Commentary on The Free OSR Resource Gearing Guide to the Planes Issue 1& 2 - Planes of Punishment & Illusion For Your Old School Campaigns

I'm cruising around what's left of the old G+ display before it closes up on us old school gamers like the yawning maw of the Abyss that it is and happened upon the ANT-LERR blog.

The blog describes itself as "a seductive revulsion, a sickening attraction, a leper-temptation.", piqued my Barker/ Kult rpg instinct. See ever since the fan base of that game disappeared in a puff of corporate Kickstarter new edition, I've been quietly looking for something to fill that need. Happily ANT-LERR seems to fill that need and then some. There are two OSR fanzines that I knew nothing about. Well more to the point I'm late again to the table on these. Gearing Guide to the Planes Issue 1 - Planes of Punishment is three pages long of two tables of Punkish DYI D&D that dungeon master might make himself. Visually it works well and the tables are full of inspirational win for a DM whose throwing his PC's into the other world wilds. But then there's a second issue which covers illusionary planes! Gearing Guide to the Planes Issue 2 - Planes of Illusion really works because it's visual style sells the ideas of the tables really well and gives a DM yet another able to screw around with players perceptions of what's real and what means certain death. I can respect that sentiment in spades.


What works here is the approach and the visuals sell the ideas mixed into the tables. Sure its a jumble but you've got planes of death and illusion here. Com'n these are some very nasty and dangerous places to run across for a party. D&D is on the outskirts a game of horror and exploration; its also an exploration game of high weirdness and dark fairy tale like strangeness. These two fanzines capitalize on that sentiment in spades. So what types of OD&D & retroclone campaigns will these work with?  Well since their system neutral there's a whole host of games that these can be used with.
The author/artist hasn't put any restrictions on these and neither should you at all but Lamentations of the Flame Princess jumps to mind as well as the usual D&D suspects and some other places might even be White Star if you want to scare the crap out of your party of stalwart heroes. By the way these are free and my only real comment is to add a bit more content next time but so what these are exactly what fanzines are supposed to be, expressions of the passion and joy of the OSR fan! My advice is grab these and go have fun screwing with some PC's!

Commentary & Review Of Schweig's Themed Dungeon Generator From Griffon Publishing Studio For Your Old School Campaigns

Once again I'm really late to the party on this title, Schweig's Themed Dungeon Generator From Griffon Publishing Studio  This is a 'pay what you' title that basically allows the Dungeon Master to set the parameters of the dice, the dungeon & room elements and generate an entire dungeon easily almost effortlessly. Almost is the key word here. This application takes some practice and getting used to this is not a short cut at all for generating a quick paint by numbers dungeon. Instead this a two page generator that allows the DM to fill in their own details and create a dungeon or even a campaign.


Basically this is an application piece that can be filled in with elements to create either solo adventures or full blown campaigns. But its very much an exercise in dungeon design and patience as it is in execution. Its not bad at what it does but I was hoping for a bit more variety in the product piece. Its good, its solid but it needs something more in the finally dungeon design that it spits out. This is a good piece of work if you like A. designing your own dungeons and B. like to design them with regularity to fit an over arching campaign ideal. Basically if you want to create a DYI D&D world with solid themed dungeons that fit together like puzzles this is a product that could work for you.


Overall this is a good product that can help to fill in a gap point for a dungeon master looking to create central themed dungeons. The fact is that this is a plug and play product that generates the parameters and elements that you want in the world that your creating. This is going to give you exactly what your looking for. In other words garbage in and garbage out within boundaries of dice and numbers. This isn't a bad thing at all but does create some challenges for those who are easily frustrated and don't want to spend the time it takes to create dungeons in this manner. If your expecting speed and quickness this isn't that style of product, this is one that assumes intelligent design from the ground up. Your elements and ideas are stuffed into two pages and churned around into a dungeon of  your own creation.
There is another possible use for this style of dungeon generator, Schweig's Themed Dungeon Generator could be used to create massive solo dungeons. These sorts of generators have appeared from time to time in the Eighties and Nineties but I haven't seen too many of them as of late. Schweig's Themed Dungeon Generator could be used to create sprawling complexes of this style and generate enormous locations to run through for solo play. Simply add your own monsters and go to town!
Because of the generic nature of Schweig's Themed Dungeon Generator it could be easily used to generate weird or completely strange science fiction or science fantasy locations for post apocalyptic or weird science fiction dungeons or ruins. There are a myriad of uses for this product. The problem is the uniformity of these creations unless that's what you the dungeon master are  looking for.


So is Schweig's Themed Dungeon Generator good or bad? Well, its sort of hard to say, to really snap this product into a test would take a solid half an hour to two hours to generate the styles of dungeon worlds that I personally like there's plenty of room for improvement and ideas within this product but it needs a bit more time in the oven to really shine in the light of day for a dungeon master to get the maximum utility. That being said if you like this sort of from the ground up approach to the creation of your own adventures and dungeon locations within them. Then grab this one and go for it. 

Review & Commentary On The OSR Resource - The Dungeon Dozen For Your Old School Campaigns

GRAB IT RIGHT OVER
HERE

The Dungeon Dozen collects over 200 system-agnostic random tables designed to fire the imaginations of GMs and players of fantasy role-playing games, offering answers to such eternal questions as "What's in the Giant's Lunchbox" and "Why is there an Underworld". This book is loaded to the gills with black and white dungeon art by Chris Brandt, John Larrey, Stefan Poag, and Jason Sholtis. Each table in this PDF edition is bookmarked for ease of use

 So lately I've been doing a bit of DYI D&D of my own, and last night a review copy of The Dungeon Dozen showed up. Where do I begin with a mammoth two hundred and twenty-five page monster of a book containing every possible random dungeon and adventure design table you as a dungeon master will need.I'm late to the party of for the Dungeon Dozen by Jason Sholtis and reading through this book fills me with dungeon master angst. Its that good of a tool kit filled with wall to wall weirdness. This is the type of book that sort of forms the corner stone of the OSR. This book clocks in at two hundred and twenty five pages of sheer OSR lunacy. The book is part tool box, part random generator, and wall to wall creative generator that covers every possible mental exercise that a DM could possibly think of. Seriously this book is that well done.

The pdf is book marked and massive in its way dealing in table after table of random adventure generation. Taken on the whole and this book can be used to construct adventure encounter one shots and fully thought out adventures for a whole twenty years campaign.

There are tables literally on every page and there is art to go with each and everyone of those tables; art by Chris Brandt, John Larrey, Stefan Poag, and Jason Sholtis himself. The whole book is like some vomitous  mess of awesomeness but there's rhyme and reason for the material; used carefully and this is a massive adventure construction set of epic proportions. But its awesomeness is also its downfall, its hard to tell where one bit of awesomeness begins and another epic element crops up.

After a nerve wracking night of research and ruin through the Dungeon Dozen, I suspect that the book is simply the author's sheer insanity and creative output with his blog's output. The sheer amount of detail and tables is truly overwhelming and well worth the price of admission.  The spirit of the book is definitely old school and there is so much of it that it's awesome in its own way but let's say thank God for an index for this pdf. Had I this book when I was younger the players would have been paste in three rolls or less or mutated, or turned into any number of weird or strange results. Do I think that The Dungeon Dozen is worth your time and your efforts to purchase? In a word yes,there isn't a better resource for building your worlds, settings, adventures, adventure encounters treasures, underworld encounter, over arching mythology for a campaign full on hand tossing a roll of dice and getting on with your OSR campaigns.

Basically the Dungeon Dozen seems like a crazy, over the top OSR resource but it actually isn't. With a bit of restraint on the dungeon master's part this book makes an excellent system agnostic resource. A perfect blend of old school random chart excellence and adventure design madness. 


Actually Using The Dungeon Dozen In Designing

Your Old School Adventure or Campaign

All right after reading through the Dungeon Dozen more then three times over the past twenty four hours, I can safely come up with more then a few ways of actually using this product. There are two words that come to mind here, randomness and restraint. You as a dungeon master could take the book and a whole handful of dice and toss them then cherry pick what you want for a campaign and end up with a boat load of cool material to pick from. Or you've got to show yourself some real restraint and choose the category that you'll need for your campaign.

I've never even seen a game book that so closely fits the Dungeon Crawl Classics game like this one. Seriously you can end up with a handful of dice with everything your ever going to need for a DCC game in one book. Even though this book is marketed for the any OSR game system. This is the book to get for a DCC game campaign. I have never seen a book more ideal suited to the DCC ideal then The Dungeon Dozen. The book exudes in spades every gonzo and over the top sort of idea and echoing weirdness that a DCC DM could want. This is the same ideal that could easily echo its way to any gonzo DYI D&D style of campaign. I love, love, love the Dungeon Dozen for putting together a fast Saturday night get together or a convention set adventure. Its perfectly suited to keep players guessing and a DM with an imagination on the boil for old school play.