Quote from: blackstone on November 27, 2024, 09:47:11 AMNow that I'm thinking of it, I think I can crank the weirdness to 11: I have a COMPLETE set of the Enchanted World series of books by Time/Life. Man, I can really lean into the lore of those books! It would be an incredibly weird, strange, and otherworldly campaign world. I'm gonna work it out.

    Let me know how it turns out. I'm rather fond of those books.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on November 27, 2024, 10:22:22 AM

Quote from: blackstone on November 27, 2024, 09:47:11 AMNow that I'm thinking of it, I think I can crank the weirdness to 11: I have a COMPLETE set of the Enchanted World series of books by Time/Life. Man, I can really lean into the lore of those books! It would be an incredibly weird, strange, and otherworldly campaign world. I'm gonna work it out.

    Let me know how it turns out. I'm rather fond of those books.

Yeah, I was real lucky in my folks getting the set for me. A kid back in the 80s who was into D&D? This was the motherlode of info on myths, folklore, and legends pre-internet.

I plan on doing a deep dive in Dec, since I'm taking about 2 weeks off for Xmas vacation.

Quote from: blackstone on November 27, 2024, 09:47:11 AM

Quote from: blackstone on November 26, 2024, 02:06:36 PMWell, I already have a cool alternative to Dolmenwood: The Midderlands

It has that same creepy fantasy vibe to it.

To those who helped: thanks for the link.

I'm reading through Wormskin #1 and I would have to say it would fit perfectly with the Midderlands campaign setting. Both have that creepy, weird fantasy vibe like the movie Legend.

Now that I'm thinking of it, I think I can crank the weirdness to 11: I have a COMPLETE set of the Enchanted World series of books by Time/Life. Man, I can really lean into the lore of those books! It would be an incredibly weird, strange, and otherworldly campaign world. I'm gonna work it out.

God I still can remember seeing the commercial for that, it was scary but also awesome. Regret that I never managed to get that series.

Quote from: Nobleshield on November 27, 2024, 01:41:49 PMGod I still can remember seeing the commercial for that, it was scary but also awesome. Regret that I never managed to get that series.

   Most of the volumes aren't that hard to find used; I managed to put together a complete set a decade ago.

I backed the Kickstarter last year, and am also somewhat disappointed.

I will need to change a good part of the setting to make it fit what I want in a campaign setting.

The game rules apart from the setting are pretty standard b/x clone stuff, with the currently popular house rules (thieves use a d6, not percentile dice, for doing their tricks, for example).

Elves and Grimalkin (the cat people) use a different magic system than the mage.

Clerics can use any type weapon, but cannot use weapons enchanted with arcane or fairy magic. There is a good selection of weapons and equipment that are blessed with Divine magic, though. There are three types of clerics: the paladin, the witch hunter, and the vampire killer.

Instead of dwarfs, there are fungus people. Instead of Halflings, there are batface-goblins. Instead of orcs, there are goat-people.

Every character class can search (for traps, secret doors, and such) and forage for food while in the wilderness.

Knights are fighters with a built-in tie to the setting. They can only use melee weapons, but can claim hospitality from any of the nobles. They must be the same alignment as the lords they serve. There are eight lords/ladies (the Duke of Brackenwold doesn't count, for some reason), and two of them are lawful, according to the player's book, but in the campaign book, one of the lawful ladies has actually turned neutral because she is a drug addict. Spoilers, I guess.
One of the things I plan to change is to make nearly all the lords to be aligned with law. I'm going to make some personality changes to the lords, as well. Something I find strange is that there are several people who are lords (or ladies), but only two of them have a blinker title. There is a duke, and a baron, and then "lords and ladies". Are they not peers? Are they baronets? The baron may be promoted to earl. And the lesser lords will become barons

Also, I will scratch out "bard" and wrote in "minstrel".

Making a character can take just a few minutes, or may take a much longer time, based on how detailed the player wants to get. Rolling for equipment rather than for money to buy equipment speeds up the process.

The one element of the rules that I think is genius is monster random encounters. Instead of meeting a bunch of goblins who are going to either fight you or run away, the goblins may be fleeing from an ogre, or chasing an ogre, or cheating a widow out of her savings.

The cute talking animals were created by the demon unicorn who wanted beings that would worship him. These animals live seemingly comfy lives under an extremely oppressive regime. Some of the talking animals are trying to form a rebellion. They are obviously derived from "The Wind in the Willows".

The setting info is so dense, that it's a bit overwhelming. The only way I would be able to run it would be to limit the hexes that the players could explore. Even then, as someone mentioned earlier, the GM might have to know what is going on in other areas of the wood, because what the characters do in one hex may affect what happens in places several hexes away. There is also things like ley lines and fairy roads to worry about.

It would be possible to use the rules in a homebrew campaign, but the rules aren't that different from B/X, aside from the fairy magic and the weird classes, and B/X is only around $10 for the pdfs.

The rules are nothing special, but that can be a plus. The setting is not that special either, but it works. I don't think it will be a true classic, but Dolmenwood's allright okidoki.

Quote from: blackstone on November 27, 2024, 09:47:11 AMI'm reading through Wormskin #1 and I would have to say it would fit perfectly with the Midderlands campaign setting.

Discovered that Dolmenwood IS a part of the Midderlands setting. Looking at the map, it's in Ireland.

Very cool.

I'm actually interested. I found the same article via other links and now I see it here.
I was looking for OSR type of game and found a group that was starting Dolmenwood soon. The rules are ok, pretty standard. The setting is... interesting. I prefer it a lot more dark and gritty and I had heard of Wormskin before, but never played it. Reading the article it looks like I missed this game completely. We still haven't played yet, had a session 0. The DM looks pretty good, I'm only wondering if the setting is for me.

Quote from: Skalme on December 05, 2024, 10:32:49 AMI'm actually interested. I found the same article via other links and now I see it here.
I was looking for OSR type of game and found a group that was starting Dolmenwood soon. The rules are ok, pretty standard. The setting is... interesting. I prefer it a lot more dark and gritty and I had heard of Wormskin before, but never played it. Reading the article it looks like I missed this game completely. We still haven't played yet, had a session 0. The DM looks pretty good, I'm only wondering if the setting is for me.

Like anything else, it'll come down to the DM. You could certainly choose to run the setting on the darker side. It's just a matter of what parts of the canon you choose to emphasize and where you choose to read between the lines. For my Dolmenwood Campaign I used several Dungeon Crawl Classics modules, and found them to be a natural fit.

As someone who collected and devoured all the Wormskins and backed Dolmenwood, I dont understand the level of fuss over the changes. As others have posted, add the weird and dark back in if you want. This is a game fundamentally about creativity, and we often use writings of others as a starting point, not the ending. Personally I love all the detail and imagination in Dolmenwood, and where I want to make things weird and dark, I can easily take that extra step. But having so much solid work done really helps with prep and entertaining my table.

Quote from: mcobden on December 07, 2024, 01:30:11 AMAs someone who collected and devoured all the Wormskins and backed Dolmenwood, I dont understand the level of fuss over the changes. As others have posted, add the weird and dark back in if you want. This is a game fundamentally about creativity, and we often use writings of others as a starting point, not the ending. Personally I love all the detail and imagination in Dolmenwood, and where I want to make things weird and dark, I can easily take that extra step. But having so much solid work done really helps with prep and entertaining my table.

You can add whatever to a setting, but thats a dissatisfying answer since it applies equally to all products.

Quote from: mcobden on December 07, 2024, 01:30:11 AMAs someone who collected and devoured all the Wormskins and backed Dolmenwood, I dont understand the level of fuss over the changes. As others have posted, add the weird and dark back in if you want. This is a game fundamentally about creativity, and we often use writings of others as a starting point, not the ending. Personally I love all the detail and imagination in Dolmenwood, and where I want to make things weird and dark, I can easily take that extra step. But having so much solid work done really helps with prep and entertaining my table.

Pretty hard to do since the wormskin zines aren't avilable anymore. the article mentions a 4chan doc that put them back in but I couldn't find it. B acked the KS based on what I've heard about WS and the patreon content and it's pretty disappointing. when I asked about it on the Dolmenwood discord channel, people seemed pretty combative and said the creator doesn't read there.Also, if I pay for a setting, it's usually because I don't want to do much work and a heads up would be nice, preferably before backing.

Overall, with the wildly different art art and those changes, I wouldn't have backed at a physycal tier.

Quote from: mcobden on December 07, 2024, 01:30:11 AMI don't understand the level of fuss over the changes. As others have posted, add the weird and dark back in if you want.

The level of fuss is there because all the weird and dark was removed for non-gaming reasons.

It shouldn't have to be put back.

The ire over the bait and switch is justified.

It's also odd that the wormskin zines are no longer available. Keeping a PDF for PoD on drive thru costs them nothing...

I was intrigued by Dolmenwood at first.  I was thinking it would be a beautiful world with a heart of bile.  The more details got released it just seemed cutesy.  It may have the trying to please everyone hindering it from standing on its own style.

Quote from: a_wanderer on December 07, 2024, 01:51:20 PM

Quote from: mcobden on December 07, 2024, 01:30:11 AMAs someone who collected and devoured all the Wormskins and backed Dolmenwood, I dont understand the level of fuss over the changes. As others have posted, add the weird and dark back in if you want. This is a game fundamentally about creativity, and we often use writings of others as a starting point, not the ending. Personally I love all the detail and imagination in Dolmenwood, and where I want to make things weird and dark, I can easily take that extra step. But having so much solid work done really helps with prep and entertaining my table.

Pretty hard to do since the wormskin zines aren't avilable anymore. the article mentions a 4chan doc that put them back in but I couldn't find it. B acked the KS based on what I've heard about WS and the patreon content and it's pretty disappointing. when I asked about it on the Dolmenwood discord channel, people seemed pretty combative and said the creator doesn't read there.Also, if I pay for a setting, it's usually because I don't want to do much work and a heads up would be nice, preferably before backing.

Overall, with the wildly different art art and those changes, I wouldn't have backed at a physycal tier.

Damn, I could have wrote this word for word.

It will likely go into a box after a read not to be touched.

So disappointed with the kickstarter after what I had heard and read about the setting online.