Tabletop Gaming Feeds

By Christopher Wilson
Self Published
OSE
Levels 1-3

The Armlaws Guild is the true power in the city of Lenden, accepting protection money and extorting nearly every citizen. It is said that they even have contacts inside of the court of King Wulfwin. It is somewhat surprising then that any outsider would attempt to contest the most powerful criminal organization in the Border Lands. When the characters witness a peculiar and seemingly random murder during a heist, they become embroiled in the underground politics of the largest city in the Kingdom of Cassex. They may even live long enough to uncover an even darker secret of the Armlaws and the local nobility…

This eighty page adventure has the party investigating the death of a wererat. It puts most of the adventure behind die rolls, hides massive parts of it, embraces trivia and backstory, and is full of lots of high HD creatures that can’t be damaged by the mundane weapons of your level ones. There is little to indicate the designer knows what a published adventure is.

This is a rough one, so hang in there. You’re visiting the wizards guild. You all enter a room, for various reasons, and see a wererat exit the window having stolen an ever full purse. Chasing him, you find him disemboweled in a nearby alley. There are potential tracks to the sewers, a lead to a graveyard, and a couple of others. Turns out there MIGHTT be a turf war going on, led by a werewolf. Thieves guild in the sewers, and others, lead you to a nearby manor home of a couple who have just lost their son, hunting a beast. Following up on that leads to another manor where THAT couple leads to a cave to ambush you, they being werewolves and having captured, not killed, the son of the first manor couple, trying to turn him. “It takes 27 days” From there you find the hideout with the main werewolf and his thieves guild, who are the ones who gutted the initial thief. Got it? A lot of people telling you outright where to go next. It’s plagued by the mundane, overwriting, putting information behind skill checks, and a lack of decent organization for its many threads.

Let’s look a bit at the overwriting, which plagues this. Time and time again things are defined or extrapolated on that add little to no value to the adventure. This is an entry from the city wandering table: “2d6 Sailors from a Foreign Kingdom: At any given time there can be between forty and fifty ships docked in Lenden’s Port District. Most of the crews of these ships will be found in the Port District, though they can be encountered in other locations, as well (the Mercantile District, for example).” Yes, that IS the definition of “2d6 foreign sailors.” The text adds nothing to the adventure, it’s not an encounter it’s just a definition of what 2d6 foreign sailors mean. They do nothing, they add no color. Or, this random keyed entry for the FULLY keyed inn the party is staying at in which nothing takes place: “4. Staircase to Upper Floors: This simple staircase creaks with every footstep and seems to sway a bit, but is sound.” It’s like describing a cobblestone. To what end is this needed?

A full description, including background, for the chapel. Which is meaningless to the adventures, with little formatting to help a DM focus on important aspects of it. There’s no point to any of this. It’s eighty pages long because of all of this. You have to dig and dig to find information about the threads that ARE important, dodging and fighting your way through the trivia.

Travelogue entries for a random bridge that has no bearing on the adventure. This can work if we’re home basing. It can work as as trivia for s short stop. But not this way.

Following up on the thief leads you to the alley where the disemboweled thief lies. And then “The citizens that sent up the hue and cry for the city watch will immediately begin pointing and shouting at the first group of characters on the scene, making the incorrect assumption that they had something to do with the murder.” And thusly another group of murder hobos is born. Sure, color and complications, but also it needs to be done in a way that it doesn’t discourage the party. Why take initiative if they arbitrarily punished for it? Never be the first to walk through the door.

Lizardfolk and grig villages. Wererats. Werewolves. High HD. Not damaged by mundane weapons. This is a deathtrap masquerading as an adventure. We run away in an OSR game. In an OSR game that is DESIGNED for exploration. In a plot based game, in which the enemies need to be dispatched in order to advance the plot that they are blocking then balance becomes more important. You might as well put the mcguffin in a circle of 100 hungry Type 6 demons spoiling for a fight. At level one. At one point you climb down a ladder in to a room with wererats in it. Ain’t no way levels one to threes are surviving that.

Information is spread out everywhere. Events mixed in with leys. Information repeated in multiple places, with details spread across them. Old Captain Nedev has four or more places where the initial meeting has details spread throughout. Trap porn is prevalent. And we can see from the entries above that every contingency is covered “unless blocked by a wall or closed door.” And this all happens over and over and over again. You have to fight everything here to follow what is supposed to be going on and run it.

Yet another of the numerous inn entries. NO HOT BATH! Whatever shall I do not knowing about that? Take cold baths, I guess. Fall apart at the table?

The stuttering priest is in bad taste. Did I mention the long read-alouds? How about the long one in a funky font, reproducing the character handout. I’m all for torturing the players with funky handwriting fonts but not the DM. Information needs to transferred efficiently and effectively to the DM.

And then there are the MASSIVE number of threads that are blocked by a skill check or plot device. It is entirely possible that of the five leads presented at the murder scene that all of them will be failed or not apply, except for the guard captain telling you “he’s part of the thieves guild.” Later in the adventure we get this “On a success, Captain Nedev believes the characters and agrees to release them. If the characters have already investigated the Armlaws Guild in the sewers and tell Nedev that they suspect that there is a mole in the Guild of Labor, he will admit that he already knows:” Well, what if we fail? No plot thread for you! Over and over again the adventure hides the rest of it behind skill checks. At level one. Just like with the high HD enemies that can’t be damaged by mundane weapons, this means the entire adventure is fudged. There is no real agency for he players and their characters in this. The various threads and plots have chapters devoted to them, with long page counts, which will most likely be skipped over even if you do make your checks, that entire chapter not being applicable for the thread you are following up on.

I can kind of get what the adventure is going for. But the set up is strained, the plot execution is confused, the enemies overwhelming, and the text padded out.

This is $9 at DriveThru. The preview is six pages. It could have used some key entries, but you do kind of get to see the VERY basics of the backstory, which helps a lot with understanding what is going on.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/546611/werewolves-of-lenden-ose-edition?1892600

We are about to experience the most social upheaval since industrialization.

What will that look like in sixty years? 

Sinless is starting it's third year of it's ten year development cycle! Let's look at where we are, and what the plans are for 2026

• Free Quickstart and Game Rules in PDF on the website.
• Gear, chase, and asset cards are all available for purchase.
• Character creator in alpha on the webpage (with login)
• Random operation generator with motivations on the website. 
• Significant work on a Foundry Module. 
• A Core Rulebook (Sinless) and Starting Adventure/Campaign guide (Billionaire Bounty)
• A forum that has not gone down in the last 2 years. 
• A free license to produce and sell Sinless material. 

That's pretty good for 2 years. The fact that the game is super fun is a great bonus!
What are our plans for 2026?

• Cyberpunk/Office/Slum/Wasteland Geomorphs for the operation generator.
• Publication of Manon Quarterly, a guidebook exploring the world of magic in 2090, through the lens of a magic fashion magazine.
• An already written and in editing fiction novel, "All the Drugs are Strawberry Flavored".
• A second unnamed fiction novel.
• A world bible for people wishing to utilize the free Sinless license.
• And a kickstarter for another expansion.

Here are some things you should know.
Hack & Slash's stance on Artificial Intelligence: If you don't care to make it, I don't care to know it. No generative AI is used in Sinless products or materials. Every image was drawn by hand. (I mean, it's drawn in Clip Studio Pro, but you know what I mean. :-) ) That picture above took around 30 hours (including the branding design, the text, and layout). JeShields original design from my description. I hope my work does his justice.
His work is too amazing, and I'm so thankful to know such a talented and wonderful person!
Sinless would not be the success it is without his work. 

Why are you doing this instead of making mad money doing Dark Heart Shadow Dagger Products?

I *already* made a fantasy game, it's called Perdition and is a prequel to Sinless. We made money up, and people who are trading their lives in pursuit of entirely fictional numbers used to deny people their basic needs is madness, and I refuse to engage in the system by seeking to do a popular thing. Sinless is not for everyone, cyberpunk is not for everyone. It is however, by far, the best thing going in cyberpunk. 

Most importantly, it is the thing I want to do and the thing I care most about in the world. Not money. Not success. A good game I want to play for me. 

Updates posted weekly on the free Patreon. 

 Available Now!

https://sinlessrpg.com

Hack & Slash 

Follow, Twitch, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating) sinlessrpg.com

If anyone saw part of either livestream I did on New Year's Eve, you likely saw I was far from 100%. I actually napped for 90 minutes between the two streams, and it wasn't JUST because I'm getting old.

In any case, the brain fog/cloud that has accompanied this challenge is still lingering but improving. I'm hoping to resume OSR Christmas - with gift giving and a new set of gifts to ask OSR Santa for tomorrow, Friday, Jan 2. It MAY slip to Jan 3 if my dopiness hasn't improved.

I missed a few days of video at the height of this infection, and the few I've done this week have relied on Adobe Podcast to clean up my audio to something presentable. Well worth the 60 bucks or so I pay yearly for the feature. Simple observation, no affiliate anything ;)

Alright - no livestream tonight, no Discord hangout tonight, just rest, liquid, and sleep...

By Hephaistos Fnord
Canvas Quest
Some D&D Clone
Levels 1-3

The Pale Keep was built by the Crown of Albion in 3421 to fortify the bordermarch of the Pale against the Eire barbarians and their fey allies. The keep sits on a tall cliff overlooking the Barrow river to the south; the entirety of the island across the Barrow is referred to as “beyond the Pale” by the March’s inhabitants. The entire keep is hallowed ground, kept consecrated regularly by the abbey’s priests.

This 42 page adventure is a Keep on the Borderlands clone for some homebrew 5e system that thinks armor should reduce damage instead of making you harder to hit. It’s the Keep & Caves and a whole lot of shit ass formatting and large stat blocks. I loathe it.

It is the Keep on the Borderlands. The Pale Keep is the Keep and the caves/ravine in it are the caves/ravine from B2. There’s a lair of the lizard people (kobolds this time) and a crazed hermit with a big cat (an elven druid.) The minotaur is a demon this time and we’ve got a lot of types of “Beast Men” in that ravine.  Including a couple of tribes of rival “cousin/’ monsters/factions who war with each other. IE: the orcs. And an ogre boss-man. And the secret door stuff. And a map that shows the entire ravine AND all of the caves hanging off of it. Ok, the spiders are ettercaps. We’re got boar0men and shit like that. But this is VERY close to B2. Like, Basic Fantasy close. It takes every element of B2 and then uses it. Not (Ironwood Gorge?) sort of reimagining, but this is B2 cloned by someone with watercolors instead of acrylics. Complete with a running number system for encounters that persists throughout the caves in the ravine. If it happened in B2 then it happens here. It’s for their home system which seems a lot like 5e except armor reduces damage. Whatever. Arms Law did it first. (Hmmm, I wonder what the best version of Rolemaster is? Concise but full?) 

I told you how similar it was. I wasn’t joking.

Man, I really fucking hate having to pretend like this shit is ok. B2 was ok I guess. The most special thing about it was that literally every D&D player before 1988 has played it, most likely multiple times. This has led to  a shared experience and the special kind of nostalgia where everyone remembers the same one toy they had, the only toy that anyone had that year. It’s raid after raid in a monster zoo, played straight. With some squinting there’s some more going on, especially in the Meta. But this is not a masterpiece. But, people have fond memories and so here we are again. Yeah. A B2 clone. For a D&D clone. Certainly a step from from, say, Vampire Queen. Some rivalries. The mercenary ogre. A bit of nudge & wink humor tossed in. Creatures sometimes doing things. Intrigue possibilities at the keep. Or, loot the fucking place. And, wrapped up in a terse writing style. But this makes it a historical object of interest. “Look! The cave paintings of people have faces now!”

So, what about this homage to B2?

One can imagine Sisyphus happy before imagining Bryce happy …

Fuck you. No one deserved this. What kid of fucked up design/formatting decision is this? What the fuck motivated the decision to make this a … I don’t even know what to call it. Normal paragraph with some numbers embedded in it? Hey, I get it, room/key isn’t the best formatting for all adventures, or, even, for all parts of all adventure. More than anyone else I feel I’m a proponent of Do What Works. Some days I can even see where someone who has failed was trying to go and what they were trying to accomplish. This is how we move ahead. But we most certainly to NOT move ahead with this shit. What the fuck. You think that’s east to read? You think it’s easy to find information in it? Again, I think that room/key isn’t the best for a town but fuck man it is MILES better than just writing a page of text with some numbers in it. I guess maybe you were thinking you’d lead with an (unhighlighted) business name and then a number to locate it on the map? For my own sanity and faith in humanity I’m going to go with that. I get that, I’m looking for a blacksmith. In which case maybe you highlight the business type? Whatever. Let’s move on to the Caves of Chaos Crom-Cruach.

Oh, fuck, sorry, no. That’s one of the wilderness sites on the map. You know giant spiders, lizard men, hermit. “Wolf Pucca Champions in this case.” Hang on, I threw up a little there, gotta clean it up. (Yes, this IS subjective . While I try to keep my own particular genre tastes out of things for the most part I do have some things I LOATHE and this is one of them.) Anyway, the Caves of Chaos …

It’s the same format. That kind of conversational style that sticks a room number in it. What the fuck?! Also, you gotta have full stat blocks because the giant rats might need to make an Int save, I guess, so you need to know they have a -4/17+/. The veil torn asunder! Another min/max combat heavy D&D-mine. Arms Law indeed!

Ok, Ok, the rooms proper. I do like the Black Plague reference. I think it plays on relatability, the kind of ingrained cultural aversion we all have to the Black Plague that “The Infernal pox” doesn’t have. “You got scabies.” hits harder. The very clearly human/elven is nice. The rest of this is little more than “3 kobolds” padded out. Look man, the net trap is there, and the pit. It’s B2.

A lot of text for not much content beyond some minimal keying. I do enjoy some of the grounding in more relatable things. I thin those portions hit quite well. Then there’s this, for the Ogre …

And then this part in the Keep proper …

The Castellan has an elevator to his secret lair where he has an 18 foot tall Battlemech he can sit in. And your mage can also. Do battle the ogre and demon. Seriously. This is the only hint of this shit, besides those wolf pucca champions. Which makes me think that a D&D campaign where you are peasants adventuring and then eventually find out you are in Battletech and the ruling class just keeps you ignorant could be a cool idea.

This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is fifteen pages. Enough to see the Keep and a few wilderness encounters, and figure out the fucked up formatting style.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/546367/the-pale-keep?1892600

My mission: to read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to the end of Crisis. This week, I'm looking at the comics that were on stands in the week of January 3, 1985. 

Crisis on Infinite Earths #1: The build-up with hints and teases regarding the Monitor finally pays off as the title originally advertised as DC Universe arrives. Wolfman gives us an extensive intro explaining the rationale for the project (fix/modernize DC's convoluted multiverse) and how it came to be. The story he and Perez give us this issue is mostly setup, though. It starts at the beginning of time, telling us that what was intended to be one universe got fractured into many. We meet Pariah who watches an Earth consumed by nothingness, unable to interfere or to die with it, before he is transported to another imperiled Earth. This is Earth-Three, world of the Crime Syndicate. Those villains, despite their vast powers, are unable to stop the spread of antimatter, but they die as heroes, at least. The world's sole superhero, Alexander Luthor, rockets his infant son to another Earth before he and his wife are destroyed. 
The Monitor says the time is here, and sends forth his assistant Harbinger to select the champions they need: Solovar from the present of Earth-One, and Dawnstar from its future; Psycho-Pirate from Earth-Two's present, and Firebrand from the 1940s there; and Charlton's Blue Beetle makes his DC debut as he's recruited from Earth-Four. A Harbinger duplicate returns to Earth-One and collects Firestorm and (with the aid of Psycho-Pirate) Killer Frost. In the past, a Harbinger recruits Arion but becomes corrupted by a Shadow Demon.
The group is united at the Monitor's satellite, where their host steps out of the shadows and reveals himself at last.

Atari Force #16: Hannigan is on pencils this issue. Babe's foray against the ant creatures is successful, and Scanner One is able to break free and take off, but not before a few of the bugs get into the ship and start causing trouble. Luckily, Taz has her babies and tazlings have an inherent technical aptitude. They effect repairs and the ant-things are dealt with. Meanwhile, Dart is psychically contacted by Chris and the crew discovers that New Earth (and its universe) hasn't been destroyed after all. 

DC Comics Presents #80: Kupperberg and Swan/Hunt present a very much in-continuity team-up, as the Lost Legionnaires step through a stargate and wind up in a Metropolis inhabited by a bunch of Supermen who are out to attack them. It all turns out to be an overelaborate plot by Brainiac to escape the extra-universal realm he's been imprisoned in and get the Legionnaires to kill the real Superman once he shows up. Things don't go his way, though.

Fury of Firestorm #34: Conway and Kayanan/Kupperberg open where last issue left off. After the shock of setting off LeFlambeau's trap, Firestorm rallies and uses his powers to save New York. Meanwhile, the lab accident at the end of last issue has created a new Killer Frost. Ronnie is just about to finally have a take with Doreen about the state of their relationship, when he's whisked away to confront her as Firestorm. He winds up getting trapped under a mass of ice for his trouble. 

Jonni Thunder #2: The Thomases and Giordano/Esposito continue their superhero-detective hybrid story. Jonni is still trying to get all the players straight. She gets another visit from "Slim" Chance who wants the statue. That statue is stolen from her home, but Jonni tracks it to bottom-feeder P.I named Harrison Trump and his employer, a strip club owner called Red Nails--a woman who seems to know something of the mysterious Thunderbolt. In fact, even invoking the Thunderbolt may not save Jonni from Red Nails as she threatens to kill the P.I.'s unconscious body if Thunderbolt doesn't surrender.

Justice League of America #237: Conway and Patton/Maygar have Flash, Wonder Woman, and Superman return to the destroyed JLA satellite with no idea what has happened. In a continuity puzzle, they just got back from the adventure that began in issue 231 back in July of '84. Anyway, a self-destructing Soviet spy satellite leads them to the USSR where they are beaten by the keytar stylings of the Maestro, a super-villain in the service of General Gorki, who plans to stage a coup. Meanwhile, the new League sends Steel, Elongated Man, and Dale Gunn ask Hank Heywood to use his CIA contacts to find out why the three heroes have gone to the Soviet Union, but Heywood's bigoted and reactionary ways lead to Steel throwing him out a window, so the new League is without leads.

Tales of the Teen Titans #52: Wolfman and Buckler/DeCarlo continue what now seems like a "backdoor pilot" for a Searchers, Inc. (the organization founded by Jericho's mother) series. While Jericho and Amber, one of his mother's agents, go to Qurac to free Adeline Wilson, there confronting Cheshire and President Marlo, in the primary story of the issue. Over Changeling's protests, the Titans agree not to intervene in the matter, and so are sidelined. Alerted by Lilith's precognition, they instead go to STAR Labs, where an explosion frees the cryogenically preserved alien, a winged man who instantly falls for Lilith.

Robotech Defenders #2: The issue opens with an editorial revealing that the planned 3-issue series is only going to be two, but this issue is 32 pages and without ads. Our heroes and their giant robots are ambushed by the more numerous Grelon force, supplied with tech by a mysterious faction. The defenders are defeated, and Silky, pilot of Aqualos, is killed. Malek is captured but discovers that pushing the big red button in the cockpit brings the robot to life. She relays this to the others, and the non-sentient robots are able to fight their way free. Regrouping, the robots reveal to their pilots that they were beings from the planet Technor who uploaded their minds into the robot bodies. They are opposing the energy vampire S'Landrai who are using the Grelons to acquire worlds to drain.
With the help of a rebellious Grelon commander, the robots and pilots fight back and defeat the S'Landrai and their Grelon pawns. The ending suggests other adventures to come, but of course they never materialized.

Superman: The Secret Years #3: Rozakis and Swan/Schaffenberger reveal the full story of the death of Billy Cramer, Superboy's new friend and confidante. He dies trying to save a baby that it turns out isn't even in danger, sure that Superboy will save him, but Superboy is busy elsewhere with an emergency. Clark's guilt is worsened because he had been cold to Billy and Pete in the aftermath of his breakup with Lori Lemaris. Superboy is shaken in confidence and doubting his mission.

Vigilante 16: Kupperberg does a fill-in with Saviuk/Maygar on art. In the last days (or so he thinks now), before he gives up his crimefighter identity, Vigilante takes on a highly organized gang who is derailing subway trains and robbing the occupants after they beat up Marcia. It turns out the mugging have only been cover for a bigger job: robbing the collections train. Vigilante foils the plot and brings the gange to justice.

Wonder Woman #324: Thanks to the alien machinations related to Trevor's new gremlin pal, Glitch, the U.S. and the Soviet Union move closer to nuclear confrontation. Gardner Grayle (last seen in DC Comics Presents #57) is troubled by visions of this happening and sees Wonder Woman's and Steve Trevor's actions as a trigger. As the Atomic Knight, he first battles them, then teams up with them to attempt to stop nuclear war, only to have the situation further complicated by the arrival of the alien Ytirflirks who want Glitch back.

The more I look...

Under Charisma, Maximum number of Henchman is now called, "Sidekick Limit".

Sidekick?

Yet, in the paragraph below, sidekick limit is described as the maximum number of "henchman" you can have. The word henchman is used once more. (Further rules for this are probably in the GMs guide).

Why the change? Why the new term "sidekick"? 

If OSRIC is supposed to be an efficient reorganization (clarification) of the original rules, why introduce a new term just to use the old term (twice) to explain the new term?

Table needs centering.

Nobody has 10 "sidekicks".  

The addition of the word "sidekick" is the very definition of unnecessary. You don't need another word to describe one that is already there. You'll only confuse the matter. It is terminology bloat. They clearly want to transition to a new term.

The original Player's Handbook calls henchman non-player characters who will "serve" as permanent retainers. OSRIC 3.0 says a henchman is someone who is "willing to accompany your character", it is a "long-term relationship".

Softening up the language is not rules clarification.

OSRIC is turning into something else.

Just saying.

Everything is on hold as I continue to fight the flu (my parents are also sick with Influenza A - Rach is as yet untouched).

I think the headache and the brain fog are worse than the congestion, hacking, and body aches - but that's from a productivity standpoint. It's hard to concentrate when your head is pounding, AND you're in a fog.

Hopefully I'm feeling better in time for Wed's livestreams...

The OSRIC 3.0 layout sucks.

I backed this (of course!) and had high hopes that this would be THE definitive reference, even though I own all of the originals in fantastic condition.

I almost never bash other OSR products. From me it's usually praise or silence. I despise making this post, but it must be made. (I'll slaughter WoTC all day long).

Call me crazy, but I expected OSRIC 3.0 to be the most faithful adaption of AD&D 1E possible... with AMAZING layout.

By all that I've heard, Matt Finch is a great guy... so don't take this personal for God's sake! Doing this is no doubt a herculean effort... and it is much appreciated by many!

But I think many are about to be disappointed.

The art is fine. The font is fine. The layout... ugh. 

The center line between columns isn't necessary, unless there's a table on one side. And the columns are far too close together.

The tables are atrocious! They aren't centered properly and they often overlap onto the next page. Tables should always be self contained on one page, I don't care if this leads to white space and more pages. That's what filler art is for. (Weapon and equipment tables can be an exception here). What are you going to reference during play more than tables? They should be a joy to look at. As it stands, joy is not the word that comes to mind.

I was always tempted to purchase the previous OSRIC hardcover, but never did because the layout kind of bugged me. 

This is worse. This is in no way an improvement. Perhaps the rules are more accurate, but they're still not 100%. And the folks who'll buy this already know the rules.

THEY WANT A NICE LAYOUT.

OSRIC 3.0 won't inspire anyone and won't make it easier to play this game, so what's the point?

I hope to God this looks better in physical form, but I would urge serious layout changes be made, even if it takes another year. Treat the latest free release as just another beta. 

We can wait.

By Ethan Dunning
Self Published
OSE
Levels 1-4

[Error! No Marketing blurb! Error!]

This eighteen page adventure features fourteen rooms across two levels in a classic fairytale-like giants cottage. Experience being small and looking at big things. And not doing much else. Classic elements, to no end. 

Man, I don’t know. There’s so little to work  with here, even though there are fifteen rooms and almost twenty pages. This is one of those “We’re small and the  world around us is big” adventures, the classic set up being “we’re in a giant’s house!” And, this is the classic one. It’s a cottage that a giant lives in. It’s four times your size. The giant is asleep in his bed. Pretty classic. There are giant ants crawling through his window to the table to grab chunks of bread and cheese. Pretty classic. The giant will capture you if you wake him and put you inmason jars in hte basement. That’s pretty charming. The giant rats have a queen who is wearing a cursed magic item that makes your intelligence five. Which isn’t much of a curse if you’re a giant rat, so Penny is now queen, naming herself after the Penny Grain Company sack she sleeps on. I mean, this is all straight out of children’s books and fairy tales. Get in to a fight with the ants? A giant preying mantis jumps down from the rafters so you can escape all StopMotion Dinosaur Movie style. 

The environment, though, is rather static. The giant is asleep. The ants don’t attack unless you fuck with them. The black widow under the bed isn’t at home initially. The rat queen wants to talk. It’s all pretty passive. The giant makes sense; you’re not fighting an 8HD t level one, and his stick you in a jar or on a meat hook also makes sense, he’s a puzzle/a special and not a fight. But the rest … the place is missing an element of risk. You just wander around.

There are some captured people and some of the hooks tie in to that; find the missing goblins or find the missing priest. There’s also a locked chest. The queen will tell you where the key is, but she wants the cheese. The cheese is on the table with the ants, so I guess you will be disturbing them, if you go that route. But these are clearly a preplanned path and not … oh, the encounters as independent agents living in their own world.

I’m not even sure this works well if you place your own quest object in it. It would still have the same problem: a rather confined location with rather passive encounters in them. There’s not much dynamic going on. There is a table of random events, like the giant gets up to go get water from the well briefly, or goes to the basement to get something and the like. But this all seems like more of a “quick! Everyone hide!” element then it is providing opportunities or some push to move the adventure along further. And I can get behind a Quick! Hide! Thing, but it’s hard when the entire adventure seems to be that. 

The adventure is one big long puzzle and trap adventure, in essence. Make your way through, figuring out the Giant Land thing while you are small. Avoid touching the metal rails and getting shocked. We can imagine room after room of Grimthooth rooms as a blunt analogy. Figure out how to pass and get the cash at the other end. This IS a valid type of adventure, and it certainly has many charming elements. It does, in fact, have a bunch of encounters which communicate that kind of Giant Cottage vibe. The Wee Willy giant adventure from Dungeon, though, from my memory, felt like a more dynamic environment. This doesn’t feel like you’re trapped, or after something. I’m not even sure it feels like you’re robbing the place or on a journey to free prisoners. There just are not obstacles to actively engage in, for the most part. Sure, the mason jars are in a cellar with brown mold, but I think that’s a rare example in this of challenge to actively overcome instead of just Not Fucking With Shit. Thusly, mostly a museum adventure where NOT interacting gets you more than interacting. 

This is $5 at DriveThru. There is no preview. I am not amused by that. You gotta put in a substantive preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/546423/the-giant-s-cottage?1892600

Yesterday was the 16th anniversary of this blog. If anybody's still reading from the early days, thanks for sticking around. 

Looking at my blog states, my most popular post ("Old School Blogger Advancement Table") was done as sort of a joke but also an attempt to be grab the attention of weekly(ish) blog cycle of that day. I guess in that it succeeded in that regard, but it seems even more frivolous to me today.

The next two most popular posts were part of a series "Real Dungeons, American Style." The top one was "Murder Castle" about H.H. Holmes, featuring the blueprints of his home that were published in the newspaper after he was caught.

The 7th most popular post was "AD&D Cosmology: A Defense." I think I've written a number of posts defending, elaborating, and riffing off the Great Wheel. 

The 10th most popular post was where I announced that Weird Adventures was available. The first actual Weird Adventures post is "Remember Prester John," a few places lower.

The most recent post in the top 20 is from 2023. "The Adventure-Point Crawl" was inspired by my friend's Chris Kutalik's point crawl posts, but also rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender with my daughter.

Maybe for the 20th anniversary, assuming I'm still around then, I'll do a list of my favorite posts.

Here's another Instagram find. Drew Rausch does these very cool limited pallet images with lots of black and silhouette. Mostly horror or Halloween themed. They're just wicked and fun. He has prints and maybe some mini comics on his site. Good stuff.

 

Microsoft recently announced that by October 2026, Publisher will no longer be supported. If you have a hard copy, you can continue using it without support, if not, too bad.

I'm in the too bad boat. 

Everything I've produced and worked on over the last decade or two, adventures, rules, character sheets, etc., was done with Publisher. I have projects that will never be finished now for sure, because with converting and reformatting, you're pretty much starting from scratch. Yet being realistic, my many little projects mostly served as distractions and were destined to stay that way.

So for now, I have archived some things in PDF form, if only for my own reference and have settled on using Word from here on out after researching and tinkering with a few of the other programs. My initial impression of Word was likening it to B/X whereas Publisher is AD&D. Adobe InDesign is another option but costs twice as much as Publisher did.

Blessing in disguise...

I've been diligently working on a new module that I fully intend to publish in 2026. I'm embracing a simpler, A5 format for this one and I'm becoming increasingly comfortable using Word. The original idea for this sprung a few years ago, but for some reason -- perhaps no more distractions -- I'm off to the races and this one's awesome. I'm basing it on 1st edition rules.

Until the New Year.

By Giuliano Gianfriglia, La Tavola Rotonda APS
La Tavola Rotonda
OSE
Level 1

A SIMPLE CONTRACT. A SILENT WRECK. A SECRET THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN AWAKENED. In the sprawling Citadel of Aurion, an offer too good to refuse puts you on the trail of the Stella Cadente (the Falling Star), a transport ship that vanished under mysterious circumstances. What begins as a simple recovery mission for an ambitious merchant soon turns into a desperate fight for survival on an isolated asteroid. Something lurks within the twisted wreckage, and it has no intention of giving up its new “treasure”.

This 52 page sci-fi waste of space adventure has a giant bird in it. And, like, I don’t know, maybe six locations, if I’m being VERY generous and count the hook/tavern and the Jungle Cruise boat ride. 

I am a hypocrite. I know I’m a hypocrite. This means I am not an asshole. Since the only way to survive in the world is to be a hypocrite, everyone is a hypocrite and that means that if you think you are not a hypocrite then you are an asshole. I do not go up to homeless people and go on and on about how much money I have, disposable that I’m going to waste, and and how I am not going to give it to them. That would make me an asshole. [Exceptions to the above being made for BradleyDragon, of course.] I cannot imagine staring someone in the face and just flaunting things right in front of them. Fucking avert your eyes in an embarrassed manner and move on like everyone else, or maybe drop a few bucks because it’s the holidays. But, again, don’t just stand there looking at them and telling them, for a long amount of time, how rich you are and how you are not going to give them any money.

Naivete? The old Paranoia chutzpah? Why would you even put this in? “I like to masturbate to pictures of anal warts.” Uh, sure thing. We all do. But the rest of us have the decency to make some thoughts inside our heads only. Seriously, why would you thumb your noses at people? We keep our conversations related to the weather and the state of the roads. We do NOT talk about religion, politics, or the use of AI in products. I’m just absolutely gob smacked.

Ah, I see the problem. We’re sharing stories and we’re connecting with each other.

The setting here is pseud-scifi. Let’s call it Gamma World like, but not quite so primitive. I thin we’re going for a Planescape like vibe, except techno. In this “story” a dude hires you to to a ship and recover a thing. You get hired in a bar. You ride a ship to the wrecked ship, and probably do nothing on the way. At the ship you explore, maybe, three rooms and probably make a skill check. Then you fight a giant bird. Then the adventure is over. And it takes 52 fucking pages to do that. And why is that?

Because there’s tons and tons of generic advice for the DM. Is any of this supported, for the experienced DM? No. Did a new DM just wander in here to run this? No. Doesn’t matter through, it’s all still present.

It takes nineteen pages just to get through the hook. By page twelve, above, we do get a description of the bar where the hook takes place. Yeah!

Long italics read-aloud. “Your adventure begins here.” *sigh*

Hey hey! A meaningless location description in town that has no bearing on the adventure! Yeah!

Congrats. You rode a boat to the wrecked ship. This is kind of a weird way to present the entrances, grouping them by challenge phases instead of by location. No consequence to going in via the hash in the hull. Guess you pick that one. No clue why you would though. Life is random. That’s page 24.

Well, we’re doing a Fail Forward anyway. We don’t place critical information in a binary way in front of a die roll. If you want to create atmosphere, then you create atmosphere regardless of the die roll, which is what is going on here. I’m not a fan of the overly mechanistic stuff here. I think it robs the setting of sense of the evocative.

We’re in to the appendix. This is the dude that hires you, although you never meet him, only an agent. “This could elevate his status.” That’s boring. I want some scheming. Tell me his dirty little insipid scheme. Just add some color to the adventure.

And that’s the adventure. It generalizes. It wants to create this very evocative picture but it does by saying “Paint an evocative picture” instead of priming the DM to create that evocative nature. That’s the designers role. TO provide those cues to the DM. To provide things for them to riff on. Not to tell them to riff on things but to provide the specificity that will then allow that riffing.

I get that that the folks behind this were excited. But, also, there seems to be no clue as to what makes a decent adventure. It’s hard to fathom a hook, a boat ride, and four rooms taking up 52 pages.

This is $3 at DriveThru. There is no preview. Sucker.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/541172/nexum-the-aurion-contract?1892600

We are kicking OSR Christmas 2025 off today - Christmas itself.

How do you get into the "gift receiving" mix?

Email OSRChristmasATgmailDOTcom (trying not to get hit by spam from email scrapers) with some variation of "Days 1 to 3" in the subject.

Let me know if you are in the US or outside the US - some physical gifts won't ship outside the states, as shipping is literally cost-prohibitive.

Note #1 - for physical gifts (including, but not limited to Arduin's Portal to Adventure, a $180 value), some may not ship until late January / February due to projects still waiting to be fulfilled.

Note #2 - all emails during OSR Christmas will be included in the random drawing for Arduin's Portal to Adventure, the final drawing for OSR Christmas.

Days One to Three wrap up Dec 27th @ Midnite. Emails must be received by midnight, Dec 27th, 2025. Gift recipients will be notified here at TenkarsTavern.com on Dec 28th, when Days Four to Six go live. 

Here are the gifts for OSR Christmas, Days One to Three, 2025: 

• Sickest Witch Core Rulebook - Severed Press - Donated by Tenkar (ships mid January, US Only)

• When the Fat Orc Sings (Fiction by Glen Halstrom) - Donated by Wizard Tower Games (ships mid January, US Only)

• The Player’s Guide to Balic donated by Christopher Moneymaker This 29-page accessory, written for AD&D 2nd Edition Dark Sun, fully describes the City-State of Balic on a player’s level. Although it is written for Dark Sun, with a little adjustment it could work in almost any fantasy setting that you wanted to place a loosely Greco Roman inspired city in.  Details about everyday life in the city like food, dress, locations, festivals, and important NPCs are all covered. - PDF

• 2 x $10 DTRPG Gift Certificates - Donated by Tenkar

• Bonus - All who enter will get a copy of Super Atomic RPG with a Deluxe Character Sheet. It's a neat, rules-light, and FREE supers RPG

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 Expanding classic modules like B2: Keep on the Borderlands and B10: Night’s Dark Terror into Castles & Crusades (C&C) is relatively seamless because the Siege Engine is designed for backward compatibility with older editions. This blog post picks right up from here on the blog. Below are the expanded conversion guidelines and specific C&C stats for key NPCs and Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

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