Savage Worlds fan Will Herrmann has launched a Kickstarter for a quick-and-easy character generation program called Wild Card Creator. You can check out the details here.

I’ve seen the Wild Card Creator alpha at work and it’s impressive. It’s easy to use, has a clean interface, and requires nothing on the user’s part to get up and running (outside of owning the PDFs you wish to use). The Wild Card Creator will fully support Streets of Bedlam and all its future supplements, so you can whip up dirty-dealin’ thugs and gun-totin’ dames with just a few clicks, but also the entire Deadlands line, Agents of Oblivion, Realms of Cthulhu, Kerberos Club, Hellfrost, Low Life, and tons more.

I hope you check it out. For a genre-hopping game system like Savage Worlds, a universal character creator seems like a great fit.

“Side A” of Sounds of Bedlam is done! Lemme tell ya, Ed has worked some magic here, folks. These five tracks are sizzling. I can’t stop listening to them. Ed and I are currently working out the schedule to get the remainder of the tracks done, and I’ll let you all know when I have a target date for those.

If you are a Kickstarter backer who pledged $45 or more, you should have received instructions on how to download your own copies of these tracks last night. If you didn’t, please email me immediately and let me know.

Once “Side B” is done, I’ll update the product on DriveThruRPG and open it up for general sale. I’ll be looking into other sales venues as well to get this as wide a distribution as I can. If you have a favored site, let me know.

Anyway, to those who have them, I hope you enjoy the tracks. Ed and I both would love to hear what you think.

(By the way, if you downloaded copies last night that were watermarked, downloading new copies should fix that.)

Hey everyone! As you may know, I’m in the midst of a new job and an out-of-state move but I wanted to give you all an update on where the print edition of SoB and the PDF/print edition of Five-Story Drop are at.

SoB: Print Edition
I was lucky enough after launching Streets of Bedlam to receive some raw, honest feedback on the book. The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive but fans of Savage Worlds and neo-noir weren’t shy about pointing some areas that could be strong. I’m taking advantage of being able to update the PDF prior to committing to print to tweak the text a bit, add some more content, and do more and more edit passes. My aim is to get the print edition in-hand next month.

SoB: Five-Story Drop
My plan for the first supplement, Five-Story Drop, is to get it out in PDF in September and then in print around early October. If I can do earlier, I certainly will.

All of this is about half-a-year out from my initial target. I apologize sincerely for that. I could push out the PDF to the printer right now and have everything in hand by mid-August, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make SoB even better and give you all even more content.

SoB: Sounds
Ed is currently hard at work on the tracks. The stuff I’ve heard has been amazing. I’m aiming to get “Side A” of the compilation out to backers next week or so with “Side B” to follow sometime after.

SoB: Dice
For those interested, I’ll be doing a pre-order for the Streets of Bedlam dice very soon. Folks who backed the Kickstarter at $60 or more are already getting these custom dice, but I love them so much I made a bunch to share with you all. I’ll get that pre-order rolling soon.

The second of the two Kickstarter-exclusive Archetype bundles is now out! Get deep into the game as the undercover [Redacted] or get what’s yours as the manipulative Trouble.

If you are a Kickstarter backer who pledged $60 or more, you should have received a message from Kickstarter with instructions for downloading your pdf copy. If you did not, please check the Kickstarter website. If you still don’t see it, send me an email at

Ja*********@gm***.com











.

Please note: These Archetypes are exclusive to Kickstarter backers and will not be reproduced in pdf or print format.

The first of the two Kickstarter-exclusive Archetype bundles is now out! Reach for the stars as the talented-yet-naive Ingenue or sit on the razor’s edge as the high-pressure combat doc Sawbones.

If you are a Kickstarter backer who pledged $10 or more, you should have received a message from Kickstarter with instructions for downloading your pdf copy. If you did not, please check the Kickstarter website. If you still don’t see it, send me an email at

Ja*********@gm***.com











.

Please note: These Archetypes are exclusive to Kickstarter backers and will not be reproduced in pdf or print format.

Streets of Bedlam has been out for a little over two days now and the initial critical response has been very positive. Darren Miller has a full write-up over at Geekcentricity and Thomas Brownell gives his take over at his blog. Here are my favorite pulls from their reviews:

From Darren:

“It reads like Rush sounds, tight and polished, but rocking your face off.”

“The character creation is the strongest I’ve seen of any Savage Worlds setting.”

“[My] two-word review is: ‘Fucking Phenomenal.'”

From Thomas:

“The writing is very crisp.”

“[T]he Plot Point Campaign structure is a welcome change of pace.”

“I love the Archetypes set-up for character creation.”

I am very excited by the response so far and, if you haven’t checked out the game yet, I hope you give it a shot if you’re a fan of crime dramas, Savage Worlds, or are a gamer interested in trying something new.

First off, a huge shout-out to James Schrecengost who converted the PDF character sheet I uploaded earlier this week into a fillable version. So you can grab the sheet, fill it out on your computer, print it if you want, and then be ready to play. Great work, James. Thank you.

Second, to kick off the release of Streets of Bedlam, I put together a release trailer featuring art by Shawn Gaston and an excerpt from the Sounds of Bedlam track “Walk with Me (Bedlam Mix)” courtesy of Ed Lima.

Thank you all again for the support. Early response to the game has been very good. I hope you all get a chance to play.

I was going to write a fake-out post about how I was pushing it back yet another week but decided I couldn’t do that to you good people.

Nope, the Streets of Bedlam corebook is out now in PDF. If you pre-ordered the book or are a qualifying Kickstarter backer, you should have received an email from DriveThruRPG with a link and discount code (taking the price down to zero dollars for you). If you haven’t yet, that means I’m still working through the list and you should by the end of the day. I’ll update the Streets of Bedlam twitter account when all the PDF codes have gone out so be sure to check there!

UPDATE: All codes have been sent out to Kickstarter backers and those who pre-ordered. If you don’t see the email from DriveThruRPG, check your spam filter. If you still don’t see it, please drop me a line and let me know.

While I wish this book was perfect and I could dust my hands of it, I still have some work to do.

1) I have typo edits to go through still. These came in from advance readers and I’ve been too busy with everything else to attend to all of them. So I don’t recommend printing this file out yet as I’ll be updating it over the next two weeks as typos are obliterated and layout errors and inconsistencies are fixed.

2) There’s no index! Not yet! But there will be! I didn’t want to do the index until the interior text is polished. The final PDF and print book will have an index to ease in navigation.

3) The print book will be uploaded to the printer in about two weeks. Should take two to three weeks for those copies to get printed, bound, and sent to me. I’ll then go about getting them all sent to you. I will need some patience processing everything but will try to do so with efficiency, expediency, and something else that begins with e.

4) The Kickstarter-exclusive Archetypes will roll out in a week or so. I’ll notify everyone when they’re available. I think you’ll really dig them.

5) Five-Story Drop is currently slated for August, as is Sounds of Bedlam. If I can get either out earlier, I will.

Alright, that’s it. Streets of Bedlam is out! I appreciate all your support and understanding from the moment the Kickstarter went active to now. Now go, buy, read, play, do bad things to worse people! I’d love to hear your thoughts, stories, and more either in the comments here or, even better, over at the official SW Licensees forum.

Streets of Bedlam hits in PDF this Wednesday. Prepare yourself with this full-page character sheet.

See you Wednesday.

*breathe out*

I didn’t keep up with the previews as promised.

I lost almost all my work time this weekend due to the pending relocation. I have NPC sex changes coming in (thank you all!), edits coming in, and a few thousand more words to write. This will be done June 13th. I cannot express how sorry I am. I will make this up to all of you.

For now, I’m up way too late for way too many days in a row. I’m in a strange city and everybody around me is asleep. Living the dream.

Back to work.

(Click below for another preview.)