Something that’s cropped up a bit in recent times and had some discussion is the use of the Cleric’s ‘Turning Table” found in D&D B/X (Moldvay) and OSE, and obviously in BECMI (Mentzer) & Rules Cyclopedia as well, as a general improvisational skills/challenge/difficulty system. There’s been more talk about it of late (although reportedly its […]
I’m not a huge fan of having lots of ‘house rules’ (although I was once); and I think the beauty of D&D B/X (and similar editions of that era, and the newer OSE, etc) is the malleability of the rules and play (vs. the heavily structured and detailed approach of 5E with very rigid processes) […]
Goodman Games have done it again and launched a new Kickstarter for the latest in their “Original Adventures Reincarnated” range of books – this time the classic Jennell Jaquays Judges Guild published ‘Dark Tower‘ module. This module along with Jaquays’ ‘Caverns of Thracia‘ module are arguably the 2 best non-TSR D&D/AD&D modules produced in the […]
Continuing the old school character class post theme (with a particular emphasis on the Moldvay era of D&D B/X) is the Elf. There is a large divergence of views on Elves in Old School D&D including what they are and how common they should be, and a common perception of the Elf Class in B/X […]
Continuing on the old school character class theme (with a particular emphasis on the Moldvay era of D&D B/X and the likes of OSE) is the Cleric. There is a common perception of clerics just being played as ersatz fighters with some healing skills – but this needn’t and shouldn’t be the case. Even the […]
Two of the classic ‘Old School‘ character classes that often get maligned these days are the Magic-User and the Thief. This is partly because the style of more modern D&D versions (primarily from 3e onwards, but more specifically the current 5e D&D rules) provide a completely different type of game and place a lot more […]
Two of the classic ‘Old School‘ character classes that often get maligned these days are the Magic-User and the Thief. This is partly because the style of more modern D&D versions (primarily from 3e onwards, but more specifically the current 5e D&D rules) provide a completely different type of game and place a lot more […]
As part of my ‘return’ to Dungeons & Dragons (see my Old School Dungeons and Dragons post), I’ve been looking at retro-clones of D&D. The two key ones that have got my attention are OSE (Old School Essentials) and OSRIC (Old School Reference and Index Compilation). Both of these are faithful reproductions of different editions […]
Goodman Games have been republishing classic TSR era D&D Adventure modules in a ‘deluxe’ hard cover format marketed as “Original Adventures Reincarnated“. These feature high quality scanned reprints of the original module releases (in some cases including 2 different original versions) that were originally for D&D Basic or AD&D 1e (1st Edition), and a modernised […]
A big lot of kudos to Goodman Games for their work with historic Judges Guild material – and most especially one of my all time favourite modules The Caverns Of Thracia! Goodman Games have run 2 Kickstarter Campaigns recently to produce deluxe oversize hard cover volumes containing some of the most significant and historic Judges […]