7th Sea Second Edition - Villainous Intent

Memorable heroes need memorable villains to battle. What are Batman with out the Joker, Luke Skywalker without Darth Vader or, closer to the genre point, the Musketeers without Richelieu? The first edition of 7th Sea was no slouch in the villain department. Richelieu got a worthy mirror on Esteban Verdugo, the arrogant L'Emperuer is just itching to lose his head and Reis terrorizes the sea with his murdery band of pirates and his tricked out Syrneth scythe. I'm putting together a one shot for some friends soon and I was a little surprised at just how streamlined villain design was in the game. Two stats? That's it? (I know there's a bit more, like Villainy Rank and Advantages, but this was my gut reaction.)

Geek and Sundry - Pokemon GO

Milwaukee ran into a wee bit of nerd controversy this week because of a conflict over Lake Park. There are a few other places around the nation trying the same thing, so I looked into it for Geek and Sundry.

7th Sea Second Edition - Story Options

I was inspired by +Rob Donoghue 's excellent hacks for incorporating Dracheneisen back into 7th Sea as a noble trait and using the Sorte Deck to develop 13th Age Icon-like relationships with the big names of the setting. (Rob also did a thorough review post on the game that echo most of my feelings as I read the book.)

7th Sea has always been a game of hacks, tweaks and house rules for me. Now that I'm a game designer, that hasn't changed. I offer a trio of hacks for the player stories after the jump.

Geek & Sundry - John Rogers Interview

Five years ago, I got to talk to John Rogers on my silly little Leverage RPG blog about how gaming influenced his writing and vice versa. I got to do it again for Geek & Sundry this week.
And, if the article proves popular enough, I'll get to do more of these with other professional creatives. So please share.

Geek and Sundry - World Wide Wrestling

This game was responsible for my favorite campaign last year. So I thought a write-up for Geek & Sundry would be nice.

Geek and Sundry - TimeWatch RPG

My first post for Geek and Sundry just went live. I'll be talking about RPGs a lot, of course but hope to explore my other nerdy loves too!

Fate Hack - Star Trek Prime Accelerated

TNG is my jam, but this hack should work for any era/series.

I am sad I won't be at Gen Con this year. It seems like Star Trek is coming back in a big way thanks to a variety of board game releases and the recent announcement of the first licensed RPG in a decade. Much of these products focus on the so-called "Prime Universe", the long-standing one not affected by the time travel shenanigans of the reboot film series. I did a hack set in that universe a while ago, so it seemed like a good time to try something for the original.

More often than not, Fate Accelerated is my base of choice for any hacks involving media. It's much easier to interact with characters when you don't have to calculate XP based on the amount of books and films and shows those characters are in. TV shows are also relatively static, which matches the idea that Fate characters change faster than they grow. Finally, Accelerated shines when all the characters are the same thing (like officers on a Starfleet vessel, or wizards at a boarding school) and approaches can really show the differences between them.

Special thanks to +Morgan Ellis for suggesting approaches that split infinitives!

We boldly go to the hack after the jump.