S&S&S Hero minizine

Game design : F&F / Art : Forgar / Text and layout : Fanghar.

This minizine came from discussions and games a while back between F&F&F (in this case the last F being friend Frédéric Rogenmoser). We did a little Conan-like campaign with Mörk Borg rules and wanted to share the results to another F, our Friends :P.

If you are not familiar with the OSR (old-school revival), one of the principle is "Heros, not superheros". The S&S&S class add-on makes for a VERY powerful hero. We wanted to answer the many-times-asked question of "What do I do if I want to play Mörk Borg and have only one player?". THIS IS NOT MEANT FOR MANY PLAYER CHARACTERS, except maybe if one player play the S&S&S hero and the other one a normal "level 1" sidekick that changes every adventure/session.

Tl;dr: Please, do not use those rule to make an S&S&S hero party... At least, try the core Mörk Borg rules and learn about the OSR style of play before that.
Unless you want a very different style of play, because... whatever suits you and your table, I guess? So nobody's stopping you, but it's really not the intended way to use that. Mörk Borg is already less deadly than many other OSR rulesets, particularly the D&D b/x retroclones, especially when characters have one or two "getting better" behind their belt. The Horrible Wounds alternative is another interesting way of making your game less deadly without losing too much of the Mörk Borg flavor.

For readings about the OSR principles and way of gaming, here's a couple ressources :

- Matt Finch's "A Quick Primer to Old School Gaming" the first (2008) famous document to state those ideas.
- "Principia Apocrypha" a collective OSR primer done in 2018.
- Page 14 manifesto of DCC RPG and Cairn RPG principles for Warden and Players are also a good take on those principles.

Some nice, not too long, videos on the subject :

The S&S&S Hero minizine is an independent production by F&F(&F, our friend Frederic Rogenmoser, the playtester) and is not affiliated with Ockult Örtmästare Games or Stockholm Kartell. It is published under the MÖRK BORG Third Party License. MÖRK BORG is copyright Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell. Eternal hails to Rober E. Howard, Frank Frazetta, the guys from Mongoose Publishing, John Milius, Oliver Stone, Basil Poledouris and Arnold Schwarzenegger for the inspiration.