Silver Blade Adventures

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The Silver Blade Adventures blog is written by Matthew James Stanham, who is also one of the coauthors of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, an old-school RPG under development. The blog is relatively low volume, and is made up of articles and reviews of OSR-friendly published products. The reviews are useful, but for me the real gold is in the articles, each of which ruminates on a game trope or rule (and usually includes a link to a document which compares how the aspect under consideration is treated by the various versions of TSR D&D and popular retro-clones). I just finished reading these from beginning to end, and I’m sure I will revisit them, especially the comparative historical analysis documents.
Reordered chronologically:

[Article] Orcs’ Nest
[Article] Dragon Men

Further, his right sidebar “Blogs” widget contains one of the better lists of influential OSR bloggers. I’m not familiar with all of them, but based on the (excellent) work of the ones I do know, by association I’m confident all of them are worth investigation. I can’t link to the widget directly, but here is a snapshot in time:

John Adams * Tavis Allison * Greg Backus * Jolly Blackburn * John Bingham * Joseph Bloch * James Boney * David Bowman * Joseph Browning * Stephen Chenault * Daniel Collins * Jason Cone * Robert Conley * Matthew Conway * Michael Curtis * Mike Davison * Thomas Denmark * Nicolas * Dessaux * Kyrinn Eis * Matthew Finch * Robert Fisher * Jeff Grubb * Mark Hall * Ken Harrison * Christopher Hogan * Scott Hoover * Jimm Johnson * John Laviolette * David Macauley * James Maliszewski * Moritz Mehlem * James Mishler * Jeffrey Preston * Daniel Proctor * Anthony Ragan * Victor Raymond * James Raggi * Jeff Rients * Wayne Rossi * Matthew Schmeer * Alex Schroeder * Michael Shorten * William Silvey * Matthew Slepin * James Smith * John Stater * Randall Stukey * Patrick Wetmore

Mr. Stanham also maintains an excellent collection of links to published OSR materials at this Dragonsfoot Thread: Publishers & Products.

3 thoughts on “Silver Blade Adventures”

  1. Matthew James Stanham

    Thanks for the shout out, Brenden, and I am glad that you are enjoying the articles. Unfortunately, due to creative differences, Jeff and I parted ways with regards to Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea a couple of years ago. As to the blogs widget, I have to confess that the criteria for inclusion is whether or not I know the name of the person who maintains it (rather than their internet alias), though it is true that the blog has to have caught my attention to remember to include it in the first place, so maybe it is not a terrible guide! 😀

    Got to admit, I find it hard going producing blog entries for some reason, and am always impressed by prolific fellows like yourself as a result. Last year I was determined to produce one post a month, but by the middle of the year my interest dropped off. Maybe this year! At least I am never short of blogs to read!

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  2. Brendan

    Hey, I’d take quality over quantity any day, and your blog is certainly quality. Somewhat paradoxically, I find learning things easiest when I am teaching someone else, even an imaginary someone like the Internet.

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  3. Matthew James Stanham

    Thanks you for the kind words. I suppose it had better have quality when it lacks quantity! No doubt in my mind that preparing and organising material for consumption is a good way to learn, so you are not alone in that seeming paradox.

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