MaliQuest: My First MQ Adventurer

Good Friday all!

As painful as getting out of bed, getting dressed, sorting out the morning routine and then walking to the train in the literally freezing weather outside was this morning, I'm now on the train and have something to share with you this morning.

I'd like to introduce to you Daisy Haynes, the Corrupted Gunslinger:





This is a character who originally started as a character that I wanted to play as myself in MaliQuest, but has since turned into a boss who will feature in the upcoming SkypeQuest game with members of the Malifools.

And for some narrative:
Daisy was just a regular fortune seeker when she arrived in New Fairbank in seek of relics and fame.

Together with a party of adventurers Daisy ventured into the crypts below town. Daisy thought that nothing hidden away from daylight could possibly harm her, not the undead that rose from the shadows or the Neverborn that hungered for her blood.

After many of hours spent in the encroaching dark she stumbled on a brightly glowing crystal, long tendrils of brilliant light piercing the very darkness itself.

The crystal itself was being tightly gripped by a long dead corpse, it appeared in the form of a humanoid creature, but misshapen with fossilised tentacles and claws where human hands should be.

Grasping with the corpse, she pried the crystal free and held it in her hand, a wicked smile on her face, a smile that lasted until the crystal shone as bright as the Earthside sun.

Daisy's skin around where she held the crystal began to blister, before twisting and moving of it's own accord, the pain was unimaginable and Daisy fell to the floor screaming in agony.

Daisy Haynes was never heard from again, neither was the party she had travelled with.

There is a rumour however of a monster, a creature who wears the face of a woman that lives under the surface of New Fairbank. It is said that this creature can twist it's form at will and create weapons out of flesh and bone.

There are story tellers who still talk of Daisy Haynes and of the perils of New Fairbank's dark crypts. Some say it was the mysterious crystal she found that turned her into the monster she is today, others say she was a monster already, the crystal only giving form to what she was inside, that the very darkness of the crypts turned her against her fellow adventurers.

Whatever the reason, Daisy is long gone, and should you go exploring into the shadows of the below, beware the what you may find there. For in time you may find, the monster is you.

Stay safe everyone, see you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Through the Breach Kickstarter: A Second Opinion

Good Thursday everyone!

So just prior to my bed time last night the Through the Breach Kickstarter went live and I think I need to give it a (mad) doctor's second opinion.

So the Kickstarter itself an be found here. And while I welcome you all to each make up your own mind about this, here are my thoughts.

I'm not a happy scientist.

I don't want to bitch and moan, so I'm going to try and avoid that.

What I will say is that I personally believe that the pledge markers are too steep in my opinion for what you get.

The first reward mark is at $60 (+22 for shipping outside the US) so a combined total of $82.

In today's market that is equal to £52.20.

The reward you get for this is two soft cover guides (one for players, one for GMs).

Here is where my issue starts: I used to play a lot of World of Darkness RPGs by White Wolf, each core book would come in a single package, hardback and cost only £20 despite being thick enough to kill someone with a solid hit to the head.

In this situation however, if I want a hardback I have to pledge $125 + $33 for P&P ($158 total) that's £96! Oh yes I also get the soft copy books and a fate deck, but for me that's just too high for my (already stretched) wallet.

The second issue I have, and while it is tied to the first issue I believe it deserves it's own section. And this is an issue I have with Kickstarter in general:
The hard copy book is a Kickstarter exclusive.

Let me just leave that there for a moment.

Unless I put in nearly £100 within the next month I can NEVER get hold of a hard copy unless I buy one off eBay for an even further inflated price.

Ok yes this is a whine, but I believe that as a consumer I should be able to buy the same products as the next person at a later date. Or failing that, I should be able to buy that by itself without having to pay for things I don't want.

This is the attitude that Kickstarter is encouraging, charge a lot of money for stuff that is only available to the exclusive few and if those of us who can't afford to splash £100 during the most expensive time of the year, well we can just suck it .

The hard copy version of the book should be a general release, it is what myself and many other long term RPGers expect as standard now.

I have other issues, mainly that I disagree with a successful company using Kickstarter to find projects, especially when that company already has Capital.

It is my opinion that Kickstarter is designed for up and coming companies who don't have investors and shareholders to use to help them get off the ground, not for companies such as Wyrd and Mantic to use to fund or part-fund a project in advance.

The way I see it, if a project is good, then the end sales will (normally) reflect this, but in this case we are seeing a company receive over $30,000 directly from the consumer before any of these consumer's know if it's any good, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these backers are doing so because of fear of losing out on the exclusive books and sculpts.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the principles of Capitalism and making money, and I like what Wyrd generally do (I wouldn't be a Henchman who gives up his own time to encourage new players to join in the game if I didn't). I just look at this and I have to wonder if Wyrd are working in the best interest of the community or if they're on the downward slope that lead to Games Workshop becoming the despised company it is now.

I seriously hope that the above is not the case, and I am just being an over reacting nub.

Anyway, stay safe everyone, see you breachside.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

MaliQuest: Grid Maps/Tiles

Good Wednesday everyone!

As you may or may not know, I have finally braved putting a post up in the form of a blog post on the Wyrd boards to promote MaliQuest: http://www.wyrd-games.net/entry.php?348-MaliQuest why not pop over there and show your support?

Anywho, tonight I am due to be recording again with the Malifools, where we will be discussing the proposed Skype game, as well as character creation.

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Today however, I'd like to bring up the topic of printable map tiles.

So it occurred to me, I am looking for this game to be playable, and as part of that it needs to be easily accessible to everyone.

While the ultimate aim is to use Dungeon Rise/World Works to create a dungeon to play, I see no reason why printable tiles would not be usable at the same time.

So I have done some quick research and found a number of printable .pdf files for Warhammer Quest: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.664610.n2.nabble.com/file/n6586581/WHQ_tiles.pdf

The only problem with this set up is the lack of doors.

MaliQuest like many Dungeon Crawlers creates the illusion of an at of monsters with only a few models thanks to only 'spawning' what you can see, ie the room you are in. Doors help accommodate this by acting as an actual barrier to what you can and can not see.

With this in mind I would be grateful for the opinions from others.

Essentially we are saying that any game that allows you to make a dungeon set up should be sufficient, I'm unsure about scale, but I can't see there being problems with the likes of Warhammer Quest, MageKnight, hell, even Space Hulk should work if required.

I'd like to hear what you think, should the GM provide the crawlspace themselves?

Many thanks and I'll see you all breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

MaliQuest: The Loot Deck

Good Monday everyone!

So before I start, I'd just like to check something with some people: I know some of you are familiar with accounting, and as you know I'm studying for my resit for my first exam for year 1 of AAT.

Double entry for the main ledger:
If you take money (sales/purchases return) its
Debit: Control Account
Credit: Relevant account
Credit: VAT account

And if you spend money (sales returns/purchases)
Credit: Control Account
Debit: Relevant account
Credit: VAT account

By relevant I mean, if your talking about sales, then it's the sales account.

And the control account is the Gross figure, Relevant account is NET and VAT is the VAT amount.

Is this right? Just I seriously messed that up in my last exam.

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Anyway, on with the show!

So I've been a busy little bee over the past week, and what do I have to show for it?

Well let me show you!

As they say in the movies "say hello to my little friend" https://www.dropbox.com/s/wk3m4p2f25jjh2k/MaliQuestPass1.zip

What you're looking at here is the entirety of Pass One at the Loot Deck Essentials.

That's 4 separate .pdf files, a total of roughly 100 unique cards, which when applied to the rarity figures becomes a LOT more.

So for every common card, there's 4 of them, 3 for every uncommon, 2 for every rare and 1 for every epic!

If you would like to have a look at them and let me know, that would be super appreciated, in addition if you want to print them out and have a quick feel, that would also be good too.

Now remember, there are a LOT of cards there, some of them are of only a certain rarity, others range from common to epic.

Initially it might feel like there are too many cards, but this is where the GM comes in, any cards they don't like, they can be excluded.

Does your GM only want to play with Epic cards? No problem!

Perhaps he hates guns and only wants Melee weapons? Just remove all ranged cards!

This is Pass One at the cards, based on your suggestions and feedback, I can make corrections and move onto Pass Two.

Also, please give thought to what I said before about themed deck expansions. Is there a whole range of cards that you think I'm missing and need to include? Please tell me your thoughts!

Ok I've gotta get going, I've got a day off today from working on Saturday and I don't want to spend all of it floundering around the bath.

Stay safe, and I'll see you all breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Christmas Shopping & an Impromptu Announcement

Good Sunday everyone!

Today is a good day, why? Because I'm not at work.

You see, we had the cleaners in our office yesterday doing their bi-annual deep clean, and as the FacilitiesManager for the site it was my responsibility to ensure it when ahead without a hitch.

Normally however this is a 2 day job, and so I was expecting to have to return today, but they pulled their fingers out and instead got everything done, yay!

As I was in London anyway yesterday, I decided to stop by Oxford St and do a bit of shopping for the wife.

Big mistake!

It seems that AMEX had paid to block off the roads creating a VIP (Very Important Pedestrian) day, which in turn meant the whole street was jam full of people.

But I fought my way to my destination and got Mummy Moo some presents that I hope she will like.

I'm trying to stay on the 'budget' side of things this year, what with Mini Moo sapping us for all we have through day care, our budget is a lot lower than last year, but thanks to Groupon I've managed to find some great stuff at a fraction of the price - including something that usually retails for £150+ for only £20!

As my wife reads this, I'm afraid I can't go into more detail, but I hope she likes these things.

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I mentioned in the title that I have a bit of an announcement:

If you have listened to the entire of Malifools Ep 22, you'll have heard a little discussion right at the end between Mike & Jon, now originally we were going to wait before announcing this, so I assume the inclusion of that chat was either an accident or instead cross communication (no one told Mike to cut it).

But anyway it's out there now, and so I think I should make a proper announcement:

The Malifools Broadcasting Network in partnership with New Fairbank News Presents - Skype-Quest!

(Or whatever we're calling it)

Now this was Jon's idea that he shared with me on Monday, and initially I thought it was an alright idea, but then the more I thought about it, the more awesome it has become!

So the idea is that myself as the GM, Mike, Jon and 1 to 2 more players all Skype together and we play through a game of MaliQuest together using a series of Pre-generated grid maps we can all see where each other's models and the npcs are, how far away they are, who's in combat, etc.

And then depending on the length of the hand we possibly splice it up into manageable chunks to feature in episodes in the buildup to the MaliQuest launch in January, or we feature it in one big go.

Now, in order to help you guys follow along at home, all the materials we use, so maps, loot cards etc will all be made available via this blog, so as someone picks up The Kobald's Dildo of Enlightenment +2 (which despite the name is actually a fantastic book of fiction! It's hilarious! http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1936383055/ref=mp_s_a_1?qid=1353840180&sr=8-76&pi=SL75) you too can see the cards, mark off the player's wounds and essentially play along at home!

So there we go!

I hope you like the sound of this, and any feedback would be great.

A reminder, I am still looking for a proper logo to feature for this game! If you were holding off because you didn't want to waste your time, let me tell you, this is happening!

This game could be big, but it requires help from the community. So help out a fellow gamer, and put some pencil to paper.

Pwetty pwease?

See you breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

A MaliQuest Thought Splurge

Morning all,

It's 07:18 on Saturday morning. Why am I up and writing? Because my office is getting a deep clean today, and as the London North Area's Facilities Manager (as well as Payroll Support) it's my job to make sure it goes without a hitch.

But regardless of why I am up, I am and I'd like to share with you my idea to further augment MaliQuest:

So one of the issues I currently have is how to allow players to expand/complicate their games without over complicating the core rules.

I mentioned a few days ago about the first expansion: The Paths of Fate. Well now I would like to introduce you to another idea: The (I don't have a name for it yet) Expansion Decks!

So currently I'm working on the basic core game deck, the Essentials so to speak. It has all the basic weapons and gear you would expect plus a few spells here and there to keep things interesting.

I have mentioned before to people that something I want would be for players to suggest ideas for cards, and this is where that is going.

My plans in the months to come is to release further decks, they may be comedy theme decks, horror theme decks, future-Sci Fi decks, high fantasy decks etc.

The idea behind is that (ideally) you could use these decks in place of the Essentials Deck, or if you so wanted you could make your own deck selection by mixing and matching any loot cards you wanted.

To give an idea, currently I am at 81 unique cards for the Essentials, when it goes to print that will work out as much more (currently each card represents x1, but at print each Common will be x4), so as it currently stands GMs will probably want to remove some of the cards already.

Anyway, I think this concept really speaks for itself, and if you have any suggestions please let me know.

By the way, I have it on good faith that my interview 'should' be released today. If so expect my big Card Reveal later!

Stay safe and I'll see you all breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

MaliQuest: The Big Card Unveiling

Greetings all!

If you are reading this, then that means my interview with Malifool Jon is uploaded and available via their host: http://malifools.podbean.com/ and/or iTunes.

It also means you either have already, or will be soon listening to the sound of my annoying voice! Grats!

Well as promised, to coincide with the release of this episode I am also releasing the full details on the MaliQuest loot system.

For those of you interested, you can grab the initial example cards that I discuss on the show from here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1jrb22gxp0xrtht/maliquest.zip

I will also do mini previews here, so here goes nothing:



First up, we have Bob the Merc, Bob is your typical character, his stats are left blank as they can change through character creation and you will notice the cogs on the bottom of his card.

Cogs are important in MaliQuest as they cover 'slots'. For every cog you have in a category you can equip 1 item. So currently that's 1 for each body part, 2 weapons and 2 Artifacts. There is room to expand on that further, but not at the moment.

So Bob has been questing for a while, and his first find is an Uncommon Peacebringer


Notice that the background is green, this represents the rarity of the item (grey for Common, green for Uncommon, blue for Rare and Purple/Pink for Epic). You'll also see that just like in Malifaux core rules, this weapon has a stat profile and triggers.

Just like with Bob's card, this too has cogs. For every cog in a loot card you can equip a mod.

So, being happy with his new gun, Bob wants to enhance it further, so reaching into his pockets he pulls out a pouch of silver bullets he picked up earlier:


This mod takes up one weapon cog, and as you can see from the card itself, it has 10 bullet holes, as each shot is fired, a hole is marked off, once all bullets are spent the mod is discarded.

Other mods have different durations, and many do not expire at all.

Well, equipped with his Uncommon Peacebringer and Silver Bullets, Bob is ready to take down the mindless zombies in the next room, which he does with ease.

Bob finds that the zombies were picking at the body of an adventurer, someone who had come before him but had not been as fortunate as Bob. On his corpse, Bob finds some goggles:


These take up one head cog, give him a boost to his Wp, the Immune to Influence skill and can be further augmented with a single mod.

Wearing these goggles, Bob enters the next room where he is confronted by a Rogue Necromancy, thanks to his goggles he is immune to the Rogue's fear and quickly unloads all remaining Silver Bullets into the beasty killing it.

Strangely enough, on investigation Bob finds that the Rogue was guarding an Artifact:


With this Epic grade artifact, Bob is able to temporarily bury targets, and if he is able to get a Tome Engraving Mod for his equipment, he will be able to turn his enemies into bunnies!

Bob feels like a bad ass, but is he prepared for Killjoy awaiting him in the next room?

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Now, in the above looting examples, I mentioned the different grading of gear. Next up, I'd like everyone to download the following link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dssdxm2jb8q63mk/Peacebringer.zip this contains the different types of rarities available for the Peacebringer.

Initially a deck will contain 4 of every common, 3 uncommon, 2 rare and only 1 epic. This is for each type of weapon/equipment.

Based on this as you can see, obtaining a common weapon is 4 times more likely than the epic variety.

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If you have listened to the podcast, you'll have heard me talking about the importance of community interaction, and I meant every word of that. As such please find in the following link all of the currently available templates for MaliQuest: https://www.dropbox.com/s/f9e2vcnkkf563gn/Templates.zip

As you can see from these, they are .pdf files designed in the same way as Ratty's card creator, so by showing/hiding different layers you can specify rarity, factions etc.

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And there we have it!

There is more to come soon, but rest assured, using these templates I have created a total of 81 different cards for equipment, weapons, Mods and Artifacts and I have more coming!

So stay safe and I'll see you all breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Plans & Poorly Babies

Good Wednesday everyone!

It's been a couple of days since my last post, but don't you worry, I have not been slacking.

For starters my poor little Moo has been quite poorly. As I mentioned before, it started over the weekend and is still going on. Last night however was the most dramatic improvement (sleep wise) as she only woke up one, and that was because she would have been super hungry.

You see, last night, just before she was being put to bed around 18:30 she had her last milk bottle of the night, until she knocked the bottle out of my hands and proceeded to spew the entire contents of her stomach across me, her own sleep suit, the sofa and my wife's laptop.

Let me tell you, the smell of 2hr old part digested milk is NOT pleasant.

But everything got cleared up, I went and had a bath and then proceeded to do some more work on MaliQuest.

I'm afraid at this point I am unable to reveal just what I was doing last night. There is a big reveal coming soon, but I need to make sure the ball is rolling first before I promise the world.

What I can say however, on Monday night I spent more time working on my templates!

These are multi layer .pdf files, similar to Ratty's card creator.

The aim with these is simple, have multi layers of card rarities, faction logos, subheaders etc which will allow me to mass produce cards, and other people to make their own cards with minimal effort.

Once the interview we recorded on Sunday is available I'll make sure to include links to these templates as well as the example cards.

So currently I have the following available: an Equipment Template for making Head, Torso, Boot etc slot items, a Weapon Template and an Artifact template.

I have yet to create a functioning template for Mods, and because of the range of different types of mods, may need to do many templates; one for Ammo Mods, One for Stat Mods etc.

I would love to hear your thoughts, but obviously I know you can't give them until you've seen what I've done. But it's Wednesday, just a few more days and it'll be revealed!

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On a related matter, any budding graphic designers/artists? I'm still on the look out for a MaliQuest logo.

In addition to this, I'm looking for suggestions for 2 Demo Characters. Something someone could use to test the game out. I'm looking for one who's a good solid beatstick/tank and someone who's range. If they focus on spells over range, then all the better.

If it sounds like I'm being cryptic, then I'm afraid that is on purpose, but again please have faith and I promise all will be revealed in good time.

Oh! And healers! Any good suggestions for a team healer model? I seem to remember Misaki's mentor from book 4 had a heal she can cast on others, but I can't remember either her base size or her point cost.

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Anyway, that's it from me today, stay safe and I'll see you all breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

MaliQuest: Weekend Round Up

Good Monday everyone!

I'll be honest, at first today did not look like it was going to be a good morning, my daughter is slightly poorly again, and as such was awake around 22:00, 00:00 and 05:00, so poor sleep for me. It's not like she can help it, and over the weekend she did let us sleep until 0900, so I can hardly complain.

But no, today is a good morning. Largely because of a great weekend.

So on Saturday I had my final demo as an on-probation Henchman, which as per usual was great fun, teaching some people how to play the game from scratch, helping others to understand their newly purchased crews, and I also had a great discussion with one of the staff members at the store.

I won't mention him by name, but it turns out he is a massive RPG fan. I had mentioned MaliQuest to him before, back when it was an extremely fledgling idea. But now I've run by the different ideas past him and he loved it! He also had some great suggestions which I am taking on board and in a couple if cases using outright.

Resisting the urge to spend money that I don't own, I then went home and made arrangements to record my interview for Malifools radio.

Roll on Sunday, a nice lay in, a nice trip into town followed by the before mentioned chat with Jon from the Malifools!

Now I have to be honest here, I was very worried before we spoke, those who know me already know that I'm a massive worrier anyway. I can't go out without worrying that something will happen to myself or my family, throw in a recording session were my promoting of MaliQuest almost entirely relies on myself covering all the bases and doing so in an exciting and engaging way - that's a lot of anxiety right there. Top it off that I was speaking to one of the Malifools! A minor celebrity in the Malifaux scene. Well to say I had butterflies was putting it lightly.

Of course this was all for nought. The words flowed and the recording was made (all be it with a terrible song selection for the Malifaux Minion, and I can not apologise enough about that) and as I knew would be the case, Jon was great. Friendly and approachable - just a normal guy you might say (a normal guy who is 1/3rd of a podcast group with hundreds of hits every week!)

But it went really well I hope, and when it goes up I'll be sure to post my cards that I have discussed somewhere (if anyone can suggest a free file share site, I'd be most grateful). And then I would love it if as the cards are discussed you looked through them yourself. Things make a LOT more sense when you have them in front of you at the time.

Anywho, unfortunately I don't have all that much to look forward to this week. Next weekend I have to work most of Saturday and a few hours on Sunday, so this week will be mostly spent doing revision for my exam which is now being booked for January, creating more cards for MaliQuest and thinking about putting together an initial rules supplement for the game and of course playing some WoW.

I'll be sure to post here when the episode is up along with a link to it, but if you are already subscribed to the Malifools via iTunes (and if not, why not?) then you should find it popping into your list by the weekend at the latest.

Take care and I'll see you all breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

MaliQuest: An Update

Good Friday everyone!

Well it's been roughly a week since my last MaliQuest update, and what do I have to say?

Not much I'm afraid, other than discussing this with a friend little else has been done.

However! I do have a plan for the first expansion:

The Paths of Fate.

This was essentially suggested by a friend of mine who I saw last Friday. The idea would be that you can acquire 'faction' points to direct your character in one way or another, in theory you could have someone who is say, a Guild Guard who experiments with Resser magic.

These points would give certain rewards, extra suits, special abilities etc, however the more I thought about it, the more I knew that this had to be an optional extra.

It's a great idea, but when you're trying to keep the base game as simple as possible while including as much cool stuff as you want, this becomes perfect for the first expansion.

And so my plans are still going ahead, I'm looking for an initial release of at least the demo version in the new year, probably January-December time with full campaign rules following a couple of months after that. Once that is done I'll be looking to ways of expanding this supplement even further, and that is where Paths of Fate come in.

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For those who don't use twitter (and if you don't, why not? It is simply the best place for Malifaux!) you may have missed Wyrd's little announcement: https://twitter.com/wyrdgames/status/269481808255651840

Yeah, so Wyrd are also looking to get the ball rolling on their RPG. This has me worried.

Currently I/we have no idea how their RPG will play out, but I have a feeling that it will deviate in a big way from the core of Malifaux.

This is my hope. As long as it is different enough, then that means there is still a place for MaliQuest, as this game is a Dungeon Crawler with RPG elements. It's like Warhammer Quest, a game I would never describe as an RPG.

While I am sure there will still be some people interested in MaliQuest (after all it's a free supplement for Malifaux that the players can alter and influence directly in the development stages) I have no doubt that if the Wyrd RPG is too similar, it will completely eclipse MaliQuest and make the hours/days/months of work that will be put into it a wasted opportunity.

Here's hoping.

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Anyway, less doom and gloom!

While I still have some time before the yet-to-be-rescheduled chat with the Malifools, I want to put the time to use, which means making more loot cards, so when I do my big unveiling I have more to show for it.

But I want to know, what do you want to see?

What spells/abilities are your favourite ones? Are there any models that you just love the game mechanics of?

I can't guarantee that I will be able to get it exactly as is into the game, but I will try my best to st least stay true to the spirit of the ability.

An example of this is one I've recently come up with: an artifact that is a pet Steampunk Arachnid, which you as a player can throw at an enemy, activating the Arachnid's Latch On ability and reducing the target's Df.

What about Criid's Cigarette Lighter? An artifact which allows you to cast Flame Burst?

Essentially if there is a spell or ability that you love, then somehow there must be a way to fit it into the loot mechanic and add Common-Epic scalings, but in order to decide between the HUNDREDS of weapons, abilities, triggers and spells I need some help.

Anyway, that's it from me, good night, stay safe, and I'll see you all breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Ooh a girl!

Good evening all,

I'm sorry to say that I join you with an issue. Earlier today I read an article talking about "Geek Girls" and the unnecessary hatred they attract.

The article itself can be found here: http://m.io9.com/5960885/the-myth-of-the-fake-geek-girl

Now personally I feel the need to shed my own light on this topic.

I have to warn you, there is a good chance some of you will disagree with potentially everything I say, but I've never once held back on my opinion, and even if I am completely off the mark, I feel it needs to be said.

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Bollocks!

There I've said it. That entire article is complete bollocks. It's feminist propaganda designed to encourage outrage and white knighting.

If someone wants to know why Geeks hate Geek-Girls, it's because Geek-Girls are NOT Geeks.

I have many women friends who partake in geek hobbies, when asked what 'social group' they fall under, they reply "Geek". When asked "are you a Geek Girl?" They reply with "no that title is an insult to Geeks".

On my way home today I was discussing this with my wife, someone who is a true geek while also remaining feminine in herself. I would say that she described the issue quite well:

She compared a Geek/Gamer Girl to akin to women who make a point about being attractive, and so they cover themselves in make up so you can no longer see who they really are, compare this to the quietly confident women who use less make up to accent their features, enhancing their beauty in ways the former cant even come close to.

She said that anyone who describes themselves as a Geek/Gamer Girl has a point to prove, these are the type of people who HAVE to go onto forums and the first thing they do is thrust the fact that they have boobs and a V down everyone's throat. They are an embarrassment to real geeks who happen to be female, and make them look bad.

It was then she went on to make a comparison which brought such joy to my ears, when she drew a comparison between that abhorrent behaviour and Felicia Day.

This you see is my issue with all of this.

I've known a plethora of "Geek Girls" in my time, and they all share the same characteristics. Mainly they are shallow sad women, who more than anything crave attention. They do so by flaunting their femininity infront of basement dwelling men so that they'll be drooled over, all the while going to cosplay dressed as Princess Leia in the Gold Bikini and complaining about men hyper sexualising women in SciFi and Fantasy.

For those who have yet to, please watch Chris Metzen's BluzzCon speech "Geek Is" (a link can be found on my previous post here).

This is what being a geek is all about, it's belonging to a community that pays homage to the great works that came before, it's re-enacting the great military minds of human history over a table top, and it's imagining the wonders of technology yet to come.

Every great inventor who ever lived: Geek!

Every great Sci-Fi/Fantasy writer who ever lived: Geek!

Every great medical mind who ever lived: Geek!

Collectively we have created medicine to cure otherwise lethal diseases, we have established that the world is not only round, but revolves around the Sun, we have even created a device with a touch screen, life planner, inbuilt camera and the ability to rant via the Internet!

No other community can claim to have achieved anywhere near as much as the Geeks, and that includes the women.

So I say a big screw you to Geek Girls. You can take your pathetic attempts to garner attention, your points to prove, and discriminatory attitudes and just EFF off!

The rest of us will be fine, the REAL geeks, both men AND women.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Adventures of Geek Dad: One Year On

Good Tuesday everyone!

I must admit it feels a little strange calling today Tuesday, but that is largely because I've had the last 2 days off, and so it feels more like a Sunday to me.

I'd also like to apologise to everyone who was looking forward to hearing feedback about my chat with the Malifools about my game supplement, because of ill health from one of the co-hosts we've had to reschedule our recording until sometime next week. Don't worry, it will happen. And once it has I'll be able to make my card reveals.

In the meantime I will probably use some of the free time to make some more cards so that the unveiling can be even better.

But I am afraid that none of this is what I'd like to discuss with you today.

On Saturday it was my little girl's first birthday. We had family and friends over and a good time was had by all.

What I can not believe however is just how much has happened between then. It's actually so strange to look at her now, and see the wonderful little girl smiling/babbling/clapping back at you and remember exactly what she was like only 12 months prior.

The funny thing is that she was due on the 1st, so was 10 days late, but despite this she was still so small. I understand that she was normal for a newborn, but as I had never seen a newborn before I didn't know what to expect.

I still remember the very first time I held her, and I hope that no matter what happens I never forget that.

She was still naked, wrapped in a blanket (I had yet to brave putting on a nappy or applying clothing). Her face was covered in flakey skin and she wouldn't stop crying.

So very carefully I took her for a walk around the room, and low and behold, it stopped her crying.

I wanted to talk to her, but I couldn't. My mind was conflicted with 100 different thoughts and feelings. Fear of what was to come, sorrow for the inevitable loss of free time, and happiness and joy for the wonder that had happened.

Perhaps it was just because I'm male and didn't know how to react, but I was so scared that I would hurt her. My wife refers to it as T-Virus handling, like if I was a little too rough/firm she would shatter like glass and release the end of the world.

The next day she came home with her mum, and I remember how that was the start of much to come.

On her first night she vomited up this strange bright green fluid, and I was so scared that she might be ill or something was wrong with her that I called the hospital straight away, only to be told that it was down to her not feeding properly.

I would like to think that in the time that has passed I've learned to worry less. I don't, I just can ignore it now.

Anyway I think I've rambled on for too long now.

So happy birthday Mini Moo, I look forward to looking back in a year's time and seeing how much has changed again.

All my love

- Daddy Moo

MaliQuest: The Winds of Fate

Good Friday everyone!

Well what a weekend it has been, for those who have been keeping up with my MaliQuest posts, thank you very much, and I'm assuming by the lack of comments that you're all happy with the proposed supplements?

Of course I understand you need to have a real go with the system to judge, which is why I'm getting everything down now, I am also already working on loot cards, so once they are all done I can do a budget print job, shove them into MTG card protectors and give them an initial whirl (maybe hijack the club's copy of HeroQuest and use that board as an initial trial).

So far I have created 1 of each rarity loot card, 1 Common, 1 Uncommon, 1 Rare and 1 Epic.

Eventually most weapons and gear items will have some of each, in theory it'll number 1Epic, 2Rare, 3Uncommon and 4Common. I'm theory with all the common and uncommon cards littering the loot deck, getting the Elite and Rare cards will be a lot less likely.

Of course eventually I'll be unveiling just what these cards will look like, and so far I am VERY happy with them, however for now they are staying hush hush.

In fact they will remain hushed until sometime next week, you see on Tuesday morning while I'm on leave from work I'm booked to appear on the Malifools Podcast (SQUEE!!) I'll be emailing them the prototype cards just prior to the recording, and if I can get a confirmation from them, on the day that recording goes live, I'll be sure to upload these cards then.

BUT! This is not what I'm here to discuss today!

No today is all about The Winds of Fate!

You may remember I mentioned prior about a tarot card mechanic that I couldn't quite figure out? Well here it is!

In short: when a character is created, a face card is selected at random, this is from then on in their wind of fate card.

During any game that follows, if for any reason their Wind of Fate card is used, be it a deck flip or hand placement, the owner of that card can discard any number of cards from their hand and redraw up to their full hand. For every card they discard and redraw they 'may' force another player to do the same.

Do you want to steal the treasure all for yourself maybe playing your Wind card from your hand, discarding your own hand and forcing them to redraw is the answer!

Or maybe the GM has some awesome cards and you just need 1 lucky hit to bring down his Steampunk Leviathan? This could be the chance to do it!

Of course there is a gamble here, you might end up with worse cards, or the GM (if he is your target) may end up with better cards, but then since when have the Winds of Fate ever been fair?

However this also works for hand replenishment. Have you managed to hold off the ravages of 3 Punk Zombies, only to have an almost empty hand and 3headed monstrosity lumber it's way towards you? Throw caution into the Wind of Fate and get yourself a full hand!

I was looking for a mechanic that added a level of random complexity to the game, but did not make the game too complicated.

Of course I should also mention, Wind cards have a special use. You can play them with no requirement. Should you have a Wind card in your hand and you wish to get it out there for either yourself or your team mate to use, you can play it as is. When done the card has no effect other then activating it's Wind effect. This is not always the best option, as they are face cards then this is a little but of a waste, but it allows you to use the mechanic if you so wish.

I should also note, the discard/draw occurs after the current action has resolved.

Ok and that's pretty much it from me this week.

Looking ahead I've got a friend coming over tonight for some Malifaux (first proper game I've played in about 2-3 months) and tomorrow is the Moo's birthday!

I can't believe she'll be 1 year old!

Anyway, take care and I'll see you all breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

MaliQuest: Gear & Artefacts

Good evening everyone!

So I was going to wait until tomorrow before posting this, but I decided against it in favour of SQUEE!!

So earlier today we covered Weapon Mods and Engravings, I touched briefly on Gear and Artefacts, and would like to now like to cover the latter in more detail.

So first and foremost, we have Gear loot.

Most of the common varieties I've already covered:

Common Boots of Speed
+1 Cg

Common Helm of Mental Fortitude
+1 WP

Common Gloves of Casting
+1 Ca

Common Girdle of Defence
+1 Df

As with weapons, as they increase in rarity so they gain additional stats, triggers that relate to their stats and mod slots for mods such as

Armour Plating
+1 Armour

Kevlar Lining
+1 Bullet Proof

That sort of thing.

Remember all of these are held together in a single loot deck, so the chances of getting any certain combination in a single game are very rare, but of course in a campaign these will carry over, so your next run on a dungeon may give you the armour mod you really want!

**********

Next up are Artefacts!

These are the fun little tools that give some of the more unusual abilities.

Colette's vanishing act? That's given through The Magician's Hat

Harmless? Why through Inconspicuous Clothes!

Arcane Reservoir? It can only be Rasputina's Tome of Knowledge!

Transposition? That has to be Lilith's Orb of Nephilum Blood.

As you can see, the possibilities are endless! The limits are only based on what abilities would translate to Dungeon Crawling. Take flight for example, not that suitable, Spirit on the other hand? EXTREMELY useful!

****************

In order to make things a little more fun, initially players will be able to select from 1 Artefact and 1 Weapon slot each, or they can cash in their 1 unwanted slot for a 2nd of the other. This allows for players who want to focus on a more Casting character to have that option while gunfighters and beatsticks will also get their options.

***********

And that's pretty much it!

My next few days will be pretty much mind splurges while I think more things through, and I'll also look into getting some test cards drawn up, nothing major, an example character card, a weapon or two, maybe an artefact and some mods/engravings.

I've promised someone an exclusive (more on this later) but once that is done I'll look to post these and you can all have a look and tell me what you think.

Remember, I'm still on the look out for a MaliQuest logo! It could be your picture that this time next year all the cool kids are playing with!

See you all breachside

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

MaliQuest: Weapon Mods

Good Wednesday everyone!

So last night we covered the basics of weapons, and now I'd like to run you past the idea of Weapon Mods.

Now these are loot cards that along with the weapons are held in the loot deck.

The sort of things we're looking at are very simple:

Lengthened Gun Barrel
+2 Range

Gun Scope
+1 Ranged Cb

Reforged Blade
+1 Melee Cb

Sharpening Stone
Melee
0/0/+1

Enhanced Sharpening Stone
Melee
0/+1/+1

Big Bullets
Range
0/0/+1

You get the idea. Simple mods that increase the basic stats of weapons.

But at the same time, there are more varied types as well.

Silver Bullet Bag
Ranged Mod
Damage Flips against Undead receive +1
(This card would have 10 boxes which are crossed off 1 at a time, representing 10 shots you can use with this mod)

Heavy Blade
Melee
Damage flips with this weapon receive +1

Magical Enchantment
This weapon counts as Magical

So you get the idea?

***********

You may have noticed that I mentioned something yesterday that I have yet to cover: Engravings

Engravings are mods that can be used on weapons or armour, and essentially gives the weapon/armour an inbuilt suit:

Engraving of the Ram
Adds RAM to this item.

So what it is added to effects what exactly it does. If you added this to a Peacebringer, then that adds a Ram to the Cb and unlocks auto critical strike.

If you were to add this to a DF slot item (more on that another time) then it would add a Ram to your DF stat.

It initially sounds complicated but it's actually a very simple system.

**********

Of course, an idea I've been toying with is to give usable gear a number of modification slots.

So using the Peacebringer as an example, it starts off using the stats in yesterday's example (but no triggers and 1 Mod Slot) this would be a common loot card.

You can then find an uncommon version with 1 trigger and 1 Mod Slot.

Then we have the rare version. Both triggers, 1 slot.

Finally we have the epic version, both triggers and 2 mod slots.

Each mod slot can only have 1 mod attached to it at any time, but the player can collect as many of these mods in their cache as they want, so they can swop as required, but swopping a mod uses 1AP (or maybe an ALL action).

Now one thing I am thinking about is the possibility of limiting players by a number of slots.

For example, 1 slot for every Stat, 2 weapon slots and maybe 2 Artefact slots (artefacts are fun things, such as 'Inconspicuous Clothes' which gives you the Harmless trait and a trigger to regain the trait).

However I am concerned that adding equipment slots to the player's cards might make things too complicated, so should instead things just stack? What I don't want to see is someone running around with 15xGirdle of +1 DF, I just think that's a little silly and makes counting each stat a bit of a chore. Plus forcing players to have to think about upgrades would add another amount of depth to this.

Clearly I'm talking about the full campaign mode right now, as the lite version will be using official Wyrd cards there's no room for modification there.

***********

Ok that's one hell of a ramble, but I'd very much like to hear your thoughts.

Especially on the last bit, should loot stack or should players have equipment slots on their cards? (Just a quick note however before I go, player cards will be A5, and as the actual weapon and artefact abilities are held on their corresponding cards, this frees up a lot of space).

Anyway, I'm going to let you go now, I'm sure I just mind blasted you for a 50k Crit!

See you all breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The MaliQuest Armoury

Good evening everyone!

This evening I am exploring the wonderful world of weapons in Malifaux.

I'm asking what weapons are iconic and what NEED to feature in my games of MaliQuest?

For starters I am only focussing on Book 1 weapons. I've made a few changes to try and get some initial balance.

Let's get started:

Greatsword
Melee 2"
Cb5
2/3/5
Ram: Critical Strike
Mask: Onslaught

Peacebringer
Rg 10"
Cb5
2/3/5
Ram: Critical Strike
Mask: Trigger Happy

Paired Pistols
Rg 10"
Cb4
2/3/4
Paired

Runed Blade
Melee 2"
Cb5
2/3/5
Magical: Gain +1damage flip on models with a Ca6+

Peacebringer Blade
Melee 1"
Cb5
2/3/4
Ram: Critical Strike

Executioner Claws
Melee 2"
Cb6
3/4/5
Paired: Models hit by this weapon can not use Df triggers
Ram: Critical Strike
Models using this weapon can not carry range weapons.

Whirlwind Sword
Melee 2"
Cb5
3/4/6
Mask: Whirlwind

Relic Hammer
Melee 3"
Cb5
3/4/6
Magical: Ignores Armour
Mask: Knockback

And there we have it for the initial line up!

The idea behind these is to have them in card format, these along with other items (armour, stats items, weapon enhancements and rune engravings will all be mixed up in a loot deck which gets dished out as the adventure continues.

Tomorrow ill look to make a beginning list of additional loot items, but this should give you an idea of the type of loot available.

You may notice that none of these weapons come with inbuilt suits, this is on purpose, and will explain more in the days to come.

For now, goodnight and see you all breachside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Dungeon Crawler? Vault Hunter? Tomb Raider?

Good Tuesday everyone!

So a few days have past, and my last post is quickly rising to be my most viewed post ever.

Thanks for that! And I take by the views and re-tweets/favourites that a lot of people are interested in this idea.

Well the good news is that sometime next week I should be popping up on the Malifools Podcast to chat about this, get the information out there for those who don't already know about it. And i'll be revealing any additional details that i've since come up with.

Yup you finally get to hear my whining voice :)

In the meantime, I've got two things I'd like to hear from you reader(s).

1). Firstly, I'd like some suggestions on a 'name' for this game.

2). Secondly once a name has been established, I'd love some ideas/suggestions for a logo.

Now for part 2). As this is requiring a bit of work from you (I suck at graphic design) I'm willing to offer a prize:
- For the lucky artist who's work is selected you get your logo printed on every publication of this game, be it hand outs, stat cards etc.

Now I need to say that in no way is this directly affiliated with Wyrd themselves, and in order to try to not tread on any feet everything that I do has to be free, so once I've run up example player cards, loot cards, scenario examples and rules supplements, all of this will need to be made available free of charge.

Anywho, we're back to part 1. A name...

I've been looking for ideas, inspiration and suggestions from the world of games and the similar style games I've played in the past.

In the table top world, I've played Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer Quest, and some others that I forget the name of.

On computer there's Diablo, Torchlight, Dungeon Keeper etc.

So I've been thinking (for all of 5 minutes) and the best few I've come up with are as follows:

- Malifaux Quest
- Relic Quest
- Dungeon Run
- Loot Hunter
- and a combination of them all, say Relic Hunter.

Please, any feedback is great, and if the name doesn't include the name Malifaux, then this will be inserted at the end, such as:
Relic Quest: A Malifaux RPG.

Right, well I'm starting to run low now, but please if you think you can contribute in any way, please do.

Serious, silly, psychedelic, your suggestions and efforts are greatly appreciated.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

Malifaux: A Dungeon Crawling RPG

For the few who made it out into the Malifaux wastes there was much to be gained, the further away from the Breach a person ventured the more untouched the Soul Stone mines were, the more lucrative the archaeological digs became, and the higher the bounties on Outlaws rose.

This was the reason for why the townsfolk of New Fairbank chose to settle where they did. But this far from the Breach there was little protection the Guild could provide, but still despite all of this, year after year more workers and labourers continued to arrive at the town's gates.

The truth is, everyone knew life in Malifaux would be hard, and when the town's water turned black and the dead started to rise from their graves no one battered an eyelid, they just raised the danger pay for adventurers and mercenaries.

You see back Earthside, if someone had planned to build a town on top of the buried remains of a cursed and haunted catacomb, people would call them crazy, but Breachside this just meant there were more forbidden relics to be sought!

*****************

Good Sunday everyone! I hope you liked that little bit of narrative, and I welcome you all to an introduction to Malifaux: A Dungeon Crawling RPG!

For those who have been following on twitter over the past few days, you'll have seen me posting a few comments about an RPG style demo system I want to run, and for those who listen to the Malifools Broadcast Network this will probably be of no surprise.

******

Ok excuse me, I'm rambling and getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning:

A couple of months ago I read a Henchman Thread about using a more RPG style of demoing to play Malifaux, where the demo player only controls one model and has to work with others to take down an opponent.

This got me thinking about ways on expanding on this idea.

Fast forward to roughly one week ago, I'm looking at photos of Dungeon Rise, the new Teraclips sets and I'm thinking "I need to put them on my Christmas list", and then I saw some photos, and an idea took form:









What if I used the Dungeon Rise sets to play out an RPG style of Malifaux game?

Rather than controlling a whole crew, a group of say, 5 players each controlling a model of iconic proportions was to team up and venture through a dungeon.

The group could be made up say of:
Misaki


Santiago


And The Judge


And as they venture from room to room different monsters are revealed for them to kill, say in the first room they encounter a small group of Terror Tots, in the following room there's a Teddy and an Alp, etc.

Then at the very end, after fighting through all of this they then encounter Lord Chompy Bits.

It tells a slight narrative and allows for players from other RPG systems to play, learn one character well and get to grips with the game.

********

Fast forward to last night, I'm talking this over with my wife and she drops an idea into the mix, why does it have to be unique characters? Now I interpret this as, why not also allow other good models, such as Gunsmiths and The Executioner, and this is right, there is no reason not to allow that, and so the idea spread from there to, say, each player has a Soul Stone Cache of 10, they can then have a character from a set list and any left over stones can be used in the game. You want to play with a 9SS model? That's fine, and your stats will reflect that, but you'll only have 1SS to use in the game, and when you could be facing upwards of 20-50 monsters, those stones used for say, healing flips could come in quite handy.

********


It was then my mind started racing even more, why not include loot!? Something players can collect along the way to make their character better? Say The Helm of +1 WP, or The Breastplate of +1 DF etc.

All of this works to make a simple game ever so slightly more engaging.

Then came the ultimate idea...

Why not create a campaign version? One to be run in homes and at clubs. A version of the game that encourages players to retain their character from one game to the next? Why not allow players to make their own characters?

********

Now as said above, this would not be for demos, so if you come to a demo expecting this, don't be surprised if you're given Misaki instead.

No in this version you don't play as a known Malifaux icon, you're Bob the Gunslinger, or Ted the Mercenary. You're rank and file, only with even less abilities than a normal minion. You're a Death Marshall without his pine box, or a Gunsmith with a Peace Keeper.

But with every game you get loot which allows you to raise your stats, or gold to later buy stats, or perhaps find a scroll to learn a talent or spell, or maybe a sword to perform a whirlwind strike.

Obviously you would have a 'class' based on what you originally picked, and the weapons and abilities of that class are cheaper for you, but fancy being a Guild Guard who has access to a Customised Peacebringer that fires silver ammo? Why not!

With use of Ratty's card creator and laminating tools, a character's stats can be as permanent as the dry wipe marker they are written with, and the lowly Desperate Mercenary can rise to become the Ultimate Dungeon Crawler!

The same can be said for monsters, are your adventurers so advanced that a room full of 5 Chompies is just a walk in the park? Well go Godzirra on them! Whip out Mecha Chompy with lazer eyes! And all his stats turned up to 11!

*********


So tell me, adventurers from afar, do you want to pick up your sword and firearm, venture through the breach, fight the ultimate evil beneath New Fairbank and get renown as the Ultimate Dungeon Crawler?

******

On a side note: I also have another mechanic I want to add. Remember when Viktoria in book 4 was having her future told? Remember how the cards she saw were the fate deck face cards? Wasn't that cool?

I want to do the same here. That whenever someone makes a character, be it in the Campaign version, or the Lite version, they draw a face card, the Queen of Stones, the Lady of Death, the Twister of Fate etc, and that card means something to them. Maybe it's a second red joker in their deck, I don't know yet, but I really want to find a way of incorporating that into this game.

Any thoughts?

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley