Review and World Tour Report - Escape from the Purple Planet

Not only of elves, dwarves, dragons and orcs lives the fantasy RPGs! Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG is a perfect example of that, since it explicitly draws inspiration from various literary sources of the Appendix N of the first edition AD&D DMG (and even other fantasy authors not listed there). In the Purple Planet series of adventures, we can explore a Science Fantasy style of campaign in a decadent dying planet. The influence of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom Series and Robert E. Howard's Almuric is tangible, and very appreciated.

This particular review is about a supplementary module that comes with the Peril on the Purple Planet Boxed Set called Escape from the Purple Planet. This is a zero level funnel adventure written by Harley Stroh where the players take part as prisoners from all around the cosmos that wake up chained together in a dirty and dark cell, with only one key in their reach and a bunch of weapons in the floor. The goal is to escape whatever terrible fate awaits them and in their path. In their path they will face bestial and savage aliens, lost technology, a weird and horrifying monster and a crazy homicidal alien that can actually help them.

Using WhiteHack Vocations with DCC RPG

One of the best things about the OSR is the easiness to steal things from different games and insert them in your current one without much fuss. Whitehack, for example, has a great simple mechanic that lets you put more color into your character, at the same time it let's you contribute to the world creation and his abilities. Vocations can also be easily inserted in other games, like my favorite one, the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG.

In Whitehack, every character gets to chose some words (called groups) that associates it with some element of the game, be it a career (like barbarian, pirate, desert raider, astrologer), an organization (Order of the Chroniclers, The Seven Stars Society, The Purple Hats), a race or culture (Shadow Elves, Atlantean, Cimmerean, Diamond Dwarf) and other things. This lets the players link their characters to some aspect of the game world and gives them some identifiable characteristics (not to mention the possibility of creating campaign elements by themselves doing that). The other thing that it does is allow the player to roll and ability check relevant to this element twice and keep the better result.

The Coming of the Zero Level Blog... And How Can you Learn Magic Missiles!

KNOW, oh dice tossers, that between the years when the little brown books and the gleaming weird dice appeared, and the years of the rise of the "story first" gamers, there was an Age undreamed of.... An age of Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG and other OSR games!

And this is a blog to talk about this great age, and these great games! Specially the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG (DCC RPG) and it's related systems (MCC and whatever more it's going to be released). DCC RPG has made me rediscover fantasy gaming and its literature roots, making me feel like I am playing RPGs for the first time all over again. Everything is new, fresh and surprising again. And not only that, it provides us the tools, resources and techniques to keep it that way for a long time!