DCC: A Mirror to Appendix N

While it isn’t sold as an OSR game, Dungeon Crawl Classics is my favorite OSR game. It actually goes beyond the OSR, all the way back to Appendix N, and rebuilds from there. While the OSR is very interested in simulating specific versions of the rules, DCC is more a game that takes the “look and feel” of the 1970s and early 80s, and develops the game in a new direction, taking 3.5E concepts and rebuilding the entire game from the chassis up.

Joseph Goodman has been explicit about this from the start. He didn’t set out to clone B/X or 1e. He spent years reading every book on Gygax’s Appendix N list—Howard, Vance, Moorcock, Leiber, Burroughs, Wellman, Anderson, the pulps—and then asked what a game would look like if it tried to enable those stories instead of recreating the 1974 or 1981 rulebooks that grew out of them. The result uses a streamlined 3.5 chassis (d20, classes, three saves) but immediately starts tearing it apart and putting it back together in service of that older, weirder literature.

That’s the real difference. A lot of OSR work is an act of preservation or reconstruction: get the math of B/X just right, make the modules interchangeable, recapture the exact procedures of a particular edition. DCC treats those editions as one possible outcome of Appendix N, not the destination. Magic isn’t a reliable resource you spend; it’s dangerous, unpredictable, and frequently corrupting, the way it is in Vance or Moorcock. Warriors don’t just swing a sword—they attempt Mighty Deeds that let them do the kind of cinematic, slightly impossible things Conan or Fafhrd actually do on the page. Characters start as 0-level nobodies rolled 3d6 down the line and thrown into a funnel because that’s how a lot of those stories begin: ordinary people with no special destiny, just the scores they were born with, tossed into the meat grinder until they either die or become legends. Luck is a real, spendable, dwindling resource because pulp heroes live on it.

The art and presentation lean hard into the same era without being a museum piece. Doug Kovacs, Jim Roslof, and Jim Holloway- that whole late-70s/early-80s visual language of lava-lamp covers, shag-carpet grimness, and velvet-poster excess. It looks like the paperbacks on the shelf when those first games were being played, not a later attempt to recreate the rulebooks those games produced.

This is why it sits in a strange but productive place. It’s “OSR” in the sense that it wants the same sense of wonder, lethality, and player-driven chaos that people chase in the old books. It’s not OSR in the sense that it refuses to stay inside the fences of any particular edition. In the core book, Goodman asked other publishers to consider moving past the boundaries of “TSR mimicry” and go one era further back. The game itself followed through on that idea.

The more I play it, the more I think that’s the part that actually feels old-school to me now: not the exact procedures, but the willingness to let the literature lead and the rules follow. A lot of the OSR is still in conversation with D&D itself. DCC just went and held a mirror up to Appendix N instead.

Shadowdark is My Favorite Version of 5E

I like the other alternate 5E systems. Tales of the Valiant keeps the familiar chassis and sands off some of the worst 5E edges. Level Up Advanced 5E gives you more options, more depth, and more things to tinker with if that’s the game you want. Both are solid. I own them, I’ve run them, I get why people like them.

Shadowdark is the one I actually want to play.

It’s clean. It’s simple. It’s easy. You sit down, you make a character in minutes, and you’re in the dungeon. No feat tax, no bloated skill list, no “let me look that up” every other round. The traditional DC system just works: roll d20, add your modifier, beat the number. That’s it.

And it handles magic perfectly.

No spell slots. You know your spells. You try to cast one by rolling against a DC based on the spell’s tier. Succeed, and it happens — you can try it again later. Fail, and that spell is gone until you rest. Natural 1 and something goes wrong (mishap table for wizards, atonement for priests). That’s it. Magic feels dangerous again instead of being a reliable toolbox you manage like a spreadsheet.

I’m not flipping through hundreds of pages of rules just to sit down and play a game. One book. Real-time torch. Darkness that actually matters.

This isn’t a traditional rules-light game. There aren’t many rules, but the ones that exist- the real-time torch, the tight focus, the way failure actually costs you- create an intense experience. Shadowdark is laser-focused on dungeon runs. It does dungeon crawling better than 5E.

Mainstream 5E feels more interested in character-building. It puts the burden of balancing the mess the players’ creativity creates on the referee. “I’m a monk-warlock-paladin!” What is even that? What game-breaking powers does this combo bring to the table? I’m sure we’ll all find out together and suffer through it as the adventure is blown through with ease.

If I want expansions, they’re there. The community has published a lot of good stuff — extra classes, new ancestries, whole settings, adventures that slot right in. Variety is there for the taking if that’s what you’re after.

But the core stays tight. The torch timer keeps the table moving. There’s no time to debate the perfect multiclass combo or flip through three sourcebooks looking for the right feat. The light is burning. The dungeon is waiting. You either go forward, or you go back.

That’s the difference. 5E keeps adding more character options and then asks the referee to make it all work. Shadowdark gives you a focused game and lets the community add the extras on top if you want them. The crawl itself never gets buried.

That’s the game I want to run tonight.

Mail Room: Dungeon Dwelling Creatures (DCC)

From DCC, MCC, Star Crawl, and XCrawl, Goodman Games has the best "games for your imagination" in the industry right now. Today, we continue that run with Dungeon Dwelling Creatures, a DCC-genre game where you play the monsters. I got the crowdfunding PDF release for this today, and I like this game.

The monsters are quirky and strange, sort of mirroring DCC-style classes, but using the system in interesting and unique ways. Instead of luck, we get Vile, which is your Luck-like "power of evil." All the monsters have an icky factor, and none of them are cute or adorable. A huge problem with "play a monster" games is that they get too cutesy and chibi, and that opens the door to hurt feelings and problem players. A cute fairy dragon with butterfly wings would be inappropriate for this game, where a spider that sucks people's brains out would fit right in.

I would love to see expansion monsters for this game. What we have is great, quirky, and cool.

This reminds me of the Monsters Monsters! game from Flying Buffalo, the spiritual successor to the classic Tunnels & Trolls game. You play the monsters. Civilization is crushing you. You are the minions and mooks that live in a dungeon (and even the DCC modules) as the bad guys. The good guys show up and crush your dreams, loot the place, laugh, and head back to town.

A few times.

Maybe they burn everything out in a 10-minute adventure day, and you are watching them pull the typical party nonsense by coming back daily. Maybe you follow them back to town and give them a lesson in how the monsters who put up with this nonsense teach them a lesson.

This is close to being a new, major game in the DCC line, and it feels like a surprise release. The bestiary is excellent and covers many more of the classics than the main DCC book. This feels like "the other side" of the DCC experience, putting players in an unfamiliar yet cool situation.

You are the monsters.

Deal with those pesky heroes.

A very surprising release, and I can't wait to get my hardcover.

(Cross-posted from SBRPG.com on 7/12)

The Nice and Easy Doldrums

What I love about the OSR community is that most people are playing. The community tends to be quiet since there is no "Wizards outrage" or "theorycrafting." Part of the fun of 5E is the constant stream of information, but with BX, we have the problem of having "the perfect game" and not needing endless expansions and rules tweaks for broken builds. We aren't comparing different games (we could), and most everything is compatible with whatever set of rules we prefer.

Right now? I am waiting for the OSE revision books and the Infernal Tome PDF.

Otherwise, I am happy with the near-infinite worlds these tiny books contain.

Remixing the Old School Essentials Fighter

I did this on my Gonzo blog, but we have gotten new options and a few changes coming, so it is time to revisit this article. This was cross-posted on the SBRPG blog as well.

One of the reasons I originally felt so indifferent toward Old School Essentials was the fighter class, which doesn't really have much "to" it compared to other OSR games. On the surface, the class is just a d8 hit die, all weapons and armor, and the best to-hit table. Despite its simplicity, you can push the class to high performance within the rules and with a few optional rules.

Weapon Proficiency

First, use the optional weapon proficiency rule (OSE-AF-PT, 23) and specialize in a single weapon for +1 to hit and damage. If your STR is high, this will stack significantly and make a huge difference.

Racial Abilities

The second thing you can do is use the character races with the modifiers, giving your fighter some extra abilities. Humans will get these, too, if you lift the race class and level restrictions (OSE-AF-PT, 78 & 86), and these abilities are beneficial for fighters. Even other races' abilities are helpful for fighters, with some having AC bonuses and making excellent defensive warriors.

Early Domains

You will also advance faster than many other classes, so save that money, use hirelings, and establish that domain early. You can do this at any level. Even a small wooden building is a domain structure and can be built in 3 days for 1,500 gp. This can attract a small camp of settlers and followers; through story events, these could be loyal warrior retainers.

Use these rules. If the hex you start in is your claim, which is unsettled and unclaimed land, build that stronghold and get those followers early. You may find that the fighter and his loyal band of warriors can even outshine the mage and other classes quickly.

Magic Items

Magic items are upgrades! There are many more than the usual "magic weapons and armor" here, and many items are must-haves for an epic hero. If you can find a particular pair of gauntlets, or a girdle of giant strength (far better in OSE than it is in 5E by miles), prepare to amaze even 5E players with how epic and cool your character becomes. Magic items are more critical for OSE character upgrades than in 5E.

This is what I love about the old-school games: the rules may not give you a lot of '5E freebie powers,' but you can more than make up for that with smart play, roleplaying, and steering your character's story right. This level of engagement is what makes these games so rewarding.

Carcass Crawler One

Well, let's keep looking for some more official inspirations and options published in the official 'zine publications, in this case, Carcass Crawler Issue One.

CC1 - Gargantuans

In this issue, we get the gargantuan player race (CC1, p21), and when used as a stand-alone character option, it can level to 10th level as a fighter. This race can also wield two-handed weapons with one hand, using the OSE "attacking with two weapons" rule (OSEAFP, p236), for a -2 on the primary weapon and a -4 on the secondary, and two attacks a turn total.

Combine that with the high strength to-hit modifiers of the gargantuan, the high damage of two-handed weapons, weapon proficiencies (OSEAFP, p23), and you will have a beast of a half-giant character who is a literal wrecking machine in combat, even at level one. This is one of the most potent melee builds in the game, and you do not need to mod the game to have it with official rules sources.

CC1 - Goblins

There are other races here that make for some excellent fighter options, such as the goblin getting a +2 AC versus large creatures (CC1, p22), making them an excellent choice as a defensive "nut" versus dragons and other large beasties, especially in plate mail with a shield. The goblin can get to 8th level as a fighter, which is good given the scope of most campaigns.

The infravision and detection options of goblins are also convenient, along with a high CON-based resistance save modifier. With a CON of 15-17, they get a +4 to all saving throws versus poison, spells, and magic wands, rods, and staves (CC1, p22)! That is a crazy good saving throw modifier, one of the best in the game. Do not sleep on a goblin fighter; they can be lethal and highly survivable.

CC1 - Black Powder Weapons

We have rules for black-power weapons in this issue, too, perfect for high-seas swashbuckling and pirate-themed games, as well as early colonial horror gaming settings, like Lamentations of the Flame Princess. OSE has you covered if you want to use this system with Renaissance and Colonial-Era gaming.

CC1 - Combat Talents

We have something for any type of fighter, too, even our brute or any other fighter in the game! We get Combat Talents (CC1, p. 28), which give our fighters new abilities at levels 1, 5, and 10! We can select cleave, which provides us with a Swords & Wizardry-style ability to strike a second opponent when one is defeated. There are leadership, defensive, two-weapon, and other options here that beef up our fighters and make them feel like other old-school games in the OSR genre.

Carcass Crawler Five

Of note here is the special materials article, which includes both adamantine and mithral as armor and weapon upgrades, for lower weight and extra AC and damage. Also, there is no rule saying adamantine magic weapons and armor cannot exist, but such an item would be amazingly rare and powerful.

Also note that the bone, bronze, and stone options in this article are perfect for OSE Dark Sun games.

Scout Magazine One

Don't sleep on the great third-party zines for OSE! There is an optional rule in this edition allowing fighters to replace their attack bonus with their level, giving them the best to-hits in the game. This is a potentially game-breaking change, as it means +14 at 14th level, versus the old value of +9, so that is a five-point swing for just fighters.

Even at level one, this is the only class that gets a +1 attack bonus. This makes a fighter a strong choice, even for new characters. By level two, you are starting to outpace the group in delivering hits in battle.

But considering this will allow pure fighters to outshine paladins, rangers, and the other "+9 at level 14" classes, changes my mind on this houserule, and elevates pure fighters into lethal dealers of death who can consistently land blows on anyone foolish enough to get close. This also sets them apart from those classes in terms of being able to hit, while those other fighter classes begin to get all sorts of special abilities.

Also, considering that most campaigns will never reach level 14, and level 10 is a better, more reasonable campaign end for many, that would only be a +3 difference, which feels about right. If the game ever gets to level 14, let them have it. The highest AC in OSE is the gold dragon at AC 21, so that is still a 7+ to-hit, or a 30% miss rate for the +14 maxxed out fighter. Figure another +5 for STR and magic item bonuses, and we are at 2+, which is still not game-breaking.

Those are sure-thing hits, but compare that to the power of other 14th-level characters, and I would say sure-thing hits at max-level are a great class feature for them, considering they get very little else.

An alternative way to do this is just bump the existing attack bonus table up by +2 and cap it at +11 at 14. That is a good mid-ground compromise, but another part of me feels "add the fighter level" is cleaner and more of a dramatic change the class needs. Fighters give up so much for so little benefit.

This is becoming one of my favorite OSE fighter houserules, and it eliminates the need to pull in the S&W fighter rules for OSE. And the Scout Magazine books are excellent; they feel very close to official content, and they are very well-made and interesting.

OSE Fighters are Good

Fighters seem weak at first glance, but there are a lot of options here. The basic fighter is one of the reasons I look at games like Swords & Wizardry and OSRIC, just to give that class a few more abilities and interesting play mechanics. We are getting 1 HD multi-attacks as an optional rule in the new version of the game, so things will change.

But until the new edition drops, there is plenty we can do to make the fighter class attractive and back to being the damage dealers and frontline soldiers that we expect them to be. All of these options and houserules add a lot to the fighter and place it among the best class choices in OSE.

This is the old school; if something seems broken, we don't head out to crowdfunding sites to buy new games. We find fixes for the games we got, use them, patch, houserule, and tailor the game to our liking. We check community sites and third-party zines for fixes. We share information and let others know about the rules and zines we use.

And then, we play.

OSRIC 3.0

OSRIC 3.0 is a milestone release. This is a gold standard implementation of 1E, and the best books you can buy to teach and learn the game. Unlike the earlier reference document versions of the game, this edition has been expanded with examples and organization ideal for learning and teaching the game. The original AD&D books aren't always easy to follow or learn, and this edition is the best of the best for playing the OG 1E game.

This is an amazing release, with free PDFs, beautiful art, and hardcovers. Even the single-volume softcover is a beautiful "table copy" of the game, and a worthy gift to those into 1E and the original, more survival-focused game.

I love the "dungeon survival" elements of 1E, and this reminds me of modern, co-op crafting and survival sandbox games that are insanely popular today. The classes are easier than their 5E co
unterparts, which feel like superheroes overloaded with so many powers and rules that they become unplayable and not always easy to figure out "what they can do" during a turn. Modern 5E classes are a confusing mess, whereas 1E classes are straightforward and easy to manage.

If I have an NPC Paladin, in 5E, I usually have no clue what they can do unless I design them in a character creation tool. In a 1E game? I know what they can do right away. The whole point of a class-based game is to simplify and aggregate abilities and powers, and 5E is completely backward in this regard. With 1E, a thief, wizard, fighter, cleric - I know what they can do.

Compared to Adventures Dark & Deep, OSRIC is the easier game, with far fewer additions and extra features that weigh it down. While I appreciate ADAD's completeness and expansions, there are times all I want is "basic 1E" without all the new additions. You could play both and pull in elements from both games into one, and use ADAD as the expansion, or you could just play OSRIC and keep things simple and basic.

Both are amazing games.

ADAD is the more "all the stuff plus more" edition of the game, with some amazing expansion books. For some, ADAD will be too much game, and OSRIC is the better choice. For others, ADAD will be an abundant cornucopia of 1E ideas and new content. Both have that meaty, wonderful, deep, and rich survival-based, old-school game that lives through the blood, soul, and essence of the game.

Everyone is a winner with these games, and they are both highly recommended.

DCC Is Still My Jam

Games come and go, but DCC is still my jam. The game has that "fun factor" to it, where you get emergent play through the tables, your actions, spending lock, and random chance. This beats 5E for me eac hand every time, and even games like Nimble. The character sheets are far easier: you are not micromanaging a build, there is no multiclassing, and the zine culture ensures I have a wealth of adventures, classes, spells, and other material for my worlds and adventures.

The game is designed around table play, conventions, and making each class fun. Some 5E classes are just not fun to play. Every class in DCC is fun, even the cleric. I get a blast out of playing them, and they are awesome. There is something to a game in which the designers ask, "How is this class fun?"

Many games miss that, put the OSR too high on a pedestal, and don't think of "fun first."

I appreciate the attention to detail at Goodman Games. Watch any of their videos about their crowdfunding projects, and you'll see them talking about their boxes, paper quality, art, presentation, cover artists, and a commitment to quality and to getting it right. Some say Joseph Goodman comes across as a bit slick, like a guy who runs a used car lot, but I see someone who genuinely cares about what they ship every day, what goes out the door, how they look as a company, and their values. He is one of the good guys left in the hobby, easily on par with the crew at Troll Lord Games.

And DCC is fun. It stays out of the way. The game isn't about the rules; it is about the fun they can deliver. I think this is where 5E lost its way, the game is too focused on character power, loading characters up like over-decorated Christmas trees full of ornaments and flocking, and 5E characters are heavy and bloated - nobody is asking "is this power any fun at the table?" You will get a poorly-designed subclass you want to take, it will give you a power that is essentially a save modifier or some other minor stat adjustment, and it isn't any fun! It does nothing. The power just adds another paragraph to an already overloaded character sheet.

75% of the junk 5E throws at you is not fun, has little use at the table, and it is just another "thing to have." This is the collector's mentality, but brought to character sheets.

There is no power or ability in a DCC character that I don't use during play. 95% of them are useful and fun. The game drills down on the fun of the designs, makes them iconic, and it does not waste your time with fluff and pointless powers that you need but never use.

And DDC is weird, and it has managed to stay in the realm of strangeness even after 100 adventures. I get the feeling D&D has been stuck in its product identity IP for decades now, and can't escape it. Blah blah blah, another mind flayer with a displacer beast. The drow. A beholder. The githyanki are back with a cloaker. It is funny that all these "strange monsters" were intended to be "things no player has seen before" in the original Greyhawk campaign, and here we are, 50 years later, enshrining them on a pedestal as "definitive fantasy gaming."

See all those monsters on the DCC module covers? Those are the same thing. Strange monsters no one has seen before. Only in DCC do they not enshrine them, make them part of the product identity, and try to sell you nostalgia with them. One and done, and they move on to the next strange beast.

I am sick of the D&D product identity, and the team at Wizards is not committed to doing much of anything new. They are a nostalgia strip mine at this point. The current team does not have the ability to write a new adventure on the level of The Tomb of Horrors.

They do not have the commitment to quality.

Nor do they prioritize imagination and new things.

And they do not design for fun.

While Goodman Games & DCC? That is how they compete with a billion-dollar company. They enshrine those core values in everything they do and stay focused on delivery. Those values are what they sell. This is why they are the third-place company in the industry right now, right behind Paizo.

And the recent break between DCC and the OSR (the social media post featuring a sign reading "DCC != OSR" in the Goodman offices) was not a slight against the OSR, but a declaration that their values are what they deliver first. The OSR is a nebulous thing; there is one YouTube channel that can declare "X is OSR," and they will control your brand. If the current OSR-de-jour conflicts with the core values the company delivers, guess what? The game is not OSR and should not try to live up to outside values.

Goodman Games sells its values first.

Nobody controls who they are or what they sell.

And they have done an amazing job figuring out exactly what people want.

They sell fun based on the memories of a golden age.

Castles & Crusades Players Handbook – Collector’s Pack

https://trolllord.com/product/castles-crusades-players-handbook-collectors-pack/

Oh, this is beautiful. Troll Lord Games is coming out with a Castles & Crusades Players Handbook – Collector’s Pack, with a new cover and the 11th Edition printing. Nothing has changed, which is wonderful, but we are getting a new cover!

There are some other nice things in here, such as a coffee mug, canvas printing, a mouse pad, stickers, and a few other goodies to be revealed. The preorder is up now!

The best dungeon-crawling game just got better.

Dungeon Crawl Classics: Beloved

Dungeon Crawl Classics is gaining a cult following and a beloved status. There was one D&D YouTuber who criticized the game as a paragon of poor organization, only to eat their words after fans called them out. It is not poorly organized; the style harkens back to the original inspirations and the adventures' style. An apology was issued, and all is well, but the episode highlighted that the game is not like Old School Essentials and has sort of established itself as a different experience, catering to a different audience.

This is a game where you read the adventure rather than skimming it or just looking at bullet points.

While I like the condensed, OSE-style of clear organization and bullet-pointing of all the rooms' contents, that style is more their game, and I enjoy taking time to prep a level of an adventure and having enough flavor text to figure out what is going on, while also being entertained and enjoying the reading.

But DCC is an excellent game, and while some say it is OSR, I feel it has moved beyond the OSR and become something all its own. It is one of the best D&D 3.5E reimaginings, with Appendix N inspiration and a gonzo aesthetic.

DCC is less old-school and more gonzo science fantasy.

OSE is more OSR and traditional fantasy.

The OSR and the OGL

One of the best things to happen in gaming is the messy divorce between the OGL and the OSR. What Wizards did by attacking the OGL and destroying it forced the community out of their lazy comfort zone and fired up designers and players to create real alternatives.

Everyone knew how easy it was to use the OGL, clone SRD content, and rely on D&D's popularity to sell their games. After the OGL's death, people were forced to change.

And the games we have gotten since then are original, free from license issues, free for the community to support, and the entire event put a shot of sorely-needed energy into third-party publishers and those who play these games.

Wizards created their competitors.

Goodman Games has stepped up and become a major player. Troll Lord Games is incredible with Castles & Crusades, and this went OGL-free. Shadowdark became an overnight juggernaut. Games like Adventures Dark and Deep, OSRIC, Swords & Wizardry, ACKS, and Hyperborea all stepped up. Old School Essentials is going OGL-free. People got behind the alternatives instead of half-heartedly supporting them.

Even the 5E clones are doing relatively well. Paizo has benefited and is stronger than it was.

The 2d6 games under the OGL are moving forward, creating new concepts and ideas, and improving the game overall, rather than relying on familiarity and nostalgia. What the OGL did was tie us to the old ways, and now that we have broken free, the OSR can innovate and flourish. People were always too worried about "breaking familiarity," but now they have to innovate to survive.

The OSR benefited from this innovation once the OGL's chains were broken.

Even games outside of the OSR are using OSR concepts and gameplay.

It is a better world without the OGL.

Kickstarter: Book of Fell Wisdom (Adventures Dark & Deep)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brwgames/adventures-dark-and-deep-book-of-fell-wisdom

I like Adventures Dark & Deep a lot. As an expanded and reimagined first edition game, it is one of the best we have outside of OSRIC. We are getting a new book this year: basically, everything that didn't make it into the ADAD tomes we have, plus some of the PDF-exclusive evil classes the creator put out. And here is a list from the notification pager:

• Clerical servants of demon lords
• Necromancers
• Witches
• Alchemy
• Ley Lines
• Demiplanes
• New spells
• Followers for high-level characters
• Courtly intrigue
• Generational play

I am looking forward to this one a lot, since ADAD is the de facto new standard of first-edition gaming, expanded and beautifully presented in two massive tomes of first-edition goodness. Outside of Old School Essentials, this is one of the best OSR games out there, well worth your attention, and it captures the 1E vibe perfectly.

The Kickstarter should be happening in the next week, sometime from what I hear, so put this one on your radar, and if you haven't checked this out, please do so!

Cleaning Up My DCC Library

I have too much junk!

The zine culture, small publishing, endless modules, crowd-funded mega modules, and all this other "stuff" for DCC have my game bloated and unplayable. The DCC bloat feels as bad as the Shadowdark bloat at this time, and I find myself having to pare down my collection to the absolute best of the best and put all the junk in storage.

I am there with 5E, and I found focusing my collection just on Tales of the Valiant, and using the Shard VTT to support it with character creation, is my best answer for the mire of junk I find myself stuck in.

All of a sudden, 5E feels playable again.

The mess of options and fluff is gone.

And I am left with a smaller, more focused, compelling game. It is so easy to get overwhelmed when a game reaches a specific size; you just quit playing it.

I am there with DCC right now, and I can't play the game and shy away from it since my shelf is a mess, crowded, filled with junk, and unplayable. I would play you more if I had less of you. I want a smaller, cleaner, more focused "fun center" and not one stocked and jammed with so many books it looks like a disaster zone.

Right now, I don't even have any room for my dice on that shelf, and it is a huge shelf. When a game gets larger than one shelf, it is too much game.

I get why some flock to one-book games, like the excellent Dragonslayer. One book is all you need. Not a library. I could play this and one of the megadungeons, and be set.

Off the Shelf: Hyperborea

Let's pull Hyperborea out of our storage crates and put the game back on the shelves.

Hyperborea is very similar to the classic first edition, and it's compatible with both Swords & Wizardry and OSRIC. It is a strange game meant for swords and sorcery and not high fantasy. Hyperborea is a better choice (for some) than Dungeon Crawl Classics, offering a more traditional experience that lacks much of that game's table-based play and randomness, while retaining an intense, gonzo, Conan-style feel.

I have not really gotten into Hyperborea, as I am more of a fan of first and second editions than I am heavily modified derivatives. Still, I see the strengths of a game like this, where the experience is more like savage sorcery than your traditional Arthurian knights. Modern Dungeons & Dragons tends to slip into a pseudo-Renaissance setting mixed with the Knights of the Round Table. These days, D&D is more an allegory for modern street adventures than anything in the fantasy genre. I like a heavily themed game that gives me a barbaric feeling, as this one does.

The game is contained in two books, one for players and the other for referees, and it is a tight implementation of the rules. It is 100% compatible with any first edition or even Swords and Wizardry, so you will not go without adventures or monsters.

The magic is more traditional and does not have spell failure or spell mishaps like Dungeon Crawl Classics does. The original game never had wacky spell failure, so I understand where they’re coming from. The gonzo and crazy nature of the world is where the focus is, instead of an internal focus where magic mutates you. Here, the focus isn’t on mutation and randomness. Referees and players, not the rules, enforce the gonzo, insane nature of the world.

This is the key difference between Hyperborea and Dungeon Crawl Classics. Hyperborea does not rely on randomness to convey its theme and feeling. The game will be as gonzo and insane as you make it. If you want something to happen, make it happen, and it does. There are times when Dungeon Crawl Classics feels like “gonzo with training wheels” when it is far easier to be less reliant on charts and tables and random results, and do it yourself, given what you know and like. You will always get the result and craziness that is closer to your heart if you do not use a table and let it tell you what happens next.

That is why some prefer Dungeon Crawl Classics as a game that you migrate from the fifth edition. The charts and tables tell you what can happen, and you need that level of training to understand what savage swords and sorcery all are about. For experienced groups and game Masters, it is far easier to say something crazy happens and then enforce the genre through direct rulings instead of chart results. I still like the tables in Dungeon Crawl Classics, but having played these games for decades, I don’t really need them. There are times when I find the results on the charts limiting and less imaginative than what's in my head. I suppose I would have more fun with the game like Hyperborea, where I can “say what happens just happens.”

This is going alongside my first edition collection and my second edition books, along with the grandmaster game of OSRIC, and joining my games on my living room shelf. A solid tabletop game, fewer books than my bloated DCC collection, and I look forward to reading this and having some fun.

DCC vs. Second Edition

 If I had to keep one game for fantasy, would it be Second Edition or Dungeon Crawl Classics? While my love of a combined Second and First Edition is strong, the fun factor of DCC can't be discounted.

DCC has far, far, far better support than Second Edition, and even ongoing and regular crowdfunding projects, and if there is only one reason to put Second Edition away, this would be it. DCC's support is better than 5E's at the moment, with giant adventure modules released regularly and a steady stream of smaller adventures with varied and imaginative settings.

With Second Edition? I am either playing BX adventures, which are not bad, or recycling AD&D adventures. The support is "sort of what you can find or convert in." It is not bad, but it is not dedicated support. There are a few adventures written for For Gold & Glory, and they are nice, but they are still nowhere near the support DCC regularly receives.

On the other hand, every adventure written for BX, OSE, Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, and any other retro-clone is compatible, and it gets easier if they support descending AC. So, really, you do have pretty good support if you expand your thinking and pull in adventures from BX. These work well for FG&G, and really, this is the OSR; your choice of rules is how you express yourself today, and that is cool.

It comes down to a few things. Can I get the full rules to a new player for free in PDF form? Is the publishing license open and free for anyone to create under? Is the book attractive and invites new players to join in and have fun?

FG&G hits all three points perfectly.

And there are some amazing ones. I like a lot of the mega-dungeons written for these games, and each one is easily a 10-year campaign. There is an open question of "Are mega-dungeons too much?" I love how huge and expansive they are, but there are times I prefer a larger campaign area with a few dozen medium-sized dungeons rather than one huge, multi-level monstrosity.

Second Edition has the nostalgia factor, while DCC gives me a tribute band experience, not bad, but not the real thing. There are some tribute bands of classic acts that are better than the real thing. As age takes its toll on these bands, the tribute bands can play with an energy and technical level that shocks me. I don't know the hard-working tribute bands; they pour a lot of heart into what they do, struggling and endlessly compared to the real thing, but putting in the time and effort just out of pure love.

DCC hits that same level of respect from me. This is a group of hard-working people who love the hobby as it was and are trying their best to bring back those days with fun, imaginative ideas. As a tribute band to old-school play, DCC hits all the right notes and brings me back to those days. With the Second Edition, I am playing a game that has seen better days, still the beloved original, but there is a danger here of my memories clashing with the reality of a game that has seen better days and fallen out of active support.

With DCC, every class is designed for maximum fun at the table. They are great class designs, and they have that "instant fun" designed into them, so if you sat down at a random table in a convention to play DCC, you are guaranteed to have a good time. With the Second Edition, it is the slow grind, and while I appreciate that, in today's world, where lots of things ask for our time, I will gravitate towards an instant-gratification game more than a slow grind.

I still like Second Edition; it is the best version of the game for me, across every edition Wizards or TSR put out. For the classic feeling and play, little matches it, and they loosened up the racial level limits to a point where they don't matter as much (or could be ignored), and the story XP is a solid system that is like a lot of the modern XP systems we have today. Taking away "gold for XP" and boosting moster XP makes a huge difference in motivation and why we play. The second edition is 100% compatible with anything made for the first edition or AD&D, so it is a solid choice.

For instant gratification and fast play, DCC wins.

For campaigns and classic play, the second edition, using For Gold & Glory as my rules, wins.

Off the Shelf: Dragonslayer

This game does not get as much love as it should. Dragonslayer is front-to-back, page-to-page, pure awesome. Now that Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy is no more, people are taking another look at this game and realizing that sleeping on this book was a mistake. We are sort of in a two-way battle between this and the new revised Labyrinth Lord 2E, and this game compares favorably as a BX/1E mix that Labyrinth Lord Advanced once covered.

Page after page, the art in this game is fantastic. This game gives Goodman Games and DCC a run for their money, and the beautiful line art evokes the old-school style perfectly.

And this is a one-book game! One book is all you need for unlimited fantasy adventures.

Fighters in this game have a cleave ability, allowing one additional attack per two levels if the fighter kills a target. This is one extra attack at level one, two at level three, and so on. The fighters in this game are fun, and that cleave ability is greatly appreciated. In some old-school games, playing the fighter seems like punishment, and you get nothing to do except roll a d20 per turn and do damage. Here, they fold in the classic low-HD multiattack rules into the cleave ability (without the HD limitation), and it makes you want to be out there in the front ranks, hacking away at crowds of monsters.

The OSE fighter, in comparison, feels too basic. This is more of a "reference work" book, and once you add in some of the optional abilities from the Carcass Crawler zines, things improve for OSE, but you need to mod the game to customize how it plays. In the new OSE Advanced, I hope those optional rules are folded into the core book, and the game takes on its own identity.

The racial level limits in Dragonslayer are lower than OSE, but everything is more or less compatible between OSE and DS, or any old-school game for that matter. The hit-die scale is on 1E levels, with fighters being a d10, so the lower level limits are likely due to the bump in hit points. The game's power level is adjusted by focusing on fewer levels and more hit points.

Dragonslayer gives full hit points at level one. Nice. Please don't force me to play a level-one character who rolled a 1 for hit points. There is a fun to that, but most would throw that character away as an expendable rabble. If I want that, I will play DCC with my level-zero peasants.

A level 10 fighter in Dragonslayer with a +2 CON bonus will have 78 hit points on average. A level 10 fighter in OSE with a +2 CON bonus has an average of 61 hit points. In general, you are tougher in this game than OSE, and you do more damage.

If you don't want the complexity of OSRIC, but you want all the cool 1E "stuff" in a BX-like package, then Dragonslayer is a fantastic game. The base game feels like BX, and not like 1E's endless tables of modifiers and percentages to bend bars and lift gates, and it keeps things simple. The demons and devils are here, so this is not censored like 2E was.

Compared to Shadowdark? Dragonslayer is more heroic, no spell failure, no small-map play, no torch timer, more theater of the mind, and not as tightly focused. I love Shadowdark as a "small dungeon" game, almost as a board game, but if I want a more traditional game, Dragonslayer will fill that old-school need nicely.

Dragonslayer is a fantastic game, well worth your time.

Mail Room: Labyrinth Lord 2E PDF

I like Labyrinth Lord, and it is good to see them back for another edition. The OGL is gone from this version, and we have one of the originals back. The game is not a strict copy of the original rules; it adds a few new races and tweaks a few things, which is interesting. The game is finally getting its own identity and flavor. This is taking BX as a base and moving on from there, without feeling it needs to pull in 1E material. This is the new king of the BX starting point games, where the 1E stuff is not essential, and the game should feel more like a 1E base.

A shout-out needs to go to the extremely close Basic Fantasy, a BX clone that hits all the right notes for many, and it uses a modern ascending AC system while being free to download and play. I can see how many would say "juststick with this" instead of supporting yet another BX clone, since the market already has quite a few of them.

Where Dragonslayer does more of a BX and 1E mix, Labyrinth Lord keeps 1E out of the game and just does its own interpretation of a BX ruleset. Dragonslayer is a nice and solid alternative as a replacement for the old Labyrinth Lord Advanced Fantasy, where we started to see 1E monsters and classes enter the game. Dragonslayer uses the 1E hit point scale, with fighters being a d10 hit die instead of a d8.

Dragonslayer is a fantastic game, well worth supporting and playing, and this is the king of mixed BX and 1E content, where you have the stuff from 1E, but a simple BX framework to play with it all in.

If you do not want to go with the full complexity of an OSRIC or For Gold & Glory, and you want to keep the base experience simple, and you want the 1E additions, then Dragonslayer is the perfect game for you.

Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy (now out of print) did a near-perfect BX implementation with no changes. When you start to fold in Advanced Fantasy, you lose some of the elegance and simplicity, and some of the classes (fighter) need quite a few mods and optional rules from the Carcass Crawler zines to feel worth playing. I see how OSE, to some, feels all over the place and needs a bit of tweaking to become fun, and the extra material required keeps it from being a one-book game.

OSE is currently experiencing an identity crisis and needs to find its focus. The revision next year will sort things out, and they make a few more changes to Advanced Fantasy to pull in some of the material people want, and to up their game to become a great one-book game.

On that "one book game" scale, I would rank these as follows:

1. Dragonslayer
2. Basic Fantasy
3. Labyrinth Lord 2E
4. OSRIC and For Gold & Glory
5. Old School Essentials

On my personal preference scale? I am a fan of 2E, but Dragonslayer hits a lot of the right notes for me, too.

1. For Gold & Glory
2. Dragonslayer
3. OSRIC
4. Old School Essentials
5. Basic Fantasy
6. Labyrinth Lord 2E

On the "Does this game have bards?" scale, from no to yes, we get:

1. Dragonslayer
2. OSRIC
3. Labyrinth Lord 2E
4. Basic Fantasy
5. Old School Essentials
6. Shadowdark
7. For Gold & Glory

I bring up bards since the class feels like it has an identity crisis, especially in old-school games. In a classic dungeon crawl, where the party fights to keep quiet, what use is a class that makes the most noise? Even the base book of Shadowdark skips the bard. In newer games, there is a tendency for the class to be the default choice for players who want to be disruptive or don't care about the game, and there is a flippant nature to them that reduces the seriousness some tables desire in gameplay.

And I have played bards for decades and see this too, so I am not a hater, but someone who is generally concerned that the bard class has lost its way. I am not a hater, and I see the confusion and how some lean into this class to disrupt the game. Sometimes they are illusionists, other times healers, other times combat mages, and yet other times they feel like the "default town class," and nobody knows what role a bard fills.

As a result, you see a lot of old-school games drop the bard altogether, and even core-book Shadowdark does this. They do have it as an expansion class (as well as the ranger), but they do not feel like "core book" classes, and there is a reason they are not in the base book.

Design meets the focus of the game, and some classes get dropped since they are distractions to the core experience that the game tries to deliver.

So Labyrinth Lord 2E comes in as a BX+ game, rebuilding the basic game with a simple core but not feeling it needs to add any 1E content. It is closest to Basic Fantasy, which is a game very close to a modernized BX, but with strong ease-of-use features. Labyrinth Lord 2E adds new elements to the mix, so it is a fork of BX that maintains compatibility with BX. Some would want to stick with Basic Fantasy, Dragonslayer, or the 1E/2E clones over supporting another new BX game.

It is good to see an old friend return so strongly.

Second Edition Deserves to Live

It is sad how the Second Edition died. With TSR bankrupt, the game took on a tarnish from the mismanagement of the 1990s, as AD&D itself was blamed for the downfall. The game did not deserve to die and end like this. Wizards' buying TSR and releasing 3E as a complete rewrite reenergized players, but it left a stain on 2E's legacy, as if it were a failure.

And we have not had a stable edition from Wizards since. They replaced the 3rd Edition like they replaced the 4th, and now the 5th Edition is in its endgame phase. D&D 4 Essentials came out to "clarify the rules" and "not replace the original," and we see the same thing with 5.5E.

I wish we lived in an alternate timeline where TSR never went away, and we were back on the original set of rules that started this all. Constantly changing the underlying system of how D&D works is getting tiring, and I just want the game to play how it felt back in the good days. While a lot of the concepts are the same, characters and the damage scales have been constantly tinkered with over the last 25 years of Wizards' ownership, and nothing from 3E to 5E uses the exact scaling anymore.

The First and Second editions are the original game, and essentially the same set of rules, and are compatible. 1E and 2E are classic games, like Monopoly, and they should be seen the same way. There are times when I wish Wizards would stop releasing new editions of the game and support and preserve the ones they already have.

And not rewrite, but preserve and honor.

These days, it feels too much to ask, so I am over here in the OSR enjoying the games as they were.

Second Edition is like the 5.5E of today, if 2014 5E was the First Edition. Both games were "changed due to outside societal pressure" to be more "mainstream product." Both may bankrupt the company. The Second Edition introduced significant numerical changes that improved the game, and we still had some great game designers working on the rules.

While a lot was removed due to outside pressure in 2E, it all found its way back into the game, even demons and devils. With 2024 D&D, half-elves and many other choices were removed from the game, and all humanoids were removed from the monster lists. None of the removed content from 2024 D&D is likely to ever return to the game due to the zeitgeist of social media pressure.

The ideological crusade that forced the removal of content from 2E was an outside force, and the designers found a way to bring it all back. The ideological crusade that created 5.5E came from within the company, and we are never going to get these things back.

I fault 2E for its failings, for being too commercial and mainstream, such as dumping assassins, half-orcs, and demons. Demons return in the Outer Planes Appendix, and the Assassin returned in the Complete Thief book. Half-orcs return in the Complete Book of Humanoids. So, all the cut content was eventually restored; it was just well hidden and took a few years to be published and released.

The main books of AD&D 2E remained a mass-market game to avoid controversy.

They kept the game essentially the same as AD&D 1E, and just cleaned up the rules and organization. The more I study D&D 3.0 and 3.5E, the more I see them as inferior to the two originals. I wish Wizards kept its games in eternal print, not changing them, but just keeping every edition of the game available to buy, even in print form. POD is halfway there, but many titles are still not available, and the 1E books have scanning errors.

Still, this was the version of the game that got us back into D&D. We loved the removal of XP for gold pieces, and the story XP system with the higher encounter XP made us fall in love again. The game wasn't about greed anymore; this was about stories and epic tales of heroism. The game wasn't any less deadly either, although progression seemed faster due to the higher rate of XP for encounters.

The tone of the game shifted from gritty swords & sorcery to heroic high fantasy.

Removing demons and devils improved our game. As a DM, I needed to come up with evil factions, use other monsters, highlight evil dragons and their cults, put the yaun-ti front and center, focus on the drow, and use the monster book in creative ways. We never had them as a part of our Forgotten Realms campaign, and the game was better for it.

That is not to say I did not miss them, as ultimate bad guys, they were missed. They more thematically belonged in Greyhawk and other settings, back when 1E featured them prominently, and they did make appearances by the time the Outer Planes Appendix came around. Still, having the first run of the Realms as a "no demons place" made it feel special, like the gods actually worked for a living and kept them out, and other evils had to step up and take on the roles of corrupters and wicked masterminds.

This is why I love For Gold & Glory. It is a clean-room Second Edition game that works as the engine for any Second Edition book or adventure. People can write for this game, and it works with any First Edition book. It is nice to see a version of the game that does not get much love receive attention and support. This is also setting agnostic, and it feels more thematically medieval and grounded than much of the Forgotten Realms books and 2E source material.

It is a fantastic game, authentically medieval, storytelling, and compatible with anything in 2E and 1E. This feels like home to me. The classes are not overpowered and bloated, and you need to rely on gear, teamwork, and smarts to make it by. While the product identity monsters and spells are stripped out, they are easily added back in, or left out if you want to play in original worlds.

Where other games feel too simplified, like Old School Essentials, and other games feel unnecessarily flashy and wild, such as Dungeon Crawl Classics, FG&G hits the Second Edition notes and feels perfect. This is still 1E, but with many quality-of-life improvements. The non-human level limit caps were significantly raised, too, bringing about a better parity and fairness to the other character races.

FG&G is also an open game, and people can write material and adventures for this version. We can't do that for AD&D 2E. I always support the community-supported game that allows for the most freedom.

I get why First Edition takes most of the attention. This is the original game. People look at the Second Edition and see something that Gary Gygax did not work on; it had censorship issues, and it was the edition of the game that bankrupted TSR. When it comes down to it, there are only very minor differences between them, and both editions are cross-compatible.

I love the tone of Second Edition shifting to heroic high fantasy, and the feeling that this was the "game of the novels." The 1990s novels were very popular escapist entertainment. They perfectly captured the freewheeling adventure of those novels, where heroes went from place to place, swinging swords and casting spells, saving the day, and making daring escapes. While the First Edition could do that, the Second Edition was built to provide that experience, primarily through changes to XP, which shaped the nature of play and the flow of the game.