Super-Powered ROLF! (Feedback welcomed!)

We're putting the final touches on "Bullets to the Head," a ROLF! superhero battle scenario from the fevered minds of yours truly and L.L. Hundal, with illustrations culled from the wonderful art collections made by DM Studios.

We've incorporated super powers into the game as smoothly and simply as possible--ROLF! is supposed to be quick and easy to play after all--by making them Traits you gain by sacrificing Combat Maneuvers during character creation.

L.L. Hundal's game group had a blast making and beating up Superheroes, but I'm always up for more feedback when it comes to something like this. (Anyone remember my resistance to including Hats in the game? Well, I'm having a similar reaction to these ideas, and I was proven wrong in my knee-jerk conservatism then. Am I hesitating for the wrong reasons yet again... fearing that something will make the game more complex when all it's really doing is making the game more fun? And I am thinking I am completely wrong here, because this is not that much more elaborate than the expanded Mutant trait first presented in "Creature Feature.")

ROLF! players... take a look and speak your minds in the Comments section! This is your chance to impact the game before we put something out. Please play along with us. Pretty please?





A New Trait for ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters
By L.L. Hundal and Steve Miller

Super Power: The character gives up one or more Combat Maneuver slots in exchange for gaining a personal Super Power, or a Super Power granted by Stuff that is worn or weilded. A Super Power increases a character's Brawn or Body by 2 points, in addition to granting one of the following special abilties.

Giving up 2 Combat Maneuver slots gains the character a personal Super Power. He can either increase his Brawn by 2 points, his Body by 2 points, or he can pick one of the following abilities: Flight--Functions like Run Away!, except Flight can't be countered by another character using Run Away!, and the character doesn't leave the fight but can used Ranged Attacks while aloft and he can chose to land and re-engage with Melee Attacks the following round; Super Speed--The character always acts first in the round and he gets to take an extra action at the end of each round, so the combat sequence becomes ABBAA; Super Strength--All melee damage dealt by the character is doubled and all damage suffered is reduced by 1 point.

Giving up 1 Combat Maneuver slot gains the character an item that can be worn or wielded (including a Hat). The item grants Flight, Super Speed, or Super Strength, as described above. The character does not possess the power if he isn't wearing or wielding the item.
Characters can replace up to four Combat Maneuver slots with Super Powers.

Finally, for each Super Power chosen, the character has the chance of gaining a bonus power. The character's player rolls 1d6 and consults the following results: 1. No bonus; 2. +2 Body ATT; 3. +2 Brawn ATT generated by something worn or wielded; 4. Personal and permanent +2 Brawn ATT; 5.Personal and Permanent +1 Brains ATT, including the extra Combat Maneuver slot; 6. Choice of Flight, Super Speed, or Super Strength (generated by Stuff or some food or drink the character must consume for the power to work--the character must carry doses of this with him, and it is considered a Small item).

Major Beefcake awaits his stats!
Illo by Darrel Miller.

The latest in the REH Collection: 'Oriental Stories, Vol. 2'

Now available at DriveThruFiction.com and DriveThruRPG.com is Oriental Stories Vol. 2: Four Pulp Fiction Tales by Robert E. Howard, the latest entry in NUELOW Games' series The Robert E. Howard Collection.

It some ways, this book is a one-stop example of why I put this series together: While all the stories featured are action-oriented tales set in the Middle East and Near East, they each are each examples of the range of material that Howard wrote--one is historical fiction with a comedic bent, one is pregnant with supernatural menace, one is a horror-tinged action story, and one is straight-up adventure fiction. The only thing we don't get here is the conversational, tall-tale telling style he used when writing the Steve Costigan and Breckenridge Elkins stories.

I hope you'll consider checking out the collection, as the purpose for the series is to show that Howard was more than just the creator of Conan the Barbarian.

As a thank-you for your support and for visiting the NUELOW Games blog, you can purchase the Oriental Stories Vol. 2 for just $1 through this special link. (That's almost half off the regular price.)

If you have only read Howard's fantasy tales--such as Conan or King Kull--I encourage you to check out his other work, because he was capable of much more.

A spur-of-the-moment feat for d20 Systems

I'm doing a proof-reading pass--I TRY to catch the bugs, even if I often fail--on "The Voice of El-Lil and Tales: Oriental Stories, Vol. 2", the next planned collection of Robert E. Howard stories from NUELOW Games. The following paragraph inspired a feat, which I am swiftly putting own here. It will be revised before I do anything else with it... or discarded if I discover that it is already identical to other ones already out there. (I am currently working on a couple of d20 System projects where something like this could fit perfectly, even if it was inspired by a bit in "The Fire of Asshurbanipal":

Steve knew that Yar Ali was a grim veteran, not to be stampeded by silly fear or senseless panic; he well remembered other occasions upon which Yar Ali’s seemingly telepathic instinct had warned him of danger before that danger was seen or heard.
--Robert E. Howard

Danger Sense [General]
The character has an uncanny knack for recognizing traps and ambushes before they are sprung.
Whenever the character with this feat enters a discreet area--a new room or corridor or stairway in a building or dungeon, a canyon, valley, mountain-face, or jungle glade in the out-of-doors, just to mention a few examples--he can may a DC12 Wisdom check to feel that "something isn't right." (The player has to request the roll, and the GM only provides the most general response that there is some sort of danger lurking in, or related to, that chamber.)
The character also receives a +2 bonus to all Search and Spot skill checks relating to locating traps or hidden attackers.

Tor waits while Gudrun tries to figure out
what triggered her "danger sense"

The Most Interesting Man in the World comes to ROLF!

In ROLF!: The Death of Adolf Hitler, the Most Interesting Man in the World meets up with Chuck Norris.

Here are his stats as they appear in that product, just in time for Drinko de Mayo!:

THE MOST INTERESTING MAN IN THE WORLD (Male)
Brawn: 37; Body: 18; Brains: 8.
Traits: Nimble, Too Sexy for My Shirt
Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Disarm, Disembowel, Dodge, Double Strike, Furious Fists, The Look, Seduce.
Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Rapier (Medium Melee Weapon. Deals 2 points of damage.) Bottle of Dos Equis (Small Ranged Weapon, ignores Armor. One Shot. Deals 1 point of damage.)

Latest in the Robert E. Howard Collection: 'Skull-Face'

NUELOW Games has added another under-appreciated work by the creator of Conan to our line-up of low-priced pdf-format e-books... "Skull-Face."

This action-packed classic adventure tale is not only Robert E. Howard's take on the "yellow peril" genre, but it is also contains a tie-in to H.P. Lovecraft's Chuthulu Mythos material, in the sense that the villain of "Skull-Face" is presented as being of the prime evil that gave rise to the legends.

"Skull-Face" was DriveThruFiction.com's Pick Of the Week for the week of May 3, and it can be yours for just $1.99. All those who purchase the "Skull-Face" novelette (and who accept emails from us via the OneBookshelf.com sites) will receive a discount offer for the RPG supplement "Daughter of Skull-Face" when it is released).

Click here to get your copy, or to read a sample of the book.

Cover illo for the latest ROLF! supplement

ROLF: The Death of Adolf Hitler will be available for purchase later today. Meanwhile, here's the cover illo for it. It's a composite of art from Darrel Miller and Karl M.

Impromptu May Day Sale! All titles are 25% off!

Like the good folks of the Occupy [Insert Random Location Here] Movement, we here at NUELOW Games are desperately trying to convince the world that we matter in the big picture, and that we're more than just obnoxious, badly socialized slackers crying out for attention. Like the good folks of the Occupy [Insert Random Location Here] Movement, we also do everything on the spur-of-the-moment, with no planning, forethought, or any sort of sense of practicality or reality.

And, inspired by our bretherns and sisterns of the Occupy [Insert Random Location Here] Movement, we are holding an Impromptu May Day Sale! All NUELOW Games titles will be 25% off through Midnight, Pacific Time.

We hope you'll take a look at our offerings. Further, some of today's proceeds will go to buy a goofy knitted cap for Steve Miller, so he can blend in next time Occupy Seattle organizes drum circles in Downtown.

Click here to check out the Imprompty May Day Sale at RPGNOW.com!

Karl M.'s cover art for ROLF!: The Pimp, The Protester, and the Po-Po