Hey Man, well this is Babylon

From the very first moment of the very first scene, every character in Billions and Billions of Bullets is royally doomed. This is one of the very first design ideas I had for the game since its first conception. I have always loved the tragic destinies of gunslingers and anti-heroes in most of the bullet dramas out there, and wanted to make such a concept a Major Theme of this game.

So to thematically simulate this and tie it directly into the systemic core of the game, I’ve drafted up the Lifetimer mechanic. Using this mechanic, everyone has a twelve-point clock called the Lifetimer. As the game flows, the clock fills up, and once the stroke hits 12, the time of the character’s demise has arrived, and she must have her final Fate narrated during the current or next scene of the game.

The Lifetimer counts up with every scene that passes. Additionally, certain powers and abilities may affect the Lifetimer for the better or the worse, and in-game narration of conflict outcomes can potentially modify it as well. It is the job of the character’s Hand of Fate to try and push that lifetimer to the limit, so they can bring about the character’s tragic destiny before that character fulfills her goals.

A major goal of the game, then, is for players to try and resolve their personal and scene Purposes before their time is up. I’m currently trying to tie the resolution of goals into the mechanics as well, possibly as a modification to the current incarnation of the Lifetimer. One idea I’m harboring is having each “quadrant” of the Lifetimer linked to one of four wedges. As the character grows closer to fulfilling their goal, they fill in the associated wedge – possibly by taking the “inner circle” of the Lifetimer and just dividing it into four pieces. Accomplishing major achievements in the narrative will fill in wedges, and once all four have been filled in, their personal Purpose is near completion.

Different mechanics could then be put into place that somehow connect the two tracks (Lifetimer and Goals). For example, the Lifetime could move slower if it’s associated Wedge is already filled in, or the Wedge could be more difficult to acquire if the Lifetimer is much further along the count. Something like this would make the Lifetimer and the Goal wedges mechanically interconnected.

The ultimate goal, then, would to make them both suitably elegant without too much complication, while giving the players a reason to actually care about either. The players must want to accomplish their goals, while the Hands of Fate must want to make their “pawns” suffer terrible fates, and yet neither side must be afraid of either outcome. So yes, the characters start the game screwed, but now I have to work “being screwed” into the system in a way that makes them like it.

I’ve made some major updates to the KnownWorld rules system, which are now live. A lot of the text has been cleaned up for better ease of understanding, and a handful of additions have been put in as well. Major changes of note:

• The success threshold of the system has been changed from 5 to 6. This means that each multiple of 6 rolled on the dice nets you another success.
• Armor has been significantly changed. Check it out for yourself.
• Rules have been added for handling issues when multiple characters work together on the same task.
• Modifiers have been condensed into two types: Pool modifiers and Roll modifiers.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

I’m sure I’ve said this before, but Classroom Deathmatch is one of my favoritest RPGs ever.  One problem I have, however, is running it. I have always felt that it should be able to be picked up and played with a minimum of advance preparation. Unfortunately, the game’s character-creation system is sadly lacking – there really isn’t one at all, actually. As the book exists, characters consist of 50 pre-made characters that the players must randomly draw. However, this requires the GM to have pre-printed and cut all fifty of the characters, and have them on-hand. Since these get written on, it is then extremely difficult to re-use these character sheets for future games.

To combat this, I have whipped up a system of on-the-fly character creation for this game. I’ve actually used this a few times before, and only just now decided to actually put everything down in text so that others can use it. Below are the full details for creating custom characters on the fly. I hope you all find this useful, and I look forward to hearing your results! Read more

I think I’ve decided what the core 13 guns of the main book will be:

1: The Assault Rifle
2: The Crossbow
3: The Derringer
4: The Handcannon
5: The Hunting Rifle
6: The Magnum
7: The Minigun
8: The Shotgun
9: The SMG
10: The Sniper Rifle
11: The Twin Cobras

As for 12 and 13… well, I’ll keep those as a surprise for the time being.

If you have any suggestions or alternate ideas, let me know!

Last weekend I spent some quality time revisiting all my notes for my new design project, Billions and Billions of Bullets. I decided to set them all aside, and use pieces of them to assemble a fresh start on the concept, bringing the ideas back clean and improved in my head before jumping back onto this project. Here are the results of my little brainstorming session:

The Basic Premise: The players are all killers of some kind who must work together to resolve some predetermined mutual goal. Some may be hardened assassins, convicted criminals, wizened warriors, trained crime-fighters, or even just people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whatever their pasts, Fate has thrown them together, and before the end of the night, they must achieve their goals, or all is lost.

The Complication: Each character has a personal purpose in the game that will very likely conflict with that of the group goal. Additionally, in true bullet drama style, each second that passes brings the characters one step closer to death. Each action in the game has consequences, too, bringing them either closer to death, closer to their goals, or both.

Winning: While this game has scenario goals and various timers involved, there is no way to “win” a session, as far as the rules are concerned. Convention play and demos aside, the only way to “win” is to use the characters, timers, and narration to tell the most awesome bullet-drama story possible. Frequently, this involves the deaths of some or all of the characters, with unfinished goals and morally-shadowed outcomes.

The Basic Play Template: The basic game is played with a single player called the Director running the show. The Director sets up the game’s scenario, decides the connection between the characters, determines the main scenario goal they must work together to achieve, and provides the conflicts that drive the story forward. The other players take on the role of individual characters, who must overcome conflicts and try to accomplish their individual and scene goals while holding off their inevitable fates as much as possible. In this default game mode, the Director plays the cards of all conflict opposition for the characters, except in cases of character vs character conflicts.

Director’s Cut Mode: In this optional game mode, there is no singular Director running the show. Instead, the players all contribute equally to the establishment of the game’s setting. Each character’s Hand of Fate (see below) is responsible for creating special conflicts for that character, but they all work together to bring them more colorfully into play.

The Characters: Each Character consists of four major components: Sign, Gun, Purpose, and Fate.

The Sign: Your Sign represents the classic Bullet Drama archetype that your character embodies. The Sign is not so much a “template” for your character, but rather a “spiritual totem” that places that character within the narrative. Examples include The Loyal Soldier, The Lady in Red, The Stranger, The Black Widow, The Savant, and so on. In the core book there are 16 different Signs, one for each “royal” card of the four suits. Each Sign gives a small handful of corresponding mechanical empowerments (most of which require Bullet Tokens), and also sets the framework for how the character should primarily approach the resolution of their conflicts.

The Gun: Central to every mechanic in the game, your chosen Gun is perhaps the most important of the four character components. Your Gun sets the initial ranks of the four core character attributes, and is a part of every conflict your character is involved in. Thematically, the Gun and its numbers define not just the actuality of the piece of chrome your character uses, but also the nature of the character who would wield such a weapon as the tool for carving her own destiny out of this world. There are thirteen core Guns, which can be randomly drawn.

The Purpose: The Purpose is your will to live, the goal that keeps you in the game, the drive that pulls your trigger. Besides being a definite roleplaying focus, it also serves as your character’s “lifeline” in the game. Your Purpose is manifested as a statement (which can be randomly drawn) and a Lifetimer. As the game is played, your twelve-point Lifetimer slowly counts down to your own personal Doomsday, and it is your responsibility to fulfill your Purpose before this death-clock finishes its cycle.

The Hand of Fate: The Hand of Fate is another player at the table, chosen by the character’s player to play that character’s destiny. The Hand is responsible for initially drawing the Hidden Fate that represents that character’s ultimate demise. The Hand is responsible for bringing about this hidden fate in the game. She can use a fluctuating pool of bullet tokens to accomplish this. Additionally, as a character’s Lifetimer enters into different quadrants, the Hand of Fate will have increasing levels of dramatic power over your character.

Conflicts: When your character gets into a situation in which the outcome is unsure, but it could directly affect their goals, a conflict enters into play, and is resolved by a card-play Showdown. First and foremost, every conflict must involve a gun! Regardless of how it is used, a gun is required. Also, the conflict must be of definite importance to the character’s personal or scenario goals. If it doesn’t involve a gun and it isn’t important to the goals, it isn’t important and shouldn’t be played.

Conflict Failure: While “failure” exists as a mechanical concept, it is not considered a failure as far as the game goes. The primary point of this game is to create a damn cool bullet-drama story. Failure in a bullet drama only increases the story, sometimes more so than success. Good narration of outcomes can transform one character’s failure into an epic piece of dramatic storytelling, and create more conflicts and more fun for all.

Bullets: This game uses Bullet Tokens as a tangible currency of Fate. Every time a character uses a gun (meaning: every conflict), kills someone, uses certain powers, or does anything else on a short list of conditions, their Hand of Fate gains a bullet token. Actual bullet casings work very well for this. Bullet tokens can be used by the Hand to take over narration of your conflicts, spending a little for your failures or more for your successes. As the Hand is responsible for bringing about your character’s inevitable demise, their uses of bullet tokens will allow them to narrate you into situations in which this demise grows ever the more likely.

It’s pretty spot-on, I believe. Check it out on RPG.net.

“Cannibal Contagion is an enjoyable game that stays true to the design goals. It’s fun, easy to pick up, and has some very nice features for player interaction and character conflict. The scope, of course, is quite narrow both in terms of what characters can and can’t do and the environment they interact with. Others elements are inevitably dealt with a lot of hand-wavin’ and impromptu rules; the game is about “comedic survival horror” and not really much else. It is firmly located in the beer-and-pretzels one-off genre of games and should be seen in that perspective, which it achieves admirably.”

Thanks, Lev!