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Friday, May 6, 2022

Deal of the Day - The Gauntlet of Doom (Monster! Monster! / Tunnels & Trolls)

For those that don't know, I'm a huge fan of the Tunnels & Trolls system. There is something about its simplicity and versatility, especially with small player groups, that you don't often see. Its roots go back to the beginning of the RPG hobby. Monsters! Monsters! is an offshoot of Tunnels & Trolls (T&T), and unlike T&T, which is/was owned by Flying Buffalo (which is now owned by Webbed Sphere as of the summer of 2021 after the passing of Rick Loomis) Monsters! Monsters! remains under the control of its creator, Ken St Andre. Phew! That was a mouthful ;)

In any case, today's Deal of the Day is The Gauntlet of Doom for the Monsters! Monsters! RPG (or T&T or any fantasy RPG with a little work). Normally 5 bucks, until tomorrow morning The Gauntlet of Doom is on sale for a mere 2 bucks!

Additionally, there are other T&T and M!M! releases from Trollhalla Press that may interest those interested in or curious about Tunnels & Trolls and/or Monsters! Monsters!

Traps, more traps, and even more fiendish traps! Sure, you'll have a chance to fight, but if you want to be the ruler of the city of Gaxarn in Zimrala, you have to prove that you can survive when everything is trying to kill you. Come to think of it, that's a good description of fantasy world politics. Everything is trying to kill you.

 


The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on YouTube - Tenkar

Thursday, May 5, 2022

Sine Nomine Sale - 20-40% Off Most Titles in PDF

Kevin Crawford simply writes good shit. If you want an OSR game that isn't simply fantasy, that is built from the ground up for sandbox play, pick up a Sine Nomine ruleset. 

Kevin is probably best known for the sci-fi RPG Stars Without Number: Original Core Edition (on sale for 11.99). There are also Silent Legions (Mythos on sale for 11.99), Scarlet Heroes (on sale for 8.99 for one on one swords & sorcery play), Godbound: A Game of Divine Heroes (also on sale for 11.99), and other titles. 

Seriously, it's hard to go wrong with Sine Nomine :)

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on YouTube - Tenkar 

Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Deal of the Day - Sidequest Decks: Monster Hunts (Inkwell Designs)

I've been a huge fan of Inkwell Designs for years. Mapping programs, stock art, and Dungeonmorph Dice are all awesome resources. But the Sidequest Decks are where I've gotten the most use. I've used them to prepare a night's adventuring with literally 10 minutes of prep, as I always keep a deck or two in my gaming bag just for such occasions. I can't speak highly enough of the Inkwell Designs Sidequest Decks.

If you've never owned one of Joe's decks, today's Deal of the Day is your chance to grab Sidequest Decks: Monster Hunts in PDF for 2 bucks (normally $5 in PDF). I just realized I don't own this deck, so I'm springing for the print deck and will likely bring it to NTRPG Con, in case I run a pickup game or two ;)

This deck has nearly 70 sidequests centered on many different traditional fantasy monsters!

Each card is a mini-adventure. One side is an outline which starts with some background game master information then a couple of ways to begin the quest. Next are several key encounter ideas (use some or all of them or modify them, based on your party’s actions), and finally a follow-up idea or two. The other side of the card is the main map for the adventure. Need more maps for other encounters? Fan through the cards and you’re sure to find something that fits the situation.

Like most of our Sidequest Decks, each card is designed to be its own quest. However, this deck includes two cards which list which monsters are on each card. Combine that with a list of which monsters have what traits on the Inkwell Ideas website (search Inkwell Ideas Monsters by Feature), and you can pick a few sidequests for your PCs to collect monster parts needed to craft a magic item or perform an arcane ritual!

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on YouTube - Tenkar 


Tuesday, May 3, 2022

Hyperborea Sale - 20-40% Off Northwind Adventures



First things first. I consider Jeff Talanian a friend. I've covered his booth at Total Con and other conventions when Jeff had to scoot for a few minutes. On a gaming level, Hyperborea is one of the best OSR systems out there, and probably the one with the most options without overwhelming the players. Aside from that, Jeff is simply good people.

For the month of May, DTRPG is running a Dungeons & Dragons Sale, with included PDFs being offered at a 20% to 40% discount.

The entire Hyperboria Collection of releases is included in this sale, with the latest edition of the Hyperborea rules being offered at a 20% discount (9.60 each for the Player's and Referee's Manuals), and the various Hyperborea Adventures being offered at a 40% discount (6 bucks each). It should be noted that Hyperborea Adventures can easily be run with the OSR ruleset of your choice.

My personal favorite is Rats in the Walls and Other Perils. Heck, I even own the shirt!

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on YouTube - Tenkar 



Monday, May 2, 2022

Dungeons & Dragons Sale at DTRPG - All Editions!


For nearly the rest of the month of May, DTRPG is running a sale on Dungeons & Dragons releases in PDF, including third-party OSR releases. Discounts will be as high as 40% for releases over two years old.

Over the next few days, I'll put together some Tavern Pick Posts.

Below is this week's highlighted splash page, featuring Planescape 2e.


The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar 


Weird Frontiers RPG 50% off the PDF for Backers of the Far West Fiasco

David Baity (creator of the Weird Frontiers RPG) is offering a special deal for the backers of the Far West RPG Kickstarter, which is over 10 years late as I type this.

From David:

I’m a big fan of Tenkar’s Tavern, and one of the things I love about this guy is that he keeps up with those that don’t follow through on their KS campaigns. 

While I’m a year late on my own, the book has doubled in size and has quite a lot of additional products involved and Weird Frontiers is about to reach the fulfillment stage, so I thought it would be nice to offer Far West backers a deal on the PDF just in case you still have an itch for something weird and western! For 72 hours you can use the link to snag 50% off the PDF!

I'm putting the discount link on a Far West Kickstarter Backers Only Update, so make sure you are logged into Kickstarter to get the discount link.

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar  

Sunday, May 1, 2022

Still "Mining" in Germany

Still "Mining" in Germany
So I'm on my third weekend, of four, on my business "trip" to Germany and I'm dying to get some gaming in. Playing cards with the guys is fine and all, but I have dice that need to be rolled and being on this blog is as close as I'm going to get until I'm state-side. The only physical game stores I've managed to find out about are on the other side of the country, so I guess my free time will have to be spent drinking, playing cards, and being a tourist. 

Really not a terrible way to spend my free time.....but still.

I am lucky in that there is a metric butt-ton (or would it be butt-tonne?) of inspirational ideas to be found here. I've got a small list already going and have even started on an outline for an OSR adventure inspired by a trio of sites I got to visit while out & about.

Also, and I get on so many levels that this is kind of a "duh" moment, but so many things here in Germany are so.......foreign. Not so much culture shock type stuff, but little stuff that is just so different to the point it seems like it could be used as good flavor text. 

I mean, when we play in a table-top RPG we're playing characters in a foreign land. There should be a ton of differences between our world and the fantasy world, I mean well outside of the concept of magic and monsters. Now I'm assuming that the majority of Tavern patrons are Americans and that the majority of table-top RPGs have a more...Medieval European (Western or Eastern) flavor.

Hopefully some of my observations from this trip, and my previous travels (I did live in another German state for a few years) would help me as a GM to convey some appreciable semblance of these differences to liven up the game a bit.

Life in a Medieval Series

One resource I've found useful as a GM, probably more useful than my first-hand experiences, is the Medieval Life series of books by Frances and Joseph Gies. I guess this series is up to eight books now, but I only have the Life in a Medieval Village, Life in a Medieval Castle, and Life in a Medieval City books (these are not sponsored links, unless Erik is able to change them out.....). 

I'm not done with all of the books, but I have liked what I've read so far and I recommend them to pretty much any GM.

I'm a sucker for historical-type books so consider this a biased recommendation. I'd love, love, love to find some local history and folklore books about the region I'm in now that I could use to inject more life into my GMing (and writing). I'm sure they exist, but not in English.....

Now I've been going on a bit about Europe and Germany obviously 'cause that's where I'm at now, but I have to admit that these kinds of things I'm picking up on here are available back in the US, if you know where to look. We've got some great early colonial history from the like of early New York or Boston, but I've been surprised by minable historical details in unlikely places. 

One example I read about the early history of the Iowa county I went to high school in. IIRC 1840's or so. Records were a bit on the scarce side, but populations and memberships were available. It seemed like there were a LOT of social groups/not-so-secret societies and it seemed like most men were probably involved in at least two groups, so clearly there was a lot of intertwining of these social groups. Might seem like nothing, but now when I develop a small village I add in multiple non-religious organizations and develop small ties between them. If the PCs befriend one group they might get some extra play from others, or some level of hate/distrust from others.

Hopefully I can get some dice rolling this next week or so, or at least get some map-work done....

Saturday, April 30, 2022

Deal of the Day - Cha'alt (Gonzo Setting)


Let's get this out of the way: Cha'alt is written by Venger Satanis. V is a polarizing personality in gaming, to put it politely. I expect that that situation pleases Venger just fine. The thing is, the majority of his fantasy RPG work is pretty good to damn amazing (I'm not a fan of his Alpha Blue line, but that's my personal preference) in my humble opinion. If you like Venger, you probably already know that V has some solid releases. If he's on your shit list, today's Deal of the Day may be an opportunity to view the work separate from the man at a discounted price.

Until tomorrow morning at 11 AM, Cha'alt is on sale for 5 bucks - half of its regular sale price of 10 bucks. Cha'alt is about 200 pages of old-school gaming gonzoness.

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. 

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar 

Friday, April 29, 2022

Kickstarter - AEON: Ancient Greece Volume 3 “Monsters of Myth” (DCC RPG)


I've covered previous releases in the AEON series of zines. During the funding period of AEON Issue #2, our group was playing in JoetheLawyer's bronze age setting, and the zine was a good fit for flavor. No, we weren't playing using the DCC RPG rules (we were using Joe's bronze age fantasy heartbreaker rules), but converting from DCC to other OSR systems is fairly easy, the difficulty is going in the other direction. 

AEON: Ancient Greece Volume 3 “Monsters of Myth” is as low as a single buck for the PDF, or 12 bucks for the Print plus PDF shipped worldwide.

Whether your campaign takes place in our Ancient Greek setting... In Lankhmar… On the Purple Planet… The Empire of the East… Mutant Crawl Classics…  Umerica… or your own doesn't matter because this brand new volume is going to help you bring the wondrous and downright terrifying to your campaign thanks to 36 new monsters inspired by Greek mythology for your Dungeon Crawl Classics game.

The Ancient Greeks measured their heroes by their mighty deeds.

And nothing will test your players’ mettle, luck, and their standing with the Gods, like a battle to the death with an epic monster.

Your players have better rested and healed up ‘cuz they’re gonna need all their HP, Spells, Abilities and Luck if they want to defeat, let alone live to tell the story of their legendary battles with these mythical monsters!

We guarantee your players have NEVER encountered any of these monsters before!


The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar 

Thursday, April 28, 2022

Humble Bundle - Tales of the Space Marines Chapter 2022 by Black Library

I'm a huge fan of the Warhammer and Warhammer 40k fiction. There is just something about the default universe that I find exciting. The opportunity to pick up 24 Warhammer 40k Titles for 18 bucks in digital (Mobi/Kindle and ePub formats) makes this a deal I can't pass up. Besides, my old eyes no longer are treated well by most print products ;)

Tales of the Space Marines Chapter 2022 by Black Library gives you 24 books for $18. That's like 75 cents a book.

Discover the fearless exploits of the Adeptus Astartes—the elite Space Marines of the Warhammer 40,000 universe—in this collection of novels & fiction from Black Library! This galaxy-spanning bundle gathers war stories of Chapters and squads from across the Imperium, charged with defending humanity against the relentless forces of Chaos. Explore the grim darkness of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and support EveryLibrary with your purchase!

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar 

Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Kickstarter - TileForge: Software to Batch-Generate Mapping Tiles (Mapping Program)


This software for Mac & Windows PCs will create batches of custom geomorphic tiles for use in creating top-down battlemaps for RPGs.

I've been a huge fan of Heruca/BattleGrounds Games for over a decade. Not only did he offer a useful VTT, but he also offered links to the VTTs of competitors, and he also offers links to competitors of his mapping software. 

BattleGrounds Games used to be best known for offering a competitive VTT, but now I believe they are best known for their popular mapping software, MapForge.

The TileForge Kickstarter is BGG's latest offering, to allow one to design and print out battle maps on demand for their game sessions.

25 bucks is a very fair price, especially when you consider the price and storage issues of Dwarven Forge terrain and the like.

TileForge is a new program that I would like to develop, to support the creation of maps for tabletop RPGs (e.g. Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, etc.). It should serve quite well as a companion app to my map-making software, MapForge, but that software is not required.

Whereas MapForge is focused is on creating battlemaps, TileForge is for creating geomorphic mapping tiles and stand-alone assets. These tiles and assets can later be used in your favorite image editor, map-making app, or even in a virtual tabletop app (e.g. Roll20, Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, etc.), to quickly assemble custom map layouts from the modular assets.

Creating geomorphic mapping tiles can be a tedious and labor-intensive process. TileForge will automate that process. Simply choose a few textures (you'll be able to drag-and-drop texture images right onto the app), and TileForge will apply the necessary shape masks, drop shadows, bevels and other effects, and create an entire set of geomorphic map tiles using those textures.

And TileForge won't be limited to creating just modular hallways or roads. You will also be able to create rooms or buildings, including multi-tile ones. Even create them without a background, so that you can place them anywhere on your maps.

Depending on the textures you use, you can make tilesets for a variety of genres: Fantasy, Modern Day, Sci-Fi, etc. Some examples of tilesets you could create include space station/base, dungeon, fantasy castle corridors/rooms, modern city roads, etc.

Entrepreneurs take note: If the textures that you utilize in a tileset allow commercial use, you could sell your TileForge-generated tilesets on sites like DriveThruRPG, the Roll20 marketplace, Etsy, Fiverr, and/or other online stores that cater to RPG fans. Or run your own crowdfunding campaign to deliver your tileset/s printed on card stock designed for use with dry erase or wet erase markers.

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar 

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Deal of the Day - Bottomless Pit of Zorth (OSR Adventure)

I have to admit, I'm a bit of an adventure junkie. No, not in real life, but I enjoy reading adventures, especially adventures written for the OSR. Its few and far between where I run them as written, but I mine the shit out of them for the sessions I run. 

Bottomless Pit of Zorth is today's Deal of the Day, written for OSRIC/OSR for a party of levels 3 to 5. I wish they mentioned the level range on the sales page, but I'll forgive that sin. Sure, it's on the cover, but you'll only be able to read that bit if you click on the thumbnail. Bottomless Pit of Zorth is normally 7.50 in PDF, but until tomorrow morning, it's on sale for 4.50.

This OSRIC/OSR adventure can be run as a stand-alone or as part of the Gunderholfen and Darkness at Nekemte setting. It includes approximatlely 65 keyed locations + random site/event and encounter tables. It's heavy on curious oddities; viscous oozes; and squishy, mutated monstrosities, with a healthy dose of push-the-red-button and see-what-happens interaction thrown in for good measure. 

The Bottomless Pit of Zorth has stood as a place of inscrutable mystery and dread since time immemorial, yet not few of the brave and reckless have tried their luck within its deep and reportedly never ending depths. Those lucky enough to survive can attest to its apparent bottomless nature, but spoke more of the alienness and oddness of the place: the unfathomable purpose of the giant rotating pin that pierces down into the depths; the otherworldly machinery; and the crazed and demented denizens that for reasons unknown defended the hellish hole. These survivors often left with a sense that there was a deliberate design and purpose to the Pit and that a terrible but inhuman intellect ruled and guided all, though none have yet seen or met this assuredly dreadful master.

 

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar 

Monday, April 25, 2022

Free RPG - Call of Cthulhu Quickstart and Alone Against the Flames (Solo)

You say you want to play a scary RPG and have no one to play with? Well, with the Call of Cthulhu Quickstart and the Alone Against the Flames solo adventure, you can get the full CoC experience by yourself for the price of free. No, no one else will see you lose points of sanity, and only you will know if you cheat on your dice rolls, but your experience will be truthful to the CoC genre.

Alone Against the Flames: An Introductory Solitaire Adventure for Call of Cthulhu

This is a solo adventure for the Call of Cthulhu game. It is a horror story set in the 1920s where you are the main character, and your choices determine the outcome. It is also designed to lead you through the basic rules of the game in a gradual and entertaining fashion. Although most such adventures are played with your friends, this one is just for you. 

Before you begin to play, make sure you have a copy of the Call of Cthulhu Seventh Edition Quick-Start Rules. You’ll also need a pencil, an eraser, and some roleplaying dice. 

You don’t need to read the rules before you start playing. Just settle in a comfortable chair before a roaring fire. Then read on and follow the instructions. 

…On second thought, don’t sit too close to the fire.

 

Welcome to Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Quick-Start Rules, a booklet that collects the essential rules for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition and presents them in abbreviated form.

This book comprises a complete basic roleplaying game system, a framework of rules aimed at allowing players to enact a sort of improvisational radio theater—only without microphones—and with dice determining whe­ther the characters succeed or fail at what they attempt to do. In roleplaying games, one player takes on the role of the gamemaster (or Keeper, in Call of Cthulhu), while the other player(s) assume the roles of player characters (investigators, in Call of Cthulhu) in the game. The gamemaster also acts out the roles of characters who aren’t being guided by players: these are called non-player characters (NPCs).

From its origin, Call of Cthulhu was designed to be intuitive and easy to play. Character attributes follow a 3D6 curve, and the other Call of Cthulhu mechanics are even simpler. Virtually all rolls determining success or failure of a task are determined via the roll of percentile dice. This means that there’s less fiddling with dice of different types, and the concept of a percentile chance of success is extremely easy for beginners and experienced players to grasp.

Use this booklet to play  Call of Cthulhu immediately, and to discover the improvements to the system. Games rules, an updated character sheet, and a classic adventure are included.

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on YouTube - Tenkar

Sunday, April 24, 2022

Picking Up Some New Dice from Monday Knight Adventures (DCC/MCC compatible 14 dice set)

Picking Up Some New Dice from Monday Knight Adventures (DCC/MCC compatible 14 dice set)
Just a head's up that today's post is 110% me "abusing" the privilege of being able to post "whatever I want" here at the Tavern.........

Now I will admit that as a (RPG) gamer I like dice. I mean who here doesn't?!

I'm also a self-diagnosed dice snob, using my old-school Gamescience dice to exclusion of almost any others. Kind of a difficult position to be in since I cannot really get any more GS dice. Sure, there are some available, but my ability to get all the dice I want, like another d30, yeah.....just not going to happen. I lucked out getting the last two d30's Zocchi had, but that tale has been told (hence the link).

As an almost aside, I used to play HackMaster 4th edition (I know, as if I've never brought that one up before) and I went through a stupid number of dice in that game. Like at one point I HAD to have a metric shit-ton of d6s and d4s for some of my DS Invoker's spells (including some for penetration rolls), but luckily back then I had the means and ability to purchase Gamescience dice, so I have a good supply of dice I'm not currently using....unless I want some of the odd ones, like d3's, d5's etc. While I have some, they are mismatched and not quite what I need when I'm playing Dungeon Crawl Classics or Mutant Crawl Classics.

If you haven't played DCC or MCC, the game can get a bit crazy with odd dice rolls, but the extreme randomness is part of the game's balance. You can get by replacing some dice rolls with others, like using a d30 for a d14 and ignoring any roll of  15+, but that doesn't work out that great......and just sucks if you're dice fan, and most of us are dice fans.

What normally happens is I use my normal GS dice set and then somehow I manage to get into a DCC or MCC game and then have a last-minute burning desire, nay need, for the full range of odd dice for a DCC/MCC game. Then I have to make a run to the dealer's hall and cough up $30 for whatever I can get. One set of dice for a pick-up game is fine, but not enough......I like to use two sets of dice when I play because, well.....you know.....sometimes dice just go cold and shit. If I'm stuck using a bum d20 I guess I could grab one of my regular dice, but then I'm mixing sets.....

....and you know how the dice don't like it when you mix them up.....

.....and sure it works for a d20, but what if it's your d14 goes bad for a spell?

No, I need two matched sets of dice. Since we have North Texas RPG Con coming up I figured I'd grab one of my older "emergency purchase" sets and find another matching set. Well that was my plan....

....until I found out that a couple of guys I knew from my HackMaster 4th Edition days had contracted with Impact! Miniatures to get their own batch of DCC/MCC compatible dice made. They're making them under the company name of Monday Knight Adventures and the dice can be found on eBay for now. 

Poisoned Skulls 14 piece dice set

Now since I know the guys behind Monday Knight Adventures and despite their public attempts to sometimes come off as indifferent a-holes, they're actually good guys. Back in the day when I was fortunate enough to be on a business trip to Nashville, I'd make the 2 hour trip to sit in on their Monday night home game.....and when I needed some help play-testing some tournament adventures I knew if I flew across the country they'd free up a weekend to run through the adventures.

On a more personal note, when I was going through some tough times during my volunteer days, these guys (the whole group, not just the two behind MKA) epitomized the saying "Who's got your back?", which (ironically) was a HackMaster "thing".

Clearly I think it would be cool if anyone who is interested in supporting some good guys, or who needs some cool dice, heads over and picks some of these "Poisoned Skulls" dice off of ebay. Now I'm into this for more than just a cheap Tavern shout-out.....since I'm pretty much on business trips until right before NTRPG, I don't have the ability to make my normal GM thank you gifts this year. *Spoiler Alert* if you are reading this and happen to have me playing at your table this year, you're getting a set of these dice.

I figure this is pretty much a win-win-win.

Saturday, April 23, 2022

Free OSR - Castles & Crusades Players Handbook & Fiction [BUNDLE]


My doorway back to old-school gaming was Castles & Crusades, and you were able to get the C&C Player's Handbook for less than 10 bucks a copy from Buy.com back in the day. That was back with the first printing of Castles &Crusades.

Today, you can get the 7th printing of the Castles & Crusades Players Handbook in a bundle, along with a short selection of C&C-themed fiction in PDF for the price of FREE. As in the price of air.

You could, alternatively, pay 20 bucks for the C&C Players Handbook PDF and forgo the fiction, but I think free is an even fairer price ;)

We’ve moved to the 7th printing of the Castles & Crusades Players Handbook. A pillar of the table top RPG industry, Castles & Crusades embodies the spirit of the old-school gamer with the easy to use modern mechanics. The Players Handbook has all you need to get started in a wild ride of adventure! It’s easy to learn attribute-based rules system allows players to choose among 13 archetypal character classes and 7 races to create their characters. Spells, equipment, fast-paced combat rules, and all essential information needed to play a game of Castles & Crusades is in this book. Dice and Monsters & Treasure sold separately.

A Houseless God and Other Tales   The landless knight, Eurich Gunshoff, had no master, but served those in need, sometimes for money, but mostly for the honor of it. He went hungry often, slept in the wilds, endured the rain and snow, the heat and wind. He fought creatures, great and small. It was a hard life. Or so he thought, until he passed beneath the eaves of the Darkenfold Forest. A collection of short stories woven together by one of the creators of Castles & Crusades, follow the adventures of Eurich Gunshoff, Count of Kleaves.

 

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Friday, April 22, 2022

Deal of the Day - RuneQuest Companion (Glorantian Fiction)

I'm really getting psyched about running a Glorantha Campaign in the next few months. Understanding the world and its lore is something I've been working on via the setting books. The opportunity to read some classic Glorantha fiction is exciting.

Until tomorrow at 11 am Eastern, the RuneQuest Companion is the DriveThruFiction Deal of the Day. Normally 10 bucks in PDF, it's on sale for        4 bucks.

THE COMPANION is a sourcebook of articles, stories, and pictures useful to or entertaining to RuneQuest referees and players alike; its wide variety of subjects and forms will stimulate new adventures in any campaign or fill up quiet evenings at home.

The Companion fills a void left by the demise of Wyrms Footnotes, a magazine dedicated at the last solely to RQ articles; it was then the best source for RQ rules variants and steadily published new Gloranthan arcana.

Frustratingly to many, the earliest issues of the Footnotes were never reprinted, so that only savvy collectors had access to important material for RuneQuest® and White Bear & Red Moon (since retitled Dragon Pass). The most RQ-pertinent of those essays and illustrations appear here.

But the majority of the Companion is new material* – a lot of research and writing has occurred since the first issues of WF in 1976!

Note: *This is a fully-remastered PDF true to the original printing (1983).

Thursday, April 21, 2022

Open D6 System Books on Priced at 1.79

I don't think I truly appreciated the potential for the D6 system back when I ran WEG Star Wars in the late 80s. After WEG lost the Star Wars license, they used the core D6 system for other genres. 

You can get the self-standing genre books for the Open d6 System for 1.79 each in PDF.

D6 Fantasy

D6 Space

D6 Adventure

I really need to run an Open D6 Game in the future. The system is simple and natural.

I'll be highlighting free and cheap RPG options over the next week or so...

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Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Magic World (Basic Roleplaying/Complete Game/Setting) on Sale for 2.99 in PDF


I actually happened to notice that Magic World was on sale yesterday when Basic Roleplaying from Chaosium was the Deal of the Day.

Magic World is powered by the Basic Roleplaying System, Chaosium's d100 house ruleset, but it is self-contained and complete unto itself. No need to buy Basic Roleplaying to enjoy this high magic/fantasy take on the d100 system. Magic World is on sale for 2.99 in PDF (marked down from 24.42(?)) 

Enter a world of fantastic adventure, where your destiny is limited only by your imagination. Where powerful sorcerers manipulate the very essence of reality, and where warriors decide the fate of kingdoms with blade and spear. A world of magic, myth, and menace... a MAGIC WORLD!

MAGIC WORLD is a self-contained fantasy roleplaying game using the classic Basic Roleplaying system. The game allows you to play characters in a world of fantasy, adventure, and excitement. The rules of MAGIC WORLD are simple to grasp, while having enough options and complexity to suit any gaming style. Characters grow in experience organically, without relying on artificial constructs such as classes, levels, etc. Any sort of fantasy character you can imagine, you can play. MAGIC WORLD contains:

  • Full rules for creating characters in a world of magic and fantasy.
  • A robust magic system with nearly one hundred spells. Any character may become a spell caster with the right combination of raw talent, and training!
  • Detailed, yet streamlined skills and combat rules.
  • Complete rules for nautical adventures.
  • A bestiary of more than sixty creatures to use as foes for the characters, or as the characters themselves! Play as any species imaginable: Human, Elf, Orc, Centaur, Troll, Talking Beast, and more!
  • Gamemaster advice, and resources.
  • A gallery of enchanted items which might be found in your characters adventures.
  • A complete sample campaign setting, "the Southlands", to jump start your adventures.
  • And more!

 

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Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Deal of the Day - Basic Roleplaying (Chaosium D100 System)


I've been a fan of Chaosium's D100 System since I first found RuneQuest 2 and later Call of Chtulhu. I've owned Basic Roleplaying for years in print and I'm a huge fan of the ruleset, but apparently, I never snagged the PDF. I'll rectify that momentarily.

Normally 21.95 in PDF, Basic Roleplaying is today's Deal of the Day and is currently 4.39 (an 80% discount) until tomorrow morning.

This book comprises a roleplaying game system, a framework of rules aimed at allowing players to enact a sort of improvisational radio theater—only without microphones—and with dice determining whe­ther the characters succeed or fail at what they attempt to do. In roleplaying games, one player takes on the role of the gamemaster (GM), while the other player(s) assume the roles of player characters (PCs) in the game. The gamemaster also acts out the roles of characters who aren’t being guided by players: these are called non-player characters (NPCs).

From its origin, Basic Roleplaying was designed to be intuitive and easy to play. Character attributes follow a 3D6 curve, and the other Basic Roleplaying mechanics are even simpler. Virtually all rolls determining success or failure of a task are determined via the roll of percentile dice. This means that there’s less fiddling with dice of different types, and the concept of a percentile chance of success is extremely easy for beginners and experienced players to grasp. There aren’t many easier ways to say a character has a 70% chance of succeeding at an activity.

The core virtues of the system are as evident today as they were when it was first introduced. Primary characteristics of Basic Roleplaying that have emerged from decades of play, across many different varieties of the system are as follows:

  • The system is remarkably friendly to newcomers. It is easy to describe the basics of the game system, and the percentile mechanics, to non-gamers.
  • Players of other game systems often find Basic Roleplaying to be much less mechanistic and less of a barrier to the actual act of roleplaying. Less time spent on game systems usually equals more time available for roleplaying and thinking “in character.”
  • Most of the information players need to know is present on their character sheets.
  • Characters tend to evolve based on practicing the skills they use the most. They do not arbitrarily gain experience in skills and qualities based on ephemeral elements such as levels or experience ranks.
  • Combat can be very quick and deadly, and often the deciding blow in a conflict is the one to land first.
  • Basic Roleplaying is remarkably modular: levels of complexity can be added or removed as needed, and the core system works equally well with considerable detail as it does with a minimal amount of rules.
  • The internal consistency of Basic Roleplaying allows for rules judgments to be made rapidly and with little searching through the rulebook for special cases.

This book represents a first for Basic Roleplaying—a system complete in one book, without a defined setting. Previously, Basic Roleplaying has been an integral part of standalone games, usually with rich and deep world settings. Due to differences in these settings, Basic Roleplaying has had many different incarnations. Variant and sometimes contradictory rules have emerged between versions, to better support one particular setting over another.

Chaosium’s Basic Roleplaying system reconciles these different flavors of the system and brings many variant rules together between the covers of one book, something that has never been done before. Some of these rules are provided as optional extensions, some as alternate systems, and others have been integrated into the core system. By design, this work is not a reinvention of Basic Roleplaying nor a significant evolution of the system. It is instead a collected and complete version of it, without setting, provided as a guide to players and gamemasters everywhere and compatible with most Basic Roleplaying games. It also allows the gamemaster the ability to create his or her own game world (or worlds), to adapt others from fiction, films, or even translate settings from other roleplaying games into Basic Roleplaying.

If you want a free peek, the Basic Roleplaying Quickstart can be found here. 

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