Sunday, November 29, 2009

Barrataria's Companion Expansion

I'm always up for pimping other OSR products on the ol' PRG blog, soooooo...


Here is a cool new product in which one can mine some great ideas for their LL/old-school game. With Barrataria Games' Companion Expansion, GMs can introduce new spells, magic items, classes (half-ogre!), and rules to slice and dice your characters up to 36th level.


The Companion Expansion is an obvious labor of love and a useful gift to the OSR. You can check out the no-art version here for FREE! Barrataria plans to release a POD version soon, filled with glorious art and old-school happiness.


Give it a test-drive to see if a little (or a lot) of the CE can fit into your current game.




Saturday, November 7, 2009

Creative ideas: Thanks, Green Devil Face

I finally purchased LotFP's Green Devil Face (#1-3) based off a harsh review from the Pundit over at The RPG Site. As a fan of Raggi’s writing and a supporter of the OSR, I pimped GDF here on this blog. After all the cool things I’ve heard about these ‘zines, it’s funny that it took a bad review to finally make me take the plunge and buy GDF.

Man, I wish that I had not waited to get these. As a writer of RPG adventures, reading GDF is a true inspiration of what one can produce when you really stop giving a %#@$ about what others think or how adventures are “supposed” to be written.

Sometimes we need to step back and say, “This is fantasy. I can do ANYTHING I want to make this more interesting and fun.”

So far the best thing I can say about reading GDF is that it has sparked in me some fun ideas. I love that. Would I use all the traps found in GDF in my own adventures? Nooooooooooooo freaking way, but that’s not the point. It’s the creativity of what GDF’s contributors put into their ideas that I get off on (whether they work or not).

Personally, I loved the humor and satire found in issue #1 (and, no, I don’t know everyone Raggi is picking on, so although the inside jokes might go over my head, the set ups are still freaking cool, if not unusual and surreal). I would like to see more of that carried into future issues of GDF. I love it when an RPG resource can stimulate ideas while tearing me up in laughter.

Also, I must say that the imagery within Caleb Jensen’s Beware the Red Stream in issue #3 could be used by David Lynch should he decide to direct a “D&D” movie. I love it.

Anyway, as I said, GDF has spawned some fun ideas in me and I am in the process of putting those ideas down in a mini adventure that I plan to submit for a future issue of GDF. Whether it gets published there or not is not up to me, but I’m having fun with the extra burst of creativity.

As for future PRG releases, I think there will be one or two areas within each new adventure where I’ll think to myself: WWGDFD?