Review of Fanzine Vieja Escuela #1 and Hexomorfo System

In today's post I will talk about projects Fanzine Vieja Escuela and Hexomorfo System, recently appeared thanks to the work and good doing by +Eneko Menica and +Eneko Palencia as well as collaborations and synergies propitiated by Internet in general and social networks in particular contributing to encourage the community of people liking role-playing games.

Fanzine Vieja Escuela #1

Fanzine Vieja Escuela (Google+ | Official website) is a limited edition quaterly publication born with two goals:

In first place benefits obtained selling the fanzine are destined to charitable causes decided by mutual agreement of the creators of the magazine and the authors contributing with contents, so buyers of Vieja Escuela, appart of knowing our hobby (if not knowing about it previously) also can take part in charitable projects.

In second place its creators have the healthy intention of recovering the magazines of role-playing games fans which began to share their enthusiasm for this innovative entertainment way appearing in the United States at the begginig of the 70's decade with Dungeons & Dragons coming to Spain in 1985 (in fact the name of the fanzine is a clear reference to the Old School movement). This goal is achieved thanks to the efforts of people of the role-playing community (among which I include myself) who have decided to get involved with the fanzine success bringing many game's contents (random tables, aids, adventures, characters...) under non-commercial Creative Commons licenses or others alike those, those contents are periodically voted by fans in the online poll published at the end of the authors proposals' delivery time, so each issue is a teamwork in which the community can take part writing or voting if they want, once the edition of each issue is sold out its contents are expected to be offered as a free download when the next issue is published and in fact the pdf of issue 1 is already available ahead of schedule to be downloaded from this page thanks to the #yosoydelaviejaescuela initiative (Google+ | Twitter |Photo gallery).

Contents and organization of the first issue of Vieja Escuela as well as its authors are the following ones:

• Editorial by Ricard Ibañez (Histo-Rol | Wikipedia)
• Design and layout by Eneko Palencia
• Coordination by Eneko Menica and Eneko Palencia
• Proofreading by Domingo Cuenca “Rol de los 90”
• Illustrations (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0):
  • Manu Sáez
  • Jagoba Lekuona
  • David Sánchez (Biz)
  • Miguel Á. Moreno (Cable)
  • Eneko Palencia
  • Eneko Menica
  • Dorian Vizsnic
  • OSR logo created by Stuart Robertson (CC BY 3.0)
• Articles (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0):
  • Tablas aleatorias de festividades (Random festivities tables) by Sirio Sesenra
    Popular funny festivities animating the city and creting scenarios. Tables to create a flux diagram with a random outcome and variety of festivals.
  • La Torre Evanescente (The Vanishing Tower) by Miguel Á. Moreno (Cable)
    An adventure seed describing a tower which teleports through a kingdom, the cult inhabiting it and the terrible secret enclosed in it.
  • Tabla de catastróficas y fortuitas contrariedades (Table of catastrophic and fortuitous setbacks) by José Manuel Sánchez García “josemasaga”
    You have an adventure or map region ready, but the real world and your players are stubborn. Be calm, with this table you will be able to redirect this with an elegant and lest invassive way!
  • Personajes no Jugadores con sabor (Tasty Non Playing Characters) by Cabo Hicks
    An easy system to create NPCs with characteristic features taking a set of tables as a base. In short, a tool to spur the imagination of the referee.
  • Drop Table de efectos secundarios (Drop Table of secondary effects) by Eneko Menica Roll a pair of dice over this table and discover which nonsense effects have that potion you just found. Expired, you say?, I don't think so, let's test it...
  • Antorcha Vil (Vile Torch) by Akerraren Adarrak (Estudio D6)
    Torches are a common element in adventurer's groups, what will happen if one of them hides a terrible secret? and what if the torch carrier knows about it?
  • La Cripta del Dolor (Crypt of Pain) by Isidoro Campaña Lozano
    Two dungeon floors to be used with any system.
  • Enanos y Gigantes (Dwarfs and Giants) by Jordi Morera
    Dice game for taverns and other slums. It is played over a wooden table marked with the combinations you can bet. With a higher probability a greater reward! (you can download the image of the game board following this link).
  • Islas Misteriosas (Mysterious Islands) by J. Rubén Escudero “El Guardián”
    Tables to generate, make a little sandbox and ideas for survival mechanics. Not centered in a ruleset, but easily adaptable to any OSR.
  • No te olvides el sombrero (Do not forget your hat) by Cabo Hicks
    Not all are monsters and traps, weather can also be a challenge. This table system will help you to generate the weather for each day with a quick and easy way.
  • 9 cartes retallables de Certificación Oficial Vieja Escuela (9 cutout cards of Official Old School Certification) by Miguel Á. Moreno (Cable)
    Humorous honorary award titles, which the Game director will give after the adventure to each player o players he believe to be more suitable.

All these contents are great and show how the imagination of members of the role-playing games communities may be able to make quality contents when a good idea is proposed.

In fact the articles of this first issue can be taken as inspiration to develop new things as can be seen in this character I had created for Old School rulesets, like Aventuras en La Marca del Este and Labyrinth Lord (Nosolorol | Goblinoid games), as well as Món de Monstres (you may download the respective pdf files with th information for these games in links appearing after this brief description).

	Evelyn Level 6 human swordwoman (consider she to be a Fighter class character, based in the character class I created for the Guia per l’àrbitre v.01 for my screen of Món de Monstres, see this blog post). Physical description Human girl of about 20 years old, with a slender and athletic body and blonde hair in a braid, she usually wears spotless and tasteful clothes.
Gaming statistics
Strength Dexterity Constitution Intelligence Wisdom Charisma Hit Points (HD: 1D10): Initiative: ...	13 (+1) 18 (+3 to missile attacks, -3 to AC) 13 (+1) 15 (+1) 11 (0) 16 (-1 to reaction adjustment) 34 +2 (if the optional individual initiative rules are used)
Aventuras en la Marca del Este (in Spanish): Google Drive | 4Shared Món de Monstres (in Catalan): Google Drive | 4Shared Labyrinth Lord (in English): Google Drive | 4Shared
Illustration by Håkan Ackegård

Hexomorfo System

Chat about Hexomorfo System at El Rolero Solitario Lorcue Youtube channel

The other project I wanted to talk about in this post is Hexomorfo System, an hexagonal tile system for 15 mm and 28 mm miniatures designed to offer role-playing referees the chance to quickly set the map of the dungeon player characters are exploring during the game session without needing to make a quick sketch (which often does not do justice to the map they have previously drawn when they were preparing it), below you have an example of what you can create with the correponding download links.

Spanish version: Google Drive | 4Shared
Catalan version: Google Drive | 4Shared
English version: Google Drive | 4Shared

Hexomorfo System is offered under the CC BY-ND 2.0 ES license, thus it means that any person interested in using it in any kind of projects, even commercial ones if you not modify the files available for downloading (if you have any question contact the authors) and indeed these have been already implemented in the patronage of Zeme: Parallel Worlds and maps of Frank Turfler, furthermore the authors alsow had made available the download of empty templates allowing anyone to design his own tiles.

Conclusions

Fanzine Vieja Escuela and Hexomorfo System are wonderful and have revolutionized the Spanish Old School scene and also can do the same beyond its frontiers, this is why I have decided to award both my quality seal, a new initiative I'm starting with this post which I hope to repeat with more equally interesting projects.

This entry it's also available in the following languages:
Castellano Català