uses the QAGS mechanics, but is a complete game in one book. QAGS is a quick and simple system that should appeal to fans of Macchiato Monsters, the Black Hack and other rules-collaborative games. 

Laser Ponies was designed for younger players but is fun for gamers of all ages. The game is about friendship, teamwork, and magical ponies. But those magical ponies also get to blast monsters with lasers! Experience has shown that children love to kill monsters with lasers. 

Leighton has put his heart and soul into this game, and you should go support it RIGHT NOW!

As of this writing, the Kickstarter has 10 days left to go, and has already hit it's funding. But here's the thing. If the KS hits $1500, then I get to write an adventure for it! My Laser Ponies adventure deals with the PC ponies going up against a greedy bear who uses a magical artifact to control bees and terrorize his neighbors and hoard all the honey for himself. Don't you want to see what that's about?

The Laser Ponies Kickstarter runs until October 1. 

This guy...

Support my Friends' Zines!

QAGS is the Quick Ass Game System from Hex Games. It has been a part of several charity bundles on Drivethru, so chances are good you already own it.  QAGS was created by Steve Johnson and Leighton Connor. I bought QAGS 2^nd Edition at Origins in 2005. I was immediately taken in by three things:

1. How simple but effective the system it was. 
2. How fun it was to read. 
3. How genuinely useful its GM and player advice was.

I started writing for Hex in 2007 with The Dungeon of Moderate Annoyance for their fantasy-parody setting, Qerth. Since then I have written a whole bunch of stuff for Hex Games, including the Ennie-winning Hobomancer’s Companion. Everything I wrote for Hex was in collaboration with and/or under the editorial pen of Steve Johnson and Leighton Connor. More than anyone they’ve probably had the biggest influence on my writing style, in both subject and form. They’ve also become dear friends.

All this is to say that if you like Sanctum of the Snail or Druagr & Draculas, then you have those guys to thank. Also, you’ll probably very much enjoy the stuff they write.

Steve and Leighton both currently have Kickstarters going for Zinequest 2. I urge you to check them out.

Steve is writing Tales from the Lusty Minotaur, detailing the titular fantasy tavern, its staff, and regulars. It promises rumors, adventure hooks, and random tables. There’s also rules for “Fate’s Hand” a tarot-based card game. Tales is designed to be system-agnostic but uses QAGS where stats are needed. Steve’s bringing on several Hex Games artists for this project, including me.

  

Leighton brings us Akashic Titan. This is a supplement for DCC that revolves around the titular Akashic Titans, giant robots powered by magic who travel across the endless void. It’s dream-like and sublimely weird. Leighton’s doing all the writing and art on this one.

Give them a look, and also look at Them's Monsters why not?

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!

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.

"Hobomancer" First-Session Actual Play Recording, Now Available for Public Consumption. [Hobomancer]

Hey! Hobomancer is up for an Ennie for Best Electronic Book! I helped write it, and it'd be amazing to win. Just thought you should know. I keep forgetting to mention it here.

But maybe you're curious as to what a Hobomancer game sounds like. Well you're in luck! If you go down to RPGnow, you can download a copy of the first-ever Hobomancer game. 

You can hear Leighton Connor, Ian Engle, Steve Johnson, Carter Newton, Jason Whisman, and me create our first characters (in only 11 minutes!), bang out the basics of the setting, and go save a small town from an invasion of extra-dimensional monsters. 

Description:

Every game starts out as an idea. And before that idea is ready to be turned into a book and published, it has to be tested. That’s why the Hex Games staff gathered together in Nashville back in May 2010, during the Great Tennessee Flood, and played the first ever game of Hobomancer (2013 ENnie Award nominee for Best Electronic Product). Fortunately they recorded the game session, and it is now available for download, absolutely free of charge.

When this game session took place there had been some general conversation and brainstorming about Hobomancer, but nothing was set in stone. As you listen, you can hear key concepts of the game being invented during play. You can also hear six people having a lot of fun.

The sound quality ain't great, as it was recorded with a hand-held MP3 recorder in a living room, but I think it's certainly worth a listen.

Download it Here!

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!