• From: Helsinki, Finland
  • Registered: 2009-10-09
  • Posts: 20

Topic: Where to go for quality OSR-material

I'm a recent OSR-convert, and so far all I've read that's actually new material (as opposed to original 70's and 80's material) is the Labyrinth Lord core book and everything from LotFP. I was wondering if you guys could give me some pointers and short descriptions on which books/pdf's from which publishers I should look into next? I'm predominantly interested in adventure material usable with LL with as little conversion as possible.

While on the topic; I've recently gotten hold of a few gigabytes of old, scanned TSR books. I'm currently in the process of sifting through it for stuff I'd want to use in my own games. Any pointers there? Which ones are top notch, and which ones should I definitely avoid as a complete waste of time to even read?

Navdi's Website

  • Registered: 2009-10-09
  • Posts: 2

Re: Where to go for quality OSR-material

Navdi wrote:

so far all I've read that's actually new material (as opposed to original 70's and 80's material) is the Labyrinth Lord core book and everything from LotFP

I'm a little confused by this... Labyrinth Lord is restating an entire ruleset.  I like it and am glad it exists but I don't think it's "new".  Or I'm not understanding you. 

As to your second query, I would start reading the oldest stuff first.  In general the chaff will start to overwhelm the wheat as you move forward.  Also, you'll be able to ignore quite a bit as things are repackaged and reissued for "new editions".

  • From: Helsinki, Finland
  • Registered: 2009-10-09
  • Posts: 20

Re: Where to go for quality OSR-material

barrataria wrote:

I'm a little confused by this... Labyrinth Lord is restating an entire ruleset.  I like it and am glad it exists but I don't think it's "new".  Or I'm not understanding you. 

As to your second query, I would start reading the oldest stuff first.  In general the chaff will start to overwhelm the wheat as you move forward.  Also, you'll be able to ignore quite a bit as things are repackaged and reissued for "new editions".

You're absolutely correct in that LL isn't really new material as such. Its a pretty faithful version of the Mentzer B/X game. I haven't really done a comparison for the actual differences, although I've been told there are a few small ones here and there.

Yeah, I decided to do just that. So far I've re-read the Mentzer Basic and Expert sets and have started on the Grand Duchy of Karameikos Gazetteer, just to get a feel of the setting for most of these older modules. Next up, I'll probably start perusing the modules, starting with Keep on the Borderlands, and other B Series modules.

Any pointers on where to go for good new material? Anything by Expeditious Retreat Press or other publishers you'd recommend?

Navdi's Website

  • Registered: 2009-10-09
  • Posts: 2

Re: Where to go for quality OSR-material

Fight On! (although the exclamation point doesn't really do it for me) is a consistently excellent resource for OSR play. It's a quarterly magazine of adventures, tables, and the like. The price is a little steep, especially with Lulu's shipping prices. I'd recommend picking up #3, which is both extremely thick and fairly well written. Fight On!, like most OSR websites and publications is far too polite/small to reject poor submissions. Some really excellent art and writing is placed side by side with some unbelievably awful art and useless articles, but considering that contributions are not paid for, Fight On! has a surprisingly high ratio of good to bad content.
        It's really good.

http://stores.lulu.com/FightOn

Last edited by Stygian Jackal (2009-10-26 01:15:25)

  • Registered: 2010-01-02
  • Posts: 5

Re: Where to go for quality OSR-material

If you go to RPGNow and search for Labyrinth Lord, you will find a fair number of products. Many of them are also available as real books.