I made a game! Into the Unknown (old school B/X version of 5e)

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b9anders

b9anders

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Dig your blog and know you’ve been working on this a long time. Good to see you have race-as-class as I thought that would be an interesting concept to port into 5e.

Necrozius Necrozius may be interested as he was asking about a simplified hack of 5e.
 
Ooh I must check this out. Congrats on completing and publishing something: I envy your accomplishment!
 
Necrozius said:
Ooh I must check this out. Congrats on completing and publishing something: I envy your accomplishment!
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It’s an accomplishment personally for sure. Lots of grunt work goes into it that I would probably not want to do again. I've had to learn all sorts about dpi, pdf formats, cover files and some software I never actually wanted to use. It's a bit of a jungle to get into.

Might write a bit about the process at some point. Unlike most, I did almost all of it with libreoffice and gimp. Had to learn a little scribus for the cover file, but basically it was all done with a few free and open source tools.
 
Just picked up the book/pdf combo. I've been wanting to start a 5e campaign for a while now. This sounds like a great way to start. Plus, I'm an 80's old school old fool. :tongue:
 
b9anders said:
It’s an accomplishment personally for sure. Lots of grunt work goes into it that I would probably not want to do again. I've had to learn all sorts about dpi, pdf formats, cover files and some software I never actually wanted to use. It's a bit of a jungle to get into.

Might write a bit about the process at some point. Unlike most, I did almost all of it with libreoffice and gimp. Had to learn a little scribus for the cover file, but basically it was all done with a few free and open source tools.
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I have a background in layout and I'm quite comfortable with InDesign, Photoshop and preparing files for print. Maybe I should think about offering my services to more in the OSR as I'm always surprised to hear what people end up working with.
 
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b9anders b9anders
Hey man, I just picked up your pdf bundle. This is something I have been groping towards for the past couple years. Keep up the good work.
 
Necrozius said:
Combined with some of the stuff from Giffyglyph's Darker Dungeons (http://giffyglyph.com/darkerdungeons/) I've pretty much found my perfect version of D&D 5e.
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Yea man I have been using the Darker Dungeons encumbrance. I put the character sheers in plastic sheet protectors and give the players dry erase markers to manage their inventory. It's easy and intuitive. My players love it!
 
Just resurrecting this old thread to say I picked up all the core Into the Unknown pdfs and it is a very nicely designed game with a 10 level cap. Highly recommended. After the current coronavirus crisis has passed b9anders b9anders should consider a small Kickstarter to produce a hardcopy with original art and layout.
 
I just picked up print + pdf copies of “Into the Unknown” for $24.99 during the GM’s day sale. I’m liking it, but do have a couple questions.

1. is there a forum somewhere where fans of the game are discussing it?

2. I was a little confuse by the “Class Feature” and “Scheme Focus.” It says you gain the scheme focus. If a fighter takes Mighty Deeds, it replenished after a long rest. The scheme focus, however, says it replenishes after a short rest or long rest. If you get them both at character creation, why is there a difference? Perhaps because at 10th level, when you get an additional fighting style, it doesn’t come with the style focus. Also, for two-weapon fighting, the scheme focus is “dual mastery.” Are you a master of dual weapon fighting at first level?
 
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Ossian said:
I just picked up print + pdf copies of “Into the Unknown” for $24.99 during the GM’s day sale. I’m liking it, but do have a couple questions.

1. is there a forum somewhere where fans of the game are discussing it?

2. I was a little confuse by the “Class Feature” and “Scheme Focus.” It says you gain the scheme focus. If a fighter takes Mighty Deeds, it replenished after a long rest. The scheme focus, however, says it replenishes after a short rest or long rest. If you get them both at character creation, why is there a difference? Perhaps because at 10th level, when you get an additional fighting style, it doesn’t come with the style focus. Also, for two-weapon fighting, the scheme focus is “dual mastery.” Are you a master of dual weapon fighting at first level?
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1. not really.

2. It is mainly for the sake of the 10th lvl feature that does not come with a style focus. It also lends some transparency into the 'under the hood' design of class features. The focus is basically a feat.
 
I find Into the Unknown to be well written and inspirational, especially the time and exploration procedural aspects of the game.

I’m starting an Into the Unknown game after Christmas for some students at the school I teach at. I’ll be running “In the Shadow of Tower Silveraxe.”

I’ll also be using Into the Unknown to make my current 5e game more old school. We’re about halfway through a combined “Lost Mine of Phandelver” and “Dragon of Icespire Peak" campaign.
 
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b9anders said:
It started out over two years ago as Just some noodling on which game to settle on for OSR games.

Today I published my first game. I am quite proud. :smile:

o5rgames.blogspot.com

Into the Unknown is now available in print & pdf

Into the Unknown is an Old School game that seeks to blend the Basic & Expert rules and style of play of the '80s with the current 5th edit...
o5rgames.blogspot.com o5rgames.blogspot.com
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The game looks great and I picked up the PDF version to print at home - love the digest sized books. My son really likes Dragonborn and I'm wondering how they could be done Race as Class for Into the Unknown.
 
I only found out about this game only a few months ago but I really like it! I hope that it survives the upcoming OGL apocalypse. Perhaps it will be okay as a "fan product"? (I doubt it's making the kind of money that will attract WotC's attention.)

In any case, I recommend that anyone interested in the game order their print copies and PDFs before January 13th to be on the safe side.

I've ordered an extra print copy (I already have one), as well as copies (both print and PDF) for my players.

Given the malevolence emanating from WotC these days, I'm seriously considering adapting my Greyhawk campaign to ItU (from 5e).

:shade:
 
Ossian said:
I find Into the Unknown to be well written and inspirational, especially the time and exploration procedural aspects of the game.
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I recently converted my 5e campaign to ItU (well, kind of a mix of 5e and ItU) and I found the time and exploration procedures to be very helpful. They helped to both structure play and move it along at a decent pace.

I'd recommend Book IV to players of any version of D&D for its helpful advice and tools!
 
Very cool. Transitioning from 5e to ItU, and mingling with it, is one of the reasons I felt backwards compatability was important. I wanted it to be possible for the GM to say "from now on, we're dropping 5e for ItU" whilst still allowing the Paladin and Warlock characters to continue at the table with very little modification (really, the only alterations they'd need are saves and encumbrance).
 
b9anders said:
Very cool. Transitioning from 5e to ItU, and mingling with it, is one of the reasons I felt backwards compatability was important. I wanted it to be possible for the GM to say "from now on, we're dropping 5e for ItU" whilst still allowing the Paladin and Warlock characters to continue at the table with very little modification (really, the only alterations they'd need are saves and encumbrance).
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Yeah, compatibility with standard 5e is one of the main attractions of ItU for me. I think it's a great virtue of the game.

Since you sometimes visit this forum, I can't resist asking: any update regarding the Companion volume?
 
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