Lord Matteus just put out a charming review of When winter came to Skedemosse.
All in all, I think this is a really good module. Its layout will make it easy to run with little prep. It provides additional background information for campaigns inspired by Scandinavian Viking culture. I’m looking forward to incorporating it into my upcoming Mystara: The Northern Reaches campaign.
A video where I talk about the thief skills in OSR games and why I think Lamentations of the Flame Princess does it best.
Edit on Mars 5: Got some good feedback after this video. My favorite is: Use monster listen checks, when a normal classed character (or a thief that fail their move silently roll) move the monsters get a listen check. If a thief succeed with their move silently check i.e move silently then do not allow a roll.
I will be implementing this in my home game.
Folk DnD.
Folk: as in folk art.
DnD: as in the popular game that became synonymous with tabletop roleplaying.
I really like this expression that I picked up from Questing Beast. You can see the man himself explain it in the video below.
It expresses the joy of the game that has long since diverged from any one brand, rule system or otherwise. It underlines that what is important is how it is played at home around the thousand kitchen tables, discord servers and basements where it is played. Not what some public megacorp thinks you should buy or play!
The culture and memories that are created there. Those homebrew rules blooming out of years and years of gaming experience and the joy of experimentation. The unprofessional folk art created by friends for their own sake documenting some epic event, or commemorating a fallen comrade. Art created just for a few people who were there, not intended for wider audience, for profit or anything else. Art created for five friends. Just for the utterly human urge to create art. It is about those retold stories of the grand battles, taking risk and having a merry old time.
I can still recall battles of old we fought as kids more than twenty years ago in a boy’s room somewhere in southern Sweden. Remembering the comradery, the bravery and the excitement. I still play with some of the people I did back then. Boys then, men now.
Pour a libation to your fallen player characters and to Folk DnD.
Just a quick update on my Scandinavian Iron-age adventure When Winter Came To Skedemosse for Old School Essentials and other retro roleplaying games:
There is now the option of buying a soft-cover print version of the adventure!
Magic item in Dolmenwood: The bag of bleats
Appearance: A bagpipe made from the torso of a long-horn goatman noble. Dark grey fur covers it with the head and horns prominently displayed on the back of the instrument.
Effects:
My own Old School Adventure set in the Scandinavian Vendel period!
Design to be run with Old School Essentials but should work fine with whatever classic B/X clone you like!
Get the PDF on my Itch.io page or print on DriveThruRPG
This has been brewing for a long while and I am finally happy to share it with you.
Collecting some of my favorite Dolmenwood resources I use in my Eaves of Dolmenwood campaign:
The must have offical material Everything Dolmenwood Print + PDF (primarilly all Wormskin zines)
Goatmans’s Goblet has a lot of useful content
Some Lamentation of the Flame Princess modules I have used (or am about to use)
Short summary of each session in a Dolmenwood campaign I am running with my friends over Discord/FoundryVTT.
Mainly for the party to keep track of the main events and who played in what.
We run it drop-in/drop-out campaign letting people join as it fits their schedule.
We run Old-school Essentials (B/X) with these house-rules.
Cast:
Session 1 - Come friendly adventurers and fall on Lankshorn
We have been wanting to try out the original dnd rules as presented by the White box. My son asked me if we could play something where he could play a dragon. So why not, I thought to myself, and picked up this light weight combo:
And off we went to invade a Dwarf fortress full of undead monsters!
I just drew as he explored, giving his character the stats from one of the dragons in the game.
This seems to have gotten him inspired so when I finished work the other day he had prepared a dungeon crawl using (almost) the same set-up. Great way to end the day.
When I finished up work today my five year old son had prepped a Dungeon Crawl (~OD&D rules) he wanted to DM. Perfect ending to my day. pic.twitter.com/IRp750X8i0
— Christopher (@ttrpgdad) January 7, 2021
Happy to announce the second issue of my Mausritter zine Thistle Kingdom!
This winter issue contains:
Check it out on itch.io.