What OSR book should I review next?

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
Libertad
Duke
Posts: 1299
Joined: Sat Dec 24, 2011 6:16 am

What OSR book should I review next?

Post by Libertad »

Those keeping up with my work likely know that I reviewed a bunch of 5th Edition books, and I plan on doing so in the future. But it’s good to shake things up a bit and take a break, so I figured that reviewing some old-school style sourcebooks would be a nice change of pace.

Below are four books which are of particular interest to me. Let me know which ones seem the most interesting by voting in this StrawPoll. For the sake of transparency this poll is being posted on various sites I plan on releasing my reviews, so results will be a more holistic overview than of one particular website.

StrawPoll link. I didn’t see the option for closing results (dunno if this was a feature that was changed or deleted) so as of this posting I’ll judge results 2 weeks from now (May 26th EST).

Image

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG: A gonzo RPG which is more an inspiration and homage of 70s gaming than a straight clone. Is notable for its “Level 0 Funnels,” where players control 3-4 hapless civilians who get 1 level in a real class should they be lucky enough to survive.

Image

Magical Industrial Revolution: A high-magic Dickensian fantasy city where arcane magic has been repurposed to feed the engines of capitalism, and supernatural innovations bring great prosperity and misery in equal measure.

Image

Stars Without Number Revised Edition: The quintessential sci-fi OSR game, has inspiration from Basic D&D and Traveller where civilization is recovering from a galactic cataclysm that tore apart an interstellar empire, and explorers are needed to make contact with the scattered remnants of star systems and planets. I will also note what changes have been made between the 2010 original edition and the newer Revised version.

Image

The Nightmares Underneath, 2nd Edition: A retroclone with horror influences set in a pseudo-Middle Eastern world where dungeons are otherworldly nightmares feeding off of mortal sins and fears. This review will cover the 2nd Edition, reviewing both the book as a whole and also noting what changes have been made.
User avatar
DrPraetor
Duke
Posts: 1289
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 3:17 pm

Post by DrPraetor »

Magical Industrial Revolution looks most interesting of these.

Does it assume some D&D-like setting?
Chaosium rules are made of unicorn pubic hair and cancer. --AncientH
When you talk, all I can hear is "DunningKruger" over and over again like you were a god damn Pokemon. --Username17
Fuck off with the pony murder shit. --Grek
User avatar
JigokuBosatsu
Prince
Posts: 2549
Joined: Tue Aug 10, 2010 10:36 pm
Location: The Portlands, OR
Contact:

Post by JigokuBosatsu »

I voted for Magical Industrial Revolution, but I'm fine with Nightmares Underneath being the front runner as I just downloaded this a day ago.
Omegonthesane wrote:a glass armonica which causes a target city to have horrific nightmares that prevent sleep
JigokuBosatsu wrote:so a regular glass armonica?
You can buy my books, yes you can. Out of print and retired, sorry.
User avatar
Libertad
Duke
Posts: 1299
Joined: Sat Dec 24, 2011 6:16 am

Post by Libertad »

DrPraetor wrote:Magical Industrial Revolution looks most interesting of these.

Does it assume some D&D-like setting?
Yes. Endon specifically is meant to be a city-state unmatched in magical and technological prowess, but it's implied that the world beyond is still very much a typical D&D setting. The rationale is that the Magical Industrial Revolution of Endon is still relatively new (a few decades ago at most), and beginning to affect nearby less-developed regions and nations. As in-game time progresses the city of Endon changes more dramatically as a few magi-scientific geniuses further innovate their pet projects...all of which will spell some kind of apocalyptic or Orwellian Doom if their excesses are not stopped/safely regulate/etc.
Last edited by Libertad on Wed May 13, 2020 4:31 am, edited 2 times in total.
Thaluikhain
King
Posts: 6202
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2016 3:30 pm

Post by Thaluikhain »

Magical Industrial Revolution looks decent, yeah.
Harshax
Knight
Posts: 393
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2014 3:12 pm
Location: Chicago, USA

Post by Harshax »

DrPraetor wrote:Magical Industrial Revolution looks most interesting of these.

Does it assume some D&D-like setting?
+1

I don't know who this Skerples cat is, but his intros hooked me into buy 3 of his PDFs on drivethru.
User avatar
OgreBattle
King
Posts: 6820
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:33 am

Post by OgreBattle »

dungeon crawl classics is the one I've heard of but know nuthin about, so that one
User avatar
Stahlseele
King
Posts: 5975
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:51 pm
Location: Hamburg, Germany

Post by Stahlseele »

Magical Industries sounds interesting to me.
Welcome, to IronHell.
Shrapnel wrote:
TFwiki wrote:Soon is the name of the region in the time-domain (familiar to all marketing departments, and to the moderators and staff of Fun Publications) which sees release of all BotCon news, club exclusives, and other fan desirables. Soon is when then will become now.

Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
Zaranthan
Knight-Baron
Posts: 628
Joined: Tue May 29, 2012 3:08 pm

Post by Zaranthan »

Libertad wrote:As in-game time progresses the city of Endon changes more dramatically as a few magi-scientific geniuses further innovate their pet projects...all of which will spell some kind of apocalyptic or Orwellian Doom if their excesses are not stopped/safely regulate/etc.
An explanation for why the world is littered with the ruins of ancient advanced civilizations? I'm sold.
Koumei wrote:...is the dead guy posthumously at fault for his own death and, due to the felony murder law, his own murderer?
hyzmarca wrote:A palace made out of poop is much more impressive than one made out of gold. Stinkier, but more impressive. One is an ostentatious display of wealth. The other is a miraculous engineering feat.
User avatar
erik
King
Posts: 5864
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by erik »

Another vote for Magical Industries.
User avatar
Libertad
Duke
Posts: 1299
Joined: Sat Dec 24, 2011 6:16 am

Post by Libertad »

Where I am it's 10:48 PM on the 26th, and it looks like Nightmares Underneath 2nd Edition is a go!
I'll review Magical Industrial Revolution after that one.
Post Reply