Been thinking of Dragonlance again lately. And one thing that strikes me is that the setting works so much better on a classic Moorcockian axis of Law vs Evil than it does "good vs evil", so I thought I'd write to unpack my meditations on this. For one, the whole "i am on the side of EVIL" shtick. Does that even exist? has it ever? There has been plenty of evil in world history, but as near as I can see, even in those cases of self-admitted evil, it has been something accepted as a means to a higher end, never an end in itself. Team Evil simply isn't a coherent position. Law and Chaos however, are very much coherent positions. And it makes a lot of things in Dragonlance coherent quite easily. For one, it gives the black hats a justifiable place in the world. Sure, a lot of Chaos followers may be evil (owing to the ease with which Chaos can be used to deconstruct of moral order), but they are not necessarily so. They are also agents of liberty, change and ren...

 I've had Operation Unfathomable [OU] on the shelf for a number of years. In our last session my players, desperate for cash,  decided the advert of 20k for recovering a "null rod" on behalf of the mad overking (this is greyhawk, wild coast) was the thing to go for.  It was a difficult session to run, since they had come from the previous sandbox across the Solnor (which they had, inadvertently, utterly wrecked), and could in theory end up anywhere. I had sort of tried to funnel them by presenting shipping options: Rel Astra, Irongate, Ratik or the Wild Coast. They went to the hardby and from there starting soaking up rumors, that eventually led them to OU. But that meant I had around a dozen modules in my backpack based on where they might end up, meaning I was going to have to fly by the seat of my pants, even though I was sort of familiar with all of them, from having read or run them in years past and kinda flipped through all of them again before the session. The act...

Welcome to the Threa-Elddim, the most quintessential fantasy kingdom ever made. I think I captured lightning in a bottle here and can't wait to run a campaign in it. Here's the quick blurb: Threa-Elddim was a strong and imposing kingdom during the Realm of Man; and before that, home to great elven and dwarven kingdoms in the preceeding age. Although nominally still a Dominion of Law, much of this once proud kingdom was laid to ruin during the Drune Wars that spelled the end of the Realm of Man, from which it has never really recovered. The wild duchies of Rodaire and Noinavohr make up its northern frontier, whilst the plains March of Nahor and the southern royal duchy of Rodnog, are chiefly concerned with the threat of the Chaos-sworn duke of Rodrom to the west, who has gathered a host of orcs, hobgoblins and other evil creatures to his side.

OSR Stalwart James Spahn kickstarted White Box: Cyclopedia this summer and raised a whopping 50k. I missed it and have now paid 25 dollars for the pdf, when I could have paid 15 in the summer. It's a 290 page product and let me start by saying it's a ridiculous game. I mean this in the best possible way. The idea of a 290 page rulebook with "whitebox" appended is of course in itself a ridiculous notion - whitebox is D&D shaved to the bone, so what can a "Cyclopedia" edition of such a game possibly be if not the antithesis of whitebox? It's not though. What it is, is the OSR from its loveliest side. Not artpunk reinterpretations or pushing-the-limit [color] hacks on just how lite an RPG can be and still be an RPG. It's about loving the old games and applying your craft, experience and creativity to that; flexing your DM moves in a blog or forum post for others to +1 and say "stolen!". With the Whitebox Cyclopedia, James has flexed all  h...

tl;dr A giant-sized core ruleset that nonetheless offers the best take on an Advanced version of D&D you are likely to find. I never really looked at the Adventurer Conqueror King System, though I had heard good things about it, as an elaboration of classic D&D with a proper domain game. When the new Imperial Imprint (II, aka v2) came out, I decided to spin up my drivethrurpg account and plop for the pdf. Let's start by saying this is not classic D&D. It is evidently based  on BX/BE D&D, with its math and level progression advancing only to 14th level.  But the scope and detail of this game is far more ambitious than anything Classic and those who enjoy the restrained core of Classic D&D will find the wealth of options and systems overwhelming.  It is rather an alternate attempt at making an Advanced D&D, based on Classic D&D.  And it is epic/monstrous in scope. Let's look at word counts of core rulebooks (not including monster manuals): ...

   

Somewhere on reddit recently, I saw someone casually mention the different types of fantasy implied by The Hobbit vs Lord of the Rings . And it set my mind spinning on isolating and bringing forth the world of The Hobbit' s Wilderland. What I mean is the Wilderland as seen in The Hobbit , without any reference to the rest of the legendarium. Let's forget the sagas of the Silmarillion  and the detailed tapestries of Lord of the Rings  and dwell for a moment simply on the world of Wilderland we are exposed to in The Hobbbit.  It's actually a rather different place. It's a world where Gandalf (correct pronunciation: "Jandalf") is just another wandering wizard, where the Necromancer is just an evil warlock in a tower in the dark forest, where Elrond is just a wise elf lord encountered on the journey. Wilderland is a world of goblins under misty mountains, trolls in the woods, giants in the mountains, shape-shifting woodsmen, capricious elves, good hearted but al...