The Gaming Den

I'm considering trying my hand at Drakar och Demoner, the Swedish household name. The original game from about 1982 was almost a strict translation of D&D, but the game took on a life of its own briefly thereafter. It's at its sixth edition today and still totally dominates the Swedish RPG culture. Never played it myself, but looking at the titanic amount of released products, it feels like an overwhelming task to undertake. And, Swedish is my fourth language, so it might prove pretty demanding.

I started reading the fifth edition, and the first page is already fucking fantastic. It not only has a very concise and cute Foreword from the developer, it also boasts a very tight team roster with a singular tyrant developer who was there from the first edition, which probably means the whole book is a nightmarish load of in-jokes and a decade's worth of baggage mostly only legible to His Majesty himself, but also a small sidebar where he apologises for using "han"("him") in place of "han eller hon." He wanted to underline that he's just trying to reduce the word count, not be sexist. In 1994.

Even if I don't review this, I will read it. It's gonna be awesome.

You know what someone really needs to OSSR the Book of Weeaboo Fightan' Magic aka Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords. I'm pretty sure that no other source book has the same hype vrs reality disconnected a least with in the 3.5 library. Someone needs to set the record straight.

Lord Mistborn wrote:You know what someone really needs to OSSR the Book of Weeaboo Fightan' Magic aka Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords. I'm pretty sure that no other source book has the same hype vrs reality disconnected a least with in the 3.5 library. Someone needs to set the record straight.

That's a really good request that I second. I own it, but I don't know that I have the scathing vitriol for an entertaining review.

I was toying with doing Heroes of Horror once August rolls around and it's ten years old.

We've got reviews for Bo9S from before the OSSR Era

Mask_De_H wrote:We've got reviews for Bo9S from before the OSSR Era

We do. But they tend to be focused on how Desert Wind sucks, and of course completely miss the broader historical context because it obviously wasn't known at the time.

The review bogs down in the minutiae of whether and how much each maneuver was worth being a sword wielder to have. The fact that the entire system was a hastily packaged port from a scrapped version of a 4th edition D&D that never was came out years later.

-Username17

That review also seems to miss the most OP maneuver in the whole book: White Raven Tactics. A 3rd level boost (aka swift action at 5th level) that gives an extra turn to an ally at the cost of just -1 initiative. Yes, full turn and they get to do whatever they want.

And you can arguably use it in yourself over and over as long as you don't mind sinking yourself in minus infinite initiative. Which is hardly a problem when nobody else gonna's get another round.

On the other hand, it's low level enough that you can turn it into a cheap magic item for the same effect. Sigh. Even when fighters get nice things, they're given in a way that casters can easily snatch them and throw the fighter away.

I'd like to request an OSSR of Charnel Houses of Europe: The Shoah, or if that is too heavy, then at least a quick primer on just how bad it actually is and why.

I know some people who need to hear it.

Since there was an OSSR of oWoD Werewolf's Rokea book, maybe someone could do one for the Mokole or Gurahl breed book as well?

I'll try to do Mokole. I've got things to say about those weird fuckers. And breed books are short, so I might actually get that finished.

Would someone be interested in reviewing old d20 adventure modules, like the popular ones from Necromancer Games? You always read that WotC sucked at making 3E adventures and 3rd party publishers were putting out the real shit, and I wonder if that's actually true. From our 2016 perspective, that is.

Because while I like the weird d20 modules put out by Atlas Games, I was pretty underwhelmed while flipping through Hall of the Rainbow Mage or The Vault of Larin Karr, and those are two titles that appear on like every Top-10 adventure modules list for d20/3E.

I'd like to see someone do d20 Apocalypse, from the d20 Modern line.

I'd like to see someone do Underground from Mayfair games.

The adds in Dragon always fascinated me as a young teen (up until I hit my White Wolf phase and I promptly forgot about anything that was not pretentious bullshit for a few years).

All I know is I'm swearing off OSSRs until I finish Space Madness!. That project is an albatross around my neck.

Ancient History wrote:All I know is I'm swearing off OSSRs until I finish Space Madness!. That project is an albatross around my neck.

A combination of Fallout 4 and working on Spooky Scary Classes and a campaign for them has me behind, like, four or five OSSRs. I guess I should fix that now that Brother-Captain Imperator is level 70-something on Fallout...

Antariuk wrote:Would someone be interested in reviewing old d20 adventure modules, like the popular ones from Necromancer Games? You always read that WotC sucked at making 3E adventures and 3rd party publishers were putting out the real shit, and I wonder if that's actually true. From our 2016 perspective, that is.

Because while I like the weird d20 modules put out by Atlas Games, I was pretty underwhelmed while flipping through Hall of the Rainbow Mage or The Vault of Larin Karr, and those are two titles that appear on like every Top-10 adventure modules list for d20/3E.

Based on my experience with that Ancient Kingdoms: Mesopotamia OSSR, I am not sure how enlightening OSSRing an adventure can be. Particularly the ones from Necromancer Games and the like that tend to be really just be dungeoncrawls and hexcrawls. You can read through them and be like, "This is a cool encounter", or "this minisystem does not make any sense", but it is difficult to derive any coherent messages from them. And when you run a published adventure, there is such a great divergence between what is written down and what actually gets played, based on the MC's whim and the player's past actions and any other number of minor factors. Something like "four goblins in a room" is super generic on paper, but it has the potential to be a memorable encounter if played well.

I skimmed through Larin Karr at one point, I think. It's pretty neat that the area map has an above ground layer and an Underdark layer, and it's even neater that you can follow the various passages and discover connections and pop up all of the place. But most of its writing and encounter design did seem quite average.

Anyone ever do an OSSR of Paizo's Golarian books "Inner Sea Campaign Guide" or such? I'm curious what the issues are with Golarion.

Anyone ever do an OSSR of Paizo's Golarian books "Inner Sea Campaign Guide" or such? I'm curious what the issues are with Golarion.

There are two Golarion setting books, "Pathfinder Chronicles: Campaign Setting" from the 3.5 era and the "Inner Sea World Guide" which is the updated PF version. The differences are minor to moderate, Paizo fiddled with their timelines a bit and changed some cultures and details to reflect developments from all the modules and Adventure Paths, but the basic gist is the same. It's like going to McDonald's, you either leave still being hungry or you get sick, there's no middle-ground. Golarion is a kitchen sink with a lot less elf wank than the FR, but a lot more pop culture memes of the 2000's thrown into the mix. If you just need a place to run 2-3 Adventure Paths or whatever it works ok, but don't expect any cohesive metaplot or anything like that ever.

Antariuk wrote:There are two Golarion setting books, "Pathfinder Chronicles: Campaign Setting" from the 3.5 era and the "Inner Sea World Guide" which is the updated PF version. The differences are minor to moderate, Paizo fiddled with their timelines a bit and changed some cultures and details to reflect developments from all the modules and Adventure Paths, but the basic gist is the same. It's like going to McDonald's, you either leave still being hungry or you get sick, there's no middle-ground. Golarion is a kitchen sink with a lot less elf wank than the FR, but a lot more pop culture memes of the 2000's thrown into the mix. If you just need a place to run 2-3 Adventure Paths or whatever it works ok, but don't expect any cohesive metaplot or anything like that ever.

I'm doing a Giantslayer game and have done a little more reading of the setting. Seems alright from what i've read, I'm just curious to get a little more criticism. Most settings, from what I've observed, have some kind of serious issue with them that the designer forgot to think about, or didn't know about.

What's up with the 'Conan vs Magic Robots' area, and is there an Adventure Path associated with it?

That should be Numeria (I think?), where people loot laser rifles and EMP grenades out of a giant crashed alien ship that makes up one of the country's mountains. I think there's an evil techno-guild or something that controls the export of technology, but I'm hazy on the details. But there is indeed a recent AP called "Iron Gods" that plays in that region and harps on old modules like Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and other stuff.

Another OSSR request:Maximum Xcrawl powered by pathfinder. A bunch of new versions of the Monk, Wizard, Cleric, Fighter, Bard and Rogue.

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/133 ... Pathfinder

I'm going to request the D20 Immortals Handbook and its accompanying Bestiary. You know, the one where size categories go up to "bigger than the universe" and are legitimately monsters with 680d1000 Hit Dice.

hyzmarca wrote:I'm going to request the D20 Immortals Handbook and its accompanying Bestiary. You know, the one where size categories go up to "bigger than the universe" and are legitimately monsters with 680d1000 Hit Dice.

I too would like to see this.