Author Archives: matt

About matt

Gamer. Writer. Dad. Serial Ex-husband. Creator of The 23rd Letter, SpaceNinjaCyberCrisis XDO, ZOMBI, Testament, Creed. Slightly megalomaniac

Reign of Fire for YZE-Step

Challenged to make a Reign of Fire game with our current 23rd Letter rules gives us a bit of thought. In Forbidden Lands (YZE), dragons are pretty nasty. Even the small ones. MIGHT 32 (that is ridiculous but we will … Continue reading

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Why Yeezy?

So, you know we have switched from out ERIS House System to the YZE for the Third Edition and we have been asked why. The first reason is that it’s a decent system. It’s pretty grounded, pretty lethal and abstracts … Continue reading

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The 23rd Letter 3rd Edition

So, we have been working a lot on this. The rules are probably 90% complete but we keep finding little places where we think a rule or guideline is needed. Like today it was clarifiying how Hideouts function mechanically in … Continue reading

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Game Dev Discord

We have a Game Dev Discord which we are slowly opening up to a few more people. Inside is space for asking questions about our existing published games as well as participating ideas for our upcoming books. Understand though that … Continue reading

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YZE Dice Roller – including Step Dice

AJ built this YZE dice roller on the site so we have a super quick way of rolling dice and collecting successes. It’s the only one that works for Step Dice YZE as well as Pool Dice. Click the image … Continue reading

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Dark Urban Fantasy I hear?

ExSanguine allows for the playing of Vampir Hunters, Familiars (humans enthralled by vampirs), Fiends (young vampires) and Elders. Plenty of supernaturals mentioned in there, eh? De Occulta allows for playing of Occultists (magicians). But De Occulta presents the rules on … Continue reading

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Ex Sanguine and De Occulta released: Dark Urban Fantasy

This week I released two complete books. Both of them are powered by the popular Year Zero Engine and both of them part of a series to create a “Dark Urban Fantasy” world. The first, Ex Sanguine (Out of the … Continue reading

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Apocalyptic Fantasy

My contribution to this thread on the pub: Things I think would be interesting. Messed up geographies. Not necessarily Skyrealms but I based the design of Viride on a diagram of proteins floating in lipid layers (cell membrane). An assumption … Continue reading

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Effects-based Magic for YZE-Step

My favourite magic systems are from Ars Magica (and to a degree, MAGE), and the effects based system from For Faery Queen and Country. The principle of Nothing From Nothing (and presumably, Nothing Into Nothing) I like a lot. Which … Continue reading

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Frontier – new art, old art

Would really like the time and energy to get life paths done this month. Depends on life and everything. I did get some new art commissioned.

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Frontier – thinking while watching The Expanse

I’ve just started a binge of The Expanse TV series and if I enjoy it, I’ll hit the book series. There are things I really like about The Expanse. They maintain momentum and include it in part of the story … Continue reading

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2300AD

A recent surge in interest in 2300AD at The Pub has me peering at the BladeRunner RPG as a possible shim to run it. Ditching the promotion and humanity rules of course. As I tend to run my games a … Continue reading

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EXCESSION: Session 1

Excession is a new low-to-mid powered superhero game using the Year Zero Engine. Session 1 Excession is a privately owned non profit organisation that seems to have unlimited money and a private army. Louis and Jana are two hard chargers … Continue reading

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Micro 2K

Today I released Micro2K – a distillation of the Step Dice Year Zero Engine as used in Twilight 2000 and Blade Runner. You can nab it here for nothing! It’s complete enough to be used with things like Twilight Tangents … Continue reading

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Games in a Utopia

I guess it depends where you sit. We live in a post-scarcity civilisation (we have the technology), we just don’t live in a post-scarcity society. Scarcity is manufacturered. So are we close to a utopia if we fixed distribution and … Continue reading

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TTRPGDESIGN Update: Enhanced

I haven’t spoken much about “Enhanced” but the premise is: “What if, in the Twilight War, the war to end all wars, there was another agent. Something that arrived on earth nearly 100 years before and spread it’s mutagenic force … Continue reading

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TTRPGDesign: Beyond Human update

Progress with Beyond Human has definitely slowed dude to working on other projects; not least ENHANCED for Twilight 2000 and The 23rd Letter 3rd Edition (as well as Xiongguo, Invasion and Rise of R’lyeh. Yes, some of those projects you’ve … Continue reading

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Xiongguo (working title) – playtesting begins

#ttrpgDesign #ttrpg #T2K4e #xiongguo? So, we begin the playtest for Xiongguo (working title) next week. ?I’ve added some additional rules which are pilfered from other systems. ?Xiongguo is a simple, fast, low magic, classless sandbox based in the YZE SRD … Continue reading

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Beyond Human: Progress Report

Every day brings us a little closer to release day. Today was about defining the attributes better and working on the rules for Pushing and Channelling powers.

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New Project: Beyond Human

New? I’ve been working on this for a while. 2008. I wrote that in 2008. The project has advanced. It’s now 70 pages which puts it as the largest book I’ve made to date. The premise is that it’s a … Continue reading

Posted in Beyond Human, Game Design, Supers | 2 Comments