New edition of Swords and Wizardry coming to Kickstarter soon

Swords and Wizardry is still my favourite of the D&D retro-clones, although the recent arrival of the Old School Essentials Basic and Advance box sets gives it a close run for its money.  Matt Finch brought it back under his Mythmere games imprint after it got a wider audience with Frog God games for a while last year, and now soon, he’s kickstarting a new edition.

 

Beyond Dread Portals Kickstarter mark the date!

Finally, after many false starts, I’ve got a date for the Beyond Dread Portals Kickstarter opening.

Sunday 2nd April

(it would be a day earlier, but you’d think I’d be fooling 😉 )

Check out the preview pdf (but bear in mind the final product will be non-OGL since its author Paul Mitchener has gone through it and purged all D20 SRD content during the OGL fiasco in January).

And here’s me and Mitch having a short chat about it.

And if you want to catch up with the story so far, over the years I’ve made here at the Sorcerer.

The Dandy vs the fiend from Beyond Dread Portals, by Dan Barker

Looking for a new Fantasy RPG?

On the one hand, it’s sad that the worry and upset surrounding WoTC’s new OGL makes existing players want to move games, but if you are in that boat, fear not OpenQuest, while firmly D100 based, may be a suitable alternative.

One game design goal for OpenQuest was to be accessible and welcoming for gamers more familiar with a certain World’s Favourite Fantasy RPG. This is reflected in the default setting, which is very early-medieval period, has orcs, goblins, and other familiar fantasy races from myth and legend. But also, the system is at the simpler end of the D100 spectrum without losing any features. The OpenQuest main rule book is a complete all-in-one book with all the rules, a complete bestiary, an example setting and a complete adventure.

Interested? Read the full article over at OpenQuestRpg.com.

Also, within the next month or so, I’ll be releasing OpenQuest Dungeons, which along with two adventures, has advice for new Referees and players on how to run D100 in the familiar environment of the Dungeon.

OpenQuest Dungeons, cover by Jon Hodgson

OpenQuest Dungeons, cover by Jon Hodgson

 

Basic Roleplaying, I’ll buy that for a Dollar!

I have warm rosy memories of being on the playtest group for Chaosium’s Big Gold Book of Basic Roleplaying sometime in the 2000s. The book is a big, bold attempt at making BRP a generic system which you can use for any genre or mash-up of genres.  It also pulls from various Chaosium games over the years, being a great-hits compilation as well. Well recommended.

Basic Roleplaying Gold Book

Dungeon 23

Just before the holidays, I made the move from Twitter to a Mastodon server called dice camp. It’s been set up by RPG creatives to provide a home for the exodus of RPG fans from Twitter, and is actually quite a nice micro-blogging platform, without ads and algorithms messing about with the order of content. I’m there as @Newt_Newport@dice.camp. I’m trying to publish something interesting and upbeat each day as part of my wake-up and pre-work coffee routine.

To give me something to post about by default, I’ve joined the #dungeon23 project. Instead of posting a room a day for a dungeon, I’ll be making posts about creating a narrative megadungeon for Chaosium’s QuestWorlds system.

Follow it on https://dice.camp/@Newt_Newport/

SimpleQuest is Go!

This is a quick post about the ongoing SimpleQuest Kickstarter, which ends in just over a week on Monday, 12th December.

SimpleQuest Kickstarter Banner, art by Jon Hodgson

Progress so far

Funded the main goal, the rule book. In under one hour!

Funded a series of stretch goals that make up Darkvale, a quick Mythic Fantasy setting with a collection of three adventures. Also funded a stretch goal to make it available as a POD release to all backers and the initially announced pdf release.

We are also closing in on funding the Demons of Dark Desire – in POD for Early Bird Backers as well as Pdf, which they are also due, and as an ado-on for anyone who missed out on the Early Bird in the first two days.

Add-ons

Added some new add-ons to go alongside the current OpenQuest releases that have been available from the start of the campaign.

River of Heaven + To the Stars (£15 pdf/POD). It initially didn’t occur to me to put this OpenQuest-powered sci-fi game in the add-on’s pile, but someone asked if I could do an SQ Sci-fi game as a stretch goal, so then it made sense to offer this instead.

OpenQuest Classics (£10 pdf/POD). I had a small limited amount of Savage North, Crucible of Dragons and The Company (OQ modern warfare) in print in my stock cupboard. It all sold out very quickly. Then the emails came asking where they could get these items in pdf/pod. I was initially a meany and said no, that’s it they are gone out of print. But this morning, I had a change of heart, and you can now get them as a pdf/POD bundle for the bargain price of £10! (but that’s it) .

OpenQuest?

Just in case you think that OpenQuest has been thrown under the bus and SQ is its replacement, I did a big update on where I’m up to with all the OQ releases being worked on over at the OQ Kickstarter page.