Tuesday, May 30, 2017

New OSR Titles at RPGNow/DTRPG — May 30th, 2017

May is one of those months that seems to last forever, which is okay with me, as the weather is usually great.

OSR sale is still going on, but the discounts and selection still suck.  Still,, the AD&D 1e bundle, the Known World bundle, and the Advanced Adventures bundle are very good deals

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City System -  Encounters and maps (and I think originally cardboard cutouts) for Waterdeep in the FR. $4.99 and 32 pages.

Council of Wyrms -  in OD&D, EGG suggested that you could play a dragon. Then in AD&D he kinda changed his mind (presumably due to players being players) about tthat. But in 2e, they decided, why not? $9.99 and 196 pages.

Mark of Amber -  This is an AD&D 2e sequel to the classic Castle Amber, though it's almost more one of those sequels that is also kinda a remake. 72 pages, $4.99, no idea if the audio is included.

Rise of the Titans - TSR tried to turn Dragolance into a storytelling game with the SAGA rules. But they still kept putting out AD&D stats, too, like in this book, which is actually about ogres (as in DL they are descended from Titans, I think). $4.99 and 96 pages

The Apocalypse Stone - WOTC wanted everyone to move to 3e, so they came up with this module to destroy your existing 2e campaign, not merely change it like Fate of Istus. 96 pages, $4.99

Adventures


House of Flowers -  Some sort of pretentious artsy adventure. 72 pages, PWYW

The Folio #12 -  I had the first few of these, but I've completely lost track/interest of them.  2nd part of a trilogy. For 5th to 7th level characters, 1e/5e statted. 36 pages, $5.99

The Folio #13 - Concluding part of a trilogy. Otherwise as above.  28 pages, $5.99

Rules


Dungeons & Delvers -  Besides being trademark lawsuit bait, this seems to be some sort of OSR D&D with a bunch of tweaks.  $6.99 and 135 pages.

Witches & Wyverns -  This is kinda why I dislike a large portion of the OSR. Think OD&D Whitebox isn't old school enough for you? Well, this sucker is Chainmail based. Never mind that Chainmail is even clunkier and crappier than even Whitebox. Yes, I should probably lighten up, but Chainmail just really sucks. Sometimes older is not better, it's crappier. 21 pages, $1

Misc


Dice Rolling PDF -  Rolling dice too hard? Can't use a virtual program? Well, this PDF will roll dice for you somehow. PWYW

Friday Freebie Enhanced Map 5-26-17 -  This week's map looks like a seaside cave

Star Sword Magazine #1 -  Official magazine devoted to the inexplicably popular White Star, though 3rd party stuff for that has basically stopped. 39 pages, $3.99


Monday, May 29, 2017

Death in Reik Caverns Review — A Relic of the 1e/2e Transition Era


Death in Reik Caverns is a modern day rarity, an OSR module actually meant for 1st Edition (either actual AD&D or OSRIC). In truth though, it's not so much OSR, as old school. It was an AD&D module used at Gencon in 1992, though in a way, it feels much older with that, more like '79, as it completely uses standard monsters and has a rather pedestrian premise — archmage dies, monsters come in and take over his lair and use it as a base to raid a nearby town. However, its true age is betrayed by a number of 2e-isms sneaking through, which honestly does represent how a lot of games were played then, using both 1e and 2e material somewhat haphazardly.

It's meant to be set in Greyhawk, dubbed "Darkhawk" here, but the tiny included map includes Maure Castle, Cairn Hills, Safeton, and Abbor Alz, all unchanged from Greyhawk. Still, it doesn't literally use the Darlene map. It is however set in a new town, Breehaven, 2 hexes away from Greyhawk. At least as far as I know it is new, I was never really into Greyhawk beyond the original folio and early modules.

Sunday, May 28, 2017

Some New Pulps at Comic Books Plus

Not directly OSR related, but this is the literature that inspired the game. On issue of Planet Stories and 3 issues of Avon Readers, which basically just took old pulp stories and reprinted them, sans illustration or ads.

Planet Stories v2 08 - Most notably has a sword & planet tale from Henry Kuttner, The Eyes of Thar

Avon Fantasy Reader 15 -Has a sword & planet adventure from Stanley Weinbaum (and a heck of a cover), a story about a guy with ape servants and some other stuff.

Avon Fantasy Reader 17 -  Featuring (and the cover) The Sapphire Siren. It's funny, while 1950s male heroes went shirtless, they still pulled their pants up to their navel and some older tales by HPL and William Hope Hodgeson

Avon Science Fiction Reader 1 - This has a cover like from a Venger Satainis module, but is actually for a story from Edmond Hamilton, and has stories from A. Merritt, CAS, Frank Belknap Long, and Donald Wollheim.

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

OSR sale at DTRPG

Not much of a sale, only 15% off.

And from what I can tell, it's mostly titles from the commercial, as opposed to the hobbyist side of the OSR. Still, as most of those are priced high to begin with, you can save a few bucks.

Edit: More interesting is the sale at DM"s Guild

Has bundles of TSR products at really low prices and a nice bundle of Advanced Adventures.

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

New OSR Releases at RPGNow/DTRPG — May 23rd, 2017

After a very slow last week, things have picked up a little with a couple of new race supplements and a couple of adventures

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Cult of the Dragon -  There was a Forgotten Realms book with a Dracolich on the cover. I may or may not have read it, I can't remember. But this has the same cover and presumably is about it. 128 pages, $4.99

Hail the Heroes - As part of their new take on Mystara, bringing it into AD&D, they also put out adventures with accompanying cds.  I don't know if it comes with audio files or not. 36 pages, $4.99

Monstrous Arcana: The Sea Devils -  Sadly, not a Jon Pertwee Doctor Who crossover, this is instead a sourcebook about those lovely sharkmen, the sahuagin. $4.99 and 96 pages.

Night of the Vampire -  Another one of these adventures. Didn't have this one either (I did own the Castle Amber one. $4.99 and 36 pages

Wizard's Spell Compendium Vol 2 -  More spells for 2e wizards. Unfortunately they lump in illusionist spells, so it's not as useful as it could be for earlier editions. 288 pages, $9.99

Adventures


Dungeon of the Selenian Conclave -  From the author of the pretty nice module Arsenal of the Warrior Princess comes a new B/X adventure with a seemingly similar premise, the remains of a wizardly research lab. $1.99 and 18 pages.

Peepee Soaked Heckhole - The name is a Simpsons reference, but it seems to be a standard "I'm so edgy"  LotFP module from the usual bunch. 8 pages, PWYW

Rules


Book of Fantasy Races -  This book introduces 31 new races for use with Advanced Labyrinth Lord or 1e. So they are races, not race classes. $3, 36 pages.

The Nephilim -  Children of angels for Sword & Wizardry. Complete 6 pages, 99 cents.


Misc


Friday Freebie 5-19-17 - This week's map from Tim Hartin is a cavern with one looks like to be a bottomless pit. $1 for the enhanced version

Sunday, May 21, 2017

Giant's Perch Review — It's Not a Huge Fish


Giant's Perch is a short adventure for Labyrinth Lord, written and illustrated by John Frederick of Sharp Mountain Games. A couple years ago I bought another adventure from him, Witch of Tariswoods which was good but not great. Both adventures use the same town as base, though it's not really described here save for a tavern. (He's also released 2 more adventures, all available in a 4-pack for $6 total)

Also like that adventure, this has a couple of wilderness encounters, then a small dungeon. It's pretty much linear, the party has the first wilderness encounter, which then leads them to the next, then finally the dungeon. Basically they run into an elf being attacked by frogmen, they rescue him, who enlists them on his quest to find a magic flower.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

New OSR Products at RPGNow/DTRPG — May 16th, 2017


Quiet week on the OSR front. On the other hand, we have the 2017 One Page Dungeon Compendium. Personally I am not a big fan of that format. Just because you can make a dungeon on one page doesn't mean you should. Also an old school, if not D&D favorite, Mercenaries, Spies, & Private Eyes which is like a modern Tunnels & Trolls, only good.


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Dungeon Builder's Guidebook -  Sometime in the mid-90s after eschewing dungeon adventures (particularly in Dungeon magazine), TSR realized "Hey, maybe those dungeon things aren't so bad after all". This is a fairly useful guide. 64 pages, $4.99

Dungeon Master's Design Kit -  This is a late 1e era product on how to design adventures, not so much dungeons, $4.99 and 96 pages


Wizard's Spell Compendium Vol 1 -  The first of 4 volumes of every D&D and AD&D magic-user (I mean, wizard since it's 2e) spell up to its compilation, which I think was mid 90s. 288 pages, $9.99

Adventures

None

Rules

None

Misc

Castle Builder - More a guide on how to describe castles to players. PWYW

Monster Wheelies For Labyrinth Lord Vol 2 -  More combat charts for 190+ more LL monsters. Because having a separate chart for each monster is so much simply than THACO or Ascending AC and attack bonus. PWYW, but I swear, this makes less sense to me than a single saving throw.

Friday Freebie Ehanced Map 5-5-2017 - Which despite the name, is actually May 12th's map. $1 for enhanced version

Ward's Warrens - A collection of hand drawn cave maps from Shane Ward. Free.

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Maximum Mayhem Dungeons: Monsters of Mayhem #1 Kickstarter

While his stuff is a little pricey for me, Maximum Mayhem is one of the only remaining lines of OSRIC/1E products these days. This time with a monster book

It's also got that gonzo, Heavy Metal sort of style that I like

Monday, May 15, 2017

Arsenal of the Warrior Princess Review — Very Good Short Tomb Crawl


Arsenal of the Warrior Princess is a short-ish module for 3rd to 5th level characters from Starlight Games, written by Alessandro Dellamotta. It's meant for B/X but should work with any OSR game. Perhaps the most unusual thing is that the author being European, uses the metric system. I'm not sure if European editions of B/X actually used that, but it's fairly easy to convert, 3m = 10', so 18m = 60, 24m = 90, and 36m = 120

The premise is that the dungeon complex was a weapons research facility of a long lost ancient empire, run by the daughter of the emperor. There was a magical accident and it killed everyone inside. Rather than the ancient empire using raise dead (which in B/X can be cast by a 7th level Cleric) or reincarnation or anything that you'd think an empire would have, they just buried her. But they did re-animate some of the dead in the complex to serve as guardians. Beyond that, they also buried the warrior princess with her magic sword. She really, really loved her magic sword.

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

New OSR Products at RPGNow/DTRPG — May 9th, 2017

Fairly busy week.

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DLE1 In Search of Dragons -  Apparently there were 100s, maybe even 1000s of Dragonlance adventures. This was apparently the first 2e DL module. 2e really beefed up dragons, so I'm not sure how effective a dragon lance was against them. $4.99 and 62 pages

DLE3 Dragon Keep - Apparently unrelated to DLE1, save both being DL and 2e and Dragon related. 64 pages, $4.99

DLT1 New Tales: The Land Reborn -  Apparently not Dragon Lettuce and Tomato sandwich, but Dragon Lance Tales. An anthology of adventures. 96 pages, $4.99

Jakandor: Island of War - At this point in the 2e era, I think they were just putting out whatever idea came to hand, this apparently was inspired by Glorantha. 144 pages, $4.99

Priest's Spell Compendium Vol 2 -  I think this was meant to come up last week with the other 2 volumes of this collection of every TSR era Cleric/Priest spell. 288 pages, $4.99

Tales of the Comet - I have this boxed set someplace. It's another mash up of science fiction and D&D, but not a very good one. $9.99 and 176 pages.  Apparently there was a tie-in novel by Roland Green but I haven't read it.

Adventures


Death in Reik Caverns -  A 1st Edition AD&D adventure! Little pricey at $7.99 but it's 56 pages.

Perfectorium of the Golden Tentacle - Details are sparse, but seems to be a high level adventure for BECMI. 166 pages and $6, though going by the preview the pages are very small.

Special Area: The Rangers Hideout -  Something of a mini-sandbox in the wilderness. Lots of art. 22 pages, PWYW.

The Fall of Whitecliff - This is actually a Pathfinder adventure with OSR conversion notes. 22 pages, PWYW

Rules


White Box Zombies Dark Elf Zombies -  I don't think Dark Elves are White Box compatible, but eh, if you think otherwise, here you go. PWYW, 7 pages.

Misc


d30 NPC Background Generator -  While I think the d30 is an annoyance, this is useful enough to put up with that. PWYW

Friday Freebie Enhanced Map 5-5-17 -  Another map from Tim Hartin and Paratime Design, this time a cave complex. I can't draw caves. He can. $1 for enhanced version.

Wheelies for Advanced Edition Labyrinth Lord Players -  Offended by ascending AC and attack bonus? THACO too mathematically complex? Looking up numbers on a chart too much of a hassle? Well, this seems to be an even more confusing way of figuring out what you need to roll. 642 pages, PWYW

Wheelies for Labyrinth Lord Players - As above, but because LL is simpler, only 122 pages.

Monday, May 8, 2017

The Ranger's Hideout, PWYW Adventure, is now available for For Gold & Glory





For Gold & Glory, the 2e retroclone, has seen a fair number of products lately. Almost all have been pay, but this one, The Rangers Hideout,  is PWYW.

Despite the odd name, it's basically a sandbox style adventure, a small wilderness area for characters to explore.

It's well worth a look. As most of the changes in 2e were to character classes, this is probably entirely compatible with older editions. And the creator probably spent a good $30 on stock art.

Saturday, May 6, 2017

The Place of Forgetting Review — Sorta like Diablo Lite

The Place of Forgetting by M.A. Packer is something of an odd product. If you had to categorize it, it would be an adventure module, but it's really more an outline of a campaign than an adventure. And not your standard campaign, something more akin to Diablo (the computer game) than anything else, though more with an undead than demonic theme (though it does have demons). Essentially a neighboring kingdom has been taken over by a demon prince and the inhabitants have been turned into undead and other evil monsters. The PCs go there, kill everything they encounter in one area, progress to another, repeat, until a final showdown with the demon lord.

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

New OSR Products at RPGNow/DTRPG — May 2nd, 2017

Pretty busy this week. Also Flying Buffalo put up the 5th edition of the Tunnels and Trolls rules,

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Bastion of Faith - 2e product which details a temple and its hangers on. $4.99 and 96 pages.

Priest's Spell Compendium Vol 1- During the 2e days, TSR collected all the cleric spells into 4 volumes. This is the first volume. 288 pages and $4.99

Priest's Spell Compendium Vol 3 -  The third volume. 288 pages, $4.99

Adventures

BF2 Crypt of Bones -  Follow up to BF1 Tower of Skulls, which was an okay module, if poorly converted (assuming you knew what some monsters looked like that weren't in OSR games). Presumably for 10+ level characters. 36 pages, $3.99

Hellfire Mountain -  S&W adventure for 7th to 9th level characters from Creation's Edge Games. 10 pages, $1.50

L'Arsenale della Princepessia Guerierre -  French or possibly Italian version of Arsenal of the Warrior Princess, which is a 4th-5th level adventure for B/X. $1.99 and 21 pages.

S2 Delver's Delight - 4 different adventures for differing systems. One basic, two first edition, one second edition,. 22 pages, $10

Rules

Slugs - Small Bestiary from Lamentations of the Flame Princess.  PWYW, 38 pages.

The Warlock for Swords & Wizardry - From the witch guy Timothy Brannan comes this version of the Warlock (presumably the 5e version) for Swords & Wizardry. 66 pages, $2.99

White Box Zombies - Two really annoying things are finally together: White Box and modern day infectious zombies (which in the old days, were actually known as ghouls, not zombies). 48 pages, $2

Misc


Bard's Gate -  More recycling of Necromancer Games 3e products, converted to S&W. $39.99, 416 pages.

Friday Freebie Enhanced Map 4-28-17 -  Nice cave system. $1 for enhanced version.

Plane Maker - System neutral book of tables to help create new planes of existence $1.99, 20 pages.

Ed Greenwood has a new magazine

Onder it is called. The spamvert I got said it was free, but now it's $4.95. Seems to be fiction mostly.