learnedhand

"System-neutral" random tables for items etc. to be found in dungeons, wildernesses, etc. from Raging Swan Press

 

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/DungeonDressing

If you read these posts you probably already know that this really isn't my sort of thing. But someone out there is probably saying "Hey, just what I needed", and I think it's fair to say that you do get a LOT of random lookup tables for your money. Useful if you want to create a setting in a hurry, but I generally prefer to add my own - although sometimes this ends up a little oddly, I'm still trying to work out why one of my NPCs has a desk drawer containing "postcards and stereoscope pictures from strange places such as Lhasa, Peking, the Plateau of Leng, Boston, Boca del Infierno California, and Havana, and peculiar dice with eight, ten, and even twenty sides" since they play absolutely no part in that particular adventure. If you don't have a warped mind like mine you may find this bundle useful.

This is a repeat of the May 2022 bundle of Shadowrun Sixth World Essentials, featuring the current (2019) Sixth Edition of the cyberpunk-magic RPG.

SHADOWRUN SIXTH WORLD ESSENTIALS

   https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2025SR6Essentials




In 2022 I said "I'll be honest, I've never been a big fan of this setting - while there's a "fantasy with big guns" genre that works reasonably well in fiction, adding in all of the cyberpunk tropes means that in any given situation some of the characters will have problems bringing useful skills and abilities to bear; the worst case is a scene where only one or two characters are active, the rest are standing around waiting for their hacker / shaman / whatever to get their part of the job done. Having said that, this is a very popular system which has stayed in print for 30+ years despite changing publishers twice. If you like this sort of game, this is probably the game for you."

I really don't see any reason to change this opinion.


There may be more for this system later this week.

This is a bundle of third-party dungeon crawls from Menagerie Press for the The Arcane Library's old-school FRPG, Shadowdark. It doesn't include the Shadowdark rules, but a starter version is available free.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/MenagerieShadowdark

As I've mentioned a few times before, I don't really play this sort of game any more. At a quick look the modules are well-presented and readable, but as usual with dungeon-bashing they're mostly maps with stats and random result tables. There's not really a lot of description or characterization, or many options outside fighting and looting. That's pretty much what the Old School thing is about, of course, and if you like that sort of thing this is probably the sort of thing you like.

The last one of the current series is for Traveller 5th edition, the last edition from GDW before Mongoose took over

Traveller5

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Traveller5-2025



Last time I said "As a long-time Traveller player and GM I'm definitely interested in this, though I have to wonder how much of it I'll ever use. If you don't already have the game this may not be the easiest way to get into it, since it's mostly a huge rules set rather than a rules set plus adventures etc., but there's a HUGE amount of material out there for anyone who wants to give it a try.

Later - several people have pointed out that the indexes are inaccurate in the printed version, and in these PDFs. Fortunately PDFs can be searched!"

All of this still applies, I think.

Apologies this is a little late - I went out this evening, forgot to post before I left, then ran into huge transport problems so that I was very late getting home.

Two more Traveller Bundles - Mongoose Traveller 2E, featuring the second edition published by Mongoose, who now own the Traveller system, and Pirates of Drinax, a huge campaign using the Mongoose incarnation of the system.

Mongoose Traveller 2E (last offered May 2021)

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2025MongTrav




Traveller Pirates of Drinax (Last offered May 2021)

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Drinax2025




In 2021 I said "This feels like a return to the roots of Traveller; without a lot of the grimdark elements that predominated in later editions, and with rules that are much closer to the versions that the game began with. There are a lot of new careers and options, but it ought to be possible to get up and running fast if you're familiar with the original game. This isn't to say that it's perfect - I found the explanation of character generation a little confusing, even though I actually know pretty much how it works. There's a flow chart that helps considerably but more of a simplified "these are the things you need to do in this order" explanation might help. Presentation is very good, and avoids some of the pitfalls by minimizing illustrations where they aren't really needed - for example, there is only one illustration of a player character, a spotty nerd just entering college, in the first fifty pages, and sexual balance seems fairly even in later pictures, with zero gratuitous nakedness, at least for pictures of humans.

The campaign returns to the classic roots too, the Trojan Reach has been in the game since 1980 and looks open-ended enough to satisfy the sort of player who listens to all of the options presented by the GM then does something entirely different. I won't say much about it because spoilers, the description.. ..should give a reasonable idea.

Definitely recommended, but as usual I'm not paying for this stuff, if you do you may have other ideas!"

I don't see any need to change any of that.