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Saturday, May 6, 2023

Deal of the Day - GM's Miscellany: Urban Dressing II (System Neutral Edition)


What can I say about Raging Swan's GM's Miscellany Series that hasn't been heard before? It is, quite simply, an amazing resource, both for game prep and for use in game, when your party zigs and you had planned for a zag.

Until tomorrow morning at 11 AM Eastern, GM's Miscellany: Urban Dressing II (System Neutral Edition) is available for 7 bucks in PDF, half off its usual 13.99 pricetag.

Tired of your towns and cities being boring, bland places in which your PCs show little or no interest? Want to bring them alive with cool, interesting minor features of note? Then Urban Dressing is for you! Each instalment in the line focuses on a different kind of town and gives harried GMs the tools to bring such locales to life with interesting and noteworthy features.

This compilation presents loads of great features, NPCs and minor encounters to add to the towns in your campaign. Designed to be used both during preparation or actual play, GM’s Miscellany: Urban Dressing II is an invaluable addition to any GM's armoury!

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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 

Friday, May 5, 2023

Humble Bundle - Battletech Legends (Fiction Bundle)

I literally had no idea how much fiction had been written for the Battletech universe. For 18 bucks, you get 60 titles from the Battletech Legends series of books in epub and mobi format, so whether you use a Nook or Kindle or something in between (or an app that works with such) you're in good hands.

An arsenal of BattleTech fiction

Explore a science-fiction universe of Great Houses, mercenaries, and BattleMechs with this collection of BattleTech tales! This library of 60 Legends ebooks features The Warrior Trilogy, The Gray Death Legion Saga, and more. Immerse yourself in thrilling sci-fi stories from Catalyst Game Labs, and help support Global Foodbanking Network with your purchase!




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, May 4, 2023

Deal of the Day - EZD6 Core Rulebook

What's the best way to put this? EZD6 is on my short list of "games I want to run but seriously lack the time to do so, including Tiny d6, the latest edition of RuneQuest, and ICRPG. So many games to play, and so little time to do so.

Until tomorrow morning, EZD6 is 50% off in PDF format, making its price 6.25. I'd jump on it, but I already own it in Print AND PDF ;)

Here's what you can expect:

  • -EZD6 Core rules: D6 dice pooling with a few key innovations like boons and banes, strikes instead of hit points and variable damage, and a fun player micro-resource called karma.
  • -9 Hero Paths: Scotty cooks the classics with his own spices. Each hero path is nicely separate from the next, with key roles to give you that MVP feeling in your group.
  • -20 classic monsters, 20 crazy ones: This is my favorite section of the book. Placing emphasis on a monster's narrative specialities, rather than numeric, seems too open-ended, but these horrors just nail it. The entries are tight enough to play cold, but weird enough to mod and enjoy from memory. 
  • -Tables: No RPG is complete without random ways to select baddies, treasures, NPC names, lair details, story twists, and more. We got those covered.

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, May 3, 2023

Kickstarter - Scoundrels of Brixton (Traveller/Cepheus Engine)


A sci-fi setting of crime and conflict compatible with Cepheus Engine.

First, let me get the disclaimer out of the way. Jeff Jones, the main man behind Scoundrels of Brixton, did the layout for Torchlight Zero and Torchlight #1, as well as the forthcoming Continual Light digest-sized edition. To say I know Jeff may be a bit of an understatement. Jeff also publishes some of the most professional Zine in our corner of the universe, to the extent that our very own Bad Mike says it may be a disservice to refer to them as "zines".

Earlier tonight, Mike & I had Jeff and Adam Kovac on Talking Crit Live!, to discuss Scoundrels of Brixton and other projects, as well as going off-topic in many different directions. Give it a watch, you won't be disappointed.

Scoundrels of Brixton is funding on Kickstarter for another week. You can snag it in Print plus PDF for 15 bucks (plus shipping), or as little as 3 bucks in PDF. There is even a POD version available to help those who live outside the States.

Are you a referee looking for a gritty science-fiction setting? Do your players crave mayhem? Scoundrels of Brixton injects player characters into a seedy civilization in the far future. A role-playing environment where there's no shortage of action and moral dilemma. A setting tailored for space-going heroes driven to fight injustice, or interstellar villains seeking to launch a criminal empire.

Contents Include:

  • 20 Dynamic NPCs to immerse the party.
  • 5 Factions/Gangs to complicate the characters' lives.
  • 8 Major Corporations exerting influence in the Brixton system.
  • 6 Distinct Districts to experience in Sky City.
  • 8 Diverse Settlements on the planet Deluvia.
  • 7 Explorable Planets to support a variety of genres. 
  • 5 Star Systems that set the political backdrop.
  • All wrapped within a concise but detailed setting that's loaded with crime and conflict.

 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, May 2, 2023

Bundle of Holding - FASA Traveller


Back in the Way Back, in the early days of roleplaying games, Traveller was the first Scifi RPG of any note, and FASA was one of the early licensees.

My collection of FASA Traveller releases is very incomplete, and a current Bundle of Holding has FASA Traveler for the taking in PDF, starting at 9.95.

Traveller! This all-new FASA Traveller Bundle presents .PDF ebooks of the early 1980s Classic Traveller supplements published by FASA Corporation. Later known for BattleTech and Shadowrun, FASA started as a Traveller licensee, publishing starship deck plans and adventures, many by the prolific designer J. Andrew Keith and his brother William. Still admired today, these modules represent old-school Traveller design at its best. Now you can get .PDFs of almost the entire FASA Traveller line for an unbeatable bargain price.

(These adventures and deck plans require one or another version of the Classic Traveller rules, such as our Little Black Books Starter Pack in the Bundle of Holding Store.)

For just US$9.95 you get all eight complete titles in our Starter Collection (retail value $66) as DRM-free ebooks, including 15mm-scale deck plans for the luxury spaceliner King Richard, along with its accompanying module Action Aboard: Adventures on the King Richard; five Classic Traveller adventures – The Harrensa Project, Ordeal By Eshaar, Rescue On Galatea, The Stazhlekh Report, and Uragyad'n of the Seven Pillars; and the large map set for a towering Starport Hotel Complex.

Traveller deck plan for the Aslan Hero starship Engineering DeckAnd if you pay more than the threshold price of $22.57, you'll level up and also get our entire Bonus Collection with twelve more titles worth an additional $104, including the much-admired Sky Raiders module trilogy by J. Andrew Keith and William H. Keith; the FCI Consumer Guide equipment book; four sets of starship deck plans – Leander, Fenris and Valkyrie, Tethys, and Vlezhdatl; and four collections of ship plans in FASA's Adventure Class Ships series.

 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, May 1, 2023

Deal of the Day - Borderlands (RuneQuest)


The first sandbox campaign I ever ran was Pavis and Big Rubble, using the RuneQuest 2e rules. It was an amazing summer campaign in the late 80s.

I always wanted to grab a copy of Borderlands, but I was never able to find it at the time (RuneQuest 3 was the in-print edition at the time).

Until tomorrow morning, Borderlands is 3 bucks in PDF (normally 15). This is an amazing value, whether you play RuneQuest or not.

This is a completely remastered version of the Borderlands boxed set into a single PDF. 

The original boxed Borderlands supplement contained two referee’s booklets, seven separately bound scenarios, a 17”x 22” regional map, play-aids, and inserts.

The Referee’s Handbook contains notes on referee and player functions, regional history, cultural/ecological background for the peoples along the River of Cradles, short studies of Duke Raus of Rone (holder of the Weis Domain) and his family and servitors, geographical information, magical items, and generic statistics for natural animals and unnatural monsters in the area. This book tells the referee how the land lays, giving him, or her, plenty of ammunition with which to answer player questions and elbow room by which to alter scenarios or to create new ones.

The Seven Scenarios are arranged so that they form an extended adventure when played in sequence; any of them can be used individually with slight adjustments.

  • Scenario 1: Scouting the Land
  • Scenario 2: Outlaw Hunt
  • Scenario 3: Jezra’s Rescue
  • Scenario 4: Revenge of Muriah
  • Scenario 5: Five Eyes Temple
  • Scenario 6: Condor Crags
  • Scenario 7: To Giantland!

The Encounters Book contains the individual NPC statistics used in the scenarios as well as various encounter charts. Monsters or NPCs specific to particular scenarios will be found in those scenarios. Statistics for Raus, Daine, and Daryli can be found in the Referee’s Handbook.

The map of The Domain in the Referee’s Handbook shows the extent of the duke’s River of Cradles holding, with the land to either side from Vulture’s Country to Horn Gate, and from below the Sun Dome temple to above Corflu. Routes of travel should be plotted using this map.

The play-aids at the end of this book include a copy of Daine’s Map and a copy of the map to the Fish Temple. A copy of the Duke’s Contract can be found in the Referee’s Handbook.

Note: This is a fully-remastered PDF true to the original printing.


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, April 30, 2023

The Unwritten Agreement that is a Convention Game

The Unwritten Agreement that is a Convention Game
Last night I was in a small group helping our GM in prepping for an up-coming convention game. We're playtesting some rules and helping him tweak the adventure. After we were done with what bit of the game we had managed (it was largely a character creation and rule dissemination session) the GM asked what we felt about the adventure setup and  how the beginning/intro went.

Now I've got quite a bit of tournament/convention game experience under my belt, not only as a player, but as a writer and even organizer. I can honestly say I've seen some shit. Good shit, bad shit, and the HUGE gambit of the in-between....especially as it pertains to setting up the game/session for a convention.

Oooof....I've got stories upon stories here, but I'll spare you for the most part. The thing is, at it's core, the setup for a convention game isn't nearly as important as you might expect. When players sit down at a convention table to play, they've already signed off on a whole slew of gaming parameters. They've already agreed to a system and a specific time-frame within which they make themselves available. This isn't a home-game where they have the freedom to whatever the eff they want. "Hey, let's spend 6 hours roleplaying spending all our gold on hookers and booze whilst planning which tomb to plunder next."

No, players are generally focused and in the convention setting a little railroading goes a long, long way. The GM doesn't need to convince the players to do much of anything, so an hour or so of role-play can easily be condensed down into a paragraph or two of setup flavor text. Actually from my experience, the setup should be a paragraph or two of flavor text.

Story Time (Example) 1: As an organizer I once had a writer send me, I shit you not, 4+ pages of adventure setup. A page for the table GMs I get, but pages of backstory, NPC motivations, and role-playing the pre-adventure.....ugh. Now that was bad, but what was worse was that the writer was sending me adventure updates as late as the morning of the convention game.

Story Time (Example) 2: I was playing in an online convention tournament that had absolutely no setup whatsoever. It was a HackMaster (4th edition) game and the way tournaments ran your PCs would essentially be plucked from your home game/wurld (this misspelling was a thing) and plopped down into essentially a new wurld to do a thing (the adventure). Maybe it was the Gawds, maybe not...who cares? You hopefully survive, do the thing, get some loot, and get popped back where you were plucked from. In this one online convention game my PC just gets plucked from the home wurld and dropped into a void. No outside stimuli whatsoever. Now as a player I'm like, "W..T....F!" Nope, that's it....I'm out. If I was at a physical convention table I'd have sat for a few minutes (at best) then just noped the fuck out. The GM wasn't too thrilled when I immediately informed him(?) that I was done, but as far as I knew my PC was dead. Well, dead or dying.

There is an unwritten agreement when it comes to convention games......players have come to play and they really just need to be pointed to the start so they can work through the middle towards the end. They are much more likely to take extra, even suicidal, risks with their PCs that they would never do in a home game, BUT they need a reason to do so....not much of a reason...at least a paragraph or two of flavor text.....

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