Yet another journey into looking at random RPG PDFs and commenting on them without reflection or preparation of any significant kind because that's how you get the real shit. Like this one.
Rogueland is a 40 page PDF by Caverns of Heresy (I don't know who this is!) with some art from LF OSR, HODAG!, and Gnarled Monsters. These are all presented as "@" handles. Maybe it's my age, but it's jarring to not see "real names" like Sputter McFly or Nattie Doolittle. But that's cool.
The game looks really good. It starts off by giving a tip of the hat to Knave and Ars Magica as well as some old computer games like Zork.
You can tell something about a game by just browsing the table of contents. Here we see that it kicks of with a map, then straight into character creation. This is my preferred way of creating and experiencing RPGs, personally. If I have to page through 80 pages before I get anything about character creation or mechanics I'm likely not gonna make it.
Um... we see learn the game comes at page 10. Then rogue magic, the bazzar, encoutners, adventures, locales... I can see what's going on here. This is one of them adventure games. I like it.
"This game uses player-facing, roll-high, d20 mechanics, and is best played with 1 to 5 players and a game master." My favorite kind of game.
There is a lot of Knave in here. Lots of roll tables for characteristics, equipment, etc. I like how meat and potatoes this is, honestly. Straight to the point.
The magic system is ala Knave as well, with a combination of action plus object to create spells on the fly. There are no spell descriptions. If you can cast Conceal Medicine... well... that's what the spell does. I actually really really love this system, honestly. One of things about D&D spells that I dislike are spell levels. Firstly because many of them feel arbitrary... like why is Sleep level 1 but Levitate is level 2? Fuckin' Sleep is a murder spell but Levitate lets you float up.
Oh wait... they do include a d100 table of pre-described spells. But they are so simple, I dig it. This is how I did it in GOZR so I must approve. Example: X-Ray Vision: You gain X-Ray vision. BAM.
There's a bestiary and magic items section, and a beefy exploration/adventure section. The game's main focus is definitely on exploration adventures. Also my favorite genre of RPG. And god damn there's a lovely section of very simple adventure locations with nice little hex maps and a brief description. Then a section of specific dungeons you can plop into them.
Cool character sheet on the back. I see the Usage Die getting some love.
This is tops. Looks great, it's a breezy read, and honestly looks to be god damn useful. I want a printed copy of this. I would 100% use this to run D&D-style games.
Willow: A Grim Micro Setting is an OSR sandbox adventure by Lazy Litch and it looks really cool. Great maps and art. The thing is just a module for use with games like Labyrinth Lord, so there isn't much to talk about in terms of system. Lots of NPCs, location descriptions, rumors, etc. I see crow folk and rat folk... and lots of cool looking relationship maps. Looks like something you could pick up and run with pretty easily with your game of choice (maybe Roguelike!).
Dungeon Reavers is a pocketmod game by Gnarled Monster (hey, didn't we just read about them above?). I'm not sure what it is but it looks like maybe a Knave-style game presented as economically as possible to fit the format. Looks cool.
I don't have a problem with these kinds of very lite games at all. But I do wonder if they are every used? I love 'em for their inspirational value. I would just like to print this off and look at it and maybe make characters. But would I RUN it? I dunno. I can easily run adventures with B/X, or OSE, or whatever. I don't need this. But it's cool anyway. We do need cool stuff, so please keep making cool stuff.
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