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.

In fantasy games, taverns are often full of patrons drinking and playing cards. It strains our suspension of disbelief when we hear them draw the King of Hearts or play a game of Spades or Blackjack.

While it would be nice to have a fully developed deck quite different than our standard 52-card deck, it would not be compatible with most of the games we know, so we would also have to come up with new games. Some have the time (or money) for that, but most of us don’t.

Instead, a simple re-skinning let us draw the Empress of Arrows or play a game of Shields or Black Knight, adding a little bit of fantasy flair while still keeping the real-world cards and allowing us to play the games we know.

The inspiration for doing this came when the player in my current City of Steel campaign started running card games where patrons had to guess the suit. It was jarring to me when real world cards were drawn and announced by this character who is clearly from a fantasy – not pseudo-historical – world. So, I’ve made some simply changes to the 52-card deck, basically just changing the face cards, the ace, the joker and the suits. I hope you enjoy them.

Face Cards

If you want to personalise the card deck and use it as a plot device, then in your world, like in the real world, you could have the face cards of different suits represent figures from in-game myth or history.

Empress replaces the King. I liked the idea of female royalty being the highest card. I think it lends a little history to the deck, especially if there are no empires in your game. It alludes to a former Empire ruled – openly or in secret truth – by women. Empress cards would be strong and powerful looking women atop a throne in royal attire with a sceptre.

Priest replaces the Queen. Religion is often at the forefront of fantasy games, whether there is one god or hundreds. Including a priest as a face card indicates the importance of religion in the society that uses the deck or the one that invented it. Priest cards would be men (and/or women, depending what you want to go for in your world) dressed in robes and holding holy symbols matching their suits or perhaps even matching those of deities in your world.

Knight replaces the Jack. Knight is an actual French Tarot playing card with a picture of a young man riding a horse, with a value between Jack and Queen. Knights are usually an important part of Medieval-style fantasy worlds. If your game world skews more towards Renaissance than Medieval, perhaps the Knight could be called the cavalier or chevalier instead. Depending on the importance of horses in your world, this card could have a man (or woman, if women are or formerly were knights in your world) on a horse, or more a swashbuckling sort of figure for the chevalier.

Fool replaces the Joker. It is a common trope that the fool or court jester is actually extremely intelligent. Replacing the Joker with the Fool was an obvious choice and the card being variously low, high, wild or simply ignored speaks to the Fool’s adaptability and the way they are perceived by others. Fools would look a lot like the Jokers we use now, though some areas might depict them with a donkey’s head or some similar bizarre and foolish representation or even depict them in the colours or clothing of a rival nation.

Dog replaces the Ace. Not really a face card, but I like it because it adds another little change to things, rather than just sticking with a large single representation of the suit. Dogs can be seen as useless strays and dangerous mongrels or as loyal guards and man’s best friends. Because of these varying perceptions, I though it would be interesting to replace the Ace with the Dog, seeing as Ace can be high or low (or both) depending on the game you’re playing. Dog cards would have a simple picture of a dog coloured either black or red, depending on suit. Perhaps various regions depict the dogs differently – scruffy where dogs are disliked and strong and noble where they are favoured companions. If you’re using the goddess Tarsis, this card could be linked with her faith.

Suits

I wanted the suits to seem appropriate to fantasy worlds, but not covered in dragons and wizard hats. I ended up deciding that the black suits would be defensive representations and the red suits would be offensive representations.

For the Black suits, Shields replace Spades and Helms replace Clubs.

For the Red suits, Maces replace diamonds and Arrows replace Hearts.

I thought about using Swords instead of Maces, but the latter is a little non-standard and again adds a bit of flair to the deck (perhaps Maces were a common weapon in the ancient Empire where Dogs were also common). Mainly though, Mace heads are a lot easier to draw than Swords and still keep them around the same size as the other suits.

As mentioned, the deck is usable for any 52-card game you know, but the offensive/defensive dichotomy also presents hints of other games. Maybe there’s a rock-paper-scissors sort of card game where:

• Shields beat Arrows
• Arrows beat Helms
• Helms beat Maces
• Maces beat Shields

Not sure about the other combinations, like Shields vs. Helms and Arrows vs. Maces. Maybe suits of the same colours can’t hurt each other? I haven’t thought it out thoroughly, but I think there’s something there.

Full House

So, to wrap up, here’s our real-world card annotation compared to this new fantasy deck from lowest to highest, without Jokers or Fools:

A 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 J Q K

D 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 K P E

If you’d like to use these suits in your home game, click here to download a zip of each suit with a transparent background. Enjoy!

Nevermet Press’ Monster MashUp Contest involved checking out an illustration of a new monster and writing a backstory, narrative or description to go with it. Public voting has now begun on the entries – and there’s a lot of great ones! So get your votes in before May 7th. After that, the top three entries will be judged by a panel and prizes will be awarded. I had a crack at it, producing the following entry (Entry #25).

EDIT: Sadly, the voting has been temporarily closed due to “widespread voting fraud”. Read the post on Nevermet Press’ website for more information. I will about this again when voting starts back up.

Flanked by four small maws filled with needle sharp teeth, eight unblinking orange eyes encircle a ninth central eye in the crinkled face of this dark wiry creature. Clawed limbs and sinewy tentacles protrude from the muscular trunk of its lower body like a mass of writhing roots and vines. About the size of a large dog, this radial creature skitters about unnaturally, quickly changing directions and scaling any surface with disturbing grace.

Such is its ease of movement that time and space prove no barrier to this creature. It easily tears through the fabric of reality and its nine eyes see countless timelines and futures at once. It acts based on these stimuli and is highly unpredictable as it performs seemingly random acts – usually of violence – as it attempts to steer the world towards some unknowable fate.

Often sighted during disasters, wars and assassinations, many believe this creature appears at such times to ensure that these history-shaping events unfold as it wishes. Some claim that the creature does not just sway the outcome of these events, but meticulously influences smaller related events and key moments in the past to set up these eventual catastrophes.

Moderately capable in combat, this creature prefers to wait in the shadows or in time itself for just the right second to pounce. When overwhelmed, this creature will often come to its own aid – suddenly dozens of future versions of this otherwise unique creature emerge from tears in space to devastate their attackers before promptly returning to their own times leaving volatile gobs of warped reality in their wake. This corruption of space-time can lead to spontaneous changes of history, bringing long-dead villains back to life or even pulling ancient wars, plagues or other threats into the present.

I’m pretty proud of my entry, but there are a lot of great ones in the running. Head over to Nevermet’s website to vote on your favourite entry.