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Sales
Oakfell Vale by Zzarchov Kowalski is 20% off.
The Hyperborea Referee’s Manual is 25% off.
Troika! is 72% off.
The Mothership 1e Core Set is 38% off.
The Mothership 1e Deluxe Set is 36% off.
Silent Legions, a Lovecraftian Horror system by Kevin Crawford, is 25% off.
Hubris, a huge supplement for DCC, is 40% off.
RPG Reviews
One of the things I think it does quite well is to capture that sense of ruined grandeur. This is that thing that the endless parade of dwarf city adventures fails to do. It does a great job of communicating impressions, while still giving enough specifics that it feels like a real description. A Vast Hall: “Dozens of patterned columns hold up a vast and partially collapsed vaulted ceiling. Noise echoes easily, and scurrying can be heard in the dark…” or “Creation Mosaic: Light catches a wall of glittering glass tiles. Covering the wall and stretching dozens of paces wide is a mosaic of beatific images of a sun-headed figure overseeing a city.”
Technical Grimoire reviews the Nausicaa-inspired Cloud Empress campaign for Mothership after 6 months of playing.
Aside from the art, what impressed me most was the writing. It was evocative and terse, the way an RPG should be. But more than that it was…melancholy. Not in a grimdark or maudlin kind of way. But like an old man refusing to tell a painful story.
Monsters and Manuals has 10 short reviews of his favorite OSR products, with some excellent choices.
The Alexandrian reviews Monte Cook’s Ptolus adventure The Banewarrens.
This is, ultimately, what makes The Banewarrens such a special campaign. It’s a dungeon-based campaign that’s absolutely drenched in faction intrigue. The PCs will have to juggle the agendas of friendly factions, while simultaneously trying to deal with the machinations of antagonistic ones . . . Cook does a fantastic job of presenting these faction intrigues in a format which is both easy for the GM to understand and also packaged into highly practical chunks that can be readily deployed on the table.
Grognardia reviews my recently-released Knave 2e. I found it interesting that he drew some connections to FUDGE, a precursor to FATE, which was the first RPG I read as a kid.
Knave is a pleasant surprise. Reading it made me think more seriously about the relationship between the complexities of rules and play, as well as my own preferences with regard to each of them.
The Motley GM also reviews Knave 2e, calling it “One of my absolute favorite OSR games of all time.”
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News
I attended the ENnies at GenCon this year and got to see some very deserving products take home medals, including the Hexcrawl Toolbox, Ultraviolet Grasslands 2e, Break!!, The Alexandrian, Dave Thaumavore, So You Want To Be A Gamemaster, The Valley of Flowers, Cloud Empress, and Shadowdark, which won four ENnies including product of the year!
Below is my video of the final award. Joining me in celebrating at the table was Kelsey Dionne, Baron De Ropp, Professor Dungeon Master, Justin Alexander, Dave Thaumavore, Trevor Devall, and Stephen Glicker. I also got to meet up with Chris McDowall, Zzarchov Kowalski, Bud’s RPG Review, Bob World Builder, and Seth Skorkowsky!
WotC started handing out copies of the revised Player’s Handbook at GenCon, which soon resulted in some drama as they began censoring or copyright striking channels that showed too many pages.
Traverse Fantasy has an excellent post on the intended audience and playstyle for the revised 5e books.
Save Vs. Total Party Kill has released its annual Ramanan Sivaranjan Awards for Excellence in Gaming 2024.
The One-Page RPG Jam has ended, featuring 667 new micro-games.
Marc Miller has passed full ownership of Traveller to Mongoose.
Patrick Stuart’s long-gestating Queen Mab adventure has emerged not as an RPG product but as a novel.
History
Wyloch’s Armory shows off a copy of the “Black Box” starter set from 2e.
Bob World Builder considers whether the new “Making of OD&D” and “Blackmoor Foundations” books are worth it.
Rules, Theory, and Advice
I’ve been playing a lot of Radlands recently (it’s probably my most played card game at this point) and came across the designer Daniel Piechnick’s lessons for game design. They’re quite opinionated and I don’t always agree, but overall useful (thanks to Chris McDowall for discovering them).
Patrick Stuart discusses how to apply the lessons of the classic Thief videogame to DnD.
Mythic Mountain Musings explains how switching from OSR rules to “Classic” rules changed his campaign.
Levi Kornelsen creates a 9 point scale for how procedural an RPG can be. I feel like the shift in Mythic Mountain’s game moved it from a 3 to a 5.
The Foot of Blue Mountain explains why every room in a dungeon doesn’t need to be bristling with interactivity.
Dean Ray Johnson has released a free 150-page book on rulebook design. I haven’t read the whole thing but from skimming it it looks intriguing.
The Alexandrian has created a useful cheat sheet for running Mothership.
I Cast Light has fun rules for running Asimovic Androids in Mothership that are governed by the Three Laws of Robotics.
Explorers Design: Playing the Corporate Baddies
Deficient Master has some good tips for improving adventure design, and says some nice things about The Waking of Willowby Hall. His editing skills are next-level.
Worldbuilding
Profane Ape: Three Demihumans
Goodberry Monthly: Tomb of the Iconoclast - Level 1 Room 13-24
Miscast: How to Make Miniatures for Absolute Beginners
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