So we’re all drowning in retroclones by now. But not long ago I discovered one that almost snuck right by me and I wanted to make sure that it got whatever minuscule amount of extra awareness that I could bring to it. So…

Go download Iron Falcon already!

Iron Falcon is an 0e retroclone that strives to be as accurate and true to its source material as possible. That means descending AC. That means the five classic Saves. That means no tinkering, no streamlining, no “improvements” and no modernization. Or, as the game’s author, Chris Gonnerman of Basic Fantasy fame puts it on the Iron Falcon site:

…my goals for this project:

1. Be as faithful as possible to the original game (my coverage target).
2. Deal with Product Identity issues by omitting the offending element (i.e. no look-alike monsters).
3. Correct inconsistencies, generally by selecting the simplest solution, or the solution most consistent with the rest of the rules..
4. Reorganize the presentation to make the game more playable.
5. Avoid copyright infringement by remodeling; rules are kept similar as much as possible but details are changed (this is different from rule 2 above because it involves not infringing the copyright of the original game). Of course, no actual text is copied from the original game; it’s all written fresh. But in some cases, even a rewrite ends up too close to the original text… there are just only so many ways to say some things.

This makes it, in my mind, the Labyrinth Lord of 0e. Even more so than LL’s own OEC. Well, maybe not more so exactly. But the thing that Iron Falcon has going for it (as you might have guessed from its name) is that it includes the expansions to the core that came in Supplement 1. And some of those (thieves and the increased impact of attributes, especially) are central to my tastes.

This is 100% (well, maybe 90% or so) of what I personally wanted from the other 0e-flavored games. The missing 10% is found in the classes and such from Supplements 2 & 3. But that’s easy enough to get around.

So if this sounds like what you are looking for in an 0e clone, go get you some Iron Falcon right away. And if not, just keep on playing what you like.