As many of you know, Bulldogs! was originally published in 2005 for the d20 system, back when you could still license that branding. I had a print run of 200 copies of the game in that system, sold through them, and printed another 200 with a few edits and a new cover (1.5 Edition?). Not a bad showing, but not great either.

Bulldogs! actually had some of the best coverage of any of my games simply because the d20 audience was very large (and the OGL audience remains large to this day). Bulldogs! was definitely a small potato in the d20 publishing world at the time, and the whole d20 market closed up shop before it had a long run. I could probably have kept selling copies for several more years if WOTC hadn’t pulled the license. I could have converted it to OGL for the next edition and done another print run, too, but I felt it had taken its run by that point.

Bulldogs! is a game that I’ve had lots of fun playing, and when I was surveying what projects to start on after How We Came to Live Here was complete, it popped to the top of the list. I decided to take an entirely new run at it, and the perfect system for the game already existed. I’m talking about the FATE system from Evil Hat Productions. Their game Spirit of the Century is one of my all-time favorites, and I’d actually run a session of Bulldogs! using adapted SotC rules already.

Developing for FATE is actually a great deal easier than developing for OGL. The basic structure of OGL has more constraints, and FATE is a more free-wheeling, high action system. That fits with the feel of Bulldogs! much better. I mentioned a while back one of the first things that contrasted this: the Ryjyllian warrior’s code of honor. I made some detailed rules about this for d20, but when converting to FATE, it was simple to give the Ryjyllians an aspect: Ryjyllian Code of Honor. Boom. Done.

Right now I’ve got some strong alien species creation rules, a new take on how to present the skills in FATE, and custom stunts for Bulldogs! Since looting and trading are big parts of the game, there’s a brand new Resources system for the game. That, and the ship rules, probably need the most testing at this point.

The rules are coming together, and are about 80% done. They will be going off to edit beginning in November and I’m beginning some playtesting with my local group. I’d like to put a call out to interested playtest groups to get in on the Alpha for this one. Contact me at info@galileogames.com by November 1^st and I’ll get you set up with the rules to begin trying them out.

It’s time to kick ass!