You Could Have Knocked Me Down With A Feather, But ...

Planet Mercenary RPG delivered.

About a year and a half late, but it delivered, and nice it is too.

The conceit is that players are NCOs and officers in a mercenary company in the far future, in the universe of the Schlock Mercenary webcomic. Notable mechanical goodies are that each player gets a gang of three NPC grunts to order about, a card-mediated "mayhem" mechanism that purports to put role-playing opportunities back into dice-fest combats and skill blitzes. Looks good on paper.

I Kicked in for a deluxe package containing the hardcover rulebook, a pdf copy of same, A distressed copy of The Seventy Maxims Of Maximally Effective Mercenaries¹ and a pdf of same, a GM screen depicting ships of the universe on the player side, some themed dice, the cards (of course), a dice bag, a challenge coin D2 flipper and some lapel pins. All very nice.

The delays in delivery were mainly caused by overthinking the artwork on the Maxims book and the rulebook as I understand it. This was unfortunate, especially as I would have kicked in without the "ultra realistic" artwork, gussied up from the webcomic. I rather like the webcomic art. No matter, though much of the momentum and expectation I'd built for the game in my pool of players has evaporated in the interim.

I'm taking it out for a test-drive next weekend, so I'll report in on the experience then. if it goes well I may try and convene a regularly occurring game of Planet Mercenary RPG.

I also Kicked into a separate project by the same team for three copies of their plastic "handbrain" things. These are basically frames that can hold a half sheet of legal pad paper created to look like the PDA "handbrains" used by everyone in the comic. They are intended as small gm shields or handout dressing. Once properly distressed and painted up they should look nice, and may be useful for handing out building plans, space station layouts or briefings. Who knows?

They ran a month late too, though that was because of manufacturing problems that pushed into the schedule for Gencon.

At least they honoured their promise to not hold the Planet Mercenary RPG release up until Gencon. I hate Kicking into a game that then delivers at Gencon first instead of to the early-bird supporters that got the game made.

1. An in-universe artifact made famous in the webcomic↑