The Friday Roundup (012513)

Once again, it's time to give y'all a recap of all the Picks of the Day from this week. Not surprisingly, there's a couple of D&D Picks; the return of WotC to DriveThruRPG has had a tremendous impact on the entire hobby.

Quantum Sliders: Krishna's Riddle

The great god Krishna is at it again! He once set a riddle to a mortal, and now has to go back and see if her descendant has the answer. If so, he will grant her wonders beyond earthly power. Unfortunately, he’s forgotten the riddle.

IT’S A RIDDLE, WRAPPED IN A MYSTERY, INSIDE AN ADVENTURE!

Krishna’s riddle is a scenario for Heroic rank Savage Worlds* characters, part of our Quantum sliders range of adventures that’ll take your gaming group to new and exciting points in time and space, or to versions of reality that exist just over the horizon (or beyond).

Product contains: A 19-page high resolution PDF with layers so you can switch between full-art and print-friendly views. A copy of Savage Suzerain is also recommended to get the best out of this book.

B2 The Keep on the Borderlands (Basic)

This module includes a cover folder with maps and a complete description booklet to form a ready-made scenario for DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® Basic Set. It has been specially designed for use by beginning Dungeon Masters so that they may begin play with a minimum of preparations.

Within are many features to aid novice players and Dungeon Masters: legends, history and background information, a list of adventuring characters, tips on how to be an effective Dungeon Master, plus an interesting area for characters to basethemselves in (the Keep) before setting out to explore the Caves of Chaos!

"Keep on the Borderlands" was positioned as an "introductory" module; it provided instructions not just on how to run the campaign contained within, but also on how to run combats and to be an effective GM. However, it varied notably from its predecessor B1 in one area: Where the previous adventure had been a bit of a toolkit - with GMs learning to create dungeons by actually filling in the monsters and treasures - this one was a complete, ready-to-run adventure.

The Caves of Chaos themselves showed off the introductory nature of B2 in another way: They're pretty much a who's who of the humanoids you could meet in Basic D&D, with separate caverns inhabited by kobolds, orcs, goblins, ogres, hobgoblins, bugbears, gnolls, and even a minotaur. Gygax later admitted that the result wasn't "ecologically correct," but that wasn't really the point.

WINTERHAWK: Church

WINTERHAWK CHURCH is the latest addition to our growing 'Fold Flat' terrain system. Designed to come apart and have the majority of parts fold flat for easy storage and transport, the Winterhawk Church features user selectable graphic options that allow you to customize your model before printing.

This set includes:

• 28mm scale church model
• User selectable graphic options
• Ground tiles
• Full color instructions and Beginner's Guide to Card Modeling

D&D Basic Set Rulebook (Basic)

This is the 1981 edition of the D&D Basic Rulebook, which was sold as part of the boxed D&D Basic Set and also on its own. It was the first true standalone edition of what became "Basic D&D" as previous editions had instead been based on OD&D play.

The Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules (1981), by Tom Moldvay, was the second edition of Basic D&D, with the previous edition created by J. Eric Holmes (1977). It was released in January 1981, leading off the year.

Holmes D&D. When Eric Holmes put together the original Basic D&D, his purpose was simply to clean up and organize the original Dungeons & Dragons (1974) along with some content from Supplement I: Greyhawk (1975).

He wanted to create a game that was easier to learn (as the original D&D was considered notoriously bad in that regard) and that could be better understand by the high school and junior high demographics, toward which the game was then trending. However, the expectation was that players would go on to the original D&D games from there. Basic D&D was never expected to be its own game system - at first.

Holmes' Basic Set was widely successful - sufficiently so that TSR was wary of sending its players on to the more challenging original D&D game or the more complex AD&D game (1977-1979) game. Thus, as early as fall 1979, work began on an Expert Set which would allow the hundreds of thousands of players who had learned the game from Basic D&D to continue on, past the three levels available in that game.

A new version of the Basic Set was required for release with the Expert Set.

Monte Cook, "Working in the Game Industry" [Recorded Seminar]

Veteran roleplaying game designer Monte Cook discusses his background in gaming as well as offering observations and experiences after decades working in the game industry.

This product is a recording of a live online seminar held using Adobe Connect software. You will be provided with a link to the recording upon your receipt of this product.

There you go, and have a great weekend of gaming!

~SPF