“Worming My Blues Away” makes a great one-shot convention game, because it starts in media res, after the player characters have just finished repelling an incursion by the Isopterans. And RavenCon, as always, was a great convention. The RavenCon staff were friendly, professional, and responsive. In a fast-changing world, it’s good to know that there are some things on which one can depend.
The EXTREME EARTH Campaign Setting is now available for Bulletproof Blues Second Edition at DriveThruRPG, complete with character creation guidelines and NPC stat blocks written by Bulletproof Blues creator Brandon Blackmoor!
One year ago, the Kickstarter campaign for Bulletproof Blues Second Edition successfully funded — thanks to you!
So where are we now? The PDF and print versions have been completed, sent to the appropriate backers, and made available on DriveThruRPG. The open game content has been made available at RPG Library. So far, so good.
Now for the not so good. We have the manuscripts for Ruins Of Atlanta and Martian Mayhem (Evangelists From Mars), but we are still working on the Cosmic Adventures manuscript. We have commissioned art for Ruins Of Atlanta (we probably won’t have the funds to have art for Martian Mayhem or Cosmic Adventures, sadly), and James Shields’ art looks great, but personal issues have delayed the layout, and it looks like that delay will keep on being delayed for another few weeks. That’s distressing.
We have two backers who generously supported us at the GALACTIC SENTINEL level of support. We will be contacting those backers in the next few days to start arranging a time to play the live game session reward for that backer level. We are sorry it has taken so long to do that: you deserve better.
Thanks again for your support. We hope that the game has given you some entertainment while you wait for the snow to melt.
Happy gaming!
Bulletproof Blues Second Edition is now in print! Bulletproof Blues is a rules-light, setting-dark(ish) superhero roleplaying game. The second edition has more examples! More sample characters! More fun!
If you have previously purchased the PDF, let us know by sending your order information and your DriveThruRPG account name to bblackmoor@kaloscomics.com, and we will give you a coupon to apply toward the print version.
Other than the three backers whose names were omitted from the first printing (whose copies will be sent next week), all of the backers at the “National Icon” level (and above) should be receiving their softcover copy of Bulletproof Blues soon. When it arrives, please share your opinion on your social media venue of choice. If you have the time and inclination, try to provide some details on what you like and why, and what you do not like and why. That will help others, who may or may not share your tastes, decide whether the game might interest them. Think of it as paying the Noah Tax:
Whenever you post about a thing that you’ve purchased or are going to purchase and you think the rest of us would be interested in purchasing it, too, let us know why. Tell us what you liked about it so that we can see if it’s the sort of thing that we might like, too. I’m not calling for full-scale reviews, but rather short bits that tell us more about your experience with a thing than anything else, since that’s what really matters. I think if we all do this, we’ll all be much better-informed consumers of RPG products and that can’t do anything but help the industry as far as I can see.
(From “The Noah Tax”, http://www.kickassistan.net/2014/12/the-noah-tax.html)
The proof for the print version of Bulletproof Blues Second Edition arrived today, and it looks great! We will be sending out the print books to people who backed us at the National Icon ($45) level and above over the next couple of days. Once we have sent the book to all of our Kickstarter backers, we will make the printed book available for purchase on DriveThruRPG.
We have finished formatting all of the open content from Bulletproof Blues Second Edition (i.e., all of the text and artwork). It is online at RPG Library Open Game Content:
https://ogc.rpglibrary.org/index.php?title=Bulletproof_Blues
The print version of the book has cleared premedia at the printer’s, and we have ordered a proof, which should arrive late next week. Knock on wood, the proof will not have any errors and the cover art will line up correctly, and the printed books will start shipping next week.
We have completed the print and PDF layouts for Bulletproof Second Edition! We will have to wait on the proof for the print version before we can start getting those printed and mailed out to our Kickstarter backers, but we will start sending out the links for the PDF version over the next couple of days. Thanks so much for your patience!
We have already uploaded the revised and expanded Character Sheet Helper, and you can download that right now:
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/109612/Bulletproof-Blues-Character-Sheet-Helper
Every roleplaying game has a section at the beginning that attempts to explain what a roleplaying game is, and Bulletproof Blues is no exception. This is the section that the second edition of Bulletproof Blues (coming soon!) will have in the Introduction chapter, explaining what a roleplaying game is.
As trivial as it sounds, two distinct elements set “roleplaying games” apart from other things which are not roleplaying games: roleplaying and game play.
First, a roleplaying game involves roleplaying. Generally speaking, roleplaying involves taking on a persona or character and making decisions based on what that character would do in a given situation. Does having a character in a game, by itself, make that a roleplaying game? No. The little dog token in a Monopoly game and a Blood Elf in World Of Warcraft are both characters, but Monopoly and World Of Warcraft are not roleplaying games. Can you roleplay as a dog while playing Monopoly? Yes, and you can roleplay as an elf while playing World Of Warcraft. What keeps these from being roleplaying games is that the roleplaying is not part of the game — you can’t get your Monopoly dog out of jail through unscripted conversation with the jailer, nor can you use roleplaying to convince a cultist in World Of Warcraft to let you pass by without a fight. If the rules of the game do not allow for the possibility that a conflict could be resolved through unscripted conversation (however unlikely that might be), then it isn’t a roleplaying game.
Second, a roleplaying game is a game. Roleplaying games are sometimes compared to improvisational theatre, and there are similarities, but improv theatre isn’t a game. How can you tell if something is a game? Games have rules that govern things like conflicts between players and whether something a player attempts is successful. Improv theatre is fun, but there aren’t any rules like this. As Drew Carey described “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”, it’s “the show where everything’s made up and the points don’t matter.” It’s fun, but it’s not a game, and therefore it’s not a roleplaying game.
Bulletproof Blues has more rules than some games, but less than others, and an essential part of conflict resolution involves making decisions that your character would make under the circumstances. Maybe those decisions aren’t the most tactically advantageous, but if they are true to what your character would do, and if you are having fun playing, then you are playing correctly, because that’s what Bulletproof Blues is all about.
If you would like to read more about who plays roleplaying games, and why and where they play them, check out www.theescapist.info.
We just read through the first chapter of the Bulletproof Blues version of Extreme Earth (from Fainting Goat games), and it looks great! We are really looking forward to this. It will be the first published third-party supplement for Bulletproof Blues!
