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Dawn Patrol

Gary Con 2026 started today, but I am still traveling there, so here's the final installment of my report from last year.

This post covers Saturday, March 22 and Sunday March 23, 2025.

The previous days can be found here: Day 0 (Wed) - Day 1 (Thur) - Day 2 (Fri)

(1) Learn to Play Dawn Patrol (Snoopy vs The Red Baron) run by Skip Williams

My first game on Saturday was TSR's Dawn Patrol, designed by Mike Carr, who also wrote the first module for Basic D&D, B1 In Search of the Unknown. Mike still runs games at Gary Con, but this game was referreed by a different TSR alumnus, Skip Williams. I owned a copy of Dawn Patrol back in the 80s, but never actually played it, which is why I signed up for this introductory scenario, which pitted "Snoopy" Sopwith Camels versus "Red Baron" Fokker DRs.

Convention event listing description:

"Dawn patrol on Saturday morning is a Gary Con tradition. Did you know that Dawn Patrol (then called Fight in the Skies or F.I.T.S.) was the first event ever to run at Gen Con? (Now you do.). Become a legend! Join us! The scenario features Iconic aircraft: Sopwith Camels vs. Fokker DR Is."

Photos:

Skip Williams (standing center) reffing

(2) Planet of the Mists run by Chris Hunt

This was another first for me, playing WEG's classic d6 Star Wars for the first time. The scenario was a WEG module, Planet of the Mists, using a minis and a cardboard scenery setup that made for cinematic melee scenes. I got to be a Wookie and cause some mayhem as we escaped from an Imperial prison.

Convention event listing description:

"A band of unlikely allies is imprisoned on a world the star charts say doesn't exist and caught in a desperate struggle to save the Galaxy from the Empire! A Rebel agent, cynical slicer, brash smuggler, savage wookiee, Imperial expat, or fallen Jedi. Which will you be? Thwart the Empire’s evil plan and escape the Planet of the Mists. This Star Wars RPG adventure by West End Games is for all ages."

(3) The Future King run by Demos Sahlas

Another game run by Demos of the OSR Grimoire (see Day, Game 1 for the first), this is a very obscure adventure written and self-published by Tom Moldvay of B/X Basic fame after he had left TSR, one of his last RPG adventures. As can be seen in the event description below, this is a League of Extraordinary Gentleman-type scenario (before that even existed) where each played a historical figure from a different era and place. I'd known about this adventure for years, but never thought I'd get to play in it. An epic and poetic adventure, perfect for my last evening this year at Gary Con.

Cover image from
 Wayne's Books

Convention event listing description:

"Six historical figures: Doc Holliday, Nostradamus, Bruce Lee, Harald Hardraada, Owen Glendower, and Cyrano de Bergerac have been gathered together out of the mists of time. Their mission is to find and wake King Arthur, for it is time that he again don the mantle of kingship. A unique small-press role-playing adventure by the late, great Tom Moldvay, published in 1985."

I didn't take any photos during this game, which was mostly played theatre-of-the-mind.

Sunday 

(4) G.I. JOE: Race To Reality

For my last morning at Gary Con, I played in a GI Joe vs Cobra two-sided game. This was another minis heavy game, and they GMs also provided us with lots of fancy swag. I got to play Snake Eyes, my favorite character from the 80s cartoon.

Convention event listing description:

"Who will be the victor in the race to find the Ancient Artifact that brings your thoughts to reality. Help the Joe's or Cobra out, and be the first to find the artifact. Characters provided to save time."

Photos: 

That's it for Gary Con 2025 ... onward to 2026!

P.S. Spotted Cow, by local WI brewery Spotted Cow, is a perennial Gary Con favorite, and now I know you can buy it at the Milwaukee airport to bring home!

Traveller, the Most Influential Science Fiction RPG of All Time, is Coming to 5E

A landmark conversion brings nearly five decades of iconic science-fiction roleplaying to the world’s most popular tabletop system.

Traveller, first published in 1977, is officially being adapted in a new project led by veteran game designer Timothy Brown, in full coordination with Mongoose Publishing. The project aims to bring the depth, scope, and creative freedom of classic Traveller to a new generation of players.

Designed for groups interested in science-fiction storytelling using familiar tabletop mechanics, Traveller 5E preserves what made the original game legendary while making it accessible to a wider audience. The result is a complete science fiction roleplaying experience centered on interstellar travel, trade, jump space starships, and sector-level worldbuilding, allowing groups to create entire universes on their own.

“This 5E version introduces Traveller to an enormous new audience. Starships, strange worlds, exotic alien creatures … every aspect of the sci-fi classic is faithfully recreated using the new edition’s rules. Will the existing Imperium and all its sourcebooks be updated to the new rules? If there’s demand for that, then yes, of course, but the primary objective is to make a sandbox game that feeds the pent-up demand for whole new game universes. Equally exciting, we’re tracking some of our favorite sci-fi novels and series to license as whole new Traveller 5E settings … stay tuned!” – Timothy Brown

Traveller 5E supports a wide range of play styles and science-fiction themes, offering tools for:

? Iconic character creation

? Designing original worlds, sectors, and interstellar settings

? Building starships, vehicles, and alien creatures

? Campaign play focused on exploration, commerce, and discovery

The crowdfunding campaign for Traveller 5E will launch on March 31.

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About World’s Largest RPGs

World’s Largest RPGs is a tabletop roleplaying game publisher focused on bringing legendary games to modern audiences. The company works closely with creators and licensors to deliver excellent roleplaying experiences for players and game masters alike.

About Mongoose Publishing

Mongoose Publishing is a British manufacturer of roleplaying games, miniatures, and card games, publishing material since 2001. Its product lines include Traveller, Paranoia, 2300AD, and Shield Maidens.

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I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at comics that were published on February 21, 1985.

Batman and the Outsiders #22: Alan Davis makes his American comics debut taking over on art from Aparo. As the Outsiders arrive in the ruin of the JLA satellite, this issue feels very modern (or at least very early 21st century) in its portrayal of a very driven Batman with secret plans to make up for what he perceives as his JLA teammates' shortcomings and his tendency to view his new teammates as instruments to use toward his goals. The team has brought Dr. Jace with them to use the JLA's special equipment to help them learn more about Halo's origins. Examining her brainwaves, they awaken her hidden self and discover she is an aurakle, one of a group of sentient energy beings that have existed since the before the universe. The aurakle that became Halo had been fascinated with organic beings and inhabited the body of Violet Harper after her death.
At first, the Outsiders are sort of skeptical about Halo's story, but after a group of aurakles arrive to force her to re-merge with their "unity", they can't doubt it. At first the Outsiders hold their own against the energy beings, but the aurakles blow a hole in the station and take Halo away. Several of the Outsiders and sucked into space, but Geo-Force saves them and Metamorpho seals the breach.

Blue Devil #12: Under the demonic influence of his trident, Blue Devil goes on a bit of a rampage but given the tone of this book it's played a bit for laughs with his maniacal statements being mostly movie industry cliches. Green Lantern tries to stop him, but well, fire can be yellow...so they have to call in Zatana. She gets to the bottom of what's going on, and as they free his trident from its demonic possessor, Etrigan shows up and attacks, not knowing Dan is cured. They soon straighten things out, though, and Etrigan leaves. The Demon is miscolored this whole issue so that he looks like he's shirtless but still has red frilly cuffs.

Green Lantern #189: John Stewart and Katma Tui combat Sonar and his new super-powered cronies, Throttle and Blindside. Meanwhile, Hal and Carol investigate the identity of the Predator, but so far, they haven't found anything substantive. Hal also pays a visit to Guy Gardner in the facility where he lives, having suffered brain damage. He intends to pay more frequent visits as he fills a kinship with this other former Lantern.
In the "Tales of the Green Lantern Corps" backup by Klein and O'Neill, Xax, the insectoid Green Lantern of Xaos, tried to feed the hungry masses, but his ring wasn't up to keeping up with the demand. He tries his best to prevent a war between clans fighting over the harvest. The Spider Guild invades and wraps the Xaosians in cocoons. Xax saves some of his fellows while confronting guild machines, but he falls into a yellow metal trap.

Infinity, Inc. #15: The Chroma story arc (if we can call it that) concludes this issue. Mostly, the story is about the disagreement among the Infinitors with Obsidian frustrated the others still seem to be fascinated with the alien and are blind to the threat he poses. Backing up Obsidian's intuitions is the crowd building ominously outside the hospital where Chroma is recovering and the other Infinitors sort of baseless but persistent feelings of his beneficence. This all comes down to a short fight between them at the hospital before Chroma just decides humanity isn't ready for him yet and leaves. It seems Thomas is going for the sort of comic-book-profound, cosmic story of his days at Marvel, but this just doesn't reach the level of bombast to pull that off. McFarlane's layouts are much more conventional this issue with better use of space, and the stylistic flourishes he will later be known for are either embryonic or being tamped down by DeZuniga's inks.

New Teen Titans #9: I read this issue in 1986 when it was reprinted in Tales of the Teen Titans #68. Wolfman and García-López/Tanghal continue the story from last issue. The Teen Titans rally the Titans of myth to carry the battle against Thia to Olympus. The first encounter Kole who Thia made imprison the Amazons with her crystal powers. The freed Amazons are able to join the fight, which is good because Thia sends the monstrous Typhon against our heroes. Ultimately, Hyperion sacrifices himself to destroy his wife, though two consumed together in flames. The Titan team defeats Typhon, and Lilith is reunited with the winged alien. In the aftermath, a grateful Zeus decrees that the surviving Titans of myth, and Lilith, now recognized as a demi-goddess, may remain in Olympus.

Sgt. Rock #401: The first story is one of the oddest of Kanigher's works on this title. Easy company see's a meteor coming streaking across the sky, then encounters the large meteorite stuck in the ground. Then it seems to sort of follow them, showing up when they encounter a group of refugees and share food, then again in the stream near a bombed-out village, where Rock referees a confrontation between a lone German soldier and French locals, both only children. The mysterious visitor, drawing conclusions about the contradictory nature of humanity, leaves again for the cosmos.
The next story by Joe Kubert is about a German corporal who basically becomes an avatar of death in guilt over being the sole survivor of his squad is a reprint from Weird War Tales #1. The final story by Arata and the Kubert brothers tells the story of a boy who played with toy tanks designed the resemble those of World War II, but finds his own interactions with military vehicles in Vietnam less enjoyable.

Saga of Swamp Thing #37: Moore and Veitch/Totleben introduce John Constantine, who is a mysterious world traveler on a mission to combat the coming of some malevolent entity. Constantine shows up in Louisiana where Swamp Thing, tended by Abbie, is still trying to regrow his body. Constantine taunts him with knowledge about the swamp thing's capabilities and purpose and challenges him to meet him in a town named Rosewood outside of Chicago in a week. Swamp Thing accepts the challenge, musing that the name "Rosewood" seems familiar to him. We're also told in passing by Abbie that Nukeface is "probably dead," so that's that, I guess.

Talent Showcase #17: We get the ending of Collapsar's storyline by Tillman and Woch, and it involves him bringing together two factions on the alien world he wound up on. Sort of anticlimatic, really. 
The other two stories are sort of action stories (one kind of spy-fi) written by Rowlands. They both demonstrate a feel for story structure and breakdowns that is definitely a cut above what we generally get in this title. Some credit for this may well be due to the artists, too: Grindberg on the spy story and Ron Wagner on the action one, both of whom would have long penciling careers for various publishers mostly not on superhero books. Unfortunately, neither of the stories are very good overall.

Warlord #94: I reviewed this issue here.

Who's Who #4: This is the Cs so there are a lot of Captains here. We get the recently acquired Charlton character Captain Atom making his DC debut. His first in-story appearance will be Crisis #6. Interestingly, his alter ego is given as Nathaniel Adams in a retcon. Captain Carrot is here, too, showing Earth-C isn't forgotten, nor is Earth-S with Captain Marvel and Captain Marvel, Jr. present. The cool but obscure adventure character Captain Fear is featured in his Simonson rendition. We last saw him in Unknown Soldier #256 back in 1981. Cheshire from NTT is here, as is that Forgotten Hero, Cave Carson. A half-page Chlorophyll Kid entry is a harbinger of a rising profile for the Legion Subs. The standout illustration this issue, though, has got to be Dave Stevens' Catwoman I.

 A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned a new setting I was thinking about for after my current Land of Azurth game comes to an end. I now think I will call it Parsulan (or at least I will for the moment!) borrowing a name coined by a friend of mine for a setting we co-created back in the 2e area. I think Parsulan will be the name of the continent this campaign is focused on. I recycle some other names from that old setting, as well, in homage.

So in addition to the aspects I mentioned before, this is what I think Parsulan will be like:

Post-apocalyptic. Having been overrun by demonic forces (true demons and their allies) several centuries ago, the magitech-employing civilization that existed prior was reduced to "points of light." There are still in typical D&D and fantasy fiction standing, city-states isolated by sparsely populated wilderness.

Absent gods. The gods, at least the major ones, have forsaken the world and retreated into the Overworld. Clerics preserve the civic rituals practiced in the days of old and try to keep the old beliefs alive, hoping that the gods will return if humanity shows sufficient humility and piety.

Adventures Guild. It's a common concept in Japanese Standard Fantasy worlds, but as I envision it, it's has much more of a Jianghu element than the very modern employment agency/professional organization of so many anime, though it will likely have elements of that--as well as being a burial society.

Dungeon Zones. Inspired by the rpg Sword World 2.5's "shallow Abysses," I think there will be eruptions/excrescences of the Demon Realm maybe called "shadow cysts" which will engulf and distort areas of the land, leading into places of altered reality and danger. These form around a nidus called a seed or heart. Only neutralization of this heart will cause of rupture and ultimately dissipation of the cyst.

 This past January, I had the privilege of attending the Philadelphia Area Gaming Expo and participating in a discussion panel on the State of the OSR. The panel was hosted by Luke Stratton, author of Pirate Borg and host of the Ship of the Dead podcast. My fellow panelists were Kelsey Dion (Shadowdark), Tiger Wizard of Exalted Funeral, and Levi Combs of Planet X Games.

We had a lively and positive discussion about the OSR and its various aspects, which you can view here. 

One of the first questions asked was “What is the OSR?” I’d like to share the answer I gave. Once again, thanks to Luke for hosting, and to Kelsey, Tiger, and Levi for a great discussion.

I’m going to offer a slightly different take on the question. What is the OSR? It’s about the logistics.
In 2009, I wrote that the OSR wasn’t about a specific rulebook or about running a dungeon crawl. It was about going back to the roots of our hobby and seeing what avenues were left unexplored because of the personal or commercial interests of the time. In fact, the OSR is an alternate history of what game design could be.
It started with the hack that Matt Finch, Stuart Marshall, and Chris Gonnerman discovered. They found that they could take the d20 SRD and, if they omitted the newer stuff, what they had left was only a hop and a skip away from the classic edition of your choice. From that, we are now living in that alternate history.
The reason we’re living in that alternate history is that we built the infrastructure to pursue those unexplored avenues: open licenses, digital distribution, and crowdfunding.
So my answer to the question “What is the OSR?” is simple: it’s all of the above. The classic editions form a gravitational point source around which systems, play styles, and projects orbit. Some of them achieve escape velocity, but most remain either further out or closer in.
Those classic, out-of-print books form the center of the OSR, but what you do matters more. It is the logistics that drove the explosion of creativity and enabled it to move from the gaming table to global audiences.
It’s why we have Shadowdark, Pirate Borg, OSRIC, my stuff, and all the other offerings, both commercial and non-commercial, available today.
So that’s what I think the OSR is.

I originally posted these in 2016...
These are model sheets for the Sectaurs cartoon. The items depicted here should had a little post-apocalyptic strangeness to any treasure haul:







Find more here.

It may surprise you, or perhaps horrify you, that I am a massive fan of musical theater. I grew up listening to musicals with my uncle Chechin (his real name is José Agustín, but Chechin is his nickname). I still remember watching A Chorus Line at the Centro de Bellas Artes de Puerto Rico in the early 80s, and Nine was probably the first musical I knew all the lyrics to by heart.

While I love many different shows, none has inspired me more than Les Misérables.

I know it is long and melodramatic, but it is also undeniably a powerful, grand spectacle that speaks directly to humanity’s struggles. The Les Misérables: Complete Symphonic Recording has easily been the soundtrack I’ve listened to the most while writing about TTRPGs. In fact, I am listening to it right now as I write this post!

I will admit I have NEVER actually read Victor Hugo’s original novel. Every few years, I tell myself I will, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. So, what fascinates me so much about the musical? It’s the struggle of the oppressed, the sweeping narrative, and the intense ideological conflict between the protagonist, Jean Valjean, and his antagonist, Javert.

Whenever I think about alignment in D&D, I almost always frame it in terms of these characters. If you search online, you’ll see I’m not the only one doing this! While I don’t agree with every single classification in the usual alignment memes floating around out there, it’s clear this is a shared touchstone for many gamers.

For instance, I don’t think Valjean is Lawful Good; I’ve always viewed him as more Neutral Good. As a teen, I thought Javert was the ultimate example of the unyielding, intransigent Paladin, but looking back, he obviously isn’t Lawful Good. I wouldn’t quite say he is Lawful Evil, either. To me, he is the absolute embodiment of Lawful Neutral.

I have even incorporated the musical’s lyrics directly into my games. In one campaign, I used a modified version of the lyrics to the song Stars to serve as a Paladin’s Oath.

I have also pulled bits and pieces from Red and Black and Empty Chairs at Empty Tables—I even played the latter in the background during a particularly poignant session.

Those last two clips are from the 2012 movie. I still prefer the Complete Symphonic Recording I mentioned above, but if you are curious to see it, I highly recommend the film!

See? Not all TTRPG inspiration must come from novels or movies! What non-traditional sources inspire your games?

Bonus Inspiration! As a final treat, here is something perfect for your Ravenloft games: Total Eclipse of the Heart from Dance of the Vampires.

In German:

In English:

Welcome back to Part 2. In the previous post, I focused on how my life as a gamer blossomed over this decade, expanding from TTRPGs being a hobby I enjoyed with my close friends at home to stepping out into the larger gaming community—locally and online—and into a wider world. For this very reason, over those 10 years, I played TTRPGs with more people than I had before, or since.

These were the years of Geeknics and convention games. I can’t recall how many people I played with at those. I also played games at Gen Con with strangers and with old friends. I particularly remember playing a Psi*Run demo (one of my favorite pick-up games to this day!), and the Savage Worlds game David A. Miller ran for my friends, where the system first truly clicked for me! You can read about Gen Con 2011 and the friends I met there in this post from back then.

From left to right: David A Miller, PJ Deyo, Gaby and Yamir playing Savage Worlds, Gen Con 2011.

That energy eventually carried over into other local projects. Desde la Fosa was a smaller group where I made new friends and played with old ones, with whom I had never rolled dice before. For a while, Desde la Fosa was my second gaming group, and I had never had two regular groups running simultaneously before. The aftermath of Hurricane María eventually broke us up. We played a few times after—no streaming, just gaming—but it fizzled away. I am still in touch with AJ, Felipe, and José, the core team that started the project, even though two of them have moved off the island. José is currently a regular player in my weekly campaign. But near or far, they are family.

From left to right: AJ, Felipe, and José Garcia. The Desde La Fosa crew playing at TheGaming Pit.

As this post focuses more on my regular gaming group, the closer, more intimate group of friends I sit with every week to play games, it is important to talk about family. Not wanting to sound too much like Dominic Toretto of Fast & Furious fame, the players at my table are, in many ways, my family. The family we choose. Close friends who are more than gaming buddies; they are an important part of my life.

So, who were these people? What did I play and who did I game with from 2007 to 2017?

The Hideout of the Mequetrefes (Again)

In 2007, I was running my weekly homebrewed campaign at Sammy’s house. Since Sammy had a dedicated game room, and I could not say no to someone who wanted to play, the number of players ballooned from six to nine at one point. I wish I had pictures of the group playing there.

The Histrionic GM! (Circa 2007)

José Fernando, Piwie, Karlo, Luis Alvardo, Luis Lao, Pierre, and Victor were the original players. Sammy and Carly eventually joined the campaign. It lasted over two years, so there was some ebb and flow in the player roster. Victor did not finish the campaign; Pierre and José, I think, were absent for some time, but at the final session, we had eight players at the table.

Sadly, as the campaign ended, Sammy and I had a falling out. We had very different personalities and senses of humor, as well as different boundaries around family outside the game. Sammy would relentlessly make fun of everyone, and I was not willing to have people in my life who were not part of the game made to feel uncomfortable. So, I packed my things and moved on.

This was very hard. Sammy was a close friend, but we could not reach an agreement, which created a schism. We remained friends, and I’d like to think we mended fences. We played on occasions two or three times more over the years, but we saw far less of each other. When he passed, he left a void that continues to be felt to this day.

I was planning a Star Wars Saga Edition game with some of the other players at Sammy’s house, including Tato and Peter, with whom I had traveled to Gen Con. Sadly, this was not to be.

Back Home

We had not played in my apartment since 1999. I cleaned up the guest room and turned it into a sort of game room. This change splintered the group. Sammy, Carly, and Piwie no longer played with us. Other players emigrated, but one rejoined: Guaro returned to playing with us. For the first time in a long time, my core group of players was only five people: Guaro, José Fernando, Luis Alvarado, Luis Lao, and Pierre.

We played Star Wars Saga Edition, which was a LOT of fun. I wrote a series of posts about the game’s setting a while ago. You can find the first one here. Regardless of the split, the group slowly but surely began to grow again.

D&D 4th Edition and More

When D&D 4th Edition came out, we were alternating gaming locations, sometimes playing at Guaro’s house. His mother had dementia, and if he could not find someone to look after her, we’d play at his place. If memory serves, we played the first session of my Points of Light campaign, the Tenedal Valley, at his house.

Clockwise, from top left to bottom left: Guaro, Luis Lao, José Fernando, Pierre, playing at Guaro’s house.

Our group might not have loved the 4th Edition, but it grew. Fernando and Raul began playing with us. Raul would come and go, but Fernando has been a mainstay in the group since 2008. Also, the first player I met through Puerto Rico Role Players, Yamir, joined the group!

From left to right: Fernando, Raul, and Yamir

This was a wonderful time. Not only did we play D&D 4e for about 7 months, but we also played a secret TORG prequel using d20 Modern (I never told them it was a prequel to that game!). I was a player in Pierre’s d20 Modern Zombie game and Luis Lao’s Mutants & Masterminds game.

By 2009, things were changing again. I met my wife, and we moved in together. I gave up playing other games and settled back into my one-gaming-night-a-week routine. We were still playing in my apartment; we gave up on 4th Edition and began playing Pathfinder 1st edition with the Playtest rules.

This was the beginning of a long-running pirate-themed campaign that ran from 2009 to 2014.

Pirates and Lairs

The Jade Island campaign was the 6th campaign set in the current version of my long-running homebrewed world, created in 1987. In many ways, the weekly group meeting to play every Tuesday in 2026 coalesced in this campaign. Many players had been part of the regular gaming group before, but the current core of players really came together here. Of the current regular six players, four were part of this campaign.

Guaro had made a character to play with us, but he was a no-show when the campaign began. Sadly, we lost contact with him around 2010.

From left to right: Luis Lao, Luis Alvarado, Fernan, Pierre, Yamir, José Fernando, Carlos, and Luis Lao

Fernando, José Fernando, Luis Alvarado, Luis Lao, Pierre, and Yamir were the original players. Not long after, Carlos joined the group. I have known Carlos since the 90s, but he had never sat down to play with us. He originally played as a guest character and quickly joined as a regular player.

Yamir moved to the mainland US but joined a short-lived play-by-post version of the same campaign. He played only a few years with us, but his creativity and his character became part of the lore and history of the world. The play-by-post included friends from Puerto Rico Role Players, old gaming buddies from the 90s, and Sara, who would eventually transition from the virtual game to the regular in-person group.

By this time, the game had moved from my apartment to Fernan’s house. We were not the only gaming group playing there, and we affectionately called his house The Lair!

Playing Wanderers of the Outlands

There, we played the Jade Islands campaign, a Mutants & Masterminds campaign as an interlude between the two halves of the pirate campaign, and when that ended in 2014, our first long Savage Worlds campaign: the Wanderers of the Outlands, which ran from 2014 to 2016. I wrote a series of posts about that campaign on this blog; you can read the first here.

Some friends stepped away from the group and have not played with us since. Luis Alvarado left during the Mutants & Masterminds game. Pierre also stopped playing; real-life responsibilities kept him busy. He is currently in the US, and we text every day. They are both well, but we still miss them at the table!

From left to right: Sara, Edgardo, Mariana, and Hector

Other long-term friends came to sit at the table. Hector is another longtime friend who only sat to play with us years after we met. Our youngest players, Mariana and Edgardo, who we met through Puerto Rico Role Players, also joined our game, bringing in new blood, new ideas, and new friends to the table.

New Editions and Disasters (these two things are NOT related)

After D&D 5th Edition came out, we began a campaign using the system in 2016. The usual suspects were at the table: Carlos, Edgardo, Fernando, Hector, José Fernando, Luis Lao, Mariana, Sara, and Fernando’s wife, Naida. Richard, another friend met through Puerto Rico Role Players, joined when Sara and Hector had bowed out.

From left to right: Fernando, Naida, and Richard

In 2016, Tony, another legend in the TTRPG scene in Puerto Rico, visited from the mainland, and we had a get-together dubbed Tony Con at Jaime and Carmen’s house, where dead friends met via Puerto Rico Role Players. We played D&D 5th edition, which Tony still doesn’t like, being the Pathfinder diehard, he is! Along with Tony José Fernando, Tato, Angel, Luis Alvarado, and Sammy played that day. This was not the last time I played with Sammy, that would be in 2017 at The Gaming Pit, but it felt like a reunion with long-lost friends.

From left to right: Tato, José Fernando, Ángel, Sammy, Luis Alvarado, and Tony the Magnificent!

Also in 2016, I celebrated my 30 years as a gamer (like I am doing now at the 40-year mark!) with a game at Carlos Steffens’ house, where we played the D&D Mentzer Red Box adventure using The Black Hack rules. My TTRPG community organizing and my private enjoyment of the game had met, and this was a great time of gaming in my life.

2016, celebrating 30 Years a Gamer!

Throughout all these years, we had friends who visited and played guest characters, like PJ Deyo and Luis Miranda, who played in the pirate campaign (Luis came back for the 5th edition campaign as well). Javi Vidal joined us briefly for the campaign but had to move on shortly after. Mariana and Edgardo moved to the other side of the island and would connect to the game online to play with us.

Clockwise from top left to bottom left: Luis Miranda, Carlos, PJ Deyo, and Edgardo & Mariana playing remotely.

Despite the changes and new players, we had left behind the growing pains of a new system and finally found our game’s stride. I was really enjoying the campaign and playing a bi-weekly game at The Gaming Pit with the Desde la Fosa crew. What could go wrong?

Well, Hurricane Maria arrived in 2017. But that’s a topic for the next period in my 40 years as a gamer.

Final Thoughts

Despite the grim closing of this decade of gaming, the changes that María and other disasters would cause in Puerto Rico and in my life, this was a magical decade of growth, expanding circles of friends, and a wonderful feeling of community that continues to this day.

I am lucky this way. I started gaming with friends, and then the people I met through the TTRPG hobby became close friends—my extended family. I am grateful for each one of them. Thanks for being part of my life.

The Stats (2007-2017)

• Total Campaigns: 9
• Years Active: 30 (Consecutive play from 1986 to 2006)
• MVP Systems: D&D 3.5, 4th and 5th editions, Pathfinder, Mutants & Masterminds, and Savage Worlds

What about you? How has your gaming group evolved over the years, and have the people at your table become your chosen family, too? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments!

Dungeon Map for the Eye of Arzaz adventure by J. Eric Holmes,
from his 1981 book. Photo by J. B. (mondotikiman)

It's just about one week until Gary Con 2026 starts, which means it's a great time to try to finish up my con report from last year. : )

This post covers Friday, March 21, 2025, my second full day at the con, where in a single day I played in or ran D&D games from three different eras: BECMI D&D, OD&D and AD&D.

The previous days can be found here: Day 0 (Wed) - Day 1 (Thur)

AC7 Master Player Screen with the The Spindle of Heaven mini-adventure.
Photo from the AC series page at Wayne's Books.

(1) My first game on Friday was nothing less than the start of a quest for Immortality in a very high level D&D adventure, 

The Spindle of Heaven (1985), run by Demos Sahlas of the OSR Grimoire blog. I try to play in one of his games every year. In addition to being a great GM, his picks are overlooked gems from the past, often Mystara/D&D or Judges Guild modules, which means that I get to play through adventures that I've known about for decades but never thought I would get a chance to experience.

This TSR "mini-adventure" (8-pages), which was written by Bruce Nesmith for Master-level BECMI D&D, came bundled with the AC7 Master Player Screen, and finds the PCs taking their first steps on a path towards BECMI Immortal-level play. One reason Demos chose this is because it was the 40th anniversary of its release.

As Demos explains here, he used the pre-gens from another Master-level adventure, M2 Vengeance of Alphaks by Skip Williams. I was Trent the White, a 30th Level Paladin (112 Hit Points!), who I believe is the highest level character that I have ever played. (For those unfamiliar with high level BECMI D&D, Lawful Fighters can opt to become Paladins once they reach 9th Level). The party successfully navigated the adventure, and if this was a campaign, would then continue on further adventures to attempt achieve Immortality, at which point their characters would be transferred over to the Immortals Rules boxed set.

Convention event listing description:

"The Spindle of Heaven is reborn." An epic quest for the secret of immortality, the endgame of the BECMI boxed sets, using the D&D Master Set rules. Here's your chance to play a character of 28th-30th levels. Do you have what it takes to confront the elemental powers guarding the path to immortality?"

Photos:

Demos running the Spindle of Heaven

Trent the Paladin

(2) As with the day before, the afternoon was when I ran a game. This time it was The Eye of Arzaz, the *other* sample dungeon written by J. Eric Holmes, which appears in his 1981 book, Fantasy Role-Playing Games. While in the book it is part of a chapter that includes its own simple d6-based FRPG, I decided to run the game using OD&D rules, which let me use my Boinger & Zereth & friends pre-gens that I previously created for my In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus con game. 

I made a few modifications to the Arzaz adventure as written by Holmes to fill it out a bit, including adding an encounter from an Example of Play in the opening chapter of his book. There was lots of creative play and the party was successful in retrieving the legendary Eye. 

Thanks to all of my players in this game, four of whom were returning from previous games of mine: Lee (Sunna), Gary (Sir Geoffrey), Joel (Zereth), Steven (Bardan), J. B. (Maximilian), Jarrett (Murray) and Paul (Brother Ambrose). 

Convention event listing description:

"Delve into a classic dungeon filled with monsters, traps and magic in search of the legendary jewel, The Eye of Arzaz. J. Eric Holmes, the editor of the original D&D Basic Set, wrote this introductory dungeon for his 1981 book Fantasy Role-Playing Games, and it will be run using OD&D rules."

Photos:

Attention wanders as I draw part of the map... Photo by J. B. (mondotikiman)

Partial dungeon map. To speed things along for time-limited con games
I usually draw the map on a giant sheet of graph paper. Photo by J.B.


Detail of the pre-gen Maximillian the Centaur taken by his player, J.B.


Table photo by player Gary Welsh. I'm behind two players on the right.
Also captured in this photo is game behind us being including T
om Morello, Joe Mangiello and D.B. Weiss as players!

(3) In the evening, I once again played in the annual Friday night Legends of Role-Playing Tourney organized by Paul Stormberg. This time the scenario was the Dungeons of the Ghost Tower, a sequel to the TSR module C1 Ghost Tower of Inverness, written by former TSR employee Allen Hammack. Our GM turned out to be none other than Harold Johnson, also a former TSR employee, and co-author of the AD&D modules C1 Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan and A2 Secret of the Slavers Stockade.

As is standard for these tournaments, the pre-gens are provided on replicas of 1979 AD&D 1E characters sheets, and with character portraits by TSR artists, here Erol Otus. I ran Delkus, a 7th level M-U, whose name was apparently drawn from a brief mention in the AD&D module I9 The Day of Al'Akbar, also by Hammack.

Character sheet signed by GM Harold Johnson

I've played in this tournament several times before with low- to mid-levels of success, but have enjoyed teaming up with several regulars each year. Thanks to Harold for running the game, and returning team members Matthew, Demos, Steve and Vince for making the session fun.

Convention event listing:

"The 7th Annual Gary Con, Legends of Roleplaying Tournament! A single-round, open tournament inspired by legendary tournaments of the past. Gary Con's most popular gaming event with over 140 participants each year, making it the largest old-school D&D tournament in the world! The top scoring team receives free Silver Badges to next year's Gary Con and is crowned Legends of Roleplaying Champion!"

 

Handout from the game, Player Aid #1: Introduction

Also in this series:

Gary Con 2025: Day 0

Gary Con 2025: Day 1

Previous Gary Con convention summaries:

Gary Con 2023 (unfinished): Day 0

Gary Con 2022: Day 1 --- Day 2 --- Days 3 and 4

Gary Con 2019 (unfinished): Day 1 --- Day 2 (part 1)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) through Crisis! This week, I read the comics released the week of March 14, 1985.

Superman #408: Hannigan/Kupperberg and Swan/Williamson deliver a pretty interesting story for a Superman title of the era, dealing with a topic that will come to the fore in more "serious" works later: How much control should Superman exert over humanity in the name of saving us? The backdrop for this dilemma is the looming threat of nuclear war, perhaps inspired by the airing of the British TV film Threads on Superstation TBS earlier in 1985, or perhaps it was just part of the zeitgeist that led to films such as The Day After and Threads. In any case, Superman is having nightmares about a being the sole survivor of a nuclear war as the breakdown of nuclear talks is in the news. He considers deactivating the worlds' nukes but is unsure whether that is the best choice. An interaction with the Lori Lemaris' people in Atlantis, where he misjudges the situation, then one with a group of teens in a misadventure to regain a baseball from a junkyard, leads him to conclude that he should have faith in humanity, and be there when they need him but let them learn and take risks. His faith seems rewarded as the news reports nuclear talks resumed.
The second story by Bridwell and Swan/Rubenstein is more conventional. Superman stops an alien race in a generation ship from warring among themselves and finds a new planet for them to live upon.

Amethyst #6: Mishkin/Cohn and Estrada/Smith have Amethyst teaming up with Sardonyx who was being forced to kill Citrina by Fire Jade if he wanted to get his kingdom and family back alive. With the aid of a mysterious stranger who turns out to be the presumed dead Prince Garnet, the two return the kingdom of Sardonyx to Gemworld from the weird other realm where it had been sent.

Arak Son of Thunder #45: The Thomases, Lofficiers, and Forton/DeZuniga continue the voyages of the Arak and friends in the Karama. Near the island of Serendeeb, they encounter a beautiful, flying, green girl with butterfly wings. The king demands the girl's return, but Alsind has fallen in love and runs off with her. The king commands Arak and friends bring the girl back or a quantity of gems equal to the king's weight. In the jungles, they discover the weird life cycle of the weird woman--they turn from butterfly women to voracious giant caterpillars. They are forced to kill the creature to save Alsind.

Batman #384: Moench and Hoberg/Nebres have the remnants of Dr. Fang's gang get in touch with the Monitor (which seems like it places this story prior to the beginning of Crisis). He calls on Calendar Man (who hasn't appeared since issue 312 in 1979) who plans a series of crimes to culminate on March 21. Calendar Man is certainly a lesser Batman rogue, but Moench makes him suitably threatening. Meanwhile, Batman finds confirmation that Catwoman is still alive, and Vicki Vale breaks up with Bruce Wayne.

Flash #346: Bates and Infantino keep on going, and at least there's a break in the trial "action." As the cover gives away, the Reverse Flash appears to be back and boasts he's going to kill the Flash like everyone thought the Flash killed him. Meanwhile, Cecile's courtroom stunt last issue sends Fiona into another psychiatric tailspin, so the Flash vows to himself to let Barry Allen stay "dead" to aid her recovery. He also reveals his true identity to Cecile and reveals how he got a different face (as we saw when the plastic surgeons of Gorilla City did reconstructive work on him back in issue 342).

Jemm, Son of Saturn #10: The angry job of Red Saturnians, incited by the rogue priest, are prepared to kill Jemm, but with Luthor's help, the alien prince rallies and makes his escape. He's still very weak, which is a problem because the White Saturnians are preparing a final assault, and thanks to Jemm's actions last issue, New Bhok's defenses are weakened. 
Synn's been experiencing an illness than sounds suspiciously like morning sickness, which may be a problem for her concubine. Meanwhile, Tull is draining all of the power of the Koolar he was given, but Crazy Freddie, Luther's brother, and Bouncer are joining forces in the hopes of taking him down.

Legion of Super-Heroes #11: Levitz and Colon/Mahlstedt present a story focused on the founding Legion members: Cosmic Boy, Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad. The three are feeling their age now (though they are presumably not even 30 yet!) and wanting to get on with their lives beyond the Legion. 
What better way to take a trip down memory lane than to visit Glacier Point, Antarctica, the minimum-security prison where the men who tried to assassinate RJ Brande and thus were the catalyst for the formation of the Legion are about to be released. The men and all the other prisoners seem oddly passive, and the three are uncertain how they feel about the prison.
Back at Legion Headquarters, Bouncing Boy is reviewing applicants with an eye toward expanding the team. Superboy shows up and he regales him with (courtesy of Levitz and Giffen/Kessel) the story of his first meeting with trainee Comet Queen.

Omega Men #27: Klein and McManus/Smith continue their new direction for the series. The Omega Men are captive on the strange planet, Wombworld, where they are subject to a Psion experiment that shifts their powers, and they encounter a creature named Piper who appears to age rapidly. They assist him on his request to locate "Twilla." While I haven't made up my mind about the new direction yet, McManus's art does a great job of evoking the "space fantasy" vibe.

In a "Tales of Vega" short by Moore and Cullins, a anthropologist studying the mating habits single-sex inhabitants of the planet Culacon, abandons any scientific distance in her dubious pursuit of firsthand knowledge and meets a sad end as she learns who they manage to reproduce without apparent females.

Star Trek #15: Barr and Sutton/Villagran bring their Mirror Universe arc to a satisfying conclusion. First though, Kirk and company have to convince the Klingons and Romulans to ally with them to cripple the Empire. Both ultimately agree, though both plan to betray our heroes (and each other) pretty much the moment that's accomplished. The Excelsior crew reveal their plan to cripple the computer systems of all Imperial vessels, exploiting their different technological development. Their plans and complicated by two things: Mirror-Saavik having secretly replaced original Saavik, and an Imperial attack fleet advancing quickly under the command of Blaine, the Imperial officer Kirk humiliated a few issues back. Needless to say, Kirk and his crew are one step ahead of everybody, though they have to do some improvising on the fly. With all the major powers of this universe humbled, Excelsior heads for home, having given a boost to the rebellion to be led by Mirror-David and Mirror-Spock.

It was suggested that I turn my YouTube transcripts into blog posts. Consider this an experiment for now - Tenkar

If your campaign lives and dies by a group chat, you already know the problem.

Three people can’t make it. Two more might be late. One player vanishes for a month. Before long, you’re either canceling again or running another awkward “who’s here tonight?” session that feels like it barely counts.

That’s where the open table shines.

Not because it magically fixes scheduling. It doesn’t. Real life still happens. What it does is give you a campaign structure that keeps working even when attendance doesn’t.

And for old-school play, that matters a lot.

What an Open Table Actually Is

A lot of people hear “open table” and assume it means chaos. Random drop-ins, no continuity, no story, and no real campaign identity.

That’s not it.

An open table is a persistent campaign world with a rotating cast of players. Sessions have a clear starting point and a clear stopping point. The world stays in motion, even if the exact party changes from week to week. Instead of the campaign belonging to one fixed lineup of players, it belongs to the setting itself. Whoever shows up this session gets to interact with that world and leave their mark on it.

open table

That’s a very old-school way to think about campaign play, and honestly, it scales better than a lot of modern expectations do.

Why This Format Works

The biggest strength of the open table is that it stops putting all the pressure on perfect attendance.

You are no longer trying to preserve “the party” as if every session must include the exact same people. Instead, you build a campaign that assumes different players will come and go. That shift alone cuts down on a lot of referee frustration.

It also helps with burnout.

When you stop designing around one exact cast, prep gets easier. You are no longer asking, “What will this specific group of five do next week?” You are asking, “What parts of my world are active and ready for whichever players show up?” That is a much healthier way to prep, and it fits B/X, OSE, and similar styles beautifully.

The Simple Open Table Structure

At its core, an open table does not need a complicated framework. It needs a few stable procedures.

1. One home base

Pick a town and make it the front door of the campaign. It does not have to be fancy. It just has to be consistent. Players should always know where play begins. 

2. Start in town, end in town

This is the rule that makes the whole thing work.

In a closed campaign, you can end a session deep in the dungeon and pick up from there next week. In an open table, that becomes a headache fast. A clean ending point lets a completely different group of players sit down next time without the campaign falling apart. So the pressure becomes simple: get back alive. That pressure is not a limitation. It is what gives the session shape.

3. Use sign-ups instead of chasing people

Post the session time. Let players opt in. First come, first served, or use a rotation if you prefer. The important part is that you stop acting like a cruise director trying to track everybody down. The table exists. Players choose to join it. 

4. Keep the world stable

Dungeon entrances stay where they are. Rumors point to real places. Hexes do not move around to suit the current party. When players discover something, that information stays discovered. The campaign accumulates shared knowledge.

5. Keep brief public notes

One paragraph is enough. Where did the group go? What changed? What became more dangerous? What did they leave unfinished?

That is the glue that turns a drop-in session into a real campaign. It also lets players who missed a week still feel connected to the world.

6. Be clear about rewards

Showing up matters.

Whether you handle advancement through treasure, XP, training, carousing, or some mix of those, keep it consistent. The players who went on the expedition get the rewards. That is not unfair. That is the engine that keeps the table moving.

7. Protect your energy

An open table does not mean a loose table.

Show up on time. Bring a ready character. Know what your character can do. Do not spend twenty minutes arguing over rules. New players can absolutely join, but the game still moves. That part matters if you want the format to stay healthy over time. 

The Real Shift in Mindset

Players in an open table are not signing up for “the Tuesday night party.”

They are signing up for the campaign world.

That means the session goal is driven by who is present tonight, not by who wishes they were there. A character can have unfinished business, rivals, ambitions, and long-term goals, but the campaign does not freeze because one player missed a week. If players want continuity, they build it through notes, rumors, maps, and follow-up expeditions. 

On the referee side, the promise is just as important. The world remembers what happened. Prep does not depend on perfect attendance. Showing up ready gets rewarded. That social contract is what keeps the whole thing from feeling like herding cats. 

A Quick Example

Let’s say your home base town has three current leads posted on the tavern board:

• Smoke in the hills

• A foul-smelling old well outside town

• A vanished trader’s wagon on the north road

Friday night comes around. Four players show up. Two regulars, one player who has been gone for a month, and one brand-new fighter.

You start in town. No long recap. The players read the board and choose the old well.

They head out, discover it drops into older tunnels below, push too hard, get roughed up, grab a little treasure, and trigger a collapse on the way back out. They make it to town alive, and the session ends. The next day, notes go up: the well entrance is partially blocked, something larger than rats is moving deeper below, and one side passage remains unexplored.

Now the next group has meaningful choices. Do they return to the well? Do they clear the collapse? Or do they ignore it and chase the missing wagon instead?

That is campaign play. Not because a plotted storyline forced it, but because the world changed and the players now react to that change.

The Usual Objections“What about mixed levels?”

Yes, you will get uneven parties sometimes.

That is manageable. Old-school play handles uneven power better than many people think, provided players understand that smart decisions matter more than balanced fights. The real danger is not level spread. It is mismatched expectations. If the players understand that the world is dangerous and that choosing which risks to take is part of play, the format holds together.

open table

“What about story?”

Open tables absolutely produce story. They just do not produce screenplay story.

The plot comes from what players choose, survive, fail, loot, awaken, or destroy. Over time, the campaign story becomes the record of which sites were cleared, which factions gained strength, which rumors paid off, and which characters died doing something brave, foolish, or both. If you want a throughline, use the setting as that throughline. Let the town, wilderness, and dungeon carry the continuity.

“What about prep?”

Open tables actually reduce prep, but only if you stop custom-building content for one exact cast.

Keep one stocked location ready. Keep a nearby travel area with encounter notes. Keep a rumor board that points toward material you already have. Then, when players choose a lead, you are not scrambling to invent a whole campaign on the fly. You are just turning the spotlight toward a piece of the world that already exists.

“Won’t new players slow things down?”

Only if you let them.

New players should be welcome, but they should come in with a ready character and a straightforward role. A simple fighter, thief, or cleric works fine. Pair them with someone experienced and keep the table moving. In fact, an open table can be one of the best ways to bring new players into old-school gaming, because they can join without feeling like they missed six sessions of required backstory.

open table

The Bigger Point

Old-school campaigns scale better when the campaign is not the party. The campaign is the world.

That is the heart of the open table.

It lowers the barrier to entry. It cuts down scheduling drama. It protects the referee from carrying everything on their back. And it encourages exactly the kind of shared-world, expedition-based, player-driven play that B/X and the broader OSR do so well.

If you want to try it, keep it simple.

One town.
Start in town, end in town.
A rumor board.
A posted schedule.
A short session summary after each game.

Run it for four sessions and see how it feels.

Odds are, you’ll notice the difference pretty quickly.

Original Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTc5IiRwuNY

By Andreas Wille
Medora Games
OSR
Levels 1-2

A village deep within the steaming marshlands is experiencing strange phenomena. More and more villagers rise from their beds at night in a mindless stupor, wandering out into the bog never to be seen again. The desperate villagers have promised a great reward to anyone who can find their loved ones and stop whatever dark magick stole them away.

This eight page adventure uses three pages to present six rooms inside of a small dugout/ruined basement. It is trying to do the right things, generally, but confuses form over function, resulting in a muddled mess of rooms in which you generally just stab things.

My complaints here seem familiar to me. Which must mean that I have reviewed this publisher/designer before and then picked something else out to give them another chance and see if the issues I had were a trend or a fluke. And then forgot what I was doing when I rolled back around a couple of weeks later and ended up thinking “wow, this seems familiar.”

Only three of the five pages are actually used for the adventure. Meaning that all of that effort from the other five pages could have reasonably been put in the actual dungeon instead of the support material for the dungeon. THE ADVENTURE IS THE MAIN THING. Spend your fucking effort on the actual adventure. THEN, after you have created a masterpiece, you can add in some support material. 

At the start of each room is a little sentence of two in italics. Is it read-aloud? Is it a room summary? Fuck if I know. Sometimes it seems like read-aloud and sometimes it reads like a room summary for the DM. “You spy a ruined tower behind a curtain of willow leaves, naught

more than a collection of crumbling stone walls.” That seems like read-aloud, right? I mean, it’s in italics and thats shity and it’s in second person and that’s shitty and it’s got that folksy shit and that’s shitty. But, it seems like read-aloud? But then in other places it seems more like a DM room summary? “Behind the gate, a long rectangular room holds a pool of thick,

oozing mud in the middle.” If the room had people screaming in it, or was brightly lit with a broadway show going on, or had an obvious huge ancient red dragon in it then that little summary section would not tell you. But it seems like in read-aloud it should? So … I’m confused. What the fuck is the point of the the italics text that kicks off every encounter/location? I don’t get it. Not read-aloud. Not a DM summary. I don’t know, REALLY bad read aloud?

Because, again, there can be a shit load going on in the room that the read-aloud/summary text just does NOT cover. The description up there is just fucking weird.

After that comes a lit of bullets. Yes, this is the “we use bullets for everything” kind of adventure formatting. That’s not necessarily a good thing and does NOT always lead to better idea presentation. Anything, used too much, becomes cover. If everything is a bullet then nothing is, right? And therefore nothing is emphasized for presentation to the DM? The same with the bolding that occurs INSIDE each bullet. It’s not that all information needs to be bulleted and each noun or whatever in each bullet needs bolded. The use of formatting is for emphasizing and highlighting, calling out to the DM certain things that are important or that they may need to find quickly or something like that. “Hey, this thing here is more important than some of the rest so pay attention to it. “ And you can’t do that if you use the techniques for EVERYTHING. 

The random tables here are weird. Here’s a six entry random table on alternate names for swamp. Fen, mire, bog, etc. Why do that? Why not just present the data if you want to do that? There are, I don’t know, half a dozen of these sorts of tables taking up space. A waste of space, IMO, And in other places, like the wandering table, the entries are doing something. Yeah! But it’s so mundane that they might as well not be. “Crocodiles, laying in wait,” Ok … “Carcass crawler, digesting its last meal.” Sure. There’s no specificity there. A body half sticking out if its mouth? Ok, I’m down with that. “Laying in wait.” B O R I N G. What put it in at all?Bt, then, in a work of genius, on the map page there’s a little three-entry table for “who is held prisoner. “ Things like “pox-riddled peasant sobbing quietly.” ey! Great! War veteran missing limbs. Great! Thief trying to pick the lock. Great! Each has specificity. And that makes them worth putting in. Likewise the “random gore” table on the same page is great. It’s like those two tables were done by someone else because they are the only two that really stand out as interesting and actually adding value to the adventure. 

“Once a watchtower used to survey the area, time and weather have left it in ruins.” That’s one o the bulleted items in the DM text. Background. Telling us what once was. And the adventure is full of this. The entries are full of nonsense. “How to make an entry seem long but not actually add any value” Window dressing effects. “It glows blue” Backstory. “Once a watchtower used to survey the area, time and weather have left it in ruins.” Shit like that. But, ultimately, all you do in the rooms is stab something. As one would expect, I guess, in a six room adventure. “I remember a time in America when an eight page adventure contained the Steading of the Hill Giant chief, with two dungeon levels and a gazillion rooms that made sense together!”  Nostalgia is a terrible thing. We remember Steading, one of the best adventures ever from many standpoints, but forget the hundreds of shitpiles that existed also. There have always been shitty adventures and this is just the latest version of them.

I did, however, find this HILARIOUS. “Thelich cast a ritual to reach out into weak-willed minds nearby.” Yeah yeah, there’s a lich, a weak one, and it’s summoning weak willed people to its lair to like suck the life out of them. (Hey baby …) But, then, also in the hooks section: “A random party member begins hearing the lich’s call and is driven towards its lair.” BURN! Your character is weak-willed!  Suck it Galdalf! 

This is $1.50 at DriveThru. There’s no pREEEEEVIIIEEEEWWWWW! You gotta put in a preview man, so we can tell if we want to buy it or not. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/555050/the-lair-of-the-bog-lich?1892600

Jason Sholtis

Friday, I shared a peak at how Spells Against Civility, the short comic Jason Sholtis and I were doing for the Sword & Sorcery magazine Swords Against! currently in crowdfunding.

I mentioned that Jason and I were doing this in the "Marvel Method," which is to say that he's drawing story not from a panel-by-panel script, but instead from a plot, then I'm scripting the dialogue and captions from his pages (and then lettering the script on the pages. We're a two man operation!).

Above you see a bit of the finished artwork for page one, but here is the rough of that entire page:

Integrating Warriors of the Red Planet with Thirteen Parsecs (often referred to as 13P) is a very natural fit, as both games are rooted in the "Old School" design philosophy.While they use different core engines, their shared DNA makes them highly compatible for a "Sword & Planet" campaign.System CompatibilityEngine Foundations: Warriors of the Red Planet is a traditional OSR (Old School Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

 To craft a compelling campaign for Thirteen Parsecs: Beyond the Solar Frontier, you need to lean into the "Hard-ish Sci-Fi" aesthetic: grimy cockpits, looming corporate shadows, and the terrifying silence of the void.In this setting, space isn't just a backdrop—it’s an antagonist. Here is a campaign framework titled "The Icarus Debt."Campaign Concept: The Icarus DebtThe crew starts not as Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

By Christopher Wilson
Self Published
OSE
Levels 1-6

For over a thousand generations, the sorcerer kings of Varkooth held the valley between the Schelus Mountains and the Gray Hills in an iron fist, until the War of the Heavens saw their mighty fortress sink into the very earth. Now, nearly 1,600 years later, that fortress has once more been discovered. Can a group of adventurers stop the evil contained within from spreading once more?

This 103 page adventure uses about forty pages to describe an overland journey and five levels of a dungeon with about a hundred rooms. It is essentially a minimalistic hack expanded to a hundred pages with meaningless trivia and padding. More so than usual.

Characters opening the door should make a Wisdom Attribute check. If they fail then a butterfly flaps its wings in China.

Two weeks away is a dungeon that some archeologists have found, a fabled site. They encountered some trouble and thus the party is hired to come clean the place out for them. You travel overland for two weeks entering many mundane towns and villages (the first forty or so pages), and then explore the five level dungeon where you stab things (the last forty or so pages.) 

I found a few things interesting here. On the journey you may encounter some rangers. They are framed as, perhaps, game wardens who fine or arrest the party if they have been hunting in the area. That’s kind of an interesting framing for rangers. A little out of place given the monsters running around. Maybe they have better things to do given what’s going on? No? You’re gonna write me a ticket anyway? Sure. But, still, nice low fantasy idea. It also puts the monsters on the map with brief notations, great for a DM judging reactions from the next room, and in one place explicitly tells us that the party can hear chanting from behind a closed door. Again, related to the monsters on the map, the dungeon room does not exist in a vacuum, and helping the DM describe what the party senses up ahead is a great then in an appropriate environment.

I feel like this adventure is a textbook example of how to expand an entry without adding any value to it. The result ends up being overly long and obfuscates any meaningful data in the description. We can start right off with a wandering monster table. Here’s the entry for Raiders: “Raiders: Regardless of which kingdom one may find themselves in, there are always those that wish to cause strife. In the Border Lands, raiders are usually from the Kingdom of Beiria, though they make sure to wear no livery.” We have started with “Raiders” and then went on to define what a raider is, “Regardless of which kingdom one may find themselves in, there are always those that wish to cause strife” Yup, that’s what the word raider can mean. Noting the cross-border issue and lack of livery is good, but it would be even better if this were meaningful to the adventure. It is not. There are no cross-border tensions in this. Or, how about a wild boar? “Wild boars are a frequent site in the forests and fields of the Border Lands and the Glaustian Empire. They are frequently hunted by villagers and farmers, though they can prove to be dangerous prey. Wild boars tend to be aggressive and territorial, being encountered in groups of 3d4.” So, 4d4 aggressive and territorial wild boars, with a lead in telling us what a wild boar is. 

It also engages in explaining the mundane. You pass through a non-trivial number of towns and villages on your way to the dungeon, with each being described over several pages. Each. You want to know what a Fishmongers market looks like? It’s in here. It has no relation to the adventure, other than being a place  in the town, but it’s here. No? How about spending a decent sized paragraph describing what an outlying farm is and how they sell their excess on market days and how they pay their taxes? Again, this is just some rando shit in a town along the way. I did mention “text book example” didn’t I? Of adding words but no value? These things are common in this adventure. 

And then there’s the trivia. Imagine if you constructed a room via the DMG1e tables. You rolled for monsters and put in 2d4 kobolds. Then you rolled for furnishings and you got a Stone Throne. So you put this in: “Stone Throne: Dwarven characters will immediately recognize that this throne is of dwarven construction, however, a successful intelligence attribute check, a detect construction tricks check, or a lore check will inform the characters that there is no known connection between Varkooth and the dwarven clans of the region. This begs the question of where the throne came from. It is obviously thousands of years old and will need much further research.”

And this is where my comments about butterfly wings come in. Over and over and over again. “Failure causes the left arm of the statue to break off, in a similar fashion to the right.” Ok. And? Nothing. You come across a bloody altar: “As to the location of the altar’s victim, there is no sign.”  over and over and over again there’s a feature of the room that gets a decent description, as if it should be meaningful and important to play, but it is not. It’s just describing a rock that is in the room. 

And then there are missed opportunities. The adventure ALMOST gets there in some place. “A detect construction tricks check can determine that the room is not safe but will likely hold for some time longer. The stonework of the circular stairs should give anyone pause, as there are several stairs that have crumbled away to gravel. A successful detect construction tricks check can determine that the stairs are sturdy enough for descent at a half movement rate, however” And if I don’t half move? And time and again there are places and things that SHOULD have an impact that get no explanation or description of effects at all. I’d waste most of my characters lifetime restoring and making offerings at altars in this without effect. There are intriguing possibilities that are just ignored while shit like that stone throne, which does nothing, get a description. 

There is little in the way of an OOB. I mentioned monsters on the map, which is good, but nothing beyond that. People stand in their rooms to die. Eve the drow that show up don’t do anything but stand there. “The bugbears have a 2-in-6 chance of hearing the characters coming down the hall, unless the characters are successfully moving silently” Yeah, that’s what move silently does. In one instance there are kobolds that may react: “however, they may be drawn to the sound of fighting above them.” That comes from some kobolds at the bottom of a stair. They would be reacting to the room above them, so to find this and employ it in the adventure you have to actually look at a room on a different dungeon level. How the fuck m I supposed to to that during play? Treasure in rooms that the monster visit, but that they have not looted? Sure! Why not!

There is, actually, very little to set this apart from a hack like B2. Minimal room descriptions expanded upon to column length with little actually adding to the adventure. Is B2 bad? Meh. But I can tell you that B2 expanded to a column per room would be bad if the added text didn’t add anything.

This is $9 at DriveThru. The preview is the first six pages, which shows you absolutely nothing of the adventure. The preview is meant to help us determine if we want to buy it, so it should show what the encounters, etc are like.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/554271/the-sunken-fortress-of-varkooth-ose-edition?1892600

 This artwork brings the "Used Future" of Hostile to life. I’ve visualised the M577-A1 "Scorpion" in the "Sun-Bleached Frontier" scheme, complete with desert-tan paint and the hand-painted "Grim Reaper" motif you selected.You can see the crew in their bulky hazmat suits preparing the Davy Crockett smoothbore launcher. The desolation of the lunar colony backdrop and the "Broken Atom" stencilsNeedleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

 Gemini saidWalking the brutal lands of the Thurian Age requires more than just a sharp blade; it requires a bit of luck to avoid being devoured by things that shouldn't exist. Since you're looking for that gritty, Howard-esque flavor, I’ve put together a D100 Encounter Table tailored for the Kull era (pre-Cataclysm). This blog post picks right up from Kull Era Atlantean Ruins & MonstersNeedleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0

 Creating a character as legendary (and overpowered) as Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane for Sword of Cepheus 2nd Edition requires treating him as a "Heroic" or "Legendary" level character. In the Cepheus system, a typical starting character has attributes ranging from 2–12, but Kane is an immortal who has mastered nearly every discipline over millennia.Below are the suggested stats, traits, and Needleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11243274667834930867noreply@blogger.com0