RPG Retro Review: The Orcs of Thar

Orcs of Thar PDF:www.drivethrurpg.com/product/...
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Champions of Mystara PDF: www.drivethrurpg.com/product/...
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[@al2642]

Well deserved. As a matter of fact, it really resembles more modern products because of its clarity, completeness and humor.

[@stevevondoom4140]

LOL the map refers to elf territory as "tree Scum" . priceless!

[@AkatsukiBoss13]

Mystara needs more love. Come on Wizard! Open up the DM's Guild to Mystara!

[@NefariousKoel]

They'd probably cut it apart judging by the leadership over there.

[@Arnsteel634]

My i recommend a guy named mister Welch. He does lots of work making mystara playable for 5E

[@arjenlaan4103]

I love how lighthearted this module is. And we played quite a bit of Orc Wars, too, back in the day, I'd say that that game alone may have been worth the buying price, it's really good fun!

[@Dracopol]

1:46 The city of Nice, France is pronounced like "niece".

[@captcorajus]

Yes, I KNEW that, but you know, reading from the script you forget stuff. lol

[@godo2712]

niece bees

[@cinocefalo284]

then, the city is not nice?

[@DrFranklynAnderson]

Quirko Germont I don’t know… THIRD BASE!

[@eddiedingle7689]

@@cinocefalo284 no

[@almitrahopkins1873]

Nice is pronounced Niece. Lots of us Navy brats played D&D. I remember an on-going game in Gaeta, Italy. It went through seven DMs and something like 90 players over the years. Nobody played for more than 3 years or so.

[@debitibus]

Live long and prosper, from your fan in Brazil!

[@neohubris]

I had this when I was a kid. Just ordered the POD from drivethrurpg.

[@Se7enBeatleofDoom]

I like to think most orcs in D&D would get along with humans if they were from a culture that hates elves. The most diverse faction in the Elder Scrolls series which shares a hate of elves. The Elder Scrolls' diversity means cat and lizard people working and living together to keep away elves with human friends from cultures inspired by Vikings and Northern Africa, Aka the Nords and red guards. It’s beautiful.

[@TheFearInside1]

I finally finished all your video on Mystara and the Basic D&D sets and it’s gotten me to think how how I want to run it and I’m glad you’ve introduced me to it. I def find it more interesting then Greyhawk. I love these videos on Mystara.

[@sawyerhusome4767]

commenting for the algorithm

[@j-henry7391]

I love your content! Thank you so much for the years of enrichment and entertainment!

[@kurainoneko2]

awesome video, we need more of this in D&D!!! all around fun and fantasy!

[@Arthineas]

I loved this review! I bet your gaming group has a blast with you DMing.

[@astronomicafilms]

Great review - I never had Orcs of Thar, but I played Orcwars a few times since I bought DM 132. The wonderful map is framed and hanging in my game room!

[@jasonkauppinen3475]

I had 3 or 4 of these Gaz series and this one was my favorite.

[@sunsin1592]

Been using this one a lot lately as I convert classic MERP adventures over to OSE for my homebrew campaign. I ignored the goofy stuff but just gave the humanoids extra levels.

[@richmcgee434]

I think a lot of people took that approach.

[@thegmologist9270]

@@richmcgee434 that's what I'm doing in my current Broken Lands on-going campaign. Akrass is amazing and a great place for some factional intrigue

[@williammeyers51]

Enjoyed the review . You should get ahold of Mr. Welch and see what he has done for Mystara

[@williamst.romain7393]

You and Mr Welch have really got to exchange notes.

[@MrRourk]

I was just going to say the same thing

[@knightofyourlife]

It seems pretty obvious to me that this was the biggest influence on Games Workshops Orcs/Orks

[@notsofree_willy]

looking forward to that 10k!!!

[@scott4092]

Yes! I love the Orcs of Thar!

[@trenwilson6613]

Orcs of Thar seems pretty good, It got me thinking of a game suppliment I own called "Auror's Whole Realms Catalogue", for me it added a lot to my gaming, alot like how the Orcs of Thar added a lot to my gaming by making humanoids like my favorite - the Alaghi - possible to play. Consider, if you can, doing a review of the catalogue in a future review, I think they have a few on Amazon if you don't have one.

[@robertross5201]

It’s curious to me that in the boxed set for AD&D 2nd Edition: The Forgotten Realms there is a predominantly humanoid land called Thar north of the Moonsea region. I’d be very curious to learn if TSR repurposed this realm, with some modifications from Mystara to Tori’s.

[@captcorajus]

I read somewhere that Ed Greenwood was a big fan of this supplement and included Thar in his forgotten realms as a nod to it, and came out as much to say that the supplement would work great in the Forgotten Realms.

[@bensworld6128]

Keep em coming.. older the better.. the newer the better too, so... jeepnut up bro!

[@captcorajus]

ROFL... will do. Got an oldie but a goodie to post Sunday Morning. :)

[@TheArcturusProject]

The intro music is great and definitely not Final fantasy Tactics XD

[@TurboWulfe]

Thanks man, great job. 😎🍻🤘

[@anthonyrivera3616]

This was cool. Would also love to see you do a review of 'the new easy to master' dungeons and dragons core game (1991) and its expansions : The Dragon's Den, The Haunted Tower and Goblin's Lair.

[@johnevans9156]

Almost to 10K subs!! Woot!

[@GBlucher]

Commenting for the algorithm and subscribing for the content! :)

[@captcorajus]

Welcome aboard! Thank you!!

[@jarkoer]

Makes me want to break out my old copy and re-read it. :-)

[@TheRealJoeWilde]

A great supplement.

[@MrArioncete]

Excelent!

[@arjunchoong8012]

40 more to 10K subscribers!

[@xczechr]

"The other hand is to fool the enemy." Good times.

[@MrRourk]

Not the first time you could play monsters in D&D.

[@richmcgee434]

Considering there's a lizardman in Norton's Quag Keep novel, yeah, "monster PCs" have been around since word one.

[@Xaxares]

To think that in the original ADnD gamemaster guide, players wanting to play humanoids were considered problem players, either wanting to dominate their fellow players or too dumb to know better.

[@elmeromogollon]

well its a problem if you walk into a town and there is a troll in your party xD, you will have to hide the fact that you are a troll and good luck hiding the large creature from the town guard.

[@jerrywhoomst1116]

Damn I forgot about this channel, got a lot of videos to catch up on.

[@realbrooklynjes]

dope

[@cameronf5893]

I'm stoked enough on this to watch this review again while I get the PDF Edit: yes my computer is so slow that I need to watch something while waiting for it to load. What of it? Lolol

[@RoDaGrier]

The art in this reminds me of Mr Halloway's art in Paranoia.

[@captcorajus]

Absolutely!!

[@ikr9358]

If you're going to go through all of the Gazetteers, I'll look forward to the Shadow Elf one. :)

[@captcorajus]

Definitely doing that one!

[@johnharrison2086]

One of the better Gazateers

[@Demonskunk]

Gnolls were playable back in BECMI, and not in 5e?!

[@jcbxiii3616]

There's also an elf/gnoll mixed culture in Mystara (the Gruugrakh iirc), detailed in the ''Champions of Mystara" accessory - which included rules for Gnolls to use elven magic too.

[@joshgartmann1383]

Cohesive... Best setting ever yes... but it does suffer some serious continuity issues... Not Bruce's fault

[@pugbuddykachoo]

This particular Gazetteer is almost completely tongue-and-cheek. There seems to be a lot of that throughout the Gazetteers and I find them a bit less than useful because of it.

[@captcorajus]

I don't know, I've been using them for 30 years and I love them. Every DM needs to find their tone to be sure though!

[@Dracopol]

Well, I would say only the military manual, Thar's Manual of Good Conduct (for "Dah Legion") was tongue-in-cheek, the thing you copied, then folded or cut into a half-size booklet. "Start your march on the right foot. The other foot is the wrong foot." or "Corpses should not be eaten, despite their spicy taste."

[@rocketraccoon1976]

From what I remember, all of the other Gazetteers were pretty serious-minded, except maybe Glantri, which had some levity to it. Maybe Ierendi, too.

[@RoDaGrier]

I rather liked the change in tone. Mystara can be funny. Top Ballista and Tales of the Wee Folk both were good for a chuckle. I think it was a good choice to put the light hearted books as the more niche settings. All of the history is still there, and there is a more serious tone when it comes to the inner cult, so there is a lot of material for my "straight laced" campaigns. Gaming is supposed to be fun, and any game I would want to invest in, I would want to be fun for as many different type of gamers as possible. With that in mind I loved, ran, and still love the Orcs of Thar.

[@captcorajus]

@@rocketraccoon1976 Glantri is pretty serious. The revelations in Glantri are pretty important to the rest of Mystara due to the drain on magic from the Nucleus of the spheres.

[@Wolfogre]

I have this but I have lost the counters for the Orc Wars-game. :(

[@captcorajus]

Well, the counter scans for the PDF are EXCELLENT, and you can use the method for making dungeon tiles I put in my Advanced Heroquest Review to make new ones if you want. :)

[@Wolfogre]

@@captcorajus , now there's an idea!

[@richmcgee434]

@@captcorajus Do you (or really anyone reading this) know if the Knight Hawks pdf for Star Frontiers has all the counters and strategic map of the Frontier included? Little outside your wheelhouse, but I figure somebody here has probably taken the plunge on that one.

[@captcorajus]

@@richmcgee434 I have not gotten that PDF, but typically if a product had counters, the pdf has scans. The Orcs of Thar PDF has the counters for Orc Wars.

[@Jarofdice]

Me too ;)

[@richmcgee434]

Oh fine, I'll subscribe instead of just following the link from Questing Beast's station. :)

[@MrSteveK1138]

"Green iz best!"

[@sunsin1592]

Nice is pronounced "niece" btw...

[@captcorajus]

Oh that's right. I forgot. I'm not French, but I remember that pronunciation now that you mention it. lol

[@innocentsmith6091]

I'm sure it's a very nice place, though.

[@jh1859]

What's the difference between hit dice and level?

[@captcorajus]

The progression for a troll begins with negative 35000 xp. They are a welp, and have 3d8+2 hit die. Then they are a youngster at minus 26000 xp 4d8 + 2 hit die, then a teenager, and then 0 level, and at first level they have 6d8+3 Hit die. :)

[@RoDaGrier]

Simply put, Levels measure the advancement of a class. One of the things advancing gets a PC is more Hit Dice. Hit Dice are a broad measure of of toughness. They are used to generate Hit Points. Non Leveled NPCs (mostly monsters) are just assigned a number of Hit Dice to represent there fighting fitness. They don't need to earn them. The Hit Dice are then used by the DM to assign Saving Throws and Experience Point values.

[@Dracopol]

17:48 You put stars on Good, but you meant to put them on Very Good.

[@captcorajus]

lol, yeah, i didn' tnotice that until I'd uploaded.

[@mackijs1]

11:18 why did they make Thar such a high level? Isn’t that max level?

[@captcorajus]

36 is max level. He is the king of the Orcs. You can't be no welp if you're uniting all of the Broken Lands!!

[@richmcgee434]

Because he's Thar. The module isn't called "The Orcs of Some Guy That Isn't Named Thar" after all. He's the Boss, and that's in large part due to personal power.

[@mackijs1]

Lol alright 😂

[@captcorajus]

Rich, I Lol'd a little because I heard your response in my Orc voice. "Because he's Thar, biggest baddest, toughest orc of dem all!"

[@richmcgee434]

@@captcorajus I remember one of my old DMs had Thar be an orcish version of the Dread Pirate Roberts or perhaps Spartacus. Been lots of Thars over the years, some tougher than others, but the office is always filled by someone. That was an interesting take on it, anyway.

[@danthebookhunter]

Very thorough and interesting review of this product which I was very unfamiliar with. However, it's pronounced guh-zet-er

[@TheGiantRobot]

It's actually not. It's a funny word.

[@danthebookhunter]

Also thought you should know you are one of a very few KZbin creators for who I click the bell to be notified on every video. Keep up the great work

[@captcorajus]

Thank you for the kind words!! Also the phonetics are: ga·zuh·teer and then there's this everyone like it says it the same way, so that's the way I'm going with it. lol kzbin.info/www/bejne/a5mtfop8n9ucbpo

[@danthebookhunter]

@@captcorajus thank you I stand corrected.

[@cooltube2000]

I think it's "Neese" france

[@mattnerdy7236]

Hey Capt. can i say Im first, lol.

[@hopefulhyena3400]

I would seriously reconsider playing with anyone who pronounced BECMI as "bessimi"

[@gwillco5100]

Add a public comment.:.

[@kurgon1976]

according to WOTC orcs and drow represent racism... old school is now more relevant than ever.

[@captcorajus]

That's kind of gaslighting and not representing their position at all my friend. From what I read their position is that going forward they will be giving these races more nuance. There are still orcs and drow, they are still evil, but you will find representations of the race that are not evil. Kind of like what was done in the Orcs of Thar supplement, or a fellow named Drizzt. That's it. :) Personally, from a purely storytelling point of view 'all evil' orcs, drow, etc all the time is.. just kind of boring IMHO. Game on!

[@ogremark5]

Should be reprinted.

[@Jayce_Alexander]

I really dislike this Gazetteer. Bruce's attempts at humor and his awkward punny names for locations completely ruin my ability to get invested in his version of the Broken Lands. I had similar issues with the parts of GAZ 3 where he attempted to be funny, but at least there was a solid enough chunk of content to run it as a setting that wasn't based around dad jokes. But in GAZ 10 he went into overdrive, and the result is, in my opinion, a bad product. It's not a bad product because it contains a style of humor that isn't mine; rather it's a bad product because it's usefulness hinges almost entirely on whether or not you enjoy Bruce's style of humor and silliness, and unlike GAZ 3 it doesn't leave much that is of use to anyone who wants to run a version of the Broken Lands that isn't silly, centered around dad jokes and awful puns. I occasionally use the sections on character creation whenever they're relevant in my Mystara games (which doesn't happen all that often), and the sections on immortals, but that's about it - and that's a pretty small section of this product. Along with the rushed and half-finished GAZ 14, this is easily my least used Gazetteer. Even Ierendi sees more use at my table than this one.

[@captcorajus]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course, but from a designer's standpoint, if you're going to make a product where the PCs are going to be playing essentially 'evil' characters in a very oppressed and downtrodden society there's only two approaches. You could go the dark and gritty approach, which could quickly get controversial and that would be detrimental to its commercial viability, or you could take a more "Darkly" humorous approach. Wisely, Heard choose the latter. If you look at Peter Jackson's Lord of the Ring approach to Goblins and Orcs, he choose a similar approach. "Meat's back on the menu boys." Heard's humor absolutely lands with me, and I prefer a style of play that caters to the 'dark humor' rather than just 'playing it straight' which I think has very limited appeal.

[@connorwatson6766]

When you do stupid voices, I immediately stop the video. You're reviewing a product, not being a DM. I want your thoughts on the product, not attempts at voice acting. Keep practicing the voices for your games, but please stop doing them in reviews. It's not funny it doesn't add anything and you're not very good at it.

[@captcorajus]

Nope, please feel free to go elsewhere. I enjoy doing them, and will do what I enjoy.