The next five maps are avaliable! Fantastic Wilderlands Beyonde is released

I am pleased to announce the release of the Fantastic Wilderlands Beyonde. This is one of four products covering the eighteen maps that encompasses the Judges Guild Wilderlands setting. This product covers five of the maps as detailed below. The four sets combined will cover a region equal in size to Western Europe providing years and decades of adventuring for you and your group.

Unlike many setting products, the Wilderlands sketches out the overview and history in light detail. Then presents a comprehensive list of local detail in a compact format that is customizable. This eliminates much of the tedious work involved in creating a setting and allows the referee to focus on the campaign and the grand adventures the players face as their characters.

This is presented at two products both in PDF and Print on Demand.

This product is a 38 page Guidebook for the five maps of the Fantastic Wilderlands Beyonde. The books has an introduction and commentary by Robert S. Conley who has used the Wilderlands as his main fantasy campaign for nearly forty years. Each map is detailed with the following listings: Villages, Castles and Citadels, Idyllic Isles, Ruins and Relics, and Lurid Lairs.

Included with the Guidebook are letter sized blank map of the Wilderlands that can be used to take notes during a campaign. A PDF with the map legend. A letter size black and white guide to the placement of each of the 18 maps within the Wilderlands. This guidebook covers the City State of the World Emperor Map Six, Desert Lands Map Seven, Sea of Five Maps Map Eight, Elphand Lands Map Nine, and Lenap Map Ten.

Finally a giant sized preliminary version of the master map that I used to crop the individual maps from. With the right printer this can be printed as a full scale map 5 feet wide and 8 feet long. With the PDF you can selectively copy out regions as complete maps that overlap the borders of the 18 maps. After the release of the final set of maps this file will be updated as a layered PDF allowing for custom maps of the Wilderlands to be copied or created.

The second product is a set of five maps:  City State of the World Emperor Map Six, Desert Lands Map Seven, Sea of Five Maps Map Eight, Elphand Lands Map Nine, and Lenap Map Ten.. When ordered via print on the demand they are printed in two overlapping halves each on a 12" by 18" poster. In addition each map is presented as a 22" by 17" PDF file.

The maps have been redrawn from the original in a color style. Instead of the distinct symbols of the original maps, terrain has been drawn as a  transparent fill and vegetation represented by colored areas. This allows both terrain and vegetation to overlap. Representing more accurately the complexity and diversity of the Wilderland's geography.

This release will be followed by the Wilderlands of the Magic Realm in a few weeks covering the next four maps of the Wilderlands.

A preview PDF

The Fantastic Wilderlands Beyonde Guidebook

The Fantastic Wilderlands Beyonde Color Map

Updating the OSR Survey

For a long time I had this page attached to the blog. It is a survey of selected sites and links that promoted themselves part of the OSR or were about playing, publishing, or promoting a classic edition of D&D. It needs updating as it still get a significant number of hits

So  calling on the wisdom of the crowd for updated links and additional links to be included. The criteria is either it promotes itself explicitly as part of the OSR or the link is about playing, promoting, or publishing something based on the classic editions of DnD. This includes material like White Star or Star without Numbers.

I will look at the comments made for the next two weeks as well add in my own decisions.

My goal for the survey to give a novice a taste of the range of material and fuel further searches on their own. Along with selected items of personal interest that I wish to highlight.

With 3,000+ works identifying as OSR on RPGNow alone there no way a single individual can hope to present a comprehensive list unless that their primary interest. Even Guy Fullerton with Hoard and Hordes with a narrower focus on material supporting Gygaxian DnD, had to switch to a methodology of "stuff I am aware of" after 2012.

SJ Games opens the door for The Fantasy Trip

In a very interesting bit of news, SJ Games announced they are going to instituted a limited publishing agreement where fans of TFT can publish on Warehouse 23 and earn royalties.

SJ Games is a pioneer in selling games and gaming PDFs on-line. At first through their e23 site and then later through their combined Warehouse 23 store. And both were open to other publishers and their games.

I had the opinion for a long time, that unlike other game companies their existing infrastructure allowed them open out their RPG and give them additional options than just throwing everything into the OGL or into the hands of another company. I am glad they are taking advantage of that for the The Fantasy Trip.

And hopefully if TFT goes well, GURPS is next. Expect a post breaking things down when the Limited Publishing Agreement is posted.

How much detail at the start of a campaign?

One thing many referee wrestle with is how much detail to give about the setting? The short answer is that as much as they need. Yet that not helpful because the execution can be challenging. Why? It not a one size fits all. Different players have different level of interest even within the same group.

What I been doing for the past five or six years is regardless of the system I am using I try to come up with a concise list of classes/templates, and races/cultures. I pitch possible areas of the setting where they can start at along with various initial situation. Through a back and forth conversation we arrive at a consensus.

Then I do a informal pre-game interview with each player to gauge want they want to play and their level of interest. From that I give them what they need to generate the character, write up a background giving what their character know from their point of view. Both presented as tersely as possible.

Example from a recent campaign

• a halfling knight riding a pig as a mount from Limerick Shire. 

• A cleric of Hamakhis, a death god, who left temple and the demands of his father to become a pirate on the high seas. Still wants to serve Hamakhis and eventually gain enough power to become the next Vecna (i.e. my setting's equivalent). for the greater glory of Hamakhis.

Two of the players had a greater interest in their character background.

• A merchant adventurer striking out on his own from his merchant house. He is not one good terms with his father. This was followed by a two page write up of what he knew about the economics, merchants, and trade details of the region. Most of it was traveller style lists.

• The second player wanted to play a full blood Viridian, a demonic race that part of my Majestic Wilderlands. He is essentially a underground mage. He was bought by his master and trained as a artificer, a type of magic user in my setting, eventually winning enough of his respect to win his freedom. They parted on friendly terms and have a patron client relationship. He got a page on how the underground magic society of black magic, demonic sorcery, etc of Viridistan the City State of the ex World Emperor (killed by PCs two decades ago in real time). 

I tweaked each of their backgrounds so they had reason to cooperate on their broad goals .

Beyond that all I gave them a concise write up of the larger world. i.e. City State of the Invincible Overlord to the east, Desert to the south, and so forth and so on. Try to limit to a paragraph or two.

Basically a even more concise version what I wrote in my Majestic Wilderlands supplement throwing everything that a inhabitant of Viridistan Region would not know.

Oh and there were maps accompanying all this just because I like doing that sort of thing.