Aaron The Pedantic

How It Started My Old School Essentials game has truly grown in ways I never expected. What began as a modest attempt at trying Moldvay D&D within the organizational structure of a West Marches game has now become a couple dozen players, five referees, and well many more RPG enthusiasts discussing the games throughout the day. Originally, I had every intent of taking a considerable length of time to build a deep world for them to play with. Instead, I opted for scheduled dungeon delves in a shared world, such that the players get an opportunity to get their feet wet in some instant dungeon madness, laser-focusing their time into the thing that the game is all about. I decided that I'd make a regional map, write a couple dungeons, and get the ball rolling. Where It Has Gone I don't want to dwell here too long, but to be brief, I started putting in fairly vague world details for the players to work with. It was enough to help them understand, from a basic perspect...

Whew, I'm tired. I stayed up all night.  Literally.  But it was an incredibly productive night.  Anyway, you don't care about that.  I finished the rough draft of the rough draft of my new Christmas adventure, Murder 'Neath the Mistletoe.  It's a B/X style adventure inspired by LotFP's No Rest For The Wicked, my love for old Santa stories, and my fucked up desire to turn something wholesome into something twisted.  The players arrive in a tiny village with a dark secret.  Every four years, the villagers sacrifice one of their own to a coven of hags in exchange for peace and prosperity, but this year, the sacrifice survived.  Imbued with the power of the cruel hags, this Santa knock-off is coming to town to lop off some heads. This particular adventure is much more dungeon light than my usual sorts. It basically works in three phases. Phase I: Investigating the town. Phase II: Hunkering down to survive the blizzard or venturing out to seek survivor...

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. FEEDBACK AND PLAYTESTING IS GREATLY APPRECIATED! This is by no means anything terribly original, but I feel that there is room for a tiny additional segment of character creation that could add something interesting. I'm revising the Dungeon Crawl Classics occupation chart to fit my purposes for Old School Essentials (I will be referencing sections from the Old School Essentials Rules Tome) . If you're familiar with DCC, one of the neat ways it interfaces with its 3e roots is that it has a very simplified skill system.  This format CAN be translated directly into Old School Essentials (B/X) in several ways, but you run the risk of introducing an entire new d20 based skill system.  Instead, my aim is to introduce slight benefits that work directly with the pre-existing format.  When gaps are presented that can be filled in, I'll try to fill those in. I've removed some of the occupations and added several that I felt were missing. ...

Today, we have a creature from Germanic folklore. The Bergmönch, a lumbering giant more than twice the size of a man, toils endlessly in the mines of the world. Its eyes, the size of human heads, burn like flames in the darkness. Its long white hair and pale skin set the tone for the undoubtedly cold reception that visitors are likely to receive. It dons plain black robes and carries an enormous oil lamp in one hand with a 5' tall hammer in another. It can often be found doing pointless tasks, such as shifting collected ore from one pile to another. Its presence is either a boon or a blessing. For those who act in ways that annoy the Bergmönch, death awaits. For those who honor their profession and show respect to the Bergmönch, he will show aid. BEHAVIORS: -He speaks and understands Giant, Lawful, Neutral, Dwarvish, and the most common tongue in the region. -He is incredibly hot blooded. He will kill those who frustrate him without remorse.  -He is partial to thos...