D&D40 Bloghop: Day 24

Day 24: First movie that comes to mind that you associate with D&D. Why?

That's easy.  There really is only one D&D movie.

Star Wars.  Or "A New Hope".

Not only was it out at the same time (more or less) I discovered D&D. It became so much a part of my experiences as a kid that is hard to tease out where one influence begins and the other ends.

This movie has: A boy who would be the hero, a swashbuckling rogue, a princess to rescue, a wise old man/wizard/jedi, an evil warrior, an impenetrable fortress, magic, fights, side-kicks, monsters, sword fights and epic battle.  Everything here IS D&D.  They even meet the rogue in a bar!

Yes this another retelling of the monomyth or The Hero with a 1,000 Faces.  That's why it works so well.

If you have never watched the original trailer, watch it.  It gives you an idea of what Star Wars was in the late 70s, before all the toys and baggage.

This is also one of the reasons I like the d20 Star Wars game over the West End Games d6 one.  To me Star Wars and D&D are the same.

It should also be no surprise that Star Wars movie posters are the only movie posters hanging in my game room/office.

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 23

Day 23: First song that comes to mind that you associate with D&D. Why?

Hmm.

Again, given the age I am I usually associate D&D and AD&D in particular with Led Zeppelin.

I grew up in the mid-west, the middle of Illinois to be exact.  Classic Rock was all that was on the radio.  So songs like "The Battle of Evermore" or "Misty Mountain Hop" invoke that quasi-Tolkien feel that goes hand in hand with D&D.  But I also have to mention "Kashmir" and "The Immigrant Song" as having some lingering associations for me.

I have to admit I once wanted to create a series of adventures all based on the songs from Led Zeppelin 4 (aka "Zoso").  While that is SOOO a typical High School kid in the 80s thing to do with D&D, I still think it might be fun.  I mean look as the adventures I did for The Dragon & The Phoenix, Season of the Witch and The Hex Girls.  Obviously I listened to a lot of music in my formative years.














"Does anybody remember laughter?"

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 22

Day 22: First D&D-based novel you ever read (Dragonlance Trilogy, Realms novels, etc.)

I have to admit I don't read a lot of game-based fiction.  I did. But not anymore.

So like most people my age the first D&D book I ever read was Dragons of Autumn Twilight.

I remember being rather excited about it when it came out.  I read it and it was ok.  I liked the Twins Trilogy better, but lets be 100% honest here. These are not great works of literature.  They are fun.

I recently set out to reread the Annotated Dragonlance Chronicles recently.  I have not gotten very far.  There is a surprising lack of violence in these books.  Plus they commit one of the cardinal rules of fiction in my mind, things happen to the characters rather than characters doing things.

My son is reading this now.  He will enjoy it since he is the same age now I was then.

I will admit to reading all the Gord the Rogue books and all of the Ravenloft ones.
To be fair with the Ravenloft books though there are some "names" in those early books, Laurell K. Hamilton, P.N. Elrod, Christie Golden, and Elaine Bergstrom.

I have never read any Forgotten Realms books or anything for any other game line.

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 21

Day 21: First time you sold some of your D&D books--for whatever reason.

Not sure when the first time was.  I do recall though a great 2nd ed purge around 1997 or 1998.  I had a ton of books and I wanted to get things down to the bare essentials.  This also corresponds to the time I was getting out of D&D.

I remember selling some items at the local Game Plus Auction, but I also sold a more significant amount on Ebay.

This was right before the Dragon magazine archive went for sale so I unloaded my old Dragons for a decent price. I sold all my 2e splat books.  My best sell was a near mint Complete Book of Necromancers. I had bought it for $15.00 and it was then being sold at $18.00  I made $83.00 on it.

I almost always regret selling my games and have often bought them back.  I have owned over the years 3 different copies of Chill and Quest of the Ancients, two copies each of BESM, Vampire, Mage and various Star Trek games. There are more.  Interestingly enough I recently picked up a copy of the Complete Book of Necromancers at Half-Price books for $9.00.  That is the same price as the PDF.

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 20

Day 20: First non-D&D RPG you played.

It is a toss up really.  I am not quite sure of the dates but it was either Traveller or Chill.

Of course with Chill I never played, but I managed to run a couple of sessions.
Traveller, at least how we played it, ended up being D&D in Space.

Though now that I think about it is also could have Villains & Vigilantes.   But all we did in that was use our D&D characters.

Since then I have branched off into scores of games and have a few that I regularly play.

Social Media applet

Did a quick and dirty social media contact widget to the right (and below).

    
    

Now you can see what I am doing all over the web.  Just click on the icons.

I'll add more as they become relevant to me.

White Dwarf Wednesday #98

Heading into the last hurrahs now.  White Dwarf Wednesday takes us to February 1988.
On the cover "Games Workshop" takes front and center.  The cover is also a group of Space Marines by Dave Andrews.  While this is certainly a sign of the change here it is also the change itself.  This is basically how the issues will remain till the present day.

Sean Masterson's editorial covers how packed the issue is (it is) but that is about all he says.

Marginalia covers Timescape for Talisman and a Warhammer 40k product Chapter Approved.  Timescape is a boardgame expansion and includes a number of new cards.

Some articles on Centuars for Warhammer Fantasy battles and a preview of Chapter Approved for 40k.

Thurd and Gobbledigook both get the Warhammer treatment as well.

"Scenes for Courtly Life" is an article on using courtly characters in your FRPG. Examples of different sorts of characters are given, such as the King, Queen, Physician and so on. With some quotes from literature to help make the point.  There are some great ideas on marriage, rules, etiquette and more.  Think how popular Game of Thrones in now.  This article won't let you do all of that, but it will give you something to do in between dungeons.

Grapes of Wrath is a scenario for Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play for 5-7 characters, Advanced careers.  Scenario makes it sound small, this is one of the longest adventures I have seen in a while in the pages of WD. 17 pages with 2 pages of full color maps.  Again I look on WHFRP as something akin to trying to read Modula-2 or Oberon if you learned Pascal. Or Danish if you know German. The words are familiar and you can figure it out, but there is something lost in the translation do to my own lack of knowledge.  IF I do nothing else with this White Dwarf experiment I think I owe it myself to try out a game of WHFRP.

The Madcap Laughs is next with Part 3 of 3 of the Stormbringer Adventure.
Couple of pages of Letters and some Warhammer questions.

Not a lot for my games here, but the "Scenes for Courtly Life" is interesting enough on it's own.