https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/513378/gloomraider-osr-rpg-quick-start-basic-rules
Gloomraider - this indie game by
I even paid money for some PDFs... I think the designer and the artist deserve a couple of bucks for sure. I need to leave a review before too long on drivethrurpg. I'll put one here for now, which might be just random points:
- The vibe is very OSR. It's about dungeoncrawls and dangerous monsters and cool art.
- Read his reply from drivethru, tells a lot of how it is made, red is my emphasis:
- "Thanks! In short I'd say GloomRaider is like Shadowdark for AD&D instead of 5e. The primary difference is the way various mechanics are handled. I go more with old school D&D mechanics as opposed to 5e mechanics. If you are familiar with all the editions of D&D, you'll see bits and pieces of many of them in GloomRaider, like: - Ability score modifiers are the traditional bell curve -3/+3 (Basic D&D editions) - Modifier improvements are more tied to leveling than increasing ability scores (Pre-WotC D&D) - Racial ability score adjustments (AD&D) - Racial traits (AD&D) - Spells (AD&D & Basic D&D) - Casting spells includes "Vancian" style - Monsters (AD&D) - Class traits more in-line with AD&D Things from Shadowdark that I handle differently: - Advantage/Disadvantage is adding or subtracting 1d4 - Class traits are a bit different, but generated similarly to Shadowdark - Incorporates "roll-to-cast" spells differently - Gear slots is very similar but has slight differences The one-hour real time light is unchanged from Shadowdark. In general GloomRaider is more like AD&D and Basic D&D than 5e and Shadowdark, but is easily adapted into Shadowdark as houserules."
- Page 8 of the basic rules lets you know all the abbreviations and anything non-standard from old D&D
- AC = DS (defense score). Pretty smart to call it something other than AC to signify ascending AC. Most new game designers would be tempted to just go with what the public would know... so once again I get the impression that the designer is about quality over mass appeal. Good.
- Orcs in this game are called Orocs.
- This is to distinguish them as the pig faced monsters of 1e and maybe 2e AD&D. He mentions that he did this to help out modern players or folks who just know 10 versions of orcs. I 100% like the monstrous version before they turned into whatever later.
- Boarocs. Harder orcs are called Boarocs, Think wild boar. Way more hair, almost like a werewolf.
- Templars = paladins basically.
- Sorcerers = old school Magic-Users, but more flexible casting. Reading straight under that section of the basic rules, you start with 3 spells in your spellbook (but you get stuff like detect magic, read magic, and sort of identify item for free at will casts). You only can cast 1 spell at level 1 via the memorization/Vancian style... but then you can Wildcast. OK here it is, Wildcasting is roll to cast.
- So yeah, way more fun than a 1980 Magic-User at level 1 who couldn't do much.
- Magic - I need to reread, but I think there are options for Shadowdark/DCC roll to cast. And definitely Vancian options.
Example of Sorcerer level up coolness options (feels like Shadowdark):
I'm going to paste in the languages, because this shows what sorts of monsters are around:
COMMON LANGUAGESLanguage Who Speaks It AlphabetAquan Mermaids, sahuagin, sirens ElvenCommon Humans, halflings CommonDwarvish Dwarves, gnomes, kobolds DwarvenElvish Elves ElvenGiant Giants, ogres, trolls DwarvenGnoll Gnolls NoneGoblin Bugbears, goblins, hobgoblins ElvenReptilian Lizardmen, troglodytes NoneSylvan Centaurs, dryads, faeries ElvenRARE LANGUAGESLanguage Who Speaks It AlphabetAbyssal Demons, orocs InfernalCelestial Angels CelestialDraconic Dragons DraconicDruidic Druids DruidicInfernal Devils InfernalPrimordial Elementals Draconic
