Tenkar's Tavern: three castles award

Showing posts with label three castles award. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

News - Three Castles RPG Design Award - 2020 has been Announced

and the winner is:

"Operation: Deep Freeze & Thunderclap"

by Ben Burns, Ellena Landara & Paul Riegel-Green

A Top Secret Soviet lab located just outside a small town in Latvia. Secrets put in Deep Freeze. Secrets that leaked out in the dead of winter. Secrets of things that should never have been.
Operation Deep Freeze is a Top Secret: New World Order mission.
This 80 page book is a double adventure that includes both Operation: Deep Freeze and Operation: Thunderclap. This adventure takes a set of ICON agents from London to Latvia, to the Baltic, Middle East and Africa.
Jump into this world-wind is this easy to use mission for the spies in all of us.

Note: Operation: Deep Freeze & Thunderclap is available for 5.99 in PDF at DTRPG. Its 14 bucks in Print from New Comet Games directly.

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Tuesday, March 3, 2015

The Nominations for the Three Castles Award (NTRPG Con) Have Been Announced

The Steering Committee has come back with their choices, and the four nominees for 2015 follow:

Castle of the Mad Archmage - +Joseph Bloch

Scarlet Heroes - +Kevin Crawford

Inferno: Journey Through Malebolge - Paul Elkman

AX2: d30 Sandbox Companion - +Richard LeBlanc

and the judges for this year's award are:

Christopher Clark, Allen Hammack, Erol Otus, Merle Rasmussen, Steve Winter

The only entry I am not familiar with is Inferno. I guess I need to do some research. It should be a very interesting NTRPG Con in June.

(original post by +Michael Badolato over on the NTRPG Con forums)

Saturday, June 7, 2014

New Big Dragon Wins the Three Castles Award for Valley of the Five Fires (NTRPG Con)

Quick post before heading down to our evening game.

+Richard LeBlanc AKA New Big Dragon Games Unlimited won the Three Castles Award for Valley of the Five Fires.

Congrats to Rich and his editor David Welborn.

I'll have an interview with Rich sometime next week to discuss Valley of the Fire Fires, other products he currently has out and find out what in the hopper over at New Big Dragon.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Five Finalists for the Three Castles RPG Design Award Have Been Announced

The five finalists for the Three Castles RPG Design Award are:

Adventurer Conqueror King System
by: Alexander Macris

Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea
by: Jeffrey Talanian

Barrowmaze
by: Greg Gillespie

Cavemaster RPG
by: Jeff Dee

DCC RPG
by: Joseph Goodman

With the exception of Cavemaster (which I never heard of before) I own the list, and these are all strong choices. Four out of five are game systems and the fifth is probably the strongest megadungeon released in 2012 (yes, I'm talking about you Barrowmaze.

You can read the original thread at the NTRPGCon forums here.

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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