Tag: Into the Odd
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2400 devlog: Zone
Zone is a game about scavengers, scientists, and soldiers exploring a once-ordinary landscape where the laws of physics no longer apply. It’s available as part of the full 2400 series on Itch.io, and on its own and in a bundle on DriveThruRPG. Influences Zone was born from my interest in Roadside Picnic, Annihilation, and Into…
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Why I keep going back Into the Odd
I recently had the honor of joining Chris McDowall on his Bastionland podcast to talk about Agents of the O.D.D., and other games I’ve written inspired by Into the Odd. Chris asked why I went with these rules for Agents, and I babbled quite a bit about the history of the game’s development, but not…
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On a mission from O.D.D.
For my new playtest of Agents of the O.D.D., I’m running a series of one-shots and short arcs, linked into a campaign. Some of that is my own material (like the intro adventure from the currently available edition of Agents), but most of it is adapted from published adventures, including several from Michael Prescott’s excellent…
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QZ: Welcome to the Quarantine Zone
This week I released a new game for the Eclectic Bastion Jam titled QZ, short for “quarantine zone.” It’s a science-fiction RPG inspired by Roadside Picnic and Annihilation, designed to send modern-day scientists, soldiers, and scavengers on expeditions into an area where the laws of nature no longer apply. QZ is by far my longest…
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How to learn spells in Bastionland
I love the simplicity of Electric Bastionland and Into the Odd and “foreground growth” in place of advancement, but I also understand the appeal of detailed character upgrade options. For a lot of players, getting to plan out and optimize their character trajectory is an essential part of the fun of RPGs. There are, of…
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100 O.D.D. items
I initially released Agents of the O.D.D. with a list of 20 magic items, or “arcana,” but admitted right out the gate that I felt it needed a lot more. So, here are a lot more. The first 20 are rituals, which take longer to perform safely; you might only be able to do them…
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Collecting magic items with a day job
I love roleplaying games with tons of weird little magic items and strange oddities. They’re the secret sauce in games like Into the Odd, Numenera, and (since I realized what those games were doing that I liked so much) my own in-progress game Odd Luck Charms. I think those sorts of things work even better…
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Change Agents of the O.D.D.
I’m running Agents of the O.D.D. tonight for the first time since Metatopia, and looking to playtest some changes. (Please feel free to grab a free “community copy” of the earlier edition if you’re practicing good social distancing or performing essential services during the pandemic, by the way.) We likely won’t even get to all…
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Down Town draft: Into the Odd meets Blue Blazes
Awhile back, I blogged about a work-in-progress RPG tentatively titled “Down Town,” a hack of Into the Odd about modern-day urban spelunkers delving into the weird underworld far beneath the streets. I think this game will be super fun to run, so I keep getting distracted thinking about it—but I have more pressing projects, and,…
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Metatopia Design Diary: Agents of the O.D.D.
I ran two sessions of Agents of the O.D.D. at Metatopia, a convention geared toward playtesting games in development. The feedback was a mix of things that made me go, “Great, I was planning on doing that already!” and things that made me go, “Hmm, I’m really going to have to think about that.” Some key takeaways: More…
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Agents of the O.D.D. now out in the field
Late last night, I uploaded my Cryptid Jam submission, Agents of the O.D.D., a game of (paranormal) paranormal investigators. The implied setting is something of a mashup of Hellboy, Planetary, and The Laundry Files, with rules based on Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland. It’s got 100 agent profiles, 20 arcane objects, 1 short scenario…
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Exhumed: Pamphlet Dungeon Edition
Last night, I completed a version of Exhumed for the Pamphlet Dungeon Jam hosted by Nate Treme—about half a minute after the jam closed at 1:00am local time. (It’s been a rough week.) I was disappointed to be unable to show it off among the other excellent pieces, but I figured, hey, I made the…
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WIP: Down Town
One more hack for my backlog of works in progress: Down Town, inspired by Chuck Wendig’s Blue Blazes and Joel Priddy’s Underground. To be honest, this one’s low on my list of priorities because I don’t need to create it in order to run the campaign I want to run. After all, Underground’s 4 pages already offer…
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WIP: Agents of the O.D.D.
Here’s a glimpse of another work in progress on my 2019 to-do list: Agents of the O.D.D., an Into the Odd hack inspired by the Hellboy and BPRD comics, among other weirdness. Characters are occult and fringe science consultants, law enforcement academy washouts, and unfortunate individuals marked by the odd, conscripted to investigate the paranormal. I actually…
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WIP: Xenobioddity
And after writing 3300 words on excruciatingly detailed fantasy combat, I figured showing bits of some of my other works in progress might be fun. To that end, here are some early notes for a space/sci-fi hack of Into the Odd, tentatively titled Xenobioddity. The project’s on hold while I focus on Exhumed, and I still have…
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Resleeving Eclipse Phase
Eclipse Phase is one of my absolute favorite RPG settings. Humanity is now transhumanity—functionally immortal thanks to regular backups, and inclusive of digital consciousnesses and uplifted animals—but our unchecked advancement lost us the Earth and scatterd the survivors across the solar system. The setting is both deep and broad enough to support campaigns based around political…
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Playtest Review: Exhumed
Every time I’ve run Exhumed—an RPG built on the Into the Odd rules, and inspired by Dark Souls—it seems to have worked more or less like I intended. Playtesters familiar with soulslike games tell me it manages to evoke the same feel, and players new to the genre assure me it’s still interesting and accessible for them too. The…
Pretendo Games 