About Challenger

Page Index:

1. About Challenger
2. Our Other Products
3. Challenger in Print
4. About the Artist
5. Challenger Open Game License


1. About Challenger

 Challenger Currently has: 64,937 Downloads and Counting... 

You may check with Amazon.com to verify this number if you wish.


#1 in Free Roleplaying and Fantasy Kindle Books "January, February, and March 2012"
#14 in Free Fantasy Kindle Books "January 2012"
Top 50 and under in Free Fantasy Kindle Books "From January 2012 Onwards..."

This is a pen and paper tabletop roleplaying game, not a computer game. If you're looking for one of those, I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere. I highly recommend the dungeon-crawling German rogue-like "Lost Labyrinth" which is free to download and a purely awesome game.

If you're looking for fiction, you're in luck! You will find the completely free comic fantasy novel "The End of The World" at the very back of this e-book on Kindle. Enjoy.

If you're interested in an RPG game, please read on below.

***
Challenger RPG Game Features:

Free, 20+ Races, 36 Classes, 50+ skills including: specific skills, broad skills, power skills, and special ability skills. GM rolls few dice. A completely player-driven approach to gaming with a core mechanic using the d20, and combined attack and defense rolls so combat is faster and more furious than ever before. Two times faster combat than 4E Dungeons and Dragons.

New variable damage by weapons, upon request. Monster section expanded, upon request. All powers and classes completely overhauled for improved balance on the last revision. New hyper-linked table of contents and improved glossary. Thanks for pointing out the ways we can improve!

A ton of commissioned and paid for artwork in the works for the next revision. The print book now contains cool page borders.

More than 60 Pages of GM advice useable with any system. New rules on stacking monsters, monster subtypes, magic items, a list of monsters for use with Challenger, traps, and rules on non-combat obstacles complete with TN's.

The rules on Base Skills have been removed and clarified. No more must you roll 75 different base skills to start play. It's as simple as choosing your skills, classes, race, 5 powers, purchasing equipment and calculating your stats and you're done!

New rules on armor, equipment, and improved background powers to further detail your character like never before. Crazy races have been ditched and new races combined to make the rules on races simpler, more flexible, and even more entertaining!

You'll still find the classic traits generator for your character, improved formatting thanks to the masterful Matt Fleming and fantastic artwork by the incomparable L.E.C.D.



2. Our Other Products

Most of the below books are available on Amazon Kindle for free (in the sample, I copy and paste it ten times so you don't have to pay for it). You can also find them on Smashwords in all formats imaginable (TXT, DOC, Mobi. Ipad, Epub, etc.), if available, and RPGnow.com in PDF.

1001 RPG Quotes (first 100 or so free in the sample)
Of Mice Men and Wizards (free in sample)
Adventure Pack One (7 free adventures for Challenger)
The Vampire War (a comic fantasy novel and the sequel to "The End of The World" the free fantasy novel hidden at the end of the Challenger file on Amazon Kindle).
Queen of the Homicidal Demonweb Nymphomaniacs from Atlanta ( a free of mice men and wizards adventure)
Killer Bug-Eyed Alien Frogs from Outer Space (another free of mice men and wizards adventure)
Magic items (a supplement for of mice men and wizards)
Arms and Equipment Guide (as above)
E-book Dice Roller (roll your dice on Kindle for free!)
The Book of Powers and GM Advice (as above)
How To Play a Role-Playing Game (And Win)
RPG Reviews
***
I'm also working on a ten book fantasy series, but it'll be a while before I'm done revising it all (they're all already written, just polishing now). I'm aiming to throw them at the big name publishers, but if it doesn't work out you may just see them on Kindle in the future.

...Our Other Products

...PDFs 

...All other Formats 

...My (Highly Inappropriate) Works of Fiction on Wattpad

3. Challenger in Print

I'd like to give a special 'thank you' to the 50,000+ gamers and readers who have downloaded and bought my books. That's totally awesome guys!

The print edition of Challenger is here! Congratulations to everyone who managed to get a free copy before I gave them 'all' away in under a week--even before the Amazon description of the book went up! If you're a really big fan and want to playtest or review the book, please send me an e-mail to: challenger_rpg@hotmail.com and twist my arm until I send you a copy. The deal is officially over, but that doesn't mean you still can't sucker me into giving you a free copy. ;)

...Challenger in Print 

4. About the Artist

L.E.C.D. is responsible for all the epic art in Challenger, on the cover, and in many of my other e-books and print books. If you'd be interested in contacting the artist for a commission, commenting on her artwork, or learning more about her supreme skill at:

  • Cover Art
  • Fantasy Art
  • Cat Art
  • Animal Art
  • Drawing Chickadees
  • Landscape Portraits
  • Wood-burned Boxes
  • Character Sketches
  • Flower Art
  • Modern Art
  • Or, Abstract Art
Please contact her through Challenger's e-mail at: Challenger_rpg(at)hotmail.com. I'll forward the info on to her. She does some really nice glossy and matte prints of the Challenger RPG cover art, and her prices on character sketches are very reasonable (I think).

Thanks for your interest in Atwood Artist (L.E.C.D.) I'm sure she really appreciates it. You can find a dozen or so of her pictures in Challenger RPG available for free across the internet. I only ask that you respect the artist's hard work and don't copy and redistribute the pictures without her permission (as for that Author guy, who cares about him anyway?).

4. Challenger Open Game License

Dear fellow gamers and writers,


I've recently had several people asking me about how they can publish stuff for Challenger. Well, here goes nothing.

Challenger Open Game License v. 1.0. Last changed May 23, 2012. Please check back for any new changes. Please carefully read the below document before agreeing to it, or if there are any new changes.

1 Definitions

You and the publisher shall refer to 'you'. I, me, we, us, Challenger, our, and similar shall refer to 'David L. Dostaler, our staff, and our 185 page book, Challenger RPG a Free Roleplaying Game'.

Challenger related shall refer to any product relating to Challenger or compatible with Challenger which doesn't actually 'steal' any large portions of the text from Challenger itself (or any artwork whatsoever because it's licensed only to me) but 'does' include the rules of the game and such used in your own words.

Challenger Approved shall refer to any product we've reviewed on your behalf in accordance to this agreement and given our official approval. If you have our approval you can use this license, if you don't, or we revoke it in our sole discretion under extraordinary circumstances, then you can't use any part of it or our copyrighted work. We don't want to squash people with this or be high and mighty, it's just to make sure no one puts out low quality or vulgar content and associates it with our products.

Agreement, license, open gaming license, challenger open gaming license, and similar shall refer to this agreement.

Product shall refer to anything you or we create for sale or to distribute freely that has something to do with Challenger or copyrights held under Challenger (the book). It shall include all media and all formats, etc.

2 Gaining and Losing Approval

To gain approval of your product as a Challenger Approved product or a Challenger Compatible product you must submit its contents to us (or give us a link to view it) before publication. We will attempt to get back to you with our answer as soon as we can. If we approve it, you can go ahead and publish your product under this agreement. If we don't approve it, we'll tell you why and what you can do to fix it. Until your product is approved by us you can't use it under this agreement.

If you make any major (non editorial and grammatical) changes to your product at a later date you should inform us and once again submit it for review as above. We'll try to process it faster. Please let us know what you changed so we can check that area and make sure it's okay still.

It is our sole right to revoke approval of any product licensed under this agreement at any time (we'll try to give you sufficient and reasonable notice). However, this is highly unlikely in anything but the most extraordinary circumstances (like Random House wants to pay us 10 million for our game but under stipulation we cancel this open gaming license).

3 What this License Lets you Do

If you meet with our approval for a Challenger Compatible product you can label your product "Challenger Compatible" and sell/distribute it as you see fit in any ways you see fit. We have access to experienced e-book designers and marketing people, but that's a whole separate issue. Once you have approval under this agreement you can pretty much go to town.

Customers please note: a Challenger Compatible product is merely compatible with Challenger rules, it doesn't necessarily fall under our strict quality and parental standards. It may contain elements not found in 'Official' Challenger products. This product cannot be associated with us in any lawsuits. We merely grant the publisher the right to label their own personal product Challenger Compatible. Thanks.

Challenger Approved means the product has met some or all of our high standards of quality and suitability for players of all ages. Please view it as a 'this is good' badge added onto the above paragraph. We still take no legal responsibility or direct control of the content of the product and the customer must use his or her own discretion and take it up with the publisher rand not us.

If you do find any serious issues with any Challenger Compatible or Challenger Approved product you may take it up with us. While we aren't legally responsible for it, we still may contact the individual publisher directly (and if the issue can't be resolved) even suspend their use of the agreement. We'll only do this if it's absolutely necessary. Please contact the individual publisher with your issues first.

4 Giving us Credit

I think this agreement is rather decent, don't you? You don't have to pay us anything for using our ideas. As such, please behave in a polite and honorable way while using this agreement and don't abuse its intent or give it out to third parties without our approval. In addition to seeking our approval, if you get it we request some other minor benefits for your use of our ideas: 1. within the first 10 pages of any Challenger book (or equivalent if a non-book product) you should paste the below text:

This product is officially licensed and approved under the Challenger Open Game License v. 1.0. To see a copy of this license agreement or use it yourself please, visit the Challenger RPG website at: http://www.challengerrpg.com/. Challenger RPG is copyright to David L. Dostaler and this product is used in accordance with that copyright and the Challenger Open Game License agreement. All artwork in Challenger (the 185 page book) is copyright to the artist and cannot be reproduced even under terms of this agreement. Please respect the artist's hard work (who cares about that author guy, anyway?). The Challenger Open Game License may need to be changed from time to time and we (David L. Dostaler and Challenger crew) will post any changes up on the website. We ask you check back from time to time to make sure you are still following the new terms, but we'll try to give you a decent grace period to do so. Thanks, and long live Open Gaming!

--David L. Dostaler
Author, Challenger RPG a Free Roleplaying Game

5 Extraordinary Circumstances

In the event of absolutely extraordinary circumstances we reserve the right to alter or revoke this agreement if it's necessary to do so. We'll try our best not to do so, but no license is perfect and we may need to change it from time to time. Please check back to the website every couple of months to make sure you're still qualifying under the agreement.

If something very strange or crazy happens (someone tries to steal the entire Challenger book with this agreement, someone abuses the agreement, a publisher offers me 10 million dollars to revoke it, or if I go insane for some reason) it may become necessary to revoke this agreement. If that happens you have my sincerest apologies and please realize I'll only do so if I absolutely have to to save my own butt (or make 10 million dollars). This will result in a cancellation of the agreement at my sole discretion with or without notice (depending on the circumstances) and all Challenger copyrights shall revert to me. In those extraordinary circumstances I would ask you kindly to remove any Challenger products you have out under the agreement from sale, but I realize this may not be fully possible at the time or require a minimum time frame to complete.

Don't worry, I'm not planning to do this, if I was, I wouldn't even be writing this agreement. You'll still get to keep any and all profits you made using the agreement up to that point and all copyright to any ideas/art that were your own works. At the very least I'll try to keep this agreement going as long as I can (I'll just modify it if I have to).

I give away my books for free. What does that tell you? I'm not in it for the money (heck, I like money took, but it's not the most important thing). I could've put a clause in this contract where you had to pay me x dollars, but I didn't. If you guys don't abuse this agreement, I won't cancel it (unless a publisher offers me 10 million dollars to, etc.).

6 Final Terms of Agreement

Wow, that was a lot of reading, huh? Sorry about that, I just wanted to be clear and not open myself up to get ripped off. I'm sure you'd feel the same way. I hope you can appreciate my position. This last part of the agreement is pretty much a 'what this contract should mean to you and me'.

This isn't an official-looking license or legal agreement. I'm not a lawyer. I'd ask you please respect the intent of the agreement if not the actual words. I'm sure there are 'holes' in it. Please don't abuse them and force me to cancel the agreement.

The intent of this agreement is to let creative people such as yourself sell your great ideas at full profit using the rules of Challenger. It wasn't meant to let you steal all my work word for word and sell it yourself. It was meant to let you borrow my ideas and use them to enhance your own work.

For me, I essentially just want to keep my copyright 'safe'. I don't want people to pirate my book, slander my product and company names, abuse my legal shortcomings, rip me off, steal my money or customers, or get really mad at me for any reason. If you don't like this agreement, don't use it. I'm only creating it because I think it's a good idea and I want to support it.

In the name of common courtesy, I'd love an e-mail at: challenger_rpg@hotmail.com before you use the agreement. I'd also love to know roughly how many books you're selling because that increases my reputation as an author. In exchange, I'd be happy to offer advice, let you know how Challenger is doing, inform you of changes to the agreement or the Challenger book, and otherwise 'help you out' in any way I can. I don't always have time to do so, but I think we can both 'help each other out' to our mutual benefit.

Thanks guys!

Sincerely,

David L. Dostaler
Author, Challenger RPG



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