Strike! - Blog

Hellrunners and Discord

7/9/2023

Hellrunners is now out in PDF! Hellrunners is a tabletop RPG about speedrunners glitching and breaking the metaphysical rules of reality the same way they break the rules of videogames. Use a death warp to get into the afterlife, use an item duplication glitch, get arbitrary prayer execution via a data overflow, find the soul of Karl Marx, perform a necromantic ritual, and use a wrong warp to get back out again!

Get it now on itch.io or DriveThruRPG!

The second piece of news is that I've started up a Discord server for people to talk about any of my games, post stories, or to look for other people to play with. If you're curious about any of my games, head on over and say hi! It's brand new, but I hope that having a place to find each other will help people who may have wanted to play the games but had trouble finding people to play with.

Updates and news!

3/23/2023

Hellrunners: Hellrunners is a game about breaking the rules of reality and the afterlife the same way speedrunners break the rules of videogames. You take on the roles of: The Client, who has a mission; The Runner, who knows the tricks to get to hell and back; The Damned, who suffer in torment; and The Crowns of Hell, who play the devils, angels, cops, and bosses who keep the system of suffering going.

Based on Dante's Divine Comedy, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Graeber's Bullshit Jobs and Utopia of Rules, this is a small easy-to-pick-up and quick-playing RPG for 4 players.

The Kickstarter will launch on Monday! Follow it here.

Kazzam Files Updated: I've just uploaded a new Kazzam.pdf and GM's Guide.pdf with updates to the Terrain Artist to make them way cooler and better, and to simplify how Wards work (the stacking/non-stacking thing was too complicated).

Projects in the pipeline:
Kazzam: I've been writing levels 7-10 for Kazzam, and am 60% done the alpha version of those. They will be made available to people who bought the GM's guide once they've had a bit of revision and I can call them beta.

I'm taking back over the GM's chair in our playtest group after a few months break, so that means I'll be writing new creeps and making new arenas on the regular again. I'll release those to people who bought the GM's guide, too.

A New Project: I'm writing a self-contained game/campaign based on The Legend of Zelda. The way it handles items and information is very fun and video game-y. I'm excited to playtest it and see how it feels in play.

Destiny decrees that in every age the hero of courage will save the princess of wisdom from the monster of power. But now the monster has caught the hero. Princesses from different ages must come together to save him.

Each age's princess has unique skills and talents. A ninja, a pirate, a phantom, an inventor, a mage, a telepath. Even a child. Only together can they defeat the monster and break the cycle of destiny.

Looking for inspiration, I've been annoyed at all the Zelda games where the princess herself is just a boring nothing. Like in Twilight Princess! She just sits in the tower. Come on! I'm also looking at other zelda-like games, like Okami (probably my 3rd-favourite Zelda ever), so I'll probably have a princess who is just a wolf.

Old project: I've just remembered I have a nearly-finished 4-on-4 PvP Strike! 1-shot and never put the finishing touches on it, so I'm considering whether to finish it or save it for a more opportune time. It's called Robbing Mr. Seagull and it's about two teams of criminals (who are also animals) trying to pull off a heist at the same casino on the same night. Does anyone have interest in such a weird product? If so, let me know!

You can reach me on Twitter or email me using the contact form here on the site if you want to get in touch with me or ask about anything. I'm always very happy to talk about my games, so don't hesitate!

Tailfeathers Academy of Magic

1/15/2023

It's finally here! Tailfeathers Academy of Magic is a game about playing students at a magical school. It's a game about learning magic and figuring out creative and cool ways to use your limited magical toolset to solve mysteries.

But that's not all: it also comes with Kazzam, a magical sport. With tactical combat, capture the flag, and neutral monsters that will attack both teams, this game has incredible depth. With many ways to score points and incredible character customization building on the foundations laid down in Strike!, this game will have you obsessed. You'll want to play against other players. You'll want to start a league!

Best of all? It's free! I want everyone to play this game. I can't hold it back from the world. This isn't some short little thing either - this is a fully featured game with lots of depth and crunch. There is a paid supplement called the GM's Toolkit if you want to support the game's development, and buying that will get you access to all the updates as they become available. Right now, Tailfeathers Academy of Magic has years 1 to 3, and buying the GM's Toolkit will get you years 4 and 5 when they are finished. Kazzam has levels 1 to 6, and the GM's Toolkit will get levels 7 to 10 when they are finished.

Download this game. Check it out. Tell your friends, and start playing!

What's Next

7/5/2022

Hey Strike! fans, things are busy here at Strike! HQ. I'm just typing this post to let you know all the things we're working on.

For Ariadne and Bob, we're just waiting on proofs to get the physical copies ready to go. Everything else is done.

The next big project is Tailfeathers, a magical school, with spells and potions and adorable little familiars. Tailfeathers is the first school we're publishing for Kazzam! Kazzam is a magical sport that combines Strike's tactical combat with some elements from capture the flag and neutral creeps like in Warcraft 3. We've been playtesting it for a while now, and it is so much fun. The matches are exciting and tense, with a ton of tactical depth. Just like Strike!, you'll be able to reskin Kazzam, so if you're not into the magical school setting, you can still play Kazzam. The sport is so good that I'm hoping to be able to have tournaments where we pit teams of players against one another.

Tailfeathers is also the first place you're going to see some of the changes that will be coming to Strike! when we eventually do a second edition, especially the new version of Roles. All the work I'm doing on other games is also feeding back into what the next edition of Strike! will look like.

I've also returned to work on a fun PvP Strike! scenario called Robbing Mr. Seagull, about two teams of criminals trying to pull off a heist at the same casino, the famous Pelican Hotel, run by the mobster "Bugsy" Seagull. The characters are all anthropomorphic animals like you'd see in Zootopia or Bojack Horseman. It's got a fun cast and a great hook. I had put it releasing the adventure on hold as I was making revisions to Team Conflict to improve that subsystem, and I thought that having that system working at its best was important. I'll be releasing the new and much improved Team Conflict rules along with Robbing Mr. Seagull sometime after the Tailfeathers release.

And finally, I've got a little game I'm working on inspired by a strange and vivid dream I had, called Hellrunners. Hellrunners exploit glitches in the metaphysical coding of the universe to get into and out of the afterlife to accomplish various missions. They are speedrunners breaking reality instead of video games.

If any of these sound interesting to you, let me know! Fan feedback absolutely can move things up and down the priority list. You can contact me through the contact page on this site, or catch me on Twitter @Jimbozig.

The Design Story of Ariadne and Bob

12/19/2021

Ariadne and Bob started when WotC released their Rick and Morty D&D set. I thought to myself "that is a TERRIBLE match. That system will not prompt the types of adventures they have on that show." And I tried to think of what would be a really good match and came up dry… this is a problem that I can solve!

First up, they have a new weird sci-fi premise every episode. Easy. Just make some tables that let you generate stuff like “A ______ that makes _______”. “A portal that makes you de-age” or “A glove that makes things shrink.”

The hard part is getting Rick to work. What’s the right feel? Morty says “Oh no, what is that?!” and Rick explains the dangerous weird phenomenon. Having a classic GM-and-players set-up doesn’t work. Rick doesn’t feel like Rick. The GM is the one who knows all the explanations, not Rick.

So what about making Rick the GM? This also sucks - there is now too much on the GM! They introduce every problem, set every scene, the game revolves around their hypercompetent GMPC who solves every problem except when he creates more… Yuck.

Go GMless? Most GMless games I’ve seen are very symmetrical - each player has more or less the same tools available to them. That doesn’t suit the premise here either. What if I keep the part where Rick is hypercompetent and solves every problem, since that follows from the show, but remove the other stuff and give it to Morty? Morty sets the scenes and introduces the problems and takes on that part of the GM’s role.

Now we’ve got something! Morty’s player can go “Oh no, what is that?!” and then describe some insane weird sci-fi craziness, and then Rick’s player gets to try to explain it and make it make some kind of sense. That’s a fun interaction, and one that we can build the core of the game around. So the moves and agendas for both players are designed with that in mind.

With those moves and agendas in place and the game working, now we can expand from just being a Rick and Morty game to being a game about any pair where a know-it-all drags her poor sap sidekick around. The sidekick boggles his eyes at some weird stuff and the know-it-all rolls hers and explains it. Then they both try to deal with the problem.

That is—basically—the game!

We can just swap out sci-fi random tables for fantasy or horror or any other setting. Or, I realized, I could use this base to play the Jeeves and Wooster game I always wanted! Bertie gets in trouble and Jeeves always has a plan to solve it.

I also added in some stuff with scene structure, using an A-plot/B-plot format because that is a tried-and-true method for episodic storytelling to help keep things on track, because it’s otherwise very easy for players to end up either resolving the plot too quickly or end up spinning their wheels as they wait for someone else to resolve the plot. This lets you do a full story in a predictable length of time over a single session.

And then I added in support for a 3rd or 4th player. This part was pretty easy—they get to have a character who is at sub-sidekick level. (A Jerry or a Summer in Rick and Morty terms) And then they get to do more of the work of taking on the roles of NPCs. With only 2-players, playing NPCs and your main characters in the same scene works fine, but having that 3rd player to take on that task improves the game as it lets the other two focus more on their roles.

So then in a 3-player game of Ariadne and Bob, everyone is the GM and no-one is. You could call it GMless, but I feel like GMful is a better term - there are 3 GMs! Bob gets to set the scenes and introduce the weirdness and start the plot in motion, Ariadne gets to explain what everything is and how it all fits together in the end, and the Chorus gets to play most of the NPCs.

If you are interested in seeing this game in action, back today on Kickstarter!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1835460386/ariadne-and-bob

Ariadne and Bob

12/15/2021

Ariadne and Bob is on Kickstarter now!

Ariadne and Bob is a 2+ player roleplaying game about a know-it-all and her trusty sidekick going on adventures and getting in trouble. Ariadne can be condescending at times, but her ego is not entirely undeserved. Bob is Ariadne's long-suffering partner. The Pinky to her Brain, Morty to her Rick, the Sherman to her Peabody, etc.

This game is an absolute blast to play, and it requires no prep at all. My group has been playing it whenever we have an absence from our main game, and it's perfect. We can bust it out on short notice, it works great with low player counts, and it's built for 1-shots so we can get in a complete story in one session.

I've hired Vel Mini, Paul "Ettin" Matijevic, Austin Ramsay, and Jason Pitre to write playsets to customize the game to other settings and genres.

And for fans of Strike!, I am also throwing in The Ogre, a pair of classes by Gabriel Butche. As The Ogre, you and a friend control two characters in one body. This is one of the most unique tactical combat classes in any RPG, and it's very fun to play

Strike! Now available on itch.io

9/4/2019

I've got Strike! and all its mini-expansions up on itch.io now. If you want to buy the PDF versions, and using the paypal links on this site is not your preference, now you have another option.

Strike!: https://jimbozig.itch.io/strike
Vehicles: https://jimbozig.itch.io/vehicles
The Rogue: https://jimbozig.itch.io/rogue
Trouble in Hogtown: https://jimbozig.itch.io/hogtown
Survival: https://jimbozig.itch.io/survival

Donation made!

12/6/2017

And it's done! $800 to SickKids Foundation through me. There was also another $100 that was donated directly, bringing our total to $900. Thanks again to everyone who helped out!

Here are receipts for confirmation.

The final accounting

12/2/2017

In the end of October, I wrote a post about my 2 year old daughter, Thalia, and her treatment for stage four neuroblastoma, a common childhood cancer. Thalia was diagnosed in Jan this year and has received such amazing treatment from our pediatric hospital here in Toronto, The Hospital for Sick Children, informally known as SickKids. I put out the call to all of you to help me raise funds throughout November to make a donation to support SickKids, so they can continue to give impeccable care to children like Thalia. And you blew us away.

In November, I received $282.57 USD from direct PDF orders on my website ($302 minus Paypal's transaction fees). I received $307.14 USD on DrivethruRPG. This adds to a total of $589.71 USD. Converted into CAD, this is $748 CAD. I also received a direct donation of $50, which I will add to the total, bringing the amount to $798 - this is the amount I will be donating in the next few days once the money all gets into one spot. I'll post pics/receipts from the donation once I get that sorted out.

In addition, one person donated $100 themselves to SickKids Foundation. So the total raised was around $900!

Thank you so much to everyone who contributed, who brought in friends who contributed, or just shared the post so it reached a larger audience.

Fundraising update

11/20/2017

Hey, just posting to update everyone on how things are going so far with the fundraiser. As of now I've made $238USD from direct PDF sales on the website and $227USD from drivethru. In addition, I received $50CAD to donate along with the rest of the money. And one person donated $100 themselves.
So all together, we are around $750CAD! That's pretty great, I think! There is still time - you have just over a week before the end of the month to get in on this. Let's see if we can break $1000!
In case this is the first you're hearing about this fundraiser, you can buy PDFs on my website: www.strikerpg.com or you can buy physical books on DriveThruRPG here: goo.gl/bp8Q7s and all the money I receive will go to charity to help sick children like my daughter, who is stuck in the hospital this week for immunotherapy, which is really no fun.
Tell your friends to get in on this before it's too late!