Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran

@bad-quail.itch.io

679 Followers 1176 Following

He/They. Librarian by day. Tabletop games artisan some of the rest of the time. Purveyor of fine PDFs at https://bad-quail.itch.io. Logo by John W. Sheldon.

A screenshot of an Itch-dot-io ratingg from user pinpanar9. 5 stars and the comment "good".
An American cinema large popcorn with mandatory accompanying Icee frozen soft drink.
A man with fluffy hair in a denim vest, thick rimmed glasses, and a seafoam green flo mask pro.
An orange and white creamsickle tabby cat meows plaintively on top of a hard plastic suitcase.
Two orange hands hits tabby cats lounging on a bed.
A passage in the 2016 PbtA superhero game Masks, reading: Often when you trigger a move, you roll dice to see what happens next. These are the only times you roll dice in the whole game. You might want to roll dice to resolve a situation at other times—don’t, until you’ve actually done something in the game that triggers a move. Sometimes you might want to trigger a move and go straight to rolling without describing any action in the fiction—don’t, until you’ve done something in the game that triggers it. Fiction first.
An RPG dot net post, reading: "Fiction first" is our guideline. Sometimes it bites, because you don't always get to do the most mechanically optimal thing, but them's the breaks. The roleplaying affects all aspects of the game (though I can freely admit it does tend to affect combat a tad less, since it's the more rigorously defined in terms of mechanics). In Burning Wheel (which we play a lot these days), it's worthwhile to put some effort into your descriptions of what you're doing, even if it's a non-social and non-combat roll like navigating through a forest, because that's how you earn extra FoRK dice! By bringing up related skills in the roleplay of the action you're performing you can add a die per related skill to the roll. If you just said, "I want to navigate through the forest," and left it at that, I'm not even sure I'd let you roll without telling me how you were going about it, and even if I did you certainly wouldn't qualify for any bonus FoRK dice (which make the task easier). -B
A game of Oath. The red fox pawn occupies the Tribunal with a warband and a keep.
An endgame board state of Brink. A bunch of colored cardboard hexes on a stark black board with colorful plastic spaceships distributed around.
Chronicle, Volume 1, Appendix I—The Fox King The denizens of the provinces still tell tales of the Shrouded Wood and the Crimson Path Rebels who haunted its boughs. Of their leader, the Fox King. An acerbic sorcerer who wore the face of the True Chancellor. Whose magics ruled the beasts of the wild and horse of the steppe. Who sought to win the hearts of the people with a spell. And whose power was ultimately undone by the secret word locked away in the Chancellor's impenetrable Cradle. The Crimson Path is long grown over. The Shrouded Wood felled for firewood. Yet in the provinces they say the Fox King's pups yet stalk the night, practicing on chickens what they intend for the Chancellor's get.
An exhile board in Oath. A foxy swordsman bears the Banner of the People's Favor.
A witchy-looking card game played in a black and white cloth mat with a box in the center.
A thin crust pizza with red pepper and black olives.
An end game state of the strategy board game Root. Red rat meeples are all over the map, crowding out green mice, blue raptors, and purple corvids. The score track shows that the crows won.
A white-and-orange creamsickle tabby cat, belly up on a green bed spread.
A knight fighting a skelly
A screenshot of the first round of Bloggies: Theory posts. "The Language of D&D Imply a Specific Setting" against "There is a point to Tom Bombadil (or how I approach lore)."
A pale teenage girl with a black bob haircut wearing cybergoth makeup and a yellow-and-black spacesuit has a mental breakdown in the dark.
An Early Modern woodcut depicting a crowd cheering a person being tortured on a breaking wheel. The image is overlayed with a blood red transparency layer with the text "Break the Blood Machine" in an archaic blackletter font.
A map of hexagons representing space, with blue, yellow, red, and green plastic minis representing a mix of infantry, mechs, and small and large space ships.
A midgame board state of Star Wars Rebellion. Plastic Rebel and Imperial ships are scattered around a game boars depicting planets in galaxy far far away.
A white man with short brown hair and bears. Wearing thick black rimmed glasses, a FloMask Pro respirator, and a green canvas vest over a faded black hoodie. In the background: an airport terminal.
A white man with shirt brown hair, thick glasses, and a beard wearing a denim vest and a FloMask Pro.
A fantasy character with a fucked up magic right arm and blue leathers holding both hands cupped. In said hands are a male and female cardinal, looking all cute and shit.
A white man with light brown hair and thick rimmed glasses hugging a very demure orang and white creamsickle tabby cat.
An orange and white creamsickle tabby cat, belly up, getting very good scritchies.
A screen from Star Trek the original series. In profile, from left to right: Spock, Kirk, and Leonard "Bones" McCoy.
And end state in the board game The Old King's Crown. A gorgeous card game that takes up entirely too much table real estate.
Mid game of a 3 player session of the Old King's Crown. A huge board depicting a stylized view of a fantasy kingdom with lots of gorgeously illustrated cards. It is quite cramped on the coffee shop table it sits on.
A screenshot of the bottom navigation bar of the Affinity by Canva page. Including links to "Affinity V2" under the "Help" heading.
A white man with short, messy brown hair and goatee wearing thick glasses, a FloMask Pro, and a hoody layered with a denim vest. In the background, an out of focus airport terminal.
A white man with short, curly brown hair, green eyes, and a reddish goatee wearing thick rimmed glasses, a seafoam green Flo Mask Pro, and a beat up denim vest. A blurry airport terminal in the background.
A red haired fantasy character dozing sitting up against a boulder in a green field. Several animals nap around them including rabbits, deer, and a beaver laying belly up like a doofus.
A screenshot of a spreadsheet showing various entries in the Appendix N Jam that got mentioned in the awards live stream, along with their community ranking and number of jam ratings.
"Is the situation at the table making anyone uncomfortable or unsafe? Each player has a duty to stop the game at any time for the wellbeing of any other player."
"Each player strives to bring their paragon to life as someone who is interesting and daring, who reaches boldly beyond their current safety and means. All players share the same responsibility: You engage with the premise of Sword Opera by driving play towards interesting goals, risky decisions, and melodramatic circumstances."
A perfect bound softcover book. The cover depicts a vaguely Italian Renaissance skirmish with swords fought by attractive and fashionable young people. At least one sword glows with supernatural power.
A simple spread of three oracle cards. The past: the Shepard. Depicting a large, weary bull sitting beside an equally weary teacher. The present: the Teacher of Wings. Depicting a winged teacher giving cautious instruction to three pupils. The future: the Teacher of Eyes. Depicting a four-eyed teacher giving inspired instruction to three pupils.
A 4 x 4 quadrant grid with a bunch of alien symbols. It's a puzzle you solve sudoku-style.
From the Studio Ghibli film Princess Mononoke. The mercenary monk Jigo stirs a soup and says to the protagonist, Hashitaka, "A curse you say? This world is a curse."
A writing comparison between a fine nib Sailor TUZU Adjust fountain pen and an extra fine Kaweco Brass Sport. The Sailor writes a little finer.
A red pen, capped, sits on a white desk.
Itch-dot-io user Thulsa Gloom writes: "Some of my favourite design in the jam so far just for how clean it is. Trifold is also a nice choice. So nice, so clean. Love the tone, and the characters. Well done!"
A freshly constructed 4' by 3' Kallax shelf.
Itch-dot-io user Redcap Press writes: "Very fun! You absolutely nail the weird Appendix N vibe, and you laid everything out in a very clear and intuitive way that’d make it easy to pick up and run. Great job!"
Itch-dot-io user Explorers Design write: "I really like the cover for this. It's doing a lot with very little."
Itch-dot-io user Labyrinthine Press writes: "The layout is great—accessible, cohesive, and easy to parse. The prose is equally strong; its evocative and descriptive nature perfectly matches the literary pulp-fiction vibe. Bravo!"
Itch-dot-io user ArcaneSporecery writes: "Clearly organized, high in flavor, and a near perfect economy of words. It almost feels like a pulpy cross between the start of Lest Darkness Fall and The Colour Out of Space (since we're speaking in Appendix N terms). This is a strong powder keg setup with the notable people involved, but I would have liked to see a few more proverbial (or literal) buttons and levers for the party to mess with in the "dungeon" itself. The modest usage of graphics is clean and inspiring. Exemplary entry."
Itch-dot-io user spezbaby writes "Picaresque meets science fantasy meets Basionland. This has a ton of good jammed into a pamphlet. Great layout and the writing is clear and creative. Really nice work."
An endgame state in Pax Pamir. Several colorful bricks and wooden discs are arranges on a stylized map of Afghanistan (and parts of what is today Iran and Pakistan).
Scribbly digital illustrations of three "Viking Age" helmets with mail aventails. One earlier ocular style and two others in the later nasal style.
Some kind of imp sits on the shoulders of a well-dressed man, pumping a hand-bellows into his ear.
A starting setup of the two player board game Star Wars: Rebellion.
A white man with short brown hair and beard wearing thick rimmed glasses and a pink Between Two Cairns "That's the Old School Baby" T-shirt holds a physical copy of Chris McDowall's Mythic Bastionland.
A game played with red, black, and blue glass beads on a canvas area map. Sections marked with an axe and a flag are full of beads. In the areas themselves, control is evenly split between red and black.
A third of a letter size page book cover. Depicts a tulip glass with a pale blue liquid. Titled: The Gnoles of Nuth.
A mid-game board state in Dune (1979). House Harkonnen holds Carthag with a full garrison and Tursa Sietch with one troop while the Spacing Guild controls Arakeen. Atreides holds Habanya Seitch while Sketch Tabr sits empty. The Freme stand poised with troops on the polar sink and one of the rocky regions near Sietch Tabr.
A book cover depicting a massive, building-size crab eating people. "On a distant planet of crustaceans exists a new and exciting economic system... CRABITALISM. Humans go in - Crabs become more powerful!"
A bowl of beef, bean, and barley stew with six skillet-browned pierogis.