Eureka From Engine Publishing

Usually I post articles about the Fudge RPG, but today I wanted to share the    news about Engine Publishing. Engine Publishing was founded by my friend Martin Ralya who also started the blog Gnome Stew. I am a former contributor to Gnome Stew which is an excellent site dedicated to game masters of all RPG systems. I am also a contributor to Engine Publishing’s first book Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters.

Eureka is currently being finalized and will be available for purchase very soon, but I cannot give an exact date at this time. What I can do is share what Eureka is all about, and that is to provide complete micro-adventures in the form of system neutral plots for the most popular RPG genres. Fantasy, horror, and science fiction and the various sub-genres associated with each of them are covered by 501 plots written by nine experienced game masters.

Why does this matter to you my dear fans of Fudge? Since Eureka is a system neutral product of interesting and original plots for a plethora of genres it combines wonderfully with the highly subjective nature of the Fudge RPG. How can I say this? Because I wrote 55 of these plots myself. And as a fan of Fudge I can tell you that the format and the guidelines that we followed as contributors works incredibly well with Fudge (not too mention all of the other RPGs that I play).

These plots are designed to help a game master by giving just enough detail for you to run a full session of your favorite RPG with little to no prep work depending upon the game system. Yet each plot is also designed not to use specific details so that you can insert the elements from your own game into the session. For example, no names were used to describe the NPCs of a Eureka plot. Instead a title such as “the Leader” or “the Alchemist” was used. That is just enough detail so that a game master knows who and what the NPC is, but not enough to restrict the game master to a plot specific detail.

Think about that and how it relates to Fudge: use abstract terminology to convey the intent of a game element instead of a rigid definition that limits the game element in some ways. Sure seems like a natural fit to me, and you can bet that as a Fudge game master Eureka will be a book that I will refer to often. It just makes sense to have a bunch of plots on hand that I can call upon as needed without having to worry about how that plot will fit into the larger work of my campaign.

I am excited about this product, and I look forward to sharing more details with all of you as they become available. All that I can say at this time is that preorders will be accepted in the very near future. In a future article I will also be sharing the details of my Gen Con events where I will run Eureka plots using Fudge with no prep work at all. For now feel free to leave a comment with any questions that you may have and I will answer them as best I can.