Friday, October 31, 2014

D101 Games having 50% off Halloween Sale (Crypts & Things)

Crypts & Things is in my top five for retro clones (or neo-clones if you prefer). It's now on sale for 50% off ($6), as are two modules for it, Tomb of the Necromancers and Blood of the Dragon, $2.50 each. I don't have either of the adventures, but I'd be tempted to buy them (alas, I have $2.01 in my paypal account, not quite enough).

edit: Now over.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

New OSR Products at RPGNow—October 30th, 2014

Definitely a slow week.


Adventures


FP8 - Insignia of Bromide the Wicked - Mid level adventure in the Adventures in Filbar line. 22 pages, $3.


The Lair of Largash the Lurid - Low level adventure about a cave complex inhabited by an ogre and his "kingdom". Pay What You Want

Misc


Weapons with Weird Tricks - "twenty unique weapons designed with OSR gaming in mind". 1 page, 99 cents.

Advanced Adventures #26 Review—The Witch Mounds by Keith Sloan

 The Witch Mounds by Keith Sloan is the 26th entry in the Advanced Adventures line from Expeditious Retreat Press. Like the others in the line, it's for OSRIC, the 1st edition AD&D retro-clone, and in this case is for six to ten characters of levels three to six. There is literally no plot, it's a pure site based adventure. The Witch Mounds are the burial grounds of a Viking like culture, basically a mini-Valhalla for evil warriors who couldn't make the real one. Presumably, the PCs want to loot it.

Most recent Advanced Adventures tend to be short in terms of page count, and this is no different, at 12 pages. Sometimes that means a very small module if the author has a verbose style or there is a lot of background material. In this case, none of that is true, so you get a fairly large 2 level dungeon with just over 50 keyed entries, as well as three new monsters and a few magic items. As well as a small barrow mound complex of about 10 barrows.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

More Beyond the Wall news

Beyond the Wall being one of my favorite OSR games, I've been following the news closely over at TBP. Besides the new volume being revised slightly

-a new Scenario Pack - The Angered Fae. Someone in the village has unwittingly upset the fae, who are now causing havoc with your friends and neighbors. The heroes will have to traverse the realm of the faeries in order to settle the matter.
-a much extended Bestiary (almost 50 new monsters). We really tried to focus in on monsters that would "feel" particularly Beyond the Wall. We have also included lots of story hooks in the Bestiary to help GMs come up with quick adventure ideas that, again, "feel" like BtW.
-some new spells (13 to be precise).
-some extra rules material and advice on skills, perception and searching, and group activities and the helping rules.
-our version of a simple reaction table and using your Charisma to impress NPCs.
-some more on hirelings, including tables with prices and some suggestions about hirelings becoming Allies.
-a small, but super cool new rule regarding true names; there is a reason now to share your true name with your closest friends.

Some of those changes might not please all OSR fans (Charisma, things like perception), but on the balance it sounds good to me.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Second Edition Alchemist Released—Free Character Class

From Leonaru who brought us various first edition classes, comes the 2nd Edition Alchemist, which was from the Tome of Magic apparently.

Editor of For Gold & Glory looking for help

Not with the game (which is the 2e retro-clone), but it seems he's had a case of bad financial luck. Unfortunately, that's one of the realities of living from paycheck to paycheck that I know firsthand, when something unexpected crops up, it's a huge problem.

Monday, October 27, 2014

The Lair of Largash the Lurid—New PWYW Adventure



And from Canister & Grape (I love some of these "company" names) comes The Lair of Largash the Lurid by Michael Mills.

Largash the Lurid, scourge of the common folk and self-appointed king beneath the rocky hills, lurks deep within his lair. Who dares enter his realm to unthrone this most evil of monarchs? Can your brave party of adventurers defeat Largash the Lurid and his evil minions once and for all? This module is a complete adventure including maps, descriptive text, background information and encounter notes...
For levels 1-3

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Free 2e Ravenloft Adventure from RPGNow


RPGNow is giving away the Ravenloft adventure, RQ1 Night of the Walking Dead from now until Halloween. Okay, technically not OSR, and in some minds, not even old school, but I generally consider TSR era stuff "old school", including 2e and even Buck Rodgers.

edit: Beyond that, they have a Halloween sale, 33% off

OSR stuff includes some things from BRW Games, Dyson's Delves, various Crawl magazines, Grimtooth's Traps, Life of Rage (B/X rules for Orcs and such), Magical Theorums & Dark Pacts (I dunno, but says OSR), and probably more but I can't be bothered to scroll through 9+ pages...

Friday, October 24, 2014

Cover art for upcoming revised edition of Beyond the Wall

Looks like it could be the cover to a Lloyd Alexander book. Which fits it perfectly. No idea when the new version of Beyond the Wall will be out, but apparently it will be a free upgrade for people who have purchased the game, so feel free to buy it now, it's really excellent.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

New OSR Products at RPGNow—October 23rd, 2014

Hmmm, not a busy week in terms of quantity, but the quality seems fairly high.

Adventures


FD3 - Crisis at Marstan - This week's Adventures in Filbar product.  This is for a pair of low level characters. 19 pages, $3.

FM-2 The Temple of Asibaire -  Lowish level horror themed adventure from QuasarDragon Games. 18 pages, Pay What You Want (suggested price $1.95)

Proteus Sinking - An adventure featuring a crashed spaceship full of Smurf like aliens. Pay What You Want (suggested price $2.95, 11 pages)


Rules


Player's Companion for Swords & Wizardry -  From Barrel Rider Games comes this supplement adds new classes (the Anti-Paladin and the Bard), new races (gnome, half-orc, and dark elf), expands the ability scores, adds two new ability scores (luck & appearance) and for the GM, 35 new magic items. 35 pages, $2.99

(Or you could play 1e with UA)


Tuesday, October 21, 2014

The Temple of Asibare—New Pay What You Want module from QuasarDragon Games

The Temple of Asibare is the new module from QuasarDragon Games. I guess he changed his mind on the name of it after he produced the cover.
Lying undisturbed for ages, this accursed tomb is discovered by the characters and a great evil is encountered. Will they survive this brush with darkness or will they become its latest victims. An OSR compatible module for any old school RPG or modern clone, The Temple/Tomb of Asibare is designed for character levels 2-4 or an especially harrowing first level.
This stand alone module combines elements of fantasy and horror for an unforgettable adventure of exploration and a desperate race for survival. Although not specifically designed for Halloween, it contains enough horror elements (new and old undead, a slumbering evil, a black cat, and even a dangerous maze) to make it quite applicable.
Pay what you want (suggested price $1.95), 18 pages

Warriors of the Red Planet adventure in the works

Warriors of the Red Planet is an OSR game set on the Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs which came out recently, and now there is an adventure for it in the works. More details soon, hopefully.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Proteus Sinking—Pay What You Want Psychedelic Fantasy adventure


Psychedelic Fantasy being the line of adventures published by the author of Carcosa, Geoffrey McKinney. To me, psychedelic can mean something like that movie by The Monkees to Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd, to two old hippies trying to sell records in the parking lot of a grocery store from out of their VW minibus.

I'm not sure which this one, Proteus Sinking from Bjorn Warmedal falls under, but you can see for yourself. Going by the author's name, it probably involves either Vikings or smurf-like creatures. We'll see.

Update: Sometimes you make a silly guess and it turns out to be true.

The Globonauts are bipedal slime creatures of a fluorescent blue colour. They travel through space and dimensions to find beauty and happiness,

Lesser Gnome launches Kickstarter for new Labyrinth Lord module

Too rich for my blood, but their previous boxed set was well received. Seems like a manor crawl. Those are actually some of my favorites. And it's well on its way to being funded, despite just starting.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

New 1e character sheet

There are lots of character sheets on the internet, and here is one more from someone on reddit.

Very clean looking

The Caverns of Ugard Review


 The Caverns of Ugard is a short adventure from Shane Ward of The 3 Toadstools blog, meant for 2nd to 4th level characters. If I remember correctly, it was a free download from his blog, then later went up at RPGNow as a Pay What You Want product. It's essentially a one page dungeon, 12 rooms total. It's a lair of a minotaur (the titular Ugard) and his goblin minions.

Originally it was for OSR with generic stats for monster (Hit dice, damage, armor class), but the most recent version is system neutral and statless. So I used the original version. I ran this because I needed a quick little adventure to get the party members up one more level, they were about 400 xp short of 5th level.

Friday, October 17, 2014

Hawk the Slayer gets the Rifftrax treatment

Hawk the Slayer is really one of the better movies that tried to cash in on the D&D fad.  Which is to say, it's not that good, but has some cool parts, especially if you were a kid when it came out.

Anyway, Rifftrax, which is basically the three people from Mystery Science Theater 3000 when it went off the air, is more or less a continuation of that show, sans skits and robots. They did The Sword and the Sorcerer about a month or so ago and was really funny.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

New OSR Products at RPGNow—October 16th, 2014

Not terribly busy this week, but I've seen worse.

Adventures

 
A World Gone Mad - A new module from the Gagmen, so presumably uses Basic Fantasy RPG, Set in an asylum. 32 pages, pay what you want.

Broken God's Pain: A Low Level OSR adventure - Hmmm, sounds promising: Broken God's Pain, a low level OSR adventure brings challenge to your players.  No Orcs or goblins will they face.  Will they let the cult of the new god defeat them?  The old god thinks not!

But what about giant rats? Regardless, it's a big module, 64 pages and $4.50

FC5 - Leptis Magna - This week's Adventures in Filbar product. From the title, seems to be about a giant rabbit, but I don't know Latin. Apparently used in a game at Gen Con this year. For mid to high level characters, 37 pages and $3.

The Warlord's Vault - From Creation's Edge games for Swords & Wizardry, part of their mini-module line. Levels 6-8. 12 pages, $1.50

Misc


Wizardzine #1 - New magazine from the talented Gavin Norman. 50 pages, $2.50, seems to be devoted to new magic.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Taken From Dunwich Review—Not Your Grandfather's Dunwich



One of the more annoying (to my mind) things about Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is they use a lot of names from H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. Taken from Dunwich, an adventure for that system (very AD&D-ish, so usable in most OSR games), is a case in point, using the name from Lovecraft story The Dunwich Horror. Just going by the shared name, you probably infer a decayed town of inbred yokels, and possibly something involving the unholy spawn of a human and a horror from beyond.

Nope, instead it's a science fiction adventure more than anything else. The people of Dunwich (a stolid Celtic village, or Keltic as AS&SH likes to call them, even though -wich is an Anglo-Saxon name) are being assaulted by beastmen (voormis from Clark Ashton Smith, renamed "vhuurmis") who carry off the townsfolk. The PCs must help the town, trail the voormis and bring back any survivors.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Monday, October 13, 2014

Revamped edition of Beyond the Wall in the works

Beyond the Wall and Other Stories is near the top of my favorite OSR games.  However, as in a lot of cases, there hasn't been much in the way of further products in the line. Well, here's some news from the RPG.net forums from the author

We have been slow lately for two reasons:

1) We have been working on a very, very large new product for Beyond the Wall. This has, obviously, necessitated more time than our earlier, free addons.
2) I am a teacher, and the beginning of the school year is very hectic for me.

The good news is that my day job has slowed down finally, and I have been ridiculously productive this week. I was going to make a facebook announcement later this week, but since you're asking, I think it is fine to break some news here.

You should expect two things to happen before the end of the year. The first is a revamped core. You will be looking at loads of new material, like a bestiary almost doubled in size with story hooks for the monsters, additional spells, a new scenario pack, and loads of new art. This is not a new edition; everything is 100% compatible with the original version. This is just extra material and typo corrections throughout. If you already own the game, your pdfs will be updated for free.

The second, and probably more exciting, is our first large supplement. I regret to say that this will require purchase, but it will be full book length. The supplement will deal with creating campaigns using Beyond the Wall's unique methods, creating magic items, new character options, etc.

After this is all out, you should expect some more freebies at a (hopefully) more frequent pace.

Inkwell Ideas having a 25% off sale

Because our main products center around maps, what better holiday to have a sale than Columbus Day?!

So now through the 15th, get 25% off any of our products using the discount code "Columbus25". (Look to enter the code on one of the later checkout pages.)
Some examples of products on sale:

 Not completely OSR, but their mapping programs are pretty slick.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Blueholme Prentice Rules updated


I started with AD&D in a game run by a friend's older brother who was in college, but another friend of mine had Holmes and DMed it, so I've played it a bunch as well.

We tried to extend the rules past level 3 with hilarious results. Since it took 1500 xps to go from 1st to 2nd, and then another 1500 to go from 2nd to 3rd, we thought that should hold up all the way from there, 1500 (or so, depending on the class) for each new level. So we quickly had 50th level characters. Eh, we were 7-8.

Anyway, a new version of the excellent Holmes retroclone, Blueholme, is now available. There were supposed to be complete rules (up to level 20), but writing a full blown retroclone to that is harder than you'd think.

Friday, October 10, 2014

Print version of The Caves of Moreau County available at Lulu



The pdf version is Pay What You Want over at RPGNow/DTRPG, but the print version is now up at Lulu for $10.

It's a pretty neat modular adventure for Labyrinth Lord

Thursday, October 9, 2014

New OSR Products at RPGNow—October 9th, 2014

Busier than I thought this week. A lot of releases were kind of low key.

Adventures


Dwimmermount ACKS version - I don't really like ACKS, but if you do, this is for you. $10, 400+ pages

FT- Village of Tomore -  This weeks Adventures in Filbar product, this describes a home base of sorts. Free.

Sidetreks 02: The Village, vol I -  5 village locations to drop into your game, along with some random tables. 17 pages, $4.

The Dire Plight of Ugmore Schrite - Besides his name, I guess. This is a very short, 2 page module costing a curious $1.60, and no information about the system, recommended levels, or even a description.

The Hivey Coast - a mini module from Creation's Edge for Swords & Wizardry for levels 5-7. 11 pages, $1.50

Rules


Far Realms - More Spells I - Last week had a fairly expensive supplement called Far Realms, this is apparently a supplement for that. 15 pages of spells for 99 cents.

Misc


Bethorm: the Plane of Tekumel - This isn't OSR, strictly speaking, but of interesting, since Tekumel was originally an OD&D setting and it's illustrated by early TSR artist Jeff Dee.  $19.95 and 262 pages.

Dwimmermount Dungeon Tracker - I had no idea what this was, really, but since I got it from the Kickstarter I downloaded it.  Basically it's a bigger map of Dwimmermount, annotated instead of just keyed, with little descriptions of what is in each room and where certain objects are in each room. Pretty slick, actually, and then on the back of the page is sort of a highlights page, key things to do on that level. Probably not worth the $10 it costs, but pretty handy.


Sunday, October 5, 2014

Dragonwars of Trayth Kickstarter


This is one I missed, perhaps because it's for both Pathfinder and OSRIC. It's kind of weird, the plan is for 25 modules, but this Kickstarter seems to be just for six of them.

They want $8,000, have about 1/4, but only 15 people pledging, with $1000 of that in one pledge that involves Ernie Gygax DMing for the pledger..

The Randomzer hits open beta


 Not directly OSR related, but random tables can be very useful. There are a number of programs that do them, here's one more, The Randomizer. Freeware, still a bit buggy, and Windows Vista or later only, but could be useful, since you can add your own entries.

(I find the old NameMage and InnMage very useful. I think they stopped support for Windows, but still can be found on old shareware sites)


Thursday, October 2, 2014

New OSR Products at RPGNow—October 2nd, 2014

This week is fairly busy, though I covered a lot of these already.

Adventures


End of Line - A free adventure from the Gagmen, apparently a parody of Tron

Inferno: Journey through Maleboge - Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, or a bundle. The first two books are well over 100 pages each and cost $9.85 and $12.66  and the third is 80 pages and $7.50. The bundle is $21.25. From the author of the Judges Guild module.

The Caves of Moreau County -  Pay What You Want modular adventure. Basically a bunch of different rooms and you put them together however you want to make a dungeon. Pretty neat. 33 pages.

Ud: A Midlevel OSR adventure - For er, mid level. 46 pages, $3.

Rules


Far Realms -  A grab bag of stuff for OSR games — new classes, spells, rules. 90 pages, $14.99

Brimstone Open Beta v.3 -  Based on OD&D

Inferno: Journey through Malebolge Denizens - this is the monster book for the Inferno modules. 51 pages, $4.50

Misc


0E Stock Art - Zombie Bear - Pay What You Want for a piece of art depicting, well, a zombie bear. From Jeremy Mohler who is a pretty good artist.

Mutations Mutable - I don't really get what this is, at first I thought it was for Mutant Future, but then it mentioned spells, so I don't know what. At any rate, 10 pages and a $1

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

First Edition Duelist now available (Free Osric Class)

From Leonaru, the creator of other various 1st Edition classes which bring various additional classes to OSRIC, comes the 1st Edition Duelist, a class from Dragon Magazine.

I used to play some of the classes from Dragon. I can't remember if I played a Duelist, but I played a Psionicist, a Ranger-Archer, and a Smith.