Kickstarter Pros and Cons

If you have not read it yet please go over to Tenkar's Tavern and read his posts on Kickstarter.

If you are considering supporting one you should read it.  If you are considering starting one then you certainly need to read it.

http://www.tenkarstavern.com/search/label/kickstarter

Here is the point I am getting in all of this.  Unless your game is close to being done I am not likely to suport the Kickstarter.   I gladly supported Eden Studios on their ConX and AFMBE kickstarters because I knew where they were on things.  I was a play tester, I had seen the doc files, I had even seen some concept art.  I knew they were well on the way.

This is also why I am confident in backing Adventures Dark & Deep.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/623939691/adventures-dark-and-deep-players-manual

Joe has a lot of the work done. He has said on the page things are written and he is looking for some art.  That is cool with me.  Art is expensive.  I am certain that a Hardbound copy of AD&D will be on my shelves in the future.

I am not going to support projects though that still need to be written or developed.  To much of a risk.
By my count I am still owed about $150 worth of RPG products that I might never see. So my next $5 is going to come a lot slower.

Grognardia Book Shelf Meme, Part 2

Part of James's meme is not just book porn (it is that as well) but what books do you go back to for reading, playing and writing.

Well the truth is I buy a lot of PDFs.  I will go as far as to say I was an early adopter of the whole RPG books on PDF.  I love being able to access all my books anywhere thanks to PDFs or carry them aroung on a flash drive or my laptop or tablet.

So here is my "other" set of shelves.

Being a long time playtester and reviewer has it's advantages.  Yes those are batch files in the folder too, and yes the 'Palm' folder was for my old Palm Pilot.  I pretty much wrote Ghosts of Albion on my Handspring Visor.

And yes. I have multiple backups.

Grognardia Book Shelf Meme

James over at Grognardia wants to start a bookshelf meme.  What the hell.  Here are the books in my shelves that I go to most often.

Victorian Age games.

One of my D&D shelves; core rules from 0e to 4e, plus Pathfinder. Circa July, 2012.
Below are binders of characters, bottom right is my son's shelf.

More Character sheets.  Though the tabbed binder in backwards contains various OSR PDFs that I printed.

Various horror anthologies with witch minis.

Another view of the horror short stories, you can also see various d20 horror games I am reading currently below.  The White Box is the special Edition of Spellcraft and Swordplay.

Current research books for The Witch.  4e below that and various demon and devil minis above.

Another organization of my upper D&D shelves.

And of course...

My Eden/Horror shelves.  I have other horror games, but these are the ones I am playing/reading now.

And my witches meeting up in the Charmed Ones' attic in San Fran.  Zatanna is showing off by floating.

The large red book came from an AD&D Action figure, I thought it had belonged to Kelek, but I can't seem to find it online.

I don't have any pictures of my Sci-Fi/Doctor Who/Star Trek shelves.  You might recall from this post that all my superhero games have been sent to the lower shelves along with BESM, White Wolf games and other modern and non-horror games.

This is the story of how we died.

When Gary and Dave sat down and designed Dungeons & Dragons they certainly had one thing in mind.  That it should be a social game.  It should be a time when friends got together and talked and had a good time.  Then after the game they could talk about the game they had or share in other games.  The cirlces were small back then in the Dawn Age; everyone knew everyone or were at least separated only by a person or two.

My degree of separation between me and Gygax is 1. The cousin of my regular DM ran us through an OD&D game one summer in 87.  He (whose name was also Gary) had played some games with Gary Gygax back in the day.   He told us we were playing "just like Gary did".   Outside of some email communication with Gary Gygax in the late 90s and meeting him once at what would be his last Gen Con, that is the closest I ever got.  

I am a member of what I like to call the Second Generation of Gamers.  I began in 1979 but did not really get into it until 1980-81.  I didn't learn at the feet of Masters.  I learned mostly on my own and with other kids who had done the same.  We may have known someone that knew someone that had gamed with Gygax or Arneson, but none of us had.

For argument sake I call the First Generation those that were the Masters or learned directly from them.  The first gen gets fuzzy when dealing with people that learned from people that learned from the Masters.  These are not static categories in my mind.

Presently I am commenting of one of James' latest posts on learning to DM/GM from the pre-made modules.  (for the record I give James the benefit of the doubt of being First Gen even if he is the same age as me, started about the same time and is by his own admission more of my Second Generation ).   He dislikes   (maybe too strong of a word) the older modules as DM/GM tools.  I love them.

I love my home-brew adventures as much as the next guy/gal loves his/her own.  Though there is one thing that was never discussed back then that is fairly evident now.  Running or playing those old adventures has given us all shared community.  My readers/players or you and your player or people I run into at Cons more than likely did not play at my game table back in 83.  But we can all talk about heading to the Cave of Chaos or the Barrier Peaks. We can all share stories of how we died in the Tomb of Horrors or the Forgotten Temples or Cities or even Realms.  Is has been those shared experiences that have helped shape the culture of the game we all play.  

It is an extension of the social circle that guys named Gary or Dave probably never thought of.

We can all share common stories thanks to these old modules. Share what we did, how we did it.  How the characters achieved greatness and how they died.  When I mention the Owlbear in the cave at the Caves of Chaos in B2 I could get dozens of stories from you all.  I can ask did  anyone ever shout "Bree Yark!" at the goblins?  I can ask did you ever defeat Strahd.

When I was at Gen Con this past August I ran my boys through Module B1 using a mix (of course!) of D&D Basic and AD&D rules.  We played for about 4 hours each night.  I would say only about 2.5 hours were actual play time.  The other 1.5 was devoted to people walking by to tell my kids how much fun they were going to have and how awesome the adventure was.  I didn't mind. Quite the opposite in fact, I loved it.  They loved it.  They had the feeling they were about to experience something special, something that others had gone through when they were kids.  I even joked with them in the adventure  that the place had looked like it had seen hundreds of people go through the corridors over the last 30 years.

One day, maybe very soon, they will be at Gen Con or Gary Con or something else and they will say "You know I almost died in the Caves of Chaos" and someone, of same age between 100 and 10 will say "yeah! Me too!".

Another Review for the Witch!

Stelios over at d20 Dark Ages has a very good review up for my latest book The Witch!

http://d20darkages.blogspot.com/2012/11/review-witch-by-timothy-brannan_16.html

He gives it 4.5 out of 5 stars, so that is great!

He did mention that a bibliography would have been nice and I agree.  Part of my "d20 upbringing" was being very active on the old OGL and OGF email lists and there was much discussion on whether or not a bib could be part of an OGL product.  Well eventually I think it came down on the said of yes it was ok, but I err on the side of caution when it comes to these things.

That all being said I think I will post a quasi-annotated bibliography.  I'll just need to put it all together.

So thank you Stelios!  I am very please you liked my book.

I talked to the publisher today and the files for the print version have been sent in so we should know once the proofs come back.

Zatannurday: For the Cosplayers!

Not sure how tuned in to geek/nerd subculture you all are.
I consider myself fairly knowledgeble and yet something still pops up that I either didn't know about or leaves me scratching my head.

This one though just irritates me.
Here are some links, you can read them.  Long story short comic book illustrator Tony Harris doesn't like cosplayers.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/donnad/comic-book-illustrator-tony-harris-hates-women-co
http://dcwomenkickingass.tumblr.com/post/35644420254/tonyharris
and one from Other Side favorite Strikes Twice, http://strikes-twice.deviantart.com/#/d5l04ol

I am not going to have this conversation. Again.  If there is someone in fandom and you don't like them or think they don't belong there then the trouble might be with you, and not them.

Today has been declared as Cosplay Appreciation Day!
http://sourcefednews.com/nerd-porn-google-tvs-and-sexist-geeks/

So I am going to celebrate the cosplayer today.
Thank you. To all the cosplayers out there that take the time, the money and the interest to share our fandom. Whether you are dressing up as a comic book character, game character or someone from a movie you have helped improve the total social standing of geeks and nerds (of which I am a proud member) everywhere.



Completed Zatanna by ~Strawberry-Photo on deviantART


Zatanna by ~Lola-Gainsborough on deviantART


Lady Z by ~Lola-Gainsborough on deviantART


Zatanna by ~Riddle1 on deviantART


My Zatanna Zatara Cosplay by *MissLola-art on deviantART


Zatanna Zatara by *MissLola-art on deviantART


Steampunk Zatanna by ~sphingosine on deviantART


Steampunk Zatanna Cosplay by Sphingosine by ~SNTP on deviantART


Zatanna Cosplay 5 by ~Refugeewolf on deviantART


Zatanna Zatara (YJ) by ~TrineMeincke on deviantART


Zatanna Zatara - Otakon 2012 by ~mariegreycosplay on deviantART


Zatanna Zatara - Otakon 2012 by ~mariegreycosplay on deviantART


Zatanna Zatara teaser 2 by *ParLitphotography on deviantART


Zatanna Zatara Is Here To Stay by ~AmeZaRain on deviantART


Zatanna Zatara Cosplay by *MissLola-art on deviantART


Zatanna Zatara Cosplay by *MissLola-art on deviantART


annataZ by ~Cujo-Escariot on deviantART

They all look fantastic!

More WotC Reprints and New Material

So you might have seen all of this in the blogs already.  If not here are some links.

• http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2012/11/wotc-to-publish-new-ad-material.html
• http://aventurasroleras.blogspot.com/2012/11/wizard-sigue-con-suplementos-old-school.html
• http://5stonegames.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-revolution-is-over-we-won-lets-play.html

Here are the links to the WotC pages for the upcoming products,

• Unearthed Arcana, http://wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/1Eunearthedarcana
• Hardcover A-series, http://wizards.com/DnD/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/a-series
• Hardcover S-series, http://wizards.com/DnD/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/s-series

This is awesome of course.     The A-series even comes with an all new A0 introduction adventure.

My thoughts on these.

Unearthed Arcana. For me nothing draws a cleaner line between the "Generation 1" old-schoolers and the "Generation 2" old-schoolers than their opinions on Unearthed Arcana. Generation 1 hates it. Generation 2 loves it.

I loved Unearthed Arcana.  Not just because it gave me new classes and spells but it meant that this wonderful game I had been playing will continue to grow.  So yeah I loved the goofy Barbarian and Cavalier. I didn't care that the Paladin I had been playing all this time now suddenly was changed, I thought it was great.

I like how this new version looks.  I will agree though with the Generation 1 old-schoolers on one point.  The original UA had terrible binding.  This one can only be an improvement and I understand that it includes all the errata.

The A Series is an odd one for me.   I never sought out to collect it, never really considered it much back in the day except when going through it and my new Assassin character was killed.  It is also the one I am looking forward to the most.  For starters it will be perfect for my kids new AD&D game.  Secondly and the most important is it will include the first new AD&D adventure to be published by WotC since they took over TSR.  They are supporting an edition other the current version.  I don't care how jaded you are this is a big deal.  Yes, of course it is about making money. It is ALWAYS about making money, but they are doing it in a way that supports old-school gaming.

The S Series was one of my favorite series of modules.  I have many copies of the original adventures and even some I have for all 4 editions of D&D/AD&D.  I even have the softcover "Super  module" they released years ago. I went and had it bound into a hard cover. So while I am happy about this one, I am less excited about getting it.   I bet I still will though.  My kids have already gone though half of the S modules though.

Again I will say if you are  an "OSR" publisher I would be getting your A game ready.  We seem to be in an odd lame-duck period between 4e and 5e.  Maybe WotC (who has nothing else so far on their calendar) is going to fill this with 1e products.

Random Pre-Coffee Thoughts

Still thinking through some of my ideas for Ordinary World.  I did not get to go over all my notes for the various games I have laying around though.

Swords & Wizardry was mentioned as a contender for the rule set and that idea has merits.  I am also still looking into Labyrinth Lord as well.  Regardless what system I use I think I want to have it use a compatibility logo.  I did not do that with the Witch because I wanted the broadest appeal and frankly to make it work with ALL the games I had to make some assumptions and changes.  So while it works great (in my playtests) with BFRPG, LL, S&W and the original game, it is not beholden to any one of those.

Rob Conley over at Bat in the Attic has posted link to all the current "big" SRDs for playing various d20 and OSR games.

• The original 3.5 d20 SRD
• Pathfinder SRD
• Swords & Wizardry SRD

The S&W one is new to me, so thanks Rob for pointing it out.

This got me thinking.
Would you like to see a S&W version of The Witch?

It would be stripped down to just the class and spells.  Maybe some magic items.
I would include notes on making covens, but I think my goal needs to be 20 pages.
I would include a new Tradition to make it have some value above what you already have from The Witch or Eldritch Witchery.  The Witch has five traditions plus the Eclectic, EW also has five traditions (only 1 that is the same) and five Warlock lodges.  So that is 15 so far.  I am going to do a web freebie when EW comes out for a new total of 16.

I'd like to aim it at $1.50.  Though to be honest I have paid a buck for classes in the past and have gotten about 4 pages.  I am going to struggle to keep this one under 20 pages.

What do you think?

Edited to add: I suppose I could also do a Free one that did not include any new spells, just the class, a new tradition (that is important to me), some Occult powers and some art.
Weigh in on that as well.

White Dwarf Wednesday #38

Sorry about missing last weeks WDW.  The end of October is crazy for me.

One note before I move on.  James at Grognardia is covering Imagine Magazine on Tuesdays.  Imagine is the sister magazine to Dragon that had a limited run in the UK starting in 1983.  So roughly the same span I am doing with White Dwarf now.  I had also planned on doing Imagine as well, but James is already doing it, so I'll just comment on his site.
You can read his first three entries here: http://grognardia.blogspot.com/search/label/imagine%20magazine
The nice thing about this is I noticed I had some holes in my collection so it would not have been as complete as my White Dwarf run.

On with the show!

White Dwarf #38 opens up February of 1983.

I think we see here a bit about what James might have been talking about in Imagine from June of the same year in regards to censorship.   The cover for WD#38 features a bloody sword, a severed head, and a topless woman.
We follow with seven pages of ads till we get to the first page proper. The editorial is brief one of idyll remarks on the growing popularity of RPGs and what the next year will bring.  D&D is now referred to as a "brand".

Andy Slack is back with Part 3 of An Introduction to Traveller. This time covering Scenarios.  I always thought it was interesting that most games had "Adventures" and Traveller had "Scenarios".  D&D/RuneQuest/T&T characters sought out their adventures, but Traveller characters (to me) always had something happen to to them.  I think this was my weakest point in Traveller.  I was still thinking of Traveller in terms of D&D.  Reading this article (and the next one) again made think back to all the great SciFi shows I loved at this time; Doctor Who, Blakes 7, Sapphire and Steele. They all could have been Traveller Scenarios (with some tweaks I guess).  It also made me think of another show that was popular at the time that really was, in my retrospect, the perfect model for a Traveller game; The A Team.  Think about it.  Instead of 4 guys from the Army, they are now Space Marines and instead of a van it's a small, but tricked out, space ship.  It really would have worked.

Next up is Open Box.  Phil Masters hits us up with a review of "The Traveller Book"  I have very fond memories of this book.  It was my last ditch effort to finally understand and play Traveller.  In retrospect again I actually made a good choice.  It was designed as a new game to introduce new players to Traveller.  Masters gives it 9/10.  It remains to date my favorite version of the rules.
M.L.Rowland gives us Dicing with Dragons, one of the first books about RPGs I can recall.  RPGs were finally getting big enough that there could be books talking about them.  We were on the verge of the big "Satanic Panic" of the 80s and D&D was going to get pulled into that, but we were also just fresh from seeing "E.T." where the kids played D&D (or something like it).  It was a good time for this book.  Rowland praises it for covering it's subject but downgrades it slightly for the sample game included for a total of 9/10.
Oliver Dickson also gives us some FASA books for Thieve's World. Traitor and The Spirit Stones. They get 7/10 collectively.

Fiend Factory is an interesting one this issue with Faerie Folk.  All sorts of interesting fae creatures that look like they were taken out Brian Froud's 1978 book "Faeries".  I say this with some level of conviction since I have gone to that book many, many times for my own books (notably Ghosts of Albion) and I recognize all of these creatures.  Frankly I would use any of these as is in an AD&D game now. It also seems that White Dwarf's on-again, off-again love affair with Monstermark is finally off for good.

Oliver Dickson and Bob McWilliams introduce us to Questworld for RuneQuest.

Lew Pulsipher takes on the herculean task of presenting the Mines of Moria/Khazad-dûm in AD&D terms.  Some interesting choices are made (Gandalf is a Cleric, Aragorn is a Ranger/Paladin) but what strikes me most is that outside of the trappings I am not sure "how" this is Moria vs. some other dungeon.  The sense of size I got from the books (and later the movies) is not here.

Microview is back and Noel Williams talks about some the tasks that computers can do in an RPG game.  Many of which we can take for granted these days, this was the wild west back then.  I even think back to the programs I wrote for the Tandy Color Computer back in the day that did a number of these "donkey" task Williams talks about (dice roller, rulebook, record keeper) as well as number no mentioned (monster database, combat simulator).

Oliver McDonald gives us "Monsters Have Feelings Too" which basically gives us tips on how to have monsters act intelligently.  These ideas have creeped into various games over the years till now it is sometime difficult to tell the monster stats and PC stats apart.  These are not exactly "Tucker's Kobolds" but calling "McDonald's Orcs" is not too far off.

Letters includes a couple of backlash's against Don Turnbull's letter on his distaste of the Necromancer, one of which is Lew Pulsipher. A letter asking for more adventures for other games. And a fairly detailed one on his dislike for AC equaling a chance to be hit.  Stepping outside of all of this for a bit I think we have all established that AC is an abstraction on damaged causing hits, not hits in general.

RuneRites has Lords of the Spirit worlds.  Something between mortal and man.  I think I used this for AD&D back in the day.  Demigods were humans that had been born with god-like power, "Saints" were ascended humans and spirit lords were still something else. Despite it being a "Runequest" article there is not much in the way of crunch.

Treasure Chest has some new spells. Most seem useful.  Maybe for the Necromancer.

We follow that with the Classifieds.  Nothing as interesting as last months. The final 9 or so pages are ads.
The difference in the ads between White Dwarf and Dragon is the same as I remember of UK and US television.  In the US the ads (commercials) are through out the show, in the UK they are at the beginning and end of shows.

I see what are the beginnings of the White Dwarf I remember so fondly.

DTRPG Red Cross Hurricane Sandy Relief

Once again DriveThruRPG is offering a bundle of RPG products to donate money to the America Red Cross for Hurricane Sandy Relief.

Your $20 donation gets you about $500 worth of RPG pdfs. So please check it out.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/107618/Red-Cross-Hurricane-Sandy-Relief-Charity-Bundle-%5BBUNDLE%5D?affiliate_id=10748

Vote

Normally I try to keep my political beliefs out of this blog.

But I will say this to my American readership.

Vote.  Get up, get out and vote.

It isn't just your right, it is your civic duty.  Our country depends on an informed and involved electorate.

MONSTROUS MONDAY: Fin

I am very, very pleased with the way MONSTROUS MONDAY turned out!

Thank you all very much who participated, commented and visited all the sites.

Managing the sites was pretty easy.  Many of the participants were familiar faces from other blog hops, so they knew what to do.   I did delete a few sites from the listings.  Some signed up early and then must have forgotten.  Others signed up yesterday and never posted a link back or a monster.  One I even recognized from previously bloghops/blogfests as signing up but never participating.  Obviously just looking for the links.

I have a LinkyTools account now, so I am going to look into ways of using it to improve my site.  Likely a dynamic link list of some sort.

Though the action is not done here yet.  I still have the WICKED AFTER DARK bloghop I am participating in.  Don't forget to visit all those sites and enter for some free stuff.  I am giving away a copy of the Witch!
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/10/wicked-after-dark-blog-hop-spread-witch.html

MONSTROUS MONDAY

NOTE: Looking for the Entry Page for the WICKED AFTER DARK Bloghop? Click HERE!

Are you ready for the MONSTROUS MONDAY Blogfest?

Check out all the sites that have signed up.
Come back all day today for more MONSTROUS fun!

Furious Friday!!

I have a lot going on today!  So let's get to it.

First a reminders about the MONSTROUS MONDAY Blogfest on Monday.
If you are participating you need to have your  image and link back here by Monday 12:01 AM CST.
I will be checking and sending out emails over the weekend.  You can still sign up after that time.

If you are not participating, then please stop by and see my post and visit all the sites.  If you are a gamer there will be a lot of great monsters for your use.  If you are not a gamer but are here as an author or horror fan then maybe there will be something here to influence you!

I am still in the middle of the WICKED AFTER DARK Blogfest.  Please visit these sites to win something cool.  Every site is giving away something, usually a book, but I have seen all sorts of things.

I am giving away a PDF copy of The Witch!  Go to my sign-up page for a chance to win!  I opened up some more options for you to get some entries.

So not only can you win some cool prizes and visit some site outside the normal OSR Blog Realms, but you can win a copy of the Witch for your self!

If you don't want to enter you can still purchase a copy of the Witch on your own.  It is on sale now for $5.00 at DriveThruRPG / RPGNow.  A little bit later today or this weekend I am going to go into some of the history of this project.

DriveThru is in the Halloween mood as well, so don't forget their Halloween sales. Look for the pumpkin to get your own Halloween treat!

Finally I am still participating in the October Challenge.  I have seen a bunch of horror films at will be talking about them every night.

This Week in the OSR: Megadungeons

So this latest issue in the OSR seems to be about and around the Mega-dungeon.
There are a lot of reasons for this but they are better explained elsewhere.

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=24039
http://aldeboran.blogspot.com/2012/10/schroedingers-room-and-fuck-diddles.html
http://muleabides.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/in-defense-of-the-megadungeon/
http://wondrousimaginings.blogspot.com/2012/10/played-dwimmermount-last-night-sucked.html
http://warlockshomebrew.blogspot.com/2012/10/empty-room-syndrome.html
http://dreamsinthelichhouse.blogspot.com/2012/10/lessons-from-running-mega-dungeons.html

Me? I am not trying to stir up any shit.  Here are my points of view.

• James is good guy. We don't see eye to eye on most things, but I enjoy his blog still.  He will get done when he gets done.  
• That being said, I hate to see the Kickstarter well poisoned or tainted.  Delays are happening in about half of the kickstarters I have funded, while I am not mad or even irritated, I am getting a little anxious. 
• Mega-dungeons are not my thing.  Sure I get the appeal, but give me the outside or the city or the planes.  One could argue that those are just different kinds of mega dungeons.  One might be right.

So it's Friday and typically slow around here.  So I wanted to capture your thoughts on this.

TBBYANR: Beyond the Pale Gate

I was reading a post over at Pork's Expanse! about taking this time during a lull (lull? what lull I am blogging my tail off over here!) in blog posts to read or find a blog you don't often read.
http://theporkster.blogspot.com/2012/10/find-that-blog.html

Frankly I think that is a brilliant idea. There are a lot of quality blogs out there waiting to be read.

So to that end I wanted to revive an old favorite feature of the Other Side, "The Best Blog You Are Not Reading"

The idea behind TBBYANR is simple. Find a blog in my blog roll that has under 40 followers and let you all know about it.  Why 40?  Because back in the early days I languished at 40 followers forever.  While I was appreciative of every single one (and still am) sometimes it felt I was talking to myself.

Today's TBBYANR is Beyond the Pale Gate. http://ramblingsfrombeyondthepale.blogspot.com/
Very much an oldschool blog, focusing on the OSR.
The author's (David) style is self-described as train of thought, but that is fine with me.

What really made choose this one was his recent post on Copyleft, http://ramblingsfrombeyondthepale.blogspot.com/2012/10/im-copyleft-type-of-guy.html
I don't totally agree with him on all points, but I agree with what he is saying in principle.   Plus my current "game" computer is running Linux now as well so I can relate.

I also liked the fact that despite his self professed Old School leanings he professed to really enjoying the Pathfinder Basic Box, http://ramblingsfrombeyondthepale.blogspot.com/2012/09/blasphemy-from-my-month-of-madness.html

And he likes Jimi Hendrix! So that is always a plus in my book.

If I had one complaint it is the background to his blog. It looks awesome, but it makes it difficult to read some of the posts.
ETA: He has changed that and it is much easier to read!  My old eyes are thankful.

So please. Check this blog out and if you do, drop David a note and let him know what you like about his blog.

If you have a blog that you think would be be good for TBBYANR, let me know!

We are talking about this again

Another article basically asking the current status-quo in fandom to stop being a bunch of jerks.

http://comicimpact.com/2012/09/cosplay-lay-off-the-babes/

We only get this on the periphery in the RPG community, but it is there.  Maybe only because old-fashioned table-top RPGs are not quite as popular in the same way comics and comic book movies are.

I talked about this back in June, and again, I hope that we as gamers are doing better.

http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/06/dear-gamers-we-had-better-be-doing.html

Genre Favorites Blogfest

Alex J. Cavanaugh's The Genre Blogfest.

In this blogfest I need to talk about my favorite Genre of Movie, Book and Music.  Plus my guilty pleasure.

So here we go!

Movies
My favorite is still Horror.  I love all that scary stuff. I do enjoy other movies, but horror is my go to.

Music
I would have to say Classic metal or even classic rock.  I still love to listen to Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Dio.  My wife accuses me of living in the past, I prefer to think of it that my tastes are so refined that I know exactly what I want.

Books
Again, gotta say horror, but I enjoy the Modern Supernatural genre as well.  The ones where it's all teh same creatures as horror, but living in the world of today.  Things like The Dresden Files.  I do still enjoy fantasy.

Guilty Pleasure
This is a hard one.  I have so many!! Well, so many that others might call guilty, I don't feel any guilt in these.
But to narrow it down to one...well that can only be my love for really, really bad movies.  I am not talking your average B or C movie, I am talking about Z grade, unfit for human consumption.  Things they might have considered doing on MST3k, but were to bad.

What do you enjoy?
Read what others have posted too: http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/2012/08/bourne-legacy-review-ninja-news-tv.html


See what everyone else is doing!

What is going on at White Dwarf?

If you come here for my White Dwarf Wednesdays you know I am a big fan of early (pre #100) of White Dwarf.

While I was not a fan of WD after it became devoted only Warhammer I didn't fault it because that was the trend for magazines at the time.

I might be stuck still in the 80s but White Dwarf did move on, in fact there was a recent posting about how we are going to be getting a new and improved WD magazine, http://lasgunpacker.blogspot.com/2012/09/white-dwarf-relaunch.html

But it also looks like Games Workshop is having troubles with some of the older issues.  Namely being able to prove what they may or may not own.

A post over at Pork's Expanse explains it better: http://theporkster.blogspot.com/2012/09/what-gw-owns.html
As does Russ Nicholson himself, http://russnicholson.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-horror-of-it-all.html.

I really enjoyed Russ' art in WD's golden age, and I hope he can get this all sorted out.  


This and the latest Kickstarter-based-project drama though shows me one thing:
I don't have a clue about what drama is going in the various gaming blogs.  

Well, unless I start it of course.   I don't think I am being particular obtuse and I do read all the same things everyone else is (I assume).   I mean I am not reading message boards hardly anymore (ha! see what I did there) and my Google+ participation is not as high as it could be.
I'll see some good posts and think to myself, "that is a good post, but what the hell are you talking about?"

Maybe it is the nature of blogs.  We sometimes feel that everyone is reading the exact same things we are because they are reading at least some of the same things we are.

Random thoughts on a Sunday.

It was on this day...

12 years ago that I stayed home from work so I could be at my FLGS to buy a copy of the new D&D 3rd Edition Player's Handbook.

Sorry if I choose to be selective on how I remember this day.

In truth 9/11/2001 was also a watershed date for me personally.  I had just gotten laid off from my "Dream job" in the Dot Com world (they had laid off 65% of their workforce that day).  So I was home with a new baby when all the events went down.

I then spent the next few months (before I swallowed my pride and went back to teaching) working on various RPG products.  One, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG, lead to many, many other projects that eventually landed me Ghosts of Albion.

Since 9/11/2001 was 11 years ago, it was also a Tuesday when it happened (perpetual calendars are 11 years long), so to me the "big anniversary" of something is not 10 years, but 11.  Weird I know.  But that is why it is on my mind more today than say this time last year.