I answer a lot of questions but they are scattered across different locations and often don't get noticed. So I am going to try to capture some and post them to the blog every so often.

A round up of various questions from the last weeks. Questions are paraphrased and edited from their original format on facebook, discord or email and are thus not verbatim. 

Publishing questions:

Will the Five Parsecs expansions be available in print?

Yes, once the third expansion is released, the plan is to do a print compendium with some cool bonus content.

Five Parsecs questions:

Expansion 2: The Duck Back dramatic combat rule does not say how far the character moves.

Their basic move. In testing this was 1D6" instead but I decided to cut the die roll out. You can do it either way if you prefer. 

Why don't new characters roll on the character creation tables?

Originally I liked the idea that new arrivals would be blank slates to be developed in the game, but people really enjoy the character creation tables. Until we can make an updated game revision I suggest doing the following:

New characters roll normally but ignore all results of starting Credits.

Five Leagues questions:

How does Defensive Tactics work when I have a Parry?

As intended, Defensive Tactics is meant to use the highest die score, however I don't think you would break anything by letting the player pick either die roll. 

Weasel Tech questions:

Does the PL-C Beam weapon roll two dice to hit or roll once and hit twice?

It rolls two separate attack dice against the first target.

Questions about me:

Is Nordic Weasel Games your main job?

Yes. 

As the question comes up occasionally it is worth noting that I play almost everything in 15mm and the game rules usually just assume that. There are a few exceptions such as Laserstorm which targeted 6mm but the baseline for me has always been 15.

It turns out that the weapon ranges and movement distances I like in 15mm also happen to match up pretty well with what is the norm in 28mm so there is rarely a need to modify distances to fit another scale. For example a 4-6" move feels pretty good in 15mm and thats about what figures tend to move in games written for the larger scales. 

The area where this can get a little awkward is when it comes to interacting with terrain. A 4" climb looks pretty casual for a 32mm space marine but is a pretty epic endeavor for a 6mm trooper! I tend to not worry too much about things like that, but if it is a worry you should probably tweak those specific distances (halving for 6mm works fine).

On that note if you do want to scale down the game (particularly for playing on a little table) I used to suggest swapping the inches for centimeters (so 6" becomes 6 cm.) but I think that can get too fiddly. Instead these days I would suggest just halving everything. A 6" move becomes 3" and a 24" weapon range becomes 12". Try it either way and see how you get on.

The latter is also useful if you want to play on floor tiles or a grid and count squares. Most grid surfaces don't give you very many squares across so 1"=1 square is often going to make things move too fast. 2" = 1 square requires a bit of rounding up or down but tends to work better in my experience. 

I am slowly working on a project regarding the history of science fiction miniatures gaming. As part of that I want to track down some experiences of people who were around at the time.

Things will be a little bit quiet as I am hard at work on the next big thing. Stay tuned. 

First and foremost, NWG has no exposure to the OGL of any sort. We do not use a single line of anyone's product identity or material anywhere. 

Even in the case of Renegade Scout it is rewritten from the ground up with all stats and terms renamed. Now, it is of course possible to earn a C&D for basically existing on the internet, in which case I'd have to play it safe, take it down and rework it. The conversion guidelines was removed from the 2e book to help insulate it a little bit more, out of worry. RS represents a tiny sliver of my income however so even this would not be a major problem.

I think some of the panic that is happening across forums and social media is probably going to turn out to be unwarranted, however:

*There are many forms of open license and this is a good time to evaluate carefully what license will benefit your game the most (and IF you want an open license at all).

*Tying your livelihood to IP you do not own always means that you live at the mercy of the rights holder. 

As far as what is right and wrong, I leave that to people who earn their living from making proclamations about such. I am going to see what lawyers say once the actual license is available. 

As discussed I am trying a bit of a phased process for Rogue Hammer with patrons getting the updates first and then after a bit of testing them out they get pushed into the Wargame Vault release.

Folks at the 10+ dollar level can find 1.02 which offers the following additions:

V 1.02

Version 1.04 fixes a few wordings in the vehicle chapter (no need to reprint) and adds a few items from patreon to the core rules:

The Multi-gun allows you to carry a combination weapon, Flex armor grants a new defensive option, campaign games can take advantage of cybernetic revival and a new scenario is included. 

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/398913/Shoot-People-in-Space 

This was actually an update I had mostly finished a while ago, but nows as good a time as any.

1.03 adds a new ability to villains: Decoy which lets you reveal that the villain is actually in a safe location and you just got/cornered/captured a decoy.

It also adds a merchant class.

Finally the skill resolution mechanics see a number of tweaks and touch-ups to make the various edge cases clearer and easier to use. 

You can pick up the game at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/341094/Ballad-of-the-Longbow for your fill of Robin Hood themed roleplaying.

As the "new process" gets established, it is time for an update to Renegade Scout. 

This is just a small update:

The tables in the unit building chapter should now all have grey lines to help easy of visual use.

Coherency has been updated: Units no longer have to move if they have broken coherency. If they do move and cannot (or do not) rejoin, the isolated element takes a Break test and then forms an independent unit for the rest of the game.

Some tiny rewordings here and there. 

After a hiatus, we're back with Klicks

If you are not familiar, Five Klicks is the post apocalyptic adaptation of the "Five X" system and somewhat inspired by the old Swedish RPG Mutant. It is a bit smaller of a game but if you want to get your low tech post apocalypse on, you can do so here

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/304968/Five-Klicks-From-the-Zone-Chapter-1 

The update folds the "Upgrade pack" into the main rules (slightly tougher enemies, character talents, gun upgrades and story points) as well as making a couple other tiny tweaks. 

This will be the first of a number of hopefully monthly updates.