OSR ACKS 2

[CandyLaser]

Some other recommendations for games that are both better than ACKS and weren't (AFAIK) created by someone who actively wants to make the world worse:

• Pick up the 2E Birthright campaign setting and play it with your preferred system of choice. I'm partial to doing it AD&D, but that's for nostalgia reasons. You can even import it to 5e pretty easily.
• An Echo Resounding has solid domain play rules and also plays nice with most other OSR systems.
• Low Fantasy Gaming has been on my radar for a while for something that straddles the line between OSR sensibilities and modern mechanics. I like the rules for martial exploits, in particular. I believe it lacks domain rules, though.

EDIT: thought of a couple more.

• Forbidden Lands is a great little game using the same system as Mutant Year Zero tailored to support hexcrawls, dungeon exploration, and stronghold/settlement building and expansion. Not OSR, but lots of OSR sensibilities.
• I've not played its newest edition, but I enjoyed HYPERBOREA when it was "Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea." The new edition has domain management play.
• I bounced hard off Dungeon Crawl Classics every time I tried to play it, but several members of my group absolutely love it. I don't think it has domain management, though.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

People who want an OSR game with top-flight world generation through random tables should be looking at Worlds Without Number, which is universally agreed to be best in class here.

 

[schneeland]

• Low Fantasy Gaming has been on my radar for a while for something that straddles the line between OSR sensibilities and modern mechanics. I like the rules for martial exploits, in particular. I believe it lacks domain rules, though.

Potentially worth mentioning: Pickpocket Press is working on a revised version going by the name "Tales of Argosia" and has published a playtest draft for it. While there seem to be no domain rules in the core book, they have linked community content that claims to support domain play: Tales of Argosa – Playtest Draft Released. Cannot comment on the quality of said content, though.

 

[CandyLaser]

Potentially worth mentioning: Pickpocket Press is working on a revised version going by the name "Tales of Argosia" and has published a playtest draft for it. While there seem to be no domain rules in the core book, they have linked community content that claims to support domain play: Tales of Argosa – Playtest Draft Released. Cannot comment on the quality of said content, though.

Oh, thanks! Just grabbed the playtest draft. I tend to think a lot of strict OSR games try to hew to closely to the mechanics of older editions of D&D in an attempt to recapture the feeling of playing those editions. LFG did a good job of the latter for me without just recapitulating B/X or AD&D.

 

[Libertad]

To elaborate on Theodore Beal/Vox Day...

Vox Day - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Theodore Beale

Theodore Robert Beale (known by his pseudonyms Vox Day[note 1] and Teddy Spaghetti[3]) (1968–) is a far-right edgelord blogger and professional internet troll who was formerly a minor science fiction author, game designer,[note 2] and musician.[note 3] Today, he is mainly known for blogging in...

rationalwiki.org

Vox Day has pretty openly been a scumbag for years, ranging from Holocaust denial to other forms of bigotry. When Macris hired him to work on an RPG book this was well-known. Vox went beyond just "opinions" and contributed to the harassment of people IRL.

Macris has long had troublesome ties to white supremacists beyond just Yiannopoulos. He's stated that he's a fan of Tucker Carlson, someone who has a long track record of mainstreaming such discourse.

It's not just one person, like helping financially support Milo Yiannopoulos. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice (Vox Day), three times (Carlson)...

 

[SakanaSensei]

So maybe what I thought was unmentionable actually wasn’t. Yeah, all of these reasons.

 

[Gradine]

Worth noting is that he makes it explicit here that his association with Milo Yiannopoulos was his decision, and he knew who Milo was when he decided to join up to promote him. This was after Milo had, for instance, gone on the record saying that he wanted vigilantes to gun down journalists on sight AND after he'd gone on the pro-pedophilia spree that led to him getting shunned by even other conservatives in the first place. Macris knew who Milo was going in and didn't have a problem with it.

This information would seem to directly contradict his recent statement in his Discord "explaining" his past connections with Milo

 

[overgeeked]

This information would seem to directly contradict his recent statement in his Discord "explaining" his past connections with Milo

Imagine that. Someone lying to avoid responsibility for their actions. That's new.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Some other recommendations for games that are both better than ACKS and weren't (AFAIK) created by someone who actively wants to make the world worse:

• Pick up the 2E Birthright campaign setting and play it with your preferred system of choice. I'm partial to doing it AD&D, but that's for nostalgia reasons. You can even import it to 5e pretty easily.
• An Echo Resounding has solid domain play rules and also plays nice with most other OSR systems.
• Low Fantasy Gaming has been on my radar for a while for something that straddles the line between OSR sensibilities and modern mechanics. I like the rules for martial exploits, in particular. I believe it lacks domain rules, though.

EDIT: thought of a couple more.

• Forbidden Lands is a great little game using the same system as Mutant Year Zero tailored to support hexcrawls, dungeon exploration, and stronghold/settlement building and expansion. Not OSR, but lots of OSR sensibilities.
• I've not played its newest edition, but I enjoyed HYPERBOREA when it was "Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea." The new edition has domain management play.
• I bounced hard off Dungeon Crawl Classics every time I tried to play it, but several members of my group absolutely love it. I don't think it has domain management, though.

I don't actually think any of those games are better than ACKS. That being said, I totally get where you all are coming from. I'll drop the issue.

 

[CandyLaser]

This information would seem to directly contradict his recent statement in his Discord "explaining" his past connections with Milo

Macris says:

The 'star" was of course Milo Yiannopoulos. A number of top people from Salem Media, leading hedge funds, and so on, all told me he was the hope of the next generation of conservatives, that his mistake on Joe Rogan joking about pedophilia had been a one-time oversight, and that he had been vetted and was ready for prime time.

The "mistake on Joe Rogan" was him claiming that he attended parties where child sex abuse occurred but did not report it. That was after he made fun of child sex abuse victims and after saying that it was fine for 13 year olds to have sex with adults. So it was never a "one-time oversight;" it was something he said repeatedly, over multiple years. This was in the public record in 2015 and 2016.