We've played both for years. Put them on the Outdoor survival map (they fit into it on purpose). I have the LL versions. Love love love the classic vanilla flavor. We use the Barrowmaze as a seasonal delve option, Archaia as a faction playground, and Highfell as an awesome palette cleanser where we've often run secondary groups. I've read the Mines of Moria-inspired dwarf one, but haven't run it except a few one-shots. Honestly, there's just too much content to run everything. Great stuff. People give Greg a hard time on the internet space for being conservative, but he puts out an awesome product.

@RedMageGM

9 ай бұрын

I didn't know that about Outdoor survival! I have to get a new copy of that anyway - I'll have to match them up! I totally agree - an embarrassment of riches in terms of content to run!

@RedMageGM

9 ай бұрын

Absolutely agree about Highfell!!

@RedMageGM

9 ай бұрын

That's one of the reasons I stay off reddit and sm. I just prefer to play games and ignore personal and background stuff. :D

@radelc

9 ай бұрын

He trolls people who attack him personally. They aren't being critics they are calling him racist and right-wing. He's a hardcore grognard who prefers his Anglo-Saxon mythology and vanilla fantasy. He uses the word "woke" to describe the 5E shift in monsters not being evil and Hasbro pandering to a fault. So immediately the terminally online brigade labels him an enemy and tells people to not support his work any time his name is mentioned. Most people are not as bad here on KZread, much more level-headed. Reddit is pretty much a hellhole, but every so often there are good indie and rules suggestions. I'm glad we have more and more people shifting to cover classic and OSR work on KZread.@@xavierp7658

@yagsipcc287

5 ай бұрын

That sounds cool as hell. I want to get one of the books and run Shadowdark with it (will also be doing it solo but have tools for it) what do you mean when you say survival nap? Thanks 😁

Fantastic flip-through and review, thanks for this! I recently backed Greg Gillespie's kickstarter for his Dragonslayer RPG game at the level that included one of his megadungeons. I went with Barrowmaze because of how praised among OSR gamers it is and undead catacombs being my favorite dungeon theme. I've been watching a few of your reviews and discovering new books I'll definitely be picking up in the future. Thanks for the videos!

@RedMageGM

8 ай бұрын

I'm glad to hear that the reviews have been helpful! :)

I've been doing Barrowmaze for 5e for two years and it has worked great!

100% agree with the sentiments on 5E and these megadungeons. Also, Barrowmaze and really all of Greg's stuff are great.

@RedMageGM

9 ай бұрын

Yeah, the megadungeon thing has really got me thinking! I do have a 5e megadungon that I might review (I mean a megadungeon that was designed with 5e in mind). And I think it really just confirms this idea.

The dungeon designer can put in wards and embedded devices to prevent certain things... like goodberry and light cantrips. Spells like heroes feast, etc. can produce spoiled food. No flying or scrying.... whatever you dont want to work. Or only a low percent of success or for shorter duration. Perhaps tiny huts shink over time and dont grant full benefit maybe for short rest only. Certain areas may have strong anti magic devices, psionic creatures, or devices that unattunes items that characters are attuned to (just in certain areas) and perhaps a falling ceiling block or bolder traps the characters from retreating. No teleport or dimension door. etc. Maybe misty step works. Food can be gotten from mushrooms, plants, fish, or animals in the dungeon (ala Delicious in Dungeon anime series)

@RedMageGM

12 күн бұрын

There are certainly things you can do to prevent circumventing the Exploration element. The players will just have to understand that going in, and you'll be working against the design of the system.

@circuithijacker

12 күн бұрын

@@RedMageGM I would just spring it on them.

Nice over view I like Greg's stuff. New sub here.

@RedMageGM

9 ай бұрын

Thanks man! I appreciate it!

Good video! Thank you for doing the work and sharing it for our benefit! I haven't run Archaia (yet), but I have run two campaigns of Barrowmaze. 100% agree, it must be printed at the very least. I also redrew maps as we went, and kept a 3-ring notebook for printed pages and a graph spiral for each room, including restock encounters from multiple forays, etc. Custom random encounter and wandering monster tables, etc. Basic DM stuff. I don't blame the author or publisher for this. Barrowmaze is a lot of material and to have it conveniently in one single volume means it will be unwieldy to use for DMs who prefer hardcopy materials at the table. The pdf isn't bad, though I recommend adding lots of bookmarks if you're using it to run the game. That seems like a lot of work, and I suppose it is, but Barrowmaze, imo, is worth it. The design is good, but Barrowmaze positively drips with dungeon synth/black metal/death metal atmosphere. The black and white illustrations add to the feel and vibe. Barrowmaze feels cold and dark and foreboding, and my group loves that stuff. I would also like to mention the setting. We have had as much fun exploring the Moors as the Maze. The swamp creatures, many undead and otherwise corrupted by the chaos radiating from the Barrowmaze, are if anything more dangerous than the Maze monsters, especially at lower levels. One Giant Scorpion (aka Emerald Stingtail or Deathstalker, as our party learned to call them) is enough to TPK a first level party, but an encounter could include up to six! Even horses can't outrun them, so there will be deaths! Such encounters are not common, but they are possible, and it only takes one to make a trip through the Moors to the Maze a harrowing prospect for any party. They are relieved to arrive at the Barrow Mounds. The thought of setting up camp in the Moors is so terrifying, many adventurers would rather consider retirement. Barrowmaze is one of my favorite RPG products of all time, and that spans a few decades. I highly recommend it for those who seek to sample the survival horror aspect of classic dungeon crawls.

@sequoyahwright

9 ай бұрын

I use OSE, by the way. Absolutely brutal.

@RedMageGM

9 ай бұрын

That's sooo awesome! Dude, I love hearing about other people's experience with these books. The travel through the Moor is awesome as well! I had one party make it through a bunch of barrows, dodging death left and right, and coming away with tons of loot, only to have one character die to the random encounter on the way back to town. :D

@sequoyahwright

9 ай бұрын

@@RedMageGM Haha! Outstanding! Our most dramatic was when our Chaotic Halfling who redeemed his many disruptive and chaotic actions by running out and sacrificing himself to a horde of Ravenous Dead so that the party could escape to safety. They were encumbered with treasure and couldn't even outrun regular zombies, let alone full-speed Ravenous Dead. Savage!

Thanks again I have been going over all of your stuff the last couple of days ha but yeah I really like Gregs stuff but it is a bit scary as well (I also want to play solo mostly becasue of my work and the hours I do 50 hours all night) like I said it is scary as well tbh but looks so much fun. I also saw about Gods of the Forbidden North: Volume 1 on DrivethrurRPG and I feel like that is something I would love hits everything I would love and saw he is kickstarting Volume 2 the end of this month and POD will be back for the first in March To many options and knowning what to do is hard ahhh!! but again thanks for doing this it does help a hell of alot want to get something like this for my Shadowdark game :-) I liked your Dragonslayer breakdown as well. thanks again.

Love it!

@RedMageGM

4 ай бұрын

Thank you! :) They're both great books - highly recommend!

Nice reviews. I have Barrowmaze & will pick up the other soon. In OSR, obviously. Serious question - hours long combat, no challenge. limitless resources, virtually impossible to die - what is 5e good for? ... it sounds utterly dreadful to me.

@RedMageGM

9 ай бұрын

Good call! :) I think the things you've described are what can happen fairly easily to 5e, but not what *has* to happen. It takes a lot of work to get beyond that, definitely, but books like Flee, Mortals show how to take what the system is and make the most out of it. You have to hack it with other things, which is one of its strengths - it can handle being hacked up, having rules added or taken out, without "breaking" (although at some point the question is...why hack? Why not just play a different game?) At low levels (1-4) 5e works really well for what it is - a player-focused, story-centric, combat game with a very low-danger rate. Once you get past level 4...yeah, it becomes more or less what you described. At least in my experience. I'm only running 5e right now to finish out my West Marches, and because I want to use the Flee, Mortals monsters. Once that's finished (hopefully by the new year), I'll close the book on 5e.

@sequoyahwright

9 ай бұрын

5e is the best in the world at what it does. It is made to be accessible to all comers, as easy to learn and play and enjoy as possible, especially for teenagers, especially boys. It's pure power fantasy, like most YA material. As I often say, gamers who are any more than casual will outgrow 5e, and will later look back upon it with nostalgia, as with other beloved things of childhood. My current Barrowmaze group came directly from 5e, completely bored and jaded by the easy victories and paralysis of options. One session of Barrowmaze (using OSE), and they were hooked. This was unusual. I typically have better luck with Savage Worlds for players new from 5e. But this crew was hungry for challenge and wanted to earn their rewards the old fashioned way. There is hope for Gen Z yet, I think.

@RedMageGM

9 ай бұрын

Absolutely - I have really enjoyed my time with 5e, and have (almost) nothing but fond memories of it. :D Some great campaigns! But...yeah, ready to move on. Getting my players to switch over has also not been as hard as I imagined!

@sequoyahwright

9 ай бұрын

@@RedMageGM I admit I have never run a session of 5e. I have the core books, and occasionally use elements, mainly from the DMG. Over the decades, I have curated my library of TTRPGs to include the systems that best deliver the game experience my groups prefer, and those are generally Savage Worlds, Pathfinder, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and Dungeon Crawl Classics. Ironically, I don't recommend DCC for dungeon crawls without some adaptation. Instead, for straight classic dungeon crawls, I have found none better than the original B/X or OSE. I respect 5e, but I am not its target market. That's all.

Have you considered the fact that porting Barrowmaze to 5E was a bad idea? It was, as you say, made for OSR. Gillespie wanted a piece of the action, but the product suffered.

@RedMageGM

9 ай бұрын

That's a good question. As far as I'm concerned if the fact that there's a 5e version gets people who otherwise wouldn't see the cool dungeon into it, then that's solid in my book. I do think it might be a bit of a trap for GMs who want to run old-school games but have a 5e group - they'll play it and it won't be super great, and the players will be turned off from the old school (where a better system would draw them in a bit more). However, I'm firmly of the opinion that you can have fun with almost anything, and I *know* there are 5e players and groups out there who have had fun with this. So I'd say it's good that it exists. But I stand by what I said in the review, that it's an inferior (vastly inferior) version to the OSR one.

@arheru

9 ай бұрын

@@RedMageGM That's a kind way of looking at it. :) I've been inspired by the premise of Barrowmaze, and used some bits here and there in my own game of 5e, but I would never ever run it as is for 5e. Different game, as you say in your review, which was great by the way!

@RedMageGM

9 ай бұрын

Totally - it's a different game. Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!

@radelc

9 ай бұрын

I've run sections in 5E using the long rest is a week, and the short rest is 8 hours. Darkvision is low light so fighting with a disadvantage in pitch black. It was decent, but still not as good as Old School systems though.

What about solitaire this? No DM. Always wondered if these could work.

@RedMageGM

3 ай бұрын

I haven't done much of that myself, but I'm sure there are people who have!

Gazetteer: Gazette-ear.

@RedMageGM

Ай бұрын

Thanks!

if death is common, how do the PC's get to the bigger bosses/major villains? and how do you "make sense" of new characters joining the party when someone dies?

@RedMageGM

9 ай бұрын

Yeah, those are great questions. Usually you have a different sort of campaign, where the characters are more individuals than a tightly knit party, so the party can continue forward even if one or more of the characters die. So it's really the party exploring the dungeon, and the individual members come and go...mostly go. :D A good explanation I've used is that they're all members of the same adventurer's guild. That way new characters can drop in and out as they go along. If you want to bring in new characters right away, then you can have the new character be the last survivor of a previous adventuring group, or a prisoner who escaped and is now lost in the dungeon. You could even give the player a partial map that their new character explored before they ran into the party to take the edge off of dying.

@RedMageGM

9 ай бұрын

I'd go for fun over realism when it comes to new characters joining the party after a death. Unless your table is high-simulationist, it just makes more sense to have the player get back into the fun asap.

@radelc

9 ай бұрын

I ran it as a West Marches for a little over a year. We had premade hirelings (I guess sidekicks, for 5e). If someone dies you take the sidekick as your main and flesh them out at the end of the session if you choose. We always began back in town and figured that there was chatter at the inn all the time between the various adventuring groups. There are shortcuts in the Barrow mounds to get to other sections of the maze.

@Grimmlocked

9 ай бұрын

if you graph the leathality of the game it starts super low and tapers off after a few levels. once you have a character who has lasted awhile they are less likely to die then a fresh character... there is some stacking at 0 problems that can happen but you can fix that by several solutions I stole my solution from 4e for my d&d game. instead of getting your con mod/level you just get your constitution score added to your HD at level 1 and then never again

@RedMageGM

9 ай бұрын

That's a good hack! I think most people who have had fun with 5e have hacked a bit, which again the system allows really well. That's partly why it's so successful! It can be molded to a lot of different tables.

I am running barrowmaze, bought it after reading glowing reviews. I am disappointed and busy revamping it, because it feels empty, poorly organised. Gunderholfen was way better.

@RedMageGM

9 ай бұрын

I getcha - it's definitely not to everyone's taste!