USR Sword & Sorcery Now in Print

Your softcover black and white copy of USR Sword & Sorcery, Rules Lite Roleplaying for Fantastic Pulp Fantasy Adventures is now available for order at RPGNow. This is the first time I have ever printed a book and though small has been super fun to create and offer up to the public. The one thing which shocked me the most (cost wise) was shipping. If there was something I could do about shipping prices I would, but for those turned off by this cash burden there is still the PDF option. The printer's cut was, in my opinion, fairly egregious, but it isn't like I have a print shop in my office so whadda ya going to do? Perhaps there is economy in scale if you create a publication with a super high page count?

Clocking in at 36 pages it sports a "red" cover and includes the introductory adventure Shrine of the Keepers plus a character sheet suitable for photocopying. This new version of my simple roleplaying game has an expanded introductory page on how I see the genre being emulated compared to say epic fantasy. 

The combat section, while by no means lengthy, has been cleaned up for clarity. Bighara had some legitimate critique in his review over at the Zarth Tourist Bureau and I hope these revisions address his points. This includes the magic rules by adding an example of magic for each of the three schools of magic presented. What hasn't been addressed is a bestiary section and a deep magic section. This is because these items are currently being written and will be released as a POD/PDF supplement. Horrors Material & Magic Malignant is looking like a January 2017 release date. It will include a  roster of NPC's, beasts and monsters capable of chewing up your PC's, and of course, many horrible spells and artifacts suitable for S&S gaming!

All in all I think the revision has a far superior layout, has nice fat-sized tables for easy reading and achieves the goal of providing a rules lite rules set which has just enough crunch to enforce the genre. But no rules set truly comes alive without great adventure content to rend, fry, and bleed out the PC's, so I have several adventure which will need to be fully written and made print ready. This will keep me busy well into the summer. There is still the other USR titles which are all in different stages of completion which need to be made ready for public consumption; Anthro USR, Fear & Loathing in Fat City, Broke Down in Bug Town for Western USR, whew. 

Unbelievably Simple Roleplaying and Trollish Delver Games are Copyright Scott Malthouse

Check out all his great game products here! 

X5 Temple of Death 5e Conversion Guide Now Available

I've just uploaded Classic Modules Today: X5 Temple of Death 5e, your latest conversion guide to dmsguild.com. My next four titles I have reserved for conversion guides are X1 Isle of Dread, EX2 Land Beyond the Magic Mirror, CM1 Test of the Warlords, and M1 Into the Maelstrom. X1 should be completed this month,but don't expect the others to be available until January-April time frame. 

In other conversion notes; I've updated Classic Modules Today: B3 Palace of the Silver Princess 5e with monster statistics for the Decapus. Previous versions recommend using the Octopus stats from the 5e Monster Manual with some modification. Being the signature baddie of the adventure I decided it deserved "Special Monster" status, enjoy!

Here is the link for the Classic Modules Today web site for a complete list of current and upcoming conversion guides being produced.

International Game Day...

was recognized at my local library, and it is not anything I would have given a second look. Truly it is an event for young kids and not a grizzled old grognard like myself. Cold pumping a session to strangers, kids no less, is not the game experience I'm looking for. But I ran a game of D&D 5e this afternoon nonetheless, with a bunch of kids and it was a great success.

About a month ago a gentleman contacted me through a game forum looking for someone to play D&D with his son. I responded that I was an adult and his son would need to get a game group started with his peers. A few more emails went back and forth between us and that was precisely the issue at hand. His son hadn't been able to get his friends to want to play. I sympathized. I informed good old dad that I had spent some time over the years trying to get a local game group together myself and our mountain town just didn't harbor folks with the interest. Aspen is all about the super athletic, the super rich, and those chasing the super rich. I could only wish his son luck and encouraged the two of them to keep on trying. Once he got his friends to play a session he would have no trouble continuing play.

Then a couple of weeks later I saw the library advertising International Game Day and I new what I needed to do. I got permission to run D&D at the event. I emailed the dad and said I would be running a game at this public event for kids and we should have a go of it. The hopes were, of course, whatever local kids joined in would be the kernel of a game group the kids would continue on their own.

Well the young tike padded the playing field and he got four of his friends to come along. This new player was going to make a fine DM, I thought. He has gone to great lengths to pursue his ambitions. I was also immensely pleased to see a girl was part of the group. He had a Monk, the rest of the group I handed out pregens. I brought B2 The Keep on the Borderlands. It worked for me when I was eleven. Why mess with success? I had my B2 conversion guide for 5e and there was a 5e Player's Handbook and Monster Manual available so I had all the tools I needed to drive this candy caffeinated train down the tracks for the next three hours. They went into the forest, they went into the swamp. Eventually they pushed forward on the main plot hook which brought them to the Caves of Chaos. Death saves were made, critical hits were scored, the shouting and disorganization mushroomed. It was awesome.

*Bonus points for Jay; near the end of the session a couple showed up. They have been living in the area for a year and had not found anyone who games. They were desperate enough for some D&D they had to take a chance, so I made some new contacts!

Another USR Sword & Sorcery Review

Bighara over at Zarth Tourist Bureau has given a very accurate review of my USR Sword & Sorcery game as well as the additional introductory adventure module Shrine of the Keepers.

The system is definitely begging for a magic and monsters supplement so I will have to reread all my Conan novels and start writing as if the hounds of hell were on my heels!