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Tales of the Old Margreve Art Preview

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Hey guess what? You can preorder The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now! The prices are about to go up, so preorder now to get the best deal.

Do you like forest adventures? Do you like original monsters? Then you’re going to love Tales of the Old Margreve from Kobold Press! Once a resource for Pathfinder, the fifth edition update for this awesome two-book set of adventures, monsters, and player options is on Kickstarter now. It’s not just updates. I designed a bunch of new monsters for the setting as well (it’s why my name is on the cover of the book along with lead designer Matt Corley and the INCREDIBLE Jon Sawatsky).

So just what is the Old Margreve? Here’s an answer from the Kickstarter page:

Forests in fantasy roleplaying games are dark places, full of secrets. With this project, we bring the Old Margreve to the 5th Edition of the world’s most popular RPG. The Margreve is an ancient, enchanted forest that defends itself from those who come to cut its timber, poach its creatures, or steal its magic. Within its borders the Old Ways are strong, the word of the druids carries great weight, and griffons, dragons, and stranger creatures nest and hunt, undisturbed by humans, dwarves, or other lordlings.

Until your adventuring party shows up. Then things get really interesting.

If that isn’t enough to entice you, behold a piece of monster art from the new book! Thanks to Wolfgang Baur and Marc Radle, Kobold Press art director, for allowing me to share this. This is the singing tree (from artist Florian Stitz), which sounds lovely and delightful… until you see the heads hanging from it! I actually didn’t create this awesome horror, but I sure do love it!I have had a blast creating creatures for this book, which is filled with lore, random tables, and more awesomeness. The Kickstarter has a TON to offer and is already funded, so I suggest checking it out!

If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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Owen K.C. Stephens Rogue Genius Games AetherCon Interview

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Hey guess what? You can preorder The Demonplague, my level 1 – 20 fifth edition adventure, right now! The prices are about to go up, so preorder now to get the best deal.

I recently interviewed Owen K.C. Stephens of Rogue Genius Games for AetherCon VII. Check out more cool interviews in the AetherCon VI Convention Magazine when it is released here: www.aethercon.com

JI: Rogue Genius Games supports many different RPG systems: D&D, Savage Worlds, and ICONs. What do you love about supporting and creating new material for multiple systems?

OS: I’m a huge fan of games in general, and RPGs in particular. I love exploring how different games tackle the same questions of design. Do characters gain in power and if so how? Does money equal power, and if not why not? Are characters balanced against each other, and if so is it in terms of effectiveness or in amount of spotlight time? Not every game system is going to be the right fit for every genre or game, or even every gamer. By supporting more than one system I can explore their different design philosophies, appeal to different audiences, and work with different great creators!

JI: Rogue Genius Games supplies a lot of quality stock art for super affordable prices for independent creators. Why did you get into the stock art game and how would you describe the style of your available art?

OS: Early in my publishing career I worked with smaller game companies that aren’t around anymore, IDA and Super Genius Games in particular, and saw how they used stock art to great effect. Lowering the barrier to entry helps new creatives get experience, and makes for a broader market for the end user. So when some artists expressed interest in having RGG publish their stock art, it seemed like a great way to help support other people and groups who were trying to break into the industry and make money at the same time.

Anytime I can both genuinely help people and make money, I see that as a win-win situation.

JI: You employ a lot of amazing creators like Christina Styles, Dan Dillon, Rich Howard, and Stephen Rowe to name a few. How do you find new people to work with?

OS: I’d add artist Jacob Blackmon, publisher Alex Augunas, and graphic designer Lj Stephens to that list. Honestly most of them find me. I have been very fortunate to have so many talented people interested in working with me. In fact, generally the limitation is not finding awesome people, it’s finding time to work with them all!

I’ve been active in the industry for more than twenty years, and I try to be very visible on social media. I go to conventions, and pass out a ton of business cards. Thankfully, those efforts have made me easy to find and remember as someone who wants to work with folks.

JI: You work with Stan! who is a big name in D&D. You’re a big name in Pathfinder. How did you get started working together?

OS: It actually began in 1997, at the TSR Writer’s Workshop in Seattle (at the much-lamented Wizards of the Coast Game Center). I was a participant, and Stan! was one of the presenters. After one of the sessions I saw Stan! and Ted Stark having lunch at the attached restaurant, Dalmuti’s, and asked if I could join them. We talked about their experiences in publishing, and gaming in general.

I sent them both thank you cards after the workshop ended.

A couple of years later, I got hired at Wizards of the Coast as a game designer, and Stan! and Ted both still worked there. Stan! and I got along well, and my wife and I had him over to watch the DVD of Big Trouble in Little China.

After Stan! and I had both moved on from Wizards of the Coast, he contacted me about writing a Call of Cthulhu adventure for Super Genius Games, and I accepted. After that I began writing Pathfinder-compatible material for SGG, and our working relationship solidified. He’s one of the partners in Rogue Genius Games now, for which I am the publisher.

JI: What are some of your favorite RGG products currently available?

OS: I’m very proud of our Starfinder-compatible products, especially the Starfarer’s Companion, and Starfarer’s Codex: Multiclass Theme Types. Those both look to expand the Starfinder RPG in ways I find fun and interesting. I also love Jacob Blackmon’s Super Powered Legends Sourcebook, for Mutants and Masterminds, which he wrote and illustrated. It’s a whole superhero world you can use as is, or draw from to populate your own campaigns. Of course, RGG also publishes material by Everman Gaming, who have the tremendously popular Skill Challenge Handbook, which gives expanded skill encounter rules for the Pathfinder RPG.

Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Writing With Style, by Ray Vallesse. It’s a collection of advice for RPG writers from an RPG editor with decades of experience, and it’s system-agnostic. It’s one of the best things I think we’ve ever published, and I learned a lot from it.

JI: What are you working on now that we should look forward to?

OS: My biggest currently advancing project that has things people can look at already is Really Wild West, which is a weird Wild West setting hack for Starfinder. I’ve been developing it on my blog, and people can give feedback there or through my Patreon page.

JI: How do you think the industry is changing?

OS: I think the biggest change currently is the rise of streaming in regards to tabletop gaming. Numerous groups have real-play shows, where they do production levels from totally hobby level to professional shows, with things such as Critical Role and Titansgrave perhaps being the best known. There are tons of other shows, including those that play through Starfinder and Pathfinder games, those that discuss nerdom in general, and broadcasts directly from game companies, such as Paizo’s Twitch stream which has interviews and play sessions both. I even do my own tiny stream, The Aftergame, Tuesday nights from my Facebook page.

Even a decade ago, the idea that there would be multiple, popular shows about watching people play RPGs was laughable, but that’s the direction the market has gone. Streaming is a way to showcase games, connect with audiences, and use an art form to entertain in a way that RPGs did not previously. I think the rise of streaming is going to drive decisions and success for the foreseeable future, until the next big, unexpected change comes along.

If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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A Millennial’s Appendix N

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Yes, you read that correctly. Being born in 1985 makes a millennial, my friends. As a proud member of this generation of smartphone-staring, selfie-taking, PSL-swigging movers and shakers, I thought it was time for me to disrupt a classic part of Dungeons & Dragons: Appendix N of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide.

For those not familiar with Appendix N, it was a less-than-half-page section of the book that listed inspirational and educational reading material for dungeon masters from Gary Gygax, one of the game’s creators. This material included books by H.P. Lovecraft, Jack Vance, R.E. Howard, A. Merritt, and many others. Famous works of horror, science fiction, and fantasy. If you’re interested in the original, the full text of Appendix N is reproduced on the Digital Eel blog and The Tome Show has an amazing podcast called Appendix N that’s basically a book club that goes through the list.

Of course, Appendix N is getting a little long in the tooth. There’s plenty of new material out there to get GMs of all games inspired. I’ve decided to create my own list of inspirations and share it with you. This list not only includes books, but also features television shows, books, and movies that have inspired me over my more than 20 years gaming. Check these out and as Gygax says, “Good reading [and watching and listening]!”

Introcaso Appendix N

  • A Song of Ice and Fire books by George R. R. Martin
  • The Gate to Women’s Country by Sheri S. Tepper
  • Child of Fortune by Norman Spinrad
  • The Hunger Games books by Suzanne Collins
  • It by Stephen King
  • The Stand by Stephen King
  • The Handmaid’s Tale (TV show and books by Margaret Atwood)
  • The Expanse (TV show and books by James S. A. Corey)
  • Harry Potter (films and books by J. K. Rowling)
  • Jaws film and book by Peter Benchley
  • Stranger Things (TV show)
  • Agent Carter (TV show)
  • Agents of SHIELD (TV show)
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV show)
  • Supernatural (TV show)
  • Sherlock (TV show)
  • Attack on Titan (both TV show and manga)
  • Batman comics (particularly the recent Scott Synder run)
  • Sex Criminals comics by Matt Fraction
  • Saga comics by Brian K. Vaughn
  • Dark Crystal (film)
  • NeverEnding Story films
  • Alien and Aliens films
  • Get Out (film)
  • Evil Dead (film and TV franchise… and the musical!)
  • Marvel films (particularly the Guardians of the Galaxy films and the Avengers films)
  • Star Wars films
  • Metal Gear video games
  • Elder Scrolls video games
  • Fallout video games
  • Assassin’s Creed video games
  • Fable video games
  • Castlevania video games
  • Lore podcast
  • Limetown podcast
  • Archive 81 podcast
  • Urinetown the musical by Greg Kotis and Mark Hollman
  • Sweeney Todd the musical by Stephen Sondheim
  • Into the Woods the musical by Stephen Sondheim

What About You?

I want to know what inspires your games. There’s lots that should be on my list that I haven’t consumed. Share your inspirations in the comments below and on social media with #MyAppendixN.

If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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Simple Sandboxes

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Art by Jack Kaiser for Sly Flourish’s Fantastic Adventures

Sandbox adventures are pretty awesome! The border of the sandbox keeps your players (somewhat) contained to where the action is and they have free reign to roam anywhere within those walls to find adventure! Running a sandbox is a win-win, giving you enough freedom to improv with enough parameters to keep the adventure contained. Setting up a sandbox, on the other hand, is a pain. You need to fill up the box up with adventures and tie those adventures together, which is far easier said than done. Then you need to keep all the details of the sandbox straight!

Well guess what? I’m here to tell you that you can build a rich, amazing sandbox on the fly and use a bunch of books that are sitting on your shelf that you’ve only read.

Draw from What You Have

When you sit down to assemble your sandbox, draw from resources you already have. Do you own every hardcover fifth edition D&D adventure, but haven’t run them all? Do you have adventures and settings you’ve never used, from older editions of the game you’re running, or from a system you’ve never run that you love? Do you have hoards of Kickstarter goodies waiting to be unleashed on your players? NOW IS THE TIME TO BUST THOSE OUT, FRIEND-O!

If you’re building a sandbox on the fly, you don’t need to use every single book on your shelf, but you can pick a few to start and get to work. Maybe your sandbox has the town of Red Larch from Princes of the Apocalypse with a misty forest that holds Castle Ravenloft and the village of Barovia from Curse of Strahd to the east and the pirate city of Freeport sitting on the ocean to the west. South of Red Larch is a desert from the Southlands Campaign Setting and to the north is the Desolation from Shadow of the Demon Lord. Bam! Sandbox campaign set in two sentences.

The key is to drop in adventures, cities, dungeons, and other elements from books you love, but haven’t run with your players that excite you and would also excite your players. You’ve already done the work reading these books, so you’re halfway there!

Resources

You could be in a position where you’ve run every book you have on your shelf and you’re not sure what to put into your sandbox. Have no fear! Rather than read a lot of campaign settings, I’ve got some easy reading suggestions for you below to help you make an amazing sandbox. Most of these supplements are designed to be read for the first time or just moments before you run the adventure, so you don’t even need to do that much prep!

  • Sly Flourish’s Fantastic Locations. This book from the brilliant Mike Shea gives you many amazing locations that you can drop into any system. The locations are modular, so you can make them as large or as small as you like.
  • Sly Flourish’s Fantastic Adventures. This incredible book of ten short fifth edition adventures in and around the town of Whitesparrow is super easy to run on the fly. As a bonus, it can also tie-in with Fantastic Locations if you want to flesh the adventures out! Combining Fantastic Adventures and Fantastic Locations actually creates a lush, ready-to-go sandbox! Thanks, Mike!
  • Prepared! and Prepared 2. From Kobold Press and incredible designer John Sawatsky comes two books of ready to play short adventures for fifth edition meant to be run without any preparation. This is a great book to keep handy for any sandbox adventure, especially if you have a bunch of settlements for you sandbox, but not a lot of adventure.
  • Book of Lairs. Also from Kobold Press, many a monster lair for fifth edition mean to go hand-in-hand with the Tome of Beasts (one of the greatest monster books ever published). The Book of Lairs is perfect for populating your sandbox with amazing dungeons that need minimal preparation and can be run in a single session.
  • Tome of Adventures. Some of the best and best-selling DMs Guild authors got together to bring you this collection of 19 great fifth edition adventures! Easy to drop these bad boys into ANY setting.
  • Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. Random encounter tables for sandboxes of any environment lie at the back of Xanathar’s Guide to Everything!

Reskin, Restat, and Tie Together as You Go

As your players explore your sandbox, remember that you can change anything you like in these adventures! Converting systems is pretty easy (a goblin in Pathfinder is close enough to the same strength mechanically as a goblin in fifth edition), so no need to worry about doing lots of conversion preparation. You can reskin and change names to make a location seem unique and original. Don’t want your players to recognize the Mournland from Eberron? Well instead of a place covered in mist and eternal twilight, now its a scorching desert called the Dead Salt Flats. Gender bend NPCs, change names, remove, and add details to your heart’s content to make the sandbox your own!

Remember that you can change your own plans on the fly too. Have your players reached a high enough level that creepy dungeon in the mountains would no longer challenge them if you left it as the dungeon from the Forge of Fury? Guess what? Now it’s the Tomb of Horrors.

If you want to tie together all your plot lines, you may find that’s easier than you think too. Sit back, listen to the theories your players come up with, and use their own paranoid chatter as truth. Pick your favorite big bad, and have that being behind all of the sandbox’s evil-doings, slowly revealing the villain one clue at a time. Just don’t rush to tie it all together! If you wait and see what most about the sandbox most interests your players, you’ll find ways to easily tie together the stories of Out of the Abyss and Storm King’s Thunder. Let it be a mystery you uncover with you players. Note that you don’t HAVE to tie together every adventure if you don’t want to. In sex and RPGs as long as everyone’s having fun you’re doing it right.

How to Track it All

When it comes to sandboxes, a little bit of paperwork goes a long way. Open up your handy Google Doc (or whatever you take notes in) and write down the name of every published adventure or campaign setting you’re using. Under each, put a list of bullet points to remind yourself of the changes you’ve made. These can be very simple. For instance, if you were replacing all of the goblins in Lost Mines of Phandelver with kobolds, you might write the “goblins = kobolds” bullet point. If you’re not going to tie the adventures together, you’re done!

If you are planning on tying the adventures in your sandbox together, create one more heading in your notes called “Overall” and simply list bullet points there about how you’re tying each adventure together. Easy!

Feedback!

Have you ever done this? Do you plan to do so? If so, let me know what resources and adventures you’ve used in the comments below!

If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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Dungeons & Dormitories

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Publisher’s Choice Quality Stock Art © Rick Hershey / Fat Goblin Games

When I create a published adventure that includes a dungeon, I try to create a closed world where creatures interact with each other. Unless a your dungeon is full of creatures without sapience (a definite possibility), odds are the inhabitants have social desires that they fulfill with the other inhabitants of the dungeon. There’s nothing wrong with kicking in the door and shoving a sword into every chaotic evil monster one sees, but if you can create connections between the dungeon inhabitants, player characters who don’t instantly murder find themselves in a microworld full of rich interpersonal histories. Not only do these relationships immerse your players into the world, but they also give them a new angle for achieving their goals in the dungeon. The different relationships among the hobgoblins of Karzarack Keep allow player characters to cut deals, make alliances, blackmail enemies, and cause chaos without needing to ever unsheath a sword.

While I can’t include interpersonal relationships for every creature mentioned in one of my published adventures due to word count, I can give you some advice and a table to make creating relationships between dungeon inhabitants a snap!

Dungeons are Dorms

Too often we think of dungeons as places where only a few NPCs are significant. The goblin boss and maybe a mage advisor are the only two creatures we bother to give names, personalities, and desires while the rest of the critters in that dank cave are simply resource-wasting chunks of HP who are servants of their master. The truth of life is so much more complex. If you give the inhabitants meaning in each other’s eyes, they’ll gain meaning in the eyes of your players as well.

Dungeons are confined spaces where inhabitants live together, sometimes for years, decades, or even centuries! Think of any confined space where one spends many waking (and often sleeping) hours with others: college dorms, deployment in the armed services, summer camps, conventions, office environments, backstage at a theater, practicing a team sport, and so many other places. If you’ve ever had such an experience, you know there’s always some kind of drama going on! Dungeons should share that kind of drama. Who says orcs can’t have a torrid love triangle? Sure, they might handle it differently than humans in the real world, but orc love happens all the same.

These are the sort of connections we should be thinking about the inhabitants of our dungeons having. Who is romantically involved with whom? Who used to be romantically involved but no longer is? Who is friends with whom? Who drives others crazy due to a bad habit? Who stole from someone else? Who has a longtime grudge they can’t let go of? Any group of creatures living together in a dungeon likely has some of this drama going on.

The Table Makes It Easy

Drawing connections between all of the NPCs in a dungeon seems like a lot of work, but it truly is not. Yes, your player characters MIGHT talk to every inhabitant in the dungeon, but my guess is that most groups chat with a few while fighting or scaring off others. Why put in the work to flesh out every single relationship if only a few matter?

Instead use the Dungeon Relationships table below. When the player characters talk to or observe an NPC, roll or choose a relationship the NPC has with at least one other in the dungeon using the table. Keep a random name generator (like this one from Sly Flourish) handy and you’ll be able to improv the drama of any dungeon.

Keep in mind that you can tailor the relationships to meet the stories of the creatures. For instance, one ogre might steal food from another causing outrage and bloodshed while dragons might steal treasure from each other and look for subtler revenge.

Dungeon Relationships
d20 Relationship
1 This inhabitant is currently in love with two others.
2 This inhabitant has a romantic relationship with one other.
3 This inhabitant used to be romantically involved with another, but the relationship ended.
4 This inhabitant stole from another.
5 This inhabitant is jealous of another’s success.
6 This inhabitant has a habit that annoys the others.
7 This inhabitant is the leader of a clique that opposes another group in dungeon.
8 This inhabitant secretly loves another.
9 This inhabitant secretly works to overthrow another with a higher position.
10 This inhabitant treats those below it worse than usual.
11 This inhabitant hates others and tries to be alone at all times.
12 This inhabitant loves to spread rumors about the other inhabitants.
13 This inhabitant wants friends but has none.
14 This inhabitant worships another like a hero.
15 This inhabitant sees another as a friendly rival.
16 This inhabitant sees another as a hated rival.
17 This inhabitant needs others to be part of group artistic or experimental projects.
18 This inhabitant constantly lectures others about a particular moral or academic topic.
19 This inhabitant performed an incredible deed that most others brag about.
20 This inhabitant did something that brought shame to most of the others.

If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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AetherCon Magazine Interview with Jason Nelson of Legendary Games

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I recently interviewed Jason Nelson of Legendary Games for AetherCon VI. Check out more cool interviews in the AetherCon VI Convention Magazine when it is released Halloween Day here: www.aethercon.com

JAMES: Legendary Games has been leading the third party chase into Sword and Planet roleplaying ever since the Legendary Planet Kickstarter and now they’re making awesome Starfinder products. How do you approach making one of these products as opposed to a straight up medieval fantasy or sci-fi product?
JASON: Sci-fi is a really broad genre, so I think it’s important to think broadly about what constitutes sci-fi. Something like Battletech or Firefly is entirely human-focused; there really are no aliens. Star Wars or Star Trek is very humanoid-centric, with a lot of humanoid alien races. The cosmic universe in Marvel or DC comics has a lot of humanoid aliens, but also a lot of very strange alien creatures as well. And of course you’ve got the cosmic horror angle of Lovecraft or movies like Alien or The Thing, where alien things are purely, wholly, and completely ALIEN (and almost always hostile). All of these can be elements of a great sci-fi story and setting, and in creating something awesome and fun for sci-fi you need to not pigeonhole yourself into thinking about it just one way.
We started the Legendary Planet project as a “sword and planet” pulp kind of adventure saga, what used to be called “planetary romance,” that focuses on alien worlds and planets and cultures rather than on flying through hyperspace in your starship. It blends John Carter with Thundarr the Barbarian in the grungiest parts of the Mos Eisley spaceport, linked by lostech Stargates. That’s a very specific vision of sci-fi, one that feels a lot more like Flash Gordon than the Starship Enterprise, and one we thought then and still think now is a ton of fun to play and to run using a blend of elements of traditional fantasy-style adventuring (yes, there are space dungeons) with the tropes and trappings of sci-fi.
That said, not everything can be translated from one genre to another. The feel you want in your sci-fi game is important, and the stories you tell are apt to be more about exploration, espionage, and discovery than just “kick in the door, kill the orcs, and take their gold.” Good fantasy stories need more than that too, but when we talk to authors about what they want to do, it’s important that they have a vision for why someone would want to play this adventure or use this new item or race or class or whatever in their game. Does it evoke a classic sci-fi trope or story? Does it let them do something fun and exciting and new? How would someone connect to this from a more traditional fantasy mindset?
At the end, though, it’s all about being true to your vision for what this product is. I learned years ago in my doctoral program that any given research project cannot be about everything. Don’t just try to throw every bit of stuff you can think of in there, and don’t try to make *THIS* project be the one that answers every possible question. Decide what it is that THIS project is about, and let it be the best expression of whatever that is that it can be. There are a million variations of what sci-fi can be. Choose your vision and be true to it, and that’s how you’ll make it awesome.
JAMES: Now that Starfinder is here, what do you have coming for that system? Do you have any plans beyond the Alien Bestiary?
JASON: Our initial project focus for Starfinder was bringing the Legendary Planet Adventure Path to the new system. This is a massive adventure saga taking heroes from 1st to 20th level, with each new adventure taking the heroes to a new world of adventure. Each installment is set up like a traditional Paizo AP, with a big adventure, new monsters, magic and technology items, planetary gazetteers, bonus articles from authors like Sean Reynolds, James Jacobs, Tim Hitchcock, etc., and an ongoing fiction story series by Chris A. Jackson. The first adventure, To Worlds Unknown, is already out, as is the Legendary Planet Player’s Guide (with 4 new alien races and tons more great stuff), with the second adventure, The Scavenged Codex, heading to layout shortly.
In addition, we’ve been publishing a series of ready-to-visit planets called the Legendary Worlds series, each one of which brings you an amazing array of richly developed planets ripe for adventure no matter your game system of choice. From fantastic asteroid hives to burning foundry planets and from endless ocean worlds to dreamlands of mystery and magic, you’ll find fantastic opportunities for adventure for your heroes, with hooks to draw them in and delightfully detailed history, culture, geography, and some new surprises on every planet like new monsters and playable races, new feats, spells, class options, and other rules elements or even a micro-adventure, and of course a set of adventure hooks as to why your heroes might want to go there. Sci-fi campaigns can be very open-ended because of the heroes’ ability to travel via spaceships, gateways, hyperspace, and so on, so whenever your players decide to go off-script and explore what lies beyond the next stargate or hyper-jump, you drop in one of these planets and boom, there’s always a world of adventure waiting for them! These are about 20 pages each, and are awesome for adding depth to any space campaign. Plus, they’re very modular, able to be used together or separately, and as part of a big campaign like Legendary Planet, the official Starfinder setting, or your own homebrew galaxy.
We’re also working on bringing the amazing Aethera Campaign Setting to Starfinder. We co-published this incredibly detailed campaign setting (almost 600 pages) with Robert Brookes at Encounter Table Publishing, and while already probably 450 pages of that book are system-neutral campaign setting material, we want to bring the whole package to Starfinder and 5th Edition D&D. This setting blends sci-fi and fantasy with elements of art deco steampunk noir and cosmic horror. It features starships and high-tech gear formed by a mysterious mineral called aetherite, which spawned sentient robots called the phalanx and an enhanced race called the infused, but at the same time a mystic barrier seals the entire system from the rest of the cosmos blocking the influence of the gods and trapping the souls of the dead within the inky blackness of the void. Demon-worshiping taur invaders to the system found themselves trapped as well, along with their extraplanar allies, and the entire system is reeling and rebuilding from the devastating Century War. It’s a terrific setting, and another very cool take on the sci-fi spectrum, a few degrees more in the direction of classic space opera than Legendary Planet, but still playing with the elements of the genre in a very cool and exciting way.
We also are working on bringing psychic classes to Starfinder, and also looking at bringing the Starfinder races and classes back to Pathfinder. There are plenty of folks interested in straddling the systems in both directions, and we’re happy to make that happen!
JAMES: Legendary does a lot of charity bundles. What is the best way for the gaming community to have a positive impact on the world?
JASON: Pay attention. See what’s going on in the world as a whole, and in the games industry too. Look for under-represented voices and find an avenue for them to speak. Look for unmet needs and find a way to do what you can. You don’t have to boil the ocean all at once. As the cliche tells us, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Don’t let the immutable fact that you can’t fix EVERYTHING get in the way of doing SOMETHING. Don’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good. Perfection is a great goal, but a troublesome strategy.
Put into concrete terms, look for opportunities to do something for someone else, and talk to other people in the industry. You’re not alone. There are a lot of great people out there, and they might be interested in helping out in some way too. They might just need a push, and you might be just the one to give it to them. Team up and partner with others on charity projects to boost visibility for what you are doing. But if you’ve got a specific desire, then follow that one too. We did a big multi-publisher mega-bundle for Hurricane Harvey, but we also did a smaller bundle of just our stuff, the Heroes for Harvey Bundle on DrivethruRPG, because we had some specific charities we wanted to support. You can do both.
JAMES: One of my favorite Legendary Games products is Trail of the Apprentice, which is made for families to play together. Why was it important you to make a product that families can enjoy around the table?
JASON: The tabletop RPG hobby is great, but we need to think about how to pass it on to the next generation. The hobby is great fun. It’s a great bonding time. I played with my kids when they were younger. My oldest is out on her own now, but my 19-year-old still plays in my Friday night game. My 13-year-old likes playing off and on, though he never caught the fever quite as much as the older two. It’s great for learning math and social and problem-solving and teamwork skills. It’s also a great time to sit around the table and just share time together.
The lead author on Trail of the Apprentice, Paris Crenshaw, started writing those adventures for his daughters as part of a Girl Scouts activity, and it built up from there. Someone showed me a D&D-themed patch for Girl Scouts that they could get. It was pretty awesome.
Of course, it’s also a financial investment in the future of the business. That generation that started playing back in the 70s and 80s is graying. I started playing when I was 10. I’m 47 now. I’m not going to be around forever, and neither are the people who started playing when I did in 1981 or even before then. If we want to keep this a viable business, we need to do our part to make sure there are easy on-ramps for people to learn how to play and become customers!
JAMES: Legendary Games seems to have a fascination with things that are alien but it outer-space, otherworldly forests, or the occult. What is it about alien places and creatures that fascinates you?
JASON: I’m an equal-opportunity lover of monsters and strange things, so I don’t know that I love aliens any more than any other kind of monsters. My favorites are probably classical monsters from mythology and legends, and some of the classic RPG monsters that I grew up with. I think a lot of our contributors love aliens and sci-fi and strange, weird stuff, and part of the Legendary Games philosophy is following your passion in what you create. You get great people with great writing talent and rules knowledge working on things they’re excited about doing, that’s when you get something Legendary. 🙂
JAMES: What is your favorite Legendary Games product and why?
JASON: I have a deep fondness for Under Frozen Stars, largely because it was the first product I brought from concept to completion after taking the reins at LG. Our first half dozen products or so we had drawn up and started on back during our first year in 2011, when we were just getting set up with Clark Peterson (formerly of Necromancer Games). Clark had to drop out after that early phase and I took over and got us relaunched in 2012, first bringing those early products to completion, but Under Frozen Stars was all new and all me getting it up and our the door. Ironically, it also was our first sci-fi/fantasy crossover product, featuring a lost alien city at the North Pole, a cyborg ninja, techno-organic ogre magi, and a climax in a cybernetic processing factory!
JAMES: Can we can a hint about things yet to come?
JASON: We have a ton of amazing projects in the hopper, including broadening out our focus to create more original content and casual games outside the RPG sphere, as well as some new independent projects we’ll be talking about probably early next year. It’s great to produce things for other RPGs like D&D, Starfinder, and Pathfinder, but it’s also nice to have some things that are entirely our own as well.
Of course, RPG products are still going to be our bread and butter, and we’ll soon be releasing the Forest Kingdom Campaign Compendium, which we Kickstarted back in the spring. The Pathfinder version is already out to backers, and the 5E version is in layout now and should be done around the end of the month. This turned into a massive 424-page tome of monsters, magic, character options, spells, iconic heroes, complete adventures, and fantastic fey and forest-themed rules and systems, including a whole chapter on royal tournaments and events from athletics and cooking contests to jousting, archery, and high-stakes, high-fantasy competitions for every kind of character.
Our next Kickstarter project will be bringing the next book in that line to life, the Pirate Campaign Compendium. We originally had planned to launch that on September 19th on Talk Like a Pirate Day, but the scheduling in and around the Forest Kingdom book didn’t quite work out and we ended up flipping the Alien Bestiary project to launch first and moved the pirate book back down the schedule. Almost all of the writing is done for both the Pathfinder and 5E versions of that book, aside from whatever backers sponsor to add to the book via stretch goals and special pledges, and we actually are already ordering art and working on layout for the sections of the book that are already done. The whole idea of the Campaign Compendium series is to create themed campaign books that we can turn around and get quickly into your hands with fantastic quality that really brings home the fun for your game.
We’ve also got all of our ongoing product lines, like incredibly rich character class books for Pathfinder like Legendary Brawlers and Legendary Gunslingers coming out soon (to go along with already existing books like Legendary Rogues, Legendary Paladins, Legendary Vigilantes, Legendary Kineticists, and new hybrid classes and villain-focused class books too), as well as traditional fantasy adventures like the snow-covered centaur adventure The Horseshoe Calamity, the high-level pirate base of Fort Scurvy, and monster-focused books like Eldritch Elementalism. It’s going to be a furious finish to the year for LG for sure!
JAMES:What is one thing you want people to know about Legendary Games?
JASON: That they should totally buy one of everything! Or two. Two is good. 🙂
Seriously, though, we’re a talented team made up of some of the best authors and artists in the business, most of whom are already creating the official products people are already using. We are dedicated to excellence in what we create (one of our other company mottos: “Always. Be. Awesome.”), making premium-quality products that you’ll be proud to own and that you’ll love to read and be excited to play. There are plenty of companies out there that make great stuff, but if they want to enhance their D&D or Pathfinder or Starfinder game, whatever the genre they love from horror to sci-fi, ancient Egypt to pirate adventures on the seven seas, classic fantasy to courtly intrigue, they’ll find none better than Legendary Games!
They can always keep up with the latest at our website (www.makeyourgamelegendary.com), following us on Facebook, Google+, or Twitter (@LegendaryGamesJ), or on messageboards like Paizo.com, ENworld.org, and rpg.net! If they have any questions, they can email us directly at .

If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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Table Top Babble 041 – Frank Mentzer and Ted Fauster Talk Empyrea

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A new episode of Table Top Babble is now available!

James Introcaso talks to Frank Mentzer and Ted Fauster about their new and exciting fantasy setting Empyrea.

World of Empyrea

Empyrea on Facebook

Frank Mentzer’s Aquaria

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If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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Table Top Babble 038 – White Wolf RPGs and Sci-Fi RPGs

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A new episode of Table Top Babble is now available!

In this MEGASIZED episode, James Introcaso chats with Sage Stafford and Paul Harpring of Venture Maidens and Chris Zacher of Twin Cities by Night about White Wolf RPGs. Then it’s a conversation with Jason Nelson of Legendary Games about science fiction RPGs and his Kickstarter for the Alien Bestiary.

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If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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002 – Worldbuilding and Spell Design

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A new episode of Table Top Babble is now up!

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James Introcaso chats with Wolfgang Baur, Steve Winter, and Dan Dillon of Kobold Press about worldbuilding in RPGs, designing new spells, and the upcoming Kickstarter for the Midgard Campaign Setting for 5th Edition D&D.

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If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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Round Table 149 – Unearthed Arcana Classes and Hypercorp 2099: Wasteland

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A new episode of my podcast, The Round Table, is up on The Tome Show’s website.

the-tome-show-round-table

I sit down with Alex Basso, Ginny Loveday, and Round Table newbie Gregg Lauer to talk about the bard, cleric, and druid Unearthed Arcana articles. Then it’s an interview with game designer Mike Myler about his ongoing Kickstarter for Hypercorps 2099: Wastleland. This podcast was recorded on November 30 and December 1, 2016.

Please rate and review The Tome Show on iTunes. It takes 30 seconds and helps us a bunch.

Open Gaming Store Pick of the Episode: Howl at the Moon

DMs Guild Pick of the Episode: Complete Adventures of M.T. Black

Links:

The Tome Show on Facebook

Have Spellbook, Will Travel

Southern Connecticut D&D Meetup

Winter Fantasy

Hypercorps 2099

Mists of Akuma

mikemyler.com

If you like what you’re reading please follow me on Twitter, like World Builder Blog on Facebook, check out my podcasts, find my products on the DMs Guild, tell your friends about the blog, and/or leave me a comment and let me know you think. Thanks!

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