On My Gaming Table
What I'mcurrrently running/playing
Old-School D&D, AD&D, & Retro-clones Galore
- AD&D 2e Rules Online
- Adventurer, Conqueror, King (D&D Rules Cyclopedia clone)
- Adventures Dark & Deep ("what-if" alternate Gygaxian 2e AD&D)
- Arrows Of Indra (Vedic India-themed OSR game)
- Basic Fantasy RPG (d20 SRD-derived D&D clone)
- Buy Old School Editions From WotC
- Castles & Crusades (Old/new school fusion)
- Dark Dungeons (D&D Rules Cyclopedia clone)
- Dragonsfoot (Online 1e support community)
- Fantastic Heroes & Witchery
- Flying Swordsmen (OSR-powered Wuxia Fantasy RPG)
- Hackmaster 5th Edition free downloads
- Labyrinth Lord (D&D clone)
- Lamentations Of The Flame Princess (D&D "weird fantasy" clone)
- Legendary Quest (d30-based rules with OSR feel)
- Mazes & Minotaurs ("what-if" the 1st RPG had been inspired by Greek myth instead of Tolkien?)
- Monsters & Magic (OSR game using 3d6 instead of 1d20)
- Mutant Future (Gamma World clone, powered by Labyrinth Lord rules)
- Myth & Magic (2e AD&D clone)
- OSRIC (1e AD&D clone)
- Spears Of The Dawn (OSR African-themed RPG)
- Spellcraft & Swordplay (pre-D&D Chainmail clone)
- Swords & Wizardry (D&D clone)
- Swords & Wizardry SRD
OSR RPG Blogs
- Akratic Wizardry
- almostoldschool
- Bat In The Attic
- Beyond The Black Gate
- d20 Dark Ages
- Delta's D&D Hotspot
- Gothridge Manor
- Greyhawk Grognard
- Hack & Slash
- Playing D&D With Porn Stars (not really OSR, but a usually a fun read)
- RetroRoleplaying
- Tales Of The Grotesque and Dungeonesque
- Tenkar's Tavern
- The Disoriented Ranger
- The Dragon's Flagon
- The Society of Torch, Pole and Rope
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Recent Posts
- What Is ESSENTIAL To D&D? If You Said, “d20s & Vancian Magic,” Spellcraft & Swordplay Would Like A Word With You…
- “Oriental” Adventures Done Right: The Flying Swordsmen RPG
- Classic Campaign Setting Review: Spelljammer
- Things To Do Different With The Drow…
- Now THIS is old-school: A review of the Cavemaster RPG
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Author Archives: thebobgoblin
What Is ESSENTIAL To D&D? If You Said, “d20s & Vancian Magic,” Spellcraft & Swordplay Would Like A Word With You…
Once upon a time, the d20 was optional. Dungeons & Dragons got its start as an add-on to the miniatures wargame, Chainmail. That much, I had known for years. What I didn’t know before reading Jason Vey’s OSR effort, Spellcraft … Continue reading
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“Oriental” Adventures Done Right: The Flying Swordsmen RPG
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Oriental Adventures, often rendered in shorthand these days as “1E OA,” was the first role-playing product I ever bought with my own money. As a wee gamer in the making, my tastes in fantasy had run … Continue reading
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Classic Campaign Setting Review: Spelljammer
SUMMARY: Inventive, wildly imaginative, great set of tools for the ultimate sandbox-style campaign, but suffers from too much focus on other settings and never really comes into its own. SPELLJAMMER was one of the first campaign setting boxed sets published … Continue reading
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Things To Do Different With The Drow…
Let’s be honest. Drizzt D0Urden ruined the drow. Before he came along, they were at least somewhat mysterious. And not entirely predictable, either: despite their long association with The Forgotten Realms, it’s often overlooked that the dark elves first appeared … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Breaking With Canon, D&D, Drow, Eberron, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk
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Now THIS is old-school: A review of the Cavemaster RPG
There’s a school of thought which argues that a role-playing game’s mechanics should reflect or evoke its genre. I don’t agree that it’s always necessary — a good GM and her players working with a flexible set of rules they … Continue reading
A Wild Idea; Beastly, Really
Meanwhile, I’ve been writing my own OSR game, specifically for use with the animal fantasy genre. It’s grown out of efforts to simplify and streamline my current 3.5 campaign, in which all the players are portraying nonhuman animals; like many … Continue reading
Posted in General Remarks
Tagged Animal Player Characters, Old School Renaissance, Open Game License, OSR, OSR games, Retro-clones
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In Thunder’s Wake: An Alternate Shazam-verse Concept For Old-School Supers RPGs
The most popular super hero character of the Golden Age was Captain Marvel (aka Shazam!), who out-sold Superman and Batman by millions. But it didn’t last; by the early 50s, sales of superhero comics overall had declined sharply, and Fawcett … Continue reading
Posted in General Remarks
Tagged Alternate Shazam-verse, Homebrew Settings, In Thunder's Wake, Supers RPGs
3 Comments
A unified d20 mechanic, old school style
One of the things that attracted me to 3.x edition D&D was its (seemingly) streamlined core d20 mechanic. Rather than cobbling together a mish-mash of different dice mechanics for different aspects of the game, 3.x pulled almost everything together under … Continue reading
Posted in General Remarks
Tagged 3.x D&D, Animals As PCs, Armor Class, D&D, d20 System, House Rules
3 Comments
House Rule: Human Multi-classing in old-school games
One of the design priorities of the early editions was crafting a human-dominant world. But I’ve often questioned the game-design choices made to accomplish this goal. The supposed strength of humanity in old-school D&D — its racial ability, if you … Continue reading
Bunnies & Burrows: The best Old School RPG you’ve probably never heard of
I’m currently DMing a 3.5 campaign in which all the player characters are nonhuman animals. We meet every two weeks, and most of the group seem to be enjoying themselves a great deal. The party consists of a black bear … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews
Tagged Animal Player Characters, Bunnies & Burrows, Call Of Cthulhu, Game Reviews
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Bobgoblin's Bastion 