Kickstarter - Action! System 2.0

When I saw Action! System 2.0 pop up in my Kickstarter feed, it took a few minutes to remember why it looked familiar. Then I remembered: Gold Rush Games. This was an interesting little system from the early days of D&D 3.0 that took just the OGL and released its own open ruleset. I have a PDF copy of the Action System rules on one of my external drives, but other than that, I don't remember much else about it.

According to the Kickstarter page:

The Action! System™ was the second commercially-supported set of tabletop RPG rules ever to be published under the first edition of the Open Game License (OGL). It was originally released by Gold Rush Games in 2001 and used by multiple publishers between the years 2001 and 2005. It is a generic system that was designed to be incredibly similar to a variety of late-90s RPGs, specifically to ones that were used in anime RPGs.

After using it for some home games starting in 2013, Neon Necromancer Games finally bought the rights to it in 2020 intending to publish a second edition for its twentieth anniversary and then, well... *gestures broadly to the news events of the past couple years*.

Now that a certain company is being evil [censored]holes about the Open Game License, we feel it is necessary to revive this OGL pioneer. The Action! System was an entirely new creation upon release, with no text taken from other "system references". The intention is that A!S 2.0 will be released both under the original OGL 1.0a as well as Paizo's new Open RPG Creative License (ORC) once it is ready and released. (In the event that the ORC license sucks we will also release it under another open license, such as Community Commons.

So, is a two-decade-old system that barely made a splash 20 years ago a good candidate for a Kickstarter refresh today? According to the funding I'm looking at, the answer is no. The Action! System 2.0 Kickstarter has $1,397 pledged of $7,500 goal with 4 days to go. It simply aint gonna happen.

Nostalgia doesn't work when one has no nostalgia for something. Ah well.

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 - The Isle of the Plangent Mage (OSE)

The Isle of the Plangent Mage is today's Deal of the Day. Normally 7.50 in PDF, but until tomorrow morning it is 3 bucks.

An idyllic cove harbours deep secrets. Magic and sound are entwined harmoniously, while dark things lurking in the depths rise to explore new avenues through previously locked portals. Adventurers will be changed as they explore the depths of the Undertower, unlock strange musical puzzles, and reveal the glorious treasures of the Isle of the Plangent Mage.

A fantasy adventure of sonic wonder for characters of 3rd to 5th level.

• 64 keyed areas, village description and NPCs, rumour table, loot summary, dungeon background info.
• Keyed in a quick-reference, bullet point format.
• Statted for Old-School Essentials (B/X), usable with any vintage adventure game.
• Unlabelled map included for VTT use.

 

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 - EZD6 Book of Quests

I really like the EZD6 System. Easy to grock with lots of potential, EZD6 fills that sweet spot. My only issue is that I was finding it difficult to write adventures for a system that I wasn't quite comfortable with yet.

The EZD6 Book of Quests solves that issue and then some. 18 Quests, at a discounted price of 5 bucks in PDF until tomorrow morning.

EZD6 has been wildly successful, exploding onto tabletops everywhere fast, fun play from the wild and wacky table of DM SCOTTY. Now, EZD6 fans can play 18 of Scotty's wildest quests, in a simple, plug-anywhere format that's easy to bring to players fast.

-150 page book

-18 complete quests, playable as one-offs or in a huge sequence

-Each quest complete with maps, NPCs, dialogue, monster stats, and a D20 'Details to Discover' table

-Art by Sean Bova and maps by Robert Rudnicki

A must-have book of adventures for the weirdo GM!

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 - HYPERBOREA RPG Map

Sometimes the good things in life aren't simple or cheap. I'm looking at YOU Mister HYPERBOREA RPG Map. The canvas version of the map literally is a thing of beauty. I'm not sure I can justify picking one up in Canvas for $155 plus shipping, but really, who do I need to justify this with? Myself? That's an easy convincing to accomplish ;)

North Wind Adventures, producers of the HYPERBOREA RPG, are proud to present the new rendition of the Hyperborea Map, in high-gloss poster and canvas. Illustrated by Glynn Seal, this map brilliantly displays the whole of Hyperborea, a "flat earth" micro-setting for use with HYPERBOREA, a role-playing game of swords, sorcery, and weird science-fantasy.

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 - Star Wars - Legends, Myths, and the High Republic (Fiction)

My Star Wars fiction started with Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster. It's my understanding that Star Wars fiction from that era is no longer canon. I could be wrong. It's been decades since I've read any Star Wars fiction.

The current Star Wars Fiction Bundle, Legends, Myths, and the High Republic packages together a large digital collection of modern Star Wars fiction releases - 41 titles for 18 bucks. That's a lot of reading ;)

Discover tales of legendary Jedi heroes, Dark Side masters, and the galaxy’s most wretched hives of scum and villainy in this library of novels and fiction for Star Wars fans of all ages! Explore an era when the Jedi Order was at its prime in books from the best-selling High Republic series (Into the Dark). Read about the adventures of Padmé Amidala (Queen’s Peril), the rise and fall of Darth Vader, and the journeys of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

 

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 

Lazy Sunday Morning Gaming Shopping

Erik did me a bit of a solid last week (and tried again this week) to post for me last week because Sunday I had to spend the day travelling early am to an undisclosed location......basically I had to stay up after NTRPG's midnight auction and head out to the airport at 4AM. I knew that day of travelling was going to wreck me and my internet access at my destination was unknown at the time.

Anyway, I'm still at my undisclosed location and this morning was a lazy day so I decided to head on over to the next town and peruse the "sights".......

....yeah this town was....rather...crunchy. Like granola crunchy.....like they don't put up flags for Pride month 'cause the flags are up year-round and painted on the street already.

Meh, not a big deal except.....except the only place I could find open to get a bite to eat before the bookstore opened was a vegan café. Actually had no idea it was a vegan café at first, but hungry is hungry and vegan "wings" made out of cauliflower is not far off of decent bar food of fried cauliflower......

The great thing about these hippy (there was definitely a hippy vibe in places) areas is that they have some great hole-in-the-wall stores. Tons of tiny shops packed with stuff. I wandered into an art supply store and found some pens that I like, but in sizes I normally don't see, as well as my favorite mechanical pencil and replacement lead, both at better prices than I'm used to! Went ahead and picked up a little notebook and a fancy-schmancy (well, seemed like it) Japanese marker that just works different than what I'm used to.

Up the street was the book store. Wasn't quite what
I was hoping for, but I did find a few books for my Appendix N collection and another book (not shown) that I only had a PDF of. That book was "expensive", relatively speaking, but the other books were cheaper than I'd find at HPB, so a win in my book.

I'm so, sorry....that wasn't an intended pun.

This one book, With a Single Spell, is already in my collection, but one of the author's other books, set in the same world, is something I pretty much buy every time I see it in a store. I'll pick it up and just give it to the first friend I find out hasn't read it. I'm going to read this copy on this trip and then gift it like I do the other book......

While the bookstore was a draw, the real reason I went down to granola-town was to visit an indoor "flea market". It wasn't an indoor flea market, despite what they advertised. Instead it was basically two of these small store fronts linked together and stuffed with a few, pretty sure it was five, but there wasn't a firm boundary between three of the places. Lots of nice stuff, reasonably priced with the exception of the clothes. Evidently "vintage" clothes are worth more than common sense would lead one to believe.....

I found some cool stuff, most of it was too big to pick up and travel back home with, but I enjoyed looking at the one booth just stuffed with DVDs, Legos, and action figures. There was stuff I liked, but nothing that had to come home with me......until I turned to leave and saw a little bowl of dice stuffed in the corner of a large display case. What caught my eye were the Gamescience dice, but it looked like there was some Holmes set dice and a couple other old-assed dice.....along with a giant 12 sided d4.

Totally worth the $8. Those Gamescience D20's are numbered 0-9 twice and inked in two different colors.

Not a bad haul for a lazy Sunday morning!

Kickstarter - Delver 9: Old School RPG Resources for GMs and Players

I'm a huge fan of zines, even if I don't keep them in ANY semblance of order. They are literally everywhere around the house, and I often rediscover them some years after acquiring them. 

Somehow, eight issues of the Delver zine have been published before coming to my attention. Assuming Delver 9 hits the mark, I may be looking to acquire the prior issues.

Delver Issue #9 is 7 bucks in PDF, 11 plus 5 bucks shipping in the States for Print plus PDF.

The primary features of Delver magazine are the random charts and tables. Each issue will contain pages and pages of random charts that can be used before or during a session. Each page has a theme or subject, typically with four to six tables that pertain to that topic.

The secondary feature of each issue is the ready-to-go adventure, complete with maps, room descriptions, random encounters, and more. The adventure in Delver #9 is designed for 4 to 8 characters of level 5-6 or higher.

Finally, each issue will contain an article for GMs. Each article will be short and sweet and provide a GM with some useful points to ponder on between sessions. The current article for Delver #9 is titled RPGs as Wargames? and will cover thoughts on why the combat rules of wargames often trump those of RPGs and why blending a wargame and your favorite RPG might be a fun thing for you to try.

Delver #9 will start at a minimum of 36 pages, but the page count can go much higher depending on reached stretched goals that can push Delver #9 up in length.

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