Fueled by Pain ver. 1.0

It overwhelmed me once again. I found out that I am unable to create quality artwork under pressure. And I found it the hard way, even though all pressure I felt was 100% self-exerted.

I will come back to this game - I put way too much heart into Pain to give up. But I need another break.

Meanwhile, I present you the full game mechanics of Pain RPG. It's a very simple, percentile ruleset, based on my Perilous Ages game. You should be able to post comments in the document, so feel free to ask questions and post your ideas and concerns.

FUELED BY PAIN ver 1.0

PAIN RPG - more substantial info about the game!

 

Inspired Artisan. Or maybe a Banana Warlock?

Few days ago I realized that every information I've already posted about the game is just some cryptic, in-game mumbo jumbo and that people don't really know any concrete information about the overall premise. It's time to change it!

GENRE

I'd say Science Fantasy. Even though technology is ever-present, not many inhabitants of the City understand how things work. In fact, they don't even understand the nature of their bodies. Also, there's magic. So yes, Science Fantasy is the best term to describe the game's genre.

SETTING

Only one City (named... Pain) remained after the cataclysm that destroyed the world one thousand years ago. And - of course - there is a vast Underworld below it. From the huge scrapyard of Rust, through the accursed Bone Forest and mysterious Sorrow, down to the ultimate corruption of the Machine - device which was used by the Hollow Ones to 'save the world' - which, of course, didn't go well.

RULESET

Percentile but very streamlined, kept in the OSR vibe. I grew up on WFRP 1e (as most of Polish gamers of my generation), so I'm very fond of % rules. They are extremely easy to tweak and hard to break. But, if someone decides to ditch the mechanics, I'll provide some (very general) guidelines how to adjust monster stats to the old-school D&D or modern retroclones.

THE FORM

Almost all descriptions of the setting will be presented in form of in-game quotes. And these quotes are sometimes contradictory. This way every GM can build his/her own vision of the game world.

And there will be maps. Probably lots of maps. Slightly artpunky maps. But I want to make them somewhat readable (and usable).

And there will be random tables. I love random tables. There will be over a hundred of them. Because I enjoy making them.

THE ARTWORK

I'm not a professional artist (although I sell my artwork from time to time) and I have no training in art. But I want to make almost all artwork for the game myself. The results may vary. But I enjoy the process and the results are acceptable (at least IMO). You can see the example above. It's not my best one but I'm not ashamed of it, haha!

I most likely forgot about something really important. Feel free to ask questions!

Some news about my recent RPGish activities

 

 

Guys and gals - I have some news to share with you. Both great and small. Well, mostly small...

• First - the biggest news! I finally finished writing Pain RPG. It took me a long time - and a long, seven-month break. But after it I managed to finish everything I had left to do in eight days! You can read more detailed report HERE.
  
• I've decided to shut down my Patreon page. I am waaaay too inconsistent with the pace of my work to charge people money for just waiting. Well, it was worth a shot but I'm sorry for inconvenience.
• As you are probably well aware, I don't know shit about promoting my games. But I keep trying. So, After eight years of dropping the initial account, I created a Twitter account for the Pain. You can find the link below (yeah, that big-ass, ugly text at the bottom.
• What are my plans for MMXXII? Well, playtesting! And drawing. I must make about 90 new drawings for the game (I even posted a detailed list on my MeWe page yesterday). And lots of maps. And after testing the shit out of the game and creating about 75% of all artwork, I will MAYBE launch the Kickstarter campaign. Yeah, I know what I've written in this post. But well, I must overcome my fears, self-doubt and other shit, And I have some amazing help down here, at my side! So - wish me luck!

FOLLOW THE PAIN RPG ON TWATTER

oops...

Cursed Blades (Swordtember)

 

I've already contributed to the Swordtember on the Instagram, but I realized I haven't posted any random table in a really long time! Soo, prepare a d10!

1. It permanently attaches itself to the wielder's hand
2. All damage dealt by the sword is also drained from the wielder's Hit Points
3. Wielder becomes deaf and mute when the sword is drawn
   
4. All healing magic directed at the sword's owner drains his/her HP instead of healing
5. Sword hits automatically but deals maximum of 1 damage
6. Wielder becomes blind for 1d6 minutes for each natural 1 rolled to-hit
7. Each time the sword is drawn it drains 1 HP from its wielder
8. The blade attracts insects and vermin - also the giant ones
9. Each time the sword is drawn it produces a very loud sound of a bell
10. The sword deals 1d4 additional damage but if its wielder is on full HP all attacks miss
    

Step up in the cross-section mapping

I love cross-section maps. In many cases, they are much more evocative and inspiring than ordinary maps of the regions (I'm not talking about dungeons and hexcrawl). And Pain rulebook will contain mainly such maps.

Also, I realized that I made some progress with my maps. Here is an example from January 2012:

And here is the most recent one I made for my current project:

 

Of course, the second one is much more abstract. But I fell in love with artpunk.

 

If you like my work and want to support me, please consider joining my Patreon.

Pain Discord channel

 

If you're interested in chatting about the game:

https://discord.gg/7xFp44g2j9

Pain RPG - the Trophy Room

 

Located in the maze of dungeons between Upper and Lower Cities, the Trophy Room is the largest known (has anyone actually seen it?) collection of skulls, skeletons and taxidermied animals in the entire City. Some of them originate from before the Fall.

>> some were brought from the outside
>> off-world artifacts
>> from the Shattered Moon
>> and beyond

Some outcasts from the Biologists claim that some of the trophies are still alive in huge vats, operated by the keepers bound by the ancient oath.

***

I've come up with an idea for this place about three years ago, when I started to work on Pain again, after years of hiatus. But it doesn't end there!

As I mentioned in this post, most entries in the description of the setting will have a short random tables, called the Emblems. In Trophy Room's case, I went much farther. I made a table of random trophies. A d% table. And I managed to finish it in one and half days!

Here are the first 20 entries from the table:

1. The Clockwork Crow
2. Blue Neural Core, preserved in a jar
3. Preserved skinless crocodile
4. A petrified troglodyte
5. Skull of cybernetically enhanced human
6. An Extraplanar Decahedron
7. Spider-squid in a water tank
8. An Ultraviolet Ladybug
9. Stuffed Newt Drake
10. A huge, eyeless, albino fish
11. Head of an enormous, four-eyed ape
12. Six-winged Swordfish
13. Dreamvoid Spectre in a stasis field
14. Skull of a Rat Man
15. Rust Gnasher's egg
16. A Void Spawn chrysalis
17. Huge Quartz Anemone
18. Stuffed Beetle Man
19. A Graveborn Larva
20. Toad Warrior's head

If you enjoy my work, consider dropping me few coins on Patreon. I will post a full table there!

Pain progress report 8/2021

 

 

Things are getting better for the game. I took an over 2-months break from working on the game (here I explained how I managed to get back on track) but now I enjoy designing new stuff even more than before.

GENERAL PROGRESS

• I rearranged the entire rulebook. In my previous vision, almost all lore about the game world was packed into one huge chapter, the Book of Keys. It was fun design-wise but I realized it would be a totall mess to find particular information there, despite being sorted alphabetically.
• I can't speak for other designers, but when I rearrange the old stuff in the project I'm working on, I always come up with some new ideas and re-evaluate the ones that already exist. Thus, I completely removed the descriptions of three locations (or maybe four), as I found them being too shitty. I mean, they weren't bad per se - but they were noticeably weaker than the rest. Also...
• ...I realized that I can't describe all places shown on the map. It always pissed me off in some products (I'm looking at you, World of Darkness) that everything was already fully described, leaving no place for my own ideas. Moreover - for me, things that exist only on the map and not in the world description add more mystery to the whole picture.
• So, as I kicked out three locations, I've already added two more! The Obsidian Maelstrom (for the sake of things described in the previous point, I'll leave you with the name only.... for now) is already described, the Shrines of Vortex still await being fleshed out.
• I... rather dislike detailed encumbrance rules, I always stuck with common sense. But I know that many folks prefer at least some description of how much junk can characters carry, so I added literally three sentences about it to the rules section.
• The Emblems were born - short lists of random items and quotes (mixed together) for almost each aspect of the setting. I need to make almost 500 of them, so far I have slightly over 100.
• More quotes. There will be almost no typical descriptions of the game world - everything will be presented in form of quotes. Lots of them. I managed to write about 15 new ones. I have no ideas how many quotes are already made - probably hundreds.

And all of this within one week! Which brings us to the second part of the report, which is...

THE PACING

I enjoy working on this game alot. But I enjoyed it before - and burned out. Now I must keep the right tempo and not strain myself too much. Now I try to create something new every day - but not too much. Also, I don't push myself. Right now I'm not bound by any deadlines - so I exploit this fact, haha!

Quick advice to all of you - IF YOU EVER COME UP WITH AN IDEA TO CREATE A D666 TABLE WITH AT LEAST TWO SENTENCE DESCRIPTIONS FOR EACH ENTRY - DON'T TRY TO FINISH IT IN ONE MONTH!

 

If you enjoy my work, consider dropping me few coins on Patreon.

Patreon

 

 

Update: my Patreon is no more. I am not a consistent content creator, so it's quite unfair to charge people money for just waiting.

So, I decided to give it a try. I'm not very good at self-promotion, I'll keep it simple - if you enjoy my work here (and here as well), please consider droppin me few coins. The money will most likely circle back into the community.

I will still post new stuff on both my blogs, but I want to spam the Patrons with much more info - many texts I currently write for Pain (and probably also for the Void Blade), as well as both finished artwork and WIPs of them.

SUPPORT THE CAUSE!

Pain RPG website

Actually, the page (blog) for Pain RPG is up for quite some time, but I only recently started to fill it up with some information. I will post there mainly artwork and excerpts from the rulebook (however bear in mind that all the texts are prior to proofreading). Enjoy!

Also, as you can probably see, you can also find the link in the navbar.

LINK

 

Story about hitting the wall and filling the void

I knew it would look like that. It's like playing games with my mental issues - and cheating to win, haha!

I plopped into a creative abyss with Void Blade. I managed to write several pages of text and random tables and made two full pages of laid out artwork and text. And created half of a map. And then I hit a wall, again. 

Guess what happened next... 

After half a day spent in brawling with depression (played ADOM, had an amazing run, got torn into shreds by Cat Lord), my brain was immediately filled with an urge to work on Pain instead. And it actually worked - currently I'm filling the gaps in the descriptions.

Also, I realized that there is a significant flaw in my mindset - it's like a clearly visible pit in front of me, and it's filled with manure. And I still hop into it, each time. 

I often thing "I must do this", "I must do that". And that's okay. Life forces us to do things all the time. And in many cases, it's rather wise to do some things. But - at least in this case - the problem is not that I must design some less-fun stuff, like equipment lists and monster stat blocks. The problem is that it took me DECADES to figure out that it depends solely on me HOW I will make these things. How I will design them and how I will present them in the rulebook.

What does it mean for the game? From your perspective - not much. From my point of view - everything has changed. And I must hack out the significant portions of the manuscript, and rework it. But it will be fun.

Two posts in a row? I must be outta my mind!

Void Blade

 

I knew that I will need to take a rest from writing Pain. But it seems that it will be longer than two months - I'm still quite burned out and overwhelmed by the work that still must be done (writing-wise - I'm not even thinking about the artwork yet!). Luckily, I feel much better nowadays.

I think there's something seriously wrong with me - even when I feel burned out, I still MUST create something. Always. It's bigger than me, and much more powerful than my laziness, haha.

I was thinking about making some third-party Mörk Borg stuff (thanks, guys, for the amazing license! I think I will add something very similar to Pain, once it's done) for the last few months. And now, when I hit the wall with my own game, it is time to make it.

So, welcome to Void Blade - a Dead World hidden inside the Dying World.

There will be six new classes, six new monstrosities, tasty random tables and a map, even more convoluted than the map in the MB rulebook!

I don't want to share too much info for now, as it's always possible that I'll hit yet another wall or that my depression will kick in once again and delay everything. Maybe I should apologize for it in advance? :D

Okay, that's it for now, maybe except one more mockup (this time I work both on images and text simultaneously) - please ignore the fact that it is slightly cut on the bottom edge - it is just a mockup after all.