Basic Fantasy Role Playing Blog Appreciation Day

I am participating in "Basic Fantasy Role Playing Blog Appreciation Day" hosted by Tenkar's Tavern.
You can follow the links here that lead to this day:

• http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2013/01/the-red-headed-step-child-of-osr-basic.html
• http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2013/01/roll-call-request-for-those.html
• http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2013/01/basic-fantasy-role-playing-blog.html

I really enjoy Basic Fantasy.
For me this is the D&D Basic/Advanced hybrid I was playing in 1981-83.
I liked Basic D&D and I loved Advanced D&D, just not every part of each.  The game we played was mostly Basic/Expert with bits of Advanced thrown in.  There were no "races as classes" and instead it was class and race.  We didn't worry about weapon speeds, or to hit bonuses for different ACs and weapons (though I kind of dig that stuff now).  We wanted simple, fast and fun.

All just like Basic Fantasy.

Basic Fantasy has suffered a bit I think because it tends to be overshadowed by Labyrinth Lord. There is nothing wrong with either game, and I proudly own both, LL just has better (and dare I say, more aggressive) PR.

Even I was not that familiar with it back when I started doing this OSR thing.
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2009/05/i-went-on-old-school-bender-this-last.html
But I later realized what I had,
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/04/b-is-for-basic-clones.html

Basic Fantasy though has a lot going for it.  For starters, it is free. You just go to the Basic Fantasy website, http://www.basicfantasy.org/, and grab a full version.  Grab other stuff too, it's all free as well.
Even the books on Lulu are sold at cost to keep the price down.
I also like it because it sticks closer to the SRD in terms of descriptions.  This is a good thing because for me it also acts as a nice bridge game between editions.  It also means that things that were not in the original Basic Game but are in 3.x/SRD can be converted back fairly easy.  Love 3e Sorcerers? Love Basic? Well conversion then is pretty easy.

I also like it because it reminds me more of the Eric Holmes edition of Basic.  Labyrinth Lord feels more like Moldvay/Cook/Marsh.  Holmes was my first D&D.

Basic Fantasy and The Witch
Since Basic Fantasy is so very close to Holmes and close to the SRD, I did a lot of playtesting of The Witch using these rules.
I think I can say, without worry, that The Witch and Basic Fantasy get along fantastic together.
One of the assumptions of the Witch class is that it can be open to any race.  I have an appendix in the back of the book to use demi-humans either as race-as-a-class or race-as-a-Witch-Tradition.  Either way you go,  I have you covered.

Of course I do prefer to have my spells to go a bit higher in level.  BFRPG caps at level 6, the witch goes to 8.  But I cover 7th and 8th level spells as special.

Using The Witch with Basic Fantasy
To make many allowances to cover the most games there are some odd specific game quirks.  So here is my recommendations for using my Witch class in BFRPG.

Limit the witch to 20th level. So no Witches Court witches, a witch of 20th level is the Queen of Witches.
At 13th level a witch can cast a 7th level spell only if she is part of a coven. The witches in the coven must also know the spell.  Same for 15th level and 8th level spells.  OR drop the 7th and 8th spells completely.

In the spirit of BFRPG, here is a free preview of The Witch.

If I have done nothing else in this post, then I hope you will at least give Basic Fantasy a try.
The price is right, the game is solid and you have nothing to loose.

Even if you have never played an RPG in your life then you also can't go wrong here.
You can even try the Beginner's Essentials from the downloads page. Again for the fair price of $0.00.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

New to Old School Gaming: Give this game a try.  It does a great job of handling the "farm kid to hero" arc that is so important in so many tales and games.  I enjoy 3E and 4E, but the characters can start out so powerful; especially in Pathfinder and 4e.

NON-GAMERS:  If you ever wanted some insight to what I talk about around here, then grab this free copy.  It is a complete game. Just add dice and friends.

Want to know more?  Visit Tenkar's Tavern to see all the other blogs participating.
http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2013/01/basic-fantasy-role-playing-blog.html

EDITED TO ADD: Chris Gonnerman, the brains behind BFRPG has a blog up as well.
http://basicfantasy.org/blog/

White Dwarf Wednesday #50

Wow. 50 Issues.  We are half-way through my collection now, give or take a couple of Best of's.  The staff of White Dwarf is just as excited in this February 1984 issue.  Let's go!

Now this issue I have some pretty fond memories of.  First I enjoyed it when it came out and it was also one of the first one I sought out in the 90s when I wanted to get back into Call of Cthulhu.  The cover art represents the main feature of this issue, a new CoC adventure.

There is a big ad for Warhammer which includes some game bits about Dark Elves.  I liked how "elf maidens are a as cruel and murderous as their menfolk."

Ian Livingstone starts out my also being amazed at 50 issues. It's a pretty big milestone really.  He lets us know some more changes are on the way by Issue #52.

Garth Nix is up first with Red Tape in Traveller.  Almost as exciting as red tape in real life.  Glad he went on to bigger things.

Open Box has the first set of reviews in a long time that do not have any D&D or RuneQuest books.  Marcus Rowland reviews GW's Steve Jackson's Socrcery for use with Fighting Fantasy. He liked it but didn't think it brought anything new to the game, 7/10.   A bunch of ICE Middle Earth RPG supplements are also reviewed.  Back in 84 ICE's Middle Earth was a big deal for me.  I loved the books, but no place local had them and no one around me would play it.  Reviewed by Jonathan Sutherland are: Guidebook and Gridded Map (6/10), Angmar - Land of the Witchking (7/10), Court of Ardor - In Southern Middle Earth (7/10), Umbar - Haven of the Corsairs (7/10), Northern Mirkwood - The Woodelves Realm (8/10), and Southern Mirkwood - Haunt of the Necromancer (8/10).    Rereading this review still makes me want these books, even if I never play MERP.  Finally Tarsus for Traveller is up. It is called an "Adventure module"; scenario having been dropped. Andy Slack, Traveller expert in residence, gives it 9/10.

Critical Mass reviews some Brian Aldiss.  Aldiss gives me a headache sometimes. I get why he is liked, I just don't share it.

Fiend Factory self-indulges in stating up the various personalities from White Dwarf in both RQ and AD&D versions.  Included are The White Dwarf, Gobbledigook, Thrud the Barbarian, Agaroth the Unwashed (guy from the ads), Ugbash Facesplitter,  and Ian Livingstone (??).  Also included are Griselda and Wolfhead for AD&D, their RQ stats having premiered earlier.  While I normally am cool to these sort of things and don't care for the stating up of real people as themselves in game, I like this because of the dual stating.

Jim Bambra has another look of Clerics in Divinations and the Divine.  I remember using some of this for my cleric classes.

The Watchers of Walberswick is the aforementioned CoC adventure.  I was excited for this adventure back then, and it is fine, but it doesn't stand up to the tests of time and memory.

Dean Aston has some "hardware" for RuneQuest characters.  Again this one is generic enough to be used anywhere.

Part 2 of the The Key of Tirandor is next, picking up right where Part 1 left off.  It is quite long at 5 pages.

Thrud is messing things up on the next page.

Microview is still chugging away, this time with two short programs on vehicle capacity and costs for three different games.  I liked this one becuae it ws using the flavor of BASIC I was using at the time, so no need to convert.  Though I seem to recall that the ' for comment didn't work on my CoCo and I had to use REM afterall.

Letters has some quibbles about the survey.

Lew Pulsipher has an alternate view of leveling up in AD&D in Going Up.  The same idea would end up being reused in True20 and D&D4 (for the most part).

Counterpoint covers ICE's The Fellowship of the Ring board game.

Treasure chest has weapons for the Assassin: Garrote, Two-Stage Poison (used a lot of that!), The Killing Cup and Dagger of Slaying. I don't recall this article per se, but I do recall these items.

Another attempt at a gossip, rumor, small news page is rolled out.  This time it is "KaLi Presents: Baelpen Bulletins".  Still under the "News" header.  Nothing jumps out at me in this one save that TSR is working on a "Spider-man" game.

Travellers is next, followed by Small Ads and Gobbledigook.

We end with ads.

All in all a great issue.  I remember using quite a bit of these things back in the day so this issue holds up for me.  Funny that the reason I re-bought it turned out to be the least interesting to me now.

Morning updates

So a few things going on already today.

I won a book from James Michler Games! 
http://jamesmishlergames.blogspot.com/2013/01/we-have-winners.html
I have already picked up the book, Vampires of the Olden Lands, and I am looking forward to reporting on it here.  How did I win this?  Easy, I just followed James' blog, http://jamesmishlergames.blogspot.com
He plans to give away something new each month.
I like his books since they appeal to me need to multi-stat everything I do.

The A to Z blogging Challenge is now open for sign up.
http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/2013/01/a-to-z-challenge-sign-ups-start-today_29.html
There are already 177 entries and it has only been open a few hours.  It is going to be huge this year.   So big in fact that there are categories you sign-up under including Gaming.
I would love to see a lot of blogs from our little corner of "teh internets" to enter.  Really get the word out there.  I am thinking of doing a theme again this year, just no idea what yet.  Last year I did game reviews which I think worked out well.

Barbarians of Lemuria: The Scorpion King
Justin over at Halls of the Nephilim saw my She-devil with a Sword and raised me one Scorpion King.
http://punverse.blogspot.com/2013/01/barbarians-of-lemuria-scorpion-king.html

Don't forget that tomorrow is Basic Fantasy RPG Appreciation Day and Talk to the Hand at Hero Press.

ETA:
Here is the signup for the A to Z Challenge.

Basic Fantasy Appreciation

I wanted to let you all know about the "Basic Fantasy Role Playing Blog Appreciation Day" being held by Tenkar's Tavern.

If you are not familiar with Basic Fantasy then stop by their website and get yourself a free copy.
http://basicfantasy.org/

To find out what this is all about pop back over to Tenkar's and have a look at his original post.
http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2013/01/the-red-headed-step-child-of-osr-basic.html

It should be pretty awesome.

NON-GAMERS:  If you ever wanted some insight to what I talk about around here, then grab this free copy.  It is a complete game. Just add dice and friends.

Review: Barbarians of Lemuria + Red Sonja

I had the chance to pick up Barbarians of Lemuria: Legendary Edition recently and I have to admit I was quite pleased.  The game was not at all what I expected it to be.  Well...the setting and the tone was, the mechanics were not.  This is the best combination really.

Ok, so tone.  Barbarians of Lemuria is what I expected in that it is a fantasy game of mighty barbarians, evil warlocks, sly thieves and semi-naked women.   Very much the stereotype of the Pulp Age of fantasy I expected it to be.  Except it plays it with an honesty and earnestness that I really want to play a big, dumb barbarian with might thews and a giant axe.

The game is full of sorts of great background that I could adapt it to any old-school fantasy game with no issues and run with it.  I mean honestly look at the cover.  Barbarian standing in a pit surrounded by vaguely eldritch horrors as a tribal shaman gorilla prepares to sacrifice a slave girl.  If you think the next scene is the girl's spilled blood and horrors unleashed over the land, then go play a horror game.  If you think the next scene is that sword cleaving through the bodies of the horrors and the barbarian killing the shaman and saving the girl.  Then this is the game you want.

The system I have to admit took me aback, in a good way.
I was expecting another OGL-based or D&D-clone, but instead we get a very nice, very simple system.  Character creation is all point-buy, and not dozens of points, but 4.  The real joy here is being able to create a character is minutes and get going.

The underlying mechanic is a simple 2d6+mods vs target number of 9.  This makes it very, very similar to Unisystem and also to Spellcraft & Swordplay.  I suppose that if you wanted a more flat game then you could use a d12.  But d6s are great and they give us boons and flaws.  Boons and Flaws are a neat mechanic. In either case you roll 3d6 instead of 2d6.  If you have a boon, drop the lowest d6. If you have a flaw, drop the highest.  Each character gets a boon or two boons and a flaw.

There is plenty for everyone to do in combat since fighting style can vary.  I like that the emphasis here is that everyone has a chance to be the hero.  Sure you might be a lowly thief or slave, but you still have something to contribute.

The careers are nice touch and helps give your character some background on what they were or did, or what they can do now.  Frankly I enjoy how it is all put together.

The art is good, not up to the level one expects from say Pathfinder, but perfect for the tone and the feel of this game.  And I liked it, so that is great for me.

The magic system is very open and reminds me a lot of magic from the time period.  These are sorcerers that gained their power through evil pacts or forbidden knowledge.  There are no Hogwarts grads here.

It really is a lot of fun and the rules-lightness of it is a huge benefit.
Even if I didn't like the rules I could use this for my own fantasy games since the background information is so great.

Of course I should stat up a character and who better than Red Sonja.

Jettie Monday as Red Sonja

Red Sonja

Attributes		Combat
Strength	2	Brawl	1
Agility	1	Melee	3
Mind	0	Ranged	-1
Appeal	1	Defense	1
Careers
Barbarian	2	Lifeblood	14
Mercenary	1	Hero Points	5
Noble	1
Assassin	1

Protection: d6-2 (light armour)
Weapons Sword d6+1, Knife d6-2

Languages
Spoken: Hyrkanian
Written: as spoken

Boons: Attractive, Hard to Kill

Flaws: Scáthach's Curse (never lie with a man unless he bests her in single combat)

Not a bad build.

You can find more at Beyond Belief Games'  website, http://beyondbeliefgames.webs.com/

Please Allow Me to Re-Introduce Myself

I am a man of wealth and taste....oops. Wrong introduction.

Today (and I almost forgot about it) I am participating in the "Please Allow Me to Re-Introduce Myself" blogfest. It is hosted by Stephen Tremp, C.M. Brown, Mark Koopmans, and Elise Fallson.  Plus I should mention I saw this first on L. Diane Wolfe's Spunk on a Stick blog.

The purpose of today's blogfest is to re-introduce yourself to your readers.  I think that is a great idea since The Other Side has gone through quite a bit a growth over the years.

So, hello. My name is Tim Brannan, and I have been running the Other Side blog now since 2007, though I really didn't get going till 2008.  The name "The Other Side" came my old website, The Other Side that I have been running since the mid 90s.  Back around 2003 or so my site began to wane a bit so I took it down.   Creating this blog was supposed to be a band-aid or temporary solution till I got my site back up.

Things didn't really happen that way.

I started to blog, and not run a website, so I could have a design journal for some of gaming books.  In particular The Witch and Eldritch Witchery.

I started playing RPGs back in 1979 with a copy of the Holmes Blue book.  My small group played during recess with that and a copy of the Monster Manual.  That Monster Manual changed my life.  I got into gaming hard core with the Molvay Red book and then later moved to AD&D.  I have played scores of games, but mostly horror games and versions of D&D.

I have been writing games and game books on my own for years. I "released" by first netbook back in 1999. It was every bit the amateur effort you would expect, but it was mine and based on things I had been working for years.  That lead me to doing some freelance work on some d20 products, including some work at Eden Studios.  There I worked on a WitchCraft book and then moved on to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
This lead to my big break, writing the Ghosts of Albion corebook.

Working on Ghosts was awesome. I got work with Amber Benson and Christopher Golden on their world. Plus get a lot of acclaim for it.  It has been great.

In my "other life" I was a university professor. I taught research design, statistics and ed psych.  I later moved to online teaching and now online curriculum development.

I live in the Chicago burbs with my wife and two great kids.

That's me.

Going Back to Glantri, Glantri, Glantri...

Just picked the old GAZ3 Glantri Gazetteer.
I had it before, but lost it in one of my purges over the years.

Glantri was my old stomping ground since I first picked up the Expert Set all those years ago.

Course I changed it around 8th grade (82-83), the population was tired of being controlled by creatures they barely recognized as humans, so there there was an uprising.
Eventually a king was named and the country converted to a Lawful Good religion.   I began calling this "The Holy Lands of Glantri".  If you were on the old MYSTARA-L lists you might have seen me post somethings about it.

I loved that the city of mostly waterways.  And of course how could I not love the Glantri School of Magic.

Re-reading this now I am still impressed and can't wait to use it again.  Though I wonder if I should run it as is?  With the Princes in power.   I really kinda like the political intrigue though I have now.

Great stuff here really.  Even without my own additions.