Welcome to issue #9 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.
Reviews
Last month at Questing Beast I reviewed Esoteric Enterprises, Ultraviolet Grasslands, and an assortment of OSR zines (Ten People You Meet in the Undergarden, Temple of the Blood Moth, Hivemind, Brutal Imperilment in the Bag of Infinite Holding, and Artefact).
I also created A Beginner’s Guide to Old-School DnD Rulesets, which should help newcomers to the OSR get oriented.
By far the most popular review I did was that of Neverland (Print, PDF), a island hexcrawl in the vein of Hot Springs Island, but set in the world of Peter Pan.
Here is the author/illustrator/designer/cartographer Andrew Kolb explaining the book himself:
Underground Adventures reviews Any Planet is Earth (PDF), a scifi system (with some Maze Rats influences) that takes Into the Odd one step further and forgoes both attack rolls AND damage rolls.
In a nutshell, it is to Classic Traveller what Into the Odd is to Dungeons & Dragons.
Perplexing Ruins has two reviews of new games influenced by Knave: Cairn (PDF) and Glaive (PDF).
On a side note, Knave has recently joined Maze Rats as an Adamantine best seller, placing it among the 81 best-selling products on the whole of DriveThruRPG, up there with products like Cyberpunk 2020, Shadow of the Demon Lord, and Dungeon World.
Only one adventure was declared “The Best” on Ten Foot Pole since our last issue: The Secrets of Skyhorn Lighthouse (PDF).
Place an Ad in The Glatisant!
Now that The Glatisant has more than 5,000 subscribers, I’m planning on permitting a small number of short ads starting next issue. Putting out this newsletter requires a substantial amount of time and effort each month, and I figure this would be a great way to keep it free for everyone as well as allowing new creators to get eyeballs on their work. Ads will be clearly marked as such, will be limited to 50 words or less (no images), and will initially cost $100 each.
To request an ad placement in The Glatisant, contact me at questingmaps@gmail.com.
Free Kriegsspiel Roleplaying
The first issue of the FKR fan zine “The Neverending Drachenschwanz” is out! The theme of the second issue is “Every Book is a Sourcebook.” Submissions are due by December 11. Learn more at the FKR discord channel.
Darkworm Colt makes the argument that you should put more weight on character archetypes (similar to what Risus does) rather than starting equipment.
So we have…
A tight-lipped Barbarian from the North with scarred forearms
Another question: Can you imagine what equipment this barbarian is carrying?
Of course you can! A sword. A flask. Heavy fur boots. Drab. Fur cap. A backpack. Jerky.
The power of clichés at work.
So what really matters is not equipment lists or "starting equipment" (a perennial favorite in OSR circles), but a good, solid character description. And clichés work best for that.
Underground Adventures explains how you can take games that are already rules-lite and make them even simpler.
Rise Up Comus looks at how you can make classes diegetic by requiring PCs to fulfill specific quests or tasks in order to join them.
Artists
Dungeon Crawl Classics (PDF, Print) illustrator Stefan Poag has been doing occasional livestreams on the Goodman Games twitch channel, showing off his process.
Sam Mameli at Better Legends has been doing redesigns of all the D&D dragon types. Here’s him rethinking the Green Dragon.
Theory
Skerples looks at why “Non-Euclidean” is often used as a shorthand for “horrifying.”
Sheep and Sorcery discusses why the question “Does System Matter?” is the wrong question to ask.
Anthony Huso discusses why “Say Yes to Your Players” is all about rewarding smart play.
Monsters and Manuals explains why long campaigns are so important. Grognardia responds here.
Chris McDowall examines similarities between narrative wargaming and RPGs, in particular the kitbashing attitude.
Swamp of Monsters looks at what made Breath of the Wild so great, and brings up “tractability” a great term to use when discussing OSR settings.
"If you've ever played a video game and been frustrated the hero can't try to climb over a fence, you've experienced intractability. A tractable world rewards you for paying attention to what the dm describes. 'Oh wait, i remember there was a big delicious looking ham with a big poker fork jabbed into it two rooms back. I'll bet we could use it to prop this door open."
The Manse investigates what would happen if you made an RPG more “boardgamified.”
DIY and Dragons evaluates a number of different encumbrance systems.
Chris at the Bastionland Channel does a deep-dive into the design of Into the Odd:
The Miscast YouTube channel, which normally covers miniature games, is working on an RPG system that uses Knave as a base:
Adventure Design
Welcome to the Deathtrap has a very detailed, six part blog series on how to design an RPG adventure.
Lithyscaphe continues the project mentioned in Glatisant Issue #8, this time focusing on crystallizing a dungeon’s central features.
Against the Wicked City presents a ready-to-play gothic D&D adventure, The White Tower.
Swamp of Monsters presents a full dungeon crawl: The Many Patterned Halls.
This is a medium-sized dungeon written for high level adventurers used to dungeon crawling. It is meant to confound many of standard dungeon crawling tricks, particularly the reliability of "clearing" a dungeon. Completing the dungeon requires the players to solve a simple puzzle, made more challenging by the dungeon's central gimmick. At its center is a classic video game style multi-phase boss fight, meant to be attempted several times if the challenge is too difficult when encountered.
Mazirian’s Garden invents a method of running a citycrawl. Ben has come up with so many useful subsystems (especially his downtime activities). I really hope these get compiled and published at some point.
Worldbuilding
Patrick at False Machine re-imagines a Beholder as a ball of rats for his Goose Gold and Goblins game.
A Ratmaster is created when many very bad rats eat an extremely magical book, or more than half of a wizard.
Goodberry Monthly has been posting about a new near-future fantasy setting called Everlasting Summer, as well as an unsettling document on The Unicorn.
Tables and Game Content
Against the Wicked City has a list of 20 double-edged potions.
Archons March On has 50 more potions, as well as 10 culinary curios you might find in a wizard’s kitchen.
Unlawful Games has a d100+ Witch Generator and a d100+ Obnoxious Wizard Generator.
DMiurgy has a list of 20 unrealistic but gameable insanities.
Self Portrait as a Giant has 3 meta rooms to find in a dungeon.
The Manse has 6 world-wide enchantments.
I Don’t Remember That Move presents The Black Auction 3, listing 20 more bizarre and unnatural artifacts.
LOT 6. LIGHTNING TEETH.
Set of opalised dinosaur teeth from Lightning Ridge, Australia. Grows into a legion of opalised skeleton warriors if sown in fertile soil. Discovered in 1993 by the miner John Hutt, whose attempt to declare his off-grid property an independent principality backed by a skeleton army was thwarted by the New South Wales police with only minimal casualities.
Miscellaneous Posts
Coins and Scrolls has a massive community hexcrawl under development.
Grognardia has a two-part interview with Warhammer creator Rick Priestly.
Speaking of Warhammer, Dana Howl has a wonderful retrospective on Warhammer Fantasy Battles 6th edition, which was the first edition of the game that I encountered as a child.
Chris McDowall has released an Into the Odd SRD, and a “Mark of the Odd” logo to go with it.
gg no re attempts to play Dragonlance absolutely straight. Flavor text and all.
See you next issue!