Category Archives: Dungeons And Dragons

5th Edition? Roll yer own!

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I must admit to being distinctly uninterested about the whole D&D 5th ed “D&D Next” affair.  Wizards of the Coast lost my gaming dollar once I realised they wanted me on a new edition tread mill after 3.5, which I never got the same gaming mileage from than say 1st Ed, Basic/Expert or even 2ed.   Even without the fiasco of Monte Cook leaving the project, its very unlikely that I’d invest.

You see I’d much rather ‘roll my own’* 5th Edition from various bits of Open Gaming Content and my own common sense additional rulings. This is pretty much what I did for Crypts and Things, but only more so to make my own version of the Class Based Worlds Favourite RPG.

  • It would be heavily Old School in tone and most rules
  • The four core classes (Fighter, Thief, Cleric, Magic-User) with additional classes I like (Ranger, Druid, Paladin, Bard).
  • Races (Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-ling, perhaps Half-Orc BUT no fecking Half-Elves)
  • Ascending AC from 3.0.
  • From Araskia’s Sword and Sorcery rules, I would take the Skills system (but tie it to a separate Skill number rather than Saving Throw),  the Sanity System and possibly weapon damage by class.
  • Keep the Vancian magic system – which for me is one of the big selling points of D&D.
  • Have a more class based XP system, like 2ed , or even NO XP AT ALL!

And as much fun spells, monsters and magic items that I could cram in a 6″x 9″ US trade paper back of say 200-300 pages 😉

 

If you support creativity and the OSR go pledge!

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“Eh what’s Newt babbleing on about here?”

I’m talking James’ Raggi the Fourth’s Lamentations of the Flame Princess Indiegogo.com pre-order campaign for his upcoming “Monolith from Beyond Space and Time” & “The God that Crawls”  modules.

4 Days to go at time of writing, and just under $800 to reach the Goal. Thralls of Sorcerer Under Mountain go pledge! For I know what a shot in the arm, a pure vindication of what you are doing a successfull IndieGoGo.com campaign is from the one I ran for Crypts and Things end of last year.

Personally I’m a huge fan of LoTFP and what Jim’s doing. It would be safe to say that there would be no Crypts and Things without LoTFP, so it was a no-brainer for me to put my money down.

C’mon four days to go lets push it over the edge 🙂

Crypts and Things aftermath somethoughts

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So here I sit in the rosy glow of a not-quite-yet-spring-but-definitely-not-winter day.

C&T has now been out about three weeks, and has been selling quite nicely. Its definitely joining the ranks of the likes of OpenQuest as one of D101’s steady sellers.

Critical response to the game, especially in the light of it being released alongside Adventure Conqueror King and joining the similar (but not the same) Genre space as Lamentations of the Flame Princess, has been a good mix. From the frothy “OMG I LOVE THIS GAME SO MUCH”, to the nicely balanced “There’s bits I don’t like, but there’s bits I do like”. I’ve also had a nice stream of complementary emails and comments, which warms my jaded Game Designer heart 🙂

I’m very glad I gave C&T a very definite BRAND and a different vibe to regular D&D, especially looking at the long list of OSRIC modules which all seem to tribute AD&D of yore.

One of the most gladdening things to happen post C&T release is that Rik Kershaw Moore, author of The Company and a long time Call of Cthulhu keeper (member of the Kult of Keepers who ran the UK Cthulhu Nationals) has picked up on the game , loves it and is writing a scenario to run at Continuum 2012. I’m sure with a bit of arm twisting I should be able to get him to write it up 🙂

Blood of the Dragon is literally down to the last couple of adventure locations. Its a short, around 20 pages, but sick little module – with a short gazeeter (for those of you that want a bit more setting detail) and an adventure featuring a short weird lands trek and a mini-dungeon, which is weird and quite deadly. While short the whole thing is meant to act as an intro adventure for new players and Crypt Keepers. Also its 100% compatible with other OSR games, so if you just want to grab a butt-kicking S&S adventure to run with your favourite RetroClone go fer it.

Finally I’m immensely humbled by the positive reaction that the game has gotten. Especially some of the ongoing blog posts and mentions. There’s a lot of material on my Hard Drive that could become C&T product, and the obvious love the game is already getting pushes to make sure that becomes a reality 🙂

Crypts and Things review round up

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Here’s a couple of reviews that have popped up post release

Swords & Stitchery – Old Time Sewing & Table Top Rpg Blog

EdOWar’s Blog

The Space Cockroach’s Hideout

DriveThruRPG.com buyer review – a very nicely balanced review in that the reviewer doesn’t like some mechanical aspects of the game (specifically the old school To Hit Tables, although C&T also has Ascending AC) but doesn’t let this get in the way of recommending the game overall 🙂

Thanks to all of you have taken the time to write these reviews.

D&D scenario recommends

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In answer to Mick Red’s question ( Adventures for the OSR ) over at UKroleplayers.com.

From the current OSR releases I can heartily recommend

The Cursed Chateau(Rogue Games )by James Maliszewski. A big old haunted house scenario, oozing with atmosphere, marvellously presented and explained.

The Grinding Gear (Lamentations of the Flame Princess) by James Raggi. Yes it’s a Death Trap dungeon, but its small and logical and very very well designed and written.

The Nameless City( Mythmere Games ). Inspired by an HP Lovecraft short story of the same name, a small city of the Serpent People dripping with S&S goodness.

Weird New World( Lamentations of the Flame Princess ) by James Raggi. Imagine the American North East as a vast unexplored fantasy wilderness. Put your characters in a boat and hit go.

From the good old days…..

The Gauntlet & The Sentinel (TSR ). The first part is truly creepy and full of nice twists. The principal of which carries through to the second part that really ramps up the Epic in a believable way.

All that Glitters.(TSR ) One of my all time favourite adventure modules. The characters are going up the river following an old partial treasure map. At the end of their journey which takes them through an old magical tunnel that goes through the impassable mountains, through a post-apocalyptic desert leads them to a conclusion they will not be expecting.

Worth noting that the authors of the above would go on to be part of the team that did the WHFRP 1st Ed Enemy within Campaign.

Irillian from Best of White Dwarf Scenarios III . A city adventure in which the characters take part in an epic crusade against evil. There’s a great twist in the underlying premise that stops it being cliché and predictable. While the party is hunting down the source of the ills that inflict the city they get a guided tour of the city itself, which has seen much better days (think Italian Renaissance city, much down on its luck and gone to seed).

And as an out of the box setting, that would work with all the above scenarios, I can not recommend enough ‘Pelinore’ which was Imagine magazine’s D&D campaign setting, which carried on into Games Master Magazine.

2012 D101 and the old skool

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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.

Crypts & Things : Pdf now sent out to pre-orders

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BIG UPDATE

PDF version of the game is now complete, and has been sent out to all existing pre-orders 🙂

If you haven’t received your PDF please let me know (newt@d101games.com)

It will also be sent out to all new pre-orders (although please note its a manual process, so there may be a delay of a couple of hours up to a day).

90% of towards the Goal, only a handful of orders needed – so tell your friends, blog/tweet about it, and bag you everyone else a free adventure module 🙂

Thanks to everyone who’s ordered so far 🙂