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- An RPG by the designer of Lace & Steel and Albedo,
Adventure in a world of endless possibilities!
GeneStorm is a new tabletop RPG, powered by the unique new "Reciprocating Engine" dice system.
The game is set in a weirdly beautiful post-apocalyptic future. This is a world of
majestic vistas – of abandoned cities floating high in the sky, and overgrown ruins brimming with strange new life. Of huge spacecraft the size of cities crashed into
great verdant swamps...
It is a place of terrible
dangers. Of sand storms and radioactive dust, of jungles and broken
lands swarming with terrible, carnivorous life. A place where gateways lead to
a sinister alternative universe where the senses twist and fail, and terrible
entities wait to prey upon the weak - A place of ruined,
shattered civilisation. Of fallen grandeur and prowling, broken death machines.
- It is a wilderness that
has given birth to astonishing new life.
Characters in GeneStorm are the descendants of survivors
of the great disaster. They are strange beings made from the inter-tangled
genes of all manner of plants and animals. The inheritors of the new earth are
bizarre, colourful and chaotic.
It is an age of a weirdly
beautiful, resurgent nature.
It is the age of the
mutants.
GeneStorm offers:
- Gene-spliced characters. Part animal and part human - even plant life forms! Create hybrid characters of your own design. Character generation possibilities are as infinite as your imagination.
- Black powder technologies and 'frontier' style survivor tech. Enjoy that 'Firefly' feel!
- A world filled with vistas, with majesty and danger. Unique life forms and environments to challenge would-be explorers.
- A unique games system, fun and easy, that actually puts the game play back into gaming!
- c. 200 page rule book filled with setting information, creatures, equipment, environments - even a starting 'home base' town for adventurers.
The book will be produced both as PDF and in hard copy as Print On Demand.
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The designer.
Paul Kidd has been a professional games designer for 30 years, creating pioneering RPG tabletop games such as "Lace & Steel" and "Albedo". He has created card games, RPG games supplements, and countless novels - including such hit Dungeons and Dragons novels as "White Plume Mountain". His long list of computer games titles include design and dialogue work for the "Discworld" computer games, "Nightshade" and "Shadowrun SNES".
Why GeneStorm?
The world of GeneStorm has been swept not only by war, but by a weird plague - the "Chop-Shop" virus. This caused living creatures to cross-infect one another with their DNA. Over a century and a half later, the virus has mellowed, allowing the evolution of countless colourful forms of hybrid creatures. Player characters can be pure human, tainted humans, or humanoid animal/plant-animal combinations of countless different kinds. Character generation is restricted only by the imagination.
Many people are drawn to the idea of post apocalypse games settings, but become disappointed when the settings turn out to be too alien, too ghastly to be attractive. GeneStorm's setting is intended to be a world players would love to adventure in: a very weird, wild place to call home. It has elements of Steampunk and the Wild West - elements of classical ruin exploring.
The game also opens up new boundaries in games engines. The innovative system creates a 'back and forth' between players and the umpire, or player vs player. An element of game play comes back into the role playing experience, enhancing the fun and drama of storytelling.
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What We Need
To create this game properly, we want to ensure the best possible artistic presentation. Your funding will go to creating covers and internal artwork, maps and layouts - it will cover editing and proof reading. It will ensure an excellent game we can all enjoy.
Production costs include
- Colour covers
- Full digital paintings as internal illustrations for the rules
- Character artwork and equipment illos
- Maps
- Page layouts
The game itself will be published both electronically, and in hard copy via print on demand.
Stretch goals
If we can gather funds above our basic level, we will increase and expand the publications for this game.
- At the $9000 level, we will also publish a huge adventure setting for characters to explore. This setting includes over 200 unique adventures and encounters locations, encounter charts and treasures, with maps covering 2500 square kilometres of terrain. The book includes new equipment, dozens and dozens of new creatures, new rules for hyperspace encounters, and ghostly echoes of the past.
- At the $11,000 level, we will also publish a detailed adventure module based on the tradition of great old 'film noir' treasure hunts. A great treasure awaits - if only the player characters can survive long enough to claim it!
- At even higher levels, we will move beyond print on demand for hard copy booksand print versions of the book for distrubution to brick-and-mortar games stores.
Risks & Challenges
This is decidedly not my first game! The artists are ready, the games system has been well tested and the text is written.
If our funding does not reach the hoped-for levels, we can still produce a game. This version would have a very simplified artwork content. But I promise you - it will be done.
Other Ways You Can Help
Even if you aren't a games player, you may still love this setting as a reference for your own storytelling, or as inspiration for your own chracters.
Do tell people about us. Use the 'share' features here on
Indiegogo, and spread the word in your local fandoms and gamer groups!
Current Project Status!
- Colour cover paintings have now begun
- More internal illustrations are arriving
- Primary editing pass complete
- Character archetype pages added
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New weapons added
- Additional equipment descriptions added
- NEW! Dice rolling app in development!
