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Metamorphosis Alpha – Blank Character Sheet & Bonus Pregenerated Characters

MA-RPG-pregenchars

The new edition of Metamorphosis Alpha is now in stores and in the hands of Kickstarter backers and pre-order customers. To help everyone jump in and start playing, we have a couple of quick aids you can print and use immediately!

A group of five pre-generated characters for use by players, including artwork by Lindsay Archer:

MA-RPG-pregencharsA blank copy of the character sheet to make your own mutants:

MA-RPG-charsheet-thumb

And here is the free Preview that teachers players the basic rules of the game:

marpg-previewcover

 

Thanks to everyone so far who has purchased the game and offered reviews and feedback! We love to know what you think of the System 26 rules set and the new edition of Metamorphosis Alpha. Game on!

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Kudzilla

kudzilla-preview

Jamie here! I grew up in north Georgia, and spent lots of time fighting back the creeping vine that is everywhere down here: Kudzu. If you drive on the backroads and byways you’ll see trees, telephone poles, abandoned houses, and old cars completely blanketed by this plant and only visible by shape.

In honor of this menace, we present Kudzilla—a mutant monstrosity for the new Metamorphosis Alpha RPG! You can ask for the game at your local retailer or get it directly from us. Click on the link for the bonus content … KUDZILLA!

 

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What the Heck is System 26?

System 26 Logo

This week we launched the digital edition of the new Metamorphosis Alpha Roleplaying Game to strong sales and great response. (Thank you to those who backed our Kickstarter and jumped on-board early to check out our game!) It has been a mix of nostalgia for the classic 1976 version, enthusiasm for the “mutants on a spaceship” concept, and interest in this mysterious new rules engine called System 26™.

Lots of gamers interested in the system have been asking about System 26 to see if it matches their preferred styles of play. Rather than cut and paste an answer into a bunch of emails and forum posts, here is a quick overview.

Core Ideas

System 26 is intended to be a core set of mechanics that can be adapted to many different genres and styles. While no game engine is perfect for everything, the idea is to be able to accommodate most games that can be easy to learn with action that moves fast and quickly. It can be tuned up with more “crunch” for an old-school RPG feel (like Metamorphosis Alpha) or down for abstract, story-driven games that we plan to explore in the future. But it’s certainly a rules-light RPG, where the rules can be learned and only referenced occasionally.

d6 Dice Pool With Variable Difficulty

You only need standard six-sided dice for System 26 — gamer’s choice whether you prefer pips or numbers. And there’s one starting assumption that’s hidden in the very name of the game:

Unless it’s written on your character sheet, you are probably rolling two dice for an action.

Characters are defined in the ways they are extraordinary, actions at which they excel or routinely fail. And actions are defined by Traits, that always modify that basic roll of 2d. The game doesn’t care if your character is naturally gifted, trained, studied hard, or you learned kung fu by a jack plugged into the back of your head. That’s all window dressing and can be worked out through description and roleplaying. Qualities are situational, and only come into play under specific circumstances or define your character outside the realm of action. When your character performs an action, you-as-player roll a pool of dice—the standard 2d dice pool—more or less as modified by traits and qualities. Under normal circumstances a dice pool cannot go beyond five, though games that use things like superpowers or mutations or advanced technology may increase it. If modifying factors drag you down to less than one die, you’ve failed before you even tried.

Success & Failure

Difficulty for an action is broken into three simple categories: easy, average, hard. The minimum number needed to score achievements varies by difficulty. In a cinematic-action oriented game like Metamorphosis Alpha you need 3 or higher for an easy action, 4+ for average, 5+ for hard. (A more gritty incarnation might push those numbers up to 4, 5, 6.) A single achievement counts as bare-minimum success (hanging by your fingernails at the edge of the cliff) with up to three achievements for a respectable outcome. Anything above three achievements scores enhancements — think critical hits in other games but applies to all kinds of actions, not just combat. (You kick down the door and knock over the guard standing on the other side.) But in short, the more achievements you score, the more awesome happens.

If you don’t score any achievements, you fail at the action. If you roll snakes eyes (all 1s) you’ve got yourself an epic fail—a botch. (You fumble and drop your blade or give yourself a nose bleed through sheer fruitless concentration.) It’s also why trying actions with a smaller dice pool is more dangerous for a less-capable character.

Adjustable Level of Complexity

I just told you everything you need to know to sit down and get started in a System 26 game. The basics are deliberately simple and easy to remember so you can focus on the good stuff—the action and story being shared between everyone at the table. How much “crunch” versus “fluff” can and will be mixed in future incarnations of these rules. Metamorphosis Alpha is wahoo-action dungeon crawl in space with an old-school sensibility, so it has plenty of rules about how mutations work and the range of plasma rifles and cover and armor, etc. But we have future ideas for System 26 games that are more story-focused, using the dice to resolve dramatically uncertain actions and ignoring high levels of specific detail, all while holding onto the core concepts of dice pool, traits, and qualities.

We’d love to hear what you think of our new rules engine, play experiences with Metamorphosis Alpha, and ideas you might bring for other ways to explore the core mechanics. Enjoy, and game on!

System 26 Logo

METAMORPHOSIS ALPHA, its concepts, and its logo are ™ & © James M. Ward. Used with permission. System 26 and the System 26 logo are ™ owned by Jamie Chambers. All rights reserved.
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Metamorphosis Alpha RPG Preview

MA RPG Preview

The new Metamorphosis Alpha Roleplaying Game is coming soon! We’re excited to offer a free preview of the upcoming book on DriveThruRPG.com and related sites. Click here to check it out and download it!

MA RPG Preview

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JourneyQuest – A Primer on Modern Orcish

JourneyQuest is a fantasy comedy web series from the creators of The Gamers and The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. To learn more about the show or watch the series for free online, visit the official website. This article is part of a series that explore the world of JourneyQuest, its locales, myths, monsters, and characters.


Orc Shaman


Modern Orcish and its sister tongue, Austral Orcish, are both derived from Orkaanz (also known as High Orcish).  Orkaanz, a dead language, is one of the three original arcane languages and one of the hardest in the world to learn.  Modern Orcish, by comparison, is vastly simpler, and doesn’t have nearly as many declensions or irregular verbs.

Modern Orcish—usually referred to simply as “Orcish,” since Austral Orcish is rarely encountered on this continent—is an inflected language with grammatical gender and adjectival agreement.  The language does not use articles, and thus “the” or “a/an.”  The declension of a noun, pronoun, or adjective indicates its grammatical case, number, and gender.  Though the language contains prepositions, a word’s case often precludes the need for a preposition.   Orcish also doesn’t rely heavily on pronouns, as verb conjugation is usually enough to indicate the voice, mood, tense, number, and person performing the action.  It is an economical language for a blunt and decisive race.

Orcish Verbs & Conjugations

The infinitive form of a first conjugation Orcish verb ends in “a” (ka = to kill, pekka = to defeat, viska = to gut).  Attach the proper ending to indicate the person and number of the verb.

Present Active

Singular Plural
First Person –g –gax
Second Person –s –gas
Third Person –k –gek

Thus, kag means “I kill” (ka + –g, first person singular) and pekkagak means “they defeat” (pekka + –gek, third person plural).

Past Active and Future Active are most easily indicated by attaching the prefixes ash– (Past Active) or ar– (Future Active) to the verb, and then conjugating accordingly.  Thus, ashdobnagax means “we worked” (ash– + dobna [to work] + –gax), and arvansas means “you will understand” (ar– + vansa [to understand] + –s).

The Irregular Verb “To Be” (AA)

As in most languages, the Orcish “to be” (aa) is an irregular verb.  Here it is in the Present, Past, and Future Active Voices.

Present Active

Singular Plural
First Person aga aggax
Second Person aas aggas
Third Person aka aggek

Past Active

Singular Plural
First Person ashag ashax
Second Person ashas ashagas
Third Person ashek ashagek

Future Active

Singular Plural
First Person areg areggax
Second Person aras areggas
Third Person arek araggek

Orcish Nouns & Declensions

Modern Orcish has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter.  How a verb declines indicates its role in the sentence and in the action being performed.  For first declension verbs, most cases, regardless of gender, have only one ending.  However, the nominative case has multiple endings for each gender, and the feminine accusative has one common alternate ending.

Masculine

Case Singular Plural
Nominative –ul (–or, –k, –x) –ulz
Genitive –u –urru
Dative –o –ors
Accusative –udz –uluz
Vocative –o –ors

Feminine

Case Singular Plural
Nominative –ad (–am, –ag) –adz
Genitive –ar –arru
Dative –ae –aes
Accusative –az (–adz) –aruz
Vocative –ae –aes

Neuter

Case Singular Plural
Nominative –id (–ed, –d) –idz
Genitive –u –urru
Dative –o –aes
Accusative –udz –uluz
Vocative –o –aes

Some Useful Orcish Phrases

Hadzag doru. / Hadz.
“I hail you.”  (Formal greeting) / “Hi.”  (Informal greeting)

Skald aga.  Djag skaldudz gadzkudz.  Mathas nudz gadz ka.
“I am a bard.  I have bardic immunity.  You can’t kill me.”

Franzhag shugadzkit.
“I surrender unconditionally.”

Orkulz kogulz ek gazgulz aggek.
“Orcs are strong and smart.”

Duwuluz yakagek.  Ekto humadz.
“Dwarves suck.  So do humies.”

Karit nudz gadz!
“Don’t kill me!”
Translator’s note: There is no Orcish word for “please.”

Aka drur kelled ud no guro?
“Is that your atrocity-knife in my stomach?”

Klergul aas!
“You bastard!”

Chu ashkas nudz?!
“Why did you kill me?”

Vart zak abssudz!
“Go to hell!”

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JourneyQuest – The Atrocity Knife

JourneyQuest is a fantasy comedy web series from the creators of The Gamers and The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. To learn more about the show or watch the series for free online, visit the official website. This article is part of a series that explore the world of JourneyQuest, its locales, myths, monsters, and characters.


There is perhaps no more iconic Orcish weapon than the vivdly named atrocity-knife (kelled in Orcish). Also known as flensers, hellshivs, and – most horribly – rape-knives, a war party of Orcs armed with these vicious, hideously tongued blades is instant nightmare fuel for the civilized races of Fartherall.

Atrocity-knives vary in length, from the size of a dagger to that of a short sword, and resemble an unholy cross between a lobster claw and a can opener. The serrated blade and puncturing hook make atrocity-knives brutal close-quarter weapons; the “atrocity” in the name is most often linked to the gruesome wounds the blades have been known to inflict. The hook on the knife can, in the hands of a skilled user, also be used defensively to entangle a hostile weapon or disarm an enemy. To that end, it’s not uncommon to see an Orc fighting with an atrocity-knife in one hand and a heavier melee weapon in the other. Even so, the knives’ tendency to break or stick in armor means they are not the primary weapon choice of most Orcs.

Atrocity-KnifeMost atrocity-knives are not made very strong material, and Orcs generally consider them disposable. As the knives tend to break in battle and/or in victims, smash-happy Orcs tend to go through a lot of them. Fortunately (for an Orc, at least) atrocity-knives are not at all difficult to make; given adequate time and any suitable amount of scrap metal, an Orc with rudimentary blacksmithing skills can create a small bundle of knives.

Why Orcs are so willing to carry frail (but still razor sharp) weapons into battle is curious, considering how painstaking they usually are with the care and quality of their weapons. One theory is that the practice is a holdover from the Orcs’ pre-nomadic scavenger days, when the only crafted materials they had were what they stole or salvaged from other races. It’s an interesting theory, since the Orcs as a race don’t care to remember that part of their history, and the jagged and oft blackened blades of the atrocity-knives closely resemble the Orcish scrapaxes and piecemeal armor of ages past.

Interestingly enough, there have been reports of some tribes using masterwork atrocity-knives that are sturdy and ever keen and can punch through plate. Speculation abounds that some sort of magic is involved in their creation. Rumors from the border kingdoms suggest that these master knives are forged rather than cut, and are cooled not in a blacksmith’s bucket but in a captive’s belly. Then again, these are only rumors, and the border kingdoms’ antipathy towards Orcs is well documented.

Even more curious are certain accounts of traders and peddlers friendly with some of the Orcish tribes in the Afterlands (these would be the more traditional, nomadic Orcs, not the modernists, who have consider atrocity-knives an outdated and hindering aspect of their culture, and have thrown them away along with ritual facial scarring). According to these reports, most Orcs don’t rely on their atrocity-knives except as a last resort since they’re unreliable in combat. Supposedly, the reason they wear them is psychological—they scare the living jibblie-crap out of the other races. Indeed, often all it takes is for an Orc to draw his atrocity-knife to get a clamp-lipped captive to start talking, or a stingy merchant to suddenly drop his prices.


Pathfinder RPG CompatibleAtrocity-Knife Game Information

Cost: 5 sp
Dmg (S): 1d3
Dmg (M): 1d4
Critical: 19–20/×3
Range:
Weight: 1 lb.
Type: P or S

A wicked blade that is cheap, defensive, and potentially lethal with the price of it being somewhat easily broken in battle. With an atrocity-knife, you get a +2 bonus on Combat Maneuver Checks to sunder an enemy’s weapon. On an attack roll of natural 1 there is a 50% chance the weapon will break. Openly carrying an atrocity-knife grants you a +2 fear bonus to Intimidate checks.


Compatibility with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game requires the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game from Paizo Publishing, LLC. See http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG for more information on the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Paizo Publishing, LLC does not guarantee compatibility, and does not endorse this product.

Pathfinder is a registered trademark of Paizo Publishing, LLC, and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatibility Logo are trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC, and are used under the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatibility License. Seehttp://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/compatibility for more information on the compatibility license.

Pathfinder and associated marks and logos are trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC, and are used under license. See paizo.com/pathfinderRPG for more information on the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

Product Identity: The following items are hereby identified as Product Identity, as defined in the Open Game License version 1.0a, Section 1(e), and are not Open Content: All trademarks, registered trademarks, proper names (characters, locations, deities, etc.), dialogue, plots, storylines, locations, characters, artwork, photographs, and trade dress. (Elements that have previously been designated as Open Game Content are not included in this declaration.)

Open Content: Except for material designated as Product Identity (see above), the game mechanics of this Signal Fire Studios and Zombie Orpheus Entertainment article are Open Game Content, as defined in the Open Gaming License version 1.0a Section 1(d). No portion of this work other than the material designated as Open Game Content may be reproduced in any form without written permission.


Open Game License Version 1.0a

The following text is the property of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. and is Copyright 2000 Wizards of the Coast, Inc (“Wizards”). All Rights Reserved.

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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.

The Book of Experimental Might. Copyright 2008, Monte J. Cook. All rights reserved.

Tome of Horrors. Copyright 2002, Necromancer Games, Inc.; Authors: Scott Greene, with Clark Peterson, Erica Balsley, Kevin Baase, Casey Christofferson, Lance Hawvermale, Travis Hawvermale, Patrick Lawinger, and Bill Webb; Based on original content from TSR.

The Atrocity Knife. Copyright 2010, Zombie Orpheus Entertainment, LLC; Authors: Matt Vancil and Jamie Chambers.