2024 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, something that has been recognised and celebrated with any number of books and products. In addition to the Player’s Handbook for Dungeons & Dragons 2024, there was The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970 – 1977 and even LEGO Dungeons & Dragons, the former controversial, the latter fun. However, in all of the brouhaha following the release of The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970 – 1977, Wizards of the Coast—rather Hasbro International Inc.—published another book dedicated to the history of the world’s preeminent roleplaying game. Dungeons & Dragons Museum: Celebrate 50 years of the epic fantasy role-playing game promises to take us on a guided tour of Dungeons & Dragons’ history complete with rarely seen images, an examination of its evolution over multiple editions of the roleplaying game, and a wider look at its influence, such as on television series like Stranger Things and its expansion beyond the gaming table into computer games and big budget films.

From the outset, Dungeons & Dragons Museum feels like museum. It opens with a section called the ‘Entrance’ and from there, takes us into individual exhibits for each of the roleplaying game’s five editions. These are further broken down into various sections, almost like individual displays. In the ‘Entrance’, the reader is told about the beginnings of Dungeons & Dragons with ‘Roll for Initiative: The Origins of D&D’ which introduces both E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and the importance of the Braunstein wargame. This nicely illustrated with portraits of both men and of Chainmail, the forerunner to Dungeons & Dragons, each keyed with a decent description. It is followed by timeline which covers the broad history of Dungeons & Dragons and its publishers. There are some oddities here, such as describing the development of Basic Dungeons & Dragons as a splinter branch, but the timeline does acknowledge changes in the hobby as they affect the roleplaying game. For example, E. Gary Gygax leaving in 1985 when Lorraine Williams gains a controlling share of TSR, Inc. and the publication of the Pathfinder roleplaying game in 2008.

Each of the five editions of Dungeons & Dragons gets its own section, from Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Every edition gets its own ‘Knowledge Check’, an overview of the edition before Dungeons & Dragons Museum examines the developments which occurred during the period when the edition was in print and the developments which in turn affected Dungeons & Dragons during that period. For example, ‘Animated Dreams’ looks at the Dungeons & Dragons Cartoon of the eighties, followed by ‘Ware Identification’ which details some of the merchandise released in conjunction the cartoon series—both in the eighties and since, for the ‘First Edition’, whilst for ‘Second Edition, Dungeons & Dragons begins to find itself portrayed on screen in films like Mazes & Monsters and E.T. The Extraterrestrial, whilst Mazes & Monsters would contribute towards to the Satanic Panic backlash against Dungeons & Dragons that would see it undergo significant design changes that would not be undone for decades. This would continue for ‘Fifth Edition’ with the celebrity games portrayed on The Big Bang Theory and the games both played and underlying the various seasons of Stranger Things, and of course, not forgetting the influence of Critical Role.

This is where Dungeons & Dragons Museum is at its strongest. Whether it is discussing the first Dungeons & Dragons novels—Quag Keep by Andre Norton and Dragons of Autumn Twilight, the first part of the Dragonlance Chronicles by Maragret Weis and Tract Hickman—in ‘Read Magic’ and R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt Do’Urden novels in ‘Legend Lore’, Bioware’s original Baldur’s Gate computer game in ‘City Secrets’, and even acknowledging the disasters of the original Dungeons & Dragons film from the year 2000 in ‘Aetherial Archive’, Dungeons & Dragons Museum is far batter at exploring the corollaries of the roleplaying game rather than the game itself. Indeed, none of the five editions receive more than a page each in terms of description and impact, and Basic Dungeons & Dragons barely warrants a paragraph beyond its description of being a splinter to the main game. Given how influential Basic Dungeons & Dragons has been in the hobby, especially in the last decade with the rise of the Old School Renaissance, it reads as being particularly dismissive. There are interesting points made, such as ‘Comprehend Language’ for ‘Second Edition’ which explores how the language of Dungeons & Dragons with terms such as ‘NPC’ and ‘XP’—Non-Player Character and Experience Points—and others have proliferated through computer games and out into the wider lexicon, but these are far and few between.

Physically, Dungeons & Dragons Museum is well written and presented. The artwork is all well handled and serves to make for an attractive looking book. That said, the book is not illustrated with rarely-seen images as its description suggests. Many of them will be familiar to even casual adherents of the roleplaying game and even those that are not, will have previously appeared in books like Art & Arcana: A Visual History.

Dungeons & Dragons Museum is not a book for the hardcore fan of Dungeons & Dragons—and certainly not the hardcore player of Dungeons & Dragons. The book focuses too much upon the peripherals over the core rules, so its discussion of the game play and how it changes from one edition to the next is all too casual. Yet it does showcase how Dungeons & Dragonss has spread across different media and influenced wider culture that has then influenced Dungeons & Dragons in return. Overall, Dungeons & Dragons Museum: Celebrate 50 years of the epic fantasy role-playing game provides a decent overview of Dungeons & Dragons in a broader sense as an intellectual property rather than as the roleplaying game, which gets pushed to the side.

‘Hollyhock’ is a large walled garden, some two-and-a-half miles across, which lies within the lands of Duke Omer. It contains a forests, a lake, a hedge maze and a famous rose garden. In fact, so famous, the king himself enjoys an annual visit to Hollyhock for a birthday hunting retreat. Now such a visit is unlikely, for the Sun has not set upon the garden in months. It languishes under a hazy late-afternoon sun that has had a deleterious effect upon the flora and fauna contained within its walls. The plants have begun to dry out now than the garden no longer has any rainfall, whilst the constant daylight appears to have maddened the animals found within, driven to aggression and odd behaviour without the regular diurnal cycle. Duke Omer has already sent several of knights inside Hollyhock and he has grown increasingly concerned. In a desperate bid to undo the curse which has beset Hollyhock, he has put out a bounty that he hopes will persuade a band of enterprising sell-swords to undertake the mission. Some already have, but like the knights before them, have no returned. There are rumours that spending a day in the garden will send a man mad, a giant rat—never seen before—lurks inside already having killed two knights, and Duke Omer blames Fabien, the king’s magician, who went missing at about the time that the Sun never set, for the whole situation, this ‘Hideous Daylight’.

Hideous Daylight is a scenario published by Swordlords Publishing for use with Old School Essentials, Necrotic Gnome’s interpretation and redesign of the 1981 revision of Basic Dungeons & Dragons by Tom Moldvay and its accompanying Expert Set by Dave Cook and Steven M. Marsh. (The PDF also includes a version for use with Cairn.) It is designed to be played using First to Third Level Player Characters and is a mini-hexcrawl that can be run on its own or slotted into a Game Master’s campaign with some adjustment here and there. The ‘Hollyhock’ consists of some nineteen hexes, each of which contains something and each of which takes between ten and twenty minutes to cross, but longer to explore, of course. Certain hexes have specific locations with expanded detail, two of them being mini-dungeons, which thus require further exploration. Any players, let alone their characters, expecting to find a bucolic idyll will be soundly disappointed. There are piles of rotting corpses, deer are seen grazing peacefully on the dead, a knight dutifully performing his assigned task despite being dead (though not evil), gazebo containing fire, a murder of possessive crows, an even more possessive mermaid, and a single, circular patch shade exists in one location, never moving and with no cause to be seen. There is the constant sense of a maintained and often manicured garden having gone to seed, such as the tangled rose gardens or the bird bath having become a repository for the crows’ treasures. Then there are signs of strangeness, of oddities that should not be there at all such as rips in reality and overly friendly ‘aliens’ with a deconstructive desire to understand how everything works and the hands to support that. As well as these, the Player Characters will begin uncovering clues as to what is going on, leading them to explore the adventure’s mini-dungeons.

Hideous Daylight has two dungeons, both quite small, but nicely detailed. These consist of a hedge maze, which the scenario does not make too big a feature of getting lost in, and a network of caverns under a well. Here, along with some very bored shadow demons, the Player Characters will discover the real threat to the hollyhock, although dealing with it is challenging. The scenario suggests multiple ways in which it can end and the possible consequences for each of them, though not all of them are beneficial to the Player Characters or the surrounding region. This also means that there room for the Game Master to write a sequel or two, and that is in addition to the possibility of the dungeon under the well being expanded.

Oddly, there is decidedly pointed advice for the Game Master at the start of the game. At the second location, the author advises that whilst the Game Master roll the dice and refer to the random encounter table, she should instead just send the giant rat barrelling towards the Player Characters. The intention is to get the scenario going with some action and to get the Player Characters to react, especially in the face of as fearsome a creature as the giant rat proves to be. It feels out of place with the rest of the scenario, but it is giving the Game Master the option. Effectively, though, the Game Master can go beyond this and use ‘Scampers’ as he is called, to prod and push the Player Characters to visit particular locations.

Physically, Hideous Daylight is decently presented. The illustration are good and the maps are clear, although the map of the Hollyhock is more pictorial than simply being numbered. This does make it slightly difficult to work out what is what on the map in some cases. A legend would have helped.

Hideous Daylight is a busy little affair. It should provide a two or three sessions’ worth of as the Player Characters attempt to bring darkness to the Hollyhock. It offers a challenging mix of exploration, investigation, and combat in a mini-mystery hexcrawl.

Dexterity games are not a favourite of Reviews from R’lyeh. In fact, Reviews from R’lyeh will go so far as to say that it hates Jenga, would describe Jenga as being boring, after all, it is just a series of plain wooden blocks, and a terrible game—even if it can be called a game. That said, combine Jenga with something like Dread: Dredd (and indeed, Dread) and you actually have a game and a point to Jenga. So, the question is, if Reviews from R’lyeh is averse to dexterity games, what is it doing reviewing a game like Tinderblox? Well, Tinderblox is small, it is bright and colourful, it has a theme, it has challenging situations set up by the game and not by the players, and it has a means of levelling the playing field—or is that camp site?—and making everyone as clumsy as each other. Published by Alley Cat Games, this is a little game that comes in a tin, a little game all about setting fire to a campfire and for that you need tinder and flames, and if it comes in a box, then ‘tinderbox’. And if the tinder and the flames are blocks of wood, then Tinderblox.

Tinderblox is designed to be played by two to six players, aged six plus, and can be played in fifteen minutes. Inside the tin the six-page rules leaflet, a Campfire Card, nineteen Instruction Cards, twenty Logs, ten Red and ten Yellow ‘Cinder’ Cubes, and two pairs of tweezers. The play of the game is simple. Three Logs are placed on the Campfire Card and the remaining logs and both the Red and Yellow ‘Cinder’ Cubes returned to the tin. Then the players take in turn to draw an Instruction Card and do exactly what it says. For example, it might show a Red ‘Cinder’ Cube on top of a Yellow ‘Cinder’ Cube or a horizontal Log with a Red ‘Cinder’ Cube and a Yellow ‘Cinder’ Cube on top of it at either end. The player has to put these new Logs and Cubes exactly on the fire as the Campfire Card shows. The player can do this in any fashion that he likes, as long the pieces he adds remain upright and the fire does not collapse. If it does, that player is eliminated. Play continues like this until there is one player remaining. He is the winner.

Which sounds like it is easy. It is not, because what has not mentioned so is the tweezers. Tinderblox comes with two pairs of tweezers and it comes with two pairs of tweezers because the player cannot use his fingers. Instead, he must use the tweezers. It does not matter which pair of tweezers, because either would be a candidate for the worst pair of tweezers in the world. They really, really, REALLY are rubbish. However, they are all Tinderblox has and they have absolutely no grip. Well almost no grip. Or just enough grip to imagine that a player he could imagine getting hold of Log or a Red ‘Cinder’ Cube or a Yellow ‘Cinder’ Cube and placing it on the campfire. It is possible. It is annoyingly difficult and that is point. It is what makes Tinderblox so frustratingly difficult and gives a player a sense of achievement when he places the Logs and ‘Cinder’ Cubes in the right arrangement.

Physically, everything is nice about Tinderblox. The tin is perfect, the rules leaflet explains everything easily, the Campfire Card is double-sided for different set-ups, the Instruction cards easy to understand, and the wooden pieces are bright, colourful, and simple. The tweezers are crap. Which is the point.

Tinderblox is simple and portable. The tiny tin fits into any bag and as long as there is a flat surface, there is somewhere to set a fire and keep it going with the simplest of Logs and Cinders whilst using the worst tweezers in the world. The only downside to the game is the player elimination aspect, but the game plays quick to start again, so nobody is get waiting for too long, plus the playing time for Tinderblox is very short and so never outstays its welcome. Tinderblox is a lovely looking, delightfully undexterous filler of a game.

It is the time of year when a man’s mind turns to murder. Not because he have had enough of his family and his relatives for one year—and just in one day—but because it is traditional to enjoy murder mysteries, whether on the page or one the screen. And of course, such murders should be as cozy as possible. Then, if that murder is cozy, the detectives need to be equally as cozy. When not cooing and aahing over the very latest tragic death that has occurred under their noses, they like attending to their gardens, participating in the Women’s Institute, reading the next title to discuss as part of their book club, knitting something suitable for a grandniece or nephew, organising the next village fete, and singing in the church choir. These are the Matrons of Mystery, older ladies of leisure whose surreptitious and unobtrusive nature means that they get overlooked when investigating crimes and searching for clues, and eventually putting together a solution which unmasks the perpetrator! Matrons of Mystery is an investigative roleplaying game in which there are mysteries and there are clues to be uncovered, but there is no set solution. And if the Matrons do not get quite get their solution right the first time, they can investigate further and propose another solution!This is what Matrons of Mystery: A cozy mystery roleplaying game—and Brindlewood Bay, the roleplaying game by Jason Cordova it is derived from—both do.
Christmas Crime: Three festive mysteries for Matrons of Mystery presents three more mysteries for the Matrons to solve, but all with a Christmas theme. Each of the three comes with a description of the theme, sets the scene with a set-up, details of the victim, suggests ways in which the Matrons can get involved, and the Teaser, essentially that scene before the opening credits when everyone’s obvious relationships are established and then the dead body of the murder victim is dramatically revealed (cue dramatic music!). This is followed by seven or eight possible suspects, each with a description and reason to want to murder the victim. Lastly there is a lengthy list of clues to be found.

The trilogy starts with ‘Oh No They Didn’t’, which opens with the dress rehearsal for the village amateur dramatics society’s annual Christmas pantomime at the village hall coming to an abrupt halt when Willow Jackson, the lovely young actress playing the lead role of Cinderella, is found lying in the middle of the stage in a pool of blood! Ideally, one of the Matrons should be playing the role of the Fairy Godmother, but the murder mystery suggests other roles too. The second mystery, ‘Bake or Death’, takes place at the village’s annual baking contest with three contests being of note—best mince pie, best biscuit, and best cake. Of these, the best cake competition is subject to the fiercest rivalries. The victim is Lisa Monroe, relative newcomer to the villager and winner of the contest three years in a row. Unfortunately, she is unlikely to winner a fourth time after she is found dead with a cake ribbon wrapped around her neck! The Matrons can be the Judges, contestants, or the organisers. The trio comes to a close with ‘Slay Ride’ in which Bob Chandler, the owner of the local stable yard, who every year plays Santa Claus and provides a carriage as Father Christmas’ sleigh for the village Christmas fete, is found dead in the stables. The Matrons can be organisers of the fete, friends of Bob Chandler, or simply like horses. The teaser as a somewhat gruesome tone when it turns out that Rudolph the Horse’s nose is not red simply because, but because it has something red on it…*

* “Why Rudolph, you’ve got red on you.”

All three cases, the various suspects have secrets and reasons to kill the respective victims. Most of them are not all that nice and all of them are rampant stereotypes typical of the genre. So, there is scope aplenty here for the Game Master to ham up her portrayal of the NPCs, since these episodes—as per the genre—is being broadcast in the middle of the afternoon or the middle of the evening, the perfect cozy, easy spots for the genre. Further, the mysteries themselves are stereotypical, even clichés, of the genre. Or rather as they are properly called, classics. What lifts these classics up above the ordinary is the fact that there is not set solution to the murders. The players and their Matrons can discover the clues, question the suspects, verify alibis, and deduce the identity of the culprit and his or her motivations, and in the process provide a comfortably cozy entertainment, whilst the Game Master gets to portray a cast riddled with jealousies, insecurities, and secrets. Plus, just like the cozy murder mysteries themselves, the murder mysteries in Christmas Crime are just as undemanding when it comes to set-up.

Physically, Christmas Crime is neatly and tidily laid out. It is not illustrated bar the Christmasy front cover. The only that it lacking is some locations for the mysteries to play out in, but the Game Master and her players should be able to improvise those.

What could be cozier than death at Christmas, than the comfortable clichés and mild murders of Christmas Crime: Three festive mysteries for Matrons of Mystery?

 I did not get any new D&D or RPG material this Christmas. No big deal, really; the only new things I wanted were those I wrote! But I did get a chance over the last couple of days to go through a boxed set I got in that lot from my late friend. 

I spent some time in the Free City of Haven.

In his collection was a copy of Haven the Free City. This is the second edition/printing, and it is in fantastic shape.

Fantastic is an understatement, really. The contents are in pristine shape. The box has a blown-out corner, but that is really it.

I am rather thrilled, to be honest. This is not just a great find; I have wanted this boxed set for, well, forever, it seems. Back in the day, Grenda and I spent a lot of time playing in cities and urban areas in our games. So to see this now from his old collection is not just a great gift, it is an emotionally charged one. 

We had planned to write our own "Urban Survival Guide" back then. He had created his own city with a giant map. The map is mixed in with all this stuff. I hope to get to it someday soon.

I didn't even know he had this; we would have played the hell out of it back in the late 80s. Given the material it was bundled with, he must have picked it up in late 1988 or 1989. 

The contents, as I mentioned, are in fantastic shape. I am not sure he used it all that much.

This is great stuff. I could spend days going through all of this. A true gift. 

A Stitch in Time is both a campaign for Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition and not a campaign for Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition. It is a campaign in the sense that there is a connected thread that runs through all ten of its episodes, but not a campaign in the sense that there is no overarching plot or threat that the Player Characters will be aware of and must find a way to deal with by the tenth episode. Instead, the series arc is a threat that the Player Characters must deal with in the tenth episode—just as there is in every episode—but they will not be aware of it until the tenth episode and they will not be aware that they have been preparing to face it for the previous nine episodes. So rather than a campaign, what A Stitch in Time actually is, is a complete series that the Game Master can run for her Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game. Although written for use with Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition and thus ostensibly for the Thirteenth Doctor, the ten episodes can easily be run using any of the other Doctors and their Companions, or indeed the Thirteenth Doctor and her companions. Or, of course, it can be run using the players’ own Time Lord and Companions. It could even be run with another team of time travellers, using a means other than a TARDIS to travel through time and space, but although A Stitch in Time does include some advice on the changes needed to make it run without a Time Lord and his TARDIS, it is written with the assumption that the Player Characters include a Time Lord and have a TARDIS. Alternatively, A Stitch in Time could be used as an anthology of scenarios which the Game Master can draw from for her own campaign rather than use as a whole.

A Stitch in Time is published by Cubicle 7 Entertainment and will take the travellers back and forth across time and space, from Earth to outer space, and back again. From an English holiday camp in the here and now, a disused prison complex in the far future, and an animation studio in Burbank, California, 1932 to the Battle of Hastings, a hospital out of time, and a threatened utopia in the twenty-sixth century. On the way, the Player Characters will meet a Dalek, a Silurian, the Nestene Consciousness, a lot of Sontarans and Ice Warriors, a Time Lord, and more. Every episode follows the same format. It has an Introduction, a Call To Adventure—what gets the Player Characters involved, an explanation of What’s Going On, the three Acts of the story, and the Epilogue. The What’s Going On section ends with the ‘Series Arc’ explaining how the episode ties in with the ongoing story. These ties all take the form of objects—objects which all together can be used to defeat the threat in the tenth episode of A Stitch in Time. Effectively, as the Player Characters will eventually learn, they have been on an intergalactic scavenger hunt to defeat a gigantic threat. If the Player Characters have not collected all of the items needed by the tenth episode, then there is a solution. Time travel. Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition is a time travel roleplaying game, so there is scope for the Player Characters to go back and forth through time, although the does warn about the dangers of meeting themselves, which of course, is the Blinovitch Limitation Effect.

A Stitch in Time begins in slightly underwhelming fashion as the Player Characters protect some escaped political intergalactic prisoners who have crash-landed outside an English seaside holiday camp. There is some fun to be had to playing around with the traditional aspects of setting, but some of the nuances may be lost on a non-British audience, whilst a British audience is likely to want to shift the episode from the present day to the nineteen fifties. More so given that the episode is called, ‘Hi-De-Hide’. The action picks with ‘The Most Dangerous Monster’, which is set on a former prison complex, which has been refitted as a tourist destination in which the tourists come to hunt the galaxy’s most dangerous game. No guesses for what that is, but this a nice homage to the Ninth Doctor episode, ‘Dalek’. ‘Silver Screams’ takes place at an animation studio—that is very definitely not Disney—in 1932 in Burbank, California, where for some reason the film stock and the props take on a deadly life of their own. Cue fun with a giant Merry Mallard! In ‘Everything Most Go’, the time travellers find themselves at the biggest shopping complex in the universe and most find out why every customer is being evacuated except the Sontarans and the Ice Warriors. Just what they shopping for? None of them can come armed, so there is an amusing description of the Sontarans having armed themselves via the kitchenware department! In ‘Protect and Survive’, the timeline becomes imperilled when it is revealed what exactly lies beneath the Battle of Hastings and in ‘Emergency Ward 26’, the Player Characters find themselves in a tricky situation in time that makes it the hardest of the ten scenarios in the book for the Game Master to run. Later episodes include a classic museum heist in ‘The Great Sonic Caper’ and a Cyberpunk-style medical mystery in ‘Green for Danger’ before the series comes to a close with ‘Save Nhein’ which rounds off A Stitch in Time. (And yes, we know...)

There is a coda to A Stitch in Time which suggests directions in which the Game Master might take her campaign after completing the series it presents, whilst also wondering how the episodes are connected in ways more than the scavenger hunt it is. Is there someone or something manipulating the Player Characters? Are they being testing? The coda does not present any answers, so this is really prompts for the Game Master to think about where A Stitch in Time fits in her campaign and what it might link to. Perhaps though, Cubicle 7 Entertainment will answer these prompts in a future supplement?

Physically, A Stitch in Time is cleanly, tidily laid out, decently written, and illustrated with the Thirteenth Doctor and her Companions as well as the monsters that the Player Characters will meet in the course of the series. One of the issues with the ten scenarios in A Stitch in Time is that they are presented in narrative fashion. There are no maps or floor plans, and there are no illustrations of any of the NPCs in the scenarios. Which means that the Game Master has to work that much harder to visualise both locations and characters and impart that to her players.

A Stitch in Time is stronger as an anthology of episodes rather than as a traditional roleplaying campaign. It is also a decent series with many of its scenarios making for exciting episodes that you could imagine being made for the television screen rather than for playing around the table. Of the ten, ‘The Most Dangerous Monster’ and ‘Emergency Ward 26’ are classics, whilst there is room aplenty to lean into the comic potential of both ‘Hi-De-Hide’ and ‘Silver Screams’ with the Game Master and her players acknowledging the obvious inspirations for the pair. In whatever way the Game Master decides to use it, A Stitch in Time is solid support for her Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition campaign.

Strangeville is a town like any other, which means that it is beset by monsters and robots and dinosaurs and aliens, and because the adults never believe in monsters and robots and dinosaurs and aliens until it is too late, the only standing between the monsters and robots and dinosaurs and aliens and Strangeville’s doom are the kids! Young teenagers on bikes or skateboards or even roller-skates with the curiosity to notice that something strange is going in where else, but Strangeville! Welcome to Strangeville then, an Old School Renaissance compatible roleplaying game based on Knave. Published by Doomed Wizard Games, it is obviously based also on the television series Stranger Things as well as Paper Girls, The Goonies, and just any adventure film or television series set in the eighties in which the kids are the heroes. Being based on Knave it offers fast-playing stripped down mechanics, whilst also suggesting collaborative worldbuilding between the players and the Game Master. What it does not do is provide anything in terms of spells or monsters beyond advice on how to adapt them to Welcome to Strangeville. Thus, the Game Master will need access to a bestiary and a source of spells of some kind. That said, the Old School Renaissance is not exactly short of those.

In Welcome to Strangeville, a Player Character has six abilities—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma—each of which has a Check Bonus and a Save bonus. The Check Bonus ranges between one and six and is added to the die roll when a Player Character undertakes an action. The Save Bonus is equal to the Check Bonus plus ten, and it is what the Player Character rolls against when tyring withstand various dangers or effects. He has an Alignment, either Nark, Slacker, or Bogus. Nark indicates that the Player Character believes in the greater good rather than the individual, a Slacker cares more about himself, but can be roused to action, and if a character is Bogus, he is definitely selfish, if not downright evil. He has a number of Traits such as Age—between twelve and fourteen, Physique, Hair, Virtue, Vice, Speech, Parents, and Parent Occupation, and so on. He will also have some gear which will include either a bicycle, a skateboard, or a pair of roller-skates so that he can get around.

To create a character, a player rolls three six-sided dice for each ability and assigns the lowest rolled as the Check Bonus. He adds ten to the Check Bonus to get the Save Bonus for the ability. Having done this for each ability, selects an Alignment and rolls for Traits, Gear, and means of transport.

At thirteen Terrell Thompson is beginning to get big and broad, which has made him a pick for the high school football team. He tries to keep himself out of trouble, but as the new kid in the school—his mom having moved to Strangeville to work in the town pharmacy, together with his size, he feels he gets picked on when things go wrong. So, he is not always trusting, but when he does make friends, he stands by them.

Terrell Thompson
Level: One

Strength Check +3/Save Bonus 13
Dexterity Check +3/Save Bonus 13
Constitution Check +4/Save Bonus 14
Intelligence Check +2/Save Bonus 12
Wisdom Check +3/Save Bonus 13
Charisma Check +1/Save Bonus 11

Hit Points 8

TRAITS
Age: 13 Gender: Male
Physique: Towering Face: Wide Skin: Perfect Hair: Dreadlocks Clothing: Torn
Virtue: Loyal Vice: Prejudiced
Speech: Breathy
Misfortunes: Suspected
Parents: Widowed Mother Parent’s Occupation: Pharmacist
Alignment: Slacker

GEAR
Swiss Army Knife, lantern & oil, caltrops, perfume, skateboard

Mechanically, Welcome to Strangeville is straightforward. To have his teenager undertake an action, a player rolls a twenty-sided die, adds the appropriate ability check and if the result is fifteen or more, he succeeds. The target may vary—primarily in combat because the target is likely to have a different value for its Dexterity Save, but otherwise, Welcome to Strangeville uses the standard Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic. Strength is used for physical actions, melee combat, and extra damage, Dexterity for speed and reflexes, Constitution to resist diseases and poisons, Intelligence for anything involving concentration and precision, including tinkering with machinery or picking pockets, Wisdom for perception and ranged attacks, and Charisma whenever a character interacts with someone else. Thus, there are some minor changes in how the abilities in comparison to more traditional Old School Renaissance retroclones.

Combat uses the same mechanics, with the defender’s Save acting as the target. This can be to inflict damage, and Welcome to Strangeville suggests that firearms be extremely be hard to hold of as the Player Characters are teenagers, or it can be stunts such as disarming an opponent or knocking them over. Most weapons inflict a four- or six-sided die in terms of damage, whilst rifles and shotguns do more. When a Player Character’s Hit Points are reduced to zero, he is unconscious and if they are reduced to his Constitution Check as a negative value, he is dead, that is if he has a Constitution Check of +2 and his Hit Pits are reduced to -2, he is dead. Critical hits occur if the player rolls a twenty and a fumble occurs if he rolls a one.

Other rules are quick and easy. Stunts on bicycles, skateboards, and so on, require a Dexterity check, it is possible to subdue an opponent, and a Player Character has a number of item slots equal to his Constitution Save. There are narrative elements too. For example, Group Advantage can be gained for everyone’s next action two or more Player Characters declare a collective action and their players narrate how a previous incident helps them with this one, but the primary narrative element to Welcome to Strangeville comes in the set-up when the players and the Game Master work together to create and describe the town of Strangeville. During Session Zero, each player also creates a handful of rumours and urban legends about places in the town, monsters that lurk, houses said to be haunted, serial killers believed to stalk, and so on. The Game Master takes these and deicides which are true and which are false, using as many or as few as she likes to both establish a sense of mystery and weirdness about Strangeville, whilst also using some as the basis for adventures. Beyond this, the advice for the Game Master is fairly brief, primarily focusing on how to adapt and use monsters and spells from other sources, noting that a spell takes a slot in a Player Character’s inventory.

Physically, Welcome to Strangeville is a bit scruffy in places and the artwork does vary in quality. It is clearly written and anyone with any experience of the Old School Renaissance will grasp how it works with ease. The cover though, is good.

Although it uses the stripped back mechanics of Knave, what Welcome to Strangeville is not, is an introductory roleplaying game. It is not written as such, and is more aimed at the experienced Game Master who can develop the ideas suggested by her players during their Session Zero. Given that it does have to rely on other Old School Renaissance sourcebooks for its content, Welcome to Strangeville is underwritten in comparison to other roleplaying games in its genres and a group looking for a more rounded treatment of the ‘kids in peril’ genre may want to look elsewhere. However, for a group that prefers Old School Renaissance and is prepared to put the development work in to create their own setting and the Game Master their ‘kids in peril’ adventures, Welcome to Strangeville is a succinct little choice.

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary, and the new edition of that, Dungeons & Dragons, 2024, in the year of the game’s fiftieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—
Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch was and is a rare beast in many ways. It is rare because it is a hard Science Fiction roleplaying game, published at a time when the genre leaned more towards the Space Opera subgenre. It is rare because it is one of publisher Chaoisum, Inc.’s only two forays into the Science Fiction genre, the other being the ‘Future World’ setting from Worlds of Wonder, published in 1982. Lastly, it is literally rare because it has long been out of print and copies are hard to come by. Published in 1984, Ringworld is primarily based upon the Larry Niven novel of the same name, published in 1970, which would win Nebula Award in 1970 and both the Hugo Award and Locus Award in 1971. Ringworld tells the story of a group of explorers in the mid twenty-ninth century who travel far outside of Known Space to determine if a massive astronomical object is a threat to their employer. This object is the ‘Ringworld’ of the title, a ring one million miles wide with the approximate diameter of the Earth’s orbit and the inner surface area equal to three million Earths. It is habitable, for it has a breathable atmosphere, rotates to provide gravity, a moderate temperature, and a day/night cycle provided by an inner ring of shadow squares. Ringworld and the ‘ringworld’ was the very definition of the term ‘big dumb object’, but what it presented was a wide-open space to explore, both in the novels and in Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch.

The setting for Ringworld is Known Space, an area roughly sixty light years across, and beyond in the twenty-ninth century. Earth is a stable society with citizens free to pursue their own ambitions and the time to do it, but need permission to procreate to prevent overpopulation. Scientific research is highly regulated to avoid the creation of weapons of mass destruction. The discovery of Booster Spice enables individuals to live for centuries without dying except via an accident. Psionic abilities such as telepathy and telekinesis—and most notably ‘luck’, are not unknown. Mankind has settled numerous systems and adapted to a number of different environments, and fought the Kzinti, a highly aggressive, male-dominated cat-like species, in a series of wars that would see humanity prevail each time. Hyperspace travel is common and most spaceships are built using one of several types of virtually indestructible General Products Hull, sold by the General Products company. General Products is owned by the Pierson’s Puppeteers, a highly intelligent non-humanoid species with three hoofed legs and two snake-like heads who are fanatical cowards. The Pierson’s Puppeteers hire the original mission to the Ringworld and have been secretly manipulating and influencing the course of both human and Kzinti development in order to protect themselves.

In Ringworld, the Player Characters are either Humans, Kzin, or Puppeteers. The original mission to the Ringworld—as described in the first book in the series—has taken place and the Player Characters have the opportunity to conduct follow up expeditions as well as explore far beyond the relatively small region visited by the original expedition. The scenario included in the roleplaying game, ‘The Journey of the Catseye’ will take the Player Characters to the Ringworld.

Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch came as a richly packed box which contained the then obligatory ‘What’s in this Box’ sheet, four books, a booklet of extra essays and character sheets, a sheet of ‘Explorer Figures’, and a set of dice. The four books are the sixty-page ‘Explorer Book’, the forty-eight page ‘Gamemaster Book’, the forty-four-page ‘Creatures Book’, and the thirty-six-page ‘Technology Book’. The booklet is the ‘Ringworld: Autopilot Print-Out’. Bar the book covers, everything is presented in black and white with some excellent illustrations by Lisa Free. Everything feels of the highest quality, at least for 1984, and this was reflected in the price, Ringworld costing $25 at the time. This was seen as expensive for a roleplaying game in 1984. In terms of source material, the Ringworld roleplaying game draws from the novels Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers, The World of Ptavvs, A Gift From Earth, Protector, and Neutron Star. Notably, the ‘What’s in this Box’ sheet explains why there is no map of the Ringworld. At the bottom of the sheet is a band, one-half-inch wide. If this represents one million miles—the width of the Ringworld, then the scale circumference of the Ringworld would be twenty-five feet! This it suggests, “…[W]ill give the players a very good idea of the actual proportions (and awesome size) of Ringworld.” The full credits and all those with an input in the creation of the Ringworld roleplaying game are listed on the back of the sheet.

The ‘Explorer Book’ introduces the setting of Known Space, the basic rules, descriptions of Earth and the worlds settled by humanity, plus the rules for creating characters. The latter includes Humans, Kzin, and Puppeteers. The Ringworld roleplaying game uses the Basic Roleplay System, so a character is defined by Strength, Mass, Constitution, Intelligence, Power, Dexterity, Appearance, and Education. These are on the same scale as other Basic Roleplay System roleplaying games, although Education can be much, much higher as Player Characters can be much older than the average in other roleplaying games. A character also has a home world which determines the gravity under which he grew up, a potential defect like albinism, boosterspice allergy, or hyperspace blindspot phobia, and an age. Notably, the age is split between actual age and physical age, as this differs depending upon when the Player Character begins taking booster spice. There is a chance that a Player Character has a psionic ability. Lastly, the Player Character will have a range of skills, which are divided into five categories—Agility, Communication, Perception, Knowledge, and Technical—and also divided between Single and Root skills. A Single skill has a straight value, but a Root skill has a base beyond which the Player Character must specialise. For example, the Hyperdrive skill, which handles spaceship piloting, has a base beyond which the pilot must specialise in Quantam 1 and Quantam 2 hyperdrives.

Player Character creation is a matter of rolling for all of these elements. This is apart from Education, which is an open-ended roll. The final value will determine the basic starting age for the Player Characters. After that, a Player Character can have one or more Occupations which grants access to particular skills, the number being based on years after completing education. A Player Character is given a number of points to spend on Education skills, Pursuits—or Occupations, and Special Interests—hobbies. The process is not difficult, but with older characters this means that the process takes longer and that it can lead to characters with widely varying ages and thus skill values.

Our sample would-be explorer is a journalist and tridee presenter. He has been hearing rumours of a spaceflight out to an unknown object beyond the borders of Known space. He wants to get the first footage and he wants to be famous because of it.

Name: Jonathon Leung
Species: Human
Homeworld (Gravity): Earth (Normal)
Age – Physical: 23 Age – Chronological: 47
Occupations: Journalist
Defect: None
Strength 14 Mass 16 Constitution 14 Intelligence 12 Power 17 Dexterity 15 Appearance 14 Education 26
Damage Modifier: +1d3
General Hit Points: 30
Health Roll: 42% Reasoning Roll: 36% Luck Roll: 54% Dodge Roll: 45%
Action Ranking: 4

SKILLS
AGILITY Root Maximum: 31%
Athletics 31% (Run 35%), Hide 30%, Sneak 25%, Unarmed Combat 20%
COMMUNICATION Root Maximum: 26%
Bargain 50%, Debate 65%, Fast Talk 50%, Fine Arts 25%, Orate 65%, Own Language (Interworld) 100%, Perform 26% (Tridee Presentation 85%), Psychology 26% (Human 65%)
KNOWLEDGE Root Maximum: 38%
Anthropology 38% (Cultural Anthropology 60%), History 38% (Known Space Conspiracy Theories 58%) (Spaceflight and Colonisation History 45%), Law 20%, Second Language (Kzinti) 20%
PERCEPTION Root Maximum: 31%
Listen 25%, Observe 45%, Search 45%
TECHNICAL Root Maximum: 27%

Mechanically, Ringworld is a percentile system as per the Basic Roleplay system. Roll equal to or under the skill or a Health Roll or Reasoning Roll, for example, and the action is a success. If the result is a fifth of a skill or a Health Roll, then it is a Special Success, but a Special Failure if the result is over the target value and in the top twentieth percent. A roll of ninety-six or above is invariably a failure, although this will be modified if the skill is above one hundred percent. In skill contests, the lowest, successful skill roll wins, whilst the Resistance Table is used for contests involving attributes. In addition to improving skills via the standard method of the Basic Roleplay system, it is possible to improve skills and attributes via virtual training in the Simweb (part of the scenario included in Ringworld includes the opportunity to train in the ship’s Simweb).

Combat in Ringworld is not conducted round by round as per traditional roleplaying games, but in Impulses. Each Impulse is a United Nations Standard second long. In terms of time, a character, whether a Player Character or an NPC, can take Minor Actions and Major Actions. Minor Actions include firing a ranged weapon, falling over, and standing up from a kneeling position. A Minor Action takes one second or Impulse to perform. Major Actions include aiming a ranged weapon, attacking with a melee weapon or unarmed, drawing or stowing a weapon, and so on. A Major Action takes a number of Impulses to perform equal to a character’s Action Rating, derived from his Dexterity. For a human, this Action Rating is typically between three and six. For a Kzin, it ranges between four and two. Once the participants in a fight have declared their actions, the Game Master counts the Impulses up and when she reaches the Impulse when an action for a Player Character or NPC triggers, the action will take place, with rolls being made, as necessary. Effectively, this is a continuous count up, allowing continuous freedom of actions rather than restricting actions to the confines of a single round.

The Impulse system for actions for Ringworld remains a radical design, it being very rare to see anything similar in other roleplaying games—Aces & Eights Reloaded from Kenzer and Co. being a rare exception. However, it does force a player and Game Master alike to focus on the constant action, as procedurally, there is never a break in the process as there would be where combat is conducted round by round, and it does favour Player Characters and NPCs with better Action Ratings.

Melee or unarmed attacks can be parried or dodged, whilst ranged attacks in general cannot. Advanced weapons like the variable sword or the flashlight laser, are exceptions to this. Whilst a flashlight laser can be blocked by numerous surfaces, including armour, only a stasis field or the scrith material which the Ringworld is constructed of will stop a variable sword. If an attack is successful, the hit location is determined randomly, but can be adjusted by aiming. This adds an extra Impulse per change in location. Damage inflicted that exceeds a location’s Hit points will either render the limb useless, or render the character unconscious if the head, chest, or abdomen. If the damage suffered is more than twice a location’s Hit Points, a limb will be severed, bleeding or dying if the chest or abdomen, or dead if the head. Make no mistake, combat is deadly in Ringworld, especially given that a laser rifle will inflict ‘1d10+30’ points of damage, a flashlight laser anywhere between zero and fifty points of damage, and a variable sword ‘1d20+5’. Some armour is available, but it varies widely in its effectiveness. Ideally though, the Player Characters should not be engaging in combat unless they have to, and if they do, ultimately, they should have access to an autodoc which will provide effective, but slow healing for most damage suffered.

What is clear from Ringworld is that despite its size and the complexity of background, the rules themselves are not. A group with experience of the Basic Roleplay system will grasp them with ease, but at just eleven pages they are clearly explained and easy to understand. Character creation is slightly more, especially when taking into account the rules for creating Kzin or Puppeteer Player Characters found at the back of the ‘Explorer Book’.

Both the ‘Creatures Book’ and the ‘Technology Book’ provide more background and details of the setting. The ‘Technology Book’ covers all of the devices to be found across Known Space and beyond, some of which the Player Characters will be likely to equip themselves with or take to the Ringworld. It ranges from generators, computers, and medical equipment to vehicles, weapons, and protective devices. Weapons include Slaver disintegrators, hand beamers, flashlight lasers, the euphoria-inducing tasp, and more. Vehicles include the incredibly speedy flycycle as well as General Products Hull Types. All of it is highly detailed, especially the starships, and highly readable.

Similarly, the content of the ‘Creatures Book’ is also highly detailed and highly readable, if not more so in the case of the latter. It can be divided into five sections. The first details the ‘Aliens’ found across Known Space, such as the Bandersnatchi, Grogs, Kdatlyno, and more. Dolphins are also included, although they are not available as a Player Character species. The second presents a lengthy examination of the Pak, the aggressively xenophobic and protective species suspected of being the builders of the Ringworld. The third details the various ‘Hominids’ found on the Ringworld. These include the City Builders, Ghouls, Healers, Sea People, Vampires, and others. The last two sections are devoted to ‘Animals’ and ‘Flora’. The most notable of the latter includes the Slaver Sunflowers which targeted the first expedition to the Ringworld. All of the entries are accorded a full page’s worth of background and detail, if not more in several cases, presenting the various species as different in terms of both culture and biology.

The majority of the entries in Ringworld are essays, whether that is descriptions of the aliens and hominids in the ‘Creatures Book’ or guides to first Known Space, and then the Kzin, and the Puppeteers from the ‘Explorer Book’. This continues in the ‘Gamemaster Book’ and then in the ‘Ringworld: Autopilot Print-Out’. The latter includes essays about ‘Ringworld from Space’, the ‘Infinity-Horizon’ (since the Ringworld has no horizon), ‘A Day on Ringworld’, ‘The Darkside of Ringworld’, and ‘The Starry Night Sky of Ringworld’. The ‘Gamemaster Book’ describes the Ringworld in some detail, covering its physical structure, the technology that maintains it and can still be found on the Ringworld—especially on the rim, and the geography and ecosystem. There is background too on the City Builders, the species which most recently dominated the Ringworld, building floating cities and exploring and trading with other worlds, until a technological disaster caused the cities to fall out of the sky and other technologies to fail, as well as other Hominid Technology found on the Ringworld. These are all excellent essays containing a wealth of detail and background to the Ringworld. Perhaps the most obviously gameable here are the sections on ‘Puppeteer Secrets’ and ‘Ringworld Secrets’, the nearest that the roleplaying game gets to scenario hooks. There are rules for psionics as well.

The ‘Gamemaster Book’ comes to a close with ‘The Journey of the Catseye’. This is an introductory scenario designed to get the Player Characters to the Ringworld. The captain of the Catseye, a General Products No. 4 starship wants to employ a pilot and an engineer as well as security guards and scientists to join him on an expedition to a strange object outside of Known Space where his client hopes an alternative to boosterspice might be found. Both ship and crew are described in detail as is the journey, which gives the Player Characters the opportunity to test out the Simweb. Unfortunately, and much like the Lying Bastard in the Ringworld novel, the Catseye suffers catastrophic damage and is forced to crash land on the Ringworld. Much of the scenario revolves around making repairs to the ship and finding the parts needed, which will sometimes bring the Player Characters into conflict with the indigenous species. The scenario is detailed up to the point where it leaves the Player Characters at a moment of decision as to what they want to do next. There is no satisfying conclusion to the story and if the players have read Ringworld, the plot of ‘The Journey of the Catseye’ is worryingly similar. For all of the set-up, all of the detail, and all of the wonder to the Ringworld, ‘The Journey of the Catseye’ is quite mundane.

The scenario is not the only entry in the ‘Gamemaster Book’ to underwhelm. Not much more than two-and-half pages, the advice for the Game Master is much shorter than it needed to be. It tells the Game Master that she needs to create a logical campaign background with excitement to hold player interest. She is told it entails work and that she should plan for contingencies, but never quite told how. There is good advice on the challenge of how the Player Characters interact with the various natives and civilisations on the Ringworld, that is, to understand Ringworld is not a simple game of banditry in which they wander the land astride their great flycycle steeds ready to impose their will with their trusty flashlight lasers, and that even if they do, there will be someone on the Ringworld who can outfight them. Instead, the Player characters should rely on diplomacy and persuasion. Yet the ready access to highly powerful technology does give the Player Characters an advantage and the Game Master is going to need to work harder in creating scenarios and campaigns where violence is an option, but the least advantageous option. All of this takes place in an environment that has a surface area three times the size of the Earth in a setting that is highly technical and highly detailed technically. This is an issue with any roleplaying game that fits into the hard Science Fiction genre, the players are going to want the technical details and an idea of how things work. Often with a view to the technology providing a solution, which means that there is a tension between the players and their characters wanting to rely on their advanced technology, and the Game Master wanting to occasionally provide scenarios where its use is not as helpful. So, the Game Master needs to have some idea of how the technologies of Ringworld and Known Space work—and that is before writing a scenario or campaign.

The issue with Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch, ultimately, is what does a Game Master do with it? Everything about it is simply big—the enormous size of the Ringworld, the technology, and the questions about it. There are sixty questions listed in the ‘Ringworld Mysteries’ section, but none of them are really small and manageable. The idea of running Ringworld is already a formidable prospect, without a Game Master having to devise answers to questions that the creator of Known Space, Larry Niven, is best placed to answer. Overall, Ringworld needed more detailed and better advice on being an exploration roleplaying game, of handling technology so that it does not become a crutch, and so on.

Physically, Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch is very well presented. It is well written and all four books have their own contents listed on their respective back covers, which makes finding anything surprisingly easy. Inside, the black and white layout is dense, but still readable. The artwork is decent, but that of Lisa A. Free is excellent. It needs a slight edit in places.

—oOo—Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch was reviewed by Phil Masters in ‘Open Box in White Dwarf Issue 59 (November 1984). He awarded the roleplaying game an overall score of six out of ten and said, “This game takes a superb background idea, applies a good system of mechanics to it, and comes back with a disappointing result. It may be that I was expecting too much; as a long-time Known Space addict I’ve been on tenterhooks since the first mention of the project, and (once the Companion appears to complete the system) I may well find myself running or playing Ringworld regularly, despite my feeling that the game as presented lacks the depth (as opposed as size) it could and should have possessed.”

Ringworld was the featured review in Space Gamer Number 71 (Nov/Dec 1984). Reviewer Steve Peterson described it as “A Missed Bet”, expanding on the statement by writing, “Really, the Ringworld universe is not an especially good roleplaying situation in the traditional sense. Most of Known Space is too civilized for true action and adventure. The Ringworld itself is “uncivilized” enough, but the technology of the explorers is so much better that they can walk right over most native threats, Think of starting out your D&D adventurers in the first level dungeon, only the adventurers are armed with +5 armor and vorpal swords. You’d quickly get bored.” He countered this with, “However, the Ringworld game is a good simulation, because the characters in the stories were more powerful than the natives. But the challenges of the Ringworld stories arose from situations that couldn’t be handled with a flashlight laser or a variable sword. Those neat weapons didn’t matter when the whole Ringworld was falling into its sun, as in Ringworld Engineers. The characters had to solve problems with their heads, not with their gadgets.” before continuing, “Unfortunately, the authors of the Ringworld game miss the point entirely. They come heartbreakingly close when they include a section on Ringworld mysteries – they discuss many of the very important questions left unanswered in the books. But they fall short when they don’t tell you how to use those mysteries to create scenarios.”

Peterson’s review included three useful sidebars, or rather sections of boxed text. The first was ‘For the uninitiated…’, which introduced the Known Space setting and Niven’s books for anyone new to either, whilst the second was a review of the Ringworld Companion. The third was particularly interesting. ‘What Niven Thinks About Ringworld’, which gives a short interview with the author. Notable is the fact that the publisher had the rights to explore some of the mysteries of the Ringworld and give its own solutions, though Niven would not be beholden to them. That said, Niven was interested in the roleplaying game’s background essays on the Kzinti and wanted to purchase the rights to those to use as a bible for authors working on the Man/Kzin series of anthologies. Peterson’s review concluded with, “My recommendation: Niven fans should buy it for the essays and background materials. Role-players should be prepared to do some work on scenarios; but if you do, you’ll have some terrific roleplaying in a beautifully detailed world. Science-fiction gamers who want to use it for source material probably won't get their money’s worth.”
Ringworld was reviewed in ‘Game Reviews’ in Different Worlds Issue 37 (Nov/Dec 1984) by Jeff Seiken. He commented that, “Ringworld is a difficult game to run in that it requires a skillful gamemaster to keep play (and the explorers) under control. The demands of running a campaign world roughly the size of three million earths compressed into such a small area are enough to tax the abilities of even the most experienced gamemasters.” and “In Ringworld, with explorers routinely traveling at speeds of 7000 km per hour across an ever-changing landscape, the gamemaster needs to be flexible and able to improvise quickly. Moreover, although the rules claim otherwise, gamemastering a Ringworld campaign requires at least some scientific background on the gamemaster’s behalf.” Despite these reservations, he awarded Ringworld four stars and concluded with, “As mentioned previously, the rulebooks contain numerous essays devoted to specific facets of Ringworld to assist the gamemaster in constructing a suitable (and viable) campaign. These essays are both well-written and invaluable. In fact, as befitting a product which owes its origins to a literary source, Ringworld stands out as an extremely literate role-playing game. Digesting the extensive amounts of factual information presented in the essays may demand a significant commitment of time and energy on the part of the gamemaster, but then the rewards of role-playing in the world of Ringworld will far outstrip the effort.”

Steve Nutt reviewed Ringworld in IMAGINE magazine, No. 21 (December 1984) in ‘Notices – Games reviews’. He said, “Altogether, Ringworld’s advantages and disadvantages stem from its campaign setting. The actual mechanics of the game are top quality, yet background and atmosphere are what make or break a campaign, and in Ringworld this aspect could be somewhat daunting to the uninitiated.”—oOo—
Supported by the Ringworld Companion and the extra content in the aforementioned Different Worlds Issue 37, Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch did not remain in print for very long. Some of its content would form the basis for the background to the Man-Kzin War series of anthologies and Known Space received its sourcebook a decade later with The Guide to Larry Niven’s Ringworld. What this points to, certainly in the case of the Man-Kzin War series is that as a roleplaying game, Ringworld, was a great sourcebook for the setting. Richly detailed and informative enough for any fan of the Known Space series of novels. In fact, astonishingly good as a guide and bible to and for the setting. Yet that same detail made creating for the game beyond the given scenario a challenging consideration, even more so for a campaign. Which then becomes almost herculean given the underwhelming advice on creating for and running what is a technical and detailed setting.

Much like the story of the novel it is based upon, Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch is very good at getting the Game Master and her players and their characters to the Ringworld. Unfortunately, once they get there, the roleplaying game does leave them stranded and left to adapt and survive on their own.

—oOo—
With thanks to Lee Williams for the generous and all too lengthy loan of his copy of Larry Niven’s Ringworld: Roleplaying Adventure Beneath the Great Arch. Without that loan, this review would not have been possible.

 We watched the newest Christmas movie, "Red One," the other night. It is silly but fun. It had Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, and J. K. Simmons as Santa. But the surprise was Kiernan Shipka, as Grýla, The Christmas Witch. 

When she played Sabrina, Kiernan Shipka encountered Grýla before, so seeing her take on the mythological witch was fun. I have also encountered Grýla here before. And given that I already did Santa, I thought Grýla for NIGHT SHIFT would be fun, too.

Thorsteinn1996, CC BY-SA 4.0Grýla
8th level Witch

Strength: 17 (+2)
Agility: 13 (+1)
Constitution: 16 (+2) S
Intelligence: 14 (+1)
Wits: 18 (+3) P
Persona: 9 (+0) 

HP: 51
Alignment: Dark
AC: 2
Attack: +1

Fate Points: 1d8

Check Bonus (P/S/T): +4/+3/+1
Melee bonus: +2 Ranged bonus: +1
Saves: +4 against spells and magical effects

Witch Abilities

Arcana, Supernatural Senses, Spells, Arcane Powers,

Arcane Powers
Immunity to Cold, Charm Person, Shapeshifting

Spells

First Level (4): Chill Ray, Detect Magic, Mystical Senses, Sleep
Second Level (3): Find Traps, Knock, Suggestion
Third Level (3): Animal Summoning 2, Blinding Speed, Curse
Fourth Level (2): Befuddlement, Metamorphosis

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I think I have enough time left in this year to do another one of these. My box of old Dragons, though, is getting a little lighter these days. Today's issue takes us all the way back to November of 1986. My old High School DM had just been medically discharged from the Air Force due to arthritis, something that would plague him to the point that the last time I saw him, he was using a cane. I was a Senior in High School working on College applications and trying to get in as many AP math courses as I could. "Amanda" by Boston from their highly successful "Third Stage" album was the biggest song on the radio, which for me at the time was WYMG. "Crocodile Dundee" had dominated the screens for the last two month making Paul Hogan a household name, and on game store shelves and gaming tables all over was Issue #115 of This Old Dragon.

Our cover art is one of my time favorites from Den Beauvais. It might not get as much nostalgia as his chess ones, but this one is every bit as good. 

Letters is dominated by kudos for the Role of Computers feature and a demand for more AD&D computer games and aids. 

Roger Moore is now our new editor-in-chief of Dragon, taking on the role about a week prior. We were only vaguely aware at the time, or *I* was only vaguely aware, that there had been a huge shake-up at TSR.  Moore lets us know, maybe even reassuring us, that there are more great things coming, like supporting the Masters and Immortals sets for D&D and the newer AD&D books. 

Forum covers the big issues of the day. Namely was the cover of issue #114 considered softcore pornography and what is all this talk about 2nd Edition! I own all the 1st edition books and I don't replace them all now. 

Our featured topic this month is Thieves. In fact, this might be one of the first of the official "Special Attractions" or theme issues. I never associated these with Roger Moore's tenure, but it could be the case.

Lords of the Night by Eric Oppen covers thieves and thieves' guilds. I remember reading this one with great interest back in the day, and was the beginning of my thoughts on the Urban Survival Guide.

Friend of the Other Side Vince Garcia follows up with A Den of Thieves, which also covers guilds and how they exist in relation to each other and their city. It is, like much of Vince's work, very detailed.

Vince follows this up with The Art of Climbing Walls. This expands the thief climb walls skill. nearly 40 years later, we are using a single d20 and a single skill for all thief abilities. Another article, Getting Up in the World by Robin Jenkins also expands on this skill.

Eric Oppen is back with Robin Jenkins in Honor Among Thieves which covers the rules in which thief guilds operate. 

And Vince Garcia is back again with Tools of the (Thieving) Trade which covers, as you guessed, thief tools. 

All said an told about 27 pages of thief information. I ate it up. My main character at the time was Nigel "Death" Blade, a thief and assassin. Larina was still very low level at this point and Johan II was involved in a long prolonged war.

Speaking of holy fighters, James A. Yates is up with an idea that has seen a lot of print in Dragon, but not something that would become commonplace until AD&D 2nd Ed. Hammer of Thor, Spear of Zeus details what weapons clerics of the various Deities & Demigods Legends & Lore Gods can use. 

Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth covers all sorts of snakes in the AD&D game by Ray Hamel and David Hage.

Ed Greenwood is up next with Airs of Ages of Past, which gives us nine magical harps from the Forgotten Realms.

"There's Something on the Floor..." by Reid Beutler features some random tables for determining what is found on, in, and of dungeon floor design. 

Here is a rarity for the time, a non-Greenwood Ecology of article...almost.  The Ecology of the Harpy is split into two articles. The first, Songs of Beauty... comes to us from Barbara E. Curtis. The second, Songs of Death is by Ed Greenwood. Both work well together and I get the impression that the Curtis article was first and Greenwood added his piece afterwards. That's fine, and let's be honest, Elminster *is* the authority on these things in the Realms. The articles are a good read.

Elven Armies and Dwarves-At-Arms by James A. Yates details what sort of troops the demi-humans can muster. I would not run into the need for this one very often, but when I need it, it is nice to have here. You would be excused if your thoughts wander to the Battle of Five Armies. 

More dungeon exploring from Dan Snuffin in Door Number One, Door Number Two, or... You, it dawns on me that modern players would not know what a Monte Hall style play is OR even why we call it Monte Hall. Anyway, this it a bunch of random tables for various dungeon doors. I used to give the Monty Hall Problem in my Intro to Stats course when discussing probability. Really messes with people's heads.

Getting out of the dungeon and into the world of spies we have Stayin' Alive from John J. Terra. This would have been a good bit to have read back when I was investigating the R.I.P. RPG a bit ago. Not for any reason than to give me some more insight on how to play Top Secret. Which is exactly what this article was going for. Later on we also get more Top Secret material in Kevin Marzahl's When Only the Best Will Do. This covers Heckler & Koch weapons. 

The Role of Books by John C. Bunnell reviews newly published sci-fi and fantasy books from the gamer's perspective. This includes some Find Your Fate books, the Lords of the Middle Dark.

Nice ad for DC Heroes 1st Edition. The big DC Heroes Kickstarter just wrapped, so this will all be new again. 

Few more pages down a big full color ad for Traveller: 2300.

TSR Profiles features Roger E. Moore and Bill Larson.

Previews gives us the products coming for the end of 1986. These include a couple of my favorites M3 Twilight Calling by Tom Moldvay and RS1 Red Sonja Unconquered. For the new year of 1987 module H2 Mines of Bloodstone and a new DA2 Temple of the Frog from non other than Dave Arneson and David Ritchie is on the way. 

While the Ares section is a thing of the past now it seems, the back half of the magazine is still devoted to sci-fi and Marvel. 

An Interstellar Armory by Gus Monter for Star Frontiers Knight Hawks covers new weapons and defenses. 

Gamers' Guide has our small ads. All the usual suspects for 1986 are here. Wargames West, Gamescience and others. 

The Convention Calendar covers November, December, and January. None local to me (either now or then). 

We get four pages of Wormy. Tramp would soon move south to Carbondale and I would be a couple of months behind him. We lived in the same town for 4+ years and I never even knew. A page of Dragonmirth and three pages of SnarfQuest.

Honestly, a pretty good issue and a preview of what we would see in the Roger E. Moore, back half of the 80s, era. More special features and less content for non-TSR games. 

 Yesterday, I discussed mixing two of my current favorites from the Old-School RPG world into one gaming experience. Today, I want to discuss some specifics. Since it is Witchcraft Wednesday, I am going to talk about remixing the Old-School Essentials and ShadowDark Witches.  I am sure you can do the same with the other classes as well. 

Overlap

I mentioned yesterday there was already quite a bit of overlap between the two systems. Since today I want to focus on one class, the Witch, I am going to see where these two systems have some commonalities. 

Basics. Both systems have a witch class. Both provide an old-school gaming experience to levels 10 (SD) and 14 (OSE), so what many consider the "prime" adventuring levels.  

Both systems are built on a "Basic-era" aesthetic, and there is a lot of common ground on things like spells and monsters. 

Class-wise, Level 1 in one game is about equal to Level 1 in the other, and so on. Spellcasters get the added benefit of repeat casting in ShadowDark. Armor classes and hit points work the same ways. All characters have the same basic six abilities ranging from 3 to 18. The bonuses are different, but not enough to make it matter really. 

Humans are largely the same. Demi-humans like elves, dwarves, and halflings lose some of the things that make them special when moving from OSE to SD, i.e., loss of infravision/nightvision.

What are the differences though?

Differences

There are, in fact, a few differences between these two games that make all the differences in the world to their fanbases. I am not going to detail them all here, I am just interested in the rules that affect my interpretations of the witch classes.

Old-School Essentials

The OSE Witch is very much like my other OSR witches. She needs quite a bit of XP per level, more than the wizard at first, and she gains some powers (Occult Powers) over various levels. More than the Cleric or Magic-User, but less than the Druid. One of her powers is gaining a familiar at level 1.

ShadowDark

These witches use the same XP advancement as everyone else. She gets Talents just like the other characters do, but these are molded closer to the Occult Powers of other witches. Additionally, she gains a Patron and a Patron Boon.

Yesterday I proposed that gaining the additional powers of a class from SD in OSE would require an extra expenditure of XP. 

Since I would use OSE style leveling and XP budgets, adding the SD XP requirements is manageable. It could, in fact, be what the repeated casting and Talents would need if I were to recreate the witch XP.

Witch Level To Next Level (OSE) To Next Level (SD) Total 1 2,600 10 2,610 2 5,200 20 5,220 3 10,400 30 10,430 4 20,800 40 20,840 5 40,000 50 40,050 6 80,000 60 80,060 7 160,000 70 160,070 8 320,000 80 320,080 9 440,000 90 440,090 10 560,000 100 560,100 11 680,000 110 680,110 12 800,000 120 800,120 13 920,000 130 920,130 14 NA NA NA

As you can see, the addition of ShadowDark XPs are barely an issue. The cells in light blue are where OSE continues after SD.

Now, OSE is a cumulative XP. So to get to level 3 you have to have all the XP from level 2 and then the extra. SD XP thresholds restart at 0 for each level.  So technically, to express SD XP levels in the same terms of OSE I would need to go with 10, 30, 60, 100, 150, 210, 280, 360, 450xp, and so on. But since I am only adding the SD material that is missing from OSE I don't think I need to do that.

Yes, the XP budgets of each game are different. An orc in OSE is not worth the same in terms of XP as one in SD, though they do represent the same sort of challenge and potential reward (i.e., Treasure and progress toward the next level). I am going to hand-wave these differences. Want math? Take my Introduction to Statistics course. 

Repeated casting for an OSE witch is a big deal. I would need to rework some spell failure ideas. Additionally, I would also say that by their very nature, a Ritual Spell can never be cast repeatedly. Spellcasting rolls in this combined system are a must. 

If it becomes too much I would add in a "repeated castings" roll like I did with Ghosts of Albion. 

Which Witch?

One of the things I always try to do with my witch books is give the buyer unique options. The Old-School Essentials witch is a "Pagan" witch while the Shadow Dark witch is very much a "Pact with a strange powerful creature" witch. But I can find overlap.

Pagans honored many gods. One could even argue that is essentially the core definition of pagan. But what sort of Pagan would choose the Patrons of ShadowDark? Well, game-wise, there is nothing stopping you from mixing as you see fit, but I'll try to make some sort of sense out of these.

The Patrons of ShadowDark have Pagan and real-world analogues, but not all. Varnavas, for example, was created especially for ShadowDark. Despite what the Christian church claimed, Pagans did not worship demons and devils. 

Larina Nix, the Pagan Witch

I am going to use my always-reliable test witch Larina. I have her stats for OSE, but I still need to share them here.  I wish I had shared them already since it would make this comparison a bit better, but in truth, these stats are about 90% the same as her Pure OSE stats. I also have her ShadowDark stats. 

Her Patron from ShadowDark is Nicnevin, the Witch Queen of Faerie from Scottish Folklore. This works well as far as I am concerned. When she hits the 7th level, she gains the additional Patron talent, so she gets Baba Yaga.

Pagan works well for her, and she certainly fits, concept-wise, into the Craft of the Wise Tradition. 

Larina Nix

Class: Witch (Pagan Tradition)
Level: 13
Species: Human

Title: Witch Queen
Alignment: Lawful (Lawful Neutral) 
Patron(s): Nicnevin & Baba Yaga
Background: Arcane Library*

Ability Scores
STR: 9
INT: 17
WIS: 17
DEX: 11
CON: 11
CHA: 18

Saving Throws
D: 8
W: 10
P: 9
B: 12
S: 11
Wisdom Mod: +2

HP: 28
AAC: 14
THAC0: 16

Init: +0
Languages: Common, Elven, Giant, Goblin

Weapon: Broom staff, dagger
Gear: Crawler kit, 1 week of rations, 1 week of tea, cat treats (to supplement Cotton Ball's hunting), Book of Shadows, athamé.
Magic items: Bracers of Defense +1, Broom of Flying, Cloak of Night, Cingulum +3, Hat of Focus-Spellslinger 

Occult Powers
Level 1: Familiar
Level 3: Herbal Healing
Level 7: Of the Land
Level 13: Visage of Another

Talents
Human: +2 to Charisma
1st level: Additional Tier 1 Spell
3rd level: +1 to Occult Spellcasting rolls
5th level: Patron Favor, +1 to any die roll once per rest
7th level: Additional Patron
9th level: Learn additional Tier 4 Spell
11th level: Learn additional Tier 5 Spell
13th level: +1 to Occult Spellcasting rolls

Patron Boons: Learn 1 Tier 1 Wizard Spell, Learn 1 Additional Occult Spell

Spells
Level/Tier 1 (5+1): Call Spirits of the Land, Charm Person, Color Spray, Feel my Pain, Glamour, Cake and Tea Ritual (Ritual)
Level/Tier 2 (4): Bless, Fascinate, Inscribe Tattoo I, Pins and Needles
Level/Tier 3 (4+1): Bestow Curse, Call Lightning, Fly, Hold Person, Scry
Level/Tier 4 (3+1): Cure Serious Wounds, Instant Karma, Witch's Cradle, Drawing Down the Moon (Ritual) 
Level/Tier 5 (2+1): Cry for the Nightbird, Flood of Tears, Ward of Magic
Level/Tier 6 (2): Eye Bite, Brew Storms (Ritual)

Level/Tier 1 (Wizard): Burning Hands

I am not 100% sure how the Background "Arcane Library" works for a pagan witch. Likely, she has a store of shared knowledge. Something to play with, to be sure. Where both books have the same spell I opted for that one. I'll assume she is an odd case and is literate. 

There are no Level 11 and Level 13 Talents. So I just rerolled on other tables. 

For Spells, I would go mainly with OSE spells and choose SD spells as her bonus spells from her Talents. Seems a good plan. 

This is rough and hardly perfect, but it gives me many ideas of what I can do with future games. It appeals to me with all the extra details I can now generate for her. 

The other character classes would be easier. However, I know I would need to tweak thieves a bit to work well with both systems since their skills are handled differently.

For Old-School Essentials

• The Craft of the Wise: The Pagan Witch Tradition (Craft of the Wise and Daughters of Aradia) 
• Monster Mash (Gothic Witch)
• Monster Mash II (Faerie Witch)

For ShadowDark

• The Witch - Book of Shadows

Recollections  / December 17, 2024

ROBERTS: I can’t believe I let you guys talk me into this, but I suppose it has to be done. A few months ago my dad sent me a whole bunch of pictures on a flash drive. This was one of them. It’s my bedroom in 1987. I’m 15. I think it’s winter: you can see a couple of LPs on the bed—Mad Parade’s A Thousand Words and The Cure’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me—that came out in early ’87, but you can also see a Punisher comic (#5) that came out around November (the cover date is January, but comics were future-dated so kids like me didn’t think they were old). Given all the tokens of war and violence in view, it’s somewhat incredible that I didn’t turn out to be crazier than I am. This is Reagan’s America, baby!—Even though I was a staunch Democrat and was already gearing up to pass out Dukakis bumper stickers and buttons at school. You can also see “SKT4” and “WAR SUCKS” written on the wall. Was I trying to suggest something about the duality of man? The Jungian thing? 

I also had a thing for vigilantes, as you can see. Along with the Dark Knight (Frank Miller’s series came out in 1986, changing comics and pop culture forever), Wolverine, and The Punisher, I was an avid Mack Bolan fan (the poster next to the baseball lamp). And all those yellow bags? They’re from Tower Records, which had recently displaced California Comics as my favorite destination. I was either working at the video store at the time or working at the mall (selling personalized children’s books!), or both. You see where the money went, for the most part—my skateboarding gear is not in view. And yeah, that’s a waterbed, suckers! My dad “got a deal.”

Things were about to change, though: I would stop collecting comics within a few months, Bolan would be cast aside for “classic literature,” and all of those posters would come down. We would move soon—in ‘88 or ‘89. I was about to buy my first electric guitar and my first amp. Kool Kelly—bless my dad, who designed and painted that when I was around 10—was going full teen.    

I’m pretty sure that my parents took this photo because I was a slob and they wanted formal evidence of that fact. Now the whole world knows. 

MCKENNA: What’s that expression you lot over there use to express incredulity? “Hoo boy!”? Well, hoo-fucking-boy! I knew when Kelly announced he had this picture that it would be good, but I presumed it would just be very telling about—and punishingly humiliating for—Kelly. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it would be an absolutely on-the-nose perfect metaphor factory for a whole fucking country. Because it feels like all of the demented soup that is your great nation is in there. The “War sucks” within five feet of multiple images of people blasting their enemies into oblivion that you’ve mentioned above. The toy submachine gun right next to the panda plushie. The vast inflatable Shamu that looks like it’s being used as the world’s least comfortable pillow. The phone, presumably trailing one of those forty-mile-long cords that you lot love. The weirdly feeble plug sockets. It’s as if someone turned an American Mind inside out.

Where to start? Not with the tissues. We’ll leave the tissues well enough alone. Or with that weird pickled thing in the bell jar. Or the way American beds always seem to look like a cross between a medieval voivode’s funeral catafalque and a dismantled piano. Let’s start with the elephant that is literally in the room: the writing. Mike, you share a nationality with Kelly—what the hell is going on here? And what the hell is a “baseball lamp”?

GRASSO: What’s going on here is the quintessential late-1980s suburban American boy’s materialistic id unleashed. Well, maybe there’s a bit of ego and superego in here as well, let’s be fair. I will say straight off: my bedroom in 1987 wasn’t quite this overloaded with my precious material possessions (that year I was in that awkward edge-of-adolescence period between putting away childish things—my Hasbro universe G.I. Joe/Transformers obsession—and falling head-first into Dungeons & Dragons), but ’87 was the year I discovered comics. I was into Marvel as well, Kelly, but more into the mutant titles like Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor, and New Mutants than Punisher and The Dark Knight Returns.

But hey, speaking of D&D, when we first shared this image around the Mutants campfire, we were trying to identify the suspiciously LP-shaped item in the extreme bottom right of the photo. It was a long search. I had this weird feeling it was a group of musicians and I wondered what kind of jazz fusion group the nerdy beardos on the back cover of that thing could be. Lo and fucking behold, Kelly’s unwavering commitment to pop culture detective work ended with him discovering it’s the 1987 Dragonlance Legends art calendar, which not only helped us date this photo but put a real spring in my old-school 1980s AD&D nerd step. Much props, Kelly. While I wasn’t into vigilantes or the Bones Brigade, any kid with a Dragonlance calendar earns much 1987-Mike respect. We should roll up some 1st edition Krynn player characters sometime!

ROBERTS: I was just getting out of D&D at this point, Mike. But the year before, on the 8th grade “outdoor ed” camping trip, we were all playing the first Dragonlance modules, and I had read and loved the first set of Dragonlance novels. As far as comics, The Uncanny X-Men and The Amazing Spider-Man were my favorite titles at the time, although nothing here would lead you to that conclusion. I did sacrifice a comic to put the brilliant fight sequence from Uncanny X-Men #173 on my wall. Those Punisher posters—penciled by the great Mike Zeck and airbrushed by Phil Zimelman—were released on the heels of the first limited series, which did extremely well and launched the first ongoing series.   

You can see The Damned’s Phantasmagoria cassette on my bed. I can’t make out any of the others, but I was very much a post-punk kind of guy (still am). How did I reconcile all of this at the time? Skateboarding, The Damned and The Cure (the goths at school were not my biggest fans), comic books, a baseball boy lamp, vigilantes and the Vietnam War? Also, what’s in that filing cabinet? How did I sleep here? 

And Richard, no one uses “hoo boy” over here any more. You’ll get beat up for that.

MCKENNA: You beat me to it with the filing cabinet. Was that just standard issue American youth furnishing? Bed, bedside table, filing cabinet? I mean, I don’t doubt you had important files to put in there—and judging from the state of your room, I’m guessing files on the people you were planning to make pay for the imagined wrongs they’d done to you. But still, right next to the bed? Yep, files and a fixation with vengeful Vietnam vets—definitely in no way worrying. Also, very sub-optimal speaker positioning.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but despite the fact that you could probably have found variations of everything in this picture in kids’ bedrooms in the UK, there’s a kind of cultural brashness and confidence about it that I’m not sure you could have gotten away with over our way. I don’t know how “Kool Kelly’s Place” in foot-high letters played to eventual visitors to your bedroom, but unless you were absolutely faultlessly cool, I feel like something similar would have been a social death warrant in Britain. Thatcher’s manifesting or liberating—depending on your reading of it—the individualism the country had been repressing since WWII was still in relatively early days, and acting cocky or showing off—i.e. just being mildly confident—was still a bit of a taboo gauntlet to run. This particular bedroom wall in the same period in the UK would have been a bit like daubing “Witchcraft done here” on the door of your condo in 1690s Salem. How did it play with people when they first walked in and saw you vaunting your alleged coolness like it was a Nasdaq ticker display?

Oh, and I’m still completely in the dark as to what a “baseball lamp” is, because nothing in this picture looks like a baseball.

GRASSO: As I may have mentioned in past Mutants outings, I was a pretty spoiled only child of the ’80s. To put it bluntly, I had a lot of stuff. That stuff definitely skewed towards the nerdier books-and-toys-and-things side of the ledger—I didn’t really get into sports posters or equipment or anything—but I do recall my tiny bedroom being packed full of crap. Just so Kelly’s not too alone in being embarrassed, my own bedroom had a very prominent space given over on the inside of my door to the (form) letter I received from Carl Sagan’s Planetary Society and the glossy Voyager photo of Saturn’s rings I received from same—just like the kids in that Brooklyn classroom in Episode 7 of Cosmos! As I’ve mentioned here before, my childhood idols were definitely less Mack Bolan and Frank Miller and more sensitive types like Jim Henson and Sagan. 

I really dig that beige-ass push-button phone extension, Kelly. It got me thinking of when I had various electronic appliances of my own in my bedroom. I probably got my own TV in around 1985. One of the first things I remember staying up to watch was the BBC Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series on PBS. Before that, we did have a little household communal 12-inch-or-so portable black and white(!!!) TV that we moved around the house for various purposes. For someone who was arguably raised by the television, having my own cable hookup in my bedroom meant spending even less time with my folks in the living room. I think I got my own phone a couple of years later; there wouldn’t be much call for it before then, but when I got it, I used the hell out of it. I got my own stereo right around ’88, most likely, when I moved into the larger space in the basement where the IBM-compatible PC lived. 

By the time I was Kool Kelly’s age in the early ’90s, my growing love of alternative rock was starting to take over my walls, along with my rapidly exploding CD collection. (As I said in Mutant Chat, Kelly, I love the Vans shoebox marked “TAPES”; this rang so true to me.) And while I never had a steel filing cabinet (which, honestly, I probably would’ve loved) I definitely had a desk to stow all my juvenilia—my stories, drawings, maps, and other scribblings. Was my room as messy as Kool Kelly’s Place? I’d like to say no, but I’m pretty sure it at least occasionally was. I’m still envying the waterbed in 2024, to be honest.

But we did live amidst great abundance, didn’t we, Kelly? As Richard points out, the same “grab all you can” strivingly materialistic impulses that were sinking into the British psyche were going truly overboard in the U.S., and kids were, as we’ve noted elsewhere, an important consumer demographic to be marketed to. From every age, the commercials bombarded us with commodities to fetishize and status symbols we needed to keep up with the classmates. Playing with Transformers or G.I. Joes with the kids in the neighborhood around 1985 was a truly fraught exercise in class envy and false consciousness. Did they have Omega Supreme or the U.S.S. Flagg? I ended up thinking a lot about whether my grade school “friends” were hanging out with me for me… or for my toys. Whether it’s something as “cool” as a computer or something as inexplicable as an inflatable Shamu (heh, sorry Kelly), our “stuff” defined us socially in a way that sometimes gave short shrift to ourselves. Pretty good training for adulthood in materialistic America now that I think about it.

ROBERTS: Yeah, you really got to the heart of it, Mike. At no other time were kids courted on such a massive scale, and never was there so much stuff to have and hold—or covet, as was often the case. It was a culture entirely to itself, entirely for kids (adults had no interest in reading our books, watching our movies, etc., and it was fucking great), and if your family didn’t have the money for these things, there was a social cost. And yeah, we did make friends with the kid down the street to get to his ColecoVision and Kenner’s AT-AT. He was a dick and held it over us, so I don’t hate myself too much. By this time I was making my own money—the real American way, under the table!—although I may still have been getting an “allowance” (if you know, you know). I was not saving a damn penny, that’s for sure.

I was pretty embarrassed by “Kool Kelly’s Place” at this point, Richard, and I was trying to cover it up with paper, graffiti, whatever. It was “kool” when I was 10—not so much when I was 15. But what a gift to get when you’re 10! My dad loved building stuff, fixing stuff, and painting projects; in the condo we lived in before this, he painted some ‘70s supergraphics all the way up the stairwell walls. I wish I had a picture of that.

A few notes: the file cabinet was a cast-off from one of my parent’s offices and used primarily as a perch for my record player; I really have no idea what I kept inside of it. The baseball boy lamp (not a “weird pickled thing,” Richard!) was probably from the ‘50s—my grandmother ran her own antique shop in Texas and sent us various vintage knick-knacks. Shamu was a show at SeaWorld featuring several performing orcas—I vaguely remember a trip to the San Diego Wild Animal Park around this time, and we must have gone to nearby SeaWorld as well. No idea how I ended up with a pool float (we did not have a pool). 

MCKENNA: After looking at it for the hundredth time, I think the thing that stands out to me in this photo as being decisively American—apart from that fucking ridiculous horizontal wardrobe of a bed—is that phone. Phones were such a use-only-when-necessary thing in the UK, at least as I remember it. Maybe it was just the milieu I inhabited, but the combination of the faintly WWII-ish “keep lines free for urgent communications” vibe, an obsession with penny-pinching, and the very public placement of the phone in what was often the draughtiest point of the house, meant that making a call was usually more of a pain in the arse than it was worth. It was less hassle just to get on my bike and go round their house. So coming from that, a phone in a kids room seems like such an insane extravagance. I mean, come on: who the fuck does a kid actually need to phone? And yet it also implies a very different reality for kids, one where they maybe have more agency? Where it’s accepted that they have their own lives and their own communications needs? I don’t know, I find the whole thing quite confusing while also being immensely jealous. And with that admission, I will bid adieu to the sleek metropolitan chic of, ahem, Kool Kelly’s Room. I can sleep easy now knowing that my dreams aren’t being spied on by some weird little baseball golem.

GRASSO: When I was 8 or 9 I had some friends over to play and one of them knocked over and broke a Snoopy lamp I’d had since I was really little. (Peanuts was another media franchise I was really into when I was younger, with all the merchandising that entailed.) Oh man, I cried and cried; I was inconsolable for ages. In retrospect, it was one of those formative lessons in loss that looms larger in retrospect than you can ever fully internalize when you’re little. The attachments children have to “stuff” can be an important part of the natural process of emotional maturity, self-actualization, and ego formation. Letting that stuff go, especially when you’re anxious and attachment-prone, can be inestimably harder.

I’ve come to believe that the process of “managed loss” accompanies us throughout our lives, and it changes as we get older. I’ve radically lost the acquisitive impulses I had when I was in my twenties: chasing the newest technology, the newest gadgets, the newest phones. Why on Earth would I need more stuff? In countless moves to new apartments and houses I’ve left behind objects that once I considered sacrosanct; and now, with the benefit of time, they don’t even tug at me anymore.

Things pass away, but memories and emotions remain. If I suddenly lost the glossy books on Galaxies and the Voyager program that my grandmother got me around that time, it wouldn’t take my memories of her away from me. Those memories, specifically around how well she knew the things I loved, that she wanted to encourage my love of learning, will always live within me. This photo, and the ambiguous feelings teenage (and middle-aged!) Kelly might have had about the Kool Place his dad built, seems to fall in that bittersweet zone of how the things we possessed and the relationships we treasure intersect in our nostalgic memories.

ROBERTS: I guess what hits me hardest about this photo is that I am middle-aged Kelly (distinctly uncool), something I would have thought impossible as a high school freshman reading comics and listening to records in this pig-sty of a room. I still don’t understand how it’s possible! My oldest kid just turned 13—two years away from where I was here. Time doesn’t fly—it gushes. 

Which brings us to the phone, yes? Because the 13-year-old I just mentioned and her 10-year-old sister really, really want one, but not in the way I wanted one. Not even close. When I was a teenager, it was important so that you could (a) figure out where you were going to meet up with your friends, and (b) talk to girls/boys without your parents listening. Phones now are your Identity Discs, and so many of the things represented in this photo are now mediated by the phone, or they’ve been replaced entirely by the screen. There’s good and there’s bad, I guess. As we said above, we grew up in a time of too much physical stuff, but we’re no less materialistic now. We just buy apps and streaming services and devices instead of books and records and video tapes. 

Anyway, it’s not the things I’m interested in; it’s what’s inside of them: stories, music, illustration, film, games. You know—art. And I’m still obsessed with the same kinds of pop culture I was obsessed with when I was 15. Just take a look around the site. It’s all here. This is our room.  

I have been thinking a lot about the two darlings of the Old-School RPG world: Old-School Essentials and ShadowDark. Both are great games. Both feature outstanding layout and design. Both attempt to (and succeed) capture that old-school, circa 1981, gaming feel. They come at it from different directions; one could almost say opposite directions to arrive at the same or at least a similar point. 

So it is no surprise then that I think both games can be used to enhance the other in terms of your gameplay experience. I want to talk about that today and how both games give us something more than their historical ancestor, B/X D&D.

My table copies

There is quite a lot of significant overlap for both games. There is a focus on a limited number of classes and level caps. OSE sticks with the 14th level of B/X and ShadowDark goes for 10 levels of play. Both games then focus much more on the dungeon crawling aspect of the D&D universe of games, even to the point of adventurers in ShadowDark being called "crawlers."

I have spent years playing B/X-era D&D, both when it was new and within the last few years. For the last 17 or so years, I have recorded my "Basic-era" experiences here on this blog. There is something evocative of Basic (both B/X and BECMI) that keeps people coming back for more.  These two games are just the latest examples of this.

Both provide a similar experience. But what do they offer above and beyond books I have owned for 40+ years?

Of Carcass Crawlers and Sting Bats

One of the strengths of both games is improved organization. I can create an OSE or ShadowDark character in a matter of minutes, regardless of the level. BX is nearly as fast, but there is still some flipping involved. I knocked together an AD&D 1st Ed last night (from this writing), and it took me a lot longer.

Both games embrace a superior layout. Everything I need is on facing pages. 

But content-wise, both games offer me the same thing that I already have. This is no shock, really; both games are drawing from the same roots. Somewhat different expressions of the same roots, but certainly, they both aim to provide the same or similar experiences. 

As a by-product of their simplified design philosophy, some entries, like monsters and spells, are pretty much identical in terms of what is needed. There are some significant differences (saving throws), but I'll get to that. 

What is new?

Old-School Essentials

Old-School Essentials is B/X D&D brought into the modern age.

Much like Labyrinth Lord before it, OSE offers an "Advanced" option that decouples race and class and provides a lot more classes. Class construction in OSE is also rather easy since the classes themselves have been streamlined. The Carcass Crawler zine also provides many new classes, options, and spells, among other things. 

The Advanced option means that there is a world of already published material that is compatible with it. Yes, this is true for nearly all the OSR titles, but conversion here is a bit easier.

There is also a granularity and detail to the classes and by extension the monsters because of these rules. 

Spells and Monster stat blocks are reduced to their bare essentials. Now, I prefer a more verbose presentation myself, but I can't argue they work.

ShadowDark

ShadowDark comes from the other end of the spectrum. Modern D&D, and D&D 5 in particular, stripped down to the barest (one could even say Basic) essentials to create a game that feels like Old-School D&D.

As such, it has a lot of ideas and concepts pulled from modern games, or reactions to modern games. One thing, in particular, is the notion that no race/species has infravision/darkvision. A reaction from D&D 5e where it seems everyone can see in the dark but humans. There is that and the rather innovative notion that torch time is equal to 1 hour in real time. That's a nice way to add some tension to the game. Yes, I know this is not the first game to do this, but it is still fun.

ShadowDark uses simpler XP systems and adopts modern D&D's idea that all classes use the same XP chart. It balances this by giving spellcasters the ability to keep casting spells until a spell fails. Again, this is not the first to do this (I did something similar in Ghosts of Albion ages ago), but it is still fun and welcomed here. 

Other innovations/additions include the carousing tables (lots of fun) and class talents.

ShadowDark has enough going on that 10 levels feels full.

Still though, there are things about both games I don't like or more to the point don't fit my overall style of play. Thankfully I have an idea.

The Reese's Peanut Butter Cup 

There is so much overlap in the games, so why not make it complete? Merge the two.

How would I do it?

Start with the base game of OSE or OSE Advanced Options. Then use a lot of the ShadowDark trappings including the 1 hour time on light sources.  I might still let demi-humans have infravision/darkvision but limit it some. I mean really, it doesn't make sense for a subterranean species not to have it. 

I would use ShadowDark's distance and movements of Close, Near, and Far for most things unless a distinction needs to be made. 

I'd use ShadowDark's checks BUT I would adapt 5e Saving throws to OSE and drop the OSE/BX style saves. This still gives me the same functionality of Saving Throws in a language that works with ShadowDark. This would mean ShadowDark style DCs for checks. Maybe steal another page from 5e and say the DC of a spell save is 8+the level of the caster? Saves then improve by +1 per level. I would need to play with it. 

For characters. I want a lot of classes and OSE does specialized classes well. I would also allow the classes to take ShadowDark-style talents. Maybe by adding the ShadowDark XP values to each of the classes' level XP cost.

I might adopt ShadowDark's gear mechanic. It is simple and elegant. I would also use ShadowDark's stat mods, though honestly, it is a toss-up between those and OSE's.

Since I would split class and race/ancestry, I would let ancestries in this game take the ancestry boons from ShadowDark. Just like I would allow classes to take a class talent. Just have the OSE class take the one that is closest from ShadowDark; ie. Rangers and Paladins take Fighter ones. I would also also allow a Paladin to take a Cleric one. 

I have not decided yet on which spellcasting system I would use. I am leaning more towards ShadowDark. I would not have said that six months ago.  If I do then the spell failure, mishaps, and penance rules would have to be used as well. 

I would use the ShadowDark carousing tables and the extensive encounter tables ShadowDark has to offer. 

Now, after all of this, you might ask, "Well, why not just play ShadowDark?" Because I still enjoy the OSE system and OSE-Advanced in particular. I like saving throws, I like more robust character classes. I like OSE Monsters. 

I would put the level limit at 14, like OSE and B/X, because I still enjoy that.

Fighters would need to get better as they level up like in ShadowDark. Thieves would have OSE style thief skills, but maybe some bonus or convert the percentile rolls to a d20 and allow for Advantage or Disadvantage rolls. 

It would all take some tinkering to get it all right, but everything is in front of me. 

Of course, I would need to play a witch in this "Best of Both Worlds" game to be sure.

 I am still working through this large collection from my old DM and high school/college friend when I discovered something rather unexpected. Mixed in with all his stuff was a busted Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting box.

I am quite excited for this.

First, I had no idea he was into the Forgotten Realms at all. His game back in the day was 100% solid Greyhawk. In fact it was so famously Greyhawk that this is where my whole Mystoerth game world comes from.

Secondly, I have needed an empty Forgotten Realms box for a while!

I have all these articles from Dragon Magazine written by Ed Greenwood and others about the Forgotten Realms, and I have had them spread out amongst all my other boxed sets. Now, I can gather them all up and put them into this empty box. These all come from my coverage of "This Old Dragon."

I am still looking for all the articles I have. I know my copy of "Down to Earth Divinity" somewhere. 

This was among some other random and partial items that are not overtly part of the Realms. Things like a partial of A3 and some damaged copies of D1-2 and D3. I might also throw those in and figure out how to make them part of the Realms. Could I place Erelhei-Cinlu in the Realms? Could I edit the adventures to jive with Menzoberranzan?  No idea yet, but I will have a good time figuring it out.

I still have a stack of material here I have gone through. So who knows what other treasures are here to discover.

Nobody knows what brought about the Time Before The Shit Hit. Or they do, then they are not going to tell you or they do not give a fuck. What does it matter? The world is a Wasteland in between the zones poisoned by biological and chemical contamination, let alone radiation, and that is before even thinking about the dangerously deteriorated buildings, roving gangs, mutant abominations, murderous cannibals, and fanatic disciples with insane beliefs. There are small settlements, invariably fortified against the pricks that would gut them and their occupants, stealing their food, their water, and their wives plus whatever good gear and bullets they might have. Some are true havens with clean water and greenhouses growing fresh food, others are trade hubs ready to drive a hard bargain for goods you got to sell and the bullets you need to buy, and some are simply gang bases which gives the gang a base from which to prove that might is right and murder is righter. In between, Mercs take jobs that the inhabitants of the settlements need done, but are not brave or skilled enough to undertake. Out in the Wasteland they face the dangers of strange beasts the likes of which were never seen the Time Before The Shit Hit, gangers and cannibals, and the very environment which could mutate them.

What happened the Time Before The Shit Hit? The Rich fucked the bourgeois and the poor over—and then over again. In the wake of impending collapse, the ill-educated electorate voted for populism and strong national leaders. Riots broke out and ghastly acts of ethnic cleansing took place as the poor got poorer, the rich got richer, and the middle classes looked for a desperate way to maintain their comfortable lives, and when their lives did not get better, they revolted. In response, governments offered places in the Megalopoli that they planned to build as safe sanctuaries against the increasing environmental damage around the world. Except the places were not offered to everyone and those deemed unworthy or no longer useful were driven out or killed, and then… And then, the Megalopoli seals their doors and the bosses inside solved the problem of having a population outside desperate to get in with the application of nuclear bombs and biological agents. Some Megalopoli blew themselves up as old rivalries from the Time Before The Shit Hit actually hit the fan again, like Jerusalem being bombed by Luxor and Indian Megalopolis Na’i Kalakattä getting destroyed in a sneak attack from the Pakistani Poltohar Abad, which was in turned destroyed by the remnants of the nuclear arsenal in Na’i Kalakattä. Elsewhere United England is an island Megalopolis which uses the remains of Ireland as a dumping ground; New Alamo is split between the New Alamo of the oil barons and the Nuevo

Alamo of the narco-cartel families, with not-rich caught between; Liberty City, built on New York and ruled by drooling, drug-addled paranoids, turned on Maple Leaf City because the Canadians were too nice!; Roma Vaticana exists beneath the smouldering, irradiated ruins of the city above; and Neo-Ronin emerge from among the bored and jaded of Tökyö No Shita go in search of mutants and kaiju to kill in the name of the Empress. Now you have to survive in this Shithole of a future.

This is the set-up for PunkApocalyptic: the Roleplaying Game. It is published following a successful Kickstarter campaign by Schwalb Entertainment, best known for Shadow of the Demon Lord, the roleplaying game of dark fantasy and horror set in the last days of a dying world. It is a post-apocalyptic setting based upon the 30 mm miniature game published by Bad Roll Games. It uses the same structure and mechanics as Shadow of the Demon Lord, so has a number of notable features. First, character generation is fast, taking no more than five minutes. Second, a character starts out simple, but as he progresses, a player has plenty of choices in what he becomes. Third, a campaign starts with characters at Zero Level and ends with characters at Tenth Level, a group of characters going up in Level at the end of each mission so that a campaign can be played in just eleven sessions or scenarios. Fourth, the language in PunkApocalyptic: the Roleplaying Game is strong and of an adult nature. Indeed, the writing makes clear that this is a roleplaying game designed for mature and experienced roleplayers rather than those new to it.

A Merc in is defined by his Attributes, a Background, a Defence value, Grit to heal damage with, an Education (possibly), and a Mutagen score, which represents exposure to the messed-up environment of the world around them. The eight Attributes are Muscles, Meat, Hands, Feet, Brains, Eyes, Mouth, and Guts, and they range in value from one to twenty. Muscles is physical strength and athleticism, Meat is health and durability, Hands is manual dexterity, Feet is speed and agility, Eyes is perception, Mouth is personality and charisma, and Gut is determination and willpower. The Background, which can be Brute, Drifter, Face, Fanatic, Ganger, Genius, Scavenger, or Survivor, provides a bonus to an Attribute, the number of languages a Merc can speak, a Talent, some starting gear and a randomly determined piece of junk—which can be anything from a plastic ashtray from The Dewdrop Inn, a very small spring, and a doctor’s note to a commemorative plate from the Franklin Mint, a moustache brush and stick of moustache wax, and a bag of dildos—and a Mission 4 Benefit. The latter is the benefit gained upon completion of the Merc’s fourth mission. A Merc also has character details, from age, looks, height and weight to motivation, obligation, morality, and name. These can be selected or rolled for on the provided tables.

Name: Grannie
Background: Genius
Genius Background: “You want to build a doomsday weapon and use it against one of the Megalopoli. You’ve been drawing up plans in the hopes of one day getting the revenge you so desperately crave.”
Languages: Spanish, Japanese, Russian
Missions: 0

CHARACTER DETAILS
Age: …an adult. You’re old enough to know better, but young enough to avoid the aches and pains and horror that comes from growing old.
Looks: …not much to look at. Something’s off with you that makes you unappealing.
Height: …of average height.
Weight: …slender

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES
Appearance: Unusual …mismatched eyes
TIME FOR THERAPY
Interactions: You get along with other people about as well as anyone else does. You’re not particularly outgoing, but you’re not all quiet and reserved either.
Connections: You know people, have several friends, including a few close relationships.
Sanity: You’re so fucking stable, you’re probably insane. Nothing gets to you. Nothing affects you.
Goal: You want to be safe.Motivation: You don’t want the world to burn.
Obligations: Question authority! You’re free and do what you want. Fuck the rules and anyone who thinks they can boss you around.
Morality: You do what you feel you must. A pragmatist, the end always justifies the means.

Muscles 10 Meat 9 (-1) Hands 9 (-1) Feet 10
Brains 14 (+4) Eyes 9 (-1) Mouth 11 (+1) Guts 11 (+1)
Defence: 9
Health: 9
Grit: 4
Speed: 5
Size: 1 Reach: 1
Mutagen: 1
Education: Architecture and Engineering, Mathematics/Mathemagics, Chemistry, Physics

Gear: nice set of clothes, a duffel bag, 1 food, 1 water, a slingshot with 10 stones, and a random piece of junk, a little packet of silica
This though is a character at Level Zero who is no more than a prior Background and some potential experience with Mission 4 Benefits. After completing a first Mission, a Merc enters a Novice Path and gains its benefits as well as extra benefits at Level Two, Level Five, and Level Eight. After completing his third Mission, a Merc an Expert Path and gains its benefits as well as extra benefits at Level Six and Level Nine. Lastly, upon completing the seventh Mission, a Merc enters a Master Path and gains its benefits as well as extra benefits at Level Ten. The choice of Paths available widens from Novice to Expert to Master, giving a player more and more options. The Novice Paths are Builder, which creates and develops technological items; the Freak embraces the transformative effects of the mutagens found almost everywhere; the Killer is the ultimate combatant; and the Scum who will do anything to survive. The Expert Paths include the Abomination, the Asskicker, the Boss, the Doctor, the Firebug, Grease Monkey, the Gunslinger, the Murderer, the Parasite, the Psychic, the Psycho, and the Wastelander. The Master Paths are Beast Whisperer, Bleeder, Bullshitter, Daredevil, Explorer, Fighter, Hedonist, Hulk, Jack-of-all-Trades, Martial Artist, Messiah, Mindbender, Monster, Ninja, Preacher, Road Hog, Road Warrior, Saboteur, Shyster, and Survivor. In this way, PunkApocalyptic: the Roleplaying Game offers a wealth of options in terms of Player Characters.

The basic mechanic in PunkApocalyptic: the Roleplaying Game is simple and straightforward, whether you are making the equivalent of a saving throw, a skill check, or an attack roll. Roll a twenty-sided die and add any Attribute bonuses or penalties, and if the result is ten or more, then you succeed. The target may not always be ten—it can go up or down, a target’s Defence typically being higher than ten. In addition, a Merc can also have Assets or Complications—each a six-sided die—that can be added to, or subtracted from, the roll. These may come from a Background, for example, the Brute grants two Assets when rolling a Muscles check; a Path such as the Doctor’s Triage benefit enabling him to perform first aid on someone who has been dead for six rounds with a Brains check with two Complications; and from gear, such as any improvised weapon which has the ‘Shitty’ Property, meaning that it is not designed to be used as a weapon and attacks made with it are with a Complication. Assets and Complications cancel each other out.

Combat in PunkApocalyptic: the Roleplaying Game uses the same rules, but with the addition of Fast Turns and Slow Turns. When a character uses a Fast Action, he can only choose to attack, take an action, or move. When he uses a Slow Action, he can move and attack or move and take an action. Of course, Fast Actions take place before Slow Actions and unless they have been surprised, player characters act before any NPCs. So, player characters take their Fast Actions, then the NPCs do, after which any other player characters take their Slow Actions followed by the NPCs. This is a surprisingly simple and unfussy way of handling both initiative, turn order, and actions in combat. The rules also cover using vehicles, including in combat. PunkApocalyptic: the Roleplaying Game includes rules for travel, chases, and more, which covers the screwed-up terrain of the future world.

Collectively, the Mercs also have access to a pool of Fortune tokens. A token can be used to grant an action two Assets, heal damage, or to maximise damage. However, the players do not know how many tokens they have in the pool. If it runs out, they will be literally out of luck!

At the start of play, there is the possibility that a Merc can start play with a Mutation, though only a minor one. Given the prevalence of mutagens in the PunkApocalyptic, there is a strong chance of a Merc gaining one or more. Every Merc has a Mutagen score, which starts at zero and can go up to six. When it increases, the player rolls a six-sided die and if the result is equal to, or under, a Merc’s Mutagen score, he gains a mutation which is rolled for from several types—Harmful, Minor, Physical, Mental, and more. Alternatively, the type of the Mutagen can indicate the type in a particular mission. So, a merc’s eyes might fall out of his head when he sneezes or have small faces on his knees; his body turns itself inside out, causing him to take double damage from all sources in addition to being a hot mess of nasty or his mouth seals shut, so he cannot talk and has to eat by snorting food up his and choking it down (unless he cuts a hole in his face); he gains frog’s legs or becomes phosphorescent; or can eject Ectoplasm like a money shot or in strands or create Hallucinations. Mental Mutations require the expenditure of Mojo, which everyone with Mental Mutations has, and in addition, Grit can be spent to regain spent Mojo. Whatever the type of Mutation, there are multiple tables to roll on and numerous results, so no Mutant is going to be the same. Similarly, PunkApocalyptic: the Roleplaying Game includes tables of junk and lots of items—armour, weapons, gear, drugs, and vehicle accessories and upgrades—the latter enabling a Merc to build a vehicle the way that he wants.

In terms of setting background, PunkApocalyptic: the Roleplaying Game draws it in broad detail, giving numerous types of landscapes and settlements, before describing Scrapbridge, a large example Wasteland community and its surrounding locations and points of interest. The walled setting is built under the rusting span of a suspension bridge—the remains of I-70—which can be seen from miles away. It can easily be used as the starting location for a campaign, whilst there are numerous locations, such as Samanthia, an ancient industrial park transformed into a maze of steam-powered machinery and bizarre kit-bashed contraptions that attracts nomads; the fighting pits of the dry lakebed of Nowater, where fights take place all day and night; the stinking city of ruins of Pigsty, which keeps many scavengers out, so the junk might be fresh; and Festung Germania, a clean, well-organised, and heavily regimented fortress whose leaders regard themselves to be the heirs of Nazi Germany! The Game Master will need to provide numbers and further detail, but this is a solid start.

PunkApocalyptic: the Roleplaying Game includes advice for both the player and the Game Master. For the player, this is learning the rules, making decisions, noting the outcomes, co-operating, staying alive, finding shit, and completing the mission. For the Game Master, once it settles down to give the reader some actual advice, the basic advice is not so much ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’ or ‘KISS’, so much as ‘Keep It Simple Shithead’. This is more tone than avoiding the subject, and the advice given is very good. It covers pacing, handling the rules and outcomes more than a simple binary result, designing missions and campaigns, how to create and roleplay interesting NPCs, and a whole lot more. Notably, there are tables for activities between missions. These mostly consist of setbacks and windfalls, but if a player rolls very, very badly, his Merc can be killed—and killed without the player having much say in the matter. Equally, the player could also roll very, very well for a strange event. The latter is obviously better than the former, even whilst both are in keeping with the tone of the roleplaying game. This may well be one aspect of PunkApocalyptic: the Roleplaying Game that the Game Master should check with her players that they are okay with before beginning play.

Also for the Game Master is ‘Assholes, Shitheads, And Other Fuckers Generally In Need Of Some Killing’, a good bestiary of NPCs, mutants, creatures, and other adversaries. It is a good selection and more than enough to keep a campaign going, and to get that campaign going, PunkApocalyptic: the Roleplaying Game includes ‘Two Dead In Shit Town’, a beginning scenario. This is a beginning Mission in which the Mercs come across the four intact ranch houses that make up Shit Town where a band of ten wretches has made their home. Recently, Pinkus Dinkus moved in and everyone thought he was a nice fellow, until yesterday when he killed Crawfish and Benny, the two wretches who led the community, after which ran off with several cans of baked beans. The surviving wretches want him found and served a dose of Wasteland justice, and hire the Mercs to do it. It is a solidly, scummy little affair, which gets across the squalid, fucked up nature of the Wasteland in a session or so.

Physically, PunkApocalyptic: the Roleplaying Game is a solid looking game. It is well written and easy to read, and the artwork is good too. That said, the language and tone is strong throughout and this is definitely a roleplaying more for the mature than the immature player. The only thing that it lacks is a bibliography. It would have been interesting to see the author’s inspirations. That said, the only thing it says on inspirations is ‘CASE, or Copy and Steal Everything’, that is, “Except for Zardoz. Don’t use anything from that fucking movie. It made no goddamn sense whatsoever, had Sean Connery dressed up in some kind of weird-ass red twisted up diaper-looking jumpsuit, and had way too much dialogue overly obsessed with penises. Now, I like penises as much as the next guy, but… ummm, wait… I mean… oh, never mind.”

PunkApocalyptic: the Roleplaying Game provides the Game Master, her players, and their Mercs with everything needed to play, not just rules, but paths of progression, gear, mutations, and a setting, all with a fuck you attitude that matches the fucked-up nature of the Wasteland. PunkApocalyptic: the Roleplaying Game feels like Mad Max, but even grimier and grimmer, screwed over by the Time Before The Shit Hit—and very much after. The result is an unhinged, rather than gonzo, but still over the top setting, ready for great game play if the players are ready for its ‘Screw you, you primitive shithead’ attitude.

There comes a point in a roleplaying game when the campaign’s villain delivers such a cutting remark that a Player Character cannot simply be the better man and shrug off the insult. Perhaps it is a matter of honour or a matter of reputation, or it could simply be that the player—and his character—has had enough and is so irked that he cannot but respond. The player clears his voice and looking at the Game Master, says in waspish fashion, “…” Or rather, he dries up. He cannot think of a suitable rejoinder and the game comes to a halt. It happens to the best of us, it happens to the most tongue-tied of us. Not all of us can respond to a jibe or taunt with a suitably derisory retort and not every player is verbally dexterous or creative. Of course, in a such a situation, a player can simply roll the dice, add bonuses from his character’s Charisma and Taunt or Fast Talk, and rely on the numerical outcome to deliver that razor sharp, witty riposte, which will cut his character’s opponent down to size. But then, where would be the fun in that?

“I find the fact that you’ve lived this long both surprising and disappointing.”
Indeed, where would the fun be in that when could simply draw something eminently suitable and appropriately insulting from a deck of cards? The Deck of Many Insults perhaps? Subtitled, “Antagonise & viciously mock your way across the adventuring world”, this is a very simple deck of cards published by Loke BattleMats, best known for publishing volumes of maps such as Big Book of Battle Mats: Rooms, Vaults, & Chambers and Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats. The Deck of Many Insults is simply a deck of cards. There are no instructions and perhaps the nearest is the suggestion that The Deck of Many Insults is intended to be compatible any fantasy roleplaying game.

“Have you considered trying your hand at competence?”
The Deck of Many Insults consists of one hundred cards. On the back of the cards, a red dragon is shown about ready to turn and face you, whilst on the front, the red dragon has already turned towards you and is pawing the ground all but ready to pounce! Also on the backs are the insults. These are mostly short and to the point, but some require a pause before the sting can be effectively delivered. The cover of the box does state, “Language Advisory Insulting Content”, which is a bit obvious, because that is The Deck of Many Insults sets out to provide, but it also states “Mature Content Age Recommendation 16+” on the back. This is appropriate because this accessory is not just insultingly rude, it is insultingly crude too, and the language is of an adult nature into the bargain. For example, “This quest reminds me of a cactus. Because everyone on it is a prick.” or “I couldn’t give a gibbering mouther’s jizz about your ill informed opinions.” or “I would have been your father, but the adventurer behind me in the queue had the exact coin”. Most are not quite so scabrous, though they are funny.

“I’d challenge to a battle of wits, but it appears you came unarmed.”
So how to use The Deck of Many Insults? One of the problems with its use, is that it replaces the player fumbling and umming and ahhing as he tries to come up with a suitable response on his own with him shuffling through a deck of cards in search of something appropriate to the situation and the target of his character’s witticism. It is quite likely quicker, but it does lose a certain degree of spontaneity, more so if the players have already pawed and guffawed their way through the cards in the already. An option might be to draw one randomly, which definitely spontaneous, but may lend itself to the player having to utter something out of kilter with the tone of the encounter. That said though, this could in itself be funny and it could lead to some interesting ramifications. Alternatively, a player could keep a handful of carefully chosen cards to keep with his character just in case he needs them or even just in case another player’s character needs them, each player keeping secret what cards he has. This would give the players some choice and allow for some spontaneity. That said, there really is no one definitive way to use these and every Game Master and her players will use them differently.

“Actions will be taken by those who know what they are doing. Not you.”
Physically, The Deck of Many Insults is simply and cleanly presented. The text on the cards is large and easy to read, though a card or two does need a slight edit.

“I’d like to help you out. Which way did you come in?”
The Deck of Many Insults is a deck of cards that everyone needs to agree to have at the table and agree on how it should be used, because it will probably change the tone of game, especially a game with a strong social aspect. Once in play though, The Deck of Many Insults is delightfully defamatory, often hilariously humiliating, and even sometimes reprehensibly rude.

The world has ended, but if a ship can brave the Nine Swells, brace against the storms of the Outer Swells and roll with the waves of the Middle Swells, avoid being becalmed in the thick sargasso of Endswell, and withstand an attempt at becoming a prize for the mermaid pirate Capucine of the Wine Dark Sea, then it can find harbour in Vagabond Bay rather than the Admiralty blockaded Rickety. There the crew and its passengers will have reached Rainy City, a refuge in spite of the continued and variable inclemency. The goods they will have brought with them, especially foodstuffs will quickly find a price for their rarity and variety upon the tongue, and The Port Association for the Beneficial Incorporation of the Refugees and Asylum Seekers will do its utmost charity to find the newcomers a home and support in their time of need, and of course, most importantly of all, find them a hat, should none of them have none. Such a hat will be guild approved, for according to The Master and Four Wardens of the Fellowship of the Art or Mystery of Haberdashery and Millinery, no shall go without a hat, despite what the foolish delugeonists would proclaim or the Droll Union of Brolly-factors would have you believe. Welcome to Rainy City, a city where it never ceases to rain and the only season when fires are strong enough for The Molten Hands to work metal is Firelight. Where Ewts are pets and beasts of burden. Where the Harmonious Chantry of Alchemists will sell your servants ‘boiling salts’ so that you can enjoy a hot meal whatever the season. Where oozes, puddings, and slimes are a constant pest and the Puddinghand’s Union will examine every nook, cranny, and pipe of your dwelling and scour them free with alchemical solvents and powders—for a fee. Where once there was the Grand Academy of Magick, long since sunk into the murk of the waters dividing Old Town and Mids, barring a few of its highest towers that might give access to the secrets locked below. Where rainwater pours off the backs and out of the mouths of Gargoyles as they decorate and some say plot the end of the city on its highest towers and keeps, that is, until the brave members of The Society of Thatch clamber onto the city’s roofs and other slippery heights and sending them scattering so the damage their claws do to the tiles and stonework can be undone.

This is Rainy City, home to Achterfusses, the orating cephalopods who reside in the city’s pools and canals and come out in rainiest of seasons when they can breathe the ‘air’ to work, trade, sputter and cough, and give their opinions. To the diminutive Boggies of Bog End in the Sump where they enjoy water rugby and smoking reeds when they are dry enough or working as bottlers in the city’s few remaining wizard towers due to their immunities to enchantment. To Gargoyles and Ghouls, the latter enlightened flesh-eaters of Respectability Row and County Gaunt, perpetually well mannered about their old money and constant hunger, and delighted to have you to tea. To the chirping, wailing, and opportunistic Gulls—the only sea bird found in Rainy City—with wings that can grasp or fly, but not simultaneously. To the Deepsies, sufferers of ‘the Depsis’, who grow fishier and fishier every day, unhappily amphibious who mediate trade with the Underharbour or serve board salvage, sailing, and fishing boats. To the Mermaids who can slip out of their tails to walk as humans, most visiting during the wettest months of the year lest someone steal their shawls and gain power over them. To the Mine Goblins—or bearded cave elves—who hold a market in the Silver Falls Mines, but do not let just anyone attend, and dig endlessly into the Tower Cliffs for reasons they care not to divulge.

This is the setting of Rainy City as described in A Visitor’s Guide to the Rainy City. Ostensibly an actual guidebook to the city—written by no less a personage than Beauregard Hardebard, The Master and Four Wardens of the Fellowship of the Art or Mystery of Haberdashery and Millinery—it is actually a fanzine published in 2020 following a successful Kickstarter campaign by Superhero Necromancer Press (though not, it would appear, as part of ZineQuest #2). It is a systems agnostic supplement that would work with all manner of different systems and settings. Into the Odd and Troika! immediately spring to mind since both are simple to handle the baroque fripperies and arch arcanity of the setting’s strangeness. As a setting it cannot be pinned down to any one time period, the book’s line art suggesting the late medieval or early modern periods, but it could also be Georgian or Victorian as well. Its self-contained nature means it could easily be dropped into a campaign or simply exist in a water bubble all of its very own.

From the personal welcome of Beauregard Hardebard to every new visitor, A Visitor’s Guide to the Rainy City dives into describing the various peoples and places of the Rainy City. This includes its unsurprisingly wet seasons and the highly entertaining festivals that take place over the course of the year, such as The Gentle Exchange of the Fish in which every fisher and fishmonger proudly displays recently caught fish with the Peers of Fishmarket Way lording it over everyone for the duration, with public hangings, bracing auctions, cattlefish shows, crab fights, seaweed spas, flying fish races, a lanternfish brightness show, and the annual fisherfolk games. The latter consist of competitions in knot tying, sail raising, net throwing, bailing out a sinking boat, and anchor raising! There are details of what is commonly eaten and drunk, preferred pets and working beasts, and more. Then it explores the various regions of the city, from Rickety and the Swells, Vagabond Bay, and Old Town to Embassy Row, The Headlands, and Tower Cliffs. These are all given four pages of detail each, which always include the weather particular to the district, who they might interact with whilst there, how law is handled in the district, the degree of disorder and disarray, and more. The more includes the buildings of note, organisations to be found, and lastly things to do, hooks that the Game Master can develop. And every district is different and distinct, and though they are interconnected, a Game Master could, if she so wanted, take one of them and use it on its own. That though, would be to pull apart the richness of the setting as a whole.

In addition to the ‘Things to Do’ for every district, A Visitor’s Guide to the Rainy City gives eight scenario hooks in ‘The Patrons’. These include Madam Lydia, aged diviner of Old Town, noted for her dark prophecies, who now wants them to come true. Which means that the city will fall with the help of the Player Characters and her demons! Or Pizarro, the entrepreneur whose ‘Pizarro’s Dry Baths’ are a grand success and wants to expand his operations with steam baths. Except that requires that somebody capture a salamander. Lastly, there has always been The Sandestin in the Rainy City, a title and office with unclear meaning or purpose, but nevertheless, historically important. So important is the office though, that eras are identified by the holders. The holder could be an actual wizard or a charlatan or even a devil reborn each time some takes the office anew, but now? There are three pretenders to the office. Oh, the calamity.

Physically, A Visitor’s Guide to the Rainy City is charming. The artwork is subtly unnerving if you look close enough, whilst the writing is thoroughly engaging. The cartography is not bad, but it imparts a feel for the city rather than a detailed representation. If there is an issue, it is that the density of information is such that the book needs an index!

A Visitor’s Guide to the Rainy City is engaging from start to finish and you want to read stories set in the city let alone actually run a game set there. It is full of such wonderful little details that are going to astound and confound the players each time their characters visit, that they are going to want to come back again and again. A Visitor’s Guide to the Rainy City is simply delightful.

Once, Brightmoore Manor stood as a house of elegance and civility, a beautiful home to noble Lord Faulken Brightmoore and charismatic elven wife Lady Narielle, and their children. Now, two hundred years later, it is empty, unoccupied in all that time, its dilapidated exterior bedraggled with branches of overgrown trees, its stonework pitted and missing blocks, its eaves rotten, and its roof pockmarked with broken and missing tiles. Grimy windows only hint at the lumps of furniture to be found within, for no-one who goes in comes out. The house has stood alone and forlorn for decades, the original village of Brightwood being abandoned not long after servants from the village entered the house as they did daily, and then, one-by-one, failed to return. None knew what was going on in the house, but they could speculate. Some said Lord Faulken Brightmoore had gone mad in his jealousy of his wife’s continued good looks or wasted away, stricken with grief at his death of his wife or children, or even both. More, Sir Reghinald Moore has discovered amongst his family papers, documents that show that he is heir to Brightmoore Manor and has sent several family retainers to assess the house and its condition, and prepare it for his visit. None have returned, and worried for their safety, hires a band of adventurers to find out happened to them and to determine if the manor is safe. Or the village of Brightwood is beginning to be repopulated, new settlers restoring the long-abandoned ruins of the old village and building anew, but concerned by the presence of Brightmoore Manor looming over their homes, hire a band of adventurers to determine if the building and whatever is inside it, is a threat to them. Or, now, adventurers, caught in a dreadful storm, take refuge in the only place it seem safe—Brightmoore Manor. These are hooks for the scenario, House of 99 Souls.

House of 99 Souls is a scenario published by Hellwinter Forge of Wonders for use with Old School Essentials, Necrotic Gnome’s interpretation and redesign of the 1981 revision of Basic Dungeons & Dragons by Tom Moldvay and its accompanying Expert Set by Dave Cook and Steven M. Marsh. It is designed to be played using Second to Fourth Level Player Characters. It is a haunted house scenario, a Gothic horror scenario played out across the twenty or so rooms of the manor and its two floors, as well as the cellars below. Once the Player Characters have all crossed the threshold, the doors slam shut and they are locked inside until they can find a way to unlock the doors. Doing so requires a detailed exploration and examination of the house, laid as much as it was once, but covered in dust and grime, skeletons sitting or lying there they died, the rooms dimly lit through the dirt smeared on the windows. There are signs of death and despair everywhere, and the Player Characters will encounter members of the Brightmoore family, each desperate in their own way, some forlorn, some dangerous, but each with a twinge of hope…

As the Player Characters progress through the house, they will gather clues and intimations as to what is going on and what happened in the past to the Brightmoore family. From these, they can begin to work what they need to do resolve what is going on in the manor and enable them to find their way back out. Although they will not necessarily be aware of it, the Player Characters are up against the clock, but in terms of the narrative, it is a clever clock, one driven more by their actions rather than the actions of the villain of the scenario. Of course, if the completion conditions of the clock are fulfilled, they will face a greater challenge at the end.

One of the pleasing aspects of House of 99 Souls is its scale. Although a haunted house scenario, it is not a big sprawling affair such that the Player Characters have to spend an interminable amount of time searching it from top to bottom in order to work what is going on. Which means that the story plays out quite quickly. Similarly, the scale of the haunting is quite constrained as well. There are pleasing little moments like when a Player Character attempts to look out of one of the grimy window, a skeleton arms grabs him and smashes his face against the glass or reaches up out of a sink of dirty water to attempt to pull the Player Character into the water to drown him, rotten floors collapsing under a Player Character to temporarily trap his feet, and so on. Another pleasing touch is that atmosphere is allowed to build, the Game Master only rolling for random encounters once the Player Characters return to a room they have previously examined. Most of these encounters are creepy rather than deadly, though the house is definitely not without its dangers.

The scenario is also quite restrained with choice of monsters. It is not overrun with different types of undead. There are skeletons aplenty and there are also new monsters such as Bone Spiders which attack in swarms. Most of the monsters are particular to House of 99 Souls though. Rounding out the scenario is a set of six pre-generated Player Characters. These are all Third Level and are created using basic version of Old School Essentials rather than Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy. Some do have minor magical items, but not all. There are some interesting magical items to be found in the scenario.

All together, House of 99 Souls can be played through in a single session, perhaps two at most. It is also very self-contained, which means that it can be played as single one-off scenario. In addition, this means that the Game Master can very easily drop this into her campaign.

Physically, House of 99 Souls is well presented and the layout clean and tidy. The artwork is decent and the cartography good. House of 99 Souls is a charmingly small scale and underplayed Gothic haunted house scenario that is very easy to use and add to campaign.

via Hasbro

I am preparing to wrap up my year-long celebration of 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons. 

I have talked about my experiences, I have shared a lot of characters I have used over the years, talked about all sorts of D&D games. I have spent time talking about the Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, and, as always, Mystara. While I personally feel like I could have done a lot more I am confident in one thing,

I did a lot more talking about D&D 50th anniversary than Wizards of the Coast.

Yes. There was the giant "The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons" book which seemed to please and piss people off in equal measure. There were some 50th Anniversary minis, and yes, the new edition of D&D, which they missed the mark on by having the Monster Manual out in 2025. But in truth, there has been...very little.

Look, I don't like to spend time here on things I don't like. Sure, I could rage about this game or that and bitch and moan and complain. But honestly, we have enough people that do that on blogs and on YouTube, and it is fucking boring. I don't give a fuck about the shit you hate. Tell me about what you love. Get excited. Geek out over a game or a new dice mechanic or something. But I honestly don't care what you think of "those kids today." It makes you sound old and irrelevant. 

But I can't let this year pass and not mention how badly the ball was dropped here.

Wizards has not been having a great couple of years. From the OGL fiasco to sending hired goons after Magic players to massive layoffs and declining quality of their adventures, it would be all too easy to pick on them. I am only going to focus on couple of things though.

50 Years Should Mean Something

Ok. So we had the "The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons" book which was cool and some minis. But what else?

I mentioned the minis. There was also the Quests from the Infinite Staircase which had some great classic adventures updated to D&D 5. But it wasn't released with as much fanfare as I would have suspected.

There was quite a bit of fanfare for the 10th Anniversary, same for when Wizards did the 25th Silver Anniversary Edition. Was I anticipating more? Yeah, I certainly was. Was I wrongfully anticipating more? That I don't know.

How about a comparison.

The 10th Anniversary set included: D&D Basic Rules (Player's Guide and DM's Guide, BECMI), D&D Expert Rules (Expert Rulebook, BECMI), D&D Companion Rules (Player's Guide and DM's Guide, BECMI), D&D Character Record Sheets (1981, BX), MSOLO1 Blizzard Pass (with 2 pens), B1 In Search of the Unknown (Fourth print), B2 Keep on the Borderlands (Fourth print), X1 Isle of Dread (Fifth print), AC2 Combat Shield and Mini-Adventure, AC3 Kidnapping of Princess Arelina, and six dice and a dice crayon. All in a faux-leather slipcase with gold lettering. Essentially, it is an homage and celebration of the Basic-era rules.

The 25th Anniversary set included: Facsimiles of the original modules featured in TSR’s Silver Anniversary releases: B2 Keep on the Borderlands, G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, G2 The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King, I6 Ravenloft, and S2 White Plume Mountain. A replica of the original Dungeons & Dragons rulebook. A 32-page book outlining the history of TSR - including a retrospective essay by Gary Gygax. L3 Deep Dwarven Delve - a recently recovered, never-before-released Original Edition adventure by Len Lakofka. A specially created, suitable for framing art print by Jeff Easley. All in a silver slip case. No dice, but a new never before published adventure. 

The 50th has largely been represented by the new rules (5.5), The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons, and Quests form the Infinite Staircase. Fun, but does it really fit the celebration bill? Are these books that will command collector's prices in 10 or 25 years?  I am going to say no.

Where are the Baldur's Gate 3 Tie-ins?

Baldur's Gate 3 was the top-played game of 2023 and 2024. It won every single Game of the Year award and awards in general sci-fi and fiction, and many of the voice actors are now considered up-and-comers in terms of entertainment. It has won BAFTAs, Hugos, Nebulas, and GLAAD media awards. To downplay its success is either to be completely out of touch or willfully ignorant.

Yet. NOTHING for the game has come from Wizards of the Coast. No minis (they are coming out next year), no adventures or starter sets (there is one coming in the Fall 2025, but I can't determine if it has Baldur's Gate material). There are new Forgotten Realms books coming in late 2025. But all of this feels like too little too late.

Now. One could argue that Larian Studios, the creators of Baldur's Gate 3 only within the last few month gave Wizards back the license. But see it is a license. Wizards could have been doing tie-in stuff from August of 2023 when it became obvious that this game was going to be a mega-hit. Look what they did for Baldur's Gate 2 back in the late 1990s. They had Volo's Guide to Baldur's Gate out for the game. So much so that the books was actually titled "Volo's Guide to Baldur's Gate 2."

I talked about this before. They could have had an adventure or something out. "Love the video game? Continue your adventures here! Take your characters beyond 12th level in the table-top version!"

Spend any time on any Baldur's Gate discussion board, and two things are obvious. First, people LOVE these characters. Secondly, people want more with these characters. 

While this is not necessarily 50th anniversary related, it is undoubtedly a fumble of epic proportions.

They do talk about Baldur's Gate 3 in their upcoming digital tabletop, but again, that is not out now. I am not looking for a huge expenditure of cost here, a one-shot with the characters at first level (Larian already made character sheets for that), or how about Monster Manual-like entries for people to download some of the monsters/NPCs in the game. Larian Studios spent more time and effort on freaking Wulbren Bongle than Wizards has on all the other characters combined.

What Would I Have Done?

To be honest, this is pretty loaded. I have only nostalgia to guide me and no budgetary concerns or stockholders to appease. That being said, I am sure I could come up with some better ideas.

First, Books and sets. The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons book was a good one, but they should not have stopped there. I would have redoubled the efforts to get all the OD&D books on DriveThruRPG into Print on Demand and get them sold. Not everyone will shell out $100 for the making of OD&D, but many will shell out $20.00 or so for a new version of OD&D. They can even use the new "white" covers they all have. We know they have print ready files from the OD&D collector's set they published a while back.

Second, Constant celebration. Wizard should have gone to all the popular actual play streamers and had them run a classic adventure. Vox Machina going through The Tomb of Horrors, get the Baldurs Gate voice actors to go the Caves of Chaos. White Plume Mountain and Ilse of Dread. Make these place names something that the newer generations want to know about.  And honestly while it would not matter if these were played in 5e or not, I would like to have seen some of these groups try AD&D 1st ed. I know Mercer could do it, that is where he started, so let's see some of these big streamers talk THAC0 for a session or two.

Third, Social Media involvement. Yes this means people acting for the company and thus paid, but it still should be done. It gets people talking about the brand AND maybe mends some fences broken by Wizard's recent less-than-stellar behavior. What would they do? How about D&D Trivia to win a copy of "Making of" or the giant art book they made. I am sure they have a few of those still lying around.  OR send out goodie bags to smaller streamers and bloggers to make the case for them. Wizards should have had places where people could tell their stories of adventures of the last 50 years. Friends made, battles won, or lost and what D&D means. Normal people and the occasional celebrity as well. They should have sent people to Cons to record these and play them back on YouTube. 

Fourth, Game Stores. Game Stores still are the heart of many RPGs. So send them material like organized play and host old-school D&D tournaments using AD&D tournament rules. Include prize support. Survive the Ghost Tower with the most points? Here is your special, not-for-retail-sale set of Ghost Tower dice. Provide Game Stores with special items to draw in customers. 

Fifth, Reprints. I know. Reprints are expensive. Distribution is expensive. But I also know that gamers would have eaten it up. A copy of Ravenloft I6 with 50th Anniversary gold trim? Come on, I would have bought that in a heartbeat. Limited run to conserve cost, but make it a Game Store exclusive. Original content. Chose some of the best from all areas of D&D. Yes, Infinite Staircase kinda, sorta does this, but I am talking adventures and books just like the 10th and 25th Anniversary did. 

Sixth, BALDUR'S F'ING GATE. Look, I can't stress enough how much of a missed opportunity this was. While the game is still riding high and will be for a while, each day that goes by is one more day of lost revenue. People have hundreds, even thousands of hours, in this game. They should be able to take their "Tavs" (and honestly, you should know who Tav is) and move them to the tabletop. And when they got there, Karlach, Astarion, Shadowheart, and Scratch should all be there waiting.

I am sure I could come up with more. But I am approaching bitching about level and that means a good place to stop. 

The 50th should have been a reflection on what made D&D so great. Not a litany of missed opportunities or near misses. 

 So, I suppose it goes without saying that when I made a witch class for the ShadowDarkRPG, I was going to try out my own witch to see how it worked. I mean, this character is my litmus test for anything witch-like.

Like many of my other books Larina is featured in the book, but no stats. Also, like many of the books, she is featured on the cover, only this time, the art I chose already existed.  Javier Charro is the artist, and his work has been sitting on my hard drive for a while, waiting for the right project.  I mean, it is rather perfect, to be honest.  Since I have given you all the stats for Esme and Amaranth, I figured Larina should also be featured.

Larina Nix

Who is this "Larina?" Is she the same one I use in D&D or is she different? Well, yes and no.

My conceit here is that the original AD&D Larina, with brown eyes (thankyouverymuchVanMorrison) died while battling a vampire. And by dead, I mean dead-DEAD. Witches in my games do not have access to Raise Dead or Resurrection, AND they can't have those spells cast on them. So when a witch dies, she is dead. BUT she can be reincarnated.  The original Larina died, but she was reincarnated. She next appears as a precocious 6-year-old witch in my AD&D 2nd Ed Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks" and as an adult witch in my 3rd Edition games (same character), she also appears as a witch in my WitchCraft/Buffy games. They all share some similar memories and at age 25 they can contact their other selves. There is a multi-verse of Larinas out there now, one for every game I ever play.

This Larina is high-level (for ShadowDark), and she works with Esme and Amaranth. 

Larina Nix

Ancestry: Human
Class: Witch 10th level (Witch Queen)
XP: 114
Alignment: Lawful 
Deity/Patron: Niceven and Baba Yaga
Background: Arcane Library
Familiar: Flying Cat ("Cotton Ball")

Str: 9
Dex: 11
Con: 11
Int: 17
Wis: 17
Cha: 18

Weapon: Broom staff, dagger
Gear: Crawler kit, 1 week of rations, 1 week of tea, cat treats (to supplement Cotton Ball's hunting), Book of Shadows, athamé.
Magic items: Bracers of Defense +1, Broom of Flying, Cloak of Night, Cingulum +3, Hat of Focus-Spellslinger 

HP: 36
AC: 15

Languages: Common, Elven, Diabolic, Celestial

Talents
Human: +2 to Charisma
1st level: Additional Tier 1 Spell
3rd level: + 1 to Occult Spellcasting rolls
5th level: Patron Favor, +1 to any die roll once per rest
7th level: Additional Patron
9th level: Learn additional Tier 5 Spell

Patron Boons: Learn 1 Tier 1 Wizard Spell, Learn 1 Additional Occult Spell

Spells
Tier 1 (4+1): Charm Person, Feel my Pain, Glamour, Häxen Talons, Mage Hand
Tier 2 (3): Call Lightning, Light as a Feather-Stiff as a Board, Blink (Ritual)
Tier 3 (3): Bestow Curse, Coven's Calling, Danse Macabre
Tier 4 (2+1): Ball Lightning, Fear, Witch's Cradle 
Tier 5 (2+1): Cry for the Nightbird, Phantasmagoria, Ward of Magic

Tier 1 Wizard: Burning Hands

One of ShadowDark's greatest features is its ability to generate characters quickly. I have about five or six different ShadowDark versions of Larina on my desk; each one was made to test something different. 

It is interesting (to me at least) that while I often picture her as wearing a cloak and hood, like on the cover of The Witch, the art I am using here has her in a witch's hat.

Yeah, I would play this version of her, but I am discovering that 10 levels feel a little limiting to me. Granted, those are the prime adventuring levels, but I have been pouring over characters from my past and remember how much really high-level play we used to do back then. 

I certainly have some to explore with this game.