The moment that everybody has been waiting for is here, and it is now time to see the preview of the most exciting RPG that is coming up! This is Refuge in Audacity! It is time for EXTREME ROLEPLAYING!!! Go explore the galaxy-sized city of Audacity as a Mechadragoon Corruptor or an Amazonite Ultra-Anarchist! Your fate is in the hands of the Karma Fates, and of the Karma Fate Destiny Master! You can go fight in the Blood Nebula and learn more kung fus and spells of magic!
The people on the world wide web told me that the best way to make your game popular was to give it away for free in the digital universe. So I am trying that with a preview version of the game. YOU CAN GET THE GAME ON THE GAME PAGE RIGHT HERE BY CLICKING ON THIS TEXT THAT IS HIGHLIGHTED.
I have been working on this game for a long time, since the mid-1990s. I will be soon putting out the leatherbound, 1,200-page rulebook really soon, you guys. So make sure you buy the book because this isn’t a way to make money with the free internet things. Also there is a Donate button on the page for the game, so give me money cuz that would be awesome. It would really suck if you all bought the game for free on the web and didn’t ever buy the game book when I put out the book. But still, for now you can get the preview version that has a lot of important rules cut out because you can’t have them all for free.
Anyway, I think you will like the game. It is inspired by all my influences from games and comics: Raven cs McCracken, Rob Liefeld, Kevin Simembebebeda, and Fletcher Hanks. All of them made things really awesome and epic and this game is like that. So go get it!
[[Out of Character]]
I created this game on a lark after I found a file on my computer from several years back with a list of stupid race and class names. That formed the foundation of the game, as I very quickly hammered out the rest of a semi-playable game. To be clear, this is the whole game. The 1,200-page leatherbound full edition isn’t something the author character will ever complete.
The World of Synnibarr was a big inspiration for this game, as were bad nineties comics. (I actually have the first and second editions of Synnibarr, as well as the Ultimate Adventurer’s Guide!) My intent was to boil those down—to provide the fun of rolling on tables full of ridiculous crap and over-the-top powergaming of a second-tier multi-genre RPGs without the typical unwieldy game systems that came with them.
So the top priority was getting the feel of flipping through a bad rulebook. After completing the class and race tables, I skipped the rules and went straight to the character sheet. I went with a ton of checkboxes (again inspired by Synnibarr, which had boxes for “deaths left” and “wishes”) and cryptic nonsense. All the hallmarks of too-complicated RPGs went in: defense rolls, damage multipliers, called shots, saving throws against all sorts of weird things, and so on. Soon after, monsters and adventure creation got the same percentile-table-based treatment as the character creation system.
The name, by the way, is taken from a page on TV Tropes. The usual warning about that site: Don’t click the link if you want to get anything done today.
I had a strange little mutant of a system, and I needed strange little mutant artwork to go with it. Of course, the only choice was Jared von Hindman of Head Injury Theater! We shared a strange rapport working on this project, continuously coming up with the same ideas for illustrations and building on each other’s odd ideas. Our conversations kind of went like this one about the image for the cover (edited for length and language):
Jared: Give me a second & I can share one of the doodles. It’s so very Mouseketeer Cable
Me: I’d suggest a few more pouches, and make the cigar glow like it’s radioactive. And spikes on the front of the surfboard.
And maybe the mouse ears are little radar dishes.
Jared: I was thinking of Frankenstein suturing the thing to his head, but yeah, definitely will throw in a few more manly details no matter what
Me: Did he just fly through the sun? It should be splitting perfectly in half and falling apart.
Jared: The exploding/shattered sun is there, just not fleshed out. Split in half? Classy.
Me: Yeah. Like a samurai cut it and ten seconds later it falls apart.
Jared: So, while I’m still tweaking the angle/details, is the general vibe right here?
IE does is need the hot babe glued to his thigh? Should it be more nonsensical like teh Synnibunn cover?
Me: It doesn’t HAVE to have boobs. It’s not Heavy Metal.
Jared did some great work. (I especially like the girl with the beehive hairdo and the waist twisting with Liefeld-style anatomy.) His cohort Noodle Soup also contributed a rad piece that is definitively not Colossus.
Stuck in the Past but Looking at the Present
For all the retro inspiration, I wanted to distribute this in a modern way. Just printing off some black-and-white ashcans and selling them at cons would have been more in-character for my “author” persona, but would be pretty damn silly. I’d like to have other people bolt on subsystems and house rules. Have an idea for an Erotic Arts subsystem? Want to write up what Rings of Power are for? Come up with a use for Psi Tokens? I want to see you put all that stuff out there. Send me a link on any of the addresses mentioned on the product page. I’ve released the whole shebang under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, so hack to your heart’s content!
One thing I really want to put together: A gallery of people’s character drawings. Roll up a character, whether you intend to play or not, and doodle a picture of it in your notebook (the more pouches and radiation glows the better!) and send it along.
I hope you enjoy the book, whether you play it, read it, or just get inspired to look at your old X-Force comics and play some Mortal Kombat. Accept it in the spirit it was given: a very dumb one.
Shawn Merwin says
ZOMG!!!! I was just kicked in the junk by awesomeness. And I think I like it!!!! Stupendous work!
pseckler says
This game makes me want to flip out and kill stuff!
Bartoneus says
I haven’t gotten very far into it yet, but if there’s not already an insanely complicated inventory system based on accurately representing the hundreds of pouches your character must have on their thighs/biceps, then I’m sure as hell going to make one!
The Chatty DM says
This is such a delightful work of satire and awesomeness combined. It harkens me back to my years of actually enjoying Palladium games and trying to find that impossible balance between a teenaged geek’s quest for “realism” and being able to play Planet-destroying Monkey Ninja Death Clowns.
Great work guys, I read the whole thing last night and had to pay our cleaning service extra to pick up the chunks of exploded brains…
You win at the Internets… I hope that everyone that buys the free version gives you a lot of chunks of cash for the full leather-bound version.
Alton says
This looks AWESOME!!!. Is it going to be available in stores shortly? Or is it just private sales?
Logan Bonner says
I’m not planning to put it in stores. Right now it’s just Lulu.
kesher says
Hey there. Brilliant stuff! It’ll fit on my shelf right between WoS and Encounter Critical… 🙂
One question about the lulu print version: Why is one priced $7.99 and one $9.99?
Logan Bonner says
Kesher, I recently increased the price to $9.99 when I ordered copies. I needed it higher so when I get copies to distribute myself, I will have a decent chance of making some money. The new Lulu price matches the copies I’ll sign and ship personally. Once I have those on hand, it will be less expensive to order from me directly than to pay Lulu’s pretty hefty shipping.
If both versions were showing up, my guess is that it’s still cataloging the changes. You can try ordering the cheaper version, but I don’t know if it will work.
Jonathan Tweet says
Hilarious. It really captures what’s special and funny about over-the-top RPG design. The text is filled with the slightly-off phrasing that makes bad RPG writing so good. The ultra-energy of this hyper-design should fill infinity players everywhere with mega-joy.