Hey, guess what? I did a guest comic yesterday for my pals at MegaCynics. It is, appropriately enough, Desert Bus themed! You can read it -- and lots of other comics -- over on the MegaCynics site!

Sam and Fuzzy Q & A:  RPG Edition
Got a question you want answered? Just drop me an email with "Q & A" in the subject line!

"Do Grrrbills have their representative at the Committtee?" -Motyka

No! Grrbils are a non-Committee organization. And their operations -- engaging in surface crimes as visibly sentient rodents -- actually technically violate the Committee's status quo rules. Their gang is only tolerated because their territory is small, and because they keep their human victims quiet. (And because they reproduce so quickly it makes it hard to outfit them all with quarntine tags.)

In the world guide section of the RPG we're making, I broke down the power dynamics of the Sam and Fuzzy world into Committee Factions and Independent/Rival Factions. The Committee is very powerful, but they don't have a hand in every major organization... some are independent (like the Grrbils), and some are downright antagonistic to Committee operations (like the extremist wolfperson rights organization, the Big Broken Bad Wolves). And in the case of the recently-added-by-way-of-stretch-goal squid people, their organization has split into both a Committe and rival faction. It's been really fun to dig into it at all!

"How are Buddy Bears involved in the RPG pre-Noosehead era? I thought they were all trapped in an abandoned city until S&F went on the run?" -Keith

During the time of our game, the bulk of the Buddy Bears are indeed still in Hope Springs. The Buddy Bears were confined by two things, originally: the physical sealing of the town, and the limited broadcasting range of their master, the Buddy Hivemind.

Without spoiling too much, during the time of our game, there are limited quantities of two kinds of Buddy Bears opperating outisde Hope Springs. The Buddy Prototypes are first run Buddys -- the kind that were built with defective independent brains instead of being controlled by the hivemind -- that were sent to potential investors. Meanwhile, the Emmisaries are a batch of Buddys that were retrofitted with modified independent brains by the Buddy Hivemind and sent out into the world shortly before the town was sealed. You can learn (way) more about all this in the actual book!

Long story short, the Buddys are definitely a rare sight in the Noosehead-era Underground, but they're around... and if you choose to play as one, you get to be one of the few!

"I just remembered that we haven't seen Aaron since Hazel's infiltration of Ninja HQ. Is he still there? Is anyone taking care of his animals? And most importantly: IS BUDDY OK?! I can't imagine what we'd do if Buddy ever died." -Jake

Aaron and Buddy are doing fine! They are just back at the pet store, taking care of things.

In an earlier draft of Off the Sauce, Aaron was going to be one of the members of the burlesque troupe... requested by Gertrude basically out of thoroughly-aged spite, I guess? But it didn't really make a ton of sense -- she hadn't seen or been bothered by Aaron in years. And having him as a second grumpy presense would have distracted from the agony of the one guy she really did put on the team out of spite -- Sam. So I cut him out!

That's a wrap for this week, team. See you on Monday!

-Sam Logan

To funding... and beyond!

Wow, guys. Not only did the RPG kickstarter successfully fund since my last newspost... it's almost hit it's first stretch goal as well! You all are amazing. Thanks so much for your support!

As you may have seen, I posted a big update on our kickstarter page on Monday about how character creation works in our game. It outlines the major components of our characters, and the core elements that make our game unique: our COPE and DEAL stats, and our extremely job influenced power and skill system. It also revealed our seven major playable species, along with some art of them from the book!

And of course, at this rate, it looks like we'll be adding the squid folk of the Calamari Dynasty to that list shortly... and if things keep going well, maybe even the shapeshifters!

It's all pretty exciting for me. I keep thinking of this Ninja Turtles RPG book I had as a kid. I didn't actually play tabletop games much yet at that time, but I loved pouring over it and learning about all these places and characters and groups from the... uh... turtleverse... that had never been dug into elsewhere. I want our book to provide that same kind of amusement to S&F fans, and I look forward to packing it with as much stuff as possible!

-Sam Logan

Kickstarter fundage imminent

As I write this post, the kickstarter for The Underground: A Sam and Fuzzy RPG is teetering at 99% funding. That, my friends, is bananas. I am thrilled to see so many of you are as excited about our game/guidebook to the Sam and Fuzzy universe as I am!

And with three full weeks still left to go in the campaign, it’s looking like we may raise enough to make the game even larger and more awesome than we’d originally planned -- with more game features, Sam and Fuzzy lore, and illustrations than the copious quantities contained in our original book! I am super pumped to be revealing our favourite expansion ideas as stretch goals this early in the campaign. They are these:
The 20k expansion would introduce a massive helping of new Underground lore, detailing the twisted history of the Calamari Dynasty -- an original Committee member organization that was replaced by Squilt's Salmon Corporation and revived as a rival faction. If you've ever wondered what the deal is with all the squids running around in the comic... this is my chance to finally dig into it! And of course, both factions of squids would also become playable in game.

Meanwhile, the 25k expansion would reveal the truth about the brethren of Jess Star -- the mysterious shapeshifters! This is something I've wanted to explore for ages, but that just never fit logically into the comic story. In addition to becoming a playable species with a newly designed disguise mechanic, shapeshifters will also get a big write-up in the book's lore sections, detailing the secret history of their species, and which other Sam and Fuzzy character(s) are also secretly shapeshifters. You know, in case you were curious.

Anyhow, we've got some fun ideas for additions! But that's not to downplay the quantity of stuff that's already in there. Late last Friday, I posted our book's working draft Table of Contents, to help give people some sense of the scope of the project.  Allow me to reshare it here!

And believe it or not, all that content is already written! (Although I'm still busy illustrating it and laying it all out in InDesign.) Right now, we're estimating it'll be around 250-300 pages in print form, with over 100 new illustrations crafted just for the book. We have been busy.

We return on Wednesday, with a new comic and more info about the RPG project. See you then!

-Sam Logan