This week is a lot about D&D: both 5e and the OSR. How to draw maps, how to create campaigns, be a neutral Referee, find fitting adventures, etc. Jez Gordon has a new playtest document for his 5e compatible Feral RPG. We also have a free genre-neutral supplement and a tablet-friendly version of Untold: Adventures Await. The community loves Star Wars D6 (and Fantasy Flight Games did listen). Then there is some miscellaneous stuff (ICRPG, RPGs as reading material, the Zach Best Family Benefit Bundle, etc.) Bookkeeping Notes: I get commissions made through Onebookshelf links in this post.

Art

Dyson Logos shows us how he draws a two level dungeon:

YouTube Link

OSR

Shane Ward links New old school products at OBS August 18th Edition (affiliate links). Want to play “Damn Good D&D”? Clint Krause has a video that encapsulates the old school thought well. He gives you tools and tips on how to get started with a sandbox campaign:

Do you want to listen to insightful OSR blog posts as a podcast? Blogs on Tape is what you are looking for. They have an RSS feed. Read more about it on Beloch Strike’s blog. Improving Your Encounter Tables With Gimmicks! gives you tips on how to spice up your game. A while ago we discussed Matt Finch’s OSR Primer in the German-speaking G+ community. Harald Wegener pointed out two interesting articles about the impartial Game Master: The Game Master is Crom: The GM Isn’t Out to Get You and OSR-Style Challenges: “Rulings Not Rules” is Insufficient. Skerples created this neat free “tutorial OSR dungeon” called Tomb of the Serpent Kings. Version 3 is out now, newly edited and formatted.

D&D

Adventure Lookup is now live. It is a tool to search for adventures with different filters (e.g. publisher, character level, monster type).

What a fantastic idea! Feral RPG, the hot looking 5e game of mutants and pandemonium by Jez Gordon, now has a new playtest version. Patreon support is also possible..

Star Wars

There will be a Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game 30th Anniversary Edition by Fantasy Flight Games. Meanwhile, you can grab the West End Games version and tons of supplements as PDFs for free: West End Games Free Digital Sourcebooks and Supplements. (Not sure about copyright, thus deleted.)

Dungeon World

Here is an article about how to create monsters the “Tunnels & Trolls”-way: Monsters, Rated: Pop-up Enemies with a Death Spiral for Dungeon World. Issue #10 of the Dungeon World Newsletter is out! I missed the Reddit discussion about fronts. As I have troubles with them as well, I found this worth a read.

Misc

1234 Dungeon Ambiance Descriptions is a free supplement for Game Masters or solo role-players. I can see how these descriptions can enhance dungeon rooms. The entries are a mix of flavor (“The heavy bitter smell of putrefying scat.”) and incentives (“Did you just see a snarling living thing?”). Download more tablet-friendly version of the complete rules for Untold: Adventures Await without a BoardGameGeek login here. Index Card RPG Core Is Now Unter Creative Commons 4.0. And the RPG community is looking for help for Zach Best. Zach is in hospice care for cancer. Paul Stefko creates shorts videos about Core Mechanics. His first few videos are about D&D 5e, Feng Shui 2, Blades in the Dark, Gumshoe, and Cortex Prime:

(Thanks to Michael Wenman for finding this.) The Guardian article The joy of reading role-playing games sparked a discussion on Reddit about what RPGs make enjoyable reads.