[7:32 PM]Square Hammer: Hi all, I’m Brenden, director for Hammer City Games based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. We’re a faily new company in the development scene, and even newer in the publishing scene, and we’re currently working on laying the groundwork to publish and distribute weird, wacky, and generally GM-centrically designed TTRPGs from Canadian designers. The current big project we have on Kickstarter is Earth: After Death, a dungeon-crawler-style post-apocalyptic game very reminscent of AD&D, Fallouts 1 and 2, and many other TT and cRPGs. We’re more than halfway to our goal and its been 2 weeks on the dot, so we’re pretty on track to make this big box a reality!(edited)
[7:32 PM]Square Hammer: (Done)
[7:34 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Thanks, @Square Hammer! The floor is open to questions!1
[7:35 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): What sort of apocalypse occurred?
[7:37 PM]Square Hammer: So inspired by the neon-soaked ends-of-the-world as seen in late 80s to early 2000s apocalyptic media, its the most readily believable end of the world, being nuclear war (hasn’t left the zeitgeist since 1963). I wanted to reimagine it happening in an alternative 2000s that you’d see in movies like Terminator, Bladerunner, Time Cop, and those types of media where there was such a strong post-Mad Max aesthetic at work. I really fell in love with the look, and my artist – Rolands Kalinins – has a style that is very evocative of that late 90s grunge vibe like you’d see in Heavy Metal magazine.
[7:38 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Very nice. Would you consider this to be a “gonzo” post-apocalyptic setting in the vein of Gamma World?
[7:39 PM]Square Hammer: Gonzo? Maybe a little, but unlike the later editions of Gamma World, I wanted to keep it more or less grounded. Sure there’s some wacky stuff here and there, but I think for science fiction-esque tone, it’s closest to STALKER, where its a bleak and very grounded world, and the anomalic things that can be seen/interacted with are treated like nuclear bombs part 2.0. I think it also has a bit of Fallout 1 in it, where the humour I’ve tried to inject is a bit gallows without being like…Degenesis levels of bleak.
[7:41 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): What was the tech level of society pre-apocalypse?
[7:43 PM]Square Hammer: The first 4 pages of the Wastelander’s Handbook (player’s guide) give a goot overview of the timeline from the alternate 1990s up until the apocalypse in 2015. The major changes are the presence of fusion reactors intertwined with fully-aware AI, but specifically the bad 90s movie version of AI. It gives us credence to put in energy weapons that are exceedingly rare and powered armours, but without making it so ubiquitous that everyone at the end of the world is turning the Wastelands into a laser light show
[7:44 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): What is the highest level of society that can still be found post-apocalypse?
[7:46 PM]Square Hammer: The game has five main factions which are constantly vying for control and butting heads, allowing the players to interact with them and get some much needed allies in the Wastes. Most of society has a very rustic level of technology, with major settlements having electricity or even rarer, running water. The most advanced faction, Merigo, is a conglomerate of the old governments of the Old World who were frozen for a 100 years to wait things out. They come out with hyper advanced past-future tech and have started to rebuild some very small settlements to their pre-apocalypse levels, but even so, they’re more like needles in haystacks than anything.
[7:48 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Are there mutants?
[7:51 PM]Square Hammer: Absolutely! There are 8 pages of mutations (some of them inspired by Gamma World 1e’s mutations), and there’s even a faction of living tumours that want to consume everything human. I have a lovely sensitivity reader that helped me with gracefully including slaves in the setting, and something she added was the push and pull between human-enough slaves and mutant serfs, which is a more nuanced take than a lot of other games which deal with those themes usually include. In a more player-centric sense, the old ‘races’ of previous OSR games have been replaced with Strains, where the player can choose between being human, or 4 different kinds of mutants, plus Androids as a possible player option as well. There’s a lot of customizability and variation in NPCs and PCs included.(edited)
[7:52 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): What are the four kinds mutants?
[7:54 PM]Square Hammer: We got the Abandoned, which are the mutants of the affromentioned faction – the Vult – who have been left to die and ejected from the hive mind, very inspired by the War Bosy from Fury Road. There’s Biohorrors, the obligatory ‘LARGE’ species that are like trolls and are just massive piles of muscle and fat, dumb as bricks but pack a punch. There are Ghosts, human remains that have mutated and gathered mechanical parts in order to build themselves a new body to protect their squishy insides. And then Gaspers, large chitin covered insect-humanoids that have natural weapons poking out of their exoskeleton.
[7:56 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): The Ghosts sound pretty freaky.
[7:57 PM]Square Hammer: They and the Gaspers have a special rule where NPCs (and some players) have to roll a save or immediately be repulsed and take negatives to their tests. Tons of fun with psychological warfare on that part All the Strains also get a bunch of bonuses or negatives, and have a more narrow selection of what Backgrounds (classes) they can choose to go into.
[7:58 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Are there random mutations, or are all mutants members of a species that breeds true?
[7:59 PM]Square Hammer: Some of the Strains have specific Mutations (Abandoned have Half-Lifed, making them faster but die sooner), and Gaspers have a guarenteed natural weapon. Otherwise, everything is random. Each Background has a number of starting mutations they have to roll for, and as they accumulate radiation, they have a chance of developing Minor, Mental, and Major mutations. Everything from a third leg to larger eyes to cryokinesis!
[8:01 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): To have a mutation, does a PC have to be a member of one of the four mutant species? Or can an otherwise “normal” human gain a mutation?
[8:02 PM]Square Hammer: Oh normal humans can defeintely gain mutations, only Androids are immune, but still take direct damage from RAdiaiton accumulation. The only way to start off without mutations as a human is to take a specific Background where they were one of those afformentioned government assassins that woke up after 100 years in Cryo. They can scrub themselves of any and all mutations…but that doesn’t mean they can’t eventually get them. And some mutations can be really good, increasing Attribute stats directly or making rolls easier. Of course, there are also a few that are just plain bad.
[8:04 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): What would you say is the most outlandish mutation in the game?
[8:04 PM]Square Hammer: You’re gunna make me pull up my PDF 1
[8:06 PM]Square Hammer: Oh, perfect: Overcompensated Nervous System (Mental) combined with Hyperalgesia (Minor) . Each makes you take 1.5x damage from any source, but combined it instantly doubles all damage. This can be even further combined to be bad with Analgesia, where you can’t feel any pain. So the Overseer is tracking you lose health at double the rate everyone else, until they finally say “Hey, you died”. Tons of fun 1
[8:07 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): I have to ask: Do you have anything like laserbeam eyes?
[8:08 PM]Square Hammer: Unfortunately no…you can light people on fire with pyrokinesis or fire a biological rifle that shoots maggots, but no laser eyes… At least, no laser eye mutations, but Psionics are a completely different game!
[8:10 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Are psionics treated as just another mutation, or are they their own thing?
[8:12 PM]Square Hammer: They’re their own thing, and are considered a late-game power you can acquire. The main 3 pathways of getting really powerful late-game are through Noomancy (collecting rare ‘magic’ items and combining their effects to make scuffed, broken powerhouses); Cybernetics; or Psionics. All of them have their pros and cons, but Psionics are usually the most dangerous options. Because they’re so powerful, they attract a whole new subset of enemies that specifically seek out and devour the minds of Psionic creatures to grow more powerful.(edited)
[8:13 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): How common are cybernetics?
[8:15 PM]Square Hammer: Very rare. The only sure-fire way to get them are through a faction known as the Weepers: androids and AI that have resolved to clense the world of all technology and knowledge in the hopes that a dumb humanity is a safe humanity. Inside their hidden factories (think the Cauldrons from Horizon: Zero Dawn), players can scavenge cybernetics and really powerful technology to fuse with themselves. Of course, since the Weepers don’t like technology, that has its own threats associated.
[8:15 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): What type(s) of android can be a PC?
[8:17 PM]Square Hammer: There’s only really the one type, where they’re robotic fellas that can’t naturally heal and instead need repair kits. The players are free to flavour and spice things up as they wish, but there are always future supplements that can add new tables and origins for each of the Strains. There is a Background called the Maraduer, which are the stereotypical caveman raider types, and Androids can be Marauders, so they can roleplay as machines that hate machines and really sell the irony!(edited)
[8:18 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): So are androids indistinguishable from humans?
[8:19 PM]Square Hammer: Oh no, they’re very distinguishable. What I mean to say is that the irony and hypocrisy of certain PC set-ups is not lost in the setting, and helps to really sell the immersion of the world. After all, our world is filled with weird hypocrisies and ironies, it’d only be more believable if this one was, too!(edited)
[8:20 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Makes sense.
[8:21 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Does the game include a bestiary?
[8:21 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): (I’m assuming that there are monster-type mutants.)
[8:23 PM]Square Hammer: Yup, in the Overseer’s Handbook. It’ll include everything from humanoids to mutants, to machines, to boss monsters, and other weird things. Rampant AIs, old AI-run construction equipment, giant tripodal mutant monsters, former humans that have been corrupted and withered away by the conditions of the New World. Even a tank where the operators survived since doomsday, with their flesh melting and intertwining with the systems of their vehicle. Some of the enemies are down right scary, others are pretty mundane (humans and patrolling goons or even raiders)
[8:24 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Two things there:
[8:24 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): First, the tank thing is not remotely disturbing. Nope.1
[8:25 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): And second, now I’m hearing “Giant Tripodal Mutant Monsters” to the tune of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”.
[8:27 PM]Square Hammer: Touche I mean there will be some easter eggs in there for fans of post apocalyptic media. No TMNTs unfortunately (though you could definitely build a Gasper to be one), but stuff like the ‘vampires’ from I Am Legend, to Dawn of the Dead zombies, to Fallout 4-ish monsters like Carmet Crabs!
[8:28 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Okay, I was just about to ask what a “Carmet Crab” is, but then I sounded it out in my head as I typed it. Giant mutant crabs using cars like a hermit crab uses shells?
[8:30 PM]Square Hammer: Exactly! Busses, legally distinct VW Beetles, old APCs, they get stuck in there can can be found in dungeons, urban areas, and the wilderness. There’s a whole random encounter table for seeing what you will find in the various biomes and dungeon levels as the players explore. Stacking an encounter to be a challenge but winnable? What’s that?
[8:31 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): So I’m assuming that when a Carmet Crab needs gas, it stops at Shell?
[8:31 PM]Square Hammer:
[8:31 PM]Square Hammer: That’s what you get for that pun.
[8:31 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Sorry. There was just something about giant crabs in cars that demanded a pun.
[8:32 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Do you have a character sheet that we can see?
[8:32 PM]Square Hammer: I do! I had an older version that i’ve been reworking. Currently have a 2-page ‘basic’ sheet, but when players get to the late-game and higher levels, there’s a 3rd/4th sheet that has stuff for psionics and cybernetics
[8:33 PM]Square Hammer: This is the most recent version which will be uploaded once the KS is completeEarth_After_Death_Character_Sheet.pdf1.45 MB
[8:33 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Great! Let’s have a look here…
[8:36 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Am I correct that this is a game with classes and levels using an attribute + skill mechanic?
[8:36 PM]Square Hammer: Exactly. Add the Skill’s Modifier (10s column) to the Attribute, that is the number you have to roll under with a d20. Rolling the exact number you need is a Crit!(edited)
[8:39 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): I think I’m reading something wrong there… Are you saying that if the Skill’s Modifier is 3 and the Attribute is 2, the roll-under number will be 32?
[8:39 PM]Square Hammer: So if a skill is 30, its modifier is +3. And if the associated Attribute is 10, then the number you need is a 10+3
[8:40 PM]Square Hammer: Its inspired partly from how the Dark Heresy RPG deals with Degrees of Success
[8:42 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Oh, okay. totally misread that.
[8:42 PM]Square Hammer: Totally okay!
[8:44 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): You said that the exact number is a Crit, but does degree of success matter, and if not, does the quality of a Crit vary with the Attribute Modifier + Skill?
[8:46 PM]Square Hammer: I wanted to keep things very simple so as not to confuse people with different degrees of success. The main four outcomes are success (roll under), failure (roll over), Crit (roll the exact number you need), and Crit Failure (which is always a 20). One little loophole I found and I am deciding NOT to change is that using Luck, a player can Burn a luck activation to force the test to succeed as if they rolled a 1. The thing is, if you stack the deck enough, you can lower your test number with penalties to the point that you NEED a 1, and then burning that Luck gives you an instant Crit. I’m leaving it in because:
- it’s funny
- luck activations are super hard to get back
- and you can’t burn luck in combat, so you can’t trivialize every encounter that way
[8:48 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): So if you were trying to pull that off, if you had a total score of 12, you’d try to give yourself 11 points worth of penalties?
[8:50 PM]Square Hammer: Exactly. You’d say “oh I wanna not use any of my tools and get a -5. Oh, I also wanna blindfold myself and get -3.” Because the MINIMUM value you can roll is a 1, so you can just give yourself negatives out the wazoo until you just get by with dumb luck. Truly the Idiot Savant experience if you play that way
[8:52 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Oh yea… Definitely penalties…
[8:52 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): (Okay, so my typed Rain Man impression needs work.)1
[8:54 PM]Square Hammer: I’ve played so many games that value balance over fun. Perfect example: 5e. Its so homogenized and balanced that it isn’t fun. You go down the Necromancer route, you cant raise the dead until like level 4 and then you get to being back 1 skeleton. Like come on. In this, I wanted to have fun just making it weird and wild, Balance be damned. All the Backgrounds and Strains have something to offer, but its up to the players to make a build thats broken. Because in all honesty, it won’t save them.
[8:57 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Can the game handle Skill totals in excess of 20?
[8:59 PM]Square Hammer: It can! Criticals max out at 19, and 20s are always a crit failure. The point of pushing something above 20 is twofold: 1, to make sure you can handle any penalties coming your way. And 2, some non-test bonuses are gained by pushing a total Skill+Attribute total to 20+. For instance, if a player’s Awareness+Perception total reaches 20+, they can literally make tests to dodge bullets. Otherwise, most players can dodge melee attacks but have to hope that when they’re getting attacked with a gun, the enemy fails.(edited)
[9:02 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): How is weapon damage rated?
[9:06 PM]Square Hammer: Weapon damage is a thing I’m very proud of, probably the one thing I hope my system is known for. Weapons deal damage to the effect of a base damage stat + dice (for melee weapons, base is usually 1/2 of strength, but for guns its a set number). While melee weapons have a set number of dice, guns have a varying number starting at a single dice, from a d3 to a d12. Weapons have firing modes, where the number of ammunition dots you spend equals the number of damage dice you roll. This solves the problem of having to count ammunition in a apocalypse, without making it feel like you’re doing Grade 12 math. The basic premise is: single shot is 1 dice, double-tap is 2, burst is 3, and Full-Auto is any number of dice between 4 and the maximum ammunition the gun can hold. You do have to declare this before you roll, because if you want to try and drain your magazine to deal 8d6 damage to a single target…there’s a chance you can miss and waste all those precious bullets. My editor and I have dubbed it the Ambiguous Ammunition System.(edited)
[9:10 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Heh.
[9:10 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): How does armor work in the system?
[9:11 PM]Square Hammer: It acts as damage threshold. If you don’t do enough damage, it blocks everything. But, if you go even a single point of damage above, it deals that amount of HP damage, AND your armour begins to degrade. There is a full armour and weapon degradation system in place, to really sell that this is a game where you have to take care of your weapons. It’s meant to be appropriate but not super intrusive, because – again – nothing kills tensions and excitement more than long-form math.
[9:14 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Hmm… I’m a little torn there. I like the simplicity, but when I hear that it’s no damage or full damage, I’m thinking that a hit found a weak spot in the armor… but that would seem to be a matter of accuracy, not damage level.
[9:15 PM]Square Hammer: Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to say that a single point above causes you to take ALL the damage. Rather it acts as a threshold AND mitigates damage too! It’s just the moment you take HP damage, the armour degradation begins.
[9:16 PM]al spader (Sentience, Once Upon): Had you considered injuries instead of HP in the design?
[9:18 PM]Square Hammer: I did once upon a time. The method for tracking health is a fickle one, because you have to balance HP inflation with general weapon damage. Major Injuries are something players can sustain if they take enough damage, which leads to penalties to various things. But HP was always circled back to simply for ease of tracking exactly where the players and enemies stood in a conflict. But that isn’t to say that a knife that does 1d4 damage isn’t dangerous to someone with 100 HP. That’s why the rules for “Getting shot in the **ing head” exist – verbatim – in the book. It acts as a death save to remind people that you WILL die if you goad the NPC to stab you in the neck even with a 1d4 damage knife.1
[9:21 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): 1d4get about it, amirite?1
[9:23 PM]Square Hammer: Personal quandry, but my opinion is that a lot of games treat death as a more narrative tool than an actual threat. It really depends on the game, but with lower stakes come lower highs. Coming in clutch when you have a million different things trying to kill you is what the best stories are usually composed of, and I wanted that to be present in my game. Plus, it can make certain boss monsters easy if you have a well-placed sniper rifle, because they can very well do the same to you!
[9:24 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Very true!
[9:24 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): What sort of mechanic do psionics use in the game?
[9:26 PM]Square Hammer: They hit a lot of different niches. They can be used as direct weapons, to more utility powers (passing through solid walls and such), to even enhancing a player’s strength beyond normal limits. There is a lot of synergy between Psionics and some Nootropic (read: “””magic”””) items, so while most Psionics have a cooldown, you can instantly bypass that cooldown with an item and turn yourself into a crazed mind-flaying psycho!1
[9:29 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): How broad are psionic powers?
[9:30 PM]Square Hammer: I’d say quite. I believe there’s a list of 30 or so, one of which allows you to stare down an opponent and cause them so much itnernal damage that their head expodes! Another allows you to turn any light source – be it a flashlight beam or a fire – into a laser beam! Not quite the same as laser eyes, but close!
[9:31 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): What do you call that? Photokinesis, maybe?
[9:31 PM]Square Hammer: Literally called that yes!
[9:32 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Go me! \o/1
[9:33 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): In any case, when I say “broad” in this context, I’m speaking in terms of the number of effects that a given power can produce.
[9:34 PM]Square Hammer: Ah! Some are quite narrow, while others are very much up to player and Overseer interpretation. I wanted to give the descriptions enough mechanical backing, but left enough wiggle room that players could get creative and do things with them that they couldn’t with their regular mental mutations. So it really varries!
[9:34 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Gotcha.
[9:35 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Oh, I almost forgot: When I was looking over the character sheet and read the “Large Arms” skill under Strength, the first thing that popped into my head was literally one’s skill at using big, muscular arms.1
[9:36 PM]Square Hammer: Well Big Guns was a bit on the nose, so instead LArge Arms comes in to cover everything from miniguns to rocket launchers!1
[9:36 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Is there anything we haven’t covered that you’d like to bring up?
[9:37 PM]Square Hammer: I think the only thing we didn’t touch on is the dungeon and wilderness generators. There are so many charts for making custom dungeons, from skyscrapers to sewer systems to subway tunnels, the game is meant to exist in a post-apocalyptic world. It isn’t just reskinned “dungeons”, it’s meant to be you crawling through the detritus of humanity, which I think is pretty darn cool
[9:38 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Definitely!
[9:38 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): I can see how that would make for a good “sandbox” game.1
[9:38 PM]Square Hammer: Precisely!
[9:39 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Thanks very much for joining us, @Square Hammer!
[9:39 PM]Square Hammer: Thank you for the oppertunity!
[9:39 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): Usual reminder: If you’ve enjoyed this Q&A and would like to treat me to a coffee or two, you can do so at https://www.ko-fi.com/gmshoe. Anything’s appreciated! Ko-fiBuy Dan Davenport a Coffee. ko-fi.com/gmshoeBecome a supporter of Dan Davenport today! ❤️ Ko-fi lets you support the creators you love with no fees on donations.
[9:39 PM]Dan (Hardboiled GMshoe): If you’ll give me a minute, I’ll get the log posted and link you!1