The OSR keeps chugging along, my opinion is that the Old School Renaissance is at its best when an author or company implements older edition rules to detail a specific setting or subgenre. Dungeon Crawl Classic is a great example of how a specific vision can create a memorable product.
Now we have two new products that expands the older edition family of games into interesting direction.
First is a medieval African themed RPG by Kevin Crawford of Stars without Number fame. He has started a kickstarter so you can get in on the action. The minimum buy-in is $8 for the Spears of the Dawn PDF so it looks more than reasonable. There even a preview of the first chapter, character creation, so you can see what you are getting into!
Next is Arrows of Indra RPG by the RPG Pundit which implements older edition gaming using the myths and legends of India. Note that I did the maps for this.
Even if you don't run a campaign using either game as the core rules, the fact they use the older editions as a foundation makes it easy to use the elements of both RPGs to represent various exotic lands on the fringes of your setting.
That's exactly how I'm approaching Arrows of Indra. As soon as it comes out, my PCs are going to be spending a little time in Zindia, a land in the World of Greyhawk southwest of the Sea of Dust...
ReplyDeleteI would count Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea in that category as well, a game which has been called "Dungeons & Elder Things", which is basically the O/AD&D rules set or paradigm applied to a specific setting of Weird, dark fantasy inspired by Clark Ashton Smith and other luminaries. It is VERY effective at what it does, and I love this game to pieces. I just couldn't resist mentioning it.
ReplyDeleteBenoist, that is pretty legit, but it isn't quite the same thing, I think. The role of the Weird in D&D, along with CAS dark fantasy, is not a particularly untrodden area. Appendix N lists Lovecraft, Howard and I think CAS also. We've seen LotFP and Carcosa coming from the OSR.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast, I don't think there have been many Africa or India focused RPG materials, let alone D&D related materials. D20 had Nyambe, and there were some old Dragon articles about both...but not much beyond that!