I have only one of the RPGs offered in the Humble Bundle Free League Megabundle—DragonBane. I backed the Kickstarter for that, and the boxed set is pretty, and the game reads well.
For 18 bucks, you get the core rules of DragonBane, Mutant Year Zero, Tales From the Loop, Symbaroum, Forbidden Lands, Twilight 2000 4e, and Coriolis. Including sourcebooks and adventures for the games above, you get 29 books. That is simply an outstanding deal!
Treat yourself for the Holidays :)
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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 Rumbleor YouTube - Tenkar
The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.
DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Rumbleor YouTube - Tenkar
You've got to give it to Goblinoid Games. They did a great job with their initial releases, offering Free, No-Art versions of their PDFs.
Mutant Future is often seen as an OSR hidden gem. It is effectively a retro-clone of Gamaa World without going into the weird dice mechanics of Mutant Crawl Classics. Mutant Future should be in every OSR gamer's PDF library, and at the price of free, there's no reason not to.
The sinister and sadistic bleating of spidergoats echoes in the night, a complementary chorus to the rustling of an unfortunate victim caught in their webs. In deep, dank caves to the north, corrupted humans take communion with an unspeakably evil abomination they worship as a god. Shrill cries from the fields can only mean the vomit flies are back, molesting your livestock.
In short, just another day in the Mutant Future!
Mutant Future is a post-apocalyptic science fantasy RPG, in the same flavor of similar genre games from the late 70s and early 80s. The game is almost entirely open game content, and a free trademark license allows anyone to publish materials compatible with Mutant Future.
From the back cover:
Enter a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland filled with mutants, ruins, and radiation! You can take the role of an android, mutant human, mutant animal, pure human, and even a mutant plant! Seek wealth and ancient technological artifacts. Enter vast underground complexes and avoid killer robots!
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I have been a fan of the various Engine GM Guides for years and have bought all these titles individually. At less than $10 for six titles, this is a must-have for any DM's reference collection.
Gamemaster! We've resurrected our November 2022 Engine GM Guides Bundle featuring ebooks from Engine Publishing that help improve your skill in running tabletop roleplaying games. Written by the experienced GMs at the widely read gamemastering blog Gnome Stew and by many of the field's leading RPG designers, Engine's system-neutral guides show how to prepare and run a game session, conjure interesting characters and storylines, manage an ongoing campaign, and (ahem) improvise when your players gleefully destroy your game sessions, characters, storylines, and campaign.
This revived November 2022 offer once again gives you the complete six-book Engine collection for less than the retail price of one guide. For just US$9.95 you get all six titles in this revived offer's Engine Collection (retail value $78) as DRM-free ebooks:
Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Gamemasters
Focal Point: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Running Extraordinary Sessions
Masks: 1,000 Memorable NPCs for Any Roleplaying Game
Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Session Prep
Odyssey: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Campaign Management
Unframed: The Art of Improvisation for Game Masters
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Zines. Zines & dice. These are two of my favorite things. My collection always has room for more dice, and zines can fit on any shelf, physical or digital. Zines generally have far more "bang for the buck" than other gaming purchases, and they often fit into the "impulse buy" category. I really like zines :)
Issue 2 of Carcass Crawler — the official Old-School Essentials zine! Each issue is packed with new material for your games, including new character classes and races, new spells and magic items, new monsters, optional and expanded rules, referee advice, news, previews of in-development products, short adventures, and more!
In This Issue
New classes and races: Two new elf variants. The phase elf and the wood elf.
Item-based encumbrance system: A simple system for tracking characters' loads and movement rates, based on the number of items carried. (No more need to add up coins and weights.)
Town services: Guidelines and prices for inns, jewellers, money changers, and traders, including a simple optional rule for haggling.
Hiring retainers: Tables and extra guidelines for locating and hiring retainers.
Quick equipment: A set of tables for expediting character creation by randomly selecting starting gear.
Energy weapons: Complete rules for introducing high-tech energy blades and guns into your game, either as alien relics found in long lost treasure hoards or to accompany the sci-fi inspired classes in Carcass Crawler issue 1 (the hephaestan and kineticist).
Snake cult monsters: 8 brand new monsters: creepy undead, guardian constructs, and devious serpents.
The Tomb of Aum-Pharath: A mini-adventure in the trap-filled ruins of a snake cult temple.
Adjudicating traps: Advice and optional guidelines for making traps a fun and engaging part of the game.
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Kevin Crawford / Sine Nomine Publishing is well known for the various "Without Number" titles, all of which have a "Free Version." If you don't yet own Worlds Without Number, Kevin's fantasy ruleset, here ya go ;)
The stars gutter and the skies fade and the earth grows weary with years. Ages of men and of Outsiders have ascended and been forgotten, and only the bones of their cities and the dust of their dreams remain upon this tired world. The Legacy of their laws is woven deep now, the edicts of dead gods and fallen sorcerer-kings made to trace patterns of power we no longer understand. We are heirs to their unseen empires, and our lives are built upon their ashes.
Worlds Without Number is a fantasy role-playing game, one fully compatible with the hit sci-fi game Stars Without Number. It's built from the ground up to provide gritty, hard-edged adventure in the fathomless future of the Latter Earth, a fantastic realm of time-lost sorcery, savage foes, and barbaric splendor. The cold steel in the fists of your heroes and the half-understood sorcery in their tomes must suffice to overcome the monstrous remnants of ancient alien rulers and the present depredations of ruthless lords and hideous beasts alike. The riches of lost ages await in the subterranean Deeps that once held their kingdoms, and even the heavens above are not beyond the reach of the recklessly daring.
Worlds Without Number isn't just a savage game of steel and sorcery. It's packed solid with system-neutral GM tools and worldbuilding support, with hundreds of pages of useful tools, tags, tables, and practical advice usable by any GM, regardless of their favorite setting or system. The well-loved sci-fi tools of Stars Without Number are reworked here to support fantasy gaming, whether in the provided setting of the Latter Earth or in your own carefully-crafted homebrew world. Even GMs who don't prefer the OSR-compatible game system of WWN will find more than half the book dedicated to tools they can use in the systems they like best.
So what do you get in this book?
Sword and sorcery heroes of blade, cunning, and spell. The proven OSR-compatible character creation system of Stars Without Number is redone here for a fantasy world of blade and black magic.
OSR-compatible rules, allowing you to plunder decades of existing adventure material for your play. You can even pull in Stars Without Number content, as it's fully compatible.
The Gyre region of the far-future Latter Earth, a premade sandbox for quick play. Venture forth to clash with the sinister powers that gather in the shadow of the waning rule of the Reaping King.
Worldbuilding tools crafted to the renowned Sine Nomine standard. Did you like the hundred different world tags in SWN? Then have two hundred inspirational tags to help you build ruins, courts, communities, and wilderness points of interest. Grab a wealth of tools for building histories, societies, governments, religions, and geography, all written with a keen eye toward producing good, playable content for your adventuring group.
Adventure creation tools to soothe the pangs of a working GM, with guides for building adventures out of combat, exploration, social, and investigative challenges. Use the tags you picked in the worldbuilding section to speed up your creation of a good night's gaming.
Faction rules for fantasy worlds, with dark cults, fierce lords, grasping abbots, and greedy merchants all serving to keep your world in motion even when the PCs aren't on the scene.
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Yep, it's that most wonderful time of year. It's when OSR Santa gets together with the OSR Elves to ensure there are 12 Days of OSR Christmas goodies for good (or bad) boys and girls of all ages.
If you are a publisher of OSR-related products, or simply a generous member of the gaming community, and you want to provide gifts for OSR Christmas, hit me up at tenkarsDOTtavern @ that Gmail thing (doing what I can to avoid the scrub bot s;) Please put "OSR Christmas 2024" in the subject. Let me know what you are looking to gift to the community, and we will make it happen.
Santa requests that physical gifts be sent from the gifter directly to the giftee and that you tell Santa if there are restrictions on the physical gift (US Only or similar). PDF gifts using DTRPG coupon codes or similar are also great.
OSR Christmas started in 2013, over a decade ago, and has had a strong showing every year.
Thanks to all in advance.
Let's try to get all offers in by the end of November :)
Tenkar
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I'm a huge fan of Kevin Crawford and his Tag System. I own all of Kevin's core books in print and his non-core books in print and/or PDF. Ashes Without Number brings post-apocalypse roleplaying to the "Without Number" RPG Engine.
It should cover settings from Fallout to The Walking Dead and everything in between.
Ashes Without Number is $25 in PDF, $40 for at-cost POD and PDF, and $80 for PDF, a Smyth-sewn, offset-print hardback copy of the game. I'm in for the latter.
Ashes Without Number is a tabletop role-playing game for the end of the world. Whether as a civil collapse, alien invasion, zombie uprising, or post-apocalyptic wasteland, the game is built to give a GM the tools they need to carve out their own special slice of Hell.
Campaigns set amid radioactive dunes and savage mutant perils are supported in these pages, along with near-future tales of civil collapse, global plagues, and horrific shambling hordes. Just as with all Sine Nomine games, however, the book is built to support a GM in fashioning their own personal apocalypse, building worlds and settings to explore the kind of games they want to run.
Ashes Without Number is built on the same sturdy old-school game system as its sister-games in the Without Number line. Whether the fantasy adventures of Worlds Without Number, the sci-fi explorations of Stars Without Number, or the cyberpunk desperation of Cities Without Number, the game within these pages is built to interface smoothly with all these resources. The old-school framework also allows easy importation of other OSR games and content to help flesh out your own campaign.
A classic framework of six attributes, hit points, saving throws, and other traditional elements is supported by genre-specific rules and tools for bringing the right flavor of ruin to the table. Gritty perils of disease, traumatic stress, lingering wounds, and starvation are pointed up for campaigns set in a tragic near-future chaos, while wasteland marauders have support for mutations, scrap-built gear, and enigmatic ancient tech. These systems are built to snap smoothly into place in your campaign, letting you pick the ones that fit the feel you're aiming to create.
But at its heart, Ashes Without Number is shaped around the same system-neutral Sine Nomine tools that have won the other Without Number games such a warm place in the hearts of working GMs. Tools for building adventures, ruins, survivor enclaves, looming crises, horrible mutant creatures, and a host of other useful content are all designed to be system-neutral and usable with your own game of choice. Need to put an exploration-worthy ruin into your game? Just follow these tables and guidelines to get a quick, playable chunk of gaming fun, from the site's first-glance impression to the useful salvage still left amid the rubble.
Genre-specific rules for supporting three different campaign genres: post-apocalyptic Mutant Wasteland games, zombie-infested Deadlands, and near-future societal collapse in After the Fall campaigns.
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Yep, Dungeons & Dragons - the Making of Original D&D: 1970-1977 is currently 50% off at Amazon (Limited Time Sale - ticker on the page) with "potentially" an additional 10% off coupon. If they properly stack, the price would be down to 45 bucks. Note: Some folks do not see the coupon - its a good price either way.
Ignore the preface and enjoy the contents, at least at this price :)
The holiday season is sneaking up...
Unearth the very first draft of original D&D, never released to the public until now. Crafted on Gygax’s home typewriter, this 1973 document contains handwritten notes by both Gygax and Arneson.
Discover approximately 30 early articles and rare documents that lay the foundation for modern D&D, including unpublished correspondence between Gygax and Arneson.
Peruse a remarkable collection of magazine and fanzine articles, many of which are no longer publicly available or remain undiscovered by D&D historians and fans of classic D&D.
Flip through facsimiles of all the first printings of Original D&D, compiled in a single book for the first time in D&D’s publishing history.
Explore the creation and development of the original 1974 game with insightful commentary by Jon Peterson, one of D&D’s foremost historians.
Commemorate our 50th anniversary with this homage to D&D's past. We invite you to look back on D&D’s history with a discerning eye as we celebrate how far D&D has come. Here’s to 50 years, and 50 more!
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I really enjoyed the "Ecology of..." series in the classic era of Dragon Magazine. It made common - or even rare - creatures more than just a set of stats to kill or be killed by.
Today's Deal of the Day, BX Advanced Bestiary, Vol 1, appears to do that and more for a selection of creatures from the Old School Essentials Basic Book. I liked what I saw in the free preview and picked up a copy. Peek at the preview and see if the BX Advanced Bestiary, Vol 1, would fit your campaign.
Volume 1 of the BX Advanced Bestiary takes the monster entries A-D from the OSE Basic book and expands them with options, added details, use for monster parts, additional monsters, and playable classes based upon the same theme. A sample preview of the book can be foundhere. Each entry is illustrated.
It includes rules for monster and animal training, several new race-as-class options (advanced cave locust, changeling, cyclopskin, dragonborn, and genasi), as well tables showing the monsters organized by HD, terrain, and type.
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I remember running a handful of sessions of Twilight 2000 back in the 1980s when the Cold War was on everyone's mind. My gaming group was more focused on D&D and other Fantasy RPGs than modern or sci-fi genres, so we never stuck with Twilight: 2000. I think it would have been fun.
Newly updated to be fully compatible with Traveller: The New Era
The War has raged for years The high-tech ammo is almost gone. High-tech equipment is failing, piece by piece, with no spares to fix it. The front lines are held by a few grim, desperate soldiers.
The US 5th Division holds the line in Poland. Now, a Soviet encirclement has cut it off in a province ruled by ambitious warlords, local militias, and bands of marauding deserters. HQ is 200 klicks to the rear and powerless.
Your last order sets you free...
"Good Luck. You're on your own."
Here's What You Do
Generate Your Character: You select your nationality, chracter type, and your military and nonmilitary backgrounds.
Equip Yourself: use your money for weapons, ammunition, equipment, vehicles and spares.
Start Moving: You're in hostile territory. Your next encounter may be a friendly farmer, a frightened refugee, or a dangerous deserter. You pick your course of action; you decide your own fate in the chaos of World War III.
Twilight 2000's award-winning game rules provide the foundation for role-playing in the chaos of World War III.
Combat: Fast-playing, easy-to-resolve comabt system gives the feel of modern battles.
Travel: Types of travel, time scales, vehicles, encounters, maintenance, fuel, repairs.
Encounters: Dangerous environments, radiation, disease, contaminants, reasons for encounters and typical adventures.
Danger: Places to go and reasons to go there. Plus reasons you wish you hadn't.
Background:Chronology and history of World War III
Twilight 2000. The adventures are fast and furious. The prize is survival, and maybe, just maybe, a safe place to spend the night.
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It is rare that anything achieves a 4.8 rating on DTRPG with nearly 150 ratings to its name. Trilemma Adventures Compendium Volume I is one of those rare beasts. I own it already and plan to liberally borrow and steal from it for my next campaign, as it is not only "that good" but highly inspirational. Perfect for the DM who enjoys running campaigns "by the seat of their pants—sandbox style!"
This book brings together the award-winning Trilemma Adventures: 48 one- and two-page adventure locations for fantasy role-playing games. 2020 ENnie Award winner for Best Adventure (silver) and Best Cartography (gold)!
Each location is written to be usable separately, perfect for one-shot sessions, side quests, or to help populate your home grown campaign setting.
All have been lavishly illustrated and laid out to make them easy to run, straight from the book.This book is packed with caverns, castles, underworld cities, labyrinths, mansions, flying tombs, hidden temples, and fallen shrines.
Also inside is more than 60 pages of new material:
an illustrated bestiary
an appendix of magical items
ten solid pages of hooks, rumors and secret lore
six regional gazetteers tying the adventure locations into a ready-to-use campaign setting
a full-color regional map, in GM and player versions
a complete index
a bonus location, set in the aftermath of the Kickstarter invasion scenario
This compendium is an essential part of your GM kit!
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Need more monsters to liven up your campaign? Need something unique to fill out your dungeon? Look no further than Monsters of Myth. Nominally written for OSRIC but suitable for the OSR ruleset of your choice, Monsters of Myth can be had for FREE.
Monsters of Myth is the premiere collection of OSRIC monsters, and contains more than 150 new creatures for use with First Edition-compatible games. A companion in the spirit of the monster collections from the 1970s to 1980s, Monsters of Myth will provide game masters with many unique challenges with which to test their players!
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It's beginning to feel like Christmas - because every Christmas, we get a Campaign Cartographer 3+ Bundle over at Humble Bundle. If you want it, grab it at the $30 bundle level. It is simply the best value of the lot.
Design maps for your own tabletop campaigns, fantasy settings, and more! This bundle includes everything you need to create stunning, print-worthy works of art that will bring your worlds to life. Get powerful software like Campaign Cartographer 3+ (including a Lifetime License), City Designer 3, Dungeon Designer 3, Tome of Ultimate Mapping, and more. Unlock a treasury that will take your tabletop games and fantasy stories to the next level, and help support Save the Children with your purchase.
Shadowdark holds a special place in my heart. It's an old-school chassis with an engine built off of 5e. The ecology of high-quality releases from third-party publishers for Shadowdark is second to none.
Menagerie Press invites you to adventure into the elf-tombs of Moire and Tiar, find Ord’s crypt-tree, battle the Amber Chimera, and recover eldritch baubles and lore.
A Shadowdark-compatible role-playing game adventure collection for level 1-5 characters.
The Queen of Brambles: Elf-Queen Lia's crypt was recently rediscovered. Do you dare disturb her resting place?
Shune's Door: In the hillside, a black steel door is etched with the diabolic glyph of Shune the Betrayer. What lies beyond?
Gorr's Tomb: Hatlitt Gorr was a renowned dragon-slayer, but the dwarf warlord succumbed to the curse of his dragon-tainted gold. Seek gold and glory, or a quick death.
The Amber Chimera: An old Elvish reflecting pool, a black obelisk, and a chimera carved from amber. Rumors talk about wealth, danger, and a gemstone beast that cannot die.
The Pale Vault: The Ebon Heart, an arcane relic of immense power, was secured in the Pale Vault. Will you brave the vault's wards and acquire the wooden heart?
Tomb of Himortu: The ancient elf-lord Himortu was buried with his arms and armor. Surely these antiquities belong in your capable hands - you just need to go get them.
Short Encounters: A collection of 15+ wilderness and 6+ urban encounters, such as a dream wine speakeasy, prism-worshipping cultists, a trapped cave troll, hobgoblin bandit ambushes, eager grifters selling "magical trinkets," and many more.
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I am a massive fan of the Palladium Fantasy rules. I like the Palladium system well enough (which breaks down with Rifts, IMHO), but the setting and support material are fantastic. You can grab the Palladium Fantasy 2e Starter set for 17.95.
Adventurer! We've resurrected our January 2022 Palladium Fantasy 2E Bundle featuring .PDF ebooks for the 1996 Second Edition of The Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Kevin Siembieda's tabletop fantasy RPG from Palladium Books. The mystical world of Palladium is a land rich in magic. The Wolfen Empire prepares for war in the Great Northern Wilderness, and the Giant kingdom of Mount Nimro threatens nearby human, elven, and dwarven settlements. Mystics, Knights, and Barbarians call upon the gods for powers both new and arcane to bend the world to their will. On the high seas, pirates sail to islands like the Isle of Zy and the Island of the Cyclops. Against a host of legendary creatures, and the backstabbing intrigues of the high courts, you'll need dragon-forged will, deceptive guile, and a stout backbone to survive.
For just US$17.95 you get all six titles in this revived offer's Starter Collection (retail value $71.50) as DRM-free ebooks, including the complete Palladium Fantasy RPG 2E core rulebook, The Heart of Magic rules expansion, the sourcebooks Monsters and Animals and Dragons & Gods, and the introductory setting sourcebooks The Western Empire and Library of Bletherad.
And if you pay more than the threshold price of $33.34, you'll level up and also get this revival's entire Bonus Collection with ten more setting sourcebooks worth an additional $125, including Wolfen Empire, Eastern Territory, Land of the Damned 1 - Chaos Lands and 2 - Eternal Torment, Mount Nimro, Baalgor Wastelands, Northern Hinterlands, Bizantium and the Northern Islands, Old Ones 2E, and Adventures on the High Seas 2E.
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I should number these Free OSR posts, but I'm too lazy. :)
Venger—love or hate him- produces some excellent material for your Old School campaign. Cha'alt is a bit of a setting book, a bit of an adventure module, and 100% gonzo. Even if gonzo isn't your cup of tea, for the price of FREE, can you really go wrong?
Cha'alt is the beast of a book (218 pages) I've been working on for the past year. It's a ruined world focusing on a couple of introductory dungeons before getting to the main event - the megadungeon known as The Black Pyramid.
The Black Pyramid is like nothing you've ever seen before. Unique design, purpose, feel, magic items, NPCs, monsters, factions, motives, agendas, strangeness, the works!
There's a decent amount of setting detail besides dungeoncrawling - space opera bar, domed city, mutants, weird ass elves, desert pirates, a city ruled by a gargantuan purple demon-worm, and much more!
Cha'alt is compatible with both old school and 5e D&D purposefully blended for maximum usability. Full disclosure: aside from advantage/disadvantage and bounded accuracy, there isn't much in the way of 5th edition mechanics. It's predominantly OSR.
I've included my own Crimson Dragon Slayer D20 as an appendix, but you can use any of the hundred RPG systems available to run Cha'alt as your own. The rules-language is fairly neutral, and my priority was helping the Game Master at the table.
The world is gonzo, eldritch, science-fantasy, and post-apocalyptic. It's a wild ride, perfect for those players seeking something a little bit different, but also recognizable.
The interior is gorgeous full-color art, layout, cartography and Lovecraftian aesthetics. Gold ENnie winner Glynn Seal of MonkeyBlood Design went above and beyond his usual fantastic job. Give the new 32 page preview a look. I spared no expense making Cha'alt fantastic - this world is alive and spilling over with possibilities.
Cha'alt should give you years of solid, non-standardized gaming.
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The Mouth of Mentius
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By Gina Marie FunkWitch Pleas PublishingOSR/5e/DCCLevel 5 As the ashes of
the last battle between Sydonia’s Sidereal Sailors and the Unseen Web
settle, the...
#RPGaDAY2026: Day 15 Endurance
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*Endurance* is not glamorous, but it is what is needed.
It's not in the dramatic speech before the monster makes its entrance, or
in the final fight and ...
Subscribe to Dragonne
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Dragonne is the free journal of BRW Games, featuring referee resources,
random tables, design articles, previews, and news for fans of old-school
fantasy r...
Friday Fantasy: Haunting of Beggar’s Creek
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*Haunting of Beggar’s Creek* is a scenario for Shadow of the Weird Wizard,
the roleplaying game set on the world of Erth in the Borderlands between
the re...
Beautiful Sample Contents from The Great North
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Once summer holidays are out of the way, I will be launching the
Kickstarter for The Great North, described long ago as 'Yoon-Suin but in
Northumberland'...
Music Monday - Play Dead (Part 2)
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Back in June I posted the music video for Ice Nine Kill's Play Dead. The
song and video are based on one of my favorite horror video games, Dead By
Dayligh...
Single saving throws
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It's been a while now that my D&D-style games have used a single saving
throw.
Original D&D's saving throws, with their more concrete categories like
spel...
Beating the Planetary Blues...
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World building is a central tenet of tabletop gaming, and it certainly
illuminates the sheer immensity involved in a living planet. Vast
continents spann...
Murder mystery
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The local adventurers guild named "fernleaf and associates" is basically a
sleuthing agency. The patron is an older elf named Flynn fernleaf. He
pays wel...
More Wee Planes
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I've been 3d printing and painting some 1:144 WW1 aircraft, for playing *Canvas
Eagles*, a tabletop WW1 dogfight game.
I can't say that I've been excep...
The Common Store of Monsters
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I am slowly grinding my way through the re-writes for Veins of the Earth.
As part of the re-write I have re-organised the ‘Pariahs of the Earth’
monsters ...
[BLOG] News on the March! Episode XVI.
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This post continues the series of brief play reports I have been posting on
Discord. This does not cover every single session (sometimes, recon and
setup...
Card Game Update
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I received a set of rules clarifications from a Kickstarter Backer. Here’s
an update about where things stand with the card game going live on
DriveThruCar...
Konkord - Peace Operations
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*[A former Konkord Star Major, name since redacted, in response to an
audience question at the Windfall Orbital State of the Dragon Conference.
Recording...
Felltower Updates
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I did a little blog maintenance today.
I updated the DF Campaign page with links to to last 5 sessions, and also a
link to the heavier crossbow rules we us...
Young Washington and 1753
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I saw Young Washington last weekend and absolutely loved it. If you know
me, you know the Revolutionary War era is my favorite time period. I have
always f...
The Old School (Hyperborean) Renaissance
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Are these poorly-masked adventure hooks? Yes, yes they are.
For the last century a peculiar fever has gripped the learned societies of
Marlinko, Kezmaro...
Micro-Adventure - #114 RATS!
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Dungeon tropes are a thing to embrace, not to dismiss. It's simple to
handwave the storm the orc infested tower to save the princess, evil wizard
in a t...
Moldvay Basic D&D now Available in Print
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Just a quick note that (finally) Moldvay Basic D&D is available in POD from
DTRPG – previously, only the Cook/Marsh …
Continue reading →
Abstraction in My Liege,
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I think the aspect of *My Liege,* that could potentially put off the most
people is its lack of accounting granularity. It does not track Court
wealth in...
Consolidated AD&D Weapon Characteristics List
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Having spent the last few days down a research rabbit hole, I ended up
compiling a chart of AD&D weapon characteristics, adding some "missing"
entries an...
Referee Sabotage
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It is an old saw that players are bad at executing their plans. Imagine
this common scene: the party have some big job that requires planning;
perhaps robb...
The March 1636 Lantern is Published
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Okay, The March Lantern is available. Those fast on the draw may have
noticed that I mistakenly published it as free access for 56 minutes. I
was just so ...
On a Happy New Year
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We are about to experience the most social upheaval since industrialization.
What will that look like in sixty years?
Sinless is starting it's third yea...
Mutants and Wizards
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Heya folks, long time no see.
I've just started working on something new called Mutants and Wizards. It's
going to be an OSE/OSR post-apocalyptic game t...
Rob Kuntz at Lucca Comics & Games 2025
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If you are planning a trip to Europe (like right now) and wish to catch up
with me in person, make sure to book a detour via *Lucca Comics & Games*,
...
How do you do piracy… in SPACE!?
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Interstellar space travel in Iridium Moons was always going to be a form of
hyperspace jump like in Star Wars or Traveller. Simply because it’s the one
for...
A long overdue hobby update!
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Welcome back to the Vault everyone! 2025 is going by in a blur; I last
posted in February, almost started a post in March and now it's the end of
May. W...
Playing at the World 2E V2 Arrives
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With the release of its second volume, the second edition of *Playing at
the World *is finally complete. The two books combined total well over
1,000 ...
Writing playlists for all occasions
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Hello again! Going off the idea of inspiration elaborated on by the prior
post, I also have music playing while I write my various games and fiction
pieces...
The Tarot of Pips
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Somewhere in your dice collection is a die like this one, the humblest of
dice. Although you don't know it, this small white die carries with it a
secr...
Pirates and Necromancers, a Play Report
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Over the Thanksgiving weekend we did a lot of gaming ranging from
“off-table” domain level stuff to some solo adventures to spell and magic
item rese...
*'s in SpaaaaaAaaaace
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A lot of SF (including a certain 2D6 RPG grandaddy) deal with ancient
aliens taking humans from Earth and dropping them, fleas and all, on one or
more w...
Last move - to self-hosting!
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As my vote regarding Substack in the “marketplace of ideas”, I’m moving to
self-hosting.
I’m now at (and hopefully staying for a long time at)
Blog: ht...
Clean Your Room
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Looking back at my little blog here. That last post… wow, I was having fun
playing WOW Classic! That was August of 1999 and I was having a blast… it
was ...
The Worm Ouroboros
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The Worm Ouroboros is a proto-fantasy (the in the genre sense) novel by E.
R. Eddison, originally published in 1922. It is an amalgam of mythological
tradi...
Steve Jackson Interview
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James Maliszewski recently did an interview with Steve Jackson over on his
Grognardia blog. Steve chats about the beginnings of The Fantasy Trip and
upcomi...
ToAD Monster of the Week: Crocoman
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Now that I'm back doing the blog thing I thought I would use Tome of
Adventure Design to create monsters for The Black Hack.
Using the monster tables in th...
Strange, Dangerous, and Inhuman: The Fey and Fairie
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When I was a boy I loved fairy tales. Jack and the Beanstalk, Puss in
Boots, Rumpelstiltskin - I devoured all of it. My fascination that there
was a strang...
Dungeons & Dragonmead Fall Schedule
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*As you know, I run public classic Dungeons & Dragons games at **The Loaded
Die**/Metro Detroit Game Night's Board Game Nigh at **Dragonmead**, in
Warren...
Fiction in Airhde
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On a whim this weekend, I picked up some fiction off the TLG store. *A
Houseless God & Other Tales* and *The Mirrored Soul & Other Tales*, both by
the T...
Ravensburg Reboot: Streamlined City Map
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I mentioned in my last post how I was tweaking and reworking parts of my
Ravensburg setting. Today I streamlined the city map. The old map had lots
of redu...
The Withered Crag available now
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I just enabled the sale of the PDF version of The Withered Crag at
DriveThruRPG a few minutes ago, and the custom print version will be
available startin...
Annihilation Rising Goes live
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The latest in Fail Squad Games’ Quick Kick projects has gone live and needs
your support!! This project is only running 11 days and ends on 5/28/2019!
...
James's Celebration of Life
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We could not have asked for a prettier day for James's service. It was a
bit chilly and windy but gorgeous. A heartfelt thank you to all that joined
us tod...
Trap Tuesday: A step back
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I will get back to Tomb of Horrors soon. I found a topic that was
interesting enough to take a break. While interacting in a 5E group on
Facebook I talked ...
Let's Talk About Pacing!
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The idea, I think, is that the RPG is ultimately about the long game. Even
rolling back to the early days of Basic & Expert, the goal of the player
was...
Profane and Profound Prep Part 2
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This is part 2 of my work to edit my magic items for a DMsGuild release,
along with adding cursed items along the way. Here is part 1. Bone of a
Saint 8000...
Please, I don't do paid advertisements - don't ask.
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A little note since people have asked me about this. My video channel's
*not* an advertising platform, so I'm not available for hire if you want to
promote...
New website!
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Slowly but surely, all the content here will make its way — in updated
form! — to my new website: timbannock.com. For fairly obvious reasons, that
site wil...
Please Update Your Link!
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If you're seeing this, it means your link to the Greyhawk Grognard blog is
out of date.
Please update your link to www.greyhawkgrognard.com (RSS feed is
h...
Total Sales for WB:FMAG
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Hi Folks,
It's been a long time since I provided an update for the sales of White
Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game.
*LULU*
Print: 396
PDF: 433
*OBS*...
How can We Destroy this Campaign World?
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d12
1. You must trick a bard into strumming the *Chords of Fate* on the *Lute
of Annihilation*
2. Legends tell of thermonuclear weapons beneath megadunge...
Mord Mar - Session 5
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We had another successful delve into the dungeon yesterday. The delvers:
Moira, the Magic-User
Radovan - Human Cleric (of Odin?)
Khazgar Stonehand - Dwarf ...
Bundle of Fantasy Age
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Bundle of Holding: Dragon Age/Fantasy Age: Available until March 12. PA
Presents: Fantasy AGE Freeport live play Green Ronin in 2018 The Fantasy
Age RPG ma...
New Free PDF Module: The Hyqueous Vaults
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A new dungeon module—written in celebration of OSRIC's 10th Birthday—by
Rebecca Dettmann, Allan T. Grohe, Jr., Jimm Johnson, Matthew Riedel, Alex
Zisch, a...
Swords & Wizardry Light: Session # 6
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Two months after our last session (thanks to things like 8th grade finals,
a 4 year-old's birthday and party, Father's Day, etc.), we finally had our
next ...