What Is The Tower?

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This past weekend, we launched a new Kickstarter. Quietly and with very little fuss. Why? Well… this one’s a little different. It’s not a game you’ll be able to buy online or find in any stores and it will only be available through the 21-day window of this campaign. Oh, and you won’t be able to play it until I’m dead.

The Kickstarter campaign for The Tower, an unfortunate game that you can’t play until I’m dead.

While most of the posts made on this website represent our various product lines and more publicly consumable games, this one’s far too personal. And it’s difficult to explain so perhaps let’s cut straight to a passage from the Kickstarter itself.

Some ideas are a hard sell. They may have an important message you want to share with the world but there’s something about the idea that’s controversial or risky. Particularly when it comes to making a game about a terrible event that will spiral out of control in ways we never imagined until it becomes a part of modern life. You know you may never be able to share it but it never truly goes away. Until you see a sign and the opportunity suddenly presents itself. 

The Tower is a mature tabletop roleplaying game about a terrifying moment that changes the lives of the people involved. And you won’t be able to play it until I’m dead. In the spirit of Break Kickstarter, this campaign will provide you with a password-protected PDF of the finished game by the promised delivery date. The password will only be provided by me in the event of my death by natural or accidental causes. 

From The Tower’s Kickstarter page

In the first 48 hours of this campaign, we’re already approaching 300% funding. Due to the nature of this unique publication (it will technically be available through BRG but not outside of this Kickstarter), there were no plans to even include any mention of it on this website. Yet as this thing starts to catch on with a few curious backers so early into the campaign, that may change. For now, if you’ve ever been interested in any of my work as a tabletop game design and can appreciate what one backer generously referred to as “performance art,” everything you can know can be found on The Tower’s Kickstarter page.

Save 50% at the BRG Summer Sale… or Get It All For $15!

Todd Crapper Fragments, General, High Plains Samurai, Killshot, ScreenPlay , , , , , ,

Save 50% off digital copies of High Plains Samurai, ScreenPlay, Killshot, By The General’s Hand, and Dial M For Monster. Or get all 5 for just $15 as part of a bundle.

We like itch.io. As an indie publisher, it’s a welcome use of easy point-and-click tools to create a customized webstore that (in our near future) can be embedded right on your site. That’s why we’re happy to launch our BRG Summer Sale from now until July 1st, 2019.

Click here to check out the BRG Summer Sale on itch.io and please feel free to share with friends and strangers alike.

It’s Time To Make A Deal

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Who says poker and LARPs don’t go together?

Today’s the day! Our 4th Kickstarter campaign went live early this morning and The Deal is ready to place your bets. As our very first live-action roleplaying game, this game quickly proved to be more than a simple idea that deserved a little extra attention that only Kickstarter can provide.

If you haven’t heard of the premise yet, think of a stage production if written by Quentin Tarantino. The Deal is about four strangers at a high-stakes poker game as they discover one of them is blackmailing the others. By combining the game with regular poker cards, this game can be played seamlessly at a table for larp-ers both new and familiar. We’re really excited about this game and hope you’ll take a moment to check it out. (Plus it’ll be the cheapest way to buy a copy as the price will increase between 20%-30% when the final version is released on DriveThruCards.

Check out The Deal right here on brokenrulergames.net and learn about other games in the Fragments line. And, of course, you can find The Deal on Kickstarter until June 17th.

Countdown to The Deal’s Kickstarter

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The button has been clicked and The Deal‘s Kickstarter page is currently under review. It won’t be long now until our third Kickstarter campaign is under way. Oh yeah, in case we never mentioned it before… we’re doing a Kickstarter for a larp!

The Deal is a “poker larp” from Broken Ruler Games. Here, you can see a preview of the cover and some of the cards.

The Deal is a live-action roleplaying game of poker where you play one of four characters caught up in a web of blackmail, deception, and confrontation during a high-stakes game of poker. Playtested at BreakoutCon in Toronto this past year, this Kickstarter will have a small goal of $600 CDN within 21 days and you can back this game for as little as $1 with the biggest stretch goal just a mere $20 to unlock The Loaded Deck, a complete deck of standard playing cards in the same design as the game’s cards that creates a more advanced level of play. (The Loaded Deck will be exclusive to the Kickstarter, btw!) When published, it will be sold through DriveThruCards and all cards are designed to work with existing poker decks to create a seamless and immersive experience. In other words… it’s really fucking fun. (Oh yes, there’s lots of content warnings and this game is intended for mature players.)

You can check out a preview of The Deal on Kickstarter before it officially launches or learn more about the game in our Fragments line. And remember to talk about this game with #PokerLarpIsAThing

UPDATE: The date has been set! The Deal will launch on Tuesday, May 28th and run for 21 days.

A Special #DinosaurDay Announcement

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Yes, Happy #DinosaurDay, everyone! As museums, libraries, and teachers who actually know their way around social media are sharing some of the exciting discoveries made in palaeontology, we wanted to take a moment to announce our next big project. It’s quite different and more ambitious than anything we’ve done before.

Cover for the Dinosaur Project: The Gobi Expedition playtest.
Cover for Dinosaur Project: The Gobi Expedition, an upcoming free playtest version of the full game.

In the coming weeks, we will be releasing a free public playtest for our upcoming family RPG, Dinosaur Project. Designed using a simplified version of the GUMSHOE system, you are a team of dinosaur scientists from a future where their prehistoric ancestors were never wiped out. Using your imaginations, features, skills, tools, and your field of study at Mesozoic University (as well as a time machine, of course), you’ll journey back to the age of the dinosaurs and report back with your findings. Along the way, your scientists will learn something about themselves and discover how they can learn from the past.

Designed by Todd Crapper and Chelsea Hamilton, Dinosaur Project: The Gobi Expedition will soon be available for everyone to playtest until September 30, 2019. By year’s end, we’re also hoping to launch a Kickstarter to fund a boxed set for the Dinosaur Project RPG, including 10 pre-written expeditions and a collection of dinosaur and scientist cards to create a variety of characters. Over the coming months leading up to our Kickstarter, we’ll be sharing some of the mechanics and cool facts we’ve discovered about these amazing creatures.

You can read more about it on our freshly excavated Dinosaur Project page.

Are You Ready To Make A Deal?

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When 2019 started, The Deal‘s mechanics were under review and things were moving forward with it as our third Fragments game originally due to release around this time. Yet after a very successful game at BreakoutCon in Toronto this past March, the decision has been made to go all-in.

Today, we’re pleased to announce The Deal: A Live-Action Roleplaying Game of Poker will be going to Kickstarter this Spring. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing more details on this project and everyone’s invited to check out our webpage for The Deal as well as catch a preview for the Kickstarter page.

The current cover for The Deal: A Live-Action Roleplaying Game of Poker. Coming to Kickstarter in Spring 2019.

What is The Deal? It’s a live-action roleplaying game (or a “larp,” as the cool kids call it) where four players take on the role of strangers gathered together for a high stakes game of poker. As they actually play poker, special cards known as Twists & Turns introduce plot twists as the strangers discover one of them is blackmailing the others. Nothing will remain the same when this game is done as the strangers discover some of the deepest, darkest secrets even their loved ones don’t know.

The Crappiest Sale is on DriveThruRPG Riiiiiight… NOW!!

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Go, go go! From today (Thomas Crapper Day) until February 3rd, all Broken Ruler Games’ products listed on DriveThruRPG and their affiliate sites are 50% off for all PDFs and 25% off for a print copies. It’s the most comprehensive and heavily discounted sale we’ve ever done and just like so many other big sales based on holidays, it has absolute nothing to do with its namesake date.

Click here (not on Thomas Crapper’s face) to head on over to DriveThruRPG.

Well, maybe there is a connection to…. nah, that’s a stretch. What are the odds BRG’s owner & publisher is related? There’s gotta be a lot of Crappers in the UK. That’s like their version of Smith, right?

We’d also love it if everyone reading this shared it on their own preferred social media channels and feel free to get creative with it. Play up on the family name with tweets like, “Don’t flush your money away!” Or “Broken Ruler Games has wiped their prices down to 50%.”

Just click here to visit our DriveThruRPG page before February 3rd.

(Please note DriveThruRPG’s sites will be down on Monday, January 28th for site wide maintenance so we’re making what’s called a “soft launch” for this sale today. Once the site is back up and running again on Tuesday, we’ll be making a bigger push.)