Free GM Resource: Microlite78

OK, I'll be the first to comes right out and say this.....do we really need another version of 1st Edition AD&D? Normally I'd say "no" as we already have a plethora of retro-clones to choose from. Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy to put them here for others to possibly find useful, but I'm more excited about retro-clone supplements and not their core rules, which I'm generally not going to be using.

Of course I don't really think these games really fracture the overall RPG community any because....and I could be off-base here...I think most GMs end up running their own unique game table regardless. Even when I try to run as close to the "by the book" game as possible I inevitably end up tweaking some things for ease of use.

Because of these two biases/opinions/thoughts, I'm not too quick to get excited about another set of OSR rules and don't even always give them a once-over. I have at least one more ruleset in my "pending pile" so when I came across Microlite78 it didn't jump out at me. Now this isn't a review per se, but just some additional info on why you might want to pick this up and give it a look (I'm not the only one thinking these things am I?).

1st off, Microlite78 is a complete game and a 158 page download. Like the name implies it is a streamlined "lightened" version of 1st edition, well kind of. It isn't a clone of those rules, but more of a translation of sorts. It really struck me that Microlight 78 is probably going to be an "all or nothing" proposition for GMs and players. The "discussion" on stats is a skimpy paragraph and all the race "stuff" can fit in a single column of text easy. There isn't a lot of extraneous fluff, but it hasn't been pared down to bullet points either.

I think that Microlite78 is worth checking out...it isn't a retro-clone even though if you only skim it you might not get that. The links go to the author's blog, where there is a link to the forum, that has the download link. I know it sounds confusing, but unless I provided a direct download link (which I won't do on principle) it'd be too easy to get a bit lost as the final page is a bit visually confusing. You don't have to join the forum to get the PDF.

Frugal GM Review: Anyburg and the Lands Therabout

This week I picked up a cool little supplement that is currently a Silver Best Seller over at DriveThruRPG, and after reading it I can see why.

Anyburg and the Lands Thereabout: The complete guide to designing your own town or city for use in a fantasy role playing game (say that 5 times fast!) is actually a bit of a misnomer. Oh, it definitely does help in designing your own town or city, and it does actually give you a City of Anyburg, but it does a bit more.

This PDF is 50 pages where roughly 1/2 have is a great analysis and explanation of some historical data with the other half consisting of examples (real-world and fantasy) and some resources. The PDF is sized A4 for printing and is secured, but not needlessly so.

FGM027 20 Alchemical Concoctions for Your Campaign

While I've been busy on a new project I decided to take a bit of a break and come up with a selection of 20 Alchemical Concoctions for Your Campaign.

It's a bit more than just a list of stuff. I've actually done some real-world research to look up medicinal properties of certain plants and tweaked that information by adding in some fantastical ingredients. Since these are essentially the "poor man's potions" they have a shelf-life and some side-effects as well.

I should mention that you might have to do a little bit of work to use these, or at least more than popping off a cork and swallowing it right quick.

There is a simple d20 table (like it's hard to count off 20 items in order...) and I even added a drop table at the end. This OSR-generic supplement is available on DriveThruRPG and on my Patreon site as well.

Free GM Resource: Swords & Wizardry +Several Other Downloads from Frog God Games.

Last week while I was working on that NPC race for an upcoming adventure I decided I wanted to stat it out for a game system, but I wanted something that would be a bit on the "OSR Generic" side of things.

I ended up using Swords & Wizardry, which is available for absolutely free in a couple of places, but notably on the Frog God Games download page. It is up there with a couple of other items that you may or may not be interested in as well. I've already recommended A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming, but there are four other downloads to check out. Two are coloring books and the other two are adventures.

One of the adventures is statted for Swords & Wizardry and available for Pathfinder as well. The other is a 5E adventure. I'm thinking that 1st adventure (The Tower of Bells) might be a good example on how to convert between the two systems.......

...if anyone has already used that as such a resource, please let me know.

Frugal GM Review: Crawl! (DCC RPG Zine)

This week I'm at the last of the of the Zines I've recently picked up off of DriveThruRPG. This one is Crawl!, a Zine dedicated to the DCC RPG and I purchased Issue V: Monsters!

Free Frugal GM Product: The Noerglein (a new OSR PC/NPC Race)

I've been kicking an idea around a bit regarding a potential NPC race for an adventure I'm working on and after looking at the Swords & Wizardry rule-book I figured I could just take a minimal amount of effort to flesh them out to a full on PC race as well.

The races in S&W don't exactly have a lot of extra text so I didn't set myself up for a huge amount of work. Normally I don't stat stuff out for specific system unless I'm writing a tournament adventure, but I figured...."why not, I'll give it a go".  Not like I'm trying to write Shakespeare!

The idea of The Noerglein is that they are a true race of humanoids descended from various bastard offspring of Human and either Ogre or Hobgoblin "relations". Sure, most of these half-humanoids would be sterile, but a few might not be and eventually were able to breed to a "true" race that had some of the attributes of their ancestors. I pictured them as noble savages with their own strong moral code and a penchant for staying the hell away from other humanoids.

They'll have a role in the adventure I'm working on, but GMs and players can easily put their own spin on it. It either works or it doesn't......

Click on the lead-in graphic or use this link to get the free download from my Patreon page. It is available on DriveThruRPG as well.

Free GM Resource: The Stone Alignments of Kor Nak

Since the adventures lately have bee such a big hit and because Gary Con is right around the corner I thought it would be appropriate to somewhat mash the two together the best I can with this week's Free GM Resource.

GP Adventures (AKA Ernest Gary Gygax Jr. and Benoist Poiré) have put together a hex for Tenkar's Landing. Called The Stone Alignments of Kor Nak, this 6 mile hex comes with two maps and an 18 page companion PDF. The adventure seeds are suitable for OSR characters of 4th level and......

....and I haven't personally gotten beyond the to maps yet. I'm kind of stuck on the awesomeness of the maps because I always dig (no pun intended) surface and subsurface maps of the same area. The maps look like they were done in colored pencil and they have a pretty cool simplified look to them. Somewhat childish without being amateurish, if that makes any sense.

Anyway I think it is worth a read and I'm looking forward to the whole collection of hexes when they all get finished.

New Tweak & Toss Short Encounter Set: The Situation in Salzberg

I've just posted a new item to my Patreon page and as a PWYW at DriveThruRPG entitled The Situation in Salzberg.

This is the 1st item I've produced using Adobe InDesign and I like the way it (eventually) came out. The setup for this adventure is a little different and I envisioned it more as a method for a GM to either "clean house" or possibly save his campaign in the event of a likely TPK.

Of course, that is just how I envisioned this being used, so there's that......

There are really two main components to this adventure and most of what I've put together is just one part, with a little bit of info for the other. It could be the BBG is actually a good guy and his men are a bit over-zealous in enacting his wishes. Maybe the "off-screen" antagonist is more neutral and figures a little bit of bad now will be outweighed by the good he can do later. Of course he could just be a BBG through-and-through.

Perhaps the party will desire to take a more "political" approach to put the situation to an end.....

...I like to think there are a lot of possibilities with "The Situation in Salzberg"