Want to write for games?

Think your art is ready for professional publication?

Not sure how to get your foot in the door?

Freelance writer/editor/game creator Jess Hartley shares her secrets for using conventions as an entry into the game industry.

This was originally a series of articles presented on Jess and #39; website to offer her experiences and advice to potential freelancers looking to make the best use of their time during the summer 2009 convention season.

Recently revised and updated with expanded information, Jess Hartley and #39;s Conventions for the Aspiring Game Professional is available now in PDF format.

The critically-acclaimed game of childhood terror is back in Little Fears Nightmare Edition!

Monsters are real and they hunt children like you from the shadows. As a child, you have your wits, your belief, and the friends by your side. No adults can help you. No one else can save you. It's just you and the monsters.

Scritch-scratch.

Scritch-scratch.

Shut the door and bolt the latch.

Completely reimagined, with an all-new system, Little Fears Nightmare Edition is the definitive version of the classic game.

You're not scared, are you?

and nbsp;

Sorry to be the one to break this to you, but the truth hurts and there and rsquo;s no use sugarcoating it. Ghosts are real. Demons too, along with those bumps in the night and maybe even the monster under your bed. The world and rsquo;s a scary place. If you and rsquo;re lucky the nasties that creep around in the dark won and rsquo;t get hold of you.

and lsquo;Cept maybe you aren and rsquo;t lucky. Maybe you and rsquo;ve already lost something and ndash; or somebody and ndash; to the darkness. All the booze and therapy in the world can and rsquo;t put your life back the way it was. And evil has a way of finding you again once it and rsquo;s had a taste of blood.

So you decide to fight back. It and rsquo;s not gonna be easy and mdash; as this kind of on-the-job training can get you dead. But you can stop being the hunted and become the hunter. There and rsquo;s no fame or glory in it, and there sure as hell isn and rsquo;t any money. But if you get the job done, you and rsquo;ll save lives and send the bad guys screaming back to hell where they belong. If that sounds good, then you and rsquo;ve got some work to do.

In the and nbsp;Supernatural Role Playing Game and nbsp;you and your friends play hunters from the world of the hit television series. Play characters from the show or use the Cortex System rules to create your own hunter. You and rsquo;ll also find gory details on ghosts, demons, and other nasties for the Game Master to throw your way. All you need to start the hunt is this book, some friends, some dice, and some time to kill and hellip;

and nbsp;

ENnie Awards Nominee and nbsp;| "Out-Verhoevens Verhoeven" - Robin D. Laws

3:16 is about Troopers killing things, wiping out civilizations, all across the Cosmos. This and nbsp;high-octane Science Fiction RPG designed by Gregor Hutton ("the best RPG designer in the UK today." - James Wallis) is a winner of a High Ronny Award for Games Design. Featuring a stunning cover by Paul Bourne (a|state, Cold City, Hot War) and haunting interiors by Gregor Hutton 3:16 is a visual treat and a rip-roaring game of blood, guts and drama.

"3:16 is one helluva kick-ass game" - Joe J. Prince, author of Contenders
"Fantastic, gorgeous design" - Ron Edwards, author of Sorcerer

Indie RPG Awards (2008)
Game of the Year (2nd), Production (2nd), Support (3rd), Innovation (3rd)
ENnie Awards (2009)
Best Cover Art (Nominee)

This high-octane Science-Fiction role-playing game for 2 or more players has your Space Troopers killing bugs all across the Cosmos. You and rsquo;ll advance in rank, improve your weapons, slay civilization after civilization and find out who you are through an innovative and ldquo;Flashback and rdquo; mechanic.

Terra and rsquo;s plan is to kill every living thing in the Universe to protect the home world. See where your tour of duty in the 3:16th Expeditionary Force takes you and your friends. Revel in the kill-happy machismo and enjoy a campaign of Carnage Amongst The Stars.

3:16 is a Science-Fiction role-playing game about Carnage Amongst The Stars.
and bull; Take your squad of kill-happy Troopers and annihilate bugs!
and bull; Low preparation, elegant game system.
and bull; Delivers developing campaign play.
and bull; Lavishly illustrated and designed book.
and bull; Winner of a High Ronny Award for Games Design for the original version.
and bull; ENnie Awards (2009) nominee
and bull; and nbsp;Indie RPG and nbsp;Awards (2008) Game of the Year (2nd), Best Production and nbsp;(2nd), Best Support (3rd), Innovation (3rd)
and bull; and nbsp;Greywulf's and nbsp;Game and nbsp;of the Year and nbsp;(2008)
and bull; Featured on OgreCave.com's Christmas List (2008)

and nbsp;

RPG.net review (5/5, Excellent!/Excellent!) - "Fantastically fun sci-fi gaming."
RPG.net review (4/4, Classy and amp; Well Done/Meaty) - "Delivers lots of entertainment with a simple, intuitive system"
RPG.net review (4/4, Classy and amp; Well Done/Meaty) - "In short, buy it. I think you'll like it."
"It's the ultimate space marine game I have wanted for some time now." - John Harper, Agon
"Wow and nbsp;... this is going to blow you away." -Ken Atherton
"...it's bloody brilliant." - Jonathan Walton

and nbsp;

The Shotgun Diaries is John Wick's zombie survival horror roleplaying game. Using all the tropes of zombie horror as game mechanics, it is fast, easy to use and horrifying.

and quot;There in the narrow hall, outside the bolted door with the covered keyhole, I often heard sounds which filled me with an indefinable dread-the dread of vague wonder and brooding mystery. and quot;-HP Lovecraft, The Music of Erich Zann

What better to set the tone of your Trail of Cthulhu game than some superbly crafted music? Talented musician James Semple has created four tracks specially for Pelgrane Press to enhance your horror roleplaying experience.

Trail of Cthulhu features elements of tension and horror but also thoughtful and considered investigation and dramatic moments of revelation. The music here is designed to play beneath those key moments to help enhance the all-important atmosphere of the game. In creating these tracks James Semple drew upon many influences from the worlds of classical orchestral music and film scores. The Golden Age scores of film composers such as Franz Waxman and Bernard Herrmann were particularly inspiring.

Trail of Cthulhu Theme (Pulp)
The Pulp theme emphasizes the action scenes of a typical game, inducing excitement, and depicting an encroaching terror and a desperate flight to safety.

Ruminations
Ruminations was written for a classic investigative scene. Many times I and #39;ve found players puzzling over the clues they have for long periods. This music helps reflect the background tension and sense of lonely desperation so typical of the game.

Anagnorisis
Anagnorisis is the moment when the Investigators understand the true horror of what they are facing. The opening of this track is a whole minute of anticipation in sound design building into the orchestra and vocal chorus.

Trail of Cthulhu Theme (Purist)
To open a game played in the purist style, this theme conveys a sense of a mystery and a brooding threat just out of sight but constantly lurking and waiting.

Read the sleeve notes here.

As part of our Movie Mayhem over Twilight: New Moon this title is 20% off. For other discounted titles, check out our Movie Mayhem sale page!

• All-new rules for skills, combat, Sanity, Magic, and Psychic powers.
• Extensive information on organizing events, stagecraft and special effects.
• Guidelines on role-playing Outsiders tainted by the touch of the Mythos.
• New and improved photographs, graphics, and other images, including works by renowned Cthulhu Mythos artist Richard Alan Poppe.
• A screen-friendly lo-res version of the book that includes the and quot;parchment and quot; background of the original print edition and red blood spatters that had to be printed black in the original.
• A printer-friendly hi-res version of the book from which background images, blood spatters, and other material that might eat up toner or affect the quality of home printouts have been eliminated.
• And much more!

In May of 1939, somewhere in the jungles of Africa, a small band of soldiers have stumbled across something ancient. Something terrible.

And they are about to suffer the consequences.

Digging for a Dead God is the first in a series of Call of Cthulhu scenarios all linked by the Yellow Sign.

The Curse of the Yellow Sign scenarios contain no blasphemous books, no monsters, no cultists and no Library Use rolls. Only ordinary humans confronted with the true nature of the universe. They are designed to be played in a single evening with limited preparation and maximum impact, filled with the kind of ruthless game master techniques you'd expect from John Wick.

Digging for a Dead God contains:

and nbsp;

• 2 maps
• 6 pre-generated characters
• Tons of advice and playtest notes

and nbsp;

and nbsp;

Let the buyer beware

Every freehold knows of at least one. Some seem to have grown up almost overnight, like a ring of small white mushrooms. Others seem to have run for millennia, outliving the rise and fall of the freeholds that surround them. They and rsquo;ll never go away entirely, despite the dangers of their wares. Someone always needs something you can only get at a Goblin Market.

A chronicle book for Changeling: The Lost

• Advice on constructing your own Goblin Markets
• Rules on buying and selling
• Sample characters, Markets and SAS Market scenes to drop right into your Changeling chronicle

An episode of the White Wolf Blogcast featured the opening fiction of Goblin Markets. You can download the file for free here.

Last year, Monte started up new d20 System campaigns and began experimenting with some house rules that he had mused about on www.montecook.com and the messageboards there. The response was overwhelming -- game fans wanted to see how these new, experimental rules worked.

Because you demanded it!

So Monte took a break from his fiction work to compile this book, a collection of the house rules he currently uses in his own games. These include a spell progression system that ranks spells from levels 1 to 20, new rules for healing and curative magic, magical disciplines for spellcasters that always give them an active power and a way to contribute, and much more.

This book also includes a new base class, the runeblade, for players wanting a character that combines magic and martial skill without the use of spells. New rules for wizards, clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers are provided, offering each class magical disciplines like Godhammer, Eldritch Bolt, and Nature and #39;s Senses. And, of course, the book also offers dozens of new spells, feats, and magic items.

Inherent within all the rule changes in this book is the idea that characters should be able to keep adventuring longer than the rules currently allow. Disciplines, more ample healing, and the other experiments in this PDF exclusive help bring down the barriers -- like casters running out of spells and characters running low on hit points -- that traditionally make parties stop to rest before they really want to.

Start your own experiment this month!

Read Me Before Printing

In the age of the pharaohs, a great and unfathomable evil rose from the murky depths to cast its gibbous shadow over ancient Egypt. At the cost of his empire, Ramesses III imprisoned the horror beneath the sands of Luxor, where it has slumbered ever since.

In 1924, a team of visiting archeologists unearthed the last remaining testament of that ancient mystery, only to unleash a terror from out of time. Now death stalks the dusty streets of Luxor and a new age of horror is at hand. Can your investigators succeed where the mightiest of pharaohs have failed? Or will they fall victim to Luxor and #39;s secret past?

Set throughout the globe and torn from the pages of the hidden history of the world, Age of Cthulhu adventures bring new secrets and mind-bending horrors to your 1920 and #39;s Call of Cthulhu game.

Each adventure comes with copious player handouts, detailed maps, and pre-generated investigators ready to risk their lives and their sanity to confront the horrors of an uncaring universe.

Rules Set: Chaosium Basic Role Playing.

Previews

• The Old Person: Death in Luxor features many mysteries, not least of them the old Persian and hellip;
  

• Yog-Soggoth.Com: 4 stars. and ldquo;There is a definite tip of the hat to several classic investigations (Masks, and nbsp; Shadows, etc), but it still seems fresh and original and hellip; For 2-3 nights of gaming at $12.99 (US), I would consider this a very good value. and nbsp; Accessible and useful for both novice and experienced investigators. and rdquo;
  

Writer: Harley Stroh
Cover Art: Eddie Sharam
Interior Art: Tom Martin and Brad McDevitt
Graphic Design: Brad and Jess McDevitt

GMG7001, 48 pages, $7.99

For most people, the world appears to be a relatively safe place, filled with the usual problems associated with day to day living. There are no monsters beneath the bed, nothing waiting in the darkness... and nbsp;

But for others, there is the maddening truth; unimaginable horrors lurk in dark places beyond the world we know, horrific things who regard humanity as little more than cattle; insignificant creatures to be used and cast aside at their whim. Ever watchful, they seek to pry open the gates to this realm, to reclaim that which was once theirs. and nbsp;

Some, so-called enlightened individuals choose travel the dark paths, seeking to gain knowledge never intended for human eyes, seeking arcane tomes and malefic artifacts in hopes of knowing the unknowable, even at the cost of their sanity. Indeed, at the cost of their very lives. and nbsp;

For you, the choice is clear, the imperative undeniable. Seek out that which should not be. Stand ever vigilant against the horrors lurking in the dark. Walk in the shadows of Cthulhu, and perhaps, if you're lucky, you may survive, may even make a difference, though the cost might be more than you and rsquo;re prepared to pay and hellip; and nbsp;

and nbsp; Shadows of Cthulhu makes use of the elegant True20 game system, providing you with everything you need to run a campaign series in the deliciously maddening world and nbsp; inspired by the works of H.P Lovecraft! and nbsp;

Inside you will find:

• New Heroic roles
• Sample heroes and nbsp; ready to play out of the box
• New Backgrounds
• Mythos Feats, skills and Powers
• New uses for existing skills
• Guidelines for Narrating a Shadows of Cthulhu campaign series
• Rules for Insanity
• Rules for Mythos Traits
• Mythos creatures

And much more!

and nbsp;

Want to learn more about Shadows of Cthulhu? Listen to Atomic Array 010.

Races in Dungeons and amp; Dragons 4E are good for laying down the broad strokes of a character, but they often don and rsquo;t feel as and ldquo;lived in and rdquo; as the ethnicities we encounter in everyday life. One potent reason for this is a general lack of cultural complexity and diversity. D and amp;D races tend to be presented as monocultural societies and mdash;all elves are the same the world over, and so on.

Hard Boiled and trade; Cultures aims to make it easy to change that, outlining versatile, easy methods for diversifying the ideas of culture and race in your D and amp;D 4E game. Better yet, the methods break down how to give this diversity real weight in the system, rather than simply relying on and ldquo;color and rdquo; text to do the job.

Fred Hicks and Jonathan Walton show you how to reverse-engineer cultural cues out of an existing race writeup, and then create nigh-limitless possibilities for other cultures within that race once the building blocks are made plain.

Inside this 17-page PDF you and rsquo;ll find a clear, well-documented methods for culture building, a culture building worksheet, tribes of elves, apelord intellectuals, and a dark faerie spin on dwarves. Your campaign worlds will never be the same again!

There is trouble in Bethlehem....

Thousands of crows have taken roost in the woods surrounding Bethlehem, NH, mercilessly attacking anyone who tries to enter the forest. The human population is outnumbered more than ten-to-one, and the birds are growing more bold every day. Can the investigators solve the mystery behind this unnatural infestation? Can they save the town of Bethlehem from a disaster of biblical proportions?

Murder of Crows contains everything a Call of Cthulhu group needs for an evening and #39;s worth of Mythos-inspired fun, including pregenerated characters. It is the first in an innovative new series of Call of Cthulhu scenarios and supplements from Super Genius Games. and nbsp;

In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.

Beneath the deserts of Iraq, among the ruins of the ancient Babylonian
civilization, lie secrets. The ancient servants of a dead god stir
again. Forgotten magic waits to be claimed. Evil spirits yearn for souls
to consume. At the heart of it all is a terrible hunger and ndash; for power, for
servitude, but most of all for blood.

A squad of soldiers escorting an archaeologist is thrown into the maw
of these ancient secrets, and its men must fend for themselves against an
ancient horror beyond their understanding. But survival is not enough,
for deep in the ruins of Ur the very tools of their salvation could cost
them their souls.

A story in the Storytelling Adventure System for the World of Darkness, inspired by World of Darkness: Dogs of War.

Ruins of Ur contains a number of hyperlinks to various portions of the text as well as bookmarks, so you can always jump right to what you need with just a click. Dogs of War is not required to run Ruins of Ur.

You can look out over the city and see what you want to see. Maybe you see the bright lights, and it gives you hope. Maybe you see the tall buildings casting their powerful shadows, and it makes you feel small. But high up, it and rsquo;s not that you can and rsquo;t see the forest for the trees and mdash;it and rsquo;s that you can and rsquo;t see the trees for the forest.

Best way to see what and rsquo;s really going on? Turn away from the bright lights, big city, and sit down at this card table right here and roll out a map. Take this box-cutter, and just start hacking it up. Slice-slice. The docks go to the bloodsuckers, the banks, too. The projects, we don and rsquo;t know who has them because we can and rsquo;t get close. The park falls to the beasts, and the highways to the jackals. Slice-slice. You cut the place to ribbons, then soak it in blood, because that and rsquo;s how they got what they got and mdash;by soaking the city in blood, theirs and everybody else and rsquo;s.

And this right here? This tiny piece, this shitty little nowhere piece that and rsquo;s half the size of a postage stamp? That and rsquo;s your cut. That and rsquo;s your part of this god-forsaken city. You content with that? You satisfied leaving the fatty cuts and the sweet meats for the monsters to fight over? Maybe you are. But I and rsquo;m not. So gear up, because it and rsquo;s liberation time.

and mdash; LCpl Erwin Emerson (ret.), leader of the Crusaders of Night cell

Block by Bloody Block is a PDF book for Hunter: The Vigil. It includes:

and bull; Systems to run a Hunter: The Vigil chronicle on a larger scale, reclaiming parts of your city from various supernatural factions

and bull; Eight urban territories, complete with story seeds and Storyteller characters, ready to be dropped into an existing chronicle or modified to your troupe and rsquo;s tastes

and bull; Storytelling advice on how to create your own territories, as well as running a Block by Bloody Block chronicle

and bull; Links to a Block by Bloody Block online wiki

Nexus: jewel of the Scavenger Lands.

In the city of Nexus, a god-blood is about to become more important than the Emissary himself. With powers both mortal and immortal seeking her, what and rsquo;s a lonely little child of the past to do? Will she find hope in the arms of the circle, or suffer a long, slow descent into death and rsquo;s cool embrace? When all is said and done, what stories will she tell of your legend?

A story in the Storytelling Adventure System for Exalted.

Daughter of Nexus is our first offering for Exalted in the Storytelling Adventure System. The file contains a number of hyperlinks to various portions of the text as well as bookmarks, so you can always jump right to what you need with just a click.

Explore the rain-slicked streets of Film Noir.

Cynical P.I.? and nbsp; Mesmerizing femme fatale? and nbsp; Dead-hearted hit man or pure-hearted reformer raging against the dark? and nbsp; A Dirty World has them all. and nbsp; It also features...

• An entirely reworked One Roll Engine, relentlessly forcussed on character.
• A unified conflict mechanic where courtroom drama, gunfights, and the duel of seduction work the same way -- and transition seamlessly from one to another.
• Instant character improvement in response to his circumstances and your decisions.
• A system for sparking convoluted noir plots with a single die roll.