#hellmech

I recently put out the HELLFORGED SRD, the system behind HELLGUTS and HELLDROPPERS, and three games made with it! I’ll be talking about all of that in this post.

First off, the HELLFORGED Jam is live now! Come join it and make a HELLFORGED game or content for an existing HELLFORGED game!

Now for the system itself. HELLFORGED games are geared for providing badass, over-the-top results for rolls as multiple successes stack together. It was created with combat in mind, but I would be so down to see a system made that didn’t focus on combat while still providing big, awesome moments. If you want to, you could also make a HECKFORGED or an H-FORGED game and avoid the word “hell” in your game all together.

Packaged with the HELLFORGED SRD and also available on its own is the XHell. XHell is a one-page HELLFORGED alien invasion game designed to show off the basics of HELLFORGED and give designers an easily-hackable jumping off point.

HELLMECH is a HELLFORGED mech game! It’s unique spin is that you’re playing as a black ops mech team, taking on missions throughout the galaxy that you could be disavowed for. To add to the political intrigue is a system of getting advantages from your crew, but risking something dramatic happening with a crewmate in the process, including death and betrayal. There’s a modular system for mech building and lots of options for putting together your mech weapons. I think it turned out really well!

Finally, I just put out HellTrain as part of the One-Page RPG 2024 Jam using the optional theme of “transport”. I wrote it on a Twitch stream where I showed how to reskin XHell to make a game. It turned out being a pretty rad sci-fi/gunslinging game about defending a train from bandits, hellhounds, and giant rattlesnakes. There is also a whole thing with souls being swapped between clone bodies that becomes a kind of character selection thing.

If any of that interests you, check them out! If you’re a designer or think you could try it out, I’d love to see you on the HELLFORGED Jam! The jam is open at least through the end of the year.