Swords & Wizardry Light - Forum

Saturday, December 3, 2022

Humble Bundle - The Witcher RPG and More from R Talsorian Games


The Witcher
. Fiction, computer RPGs, on-demand TV series, and tabletop RPG. It's one hell of an IP.



For 18 bucks you can snag 15 titles from R Talsorian Games, including The Witcher (core rules and 4 other supplements) and Castle Falkenstein (core rules and 9 supplements). That is a crapton of material for 18 bucks. For a single buck, you can snag the Falkenstein Core Rules.


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Friday, December 2, 2022

Kickstarter - Bizarre Citizens and Foes, for Use With Fantasy RPGs

Two tiny booklets, each a d66 collection of NPC concepts to drop into your OSR fantasy roleplaying game. Created by Philip Reed.


You had me with Phil Reed on the tin :)

Yes, as usual, you can back for as little as a buck and get TWO PDFs and stretch goals, for less than the price of a can of Coke. Yep, Bizarre Citizens and Foes is another amazing Phil Reed Kickstarter.

Following the success of the Bizarre Blades and Torches Kickstarter campaign, and because I had so much fun writing those tiny booklets, I've decided to tackle another wave of (approximately) A6-sized fantasy RPG supplements. This time around, the bulk of the work is focused on NPC ideas that gamemasters may flesh out and throw into their campaigns. 

With your support, I'll produce at least two -- and possibly as many as four! -- different (approximately) A6-sized booklets. The titles in question are:

  • Bizarre Citizens - 16 pages. A d66 collection of NPCs that may be encountered in a fantasy city or town.
  • Bizarre Foes - 16 pages. d66 NPCs who may prove to be less than helpful during the campaign.
  • Bizarre Seafolk - 16 pages. A selection of d66 NPCs, but this time focused on denizens of the seas. $5,000 stretch goal. Unlocked.
  • Bizarre Chests - 16 pages. This d66 collection of trunks, chests, lockboxes, and more exists solely to give the GM some more ideas on where to hide valuables. $7,500 stretch goal. Unlocked.

NOTE: All page counts include covers, inside covers, and the guts of the booklet. These tiny works are designed as a quick source of inspiration for the busy gamemaster who always needs more ideas before the next session.

 

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, December 1, 2022

Far West - 11 Years and Counting - Why Bother Caring?

I'm just going to put this here:


This makes me read things like the following with a pound of salt:



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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, November 30, 2022

Bundle of Holding - Tales From the Magician's Skull (Swords & Sorcery Fiction)

I own the first few issues of Tales FRom the Magician's Skull in Print plus PDF, and I must say I'm impressed by the writing of the short stories included. I no longer have the focus or patience to read novels or trilogies, and shorter swords & sorcery fiction are the perfect size for me these days.

For 12.95, you can snag issues 0-7 of Tales From the Magician's Skull as well as Cubicles of the Skull in PDF. That is an amazing amount of reading material for the money.

Mortal, behold! Tales From the Magician's Skull from Goodman Publications is a fantasy fiction magazine that overflows with thrilling new adventures in the spirit of the fabled pulps. These stories, crammed with sword-swinging action, dark magic, and ferocious monsters, hurtle forward at a headlong pace. There are swords, and there is sorcery – dark deeds and daring rescues – lands where heroes fear to tread. Picture this as well: maps to wondrous and terrible places; electrifying art for every tale; guides to bring the terrors within to your own game table. This all-new Magician's Skull Quick Deal brings you eight .PDF issues of Tales From the Magician's Skull plus Cubicles of the Skull, a high-spirited booklet of quotations from your host, the Immortal Skull. As he likes to say, "Join me, mortal dog! Together we shall storm the gates of Valhalla!"

 

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  

Tuesday, November 29, 2022

Humble Bundle - Lone Wolf and Cub and More (Comics)


I remember, back in my days collecting comics, buying Lone Wolf and Cub for the Frank Miller covers, and being blown away by the content BETWEEN those covers. I had never experienced a Japanese comic before, and it was literally eye-opening. Lone Wolf and Cub were some of the best stories ever written and drawn in graphic comic format.

There is a huge collection of Japanese graphic novels available on Humble Bundle. It may not look huge initially, but Lone Wolf and Cub alone account for 28 of the issues available. Snag the entire collection for 18 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 cast on AnchorYouTube or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar  

Monday, November 28, 2022

Bundle of Holding - Shadowrun 1E-2E Mega Bundle

 


I remember snagging Shadowrun when it was first released in '89. It was a magical setting that also touched upon cyberpunk themes, thus my group would never step close to it, but it was a good read.

For 19.95, you can snag a (fairly) complete collection of Shadowrun 1e in PDF - Core Rules, expansions, setting guides, and more. If you pay about 42.25, you add a huge amount of Shadowrun 2e material to the mix. I'm not sure if I have the time to read all of this Shadowrun material, but I may just give it a shake.


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  

Sunday, November 27, 2022

Why Play B/X?

Why Play B/X?
Now I know that this post might be lost on this particular audience, but you know.....internets and all, anything posted online might be useful to other people.

So we play a game that has what (?)......seven editions and going on an eighth, along with about a thousand offshoots and a bazillion house-ruled variations...but I'm going to suggest that anyone not already playing a preferred game...or maybe in this case anyone trying to figure things out for the first time...that they should play B/X.

Now I'm not going to try and go into the history of the game because that's been done several times far better than I'll ever be able to get into. There's a lot of history before the introduction of B/X and far more after the history of this edition.

While history is part of the reason I suggest new players start with B/X, which I'll get into in a moment, it isn't the main reason, and I think a lot of people being introduced to D&D/RPGs would inherently use "history" against choosing B/X.....

....think about it. You can find the current edition of the game easily, at Wal-Mart even, but B/X? Well that isn't so easy to get ahold of for those not in the know. Here are two places you can start:

OK, so I've established the what/where...and maybe even the how, but really the point here is why? What makes B/X the edition you should be playing?

First off, it's an early edition of the game and...simpler to play. You could try and take this reason out to an extreme and try to promote the original Basic or even Chainmail, but I'd argue that they maybe simpler on some levels, but actually more difficult in reality. Those earlier flavors/editions were made for hardcore wargame geeks and....a bit rough around the ridges. When Basic came out the game started to get a bit of a more widespread appeal and with that appeal came a lot of questions, rule clarifications, and published revisions in Dragon Magazine. Basic was literally a beta version of the more refined B/X release. If you read that version you can pretty much see it for yourself....even in just the layout of the pages.

If you start off playing D&D with the B/X edition you'll get essentially the most basic (pun not intended) yet refined edition that can be picked up for free/low cost. There's a TON of additional free/low cost resources for the game and a HUGE potential player base because most OSR players would be up for a game of B/X. 

In short there is a rather low barrier of entry, I'd argue the lowest, for playing RPGs or D&D if you choose the B/X version. For a new player of DM, get those games in, get that needed experience, and then you can branch out into the bazillion variations out there.

Now for those of us that are already more experienced....I suggest you keep B/X around and play it on occasion, for a couple of reasons: to grow new players and to do a compare & contrast. The growing new players is easy enough to figure out and helps pretty much everyone. As far as the compare & contrast?...

Now I've been pretty straight-forward in saying that I'm more of a fan of crunch in my game and B/X isn't that crunchy, so why would I advocate for it? Well just because I like a more complex game, it doesn't mean I'm good with adding said crunch. My fellow players/GM help with this and a lot of times a simpler approach works best. Playing B/X helps in context.