So, it might please y'all to know that I've started work (finally) on
the anime/mecha supplement for Unsung, Skyfall Blade.
Here's an excerpt from the start of the book, from the first draft:
Opening
It was only in the last century that we finally got it together.
We had finally put an end to war. Not to conflict, but the fighting
was political and bloodless, and in the background. No one was
starving. Precious few were unhappy. It wasn't utopia, but it was close.
In celebration of fifty years of worldwide peace, we created the first
Sky Cities, cities which floated above the earth using cutting-edge
contragrav. Crystalline examples of perfection, sovereign states in
their own right, floating above the various nations below, granted
free access to the skies as part of a mutual spirit of co-operation
and peace. We got to enjoy their presence for five years, five years
of utter prosperity for those above and below.
And then the aliens came.
We first knew of their presence because of the Skyfall, when the Sky
Cities fell to the ground, crawling with insectoid, alien war machines.
From the crash sites, the invaders fanned out. The conventional part
of the war was over within hours, leaving only the scattered guerilla
activities known as the Insurgency.
The humans had come to our planet.
Introduction: Shojo in a Shonen Shell
Hello and welcome to the first supplement for Unsung. What you will
find here is an anime-style background for Unsung, with some
additional rules, the Eyes, to help enforce the genre, while keeping
everything as angst-filled and dramatic as you've come to expect from
Unsung.
This may seem to be a departure from the basics of Unsung, but it
really isn't. Unsung was originally written to produce a certain form
of drama, even melodrama, surrounding a violent conflict, from cops on
the streets to actual war. And what is more melodramatic than your
average anime saga?
If you don't know what anime is, I'm sort of surprised you picked up
this supplement. I suggest making use of Google, but in short anime is
the term used to refer to Japanese animation, which is a rather broad
term, but does have a certain number of tropes in common between
various movies and shows.
In particular, Skyfall Blade harkens back to the earliest forms of
anime to make it to America in translation, shonen mecha anime. Shonen
means 'young boy' or 'boy', and is used as a generic term for anime
and manga (Japanese comics) aimed at young males. Mecha refers to
anything of a mechanical nature, though in the US it is usually used
to refer to the giant robots many Americans associate with anime.
We're talking shows like Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super
Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada (all
three of which were combined into a single American series known as
Robotech), as well as Space Battleship Yamato, which was released in
the US as Star Blazers. (You'll find more suggested viewing material
in the Appendix.)
However, there is a twist. Instead of playing humans being invaded by
aliens, which is the gold standard for this sort of thing set by Super
Dimension Fortress Macross, you're playing aliens being invaded by
humans. Of course, in true anime fashion, the aliens are very
humanlike, but that's neither here not there.
More importantly, however, as is standard for Unsung, the game is not
about cool battle scenes so much as the way the war affects those
involved in it. It's about relationships, which is usually considered
more the realm of shojo anime. Shojo means 'Girl', and is used as a
generic term for anime and manga aimed at young females. This is what
I mean when I say that Skyfall Blade is "Shojo in a Shonen Shell" –
the outward-facing props are typical to shonen anime, but the heart of
the game is a shojo saga. (Again, for examples of shojo anime, see the
Appendix.)
All in all, the idea is to create a setting that is both very much
filled with the melodrama that I love in certain kinds of anime, and
the moral choices that make Unsung what it is.
Hey, all. Just wanted to let you know that work IS continuing on Ivanhoe
Unbound's various games.
If you're curious about what I'm working on at the moment, check this out:
http://xiombrag.tripod.com/TheFATEofGalaxies.doc
It's a ruleset designed for email play (tho it can easily be done as a
tabletop game), where rather than playing a character, you play an entire
civilization. I like to think it's unusual in more ways than one. Since
it's based on the (free) FATE engine, it's always going to be a free game,
though I might eventually release an at-cost (i.e. no profit to me, you
just pay the POD printing cost) print version at some point.
Also, I am working on the first supplement for Unsung. It's going to be an
anime supplement, based on those old shows, like Robotech, involving mecha
and alien invasion. Most notable, mechanically, is there will be a system
for moving between different archetypes, with different advantages for
each. Your character might start out inspired by the love of your life
(with attendant mechanical advantages), only to have her die (resulting in
another mechanical effect), causing you in turn to burn with hatred for
the enemy who killed her (with yet another mechanical effect).
I'm very excited about this supplement, and those of you on this list will
be the first people to have access to it, for playtest purposes. More on
that later.
--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- http://ivanhoeunbound.com -- xiomBRAG on AIM
cats * hats * RPGs * love * Eris * Agent Patriot * anime * Dada * poetry
"Only ONE MAN can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me!" -Death
> anyone else severly bored? lol. Anyway, im starting up a room on here
http://www.videopokerpays.info/xotap for this group (using
> the same group name for the room name). Everyone is welcome to come play
against me and others
> from here . We can put real or fake cassh on the turns, it's up to whoever is
playing. Anyway, look
> forward to seein a couple of u on there.
What does this have to do with my games? This is your chance to prove
you're not a spammer before I ban you.
--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- http://ivanhoeunbound.com -- xiomBRAG on AIM
cats * hats * RPGs * love * Eris * Agent Patriot * anime * Dada * poetry
"Only ONE MAN can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me!" -Death
anyone else severly bored? lol. Anyway, im starting up a room on here
http://www.videopokerpays.info/xotap for this group (using
the same group name for the room name). Everyone is welcome to come play against
me and others
from here . We can put real or fake cassh on the turns, it's up to whoever is
playing. Anyway, look
forward to seein a couple of u on there.
I finally updated the Actual Play page
(http://ivanhoeunbound.com/actual.html) to include the second "Mechanical
Dinosaur" game of Pretender and to include ALL the sessions of the Unsung:
SWAT game, plus a brief mention of the Unsung: Black Ops game.
As I say on the page, if you've run or played in one of my games and
talked about it online, let me know and I'll link to it on the Actual Play
page.
Also, and only y'all know this, I'm planning on getting rid of the free
Pretender page (http://ivanhoeunbound.com/pretender.html) to better
support the No Press RPG Anthology (http://www.nopress.net/) by
encouraging people to buy that instead. So, this is your last chance to
print out the web page or download the draft PDF. Expect that change
sometime this week at the latest, sometime tommorrow (Wednesday) at the
earliest.
--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- http://ivanhoeunbound.com -- xiomBRAG on AIM
cats * hats * RPGs * love * Eris * Agent Patriot * anime * Dada * poetry
"Only ONE MAN can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me!" -Death
I've been so busy I forgot to tell y'all that the Unsung PDF is now
available from e23:
http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=IVU001
Word.
--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- http://ivanhoeunbound.com -- xiomBRAG on AIM
cats * hats * RPGs * love * Eris * Agent Patriot * anime * Dada * poetry
"Only ONE MAN can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me!" -Death
I should also mention in passing that there are two print versions of the
game available now.
http://www.lulu.com/content/167655http://www.lulu.com/content/167802
The main difference is in the binding. The first link is perfect-bound,
and the second link is coil-bound for people who prefer that sort of
thing.
Oh, and you can get the Deluxe Download on CD if you're into that sort of
thing.
http://www.lulu.com/content/167450
I mainly have that as an option for people on dailup who want the Deluxe
Download. (You CAN download the Deluxe on dailup, if you're patient, but
it can be painful...)
--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- http://ivanhoeunbound.com -- xiomBRAG on AIM
cats * hats * RPGs * love * Eris * Agent Patriot * anime * Dada * poetry
"Only ONE MAN can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me!" -Death
> Rock on! I'm so a fan of HTML rules. I think you may be the first
> person to offer an HTML version with the other media. Great work, Kirt!
Thanks! I remember way back when you asked me what I meant by a "Deluxe
Download" version of the game, and now you know. :)
--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- http://ivanhoeunbound.com -- xiomBRAG on AIM
cats * hats * RPGs * love * Eris * Agent Patriot * anime * Dada * poetry
"Only ONE MAN can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me!" -Death
--- In IvanhoeUnbound@yahoogroups.com, Loki <xiombarg@i...> wrote:
>
> * an HTML version of the rules
Rock on! I'm so a fan of HTML rules. I think you may be the first
person to offer an HTML version with the other media. Great work, Kirt!
Mike
EVEN JUST A SHARD OF HONOR CAN BE A SHIELD.
Ivanhoe Unbound (http://ivanhoeunbound.com) is proud to present Unsung, a
role-playing game of morality under pressure, as a deluxe PDF download.
Unsung is a complete role-playing game. All you need is a twenty-sided
die, three or more friends, and the desire to explore morality under
pressure.
Can you make the right choice?
Includes:
* Easy-to-learn single-roll system, for players only -- GMs never need
to roll
* A system to allow players to create moral dilemmas for each other
* A mission system that abstracts and speeds up planning but gives it a
real effect on the game
* More genre suggestions than you can shake a stick at
In the Deluxe Download, you get:
* a hi-res copy of the rules (PDF)
* a smaller, low-res copy of the rules (PDF)
* a "fast print" copy of the rules with no art (PDF)
* an HTML version of the rules
* a copy of the rules suitable for use on Palm devices and other PDAs
* a character/reference sheet (PDF)
All the PDFs are bookmarked for your online browsing convenience, yet
optimized for printing.
http://ivanhoeunbound.com/unsung.html
So, I finally have the cover art, so I'm waiting to polish the PDF and
soon Unsung will get a public release...
I really need to update the website a bit...
--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- http://ivanhoeunbound.com -- xiomBRAG on AIM
cats * hats * RPGs * love * Eris * Agent Patriot * anime * Dada * poetry
"Only ONE MAN can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me!" -Death
The web page is woefully out-of-date. I recently changed web service
providers, so it may be a little while before things settle down enough
for me to update it a little more.
In the meantime, here's what's going on:
1. Unsung is 99% finished. It differs a lot from the draft currently on
the Web. All I'm waiting on is cover art at this point. It's looking like
it's going to be worth the wait. Once it's available for purchase, I'll
let y'all know.
2. After, like, forever, I finally have copies of the No Press RPG
Anthology (http://www.nopress.net) for sale locally. Locally meaning "for
people in the greater DC Metro area", since I live in the Maryland part of
the Washington, DC area. (However, if you don't live in DC, see below.)
The book contains 8 original, complete, short-form RPGs, including my own
contribution, Pretender, which draws heavily from the same fiction (such
as the Sonja Blue novels) that inspired Rein*Hagen when he did 1st edition
Vampire and the other early WoD RPGs. I don't want to toot my own horn too
much, so I'll let Chris Gaoiran toot it for me: "Of all the games,
Pretender really captured my attention. I enjoyed the character creation,
the mechanics, and it's truth: it really is a game of collaborative
storytelling."
Frankly, my own contribution aside, I think the book's worth it for
Pagoda, a kung-fu RPG where WHY you do something is as important as what
you're doing, as well as WTF, which has one player and multiple GMs and
Over the Bar, the first ever (as far as I know) RPG with drinking as a
core mechanic. You can find out more about the various games at the
website (http://www.nopress.net/games.php).
If you are interested in a copy, let me know. I'm selling them for $18,
which is less than you'll get it via the Internet (compare:
http://tinyurl.com/9emts). If you have questions, email me privately at
xiombarg@... to avoid spamming the list. ;-D
My supplies are very limited (I have like six copies at the moment), but
I'm more than willing to hand-deliver a copy of the game to someone the
next time I see 'em at LARP or elsewhere.
If you don't live in DC, you can still get the book for $20:
http://tinyurl.com/9emts
--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- http://ivanhoeunbound.com -- xiomBRAG on AIM
cats * hats * RPGs * love * Eris * Agent Patriot * anime * Dada * poetry
"Only ONE MAN can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me!" -Death
As I've said before, I have to admit that I haven't been updating people
via email because I do most of my updates about life via Livejournal
nowadays. That said...
Wahoo!
I have my second commercial role-playing game entirely laid out at this
point, in the form of a text-only beta. You can download a copy here:
http://xiombrag.tripod.com/unsung.pdf
If you have trouble reading it on the screen, that's because it's
optimized for printing. This is also the reason for some of the black
space -- it's set up to be printed double-sided.
I'm interested in comments. If you were interested in playtesting, this is
probably your last chance to try the system out and influence its
published form. Regardless, I'm interested in comments from gamers and
non-gamers alike on the text's readability, accessibility, and layout. Any
comment is welcome, tho I'm particularly interested in comments on the
layout, and the usefulness of the index.
As a bonus, a character sheet/reference sheet can be found here:
http://xiombrag.tripod.com/uncharacter.pdf
--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- http://ivanhoeunbound.com -- xiomBRAG on AIM
cats * hats * RPGs * love * Eris * Agent Patriot * anime * Dada * poetry
"Only ONE MAN can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me!" -Death
test, please ignore
--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- http://ivanhoeunbound.com -- xiomBRAG on AIM
cats * hats * RPGs * love * Eris * Agent Patriot * anime * Dada * poetry
"Only ONE MAN can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me!" -Death
Any list members live in the DC Metro area? If so, perhaps you can
participate in an Unsung playtest. :)
--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- http://ivanhoeunbound.com -- xiomBRAG on AIM
cats * hats * RPGs * love * Eris * Agent Patriot * anime * Dada * poetry
"Only ONE MAN can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me!" -Death
I have to admit that I haven't been updating people via email because I do
most of my updates about life via Livejournal nowadays. So, before I talk
about my life, let me digress a bit. Skip down a bit if you just want the
update, but for the rest of you:
http://xiombarg.livejournal.com
Those of you interested in keeping up with me have no excuse not to get a
Livejournal account -- they're free now and don't require an invite. The
advantage of a LJ account is you don't have to keep a journal unless you
want to and you can just use the account to read -- and I can give you
access to the more "private" entries, which don't show to the public at
large. Plus, a LJ account doubles as an RSS aggregator. And for those of
you who already use RSS, you can at least get the public entries here:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/xiombarg/data/rss
Yes, I am a total geek.
Okay, that said, here's the latest summary:
1. On the writing front, I've been writing a lot of little fictionlets,
and bits of serial fiction. In particular, I've been writing small pulp
parody pieces featuring the character "Agent Patriot". You can get an
index to the Agent Patriot fiction here:
http://tinyurl.com/6ls8y
(note only the entries marked "xiombarg" were written by me -- the
ordering on that page is a bit odd, you might want to "sort by journal" --
"Blitzkrieg: New Amsterdam" is the story you want to start with)
All the fictionlets of myself and some others (over 100 very short pieces,
all told) can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/62h3w
2. On the gaming front, one of my RPGs, Pretender, has been published as
part of the No Press RPG Anthology. I'm very excited about this -- the
reviews of the book have been good.
http://www.nopress.net/ -- the web site for the book
http://ivanhoeunbound.com/pretender.html -- an early draft of the game
http://tinyurl.com/5sdyd -- order form for the book
http://www.silven.com/otherrpgs.asp?case=show&id=416 -- a review
http://tinyurl.com/3qucl -- a review from Greg Costikyan, creator of Toon
My only quibble with the reviews so far (including some informal reviews
in the RPG.NET fora) is that they dont' seem to hilight what I think is
interesting about Pretender, which is the changing narration -- it's a
non-standard RPG in that narration rights are traded around the table,
rather than exclusively belonging to the GM. (Greg is the only one who
seems to notice this.)
Even if you're not normally into RPGs, I think you might find the games in
this book interesting. Plus, nearly everyone who's bought it has liked at
least two of the eight games, which is a better value for your money than
a lot of "mainstream" RPGs.
3. In the "general life" category, money is very tight. All of my credit
cards are maxed out, and we're barely keeping our head above water. That
said, my wife just got a job that will triple her current salary, so that
should help a lot.
All of this stuff I've posted to LJ -- I use it as a clearinghouse for
info on gaming, writing, and general life stuff.
--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- yet another homepage at http://www.io.com/~xiombarg
My opinions are my own. PGP public key available. Surreal poetry on request.
"I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night." --Milton
Well, I just got back a copy of the layout for the No Press RPG
Anthology, which will contain the official print copy of Pretender.
I'm told Luke (the editor, the author of Burning Wheel), is shooting
for an Origins release, or Gen Con if things get hairy in the final
stages.
This is a going to be a beautiful little book, people. The art and
layout are wonderful, without getting in the way of things, like some
of the worst White Wolf layouts sometimes do. 132 pages, digest-
sized -- you'll be able to carry eight complete RPGs in your pocket.
The games are cool too. Aside from Pretender, there's Snowball, a
game where you play scenes in reverse order, like the
movie "Memento", Discernment, which I can't describe, and WTF?, a
frenetic, gonzo game based on one player and multiple GMs, based on
the anime "FLCL". And if that's not enough, there's also The Agency,
which is sort of "Austin Powers" or "The Avengers" meets "Men in
Black", Pagoda, a wuxia (fantasy kung-fu) RPG where why you are doing
something is as important as how you're doing it or even what you're
doing, and Cell Gamma, which is very similar to a scenario I used to
run systemless for people as a one-shot, where the PCs wake up with
amnesia in a prison. The whole thing rounds out with Over the Bar, a
hilarious little RPG where task resolution is based on the player
drinking alcohol. Yes, it's an RPG drinking game, with drinking being
an integral part of the mechanics...
Hey, kids, we're in #indierpgs as we speak... Anyone interested can drop
on by.
--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- yet another homepage at http://www.io.com/~xiombarg
My opinions are my own. PGP public key available. Surreal poetry on request.
"I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night." --Milton
> Also: 9PM EST, right?
Originally it was 8pm, but I changed it to 9pm to make it easier on you.
:)
If we do go with something similar to last time, the complete logs are in
these two places:
http://ivanhoeunbound.com/pretender1_ooc.txthttp://ivanhoeunbound.com/pretender1_nar.txt
Short version: "I saw the last vampire die." Supernatural creatures on the
run from a shadowy government agency.
--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- yet another homepage at http://www.io.com/~xiombarg
My opinions are my own. PGP public key available. Surreal poetry on request.
"I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night." --Milton
Okay, the game will be online at 9pm Eastern tongight. Note the slight
time change.
Use an IRC client to connect to linuxguy.magicstar.net and connect to the
#indierpgs channel. Once we've all met up we'll then move to another
channel to play, depending on what else is going on with the indie
netgamers that night.
Quorum is two people -- we will play if we have at least two people, tho
I'd prefer at least three.
--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- yet another homepage at http://www.io.com/~xiombarg
My opinions are my own. PGP public key available. Surreal poetry on request.
"I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night." --Milton
Hey all...
I'm thinking that, (time permitting) I will probably play in this game, so I
guess, in that
case, it won't be a "pure reunion" game. Since Dana wants so much to have a
similar
game to the last one, can someone post the basics of the old game so I can get
some
idea of what I'm getting into?
Also: 9PM EST, right?
yrs--
--Ben
> well lessie, who was in our original group? it was just lx, moth and i, ne? or
am i forgetting someone?
I dunno. If you want to do a "reunion" game rather than a purely new game,
you need to get ahold of everybody. :)
--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- yet another homepage at http://www.io.com/~xiombarg
My opinions are my own. PGP public key available. Surreal poetry on request.
"I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night." --Milton
-- Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- yet another homepage at http://www.io.com/~xiombarg My opinions are my own. PGP public key available. Surreal poetry on request. "I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night." --Milton
So, yeah, the Pretender one-shot: We can start brainstorming about the
game at any point, talking about elements of the world we'd like to see...
(If you haven't heard about the one-shot, check out my LJ at
http://xiombarg.livejournal.com ...)
--
Kirt "Loki" Dankmyer -- yet another homepage at http://www.io.com/~xiombarg
My opinions are my own. PGP public key available. Surreal poetry on request.
"I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night." --Milton
On Fri, 5 Dec 2003, xiombrag wrote:
> Pretender is going to see print as part of the No Press RPG
> Anthology! More details as they come in, but here's some links to
> whet your appetite:
>
> http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8350
> http://www.livejournal.com/users/xiombarg/396281.html (see point 3)
>
> If the sales for the anthology are good, I might create a deluxe
> print version of Pretender, with several example settings.
Very cool. I'd love to see a well laid out and illustrated for print
version of the game. :)
Cormac
..-. -. --- .-. -.. ..-. -. --- .-. -.. ..-. -. --- .-. -.. ..-. -. --- .-. -..
Retch The Grate aka Cormac Russell Amiga, The Computer for The Creative Mind
Tolerance, Peace and Love rcormac@...retch@... // /\
Vote Discordian Play Traces Of Reality \X/ /()\
URL: http://cs.oberlin.edu/students/rcormac/frontdoor.html B5 <*> B5