Another block of links from this weeks wanderings of the web. More can be found on the previous list found here. The original inspiration for all of this - weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links. You can find even more links on the weekly blogroll on r/OSR or a roundup of non-blog news on Third Kingdom Games roundup.
Weaver.skepti.ch reviews Dream Midlands and its magic setup minigame and Slaying the Dragon on the last days of TSR (with stats!)
Bastionland gives us Universal Hex Profile
Trollsmyth gives us Playing with Doom & Tea Parties
Awesome Lies excavates the past in Lost Warhammer: Marienburg
Planarian Calamarium thinks about HP options in Volitional Wounds
Ominosity distills down lessons learned on Logistics of Long Campaigns.
Eucastastrophic gives us 🎲🎲 Unpacking Reaction Rolls
Homicidally Inclined Persons of No Fixed Address gives us What kind of treasure?
The Cosmic Orrery offers alternative sites in Thats No Castle!
Alone in the Labyrinth gives us What has that wise one got on their head?
19 September 2022
17 September 2022
Review: Petty Gods
Purchased when a chunky discount for Lulu floated, this is one that was often flagged as a 'greatest of the Lulu OSR' that I had passed over a few times because the old-school 'every PC a divine avatar' style never really caught on with me. I like my gods mostly a bit more aloof. This was a gross misunderstanding of this fantastic book on my part, I should have picked it up far sooner - we have tons of really useful gameable content in here, in a big, chunky book (380 page hardcover).
I was shocked at how thick this book was - I was expecting ~ 100-150 odd pages of stuff, something like the old orange spine books, instead we get this monster. Art is nice throughout with a wide selection of artists - stylistically it is true to the OD&D era of small black and white illustrations within two columns per page. There is some jokey stuff in here, gag monsters and pun-named gods and cults but just a light salting so you can keep or drop those to your preference without detracting from the whole.
Cover illustration by Thomas Denmark
I was shocked at how thick this book was - I was expecting ~ 100-150 odd pages of stuff, something like the old orange spine books, instead we get this monster. Art is nice throughout with a wide selection of artists - stylistically it is true to the OD&D era of small black and white illustrations within two columns per page. There is some jokey stuff in here, gag monsters and pun-named gods and cults but just a light salting so you can keep or drop those to your preference without detracting from the whole.
14 September 2022
Actual Play: Crossing the Battlefields of Acheron
Third of the one-shots visiting the planes (see Great Planar Scavenger Hunt) and trying to improve my one-shots from feedback on the Mechanus jaunt and the Beastlands hunt.
Inspiration was to do a battlefield crawl as outlined in Burgs & Baliffs Warfare Too article Battlefield Events - Reviewed here. I wanted to try a combat grind, something where there was long, low intensity combat and no chance to rest. The hordes of goblins, orcs and hobgoblins loose on the battlefield were not going to be an individually mortal threat but in their mass maybe?
The core piece of the Battlefield Events piece is that you get into an encounter then you have d6+2 rounds before the next bunch rolls over you. Given that the received wisdom is that on average a party of PC's is going to crush peer foes in ~ 3 rounds I wanted to see how this played out in practice.
Inspiration was to do a battlefield crawl as outlined in Burgs & Baliffs Warfare Too article Battlefield Events - Reviewed here. I wanted to try a combat grind, something where there was long, low intensity combat and no chance to rest. The hordes of goblins, orcs and hobgoblins loose on the battlefield were not going to be an individually mortal threat but in their mass maybe?
The core piece of the Battlefield Events piece is that you get into an encounter then you have d6+2 rounds before the next bunch rolls over you. Given that the received wisdom is that on average a party of PC's is going to crush peer foes in ~ 3 rounds I wanted to see how this played out in practice.
12 September 2022
Shiny TTRPG links #85
Back at base with links! More can be found on the previous list found here. The original inspiration for all of this - weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links. You can find even more links on the weekly blogroll on r/OSR or a roundup of non-blog news on Third Kingdom Games roundup.
Mindstorm writes on Stealth Turns
Spooky Rusty makes a good point in "if you like someone's writing tell them or put it on the internet somewhere that you like their writing and they will live longer and write more"
Bat in the Attic adds to their downloadable Stuff in the Attic - a pair of bestiaries.
Spineless Grimoire gives us Home sweet home
Xenio in a Bottle writes Factions, Updated
Coins and Scrolls announces the launch of their OSR: The Monster Overhaul
Delta's D&D Hotspot gives us OED Expanded Edition
The Alexandrian gives us a great toolkit to break down societies and consider how fantastic elements would run theirs in Random Worldbuilding – Fantastical Nations
Tales of the Lunar Lands writes Meet the Flintstones on historical norms in games.
Mindstorm writes on Stealth Turns
Spooky Rusty makes a good point in "if you like someone's writing tell them or put it on the internet somewhere that you like their writing and they will live longer and write more"
Bat in the Attic adds to their downloadable Stuff in the Attic - a pair of bestiaries.
Spineless Grimoire gives us Home sweet home
Xenio in a Bottle writes Factions, Updated
Coins and Scrolls announces the launch of their OSR: The Monster Overhaul
Delta's D&D Hotspot gives us OED Expanded Edition
The Alexandrian gives us a great toolkit to break down societies and consider how fantastic elements would run theirs in Random Worldbuilding – Fantastical Nations
Tales of the Lunar Lands writes Meet the Flintstones on historical norms in games.
10 September 2022
Review: Threshold #15: Mystaraspace
"The fifteenth issue of the Mystara Magazine, piercing into the black void to explore the planets of Mystaraspace and beyond." Of all the many Threshold magazines to take a deeper look at I figured this space-themed issue would be both topical and interesting. The original flying D&D ship, the Princess Ark, was after all flying about on Mystara. These magazines are the distillation of forum discussions centered around thePiazza.org and its deep well of active old school fans.
From a layout point of view, the pdf is sized to A4. The fortification headers, footers and overall layout are a deep callback to the old Mystara gazetteers and the design in general takes a lot of guidance from those publications. I compare it to my nearest one (GAZ12 - the Golden Khan) and we have two columns in Threshold compared to three in the TSR publication but otherwise the fonts, the styles, it is all pretty faithful. One thing that amuses me greatly is the abundant footnotes, often with hyperlinks to threads on The Piazza - this really is a "by the locals, for the locals" zine and I heartily approve. This kind of dense footnoting also allows others to catch up on the conversation which becomes invaluable as time passes. Formatwise, I believe they are set up as POD files that one can get hardcopies of via Lulu, I have not tried this myself but certainly they look like they would be a pretty addition to ones shelves.
Screenshot of Threshold #15 covers with art by I. Calvin & Athenarius
From a layout point of view, the pdf is sized to A4. The fortification headers, footers and overall layout are a deep callback to the old Mystara gazetteers and the design in general takes a lot of guidance from those publications. I compare it to my nearest one (GAZ12 - the Golden Khan) and we have two columns in Threshold compared to three in the TSR publication but otherwise the fonts, the styles, it is all pretty faithful. One thing that amuses me greatly is the abundant footnotes, often with hyperlinks to threads on The Piazza - this really is a "by the locals, for the locals" zine and I heartily approve. This kind of dense footnoting also allows others to catch up on the conversation which becomes invaluable as time passes. Formatwise, I believe they are set up as POD files that one can get hardcopies of via Lulu, I have not tried this myself but certainly they look like they would be a pretty addition to ones shelves.
07 September 2022
Les Rollistes - AideDD stats, le Thiase surveys give a look at TTRPGs in France
Revisiting the AideDD app stats to take a look at race and location data.
We saw before that the app is showing the 'generalist' profile same as D&D Beyond or other online tools with fighters and rogues preferred compared to heavy spell-caster preference of forums. From last years data we also saw that preference for races is more stable in apps compared to the forums.
Looking at the respondent profile - AideDD originating in France - has a large French user-base not seen in other polls and anglosphere parts of the hobby.
Given the large fraction of users from US, Canada, UK, Australia, we could take this as a maximalist estimate for the share of D&D that is played in France and an indication of the size of the jeu-de-role scene that we do not hear so much about because of language barriers.
The fantastic Le Thiase surveys give us a window into the jdr scene - three surveys conducted in 2010, 2014 and 2018 - and due again in 2022. Comparing what is in these surveys we see a few interesting points.
Looking at the respondent profile - AideDD originating in France - has a large French user-base not seen in other polls and anglosphere parts of the hobby.
Given the large fraction of users from US, Canada, UK, Australia, we could take this as a maximalist estimate for the share of D&D that is played in France and an indication of the size of the jeu-de-role scene that we do not hear so much about because of language barriers.
The fantastic Le Thiase surveys give us a window into the jdr scene - three surveys conducted in 2010, 2014 and 2018 - and due again in 2022. Comparing what is in these surveys we see a few interesting points.
05 September 2022
Shiny TTRPG links #84
Less than usual this week as I pack up for travel. More can be found on the previous list found here. The original inspiration for all of this - weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links. You can find even more links on the weekly blogroll on r/OSR or a roundup of non-blog news on Third Kingdom Games roundup.
Save vs. Worm gives us Pygmy Giants
Dreaming Dragonslayer gives us Mulan, OSR Queen
Attronarch's Athenaeum completes #RPGaDAY2022 – Day 31
Silverarm writes The Wilderness is a Dungeon: Jaquaysing Your RPG Sandbox
The Latest Enemy writes Skalds, Bards, and Warrior Poets
Goobernuts Blog gives us Bamboo – 10-foot pole but better
Weaver.skepti.ch reviews Creature Caches
Classic Fantasy Adventure Games are Infinite on Grumpy Wizard
Late Night Zen gives us Magic item: Latimer's ring
Vdonnut Vallet muses on Everything is (?) a Framework
In Search of Treasure gives us Jester (New Class) & Wild Elf Revised
Methods & Madness writes Can "Old School" work with feats?
Worlds Await writes The Dreamscape, Part 3 – Journeys, Environs And Hazards
My Creative Reset Button: GISH Week by Soft Chaos
Scraped from a twitter thread of great blogs that have not updated in a while: World of Alshain; Drama, Dice & Damsons; Valley of the Blue Snails; Straits of Anian
Save vs. Worm gives us Pygmy Giants
Dreaming Dragonslayer gives us Mulan, OSR Queen
Attronarch's Athenaeum completes #RPGaDAY2022 – Day 31
Silverarm writes The Wilderness is a Dungeon: Jaquaysing Your RPG Sandbox
The Latest Enemy writes Skalds, Bards, and Warrior Poets
Goobernuts Blog gives us Bamboo – 10-foot pole but better
Weaver.skepti.ch reviews Creature Caches
Classic Fantasy Adventure Games are Infinite on Grumpy Wizard
Late Night Zen gives us Magic item: Latimer's ring
Vdonnut Vallet muses on Everything is (?) a Framework
In Search of Treasure gives us Jester (New Class) & Wild Elf Revised
Methods & Madness writes Can "Old School" work with feats?
Worlds Await writes The Dreamscape, Part 3 – Journeys, Environs And Hazards
My Creative Reset Button: GISH Week by Soft Chaos
Scraped from a twitter thread of great blogs that have not updated in a while: World of Alshain; Drama, Dice & Damsons; Valley of the Blue Snails; Straits of Anian
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