I see there's a big Vampire the Requiem sale going on. I've never played any White Wolf RPGs. Would Vampire the Requiem 2nd Edition be a good place to start? Or is there a better game I should look to instead, price be damned?
Also on DriveThru
What other TTRPG scenes or spaces feel like the OSR when it comes to blogging, DIY, rule sets, energy, and open licensing?
I realize that I only advertised this on osr and forgot to do so here. I've cooked up a seven Voyages of Zylarthen megadungeon and put it out on lulu. It's priced to only cover printing costs (no profit to myself - this is a hobby, not a job) and is currently only available in print because you should own physical media. It was made to be held in your hands and roughed up with play 🙂
The book contains a floating cloud city under which is the dungeon in question along with some extraplanar sub-areas which can be unlocked through exploration, or just run as needed in your home games. There's lots of new magic items and monsters and loads of art that's certainly too shitty to have been made by AI. It's 7VoZ so super compatible with OD&D or your favourite retroclone and leans in a bit more towards Arabian Nights and the ancient world than it does traditional Tolkienesque fantasy.
If you want a quick preview before buying, I've thrown up all couple pages on https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lkZt9TnYgcT5nHgp164D3GIpXk\_LkcfR/view
Enjoy and fight on!
Fantastic news.
I haven’t played a “mainstream” TTRPG since 5e back in the mid-2010s. Began my TTRPG hobby with 4e back in 2009. I have mainly played old-school games in the scant little time I’ve had to play over the past decade.
I have never watched Critical Role and know nothing about this system, but my co-workers requested a TTRPG one-shot in about a month. I then hope to run it for public games locally as well as online. It looks beautiful and is totally alien to the OSR games I’ve grown used to.
Looking forward to diving in!
I'm reading Lord Dunsany and anthologies of fairy tales. They're all inspiring me to run a game based on pre-Tolkien fantasy that isn't necessarily pulp-oriented and instead derives from fairy tales. I'm looking at either using Cairn 2e as a baseline or Dolmenwood.
How tied to its setting is Dolmenwood? Could I use it, theoretically, to run amuck with stories that aren't tied to its locales, persons of interest, and bestiary? Or is it something where the setting is the game, so to speak, and the two are inseparable?
I’m looking for a system that will permit me to play games heavily informed by medieval romances (actual, literal medieval romances from the 12th through 15th centuries). I’m waffling between Pendragon, Mythic Bastionland, Codex Integrum, and creating my own based on OD&D. I don’t have a stable group, unfortunately, so this would be online or with strangers at a recurring, open library game. Which would you recommend, and why?
I’ve looked at Aquellare and it doesn’t seem to be quite what I’m looking for.
Not a hardcore dedicated group, in other words.
... are both free and amazing if you're looking to get into the old-school scene. This is a friendly reminder to anyone passing by who is OSR curious but has yet to take the plunge.
If you're just starting out, Basic Fantasy will be easier to grok. Iron Falcon isn't hard, per se, but it hews closer to an earlier version of D&D that may appear a bit more alien than one would be used to if you're coming from more modern iterations.
Regardless, both are worth checking out and are a quick read. The communities for both are really kind, too, which is a plus.
BRW Games has put out a call to adventure writers for submissions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzXec-RNF3s&t=97s
Link to the BRW Games submissions website: https://www.brwgames.com/write-for-brw-games/
>BRW Games is actively seeking adventure submissions for the Adventures Dark and Deep™ line. Since Adventures Dark and Deep™ is similar to most Old School games such as 1E, OSRIC, Swords & Wizardry, etc., submissions compatible with those sorts of systems are acceptable. We are not accepting submissions for any other game system at this time (such as Pathfinder or 5E).
If your adventure emphasizes exploration, player choice, memorable locations, and classic fantasy roleplaying, we’d like to hear from you.
I am curious what your retroclone of choice is, if you don’t use the original booklets.
https://forums.giantitp.com/forumdisplay.php?59-D-amp-D-3e-3-5e-d20
I was a little surprised, but I guess I shouldn’t be. I have fond memories of 3.5. It was the first D&D logo I saw. Waxing a bit nostalgic…
Any other people with fond memories or current players here?
Looking for a rich, meaty feudal Japan game. I would appreciate any opinions or comparisons on these systems. There’s a good deal right now on one of them.
I don’t have experience with many, but I like RuneQuest’s.
EDIT: not boxed sets. Starter sets that don’t give you the full game.
I've spent much of my day off so far reading Midwest Fantasy Wargame: The Primeval RPG. The author describes it as a "jumble" and "primordial ooze" that pulls from several contemporary games like Chainmail 2e and 3e, Dungeon, First Fantasy Campaign, Tunnels & Trolls, Chipco's Fantasy Rules! Notably, the author does their best to not look forward to OD&D, seeing as this is meant to be a "what if?" game for emulating 1972 playstyles.
The game is interesting and a departure from your typical D&D-adjacent game in its stats, campaign assumptions, combat mechanics, magic system, and bestiary. For example, your main statistics are Brains, Guts, Health, Looks, Sex, and Miscellaneous (everything else). There are two classes — Fighting-Man and Magic-User — and two sub-classes (Cleric and Ranger).
Characters are expected to immerse themselves in the campaign setting that is replete with tithes to be paid to religious faction leaders, taxation, baronies, fiefdoms, magic research procedures, and extensive downtime activities ranging from carnality and festivities to hobbies and piety.
The magic system is based on the "complexity" of spells, ranging from Complexity I to VI, and points associated with casting spells from each of these complexities. It's not Vancian. It seems really cool. There are 60 spells in total, many of which are not necessarily combat-focused.
There are extensive procedures for generating campaigns that take players from the underworld to the wilderness (and beyond?). Loads of oracular tables for inspiration and solo play.
It's worth noting that the game is intentionally left wide open in several places, explicitly telling the referee that they'll need to come up with their own rules more than once. There's ample designer commentary sprinkled throughout that explains how and where various rules came from, which can lead you down quite the rabbit hole as you hunt for sources for clarity or taking things a step further. We're told that this is NOT for inexperienced tabletop RPG'ers, which makes sense now that I'm about halfway through it. You'll need to come up with many rulings on the fly and as you run a campaign, which is part of the fun of returning to the origins of the hobby IMO. There's only so much you can plan for, but it's nice that the author points out some obvious gaps so that you can plan in advance.
The system is modular enough, like many in this space, that you're practically invited to tweak it for whatever setting or style of campaign that you want. Multiple options are given to referees for how to rule in certain scenarios à la Swords & Wizardry Complete Revised.
Ultimately, this seems to be a game for a high-trust table of likeminded mature individuals who are interested in exploring the earliest stages of the hobby. This is not a historical replication/retroclone — more so a "what if?" re-imagining. I think it's super cool so far and I'd recommend it for anyone who likes to study games as much as play them.
Has anyone here read or played?