Tuesday, May 14, 2013

The Cheap, The Free, and The Winnable

In a confluence of a few different events, it looks like a pretty good week for OSR fans in general, and Swords & Wizardry fans in particular.



First off, DriveThruRPG is spotlighting the OSR all this week, and is offering 15% off the dozen best-selling titles with the use of the following coupon code: OSRF711F2 . The available titles range from the classic D&D Basic rulebook to recent interpretations such as Adventures Dark & Deep, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperboria, and yes, Swords & Wizardry Complete and its Sword-&-Sorcery spinoff, Crypts and Things. There's also a smattering of non-D&D-derived products, such as Classic Fantasy for BRP (for all your Lovecraft/Tolkien mashup needs!).

Not to be outdone, Frog God Games has put their entire Swords & Wizardry line on a similar 15% off sale - most interestingly including their recently released Razor Coast setting books. Swords & Wizardry Complete is, of course, on their list, too - no word on whether the two discounts stack, but if they did Complete would come out to just a hair over $7. A real bargain, if you need that book, but both sales end next Sunday.

While I was reading up on the various retro-clones affected by the above, I happened across the website for North Wind Adventures, the publishers of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperboria. On it, they offer a number of free downloads to support the game, and while some seem to be specific to the Hyperborian setting, others - particularly the "Random Sword & Sorcery Adventure Generator" - look useful for any game in the genre.

Finally, for the next couple of days Tenkar's Tavern is hosting a "Favorite Character Death" contest, with various OSR-compatible publications from Neoplastic Press up for grabs. Not only that, but the company's most well-known product, Teratic Tome, will be put on a bigger and bigger sale the more people enter - and if enough people enter it, too, could become free.