A TTRPG Project
At long last, I begin my Wasteland Warrior Hoots Patrol project, which I had planned years ago as a post-thesis project. My thesis is now done, so I can now devote myself fully to this vastly more important topic.
The goal of this project is to create a series of mini-systems based around the theme of the Gloryhammer song Wasteland Warrior Hoots Patrol, henceforth referred to as WWHP. The purpose is to have a testing ground for any ideas I have for TTRPG design, using this song because it has a very evocative theme with some notable constraints, but is open enough to more or less allow for anything system-wise, and also it is just great.
I will be trying to create a post each week with a new system or engine, although these will certainly be untested and mostly just design prototypes - if I do a playtest of any of them, I will make a post covering it and any follow-up or modifications to the system prototype. Hopefully, through this, I can find some interesting core engines that I enjoy and expand them into more extensive systems, which are not necessarily tied to WWHP. If this project goes very well, I might create a collection of the better systems in a cohesive and more readable book (maybe even art???), however, anything larger scale or commercial might start running into IP and Copyright laws. The absolute best case is, of course, to collaborate with Gloryhammer themselves to create an officially licensed WWHP TTRPG, however this is not really an outcome I expect nor am I going to work towards it. Without further ado, onto the project itself.
WWHP places us in the nuclear wasteland of Dundee. The album begins with a clone of the evil Sorcerer Zargothrax being activated and setting off a nuclear bomb that destroys Dundee; we will focus only on this wasteland and the people implied to live within it, not on the actual story of the album and the characters in it. Given the setting and restrictions, any system developed for this can more or less only be combat, survival, and exploration focused.
So, what does the song give us?
Firstly, we have the Hoots Patrol itself. It is not made fully clear in the song or album what the Hoots Patrol actually is or who is part of it, nor has there been any clarification that I can find. The best interpretation in my opinion, and the one most useful for making TTRPGs around, is that the Hoots Patrol is formed of the best warriors left in Dundee, organized by the Hootsman to protect what is left of the land and populace - thus this will be a core assumption for this project. There is a random normal looking character in the video, so we do have confirmation that there are people living in Wasteland Dundee.
Thusly, Player Characters will be members of the Hoots Patrol, Warriors of the Wasteland. We can assume that they will be aesthetically themed after the Hootsman. This is an anachronistic pseudo-viking Conan-inspired barbarian look. Characters are large, muscular, and covered in fur and leather. He-Man aesthetic is another useful touchstone. This 80's semi-homoerotic hyper-masculinity should provide plenty of space for a variety of characters, while still being a contained enough theme that rules systems do not have to be extensive. Note that I see no reason for PCs to not also be female, semi-homoerotic hyper-masculinity fully supports women in my opinion. There are also Dwarves in the setting and living in Dundee, and I see no reason why a character should not be a dwarf - classic fantasy dwarves fit the rest of the aesthetic very comfortably.
Next we have the tools and equipment that the characters can use. This seems to be quite restricted by the song, but that is okay, because what is there provides a very strong theme. Firstly, there are three weapons available: Swords, Hammers, Battleaxes. These are explicitly called out, and there is no reference to there even being a possibility of another weapon. We will constrain all weapons to be one of these three, no other options.
But, most importantly, there are also Nuclear Powered Motorbikes. It is made very clear that the Hoots Patrol does their patrolling on motorbikes, which are nuclear powered. I will take this to mean that we generally do not care about fuel or other such mundane concerns, but I think exploding motorbikes should certainly be a thing. These bikes are also shown to be very modern and high tech looking, in the video, a sleek cyberpunk contrast to the fur wearing barbarian look of the characters themselves.
Given the content of the song and video, possible enemies are extremely limited. It is stated that the Hoots Patrol fights goblins everywhere they go, thus we will assume that the default enemy is a goblin. We know from other Gloryhammer lore that Goblins do have, at the very least, a basic societal structure with Kings and Sword Lords and that they can communicate with humans. We can use this to have multiple tiers of goblin enemies, presumably there is something between normal goblins and a leader goblin - however this is not explicitly stated, to my knowledge, thus it will only be used if necessary for the system. Goblins are green, with long pointy ears.
The second possible enemy explicitly called out by the song is Toxic Dragons. All we know about them is the name, and that they can fly. However, there is a long and storied history of how to use Dragons in TTRPGs, so I am not too concerned about how to use them based on this limited amount of information. Dragons are big, scary, toxic, and fly around the nuclear wasteland.
Thirdly, we will extrapolate an extra enemy type from the greater lore of the album, for when it is very necessary. As noted, the nuclear bomb is set up by a clone of the evil sorcerer Zargothrax, and we know from other tracks and videos that there is an army of Zargothrax clones. So when necessary, we can use Zargoclones as a powerful magic using enemy.
I think that this selection of enemies should be perfectly suitable for the needs of this project, but I am okay with looking through the greater Gloryhammer lore for other options if a specific system is in desperate need of it.
The setting and environment is, as noted, a nuclear wasteland. In this case, it is a cold and snow covered nuclear wasteland, but there are trees and presumably some other plant life. We can assume that our fur-clad hyper-masculine PCs care not about a little bit of cold, but if a system requires NPCs then they will likely be extremely focused on keeping warm and managing fuel for fire. Presumably our PCs can also use the Nuclear Powered Motorbikes for heat, should it come up. Otherwise, we should assume a standard ruin filled post-apocalyptic wasteland, where society is limited to tiny villages struggling to survive the permanent winter and goblin raids.
Rounding this all up, we have:
Conan-like fur and leather clad warriors ride their nuclear powered motorbikes around the permanent winter wasteland, protecting the remnants of civilization from goblin raids with swords, hammers, and battleaxes.
There is some low-hanging fruit for systems, which I may or may not implement, depending on how I am feeling in the future and if I have any ideas to make them a little more interesting.
I think this is a super obvious implementation. Borg games are mostly aesthetic and art, and the WWHP framework has a very strong aesthetic. I suspect I will not make any implementations of this type, as art is not my strong suit and there is a minimal amount of actual game design required for this in comparison to other implementations. Also, as far as I can tell, Borg games are going out of vogue and there are too many of them around already. All in all, unlikely unless things line up extremely well for it.
Using the Lasers and Feelings framework, we could make a simple system with the dichotomy being Hoots, the hyper-masculine axe wielding barbarian component of the characters, and Patrol, the sleek and futuristic motorbike riding component of the characters. I will likely refine this at some point and make a post, but it is not too exciting for me.
A classic for turning an idea into a system. Like Borg games, overdone and uninteresting to work on. I might do it at some point if I have a good idea for how to do it really well, the setting is similar enough to the original Apocalypse World that maybe it could be done well enough, as opposed to 90% of the PBtA games out there which don't even understand how the system actually works.
Otherwise, I already have some ideas and will hopefully be posting one at the end of this week.
Below, I will post a link to each post for this project as I release them: