The first post to my blog was on Sept. 22, 2013. That was four years after I had gotten back into the same old-school gaming I had enjoyed as a kid, thanks to one of a handful of the first retro-clones Swords & Wizardry White Box (link is to a PDF of the first printing, no longer available in print).
That first post had an image of my gaming collection – just one bookshelf! Now that has increased to four shelves. Of course this is just what I wanted to collect in print over the years – like many in this hobby, I have a large digital collection of games as well. But I still prefer print copies of the classic games.
Much has changed with the OSR in the past 10 years, and much is the same. Mainly I think there is more fragmentation as people joined groups on various social media platforms when some of the original forums, along with G+ went away. But I’m happy that there seems to be a resurgence in OSR blogs, and forums are definitely not dead, with some of the largest from 10 years ago (or longer) still online. In my opinion the blogs and forums are where the old-school gaming community should congregate, discuss and share ideas, as they are indexed by search engines and the Internet Archive. Facebook, MeWe, Discord and the like are not public in that sense, and anything posted to those platforms is lost when they go away. I created my own public forum in 2016 in reaction to the Swords & Wizardry forums being taken offline, and in 2017 I created a static snapshot of the Goblinoid Games forums, just before they too were taken offline.
2013 was also the year our current gaming group was formed, and it’s still going strong today. It’s not a overstatement to say that these games, gaming friends and the OSR in general have been a major part of my life for the past decade. So thanks again to the OSR and the many people that make it fun, and here’s hoping to another 10 years!
The latest issue of & Magazine (issue #8) is available for free download and is over 90 pages of AD&D goodness. (I reviewed issue #7 here). This issue’s main topic is ‘Urban Adventures’ and although I have not read all of it yet, what I have read is easily on-par with the quality of previous releases. I highly recommend you grab it and the previous issues, even if you don’t play AD&D/OSRIC, it is full of ideas and inspiration for players and DMs of any edition.
Here is the table of contents:
Map 1: Justice Hall and Prison Tower, by Fingolwyn Featured Artist & Musings, by Bryan Fazekas D&D: The Next Generation, by Dan Rasaiah Life Swarms with Innocent Monsters, by Michael Corronet The Business of Adventuring, by Nicole Massey The Druid in Dungeons and Towns, by Lenard Lakofka Sleight of Hand with Dice and Cards, by Ian Slater The Great Eastern Woods: A Campaign Setting, by John Fredericks Make a Mini Castle on the Cheap, by John Fredericks The Dancer PC Class, by Nicole Massey Creature Feature I: Ecology Of the Slange-Yaotl, by Dan Rasaiah Creature Feature II: Ecology of the Spore Spitter, by Bryan Fazekas Friend or Foe I: Mattias’ Company, by Vince Lethal Friend or Foe II: Nikolias Morghul, by Milo Friend or Foe III: Sin-ShumuTizqar, Derro Savant, by Dan Rasaiah The Toybox: New Weapons V – Whips and Arrow, by Nicole Massey Spellcaster’s Paradise I: Frost Giant Shamans, by Andrew Hamilton Spellcaster’s Paradise II: Cleric/Druid Spells, by Lenard Lakofka Spellcaster’s Paradise III: Fonreaver’s Falcon, by Ian Slater Tactical Magic: Fireball!, by Ian Slater Emporia & Domiciles: Brandywine House, by Nicole Massey One Page Dungeon: Dungeon of Doom, by Michael Woodhead Hex Crawls, by Andrew Hamilton For Further Reading, by Ron Redmond & Magazine on the Net Tread Softly, by Nicole Massey Map 2: Temple, Tomb, and Tower, by Fingolwyn
I love random character generators. As a DM, they are great for quickly generating a party for a spur-of-the-moment pickup game, or for that henchman or major NPC. Here are the old-school RPG character generators I know of, let me know if there are any more out there and I’ll add them to the list (updated 2025-06-04).
& Magazine is a quarterly magazine published in electronic format that (from the magazine’s website) concentrates on “ideas, perspectives, entertainment, thought-provoking articles and game aids for both the player and the dungeon master”, primarily for AD&D. Each issue is centered around a common theme.
How it Looks
I looked at the latest issue #7 of & Magazine (PDF download), which has a theme of ‘Inner Planes’ and weighs in at about 90 pages. The table of contents is there as expected, and is hyperlinked, a nice touch (I noticed it was not in previous issues, so that is a change for the better). The layout is standard two-column, with plenty of original, quality art and excellent editing.
The Content
This issue started with a note on the artists and artwork, a few pages from the publisher, and a list of the new magic items that can be found in the current issue. The list of magic items is something I might find useful if I were searching back issues looking for something I had seen but couldn’t quite remember where, so this is a thoughtful addition. Then a quick two pages on the various Internet resources relating to the magazine, and onto the content!
In & Magazine, there are regular columns, bonus articles, and features. The latter are focused on the issue’s theme. In this issue, there are two feature articles, one on adventuring in the elemental planes, and one that details elementals, re-envisioned as more powerful entities with full command of their given element.
The first feature, titled “You want to do WHAT??? Adventuring on the Elemental Planes” is by Bryan Fazekas and is chock-full of great ideas for how to handle adventures in the strange planar environs. This seven or so pages touches on everything a player or DM might need to play in or setup an adventure on any of the elemental planes. The author mentions TSR’s “Manual of the Planes” as also being a detailed resource, but as not being well-liked as far as the direction it took the game in. I can’t comment on that, as it’s the one AD&D book I never bought, but maybe that in itself confirms the author’s statements. In any case, this is a nice, concise resource.
The next feature. “Elemental Expansion and True Elementals” was written by Andrew Hamilton and as I noted above, provides a more realistic set of options for earth, air, fire and water elementals. As the author rightly points out, the elementals detailed in the AD&D Monster Manual don’t really describe creatures in total control of their named elements. As he says, “I wanted an earth elemental that shakes the ground as it moves, reshapes earth & stone, makes stone walls or columns erupt out of the ground and makes stone flow like water.” Sounds like a great concept to me, one that would make for an interesting encounter as a player. The article delivers on that score.
There are a few bonus articles in this issue. There is an article by Len Lakofka detailing the Archer/Archer-Ranger PC classes, an intriguing article by Nicole Massey on how to incorporate elements from the original Doom video game into your AD&D campaign, true to this issue’s theme by enviisoning it as a separate plane of existence (my next PC absolutely must have a BFG9000…). There is an article by John Fredericks on saving throw rationale and mechanics, and an interview with Vince Florio, one of the hosts on the Roll For Initiative podcast. All are well-written and interesting.
There are quite a few recurring columns in & Magazine – “Creature Features” (new monsters), “Spell Caster’s Paradise” (new spells), “The Toybox” (new weapons or magic items), “Domiciles & Emporia” (new shops and shopkeepers), and of course one-page dungeons and longer adventures, complete with maps. New magic items are sprinkled throughout. I really enjoyed reading the Creature Feature articles, these are new monsters, but several of these are presented as short stories that introduce the creature and its capabilities, a nice change from the dry description-followed-by-stat-block format you typically see. As a reader, I’d love to see more presented in this way (the description and stat blocks are still there, of course, the creatures are just more interesting to read about in story form). The art here is excellent, this is one of the new creatures, a Sindh drawn by Del Teigeler:
A “For Further Reading” section rounds out the list of regular columns, this gives a helpful list of online and printed resources on each issue’s main theme.
There is much more to like in & Magazine – even if you don’t particularly care about an issue’s central topic, there is enough variety in each issue to keep a reader interested. I’m eagerly going through the back issues now, looking for tidbits I can use in my own games. I should say that even though I’m not currently playing AD&D, it won’t be too much trouble to adapt this material to Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, or any of the old-school fantasy systems or retro-clones. There isn’t really anything I didn’t like about & Magazine, I found it to be well-produced, carefully edited, useful and visually appealing. The fact that this is all free is icing on the cake – I would gladly pay for this content, and I’m sure I’m not alone. Having these available as POD would be nice, but I understand why this is kept free and in electronic format. The publisher, Nicole Massey, actually addresses this in her column and says “So, when is & going to start charging for our issues? We’re not planning on it….We do this for the love of the game, giving back, and functioning in a highly creative environment where ideas just drop out of the foliage on a constant basis”. Keep up the good work, &. I’ll keep reading.
I don’t know precisely when the “Old-School Renaissance” (OSR) came into being, but I credit it with re-igniting my interest in fantasy RPGs. Several years ago, I was poking around online for information on Basic D&D (what I later found out was properly termed Holmes Basic) and AD&D (first edition), what I used to play in the late 70s and early 80’s. I had none of my old collection, unfortunately, but I knew I wanted to play again.
I came across Labyrinth Lord and OSRIC, spent some time digging through the Dragonsfoot and Goblinoid Games forums, and promptly started downloading and reading everything I could find on the OSR and related games. Swords and Wizardry I found soon thereafter, the Whitebox Edition proved to be just the ticket for me and my two children. The ruleset was simple and clear, and lent itself well to houseruling whatever the DM (me) thought was missing (interestingly, while I had the original D&D rules the whitebox is based on, I don’t recall ever playing them). We had many fun games, with the result being that both my kids now feel comfortable making and stocking their own dungeon maps, taking turns as DM.
The highlight of the past few years came in the summer of 2012, my son was attending Boy Scout summer camp for the first time. The camp guidelines discourage electronics (thankfully), and on a whim I threw Brave Halfling’s 2nd Edition Whitebox rulebook (sadly no longer in print), the original Swords & Wizardy Monster Book, some pencils, character sheets and dice into his footlocker. When I visited him at camp a few days later, he had managed to get a group of boys to play D&D together in their tents, during whatever free time they had.
Fast-forward to today, I still play Whitebox with my children, have been involved in several Labyrinth Lord play-by-post games (two of which are still ongoing), and now have my wife asking to play a recent purchase – Majus, one of the latest additions to the Pacesetter Line that has been re-invigorated by Goblinoid Games. I’ve built up my RPG collection again, as well, which now includes a mix of old and new, along with some of the other games I used to play in my youth, like Star Frontiers and Traveler.
So thank you to whoever started the OSR (whether they called it that at the time or not), and thank you to the bloggers and all the forum participants. The freely available rulebooks, e-zines and materials you all so generously made available have made this old gamer happy, and started at least a few others on what is hopefully a lifelong path of fun.
