During 2020, I was able to accelerate playtests for Alter Arms through a dedicated discord and a great group of players who've been running through a campaign with me to test out long-form play.  This has given me a lot of feedback, and I'm currently updating the rules as I work towards a final edit. Feel free to join the discord to learn more, and possibly demo the game yourself!

I Ran Alter Arms at AwesomeCon this past weekend and had players had some good positive feedback to round out the rules. I'm currently at the stage where I'm finalizing the rule-set for blind playtests and hope to send them out to people who have signed up sometime in the early Summer. Thank you for your patience!

Two players from a demo of Alter Arms at KatsuCon I had a great time at KatsuCon this past Saturday in their tabletop room where I was able to run multiple demos of Alter Arms for eager players! "I never thought that being an edgy super hero (WHO COULD TRANSFORM!) would be so cool! This was an amazing experience." -JD (@rise_medica on Instagram: https://t.co/XGNd6slH15 ). Thanks to all of the players from @Katsucon this weekend! #KatsuCon #tokusatsu #ttrpg pic.twitter.com/2iN8tsqXB1 — Alter Arms (@AlterArms) February 18, 2019 I had one return player who played a demo last year, who also expressed enjoyment at how the game is turning out. One takeaway I found was that the Defender archetype needed to be tempered to make it so that it didn't make it too easy for players to earn experience compared to the others. Archetypes are classes that characters have that represent their role on the team, kind of like how sentai teams have "the support...

Big thanks to all those who tried out Alter Arms as part of the MAGFest Indie Tabletop Showcase! Players had epic battles against mystic knights, vampire lords, technopathic bikers, and demonic stock brokers, and did so in awesome setpieces they came up with. One team had a member's giant robot combine with their shapeshifting alien ally to form a sword, which was used by their ally in an even bigger giant robot to attack their opponent as they fought in the middle of a weapon testing facility; Another group had a  combat robot use their battle computer to find an enemy's weak points and destroyed them in a missile barrage; A magical girl took control of an armored car through use of spells so she could bash a pursuer with her flaming mace, while her partner shifted from their beastial form to their cyborg form to take out their opponent; An extraterrestrial peacekeeper summoned their transforming robot starship to knock down a door (and conv...

New Alter Arms players. I just got back from PAX Unplugged, a major tabletop gaming expo in Philadelphia where I had some great playtests. I am grinding away on the blind playtest rules, which is good because more and more people are asking for copies to play with their friends. Minor musings: The rules can be grasped by young children, as a group of playtesters quickly and eagerly leapt into the game. I was also able to test out character creation, which I've been able to streamline to about 5-10 minutes. A BLOCKBUSTER! playtester holds up the character sheet for their actor, Bick Thudgun, star of such films as Time Spiders , You're a Monster! , and The Green Desk Lamp Knows All (as the Lamp). Also, I played some large playtests of my other game, BLOCKBUSTER! which I have been working on as a side project. I'm likely going to be publishing that before I publish Alter Arms just because it will likely take less time since the rules are so streamlined An...

During the first week of November, I was lucky enough to attend Metatopia , a gathering of tabletop gaming professionals from around the country and beyond, who come together to talk about the industry and gather feedback on their games. I want to give a brief overview of how my games were received, and what I thought of the games I played. MY GAMES Alter Arms is a tabletop roleplaying game (RPG) that I am designing themed around Japanese super heroes . Players are able to take on different forms with a variety of powers in order to solve problems and defeat enemies. It got the most exposure at the convention, with one hi-test (where only other developers played with the intention of dissecting mechanics) and one lo-test (where casual players and other developers can try out games). Both went well, with the hi-test giving me feedback on how mechanics can be abused and some of the character Powers need clarification in their rules.  One mechanic that was noticed to have...

I'm currently working to finalize the rules for peer review from volunteers, and hope to get this done within the next month. My next major playtest is going to be at Metatopia in Morristown, NJ, 11/1-11/4, where I'll be showing off the updated version to fellow game designers. What's Changed? Mechanics-wise, a major change that has occured with the game is in regards to the Gimmicks (formally Trappings. This was changed to be more thematically appropriate as tokusatsu characters usually have gimmicks that act as their powers and forms). Before, they were used as a simple framing device for the action a character can take, bestowing a small numerical bonus to skill checks, but they've changed to become a much more versatile aspect of character expression. Now, Gimmicks are the "theming" of a character; like if they have fire powers, are psychic, have tentacles, or super-speed; they determine what unique actions a character can take. They are expr...