Ambition & Avarice Release

On Friday Greg Christopher of Chubby Funster games released his full version of Ambition & Avarice on RPGNow. I think it is well worth the cost. I'm actually going to buy it when he releases the print on demand option as well.

If you downloaded his beta version, there should be a discount for the pay version in your email. You might want to double check. Mine went to my spam folder.

Here's the blurb from RPGNow:

Ambition and Avarice is an action-adventure roleplaying game with an easy-to-understand OSR chassis. The characters are rough and ready adventurers. No more moralizing paladins and clerics. Even the religious characters are willing to get a little dirty in the pursuit of their goals.
The game brings a fresh look to medieval fantasy with 10 unique classes that each bring something special to the table. Each class features;

- Expertise in a class-specific task; like the Sorcerer's counterspelling ability or a Cultist's ability to sacrifice humanoids to curry favor with their god.
- Identification of something in the world; like the Priest's ability to identify divine symbols and beings or the Savage's ability to spot weakness in combat.
- Companions to serve as henchmen; like the Knave's ability to recruit spies or the Conjurer's ability to create imps to serve them.

The five magic-using classes have a varied selection of new and exciting spells. There are easy methods to create your own enchantments, raise unique undead to serve you, or craft cursed items to give to your enemies. The non-magical classes have their own rich choices and don't fade away in importance as the magical characters advance in level.

These classes can then be combined with 10 classic fantasy races; from elves and dwarves to orcs and lizardfolk. You can combine them however you wish, creating everything from goblin knights to dwarven brigands.
The entire package is designed to allow quick character generation and presented in a format that is clear and easy to read. The text is packed with expanations of not just the rules, but the reasons behind the rules. It is an ideal choice to hand to a new player who is looking to get into the great game, but turned away by thick rulebooks with byzantine organization. The adventuring mechanics are also OSR compatible and allow easy integration with a variety of old school campaign material. You can pick up this game, grab an old module, and get playing in a very short amount of time.
Game on!

And here's what I said about it most recently:

There are endless materials written under the collective designation of the OSR (Old School Renaissance). I say "endless" not exactly literally, but in the interpretation that I could probably spend all my free time reading these publications and not finish in my lifetime. I have downloaded years worth of settings, systems, adventures, plot hooks, NPCs, magic items, etc. onto my computer. I have purchased a select few in print. What I needed was the one system I would use to run them all.

Originally I figured I would use Basic D&D (Red Box). It was the first RPG I owned, it was barebones, and it would hold, in some way/shape/form, everything these supplements would add. Instead I found this handy little OSR retro-clone that fit well with the game as I like to play it, plus added some fun twists. I printed out some pregenerated characters and ran the game at a couple local conventions. The players really seemed to have fun, and I was able to run the game on top of published adventures from different periods in gaming history.

My willingness to play in, and run, early versions of the game seems to have me on the good side of the author. He keeps me in the loop of the current version and lists my name under the playtester section of the credits. Some of my original ideas (magic items, traps, NPCs) fit Warhammer, some fit D&D, but now I'm getting some that fit this particular OSR retroclone. I have a new race that I will be typing up shortly, but I feel I should wait until the latest release of the ruleset is out before I publish the race on my blog.

There are fun things going on with this game, and I'm glad to be a part of it. The fact that I can use all my OSR collective supplements with this game brings it into my fantasy games of choice list.