The Only Dungeon Video You'll Ever Need

 

From the desk of science fiction writer and wargamer Jon Mollison comes this penetrating analysis of dungeon design. It some ways it goes over some well-worn ground, the tension between the "Mythic Underworld" model and the "Gygaxian Naturalist" model of worldbuilding; but Jon really takes it to a higher level (no pun intended) with a surprising argument that the Mythic Underworld is the most realistic dungeon of all. Highly recommended.

Wacky Campaign Concepts: Adventurer School!

The idea of a campaign where the players are students at a School for Adventurers is one that I have occasionally pondered, usually concurrent to my being reminded that the Harry Potter franchise exists. Its full implementation would be necessarily somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as it depends on the idea of The Adventurer as a recognized societal role necessary enough in quantity to support a familiar education structure. That is, of course, where the fun lies, in the intersection of the expectations of a dungeon-fantasy type universe, and the players' own educational experience.

As this idea percolates around a number of elements - Xcrawl style dungeon-courts as practical exams is always a winner - one area that's always come up short is the actual sitting in class part of going to school. Happily, Skerples over at Coins and Scrolls has recently been thinking along similar lines, and recently posted some thoughts about a similar conceit using his Magical Industrial Revolution* setting. Of course, his version is a little more collegiate, but the system of a pass/fail roll that varies in difficulty based on the difficulty of the course is really quite intriguing. My only modification would be to encourage players to take the more difficult courses by offering small perks upon successful completion - perhaps  a +1 or advantage on checks against getting lost for those who've passed "Unusual Cartography", for example. It's very tempting to rebuild the whole course list with requirements for various classes - can you really be an Assassin if you fail to pass "History of Poisons"?

On the other hand, the whole 1d100 course list is such a fine example of the kind of style this concepts requires it would be a shame to mess with it. "Nonessential Salts" indeed.

One Day Left For Latest ACKS Crowdfund

 

Being the sort of person who usually prefers fighters and thieves to spellcasters in D&D-type games, I had initially not paid much attention to the latest Adventurer, Conqueror, King System* supplement to be crowdfunded by Autarch. I'm glad I finally did, though, because the magic of the Almanac of Unusual Magic is very unusual indeed.

The 56-page book covers four new ACKS classes, three of which - gnomish alchemists, dwarven geomancers, and warlords - slot in well to a fantasy milieu. The fourth, however, is the Terran Engineer - apparently riffing on a character option in Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu* for lost spacemen who, if the illustrations are any guide, basically hail from Starfleet. The Engineer class, then, reflavors magic to be the "jury-rigging" ability of an engineer like Scotty to create fantastic devices, albeit not necessarily temporary ones. Of course, being an ACKS product, this new class (as well as the others) is broken down into its component parts for further customization, in a very Engineer-like manner now that I think of it.

Still needing about $450 to fund at the time of this writing, the GameOnTabletop campaign for the Almanac also offers an opportunity to add on ACKS rulebooks at a discounted price. I've backed an Autarch project on this platform before, and for not being Kickstarter or IndieGoGo it worked very smoothly. I highly recommend giving the pitch a look if it tweaks your interest at all.

The AD&D That Wasn't Quite

Last week, Eric Fabiaschi of Swords & Stitchery pointed me at some fantastic cover mock-ups by author James Panarella, in the style of AD&D's Oriental Adventures*:

Most, like Oriental Adventures, focus on a particular ancient-to-medieval culture such as the Norse, the Aztecs, the Celts, or the Egyptians, although a few go further afield, including a couple posted a few days later that take their inspiration from the Wilderness Survival Guide*:

 

Thus inspired, Eric wrote up a few alt-history posts speculating about the series of events that might have led to TSR actually writing and publishing some of these. I, on the other hand, look at some of these and wonder why the themes they represent haven't been picked up by the OSR crowd. Some have, I know - there's a couple of powerhouse sci-fi rulesets, a smattering of pirate-themed content - but most of the most well-known OSR stuff seems to me to be some combination of Howardian sword-and-sorcery, Tolkienesque high fantasy, or Vancian dying-earth gonzo. Which is too bad - some of these covers are far too good to not have a book inside them.

Adventure Lookup - Intriguing DM Tool

I'm a big sucker for lists and databases, and my recent discovery of Adventure Lookup is squarely in that wheelhouse. It is, in essence, a big list of adventures for the various versions of Dungeons & Dragons - from the Basic set to 5th Edition, with options for Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classics, and various OSR rulesets. But not only is it possible to filter the list by system, but by player level, setting, publisher - even by what treasure is included or what kinds of monsters there are to fight.

Once an adventure is located, most entries will have some kind of indication of where it can currently be obtained - often a direct link to DriveThru or some other host (However, many that were originally from Dungeon magazine just have the issue number, and only a couple include a link to the Internet Archive Dungeon collection). After that, well, it's all up the the DM . . .

Comic Character Concepts

And Now For A Word From Our Sponsor

So, I'm sure if you're at all interested in RPGs in the 21st century, you've heard of DriveThruRPG*. It's basically the Amazon of digital gaming, both in its retail dominance, self-publishing empowerment, and affiliate program, in which participants can get a small percentage of the price of any purchase made through a particular link, for example the one above. This percentage does not increase the price of a purchase, rather it comes out of DTRPG's take.

I've been using DTRPG affiliate links for some time now, usually marking them with an asterisk that leads to a footnote summarizing the above for transparency purposes. Instead of that, I've decided to make a page with that information.

And now for a demonstration: earlier this week, Lamentations of the Flame Princess* announced a sale reducing all their PDFs sold through DTRPG for just $2.00 each, or $1.50 each for their LotFP Everything Bundle* (this works out to about $82.50). This includes the full (NSFW) art version of the core rules*, Ken Hite's excellent Vietnam-War-inspired setting Qelong*, award winners like A Red and Pleasant Land* and Broodmother Skyfortress*, basically every weird, fantastic, and downright horrific book the company has ever produced - right up to their most recent Gen-Con releases*. Believe me, $2.00 is practically a steal for some of these, but the sale only lasts until the end of the month. Once it's October in Finland, it's back to full price.

D&D Ability Scores Explained With Tomatoes

Based on a much-shared Reddit thread and brought to life by artist Max Marcil:

Also available as a PDF. And remember, if your first instinct is note that a tomato-based fruit salad is a salsa - you're the bard.

Requiem For Google+

Well, it's finally happened. After much sound and fury, the Google+ social media experiment is officially over. Being something of a late adopter to things like this I was only on for the last couple years, but during that time I saw a number of informative, amusing or useful things, some of which I was able to salvage:

Heroes of Terra Kickstarter Up

Well, I have to admit I doubted this day would ever come, but on this occasion I'm happy to be proven wrong - Jeremy Puckett and Blackwing Productions* have posted the Kickstarter for Heroes of Terra: The Mushroom War. I've mentioned this Super Mario-inspired Savage Worlds setting a time or two before, as previous versions of it were released. Most are still available at the DriveThru link posted above, and the newest is the Heroes of Terra Jumpstart*, which like the full book brings the setting in line with the newest edition of Savage Worlds (If you were a backer of the Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, you should already have the Jumpstart wherever you're keeping the rewards from that campaign).

This Kickstarter is fairly straightforward, with PDF and POD options as well as some premium content-creation tiers. The stretch goals are all additional content, but I would say the target date is far enough out to not make the campaign too successful. Nothing that would require additional shipping is also a good sign.

Anyway, I'm eager to see what this version of the Mushroom Kingdom ends up looking like, and maybe even put a game there someday. I note with particular interest that the premise explicitly mentions the possibility of visitors from the "real" world, which would make the material easily integrated into a game of, say, international monster hunters . . .

Not your typical Yoshi.

*All DriveThruRPG links are, as always, affiliate links that earn me a little money if you use them.

The Circlet of Fungal Power

A new magic item for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.

The Circlet of Fungal Power presents itself as a typical golden crown with a velvet lining colored purple with white spots. If worn, it transforms the wearer into an Amazon warrior woman with the following attributes:

Height: 6'2, Weight: 170
STR: 9, DEX: 17, CON: 11, INT: 11, WIS: 11, CHA: 18

All other characteristics, including class, remain the same. Upon removing the crown the wearer reverts to his previous appearance and attributes, but there is a cumulative 1% chance the wearer must make a Save Vs. Transformation or have one attribute (rolled on a d6) permanently altered. The accumulated chance resets with each save, but the seventh failure results in the wearer completely transforming into Amazon form (as per the Polymorph Other spell), in addition to gaining the firm conviction that they are the heir to the throne of a far-off kingdom of intelligent toadstool people.

Inspired, of course, by this. I'm not even sorry.

Kickstarters Coming and Going

With the advent of Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms, it seems there's always a neat gaming-related project running. To illustrate this point, I'm going to highlight a couple that I'm currently backing, one that's just started and one that's almost out of time.

First off, Secrets of the Nethercity by Autarch is ending in just a couple of days. This project is actually two books, a city guide and a "kilodungeon"* filled with the remnants of a necromancy-fueled elf culture, both obviously intended for use with Autarch's Adventurer, Conquerer, King System** but easily adapted to the OSR system of your choice. While it's reached its funding goal, there are several stretch goals to go that will add details to the city setting, many of which will be unlocked in just a few thousand more dollars.

While I'm a bit behind in reading it all, I've been a big fan of Autarch's output thus far. I can also vouch for their customer service, having had a small problem during the fulfillment of their last Kickstarter, which was remedied within a day. So if you want to uncover the Secrets of the Nethercity, I certainly encourage backing it.

As for the new one, what it lacks in direct RPG content it more than makes up for in style and good ideas. I'm speaking of Cirsova Heroic Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, which is currently in the process of funding its 9th and 10th issues.

 Or rather, it's funding Volume II, since the editor of Cirsova, P. Alexander, has said that even if the Kickstarter fails to fund, these two issues will be released on Amazon. Still, the Kickstarter price for these two magazines starts at just $1 for digital copies of both, so there's incentive to back now instead of later.

So what do you get for your $1? For the past few years, Cirsova has been publishing some of the best short fiction available in a pulpy/Appendix N/Weird Tales mode. While it tends towards Burroughsesque Planetary Romance, strict genre lines take a backseat to action and plot - the latest released issue includes cyberpunk, urban fantasy, and space pirates, while the first three issues available for free on the website include swashbucklers, Lovecraftian sword-and-sorcery, and weird Colonial-era yarns. No matter your taste in fiction, there's probably something here for you.

And as for gaming utility, there are a few stat blocks and one-page dungeons scattered throughout the magazine's run, but the real utility is giving a GM a wide variety of incidents, characters, and details to work into their own games - much as the original Appendix N did, and continues to do.

Like with Autarch, I'm a happy previous backer of Cirsova magazine. Neither of these fine publishers have any idea I'm writing this, my only benefit is that more backers means more and better content for everyone. So if either of these interests you, by all means help them out!

*Because it's big, but smaller than a megadungeon, you see.

**DriveThru affiliate link - generates a small percentage paid to me at no additional cost to you. Thanks in advance!

On the Ghostly Horizon

File this one under "Things to keep an eye out for" - at the end of last year, The Renaissance Troll previewed an upcoming project from Osprey Publishing* called Frostgrave: The Ghost Archipelago. Now, I'm not much of a wargamer, but the setting description (via Amazon) sounds like it's right up my alley:

A vast island chain, covered in the ruins of ancient and otherworldly civilizations, the Archipelago appears every few centuries, far out in the southern ocean. At such times, pirates, adventurers, wizards, and legendary heroes all descend upon the islands in the hopes of finding lost treasures and powerful artefacts. A few, drawn by the blood of their ancestors, search for the fabled Crystal Pool, whose waters grant abilities far beyond those of normal men. It is only the bravest, however, who venture into the islands, for they are filled with numerous deadly threats. Cannibal tribes, sorcerous serpent-men, and poisonous water-beasts all inhabit the island ruins, guarding their treasure hordes and setting traps for the unwary.

If nothing else, it sounds like it could be a great addition to the vaguely-imagined World of Pirating setting I'd like to run someday. I'm not so sure about this whole pool-granted superpowers thing, but I suppose it parallels the setup from the original Frostgrave game** (which this announcement has got me vastly more interested in) of the party being basically an adventuring wizard and his hired help. Time will tell if the Ghost Archipelago has the staying power of the Frozen City, but given the genres involved I think it's quite promising.

* Which, in the past few years, seems to have gone from "Research materials for historical wargamers" to "Research materials for historical, fantasy, and High Weirdness** wargamers" to "You know what? We're just going to cut out the middleman here and publish the wargames themselves".

**All Drive-Thru links go through their affiliate program, which means that if you use them I get paid, and it costs you nothing extra! Such a deal.

The Dungeons Of Catan

Well, not quite, but that's what I was first reminded of by these neat new dungeon tiles being developed under the name of HEXOMOPHO.

". . . Does this Wandering Monster Table have anything other than Robbers?"

 With 54 different tiles, including a number of different entry points (my favorite is the dock), it looks like a bit of planning will allow a GM to lay out a practically infinite number of maps. Or, just have a stack handy and deal them out as the players progress, although this method will also require the use of some good random stocking tables.

The best part? The full set of designs is free to download, scaled to either 15mm or 28mm miniatures. Printer paper, glue, and cardboard is pretty much all you need to get started, and in a real pinch you could probably skip the glue and cardboard.

A big thanks to Dungeon Fantastic for bringing this to my attention.

Dungeongating!

A setting premise for the pulp-tinged fantasy or fantasy-tinged pulp RPG of your choice.

While knocking about in the East in the 1920s, an English explorer Sir George Lancasterwood-Smith came into possession of a curious stone ring of impressive size immense age. Naturally he had it shipped back to his estates in Berktonshire, where it stood for several years until one foggy, moonlit night when something came out of the ring and ate Sir George's favorite hound.

 In response, rather than do something sensible (like sticking the ring under an American mountain range for sixty years), Sir George moved the ring indoors and engaged all manner of scientists, cranks, boffins, alchemists, and mystics to figure out its secrets. Eventually, they determined that by illuminating sections of the ring in sequence, the inside would shimmer and thin and, if passed through, would deposit explorers - somewhere else.

Somewhere else, in this case, being an immense underground labyrinth, decorated in a vaguely familiar but unidentifiable style that seems to heavily feature skulls. This was, however, less important than the unique and valuable artifacts that kept turning up, inspiring Sir George to lead several expeditions further and further into the maze.

That, of course, is when the monsters showed up.

The bulk of them seemed to be long-dead bodies mindlessly shambling around despite various states of decomposition, but

there were plenty of other creatures seemingly torn from ghost stories and fairy tales, and others that defied sane descriptions. Despite this, Sir George is still recruiting interested parties to investigate the mysterious underworld, perhaps discovering whether the labyrinth has any exit, or whether three are any other living people inside. Some of those studying the ring - or the Gate, as it's now called - also wonder if, by changing the pattern of the light shone on the ring, the Gate could be made to open somewhere else entirely . . .

Good News, Bad News

Bad news first: the Savage Mushroom Kingdom netbook I mentioned a couple years ago has gone dark. The good news is the reason for this, namely that the author - Jeremy Puckett of Blackwing Productions - has secured the necessary permissions to make his Land of Terra an official Savage Setting. There is, I understand, a Kickstarter planned for later this year, but in the meanwhile the rough draft of the Heroes of Terra Player's Guide - very similar to the old netbook - is now on DriveThru. It's even the Deal of the Day for the next few hours, but I'd say it's worth buying even at full price (a mere $5).

Also available are two short adventures, The Plumber's Dilemma and Down the Tubes, both priced as PWYW. They're well worth a look to see how the occasionally goofy Mushroom Kingdom setting elements - the second one alludes to Karting! - get translated. With all the elements thus presented, the full setting book is shaping up to be quite good indeed.

An Interesting Observation

As most everyone in the hobby has probably heard by now, the Bones III Kickstarter from Reaper Miniatures is going strong, with just under a week left to finish and lots of interesting-looking stretch goals to fill.

Poking around some of the miniatures that were produced in the last go-around, I came across this guy, and it got me thinking:

(Possible Razor Coast spoilers beyond the jump.)

It's Dangerous to Go Alone

Art by Tyler Edlin

Poking around the other day on the Giant in the Playground forum, I happened across a neat fan supplement for using the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons to run games set in Hyrule, the setting for Nintendo's Legend of Zelda series of video games. Presented in two books, the author - GitP poster "ninjadeadbeard" - has translated many of the races and items from those games into 5E terms (which are, to my eye, easily translated into the OSR game of your choice), as well as concocting a more group-centered version of Hyrule for your band of adventurers to explore.

This is presented as a post-Triforce era with a number of factions vying and intriguing for control of Hyrule - some inspiration from Game of Thrones is obvious, and probably inevitable. Still, the setting is reinforced with plenty of plot hooks, which are worth a look no matter what system you're using, and it's always interesting to see how somebody else interprets a setting like this. Particularly useful, I thought, were the Triforce-themed alignment system and the thoughts on using D&D classes in the world of Hyrule.

'Zines Without Number

Well, perhaps not literally, but there are certainly a large number of fan-produced gaming publications that have started in recent years, many of which focus on one OSR game or another. I suppose this is no surprise, as it is my understanding that in the early days of RPGs that the Old School movement looks back to, this kind of thing was also common. Nowadays, of course, with desktop publishing and the Internet for distribution, it's easier than ever to do.

The other day, thanks to a tip from Tenkar, I picked up the latest entry into the field. The Sandbox #1 is a product from Kevin Crawford of Sine Nomine Publishing, which has produced such gems as the Stars Without Number sci-fi OSR game, the Spears of the Dawn and Red Tide fantasy settings (the latter incorporating the Scarlet Heroes solo-hero rules), and - most recently - the Silent Legions Lovecraftian game based on the same ruleset. The Sandbox, Kevin says, is a vehicle for passing along a "passing idea or small notion" that could work with any or all of these.

 In this inaugural issue, we find four items:

• "The Last Prince", a custom class for Scarlet Heroes based on being the last survivor of a vanished people. Really, this is more of a background than a class, as it is "treated as a Fighter for all general purposes". It would be, I think, an interesting exercise to port over the more flavorful items onto other classes to create, for example, a Last Wizard or Last Assassin. The d8 Doom table looks useful for general backgrounds, as well.


• "Kickstarter Production Guidelines", taking up more than half the issue's pagecount, offers an inside look at the process that has made Sine Nomine one of the most reliable crowdfunding brands in the RPG market.


• "A Quick Backwater Spaceport" is a set of random tables designed for use with Stars Without Number or similar games (I get a very Firefly vibe from it) that, with just the teensiest bit of modification, could also be used for settings focused on regular ships - a pirate-era game, say, or a Pulp game based out of a tramp steamer.


• What's That Abandoned Strucure?" is a similar set of tables for, well, abandoned buildings.

All in all, it's worth taking a look at (especially as it is being offered for free), and in spite of the announced production schedule of "irregularly" I await the second issue with great interest.

Yo-ho, Yo-ho . . .

Ah, pirates. In a way, the sword-and-cannon genre is even more appropriate for Dungeons & Dragons-type games than your more traditional fantasies, what with the ready-made adventuring parties/ship crews and the chests of treasure buried under X-shaped palm trees which may or may not be cursed. Long John Silver has, after all, been part of the popular consciousness much longer than Gandalf, and even Conan, you might recall, was a pirate a time or two.

It's no wonder, then that one of the recently-announced 2014 Ennie Award winners is Frog God Games' Razor Coast: Heart of the Razor, an adventure series for their swashbuckling-fantasy mash-up setting.

It's a setting I've been intrigued with for quite some time, and there's no better time dive in, as FGG is giving away the Razor Coast Freebooter's Guide in PDF in celebration of the win (A tip of the tricorn to Peter at Dungeon Fantastic for passing the news along). It;s available for either the Pathfinder or Swords & Wizardry rule-sets - I'm looking at it in the later, but at first glance the setting is cool enough that I'd be interested even if it was only the former.