Weekend Gaming: It's Always Sunny In Waterdeep

The kids had their games this weekend.

Friday Liam has his group, The Dungeoneers that have been playing together for over 10 years.  He ran a 5e game and had a blast.

Saturday was the game with Connor's group with Liam running.
They were supposed to go on a quest, given to them by a librarian in Waterdeep, they headed out to the forest area outside.

Instead, they spent three days looking for 62 mushrooms, 134 "magic" carrots, some catfish and berries.  The druid has decided that the forest needs to reclaim the land and has been casting Plant Growth and Commune with Nature to convince the forest to retake the lands.  The goblin warlock decided it would be fun to play a joke on a horse so they stabbed it, killing it and then they got in a fight with the owner.   They also crashed the funeral.

It was Gwen's (of the Goblin Warlock) birthday today and like everyone else in the group, they wanted to celebrate their birthday here, playing D&D.

We made the group ham & cheese sliders and turkey, bacon and provolone sliders.

We made these for both boy's respective New Year's Eve parties and they were a huge hit.

Since it was a birthday game we also made homemade cupcakes (yes from cake flour and everything) and brownies.

It was a blast.  The characters did not get very far and the Goblin is now wanted for murder and killing a horse.

Sunday was Liam's High School / College group. Kids he met in High School and continued into their college days.

This is his Curse of Strahd game.  So what is on the menu?  Bolognese sauce of course!

So three games this weekend. Not too bad really.

Weekend Gaming: Dungeons & Dragons & Dinners & Dramaturges

I have not done a weekend gaming post in forever, despite having a game or two going every weekend.  If you follow me on Facebook or my personal Instagram page then one thing is pretty obvious.  My family and I LOVE food.  My wife has won baking awards, my oldest son is in culinary school, my youngest loves to experiment in the kitchen and even I have won 1st place in my local chili cook-off for my "Mississippi Queen" Chili.

It should be no surprise then we LOVE to cook for our D&D sessions.  My oldest son runs three D&D 5e campaigns, one Call of Cthulhu game (3 of which my youngest son is a part of), and I have my three D&D games that meet more rarely, but the bottom line is we have anywhere from two to three groups here every week and we cook for all of them.

These are all high school and college-age kids, so other than one or two other than my kids, their palettes are still forming.  I mean in our groups we have people from South Korea, Equador, Mexico, Spain, and even a 2nd generation Greek (the Greek Orthodox Church is just down the road), so we have ethnicities all covered. So we still like to branch out a bit from just plain old "gamer faire" of burgers, hot dogs and chips, though we still do those a lot.  We have made chili for them (of course), homemade mac-n-cheese (they are still kids), but homemade enchiladas, pulled smoked pork, bbq chicken, homemade ramen (complete with soy marinaded eggs), eclair cakes, banana bread, tacos, homemade chicken sandwiches (because fuck Chik-fil-a), homemade pizza, mini pies,  and homemade wings of various spiciness from mild to "oh dear god make it stop mommy!"

Fortunately for us, we love to cook all this.  My wife has a huge garden (over 2,200 square feet) where we can grow an absolute ton of veggies, so that helps.  In fact, there are many times throughout the year where we don't even need to buy vegetables (and we eat a lot of veggies).

You can see my wife's garden from space!

We only have a couple of food allergies to deal with, but that fine with us. 
The great thing is that everyone wants to come here now for the games!  Yeah it means we have a lot of cooking to do, but we enjoy it and we know some of these guys in college with my oldest don't get a homecooked meal very often.

Today's game is Liam's college group and on the menu is the Curse of Strahd and Taco Pie.  Yeah, not haute cuisine, but it is still homemade AND we used enchilada sauce made from our own dried peppers, garden onions, and tomato sauce (yes, we make our own tomato sauce). 

Much better than a bag of chips and a Mountain Dew.

Monstrous Monday will return next week.

#RPGaDAY2019: Surprise

Today's topic is Surprise.

What is the most surprising thing you ever witnessed in a game?  I have to say it was a game my older son ran for my youngest son and the sheep.

It was so surprising because of how crazy it all was and how much noise we heard coming from the basement.

So it goes like this.  The party was supposed to get to the next town to get to a job.  The job was what the adventure was supposed to be about. Simple right?  So they all decide to take a short cut through a field and stay off the main road.  They ask what is in the field.  My oldest, not having planned this bit out (because why should he) rolled and said "Sheep".

The players freaked out.  They all wanted to have sheep as pets or animal companions.  So they spent a long time chasing sheep, trying to charm them or casting any spells they could think of.  By this time some of the players got tired of chasing sheep so they started killing them. Next thing the players they started try and raise the sheep from the dead, others wanted to bring them back as zombies.  Then the characters started attacking each other, the zombie sheep started to attack the characters.  By the end of the night, some four hours later, the sheep were all dead, the countryside was on fire, and at least three characters (out of six) were dead.

There was so much yelling and laughing and shouting.  We were laughing our asses off upstairs.

Every kid downstairs had to tell us their version of the story.

I know I am not doing the story any justice here. But it was so damn funny to hear them tell it.

The Kids Are Alright, 2018

So. I got into it with one of the luminaries of the original RPG scene.  I am not going into any details (no need) save that I was a little more caustic than I should have been and I obviously hit a nerve.

But I have been seeing a lot of this around.  People not just bashing editions that are not their particular favorite (that always happens) but people bashing the players of those editions.  Often the ones doing the bash have zero knowledge and/or experience with the game in question.
Go to any group on Facebook and you will find people complaining about any edition newer than their own often with ideas of what they think is in the game but have nothing to do with the game at all.  When pressed I invariably get the same answers "oh I have not played it" or "I have neve even read it".

I am glad I did not argue the points further online, either with those groups or individuals. 

Later that day I was headed to our local fish market so my son could smoke some fish for us and we all stopped at my Favorite Local Game Store. 

That was a refreshing treat.

First off I was not planning on getting anything but they had this.

The Classic Creatures collection.  Including a giant Demogorgon, a purple worm, and Pig-snouted Orcs!  The owlbear looks like the AD&D 1 MM one, not the 5e one (I am partial to the 5e look myself).

So yeah I grabbed that.  My youngest son pointed out all of the families there.  And there were a lot, with some young kids.

One girl, maybe 9 or 10, was walking around with her dad holding her latest treasure; a collection of D&D 5th edition tiles for minis.  I saw other kids holding books for other new games and even a small group in the game room playing.

It dawned on me (though it should have been obvious).

They don't care what we say.  In fact, they are not even listening.

I have been gaming for close to 40 years now. I am full of advice.  They won't listen to a word of it.
And that is FANTASTIC!

They need to find their own ways, make this game their own, do what they want and damn what anyone else has to say because that is what is needed to keep the games alive.
The future is not ours. Only the present.

The kids will be doing fine despite us yelling to get off our lawn.

My son smoked some fish and worked up a Succubus race to play in D&D 5.

Making a Table Copy

My son's copy of the 5th Ed D&D Player's Handbook fell apart a while back. No big deal really, he read it all the time and carried it back and forth to school.  Mine, bought at the same time, is still in great shape.

A quick trip to Office Depot for plastic sheets and a binder and fixed it up quite nice.

We have added some printout from the Unearthed Arcana and other sources.

We swapped the blue binder for the larger black one to add more material.

So far it has worked out great as a table copy for all our different D&D 5 games.  Since it is in a binder it also lays flat on the table, making it perfect for looking up things in the middle of a game.

We were left with a cover that didn't have any book.  What to do about that?  Well, a few years back I picked up a rather piss-poor quality copy of the old D&D Rules Cyclopedia. It didn't have a cover.

A little glue, some binder clips to hold it while it dried and I have a new-ish-er book.

Now I'll just get my son a new PHB to go with his set.

White Plume Mountain at DriveThruRPG

One of the all-time greatest classic modules is now available at DriveThruRPG.

S2 White Plume Mountain

I had an absolute blast playing this with my kids.  They STILL talk about how they got Blackrazor.

DriveThru has a number of great files to go with this too.
White Plume Mountain Dungeon Tiles (lots of fun!)
White Plume Mountain Revised (3.5)

The PDF is the older mono-chrome cover, but I love this Jeff Dee one.

On this day the Slave Lords have been defeated!

Over the weekend the boys escaped the Dungeons of the Slave Lords and started a revolt in the city of Sudderham to defeat the Slave Lords.  They managed to kill them all including the leader Stalman Klim.

I decided that Klim was not a cleric of the Earth Dragon cult, instead, I made a more tangible connection to the Elder Elemental Eye.  Yeah I could go all convoluted with the connections and cover cults and fronts, but really the boys have enough details to juggle.

On the Water Dragon on their way back to the Duchy of Urnst I hit them with the big plot point.  The Sun just went out.

In typical fashion, my youngest announces that someone is killing Sun Gods.

While they were unconscious in the Dungeons I told them they had a flash back to an adventure very early in their careers, and one they don't remember.

So for the next adventure, I am going make 0-level B/X Basic versions of their current 7th level D&D 5 characters and take them through T1 The Village of Hommlet.

I was going to do this using 4e, but a few things have happened recently that have made me really want to do this as Basic D&D.  Plus this is a flashback to when the characters were "younger" so a simpler system is really what I want to give it that right feel.

Any XP they get in Hommlet I am going to give to their 7th level characters.  Afterall, if they just now remembered the adventure that could not have had any advantages from the XP till now.

Also, the nice thing here is I am going to take advantage of D&D Basic's features as features (and not as I thought of them then as bugs).  So the sorcerer and the warlock are going to be Magic-Users. The elven ranger will be an Elf.  The Paladin will be a Fighter and so on.  The only sticking point is the Dragonborn.  I think he will be a Dragonborn.  Just like a Dwarven fighter would be a Dwarf. So yes I am going to use Race-as-Class for this.

I also got all my B/X GM's Screen stuff in the mail yesterday from +Richard LeBlanc so Basic is on my mind.  More on that though in another post.

The Sun is gone. The Order of the Platinum Dragon has a lost memory to recover.  And now they hear of giants coming down from the hills to brazenly attack villages...

Weekend Gaming: Against the Slave Lords!

The Order of the Platinum Dragon made it to the throne room of the slave lords and encountered the first five.

The battle was fierce with many HP lost on both sides.
I did notice that in some cases the Playtest version of Next has slightly different monster stats than the final version of 5e.  I have used both more or less interchangeably.

Sadly the heroes were all knocked unconscious and awoke in a deep, dark dungeon with no weapons, gear or armor.   Adventure A4 begins next!

Of course while they were unconscious they had more dreams.
I am using dream sequences and flashback to give them tidbits of information about what is going on in the world or the past.  I am going with the old adage that it is better to show and not tell.  Each different dream sequence or flashback I use a different version of *D&D.  The next one uses AD&D 1st Ed for a trip back 30+ years ago (natch).

I have used Basic already and even have one planned using 4th ed D&D.

I have my summer gaming mapped out.  This is going to be epic!

A to Z of Adventure! L is for Lendore Isles

L is for Lendore Isles (and Len Lakofka).

I was a fan of Len Lakofka way back in the day when I first discovered his work in Dragon Magazine.

I think it was his articles on the Gods and Goddesses of the Suel Empire that read first. Especially the one on Wee Jas.  Or it could have been his article on the Death Master NPC.

But in any case it was his L series, the Lendore Isles, that most people know his work.

Module L1, The Secret of Bone Hill, is a classic for a number of reasons. First it was Lakofka's first foray into module writing. There is was plenty of background detailed in this module as well, a lot for what amounts to an introductory module.

The typical hack-n-slash or kick in the door plot is given over to what really amounts to a mystery.   The adventure section itself is actually only a small part of the adventure.

I also think it was that Bill Willingham cover.  I made character based on that magic user.

I got the chance to run my kids through this at Gen Con 2014 and we had a great time with it.
I had planned to run L2 Assassin's Knot, which is a great follow-up to L1, but time did not allow it.  By the time I had calculated all the XP the characters were ready for something else anyway.  Which is too bad, there is a great murder mystery in L2 that my youngest would have loved.

L3 Deep Dwarven Delve was completed at the same time as the first two adventures, somewhere around 1979, however it would not see publication til 1999 for the D&D Silver Anniversay Edition set.  I have never actually owned or even read this one. A fact that was lost on me till I started working on this post!  In fact the game it was written and published for, 1st Edition AD&D, was no longer in print and 3rd edition was on the very near horizon. Even the company, TSR, was no more having been bought by Wizards of the Coast.
(eta I checked and I did buy it on PDF at some point)

You would think that 20 years is enough to keep a guy out of the gaming biz. Well Len then released the next installments of the Lendore Isles adventures on the old-school gaming forum Dragons's Foot.

The next adventures were L4 Devilspawn and L5 The Kroten Adventures.
Plus material to support these adventures.

I have ready through these other adventures and I can't help but feel that they might work great for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. They have the same feel to me and think they would compliment each other very nicely.

The Order vs. the Slavers Stockade and introduction of the Drow

Over the weekend the Order of the Platinum Dragon completed the Secret of the Slavers Stockade.

The managed to kill all but one of the Slave Lords in the stockade, freed 140 slaves including a Tiefling Warlock name Crowley who is staying with the Order.
The Rogue discovered two short swords of sharpness and quickly named them 'Snicker' and 'Snack'.

The Order enters the torture room

The order was leading the slaves out when they encountered the brainwashed Markessa's double, whom they also saved.  As they were leaving a group of Drow leading 20 more slaves in.  In typical fashion my youngest made a called shot (I am aiming for her eyes) and rolled a natural 20.  Solid.

They are now spending some time returning some of the Slaves to their homes in the Duchy of Urnst.  They left Highport and are travelling by ship up the Wooly Bay following the river in.  This gives me a chance to get them used to this area of the world, including Greyhawk, AND a a chance for the Slavers to recover a bit more to be ready for them.

All in all a great time this weekend.  No one leveled up, but the treasure was nice.

Against the Slave Lords Reprint now in PDF

2016 starts out with a bang as WotC gives us the reprint of Against the Slave Lords in PDF.

I just grabbed it (since that is the adventure my kids are now going through) and it looks exactly like the print copy.

I has the A1 to A4 adventures and the introductory A0 adventure.  Sadly not the A5 adventure, The Last Slave Lord.

I can now print out maps and mark them up all I like!

Christmas Gaming

It's been busy time this Christmas.  So far I have gotten a lot of gaming in.
We went to my in-laws to see my wife's sister and her kids and my kids brought out D&D.  I got hit with some allergies and could not run, but my oldest decided to run some games.  He got both of my nephews to play some D&D 5.  They had a great time.  So great in fact that I went out got them some dice, minis, a Starter Set and the Basic Rules.

We went back out to visit and Liam ended up running Hoard of the Dragon Queen.  Instead of Tiamat he used his own creation, Aži Dahāka.  It went fantastic.  Really fantastic.

Even their other cousin and her boyfriend joined in for a couple of sessions.

They had such great time that the brand new Xbox One went largely ignored.  Not to bad really.

So I got 4 new people into gaming this holiday.  How did you do?

Kids vs. Krampus

Had a great time this weekend.
We went out to see my in-laws on Saturday. My wife's sister was in and she also has two boys close to the same ages as my boys. We took out Dungeon! a game they really love and on the advice of my wife took out some D&D 5th edition, some minis and the Krampus adventure I was going to run for my kids.

Once out there I didn't want to get right into playing; long drive and I wanted to visit first. So my oldest took it upon himself to help them roll up new characters and he started running them through some quick and simple adventures.  He was hesitant at first, but soon really got into a groove DM'ing his first game.  He was having fun doing the voices and playing all the npcs and really coming up with a cool little adventure on the fly.  I was very, very pleased with him.  The kids enjoyed it because they played they played till almost 1:00am; about 12 hours straight!  So now I need to pick up a D&D5 starter kit for the other two boys so they can play at home.

On Sunday I ran the Krampus adventure, "Twas the Night Before Krampusnacht". I had been working on one for a little bit but something was not quite right about it.  So I was reading through some adventures for another campaign and I came across +Pete Spahn's Stealer of Children.  It did 90% of what I wanted to do I just made some tweaks. The Grombel was now Krampus, the dryad Merrit was now La Befena the Christmas Witch, I even used the Burgomeister Meisterburger and Grimsley from Santa Claus is Coming to Town (though here they were good) and the village became more like Whoville.  The kids discovered that Father Christmas was also captured by Krampus and if he is killed on the eve of Krampusnact the entire area will be plunged into endless winter.   They were able to defeat Krampus, thanks to a potion cooked up by La Befana.

The boys are already talking about when they will play next and my oldest is considering running the Rise of Tiamat adventure for them on Christmas eve when we seen them next.

Kid's Games

I totally missed Friday Night Videos the other night.  Sorry. Insane day at work. I didn't even know about Paris till I got home Friday night.

OneBookshelf is running their annual "Teach your Kids to Game Week" with lots of sales on introductory material for kids.

While I totally applaud such efforts, I think back to how I learned and how I taught my own kids and we all started with D&D.

In fact my oldest son has been playing for close to 11 years now.  He is still playing his first character in our Dragonslayers game.  We began the game in early 2005 with "The Cave of the Stinky Goblin" and now have a host of epic-level bad asses.

This weekend we even took some time to play the children of the Dragonslayers, the Order of the Platinum Dragon in the next part of the Slaver's series.  The big "reveal" is coming soon and I can't wait to spring it on my players.

Halfway, Fortunes of Ravenloft and the Foreshadowing

Got in a lot of gaming this weekend!

Saturday the Order of the Platinum Dragon found themselves still stuck in the mists.  They stumbled on to Halfway.  Here they met the Dealer and had the Fortunes of Ravenloft read.  We are not going to play Ravenloft till Gen Con, but I have 5 nights to run it.

I used Tarot cards for the Fortunes (because why not).  I have done that in the past, but I also found this AD&D1st Ed to D&D5 conversion of Ravenloft that also used Tarot cards.
With the PDF out I can print both of these out and run it from those.

Sunday we went "back in time" to the Dragonslayers.  They finished up their exploration of the Barrier Peaks.  Here they encountered, for the very first time, the Illithids.  Something that was not lost on my kids.

The "Order of the Platinum Dragon" characters are all the children or grand children of the "Dragonslayers".   So I am setting up the Mind Flayer threat a generation early.

I know what I have in store for the Order, I just need to figure out what is next for the Dragonslayers.

President's Day Gaming - Converting to 5e from 3.x

Had yesterday off so wanted to spend the day doing some gaming.

My boys wanted to play our 5e game, but we were a player down, so I suggested we wrap up our 3e game.  That didn't go over as well to be honest.
Both boys said they were burned out on 3e and everything took so long compared to 5e.  I reminded them that their 3e characters are nearing Epic levels and all combats will take forever at that level.

So long story short, we all decided to convert the 3e game to something else.  I was pushing pretty hard for 1st Ed but the boys wanted 5th ed.  I cant say that I blame them really.

Converting adventures is easy. I do that on the fly 90% of the time anyway.  Converting characters is a bit more involved.  The group's wizard converted fine. For the paladin/dragon-rider we went with a straight paladin.  The rogue/ranger/sorcerer/arcane archer required me to get more creative. In 5e the character became a rogue (arcane trickster)/ranger (hunter).  I let him take spells from the sorcerer list or the druid list where appropriate for the character concept and what he had been able to do in the past.

My 3.e Witch GMPC was more difficult.  I started out by converting her to a Warlock with a pact of the Tome feature.  This gives me access to more spells.  I then took the Magic Initiate feat and the Ritual Caster feat to gain some extra spells.  I like it, but I am not 100% happy with it.

It occurs to me that that old 2nd Ed Witch Kit and the 4th Ed Witch "sub" class might be good starting points for what a 5th ed witch might look like using the wizard as a base.

I compared the Wizard and Warlock in form of Skylla for 5th a while back.  With her I Was happier with the Wizard build even though the Warlock build had some interesting things going for it.

It is worth a little extra research.  I am NOT in the market to build a 5e Witch class right now.  I still have other commitments to finish.  Plus I enjoy playing 5e and not necessarily having to play and play-test with the same game.

Besides I think I would like to see some other people's take on a witch class.

Checking in on my Plan

Over the years I have discussed my Plan.  The Plan is what adventures I am going to take my kids through.

For D&D 3.x I was content to take anything as it came, make stuff up and generally going towards a  stopping the cult of Tiamat plot.  It was/has been fun and we are nearing the end of that.

For the new adventures I was looking at 3rd, then 4th, then 1st and now 5th Edition as the primary game system.

http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/01/i-have-plan.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/02/lets-play-1st-ed-dad.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-kids-are-awesome.html

At the present here is where I am.

• B1 Into the Unknown, levels 1-3
• B2 Keep on the Borderlands, levels 1-3
• L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4
• X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 (where we are now!)
• I6 Ravenloft, levels 5-7
• A0-5 Slave Lords, levels 4-7
• G123, Against the Giants, levels 8-12 (I also have the Stone Giant one from Dragonsfoot, just need to find it)
• D12,3 Against the Drow, levels 8,9-14
• Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits, 10-14
• CM2 Death's Ride, levels 15-20. (Again, unless I use it in my current 3.x game which the boys want me to do)

If I don't do Death's Ride I am seriously considering the classic H series to go after Orcus.

• H1 Bloodstone Pass, levels 15+
• H2 The Mines of Bloodstone, levels 16-18
• H3 The Bloodstone Wars, levels 17-20
• H4 The Throne of Bloodstone, levels 18-100

But I would REALLY edit these since they have a lot of issues.  Truthfully my best plan is to just use H4 and add bits from H1-3 and maybe even some stuff from the 4th Ed E-Series.  But that is if I want to have Orcus as the big bad guy at the end.  It has appeal.

Also I have the mind flayer adventure A Darkness Gathering to work into the mix.

It has taken me a while to get through all this because I am alternating with my 3.x game, some AS&SH and other games.

So far the adventures have seemed random and the characters are wandering about.  But they are about to get some items in the X2/I6 series that will help them later on.  

Right now, with out their knowing about it the Drow, Vampires and Illithids have gathered together to put the final phase of their ultimate plan into motion.  The PCs will discover a little of this plan when they encounter the Slavers.  The slavers are all vampires now and they are not dealing in slaves, but human cattle.    After they have defeated them the last part of the bad guys plan comes into fruition.  

The sun goes completely out.  

There is panic. Everyone gathers in the Freecity of Greyhawk.  The Church of Pelor/Ixion is hardest hit, but also the loudest voice.  All the "big names" are there and they are trying to figure out what to do.

There is a plan to set the moon a flame, but the various clergy of the Moon Goddesses are against that.  Finally they agree to instead use a large asteroid to keep life going till they can re-ignite the sun.

While all the big names are trying to figure this out the PCs have to deal with some raids nearby of giants...

The PCs will then go through the GDQ series to discover the plan and that the drow are working with mind flayers.  After defeating Lolth in Q1 the PCs will have to deal with the vampires who have Pelor captured.  In order to re ignite the sun they will need to set him free from his prison in ..... and that is all I have.

Yeah it is kinda story-gamey.  It's my game, my house and my kids. They will eat this up.

I guess it is hard for me to get away from the idea of vampires as the big bads.

Those of you who have been reading this blog a long time might notice that there was a similar plot in my Buffy Season 7 game, Episode 12 No Other Troy.  Though that one the sun being blocked was a side effect. 

I am inclined to use Orcus as the big bad holding Pelor.  

I have a huge ass mini of him and a crap ton of material for him.

But I have also wanted to use Camazotz as the demon-god of Vampires in his abyssal plane of Xibalba.  Maybe I still can use him in some way.  It is possible he is something like a high priest to Orcus and his job is to sacrifice Pelor on a bloody altar.  Once that is done Orcus will suck up his godly powers and reign as the God of Death and Darkness.

And he would have gotten away with it too had it not been for those meddling PCs.

On the Road to Averoigne

So over the weekend my D&D5 group completed the castle portion of Castle Amber and the adventurers have entered Averoigne.  They are currently taking a long rest before heading out to find the four items they need to return home.

So far this adventure has been fantastic.  I forgot how much fun X2 was, both as a player and as a DM.

I am still playing around with the 5e rules.  I might use the option that makes healing more like AD&D, but so far I still very happy with how things go.

Story wise I have been dropping hints of the "Oncoming Darkness" with both the ghouls and the Brain Collector/Neh-Thalggu mentioning it.   Once they complete their quest here typically they are brought back to their own world.  Instead I am going to have them go directly to Ravenloft via the mists and defeat Strahd.  In both adventures they get items necessary for them to survive the adventures to come.

I am going to try out this Ravenloft I6 D&D 5 conversion I found here.
Ravenloft is one of my favorite adventures and I am really looking forward to it.

I still need them to come up with a name for their group.

Gamer Christmas 2014

Soon the fat man in the red suit will come to you house, eat your cookies and maybe leave something behind.  I am not talking about your weird uncle, I mean Santa Claus!

So what RPG item are you all hoping to get this year?

I am somewhat at a loss myself.  I really got into the new D&D 5 system this year, so I am just hoping to get some gaming in.  But nothing really on my Christmas list.

I did pick up an early Christmas/late Halloween present for myself, the old WEG d6 DC Universe Game.

My family are all bigger fans of DC than Marvel so this should be fun to try out.  My youngest wants to play an Arrow-like character (not "Green Arrow" but something closer to the Stephen Amell version).  I am going to suggest something like a DC-TVU version of Connor Hawke.
My oldest want to play a Green or Blue Lantern.

This is my first big dip into d6.  I had Ghostbusters and the Xena game, but I am planning on doing a bit more with this.

I am still a HUGE fan of the Green Ronin's DC Adventures game, so I am going to use their Universe book along with it.

Hopefully I will have more to say in the New Year.

The Witch's Catalog

I got hit with a bad bout of flu this week. Well Thursday it got worse. So I have been asleep for about 34 of the last 48 hours.  I should be asleep now but I only woke up a few hours ago.

Anyway I saw something today to took me back to my youth.

When I was young, say 6 or maybe 7, I got a book from the Scholastic book club that I loved.

Norman Bridwell's The Witch's Catalog.

Uf you have never seen the the book there are some excerpts of it here and here.
Basically it was a catalog of all sorts of magical things you could get such as shrinking powder, dragons, invisibility suits and a witch's "Weather Balloon" that could change the weather underneath the balloon.

I can't say for certain if anything from this later ended up in a game of mine, but in my pre-D&D days this was the book for me. I do recall reading about "if you are not lucky enough to have a witch living near you".  I remember thinking how cool that would be.  I was 6.

Any way special thanks go out Dr. Theda's Crypt and YargCade Blog for turning up this wonderful childhood memory.