It's at the printers and it's on the web as a PDF so... here's the obligatory official press release.
-Gregor
[Edited to make the title less like shouting. Apols.]
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Edinburgh, UK - July 15, 2008 - BoxNinja announces the release of their Science Fiction RPG "3:16 Carnage Amongst The Stars".

Designed by Gregor Hutton (Best Friends) 3:16 is a winner of a High Ronny Award for Games Design. Featuring a stunning cover by Paul Bourne (a|state, Cold City, Hot War) and haunting interiors by Gregor Hutton 3:16 is a visual treat.

This high-octane Science-Fiction role-playing game for 2 or more players has your Space Troopers killing bugs all across the Cosmos. You’ll advance in rank, improve your weapons, slay civilization after civilization and find out who you are through an innovative “Flashback” mechanic.

Terra’s plan is to kill every living thing in the Universe to protect the home world. See where your tour of duty in the 3:16th Expeditionary Force takes you and your friends. Revel in the kill-happy machismo and enjoy a campaign of Carnage Amongst The Stars.

3:16 is a Science-Fiction role-playing game about Carnage Amongst The Stars.

• Take your squad of kill-happy Troopers and annihilate bugs!
• Low preparation, elegant game system.
• Delivers developing campaign play.
• Lavishly illustrated and designed book.
• Winner of a High Ronny Award for Games Design for the original version.

"3:16 is one helluva kick-ass game" - Joe J. Prince, author of Contenders
"Fantastic, gorgeous design" - Ron Edwards, author of Sorcerer
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PDF (96 pages, $10)
Available NOW from IndiePressRevolution and OneBookShelf sites.
IPR - https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/product.php?productid=16652
DTRPG - http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=56768
RPGnow - http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=56768

PRINT (96 pages, $20)
Available from IndiePressRevolution from August 1.

GENCON
See 3:16 at GenCon Indy (14-17 August 2008) on the "Design Matters" Booth (#1940).
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NAME OF GAME: 3:16 Carnage Amongst The Stars
AUTHOR: Gregor Hutton
PUBLISHER: BoxNinja
SKU: BOX0316
ISBN: 978-0-9559945-0-0
ILLUSTRATORS: Paul Bourne (cover), Gregor Hutton (interior)
PRICE: $20/£10 (print); $10 (PDF)
PAGES: 96
SIZE: Digest (8.5" x 5.5", Landscape)
NOTE: Strong Language, Mature Themes, recommended for age 15+
WEB: boxninja.com
COVER IMAGE: http://gregorhutton.com/boxninja/threesixteen/threesixteen-cover.jpg

Great news, I just loved the original version !

What does it mean, "3:16"?

Holy. Fucking. Wow.

Who did the cover art? It's gorgeous.

Paul Bourne did Adam.
It's written in the release statement ;)

Congrats Gregor - I cannot wait to pick this one up and kill me some aliens in mass quantities.

Paul's cover is awesome. You and Malcolm have been keeping him quite busy it seems : )

Jonathan,

You just sold me on this game.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

16th Brigade, 3rd Army, Terran Expeditionary Force

So..."Terran 3:16 says eat hot plasma, bugs!"

Congratulations. It's a very nice looking game.

Its just such a beautiful thing .... I must read and re-read it just to drool over the guns .... I mean the system! Yes the system!

Uh oh. My wish list just got a little longer.

So folks who have seen this game, help me out here. I fucking *loved* Best Friends (in fact I'm playing it again tomorrow). And the cover of 3:16 is certainly evocative.

But tell me what about this game excites you if you have read or played it. What makes it different than say Warhammer or Space Hulk or Starship Troopers?

Is it the mechanics? The way the subject matter is dealt with? The way it plays at the table?

<cite>Posted By: Caesar_X</cite>So folks who have seen this game, help me out here. I fucking loved Best Friends (in fact I'm playing it again tomorrow). And the cover of 3:16 is certainly evocative.

But tell me what about this game excites you if you have read or played it. What makes it different than say Warhammer or Space Hulk or Starship Troopers?

Is it the mechanics? The way the subject matter is dealt with? The way it plays at the table?

In my case, it's the sheer focus of things. It's definitely not a miniatures wargame, despite the fact that the bulk of the mechanics seem to be about counting how many kills you've racked up and managing the threats the GM can throw at you. (In fact, it possibly stands in stark counter-argument to my thesis of "Whatever fills up most of the book will be what the players focus on." Well, that might not be true; shooting things really is what a lot of it's about, but I digress.) What makes 3:16 different is the degree at which abstraction in the mechanics manifest. "How many aliens are in this scene?" is not something decided a priori by the GM. Check your kill count at the end of it, that's how many there were. The GM is responsible for creating the structure and managing the abstract threat while the players have access to Flashbacks (Strengths and Weaknesses) which are essentially narrative interventions that trump the abstract combat to a desired end. By calling on one you can bail the whole team out with a success or get yourself out of it by calling out your weakness.

I'm really looking forward to playing it with a semi-regular group, just so we can rotate GMing and I can both play and plan. The stories sort of write themselves as characters gain rank and new Orders and responsibilities, without demanding the story goes a certain way. Want a goofy group of misfits who get by on luck and cheese? Want grit and gloom where it's blood and tears and suffering? Sure thing!

Most of all, though, it's a story-telling game about war stories that looks fun, and damnit, not enough games are fun anymore.

Posted By: Gregor HuttonBut... there's a lot of reading in them, and rules, and skills, and, and, and .... and, dammit, I want to play a Space Marine already!

I am now double sold.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf
Adeptus Astartes

So... what's the difference here between the old 3:16 and this new shiny version?

I ask since I've got the old version, and I can't buy the new version until next year. However, I'm an old fan of 40k (still have my Rogue Trader and Ork books) and even though I tend to be more into the "Waaaaagh!" than "The Emperor's fury shall consume you!!!", I'd certainly be willing to pick this up next year with a good nudging...

Posted By: Filip Luszczyk
Indeed. The shininess actually makes me approach a product very carefuly these days.
So does premature overenthusiastic awesomnification in the community.

Yes, Filip! Totally. I hope that people will play the damn game and put AP online to prove me right in my belief that this game will deliver solid campaign play. Until then I am happy with people holding off buying it.

In a way winning a High Ronny for the original 24-hr version made my job way more difficult than I had with Best Friends (which was "Unbaked but tasty so far" in its 24-hr form). Even if that was only in my head.

At times I was really stuck on bits of this game that meant it didn't think it would ever be published in a final form. I promised myself I would only release it if (a) it worked, (b) it was at least as good IMHO as Joe Prince's Contenders, and (c) I wanted to play it myself a lot. I was always confident I could make it look good, but I don't care for that. Anyway, I have released it, which means I'm confident on (a), (b) and (c) and I made a real effort to make it look the best I could (because I can).

Christoper, the changes from the 24-hour version are...

...Setting: virtually none. It's the same world but I added more ranks and other colour. Apart from Tollman's Tale and the first bits about Terra all the colour text is new.
...Art: almost all new, only the logo and two other bits of art remain.
...Stats: still just FA and NFA, Alien Ability is now made up of equations based on the PC's stats. The GM just picks one a planet.
...Flashbacks: now more limited in number but the mechanic is still the same. Advice is added on these too.
...GM stuff: extensive text added here with techniques and advice. My aim is to aid someone if this was their first RPG.
...Player advice: I made it have advice for players too and how to Get Started from scratch.
...System: complete overhaul. It's now absolutely robust mechanically. The text leading you through an encounter, between encounters, through missions, between missions, replacing characters, and advancing in rank, weapons and level. It's all there. The adversity for the GM is there too. Also for the GM is all-new planet creation stuff: 20 planet types, 20 alien types, 20 alien Special Abilities as well as colour like 20 planet names and 40 Trooper names.
...Weapons and Gear: the old favourites are still there like the Energy Rifle and E-Cannon, but now you also get Flame-Guns, Rocketpods, PowerClaws and Shotguns. PK bombs are now TPK Bombs (localised nuclear grenades) while Lt Colonel's get Paradise Bombs (non-localised nuclear grenades) and they really could give you a TPK.
...There are also examples of play and I think it's pretty clear from the text how you run and play the game (thanks to all the pernickety feedback on my text).

So, consider the original free version as somethingI did in 24 hours in October 2005 and consider the new version as something almost 3 years later that I nervously hope has realised that promise.

Cheers,
Gregor

Yeah, as someone who bought the .pdf on the strength of the free 24 hour version: don't sell yourself short. Get the .pdf, it's freakin' awesome.

Actually, I'm a bit wary of "awesome" Actual Plays when they're written up by the author of a game. For me, it's hard to have the distance needed to be objective and so I take those APs (perhaps very unfairly!) with a pinch of salt.

However, Joe Prince did write up the session from GameWang the weekend before last.

Thanks Ben. Let me know how it goes for you, I'm hopeful that it should be straightforward and fun!

Oh, I put the Character Sheet and a larger Range Map on the website as downloads.

For people interested in buying it I put the Index, some sample pages and two wallpapers there too.

Oh, I just answered some one-player questions on the Collective Endeavour website. Good timing.

With only 1 player you can still rotate the GM as an option ("Breaking The Carnage?") and have it as the two stories rather than one.

But with one fixed GM and one player you'll end up with an accelerated campaign. The PC will be levelling up after every mission and I think you'd get two planets in per session too. Your PC will also be walking a tightrope as they'll have no one else to end an encounter if they run out of Flashbacks. (Though your Replacement character drops on to the planet refreshed and ready to mop up the bastards that did for your last PC!)

For my preference it works best with 4 players and getting surviving characters emerging from that group. It works in a different way with only 1 player -- you'll end up with the player having lots of PCs throughout the game I think. That can be cool too though.

Yes, I would love to have a PDF+Print combo..

Just finished reading the game in-depth and I can't wait to play.

Looks like a great game for a night of drinking, goofing off, laughing, and being macho to the max. It's got a dark, serious, kick each other's ass feel to it too (the fact that the Trooper can bring another PCs weakness into play and make him fail is gold).

The system is as light as can be, but very, very strong in encouraging a type of play that fits well with a Starship Troopers theme: holding the line against thousands of bugs, bringing orbital bombardment down on your position to save your ass (and wounding everyone in your group in the process--oh, and getting your ass potentially DE-moted for doing a boneheaded thing like that).

The Agon type competition and the grunt/officer divide is pure gaming goodness.

I remember seeing the Starship Troopers minis game in the hobby store and thinking, "OK, the combat would be cool, if a little repetitious...but how would you really make a game like that that would hold your interest?"

3:16 is how!

I just finished my first read-through. Wonderful work, Gregor. It's the ultimate space marine game I have wanted for some time now. The tone of the text, the art, the system... all fantastic. I really can't get over how you manage to satirize and respect the source material at the same time.

I can't wait to play!

Posted By: John HarperI can't wait to play!

Mini GoPlayNW! There will be xenocidal space marines...

This game sounds pretty cool. I have one big question though. If I, the hypothetical owner of the book, am the only one familiar with it and I take it to my game group and drop it on the table some night, how long is it likely to take between the introduction and the time the first alien gets blasted into a fine gray mist?

I can say, right now, with no question that Mike is dead on. And I can prove it! See the new 3:16 thread on the live recording!

One-shots should be no problem. Missions go by blindingly fast. I ran through chargen, a full planet of four missions, and the post-planet levelling and review in pretty much 2hr exactly.

People that've never played RPGs before might need a little hand-holding on describing their successes and failures, but just make sure to have one crazy, over the top person around and you'll be fine. Between them and you as GM describing the Aliens' results, you'll be fine. The Flashbacks are actually among the easier things for non-gamers to hook.

Optimal range would be three to five, I'm thinking. I can see running it for up to 8, but that'd be awkward. But a full squad.

One GM one player would probably be too tight. Ranking up every Mission would be just too fast. Fun, though, if you want that sort of thing.

Oh, IPR has the pages up where you can order the book or the book+PDF bundle, as well as the PDF page now.

I personally find games with more than 6 players (of just about any game) unwieldy and 3:16 matches that for me.

I watched Ben Robbins run 3:16 at Go Play More NW Sunday afternoon and it sold me on the game, so I just bought the bundle from IPR. I would have waited and picked up the hardcopy at Endgame after Gen Con but the instant availability of the PDF at a very slight additional cost made the bundle irresistable. I'll probably try running it as part of Endgame's demo series. Chargen and rules were very quick, the missions were fun, intense, and quick. John Harper's Sergeant Cabral got promoted to Lieutenant, but I had to leave for the airport before I saw whether he raised his power claw to call down the wrath of heaven as an orbital bombardment.

But now I also kinda wanna run Best Friends aboard the Earth Expeditionary Force, which is possibly Just Wrong.

Okay, $10.45 for shipping via UPS to AZ? For realz?

Knocking the price down $5 helps take the sting out, but holy cow.

p.

Hi, uh, I've never actually ordered anything (that I can recall, anyway) from IPR before. I'm resident in the UK. How are they at overseas shipping? Is the game available from any UK retailers?

Posted By: Gregor Hutton...GM stuff: extensive text added here with techniques and advice. My aim is to aid someone if this was their first RPG.

Or their 316th.

Your advice on framing scenes is cristal clear and very much appreciated. And It only took five minutes of conving for my group to want to play the game.

I live in France and used IPR four or five times I think. It took around one week, ten days at most.

And yes, I'm waiting for 3:16 to arrive !

The game takes about half-an-hour to learn well enough to play, and an hour to snag all the special cases. Teaching is about 10-15 minutes work at the most. The examples of play are useful and well written. You can frag officers. The abstracted combat range chart offers enough tactical options to be interesting, but not so many as to make it a minatures wargame, and you can use a smurf to represent your character. The rules are satisfying on a per-mission basis, but also use the crack cocaine of levelling up to encourage long-term play. You can frag officers, but they can give you latrine duty if you fail.

The GM rotation option works fine, with carefully delineated areas of responsibilty. Everyone is familiar with the kind of war films these characters inhabit; roleplaying them is easy.

Advice: Don't watch Tropic Thunder before playing. Don't fall in love with an alien. Don't put a wind-up dog toy under the lieutenant's bed, when he's just had psych eval for a dog-related incident. Don't open your face plate to smoke a stogie on a volcano world. Don't use a flame thrower on an officer, even if he says he's cold. Don't kiss the Captain's leg, even if it is separated from the rest of her body.

Posted By: renatoramand you can use a smurf to represent your character

Simon, I'd love to see some pictures of your E-Cannon toting Sergeant Smurf! ^____-

You can frag officers

That's the second time you mention it... I'd be a tad nervous of being your squad's Lieutenant, man!

I'll see what I can do about the piccies. Did I mention you can frag officers?

Played it last Saturday with Tomas and Magnus with Matthijs as GM and had a total blast. We did two planets with two very different environments. First was a sentient planet that was a bit Solaris/Stalker-ish that was very cool and weird and got a great paranoia feeling as we couldn't see much in the fog and had Aliens-style life detectors. The other mission was to take out the native insectoid servitor species of the pleasure planet where we had spent the last 40 days of R'nR (human casualties was not counted as kills) and it evolved into a wonderfully fucked up mission.
I totally get the 40k references, but what it most reminded me of was Peter F. Hamilton's "Fallen Dragon" where the protagonist is a mercenary that reclaims a Corporation's interest on a planetary scale. :)
We had great fun and I even got to demote my immediate superior officer! ;)

Posted By: alejandroAre there any reference sheets? I know this game doesn't really need one, but it would be good for con play... Just an idea.

I haven't seen any Alex, but that is a mighty fine idea. Because the rules are so small, there'd be plenty of room for flavourful comments like "Remember, you can frag officers!" and the like!

I've seen some, but it may be that John created and printed them off for himself, as I've only seen his hard-copies, not digital copies.

I've been considering creating similar ones to the ones he had, which had the initial TPR/CPL/SGT kits and options and the weapons that could be requisitioned.. They were more like hand-outs than reference sheets, I suppose.

I figured. I do not have the .pdf though, so I'll have to get a bit fancier.