Tenkar's Tavern: 2023-10-08

Saturday, October 14, 2023

Kickstarter - Familiar RPG Coins

At a gaming session, in your pocket, or on display - keep your favorite Familiar with you at all times with these large Familiar Coins!

I'm a sucker for dice, but even more so, I'm a sucker for fantasy coins. Artwork that can be held, put in your pocket, and looked at at random is simply something very special to me.

The Familiar RPG Coins Kickstarter offers these 1/4 pound coins - they ARE large, for 22 bucks each - 5 coins can be had for 100 plus shipping (and they ship in time for the December Holidays). I'm in for 5 for Rach and myself - thinking cat, owl, pseudodragon, rat, and one other. Fun times!

Goliath Coins are incredibly detailed, large metal coins, with sculpted 3D art. Each coin comes with a display stand.
This series of Goliath Coins features "Familiar RPG Coins" and consists of ten different Familiars!
You can keep your favorite Familiar with you at all times - at a gaming session, in your pocket, or on display!
They can also be used as a game marker, first player token, game prop, inspiration token, deck topper, card guard, or good luck piece.

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DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar

Friday, October 13, 2023

Kickstarter - How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox (Bat in the Attic)

A book that teaches you how to create a hex crawl-formatted setting for a fantasy sandbox campaign.

Rob Conley writes about "How to make a fantasy sandbox." Need I say more?

What is a Hexcrawl-formatted setting?
A hex grid is placed over a map of the setting with each hex numbered. The hex location of the various locales such as lairs, are noted and arranged into an index. This format provides a convenient way to reference detailed local information within the setting.
You can look at the map, see the hex number the location is in, and then look it up quickly in the book. It works in reverse as well. You can read about a location in the book, which will have its hex location noted in the text. Then look up where it is on the map quickly.
This allows for easy access to dozens if not hundreds of detailed locations scattered across the setting map.
Hexcrawls and Sandbox Campaigns
Sandbox campaigns are distinguished by the fact the players drive the campaign forward by their choices. While there are many types of sandbox campaigns, one common type is where the group arrives at a location on the map and begins exploring the region.
Regardless of the type of sandbox that is being run, the possibility exists that the players will decide that they need to head west instead of east in pursuit of their goals. The ease of looking locations up makes the hexcrawl-formatted setting a useful tool for the referee trying to keep ahead of their players while running a sandbox campaign.
How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox will teach you how to make a hexcrawl-formatted setting and explain what details are important to include to handle the different types of sandbox campaigns.

Rewards
This project is offering three rewards:
How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox (Digest PDF/Book, 150+ pages)
The Isle of Pyade Setting (Digest PDF/Book, 50+ pages)
Blackmarsh Revised Layout (Digest Book, 39 pages)

Thursday, October 12, 2023

GoFundMe - Ernie "The Barbarian" Gygax Needs Aid

Without further commentary:

Dave Conant is organizing this fundraiser.
We have a friend in need...can you help?
Ernie “The Barbarian” Gygax has been in many D&D battles in his life being the eldest son of the co-creator of the D&D game. Now, he is in a fight for his very life – in fact, he has been in-and-out of hospitals and in-and-out of critical condition over the last few months. He even died for several minutes this past week, but was able to be revived. I won't go into many details, but he has a heart defect that results in not enough blood being pumped through his body and, more importantly, not delivered to vital organs...like the kidney. That means, in addition to heart issues, he is also needing dialysis to help the kidney to do it's job. Like any barbarian though, he keeps fighting – winning each individual battle so far, but he's getting wary and frustrated by his body's growing weaknesses.
The initial reason for this fundraising campaign is to help Ernie and Donna with the medical bills that are already mounting AND to help cover some of the hotel expenses for Donna (Ernie's significant other, soulmate, and Health Care POA), while she stays by Ernie's side every day at the hospital helping him through this and making some VERY difficult medical decisions along the way. Going forward with the time he has left, even accounting for the best possible situation, Ernie will need to follow strict guidelines and be severely limited in his activities...but HOPES that he and Donna can once again offer a place at their home in Lake Geneva for gamers to stop by and roll some dice.
Did you know that:
The cost for an Air Ambulance (Life Flight) is between $12,000 - $25,000 (used twice),
Average Ambulance transport in Wisconsin is $1,200 (used twice)
Average for 1 Day in ICU/Critical Care: Numbers vary widely depending on how sick you are, but an average of $8,000-10,000 is typical – more the first few days and a little less beyond that (More than 10 WEEKS in 4 different hospitals.),
Average for 1 Day of regular hospital care for heart issue patients is $4,000 (Used 15-20 days),
Most insurance plans only pay up to 80% of those costs (if they pay them at all)
Today Ernie is fighting for his life...tomorrow they'll both be fighting to dig out from the pile of bills – even with insurance picking up a good portion of that tab. He has used all of those expensive services multiple times during his struggle over the last few months plus many doctor visits for months before that as he began feeling the affects of his body's weakening. Between the various ambulance services, hospitals, numerous doctors, procedures, medications and services provided, they'll be getting bills for many months.
Please lend your aide and contribute what you're able to help a gaming community friend in need.

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Bundle of Holding - The Arcane Library

For many of us in the OSR, Kelsey Dionne came out of nowhere with Shadowdark, but the reality is she was publishing 5e material for a while before she struck gold in the OSR market.

Well, The Arcane Library, Kelsey's publishing label, is one of the current bundles over at Bundle of Holding.

For just US$9.95 you get all eleven titles in our Arcane Collection (retail value $45) as DRM-free ebooks:
Eight D&D Fifth Edition horror modules: Masque of the Worms (for 1st-level characters), Valley of the Gilded Tower (level 2), Crypts of Azarumme (level 3), Watchers in the Dark (level 4), The Snow Stalkers (level 5), Beneath the Black Rose (level 6), The Curse of Wardenwood (level 7), and The Horror Within (level 8)
A 20th-level adventure in a live volcano, Fires of Iskh
The Ultimate Combat Cards Full Set with hundreds of print-and-cut reference cards for all the monsters, spells, and items in the D&D System Reference Document
And we also include the free Shadowdark RPG Quickstart Set

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Bundle of Holding - Best Left Buried RPG

Well, although Best Left Buried declares itself as "old-school fantasy-horror tabletop roleplaying", I can't identify the old-school RPG it is seeking to emulate. Still, you can peek at what is essentially the Best Left Behind SRD and decide for yourself if you like what you see before buying in. I find the D6-based system interesting enough to put down just over 20 bucks, and it might become another option for convention and pick-up games for me.

Cryptdigger! This all-new Best Left Buried Bundle presents Best Left Buried, the rules-light fantasy horror tabletop roleplaying game from SoulMuppet Publishing where the monsters are scary and the players are scared. Players take the role of Cryptdiggers, professional dungeon-divers who venture underground in search of riches. Cryptdiggers brave dark tunnels, solve cryptic puzzles, and face terrifying monsters. Characters who survive might be permanently changed by their experience. They are often broken, beaten, and diminished – as ruined as the crypts themselves.
Pay just US$7.95 to get the DRM-free .PDF Deeper compilation, funded in a September 2020 Kickstarter campaign, of all three core books for the Best Left Buried line: Cryptdigger's Guide to Survival, Doomsayer's Guide to Horror, and Hunter's Guide to Monsters (plus the free Best Left Buried Zini Edition), along with three short "Expanded Character Options" supplements: Ancestries, Consequences, and Heroic.
And if you pay more than the threshold price of $20.15, you'll level up and also get our entire Bonus Collection with five more adventures and supplements worth an additional $70, including the 308-page sandbox campaign Throne of Avarice and four old-school hexcrawl modules – Beneath the Missing Sea, Darkling Seas of Islesmere, Spoils of the Gorgon Coast, and Spy in the House of Eth.

Monday, October 9, 2023

Deal of the Day - Night's Black Agents

There's been a lot of talk about the GUMSHOE RPG Engine, which is the engine that powers Night's Back Agents. I like what I've read about the engine, and I really like the implied setting for Night's Black Agents, but I think I'd want to be a player in such a game and not the GM. Hmmmm.

Today's Deal of the Day is Night's Black Agents. Normally 24.95 in PDF, until tomorrow morning it is on sale for 4.99.

Night’s Black Agents brings the GUMSHOE engine to the spy thriller genre, combining the propulsive paranoia of movies like Ronin and The Bourne Identity with supernatural horror straight out of Bram Stoker. Investigation is crucial, but it never slows down the action, which explodes with expanded options for bone-crunching combat, high-tech tradecraft, and adrenaline-fueled chases.
Updating classic Gothic terrors for the postmodern age, Night’s Black Agents presents thoroughly modular monstrosity: GMs can build their own vampires, mashup their own minions, kitbash their own conspiracies to suit their personal sense of style and story. Rules options let you set the level of betrayal, grit, and action in your game. Riff from the worked examples or mix and match vampiric abilities, agendas, and assets for a completely custom sanguinary spy saga.
The included hook adventure gets the campaign going; the included city setting shows you what might be clotting in Marseilles’ veins even now. Rack silver bullets in your Glock, twist a UV bulb into your Maglite, and keep watching the mirrors … and pray you’ve got your vampire stories straight.

Sunday, October 8, 2023

MACE Vol 2 has been Relaunched

This isn't actually a re-post from July....

James Shields has re-launched his MACE Volume 2 Zine and it has basically a week & a half and a bit of funding to go.....basically he only needs 110 basic backers.

I'd personally recommend going with the $15 backer level so you get the POD and PDF versions. If you go with that first hyperlink I posted, you'll get a bit of a mini-review but I'll TL;DR it for you: James definitely gets PDF usage and made a great product with options to fit how you might want to, I don't know....actually use the zine at your table.

I won't go full rant, but I hate when publishers make a shitty PDF as an after-thought....and I've seen some real stinkers (like a huge high-res PDF that didn't allow printing....and it was a map!), so when I come across a squared-away PDF product, I will make a big deal of it.

This particular volume is all about Villains....unfortunately it'll be too late to use said villains in a Halloween adventure (should've backed back in July if that was an issue), but that's how these things go.

Now I'm clearly biased here and I'll be honest enough to admit I'm being a bit on the selfish side here promoting this Kickstarter....I want my copy and that won't happen if you don't try to get one as well....

Why "Swords & Wizardry?"

Believe me when I say I have them all in dead tree format. I have OSRIC in full size, trade paperback and the Player's Guide. I have LL and the AEC (and somewhere OEC, but I can't find it at the moment). Obviously I have Basic Fantasy RPG. Actually, I have the whole available line in print. Way too much Castles & Crusades. We all know my love for the DCC RPG. I even have Dark Dungeons in print, the Delving Deeper boxed set, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. BOTH editions of LotFP's Weird Fantasy and some dead tree copies of the Greyhawk Grognards Adventures Dark & Deep

I am so deep in the OSR when I come up for breath it's for the OSR's cousin, Tunnels & Trolls

So, out of all that, why Swords & Wizardry? Why, when I have been running a AD&D 1e / OSRIC campaign in Rappan Athuk am I using Swords & Wizardry and it's variant, Crypts & Things, for the second campaign? (Actually, now running a S&W Complete campaign, soon to be with multiple groups)

Because the shit works.

It's easy for lapsed gamers to pick up and feel like they haven't lost a step. I can house rule it and it doesn't break. It plays so close to the AD&D of my youth and college years (S&W Complete especially) that it continually surprises me. Just much less rules hopping than I remember. (my God but I can run it nearly without the book)

I grab and pick and steal from just about all OSR and Original resources. They seem to fit into S&W with little fuss. It may be the same with LL and the rest, but for me the ease of use fit's my expectations with S&W.

Even the single saving throw. That took me longer to adjust to, but even that seems like a natural to me now. Don't ask me why, it just does. Maybe it's the simplicity of it. At 45 52, simplicity and flexibility while remaining true to the feel of the original is an OSR hat trick for me ;)

Swords & Wizardry Light - Forum

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