Day 3: First RPG I Bought This Year

The first RPG I bought this year was 2300 AD at Bundle of Holding. This is an old Game Designer’s Workshop game originally called Traveller 2300. It was renamed to avoid confusion with the various iterations of Traveller set in the Third Imperium. This game’s future history was derived from the other GDW RPG at the time, Twilight 2000. The tech and future history of Earth are very different from Traveller.

Thing is, I already owned all the books for 2300 AD in its heyday.

The first RPG I bought this year that was new to me was Beowulf: Age of Heroes at Bundle of Holding. This is a Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition based game set in the British Heroic Age. My interest in that period should not be a surprise given my SCA personas over a decade ago and my current character in Belegarth now that I’ve gotten back into medievalism.

The Sub-Roman period in Britain that ends with the establishment of the Heptarchy is fascinating. In no small part, this fascination stems from just how blank of a slate it is.

In the context of this blog challenge, neither game is really the point. The point is where I bought them and how. I got them as bundles at Bundle of Holding. For those not familiar with the site, it provides bundles of RPG pdfs around a theme, usually but not always a single game line, for a very large discount for a limited period of time. They are a bargain way to get a lot of game, usually one popular in the past but sometimes quite current.

As an example, as I write this the front page, the deal is for a set of eleven books of random tables from dicegeeks, their Eras line. Buying all 11 books at full price on DriveThruRpg would cost $33 according to Bundle of Holding but it looks closer to $44 adding them up.

The Bundle of Holding price is $7.95. The bundle is running for 14 more days.

Humble Bundle runs similar RPG bundles from time to time.

At Bundle of Holding, I have bought 165 Bundles since 2014. That is far and away the majority of products I have bought in that time period. It was my introduction to Powered by the Apocalypse games and the source of many of the FATE games I own (although I have had FATE since its 2.0 pdf twenty years ago). It is how I got into *Numenera* and thus the Cypher System. I have 16 more from Humble Bundle.

If the emergence of PDF RPGs via sites like DriveThruRPG were a revolution that saved commercial RPGs then the bundle sites are an accelerant. Just based on those purchases I have more material than I’ll be able to play, but every now and then a bundle is interesting enough I still buy them.

They are a big part of why it is a great time to be into RPGs.

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