Hellequin Games would not exist without peers, inspirations, and theory. These all deserve more than credit - they deserve to be read and appreciated. Go yonder and do so. This page still under construction - currently you get functional but not pretty.

Design Theory

The whole field of RPG theory as we know it would not exist were it not for The Forge and the body of theory it has built. If you enjoy the games on this site, then you owe a spiritual debt to Ron Edwards and Clinton R. Nixon for all they've done.

Those who find the Forge a bit thick can get the same material, delivered in a more easily-digestible form, in the archives of Vincent Baker's Anyway. And in the more current stuff you have the theory itself being actively elaborated, to boot. Good stuff.

To be honest the only other theory blog I read much is Ben Lehman's This Is My Blog, though you can find several others linked off of here and off of Anyway.

Indie Games That Rock

Ron Edwards' Sorcerer and his other works.

Vincent Baker's Dogs In The Vineyard.

Driftwood Publishing's The Riddle of Steel.

Matt Wilson's Prime Time Adventures.

Paul Czege's My Life With Master.

Clinton R. Nixon's The Shadow of Yesterday.

James Brown's Death's Door.

Ad Astra

My first title credit isn't on a Hellequin Games product at all, or for that matter an RPG - it's on Ad Astra Games' reality-faithful space combat game, Attack Vector: Tactical. It's a hell of a game, if I may say so myself, a fact which is backed up not only by the excellent testimonials you'll see if you follow that link, but also by its winning the Origins Award for Best Miniatures Game in its year of release (2004). Woo-hoo!

You can expect further collaborations with Ad Astra to crop up here, including a target 2006 release of High Trader with yours truly as head developer. Those interested in helping playtest High Trader should contact Ken Burnside via the Playtesting link on the Ad Astra website.

Iron Game Chef

The IGC is a competition where participants struggle to create a fully playable RPG in a strictly limited time frame. The face-to-face Origins version allows just two hours; the online Forge/1KM1KT version allows nine days. Neither is particularly kind. You can check out the Iron Game Chef site or the more useful IGC forums for further information. More stuff on the games themselves will follow in this space as some of them move forward past contest entries and toward published works. They've all been immortalized in their as-submitted form thanks to the fellows at One Thousand Monkeys, One Thousand Typewriters (1KM1KT), though, so you can read them there - typos and all.