I've been doing most of the grunt work with layout and art and so forth on the five booklets I plan to release. So here is a sneak preview of the covers of all five booklets. I am doing five booklets because this is meant to be as usable and easy to use at the table as possible. So one book for character creation (and during the game, equipment - The weapons table, fx, is on the last page. Real easy to look up), another for all the shared rules, a third for magic and spells, a fourth for all the GM specific stuff and a fifth reference work for monsters and treasure. And a lot of effort has been put into the formatting, layout and writing to make sure it is simple, non-superflouous, broken into easy to scan paragraphs for important bit and broken into easy to scan sections on each page. You can check out the full  Book 2: Playing the Game  to see how you like it. The juiciest book, character creation, is getting near to be done. Stay tuned. PS. As you c...

I did it - I actually managed to finish a project. Or part of it at least. Available for your consumption is Book 2: Playing the Game   of  Into the Unknown - A 5e compatible game for OSR gaming. Download here This is basically the rules for 5e D&D, excluding magic, chargen and DM specific stuff packed into a mere 24 large-font pages of rules, with artwork on top. Probably could have made it into 22, if not for the 2½ pages of attribute descriptions I wanted to include. Rule differences from 5e in this booklet:  Harsher rules for healing Looser definition of long and short rest Dropping to 0 hp causes exhaustion Proficiency areas based on class and background instead of skills (this will be detailed more in Book 1 for chargen) Proficiency advantage Fighters get proficiency bonus to improvising stunts in combat A few optional rules for firing onto melee and succeeding at a cost The main differences will be found in the ...

So far, I have been using "RedNext" as my working title (mix of 'red box' and 'd&d next'). As I am progressing, I am thinking I should go with a better name. These are the ones I've toyed with so far: Vaults & Wyrms Wyrms & Warlocks Crypts & Chaos Catacombs & Crypt Things Orcs & Owlbears Ruins & Rust Monsters Tombs & Horrors Adventures in the Unknown Into the Unknown Journeys to the Unknown Unknown Journeys Basic Adventures Into the Underworld Journeys to the Underworld Underworld Adventures So far, I am leaning towards Into the Unknown thoughts?

I've finished my write ups of both the Fighter and Rogue for my B/X-5e "RedNext" hack. Unlike the  Halfling , which was mostly written from scratch, these were a lot easier. Copy-paste from the SRD, trim and re-organise to make it easier to scan and fit into 3 pages each. The Figher (PDF) The Rogue (PDF) There are a few differences from the 5e PHB version though. No sub-classes, no feats, no race to be chosen (since race is a class), skill lists dumped and only the four core classes (+3 optional race-classes), trims a lot of the fat from the character dev mini-game that modern D&D so wants to become. There are two changes I use to cover the difference: A much increased focus on the simple combo of (4 core classes + background)  to define your proficiency and 'adventuring identity' as opposed to a proliferation of classes and long lists of skills (I do appreciate that 5e vastly cuts down on the skill lists. Still a bit too long for my taste). A choic...

It has been leaked that the forthcoming Volo's Guide to Monsters will have rules for playing Aasimar, Bugbears, Firbolgs, Goblins,Goliaths, hobgoblins, Kenku, Kobolds, Lizardfolk, Orcs, Tabaxi and Tritons. Setting aside my current movement towards even finding elves a bit problematic as a playable race, I can see the case for things like Aasimar, Kenky and Goliaths. But bugbears? Goblins? Hobgoblins? I've even seen complaints that gnolls weren't included. What? These are monsters . I guess it comes out of an assumption that I've grown to wholesale reject - A naturalistic approach to critters. Ie, that gnolls or bugbears are just another intelligent species like any other, albeit one more violent then most.  In other words, they are not really monsters. This approach, populised I suppose by the WoW/Eberron approach to orcs as Noble Savages, to me roundly defeats much of the Raison d'Etre for D&D adventuring - Namely that it is ok to kill these cr...

Halfling - Racial Class 5e (PDF) First of all, let me start by saying - 5e may be simple and balanced, but class design is NOT.  Class design is really where the designers put in the highest level of complexity into the system. Lots of unique sub systems (battemaster, warlock), maneuvers that break the action economy in unique ways, implied strategic build paths, etc.  All stuff I want to simplify away with  RedNext  - take away the excess of moving parts.  But even besides that, there is lots to consider - Every level gets a bennie of some sort (in three tiers), some hardcore class defining ones, others thematic. And impact of bennies is asymmetrical from class to class (except 5th and 11th). And all of them have frontloaded abilities that are on the surface overpowered.  Weighing all these up and when to put the big ones is a lot to consider - Making the Halfling took time! Dwarf and elf might be easier purely because I now have a better g...

Skills is a problem. Always has been. It's a problem to have them and a problem not to have them. Back in the day, I considered myself a skill-aficionado. The thought that not having skills could be a well-considered feature of a system didn't really occur to me. These days, I am between two stools of appreciating the advantages to not having skills and still liking skills for the way it helps to distinguish and characterise characters. And this is why I don't like 5e skills - they are too generic and basic. They don't actually say anything about the character. We have skills in my 5e group, but I can't see we've used them for much other than 'guess I can add +2 to that roll'. In other words, they might as well not be there. With that in mind, my baseline is a slight modification of the OSR standard: Anyone can more or less try anything. For my 5e OSR document, I edited out all skill references to take as my baseline. Sort of. Actually, ski...