Having reviewed some oldies in Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk , the time has come for a setting from the 90s. The early 90s saw TSR embark on the most ambitious period of setting creation that hasn't been matches before or since, releasing no less than seven settings in boxed sets with full support in five years. One of them, developed under the working title of "War World" as a setting meant to support the Battlesystem rules, was Dark Sun, released in 1991. Dark Sun has a special place for me personally. It was the first setting I bought that was brand new when I picked it up. Settings like Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance all had history by the time I discovered them, but Dark Sun I got to explore from the beginning of it when I picked up the original boxed set at my local game store. Grognard retrospectives typically argue that this period was the start of the nadir for old school gaming as sandbox exploration, resource management and deadly encounters set in...

I am far enough ahead with Into the Unknown being print-ready, that the first two booklets just needs proper cover formatting to be print ready. And am basically 90% done with the remaining three. SO should be only a few months away now from a POD release. Which also means I've set up O5R Games at onebookself.com. And at this point, I think the game needs a more focused platform than the blog I set up originally to riff on my homebrew setting. So I've set up a new blog: https://o5rgames.blogspot.com/ That is where all items related to Into the Unknown will go. But also anything OSR related and of general rpg interest. Basically this blog will go back to being a blog about my homebrew setting and stuff I think only I would care about. I've migrated most of the posts I think belong in the former category to the new blog as well. You can expect the new blog to be busier than this one.

I received  +Jeff Talanian 's Magnum Opus in the mail last week - The 2nd edition of ASTONISHING SWORDSMEN & SORCERERS OF HYPERBOREA (Jeff was a real gentleman and let me get in on the kickstarter run even though I missed the deadline). It's kinda the opposite of what I am trying to do with Into the Unknown . It's built on the chassis of Advanced D&D 1e, while I am trying to build a modular 'un-advanced' edition of 5e. I am going for as lean as at all possible, with six booklets optimised for table play and 200 pages of gaming material being my top limit. ASSH is a massive 608-page hardbound single volume. I am quite in awe of what Jeff has made though. The feel  of the book alone, heavy from quality paper and binding, gives it potential to become one of those treasured tomes on many a gamer shelf. And the content is dead-on. I'd like to 'un-advance' a few bits here and there. But the classes, setting, monsters and spells are just dripping w...

I've basically finished the DM Handbook - Still missing the treasure and monster book, but these should not be needed for review and testing. All the player material, save a bit of art and layouting in the magic booklet, is done. SO - Anyone who would like to try out, or simply take a look at, a hack of 5e that harkens back to the simple days of B/X - where the rules properly support old-fashioned dungeon crawls and hexcrawls (and make them easy to run). Where reaction rolls, morale and race-as-class is still a thing. Sign up to playtest "Into the Unknown"! Just join the playtest group here, and all the files will be made available to you. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated. https://plus.google.com/communities/104545421866073203092 Both there and on the blog, I will also be sharing designer notes in the upcoming weeks. The proposed cover for the boxed set

Writing the GM's guide for Into the Unknown  has definitely been the biggest challenge of the project, forcing me to examine hard my own assumptions and understanding of what is good game mastering. But at this stage, I think we're close enough that playtest is only a few weeks away. All sections are laid out, page count is finalised - It just needs some text added to a handful of sections. Blending 5e and B/X has been an excellent study in the differences between the two and trying to understand the implications of some of the changes. Reaction rolls and Morale for example, are among the more beloved parts of B/X that were abandoned in 3e and haven't been seen since. I've spent a fair bit of time examining both sides of the fence and figuring out which way to go. Here's a sidebar I ended up adding to the section on social interaction that sums up how I feel social interaction should work in D&D: “Social Combat” The reaction roll is not a structured...

After Forgotten Realms, we move further back in time to take a look at the setting it knocked off its perch as the de facto setting at TSR - Gary Gygax's very own World of Greyhawk (I will, at times, be comparing the two settings for the very same reason). Quick intro to the setting (See also my  review of the map of greyhawk  - Incidentally, the most visited entry on my blog) The world of Greyhawk is a Sword & Sorcery setting built on a proper medieval chassis with just a light sprinkling of Tolkien influences.  It is built around a dichotomy of the lands of Men being relatively mundane, with the history and cultures of these having a suitably 'realistic' feel and the wilderness being home to the Weird - The place where adventurers go to experience the fantastical. Here, Greyhawk has a strong 'anything goes' approach where spaceships, timetravel, contact with other worlds, from the silly to the serious, are all within the tone of the setting....

Following on  from my  Setting Map review series  and my more recent thoughts on  4e's Nentir Vale  and  Dragonlance as a coming-of-age sandbox , I've decided to start a review series of published settings overall. Mostly D&D, but we'll be delving into some 3rd party settings, Warhammer and a few others. These reviews will be personal and mostly aimed at giving the reader an impression of the flavor, style and gameability of the setting. I am starting with the setting that has probably the greatest exposure of all. The forgotten realms! Everyone knows it, or knows of it, at least. Quick intro to the setting ( See also my review of the map of the forgotten realms ) Let's start by showing the realms from its most flattering side. Quote Ed Greenwood, from the old 'gray box': "Most of the area under discussion here has until recently been covered by wild forests and unsettled grasslands. Civilization is still a novelty in much of this world...