D&D 5E Free 60+ page Guide to Sword & Sorcery for 5E D&D

[Ath-kethin]

Unfortunately, this does not seem possible in the tool I'm using (MS Publisher). Would love to be proven wrong!

Doubly unfortunately, you are correct. It's bizarre, since Word CAN automatically add bookmarks. But I guess that's just more evidence that Microsoft has pretty much abandoned development of Publisher and just shifted its functionality into Word. There really isn't anything Publisher can do that Word can't these days.

Also, one day my copy of Publisher suddenly stopped being able to export some fonts into a PDF. That is, the fonts look fine in the layout and when the document is open, but when I export to PDF the lettering is replaced by a bunch of rectangular blocks. It's a pain, and another part of why I pretty much abandoned Publisher in favor of just using Word.

 

[CapnZapp]

Some posters in this thread said that getting rid of alignment isn't necessary as it isn't tied to game mechanics the way it used to be in previous editions. I disagree because alignment still provides roleplaying cues that are foreign to the conanesque sword-&-sorcery vibe. S&S heroes are morally ambiguous.

That would be me. At the time I just wanted to point out that alignment is fundamentally different in 5E than in, say, Pathfinder 1 (the previous target for the Xoth rules), something that isn't so easy to spot if you haven't yet played a lot of 5E. On the surface it's still there and just as simplistic as before (likely kept to satisfy the existing fan-base).

But it turns out it really isn't more than a vestige with very little actual game impact. Removing it doesn't need to be such an automatic recommendation any longer.

Yes, previously [removing alignment the way Xoth suggests] was an absolute must given how alignment interacted with various game mechanics. All of that is gone in 5E though, making that edition a great choice for S&S even if you for some reason decide to run it exactly as written.

The argument is settled, though.

Edit: clarifying.

 

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

The classic Robert E Howard story, The Tower of the Elephant is discussed on the latest podcast from The Friends of Jackson Elias. There’s a few more Robert E Howard podcasts from them - Worth checking out.

The Tower of the Elephant - Blasphemous Tomes

The Good Friends of Jackson Elias scale The Tower of the Elephant in search of the treasures of Conan and Robert E Howard's adventures

blasphemoustomes.com

On another note nice to see more adventures for Xoth converted for the 5e version. New full colour covers too! I’ve grabbed a few off of Drivethru

 

[xoth.publishing]

The classic Robert E Howard story, The Tower of the Elephant is discussed on the latest podcast from The Friends of Jackson Elias. There’s a few more Robert E Howard podcasts from them - Worth checking out.

The Tower of the Elephant - Blasphemous Tomes

The Good Friends of Jackson Elias scale The Tower of the Elephant in search of the treasures of Conan and Robert E Howard's adventures

blasphemoustomes.com

I've recently listened to a number of episodes from that podcast (both REH-related and not), and it's an excellent show in general. Highly recommended to anyone slightly interested in Lovecraft, Howard and/or roleplaying games!

 

[Blue Orange]

Thought I'd give this a bump as I just read through it and it's free, short, and very flavorful--a good basis for starting your own game!

 

[xoth.publishing]

Thought I'd give this a bump as I just read through it and it's free, short, and very flavorful--a good basis for starting your own game!

Thanks for the bump! If you have any questions regarding the book or setting, feel free to ask!

Also note that there are several ready-to-run swords and sorcery adventures for 5E set in the World of Xoth, available via my website and also on DriveThruRPG.

 

[CapnZapp]

Thought I'd give this a bump as I just read through it and it's free, short, and very flavorful--a good basis for starting your own game!

I would honestly be hard pressed finding a better ruleset for some good Sword & Sorcery gaming. Xoth gives off a good S&S vibe already from the cover, and 5E is a very suitable candidate already from the start!

And I have looked rather far and wide, if I can say so myself. S&S isn't suited to complex games like d20 or PF2. I looked at Modiphius Conan game but find the core 2d20 engine far too narratively intrusive. I'm sure there's a decent RQ hack somewhere, but as a Swede I'm playing BRP games plenty already. I even looked at Blade of the Iron Throne (a hopeless google search term if there ever was one, thanks George RR...) and that wasn't even a coherent game - its so-called combat engine can be used to frame somebody's narration of a cool fight, but thats it - there's no internal balance, no actual game, there. Plus - the best part, the five Cultures and how they control and restrict character creation, have been lifted completely into Xoth!*

* or the other way round, I don't know the history of these games.

Of course now I want a Level Up Xoth...

 

[xoth.publishing]

I even looked at Blade of the Iron Throne (a hopeless google search term if there ever was one, thanks George RR...) and that wasn't even a coherent game - its so-called combat engine can be used to frame somebody's narration of a cool fight, but thats it - there's no internal balance, no actual game, there. Plus - the best part, the five Cultures and how they control and restrict character creation, have been lifted completely into Xoth!*

* or the other way round, I don't know the history of these games.

There are six cultures, not five!

The Spider-God's Bride was released in 2008, but did not include the cultures. My original blog post about the cultures is from early 2010, see The World of Xoth » Blog Archive » Cultural Archetypes

The guys working on Blade of the Iron Throne approached me and asked to use the World of Xoth as the setting in their book, to which I agreed. Blade of the Iron Throne was released in 2012 or thereabouts.

Of course now I want a Level Up Xoth...

Let me get my hands on Level Up, and I'll see what I can do....

 

[CapnZapp]

The guys working on Blade of the Iron Throne approached me and asked to use the World of Xoth as the setting in their book, to which I agreed.

Thanks.

There are six cultures, not five!

Of course - oops

 

[Bill Zebub]

I looked at Modiphius Conan game but find the core 2d20 engine far too narratively intrusive.

That Modiphius 2d20 engine has always just rubbed me wrong. I wanted to like their Conan game. I really did.