What's With Amazing Adventures 5e?

In my last blog I mentioned the Fifth Edition rules version of Amazing Adventures. I thought I'd take a minute to talk about that for those who hadn't heard about it yet.

Many of my readers are (hopefully) aware that I'm a staff writer for Troll Lord Games. If you weren't before, you are now--full disclosure! I'm currently the sole author on the Amazing Adventures pulp-modern game line for TLG, a modern toolkit game that uses the same system as Castles & Crusades: The SIEGE Engine.

I've been with Troll Lord for about 10 years, now, give or take, and a full staff writer for 3 or 4 years. I started writing for them because I love the C&C system. It's the best of the old-school feel with a simple, elegant, and fast-play attribute check system. I discovered it when it first came out in 2004, and have been hooked ever since.

People are sometimes, however, surprised to hear that not all game designers only play their house system. I actually enjoy a lot of game systems. I used to write for Eden Studios (and I still hope to again someday) and the Unisystem is to this day one of my go-to systems--I have a very long-running game world that mixes all of their games (Buffy, Angel, Army of Darkness, Ghosts of Albion, WitchCraft, Armageddon, Conspiracy X) with the Cthulhu Mythos, the Hastur Mythos (as originally conceived by Robert W. Chambers and removed from Lovecraft connections), the World of Darkness, and even TLG's Aihrde. We have a chronicle at Obsidian Portal with a thorough overview and synopses of our game if you're interested.

Anyway, the point is I play many games besides C&C and AA. One of those games is D&D 5e, which I really dig. It's my favorite version of the game since OD&D and AD&D 1e. It's also, to be blunt, a cash cow. A gaming company these days that doesn't support it isn't taking advantage of a ready income stream. Of course, to do it, you need to do it right. 






Amazing Adventures 5e

So we decided to create a Fifth Edition version of Amazing Adventures. It's been in playtest for a number of months now, been built up, deconstructed, rebuilt, the works. I'm very, very pleased with it. We are hoping to Kickstart it sometime this spring, but I don't want to give an exact date lest we miss it and someone accuse me of vaporware.

So what will be in it? We're planning to be the first major publisher to release a full, modern 5e toolkit rules set. Others have experimented with modern 5e rules to varying degrees of success, but almost, if not all, are devoted to a single genre, and often tied to a specific house campaign setting. Ours will not be. It'll be the Amazing Adventures you know, expanded to cover swashbuckling renaissance play, 1930s pulp, 1990s trenchcoats and katanas, tech noir, cyberpunk, space opera, supers, or any other kind of game you can imagine.

It will include the first fully-realized psionics system released commercially for 5e. It includes a full superpowers system (which is rather innovative compared to others that have been released, and requires little to no sub-system add-ons). It has all-new character classes, built around the same tropes and power levels as 5e Fantasy characters, which means that if you want to bring in a fantasy game Fighter, all you need to is assign modern weapon proficiencies, a defense progression, and you're good to go.

There will be full vehicle combat rules. There are two different sets of firearms rules--a core, streamlined set that I suspect will be used by most, and better mimics cinematic firefights, and a more simulationist set as an appendix, which deals with issues like rate of fire, recoil and the like. There are also new unarmed combat rules that allow you to have dynamic bar fights where you knock your opponents senseless, without having to spend hours dealing 1 point of damage at a time.

There will be Inspiration Points rules, which allow you to rack up multiple instances of Inspiration, and use them for more than just getting advantage on a roll. Use them to spend hit dice on the fly, gain a lucky plot break, make saving throws, and other things. One of the character classes, the Gadgeteer, can be used to mimic anything from your super spy with an exploding pen to a crime fighter with a utility belt, to a super-powered hero, to a cybered-out street samurai.

Some of these rules will be previewed in the forthcoming Fifth Edition Player's Guide to Aihrde, in particular the psionics, cinematic unarmed combat, and Inspiration Points rules, so check that book out if you want a sneak peek!

Anyway, that's my current big project. I'm really, really pleased with how playtest is going and I'm super excited to get it out there in your hands. If you're coming to Gary Con, I'll be running a sneak preview game. It's sold out, but you can get on the waiting list. I'll also be running an event at Origins (I think). More on that later.

So that's it. Hopefully we'll see it kickstart in spring and come out sometime this summer or early fall!

Oh, one last thing! No, the SIEGE Version of Amazing Adventures is NOT going out of print, nor are we going to stop supporting it. This is an additional game, not a replacement. I am working on a number of supplements for the SIEGE AA, which is my baby and will remain in print for the foreseeable future. 

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