New PWYW -The OSR Guide to Playing 5e - Module Included (Playtest)

I'm not a huge 5e fan. I have nothing against the system in general, it's just more of a time investment to learn something I do not need to learn. That being said, there are many that DO play - and run - 5e. Some, such as JoetheLawyer, even have house rules to make 5e play more like an OSR game.

The OSR Guide to Playing 5e (PWYW) is a selection of house rules that can be used to make your 5e campaign play more like an OSR campaign. In addition, it includes a short adventure, that although nominally written for 5e, can easily be used with the OSR system of your choice.

As a bonus, Courtney Campbell is involved in the project, and you can't get more OSR than Courtney ;)

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar  

Kickstarter - Dread Specters of the Shrieking Vale (OSR, DCC, and 5e)

A brilliant DCC, 5E, and OSR jungle adventure (and more!) from Purple Sorcerer Games, influenced by the folklore of S.E. Asia

It shouldn't be a secret that I consider Jon Marr of Purple Sorcerer Games a friend. Jon has been a huge supporter of The Tavern and OSR Christmas over the years. The Purple Sorcerer site is probably the go-to site for most DCC RPG gamers, and I've used Jon's Zero Party Generator for years.

I've used Purple Sorcerer's past DCC RPG releases with the Swords & Wizardry rules, converting on the fly. With their latest Kickstarter, Dread Specters of the Shrieking Vale, you can snag a copy for your preferred ruleset - OSR, DCC RPG, or even 5e.

Funding ends around 6 pm, March 19th, 2022 (Tomorrow when I type this)

• A thrilling Dungeon Crawl Classics jungle adventure also offered in thoughtfully converted 5th Edition and 'OSR Compatible' versions! (In both PDF and POD print).
• Pledge for either the Basic Version of the adventure, which contains the full 1st level adventure Dread Specters of the Shrieking Vale, along with stretch goal goodies like paper miniatures and a poster pack. 
• Or level up to the Expanded Version, which adds a host of new material to the adventure to become A Field Guide to the Great Jungle. Additional content includes the history of the Great Jungle, sandbox mechanics to challenge your players as they explore its endless dark, extra stretch goal goodies, and more! The POD print version of the Field Guide is unique to this Kickstarter: it will never be available later on DriveThruRPG to the general public. (The Field Guide in PDF form, and the basic adventure in POD/PDF, won't be available for general purchase until early 2023... so backers get roughly a six month jump on access).
• At higher pledge levels, you will also have the opportunity to place your own mark on the Great Jungle by adding content to the Field Guide: describe a unique villager that inhabits the village of Sunggal, or create a description/location/encounter to intrigue or bedevil players as they explore the endless morass!

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar  

Humble Bundle - Classic Traveller by Marc Miller

My first sci-fi RPG was Traveller. Not the 3 Little Black Books, but the Traveller Starter Set. I spent many an afternoon, rolling new characters just to see if they could die in character generation ;)

This Humble Bundle is for the Classic Traveller rules. The very same ones in the 3 LLBs and the Starter Set. If you jump in for the full boat at 25 bucks, in addition to all of the classic Traveller goodness, you also get a series of Planetarium Guides by Merle Rasmussen and others.

As always, a portion of your Humble Bundle purchase goes to support The Tavern when using our affiliate links.

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar  

Bad Mike & I had Griff Morgan from the Secrets of Blackmoor Documentary as a Special Guest on the Talking Crit LiveStream

I don't normally post links to The Tavern's Youtube Channel as the very subject of a post, but I'm making an exception tonight.

I'm going to highly recommend watching tonight's Talking Crit LiveStream with special guest Griffith Morgan. The "behind the scenes" and "behind the camera" stories relating to the Secrets of Blackmoor Documentary were fun to hear for the first time, and I learned new pieces of the convoluted history of D&D and RPGs in general. 

Griff is an amazingly entertaining and knowledgeable guest to have on the livestream, and certainly someone Mike & I will have on again.

Here's the link to the Secrets of Blackmoor website, where you can find the documentary, Tonisborg, and more.

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar  

David Baity (Weird Frontiers RPG) Benefit Raffle for Paved Paws Animal League

David Baity asked to make a guest appearance at The Tavern, and as we do every year, we are very happy to have him and the cause he is helping. I happen to be a huge cat person (and Sadie, our orange tabby, is a rescue from our backyard in October of 2020).

It’s that time of the year again when I throw a bag full of gaming loot on the table and ask you to donate for a cause that is near and dear to me. Most of you are familiar with the charity raffle I’ve done over the last several years to raise money for local no-kill rescues, but for those of you that aren’t in the know, I’ll try to make it short and sweet.

I have a real soft spot for most things running around on four legs, with cats being my favorite people on planet earth. One Saturday, several years ago, I happened to be in a PetSmart store and saw some ladies spending their Saturday trying to adopt out felines that they fostered after ensuring they were healthy. It never really hit me until that day the amazing things these rescues do, and the sacrifice they make. It wasn’t long afterward that I decided to do my part. I threw together a gaggle of nerdy goodies and set up a prize raffle where all money raised was donated to these special people and the animals they give a chance at life to, while at the same time giving some cool gifts away.

This year is only different in that a few local businesses in the area have been kind enough to donate items, some of which aren’t related to gaming. I'm hoping that these donations will bring folks into the raffle that aren't into gaming. The way the raffle works is simple! You donate directly to Paved Paws Animal League by way of https://paypal.me/pavedpaws , and for each dollar you donate, you gain one ticket/entry for the raffle. The raffle will run from 3/6 through 3/20 at midnight. From there, I’ll have someone in the industry draw names. Winners will pick prizes in the order their name is drawn.

I’m very excited to open the raffle up locally this year in the hopes it raises awareness in the community and helps raise more money for the cause.

In the past, I’ve split the donations up between two rescues, but this year I’m going to keep it simple and go with Paved Paws Animal League. Sheri Kassalias is the founder of the rescue, and it was formed in May 2015. They have a full board and are a foster-based rescue with no brick-and-mortar facility. 

I’ve been a big fan of Sheri and those helping her for several years now. I’ve witnessed her many heartaches through the years brought on by the animals she couldn’t save, and the joyful moments when an animal is saved and eventually made healthy enough to adopt out. There aren’t many weekends where she’s not out at a local pet food store in the area selling some cool hand-crafted items to raise money for animals she’s getting ready for adoption. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, folks. Sherri cares for five feline colonies that she feeds every night, rain, or shine. This also means trapping those that haven’t been fixed so that they can be spayed or neutered and then re-released back to their colonies unless there’s a rare case where a cat has been abandoned. These lucky moggies are often tame enough to be re-homed after their medical needs are attended to. Add occasional transporting of animals out of state to be adopted, and some dabbling in wildlife rescue, and you can see why I think they’re a legit place to park some funds.

All you must do to donate to this tax-deductible charitable cause is click the link above. Please remember two things when you do: With your donation, please leave the word “Raffle” so we can keep things separate from the non-raffle donations that may come in while the raffle is live. And second, please remember to select “Friends & Family” when you use Paypal so the rescue isn’t charged a PayPal fee. Once you donate, I’ll add you to a master spreadsheet once for each dollar donated ($10.00 means 10 chances to win!).

Please also consider sharing this post with any group that you think might be interested in the raffle.

Thanks so much!

Dave

PS: All the prizes are shown in the pictures attached to this post!

The Oxymoron that is RPG Travel

I've been "fortunate" in my life that I have had the opportunity to travel for work. First the Air Force, then for an Interventionist (he was one of those guys on that A&E show for a hot minute), and now for a military contractor. Thing is, in general, employees do NOT like to travel for work. An overnight once a year maybe, but the average employee balks at much more than a small conference and maybe 10% are willing to travel on a monthly basis. Road warriors that spend weeks away.....probably more like 1-3%.

Now I'm on the road away from home a total of 2-3 months a year, added all up. All too often I run into people that tell me, "I love to travel." That statement....I never quite got, mostly because while I like being out on the road, I personally loathe travelling. Erik doesn't give me enough rope to go on about everything that cheeses me off about travel....and he shouldn't.

So my experience tells me that few people are willing to travel for work, but many state they love to travel. A bit of an oxymoron if you ask me.

Right about now if you've made it this far you're probably thinking, "WTF does this have to do with anything RPG related?" Fair enough. 

So the thing that connects all of us, I'm assuming table-top RPGs here, generally has us playing PCs....who HAVE to travel to "work", and travel a lot, like modern-day road warriors. I'm thinking that PCs being 1-3% of the population is probably overly generous, but they are most likely a subset of that small percentage. 

It is also my experience that the "travel" portion of so much PC adventuring is quite underplayed, unless that's part of the adventure itself. I've seen a fair amount of to & from the dungeon simply hand-waived. Not saying there is anything wrong with that, BUT...

(again from my experience) most people don't travel much, but say they love to travel. Seems like a bit of a missed opportunity to me, enough that I'm trying to work on a new d30 table for longer-haul travel. No this is not an ad for this new table, especially since I'd be surprised if it's done this month, just an observation and one thing I'm planning on doing to address this.

Personally I think there is a lot of room for some new ideas about PC travel......