EGG EMBRY (EGG): You have been nominated for an Ennie Award for Good Robust Palms. First, congratulations! Second, for people who don’t know, what’s Good Robust Palms (GSH) about?
CRAIG CAMPBELL (CRAIG): Thanks for chatting with me. Good Robust Palms is a fantasy RPG the place you painting fantastical creatures working to avoid wasting their fantastical world from destruction by a faceless, malevolent entity often called the Void. It’s closely impressed by 80s films like Legend, Darkish Crystal, Labyrinth, Willow, and – particularly – The Neverending Story.
EGG: You’re on Kickstarter with a complement to GSH. What’s the pitch for What Is Mild With out Darkish?
CRAIG: Good Robust Palms is ready within the land of Reverie, whose denizens have been combating the Void for hundreds of years. Throughout that point, components of Reverie have been misplaced within the wrestle. Some realms have been torn away by the Void, others destroyed and reconstituted elsewhere, and a few have all the time been disconnected. Together with these realms, complete teams of people and their outdated magics have been misplaced to these residing in Reverie. What Is Mild With out Darkish reveals these misplaced realms, people, and magics to be used in your GSH video games.
EGG: I’m going to ask a query for readability, the Kickstarter is titled What Is Mild With out Darkish RPG. The e-book has a special title – No “RPG.” Is that this a complement to GSH or a standalone RPG?
CRAIG: It’s a complement that requires Good Robust Palms to make use of. The “RPG” included within the title is to assist people who may merely be looking Kickstarter for RPGs.
EGG: That’s truthful. You attended the Ennie Awards at Gen Con 2022. What was GSH nominated for? What was the expertise like? Who’d you meet at and after the ceremony?
CRAIG: Good Robust Palms was nominated for Finest Guidelines and Finest Household Product, each of which it misplaced to very deserving merchandise. This was my first time attending the Ennies and it was type of surreal. Seeing all these nice video games and equipment up on the display screen and listening to the designers, producers, publishers, and artists settle for their awards. It was a wild time. Merely seeing my little homage to the 80s fantasy films I grew up on talked about in the identical breath as so many different nice video games was exceedingly humbling. I volunteered to be an “Ennie Dream Date” so I used to be at a entrance desk with a few my teammates and a fan who acquired a bunch of swag and frolicked with us. After the ceremony was over, my mates and I had a outstanding encounter with a celeb that I recounted right here.
EGG: Who’re you engaged on this venture with you?
CRAIG: Vincent Harper (editor) and Todd Crapper (graphic design and format), who labored on GSH, got here again for this complement. Sadly, Serena Malyon, who did the artwork for GSH, was unavailable to tackle the venture. A search of about 20 or so artists led me to Moira Leclerc, who knocked the illustrations out of the park. All of those people put their all into this product, and it reveals. It’s a beautiful e-book.
EGG: Inform me about GSH’s Roll-Monitor System utilized in GSH and WILWD?
CRAIG: Your character has 4 traits (Physique, Thoughts, Attraction, and Coronary heart), every rated between 1 and 4. To make a trait examine, you roll plenty of cube equal to the ranking of the suitable trait versus a goal quantity between 4 and 6. The variety of successes determines how issues end up. Every character additionally has three tracks of examine bins the place they construct up foreign money (every Roll-Monitor sport is a bit of totally different in these tracks). For GSH, you’ve a ability observe (fill it as much as advance your character), a spirit observe (spend these factors to achieve numerous bonuses), and a shadow observe (fill this up and your character positive factors a corruption, a darkish energy with a worth). Should you get 0 successes in your trait examine, you fail on the job and endure a complication, however mark 1 ability. Should you get precisely 1 success, you carry out the duty and mark 1 spirit. Should you get 2 or extra successes, you carry out the duty with a boon (particular perk), however you mark 1 shadow and fall nearer to corruption. If in case you have three corruptions and fill your shadow observe once more, your character is misplaced to the Void and turns into a scion of the destroyer. And there are particular talents and methods to achieve and lose cube on these checks. All types of enjoyable stuff, however not overly complicated.
EGG: You could have a free preview of GSH in Good Robust Palms Fast Begin. What does it cowl within the guidelines?
CRAIG: The short begin contains the whole guidelines, 4 character playbooks, and some 2-page journey outlines. It’s a reasonably complete package deal that provides you a very good sense of the sport.
EGG: Are you planning from GSH dietary supplements?
CRAIG: I’d like to do one other complement. A “trilogy of books” appears actually applicable for a sport primarily based on films. Possibly one other guidelines enlargement. Or possibly an journey path. I’m nonetheless mulling it over.
EGG: Past this venture, what else are you engaged on?
CRAIG: The actual pleasure this 12 months is in NerdBurger Video games having its personal sales space at Gen Con for the very first time. I’ve acquired 9 workforce members coming with me, doing every little thing from serving to on the sales space to working over two dozen sport occasions within the Indie Sport Developer Community sport room. Past that… The subsequent huge merchandise on the NerdBurger Video games docket is CAPERS Cyberpunk, at the moment in last playtesting. Tentative Kickstarter late this 12 months. It’s type of the bookend to the CAPERS universe, begun with the unique CAPERS sport, which is about superpowered gangsters in an alternate Twenties, and expanded with some dietary supplements that take you to later many years. In CAPERS Cyberpunk, you play cybered up, superpowered criminals in an alternate 2020s the place superpowers and know-how have given rise to the megacorps. It’s a really punk sport in that it’s all about combating the system and attempting to make a distinction for many who are oppressed. The criminals of the Twenties have develop into humanity’s saviors within the 2020s.
EGG: I can’t wait to check out CAPERS Cyberpunk!Thanks for speaking with me. The place can followers be taught extra about your venture and sustain with you on-line?
CRAIG: I’m @NerdBurgerCraig on Twitter and cube.camp on Mastodon. My web site is NerdBurgerGames.com and every little thing is on the market on DriveThruRPG.
What Is Mild With out Darkish RPG from NerdBurger Video games
- END DATE: Thu, Could 25 2023 7:00 PM EDT.
Egg Embry has attended conventions with Craig Campbell. Egg participates within the OneBookShelf Affiliate Program, Noble Knight Video games’ Affiliate Program, and is an Amazon Affiliate. These applications present promoting charges by linking to DriveThruRPG, Noble Knight Video games, and Amazon.