Funny Business: NUELOW Games introduces Professor Fiend

When choosing which comics to repackage or base ROLF! supplements around, we generally go for the obscure and neglected--the characters who haven't been thought of since they first appeared in the pages of magazines from long-gone publishers some 50 to 75 years ago.

Art by Fred Schwab

The latest character we've retrieved from the ash-heap of pop-culture history is Professor Fiend. This character was featured in an eponymous series that ran in the early issues of Fantastic Comics, published by Fox Feature Syndicate during 1939 and 1940. It relies to a large extend on nonsense humor, but at the same time is pretty dark, since it makes a running gag out of the fact that the Professor is suicidal.

The NUELOW Games comics/rpg hybrid product contains five of the original Professor Fiend tales by writer/artist Fred Schwab (working under the house name Boris Plaster). We've brought the character into the 21st century in a two-player battle scenario that's equally compatible with our ROLF! and You vs. Me rollplaying games. In addition, the book contains five feats for d20 System games that will let you bring a little Professor Fiend flavor to a genius player character (mad or otherwise),

Click here to see previews of Professor Fiend at DriveThruRPG, or to get your very own copy.

OTHER HUMOR COMICS FROM NUELOW GAMES

Art by Dave Tendlar

While the majority of our pure roleplaying game products are comedic in nature, most of the comics-related releases are not. However, Professor Fiend isn't our only comics release intended to tickle the funnybone. Here are a few others:

Ginger and Snap collects (for the first time, anywhere) the complete run of this series about a pair of fraternal twins who solve problems by cross-dressing and disguising themselves as each other. It contains a complete ROLF! battle scenario.

By Ralph Mayo

Kathy collects several teen humor stories that were collaborations between NUELOW Games favorite Ralph Mayo and the legendary artist Frank Frazetta, whom was given some of his most important breaks at the start of career by Mayo. While there are some rough patches here and there, due to Frazetta's inexperience, the energy that crackles on each page more than makes up for it, as does the sweet nature of these romantic comedy of errors tales. In addition to the comics, the book features a ROLF! battle scenario which brings Kathy together with NUELOW's mascot the Black Cat.

Art by Tony Di Preta

Sherry Flippe is another NUELOW release that brings back an obscure humor series, collecting for the first time anywhere the best it had to offer. It's a screwball spoof of detective and mystery stories that morphs into a send-up of movie making and celebrity culture as it evolves. In addition to the classic comics, it features an RPG scenario that can be played either with ROLF! or Lester Smith's D6xD6 Core Roleplaying Game.

Feats for Worldly Characters

These feats for d20 System games are released under the Open Game License and may be reproduced in accordance with it. Copyright Steve Miller 2015.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do.
You say things others should live by.
   Prerequisite: Cha 15
   Benefit: +4 bonus to all Bluff and Intimidate skill checks.
   Special: This feat can be selected as a bonus feat by Clerics (D&D), Charismatic Heroes (d20 Modern) and Dedicated Heroes (d20 Modern).
 
Experienced
This isn't your first rodeo.
   Prerequisite: 5th level
   Benefit: +2 bonus to all Bluff, Sense Motive, and Spot checks,

Jaded
You are confident that you've seen it all. Twice.
   Prerequisite: 10th level, Experienced
   Benefit: +2 bonus to resist all Fear-effects, Mind-Effecting spells and exceptional or special abilities that mimic them.

No More F**ks to Give
You've had it with their shit.
   Prerequisite: 15th level, Jaded
   Benefit: +4 bonus to resist all Fear-effects, Mind-Effecting spells and exceptional or special abilities that mimic them. +4 bonus to Intimidate skill checks. +2 bonus to base AC/Defense Rating. +1 to all Initiative rolls.

Grand Moff Tarkin: He had ALL these feats.

If you found this material amusing, interesting, or even useful, you should check out the Modern Basics series of products from NUELOW Games. Click here to see a selection.

Donald Trump and Jeb Bush ala ROLF!

It had to be done. You can now use You vs. Me or ROLF!:The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters to pit Jeb and The Donald against each other in a fight to the death. Or you can have them square off against Big H, or perhaps even B.O. himself. (Their stats can be found in ROLF!: Super Muslim Bros., among other places.)

The Donald and Jeb. Two Dweebs Enter. One Dweeb Leaves.

JEB BUSH (Male)

(aka JEB)

Brawn 15, Body 12, Brains 5

   Traits: Improv Master*, Squeamish

   Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Debate Philosophy, Dodge, Signature Move*, Strategic Bleeding

   Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Expensive Suit and Tie (Clothes). Pocket Knife (Small Melee Weapon. Deals 1 point of damage).

DONALD TRUMP (Male)

(aka The Donald)

Brawn 17, Body 11, Brains 4

   Traits: Coldhearted, Obnoxious

   Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Bitch Slap, Debate Philosophy, Withering Insult*

   Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Expensive Suit and Tie (Clothes). Hair (Armor, absorbs 1 point of damage).

*These traits and combat maneuvers are detailed in Relentlessly Gay, as well as other ROLF! supplements.

New Trait

This is a trait that has not been included in any ROLF! supplements. It appears here for the first time.

   Obnoxious: You roll against your ATT Body when using your Debate Philosophy combat maneuver (instead of ATT Brains, as is usually called for). Your arguments are so wrongheadedly obnoxious that, in addition to the function described in the core rules, you inflict 1 point of damage to all characters in the fight (including yourself). This damage ignores armor. All characters may roll a separate Brains ATT check to avoid the damage.

The reading order of NUELOW's Fantomah (and other) series

We got a question yesterday: "What is the correct order in which to read your Fantomah books?"

That's a good question, since it matters. In fact, we have four series in which the order in which you read them matter, but we didn't number them. In retrospect, we should have. The original plan WAS to number the Fantomah books (The Three Lives of Fantomah: Book One and Book Two, and Book Three), but an artist designed a cover that featured a subtitle, and Miller who had always feared that was a little too generic a naming scheme jettisoned the Book One and so forth in favor of fullblown subtitles.

We apologize for the confusion among any late-comers to some of our series. We hope this post will clear up confusion now or in the future. (We will also always answer any questions we receive regarding our books.)

Original cover for
Guardian of the Jungle

THE FANTOMAH SERIES
This trilogy relates the cycles of Fantomah's life, as she goes from being a mysterious jungle-dwelling demigod, to the ward of a lost boy, and ultimately reclaims her heritage and returns home. Each book contains roleplaying game rules applicable to d20 System-based roleplaying games, such as d20 Modern and Pathfinder. (We are planning a Christmas Special in the series, which will take place chronologically after the three books in this series, with flashbacks to each period in Fantomah's life.)

            Read First                     Read Second                     Read Last

THE SORCERESS OF ZOOM SERIES
The Sorceress of Zoom is a feared and powerful mistress of magic who travels the dimensions in the flying city of Zoom. She is driven by a never-ending quest for knowledge and for ways to increase her magical might. So far, NUELOW Games has released two entries in a projected three volume series. They can be read in any order, but the Sorceress's frustration over the Earth Dimension is set up in the first release. (When the third book is released, it will reveal the never-before-told tale of how the Sorceress came to be the ruler of Zoom. Once it is out, it might be the first book to read in the series. Leave it to NUELOW Games to tell the origin of a character last.)
   Each of the Sorceress of Zoom titles features rules for OGL d20 Modern. The first book provides rules for making characters with the sort of flexible magic wielded by the Sorceress, and the second has rules for traveling between dimensions. It also describes the artifacts in her possession in terms of the d20 System game.

The first Zoom book.

The second Zoom book.

Read First

THE JUDY OF THE JUNGLE SERIES
Judy was raised by her misanthropic father to be a "jungle girl" who love natured but to distrusted all humans--especially men. When he is murdered by criminals, Judy's distrust turns to hatred, and she sets out to avenge her father. It's important to read Judy of the Jungle: The Lords of Memnon first, but otherwise they can be read in any order. The series consists of three main volumes (The Lords of Memnon, Warriors of the Laughing Hyena, and Murder Goes Native, and a Christmas Special--The Revenge of Santos. The books feature support for OGL d20 game systems, ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters, and Lester Smith's 6x6 CORE.)

Read First

THE PRINCESS PANTHA SERIES
The Princess Pantha duology relates the adventures of an circus performer turned "jungle girl" and globe-trotting adventuress after surviving on her own for months in the deepest of Africa's jungles. Princess Pantha: The Hunt for M'Gana is the first book to read, as it relates how she got stranded and met her future companion and lover Dane Hunter. The books contain support for OGL d20 game systems, ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters. (Dane and Pantha also appear, or are referenced, in other NUELOW Games products,but those appearances have no bearing on these books.)

We've bundled the Judy of the Jungle and Princess Pantha series into convenient one-click downloads--where they are also available at a discount, If you haven't checked out these great jungle adventure tales featuring strong, independent women, we hope you'll do so. (The Princess Pantha Collection also includess a selection of royalty-free clip-art by the primary illustrators of Judy and Pantha's adventures.)

     Click to preview the Judy Bundle          Click to preview the Pantha Bundle

Four Years in the Making: Relentlessly Gay!

Before it was hip to jump up and down and declare how "inclusive" your game products were, NUELOW Games was quietly built it into the heart of what have become our flagship (only) game--ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters.

When it became trendy to jump up and down and tell the world how inclusive your games were, we kept doing what we'd been doing on and off since 1994: We just put characters in supplements without issuing press releases.

We're still not issuing press releases, but we have gone ahead and made it obvious that we are "inclusive," because we have just released Relentlessly Gay, a product so inclusive that it is crammed with characters who possess the Same Sex Preference trait, who come from the present, the past, and future, are of various ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, and so on, and so forth. This is the biggest ROLF! supplement we've released so far, compiling not only the characters, but also key bits of the game that have developed over the past four years in the various supplements (such as the rules for inventors and scientists, expanded mutant rules, specific melee vs. ranged combat rules, and much more). Relentlessly Gay will hopefully make ROLF! players relentlessly happy, because a lot of stuff is now consolidated in one place--you know... all-inclusive.

To make Relentlessly Gay EXTRA inclusive, we included some OGL d20 System content. Some of it's been previously seen here on the blog and officially released in products, but there's an all-new talent tree and feat as well.

Click here to see previews of Relentlessly Gay, or to get your own copy at RPGNow.

'Tournament of Rapists' hysteria hits the Big Time!

Right-wing news website Brietbart.com has published an article about the Tournament of Rapists dust-up. You can read it here. It's mostly a factual account of the crusade launched by the Brigades of the Outraged, Onebookshelf's response, and the appearance of a new mob of unreasoning, hysterical people.

You can't tell, but it goes to 11.

While the Brietbar writer (Allum Bokhari) gets more things right than the majority of those I see still commenting about the "controversy"--fanatical dingbats at either end of the spectrum whose main objective it seems is to keep outrage alive and to encourage "action" not against the publisher of the offending product but rather against Onebookshelf.com, a company that hundreds of publishers and thousands of independent creators use to distribute their products online--he has picked up and amplified their favorite line; That Tournament of Rapists is a game.

The offending product was not a game. Period. I really wish people would stop parading their ignorance around. I don't care what "side" of this "fight" they're on. I'm not terribly surprised that the Brigades of the Outraged don't know what it is they're actually outraged about--why let facts of reality get in the way of a good riot?--but lately I've been seeing equally ignorant blather from people who should know better.

It's gaming brilliance, but NOT a game.

Tournament of Rapists is not a game. Not even close. It was a supplement to a setting that uses the same game engine that many NUELOW Games releases use. It's the same game engine that the popular Pathfinder Roleplaying Game uses. All of our publications are produced, to a greater or lesser extent, by virtue of the Open Game License. But Tournament of Rapists was no more than a "game" than Modern Basics: Jungle Action or Feary Tales are games. They are supplements. They are part of a vast tapestry of available roleplaying supplements, tiny threads that have no meaning or purpose beyond the game they tie into.

If bug-eyed, would-be morality police (followed closely by equally hysterical freedom of expression supporters) hadn't seized on Tournament of Rapists as a way to further their respective agendas, this thing would have sold half a dozens copies and then slipped into oblivion... maybe selling one or two additional ones each month. (I am assuming something as niche-of-a-niche as this would sell on the level of items I consider failures here at NUELOW). In other words, no one would have known or cared of its existence. Certainly, there wouldn't be shrieking mobs of ill-informed assholes calling for "action" against literally thousands of creative people who had nothing whatsoever to do with Tournament of Rapists.

I have, as they say, a dog in this fight. NUELOW Games has an exclusive distribution agreement with Onebookshelf.com. Back in 2011, when we were reviving NUELOW, I emailed Warehouise23.com (another online distributor/retailer of games) to see if they would carry us... and Warehouse23 couldn't even be bothered to give me the courtesy of a reply. Onebookshelf, on the other hand, has always been responsive to my questions as a publisher, They also mostly leave me alone to manage my own little store that is serviced on their sites. Just like they do with everyone else who publishes and distributes through them.

I like that freedom. I like the fact that they treat me as if I matter, even though my company is strictly small-fry. (We never have strong enough sales to make to the left-hand listing of publishers on the front page, and we rarely break the Top 50% of best-selling publishers in a month, except for the niches we serve where we are usually in the Top 5%... but that's a sign of how small the audience is for what we produce rather than a measure of success). However, the freedom that I have to release what I want, when I want, and how I want--within certain well-defined technical quality parameters--is what the mob of would-be censors want to put a stop to. I've seen some of the greater idiots issue demands for Onebookshelf to approve releases before they go up, because of the "rape game" that, as I spelled out above, never existed.

Onebookshelf came up with a policy to handle "offensive content" that should satisfy any reasonable person. You can read it here if you like.. It provides a way for the outraged to inform management of their displeasure, and it spells out the steps that Onebookshelf's staff will take in response to said outrage that is fair to publishers and the hyperventilating alike. It's a policy that more or less keeps business as usual, but adds a safety valve to the process.

Naturally, it didn't appease the most fanatical of the self-righteous crusaders. They continue to stir up their mobs, who continue to swallow their half-baked cow chips and fantasies about a "rape game.' That is not particularly shocking to me, as I long ago observed that the worst thing you can do is to let the self-righteous leaders mobs of the perpetually offended sense weakness; nothing will satisfy them.and they will just keep coming. All you can do is make sure they don't have convincing arguments for the intelligent and sane majority out there.

Aw, hell. Another Internet Mob. Is there an unending supply of halfwits out there?

But. to my surprise, the sensible policy of Onebookshelf inspired another group to encourage minions to go on a rampage of boycotts and general stupidity. "Onebookshelf has given into the mob," they claimed. "Onebookshelf is going to censor our game! Look! They already banned that game over there--the rape game, you've been hearing about! Take your business elsewhere!"

Yeah... certain publishers, proclaimed libertarians, and self-described and self-appointed defenders or roleplaying games were now using the same fucking approach that the self-appointed morality- and thought-police were using. People who should know better, who should be able to recognize a "business as usual" policy, were stirring up new mobs of uniformed halfwits that, in the long run, could only have the effect of damaging everyone's business. To make it worse, they were just as unable to tell a "game" from a "supplement," as the Brigades of the Outraged.

There are morons to the left of me, and there are idiots to the right. Which brings me back to the top.

The Breitbart writer got his facts wrong, just like the Brigades of the Outraged. It's rather embarrassing for him that his article is under a headline stating "Social Justice Warriors Attack Tabletop Gaming, Get Their Facts Hopelessly Wrong," since he accepted the total white-wash that Skortched Urf put forth about Tournament of Rapists AND he picked up the distortion that it's a "game." I would have much preferred this article--which is well-intended and exactly in the place where reasonable people should stand on the topic of Onebookshelf, the hundreds of publishers served by it, and Tournament of Rapists--wasn't marred by the distortions spewed by those who want to make it more difficult for me to publish what I want, and for you to buy what you want for your gaming groups.

Well... thank you for reading. Do come back some other time when I may actually have posted some fun game content--most likely not a game, though. Just something that can be used with a game. If you made it this far, however, you must either be a real fan, or really bored. In either case, perhaps I can interest you in some of the products carried by Onebookshelf that I have contributed to for NUELOW Games, TSR, Wizards of the Coast, White Wolf and several others? Your purchase will be a symbolic and actual victory over the rampaging Internet Warriors. Click here to see a selection of what is available.

Please? Everything you buy helps me and other creators pay rent and eat.

The Staff of Steves - a magic item of great power and wonder!

Once upon a time, Steve Miller went to lunch with two luminaries from the gaming industry. While gnoshing on tasty vittles, one of them observed, "Everyone at this table is named Steve."

So was born the legendary League of Steves. (Or maybe the Stint of Steves, or Sleeve of Steves... a Facebook poll about what to call a gathering of Steves did not lead to a clear answer. But it did lead to the inspiration for the most brilliant magic item you are likely to ever to include in a campaign.)

The Staff of Steves

From an idea by Kairam Ahmed Hamdan & Bradley K. McDevitt. 

Design by Steve Miller. Copyright 2015 Steve Miller.

Text in this post is presented under the Open Game License and may be reproduced in accordance with it. 

The Staff of Steves is a powerful item that either comes into existence through a random convergence of supernatural circumstances, or is created by a secret cabal of artificers, drunken fairies, or... well, who knows how they come into being. Like the presence of Steves in the world, the Staff of Steves just is.

This Red Shirt will survive because he has a Staff of Steves.

The Staff of Steves takes many forms, but it is always a slender item, at least five feet in length... you know, a staff. It's specific appearance can be anything from an ornately carved oaken staff to a curtain rod. It has the following game effects:
* Acts as a +4 weapon for purposes of overcoming a target's damage resistance.
* Acts as a +2 staff for purposes of attack and damage rolls.
* Grants a +4 bonus to AC (or Defense Rating) when wielded by a character named Steve.
* Allows its wielder to cast Charm Person 3 times per day (6 times per day if wielded by a character named Steve).
* Allows its wielder to cast Create Food and Water 3 times per day (casts Feast if wielded by a character named Steve).
* Allows its wielder to cast Stinking Cloud 1 time per day (but only after Create Food and Water or Feast has been cast at least once).
* Allows its wielder to read sheet music with unfailing accuracy.
* Allows its wielder to summon a random number of Steves once per day. The Steves are all 3rd level Experts (or similar NPC class), with 15 hit points, armed with clubs or similar blunt objects (1d3 points of damage), and have one or more skills (+6 to the d20 skill check) that is helpful to the wielder. The remain with the wielder, defending and assisting in any way they can (cooking, cleaning, doing paperwork, performing rock music, running roleplaying game sessions, assassinating heads-of-state, boosting of ego) for three hours, until dismissed, or until slain. The number of Steves appearing is 1d6+2.
* It allows a *player* named Steve to have his character reroll 1d6 failed actions per game session. (Rolled at the beginning of the session, as soon as the dice come out. The result must be confirmed and recorded by the GM. If the Steve forgets to roll immediatey, this effect does not apply ).

Note: "Steve" can be male or female, as it can be short for Stephen, Steven, Stefano, Stefanie, Stephanie, and all other variants you can think of.

(If you were amused by the Staff of Steves, please consider supporting Steve (and NUELOW Games) by getting some of the OGL d20 items I've actually put some effort into. Some of them even work in straight games. Click here to see the listings at RPGNow.