Today Is International BADASS Day!

I realized that today was actually the 1 year anniversary of the first ever RPG that I’ve ever published: BADASS: The Roleplaying Game That Kicks Logic in the FACE.

As rules-lite beer & pretzels style games go, I think I did pretty well with BADASS, and the reviews that the game received were certainly indicative that other people felt that the game was fun enough to play as well. It wasn’t about to go win any awards, but I’ve a certain amount of pride in my work, and a part of me wonders if it’s time to consider writing up a follow-up to this game.

That said, I’d like to encourage everyone who hasn’t seen this game before to go download it right now and give it a read. It was a load of fun to write and it’s free! Even better, if you like it, share the link to everyone you know, even if they don’t play they might still get a kick out of reading it.

A Hero’s Silent Resolve by Dax Xenos Tee

For those of you who’ve checked out BADASS! here’s a little link that might be interesting to you:

A Hero’s Silent Resolve: One Black and White Fan Artwork A Day for A Hundred Days

Dax Xenos Tee, who was responsible for the character artwork for BADASS! has recently put up a blog to post a single black and white piece of fanart a day.  I believe that Dax is incredibly talented and can work with the sparsest of art direction notes in ways that can surprise you.  I’m looking forward to working with him more on my future RPG projects, and occasionally commission him to do character portraits for the games I run.

 

[BADASS Zombies!] Art Preview

Hey there,

Just in case you guys are wondering, BADASS isn’t dead.  In fact, BADASS Zombies is currently in process, and I’ve already found a few excellent artists to make the first expansion for BADASS to be dripping with awesomeness!

This art preview is brought to you by Amiel Lapuebla, and shows a couple of Badasses in the midst of shooting the hell out of a bunch of zombies!  Check it out:

Take note that this is just the line art version, I’m confident that when the final artwork is done it’ll be something that really looks BADASS!

[BADASS Zombies!] Design Diary – My First Supplement

BADASS Zombies! Has officially kicked off and I’ve already started writing the first draft.  One of the interesting things about this is that I’m technically writing my very first supplement to a game I’ve created.  It feels very different from designing a corebook since this time, I have to worry about something else aside from making sure that the rules work.

Instead, the focus for BADASS Zombies! is to expand on what makes BADASS fun, by adding the kind of options that help players have more fun.  Whether these are new Flavas, new opponents, a new setting or interesting new rules, all these additional options should make things more enjoyable rather than confusing.  One of the problems that are usually associated with supplements is that they tend to add too much fat in the form of complex new sub-systems that end up hurting the core experience by making things difficult to remember on the fly.

Already I’ve begun outlining the systems that I’m thinking of adding and will be scrutinizing them one by one.  Hopefully with enough playtesting, I can keep only the most amusing, and intuitive and weed out the ones that exist merely because I was feeling clever.

I’m considering farming out the cover art for BADASS Zombies! to someone who can do good colored art.  If you guys know of an artist who can do a BADASS job (and accepts commissioned work) drop me a line, and I’ll take a look.  I want to make this expansion to be something that will make BADASS Zombies! something that people will be glad to pick up.

[BADASS Zombies!] Game Design Musing

BADASS is a game that opens up to so many possibilities that it was very difficult to pick which genre to take on first.  That said Zombies are always a crowd favorite and there is definitely nothing lame about blowing up the undead with a shotgun.

But given the glut of zombie-related games and entertainment, BADASS has to be more than just a simple expansion.  I’ve been mulling it over in my head for a few days now, and here’s what I’ve got so far.  The Zombie Expansion for BADASS will have:

• New Flavas – A BADASS without Flava is not BADASS at all.  Zombie BADASS also will include Flavas only available to the undead, giving the GMs more than just a few surprises that they can throw at their players.
• New Setting – Central City is nice for games about punching thugs in the face, but a zombie outbreak deserves it’s own little slice of hell.
• New Artwork – Dax Xenos Tee from the original BADASS has agreed to work with me on the Zombie Expansion
• Genre Specific Rules – Zombie Infection, Weak Spots, maybe even Paranoia mechanics
• A Complete Zombie Outbreak Mini-Game that uses the BADASS core rules, and can be used as either a GM tool, or a stand-alone outbreak simulator.

I’m actually considering putting this thing out as an IndieGoGo project.  As soon as the project earns enough, then the project is released to the world under a Creative Commons License.  With your generosity, the whole world gets to enjoy another dose of sheer BADASS!

What do you guys think?  Would you be willing to help fund this BADASS expansion for the good of the world?