Monster's Macabre is a monster and DIY supplement for Cryptworld. The book is easy to read and it illustrates more monsters for use or to spike your imagination in writing your own material for Cryptworld.

Plus sections in the back provide tables for creating your own monster hunting organizations, and how to create your own monsters for Cryptworld play and how to play monsters in your own Cryptworld games. This last is similar to the Creature Feature supplement written years ago for pacesetter's original CHILL game.

A must for both horror game fans and Cryptworld fans. Great job Goblinoid Games!

Cryptworld is an updated version of the old chill rules as written by pacesetter from the 1980s. The game system incorporates all the old supplemental rule material (creature feature) into a tight package and the game system is steamlined, balanced, and complete.

Also, Cryptworld runs easily due to the simplicity of the pacesetter action table, making this game compatible with Majus, Rotworld, TimeMaster, Star Ace, and the original (1st Edition) CHILL. And all their supplimental material.

Plus, Cryptworld lends itself well to DIY horror worlds and the authors provide good examples on how to create your own monster hunting societies. A wonderful toolbox and at a great price. Great job Goblinoid Games!

Orginally Posted here: https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/

I reviewed 1st Edition Gamma World which got me thinking about Mutant Future. I was surprised to discover I had written a review for Mutant Future. Well, today seems like a good time to do that. This review will cover the PDF and the POD versions from DriveThruRPG.

Mutant Future (2010)

Not to start with, Mutant Future is not really a Retro-clone, near clone, or anything like that. The closest game it is like is Gamma World. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Gamma World has its roots in the dawn of the RPG age and D&D in particular. Filled with mutant animals, plants, and humans of all sorts.

While Gamma World has its own near-D&D system it is not 100% compatible. Maybe 95%. Mutant Future doesn't have that issue. It is the exact same rules as its sister game Labyrinth Lord. Plus Mutant Future is not trying to emulate Gamma World exactly. Mutant Future then is a new game that feels like an old game that never really existed. Mutant Future does have some differences from Labyrinth Lord. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic Earth much like Gamma World.

Section 1: Introduction

This covers the basics. What this game is and what to do with it. A brief overview of dice and common abbreviations is covered. This largely the same as what we see in many games and in Labyrinth Lord in particular. Mind this is not a drawback to this game. There is a strong implication here that anything made or written for Labyrinth Lord is also good for Mutant Future.

Section 2: Characters

Again, there is familiarity here, and that works to Mutant Future's advantage. The ability scores are the same as Labyrinth Lord/D&D and are generated the same way. The various species or types you can play are also here. Characters can be an Android (basic, synthetic, or replicant), mutant animals, mutant plant, mutant human, or the rare pure human, also like Gamma World. Abilities can go as high as 21 and there are a different set of saving throws, but the basic rules are the same as Labyrinth Lord. The types also list what HD each character has and how many mutations you have.

This section also covers gear. It uses a coin system much like D&D and Labyrinth Lord as opposed to the barter system of Gamma World. Either works fine.

Section 3: Mutations

This covers all the mutations that all characters, NPCs, and creatures can have. In true old-school fashion, these are all random tables.

Section 4: Adventuring Rules

This covers the rules of the game and what characters are likely to do. Again these are replicated (but not cut and pasted) from Labyrinth Lord. Mutant Future sticks with feet and Basic movement as opposed to Gamma World's metric and more AD&D-like movement.

Section 5: Encounters and Combat

Combat and weapons of all sorts are covered. Also covered are damage from stun, paralysis, diseases, radiation, poisons, and more. This is one of the bigger departures from the Labyrinth Lord core, the saving throws are keyed for Mutant Future damage types. There is also a mental attack matrix here much like Gamma World.

Section 6: Monsters

This section covers all the sorts of creatures you can encounter. It is fairly expansive and since the format is the same as Labyrinth Lord creatures can be used in one or the other or both. 40+ pages of monsters is a good amount. There are also plenty of detailed encounter tables.

Section 7: Technological Artifacts

This would be the "Treasure" section in a fantasy game, but this is highly appropriate since the world of Mutant Future is supposed to be littered with the technology of past ages. This includes non-playable robot types, vehicles and things as mundane as protein bars.

Section 8: Mutant Lord Lore

This covers how to run a Mutant Future game. Not just how to run their own but how to build your world. Unlike Gamma World which has a sort of baked-in setting, Mutant Future is more open. The Mutant Lord (and I think an opportunity was missed in not calling them Mutant Masters) gets to decide how the world is the way it is. Advice is given on how to run adventures and a sample setting is provided.

Section 9: Mutants & Mazes

While it might not really be needed, this section discusses using Mutant Future and Labyrinth Lord together. The rules are remarkably similar, like 99%, so there are only minor pieces to consider. Though this section does expand mutations to the standard D&D tropes of race/class.

All in all this a fine game. It is not exactly like Gamma World, more was it trying to be. It does however give that Gamma World feel in an OSR ruleset.

Print on Demand

The PoD version of this book is a sturdy hardcover that compares well to my Labyrinth Lord books.

I really like this book, but I should say that I don't think the price for a physical book is right, the price implies top quality and the book is not top quality. Tere are some problems with the printing but it's all minutia, the book is perfectly usable and readable, but there are images that are cut comparing to the PDF and a few pages are larger than others and for a book that costs almost 30€ this should be of higher quality.

After that is said, the book is beatiful, the art is all black & white. The lack if Indexes is a little jarring, but both Table of Contents do the heavy lifting, I just wish that both were on the beginning of the book, but it's usable.

Realms of the Crawling Chaos is a fantastic supplement for any OSR game, which not only focuses more closely on Lovecraft's own material v.s. the expanded universe created by later authors, but takes the material with less kitsch and more seriousness than what you would expect for a "add cthulhu to D&D" supplement. I have not run any of its content yet so unfortunately, I cannot speak for the balance but I can speak for the writing and content, which is pheonominal to a large extent. The book restricts itself to only entities introduced in Lovecraft's own work, his collaborations during life, and his contemporaries whom he referenced during his lifetime, so don't expect Byahkees, but do expect Clark Ashtom Smith's Tsathogguah, or the White Apes from Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family. There is quite a lot of material curbed from the often unexplored earlier works of Lovecraft, and as a result the feel of it is quite different from what you traditionally get from a Lovecraft supplement, focusing far more on the sincere fantasy aspects of Lovecraft's work than the science fiction. What results is a world that is just as lethal as any OSR game, but with new unknown wonders that offer variety from the typical Tolkein-esq tropes. It also offers a considerable amount of advice for getting the tone and themes right for a game with these concepts. This advice is considerable, and the book is deliberately designed to suggest a setting for keepers rather than give you an entire hard locked setting to play around in.

There are new races, both for basic and advanced LL, one of which is secretly a group of Innsmouth hybrids (for extra fun, don't let your players know what the Sea Bloods ARE except that they are effectively a cleric race class, and then run the generational mutations as time goes on and let the rest of the party slowly realize what they are), another are white aps or white ape hybrids. All of the new races are quite interesting and offer up a lot of potential roleplaying scenarios of prejudice and paranoia, but what is fascinting about this is since the players play as these types they get to experience the horror of this themselves. It's uncomfortable, and not for everyone, and I can definitely see many tables not being comfortable with a player race called "Subhumans", but the roleplaying opportunities for exploring gritty dark and uncomfortable topics are fascinating and adult without ever really drawing attention to it directly. For example, in the alchemy section there is an "Oil of Sea Blood revelation" which could easily be used by an angry mob on a Sea Blood PC hinting at much of the potential prejudice and mob rule that could come about if the secret of their blood was ever revealed. Similarly, Subhumans need to masquerade as ugly humans or face persecution and death. My only gripe about these new races, is white apes seem a tad too exotic to give to players straight out the gate from the beginning, and that the basic versions of these races might not always have enough benefits to make up for the considerable disadvantage they may have socially due to their race. I also wish there was a basic race which functioned as a "magic-user", as although Sea Bloods work as Clerics, humans would be the only ones in basic capable of casting magic. Maybe they are the only ones that foolish.

I decided that when I run my own game of this, I am going to omit elves and halflings from the setting, and make dwarves more of a subterranian semi-xenophobic culture, pale skinned, who's eyes are so adjusted to the darkness that they need tinted goggles in any light more than that of a torch. They are also the natural enemies of ghouls.

The monster bestiary is nice, and the new magic system of alchemy is quite interesting. I am surprised it took any game this long to create a spell for the "spirit bottles" from lovecraft's The Terrible Old Man. My only gripe with monsters is the truly laughable illustration of a mi-go, but it is a part of the art which is doing a great job aping that early TSR style, and at times does a good job going for the style used in 1st Edition Dieties and Demigods' Cthulhu section. However, the real show stopper is the chart in the back for the creation of random magical artifacts. I adore the idea that in a setting like this, not every magical object players may find will be useful or even something they should come within 20 feet of. Not every piece of treasure will be something they can sell, and they might even need to try to destroy some of it given how dangerous it is.

All in all, I have become a little obsessed with this book, as it has given me so many new ideas for worldbuilding of my own setting using Labyrinth Lord and the quality of this book actually directed me toward checking out the Labyrinth Lord rules. The only thing I wish I could see more of is examples of more other-worldly and wonder and horror inspiring dungeons or adventures, stuff like the cities of the white ape from Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family, or that gorgeous drawing of R'lyeh from Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. It might not even have to be something that extreme, but tips for creating realms with an uneasy feeling, maybe even a detailing of a Sea Blood village, or where the Subhumans live. This is a setting that I would love to see more of. Medieval Cthulhu stuff exists, but actual fantasy Lovecraft? That is rare and there is simply too much unexplored territory here to be left. This book does something I wish more RPG books did and that's create a sense of mystery once you start to piece its ideas together.

I am working as a German freelance translator and nowadays at lot of agencies are looking for sample translations which are rarely paid. As I still enjoy translating RPG-material I took "Tomb of Sigyfel" to do a German "language pack" in line with the OGL as a sample. Feel free to pick it up and integrate it into your product. One the other hand the promotion for yourgamesnow.com which is in the zip-file should be removed as the site is no longer active.

It is a nice small dungeon and ideal for quick play.

Absolutely love this system and it the go-to system at the moment for my group.

It's as good as retroclones get, does it's job really well.

This is an odd early hybrid that is a Board Game with some light RPG elements. The idea seems to be to plug it into the actual RPG Starships and Spacemen. Much alin to how Knight Hawks plugs into Star Frontiers. But is also a standalone space battle board game/wargame.

The system is actually fairly solid and it really shines in the space exploration department and one could say each character is the starship really. You travel about trying to get various tasks done and trying to solve any problems that arise either in transit or at the planet you are headed to.

One major bonus is that the game can be played solo.

Old school perfection. Well, almost. There are a few errata but nothing important. It's the same old Labyrinth Lord and its advanced edition companion, all in one nice tome.

Packed with tons of great info and a wonderful source if you're already steeped in BX or the OSR rules. Tons of monsters and rules for all kinds of encounters. A lots of great random tables too.

However, it's general layout is pretty weak and unfriendly and it spends a good page explaining what an RPG is and how to play one but never breaks down how Descending Armor Class works. So, it pretends to cater to new players and then kind of forgets about them.

The physical book is 60 pages worth of material and deals with running a Lovecraftian-inspired game of horror fantasy. The PDF is 66 with covers and an ad for Mutant Future.

A few new races are introduced for a Race-as-Class style game with notes on other classes to use in an advanced game; Sea-Blooded, Subhuman, White Ape and White Ape Hybrid.

Next, are some new magical formulae and some new spells all based on various Lovecraft sources. Enough to sprinkle into various dammable texts for the players to find AND then really get into trouble with.

We come to the monsters and all the old favorites are here. Comparing them to other sources of similar monster will give you plenty of differences in stats, which is a good thing really. Players who are familiar with other books should not have knowledge their characters do not.

A small section on Eldritch Artifacts, a staple of many of Lovecraft's mythos stories.

And finally a section on Psionics which differs from other books/games.

We get some appendices on Eldritch tomes and an artifact generator. Appendix 3 covers the use of these psionic rules in Mutant Future. And Appendix 4 covers the stories and books used.

We end with the OGL section.

The book is awfully fun and is full of great ideas. If you are a fan of Labyrinth Lord and Lovecraftian tales then I would most certainly grab this.

Simply put, one of the best OSRs in the market. The rules are clear, altought the writing is a little verbose. No matter that, it's perfectly elgible, the rules make sense and Dan proctor has eliminated tons of ambiguities and absurdities from the original game. And now, finally, the basic/expert options are combined with the advanced options in one book. It deserves a place of honour among your games, and you deserve to have this game even if you usually don't play OSR games. It's like not having a Cthulhu or a D&D in your shelf.

TL;DR: Advanced Labyrinth Lord is convenient and saves you the trouble of having to flip between the core rulebook and the Advanced Edition Companion book when running LL using the "advanced" rules. There's nothing new content-wise, Goblinoid Games is selling you LL + AEC condensed into one book which is a little disappointing.

Full Review: Advanced Labyrinth Lord is basically just the core Labyrinth Lord and Advanced Edition Companion rulebooks mashed into one single, easy-to-use tome. Honestly I can't help but wonder why Goblinoid didn't publish the game in this format to begin with instead of separating them into two different books. Or at least include the essential rules such as exploration, monster stats, and combat tables etc within the AEC so people didn't have to switch between the two books in order to play an "advanced" game of LL. I'm sure looking back Goblinoid Games realized that people would've much rather preferred to have just one book "to rule them all" which is why we got Advanced Labyrinth Lord.

As for new content, you won't find anything in Advanced Labyrinth Lord that isn't already present in LL or the AEC, and honestly I was a little disappointed which is why I took off a star. If you already own LL + AEC (which are free to download here on DTRPG) then you aren't getting anything new, just the convenience of not having to jump between two books when running an "advanced" game of LL. I felt like there could've been SOMETHING new that they could've added to make purchasing this book more worthwhile, such as maybe a few new classes (Barbarian and Sorcerer anyone?) or maybe some new player races/monsters/magic items etc. Instead, Advanced Labyrinth Lord's main selling point is just the convenience of having everything you need in a single book.

Gameplay-wise, Advanced Labyrinth Lord plays exactly the way you remember it. You'll roll 3d6 in order for stats and pick a race, then a class, roll for HP, then buy equipment and send your poor PC to an almost certain doom inside a dangerous labyrinth deep beneath the Earth. As far as layout goes, the book does a good job at separating the "basic" and "advanced" elements into their own sections, and carefully explains which sections to use depending on if you want a basic game or an advanced game. The "Advanced Hit Dice" option is still present, just in case you want your PCs to be a little more robust with their Hit Points. I felt like the book did a good job at explaining and making it clear which parts to use depending on if the GM is doing a basic or advanced game, however anyone not familiar with the differences between B/X and AD&D may want to carefully read the rules until they start to understand what the differences are.

Final Verdict: I would highly recommend this book to fans of LL and anyone wanting to run an old school AD&D game without having to try and decipher the mess of rules that is the 1st edition AD&D game (especially the "High Gygaxian Speech"). If you're happy playing just basic LL then you don't need this new book at all. Alternatively, if you're tired of carrying around both LL and AEC and want just one book with the option to play either basic or advanced rules then this is also for you. Lack of new content is disappointing given we're shelling out money yet again for a product that we already own, however it's not a deal breaker either.

The maps have interesting shapes and the grid lines are helpful but the large black negative space wastes a TON of printer toner. These are expensive to print as a result.