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Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Review and Commentary On The Free OD&D Setting Book From the Folks At The Semper Initiativus Unum Blog


Grab It Right Over
HERE
The book is on the right hand side of the blog under free setting.
The Original D&D setting book is an OSR PDF that I stumbled upon about three nights ago and its an interesting collection of ideas based upon the original OD&D concepts from Gygax  Gygax put into a commentary and campaign book in one. Even though it clocks in only at eleven pages, this little setting book does a wonderful job distilling down the essence of some of the greatness that is OD&D. There are many idea within these pages that are very well thought out and extremely useful.
All of the weirdness, and awesomeness that is a part of the OD&D book is here. The author's blog posts have been collected and put into one very useful book. There's an honesty about the book that shines through and its openness is a nice change of pace actually but its really the 'Gee Whiz' factor that seems to really come through.
This is a setting book that is proud of its strange and awesome linage. Simple, easy to digest world and sand box campaign ideas are all there. This book makes a great little companion piece for AS&SH when a DM wants or needs to design a foreign landscape. The wilderness is brutal and dangerous, the rivers a very nasty encounter zone, and the list goes on as the author clearly outlines some highlights for creating some very horror and weirdness filled areas for a sand box campaign. All in all this is  pretty solid little gem to stumble upon and a very well thought out set of ideas. If your not following this blog and your into OD&D or its retroclones this is one  to follow. Grab this setting book while you can and you won't be sorry. Simply one of the easiest setting books with common sense advice I've read in a while.
Semper Initiativus Unum

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad to see that you enjoy the blog. If you do any adventuring using the OD&D Setting book, I'd be interested to hear about it.

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  2. I'm planning on using the book for an upcoming Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea campaign coming up. Given the OD&D pedigree of the game, I'll let you know what the results are in an upcoming blog entry. I certainly enjoy the blog as well. The recent entry on inhuman markets and bazaars was certainly food for thought.
    Thanks for the comments and there's more to come.

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