with Chris Birch of Modiphius Entertainment By Aaron T. Huss The following interview took place at Gen Con Indy 2015. Editor-in-chief Aaron T. Huss is speaking with Chris Birch of Modiphius Entertainment about Acthung! Cthulhu, Mutant Chronicles, Conan, Mutant: Year Zero, and a whole lot more. This interview is also presented through our podcast channel Critical Ramblings of a Gamer. You can either listen to the interview here or download it through iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/roleplayers-chronicle-podcast/id706273978 http://roleplayerschronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/WordInEdgewise-ModiphiusEntertainment2015.mp3 You can support Roleplayers Chronicle by shopping in our CafePress Store, purchasing a copy of our Magazine, or following us on Facebook and Twitter. ...

Survival of the Able Survival of the Able is a survival horror RPG being published by Accessible Games and funded via Kickstarter. By Jacob Woods Learn more about Survival of the Able at http://www.accessiblegames.biz. Back the game on Kickstarter at http://www.bit.ly/SotACampaign. Welcome to the latest Designer’s Diary, a column where designers are given the opportunity to take readers on an in-depth ride through the design and development process of their system, setting, or product. If you’d like to share your product in the Designer’s Diary column, send a message to aaron@roleplayerschronicle.com. Designer’s Description Have you ever played an RPG and felt betrayed by an ally, angered by an enemy’s insult, or outraged by some great injustice? When your favorite character was killed, did you feel a sense of loss? If so, you were feeling empathy for what your fictional character was going through. If you’re like most people though, you’ve never stopped to think about how that empathic link can affect you in real life. You’ve also probably never considered channeling it for good. Enter Survival of the Able, a survival horror game in which you play as a disabled character during the 14th Century Black Plague. In this game, you’ll fight zombies, get lost in the wilderness, struggle to find food and shelter during the direst of times, and receive little help by those who see you as a burden. After all that, you’ll show everyone just what you’re capable of and prove once and for all that you don’t have to be the biggest, the strongest, or the fittest to be a survivor. By the end of your first adventure, you will hopefully have felt that same empathic connection. This time though, you’ll be encouraged to consider what people with disabilities face on a daily basis even in the 21st Century. You’ll get a sense of the struggles people with disabilities face, and hopefully come away with better understanding and a desire to do your part to end ableism. If nothing else, you’ll have played a fun game about surviving the Black Plague and a zombie uprising. Purpose Survival of the Able is a game about empathy. It’s about getting others to feel attached to their disabled characters so they can come away with an understanding of some of the injustices and rampant ableism that still plague our society today. One of the misconceptions people will almost certainly have about this game is that I’m trying to teach people what it’s like to have a disability. Hell, even I wrote that in some early drafts of my manuscript and marketing material. It’s an easy thing to say, but in reality it isn’t possible to teach non-disabled people what it’s like to have a disability. No amount of role-playing or education can substitute for the real, lived experience of having a disability. When I realized that was the wrong way to look at the game’s intent, I had a moment of panic. If I wasn’t teaching people what it’s like to have a disability, what on Earth was I trying to do with this game? Then it struck me that the purpose was never actually to relate that experience, but to get people to empathize with others. That realization opened up a big design space for me. Suddenly I was able to give myself and the GM carte blanche to be as miserable and disrespectful to the players as possible. The way I see it, if I can make the players feel outrage on behalf of their characters, then perhaps those same players can feel outrage on behalf of real disabled people in our world. Influences Although this is a survival horror game, I can’t say I’m influenced much by the genre. I rarely watch horror movies or play horror games. I have only tangential knowledge of what lovers of the genre find fascinating, and I only have that knowledge because I researched it a bit. I know I’m not necessarily breaking new ground on the genre, but it’s completely new territory for me. My hope is that others who aren’t survival horror fans will find the game just as interesting as I do, since it lacks any meaningful connection to its roots. With luck, fans of the genre will also find it fun. My real influences have to do with people. Elsa S. Henry wrote the blog post that kicked off my desire to experiment with this concept. My own challenges with disability and ableism have also been a huge influence on me, as have the shared experiences of others in the disabled community. I think I’m influenced more by my experiences than any outside subject matter or pop culture reference. Research A lot of work went into making this game historically recognizable. I say “recognizable” because accuracy was never the goal. There are zombies after all. The first thing I had to do was research the Black Plague. I learned that it didn’t start in Western Europe, but our ethnocentrism often leads us to believe that it did. According to several sources, the plague actually started somewhere in East Asia and took years to travel to Europe. Still, I chose to set the game around the time the plague was thought to have reached Europe because that period is recognizable. I also delved into the causes and symptoms of the plague. There were several theories at the time about what the plague was and how it started, but most (if not all) of those were incorrect. We now know that the plague was caused by bacteria, but putting yourself into the character’s shoes means you have to ignore that fact and go with what they may have believed. That ignorance is part of what caused the plague to spread so far and wide, so it’s important for characters to remain ignorant and part of the problem. Plague symptoms obviously didn’t include zombieism, but there were a lot of nasty issues that make it perfect for being described in a horror game. Boils, sores, puss, dark splotches on the skin, coughing, fever, and almost-certain death are all pretty gruesome. The plague makes a perfect villain that everyone can hate without feeling bad about it, which leaves room for them to hate the real antagonists of the game—discrimination and bigotry. Finally, Catholicism was the prevailing religion of the region during this time period. I knew I wanted to include some sort of mechanic to give the players a tool they could use in times of need, so I designed a mechanic that allows them to pray to Catholic Saints for help. I’m not Catholic myself, so I tried to do my research to ensure I was treating the subject with respect and not appropriation. I made sure all the Saints listed in the book were canonized prior to 1347 so they at least made sense for the setting, and I chose them based on information found from official Catholic sources. Art Direction Almost from the beginning, I started thinking about what kind of art I wanted in Survival of the Able. I knew I wanted it to be inclusive, That poses some challenges though, as I try to figure out how to portray ordinary, non-heroic disabled protagonists in positions that don’t make them seem powerless. One of the ways we see ableism in our culture today is through the depiction of disabled people who can’t help themselves. We praise stories about fast food workers who take their time to feed a disabled patron, for example. We’re focused on what the able-bodied person is doing to help the person with a disability, and we lose sight of the fact that the disabled person lives the rest of their life without that one person’s supposed heroic deed. I don’t want to portray people with disabilities as being helpless, but when I have specifically called attention to the fact that they are ordinary people I didn’t want them to appear super or heroic either. In the art I have commissioned so far, I’ve tried to keep things either passive or reactionary. There is one image of four characters having a discussion around a campfire (passive), and another where a character is defending herself from a zombie (reactionary). In the latter example, the heroine isn’t going out of her way to battle a zombie. When faced with no other choice, she picks up a torch and defends herself. She isn’t helpless, but being a brave zombie hunter isn’t exactly her idea of a good time. Finally, I wanted to have representation not just in the illustrations, but from the people who make them. I have hired female and disabled artists to give the book a style that was designed by the very people I strive to include. The book just wouldn’t be the same if it were designed entirely by able-bodied white dues. Gaming Experience I describe Survival of the Able as a survival horror RPG. I absolutely want to put players into situations where they are forced to make difficult and uncomfortable decisions. I want them to feel like their backs are against a wall. I want them to feel like there’s a real struggle for survival. That’s only part of the experience. I also don’t want players to feel like they’re incapable of beating the odds, because I don’t want to give players the impression that being disabled makes them weak. On the contrary, I very much intend for the players to come out on top despite their disabilities. In the end, I want them to come away feeling like ordinary disabled people have what it takes to face overwhelming odds, because in the real world that’s what we do every single day. The game’s included adventure is designed with all this in mind. I write advice for the GM to give them tips on how to make things challenging for the players. I encourage the GM to belittle and demean the characters. I point out places where it would be a good idea to kill off an NPC or sew some strife into the party. The intention is to make the players double down in their efforts to win, and the final scene gives them an opportunity to show off just how much a ragtag band of haggard disabled characters can do. Hopefully, the players will come away from the experience feeling accomplished. The goal is to make them feel like they have conquered something challenging. It’s not dissimilar from how other games reward players for being heroic, but in this case the characters don’t come from that background. They’re just ordinary disabled folks who have found the grit and determination they need to outlast a zombie onslaught. Comparison I honestly can’t compare this game to any I have ever seen. It’s built on the bones of the Fudge System, but it’s 100% rewritten with a specific experience in mind. It’s survival horror, but doesn’t really follow most of the genre’s tropes. It’s also about disabled protagonists who don’t have super powers to offset their other traits. The only way I know how to compare it is by telling you what it isn’t. It’s a game where you fight zombies, but it isn’t about zombies. It’s a game where the protagonists are disabled, but they aren’t mystical, magical, or super in any way. It’s a game about survival, but you play as characters who aren’t considered worthwhile, much less capable. It’s not a game about the survival of the fittest. It’s a game about the survival of the able. Development Process I started writing this game at a time in my life where development meant having an idea strike me and then typing furiously to get it out of my head. I didn’t do a lot of brainstorming, outlining, or storyboarding. Rules and design elements came to me, and I put them on the page. Originally, this game was just supposed to be something of a Lady Blackbird heartbreaker. My goal was to create a game with simple mechanics that were focused on telling one specific story. I started, as I often do, with the Fudge System. As I began tweaking it to fit my idea of what the game should be, I added more and more elements to tailor it to my tastes. Eventually, I realized I had created so many custom elements that the game was no longer as small and light as a game like Lady Blackbird. It wasn’t something you could just pick up and play using nothing but the rules printed on a character sheet. With that said though, most of the pertinent player rules do fit on the back of the character sheet. This isn’t a rules heavy game by any means. Once I realized the game wasn’t just about one specific story, I had to go back over what I had written and figure out how I had designed the game’s four main characters. I didn’t have a Character Creation chapter at first because you were supposed to just use the included pre-gens. I decided the game needed to be more   open though, because I wanted people to have the chance to build any disabled character of their choice. I had to add Character Creation rules and then modify the existing characters to be sure they fit. By the time I had done that, I was ready to scrap the notion that it was a Lady Blackbird knock-off. Development was slow due to real life. There were some setbacks and some huge milestones, and they didn’t leave a lot of time for game design. Still, I gradually plugged away at the game because it kept calling to me. I knew it was something I needed to one day finish. Finally I came to a point in my life where I could devote a little more time to the project, and I decided to see it through. Now with the game on Kickstarter (as of October 19th, 2019), it’s ready for the next stage of development. Fund raising, editing, art, and layout are next. After that, we’ll see where life takes us. ...

Stake Your Claim in the Wasteland or Die Trying in Mutant Year Zero: Zone Wars, Coming June 4 A Fast and Furious Game of Tabletop Miniature Skirmishes Set in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe  Stockholm, Sweden (April 23, 2024) — Lead a band of mutant Stalkers into the Zone and fight others to scavenge artifacts from the Ancients. Stake out your claim in the postapocalyptic wasteland or die trying. Free League Publishing today revealed that Mutant Year Zero: Zone Wars — a fast and furious game of tabletop miniature skirmishes set in the acclaimed Mutant: Year Zero universe — will be released on June 4, 2024. Find out more about Mutant Year Zero: Zone Wars here Follow the mutants, animals, and robots of the Zone as they struggle to turn the Rot-infested wasteland into a new dawnland, threatened by a new shadowy enemy who could be the end of them all… Mutant Year Zero: Zone Wars is all about embracing mayhem and emergent narrative to create a fun and fast-flowing experience. Designed by Andy Chambers (Necromunda, Battlefleet Gothic, Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Dropzone Commander) with Tomas Härenstam (Mutant: Year Zero, ALIEN RPG, Twilight: 2000, Blade Runner RPG, Dragonbane) and Nils Karlén (Coriolis: The Third Horizon, Forbidden Lands). Sculpted by veteran sculptors Alejandro Muñoz Martín and Daniel BlueIce, the miniatures are made in 32 mm format and require no assembly. As a standard, they are sundropped at the factory, meaning that they will be table-ready right out of the box. The Robots & Psionics expansion will release alongside the core game and expand the game with two more factions, allowing up to four players to engage in multi-faction mayhem! The Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars pre-order has been launched today in the Free League webshop. Mutant Year Zero: Zone Wars is compatible with the award-winning Mutant: Year Zero tabletop roleplaying game; bring your favorite roleplaying character onto the battlefield or continue the Zone Wars scenarios in the RPG. Mutant Year Zero: Zone Wars Core Set The Mutant Year Zero: Zone Wars core set everything needed for two players: ten detailed 32 mm miniatures (five each for the Ark Mutants and the Genlab Tribe), cards, tokens, dice, a game mat, cardboard terrain, a ruler, and a rulebook including five full scenarios, campaign rules, character ­generation, and solo rules. Ark Mutants: A closely knit group of human mutants, searching for their origin in the mythical Eden somewhere in the Zone. Genlab Tribe: A tribe of intelligent animal mutants, recently having won their freedom from the horrors of Genlab Alpha. Included in the core set: 10 high-quality miniatures 83 playing cards 105 tokens 10 custom dice 36″ × 36″ game mat 3 full sheets of cardboard terrain Measuring ruler Rulebook Mutant Year Zero: Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics This boxed set includes ten detailed 32 mm miniatures (five each for the Mechatron Hive and the Nova Cult), cards, tokens, dice, a game mat, cardboard terrain, a ruler, and a scenario booklet including five full scenarios. Mechatron Hive: A collective of robots having recently awoken to become self-aware, seeking their place in the post-apocalyptic world. Nova Cult: A secretive cult of human mutants with powerful psionic mutations and unknown ambitions. Included in the expansion: 10 high-quality miniatures 79 playing cards 100 tokens 10 custom dice 3 full sheets of cardboard terrain Measuring ruler Scenario booklet The Rules The game rules are easy to grasp and makes for a fast-playing experience. Just like in the Mutant: Year Zero RPG, the core mechanic is based on pools of six-sided dice, and you need at least a six to hit your target. You can push yourself for a re-roll, increasing your chances but risking damage to your weapon in the process. The initiative systems keeps all players constantly on their toes, and powerful mutations and robot modules can turn the balance quickly even for a losing faction. Zone cards are drawn to represent the many dangers of the Zone, which can mean the ruin of even the most hardened Stalker! To keep up to date with Free League Publishing, be sure to follow them on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and visit their official website at freeleaguepublishing.com. About Free League Publishing Free League Publishing is a game studio and publisher dedicated to speculative fiction based in Stockholm, Sweden. We have published a wide range of award-winning tabletop roleplaying games and acclaimed art books set in strange and wondrous worlds. ...

Tales From the Lone-lands Tales From the Lone-lands is an epic fantasy adventure supplement for The One Ring, written by Gareth Hanrahan and published by Free League Publishing. By Aaron T. Huss Learn more about Tales From the Lone-lands here Purchase Tales From the Lone-lands here (paid link) Find other The One Ring posts here Tales From the Lone-Lands is a collection of six independent adventures for The One Ring that can be easily stitched together against an overarching background to create a campaign. When taken as a whole, there is a common theme weaved throughout the adventures along with all of them being placed in the lands of Eriador west of the Misty Mountains. Tales From the Lone-lands truly showcases the style of gameplay prominently designed into The One Ring. It is a style that avoids the epic-gameplay such as a representation of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Instead, the gameplay is more akin to heroic fantasy with the spotlight is placed quite locally, focusing on the interaction of the PCs, their surroundings, and those around them. Every adventure is a small and contained but covers all the aspects of The One Ring – social interaction, the journey across the land, and the finale destination (which is presented in great detail). You also get a great feel for the lands of Eriador and how its history becomes weaved into these games, effectively making it much more than what you see on the surface (think ancient lands with buried secrets). Tales From the Lone-lands not only provides a collection of adventures, it also includes a great amount of utility for those who need guidance on creating their own adventures and campaigns. It is a great representation of the setting but also presents the ideal style of adventures to be had in Middle-earth. Adding to that representation is a collection of artwork that showcases the dire feel of the setting when one ventures outside the comforts of the home and into the lands where trouble dwells. If you’re going to run The One Ring, this is a must-have for adventures to place amidst your own campaign, running it through as-is, or as leverage for your own adventure design! ...

When to Win With a “Loss”, Part 2 By Cape Rust So now we get to the heart of the matter, and what better way to drive this point home than to share yet another gaming story. So there we were; we had done all of the things you do when going through an adventure. Almost died a few times, killed kobolds, orcs, skeletons, and even tangled with some drow. We had reached the “final” battle. Everyone in the gaming group knew we were at the end of the adventure. The beginning of the gaming session felt like closing night of a theater production, or the last day of school. Everyone didn’t want it to end, but were 100% ready to be done. Through a combination of the luck of the dice and some heads-up thinking by players other than I, we had the bad guy blinded and reeling. Our GM tactically played the bad guy within his abilities, but throughout the entire adventure our GM had subtly shown that he wanted to win. There were two opportunities where the characters could have finished off the bad guy in a way that would have been pleasing for everyone involved; well everyone except the GM. I will repeat that the GM didn’t “cheat” when it came to how the bad guy acted or fought, but his desire to win wouldn’t let him lose. Rather than letting the players get the kill and win on two separate occasions, the GM decided it was more important to win and in doing so everyone, even the GM, lost. The bad guy disappeared and at that point the players didn’t care. Sure we searched for the bad guy a bit, but our hearts were not into it, and one of the characters even had a really good search check. In his desire to “win”, the GM didn’t fudge the DC and allow the characters to finish the fight. Three separate opportunities to allow the game to end in a way that not only would the players be happy, but rather than inspiring an article about what not to do, it might have been that gaming story that was happily told over frothing glasses of Mountain Dew. Most of the GMs reading this will say, “I’ve never done that”, and a few might even be right. But if you think about all of the games you’ve run, you might find a few situations where you wanted to win; maybe even a few situations where you really should have lost. Fear not, you are not alone. As GMs we put so much time into the stories we are trying to tell and even the encounters or scenes we set up to to tell those stories. We labor for hours on end to have our players completely skip over areas that contain our best work or thanks to the luck of the roll, defeat a well-crafted bad guy in seconds. Subliminally you can’t help but want to get back at your players or at the very least win. You’re are a GM, but you are also a human. No matter how often things have gone the players’ way, no matter how many epic encounters your players have bypassed, you have to remember that some of the players’ most memorable experiences will come at a cost to you. You have to be willing to lose for the greater good. If you can’t stomach “losing”, rationalize what it means to win as a GM. As a GM you win when your players can’t stop talking about a game you ran for them, even a decade or more later. As a GM you win when you create an adventure that challenges your players. As a GM you win when everyone has fun. When you change the conditions for a “win”, you’ll never really lose ...