Life has run away on me this year, but I have finally managed to complete the fantasy newspaper I promised as my contribution for I Am Your Champion. I had some interest, but few donations, and that’s fine. I had fun making it and I hope those who donated to my charity are happy with the result. This isn’t just for them though, it’s a free download for everyone. I’ve made a parchment version and a print-friendly version. I hope you enjoy this and get some use out of it

Game masters can the newspaper for hooks, NPCs, adventures and worldbuilding or even just as a source of random rumours, information and goings-on. I think the best use for it, though, is for GMs to read it, think about it, then next time the PCs are in a tavern tell them “Someone’s left a newsletter on your table. It looks like this…” and then just give them the handout. I love doing this sort of thing in game and I hope you’ll enjoy my attempt at a fantasy newspaper, inspired by a thoughtful present my wife and friends made for me a few years ago.

If I get enough interest I might just make another issue. Enjoy

This year, I have released a free character pack with three pre-generated zillas for you and your friends to take to town. This is the ‘Classic Character Pack’ and it isn’t hard to see the inspiration behind Thoron, the giant lizard with atomic breath, Leoptra, an enormous psychic moth, and Kapparo, a gargantuan magma-infused tortoise.

Download the classic character pack for free. If you don’t yet have the game itself, download ZILLA! for free too.

Happy Free RPG Day, everyone!

Any current backers and anyone else who backs the project before time runs out in 18 days will receive a free exclusive Apocalypse World character playbook written by Vincent Baker. The character is called the Quarantine. Here’s a run-down:

The Quarantine has been locked away, suspended in ignorance of the outside world, throughout the Apocalypse. But his ignorance is nothing compared to what he knows: he remembers what came before and knows what caused it.

Not that it will help him.

If that doesn’t sound good, then you probably haven’t read Apocalypse World. If it does sound good, get over to Kickstarter and back Human Contact. It’s shaping up to be a great game and now you get a cool supplement for another great game, too. You can’t lose.

It’s Free RPG Day and I’ve got something special for you to sink your teeth into. I present my first roleplaying game: ZILLA!. You’re a giant zilla on a city-smashing rampage. Zillas are powerful and hard to kill, but they are prone to becoming enamoured with humans. Will you fight another zilla, escape the city to a better place, smash the city to the ground, or even… find love?

Zilla is an ‘oracle game’, which means it’s complete, but very short – only two pages long. It’s heavily inspired by John Harper, primarily his work with GHOST/ECHO and The Wildlings. I was also inspired by Vincent Baker’s In a Wicked Age and his awesome Otherkind dice (seriously, go read about them now). Even though I didn’t use Otherkind dice in this game, that system got me thinking about mechanically elegant games that provide options while being incredibly easy to learn.

So, please download ZILLA! and tell your friends about it. It’s free, so share it with anyone you think would be interested. If you read or play it, I’d love to hear your comments about how the game went (either here, or at Story Games).

Have fun, and happy Free RPG Day!

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Open Game License v 1.0a Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
System Reference Document. Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, based on material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. Copyright 2009, Paizo Publishing, LLC; Author: Jason Bulmahn, based on material by Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, and Skip Williams.
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