I've been meaning to try out the 1PG system for some time now. With the various 1PG games selling for $3.95 a pop, you can hardly go wrong. Especially when you consider that their selection hits all the right genre notes. Broadsword is the latest addition to the 1PG family. It's pure Howard-style swords & sorcery (no Tolkien added) brought to you by Jeff Mejia, Jeff Hebert, and James Stubbs. Jeff Mejia is perhaps better known as the Evil DM. He's a huge fan of Conan and barbarian fiction in general and totally the kind of guy I want writing a game like this. I need another game about axe-swinging barbarians like I need another hole in the head, but I trust Jeff to do it up right. Jeff Hebert is the guy behind HeroMachine, which is one of the bestest things ever created in the entire history of the universe. He also has a nifty blog. I pretty sure I don't know James Stubbs from Adam, but if the two Jeffs vouch for him then he's okay in my book.
So anyway, if you dig mighty-thewed maniacs chopping down demons and sorcerers, then you might want to check out Broadsword.
I haven't really followed Wolfgang Baur's Open Design project. I'm not even entirely sure I know what the hell it is. But in these dark days of the impending end of Dragon and Dungeon, Baur's announcement of a new D&D zine is welcome news, even if the zine is to be in PDF format. Kobold Quarterly is being offered at $12 for 4 issues. Here are the highlights of issue 1:
- The first installment of the Princes of Hell series
- A Dungeon Design column about the Underdark
- Monster tables for the Empire of the Ghouls
- An interview with Paizo Publisher Erik Mona
- A monster ecology chosen by Open Design patrons
- Overview of the Free City of Zobeck
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Kobold Quarterly is of potential interest to me, but I didn't get much of a sense of what you thought of it/why you'd recommend it.
ReplyDeleteI'm always (somewhat desperately) interested in new gaming 'zines, if they're good ones. I don't much care what system they're for; I just skim past the statblocks to get to the Stuff.
Hrm. I visited the website and they don't seem to be making the first issue for sale individually ... You apparently have to subscribe, sight-unseen. That worries me something fierce. I can't even find a preview download (but I could be overlooking it).
ReplyDeleteTell me what's awesome in there, man. The publishers don't seem to want us to know.
I don't have a good read on Kobold Quarterly yet. Wolfgang Baur is spoken of favorably by folks who remember his work on several 90s-era TSR settings I never really followed: Al Qadim, Planescape, that sort of stuff. Since then he's done a lot of work in the 3rd party D&D scene. He editted Dungeon for a while, so he ought to know what a decent adventure looks like. Was he one of the guys who worked on the unreleased Magic: The Gathering RPG? I think so.
ReplyDeleteSo nothing specific interests me about the zine just yet. At this stage I'm pretty much just delighted at the prospect of a random file of goodies appearing on a quarterly basis.
Ah. I misunderstood your post entirely, then. Sorry to bother you.
ReplyDeleteNo problem. BTW, I was catching up on Blue Room updates today. Thanks for re-assuring me that the AD&D books I started on were more cheaply made than earlier versions. Me and my buds positively destroyed my original PHB and Unearthed Arcana. I eventually removed the pages and three-hole punched them to put in a ring binder. And my first DMG is a coverless mess.
ReplyDeleteThe tiny Advanced books never did much for me. But some days I'm tempted to buy one of the somewhat rarer boxed sets. They did a Moldvay Basic and a World of Greyhawk. Imagine the tiny map of the Flanaess!
I hear the maps in Open Design products are totally awesome...
ReplyDeleteThe Unearthed Arcana, in particular, was legendary for falling apart at the seams if you breathed on it too hard, but all of the orange spines were very shoddy goods (cheaply glued, nothing sewn). We had a lot of books that would get the spine panel going wobbly within a couple of weeks. Of course, we used to hit each other with them, but we were a rough group. :)
ReplyDeleteI knew they did a Moldvay Basic (and lots of other boxes - even some later ones like the Elminster's Ecology and that Drow city thing), but I didn't know they did a miniature Greyhawk box. Damn.
Honest to Gruumsh, if I still had even the remotest interest in running AD&D1, I'd hunt down a core set and use those for regular play. I'm a sucker for anything portable :)