Tenkar's Tavern

Tuesday, April 9, 2024

Bundle of Holding - Discworld (GURPS)

I'm a HUGE Discworld fan and own the first edition of the Discworld Roleplaying Game (powered by GURPS). It is a great resource for fans of the fiction and quite a nice introduction to the GURPS ruleset.

Adventurer! This new Discworld Bundle presents the 2016 Discworld Roleplaying Game Second Edition standalone tabletop RPG Powered by GURPS, the Generic Universal RolePlaying System from Steve Jackson Games, and based on the Discworld comedic fantasy novels of Sir Terry Pratchett. Visit the magic-infused flat world resting on the backs of four elephants, venture to the far end of the probability curve, and THRILL to the distinctive sights, sounds, and smells (especially smells) of Ankh-Morpork, most dubious city in the multiverse! SAIL the Circle Sea in pursuit of glory, pirate gold, or a suntan! INTERVENE in the cultural interactions of trolls and dwarves (watch out for flying axes)! AVOID the attentions of Death, Fate, the Lady, Granny Weatherwax, and the Patrician! WONDER why you bought a second meat pie from Mr Dibbler!
For just US$14.95 you get all three titles in our Disc Collection (retail value $59) as DRM-free ebooks, including the complete 411-page Discworld Roleplaying Game (2016) along with two GURPS Fourth Edition supplements that enhance the setting: GURPS 4E Fantasy-Tech 1: The Edge of Reality and (from our June 2022 GURPS 4E Essentials offer) GURPS 4E Low-Tech.

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Monday, April 8, 2024

Deal of the Day - We Deal in Lead (Weird West)

I'm a huge fan of Spaghetti Westerns, as well as more recent classics like The Unforgiven, 3:10 to Yuma, and similar movies. It's purely American folklore and fantasy. I'm also a fan of post-apocalyptic settings and rulesets. Mix the two together and it seems like you got your chocolate in my peanut butter! ;)

We Deal in Lead is today's Deal of the Day at DTRPG. Normally 12.67 in PDF, but until tomorrow morning it is on sale for 6.33.

Edit - For what it's worth, I just bought and downloaded We Deal in Lead at the sale price and it looks very interesting.

We Deal in Lead is a weird west wanders TTRPG by Colin Le Sueur for 1 or more players. Streamlined rules, fast character creation, and gameplay built on exploration and player choice. Based on Cairn by Yochai Gal.
Features:
Set in a strange post-apocalyptic world eerily close to ours, where the borders of time and space wear thin
You are Gunslingers, mythic champions holding off the forces of chaos with lead and grit
Combat and exploration gameplay designed for 1 or more players, including solo or group play
Streamlined d20 roll-under rules based on Cairn, Into the Odd, and Knave
Hard-hitting gunslinger combat with new gun mechanics
Compatible with other Cairn adventures and settings; journey with your gunslingers into other genres and times
Recruit heroes from other worlds to join your quest, even those fallen to death; death is just another door, after all
Keep the bonds of fellowship strong within your Gunslinger Order and your aim will remain true
Wilderness survival and exploration through a world that has moved on — the known and unknown lands are dangerously unpredictable
Friend and train beast companions to act as your eyes, ears, or fangs, including hawks, wolves, and bumblers

Sunday, April 7, 2024

We Lost Dave Arneson 15 Years Ago...Today

Today is the 15th Anniversary of Dave Arneson's passing, a little more than a year after we lost Gary. Now I never had the opportunity to meet that latter, but I did briefly meet Dave at GenCon 2008*. I'm not quite sure what kind of sense of humor the man had in life, but I had an idea what it was in death. He was being wheeled around in a wheelchair and it was obvious he knew that his end drew near. I know that sounds a little macabre and I'd apologize, but that's exactly how it sat with me.

Anyway, he was going around visiting the booths and handing out these little baggies. I was at the KenzerCo booth as I was still a volunteer then, and Jolly Blackburn took the offering and didn't really look at it. Not surprising really for him, which isn't a negative commentary. He gets handed cool stuff all the time and he's more into the interaction that the "thing". Jolly hands it to me saying something like, "You want it?"

Sure.....I take a look and it's two Grey Gamescience D20's. Fuck yeah I'll take them....I am a Gamescience dice snob after all!

Upon closer inspection there is a small piece of paper. A note with a signature. The note read, "Rubbed in the hair of a live game designer." I do not think that was a snub against Gary, but a commentary on his own situation.

I've never rolled those d20's, and I likely never will.

The Empty Chair

Eulogy for a Gamer, by Jolly Blackburn

There is an empty chair,

at the table this day.

A hallowed place where,

a friend once played.

The roll of his dice,

my ears long to hear.

Or perhaps it would suffice,

if he should suddenly appear.

With character sheet in hand,

and a bag of Cheeze-doodles to share.

All his friends would stand,

as he sat in the empty chair.

I hear his voice a-callin’,

and it ties my heart in a knot.

For he cries, “Though a comrade has fallen,

You must play for those who cannot.”

We conquered worlds on the run,

he and I in the name of fun.

And as others may come and go,

I make both both friend and foe.

But what I long for most,

is our past now long a ghost.

Dave Arneson

October 1, 1947 – April 7, 2009

*It could have been Origins. I remember the meet, not the event.

Saturday, April 6, 2024

Bundle of Holding - Knights of the Dinner Table (Early KotDT)

If you didn't get on this early Knights of the Dinner Table collection back in 2018, here's your chance to grab it now.

Hoody-hoo! We've resurrected our May 2018 Knights of the Dinner Bundle, a huge collection of .PDF e-comics featuring the longest-running and most successful comic strip in tabletop roleplaying game history, Knights of the Dinner Table by Jolly R. Blackburn. This bargain-priced offer from Kenzer & Company – one of two KoDT bundles now in progress – gives you well over a thousand pages from this classic comic's 30-year-run. In every issue, the players in B. A. Felton's HackMaster campaign find so many devious new ways to torment their Gamemaster, you'll say "They're just like my players!"
For just US$9.95 you get all nine titles in our Starter Collection (retail value $86) as DRM-free comics, including the first five KoDT Bundle of Trouble omnibus collections that together compile the first 15 issues of Knights of the Dinner Table magazine (Volume 1, V2, V3, V4, and V5), plus three Tales from the Vault collections of scarce early strips from four different magazines (V1, V2, and V3), and The CattlePunk Chronicles Volume 1: Outlaw Trail.
And if you pay more than the threshold price of $25.83, you'll level up and also get our entire Bonus Collection with nine more comics worth an additional $88.50, including five more KoDT Bundles of Trouble that collect KoDT issues #16-30 (V6, V7, V8, V9, and V10); the second CattlePunk Chronicles collection, Four Herdsmen of the Apocalypse; and three standalone issues: Men That Hack, The Java Joint, and KoDT Special #1: Last Man Standing.

Friday, April 5, 2024

Deal of the Day - Cthulhu Through the Ages (CoC)

Call of Cthulhu is a classic, timeless game. I still have my boxed set of CoC from the 80s. Quite simply, it is a classic. I also own the current 7th Edition of CoC, and I have to say the Call of Cthulhu Starter Box is an example of what every RPG should be looking to emulate.

Cthulhu Through the Ages is today's Deal of the Day at DTRPG. Normally 7.47 in PDF, but until tomorrow morning Cthulhu Through the Ages is on sale for 1.49.

GUIDELINES FOR PLAYING CALL OF CTHULHU IN SEVEN DIFFERENT ERAS
On release back in 1981, the initial setting of Call of Cthulhu focused upon the “classic” 1920s-era of the early twentieth century — the time of H.P. Lovecraft. It did not take long for players to realize the potential of the game —that it could adapt easily to other time periods.
Over the last thirty-plus years, players have been confronting the Cthulhu Mythos in all manner of historical settings: be it the Dark Ages, Imperial Rome, the Dreamlands, Victorian Gaslight-era, or even the far future! The minions of the Great Old Ones can always be found, lurking in the shadows.
The latest edition of Call of Cthulhu includes investigator occupations, equipment, and weapons for both the 1920s and modern-day settings, allowing for games to be set either time-frame. In due course, other published settings will be updated to the latest edition of the rules; however, Cthulhu Through The Ages has been created to help players adopt the latest rule set for the wide range of settings published by Chaosium.
Here you will find straight-forward guidance and era-specific rules for investigator creation for seven different settings. Also offered are updated rules for combat and a sprinkling of other topics like scenario seeds, setting-specific monsters, and investigator organizations.
Eras & Settings included:
Cthulhu Invictus
Mythic Iceland
Cthulhu Dark Ages
H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands
Cthulhu by Gaslight
Cthulhu Icarus
The Reaping

Thursday, April 4, 2024

Deal of the Day - The Pits of Brund (ShadowDark)

I am a huge ShadowDark fanboy. An old-school game built on the 5e engine, it hits my gamer's sweet tooth.

The Pits of Brund for ShadowDark is today's Deal of the Day on DriveThruRPG. Normally 13.99 in PDF, but until tomorrow it is on sale for 2.80.

Adventure awaits. Rumors swirl around the cities, speaking of evil awakening in the Pits of Brund.
A Shadowdark-compatible role-playing game adventure for level 1-6 characters.
Whispers talk of fish-faced man-monsters, gigantic venomous wasps, corrupt wizards, blind cave-mutants, and terrible monsters lurking in the labyrinth. A Shadowdark-compatible role-playing game adventure for level 1-6 characters.
The Pits of Brund are a recently re-discovered series of caves that descend far into the barrow-earth. The bravest and most foolhardy seek treasure, plunder, and lore within places such as this.
The Tomb of the Hunters: A recently reopened cave. A trio of crawlers recently headed into this cave system looking for wealth and secrets.
The Opaline Tower: A milk-white tower atop a high bluff within the Badlands. Rumors say the tower’s master is a magus of great art.
The Caves of Brund: A lengthy series of caves under the Badlands, extending almost endlessly. Deep ones, fish-faced humanoids, worship foul god-beasts here.
The Deeper Caves of Brund: Even farther underground, the deeper caves contain great danger and commiserate reward. Deep ones, grimlocks, and other monsters make their home within the depths.
The Temple of Bloat: Ypsil the black mage studies Ord’s celestial temple, working to corrupt the temple’s divine sky stone.
Phurshole: Blind, six-fingered grimlocks lurk in this subterranean waterfall cavern, devoutly serving an albino hydra, the avatar of their diabolic masters.

Wednesday, April 3, 2024

Bundle of Holding - Dark Eras (Chronicles of Darkness)

World of Darkness was HUGE in the early and mid-90s. My initial venture into it was Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Good times!

Well, WoD has gone through various iterations over the past few decades. Currently, Bundle of Holding has a Dark Eras bundle, and damn it is tempting, just for the lore alone.

Adventurer! This new Dark Eras Bundle presents dozens of historic settings for the Chronicles of Darkness tabletop roleplaying game of gothic horror from Onyx Path Publishing. We have shared the world with monsters for millennia. In the time of Alexander the God-King, mages fought their secret wars. In Elizabeth's London, vampires built their own empire brick by bloody brick. Before the founding of America, hunters fought enemies within and without. And in the Cold War, as the clock ticked towards Armageddon, we could have been damned by fallen angels. Dark Eras reveals the world throughout its long and storied past. Learn secret histories from the flame-lit Neolithic to the 1970s, from pharaonic Egypt to the Scandinavian witch trials, from Arthurian Britain to the Great War and beyond. Each setting features character creation rules and story hooks for two or three Chronicles of Darkness game lines, including Vampire: The Requiem, Mage: The Awakening, Hunter: The Vigil, Changeling: The Lost, and more.
For just US$9.95 you get all four titles in our Starter Collection (retail value $50) as DRM-free ebooks, including the complete Chronicles of Darkness Second Edition revised corebook (2012), the first Dark Eras sourcebook, the Dark Eras Storytellers Screen, and a collection of short stories, Tales of the Dark Eras.

And if you pay more than the threshold price of $25.10, you'll level up and also get our entire Bonus Collection with four more titles worth an additional $64, including Dark Eras 2, the Dark Eras Companion, the Chronicles of Darkness sourcebook Hurt Locker, and a precursor to the Dark Eras line, Victorian Lost.
(PS: Chronicles of Darkness players, check out the 75% discount sale, while supplies last, on the limited edition Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras 2 hardcover at Indie Press Revolution – a US$50 retail value for just $12.50.)

Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Bundle of Holding - KoDT TROUBLE 6 (KoDT BUNDLES OF TROUBLE #51-60)

I really love my Knights of the Dinner Table. I still have the first 10 issues of KotDT, nearly as dog-eared as my original copies of Shadis Magazine. Damn! Those were the days ;)

I've learned to love digital comics, as they fit easily on my iPad, read really well, and I don't need a warehouse for storing boxes upon boxes of comics and graphic novels.

Reader, take note! This all-new KoDT Trouble 6 Bundle is one of two offers in progress featuring Jolly R. Blackburn's long-running comic about tabletop roleplaying, Knights of the Dinner Table from Kenzer & Company. If you're new to the Knights, start with our revived May 2018 Knights of the Dinner Bundle in progress. Then return here for this new "bundle of Bundles" with KoDT Bundle of Trouble compilations #51-60, collecting KoDT issues #179-218 (2011-2015). These Trouble-some collections make it easy to pull up a chair and enjoy the longest-running and most successful comic strip in RPG history.
For just US$19.95 you get all Ten Bundles of Trouble (retail value $130) as DRM-free comics, including Knights of the Dinner Table Bundle of Trouble Vol. 51, V52, V53, V54, V55, V56, V57, V58, V59, and V60.
Remember to check this new offer's revived companion from May 2018, Knights of the Dinner Table, with the early issues and miniseries.

Monday, April 1, 2024

The DragonSlayer RPG Has a Dungeon Design Contest

Greg Gillespie, best known perhaps for the megadungeon Barrowmaze, is running a dungeon design contest in the DragonSlayer Facebook group. Details below:

Sunday, March 31, 2024

Initial Campaign Questionnaire

Pretty sure I've posted about my buddy Topher's pre-campaign questionnaire. I was first exposed to this document when we co-hosted some variation of "How to GM" at Origins back in 2007 (or so). My part focused on how to run a more frugal (less resource-intensive) game and IIRC Topher focused on some of the broader game/campaign management, hence the questionnaire.

Back in my earlier HackMaster days, when I was trying to get some local tournaments going, I repeatedly ran into HackMaster players that had been playing with the same group for decades, but had never left one of the player's basement....and they never intended to...which is a problem when you need a specific number of players before a HackMaster tournament is considered valid. Topher kind of had one of these groups, but they had no qualms about playing with others at tournaments.

Actually, they were pretty much a well-oiled tournament machine that eventually became the group that writers specifically wrote against, which always rubbed me the wrong way...but that's for another time. One big thing they did is create characters as a group, ensuring to fill specific roles within the party, and often the party, and campaign, was themed. I can think of three examples, but will only give two: One campaign was essentially Hogwarts where every PC was some type of magic-user and every level was a year of the magical school. The other was a group of thieves adventuring during the fall of Constantinople.

Now I'm not Topher and I'm not sure that I can pull off his type of game/campaign, but then again I don't have his players. Not a dig on my players at all. We haven't played that type of game and likely never will, partly because of the nature of the group. I am the odd man out, living in another state, and I highly doubt we'll have a steady Monday night game.....but you never know.

Even so, I am totally stealing Topher's campaign questionnaire, but I tweaked it heavily for my own use. The questions are fairly generic though and I think others might get some good use out of it, so here it is. I actually have two versions, the "plain" PDF and a rather quick & dirty PDF form. I am not a fan of the form because I'm not willing to spend too much time on it, and it's a bit... finicky. For the list boxes you have to use the up/down arrows and then click on the box to set the answer.

Meh...ugly but it works. Just click on the appropriate picture to open the document in your browser, then download.

Blank Questionnaire

Questionnaire Form

Happy Easter to All!

The AI Easter Bunragon blesses you ;)

Saturday, March 30, 2024

Kickstarter - Last Stop, Perdition! (Weird Frontiers/DCC)

An exciting new adventure for the Weird Frontiers RPG, also compatible with the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG.

I'm a huge fan of David Baitey's Weird Frontiers DCC RPG-powered weird west game/tome. I believe the book is even larger than the DCC RPG rulebook, but David nailed it. I got to play in a Weird Frontiers scenario at Shire Con and Rach and I, and the rest of the table, had a blast. I just have no inkling as to how to WRITE a Weird Frontiers adventure.

With Last Stop, Perdition! I'll have a 50-ish page 1st-level adventure to run for my regular gaming group. Win-win if you ask me.

This Kickstarter goes to fund a PDF and POD (print on demand) run of the module Last Stop, Perdition!, written by Steve Bean. This will be a 50 page level 1 adventure for Weird Frontiers and is compatible with DCC and includes a new character class, fantastic interior art by Marcin S, Christopher Torres, and Zohn D, cartography by Davin Kluttz, and a cover by Steve Kane. When we make the base level of funding ($8k) a PDF and POD version of the module will be available as well as a few levels that offer original art. PDFs and PODs will be delivered through Drivethru RPG, and with the PODS, the backers will need to pay the print cost of the book (about $3 at the time of this going live) as well as shipping. If we make the $10K threshold, everyone that backs at the Hero of the Weird West level (the Print and PDF level) and above will receive a traditionally printed module instead of a POD. At this level, shipping will be charged through Pledgemanager, but there will be no additional charge for the printing of the book. If we meet our last stretchgoal of $12K, a second full module will be included in both the PDF and print versions! This second module is called Mountain Devils of Muddy Creek and was written by Lee Neilson.

Friday, March 29, 2024

Deal of the Day - GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Backdrops (5e/Systemless?)

I do love the GM's Miscellany series from Raging Swan. If you are a GM that enjoys flying by the seat of your pants and prefers improv over prep, this is the series you need to stay on top of.

Today's Deal of the Day is GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Backdrops, nominally for 5e but essentially systemless. Normally 9.95 in PDF, but until tomorrow morning it is on sale for 4.98.

So, what is GM's Miscellany: Dungeon Backdrops?

You are a GM, but you are busy. You want to write your own modules, but you just don’t have the time. And you don’t want to use commercial modules. You want to make your campaign your own. That’s where the Dungeon Backdrop line comes in! Each Dungeon Backdrop presents a fully fleshed out and lovingly detailed self-contained dungeon ready for you to use as you see fit. Stock the dungeon with your own monsters (and—perhaps—their treasure), decide their back story and you are good to go.
Every Dungeon Backdrop is carefully designed to be easily inserted into almost any fantasy campaign. Dungeon Backdrops: we describe the dungeon, you add the monsters (and the treasure).
GM’s Miscellany: Dungeon Backdrops comprises the following dungeons:
The Crumbled Tower
Dethur's Folly
Deszraul's Hold
The Death King's Forlorn Isle
The Shadow Fane
The Splintered Crypt

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Kickstarter - Cthulhu Crisis Comic & Monsters! Monsters! RPG Adventures

A Fantasy Comic Saga which includes Role-Playing Game adventures for use with Ken St. Andre's Monsters! Monsters! RPG.

I'm a huge Tunnels & Trolls and Monsters! Monsters! fan. The system works extremely well for solos, one on one, and small group sessions and campaigns. The Cthulhu Crisis Comic & Monsters! Monsters! RPG Adventures Kickstarter is a "must-back" for me.

What's in this Kickstarter: As many of you know, we like to try new ways of creating stories and adventures; this time we have something very special! Tunnels & Trolls/M!M! creator Ken St. Andre, comic/gaming artist Steven Crompton, and wrestling promoter Chris Perguidi have joined forces to create Five combined comic and rpg adventures that can be read like a comic and used for running rpg adventures with the Monsters! Monsters! role-playing game. One of the 5 books is a solitaire adventure written by Ken St Andre specially designed to be part of the storyline of the comics. The 5th book is a new rules supplement Humans! Humans! that gives more detail on running human characters using the M!M! rules system. We're not sure a project like this has ever been done before! (Certainly it hasn't with any of Ken St Andre's rpgs). We'll also have a new set of standees and a miniatures map that will use characters and locations from the comics - plus some other surprises, including a pledge level that will allow you to own an ORIGINAL hand-drawn piece of art from Steve Crompton's archive!

You can you can pledge for these 5 books in various combinations some of which include the exclusive Humans! Humans! RPG supplement and other rpg related items.

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Bundle of Holding - Fiasco Classic

For years I've only heard good things about Fiasco, but I've never read the rules, let alone played in a session. Time to correct that!

Make your own cinematic tales of small-time capers gone wrong – of disastrous situations founded on big dreams and flawed execution, right out of films like Raising Arizona, Fargo, and other Coen brothers movies. This resurrected April 2019 Fiasco Classic Bundle once again brings you the tabletop roleplaying game Fiasco, its Companion, and lots of playsets, plus many live-action freeform games by Fiasco designer Jason Morningstar (Night Witches, Ghost Court) published by Bully Pulpit Games.
For just US$9.95 you get all five complete games in this revived offer's Starter Collection (retail value $42) as DRM-free ebooks, including the Fiasco Classic rulebook (2009), plus the card-based Civil War RPG Carolina Death Crawl; the live-action game Radioactive Bison; and the freeforms The Climb and Out of Dodge. And as a convenience for this offer's customers, Fiasco designer Jason Morningstar has curated Jason's Favorite Fiascos, a collection of seven free playsets.
And if you pay more than the threshold price of $20.29, you'll level up and also get this revival's entire Bonus Collection with six more games and supplements worth an additional $52, including The Fiasco Companion, the Fiasco playset collections Run, Fools, Run and American Disasters, and the freeform games Winterhorn and The Skeletons. And for this revival we've added Space Post, Jason's game about delivering the mail across interstellar space.

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Kickstarter - Installation 665 (MCC RPG Adventure)

A 3rd Level Mutant Crawl Classics Compatible Adventure by Julian Bernick - MCC / DCC

I'm a huge fan of DCC and MCC adventures, even if my gaming group isn't a fan of the system. That's okay, good adventures can be played with any ruleset :)

The Installation 665 Kickstarter is 8 bucks in PDF and 20 bucks in Print plus PDF (plus shipping).

The book will be of the same quality as our previous offerings, saddle-stitched and printed locally on 8 1/2 x 11 premium silk paper. I’ll personally pick up the books, so there’s no added shipping time once the printer has them ready.
We are ready for print. The writing, editing, layout, and art are all complete. You will most likely get this book in your hands much sooner than the reward date suggests.
No AI was used for artwork or writing.

Monday, March 25, 2024

Kickstarter - The Complete Virgin Mine AD&D/5E Mega-Dungeon!

I've been following Art of the Genre for years now. Scott's work is always high-end, and the artists he secures for the covers are second to none. His orange spin releases fit nicely with the orange spin AD&D 1e books.

The Complete Virgin Mine is Scott's latest Kickstarter and is a compilation of seven parts initially released as soft-cover adventures (Folios), brought under one hardcover, orange-spined book. Or snag the individual releases - but then you won't have the orange spine...

I really need to organize my 1e collection/Folio Hardcovers to get that full "orange shelf" look ;)

The Complete Virgin Mine is a 7 part mega-dungeon with another series of rooms in the higher levels that feature access to 'the shadow realm' in which even more monsters can be encountered! It is a project that is four years in the making, and has taken on a 'life of its own', much like that original Roslof Keep campaign (see below). As this project compiles 6 Folio adventure modules (#26-#31) and 5 mini-adventures, and a bonus 'boss monster' encounter for the final endgame (is the book cover giving anything away?) I thought it was important to offer the first five modules in both physical and PDF format, AND also produce Folio #31, The Dungeon of Death, which can also funded ONLY in this Kickstarter (for all you looking to keep your Folio collection complete!).

Sunday, March 24, 2024

Thought: Players, not the GM, are Responsible for Campaign Continuity

This last week (or so) I have noticed that I haven't slung dice since maybe before Thanksgiving(?), even if I had since then it definitely was last year, so like....WTF? Work has been keeping me busy, but that's like a M-F endeavor that so doesn't impede on the normal every-other-Friday night game.

Now I'm not calling out my GM, which I probably should......but I realized that I was getting a weak-ass fix by playing a turn-based "RPG" on my Xbox....it's more like sustenance-gaming, just enough to take off the edge of withdrawal. Kind of like a Vampire feeding off of cow's blood. Sure, it'll kind of get the job done, but just isn't the same.

Now as much as it might feel good to throw my GM under the bus for me not playing, and I'm only saying this for sake of my fellow players who I know read this, I should have options.....and one of those options is to once again pick up the GM shield again...

....so I have been thinking heavily about running a game again, but I haven't broached the subject with anyone until now (SURPRISE ~~fuckers!~~, I mean fellow players who read this...)

As is (probably) natural, I've been thinking of my last campaign. It was a current-edition (low magic fantasy) HackMaster game set in the last-edition (High Magic fantasy) game world, with a plausible (if you take the last two national-level tournaments as cannon) backstory explaining the transition from magic-rich to magic-poor. I had a blog for the campaign which is somewhat broken as I had hosted portions, mostly graphics, on my own domain. I fixed part of it today, so if anyone is interested (https://garweezewurld.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-adventure-begins-16th-haarkiev.html).

The whole idea wasn't so much to keep an online journal for sharing, but to help me keep track of NPCs and past events. The blog really was too much work, mostly because of the graphics. I should have used something like Tiddlywiki instead.

Reviewing all this info I have come to what might be an unpopular opinion: It is not the responsibility of the GM to provide campaign continuity.

As the GM I want to create the game world and let the players loose in it. I decide some big-picture stuff that'll happen to the game world and as the players interact, if they change to course of things I'll adjust and if they don't well the big things still happen. As far as actual campaign continuity, well that's the player's responsibility. As the GM I put things together and the players do what they do. As they discover and interact with the world, the onus is on them to remember the NPCs and to enjoy or suffer the repercussions of their interactions.

It is also the responsibility of the players to "pass down" information to other players and other player characters. If there is a total party wipe (Total Party Kill) then I hope the players arranged for some manner of contingency. Henchmen or protégés need to be created before the PCs kick the bucket specifically so that campaign information doesn't die out.

This why I like when GMs don't necessarily ensure the party knows exactly what they're fighting unless they've met one/some before. I think the whole aspect of exploration, in every sense of the word, is... underrepresented in a lot of games. The big strokes for sure, but the little things that would actually be new to the PCs.....not so much. I know it's more difficult for players to not go off of player knowledge, but when PCs encounter zombies (for example) for the 1st time, that should be a HOLY SHIT moment for them. Hell, even with the glut of video games, movies, and TV shows with zombies in them....can you imagine how freaked out you'd be in real life if you stumbled across some zombies?!

I like it when games have a mechanic for these first-time interactions with what should be some horrific/strange/otherworldly encounters. Subsequent times not so big of a deal and if the party can maintain that campaign continuity then maybe those subsequent PCs can not be as scared/subject to penalty.

As a GM one of the ways I've encouraged players to do this campaign continuity, maintenance really, is to provide some bonus XP for keeping campaign journals. In-game they are remittances "back home" to those henchmen or protégés and allow the transfer of XP from one PC to another. This is really a HackMaster (4th edition) concept, so I'm just giving the broad strokes. PCs can funnel XP to future PCs essentially through "adventuring through correspondence", allowing for these future PC to not have to start at 1st level.

Just some thoughts I'm tossing "out there" as I'm contemplating a new campaign when I pick up the mantle of GM once again.

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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