OK here’s that beginning of year statement that frankly I should have put out at the beginning of the year…but hey this is the man who is doing the not so synchronized 12 Days of the UK OSR (which I’ve not forgotten about) 😉
So here’s how D101 stands with the Old School Renaissance (which ever form you are following);
Pretty fuckin’ Tall
OpenQuest is still my biggest seller, despite being something you can download for free, and Crypts and Things completely blew me out of the water when I ran the pre-order. From recent discussions where various folk have basically poked me repeatedly about the General Release date, I kinda get the feeling I’m sitting on a volcano here. Nice feeling that 🙂
In fact the Old school stuff is definitely half my income, the other half being Glorantha + my more indie games ( Monkey + Wordplay ). Part of me thinks it would be fun to go OSR all the way, but practicality + the fact I still like my Glorantha and story telling games so this ain’t going to happen. But saying that from coming in as a curious outsider, attracted because a couple of folk like Akrasia ( Akratic Wizardry ) and Shange Magnus ( Swords against the Outer Dark ) from the OSR blog sphere said nice things about OpenQuest, I’m now fully a champion of this style of play.
OpenQuest
OpenQuest 2nd Edition
This is going to be a 2nd edition in the same way that Chaosium does new editions for Call of Cthulhu. i.e. the underlying rules stay the same, with some clarifications and fixes, but with some additional content. So far we’ve made good progress towards achiving milestone number 1: Clean up, which is where I can put out a nice version in 8″ x 11″ ( which means hardcovers ) with tidied up rules and all the clip art replaced. Simon Bray has done a Stirling job on the art, touching up the existing art (his choice not mine) & illustrating the monsters that currently are presented by clip art. John Holmes is applying his laser eye to the rule book.
Milestone 2 “Additional Content” requires a bit more work. There’s going to be additional advice from me, because it became clear that I wrote a lot of OQ from the point of view that people would already be familiar with over 30 years of Game development history. The Otherworlds in the game are a good example. If you have been following Glorantha’s chequered history you’ll know exactly what I mean by Spirit World. If not you’ll need it explaining, which is what I aim to do. Other articles already lined up are “The Life Cycle of a Character” which explains the levels of play that an OpenQuest character goes through, so that players and Games Masters can create appropriately exciting adventures. There’s also some additional Optional rules by Simon Bray for “Relationships”. The big draw for additional content is a selection of new spells. I’ve got about 30 to add from the newly OGLed Legend, which will ensure compatibilty for GMS running adventures from that line and hopefully RQ6 to, + another 30+ of my own devising. Once we’ve reached Milestone 2 2nd Ed will be most accurately described as “OpenQuest Deluxe Edition” 🙂
Depending on the amount of work I generate aiming for a Summer release by the very latest 🙂
Here Be Dragons
Simon Bray’s and Paul Mitcheners weird and wonderful Swords and Sorcery island is currently in Editorial, so you’ll be getting a brand new Sandbox to play in. Release to coincide with OQ2 (so Summer/Autumn).
Crypts & Things
Main rule book
I’m fulfilling this as I type, so pre-orders should start landing in people’s post end of this or next week. General release very soon…watch this blog.
Blood of the Dragon and other adventures
The first module, is nearly finished writing wise, so that should be with pre-order people in March, with a general release a week after pre-orders have had theirs sent out. Look at ref number “UKS-01”, what could that mean? Well it means that its the start of a three module series set in “The Spires” (that’s where the S comes from ) 🙂 Next module “UKS-02 Fort Boneguard” is kinda my take on Keep of the Boarderlands with scads of undead. Finally things end with a bang with “UKS-03 Tower of the Hydra” a Sorcerer’s tower for you and your chums to take control of , or not if you don’t understand its twists and turns.
I’ve also got a couple of half-finished pieces, such as the 5th Level adventure I ran at Furnace 2010 here by known as “The Sky is Falling”, that will get written up at some point hopefully this year.
More stuff in the pipeline as well, but since its more nebulous I won’t mention it yet.
More Openquest and Crypts & Things! Can’t wait!!
Exciting stuff!
Sounds like it’s going to be a fantastic year for D101 and its fans. Looking forward to seeing all this come to fruition.
Hey, I can totally understand the whish to do more than one thing. I wave back and forth from new school Forge games to old hoary stuff from the dusty vaults of old school. There’s too much fun to be had by limiting oneself.
I already have the Big Yellow from Chaosium so I can see why OQ is a win. That system (Chaosium and D101) are just rock solid. You can use it for everything!
I’m eagerly awaiting more cool stuff about Glorantha btw. I’m bored to death by the main party line, but you have pushed in interesting directions.
“by *not* limiting oneself” of course
*sigh*
Excellent news about Crypts & Things. If there was a mob of gamers with torches and pitchforks outside your door chanting “Crypts & Things,” I’d be one of them 🙂 I’m particularly excited about the three adventure series – very old school indeed.
OpenQuest Deluxe? How about adding in ‘passions’ – nothing complex, just a slimmed down adoption of the Pendragon mechanic, allowing inspiration (+25%?) after a ‘passion test’ in the appropriate circumstances. With a failure (of the roll? of succeeding in the task for which inspiration was sought?) bringing on melancholy, a geas, or a more serious personality imbalance.
Mind you, this is always my problem – I am always so tempted to try to build every system I read into my own fantasy heartbreaker (whether adding SAN *and* personality traits to RQ, adding critical hits and a more complex magic system to D&D, or trying to make Pendragon a generic fantasy system), to the degree that I start to erode the virtues of the system in question, and in the end I give up and actually play more or less RAW.
But, if there was one thing I’d add to OpenQuest, that wouldn’t take it too far down the MRQII/Legend end of the complexity scale, it’d be some [optional] personality/passion/cultural ideals ‘module’.
I’ve already got some Passions style rules, done OQ style. I do like the idea of failure having consquences 🙂 But like the new Relationships rule they will be clearly labeled ‘OPTIONAL’.
There’s already rules for san in OQ, “Major Mental Damage”. This shows how I port ideas into OQ, simplfiy and refine.
No danger of the complexity of Legend coming into OQ 🙂
It’s great to hear that things are going so well for both OpenQuest and Crypts & Things. A new edition of OQ is exciting news, and I can’t wait to see the “deluxe” presentation. I think once C&T goes into circulation you will see folks get even more excited about it. Congrats, Newt!
That’s a good point, that C&T might feed into OQ hadn’t thought of it that way. One to bear in mind as I put OQ2 together, cheers 🙂
My wishes for this.
I would like to see the old Resistance table brought back, and the silly blackjack style resistances gone. Then I might buy it. Those, the over the top criticals mixed with ‘fortune points’, and the cludgy old RQ3 style magic (make it ritual/summoning only for the S&S flavor, perhaps) are what keeps OQ from being a favorite. Weapons could be a bit more robust too, except the two handed ones, which were not nerfed in MRQ/OQ, unlike most of the rest. 1d6 shortsword and 2d8 greatsword is quite a gulf. Oh, and variable armor rolls as Stormbringer as an option at least.
Ha, ha, if I implemented any of the above it wouldn’t be OpenQuest.
Sounds like you want an Elric! flavour of BRP, without saying too much (cos its not my news) you might be a very happy man soon* 🙂
* as in the RPG release scedule definitioin of the word.
That was cruel.
You are not talking about RQ6. What else is coming out that’s a BRP derivative?
Very cruel. Bad Newt. Bad, bad Newt.
WHAT?
Huh?!?
Just got my hardcover of “Crypts & Things” and it is beautiful! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Lulu crank out a product this nice — must be a new vendor — in any case, excellent result, good sir! Thanks for all the hard work on this one…can’t wait to jump in with some solid S&S…
Just to let you know I received my copy of C&T today and it looks very good, thanks for your hard work !