Skirmisher Discounts ‘Cthulhu Live’ 90%!

In honor of its 10th anniversary celebration, Skirmisher Publishing LLC has discounted PDF downloads of its acclaimed Cthulhu Live 3rd Edition horror live-action role-playing game by 90% on DriveThruRPG and RPGNow, from $9.99 to just 99 cents! This LARP is based on the Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft and is a licensed live-action version of Chaosium Inc.’s Call of Cthulhu classic and best-selling tabletop RPG.

During the 10th anniversary sale, Skirmisher has also marked down by 25% all the other products in the Cthulhu Live line. These include the Companion Suite, a collection of computer applications and support materials, and numerous scenarios (among them The Island, Muerte al Chupacabras!, Witchfinder, Arcanum Imperii, Sight Unseen, The Green Fairy, Mysteries of the Mythos: Murder at Miskatonic, House of Pain, and Old Man of Damascus).

“This newest and best edition of Cthulhu Live includes a richly detailed and uniquely playable rules system that incorporates nearly two decades of best practices and refinements from hundreds of gamers worldwide,” said developer Robert “Mac” McLaughlin.

Features of this self-contained game include:

* Rules for skills, combat, Sanity, Magic, and Psychic powers.

* Extensive information on organizing events, stagecraft and special effects.

* Guidelines on role-playing Outsiders tainted by the touch of the Mythos.

* New and improved photographs, graphics, and other images.

* A screen-friendly lo-res version of the book that includes the "parchment" background of the original print edition and red blood spatters that had to be printed black in the original.

* A printer-friendly hi-res version of the book from which background images, blood spatters, and other material that might eat up toner or affect the quality of home printouts have been eliminated.

And much more! The stars are right for you to pick up a copy of Cthulhu Live 3rd Edition and its supplements now!

Skirmisher Releases ‘Wisdom from the Wastelands Issue #7: Planar Creatures & Concepts

Skirmisher Publishing LLC is proud to announce the release of Wisdom from the Wastelands Issue #7: Planar Creatures & Concepts! It is written by Derek Holland and Chris Van Deelen, authors of multiple multiple Mutant Future supplements, and is available through online venues that include DriveThruRPG.

One mutation that could greatly influence a campaign setting and its population is plane shift. Once a planar gate is opened, anything that comes through will affect the Mutant Future world. New arrivals could include seeds, spores, eggs, creatures, diseases, energy, technology, or even changes in the laws of physics. This issue provides a few example creatures, mutations, and energies from alternate realities.

This publication is dedicated to providing useful information, game content, and ideas to players of modern, science fiction, and post-apocalyptic table-top and role-playing games in general and to fans of Goblinoid Games’ Mutant Future RPG in particular. The rules contained herein are compatible with it and any others that use the “Basic” system introduced in the most popular role-playing games of the early 1970s and are easily adaptable to many other games (especially successor systems, to include those covered by the Open Game License).

Our goal is to release a new thematic issue of this publication just about every week and to have it contain a variety of useful and earnest information that will inspire Game Masters and players alike and provide them with things that they can immediately plug into their games. We very much hope you will find this and subsequent issues of the Wisdom from the Wastelands to be useful and enjoyable!

MGP Amerika 2 event, a great kickoff to the series

On Feb. 25, 2012, Mindgame Productions hosted a very successful airsoft milsim event at Waynes World of Paintball in Ocala, FL.



The scenario is based on "what if D-Day failed."

When the D-Day landing fell apart on the beaches of Normandy, the hope of Democracy died alongside tens of thousands of Allied troops. The success of the Third Reich's atomic weapons project halted the Red Army in the radioactive ruins of Poland. Operation SeaLion ground the British Empire beneath the heel of the Reich. The threat of German atomic bombers over Moscow brought Stalin to sign a ceasefire in 1945. German and Japanese troops landed on the east and west coasts of the United States in 1946, ripping through the broad heartlands with strategic atomic strikes that neutralized massed US resistance. Working feverishly, the Manhattan project was able to complete its work from new facilities in Calgary and the remnants of the United States and Canada detonated atomic weapons against German forces near Colorado Springs and Rapid City. By the time the cease-fire was signed in 1949, all that remained of the United States was a crippled handful of states in the Pacific North-West and east along the Canadian border to North Dakota.  

Over 60 years later, the citizens of chafe under the control of Berlin and the Amerikanisches Reichsgovernor. Crop failures and inability to meet industrial production quotas have increased the pressure from Berlin. Deadly force has quelled protests against the Reichsgovernor, until the embers of resistance flashed to open flame in the Reichstaat of Florida, rapidly spreading through other regions of the Amerikan Reich. The campaign has begun as the Alliance of Free America, Canada and Cuba join their regular troops with the freedom fighters of the underground resistance movement. The fight to liberate Amerika has begun! 

This game was the kick-off event for what will be a series of games held throughout Florida this year, in an ongoing campaign.

"Think of a game of RISK... in which many of the battles are fought on airsoft fields...Teams that have staked out their alliegence to the Amerikan Reich or the Resistance movement will see the results change the strategic map over time, as the two powers fight over Florida - one corner of the greater war underway for the liberation of Amerika." -Mac McLaughlin, Mindgame Productions

The campaign is set to conclude in Feb. 2013.

Check out the after-action reports on the forum here.

Players assembled for briefing (Photo: Shwell)

Keeping Score: Axis vs. Allies

The Spear of Destiny (Photo: Allyson Capecea) 

A "tank" (Photo: Chantal Jost)

Check out more photos from the event here, here, here, and here.

A nice recap of the event was posted in an article on Airsoft Squared, here.

Video, part 1 (by Shwell):


Video, part 2 (by Shwell):


For more information about Amerika and other MGP events, visit the Mindgame Productions web site.

Skirmisher Discounts ‘Experts’ 96%!

As part of its 10th anniversary celebration, Skirmisher Publishing has discounted PDF downloads of its popular title Experts v.3.5 by a full 96% RPGNow and on DriveThruRPG, from $12.99 to just 50 cents! This is a revised and expanded version of the company’s very first book, Experts, which it released in early 2002.

“One of the things that made this book notable was that Gary Gygax wrote the foreword to it,” said Skirmisher publisher Michael Varhola. “He could tell that we had drawn heavily on his work from Dungeons & Dragons when developing Experts and very generously agreed to be a part of it. He set the kind of example we have tried to follow since then, and offering one of our best titles at this price is a way for us to give back to the gaming community.”

Experts v.3.5 takes the concept of the Expert non-player-character class briefly described in the Dungeon Master’s Guide and gives it unprecedented depth and playability. This 176-page book includes:

* More than 30 fully detailed Expert types, including the Alchemist, Blacksmith, Courtesan, Merchant, Miner, Navigator, Physician, Sage, Sailor, and Weaponmaker.

* The Guild Master, Militia Leader, and Spellcrafter prestige classes, the latter of which can allow Experts, Specialists, and other characters to gain specialized magical abilities that they can use to enhance their mundane abilities.

* The Specialist, a new basic character class that players can use to create versatile "adventuring Experts" of any sort.

* More than 100 new skills, including dozens of new Crafts and Professions and detailed rules for creation of everything from weapons and armor to buildings and ships.

* The concept of Convergence Tasks, activities that can be accomplished as the result of having ranks in two or more skills (e.g., use of Craft (Blacksmithing) and Profession (Mining) to perform Smelting). These can allow characters to perform relatively specialized functions but does not inundate the game with obscure, rarely-used skills.

* A section of 20 new Feats.

* 22 new magic items.

* More than two dozen ready-to-use NPC Experts that can be used as-is or easily modified to suit any campaign or adventure.

* Flavor text from a number of literary sources that can help stimulate interest in the various sorts of Experts presented in this book, suggest how they might be used, or show them in a different light than usual.

And now you can get all this for just 50 cents! This special sale will not last long, so go ahead and pick up your copy now.

USMSC at MegaCon 2012

We had a blast at MegaCon this year with Mindgame Productions and the United States Marine Space Corps in Orlando, FL. Some of my favorite moments, captured here:

Mac briefing a group of players before they go into the simulation. 

USMSC group photo

NPCs

It's THAT guy

A team prepares to enter the simulation

MindGame Productions is the longest running airsoft-events company on the east coast. Established in early 2005, MGP is based in Florida with team members spread through Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas. Company events have been focused in Florida, but MGP has also run events in Ohio, Indiana and is always looking for opportunities to develop new events in the south-east.

The USMSC is an organization for fans of the military sci-fi genre. Whether you're a fan of military sci-fi authors, or you love films or tv shows such as Aliens, Starship Troopers, Stargate-1, BSG and others... all are welcome in the USMSC. Our organization celebrates the comraderie, drama, epic struggle and the horror of the military experience as realized in everything sci-fi.

Skirmisher Releases ‘Wisdom from the Wastelands Issue #3: High-Tech Weapons’

Skirmisher Publishing LLC is proud to announce the release of Wisdom from the Wastelands Issue #3: High-Tech Weapons! It is written by Derek Holland and Chris Van Deelen, authors of multiple multiple Mutant Future supplements, and is available through online venues that include DriveThruRPG.

Like magical weapons in fantasy games, high-technology firearms are treasures that adventurers seek out with great eagerness in the post-apocalyptic world. No matter how cool a weapon is, however, players will always be looking for something better to use against the many hazards that populate the science fantasy post-apocalyptic wastes, and this third issue of Wisdom from the Wastelands is devoted to new toys that Game Masters can use to reward — or punish — their players. Several of the new weapons presented in this issue have the option of different types of ammunition, adding even more variety to a game.

This publication is dedicated to providing useful information, game content, and ideas to players of modern, science fiction, and post-apocalyptic table-top and role-playing games in general and to fans of Goblinoid Games’ Mutant Future RPG in particular. The rules contained herein are compatible with it and any others that use the “Basic” system introduced in the most popular role-playing games of the early 1970s and are easily adaptable to many other games (especially successor systems, to include those covered by the Open Game License).

Our goal is to release a new thematic issue of this publication just about every week and to have it contain a variety of useful and earnest information that will inspire Game Masters and players alike and provide them with things that they can immediately plug into their games. We very much hope you will find this and subsequent issues of the Wisdom from the Wastelands to be useful and enjoyable!

Skirmisher Releases ‘Wisdom from the Wastelands Issue #2: Monsters That Improve with Age’

Skirmisher Publishing LLC is proud to announce the release of Wisdom from the Wastelands Issue #2: Monsters That Improve with Age! It is written by Derek Holland and Chris Van Deelen, authors of multiple multiple Mutant Future supplements, and is available through online venues that include DriveThruRPG.

Like a fine wine, some monsters improve with age, and it is to them that this second thematic issue of Wisdom from the Wastelands is devoted. An age chart can be a wonderful tool for Game Masters who want to scale monster encounters so that they are commensurate with the powers and artifacts possessed by the player characters. A chart of this sort is made up of three columns, one each for the age of a creature, its hit dice, and notes. Notes include damage, mutations, drawbacks, and anything else that affects the creature in or out of combat.

This publication is dedicated to providing useful information, game content, and ideas to players of modern, science fiction, and post-apocalyptic table-top and role-playing games in general and to fans of Goblinoid Games’ Mutant Future RPG in particular. The rules contained herein are compatible with it and any others that use the “Basic” system introduced in the most popular role-playing games of the early 1970s and are easily adaptable to many other games (especially successor systems, to include those covered by the Open Game License).

Our goal is to release a new thematic issue of this publication just about every week and to have it contain a variety of useful and earnest information that will inspire Game Masters and players alike and provide them with things that they can immediately plug into their games. We very much hope you will find this and subsequent issues of the Wisdom from the Wastelands to be useful and enjoyable!