d30-based RPG Update! (or "Some Old-school Love for the King of Polyhedrals") and "The Nice Price!"

Okay... I know that's a lot to absorb in one blog post title, but I've got a lot to cover, so let's get to it!

First, some old-school love...

So for any of you who read my post on Friday, you know that I mentioned making a great leap forward on my d30-based RPG. I'd been toying around with a form of that mechanic in furtherance of the idea that most pulp heroes are just that... heroes, able to quickly vanquish hirelings and henchmen, and performing most tasks with larger than life artistry and aptitude.

As part of another blog post, I was working on a set of 1E-inspired tables to create "Mutant Humanoids" (hawkmen, crocodile-men, rat-men, et al.) akin to that beloved Saturday-morning cartoon of "savagery, super-science, and sorcery." Now... combine those two thoughts (a d30-based pulp RPG and an OSR approach to that Saturday morning cartoon), and you get "Magic, Men, Mutants & Machines: The d30 RPG of the Mutant Fantasy Future."

And now, the d30-based RPG update...

The game is tentatively retitled Magic, Men, Mutants & Machines (or MMM&M for short, or 4M for shorter. FYI, in the book I use MMM&M as it seems much more tongue-in-cheek.)

The introduction and the character sections are done. There are six character classes: 1. barbarians (men only); 2. Amazons (women only); 3. sorcerers/sorceresses (that's a mouthful); 4. technologians (aka "super-scientists); 5. Stonians (muscle-bound rockmen); and 6. Florm (amorphous utilitarian shape-changers.)

At this point, I expect the combat, magic and technology sections to be simplified/modified pickups/reworks of some the Starmasters* and The System: Expanded content, and I'm hoping to have a beta playtest version in a couple of weeks. (I'm still debating whether to include psionics rules, but I'm leaning towards "no" as they seem out of place in this setting for some reason.)

*On a side note, my co-conspirator David Welborn has been leading the charge on playtesting the Starmasters character and combat rules and it seems to be coming along nicely.

And finally, THE NICE PRICE!!!

I've sized the book a bit smaller than letter size so that it can be printed at Ka-Blam!. I'm planning on selling it at just a fraction above the hard costs, which means you should be able to get a 36-40 page rulebook (and that's a fairly dense copy layout; see the image above) with a B&W white cover for $3.50! If you want the color cover version, it will cost you $5 (+S/H in both cases.) Now, when's the last time you bought a printed RPG rulebook for five bucks? Hell, that's what the original Holmes D&D Blue Book (48 pp. + cover) cost when it came out in 1977! (To keep it truly old-school, I'm considering not releasing a PDF version. Thoughts?)