OSR OSR News Roundup

Wofano Wotanto said:

Whatever happens with that, Lee Gold needs to be involved and give full approval.

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Ideally, Lee Gold would make real money off of it. An Alarums & Excursions anthology, or even just a Best Of compilation, seems like it'd be a hit on crowdfunding.

Welcome to the News Roundup for May 12th, 2025. As I'm sure many readers are aware, the big news of the past week was Goodman Games announcing they will be running a City State of the Invincible Overlord, having made a licensing deal with Judges Guild, with whom they had pledged to cut ties in 2020 following revelations that the Bledsaws, current owners of Judges Guild had been making anti-semitic, racist, and other bigoted posts online. It took three press releases by Goodman Games to explain things, and while the final release clarified that, most likely JG will not be seeing any money from this project, there are still people who are upset by this move.

I had discussions with the other two owners of Sabre while this was going on, and we've decided to not carry any more Goodman Games products moving forward, and are having a clearance sale of our existing stock. The other two owners are Jewish, my wife is Jewish, and we're just not comfortable at this point with the explanations we've gotten, nor Goodman's original response of "we want to build bridges, not walls". Also, being in Charlottesville, located on the street where a woman was killed as a part of the Unite the Right rallies . . . anti-semitism just hits too close to home. Our position may change in the future -- I've always found Joseph to be a good, decent person who does the right thing -- but for the time being we will no longer be stocking their products.

Anyway, let's move on to other new releases, shall we?

• The big release for this week is the launch on Backerkit of OSRIC 3e. The revision is being launched under Matt Finch's imprint Mythmere Games, and there's a lot of excitement around this release.
• Also on Backerkit, the Melsonian Arts Council is raising funds for Liquid Steel, a two-part project that translates the Argentinian comic into English and creates an rpg based on it. The game is going to be based on Troika!, and well-known Argentinian rpg writer and illustrator Gavriel Quiroga will be doing both the translation and the rpg book.
• Another (the third this issue!) project on Backerkit is Dahlia's Diversions for Peculiar Parties, a collection of eight short role-playing games that can be used for one-shots or party games.
• Doogface has released The Quiet Shrine, a 4th level adventure written for Shadowdark. It is set in an abandoned and ruined dwarven shrine.
• Fedmar has released the whimsical The Basement of Old Man Hamsy, a short dungeon set in the complex under the house of the local butcher. It looks to be system-neutral.
• Gladiators 2050 is a new release that takes the premise that in the year 2050 the TV show Gladiators is still running, albeit with chainsaws, spiked maces, and ultraviolence.
• The long, tongue-twisting New England Society for Paranormal Reseach: Containment Procedure Field Guide is now out on itch. The players have to track down and contain haunted relics and artifacts.
• Stock artist Rick Hershey (who probably holds the record for works in different releases; I know I've used his work before) is raising funds for the medical expenses of his children, who were injured in an auto accident caused by another driver. It's an exceptional value, containing both his stock art and the works of others who have donated the title to the cause.
• Underhaven is an interesting looking project currently funding on Kickstarter; an OSR adjacent ruleset set in a world where the surface has become uninhabitable, and people have retreated deep underground and built new civilzations far from the surface world.
• Nocturnal Peacock has releases Roll 4 Ruin, a classic dungeon generator designed to be used either in play or in advance when designing dungeons.
• I'd mentioned Dungeons of Galora awhile back when the ashcan version was first released, and the author reached out to let me know that the full version is now available. It's a solo dungeon crawl game influenced by Latin American myths.
• Beneath the Towers of Khardum is a new adventure written for Shadowdark inspired by Conan, Sinbad, and Dune.
• Written for Liminal Horror, Truck is inspired by Duel, Christine, and Tremors, and is set in Texas and was written for a recent game jam.
• Knights in the Grimveil was written as a part of the Drivethru sponsored PocketQuest game jam, and is game about delving into dreamscapes to banish horrors and nightmares.
• I've got a couple of crowdfunding projects currently running: Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 46 is all about bugbears, and includes a small bugbear encampment in the frozen wastes. Mind over Matter is funding on Backerkit, and is a psionics book for OSR-style games with two options for psionic powers.

If I backed crowdfunding projects I'd be all over Liquid Steel just for a translated version of the comic. It's really quite stunning visually, but my language skills (or lack thereof) make it hard to really appreciate the writing.

Wofano Wotanto said:

If I backed crowdfunding projects I'd be all over Liquid Steel just for a translated version of the comic. It's really quite stunning visually, but my language skills (or lack thereof) make it hard to really appreciate the writing.

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Yeah, it's one I'm looking forward to. I'm not familiar with the source material, but Gavriel puts out some great stuff.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

I wonder what the rights situation is with Alarums & Excursions. It would be great to get the complete run compiled in some way for posterity.

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My memory of it is everyone owns their zine.

Welcome to the third OSR News Roundup in May. Let's jump right in and see what is new today, shall we?

• First, I apologize for not mentioning this sooner. Wandering Blades is a wuxia-style game built on an OSR framework, and is a little more than halfway through its campaign. You can checkout the interview I conducted with the author a few weeks back, here.
• Ruins and Rogues is an intriguing one-page fantasy rpg with a streamlined set of rules, easy character creation, and an interesting take on combat.
• I've been really tickled with the content of the Appendix L products, and they've just released Issue 4: Savage Scavengers. This issue is all about harvesting monster parts, and includes an alchemical system, formulas for potions, and more.
• Torch Fail is an OSR system that seeks to straddle the divide between rules-lite and heavy systems. It's being constantly updated as the author refines it, and is currently on version .97. It's free, and the author is actively seeking feedback.
• Writer Ben has released Dunhollow -- the Town That Won't Let You Go, on itch. It's an adventure for their own Scouts and Scoundrels system, but is also fully compatible with Cairn.
• The excellent Liminal Horror game just finished a crowdfunding campaign for the deluxe edition, and I just saw yesterday that Roque Romero has released a bundle of original art assets for Liminal Horror and similar games. It's free, and really cool looking.
• Chekhov's Angels is out on itch. It's a fun, quirky, spy-thriller game inspired by Charlie's Angels and the ordinary household items that get turned into weapons in their movies.
• Lancer is one of my favorite 'mech games, and is a good example, I think, of how the much maligned 4th edition of D&D did tactical combat better than almost any other game. Another game I just saw that I think fits into that mold is Fathomless Gears, a ttrpg about building 'mechs out of tetris-like pieces and then hunting deep sea abominations. It's also got a companion app for ease of creating 'mechs, as well as Foundry VTT integration to make playing online a breeze.
• Wicked Cool Games has released Ashes of Rhu, an adventure for characters of levels 2-3, compatible with most OSR systems.
• Tombs of the Dead Gods is a rules-lite, d100 fantasy game designed to fit on a single page in A4 format.
• Seventh Son Publishing has released Demographics and Microeconomics of an Early Modern Fantasy City. It's a free release designed to provide guidance on creating the industry and inhabitants of a fantasy city.
• Shadow Beasties Two, by David Okum, is a collection of twenty monsters for Shadowdark, the second in their series. The illustrations are in a charming, woodcut-style.
• I hadn't heard of YouCanBreatheNowGames, but I was immediately struck when I saw their new adventure: Well Past Midnight in the Moonlight Kitchen. It's short and sweet, with charming illustrations and a gonzo charm. The entire adventure is available as a preview, so you can check out the whole thing in advance. But, IMHO, it's well worth the low price of two dollars.
• The prolific Alan Bahr has released two new adventures for their Tombpunk system: Gallowghast Manor and Sacred Places. Alan produces consistently great content.
• Man Alone just released Flint, a solo handbook for Cairn 2e. This looks to be a great product for a great system.
• Forsaken Scriptures is a fascinating supplement for Mork Borg that takes the traditional dungeon map and reinterprets them into condensed word maps. Like so much of Mork Borg (for me, at least), I'm not sure how much use I would get out of it, but it is a gorgeous release, and one that I think would be well-served by a POD option.
• Rovers and Riches 2e is now available. It's a rules-lite, BX-influenced rpg. One of the most appealing aspects of this system is the reworked thief class, called the rover, which has some promise as an excellent thief alternative. It's also written for a spread of 6 levels, which I find appealing.
  
  

We're somehow at the end of May, already, and barreling into summer. It seems like over the last week I've seen a lot more new releases than I have for the past few months, so let's dive right in.

• First, I somehow missed last week that Colin Le Sueur, author of the excellent We Deal in Lead and Runecairn, is currently itchfunding the primer for Midnight of the Century, a game currently in development. The primer serves as an introduction to MotC, which will be a pre-apocalyptic serial killer investigation game set in the 90s and based on media such as Silence of the Lambs, Twin Peaks, and Homicide: Life on the Streets.
• Golden Achiever has released The International Player's Review, Vol. 2. It's a 28-page gaming zine in the style of ye olde The Strategic Review. There's some great content in here, and I'm glad to see them publishing a second issue.
• Relics & Ruins is a new OSR adventure statted for OSE, Knave 2e, and Shadows of the North. It's set in the real world, in Italy, at the end of the Little Ice Age.
• The similarly named Ruins & Rogues isn't an adventure, but a one-page, rules-lite fantasy game. It was released in 2023, but has been cleaned up and rereleased.
• Shards is a nifty little supplement designed to generate futuretech or inexplicable alien artifacts. It's the kinda thing I always struggle with naming, so I'm really stoked to see this release.
• Matt Kelly has released WarFare, the first in a planned series of supplements that provides rules for domain-level play for Cairn and Into the Odd. This specific supplement delves into the world of mass combat.
• The False Temple is a (smallish) mega-dungeon written for generic OSR systems and designed for character levels of 4-7. It includes a town to use as a base as well as a wilderness sandbox. At only 41 pages its sparsely written, but there's a ton of hooks and areas of interest, and it makes it ideal for Referees who want a framework they can adjust to fit their own setting.
• I've long been personally tempted to write a system based on the rogue-like dungeon crawl genre, and I was delighted when I stumbled across Morkin: The Lords of Midnight Solo Adventure Game. It's a system based on and inspired by the classic Lords of Midnight rpg computer game from the 80s, reimagined for solo tabletop play. It looks amazing. my only concern is that it will be printed and distributed from Spain, and with the current tariff uncertainty nonsense I'm worried US backers might be left in a lurch. But it's definitely a project I recommend checking out.
• Published by Archon Games, Ferric Resonance is a system-neutral adventure filled with doom and dread, and focused more on investigation and survival than combat. The art is top-notch and really evokes the game's themes.
• I saw Heroes and Beggars mentioned on socials and knew it was one I wanted to mention. It's a collection of twenty NPCs statted for OSE, each with their own illustration, goals, and motivations.
• I was glad to see that The Worm that Gnaws is statted for OSRIC, just in time for the new edition. While I do have deep love for BX-style games, I'm glad to see products for the Advanced-style games come out as well. This adventure is by the well-regarded Expeditious Retreat Press, and is designed for a party of level 4-7 characters.
• Justin Sirois of Severed Books has been posting pics of the soon-to-be released offset copies of Sickest Witch, and they look gorgeous. They've also just released Blood Property, a follow-up adventure to the introductory Salt of the Earth.
• Dungeon Meal Class Pack is a collection of five new classes for OSE, inspired by a certain current manga/anime. It's cute and clever.
• Richard Watt has just published The Lesser Key, a collection of demons for Mork Borg. They're designed less as creatures to be fought than foes to be tricked or unlikely, and untrustworthy, allies.
• The Bowl of Gunnfried is a short adventure written by Vance Atkins that uses some random generation tables they had previously published. It's statted for Shadowdark.
• Every so often I think back fondly to the Redwall books, and so I was excited to see Burrows and Bobcats: Storms over Bendell. It's a one-shot written for Into the Odd or Cairn, and I think I may run this adventure as part of SabreCon2025.
• The ever creative Melsonian Arts Council has just released Stay Frosty Remastered, a game of sci-fi marines against the worst aliens the universe has to throw at them.

It's the first week in June and we're chugging right along. Before we dive into the Roundup I'd like to give a shout-out to author Raphael Falk. I don't back much stuff on Kickstarter at the retailer tier anymore; with having a physical store, asking for an up-front lump sum payment for a product that might not see the light of day for months, years, or ever is too much of an ask. But three years ago during ZineMonth I backed Falk's Lucid: Sea of Dreams during ZineMonth. I even conducted an interview with them, here. Over the past few years there were some updates; he didn't think he was going to be able to finish the project, he was sorry, etc.

Well, I am pleased to report that I've got the completed zine in my hand, and it looks fantastic. Sabre's going to be handling the distribution of this project. I don't know what issues he had that delayed the project, and don't care. I would have been fine if he wasn't able to finish. naughty word happens, I know that as well as everyone, and it's not my place to get down on a solo publisher who lost momentum on their project. But Raphael pushed through it, got the project done, and it looks fabulous. He should be really proud of the result, and even though I don't know him personally I think he did something that a lot of smaller publishers don't have the guts or ability to do.

Speaking of interviews, last week I published a short print interview with Matt Finch where he talks about the OSRIC Kickstarter.

Also, to celebrate beginning our third year in business Sabre will be hosting SabreCon2025, a three day game convention over the 4th of July weekend that will take place in downtown Charlottesville. We've got a bunch of events and games scheduled, so if you're in the area come check us out!

• I've said before that one of my favorite things with the Roundup is seeing first time publishers release their first works, so I was really tickled when I saw The Halls Between, by Fluca. It's a system neutral product detailing the monsters, treasures, and challenges that lurk in the space between different realities. The art is stellar, the concept is super cool, and I'm looking forward to seeing more releases from Fluca in the future.
• Queer Wizard has just released Handy Hex Icons, a collection of 78 hand-drawn, vintage-style hex icons.
• Rob Conley has launched Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms, the Northern Marches, on Kickstarter. It's an expansion on his classic Blackmarsh hexcrawl setting, and looks to be an amazing supplement.
• I mention Jeffrey Jones pretty frequently as someone who releases some consistently great old-school products. They're currently Kickstarting an OSE Double Feature, two adventures for Old School Essentials written for low-level characters.
• Secret Passages #2 is currently funding on Kickstarter. It's pulling those old nostalgic strings, focusing on games released and produced during the mid to late 80s through 90s. They offer a subscription model as well. I don't have Issue 1, but it looks to be really well-laid out and with some interesting content.
• Red Ruin Publishing is back with more Dragon Warriors content! This time they've released The Curse on God's Acre, a mid-level solo adventure that takes place in a bucolic setting where all is not as it seems.
• Dungeon Age Adventures has released the delightfully named Perilous Path of the Cursed Camel, a romp through the world when a camel appears and commands the characters to recover as many artifacts as they can lest they face the curse of a witches coven. It's statted for OSE, Shadowdark, and Cairn.
• There must be something in the water this week, because Writer Ben has also released an adventure centered around a seemingly peaceful pastoral setting where all is not as it seems. Dunhollow -- The Village that Won't Let You Go, is written for their own Scouts and Scoundrels as well as Cairn.
• I'm always on the lookout for well done stock art, so I was chuffed to discover that You Can Breathe Now has just started selling their work on Drivethru. It's pretty simple, black and white line art, but there's a bunch of useful stuff in there.
• Speaking of art, Perplexing Ruins (I'm sure you've seen their stuff around in various releases) has taken the plunge and is doing art full time. They haven't set up an website yet, but if you're interested in reaching out to them to commission some work the best place to do so is on Bluesky. You can find them at @perplexingruins.bsky.social‬.
• Adventure Kit #1: The Lover's Folly is an adventure written for Into the Wild and Dangerous. The idea behind the adventure kit is that it provides the necessary ingredients for the Referee to run the adventure, but also allows the freedom for them to expand. It sounds like it might be a good resource for starting Referees.
• I'm a big fan of the Fairhaven zines, and What's the Frequency Joey? is a short supplement revolving around the mysterious station manager of the public access channel.
• Another in the seemingly endless line of Mork Borg hacks is Duo Borg, rules for Mork Borg where there's only two players.
• Funded during this year's ZineMonth, Wayward Words is now out on Drivethru. It's a supplement for fantasy games with an A-Z of weird magical books to place in a library.
• Aldriathar is an interesting looking product; it's a minimalist system set in a living megadungeon with procedurally generated content.
• I've launched a Kickstarter for Populated Hexes Monthly Issue 47. It features a small dungeon, inhabited by brigands, that ties into the larger dungeon under Dry Gulch from issues 34-36. It also has rules for downtime activities, and adding downtime activities to leveling requirements to slow down the pace of play.

Busy week.

thirdkingdom said:

I've said before that one of my favorite things with the Roundup is seeing first time publishers release their first works, so I was really tickled when I saw The Halls Between, by Fluca. It's a system neutral product detailing the monsters, treasures, and challenges that lurk in the space between different realities. The art is stellar, the concept is super cool, and I'm looking forward to seeing more releases from Fluca in the future.

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What do you think, worth mentioning over on that "systemless books" thread that's been running for a while now?

thirdkingdom said:

Dungeon Age Adventures has released the delightfully named Perilous Path of the Cursed Camel, a romp through the world when a camel appears and commands the characters to recover as many artifacts as they can lest they face the curse of a witches coven. It's statted for OSE, Shadowdark, and Cairn.

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This one vaguely reminds me of a short story from the Liavek shared world anthology, although it's probably just a coincidence based on both featuring evil-minded camels.

Wofano Wotanto said:

Busy week.

What do you think, worth mentioning over on that "systemless books" thread that's been running for a while now?

This one vaguely reminds me of a short story from the Liavek shared world anthology, although it's probably just a coincidence based on both featuring evil-minded camels.

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I don't know about that thread!