Issue #14 was the extra-big Gen Con issue, and in its pages you’ll find:

• Exclusive Pathfinder content, including two articles by Paizo staff
• The Ecology of the Tengu—in Golarion and in Zobeck
• An interview with 4th Edition D&D lead designer Rob Heinsoo
• Treasure Trove articles with phat loots to improve your game and bring smiles to players
• Paladins, secret languages, and aasimar PCs
• Secrets of Game Design by Monte Cook
• So much more that it makes us dizzy to even think about it!

All you need to do to get your PDF copy is go to the KQ Store, add issue #14 to your cart, and enter the coupon code KoboldWelcome at checkout. Enjoy!

I’m hosting a party today, so I don’t have anything new for you, but here are some Australia-related RPG posts from years past.

Link Hoard: Australia Day 2010

Australiana Apocalyptica

Enjoy. I’m off to have a barbecue, some drinks and listen to the Triple J Hottest 100.

The Pool is explained pretty well here with a few ideas for tweaking the game. I prefer Anti-Pool, myself. Both are dead simple and can be used for any genre. I play Anti-Pool with my wife in the car, it’s so simple.

Risus: The Anything RPG is a short comedic RPG with Aspect-like “clichés” and an easy to learn rule set. If you want to make it more serious, try the Serious Risus supplement.

Wheel of Fate is my new go-to game for on-the-go play. It’s got a bit more to it than The Pool, but it it is still only 8 pages long and does everything I want in a setting-less, genre-less rules-light game. Well, almost everything. There’s no advancement rules, but the ones from Wheel of Exalted Fate (last page of the document) fit perfectly. It’s well worth signing up to the Yahoo! Group to download Wheel of Fate and other FATE tweaks.

Otherkind is a cool game by Vincent Baker (Dogs in the Vineyard, Apocalypse World) about the fey. It has a sleek dice mechanic that has been the basis for other games.

GHOST/ECHO is one of those games based on Otherkind dice. It’s by John Harper, one of the best in the industry. It’s an “oracle game” in that it implies the setting, gives you the tools you need and sets you loose to interpret and create the world and adventures how your group sees fit.

The Wildlings is another John Harper game, this time with a setting and premise inspired by Penny Arcade’s Lookouts. It’s great for kids but I think it’s good for adults too. I wrote a game with rules inspired by The Wildlings and we all had great fun with it. Wildlings is simple but elegant and the PDF itself is very beautiful.

The Shadow of Yesterday is a fascinating fantasy setting with a great rules set, including some great mechanics linked to character and story activities such as your dice pools being refreshed by in-fiction actions, not the end of a session or similar; it links roleplaying and interaction to mechanical benefits in a very clever way. I’ve yet to play it, but it reads very well and makes me very keen to run it. Clinton R. Nixon created this game and it has gained a great deal of popularity.

Lady Blackbird is another game with a great implied setting (in fact, Ryan Macklin recently wrote on the subject) and fans of Firefly should be particularly interested. Lady Blackbird is yet another of John Harper’s game. It won the 2010 RPG Golden Geek award for Best Free Game and also won an Ennie that same year for Best Free Product. The game is beautiful, sleek and a great hybrid of the best bits of several rules sets (including The Pool and The Shadow of Yesterday), all in a beautiful pick-up-and-play package.

The Mustang is a short-form game (by, you guessed it, John Harper) that is about a very specific situation and a handful of characters. It’s an interesting idea and a good focus on character interaction.

44: A Game of Automatic Fear was a nominee for the 2010 RPG Golden Geek award and it’s website describes it as a suspense and horror role-playing game designed for single sessions with very little preparation required. It’s a great game for busy players looking for a one-shot session. Again, I haven’t played this one but it’s right up there on my list.

Nine Worlds: A Game of Cosmic Drama is another one I haven’t played, so I’ll let the text do the talking: “Modern-day fantasy meets Greek myth in this unique role-playing game. Nine Worlds is ideal for players looking to create exciting, magical drama. This game provides players the tools to create incredible stories set in a universe full of magic, myth, tragedy, and redemption. Players portray Archons—mortal humans caught in a cosmic cold war between the Greek Gods and Titans. The game master guides them among the Nine Worlds, testing their loyalties or tempting them towards rebellion. Will your Archon support the immortal rulers of the universe? Or, will your Archon break their laws and help shape a new reality? Features: Innovative playing card mechanics, rich history & survey of the Nine Worlds, quick and easy character creation, advice for players on creating great stories.

Hell for Leather is another I haven’t had a chance to run: a darkly gory game of pursuit and savage violence. In the Standard Setting, play as contestants on the world’s bloodiest gameshow and struggle for gruesome survival! Or customise the game during-play! Features: No GM – all the players are in charge of the story; no prep – like a board game, you set it up together; customisable – create a new setting (like Pulp Explorers, Ancient Rome or the French Wars of Religion) during play!

ZILLA! is my first attempt at game design. I released it last year for Free RPG Day. It’s a game about kaiju, or Godzilla-like monsters. I describe it as a game of destruction, mayhem and love. I was inspired by the idea that these giant monsters, like King Kong, are very destructive, but are prone to falling in love with or developing relationships with humans. Heavily influenced by John Harper’s GHOST/ECHO and The Wildlings, I’ve run a few games of ZILLA! and we all had a blast. It’s a lot of fun and very simple to just play. For Free RPG Day this year, I’m releasing a free character pack for the game. It’s easy to make your own, but these will get you started.

That’s the great thing too, it’s not just typos and calculation errors you can report on, it’s how powers and abilities work, how a certain rule plays out in game, how things are balanced, and so on. Right now there are some great free playtest PDFs you can get your hands on, letting you try things out early and help shape the way the final products work. Let’s take a look.

Paizo is a pioneer of open public playtesting. First they let us have their entire Pathfinder Roleplaying Game system for free, let hundreds of players help determine how the spiritual successor to D&D 3.5 would look and play. Then they gave us playtest versions of the classes from the Advanced Players Guide. Now, they’ve released the Magus – a brand new base class that is a blend of weapon specialist and spellcaster – as a free playtest document for their upcoming Ultimate Magic sourcebook.

I know that martial/caster hybrids are much sought after and here’s one of the biggest game publishing companies just giving you this base class for you to try out and help them perfect. So try out the magus as an NPC or villain, or even let a lucky player have a go at playing the new class. Be sure to provide your feedback on the Paizo forums.

Green Ronin is following Paizo’s lead and has released 75 pages of rules for the upcoming Dragon Age RPG: Set 2. They’ve said that this is the majority of the game-mechanics for Set 2 and are eagre for feedback. They’ve provided a nice little overview at the start of the document of what playtesting and what they would like to hear about from you. It’s also a thank you for everyone who has been hanging out for Set 2 for a while – the rules haven’t gone through layout or typo-hunting yet, but the content is there and ready for you to playtest.

It’s not only big publishers releasing playtest documents – small press and indie publishers have been doing it for ages. I mentioned Geiger Counter in my Tweets of Doom this week and while I haven’t played it yet, I’ve read the Beta playtest document and it reads like a complete and engaging game. Feedback is still being sought, but the game is basically a full and interesting game available in PDF form at no cost. There are plenty more free games out there, too.

So, if you’re gaming on a budget, want to try something new, or want to help shape the games you love, try some free and/or playtest games. What have you got to lose?

Final thought: while looking for the Magus link I flicked through Paizo’s blog for the first time in a little while. I was reminded of the art previews they post sometimes and that this is just another free resource for GMs. Check it out and grab some art to spice up the next encounter you run for your PCs.

You don’t need to know the stats for the creatures or NPCs, you can just use them for your own purposes, or to reskin existing monsters. I’ve got more to say about reskinning, so I’ll probably post about reskinning in the near future. Stay tuned.