Halloween Sale at DriveThruRPG

Yep, there's a Halloween Sale over at DriveThruRPG with a large number of titles at 25% off. If you want to go to a specifically OSR listing of for-sale products, you can go to this link: OSR Halloween.

Don't forget to click on all the Jack-o-lanterns, as they lead to free stuff. There is one on the main sale page.

Time to make a few Tavern Picks :)

The Stygian Library - The Stygian Library is a creepily genteel dungeon set in an infinite extradimensional library. Each expodition generates its route as it explores, resulting in new locations being iscovered with every visit. Included within: Systems for generating locations within the library, including Entrance Foyers, Map Galleries, Tea Rooms,  Planetariums, Calculation Engines, Phantom Databanks, Paper Beehives, Phantom Pumps, Jarred Brains and the Sheol Computer. 40 monsters tailored to the Library, including Lantern Bearers, Skeleton Crew, Origami Golems, Guardian Shades, Lost Souls, Ink Elementals, Animate Spells, Archivist-Liches, Infernal Merchants, Escaped Fictions, Educated Rodents, Conceptual Wells and the orders of Librarians themselves. A system for searching for specific knowledge within the library's depths, as well as 30 unusual books and the secret knowledge they contain.Tables for generating treasure, dreams, rumors, and various other useful details. A unique class of Mummified Sages, post-human academics who've dwelled in the Library for decades or more. It's a big spooky library full of dangerous knowledge, spiritual automata, and ghost-fueled computers.  5.00  3.75

Eldritch Tales: Lovecraftian White Box Role-Playing - Aeons before man arose from the primordial mire, ancient creatures descended from the stars or stepped through dimensional passages to inhabit the Earth. Whilst many of these Old Ones have since passed into inactivity, the secrets they carried with them have been shared with man and now terrible cults haunt the fringes of modern society. These ancient terrors thus still menace mankind and, if the prophecies are to be believed, the Old Ones shall return to reign again over the Earth! Eldritch Tales: Lovecraftian White Box Role-Playing in an OSR rule set with its roots in the Original version of the world's favorite RPG, but instead of exploring musty dungeons, characters in Eldritch Tales investigate Mythos horrors in the 1920s! The setting and background are based on the cosmic horror tales of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other members of his writing circle. Within the pages of Eldritch Tales you will find four character classes representing many classic pulp archetypes, occupations, rules for insanity, spells, monsters, esoteric tomes, artifacts, a starting scenario, and setting material, as well as advice on using Eldritch Tales with other White Box games. This game is compatible with Swords & Wizardry White Box and other OSR games. To accommodate all devices, the PDF purchase includes versions in both high resolution and low resolution. PDF has a bookmarked Table of Contents, as well as linked terms throughout the book.  6.99  5.24

DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS - Survive This!! - Core Rule Book - Following in the tradition of SURVIVE THIS!! Zombies! comes SURVIVE THIS!! Dark Places & Demogorgons, a tabletop roleplaying game that uses the Original 1970s Fantasy Roleplaying game rules but mutates it into this retro nightmare. It’s sleek, slender and creepy as Hell. In Dark Places & Demogorgons, you play as high school students during the early 1980s. The town you live in has had a rash of disappearances and strange happenings. The adults seem lost as what to do, the police are as clueless as ever and aren’t helping and Reverend Phillips is on another witch-hunt. It’s up to you and your friends to figure out what’s going on and stop it from happening again!  4.99  3.74

SURVIVE THIS!! Zombies! 2nd Edition - Core Rule Book -STZ-2E is an OSR RPG with modern sensibilities, utilizing the time tested rules of the old-school and fusing them seamlessly with modern mechanics and game design principals to give you a fast, fun and dangerous, thrill ride-like gaming experience. “They’re coming to get you Barbara . . .”That’s the line that started it all. Sure, there were other zombies in movies and literature prior to the delivery of that iconic quote but George A. Romero’s Night of The Living Dead kicked off the modern zombie craze. From Day of the Dead to Return of the Living Dead to Dawn of the Dead to Shaun of the Dead to The Walking Dead, people can’t get enough of The Dead! Zombies can be found in abundance in film, TV, comic books, literature, video games, board games, card games, dice games and yes, of course, roleplaying games. That is where we come in. SURVIVE THIS!! – Zombies! was the first in the line of SURVIVE THIS!! Roleplaying Games to be released by indy publisher, Bloat Games. Dark Places & Demogorgons, the second game released under the SURVIVE THIS!! banner, brought about several updates and additions to the game rules and mechanics, which brings us now to the reason for the 2nd Edition of SURVIVE THIS!! Zombies!  We wanted to not only bring STZ up to date with the changes found in Dark Places & Demogorgons but also saw an opportunity to include the additions of Backgrounds, Skills, 6 New Classes, updated Savings Throws, Out of Action Table, Usage Die, Random Encounter Table, Adventure Hooks table as well as all the additional Zombies and Classes from the PDF only Supplement: SURVIVE THIS!! Zombies! Welcome to Zombie Land.  4.99  3.74

Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! - A level 0 funnel adventure for DCC RPG – specially themed for horror! The ship is adrift and a crew is dead. When the passengers of the Star of Nostro awaken, drugged and bound, and discover the crew is missing, a desperate race for survival begins. The vessel was meant to transport your group of humble villagers to a brighter future. It is now a coffin ship filled with mysterious deaths, dark plots, and a stalking horror that will not stop until it has feasted on every last soul.  Will your characters’ ingenuity be quick enough to find a means to survive, or will you too fall victim to what creeps in the shadows?  6.99  5.24


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Kickstarter - Advanced Fantasy Role-playing (oh boy!)

The Advanced Fantasy Role-playing Kickstarter is a fine example - of what NOT to do if you want your Kickstarter to be a success.

Seriously, let us count the ways:

1 - Sometimes no video is better than BAD video. The angle of the camera with the paneling close behind gives one the impression that the creator is laying on his back. And WTF is up with the neck cleavage? It's not like the top of the shirt is buttoned anyway.  And yes, the video is boring.

2 - No cover art. No banner. No nothing. The only images we get are the ones you screencap from the video.

3 - No art at all. Hasn't been commissioned yet. Now THAT is confidence in one's project. ;)

4 - No sample of the rules. Because of its Copywrite. We might just steal the ideas.

5 - No PDF. Mobi instead. Because one needs to protect their intellectual property.

6 - First created. Zero backed. It shows.

7 - Argue with backers in the comments section, tell them their feedback is trolling:

Who do you think you're trying to convince? Because the end effect is to discourage those who might be willing to contribute based on what is presented. So in that, you're no benefactor dispensing wisdom, you're a troll lobbing grenades from the safe anonymity of a computer screen.

As you see, in reaction to your negative comments, several backers have rescinded. I want to thank you so much for your untiring efforts to tank my Kickstarter project. I hope it gives you satisfaction that you were able to kill someone's dream. Well done. Sleep well tonight.

I apologize if it's not enough detail for you, but I will go forward with NO funding long before I expose our proprietary systems, methods, and rules before release. That's simply a non-starter.

I suspect he will go forward with no funding.

What is so wrong about wanting details of a project you are interested in backing? I'm guessing little is written at this point, therefore there is nothing to show potential backers.

Again, Kickstarter is not a magical money printing machine. If you put bullshit in, don't be surprised when you get shit in return,

The Tenkar's Tavern Facebook Community has Surpassed 2,500 Members! Huzzah!

As of this morning, the Tenkar's Tavern Facebook Community has over 2,500 members. I am truly amazed and humbled.

Thank you all :)

Not a member, join us!

Indiegogo - Devil of the Murder Cliffs (S&W, PF1e and 5e)

Let's see, why should one back Devil of the Murder Cliffs?

Casey Christopherson is the author. Casy does AMAZING work and has done so for years. He is also awesome on a personal level. Fins him at a convention and share some drinks with him ;) Realy should need no other reason, but here, I'll give you more:

The Devil of Murder Cliffs pays homage to silver age pulp fantasy authors of the 1960’s and 70’s and has many plot twists and turns to keep the characters on their toes. It is written by RPG adventure design stalwart Casey W. Christofferson, author of City of Brass, Bard’s Gate and dozens of other products for various publishers over the last 18 years in the gaming industry. 

Within its cover you will find:

• New creatures and magic items
• A challenging man-hunt through bandit infested mountains
• Supernatural foes
• NPCs who may be allies or antagonists
• Full-Color Map by Robert Altbaur
• Interior art by Casey Christofferson, Josh Stewart, and Lloyd Metcalf
• Brilliant cover art by newcomer phenomenon Adrian Landeros

The Devil of Murder Cliffs uses the same formula introduced in previous Indiegogo releases. These focused enhancements (stretch goals), improve the product as total funding increases with new art, extra written encounters, and digital play enhancing extra such as player handouts, NPC profiles, and interviews with creators.

Kickstarter - Adventure Design Booklets (SquareHex)

"A 16-page booklet printed on heavy paper with a mix of lined, hex, and grided pages for writing mini-modules for RPGs."

I really like the Adventure Design Booklets from SquareHex / Peter Regan. This is perfect for writing out adventures on the go or while killing time at the doctor's office. The price is pretty good too - 24 booklets for 15 bucks. There is a catch though - shipping to the States was another 19 bucks - but 1.50 per booklet seems a fair price overall, so in for 24 :)

Truth to tell, I love all of SquareHex's mapping material.

Free Phone PDFs At DriveThruRPG - Pugmire & Zweihander

I mentioned this on the Tavern Chat podcast last night, but I figured it was a big enough deal to repeat here. DriveThruRPG is offering a limited selection of PDFs specially formatted for use on smartphones and two of those Phone formatted PDFs are available for free (or at least PWYW).

The Pugmire Core Rulebook Phone PDF is free.

Dogs have inherited the world, building the kingdom of Pugmire untold centuries after the Ages of Man are over. These dogs have been uplifted to use tools and language, and they seek to rediscover the ruins of the Old Ones. Some have learned to use the leftover technology of humanity, but they believe it to be magic handed to them by their lost gods. Others seek to create an ideal civilization, using a Code of Man compiled from ancient, fragmentary lore left behind by humanity. The world is dangerous and mysterious, but good dogs will persevere. 

Some highlights of Pugmire include:

• An evocative and mysterious setting that’s both family friendly and deep enough to create compelling stories.
• A traditional fantasy rules system redesigned for streamlined play and easy creation of heroic dogs, with an emphasis on cooperation and action over competition and violence.
• A variety of callings and breeds that give access to several fun and interesting tricks.
• Rival species to interact with, like cats and badgers, along with terrifying and dangerous monsters that roam the landscape.

Will you be a good dog?

The ZWEIHANDER Grim & Perilous RPG: Revised Core Rulebook (Phone PDF + Digital PDF) is available at PWYW pricing:

WELCOME TO GRIM & PERILOUS GAMING Winner of the ENnie gold Best Game and Product of the Year at Gen Con 2018, featured on Forbes, ranked one of the best-selling fantasy tabletop role-playing games at DriveThruRPG and having moved over 90,000 copies worldwide, ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG is a bloodier, grimmer and grittier version of classical tabletop role-playing games. This revised PDF edition is published in celebration with Andrews McMeel Publishing, and features a refreshed layout, new artwork, rules clarifications, color plates by Dejan Mandic and errata. ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG is a game where your characters will:

• Live in a gritty, ‘realistic’ fantasy world
• Make morally grey decisions & enact vicious reprisals
• Uncover insidious plots & political intrigue
• Take part in heart-pumping chase scenes
• Venture into the wilderness & survive its perils
• Desperately fight in clandestine & open field combat
• Defend themselves from injuries, madness & mutations
• Encounter sanity-blasting creatures & their minions

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Sale - Oldskull, Hawk & Moor and more Kent David Kelly releases 75% off

Kent David Kelly has a solid line of old school releases, even if it is quite prolific. Heck, Hawk & Moor (the history of Gary and Dave) is just 25 cents!

Here's the link to the complete Kent David Kelly collection.

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Free - Limited Time (Hours?) - Tales from the Loop RPG: Rulebook in PDF

The Tales from the Loop RPG: Rulebook is free in PDF for a very limited time only. ENWorld is stating today only - so it may be there are only hours left to pick up the Platinum Bestseller.

Winner of five ENnies in 2017 including Best Game, Best Setting, Best Writing and Product of the Year!

“RPG Tales from the Loop lets you channel Stranger Things and E.T.”
The Verge

"Tales from the Loop RPG Will Make You Feel Like a Kid Again."
IO9

“Tales from the Loop is both exciting and emotional, fantastical and realistic, and is unlike any other game on my shelf."
Geek & Sundry

The landscape was full of machines and scrap metal connected to the facility in one way or another. Always present on the horizon were the colossal cooling towers, with their green obstruction lights. If you put your ear to the ground, you could hear the heartbeat of the Loop – the purring of the Gravitron, the central piece of engineering magic that was the focus of the Loop’s experiments. The facility was the largest of its kind in the world, and it was said that its forces could bend space-time itself.

Scifi artist Simon Stålenhag’s paintings of Swedish 1980s suburbia, populated by fantastic machines and strange beasts, have won global acclaim. Now, you can step into the amazing world of the Loop.
In this roleplaying game in the vein of E.T. and Stranger Things, you'll play teenagers solving mysteries connected to the Loop. The game rules are based on Mutant: Year Zero, which was awarded with a Silver ENnie for Best Rules at Gencon 2015.

Key features:

• Create your unique player character – including skills, items, prides, problems, and relationships – in mere minutes.
• Explore the secrets of the Loop in two main game settings – one based on the Swedish Mälaren Islands, the other on Boulder City, Nevada.
• Investigate mysteries and overcome trouble using fast and effective rules, based on the Mutant: Year Zero game engine.
• Play the four complete scenarios included, tied together in the campaign named Four Seasons of Mad Science.

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Kickstarter - Wolves of God: Adventures in Dark Ages England

"Experience savage adventures and grim perils in Dark Ages England in this historical fantasy RPG."

When Kevin Crawford releases a new Kickstarter, people pay attention. Kevin never fails to deliver amazing projects. I'd love to see him interviewed on a podcast (hint ;)

The Wolves of God: Adventures in Dark Ages England Kickstarter is Kevin's latest release, and yes, it looks damn good. Dark Ages England is an excellent choice of setting and I'm looking forward to having this project in hand.

Embrace the savage darkness of post-Roman Britain with Wolves of God, a semi-historical tabletop RPG from the creator of Stars Without Number, Godbound, Scarlet Heroes, and other best-selling role-playing games. 

It is the year 710 of our Lord as brother Bede reckons it. The barbaric English have long since swept over Britain, their passage shrouded by the smoke of burning cities. For six generations they have been masters of the best part of the island, driving the native Britons before them with bloody iron or taking them as thralls and subjects, until the wretched heirs of the Roman kings can have refuge only in the western mountains or the cold northern lands. The magnificent Roman cities of old have been thrown down, the roads have grown wild and perilous, and even the kings of the English must live in thatched wooden halls and ride from one royal villa to the next merely to feed their companions. It is an age of darkness, poverty, and unsleeping war. 

Four generations ago the English turned Christian under the ministrations of Roman missionaries and Irish monks. Scattered across their untamed lands are the minsters of these clergy, strongholds of learning and Roman civilization against the hard ways of the English tribes. Only in the minsters can stone buildings be found, with windows of glass and artisan-monks fashioning wonders to adorn their altars and reward the generosity of great lords. Brave abbots and wise abbesses rule these strongholds, always seeking to lift their kinsmen from their cruel ways and iniquities, and always in need of strong heroes to help them in their work. 

Yet there are worse things in the dark than raiding warbands and embittered pagan remnants. The Roman sorcerers, the Artifexes of old, carved cysts into the world where they and their slaves could hide from the fury of the English. These Arxes were sealed until help could come, but help never did; now they canker and rot, old magic gone sour and strange, and those that dwell within them have been terribly changed. The Arxes burst open within the fallen Roman cities, monstrous beasts and twisted men going forth to scourge the innocent and take revenge for the crime of their conquest. The minsters stand fast against their diabolic power, but the abbots and lords need brave heroes to venture into the cities and purge these Arxes of evil before they can swell greater still. 

You are one such hero. Whether a spear-wise gesith, a young ceorl of broad back and stout heart, a wild-eyed waelcyrige-maiden of battle, a charm-muttering galdorman, or even a blessed and pious saint, your ambition is to earn a deathless name of glory and an honored place among your people. Whether offering your aid to warring lords, plundering the riches of fallen Roman cities, delving the dark halls of a festering Arx, or acting as agents of some cunning abbot, you will dare great deeds with your brave warband of companions and win yourself a place in the songs of kings… or a nameless grave in some blighted earth.

20 bucks for the PDF. 60 for POD Print plus PDF. 80 for offset Print plus PDF.

I'm probably going in for 60 bucks.

Kickstarter - A Dozen Sinister Rumors, for use with Fantasy RPGs

I've enjoyed all of Phil Reed's Kickstarters. They are inexpensive and overflowing with ideas I can use in my RPG sessions. The fact that he keeps everything systemless is damn near priceless in my opinion. The A Dozen Sinister Rumors, for use with Fantasy RPGs Kickstarter, looks to be of the same high quality, and you can back it - with stretch goals - for a mere buck. How the hell do you beat that?

Each rumor is designed to fit on a single page (with artwork), so that you may print only the page that you need for your next game session. A Dozen Sinister Rumors comes in at 14 pages and includes -- as you may have guessed from the title -- twelve different rumors + a cover page and a page outlining the anatomy of a rumor (as well as tips on using the rumors in your game). 

The content is systemless and for use with any fantasy roleplaying game. 

What are the stretch goals?

A Dozen Sinister Rumors is currently sitting at $1200 with 9 days to go.

Reminder - Old School Fantasy Roleplaying Bundle - Two Days Left

Yep, this is a repost. There are two days left in the Old School Fantasy Roleplaying Bundle over on Humble Bundle. If you missed the earlier post, know about the bundle but haven't pulled the trigger yet or simply forgot, the time to wait is over. Heck, even a buck gets you some amazing books :)

This is probably the best and greatest Old School bundle anywhere - forget Bundle of Holding - the Humble Bundle - Old School Fantasy Roleplaying Bundle is what you want to grab!

Why? Well, if a picture says a thousand words, I've got a couple of thousand words for you ;)

Let's look at the One Dollar level. You get all the following for a buck:

All the above plus the following for Eight Bucks:

All the above and the following for 18 bucks:

I dare you to find more old school gaming value for your gaming dollar.

Yes, that's an affiliate link above. When you shop using The Tavern's affiliate links, a small portion of sales made go to support The Tavern. Huzzah! for beer ;)

News - Top RPG Rulesets for Fantasy Grounds through 2019-Q3

Smiteworks released the above piechart showing the top Fantasy Grounds games run by ruleset for the last 12 month period, and I think its a very interesting graphic.

It certainly shows the dominance of D&D 5e, with 70% of the games played on Fantasy Grounds using the ruleset. Pathfinder, both 1e and 2e, combine to about 10%. If you add Starfinder into the Paizo slice of the pie, its probably around 12%. Paizo is now a very distant number two.

What really brings a smile to my face is the fact that AD&D comes in with over 11k games run. That's about half the Starfinder numbers (and more than the number of 4e games run) and not bad at all for a ruleset from the late 70s ;)

Here's the link: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/entry.php?360-Top-Rulesets-for-Fantasy-Grounds-through-2019-Q3

Note, you need to be logged in to view the graphics.

Deal of the Day - Musicland (OSR Adventure / BRW Games)

Today's DriveThruRPG Deal of the Day is Joe Bloch's / BRW's Musicland.

You’re trapped in a land where musical instruments are alive, and music itself is created. 

But beware – there are dangers aplenty beyond the living instruments who serve the King of All Instruments.

Criminals, demons, monsters, and even weird creatures to whom music itself is anathema all stand in your way.

Can you find your way home from this bizarre and fascinating place? 

Musicland can be used as a stand-alone adventure or as an expansion to the Castle of the Mad Archmage™ megadungeon campaign. 

Musicland is written using the Adventures Dark and Deep™ rules, and is compatible with most Old School type rules with little or no conversion neede

Normally 4.95 in PDF, until tomorrow morning at 11 am Eastern, Musicland is on sale for 2.97

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Wendy's Releases RPG - Feast of Legends (5e Inspired)

Yes, Wendy's - the fast-food chain - has released a free RPG. It uses the D&D 5e "inspired" RPG (it doesn't appear to use the OGL).

Download link to Feast of Legends.

Have I read it? No. But if you do a Google search, it is being written about ALL over the net. As a marketing tool, Wendy's hit a home run.

I've heard some chatter that releases like this are going to hurt indie game producers. I don't think that will be an issue, as no one is going to play this more than once. That being said, the quality looks high.

Death Threats from a Kickstarter Project Creator to a Backer - A Real WTF Kickstarter!?!

There are times I am simply left speechless. This is one of them. Thanks to Jamie Chambers for sharing these screenshots on Facebook. As an aside, the project looks like a simple cash grab IMHO.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/edtrice/conservatives-vs-liberals-board-game/comments

New - Dragon Con Co-founder (Ed Kramer) Charged Again with Having Child Porn

From WFTV News (Ed Kramer - a former roommate of none other than Ken Whitman)

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. -
A convicted child molester who found himself at the center of a computer hacking investigation is now facing a new child porn charge.

According to WSB-TV, Ed Kramer, one of the co-founders of Dragon Con, a massive sci-fi and fantasy convention in Atlanta, was helping private investigators TJ Ward and Frank Karic look into accusations that someone hacked Gwinnett County Judge Kathryn Schrader's computer.

Now, they're all charged in the case.

WSB-TV Gwinnett County Bureau Chief Tony Thomas was in court Monday when a judge denied bond for Kramer.

Thomas learned the Georgia Bureau of Investigation issued a warrant against Kramer shortly after 4 p.m. Monday on one felony count of child pornography.

Two hours before, Thomas sat in court as Kramer tried to get bond on one of his other cases, insisting he had just been sitting at home, obeying the law.

With an oxygen tank attached to his wheelchair, Kramer described to a judge his urgent need for getting out of jail for an upcoming spine surgery.

“We will be here; we will be at every court appearance. He is not going to reoffend,” defense attorney Stephen Reba said.

But just after Kramer’s lawyer offered that promise, prosecutors dropped a new charge – more child pornography.

Authorities said they found five more images on the computers they say they seized as they investigated Kramer’s role in the hacking of the Gwinnett County courthouse computer system.

“I was not surprised when I was notified that there was child pornography on his computer," Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter told Thomas.

Kramer's run-ins with Gwinnett County law enforcement go back years.

In 2013, he entered a plea to child molestation and was given five years of house arrest.

Just after clearing that, he was charged with illegally taking a picture of a boy in a Lawrenceville doctor’s office.

As police searched his computers after that arrest, they say they found evidence Kramer, Schrader and Ward hacked into the county's computer system. All three, plus a fourth man, now face criminal charges.

“One wouldn't have happened without each other, but they are essentially unrelated,” Porter said.

The judge delayed any decision on Kramer’s bond Monday. He'll now have even more to consider.

“It's certainly not the end of the investigation,” Porter said.

Kramer is due in court Thursday, when the judge will take another look at the bond issue.

Swords & Wizardry Continual Light attains Electrum Status on DTRPG - 50% off in PDF for the Month of October

Sometime over the last few weeks, Swords & Wizardry Continual Light attained Electrum Status on DTRPG. Huzzah!

Additionally, last night was the 500th episode of the Tavern Chat Podcast. 500 daily episodes. More Huzzah!

To celebrate, we're putting the Swords & Wizardry Continual Light PDF on sale for the month of October - 50% off (just $1.25)

Thanks to all that made this possible. It is humbling.

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GoFundMe for Corey Langeslay - Flooded after Tropical Storm Imelda

I simply can't imagine living in a flood-prone location. If I get an inch of water in my basement I'm out of sorts for days. Yet here I am looking at a water line 3 feet high in this room. Simply scares the shit outa me.

Our home was flooded during TS Imelda.  We will be forced to move after just finishing a rebuild from Hurricane Harvey.  FEMA has not declared this a disaster at this time and we are living at a friends home.  our car and RV were destroyed.  Since we lived in the RV last time now we don't have a place of our own to sleep.   You can clearly see the waterline above 3 feet in this room, other areas had 65 inches of water. 

 https://www.gofundme.com/f/flooded-after-ts-imelda

Corey is a gamer and he and his family could use some help from the gaming community. If you can't help financially, please share this among the social communities you are a part of.

Hero Labs / Lone Wolf Downsizes - Ceases Development of Realm Works

This effects folks with who use various Lone Wolf products, but especially Realm Works.
Link to post on the Lone Wolf Site here.

Lone Wolf is undergoing several major changes and I wanted to personally take the time to update everyone on what those changes are and how they will impact our users.

While Lone Wolf is a business, the company itself is comprised of people. And when it’s a small company, it’s more akin to family. There’s also our user community (you), which in many ways is like our extended family. Over the more than 20 years we’ve been creating software tools for gamers, we’ve garnered a significant number of loyal fans – fans who have been crucial to our success and whose ongoing support is greatly appreciated.

This sense of family was core to how we operated in the past, but when I got deathly ill three years ago, I strayed away from that. Now that I’m mostly back to my old self and finally completing my rehabilitation, I’ve realized we need to get back to those roots. You should see that shift reflected here in the increased level of disclosure and in future communications from myself and staff.

For quite some time, we’ve spread ourselves too thin across different efforts, and that’s been especially true for me personally. We’ve been doing an insufficient job at multiple tasks instead of a great job on a much narrower set. This has clearly hurt us. By implementing the changes outlined below, I fully believe we can get back to producing our normal level of quality products in a timely manner.

To start with, effective immediately, we are officially suspending work on Realm Works while we focus on improving our other products. Realm Works is “my baby”, and there’s a great sadness in making this decision, but the reality is that, despite our efforts, Realm Works is failing as a commercial venture with what limited resources we can put into it. There are quite a few things we could do to improve it, but that would require a significant investment of time and resources, neither of which we currently have.

Various aspects of Realm Works may begin to emerge within the Hero Lab Online framework in the future, but the Realm Works desktop product will not see further development at this time. Realm Works will absolutely continue to be available, and the servers will continue running, so the product will remain incredibly useful in its current form. However, for the foreseeable future, no more coding changes will occur beyond the significant bug fixes that went out over the past couple weeks.

Another big change we’re making is with our staffing. For quite some time, we’ve been leveraging investment financing to allow us to carry extra staff and pursue some varied objectives while we transitioned from Pathfinder 1st edition to 2nd edition. – one of which is on the verge of readiness (more on that in a moment). Alas, we didn’t get those projects completed within the investment funding time window (due to spreading ourselves too thin), so corresponding adjustments are now a necessity. We’re therefore saying goodbye to some excellent people, and that just adds to today’s pain.

Everything thus far sounds somewhat dire. So the obvious question is whether there’s any good news to take the sting out of the bad. Thankfully, the answer to that is a resounding YES.

First off, Hero Lab Classic isn’t going anywhere and it just received a major upgrade in the form of native 64-bit support on both Windows and Mac. If you haven’t downloaded them yet, please do so, as you should see both performance and stability improvements. We also have several data packages ready and waiting for release. However, Apple has changed their rules and is now refusing to let us update our Hero Lab Classic iPad app, so the new packages have been held up while we determine how to appease Apple. We obviously want to release them on all platforms simultaneously, but we’ll need to come to an agreement with Apple before we can do so. We’ll provide an update as soon as we make some headway here.

For Hero Lab Online, Shadowrun 6th Edition hits store shelves in early October, and we’ve been working hard to launch support for it in the weeks ahead. We’re also preparing the big hardcover books for both Pathfinder 2nd Edition and Starfinder, not to mention some significant performance and reliability improvements. But the truly BIG thing we’ve been putting into place is something we’ve dubbed Campaign Theater™. We previewed it at GenCon in an early Alpha state and you may have seen the video promo on our social media. Since the preview, we’ve been fleshing things out and testing like crazy so we can debut it in time for the holidays.

So what exactly IS Campaign Theater? The goal is pretty simple. Bring all the power of Hero Lab, in a unified manner, to everyone in the campaign – GM and players alike. In HLClassic, we’ve long had the Encounter Builder to let GMs prepare scenes and the Tactical Console to let GMs run them. But everything within HLClassic is disconnected, and nobody can see what anyone else is doing during the game. While still quite helpful, there are major limitations with this approach. Now imagine a unified display of all participants in the current scene, with the GM seeing everything and players only seeing a suitable subset of information the GM allows. Any time a player makes a change to their PC, or the GM to a monster, everyone sees the update in real-time on their own device. And imagine having all your scenes prepped and ready to play out with a few clicks. That’s just the tip of Campaign Theater and what we’ll be starting with.

Some of you have mentioned this sounds a little bit like a virtual tabletop. Well, sort of, except that our focus is on all the detailed character/monster manipulation that VTTs don’t excel at and Hero Lab does. So there may be some similarities, but very little overlap. In fact, we’re developing these capabilities with the ultimate goal of integrating with VTTs, allowing those products to focus on all the tabletop visuals and Hero Lab to handle all the character mechanics in a coordinated manner. I like to think of it as the RPG equivalent of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.

We’ll have more to share regarding Campaign Theater in the near future, so stay tuned for that. As you can see, there’s still plenty to look forward to in the next few months, and even well beyond that.

In closing, allow me to say a big THANK YOU for your continued support over the years. It’s been extremely gratifying to create products that I love and to know that thousands of gamers are using them every week. Thank you for giving me – and the rest of the team here – that opportunity. It means more than we can express.

Sincerely,

Rob Bowes, President

Five Random Locations from The Tome of Adventure Design (with hooks)

I love the Tome of Adventure Design, written by Matt Finch and published by Frog God Games.  It never ceases to inspire me. Today I figured I'd play with one of the tables, generate five randomly named locations and add a hook for each. Let's see how well I do with Approach #1: Overview Approach ;)

Corroded Fortress of the Resurrected Wizard - The inland Sea of Salt is retreating and on its newly revealed shoreline lies a weathered fort of stone and iron. Long rumored to be the final sanctuary of a lich, lights have been noticed from its highest tower at night. Dare you enter the Corroded Fortress of the Resurrected Wizard?

Silent Demi-plane of the Diseased Tribe - In the Great Forest, beasts large and small have been infected by a wasting disease. The Druid Asalyn has put out a call for brave adventurers to enter a small rift in space that recently formed in the forest that has coincided with the disease ravaging her charges. Will you answer the call and enter the Silent Demi-plane of the Diseased Tribe and destroy the disease at its source?

Contaminated Abbey of the Jackal-Hunter - Prior Janeth was a pious warrior priest, who took upon himself the mission to remove gnolls and other goblinoid races from the region surrounding his abbey. Recently, a small number of humanoid shamans and witch doctors stormed the abbey and Prior Janeth has not been seen since. Church leaders are looking to hire a party of adventurers to retake the Contaminated Abbey of the Jackel-Hunter and rescue Prior Janeth should he still survive. Will your party accept the quest?

Earthen Keep of the Crocodile God - In the Black Swamp, the waters have retreated and the remains of an earthen keep have been revealed. Rumors of a dark god's temple within, containing riches and magic, have spread through the bars and taverns in town. Will your party explore the Earthen Keep of the Crocodile God?

Convoluted Brewery of the Skeletal Alchemist - An ancient dwarven brewery was discovered by an adventuring party in the Copper Hills, but only one survivor has returned to tell the tale of their defeat by the minions of an undead alchemist. Do you dare take-up the flag of the fallen? Will you travel to the Convoluted Brewery of the Skeletal Alchemist?

Use and abuse :)

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