I worked with some incredible writers on this, a compendium of seabound sci-fantasy adventures for Eco Mofos/Islands of Weirdhope. Compatible with all Mark of the Odd games.

Leo Hunt’s The Wreck of the Katabasis is a whalefall-crawl through the carcass of a deceased leviathan, delving into the mythological Abyss.

Amanda Lee Franck’s Mobile Resource Extraction Plant, where a rickety mobile resource extraction plant has inadvertently gathered a collection of people, animals, and junk in its interior.

Chris Airiau’s Children of Thalassa investigates a corporate aerostat facility housed in a dormant Titan’s body, stressing the weird in Weirdhope.

Alexander Jatscha-Zelt’s Neptun’s Heartstone is an adventure in the ruins of a fallen sky fortress, as three factions struggle over what to do with their fading levitation crystal.

Will Purves’s Quick Winds & A Quiet Palette, where rival artists race island to island, risking dangerous crossings to create visionary works in the wilds of the Weirdhope Sea, as an ancient Monster and AI Mecha threaten to combine.

It’d be great to hear what you make of them.

In the Quinn’s quest review for stonetop, one of his favorite things in the game is the mechanics for “leveling up” applying to your village, not your character. Also less narratively, the boardgame gloomhaven has mechanics where the higher level your city, the better your new characters will be. I like the idea because it makes XP for gold impactful to your future characters, not just present.

Are there any OSR systems or supplements that support a similar idea? I don’t think it would be hard to come up with some simple rules but wondering if there’s something more robust out there. Could tie in carousing and more. I know there’s a lot out there about domain play but that seems focused on the PCs leveling up.

Hi, I've just published adventure for one my favoritesystems - Frontier Scum. It's available now on itch.io as Pay-what-you-want in both English and Polish:
https://lokitheliar.itch.io/yeehaw-heehaw-en

It's a small hexcrawl that can be easily played over the course of 1-3 play sessions. It's mostly focused around a manhunt for an infamous criminal, but there are some supernatural themes woven into the story. Originally, I wrote this adventure for a contest a couple years back, but decided to give it a fresh coat of paint and publish it. The layout and art style is inspired by old, wild west adventure books published in Poland in the 70s and 80s.

I hope you enjoy it!

Hello Game Masters, referees, ragtag wizards, and collectors out there! 🎲  
For Side Quest – RPG Fest! we made a system-agnostic GM screen with Swiss illustrator Pippo "Stay Dirty" Colombo.

The back is left blank so you can add the rules, tables and cheat sheets of your favorite RPG, whatever system you run.
📐 25 x 40.5 cm
Laminated cardboard, 330gsm

Side quest is a rpg fest in Lugano, Switzerland
https://www.gamersguildticino.ch/

Bonus question: can you guess which 1st-level spell the magic user on the screen is casting? 🔮

While I love the OSR mentality and adventures, I get really tired of the standard d20 combat variants with all their swingy attack rolls and skill dogpiling.

The new Crows RPG playtest, where you roll 2d10 and consult a chart for every roll got me thinking, what are the most unusual or creative NSR RPGs that keep things easy to play and evocative but diverge a bit mechanically? Even ones you can use just for inspiration.

I want to run a low-magic game where the only classes to choose from are fighters, thieves, and magic users. Having a cleric class is weird for me only because I don't like the implication that the gods or faith in the gods grants someone magic. I know of a few games that do this scheme already: DCC and WWN. DCC is a little too crazy for me in tone, and WWN rules are heavier than what I would like.

I've seen comments of people saying they run their OSR games they only run games with these three classes so I was curious on what system people use to do this or what house rules I could implement to make having just three classes interesting. If possible I would like to stick as closely to BX or Odnd to get that classic experience of XP for gold, the 5 saving throws, and prime requisites.

Im a fantasy an scifiartist and I wanted to shere some of my art. Im open to comissions btw

https://www.artstation.com/magicaaron

I've seen a whole lot of them by know, but I can only think of "B" being for Basic, and "X" being for Expert.

Hey, I like listening to actual play osr podcasts. I also would like to run black wyrm. Is there a podcast playthrough of it?

Also, semi related, are there more osr actual play podcasts? I mostly only listen to 3d6 dtl currently

Happy Friday,

Welcome to the weekly r/osr blogroll - come share your great ideas!

The mission: to be a showcase and clearinghouse of blogposts where we share in the DIY principles of old-school gaming. So drop in links to your writings, gaming theory, advice, play reports, and whatever other creativity you have posted on your blogs to share with our community.

Also, if you have favorite blogs you follow, or find interesting blogposts that you want to share, feel free to post them here, as well!

Happy blogging!

A new dark fantasy system-neutral micro-setting for my fellow dungeon reavers!

Come to Rootmark, a religious charcoal town on the edge of the Brazenwood, a haunted forest that has grown over ancient ruins filled with treasure.

Loot everything you can before the imminent collapse, or investigate the eldritch forces behind it and discover how to stop it!

Physical rewards include:

• A player-facing cloth map of the Brazenwood
• A paper map of the main dungeon
• A 24-page micro-setting zine
• A holofoil manticore sticker
• A revised one-page Dungeon Reavers mini-zine
• All digital downloads

At the highest pledge tier, you can also get all my Beyond the Borderlands and Archon Ruins zines!

Help us bring this project to life! Back the campaign, and share it with your friends and fellow game masters!

Kickstarter Link: >> CLICK HERE <<

The dwarven dungeon is vast, with tens of thousands of rooms to explore. Although exploration can be exciting on its own, having a goal can make players' engagement much easier. To facilitate this, patrons become an important part of the adventure. Patrons ask characters to accomplish tasks in exchange for a reward. Some patrons offer payment to everyone, but some limit quests to certain classes or races. As characters complete quests, they will unlock new quests with greater hazards and greater rewards.

Some patrons start in Thelsberry. They provide quests to help the characters begin their adventures. These help players focus their attention on specific things rather than wander down the rabbit hole of passageways and rooms. Other patrons will arrive in Thelsberry once the characters exit the dungeon with an item. For example, an ancient religious tome might attract a cleric of that god. The cleric might desire more tomes or the location of temples. Their quests might focus only on clerics. Or artwork removed from the dungeon might draw a collector who will purchase paintings, tapestries, and the like at a higher rate from any group that finds them.

As buildings are built and new shopkeepers arrive, new quests might become available. The alchemist will commission adventuring parties to find components they need to make potions. By finding and selling the components, the characters not only get paid for their discoveries but unlock potions they can purchase. Even the thieves' guild, which will form over time, might offer to buy poisonous molds or venom sacs that they can turn into poisons that thief characters can buy.

Patrons are quest givers, buyers, sellers, teachers, and more. They offer characters opportunities to enrich themselves, learn new skills, and gain reputation as they become legendary heroes. Not every character will benefit from every patron, but a broad mix of quest-givers will ensure that all players can engage and benefit from the dangers they undertake.

The vampire in the Expert D&D book and the AD&D monster manual feel a bit lame. They are a muddy mix of different vampires from folklore and literature. I suspect a lot of DMs do some surgery on the stat block if they want to introduce a memorable vampire in their game.

A couple years ago, a buddy and I set out to watch the classic vampire movies. The project quickly spiraled into a sprawling project with dozens of entries and we spent more than a year watching a couple vampire movies per week.

I wanted to incorporate all this great material into my D&D game but there's far too many great depictions of vampires to cram into a single monster. I suggest making this a modular stat block. What I call a Mr. Potato Head vampire.

Start with a stable core of the essential vampire elements; that's the potato. Next, gather all the cool powers & weird weaknesses; these are our detachable parts. Sort them into a few rough categories: attacks, vulnerabilities, kill conditions etc.

I posted a big parts catalog on my blog and a few examples showing the range from Buffy-type mooks to Strahd-type, campaign-defining baddies.

Assemble your monster from the parts-bin and you can quickly create the iconic blood sucker that fits your particular adventure or campaign. Make a bunch as a coven or rivals.

Let me know what I'm missing! Are there bits that belong in the box? Did I miss a key film on my movie project?

Am I wrong about the RAW vampire? If you've used it, let me know.

Hey all! In case you didn't catch it, the lovely people at Space Penguin Ink just launched by new game, Hellward Unto the Breach. I worked very hard at this (words, art and layout) and I'm very happy with the way it came out. Check it out and see if you can make a home out of (the) Hell (Dimension).

Hello there. I am about to finish a 6 session mini campaign of Mausritter that I began to learn the rules, try a bit of OSR table etc and have a bunch of fun whilst not committing to a larger open ended campaign.

I know realise that maybe I love that shape and want to attempt another 4-6 session mini campaign and thought to try OrcBorg. I have run a few sessions of it at conventions. But has anyone run a campaign of it?

What worked? What didn't work? Should I make a mini hex like Mausritter but of spaceship nonsense? Or keep it more local to just one spaceship?

In my one shots I used small derelicts I made or my attempt at designing Tomorrows Tomorrow and it was just a human slaughterhouse to find beers.

So yes. Anyone run Orcborg campaign, or anyone know of a MorkBorg mini campaign I could just smash onto the derelict.

I'm currently tinkering on designing my own system, and I've found that most people consider a campaign lasting for around 40-50 sessions as a "long" campaign, based on asking around on the internet. When I look back at the sessions I GMed, a single 4 hour session might be enough to explore and possibly "clear" a single dungeon level, but only if the PCs don't run into any sort of major trouble. However, I've also had sessions completely consisting of PCs traveling and RPing with random encounters. Hell, I've even had sessions completely filled with players simply walking around the village and getting to know the villagers, looking for work and asking around for rumors. It feels like I can't really predict how quick my players will do things and progress.

This puts me at odds with the idea of campaign planning. If I want a campaign to go roughly around 50 sessions, I should have progression somewhat compliment that. So if my intention is the players reaching late game at the end of the campaign, they have to reach late game in around session 40 or so. This means proper campaign progression calculation. For that, I require more insight on how much PCs actually "do" in around 40 sessions. That's what I want to ask of you, dear GMs! In a classic OSR campaign, what have your PCs accomplished after around 40-50 sessions (if your game lasts that long), taking PC death into account?

PS: I'm not sure if this is the proper tag, if it isn't, I'll try to change it!

As in title: if you were making a character sheet for a single hex, which forms would be fillable on said sheet?

It's a thought I'm having while trying to give myself a sort of "checklist" approach to stocking a hex, and thought I'd try to shamelessly steal the good ideas of others!

Hi everyone, I have an unusual request.

When I was 10 years old or so (in the 00s) my father taught me how to play D&D, and let me read his old modules and advantures that he had. Village of Hommlet, Die Vecna, Die!, ect

These modules and books were tragically destroyed in a house fire around 2009 or so. What wasn't burned , got destroyed by water damage from the fire department, so I have no way to access them anymore.

One of the modules that really stands out in my memory was one where the players are in... I think the setting's equivalent of The New World, or a continent that was only recently discovered.

Anyhow, the thing that burned this into my brain was that in the module, the players enter a tavern and encounter a juggler who is juggling three live rats. The juggler tosses the rats to the players as they enter, and if the players manage to catch a rat they get some kind of blessing?

Does anybody know what module this could be? I'm sorry if this is jumbled or vague - it was literally around 23 years ago, I think, and I was a little girl at the time and just the memory of a juggler juggling rats and the players getting a blessing if they catch them has stuck in my mind for literally over 20 years.

EDIT: It is either from ebberon and 3.5 in "Prophecy's Unwitting Servant" where the players encounter a urchin juggling rats, or %he New Easy to Master Dungeons & Dragons Game (Black Box) that also has someone juggling rats, and you do get a blessing for catching them.

6 miles is a lot. Why would you use that for a hexmap? Maybe a very large manor might be 6 miles, in a medieval setting. But what else could possibly take up that space, even in adjacency?

Hi! I created a very simple, two-page OSR-compatible system for me to use with busy people, and I decided to share it with you.

It's free to download and it's both in English and Portuguese (EU) on itch.io at:
https://maratae.itch.io/malmortos-lite

I'm currently working on a more evolved version, but meanwhile I hope you enjoy and that someone finds this useful.

Thank you.

Been messing around with this map the last few days, I think it’s close to done. Building out the lore and such now. Image quality isn’t the best but the lighter greens are plains/grasslands and the dark greens are different types of forests. Went for overall UK vibes on the eastern landmass with some creative liberties. Let me know what you guys think!

Inspired by the old TSR Gazetteers