Mazes & Perils has an SRD like website up!

Yep you heard me alright, an SRD website for free basic Mazes & Perils rules all in one place so you can look things up and search things to get the basic information you need to play the game!

Plotting out encounters - "Encounter Squares"

Some people have been asking how I plan an encounter, however big the encounter may be for the game, I use the following square (see above) with colors. The colors is what I normally use in OneNote. I have this as a template in one tab and I keep copying and pasting it into various adventures as I write them for my DM notes.

Mazes & Perils Christmas Mega-Bundle only at Open Gaming Store!

 

Check out the great savings for only $10 at Open Gaming Store as its a steal, not only do you get the core rules, but you get all our additional classes, the undead guide, and two adventures! What a steal?!

What helps you focus while writing and planning?

When I like to plan for a campaign or write anything for my games, I like to queue up some music. 

Keep an eye out for the Charlatan… he’s loose

Press Release from Moebius Website:

Sometimes you’ll run into a character on the street, get some juicy tidbit of information, and be on your way, only to realize later that you were had. That might be the Charlatan. He’s a bit of a con artist, spinning rumor, magical talent, and roguish charm into whatever he needs at the time. Maybe his heart truly was in the right place and he led you where you needed to be. Or maybe he had you chasing your tail to help in his fiendish scheme.

 

Images that can help describe the adventure

You see a swirling dark portal when you open the doors

Sometimes pictures can describe things during your adventure more then words can ever describe what you are trying to tell your players during the game.

Delta Green Beta Sign up, is now open!

Sign up is live folks! You can head over to the website and check out the rules to sign up, and throw your  name and email on the list to get the beta test rules.

A Mazes & Perils end of the year sale! $10 or less for stuff!

Moebius Adventures Announcement!

Greetings, gamers! 

It's that time of year again when you scramble to find presents for all your gaming friends. Well, now's the time to grab the whole kit of Mazes & Perils products in time for the holidays! 

Through the end of the year, you can grab every Mazes & Perils product for a huge discount. How big? Well, how about less than $10 for everything we've released so far? That's 60% off the cover price! 

That's right - for the entire month of December we're giving you everything you need to kick off an epic campaign of OSR goodness. The main M&P book, two adventures, two extra classes, and a book full of undead critters to keep things interesting!

Grab it here!

Thanks for being a fan of Moebius Adventures games and we wish you all the best for the holidays!

--Fitz

Slowing things down so you can think...

Sometimes when you are running a game, the players throw you for a loop, or turn left when you totally thought they would turn right. IT HAPPENS. There is no way to determine where the group will go... sure you could have a good idea how they'd react, but you'd never know all the time.

Starting Session, skip the "getting to know you" part, everyone knows one another.

People always ask me, "why do you always skip the getting together part of the game, or drawing us all in as a group and just saying we all know one another?"

SpaceLords of Venus - working away - Fearians Race

Still working away at SpaceLords of Venus, a Space Pulp edition to Mazes & Perils. Here is what my OneNote looks like so far and this is the tab I am working on.

SpaceLords of Venus - Monster Race Alkmanians

Further diving into the whole, space pulp thing for use with Mazes and Perils, I've designed up this evil world dominating creature, Alkmanian.

Evil to the core, all they care about is themselves and will enslave the Venusians, the Fearians and Earthlings to do their bidding.

Toying with the idea of space pulp game

It's always interested me in doing a expansion of Mazes & Perils to include rules for a "space pulp" type game, you know one, where people could be really warp minded and cruel (like me!).

Sneak peek at the next Mazes & Perils Class - The Vile Witch

Here's a sneak peek at what I've been working on and the wonderful editing +Brian Fitzpatrick has been doing with the material I have given him! Big kudos to him for putting it together that looks awesome!

The class overview:

In a world of plenty, there is a ton of refuse. Trash, faith  dregs, and oddments litter the streets, flow downstream, and fill the dark wet nooks and crannies we'd rather choose to forget. For some, however, those spaces are their homes.

I was asked "what's my comics pull list look like?"

Today I was talking to a few people on G+ and we were talking about running a superhero game at the next North Texas RPGCON, DC Heroes instantly came to mind when I thought about it. I mean, I grew up playing  the heck out of the game! I loved it to pieces!

Then we got into speaking about what comics might I be inspired by to use while running the game and I said I wasn't sure, I read so many. 

Mostly DC as you can see.

- Evil out!

Some folks have been asking what's next for Mazes & Perils.. here's a quick look..

I

Folks have been asking me, what's next now that the new book is out and we all have it? Well there is a few things that are in layout phase right now, such as adventures. 

Introducing the Mazes & Perils G+ Community!

https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/107218632499740446004

Now that the game is in many fans hands, some people will want to see "what's next?" and this is the place to go for all the information myself and +Brian Fitzpatrick will release.

The North Texas RPGCon weekend draws to a close..

While I wasn't able to spend upwards of thousands of dollars (yes some folks did during the auctions to get amazing ORIGINAL pieces of art) I did spend a little and grab a few books including winning a silent auction for the Scarred Lands (sealed) gazetteer. Hey its awesome for grabbing ideas for my games!

But I had a great time gaming and podcasting with +Erik Tenkar! Special thanks goes out to DM +Glen Hallstrom for allowing me a spot in his Gangbusters game. I never got to play the game as a kid (I owned it) and finally I was able to play in a quality game. I look forward to a new edition of the game coming out!

Mazes & Perils Deluxe hits #1 on RPGNOW! Thank you everyone!

As you can see by the picture above, in less then 12 hours M&Pde has hit #1 on RPGNOW's hottest titles today! Thanks to all the folks who decided to take a look at the book! Let's keep it going as the sale goes on all weekend long! So if you are still on the fence about it, why not pick it up, its only a $1. After Sunday it goes back to its normal price of $7.99!

Court rules in favor of cloned tabletop game – No protection under US copyright law

I found this article thrilling, as I am an author that has written a clone game, called Mazes & Perils, which will for sale starting tomorrow on RPGNOW.com for only $1 for the opening weekend.

The argument has been thrown around a lot in the gaming community that clones are not legal, and some argue back saying you can't copy right "system mechanics".

Well, the argument is basically settled in my opinion, as now we have a court case ruling in favor of the clone writers, saying there is no protection under US copyright law! Here's a direct quote from the article:

"In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work."

If you are interested in reading the backstory on this case and what happened, I've included the link below for you reading enjoyment!

Reference Link: http://www.strebecklaw.com/court-rules-favor-cloned-tabletop-game-no-protection-us-copyright-law/

D&D 5E Free Mini Adventure Review: Witch's Cottage

"All who travel the forest fear well the cottage of Halia Whitethorn, a sinister witch who spends her days mixing strange and powerful potions in her workshop. Her tinctures are renowned for their arcane properties, but any adventurer seeking her wares is sure to first find a great deal of danger...

Witch's Cottage is a 5e one-shot dungeon by Jesse Gazic, written for 1st-level adventurers. The dungeon includes full stat blocks for all encounters and original maps. Jesse can be reached at jessegazic.com or on Twitter. "

(You can travel here to download it free or donate a small amount if you'd like.)

This adventure (well I want to call it a side quest, because I can see my group blowing through this 7 room adventure in like an hour or less) is awesome and highly recommended to pick up.

The first 3 pages is packed with description of each of the rooms along with how to incorporate this into your game. 

The descriptions are enough if you want add a thing or two here and there to help move along your adventure, you can. The author does make a point to say he purposely kept the motivation of the big bag vague, so that you as the DM can determine what it is, to suit your game.

I like this.

The author even goes into some detail/suggestions of what big bad's motivation could be and how to incorporate that into your game.

The next couple pages are left for monster stats and then finally the OGL.

I highly suggest, using this in your adventure.

I could easily see myself using this to have the characters have visit this creepy cottage in the woods, to recover the finger bone of the recently deceased hell hound or something that is needed for a potion for a dying (insert major NPC here).

- Evil OUT!

The new Ghostbusters movie, a "disaster"

I finally got a chance to view the new Ghostbusters preview the other day and I absolutely hate it. No it has nothing to do with the cast, which happens to be all women. I could care less about that part, in fact the casting is a really good mix. Why don't I like it?

It doesn't feel like the Ghostbusters I've grown up with and watched, over and over and over since the '80s.

If feels like a cheap knock off, kind of like when they had that Ghostbusters animated cartoon with talking ape and weird people.. 

Utter crapfest of a Cartoon

Then the real cartoon came out and they had to use the title, "The REAL" before it so no one would mistake it for that utter piece of trash going around using its name.

Now this was a good cartoon!

Yeah, it's like that.

According Breitbart news:

"..The official Ghostbusters 2016 trailer has 815,000 dislikes and just 239,000 likes.."

 Here's the official trailer for the movie:

 Its packed with bad effects and a bad story with cheap jokes that aren't even funny. Granted that's what the Ghostbusters was about (even if they tried to make people believe the original was supposed to be horror like). 

The lines and scenes don't even come close to harking back to the original humor from the first or even the second one!

I'll see this movie, because I love my Ghostbusters, but I will walk in with no hopes.. At least they could given us some eye candy in this movie.. I mean it is an all girl cast..

I'll be at North Texas RPG Con, Podcasting and Showing off Mazes & Perils

I'll be attending North Texas RPG Con this year in June (3rd to 5th) to play in the usual games and of course do some live podcasts for Roll For Initiative along with some for the Path of Legends Podcast. I will be sitting along side +Erik Tenkar my co-host for Path of Legends for a show and then be joined by +Glen Hallstrom  of Thaco's Hammer for another.

The Crypt Thing 5E Style

Crypt Thing

Armor Class 12
Hit Points 58
Speed 50 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
20 (+5)	14 (+2)	14 (+2)	15 (+2)	13 (+1)	11 (+0)

Skills Perception +3, Survival +3
Senses passive Perception 13
Languages Elvish, Sylvan, Common
Challenge 2 (450 XP)

A pale, solitary skeletal being which always wears a brown, hooded robe, the crypt thing stays in its lair permanently (at least, none have been encountered elsewhere) and will not attack if it is left undisturbed. 

5E Guide to filling out character sheets!

I was looking around on the web for better character sheets and these images came up in the google browser. I am not sure who did these and I take no credit for them, but its a really detailed explanation & break down of how to fill out a character sheet for 5e. 

I know sometimes its not easy filling out these sheets and this break down really helps with each spot on there, especially if you are brand new to the game.

The Evil GM - Introducing the Path of Legends Podcast

I've joined forces with the TSR Podcast Network, (http://TSRPN.com) to bring you the Path of Legends Podcast! 

This podcast is focusing on Dungeons and Dragons 5E, but with small twist to it, we will show you how to make it more deadly and have that old school feel to it.

Each episode, myself, +Erik Tenkar and +Sal Valente will dive into ways on how to make D&D 5e feel like AD&D 1e.

You can look forward to seeing custom creatures, spells and other things as we explore how to play.

You can find us on iTunes or go directly to our website http://pathoflegends.tsrpn.com/

Contact us via email pathoflegendspodcast@gmail.com

Call our voicemail line - 702-744-PATH (7284)

RFI 174 Recorded this weekend, Great show it was!

This weekend, I was able to sit down with two awesome guests, +Erik Tenkar  and +Timothy Brannan  to record yet another episode of the Roll for Initiative podcast. 

This week's show I decided to mix it up a bit with a small format change just for this show. We talked about a few (hot button) topics we constantly see around the community.

I do feel the show had that "newsy" and "the best damn sports show period!" feel to it as we chatted about the topics at hand.

The show is set to drop live this Wednesday, of course if you are a Patreon supporter, you'll have already heard this show, much like every show, early.

Topics we talked about:

Dungeon Mastering?
- Is charging for seats in a local game (none conventions) fair or just greedy?
- charging to teach newbies how to play and be a DM?

Patreon/Kickstarters?
- playing a simple AD during a podcast is enough, but asking and throwing in plugs more then once is that over doing it?
- Are Kickstarters hurting the hobby or helping?

Buying Books?
- Amazon vs Local Store

Forums vs Social media platforms?
- Which is more helpful vs less informative
- Which encourages more interaction and thoughtful comments?

The Face Mask of Horror - More Evil Goodness!

The Face Mask of Horror
By The Evil GM, Pulled from his Notebooks of Doom!

Now that would scare anyone!

This mask is made up from strips of burnt flesh, sewn together by silver strains of wire. The flesh appears to feel and look as if its still alive and squirming around.

When worn, this mask will put the fear of their god into them, as they must make a save vs fear with a heavy minus to stand their ground. The mask's magical properties, allows the view to see their worst nightmares each time they look at it. To stop the visions and fear, they must make a save each combat round, run or knock the mask off the face of the wearer. Knocking off the mask requires that a successful saving throw is made and then a called hit has to be made.

The Longer the character wears the mask, the closer he slowly becomes insane and keeps the mask on all the time.

The first time worn, it will work with no side effects and seem grand! After the 4th use, the Dungeon Master will have to make a secret saving throw vs spells for the character. If the save is a failure, when the player says his character takes off the mask, the Dungeon Master will tell the character, no his character feels as if he wants the mask to stay on, and that he enjoys the effects of the mask way too much.

From this point the player will know something is up, and can freely make their save with a penalty of -2 after 24 hours. If the save fails again, the character can try once more in 48 hours -4.

If the final save is not made, the character becomes insane and the mask is permanently affixed to his face as a part of his head.

The character can not have this mask removed during any phase, short of cutting the flesh on his own face, scarring him and possibly resulting in a system shock roll.

Ring of Sinking Depression, Gives Bonus to stat!?

Ring of Sinking Depression

by the Evil GM, pulled from his notebooks of doom!

Price:3,000 gp

Type: Ring

Weight -

Description:

This ring is simple in appearance, plain silver with small skull in front. It is easily identified by any level Magic User as a ring that will add a bonus to the wearer's prime stat.

When the user puts the ring on, they will feel no change, but when their mood changes (for the worse) the ring's powers will kick in, granting them its magical bonus (see chart below).

Simply, the more depressed and sad the character acts and portrays as a true emotion, the higher the bonus.

The twist of this ring, is the longer the character uses the power of the ring the harder it becomes for the character to come out of their state. This factor would not be identifiable by a Magic User at all.

A character that portrays and stays in the despair state for more then a few days, risks the chance of developing an insanity from the Dungeon Master's Guide... DM's Choice, Of Course.

The Dungeon Master will secretly roll the chances, starting at 50%, adding 10% each day.

Chart:

If the character is perfectly content, no bonus.

If the character is a bit melancholy, +1 bonus.

If the character is crying or sad, +3 bonus.

If the character is lost to despair,  +4 major bonus.

Ring of Healing or is it?? Muhahahah!

The Ring of Healing

by the Evil GM

Price:5,000 gp
Type: Ring
Weight -


Description:

This looks and appears to be a ring of healing granting the user the ability to heal himself 3 to 5 times a day, healing anywhere from 4 points to 24 points in a shot.

This item when identified will appear to be a ring of healing with the properties listed above, unless detected by a high level Magic User (15 and up). The real fun begins when the character puts the ring on, the ring reveals its TRUE self. The ring will work in stages as it slowly turns the character into an undead zombie.

Stage 1 - The character notices is that it will not come off at all and that he now has the ability to inflict wounds on others, instead of heal (as stated above, just inflict now).

Stage 2 - (after second usage of inflict) The character will notice he will gain healing from the infliction of wounds of equal value, if the character needs no healing, nothing will happen. The characters skin will slowly turn a pale color, and cold to the touch of others.

Stage 3 - Same as stage two, except now the character will be able to gain 5 temporary hitpoints that once lost will not return and will never go over the 5 threshold by accumilation. The character will notice (if prompted somehow) they will no longer need to eat or drink and only need 2 hours resting time. Once this happens, the character has one week of game time, otherwise this process can not be reversed, and then moves into stage 4 and if the ring comes off, the character will slowly die in 24 hours.

Stage 4 - Final stage, Character will stop breathing, heart beat will stop completely and will show all the signs of being undead now.

Shadow of the Demon Lord, The Perfect Evil Game..

In my quest to find the "next interesting game" for me, I started with Dungeon World, and I was excited about it. Then I really got into it, and I didn't like it, I didn't like it at all. I was very disappointed as I tried out the system and it fell flat for me and quickly lost my interest in the game, even though it had a huge community behind.

In comes, Shadow of the Demon Lord!

I was kind of iffy on the whole game, because I had not heard a lot about it and only saw it had a successful crowdfunding that went well over the requested money needed.

On RPGNOW, the game is quoted as:

The End Is Just the Beginning 

Sometimes the world needs heroes. But in the desperation of these last days, the world will take all those it can get: heroes, blackguards, madmen, and whoever else is willing to stand against the coming darkness. Will you fight the demons or will you burn it all down and dance among the ashes? Who will you become when the world dies?
Shadow of the Demon Lord® opens a door to an imaginary world held in the grip of a cosmic destroyer. Enter a land steeped in the chaos and madness unleashed by the end times, with whole realms overrun by howling herds of beastmen, warped spirits freed from the Underworld, and unspeakable horrors stirred awaken by the Demon Lord’s imminent arrival.
A complete tabletop roleplaying game in one book, Shadow of the Demon Lord provides everything you need to create and play characters, form groups in pursuit of adventure, and tell exciting stories with your friends. As well, the book gives Game Masters all the tools they need to create adventures, over one hundred foul creatures, a detailed region of the campaign world, and extensive advice to help run the game.
As the Demon Lord’s shadow creeps across the world, it creates the chance for heroes to seize their destinies and villains to accomplish their despicable goals. As you play the game, you and your friends tell stories about thwarting the plots of twisted cultists, hunting down and destroying bizarre demons, exploring lost lands, investigating weird mysteries, and so much more.

The game was designed by Robert Schwalb, who has designed various games in the last few years including Dungeons and Dragons 5E.

So this game, is designed by a good game designer in the field, has a very evil tone to it, has demons and death on top of that and the system is really simple! 

How simple you ask?

Roll a d20, and hit the target number along with adding your boons or subtracting your banes with the roll.

What's boons and banes?

They are 6 sided dice you'd roll along with your d20 that would tell you how many points to add or subtract from your rolls.

The boons and banes will be assigned to you by the Game Master depending on what you are doing, which can make your life easier or more of a challenge.

The interesting thing about the Boons/Banes system is that when you roll them, you pick the highest number of the bunch and use that. 

So for example if the GM says, "you will roll with 2 boons" and you will roll a 20 sider along with 2d6. You take your d20 roll, and then the highest of the two d6 numbers add it to the d20 roll. 

Done.

Well, that's it for now, I will explain Character Creation next time.

The Evil GM - Dungeon World is in my gaming house.

Just a random image of it, I don't own these, just the core!

So over the weekend, after talking a few people at my local gaming shop, I picked up Dungeon World. I haven't had a real change to play it or even read it, but after watching the folks play it, the game look really smooth and cool as hell.

Sadly the group has no room for me, as they are already 6 players and a GM. While I was sad, I was glad to see a Game Master whom knew his limits for a game, rather then say, "Oh just join us, and we can have fun."

He explained as he took down my number that he was very sorry, but he would contact me when someone dropped out and that he cared about the amount of time each player got at the table and how much time he could hold things together to keep it entertaining. 

I can respect that, a lot.

So with a farewell and leaving the gaming store, he gave me a few links to purchase the game pdf and also to start reading up on it.

RPGNOW had the book, so that was easy to remember and it was also easy to remember the SRD site, which I thought was awesome, because I can see how the game works with out having to buy it or waste my time reading fluff. 

Sorry folks, I hate getting into a book, reading all the fluff only to find out, I think the system is not to my liking or its not my cup of tea.

Anyhow, here is the website for the SRD in case you want to try out this D&D like game, that's played using only 2 d6's to roll.

http://www.dungeonworldsrd.com