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Saturday, April 9, 2022

Kickstarter - Westlands, a 2D6 System RPG Core Book - $1


We're creating Westlands, a 2D6 system sword and sorcery RPG. Get the core book for $1.

Well, it looks like someone is taking a page from the Phil Reed school of Kickstarters. If you price your project cheaply, it will sell.

I am not sure Westlands has reached the critical mass that many of Phil's Kickstarters have, but I'm willing to throw in a buck for a game based on the Traveller OGL.

Westlands, a 2D6 System RPG Core Book Kickstarter can be backed for as low as a buck. You can kick in more if you would like to, but a single buck is all you need.

Menagerie Press is creating Westlands, a 2D6-based fantasy RPG with streamlined mechanics based on the Sword of Cepheus open game license system reference document. The 2D6 fantasy system (Traveller, Sword of Cepheus) has a true sword and sorcery feel, allowing exploration and adventure in a savage land. Action resolution is quick, putting an emphasis on story, not rules.

In Westlands, we've taken the core open-license 2D6 fantasy reference material and are adding extra content, including reworked (more dangerous!) sorcery mechanics, optional rules for simple firearms, and an expanded bestiary.

The name Westlands is a nod to the West Marches RPG campaign style, which is a much more free-form, adventure-seeking campaign where the players decide their motivations and goals, rather than being directed via the game master.

 

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Friday, April 8, 2022

Deal of the Day - ACKS Domains at War: The Complete Set (OSR)

I remember participating in a Domains of War playtest in Manhattan years ago. We had a blast using mass combat rules in the environs around Dwimmermount. In my humble experience, everything published for the ACKS system has been excellent, and easy to migrate to the OSR system of your choice.

Today's DTRPG Deal of the Day is ACKS Domains at War: The Complete Set. If you've ever wanted to bring mass combat and the intrigue of war to your OSR campaign, here's your chance to do so at an affordable price.

Until tomorrow morning at 11 AM Eastern, ACKS Domains at War: The Complete Set in PDF is discounted from 14 bucks to 5.60, a 60% discount!

Domains at War™ brings the full sweep of fantasy warfare to tabletop gaming and role-playing campaigns. The Domains at War Complete Set offers three interlocking systems to cover the full sweep of military struggles in a fantasy, ancient, or medieval world:

  • A quick mass combat rule system for use in any role-playing game that uses concepts like hit points and armor class
  • A comprehensive campaign toolkit for use in ongoing games, fully compatible with the Adventurer Conqueror King System's rules for mercenaries, strongholds, magic, and rulership
  • A fast-playing tactical wargame derived from these systems, so that playing a battle generates outcomes like what you'd get if you fought it out on the one-on-one roleplaying scale

The Domains at War Complete Set comes with two rulebooks, Campaigns and Battles, as well as 12 pages of printable full-color counters for units, leaders, spells, and terrain and a 4' x 3' PDF battlemap for tabletop warfare.

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Thursday, April 7, 2022

Free RPG - Monsterary of Zimrala Preview

I'm a huge fan of Tunnels & Trolls and by extension Monsters Monsters! There is just something about the basic T&T system that I find extremely satisfying.

The free preview of Monsterary of Zimrala is a nice, professionally done piece of T&T, MM piece of lore.

You can find the Kickstarter for the Monsterary of Zimrala here.


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Wednesday, April 6, 2022

Humble Bundle - Warhammer Age of Sigmar - Soulbound

I think I need to make a confession - I'm addicted to the various RPG Bundles offered at Humble Bundle. When you can acquire more gaming content than you can use in a lifetime for 18 bucks (more or less), you tend to want to acquire all of it ;)

Warhammer Age of Sigmar - Soulbound has interested me for a while, but I've been doubtful I'd ever had a chance to run it. A bundle for $18 for 23 releases in the series? I'm all in.



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 AnchorYouTubeor wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar    

Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Kickstarter - Swords & Chaos (Siege Engine Powered S&S RPG)


A roleplaying game of savage swords and secret sorcery. Inspired by the works of Karl E Wagner, Robert E Howard, and Charles Saunders.

I'm a huge fan of Swords & Sorcery settings and RPGs. There's just something exciting about the defaults built into the expectations built into the stories we have in our cultural library. For most, including myself, it brings up thoughts of Conan, Red Sonja, and the like.

The Swords & Chaos Kickstarter presents us with a D20 based S&S RPG. Familiar enough to the vast majority of gamers, with a resolution system that uses the Castles & Crusades Siege Engine. If you like C&C, Swords & Chaos will likely be a great fit (and a possible resource for an ongoing Castles & Crusades Campaign.

As a total aside, this Kickstarter will be using the same US-based printer that Troll Lord Games uses, so there is some basic insulation from the worldwide supply chain issues - books have been hit hard.

The Swords & Chaos PDF is 20 bucks and the print version is 50.

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 AnchorYouTubeor wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar    

Monday, April 4, 2022

Deal of the Day - Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy Player's Tome


Short take - Old-School Essentials is probably THEE OSR Ruleset on the market today.

Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy Player's Tome is OSE's take on AD&D.

If you've never checked out Old-School Essentials, today's Deal of the Day, Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy Player's Tome is half off the regular PDF price - 15 bucks down to 7.50

Complete Player's Tome

  • This book contains the complete game rules, 13 fantastic classes (acrobat, assassin, barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, fighter, illusionist, knight, magic-user, paladin, ranger, thief), 10 classic races (drow, duergar, dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, halfling, half-orc, human, svirfneblin), full equipment lists, and over 200 weird and wonderful spells (complete cleric, druid, illusionist, and magic-user spell lists).
  • Simple rules let imagination and fast-paced action take the spotlight.
  • Clear, modern presentation makes the game easy to learn and quick to reference.
  • Compatible with decades of classic adventures and supplements.

Old-School Essentials comes in two flavours: Classic Fantasy (based on the 1981 Basic/Expert rules) and Advanced Fantasy (the same game, massively expanded with content inspired by the 1970s Advanced 1st Edition rules).

This book includes all core rules and player options from the Classic Fantasy Rules Tome plus the Advanced Fantasy Genre Rules and Druid and Illusionist Spells supplements!

 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. 

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Sunday, April 3, 2022

Noping Out on an Adventure (Again, but this time it's different)

Noping Out on an Adventure (Again, but this time it's different)
I try not to re-tread old material, as it were, but after my Saturday home game I got to thinking about my post from two weeks ago about pulling the plug on an adventure. My main course of thinking then, and I wasn't really thinking about it too much, was about quitting an adventure as a player.

At the risk of sounding completely like, well a quitter, last night's game we had a good opportunity to pretty much nope out on some of the adventure in-character. Now this was a relatively minor deal. We had cleared the entire first floor of a "dungeon" except one room. We've been playing this adventure off & on in between another adventure for month now and this one room....well for some reason we "remembered" there was some bad juju about this room and it really wasn't worth the trouble....

....and of course the GM kept trying to guide us to clear the level 100%. "Ah....no thanks...".....

....and then of course we ended up checking out the room anyway when my PC got teleported into said room due to a magical trap. I was able to get out ok, thankfully.

Now that was the 1st level. The second level was rather small (?), but there was a doorway with a short hallway extending into darkness, magical darkness. Our efforts to dispell the darkness failed. Of course the GM asked us a couple of times if we wanted to continue on that level, and he even threw in some good-natured ribbing.

"Ah....no thanks"

Now personally I'm not scared of the dark, and my so-called one-off pregen (technically not a pre-gen, but close enough) isn't afraid of the dark, but the magical darkness after what we just went through....time to nope out to the next adventure.

This time though I'm thinking about how this time, even though it's basically two times in as many weeks, this time we're wanting to cut short and adventure in-character instead of as players (although there was maybe some OOC knowledge). 

This isn't the first time I've done that, noped out in-character. I'm sure I've done it multiple times before, but mostly because when I play I kind of assume that other GMs run their games like I do....and I have no problem putting PCs in over their head. Now I won't sucker punch the party....they'll have a fair opportunity to nope-out, but if they aren't bright enough to do so, well that's on them, not on me.

I do remember this one time, and I'll make it short, this one time I went to play in an online tournament adventure and the whole she-bang started out with the PCs basically in a sensory-deprivation tank. No sights, sounds, taste, nothing. We were in Limbo for all my PC knew. What was supposed to be a four-hour tournament lasted all of 10' because....as far as my PC knew he was dead. Major nope-out.

One thing I have consistently noticed in newer (AKA non OSR) games, and in many ways I get it, is that they are....for lack of a better term, balanced. Parties should have a clearly defined level of difficulty progressing through an adventure, but it should be not only doable, but highly manageable. If you need something special to succeed, fear not, the adventure shall provide.

Nothing wrong with this per se, it would be a bad idea to set up the party for out-right failure from the get-go. Now if the party screws things up and makes it so that they cannot succeed, well that's on them. If they bite off more than they can chew....on them. As a GM it's my job to give them the opportunity to succeed or fail, when that doesn't happen....well that's on me.

I guess I like the general idea that the world exists outside of the party and doesn't cater to it. An occasional over-their-head encounter they have to run away from or get thoroughly smacked down by is a good thing. Learning to guesstimate whether it's worth fighting, parleying, or running like hell is a useful skill at the table (in and out of character). I like to think this is really an OSR thing you don't see in newer games. Well "newer" editions of D&D maybe. Overkill is part of the game with DCC to the extent that in a 0-level funnel you get multiple PCs 'cause one hit will kill one off..... 

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