#diydnd

[dungeonousesoterica]

D&D in Style! https://www.etsy.com/listing/797615621/dd-5e-character-booklet-set-printable

[jeremyhartillos]

Some stats for this beastie. Join my Patreon and get full write ups with fluff, paper mini designs, VTT tokens and stock art usage. If you back at the $7 or higher tier you can request custom art. #DnD #OSR #dndosr #diydnd #dungeonsanddragons #dungeonsanddragonsosr #o5rdnd #gaming #tabletogaming #tabletoprpg #tabletopgames #adventuregame #adventuregames #monsterdrawing #monster #monstermanual #creaturedrawing #creature #creaturecatalog #spookyart #darkart #monsterdesign https://www.instagram.com/p/B4KYWQMhNSf/?igshid=a1p0uyzrx7cq

[zedecksiew]

DIY D&D, October 2018

Google Plus, where I found all my best nerd-friends, is closing down. It was where I found the DIY D&D / Old School Renaissance community. This community:

Gave me my best roleplaying game experiences; Gave me the confidence to start writing RPG material; Taught me a lot about building a functional community. 

I’ve gotten paychecks from people in DIY D&D. I’ve gotten postcards. In this day of social-media instant connectivity? Postcards. In my mailbox. With actual ink, and a stamp.

+

Google may be killing G+, but DIY D&D isn’t going away.

The OSR started as a network of blogs. Here’s a list. (Here it is as a thingy you can plug into your RSS reader.)

People are moving en masse to different platforms. Here’s a massive Discord server. Here’s a cool forum. Here’s a nice MeWe group.

+

Zak S has a questionnaire up for DIY D&D types. I’m answering because it’ll brew a snapshot of the scene + myself, as part of the scene.

OSR Guide For The Perplexed Questionnaire 

1. One article or blog entry that exemplifies the best of the Old School Renaissance for me:

“... after a run-in with some "filthy dwarf-types" (kobolds from the wandering monster list) Max lopped off a monster-leg and stuck it in his backpack. At the time, I thought he was just being weird. But later he very effectively distracted some white apes by throwing the grisly limb among them. The apes were much more willing to brawl among themselves over a quick snack rather than fight people bearing torches and swords. Max wasn't content to let his brief character sheet dictate what he could and couldn't do. He went out there and grabbed that dungeon by the collar and gave it a good shaking. And here's the kicker: Max is twelve years old and today was his first time playing D&D!”

All Hail Max, Jeff Rients. Pretty basic stuff, at this point. Still pretty fucking baller.

2. My favorite piece of OSR wisdom/advice/snark:

“The thing I really really dislike about how people use terms like problematic and "interrogate"  "critical awareness" etc is they rarely (if ever) provide a framework to objectively measure harm or benefit. So if you say "classic adventures are problematic because it's kinda like a Victorian narrative about invading people and taking their stuff" that's your subjective opinion , which then , when one publishes or writes something extremely similar, you can turn around and declare you have "critical awareness"  , and therefore not problematic. Which is utterly perfect for performing wokeness for marketing purposes while never actually doing anything different, e.g Evil Hat's whole business model Compare this to saying to pointing out something which can be used to hold ones on behaviour to a standard: "There are very little women artists in rpgs", "there needs to be more takes on colonialism other than one favourable to the invader" "freelance writers don't get paid a living wage" Then , you yourself can demonstrate that you are actually committed to your wokeness by doing something you can be held accountable for. Because you actually pay people, hire people and publish people in ways that benefit the people whose struggle you are using for marketing purposes.”

Scrap Princess, from this excellent G+ thread. Saying stuff that needs to be said about woke white indie RPG creators who’ve made a career handwringing about how games might be sexist / racist / colonialist / queer-phobic / etc -- 

But who never quite get around to hiring or paying non-white people / queer people.

(PS: the OSR does. Zak’s paid me. Hydra Cooperative is publishing something I wrote.)

3. Best OSR module/supplement:

“Veins of the Earth”. That blackest brick of a book. I love it most.

4. My favorite house rule (by someone else):

I like usage die! “Torches (d6)” means you roll d6 after every turn that torch is used? 1-2, it drops a die size. 1-2 on a d4 means it’s gone. From The Black Hack, I think?

5. How I found out about the OSR:

Back-of-the-book blurbs, for real. Le Guin, who blurbed China Mieville, who blurbed Scrap & Patrick’s “Fire on the Velvet Horizon”. 

6. My favorite OSR online resource/toy:

Not really a utility, more a personal thing. The Lavender Marshes. Filling in a few of its hexes was my first taste of Gygaxian Democracy. Thank you, Ramanan S.

Otherwise, Links to Wisdom.

7. Best place to talk to other OSR gamers:

It is still G+, right this very moment ... 

8. Other places I might be found hanging out talking games:

Feel free to add me, at these places:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zedeck.siew Twitter: https://twitter.com/zedecksiew Discord: zedeck.siew#4237  MeWe: mewe.com/i/zedeck.siew

And these forums, I guess?

(I really want to do comments on this blog, too. But Tumblr makes it fiddly.)

9. My awesome, pithy OSR take nobody appreciates enough:

“Play your character, not the screenwriter writing your character.”

Because I hate hate HATE games trying to get into Creative Writing 101 rules-of-good-narrative nonsense.

10. My favorite non-OSR RPG:

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, because I have a strange inexplicable love for Warhammer.

11. Why I like OSR stuff:

Nowhere else in roleplaying games do you get writing this fecund, this poetic, this muscular, this good. Serious: I’m in with the DIY D&D crowd because of the writing.

12. Two other cool OSR things you should know about that I haven’t named yet:

Khairul Hisham is a old-school Star Wars nerd who’s written about Malay-language references in Star Wars; Dirk Detweiler Leichty should get gallery shows:

13. If I could read but one other RPG blog but my own it would be:

Patrick Stuart still has my heart.

14. A game thing I made that I like quite a lot is:

How to kill a god, and then turn it into a mine.

15. I'm currently running/playing:

Patrick’s running Yoon-Suin using Johnstone Metzger’s “The Nightmares Underneath”; Camilla Greer’s running Luka Rejec’s Ultraviolet Grasslands with The Black Hack 2E.

16. I don't care whether you use ascending or descending AC because:

Honestly I wasn’t around for this particular nerd bush-war, so I haven’t the faintest what’s ascending vs descending AC is even about???

17. The OSRest picture I could post on short notice: 

Is at the top of this post. (Source)

The roundabout ingenuity required to turn the arse of a demon entity from mad alter realities into something as mundane as a cannon is totes OSR.

[gilgalahad]

Through Ultan's Door Issue 1 (Print + PDF)

Go through Ultan's door in this inaugural issue into the Ruins of the Inquisitor's Theater, a 30 room dungeon replete with oneiric...

Well this looks gorgeous.

[hdvrpg]

1. One article or blog entry that exemplifies the best of the Old School Renaissance for me:

There can’t be just one but if I had to it’d be This One for the fact that it creates a setting, provides “campaign advice”, and has cool pics in less space than this post  2. My favorite piece of OSR wisdom/advice/snark:

Zak Smith’s masterclass in how to DM 3. Best OSR module/supplement: 

Carcosa has found the most use in my games. @zedecksiew‘s Mr-Kr-Gr and Kraching zines are also immensely cool. Troika isn’t a module but a whole game and is flavourful and yet unfocused and all-encompassing which is cool.  4. My favorite house rule (by someone else):

Hand out treasure in real US currency and if your character dies the DM gets to punch you, I don’t know who invented this I have a suspicion it’s divinely inspired 5. How I found out about the OSR:

I think I discovered the Hill Cantons looking up what a hex map was while playing a 4e campaign and I gradually found more and more resources that I wanted to use which 4e wouldn’t function well with 6. My favorite OSR online resource/toy:

Can’t run a campaign without donjon. It makes up old, tired, flavorless and barebones shit for anything you need. Maps, treasure hoards, random encounter, random dungeon, I think it even has a whole random hex crawl generator which I’ve never meddled with. 7. Best place to talk to other OSR gamers:

G+ until it dies. Then I think I’m a fan of the whole decentralized idea of everybody having (1) a place they post their shit and (2) commenting/ sharing/ building off of other peoples stuff like ancient wise people in towers shooting psychic messages at each other. Gonna try twitter too. Check out the OSR community on G+ for more comprehensive links: There’s a discord server in the works I believe 8. Other places I might be found hanging out talking games:

Message me anywhere really. IG @hjsdv, Tumblr, a bar. I need to talk about it more.

9. My awesome, pithy OSR take nobody appreciates enough:

Everybody should have their own system I want to play a different game at every different house I go  10. My favorite non-OSR RPG:

I have no idea where the line is drawn but Dread is fun  11. Why I like OSR stuff:

People make cool shit. As an artist, a musician and a student I’ve never found a community that is so aggressively collaborative on such an international scale. 12. Two other cool OSR things you should know about that I haven’t named yet:

abulafia 

There is a definite though parallel and isolate music scene to the OSR 

13. If I could read but one other RPG blog but my own it would be:

dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com Zak is so good and so straightforward at what he does it is annoying. Also, an artistic idol. 

14. A game thing I made that I like quite a lot is:

I suck at posting! I lurk. But I’m about to make 100 dungeon geo-morphs and probably do some kind of free rpg zine  15. I'm currently running/playing:

Swords and Wizardry Complete with the hope to turn it into my own private EPT-style setting-system-game rolled up in one 16. I don't care whether you use ascending or descending AC because:

You’ll die anyway 17. The OSRest picture I could post on short notice:

The psychadelic architecture of soviet graduates

[dungeonousesoterica]

D&D in Style! https://zpr.io/uSvRH5H8kJGb

[dungeonousesoterica]

D&D in Style! https://zpr.io/uSvRH5H8kJGb

[dungeonousesoterica]

D&D in Style! https://zpr.io/dC3qjH728dBd