Chronicles of Skin is about propaganda.

Actually, it’s about everyday mythology.

Actually, it’s about hate. More… »

I am fascinated by the act of collaboration, and collective creativity.

As twins, myself and my brother used to invent games using pencils and paper. We didn’t have a ZX-Spectrum or an Atari, so we tried making computer games with paper. We called them Computer Games On Paper. Imagine a sheet of paper like this:

On the top you’d have your different weapons, ammunition (shown as boxes), health points (the heart), and so on. The bit underneath, with all the silly doodles, would make up the bad guys for the level. You would draw your stick man on a tiny, torn piece of paper, and move him around the level, trying to avoid or overcome the obstacles.

The other player would take the role of the computer, trying to kill you, and making fair judgements whether or not you could be attacked by the enemies. When you shot someone, you’d flip a piece of paper (one side marked hit, the other marked miss—with certain weapons you could flip it a few times, like the grenade). When enemies shot you, it worked the same way. As you progressed through the level, you’d both draw shooty lines and explosions (and make all the noises).

In the end, it might look like this:

In a way, that’s where Chronicles of Skin began. Why not try this with your kid and tell me how you get on?

Maybe you’d like to try out a variation on the standard Hell for Leather rules? It’s called the Escape Variant.

Escape Variant

First, get rid of Rest Scenes. All scenes are Run Scenes. More… »

Everything about Way of the Agent is ready for the table. Everything except the resolution system. Since I read Vincent Baker’s anthology of RPG snippets, I’ve been wringing the game for poisonous content—looking for bugs and surplus. Everything looks solid, except, as I say, the resolution system. More… »