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The Spires of Altdorf
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So far this book is really failing to impress. Admittedly I bought it as a guide to Altdorf rather than as a scenario but impressively it is so far managing to work as neither.
If you want a guide to altdorf the description that Alfred Nunez wrote is actually very good. Spires of altdorf is a poor knockoff of Power Behind the Throne. I hwave found from reading it that it would take way too much work to make it playable I would just be better off writing my own adventure.
This module's title actually underplays the number of swords present in it's temple. The core conceit at the heart of this adventure is a magical forge that can turn anything it touches into a sword. This means this a temple of countless swords, swords in heaps, flowing out of the temple and steadily flowing into the surrounding environment. This one idea (a surreal take on the fallen Decanter of Endless Water concept) drives everything else described in the module. From a game design point of view you just have to be envious as virtually everything else flows from the question "what would happen if there was a device that turns everything into swords?". There is actually more content in the adventure but it just kind of naturally follows from the core concept. An avatar of the god of swords is present because this is a temple of limitless swords. The presence of the god and countless swords engenders a violent conflict between the inhabitants of the caves surroundin
Most OSR community is based around Dungeons and Dragons, however like a lot of Europeans my first encounter with roleplaying or fantasy gaming was not through D&D itself by through reflections of those who had read a copy or heard of the idea and created their own. Like a lot of early British roleplayers my nostalgia is really for Fighting Fantasy, a formative experience that was notable different in tone from American fantasy while being composed of much the same tropes. Troika! is an attempt to create a retro-clone that brings together Warhammer and Fighting Fantasy into a simple rules system that bakes weird fantasy into core of character creation in the same way that the Ratcatcher career did in the 1980s. The basic mechanics are pretty simple. Mainly 2d6 are used and the basic characteristics are Skill , Stamina and Luck . If you are attempting something against the environment you try to roll under your Skill on two dice, if contested you roll and add, aiming for t
Ruma is a Powered by the Apocalypse game about a Roman Empire that is facing off against supernatural threats summoned by it barbarian neighbours. Players take the role of characters who are confronting those threats. The rules introduce Latin-flavoured playbooks that reflect various roles in historical Roman society and within the Legions. Irritatingly Ruma introduces some alternative names and spellings for the various countries and peoples of its world. It tries to put some fictional distance from history but not in a way that adds to the historical roots. While flawed as a narrative campaign Hunters of Alexandria did a better job of blending the historic and supernatural fantasy of its world. Apocalypse World, as a ruleset, seems appropriate to the environment, the Empire is powerful but besieged by threats that seek to overthrow it. Characters will win big eventually but the costs will be high. Ruma's fundamental problem for me is that I'm not sure why this isn
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