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Cosmic Patrol has one of the best, built in implied settings I've seen in a game in a long time. (I hate to call it fluff, but even as fluff, it's awesome).
The system is something I had a bit of an issue fully groking at first, but I suspect that is due to my preconceived notions of what one should expect from an RPG system. This system is definitely more story than crunch, and truth be told, it fits the implied setting much tighter than a heavier setting would.
If I was given the opportunity to introduce new players to the hobby and give them these rules, dice and no other guidance, they would be up and running in less then 30 minutes. With an outside hand guiding them, probably less then 10.
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(originally posted at tenkarstavern.com)
I think I've mentioned previously that I'm hooked on the Toys For the Sandbox series, but in case you've missed it - I am hooked, line and sinker too. It's an extremely affordable and flexible toolbox to have available when you need something to drop into a campaign.
Each Toys For the Sandbox entry is generic , as in "stat free" (but the OSR "feel" is very much there). It also means level free, so you can adjust these for the level you need at the moment. You get a short back story, a map for the encounter area, 6 hooks to choose from and each hook has 3 twists, giving 18 variations on how you can decide to have the encounter pan out. You also get a handful of PCs (usually 4) and some appropriate random tables (in the Cursed Catacombs we get a Rumor Table and an Encounter table)
The Cursed Catacombs is a follow up, an essentially a second part, to #4, Hermit's Island. Yes, you could run them independently, but run together it becomes a really nice micro setting.
With The Cursed Catacombs, page count goes from 4 to 7 pages. The format itself doesn't change, but the extra pages allow Occult Moon to be a bit more verbose with their descriptions. It also makes the pages less cluttered dense. The extra space is definitely put to good use.
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(review originally posted at tenkarstavern.com)
Stonepick Crossing is Advanced Adventures Module #22 from Expeditious Retreat Press. It's an OSRIC (AD&D) module for a full party of 1st to 3rd level characters. It actually says for 6 to 8 characters, but if I went above 6 (maybe 7 on a really good day) I'd probably never DM again. So, like I said, it's for a full party of adventurers.
The adventure takes place in the tharp of Stonepick. It will start in the town proper, and then lead on other dungeon like areas. Which all sounds like old hat, but there is more then one thing going on in the Tharp of Stonepick. I count at least 2 main plots and some sub-plots going on, and PC can get involved in any or all. Which means that the DM needs to keep an eye on who the party has met and some events that may be going on behind the scenes. A railroad this is not. The party has a lot of freedom as to what they are going to accomplish and in which order.
Heck, they even throw in a new monster. Not a bad way to start off a campaign if you are willing to flesh the town out and the immediate surroundings, as the party has much to do right from the start.
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(review originally posted at tenkarstavern.com)
Let me start by saying this is definitely written with an Old School experience in mind. It is most certainly lethal in it potential, as it's author has no problem letting the prospective DM know. Strangely enough, I had never heard the acronym OSR stand for "Oh Sh!t! Run!" before reading Barrowmaze, but it certainly fits. A successful party in an OSR styled game needs to know when to pull back, resupply, heal wounds and re-memorize spells. Old School is not as forgiving as that new fangled stuff.
Another sign of it's strong rooting in Old School Play, is the strong (since the module underlines it, so will I) suggestion that PCs hire hireling and henchmen right from the start. Because when death comes a callin', you may need some cannon fodder to buy you some useful time ;)
Although set up as a dungeon crawl for new players (and the next couple levels that they gain), this isn't just a straight forward dungeon crawl. They start with the immediate outdoor area of the Barrows and will have to avoid / kill / run away from random encounters. When "sandbox style play" is referred to as Old School, folks forget that even within a set area, Old School often assumes a sort of smaller sandbox is also in play. Random encounters can often be random killers.
Of course, once the PCs enter the dungeon proper, they won't only be dealing with set encounters, multiple factions and random monsters - there are also traps. 10' poles and iron spikes - down leave home without them.
The PCs are more tomb raiders then heroic explorers, but that's okay. Old School rewards you experience by the GP - don't forget that :)
Hmmm - I could run this using the ACKS rules without nearly any conversion. PCs might be a tad stronger than LL characters, but that's easy enough to adapt to on the fly.
We get two new spells (one cleric, one magic-user) and 31 monsters in the monster section at the end (a handful seem to be from the old Fiend Folio). Random tables (Random Dungeon Dressing is certainly going to be reused by me multiple times) are always useful. There are even pre-gens for Men-at-Arms, Torch-Bearers and Porters and Henchmen, not to mention some PC pre-gens and a blank character sheet. Greg has pretty much covered all of the bases.
The maps are in classic TSR Blue, which always gets points for nostalgia.
You could run this straight from the PDF, but I'd recommend printing out the pages that deal with the rooms your party probably )or even improbably) will get to during the session in question and the maps. Nothing sucks like having to find maps in a PDF. There are no bookmarks or hyperlinks, but those are less needed and useful in an adventure that you will probably print out. I'd never say no to them, but I'm not going to miss them much either.
Greg wrote Barrowmaze to be a megadungeon the DM could sit down with and be ready to GM within minutes. No block text to be read to the PCs with every room, just a short description. I could probably be comfortably ready to run this within an hour after starting to read it. I won't know everything, but I'll be a step a head of the players. Isn't that the secret to effective DM'ing anyway?
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I'm getting addicted to Toys in the Sandbox - I just can't get enough of these 99 cent treasures. The Hermit's Island is the latest one I've read (there are more for me to read- I'm playing catch up).
What can I tell you about it without giving away any of it? Let's see, you get a map of a small island (which appears to be missing an indication of scale / distance - not a game killer, but it would be nice) and some background material and a brief description of said island.
You get your usual (I love "usual" in this case) 6 possible plot hooks, each with 3 possible twists. It makes it very easy to tailor to your campaign and GM style.
You get descriptions of 4 NPCs that are very detailed yet stat-less. You know what drives them, but you'll need to stat them out to your system of choice.
Oh, and a random encounter table and a rumor table. A bargain and a half.
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(originally reviewed at TenkarsTavern.com)
If somehow, someway you missed out on the Legend RPG Core Rulebook from Mongoose for a buck (still a buck, so you can grab Legend here - I'll wait). Got it? Good. Now, that core book does not include the standard fantasy races (or any race besides human) nor does it include your monstrous adversaries. This is where Monsters of Legend comes in.
Dwarves? Check! Elves? Yep. Pretty much your standard fantasy good and evil races are included.
The book is broken down by the following categories: Humanoids, Invertebrates, Dinosaurs and Reptiles, Creatures of Legend and Natural Life. It's enough to start you off, but if you are used to the huge encyclopedic source of monsters nearly every edition of D&D has had, you might feel that it's a little light. That's to be expected, as it is the core monster book. I expect there will be further volumes later.
The artwork is very nice. I'm no expert, so I can't tell if it's washed inks or charcoal (I think it's mostly washed inks) but it is very evocative. It's all black and white, no color.
The PDF itself is bookmarked, but just the sections. So you can go to the start of the Invertebrates section, but you can't go right to Crab, Giant.
It's basically a catalogue of monstrous adversaries for your players. It fills that role well. I just wish it was filled with a bit more.
Oh, and for the OSR crowd, it features a nice Chaos Creature Feature Random Table. I'm going to yoke this.
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originally posted at TenkarsTavern.com)
It is generally pretty hard to pull off a truly "generic" RPG scenario, as the underlying system often shows through somewhere. That happens with Toys For the Sandbox: Fairy Glade. It's not a bad thing, as it obviously draws upon the OGL/D&D as it's base. There are no stats, but trust me, it's roots are in D&D (and not 4e, but I'm sure it would work there too).
That's not what you want to know. What you want to know is if you get value for your 99 cents. The answer is, yes, you do. A map, 6 plot hooks, each with 3 possible twists, allows you to tailor this in the direction you want it to go. It IS perfect for throwing in front of your party as they are exploring YOUR sandbox (and we all know how important the sandbox is in the OSR).
Color me impressed. I wasn't expecting much in 4 pages, and what I got is a lot, and it's good.
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(original posted at tenkarstavern.com)
White Haired Man put's out stuff for 3.5e and Savage Worlds. In fact, my one time actually playing in a Savage Worlds session was play testing for White Haired Man via Fantasy Grounds 2. Oh, did I mention that they put out a lot of stuff for use with Fantasy Grounds 2? They do. Good stuff.
In any case, they are also getting into the e-book side of things with their releases. PDF, as much as I love it, does have it's limitations. This free release of The Hideout is in ePub format, the same format used by the Nook and the vast majority of ebook readers out there. It is not in mobi, which would be the Kindle's preferred format.
So, if you have a Nook, Sony E-reader, or one of dozens of other ebook readers, give it a shot. It's free, and it's a free glimpse of the possible future of game books on your favorite ebook reader.
(this is not a PDF. it says so right on the page. It is FREE. If you can't use something that's FREE it cost you NOTHING. You lose nothing. )
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(review originally posted at tenkarstavern.com)
First, I'd like to thank Dylan Hartwell for supplying me with a review copy. Good stuff.
Now, on to the review - The Blasphemous Brewery of Pilz! (you had me at "brewery"... heh) is a Labyrinth Lord adventure for levels 3-7. It's a large level range to cover, especially at lower levels, where the power curve is a bit stronger then at higher levels, but in the hands of the right GM it should work.
The BBof P! is not just an adventure, but it's also is the bare bones of a sandbox setting of the area around the town of Shattenburg. At this point I think I need to mention something - run as written, Elven PCs need not apply. Alright, they may apply, but it should be downright uncomfortable for them. It's actually a nice twist to the usually vanilla fantasy setting - any elves the PCs encounter in town are likely to be servants, and fairly oppressed at that.
Anyhow, on to the rest of the book. In presentation and in atmosphere, it seems to me to be a very good fit for Tunnels & Trolls in addition to the usual listing of OSR RPG systems. It doesn't take itself too seriously, yet at the same time there is a dark side to much of it.
If there is a weakness to the adventure, its the hook. I actually missed it on my first read through, as it's actually on the front page as part of adventure recap / description. In any case, it's hard to get a pre-written hook that fits your party's needs in a published adventure, even when multiple ones are supplied. So, as weaknesses go, its a minor one.
If you are a GM that likes to tweak and twist published adventures into something that fits your style, the Blasphemous Brewery of Pilz! would be a good choice. If you want something that tries to cover all of your party's possible actions and totally in depth descriptions that you can read to your group, you'll probably find this lacking.
I'm a twist and tweaker myself ;)
(edit - forgot to mention the maps are works of art - detailed without being cluttered)
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(originally posted at TenkarsTavern.com)
If you are a long time reader of this blog, I'm sure you've heard on of my little rants lamenting the lack of GM or group play adventures for Tunnels & Trolls. T&T is seen as a solo play RPG system by most, but it can really excel in group play. It's just that there has been so little in the way of group play adventures for T&T it's almost laughable.
I can stop laughing now, as It Came From Beyond the Stars is a really nice adventure written for a party of beginning delvers. It even has a Lovecraftian feel to it. Fun to read, I expect it will be even more fun to play. My one complaint is the lack of maps for the adventure area. They aren't needed for play, but would have helped with the atmosphere. Besides, ever group of delver's needs a home base ;)
It's not a long adventure, but T&T generally uses less space for stats and more for the story. Same holds true here.
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(originally posted at TenkarsTavern.com)
The Northland Saga Part 1, Vengeance Of the Long Serpent, is an adventure that comes in two flavors: Pathfinder and Swords & Wizardry. Today we are looking at the S&W version. After removing the cover, credits, contents and OGL pages you are left with 16 pages of fairly dense text, which is a decent size for an adventure meant to be run in a session or two.
My first impression is that this adventure would make a decent mash-up with LotFP's Weird New World Campaign setting. Yes, this is more Viking in flavor and WNW is more Finnish in flavor, but I think the two would mix well. The majority of the adversaries / monsters in this adventure aren't over the top fantasy, which should help in fitting this with WNW.
I'm a little surprised that the first adventure in a planned 10 adventure series is written for levels 5-7, but I guess one could always move the party north as they gain some experience and survivability.
I like the fact that it isn't much of a dungeon crawl but is primarily story driven. This does however, lead us to the one issue I have with this adventure. To give the party the backstory, we have an NPC regaling everyone with his deeds. I estimate his tale to be approximately 750 words or so... one side of a two column page... that the DM has to read to the players. As a player, unless my DM is a thespian, this is gonna put me to sleep. The rule of "show, don't tell" comes into play I think. I'm not sure yet how I'd rework this if I were to run the adventure, but it's not the best way to start an otherwise well written adventure in my opinion. Still, lots of pieces to steal even if not used whole for a Nordic campaign.
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Sometimes going back to the basics is fun. With Dark Journey, the Troll Lords do what they do best - a classic dungeon crawl.
It is kinda classic: 3 levels, a maze, traps (no save vs die shit that I noticed), classic low level adversaries, level appropriate rewards - the stuff you want in a low level or introductory adventure. In this case, for levels 1-4. You'll need to supply your own hook,
There is enough adventure here to last 2 or 3 sessions worth of gameplay, which is pretty good value for your money IMO.
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(originally posted on TenkarsTavern.com)
If you can't guess by the creature on the cover, it's an RPG similar to Redwall (I have that game packed away somewhere) and Harvesters (based on the C&C ruleset). You get to role play some woodland creatures in a game loosely based on Swords & Wizardry.
Why do I say loosely based? It's strictly a D6 based game. Yes, even combat uses a lowly D6. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Tunnels & Trolls fan... I like my D6s by the buckets. Still, its a bit jarring to go into this with a preconceived notion of a D20 based game and come out holding D6s.
Does it work? From what I can see it should. You may need to get past measuring distance in "paws" instead of "feet", but it's a cut concession that the kids may enjoy. Still, most of the mechanics and stats are easy enough to convert back and forth to the Core S&W rules.
Combat may take some getting used to (I had the combat section multiple times to understand the Hit Dice / Combat Dice resolution, and the ability to roll less dice for an "add" to the remaining dice. I've got a feeling it would have been easier to grasp w/o all the D&D baggage I came in with.
Advancement is limited to 6 levels (limited advancement is also a feature of Harvesters), which is probably enough for younger gamers. Sometimes, less is more.
Rounding it all out is a sandboxie setting and an adventure to get the party started. All in all, a very complete package that should work well with younger gamers or an experienced group looking for a change of pace. Just remember to leave the polyhedrons behind. All you need are some D6.
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When it comes to solo adventures, they are really hard to review. Solos, more then any other type of adventure, are very easy to spoil by revealing too much of the plot or story. They are programed, there is no GM to add new twists if the player already knows what is in store. Therefore, less from me is more.
Still, I can safely report the following: It's an adventure for use with the 7.5 edition of the rules. The artwork is well done. We are offered two sample characters to use: the first is a 3rd level Warrior with 63 adds, the other is a 1st level Rogue with 13 adds and no spells. I strongly suspect the warrior will have a greater chance to survive, but as always, it depends on the decisions you make.
I've yet to run thru it... just read the intro and flipped the pages to read some random pieces. Ken's voice is great as always and paints an entertaining picture.
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You enjoy your sci-fi, but you also have a hankering for horror. Maybe your Delta Green campaign just didn't have heavy enough weapons for your taste. Well, someone put your Cthulhu in my Traveller, and the combo is awesome!
I really enjoying working my way thru the Chthonian Stars Core Setting for Traveller. It's not a mash-up I would have thought up on my own, but its a very good match. The books is full of short fiction, which normally I can't stand, but in this case it is very evocative of the setting and a good tool to engage the reader.
It scales down the default Traveller setting to just our (now fully colonized) solar system, and I think the change in scale works very well in making the horror more immediate.
Character generation is changed a bit from regular (Mongoose) Traveller, as many careers have been adjusted to the new setting. New space ships, which makes sense, as they are made for traversing the solar system.
We are given three short adventures, which is nice, but I would have appreciated a page or two of adventure seeds. Maybe I missed them, as flipping thru a PDF does have disadvantages over print.
Overall, I'm very excited by the Chthonian Stars Core Setting. I might find a use for my Traveller core rulebook now. If nothing else, the setting book deserves a second read thru.
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![It Came from Beyond the Stars! [Tunnels & Trolls]](images/2586/97555-thumb100.jpg)
