Why is the OSR not producing a fanzine like this?

There are many fine amateur and semi-professional publications out there in the OSR, but I sense there’s a niche that needs to be filled. We need our very own “armpit slick” fanzine complete with covers done in the style of the men’s adventure magazines of the 1950s and 1960s. Hell, most every cover blurb for the stories inside scream to be transformed into a roleplaying adventure (OK, maybe not “The Diet That Can Double Your Sexual Batting Average,” but still I make a good point).

I can’t do it. I’m booked solid and I’d make a lousy publisher anyway, but couldn’t you see a quarterly OSR fanzine done in this style and containing adventures for Call of Cthulhu, Weird Adventures, and other RPGs of that ilk? Man, I’d be all over that slick, especially if it occasionally did tell me about “The Nation-Wide Shame of Teen-Age Sin Clubs” and where I might find one in my neck of the woods.

The Siege of Fort Wolf’s Head

Last Sunday saw the players in my Labyrinth Lord campaign defending a remote frontier settlement against a horde of goblins. The scenario was lifted directly from Night’s Dark Terror, although the events leading up to the siege were a result of the players’ own actions. Putting them in charge of the fort’s defense was a great way to shake up the game for a session before returning to the dungeon crawl that seems to be the preferred style of play. I almost, almost sent out an email to players to suggest they watch Zulu or Assault on Precinct 13 before the game, but decided to not tip my hand ahead of time. Michael Caine references were made nevertheless.

The biggest problem in preparing for the battle was that I didn’t have a map of the frontier fort that accompanied the module. My copy of B10 is secondhand and is missing the big map and counters. If I was dealing with people who maintain a reasonable business model, I would normally have the option to buy a PDF version of that adventure and print out the map in pieces to tape together. Alas, Hasbro has an interesting method of doing business. Thankfully, someone was kind enough to provide me with a copy of the map so I could reproduce it on a sheet of Gaming Paper ahead of time. I’m attaching a photo of that reproduction to this post—just in case anyone else out there was wondering what the map of the outpost looks like.

Vintage Homebrew Adventure

This week’s been a busy one, but fear not: I’ve not abandoned my post and continue to subject myself to post-apocalyptic misery in order to bring about a better Gamma World. The next installment of "Radioactive Theatre" is on the way, as is another edition post-mortem.

Until then, however, I thought I might share with you a little bit of bonus material I recently received in a used boxed set of Mentzer Basic, or as the owner of my FLGS called it, “free art.” There are three or four of these gems, each dating back to an earlier and simpler time, none of which were created by me. They easily could have been though, and looking them over reminds me of the adventures I used to create back when I was less concerned with maintaining things like “realism” or “play balance.” A state which I still strive to return to on some level.

Every time I come across one of these amateur adventures done by an adolescent, I always have the urge to try and take the germ of the idea they (or myself) created and expand and/or improve on it. One of these days, I may actually get around to doing so and thus allow my gentle readers to experience the Mike Curtis version of Module D1—The Dungeon of Dread.