Review/Preview: Crimson Dragon Slayer 1.11

+Venger Satanis has been producing material for a long time. Longer I think than most people really know.  I Remember talking to him back in the early part of the 2000s.  He had some cool, weird, interesting stuff back then, but not all of it was ready for prime time.  In the last few years he has put some quality product and made a name for himself in the RPG/OSR sphere.

A while back I reviewed the Crimson Dragon Slayer game.  I had some nitpicks with it but overall I liked it.  This new Crimson Dragon Slayer, version 1.11, is a little different.  IT is free, and if you bought the old one you can also get a combine version for the price of a click.

This "new" game streamlines CDS into a game that can be setup, taught and play begins in one hour.Not a small feat really.  The new game distils everything that made the first CDS different and makes it work.   The die system revolves around a d6 set of rolls, sometime 1d6, 2d6 or 3d6 (or even a 4d6) depending on the difficulty or even the new 0d6.

Everything is stipped down. Three basic races (human, elf, dwarf) and four classes (warrior, cleric, wizard, thief).  Everything from combat to leveling up is designed to be simple.   I see the same design philosophy here that I see in other stream-lined games.  There is enough here to really attach some very interesting ideas to not counting the built-in campaign view.  There is even a simple 3-page adventure to get your characters from level 1 to level 2.

There is still some work that needs to be done before this is a full product but so far there is a lot of promise here.  I am very interested in seeing where this goes and what sort of options are available for higher levels.  Right now the game is very fast and open and has a lot of potential.

For the right crowd of gamers this would make for a great afternoon diversion and for others it would become their game of choice.  For the price you really can't beat it.

I think there are somethings here (and the promise of others) that I could steal for my own OSR games.

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