Welcome to issue #004 – The Undead issue of Maximum HP, The old school ’zine for a new school world. In this issue we explore the world of the dead and what haunts our dreams. We are DYING with excitement to bring you to the dark places, the horror and the unnatural things that haunt the afterlife and this world.

This project is creating the fourth Maximum HP Tabletop RPG ‘zine with the theme of the Undead. Within its pages you will find adventure, magic, monsters, and more for your 1E and 5E game! this is our premiere edition with content for First AND Fifth Edition of the world’s favorite roleplaying game!

What’s inside?

Maximum HP is a tabletop RPG ‘zine featuring articles, magic, monsters, and a feature adventure – Nights of Barrow Wight, relating to the world’s favorite tabletop game regarding Dragons and Dungeons. It’s a zine by gamers, for gamers.

In this issue we journey into the unsettling world of unnatural things. Don’t let your player explore just another crypt with tiresome skeletons and zombies. Bring the unexpected, bring MAXIMUM HP!

Back it NOW!!

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Monsieur Nerluc clings to the local mountainside. Villagers tell frightened children that the monstrous form of earthen stone is just a natural rock formation. It’s a lie they’d like to believe themselves. Monsieur Nerluc is, in fact, the lord of all Tarasques, and strange cultists seek to waken him. If they do, his age-old toothache will begin to throb, and he’s going to be horrendously angry. 

 Can the heroes get to the “root” of the problem? Will they have a Tarasque lord running wild?  This adventure will be approximately 14 pages long when layout is finished and aimed at a party of 4–5 heroes of 5th level.

Back it NOW!

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How to solve our problem?

I recalled Gary Gygax’s Tomb of Horrors. It’s less an out-right campaign adventure and more of a “See how long you can last” challenge. There were a few other stories I heard from Ernie about the Dungeon Hobby Shop where people would drop in and just want a quick game for various reasons. We needed a solution that let us drop in, game, and if others were an hour late or didn’t come, we could still have a game.

The Inspiration

In 1925 Yves Tanguy, Jacques Prévert, André Breton and Marcel Duchamp created an art exercise called “The Exquisite Corpse”. A paper is folded into thirds. The first artist draws on the top, folds it to hide the section leaving only small hints to end lines for the next artist, and likewise for the third. The end creation is a surreal and abstract whole creation. I knew Herman wanted to get a break from GMing and I was getting my fill of waiting for people to maybe or maybe not arrive.

We threw most ideas of an on-going campaign out the window. We also threw large portions of organized adventure out the window. It was decided that we’d have a blank slate world with just some core elements. Similar to my Lands of Lunacy setting, we’d embrace the chaos void. Characters would be allowed to drop in and out without story-logic explanation. If nothing else, a chaos shadow would sweep away the character. 

Game Masters can rotate at any time or at any natural pause. The GM (previously a player or guest) after the first one has the little story threads left to pull and create a game in an improv fashion. The world as a whole gets built one hex a time as each GM establishes new things. GMs can even rotate mid-dungeon if they like. The end larger creation ends up being an  adventure and campaign. Even if it’s a bit ‘abstract’ it still creates the game world.

Characters and Levels

We are keeping a stack of Pre-Gens available. Players can also generate one on site, but the game continues while they work. Generally speaking, the party has an “adventurer level” as we move along and each GM picks up the torch. As players drop in and out some level adjustments need to be made.

Running on Improv

Running an improv adventure is a real challenge, but in the Exquisite Dungeon a GM can run as few as a handful of encounters or as many as a few sessions. The GM can run off-the-cuff, a portion of a module, or something they googled during the break. In some way it should make sense according to the story threads of the previous GM.

This removes a lot of GM pressure and allows us to game with new visitors to the shop and regulars. We also get to keep our gaming muscles active and ideas flowing. One of the core reasons for us playing more is to become more familiar with the 5E system and its nuances. If your group tries the Exquisite Dungeon approach, I’d be interested in hearing about it below.

~Lloyd Metcalf

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When I first launched this idea for “Quick Kick” projects on Kickstarter with Falls Keep, I wasn’t sure if it was an idea that would stick. My intent was just to push out short adventures that were just a few pages and gave game masters some tools to have in their GMing box. I kept getting these fun ideas for short adventures that weren’t really enough for print, but more than just a Drivethru creation.

Quick Kick Projects

This is the second of Fail Squad Games’ series of “Quick Kick” projects which are super short, Kickstarter projects that cost just a few bucks to back and deliver short Sidequests in PDF form only.  The goal is for each adventure to be about one session long, 8-12 pages in length, and easy to pick up and run for the unprepared GM. Each adventure will be full color, and internally hyperlinked with an interactive PDF.

I have yet to wrangle one of these to under pages, but we’ll get there. No one complains when they get more than promised.

New Artwork

I commissioned my the skilled Raven Winter Metcalf to produce the art for this adventure. It was our goal to change the look and feel of the entire project from our usual ‘serious’ feel. This adventure is inspired by a musical piece “Curse of Milhaven” and we wanted the illustrations to reflect the theme, but carry a Burtonesque feel. In the end we landed on a project with a wonderful look and I couldn’t be happier with the departure.

The Future

The future of “Quick Kick” projects looks bright and we have many more lined up with new authors getting into the queue. For those asking, yes, eventually we may look at printing on paper, but for now, these are PDF only and add to the simplicity of the project when it comes to delivery.

Lorview

The town of Lorview has seen numerous struggles from Fail Squad Adventures and Whisper in the Crags adds a sweet full-page upgraded map of the area. from the Kickstarter page: 

When the winds blow in from the east at just the right angle, the Whispering Crags north of Lorview howl and moan, giving rise to dark superstition and legends. Little Lottie Fisher has a secret friend who knows more than most about the crags.  That strange little girl, drawing her pictures and talking to the dark.

  “Lottie has a wanderlust,” her mother Rasel Fisher often says. “Even as a babe on the road, she wandered off for two days into the forest alone. She’s a blessing and a handful.”

What dark secret await the heroes in the city of Lorview this time? 

Want to get in the loop to be notified first when a Quick Kick launches? Join the Fail Squad Games Guild NOW!

If you’re reading this and it’s January 3rd 2019 or earlier – Back Whisper in the Crags NOW! 
Follow me on Kickstarter to get pinged about new projects as well.

Fail Squad Games is just getting traction and with each release we improve. Thank you for your support, backing, and sharing a love of this hobby that has enriched the world.

~Lloyd Metcalf
Fail Squad Games CEO

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The Journey

Up to now I’ve written and played modules in older editions and paid for help in the 5e conversions. No more. We found a local friend (Herman) and we talked about how to proceed. We would take it slow; stop, complain, look things up, and make a real effort to understand this edition. It turns out there was less complaining in play than anticipated but we do still need to look various things up. This slows play a bit, but we are progressing through the game better than expected.

Previously I had read the books and tried it a few times but always with a bit of expectation that the game was still what it once was. Of course, this is a foolish approach because those editions have already been printed. WOTC wouldn’t reprint the same game twice.

My Personal Issues in 5e

I have discovered by playing 5E weekly, rotating playing and GMing, that my issues were less with the game than with the way the information is presented in the books. The game plays differently than it reads when the dice start rolling. Running also seems to have smoothed out a bit with the progression of time as we become more familiar with the rules.

The Latest Adventures

Tonight players finished The Witch’s Trial in the Lands of Lunacy. During my time behind the character sheet, Herman is running us through the Phandelver adventure. The more hours we all spend on both sides of the screen, the more we are learning to like 5E. The power ratchet is real, however, doing 2 HP of damage to a monster with 6 HP is the same as doing 20 HP of damage to one with 60. We are also learning to better write to this edition from the ground up.

The Fun Side

As players, we are discarding the idea and verbiage of “Character Builds”. The Squad didn’t want to try to find the most powerful character stack. We are purposefully choosing the race class combinations we want to play and fitting the numbers and choices into that story. We had fears of overly complex play and abilities, overpowered classes (which is still on the horizon as we rise through levels), and spending hours looking up various abilities and skills.

I feel that we are all pleasantly surprised at how smoothly the game plays once the dice roll and the books are closed. Yes, we still need to look things up, but no more than we did in the 1E and 2E versions. The various character abilities are laid on slowly in lairs so GMs and player grow accustom to the options and abilities. It still feels like a night of D&D at the end of the evening and nothing more complicated than the “Complete Book of” era we went through.

The more we game, the more we all look forward to gaming again. The more we put the rules to practical application, the more we seem to accept the changes. It has taken us some time to adapt to 5E from our 0E to 2E roots, but we are indeed adapting.

We tested a live stream tonight and have discussed plans for future, better, and upgraded stream arrangements for FSG games to come online. Follow us on Facebook to keep up to date with our adventure into 5E and our games.

This acceptance of 5E came just as we were considering dropping production to the system and focusing on BECMI / LL. I’m glad we gave it one more try.

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The twelfth (12) kickstarter from Fail Squad Games has just launched. Brindlemarsh is the continuation of the Brindle series of adventures. Bogey of Brindle (BR-1) is alaso available through the project or on the website. We’ve added some unique magic items, cool collectibles and an exciting adventure for your heroes!
Written by Lloyd Metcalf and Ric Martens, edited by G.Scott Swift, this new adventure will be a great addition to your tavern tales of adventure.

Dwarfhome stones (created from cockatrice eggs) are one of the new magic items in Brnidlemarsh. The basic module adventure is just $10 to support FSG and help us to go print. $5 for PDF!! Get in now many limited levels.
BACK Brindlemarsh NOW

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This Kickstarter is launching soon. the writing is complete, most of the map work done, edits finished and more than half the illustrations are in place. We need to complete the 5E conversion and layout before we launch. That’s right, as with all Fail Squad Games Kickstarters almost all the work is done at launch, we just need to support of backers to go to print.

Coming to a table near you…. Brindlemarsh!!! (Nagareth the Terrible)

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The OSR (Old School Renaissance or Revival) community is comprised heavily of small indie publishers working multiple jobs, solo entrepreneurs who LOVE games, small companies scraping to get by, or giant companies with very deep pockets. WOTC and Paizo haven’t ignored the OSR as they release and re-hash old titles, so they are included. Of course Paizo had a major hand in making the OSR possible with Pathfinder’s divergence from D&D 3.0 pushing the limits of the Open Gaming License.

What does this have to do with the Ennies?

I’m glad I asked. The Ennies are the yearly awards at the worlds largest RPG convention, Gen Con. They recognize excellence in the gaming arena and there are a lot of nominees. However, it’s also become a “David and Goliath” battle. For the most part, many small indie producers take the nomination as an honor and check out. It’s difficult to wrangle votes for an indie publisher even for the best of products when you are up against huge markets, giant companies, and deep promotional pockets. Small press publishers don’t print 300,000 copies of anything, or have thousands of marketing dollars. And it’s not for lack of quality, it’s often for lack of voice. They also don’t have mailing lists and magazines that are 100,000 or more subscribers deep.

WOTC, Paizo, and other big players of course, do produce note-worthy products with mind-blowing art, writing, and production value. Again, they can afford to do this with dozens or hundreds of hired minds. When an OSR entrepreneur creates something of note however, they too deserve the recognition and reward of a glimmer of hope of achieving the notoriety an Ennie brings within the community. We shouldn’t ignore the small voice in a gale of the storm at sea. Consideration of these small OSR companies (Like Fail Squad Games) in these big oceans can make or break the scenario for some.

Who of note in the OSR  are nominees?

Some of the nominees taking on the goliaths are as follows:

• Hobbs and Friends RPG Podcast, zines, and materials.
• Frostbitten & Mutilated (RPG Setting)
• Vaginas are Magic
• The Midderlands
• The Scenario from Ontario

These are all small press OSR folks producing quality gaming materials who are up against the goliaths of the industry for votes and attention. Being nominated for an Ennie is certainly an honor, but winning a category can truly shift gears for a small press. I urge all the Fail Squad Games readers and supporters to check out these entries to this year’s ENnie awards and consider them along side the others when you are voting.

Share their links and their products. They deserve a splash of the spot light. Trust me when I say – This isn’t an easy business to survive in, it takes LOVE of gaming to make it happen at all.

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This piece of cardstock vibrates with the essence of gaming. The artisanal paper is hand-made from Classic AD&D books.

Damaged, well-played, seasoned books and leaves collected from 330 Center Street in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. For those who don’t know, 330 Center Street was the home of Gary Gygax and is the birthplace of Dungeons & Dragons.

The world and gaming were forever changed from this modest little home. The leaves were collected, cleaned, destemmed, then soaked for months to make the fibers pliable enough to be added to paper. These pages and leaves are then hand-pressed to create this one of a kind paper that carries the essence of gaming in every cell.

Lloyd Metcalf, Art director of Gary Con and CEO of Fail Squad Games, and lead goblin at Apple Con, collected the leaves, made the paper, and finally adorned each piece with thoughtful art in archival ink. Each drawing is intended to bring the essence of classic Dungeons & Dragons and RPGs to everyone who holds it.

Since the first piece was created, it has come to be believed that dice resting on this paper are imbued with the luck and adventures of legend. Is it possible that a roll in a game might somehow be altered by the will of all the heroes of center street, and the uncountable nostalgic adventures that were had with the paper that was recycled into this one little square?

You’ll have to try it to find out.

I will have a very limited supply of these,  all artwork is unique and different to each piece.  Whatever I make will be for sale in the online store CLICK HERE to get yours now!

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This week all Fail Squad Games paperback modules are just $10. Even the full color specials – Time to clear the shelves and make room for new stuff!

Lands of Lunacy, 1E, 5E, All print module adventures are just TEN BUCKS this week! Some of these won’t be back once they are sold out, so grab them all while they are on sale.

Go to the store and get them in your basket now!

*All except Those Dam Goblins*

You can find the all at the FSG online store.

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