Having recently run the first two Enemy Within books, I am tempted to say Graeme Davis but I'm also a big Vornheim-fan, so Zak would also be high on my list.

How about you?

Clerics must have their
holy symbol in one hand, for the entire round,
no dropping anything at the beginning of the
round, and no moving the entire round in order
to cast a spell.

I don't see any similar restriction for magic-users and elves. Does that mean only clerics have a movement restriction during the round they cast a spell? I'm guessing so, but just want to double-check.

Is it any good? Any tips for running it?

Thanx!

Tell!

Me, I'm 34 now, I lived in the US (Connecticut, Georgia, Florida) before moving to Finland. I started gaming either in December 1983 or 1984, can't remember which it was, with the Mentzer red box. After moving to Atlanta to go to school in 1992, I drifted out of gaming since it just seemed everyone wanted to play Vampire or Magic and I wasn't interested.

In the early 00s I wanted to get back into gaming, but nothing at the local game store caught my interest. So I thought I'd make my own RPG. After most of the writing was done, I got online to find that, well, there were websites and forums dedicated to RPGs. Surprise! This was 2003, I think? Maybe 2004?

When I moved to Finland, I decided I was going to play old school D&D, so I re-bought the books and got a group. Aside from a 4-5 month HERO System game, I've been playing the old D&D versions, or one of the clones, since March/April 2006.

Also since that time, I've toyed around with amateur publishing projects, some to good effect, some which were ill-considered disasters. In July 2009 I decided getting a normal job wasn't for me so I started my own publishing company, hoping that I've learned from my earlier mistakes.

Things are looking pretty good so far.

You?

Pistol – ROF:1/2  -- Accuracy: Treats chain and plate as leather -- Damage: 1d4 + firers level (minimum +1)

Arquebus – normal shot ROF: 1/2 -- Accuracy: Treats chain and plate as leather -- Damage: 1d6 + firers level (minimum +1)

Arquebus – small shot ROF: 1/2 -- Accuracy: No hit roll, victims save to avoid damage -- Damage: 1d4 + level against a small cluster of opponents, save for half

Misfire – on an unadjusted hit roll of 2-5 the firearm jams and will need to be cleared, taking 1d6 turns. On a roll of 1 the firearm explodes, requiring a saving throw vs. (???). Success means the wielder suffers a normal hit (including level adjustment). Failure results in the wielder losing fingers, an eye, their jaw, etc and being reduced to 1 - (1d4) HP

The first is the Winter of the World saga by Michael Scott Rohan. While more "mythic" in format, this series of fantasy novels does remind one of weird fantasy in general and many of the elements of LotFP in particular. To begin with, magic is rare and magic items are rarer; magic items hold awesome power but also great risk, and are unique; a mage-smith ("magic-user" who crafts magical items) can wear armour and wield all sorts of weapons; and so on. And the creatures are either weird monstrosities, animals or both. There are no orcs or goblins in these books, but the purely human Ekwesh; no Elves, but the Alvar, who are [spoiler]degenerated humans[/spoiler]; and the Dwarves are a dying sub-species of man. Monsters in these novels tend to be weird and unique, from the "rusalka" to the dragons to the Hunt to particularly strange animals, and most combat is with human foes or animals with monsters being particularly horrifying to combat.

The second is a computer game, actually my second overall favorite computer game ever (after System Shock from 1993), Thief: Dark Project from 1997. This game falls almost squarely into the weird fantasy genre, and most technology and society fit LotFP's assumptions quite neatly. There are Things Man Was Not Supposed to Know; a struggle between Law (Hammerites) and Chaos (the Trickster); a Lawful church which could be good, but could also be quite cruel (complete with inquisitors and torture chambers); and almost all monsters are not archetypal vanilla-fantasy ones (with the exception of zombies, giant spiders and fire elementals). There are also weird lost cities, magic items which have very negative sides, and relatively little magic. Mages are secretive and rarely involved. The sequel, Thief 2: The Metal Age from 2000 is less weird fantasy and more Jules Verne-esque thriller with a particularly nasty and powerful mad scientist as the villain. The setting is a relatively dark, corrupt city with many horrors in store.

Believe it or not, there was actually publisher interest in some of this material.  However, I've decided to release this into the wilds for free under a Creative Commons license in the spirit of DIY gaming.  The best gaming material I've seen since I started blogging has been freely available on OSR blogs and forums; consider this my way of saying "thank you" for all the inspiration and good gaming you've all given me.

I've done my best to make the Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque compendium well-formatted, typo-free, and well-organized, but this is an amateur hobby production.  If you download this, let me know what you think I could do better in the future.

Enjoy, and Happy Gaming!

On p3 it is stated that the there are no small animals, bugs or spiders in the surface area about the inn complex. Why is this? I'm guessing it's intended to be something to do with the mosquito bats in the attic, which would explain the lack of squirrels and such... but insects as well?

Cheers,
Gavin

I've never had a worse nap in my life. Paralyzed. Darkness darker than pitch black. Tendrils coiling and writhing behind my eyes. A millstone grinding, the dust settling in the cracks of my mind. I woke up just as stiff as I was before, perhaps stiffer.

The others woke up funny as well. Vira, her unfocused eyes darting each which way, mouthing inaudible words to invisible people. The lines on her face trace unearned years of age. I last saw Walbert fixated on the runes carved into the wall, looking lost like a child at the spiderbazaar. Rouge woke up shaken and refuses to ever sleep again. Micrin is normally bright, but we find him cowering in the rear, holding his hammer as if it were a stuffed spiderbear. Ramuh... he's become even more like himself, perhaps the most terrifying of all?

But, you know what? We've been through worse. I've been through worse. This sort of stuff doesn't faze me any more -- like water off a spiderduck's back.

During the watch, we found a lock box. Inside was the chalice we saw in that painting. The painting we found in the cabin above us. The painting of all of us, the new kid holding the goblet, and an altar of a giant skeleton.

We left the crypt and pushed into a corridor blocked by a giant plant-like plant thing. Tendrils attacked us, we burned it. We burnt it all. Behind the plant was a door to an altar.

I'm running this using a 4E hack. The look on my players' faces when they found out that they would not be getting any of the benefits of an extended rest was priceless. A few of them picked up some insanities too.

Now, I was wondering if anyone has suggestions for an insanity system to use. I have the original Dungeon Masters Guide, which has insanity rules, as does OSRIC. I'll probably use one of those unless anyone has anything else to suggest.

$7,000 basic goal to get the Rules & Magic book into hardcover.

But you'll want to pick the $110 level of contribution.

Seriously.

I've got bonus goals that will stretch to over $100,000, and the bonus items get added to the $110 level automatically as they are reached.

We're talking potentially 25 books for that $110 -- including shipping. The more people contribute (and the more money they contribute) the more everyone gets.

(The Finnish post office charges the same for a package weighing 2001g as it does 4999g, so might as well take advantage of that, right?).

... and I still have a couple names that need to get back to me about their availability, but the lineup I already have for the bonus items include adventures by the biggest names gaming has ever seen.

(Regrettably my attempts to get big-name not-RPG authors fell through - the ones that were interested couldn't commit to writing an adventure by the end of July, which would be necessary if I want all this stuff mailed by the end of the year... but I guess they wouldn't be big-name authors if they weren't busy, right?)

So beg, borrow, and steal that $110 and get ready because none of it gets made without being funded first.

More soon.

I was GMing. Playing, we had MINER, COOPER, and MASON, all 0-level commoners, of occupations you can tease out.

For drinks, some Bud Platinum thing and some Abita stuff. For eats, meatloaf cake and fresh ceviche.

I started them at Zeke's cabin. Each of them had something/someone precious to them either taken by bandits or destroyed by bandits. They had nothing to lose, we stipulated, and were seeking the place the bandits were holing up. They were holing up in the DFD mountain. Bad idea. I populated the complex with bandits in various states of dismemberment.

The guys talked with Zeke for a while and got him to lead them up the mountain. Our commoners have 1, 2, and 3 max HP respectively. Zeke gives them the spiel, and off they go.

They scout the house, super cautious like, and proceed to burn everything that's not bolted down.

This may have something to do with running Tomb of Horrors the time before.

They started the bonfire outside the cabin with the magic harpsichord. Then they broke the painting over it and burned it too. Then all the facing-you-when-you-walk-in chairs. Then the time travel clock. And then the big huge book of the dead that Zeke copies out of. Then they figure: you know what? He's probably going to be unhappy about that (n.b.).

The only things they didn't burn were the deer head, the purple lotus powder, and the mirror.

MINER's eyes lit up when he found the lotus powder. He took a spoonful, felt it tickling his nose, and immediately grabbed the mirror and cut out lines for everyone. Everyone else said "You first." MINER said sure.

The random effect was to lose max HP. MINER only had 1 HP anyway; so it's like whatever. Guy's got more HP than sense. He's drugged out of his mind for 15 minutes, and they keep the powder and move on through the trap door. The guys tie a rope around the petrified cabin door to keep things steady and start exploring the complex proper.

They go around stomping on skeletal hands, reconfiguring them on pedestals, pushing open Dead Sign doors with their eyes closed, and finally they come to the big chapel. Poor COOPER. It seemed so legit to start playing that organ, but of course he failed his save. A killer performance. MINER made his save, though: yellow mold? Pfft.

WELCOME TO THE OSR MOMENT: COOPER's player: "I'm dead!? But I have 3 HP!" ME: "It's save vs death. It wouldn't matter if you had 800 HP." Him: "So what do I do?" Me: "Just roll up a new guy." Five minutes later, back in the game.

So they leave MINER's body there and head to the surface to recharge and rest. And then MINER gets to thinking: I bet that crazy mountain man is going to kill us. MASON doesn't want to have anything to do with the killing, but then COOPER's replacement character SMITH comes up the mountain, childhood friends, of course. MINER cues him in on the sitch, and SMITH is like, well, of course we have to kill this guy.

But how to kill Zeke? Zeke would take them in a straight fight no problem. MINER's player asks SMITH's player, "Hey, do you have any bellows?" And, you know what? SMITH's player had already written that down in his gear. So, yeah. They fill the bellows with the remaining powder and blow a big poof in Zeke's face while he's offering them dessert-squirrel. Overdose. Dead. And there's some residual powder remaining in the bellows (n.b.).

Poetically, the trio digs a grave for Zeke and carves a headstone for him. He's the first grave you come to now on the ascent: "CRAZY ZEKE." The party rehydrates some jerky and makes a fine stew. Turns in the for night. Now, back to the dungeon.

MINER of course grabs the cursed items from the altar. He doesn't know their cursed yet. After some exploration of the rest of the available complex, they're at a bottleneck: how to get through the tooth door? MINER cuts his palm with the cursed dagger and offers the blood to the altar. Try again. After a while, they figure they need a fresh tooth. I say yep. MINER volunteers. He's got 1 HP, remember; so why not? He gets SMITH to blow the residual powder in his face, and when he's hallucinating nice and fine (he actually rolled the same result again on the d100 table), SMITH breaks out a tooth with a horseshoe. Drop in the basin, and blam: new area opened.

And that's where we had to quit. I imagine they guys will make it through in one more session. We had an awesome time, and, James, you did a great job creating atmosphere for this thing. The whole way, the "bad scene" vibe was smacking everybody upside the head.

And basically there's an option to make player character vampire also... That could be one adventure seed. Character is turned into a vampire and he wants a cure! Some old tales tell that killing the master vampire will break the curse but what if after slaying him doesn't turn player character into human again? Time for plan B... but what is it? Plan B is a campaign to find a cure for vampirism while struggling with dark desire of blood.

I [insert f-bomb) love it!