Amazing Adventures Old School Multi Genre Campaign Set Up - First Impressions

 One of the games that I recently ordered was Troll Lord Games Amazing Adventures & I think that I've got almost every edition of this game by Jason Vey. The game has evolved from Pulpy fantasy into a multigenre role playing game with the Siege engine at it's heart and soul. 

I'm still trying to get a game together with my friends to get an Amazing Adventures campaign going. There are a number of OSR  resources that I'm considering for an Amazing campaign at the moment. Among these is Skirmisher Publishing's Wisdom of the Wastelands for a post apocalpytic twist on a mini campaign setting that the PC's can visit. 

Now we've already got many of the tools for an AA post apocalpytic campaign alreaady baked into the Amazing Adventures rulebook & DM's Guide. But it's nice to get a bigger scope of the post apocalpytic genre. 

Amazing Adventures takes what was in the original AA game and distills it into a more comprehensive set of rules and rpg systems overview. On the whole the revised AA takes full advantage of the Seige Engine rules. This allows the inclusion of other OSR resources and yes, I'm looking at TSR's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide. 

Because of the DM's Guide & Jeff Gubb's Manual of the Planes which is one of the best takes on the planes that we've seen. This allows me to incorporate some AD&D first edition elements that the players are familiar with. 

Back To The Starship Warden?! - Using Cepheus Engine Rpg & Stars With Number rpg Together - Operators, Thieves, & Tramps

 "They designed the Starship Warden to house, feed and clothe over a million people. To do this the designers outfitted this massive ship, miles long and miles wide, to serve as a home for people offering up quarters and cafeterias, restaurants, and malls all intermingled with a host of features to mimic earth-like conditions, from artificial lakes to fields of crops. Her maiden voyage began with hopes and dreams of a future like nothing humanity had ever seen."

"But that was long ago. There has been no contact between the Warden and Earth for many long years for on the ship something went horribly awry. Radiation leaks, singularity, mutations, madness, what it was, only the inhabitants could say. Whatever it was, her inhabitants, those that lived, dwell in a world of want and despair, and when they were not preying upon one another, they fight beastly mutants, cyborgs, self-aware robotic humanoids and all the other creatures who vie for the precious resources of the beleaguered starship."

"It is your time now. Rise in the chaos of the Warden and bend its apocalypse to your will -- or be ground away in the lonely quiet of deep space."

So we've been tossing around a Fall OSR campaign and with Cities Without Number it doesn't take a genius to figure out that we need to pick up last Fall's campaign. The Warden was launched from the Transplutonian shipyards by a conglomeration of mega corporations. And then the 'Conduit gateway' between Earth and the Clement sector collapsed. The Earth sector corporations and governments have kept the fate of the Warden from the headlines.

 

The Warden has become an urban legend floating in space. The USS Goya was a richman and his party of salvagers attempt to salvage the legendary ship things didn't go as planned. Now the USS Goya has been added to the urban legend. 
The operators are gathering intelligence on the Goya's data from several pirate resources. 

And this brings up the fact that Earth sector agents want to have the PC's heads if anything hits the media. And this is where our party's Cybersneaks are getting in deep already. 
The PC's have uncovered the fact that there are several black technologies aboard the Warden. Advanced cloning technologies, unknown robots, and more mean that there's a gold mine of artifacts aboard the Warden. Most of these are from the Starship Warden book itself. The rest of the artifacts are coming out of the  Mutant Future [BUNDLE] From Skirmisher Publishing

Stefan Wright of Nutech is paying for this expediation & the PC's are going to have to aquire a vessel modified to look unassuming but actually is going to be crammed with some stealthy options. Most likely an  Opportunity-class Light Trader or another Earth sector trader vessel. 

Review & Commentary On TSRPG (Travel-Sized RPG) & The 'On the Plane of Magma' (A Fantasy Scenario for TSRPG)

 "TSRPG (Travel-Sized RPG)! This improv storytelling game designed for a storyteller and one or more players can easily be played anywhere, from the airport waiting area you are stuck in, to the overnight in some hotel where there is nothing to do (and also, of course, in your own home). "
I don't normally handle storyteller games but there are two reasons why I'm looking at this. One is the situation with the OGL & Cowards of the Coast. And two Skirmisher Publishing are good friends of mine. TSRPG (Travel-Sized RPG) is a dollar & the rules fit on one page of the pdf. The task resolution system is simple,quick, & reliable. 

And TSRPG (Travel-Sized RPG includes the rules, sample PC's, & enough to get a group of four or five players started a mini one shot. And the system for this?! The TSRPG (Travel-Sized RPG  reminds me in many ways of the Storyteller system but in a completely different direction;"
Characters are the players’ in-story representatives and have individual names and concepts associated with them. Each has two stats, Physical and Mental, and has 5 points to distribute between them. Physical, or “hard stuff,” is anything that uses the character’s body. Mental, or “soft stuff,” is anything that uses the character’s mind. Each character is also given at least one piece of equipment that can conditionally grant a +1 to either stat if it narratively fits the Challenge (and Storytellers can opt to allow them to start with two or more pieces if they think their scenario is sufficiently challenging to warrant it). Equipment can be consumable (e.g., a potion, a bandage) or permanent (e.g., a multitool, a cattle prod). Characters can also acquire additional equipment during adventures, particularly in appropriate areas (e.g., a shovel might be found in a garden shed). Challenges Challenges are any situations a character has to respond to in which the outcome is not guaranteed. These Challenges are based either on a character’s Physical prowess or their Mental faculties. Conflict with opponents (i.e., combat) is resolved as a challenge, or a series of challenges, that characters must overcome. Breathing or walking, for example, are generally not considered to be a Challenge, while weightlifting or taking the SATs generally are. Challenges are also contextual (e.g., breathing suddenly becomes a Challenge when the character is sick or under water). Challenges are what stand between the player characters and their goals. How Challenges Work To adjudicate a Challenge, the storyteller picks a random number within a difficulty range and communicates it to the players. The size of this range determines how difficult the Challenge is (e.g., 1-5 is very easy, 1-15 is average, 1-30 is extremely hard). These may be easily described as a “5-point Challenge,” etc. The player whose character is trying to overcome a Challenge must attempt to guess the Storyteller’s number, and if they guess it +/- the stat picked by the storyteller, they succeed (e.g., a Physical stat of 2 would mean that guessing anything from 3 to 7 with a target number of 5 would be a success). Otherwise they fail." 
And that's really it & as an alternative to dealing with the chit chat of 5th edition D&D 's BS TSRPG (Travel-Sized RPG is an alternative storyteller style rpg. And from here if I were the DM then I'd pivot into  “On the Plane of Magma” . This is a twelve page adventure that pits the PC's against the forces of the plane of magma. 
There's a solid adventure on the plane of magma that can be played in one session & Skirmisher has even done an expensive video here On The Plane of Magma .  “On the Plane of Magma”  has solid maps, really solid encounters, and some really solid twists & turns. 

Is TSRPG (Travel-Sized RPG a replacement for the fifth edition of the world's most popular fantasy rpg?! No but is it a fun rpg storytelling system? Yes it is but this isn't the game for me as an OSR player & DM. “On the Plane of Magma” is a great little one shot for the DM to run with the TSRPG. However that being said this isn't a game I'll be running anytime soon. 

OSR Commentary On Skirmisher Publishing's The Living Building By Derek Holland, & The Skirmisher Group For the Mutant Future Retroclone & Gamma World Rpg

 “Just after dawn, a village scout dashed from the forest carrying a wondrous, and perhaps even terrifying, story of a huge, circular shell with a door, a massive coiled building that sprang up during the night. And it is still growing … ”

"Whether from forgetfulness, mental blockage, or intrusions of the dread “real life,” every storyteller has probably experienced that sinking, not-so-prepared feeling before a game. This sourcebook provides a remedy for the next time that happens, and includes an adventure location that is both a little pre-generated and a little homemade, is immediately expandable and adaptable, and can be replayed without seeming like a re-run, because the building changes even as the characters explore it."

“The Living Building” includes background and physical description for the title structure; a floorplan for a particular living building; problems with living buildings that can make them interesting and dangerous places to explore; tips on using living buildings in game sessions; tables for determining the contents of rooms; hazards that characters might face in living buildings; and a section on monsters particularly likely to be encountered in living buildings that includes four new creatures and three new mutations. "

So I'm going be needed an adventure location for our upcoming OSR Science Fiction or Science Fantasy rpg campaign over the weekend. And it's gotta be weird, dangerous, etc. Here's where the classic Skirmisher Publishing's The Living Building By Derek Holland & the Skirmisher Group comes in.  The Living Building is a great stand in for a near human alien building especially for a B/X inspired OSR game. And that's exactly where the sweet spot is for our weekend games. But why?! Because Skirmisher has put in some time & effort for OSR  games such as Mutant Future. 

And these conversions is where this Dragonfoot thread comes in really handy according to  Finarvyn back in July 2011 he says, " The answer to this is totally based on how well you take adventures from one game and use them in another. Can you take OSRIC or B/X D&D or S&W and use them interchangibly? If so, then you're in good shape for the editions of GW that you mentioned.

I think that in general 1E/2E and 4E are all extremely interchangible philosophically. All are very similar to old school D&D. (B/X perhaps.) Mutant Future is based on Labyrinth Lords, which is also similar to B/X D&D. All of these use quite similar mechanics, etc, and adventures for one can be used for another with minimal effort, in my opinion.

As long as you steer away from the oddball versions of GW (3E was based on the MSH colored chart, I think 5E was the one created for Alternity, the newest GW is written for D&D 4E) you'd be fine." 

And to bring this back to the Living Building there's the entire building & it's contents all in one. This means that the DM has everything as it also includes the monsters as well. This makes the Living Building a snap to drop into your own OSR games. 
And this is one of the best reasons to use 'The Living Building' by Derek Holland for alien adventure locations & according to Drivethrurpg reviewer Jason A.; "I was not expecting to get as much as I did from this book, buying it just for the novelty. But there is so much material in this book, each room giving detail and source for new items to be brought into my Gamma game, and room by room an easy way to organize the info. Imagine a structure growing from the ground, encroaching on a location, but with such wonders for your post apoc group, except something is wrong, it keeps growing and there are dangers the original builders never thought would be a worry to the original owners, but as a post apoc group, the things inside are strange and deadly. Good tables too, new mutations, and interesting monsters." 

I'm going to adjust the mutant monster encounters, and the artifacts table for our humanoid near human alien colony that the players are going to be encountering. And  ' The Living Building' has everything that I need going into DMing this weekend. And this makes   The Living Building  perfect for Stars Without Number, Hulks & Horrors, and other OSR Science Fiction  games that use a B/X base. 

Or   The Living Building  could be used with Siege Engine rpg games as well especially James Ward excellent Starship Warden rpg.  Still available through Amazon even though Troll Lords has moved on. 

 The Living Building  is a self contained encounter & works well as an unexpected adventure location that the player's PC's run into. All in all I'm glad to dig out this classic Skirmisher Publishing resource. 

Skirmisher Publishing's The Living Building By  Derek Holland, & The Skirmisher Group For the Mutant Future Retroclone &  Gamma World Rpg Is Available Here 

OSR Review & Commentary Wretched New Flesh - Postcards from Avalidad Rpg By Miguel Ribeiro & Sílvia Clemente

 "Wretched New Flesh is an OSR adaptation of Postcards from Avalidad, a Postmortem Studios setting. This is a near-future sci-fi/ surreal horror game inspired by the works of William S. Burroughs, David Cronenberg, William Gibson, and Clive Barker. Almost 400 pages crammed-full of information about the bizarre world of Avalidad, with mechanics compatible with the previous Wretched games."

"The game setting is centred on Avalidad, a futuristic city in Morocco, where corporations have been conducting research in genetics, cybernetics, augmented and virtual reality, and biotechnology. By default, characters are expected to be ZoneSec operatives or executives for Takeda Technologies, one of the most powerful corporations in Avalidad, but other roles such as Avalidad’s celebrities, fiscal royalty and seedy underbelly are also possible."

So the Red Room folks have been busy again & this time it's a full rpg that we've been waiting for!   Wretched New Flesh - Postcards from Avalidad Rpg  By Miguel Ribeiro &  Sílvia Clemente is perfectly aligned with it's rpg setting. The rpg is readable, well laided out, & is a labor of love. The Wretched New Flesh - Postcards from Avalidad rpg takes Avalidad & brings it to life in a 379 page tour of a futuristically dangerous city alive with elements of the supernatural, high tech, and the dark criminal underbelly of this near future. Sure there have been other rpg other early versions of Postcards From Avalidad Post Mortem Studios.

Wretched New Flesh - Postcards from Avalidad Rpg By By Miguel Ribeiro &  Sílvia Clemente is the definitive version & edition of the game. Why?! Because it features band new additional content & older supplements distilled into one game wrapped around a very Wretchploitation core. Wretched New Flesh does an excellent job of taking the Wretched engine & bringing it in line with the Postcards from Avalidad Rpg setting completely and utterly. And Wretched New Flesh PC's are generated the usual way. The rpg system is pure OSR and does a solid job of casting the PC's in Avalidad   but this isn't the player's only option. Oh no they can be : Assassin, Common Citizen, Cyborg/ Transhuman, Investigator, Man of Action, Proselytizer, Psionic, Rogue and Scholar, plus the optional Conjurer. These classes fit the Earth of Wretched New Flesh. This is an Earth on the edge but the edge of what?! We're not sure, because this is a world where the weird is pronounced in spades. Cults, horrid bio technological weirdness,  transhuman elements, horror, naughty nuns,gun wielding thugs, alien entities  and much worse all await the PC's. 

PC's level out at tenth level and they Wretched Flesh rpg incorporates a psionic & magic system in addition to the high tech weirdness of Avalidad. And so we wind up with an OSR  adventure game that can handle anything from full on horror to neo Noir with little issue. 

Avalidad is not a place that you as a normal person want to get lost in. This is an Earth with a defined timeline going back to the Sixties so the PC's could start with Wretchploitation & end up in Avalidad. Around every corner there's the weird & the  supernatural lurking and it bleeds into this reality. And we're not talking about the nice kind of supernatural here. But Hellraiser and co types  ready to rip your PC's appart. And this is a theme that follows throughout the world of Avalidad. That around some corners PC's shouldn't venture. And it bleeds through into the PC's themselves. Wretched New Flesh - Postcards from Avalidad Rpg By By Miguel Ribeiro &  Sílvia Clemente is a game where the PC's have secrets. And those secrets come out during play as your PC's find themselves against the powers, patrons, and weirdness that makes up the wedding cake of Avalidad  itself. The Zontec organization  gets a huge update as the force of the city that PC's can play or  don't want to run into; "Wretched New Flesh’s setting assumes that most players will (at least) consider taking the role of ZoneSec operatives, more specifically within the black ops’ unit under the command of Clayton Reed. ZoneSec operatives enforce the role of a state police, and their mission is to protect the corporations’ assets, important personnel, and most importantly their secrets. But even within the operatives, there are different loyalties. The ‘official’ operations division is strongly aligned with the Kobayashi Corporation, whereas Clayton Reed’s secret unit answers directly to Takeda." 
Wretched Flesh is an OSR game where the player's PC's can have a direct impact upon the world around them completely and change it for better or worse. And this system gets a work out within the  Wretched New Flesh - Postcards from Avalidad Rpg. And this is a good thing allowing domain change on a quick level of reality from the ground up. A nice quick level montage as we've seen in many classic films. This same system works for the peusdo bio Cyberpunk asthetic of  Wretched New Flesh.

 Wretched New Flesh - Postcards from Avalidad Rpg's Earth isn't one that we want to live in. Adventure in? Oh yes, we've got organe accumulators, psionic drugs, pleasure cyborgs, androids, and many other staples of weird science fiction. We get the Earth of ' Postcards from Avalidad' but distilled down into a usable OSR framework and it's done quite well. Where could  Wretched New Flesh - Postcards from Avalidad be used?! Where couldn't it actually. If one is looking for a weird far future  campaign setting for an OSR game then Wretched New Flesh - Postcards from Avalidad could easily fit the bill.  Wretched New Flesh - Postcards from Avalidad Rpg is a rarity among OSR rpg's because it's actually complere unto itself. All you need are dice, players, paper, and a few sessions in and you've got a campaign going. 

Now let's talk about using  Wretched New Flesh - Postcards from Avalidad Rpg with other OSR systems. The one that comes to mind is actually Mutant Future as a soft post apocalptytic alternative that could be blended in with Wretched New Flesh. Dial this campaign in with Skirmisher Publications Wisdom From The Wastelands & this would be Science Fantasy  campagin with years of play. 

The option that comes to mind is Night Shift Veterans of The Supernatural Wars which could easily work as a supernatural basis for a complete campaign occult adventures campaign. There are in point of fact several future worlds baked into the Night Companion: A Sourcebook for Night Shift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars. 

Is Wretched New Flesh - Postcards from Avalidad Rpg By Miguel Ribeiro &  Sílvia Clemente worth getting?! In a word yes if your players are looking for a complete rpg that works on something akin to David Lynch mixed with Hellraiser mixed with David Cronenberg served with a light side of Cyberpunk style Blade Runner. That being said I want a physical copy as the pdf made my eyes want to bleed from three hundred & seventy nine pages of reading. 

Wretched New Flesh - Postcards from Avalidad Rpg By Miguel Ribeiro &  Sílvia Clemente in PDF Is Available Right Here

VENDORPOSTMORTEM STUDIOS

The Grass Isn't Always Greener - Sunday Morning Prayer Breakfast & Beat Down! Play Report! Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland Rpg & Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise

 Our get together on a Sunday morning finds our group of gamer's PC in the grip of alien sentient mutant plants! The gang of player's PC's are on Cha'alt & in the middle of one of the worst neighborhoods on the planet after a night of partying! The players are hired as bouncers to clean out any left over partiers! Except things are not as they seem for our crew of Eighties inspired cybernetic & energetic degenerates!  The bands have gone and the partiers are no where to be found!?! 

 


That's when the adventurers come face to face with 'The We'eedz'! 'The We'eedz are an invasive alien mutant plant species that loves to infect, eat, and prune humanity and other alien species throughout the galaxy. This heinous species arose after the events of Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise in the day glow radioactive blood  of the Great Old Ones! 

'The We'eedz' wanted to 'neogiate' with the PC's all of the while trying to flank them. Our Heather Britney Bang Bang 3rd level  wasn't having none of this BS & dropped a plasma grenade into the mix.Things went from bad to worse as the weedz then blasted the party with a psionic head bang for 2d6 points of damage. Foo Man the Wonder Wizard of  Waz  5th level Starspawn  wasn't amused and had put up a magic mind shield.  Things went from bad to worse as the weedz took out The Pink Collector Brutacorn 6th level Sarah's PC growing through out the PC's body. Ronald Rogun Cyberskin level 4 got off a lucky grenade toss and cleared the storm drains & the sewer with another plasma grenade. Tiger Tie Night Stalker 5th cut a path for the party through the wee'edz. 
'The Stack' cosmic barbarian & scholar of beat downs snorted a heavy duty bit of cosmic dust and praised lord Randy began to chant in the name of the cosmic gods! The rest of the party joined in! He was praying for a miracle and he got it! Lord Coke Cosmic Smiter of Justice 7th level brought the pain as lightning & thunder rained around the neighborhood frying the wee'eedz around the party. Lord Randy be praised! If the party wants to get off of Cha'alt they gotta keep working it! Because on Cha'alt this is where the pain starts! 

Wee'eedz 
Alignment: Chaotic

Movement: 60 foot

Armor Class:14 

Hit Dice: 4

Attacks:  Henious Thorns, Flying Razor Leaves, Aging Field, or Weapon
Damage: Henious Thorns 1d6, Flying Razor Leaves 2d6, Aging Field, or Weapon

Saves Grit, 13, Agility 11, Resolve 14, Death 14 

Special: 

Grow like the Wind - The Wee'eedz grow 2 foot per round as per their movement 
 Sentient - The Wee'eedz have fed on the blood of the Great Old Ones & have an evil disposition & intelligence geared  towards the destruction of humanity. 

Aging Touch The Wee'Eedz can activate a field once per day for five minutes. Anyone that comes in contact with the plant ages five years for every round and must save versus poison or be stunned for 2d4 rounds

Flying Razor Leaves
The Wee'eedz  has 2d6 leaves that can detach and fly up to a mile away. The plant hears and sees everything that the leaves do. If the leaves are slain, it takes one week to regrow each (e.g., if the plant has lost six leaves then it takes six weeks to regrow all of them.The leaves do 2d6 edged damage. 

To The Max 

1-19 The Wee'eedz grows at at incredible rate seeking  the orafices & soft tissues of its victim. Blood, liquids, guts of its victims body fuel the horror as it shreds anything it can get ahold of! It  to absorb its victim within itself. Does an extra 1d4 damage 

20 Feel The Wee'eedz - The evil mutant plant species deals an extra X6 as it attacks seem to land everywhere! 


So the wee'eedz atre not all that original & were inspired by Skirimisher Publishing's 

Mutant Plant Monsters book which has all of the plant weirdness for the Wee'eedz 

OSR Review & Commentary Magic of the Old West By Tim Ewick, Pat Ewick, & Skirmisher Game Development Group For Cthulhu Live 3rd Edition live-action role-playing game & Call of Cthulhu rpg

" In the 19th century, the American West was marked by booming technology, polarized political beliefs, territorial skirmishes, racial conflict, Civil War, and continuous expansion. This era also brought to the West an influx of other peoples — along with their religious, spiritual, and magical traditions — adding to the cultures of the indigenous Native Americans ones from Europe, China, Mexico, Central America, and Africa. These disparate influences combined with geographical isolationism and the country’s powerful, nearly raw power to alter many rituals and practices and make them uniquely American."

"This supplement to the Gold-bestselling Cthulhu Live 3rd Edition live-action role-playing game of Mythos horror introduces eight magic traditions, a new spell for each, and new mechanics for spells — rituals, components, fast casts, and visible effects — to give players a three-dimensional feel for the magic of the Old West. All of these are rules-light and easily adapted to tabletop games like Call of Cthulhu. "

So a while back Skirmisher Publishing came to me with a ton of titles &  Magic of the Old West By Tim Ewick, Pat Ewick, &  the Skirmisher Game Development Group came up on the drive. Magic of the Old West isn't that expensive at .99 & only comes to six pages. In those six pages it manages to squeeze out a bit about most of the occult practices of the Old West. 
And it's not a bad little add on for other Call of Cthluhu rpg campaigns and this includes Chaosium's Down Darker Trails CoC supplement. 

Down Darker Trails covers a ton of historical Old West & pop culture weirdness such influences such as  Valley of Gwangi, Dead Birds (mythologies ), Bone Tomahawk, Dead Man, The Burrowers, Lone Ranger  comic books & radio program as well El Topo...&  all the spaghetti westerns tropes. 
What Magic of the Old West covers is some of the magicks & occult practices that Down Darker Trails didn't cover such as Vodun, Chinese magicks, some of the plains Native American practices. Even bits and pieces of other traditions of  indigenous Native Americans ones & others imported  from Europe, China, Mexico, Central America, and Africa. And all of this fits right into six pages of gaming goodness. Could Magic of the Old West be used for other Western rpg's?! Yes with some serious modification and I'm seriously looking at the 2d6 goodness of Independence Games Rider rpg here. And while there's no magick in the game per say it wouldn't be to hard to do a bit of conversion. 

How?! Well there's a few options but Michael Brown's 2d6 Magic is an option to add in a bit of that old black magick to the Rider rpg. But that's a blog entry for another time. Skirmisher's Magic of the Old West is a solid little six page old school supplement for your favorite Call of Cthulhu rpg to add a bit of an occult twist or to the Old West. 

You can grab Magic of the Old West By Tim Ewick, Pat Ewick, &  Skirmisher Game Development Group For  Cthulhu Live 3rd Edition live-action role-playing game & Call of Cthulhu rpg Right Here. 

Beyond The Levels - B4 The Lost City by Tom Moldvay & Stars Without Number Revised

 Growing up in no where city that I did we were lucky to find both Science Fiction & Fantasy paperbacks. This isn't a joke & long before the days of book stores on every corner of the Nineties. And so we had to adapt to the Science Fiction & Fantasy that came from tag sales & Antiqurian book dealers in our area. We literally had a pool book club of nerds who would read Science Fiction & Fantasy every month together. This was one of the sneaky ways that my uncle got us to read Science Fiction  arthurs like Arthur C. Clarke & Isaac Asimov. I myself was prone to far more of Science Fiction's red headed sibling Sword & Sorcery. So in the Summer of '81 when Arthur C. Clarke's 'The City & The Stars' &  'Against The Fall of Night' came into our lives. 

My uncle had found a box of God knows how many paperback copies  of these two Arthur C. Clarke novels at a tag sale. And we kids read them cover to cover?! Why because my uncle took parts of these two novels and combined them with B4 The Lost City By Tom Moldvay. Bearing in mind that this long before other products were on the market combining Science Fiction & Fantasy. 
Our party was transported to Tom Moldvay's Lost City but there's far more boiling below the surface. The trick here is to get passed the cult,  Zargon,  & into the lower levels to activate the computer's A.I. & then the city's immortals. This makes total sense if you've A. read the book and B. then dealt with Zargon in the lowest levels of B4 especially with the Wiki entry on 'The City & The Stars'; "The City and the Stars takes place (at least) two and a half billion years from the present —ten rotations of the Galaxy since the apparition of the human species in the novel—(one rotation of the Solar System around the galactic center (galactic year) is equivalent to 220 - 250 million years), in the city of Diaspar. By this time, the Earth is so old that the oceans have gone and humanity has all but left. As far as the people of Diaspar know, theirs is the only city left on the planet. The city of Diaspar is completely enclosed. Nobody has come in or left the city for as long as anybody can remember, and everybody in Diaspar has an instinctive insular conservatism. The story behind this fear of venturing outside the city tells of a race of ruthless invaders which beat humanity back from the stars to Earth, and then made a deal that humanity could live—if they never left the planet.

In Diaspar, the entire city is run by the Central Computer. Not only is the city repaired by machines, but the people themselves are created by the machines as well. The computer creates bodies for the people of Diaspar to live in and stores their minds in its memory at the end of their lives. At any time, only a small number of these people are actually living in Diaspar; the rest are retained in the computer's memory banks.

All the currently existent people of Diaspar have had past "lives" within Diaspar except one person—Alvin, the main character of this story. He is one of only a very small number of "Uniques", different from everybody else in Diaspar, not only because he does not have any past lives to remember, but because instead of fearing the outside, he feels compelled to leave. Alvin has just come to the age where he is considered grown up, and is putting all his energies into trying to find a way out. Eventually, a character called Khedron the Jester helps Alvin use the central computer to find a way out of the city of Diaspar. This involves the discovery that in the remote past, Diaspar was linked to other cities by an underground transport system. This system still exists although its terminal was covered over and sealed with only a secret entrance left." 
Each of the player's PC's in our B/X Dungeons & Dragons Advanced Dungeons & Dragons hybrid game were 'Uniques' regardless of PC class. We solved all of the Myst style puzzles, dealt with weird technology, and more. 

So what does any of this mean for an OSR game such as Stars Without Number Revised ?! The campaign ideas that my uncle laid down are still valid. This is easily true of the Dead Names supplement which could be used to lay the adventure foundation for a pre Scream or Fall of Mankind mega city as campaign location. 

If we marry some of the ideas between Dead Names & Skirmisher Publishing's Quantum Flux then we've got the start some killer Science Fantasy levels for B4. Remember many of the levels of B4 are blank & can easily be customized for the type of campaign both the players & the DM is looking to do! 

Quantum Flux:Unique Superscience Artifacts, pairs really well with Angry Golem's Stars Without Numbers Equipment Database for creating some really nasty & well thought out artifacts for such a campaign. 

OSR Review & Commentary On “100 Oddities for a Vampire Lair,” From Skirmisher Publishing For Your School Game Campaign

 "Welcome to “100 Oddities for a Vampire Lair,” the seventeenth entry in Skirmisher Publishing’s popular and bestselling series of system-free sourcebooks dedicated to inspiring rich stories and spicing up encounter areas with exciting curiosities! 

“100 Oddities for a Vampire Lair” draws on the long spanning multicultural tradition of Vampire myth-telling across the world and, of course, the plentiful body of literature and films that feature them. This supplement is dedicated to the places where Vampires lurk and focuses on the horrors that accompany the denizens of their lairs and provides enough detail on each to bring them to life (so to speak). "

“100 Oddities for a Vampire Lair,” is a system agonistic tool kit from Skirmisher Publishing for dressing up your adventures or old school encounters. Vampires are the focus & one thing to remember is that vampires can be some of the most dangerous thinking NPC monsters in old school games. These undead can come in many varieties. The  Ravenloft campaign setting for Advanced Dungeons & Dragon 1st & 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons have weaponized the vampire. 
Here we have “100 Oddities for a Vampire Lair,” which helps to dress up a vampire's lair within 18 pages with a handful of dice. “100 Oddities for a Vampire Lair,”  is a great addition for a DM's tool box for creating a vampric NPC villain's base of operation. And for a classic dungeon master there's the Dragon magazine article from The Dragon October 1979 #30 'Good Evening' By Lenard Lakofka .

Reference photo taken from Wayne's Books. 

“100 Oddities for a Vampire Lair,” works really well with  the Dragon magazine article from The Dragon October 1979 #30 'Good Evening' By Lenard Lakofka  for creating base or lair, contents, and even perhaps secondary options for adventures & encounters.  So not only can “100 Oddities for a Vampire Lair,” be remote lairs & adventure locations but also lairs in modern cities or fantasy city locations.  “100 Oddities for a Vampire Lair,” goes fast & loose enough to be used with a wide variety of rpg products.  So if we want to take the route of  the Call of Cthulhu rpg  with “100 Oddities for a Vampire Lair,” then there's another Skirmisher Publishing product we can use their classic 'Mythos Society Guide to New England'.  Which goes into the history of vampires in Rhode Island. 

Is there another OSR use for “100 Oddities for a Vampire Lair,” to use this book to generate vampire lairs with Elf Lair Publishing Night Shift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars. 

“100 Oddities for a Vampire Lair,”  From Skirmisher Publishing is agonistic set of tables & reference pieces that brings  that brings home the idea that home & lair are easily the central point of an old school & modern encounter. You can use “100 Oddities for a Vampire Lair,”  From Skirmisher Publishing to dress your dungeons or modern encounters. Its easily worth the down load 

“100 Oddities for a Vampire Lair,”  From Skirmisher Publishing Is Available Right Here