Viscera!

The particular proximate 'prod' that prompted me to resurrect this blog was - having temporarily stepped away from Twitter and reactivated my account at RPGnet for a less unhealthy social media experience - being asked by Andrew Wright (who blogs at Fantasy Game Book and has written several supplements for Advanced Fighting Fantasy) whether there was a working link to Viscera!, a little booklet of critical hits and other stuff that I wrote for Fighting Fantasy-based games nearly a decade ago. Ooof. 

And so, while you can access it (now) by clicking on the little link on the left hand side of blog, here it is again; just click on the image above. It *should* work. 

Andrew Wright has covered Viscera! in his thread "Exploring combat and other rule systems in Troika! and its relatives". In fact, if you want to keep track of when people are saying something interesting about Fighting Fantasy-based systems on RPGnet, do follow Andrew (greyarea13).

While I would likely revisit some of the stuff in Viscera! were I to produce a new version, or a "MyAFF3e", the thing I like about what I did produce is that there really is very little there, in terms of "crunch" at least. YOU are the Hero, and YOU can make this game, on the fly, at your table. If I were to produce a "MyAFF3e", that would be the principle by which I would try to check any instincts I might have towards the baroque.

Logan

Having been to see Logan last night, I realised that I couldn't help spoiling the film for myself by thinking about the way in which stories like Logan vindicate my enjoyment of critical wound systems in RPGs - one of the reasons for writing Viscera! (now in v1.02 - a few typos corrected and acknowledgments expanded). It's something that I'd thought about on this blog before - The Rise and Fall of a Hero was a post I wrote nearly two years ago now. So, without any real spoilers, here was Logan - still powerful, still dangerous, but hindered by age, disease, and the accumulation of countless wounds. Logan even uses a special serum to temporarily undo the effects of these wounds, something for which I've suggested some rules in Viscera!

So, just as when I watched The Revenant, and imagined it as a LotFP adventure in which the main PC just keeps making his Saving Throws, I managed to enthusiastically undo some of magic of the silver screen by thinking about dice.

Anyway, Logan is a very good film. Indeed, it's shame that it has taken until now for Fox to get the best out of its Marvel licence - as the Legion tv show is proving to be even better. If only someone hadn't coloured the experience for me by describing it as [SPOILER?] a gory 'Little Miss Sunshine', with mutants! [SPOILER ENDS]

Oh, and there is no way that Logan should be a 15 certificate. The violence is very bloody and very frequent.

Viscera! (v1.0)

For a long while I've been mooting the idea of an Advanced Fighting Fantasy fanzine. I've chatted to people, got some agreements in principle, but never made much progress. So I thought I'd knock up an 'issue #0' largely by myself, just to get something out there. And, after a spell in which I put the project aside for several weeks, I've finally finished the thing. Well, 'finished' the thing - if there are typos, or egregious balance problems that you uncover when these ideas are not being applied at my own, idiosyncratic table, let me know, and I'll update it to v1.1.

So, here is Viscera! a collection of rules, tables, and guidelines for adding a bit more blood, gore, and grit to your Advanced Fighting Fantasy games.

[To be printed as a 'booklet' of A5 pages.]

[Update: pdf updated to version 1.01 (minor errors fixed) 190317.]
[Update 2: pdf updated to version 1.02 (minor errors fixed, acknowledgements expanded) 280317.]