I'm currently working on my last recording project, and it's already taking a toll on me. Friday we went to about 12:30 am, and as usual I need to "come down" after a session. I ended up going to bed at 1:30 am. Last night was the exact same thing. I have 2 more night to go and then I'll probably curl up and die thursday/friday. I have to admit, it's a bit of a melon collie situation. It is also very freeing.
Onto cool RPG stuff.
First off, I got home yesterday after what can only be described as "monday!" hahaha. I was feeling a bit bagged, and down. I opened the mail and VIOLA! I got a super cool thing from Goblin's Henchman in the mail. (If I'm not mistaken he lives in the UK). The fact that I'm friends with and talk to people all over the world because of the OSR astounds me on a daily basis. It's so much fun!
What I received was "Carapace" a procedural dungeon based around a giant ant colony! Super cool. I can't wait to read it. I'm thinking that combining this and my Antoomuns thing (which I should really finish) would make for a cool campaign.
An adventure into a Giant Ant colony with 3 different procedural methods to make/navigate the labyrinth like maze.
The procedural methods have been applied to the exploration of a maze-like giant insect colony. That said, these methods could easily be retrofitted to any maze-like setup, e.g. patchwork of islets in the Bonesuck Swamp, glades in an impenetrable wood, goblins caves, an overland trade route, an archipelago of mysterious islands in a pirate romp, or rooms in an abandoned space station.
I also got a really excellent review from Age Of Dusk, that totally made my evening! You can read the review here.
In the review he mentions that there are a few spelling errors, which I was curious about. When I write, I use the "Queen's English", so things like "flavor" vs "flavour" might come up. I was curious if that was the issue, or if I had used the improper use of "Their, There, They're" etc. As I've been known to do that. Upon reflection, the troll in the dungeon is pretty deadly (which is mentioned in the review). In my comment I talked about the troll, but instead of writing troll my tablet auto corrected to "trolley", which lead to a hillarious idea. Of course this makes me want to write an adventure with a trolley like Gringots in Harry Potter. That would be a fun map to draw!
(See screenshot)
Quoting Age of Dusk:
There is a random table with atmospheric effects.
8) Wallowing Moan.
It is good stuff. The demonic elements remind me of Deadly Power, like a haunted house or a campy horror flick. That’s what Dnd needs more of. Quick and easy dungeons and campy Satan.
Shane Ward. Consider yourself redeemed. Thank you for sending this to me. 6.5 out of 10.
WOO! This was great, and a well thought out review. You can also read the review of "Mad God's Jest" right here.
Just a quick note. Reading any kind of review will usually give you a bit of fire to keep going. Reading a positive review even more so! I feel asleep last night thinking about settings, and this idea I've had rolling around in my head for awhile. The last thing I watched on youtube was this, which also helped cement a few things. Can't wait till lunch so I can start doing some writing.
I recently received a copy of Retribution by Raging Swan Press, written by Creighton Broadhurst. Here's the publisher blurb: In the frozen depths of winter, murderous winds mercilessly batter the crumbling Priory of Cymer. Within, trapped by their duty and the heaped snowdrifts that render travel near impossible, the few remaining faithful huddle together and tend the sacred places of their forbears. With the weather worsening, nerves fray and tempers snap as the wind howls its mournful dirge for the forgotten dead of a fallen time. But the worst is yet to come. One of those trapped within holds a murderous grudge that only blood can expunge and as the storm reaches its savage height terrible revenge is wrought amid the frigid halls and faded glories of a bygone age. It appears this was the first adventure that Creighton ever wrote! You can read a interesting article about it here. This adventure was written for Pathfinder, however it's crazy easy to convert it to a OSR type game (which I intend to do). I love the premise, the adventurers get caught in a snow storm on the way to a monastery. The cool thing is as the adventure goes you get to rachet up the mysterious, things going bump in the night, etc. It's got sort of a Ravenloft kinda vibe to it (at least that's how I read it). I was actually working on a similar idea for an adventure, a bunch of PCs delivering goods to a monastery (only to find it burnt to the ground...) However, I think I may pull a few of my ideas and Retribution and amalgamate them. First off, there's a lovely little detailed town called Swallowfield (Love the map!) and the adventure takes place on the Lonely Coast (dig that map too!) The art in this book is fantastic b/w, the lay out is easy to read (the font is a bit small for older eyes). However great presentation. The book is filled with Pathfinder stat blocks (obviously cuz its for PF), however I found a tidbit of information that would help me when running this adventure in an OSR environment. Tactics! For each encounter there is a list of tactics that the monsters will do. Now obviously this throws reaction checks out the window sorta, but still handy for me. Example "the goblins will fire arrows, while a few try to escape". I mean i could have thought of that, but having it right there is handy. This module is an "adventure path", ie it's a bit of a railroad. Not in a bad way though, there's a story and there's ideas and reasons for finishing up the story. If complications arise, there's ways of dealing with them. However the core of the adventure can easily be ran by a open minded old school DM. Especially if you are good at thinking on your feet. The middle section of adventure is where everything ramps up, with interesting encounters. Most are there to increase the intensity! Not all of which are deadly, or combat related. Rounding off the book is a big section of incredibly detailed and awesome NPCs. I have a few more raging swan books that I intend to review. I'm hoping I can take them all and plug them in to one mini campaign (which seems rather easy to go). Creighton makes references to the ease of putting these adventures into your own campaigns. That being said, there's a wealth of world building on the Raging Swan site. I'm slowly looking thru this and the other adventures, and making notes on bad guys (converting them to Whitebox). The other thing that struck me while reading this, is that it would be a almost no prep 5e adventure. All the DC's are there. References to "specific skill type checks" are easily convertible to 5e skills, and in some cases are named the same. This is another thing rolling around my head for whenever I get back into playing again. Pretty cool book. If your a PF fan, I'd say this is a must have! If your a OSR fan, and don't mind a bit of a "story" to go along with your possible TPK then I think it's a pretty good adventure.
(*From now on SWCL for the purposes of I'll spell Continual wrong for the rest of this post, also the guys who wrote this use SWCL as a way of abbreviating the game).
Publisher blurb:
You remember, don't you? The sounds of battle heard through the clatter of dice? The shuffling of character sheets? The war stories shared with fellow campaigners?
There is a longing in the soul of every adventurer and though it sometimes fades to a whisper, you still hear it. Swords & Wizardry Continual Light marks your return to fantasy roleplaying - or if you're curious what fantasy gaming is all about, this is the perfect introduction.
This book, a twenty-sided die, and a few six-sided dice are all you need to return to the table, recall those halcyon days of heroism, and forge brand new legends! Welcome back!
For those not familiar with Swords & Wizardry, the game is based on the original 3 brown books, or OD&D, there are a variety of versions of Swords & Wizardry (Complete, Core, Light) and a number of variations of Whitebox, included thematic games like Dark Places & Demogorgons, WW2 Operation Whitebox, White Star, The Hero's Journey (Note I haven't seen a post apoc whitebox game yet? And I've been thinking about it!). All of these games are retro clones of "the world's most famous roleplaying game" and a lot of them only need 2 dice, 1d20 and 1d6. Personally I`m a big fan of S&W, it`s a great pickup game, and its infinitely hackable!
About a year or so ago Erik Tenkar (yes that Erik, the one that runs the famous Tenkars Tavern) got a few people together to release Swords & Wizardry Light, which was a 2 page rule set. When I first saw it I was like `Yes this is going to be so damn handy at the gaming table`. My only issue with that game was that the downloadable version was crazy high quality (talking DPI here), It looked fucking amazing don`t get me wrong. It just took forever to download and to print. I believe it has been revised. (I`ll check). The other nifty thing that was released was character cards, with a character class basics, that you could just fill your stats in. these were also handy. I`m sort of imagining a nice present for someone in a cardboard box with all these niceties, and of course SWCL and a few sets of dice. (Hint hint). It would make the perfect gift for a gamer.
Anyways on to the review. First off Erik and James Spahn wrote it. The art in the book is fantastic BW. The layout works, it`s not overly `layoutey`for the sake of being that way. You can find things easy enough, and that`s good enough for me!
SWCL is easily convertible to regular SW, or any other OSR game, adventure. It contains ascending AC and descending. So that old module that your uncle has lying around in his basement, that`s purple in colour with a keep on it, you can play that. I`m sure your uncle won`t mind, his copy is pretty beat up and he should probably order a reprint anyways.
The game has your standard four classes, and four races. There are class restrictions in play. I really like the neat little tidbit that is thrown in to get players to use humans. (You`ll have to grab a copy). The book contains rules for optional classes (written in honestly one sentence, but it works!) and they are great! A lot of thinking went into getting this book trimmed down to pure essence of what you need to get rockin and rolling. Oh another cool thing when rolling up the standard 6 abilities, if you have a charisma bonus you also get a torchbearer (Henchmen, Goon, possible PC if your character dies).
Each class comes with some standard equipment and then there`s some optional stuff you can get as well. The nice thing about this, is that you can get up and running super quick.
The leveling system is smart, it`s not based on experience it`s based on adventures completed! Something that I am totally going to steal (err borrow). The classes goto level 7, and after that you can receive perks. Which is a pretty nifty way of doing this. These perks (feats) are not game changing things, they are extra spells, higher attack damage, higher hit points etc.
There are four levels of spells for Magic Users, and three levels for clerics. I should note, that Clerics do not start off with a spell at first level.
The one thing I should note, is that this book is written from the point of view of someone who has played an RPG before. Meaning that it does not contain the usual `what`s a role playing game``, it doesn`t have a ton of advice about running a game in it. Which is entirely fine. However if this is a kids first game, given to him or her by some one who isn`t teaching them about gaming, then it might be a difficult thing to grasp. That being said my first real RPG was 2nd edition and it didn`t cover a ton of this stuff either. Obviously we live in the age of the interwebz and people can look up how to play games. K here`s the thing about Swords & Wizardry, and SWCL, it`s not a beginners game. It obviously can be, but so can a whole lot of other RPGs (pretty much every brand has it`s starter set). I would consider SW Light a beginners game, at the very least a rules light getcha going game.
My only grump on this game is there isn`t the spell ``Continual Light``. There are a few other little things, that are not worth mentioning here.
The book is twelve pages, and fits perfectly in my backpack. It`s a standard 8x11 book, the cover is a sexy glossy with a illustration by James Shields. The book contains a few extra white pages, that you can use for notes, and house rules. (or to write your own crit tables!) Of course you can add in some monsters you made up as well!
I intend to run SW Whitebox next game, and now that I have a copy of SWCL (and a extra copy of WB) these will be the players reference copies which will be super duper handy! In fact I may end up using SWCL for the first few levels. I am definitely going to use the leveling system. And just to be a gritty old grognard, I`ll use the crit tables from DCC.
The other wonderful thing about this game is, that its a great game to write for. Of course if your not into writing, there`s a ton of great resources and adventures for it already!
If you haven't heard, there's a cool new old school zine on obs! It's called "Dice Roll Zine". Steve C sent me a copy of Dice Roll Zine #1 thru drivethru last week (THANK YOU!). I'm finally sitting at my desk getting a chance to read thru it this morning. There's lots of great stuff. Here's the description: Get your old-school gaming fix on!Dice Roll Zineis a 36-page, booklet-sized zine for OSR RPGs written by Steven A. Cook and illustrated by some of the best OSR-influenced artists around.
The premiere issue includes a barbarian class for B/X games, a saving throw-based method for turning undead in B/X games, a trippy sci-fantasy adventure location called The Purple Mushroom Inn, a chaos mutation die drop table, a collection of random 'dungeon stuff' tables, and other optional rules for old-school games.
Files Included: Lots of files in the download. Along with the PDF you multiple cover options and all of the map files (.png format) for the issue: The Purple Mushroom Inn (2 maps), Peshar's Bandit Lair (1 map), and the first-level of the (unkeyed) megadungeon Treasure Vaults of Nargu Qa'Dash (4 maps).
The mag is $3.76 CAD and well worth it!
First off it has a B/X Old school flavour to it. There's a LOT of great art within. I am in love with the cover (honestly a toadstool inn! way to hit right close to home on that one boys!).
Here's what you get:
How to resolve anything that comes up: An article on ability scores with a awesome table.
The Barbarian: An optional B/X Class
Optional Combat rules for heroes
Turning Undead: A different way of dealing with creepy undead that should have stayed dead (b/x).
The Purple Mushroom Inn: A sci fantasy adventures site for low mid level characters. (Damn this is awesome!). Complete with rumor & adventure table, menu, NPC staff, detailed personalities, and wonderful tavern map (and underground lair).
Random Chaos Mutant Die Drop Table: Great table with a pile of weirdness.
Random Dungeon Stuff: A bunch of excellent tables for dungeon crawling.
Mega Dungeon Maps: The Treasure Vaults of Nargu Qa'Dash. There are 4 extremely detailed dungeon maps (all hand drawn), combined with the random dungeon stuff tables, and a few wandering monster tables, you basically have a game ready to go. (of course a bit of inspiration).
Oh look here's some inspiration
Reasons for entering the dungeon
1. To return a ring to a lost love. (Long ago a dark elf maiden fell in love with a traveler, it was his dying wish to have her ring returned).
2. Hunting expedition. The coats of the shaggy beetle are extremely sought after, and worth quite a lot of gold.
3. Recently a Gnomish Caravan came to the surface with trade goods. Turns out that the good they sold are all defective. They need to be returned and the gold paid retrieved.
4. A local scholar will pay for detailed maps of the dungeon.
5. The source of the death shadow plague points towards the depths.
6. In the darkness there are rumblings, causing structures on terra firma to fall down and crumble.
