BWP is hiring! Plus, my next book!

Howdy Bedroom Wall fans!

It's been a while. Sorry about that.

One of the disadvantages of being a sole proprietor and creator is I have a limited amount of creative focus, and truth be told I've been floundering around for a bit since H&H, trying to find a new project while hopefully giving H&H the continued support via the blog that will keep it in the limelight. We've hit Copper status on DTRPG and to my mind that makes H&H a proper success, and I want it to keep going. Part of why I haven't already started putting together a new edition is I don't want to sabotage this one.  I think H&H is a complete and wonderful game in its own right.

But, I have a new project. For reals this time. And it's a doozy, I think, and has been consuming pretty much all of my writing time and head space, such that I really haven't had the room in there to continue things like the FTL series. It's called Arcana Rising, and I'll have some announcements and even a Kickstarter about it very soon. I'm really looking forward to seeing this one through because I've found with this project that balance between originality and classicism that I love so much as a designer, something I never quite seemed to get to with Hackerscape.

So, I have a proposition, and maybe it's a mad one, maybe not, I'll leave that up to the applicants.

I want to hire a blog writer for Bedroom Wall Press. Amount of contribution would be up to you, but I would want a bare minimum of 1 post a week of at least 600 words. Topics would be partly assigned, especially initially as the first order of business will be wrapping up the FTL blog series, but if you have other ideas of your own you want to pull off with BWP's games I'd be more than open to suggestions.

Compensation would come in the form of ad revenue share, to be negotiated based on the amount of contribution, and of course we'll want to work together on how best to add genuinely topical advertising to the blog, so we can move away from generic AdSense ASAP. If anyone knows of any RPG-related ad-sharing networks, please let me know.

I am sure that some people will be jumping to tell me how awful and unfair this is, and those people are welcome not to apply. I believe in compensating writers as fairly as I can, but BWP is a one-man operation at the moment and I don't have the resources to offer anything else but this.

Applicants should apply by emailing me directly at jsberry AT hulksandhorrors DOT com.  Tell me a little about yourself, your gaming tastes, your familiarity with BWP's games, especially Hulks and Horrors, and link some samples of stuff you think is in line with our currently released projects. If you've got a blog that updates regularly that is definitely a plus in your column. Familiarity with old-school FRP systems in particular is just about mandatory, at least some time spent with B/X or Labyrinth Lord and the like.

In the meantime, I'll be continuing work on Arcana Rising and try my best to squeeze out an update or two for H&H when I can, and I hope you'll bear with me!

[Expanding the Game] FTL #1: Characters

FTL: Faster than Light is a space exploration and combat game of the roguelike persuasion for PCs by Subset Games. It is a personal favorite of mine; I was actually a beta level backer during their Kickstarter, and it was the first KS I ever contributed to.

FTL puts players in control of a lone vessel, fleeing the oncoming rebel fleet as it makes haste to prepare itself for a coming battle and notify its superiors of the impending threat. It also happens to make a riproaring concept for a Hulks and Horrors game.

And so, in the first of a new blog series at BWP, I'll be presenting a series of posts detailing some house rules for running FTL on the tabletop. Each week I'll release a new chunk covering the salient details needed to modify H&H to fit FTL, and thus also in the process provide new systems and add-ons that you can even use in your regular H&H games. Once the series is completed, the posts will be compiled into a PDF and posted in the Downloads section. We'll begin with some important character rules.

Hulks and Horrors finally back in print!

At long last, and with some help from +Scott Holden who graciously got my shipping upgraded, I have received the latest proof for Hulks and Horrors, and it is once again back in print!

As recompense to those who were unable to buy it during the launch sale, everyone who downloaded or purchased the PDF and has their DTRPG account set to receive discount emails has been sent a discount link to pick up the print version at the original launch sale price.

For those who haven't grabbed it yet, now is the time to do so, the discount link will expire on the 31st, so check your emails!

I've also updated the PDF version to fix the D10/D20 confusion in the system generation. System coordinates are meant to be rolled on a d10, not a d20. There were plans to boost the numbers to d20 in development, but the 20x20 grid would be too cramped in the 6x9 page format, and somehow the text never got properly reverted. My sincere apologies on the error, and on the fact that I didn't catch it in time for this latest revised print version. It is hoped, however, that this is the only such errata remaining.

By request: Sample sector map.

Ask, and ye shall recieve.

A commenter on the Hulks and Horrors page asked if I might share a sample result of the sector map generation in action. The process can seem a little opaque on first glance, so it may be helpful for some folks to see what a finished result looks like. The following link is a PDF scanned from one of my own sectors, Korathraz. One of the first sectors charted by the Hovering Squid, Korathraz is notable more for historical value than its actual claim value as you can see by its VR, but perhaps there are still great riches to be found there all the same.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3hWDeEiNI5abXJnTnE0V29fSlU/edit?usp=sharing

My apologies for the low quality, the scanner I have access to had extremely limited control over the quality of the results, as well as for my handwriting, which makes doctors' look legible.  But it should be enough to give you an idea how it works and what sort of results it aims to produce.

H&H is free for one more day only!

A friendly reminder, if you haven't nabbed Hulks and Horrors yet for free, best get to it! The PDF will return to its regular price tomorrow evening.

Print proofs are on their way and I hope to have H&H back for sale in print as soon as possible. In the meantime, I hope those who missed the sale will still check out the PDF when it returns to its customary price tomorrow evening.

I've also decided to present the FTL rules as a blog series, so coming soon I'm going to start hopefully daily blogs each covering a tidbit of how to run Subset's excellent FTL universe with Hulks and Horrors.

I also hope to have a bigger announcement for Hackerscape very soon, so stay tuned!

Alternate Concepts: the Vigilante.

Greetings BWP fans!

Some quick updates first, then I'll get to something fun, I promise. The fixed printing of H&H has been received by the printers, and proof copies are on the way to me shortly to make sure everything went fine. There was a bit of a hangup with the shipping (my fault, never do business at 8'o'clock in the morning on 5 hours' sleep), so it sadly may be a couple of weeks yet before I can once again approve Hulks and Horrors for sale in print, unless I can get the shipping upgraded. The good news is that because of this unfortunate delay, as a gesture of thanks and apology for the inconvenience, everyone who downloaded Hulks and Horrors during the sale period and is signed up to receive special discounts from DTRPG will receive a coupon to give you one more chance to pick it up at the introductory price for a limited time.

You can also see above that BWP finally has a proper logo of it's own! It's a simple design, aiming to evoke classic computer and sports car badges. Let us know what you think!

On to the fun stuff: Alternate Concepts. Tonight I was playing a bit of Batman and Tropico, and between my love of the Bat and the Vigilante character in Tropico 4, it put me in mind to make a little demonstration of the flexibility of the H&H rules system. Sure, H&H is a great SF dungeon crawler, but it's also an old school style game with a very simple class system, simple enough that expanding the rules to cover wildly different concepts should be easier than it sounds. I've been puttering away at a cyberpunk game powered by it for my next commercial release, but tonight I wanted to take a step way out of concept and see about a pulp-style Vigilante class, as well as demonstrate how one might introduce a touch of customization to a class.  Take a look after the jump and tell me how I did.

Hulks and Horrors temporarily unavailable in print.

Hulks and Horrors will temporarily be unavailable in print format, as the files are updated to match the current PDF version fixes, such as the switch to TAAC0.

I apologize for the inconvenience, and hope you will bear with me until the book is again available.

In the meantime, the PDF version remains up for free download, so I encourage anyone who has yet to take a gander to give it a download.