(click for PDF)

When Robin D. Laws first designed Feng Shui, Jackie Chan, John Woo, and The Matrix had not yet brought the pulse-pounding action of Hong Kong cult cinema into the Hollywood mainstream.

I discovered the game way back in the summer of 1997: I had taken a hiatus from RPGs, but had maintained my subscription to Dragon magazine. That summer, I realized I hadn’t received an issue of Dragon for several months, and I went online — revisiting my old Usenet and FidoNet haunts — to figure out why. I quickly had my answer: TSR had gone bankrupt. But in the process, I was drawn back into discussions of RPGs. Two of them were burning up the discussion groups at the time: Heavy Gear and Feng Shui.

At the time, I was living with my dad in Mankato, MN. I biked from our apartment building down to a hobby store in “downtown” Mankato. The hobby store had exactly one magazine rack of RPG titles, but by some miracle it was well-stocked: I grabbed copies of both Heavy Gear and Feng Shui. This was a seminal moment in my life, as Heavy Gear would ultimately prove to be my doorway into the RPG industry. (A tale I’ve told elsewhere.) Feng Shui didn’t feature as prominently in my work, but it played a really important part in reigniting my passion for RPGs. It’s a truly great honor that I’m now it’s caretaker.

Back in 1997, however, Feng Shui also kindled my love for Hong Kong cinema. Using the bibliography Robin D. Laws had placed in the back of the book as a map, I spent the rest of my summer biking to Suncoast Video and picking up VHS copies of whatever films I could get my hands on. As such, Feng Shui 2, by necessity, can’t recapture the wonder of the original game for me: The original Feng Shui wasn’t just a really cool game; it was the gateway to an entire medium of film I had never seen before.

But Feng Shui 2 is still frickin’ awesome: The rip-roaring, time-leaping magic of the Chi War is just such an innately awesome premise for a game that just flipping through the book is enough to get me amped about playing.

Which, of course, brings me to a cheat sheet for the system.

WHAT’S NOT INCLUDED

These cheat sheets are not designed to be a quick start packet: They’re designed to be a comprehensive reference for someone who has read the rulebook and will probably prove woefully inadequate if you try to learn the game from them. (On the other hand, they can definitely assist experienced players who are teaching the game to new players.)

The cheat sheets also don’t include what I refer to as “character option chunks” (for reasons discussed here). In other words, you won’t find the rules for character creation here.

HOW I USE THEM

As I’ve described in the past, I keep a copy of the system cheat sheet behind my GM screen for quick reference and also provide copies for all of the players. Of course, I also keep at least one copy of the rulebook available, too. But my goal with the cheat sheets is to consolidate information and eliminate book look-ups: Finding something in a half dozen or so pages is a much faster process than paging through hundreds of pages in the rulebook.

The organization of information onto each page of the cheat sheet should, hopefully, be fairly intuitive. The actual sequencing of pages is mostly arbitrary.

Page 1 – Basic Mechanics: This includes the core dice mechanic, plus the difficulty table, an Action Value reference for when your need to improvise GMCs, and the mechanics for Fortune, Impairment, and Boosts.

Page 2 – Skills & Other Checks: These rules round out the basic mechanics.

Page 3-7 – Combat: The core combat experience is contained on a single page, with additional options and guidelines laid out over the subsequent pages.

Page 8 – Vehicles: Primarily the rules for chases.

Page 9 – Chi War: Rules for sorcery, supernatural creatures, transformed animals, mutants, and feng shui sites.

Page 10 – Enemies: A one-page quick reference for GMs looking to build fights and create stat blocks on-the-fly.

OTHER THINGS TO PRINT OUT

You might also want to print out copies of:

• GMC names (Feng Shui 2, p. 220-221)
• Vehicle Table (Feng Shui 2, p. 156)

And you don’t need to print it out, but before playing you might want to take a guided tour through the Select Filmography, updated with all the awesome flicks of the last 20+ years and still found tucked away tidily at the back of the book.

BLUE MOON RULES

One unusual piece of slang you’ll find here is “blue moon.” This is taken from the chapter “Blue Moon Rules” in Feng Shui 2, of which Laws writes:

This chapter gives you the rules for situation that come up only once in a blue moon. These edge cases and special situations may arise in your game once or twice.

I found this distinction remarkably valuable, and in preparing these cheat sheets I have greatly expanded the scope of the rules covered by the “blue moon” designation. Essentially, if you look at a section of the cheat sheet I have:

(a) Specified the core mechanics of a given topic; and

(b) Designated everything else as “blue moon.”

For example, there is a page titled “Combat.” In my opinion, everything you need to run combat encounters in Feng Shui 2 is located on that page. Then there’s another page labeled “Blue Moon: Combat.” That page contains a lot extra rules that you’ll use only to respond to very specific situations in combat. A third page is labeled “Blue Moon: Weapons,” and contains a bunch of weapons-specific rules that you can use to spice things up.

You can see a similar distinction on the page of the cheat sheet dealing with vehicle chases: The “Vehicles” section contains the core gameplay loop for chases; the “Blue Moon: Vehicles” section of the page contains a bunch of additional rules that can be injected into that core gameplay.

I actually find this distinction so conceptually useful in organizing and focusing the cheat sheet that I think you’ll likely see me using it again in the future with any number of other games.

MAKING A GM SCREEN

As with my other cheat sheets, the Prince Valiant sheets can also be used in conjunction with a modular, landscape-oriented GM screen (like the ones you can buy here or here).

Personally, I use a four-panel screen and use reverse-duplex printing in order to create sheets that I can tape together and “flip up” to reveal additional information behind them. This is the screen arrangement I’m currently experimenting with:

• Panel 1: Basic Mechanics (with Skills & Hazards behind it).
• Panel 2: Combat (with Blue Moon: Combat & Blue Moon: Weapons behind it).
• Panel 3: Vehicles (with Keeling Over & Vehicle Table behind it).
• Panel 4: Enemies (with Chi War & Hong Kong GMC Names behind it).

FURTHER READING
So You Want to Be a Feng Shui Player?
Feng Shui: Filling the Shot
Feng Shui: Using the Shot Counter
Prep Notes: Hong Kong Task Force 88

(click for PDF)

The Ultimate Democratic Republic of Al Amarja welcomes you. During your stay with us please remember that Liberty is Job One, Disarmament Means Peace, It’s Polite to Speak English, and, of course, Paranormal Activity is Perfectly Legal.

Thank you for your consent.

The Edge is the weirdest city in the world. Get into trouble. Question your place in the crazed multiverse. Take a draught of madness. Peer through the gap in the mismatched angles where reality ends. Fight a baboon. Take a leap…

… over the Edge.

Over the Edge is Jonathan Tweet’s original game of enigma and conspiracy. It’s a cornucopia of fringe science, conspiracy, and hyper-reality that — in balancing on a precipice somewhere between madness and tomorrow — creates an undeniably unique frisson at the gaming table. The brand new 3rd Edition has been completely reimagined for a new generation of roleplayers: Every conspiracy has been twisted to a new angle. Every GMC

The game system, too, has been rebooted. The original game was a cutting edge system in 1992, and Tweet has reinvented that system from the bottom up to take advantage of his nearly 30 years of personal expertise in game design. The new system features fast, dramatic character creation that’s laser-focused on creating dynamic, active characters. Particularly notable in their elegance are each PC’s Trouble and Question, which relentlessly drive the story forward.

A simple 2d6 resolution mechanic uses a lightning-fast comparison of level and difficulty to generate rerolls, creating mechanical interest at the table without bogging down the action. (Which is further encouraged by the game’s focus on narrative resolution over action resolution.) The potential blandness of such simplified mechanics is counteracted by injecting shocking, unexpected outcomes through good twists, bad twists, and “twist ties”.

If you’re not familiar with these system cheat sheets, you should know that the goal is to summarize all the rules of the game – from basic resolution to the spot rules for actions, combat, firearms, injury, and the like. It’s a great way to get a grip on a new system, introducing new players to the game, and providing a long-term resource for both GM and players. (For more information on the methods I use for prepping these sheets, click here.)

WHAT’S NOT INCLUDED

These cheat sheets are not designed to be a quick start packet: They’re designed to be a comprehensive reference for someone who has read the rulebook and will probably prove woefully inadequate if you try to learn the game from them. (On the other hand, they can definitely assist experienced players who are teaching the game to new players.)

The cheat sheets also don’t include what I refer to as “character option chunks” (for reasons discussed here). In other words, you won’t find the rules for character creation here.

HOW I USE THEM

I generally keep a copy of my system cheat sheets behind my GM screen for quick reference and I also place a half dozen copies in the center of the table for the players to grab as needed. The information included is meant to be as comprehensive as possible; although rulebooks are also available, my goal is to minimize the amount of time people spend referencing the rulebook: Finding something in 6 pages of cheat sheet is a much faster process than paging through a 400 page rulebook. And, once you’ve found it, processing the streamlined information on the cheat sheet will (hopefully) also be quicker.

In the case of Over the Edge, the rules are a high-efficiency, ultra-streamlined experience. As such, the division of the cheat sheet is very straightforward: One page contains the core mechanics. The other contains the comprehensive guidelines for defining power levels. That’s all it takes.

MAKING A GM SCREEN

These cheat sheets can also be used in conjunction with a modular, landscape-oriented GM screen (like the ones you can buy here or here).

For more complicated cheat sheets I use reverse-duplex printing in order to create sheets that I can tape together and “flip up” to reveal additional information behind them. Since the Over the Edge cheat sheet is only two pages long, that’s obviously not necessary. If you have a four-panel screen like myself, you might consider sliding Axel Ortiz‘ beautiful map of the Edge into one of the slots. You might also consider adapting the Al Amarjan Names Handout (which can be found here).

(click here for PDF)

Blades in the Dark is a really cool little game with three major claims to fame:

• A detailed system for running and developing a criminal crew.
• An innovative system for running heist scenarios using a combination of flashbacks and an “engagement roll”.
• A very unique approach to framing action resolution through a combination of setting position and level of effect.

As with my other cheat sheets, this cheat sheet is designed to summarize all of the rules for running the game — from Action Roll resolutions to Downtime activities. It is not, however, designed to be a quick start packet: If you want to learn how to play Blades in the Dark, you’ll want to read through the core rulebook. These cheat sheets are a long-term resource for both GMs and players, and can serve as a great tool for experienced players teaching newcomers, but it’s a cheat sheet, not a textbook.

These cheat sheets also do not include what I refer to as “character option chunks” (for reasons discussed here). You won’t find the rules for character creation, the character playbooks, or the crew sheets here. (Although you can find many of those resources at bladesinthedark.com.)

VERSION 3

My normal procedure for creating these cheat sheets is to (a) write them up, (b) use them in actual play for several sessions, (c) iteratively revise them as necessary, and only then (d) share them here on the Alexandrian. For Blades in the Dark, however, I posted a picture to Twitter of my table set-up for the game:

The sexy map (printed by ABC Sign & Graphic) drew a lot of attention, and the prominent positioning of the cheat sheets unexpectedly created a lot of demand for them. This sort of short-circuited my normal process and, after using them in only a single session, I rushed them up onto the site.

Since that time, however, I’ve used the sheets in almost a dozen more sessions and it became clear that there were not only a number of errors, but also some significant shortcomings with them. These new versions of the sheets, therefore, have reorganized the existing material to configure it more usefully, but also added several significant new chunks of information:

• Duskvol District Modifiers: Getting these in front of the players has a really tangible effect on how they organize their affairs and run their scores.
• Glossary of Strange Forces: I found that our group was getting a little too “fantasy generic” in my handling of the setting, so I wanted to refocus myself on the very specific “demonic steampunk ghost apocalypse” vibe of the game.
• Action Ratings – Expanded Reference: I’d originally decided not to include this material and went with my normal “list of attributes/skills” method for cheat sheets. But the clear definition of what each action rating is for and, even more importantly, where those action ratings weakly overlap is actually really crucial to running Blades in the Dark correctly. During play we were constantly reaching for the rulebook to look this stuff up, which is exactly the material you want in the cheat sheet.

If you still want the original versions of these cheat sheets, they can still be found here.

HOW I USE THEM

I usually keep a copy of my system cheat sheets behind my GM screen for quick reference and I also place a half dozen copies in the center of the table for the players to grab as needed. The information included is meant to be as comprehensive as possible; although rulebooks are also available, my goal is to minimize the amount of time people spend referencing the rulebook: Finding something in the 8 pages of the cheat sheet is a much faster process than paging through the full rulebook. And, once you’ve found it, processing the streamlined information on the cheat sheet will (hopefully) also be quicker.

The organization of information onto each page of the cheat sheet should, hopefully, be fairly intuitive.

Page 1-2: Core Resolution. This includes all of the core rules for action resolution, including action rolls, resistance rolls, fortune rolls, consequences, harms, stress, and progress clocks (plus additional resources related to those topics).

Page 3-4: Scores & Crews & Factions. Re-sequencing this material made the cheat sheet more intuitive to navigate. I’ve also dropped Incarceration rules onto page 4.

Page 5-6: Downtime. And once your score is done, everything you need for downtime activities (including vices).

Page 7: Miscellanea. Collecting together rules for Coins, Rituals, and Crafting.

Page 8: Deep Reference. The new references for Duskvol District Modifiers, Glossary of Strange Forces, and the Expanded Reference for Action Ratings. (Obviously you’d want to swap out the Duskvol modifiers if you’re running with a different setting, such as U’Duasha from the special edition of the game.)

Page 9: Principles. This page includes the game’s “core loop”, the standards for who controls which types of decisions (Judgment Calls), and the best practices/goals for players and GMs alike.

MAKING A GM SCREEN

These cheat sheets can also be used in conjunction with a modular, landscape-oriented GM screen (like the ones you can buy here or here).

I usually use a four-panel screen and use reverse-duplex printing in order to create sheets that I can tape together and “flip up” to reveal additional information behind them. After some experimentation, this is the set-up I’m currently using for Blades in the Dark:

• Panel 1: Action / Effect (with Deep References behind it)
• Panel 2: Consequences / Progress Clocks / Magnitude
• Panel 3: Scores (with Crews and Principles behind it)
• Panel 4: Downtime (with Downtime Activities and Miscellanea behind it)

This allows you to reference roll results, consequences, and the magnitude table with a single glance to your left. You can intuitively flip up the Action Rating page to find the expanded Action Rating material behind it. To your right you’ll be able to flip through the material for Scores  & Downtime on the final two panels (with miscellaneous details tucked behind each).

Something else I experimented with was leaving a panel open and sliding in the one-page reference for the current District. But as the action in my campaign seems to frequently shift betweeen districts, this ended up being more finicky than valuable.

It’s likely that these sheets will continue to evolve through play. Recently, for example, I’ve realized that I really want a reference for the different hours of the day (Blades in the Dark, p. 240) so that I can set the time of night more accurately. (This is perhaps particularly notable because the setting’s eternal night disrupts my normal time descriptors.) You might jot those down on the currently blank sheet on Panel 1. Maybe it would be useful to pair that with a map of Doskvol you could flip up to reference quickly?

FURTHER READING
Advanced Starting Situations
Alternative Starting Situations
Progress Clocks
The Vultures

(click for PDF)

Hal Foster’s groundbreaking Prince Valiant was adapted into the first “storytelling game” by Greg Stafford back in the ’80s. Many of you likely grew up with its much diminished legacy in the Sunday comic strips of your youth, but Foster’s original strips (as you can see below) was a beautiful, atmospheric, mythic-real take on the Arthurian legend. Stafford’s game sought to capture this universe with an elegant ruleset and incredibly simple character creation mechanics, and it’s recently been republished by Nocturnal Media.

The game is divided into two parts. The Basic Game, although the first to bear the title of “storytelling game”, is very much a traditional RPG. What made it particularly innovative at the time, however, was that it eschewed simulation-focused complexity and instead stripped things down to a simple, narrative-focused mechanic.

In the Advanced Game, Stafford introduces a structure by which players can, in mid-session, become Storytellers, running the group through short episodes before returning control of the session to the Chief Storyteller. Meta-currency rewards are given in exchange for taking on these GMing duties, creating not only one of the first STGs but also an early troupe-style game.

Thirty years later, Prince Valiant is no longer innovative. (Quite the opposite: The industry has been following its lead and looting its corpse.) But it remains an elegant and accessible game that, although its parts have been parceled out, still provides a unique playing experience that’s not really been duplicated anywhere else.

This is actually a great time to get into Prince Valiant: In addition to Nocturnal Media reprinting the RPG, Fantagraphcs has been publishing a freshly remastered reprint series of Foster’s original comic. This new edition has been scanned from the original syndicate proofs, restoring Foster’s stunningly beautiful art and subtle storytelling.

Inspired by both, I’m currently laying down a bunch of material for bringing Prince Valiant to my gaming table. This includes assembling one of my system cheat sheets for the game. For those unfamiliar with these cheat sheets, they seek to summarize all of the rules for the game — from basic action resolution to advanced options. It’s a great way to get a grip on a new system and, of course, it makes it easier to introduce the game to new players and run the system as a Game Master.

WHAT’S NOT INCLUDED

These cheat sheets are not designed to be a quick start packet: They’re designed to be a comprehensive reference for someone who has read the rulebook and will probably prove woefully inadequate if you try to learn the game from them. (On the other hand, they can definitely assist experienced players who are teaching the game to new players.)

The cheat sheets also don’t include what I refer to as “character option chunks” (for reasons discussed here). In other words, you won’t find the rules for character creation here.

HOW I USE THEM

I generally keep a copy of my system cheat sheets behind my GM screen for quick reference and I also place a half dozen copies in the center of the table for the players to grab as needed. The information included is meant to be as comprehensive as possible; although rulebooks are also available, my goal is to minimize the amount of time people spend referencing the rulebook: Prince Valiant is one of those games which freely mix rules with philosophical discussions of how the rules can be used to best effect. The cheat sheets can’t duplicate that utility, but instead seek to pull the rules out for easy reference.

The organization of information onto each page of the cheat sheet should, hopefully, be fairly intuitive.

Page 1: Core Mechanics & Combat. Most of the game is right here.

Page 2: Skills. I went with slightly longer skill descriptions than I usually do for these cheat sheets because we found that the divisions between skills were finely defined (which makes sense given the relatively narrow focus of the game on knights and courtly life) and also not completely intuitive (because Stafford has, very cleverly, adopted a medieval understanding of philosophy in the division of knowledge and skill).

Page 3: All the Modifiers. All of them.

Page 4: Special Effects & Fame. I’ve tried to appropriately emphasize the degree to which the Fame Award values are very much median guidelines that it’s expected the GM will vary from. (Review the appropriate sections of the rulebook as necessary.)

Page 5: Advanced Storytelling. I initially played with the idea of putting all of the Advanced rules on a single sheet, but ultimately decided that I was likely to include Advanced Skills (and character creation) even in campaigns that didn’t use all of the Advanced Storytelling rules. (Partly due to the exigencies of the new open table format I’m experimenting with using Prince Valiant as its foundation.)

MAKING A GM SCREEN

As with my other cheat sheets, the Prince Valiant sheets can also be used in conjunction with a modular, landscape-oriented GM screen (like the ones you can buy here or here).

If you have the modular four panel screen, like I do, then this is quite simple: The “Advanced Storytelling” sheet is a nice reference, but you don’t need to be able to access its information in a single glance. So you can just insert the other four sheets and you’re good to go.

PLAY PRINCE VALIANT!

(click here for PDF)

UPDATE: These cheat sheets have been revised and improved. I recommend checking out Version 3.

As those who follow me on Twitter already know, I’m in the early stages of a Blades in the Dark campaign. As I do with virtually every RPG that I run, I’ve prepped a cheat sheet for the game, and now that it’s been put through its paces a few times it’s ready to be shared with all of you.

Blades in the Dark is a really cool little game with three major claims to fame:

• A detailed system for running and developing a criminal crew.
• An innovative system for running heist scenarios using a combination of flashbacks and an “engagement roll”.
• A very unique approach to framing action resolution through a combination of setting position and level of effect.

I’ll likely be discussing all of these in more detail at some point as I get a more experience with actually running/playing the game. (The last bullet point, in particular, is almost certainly going to be discussed as part of the Art of Rulings, because it bends your brain by pushing different paradigm in the way that you mechanically perceive and define action in the game world.)

As with my other cheat sheets, this cheat sheet is designed to summarize all of the rules for running the game — from Action Roll resolutions to Downtime activities. It is not, however, designed to be a quick start packet: If you want to learn how to play Blades in the Dark, you’ll want to read through the core rulebook. These cheat sheets are a long-term resource for both GMs and players, and can serve as a great tool for experienced players teaching newcomers, but it’s a cheat sheet, not a textbook.

These cheat sheets also do not include what I refer to as “character option chunks” (for reasons discussed here). You won’t find the rules for character creation, the character playbooks, or the crew sheets here. (Although you can find many of those resources at bladesinthedark.com.)

HOW I USE THEM

I usually keep a copy of my system cheat sheets behind my GM screen for quick reference and I also place a half dozen copies in the center of the table for the players to grab as needed. The information included is meant to be as comprehensive as possible; although rulebooks are also available, my goal is to minimize the amount of time people spend referencing the rulebook: Finding something in the 8 pages of the cheat sheet is a much faster process than paging through the full rulebook. And, once you’ve found it, processing the streamlined information on the cheat sheet will (hopefully) also be quicker.

The organization of information onto each page of the cheat sheet should, hopefully, be fairly intuitive.

Page 1-2: Core Resolution. This includes all of the core rules for action resolution, including action rolls, resistance rolls, fortune rolls, consequences, harms, stress, and progress clocks (plus additional resources related to those topics).

Page 3: Crews & Factions. I’ve also dropped the rules for Incarceration onto this page.

Page 4: Scores. All the rules for running a score.

Page 5-6: Downtime. And once your score is done, everything you need for downtime activities (including vices).

Page 7: Miscellanea. Collecting together rules for Coins, Rituals, and Crafting.

Page 8: Principles. This page includes the game’s “core loop”, the standards for who controls which types of decisions (Judgment Calls), and the best practices/goals for players and GMs alike.

MAKING A GM SCREEN

These cheat sheets can also be used in conjunction with a modular, landscape-oriented GM screen (like the ones you can buy here or here).

I usually use a four-panel screen and use reverse-duplex printing in order to create sheets that I can tape together and “flip up” to reveal additional information behind them. I’m currently still experimenting with how I want to arrange the pages for my own personal screen. My initial arrangement did not work very smoothly, so I’m going to reorganize and try a different approach. (I’ll post an update when I figure it out.) At the moment, I’m fairly certain that Page 1 and Page 2 should be on top (visible at all times by default) so that I can quickly reference roll results, consequences, and the magnitude table at a glance. Beyond that, I still need to play with it a bit.