Dagger Mania 3 :Hearteater

Heart Eater is a plain weapon looking like any of a hundred other common daggers. When held its fits nicely in most hands and is well balanced for regular or offhand use.

This dagger is treated as a +2 vorpal blade though its power works on creatures with a normal heart rather than just a neck

Strong necromancy and transmutation; CL 18th; Price 78152GP Weight 1lb slot: none

Dagger Mania 2 :The Twins- Thunder and Lighting

This pair of daggers was custom built by The Elf Lord Mathendier for a lady adventurer who had taken his fancy.

They are made of bluish steel, one etched with a pattern the resembles lighting, the other storm clouds. They can be thrown easily, the right resembling a tiny lighting bolt the left, a streak of thunder when they fly straight.

They are both +2 Keen Admantium Returning Seeking Daggers. The right dagger "Lighting" is also shocking burst the left "Thunder" is thundering and sonic (+1d6 sonic) .

If the daggers are pressed together and the command word word "Me'urra" is spoken, the weapons will cast Lighting Bolt at the wielders level. This ability can be used 1 time per day.

In addition as the daggers are meant to be together and anyone holding a dagger may use Locate any Object at will to find the other.

Aura faint transmutation; CL 12th Slot None; Price 80k gp; Weight 1b. Add an extra 20k for the pair.

Dagger Mania 1 : Herat's Green Death

This infamous weapon, a long plain thin bladed dagger belonged to an Assassin by the name of Herat and was used in several dozen high profile killings. Upon Herat's execution, the dagger changed hands several times and its current location is unknown.

+3 Brilliant Energy Dagger of Venom. The dagger is treated as it was protected by a non detection spell at all times it is being carried. In addition all search checks to find it on a person are at -5. Unlike most daggers of its type, this weapon has an affinity with poison and its blade may be envenomed even with the brilliant energy feature active. When active the weapon glows with a sickly green light equal to that of a torch


Aura faint necromancy,moderate abjuration strong transmutation; CL 17th Slot none; Price 125,000 gp; Weight 1 lb.

How Old School Empowers Players

One of the big issues that faces GM's who want to bring new players into old school gaming is the simple question they are going to ask “Why should i play such a minimalist game?"

Thats a fair question especially coming from players who are used to be able to choose from menus full of options. When you look at a character that is little more than 6 stats, class and level it can be daunting to know how to play the game and to understand how you are going to have your fun too.

What it offers players are as follows

#1 You are assumed to be capable.

Old school games often forgo a skills /background /feat system because your character doesn't need one. When in doubt you know anything that a person of you background would know. Lets say you character is a Human Fighter L1 20 years old raised in the Kingdom on Noonah by a Guardsman and an herbwife. After as stint in the castle guard you were discharged and became an adventurer.
Thats a lot of background and in some systems would be a lot of skills and a lot of fiddly allocation. In old school you might write this much (or less, 16 year old farm boy no parents or siblings now an adventurer is a perfectly good background too) and instead you just toss dice against a stat and go .

The same idea applies to adventuring tasks you might undertake . No need for some Rolemaster-esque pitch tent skill or use rope or camping skills. Just roll some dice if needed and move on. Swing on a chandelier? Roll the dice and go and so on.

Essentially, you can try anything you can think off.


#2 You are encouraged to use your own brains and imagination. Yes older system do include rules for finding secret doors and such but the general best practice is “Iif they don't specify, roll.

If they do specify and they choose wisely, give it to them” this kind of think it through attitude rewards smarts in ways that “Roll a DC15 search check” or “Roll disable device DC 18” does not. This kind of thing is part and parcel why RPG's were regarded as a geek hobby. Brainy people or thinking people get more from the game.

#3 Sandboxing.

Yes modern games do have sandboxing too but the idea of exploring the world, exploring the dungeon and simply adventuring is a strong component of early play styles . Its not so much driven by missions or by the commando style of play we see in modern games but by the players desire. Get tired of the borderlands? Hey. You are adventurers, pack it up and move on. And yes there may be consequences. Dealing with those consequences is part of the fun.

You are not assumed to find everything, do everything or get a certain amount of everything. You can come back, go forward and simply explore an imaginary world.

#4 More organic play development .

With the exception of limits of the archetypal classes (you can't learn to cast spells later) character development is far more free-form . You start lowly and build big and best of all, you chose the direction. Want to be a duelist ? No need to start counting feats and choosing classes levels in advance instead you do whatever things the DM thinks you should (typically some roleplaying and maybe some expenditure of for extra training) and start dueling people. Or if it fits, just do it.

And last #5 an End Game.

Players in older editions had a point in which they could “become somebody” usually around 9th level or so. They could get a tower, a base whatever and become a big man with his own followers and a lot of cool actually played war stories. This is actually an awesomely underrated part of the game.

Instead of the perpetual adventurer, you hack a kingdom out of the wilderness and move onto a more sophisticated game of prices and kings. In many ways this is more compelling than yet another feat or level.

Whats also great is that if this was not you cup of tea, it wasn't mandatory and there certainly were adventures for high level types such as my favorite, Queen of the Demon Web Pits and more.

Those "big 5" ought to be enough to convince some of the wobblers and if you do right by them as a DM they may just come back and we'll be gaming like it was 1981 only better ....

Change the Classes, Change the World Example: Cantrip

Cantrip is a something a little different. Its plentiful low magic inspired by history , sword and sorcery and the old Runequest 2. Its a bit more of a rigorous change than say Arcana Unearted in that basically none of the archetypes exist but it still shows the basic idea.

What I did is

Remove all races except Human , remove all the spell casting classes, add in Noble, a non magic Bard and Ranger and Savant (a generic scholar/crafter/merchant class) from Thieves World , add low magic rules and allow anyone with an INT of 10 or more to learn and cast L0 spells at will...

Magic items still exist but they are all Petty Artifacts (intelligent items) Lesser Artifacts or Greater Artifacts.

As you might guess, this is a very different game, far more human focused and with much scarier monsters, yet in its own small way more magic than most D&D games.

Here is the players Intro

Welcome to the Cantrip campaign.

This is a D&D world after a magi-pocalypse called the Leveling. This event destroyed the old traditional divisions of magic and most magic items

Its 32 point buy, Human Only using modified backgrounds from Thieves World and Pathfinder traits

Low magic options are in use including level based AC bonus and action points.

Classes are Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, Scout, Modified Ranger, , Cavalier ,Savant, Noble, Bard, Warlord (modified) though explicitly magical options are not allowed. Mariner and Swashbuckler are up for consideration as well .

Anyone with an INT of 10+ may learn cantrips. Known cantrips may be cast at will without spell failure although gestures and speech are still required. Players start with INT Mod +1 cantrips and may learn more at start with a trait selection. When in doubt I the use Pathfinder rules. More cantrips may also be learned in game. It costs some GP and happens between sessions or after a level up.

Last rule BRING ME CANTRIPS. 3rd party sources of zero level cantrps are highly encouraged. and anyone bringing one I do not have is assumed to have found a spell book some time within game (their choice) and may immediately learn two approved cantrips and an additional one automatically. from that source each level up.

Change the Classes, Change the World

One of the most effective ways I've seen to shake things up in a new campaign is to change the available classes.

Most of the time players come to expect a certain mixes depending of course on system.

By changing this mix you can not only change the flavor of the world but how players interact with it. A couple of published examples, Monte Cook's Arcane Unearthed is recognizable as D20 and outisde of spell casting has a small learning curve but its mix of Warmains. Unfettered, Magisters and Greenbonds provide a meaningfully different game than the standard Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric mix.

In settings like Age of Mortals for Dragonlance with the addition and emphasis on new classes like Master, Noble and Mariner can shake up a game and take it in interesting new directions.

The same thing can happen when you change classes in older games, game with Fighters, Clerics, Magic User, Thief ,Elf, Dwarf and Halfling is quite different than one with Swordmaster, White Mage,Black Mage, Rogue and Sidhe ( Elves with Illusionist magic), Dwarf Runecasters and Halfling Thornwalkers even if the mix of spells and abilities is pretty similar to a standard game.

Now some caution is advised. New stuff needs to be balanced, , in some games niches need to be filled and of course it all needs to be fun and interesting for player and GM.

If you can meet that hurdle, try changing things up. I think you'll like it.

Send Me You Poor, Your cool Your Huddled Products Yearning to Be Seen

This is an open promotion call for freebie games for any edition of D&D, any retro clone and anything else that you think the readers of a blog thats mostly about Pathfinder and the OSR might like.

If you have something you think someone might like and you think is not getting enough attention, reply to this thread and send me the link.

After I get enough cool links, I'll post them all in one big post. If I really get enough I'll tweak the page to show em.

So hows that for you? Free adds for free products.

The only rules are

#1 The promoted download needs to be free and legal (obviously)

#2 I get to decide what is interesting enough to be posted

Beyond that. Post away