The day has finally arrived: Original Dungeons and Dragons is available for sale as PDFs. These are PDFs of the booklets that were re-created for the collectors boxed set that came out last year. (There were older scanned versions of these booklets available for sale several years ago, and those PDFs were pretty terrible.)

My biggest gripe with OD&D was not with its rules, writing, or art, but with its cost. The game is now a collectable, and has been for some time. The collectors edition Wizards of the Coast made last year is around $100-$200 depending on where you look.. That’s about $15-$30 per staple bound booklet. (Well, you get a nice box too.) If you want to try and track down the originals you likely can’t find them for that “cheap” unless the books themselves are in a state no collector would want. Original boxed sets are usually several hundred dollars—if you can find one that has survived this long. Forget all that: now you can just print your own!

As I have no doubt mentioned on my blog several times now, OD&D is my favourite edition of D&D. At the time it came out I really can’t imagine using these books to figure out how to play D&D. Lucky for you it’s 2016! It’s easy to back-fill any holes in the rules with rules from the Basic D&D rules produced by Holmes or Moldvay. OD&D is a fun starting point for your own variation of D&D.

As I mentioned in my last post, I ran Fungoid Gardens of the Bone Sorcerer, the sample adventure in Carcosa, over the weekend. Because I was nervous about running a game at a convention, for strangers, I was perhaps more prepared than usual for this game. Going through the process of prepping for the game has caused me to rethink (some) of the opinions I had on what I want from an adventure, and what I should really be doing when I run a game.

I ran Fungoid Gardens of the Bone Sorcerer more or less directly from the book. I think this remains one of the key things I want from any adventure. I have some modules where room descriptions are so long I could never hope to find pertinent information in their walls of poorly organized text. In contrast the Fungoid Gardens of the Bone Sorcerer is neatly laid out, well organized, and terse. I had no trouble quickly parsing out what each room was about while my players were exploring. I’m never going to run anything that requires me to re-write it to use it.

To help speed things up during the game I made a little monster tracker for the dungeon: for each room with a monster I had the monsters stats, and the HP of each monster encountered. I rolled up the number of monsters encountered and the HP ahead of time, for any room where these numbers were random. This is the sort of handout that seems like it should be more common than it is. I can’t imagine when it wouldn’t be useful to a GM.

I also pre-rolled all the random encounters that would happen during the game, and made a similar monster tracker for those. During the game I let players roll a d12 to see which of the pre-generated encounters they hit. (I could have just had them encounter them in sequence, but I also like some surprise at the game table.) This was actually more handy than I thought it would be. Random encounters felt as seamless as expected ones.

The Sorcerer has two apprentices (1st-level Ulfire Sorcerers) who wear chain mail and are armed with swords (and one has a short bow and a quiver of 20 arrows). Neither knows any rituals.

The above is one of the room descriptions from the dungeon. I can read this to myself quickly and not stutter when players walk into the room. Well, until they ask me what else is in here. I don’t think I realized how useful some amount of (interesting) dungeon dressing is till I came across rooms like this while running the adventure. I’m not good at coming up with this sort of thing on the spot. (Or not on the spot, for that matter.) What I ended up describing when I ran the module wasn’t particularly interesting. I think a few extra words about what some of the rooms are like would go a long way to improving this module.

Do these two apprentices like each other? Do they like their master? Are they vain? Are they insane? McKinnon leaves this all up in the air. Like the rest of Carcosa it’s up to you to decide some of the finer details of the adventure. The relationships between everyone in the dungeon isn’t fleshed out. There is a Bone Sorcerer, his two apprentices, and an alchemist all operating within this dungeon, along with a tribe of Deep Ones: what is their deal? Again, a few more words here would again go a long way at the game table.

That said, I do think the approach McKinnon took here is reasonable. There has to be a trade off made when your goal is tweet-sized room descriptions. From reading what’s he has written online, I think he is more interested in providing GMs with skeletons and frameworks for adventure rather than something more richly detailed.

I shudder to think of rules lawyers or canon lawyers playing their tricks with my books. The books are meant for the opposite use, the use of creative and imaginative referees who basically say when reading my books, “Ah, I see what you’re trying to do here. Let me finish all your sentences for you.” I never want to effectively tell a referee to sit down and shut up. — Geoffery McKinnon on ODD74

Still, it does introduce more work for the DM. I made a sheet that listed each NPC and a couple words about them, just so I wouldn’t be ad-libbing when the players encountered someone. This wasn’t much work, and helped flesh out the dungeon a little bit more.

Running a convention game was a good experience, much better than I thought it would be. I had 4 small A5 sheets of paper with some sparse notes, but that was more than enough to help me feel like I was ready for most anything. In my regular game I prep the bare minimum I can get away with and still feel like i’m ready for a game. After running this convention game I can see that just a tiny bit more effort would probably improve my games immensely, and take away a lot of the stress I feel when I run a game.

OSCon 5.5 was a lot of fun. I played in a game in the morning and then ran a game—what!?—in the afternoon. I ended up skipping the evening session, because I was pretty beat after 9-10 hours of gaming. If I was willing to power through into the night I could have play tested Daniel Bishop’s upcoming adventure, which I am quite sure would have been a fun session. There are so many old-school gamers in the city and I often forget they aren’t all on G+ gossiping about games: it’s nice to meet new faces; it’s always nice to play in person.

My first game was with Galen F, who ran The Idea from Space, a Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure. Galen began our game by informing us we were off on a quest to save a duke, likely located on an island off the Southern tip of South America. We arrived on the island to find the wreckage of his ship. My fellow adventurer suggested we torch the boat, just in case it was filled with monsters, and then fish out any melted gold from the debris. That really set the tone for everything that would follow. We did eventually find the duke—who we killed before we realized he was the duke. We managed to save two of his entourage, who we returned to Spain—where they probably spread the terrible scourge that had afflicted them on the island. The chaotic Elf in our party called it a win, and who am I to disagree. It was fun to play.

I had skimmed through this module when it first came out, but it arrived in a box containing A Red and Pleasant Land, Death Frost Doom, and Tower of the Star Gazer, so it was kind of easy to ignore. I remember at the time thinking it was goofy. I’m sure if I had read and reviewed the adventure at that time I would have said it was dumb and you should skip it. Now having played it I can see my impressions of the module were off: it is kind of goofy, but it in a good way. The adventure features two neat factions for the players to interact with and takes place on a small island that was fun to explore. I really should make more of an effort to review things I’ve actually played or ran myself: otherwise what are you really saying?

My session after lunch went well, I think. I always feel a sense of dread and panic when I run a game, so I prepared far more for this game then I do for my regular bi-weekly game—something I should probably rectify. I had notes for all the creatures, I pre-rolled their HP, I wrote out a couple words for each NPC of note, I pre-rolled all the wandering monster encounters. In hindsight I should have printed out the map and cut it up, because it was a pain in the ass to both describe and draw. Otherwise I felt the work I did beforehand helped things run smoothly.

I ran Fungoid Garden of the Bone Sorcerer using OD&D. The hook for the session was as follows:

Your lords are all dead: a strange people from a strange land. Dirt? Or was it Earth? Whatever the name, their home sounded wonderful. Your natural Carcosan xenophobia has been cast aside for a greater purpose: to escape this wretched world.

In a rocky defile, a cool steady breeze issues from a wide crack in the earth. Within lie the Fungoid Gardens of the Bone Sorcerer. Why would your former leaders ever want to come here?

The players each had a rumours as to why were they were supposed to be here. Two ended up with rumours about how to find a portal back to Earth (within the Fungoid Garden), while the third received a rumour saying everything about portals is nonsense as the reason they were here was to kill the sorcerer once and for all. After the session one of the players remarked he could imagine the game like an 80s cartoon or procedural: each episode featuring the party finding another possible way back home, but always failing.

My regular Carcosa group played a test run of the adventure, which felt like it lacked some oomph. For a variety of reasons this second play through at the convention felt like it went much better. Because of the route the party took through the dungeon they ended up meeting NPCs and creatures in a useful order. Because I usually play that Bone men are indistinguishable from one another to people outside of their race, Michael Prescot’s character was able to impersonate the eponymous Bone Sorcerer twice—once before they killed him and once after. And yeah, the fact they killed him also seemed like a good way to get closure in an adventure titled Fungoid Garden of the Bone Sorcerer.

The space the convention took place in was quite nice. In previous years it was sometimes hard to play because of all the noise from the other tables. That wasn’t a problem this year thanks to the ample space. Like an idiot I only took a photo when half the tables had packed up for lunch, though.

OSCon is a great successor to OSRCon. Stephen and Boris managed to get a bunch of people out again, numbers back in line with the earlier OSRCons. With the space they had rented i’m sure they were hoping for more, but for their first go at things I thought they did an amazing job. I’m hoping they run the convention again next year. It’s probably far too much work for such a small convention, but i’m glad someone’s taking the time to do it.

At the start of the year I had a goal to buy no more than one RGP book a month. This is less about money and more about actually making sure I have the time to really sit and enjoy the books I buy: it’s easy to collect RPG books for the sake of collecting. Anyway, I didn’t really come close to my goal. (I actually did worse than the previous year I tried this experiment.)

The bulk of what I buy continues to be books from the OSR for use with D&D, but there were a few exceptions. I grabbed Ryuutama’s PDF when it was put up for sale, and then quickly upgraded to a hardcover. The game looks like an SNES manual, and doesn’t remind me of any other RPG I’ve played. I backed The Warren on Kickstarter because I thought Bully Pulpit’s previous game Night Witches was well done. That book arrived at the end of the year and looks to be the game about rabbits I didn’t know I wanted to play. I finally bought Dungeon World, after enjoying Perilous Wilds so much.

There are lots of cool zines and small modules being put out by individuals in the OSR now. A Pernicious Pamphlet and In the Woods are stand out examples of this sort of work. I am hoping to make a zine from bits and pieces of my Carcosa game this coming year.

I only bought one book from Wizards of the Coast. The stuff they put out isn’t really of interest to me. I wish they had an indie-imprint doing more interesting work. Out of the Abyss is an enjoyable read, but it’s also large and cumbersome, and I can’t imagine actually using the book to run a game.

If you were curious what books are in the running for The Ramanan Sivaranjan Awards for Excellence in Gaming for 2015, here you go:

‡ Gifts from authors
¥ Bonus Kickstarter reward
† I won all of Zzarchov’s modules, including the then unreleased Gem Prison of Zardax, which I own as a giant pile of paper

Thanks to the hard working people at Wikipedia we have the following life lessons from He-Man:

1. Man-at-Arms tells viewers they’ll all make mistakes, but to “try, try again” and remain confident.
2. Orko tells viewers some strangers are dangerous, so never accept gifts from or talk to any.
3. Man-at-Arms tells viewers He-Man’s brain helped more than his muscles in that problem, and that brains can and should be exercised.
4. He-Man tells viewers to be cautious, whether or not a public safety official is around.
5. Teela tells viewers caring adoptive parents deserve the same love caring biological parents get.
6. Man-at-Arms tells viewers to first consider whether any practical jokes they play on friends may cause accidental serious injury.
7. Orko tells viewers animals should not be treated as tools, but with kindness and respect.
8. He-Man tells viewers drugs can not make their problems go away, and will often cause more.
9. Teela tells viewers to admit their mistakes rather than lying to cover them up.
10. Teela tells viewers they should question everything that does not seem right, but “Don’t judge a book by its cover”.
11. Teela tells viewers they should obey their parents, who have their best interests at heart when disallowing fun things.
12. Teela tell viewers to check with a doctor before physical exercise, and to start off slow.
13. He-Man tells viewers courage is not so much about braving danger as it is about sticking to personal principles in times of temptation.
14. Orko tells viewers to not eat any strange fruit they find, no matter how alluring, as it might be poisonous.
15. Adam tells viewers to share big problems with someone who cares, rather than feeling ashamed to ask for help.
16. Adam tells viewers money can make others act nicely toward them, but it can not buy a true friend.
17. Zodac tells viewers to protect their ecosystem from wasteful and dangerous pollution.
18. He-Man reminds viewers what Prince Adam said after “Daimar the Demon”; if a problem is too much, ask for help from someone you trust.
19. He-Man tell viewers attention seeking attracts a bad kind of attention, while being polite and helpful makes people like you.
20. Teela tells viewers music can help them feel better, and suggests singing, humming or whistling when sad.
21. Teela tells viewers they may get away with a bad deed for a while, but it will eventually be punished.
22. Teela tells viewers cooperation makes a job easier, and by respecting others’ contrary opinions, they may learn something.
23. Man-at-Arms tell viewers to resist the impulse to do something their wiser parent says is dangerous.
24. Orko tells viewers to appreciate the greatest magic of all during their daily life, which is life itself.
25. He-Man tell viewers anyone can change their bad habits, and the first step is telling themselves, “I can.”
26. Orko tells viewers parental love is the strongest love there is, and suggests telling their parents “I love you”.
27. Orko tells viewers to have three meals each day, and to not overeat.
28. He-Man tells viewers books are a viable entertainment alternative to television.
29. Man-at-Arms tells viewers they owe much to the adventurers through history, bravely facing unknown dangers so we may follow safely.
30. Sorceress tells viewers they all have the Starchild’s invisible power to bring people together; it is called love and is invoked through being kind and gentle.
31. Teela tells viewers to respect trees along with all life, and be a happier person for it.
32. Orko tells viewers to avoid heavy eating or exercise before sleep, which should be at the same time each day.
33. Zodac tells viewers it is just as important to know when to use great power as when to not.
34. Orko tells viewers to admit their mistakes and deal with them, rather than run away.
35. He-Man tells viewers to enjoy nature, but to leave things where they are.
36. He-Man tell viewers of the Magna Carta, which they praise as the first step toward social equality, or “the way it should be”.
37. Man tells viewers that while headbutting walls and doors looks like fun, it is actually quite dangerous.
38. Adam tells viewers to stay out of abandoned buildings, where they could be hurt or trapped.
39. Orko tell viewers repetition and rehearsal are key to remembering things like lines.
40. Man-At-Arms tell viewers to honor their promises, to say what they mean and mean what they say.
41. Orko tells viewers they do not need talent or possessions, they are special just for being themselves and real friends will know it.
42. Teela tells viewers nightmares are no more real than fairy tales, and suggests talking about them with someone.
43. He-Man tells viewers museums are storehouses of knowledge, and knowledge is a power more precious than gold or jewels.
44. Teela tells viewers fear is a common and natural warning of danger, and to heed it without shame or guilt.
45. Man-at-Arms tell viewers that accepting responsibility can instantly turn a boy to a man.
46. He-Man tells viewers not to blindly follow orders from leaders who may be irresponsibly selfish, but consider what is right and wrong for themselves.
47. Man-at-Arms tells viewers to judge people on their behaviour, not their appearance.
48. Man-at-Arms tells viewers to accept and learn from their mistakes, rather than beat themselves up about them.
49. Orko tells viewers carelessness is dangerous, and to “play it safe”.
50. He-Man tells viewers to not let the spirit of competition lead to injuries or anger in games, and to “play it safe”.
51. Teela tells viewers beauty is skin deep, that ugly people are often the “most beautiful to know” and those who look beautiful can be ugly inside.
52. He-Man tells viewers a symbol like a sword can’t make a leader, but intelligence, respect for others and an unselfish desire to do good can.
53. Adam tells viewers historical figures were once real people, like them.
54. He-Man tells viewers the threat of drowning is very real, and to never swim alone.
55. He-Man tells viewers it takes more courage to not fight when someone calls them a coward.
56. Orko tells viewers to not boast when playing games, to be a good winner and a good loser.
57. He-Man tells viewers everybody deserves a second chance, but if they keep getting into trouble, they might not be worth keeping around.
58. Teela tells viewers than being calm and reasonable during arguments, rather than angry, is the best way to solve a problem.
59. Teela tells viewers their parents are their best friends, since they help and care through illness and other bad times.
60. Orko tells viewers to not fear others for looking different, but to appreciate their thoughts and actions.
61. Adam tell viewers to not discriminate by race or religion, rather by actions.
62. Orko tell viewers patience can keep them from rushing into trouble.
63. Teela tells viewers to accept responsibility for their mistakes, and not shift the blame onto others.
64. again tell viewers “Don’t judge a book by its cover”.
65. Teela tell viewers the “Golden Rule” of treating others the way you’d like them to treat you.
66. Orko tells viewers to ask for help with their problems, rather than just feeling sorry for themselves.
67. Orko tell viewers there are vast quantities and varieties of entertainment and information in books.
68. He-Man tells viewers to help their fellow humans when they see a problem too big for one alone.
69. Teela tell viewers that, while human progress will inevitably destroy many trees, it is important to leave some areas of wilderness for everyone to enjoy.
70. Fisto tells viewers to lend a hand when they see others struggling with a task, and to not be too proud to ask for the same.
71. Teela tell viewers meeting responsibilities for a workload breeds dependability, the “first step to becoming a winner”.
72. Orko tells viewers to not discount old people, who often have much wisdom to combine with the vitality of youth, resulting in a better time for everyone.
73. He-Man tells viewers everyone makes mistakes, and everyone deserves a second chance (as he did in “The Golden Discs of Knowledge”).
74. He-Man tells viewers treating an animal with respect and kindness is far more fun than forcing it to fight.
75. Man tell viewers to keep calm in arguments with friends, lest they say something hurtful they’ll later regret.
76. Man-at-Arms tell viewers the best and quickest way to end a battle is an act of compassion, not of revenge.
77. Teela tells viewers to not “let a few bad apples spoil the bunch”; that is, not blame or judge a group of people for an individual member’s actions.
78. Man-At-Arms tell viewers play is just as important as work, but to always consider the safety rules of any game.
79. Cringer tell viewers to trust their instincts, whether feeling fear or courage.
80. Teela tell viewers a good idea can come from an unexpected place, so to keep an open mind.
81. He-Man tells viewers fears which might be called phobias can often be healthy and normal deterrents from dangers like fire, water or heights.
82. Adam tells viewers accepting a dare is oten a foolish path to trouble, and they should do what they feel is right, regardless of peer pressure.
83. Orko tells viewers a lie not only hurts others, but themselves; lying to cover lies and forgetting which were already told makes a small lie into a big one.
84. Adam tells viewers cooperation can make a tedious or impossible task much easier and even fun.
85. Teela tells viewers to let those who’ve been kind and helpful to them know how much that means.
86. Squinch tells viewers their maximum level of ability isn’t as important as their effort to work at that level.
87. Teela tells viewers to consider the victim’s safety and feelings before playing a practical joke.
88. Orko tells viewers to not take a rumor about someone at face value, and ask for their side of the story before judging.
89. Teela tells viewers to not jump to conclusions; a somewhat bird-like creature lands on her shoulder and repeats this twice.
90. Man-At-Arms tells viewers not to touch or especially ingest anything labeled with a face like Skeletor’s; just like Skeletor, they spell bad news.
91. He-Man tells viewers books are the closest thing they have to a working time machine, while holding three fiction books: Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn and The Time Machine.
92. Orko tells viewers those with living grandparents are especially lucky.
93. Orko tell viewers if they practice hard at anything they want to do well, the results will eventually surprise them.
94. Orko tell viewers revenge just leads to more revenge, and to forgive rather than continue the cycle.
95. He-Man tells viewers to treat envy not with theft, but by asking politely to share; they might even make a friend.
96. Orko tell viewers their parents punish them to teach right from wrong, not because they like it.
97. Man-At-Arms tells viewers imagination and intelligence are more wonderful than physical strength, and to exercise their brains along with their muscles.
98. Man-At-Arms tells viewers to listen to their conscience, and if they’re still confused after that, ask someone they trust.
99. Adam tells viewers to not gamble with things that aren’t theirs.
100. Man-at-Arms tells viewers to not feel bad for failure, as long as they did the best job they could do.
101. Orko tells viewers not to make up stories or exaggerate, lest nobody trust even their true stories.
102. Man-At-Arms tells viewers to generally be safe, and specifically, to wear a seat belt and not play with fire.
103. Man-At-Arms tells viewers there is no such thing as absolute good or evil in any group. Orko suggests judging people on their actions, more than appearance or even words.
104. Teela tells viewers drugs can make them sick, dead or dangerous, and to check with someone they love before taking any.
105. Teela tells viewers there’s often no time to think about helping a friend, they just have to do it; it may come back to them in an unexpected reward.
106. Man-At-Arms tells viewers to be good winners, showing mercy and respect to defeated opponents.
107. He-Man tells viewers of the unstoppable progression of time and its effect of change.
108. Man-At-Arms tells viewers to resist gluttony and greed.
109. Orko tell viewers sometimes fairy tales come true. The king says acting beautiful matters more than looking ugly.
110. Orko tells viewers to leave potentially dangerous practical jokes to the pros, like him.
111. Marlena tells viewers helping others helps themselves, by making them feel good.
112. Orko tell viewers not to exaggerate in anecdotes, as it can lead to wildly inaccurate gossip and difficulty in discerning truth.
113. Man-At-Arms tells viewers that people with different abilities can combine them into an ability greater than the sum of its parts, and this can make many jobs much easier.
114. Teela tells viewers to be careful when running or climbing, and that it’s more important to get somewhere at all than get there fast.
115. Adam tells viewers it’s fun to lose and to pretend, but that there’s a line between make-believe and outright lying they shouldn’t cross.
116. Orko tell viewers not to take gifts from strangers, or keep any secrets they ask you to keep from parents.
117. Teela tells viewers violence isn’t the best answer to any problem, as it only causes more problems.
118. He-Man tells viewers doing chores keeps a house running smoothly, even if they seem pointless or boring.
119. Man-At-Arms tells viewers they can’t win if they don’t try, so to keep persisting even when it looks hopeless.
120. Ricky tells viewers that having an genuine interest in something makes it seem less like work.
121. Man-At-Arms tells viewers to weigh out all the evidence and consider the sources before jumping to conclusions.

There are 124 episodes of He-Man, sadly three were missing lessons. I was planning on concluding my session re-caps with words of wisdom from He-Man.

I saw this over on G+.

What does that even mean? I’m not sure. There is generally a constant stream of this stuff online, if you go looking for it. I normally don’t, but somehow it still finds me. This annoyed me more than other similar posts, for no particularly good reason. I guess this stuff gets tired after a while.

The OSR isn’t all fat White dudes. I didn’t think that needed to be said, but maybe it does? (Spoilers: it includes at least one skinny Brown dude.)

One of the first posts I made here was about not being an asshole to other gamers. At the time it was in response to seeing people in the OSR moan about 4th Edition or D&D Next. Fast forward several years and I see that the discourse is dumb all over.

Anyway, my pro-tip to you all remains the same: stop giving a fuck about the games people play. I promise you, no one else cares. No one.

Update 2015-09-10: I could have written this post about a million different things I’ve seen online since the first one from 2012. In the grand scheme of things the image above barely rates as obnoxious compared to what’s come before. Still, yesterday it annoyed me.

I had a brief conversation with Ettin on Twitter. He thinks my take away from his snark was incorrect. I’m not sure the point he was trying to make was much better, but sure. Later he had this to say: “If your problem is a tweet about your community but your pals obsessing over TLs of people who blocked them is OK I have some bad news.” That’s fair: trawling someones timeline is annoying, and that’s how I ended up seeing this. I am sure I say dumb stuff often, and having that thrown back in my face days or weeks or years later would probably get tired. That said, it doesn’t make what I originally said any less dumb. Calling people in the OSR garbage is something I think is shitty. I don’t think you can really massage that. Of course, Ettin is entitled to his opinions.

Update 2016-01-31: … but Ettin is probably a troll and his opinions are likely dumb.

Overall I am quite happy with how Kickstarter has been treating me. Most of my recent Kickstarters have delivered without a hitch. Reaper Bones managed to ship a bajillion minis without breaking a sweat. Goodman Games shipped Peril on the Purple Planet and The Chained Coffin more or less when they said they would, with lots of bonus goodies. I’ve got the PDF of The Stygian Garden of Abelia Prem without any fuss. Overall, projects seem to be better run and handled now.

It wouldn’t be a Kickstarter update if I didn’t mention i’m still waiting for books from LotFP. That said, James Raggi has sent me so many random adventures and bonus books the wait doesn’t feel particularly onerous. Of the 4 books funded in the LotFP Summer Adventure Campaign, each has grown in scope and awesomeness. As I’ve mentioned before, more project creators should follow Raggi’s lead with respect to how he handles projects that are off the rails.

In contrast to LotFP, we have Brave Halfling Publishing. I don’t have anything to say here that hasn’t already been said elsewhere.

Champions of Zed arrived, finally, about 3 years after it was funded. If there is one Kickstarter I regret backing this would be it. I don’t want to belittle someone’s hard work, but this project feels so thoroughly half-assed.

Every year the Ennie’s come and go and I have no idea what half the games are about or how they even got nominated in the first please let alone win an award. Well no, I do know: these awards aren’t for me. The Ennies are a reflection of what people on EN World are into: stuff i’m not interested in. The Ennies feel like the Teen Choice awards of the RPG scene.

The Ramanan Sivaranjan Awards for Excellence in Gaming on the other hand are the sort of recognition a game publishers should feel proud to put on their CV. To that end, here are my picks for the best books of 2014, a half year late because why not. Winners were picked by myself, based on my mood this summer day. To qualify for contention your book must have been purchased by myself in 2014—I don’t give a shit when it was published.

Best Writing: Patrick Stuart, Deep Carbon Observatory

Deep Carbon Observatory was by far the most affecting game book I read in 2014. The writing is beautiful, poetic and thoroughly unrelenting its bleakness. The fact it also happens to be a D&D adventure is a nice bonus.

The water of the river is ripe with life, over-full with predators and fish of every kind. Pike and strange pale squid flit to and fro. Cuttlefish can barely be seen; camouflage flows across their pigmented skin like paint.

Upriver, in the distance, rises a column of smoke or grey cloud. The only other signs to mark the sky are carrion birds. Columns of their moving forms make black signals in the grey air, sketching spirals over the accumulated dead.

That’s how you paint a scene! And that’s just random text from a random page. The whole adventure is full of that.

This book feels new, different, and completely unique. It is so much more than a simple module.

Best Art: Jez Gordon, Death Frost Doom

That’s what i’m fucking talking about. That this book wasn’t up for a best art Ennie is why I am even writing this post.

Jez Gordon’s illustrations for Death Frost Doom are so completely on point, a perfect companion to the writing in the book. His stark high contrast black and white illustrations have been featured in a few books now, but the style really comes together in Death Frost Doom. The art capture the mood of the module perfectly.

The Ramanan Sivaranjan Excellence in Gaming Best God Damn Book of 2014: Zak S, A Red and Pleasant Land.

I have written at length about A Red and Pleasant Land so I won’t repeat myself here. This book was several years in the making and it shows. No one involved half assed anything. This book is 100% whole-assing. This is how you do it, people. (Jez Gordon should get some more recognition for the fantastic layout work he did on the book.)

Everything about the book is on point: great writing, great art, great layout, and even the god damn book as a real live thing is great. It’s one of the nicest books I own period, never mind gaming books.

I’m curious to see if anything coming out in 2015 can knock this book of its throne. Your arm’s too short to box with God.

Update 2019: my thoughts on this book haven’t changed much, but my thoughts about Zak have.

Honourable Mentions for the 2014

Scenic Dunnsmouth, Forgive Us, Evil Wizards in a Cave, The Excellent Traveling Volume, Wonder and Wickedness, and the new 5th Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide are all books worth checking out. That Wonder and Wickedness, A Red and Pleasant Land, and The Excellent Traveling Volume all came out within a week or two of one another speaks to how solid a year 2014 was for gaming.

Finally, though I have no idea what’s up with Torchbearer I still find it strangely compelling. The actual book is quite nice as well.

Till next year. Booyaka! Booyaka!