My Forged in the Dark game, Copperhead County, just had a pretty big update. Copperhead County is a modern-day, non-supernatural, Blades-engine game about organized crime and political corruption in the US South. You begin the game broke and hopeless in America and seek the dream of wealth and independence by building an empire across an Appalachian county ruled by a corrupt political-criminal regime, as the local population, economy, and culture slouch forward into the 21st century. Touchstones: Breaking Bad, The Wire, Justified.
Copperhead County has been in Early Access on itch.io this year and features new actions, six new PC playbooks, three crew types, an original setting, and changes large and small to the Blades mechanical core (primarily around engagement, harm, and tier/turf/claims). This update brings us closer to a final stand-alone release, and adds in lots of new pages with complete action descriptions and examples, player best practices, and lots of general polish. I and my trusty captain Michael Crowley are forging ahead on writing the rest of the final content this winter, so more updates are coming down the road.
If that sounds interesting to you, one can find Copperhead County on itch.io and/or holler at me here.
My Forged in the Dark game, Copperhead County, an outlaw country RPG about Breaking-Bad-ian, David-Simon-ian organized crime in the modern, non-magical South, has had an update to v3, with a revamped Claims system and other changes to the core Turf/Tier faction game. I think they’re neat!
CC is a fully playable, nearly finished FitD game with an original setting, playbooks, crews, maps, and a soundtrack. Check it out if you want to go on modern criminal adventures. Do crimes! Do politics! Achieve the American dream of wealth and status by hook and/or by crook.
Plus, if you’re going to be at Big Bad Con this October, Team Copperhead County’s own Michael Crowley will be running a CC game, The Two-Snake Sashay, which promises a dive into the cutthroat world of local electoral politics. Hot damn if that doesn’t sound like a good time:
I’ve released a big ol v2 update for Copperhead County, my Forged in the Dark game of modern-day, southern-fried crime and corruption. This is a major update with lots of polish and, for the first time, full setting writeups. Six original playbooks, three original crews, an original, real-world setting.
Copperhead County is a realist crime action-drama game with a dope soundtrack. I like to think of it as The Wire in Tennessee with a sideline in GTA – esque – Breaking – Bad-ian action. Steal things and drive cars and blow stuff up! Rig elections and subvert a corrupt GOP machine! Fight mountaintop removal mining! Succeed in American capitalism through crime! Copperhead County.
If this sounds up your alley, find it on itch.io! Thanks!!!
Hi Blades pals, I’ve upgraded my Forged in the Dark game, Copperhead County, to official Early Access status,…
Hi Blades pals, I’ve upgraded my Forged in the Dark game, Copperhead County, to official Early Access status, available for a mere $10. Copperhead County is a modern-day, real-world Blades hack set in a fictional slice of my home state of Tennessee, inspired by modern crime series like The Wire, Justified, Fargo, and Breaking Bad.
This EA update isn’t fully standalone, but it has six PC playbooks + three crew playbooks (which you can download for free), a bunch of rules support, some game guidance, a bunch of factions, and some setting info (which will be the first thing to get expanded in the near future).
I’ve been working on this game for a very long time and to put it up for sale is a weird feeling! I’m very proud of it and I hope you like it.
Also, Adam Schwaninger will be running a game tomorrow night on Once Upon A Game! Check it out at: https://m.twitch.tv/ericvulgaris
I’ve released an Intro version (what some folks may call a “Quickstart”) of my Forged in the Dark game, Copperhead…
I’ve released an Intro version (what some folks may call a “Quickstart”) of my Forged in the Dark game, Copperhead County. Copperhead County is about organized crime, political corruption, and the nature of the modern American South. You’ll play a crew of outlaws in the year 201x who band together to survive and thrive in post-recession America by adventuring their way to capitalist success. Do you want to play an RPG in the real world, dealing with real-life issues? Do you like things like Blades in the Dark, GTA, The Wire, Justified, Breaking Bad, or Fargo? Come on over.
This Intro PDF isn’t standalone and will require the Blades SRD to play, but is otherwise fully playable and contains all PC and crew playbooks, reference sheets, rules info, starting situations, some setting and faction info, a Spotify soundtrack, and the Best Brands Heist, the only published RPG adventure where you rob a big-box retail store.
This is a fully developed game that has been written and playtested over the last few years. My focus now is in finishing it as an actual book/product (a lot of which is already done) and raising money for editorial, art, online support, etc. This version of the Intro PDF is free, but will eventually be supplanted by an expanded EA version that will launch alongside the Official Copperhead County Crowdfund Campaign™ in the coming weeks.
If you read, like, play, and/or enjoy the game, please tell me and everyone you know! Stay tuned for more news about #CopperheadCounty
#glowinthedarkrpg Last night I ran a one-shot of Adam Schwaninger’s Glow in the Dark at an open RPG event here in…
#glowinthedarkrpg Last night I ran a one-shot of Adam Schwaninger’s Glow in the Dark at an open RPG event here in pre-apocalyptic Portland OR. It was a hit!
We ended up with a very small crowd, so I only had two PCs. After an accelerated character creation (where, since we were short-staffed, I let them make pretty souped-up characters) we had Sheila, a shotgun-toting, leather-clad Reaper, and Blue Ring, a Mutant who was some sort of horrible hybrid of a human and a blue-ringed octopus.
We introduced the wasteland town of Bigwater, a section of the Boneyards on the coast of the rad-ocean, partially submerged. It turned out that, although humans lived there, the main population were Blue Ring’s fellow horrible cephalopod-people, who held themselves as quite superior to the simians. Unfortunately for Bigwater, they had just suffered a terrible raid by the Ape Empire, who sacked the town of their technological supplies and burned the rest.
Sheila and Blue Ring set out into the wastes to track the apes, and found a shack in the middle of nowhere. Just as they arrived, a flying saucer bearing the symbol of the Conclave (basically the Brotherhood of Steel; I figured with their advanced tech they just had flying saucers) dropped off a heavily-armored Knight to scan the area. Luckily, Blue Ring made short work of him using her feral-mutant special abilities to vanish into thin air, then ambush the Knight with her tentacles and venomous beak.
They ventured into the shack and found an abandoned elevator shaft leading down into the utter darkness. After jury-rigging the elevator, they defeated a few ape guards, took a keycard off an ape scientist, and unlocked the main chamber of the complex, where a bunch of ape technicians were trying to repair… a nuclear warhead!?
They intimidated the ape techs into fleeing, then Sheila made short work of the remaining ape guards (even an ape sergeant, who was wearing a Roman-style helmet with a human skull mounted on top. We also established the apes wore Roman-style robes in colors appropriate to their job function.) Just then, one remaining ape scientist held up a beeping device, pledging that the weapon would never fall into the primitives’ hands, but Blue Ring threw a knife at him and they hacked the device into turning off the warhead.
The duo lugged the warhead out of the complex and strapped it to a stolen ape-dune-buggy. In the epilogue, we saw Blue Ring deliver the bomb to her cephalopod brethren, and Sheila lead the mighty human-cephalopod army that nuked the Ape Empire and conquered the wastes.
This week, we wrapped the first season of my second playtest campaign for Copperhead County, my modern-southern-Forged-in-the-Dark game. RIYL: Blades in the Dark, Breaking Bad, Justified, The Wire, Fargo.
To celebrate, and to observe my ongoing attempts to finish this game, I’m going to recap the season, and show off both PC and crew playbooks, and the county map.
Copperhead County, modern crime Forged in the Dark, buy it from me sometime in 2018! Enjoy this preview, and read on for exciting criminal adventures.
In this game, we follow the exploits of the Hunnicutt family, a crew of Blood relatives who live in the fictional city of Patterson, TN, the seat of Copperhead County. At the start of the season, the Hunnicutts were not seasoned criminals, but turned to crime to raise money for their father, Ezekiel, a retired cop who now struggles with lung disease.
The Hunnicutts are:
Zeke, the Stringer. The oldest son, his business career cratered after a failed start-up and he now uses his financial acumen to lead the crew. Played by Adam Maunz.
Earl, the Cleaner. The younger son, he’s a city detective just like his dad, but very willing to abuse the badge, and his powers of observation, to do crimes. Played by Tyler Ellis.
Eustace, the Mover. Ezekiel’s younger brother, he’s a life-long fuck-up who recently left prison, and is at the forefront of making dangerous, violent decisions for the crew. Played by Adam Schwaninger.
The main trio are joined by Zeke and Earl’s sister Gwen, a county medical examiner / NPC Expert, and their idiot cousin Wayne, their starting Connection, who deals drugs out of a local Zip Burger restaurant.
With Wayne’s help, they started the season by ripping off a dealer who used to work with Wayne, but spurned him to find greater success with the College Street Crew, a tier-1 faction of college students and dropouts who run a party-drug ring. Deciding to double-down on drug-dealing, they decided to figure out the CSC’s workings, and possibly recruit, or eliminate, their drug cook. Eventually, they sniffed out the CSC’s lab (in the basement of a campus maintenance building) and kidnapped the cook, but the CSC came back on them and took Wayne hostage, and the two sides reached a deal where the hostilities would cease, but the Hunnicutts would pay the CSC a tithe after every job, in return for the CSC acting as their MDMA supplier. The Hunnicutts thus completed a Drug Game claim, but bristled at having to bow to these damn millennials.
Meanwhile, each of the Hunnicutts dealt with their own issues:
Zeke’s wife, Liz, a teacher, was recruited by the local Democratic Party in a long-shot bid to win a special election for County Trustee, an important position controlling the distribution of public funds. This eventually put the crew on the radar of the Barnett Mob, a tier-3 faction of no-drama dealers and corrupters who run the east side of the city, and apparently are in deep with the anemic County Democrats. Zeke made contact with a Barnett captain, and agreed to cooperate with them to covertly support his wife’s campaign, leading to the crew breaking into a GOP fundraiser at a country club, and planting a bug in the private lounge where the county’s powerbrokers gather (a bit of The Americans in our game).
Earl found himself embroiled in an affair with his superior officer, Det. Sgt. Kathy Lind, when he ran into her in the supply closet while ripping off police supplies to use on a job, and responded to it by seducing her. This started a “Lind Trouble” clock, and for the next several downtimes, Earl had to avert her suspicions of his mysterious wounds and comings-and-goings. Eventually, the Lind Trouble clock completed when Eustace tailed her and found out she herself was bent, and on the payroll of the Mountain Mafia, the tier-4 masters of county corruption.
Eustace, an expert driver, auditioned for a pseudo-reality TV show filming in the county, a fake Smoky-and-the-Bandit style series about hillbilly drivers. He ended up competing against his rival, Billie Jo Holloway, a young racer whose mother Eustace shared a brief affair with back in the 90s. Eustace won the race, and the further ire of Billie Jo, and eventually found himself served with papers from her mother Bobbie Jean, seeking a paternity test and back child support. Is it possible Eustace is…. a father?!
The season came to a head this week. Since the Hunnicutts had ruined the College Street Crew’s campus pill lab, the CSC made them find a new place they could cook. Eustace took this chance to find an abandoned trailer in the mountains and fix it up a little bit, planning to lure the CSC into an ambush there. To make this easier, they recruited their cousin Grace, a former addict and convict who recruited a Gang out of her old shitkicker friends.
When the time came to lure the CSC to the trailer, their engagement roll was a 3: it turned out the CSC also planned to double-cross the Hunnicutts, and had invited goons working for Baron Carter, a tier-2 local warlord, who was to be their new drug-dealing partner. Luckily, Grace and her goons were up on a hill overlooking the trailer, and the Hunnicutts proceeded to roll crit after crit and demolish both enemy gangs, only leaving the CSC’s cook, Roy Reyes, alive. Roy agreed to surrender and cook for the Hunnicutts in exchange for them leaving the rest of his crew alone (what little now remained).
However, just as the Hunnicutts enjoyed their triumph, their lives were complicated when Detective Lind arrived on the scene, having tailed Earl from the city. It turned out she had notified her masters in the Mountain Mafia about what was going down, and soon Jock Richards, a bald MM captain, arrived to negotiate with the Hunnicutts. Luckily, the crits were not done, and Zeke managed to strike a deal with him where, in exchange for now paying regular tribute to the Mountain Mafia, they’d protect the Hunnicutts and loop them into Lind’s corrupt-police ring, allowing them use of the Police Payroll claim.
As the season ends, the Hunnicutts have broken into the county’s corrupt power structure, affording their patriarch’s medical care (he is now doing slightly better after a lung transplant) by becoming drug dealers, killing several people, and co-opting the rest of their family into crime. Liz Hunnicutt, Democratic candidate for County Trustee, has no idea what Zeke’s been up to, but if she wins her race, she’ll soon find herself in the middle of drama she never imagined. Earl must still balance his career as a cop with his criminal life, now with the added complication of he and his boss-lover knowing all about each other’s secrets. And will Eustace get on television and dedicate himself to late fatherhood, or will his hair-trigger temper mess it all up? Find out next season…
#CopperheadCounty update: I’ve been working on the final form of Copperhead County, my Blades-powered game about…
#CopperheadCounty update: I’ve been working on the final form of Copperhead County, my Blades-powered game about organized crime and corruption in the modern American South, and I want to show off a preview chunk.
Copperhead County is Blades in the Dark if it married Justified and had children named The Wire, Breaking Bad, and Fargo. It is a full game set in a fictional Appalachian county in Tennessee in the year 201x, where a corrupt establishment is creaking under the weight of change. Old South vs New South. Town vs country. Locals vs interlopers. Crew vs crew.
This preview has some intro pages and the Characters chapter, in case you want to take a read and gander at the character playbooks. The crews chapter (not included) is also finished, and now I’m going to start finalizing the setting chapter and working on general layout while awaiting the SRD. And then, ???
If you’re interested in more, you can check the #CopperheadCounty hashtag to find some recent APs by my esteemed playtester Adam Schwaninger, some old APs of mine, and some really old WIPs from ages past.
To honor the launch of a second playtest group this week, I present a comprehensive Copperhead County: Almost Done Edition update.
Copperhead County is Blades in the Dark if it married Justified and had children named The Wire, Breaking Bad, and Fargo. It is a full hack set in a fictional Appalachian county in Tennessee in the year 201x, where a corrupt establishment is creaking under the weight of change. Old South vs New South. Town vs country. Locals vs interlopers. Crew vs crew.
Inside you will find:
* An original setting with original factions
* Six playbooks, including the all-new Mover
* Three crews, including the all-new Blood
* Revised Claims and more
* An official and very good Spotify playlist
* PDFs with bookmarks
February 2018 edit: This preview is now offline while I finish the game. You can find a playbooks preview here:
