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On Downtime and Demesnes (Basic D&D) $9.99 $4.99
Average Rating:4.6 / 5
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On Downtime and Demesnes (Basic D&D)
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On Downtime and Demesnes (Basic D&D)
Publisher: Hack & Slash Publishing
by Jakob S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/25/2023 13:15:45

All three books by hack & slash publishing have some interesting ideas and tidbits of information, hidden in mounds of random text, and need some serious editing. First of all the books lack a clear structure. It seems like several articles from the blog were just copypasted together for a book, without much editing or reorganisation. The sentence structure sways between what seems to be the authors personal notes & cryptric sentences like: „The reality of mechanical triggers is relevant only to inform our design of them for play in the game.“ Editingwise the difference between chapters & sub-chapers seem to be rather arbitrary, and all kinds of headings are the same size. There is no clear transition in between. Sometimes the images cover a part of the text. While the books claim to be system agnostic, they contain several concepts which have not been used since 3rd edition or even before (reaction rolls, constitution damage, only thieves can detect traps, etc.). Saves from staffs, rods & wands stems from AD&D and literally has not been used for more than two decades. Also I do not get why the author would assume that all player characters are female. The intro of the last book reads: „These ideas are the way I run campaigns, and the books were created as a reference for me. The fact that they are useful for other people is just a wonderful bonus.“ except that if you sell your ideas to others, I would except a bit more editing & clarity than just personal notes.

Downtime and demises is chaotic, but useful. The lists of obnoxious pesants & weird nobles are entertaining to read by themselves, and make a great addition to play. The activities & labor were clearly created for AD&D & therefore have to be modified quite a bit to be useful for 5e (at which point you may just come up with something yourself.) The henchmen are a cool mechanic, but again younger players (and by young i mean younger than 35) will probably never have played a D&D version including this mechanic, making the whole chapter quite confusing. If you want to use henchmen & morale, consult one of the great retroclones out there. The rules will be more clear & concise. The wealth chapter has some creative random tables & shops. The construction mechanics are quite simple & straightforward. The rumors part is interesting, but again confusing. The campaign truths & secrets from the lazy DMs guide will give you a mich simpler way to incorporate foreshadowing. Of the three books in the series, this is the only one which I would consider buying again. Get the pdf version, so you can copy useful info into tables in your notes & leave the rest aside.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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On Downtime and Demesnes (Basic D&D)
Publisher: Hack & Slash Publishing
by Harold A. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/22/2022 13:15:09

There are lots of good ideas and tables in On Downtime and Demenses but the work is marred by some glaring flaws whose presence in the work undermines some of it's utility.

First there is the "City/Village Generation' section on pages 222 and 223. There are great ideas here whose utility is indermined by the fact that there are no numbered tables to allow a GM to utiize these interesting ideas in a dynamic (aleatory) way. It's possible that I have misunderstood the purpose of these blocks of text, but, if so, it's because the author(s) do not describe how these ideas are to be used to do any 'generation'. Since this section has very interesting ideas, it's very disappointing that the author(s) don't provide more guidance on how these can be used in a constructive way their audience.

Which brings us to the question of audience and the application of the rules of technical writing.

One important rule of technical writing is to (a) always explain any uncommon words (or common words used in a technical way) before using them or (b) failing that, define those words at the earliest opportunity to do so.

This rule is not followed.

The problem begins on page 12 with the following statement: There are 5 city types (X54 in Cook Expert)

What is 'Cook Expert'?

This is not explained.

On page 73, one finds a clue in the following: In Moldvay/Cook Retainers were "a person hired by a player character to aid that character on an adventure".

Still not explained, but a bread-crumb on the path leading to an explaination.

The problem is that the author(s) assumes a familiarity with OSE RGP 'short-hand'.

'Cook' is Dave Cook (not Monte Cook) and 'Expert' refers to the 1981 TSR publication Expert Rules.

Would it have been so hard to include this tidbit of information to allow the reader to (a) know what 'Cook Expert' referred to and (b) to research what 'X54' means?

Doing so would also have cleared up references to 'X59' on page 216 and 217 as well as 'X53' on page 219.

Not all of us in the RGP community are historians of the field are Holmes (Sherlock, not Eric).



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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On Downtime and Demesnes (Basic D&D)
Publisher: Hack & Slash Publishing
by Morrigan B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/15/2022 20:37:17

I wrote quite an extensive review of this book here: https://archiveofthesphinx.com/2022/08/15/review-on-downtime-and-demesnes-b-x-version/

However here is ths short version: On Downtime and Demesnes is an excellent resource for those seeking to take their adventures beyond the dungeon. However it’s eclectic subjects and detailed subsystems make it better suited for solo play – or at most a small group that can appreciate a slower style of adventuring. While the page count has been padded with large lists of NPCs, items, and other curiosities the contents of these distractions are creative and enjoyable to read. While I rarely play B/X the procedures and ideas included in this book are easily adapted to other old-school variants of D&D and it’s derivatives.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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On Downtime and Demesnes (Basic D&D)
Publisher: Hack & Slash Publishing
by Harald K. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/22/2021 11:55:46

There's a lot of great ideas and inspiration in this book, if you don't mind it being a bit on the wild side. But there's one thing that annoys me, and that is that if you count over the NPCs suggested, maybe half of them aren't what they seem and plan to betray you. Of those who don't outright plan to kill you in your sleep to take your gold/sacrifice you to the evil cult they're secretly a member of/steal your horses to make sausage of, half of those again seem custom-designed to annoy the hell out of the players (think, "retainer who has a curse on him which turns him into a baby and forces whoever is nearby to care for him").

Do you want murder hoboes? Because that's how you get murder hoboes.

In MODERATION characters like these can be fun. Especially if you are careful to not be unfair, and give players ways to anticipate and avoid the frustration you're sending their way. But this book is heavily, heavily weighted to those things.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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On Downtime and Demesnes (Basic D&D)
Publisher: Hack & Slash Publishing
by HD A. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/10/2021 13:25:27

Once in a rare while, an RPG supplement comes out that doesn't need doctoring around with, adaptation or fiddling - it just works. OD&D (hahaha I see what you did there) is one such product.

Courtney Campbell has proved his worth many times over, both on his blog Hack & Slash and his other products on DTRPG. Even if all he ever released was his classic treasure document (which I use constantly) he would still have made a huge contribution to my own gaming table. Before he gutted it, his blog was a tremendous resource for traps, tricks & DM techniques, along with controversial classics like the legendary "Quantum Ogre."

How many times has your player tried to do something and you thought "Huh... where are the rules for that?" What I often find I need in a gaming book are not more combat rules or magic items but guidelines, tables, sub-systems and procedures. The kind of things I usually have to write myself, ad-hoc when the situation calls for it. I have always had to range far and wide across blogs, published books, pdfs and my own customised rules to cover the situations dealt with in this book. Now Courtney gives us the total package at a single stroke! In a way, the book is like a best-of collection from one man's gaming blog all put together in a nice & usable package. It is accompanied by plenty of Courtney's hand-drawn black & white artwork, which brings a charming '80s 1st-edition feel to the whole thing.

With OD&D we get an extensive list of downtime activities, domain-management rules, options, tables, ideas and hooks. Want to build a castle? Clear a hex? Buy & sell trade goods? Learn a new skill? Find rumours? Whatever it is, Courtney has your back.

Carousing. Healing. Rumours. Bragging. Buying fancy clothes. Gambling. Buying influence! Building your own vehicles! Simple rules for magic item creation and spell research!! Even some good rules for ARENA FIGHTS by Jove, and a few sample arenas to have them in!!! In true B/X house-rule fashion, almost everything is handled with a 2d6 reaction-style roll. Usually on an 9+ something good happens, but this varies between sub-systems.

I used this book in my home game the week I bought it. Vuk Thuul the oracle sacrificed an animal to his mysterious "divine patron" (a demon lord, hahaha). I had no idea what would happen, and then I cracked open OD&D and noticed there are rules for exactly that!

In addition to rules, guidelines and tables, great ready-to-use content is sprinkled throughout. Whenever Courtney gets specific, his imagination blasts off the page. Sections include "Example Mercenaries & Companies" (5 pages of juicy, weird NPCs I would run any day), "Strange Funeral Rites," "Dungeon Doors," "Strange Inheritances" (could easily kick off your next campaign), "Random Items for Sale at a Bazaar," "Strange Pet Stores" (OK, not sure when I'll use that) and several quirky, memorable sample villages.

I also like the lists of "100 obnoxious peasants" and "100 noble patrons," written by Chris Tamm of the legendary Elfmaids & Octopi blog. They definitely bear the familiar feel of Tamm's work, and I will for sure use them. Just reading them sent me into fits of chuckling as I imagined the bizarre, dangerous and funny antics these NPCs might bring to my game. Would I use these tables every single time? No, but that ain't no crime.

Campbell draws from a wide range of wisdom here in developing these rules. Actually, I think he doesn't cite his sources enough. Would it be too much to ask for a mention of the 1st edition DMG(!!!), or maybe Jeff's Gameblog for the carousing rules[1]? Maybe a lot of this stuff is covered in ACKS, which he does list in the bibliography? (I haven't read it). Also, this book does duplicate some material you probably already have, especially in the AD&D dungeon master's guide - in fact, it could probably be thought of as a B/X DMG. I don't mind too much. Having almost everything I could want to run the "Greater D&D" in one book is more than worth it.

One other complaint I'd level at OD&D is that it covers such a tremendously wide range of material, sometimes it doesn't do so with the depth I'd like. The Influence rules could have been delved into more deeply, or maybe explained better. And the "carousing mishaps" table has 10 entries of familiar stuff. Ultimately this is a minor complaint, this book was clearly written so it can be used in anybody's game, and a DM who wants to expand these tables to suit his own setting obviously can.

I bought this in pdf and after paging through it once, I immediately ordered a hard copy. It's going right in between Realms of Crawling Chaos and Labyrinth Lord on my old-school gaming shelf, it is that good. If you want to run a sandbox game (and if you don't... what's the deal?) you will definitely make use of this. If you play just about any old-school game or retroclone, there is now one less reason to bring your 1st edition DMG along to game night anymore, just to reference the rules on sages for the twentieth time. Just as well, since mine is crumbling before my very eyes!

Don't waste your RPG lunch money. The marketplace is crammed with unimaginative dreck, impossible-to-run adventure path railroads, retro trade dress porn, kickstarter money grabs and pretentious glossy award-baiting. Buy something you can actually use at the table for once. Who says the OSR is dead? This is as OSR as it gets.

9 eccentric henchmen out of 10. An almost flawless victory.

[1] - Jeff's "Party like it's 999" post is not the first time carousing is mentioned (Dragon magazine covered this in the old days), but it is the benchmark for the rules that OSRmen play with today.

Originally posted at https://terriblesorcery.blogspot.com



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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On Downtime and Demesnes (Basic D&D)
Publisher: Hack & Slash Publishing
by Ryan H. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/29/2019 15:09:04

(Please note: I recived this from the Kickstarter as a backer.)

This is a solid set of Tools for players, and GM's. System neutral, but leaning heavily toward OSR. It builds on, and vastly improves upon the downtime rules from 5e. As well as adding a few twists of it's creaters devising.

That said, there are a few errors. I also feel the Profesinoal income section needed expansion.

I can safely recomend this book to others.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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