Content Question - What Resources Would Make Your Swords & Wizardry Light Experience Better? (Poll)

What would make your Swords & Wizardry Light experience better?

I'm sure that's a question that can be asked of most any RPG and in some way the answers will apply to all OSR systems, but Swords & Wizardry Light has a unique challenge - it's more than a Quickstart but less than a fully robust game system. Four pages of rules imposed some space limitations.

So, what we want to know is what you would like to have available to make your experience with Swords & Wizardry Light "better" for you and your group. Better is a relative word, so I'll give you some random ideas:

- Real play examples

- New spells

- Sample magic items

- New monsters

- Sample encounters

- One Sheet / Short adventures

- Sample setting

- New classes (currently being play tested)

- More levels (currently being play tested)

- New races

Again, this is just a small list and certainly not all inclusive. Much of this potential new content would be posted here at The Tavern and / or on the Swords & Wizardry Light Resource Page, also hosted here at The Tavern.

There is a poll attached to this post. You may choose multiple answers. Please feel free to comment and add your thoughts to the mix. Swords & Wizardry Light was written to be your game, so tell us* what you want.

*Note - "Us" doesn't refer to just James, Zach and myself, nor is it limited to FGGs. "Us" in this context is the Swords & Wizardry Light Community. 

White Star Pocket Setting Survey - Time for Input

This is the plan on how I'll make the presentation of the Pocket settings work.

Each month I plan to present approximately 8 pages of material for a White Star setting. Backers of The Tavern's Patreon will get a quick and dirty PDF of the material, but it will all be available freely on the blog. Every four months or so, it will be put together as an inexpensive PDF on the blog and possibly in print for some of the higher Patreon backers. Depends of feasibility.

This week I'm going to brainstorm some setting ideas. That will be a poll for a week from now more or less.

So, here's are the poll questions more or less:

Do you want an 8 page monthly pocket setting (sector / system / planet / space station every month) that isn't related to the previous month's material?

Do you want a series of monthly material on the same setting for 4 months (32 pages) but at different levels of detail (each month would be either sector / system / planet / space station / intro adventure?)

Easy peasy.

Edit - Poll gets chopped off in Chrome on my mac but looks fine using Chrome on my phone. Anyone else having issues?

What is Your "Sweet Spot" of Level Range for Pre-Written Adventures? (Poll)

Initially I was going to phrase the question as "commercial" adventures, but that would imply it would have to have a cost and the OSR is abundant in freely available ODR adventures, many of them of high quality.

I recently rediscovered the abundant collection of freely available adventures at Dragon's Foot. I've also been readily enjoying the recent S&W White Box releases as well as other adventures in my collection.

It occurred to me that the higher the level of the adventure, the less likely I'll be able to use it without making major changes to adventures as written. Higher level play for me, at least, requires customization to the part of characters in question.

In any case, I plopped a survey in the upper right hand corner of the blog.

Vote and drop your comments and thought's here. If your answer wouldn't fit the admitedly simple poll choices, comment away.

Uncle Vince has Given me the Keys to the Brainstorm Podcast - Lets Decide on Some Show Topics (Poll)

Yes, there is a poll up on the right side of this page.

Help me put together a list of future show topics for The Brainstorm Podcast.

Now, I know my ideas to the right are not the be all and end all - The Tavern's patrons are some of the most thoughtful, intelligent and opinionated members of the OSR.

Here's you chance to tell us what to do.

So answer the poll to the right - you CAN vote more than once. If you have topics of your own that you think we should cover, add it as a comment below. If we use it I'll send you a $5 RPGNow gift certificate.

So, what are you waiting for? Tell us what you think - you know you want to ;)

Random Winners From the Latest Poll

I promised to award $5 RPGNow Gift Certificates to two random commenters on the Unofficial Poll - Artwork Behind Your Text in RPG Purchases or "Plain Vanilla"?

And the winners are:

+matt jackson and rachel ghoul

send me your emails so i can send out those gift certificates :)

edit: send to tenkarsDOTtavern at that gmail thing

The Votes Are In - People Want the Moldvay Boxed Set Reprinted Next

The Results are in and the Moldvay version of the D&D basic set (128 votes / 39% of voters included it) is the most requested TSR Era ruleset that folks would like to see back in print. I strongly suspect the D&D Rules Cyclopedia would have been neck and neck with Moldvay if I had only remembered to include it in the poll.  I'm giving it special mention, as it certainly led in the "write in votes" on G+ and the comments section of the posts here at the Tavern.

The OD&D Boxed Set came in at 111 votes (34% of votes) in both a boxed version AND as a hard cover compilation. Not too shabby. D&D Supplements I-V came in at a respectable 84 votes (26% of the vote). There is a lot of love for OD&D out there, at least from the readers of this blog (not a huge surprise).

B 1-9 led amongst the different compilations of the adventures with 86 votes (26%) and the Fiend Folio led the AD&D era books with 77 votes (23%).

So, Wizards, if you're listening, how about getting the Moldvay Basic Set and the Rules Compendium ready for repring after Unearthed Arcana. For old times sake ;)

Poll - What Would You Like to See WotC Reprint Next?

Unearthed Arcana is the next reprint to be coming from WotC. The Player's Handbook, DMG and MM for AD&D 1E have already been released.

What else would you like to see WotC reprint from the classic years of Dungeons & Dragons?

The above poll will be live through 10/1 (next monday morning).

If something isn't in the list, add it to the comments above.

(this blog gets views from Renton and Seattle, so maybe the powers that be will hear your voices ;)

The Poll Results are in - Labyrinth Lord Wins by a Late Surge (Blood & Treasure a Solid Second)

Yep, the Poll is now closed, and the results are in.

Election results were verified by the same fine folks that verify elections in most 3rd world countries. Was there some ballot box stuffing? Based on the late Labyrinth Lord surge, it's certainly possible, but it's nice to see folks looking forward to playing their favorite game.






Final tally for the top five:

Labyrinth Lord with 111 votes

Blood & Treasure with 94 votes

Swords & Wizardry Complete with 68 votes

Castles & Crusades with 50 votes

Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea with 50 votes

What this all means is that I'll be running a session or two of Labyrinth Lord for readers of the Tavern in early October. I'll work out the details and obviously post it here to recruit players. Aiming for a one shot, but if enough want to play I'll run it twice for two separate groups.

In addition to LL, I'll also run a session or two of Blood & Treasure at the end of October or early November. The two were neck and neck for most of the week, with either one in first place depending on when you peeked at the numbers.

Congrats to all the games - they all got votes and they are all winners :)

48 Hours Into the Poll - 165 Votes!

Yep, the WHICH "OLD SCHOOL" RPG SHOULD YOUR FRIENDLY TAVERN KEEPER RUN FOR THE PATRONS OF THIS BLOG IN OCTOBER ON G+ HANGOUTS?" poll has 165 votes nearly 48 hrs into the poll.

Damn sweet! 5 days to go, so if you haven't voted (or even better, are looking to play in October) vote (and comment if you would like).

Top 3 contenders at the moment are:

Labyrinth Lord with 38 votes

Blood & Treasure with 36 votes

Swords & Wizardry Complete with 34 votes.

Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea is leading with 5 mentions in the comments section of the "Poll Post" - vocal fans there ;)

I think I'll go with Porky's advice, and give a quick paragraph on each, maybe split into 4 posts with 4 systems to a post - something t bang out during "Football Sunday" :)

I Wonder How Close the Current Poll Mirrors Current Games Played Trends

For the poll asking folks to vote on "Which OSR game system they would want me to run on G+ Hangouts for them" I gave 16 choices and allow folks to vote for more than one choice.

About 12 hours later, there are 70 votes (!), and already a pattern can be seen:

Labyrinth Lord (21 votes) and Swords & Wizardry Complete (19 votes) are practically neck n' neck. They also have been around the longest - they are pretty much the "OSR Name Brands".

Blood & Treasure (14 votes) and Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea (12 votes) and very recent releases and have gotten good feedback and word of mouth.

Crypts & Things and LotFP Weird Fantasy both have 11 votes. Both take classic assumptions and about FRPGs and make them something else.

Interesting results so far.  The should only get more interesting over the next week of the poll.

(As an asides, the supporters of AS&SH have been the most vocal in the comments section of the post linked to the poll)

Poll Results are in: Old School Spell Level Caps for the Win (Barely)

There can be only one - well, not really. Everyone has their own preference of where to cap spell levels at.

The preferred cap for 38% of the poll responses was 6 magic-user / 5 cleric, which corresponds to OD&D.

Right behind that was 9 magic-user / 7 cleric, which of course matches up to AD&D. That came in at 33%, but by pure numbers only a difference of 7 votes.

Capping at level 9 for magic-users and clerics is a 3x concept if I'm not mistaken, and came in at 24%.

Honestly, it's a bit across the board, and not one answer was overwhelming in it's responses.

Kinda tells me a have a nice cross section of mostly OSR type readers on this blog, but also a chunk of 3x / Pathfinder / why play a game with levels in it readers too.

That's okay, in the near future I should have my copies of Drinking Quest in hand. I suspect that game will appeal to readers and gamers of all editions and rule sets ;)

(there were 127 total responses to the poll - thanks to all who took the time to respond)

"How Large is Your Gaming Group?" Poll is Closed - Time to Pick a Winner

I'm pretty excited by the "How Large is Your Gaming Group?" Poll. 310 blog readers casted votes! Simply amazing. I am at a loss for words, really. I would have been happy if we had topped 100.

So, we have 47 fine folk that left comments on two related blog posts for this contest. 45 on the main post and two on the follow up post. So, 1-45 on the original post, 46-47 from the follow up post - breaking out my trusty d50 (d100/2), disregarding results of 48-50.

Drum roll...

42

Roger from the A Life Full of Adventure blog.

Congrats!

Roger, I need you to email me at erikATtrubluniteDOTnet with the email address you use at RPGNow, and I will see that the fine folks over at RPGNow hook you up with a $10 gift certificate.

Thanks to everyone!

Two Days Left in the Poll - 245 Votes So Far!

I am continually being humbled by the response of the readers of this blog. First, last months DCC RPG contest, which had 133 entries. Now, the poll thats been running for the last 5 days (2 days left as I write this) - 245 votes.

245 votes in 5 days.

I would have been happy with 100 before the poll closed, and we might come close to 300 at this rate. If that isn't a humbling experience, I don't know what is.

I'm kind of surprised at the extremely low number of 1 on 1 play - I somehow expected that number to me larger. Not large, but larger.

Looking forward to the final results. :)

How Large is Your Typical Gaming Session?

How large is your typical gaming session?

For me, it seems to be in the 4 to 6 range for my regular weekly ACKS game, but 3 or 4 for my DCC sessions. So overall, I'm in the 4-6 range.

I'm curious how it is for the rest of you.

GM or player, cast your vote and add a comment below.

One of the commenters will get a $10 gift certificate to RPGNow.

In a Few Hours The Dragon's True Name Will Be Known

As I type this, the Name the Nameless Dragon Poll has about 9 hours left.  With Sully conceding, it looks like Feltothraxis will be the dragons "true name", with all rewards and responsibilities regarding such falling on the submitter of the name (damn, that sounds like true "legalese"... heh), assuming no one successfully mounts a challenge over the next few hours.

It ain't over 'till it's over... but it's probably over ;)

Everything I Needed to Know, A Dragon Taught Me

This contest has taken a life of it's own. I may need to quote from some of the best comments to make sure the posters get the attention (and laughs) they deserve once this runs it's course.

I believe the poll ends sometime tomorrow. I should be able to announce the winners sometime tomorrow evening / sunday morning the latest.

It looks to be a two dragon race between Ullduthindor and Sully, but I do expect this to go down to the wire.

Soon the Dragon shall have a name ;)

A Tight Race in the Name the Nameless Dragon Poll

Holy Democracy Batman! We've had over 75 voters so far for the Name the Nameless Dragon Poll. Every morning I wake up and I'm very pleasantly surprised at the votes that have been tallied overnite.

The current vote leader is Sully with 20 votes, Feltothraxis in a close second place with 17 and Ullduthindor still in the race with 14 votes.

If you haven't cast your vote(s) yet, do so. The poor dragon needs a name and only YOU can choose it! ;)

Color Me Surprised!

The Name the Nameless Dragon Poll seems to have taken on a life of it's own.  At least 3 fellow bloggers are putting on a "get out the vote" movement.  Believe it or not, this is as much fun for me as it is for you.  Heck, I had to stop reading the blog at work for fear of laughing out loud at my desk.

All that and Conan O'Brien stopped by the building I work in trying to do a skit of sorts... he hijacked a Chinese Food delivery guy and was going to deliver the food himself.  Only problem is it was food going to my Lt. and myself.  She was very surprised, very annoyed and long story short we didn't get our order after she turned around and walked away.  Maybe I should have asked Conan for a few naming suggestions ;)

Sad Dragon Needs a Name

Just a quick update on the Naming the Nameless Dragon Poll. We currently have 43 readers that have cast votes with 3 days to go... nicely done! Keep 'em coming.

Feltothraxis has a bit of a "grass roots" movement behind it and is currently in the lead with 10 votes, followed by Sully, Tenkasarus and Ulduthindor in the top 3 spots.

With 3 days left to vote, it's still anyone's guess ;)

The Power of Democracy in Naming a Dragon

I'm looking at the numbers for the Name the Nameless Dragon Poll and I'm pretty impressed. We have 27 readers that have voted thus far (if you haven't yet voted, please do!) and we have 4 days left in the voting process. Pretty cool!

As voters can cast more then 1 vote, the total votes cast is more then 27, but we can point out the vote leaders in the currently tight race:

Sully has 6 votes
Feltothraxis has 5 votes
Tenkasarus and Uldurthindor are tied for third with 4 votes each.

Every entry has at least one vote and the race is far from decided.

Vote and vote often (or at least once, but for all the choices that strike your fancy)