[7:33 PM]JacobBlackmon: Hello! My name is Jacob Blackmon, and I am a freelance artist and sometime writer of ttrpg content. My most famous project is the Super Powered Legends, published under Rogue Genius Games. But I also do a lot of superhero and scifi themed content under Fainting Goats Games, which is what I am here to discuss. Tonight, I and Mike are here to talk about out Kickstarter: Electrocube War Adventures. These are 6 adventures written for the Valor Knights: Champions of the Electrocube War rpg. (done)
[7:34 PM]MikeLaff: @JacobBlackmon has hit most of the high notes. I’m Mike Lafferty – I run Fainting Goat Games and the BAMF Podcast.
[7:35 PM]MikeLaff: Electrocube War Adventures is (as Jacob said) a series of adventures for the Valor Knights RPG. VK RPG is an OSR system that is a variation on the Black Hack. So – it’s rules light and fast playing. You can also pick up a copy of our version of VK as an add-on in the KS. You can find the KS here. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pewpewbountyhunters/electrocube-war-adventuresKickstarterMike LaffertyElectrocube War Adventures
[7:35 PM]MikeLaff: (done)
[7:36 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Thanks, guys! The floor is open to questions!
[7:36 PM]Dan the GMshoe: So first, what is Valor Knights?
[7:37 PM]MikeLaff: Valor Knights is a rules light, OSR RPG – originally published by Bloat Games. It’s fueled by a nostalgic affection for a certain 80s cartoon that involved robots who could change into other things: car, planes, boom boxes, gorillas etc
[7:38 PM]MikeLaff: here’s the original book https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/305221/Valor-Knights–The-Electrocube-WarValor Knights – The Electrocube War – Bloat Games | DriveThruRPG.comValor Knights is a complete RPG in a zine format. VK uses a hybrid combination of The Black Hack by David Black and Th
[7:38 PM]MikeLaff: it’s awesome and you should check it out
[7:38 PM]Dan the GMshoe: For those unfamiliar, what is the Black Hack?
[7:38 PM]MikeLaff: Eric at Bloat Games was kind enough to let us do an expanded version – which contained the base rules as well as some new classes and lots of pregen PCs and enemies
[7:39 PM]MikeLaff: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/322153/Champions-of-the-Electrocube-War-Omnibus-EditionChampions of the Electrocube War: Omnibus Edition – Fainting Goat G…Valor Knights – MOBILIZE You remember that 80s cartoon with the the catchy theme synth-metal theme song and the vehicl
[7:39 PM]MikeLaff: here’s the SRD: https://the-black-hack.jehaisleprintemps.net/english/
[7:39 PM]MikeLaff: pasting from the SRD for the Black Hack:
[7:39 PM]MikeLaff: WHAT’S THIS?¶ The Black Hack (TBH) is a traditional tabletop roleplaying game, played with paper, pencils and dice – it uses that Original 1970s Fantasy Roleplaying Game as a base. But it adds and takes away elements to make it a distinct streamlined flavour of the original roleplaying game. THE CORE MECHANIC¶ Everything a character might possibly attempt that could result in failure is resolved by testing attribute stats, in order to successfully test a stat – a player must roll below it on a d20. Monsters don’t make tests – a character must avoid their attacks by making a test, the only time a monster would roll is for damage.
[7:40 PM]MikeLaff: So – it’s a streamlined OSR system
[7:40 PM]MikeLaff: what it lacks in mechanical complexity it makes up for in speed and ease of play
[7:41 PM]MikeLaff: we’ve had a metric ton of fun playing Valor Knights – so we decided to make content for it – and this adventure path is the latest enterprise in doing that
[7:41 PM]MikeLaff: also – the book is packed with a ton of fun and amazing art by Mr. Blackmon.
[7:42 PM]MikeLaff: as you can see ^’
[7:42 PM]Dan the GMshoe: That is awesome art.
[7:42 PM]JacobBlackmon: Thank you!
[7:42 PM]Dan the GMshoe: What is the Electrocube?
[7:44 PM]MikeLaff: remember those glowing cubes from the Transformers cartoon?
[7:44 PM]MikeLaff: it’s those
[7:44 PM]JacobBlackmon: In the Valor Knights universe, Electrocubes are the energy source of the Shifters — the alien robots from space who are the main characters and villains. Electrocubes can be made from any basic energy source. In the lore of the game it is learned that earth has vast resources that can be converted into Electrocube energy, so the villains: The Chaos Lords, want to control and drain Earth of its resources.
[7:44 PM]JacobBlackmon: (done)
[7:45 PM]MikeLaff: (also done)
[7:45 PM]Dan the GMshoe: (Oh, you don’t need to give us a (done) after the intro. Thanks, though!)
[7:45 PM]JacobBlackmon: cool cool
[7:46 PM]MikeLaff: did I mention the art? 
[7:46 PM]JacobBlackmon: hahaha! I think we did see the art, yes, Mike
[7:46 PM]Dan the GMshoe: …Is that yellow bot holding a can of spraypaint?
[7:47 PM]JacobBlackmon: Yes they are! That is one of the PCs from our campaign: Nitro Strike. They are really into hacktivism and art… especially graphitti art!
[7:49 PM]MikeLaff: she’s played by Alice Peng from the Babies with Knives podcast
[7:50 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Oh, cool!
[7:51 PM]Dan the GMshoe: So are the adventures in this book a campaign, or separate, unrelated adventures?
[7:53 PM]JacobBlackmon: They are intended as an Adventure Path, a full campaign. However, they are also written to be played individually, if that is wanted. Each adventure has an afterwards that descrips other things that can happen, based on the events of the adventyure. Some of these are followed in the adventures we have written. Others are not. This leaves a lot of possibilities open for a GM to create their own campaign.
[7:55 PM]JacobBlackmon: We also wanted to leave the possibility open for people to use these adventures to play in a certain other — more OFFICIALY LICENCED — rpgs that might exist in the market currently.
[7:56 PM]MikeLaff: yep – what GM couldn’t use more adventure hooks and maps, after all? And with the simplicity of the Valor Knights system – it’s a breeze to convert the adventures to other games
[7:58 PM]MikeLaff: we are at 599 out of 1000$ goal after just 7 hours
[7:58 PM]Dan the GMshoe: What do the PCs get up to, other than fighting bad transforming robots?
[7:58 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Well done!
[7:58 PM]MikeLaff: thanks!
[8:00 PM]JacobBlackmon: Well, as combat is basically 80% of any rpg and most cartoons from the 1980s, the adventures are rather basic. The are set-ups for the fight at the end. In the meantime, there is all sort of rp time provided as characters head to the adventure site. Skill tests to make, such as interacting and/or avoiding human authority figures… that sort of thing
[8:01 PM]JacobBlackmon: These adventures are each in zine format and written to be short-run sessions… usually one 3-4 hour session will be all that is needed to run one of these adventures.
[8:01 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Can you give us the premises of the adventures without spoilers?
[8:01 PM]JacobBlackmon: Certainly!
[8:02 PM]MikeLaff: The first adventure is The Knight Stalker Awakens. Here, your Valor Knights are summoned to a remote scientific outpost in the Antarctic to protect the human scientists from a Chaos Lord villain who is hunting them in a freezing blizzard.
[8:02 PM]MikeLaff: The second adventure is Metal Wars; where your Valor Knights must recover a rare mineral from a local mine to aid an injured friend.
[8:02 PM]MikeLaff: In the third adventure: Duplication Demolition, your Valor Knights must stop an evil Chaos Lord scientist from transforming a military vehicle depot into a new army of Chaos Lord clones.
[8:02 PM]MikeLaff: Adventure four is Intercepted Transmissions, where a new Valor Knight has arrived to Earth, only to be ambushed by a mercenary who plans to sell his encrypted communicator to the Chaos Lords!
[8:02 PM]MikeLaff: The fifth adventure is Impact Extraction, where your Valor Knights must race to a fallen Valor Knight starship and recover its crew and supplies before the Chaos Lords arrive.
[8:03 PM]MikeLaff: Adventure six is Rise of the Deleted! An evil Chaos Lord techno-mage has arrived to Earth and is using his powers to animate the dead chassis of all the Chaos Lords slain in battle. But to what end?
[8:04 PM]JacobBlackmon: That’s what we have so far. We hope that, through stretch goals, we can produce more adventures (up to another 4) to take characters from levels 1-10, which is what the game is designed to accomodate.
[8:05 PM]Dan the GMshoe: How does the game handle matters of scale? I’m assuming that Valor Knights are much larger and stronger than humans, for example.
[8:07 PM]JacobBlackmon: Well, as we stated before, it is a very simple rpg. The Valor Knights does not really have rules for handling the different scale of characters. However, Mike and I have discussed this on our own, and we plan to produce a small supplement that will allow human character to interect with the Valor Knights with some simple mechnics we have developed
[8:08 PM]MikeLaff: yep – working on that now. Already got some art generated for it. I suspect I’ll release it as a freebie to backers with a commercial release later
[8:08 PM]JacobBlackmon: Freebie, Mike….? Freebie? C’mon… Add-on!
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[8:09 PM]MikeLaff: alrighty
[8:10 PM]MikeLaff: but maybe we’ll have the basic rules for interacting with humans in an update
[8:10 PM]MikeLaff: there is a size difference with the smaller Shifters – the bumblebee(tm) size and smaller
[8:11 PM]MikeLaff: they are always attacked at disadvantage – which is quick and simple way to approximate how much easier it is for them to dodge with the smaller size
[8:11 PM]MikeLaff: oh – hey – here’s a description for one of our Stretch Goal adventures
[8:11 PM]MikeLaff: $2500 Adventure 8 – Nazi Robots Must Die! Time traveling hijinks as your heroes blast back to WW2 to duke it out with evil, fascist shape-changing robots.
[8:12 PM]MikeLaff: where else can you combine two of the greatest things in the world: punching Nazis and giant robots?
[8:12 PM]MikeLaff: we also have some prominent folks in the RPG world signed on to write short fiction for us at higher level stretch goals
[8:13 PM]MikeLaff: for instance – Owen KC Stephens – RPG Luminary and the original lead dev on Starfinder has proposed this story:
[8:13 PM]MikeLaff: $5500 “Lookout Point” – by Owen KC Stephens Carjack, the Chaos Lord, and Honeypot, the Valor Knight, meet up as they do once century. But this is the first time they’ve done it since coming to Earth.
[8:14 PM]MikeLaff: BTW – check out some of this art again…
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[8:15 PM]Dan the GMshoe: What classes does the game feature?
[8:16 PM]JacobBlackmon: Valor Knights has 4 classes:
[8:16 PM]JacobBlackmon: The Warrior is the basic class where character are good at fighting.
[8:17 PM]JacobBlackmon: The Support is a class that helps buff other characters with Force Fields and Electrocube Healing Rays.
[8:18 PM]JacobBlackmon: The Mini-Bot is a small scout that relies on their Luck powers to survive. They can also give their Luck to other PCs for re-rolls and other benefits
[8:20 PM]JacobBlackmon: Finally, there is the Leader, who can only be played by one player at the table. They are able to inspire their Valor Knights with motivational speeches, granting them Advantage on rolls, and have a dice pool for damage that they can use to either hit multiple opponents, or put the smack down on a single tough opponent.
[8:21 PM]MikeLaff: @JacobBlackmon we did add at least one new class in our book Champions of the Electrocube War (which is available at a discounted price as an add-on on this KS)
[8:21 PM]JacobBlackmon: In our own expansion: Champions of the Electrocube Wars, we created a fifth class: The Gestalt. This class is a giant robot made up one two or more other robots.
[8:22 PM]JacobBlackmon: They are big and hit hard, but are easy to be hit, due to their size
[8:22 PM]JacobBlackmon: My current PC in our campaign is a Gestalt: Bastion.
[8:23 PM]Dan the GMshoe: What sorts of things can the robots transform into?
[8:23 PM]MikeLaff: mainly razor scooters and espresso machines
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[8:23 PM]JacobBlackmon: hahah!
[8:23 PM]JacobBlackmon: There is a recommended list of vehicle forms that come with each class
[8:25 PM]MikeLaff: Support class tends to be tow trucks, ambulances etc
[8:25 PM]JacobBlackmon: For example, Warriors are encounraged to be full-sized cars or maybe small military vehicles. Support character are encouraged to be things like ambulances, tow-trucks, and the like. Mini-bots should be motorcycles, scooters, or tiny cars. Leaders, of course, should be large vehicles like semi-trucks, fire trucks, and th like
[8:26 PM]MikeLaff: I suppose a very small mini-bot could be a razor scooter
[8:26 PM]JacobBlackmon: There are no real rules regarding being a vehicle form (rules simple system and all that). But as Gm and player are encouraged to allow for variations in movement and abilities based on the vehicle form the PC has assumed for the purpose of game mechanics and roleplay
[8:28 PM]Dan the GMshoe: (brb)
[8:29 PM]JacobBlackmon: (I will need to head out soon, I have a hungry roommate to feed)
[8:30 PM]MikeLaff: (you guys want to wrap it up then?)
[8:31 PM]JacobBlackmon: (Yeah, I really have to head out)
[8:31 PM]Dan the GMshoe: (back)
[8:32 PM]Dan the GMshoe: Sure, we can wrap up. Thanks very much for joining us, guys!
[8:32 PM]Dan the 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! 
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[8:32 PM]JacobBlackmon: Thank you so much for having us!
[8:32 PM]Dan the GMshoe: I’ll get the log posted and get you the link!
[8:32 PM]MikeLaff: many thanks!
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