The Savage AfterWorld -- From Gaming Blog To Publishing House

Although The Savage AfterWorld (TSAW, for short) has fallen silent for a while, it's never gone away. Folks still stop by to read old reviews of different RPGS/board games or to pick through the years of free gaming content I've posted. But even if you don't see new material here on this blog, TSAW lives on as my personal publishing house imprint!

OK, so "publishing house" might be overembellishing it a bit...

My first RPG product, Deviant Database, was a compliation of new creatures originally posted here on this blog, so it seemed only fitting that I used the name of this blog as the "publisher". The next few products that followed -- Deviant Database 2.0 and One Year In The Savage AfterWorld -- were also assembled blog posts, so they also carried the TSAW moniker. 

However, time passed and, although my blog posts were becoming less frequent, my game creation and writing was still going strong. My name has been seen on products by several prominent companies, but anything I produce on my own continues to be a product of The Savage AfterWorld. In fact, the following  23 (!!!) products all carry The Savage AfterWorld imprint:

For Mutant Future:

• Deviant Database
• Deviant Database 2.0
• One Year In The Savage AfterWorld
  
  

For Cryptworld:

• Creepy Comic Conversion Issues 1 through 7

For Mutant Crawl Classics:

• Dead In The Water
• The Desk In Room 8-10
• Phage From Below

For Quill:

• Quill Quest: The Warlord's Downfall
• Quill Noir
• Quill Noir: Forgotten Cae Files

For Dungeon Crawl Classics:

• Country Meat-Grinder Classics: The Hellson Horror
• Country Meat-Grinder Classics: Wasted
• Country Meat-Grinder Classics: Harvest of the Wytch

For Weird Heroes of Public Access:

• 13 This Week

For Fiasco

• Wonderland Park

And my own RPG:

• FIE, I SAY! The D6 Comedy-Fantasy-Parody RPG
• The Smell of Menace for FIE, I SAY!

So fret not, mes amis! The Savage AfterWorld lives on!

A Sneak Peak Into My "Gaming Projects" Notebook

Many of you who know me or have hung out with me have no doubt seen me toting around my little black notebook (pictured here). I have carried this notebook -- or one like it -- for years. I have it with me at work, at events, in my car, and resting on the table next to me as I hammer out this post. Inside my "Gaming Projects" notebook is a collection of notes, scripts, ideas, and works-in-progress for a variety of games and systems.

Today, I went through my notebook and did a bit of organizing. I thought it'd be a fun "glimpse" for you if I were to make a quick listing of things and projects currently in the works.

(Don't ask me to expound on anything here, nor ask me what my timeline is for any of these. I work on them as the mood hits, and release them when they're done. But here's some stuff you can look forward to one day in the future.)

(CW = Cryptworld; TM = Timemaster; MF = Mutant Future; DCC = Dungeon Crawl Classics; HOPE = Our Last Best Hope; Fiasco = Fiasco; Anything is "quotes" is the working title of a scenario/adventure in the works)

CW - "Speed Demon" - Driverless vehicle terrorizes small town
CW - "Final Voyage of the Golden Dawn" - Abandoned ship found floating off shore.
CW - "Last Call/Wasted" - Zombies attack a remote tavern. Players are barflies.
CW - "The CW Atlas" - Worldwide locations of supernatural interest.
CW - "Expiration Date" - PCs cheat Death. He's not happy about it.
CW - "The Coldcreek Conspiracy" - Based on a Cryptworld adventure-writing exercise.
CW - "Kid Stuff" - Adults in a neighborhood disappear. Creepy kids terrorize the area.
CW - "Maul Be Home for Christmas" - A department store Santa is found murdered after hours in a locked-down mall.
CW - "Lost Vegas" - Unexplained murders in a Vegas casino.
CW - "Untitled Solo CW Adventure" - A one-person solo adventure to learn the system.
CW - "The Century of the Dead" - A village of the undead reappears for 24 hours every 100 years (Brigadoon-inspired).
CW - "Deadfall" - Collyer Brothers-inspired trap-laden house -- and something lurks within.
CW - Helltown, Ohio
CW/ROT - "Knights of the Living Dead"
CW - THINGS to stat uup: Drauger; Computer Virus; Worm That Walks; Succubus/Incubus; Tsukumogami; Bog Mummy/Salt Mummy/Ice Mummy; Pollo Maligro; Zombeak
TM - Jenny Everywhere
TM - "An Apple A Day" -- Millions of deaths due to the lack of a single piece of fruit.
TM - "Postage Due/The Day The Sky Fell" - Compilation of TM adventures I've written.
MF - "Dead In The Water" - Written; just needs to be assembled and distributed.
MF - "World of Korgoth of Barbaria supplement"
CAH - "Transylmania"
CAH - "SPY U"
DCC - "The Scourge From Beyond Infinity"
DCC - "Escape From Vulture Gully"
HOPE - "Virus"
FIASCO - "Small Town Ink"

[Fiasco] Let's Visit Wonderland Park: "The Funnest Place In The Universe!"

Anyone want a new Fiasco playset that takes place in a rundown, soon-to-be-shut-down local amusement park? Sure you do!

It’s a world of laughter,

a world of tears...

When it opened in 1974, Wonderland Park was the premiere amusement park in the state. Though it remains open today, years of maintenance neglect and patron indifference has caused the park to decompose into a shell of its former glory. The park’s employees are underskilled, underpaid, and apathetic. The owners are desperately looking for a buyer – any buyer. And those visitors who do visit  know the staff usually turns a blind eye to any malfeasance.

The gates could be permanently locked tomorrow morning, so let’s enjoy today’s visit to “The Funnest Place In The Universe!”

(Click cover to be taken to the file for download!)

[Fiasco] Got Tired Of Loose Playsets, So...

I've really taken a shine to "Fiasco," but one thing that annoys me are the numerous playsets available for the game. It's not the playsets themselves that cause me grief (as every one of them is a fantastic romp into chaos), but rather I had a lot of them printed out loosely, and it was becoming a chore to keep them together and organized. So, a moment of inspiration struck a few weeks ago. I took the playsets I had acquired (all through freely available downloads at Bully Pulpit Games), compiled them into one master document (inserting blank pages as needed to "force" proper left-right spread layouts and retaining all boilerplates for rights acknowledgments), created an appropriate cover (again, using freely available public domain clipart and fonts), then had the whole project printed and bound via Lulu. (NOTE: This was a one-off POD for my own usage at the gaming table and will never (never-ever) be available "out there.")

Anyway, I wanted to share the end result:

"Fiasco Playsets: Volume 1" contains 41 playsets in one perfect-bound volume. This'll be very handy at the gaming table. And if we're stuck for which playset to use? Flip randomly and play whichever set you fall onto.

I'm in the book publishing business by trade, so I needed to create a back cover that reflected the contents as well as tying in visually with the front cover. I'm kinda compulsive that way.

I used a yellow cover so it'd complement the red and blue covers of the main rulebook and the companion. (The whole CMYK color scheme so important to printing.) I think they'll look nice on my bookshelf. If I do a Volume 2 down the road, it'll have a black cover ("K").

Pagination and layout was important so I'd have all of the Locations, Objects, etc. of each playset falling on the appropriately facing pages. And this beast is 500+ pages, so there was a bit of finagling to ensure each playset was formatted correctly in this compiled volume.