The Blog Glatisant
Questing Beast has been nominated for Best Online Content and Fan Favorite Publisher at the 2019 Ennie Awards! If you’ve been following my work and enjoy the videos and games I produce, click here and give Questing Beast a “1” on those two categories. There’s a ton of excellent OSR products nominated this year as well, so make sure to look through all of the categories.
If you want to get a Questing Beast T-shirt, you can head over to the recently revamped merch store here.
From the product description:
“The referee advice is gold. I know of few better sources for concisely explaining what to prioritize when running this sort of game.” – Brendan S, Necropraxis, Wonder and Wickedness
“I often quibble with RPG magic systems either being too complex or too restrictive, but this hit a great balance between flexibility and ease-of-use, while adding a special dash of creativity and Lady Luck.” – Ars Magisterii
“Maze Rats is a light, brutal roleplaying game of fantasy adventure which is supported by random inspiration aplenty, which lends itself to a lighter, slightly whimsical tone. It is quick to learn, quick to teach, and easy to play,relying on player ingenuity and cleverness rather than a reliance upon the mechanics.” – Reviews from R’lyeh
Maze Rats is an RPG and sandbox toolkit for old-school-style adventuring. It contains a single, compact page of rules, a one-page character creation guide, a hand-drawn character sheet, and eight pages of 36-item random tables, rollable with two six-sided dice. Each page contains 9-12 tables, covering spell generation, monster generation, NPCs, treasures, cities, wildernesses, and dungeons. If you run (or have always wanted to run) open sandbox adventures, Maze Rats offers everything you need in a compact, easily-referenced format. Also included is two pages of advice for preparing and running open-world games in the OSR style.
The game system itself is 2d6 based. Character are extremely quick to generate, making it great for convention games, one-shots, or introducing new players. The game is highly lethal, and assumes a style of play where caution is essential to long-term survival. It is technically classless, but the leveling options allow players to specialize in fighting, thievery or wizardry or some mixture of the three. Magic is simple and chaotic, with new randomly-generated spells filling the magic-user’s head each night. Everything about the game is designed to be as clean, fast, and intuitive as possible, while driving players towards creative solutions rather than brute force (though brute force is always an option).
I’m unlikely to be using MeWe much. It’s not terrible, but it’s basically G+ without that platform’s best features. Also, I’m very much enjoying the shift to the blogs.
I’ve started using Inoreader to keep up with the OSR blogosphere. I plugged Ram’s OSR OPML into it and was set to go. I sorted the blogs into best and the rest, check in on the best every day, and skim the rest when I feel like it. It’s been incredibly freeing. The stuff I’m reading is as good as it ever was, it’s longer, more thoughtful, and by commenting on the post itself rather than on a separate platform the conversation stays focused and gets archived more permanently. It’s also motivated me to start writing posts in response to stuff I like, which is something I’ve never done before. To be honest, I’m enjoying this mode of discussion more than G+ in some ways. Also, the regular “OSR News” posts on Dreams of Mythic Fantasy keep you updated on everything you need to know.
If I want to just chat casually about the OSR I use Discord, usually either the OSR server or the DIYRPG one (which features an incredible 24/7 Gygaxian Democracy mill). That one is still semi-private, so I won’t be posting a link. I enjoy having long-form discussion and informal chat on two separate platforms.
The /r/rpg subreddit is good for getting the word out about new products but not so great for discussions. The range of assumptions and play-styles is vast, so you inevitably have to restart from ground zero explaining your approach every time you get into a discussion. The OSR subreddit is more focused but it’s never really felt like home. The brand new artpunk subreddit (not sure if it’s open to the public yet) looks to be the place to talk to the NeOSR/Adventure Game/Hipster DnD crowd, so I check in there periodically, but at the moment it looks like its biggest use will be to post the best new blog posts.
I’ve been posting more on Twitter recently, but that’s mostly to keep my Questing Beast followers updated on what’s going on with me and to reshare other OSR posts. There isn’t a lot of OSR conversion on Twitter and overall I think that’s fine. It’s a really anxious, high-strung platform.
Conclusion: BACK TO THE BLOGS! Get Inoreader or Feedly up and running, find a post you enjoy, write a response, and tell the original poster about it.
If you want to contact me directly, my email is questingmaps at gmail.
Here’s a fun dice pool system. I’ve tested it and it works fine. There was a discussion about it at one point on Michael Prescott’s G+ feed, I think, but now that that’s going away I want to preserve it somewhere. Someone else (maybe Michael) started calling it Milton dice so now that’s what it’s called.
What’s cool about this system?
Image by Ma-Ko
Here’s a bit of an epiphany I had today. If I had to sum up the kinds of games I like to play in a single term, the term I’d like best wouldn’t be Old-School Renaissance, or Dungeons & Dragons, or DIY RPG, or even roleplaying game, but “Adventure Game.”
OSR Game: The term OSR often implies that the game is compatible with early DnD, which is often not the case for what I play and something I don’t really care about. Of course, to many people OSR means a style of play, but the term itself doesn’t really give you any indication of what that is. There’s too many steps from saying the term to getting someone to understand exactly what I mean by it.
D&D: Too imprecise and doesn’t exactly capture the kind of game I want, especially given the variety of ways the people play it now.
DIY Game: While I’m a big believer in DIY, it again doesn’t cover the style of play, only how people interact with it. There’s lots of people hacking games apart and reassembling them, but that’s no guarantee that I’ll like it.
Adventure Game: The term “Adventure” does a lot of heavy lifting for a single word, and covers the vast majority of what I enjoy.
The argument over what to call the experimental, non-traditional side of the OSR is a bit silly, but good name goes a long way, and a clearer label than “OSR” for what we do here could make a big difference as we move into the post G+ phase of the movement, especially since books from this scene are finally starting to capture the public eye in a big way.
More and more books in the OSR have been making layout and information design a priority, in particular the “control panel” format that puts all of the relevant information from a single topic on a single page (or two page spread). It’s a term I first used on my video review of B/X essentials, but it seems to have hit a chord. Visuals often take priority, with flowcharts and diagrams replacing traditional text, in order to facilitate faster absorption of the information. I’ve put a bunch of examples below.
It got me wondering whether you could make an entire RPG in the form of cardstock handouts, somewhere between A4 and A5 sized. Player wants to play a wizard? Hand him the card with the magic rules and the card with the spell list. Going exploring on hex C12? The DM pulls out the card for that hex and places it behind the screen. Going shopping and need to see what goods are available at a high-end potion shop? Pull out that card and put it in the middle of the table.
There’s a questionnaire going around the blogosphere. In an attempt to get this blog going again, here’s my take:
1. One article or blog entry that exemplifies the best of the Old School Renaissance for me:
Goblin Punch’s essay on OSR-style challenges was the thing that really solidified in my mind what it was that I loved about OSR games.
2. My favorite piece of OSR wisdom/advice/snark:
3. Best OSR module/supplement:
Probably the Hot Springs Island books. They aren’t perfect, but they take so many advances that the OSR has made over the last decade and wrap it all up in one place.
4. My favorite house rule (by someone else):
The one that I’ve used the most is probably Shields Shall Be Splintered.
5. How I found out about the OSR:
I don’t remember. I most likely stumbled onto blogs like Last Gasp, PDnDwPS, and Jeff’s Game Blog while looking for ways to reinvigorate my RPG games.
6. My favorite OSR online resource/toy:
The links to wisdom, hands down.
7. Best place to talk to other OSR gamers:
Google Plus, for now.
8. Other places I might be found hanging out talking games:
9. My awesome, pithy OSR take nobody appreciates enough:
The most important attributes of a GM are speed, impartiality, and decisiveness.
10. My favorite non-OSR RPG:
The one I probably had the most fun with was the Faserip Marvel system.
11. Why I like OSR stuff:
I like having my problem solving skills challenges while in weird and unpredictable situations. I’m also a sucker for great worldbuilding, and no one does that better than the OSR.
12. Two other cool OSR things you should know about that I haven’t named yet:
Troika! is a planescapesque fever dream of wonderfully flavorful classes and a distinctly British sense of humor. A Thousand Thousand Islands has some of the best writing and art I’ve ever seen in an RPG product, and details a super-refreshing non-western setting.
13. If I could read but one other RPG blog but my own it would be:
I’m going to say Last Gasp Grimoire, but I try to never miss a post from Necropraxis, Goblin Punch, False Machine, and Cave Girl’s Game Stuff.
14. A game thing I made that I like quite a lot is:
Maze Rats, currently game of the month on Reddit. You get a complete OSR game and toolkit in a single pamphlet you can print out at home. I needed a game I could hand out to my 5th grade players, so I made it.
15. I’m currently running/playing:
Tomb of the Serpent Kings using Knave.
16. I don’t care whether you use ascending or descending AC because:
What’s there to care about?
17. The OSRest picture I could post on short notice:
The finished version of Knave has finally arrived!
Features include:
High compatibility with OSR games. If you have a library of OSR bestiaries, adventure and spell books, little or no conversion is needed to use them with Knave.
Fast to teach, easy to run. If you are introducing a group of new players to OSR games, Knave allows them to make characters and understand all the rules in minutes.
No classes. Every PC is a Knave, a tomb-raiding, adventure-seeking ne’er-do-well who wields a spell book just as easily as a blade. This is an ideal system for players who like to switch up their character’s focus from time to time and don’t like being pigeonholed. A PC’s role in the party is determined largely by the equipment they carry.
Abilities are king. All d20 rolls use the six standard abilities. The way that ability scores and bonuses work has also been cleaned up, rationalized, and made consistent with how other systems like armor work.
Optional player-facing rolls. Knave easily accommodates referees who want the players to do all the rolling. Switching between the traditional shared-rolling model and players-only rolling can be done effortlessly on the fly.
Copper standard. Knave assumes that the common unit of currency is the copper penny. All item prices use this denomination and approximate actual medieval prices.
A list of 100 level-less spells.
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License: You are free to share and adapt this material for any purpose, including commercially, as long as you give attribution.
Designer commentary. The rules include designer comments explaining why rules were written the way they were, to aid in hacking the game.
Source text. When you purchase this game, you also get a copy of the Word document I used to make it. Edit it to create your own custom Knave ruleset! (You will need the free fonts Crimson Text and Sebaldus-Gotisch to display it properly).
Version 0.2 of my classless OSR houserules is now up for my supporters on Patreon!
Michael Prescott, 2-page dungeon-maker extraordinaire, put out a crowd-sourced dungeon recently called the Halls Untoward. It’s pay-what-you-want on Drive Thru RPG and it’s really good, especially his fantastic illustrations. I’m planning on running it for my 5th-graders, so as usual I’m doing some reformatting. I’ve taken the minimaps of each part of the dungeon, cut them out, stuck them in the middle of a letter-sized page, and then cut out each room description and pasted them right next to each room. The original book is already pretty easy to use thanks to the minimaps, but the larger real estate of a letter page allows for zero information loss while eliminating page flipping and allowing for immediate visualization of each room’s layout and surroundings. Check it out.
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