Deal of the Day - Heraldry (Columbia Games)

Heraldry is an often under-appreciated aspect of fantasy RPGs, but properly used it can add atmosphere and detail. Columbia Games is second to none when it comes to support material that is systemless for your fantasy RPGs.

Heraldry from Columbia Games is today's Deal of the Day. The normal asking price is 9.99, but until tomorrow morning, it is on sale for 4 bucks.

Heraldry, also known as armory, is an art in perfect harmony with this flourishing age of chivalry. Among civilized folk, heraldry is strongly supported by the noble classes. This is partly due to the exclusive right of gentle folk to bear arms and partly due to the color and pageantry involved. On the practical side, military helmets tend to obscure the face, while armour and shields disguise gait and build. There is an urgent need to quickly identify friend or foe on the battlefield and heraldry does this well.

The proper name for a complete heraldic bearing is an achievement; it is a coat of arms only when the arms are depicted on a coat, usually a surcoat. An achievement has a number of possible elements, most of which must be registered with the College of Heralds to be legal.

Illustrations of all common heraldic symbols and devices are included, greatly expanded from the original article.

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Indiegogo - LAND OF BONES 1e SOLO Fantasy RPG (AD&D 1e/OSRIC)

This is a 1e SOLO fantasy rpg adventure campaign that contains NEW SOLO RULES & a 4-part adventure!

You know those times that you simply want to go to a roulette table and simply put your hard-earned cash on BLACK and want to let it ride a spin or two? That's how I feel about Land of Bones, currently funding on Indiegogo. It was big amazing. It may be a total wash, but damn I want to put my money down.

Land of Bones is a 1e SOLO fantasy TTRPG game system that is comprised of:

1. OVERLORDS - 1e SOLO RULES BOOK - 200 pages approx.

2. LAND OF BONES - 4-part 1e SOLO ADVENTURE OMNIBUS 300 pages approx.

3. SOLO ADVENTURER’S JOURNAL - Optional but is designed as a keepsake to record all your adventures. This includes numerous tables, charts, and several other options to record these travels. Also includes time trackers, and acquisitions unique ONLY to the LAND OF BONES 4-part adventure.

4. 12-piece POSTER/MAP HANDOUTS - Optional 18” wide by 12” high poster maps from DTRPG showing the 12 most important handouts and maps unique only to LAND OF BONES. Please note that ALL PRINT products will all be printed professionally by DTRPG and not from your home computer. You CAN, however, print all pages to your home computer from the digital PDFs.

5. 20-piece 1e SOLO GM’s SCREEN - Optional (these are 8.5” x 11” PORTRAIT pages) 

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Humble Bundle - The Maps Bonanza Encore (Campaign Cartographer 3+ Bundle)

In the right hands - not mine - Campaign Cartographer 3+ is a huge powerful mapping tool. For 35 bucks, you get a lifetime license to Campaign Cartographer 3+, along with Fractal Mapper 3+, Fantasy World Mapper, Fantasy City Mapper, and nearly a dozen other titles and support materials.

The Maps Bonanza Encore (Campaign Cartographer 3+ Bundle) is 30 bucks - or less for less ;)

Our popular fantasy map bundle returns! Prepare your adventurers to explore vast dungeons, vibrant cities, and expansive worlds with this collection of maps and mapmaking resources. Get creative with Campaign Cartographer 3+ (1-year or lifetime license), Fractal Terrains 3, and sci-fi focused Cosmographer 3, and discover a treasure trove of pre-made maps to add exciting new destinations to your virtual tabletop games. Plus, your purchase will support Cool Effect and Oceana!

  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 cast on Anchor, YouTube,  or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar 

Deal of the Day - Griffin Mountain (RuneQuest)

 

I was introduced to RuneQuest back in 1987 or so, at a gaming convention at Columbia University. The dealer's room had a shelf-worn copy of the RQ rulebook and water-damaged boxes of Big Rubble and Pavis. All for 20 bucks. I was sold. Sadly, I never came across a copy of Griffin Mountain at the time, but for 3 bucks in PDF until tomorrow morning, that is about to be corrected ;)

Griffin Mountain details an area 800 kilometers wide. Elder Wilds is where non-humans live and high adventures thrive. Balazar is a wild frontier where anything can happen.

This book contains extensive notes on the area's geography, history, and inhabitants.

Meet King Yalaring Monsterslayer who became king of the citadel of Trilus by right of conquest. Visit picturesque Elkoi, built by giants. Trade with Joh Mith, a fat, jovial caravan master with high bargaining skills. Gamble with Hen Cik, one of the caretakers of a legendary caste in Giant Land. Cross the dangerous River of the Damned (full river crossing rules inside). Quest for the powerful windberries, rumored to be found on Griffin Mountain itself. Beware of the ever-present baboons, bears, dragonewts, wild hawks, trolls...

Get your adventurers ready for a glorious time in Griffin Mountain!

Running Griffin Mountain

This book is designed for use with the fantasy role-playing game system RuneQuest. It is recommended that the referee owns and is familiar with Cults of Prax.

The authors and publishers of this book take no responsibility for inexperienced characters that may get trashed by these scenarios; nor do we accept responsibility for any referees who may get trashed by the players thereof. Seriously, these adventures are designed to provide a challenge to mixed level characters including Rune Masters. Even then, the going might be a little tough.

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Bundle of Holding - Goodman D&D 4e (I Kid You Not)

Bundle of Holding has offered out-of-print RPG material for years, but this is the first time I can remember a bundle for D&D 4e being offered.

For those that don't know, Goodman Games was one of the few companies that signed up for the D&D 4e Game System License (GSL) and were able to offer official support for D&D 4e.

I was unaware that there is a D&D 4e retro-clone out there in the internet wild. Color me very surprised ;) https://sanglorian.github.io/orcus/

For those D&D 4e holdouts out there...

Adventurer! This all-new Goodman Games 4E Bundle presents tabletop roleplaying supplements and adventures published by Goodman Games in 2008-2010 for the Fourth Edition (2007-2013) of Dungeons & Dragons from Wizards of the Coast. Goodman's modules, character sourcebooks, and bestiaries showcase the appeal of a system that still attracts enthusiasts on Reddit, Discord, and on virtual tabletops.

The sourcebooks and modules in this rich Goodman Games bundle require the 2007 Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition rulebooks from Wizards of the Coast, which are not included in this offer. Orrrr you could use Sanglorian's free Orcus 4E-compatible retroclone rulebooks, and consult the Offline Compendium for reference. The titles in this offer won't work well with other editions of the D&D rules.

For just US$17.95 you get all eight titles in our Player Collection (retail value $85) as DRM-free ebooks, including Azagar's Book of Rituals; two Forgotten Heroes guides – Scythe & Shroud and Fang, Fist, and Song; four Hero's Handbooks – Dragonborn, Eladrin, Tiefling, and Immortal Heroes; and the 4E Character Codex.

From Here to There adventure collection from Goodman Games for D and D Fourth EditionAnd if you pay more than the threshold price of $28.36, you'll level up and also get our entire DM Collection with seven more titles worth an additional $68, including Blackdirge's Dungeon Denizens for 4E; three 4E module collections – In Search of Adventure, From Here to There, and Frank Frazetta's Death Dealer; the two Master Dungeons adventures – M1 Dragora's Dungeon and M2 Curse of the Kingspire; and the 4E DM Campaign Record.

Goodman Games has kindly provided purchasers of this offer a 20% discount code good through April 10, 2023 on most products bought from the Goodman Games online store. Your discount code will appear on your Wizard's Cabinet download page here on the Bundle site.

 

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DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube,  or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar

Kickstarter - Best Supporting Actors: Adversaries and Allies for OSE

I've been a fan of Douglas Cole since Dungeon Grappling, if not before (Doug was a member of the Tavern's "B-Team" - our once-a-month group exploring Castle of the Mad Archmage a few years back- but I digress).

In any case, Doug produces great support material, whether it's for GURPS, The Fantasy Trip, or in this case, Old School Essentials.

This time around, Doug is taking on Best Supporting Actors: Adversaries and Allies for OSE, and take it on he does (in typical Gaming Ballistic style - balls to the wall ;)

In the pages of the book, find 172 ready-to-play characters built as individuals. Each has a brief story, describing something of their past, motivations, and salient details. Not all are combat monsters: Some must resort to duplicity, cunning, seduction, and guile to get by. Others prefer to handle things with blunt heavy objects. Some bring extra tools to otherwise-mundane professions. 

There are enough that you'll likely find one to fit your needs, as an adversary, ally, person encountered in a tavern, or as a pre-generated PC to get a game going fast. It's likely that there are sufficient numbers that you won't need to use the same character twice!

• Roughly half are level 1-4 delvers just getting started - rookies as it were
• Around 40% are presented as potentially dangerous bandits or outlaws...including a breakaway unit of a dozen fighters from a defeated military company.
• Most have lives independent from "adventurer" and perhaps 25% don't fit neatly into a single class concept (fortunately, the OSE Advanced Fantasy Player's Tome easily accommodates this through multi-classing).
• About 1/3 are spellcasters of some stripe or another; sample spell lists are provided. New spells that go well with a particular character's role are provided where it's flavorful.

A quick "tab line" descriptor allows the GM to roleplay these as NPCs without even referring to the stats...but keep the writeups at hand in case the party wants to enter into a contract or a combat.

Grab a few of them to make wandering parties of pilgrims or adventurers. Deal out a half-dozen or a dozen to answer the question of "who's in the inn?" Choose randomly or with malice aforethought to see who shows up when the PCs post want-ads for hirelings, henchmen, and allies. Several are of the "wilderness guide" variety, allowing quick access to someone who can help get from A to B if the PCs are all "want to crush, crush now?" types. Random party generator tables are provided for a few classes of encounter, for use and inspiration.

Did you catch that bit above? The bit about  "deal out a half-dozen or dozen to answer the question of...". Well, if you back at 75 bucks, you get both the book and a deck of cards for the NPCs in the book. 

Digital rewards start at 20, and physical (plus digital) start at 45. As I indicated above, I'm in for 75 :)

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DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube,  or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar

Roughly Thinking of Stuff to Accommodate Some Inclusivity

This last week has pretty much sucked balls for me because my cold had lasted for more than a week and a half and then phased into a bad sinus infection. Yeah, yeah boo-hoo, sucks to be me.

I'm mentioning this because part of having a bad sinus infection is that my hearing had been degraded and my tinnitus has gone from a background ringing of the ears to a "who installed this infernal/internal dial-tone in my forehead"? 

I know, I know......wtf cares? Give me a hot second here......

....so I had game last night and I did inform my GM that I was having issues. The GM was accommodating but I realized that my (I hope) temporary disability impacted my ability to participate. There were times I missed my name being called, I know I missed some of the banter and at least one attempt at humor. Not that I'm big on trying to take a front-seat role at the virtual table (not the caller or trying to be the alpha player type), but I definitely felt like I more along-for-the-ride and a somewhere between a party member and a henchman. Now this latter bit is clearly just my internalization based on my physicality/emotions (medications a factor) and not how my fellow player were treating me.

I hadn't gamed since January and I enjoyed myself as best as I could even though I was clearly just "off". Now that it's the next day I'm really thinking about my average game, as a GM, probably isn't that inclusive to those with some hearing or vision problems. Now in my home game hasn't been an issue, that I'm aware of, but convention games.......I realize now there are some things that could be done a bit better since you don't know who might be showing up to play.

First off, I think making it easy to rearrange players...GM and/or other player willingness to relocate so someone who needs to be closer to see or hear, not too big of an ask, and I've seen this happen before. What I haven't seen, and this is probably beyond the individual GM's control, is a convention who reserves some smaller rooms for play where players/GM need a quieter room with little-to-no background noise, or where they can alter lighting as needed.

Having the ability to provide large-print format PC sheets, maybe printed as needed at the con, would be useful as well. Honestly it's seeming to me that what really is needed would be gaming conventions having some possible accommodations ready at the convention level. Having it known that players/GMs could put in requests easily.....as in no big deal to ask (I'm willing to bet that not everyone needing accommodations are quick to ask for them), and then being set up to do X, Y, and or Z as needed.

Clearly I'm NOT the person to come up with ideas on what could be done since I'm limited to my, well limited, experiences, but I do think going forward I'll be prepping a little extra to make things easier for certain types of players who want to play in my games.....just in case.