New OSR Titles at RPGNow/DTRPG — November 29th, 2018

It's been a strange week. Having to work Thanksgiving and Black Friday, then my truck breaking down (u-joint and driveshaft), days where the high was in the 20s, days where the high was in the mid 60s.

Adventures

Crypt of the Shadow Lord -  The first product from DPC-RPG is a solitaire adventure for Labyrinth Lord and a 1st level cleric. $3.99, 26 pages.

Island of Blight - Mult-system (including 1e/OSRIC) adventure. $5, 28 pages

RPPP #56 The Thing from the Cave - Medieval Authentic (TM) adventure about medieval authentic things from caves. Actually sounds like a black magician and some bandits. 13 pages, $2.49

Rules

BLUEHOLME Referee Repository -  $3.99 for 28 pages of tables from the game. (That's like more pages than the original Holmes)

Iron Pax - OSR-ish game about 1950 housewives and their daily chores. Oh wait, that's Iron Pants. This is " set in a fantasy world of colonialist dystopia." PWYW, 73 pages

Misc

Friday Enhanced Map 11-23-2018 -  Another part dungeon, part cave. $1

Hydra #6 - Ongoing Swedish OSR zine. 66 pages, $2.49. (Shouldn't it be called Kraken or something? Or are they pulling a reverse Clash of the Titans)

FP1 Arrival at Fort Perilous Review — Child Friendly B2 Homage

Although personally I am more of a B1 In Search of the Unknown person, B2 The Keep on the Borderlands apparently resonated with a huge audience, as it continues to inspire homages almost 40 years later. The most recent homage is the first product from John Leeper and Grey Goblin Games, FP1 Arrival At Fort Perilous. The modestly priced ($2.20) 30 page module follows that basic setup, almost exactly, there is a lone (more or less) outpost in the wilderness that serves as a home base for low level parties to go out and explore.

The difference is, rather than one large, multi-faction dungeon to explore, there are three separate smaller dungeons, two out in the wilderness, one essentially part of the fort itself (well, right outside), each with a single faction.

Blackmoor Documentary on Kickstarter...

Yeah, I know that last early D&D documentary didn't turn out so well, but apparently this one is almost already done, so the chances of the people making it getting into an argument and bickering for the next five years is probably low-ish. Hopefully.

Looks very interesting, actually. Just the Kickstarter page is interesting.

New OSR Products at RPGNow/DTRPG — November 22nd, 2018

And the sale there has already started (33% off).  I wonder if eventually we will see Black Friday on Halloween?

Amazingly enough, at least at this, Gamma World 1e has made the top 10 titles on sale list.  Other notable stuff includes Beyond the Wall, BRW Games,  CoachK, Creation's Edge, John Stater,  and probably more.

Official

RPGA News Volume 2 #1 - Has to be from the early 80s. 16 pages, 99 cents

Polyhedron Volume 2 #5 - I think this was the new name for above. 16 pages, 99 cents.

Adventures

FP1: Arrival at Fort Perilous -  First adventure from Grey Goblin Games, sandboxy sounding adventure for B/X and LL.  $2.20 and 30 pages

Misc

Midderzine Issue 2 - I always want to read that settings name as Middenlands, which would be full of otyughs. $3.84, 24 pages.

RIP William Goldman

Author of the Princess Bride, which is one of my favorite novels. I first read it in college, it was sort of an in-joke thing with my friends freshman year.  The movie is good, but not nearly as good as the book, which is punctuated with jokes in parentheses.

The soundtrack is also really good. By Mark Knopfler, of Dire Straits.

Perhaps released a bit too late (as a movie) to influence D&D, but I can think of at least half a dozen R.O.U.S. references in OSR products. So I know I'm not the only fan.

New OSR Products at RPGNow/DTRPG — November 15th, 2018

One week from Black Friday (aka Thanksgiving) and we're getting 7 inches of snow.  Usually Winter doesn't hit here in St. Louis until the 2nd week of December, but this year we skipped Fall, apparently.

Rules

B/X Ascending for B/X Essentials -  Sounds like it's a B/X take on 3rd edition (or vice-versa). Or maybe 5th edition. But definitely not 4th. $2.99 and 65 pages

d240 NPC Careers -  Not something you'd think is OSR, but apparently is. PWYW list of careers for NPCs, with rules for skills. 7 pages

Ford's Faeries - Already mentioned, free bestiary inspired by Henry Justice Ford

RPPP #54 - Medieval College Adventures -  This is background and rules for colleges for Lion & Dragon and Dark Albion. One of my favorite historical mystery series is set at medieval Oxford (by Susannah Gregory) and they make Animal House look Sunday School.  $2.99 and 21 pages

Misc

Friday Enhanced Map 11-09-2018 - Big cave. $1

Ford's Faeries, a bestiary inpsired by the art of Henry Justice Ford is now available for free

That's a long subject line.

But essentially he was the premier fantasy illustrator of his day, that being the late Victorian era to the mid 1920s.  His work for Tales of King Arthur is probably the best remembered, but he also illustrated the many "Fairy" books by Andrew Lang and a ton of other stuff

His work was a pretty big inspiration for the look of knights in armor and the look of early D&D art.

Anyway, apparently people on Google+ (which I could never figure out how to use) decided to make a monster book based on his illustrations and make it available for free

New OSR Products at RPGNow/DTRPG — November 8th, 2018

Almost forgot this was Thursday. Last week was a lot of modules, this week has a lesser number but continues the (positive, to my way of thinking) trend.

Adventures

S1 The Almost Thief -  Creation's Edge is back with presumably the first in a new line of S&W modules. If like past efforts, they start at 1-3 (as this does) and each succeeding module is for one level higher.  $1.50 and 14 pages.

The Keep of the Broken Saint -  Adventure for S&W, character levels 8 to 10. 40 pages, $3.99

Tomb of the Frost-Walker -  Small (16 rooms) but apparently time consuming dungeon (10 hours?) for low level characters. $2, 11 pages.

XQ1 The Castle that Fell from the Sky - Well, wouldn't have fallen from the ground. Low-ish level module for 3rd to 5th level Oe characters. I wasn't overly impressed by the first Scribes of Sparn module, but this has a different author. $5.75 and 52 pages

Rules

I think this is a record, we've gone months without someone posting their S&W house rules.

Misc

Friday Enhanced Map 11-2-18 - His recent maps fit together, this seems to be the hub. $1

The Ice Kingdoms Kickstarter for OSRIC/For Gold & Glory

Seems like a setting plus adventure(s). Personally, I dislike ice and cold weather, but if you do, or if you want something inspired by such, it seems a pretty good deal. $20 gets you several PDFs.

It's already funded with a surprisingly low total given the apparent quality.

New OSR Products at DTRPG/RPGNow — November 1st, 2018

Was busy trying to finish up RL2 The Charnel Pits of Reynaldo Lazendry for Halloween. I did, but then my internet went down. Finally came back up right as as I was going to bed. Honestly, probably not 100% finished, but most of its been sitting on my hard drive for years and I figured might as well kick it out.

Looks like I wasn't the only one, as there are a ton of other adventures released this week.

And in other news, I've been playing Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark for the PC. It is basically a Tactics Ogre / Final Fantasy Tactics tribute game. Beyond that, it's very well done.

Adventures

Standoff at Sandfell Sea Fort -  From Malrex and the Merciless Merchants comes this module for levels 4 to 7. 24 pages and $5 (mostly because he uses a gigantic amount of stock art, 92 megabytes for 24 pages...)

Campfire Tale  - for LL and a game that shall not be named.  11 pages, $1.50

RPGPP The Ladystone -  A "Medieval Authentic" about some supposed lady's naughty bits. $2.49, 15 pages.

SO10 The Pumpkin Man -  For levels 4 to 6. 20 p[ages, $5

The Dungeons of Grimhold Keep, Level One -  Low level dungeon for LL from New Realms. He sure has gotten a lot of use from that LJP stock art set.  $5.95 and 15 pages.

The Tomb of Harven Half-Skull - From BRW games comes this 3rd to 4th level adventure about the tomb of a pirate king. 10 pages, $2.49

Tomb of the Serpent Kings -  Low level OSR adventure about where Hollywood execs are buried. Free, 25 pages.

What Ho, Frog Demons - Another Slumbering Ursine Dunes modules, which always reminds me of the Raymond Chandler observation that flipness is not wit. 112 pages, $12