Tabletop Gaming Feeds

 Converting the post-apocalyptic, "science-fantasy" vibes of Thundarr the Barbarian into Sword of Cepheus 2nd Edition requires leaning into the Heroic Fantasy rules. These characters are larger than life, surviving a world where "superscience" and sorcery collide.Here are the character profiles adapted for the Cepheus engine.Thundarr the BarbarianThundarr is a classic high-Stamina powerhouseNeedleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

A few weeks ago, I published an interview with Eliana Falcón-Dvorsky, a local Puerto Rican artist who created a TTRPG supplement for her homebrew campaign world. Her work will be available for sale at the Puerto Rico Comic Con this year, and she will be crowdfunding a print run starting in May 2026. I am always thrilled to spread the word about Boricua TTRPG enthusiasts who create game- and geek-related art and content.

I want to use the platform and reach I have here on the blog and across my social media channels—like Sunglar’s Musings—to amplify the signal and showcase the immense talent of these creators. To do that, I put together a standard set of questions, rolled up my sleeves, and got to work. I revised my notes from the previous interview, reached out to creators I know, and began to plan.

Three creators have already replied to my initial contact, and I am waiting to hear back from three more. The first person I contacted to test this idea was Maite Rodríguez, a fellow gamer and great friend. We are both administrators of the Dungeons & Dragons Puerto Rico Facebook group and one-time co-workers. I am incredibly thankful to her for helping me polish this idea.

Moving forward, I plan to showcase local Puerto Rican creators on Sunday posts here on Stargazer’s World, on Sunglar’s Musings, the Puerto Rico Role Players Facebook page and Discord, the Dungeons & Dragons Puerto Rico group, and my other socials—for as long as I can find creators willing to share their stories and content!

If you are a Puerto Rican artist or creator working on TTRPG content, TTRPG-adjacent projects, or geek-related art that I have not contacted yet, and you’d like me to take a look and share your work with the world, please reach out to me here on the blog or via my social media channels.

Now, without further ado, let’s get to the interview!

Tell us about yourself! Who are you, and what are you creating?

I’m Maite Rodríguez, also known as Restless Geek in the nerdy corners of the internet. I’m a full-time working mom who dabbles in every hobby imaginable. My artwork is best known for my crochet dolls and resin crafts, but my creativity doesn’t stop there. I constantly dream up projects across all kinds of media. I’m drawn to the whimsical and magical, inspired by the worlds I imagined as a kid: dragons, fairies, vampires, werewolves, epic heroes, and forest witches. I want to explore all of that and bring it to life through my art.

How would you describe your art or creative work?

My greatest joy comes from seeing people connect with something they love at my table. Kids run up to me at a market because they spot something they love, or adults get excited like kids over something I’ve made. I think the description “3D printing with yarn” is super accurate, and it’s something I do almost compulsively. I started selling my work partly because, if I didn’t, my house would be buried under all the stuff I create! Restless Geek was meant to be my space to explore all mediums and ideas, but crochet is what I’m most requested for and known for.

How did you discover TTRPGs?

I started playing board games seriously on April 5, 2014, for International Tabletop Day. While I’d of course played before, that’s where I found “my people.” From there, it was a natural leap into TTRPGs, and with my love of fantasy, I dove in headfirst.

Do you play actively? What are you playing right now?

My group is currently paused on our Daggerheart campaign, and life has been pretty busy, but I’ve managed to catch the occasional game, like at a Geeknic or the online TTRPG weekends hosted on Discord. I also really want to host more Daggerheart demos with the Autumn Leaf Adventurers Guild.

What’s next on your list to play?

Oh, that’s a tough one! A friend recently got me interested in Faster, Purple Worm! Kill! Kill! It looks like a blast. I’d also love to play something spooky and scary. There’s new Ravenloft content out this year that’s calling my name.

What projects do you have available, and what are you working on now?

My next event is on October 31st at The Portal in Ponce. I’m also setting up my website, Restless-Geek.com, which will include an integrated online shop; it should be live this week! Right now, my inventory features dice bags, health potions, coasters, squishy dolls, and keychains. I also write spicy fiction (adults only), which I’ll be promoting more openly soon and publishing on Patreon.

Where can people find your projects?

For announcements, events, musings, and all things related to me and my art, you can find me on Instagram as @restless-geek. Everything I post there also goes straight to Facebook.

Any final thoughts?

Thank you for this initiative. I’m terrible at self-promotion; I wish I could create and have people magically find me, haha! But things like this help so much. Restless Geek is the dream, you know? Something I hope to do full-time someday, and to make my kid proud that I went for it.

Two quotes have been guiding me this past year as I have worked toward my goals:

“You can fail at something you hate, so you might as well try doing something you love.” — Jim Carrey

“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose.” — Captain Picard

They give me the “eff it” mentality I need just to get out there and do it. So yeah, thank you!

A huge thank you to Maite for her candor, for everything she does to support the local TTRPG community, and for helping me iron out the logistics for this new series. Stay tuned, and I’ll see you all next week for another interview with a talented Puerto Rican creator!

 Sword and Sorcery is less about "random bears" and more about ancient ruins, desperate survivors, and the encroaching "weird." Here is a d100 table designed to capture that gritty, pulp-fantasy atmosphere for your countryside travels. This blog entry picks right up from OSR Commentary - Can Castles & Crusades rpg be played with The Primal Order Rpg?!d100 Sword & Sorcery Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

 Welcome to the night shift. In the world of Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars, a "House" isn’t just a social club—it’s a survival strategy, a political faction, and a potential employer (or HR nightmare).Here is a unique vampire house designed to fit the gritty, blue-collar aesthetic of the game.House name: The Iron Vein (The Rust-Eaters)The Iron Vein is not composed of brooding Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

By James Desborough
Portmortem Studios
LotFP
Levels 2-4

A high-concept adventure beneath the bone-white hills of Southern England:. […] The hearthstone tilts forward as the ground beneath it gives way, and the fire collapses inward with a choked sigh. A black seam splits across the floor, racing between boots and table legs, widening in the stretch of a blink. Tankards slide. A bench tips and crashes onto its side. The air fills with a grinding roar as chalk collapses in vast, dry heaves beneath the inn. The far wall lurches downward, its timbers shrieking and daub shattering to powder and horsehair as it tears loose. Cold night air floods briefly in through the widening fracture, carrying the smell of wet earth Elinor cries out as the boards beneath her feet dip and tear apart, and she vanishes into the dark. Outside, horses scream, their hooves beating against nothing […]

This 62 page adventure presents seventeen rooms of pitch blackness in a “lair of the sub-humans” tunnel complex. The designer had an idea and tried to implement it, but has no idea of what an adventure is or how to write one. Thus a confused over-wordy mess that, I think, doesn’t understand the Lamentations game system either. The pretension, in the face of this, is interesting to see.

You’re sitting in a bar. Oh no! The tavern collapses in to the earth. It’s very dark. TOTAL darkness, not even infravision or magical sight works. Subhumans start killing the other survivors who fell in also. Thus starts a little over a dozen rooms of groping about and smelling your way to the mystical ate that gets you back to freedom while you suffer -2 hit, +2 to be hit, blah blah blah. 

This is garbage. It didn’t have to be.

The designer here is a Clever Boy. We know that because he tells us that in page after page of introductory text that amounts to See How Bad Ass I Am? I don’t know, he’s scared of the dark, he obviously met Raggi once somewhere and they are basically the same person and now he wants to suck him off by name dropping and it’s not a Fuck You dungoen its actually just hard the way OSR dungeons should be. “This is Atypical You’re not going to find any of the typical adventure-book fare here.” Uh huh. Listen to the voice saying Follow Me, says Frankie. As it has always been, the person shouting the loudest is generally engaged in flim-flam. 

“Perhaps the best/ worst example of this was The Tomb of Horrors, but the ‘fuck you’ is now used as a condemnatory slur directed at anything with even slightly elevated deadliness or Old School sensibilities.” No asshat, it is not. But you didn’t write this for the OSR, did you? You throw some words down on paper, with painfully little care, in order to slap a price tag on it and make a buck or three from whatever followers you have and test the waters for more from the OSR crowd. Alas, at least from your viewpoint, you will find little purchase here. I suggest one of the more niche circles for your medicine show.

Name calling? Ad hominem attacks? That’s not this blog. Or, rather, it’s reserved for the worst of the worst, the money grab people. Let’s see just why this adventure is garbage.

There is, at a minimum, column long section of text up front defending hard dungeons ala the Fuck You dungeon, and, of course, noting that this is not a Fuck You dungeon. This is wrong. It is a Fuck You dungeon. Further, it’s a Fuck You dungeon that, I suspect, has never actually been much less playtested. The mechanics in this just don’t work. The presentation doesn’t work. That’s how I know this. Perhaps one of the very earliest examples of this, in the text, is what happens when the tavern collapses. You have to make a save or take 2d6 damage. That’s gonna be a 16+. We’re looking at between 5 and 18 HP for a party of mixed classes for levels two to four. And you’re gonna take seven damage. AND THEN YOU NEED TO MAKE ANOTHER 16+ SAVE OR TAKE ANOTHER 2d6! These are not optional. They represent the collapse of the inn into the chasm belowground. That is, on average, fourteen damage, with a fighter, on average, having eighteen hit points at fourth level. And you want me to believe that you have play tested this? Run this? Believe you know how D&D works? No. I loathe mechanics. I loathe an appeal to balance. But I also know that the lack of understanding of low hit points, saves, and turning undead are the absolute tells of fuckwit medicine men. [As in, all medicine men are fuckwits, not an adjective to describe certain medicine men.] The designer does not, in any non-trivial manner, understand the game system that they are writing for. The snake oil is strong with this one. 

How else do we know? The read-aloud. The read aloud here is long. VERY long. Like, a page long in some sections. A column, or a good chunk of one, is not uncommon in most places. James Desborough has never read that text aloud to anyone playing this game. Because if they had then it wouldn’t be that long. James would have seen his players turning on their portable gaming systems, watching tiktoks, going to get a beer, swiping on tinder, or whatever. No one pays attention. We know this. It’s common knowledge. You don’t monologue a villain. The players don’t pay attention. You don’t write long read-aloud, the players get bored. This is not a player issue. This is a designer issue. The WotC study, the article about it read-aloud and attention spans, should be well known by this point. And, as I noted, even if it were not the complete lack of player attention as you spew more and more irrelevant flowery text at them should have been a major hint to the designer. If it has been play tested, of course. Or even run for someone. Does it work for the players? Do you CARE that it works for the players?

How about the DM? Do you even care if it works for the DM? Or is this just a payday for you? You see, gentle reader, the text here is in italics. And in a funky fucking font in italics. No one, ever, in the fucking history of the world has ever said “Oh boy! I hope I get to struggle through a long section of flowery text in a font that is hard to read!” Long sections of italics are hard to read. This is, or should be, common knowledge. Funky fucking fonts can be hard to read. Funky fucking font in fucking long sections of italics are VERY hard to read. It’s a fucking cognitive issue in much the same way that single-column text causes more fatigue than double-column. Not that YOU give a fuck. 

Let us move on to formatting. The text here is in a kind of long conversational paragraph styling. The only straight appeal to formatting is a bolded word like “Smell” or “Taste.” That’s good. It helps direct the DM attention to those needs. You know what else the DM needs? To know how many creatures there are in the room. Room one in this is where the adventure starts, so to speak, the pit the tavern and everyone has fallen in to. There’s some vignette shit where the party hears gurgles and screams as the Bone Tomahawks slit throats and cut hamstrings and the like. And, of course, there’s a fight for the party to take part in. It doesn’t actually say. Ever. Some of the people in the inn survive the fall and there’s a little section for each of them that describes their current state. Related, there’s a brief “event” that is the attack, and in the text of one of them, relating the attack on one of the fallen NPC’s, there is a note that says “If they kill both the attackers …” That’s all you’re fucking getting. Pretty fucking basic, isn’t it? How many enemies are in the room? No? You wanted to write some story game bullshit and slap an OSR label on it? Or, are you just incompetent as a writer after all these years? Or, given up and doing a money grab?

How now brown cow, let us look at immersion. There is little. What there is, though, is designer fiat. Why can you not see in the dark? A Wizard did it. Why is X? A wizard did it. I’ve been writing three reviews a week for, what, fifteen years now? The amount of contempt the designer has for their audience is beyond compare. Yes, fuckwit, we are all playing D&D. We know that if we want to play D&D tonight then take the hook. We know that everything in the fucking game is made up. And we rely on designers to provide the verisimilitude that does not break the fourth wall and does not drag us out of the vibe. You didn’t even fucking try. You just wanted X to happen. I don’t need explanations. Those suck also. A contingency spell goes off that triggers a magic mouth that says a spell trigger word. That’s bullshit also. Explanations suck. But immersion in the game does NOT suck. It’s a major fucking point of RPG play. But you don’t give a fuck about that do you? Cha ching! Given that no one makes any money in RPG’s I must then assume this is and ego boost for your self-described “high concept” pretentious adventure of little imagination.

There’s a reference sheet at the end with some mechanics on it. That’s good. There are also a series of NPCs who you end up with in the tunnels/pit. The descriptions of these are in three parts. A read-aloud (ug) and a paragraph or so of information that is full of background as well as mannerisms. The mannerisms are good, the backgrounds less so, and in most cases could have been eliminated or GREATLY reduced. Then there’s “their condition after falling in.” The mannerisms and condition information should have, also, been included on the reference sheet, in an abbreviated manner. There’s a nod to this, but just in terms of a name and tracking their alive/dead status. A few extra words here, on mannerisms, would have gone a long way. IE: how to use them in play. 

Otherwise, this is just a series of encounters in the dark with little interactivity beyond that. There’s a lot of room in the OSR, from the RAW 1e crowd to those smaller games that lean more towards streamlined mechanics. I don’t see this as fitting anywhere in the spectrum.

This is $13 at DriveThru. There is no level range mentioned until you get in to the meat of the product, that should have appeared on the cover or the marketing page on DriveThru. The preview is six pages, the first six, so you get to see a good deal of the initial pretension. It should have included a page or two of encounters to give the potential buyer an idea of what they are purchasing. That is the purpose of a preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/561839/kingdom?1892600

 In the smog-choked, alternate-history landscape of the Wretched Interbellum, the line between man and machine is blurring. Rumors have reached your cell of a terrifying breakthrough by the Special Armed Police Force (The Kerberos): the Protect Gear prototype.This isn't just armor; it’s a psychological weapon designed to turn a soldier into a faceless, unstoppable executioner. Your mission: Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

In Southeast Parsulan, the Karkharoth badlands are an inhospitable, monster-haunted region of gullies and ravines between low, barren, red ridges, at times scarred by jagged rock formations like rows of fangs. In a broad canyon surrounding one of a rare oases is the fortress city-state of Kamazot.

The broken and desolate terrain isn't natural but instead due to the folly of man. In the Age of the Wizard Kings, attempts to push the then-fertile lands to even higher yields, coupled with sabotage from rival lands led to disruption of local fae elementals and a wounding of the land. The weakening of the polity made the region vulnerable to raids from the humanoid nations to the north serving to further depopulate the old kingdom.

The Demon War might have thoroughly returned the badlands to wilderness and ruin, but a warlord rose to organize disparate tribal groups and led them to re-occupy Kamazot. The armies unearthed ancient magitech weapons and restored them to the repaired fortress walls. The city they rebuilt developed into an autocracy organized along military lines, which persists to this day. Despite its regimented society, Kamazot has always been opened to outsiders who prove their worth. Even humanoids and those of monstrous ancestry are occasionally accepted into their society. 

It is rare for rulership succession in the city-state to be passed hereditarily. Instead, the clan generals elect an Imperator. The current ruler, Dornon Gundark, is unusual in that he was a clanless outsider who rose through the ranks due to his battle prowess and canny out-maneuvering of rivals at a time when Kamazot had been weakened by poor leadership.  He enjoys both popular support and the loyalty of most of the generals. Those less supportive are kept in line by his command of the Red Hawks, an elite force drawn mostly from those born outside the city and discriminated minorities such as humanoids and Darklings.

 Dornon directs his forces to seek out magitech weapons to add to the state's arsenal. He is very fond of cannons, the bigger the better. He pays handsomely for the recovery of weaponry from ancient ruins and dungeons.

His interests in technology extend beyond weaponry, however. Recently a railroad line was completed linking Kamazot with the Northern Parsulan industrial hubs. The line passes a perilous route through humanoid territory, however, and must employ adventurers and mercenaries both the trains and crews effecting repairs. Another line is planned between Kamazot and the port of Ervessos, but interests in the rival states of the Lightbearer Republic and Grancazarel oppose to close and alliance between those regional powers.

Just when I thought I had uncovered all the hidden gems from my recent deep dive into 70s sword-and-sorcery comics, I stumbled across another one that I knew absolutely nothing about: Dagar the Invincible!

Published by Gold Key Comics, written by Don Glut, and featuring art by Jesse Santos, it hits all the classic high fantasy notes I’ve been looking at lately with characters like Claw the Unconquered and Stalker.

Looking at the art and the setting, my Game Master brain immediately started turning. This gritty, classic fantasy aesthetic is prime material to mine for a future Shadowdark, Old School Essentials, or even a Savage Worlds fantasy campaign. It is genuinely fascinating to see how much of this genre flourished in the 70s, driven by the massive success of the Conan comic books.

If you want to read up on the character and the world, here is the Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagar_the_Invincible

And you must check out this fantastic blog post looking at some of the beautiful original Jesse Santos art: https://davekarlenoriginalartblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/gold-key-comicsdagar-invincible.html

With what little I know about him so far, I decided to take a shot at creating Savage Worlds and Shadowdark versions of the character. Check them out below:

Dagar the Invincible (Savage Worlds)

Rank: Novice Ancestry: Human

ATTRIBUTES: * Agility: d4

• Smarts: d4
• Spirit: d6
• Strength: d10
• Vigor: d8

DERIVED STATISTICS: * Pace: 6

• Parry: 7 (6 with Great Sword)
• Toughness: 9 (2)
• Size: +1 (Brawny Edge)

SKILLS: Athletics d6, Common Knowledge d4, Fighting d10, Intimidation d6, Notice d4, Persuasion d4, Stealth d4, Survival d6.

HINDRANCES: * Heroic (Major): He cannot turn away from those in need.

• Outsider (Minor): A wanderer from a far-off land.
• Vow (Minor): Sworn to destroy evil sorcerers and tyrants.

EDGES: Brawny, Brute

GEAR: Great Sword (Str+d10, AP 2); Dagger (Str+d4); Leather Armor (+2 Armor); Adventurer’s Pack.

Dagar the Invincible (Shadowdark)

Class: Fighter | Ancestry: Human | Level: 1 | Alignment: Neutral

STATS:

• STR: 17 (+3)
• DEX: 13 (+1)
• CON: 15 (+2)
• INT: 8 (-1)
• WIS: 10 (0)
• CHA: 9 (0)

SECONDARY STATS:

• HP: 10 (1d8 + CON modifier)
• AC: 13 (Leather Armor + DEX modifier + Level 1 Talent)
• Attack Bonus: +4 (Strength + Level 1 Talent)

CLASS ABILITIES:

• Weapon Mastery: Bastard Sword. He has +1 to hit and damage with it.
• Grit: Strength
• Talent Rolls: +1 to Melee and Ranged attacks, and +1 to Armor Class (Leather).

GEAR:

• Bastard Sword: 1d8/1d10 two-handed, +5 Attack Bonus
• Dagger: 1d4 damage
• Leather Armor (AC 11)
• Crawler’s Kit: Backpack, flint and steel, 2 torches, 10 iron spikes, 50′ hemp rope, 10 items of iron ration, waterskin.

What do you think of Dagar for Savage Worlds and Shadowdark? Did anyone read these comics back in the day? If so, what did I miss?

 Published in 1992 by Peter Adkison (who later founded Wizards of the Coast), The Primal Order (TPO) is a landmark "capsule" supplement. It wasn't meant to replace your game; it was designed to sit on top of any RPG—whether D&D, GURPS, or Shadowrun—to provide a rigorous, mechanical framework for playing as, or interacting with, actual deitiesIt is famous for introducing Primal Base, the Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

Even though I am not actively running any games at the moment, I am still excited in the hobby and regularly check out new games (at least to me) or revisit games I have been known for many years. The first game on my current reading list is Alternity by TSR. Yes, the TSR of D&D fame. If I am not mistaken, Alternity was actually the last game line published by TSR before it was completely integrated into Wizards of the Coast and vanished as an entity.

Alternity is a TTRPG ruleset for contemporary or science-fiction roleplaying campaigns using an original system. It has some Dungeons & Dragons DNA but feels very much like its own system. There are classes but they mostly provide a framework for your character and some special abilities. The skill system allows pretty much to build any kind of character. The core mechanic is quite interesting. You roll with a d20 and a situational dice which is either added or substracted depending on whether the task is harder or easier than what one would consider routine. The target number which you must meet or roll-under is directly tied to your character’s skill. There’s also a simple system for determining the scale of success. Going into much more detail would probably go way beyond the scope of this post but you should find more information about Alternity online easily.

Like D&D Alternity has a Player’s Handbook and a separate Game Master’s Guide. Over the few years Alternity was in print, they released several sourcebooks and two major settings: Star*Drive and DarkMatter. The latter was eventually revived for d20 Modern while some elements of Star*Drive showed up in d20 Future. There was also a Gamma World game based on the Alternity rules and a rather peculiar (and quite rare nowadays) Starcraft boxed set which had very limited rules and usability. I guess it was some kind of attempt to get people interested in a proper Starcraft TTRPG using the Alternity system. Personally I really like the system and it’s a shame Wizards of the Coast pretty quickly cancelled the line in favor of the d20 System.

Unfortunately the Alternity books are not available online (aside from a few which can be found under the d20 Modern section on DriveThruRPG). You pretty much have to rely on second-hand books. But last time I checked the core rulebooks are still available for reasonable prices if you want to check it out for yourself.

The core books make the assumption that the GM creates their own campaign. That’s also what I’d love to use it for. One of my big dreams has always benn writing my own kick-ass space opera game and Alternity seems like a perfect fit – much better than the more pedestrian Traveller or Cepheus System.

Another TSR property which didn’t get much fanfare back in the day but which I like a lot is their Buck Rogers in the XXVth Century RPG. The rules are based on AD&D 2nd Edition and don’t work really well but I love the hard-SF meets pulp action approach they took with the setting. Perhaps converting the game to Alternity rules might be a cool project. At this moment I haven’t committed to anything yet, but the idea of running anything with this venerable system could scratch an itch I had for quite some time now.

There’s still one thing I should mention related to Alternity before moving on: there is a new game called Alternity which was created by one of the creators of the original game. Personally I don’t think it’s a worthy successor since they threw out the core mechanics an added stuff I did not like at all. Your mileage may vary.

The other game I have been excited about for a while is even more obscure than Alternity since it hasn’t been available in the West yet. I am talking of course about Sword World from Japan. The anime fans among you might have heard of “Record of Lodoss War”. The series is based on a light novel which itself is based on a “replay” of a AD&D campaign. A replay is pretty much an “Actual Play” but in text form.

Back in these days a group of Japanese gamers wanted to release their campaign as an official AD&D product but TSR didn’t grant them a license. So they decided to write their own game. The end result was Sword World. Since polyhedral dice were extremely rare in Japan – even rarer than in the US at the time – they chose to use a 2d6 system. But even with different mechanics it still feels a bit like a D&D heartbreaker. But I’d consider it to be one of the better ones. SW has classes like D&D but they work more like skillsets. In a sense multi-classing is the expectation in this game. The original Sword World has classic D&D classes and the world it is set in is the same as in Record of Lodoss War. But I am pretty sure you’d be able to run a Greyhawk game using these rules.

The new edition, Sword World 2.5, is quite different. While the core mechanics are pretty close, the AD&D connections are replaced by a JRPG influence. Where SW 1.0 had pretty much the standard D&D races, SW 2.5 offers options like Tabbits (anthropomorphized rabbits) and Lykants (think of werewolves). The new setting called Raxia is also more of a science-fantasy setting like in the Final Fantasy games.

We now have to adress the huge elephant in the room. There’s no official English translation of Sword World. In order to learn more about the game you have basically two choices (or three if you are more patient than me): First you can learn Japanese and import the books from Japan. Since Japanese is not very easy to learn this is probably not the preferred option even though importing the books is no big deal nor very expensive. I got the three core rulebooks from Amazon.co.jp and paid less than 40 € for everything including shipping. The original books remind me a lot of manga books and they are in a very cute A6 format. The second option is to rely on the fan-translated books you can find online for free. There’s a dedicated subreddit to the translation of Sword World where you can find links to all translated books. The third option is to wait for the official translation which has been announced a while ago. Mugen Gaming which is a small US publisher has gotten their hands on the SW license and will run a crowdfunding campaign on Backerkit in the near future. While I will definitively will back this project I already started reading the fan translations.

From what I’ve seen so far, Sword World might be a viable D&D alternative for me. The rules are pretty light-weight, it easily supports both classic Western fantasy (in the case of SW 1.0 easily so) and a more JRPG-influenced version of the genre. I like the 2d6 mechanics and the character creation which pretty much allows for a very wide range of character builds. It easily supports all the fantasy concepts I ever came up with and especially the ones which weren’t almost impossible to replicate in D&D. I also enjoy the whole Anime/Manga aesthetic and some if not most of the tropes the game and settings support like an Adventurer Guild which hands out jobs to the characters, magitech, ancient but lost civilizations and so on. One part of the appeal is probably the fact that’s a game not well known over here. Finding out more about SW and its settings feels a bit like being an explorer unearthing long lost secrets.

So even though I am still struggling a bit with GM burnout, the hobby itself still has a lot of appeal to me. I still love reading TTRPG books and there’s always the hope that I overcome my issues and get to bear the mantle of GM once more. What are your thoughts on both Alternity and Sword World? What are the games you’re excited about right now? Please share your thoughts below!

 To bring a character like Omni-Man into a superpowered RPG, you need to balance his overwhelming physical dominance with his role as a relentless, high-stakes antagonist or a complex, "nuclear-option" anti-hero.Here is a breakdown of his profile for a tabletop supplement:Character Profile: Omni-ManArchetype: The Paragon/ConquerorPower Source: Alien Physiology (Viltrumite)Role: World-Class Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

By G. Hawkins
Mythmere Games
OSRIC
Levels 9-12

At Grathen Rift, the Ice Lich Vathudnar built a great fortress-tomb, populating the frozen ice-halls with his servants before sending his spirit out into the planes and strange dimensions beyond the material world. Thus far, no adventurers have dared to assault this legendary fortress … until now.

Hawk & Finch? What’s next, Calithena and Sham? 

This 44 page adventure describes an ice fortress of eighty or so keyed entries that is full of cold-themed undead. And a lich. I hope you earned those twelve levels cause you’re gonna need all of your skill to get through this hack with your lives somewhat intact. Great map, a dangerous backdoor, and a soul gem only a lich mother could love. 

G1 was a hack. But it wasn’t a BORING hack. It had the sleeping guards, the battle royale, the lothario, the orc rebellion and general weirdness in the basement, not to mention the inside.outside vibes. It’s a hack but it did present other elements to bring life to the hack. And this is doing that in much the same way. No, it’s not G1, but for being a high level hack it’s doing a decent job.

The background crap here is short and focused. Just what you need. After a short “historical background section”” it ends with “To this day the snow barbarian tribes still pay homage to the spirit and malice of Vathudnar, invoking his name for strength and favour” That’s a fun thing to work in! And, then, the rumor table is combined with a kind of hook table of a couple of entries, all motivated to get the party interested. Something like “The bands of snow barbarians that still worship the dreadful Lich King Vathudnar are rumoured to be active again, raiding the warm lands to the south. Some say that Vathudnar the Ice Lich has returned and stirred up his ancient followers, while others say that this is all a lie, and the lich’s fortress is ripe for pillaging, his followers hunting wide in search of a band of raiders that defiled his tomb.” Again, this is both clearly focused on working in to your game (war, and rumors of war …” as well as providing some colour to help bring things alive. We’re not gimping the party too much, and what there is makes sense. None of this “he cast 327 wish spells” shit. The place is made up of ice so there are slime cold effects and “how to handle fire/magical fire” is covered (which, should almost be a requirement for VERY adventure, honestly, based on adventurers proclivity to use mans oldest ally.) 

The map here is a good one. Sufficiently large. Balconies, rifts and chasms, same level stairs and shafts. We get a few small water features and some nearby caverns that, ideally, a party could use to bypass the front door and maybe even shortcut to the lich lair. That way is not without its own dangers and annoyances (fucking fey …) but making friends and not mudering the little shits for their jokes can get you a decent way. I am absolutely THRILLED to see an adventure with a real map. 

As with the Great Hall in G1, there are a couple of set pieces in this. The front door, main hall, and lich sanctum hall are all multi-level battles with interesting elevation features and challenges to overcome to turn them in to more interesting battles, again, thanks to the map. 

There’s read-aloud, that’s kept to just a couple of sentences. It’s in second-person, with some “you’s” thrown in, but, it looks like some care has been taken and it is not generally railroady or prescriptive to how the party has entered, just a casual. It’s not common and is just the occasional “you can see …” type of phrase here and there. It’s walking the line well. It’s also pretty fact based, with entries like “Two dragon skeletons, encased in ice and snow, are entwined around each other, curling around the walls of this room. The ceiling is carved with a basrelief depicting a robed giant petting two dragons.” Pretty straight forward and committing no sins or over-revealing. It’s a spartan description, in terms of evocative writing, and I would prefer a word or two more of embellishment, but I also recognize that this is one of the harder parts of adventure writing and I’ll take a decent description like this adventure has over a more long-winded or poorer one. 

Formatting is good, with the occasional use of a bolded word or two to call the DMs attention to it followed by a sentence or two. It’s easy to scan at the table, and thus easy to locate the information you need in the moment. Creatures, secret doors, major features are all highlighted appropriately. 

There can be a decent amount of hacking in this. I hope you brought a cleric or three, the numbers are high. 11 HD undead giants are all over the place. But it’s not just a straight hack. There’s some nuance going on here. I want to call out a specific encounter earlier on that I think communicates the meat of the adventure. This is one of the longest read-alouds in the adventure “The interior of the building is frigidly cold. The high ceiling is covered in icicles, and drifts of snow collect at the base of the walls. In the centre of the chamber stands an altar of solid ice. Some dark substance stains the top and sides (dried blood). Behind the altar rises a frosted black obsidian idol of a regal skeletal figure with red gemstone eyeWs. Its hands clasp the sides of an old woman’s head, a living person whose emaciated body is held to the statue in encasing ice. Her pupilless eyes burn with a low blue light, but her gaze darts around blindly. A reeking stench flows out from a gaping pit at the back of the shrine. “ [That eyeWs type is a part of the adventure, not my usual carelessness. It’s the only type that stood out.] So, old crone encased mostly in ice with state hands clasping (great word choice!)  each side of her head. She’s an oracle, and, yes, if you stab her then she has a couple of powers. But this doesn’t HAVE to be a hack. But, also, in particular, did you catch the reeking stench? There’s a frozen pit behind her with a lot of frozen crones bodies in it, previous oracles. That’s a nice touch, great Verisimilitude. But, also, the reeking. Ghasts. Twenty of them. YOU WERE TOLD THERE WERE GHASTS. It’s reeking bodies that are frozen, what did you expect? There is absolutely nothing better than telling the party straight up what is going to happen, hinting to them, and watching them fumble it and realize in retrospect that it was obvious. THATS fucking good. A blood sacrifice on the altar gets you a free pass here, one of a couple of places that can happen. It doesn’t clarify if it’s a cut palm or a full on Death of a Living Being thin. I’d maybe lean to full on living sacrifice, or hint at it, and then let the party do a palm cut, etc, to get by. Great little set of rooms here, working together, and a high point of the adventure.

There’s another section that I really like also, near the lich lair, proper. A series of kind of trophy rooms or his vanquished foes. A skeleton with a gold crown beaten in to an collar around the neck. Yup, that’s the kind of shit that an evil lich conquerer does. And, then, a captured demon that MIGHT be helpful, although, it is a demon after all. Or the bodies of a half dozen vanquished giant foes, kept as trophies that whisper to you when you enter. They want revenge and a clever party can turn them to their side for help in the final battle. 

If I zoned this out I might mention the front door and palace/fortress sections, which is a fucking hack-a-thon, as one would expect a front door to be. And then the back door/passage that is dangerous in its own right and more similar to a classic exploratory dungeon section. And then the area near the sanctum, trophies, potential allies, and the like, with lots to ‘play with.’ 

On the down side, I wish the writing were just a bit more evocative. I understand there is some personal preference involved, and that this is one of the harder parts of writing. Just a little beefing up of this area would do wonders and still, I think, not interfere too much with personal preferences and the like. There’s also an area or two that is cumbersome. From the top of my head, there’s a set of stairs you have to go up, and you get shot at from the top. SOme notations on the map, or otherwise, to call this out would be helpful. Also, the lich will call in reinforcements from certain areas when his sanctum is breached. A play aid here would have been useful, to keep track of those areas specifically and who’s ‘alive.’ “Eight ghoul wolves from area 44.” Fuck! Are they still alive?! Did I take notes? Finally, I suspect this is not a single foray in to the fortress. A short paragraph about camping, returning, dangers, etc, ala G1, maybe mentioning a few complications also.

But, a decent high level adventure! Yeah! ‘Experienced players’ with experienced characters should prevail, but it’s going to be a real challenge. Which is exactly what you want in a high level adventure.

This is $10 at DriveThru. No preview. Boo! Boo! I wonder what the thinking was there? They should both know that a few encounters would go a long way. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/554810/fortress-tomb-of-the-ice-lich?1892600

I wonder what you have to do to become THE ice lich instead of just ‘an’ ice lich?

The AI-generated image I used to illustrate this post is pretty much the feeling I am in all the time. Since I started running games as a GM so many years ago, I always felt at least a bit overwhelmed. I always felt like I wasn’t really at the top of my game. But for the longest time things worked out quite well. My players had fun and didn’t even notice that I was panicking and improvising like a madman. Eventually I learned to really rely on my improvisational skills and preparing a session just minutes before meeting the players became like second nature. The feeling of being overwhelmed cropped up from time to time, but for most of the time running games for my players was fun for everyone at the table.

Unfortunately things didn’t stay the same. My roster of players regularly changed as people moved away or lost interest in the hobby. At the same time work got more and more into the way of my hobby. In most cases it’s a time issue. One just doesn’t have as much time as before to run, play, or prepare games. In my case it was different: I had major conflicts with superiors which led me down a dark path into depression.

Many years of therapy followed and eventually I emerged stronger and more confident than before. I took on new responsibilities at work, changed into a new position and ran for the staff council and was eventually elected deputy chair. Confidence in my skills and my work is better than ever and I am respected by coworkers and superiors.

BUT when it comes to gaming, my confidence issues are worse than ever. I feel totally overwhelmed all the time, even when trying to prepare something as simple as a one-shot. I have constant doubts that cause me to change my mind often. Sometimes I feel that I don’t even know what I want anymore. The only thing still burning bright inside of me is the wish to get back into the GM’s chair. It’s something I love(d) and which I am quite good at.

So what caused this? One reason is that I had a pretty serious falling out with a particular player who I considered a friend but who turned out to be quite toxic. Our relationship started to deteriorate when he began attacking my style of running games. He didn’t just discuss his criticisms with me after our gaming sessions but usually muttered things under his breath during the game or actively sabotaged the campaign by acting like the proverbial “that guy”. Unfortunately I tolerated this behaviour far too long and it let it affect my confidence as a GM. Probably because I still was struggling with depression and anxiety I fell into the trap of believing that it was to blame, my lack of skill as a GM was the cause of his behaviour. Instead of setting boundaries I became more vulnerable to the whims of my players. Usually I try to limit the players’ options to what I can handle. Back then I threw all of this out of the window and let them run wild. It ended in desaster. The campaign basically derailed as soon as it left the station.

The second problem I’ve been facing for years is that I own way too many cool TTRPGs and deciding what to play becomes increasingly hard. I would love to try out as many games I can, but that isn’t compatible with the interests of my RPG-playing friends and our schedules. At this point I am feeling like I am pretty much burned out as a GM. I am still playing in a Pathfinder and a Shadowrun game. But putting on the GM’s mantle is still something I’d love to do but I feel I can’t. My fear of messing things up is still pretty strong.

Why am I telling you all of this? There are a few reasons. Writing about these issues help me deal with them. I also hope that some day I get helpful advice I can use to get out of that hole I’ve dug myself into. Perhaps this post can also help others not to make the same mistakes or show them that they are not the only ones having these issues. I’ve also thought about how I could try to get back on my feet.

Planning and running a whole campaign is pretty much out of the question. I don’t want to set myself up for failure again. It’s probably best to stick to one-shot adventures with pre-generated characters. I might have to do some convincing to do with my regular players but this could help me get my feet wet again while also trying some of these fancy games which have been sitting on my shelf all these years.

I am also considering offering to run games online. Since it has been very hard to schedule meetings with my regular gaming group, perhaps looking for new people to play games with online sounds like a viable alternative. I am pretty hesitant though since I have mostly run games for people I know. The last time I introduced new players into one of my games things didn’t turn out that great.

Last but not least I could offer to run something for the groups I’ve been playing with. We’re still in the middle of the respective campaigns, but perhaps we could squeeze in a one-shot adventure when the regular GM or one of the players can’t make it to a session.

I don’t know if this approach might help me in any way, but I have to try. Roleplaying games are my favorite hobby and I am a pretty good GM (at least when I can get my depressive thoughts in check). At the moment I am reading both the fan-translation of Group SNE’s Sword World 2.5 TTRPG and TSR’s Alternity RPG. I haven’t run those before but I’d love to. As of time of this writing I haven’t really approached my gaming groups if they were interested in giving these games I try. What do you think? Does my approach make any sense at all or are you in danger of repeating the same mistakes I did before? Have you been in my shoes before? How did you deal with these issues? Please post your thoughts in the comments below. Any advice is highly appreciated.

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to the end of Crisis! This week, I read the comics on sale on April 25, 1985.

Tales of the Legion #325: Levitz/Newell and Jurgens/Kesel deliver what feels a bit like a cable TV season finale in that things with the Dark Circle reach a fairly abrupt (but pat) conclusion. The Legionnaires storm their base and discover that the Dark Circle leaders have cloned themselves (also that Ontarr is one of them). The leaders seem to commit mass suicide, killing their clones as well. Afterward, Gigi and Dev-Em get flirty, and White Witch and Blok fall asleep together watching future-TV.
Then we have a coda where Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl explain that Tales is going all reprint form this point on, so this will likely be the last I talk about it here. It feels like they left some plot threads dangling (with the Dark Circle and the stuff with Dawnstar and her new love) that just sort of get dropped.

Action Comics #568: In the first story by Yee/Kupperberg and Norvick/Rodriguez, a bullied schoolgirl is a conduit for a demon ("Ravenjh") to attack her classmates. When Superman gets involved, the demon briefly possesses Lois, leading in the aftermath, to the two of them having a discussion of why their relationship failed.
The second story by Wolff and Bender/Marcos gets the cover and is more humorous. An alien filmmaker comes to Earth and asks for Superman's help in choosing an actor to portray him in a movie. It seems that all humanoids look alike to the alien, which is proven by their choice of a rather un-super would-be actor to portray the Man of Steel.

Ambush Bug #2: Giffen, Fleming, and Oksner keep up the funny this issue. We're first introduced by Jonni DC, keeper of continuity of the DC Universe, a topical character given what's going on over in Crisis. Most of the issue though, deals with Ambush Bug dealing with the threat of Quantis, once a scientist working on a cuteness formula, now a giant, man-koala. Jonni DC's powers prove insufficient to deal with the menace, so it's up to Ambush Bug to save the day with an antidote.

Arion Lord of Atlantis #33: Kupperberg and Duursema/Mandrake conclude "The Magic Odyssey." Jhy and Jheryl work to free Arion from his mother, Majistra. They enlist the aid of the entity known as the Weaver, who ultimately restores Arion's magical powers, so the sorcerer can battle his mother, himself. Meanwhile, Chian discovers Tokomata's treachery and gets into a fight with him. He's caught in the blast of the evil released with Majistra's defeat and injured, then Chian finishes him off. 
Arion returns, to the physical world and is reunited with Chian who is really sorry (again) about being duped by somebody who wanted to kill him. Arion uses his power to restore Wyynde to normal. Next, they're headed to Atlantis and a new arc.

All-Star Squadron #47: McFarlane provides the pencils for most of this issue retelling the origin of Dr. Fate and his first encounter with Wotan. McFarlane's stylization is already starting to be evident, but his work here still has an amateurish look. After Fate finishes, the Squadron gets word that Winston Churchill requests their presence in Britain.

Detective Comics #552: An assassin named Cutter is offering his services to the Gotham Underworld to get rid of Batman. Our hero here's about this and fakes his death to catch both the assassin and mob bosses off guard. It's a clever story, though Moench parallels it with Julia Pennyworth's first published story about a historic tree being cut down in the name of progress, which doesn't really add much.
Cavalieri and Moore/Patterson continue the "Green Arrow versus Immigration Enforcement" story. After arguing with the official running the detention facility, Ollie is thrown in detention himself. Dinah Lance helps him break out of detention, along with two Salvadoran refugees. They head for the next stop on the "underground railroad" and leave the refugees there. Apparently, that's that, and the government just let's Ollie get away with it! A night later, Green Arrow makes his way back to Oliver Queen's apartment, unaware that Onyx is watching him.

World's Finest Comics #317: Cavalieri's and Stroman/Aiken/Garvey finish up the Cheapjack story. Batman's cover is blown, and he takes a beating from Cheapjack's thugs, but he rallies as Superman arrives. Cheapjack has built a giant machine that is part shack, part construction equipment, and he threatens to kill Massimo's daughter in its back-hoe claw grasp, but the heroes use smarts to save her, and Cheapjack is defeat, then consigned to the comics limbo he deserves.

Here we are again, with my renewed effort to get a blog going ... This third essay is about how AI will impact publishing in general and what we can do about that. Even got a comment and all that good stuff!

Gotta say, I'm happy with what Substack does. And I was surprised (just a little) to find so many familiar faces posting there. It seems to be a somewhat closed ecosystem, but that isn't a bad thing per se, as it allows bundling some different aspects of blogging that don't go together easily in other places. So far it's the closest to what g+ had been, imho. The UI is a bit fickle, but nothing that can't be handled.

This newest essay is also free, and you'll find a link to it just below the picture:

Find it here!

Needless to say, I'd be happy to have you over there, reading what I wrote. Maybe following. Maybe even subscribing. Would mean the world to me.

I'll keep posting the free stuff here for some more time. Subscribers will soon find some more (also free) essays on the site as that's a thing we do. Paying subscribers will find even more content, once that's a thing. Either way, I'm putting in the work AND some more Notes on a regular basis.

 

 

 The Codex Exaltum is a sourcebook for the Castles & Crusades tabletop RPG (published by Troll Lord Games) that bridges the gap between mortal adventuring and divine or cosmic play. It is designed for players and Castle Keepers who want to explore high-level campaigns involving demigods, celestial beings, and planar travel.Here is a breakdown of what the Codex provides:1. Ascension and Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

After looking at two artists I discovered in the early 90s—between what I had termed the Early-Years and the Middle-Years—let’s travel back to the Proto-History. Let’s look at the art that inspired me before 1986, long before I even considered myself a gamer.

I discovered some of this art through a large coffee-table book my mother bought for me:

National Geographic Picture Atlas of Our Universe

Published in 1980, the book was honestly too long for me to read on my own. My mom and uncle read it to me, and I managed some of the smaller captions myself, but my English was limited back then. The illustrations, however, completely captured my imagination. Throughout the early 80s, I kept returning to that book, reading more of it as I got older.

There was a “What if?” section early on about what life on other planets might look like. I absolutely loved this part. I had no idea the art was by Michael Whelan until I started writing this post!

Each celestial body also featured an illustration of the mythological figure that gave it its name, also painted by Michael Whelan. I was completely unaware of how much his art influenced me so early on!

(You can borrow the book on the Internet Archive at this link: https://archive.org/details/nationalgeograph00gall)

Another large book in that same style was:

The Dawn of Man

Published in 1978, this one belonged to my uncle, and I would peruse it every single time I visited him. He eventually gifted it to me, and I kept it for years.

The art by Zdeněk Burian, a Czech illustrator and palaeoartist, fascinated me. I asked so many questions about evolution and the origins of humanity just by looking at those pages that I know my mom had to scramble to explain it all to me in terms my younger self could understand.

To this day, when I picture early humans and lost worlds in my TTRPG campaigns, these are the exact images I conjure up.

(You can see the book online here: https://archive.org/details/dawnofman00wolf/mode/2up)

I mentioned this next comic series in my post on comic books that inspired my worldbuilding, so I won’t rehash what I said there, but it is definitely worth mentioning that the art style inspired me greatly:

The Gods from Outer Space

Polish artist Bogusław Polch illustrated this. I found the art I originally shared in that post over on the We Are The Mutants site, which includes some great details about how the books were published in Britain: https://wearethemutants.com/2020/04/30/ancient-astronaut-comics-the-gods-from-outer-space-1978-1982/

Fantasy calendars were also a huge thing for me! I would frequently get one as a Christmas gift. Often, they were Tolkien-themed, even before I had read the books. But none were quite as influential as this one:

The Brothers Hildebrandt 1982 Atlantis calendar.

I’ve mentioned this wall calendar in posts throughout the year. Yes, it was genuinely that influential.

Here’s a video of one of the artists talking about the project, and another featuring some of the art from it:

Another calendar I vividly remember was this one:

Boris Vallejo’s 1983 Calendar

I remember this one distinctly, even though it wasn’t the only Vallejo wall calendar I got. The Atlantis calendar told a cohesive story through its art, so I remember the narrative more vividly, but this Boris calendar might have been the first time I ever read the name “Red Sonja” or saw “Doc Savage.”

Of course, Vallejo’s art was also prominent on the covers of the movies I rented at the local video club, even if I didn’t make the connection at the time.

Another influence I have mentioned often in many posts is perhaps my favorite fantasy movie:

Fire and Ice

I believe this was my true introduction to Frank Frazetta. I later explored his other work—his Conan, John Carter, and especially Death Dealer were awe-inspiring—but I first discovered his art right here in this movie. Outside of the original Star Wars trilogy, Fire and Ice might be the film I’ve rewatched the most in my life.

There were also some video game tie-in comics whose artists deeply impacted young me:

Yar’s Revenge

When I got the game cartridge for Yar’s Revenge, it came with a mini-comic that told the background story of the game. According to the internet, Atari’s in-house creative team of Frank Cirocco, Ray Garst, and Hiro Kimura created the art.

(You can read the comic here: https://atariage.com/comics/comic_thumbs.php?MagazineID=48)

Swordquest

I got the Swordquest: Fireworld Atari cartridge. I honestly don’t remember playing it much, but I do remember the included fantasy comic and how George Perez’s art completely blew my mind. I returned to that comic many times, long before I even knew what D&D was. I only ended up reading parts 1 and 3 years later via the links I’m sharing below.

• Swordquest Earthworld: https://atariage.com/comics/comic_thumbs.php?MagazineID=45
• Swordquest Fireworld: https://atariage.com/comics/comic_thumbs.php?MagazineID=46
• Swordquest Waterworld (no connection to Kevin Costner!): https://atariage.com/comics/comic_thumbs.php?MagazineID=47

And the final entry on this list of artists that inspired me before I played TTRPGs is cheating, because it’s actually a book featuring the work of multiple artists:

Aliens in Space

This was written by Stewart Cowley under the pseudonym Steven Caldwell, with art from various contributors. All the art seems to be reused from other sources, but despite the disparate styles, Cowley’s writing really ties it all together. (You can see the full list of artists if you follow this link.)

I borrowed this book from the school library, and along with the Terran Trade Authority Great Space Battles book, it fundamentally shaped how I conceived sci-fi beyond just Star Wars or Star Trek.

Now I want to ask you, dear reader, what art inspired you before you became a gamer?

 Bringing the She-Devil with a Sword into a Sword of Cepheus (2nd Edition) game requires balancing her legendary prowess with the grounded, often lethal mechanics of the 2D6 system.In Sword of Cepheus, a character like Red Sonja functions as a high-tier Heroic NPC or a veteran Player Character with significant career terms in Barbarian and Mercenary.Red SonjaDescription: A fierce Hyrkanian Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

About two and a half years ago, I bought a pair of shoes for work. I usually maintain three pairs of shoes - a pair of sneakers for weekends, a pair of black dress shoes for whenever I have to dress of up, and these - my go-to work shoes that I used to wear almost every day. In September of 2024, I realized that these shoes were starting to wear down - they were about a year old at that point, and they were starting to fade. However, I decided that I could probably get to Christmas with them, so I waited on replacing them.
Then I got sick. A doctor gave me a letter that said I had six to twelve months to live. My priorities shifted. I had to 'get my affairs in order'. I had debts to resolve. Bank accounts to organize. A will to revise.
I looked at these shoes and decided that they were sufficient. They would see me through to the end.
I no longer needed these shoes for work. I was 'permanently disabled'. I still pulled these shoes out from time to time. I wore them to the doctor's office when he told Mary and me that the many rounds of chemotherapy and immunotherapy had not helped; my tumors continued to grow. He explained that he had 'nothing more he could do', but suggested we consider a 'second opinion'. 
I wore the shoes again when we drove to Pittsburgh. To our surprise, the doctors had a plan. Lutathera; a nuclear treatment designed for pancreatic cancer, but which may also attack my tumors since they shared many characteristics.
Four trips to Pittsburgh. Four treatments. Eight months. Same shoes. Because why get new ones, right?
But, because of God's grace and mercy, the treatments have worked. My small tumors have been destroyed. Larger tumors made smaller. 
I decided I felt healthy enough to substitute teach a few days a week. I looked at the shoes and decided they'd get me through that. They could substitute teach one or two days a week. I was still 'permanently disabled', right?
But my most recent visit was the most optimistic. Out of my team of doctors, my local oncologist was the most positive. He was effusive in his hope for my future. We have options - either more treatments of Lutathera to destroy the tumors further, or other treatments that are likely to prevent further growth and stablize tumors where they are. I will have cancer for the rest of my life. I don't know what that is, but it's no longer 6-12 months. My affairs are in order as much as they need to be. I don't feel permanently disabled.
This morning, I saw a listing for my dream job. If you could write up a perfect role for me, this is it. It would allow me to leverage everything - my education, my passions, my experiences, my hobbies. All of it comes together in this one job. 
I sent in a cover letter and my resume.
I think it's time to buy a new pair of shoes. I'm going to need them.

By Operant Game Lab
Self Published
OSR
Levels 1-2

Decades ago, there were two adventuring bros—Thom the Mighty and Oolnor the Weird. After much questing and looting and war against the hated bone men of the North, they carved for themselves a dungeon fortress one day’s march from the nearest village. Here, in this righteous bro cave (RBC), they stationed their henchmen, stashed their gold, and hosted epic parties. But there has been no trace of Thom or Oolnor for ten years now. A brave few have trespassed into their RBC, lusting for the riches that no doubt reside there. None have returned, for no force could be mightier than Thom and Oolnor’s eternal, bloodthirsty friendship. 

This ten page adventure describes about 32 rooms in a “double adventurer” lair much akin, and a homage, to B1. It’s trying hard, and has some decent formatting and a writing style that is, in form if not function, almost consistently great. And, also, it comes off a bit staid and disconnected from itself. You getting close there, Operant Game Lab.

The set up here is much the same as B1, on purpose. Two adventuring buddies build a fortress to live together and then they disappear for over ten years now. Inside you’ll find some things harkening back to B, like pools, as well as some mushroom men wandering around, “the bone men”, a tribe of barbarians trying to retrieve the bones of their ancestors that were stolen by the dynamic due, and  some leftover orc servants trying to fend off the bone men incursion. 

I talk sometimes about good writing and great writing and how there is a way of writing in which more is implied than the written word. If I can write three words and it makes you think of some kind of misty forest glen, coming alive in your minds eye, then I’ve done a good job. But if you can build the rest of the forest from that then I’ve done an even better job. A good room description may bring a room to life and an even better one brings the SITUATION to life, or the NPC, or so on. And, one hopes, it is tersely written, helping us scan the page and run the game at the table, the whole idea being using words to their maximum effectiveness, implying more than the words themselves describe. At one point in this adventure you come across some orc officers, planning to repel the bone-men barbarians. They will talk, but want to make sure you are “orc tough” and “they are willing to generously split the resulting bone-men meat 50-50.” This is very good writing. You know EXACT:LY the tone that the designer is going for with this encounter. From this you, as the DM, know how to run this encounter perfectly. You can ad-lib and fill in the gaps of the encounter, and, because of this, can turn it in to something quite memorable for the party, something they will recall in stories for sessions to come. More than just imaging the environment of the room, it has communicated tone and a situation. And that is the very highest form of evocative writing. That certain wryness comes through in other places in this adventure as well, so while not consistently hitting, it’s not an accident either. One of the wandering encounters, on a roll of 00,  has the two adventurers, “Thom and Oolnor, returning home at long last” with their seven giant golden idols. Well there’s a sticky wicket to toss in!

The writing here tends to be terse, but not overly so. Formatting and layout is done paragraph style, with a a few short intro sentences and a word or two bolded and then followed up in their own paragraphs, with rooms given names next to their key numbers in order to help frame the text for the DM. This is all great, easy to scan at the table while running. 

Encounters can be, in places, well done. Outside the entrance we get a couple of sentences that ends with “Every few minutes, a gust of wind blows away the humidity and mosquitos.” More than just padding and setting the scene, if you listen to the wind you you catch the faint sounds of a flute, following it leads you to where the bone-men have made their encampment and their lon guard killing time playing his flute. This, obviously, helps the party, giving them clues as to whats to come. Depth, following up on what the DM has related to the party leads to more information and revelations. And that’s what you want in a room description. 

In another spot, the treasure room, we get “Piles of Gold. On the scale of Scrooge McDuck, one could swim through these stacks of silver and gold coins. All told, there are 2,834 silver pieces and 198 gold pieces (many of them stained with the old blood of their previous owners)” On the Scale of Scrooge McDuck, this gives us an immediately visual image to work from as a DM. (As an aside, is that many coins really a hoard ala Smaug the Golden/Scrooge McDuck? The imagery works well but I’ve not sure I’ve ever seen an adventure in which the actual coinage lives us to that imagery. Or maybe I just don’t know what 2800 coins looks like in real life?) Other wry things include a room with an effigy of a woman in it, a crude statue built. “Parading the false wife around in “civilized” settlements confers a -1 ongoing penalty due to its creepiness.” That’s solid. The use of parading, civilized in quotes, creepiness. Great use of descriptive words to help nail the vibe.

There are some decent vignettes in this. Bone-men stacking up chairs and climbing on each other to get to their ancestors bones hanging from the ceiling in the great hall. A wounded bone-man, with his buddies keeping watch, that drank from a pool and hulked out and got wounded badly. In spite of this though I’m not going to even Regerts this. It’s close, but there are a few things that keep me from that. The entire thing feels, sparse? Staid? Disconnected from itself? Static? Maybe static. It’s not that there’s a lot of empty rooms, that can be cool in a dungeoncrawl. But it just doesn’t feel like a unified whole. There are little linkages, the bone-men through, the orc sector, the previously mentioned wounded bone-man from the pool. Certainly no order of battle though, or anything overly dynamic in the environment. It doesn’t feel like a place that is alive. The overall vibe of the place just doesn’t come through well. I wish I could put my finger on it. It doesn’t feel like a bone-man incursion to a place and the orc servants repelling them and the mushroom men adding trouble in a place that is already a little weird, being an adventurer home. Certainly all of those elements are present but they don’t feel like they are working together to create a unified whole. I’m thinking of this in terms of, say, the first level of Stonehell. Stonehell level one, or even the outside, feels like an empty dungeon but the overall emptiness, exploration, and creatures there make it, all together, feel like a certain place with a certain something going on. 

I’m certainly not angry about this. Most adventures are piss-poor wastes of paper and this is not that. The overall environment just doesn’t get me excited to run this. I think it’s close, though, to being something worthwhile. 

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $2. The preview is ten pages, essentially the entire thing. Great preview. I’d check out, maybe room 3, 12, and 25 for an example of some of the better rooms. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/561741/righteous-bro-cave?1892600