Jeeves & Wooster Monster Hunters

Posted by Colin Fahrion on
 October 16, 2019

The idea for Jeeves & Wooster Monster Hunters came to me in a dream one night. As there was no system I felt I could run this in, I have created a game systems inspired by some of the simple coin flip mechanics of the game Clink.

This game is currently under development and being play tested. If you are interested in helping play test it you can contact me at info@mirthpeddlers.com

If you don’t know Jeeves and Wooster then there is no time like the present to get acquainted! You can read P.G. Wodehouse’s original book The Inimitable Jeeves via Project Gutenberg. Or watch the hilarious BBC TV version starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie via YouTube!

J&W:MH Scenario: The Spring Festival

The small countryside town of Market Snodsbury has celebrated the Spring Equinox for as long as anyone can remember. Bertie Wooster couldn’t care less about the festival but Aunt Dahlia has insisted he come out to the countryside. She’s quite certain that she will win the coveted trophy for the flower arrangement competition but needs Wooster’s help. You see her prize rose garden has been acting very peculiar as of late. Oh, there is also the trouble with Wooster’s pal Bingo who seems to have gotten himself head over heels in love again — this time with the judge of the flower competition!

Will Bingo finally find his true love? Who will win the Market Snodsbury Spring Festival flower competition? And why are all the servants terrified of the Brinkley Court rose garden? How will Wooster get himself out of this thorny trouble? Well I’m sure Jeeves has a few tricks up his sleeve to help out. Find out what happens in the next episode of Jeeves & Wooster: Monster Hunters!

Ghost Census

Posted by Colin Fahrion on
 October 16, 2019

I created Ghost Census as a business card sized game to be passed out at Big Bad Con 2019. It was a hit little game and so I revised it as a print-in-play party game!

You remember your Ghost Census training right? …Of course you do! Well then this should be no problem for you! Just work with your fellow ghost census workers to interview the ghosts in your area so they can all be counted!

Ghost Census is design to be played with 6 or more people — the more the better! It works as a great casual ice-breaker game. It can be played right at the beginning or played throughout the event casually with the a revel of the various ghosts interviewed at the end. Works great for a Halloween 🎃 👻 Party!

Downloads

Ghost Census is available as a pay what you want downloadable print-n-play PDF. Comes with 6-up on letter sized paper, business card sized design if you want to get your own printed professionally, and a how to play instruction sheet.

One of the ghosts at Big Bad Con 2019!

At the Corner of Mean and Meow

Posted by Colin Fahrion on
 October 3, 2018

A walking roleplaying nano-game about feral cats trying to survive on the mean streets of the city.

Downloads

At the Corner of Mean and Meow is available as a pay what you want downloadable PDF

Fist of Liberty

Posted by Colin Fahrion on
 January 28, 2018

UPDATE Oct 15, 2019: This game is on hold indefinitely. While I had some fun play test sessions, I realized the reason the games were fun more had to do with my ability to run a good session and not because the rules supported fun play. There is still some good in there which I may repurpose or release in some form at some point.

Introducing a new game I’m working on called Fist of Liberty!

Fist of Liberty is a tabletop roleplaying game about normal people attempting to overthrow the oppressive state. Inspired by such dystopian classics such as 1984 and Brave New World, and films like eTHX-1138, Brazil, Max Headroom, Idiocracy, Equilibrium, and The Hunger Games. It is a one shot game designed to be played in 4-6 hours. Every game of Fist of Liberty is different as it starts with a fast cooperative world building and character building session!

The game mechanics for Fist of Liberty are inspired by the excellent game Soth by Steve Hickey and also by Apocalypse World. If you haven’t played either I highly recommend both!

I’ve already started play testing the game. Several of the play tests happened at Big Bad Con 2017 which were a whole lot of fun and very instrumental in helping me improve the game and develop it further. I will be running additional play test sessions sometime soon so if you are interested in joining please drop me a line at info@mirthpeddlers.com

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Lacuna Dark

Posted by Colin Fahrion on
 June 12, 2017

With the Kickstarter release of Graham Walmsley’s Cthulhu Dark, I’ve finally gotten around to finalizing my Lacuna Dark game hack, for playing a more horror focused version of Jared Sorensen’s wondrous oddball game Lacuna Part 1 – The Creation of the Mystery and the Girl from Blue City!

Lacuna Dark adapts the Cthulhu Dark rules for the sole purpose of enhancing the personal otherworldly horror of Lacuna. While Blue City does have it’s monsters, with it’s Spidermen and Hostile Personalities, Lacuna Dark works best when focused on the surreal ominous nature of Blue City and it’s eerily banal imaginary inhabitants.

Downloads

Lacuna Dark is available as a pay what you want downloadable PDF. I’m not charging for this PDF as it relies heavily on the design and content of Lacuna. It contains no setting info and requires Lacuna to play.

HeckaPoker

Posted by Colin Fahrion on
 April 23, 2017

Last year, I jumped on the Kickstarter for the Heckadeck by Travis Nichols. I was sold by the ridiculous of it all and the simple yet wonderful illustrations. I’ve broken them out a few times but never really got to play a full game with them until yesterday. Of course with all the weird cards — like Beasts, Zeros, The Crone, and Octogons — the first question is what the heck do you play with the Heckadeck? My answer to this is Heckapoker!

How to Play Heckapoker

Heckapoker is plays like normal straight poker with each player dealt a hand of five cards. All of the relatively normal cards (even of the extra suits) are act like normal poker hand cards. If you have a hand with a weird card, like Beasts, or Zeros, or the Crone, and you are the first to play such a card you get to come up with the rule for how that card works. That rule then persists throughout the rest of that game — of course these new game rules vanish as soon as the cards are put away so that each time Heckapoker is plays it is a different game.

Possible examples:

  • Beasts can fit in-between Jacks and Queens but don’t have to
  • Travelers are useless straights as they work alone but they have a special power where they can be traded with any other card from another person’s hand
  • Arrow cards automatically can fit between any split cards to create a straight (2,3,arrow,8,9 is a straight), if the arrow color matches as well as the other cards suits match then it can work as a straight flush.
  • The Crone automatically invalidates everyone’s hand; all bets in the pool are kept until next hand sweetening the next hand’s pot.
  • Octagons can transform the numbers and letters on cards by reducing them to their individual lines and reforming them. For instance, an A can become a 4 or vice versa.
  • Darkness forces one other player to discard a card of your choice

As you can see, sometimes rules may interfere with people’s poker hands and thus require knowing who plays their hand first, play order is by whomever placed the last highest bid and then goes clockwise around the table.

Wagering for Words

Of course while you could play for money the traditional wager when playing Heckapoker — a tradition I started as of yesterday — is to wager for words. For instance, the first player may bid “Shoe” and the next player may agree to wager the word “Shoe” and then call or see that bid and raise it with the word “Burrito”, the third player may then call or raise or fold before adding words to the pot to avoid loosing the words.

  • The person who wins gets to keep using the words that were bid!
  • The loser has to lost the words and must avoid using any words they lost for the remainder of the day!
  • A devilish player may choose to raise with the word “Cards” or “Raise” forcing players to restrict their vocabulary or use alternate words when talking.
  • Any words that were already bid in a game cannot be bid again in order to avoid overlap with players who already lost said word.
  • Compound words are treated like different words as long as they have conceptually different meanings: for instance, a player who lost the word “Card” can still use the word “cardboard”

Of course, a player could fold right out of the gate every time before putting their words in the pot, never risking loosing any words, thus in a sense “winning” but where is the fun in that?!

Where to get the Heckadeck

I highly recommend picking up a Heckadeck. You can buy Heckadeck online and other great comics and stuff from Travis Nichols site More Lie Publishing. And when you do buy it you will get a special card that you must DESTROY! Here is my video I created of me destroying the #destroythiscard

Apocalypse Warren

Posted by Colin Fahrion on
 December 1, 2016
Apocalypse Warren

I present Apocalypse Warren, a world playset that brings the apocalypse back into The Warren!

A time of chaos… ruined dreams… this wasted land… For reasons long forgotten, two mighty human warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Their world crumbled. Now in this wasted world, life does as it always — it struggles to hang on. The rains come rarely anymore but rabbits learned to survive the harsh reality of the desert, long before humans ruined the world. As a desert rabbit, you’ve learned to forage for scarce food mainly during dawn and dusk when the sun is muted, always keeping an ear out for hungry snakes, monitor lizards, kites, and dingos. The human survivors are an unpredictable danger as they still cling to their machines and their war, strewing chaos across the land. You once could have asked the ancestors for help — a trick rabbits learned from the bilby — but with the cataclysm came a strange terrifying Wind howling outside this world which tore apart the Dreaming.

I created this Warren World playset while home sick in bed watching Watership Down and all the Mad Max movies. After many revisions, I then ran it at Big Bad Con 2016 for some wonderfully brave rabbits. It’s now ready for any and all rabbits who want to try and find a way to survive in this post-apocalyptic wasted land!

Downloads

Apocalypse Warren is available for download as a pay what you want PDF. The game includes a playset with NPCs, Predators, and Threats; info on the Human Settlement, the Bilby, the Strange and Horrible Wind that Howls Outside This World, a custom move “Perk Up Your Ears and Listen to the Wind, and a map of the surrounding area.

warren_world-apocalypse_warren-p1
warren world apocalypse warren map

The Raver and the Bear

Posted by Colin Fahrion on
 May 2, 2015

I was inspired and made a micro rpg game for David Schirbun’s awesome #200WordRPG challenge called THE RAVER AND THE BEAR! You should check out the 200 Word RPG Challenge site as there are some amazing entries. I especially love LoveInt and Holding On and KillByNumbers but I’ve honestly barely scratched the surface of all the entries.

UPDATE!!! NEW RAVER AND THE BEAR – ECLECTIC HIPSTER EXPANSION with rules for advanced play with the dangerous finicky hipster bear.

Downloads

THE RAVER AND THE BEAR is available for download as a print-n-play PDF as a pay what you want game!

Actual Play Video

Actual play video from Big Bad Con 2015!

HE RAVER AND THE BEAR FAQ

  • Once the DJ starts playing, does the bear’s first check start from anywhere in particular or wherever the bear decides? 
    The Bear’s first check starts as soon as the second album is put on.
  • I’m still confused about what order is correct vs reverse vs out of order can you explain it better? Think of the albums as positions on a clock but unlike an analogue clock this clock only has 5 positions on it (1-5) and once it reaches the last position it goes to the first position. The Bear places one album on each position. Let’s say there are 5 records A,B,C,D,E and the Bear preferred play order is clockwise in this order C>E>B>A>D (since this is a clock it continues and D>C… etc.). Now if the DJ plays C and then E it is in the right clockwise order and the Bear is happy, If the DJ plays C then D then it is in the wrong anti-clockwise reverse order and the Bear is angry and mauls them. If the DJ plays C and then either B or A then the Bear is annoyed as is out of order and the Bear growls
  • After the DJ gets mauled the first time, should the bear start from the original start place? When the DJ get’s mauled they just put on another record — either one they played before or a new one. There is no “start place” for the Bear’s music order preferences as it’s a continuous circle. Let’s say the Bear’s preferences are B, A, C, E, D — then the DJ can “win” by playing in a row consecutively B, A, C, E, D or A, C, E, D, B or C, E, D, B, A or E, D, B, A, C or D, B, A, C, E. Probably better way of thinking about it is the DJ needs to make the bear happy 4 times in a row by playing albums in the right order.

Unstoppable Power!

Posted by Colin Fahrion on
 March 5, 2015

UPDATE Oct 15, 2019: Development for this game is back underway after a long hiatus! I was inspired by the game Bluebeard’s Bride to completely revise the game centered around the life of a single Hero, with all the players acting as aspects of the Hero’s humanity. I ran this game at Big Bad Con 2019 and it went great. I will be doing more playtesting in the coming months. If you are interested in playtesting contact me at info@mirthpeddlers.com

UPDATE Jan 28, 2017: The development for this game is on hiatus. I ran a number of play test sessions and while they were fun overall the game wasn’t quite working. I have some vague ideas for how to redesign the game but it is on hold.

I had a inspiration the other day that superhero games are boring as they only tell the day to day banal tales of laser beam shooting out of peoples eyes. Wouldn’t it be great to tell the full story of what having real power is like? What it’s like to be heroes like Dr Manhattan with powers so beyond mere mortals that it’s hard to relate to anyone or anything?

The game Unstoppable Power is a one-shot storygame that tells the story of normal people who gain superpowers. And how this ‘gift’ of true power transforms them until they can no longer can relate to the world or people they once knew, and likely leaving irrevocable harm in their wake.

The game mechanics are pretty honed in — simple and designed to help support the story of people facing their own Unstoppable Power. I’ve run a solo play of the game to test the system and it worked great. Next step is running real playtests which is happening soon. If you are interested in play testing Unstoppable Power you can contact me at info@mirthpeddlers.com

Here’s a quick overview summary of the story that the game told in my solo playtest…

The story started as Sonny, a retired hit man fighting to save his kidnapped boyfriend. He died in a massive gun battle yet then rose from death as a silent shadow enshrouded assassin — first taking revenge, then fighting crime mostly because he was bored. Time passed and he drifted away from all he once was transforming into a being known only as Operation Shadow by the US government. Project Shadow worked with the Pentagon and CIA to target ISIS — an operation that succeeded in destroying ISIS yet caused massive collateral damage and worldwide outrage. Shunned by a coalition of world governments, the world spanning essence of shadow known as Project Shadow to some and the Dark Djinn to others has the power to destroy entire nations. In fact it accidentally wiped Syria off the map — it was only trying to help! Feared and truly disconnected from the people of the world, it decides for esoteric reasons all it’s own to leave Earth. During a lunar eclipse, it steps to the moon and breaks off a piece the size of the Mount McKinley, then gets on and aims it at the black hole at the center of the Galaxy. A small shadowy part of it however stayed behind on Earth to possess — no possess isn’t the right word  — to become one with the old boyfriend (his boyfriend?) who was all but left behind so many years ago.

There was a lot more detail I left out, but yeah that’s the kind of wow story you can tell with Unstoppable Power in only a single one-shot game!

Unstoppable-Power-v2

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