Heckin' Good Doggos! RPG (Book & Doggo Deck(

Heckin’ Good Doggos is a family friendly, all ages role-playing game where the players take on the roles of humankind’s best friends: The dog! It is a game of "Dogs doin' Dog Stuff" that focuses on the kinds of stories and adventures dogs can get into such as:

• Finding their favorite treats.
• Barking at that squirrel up in the tree.
• Finding their human Best Friend who has gone missing.
• Banishing an ancient spirit that threatens the neighborhood.
• Scavenging for supplies in a futuristic wasteland.
• And so much more!

Heckin’ Good Doggos is a game of make believe where players can experience the world from an animal’s point of view. Some things will seem familiar, like protecting their backyard from potential threats and protecting their owners, while others are purely fantastic and whimsical situations they find themselves in like helping a ghost resolve its business so it can leave this world. It is simultaneously serious and silly, with an emphasis on crafting scenarios that make players have a blast while also having to solve the many challenges they will experience in ways that only doggos can.

When starting a game of Heckin' Good Doggos, players decide what kinds of doggos they want to create, who their Best Friend is, what kind of neighborhood they want to play in, and then they can dive right in! The Best Friend is the thing that grounds each doggo in the setting. It is not only the foundation that helps tend to the pup when they are at home, but they can also be the biggest liability or even the biggest antagonist the doggo will have to face. The Best Friend will do their best to keep their pup safe, but they will also do their best to keep their dog from escaping out into the world when they have no idea that their pup intends to return.

Heckin’ Good Doggos uses the +One system, the same system used for Wet Ink Games' "Never Going Home" and "Tenebria" RPGs. In the system, the player’s skills are linked to an attribute which determines how they can modify their results after rolling the dice. A roll can be manipulated in the following ways:

Before a Roll:

• Temporarily gain an untrained skill (dice are bought separately).
• Add a die to the roll (ex: roll 4 dice on a skill with 3 training).

After a Roll:

• Add a pip to a die (ex: change a 4 to a 5).
• Reroll any number of dice. Keep the result (once per skill roll).

For example: Cokie has 2 points in Brawn and 2 points in Sneaking. She is attempting to avoid being detected by her owner as she tries to sneak out at night to join up with her pack to investigate the mysterious critters lurking nearby. The TN for slipping out of her home at night requires 2 successes. Her player starts with 2 dice (because of her points in Sneaking), buys 1 extra dice prior to the roll with 1 rank of Brawn and the player rolls 3 dice: A 1, 3, and 6. She keeps the 6 and rolls the remaining 2 dice again: a 4 and another 6. The total for the roll is 2 successes, and the attempt to sneak out at night is successful.

 Sometimes when you "sniffestigate", you find out. A conflict happens anytime the doggos want to interact with other beings who want something different. Conflict turns on this disagreement, but does not always mean a fight. A conflict can be a teeth and claw battle with a bear, or an attempt to encourage a scared child to emerge from a hiding place. Sometimes a conflict can be won in different ways. A show of force may scare a threat away, but simply running away might also end the danger. All of this is resolved through card play. Each card represents a different approach a doggo can take to conflict.

• Spades – friends – friendly licks, excited barking, happy body posture, nuzzling.
• Hearts – cutes – puppy-dog eyes, looking small and helpless, begging noises.
• Diamonds – teeth – growls, threatening barks, bites.
• Clubs – paws – speed, strength, digging, defensive posture.

When a conflict begins the Narrator will tell the doggos what cards the group will need to play to defeat, escape, or otherwise end the conflict. The number of total cards needed is a measure of how difficult the conflict is to overcome.

A conflict can be as easy as smiling at an ice-cream vendor to get a cool treat (2 Hearts), or as dangerous as confronting a Greater Specter about to invade the Waking realm (8 Diamonds). Conflicts may require a mix of card types such as when a puma must be held at bay while a Best Friend gets away (2 Diamonds and 3 Clubs). Or they may have different ways to succeed such as bypassing a human blocking a door either by pushing past (3 Clubs) or by convincing them you belong inside (4 Spades).

 The players may discuss what cards they have and how they would like to split up the cards they need to play. Each player may contribute as many cards as they wish. Once players decide how they will surpass the conflict, they play their cards one at a time in any order and describe how their doggo contributes to ending the conflict. Once all the cards are played, all players draw a card to replace each card they played.

If there is no way for the doggos to defeat a conflict there is some kind of consequence. This is usually narrative, but the conflict may also harm the doggos in some way if they fail to defeat it. Depending on the story, they may or may not have a chance to face the threat again right away with their new cards.

Neighborhood Pals 

This is the main setting of Heckin' Good Doggos, and is a great way to ease players into the world. Neighborhood Pals involves a lot of fantastic things, but something important to keep in mind is how even the simplest of things can lead to larger mysteries. Sometimes a squirrel taunting a dog in their yard is just a squirrel, but perhaps the squirrel holds the key to the dogs solving a mystery they’ve been pursuing. Not everything needs to involve magic or monsters, and sometimes the toughest adversaries a pack will face are ordinary humans who have the advantage of being humans in a human’s world.

Hexin’ Good Doggos

Considering the mysteries and supernatural threats that a pack is likely to encounter in Neighborhood Pals, this is a good setting to either ease the pack into or to draw inspiration from. Though Hexin’ Good Doggos deals more with the arcane and the threat of the Waking World, it is a great place for inspiration for how the players will solve mysteries. Perhaps its revealed that one of the pack’s best friends is a witch, and they must stave off the dangerous spirits they’ve accidentally summoned? The pack may also discover that one of their best friends has been bitten by a strange beast and if they do not find the cure by the full moon then their friend will become a terrifying monster.

Mechin’ Good Doggos!

In the not so distant future, Earth is plagued by a myriad of terrifying beasts, extraterrestrial beings, and spooky creatures from alternate dimensions. There is only one thing standing between the safety of the planet and complete destruction: The Mechin’ Good Doggos.

Super Good Doggos

Super powered pups is a hard transition from the tone of Neighborhood Pals, but it can be used as a starter for moving into a Super Good Doggos story! The players may find themselves involved in a mystery that starts to grow in scale until they’ve discovered that the source behind it is a supervillain’s prized pet who is trying to prove themselves to their master. A Neighborhood Pals story can also lead to the pack encountering a mysterious relic that gifts them with their powers and pushes them along the path of becoming caped canine crimefighters in their own right!

Wreckin’ Good Doggos

The Neighborhood is the pups entire world, and when things start to go very badly for the world outside of the Neighborhood it will quickly go bad for the pups, too. Dogs will need to adapt quickly as things start to change. Kibble shortages, a lack of fuel to take dogs to parks, and growing desperation among their owners are just the least of the dogs problems when bands of marauding coyotes and plague ridden rats start to encroach on the Neighborhood! Wreckin’ Good Doggos suggests that whatever problem is affecting the world will continue to get worse, so try to ease pampered house pets into their new world as they struggle to adjust to it.

Ye Olde Favourable Hounds

Hark ye, and listen to the tale of Sir Kayne of Linencourt….’s pet dog, Wilbur. In the years preceding the dawning of the age of enlightenment, much of Europe was held in a position of rulership by a feudal state. Monarchs were born of noble lineages and, by right of bloodlines, ruled over the lands. Knights were appointed realms to protect by their rulers.  Many Knights were good, and strove to protect  the serfs under their care from forces such as bandits, thieves, and the unknown. And, of course, Knights could barely keep to their duties without the support of their trusted canine companions.