OSR OSR News Roundup

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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

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.

 

[thirdkingdom]

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.