So I made some interesting, though not entirely new or unique, observations.
The OSR, as a Movement, is Dead.
This is the point of view of Tavis Allison who gave a talk about the OSR at Gen Con this past week. Tavis has the street cred to back up his claims too, author of The Mule Abides blog and the Adventurer Conqueror King game system.
Though he has his reasons, I think I am looking at something slightly different.
I am not talking about the lack ENnies or even representation at Gen Con.
There was the the OSR Publications booth, which was great.
I am talking about the OSR as a movement. If the stated goal* of the OSR was to get old-school style gaming back into the hands of gamers, then one only needed to go to the Wizards of the Coast booth and buy a copy of the 1st Ed AD&D books, or listen to their keynote address about the availability of older products, or go play D&D5.
(* lets be honest here, no one ever stated any goal of any sort)
If the goal was get products to go mainstream, well the OSR Publications booth was a good step in that direction. George Strayton of the Secret Fire RPG was an industry guest of honor at this past Gen Con as well. Castles and Crusades (one of the earliest Retro Clones in my opinion) never seemed more popular.
So if the OSR as a mission was get "old school" products in the main-stream, then that goal has been met.
The movement then is dead. Why? Well if the "R" mean Revolution, Revival or Renascence, then the goals have been achieved. Old School is back.
The OSR as a community or even as a loosely affiliated publishing movement will live on. Much like the Indie Press Revolution (who, to be perfectly honest, does everything the OSR could do and does it well).
There will still be sites and blogs that support old-school play. They existed before the OSR movement and will (in some form) afterwards.
I fear though that for many that the "R" stood for "Resistance" as in the alternative not because they liked old school play so much, but because they hated the "new school" of 4e or even 3.x. Well for them I fear the battle wages on and it will never be won. TSR is never coming back to life, WotC owns D&D and there are many that enjoy the newer games.
In any case the OSR will change. Not because it wants to, but because it will need to to stay relevant.
I will have to post on this topic more in a bit.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Monday, August 20, 2012
Gen Con recap: The name of the game is "D&D"
I did something truly special this Gen Con. Something that I would love to repeat.
I played D&D with my family through the entire Con. One of the things I wanted to do with my boys was to play the history of D&D with them. I didn't get into every game I wanted, but I got in enough to make it count. I also wanted my wife to join in so she could give her unbiased opinion of the games. I have learned to trust her judgment on many, many things over the years.
Part of the plan was that any XP, gold or magic the boys got in the games they could translate that over to the special 1st Ed Game we were playing at night.
We played a D&D4 game on Thursday. It was a fun game where we all played Dwarfs. The DM was great and he played well with the kids. Thursday night I had a game of my own to play (which I'll discuss later).
Friday was our Castles and Crusades game. I REALLY wanted to play this one after going on and on so much about C&C a while back. I picked up my new copies of the 5th printing of the Players Handbook and Jason Vey's amazing Amazing Adventures. The game we played was also a lot of fun. Again we had a great GM...er Castle Keeper, and in this we all played Assassins. My youngest loved it.
Friday night we rolled up characters for 1st Ed AD&D!! They rolled up two each, and these are the children of the Dragonslayers (their current 3.x game). That took us till midnight since I had to look a lot of things up and we were sitting on the 2nd floor of the JW Marriott and everyone had stop by and comment on what we were doing.
Saturday we played D&D5/Next. If I would have known we were making characters I would have gone into it with a different mindset. But it worked out well and character creation was a snap. Really. It only took me 30 mins to do my character and help out my wife and two kids. I playtested the Warlock and I like it so far. The game itself was fast, I mean really fast. I am going to come back to that in a sec in fact.
Saturday night we played AD&D 1st ed. I had the boys go on a quick adventure into Castle Quasqueton from B1 In Search of the Unknown. The boys had some great rolls and they even took out some orcs, zombies and a group of kobolds. The boys made their objective (which happened to be a on sheet of paper I wrote on when I ran this in college around 1988-9 or so), find a missing witch (Marissa) and bring her back. I hinted there was an evil cult at work (cause that was what I was doing in 88) and the boys ran with it. Now this cult is "infiltrating" the lands and they now have to put a stop to it. I might run with that.
Fighting the Kobolds
Quite by accident one of the common elements in the D&D5/Next playtest and my AD&D game on the same day was the party (6 and 5 characters respectively) fought 4 kobolds. The combat for each ran very, very similar. In both cases it was fast with hit points flying everywhere and characters on the verge of death. I can say that in at least this respect D&D5 is closer to old-school play than 3 or 4 was.
It dawned on me at one point or another while playing Saturday night. I was playing AD&D. With my boys. At Gen Con! I play a lot of D&D with them and I have played a lot of AD&D over the years, but this felt special. This felt like the best thing I could do then and there.
I have no idea what I am going to do with D&D5 when it comes out. At this very same Gen Con Wizards of the Coast had announced that D&D5 would not be out till 2014. That is a very good year in my mind. Still gives us time to play some 4e AND be out in time for the 40th anniversary of D&D.
WotC also announced that previous editions would be made available again via e-book format of some sort.
There were copies of 1st Ed for sale at Gen Con and we all also picked up a full set of D&D "Drow" dice.
For me there is no debate. D&D still reigns as king at Gen Con.
Part of the plan was that any XP, gold or magic the boys got in the games they could translate that over to the special 1st Ed Game we were playing at night.
We played a D&D4 game on Thursday. It was a fun game where we all played Dwarfs. The DM was great and he played well with the kids. Thursday night I had a game of my own to play (which I'll discuss later).
Friday was our Castles and Crusades game. I REALLY wanted to play this one after going on and on so much about C&C a while back. I picked up my new copies of the 5th printing of the Players Handbook and Jason Vey's amazing Amazing Adventures. The game we played was also a lot of fun. Again we had a great GM...er Castle Keeper, and in this we all played Assassins. My youngest loved it.
Friday night we rolled up characters for 1st Ed AD&D!! They rolled up two each, and these are the children of the Dragonslayers (their current 3.x game). That took us till midnight since I had to look a lot of things up and we were sitting on the 2nd floor of the JW Marriott and everyone had stop by and comment on what we were doing.
Saturday we played D&D5/Next. If I would have known we were making characters I would have gone into it with a different mindset. But it worked out well and character creation was a snap. Really. It only took me 30 mins to do my character and help out my wife and two kids. I playtested the Warlock and I like it so far. The game itself was fast, I mean really fast. I am going to come back to that in a sec in fact.
Saturday night we played AD&D 1st ed. I had the boys go on a quick adventure into Castle Quasqueton from B1 In Search of the Unknown. The boys had some great rolls and they even took out some orcs, zombies and a group of kobolds. The boys made their objective (which happened to be a on sheet of paper I wrote on when I ran this in college around 1988-9 or so), find a missing witch (Marissa) and bring her back. I hinted there was an evil cult at work (cause that was what I was doing in 88) and the boys ran with it. Now this cult is "infiltrating" the lands and they now have to put a stop to it. I might run with that.
Fighting the Kobolds
Quite by accident one of the common elements in the D&D5/Next playtest and my AD&D game on the same day was the party (6 and 5 characters respectively) fought 4 kobolds. The combat for each ran very, very similar. In both cases it was fast with hit points flying everywhere and characters on the verge of death. I can say that in at least this respect D&D5 is closer to old-school play than 3 or 4 was.
It dawned on me at one point or another while playing Saturday night. I was playing AD&D. With my boys. At Gen Con! I play a lot of D&D with them and I have played a lot of AD&D over the years, but this felt special. This felt like the best thing I could do then and there.
I have no idea what I am going to do with D&D5 when it comes out. At this very same Gen Con Wizards of the Coast had announced that D&D5 would not be out till 2014. That is a very good year in my mind. Still gives us time to play some 4e AND be out in time for the 40th anniversary of D&D.
WotC also announced that previous editions would be made available again via e-book format of some sort.
There were copies of 1st Ed for sale at Gen Con and we all also picked up a full set of D&D "Drow" dice.
For me there is no debate. D&D still reigns as king at Gen Con.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Back from Gen Con!
I am back from the "Best 4 Days in Gaming" and I am still riding a gamer's high.
So much to talk about and share.I'll have to get my thoughts collected and share some posts with you all soon!
So much to talk about and share.I'll have to get my thoughts collected and share some posts with you all soon!
Celtic-themed Games
I have really been reading a lot of games based on real world myths, and mostly Celtic myths. There are a lot of good ideas in these games, but none that felt perfect to me. I am still looking though!
Slaine the RPG of Celtic Heroes
Mongoose has released their 2002 OGL game, Slaine to PDF for what I think is the first time ever.
To begin with this is NOT a game of generic Celtic myths and heroes, this is a game for the 2000AD comic Slaine which borrows a lot from Celtic myth, but takes a number of liberties as well.
It also diverges from it's SRD/d20 3.0 (NOT 3.5) roots. So when reading, keep this in mind.
The book is very typical of a setting-type book.
We start with a number of classes. These have all be re-flavored to fit the mythos of the world better. So Tribal Warriors and Witches join the ranks of Druids and Thieves. Also we only have 3 races, Human, Dwarf and Warped-Ones (humans changed permanently by their interactions with the Beast Folk).
Next we come to skills and there are some differences here than the d20 norm.
We also get a new honor system. Enech: Honour and Reputation is used to tell the value of a warrior (his Sarhaed or Honor Price). It is also used when someone it wronged or challenged in a battle. In a lot ways it should be more important than XP. Tied to this are weirds (fate) and geas (taboos).
A strong collection of feats are presented. Including the fabled Warp Spasm and Salmon Leap.
Goods and Weapons is next and it deserves a careful read from the player. Afterall you might know that 3 gold piece is worth 3 cows, but that won't help you when all you have to barter for your new sword are chickens and pigs.
Combat is given special attention. In particular we get one on one combat, chariot combat and larger army combat. Useful for any d20 game in truth.
Magic and Spells are handled in a very different way. With each spell costing EP. Details are given about how gain and get EP for magical use.
We get some information on Slaine's world including the mythic version of the British Ilses (Albion, Alba, Cambria and Eriu or England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland respectively).
There is a section on adventures which includes some very interesting Prestige Classes.
We also get a run down on the Goddesses and Gods of the Tir Nan Og, and the bestiary of normal animals and more fantastic monsters.
Campaign ideas and notes.
All in all a good book if you are a fan of the comic or in Celtic myths in general. My only disappointments in this is some of the art is a low res scan and it looks very pixelated, the other is that there is no character sheet included. The character sheet for Slaine was one of the nicest ones from early in the d20 craze.
Bardic Lore: The Fachan
Celtic myth and lore is full of strange creatures. Some that don't quite have an analogue anywhere else. The Fachan is one such creature. Their might be similar creatures in other myths (I bet the Japanese or the myths of India have something like this) but none I can recall off the top of my head. This book gives us the background on the Fachan, 3.x style monster stats and some ideas to use it in your games. There is also a Fachan NPC and some notes on using the beastie as a character race. All in all not bad, and then when you consider the price then it is great.
Bardic Lore: Ogham
This is a well researched guide on Ogham, the written language of stones often seen near ancient Celtic settlements. This product blends historical findings with mythology to give us something very cool indeed. New ideas for Druids and Bards using Ogham are included along with a new feats, skill uses and revised spell lists. What is nice is the chart of the Ogham characters with sounds, English letter equivalents, and tree names. A lot of research went into all of this and the quality shows. Don't take it as a historical treatise on Ogham, but it is a great tool for a game. Nominally d20/3.5 but really the most of it can be used in any game.
Treasures of the Sidhe
Not a bad product. 45 new magic items of various degrees; most I thought were fine. It lacks art a lot of art, but for under 3.00 you are getting a lot of magic items and 1 new monster. Great if you are running a 3.x game bases around the Sidhe or the Seelie/Unseelie courts.
Slaine the RPG of Celtic Heroes
To begin with this is NOT a game of generic Celtic myths and heroes, this is a game for the 2000AD comic Slaine which borrows a lot from Celtic myth, but takes a number of liberties as well.
It also diverges from it's SRD/d20 3.0 (NOT 3.5) roots. So when reading, keep this in mind.
The book is very typical of a setting-type book.
We start with a number of classes. These have all be re-flavored to fit the mythos of the world better. So Tribal Warriors and Witches join the ranks of Druids and Thieves. Also we only have 3 races, Human, Dwarf and Warped-Ones (humans changed permanently by their interactions with the Beast Folk).
Next we come to skills and there are some differences here than the d20 norm.
We also get a new honor system. Enech: Honour and Reputation is used to tell the value of a warrior (his Sarhaed or Honor Price). It is also used when someone it wronged or challenged in a battle. In a lot ways it should be more important than XP. Tied to this are weirds (fate) and geas (taboos).
A strong collection of feats are presented. Including the fabled Warp Spasm and Salmon Leap.
Goods and Weapons is next and it deserves a careful read from the player. Afterall you might know that 3 gold piece is worth 3 cows, but that won't help you when all you have to barter for your new sword are chickens and pigs.
Combat is given special attention. In particular we get one on one combat, chariot combat and larger army combat. Useful for any d20 game in truth.
Magic and Spells are handled in a very different way. With each spell costing EP. Details are given about how gain and get EP for magical use.
We get some information on Slaine's world including the mythic version of the British Ilses (Albion, Alba, Cambria and Eriu or England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland respectively).
There is a section on adventures which includes some very interesting Prestige Classes.
We also get a run down on the Goddesses and Gods of the Tir Nan Og, and the bestiary of normal animals and more fantastic monsters.
Campaign ideas and notes.
All in all a good book if you are a fan of the comic or in Celtic myths in general. My only disappointments in this is some of the art is a low res scan and it looks very pixelated, the other is that there is no character sheet included. The character sheet for Slaine was one of the nicest ones from early in the d20 craze.
Bardic Lore: The Fachan
Celtic myth and lore is full of strange creatures. Some that don't quite have an analogue anywhere else. The Fachan is one such creature. Their might be similar creatures in other myths (I bet the Japanese or the myths of India have something like this) but none I can recall off the top of my head. This book gives us the background on the Fachan, 3.x style monster stats and some ideas to use it in your games. There is also a Fachan NPC and some notes on using the beastie as a character race. All in all not bad, and then when you consider the price then it is great.
Bardic Lore: Ogham
This is a well researched guide on Ogham, the written language of stones often seen near ancient Celtic settlements. This product blends historical findings with mythology to give us something very cool indeed. New ideas for Druids and Bards using Ogham are included along with a new feats, skill uses and revised spell lists. What is nice is the chart of the Ogham characters with sounds, English letter equivalents, and tree names. A lot of research went into all of this and the quality shows. Don't take it as a historical treatise on Ogham, but it is a great tool for a game. Nominally d20/3.5 but really the most of it can be used in any game.
Treasures of the Sidhe
Not a bad product. 45 new magic items of various degrees; most I thought were fine. It lacks art a lot of art, but for under 3.00 you are getting a lot of magic items and 1 new monster. Great if you are running a 3.x game bases around the Sidhe or the Seelie/Unseelie courts.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Zatannurday: Cosplay
Zatanna Zatara - Otakon 2012 by ~mariegreycosplay on deviantART
Steampunk Zatanna by ~sphingosine on deviantART
Zatanna by ~KaitoEinsam on deviantART
Zatanna 5 by ~KitsuneNasu on deviantART
Zatanna Zatara by ~2Loves on deviantART
Can i show you a trick? by ~TrineMeincke on deviantART
Is this your card? by ~TrineMeincke on deviantART
:DC: A League of Their Own by ~AlouetteCosplay on deviantART
No,dad is my fault!(Zatanna Cosplay) by ~Saracatscats on deviantART
:DC: Sorcery Savant by ~AlouetteCosplay on deviantART
:DC: Like Magic by *AlouetteCosplay on deviantART
W12 - Zatanna by ~BlizzardTerrak on deviantART
come closer by *Shaaawn on deviantART
Zatanna at London Expo Oct 2011- 2 by *Leonie-Heartilly on deviantART
Zatanna- HA:UK by *Leonie-Heartilly on deviantART
And a few more,
Friday, August 17, 2012
Witch Books, Part 5. Other games
For D&D4: The Witch Player Class
A decent witch class for D&D4. Predates the witch that appears in Heroes of the Feywild by a few years, but is roughly compatible.
For Witch Girls Adventures: Original Witch Girls (OWG)
The comic that came before the RPG. The first 200 or so pages are comic content of various artists, but all in the WitchGirls School and world. The next dozen or so pages is the Coventry School written up for the Witch Girls RPG. And we end with WGA write-ups for all the characters that appeared in the comics.
One of the great things about the Witch Girls game are the characters. So this is a nice treat really.
If you are a fan of the game and want some more NPCs for your own school or need some ideas on adventure then this is a great book to have.
For Colonial Gothic: Witchcraft
I enjoy the Colonial Gothic game quite a bit. I love how it weaves the earliest American history with horror and monsters.
I was set to like this book quite a bit and I do, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't quite what I was expecting given how much I enjoyed all the other CG books.
This book gives us Witchcraft for the CG world and it does a great job of researching, but it only gives us the "evil" sort of witchcraft associated with summoning demons. Granted, that is perfectly fine for this game. I think I wanted to see a little more.
The first half deals with Witchcraft in the CG world and is great. The second half is from the writings of King James and frankly he was more than just little bit paranoid.
In the end it is still a good book for the game and something to grab if you are interested in thoughts a views on witches of the time.
Of course for my own take, if you are going to assume that King Jame's witches are real then why not Margaret Murray's witches too? I guess I just like having the option of playing a witch in my games.
For Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade: Witches and Pagans
A great resource for the Renascence era Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade.
For Mage: The Ascension: Tradition Book: Verbena (1st) (Revised)
More Verbena goodness and more rotes based on the Verbena's sphere of Life.
Both are full of great background information on "witches" in the Mage game and are full of wonderful ideas and great art. This is WW at their peak and there is so much care and detail here that I couldn't not get these books.
For Basic Role-Playing (Call of Cthulhu...): BRP Witchcraft
I reviewed this one in detail here: http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/07/brp-witchcraft.html
Witch Hunter: the Invisible World
I reviewed this one in detail here: http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/03/review-witch-hunter-invisible-world.html
Quest of the Ancients
I have talked about this one before too: http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/04/q-is-for-quest-of-ancients.html
The witch in this book is roughly compatible with AD&D1. Lots of new and fairly cool spells.
A decent witch class for D&D4. Predates the witch that appears in Heroes of the Feywild by a few years, but is roughly compatible.
For Witch Girls Adventures: Original Witch Girls (OWG)
The comic that came before the RPG. The first 200 or so pages are comic content of various artists, but all in the WitchGirls School and world. The next dozen or so pages is the Coventry School written up for the Witch Girls RPG. And we end with WGA write-ups for all the characters that appeared in the comics.
One of the great things about the Witch Girls game are the characters. So this is a nice treat really.
If you are a fan of the game and want some more NPCs for your own school or need some ideas on adventure then this is a great book to have.
For Colonial Gothic: Witchcraft
I enjoy the Colonial Gothic game quite a bit. I love how it weaves the earliest American history with horror and monsters.
I was set to like this book quite a bit and I do, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't quite what I was expecting given how much I enjoyed all the other CG books.
This book gives us Witchcraft for the CG world and it does a great job of researching, but it only gives us the "evil" sort of witchcraft associated with summoning demons. Granted, that is perfectly fine for this game. I think I wanted to see a little more.
The first half deals with Witchcraft in the CG world and is great. The second half is from the writings of King James and frankly he was more than just little bit paranoid.
In the end it is still a good book for the game and something to grab if you are interested in thoughts a views on witches of the time.
Of course for my own take, if you are going to assume that King Jame's witches are real then why not Margaret Murray's witches too? I guess I just like having the option of playing a witch in my games.
For Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade: Witches and Pagans
A great resource for the Renascence era Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade.
For Mage: The Ascension: Tradition Book: Verbena (1st) (Revised)
More Verbena goodness and more rotes based on the Verbena's sphere of Life.
Both are full of great background information on "witches" in the Mage game and are full of wonderful ideas and great art. This is WW at their peak and there is so much care and detail here that I couldn't not get these books.
For Basic Role-Playing (Call of Cthulhu...): BRP Witchcraft
I reviewed this one in detail here: http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/07/brp-witchcraft.html
Witch Hunter: the Invisible World
I reviewed this one in detail here: http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/03/review-witch-hunter-invisible-world.html
Quest of the Ancients
I have talked about this one before too: http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/04/q-is-for-quest-of-ancients.html
The witch in this book is roughly compatible with AD&D1. Lots of new and fairly cool spells.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Witch Books, Part 4. The New Old
The New Old.
These are new products to play old school style witches. Generally speaking these are all throwbacks to the Basic or First Edition days for games like Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC or any OSR game.
Classic Fantasy Review: Volume 1, Issue 2
This might be one of the first Old-School style witches that I purchased. In this supplement for OSRIC we get the Diabolical Witch. A witch that gains her powers and spells from the various demon and devil lords. Its a cross between a cleric and wizard, maybe with more emphasis on the cleric side of things. The level progression is closer to the cleric than the wizard to be honest. There are new spells, just a redistribution of current OSRIC spells. They get a number of special powers, some make sense (clerical turning and shapeshift) others not as much (limited thief abilities). A nice feature is how witches of different demon lords, devils get different powers.
Darker Paths 2: The Witch
I am always a bit hesitant to review other peoples work on witch-related classes since I have products of my own out there. I fear of being too critical or too lax, each to out weigh the other. In the end I think I just need to review the product as is. Like DP1: The Necromancer this product is for the "Adventures Dark and Deep" RPG, OR any other near-clone of AD&D. Also like the first Darker Path book this presents the witch as an evil character class; not the Earth loving priestess of old faiths or even the spiritual seeking witches of modern tales. This must be recalled when reading the rest of this book. These witches are more Baba Yaga and not Circe for example. There is the obligatory disclaimer on Contemporary Witches and how this game is not that. (As an aside, as someone that has written these myself this one does seem more of a disclaimer of "don't email me" rather than a "I am not trying to offend", but that could just be me. EDITED: I did get an email clarification on this and the author was very much in the "I am not trying to offend, but these are different things" camp, which is cool by me.)
Witches in this game are all evil and their main ability is Wisdom. Their Charisma must start high, but it degrades as the witch rises in level. Interesting. I am not sure I like that since it seems here that Charisma is used as an "Appearance" proxy and not as a "Force of Personality" one. It would make it hard to make a character like Circe, who was evil, attractive and had a lot of force of personality, as a witch in these rules. That is fine, she would have to be something else, but I do want to point it out.
Witches advance to 13th level; so reminiscent of the druid. She has a nice variety of spells to choose from (more on this) and there are rules for her brewing potions and poisons. Like other witches of folklore, this witch can also have multiple familiars. A nice touch in my mind.
The spells are the real gem of this book. Nearly 50 new spells there are a lot of classics here. There are spells on Candle Magic (and done differently than my own) and nearly every base is covered (curses, storm summoning, afflicting others).
Like with DP1, the art is a mix of new and public domain art, but all of it is appropriate to the feel of the book. In the end this is a very good evil witch class. It does make me wonder how the author might do a good witch.
ACKS Player's Companion: The Witch
This one is not out yet for the public, but I have seen the witch for it. It was actually based on some OGC I produced a while back with some significant changes. I didn't write it, but it has it's DNA in stuff I did write. So I have recuse from a proper review, but I will say this: I like it a lot. It is compatible with my two other "OSR" witches but still covers new ground on it's own. At the same time is still new and fresh.
The Complete B/X Adventurer: The Witch
I have talked about the the TCBXA before, but I want to focus on the Witch class from it.
For starters the class works best if you also own the B/X Companion.
I have to play special attention to the witch. Not just because it is a witch class, but because it is different than the other spell using classes. For starters the witch can cast in groups to cast higher level spells. That is a nice feature really and something very much in tune with the archetypal witch. The witch is the class in the book that is stated up all the way to 36th level AND built to gain powers to that point, also something I rather like. Why? Because a 36th level witch is the only class that can cast 10th level spells. Yup. This one goes to 10!
Crafting spells. The witch does not memorize a spell, but she does have a limit on how many she knows. The witch needs both a high intelligence (to know the spell) and a high wisdom (to learn and scribe it down in the first place). So a first level witch with a high Intelligence knows 1+Int mod 1st level spells. She can also scribe spells of 1st level + how ever many extra levels equal to her Wisdom mod. I like it. It is a nice quick way to know what can be done. In fact I would like to use that for clerics since gods should know ahead of time what spells their flock need and then they just give them to the cleric at that time.
For the witch though I would reverse it. Intelligence to write or scribe the spell and Widsom to know how many they can cast. Witches are often called the "Craft of the Wise" afterall. But all in all I like it.
10th level witch spells are nothing at all to sneeze at. This is a powerful witch class.
The 10th level spells are a nice solution to the "Coven spells"/"Powerful magic" vs independent witches. I can't see too many witch covens in groups. Maybe two or three at a time. With what JB has done here is given us a way to have powerful magics in groups at lower levels and keep those same magics out of the hands of solitary witches till much later. This then does not make them a more attractive solution over Wizards/Magic Users.
These are new products to play old school style witches. Generally speaking these are all throwbacks to the Basic or First Edition days for games like Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC or any OSR game.
Classic Fantasy Review: Volume 1, Issue 2
This might be one of the first Old-School style witches that I purchased. In this supplement for OSRIC we get the Diabolical Witch. A witch that gains her powers and spells from the various demon and devil lords. Its a cross between a cleric and wizard, maybe with more emphasis on the cleric side of things. The level progression is closer to the cleric than the wizard to be honest. There are new spells, just a redistribution of current OSRIC spells. They get a number of special powers, some make sense (clerical turning and shapeshift) others not as much (limited thief abilities). A nice feature is how witches of different demon lords, devils get different powers.
Darker Paths 2: The Witch
I am always a bit hesitant to review other peoples work on witch-related classes since I have products of my own out there. I fear of being too critical or too lax, each to out weigh the other. In the end I think I just need to review the product as is. Like DP1: The Necromancer this product is for the "Adventures Dark and Deep" RPG, OR any other near-clone of AD&D. Also like the first Darker Path book this presents the witch as an evil character class; not the Earth loving priestess of old faiths or even the spiritual seeking witches of modern tales. This must be recalled when reading the rest of this book. These witches are more Baba Yaga and not Circe for example. There is the obligatory disclaimer on Contemporary Witches and how this game is not that. (As an aside, as someone that has written these myself this one does seem more of a disclaimer of "don't email me" rather than a "I am not trying to offend", but that could just be me. EDITED: I did get an email clarification on this and the author was very much in the "I am not trying to offend, but these are different things" camp, which is cool by me.)
Witches in this game are all evil and their main ability is Wisdom. Their Charisma must start high, but it degrades as the witch rises in level. Interesting. I am not sure I like that since it seems here that Charisma is used as an "Appearance" proxy and not as a "Force of Personality" one. It would make it hard to make a character like Circe, who was evil, attractive and had a lot of force of personality, as a witch in these rules. That is fine, she would have to be something else, but I do want to point it out.
Witches advance to 13th level; so reminiscent of the druid. She has a nice variety of spells to choose from (more on this) and there are rules for her brewing potions and poisons. Like other witches of folklore, this witch can also have multiple familiars. A nice touch in my mind.
The spells are the real gem of this book. Nearly 50 new spells there are a lot of classics here. There are spells on Candle Magic (and done differently than my own) and nearly every base is covered (curses, storm summoning, afflicting others).
Like with DP1, the art is a mix of new and public domain art, but all of it is appropriate to the feel of the book. In the end this is a very good evil witch class. It does make me wonder how the author might do a good witch.
ACKS Player's Companion: The Witch
This one is not out yet for the public, but I have seen the witch for it. It was actually based on some OGC I produced a while back with some significant changes. I didn't write it, but it has it's DNA in stuff I did write. So I have recuse from a proper review, but I will say this: I like it a lot. It is compatible with my two other "OSR" witches but still covers new ground on it's own. At the same time is still new and fresh.
The Complete B/X Adventurer: The Witch
I have talked about the the TCBXA before, but I want to focus on the Witch class from it.
For starters the class works best if you also own the B/X Companion.
I have to play special attention to the witch. Not just because it is a witch class, but because it is different than the other spell using classes. For starters the witch can cast in groups to cast higher level spells. That is a nice feature really and something very much in tune with the archetypal witch. The witch is the class in the book that is stated up all the way to 36th level AND built to gain powers to that point, also something I rather like. Why? Because a 36th level witch is the only class that can cast 10th level spells. Yup. This one goes to 10!
Crafting spells. The witch does not memorize a spell, but she does have a limit on how many she knows. The witch needs both a high intelligence (to know the spell) and a high wisdom (to learn and scribe it down in the first place). So a first level witch with a high Intelligence knows 1+Int mod 1st level spells. She can also scribe spells of 1st level + how ever many extra levels equal to her Wisdom mod. I like it. It is a nice quick way to know what can be done. In fact I would like to use that for clerics since gods should know ahead of time what spells their flock need and then they just give them to the cleric at that time.
For the witch though I would reverse it. Intelligence to write or scribe the spell and Widsom to know how many they can cast. Witches are often called the "Craft of the Wise" afterall. But all in all I like it.
10th level witch spells are nothing at all to sneeze at. This is a powerful witch class.
The 10th level spells are a nice solution to the "Coven spells"/"Powerful magic" vs independent witches. I can't see too many witch covens in groups. Maybe two or three at a time. With what JB has done here is given us a way to have powerful magics in groups at lower levels and keep those same magics out of the hands of solitary witches till much later. This then does not make them a more attractive solution over Wizards/Magic Users.
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