From another thread:
Quote from: S'mon;1010386I tend to get excited by stuff about 3-5 years after it comes out... :)
Quote from: Larsdangly;1010398That's pretty smart! There is a lot of great gaming material being put out right now, but most of it is easier to spot after it has aged for a couple of years. There is buzz around new projects due to kickstarter frenzy and posts and reviews from committed fans of the various systems, but quality will show through if you let it germinate a while.
I also agree in a general way with your choice: The OSR dungeons and zines are probably the most consistently creative and useful material in gaming right now. We could easily list 20 outstanding products that have been published in that genre in the last couple of years.
So, let's do it. List the best proven OSR products from the last few years. Stuff you actually used at the table.
Dyson's Delves I & II
Stonehell: Down Night Haunted Halls (haven't used the second book Into the Heart of Hell much yet, but looks great)
Basic Fantasy - JN2 Monkey Isle
Those would be my top three pics. Below that:
Basic Fantasy - Adventure Anthology 1
White Star & White Star Companion
Labyrinth Lord
I think that's the best of the best for me, things I have used a lot in play and are all round excellent. Other stuff I have used and liked includes:
Liberation of the Demon Slayer (but the keying is a mess after level 1)
Basic Fantasy - Fortress Tower & Tomb (mostly for the Fortress)
The Ancient Academy (a 1 page Dungeon) & lots of other 1 page Dungeons (https://campaignwiki.org/1pdc/)
Mutant Future
Labyrinth Lord Companion
Basic Fantasy RPG from basicfantasy.org
Things I own that look good but have not used include
Dwimmermount
Vornheim
& a bunch of rulesets like Apes Victorious, Operation: Whitebox, Swords & Wizardry, Warriors of the Red Planet. I'm mostly using 5e D&D for rules currently.
Isles of Purple-Haunted Putrescence - though I mention them a lot, my PCs refuse to go there! :D
Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures handsdown my favourite itteration of the D&D rules ever. Even though the feel is not what some would consider OSR perhaps. Not grim and gritty enough.
Not OSR but feels Old School as Fuck, like it could have been published late 70s to early 80s, Under the Moons of Zoon. d6 based Sword & Planet with touches of HPL and CAS weird fiction.
Also Mazes and Minotaurs not only does it make a brilliant parody of the early days of the hobby it stands up as a playable game in its own right.
All three of these have seen extensive time at my table with great success.
I am intentionally not listing various retroclones and such as I don't feel that most of them break new ground.
I don't know much about "the best", but here are the books I used a lot, still use and plan to use again:
_Death Frost Doom 1st edition, kicked off two campaigns with that one and used in one-shots as well.
_Blood Moon Rising, very good intro adventure.
_Into the Odd, best mix of completeness and brevity (for me at least).
_Veins of the Earth is well written and I get a lot of things to use at my table.
_Wonder & Wickedness leveless spells. Lots of things to mine there. And Russ Nicholson.
_Zweihander, I'll never use it "as is" but I keep coming back to it again and again. Reading Grimmelhausen at the same time does help.
_I think Gathox has this cool 2000AD comic vibe. I use it with Bill King's Waste World.
There are other books I like (Brood mother Sky Fortress, Better than Any Man, etc.) but these are the ones I use the most.
I know books like Vornheim or Red & Pleasant land (among others) get a lot of hype and are supposed to be the awesomesauce of the OSR but they just left me cold. I can't read two pages of Maze of the Blue Medusa without yawning, same goes with Carcosa or Majestic Wilderlands. But as I find China Miéville books boring and dry as hell, I guess I'm just a philistine.
There is a lot of good stuff, but I get regular use out of the Tome of Adventure Design and Monstrosities for S&W (a fantastic monster manual with like 500 adventure seeds and lairs - you just have to get past the so-so art). I very much like Crypts and Things, and Fantastic Heroes and Witchery. I use DCC modules quite a lot and love their short punchy format.
Scarlet Heroes tops my list, simply because it brings (perception-wise, as I've never played the wargame) back a conceit from Chainmail. Heroes, without having to be Demigods, can handle multiple opponents at once. I like Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures for the theme it tries to convey.
Among the DCC crowd the modules seem to get a lot of play and re-play. Our group's GM is pretty deft at melding them into our ongoing campaign... often with me not realizing we've played a published module till much later.
I think he get's a lot of use out of Hubris (http://goodman-games.com/store/product/hubris-a-world-of-visceral-adventure/) as well... which is a big box of ideas for DCC games.
Most of the OSR stuff I've gone to again and again is content I found on blogs... like all the house rules on Last Gasp (http://www.lastgaspgrimoire.com/arts-crafts-morbidly-encumbered-edition/) and Goblin Punch (http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/). The last few games I've run have drawn heavily from those blogs and others.
Stars Without Number because
- In my opinion it does sci-fi better than any other OSR product.
- Comes with plenty of support.
- Offers a massive amount of highly practical support for actually running a campaign.
I can vouch for the glory of Yoon-Suin: the purple land (http://www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/david-mcgrogan/yoon-suin/paperback/product-22880912.html). And although Pundit has a pretty negative take on it, I've gotten a load of mileage out of Carcosa. (http://www.lotfp.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=145) I use and abuse both Vornheim (https://www.lotfp.com/RPG/products/vornheim) and Red and Pleasant Land (http://www.lotfp.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=190) pretty frequently as well. I've heard good things about Maze of the Blue Medusa, (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/195785/Maze-of-the-Blue-Medusa-o-Deluxe-PDF) but I can't get my mitts on a copy.
And, of course, I will stump for the Adventurer Conqueror King system (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/99123/Adventurer-Conqueror-King-System)until my dying breath
I don't have much use for adventures, but I have my favorite clones.
Iron Falcon is the best restatement of 70s OD&D I've ever seen.
Labyrinth Lord remains the most faithful 80s version, it's pretty hard to beat.
Beyond the Wall did what I thought was impossible: it fixed the gaping wound in the D&D paradigm that is Vancian magic. I wouldn't even be playing still if not for this one.
MAZES & MINOTAURS!!!http://storygame.free.fr/MAZES.htm
It's free.
It's got massive support...also free.
And the greatest nautical rules ever!!
Quote from: kobayashi;1010706_I think Gathox has this cool 2000AD comic vibe. I use it with Bill King's Waste World.
Tell us more about Gathox!!
Quote from: Christopher Brady;1010770Scarlet Heroes tops my list, simply because it brings (perception-wise, as I've never played the wargame) back a conceit from Chainmail. Heroes, without having to be Demigods, can handle multiple opponents at once.
Very true.
EXEMPLARS & EIDOLONS is the freebie version and it runs great.
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/144651/Exemplars--Eidolons
Quote from: Azraele;1010784I've gotten a load of mileage out of Carcosa. (http://www.lotfp.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=145)
Me too!
But some of the best bits of Carcosa are actually the fan inspired sited detailing the various hexes.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1010790MAZES & MINOTAURS!!!
http://storygame.free.fr/MAZES.htm
It's free.
It's got massive support...also free.
And the greatest nautical rules ever!!
Well, what do you expect? It was the first RPG after all. ;)
- OSRIC
- Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea (and modules)
- Kellri's CDD Reference sheets (see Downloads (http://kellri.blogspot.com/))
- The Twisting Stair 'zine
- Stars Without Number
Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1010810
Oh yeah - I tend to forget OSRIC because it's so dry, but I have used it a lot to run AD&D, especially online.
Veins of the Earth
DFD
Yoon-Suin
Beyond the Wall
The White Hack
Slumbering Ursine Dunes
Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1010810
Tell us about the Twisting Stair 'zine!
Quote from: Spinachcat;1010790Tell us more about Gathox!!
With pleasure !
I could just paste the back cover blurb but it won't do the setting justice.
I see Gathox as a W40K underhive built upon the back of a giant god. That god also hops to other planets/dimensions every few years (or less, as a GM you do what you want).
There are no orcs or goblins in sight. The whole place reminds me of the
Nemesis 2000 AD comic with a
Necromunda feel here and there.
Of course you have factions fighting for power and your PCs can start their own gang and try to carve their own little paradise on the back of the god (with rules to boot, nothing mindblowing but it's a nice touch).
The bestiary and the alien races are very good. Gathox is gonzo but not to a point where it becomes unplayable because there's too much silliness.
I really like the art as it has this comic book vibe I'm talking about.
It's basically as if you'd have asked Pat Mills and John Wagner to write a dimensional-hopping city to use with your favorite RPG.
I use it with
Waste World because it's basically the 2000 AD rpg but it's meant to be used with "classic fantasy games" in general and
Sword & Wizardry White Box in particular. The new classes are fun if you want to use them. No power creep or insane levels of gonzo but it does fit the setting.
Unfortunately there are (very few) pages of fiction because one the author's player is a writer or something and wanted to contribute. As 99% of the game fiction it does nothing for me.
A few frequently used fave's that spring to mind; I could come up with another dozen with a bit of head scratching:
Barrowmaze
Forbidden Caverns of Archia
Anomalous Subsurface Environment
Rappan Athuk (S&W version)
Yoon-Suin
Dark Albion: The Rose War
Dark Albion: Cults of Chaos
Castle Zagyg
Dyson's Delves I&II
Mazes & Minotaurs
I've been running a Basic Fantasy campaign for a few years now.
Things I've used regularly for planning it:
Basic Fantasy RPG core rules
BFRPG random downloadable modules off their site (great thing about them, is they give you the ODT files, so I've gotten great use out of downloading adventures of appropriate level, and then altering them to fit my campaign)
D30 Sandbox Companion
D30 DM Companion
Tome of Adventure
OSRIC (for when something isn't covered in the Basic Fantasy rules, I go to it's "Big Brother" for ideas)
I've got a ton of other OSR and classic-era books for old school D&D, but the books above are the ones that I get the most use out of.
Quote from: Voros;1010815Veins of the Earth
DFD
Yoon-Suin
Beyond the Wall
The White Hack
Slumbering Ursine Dunes
What's good about White Hack? I keep hearing about it. (Aesthetically the cover is like an Dover reprint of a mathematics text, which is interesting)
Quote from: Larsdangly;1010858Castle Zagyg
If that counts, I'll throw in Castle Zagyg - Yggsburgh. Great hexcrawl campaign setting, I ran two fun swashbuckling campaigns there.
I believe Gail Gygax personally shredded all the unsold copies though :\ - at any rate, very hard to get hold of.
Quote from: S'mon;1010931If that counts, I'll throw in Castle Zagyg - Yggsburgh. Great hexcrawl campaign setting, I ran two fun swashbuckling campaigns there.
I believe Gail Gygax personally shredded all the unsold copies though :\ - at any rate, very hard to get hold of.
I'd say those definitely count. And I agree that the Yggsburgh hardback adds a ton to the package - it is a really cool hex crawl (though the city itself is pretty dull...). It is so weird and unfortunate that Gail Gygax killed this projejct. It was on track to creating an iconic multi-boxed-set body of work that would have been amazing. Various posters here know the situation well enough to defend what what she did, but to an outsider it looks like a demented attack on Gygax's legacy. It's a shame. Maybe some day the pre-production materials will find their way out into the world so we an see what they were up to.
Quote from: CRKrueger;1010690From another thread:
So, let's do it. List the best proven OSR products from the last few years. Stuff you actually used at the table.
DCC
Low Fantasy RPG
Crimson Blades v2 RPG
Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures
Broadswords and Bucklers
Scarlet Heroes
Epees et Sorcellerie
That's about it from me, unless we expand the definition of OSR;).
Stuff I've used & a brief review-
LOTFP Grindhouse Rules; used as base for Sword & Sorcery Hyborian Age campaign (Halflings become Picts etc).
Vornheim; use the tables, re-skinned as Vorngrad for above campaign but PC's haven't yet travelled there.
Prison of the Hated Pretender; great little module, evocative & plenty of interesting choices & paths for PC's to take.
Tower of the Stargazer; was thoroughly enjoyed from the tower doors onward. Final puzzle is more of a pain to figure out than high drama- would tweak that somehow with the benefit if hindsight.
The Iron God Cometh (Patreon side-trek); ran with some additions/modifications for the Hyborian Age campaign to introduce a new role-player. Classic in tone without being derivative.
I use a lot of house rules/creatures/scenarios garnered from blogs. Unpublished blog or G+ stuff is where much of the OSR gold lies. Lastgaspgrimoire is just one who springs to mind, as do Jeff Rients carousing tables which get frequent use, flavoured to suit campaign.
Those would be the best OSR I've actually run pretty straight, rather than just picked out elements or ideas.
Quote from: S'mon;1010931I believe Gail Gygax personally shredded all the unsold copies though :\ - at any rate, very hard to get hold of.
Saw a copy in the local RPG shop for a reasonable price. Actually worth picking up? I'm a big fan of the early Gygax modules but find the later work much less inspired.
Quote from: Séadna;1010930What's good about White Hack? I keep hearing about it. (Aesthetically the cover is like an Dover reprint of a mathematics text, which is interesting)
It is a pretty radical rewrite of the D&D rules from the ground up, more-or-less classless with a freeform magic system. It strikes me as very well designed and includes an interesting setting and begining adventure if you care to use them.
My top five personal picks in order....
1. Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game
2. Full Metal Plate Mail
3. Dark Dungeons
4. Microlite 74
5. OSRIC
Quote from: Voros;1011015Saw a copy in the local RPG shop for a reasonable price. Actually worth picking up? I'm a big fan of the early Gygax modules but find the later work much less inspired.
Given how rare those are, you could probably sell it to an RPG completist for well above a "reasonable" price;). And you can read it in the meantime, making up your own mind whether to sell.
Quote from: AsenRG;1011023Given how rare those are, you could probably sell it to an RPG completist for well above a "reasonable" price;). And you can read it in the meantime, making up your own mind whether to sell.
Not a bad idea, I wonder if it will still be there...
Quote from: Larsdangly;1011002I'd say those definitely count. And I agree that the Yggsburgh hardback adds a ton to the package - it is a really cool hex crawl (though the city itself is pretty dull...).
I made that work well IMCs by contrasting the settled, dull, Realm of Law (eg the city precincts, and some lands off-map to the south) with the dark, chaotic Realm of Chaos, including the wilderness beyond a few miles of the walls. Much of my campaigns were based on the roads so I used a lot of 18th century & early 19th century novel tropes, Dick Turpin bandits and such - Moll Flanders, Sense & Sensibility. Bit of Walter Scott. Although the
Carry On films were also a surprisingly large influence...
Quote from: Voros;1011015Saw a copy in the local RPG shop for a reasonable price. Actually worth picking up? I'm a big fan of the early Gygax modules but find the later work much less inspired.
Yggsburgh marked a HUGE return to form after a couple decades of weaker material IMO. If you enjoyed pre-1985 Gygax I'd definitely recommend it. Much much better than eg Hall of Many Panes.
And beautiful Darlene maps. :)
I´ve bought a ton of OSR-stuff from Lulu, and the only things I´ve used is:
Pod-Caverns of the Sinister Shroom (once - great fun, I recommend this to everyone!).
Cults of Chaos (Rolled up some cults and societies for Traveller, but none have come up in play yet)
Creature Compendium (Used the "pebble-monsters" in a random encounterchart for Worlds of Wonder Magic World once).
Everything else I´ve sold (at a loss of course) or traded for new stuff.
Oh... and I´ve used a dungeon from Dysons Delves, but that one is also avilable free from the website (it was actually easier to print it from the web than to use the book).
Quote from: Spinachcat;1010816Tell us about the Twisting Stair 'zine!
The Twisting Stair (thanks for the plug Philotomy Jurament!) is a mega-dungeon design zine published by Tony Rosten and myself. We publish an 11x17 centerfold map level in each issue, along with new monsters, spells, magic items, etc., and articles on mega-dungeon design. Ordering details for issues #1 ($4, 16 pages), and #2 ($5, 20 pages) are at https://grodog.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-twisting-stair-2-summer-2017.html Launching issue #3 is behind schedule, because I've been buried with RL work for the past four months, but that insanity is wrapping up, and I'm hopeful that we'll have it available by month-end.
Some and text samples are readable in our Facebook page @ https://www.facebook.com/The-Twisting-Stair-188990931592220/ and in our G+ community @ https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/106374654367308480302
Quote from: Voros;1011015Saw a copy in the local RPG shop for a reasonable price. Actually worth picking up? I'm a big fan of the early Gygax modules but find the later work much less inspired.
That's definitely my take on Yggsburgh, and was one of my chief complaints about the CZ:UW boxed set as well.
Quote from: S'mon;1011044Yggsburgh marked a HUGE return to form after a couple decades of weaker material IMO. If you enjoyed pre-1985 Gygax I'd definitely recommend it. Much much better than eg Hall of Many Panes.
And beautiful Darlene maps. :)
The maps are, of course, gorgeous. I'll have to give Yggsburgh a second look, I suppose, Simon---I didn't consider it a return to form at the time, but a bloated series of endless lists of useless detail ;)
Allan.
Quote from: AsenRG;1011023Given how rare those are, you could probably sell it to an RPG completist for well above a "reasonable" price;). And you can read it in the meantime, making up your own mind whether to sell.
I sold mine on ebay and I am pretty ashamed at the price I got for it.
Quote from: zx81;1011052Oh... and I´ve used a dungeon from Dysons Delves, but that one is also avilable free from the website (it was actually easier to print it from the web than to use the book).
GMing online I tend to use the website for the e-version, in conjunction with the book hardcopy.
Quote from: grodog;1011058The maps are, of course, gorgeous. I'll have to give Yggsburgh a second look, I suppose, Simon---I didn't consider it a return to form at the time, but a bloated series of endless lists of useless detail ;)
The additional supplements over-detailing bits of the city are definitely bloated. The heart of the book for me is the hexcrawl key and maps. Got great use out of all those bandit gangs and pirates especially. I added a fair bit of my own detail to the city iself using the detail given as a chassis, it ended up a lot more interesting. The 'respectability' of it worked great for the early-Victorian type tone I was going for.
I'd say it stands comparison to B2 Keep on the Borderlands, at a much larger scale.
Quote from: S'mon;1011088The additional supplements over-detailing bits of the city are definitely bloated. The heart of the book for me is the hexcrawl key and maps. Got great use out of all those bandit gangs and pirates especially. I added a fair bit of my own detail to the city iself using the detail given as a chassis, it ended up a lot more interesting. The 'respectability' of it worked great for the early-Victorian type tone I was going for.
I'd say it stands comparison to B2 Keep on the Borderlands, at a much larger scale.
A great description.
I think Yggsburgh has potential, but it's a setting, rather than an adventure, and I don't find it has the magic of Gygax's earlier work. It's a good foundation for a DM to build on, but a lot of the detail will need to come from the DM (which is fine, of course). It's also somewhat marred by terrible editing (which is all too common with Troll Lord products, in my experience). Prices are mucked up. Orders of battle are mucked up, and some are completely missing (Gary was annoyed by that). Et cetera. There's good, usable, stuff in it, though. And the Darlene map is nice. I really like the cover art, too. Not sure exactly why, but it does it for me.
Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1011105I think Yggsburgh has potential, but it's a setting, rather than an adventure, and I don't find it has the magic of Gygax's earlier work. It's a good foundation for a DM to build on, but a lot of the detail will need to come from the DM (which is fine, of course). It's also somewhat marred by terrible editing (which is all too common with Troll Lord products, in my experience). Prices are mucked up. Orders of battle are mucked up, and some are completely missing (Gary was annoyed by that). Et cetera. There's good, usable, stuff in it, though. And the Darlene map is nice. I really like the cover art, too. Not sure exactly why, but it does it for me.
I liked it better than Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, which felt like a zoo dungeon menagerie. It's a sandbox not an adventure; I found it was a great sandbox for both text-chat 1e AD&D and tabletop Pathfinder Beginner Box campaigns. We did not use the Orders of Battle, though they were mildly interesting, or the price lists.
One Page Dungeons
Dyson's Delves
Wolf Packs & Winter Snows
Beyond the Wall
DCC, obviously.
Yoon-Suin
Red Tide
The Island of Purple-haunted Putrescence
Hulks & Horrors
Dark Albion
Cults of Chaos
And soon, Lion & Dragon.