2023 - The Year of D100?

Hey kids, today we are going to learn
about the resistance matrix!

Happy New Year Everyone!

It has become a meme with my group that the next year will be the Year of D100, because two of us kept saying it for several years. We were hellbent on running something d100-based in the near future¹;, but alas none of that come to fruition so far. Maybe this year...²; Still, nothing holds you back from turning 2023 the year of d100. If WotC being busy killing third party publishers and shooting themselves in the foot at once, large number of people migrating from D&D to other games, and the general excellence of percentile systems wasn't enough to get the ball rolling, here are some more things to turn the tide:

OpenQuest drops the OGL and moves on to Creative Commons license. There's your publishing platform for d100! I mean Chaosium has its own OGL too, but it was deemed so hazy, only a few bothered to use it instead of Legend or OpenQuest.

Speaking of Chaosium, Basic Roleplaying is $1 on DriveThruRPG at the moment. It is one of the best generic rpgs out there: it is flexible as hell, easy to grasp, and not as intimidating as GURPS or Hero System. You can get a print copy too from Chaosium, but alas it's available from the US warehouse only, which for poor European chaps like me means a horrible $55 shipping fee. Come on Chaosium, make it available print on demand!

Mythras is also on sale for $5 on DriveThruRPG. Even better, there is a print on demand option too both there and on Lulu alike. Mythras is a crunchy gem that packs a lot of punch on 300 pages, though that page count is partly achieved through the use of tiny fonts. They also have the Mythras Gateway license by the way, which you must apply for to use, but hey, many already did so with success.

And while we are at it, here is a quick shoutout to a few neat blogs about d100 gaming that I enjoyed recently:

Samwise Seven posted a good deal about their BRP Skyrealms of Jorune campaign. The skill list on his character sheet is impressive.

Tomb of Tedankhamen's Stormbringer redux is an intriguing experiment. I would be happy to see it in practice.

Chris Brann's Diadochi Warlords campaign is an excellent read.

Those fed up with my recent gushing about d100 games shouldn't worry, I will post about OSR and D&D too. I have to face some critical encounters and must embrace my love for hacking first.

Update: The Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest starter sets are also on sale for a buck.

¹ This includes my now dead project Hecatomb, Mythras, WFRP, and Stormbringer. I did play Call of Cthulhu 7e though, which is nice.

² I am tying up loose ends, so the first thing will be finishing Zweihänder, but undre something lighter. Dragonbane is a good contender too. And I will keep kicking my dear friend's ass till he runs at least one session of Kopparhavets Hjältar.

Disclaimer: The DriveThruRPG links on this site are affiliate links. If you buy something through the link we'll get some credit for your purchase too.

[Kickstarter] Open for Simplicity

You can't have enough John
Hodgson covers

After my gushing about OpenQuest (even made a character sheet for it while practicing Affinity), I think it's no surprise, that I'm excited about Newt Newport's newest project, which is simply called SimpleQuest. The Kickstarter launched just recently, and if you are quick enough, you can catch the early bird pledge, or be an early bird that catches the pledge worm, or whatever. Once again, there is an option for both dirt cheap print on demand booklet and for a quality sewn printing.

SimpleQuest is a small format, lighter iteration of OpenQuest. The biggest difference mechanically seems to be swapping out the original three magic systems with the unified MP-less One Magic System already introduced in the OpenQuest Companion, otherwise it mostly focuses on trimming down the rules, content, and stat blocks. I won't delve depper into the details about about the differences between the two games, because there is already a preview for a book and a comparison with OpenQuest on the Kickstarter page.

In several ways it seems to be closer to what OpenQuest 3e was intended to look like, before the author decided to stay truer to the roots for the anniversary.  With Dragonbane and SimpleQuest in the pipeline, 2023 already promises to be a good year for fans of BRP and its derivatives.

[Content] Single Page OpenQuest 3e Character Sheet

This is what the platonic
OpenQuest campaign looks like.

Those who have follow this blog probably know that I like tinkering with character sheets. If you like fancy and decorative sheets, then these aren't the ones you are looking for - I prefer a minimalistic and printer friendly design and cramming as much useful information needed on the sheet as possible. For a long time I have been using Inkscape to make character sheets, but its a vector graphics editor first and foremost, and its limitations slowly started to become annoying.

Last year I bought the desktop publishing application Affinity Publisher on a sale, and never looked back.  Its dirt cheap compared to InDesign and other professional applications, it is far user friendlier than Scribus, and you have to buy it only once. I learned its basics while tinkering with Hecatomb's layout, so even if that projects remains abandoned, at least the time spent on it didn't go to waste.

While re-reading OpenQuest 3e recently I felt an urge to fuck around a bit again with Affinity Publisher, and I ended up retooling one of my character sheets for the game. Newt gave his blessing, so here you are, download and have fun! C&C welcome. Stay tuned for more, as form-fillable versions are coming soon.

Update #1: I added the Affinity Publisher templates to the links.

Single Page OpenQuest 3e Character Sheet (A4)
Single Page OpenQuest 3e Character Sheet (US Letter)

Single Page OpenQuest 3e Character Sheet Affinity Publisher template (A4)
Single Page OpenQuest 3e Character Sheet Affinity Publisher template (US Letter)

[Loot] Opening OpenQuest

The new edition of Ducks & Dragons.

OpenQuest is belongs to the huge family of games based on Chaosium's percentile system. It promises a similar gameplay and experience as RuneQuest or Mythras, but in a more streamlined fashion. It is crunchier than early editions of Call of Cthulhu, but not as complicated as RuneQuest - it strikes a solid middle ground with its mechanics like Stormbringer and Elric! did. It is by no means my sweet spot when it comes to percentile games (otherwise I wouldn't be hacking my own), yet it is still a game I adore and keep recommending to people who are fed up with D&D, leveling, hit dice, and stuff like that. But this post isn't a going to be a review. Maybe next time. This is just plain gushing about production values.

OSR games are all over the place when it comes to quality. You can find utterly amateurish stuff like The Meat Grinder, deluxe books like the Hacklopedia of Beasts, cool boxed sets like Old-School Essentials, artpunk experiments like Mjölk Bork alike among them. While each style has its charm, my heart belongs to simple, sturdy, black & white books. Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG has been the gold standard for me in this regard: a massive tome lavishly illustrated with characterful black & white art that often blends into the layout. Zweihänder is also worth mentioning. OpenQuest 3rd edition is the latest that made me smile. When OpenQuest 3rd edition's Kickstarter campaign started Newt wanted a print on demand print run. Eventually the Signed & Sent tier was introduced, with a more expensive, proper printing, and some neat extras. 

That's how a rulebook should look like.

While OpenQuest 3e Signed & Sent might not be the absolute fucking unit my first printing DCC RPG rulebook is, it still ticks all the right boxes and kicks a lot of ass. Both versions will get you a cool Jon Hodgson cover and a cleanly laid out, neatly illustrated black & white interior, but the sown binding, sturdy paper, red bookmark, endpapers, and colour plates of the Signed & Sent tier elevate the product to a next level. Introducing that tier was the right decision on Newt's part. Coughing up the extra cash for it was the right decision on my part. It is a rulebook that looks damn good while also feeling like a rules reference instead of a coffee table book. It also oddly feels like a mix between the RuneQuest Classic reprints and the Games Workshop RuneQuest 3e rulebooks. Well done.

Did I mention it has colour plates?