3 Inexpensive Game Products That I Love

               I am frugal with my RPG dollars and you can see that these products meet that requirement. I love that we are in a time now when lots of price range options are around for RPGs. I hope you like these products and get lots of game time in with them. These are all products that I have personally used and enjoyed. They are a bit different in terms of theme, but each will give you things you can pull from for any campaign.

Machinations of the Space Princess

                This game to me radiates “cool”. It is self-described as “Sexy, Sleazy Swords & Sci-Fi” which really does fit the bill. I just like the overall theme of the game and the ruleset that goes along with it. The game comes with a BX-like rule system that has a bunch bells and whistles attached to give it a more space/sci-fi flair. The vibe the game is going for is much more Star Wars and Flash Gordon and less The Expanse or Traveller. It has all the neat robots, psionics, lasers, monsters, and cackling villains you could ever want for a setting like this. 
               
               It has an awesome Game Master’s section about GMing in general, and how to get the tone of the game just right. You get a section with a huge D100 chart of plot hooks, and tons of other random charts for creating space systems, planets, and creatures. These are like a much lighter version of version of Kevin Crawford’s Stars Without Number charts, with a HUGE amount of pulp sci-fi action. The tail end of the book has a short, but great starting adventure “The Siege of Proxima Bar” and after that is a metric ton of options and add-ons for the game. If you are into any Sci-Fi game, especially one that is using OSR mechanics like BX/OSE, this is a great product. You can easily port a lot of the content to another game, and the art is evocative of the genre. This is usually my most important factor in liking a game product, can I pull stuff from it for other games. With this game it is certainly the case.

You can find Machinations of the Space Princess here.

A Single, Small Cut

                I have previously posted about A Single, Small Cut but it was not one of my more popular posts, so I am going to rant about it again because I love it. It is an adventure made for Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but is compatible with pretty much any OSR system. It is a micro-adventure weighing in at only 8 pages, but is perfect for two avenues. One, it is one of the best one-shots you can get for the price, and I have personally run it at least a dozen times and never had a group not like it. Two, it is a great start to a campaign if you wanted to go that route. The features and backstory that it introduces is fun and interesting and any GM worth their salt can make a game that revolves around the premise. It comes with a great layout/map of an old, medieval church which I have used in other games. The adventure is also perfectly suited to about a 4 hour timeslot for a convention, or a local games day. All of this, and it is only $2. Everyone should have this book in their collection.

            I am trying to avoid spoilers in this review, but if you want more details on the book see my link below. I go into a full description of how I actually use the module at the table and what pre-gens I use for the events. This makes it simple to jump right into the action and get to playing. I cannot stress enough that I have run this for roughly 100 people and to my knowledge, everyone has come out happy.

You can find A Single, Small Cut here.

Want to see how I run this at my table click here.

Morgansfort

                Morgansfort is a modern sandbox adventure for Basic Fantasy. Basic Fantasy is easily compatible with any OSR system. The book is very inexpensive for what you get. I ran a weekly year-long campaign using BX with this book. The book provides good details on Morgansfort itself, the areas surrounding it, and three separate dungeon complexes within reach of the fort for the beginning party to explore. It heavily reminds me of Keep on the Borderlands, but it is filled out a bit more, with more areas to explore beyond a single cave network. I certainly have plans to use this again in the future, but a lot of my current players played in my previous games and the plot is ruined for them. A few more years when they all graduate, I am going to bust this one out again. The PDF is free, and the print copy is at cost because the designer does not want to make money on the project.

             This was one of the best campaigns I ever ran and my students still talk about it to this day. This gives you an amazing base to build upon, and Basic Fantasy has plenty of other cheap products to add to this adventure. You could expand this way beyond low levels, but keep Morgansfort as your home base. I think it is infinitely expandable and for the price is a steal. 

The physical copy of Morgansfort can be found here for under $4.

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