Benighted Betrothal on Kickstarter

I swear I'm not doing any more KS news for a while (although I do decided to be more conscious about promoting projects I'm involved in). However, this one's really close to my heart.

Not long after I started blogging in 2013, I started a new campaign — one that turned out to be one of my most significant campaigns. It was great fun, and it led to long-lasting friendships around and away from the gaming table. To this day, that particular campaign is one my favourites, so it was only natural for me to try and write up the quintessential parts and massage them into a coherent module for others to enjoy and pull apart for their own use. The manuscript was largely finished in 2017, I believe, and it already went through some editing in 2018, but every turn it was delayed more and more. I can hardly believe it's this close to release...

In short, Benighted Betrothal is a viking soap opera. It has romance, tragedy, and (in most likelihood) lots of violence. It's statted for B/X D&D as a sort of lingua franca, but it could easily be used with OpenQuest or Vikingr (personally, I really want to try it with The Fantasy Trip once).

Enough rambling, though. Check out the Kickstarter if you're intrigued.

I'm Back and Kickstarter: Sinless

Disclaimer: Note that some of the links below are affiliate links (meaning I get a small percentage of the sale without extra cost to you or the publisher).

Wow, it's been a hot minute since I last posted here. I didn't run or play that many RPGs last year, to be honest. I played a lot of boardgames (simple stuff with my family, like Catan, Codenames, and Mysterium, and a few interesting solo games, like Voyages, D100 Dungeon, and The Drifter) and a handful of miniature games (Five Parsecs from Home, a little bit of Lion Rampant, and even a fairly long session of Cursed City).

RPG-wise we moved our Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign to Discord voice chat. Before this, we only played about twice a year when all eight of us could get together for some marathon sessions. With this move we might be able to finish the campaign before Christmas! We also started another Werewolf: the Forsaken campaign with a new player joining our group, so that's been fun (even though I'm not as happy with the "new" World of Darkness (now Chronicles of Darkness 1st edition) system as I used to be). We also made characters for Warhammer Fantasy 4th edition, but with all the other things going on, we have yet to begin the campaign.

I kept one eye on all some things OSR, but truth be told, I have mostly been interested in tactical combat games (whether gamey or simulationist), historical games, and military games. I've mostly scratched that itch through collecting and painting miniatures and playing solo wargames, but I'm sure it'll bleed into my next few RPG campaigns as well.

Which neatly brings me to the other thing I wanted to say a few words about. Courtney Campbell (of Hack & Slash fame) is Kickstarting his new game, a heavily Shadowrun-inspired fantasy-cyberpunk game called Sinless. It's crunchy and tactical and has all sorts of guns and weapon upgrades and GM advice and procedures... I was contemplating running Shadowrun 3rd edition a few months ago (after reminiscing about old times with my brother), so this is weirdly providential to me. I need to confess that I have a working relationship with Courtney — on this project, too — but the game's already funded, my rate is a set number regardless of the project's performance, and you can check out an early version if you pledge at least a buck (which you can then cancel if you really don't like what you see).

I'll be back shortly with further good news, and hopefully some new reviews and whatnot.

2021 RPG Anniversaries

Just a fun little list of some of the games that have a jubilee this year:

10th Anniversary

• Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2nd edition
• HackMaster 5th edition
• Lamentations of the Flame Princess (Grindhouse edition)
• Legends of the Wulin

15th Anniversary

• Basic Fantasy RPG
• Deadlands: Reloaded
• Exalted 2nd edition
• Mazes & Minotaurs

20th Anniversary

• Big Eyes, Small Mouths 2nd edition
• Earthdawn 2nd edition
• Exalted 1st edition
• Fading Suns
• HackMaster
• The Riddle of Steel

25th Anniversary

• Ars Magica 4th edition
• Deadlands
• Palladium Fantasy 2nd edition

30th Anniversary

• D&D Rules Cyclopedia
• Kult
• Millenium's End

40th Anniversary

• Bushido
• Call of Cthulhu
• Champions
• D&D Basic/Expert (Moldvay/Cook)
• Merc

Excellence from the Blogosphere (July-August)

Finally, here's the latest Excellence in the Blogosphere post, this time looking at posts from July and August (with a few outliers as usual).

• Melan from Beyond Fomalhaut celebrated his third bloggaversary (not his word), and talked about the past and the future of his zine and other publications (Castle Xyntillan and Helvéczia, yay!), while also discussing the "the end of the OSR". Here are some responses (in good old-fashioned blog posts) from Anthony Huso and EOTB.
• It's hard to pick favourites posted by Konsumterra, but this short piece about monstrous snails spoke to me. It is exactly the kind of article you can easily save, print out, and add to your dungeon design folder. Also make sure you check out these d100 mission tables for fighters, thieves, clerics, and wizards.
• Speaking of simple tables, Tristan Tanner from The Bogeyman's Cave shared this simple d66 table for generating inspiring dungeon names.
• Another simple table is from Pride and Parchment by Sir Paperweight the Third concerning religious rituals.
• Rober Conley of Bat in the Attic briefly discussed the histories and problems of the RuneQuest and Traveller OGL (with a deeper look into other d100 games here).
• waywardwayfarer from The Dragon's Flagon talked about transparency from the DM's side, its benefits and how to achieve it.
• Arnold K of Goblin Punch introduces two terms when talking about adventures and situations: generic optimum and dynamism, and - using these neat terms - discusses ways to improve encounters (and thus adventures). Also check out this overhaul of encounter checks and this simple and fairly unintrusive meta currency.
• Pilgrim Procession From the Pilgrim's Temple shares a snippet of procedural hex description inspired by Lungfungus.
• Speaking of Lungfungus, he shared two dungeons (Lair of the Old Sorceror and The Ancient Winery), quickly followed by a third (Burial Temple of the Tridobatrakus).
• Courtney Campbell of Hack & Slash discusses why most published high level adventures fail, and what high level actually means in different editions of D&D.
• Wizard Lizard from Underground Adventures shares a gonzo science fantasy hack of Into the Odd and a mashup of OD&D and ODD.
• GraphitePrime talks about running a succubus as a demonic spirit that actually haunts the characters-
• Delta discusses the benefits of starting at 3rd level instead of 1st. The comment section is definitely worth checking out.
• Homebrew Homunculus shares a random table to generate random perfumes (made by Duryan the Gardener), and also discusses inversing the relationship of background and stats (i.e. the worse your stats, the better your background).
• Type 1 Ninja of Two Goblins in a Trenchcoat shares the writeup of the starting town of HELLWALKERS.
• John of The Wandering Gamist discusses his recent experiences climbing Mount Fuji and how it is modelled in OSR games.
• Scott Anderson from Treasure Hunters HQ shares an essay concerning emergent narratives.
• Martin O of Goodberry Monthly is creating a "kilodungeon". Here is the latest instalment (with links to the previous posts).
• Michael Kennedy from Sheep and Sorcery shares a pointcrawl system hack for LotFP.
• ravencrowking responds to an old discussion concerning player agency and gives advice to beginning judges (of the DCC kind).
• David B. of Psionic Blast from the Past shared his massive OD&D West Marches overland rules (with several addenda, like his campsite rules, weather/event rules, downtime rules, and setting description). There's also a slightly more detailed reaction table, a tweaked version of Vancian magic with a spell list, and advice and procedures for creating hex contents, designing traps and tricks, stocking dungeons, and creating treasure hoards.
• Inkheart from Iron & Ink further discusses their Yoon-Suin house rules, specifically downtime rules and disease/poison/death.
• Eric Diaz from Methods & Madness talks about the weight of gold in OD&D and 5E, and its implications.
• Michael Raston from The Lizard Man Diaries shares an index to his most important posts on Infinigrad and Guild Dogs.
• Justin Stewart of Dragons Gonna Drag talks about the kind of tasks/skills characters in his campaign are assumed to be competent at (because they are adventurers).
• maxcan7 from Weird & Wonderful Worlds automated all the tables from Chapter 6 of Hubris.
• Yora from Spriggan's Den talks about a very different cosmology than AD&D or Planescape.
• Joseph Manola of Against the Wicked City shares some very interesting (and authentic!) 19th century urban folklore, and another condensation of a Pathfinder AP: Mummy's Mask.
• noisms from Monsters and Manuals, as usual, talked about various interesting things, including two ways to classify monsters (the classicist-Linnaean and the romantic-Glaurungian), a list of forgotten gems upon celebrating his 1500th post, some cool dungeon entrances, and the pricing of RPG books (it's part of a longer discussion: part 1, part 2, and part 3).
• Daniel J. Hanley from The Engine of Oracles shared a bunch of fairy dragons: Ttrefolic and Urtician, Lotosic and Orchidic, Quercic and Corylic, and the Rosy Dragon.
• Allandros from Legacy of the Bieth talks about a community-based advancement system with lots of links to other cool stuff.
• If you wondered what SWORDDREAM is, there's this interview that might help.
• The official Encounter Critical webpage may appear defunct, but red_kangaroo from Library of Attnam has you covered.
• John Large from Red Dice Diaries is sharing details of Campaign Kludge piece by piece.
• Jones Smith from Was It Likely? shared his current version of the Peril System and discussed various topics (incremental modifiers, jenga towers, and to-hit rolls) from a design perspective.

Kickstarter: Downtime and Vermillion

I'd like to direct your attention to two ongoing Kickstarter campaigns (and something else):

1. On Downtime & Demesnes is Courtney Campbell's next book. It contains great advice and procedures for handling downtime activities, as well as multiple ways for PCs to spend their hard-earned cash (which, in most OSR games, is often thousands of gold pieces): arena fights, theft and assassination, orgies and philanthropy, sages, hirelings, mercenaries, spell research, magic item creation, purchasing land, building castles and strongholds, crossbreeding magical creatures and more, with separate releases for B/X and 5E. Disclaimer: I'm a paid copy-editor on the project.
2. The City of Vermilion is a mega adventure cooked in the magical kitchen of The Merciless Merchants. It describes a sword & sorcery city ripe with adventure potential with multiple locations in, around, under, and above the streets of Vermilion. Disclaimer: I have received a review copy of a different module from the Merchants earlier this year.
3. Back when their project was on Kickstarter, I was contacted by Knight Owl Games to help promote their Kickstarter for Worm Witch: The Life and Death of Belinda Blood - which I totally meant to talk about here, but then I completely forgot about it... Fortunately, they gathered the necessary funds to make this book a reality, so the least I can do is review it once it hits the virtual shelves of DriveThruRPG.

Excellence from the Blogosphere (May-June)

Below you may find a list of greatness that the blogosphere (particularly of the OSR side) has produced lately (chiefly in May and June). It is nowhere near complete - I'm definitely going monthly with this, otherwise I won't be able to keep up.

• Wizzzargh from DMiurgy shared further playtest notes of a hexcrawl, and a detailed cosmology of the Sunset Realm campaign setting, along with a setting-specific calendar (something that more campaign settings should have, IMHO!).
• Dreaming Dragonslayer describes an open table Maze Rat campaign comprised of two distinct phases each session (a city phase and a wilderness phase); all relevant posts are available on the blog's incomplete index. You might also be interested in the author's other open table campaign pitches.
• Gundobad talked of a WIP bronze age setting, tentatively called Brazen Princes: here's an overview, and here are thoughts on background tables and funerals.
• Yami Bakura from Remixes and Revelations has a very good collection of tables to generate Sorcerer-Kings, as well as Households of Handsome Men (which are the elf-equivalents in the author's campaign). Over here, minions of dark powers and a hack of fighters for GLOG. Don't forget to check out the backlog; the posts on Eldritch Americana and adapting Apocalypse Prevention Inc. to D&D have some serious potential.
• Andy of Swords and Storytellers revealed an interesting project called The Lighthouse at the Threshold with the premise that a town in Michigan stands on the verge of two worlds. A custom system is being built: here you can read about the ability scores and the core mechanics.
• Bob Something of The Amateur Dungeoneers shared a list of YouTube channels that provide useful information for worldbuilding. Bob also continued discussing inhabitants of an urban fantasy setting (this time: demons and the undead). You may also want to keep an eye on Tellus, a fantasy setting (partially) inspired by JRPG titles.
• Monsieur Le Battlier from The Bottomless Sarcophagus wrote about locations and creatures in the Thawing Kingdom setting (here you may find an incomplete index of the blog). This, unrelated, take on elven parthenogenesis I found very stimulating and utterly creepy. There's also a second post, providing an alternative way of reproduction by the, ahem, traditional means. Here are also some diseases that may afflict these beautiful and tragic creatures. Do yourself a favour and check out this take on The Jungle as well.
• D. G. Chapman of The Graverobber's Guide posted a proper English weather table.
• Jason Vey from The Wasted Lands posted a hilarious piece about toxic fandoms.
• Inheart of Iron & Ink talked about royal forests and how majesty shapes their inhabitants. A rules variation of LotFP + Yoon-Suin, tentatively titled Lamentations of the Purple Princess, is also shared piece by piece: rules summary, character generation, and classes - so far.
• ravencrowking discusses telegraphing traps by analysing a published adventure of his own design.
• Brendan of Necropraxis here shares an interesting take on level drain.
• Meridian Miller of Wyrdspeak has a simple system for miracles (and three sample deities), suitable for campaigns without a dedicated cleric class. But there are other cool things as well, like this article on how to add races to Into the Odd (with five example races), how to use D6s to map small dungeons quickly, and an introduction to the author's homebrew setting, the Ashen Age and rules.
• GraphitePrime of (surprise!) Graphite Prime here talks about clerics attaining sainthood and, eventually, ascension.
• Dan from Throne of Salt lists a bunch of items/enemies for a roguelite-inspired pointcrawl. Also a PDF of Discape.
• Cackleharm from The Manse recently presented a really interesting take on spell components.
• Nick S. from Down in the Chthonic Deeps talks about rumours in his sandbox/megadungeon campaign, going into detail based on actual experiences and possible solutions. From the same campaign, here are the (unformatted) downtime rules.
• Martin O of Goodberry Monthly shared some Abjuration spells (a continuation of a series; links in the post), as well as this d30 table of Who's waiting just outside the dungeon door?
• Here's a shout-out for Ian Yusem from Uncanny Spheres talking about tourists and profiteers. Stats are for Troika! (so are these two batches of backgrounds from last year).
• waywardwayfarer from The Dragon's Flagon talks about search checks.
• Type1Ninja of Two Goblins in a Trenchcoat talks about Hellwalkers, a hexcrawl sandbox campaign.
• Daniel James Hanley from Engine of Oracles has shared a set of random tables to generate 18th century villages for a gothic sandbox. But if you want classic fantasy, then classic fantasy you shall have. Further posts on the setting can be found in the Panzoasia category (check out these maps!).
• noisms here shared 8 sample hex locations for the Fixed World setting. Also, here's some historical slang.
• Joe Fatula of Signs in the Wilderness compiled a short list of reference material pertaining to wilderness adventures.
• Evan from In Places Deep posted a list of rumours/hooks for the Wilderlands (CSIO in particular).
• Joseph Manola of Against The Wicked City talks about his takeaways from his long-running B/X campaign (here's a campaign map with explanations). Here's an unrelated but cool d100 encounters with onrushing modernity table.
• T AKW of Dreams and Fevers shared 20 exquisite organs (i.e. fantasy bioware), as well as an investigative folklore game, Beyond the Fence, Below the Grave.
• Velexiraptor from A Blasted, Cratered Land shared reconstructed (character brought back to life crafted from various materials), a psion class for GLOG, and rules for cybernetics.
• JasonT of Pretendo shared some preliminary notes on a Knave/Numenera hack.
• Christopher Willett started a blog to detail a megadungeon, the eponymous Temple of the Bat-Faced God.
• Michael Kennedy from Sheep and Sorcery here discusses the functions of a player character. For people interested in less theory, here's a very Moorcockian magic system.
• John B of The Retired Adventurer summarised a good way to design NPCs with regards to usability at the table.
• Malcolm Svensson from Tales of Scheherazade (following the footsteps of Joseph Manola) wrote up 30 encounters and 2 mini-dungeons based on a song's lyrics.
• Anne of DIY & Dragons posted part 3 in her series on resource management (here are part 1 and part 2, for reference), along with a follow up post. There's also a short post about hallways and dungeon maps that sparked a lively discussion. Another short post here is concerned with gridcrawl and pointcrawl overland maps. Here's a detailed look at investigations (specifically written for DCC but thought-provoking for other systems as well), and finally a list of links to lists of DCC occupations.
• Daniel Dean of Basic Red posted an interesting alternate take on HP (note that it uses a metacurrency).
• Cavegirl released a new game: Deep Morphean Transmissions.
• Matt Halton from I Don't Remember That Move shared some simple but solid background-generating tables from an upcoming publication.
• Lungfungus from Melancholies and Mirth talks about description procedures, streamlined weapons and armour rules (particularly suitable for the "city-state/king arthur/vikingr/mycenean greece/sengoku japan/conan the barbarian" type of settings), and jaquaying the dungeon (which, of course, reminded me of Melan's old article). Also, here's some random encounter tables that look cool.
• Skerples of Coins & Scrolls released Magical Murder Mansion.
• Talysman from The Nine and Thirty Kingdoms links to a few articles that summarise his views of ability checks (and to JB's rant that inspired the series).
• Here you can find a bunch of archived G+ community posts and comments.
• ktrey from d4 Caltrops shared a few critters (following his "just use goblins" principle): storkfolk, masked ones, and batrachians. There's also a giant table of 300 smells and scents.
• Here's the OSRIC wiki and index (also Dangerous Dungeons!).
• Not OSR in particular but still awesome: here's an unofficial and completely free and really cool Zelda RPG, Reclaiming the Wild.
• After having shown the processes behind the scenes for Hex, the amazingly baroque citycrawl, here are the writeups for a handful of rival city-states.
• Thor Takes D&D talks about non-classes where advancement is linked to a society/club/cult, somewhat like in RuneQuest (part 1 and part 2). And here are the basics for a gonzo mythic Greece in space setting.
• Screwhead from Was It Likely? shared a thought-provoking article about the impermanence of magic (and the opposite of proper physical means and swordplay). There's also an Into the Odd hack for the bullet hell dungeon crawl genre (with online generators here).
• Nathan Treme from the Highland Paranormal Society shared a city block generator (for the upcoming The Stolen City setting) and a weird name-and-title generator.

Excellence from the Blogosphere (March-April)

Ehh, the last two months saw so many amazing blog posts that this compilation grew way beyond what it was intended to cover. If productivity persists, I will have to do this monthly instead. Note that I tired to use whatever nickname was associated with the blogger account of the author (where applicable). Without further ado, my favourite blog posts of the last two months (or so):

• Evelyn Moreau has collected her PDFs in one folder on GoogleDrive. There's also a post about Slumber City in the form of a few random tables.
• Tamás Kisbali over at Eldritch Fields posted some preliminary ideas about a Suspirian School of Ballet - a dungeon setting inspired by Suspiria done in the procedural format of The Gardens of Ynn. This is a project I'm following with hungry eyes.
• I'm normally not into excessive details, but Brian Richmond over at The Goatman's Goblet made a good random table for trees (!) usable in Dolmenwood (or other similar settings); could be used to inspire unique items of value or magic, for instance. As there is no comment section on the blog that I could find, I have to complain here about the lack of a comment section as well.
• Alright, the next one's from last October but an important one: funkaoshi over at Save vs. Total Party Kill (how badass, righ?) shared the steps how to use Feedly to keep up with the OSR blogs (based on a fairly comprehensive list in a shared spreadsheet).
• An even older post is from Throne of Salt: the DIY map. Also of note are Dan's notes, of which we have three volumes now: (1), (2), and (3). Dan also recently talked about some of the core features of his Mother Stole Fire setting, and also shared a layman's guide to hard sci-fi.
• Evan from In Places Deep shared an overview of the Nightwick campaign's cosmology (illustration included).
• Michael Raston over at The Lizard Man Diaries posted a neat alternative to the 2d6 reaction table.
• Dunkey Halton posted five intriguing paladin orders over at I Don't Remember That Move.
• After a long hiatus, Trent B shared a d100 table for events and ceremonies in an awful village in New Feierland.
• Scott Malthouse of Trollish Delver talked about the importance of Tunnels & Trolls - a game I'm not intimately familiar with, although I do plan on rectifying that
• Speaking of T&T, maxcan7 of Weird & Wonderful Worlds shared a nice cheat sheet, along with house rules and impressions. While you're there, check out this post titled Micro-Settings: great prompts if you're need of a weird setting.
• Reverance Pavane has reminded us about the most important table in Judges Guild's CSIO (and I can hardly fault him for thinking so).
• Luther Gutekunst over at Archon's Court recently reviewed four versions of the GLOG rules family. I also enjoyed the short posts on the Sunless Horizon setting, as well as the idea of a series of one-shots that affect one another, forming an anthology of sorts.
• Tom Fitzgerald of Middenmurk fame brings us 36 outlandish weapons, like the Dwergish Blunderbore or the Tourney Sword of Ys.
• Gundobad has made quite the splash with the fresh blog Gundobad Games. In particular, I appreciated an easy-to-follow procedure to create richer histories for sandbox settings.
• Jason Tocci shared 45 rumours, lies, and pieces of legend appropriate for a soulslike campaign (like Jason's Knave-hack called Grave).
• Brendan doesn't often posts on his blog, Necropraxis (at least not anymore), but when he does, it surely is worth reading. This February he proposed a simple approach to handle team actions.
• noisms is a busy blogger. Recently, he confirmed that the Fixed World project (here's a high concept post from a few years ago) is a go, and even shared a WIP description of an area. Not only that, but we also got an update on Behind Gently Smiling Jaws, a campaign setting set in an ancient crocodile's memory palace. Also, cockatrice variants, because they're cool.
• Over at Sword of Mass Destruction you can find, among other things, 22 escaped spells (in the GLOG-style), 21 minor spirits (great whenever you want to inject some animism into your setting), and a pitch for a sky-crawling setting book.
• Speaking of spirits, Bob Something of The Amateur Dungeoneers recently talked about an urban fantasy game using SWN as a base. In particular, he talked about spirits and ghosts (twice!), which - as a huge fan of Werewolf: the Forsaken - I found very intriguing. For a very different campaign pitch, check out Machinations of the Baroque Tyrant.
• Josh from Rise Up Comus posted a comprehensive manifesto for his upcoming game, His Majesty the Worm. We also get rules to create halfling characters in a Hobbit-inspired setting using Tarot cards (which are also featured in Josh's random encounter tables).
• Daniel Dean of Basic Red talked about rumours recently. Also check out this collections of links to FLAILSNAILS-compatible classes and races.
• Handy Haversack has a blog now! Check out his thoughts on G+, blogging, and +0 swords and this cult for AS&SH (or whatever) that is both setting-appropriate and mechanically satisfying.
• Allandros from Legacy of the Bieth did a similar thing with a cool "prestige class" for hunter types, oozing with flavour. It actually reminds me of RuneQuest cults, which is a great way to handle prestige classes.
• A Blasted, Cratered Land features a neat GLOG-variant: Mimics & Miscreants. FWIW, I got instantly hooked by these wound tables.
• Based on a Savage Worlds rule, Jack of Tales of Grotesque and Dungeonesque shared a house rule for 5E mechanising interlude scenes. It reminds me a little bit of Anima Prime.
• Cackleharm of The Manse is one of the few people who constantly and quietly produces good material. Some of it may be too silly or gonzo for a lot of campaigns, but the sheer amount of unbridled creativity packed in there is astonishing. Check out these horrible dimensions, this deep time generator, or these methods to "balance" magic in your game.
• You want vikings? Dreams and Fevers has you covered: setting and mechanics.
• Dave Sealy shared some random tables to generate Incursions in his hack of The Nightmares Underneath called The Long Bright Dark.
• Sean McCoy answered some questions regarding layout in RPGs.
• Trey over at From the Sorcerer's Skull shared a few simple tables to run your pulp sci-fi game on Venus, Mars, and Mercury.
• Chris McDowall talked about mecha rules for Into the Odd, and then expanded upon them a little.
• Anne from DIY & Dragons has been kicking around a few campaign concepts, ostensibly for 5E, which prompted her to take a deeper look at 5E backgrounds by first comparing it to other games' treatment of the same concept, then by examining what they backgrounds "do" in the PHB and the Ravnica book. Probably because the American frontier is very distant and magical to me, I adore this very American random familiar table for DCC. Her biggest work of the first quarter, however, is without doubt this detailed look at the GLOGosphere.
• Skerples of Coins & Scrolls has posted a very reasonable format for creature stats as well as a few unique beasts to go with it. There's also a great post on generating artefacts there as well.
• Jonathan Newell, author of Bearded Devil, has explained, in detail, his approach towards running city-based campaigns, specifically his baroque Hex campaign (cf. overview and maps).
• Michael Kennedy from Sheep and Sorcery has been writing about very interesting settings. I especially liked the old-school 40k-inspired INHUMAN and the Genesis-inspired Biblical sword-and-sorcery.
• Cavegirl is running a community project (The Harry Clarke Bestiary). She also lay down some alternatives to "gp = XP".
• Tristan Tanner from The Bogeyman's Cave talks about investigative horror adventures in terms of Hook-Research-Confrontation.
• Ben L. from Mazirian's Garden (another favourite blog name of mine) recently started a series on the "pleasures of the OSR", analysing some of the high concept goals of the games and where they might conflict each other. The first two posts deal with secrecy and discovery and emergent story and open worlds.
• Olav N. of the Triple Suns talked about a variation of the three clue rule. He also discussed how campaign structures in his home campaign form layers superimposed on each other.
• Melan from Beyond Fomalhaut also recently talked about multi-layered wilderness adventures, among other things.
• Not OSR in particular, but here ThePiachu briefly talks about time slots and pacing; even more noteworthy are these common problems with RPG PDFs.
• If you'd like even more highlights, check out Alex Schroeder's list.

Excellence from the Blogosphere (Jan-Feb)

Here are a bunch of blog posts (chiefly from January and February) that I found particularly noteworthy.

• Olav Nygård has shared a simple procedure to create "Guess who?" style investigative scenarios, along with two examples.
• Anthony Huso is playtesting his low-level planar module for AD&D/OSRIC. His second session report is especially noteworthy because it sheds light on the importance of playtesting (the same rigorous thought process is also there in the comments while discussing the modified Incantrix class).
• Courtney Campbell has written a good reminder about ten things you can use in a dungeon to increase your survivability.
• After about 50 sessions (or 200 hours), Skerples presents his thoughts about the mechanical bits of GLOG.
• Alex Shroeder shares his thoughts regarding advancement in RPGs.
• Anne has been on fire lately. She uncovered most of the blog posts that comprised Secret Santicorn 2018, made a list of a gazillion of people making actual play reports, and analysed the ability scores we all use, love, and hate at times.
• Dale Houston has talked about how he organises events in his megadungeon campaign using simple d6 tables.
• Angus Warman has shared his set of GLOG-esque house rules, called Die Trying (without classes and levels, too!). While you're at it, also check out his travel rules.
• The Lawful Neutral has blogged about the initial thoughts of a mega barcrawl and a bunch of suitable monsters.
• Chris Kutalik made an excellent summary for his Hill Cantons sandbox campaign setting with lots of links and references.
• Dungeons and Possums posted a great list of free resources to start playing (and running) old-school games. By the way, the blog also has a superb index, in case you want to poke around.
• Sometimes we all need to be reminded of the other British accents, and noisms just does that using football fan interviews off YouTube.
• Martin O. has shared 10 very flavourful bandit gangs.
• Talysman has summarised his rules regarding search rolls and similar mechanics.
• red_kangaroo made a memory system (for spells, languages, memories, martial art techniques, etc.) using slots similar to how slot-based inventories work. I especially like how Trauma is handled like Fatigue, eating up slots.
• Emmy Allen has blogged about her next Ynn-like thing: the ruined market of Sharne.

Excellence from the Blogosphere (Nov-Dec)

As I did in one of my earlier post, here are a handful of blog posts (chiefly published in November and December) that I found particularly noteworthy.

• Wizzzargh shared their experiences running four different OSR campaigns using different approaches to worldbuilding.
• Zzarchov has also been talking about iterative design with regards to his own game, Neoclassical Geek Revival, showing his way of thinking through actual examples. This is the sort of thing I like to read from game designers. (Also, did you know there's a subreddit for NGR?)
• James Smith (most known for his OSR news blog series) has recently shared a gajillion of resources for Conan and Hyboria. James has a Patreon now as well, so if you like what you see, consider supporting him.
• Luke Gearing posted a d100 table of locations for a haunted castle (the assumption is that d20 + [number of rooms visited] is rolled each time, so you get weirder and weirder results as you keep exploring). Simple but inspiring.
• Lawful Neutral has made an index for their blog, so you can find all the cool stuff looking at only one page.
• Michael Raston has automated his fantasypunk augmentation generator (with links to the original posts as well).
• Arnold K. has talked about a way to mechanise social challenges by emulating the stakes and innate complexity of combat.
• D. G. Chapman in the meanwhile shared some ideas about implementing JRPG-style NPCs in your tabletop campaign. Furthermore, he collected all the adventures so far shared on the blog in one place.
• Joe Fatula has recently talked about his setting with the thesis "Signs of the Wilderness is to Colonial America as Lord of the Rings is to Medieval England". Seriously, though, that blog is just amazing (my personal favourites are wilderness dungeons, difficult terrain, and an example of using the various random tables shared so far).
• Josh has shared an impressive article about collecting herbs and using them as components for spells. While you're at it, check out this post about campfire discussions. He also shared some thoughts about a way to describe fantasy cultures by presenting one cogent detail for each sense.
• I don't normally talk about sci-fi stuff here, but this huge pile of starship geomorphs is too damn good not to share here as well (it's made for Traveller but usable in most other sci-fi games)
• I generally dislike podcasts (they are way too dry and drawn out in general), but Carl Bussler's The Megadungeon is something different. I'm definitely biased as I love megadungeons.

Announcement - The Village and the Witch

It occurred to me that I haven't shared the release of The Village and the Witch here. What follows is Davide Pignedoli's announcement on Google+.

The Village and the Witch is now available on DriveThruRpg and in print on Lulu.

The Village and the Witch is an OSR Module compatible with Lamentations of the Flame Princess, the Black Dogs, and other OSR adventuring games.
Editing by +Sándor Gebei.

This adventure is designed for low-level characters and is intended as an encounter to run in one or two sessions, between other adventures.
This module is designed to generate a Village, a Witch, and some additional weirdness: two pages with die-drop tables to outline the village (map and content), and two pages with a series of random tables to generate a Witch and its connection to the village.
The rest of the module contains some instructions, random or less random NPCs and other weirdness, some digression about alignment and so forth.

Download
Print on Lulu

This product is an independent production by Daimon Games and is not affiliated with Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Lamentations of the Flame Princess is a registered trademark owned by James Edward Raggi IV.

Excellence from the Blogosphere (Aug-Oct)

Following the steps of Humza K, I present to you a collection of blog posts (mostly from August and September) that I found inspirational.

• Edward Lang-Whiston has been writing about weird worlds (Spheres in the Troika! nomenclature): The Neverwoods, The Garden Lands, Hellgaaz, and The Switchboard. While we're at is, here's a generator of machines that can take you across the planes of existence.
• Lawful Neutral has recently made two d100 tables that could be really useful for horror-themed and/or gothic games like Ravenloft, Ghastly Affair, or Krevborna. The first lists 100 room types in a mansion, while the other presents 100 haunted house effects to go with them.
• Ben L. has written about the lessons he learnt while assembling his upcoming zine. If you want to make your own zine, it's an invaluable read! For those who mostly wish to consume, I present two older articles discussing City State of the Invincible Overlord and the City State of the World Emperor.
• Jonathan Newell recently posted descriptions and portraits for all the player characters in his campaign. If you haven't seen anything of Hex before, I urge you to check out this short overview of the setting and this awesome post showcasing the mad mapping skills of Jonathan!
• Diogo Nogueira has been writing about his upcoming setting book for Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells. As usual, there are a bunch of random tables to accompany the text. Here's the first post in the series.
• Emmy Allen has made a slick subsystem for astral projection. Also check out her preliminary thoughts on an oceanic abysscrawl.
• Not really new, but I don't think these two posts of Lungfungus have been talked about enough: a procedurally generated hexcrawl (link to the procedures in the post) and a large bestiary using John Bell's encounter table format.

OSR Games in 2017

I have made a number of posts concerning available and upcoming OSR/D&D-esque games in the past, and I decided I will continue making these summaries, as they are low effort posts that help me keep focussed on writing and creating.

In 2017 a total of 70 OSR/D&D-esque games were published in English (81 in 2016).
16 were variations of The Black Hack (24 in 2016).
8 were second or revised editions of previously published games (9+ in 2016)
In terms of genres (where stated explicitly), there were 2 sword & sorcery games, 4 sci-fi games, 2 zombie survival games, and 4 post-apocalyptic games, and a number of other genres were represented by at least one game as well (such as cyberpunk, espionage, fairy tales, prehistoric fantasy, pulp adventures, steampunk, superhero, and western).

Sadly, none of the games I posted about here were among them. There still were other highly anticipated releases, such as AS&SH 2E, Blueholme Journeymanne Rules, SWN:Revised, and White Star Galaxy Edition, and a handful of happy surprises (at least to me), chiefly the new version of Engines of Empires and the revised edition of Wolf-Packs and Winter Snow.

There already have been a number of OSR releases this year, but I intend to make a separate post about the scene's current state in early April. A list of previously unmentioned upcoming games will hit the blog soon, too.

Upcoming OSR Games

It has been quite some time since I made a list of upcoming OSR releases. Here are a bunch of games I am looking forward to reading.

Avatars & Annihilation
I have talked about Van Noa's game in my first "upcoming OSR stuff" post already. Since then, refinement of rules and editing has taken place, as well as some playtesting over Google+. There is no release date set, though.

Beyond Dread Portals
A game/setting to be published by D101 Games, sort of reminiscent of Planescape. There's a baroque, corrupt city with gateways to many other worlds. Intrigue and dimension-hopping adventures are to be expected.

Break!! RPG
A recognisably OSR game influenced mostly by JRPG and anime tropes. D&D-esque in mechanics, although not a proper clone. You may want to check the dev blog and the game's website for further information (and I suggest you do).

Chanbara
A Japanese-inspired OSR game, built off the Swords & Wizardry chassis, from the author of the Flying Swordsmen RPG. Check out his blog for further information.

Eldritch Tales
An investigative occult game by Raven God Games, similar to Silent Legions and Black Books. Uses the S&W:WB chassis.

Faerie Tales &  Folklore
A game set on a historic but mythological Earth. It is mostly notable for being Chainmail/OD&D-based, and for its design goal of borrowing directly from mythology, rather than through secondary sources. The author has made a couple previews available on Google+.

HMS Apollyon
I don't think there is anyone in the OSR who is unaware of Gus's HMS Apollyon setting: it's an imaginative horror megadungeon environment in the bowels of a gigantic ship full of weird shit. Not long ago a Player's Guide was published - and now we have this.

Lost Songs of the Nibelungs
A gritty Dark Age game not long after the fall of Rome inspired by Germanic legends and mythology. The author has been posting a lot about his design process that you might find interesting.

Monster Dungeon Quest
A game that truly wants to capture the adventurous and gonzo spirit of old-school games. Uses a descriptors (things are Powerful, Useful, or Cheap; pick two) and stunts (like Wushu) for resolution. Check the website for further information.

Wulfwald RPG
A continuation of Raedwald, Wulfwald is an Anglo-Saxon game about a bunch of outlaws doing missions for a Thegn in exchange for his protection. Basically, black ops in a fantasy world reminiscent of the early middle ages. There is a Google+ community dedicated to the game.

Children of the OSR, Part Deux

I haven't done a post like this since early last year, so I might not be able to list everything important; regardless, here's an attempt to mention the latest, some of the important OSR releases that are for some reason close to my heart.


Ghastly Affair
I have mentioned this one last time: basically a free, completely OGL game that intends to capture the spirit of gothic fiction. The base mechanics are simple roll-under, and it has a set of very unique classes (with rather interesting and flavourful advantages and drawbacks). Also, it's got its sort of second edition, and it's still free.

Hydra Cooperative
Last time when I spoke about them, only Slumbering Ursine Dunes was available. Well, since then they have released the next two adventure supplements set in the same fictional milieu: Fever-Dreaming Marlinko (a city supplement) and the Misty Isles of the Eld (an island fort of the alien eld). They have also re-released Mike Davison's Ruins & Ronin (a Whitebox variant for a medieval Japanese setting).

John M. Stater
The man behind the Land of NOD magazine (which has 29 issues (!) so far, the last three available on RPGNow) has released his modern pulp game, Grit & Vigor, fully compatible with his earlier game, Blood & Treasure, which is about to receive a second edition. This year is probably the year of second editions of Mr Stater, since his superhero game Mystery Men has already got one, and his sci-fi dungeon crawler, Tales of Space Princess, is about to get one, as well.

Mateo Diaz Torres
The fantastic A Most Thoroughly Pernicious Pamphlet is currently PWYW until this Sunday. This small booklet is a sort of compendium for creating characters in the author's setting, which is easier to to be shown than explained: check out this encounter table or this treasure table or this location.

Necrotic Gnome Productions
The label have been around for some time, although I suspect people just say "Gavin Norman & Greg Gorgonmilk". Nevertheless, they have released a couple of interesting products, the first being From the Vats, a free compilation of community-created awesomeness, supplementary to The Complete Vivimancer. Labyrinth Lord-compatible rules for tweaking roguish classes is presented in The B/X Rogue (soon to be followed by The B/X Warrior). They have also slowly been releasing material for their Dolmenwood setting (dark forests inspired by Celtic myths and fairy tales) in the form of a zine (Wormskin), which has seen three issues released so far.

Sine Nomine Publishing
The ever-creating Mr Crawford has written and published another batch of wonderful products. First, it started with Starvation Cheap, a military campaign supplement for Stars Without Number, the first one to include colour pictures. After that, the earlier concept of Exemplars & Eidelons got polished and improved: Godbound can be summed up as the OSR's Exalted, but it's much more than that. Not only do we get the mechanics to build demigod-level characters and a sample setting to let them loose, but also the GM tools necessary to deal with the consequences of their actions. Similar to SWN, Godbound comes in a free and deluxe version, the latter including some extra content (like, rules for mortal characters, cybernetic and clockwork implants, themed godbounds, etc.). Both products are full colour, by the way, and as usual, the Kickstarter made it possible for the art to released into the public domain.

Children of the OSR

Earlier I talked about some of the cool OSR stuff that was in the making (here and here). Some of these fantastic products have been released since then, and due to there awesomeness, I feel obliged to tell you about them. Also, there are a couple other things I have found, so I added them to the list below, as well. 

Upcoming OSR Games and Supplements, Part 2

Although none of the works mentioned in Part 1 have been published in their final form, I am here to speak about a couple of other projects that have got my attention.

Glimpse of an Auspicious Horizon - Upcoming OSR Games and Supplements

The following are complete games or supplements that are in the works (some of them on the verge of release, some still being playtested, and some still being written). This is in no way a complete list of what people in the OSR are doing; it merely includes the stuff I am personally aware of and interested in. However, if you think I left out something important, don't hesitate to put it in the comments.