Get your bull's-eye lantern, a 10 ft pole, and some spikes, because we are taking a journey into the dungeons of yesteryear. For those of you who did not battle the  Slavers, wander the Borderlands, defeat the Giants, and stood in the Demonweb Pits, you are in luck. Goodman Games provides you an old school Sherpa, in the way of The Dungeon Alphabet. Disclaimer—Goodman games was kind enough to ...

Back before GenCon, I asked you guys what game you would like me to review, and you chose HackMaster Basic. I picked up the book at GenCon and started reading it right away.  I kept you up to date with my progress on Twitter with the tag #hmbreview . Now, weeks later, summer breezes have turned to autumn chills, and I have finally gotten through the book and done ...

If you’re like me, you love the old-school D&D adventure modules from the 1980s, with the white-on-blue maps inside the covers.  If you’re like me, you are overwhelmed and/or frustrated by almost every mapping program out there.  If you’re like me, you’ve resorted to the old “graph paper and pencil” technique from the late 70s.  (And I’m a self-proclaimed computer geek!) But ...

Reader Lesink requested that we review “A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming”. The funny thing is that our own Matthew J. Neagley already did back in October of last year. Matthew had a lot of praise for this work, and I agree that the fundamental concepts that it teaches are good ones. And that is about all I can say that is good about this PDF. ...

Maybe those old games really weren’t that bad…? A regular on YouMeetInATavern.com, Longcoat000, posted a comment that triggered a flood of memories and nostalgia. In a long and tangential discussion (my favorite kind, and one of the best aspects of YMIAT.com), I half-jokingly mentioned how nearly all gamers go through a phase of overcomplicating their games by tacking on all kinds of additional rules, which is usually followed by ...

Let me tell you about the schenanigans my friend and I pulled in the 4E game my wife runs last Sunday: My wife is huge on custom magic items. Some are just little flavor differences, others are completely whole cloth inventions of hers. That's how our party ended up with a magic levitating ship.  While neutrally buoyant and able to be pulled with effort, it requires magic residuum (pricey stuff) to ...

Rust, over on www.youmeetinatavern.com posted a link to an excellent resource for GMs who want to crack open their old school rpg books or who want to stir some ol' school flavor into their modern RPGs. It's called A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming, It's written by Matthew Finch, and it's available as a free download from Lulu. Frankly, I'm not sure why this little gem is free but I'm SOglad it is. Described ...