Old School RPG Planet Has Shut Down

Sad news in the blogosphere. Alex Schroeder has announced that, effective immediately, his OSR blog aggregation site Old School RPG Planet has been taken down. Visiting the site will now take visitors to the RPG Bloggers Legacy D&D page.

I'm saddened by this development as Old School RPG Planet was one of my daily "go-to's". It always gave me a great overview of what was hot, who was talking, and what sites to stop by that day. I liked it so much, that I actually created a link button over there in the right-hand column of my blog to point other folks to the site. But, as of now, another corner of the Internet I liked to visit has boarded up the windows. But I didn't want the passing of this site to go by without some kind of mention and a public "Thank You" to Alex for running it all of these years. It was one of my favorite sites, and it'll be missed.

[Review] The Habitition of the Stone Giant Lord and Other Adventures From Our Shared Youth

I have recently stepped into a time machine and popped up behind the DM screens of eight very creative DMs back in the 80s. And you can too...

I was a supporter of a recent successful Kickstarter campaign launched by Tim Hutchings of the Play Generated Map and Document Archive (PlaGMaDA). Tim has taken several donations to the Archive and -- with the permission of the original creators -- compiled and laid out eight D&D-style modules in a compilation tome titled "The Habitition of the Stone Giant Lord and Other Adventures From Our Shared Youth." And it is a thing of beauty to anyone who cobbled together their own D&D-style adventures Back In The Day using a loose-leaf binder, some graph paper, and maybe your family's Atari 800 printer (if you were lucky).

(click any photo for a bigger, better look at the details)

Each of the eight homemade, handwritten (or typewritten) modules in this 112-page volume were written by kids during the heyday of the 70s-80s D&D bubble. The titles within this collection include:

• The Habitition of the Stone Giant Lord
• Stone Death
• The Crack at Garn's Canyon
• The Ring of Gaxx
• The Golden Scepter of the Trollfens
• The Tomb of Areopagus the Cloaked and Japheth of the Mighty Staff
• The Lair of Turgon
• The Maze of Death

Rounding out the contents is an overview by Hutchings, and an Introduction by Jon Peterson, author of Playing at the World. Peterson's Introduction offers some fascinating investigational insight, as he examines each module, pointing out what the author was inspired by or how each adventure fits into the D&D cosmos timeline. Peterson's overview really gives you an idea of how each was written and the steps these young DMs took to fit their works into TSR's published worlds.

Now then, I will not be reviewing the textual content of this collection as, well, they're unpolished adventure modules written by kids back in the 80s. Spelling errors, unbalanced encounters, and hackneyed cliches abound, but that's part of the charm of this collection. The unbridled enthusiasm these budding game designers had for their work is seen in each word, each sketch, each attempt to emulate the format and feel of The Professional Game Writers.

The pages of each module was scanned in high resolution color, so you get a feel of the originals' production. You can see the notes written on ruled notebook paper, the pencil sketches on graph paper, the handmade construction paper covers, the yellowing tape holding the maps in place, the dot-matrix patterns left by the printer, and every crease, wrinkle, and erasure smudge found on the originals. Several of them created their own covers to look like those made by TSR, pretending they were Big Name Game Designers. And now, here in late 2013, those eight young game designers got their wish, and their adventures are printed, published, and being played by gamers throughout the world.

Thumbing through the book is like standing behind the DM screen beside the respective dungeonmasters as they ran their players through a dungeon of their own design. When the respective authors assembled these handmade adventures, most of them took pains to emulate the feel and look of the professional efforts with covers. For example, "Habitition" was numbered by the author as "Dungeon Module G22", meaning it is intended to fall within the original "Against the Giants" series of adventures, possibly between G2 and G3. (If you're running your players through the series, how about shoehorning this sidetrek in there to throw off anyone who's read up on the original classics?)

The book is a fascinating look at our gaming past. It will give most of you a satisfying recollection of your own Great Killer Dungeons from your youth. And, according to the back cover, "it's a relic of the past you can play." I suggest taking one of these adventures and running your players through it. I cannot think of a better legacy to those eight kids who originally put pencil to paper than to run their creations at your own table.

The Habitition of the Stone Giant Lord and Other Adventures From Our Shared Youth is now available for purchase at The Hutchingsonian Presents for $30 plus shipping.

[Mutant Future] Going Postal: The Ravinoti & Wisdom From The Wastelands: Drugs Now Out

The newest Going Postal and Wisdom From the Wastelands supplements for Mutant Future are now on sale!

Darwin's Children: The Ravinoti -- This new issue of John Buckley's "Going Postal" series introduces a new race called the Ravinoti.  These bipedal man-sized ravens are the ninjas of the post-apocalyptic world.  Living in small family enclaves ruled by an elder, these creatures hire themselves out as spies, assassins, and couriers to anyone who can afford their fees. This supplement includes both the monster stat block as well as the player character description including new mutations and an example Ravinoti lair.

Wisdom From the Wastelands Issue 33 is “Drugs” and described as follows: "The science fiction equivalent of magical potions and elixirs, drugs and medications are similarly treasured. Because of widespread use by the Ancients, chemical compounds of all sorts can be found almost anywhere: in ruined bases, villains' caches, or within the junk hoarded by mutant monsters. These potent pharmaceuticals can bring a character back from the brink of death, or provide enough of an edge to keep him from getting there. This issue describes different (and yet familiar) types of drugs commonly found in the post-apocalyptic environment, includes a few optional rules, and has a handy chart for the game master who would like to randomly determine a drug's form."

Both Mutant Future supplements are only 99 cents and are available at Drive Through RPG.

[Our Last Best Hope] Drowned: A Mission Playset

NOTE: I enjoyed putting together my previous global disaster so much, I thought I'd cobble together a new one:

A Mission Playset for Our Last Best Hope

Drowned Mission

Introduction

The Drowned Mission presents the team with a Crisis that already encompasses most of the Earth -- its oceans. As the waters rise and humanity moves to higher and higher ground, it will become apparent how tenuous our hold on dry land truly is. Floods, tidal waves, and monsoons engulf the coastal regions as the seas move inland, drenching all in its cold, wet embrace. And as the highest mountains disappear under the surface, where will humanity be left standing?

Suggested viewing: Waterworld, The Abyss, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012

Themes

Nearly Submerged Already – Seventy percent of the Earth's surface is already covered in water, leaving humanity with a paltry thirty percent of dry land on which to reside. It won't take too much of a disaster to make the world uninhabitable to all of the land-dwelling creatures on the planet. Even if floating crafts and arks are hurriedly deployed, these temporary measures will eventually fail one day. Humanity cannot tread water forever.

What Lurks Below? – Many think that space is the last, great, unexplored region, but the truth is much closer. We have barely explored the oceans' depths. Few vessels are able to endure the crushing pressures of the depths, and the absolute darkness of the bottom could hide anything. Who knows what things could lurk below?

Crisis

1W – The polar ice caps are melting, causing the ocean's levels to rise dramatically.

2W – A biblical worldwide torrential rain has been falling for 40 days and nights.

3W – All of the world's continents have begun sinking into the oceans' depths.

4W – The oceanic god Poseidon is signalling the return of the Greek Gods by flooding the planet.

5W – Aquatic alien beings have begun flooding the planet as they terraform it for their own purposes.

6W – A sudden shift in the earth's tectonic plates has caused the world's oceans to catastrophically "spill" over into otherwise inaccessible areas.

1B – Once it's fallen as rain, water has stopped evaporating back into vapor, permanently retaining its liquid state on the planet's surface.

2B – A crack in the ocean's floor is causing water to pour in from another dimension.

3B – A shift in the moon's orbit plays havoc with the tides, causing massive tidal waves worldwide.

4B – Water elementals are crossing over from their respective elemental plane.

5B – Cracks and fissures are opening up along fault lines, allowing the seas to pour inland.

6B – Global weather patterns have gone berserk with hurricanes, monsoons, and tidal waves crashing across the lands.

Limit

1W – The world's lands are already submerged, and no dry land remains.

2W – The team is made up of aquatic experts with unique underwater exploration experience.

3W – The team has been genetically altered to allow water breathing.

4W – Most of humanity has been decimated by the Crisis.

5W – The team has access to the only craft capable of functioning at the oceans' depths.

6W – The team possesses a device vital to completing the mission.

1B – The world will be completely underwater in less than 7 days.

2B – The team is closest to the epicenter of the Crisis.

3B – Only the team is aware that the Crisis exists.

4B – The team has encountered this same phenomenon before and has insight on stopping it.

5B – As far as they know, the team are the only surviving humans at this point.

6B – The team accidentally set the Crisis in motion and feels obligated to stop it.

Complication

1W or 1B – A massive aquatic sea creature is stalking the team.

2W or 2B – The craft was never designed to be taken to the ocean's depths and is starting to collapse under the pressure.

3W or 3B – A large craft filled with survivors is signalling the team, requesting rescue.

4W or 4B – They are severely off-course at the start and getting to the Crisis will sap all of their resources before they reach the goal.

5W or 5B – Their air supply will run out before they reach the mission objective.

6W or 6B – Initial information on the Crisis is incorrect and the Plan is invalidated.

Threats

Crushing oceanic pressures
Monstrous undersea creatures
Hungry school of sharks
Freezing cold
A leak that gets increasingly worse
Impenetrable darkness
Failing life support systems
Massive tidal waves
A quickly-forming hurricane
Sudden power failure

Assets

Accurate ocean maps

Friendly pod of dolphins

Deep-sea diving suits

Submersible robotic probe

Extra oxygen tanks

Nuclear charges

Powerful sonar array

Deep-sea diving bell
Electrical repellent device