Tomb of Gyzaengaxx from Luke Gygax

Coming from Luke Gygax and Alphinius Goo is an adventure created as a tribute to D&D co-creater Gary Gygax. A boxed set, it includes books, poster maps, handouts, cards, and more, and encompasses both an adventure and a campaign setting.

The set is designed for various systems, including OSE (Old School Essentials), D&D 5E, and others.

The adventure itself is 60 pages, for 6th-8th level characters and tasks the PCs with discovering what happened to the long-missing archmage, 'Garold Gyzaengaxx' (no relation of course). The full set contains a 120-page setting book, a GM reference book, a 100-page lore book, and more.

Hear now of the horrendous, historic, and somewhat hilarious opening of the Tomb of Gyzaengaxx — what was once a keep where the great wizard, Garold Gyzaengaxx held sway. But some years past, Garold disappeared, and the keep became a place of much terrifying rumor. Indeed, many deadly monsters, puzzling traps, magical maladies, dark characters, and a most intriguing mystery may be found herein.

The Tomb of Gyzaengaxx is on Kickstarter now. The PDF version of the adventure comes in at $55, with the physical version at $65. The campaign setting is $135 digital or $150 physical. And for both, you're looking at $185 digital and $200 physical. There's also higher level pledges which come with autographed versions, and a seat at a convention game with the authors. It's not cheap, but you do get a ton of stuff. The Kickstarter has passed a quarter million dollars already with nearly a month left to go.

The set appears to be full of 'easter eggs' and nods to D&D's history, and even has NPCs based on various game creators--Ed Greenwood, Erol Otus, Tim Kask, Peter Adkison, and many more.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I DLed some free stuff which includes a primer for their games and some house rules they like to use.

What jumped out at me is they feel that “Healing is nerfed” in 5E. That’s a take I haven’t seen before. Usually it’s the opposite. To much healing in 5th.

I do like their Raise Dead/Ress house rule.

The Managed Leveling that "they use for all of their adventures" isn't to big a deal for 5E but how does that work for OSE? I mean adding "Leveling per chapter" kind of flies in the face of the "old school feel".

 

[hedgeknight]

GooeyCube had an aggressive marketing person at their booth the last convention I attended - so much that I purposefully avoided their aisle on future passes through the exhibitor hall.
Just generally speaking - their products have a certain level of production that I don't need (especially considering the cost). Just going off memory ... "Here's an adventure. With all the tokens you need. And handouts - for anything that could possibly come up. And battlemats. And puzzle components. It covers one 1 level and costs what you'd want to spend on a mega-campaign adventure."
So, yeah, it's that sort of Beadle & Grimm style luxury product I'd never buy. Too much of a good thing gets in the way of running an adventure, if that makes sense.
Now that the Troll Lords have gotten the Gygax estate to resume releasing Gygax gaming products, I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of this stuff, capitalizing on the name and legacy with premium products to entice us older gamers (with disposable income). The Trolls are already releasing something like an 8-volume Gygax library to this end. And it's probably not as good as half the stuff coming out from lesser known authors.

100% agree. 55 bucks just for the digital rpg. Comical and a bit insulting. Hard pass from me.

 

[Morrus]

GooeyCube had an aggressive marketing person at their booth the last convention I attended - so much that I purposefully avoided their aisle on future passes through the exhibitor hall.
Just generally speaking - their products have a certain level of production that I don't need (especially considering the cost). Just going off memory ... "Here's an adventure. With all the tokens you need. And handouts - for anything that could possibly come up. And battlemats. And puzzle components. It covers one 1 level and costs what you'd want to spend on a mega-campaign adventure."
So, yeah, it's that sort of Beadle & Grimm style luxury product I'd never buy. Too much of a good thing gets in the way of running an adventure, if that makes sense.
Now that the Troll Lords have gotten the Gygax estate to resume releasing Gygax gaming products, I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of this stuff, capitalizing on the name and legacy with premium products to entice us older gamers (with disposable income). The Trolls are already releasing something like an 8-volume Gygax library to this end. And it's probably not as good as half the stuff coming out from lesser known authors.

Do you go into car showrooms just to tell them you’re not interested in cars?

 

[Alphinius Goo]

$135 for a digital only product seems a big ask. It has a 120 page adventure book - what levels does it support? Besides "nods" to big names what makes this setting stand out from others?

And the adventure is described as a mega-adventure but only covers three levels and is 60 pages long (levels 6-8)?? To me that is not mega. How can both 5e and osr be covered as advertised with such low page count?

I think this is part of us not being clear. And our apologies, Lolsworth (great handle by the way). There are two options in the Kickstarter. The first is the Adventure which is going to be large with the tower levels and the dungeon below. This will also include a jaunt through the woods surrounding the tower. It should offer a goodly number of game hours (even more if you add in the campaign elements). The adventure is some 120 pages of content along with many art handouts, NPC portraits, beautiful full-color maps, magic item cards and more.

The second option is the Environs campaign which is the box set. This has, when you include the Lore Long Lost explorer's guide some 300 plus pages of content and even more art handouts, NPC portraits, area maps, poster maps, magic item cards, etc... This is a great campaign area and the box is truly massive.

The third option is to back them in a bundle and that gives you additional stretch goals.

Thanks!

-- Alphinius

 

[Alphinius Goo]

I DLed some free stuff which includes a primer for their games and some house rules they like to use.

What jumped out at me is they feel that “Healing is nerfed” in 5E. That’s a take I haven’t seen before. Usually it’s the opposite. To much healing in 5th.

I do like their Raise Dead/Ress house rule.

The Managed Leveling that "they use for all of their adventures" isn't to big a deal for 5E but how does that work for OSE? I mean adding "Leveling per chapter" kind of flies in the face of the "old school feel".

Hi Dark!! Thank you for all this discussion. I really am enjoying the good (and, yes, even the bad). Honestly... as I remember playing in my youth, slower leveling was more the norm. It really did feel like my darn magic user was stuck with one spell for quite a few game sessions as we calculated those experience points and spread them around. But truly... it wasn't very long before we allowed mages a couple more spells at 1st level which changed things quite a bit.

I do love slower leveling though. And I think it will work with OSE.

Cheers!!

-- Alphinius

 

[DarkCrisis]

Hi Dark!! Thank you for all this discussion. I really am enjoying the good (and, yes, even the bad). Honestly... as I remember playing in my youth, slower leveling was more the norm. It really did feel like my darn magic user was stuck with one spell for quite a few game sessions as we calculated those experience points and spread them around. But truly... it wasn't very long before we allowed mages a couple more spells at 1st level which changed things quite a bit.

I do love slower leveling though. And I think it will work with OSE.

Cheers!!

-- Alphinius

Are you saying the OSE version has the “managed leveling”?

 

[Retreater]

Do you go into car showrooms just to tell them you’re not interested in cars?

It's a different experience going to a gaming convention. It's more akin to a craft show with many vendors than to a used car lot.
If we all viewed gaming conventions like car dealerships, Gencon wouldn't have 90,000 attendees.

 

[Alphinius Goo]

Are you saying the OSE version has the “managed leveling”?

It will likely have some of this, yes. But we will be working with some OSE experts in the final development. I am only somewhat familiar with the rules set.

 

[Zarithar]

It will likely have some of this, yes. But we will be working with some OSE experts in the final development. I am only somewhat familiar with the rules set.

It's literally Moldvay Basic with better editing. Adding OSE Advanced gives some more options, but that's it in a nutshell.

 

[Stormonu]

What jumped out at me is they feel that “Healing is nerfed” in 5E. That’s a take I haven’t seen before. Usually it’s the opposite. To much healing in 5th.

I thought healing to be nerfed too when I first came to 5E. Single-source in-combat healing can't get you ahead of the curve like you could in prior editions, but in 5E healing is coming from a wide range of sources - often from different angles at once, not just the cleric, and not just from upleveled Cure Wounds spells. Topped with HD healing between fights, the game does have more than enough ways to recover from combats and such.