Next Steps and Backerkit Surveys
over 1 year ago – Fri, Apr 28, 2023 at 05:33:02 PM

We made it! 18K, over the line, and with VTT integration on the way. That's awesome. 

So, let's talk next steps.

Continued Development

On my end, there's still a lot of game to make. Art needs to be commissioned, winners for the worldbuilding contest announced, systems fleshed out, setting information collated and condensed from my frankly bloated worldbuilding documents (We'll get into that system at some point. It's not a good one), and freelance writing assigned and completed.

Then when that's done, the whole book needs to be playtested, edited, laid out, test-printed, and actually produced.

And then I get to start work on the starter scenarios!

While the core systems and core loops of the game have been done for some time, they're all fairly threadbare at the moment. Character creation is highly constrained, there aren't many enemies written up, etc. This development process will get everything up to publishable quality.

To that end, I'm aiming to have a second Public Playtest live in about a week and a half so you can follow along with me. Expect more perks, more enemies, a bit more lore, and the Faction system for narrative play.

Backerkit

Over to stuff that affects you!

We're partnering with Backerkit for pledge management and support. That means you'll all get a survey in two-to-three weeks outlining next steps and helping us get everything set up for eventual delivery. For high-tier backers, this'll outline the process of getting your cooler rewards set up. 

This is my first time working with Backerkit, but the team's been prompt and helpful. You shouldn't have anything to worry about, just sit back, relax, and watch the developmental cycle at play.

Final Hours: The Wargame!
over 1 year ago – Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 12:29:04 AM

We've got a few hours left! We've broken 16K, and I think we've got a good shot at the first stretch goal if folks keep pouring in like they have. With that in mind, lets flip back to mechanics and talk about our big add-on: The Guns Blazing Wargame!

My History With Wargames

My journey into tabletop RPGs was equally a journey into wargames. I got the D&D miniature wargame starter box alongside the D&D 3.5 starter, and learned many of the game's mechanics from the miniature companion cards that came with mini boosters because, at the time, I didn't have the cash to afford many supplements (Or the core books, for my first few years playing D&D).

Since, I've hopped between wargaming systems while hopping between RPG systems. 40K, Battletech, X-Wing, and my current love: Infinity.

There's a long history of ties between wargaming and RPGs. Hey, D&D even started as a chainmail hack, and lots of neat wargames have moved to develop RPGs that work in their setting. I've tossed about the idea of working on one for a while, and the original idea for the Ahadi system had an aggressively wargame-y mass combat system attached.

So when it came to working on Guns Blazing, I was always considering making something like Zona Alfa, Five Leagues from the Borderlands, or Frostgrave. If the project succeeded beyond my expectations, I was also interested in developing a full platoon-scale wargame. This was always a backburner idea, however, and wasn't originally going to be an add-on.

Riposte

Then Erika Chappell started work on Riposte. I started working on some armies for kicks and realized: A) I loved the game, and B) This would work pretty well for Guns Blazing. After convincing myself of this, I tested a very rough Guns Blazing conversion at DunDraCon and asked Erika for permission to use the ruleset.

She agreed. And so a wargame officially joined the goals for Guns Blazing.

The Riposte system has a similar relationship with traditional wargaming that the OSR movement does with 40K.  It speaks for itself better than I can speak for it, but features objective focused gameplay, more measured lethality, and an Interrupt system. In addition to a 40K retroclone (ConflictMallet), Erika is working on the endlessly inventive Fulda Rift (A fucked up 1969 with weird psychic pulp scifi soviets v weird magic pulp scifi Americans).

Guns Blazing will be modifying the Riposte system for its own mid-scale game, and creating a skirmish-scale game that bridges the gap in scale between the RPG and wargame.

The Guns Blazing Wargame

The Guns Blazing Wargame will be modifying Riposte rather than simply converting it. Systems like spellcasting and deep strike will be removed, while off-field assets and room-clearing would be expanded to fit the aesthetic and time period of the game.

The wargame puts you in the role of platoon leaders and similar field officers at the end of the 1920s and start of the 30s, as the conflicts covered in Guns Blazing come to a boil and erupt into war across the world. Players command squads of infantry, walkers, vehicles, and stranger monsters in service to various masters. The wargame will be launching with four factions. These factions are:

The British Empire: The British Empire focuses on a High-Low mix of units. The British Expeditionary Force is an elite, experienced core of British colonial trooper, backed by colonial volunteers from across the Empire and Iramite fungiforms. Their vehicles are an eclectic mix of early armored vehicles and heavy walkers, including purpose-built APCs other nations are yet to mimic. However, their troops are rarely armored, and even vehicles are often more thinly armored than is advisable.

The Mysoran Republic: The Mysoran Republic focuses on durable but straightforward troops. They have a core of armored infantry supported by strange experimental units, potent off-field assets, and many vehicles. They're a technological power, making up for lower numbers and less experience with sheer firepower. However, they pay a premium for their defenses and lack many of the mobility tricks of their competitors. They also have fewer esoteric effects than other factions, instead relying on artillery strikes and air support to shape the field.

The Green Band Internationale: The Green Band are a flexible insurgent group. They have a mix of dedicated but poorly equipped local recruits and skilled but mis-matched foreign volunteers. This gives them plenty of access to stealth and infiltration options, as well as a good range of Jinn, technology, and supernatural abilities. However, all of their equipment is decidedly outdated, and they're forced to rely on tricks, unit synergies, and playing objectives instead of brawling it out against most foes. This is especially clear with their vehicles, which are all outdated, eclectically equipped, but relatively cheap.

The False Majooj: The False Majooj are an aggressive industrial nightmare. They have a large number of specialized Restitched and a much smaller number of incredibly powerful Majooj monsters. Restitched are fragile for their cost but have strange abilities, including the ability to re-assemble fallen models from spare parts. Majooj are incredibly powerful, with support abilities that augment any Restitched near them, but are expensive and must be purchased as single models. 

While an early draft of the wargame exists, serious development and playtesting will wait until the RPG is in a more complete state. With that said, there are some goodies along the way for it I'm looking forward to showing off.

Final 48 Hours: The Green Band Internationale
over 1 year ago – Tue, Apr 25, 2023 at 03:13:10 PM

We have passed the  48 hour mark! This is a vital period for the campaign, as it's really gonna shape which (if any) of our stretch goals we hit. As such, if you have any friends you think might be interested in the campaign please point them our way. Similarly, if you've been watching the campaign but weren't sure about going all in, now's the time to pledge!

If you're interested, I've re-opened the Volunteer and Hostis Humani Generis tiers for people who might be interested in upgrading their tier.

With that PSA out of the way, here's some more lore!

The Green Band Internationale

The Green Band Internationale is a splinter group of the Second International, formed due to rifts between Euro-American worker's parties and ones throughout the rest of the world in the wake of the Spanish-American War of 1908.

The Second International had billed itself as a truly global worker's movement. One that would unite socialists, Marxists, worker's unions, and more in the struggle for global liberation. It hosted Bhikaji Cama's unveiling of the flag of Indian independence, and various colonial liberation movements then headquartered throughout Europe. Its history, in the leadup to the Spanish-American war, was one of nominal anti-militarism and anti-colonialism.

The Spanish-American war broke that hope. Rather than coming together, Spanish and American socialist parties stuck to nationalist, militarist lines. And rather than committing to anti-colonial struggles, socialist parties in both countries supported their governments in the violent repression of independence movements. The 1909 International conference condemned the action, but the damage was done: Anti-colonial movements worldwide realized that their european counterparts would abandon them in the name of political expedience.

The Green Band would rise from the resulting chaos. It was a marriage of convenience: Across Southeast Asia, leftist movements found themselves working with local insurgents and freedom fighters in increasingly-politicized international brigades. They darted back and forth across state borders in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand, and the Phillipines, dodging colonial retaliation and sharing skills, personnel, and ideas to further the cause. They took their name from a green band, worn around an arm or shoulder, to identify themselves and try to draw reprisal attacks away from local populations.

Then Iran took notice.

International Backing

Critics of the Green Band argue that it is fundamentally compromised. That it will happily throw away worker's liberation and similar ideals to ally with nationalists, deposed nobility, and their ilk. This isn't incorrect.

In 1912, the nascent Green Band in southeast Asia began receiving aid from the Qajar Shah. This was not merely an altruistic endeavor: Qajar Iran is immensely powerful, thanks to its union with a dynasty of Jinn and their territory, but alone among the world's Great Powers it isn't a colonial institution. As such, any activities that weakened the colonial powers benefited Iran. Any governments formed with their weapons, funds, and political support would be indebted to the throne, furthering Qajar interests the world over.

However, the deal was too good to ignore. Iran could offer modern weapons, a steady stream of volunteers, asylum for persecuted politicians, and spread. It could take the Green Band from a regional movement in Southeast Asia to an international one. Debate over the matter was vigorous, but it was an offer too good to refuse.

By 1920, the Band had expanded massively Sudan, Morocco, Korea, British India, and more all had thriving cells of the International. Conferences were held in Isfahan yearly, the anti-colonial struggle now truly a global one. Volunteers flooded to conflict zones across the world, and other powers took the opportunity to sabotage their international rivals.

Non-colonial powers saw an opportunity to cut their foes down to size, and Colonial powers an opportunity to hobble their rivals in the Great Game. Soon heavy guns, obsolete walkers, armored cars, and more were flooding conflict zones across the planet, and half a dozen alternatives to the Green Band had arisen.

Such largesse helped anti-colonial movements across the world, but also saw them indebted to a variety of foreign backers. Ignoring the interests of those backers now risks the supply of weapons, recruits, and political backing slowing down, and as the largest backer of the Green Band Persia's interests are often represented without them so much as voicing them.

But with colonial powers still controlling most of the world, that's a compromise many are willing to make.

The Green Band in your game

The Green Band serves as a 'default' organization for player characters to get involved with. They're a quick way to get into the anti-colonial struggle anywhere in the world with enough political and financial backing to play with cool guns and equipment. They intro political mechanics and the more complex elements of the anti-colonial struggle through the competing demands of their backers and local interests.

As such, they're a useful tool for new groups trying to adjust to the norms of the game, but still a useful faction for more experienced ones where they represent a well-funded, well-meaning faction rife with foreign influence.

The Atom Unborn and: Inevitable!
over 1 year ago – Sun, Apr 23, 2023 at 11:58:41 AM

It has swum in the collective unconscious since the dawn of humanity. A being of unimaginable power and boundless potential, waiting to be birthed into the world. It holds tools fit to forge a utopia on earth, or to scour the planet clean of life. It makes itself known through impossible inspiration, pushing scientists towards breakthroughs both fascinating and lethal. All pushing the world towards its birth, regardless of the consequences.

It is the Atom Unborn. And it's probably my favorite faction in Guns Blazing. 

What is the Atom Unborn?

As with all Supernatural Threats in Guns Blazing, there are two answers.

In Fiction: The Atom Unborn is a djinn that does not yet exist, embodying the idea of harnessed nuclear power. Until then, it gestates in the collective unconsciousness of mankind. Its adherents are many and varied: Some are utopian dreamers, some are professional scientists exploring the new frontier, and some are darker yet.

They see visions of hell unleashed. The power of the sun scouring life from the worlds of man and jinn. They witness the death of a species, and they embrace it.

Narratively: It is the nuclear age urging on its own birth, heedless of the consequences. It's the boundless potential of the 20th and 21st centuries, the incredible fruits of curiosity alongside its worst consequences. Modern medicine and health and luxuries and, well, the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation.

It is fundamentally amoral: It doesn't want to hurt people, but it also doesn't want to help people. It just wants to exist, and is already well along its way.

A History of the Atom

The Atom Unborn draws from the...mixed history of cutting edge science in the period. Many developments would have both horrific military uses and revolutionary civilian ones, and the human cost is enormous. 

There are obvious comparisons: The Nuclear Bomb and the promise of nuclear power, Haber, inventor of both the Haber Process and chemical warfare, and that old Tom Lehrer classic, Wernher von Braun.  But there are also plenty of less militarized casualties: Marie Curie, irradiated by her research. The Demon Core's victims, the Radium Girls, and more.

Dieselpunk and alternate history are genres full of experimental, impossible technology. Guns Blazing marries that tradition with the consequences of technological progress in the period to create something new. A new, terrifying force that may be ally, enemy, and resource all within a single campaign.

The Atom in Your Game

The Atom is scattershot. It exists in clumps: Research cells, home inventors, weapons development programs, and ultra-fringe political theorists. It isn't driving vast movements, not yet, but it's incredibly wide spread and not limited to villains.

Players can get involved with the Atom Unborn through perks with the Fission or Fusion keyword. Fission perks provide immense, overwhelming power at the cost of spiking your Toxicity (Pushing your character towards an unavoidable early grave) and dealing negative conditions to yourself. Fusion perks are much more measured, augmenting other capabilities rather than providing immense power on their own, but they also don't kill you.

Players might get these perks by experimenting on themselves, being exposed to strange technologies, or explicitly allying with various Atomic factions. Universities and experimental cadres in Mysore, brilliant inventors in the USA, desperate engineers in revolutionary movements, and more might offer players Atomic equipment and talents, either eliding the likely side effects or genuinely having no idea they exist.

Players may also interact with them as another faction in revolutionary politics, insistent that technology is the path to defining new nations in the wake of colonialism. Such groups might have varied ideals, but gravitate towards groups with the funding and influence to support their research regardless of whether that's healthy for the movement.

As an enemy, the Atom's representatives are irradiated foot-soldiers, experimental vehicles, and bright-eyed researchers. They're often a mix of anachronistic and hyper-futuristic: Sipahis and knights wielding irradiated blades and hefting machine guns like rifles. Lumbering, over-large tanks with brutal flamethrowers mated to the hull. They're well armored and often fairly skilled, but their abilities damage themselves as much as their foes.

Many are also deathly ill, victim of their experimental sciences as much as beneficiaries of it. Most have some variety of acute radiation sickness or similar ailments, with foes like the Radium Ghuls actively in the last stages of life.

These foes serve many masters, both as mercenaries and loyal parts of various empires. America, especially MacArthur's command, believe that the Atom is their key to the world stage. While in the realm of Jinn, the Sultan Al-Mudhib believes that it is his only chance at revitalizing a dying kingdom in a new age.

You May Also Like

While you're here, Soulmuppet Productions is currently kickstarting their next game, Inevitable. It's about sad fantasy cowboys try, and failing, to stop the end of the world.

 It's a focused, play-to-lose system about the story of these knights. Their reputations, legends, and the tales that will survive both them and the nation they serve.

Soulmuppet are good friends and an awesome publisher. I've worked on an adventure for their last game: Orbital Blues, and if their project continues to succeed I may be working on something for Inevitable! If you're interested in a more storygame experience than Guns Blazing, I highly recommend checking them out.

Final Week: A Worldbuilding Contest!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Apr 18, 2023 at 06:28:34 PM

We're almost there! With twelve thousand raised, we're one week from closing out this Kickstarter. Thank you to everyone who's backed so far. If you want to propel this project towards our stretch goals and give us the strongest last week possible, I encourage you to tell your friends about the Kickstarter.

But! We've got happier news yet. For the last week of the campaign, we're gonna hold a worldbuilding contest!

Ali Attar's Discount Vehicle Catalog

Over on the Sufficient Velocity forums, the lovely admins have sponsored Ali Attar's Discount Vehicle Catalog a contest for anyone and everyone interested in Guns Blazing or weird early vehicles. 

The Catalog is a celebration of one of my favorite things about worldbuilding: Jank.

Lots of stuff just doesn't work well. The history of tanks, airplanes, and modern warships is filled with ideas that were bad. Not for any nefarious or cosmic reason, but because a designer got too ambitious, or everyone was just experimenting, or circumstance got in the way. 

Guns Blazing is no exception. The setting's mecha (called Walkers) arose basically by accident and vehicle design is exactly as much of a rolling disaster as it was in our 1920s. I wanted to exalt that dynamic, and what better way to do it than the game's first real community-building event.

To participate, just join the thread and make your own piece of Guns Blazing history. The top two entries will get art of their creation commissioned and (Potentially) put in the book, while the overall winner will also get a PDF copy of the game when it releases.