In my last post, I tried to make a case for using the Cepheus Engine (open source Traveller) as the basis for a OSR-like community. Since it's a completely open-source game, anyone can make their own version, and a number of people have. In this post, I wanted to talk about some of the major … Continue reading The New OSR 2: The Many Engines of Cepheus
In the previous post, I discussed the setting I generated for Vaults of Vaarn, the science fantasy RPG. I thought it might be helpful to also post the pregen characters I provided for my players as well. These were made with the custom Vault of Vaarn charcter sheet I posted previously. vov_pregensDownload
I've just run a session of Vaults of Vaarn, the weird science fantasy RPG from Leo Hunt. It's one of my favorite settings, with lots of Dying Earth, post-apocalyptic flavor to it. Vaults of Vaarn #3 To prepare for the session, I used the region generation method from the Vaults of Vaarn #3 zine, which … Continue reading The Labyrinth – a mini-setting for Vaults of Vaarn
First of all, do we need a new OSR? No, of course not. There's no shortage of people still creating, playing, or just discussing D&D-style games, with oceans of interesting material available. Also, I'm not going to quibble over the definition of the OSR, or whether it's "alive" or "dead". A lot of photons have … Continue reading The New OSR: The case for the Cepheus Engine
I recently ran a session of Helm, the new OSR system from Jon Davis (sivads-sanctum.itch.io). It's a genuinely fun little system, very much worth picking up. Here's some system notes and a couple of character sheets. Making Characters The character generation system is quite unique. You roll a 1d6 for each body location - Head, … Continue reading Helm: A mini-review and character sheet for a low fantasy game
I'm still running my weekly Lumberlands (DriveThruRPG / itch.io) campaign using the Black Hack OSR rules set. The Lumberlands book is just a 48 page zine, so there's plenty of room to add my own details. I've been posting them here. (previously I, II, all Lumberlands posts) Tattlesnakes - HD 1 Highly venomous snakes, who … Continue reading Oddities of the Lumberlands – Part III
Just picked up a copy of Viking Death Squad, a gonzo little OSR-style RPG from Runehammer games. It's got alien War Pigs, demons, Borgs, and unfrozen vikings. It's a very heavy-metal inspired game. There's a PDF character sheet available, but it's not fillable, so I've made a revised version of the original that is fillable, … Continue reading Viking Death Squad: Fillable version of the Character sheet
I've been running my weekly Lumberlands (DriveThruRPG / itch.io) campaign using the Black Hack system. It's a fairly fast paced game with a lot of events happening. To make it easier for players to keep track of what's happened and where they've been, I've made a map of the campaign area. I took an old map of … Continue reading Lumberlands Campaign Map
I've been continuing running my ongoing Lumberlands (DriveThruRPG / itch.io) campaign using the Black Hack OSR rules set. It's been fun getting deep into one system and world, after years of just running one-shots. I've decided to post all the new details I've been adding to the fantasy lumberjack setting. The rules are Black Hack … Continue reading Oddities of the Lumberlands – Part II
I've started a short Black Hack campaign using the Lumberlands setting. Lumberlands (DriveThruRPG / itch.io) is a fun little system agnostic fantasy setting, that details a fantasy lumberjack version of the North American forests. As the game goes along, I've been adding little details of my own creation. I'll post them as they come up. … Continue reading Oddities of the Lumberlands
Polyhedral Nonsense 