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Friday, June 11, 2021

Deal of the Day - The Waking of Willowby Hall (OSR Adventure)

Sorry for the lateness of this post, but today was a busy day of gardening, shopping, napping, live-streaming, and napping. I've had either a severe allergies attack or a cold come on over the past 24 hours, so there was lots of muting and nose-blowing on tonight's live-stream ;)

Anyhow, for the next 12 hours or so, The Walking of Wiilowby Hall is the Deal of the Day at DTRPG. Normally 7.50, on sale in PDF for 3.75

The Waking of Willowby Hall is a dense, highly interactive RPG adventure set in a ruined manor beset by a rampaging giant, roving bands of restless dead, and a very angry goose.

  • Suitable for PCs of approximately 3rd level.
  • Features a highly interactive environment that rewards clever play.
  • Perfect for one-shots or for dropping into an existing campaign.
  • Contains "One Page Dungeon" maps that allow the DM to run much of the adventure at a glance.
  • Uses bullet points and control-panel layout for maximum ease of use.
  • Statted for Knave, but easily usable with any old-school fantasy RPG.
  • Writing, layout, and cartography by two-time ENnie Award winner Ben Milton, author of Maze Rats, Knave, and Jim Henson's Labyrinth: The Adventure Game.
  • Lavishly illustrated by Sam Mameli.

 


The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPGAmazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on AnchorYouTube or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar

Thursday, June 10, 2021

Gamma World 1e Bundle - PDF - $9.99

Well, this caught me by surprise. There is a post-apocalypse sale going on at DTRPG and one of the highlighted bundles is a classic TSR era Gamma World 1e Bundle - core rules, Gamemaster Screen, and three modules for 9.99

As a side note, does anyone know why there are three different Gamma World logos for 1e?



The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPGAmazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on AnchorYouTube or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar




Wednesday, June 9, 2021

The Folio: Black Label #6 (1e/5e Indiegogo)

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Scott Taylor writes some good shit. The Black Label line of The Folio is a bit more risque than the regular Folio releases. Just look at the cover above.

Scott always hits his release dates, which is a rarity on crowdfunding projects. Turn around on Black Label #6 is November 2021, but I expect it will ship sooner than that.

The maps are simply second to none. Classic blue for the win :)

The secret of The Folio is presenting the adventure for 1e and 5e. It really makes the adventures accessible to all. Well, all that roll a D20 :)

What does the adventure Before the Necrotic Gate revolve around? 
Well, this will be a standard swords & sorcery based adventure that deals with the a three level keep you see above, located in the deadly 'ash lands'.  Characters will be required by an outside contract to return the daughter of a noble that fell victim to the roving slavers, bound for The Burning City.  The question will be, can the characters get in and out before the entire land rises up against them?

The PDF for The Folio: Black Label #6 is 10 bucks. Print is 20 bucks.



The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPGAmazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on AnchorYouTube or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar 



Tuesday, June 8, 2021

RPG News - Catching Up with Risus: Sold! and Other Interesting Tidbits

I must admit, I haven't been paying much attention to the news in the World of Gaming for the past week or so, as NTRPG Con was occupying my waking (and sleeping) thoughts. But now I'm home, and its time to catch up on some topics covered here and on our accompanying Youtube Channel: youtube.com/TenkarsTavern

Risus has been sold. Yep, I had mentioned that it was for sale, along with its Kickstarter obligations, and someone has taken on the responsibilities to fulfill those obligations and apparently paid for the privilege:

Big Dice Games Acquires Risus: The Anything RPG, Charts Course for the Future of Joyful RPGs!

A joint press release from Cumberland Games & Diversions and the new home of Risus: Big Dice Games.

Dave LeCompte, of Big Dice Games, has purchased the Risus RPG line from S. John Ross of Cumberland Games and Diversions.

S. John Ross designed, authored, and published the groundbreaking roleplaying game system, subtitled “The Anything RPG,” in a time where individual role playing manuals were hundreds of pages, and a well-prepared gaming group would have dozens of books. Risus is a different sort of game system, with a set of rules that can fit on a single sheet of paper.

Dave LeCompte has been a friend of Risus for years, and looks forward to carrying it forward as a game where there’s “No Wrong Way to Play!”

Big Dice Games has agreed to complete the outstanding Kickstarter campaign to publish more free adventures, and intends to publish all-new Risus worldbooks as well.

S. John, who has shepherded his creation for 28 years, has overseen its changes from a plain-jane document of the early 90s to a stick-figure festooned one in the 21st century, is proud to see Big Dice Games carrying the torch forward to see the Risus line expand to include entire worlds, more adventures, and more voices from around the world. The Risus community has always been international (the game has been translated into 18 languages besides S. John’s attempts at English), and S. John hopes to see something from everyone. He’s also happy he won’t have to edit them.

Dave LeCompte notes: “S. John is one of those creators who do so many things well, it will require many people to fill his shoes. Big Dice Games welcomes the best stick figure art submissions, as well as writing submissions from adventure- and worldbook-authors to provide a breadth of perspectives while staying true to the open-hearted, creative gameplay that Risus gamers expect.” Contact dave@risusrpg.com for freelancing opportunities.

The Risus library will continue to be available at DriveThruRPG, with all previous customers transferred painlessly behind the scenes thanks to the efforts of the OBS management. Risus will soon have a new home on the Web as well, at www.RisusRPG.com.

So, I did a video on an upcoming RPG called Into the Mother Lands. It's an interesting Kickstarter and I am excited about the setting info thus far, but I was (and still am) concerned that the system that will be used has yet to be determined (it was playtested with Cortex). I should note that it has already raised a quarter of a million dollars (11 days to go) for a creator that has a single prior Kickstarter (for about $6k).

Egg Embry interviewed some of the folks behind the Into the Motherland Kickstarter over at ENWorld, and he asked a question about the lack of a determined system at the launch of the Kickstarter. The answer is NOT what I expected. 

EGG: One of the campaign’s FAQs discusses the game’s system, or, more precisely, how that’s yet to be determined. As a business person, why keep that option open?

BDW: Business is exactly why we did it. We’ve been blessed to have a number of options in terms of publishers we can partner with, or go it completely on our own and create a whole new system. There are a lot of other intangibles to weigh like production costs, who has retail distribution, etc. Until you’ve done it, you don’t realize how much more there is to it than deciding if we want to roll d10s or d6s. Ultimately, we’ll do whatever allows us to deliver the best possible game to the widest possible audience.

Intangibles such as "production cost" and "retail distribution" mean that they (those behind the Kickstarter) want another company to take the responsibility of development and distribution. As a potential backer, this lack of decisiveness is enough to keep me from coming anywhere close to this Kickstarter.

What else? 

The Tavern will be refocusing some of its affiliate support and redirecting such to a member of our community in need. Further details when it's finalized.

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPGAmazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on AnchorYouTube or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar

Monday, June 7, 2021

State of the Tavern Keeper - Post Con Update and "Stuff"

I had an amazing time at NTRPG Con, as you can probably tell from the posts and Youtube videos I've shared the last few days. Well, I'm home now and it feels good. Almost as good as the weekend was ;)

The true joy in getting out and travelling halfway across the country after the health horrs I had last year can't be understated.

It was amazing seeing the friends and extended family that I hadn't seen for an extended period of time, and it was great putting faces to folk that read the blog, listen to the podcast, and watch the YouTube Channel.

I discussed a potential RPG project with another creator. Far too early to announce, and we aren't even sure it is viable, but damn, it would be a fun project to work on. More if and when we decide to move forward.

The next day or two will see me uploading a shit-ton of podcast episodes, as I was falling behind even before NTRPG Con.

Back behind the grindstone ;)






Sunday, June 6, 2021

Played a DCC Game and "Won" by "Losing"

 

Played a DCC Game and "Won" by "Losing"
Special Note: I'm at North Texas RPG Con and exhausted. It's been a great con by almost any standard and I'm pretty much wiped. I'm pre-writing this at 2030 on Saturday night when I have a free moment and I should be resting before the midnight auction. I know I'll be dragging tomorrow anyway.....so screw sleep I'm putting up the post.

There are a few games I own I don't get to play much. Probably more my fault than the system's....maybe I prefer other systems or I get enough gaming in already (yeah, right.......that can't be it!). I like DCC, but for me it's a convention game. Maybe that'll change, but for now it's the odd convention game and listening to the Spellburn podcast.

I did get in a DCC funnel game that was unexpectedly good time for me.....I say "unexpectedly" because it was advertised as a 3rd level game and ended up being a zero-level funnel, which can be fun, but not what I was hoping for in the least.....

You will listen to my PC story!
....yes, this is going to be something of a PC Story and since I'm pretty sure it was an actual published adventure I'm going to forgo a lot of specific game-ruining aspects because that isn't the heart of this specific PC story.


This is the story of Jimbobob. Yes, if you want to continue reading you will have to suffer through said PC story. If not, Erik will undoubtedly have another post tomorrow...

That out of the way, this is the story of Jimbobob (Jim-bo-bob) who got rounded up with his fraternal twin sister Jillbobob and his best bud Scrotus and forced with a gaggle of others to complete not just a task that will lead to certain death, but THEN continue on and try to save the world from some BBG (Big Bad Guy) who is going kill everybody and everything at some unspecified "soon" time. Score of victims suckers have gone before and perished and the powers that be are already herding the next group to follow after Jimbobob and his compatriots are nothing but a memory and a bloodstain.

Miraculously the initial task was met without suffering too many loses. The group manages to secure the MacGuffin and there is a glimmer of hope that maybe the impossible task is not so impossible.....the group makes it back to the assembly point and is able to advance forward on the final step of the journey to confront the BBG. Our group has been able to build upon the incremental deaths successes of HUNDREDS that have come before, but the MacGuffin is more than just a means to get to the end, but a mighty tool, a weapon even, that can turn the tide for humanity. Our small, motley assembly of nobodies actually has a chance of pulling this off!

Then all of a sudden.....out of the blue....

POP!

Jillbobob is just vaporized in an explosion of pink mist. Jimbobob is covered in the puréed remains of his sister. His one companion from before he was even born! What.....the....fuuuccckkkk.....

Evidently the MacGuffin has a killer of a downside (pun intended). It allows the wielder to perform magic and if there is a spell failure, the result is a random being suffers a "violent decompression event", or "gets popped" as the group quickly puts it.

What was the brief glimmer of hope for Jimbobob turns into a deep level of despair. Nothing matters, we're all going to die anyway so why bother........(I basically started channeling my inner emo and started speaking as much like Eeyore as I could, when using this guy). Scrotus is thankful for every moment the group has and getting closer to succeeding is worth celebrating, especially when we start losing group members to the perils of adventuring....and a few POP!s.

Eventually the group finds another MacGuffin, a different one, and hopes to find a third before confronting the BBG. There's a tantalizing "lead" but someone has to go all Tunnel Rat and start crawling into some stone tunnels/rabbit holes....something that will probably lead to a lonely and/or painful death. 

"Whatever, we're all going to die anyway. I've been all alone since Jillbobob died anyway....." Jimbobob is sent into the tunnels with 50' of rope tied around him and eventually just disappears. The party waits for a while and then just leaves him for dead. (The GM didn't ask me to stamp the PC sheet 'dead' so I just STFU and thought maybe he'd be found later).

Through an unfortunate incident Scrotus now has MacGuffin #1 and another PC has MacGuffin #2 when the party faces off against the BBG and it is apparent that the few remaining PCs are true and rightly fucked. The world is fucked. This isn't just a BBG, it's a fricken B...B...G. It's like we were hoping to fight a Lizardman and then coming across fricken Godzilla! Holy shit people-who-ramroded-us-into-this-crap, I can see why you buried the lead. We could have saved ourselves the trouble and stress (of being POP!ped for one) and just slit our own throats on the onset of the adventure.

Luckily though the world might not be screwed as we are because while even one mighty MacGuffin won't do diddly-squat, at least in the group's hands, to the BBG, the other MacGuffin can turn one guy into a different type of BBG. Basically we might have a chance against Godzilla because our guy can turn into Mecha-Godzilla.

OK, a little honesty here....."we" are still righteously fucked, but Mecha-Godzilla boy had a decent shot at surviving this thing and saving everybody back home.

Out of Character (OOC): Yeah.....you think you might have seen a typo, God knows I can be full of them, but I did mean "had" because this is when Jimbobob comes back into the picture.

The nearly-useless MacGuffin changes hands a few times as people die from the BBG and maybe a few POPs. There's a bit of chaos happening when Jimbobob emerges from the tunnel into the final battle with the BBG and guess what happens to be on the floor near his feet...another MacGuffin! Since everything is fucked and we're all going to die anyway, might as well give the MacGuffin a go. Jimbobob tries to activate the magic and nope and he fails miserably.

POP! goes the Mecha-Godzilla.

OOC: At this point I think as a player I'll be all smart and maybe a little rules-lawyerly. There are only three PCs alive in the chamber, but IIRC the vaporization was a random effect.....did the GM account for the BBG when rolling off? Evidently this was a possibility and he had been rolling for the effect to target other beings outside the group before, but hadn't this time.....so he'll re-roll.

POP! goes the Mecha-Godzilla. (OOC: Oh well, I tried)

So it's the BBG against the one remaining PC, that it knows about, armed with essentially a useless MacGuffin, and then there's Emobobob, er I mean Jimbobob armed with an even more useless MacGuffin. The BBG rips through the other PC like he was a wet piece of tissue paper and it won't be long before Jimbobob is discovered and snuffed out just as easily.....

.......and then....

POP! The BBG is vaporized and the world is saved, but not Jimbobob. He just doomed himself to an eternity alone.....at least in his mind.

OOC: So I know I'm screwed and this is the end of the game with the GM clearly having a winning hand. Now, he may have just thrown me a huge bone, adventure wise, but I thought I had a rare rules-lawyering moment, one proud enough to post about it here at the Tavern, no less. While on the surface the MacGuffin really seemed useless because it had no real powers other than casting spells, and those spells weren't going to do a whole helluva lot to the BBG, like highly doubtful even a single-digit of damage, I noticed that the highest level spell had a DC30 spell check and made it clear if you rolled high enough you could pick....actually quoting from the book...."any two of the effects listed above". You know what was on said list...and I hope you've figured it out dear reader.....

.....failure. Failure was on the list. Now clearly the intention is to pick a beneficial spell effect, but in this case, clearly failure is an option.....and if I pick it twice, then I'm assured a pyrrhic victory. 

Of course you'd think that if I'm typing this out now that I managed to pull off that 29 or 30 roll on my d30, or that I was able to burn Luck to get the desired results, but no....I just actually failed my spell check, so someone is gonna POP!, just not both Jimbobob and the BBG. It was all down to the die roll, which the GM let me make. Odds the BBG POP!s and even Jimbobob gets to reunite with his sister in whatever fresh hell serves as the afterlife....

.....and I roll a "1".

Jimbobob saves the day but now he's stuck in a virtual mountain or riches that he can't possibly use.....well he could, but in doing so he'd undoubtedly release the MacGuffins into the world and how many more would suffer being POP!ped? I figure he'll just turn into the Mecha Godzilla and spend the rest of his days alone protecting the world from his group's sucessess. 

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