Tournaments of Madness and Death now available to pre-order

This the lastest Crypts and Things module, two convention/one-shot adventures and an article explaining how to run this type of adventure.

Crypts and Things is an OSR Swords and Sorcery game, with influences from the 80s British Fantasy RPGs (early White Dwarf, Fighting Fantasy etc). The module is easily usable with other OSR systems and modern D&D style games.

Get the PDF immediately upon purchase and the print version in a couple of weeks when it clears proof with the printers.

Please note: While the pre-order is running you can pick up the main rulebook in either soft or hardcover with Β£5/$6 knocked off the normal price. Free postage for UK residents on orders over Β£10.

Tournaments of Madness and Death cover by David M. Wright

 

Tournaments of Madness and Death is done!

Finally, Tournaments of Madness and Death is done!

PDF versions to backers who got it as part of the C&T Kickstarter many moons ago, then I’ll be opening pre-orders via the D101 Games web store, later today.

What started off as a pair of scrappy convention scenarios, have been polished up by the editorial of Paul Mitchener some playtesting via Julian Hayley , the inspirational art of Daniel Barker inside, the brilliant illustrative maps of Golden Ennie award winnerΒ  Glynn Seal (MonkeyBlood Design) and topped up by the insanely brilliant cover art of David M Wright. I lost the faith with this one, but these folks work has dragged me out of the creative rut and brought me to a place of immense satisfaction πŸ™‚

Onwards to the next C&T adventure book…Under Dark Spires πŸ™‚

Tournaments of Madness and Death cover by David M. Wright

Introduction to The Furnace adventure, art by Daniel Barker

Where I’m upto with OpenQuest

So I had a sofa day yesterday, an enforced stop due to an upset tummy.

In between blissful bouts of sleep, where somehow family life carried on without me, I realised that I like OpenQuest as written. That I spent a lot of time writing, musing over it, playtesting, releasing into the wild to great critical acclaim and yet I’ve been knocked back by a few bits of criticism (a bad review here and an ill thought out comment there) and a whole bucketful of self-doubt. I’ve worked on variant rules, complete rewrites, rewrites from scratch, getting further and further away each time of what I want out of a D100 system. Its kinda like what my mum used to do when we went shoe shopping for me as a lad. We’d spend a whole morning sizing up the possibilities, then get the best shoes possible. There would then be a short period where we were blissfully happy about the outcome. Then next time we out in town, my mum would then start criticising our choice, pointing out shoes that she thought were a better deal. I’ve done the same with OpenQuest and that’s wrong of me and I’ve had a spectacular own goal moment as a result.

My red-flag moment, if you’ve been following my last couple of vague posts about it on G+, was a couple of months ago when there’s been a whole lot of nonsense over at BRPCentral about MRQ1 SRD no longer being valid under the OGL and by extension OpenQuest itself. This triggered me into opening up the InDesign files, cut and pasting the text back into Word and giving the whole game another through self-edit (finally dealing with all those pesky Capitalisations which I used to be a big fan). There will be a few rewrites of rules, but not many because as I went through the text it slowly dawned I like the rules as written. Yesterday’s enforced stop meant that penny finally dropped. I love OpenQuest πŸ™‚ This will probably see great sighs of relief from my co-conspirator Paul Mitchener who has patiently listened to all my plans for revitalising/rewriting OpenQuest when all I need to do is get on with writing adventures/settings for it πŸ™‚

So what does this mean? Probably not a great deal immediately. I’m working on a cleaned up version of the main rulebook, which I’m going to also add some new monsters (I’ve about twenty or so planned), add back in the Empire of Gatan chapter (seeing as my plan last year to do a whole supplement based on it has fallen through for the time being) and the introductory adventure The Road Less Travelled. This “Maximum” (as in Fun geddit?) edition will probably go back to using the wraparound Dragon cover last seen on OQ2 Deluxe.

The main one which I can start work on now, even as I noodle away doing the Maximum Edition, is getting adventures out for it. This was the main thing folk wanted for OpenQuest whenever I asked on forums was new adventures. I’ve got three adventures nearly written up, as well as the previously announced Green Hell. Without the bottleneck of me worrying about the underlying system, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t get these out by the end of the year πŸ™‚

And if you are a fan of the Company and River of Heaven, there’s news coming about these too πŸ™‚

 

 

Tournaments of Madness and Death cover

I’m so close to getting this one finished. Waiting for the last illustration and a quick layout check then it will be available for pre-order.

In the meantime, I’ve redone the cover – so its less TSR tribute and shows more of David M. Wright’s awesome art πŸ™‚

Tournaments of Madness and Death cover by David M. Wright