The Game Arts Guild is a game development team. We have worked on both computer games and tabletop role-playing games. Learn about our latest RPG books and upcoming projects here. Also check out the Game Arts Guild Google+ community.

News

October 2017

We are finishing up graphics for the Squawk Role-Playing Game 2nd Edition. We have been working on a few other projects behind closed doors, but we don't want to get into explaining any of that until we are done finally rolling out Squawk 2E.

September 2017

This image is from October 2014, just after we finished the rough draft of Squawk 2nd Edition, which we still are not quite yet ready to release. It is interesting that the majority of our regular testers are still featured in this picture:

2017 July & August: Tres Espadas

We were busy road tripping through the forrest fire smoke of the Western Washington summer, introducing Tres Espadas to some old friends, and otherwise doing Tres Espadas stuff. We are now resuming work on Squawk RPG 2nd Edition.

2017.06.30: Squawk RPG 2E Character Generator

Our Squawk RPG 2E Character Generator seems to work well on Chrome on the PC and in Android. It has many features to enjoy, so check it out!

2017.05.09: Friend's project on Kickstarter

One of our playtesters has a brother who has an interesting card game project on Kickstarter:t

2017.04.30: Minor Adjustments

The changes we have been making to MaM 2017 over the last month have been minor and superficial. This includes using certain abbreviations, capitalizing abbreviations, using less verbiage in the key words and adding "focus", which is simply a pre-calculated stat for something we used to have players add up each time PCs used it in events. No game mechanics changes, but usability changes that make the system slightly easier to implement.

Mano a Mano Role Playing System 2017 Character Sheet

2017.03.08: Website Content Update

On this website (www.GameArtsGuild.com), the Squawk RPG 2nd Ed. Beta Document and the Mano a Mano Role-Playing System Reference Document have both been updated to MaM 2017 (and now the only place you can find the 2016 version is on DriveThruRPG. Soon 2017 will be the only MaM RPS on DriveThruRPG well.)

2017.02.10: WARNING for MaM 2016 fans

We are now in the process of replacing all of MaM 2016 with MaM 2017. Right now the only place we know of you can get MaM 2016 is by downloading MaM 2016 from DriveThruRPG. Soon that will no longer be an option, so if you want a copy of MaM 2016, get one now because we are moving on to MaM 2017 and wiping MaM 2016 from the face of the Earth.

2017.01.05: S2E gets MaM 2017

We have decided to update Squawk 2nd Edition with Mano a Mano 2017 before we publish it. This will require a minor re-write and last second playtesting. So for all of you who have been holding your breath for S2E since 2015... sorry...

2016.12.26: Plain English

In the latest versions of the Mano a Mano RPS, we have strived to use the "normal" words used by other RPGs to describe the system. In that spirit, we have changed "Background" to "Template," and "Unused Character Points" to "Action Points."

2016.12.16: Old Versions of Role-Playing Systems

We have open source role-playing systems that we use to develop products. If you want to find an old version of one of our role playing systems, go find the last product that used it. (Orignial Scratch RPS was used in 1st Edition Squawk RPG, more mature version used in The Dark Woods RPG.)

2016.11.30: Slow Progress on Squawk 2E

Progress has been slow as usual on Squawk 2nd Edition, and it looks like we won't have it on sale in time for the holidays. However it is still inching along and should be done soon. Here is a graphic we have been working on for the book in Blender 3D:

2016.10.31: Three Body Problem

Unfortunately we have nothing to report on the progress of the Squawk RPG 2nd Ed. However most of us did happnen to get through most of the Three Body Problem trilogy (aka "Remembrance of Earth's Past", by Liu Cixin). Definitely some interesting similarities, with the "no faster than light," "life in not so distant star systems," bleak outlook and dark humor themes found in both Remebrance of Earth's Past and Squawk. All similarities aside they are extremely entertaining books, Cixin's masterpiece is one of our favorite sci-fi trilogies of all time.

2016.09.30: Direction of Mano a Mano in 2017

The shape Mano a Mano takes is entirely dependent on what people are using it for. It is currently optimized for the Squawk RPG 2nd Ed. Our next RPG is likely to be Resilience, a project we've been thinking about seriously for several years now. This is likely to lead to random damage only, having the following results:

When dealing with more realistic human characters, it will reduce to suspension-of-disbelief problem inherant in Mano a Mano's current reliance on "power." Power "3d6+1" makes more sense for a character using both machete and shotgun attacks (as some imagine even a very sharp machete might not be as lethal as a shotgun), than simply "3" does (which suggests both weapons always do identical damage without abilities).
There will be a new character point scale, which will put slightly less emphasis on Power and Toughness (making defenses reletively slightly more valueable. As you get towards the end of the campaign that comes with Squawk 2nd Ed. character defenses can get so high that it is very hard for the NPCs to attack them.)
There are some other optional rules that may become standard and not optional, simplifying the system by having less optional parts. (The Grid system is the one optional rule that is likely to remain optional.)

2016.08.11: August 2016 Squawk Update

The following changes have been made to the Squawk RPG SRD on this website:

In the character generator a few minor bugs have been fixed, abilities can be filtered by category, and the backgrounds list CP value.
In Characters/Derived Statistics, Coordination modifier also applies to non-attack encounter actions like release and Defense modifier only applies to the difficulty of attacks.
In Missions/Resting, if you are dying at the end of a failed encounter and survive, you usually play dead and get away like characters who escape during the encounter.
In Setting/Spacecraft, Maia Cosmoraptor change from “fighter bomber” to rocketplane, Nereid Devilray changed laser to maser, Solar Guard Fortress removed “multiple redundant fuel stores,” and Trydeen Sporecraft are single stage launch vehicles, mostly hollow when they reach orbit, and land with a combination of aerobraking and thrusters.
In the Campaign:
- In the Jungle encounter, Ancient Pyramid encounter, Stampeded Encoutner and Reinforcements event there are various typos that have been corrected.
- Escape victory has been added to the Warlord Arena encounter.
- Dive and Fly abilities can be used in the Polar Hunters encounter.
- Rules for adjusting the difficulty of Encounters when more or less players show up have been added to the Campaign/Opening section

2016.07.08: Optional Rules - Unused CP & Random Damage Update

These optional rules have only been updated here on the website, they have not been updated in the DriveThruRPG PDF yet:

Random damage has been updated so that random damage power can have a +1 or a +2 (so that power could be for example "1d6+2" or "3d6+1" or just "2d6.") See Mano a Mano 2016 Characters/Derived Statistics/Random Damage.
These more gradual increments of power can still leave some interesting fluxuations in character points. We now have another optional rule for being able to use "unused character points" in a similar way to how some other RPGs might use "action points." See Mano a Mano 2016 Characters/Training and Upgrades/Unused CP.

2016.06.15: Character Points vs. Levels

As many of you have likely been enjoying Mano a Mano 2016 (MaM) along side 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder, you have probably been wondering "how many character points (CP) are equal to a 5th-Ed.-D&D-or-Pathfinder-level (level)?"

The answer is this: 1st level characters are worth about 95 character points in MaM. Each additional level after 1st level is worth about 15 MaM character points. So a 2nd level character would be worth about 110 character points, a 3rd level character worth about 125 character points, 4th level would be 140 CP and so on.

The reason for this is that in MaM after 90 CP, the formidability of characters doubles every 30 CP. So in MaM, a 120 CP character is an equal match to two 90 CP characters. It appears to us that a D&D character is a match for two D&D chracters that are two levels lower (so that for example a 3rd level character would be an equal match for two 1st level characters.) We estimate most 1st level characters are worth 95 CP in MaM. Then we add 30 CP for every two additional levels, 15 CP at a time.

(Based on the 2004 Edition of GURPS Lite, we speculate that it is something similar for the value of levels in GURPS character points, but would defer to someone from Wizzards of the Coast or Steve Jackson Games for a reliable opinion on that.)

2016.05.04: Mano a Mano Role-Playing System 2016 Edition

Today we released the 2016 version of the Mano a Mano Role-Playing System that we have been using to make the 2nd Edition of the Squawk RPG. Like Mano a Mano on Facebook and ask us any questions you may have about this project in the Mano a Mano Google+ Community.

Pay what you want for Mano a Mano

2016.04.21: Squawk RPG 2nd Ed. Public Beta Test Concluded

We are officially concluding the public beta test of the 2nd Edition of the Squawk Role-Playing Game. If you have any more feed back from beta testing, please send it to us immediately, we are wrapping up this phase of development.

2016.03.30: Pay what you want for The Dark Woods RPG

Our price for The Dark Woods RPG was understandably unpopular. We have changed the price to "pay what you want."

2016.02.29: Working on Mano a Mano 2016, Squawk RPG 2nd Editon

We are now close to rolling out Mano a Mano 2016. Once we do that we'll be working on the final page layouts for Squawk RPG 2nd Edition.

2016.01.27: Squawk RPG 2nd Ed. Public Beta Update #7

Many recent updates to the Squawk RPG 2nd Ed. Beta and Mano a Mano RPS:

In the Squawk campain, the "base of operations" has been clarified for each mission.

Minor bugs have been fixed in the character generators.

Minor features have been tweaked in the character generators.

Minor errors were fixed with the backgrounds in the Mano a Mano campaign.

Both now have a training and upgrades subsection of Making PCs.

Mano a Mano has an introduction section that among other things gives suggestions for reuse.

Background Design in Mano a Mano includes an average human background "for scale," and then a couple of short paragraphs explaining the defense, coordination, toughness and power scales.

In both Squawk and Mano a Mano Background Design is now part of the Game Master section.

There are other minor structural changes in the chapters and sections.

2016.01.22: Squawk RPG 2nd Ed. Public Beta Update #6

Two big updates here for the Public Beta Test of the Squawk RPG 2nd Ed.:

The Chracters/Backgrounds section has been combed over to remove excess abilities, because in testing we found long ability lists to be inconvenient.

The Characters/Training and Upgrades section has been massively modified and updated, and now includes suggestions for how to develop characters based on their backgrounds.