Wednesday, October 17, 2012

No Elves! Still Going Strong

Several old RPGs (defined as out when I was a kid some 30 years ago!) are still active and experiencing modest resurgences.  Almost all driven by fans and hobbyists (not industry) and often for the love of the game (rather than $$$).

It use to be, in the dark ages before large drives, fast networks, and free creation tools, if you wanted to get something out there to other gamers you had to charge a large amount just to cover production and shipping. Now there is the option, if you want to share and be shared, you can. The future of RPG hobby has never looked better.


Everyone has heard Hasbro's announcements about releasing old TSR titles.




Still no Elves, but there are new! Talislanta supplements. All of Talislanta and more has been released under Creative Commons License.  Talislanta is one of the reasons I need multiple clones that can pursue all this cool stuff I can't seem to find time for...


The Iron Crown
Rolemaster Remastered (and Spacemaster, HARP Fantasy, HARP SF, and campaign settings).  The long running http://www.guildcompanion.com/ I don't follow things too closely, but I believe guild companion folks have bought the rights or something like that. I keep getting email newsletters announcing various products being available on PDF



And there must be enough interest to warrant a new edition and playtest.  Just wish more of that "interest" lived in Austin, TX!


wicked cool
Tekumel.com overhaul.  I actually don't remember Empire of the Petal Throne from back in the day.  I probably saw ads or heard mentions, but never saw game or knew anyone who knew anything about it.  I discovered Tekumel from reading various bloggers, Grognardia, Hill Cantons, Jeff Rients.

There will always be a (hard) core of base of fans for EPT.  It might never "break out".  But, that doesn't really matter. My goal for next NTRPGCon is to get into one of the EPT games.





dude, I'm old!
Star Frontiers Remastered The first "fan remake" I found, Amazingly Excellent. Better production values that original!  Get's my Drasilite all bubbly!  Really, really gonna have to start a Sci-fi campaign in 2013.


Don't even want to get into Harn, or I'll never get this posted...



Those are mine, there are others.  What are yours?

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4 comments:

  1. KonsumterraWed Oct 17, 11:17:00 AM CDT

    the loss of faith of big companies vs creativity of fans is a great change and has helped renew my interest - i started reading history and classics instead about time tsr died. RQ had best online gaming fan content in 90s and it fit in with my reading better. An alexander the great game and war of the worlds in chaosium rules were especialy good. Fanmade is a labour of love - corporate made is another day in the office and selling units. Blogger today is better than any Dragon or any RPG mag.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Timrod Thu Oct 25, 01:13:00 PM CDT

    Man, I was really hoping you'd get into Harn. What's up with it?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Norman J. Harman Jr.Thu Oct 25, 03:05:00 PM CDT

    Sorry, don't know too much about Harn. Always fascinated by ads in Dragon. Those maps are dense! Columbia has tons of products and sends out regular email newsletters. Personally I'm less interested in Historical and/or "Realism" in my Fantasy RPGs which (as I understand it) is one of Harn's strengths.

    ReplyDelete
  4. grodogWed Oct 31, 10:38:00 AM CDT

    Victor Raymond always runs EPT in the Jakallan Underworld @ NTX and GaryCon, Norman. He's got a blog, too, if you're interested: http://sandboxofdoom.blogspot.com/

    Allan.

    ReplyDelete

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