Showing posts with label DriveThru. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DriveThru. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Wizards of the Coast Print on Demand

The biggest news in the D&D corners of the Internet is Wizards of the Coast and OneBookShelf are now starting some Print on Demand services for classic D&D products.

This isn't terribly new, WotC had been providing some PoD services for some of their new D&D 5 materials.  What is new that we are seeing some classic products out now and should expect to see more each week.

I picked up a copy of The Shady Dragon Inn.  It was cheap, and I never owned a copy before. It is also something I can use in pretty much any version of the game I play.
I suppose in truth I should have grabbed something like The Secret of Bone Hill or Castle Amber; something I still have a physical copy of and can compare.   Actually I should get a new copy of the 3.5 Draconomicon.  My son used to take that with him to pre-school to read (and read and read) and my copy is really worn out.

This is the start of a new era for Wizards.  D&D can now be perpetually in-print.  This will also really kill the after-market book sales now.  Oh sure, collectors will still want good original copies, but there will be plenty that will want playable copies too.  I might pick up I10: Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill just so I don't wear my copy out anymore.

Imagine if all of the TSR and WotC back catalog was available for print on demand like this?  This could open up older versions of the game in ways never before possible.  Play a game at a convention and then hand a QR code on a card or send a link so people can get their own copies.
I do have a fear that this might hurt our local game stores though.

Friday, July 22, 2016

End of July! (Sorta)

Almost.

The ENnie Voting is done.  Thanks to everyone that voted for me.

RPGNow has their Christmas in July Sale going on now and for the next week.  Check that out.
On sale, in particular, is my Sisters of the Aquarian Order for White Star (which is also on sale).


Today is also my 21st wedding anniversary.  So I'll be celebrating that today with the one thing we have done since 1987...going to see a Star Trek movie!

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Plays Well With Others: Dark Albion: Cults of Chaos

The newest supplement for Dark Albion is now out, Dark Albion: Cults of Chaos.  With a name like that how can I possibly say no?

A bit of history, I worked with author Dominique Crouzet quite a bit back in the late 90s and early 2000s.  I know what sort of thing he likes (or at least liked) in this area, so I know I was going to be pre-disposed to like this.  +Kasimir Urbanski is also the author and his contributions were going to be a bit more of a mystery. But I liked Dark Albion so my expectations were pretty good.  Like Dark Albion, this book can be played with any flavor of D&D you like. It is simple enough and light enough on the "crunch" it can actually be played with just about any RPG really.  While reading I Was thinking about it in terms of Pendragon, Cthulhu Britanica and other games.

Dark Albion: Cults of Chaos is the cults and cult-like groups book for the Dark Albion campaign setting/rules.  The book itself is 92 pages (94 with covers). This includes 2 pages of character sheets, a cult sheet and the ogl.  Minus title page and various bits we are looking at 80+ pages of solid content.
The art is all black and white and is a mix of newer art and woodcut designs.  I am rather fond of the woodcuts myself, I love seeing these in books.  I recognize a number of pieces as belonging to Dominique; so he is one of the artists as well as one of the authors.
The first part of the book deals with the cults.  In particular their size, composition, what social class they come from (very important really) and of course their motivations and where their secret lair might be.  Life of the cultist within the cult is also detailed to a degree.  Enough anyway to get you thinking more about them. In particular what they do in the cult, why they might have joined and possible mutations.  That one needs some more explaining.
Some cults are so exposed to the forces of Chaos that their cultist can begin to mutate.  A great idea that I am glad to see here.  Dom and I did something similar for Warlocks back in my 3.0 edition of my Witch book.  So immediately I grabbed on that as something to use.  The idea though has a lot of traction. There are similar ideas in Lamentations of the Flame Princess and I believe Dungeon Crawl Classics.
The next section covers running advnetures involving these cults.  Obviously these cults are not menat to be a one-time adversary. They are meant to be reoccuring antagonists and potentially even the "Big Bads" of your game.  This includes a number of NPCs, mostly normal level humans, that are involved in the their cults.  Don't assume though that "0 Level" = powerless. Nobility wield a lot of power regardless of level, a noble in a cult can be very bad for a party of adventurers.
I might as well acknowledge the inclusion of the "Frog Cults".  I still think "Frogland" is kind of dumb to be honest, but I don't mind these cults at all.  In fact wasn't "Temple of the Frog" the first real adventure played in D&D and certainly one of the first ever published.   The "Keepers of the Frogs" from Blackmoor could certainly fit as a DA cult.


Packed amongst all of this information are also tables of rumors and other information PCs can learn.  I thought of this as the "Scooby Doo" section of the book; the PCs split up and search for clues.

We next get some sample cults and some examples of some cults in various dungeon settings.  These are split up into low, medium and high level.

The appendicies are very interesting and include a section on Elves in Albion.  This section reminded me a bit of a similar direction given in Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum.  Indeed, one could use both books together to get a large, more detailed picture of the elves/fae/sidhe.  DA tends to be low-fantasty compared to the C&S High(er) Fantasy.  Still in niether case are these "D&D Elves", they still have more incommon with the likes Obereon, Titania and Puck than Tanis or Legolas.

The next appendix details a score cults of various types. All ready to drop in your game.  The last appendix details sorcerery and chaos and the strange things that can happen when they mix.
We end with a cult creation sheet and a character sheet.  The character sheet should be offered for free download, I think people would like it.

All in all a fun book.  There is nothing here we have not seen before in one form or another, but to have it all one place with this particular presentation is great.   I am reminded a bit of the old Witches and Pagans book from White Wolf that covered similar territory. I even pulled out my Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade to see if this would work well enough with it.  It would take some work, but it could be done.


What strikes me most is how easiy it is to integrate this into any game you like.  The crunch that exsists is easily converted. Since a lot of the die rolling deals with tables and their results, conversion is a simple process.

I mentioned in the past that Dark Albion is particularily friendly to +Jeff Talanian's Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. Using a page from DA:CoC one could easily add DA style elves (and of course their cults) into the world of AS&SH.  AS&SH style witches and warlocks seem particularily suited for the the chaos magic of DA.


In the end I thought this was a fun purchase. Glad to have it and glad to mine some ideas from it.

---
I am up for an Ennie this year for Best Blog!
Please click on the link and vote "1" under "The Other Side".

Monday, July 18, 2016

Monstrous Mondays: Baby Bestiary Vol. 1

Baby Bestiary Handbook Vol 1

A while back I posted support for the Baby Bestiary vol 1 and 2.  Volume 1 is now up for the Best Interior Art and Best monster/adversary ENnies and it is no surprise.  The book is absolutely gorgeous.

+Andreas Walters has put together a fantastic book that is part monster manual, part field guide, part ecology book and a huge part art book.

The book is a densely packed 81 full-color pages.  Easily one of the best-looking books to be nominated for an ENnie.   Each monster description comes with details on what the young of each monster is called (a baby Hippocampus is known as a "fry" for example), how hard it is to train the young and other vital facts such as danger and intelligence levels.

The book would make for a great coffee table book really and I hope there is a nice leatherbound option in the future collecting both volumes.
Of course, the obvious choice here is the older gamer that has kids that LOVE monster books.
I have forgotten how many times I have had to go on rescue missions to my kids rooms to find my D&D books.  I still have a Pathfinder book that I can't account for in fact!  For younger kids a "baby monster" game, ala Pokemon, gotta catch them all, would be fantastic.
Since there is little to no "crunch" in this book it is compatible with a wide variety of games.  Play your favorite game, use this book as your guide and go monster hunting with your kids.

In any case, this is a really fun book and I am really looking forward to Volume 2.

Don't forget to include the hashtag #MonsterMonday on Twitter or #MonsterMonday on Google+ when you post your own monsters!

---
I am up for an Ennie this year for Best Blog!
Please click on the link and vote "1" under "The Other Side".


Monday, June 27, 2016

Monstrous Monday: Beasties from Night Owl Workshop

I like my Monstrous Mondays to be flexible.  Sometimes a monster, other times something monster related or in this case a review.

Now I have gone on the record, many, many times, talking about how much I love monster books. My first glimpse into D&D was way back in 1978-79 when I first saw and read the Monster Manual.  Very few books have come close to that feeling of unlimited potential.  So when a new monster book comes out, I have to take a look and usually grab it.

Beasties from Night Owl Workshop has something of a pedigree in my mind.  The art and text are from none other than +Thomas Denmark.  He is responsible for some of my favorite art during the d20 boom, in particular Citizen Games "Way of the Witch".

Beasties is an 84 page, digest sized, black and white interior book of new monsters.  According to the sales text on DriveThru the book contains:
27 Monsters
6 NPC's
37 Drawings!
5 Maps
1 "Megadungeon" sample.

It certainly punches above its weight class in terms of monsters and content.  All the art is by Denmark himself, as is the text with additional text by Terry Olsen.

The book is designed for "Original Fantasy Rules" but plenty of conversion notes are given for OSRIC and Basic Fantasy.  There are also some conversion notes for Nite Owl Workshop's other games Colonial Troopers, Guardians and Warriors of the Red Planet.

Monsters are typically presents with stats and description on one page and the art on the next.
Many of the monsters have a distinct "old school" or even pulpy feel about them.  Indeed, I certainly can see many of these working great with WotRP above.
There are a lot of new undead monsters to add some interesting challenges to your players too.

I love the "Flying Locust Citadel" to be honest. There are just not enough flying mega-dungeons in D&D as far as I am concerned.

Plus the entire work is released as "Open" under the OGL so that is a nice touch.

Bookmarks in the PDF would have been nice as well as a table of contents. All in all a good book for the price.

Sinderan Witches
Of course, these two caught my attention right away.  I'd love to hear more about "Sinder's ancient past" and how these two groups of witches came to be.  I'd also love to hear how the "Sinderan Light Witch" became the evil, youth stealing witch and the "Sinderean Shadow Witch" became the good protectors of the innocent.    I could build an entire tradition out of these two.



Don't forget to include the hashtag #MonsterMonday on Twitter or #MonsterMonday on Google+ when you post your own monsters!

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Beasties, Birthdays and Bloodstones

Yesterday was my birthday!  Yeah!
But I forgot to get a Monstrous Monday post made. Boo!

I am planning to review "Beasties" the latest monster book from Thomas Denmark. So I'll save that for next week.  Afterall...it's not "Monstrous Tuesday".

In the meantime I was very, very happy to see that two of the four Bloodstone modules are now out.

H2 The Mines of Bloodstone and H4 The Throne of Bloodstone

I talked about these a few months back and it is great to see them in PDF form.  While I have the modules, I might grab these anyway so I can print them out and write on them.

It will be a lot of fun.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

White Plume Mountain at DriveThruRPG

One of the all-time greatest classic modules is now available at DriveThruRPG.

S2 White Plume Mountain


I had an absolute blast playing this with my kids.  They STILL talk about how they got Blackrazor.

DriveThru has a number of great files to go with this too.
White Plume Mountain Dungeon Tiles (lots of fun!)
White Plume Mountain Revised (3.5)

The PDF is the older mono-chrome cover, but I love this Jeff Dee one.

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

New Releases Tuesday: Tomb of Horrors

The Tomb of Horrors is one of the most talked about modules on this blog.  Now you can legall own a PDF copy.

Tomb of Horrors @ RPGNow.



Honestly never thought I'd see this, but there it is.
I imagine the rest of the S-Series will be out in the next few weeks.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Class Struggles: The Basic Vampire

The great thing about Basic-era D&D (OD&D, B/X, BECMI) is how flexible it is.

That flexibility and something I always had regarded as a negative, race as a class, is now something I wish to exploit more.

For that I give you the updated and slightly revised Basic Vampire class.
The Blood is the Life - Basic Vampires


This is actually part of an experiment for me. Well two really.

The first is to see if the Vampire as a class would be something that others would want or play.
If so, there is a whole game I have been playing around with for a while that I think will do nicely.

The second is an experiment on publishing a "Pay What You Want" title.

I have had conversations with other publishers about PWYW and they are unwilling to do it. Claiming that they will never get the money they need to make it worthwhile.  I disagree, I think the gaming community at large and the OSR community in particular would rather pay for the materials they want.

If this is successful, and success is a relative term, then expect to see more from me like this.

The Race-as-Class works so well for the Vampire. Afterall if an elf can fight and cast spells, then a vampire can fight and do all the things that make a vampire cool.

Mind you I am not trying to do a Basic knock off of Vampire: The Masquerade here.   This is still the same basic-era vampire we have been fighting for 40 years.  He just now can start at 1st level and work his way up.

Let me know what you all think.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

GMs Day 2016 - Last few days/hours

It's Super Tuesday in Illinois.  With a little bit of luck I'll be out voting later today.

You can also vote today, with your dollars!
The GM's Sale is still going on at RPGNow and there are so many good deals going on.

In particular my Sisters of the Aquarian Order is still in the top 10 of the GM's Day sales.
Get it now before the price goes back up!






Thursday, March 3, 2016

GMs Day sale at RPGNow

It is RPGNow/DriveThruRPG/OneBookshelf's annual GMs Day sale and there is a ton of books on sale.

Including Sisters of the Aquarian Order.

In fact the Sisters seem to be in very good company right now.


#7 on the GMs Day sales. You can pick it up along with White Star.

I am taking this time to comb through my wish list and grab those books I have been wanting for a while.

Thursday, February 25, 2016

OD&D Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-gods & Heroes

The "last" OD&D supplement is out this week, Gods, Demi-gods & Heroes.
This was always one of my favorites and I remember it well from the days playing Basic D&D and discovering that there was this "whole other D&D game".

I remember getting my first copy many years ago and thinking it didn't live up to the hype in my head, but years later I really enjoyed that crazy little book.

It has seen better days.
I still find use for this little book and glad to finally have a good copy in PDF.  Even if it doesn't match the version I have above.

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

New Release Tuesday: Eldritch Wizardry

The OD&D supplement I wanted the longest is now out on DriveThruRPG.
Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry.



This was the one that grabbed my attention the most back in the day.
Though this is the cover that I know best.



Demons, Artifacts, Psychic Powers, Druids. Everything I wanted in MY D&D.  It was also missing the one thing I felt it needed above all else.  Witches.

It is also the spiritual godfather to many of my witch books, especially "Eldritch Witchery".



Why not pick them both up today!!

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Back to Greyhawk!

I was pouring over my World of Greyhawk boxed set over the weekend and my D&D 3.0 Greyhawk Gazetteer and now look at what Wizards has released for us.

OD&D Supplement I: Greyhawk (0e)



Living Greyhawk Gazetteer (3.0)



While Greyhawk is not the default setting of D&D 5, it does get a lot of nice shout out in the rules.
Plus the Living Greyhawk Gaz is 90% setting material, so it can be used in any version of the game really.

This is great for me because as soon as the kids are done with the A series they are headed to the Free City of Greyhawk.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Original Dungeons & Dragons at DTRPG

Well.  Hell is frozen.  You can now buy a legal PDF copy of the Original Dungeons & Dragons rules.


No you too can play the game that started it all.  For just about the same price charged then.

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Against the Slave Lords Reprint now in PDF

2016 starts out with a bang as WotC gives us the reprint of Against the Slave Lords in PDF.


I just grabbed it (since that is the adventure my kids are now going through) and it looks exactly like the print copy.

I has the A1 to A4 adventures and the introductory A0 adventure.  Sadly not the A5 adventure, The Last Slave Lord.

I can now print out maps and mark them up all I like!


Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Class Struggles: Class Compendium Books

RPGNow has a big sale going on on various d20 books.


I am not done with the class analysis I wanted to do today so I thought maybe I would highlight some of the books with new classes for your OSR games.  Some of these I have reviewed in the past.  I am sure there must be others, but these are the ones I am most familiar with.  Not all these books are on sale.

A Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore
One of the first, this is the book that launched BRW games and Adventures Dark & Deep. Part of +Joseph Bloch's "What If" experiment of a hypothetical Gary helmed 2nd Edition.  I recently went back and reread some of the articles from Gary about the 2nd Ed. game of AD&D that never was.  Interestingly he made comments about a 3rd and 4th edition game too!  This book covers the Bard, Jester, Mystic, Savant, and Mountebank classes.  The mystic was the first class I looked at for the Class Struggles series.

The Complete B/X Adventurer
This is the second book of the B/X Companion series by +Jonathan Becker.  Where Adventures Dark & Deep gave us a hypothetical AD&D 2nd Ed, Becker gives us a Companion set that never was.    This book gives us some extra rules but the main feature are the classes.  The classes are Acrobat, Archer, Barbarian, Bard, Beastmaster, Bounty Hunter, Centaur, Duelist, Gnome, Mountebank, Mystic, Ogre-Kin, Scout, Summoner, Tattoo Mage, Witch, and Witch Hunter. 17 new classes.  New classes in B/X and BECMI related games are a bit more varied since races are also classes.  But there are a lot of great classes here.

Basic Arcana
+Tom Doolan published his first work, Basic Arcana all the way back in 2013!  This is also a "Basic Era" product.  It starts with some "Class Variants"; Dwarf Priest, Dwarf Scout, Elf Sorcerer, and Elf Warrior. For humans we have the Martialist (like a monk) and the Barbarian. All of this and some extra rules on combat and a page of spells.

Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts
A favorite of mine, this book introduces a baker's dozen of new magic using classes and their spells. +Dyson Logos gives us the:  Cleric, Wizard, Elven Swordmage, Elven Warder, Enchanter, Fleshcrafter, Healer, Inquisitor, Merchant Prince, Necromancer, Pact-Bound, Theurge, and the Unseen.

ACKS Player's Companion
ACKS is still one of the slickest look games around.  +Alexander Macris gives us 19 new character classes, including the Anti-paladin, Barbarian, Dwarven Delver, Dwarven Fury, Dwarven Machinist, Elven Courtier, Elven Enchanter, Elven Ranger, Gnomish Trickster, Mystic, Nobiran Wonderworker, Paladin, Priestess, Shaman, Thrassian Gladiator, Venturer, Warlock, Witch, and Zaharan Ruinguard.  So a good collection really. That takes up about 44 pages of the book's 160.  New classes have new spells as well. Best of all is a character class creation guide. It look like a similar idea that appeared in Dragon years ago.  Basically it reduces any class to a set of points and you point buy a new class just like you would in say GURPS or Unisystem.  Maybe one day I'll check out a bunch of classes using this.

Theorems & Thaumaturgy
This is part a class book and of course all the new spells.  It's not part of the sale, but +Gavin Norman offers it as Pay What You Want, so make this worth his while.  The new Classes are the Elementalist, Necromancer and Vivimancer. The Vivimancer later gets his own book, but these are three very solid class choices.

Class Compendium
+James Spahn has been delivering solid classes since the dawn of his Barrel Rider Games.  This is a collection, edit of some of his best selling and favorite classes. The first 166 or pages are dedicated to a Basic Era/Labyrinth Lord compatible class.   Well this book is huge and we are given 52 classes, divided by category.
Arcane Allies: Alienist, Familiar, Thopian Gnome, Wild Wizard
Doughty Dwarves: Raging Slayer, Rune-Smith, Warchanter
Enchanting Elves: Dark Elf, Greensinger, Half-Elf, Sylvan Elf
Heroic Halflings: Burglar, Feast Master, Huckster, Lucky Fool, Tavern Singer
Holy Rollers: Angel, Friar, Inquisitor, Undead Slayer
In Shining Armor: Commander, Dragon Slayer, Knight
Martial Masters: Barbarian, Berserker, Gladiator, Samurai, Sword Master
Monstrous Marauders: Dragon, Goblin,  Half-Ogre, Half-Orc, Treant
Second Star to the Right: Fairy, Lost Boy, Pirate
Traveling Trouble-Makers: Acrobat, Explorer, Fortune Teller, Wanderer
Unhallowed Heroes: Cultist, Damphir, Death Knight. Eidolon
Urban Adventurers: Bandit, Bard, Bounty Hunter, Watchman
Virtuous Victorians: Automation, Investigator, Metaphysician, Shootist

New Class Options
One of the most recent one this comes from Genus Loci Games and +Johua De Santo.  The classes included here are the: Blood Witch, Chesh, Forrester, Highlander, Mermaid of the In-Land Sea, Mythwood Elf, Pixie, Prodigal, Ruca and the Draken-Knight.  I covered the Blood Witch in some detail a while back.

So. Over 120 (give or take) new classes.  Not to bad really.

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Social Contract Thing (again)

So. Yeah that DriveThruRPG/OneBookShelf / Tournament of Rapists thing happened.

I am not going to bore with the details, others have had more to say on it. But I do want to talk about the fallout.

Over the weekend and into this week I have seen some exceptionally bad and unprofessional behavior coming from all sides of this issue.  All sides.  And from people I expected better from, and sadly from people that played the part I totally expected them to play.

The result of this is now OneBookShelf will have a system of some sort for people to "report" on suspected witches communists offensive material.   So far it sounds like a button of some sort.  No idea if the person reporting the material actually has to read it first.

Personally I can't change any of that.  But here is what I will do.  Again this is a social contract thing, I expect to do X, Y and Z in return for certain expected behaviors A, B, and C.

1. Under no circumstances will I ever use this system of reporting material to DriveThruRPG. Never.  If I have a problem with your product I will email you.

2. I will not blast a product I have not read on social media or this blog.  If I talk about a product here it is usually because a. I like it or b. have read it or plan too.  If I hate something and I talk about it here then be assured I have read it and reread it to make sure my impressions of it are sound.  I then invite debate.  You are free to use your social media or my blog here to tell me why I am wrong.

3. I will not go to social media and rally support to blast/flag a product.  I have seen this from a number of industry professionals and frankly they should be ashamed.  Again, if I have an issue with your product enough to do something about it, expect an email.  

This is what I see as being the biggest issue with the new system.  It is far too easy for a publisher to leverage their social media weight to get fans to tag or report a product that either they personally don't like OR because it is competition.

These are my expectations.  Granted I am under no illusions that people will abide by them, but at least I am putting these up here for those that might.

1. If something of mine is offensive you will email me first.  simple right?  No anonymous slack-tivism, no clicking on a button.  If you don't like something I have done then please have the courage of your convictions to tell me.  Don't want to confront me for some reason?  Fine. Have a friend email me on your behalf.

Simple right?  I promise to do three things, you promise to do one.

There is no reason why we can not act like professionals and adults here.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Second Edition DMG in PDF

The Second Edition DMG is now up on DriveThruRPG.


Never quite as good as the 1st Ed DMG, this one did have a lot going for it.

Saturday, August 29, 2015

RPG a Day 2015, Day 29

Day 29: Favorite RPG Website/Blog

Again, so many.

I think I am going to have to go with DriveThruRPG/RPGNow.

I LOVE the idea that any game I want is at my finger tips.  Old, new, sometimes free.  It is one of the best things about gaming in today's age.