SPACE DUNGEON: BX PARADIGM is my latest and I think greatest venture into role-playing game design. After a disturbingly fallow period during the COVID-19 pandemic that saw me begin and fail to complete 2 entirely different games, I finally decided to return to the game that started it all for me and forge a new path from there.
As the name suggests, SPACE DUNGEON: BX PARADIGM is a distillation of the essence of the original SPACE DUNGEON poured into the beloved "BX" rules framework. Where the original game values detail and crunchiness for their own sake and sets them all within a framework of organized chaos that makes for a lot of fun, if that's what you enjoy, in SPACE DUNGEON: BX PARADIGM everything possible has been done to avoid detail and crunchiness in favour of a "roll and go" approach. The result (I hope!) is an SF role-playing game of unparalleled speed, smoothness, and ease of play.
Purchase of the downloadable PDF (fully indexed!) includes an official SPACE DUNGEON: BX PARADIGM character record sheet and a 2-page introductory adventure, Escape from Acheron-7. For those who may want a paper product, a print on demand version of the rulebook is also available at Lulu.com. At a slightly higher price (blame Lulu), you can also get a lay-flat coil-bound version.
POCKET-SIZE FANTASY is my first completely original fantasy role-playing game. It's a compact, old-school, one-rulebook, d6-based Fantasy RPG that is designed to be fast, fun, and flexible. It features a completely skills-based character creation system defining characters in terms of 4 basic ability scores and is designed to balance simplicity with character depth and detail.
Like pretty much everything I write, it's text that talks up, not down, to you. It combines classical 1980's gamebook feel with updated and streamlined mechanics, and is an attempt to cram as much game as possible into as little space as possible.
The result is an entire standalone Fantasy RPG in 1 slim 64-page booklet with no filler and no wasted space. It also features a completely original combat system, lineup combat, that makes ranged weapons meaningful without opening the door to tactical miniatures gaming.
SPACE DUNGEON was my first ever self-authored role playing game. Its origins lie in a fortunate convergence of several different undertakings.
In 2017 I had some time on my hands and decided to fill it by playing through a couple of excellent Shadowrun computer RPGs on iOS. I enjoyed them immensely and was struck by how successfully the time-hallowed dungeon crawl mechanic had been translated to a science fiction setting.
In early 2018 I finally got my hands on a commercial reprint of the four booklets that constituted the 1975 iteration of the Original Role-Playing Game (which cannot be named here for reasons of copyright) and asked myself the question: "What would have happened had the authors of the Original Role-Playing Game been avid fans of Golden Age science fiction instead of fantasy?" Several frenzied months followed during which I worked out a speculative answer. SPACE DUNGEON is the result.