Deal of the Day - Into the Wild Omnibus

It will be a sandbox when I get my next campaign up and running. When I got my first campaign after returning to the DM role, it was. a sandbox using Rob Conley's amazing Blackmarsh.

Today's Deal of the Day is the Into the Wild Omnibus. Offering three volumes in one, the Into the Wild Omnibus is usually 25.95 in PDF, but until tomorrow morning it is on sale for 10.38 in PDF.

This 380+ page book combines three volumes into one: A Guide to Thieves' Guilds, Filling in the Blanks, and Into the Wild, all geared towards aiding Referees and characters in venturing out into the wilderness and high-level domain activities.

A Guide to Thieves' Guilds provides guidance on forming and running guilds, both for the PC interested in establishing a guild and for the Referee wanting to add guilds to their campaign.

Filling in the Blanks provides numerous tables and charts that help Referees flesh out hexes for use in hexcrawl and sandbox campaigns.

Into the Wild includes guidance for running hexcrawl campaigns, a random weather generator, rules for establishing and running domains, an abstracted mass combat system, rules for mercantile trading, guidelines for creating BX-style character classes, and some alternate classes for BX games that add a little bit of flair to the originals.

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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

Humble Bundle Comics - Cerebus

I remember stumbling across Cerebus at Forbidden Planet in lower Manhattan in the mid-80s. Soon after, I found a small cache of well-read earlier issues of Cerebus at St Mark's Comics. I was hooked, but finding Cerebus was spotty at best, and soon I was no longer regularly reading it.

Humble Bundle has the complete run of Cerebus, all 300 issues, for 18 bucks in PDF. I suspect the rest of my weekend is spoken for ;)

A giant of indie comics

Explore the pioneering indie comic saga Cerebus, a sprawling epic spanning 6,000 pages, touching on humor, political satire, and the wide-ranging philosophical musings of its creator Dave Sim. It also stars an anthropomorphic aardvark. What starts out as a send-up of Conan-style sword & sorcery evolves into something much bigger. Experience it all in this bundle, from early graphic novel chapters like High Society and Church & State, to the very end of the saga in The Last Day. Pay what you want for this essential cult classic and help support the Global Foodbanking Network with your purchase.

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.

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 - How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox

I've got to say, I own everything Rob Conley / Bat in the Attic has published. Rob understands the OSR at a depth like few do.

How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox was a recent Kickstarter from Rob, and it is an Electrum Seller on DriveThruRPG (it will be Gold shortly, of that I am sure. Normally How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox is priced at 14.99, but as the current Deal of the Day, until tomorrow morning How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox is on sale for 3 bucks. Yep, 3 bucks - I kid you not!

How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox!

Starting in 2009, I wrote a series of 24 posts on the Bat in the Attic Blog covering the different aspects of creating a hexcrawl formatted setting.  Now that the blog posts are completed, I combined and rewrote these posts into a single book.  In addition to advice about creating your setting, the post fleshs out the Isle of Pyade into a small setting that you can drop into your own campaign.

What is a Hexcrawl-formatted setting?

This type of setting starts with a hex grid placed over the map with each hex numbered.  The hex locations of the various locales, such as lairs, are noted and arranged into an index.  This format provides a convenient way to reference detailed local information within the setting.

You can look at the map, see the hex number the location is in, and then look it up quickly in the book.  It works in reverse as well.  You can read about a location in the book, with its hex location noted in the text.  Then, look up where it is on the map quickly.  This format allows easy access to dozens of detailed locations scattered across the setting map, if not hundreds. 

Hexcrawls and Sandbox Campaigns

Sandbox campaigns are distinguished by the fact the players drive the campaign forward by their choices.  In a sandbox campaign, the players may decide to head west instead of east in pursuit of their goals.  The ease of looking locations up makes the hexcrawl-formatted setting a valuable tool for the referee trying to keep ahead of their players while running a sandbox campaign.

How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox will teach you how to make a hexcrawl-formatted setting and explain what details are essential to include to handle the different types of sandbox campaigns. 

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.

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 - Dyson's Delves

Just to clear this out of the way. Dyson and I do not get along. The story is long and likely uninteresting to the vast majority, but neither of us makes any secret of it. That being said, Dyson's maps are an amazing resource for the harried GM, and his Commercially licensed maps are a great service to the small publisher.

Note, with some work, you can find everything in this Dyson's Delves Bundle at Dyson's Dodecahedron blog.

Adventurer! This new Dyson's Delves Bundle presents hundreds of hand-drawn maps by master cartographer Dyson Logos suitable for tabletop fantasy roleplaying games. Famous in the Old School Revival community for his distinctive crosshatching style, Dyson has drawn maps for publishers including Wizards of the Coast (Candlekeep Mysteries, Glory of the Giants), Kobold Press, and dozens more. He's released more than a thousand maps and dozens of adventures free on his Dyson's Dodecahedron blog (funded by his successful Patreon campaign). The maps are unlabeled and (usually) in printer-friendly black-and-white. Many maps include gridded and no-grid versions. Most of them are provided in both .PDF and in high-res .PNG image files for use with VTTs (virtual tabletops) like Roll20 and Owlbear Rodeo.

You can download all these maps for free from the Dodecahedron blog, but this new offer gathers them in convenient collections Dyson has self-published through his ZERObarrier Productions imprint. And several of these titles grant royalty-free commercial licenses, so you can adapt them for your own published adventures.

For just US$9.95 you get all six titles in our Starter Delves (retail value $51.50) as DRM-free ebooks, including Dyson's Delves I and Dyson's Delves II; three installments of the annual Dodecahedron Cartographic Review – 2014, 2015, and 2016; and the Commercial Compass Rose Pack.

And if you pay more than the threshold price of $20.94, you'll level up and also get our entire Deeper Delves with eight more titles worth an additional $55, including three annual installments of Dyson's Commercial Map Archive – 2021, 2022, and 2023; four monthly installments from late 2023 of the Map Archive's successors, the Cartography Collections – August 2023, September 2023, October 2023, and November 2023; and Strange Stones.

The maps and images in the three Commercial Map Packs and the Commercial Compass Rose Pack are licensed for royalty-free use in your own published works. All the maps in the other titles are licensed for personal use only.

Four of these titles (total retail $33.50) – the first Dyson's Delves volume and all three Dodecahedron Cartographic Reviews – have appeared in one or another of three previous offers from 2014-2017, all in our Old School Revival series: OSR 2 (Nov 2014), OSR 4 (Nov 2016), and OSR 5 (Nov 2017).

 

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.

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 - GM's Miscellany: Village Backdrops I

Sure, it says "5e" on the tin, but I find the GM's Miscellany series relatively system-neutral and an amazing resource.

Today's Deal of the Day is GM's Miscellany: Village Backdrops I (5e). Normally 11.99 in PDF, it is currently on sale (until tomorrow morning) for 6 bucks.

Village Backdrops are short, richly detailed supplements that each present a single village ready to insert into almost any home campaign. Perfect for use as a waystop on the road to adventure, as an adventure site themselves or as a PC’s home, Village Backdrop present the details so the busy GM can focus on crafting exciting, compelling adventures.

This GM’s Miscellany collects together twelve Village Backdrops, along with bonus, never seen before material, together in one place.

GM’s Miscellany: Village Backdrops is the work of many talented designers and features the following villages:

Creighton Broadhurst: Ashford, Coldwater, Kingsfell, Lanthorn, Longbridge, Thornhill, Wellswood

Jeff Gomez: Bleakflat, Suurin

Richard Green: Black Wyvern

Marc Radle: White Moon Cove

Mike Welham: Shroudhaven

This product is a Dual Format PDF. The downloadable ZIP file contains two versions, one optimised for printing and use on a normal computer and one optimised for use on a mobile device such as an iPad.

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.

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 - Orbital Blues (Indie space Western tabletop roleplaying)

Every once in a while, an indie RPG captures my attention. Orbital Blues hits that sweet spot - simple system, interesting default setting, and a bunch of support material already published for it.

The core rules for Orbital Blues are over 16 bucks alone, but with the Orbital Blues Starter Collection, you get the rules, a quickstart, and two full-length adventures. This may be a lot of fun for a convention game and a break from a regular campaign.

Outlaw! This all-new Orbital Blues Bundle presents Orbital Blues, the lo-fi space Western tabletop roleplaying game from SoulMuppet Publishing (Best Left Buried). This is the rock'n'roll future of yesteryear that never was – and nobody wanted. It's an interstellar age of cowboys, outlaws, and bandits, of hypercapitalism and a cutthroat gig economy. With your ship and your crew of Interstellar Outlaws, you eke out a living in the Frontier Galaxy, chasing the dream of freedom. Orbital Blues lets you play out rules-light old-school adventures in the style of Cowboy Bebop, Firefly, and Guardians of the Galaxy.

For just US$7.95 you get all three titles in our Starter Collection (retail value $37) as DRM-free ebooks, including the complete Orbital Blues core rulebook (plus the free quickstart set An Unchained Melody), along with two full-length adventures: Chega de Saudade and All That Glitters.

And if you pay more than the threshold price of $18.34, you'll also get our entire Bonus Collection with four more supplements and adventures worth an additional $47.50, including the sandbox setting A Starborn Resistance; the adventures Everjoy and Trouble at the Rock of Tariq; and the evocative Orbital Blues artbook, Wayward Stars.

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.

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

My Accidental Free RPG Day

Yesterday was my birthday and I spent most of the day out & about, picking myself up a sweet-ass Bday gift that is not at all RPG related. On the way home I decided I should stop by my local Game Store to see about the newest HeroQuest expansion written by Friend of the Tavern Levi Combs. 

As I wandered in I was asked if I was there for Free RPG Day.

I had completely forgotten about Free RPG Day! After choosing a couple of minis that I will 100% most definitely paint....someday, I looked at the freebie table. Lots of stuff to be had, but I really try not to be "that guy" and I picked up two....only two items:

I really wanted to check out the Goodman Games offering and a 10 page (content) 1st level DCC adventure that has a couple pages of player handouts....hell yes!

I also grabbed up the Plague Bearer game offering from...Guillotine Press and CMON Games. As I was grabbing that up the owner of the shop told me someone was running the free adventure and was looking for players......

....I figured, why the hell not. I've got nothing better to do and checking out a new "Dark Fantasy RPG" would be fun. The shopkeep and his Mrs. joined in and he had a party of five. I did what I usually do and grab an archer type (I really try to play an archer when checking out a new system because my 1st D&D PC was an archer type and by doing this I can more easily compare one system against another).

The GM altered the adventure a bit to fit the time allotted and we all had a good time. I got to slay the BBG "single handedly" (not really, the rest of the party figured out just how awesome my PC's new ability was and they rallied around me and had my back. It felt like it was "all me" but it really wasn't). I think calling Plague Bearer a RPG is a bit of a stretch though. It was more of an amalgamation of a RPG, a board game, and a tactical miniatures game. While the GM did a good job running the game as a one-off, it felt like the game really needs a much longer playtime and I think if we created PCs instead of using pregens there might have felt more RPGish.

As a bit of an aside...there were RPG Pencil Dice! Smaller pencils, with erasures and the numbers 1 through 6 on the face of each side of the pencil. Noteworthy because our buddy Ken Whitman, or it is Whit Whitman (?), is still....well his last update on RPG Pencil Dice was nearly six years ago!

At the beginning of the game, the store drew names for some Free RPG Day prizes and I won a set of  The Legends of Drizzt Dice Set.

The store owner also brought over a quickstart rules set for the +1 System from Wet Ink Games that was used to run a one-off of Garbage & Glory Trashrun. He played it that morning and loved playing an anthropomorphic raccoon going on a literal trash run.

I'm looking forward to seeing if I like Wet Ink Games' Never Going Home, but I'm not sure if that will use the +1 System of not....

After the Plague Bearer game it was early evening and it felt like things were winding up a bit. I did a stroll by the freebie table and noted that most of the products I looked at were quickstart rules for new game systems....Runescape Kingdoms, Arzium, and Dragonbane. There might have been more, but I didn't look at everything on the table. I suspect there were at least a couple more new systems.