New Year New Game Sale 2023: My OSR Recommendations

   The New Year New Game sale is on at DTRPG, and here's the offers I recommend.

Whether you've never played OSR games, or you're a veteran looking for something cool, here we go.

This year, despite the sale name, a lot of OSR adventures and supplements are included in the sale!

OSR GAMES

Old-School Essentials - Classic Fantasy Rules Tome - The best retroclone around, a faithful reproduction of the B/X D&D rules, with an exceptional work done on the text to make it clear and user-friendly, with an egregious layout. Recommended if you're new to the OSR and want the distilled, simple experience of the original B/X rules. Everything you need to play in one book. Also, my favorite OSR game.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG Core Book - A glorious OSR game that is not a retroclone but captures the feel of old school games, with unique mechanics that build on a solid d20 system, generally compatible with other OSR stuff. Recommended if you want a more modern cut, while true to the spirit of OSR... and you like crits and fumble tables. And then there's 100+ DCC adventures and supplements that are also on sale.

Worlds Without Number - Kevin Crawford's masterpiece, and one of the most successful games on the whole DrivethruRPG platform. A great game in itself, and a book with tons of tools to generate everything, from world building to adventures, whatever game system you prefer.

Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells, and Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells - Both of Diogo Nogueira's original games are a blend of OSR and modern sensitivity, with streamlined rules and inspired tables.

Maze Rats - a modern classic among non-retroclone OSR games, by Ben Milton.

ZWEIHANDER RPG: Revised Core Rulebook - the Warhammer Fantasy Role Play retroclone... 'nuff said!

AND OSR ADVENTURES & SUPPLEMENTS

Despite the promotion is supposed to be about new games, this year quite a few supplements and adventures made it through the mysterious DrivethruRPG automatic selection and are on offer:

OSE official adventures Hole in the Oak and Incandescent Grottoes. Highly recommended!

And 50+ more third-party OSE-compatible titles are on sale.

The Gardens on Ynn - A point-crawl adventure set in an ever-shifting extradimensional garden, with a system to generate content while you play.

The Stygian Library - Gardens of Ynn's twin, this time a dungeon set in an infinite, extradimensional library.

Luke Gearing's Fever Swamp - a hex-crawl sandbox adventure compatible with BX d&d and its clones.

Pauli Kidd's big huge Wolf's Head Tor, a 233-page mini setting, with a megadungeon included, developed from the author's original 70s campaign! Can you imagine something more old school?

Brad Kerr's latest adventure anthology book, Wyvern Songs. Probably THE OSR BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022. It's so good. I've reviewed it here.

Peril in Olden Wood - An acclaimed, big huge regional adventure for OSE, level 3-5.

Puzzle Dungeon: The Seers Sanctum - A challenging 10 room dungeon for smart players to figure out. Reviewed it here.

Chris Kutalik's Slumbering Ursine Dunes - A widely and wildly acclaimed setting, point-crawl, and sourcebook, compatible with BX d&d and its retroclones.

Ben Milton's The Waking of Willowby Hall - A lovely adventure scenario for Knave.

WHAT ABOUT MY STUFF?!?!?

For reasons I can't fathom, my OSR stuff was not selected for the current sale. No worries though, the Falkrest Abbey adventure for OSE is still up for just $1, and my OSE e-zines are out there as Pay What You Want.

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Into OSR? Check my other OSR posts!

HeroQuest: The Arena Quest Set-Up

  Here's another of the improvised HeroQuest games I played with my 7yo son was particularly interesting so I thought why not share it on the blog? You can see it in the picture.

 

The board: I used the arena from the Immersive Battle Maps book.

The set-up: The hero started at centre of the board. I placed one of each type of the green and white monsters at sides of the arena. I should have placed the grey ones too from the beginning, at another side, but I didn't, so I added them at a second time.

The objective: Defeat as many monsters as possible before succumbing. When a hero reaches zero Body Points, the challenge is over and they are taken out of the arena and healed of all wounds. For each defeated monster, the hero receives a reward of 10 gold coins.

I didn't think of a special prize in case all monsters were defeated, but now I think it could be a great addition.

Special Rules: At every Zargon's turn, 1 monster enters the arena. Zargon decides which one enters.

Setting your own Arena quest

Ideally, this set-up works best with a large areas. If you only have the standard HeroQuest components, I suggest putting all the open doors on the board, carefully placing them (and the wall blocker markers) to create a maze-y environment. You probably want to exclude the 1-square corridors, because those will create boring fights. Then, I would put the heroes in the central room, with four open doors, and the monsters grouped in the furthest rooms.
 This might actually be more fun than a single, large, open area.

Scaling with Players

I went with 1 monster per monster type, and had 1 monster enter the arena at every Zargon's turn. With more players, I guess it should work with 1 monster per player entering the arena at every turn.

What Story?

The arena set-up can fit well as an alternative to the trite "you've been captured and wake up inside a cell" scenario. This time, you've been captured and the diabolical Big Bad Guy wants you to entertain him.

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Into HeroQuest? Check out my other HeroQuest Posts!

HeroQuest: The "Pac-Man Quest" Set-Up

 One of the improvised HeroQuest games I played with my 7yo son was particularly interesting so I thought why not share it on the blog? You can see it in the picture. I shared this very pic on facebook and one user said it looked like Pac-Man, which is quite accurate, so here's my "Pac-Man Quest" set-up.

 

The board: I used the hedge maze from the Immersive Battle Maps book.

The set-up: The hero started at one side of the board. I placed three chests at three different locations in the maze, the gargoyle ("just a statue") in the central dais, and a dozen undead scattered around the maze.

The objective: Finding the desired object (can't remember what the story was, sorry) inside one of the three chests.

Special Rules: All the monsters are already on the board, and they all move during Zargon's turn. They can go towards the hero, or set up ambushes or try to defend the chests. I had no idea which was the right chest: when the hero opened one, I rolled a die to see if it was the right one (5 or 6 on a red die for the first chest opened; 4, 5 or 6 for the second; and automatic for the last). The chests that don't contain the mcguffin contain a random treasure card. If/when all the chests are opened, the gargoyle statue animates, and it can fly over the maze walls to assault the hero.

Setting your own "PacMan" quest

This type of quest set-up can be duplicated with other boards or even with standard HeroQuest components. All you need is a maze-like environment with long, meandering passages.

With the regular HeroQuest board you can achieve the same effect by putting all the open doors on the board from the beginning, carefully placing them (and the wall blocker markers) to create a maze.

What Monsters? How Many?

The best monsters for this se-up are slow. Zombies and mummies create a good crescendo of threat, and allow players to evaluate the fights they'll have to face when they choose a path, including maneuvering to outflank large groups. As a rule of thumb, 10 monsters +3 per player should make a decent challenge.

What Story?

The chest inside the maze can hold anything really: the map or key to the next quest, or the enchanted item needed to defeat the Big Bad Evil Guy or to foil their plans.

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Into HeroQuest? Check out my other HeroQuest Posts!