[SUPPLEMENT] Gamemaster’s Guidelines Beyond Fomalhaut (NOW AVAILABLE!)

A Tome of Mastery

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown! In role-playing games, the position of the gamemaster carries the most responsibility, as it is a formidable task to entertain and challenge an entire group of players from session to session while preserving the game’s continuing appeal and mystery. Fortunately, the tricks and techniques required for gamemastering are easily learned with a little practice, and perfected through continuous play. All it takes is a lively imagination, sound judgement, and a pinch of ambition.

This volume provides guidance and time-tested techniques emphasizing the practical side of gamemastering to assist in fulfilling these ambitions. Building on the philosophy of classic adventure gaming, and focusing on player agency, gamemaster creativity, and fast, open gameplay, it offers comprehensive guidance for running old-school games, and designing adventures, campaigns, and game worlds. The book provides not only advice, but also a rich toolset to help both during preparation and at the table: procedures of play to facilitate a smooth game experience, a broad selection of monsters and magic items, as well as a large set of random generation tables to inspire gamemastering creativity.”

With thunderous onslaught and terrible fire, I am pleased to announce the publication of Gamemaster’s Guidelines Beyond Fomalhaut! This is a 292-page hardcover supplement providing comprehensive, easy-to-follow guidance on creating and running old-school adventures and campaigns, from basic philosophy to tested design methods and a whole lot of supplemental material (including optional rules, monsters, treasure, and random generation tables). The book should be useful for beginning gamemasters and old hands alike, and while it is designed for OSRIC, most of it should be quite applicable to any old-school games.

Gamemaster’s Guidelines Beyond Fomalhaut is lavishly illustrated by Cameron Hawkey (who did the cover and various interiors), Graphite Prime, Vincentas Saladis, Sean Stone, Peter Mullen, as well as the Dead Victorians, the Antique Alumni, and the Robot Overlords. Profferading and helpful advice was provided by the Riders of Doom: Istvan Belanszky and Kalman Farago; with further suggestions by Ken McKinney, Settembrini, and Terrible Sorcery. Thank you, gentlemen! This was a mighty undertaking.

The book includes the following materials:

• A primer on Classic Adventure Gaming, notes on swords & sorcery, and a list of selected inspirational material.
• Basic and advanced gamemastering techniques, from effective descriptions to harnessing random rolls for creativity.
• Intuitive and modular optional rules from a simple mass combat system to experience, survival, poison, and disease.
• Adventure and campaign design advice, including dungeon, wilderness, city, and situation-based adventure types, as well as guidance on constructing and running rich sandbox campaigns with ease.
• Guidance on designing game-friendly fantastic worlds, including understanding their assumptions, dealing with the gods, and adopting the game to other genres.
• Simple domain management guidelines.
• A selection of 255 monsters, NPC types, and a large, complex set of encounter tables.
• A treasury of magic items, technological devices, and treasure generation charts.
• A rich selection of random inspiration tables to help in adventure design.

A detailed description and a preview of the dungeon design chapter is found here.

The print version of the book is available from my Bigcartel store; the PDF edition will be published through DriveThruRPG with a few months’ delay. As always, customers who buy the print edition will receive the PDF version free of charge. US shipping is now open, although still rather expensive (see how it works here).

US customers will also find the book for sale at Dark Future PDX, who also carry many other fine old-school supplements. They are a small store, so they may not have everything in my catalogue all the time, but they restock regularly, and they have amassed a good reputation. Orders through Dark Future are also eligible for free PDFs.

Venture Into Trackless Wilderlands!

Test Yourself Against Monsters & Men!

Wrestle With Strange Magic!

...and Fight On!