Tenkar's Tavern: 2023-07-02

Saturday, July 8, 2023

Kickstarter - Hex Dek, Systemless Fantasy RPG Hexcrawl Cards

To be honest, I thought I posted about Phil Reed's latest Kickstarter already, but it appears I did not. I'm already backing Hex Dek for 50 bucks, which tells you how excited I am to back yet another project from Phil, but the actual post never actually got made. Well, there are 3 days left to back, so don't wait too long to pull the trigger on Hex Dek.

Note: Hex Dek is a purely digital, PDF plus Print on Demand (POD), project. Phil won't be doing any mailing on this one. It also means, if you are backing for a physical (POD) product, you will have an additional "at cost" charge from OneBookShelf when you do order the POD.

Hex Dek consists of 50 double-sided cards:

On the front of the card we have:
A seven-hex mini-map. (Each hex represents a two to three-mile section of land. Of course, the GM is free to adjust this scale as they wish.)
A short description of one location.
On the back of the card we have:
Expanded information on the location described on the card front.
At times, a second location description.
A random encounter table.
The cards are completely systemless. There are no game stats at all. Instead, these are encounter prompts that are intended to inspire the GM. They may also prove useful to solitaire RPG players in need of more prompts for their game sessions.

Hex Dek POD is 7 bucks (plus at-cost printing and shipping upon final order) via Kickstarter, but you can back for more to get more. If you are the least bit interested in hex crawls, I strongly suggest you back for the core deck. :)

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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

Friday, July 7, 2023

Kickstarter - Castle of the Mad Archmage™ 10th Anniversary Edition

I ran a monthly session of the original Castle of the Mad Archmage for the better part of a year with the infamous "B-Team". We had a blast! As fun house mega-dungeons go, it is one of the, if not THE, best. I've also known Joe Bloch for years and consider Joe a good friend. We've had him as a guest on The Talking Crit Livestream! multiple times.

Currently, Joe is Kickstarting Castle of the Mad Archmage™ 10th Anniversary Edition, which is an update to the original CotMA.

You can back for the CotMA PDF at $20, Print Plus PDF at $100 plus shipping, and there is also a POD version for those outside the US.

In this special work, you'll find:
All 13+ core levels from the original published Castle
The Castle Environs, depicting the lands around the castle ruins
Level 3-A, the Black Lake
Level 3 East, the Museum and the Watery Caves
Level 4 South, the Gardens
Level 9 West, the Brumal Realm
Everything will be contained in a single volume, including redrawn maps and the art from the original version of the Castle, as well as new art produced for this edition.
This will be a very limited edition. Each copy of the hardcover book will be numbered and signed, and this Decennial edition of the book will only be available during this Kickstarter. This will not be available in stores, and each backer will be limited to 2 copies. Please note that this is an OSR adventure setting; no version for other games or editions is available.
(A new edition of the core levels will be released at a later date, but it will not have Level 3 East, Level 4 South, or Level 9 West integrated into the other levels, and is not available through this Kickstarter.)
The book is written. Money raised will help pay for editing and art.

Thursday, July 6, 2023

Introducing Gaffer Games (James Spahn's Other Small Publishing Company)

I've known James Spahn for the better part of a decade, ever since he made a splash on DTRPG publishing classes for Labyrinth Lord. I sent James my spare copy of Swords & Wizardry Complete and would like to think that I was instrumental in James' switch to supporting Swords & Wizardry :) James has worked on more IPs and game systems than I am able to count. James is literally like a brother to me at this point, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

James has formed a new publishing label for small, PWYW projects that don't quite fit under the Barrel Rider Games umbrella, Gaffer Games.

From James: Gaffer Games is a small one-man publishing company run by me. I write, edit, layout (such as it is) and publish free or pay what you want games here on itch.to. The games you'll find here are raw, creative expressions that aren't as polished as my works published as a freelancer or under my other publishing company Barrel Rider Games.

At the moment there are three titles available at the Gaffer Games web store:

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

Bundle of Holding - Worldographer (Mapping Software)

I've been a huge fan of Inkwell Designs for the better part of a decade, first encountering Joe's projects with his Monster Stock Art Kickstarter and his Dungeonmorph Dice. I've been dabbling with Inkwell's mapping programs for years.

On Bundle of Holding, you can snag the complete Worldographer Mapping Collection, with World, Dungeon, and City mapping programs for $29.95. Full details are below (and you can test drive for free).

Adventurer! This all-new Worldographer Bundle presents license keys and Icon Sets for Worldographer, the easy-to-use software from Inkwell Ideas that lets you quickly craft maps of worlds, kingdoms, cities, villages, and dungeons for tabletop fantasy roleplaying games. Whether you run Windows, Mac OSX, or Linux, Worldographer lets you make colorful hexmaps and square-grid battlemats step-by-step in minutes. The program can also autogenerate a map – anything from a wayside inn to a complete campaign world – and can annotate your map with details and special features, all fully editable. Import Inkwell's Icon Sets or your own graphics to customize your maps. The only limit on map size is your computer's memory.
Download the Worldographer program free at the Worldographer.com website. Try it out – there's no charge, no obligation, and no time limit, but the free version has limited features. If you like Worldographer, return here to get a bargain-priced set of license keys that permanently unlock the full-featured Pro Versions of the main program and its city and dungeon expansions. No subscription or additional purchase is required.
For just US$29.95 you get a set of six unique one-use license keys (retail value $90) – three for the Worldographer Pro Versions (the Worldographer base program and its Settlement and Battlemat expansions) and (for convenience) three for the legacy programs Hexographer, Cityographer, and Dungeonographer.
And if you pay more than the threshold price of $41.01, you'll level up and also get our entire Icon Set Collection with eleven Hex Map Icon Sets worth an additional $65 that enhance Worldographer or any mapping program, including Alternate Classic Hex Map Icons, Alternate Classic Expanded, Mountains, Swamps, Forest, Arctic, Coasts, Undersea, Mines, Shops & More, and High Magic. Unlike the main Worldographer program, your Icon Sets are hosted here on the Bundle of Holding site and in your linked DriveThruRPG Library.
Check out some Worldographer examples, the online manual and advanced instructions, useful how-it-works blog entries, and Inkwell's YouTube tutorial videos.

Tuesday, July 4, 2023

Deal of the Day - Shub-Niggurath Always Rings Twice (M!M!)

For those that don't know, I am a huge fan of the Tunnels & Trolls game engine, and by extension Monsters! Monsters! It's a simple system that works well with small groups in my experience.

The Monsters! Monsters! community has really been pushing the envelope of what one expects from support material for the system, with stand-alone games like Lair of the Leopard Empresses and now Shub-Niggurath Always Rings Twice. The latter includes the M!M1 Quickstart Rules (currently 9.95 on their own).

Today's Deal of the Day, Shub-Niggurath Always Rings Twice, is normally 9.99, but until tomorrow morning it is on sale for 3 bucks.

An urban fantasy adventure for Monsters! Monsters! Shub-Niggurath Always rings twice mixes lovecraftian horror, pulp, noir and dark fantasy with plenty of hunour. Suitable for 4-6 newly created characters, this product includes quick start rules and brief introduction to the setting.
Some parts of Zenith City are new and gleaming and tidy and prosperous.
Some parts.
Not Spinkwalder’s Yard. Spinkwalder’s Yard is dirty and chaotic and dirt poor. And not even the good kind of dirt that you can plant potatoes in. The thin, black and crusty dirt that gets on your shoes and treads into the carpet. Only you don’t have a carpet, you are too poor for a carpet, because you live in Spinkwalder’s Yard.
But whispers are a-foot. It is said the people of Spinkwalder’s Yard are taking matters into their own hands. That they are dredging up dark and forgotten gods from a time before the light of civilisation.
Are you going to put a stop to this? Stop the meddling in matters no-one fully understands?
Are you hell-as-like. You are going to join them.
Viva la shin-kicking!
Shub-Niggurath Always Rings Twice is an adventure where you get to play the eldritch horrors, rising up against the self declared elites. It is the first adventure set in the noir/pulp/lovecraftian Zenith City.
Includes Quick Start rules, everything you need to play (bar a pencil, paper and dice) is in this book.

Monday, July 3, 2023

Humble Bundle - The Boys Versus Project Superpowers

The Boys is one of the best series available on demand (I'm also enjoying The Witcher, which just returned for a third season). The Boys Versus Project Superpowers Bundle gives you one hell f' of a number of graphic novels for 18 bucks - 24 individual titles. Another Humble Bundle I'll be all in with...

Sunday, July 2, 2023

Getting My Zines Organized....Kind Of

While I've been accused of being a(n).....associate, no.......crony, maybe...of Erik's, truth be told I don't always drink the Kool-Aid, but that's probably more due to me be lazy. What I'm getting at is that my participation with the Tavern is generally limited to my Sunday postings and an annual Whisky testing at NTXRPG Con. I do, however, occasionally tune in to Tavern Chat on YouTube.

This week I did tune in for a whole five minutes or so and while it was a bit of an aside, Bad Mike was talking about zines and zine storage. Jump forward to this weekend and I'm trying, a bit in vain, to go through my hugs stack of loose adventures, unbagged comics, and a fairly decent stack of zines. While it may seem a bit anally retentive I HAVE to bag, sort, and store these things or I will undoubtedly break, lose, or worse off......re-purchase stuff I already have.

I pretty much hate not being able to find crap I own, but not nearly as much as I hate throwing money away on needless duplicates. For example I have a small stack of duplicate Judge's Guild stuff that Bad Mike was more than happy to sell to me....

Comics are super easy to sort, bag, and store as there is an entire industry of collectors. That same industry does also make magazine bags & boards, as long as you remember to get the two main sizes of magazine bags 'cause if you have a thicker adventure.....you'll need that larger bag.

Unfortunately for me Zines come in all shapes & sizes....part of the charm. Most of mine come in at 6" x 9" and while the company I got my other supplies from doesn't carry bags in this size, others do. Backer boards have been a bit of a let-down. An hour of searching and I can definitely find "boards" that are 6" x 9", but they are expensive and probably too thick. I ended up just getting me some slightly oversized Sheet Music Backer Boards that I can basically cut in half to make them the right size.....

.....no to figure out how the hell to put these things on my shelf so they aren't wasting space. Bagging and boarding Zines aren't that big of a deal, but being able to access what I want, when I want is.

Finding something workable so far has been problematic. There is a $5 DTRPG product, Tomb of Zines, that I can pick up to make my own boxes. Great...another assembly project. It would be cost effective...but that's going to be my Plan B (no, not that Plan B!). I'm still looking for boxes and I may have found a relatively cheap alternative at Harbor Freight, of all places. They have a .30 cal ammo box with an interior dimension of 9.5" x 6" x 4.25". These boxes can nest on top of each other and with a width of over 4" I think for $4-$6 a box I can get a bit more protection than a cardboard box and while it is a bit more expensive...if I factor in the time and frustration of making boxes....they might work out.

If it works, I'll come in and edit this post, but in the meantime if there are any suggestions, please....by all means, post it in the comments.

EDIT: I realized I had a little more than an hour before Harbor Freight closed, so I went ahead and picked some up because they were on sale for $4. They don't have the big logo on the side (like the pic) and they work just fine for most of my Zines.

Why "Swords & Wizardry?"

Believe me when I say I have them all in dead tree format. I have OSRIC in full size, trade paperback and the Player's Guide. I have LL and the AEC (and somewhere OEC, but I can't find it at the moment). Obviously I have Basic Fantasy RPG. Actually, I have the whole available line in print. Way too much Castles & Crusades. We all know my love for the DCC RPG. I even have Dark Dungeons in print, the Delving Deeper boxed set, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. BOTH editions of LotFP's Weird Fantasy and some dead tree copies of the Greyhawk Grognards Adventures Dark & Deep

I am so deep in the OSR when I come up for breath it's for the OSR's cousin, Tunnels & Trolls

So, out of all that, why Swords & Wizardry? Why, when I have been running a AD&D 1e / OSRIC campaign in Rappan Athuk am I using Swords & Wizardry and it's variant, Crypts & Things, for the second campaign? (Actually, now running a S&W Complete campaign, soon to be with multiple groups)

Because the shit works.

It's easy for lapsed gamers to pick up and feel like they haven't lost a step. I can house rule it and it doesn't break. It plays so close to the AD&D of my youth and college years (S&W Complete especially) that it continually surprises me. Just much less rules hopping than I remember. (my God but I can run it nearly without the book)

I grab and pick and steal from just about all OSR and Original resources. They seem to fit into S&W with little fuss. It may be the same with LL and the rest, but for me the ease of use fit's my expectations with S&W.

Even the single saving throw. That took me longer to adjust to, but even that seems like a natural to me now. Don't ask me why, it just does. Maybe it's the simplicity of it. At 45 52, simplicity and flexibility while remaining true to the feel of the original is an OSR hat trick for me ;)

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