Monte Cook's Blog, page 86

Cypher Chronicles, vol. 37-2016

Iadace, and welcome to Cypher Chronicles! Exciting News, Reviews, and Interviews We’ve added Gods of the Fall to the Cypher System Creator program, so now you can publish your own GOTF creations! Renegade Octopus posted parts oneand twoof their Numenera Character Options 2 review. The Mad Adventures society alsoposted a review of Numenera Character Options 2. Crowdfunding Campaigns and Other Things We Love Salt In Wounds is a D&D/Pathfinder setting about a city built on and around the regener...

Gods Of The Fall Now Available In Cypher System Creator Program

Gods once walked the world. From their mystical realm of Elanehtar, they brought plenty and pestilence. They judged the living and the dead. They ruled all. Then Elanehtar fell to earth like a vengeful star, sparking cataclysm and plunging the world into a dark age. The gods are gone, but their works remain—scattered and broken. As does their lingering divine spark . . . Have you ever wanted to play a god? Gods of the Fall is a fantasy RPG where player characters awaken a divine spark after...

Doing Something Special

At Gen Con 2016, the team at Monte Cook Games won ENnie Awards for Best Production Values (for the Numenera Boxed Set) as well as Best Family Game (for No Thank You, Evil!) We’re quite proud of those products and awards, but they mean something even more special to me. In many ways, they represent the culmination of years of hard work. Which is strange, because in some ways, it’s also just the beginning. Back in the 80s—in my high school and early college days—desktop computing became a thin...

Cypher Chronicles, vol. 36-2016

Iadace, and welcome to Cypher Chronicles! Exciting News, Reviews, and Interviews Season 1 of Cypher Play Numenera has begun, and game stores are starting to schedule the first games of the season. Is your local store involved? If not, ask them to sign up at the website, it’s free, and its purpose is to get new people playing Numenera. Congratulations to Angry Robot for being named Best Independent Press from the British Fantasy Society! (And we’re very excited about their release of The Poiso...

Cypher Chronicles, vol. 35-2016

Iadace, and welcome to Cypher Chronicles! Exciting News, Reviews, and Interviews Are you in the Savannah, Georgia area this weekend? If so, please stop by The Guild Hall and visit with Monte, Shanna, and Bruce for GuildCon 2016 on Saturday, September 24th. Numenera Character Options 2 will be available through your FLGS and on the MCG Shop on September 28th. If Numenera Character Options 2 is one of your Kickstarter rewards, a fulfillment email with redemption instructions wassent to youon th...

Guests of Dragon Con 2016

This year, Monte, Shanna, and I were invited as guests to attend Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia. We attended the convention over the Labor Day weekend. The convention was over all too soon! Here’s a brief recap of what it was like. We were asked to appear on a series of panels related to our areas of expertise (obviously including tabletop gaming and writing). My panels included how one might get started writing in the field of RPGs, tips on how to design and present a really great monster, h...

Cypher Chronicles, vol. 34-2016

Iadace, and welcome to Cypher Chronicles! Exciting News, Reviews, and Interviews Escape fromthe Shadow and join us in the Actuality, a world where magic is real and secrets abound.Invisible Sun is an RPG unlike anything that’s ever been done—with amazing art, surreal vision, a whole new approach to RPG play, an incredible production, and fantastic value. With your help, we’ve unlockedsome amazing stretch goals, and are closing in on one more. The Invisible Sun Kickstarter ends September 16tha...

The Guiding Hand

One of the components of the Black Cube of the Invisible Sun game that we haven’t talked about much is the GM’s notebook, which we’re calling The Guiding Hand. It sounds, perhaps, like a blank notebook for GMs, but it’s much more than that. First and foremost, this is a tool for organizing your various plot lines. As I’ve said many times before, characters in Invisible Sun don’t advance in level or tier. They advance by moving, step-by-step, through one or more story arcs, each time earning...

Seventeen Invisible Sun Stories

I typically avoid the term “adventures” with Invisible Sun, because the stories told in this game are often not the stand-alone quests we think of when we hear that term. So I use “stories” instead. Stories, as a concept, are easily woven together into a campaign, with one starting while another is continuing, or two occurring at almost the same time, for example. Here, then, are seventeen example stories your Invisible Sun campaign might include. This is just the beginning, of course—in a wo...

Cypher Chronicles, vol. 33-2016

Iadace, and welcome to Cypher Chronicles! Exciting News and Interviews Greetings vislae! Can you believe there are only a few days left in the Invisible Sun Kickstarter campaign? We’ve shared loads of information in a short span with you about the campaign and the game, and Sean has thoughtfully written a summary for your reference, complete with links to appropriate sources. So please check out What Has Been Revealed So Far to know, well, what has been revealed so far. On Friday,Monte tweete...