November 01, 2012

Blood on the Snow Contents Description

[My Kickstarter page has reached its character limit. To give it space to breathe, I’ve moved the original contents of the Blood on the Snow: A DramaSystem sourcebook here. Blog overflow, if you will.]

Contents:

How To Write a Series Pitch: Robin shows you how to design a Series Pitch for publication—and tells you which pitches not to bother with. Approximately 2000 words. 

DramaSystem Master Class: design notes and troubleshooting tips. Approximately 21,000 words. For this section we’ll be soliciting contributions from the early adopter community—yes, that means you—describing issues that confronted you in DramaSystem play and how you overcame them. Robin will then respond with his own notes and observations. Think of it as Actual Play Plus. (In addition to providing nuts and bolts troubleshooting and inspiration, it also provide an opportunity for emerging roleplaying writers to establish themselves with a paid professional credit. Stay tuned for details.)

LARPing with DramaSystem: a 5,000 word exploration of DramaSystem as a LARP engine, from designer extraordinaire Emily Care Boss. 

Series Pitches: (~2,000 words each):

Pedro Ziviani (Chaosium’s Mythic Iceland) shows you how to weave an Icelandic saga in Blood on the Snow. Justice, feuding and strangeness as only the Norse can do it!

John Rogers (co-creator/producer, Leverage) brings you all the glamour, opium and intrigue of Shanghai 1930. Gangsters, spies, imperialists, revolutionaries and emigres strive to survive the 20th century's most dangerous time and place.

Scott Bennie (Testament) intones Darke and Stormy Nights: feuding aristocratic families are confronted by terror when an implacable supernatural evil awakens!

Steve Darlington (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd ed, There Is No Spoon) cries “stat!” in System Shock: Galatea General Hospital has always been on the cutting edge of cybermedicine and bionics, but now its new staff have patients wondering: can I trust a robot to save my life?

Paula Dempsey (The Book of Smoke) lays on the equestrian glam for The Chase, a soap opera set in the glossy, moneyed world of high-end horse racing.

Cedric Ferrand (Wastburg) changes your name at Ellis Island in Grave New World, as banished European vampires seek refuge in 1850s New York.

Richard Iorio II (Colonial Gothic) presents Dolphin. The Blue is threatened. The Blight and its warriors amass. The only thing standing in their way are the dolphins dedicated to dedicated to The Way. Finding Nemo meets The Lord of The Rings.

Jack Norris (Marvel Heroic Roleplaying: Civil War, DC Adventures Heroes & Villains) presents Gangs of Old York: Saxons commoners and deposed Anglo-Danish nobles plot, battle, intrigue, and turn outlaw while battling starvation and Norman conquerors and their supporters in the shadows of William the Conqueror's Harrowing of the North.

Aaron S. Rosenberg (Asylum, Spookshow) runs the Family Business: A family of crooks, con artists, and thieves has to rely on everyone's skills and loyalty when the Law closes in, trying to shut them down for good.

Plus two more Series Pitches from Robin:

Mutant City HCU: Ten years after 1% of the population acquired super-powers, the cops of the Heightened Crime Unit live, love and occasionally put away a genetically enhanced perp or two. A dramatic game set in the heretofore procedural world of Pelgrane’s Mutant City Blues.

Against Hali: Student revolutionaries mix love, ambition and revolution in a dictatorial alternate present warped by the eerie power of The King in Yellow.

The book starts at 128 pages (6 x 9 format) with room for expansion as our final-week stretch goals take us beyond Pagemageddon and into the great unknown. Creators standing by on deck to be stretched into the book include: Josh Roby, James L. Sutter, Andrew Peregrine, Lester Smith, David L. Pulver, Kevin Allen Jr., Jeff Richard, Gareth Hanrahan, Mark Diaz Truman and maybe another superstar or two we’ve yet to fully wrangle.