Spacehawk... he's the lone wolf of the void!

In 1941, it was still a time of "anything goes" in comic book story-telling. It was at this point that cartoonist Basil Wolverton created Spacehawk, which to this very day stands as one of the most visually interesting sci-fi comics to ever see print. Wolverton's unique art-style was on full display in his portrayal of the rubbery Martians and other aliens that Spacehawk went up against, as he battled space pirates, despots, and others who threatened the lives of innocents.

Spacehawk cover art by Will Eisner

NUELOW Games has collected the five best Spacehawk stories in Spacehawk: Lone Wolf of the Void. We are presenting them in color, so readers can see a close approximation of what readers in 1941 experienced. Click here to see previews or to get your own copy of the book

In addition to the classic Basil Wolverton comics, NUELOW's Spacehawk book also contains d20 OGL Modern rules for creating sci-fi heroes like Spacehawk.

Spend Christmas with ROLF!

Get all six NUELOW Games Christmas Specials, plus the core rulebook for ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters, as well as the horror- and suspense themed fiction anthology Horror for the Holidays, for half off what it would cost to get them separately.

Give yourself (or someone you like) the gift of great entertainment this Christmas (not to mention a whole mess of battle scenarios featuring Santa and other Christmas mainstays!

Click here to learn more about NUELOW's Christmas Box--and to get the goodies it contains!

Get to know Kim Jong-Un

Thanks to the cowardice of American theater chains and international media conglomerate Sony Entertainment, Kim Jong-Un and the turd-blossoms who service him in North Korea have been put in charge of what you may and may not consume in mass media.

As a public service announcement, NUELOW Games wants to introduce you to the pudgy little assclown who is the new global guardian of Right and Wrong.



If you want to use Kim Jong-Un as a character in your ROLF! games, click here to see a post featuring stats for the legend himself!

THE Unauthorized Adaptation of 'The Interview'

The turd-eating bastards who hacked Sony's computer's have issued a threat of violence against theaters that screen The Interview. The threat (via Variety) is as follows:

Warning

We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places “The Interview” be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to.
Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made.
The world will be full of fear.
Remember the 11th of September 2001.
We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time.
(If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.)
Whatever comes in the coming days is called by the greed of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
All the world will denounce the SONY.

More to come…

While Sony's lawyers are too busy suing news outlets for covering the leaks of emails, film scripts, and personal information about the studio's employees and contractors, we here at NUELOW Games are proud to present the ROLF! Adaptation of The Interview.

After you go see the film on opening night--because you're not going to let some fucking terrorists scare you into not seeing a movie, right... you're not even going to give them the satisfaction of claiming they scared you away, right?--you can relive the film or make up your own adventures using ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters and these characters.

THE INTERVIEW: 

AN UNAUTHORIZED ROLLPLAYING GAME ADAPTATION

By Steve Miller 

(Characters Used Without Permission... or it wouldn't be unauthorized)

KIM JONG-UN (Male?)
Brawn 11, Body 7, Brains 3
  Traits: Improv Master
  Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Murderous Mitts, Strike Pose
  Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Snazzy Uniform (Armor. Absorbs 1 point of damage). Outrageous Hairdo (Provides a -1 modifier to Strike Pose ATT checks)

DAVE SKYLARK (Male)
Brawn 11, Body 14, Brains 5
  Traits: Cowardly, Dumb
  Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Dodge, Run Away, Strike Pose, Withering Insult
  Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Pistol (Small Ranged Weapon, Four shots. Deals 2 points of damage that ignore armor)

AARON RAPAPORT (Male)
Brawn 12, Body 11, Brains 6
  Traits: Improv Master, Nimble
  Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Debate Philosophy, Double Strike, Disarm, Dodge, Seduce
  Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Pistol (Small Ranged Weapon. Four Shots. Deals 2 points of damage that ignore armor)

AGENT LACEY (Female)
Brawn 14, Body 14, Brains 8
  Traits: Coldblooded, Dead-Eye
  Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Disarm, Disembowel, Double Strike, Murderous Mitts, Seduce, Strike Pose, Sure Shot
  Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Spy Gadgets (Two Small Weapons, each deals 2 points of damage, Melee OR Ranged)

SOOK (Female)
Brawn 15 (Includes +1 Hat Bonus), Body 15, Brains 6
  Traits: Improv Master, Nimble
  Combat Maneuvers: Backflip, Basic Attack, Castrate, Disarm, Dodge, Murderous Mitts\
  Important Stuff Worn/Wieded: Snazzy North Korean Military Uniform (Clothes, Thigh-High Boots (Armor, absorbs 1 point of damage), Uniform Cap (Hat, provides +1 Brawn while worn)



And for good measure, a bonus character!

DENNIS RODMAN (Male)
Brawn 18, Body 15, Brains 3
  Traits: Too Sexy for My Shirt, Nimble
  Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Signature Move, Run Away
  Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Massive Dildo (Medium Melee Weapon, deals 3 points of damage)




(For the record, we all here at NUELOW Central suspect this movie is absolute garbage. When the dickless wonders known to the worlds as the "Sony Hackers" say "soon the world will see what an awful movie Sony Entertainment Pictures has made," we believe them. But they've made sure that we will be going to see it. And we'll try to convince others to do the same. We knew that The Love Guru would suck, but we went to see that one, too. Look for Steve to post a review -- assuming it screens somewhere he can get to see it.)

A Very NUELOW Christmas!

We love Christmas here at NUELOW Central. We love Christmas music. We love having fun with Christmas (as our several Christmas Specials show) and we love music and art that has fun with Christmas. And they don't get much more fun than this...

(No game content or plugs this time around... just a post in anticipation of Christmas! Because we love this time of year! [And I particularly love this video because I always appreciate a good call-back.)

Final word on 'Gamergate: The Card Game' and Onebookshelf

Last week, I expressed concern about the news that Onebookshelf.com (the exclusive distributor of titles from NUELOW Games) appeared to have dropped a product from Postmortem Studios in response to pressure from another publisher. The product was Gamergate: The Card Game, which I talk a little about in this post.

Today, Onebookshelf's Steve Weick sent out an email (which was also posted to Facebook, so you can read it here) about the situation. For me, the most important statements in it were:

"Some publishers also complained about this title, and a few publishers let us know they would not be interested in continuing to work with us if we carried it on our store. We will not allow any publisher to dictate content policy onto any other publisher, explicitly or implicitly. If any publisher ever decides to discontinue business with us because our content policy errs to the side of being too open, rather than restrictive, then we will respect their decision to leave our marketplaces and wish them well. To be clear, no publishers’ comments had any bearing on our decision to discontinue.selling this title."

Good for Steve Weick and Onebookshelf.

A distributor has the right to carry whatever they please, for whatever reasons they please. And no publisher should try to use their business relationship with said distributor as a club to force them to drop products from other publishers.

I can't say I'm completely happy with the end result. My sympathies are with designer James Desborough, but I can't fault Onebookshelf for the decision or their reasons for taking the steps they took. I do fault ANY publisher who approached Onebookshelf in an official capacity and said "pull that, or we pull our products."

I am occasionally troubled by our all-ages comics appearing next to porn comics on the DriveThruComics homepage. But I would NEVER (even if I felt I had the clout) be the kind of jackass who writes to Onebookshelf with threats.

It makes me a little sad that in the industry I love, there are people who are the sort of thugs that do.

Are PDFs considered collectibles?

If so, there are some lucky people out there who own the soon-to-be super-rare The Three Lives of Fantomah: Book One and The Three Lives of Fantomah: Book Two.

An executive decision (inspired by artist Bradley K. McDevitt) was made to drop the Book X titling scheme and instead give the books proper subtitles. We're making the change in anticipation of the upcoming release of the book that would have been The Three Lives of Fantomah: Book Three but which is now going to be titled The Three Lives of Fantomah, Daughter of the Pharaohs instead. Here are the revised covers for the first two, followed by the sketch for the third book. (If you haven't checked out our Fantomah series and the cool OGL d20 variant magic rules within them, now would be a great tme.)

Cover art by Richard Case & Fletcher Hanks

Cover art by Richard Case & Fletcher Hanks

Sketch by Bradley K. McDevitt

And if you already own the Fantomah books? Save those original versions somewhere safe. You nnever know... PDFs may just be collectible. Stranger things have happened.

Imagine...

... John Lennon, John Bonham, and Johnny Cash forming a band. Then throw in John Denver and John Philip Sousa. It would be the greatest assembly of musical Johns in this world or the next (well, except maybe They Might Be Giants).

Imagine all those Johns. It isn't hard if you know about NUELOW's re-issue/revision of Houseboat on the River Styx from yet another John -- John Kendrick Bangs. In fact, it would almost be expected, given that Bangs teamed Shakespeare and Sherlock Holmes, and we've previously published supplements that saw Abraham Lincoln join forces with John F. Kennedy to fight Adolf Hitler and Kim Jong Il.

ROLF!: Fugue for Johns in D Minor is a return to the misty land of Hades with another crazy mix of characters, in the land where deceased celebrities and historical figures have adventures with fictional characters. Click here for more information, to see previews of the product, and to get your very own copy.

Get some Stickers by Stan!

Talented cartoonist, game designer, writer, and all-around-great-guy Stan! is running a Kickstarter that is in its final hours -- it ends the evening of Tuesday, December 9. His goal is to make some of his fun art available as stickers and clip art.

Some of the Stickers by Stan!

One of the treats you can get for contributing a measly $3 is a selection of Stan! clip art cartoons! What's more, if you contribute $10, you get the clip art, a coloring book, and three sheets of stickers! So much Stan! goodness!

Christmas Stickers/Clip Art by Stan!

Click here for more information about the Kickstarter campaign and Stickers by Stan! We don't often plug Kickstarters, but everyone at NUELOW Games (all two of us!) are Stan! Fans, and if you aren't already, we're sure you will become one. (This Kickstarter should be of especially high interest to anyone who wants some fun illustrations for their website or e-Christmas letters this year... and for those with kids who at that age where everything needs to be adorned with stickers. Or if you're someone who never outgrew that phase...)

More Gamergate Nonsense

Game designer and blogger James Desborough has published #Gamergate: The Card Game through PostMortem Studios. The sell-copy for the game describes it as "by taking the piss out of all sides," something which we delight in here at NUELOW Games. So, that's a plus in James's favor in our book.

Cover art for #Gamergate: The Card Game

A minus against him is the fact it's a game making fun of #Gamergate. I have been disgusted by the various factions in that particular fight for a long time, and Hundal has been bored by them. The only thing #Gamergate confirmed for me is that I am not a gamer (even though I minstakenly identified myself as one for over two decades) and it confirmed for Hundal that she was right to never attend a game convention. The game would have gone completely unnoticed by me and most other people if one of the crusading anti-Gamergate Factions hadn't decided to convince distributor Onebookshelf to drop the game, and other crusaders hadn't decided to beat their chests about how they "stand behind the decision."

NUELOW Games is exclusively distributed by Onebookshelf via their RPGNow, DriveThruComics, DriveThruFiction, DriveThruRPG, and WarGameVault sites. If we ever add a card game to our line-up, we will undoubtedly sell it at DriveThruCards. I have nothing but nice things to say about Onebookshelf, despite the fact that there's no specific category for ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game on their sites. I also believe that they, as a distributor, have the right to carry or not carry whatever products they like. However, NUELOW Games has published (and continues to publish) products that rely on satire, sarcasm, and commentary on current events in politics and popular culture. It is concerning to me that zealots of any stripe can convince a distributor to drop a satirical product because they demand it to be so. If the sell-copy for Desborough's game is accurate, it doesn't sound that different than NUELOW's "Bill Clinton and the Secret City of Women," "The Pimp, the Protester, and the Po-Po" or "Mr. Freedom vs. Blowhard."

There but for the grace of God goes ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game?

I know nothing about Gamergate: The Card Game beyond the cover art and the sell-copy. I am not likely to learn anything more about it, because Gamergate draws fucktards like a corpse draws flies and I want nothing to do with it. But if you're interested in checking out James' game, you can buy it through this website. (You can also read more about it there.)

For even more information, visit his blog here. 

Possibly the greatest song ever written! (And some RPG rules)

The band is Alestorm. The song is "Drink."


We live each day like there's nothing to lose,
But a man has needs and that need is booze.
They say all the best things in life are free.
So give all your beer and your rum to me!

We are here to drink your beer 
And steal your rum at a point of a gun 
Your alcohol to us will fall
'Cause we are here to drink your beer!


d20 OGL BOOZING RULES
Here's are some quick and dirty rules for using alcohol in your d20 OGL Modern games. Like everything in RPGs, this is an effort to model fantasy, not reality. You should always drink responsibly, alcohol is addictive and shouldn't be treated lightly... and so on, and so forth, blah-blah-blah.
  All text in this post from this point forward is presented under the Open Game License.

Drinking and Getting Drunk
During one hour, a character may consume a number of alcoholic beverages equal to 1/3rd his or her Constitution score. For each drink after that requires a requires a Constitution check (DC 12 + 2 per additional drink) with any racial  or other bonus against poison modifying the roll. Each failed check means 1 temporary damage to your Dexterity and Wisdom scores, and a -1 penalty to your Constitution for the purpose of resisting the effects of further drinks. If your Wisdom or Constitution scores are reduced to 0, you pass out.
   For each failed check, you also suffer a -1 penalty to all melee attack rolls.
   Once the character fails his or her first Constitution check, he or she is considered to be "under the influence." This state persists until all damage to ability scores has been regained. (Note that alcohol is a poison, so spells that neutralize poison can end the effects of alcohol early and restore lost attribute points more quickly.)
   Damage to ability scores from alcohol is recovered at the rate of 2 per hour during which the character doesn't drink any alcoholic beverages, or after "sleeping it off." The penalty to attack rolls is reduced at a rate of +2 each hour..
   Upon waking up after getting drunk enough to have his or her attribute scores drop below their full values, the character make a successful Fort save (DC18) modified by any racial or other bonus against poison). If the saving throw fails, the character suffers a -2 penalty to all attack rolls and skill checks for 1d3+1 hours.


BOOZEHOUND TALENT TREE
This talent tree is for hard-drinking characters of any class.
   Drink Like a Fish: For each drink after the prescribed maximum (see Drinking and Getting Drunk), the character rolls a Fort save (DC12 +1 per additional drink) instead of the Constitution check.
  Hold Your Liquor: You can consume a number of alcoholic beverages equal to 1/2 your Constitution score before you need to start rolling checks (instead of the usual amount equal to 1/3rd of your Constitution score).
   Mean Drunk: When under the influence (See Drinking and Getting Drunk), you hit even harder than you do when you’re sober. You gain +1d6 bonus to damage inflicted with melee and thrown weapons.
   You may select this talent more than once. Each time it is chosen the damage bonus is increased by 1d6, to a maximum of +5d6.
   Prerequisite: Any one Boozehound Talent
   Drunken Master: Instead of  suffering a -1 penalty for each failed attribute check or saving throw to resist the influence of alcohol, you gain a +1 bonus to melee attack rolls.
      Prerequisite: Any one Boozehound Talent

Alestorm: Heavy Metal Pirates & Boozehounds