Tenkar's Tavern: 2023-12-10

Saturday, December 16, 2023

Bundle of Holding - Dragonbane and Year Zero

I'm going to pick a nit with this Bundle of Holding - usually, you highlight a title in the Starter Collection, not the Bonus Collection. Dragonbane is in the Bonus Collection, not the Starter Collection, but I digress.

I've heard only good things about Vaesen and Forbidden Lands. I backed the Dragonbane Kickstarter and damn, but it's a beautiful set. If the rest of the releases in this bundle are of the same quality, it's a bargain and then some.

The Starter Collection Bundle of Dragonbane and Year Zero includes Vaesen, Forbidden Lands, Coriolis - The Third Horizon, and Mutant, Year Zero for 19.95 in PDF. The Bonus Collection is approximately 39 bucks and adds the Dragonbane Core Set, the Twilight: 2000 Core Set, Vaesen: Mythic Britain & Ireland as well as the Coriolis Atlas Compendium.

Adventurer! This new Dragonbane and Year Zero Bundle presents English-language tabletop roleplaying games from Free League Publishing, including the new Dragonbane game of magic, mirth, and mayhem, along with five Free League RPGs – Twilight: 2000, Vaesen, Forbidden Lands, Coriolis, and Mutant: Year Zero – that use the Year Zero Engine rules system also used in ALIEN, Blade Runner, The Walking Dead, and Tales From the Loop.
Dragonbane reimagines Drakar och Demoner (1982) with modern rules for fast and furious magical adventure, presented in a beautifully illustrated full-color core set including two books, maps, cards, pregenerated characters, and more, funded in a gigantic August 2022 Kickstarter campaign. And Year Zero games play just as fast, giving you meaningful and decisive results in one die roll. Well suited for harsh, survival-focused settings, Year Zero games are often deadly, and player characters are rarely safe from danger no matter how experienced they are. The YZE system is player-focused, story-driven, and adaptable.

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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, December 15, 2023

Humble Bundle - Pathfinder 2nd Edition Legacy Bundle

I am not a Pathfinder player. Never have been. That being said, the original Pathfinder Beginners Box was one of the best gaming values I've ever seen, and the Pathfinder 2e Beginners Box is damn close! You can snag a digital copy of the Pathfinder 2e Beginners Box for as low as 5 bucks with the cheapest bundle option.

The Pathfinder 2nd Edition Legacy Bundle includes THREE bestiaries in its collection - all under the OGL. So, it's ripe for the picking for other OGL systems (although future licensing and revisions will be under the ORC license)

Note: OSR Christmas emails for Days 1 and 2 will go out this weekend

Thursday, December 14, 2023

Gifting Gifts for OSR Christmas Day 1

Welcome to Day 1 of OSR Christmas for 2023 Day of Gifting. Note that Day 2 of OSR Christmas was on the Tavern Chat Livestream, on Wednesday Night, Dec 13th, 2023 @ 8 PM Eastern. Day 3 will be here, on the blog side, this weekend.

The following gifts are being gifted from OSR Christmas Day 1.

From MonkeyBlood: Gifted to Mark B

1 digital set of all three HandyMaps map content (Dungeons, Caves & Strange Locales; Buildings & Structures; and Towns & Villages) delivered via DriveThruRPG https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/7771/MonkeyBlood-Design/subcategory/22304_47441/HandyMaps (World Wide)

From DiceBro: Gifted to RhinoDino1973

PDF Bundle of issues1-3 of Wizard Funk, an OSR zine\\

From On the Tabletop: Gifted to Ryan

1 PDF copy of Holmes & Clark, along with digital goodies

From James Mishler Games: Gifted to Jason Jenson

1 Set of 12 PDFs (by my count) of James Mishler releases for Shadowdark as well as the Isle of Eldisor for Labyrinth Lord in PDF

From Tenkar's Tavern: Gifted to Brian (December 13, 2023 at 12:58 PM) & Narmer

2 $10 DTRPG Gift Certificates

Folks listed above will need to email me at TenkarsDOTtavernAT that gmail thing (trying to avoid the email scrub bots). Please put "OSR Christmas Day 1" in your header and mention who you are and the gift you are receiving in the body of the email. It's best to also include your DTRPG email, as some gifts will include codes for such.

Congrats to all!

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Bundle of Holding - Mongoose Traveller 2e

I had a blast with the original Traveller rules back in the day when dying during character generation was a thing. Now, with Mongoose Traveller 2e, it's not a thing, but the soul of the game has been refined and improved. Not sure I could convince my current group to play a Traveller campaign, but it would surely be fun.

For just US$17.95 you get all three titles in our Player Collection (retail value $100) as DRM-free ebooks, including the complete Mongoose Traveller 2E Starter Set, with the rules and the Fall of Tinath campaign; the versatile Traveller Companion rules expansion; and the newly released Central Supply Catalogue Update 2023.

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Mike Mearls Fire from WotC! X-Mas Purge Strikes Deep!

Yep, Mike was let go today, one of the 1,100 employees on Hasbro's chopping block.

There are others let go from WotC listed on this thread at ENWorld.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/updated-hasbro-laying-off-1-100-employees.701567/

I assume the thread will be updated

Monday, December 11, 2023

OSR Christmas 2023 - Day 1 - Its Time to Get into the Holiday Spirit!

OSR Christmas. Never duplicated, but it should be :)

Welcome to Day 1 of OSR Christmas for 2023. Note that Day 2 of OSR Christmas will be on the Tavern Chat Livestream, on Wednesday Night @ 8 PM Eastern.

The following gifts will be gifted on Thursday, December 14th, so make sure you comment before Noon Eastern time on December 14th and check back here to see if you are receiving a gift from OSR Christmas Day 1.

If you want to be considered for an OSR Christmas Day 1 gift, simply comment below.

From MonkeyBlood:

1 digital set of all three HandyMaps map content (Dungeons, Caves & Strange Locales; Buildings & Structures; and Towns & Villages) delivered via DriveThruRPG https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/7771/MonkeyBlood-Design/subcategory/22304_47441/HandyMaps (World Wide)

From DiceBro:

PDF Bundle of issues1-3 of Wizard Funk, an OSR zine\\

From On the Tabletop:

1 PDF copy of Holmes & Clark, along with digital goodies

From James Mishler Games:

1 Set of 12 PDFs (by my count) of James Mishler releases for Shadowdark as well as the Isle of Eldisor for Labyrinth Lord in PDF

From Tenkar's Tavern:

2 $10 DTRPG Gift Certificates

Sunday, December 10, 2023

I Tried to be Creative Today

I'm currently in the middle of a two-week work trip and it's defiantly a lazy Sunday for me. Yesterday I hit up a local game store, bought some stuff (some minis and a small video game machine), did my laundry, etc., so al I have on my schedule today is to finally sit down and finish the d30 Foraging/Hunting table I had been working on since two weeks ago.

Of course I left on this trip with my table notes at home, but no biggie because I pretty much remember everything I'd come up with so far....

....but I cannot actually start the project because my layout software decided it doesn't have to work anymore. Evidently everything BUT Adobe InDesign CS5 wants to work on my computer. I tried reinstalling so many times. Looked up the error codes, went through with the suggested Microsoft C++ updates, but......nothing.

Ok now I'm pissed. I've been using Adobe CS5 Suite because I'm not spending a metric buttload of $ to rent the current cloud version with the bells and whistles I'm not going to get much use out of. I went ahead and looked at some alternatives, and I think I might have found something I'll like using (even if I have to cough up $70 to do so), but great..........I literally cannot open .indd files outside of InDesign.

FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU......you get my frustration, hopefully.

After a bit of online running around I decided to just download Adobe's Creative Cloud app and then Adobe Illustrator on a free trial. No, you didn't read that wrong (well somebody didn't really read it at all), I downloaded Adobe Illustrator and you can imagine how frustrating it was when Illustrator simply wouldn't load InDesign files......

Now, to be fair, if you don't use the products everyday you probably don't see that one logo is "Id" and the other is "Ai", especially if you only downloaded one......so you see "Ai" and that feels right for "Adobe InDesign".

One uninstall, cancel the free trial, and a different download and I finally am able to look at my files. It's been hours since I started this ordeal.....and you know, $22 a month....a FREAKIN MONTH to use Adobe InDesign, no thank you. I went ahead and opened up every file I could and exported it to a INDL file which allegedly could be opened with a newer design\layout program.....that is not Adobe.

At this point I feel like I've wasted a significant portion of my day and I don't feel like screwing around creating a new d30 table. Clearly I am not a fan of subscription models for basic stuff and while I don't mind paying for the likes of Netflix of Disney+, I'm not going to pay a lot of money (I shit you not, $90 a month for updated software) to essentially rent software. Now if I was a professional artist (imagine that with a snooty accent, 'cause that's how I said it in my mind) and needed the newest toys to increase productivity and bring in more $$$, then I'm sure I wouldn't mind the business expense, but my ham-fisted attempts at hobby "writing" doesn't warrant such an expense.

It's probably easy enough to see the connection I've made between a subscription model and the OSR gaming hobby for me, but as I'm typing this out I have this nagging recollection in the back of my mind that there is something I'm missing.....

.....that's right! Hasbro was trying out a subscription model with D&D Beyond.

Oh no, eff that noise.

Later Evening Edit: I decided that instead of playing video games or watching a movie, which I really wanted to do, I better take advantage of the trial period on one of the new InDesign alternatives and while Affinity Publisher 2 might have a few issues, if I save as a PSD file and then use Photoshop to create the PDF it works. Don't ask me why I just cannot print to PDF directly, but whatever. I'm clearly rusty AF, but I did get my table done: d30 Foraging & Hunting Table. If you hop over there from here, put in $0 in the Pay What You Want amount and do so guilt-free 'cause I just told you to!

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 ;)

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