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Leyline Press Blog

A Comparative Exploration of OSR RPG Systems - Into the Odd

Posted by Panayiotis Lines on

Into the Odd by Chris McDowall is about the exploration of a bizarre, wondrous and horrific world that is too large to map. Characters take on the role of an explorer within that world out in search of riches, knowledge and power. The setting itself is split into the safety of the Bastion where folk live and work and ‘The Underground’ an ‘odd world’ comprised of twisting tunnels, ancient caverns and strange beings beyond the imagination.

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A comparative exploration of OSR RPG Systems - White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game

Posted by Panayiotis Lines on

White Box:  Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game by Seattle Hill Games is a retroclone of Original D&D. The name implies this, harkening back to the original 'White Box' that the OD&D rules came in.  White Box is further based on Swords and Wizardry another retroclone of Original D&D. It comes in one volume that runs about 143 pages and as with many retroclones contains everything you need to run and play a game including character creation, equipment lists, monsters, magic, treasures and procedures for combat, dungeon and wilderness exploration.

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A comparative exploration of OSR RPG Systems - The Mecha Hack

Posted by Panayiotis Lines on

The Mecha Hack by Absolute Tabletop is a roleplaying game of titanic warmachines with The Black Hack.

As a system it demonstrates how you can take the core chassis (excuse the pun) of an OSR game ostensibly made for fantasy and port it to a wildly different genre with excellent results. In much the same way as Mothership did for Sci-Fi Horror. 

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A comparative exploration of OSR RPG Systems - Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC)

Posted by Panayiotis Lines on

In this series of blogs we're exploring the various OSR RPG systems out there and how they compare to one another and the original D&D rules.  Last week we took a look at The Black Hack. This week we're exploring Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) by Goodman Games.  DCC merges old school principles and aesthetics with some more modern game design ideas.  It's core mechanic is similar to the 'd20 system'. You roll a d20+ stat modifiers and compare this to a set 'Difficulty Class' or DC value. If you roll equal to our over the DC value you succeed, otherwise you fail. (They missed...

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A comparative exploration of OSR RPG Systems - The Black Hack

Posted by Panayiotis Lines on

In this series of blogs we're exploring the various OSR RPG systems in the community and how they compare to one another and the original D&D rules.

This week we're taking a look at The Black Hack 2nd Edition by David Black

The Black Hack, in a similar way to Whitehack and Swords & Wizardry,  uses original D&D as a base but greatly innovates with the formula. 

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