Signal Interruption

Help Stop Politics in Tabletop RPGs

Sat, 28 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As you may have heard, our friends and partners at Roll20/DriveThruRPG are making news for their admirable stance against the scourge of games with “overt political agendas or views” by delisting Ninth Level Games’ RPG, Rebel Scum. This problem, it seems, is even more pervasive than originally thought. I myself was paging through our own release, Velvet Generation, and saw that somehow, politics had even snuck into that! It turns out this game encourages characters rising up and toppling a global authoritarian regime, which sounds like it might be more than a little…political.

But we can’t stamp out this problem all on our own. DriveThruRPG’s original takedown of Rebel Scum was only possible through a helpful brigade of commenters who reported it for being unecessarily cruel to space Nazis. So we need your help as the gaming audience writ large to determine just how overt these political agendas and views may be in our own games.

DriveThruRPG is making it especially easy for you to help by making Velvet Generation today’s Deal of the Day, taking 60% off the PDF price until midnight tonight. And we’re matching that offer by selling Velvet Generation in print (softcover) for the original Kickstarter price of $35 USD.

Please, we implore you, help us, DriveThruRPG and their owners at Roll20 to address this plague of politics in gaming by getting today’s Deal of the Day, possibly even a print copy, examining it in detail and providing a full report on any unsavory political themes or agendas you might find.

Together, we will finally make gaming apolitical again.

69

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A Nice Card Game. About Numbers.

Play cards from your hand onto the table to form and capture matched sets. Try to capture as many as possible before someone plays their last card and ends the round. Score points for every card you capture, and lose points for every card you have left. Keep playing rounds to add to your score, and be the first to 69 points total to win!

This game contains:

69 cards
This rule sheet

Pretty simple, right?

Cards

There are (of course) 69 cards in a deck of 69. Most of them are number cards. These come in six suits:

Each suit has ten cards, numbered 0 through 9.

6 and 9 cards can be flipped and used as either a 6 or a 9. They’re flexible that way.

There are also three special cards (with three cards of each): Wild, Lock and Scramble!

Wild cards can count as any suit and value.
Lock cards are like Wild, but also prevent anyone from stealing a set.
Scramble! cards are like Wild, but let the player who plays them rearrange all of the cards on the table.

Sets

During a round of 69, players make and capture sets of cards. Cards in a set need to follow these rules:

They need to all be of different suits.
They need to either be the same number, or sequential numbers in order.
They can’t have more than one copy of any special card.

0 cards can count as one higher than 9 or one lower than 1, but not both. The numbers don’t “wrap around.”

When a set has at least three cards in it, it’s complete, meaning a player can try to capture it.

How to Play

69 is a game for 2-6 players, ages 16 and up. Each game is played over a series of rounds, and a full game takes around 30 minutes, once everyone knows how to play.

Setup

To start, the players pick one of them to be the dealer. The dealer shuffles the deck and deals ten cards to each player, then flips one card from the top of the deck face up onto the table. That card starts the first incomplete set of the round. The player sitting to the dealer’s left takes the first turn.

On Your Turn

On each player’s turn, they can either:

Play one or more cards from their hand. Play onto a card or incomplete set on the table to form a legal set (check the rules for sets to the right).
Pass, and flip a card from the top of the deck face up onto the table to start a new set. The player can do this if they can’t, or don’t want to, play cards from their hand.

Capturing & Stealing

Any time a player brings a set to three or more cards, they complete it and can capture it…unless someone else manages to steal it! Here’s how that can happen.

The player who completed the set has the first claim on capturing it, and notes how many cards they added to it this turn by pointing at it with that many fingers.
Starting with the player to their left, each player has the chance to add cards from their hand to that set only (anything they play needs to be legal to add to the set). If a player adds at least as many cards as the player currently claiming it, they claim it instead.
Whether or not a player adds cards to the set, the chance to steal now passes to the player to their left, and so on.
If there is a Lock card played into the set at any point, it can’t be stolen from the player currently claiming it.
Once the chance to steal passes completely around to the player currently claiming the set, that player captures it.

When a player captures a set, they put the cards face up on the table in front of them, flip one card from the top of the deck to start a new incomplete set, and the player to their left takes the next turn.

Ending the Round

Once a player plays the last card in their hand, and after the players resolve any capturing/stealing from that play, the round ends. Each player scores points for cards they captured and loses points for every card in their hand. No player can score less than zero points per round.

Scoring

At the end of each round, players score points for cards they captured and lose points for cards they have left in their hands.

Gain 1 point for every card captured.
Gain 2 points for every set of 6 and 9 captured.
Gain 3 points for every set of three special cards captured.
Gain 6 points for every complete set of six suits captured.
Gain 10 points for every complete set of 0-9 captured.
Lose 1 point for every card left in hand.

Next Round

Once everyone writes down the number of points they won, start another round. The player to the left of whoever played their last card is the new dealer. Any player with 69 or more points wins.

Wild Cards

Wild cards are simple: they can count as any number and suit a player wants. They do still need to count as an existing number and suit, though, so one of them can’t be played into a set that already has six cards in it.

If a Wild card is played onto the table on its own to start a new set, it can be used as any value any future player wants it to be.

Lock Cards

A Lock card works the same as a Wild card, but as soon as a completed set has a Lock in it, the set can’t be stolen from the player claiming it.

If a Lock is played on its own, the effect kicks in as soon as the set it’s in is completed.

Scramble! Cards

A Scramble! card works the same as a Wild card, but the player who plays it can also rearrange all of the cards on the table, even completing multiple sets!

If a Scramble! Card is flipped onto the table on its own, the player who flipped it up immediately gets the opportunity to use it, even combining it with other cards to complete sets if possible.

Special Cases

The basic rules on the previous page cover most of what’s needed to play 69, but sometimes things get a little weird. This should cover most of those cases.

Playing Cards

A player can only play cards into one set on the table. They can play multiple cards into that set, but only one at a time.

Flipping Cards

Flipping a card onto the table from the top of the deck happens when a player can’t (or doesn’t want to) play a card on their turn, and every time someone captures a set.

When someone flips a card, it always starts a new set. Even if that card could fit into another set, it always goes out on its own.

Sets

A set can have one or two cards while it’s on the table, but any set that gets to three or more cards is complete, and will be captured by the player who completed it, or by someone who steals it from them.

Players can “change” the value of cards in a set when they play into it. Common examples of this are:

One player adds a 6 to another 6. A later player turns one 6 to make a 9 and plays 7 and 8 between them.
One player completes a set by playing a Wild into a set of 2 and 3, counting it as a 4. The next player steals it by playing a 4 and counting the Wild as a 5 (or a 1).

As long as the result is a set that’s legal, whoever is currently playing cards into it can do what they want with it.

Capturing & Stealing

After a player completes a set and tries to capture it, each player in turn has a chance to play cards into the set. Players can always play into the set when they have the chance, even if they can’t play enough to steal it.

Players might do this in order to get rid of cards from their hand, but in most cases, it isn’t a good idea.

Ending the Game & Scoring

If the deck runs out of cards before any player has played all their cards, the round keeps going. Any time a player would flip a card from the deck, they pull a random card from the hand of the player to their right and flip that onto the table instead.

Multiple players can win the game. If more than one player ends a round with 69 or more points, they all win. If you really need to pick a single winner, go with the one with the most points. But really, this is supposed to be a game you don’t have to win alone.

Scrambling

Scramble! cards are a bit chaotic. As soon as a Scramble! card is put on the table, the player who did it can pick up any of the cards on the table and rearrange them however they want, potentially completing one or more sets.

The player who put a Scramble! onto the table is free to do anything with any cards on the table that they could normally do when playing cards, as long as every card on the table when they’re done is in a legal position. They can:

Disassemble existing sets into single cards.
Combine cards into bigger sets.
Turn 6 and 9 cards around to change the value they count as.
Count 0 cards as one lower than 1 or one higher than 9.
Use special cards on the table as any value they like.

If there are enough cards on the table, the player who used Scramble! can even complete more than one set at one time. If this happens, each player in turn gets their chance to steal like usual, with a few exceptions:

Each player with an opportunity to steal can play cards into any or all of the completed sets at once (they still can’t play into non-completed sets).
The player who played Scramble! counts as having played only one card to complete all of the sets they completed in this turn, no matter how many cards they actually played.
Different players can end up stealing different completed sets in the steal process. Stealing chances end for each set when the play comes back around to whoever is currently claiming it. Take care to be clear who is claiming what during the process.
Once all the completed sets are captured by someone, the last player in the sequence to capture one flips one card onto the table to start one new set, and the player to their left takes the next turn.

Scramble! takes effect even if it comes up when a player flips it onto the table because they pass on their turn or after they capture a set. This is unlike the other two special cards.

Tips & Tricks

Since every card in a set needs to have a different suit, and since there are six suits, no set can ever have more than six cards. Even special cards need to be counted as if they have a real suit and value.
Since a set can’t have more than six cards in it, any time someone plays a sixth card into to, whoever is currently claiming it can simply take it, since there are no other legal cards that could go into it.
If a player plays three cards into a set at any point, it’s mathematically impossible for anyone to steal it from them. Someone else might still play into it to get rid of cards from their hand, but there will already be too many cards in it for anyone else to play three more cards.* Early in the game, it can be a good idea to pass until you can play three or more cards at once (or a Lock). Because everyone else is holding a lot of cards, there’s a much higher chance that one of them will have enough to steal a set, and playing three cards will block them out.
…for that reason, Lock cards tend to be more useful early in the game.
Every time someone passes and flips a card instead, it increases the number of potential sets on the table by one. The only way the number of potential sets can ever go down is by someone using a Scramble! card and taking multiple sets with it.
…for that reason, Scramble! cards tend to get more useful later in the game.

Credits

Designed by: Rich Ranallo

Card design, layout and package design by: Rich Ranallo

Additional consulting from: Sky Leaton, Dan O’Hanlon, Kara Rosser

Game icons were colorized and modified by Rich Ranallo, based on assets from The Noun Project.

Original Noun Project artwork and artists and are:

The Inner Circle

Thank you to every backer who helped make this game a reality on Kickstarter, but special thanks to these 69 backers who earned their way into our highest honor:

Brett Myers, Crystal Puckett, Kara Rosser, Rebecca Ruechel, Leonard Pierce, Jason Ward, Martin Anton Gleason, Jesse D. Irwin, Brandy T, Hugh Jazz, Joe Pate, Dan O’Hanlon, Jeff Kahrs, Maya Kuper, Nancy Johnson, Edward Corcoran, Jessica Johnson, Percy Hatcherson, Ryvre von Doom, Ben Kilpatrick, Jeanelle Sims, Geoff Raye, Rich Steeves, Klaus & Luci, Ron Klawinski, Jack “The Ghoul” Gulick, Marc Kevin Hall, K Broecker, Sarah Oliveira, Cledwyn, NYCguy, Morgan-Bun, Jeremy Bredeson and Leon Moses, Don Canton, Crystal Mazur, Anne Margrete Myraunet, Jason Wloch, Lemon Skyy, Miranda Strenke-Brand, Pete Petrusha, Malik Sylvester, Megan Bangerter, Bondaronie, tgm, Eiellith, Chad Moores, Diehl Moran, Dalek Empress V, Jon Butters, Maximilian Robert Lockwood, Katrine Feld, Jess Gado, Wes Fite, Kat Pleviak, Pakus Perales, Emily Adam Wirth, Ethan Dube, Abby Braunsdorf, Jennifer Chi, Caitlin Fite, James Behret, Bruce Meyer, Victor Harter, Tesla and Bucky, Tristan Putman, Kevin & Lisa, Meghan Dailey, REB & Deb, Bill Miller

Introducing Roll20 Support for Velvet Generation

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We’re psyched to announce a new project that’s been in the works for a while now: full virtual tabletop support for your Velvet Generation games via Roll20!

What’s Included?

Roll20 Support comes in two main packages:

The compendium, which has the full text of the Velvet Generation rulebook, handily cross-referenced and optimized for online gaming.
The module, which contains a customizable game table made to work with the game’s custom rule system, three bands’ worth of example characters and character art galleries pulled from Velvet Generation and 2002’s Starchildren.

Both the module and compendium will be available on the Roll20 Marketplace and DriveThruRPG. Use the module on its own with your print or PDF copies of Velvet Generation, or bundle them together for a reduced price to get the whole game inside Roll20 itself.

Besides the Marketplace items, we’ve also published:

An interactive Roll20 character sheet, with sections for individual characters, the band as a whole, the group’s revolutionary progress toward overthrowing the system, and an NPC tracker for the game master.
The Velvet Generation API package, which enhances games with easier control of dice on the module tabletop, plus one-touch macros and visual effects for on fire and amped dice. The API package is free, but requires a Roll20 premium subscription to install in your campaign. It’s not necessary to play the game, but it helps.

Why Roll20?

This roots of this project go back to the middle of the game’s playtest/development process. Velvet Generation went to Metatopia for testing in its earliest form in 2017. Testing continued at home and at conventions through 2018, 2019…and right up until March of 2020, when the game was almost done.

Astute observers will note that March of 2020 was still more than three years before the game actually came out. But it was almost done!

As it turned out, having to put a hold on all in-person playtesting revealed something a little disturbing about the game: it was actually kind of hard to play online with the options available to most of us. For one, existing virtual tabletop (VTT) platforms usually handle die rolls as one-and-done affairs, so the system’s focus on keeping dice on the table, trading and sharing them with the rest of the band wasn’t easy. For another, this game doesn’t use a tactical minis-style battle map for anything, which rendered a lot of VTT features irrelevant to us.

After a few hit-and-miss attempts at cobbling together an online tool that would cover the gap, I decided to push forward with whatever we could make work for the last round of playtests. The final online playtest sessions involved a complicated Rube Goldberg series of smartphones and dummy Zoom accounts. It was…unsustainable, to say the least. But at that point, we were already running way behind the original projected release date and didn’t want to hold it up any longer. Fixing the online play problem would have to wait until that promise was fufilled.

Once the book was out in the world and the 2023 convention season ended, it was time to finish the job on a set of online tools. There were now a ton of new VTT providers out there, since the pandemic caused online gaming to explode, and it seemed like everyone had a new system to try out. Complicating things was the fact that I wasn’t very experienced using VTTs. I’d been lucky enough in my whole gaming life to usually have a group of local friends down to play whatever I was running locally, so I never had reason to build those muscles.

In an attempt to fix this, I started up an online Blades in the Dark campaign, using Evil Hat’s (extremely helpful) Roll20 module. This fit nicely with what Velvet Generation would need, since both games had a need for a shared visual space but neither cared much for the scale tactical maps or figurines that VTTs tend to optimize for. Playing on Roll20 was sucha success that even once my group would have been able to switch to in-person sessions again, we unanimously decided to keep the game online.

Ultimately, while a lot of newer virtual tabletops out there have flashier features than Roll20, every one I looked at as a potential answer for Velvet Generation was even more specialized toward maps and miniatures for that tactical battle experience, which just wasn’t a thing this game needed. Roll20’s rollable tokens and advanced dice feature (which lets you drag dice directly from your chat window to the tabletop) are exactly the right feature to make our weird little dice mechanic work.

THIS IS NOT A PLACE OF HONOR

Sat, 10 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been two years since the Event. A brief, green-yellow flare appeared in the sky over the city’s industrial outskirts. Most people in the city were never seen again. Some were found in the weeks following, wandering around outside the city with no memory of the intervening time or how they got there. Anyone close enough to have seen the flare but far enough away to be spared its effects suffered extreme disorientation and dissociation in its aftermath. The government quickly erected a perimeter and deployed search and rescue teams. All of them lost radio contact. None returned. The government stopped sending teams in, and declared the entire region inside the perimeter an exclusion zone. Locals now just call it the Zone.

Naturally, rumors cloud the Zone. Stories about what caused the event, what remains inside the perimeter, what the government is actually doing, what happened to everyone lost in the event, everything. Partially driven by these rumors, partially by curiosity or desperation, a handful of people try to cross the perimeter to explore the Zone. Hardly anyone who goes in alone ever comes back out. Of the few who do, most become highly sought-after guides, using their experience to escort small groups of seekers in. Groups led by a skilled guide stand a better, but still not a perfect, chance of getting back out.

Welcome to the (Indie Press) Revolution

Tue, 23 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Quick update: we are now listed & live with Indie Press Revolution!

We’re psyched about this partnership, since it means we’ll be able to make it to more conventions in 2024, and get into more/smaller shops. So if your local store isn’t stocking Velvet Generation yet, now’s a great time to ask them about it, and tell them they can order through IPR.

Or you can order it from them directly, in soft or hard cover.

Here’s IPR’s own announcement about the release:

New!

Velvet Generation is an RPG of rock & revolution, available in soft and hard covers.https://t.co/Nz5RuVX0rr pic.twitter.com/VGyFmEjL03
— Indie Press Revolution (@IPRTweets) January 19, 2024

The game continues to be available on DriveThruRPG, and in distribution with ACD.

Velvet Generation is Back in Print

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In case you missed it in the relevant Kickstarter update, we recently had to take print copies of Velvet Generation down from DriveThruRPG while we made a couple changes to the book. For the most part, these were updates/corrections to the book’s credits, reflecting changes requested by backers and/or playtesters, as well as updating Sky’s author and design credits. A handful of stray typos were corrected in the body of the book, but nothing in the rules or setting content.

Making these changes meant that we needed to get a fresh set of print-on-demand proofs, and since we were doing it in the middle of the holiday rush, that took longer than expected. But as of today, print books are back on sale live at DriveThruRPG!

In the Year 242—uh, 2024

Wed, 06 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

2023 has been a huge year for us. Delivering on our Kickstarter campaign for Velvet Generation was our big goal. We’ve shipped Kickstarter rewards in print and PDF to 85% of our backers *. We had a full convention season with the Indie Game Developer Network. We published the intro/demo scenario Rockin’ the Suburbs in PDF.

In 2024, we’re keeping this tour on the road. There’s more Velvet Generation support in the works, plus a few new projects. Here’s a preview.

Velvet Generation on Roll20

One project that’s already been in the works for a bit is some added help for groups playing Velvet Generation online. The way a lot of virtual tabletop platforms handle dice rolling makes the custom rules a little harder to implement for remote players, so this is both a fix for that as well as some extra aesthetic bells & whistles.

We’ve already got a set of character sheets available on Roll20. These can keep track of player characters, the band, their revolutionary progress and any NPCs that the GM wants to throw into the story. Coming soon, we’ll have a full module available, complete with the entire rulebook and starter scenario Rockin’ the Suburbs as an integrated compendium, and a tabletop that can be customized to reflect your band. We also have a small set of API mods available to Roll20 Pro subscribers that make the game experience smoother and more cinematic.

The module is coming soon to the Roll20 marketplace (if you already got a PDF or print book from us, you’ll be able to pick the module up at a deep discount). The API mods are already available to Roll20 Pro subscribers at no additional cost (a Pro subscription isn’t required to use the module, but it’s required by Roll20 to have API access).

Watch the blog for a release announcement — when the module drops, we’ll have a post and video introduction for you.

This is Not a Place of Honor

It’s been two years since the Event. A brief flare appeared in the sky over the city’s industrial outskirts. Most people in the city were never seen again. The government quickly erected a perimeter and declared the entire region inside exclusion zone. Handfuls of trespassers cross the perimeter to explore the Zone. Some search for fortune, others for answers. Few ever make it out, but maybe you’ll be the lucky ones.

This is Not a Place of Honor is a storytelling card game for two to six players. Lay down cards to tell the story of your trespassers’ journey to the central mystery of the Zone. Each card suit you play represents an aspect of the trip. Spades are Milestone locations toward your destination. Hearts are the Echoes of people lost to the Event. Diamonds are Objects imbued with mystical powers. Clubs are potentially deadly Hazards your team must face on the way.

Even if you survive, you won’t be the same person coming out as you were going in.

Rekka

Rekka is a miniatures game about weird and wondrous walking weapons, and the enthusiastic rats who build and battle with them. More information regarding Rekka’s development (and how you can participate) will be coming soon!

* And if you’re a backer who hasn’t gotten their rewards yet, make sure to complete your survey on BackerKit.

Velvet Generation

Wed, 10 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The year is 2073.

A century ago, radio transmissions from Earth passed through a strange ripple in space, causing rock music to fall upon the mystified ears of an alien world. For five glorious years, the aliens grew to love the planet they believed to be on the other end of that beautiful signal. When the music cut off as mysteriously as it began, the aliens embarked on a generational pilgrimage to discover the source of the music.

Nearly a century later, the aliens have arrived, but Earth is not what they expected. Humanity has taken a dark turn, silencing music, the arts, literature…any kind of expression they believed could inspire “dangerous” thoughts. The Ministry of Music looms large over the entire world, stamping out rebellious culture with steel-sheathed jackboots.

With nowhere to go but forward, the Starchildren descended, joining the few Earthlings still carrying a spark of rock and roll. They catalyzed a new rock & roll revolution that will break the Ministry’s chains on the soul of humanity.

This is the Velvet Generation.

Velvet Generation is the new reboot of 2002’s original tabletop roleplaying game of rock and revolution, Starchildren: Velvet Generation. Players step into the role of an underground band, trying to survive under the Ministry of Music’s bootheel long enough to strike back and topple the regime from below.

Starchildren: Velvet Generation

Wed, 10 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Starchildren

The year is 2073.

A century ago, radio transmissions from Earth passed through a strange ripple in space, and Rock & Roll fell upon the mystified ears of an alien world. Music was previously unknown to them, and the new feelings it produced heralded the dawn of a new age of ecstasy; during the five years of transmissions, their entire civilization began to revolve around the power of Rock. Many of them, enamored by the blissful human culture they’d seen, eventually decided to undertake a great pilgrimage. But when they arrived on Earth, it was difficult for them to imagine how such a dreary planet could be the origin of those distant, beautiful sounds.

The Man

Our world has become a cold, unhappy place. The Ministries of Culture have assumed control of the world’s art and music, permitting only works which fit their own agendas. The past has been rewritten, and current events often aren’t written at all. The minds of the people have become property of the Man, and Rock & Roll is a thing of the past.

Undaunted, these Starchildren walk among us, dazzling us with their refreshing beauty and forbidden music. Some join underground bands and uplift the masses with the power of music, while others decide to force change upon our world with songs of rage and revolution. And an insidious few have brought their powers to the other side, having decided that a sleepy, quiet world is just what they’ve needed all along…

The Velvet Generation

The broken-hearted and discontented youth of the Velvet Generation have found a powerful new voice in these new musicians. The impending revolution is sensed not only by the people, but also by the Ministry of Music, and “Mad Mother” is beginning to crack down with lethal force. To both the fans they enthrall and the authorities they fear, these lonely Starchildren must keep their true natures secret- and in this climate of oppression and control, secrets are hard to keep…

The Game

Starchildren: Velvet Generation is a role-playing game of rebellion, intrigue, and Rock & Roll in the world of the late 21st century. Players can assume the roles of band members (both human and alien), fans, revolutionaries, and even police officers, as they struggle to change the future. Whether taking on a deal-breaking music lord, a villianous rival band, or the Ministry itself, the world needs saving!

Friends are all around, but only if you know where to look; underground music dealers, airwave pirates, and the ever-increasing army of fans are all aids to the Velvet cause. Enemies, on the other hand, are much easier to find- unscrupulous managers, fringe scientists, the Ministry’s deadly enforcers, and even the aliens’ own destructive cravings are all (often deadly) threats.

Signal Interruption

Help Stop Politics in Tabletop RPGs

69

A Nice Card Game. About Numbers.

Contents

Cards

Sets

How to Play

Setup

On Your Turn

Capturing & Stealing

Ending the Round

Scoring

Next Round

Wild Cards

Lock Cards

Scramble! Cards

Special Cases

Playing Cards

Flipping Cards

Sets

Capturing & Stealing

Ending the Game & Scoring

Scrambling

Tips & Tricks

Credits

The Inner Circle

Introducing Roll20 Support for Velvet Generation

What’s Included?

Why Roll20?

THIS IS NOT A PLACE OF HONOR

Welcome to the (Indie Press) Revolution

Velvet Generation is Back in Print

In the Year 242—uh, 2024

Velvet Generation on Roll20

This is Not a Place of Honor

Rekka

Velvet Generation

Starchildren: Velvet Generation

The Starchildren

The Man

The Velvet Generation

The Game