I was about to write something shockingly jaded about seasonal sales when it comes to RPG PDFs: a world in which there is no piles of virtual stock in a warehouse that need to be shifted; and that since Halloween last year every publisher and his dice wielding dog have been blathering non-stop about percentage reductions for their online files; and perhaps cynically I'd sneak in my affiliate and associate links, making me something of a hypocrite by supporting the pre-Apocalyptic Happy-Holidays-New-Year-Brown-Thursday sale of rulebook and adventure data direct to your paypal-machine or tablet before it all goes pop in the Valentines-Easter-Spring-Is-Coming Sale... ;) but then I got distracted by ... THIS!
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| RAAAAAR ! (Foolish, yet ambitious, low level hero takes on Dragon in high quality homage to D&D red box) Aventuras en La Marca del Este IN ENGLISH! |
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| It's like BECMI/BX D&D and you love it. You know you do. Perhaps this is how we finally get the kids hooked... |
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| The DM's Screen. |
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| Nine classes ... and in colour! Wait a sec, I was expecting four classes plus demi-humans. (reads ...) .... Cleric, Dwarf, Elf, Explorer, Halfling, Mage, Paladin, Thief and Warrior... Paladin - you may enter. "Explorer"? Who-He? (reads on ...) "These adventurers become specialized in wilderness survival and are expert trackers." A type of ranger, naturally... Phew. The 1eAD&DsqueezedintoBasic cosmic order is restored! |
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| Half of a very cool map. Don't panic - you can see this in full in the PayWhatYouWant Quick Start Rules I paid $2 btw. I know, I know... but if they wanted to give it away for free, surely they would have listed it as "Free to download"? Surely? |
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| Beautiful on the screen, and okay, even in black and white it may be a little tough on a home printer, but I am seriously considering trying to get a boxed set, because... just look at it! JUST LOOK AT IT. |
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| You had me at "candle skull"... (from the b/w pdf) And that must be the "homebrew" depicted (see below) |
Away with your typewriter fonts and black and white historical stock art - here's an OSR D&D retro-clone (with tweaks) with high production values ! Naturally, I haven't read all of the rules yet because my mind is still being melted/blown/singed by the visuals! (Insert list of talented artists here...)
The Spanish game “Aventuras en La Marca del Este” began from the mind of Pedro Gil as a homebrew campaign for some friends in Spain playing the world’s most famous game as devised in Frank Mentzer’s (BECMI) Red Box with 9 starter classes and new rules on mounted combat, aerial combat, seafaring and ship battles. Now, many years later, it is one of the most popular role-playing games in Spain. By enlisting incredible artists that are now rising stars in the RPG industry such as A.J. Manzanedo, Jorge Carrero and Víctor Guerra, the “La Marca” team produced an incredibly captivating “retroclone” role-playing game that is an old school experience wrapped in old world flare. The game is published in Spain by Holocubierta Ediciones. Supported by Kickstarter, this is the first ever English edition of the game, now called “Adventures in the East Mark”. This Basic Rule Set has everything that you need to play a game with the deep traditions of the original fantasy roleplaying game and imbibe it with an authentic European flavor.
To summarise, adapted from 1980s D&D, but with super high production values, Adventures in the East Mark Basic Rule Set (Red Box) is available as a bargain price PDF (currently) on DriveThruRPG http://bit.ly/EastMark
Physical hard copies in real boxes (in a real warehouse) available from:
Extra-Dimensional Publishing http://xdpublishing.com/
