FMC is a well done minimalist retro-clone of the original 1974 DnD. It is succinct and cleanly laid out. The art feels exactly like Greg Bell's but just a little bit better. The way it handles race + class is kind of clever as it doesn't clearly separate them like AD&D does, yet it doesn't smush them together the way Basic does. It puts the races on their own page explaining their roles. So you kind of get the best of both.

Spell descriptions are brief, almost curt, with dashes of wry humor. For example:

QuoteDetect Magic Turns ?, Range ?
Detects any enchantment laid on a person, place or thing. It has limited range and
duration, but I won't tell you either of those things.

Funny because the original doesn't tell you the duration or range either. Haha, get it?

Even the name "Fantastic Medieval Campaigns" is a clever way to steal from the subtitle of the original. I wish I'd thought of that.

The monster descriptions are nice and brief, the Appendices are particularly well done. Including one of the best summaries of Chainmail mass combat I've seen. And it adds something more OSR products should: excellent Glossary and Index in the back.

So when you get to the end of it you think this is a pretty good, if derivative. retro-clone. Then the author sticks her middle finger right in your face. The last 2 pages are a manifesto where she goes off at how fascist, racist, misogynistic OD&D and its original creators are. She drops a big stinking turd right in the middle of the OSR fandom, knowing exactly what she is doing. Being an attention seeking whore.

Here is her rant:


Digital copies of FMC are free here. https://traversefantasy.itch.io/fmc

Now, I shouldn't be giving her what she wants: attention. My motivation is two-fold. One, it really is a well done retro-clone. I'm impressed. But second, and more importantly, this is a shot across the bow. They are coming after the OSR with both barrels and they want us dead, dead, dead. They want to destroy the OSR the way Anita Sarkesian tried to destroy video gaming, the way Heather Antos and her coterie of villains destroyed comics, the way feminazis have destroyed Star Wars and are destroying Marvel. These people march into institutions and seek to ruin them. They are communists, behave like communists, and use communist tactics. They've taken Hollywood long ago, taken Higher Education so they can train little marxists to take Public Education, they've long taken journalism in this country. They are taking the military, and every other thing they can get their grubbies on.

They couldn't do it with class warfare like they've done in every other hellhole they've conquered, but it didn't work in America. So they found another route: Identity Politics. And it has worked well for them. The Left, even those few who did love America, don't even know they are becoming - have become marxist communists. We see their rainbow flag planted in every territory they have conquered.

It's way too early to start losing brain cells today.

Another OD&D retro clone, another RPG feminist moron. It's just not that often that you see them combined in one.

Huh, she says that like it's not a good thing.

I take it she never read Hogshead's Violence or Power Kill. The point of those games was to satirize the fact that ttrpgs are violent crime simulators.

The OSR is too decentralized to "take control" of the movement. Can "they" ruin the more popular games? Sure, but there will always be a safe haven, even by just playing 1e or Chainmail!

On the other hand I think the only thing one can do to make them cry is to embrace the "-ists" and "-isms" they throw around like a lot of people (I know) do in WH40K. I love my space nazis and I wouldn't take it any other way! The more silly the armies get with racism and authoritarianism the more I laugh and enjoy the game.

Why would someone go through the trouble of producing a work like that if they hate it? She could have simply posted her stupid manifesto and been done with it?

Quote from: Exploderwizard on October 10, 2023, 11:47:22 AM
Why would someone go through the trouble of producing a work like that if they hate it? She could have simply posted her stupid manifesto and been done with it?

Why did Ted Kaczynski write 20 billion words when he could have just said, "The government sucks and communists are the antichrist"? Psychopaths tend to be a verbose lot.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on October 10, 2023, 11:47:22 AM
Why would someone go through the trouble of producing a work like that if they hate it? She could have simply posted her stupid manifesto and been done with it?

My take? I don't think this is a "kick" to OSR people, I think it's cognitive dissonance. The author actually likes OD&D but is also a raving SJW, and the rant is an attempt at placating SJW friends who point out how "problematic" it all is. I have seen it before, in a SJW who loved Connery in James Bond and couldn't really reconcile these notions in her head.

Quote from: Felneth on October 10, 2023, 10:57:01 AM
The OSR is too decentralized to "take control" of the movement. Can "they" ruin the more popular games? Sure, but there will always be a safe haven, even by just playing 1e or Chainmail!

On the other hand I think the only thing one can do to make them cry is to embrace the "-ists" and "-isms" they throw around like a lot of people (I know) do in WH40K. I love my space nazis and I wouldn't take it any other way! The more silly the armies get with racism and authoritarianism the more I laugh and enjoy the game.

This is exactly why I am opposed to monopolies and IP law. Many famous media IPs are now soiled forever and there's nothing to take their place, so pop culture is fucked now. With the OSR, that isn't a danger because there are always going to be alternatives if a game you like goes psycho. The pseudo-medieval fantasy genre is oversaturated. Both in ttrpgs and crpgs.

Which would be great for me personally if I wasn't completely sick of pseudo-medieval fantasy. I played hundreds and hundreds of hours on Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 custom modules. I've had my fill. I prefer modern urban fantasy, but there's no real options outside that abominable World of Wokeness that has "you must literally eat the rich to increase your character level" baked into the rules, among other ridiculous stupidity like furry captain planet and hypocrite luddite wizards. Fuck that stupid shit.

Quote from: Brad on October 10, 2023, 08:57:18 AM
It's way too early to start losing brain cells today.

Yeah, but this is a strange one. FMC shows a real love for the source material, there are little details only the nerdiest of OSR geeks really get (Balor being crossed out, the choices of what to edit out and what to include), but at the same time a real hatred for the source material and those who made it, and especially for those who still play it.

Quote from: Brad on October 10, 2023, 01:02:03 PM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on October 10, 2023, 11:47:22 AM
Why would someone go through the trouble of producing a work like that if they hate it? She could have simply posted her stupid manifesto and been done with it?

Why did Ted Kaczynski write 20 billion words when he could have just said, "The government sucks and communists are the antichrist"? Psychopaths tend to be a verbose lot.

And he was uncannily accurate as well.

Quote from: Thor's Nads on October 10, 2023, 02:39:07 PM

Quote from: Brad on October 10, 2023, 08:57:18 AM
It's way too early to start losing brain cells today.

Yeah, but this is a strange one. FMC shows a real love for the source material, there are little details only the nerdiest of OSR geeks really get (Balor being crossed out, the choices of what to edit out and what to include), but at the same time a real hatred for the source material and those who made it, and especially for those who still play it.

Yup, see my comment above.

Quote from: Fantastic Medieval Campaigns
The goal of FMC, rather than to offer a new take on the original role-playing game, is to refresh our memories and problematize our preconceptions of a text (or even of a whole genre) that we have taken for granted.

What a clear goal. No mushy wannabe academic wordiness at all!

And then there's this comment from the author:

Quote from: Fantastic Medieval Campaigns
my own interest in the original text is more literary than for play

Okay, then, nothing more to see here!