We Want You! "Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic" is Now Live on Kickstarter!

Over the years various people have asked me why I only make content for existing games instead of making my own game. Well, about 5 years ago I started doing that very thing. Though there have been some ups and downs, today marks the final straightaway of this particular journey, because my TTRPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic is currently live on Kickstarter!

EDIT: The game funded, and Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic is now available on DTRPG!

While I'm trying to spread the word to help it get funded, I also wanted to give my readers a peek behind the scenes to see how the sausage is made, and to talk about the journey that led to this place a little bit. And, of course, to talk about the aspects of the game I think folks will enjoy, should they choose to help make it a reality!

Art by Anonymous Katsudon, found in the Army Men book!

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

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What Is Army Men?

Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic is an RPG where you take on the roles of soldiers within the Plastos Federation. You choose your resin (green, gray, blue, red, or tan), your cast (medic, grunt, ordinance, tactician, or scout), customize your backgrounds and abilities, and then you are all formed into a squad sent off into the field. Whether you're exploring the wilderness and seeking deposits of much-needed resources for your home nations, you've been sent to reinforce a battle line, or you're on patrol to deal with the threat of the Vespoids (colossal, insectoid creatures that have put the Federation into a state of constant, military readiness), there's no shortage of threats for your squad to contend with!

Or, put another way, you're all living plastic people in a living plastic world, just trying to survive against the various threats that come knocking on your doorstep.

And to get out in front of several of the questions folks have asked, this is not a Toy Story style situation. The resinous peoples in the game are all human-sized, and the world they live in is written from the perspective of these characters. However, there is definitely a streak of the absurd running through the game that I feel makes it similar to Pugmire in its tone. This gives you a lot of flexibility, allowing you to do big, silly, bombastic stories that just feel like toys fighting each other (and which could just be the story a bunch of kids are making up around their games of plastic, backyard warfare), but you can also run tense survival-horror scenarios, stories about the scars of war, or anything else that your table can think of!

What About The Mechanics?

Army Men's engine uses the parts of Dungeons and Dragons that went into the Creative Commons recently, with a lot of tweaks and changes to help make it into a more tactical game. For example, there are additional options one can take during combat regarding cover, laying down distracting fire, and even shaking their comrades out of shock and fear so they can keep fighting. There's also 5 resins to choose from for your character, 5 casts (classes), along with 3 separate paths for each cast. There's also a bunch of fresh backgrounds, as well as the Exploits System, which replaces feats, but gives everyone a wider choice of abilities, and characters gain 1 exploit every odd-numbered level regardless of which casts they're choosing.

But wait, there's more!

Not everything in Army Men is about added complexity, though. In fact, there are a lot of mechanics in it that have been streamlined, simplified, or outright chucked out the window so that GMs and players don't have to deal with them anymore.

As a for-instance, this game has no XP; players simply level up after completing a certain number of missions. There's also no treasure to balance for the GM, because characters are all members of the armed forces; you requisition your equipment before you're sent into the field. That means you have the ability to give them as much (or as little) as you want to directly affect the challenge of the mission. There's also simplified rules for ammunition tracking, including the Hollywood Guns feature for folks who want to run a game that feels more like The Expendables or one of the later Rambo films.

Is There More Coming?

The Kickstarter for this game is set at $6k, but we do have some fun stretch goals in place. As Josh Heath said on the Dads With Nerdy Ambitions podcast (Steve Plays With Army Men is the episode), at $10k we're going to offer a d20 set of dice in the traditional, army green with gold numbers to ensure you've got your standard-issue polyhedrals by your side. And if that wasn't enough, at $15k the stretch goals will include an option for an ammo can to keep your materials in so that you're ready to rock whenever it's time to go on your next mission.

But what's coming down the pipe?

While the core rulebook for Army Men gives you everything you need to play the game, including a starting mission module, my hope is that this is merely the first step into a much larger world. I currently have ideas for a lot of extra content, ranging from missions Game Masters can run their players through, additional antagonists for the setting, expanded weapons, gear, and even advancing the meta story beyond the initial Vespoid conflict.

However, a lot of that is going to depend on you, the folks reading this right now.

The game is an all-or-nothing Kickstarter, meaning we need to at least hit the initial goal to make it happen. However, the more funding it generates, the bigger a message it sends to High Level Games that this is a good investment, and the more time it will buy me to put out additional content going forward.

The initial game took me roughly 2 years to write all the content for, because I had to squeeze it in between all the other TTRPG projects that were actually paying my bills. But if I could dedicate a lot of time and energy to expanding the setting, and adding new elements, folks would see follow-up projects coming to market a great deal more quickly. And, of course, if we had a bigger budget that would mean we could reach out to other creators, and put teams to work on future installments rather than keeping things small and controlled as we did with this initial game.

So, if you made it this far and Army Men sounds like a game you'd love to play, go back the Kickstarter today! Additionally, consider sharing the campaign on your social media pages, in your groups, or just telling your table about us... any and all help is greatly appreciated!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Daily Motion channel!. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Help Owen K.C. Stephens Roll His Save Against Cancer (And The Healthcare System)

While some folks in the RPG community may not know Owen K.C. Stephens by name, chances are good they're still familiar with his work. A major hand on Pathfinder and Starfinder, he's made content for games like Star Wars Saga, Fantasy AGE, Savage Worlds, 13th Age, and more over his many years in the field. Chances are good that if you went through the books on your shelf (or the PDFs in your folders) that you'd find his name in the contributor section for a lot of stuff you've played over the years.

While he's been a recognizable name, though, he'll also be the first to tell you that nobody who works in the RPG field is paid well... some of us might be paid well for RPGs, but that's not the same thing. And when you wind up having to fight cancer, well, that's when you need all the help you can get.

For someone who has given us so much, let us return that aid in a time of need.

Call The Banners!

Back in February, Owen suffered a pulmonary embolism, which as you'd imagine sent him to the hospital. And while he was in the hospital he was diagnosed with stage 2 cancer. Now that's a rough 1-2 punch for anyone, but it's also important to remember that we're talking about the American healthcare system, here. That means that each day in the hospital still costs thousands of dollars after insurance, and he was in the hospital for several days before he was able to go home again.

While Owen still intends to keep making games and creating lovely toys for all of us to use, it's times like these when a designer could really use the support of the community.

And there are several ways we can make that happen.

And get some great games in the bargain!

If you're on most social media accounts, you've probably seen Owen's Medical Bills Bundle #1, and Owen's Medical Bills Bundle #2 by now. They were getting a lot of attention in the Drive Thru RPG hottest offers, and the response to them was pretty good overall. And if you're looking for a way to help Owen cover his bills so he can come out on top of this situation, grabbing both of them is a great way to do that.

Between the 2 bundles there's over 180 PDFs for a dozen systems, as well as system agnostic content you can use in your games. The estimated value is over $1,500 for all of this stuff put together, and you can get both bundles for around $70 total (or $34.95 each). Pathfinder, Starfinder, DND 5E, 13th Age, Savage Worlds, Shadow of The Demon Lord, Shotguns and Sorcery, setting books, GM tools, and a slew of other stuff that will make your head spin, and all of it available for a ridiculously low price to help out a good cause.

That's not all the options, of course.

But if you've already grabbed the bundles, or you're wondering what else you can do to help, I wanted to give a few additional options, as well. So if you want to go above and beyond the call of duty, consider:

- Becoming one of Owen's Patreon patrons.

- Bookmark and follow his blog.

- Follow Owen on Twitter (yeah, it's falling apart, but a replacement has yet to take its place)

It might not seem like much, but as someone who's been in this profession a few years myself, it does make a difference. Even if you can only afford to give a little tip every now and again on Patreon, or you just act as a regular participant and commenter on social media, if a lot of people all do that, it really does add up when all is said and done.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Daily Motion channel!. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Would You Like To See Books From Golarion? (A Meta Game Project Proposal)

Folks who've been following my blog for a while know that, in addition to writing straight-up rules content and GM supplements for RPGs, I have a soft spot for tie-in fiction. Given that The Irregulars was my first professional credit with an RPG company (a short story about a team of black ops saboteurs working for Andoran in the Golarion setting), that shouldn't really surprise anyone. While I've written my share of other stories, such as the Silver Raven Chronicles that details my group's journey through the Hell's Rebels adventure path, as well as Warhammer 40K short stories like Blackest Knights and The Emperor's Hand (stories about Deathwatch black shields, and a new Gav and Bob adventure respectively), I had an idea for a new project that might grab some folks' interest.

In short, rather than writing stories about fictional settings, the idea would be to write books found within those fictional settings... and Golarion is where I'd specifically start this proposed project.

Also, seriously, grab a copy of this if you haven't yet!

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

A Little Piece of The Setting in Your Hands

For folks who haven't checked it out yet, 100 Books To Find Across The Inner Sea dropped this past weekend. It's my second Pathfinder Infinite supplement, and while it's a little more general than my first piece 150 Sights To See (And Rumors To Hear) in Absalom, it also gave me a weird idea as I was putting it together.

What if I actually wrote some of the books on this list, and made them available through the Pathfinder Infinite platform?

It's a little unconventional, I'll admit.

For anyone who's played Skyrim, the basic idea would be do what that game did and actually write books players could find in the setting in their entirety. While fun to read on their own, they would also act as examples of the books that characters might have read growing up, or which they might wile away the hours wtih on long journeys as they pursue the objectives of their various quests. Whether folks wanted to grab one of the Dark Tales volumes, which contain gothic horrors and romances in the style of Ustalavian author Ailson Kindler, stories from The Lion's Quiet Roar which are basically a fantasy version of James Bond's tales told with Taldor as the heroes, or even a novel like Love and Blood: A Romance in Gray which tells the tale of a young noblewoman hiding her bloodline in Galt who's new lover is actually one of the nation's infamous Gray Gardeners.

On the one hand, I'm the first to admit this is kind of a silly idea for a project. It would also be extremely time and energy intensive, even if I managed to get other creators in on it to make the project go a little faster, much like I did with the Tales From The Moot collection of short stories for Werewolf: The Apocalypse. And, much as it pains me to say this, the rules of platforms like Pathfinder Infinite are quite clear; products made through them are digital only, so these wouldn't be novels like the Pathfinder Tales that you could buy at cons, or down at your local bookstore. They'd be ebooks only under the current rules.

Unless someone reading this happens to have the ear of Paizo's publishing team, in which case have them shoot me an email and I'll work up a full proposal for any of these books!

But that's my question for my readers this week. Is this the sort of project you think you'd be interested in? If so, which of the titles in 100 Books To Find Across The Inner Sea would you like to see expanded into a full meta book? Or if you're more interested in more game materials, what other supplements would you like to see me add to Golarion in the future? Are there any particular nations, cities, classes, or topics you want to see covered?

Toss it all in the comments below!

Lastly, There's The Possibility of a Podcast

If you've been watching my updates, then you know that I've been making a lot of audio dramas over the past year or so. I've even considered finishing out the Silver Raven Chronicles (which only 4 parts at time of writing) in an audio format. However, if folks would like a series of tales told round the campfire, stories of the Baba Yaga, the adventures of legendary figures that may or may not have happened in Golarion, etc., that is also a possibility if it's something folks would tune-in to listen to.

Speaking of ongoing narrations, I also wanted to remind readers that right now I'm putting together a series of crossover stories between Geist: The Sin Eaters and Mage: The Awakening. The above story is taken from my 50 Geists supplement, and it tells the story of how former mob hitter Johnny Hammer came to be the right hand of the creature called the Six Gun Saint. In 100 Shadow Names (And Their Meanings) we find out that Johnny's former boss, Tony Gracchus, awakened as a newly-minted Moros. Young and arrogant, he took the name Cyprian, and the necromancer has been using his power in ways that have alienated a lot of the community. It's likely that behavior is one reason the Saint chose Johnny as his new triggerman, and the two of them are set on a collision course for one hell of a reckoning.

So if that's something you'd like to see me add to in the coming months, consider grabbing copies of the supplements so I can convince the publisher that these game lines are worth making more material for, subscribe to the Azukail Games YouTube channel, and help me spread the word!

And, of course, if you have any particular supplements you'd like to see for those game lines, leave those in the comments as well!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Daily Motion channel!. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Which of My Ongoing Series Would You Like To See Continue?

Over the 10 years or so that I've been running Improved Initiative I've started a lot of different series. While many of them have waxed and waned in popularity, I thought I'd take this Monday to ask my regular readers which one of these series you'd like to see get more attention going forward. And if you're a relatively recent addition to my audience on here, you might find a series you haven't even come across yet!

So if you have a strong opinion about what you want to see more of, leave it in the comments below! Or if you want me to start a new series discussing something I didn't mention here, or haven't covered yet, let me know. If enough people request the same thing then it's definitely something that will get my attention going forward.

The floor is yours!

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

#1: Character Conversions List

Perhaps the biggest and longest-running list of all the ones on this blog, this series currently has 63 entries on it! They range as far afield as Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones, to Harley Quinn from DC Comics, to The Incredible Hulk, Guts from Berserk, all the way to the Death Korps of Krieg in the Warhammer 40K universe.

It's a pretty big project, admittedly.

This series was a major breadwinner for a time, but it's grown steadily less and less popular in terms of views. Which makes sense, given that it was conceived primarily for Pathfinder's first edition, and while I love that game it's definitely seen its player base diminished over the past few years. If you add in the lack of searchability that articles hosted on Vocal have, along with conversion fatigue (since it seems the thirst for this kind of content has largely passed), I've been only adding to it sporadically.

With that said, if folks want to see this project renewed, check out the Character Conversions master list, and share your favorite guides on social media! The more reads they get, the more likely it is that I'll boost this series up over 100 entries.

#2: 5 Tips

Speaking of long-running projects that have gotten pretty involved over the years, my 5 Tips series has quite a number of entries as well! Perhaps the runner-up in terms of numbers (depending on how you count the entries) there are over 40 articles in this series touching on everything from base classes, to player species, to broader pieces of advice like 5 Tips For Creating Fantasy Towns and Cities, 5 Tips For Roleplaying Characters With Mental Disorders, and even 5 Unusual Martial Arts For Your Monks.

There's still plenty of topics to cover with this one!

This series has met with a lot of successes, and a lot of duds, over the years. A recurring theme folks will notice, of course, is that stuff hosted on Vocal hasn't gotten the views I need it to in order to feel like it's worth continuing. That said there are still several books worth of classes I could cover, as well as everything outside the standard species players usually have access to. I could even expand the tips list to cover Starfinder classes and species, or switch this over to cover more World/Chronicles of Darkness concepts, which I already started with entries like 5 Tips For Running Better World of Darkness Games, as well as 5 Tips For Running Changeling: The Lost Games.

#3: Awful Characters You Meet in Your Gaming Career

This series got started off with a one-off joke in the form of The 5 Awful Paladins You Will Meet in Your Gaming Career. The sheer amount of stories people swapped over these 5 archetypes of painful player character took days to die down, and it still sees occasional spikes. It felt like I'd tapped into something people wanted more of, so I followed it up with other entries. While there was still interest, it seemed to have seriously diminishing returns over time. So far the list includes:

- 5 Eye-Rolling Rogues

- 5 Bothersome Bards

- 5 Infuriating Fighters

- 5 Cringey Clerics

While not as numerous as the first two entries on this list, this is the one that felt like it had the most potential in terms of audience interest. What I don't know is whether folks just stopped reading it because the novelty wore off (entirely possible), or the algorithm stopped it from finding its way to folks' faces. Regardless, though, if this is a series you'd like to see more of, share the entries, and maybe comment some of the classes (or even species) you'd like to see more of!

#4: Gaming Etymology

Etymology has a soft spot in my heart, and it's something that always fascinates me. This goes double when it comes to the creatures, classes, etc. that wind up in our games. From articles like What It Really Means To Be a Swashbuckler? to What is a Barbarian?, I had a lot of fun putting these together. When it comes to the projects I work on, though, fun takes a distant second to what will actually get the reads I need to keep the lights on around here.

There are a lot of other subjects to cover, still!

You know the drill by now, of course. If you liked this project, check out the Gaming Etymology master list, and help boost the signal so I can justify putting some more of these together in the near future!

#5: Alignment Deep Dives

While I eliminated the alignment system from my own setting, Sundara: Dawn of a New Age (more on that in the video below), I've always found the absolutism of alignment a fascinating, philosophical discussion. And while it's often very gray and very squishy, sometimes there are enough examples in a character's canon that you can genuinely sus out which of the 9 boxes they fit into... roughly speaking.

The project's original goal was to find at least one character of every alignment box to operate as an example of who best fit into that little square. However, I only got around to really covering The Punisher, Robocop, and Captain America before the project went into the fridge for a while. If you'd like me to pick it back up again, consider suggesting some characters along with sharing any of the existing articles!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Daily Motion channel!. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!