Welcome to issue #8 of The Glatisant! This newsletter is a free service put out by the Questing Beast YouTube channel. You can read previous issues here and help support the channel on Patreon here. If you aren’t subscribed, you can sign up below to get new issues sent directly to your email.
New Releases & Upcoming Projects
The Knock! OSR magazine I previewed in Issue #7 now has a YouTube trailer! No Kickstarter date yet, but I hear it will be very soon.
At Monsters and Manuals, David McGrogan announces an upcoming 2nd Edition of Yoon-Suin, one of the first OSR books I ever bought.
Two new hacks of my game Knave have been released: Glaive and Cairn.
Into the Odd has a new Sword and Sorcery hack: Weird North.
Gavin Norman announces an official Zine for Old School Essentials: Carcass Crawler.
A new writer/illustrator named Andrew Kolb is creating a sandboxy hexcrawl adventure for 5e set in Neverland. It’s very reminiscent of Hot Springs Island. I particularly like the 1950s-inspired illustrations.
The Bard returns with some predictions about the upcoming HeroQuest boardgame reprint. At least some of his predictions (especially about the more cartoony art style) appear to have been on target.
I recently found a forum where someone has blown up the original HeroQuest artwork to a size suitable for posters. Also, here’s an inside look at how Hasbro lost the HeroQuest trademark to Chaosium, and then got it back again.
Kevin Crawford (Stars Without Number) has launched his long-awaited fantasy sandbox game Worlds Without Number on Kickstarter! It has offset print copies for the first time!
The third volume of the “28” Magazine has been released. If you are at all interested in the wargaming scene, it’s a must read. 228 pages of essays, advice, and incredible kitbashed miniatures.
While we’re on the subject of Warhammer, Miscast has a great multi-part YouTube series on creating a grotesque Nurgle army where every model is a conversion:
Free Kriegsspiel Revolution
Jim at d66 Kobolds presents a list of features FKR games tend to have and why he enjoys them. He also describes how a Star Wars campaign could be run within this playstyle.
Wizard Lizard at Underground Adventures explains FKR in four different ways, targeted at gamers from different RPG backgrounds. He also has a large box of rules that could work in different FKR games. Use the ones that make the most sense to you!
Justin at Aboleth Overlords explains how removing rules for advancement can help your PCs engage more fully with the world.
Nine and Thirty Kingdoms has a fantastic series of five posts covering how you can anchor every part of spell casting to physical things in the game world (like a thrown stone or a burning candle) rather than to abstractions like minutes or feet.
James at Grognardia (The Excellent Traveling Volume) explains how Gygax designed AD&D to push back against the “non-game” that he felt OD&D had become (a trait that FKR tries to recapture). James also has two articles at the Goodman Games website commemorating the 11th anniversary of Dave Arneson’s death.
Interviews
The Wandering DMs interview James Maliszewski about the return of Grognardia.
Chris McDowall (Electric Bastionland) continues his run of excellent interviews with OSR creators on the Bastionland Podcast, including discussions with Zedeck Siew (Lorn Song of the Bachelor) on worldbuilding, Emmy Allen (The Dolorous Stroke) on narrative wargaming, Zachary Cox (Best Left Buried) on horror gaming and David Black (The Black Hack) on solo games.
Reviews
Grognardia has been on a blogging tear ever since its reactivation, including reviews of Traveller (along with a post about J. Eric Holmes’ take on the game), Barbarians of the Ruined Earth, and Hot Springs Island.
Three new adventures were awarded “The Best” by Ten Foot Pole this month: Desert Angel Fiasco, A Shadow over Greatwood, and Echoes From Fomalhaut #07: From Beneath the Glacier.
Hammer and Dice has a lot of OSR Zine reviews on their channel, including this one of Hunters in Death.
Spriggan’s Den reviews West End’s Star Wars Gamemaster Handbook.
Mazirian’s Garden reviews the zines The Evils of Illmire and You Got a Job on the Garbage Barge!
Ram at Save vs. Total Party Kill reviews the Song of Blades and Heroes Wargame and the Acid Death Fantasy supplement for Troika!
Brian at Welcome to the Deathtrap does a very thorough review of my best-selling RPG Maze Rats!
At Questing Beast I reviewed Zedeck Siew’s Lorn Song of the Bachelor, Andrew Walter’s Fronds of Benevolence, and Alex Clements’ Fungi of the Far Realms, as well as making an overview of RPG books that work as in-game artifacts.
Worldbuilding
Goodberry Monthly’s Wizard City continues to be one of the most entertaining, imaginative, and prolific settings being published on the blogosphere right now. New entries include The Whale Docks, The Bootleg Spell Market, The Seal of the University, The College of Deans, Witch’s Hex, The Hidden Eye, Hand of the Archmages, and Secret Warehouses.
The Bottomless Sarcophagus has a horrifying take on the Men in Black.
Throne of Salt has a generator for making Church Schisms and strategies for containing Tower Wizards.
Archons March On invents 5 monsters in Throne of Salt’s style (see Issue #7).
Patrick Stuart (Veins of the Earth) brainstorms starting PC houses and interesting village shops for his in-progress Goose-Gold and Goblins game.
Skerples (Tomb of the Serpent Kings) has two posts on creating a comprehensive list of divine domains.
A Cratered, Blasted Land has a system for petitioning the gods.
Theory
Game Maker’s Toolkit has a fantastic video on the way that building incentive structures into your rules can backfire.
The Graverobber’s Guide discusses how this is a fundamentally free hobby to get into.
Gundobad Games invents a way to make searching for secret doors more fun.
Skerples does a deep-dive into running Hireling Morale and Fear.
At Questing Beast I examine nine things to keep in mind while designing dungeons.
David at Lithyscaphe walks us through his process of beginning a megadungeon.
Phlox at Whose Measure God Could Not Take invents a dungeon design process based on thematic threads.
Grognardia considers some of the practical problems that megadungeons have in a living game world.
All Dead Generations considers what makes for a great one-page dungeon.
Revenant’s Quill discusses the importance of building adventures over systems.
Sam at Dreaming Dragon Slayer considers the possibilities of a radically open gaming table.
The Man with a Hammer describes a way to make all abilities provide some sort of resource slot in Knave-like games.
Jacob Latvala invents an encumbrance slot system for Old-School Essentials.
Random Tables
Lapidary Ossuary has d12 Original Magic Items.
Patrick Stuart has a Fetch Quest Generator
The Manse has 12 Sorcerer-Corpse Hazards
Archons March On has d12 Flaming Swords
And most importantly, Late Night Zen has a generator for telling you what the OSR is.