Terror Birds

While dinosaurs always get the glory, I happen to love all prehistoric creatures especially Terror Birds.

There is something about being stalked and preyed upon by a giant, insane, carnivorous turkey that is both absurd, and terrifying. Then there is the fact that they are basically feathered dinosaurs that flourished in South America right up until the time it merged with North America. The land bridge brought other predators like saber-toothed cats and the reign of the Terror Bird came to an ignoble end.

They don't appear enough in fantasy fiction and rpgs for my likeing. D&D has one, and Pathfinder has the Axe-Beak, but when was the last time you saw one in an adventure supplement?

Terror Bird 
Gamer's Common
Type: Animal, prehistoric. Can be found solitary or in packs (D6). Any environment except Arctic.
Size: Human or larger
Stats: High strength, agility and endurance. Animal, predator intelligence.
Weapons and Armour: Beak (high damage), Kick (high damage), Head Butt (high damage). Wing rake (low damage). Hide provides moderate protection.
Min/Max: Very fast runners. May hunt in packs or have camouflaged plumage in dense jungles/woods.

TWERPS: Terror Birds
ST: 5.
Movement x2.
Attack:
Beak +1 Hit 3 Damage.
Kick: +1 Hit. 2 Damage
Head Butt: -1 Hit. 4 Damage
Armour: 3

Cave Clowns

You ever wanted to justify having scary clowns, but you're running a 'serious game'? Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal has the answer!

Cave Clows - Gamer's Common

-Type: Humanoid
Size: Human
Stats: Average human.
Weapons: hand to hand human average. Bite strong. Can and will use weapons.
Armour: 1 - Clothing
Min/Max: Can move in aquatic environments. Strong sense of smell and electo-location allows it to inhabit dark and near-dark environs. Some have magical abilities.

TWERPS- Cave Clowns

ST: 4

Can be found in cave and sewer environments. No penalty to aquatic movement. No penalties in darkness.

Attack:

Teeth +2 Hit, 3 Damage

Mallet: +2 Hit. 3 Damage

Armour: Clothing 2

Min/Max: Some may possess magical powers. 

Gamers' Common: A Manifesto

Of Dice and Men brings up the concept of Gamers' Common. Originated by Frank Mentzer, it is an idea designed to get around the Edition Wars and bring all roleplayers together, regardless what game they happen to be playing. What it means is writing game supplements using terms that are common to most games, or at least understood by all gamers; things like Rounds, Hit Points, Experience etc. It then falls to the game-master (and players!) to choose what rules set they want to apply. This might seem like a bit of work, but isn't any different than trying to convert a really good adventure that might not exactly fit your current game, edition or preferred OSR. More importantly, it leaves things open-ended enough to allow for GM improvisation and adaptation. I don't believe that you should play anything straight out of the box.

Two of my all time favourite role-playing supplements are The Chronicles of Talislanta (available all free and legal here) which outlines the continent of Talislanta, the primary setting for the game of the same name; and Titan which describes the world of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone's Fighting Fantasy and Sorcery! gamebooks. Neither has a single rule in them, but both are utterly bottomless in terms of ideas and inspiration.

I thought of both of them when I came across of Mentzer's idea of rule neutral supplements. I've been struggling to find a focus for this blog for a long time and my own game writing has been all over the freakin' map.

I find the D&D Edition Wars to be tiring and pointless* and my own pet favourite games (Talislanta, TWERPS and WEG D6) are a little too esoteric to fill out a regularly posted blog. Homebrewing is fun, but again appeals only to a very small niche market (basically, myself). Still, I want to share my ideas, or at least put them down in one place so I can refer to them later. Writing in Gamers' Common allows me to do this, and I don't have to cross reference anything to make sure I converted the THAC0 correctly.

So I am leaving the rules behind and embarking down the GC path. I might occasionally dip into a rules specific post from time to time (if I ever bother to finish that TWERPS GI:JOE supplement, for example), but otherwise I am going to concentrate my energies on being as general as possible.

*For the record, I am an OSR Grognard at heart, but I am a believer in playing the game in front of you. If the GM puts the time and effort into running a 4thE game, play that and don't bitch how AD&D or the Red Box or Labyrinth Lord or Pathfinder does it better.  

What is TWERPS?

With generous help from Wikipedia;

The World's Easiest Role Playing System was originally created, written and illustrated in its distinctive style by "Jeff & 'Manda Dee". Jeff Dee being a noted game illustrator and co-writer of Villains and Vigilantes. It was created for Reindeer Games (whose sole product was the TWERPS line) and distributed by Gamescience (now known for its dice). Presented as a parody of the complicated RPG systems which were prevalent at the time while still being a playable game in its own right, it's simple structure and humorous nature gave it unexpected popularity.

The rules system is extremely simple. All characters have one Stat, Strength (STR) and they roll their STR plus 1d10 to make all checks, or to defeat an enemy. When playing with miniatures (the game came with paper counters and usually a paper map or hex board), STR also indicated how far the character can travel in a round. Get wounded, and your STR goes down which makes all further rolls more difficult. This makes a certain amount of sense if you think about it, try stabbing yourself in leg with a fork then trying to drive a car.

That is TWERPS. 

Reindeer Games produced two editions and a total of thirteen supplements covering everything from standard fantasy, to Mad Max style post apocalypse, to Star Trek and the X-Files, all of which were completely inter-connectable. Over the years, I've managed to collect all the supplements except the 'How to Do Everything Better', which was an expansion on the basic rules. 

Lately I've been going over my old TWERPS books and while I adore the basic conceit of the game, I am rules tinkerer at heart so there are a few things I would like to change …

What I hope to do with here is twofold. The first is to bring the game back a little into the spotlight a little, or at least have it pop up on Google Search. At the same time, I will be going through each of the books, looking for things that might require a bit of tweaking that I will compile into a file I plan on calling "Son of TWERPS."

Not much of a hobby I'll admit, but it keeps me off the streets. 

TWERPS LINKS

TWERPS on Wikipedia

TWERPS ARCANUM

Pineapple: Most comprehensive site I could find, but WARNING- its an angelfire site so be prepared to fight pop-ups.

TWERPS Twaveller: A nice and quick PDF for using TWERPS in Traveller

Hyperia: A setting for Cyber TWERPS

Another World: A Fantasy TWERPS rules-set that would fit well with an Anime Style Game

How to Do Everything... the TWERPS Yahoo Group (still going strong-ish!)

TWERPS Time and Spacey Wacey (Doctor Who meets Bill & Ted supplement written by me)

The Enchiridon

I’ve wanted to do this for a while; systematically going through each Adventure Time with Finn and Jake episode, and generating stats for the fantastic creatures, items and people in the series. I’ll be doing it for three different systems!

Questamundo (my homebrew system)
TWERPS (The World’s Easiest RPG) and
D&D Basic (Red Box)

Hey, it’s not the kind of stuff that works in everyone’s campaign, but it certainly works in mine.

Episode: Pilot/Adventure Time
Sweater

Any character wearing a sweater is immune to effects of normal cold. They still take full damage from magical cold.

Snow Golem
Snow Golems are sometimes created by wizards inhabiting high mountains or Polar Regions to be used as guardians to their lairs. If their creator passes away or forgets about them, the golem will eventually become autonomous, at which point their alignment and temperament will become randomly determined.

Snow Golems can only be harmed by magical weapons. They are also completely immune to cold based attacks, though they can be temporarily blinded by a well-thrown snowball. They take double damage from heat/fire based attacks.

D&D Basic
Armour Class: 7
Hit Dice: 50
Attacks: 2
Damage: 2d10
Number Appearing: 1
Save as: Fighter 5
Alignment: Neutral

Questamundo
Rank: 5-10
Body: 15
Mind: 2
Spirit: N (equal to rank if autonomous)
BP: 40
Alignment: Neutral
Damage: +6
Armour: -6

TWERPS:
STR: 15
-Strong. Immune to cold based attacks.

TWERPS Adventures in Time and Spacey-Wacey

This is what happens when I get distracted. Instead of working on April A-Z I ended up churning out a completely silly supplement for a game no one even plays anymore. Anyway here it is, The completely Unoffical TWERPS Campaign Book #13: Adventures in Time and Spacey-Wacey.

Sonnofa’TWERP!

I went scuttling to my game library last night to check a rules reference for my QUESTAMUNDO system and came across my old copies of TWERPS. Out of nostalgia I opened the cellophane bags and ended up reading through the rule book in about two minutes (because you can).

Don’t you hate it when you’re working on something only to realize that someone has already done it better? I LOVE reading through rule heavy systems, but I’ve never been able to play one successfully. My brain just doesn’t work that way and while GMing or playing I rather play Calvinball then Cricket. I just don’t have it in me to have to reference Book 3: Chapter VII, subparagraph ii, to figure out what the player wants to do. So if there is one mechanic that allows me or my players to improvise, so much the better. That is why I have a shelf full of Mechwarrior and Renegade Legion boxes, but I tend to play games like Talislanta (and the one-chart OMNI-system), the original edition of BESM (before the company went totally wacko), and WEG’s D6 system. But the simplest, purest game I’ve ever found has to be TWERPS (and to take a moment to shout out to its spiritual successor, the awesome RISUS).

Not only has TWERPS already used my idea for competing dice (but uses d10 instead of d20), they also incorporated a simple movement system for miniature use on hex or graph paper … all with one stat. I’m not going to drop QUESTAMUNDO, though I came close last night, since the main criticism directed at TWERPS seems to be limitations of the single Stat, which means most house rules I can find add Stats anyways. A least QUESTAMUNDO has four (or five) Stats to start, but I will be acknowledging my debt to TWERPS more often from here on.

Unfortunately, TWERPS seems to have dropped off the radar over time, so I’m going to do my best to keep the spirit of The World’s Easiest Role Playing System alive!

TWERPS LINKS
TWERPS on Wiki

Most comprehensive site I could find, but Warning: its an angelfire site so be prepared to fight pop-ups.

A nice and quick PDF for using TWERPS in Traveller

A setting for Cyber TWERPS

A Fantasy TWERPS rules-set that would fit well with an Anime Style Game

Pondering what I am Pondering.

So the question on my mind of late has been; why bother to write a brand new RPG anyway?

By that I mean, why not just fit my ideas around one of the many excellent systems that already exists, rather than try to launch something entirely new and may not ever appeal to anyone else but me?

I have been following with great interest and have given serious thought to embracing the OSR movement, writing for Labyrinth Lord, Castles and Crusades, or even just busting open my old Red Box and going from there. Then I have to be honest and admit that while I love rolling-it Old Skool, when it comes to writing I much prefer a sinmple, cohesive system rather than the 'different dice mechanic for every rule' approach.
So why not start my own D6 Renaissance, or even a TWERPS Revival Association. Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.

I could even tinker with the Omnisystem, but to me that is forever bound to Talislanta, and thus, pretty much sacred. BTW, one of these days remind me to get into how Talislanta was directly responsible for 3D&D.
If I had to choose a system to work with, my choice would probably have to be RISUS, which is distilled awesome.

There was a time when I had found a game and thought; this was it, this was going to be the only game for me. Everthing thing I did forthwith, was going to be based on THIS ONE game. I also had a night job at the time and was watching a lot of pirated anime. That game was BESM. I quickly created a world called the ‘Moonlit Empire’ and ran my players through a couple of good to satisfactory adventures (gotta dig up those world notes one of these days).

Then with every successive book and supplement that “a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_Order>GoO released, the disillusionment grew. I railed in the forums and even sent letters to the company to get it back, get it back! This had been a pure and useful system, what where you doing to it?! Cock Fighting Seizure Monsters? Obscure licences to shows I barely recognized? Where was the frackin’ basic Fantasy Supplement? Finally, I gave up and sold all my books on ebay a few years before GoO finally imploded.

BESM aside, with all these great systems available, why break new ground? There are thousands of unplayed and abandoned homebrew systems out there littering the dead pages of the intraweb. Do I really want to add one more?

Frankly, yes. My time to write is limited and if I am going to do this at all, I might as well play in my own sandbox; play by no one else’s rules or restrictions. Do I care if anyone else ever plays the game as is? Not really. If someone ends up plays one of the adventures using a different set of rules, or even just gets a good idea, or a laugh out of something I put out there, I’ll consider it worthwhile.

If anyone is interested in starting up a TWERPS revival movement, leave a comment!

I Suck at Roleplaying Games

When it comes to the rules, I’m usually more lost than a Baptist at Dragon Con. I would honestly LOVE to crack into a game like FASA’s Mechwarrior or Renegade Legion and start rolling dice. I’ve read over the books and lovingly caressed the complex diagrams and stats a dozen times, but I still do not have the first clue on how the game is actually played. My brain is just not built that way.Might as well be written in ancient Swahili as far as I'm concerned
When I was a kid, I’d read articles in Dragon Magazine containing detailed charts for falling or drowning damage, or weapon speed/length/weight. I can even remember a semi-serious article containing some fairly intricate rules on telling jokes for the Jester class.I would seriously play this character.
And I found every bit of it fascinating even if, like my ill fated attempt at a Latin class, it left me utterly befuddled. As a result, my interest began to wane as AD&D continued to pile on the rules and we began to drift to other systems. We played RIFTS for the world, not the rules and we tended to ignore everything but the combat system anyway. It was rare that anyone wanted to play a straight magic-user or psi since there was a reason the game called regular humans, “squishies”. What Palladium ultimately left me with is a deep distaste for character sheets with long lists of skills and overall incongruous game mechanics.

I also found other systems like WEGs Star Wars which I found to be gloriously simple and marvellously easy to play. Then there was TWERPS, one of the grand-daddies of rules-lite which I never actually got to play, but revelled in its ability to boil things down to one stat and one dice. I still have a complete set of TWERPS supplements on my game shelf.Does anyone else remember this game?
But the one that really opened my eyes was Talislanta. I’m certain that I will gush about Tal a lot in this blog and I’ll save the raving fandom for another time, but sufficed to say seeing everything boiled down into a simple chart was nothing short of a double-rainbow moment for me in terms of how simply a game could be played.
Judge this book by its cover.
No matter what you play, how long you have been playing, or who you play with, something or someone is going to throw you a curveball. The player is going to suggest something completely out of left-field or the game is going to go in a unexpected direction exactly like some other baseball analogy.

In order to compensate for this, the game must have a specific rule for every scenario, or an overall system that any scenario can be plugged into. Talislanta did this with a chart outlining success rolls for Combat, Magic and Skills/Everything else. Want to know how long your character can tread water in full armour before the other PCs realize he fell down the well? You can either find that specific article in Dragon Magazine, or simply make a Swimming skill roll with modifiers for the armour, strength and time on one easy chart. Maybe the rules don’t specifically cover falling in a well in full armour, but the overall system is flexible enough for the GM to improvise a solution that the player will accept.

I can certainly see the appeal of having a rule for every scenario, and every scenario its rule. For tech-heavy games, this is almost a must. But my natural inclination will always be towards simpler systems and has deeply influenced me both as a GM, and as a game designer. While the rules are the framework of the game and should be adhearded to, they should never get in the way of good game.