Welcome to The Glatisant, Questing Beast’s monthly newsletter. We’re on a new schedule now, releasing on the 28th of each month instead of the 1st. You can read previous issues here and support the newsletter on Patreon here. Subscribe to get new issues in your inbox and get entered in my RPG giveaways!
Knave 2e
The latest draft of the Knave 2e rules is out now! I’ve streamlined and condensed many of the last draft’s rules, and added a section on followers and warfare. Check out my summary below, or support Questing Beast on Patreon to get access to the PDF along with any future versions. Patreon supporters also get access to the secret Discord server, voting rights on future reviews, early previews of videos, and more!
Reviews
At Ten Foot Pole, Bryce declares two adventures to be “The Best” this month: Imperial Vault 19, and Call of the Toad.
Technical Grimoire has some high praise for the Mothership adventure Desert Moon of Karth.
Karth oozes charm. Every location has depth. Every NPC is nuanced or weird. Random encounters draw you deeper into the factions and encourage you to visit other locations. Every page has a dozen ideas to fuel your GM inspiration.
The Dungeon Dive (which normally reviews board games) reviews the free OSR game Cairn.
Welcome to the Deathtrap reviews Grok?!, a gonzo ruleset influenced by Into the Odd and Knave (and only $1).
Reviews from R’lyeh reviews Just a Stupid Dungeon.
Seed of Worlds reviews Petty Gods, a collaborative project packed with deities.
Grognardia examines one of my favorite (free) one-page-dungeons: The Quintessential Dungeon.
At Questing Beast, I reviewed Tomb Robbers of the Crystal Frontier, a collection of system neutral material, and Andrew Kolb’s new setting, OZ.
If you would like to submit a book for review consideration on Questing Beast, mail it to: Ben Milton, 6505 E Central Ave, Box 127, Wichita, KS, USA, 67206.
Sales
Falkrest Abbey by Axian Spice is on sale for just $0.50! Overview here.
Luka Rejec has released a fully-illustrated 36-page city crawler setting for free. It’s called The Memorialists - Dead City Memories, Vol. 1. More details here.
A bunch of Troika products are available for very cheap on the Bundle of Holding.
Gus L. creates an archive of all 19 of his free adventures.
And now a word from our sponsors…
Dark Places & Demogorgons for Old-School Essentials and The Cryptid Manual for OSE by Bloat Games coming to Kickstarter October 1st, 2023. Play as high-school aged teenagers in the 1980s when strange things start occurring. Sign up for notifications today so you don’t miss out on the early bird specials!
Secrets of the Golden Throne, the first supplement for Against the Darkmaster is coming to Kickstarter! Join the mysterious Aes Sidhe, and fight together against the cruel Maimed King, in an epic campaign set in the mystical island of Awallon. Will you unveil the Secrets of the Golden Throne?
Have an upcoming Kickstarter or an RPG project you want to promote? Advertise in The Glatisant (11,000+ email subscribers) or on Questing Beast (57,000+ subscribers) by emailing me at questingmaps at gmail dot com.
New Rules
From Tarsos Theorem: an abstracted, universal crafting system.
From Githyanki Diaspora: learning new skills in Into the Odd.
Xenio in a Bottle elaborates on Mausritter’s faction system.
Mindstorm takes Necropraxis’ Hazard Die concept and uses it for “Stealth Turns.”
Eucatastrophic breaks down the standard 2d6 reaction table into 36 results, similar to what I’m doing in Knave 2e.
The End of All Things has a very simple and open combat system for his Night-Haunted Hogwarts game.
GM Advice and Theory
I Cast Light summarizes how he preps for con games over two posts.
The Alexandrian has beef with the 5e skill system.
Chris McDowall invents a Universal Hex Profile.
From Zedeck Siew: D&D’s Obsession with Taxonomy.
Monsters and Manuals repsonds to Chris and Zedeck’s posts.
Prismatic Wasteland explains how to run doppelganger encounters.
Dungeon Masterpiece explains how to create better random tables.
Kelsey at the Arcane Library walks through her process of designing encounters.
Travis Miller (of the Grump Wizard blog) has a YouTube channel now and gives his procedure for adventure design.
Professor Dungeon Master explains why editions don’t matter to him.
Seth Skorkowsky responds to the Alexandrian article “Abused Gamer Syndrome”, and proposes that a player’s desire for a railroaded game is not always caused by bad DMing.
Worldbuilding
Rise Up Comus shows his procedure for building a world for his in-progress Middle-Earth-like game, Ringless.
The Benign Brown Beast proposes that each RPG language should satisfy a narrative function.
The Alexandrian advises drawing from history to create truly fantastical nations.
Throne of Salt has Lovecraftian PC options for Mothership.
The End of All Things has some pregenerated characters for Labyrinth: The Adventure Game, which I worked on!
It's an amazing achievement, really - a micro-RPG plus replayable, low-prep campaign, all in a single book . . . The challenges vary quite a bit, and many have a kind of party game flavor, making it well suited to GMs and players with little or no RPG experience, and the self-contained package means that you can take the book with you, plonk it down, and start playing pretty much right away.
Weird and Wonderful Worlds has a list of 21 weird senses to give your monsters.
Remixes and Revelations comes up with a whole setting: Tavernworld!
Skerples has a 13-page book of GLOG spells to steal.
Profane Ape has Three Sorts of People. Much more interesting than it sounds!
History
Ben Riggs has dug up the two letters that Dave Arneson sent to Peter Adkison in 1997, asking to be put in charge of D&D 3e.
Katherine Dee looks at the history of text-based roleplay on the early internet.
Matt Colville looks back at the “Eddies” he knew.
Interviews
Toa Tabletop interviews Zedeck Siew.
Yochai Gal and Brad Kerr have launched a new OSR review podcast, Between Two Cairns.
Dieku Games interviews Steve Jackson (the American one) as well as the legendary Lee Gold, creator of the longest running D&D fanzine, Alarums & Excursions.
3d6 Down the Line begins their exploration of The Hall of Arden Vul.
Brent from Goobertown Hobbies takes us on a tour of how the injection molding process works.
That’s it for this issue, see you next month!