If you create games, you are presumably wanting someone out there to play it (though not always! Writing for yourself or your own gaming group is absolutely a thing as well)). However it can be pretty hard to actually figure out how big a game is. 

Obviously one answer is social media buzz but that's kind of hard to gauge. Warhammer 40K is obviously the biggest miniatures game in the market, but a large portion of the people talking about it online are not actually people who play the game at all. And for a smaller game, the social media buzz is likely to be a few hardcore folks on scattered forums rather than social media where all but the mainstream struggle to be noticed. ( This is all greatly oversimplified, please bear with me )

If the game is commercial, you have sales figures and I wanted to talk about that a little bit today. 

Fivecore 3rd edition has sold around 1400 copies in its lifetime. I don't remember how many copies were also "sold" when we were in the Bundle of Holding but I want to say another 1000 copies or so. Let's say it is 2500 all in all to account for give aways and other stuff I am forgetting.

So the easy answer is that there are 2500 players of Fivecore 3rd edition. But that isn't really the case:

Some people buy the game but don't end up playing it (they didn't like it, they never got around to painting that army, they bought it just to read for ideas etc.)

Some people did play but have moved on and won't return (do they count as players? Maybe not?)

Some are not playing currently but might in the future (do they count? Probably?)

Some are planning to play but have not yet (do they count? Probably?)

Some people pirated the game and while I don't think those people generally play games, a few no doubt do. 

Some people did not buy the game but play with their friend who does.

Some people play in a gaming group or club where 1 or 2 guys bought the rules but 4 or 5 play. 

Can you quantify all of these? Probably not. If I had to guess, I'd say two thirds of the copies sold is not a TERRIBLE estimate for a newer title and probably closer to half for an older title. It is entirely possible it is less than that. 

the Five Parsecs Facebook group has 4300 members and last I heard sales were somewhere above 10.000 copies, so that checks out if we assume that the people who sign up on facebook are more likely to play the game and that some amount of players never sign up for anything. (supposedly for video games 90% of players never interact with the game community in any form, I assume tabletop players are a bit more engaged but I could be wrong). 

Share your thoughts down below.  

Time marches on and new beginnings herald changes. 

I have been in this business for about 10 years. During that time I have created a lot of games. Spinoffs, adaptations, original creations, it has been a lot. If you have been along for all that time, you have seen things develop and change, seen new ideas come along and seen experiments come and go. That is the nature of things.

With the cooperation with Modiphius has come fantastic opportunities to do cool new things. Being able to release a game like Five Parsecs Tactics was really cool. We have a lot lined up for the future and I hope you are all excited to see that.

However even though that work has taken up a lot of time, I have never stopped creating new things. I am a little more discerning these days and more ideas go in the bin than get completed, as I find they do not quite hold up or they end up not doing anything I am sufficiently excited about. All part of the process.

One thing I have always chafed against however is getting type-cast. Around the internet, I am mostly known as the "solo guy" these days and I certainly welcome that as I happen to think I am pretty good at that. But I do not just want to make solo games. 

I have also become associated with my particular brand of scrappy space opera science fiction (collectively known as Unified Space) but I do not just want to be the Unified Space guy either.

So it is time for a new beginning: 

With the new year, I am hoping to release not only a brand new game but one set in a brand new setting tentatively labelled Mystic Space. 

Mystic Space is an idea I have kicked around in my head for a long time now. A setting of glossy futuristic factions, big heroes, space magic and high tech. Something that draws from a completely different set of influences to what I have usually worked with. And hopefully something to allow the use of all manner of cool miniatures that often get overlooked. 

It is also intended to be a different game experience than what I have been doing for a while. It is not an adventure game or a game mastered game (though it could be both of those if people put their minds to it). It is a game of tactical action and fighting for objectives and selecting a faction that you like the sound of, the sort of thing that you play with a friend or at the club. Of course people can solo any game and I will try to make sure solo gamers are not left out, but this one, I want to do something different. 

It will not be a "build your own" toolkit, but a game with army lists and factions with special abilities and all that good stuff. 

Something for people who like games with big fun heroes with an identity in the game.

It is also intended to be a way to go back to the roots a little bit, but with the skills and tools I have available now. When a game PDF can be updated at no cost, then player feedback about weapons and points values can be taken into account easily. When a player can just reach out to the designer and ask, there never has to be any doubts about the intent behind a rule or how something is supposed to work.

I can't compete with the big glossy rulebooks from the big companies. But I can compete on caring about you and allowing you to become part of the process.

And heck, it'll be fun to create something brand new. Down the road, there will no doubt be other games in the Mystic Space setting and it is very possible older titles could end up with stats for both settings. 

Who knows? 

The future is bright. I hope to see you there.

I use "rip off" affectionately here, but when you write games, you will inevitably have the question of what games inspired a game you wrote. So I thought I would make the canonical list (as far as I remember it anyways). 

This is using a fairly narrow definition. Five Parsecs as a "vibe" is inspired by everything I like in scifi, so that doesn't really count, but Rogue Hammer is obviously meant to be Rogue Trader, so that counts. 

With rules, I am counting it if the idea for a rule or concept came directly from another game. 

The list is probably incomplete but I will expand it when I can.

Fast And Dirty

Morale checks on multiple dice came from White Wolf's RPG dice mechanic.

Suppression, wounded and confidence levels are in the game because they were in Stargrunt 2.

Five Men in Normandy

The campaign style was based pretty heavily on Necromunda.

Some of the feel of play was inspired by Nuts but I don't think any mechanic is specifically based on it.

Trench Storm

Somewhat based on Space Marine 2nd edition (and really NetEpic at the time)

LaserStorm

Heavily based on Space Marine 2nd edition and NetEpic.

Rogue Hammer

Inspired by Rogue Trader.

Renegade Scout

Mechanically based on Rogue Trader and 2nd edition 40K.

From Shako to Coalscuttle

4 stand units was inspired by a Neil Thomas game on 19th century warfare. 

Five Leagues From the Borderlands

Melee combat is heavily inspired by the roleplaying game Eon and the Inquisitor miniatures game. 

Squad Hammer

The idea of "flexible" hit roll numbers was inspired by writings on Matrix gaming methods.

War Story

The concept was based on Matrix gaming methods and Kriegspiel methods.  

MISCONCEPTIONS

These are questions or misconceptions I have gotten about where I got things from. I don't mind these but I thought it'd be fun to clarify things. This can also be updated over time.

The FAD morale check was taken from Chain Reaction.

Negative. FAD dates back to when I had just moved to the United States (though it hit the public around the same time as Chain Reaction) and as noted above was inspired by White Wolf RPGs.

FiveCore was inspired by Squad Leader

Negative. I did not actually play Squad Leader or ASL until I was a fair bit older and living in Oregon. 



I get some questions fairly frequently, so occasionally it is good to gather them up and put an answer down in print. Do people say "print" when it is digital? I feel like that isn't what we should call it. Anyways. 

As always the questions are paraphrased from actual questions. 

What is the difference between Clash on the Fringe and Renegade Scout? They are both supposed to be Rogue Trader inspired? What about Rogue Hammer? My head hurts!

If I am honest, Clash probably did not end up being all that RT inspired after all. SOme of the elements like the random tables are definitely from there and I tried to mirror the way the RT book was set up in the alien sections, but it really is just a modern scifi tactical game. I happen to think its a really good one too. I think mechanically the inspiration came heavier from things like Warzone, Stargrunt 2 and Void.

Renegade Scout was an attempt at proving two things:

First, there were a lot of attempts people had made to build a Rogue Trader retroclone but none had actually succeeded, so I wanted to show it could be done. Second, I always felt that the mechanics of RT and 2nd edition got a bad rep. I happen to think 40K 2nd edition was really quite good, so I wanted to sort of rehabilitate some of those approaches but in a modern way. Think of it as a "alternate 3rd edition" if you will.

Roguehammer is basically the reverse: Take the actual units (renamed of course) of Rogue Trader and pair them with new mechanics (in this case based off Squad Hammer). Plus I felt that the challenge of a game that would exist in between the single figure mechanics of 40K and the stand based combat of Space Marine / Epic would be interesting. 

Will there be more of these retro inspired games?

For now probably not. I have something in the RPG field I would like to do but I think the mini's retro pond has no more fish in it and a designer should be spending most of their time and effort on their own creations. 

What is the quick difference between Five Men in Normandy and Five Men at Kursk?

Kursk is more squad oriented (though it is still a man to man skirmish game) and has more chrome and detail. Normandy is simpler and faster and more "cinematic". 



We kicked off the inaugural episode of "The Bad Internet Friends". A hopefully twice a month stream where my buddy Canadian Dave (aka Ax Anax) and I will chat about various tabletop wargaming related topics. 

The starting episode is about sponsored content on wargamer social media and includes a bit of a rant I suppose, about the difficulty independent creators have in accessing any sort of promotion at all.

There may also be some discussion of human sacrifice and ponies but I assure you it is all in good taste. 

In todays game example, we look at Renegade Scout and how hidden troops work in the game (and why).

Renegade Scout inherits the option for troops to hide behind cover from its ancestors: A unit moving at the normal movement rate and ending its move within or right behind terrain can Shelter. This lets troops keep their heads down, but comes at the cost of not firing weapons or moving above the cautious movement rate. As a player you will need to prioritise when speed is of the essence compared to safety.

Sheltering troops can be fired on if you have a clear line of sight, for example by moving around the terrain they are hiding behind. 

Alternatively you can make a spotting check. This is a roll of 2D6 + the Observation score. Figures can shoot at any sheltering enemy within this range in inches. So if you roll a 7 with Observation 4, you can fire at sheltering troops within 11 inches. 

Units roll once but each figure applies its own Observation score, so it is possible that some firers will be able to shoot and others will not. Gun crews benefit from better fire control, so they always use the single best Observation score in the crew. 

Personality figures get a small advantage in that you have a -1 penalty to spot them. In the above example a Personality figure would have to be within 10 inches to be spotted. 

So what changed?

Compared to Rogue Trader and 40K 2e, Renegade Scout makes hidden troops a bit easier to attack. If you are at "firefight" ranges you can generally fire on them, making it an option more suited to middle range encounters. This also helps promote more aggressive play. 

A notable change is that in the original rules, once you were spotted the status was removed. In Renegade Scout this only happens if you are charged. Otherwise only the spotting figure is able to shoot. This was needed to balance out the higher chance of spotting and prevent defensive positions from being plastered with heavy weapon fire right away. 

I will be joining forces with friend of the show "Ax Anax" (https://www.youtube.com/@axanax2534 ) to do a twice a month tabletop gaming chat / voice hangout where we will talk about topics related to miniatures gaming (and independent minis gaming in particular) as well as just shooting the breeze about whatever comes to mind. More to follow once I know what a schedule will look like.

The idea is to do the hangouts live so people can listen in and post questions and comments, but you can also catch up after the fact on his youtube channel. 

Todays retrospective is Starport Scum. In many ways this can be thought of as a sister to Five Parsecs: More open ended, less exacting and more GM oriented. 

The rules are well suited to a similar sort of "freelancers just scraping out a living" with random job tables, but assume a bit more handiwork in getting a game going. They are playable solo (and a fair few tools are provided along with various random tables) but also support pick up and convention play, particularly as it is pretty easy to detail a character.

Instead of stats, characters use traits like "GUN SLINGER" or "FAST" which mostly add dice to rolls, but can also have more specific functions. Like many things in the game, traits can be built to be very specific or can be ruled on the fly. 

Combat is a simple dice pool approach: Tally up dice, roll and count successes. The typical game can range from a couple of figures to probably 10-12 per side, with 3 figure grunt squads and single characters being the norm. 

There are also a number of expansions available, fleshing out and detailing the rules further.

You can check out the game here https://www.wargamevault.com/product/188598/Starport-Scum 

With Usurper 2 just out, the obvious post for today is a few examples of how things work. 

Let us say our intrepid hero Bimf the Barbarian is planning to do some prime looting, however his considerable ambition is blocked by a locked door in his path. 

Bimf have had it explained to him that battering down doors, while satisfying, makes noise and he is not confident he can fight off all 238 guards that patrol this fortress. So lock picking it is.

The GM decides that picking a lock is well within the possibilities of what Bimf can accomplish and so an Action / Event roll is made. Let's roll 3 times and see how you can interpret various results. 

My first roll is a 91 which is "Success and discovery" 

 Not only does Bimf succeed in this case, but in the process he learns something interesting or useful. The GM might give Bimf's player some information on the guard schedules (so he can dodge them later) or tell him that while he works on the lock, he notices that a lot of the statues in the courtyard look an awful lot like common people from the village but in stone and isn't it weird how their faces are all contorted in fear?

The second roll is a 17, "Failure". 

Bimf did not manage to get what he wanted. Failures cannot be attempted again unless the table says you can do so. In this case, no amount of messing with the lock picks will get Bimf through this door. This is where the Traits come in. If Bimf has a suitable Trait like LOCKPICKING or perhaps ROGUE or even REALLY QUITE CLEVER if the GM is feeling generous, he can "burn" that Trait and roll again. 

The player of Bimf will of course have to narrate how he applies that quality to overcome the obstacle. 

The third is 78, "Success". 

Easy enough: The characters get what they were trying to get out of the situation. In this case the door has been picked and Bimf can proceed to loot the temple (which is certainly not going to be filled with evil monsters). 

What happens if the lock is really high quality? (most medieval locks were not) The GM might rule that this is not possible to a normal person. In this case, Bimf could burn a relevant trait to get an attempt. If as above, he has a trait for ROGUE, the player can burn that to allow a roll. After all a normal person can't pick this master-crafted lock but surely a rogue can do just such a thing. 

This sort of thing is called a Condition and Conditions can also be met in different ways. If the Condition is that the lock is master-crafted, one way to negate the Condition might be to have someone forge you some keys or find a master-crafted set of lockpicks. 

Conditions work best if the GM is open ended in setting up the situation and scenario. It is okay to have some ideas in mind about how it can be solved, but be open to the players suggestions as well. 

Welcome to Usurper.

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/494826/Usurper-2-Procedural-Fantasy-Roleplaying 

With the release of the 2nd edition of Usurper, I wanted to talk a bit about what the game is and what the rulebook includes.

Usurper is a fantasy roleplaying game, you know with the characters and the adventures and all that. It allows you to have exciting adventures in a fantasy world with strange gods and stranger dungeons, where lords battle for control and factions knife each other in the dark. 

The core of the game is the use of traits instead of skill values and stats. Your character is described by a series of traits such as being STRONG, LOYAL TO THE CAUSE or FORESTER.
When you try to do things in the game, your traits lets you roll twice and pick the best result or attempt an action that isn’t normally possible.

Actions are resolved on the “action/event table”. This is a D100 table providing the outcome of an action. This might mean your action succeeds, it may fail with a consequence occurring or your action may even be interrupted. Everything in the game is driven by this table and it helps spur interesting, unexpected and exciting moments in the game.
You pick the lock to the tower and not only do you succeed, but you make a discovery while doing so. Maybe you overhear the guards talk about how there’s a strange package being delivered by ship tomorrow night? 

Best of all this means gameplay is math free. Roll the dice and you know what happened. If you have a relevant trait, burn it and roll again then pick the outcome you prefer. Roll and move on.

The game includes explanations of how to handle things like group tests, difficult situations and more.
Character creation can be done by simply writing down the traits and convictions you would like or can be generated randomly with a small lifepath system that generates the character in stages of their life. 

NPCs are handled very simply and make it effortless for the GM to add new characters to a campaign. Unless they are a major villain or monster, all they need is a Demeanour (Surly), Motivation (Chase off any intruders) and any Exceptions that apply (can walk on water). Random tables provide additional details if you need a more in-depth NPC.

A world builder chapter provides tables to create your game world history, building exciting cities AND allow the game to progress within that world through random events and story development. There is also a system to reflect characters working to overcome an evil overlord or similar grand quest, rooted in the mechanics.

Rounding out things you get rules for learning magic from the gods, delving into dungeons, ruling a domain and leading an army into war. 

What I want to emphasise here is that the use of random tables is not just petty detail (though we do provide a lot of flavour as well). Instead the tables are created to try to push things towards creating story opportunities: A faction changes its leadership or the evil overlord decides to subvert your allies. Every die roll (we hope!) Drives the game towards something interesting happening.

The game became a bit of a hit with solo gamers, due to the wealth of random generation included and is imminently suitable to solo gaming, when combined with a traditional RPG oracle. It is however also quite playable as a conventional game with a group of players or with one player controlling multiple characters. 

This second edition has had its text cleaned up by the tireless work of Bill Hamilton and should be much easier to use. Almost every aspect has been touched up in some way and I think you will find this to be a much clearer expression of the game and its ideas.

This is also the launch of the game as a “living” rulebook. Updates and additional material will be made available periodically and supported by Patreon. This can include things like scenarios, variant rules, a more conventional spell casting system and more.

This will also allow us to take fan feedback and suggestions into account better. 

The initial release will not feature any art work or flavour text, but will be available at a slightly reduced price. Think of this as similar to a pre-order but you are getting the full game up front and can start playing right away.

Usurper can be purchased here

You can support our ongoing projects at patreon.com/nordicweasel