Kickstarter - Back to BasiX Issue #12 Fanzine (OSR)

I have every issue of Back to BasiX but nearly missed this one. Somehow I missed Thom's announcement that the Kickstarter was live!

Back to BasiX is an amazing series of old-school zines. I don't care if you missed the prior eleven, grab Back to BasiX #12 now!

Back to BasiX is a periodic fanzine focused on the B/X version of the world's most popular tabletop role-playing game. The zine premiered in June 2017 and ended its initial ten-issue run in September 2019, with an special eleventh issue released as part of a hardcover compilation in 2021. The zine was offered in PDF and print formats, and while PDFs are still accessible at DriveThruRPG.com, individual print issues are becoming harder to find. The hardcover print-on-demand is also still found at DriveThruRPG.com.

This project delivers the twelfth issue of that series.

Product Reviews

In each issue of Back to BasiX, an old-school product designed for the B/X system is reviewed. Covering everything from rule books to supplements and adventures, the fanzine’s creator takes readers through all the highlights of each product examined.

New products supporting the B/X system, mostly from independent creators, are also reviewed in each issue.

In issue 12, we review X2 Castle Amber by Tom Moldvay and New Big Dragon Games's Adventurers Wanted! (a North Texas RPGCon exclusive).

Interviews

Each issue of Back to BasiX features an interview with a legendary creator of the industry, from pivotal authors to fantastic artists. In previous issues, the voices of icons like Merle Rasmussen, Frank Mentzer, David Cook, Erol Otus, and Douglas Niles were highlighted, providing thoughts on the game, their influences, the industry, and much more.

In this issue, we chat with Gavin Norman of Necrotic Gnome.

New Content

Back to BasiX also provides a wealth of all-new content for readers to explore. Each issue includes one to three custom adventures of various B/X levels, as well as original monsters and magical items that are featured in those adventures. Each entry also includes a spell-casting article, taking readers through new and existing spells from B/X rule books.

This issue contains Part 2 of The Lost Recipe of the Drunken Zymurgist, an ongoing story that unfolds as both a playable, section-segmented adventure and a thrilling comic illustrated by Travis Hanson.

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 

Humble Bundle - Starfinder Solidarity Bundle

I will admit, I've never touched Starfinder. That being said, it's an OGL system and ripe for riping material for other OSR systems, or even to experiment with on your own, as even buying in as low as 5 bucks for a bundle includes the Starfinder Core Rulebook and Starfinder Beginners Box.

If you want everything in the Starfinder Solidarity Bundle, it's 25 bucks. Or 45 for a book in print and some cards in print. I'm thinking that 5 bucks and 25 bucks are the sweet points.

Gather up your starfaring crew and journey into the storied Starfinder tabletop role-playing game with this bundle of books and digital resources!

Start playing today with the digital Beginner Box, essential rulebooks, and supplemental manuals.

Discover the six-part Fly Free or Die Adventure Path and more one-offs and scenarios.

Bring your voyage to life with a collection of digital maps, pawns, and more PDF resources.

 

 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 

LotFP Sale! ALL PDFs $1.25 Each!

James "LotFP" Raggi is running a sale on ALL Lamentations of the Flame Princess releases in PDF over at DTRPG. Looking at the Hottest Titles, I'm reminded that I have a few holes in my Lamentations collection.

The entire LotFP Catalogue is priced at $1.25 each in PDF.

Time to spend some of those "Affiliate Monies" and maybe do some reviews...

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 - A Magical Society: Silk Road

Certain resources are timeless, and the A Magical Society series of releases is such a resource. Today's Deal of the Day is A Magical Society: Silk Road. Normally 30 bucks in PDF, but until tomorrow morning it is on sale for 8.04 in PDF.

A Magical Society: Silk Road is a 160-page supplement detailing great overland trade routes. Borrowing extensively from the caravans of Central Asia,

A Magical Society: Silk Road covers a variety of topics: what factors engender great overland trade routes, what elements accompany the existence of silk roads, and how do caravans function on the road (with consideration to terrain). Due to general unfamiliarity with Central Asia, an entire chapter is dedicated to the historic Silk Road with maps detailing the major trade destinations. And last but not least, there is a trade system with over 1,000 trade goods, giving ultimate tools for economic simulation.

 

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 

Bundle of Holding - Iron Kingdoms: Requiem

While I am not a fan of 5e, I am a fan of unique and different settings. For the most part, settings, even those built on a particular system, are fairly system neutral, especially those built for later editions being converted to earlier ones (or their clones).

Steam power and gunpowder meet sword and sorcery in the Iron Kingdoms, a fantastic world rebuilding itself after an apocalypse. Armed with mechanika and accompanied by mighty steamjacks, you'll play a human, gobber, trollkin, Rhulic dwarf, ogrun, Iosan, or Nyss elf in an adventuring company of gunfighters, gun mages, warcasters, arcane mechaniks, and combat alchemists. Explore the soot-covered cities of the Iron Kingdoms as the world marches onward to industrial revolution.

Iron Kingdoms: Requiem's Starter Bundle for 14.95 includes: "the complete Iron Kingdoms: Requiem Campaign Setting; the 5E version of Monsternomicon; the Game Master's Toolkit; the full-length adventure Legend of the Witchfire; and an introductory adventure originally released for Free RPG Day 2021, An Echo in the Darkness."

The Bonus Collection includes:"five more titles worth an additional $70, including the wilderness expansion Borderlands and Beyond and its Gamemaster companion The Borderlands Survival Guide, along with three adventures: Shadow of the Seeker, Escape the Mind Slavers, and A Strange Light Breaks. 

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 

Kickstarter - Knave 2nd Edition

The Questing Beast toolkit for creating and running sandbox campaigns packed into a lean, beautiful hardback.

It's an exciting time to see OSR Kickstarters doing extremely well. Shadowdark hit over $1.3 Million when funding wrapped up, and Knave 2nd Edition has surpassed $450k in 6 days of funding with 23 days to go. Knave 2nd Edition is likely to surpass $1 million in funding at this rate. Pretty impressive.

Knave 2e is an exploration-driven fantasy RPG and worldbuilding toolkit, inspired by the best elements of the Old-School DnD movement.

This edition expands on the intuitive core of the original game, featuring elegant, modular subsystems for hexcrawling, dungeon delving, potion making and downtime activities, all in a 80-page digest-sized hardcover lavishly illustrated by Peter Mullen.

Knave 2e Features:

• A world-class GM's toolkit. Roll and combine results from over 75 d100 tables to rapidly generate dungeons, overworld regions, cities, monsters, items, spells, NPCs and factions, or just scan the pages for inspiration. These are especially useful for people who enjoy playing RPGs solo.
• Intuitive, unified d20 mechanics that allow new players to make characters and start playing in minutes. Ability scores, armor, and difficulty ratings are placed on a 0-10 scale, yet remain compatible with the adventures and monsters from the last 50 years of fantasy roleplaying. The rules can also effortlessly switch between player-facing and GM-facing rolls.
• A slot-based inventory system that makes tracking what you carry both easy and mechanically meaningful. If you take enough damage, wounds can begin filling items slots, forcing you to drop gear, treasure, or weapons.
• Classless character generation that lets PCs draw from multiple archetypes at once. Any PCs can cast spells, call down miracles and use any weapon or armor. Their effectiveness is only restricted by what abilities they choose to improve and how they fill their limited item slots.
• A d6 Hazard Die system that condenses tracking encounters, clues, weather changes, fatigue, torch burn, and resource depletion into the roll of a single die.

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 

Kickstarter - Zeck's Shoppe of Riches, A Collection of OSR Magic Items (Phil Reed)

This book of D100 magic items and D100 rumors was designed for use with many fantasy OSR roleplaying games.

I've been a fan of Phil Reed and his gaming material for over two decades. I've had lunch with Phil and we've spoken about the hobby, the business, and life in general. I've backed nearly every Kickstarter in print or PDF that Phil has published in the last few years, each with great satisfaction, and Phil has proven to be the master of "The Dollar PDF".

Phil's current Kickstarter is Zeck's Shoppe of Riches, A Collection of OSR Magic Items (along with Tischler's Tome of Treasures). You can snag the pair for 5 bucks in PDF or 26 bucks (plus 6 bucks shipping in the US) in saddle stitched print plus PDF. 

Zeck's Shoppe of Riches

Within this book are 100 different magic items that I created to satisfy my desires and entertain myself. These range from moderately mundane to overpowered objects that might ultimately destroy a campaign when placed in the wrong hands (such as the hands of a player character). As always, I wrote the different items you will soon encounter with a single goal: to provide the gamemaster with enough of a hook to spark their imaginations and trigger ideas that I could have never come up with on my own. 

Tischler's Tome of Treasures

This second book of magic items, written specifically for this Kickstarter campaign and never published before, follows the same physical format as Zeck's Shoppe of Riches . . . with entirely new content! As with Zeck's Shoppe of Riches, everything I wrote for Tischler's Tome of Treasures was designed to inspire gamemasters. I’m a big believer in trusting the gamemaster to do what is best for their own game; my job is to add new tools to the GM’s bag of tricks and let them take it from there.

Note, Friday, May 12th, Phil Reed will be the special guest for the Random Party Generator Livestream on The Tavern's YouTube Channel.  

https://www.youtube.com/tenkarstavern

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 

Thank You GM Gifts for Summer Cons.....

This is venturing a bit into self-promotion territory, but I promise you that isn't my intention....

We're a month away from the good times that is North Texas RPG, the "Unofficial Start to the summer convention season" (that's just a thing I'm making up here and now...), which means I'm deep into convention prep. I've got a Whiskey Tasting to get ready for (mostly making up the new tasting kits as the needs for the event have changed, and I knew if I gave away the old kits I'd have to make new ones instead of trying to get by.) and while I'm not running any games this year I am signed up for five.

I've mentioned, probably too often, that I have a decent amount of convention experience, playing, running tables, and even events (multiple tables at once/entire company's convention games). With very few exceptions, running a convention game is a bit of a PITA and definitely a fair amount of work. Conventions generally (I hope current trends prove me wrong!) don't do much at all for a table GM unless they run an obscene amount of games at the convention, like 8 hours a day every day. Don't even get me started on the headaches I had with GenCon......

The point is that running a convention game generally is a thankless task and that kind of rubs me the wrong way, and I'm fortunate enough to become cognizant of this and motivated to do something about it. The last few years I've made GM Thank You Gifts for NTRPG. Last year I kind of phoned it in and just gave some cools dice sets, but that was more about supporting my friends who commissioned the dice in the first place. The year before I made some (I think) nice dice trays, which I'd like to do again, but I don't have the necessary resources to do so. To be honest I also made those dice trays to try out a couple of new building techniques.

This year time was more of an issue than I'd like due to work & especially work trips. Shop tools don't travel well, for one, and I'm not paying extra to transport lumber....it's expensive enough as-is. So this year I'm going with some simple wooden coasters. This let me experiment with a particular wood-aging technique, as well as seeing if inking the "aged" wood works, and then what types of protecting works (I went with mineral oil followed by some wax polish/conditioner.)

I'm happy with the results and I have enough for my scheduled games and even a pick-up. One thing I also like to do is provide a card, and I've made up a GM Thank You Card and a DM Thank You Card. These two cards are PWYW over at DriveThruRPG, but if you're going to use them at a convention, please pick them up for free.....

Since there is a greater than 0% one or more of my NTRPG GMs will read this I'll not provide the maths for a set of coasters and a card. It'd be cheaper to pick up some Starbuck gift cards and simply say "thanks", and while that would be great and appreciated if I was GMing, that isn't my style.

I'm hoping that if you're going to a summer con that you'll think of doing something to express your appreciation to your table GM. How you do that is (obviously) up to you.....