Is it safe to talk? Look, we don’t have much time here so let’s cut to the quick. As soon as we part ways, you don’t know me anymore, comprende? Once you’re in, you’re in. This is the long game. You can never revisit your old life, never let it find you. You are who this file says you are and nobody else. Get this down cold and never—never—break character. I’m not shitting you. The lazy days of your training are a distant memory. You may die under this identity and it probably won’t be because of old age.

Here’s the deal. Work your way to the top. You know who we’re after. Get yourself in good however you must. As far as G*d’s concerned, you’re one of them. You understand the implications of that, yeah? When they say jump, you touch cloud. Now, when you have something good—and this may take years—then you call this number. Someone will answer. We’ll go from there. If you’re ever in danger, well, you probably won’t have a chance to make a phone call. Alright, we’re done. Good luck out there.

* The [REDACTED] character option is one of the two Kickstarter-exclusive Archetypes given to backers who pledge $60 or more as a special thank-you for their support!

You? You’re just passing through. You know better than to put down roots. You learned the hefty price of attachment when she/he/they paid for what you did. Or let you down when you needed her/him/them the most. Or she/he/they turned on you just to save their own skins. Or you left because you couldn’t risk getting anyone involved in something you couldn’t get her/him/them out of. No, you? There are no picket fences and yellow bi-levels in your future.

You blow into town for the work. You do the occasional odd thing: mostly fixing and building. While you’re in town, sure, you have some fun. Find a girl or two to mess around with. But you don’t let them close. Never let them close. You keep your defenses—and your latest conquest—up all night. You’ve been through enough bad shit in your life already. Now, you’re just looking for fun. Sorry for you, that fun always has a cost.

Sometimes the locals just can’t get the job done. Maybe it’s competence. Maybe it’s confidence. Maybe the target is too sensitive to use someone who can be tied to someone else. Some situations are delicate. That’s when those in charge bring in the big gun, an outsider, someone who can get it done and get out quickly. Someone deniable without the baggage that seems to drag down everybody else in this town. But it’s never that simple; no job is. Any job that went down easy was either done wrong, has consequences you ain’t seen yet, or was a million-to-one fluke. If I was you, I’d bet on the first two.

You’re probably ex-military, formally trained, but maybe you grew up in the trade. You worked your way from rifle to knife, honing your craft with every contract. You’ve got blood on your hands but so what. Everybody in this town does—or will soon. The stains on your skin just happen to belong to people who made enemies of those powerful enough not to have to do the dirty work themselves. Some say you don’t have a soul. You know that’s not true. But unlike the saps you can turn yours off when you need to.

I had planned to unleash some more art previews this week but things hit a bit of a snag. My main work computer died late last week and I’m still getting the new computer up to speed. (All the Streets of Bedlam data is safe though!) I should have everything sorted very soon. Once I do, I’ll have a look at the role of the professional killer in the world of Streets of Bedlam and a couple other treats.

A slight bump in the road, but we soldier on! Thank you for your understanding and your continued support.

This past week has been a blur! I can’t believe it’s already Friday—a week since the Streets of Bedlam Kickstarter closed!

The past 168 hours has been dedicated to a lot of things, including work for the Streets of Bedlam corebook. Shawn has a stack of guidelines he’s going through and I’m working on the text, new rules, and such. The past week has been quiet here at StreetsOfBedlam.com but lots of noise here behind the scenes.

I will work to get more updates here though so stay tuned.

Thank you all again for your support and checking in here at StreetsOfBedlam.com. Lots of interesting stuff ahead!

You did it. Wow, how you did it.

I ran out of ways to express my shock, awe, and gratitude to the Streets of Bedlam Kickstarter response weeks ago. I hoped for $3k. That’s what I needed to fund and finish the game. I put together a quick talking-head video, spoke from my heart, and put it out to see if anybody besides me had any interest in this Savage Worlds crime setting whatsoever.

Turns out, quite a few of you did.

Over the course of the Kickstarter, the project gained a fantastic artist, an official soundtrack, and a landslide of support.

The numbers: 45 days. 262 backers. $10,267.25 raised. 342% funded. That’s an average of almost $40 per backer. The game was fully funded in three days. Each new milestone, at 5k, 8k, and 10k, was hit.

Not to expose any writerly weaknesses of mine but I just don’t know what to say besides:

Thank you.

THANK YOU.

I always aim to create solid product. I’m not a big enough name to ship crap and hope folks forgive me. Over the course of Little Fears Nightmare Edition‘s eight releases, I aimed for a high bar with each. Folks have been very kind in their reviews of my material.

But there are 250+ of you who have put over $10k worth of trust in me. I will settle for nothing less than knocking this project so far out of the park this metaphor won’t even reach that far. With Shawn Gaston on the illustrative navigation and Ed Lima providing the road tunes, I have some pretty great backup. With you all waiting at the destination, I have prime motivation to give you a game setting like you’ve never experienced before.

I’ll post a formal thank you next week, and post more reveals on this site throughout the development and finalization process. But for now, I just need to soak it in. You all have given me a gift. I aim to return the favor in spades.

The Streets of Bedlam Kickstarter is coming to a close. At 4:28p EST today, the door will swing shut forever. These are your last moments to immortalize yourself in a crime-ridden world full of murder, backstabbing, and ambitious wannabes who will do anything to feel the cold touch of that brass ring. The last chance to snag up to FOUR Kickstarter-exclusive character options for your group (including the Trouble and Sawbones archetypes). We’re also currently within inches (at least, dollars) of hitting the $10k milestone which gets us all an amazing professional soundtrack for Streets of Bedlam or any dark modern or urban crime setting. (And backers who pledge $45 or more get a free digital copy!)

So be sure to check out the Streets of Bedlam Kickstarter! You can read up about some of the characters here, read up on the districts of Bricktown and Big Church, glimpse what’ll be inside the book here, or check out the promo trailer below.

I’ve talked a lot about the people, some about the rules, a bit about the location, and now I want to show you what you can expect to find inside the book itself.

My initial estimation was the Streets of Bedlam corebook would be 192pp but I’m confident now the final will far exceed that (I am looking at quite a few NPCs that need to be in there). The book will be generously illustrated by Shawn Gaston with plenty of examples, fiction, and story seeds that I hope inspire your own episodes.

As for the organization of the book, I used the traditional structure found in other Savage Worlds books as a starting point and then infused the structure found in my other games. I came up with the following:

Introduction: Life in the Big City
The intro breaks down the basics: what the game is, what its goals are, what inspired it, what the setting is (in brief), and how the whole thing came to be. It also lays out what each of the chapters cover.

Chapter One: Invisible Lines
This is all about Bedlam as a setting. The history of Lamrose and Bedford, the current state of things, the major areas, personalities, and a street-level view of the world it represents. This chapter is divided into main sections: one focused on Bedford; the other, on Lamrose.

Chapter Two: People in Trouble
Now we get into the heart of the stories: the characters. I include advice on creating compelling characters, guidelines for play at the table, and the 13 Archetypes. These Archetypes are important to me—I feel they really nail the tone and perspective of the game—so each one gets a four-page spread. This spread includes a bit of fiction, an illustration of a key character fitting that Archetype, Edges, Hindrances, and Abilities unique to that type, and a sample character.

Chapter Three: Need to Know
This chapter includes all the new rules, such as Rep, Interrogation, Investigation, and Roles. It also includes my two cents on game prep as well as a look at the different basic types of stories that fall within SoB’s purview.

Chapter Four: The Hands on the Wheel
We dive back into the world, this time with an eye toward non-player characters. The power players, major NPCs, local color, as well as a crowd of people on the street (including a whole lot of NPCs thanks to the game’s Kickstarter backers!) are in here. This chapter touches on a lot of the power struggles and conflicts in Bedlam.

Chapter Five: The Things We Do For Money
Named after the Plot Point Campaign found within, this chapter also includes a bunch of Orphan Stories (standalone episode seeds) and a look a the world of Bedlam following the completion of the campaign.

Then comes the back matter: index, system cheat sheet, character sheet, and investigation sheet.

And that’s pretty much it! Of course, this is subject to change through editing but that’s the basic form. As I said, the original spec was 192pp but I can see this going well beyond that. (Not a bad problem to have.)

I’ll talk more as April approaches and the book becomes available for sale in print and pdf. I’ll also start talking about the first supplement, Five-Story Drop: A Collection of SoB Stories. For now though, back to work!

When the Streets of Bedlam Kickstarter launched at the end of November, I had modest goals for it. I just wanted to cover the cost of illustrating and producing the first book. But now, thanks to your support, the Kickstarter blew past that goal and is on its way toward five figures!

As a last-minute push toward that number, I’ve decided to add a new milestone and with it a new incentive to back the project.

If the Streets of Bedlam Kickstarter reaches $10k, acclaimed composer and sound designer Ed Lima will create an original soundtrack for the game! Ed provided the amazing track featured on the promo trailer that launched earlier this week (which you can click below) but his work goes well beyond that. As an audio guy in the video games industry, Ed has worked on such projects as Doom 3, Prey, Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, Borderlands, and he is currently head sound man at Respawn Entertainment.

When I first met Ed years ago, I was blown away by the work he was doing, and he just keeps getting better. I really enjoyed the track he did for the trailer and really want to see more of it. I hope you do too.

As an added incentive, every backer who pledges $45+ will get a free digital copy of the soundtrack as an extra-special thank you. Click below to hear what Ed’s already done. If we reach $10k, we’ll all get a lot more of this.

No, that’s not some strangely-named character option. I know a lot of different archetypes have flown past your screen these past few weeks so I wanted to collect all the information into a single post so you can take a look at any you may have missed or forgotten about.

What Are Archetypes?
I talked about that in this post. In short:

Archetypes provide you with a basic idea, a special ability, edges and hindrances either specific to the Archetype or that would be good fits for it, and some suggestions as to where to go from there.

How Many Will There Be?
The Streets of Bedlam corebook is currently slated to include thirteen Archetypes: Badge, Boss, Dogface, Drifter, Hitter, Monster, Pusher, Regent, Saint, Samaritan, Snoop, Valkyrie, and Wannabe. One last option, Citizen, gives players a base to build their own character from scratch.

Every backer who pledged $10+ or more to the Kickstarter gets two more via pdf: Sawbones and Ingenue. Backers who pledged $60+ get those two archetypes plus a pdf with two more: Trouble and [Redacted]. Later releases will likely include more but the core set covers a lot of ground and the four Kickstarter-exclusives offer even more.

Which Ones Have We Talked About?
Here are thumbnails of each of the ten Archetypes that have been revealed. Click on each snapshot to get to the post that includes more details about each.

So What Now?
Just because the Kickstarter ends today doesn’t mean the updates to this website will cease. I’ll continue to preview the remaining Archetypes along with Shawn’s excellent illustrations for each as well as deeper content, including book previews (when we get that far). The Kickstarter is just the beginning. April’s coming quick, and Shawn and I still have a bunch to do!