Strange Stones

Illustration of a spacer, White Dwarf #14 (August/September 1979).

swordandbackpack:

SWORD & BACKPACK RPG IS HERE

Here it is, the first release from Rothbard & Gazpus games: Sword & Backpack RPG, what might be the world’s first RPG system designed to be played using a Moleskine notebook. It was inspired by:

• Old school D&D
  
• Brian Eno’s card and role-playing experiments (the Oblique Strategies cards he created with Peter Schmidt and the “Games for Musicians” he made for David Bowie)
• The playful regimentation of Factory Records
• Our love of epic fantasy
• Our desire to make a simple RPG that could be played with the absolute minimum of material while drinking with friends

All in all, we here at Rothbard & Gazpus think it’s a pretty darn nifty way to play.

In addition to the set of initial rules, you can also download Sword & Backpack Adventure Supplement Vol. 1 and Sword & Backpack Magic Supplement Vol. 1. Amazing.

Click the link to download the initial document, check out the instructional sheet that lays out how to start your notebook, and then have at it. Once it’s in your hands, it’s YOURS. Mess with it, please. Create your own adventures, spells, and so on. This version of Sword & Backpack is free, but in the future we’ll be producing some actual products that aren’t so bootleg and might deserve your actual cash. And if you have any questions, comments, criticisms, pictures of your personal notebooks, or high praise, write to swordandbackpackatgmaildotcom – we’d love to hear from you! Watch this space for new content, errata, the announcement of the Rothbard & Gazpus website, and more.

(Many thanks go out to the Sword & Backpack brain trust: Mike Uy, Alec Ferrell and Andrew Whalen, for their comments, suggestions, support, ideas and additional writing. This literally would not exist without them.)

Illustration for the Man-Beast AD&D character class from White Dwarf #8.  The Man-Beast has a magic ring that switches it between, yes, man and beast.  In beast mode the character gains the following special abilities:

And, as you might have guessed, they get claw/bite and ultimately tail attacks.

Illustration for the Houri character class (a Magic-User sub-class) for AD&D from White Dwarf #13 (June/July 1979).  Seems like this might have worked as a class for Leea from Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword.  Also, va-voom!

Yow! Now that’s a sea giant.

(Source: arcaneimages, via killamanwithadinosaur)

oldschoolfrp:

Ghoul from Talisman 2nd edition, illus. Gary Chalk, Games Workshop, 1985.  The ghoul is a playable character who can keep a life point taken from an enemy, and can raise a defeated enemy from the dead as a follower.

killamanwithadinosaur:

For the new 3-D restoration

oldschoolfrp:

Treasure for the survivors.  (Dave Trampier, from the AD&D Monster Manual, TSR, 1977.)