The rogues gallery is as one would expect – lists of pre-generated characters but with lots of flavor, including unique head gear. The adventuring parties are a nice touch, useful for wandering encounters. Although some of the adventuring parties are of higher level, all of the pre-generated characters are 1st level. There are over 100 characters representing all of the LL AEC classes, as well as multi-classes, and 12 adventuring parties. It really is a great resource.
“Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts” (MTDP) is a rules supplement published in 2013 by Dyson Logos. It was ostensibly written for Labyrinth Lord (LL), but of course works with pretty much any old-school game in the vein of B/X, OSE, or White Box with no or minor adjustments. It contains a host of spellcasting classes, some new and some re-worked traditional classes, as well as new spells, monsters and magic items.
Some of the classes we’ve seen before on Dyson’s blog, like the Elven Warder, others appear to have never been seen before this book was published. There are 11 additional classes detailed, among them the Enchanter, Fleshcrafter, Necromancer, Inquisitor and Unseen.
Some were totally unique at the time, like the Pact-Bound, a class that derives its power from a powerful evil and suffers consequences as a result. Others are more like combination classes, like the Theurge, a Magic-User/Cleric hybrid. All have their own spell lists, with some totally new spells and some existing ones taken from the LL rules. Some classes now have spells to level 10.
Here is the full list:
Cleric
Wizard
Elven Swordmage
Elven Warder
Enchanter
Fleshcrafter
Healer
Inquisitor
Merchant Prince
Necromancer
Pact-Bound
Theurge
Unseen
Following the new classes, the spells are detailed in full for every class (but in alphabetical order, a much more useful ordering for when you need to lookup a spell quickly), followed by a chapter of new magic items.
There are quite a few new magic items of all types, including potions, rings, staves, wands and miscellaneous. There is a new type of miscellaneous magic item, the charm, which provides some small magical effect, or combat or save bonus depending on the type. There are about 16 of those, then finally a section on ‘Mitral Spheres’, similar to Ioun stones but not as powerful.
The next chapter details new types of elementals and a monster referred to in the spells section, the Flesh Beast. Lastly, there is a final chapter on how to use MTDP with the Advanced Edition Companion (free no-art version). All told, this is a wonderful resource for your LL/BX/OSE campaigns. It’s very easy to pick and choose classes and options you want to use, and anything you don’t use is at least good fodder for your imagination. There is no art to speak of – this is purely a utilitarian work. I don’t have an issue with this, but I know this is purely subjective. My only gripe is with the chapter sub-heading fonts, which are strangely unreadable until you get used to them.
The book is still available on DTRPG and in print on Lulu.
Oubliette was a zine edited and published by Peter Regan from 2010- 2012 (with a stray issue published in 2015). Nine issues were published in total, all available in print or PDF from DTRPG or the editor’s blog (as of this writing, a discounted PDF bundle of the first eight issues of Oubliette is available). Oubliette is dedicated to Labyrinth Lord, but of course will be useful to any B/X-type games. There were two compendiums published, each with four issues – my own hard copies are the compendiums.
It had a huge array of content, from adventures and new monsters to fiction and reviews. The art by The Marg is unique and has a great amateur feel. As a whole, it is wonderfully creative. Just skimming the issues will give the game master lots of ideas they can use in their games, for example the Newland campaign setting in issue 6, or the wandering monster tables in issues 6-8.
There are quite a few articles on house rules, including firearms, variations on the vampire, new classes and Magic-User familiar rules. At $2 a copy, you could do worse than to spend $18 on the lot of nine issues.
I’d say that time period from 2009 until about 2013 was the height of the OSR forum/blog and there were many ideas and homebrew projects being published and discussed. It’s not a stretch to say that Oubliette fed off of that creative energy of the time. In the editorial to issue #8, Regan says he has planned four more issues – I guess only one crystallized, but I’d love to see more. In that same editorial, he says:
Most importantly, I want to continue publishing a magazine that, when I pick it up and look at it in 20 years, gives me the same rush of nostalgia that I get now from my old gaming books and magazines from the 1980’s.
Maybe it’s only 10 years, but I’d say he succeeded.
“Small but Mighty” is how I would describe The Phoenix Barony, a fantasy adventure setting by David Bezio, the creator of X-Plorers and Shotguns & Saddles. It was originally written way back at the dawn of the OSR, in 2007 for Labyrinth Lord, and updated in 2015 with a 2nd edition for Swords & Wizardry White Box. I have the latter edition (and if anyone knows how to get a hold of the first edition, now out-of-print, the collector’s urge in me would be grateful!).
It’s only 25 pages in length, but gives just enough detail on the 80-square mile Phoenix Barony to spark the referee’s imagination and run a campaign, including a larger area map, as well as two maps and a key for the town of Tathor, meant to be used as a base for adventures.
It starts with a brief overview of the Barony, including important organizations and religions, and continues with a gazetteer which details the main settlements and NPCs. Finally the small town of Tathor is detailed, along with a dozen or so adventure hooks.
The author adds flavor by winding a short story about an adventuring party throughout the text, a paragraph at a time. The art is Bezio’s own, not stock; it is plentiful and well done. All-in-all this is a great product if you need an adventuring locale to get a campaign started. While ostensibly written for S&W White Box, there is enough generic setting material here to work for any old-school fantasy RPG. The Phoenix Barony is currently free at DTRPG (along with all of Bezio’s other products!), so there is no reason not to grab it.
Here are the classes and races detailed in White Box Heroes:
Thief
Paladin
Assassin
Monk
Druid
Ranger
Bard
Illusionist
Northern Godi
Jester
Tunnel-fighter
Summoner
Gnomes
Half-orcs
Everything is of course d6-based and the base hit bonus (BHB) is noted in all of the class advancement tables, as it was in the 1st printing of Swords & Wizardry White Box. The standard classes offer no surprises – everything there is pretty well-known, still it’s nice to have these options available for players that want them. There are a few spots where house-rule options are given, which is very much in the style of the White Box rules. Examples of this are the Halfling Thief-variant class (a Fighter/Thief Halfling), and the expanded foe list for Rangers.
The classes listed as original (Tunnel Fighter and Summoner) are quite interesting. A Tunnel Fighter is a Dwarf who “specializes in combat within the tight confines of the tunnels, caverns, and dungeons”. The Summoner is, as you can guess, a magic-user who specializes in summoning demons and other monsters. The Northern Godi is not marked as an original class, but I have never seen it elsewhere. It is a Norse-themed sub-class of cleric that trades undead turning ability for runic magic.
In the summer of 2016, Charlie Mason decided to give WB a fresh coat of paint. To those of us who played WB from its inception, it was much-needed after the game had been left “to the fans” by Matt Finch, the creator of Swords & Wizardry.
What were the issues that led Charlie to create a new version? Basically, the 3rd and final official printing had layout issues, uncorrected errata and gaps in the rules. Charlie took the text of that edition, added new art, new layout, a few new rules sections, and corrected the errors. For example, the turn undead table was fixed so that the hit dice match the monster descriptions. A few new monsters were added. He also added my aforementioned adventuring rules, new jousting rules, overland travel rates, wandering monster tables, and a simplified thief class. You can see some of the history and motivations in a forum thread from August of 2016, and also at Charlie’s blog. Since then a second edition has come out with an even nicer layout, and there are a few choices of cover art.
The cover art is amazing, with pieces by Eric Lofgren, Stefan Poag, and Michael Clarke. The interior art is stock art from William McAusland, which as much as it might be overused in the small publisher OSR market, it seems to fit WB:FMAG perfectly. The character sheet is by James V. West. All this is free in PDF and POD copies are sold at cost on Lulu or Amazon, making it one of the more affordable OSR games to play.
To me, the original WB was a game suitable for experienced referees or lapsed old-school gamers who wanted something simple and fun to play. It fit this mold nicely. WB:FMAG continues this tradition, but with the added bits and fixes, it is now much more suitable for those with minimal experience. It is more of a complete game.
So what is missing? Not much, but I’d love to see the adventure design and campaign sections expanded by a few pages, with a short introductory dungeon akin to the Tower of Zenopus in Holmes basic – not overly detailed, but with a few tips given as sidebars. This would be a great way for inexperienced game masters to get started, and would serve as a primer for the imagination. I’d also include Matt Finch’s ‘A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming’ as an appendix, the French version of WB does this and I think it’s a great idea. I would also bring back the sample play session that is in the original rules, augmented a bit to show some more examples of referee rulings during play. In total this might add another 10 pages, and would really make the game usable as an “OSR starter set”.
This book fills a much-needed gap in the OSR, namely, how do you deal with someone who has no experience playing or running tabletop RPGs? Many rule books contain the usual sections on funny-looking dice, or what an ability score is, while some provide a sample adventure and give tips on game mastering. In my experience they all fall short, assuming far too much from a total novice.
The book starts with a quite detailed but conversational example of character creation and play, then moves into playing advice, then onto running and creating adventures (including stocking a sample dungeon) and finally game master (GM) advice. The final chapter details how to convert common stats (armor class, movement, etc) between BFRPG and the other major retro-clones – Swords & Wizardry, OSRIC, and Labyrinth Lord. It’s about 60 pages long and is chock full of details that a more experienced player or GM might assume and leave out. Chris takes nothing for granted. The sample dungeon key with Chris’ advice and commentary with each room description will be hugely useful for the newcomer. As an experienced GM, I enjoy reading about how other GMs create things – I’m really searching for ideas for my own games. Indeed I found it interesting to see how Chris’ creative process works. Here is an example of what I’m talking about:
Turning the page, I roll on the “Any” column of the first table. My roll is 97, which indicates a Miscellaneous Magic item. Rolling one more time on the table on page 134, I get a 29. The magic item indicated is a Brazier Commanding Fire Elementals.
Okay, wow. That’s actually a very powerful magic item, probably far too powerful for first level characters. If I was dealing with a group of experienced players, I might just go ahead and use that item, just to see what they do. But this is an adventure for beginners… no, I’m not doing that. I roll again, getting 16 this time.
In short, this is a great resource for the neophyte player or GM, and will even hold the interest of more experienced players or GMs. This book and a print copy of the BFRPG core rules would make a great present for your kids once they start to show interest in RPGs. The PDF (also at DTRPG)and print copies can be found on Lulu.com.
Pits & Perils (P&P) is an old-school fantasy RPG created by James and Robyn George that is quite unlike most other OSR games. It is designed to be simple, modeled after the earliest D&D incarnations of the 1970s, but with many unique elements and rules. I’ve played in or ran a few P&P games over the past year or so, it is fun and quite a pleasure to be on either end of things. There is a basic setting and a few adventures available, along with two rules supplements that add more classes, spells, monsters, mechanics and magic items.
For referees, P&P really hits the sweet spot of minimal prep time and simple mechanics. The supplements are presented such that referees can pick and choose what extras they would like to add to their games. The basic game mechanics use six-sided dice only (with optional rules for d20-based combat in one of the supplements), the general rule is 9+ to-hit and 7+ to save or apply an ability or skill, on two dice.
As a player, you won’t waste much time creating a character, the whole process takes about five minutes. Choose or roll an ability, choose your class and side (alignment), roll for gold, outfit your PC, record a few stats (hits, armor bonus, spell or faith points) and you’re done. There are the usual six abilities, but no ability scores – your PC starts with only one ability that can determine what class and types of skills she can attempt. So, for example if you rolled strength as an ability, you might choose to be a fighter, however any PC with strength could attempt to, say, bend bars. Index cards are the perfect size for P&P character sheets, although I like to use a Pits & Perils character sheet I created in Google docs for hangout games – I can share it with the other players or the referee allowing us all to edit it as needed. Encumbrance is very simple, you can carry armor, shield and 10 items, plus 1,000gp. That’s it. No tracking of weight, and a PCs movement rate is just based on what kind of armor they have. P&P uses a race-as-class system, the race/classes you would expect are there – Clerics, Magicians, Fighters, Thieves, Elves and Dwarves.
Clerics, Elves and Magicians can cast spells by expending spell or faith points. Unlike other OSR games there are no spell levels, any magician can cast any spell from the entire list of spells by expending a spell point. However, certain spells have a greater duration or affect as the PC advances in level. The spell list is quite clever, each spell is described by one four-letter word, like ‘stun’, ‘bolt’, ‘heal’ or ‘ruin’, with a paragraph on each describing how they work.
The monster list (monsters are called ‘enemies’) is full of the standbys you would expect as well as some unique creatures, with the usual terse descriptions. There are around 90 listed in the core rules, with many more between the two supplements. A decent selection of treasures and magic items are likewise spelled out briefly. The core book and two supplements are filled with woodcut illustrations and 1970s-like prose that accentuate the already unique feel of the game. It all has a neat, fairy-tale type of feel.
So how does it play? Combat is very fast, and not as deadly for first-level characters compared to OD&D or other games of that era. As an example, fighters start with 10 hits at first level, and armor adds to a PCs hits. For example, a fighter in chain mail has 10+2 or 12 hits total. Against that, most enemies do one hit of damage on a roll of 9-11, two on a roll of 12. So players don’t have to worry about their first-level PC getting killed by a single blow from an Orc. Combat has a tactical feel, with hit bonuses given for flanking or outnumbering, and all two-handed weapons (including bows and slings) gaining +1 to damage. On the other hand, most enemies have 1-3 hits per level, so an Orc, which is a level one creature, just might be killed by a single lucky blow, more likely two – but still, this gives P&P a more heroic feel, at least at low levels. Which brings me to my only criticism of the game, that there is not much of a power curve for fighter or thief PCs as they advance in levels. Spell casters become quite powerful as they accumulate spell or faith points, but apart from getting more hits at each level gain, fighters and thieves stay pretty power-neutral until they hit 9th level. At that point, fighters get two attacks per round and thieves finally do double-damage on backstabbing attacks. But this is minor and overall, P&P is an excellent game that I highly recommend. Pits & Perils (along with some starter bundles and the other adventures and supplements) is available on DTRPG and in print at Lulu.
I ran what turned out to be a fun gaming session this past weekend. I wanted to do something a bit different, so I dug through my stock of read-but-never-played games and settled on Shotguns-n-Saddles, a creation of David Bezio (also the original creator of X-plorers).
The rulebook is only about 60 pages of actual rules, including stat blocks for famous western villains/heroes and an intro adventure (which I ran), so it only took me a couple of hours to prepare. In the adventure, the PCs find themselves in the middle of a potentially deadly ranch land dispute in southern Texas. The rules encourage players and GMs to have fun with all the Old West tropes seen in TV and movies, and this we did. I ended up running it solo for one player, so I had to tone down the encounters and NPCs a bit, but this wasn’t all that difficult. We left the session at a cliffhanger for next time, the PC hiding in a corn field from a band of Mexican rancheros who were hunting for him after he shot and killed one of them.
I wouldn’t say the game is based on any existing games (it’s not OGL), but it will be quite familiar to anyone who has played old-school D&D. Much of the game centers around attribute checks – there are 12 attributes rolled 3d6 each, but only the bonus or penalty is recorded. A check means getting greater than or equal to a target number on a d20, adding the player’s level and relevant attribute to the roll (similar to Scarlet Heroes). Each PC picks or rolls for a background, which can give attribute bonuses, and starting PCs get one special ability. More can be had by leveling up. There are special rules for dynamite use and shootouts. All-in-all, Shotguns-n-Saddles is a fun, simple game. There is a supplement available (called Spirits-n-Spurs) that adds some supernatural elements to the game, and there are a couple of separate adventures available in PDF. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a change of genre.
One of the lesser-known and older (2008) old-school clone variants is the Labyrinth Lord Original Edition Characters (OEC). It is available in a 64-page PDF as a free no-art version or a version with art, and in print. It’s stated purpose is to be an alternate player’s guide for Labyrinth Lord (LL) to give an Original D&D (OD&D) style of play, at least as far as character options. I think it succeeds admirably at this goal, however it should not be construed as a full-fledged OD&D clone, like one would consider Delving Deeper to be.
Most of the changes with respect to core LL revolve around the class tables. Demi-human race-classes are gone, instead we have the original three classes of Fighting Men (FM), Clerics and Magic Users (MU), along with the separate races of Halfling, Elf and Dwarf, each as in OD&D – limited to FM or, in the case of Elves, a FM/MU multi-class (I don’t consider limiting, say, Halflings to only FM as ‘race-as-class’). The racial level limits are present, as is the Cleric’s lack of a spell at first level. Here are a few other things that make this more like OD&D than LL:
Spells are capped at level 6
Plate armor costs 55gp
Ability score bonuses or penalties are limited to +/- 1, or non-existent (no strength bonuses apart from experience adjustment for FM)
No thief class
I should say, with most of these, more like the original three OD&D booklets. This will be important in a minute. On the other hand, there are a few things not like OD&D:
Fighting Men can’t attack normal, man-type creatures more than once per round
Hit dice are not limited to d6 only, but d6 or d8
Variable weapon damage is listed as an option, as in core LL
Some racial abilities are missing or different (e.g. no deadly accuracy with missiles)
Level charts go to level 20
Monsters with multiple attacks and d8 hit dice (by virtue of the fact that core LL monsters are used)
Magic missile is a MU spell
I should say, in the case of most of these, not like the original three OD&D booklets. If you include the first OD&D supplement, Greyhawk, you see now that OD&D contains variable hit dice, variable weapon damage, monsters with multiple attacks, a magic missile spell and level charts up to at least level 20. But that supplement also includes spells to level 9, and much larger ability score bonuses. This last point in particular is important – I mentioned in a previous post that I had played LL OEC before, and found it quite deadly. I think this was a combination of monsters with normal (for LL) d8 hit dice, sometimes multiple d8-damage attacks, and lower ability score bonuses. I was a player in that Barrowmaze campaign, but if I had to run an OEC game, I would, at the very least, start by giving all monsters d6 hit dice, and consider adding strength bonuses for Fighting Men and the original Elf and Halfling racial abilities (I sense another house rules document in my near future…sigh).
As far as I can tell, to-hit tables, saving throws, and spell descriptions are identical to core LL. This is not unexpected and makes the Labyrinth Lord’s job a bit easier if she is accustomed to playing core LL.
The art by Steve Zieser is wonderful and gives the book a great, old-school feel. Spending a few extra bucks to get the PDF with art, or the printed version is well worth it.
So in summary, with the OEC free or very low-cost, it is worth grabbing if you want to try something different, LL with an OD&D vibe. It does have a bit of an identity crisis as far as which incarnation of OD&D it aims to emulate, but this is not a show-stopper. I have a LL OEC character sheet and a LL OEC character generator available, and Robert Morris of the Back to the Keep blog has created some useful LL OEC reference sheets. So get playing!
