NOT a review: Dyson's Delves Limited Edition Hardcover IS...

Pronounceth Spawn:

I got my copy of Dyson's Delves, the limited edition hardcover version, the other day from Lulu. This isn't a review since I haven't used it in play yet. I've just been reading it and looking at it and walking around my house with it and enjoying the thing as a physical, non-computer-enslaved object.

Saying the work of Dyson Logos is awesome (or even AEWSUM!!!!1!!) is like saying water is wet, charcoal is black, bacon is delicious, and so on. The reader learns nothing new about the subject with such descriptions of the obvious. Hence this is not a review.

Why buy this book when you can just download many of his maps for free? you might ask. Aside from the new material he's added and the clean layout ... and the thing is handy-sized and lays flat, and there are so many sweet maps right there in your hand and you don't have to be looking at a fucking computer to use them ... well, perhaps in terms of a stunted marginal-utility theory there is no point in buying this book.

But seeing so much quality work in one small package rather than having it stretched out over years of blog posts is impressive to me. Much easier to flip through a book than flip through a blog. I'm so happy this book exists, because -- yes there's all the 'inspiration' you can get from it, and even multiple layers of nostalgia if you remember the original post or have played one of these dungeons -- you get to see one person's style and sense of the B/X paradigm concentrated in one object. And it's all The Goods and none of the BS: no polemic; no "The Way The Game Used to Be" essay; no "What's an RPG?" introduction; no "Rah! Rah! OSR!". Just balls-out quality stuff on its own terms. It makes me want to play B/X D&D because it's self-exemplary of all the best, most challenging and fun aspects of the system, while not being system-exclusive.

For me this book stands alongside other recent idiosyncratic works I'm stoked by, like The Dungeon Alphabet and Vornheim: The Complete City Kit. In the after-times when the e-media evaporate I may still have these books as I negotiate the post-apocalypse.

Rock.

Most Anticipated OSR Products of 2011

There has been much recent OSR blogosphere talk about our abundance of retro-clone game systems, and some concern expressed about the originality or freshness of the kinds of products we're creating and buying. Michael Shorten kicked off the latter trend by asking:

Where's our EPT? Where's our Blackmoor?

Where is the truly different and unusual that will have people really rolling? The only one that really pushed boundaries, so far, has been Carcosa. No matter what you think of the subject matter, the point is that Geoffrey took D&D/OD&D and went somewhere very different with it. I loved it. I've used a lot of it as stuff to prod my games along. That's why I love the crazy and wacky from Fight On magazine. That's why I have orcs with guns, fallen shiny spheres, crazy creepy dolls and a whole bunch of other stuff that my players might never see, but it's there because I'm inspired to put it there. [. . .]

Look, I love the style of play that the original editions give us, but I also hope to see inspiration and movement to something that explores the places we haven't gone. OK, I may be derivative myself, but at least with Ultima RPG, Modern OD&D, I was trying for something new. That's why Tombs of Hultep Koa remain hidden. It's retread shit and I don't want that.

A number of bloggers responded to ChicagoWiz's post, either in the comments or on their own blogs. I recommend in particular Dan Proctor's and Johnathan Bingham's thoughts on the subject, but here I want to quote directly from James Raggi, who responded in a way I really identify with:

Fuck originality.

Give me interesting and well-done things that I can use for my existing campaign.

We're not making fine art here, we're making game-play aids. Too much originality reduces general usability. The imagination should be sparked more on the consumer's end than on the producer's end, really. It's why you make adventures with no definite "end encounter" or victory conditions, why you make rules without strict expectations of the progress of play.

As the content of The Lands of Ara should make clear, I am more or less in the same camp as Raggi, or even ChicagoWiz himself, who admits to having "derivative" tendencies in his own creative work. I know for a fact that I am derivative as hell. I am a collaborative creator. I need a genre framework or a set of rules within which to work. I don't even know how "creative" (let alone "original") I am within those frameworks, you'll have to ask my players.

And that last comment is revealing, isn't it? I simply want stuff that works well for me and my players at the game table. In the end, it is not my goal to be creative or original per se (thank the gods!), only to have a great time playing my game of choice once every couple of weeks.

That said, I am in awe of minds like Geoffrey McKinney's and am happy to own a copy of Carcosa. Do I use it much at the game table? No. Do I read it for inspiration? Absolutely. Same with many of Raggi's products -- I may or may not play them as writ, but I totally rely on them to get my own creative juices flowing.

So with all that in mind, I want to expand upon the comment I made on Grognardia a couple weeks ago, listing which products I was most hoping for in 2011. You see, I depend upon OSR publications -- derivative or no -- to read, riff upon, and hork concepts from. Furthermore, I am a bibliophile who loves to collect books -- printed books. So this will be my list of most-anticipated OSR products for the coming year, and as you will see, it runs the gamut between the tried-and-true and the new and weird. These are listed here more or less in descending order of my excitement about them.

1. Goblinoid Games' Realms of Crawling Chaos. Very recently unveiled here and here, this Labyrinth Lord Expansion now tops my list of anticipated products. Not only does its release coincide with my own first-ever reading of the works of HPL, it is designed by two of my favorite OSR authors, Proctor and Curtis. What's not to love?

2. Lamentations of the Flame Princess' Grindhouse Edition of LotFPWFRPG. The only reason I didn't buy the first print run of the LotFPWFRPG box set was a lack of funds. But how fortunate I am in retrospect for that temporary cash flow problem, for now I get to wait for the "adults-only" Grindhouse Edition! Until the recent announcement of that Crawling Chaos book, James Raggi's game system was at the top of my list for anticipated products.

3. Michael Curtis' Stonehell Dungeon Vol. 2. I am running my PCs through Stonehell Vol. 1 now, and even if they grow tired of the dungeon and move on to other areas of the Lands of Ara, I still greatly look forward to obtaining Vol. 2 (due out by the end of 2011) and reading it for my own edification and inspiration.

4. James Maliszewski's Dwimmermount. As James announced in November, his megadungeon, Dwimmermount, is slated for release in "the first quarter of 2011." I can't wait! I would in fact say that this product is tied with Stonehell Vol. 2 in terms of my anticipation of it, especially since I am just now beginning the process of constructing my own megadungeon. I welcome published examples from the masters!

5. Geoffrey McKinney's Isle of the Unknown, due for release (by LotFP no less!) this spring. The setting has been described by its author as "an island hex-crawl that can be plopped into any D&D campaign" -- a kind of Isle of Dread-meets-Carcosa type thing, I suspect. Sounds awesome to me! See McKinney's official announcement of the setting here.

6. Michael Curtis' "Dragonlance"-inspired old-school project, if it's still in the works. Michael mentioned it back in November, describing the concept thus:

My design goal is, stated loosely, “What if Dragonlance was done more as a sandbox for starting characters instead of a railroad that led to the Big World-Ending Evil?" I’ve got some ideas I think are nifty to bolt onto the Basic D&D/Labyrinth Lord framework without turning it completely into another beast [. . .]

I never owned or ran the original Dragonlance modules nor did I read the accompanying novels -- all that stuff came out just as I was drifting away from D&D and TSR -- but I am intrigued by the sound of Michael's idea, and would definitely buy it if it comes to fruition.

7. Goblinoid Games' updated, Labyrinth Lord-compatible version of Starships and Spacemen. I love Traveller and other Star Trekkish sci-fi settings, but have rarely played Traveller or any other sci-fi game. Having a "hard sci-fi" game like S&S Revised that is 100% LL-compatible might sweeten the deal for me, and would at least allow me to easily incorporate robots etc. into my current LL game.

8. Frog God Games, Swords & Wizardry Complete (Hardbound). I don't know if I will ever literally play S&W, since I am perfectly happy with Labyrinth Lord, but I own the Brave Halfling S&W White Box and would very much like to acquire a nice, hardbound edition of S&W Complete, once they're available.