I picked up a bunch of Abandon Arts' Class Act books. Each is just under a buck and offers some additional features for the Pathfinder classes.
In almost every case the books are 4-5 pages with 1 page for the cover, 1 page for the OGL and the rest the bulk of the new class material. There is no art, but really it doesn't need any. Perfect for under a buck really. Also in nearly every case these are for the die-hard fans of the classes.
In all cases if there is a class you like get the "Class Acts" for it and the "Archetypes".
Class Acts: Alchemists
4 pages. 18 new alchemical discoveries, 3 of which are grand discoveries.
Class Acts: Alchemist Archetypes
4 pages. 1 page for cover, 1 for OGL. The rest covers four different Alchemist archetypes.
Class Acts: Barbarians
4 pages. 32 new rage powers. They look good, but Barbarians are just not my thing.
Class Acts: Barbarian Archetypes
4 pages. Three archetypes. Favorite is the Viking Marauder It might not really be historically accurate but it does look fun.
Class Acts: Clerics
5 pages. At this point in the evolution of the 3.x rules we have covered every domain out there. This book then presents 18 new sub-domains. Some of the powers of the cleric are swapped out for other powers. Of course these could be used as alternate Domains.
Class Acts: Cleric Archetypes
4 pages. Clerics historically have lended themselves well to different archetypes. Only two new archetypes here, but they are rather good. I like the Voodoo priest in particular in fact. In addition to the archetype there is some great domains associated with the Voodoo Loa. There is some really nice crossover with the Witch here.
Class Acts: Druids
5pages. A dozen new Druid Animal domains. could work with clerics too.
Class Acts: Druid Archetypes
4 pages. Three new druid archetypes. Of the three the Faeriethrall looks the most interesting to me.
Class Acts: Fighters
5 pages. Cover a lot of new combat feats for fighters of all sorts. Useful for other classes too.
Class Acts: Fighter Archetypes
4 pages, 3 new archetypes. I think these would also work well for Paladins, Cavaliers or any other class to be truthful.
Class Acts: Gunslingers
5 pages and 18 new "Grit" feats. I like the idea of how this works, I am just not sure if I am a fan of Gunslingers in general. But that is nothing against this product.
Class Acts: Magi
4 pages. This one has 32 new Magi Arcana. All of them look very useful and could even work as other power for other classes.
Class Acts: Magus Archetypes
4 pages, 3 new archetypes. Of the three I like the Magus Mysterion the best. Lots of potential for this archetype if you really enjoy roleplaying your characters.
Class Acts: Monks
4 pages. This one has 18 new style feats in 6 feat trees of the styles. Great if you are playing a monk.
Class Acts: Monk Archetypes
4 pages. Only 2 archetypes here, but very complete.
Class Acts: Oracles
5 pages. This one includes new curses and new mysteries and revelations. A lot of good material here really and needed for this class.
Class Acts: Oracle Archetypes
4 pages. Four new archetypes for the Oracle. This class could use some more archetypes to be honest, so this is a good addition. I like the Oracular Opiate, I would love to make one of these for a game except play him as sort of this Rastafarian-like dude.
Class Acts: Rangers
5 pages. Three new combat styles and a bunch of new feats. Great collection for fans of Rangers.
Class Acts: Ranger Archetypes
4 pages. Three new archetypes. All are variations on a theme, but they work well.
Class Acts: Rogues
4 pages. 32 new Rogue talents and advanced rogue talents (7). Great if you enjoy playing rogues and looking to expand an already very expandable class.
Class Acts: Rogue Archetypes
4 pages. 4 new archetypes for rogues. The Urban Stalker and the Lookout might actually be complete diametrically opposed to each other and still be based on the same class.
Class Acts: Witches
4 pages. Obviously one I am very interested in. This one has 18 new witch Hexes. All of them look good and I'd love to try them all out. Scrying Cauldron is one of my favorites, very witchy.
Class Acts: Witch Archetypes
4 pages. Three new archetypes. The Desert Witch is a very neat one and one I need to try out sometime. I even have a great name picked out. The Grisly Fetishist is very cool and familiar ground as is the Maleficium. All three are good and look like great fun.
Class Acts: Wizards
4 pages. 32 new Arcane discoveries. I haven't played a PF Wizard, but these look fine to me. Certainly a lot of varieties of powers.
Class Acts: Wizard Archetypes
4 pages. Two new Archetypes. Not much in the way of new ground here though. Animist is new-ish and the Guild Scholar has been done in the past. Would have liked to have seen more I think.
So many of these I would love to try out.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
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 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.
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 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.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Ordinary World
Ordinary World
Ordinary World was the working title of a new game I was working on. It was going to be modern supernatural and use this new system I was developing that I had code named "The Power of Three" system.
The basic premise of Ordinary World was the players would be playing supernatural types just trying to get along in a world that didn't believe they existed and considered them monsters. In a way sorta like "Being Human" the RPG, but also elements of all the things I like in modern supernatural fiction.
I wanted to have the experience of writing a new game from the ground up and I wanted to do something in a realm I am really familiar with. Trouble is every time I would bring this game up to friends they would remind me I already did all of that with Ghosts of Albion.
So sometime this past Summer I shelved Ordinary World.
No sooner had I done that than I had this great idea for an Old-School game that I was calling Monster Mash. The rules would have been Labyrinth Lord compatible and instead of heroes you would have played the monsters. In particular the old Universal Pictures Monsters, so vampires, golems, werewolves and ghosts. I would have made it compatible with The Witch since one of my big influences for this was the video to the Rob Zombie song, American Witch. I thought it might have been a fun beer and pretzels sort of game.
In truth I probably came up with it while listening to Hellbilly Deluxe one too many times. I even had an adventure partially written "Dr. Satan Needs Blood!".
Last week I was still thinking about these two when I had an idea of bringing them together. When it also dawned on me that I had other WiPs, some from the earliest days of this blog.
Generation Hex was this really cool, awesome idea I had for Unisystem/True 20/Mutants & Masterminds or whatever system I happen to really enjoy at the time. Simply put it was a game to play kids in a magical school. Since that time this sort of thing has been better done by Witch Girls Adventures.
I also have material laying around for Licensed properties that never saw the light of day and I am now the owner of again (the RPG material, not the properties). One was d20 and the other True20.
So. What's a guy to do?
Well the natural thing is to bring them all together under one system to do the one thing they all kinda of were doing anyway.
A few caveats though.
I want to use an old-school system. I think it would be a great addition to all the material we have out there now and NOT redo something everyone else has already done.
I want to be able to play any character I want. If I come up with an idea or see something in a book then I need to have a system that can do that.
While it is an Old-School game, I don't want to forget about the advances made in other games. There are a lot of great games out there and they are great for a reason. This my chance to distill that into a new game.
So. Look for more information coming from me on this. I think this is one I will design live on the blog. Posting ideas, sending up files for playtests. Things like that.
First thing I need to figure out. What system should I use?
Ordinary World was the working title of a new game I was working on. It was going to be modern supernatural and use this new system I was developing that I had code named "The Power of Three" system.
The basic premise of Ordinary World was the players would be playing supernatural types just trying to get along in a world that didn't believe they existed and considered them monsters. In a way sorta like "Being Human" the RPG, but also elements of all the things I like in modern supernatural fiction.
I wanted to have the experience of writing a new game from the ground up and I wanted to do something in a realm I am really familiar with. Trouble is every time I would bring this game up to friends they would remind me I already did all of that with Ghosts of Albion.
So sometime this past Summer I shelved Ordinary World.
No sooner had I done that than I had this great idea for an Old-School game that I was calling Monster Mash. The rules would have been Labyrinth Lord compatible and instead of heroes you would have played the monsters. In particular the old Universal Pictures Monsters, so vampires, golems, werewolves and ghosts. I would have made it compatible with The Witch since one of my big influences for this was the video to the Rob Zombie song, American Witch. I thought it might have been a fun beer and pretzels sort of game.
In truth I probably came up with it while listening to Hellbilly Deluxe one too many times. I even had an adventure partially written "Dr. Satan Needs Blood!".
Last week I was still thinking about these two when I had an idea of bringing them together. When it also dawned on me that I had other WiPs, some from the earliest days of this blog.
Generation Hex was this really cool, awesome idea I had for Unisystem/True 20/Mutants & Masterminds or whatever system I happen to really enjoy at the time. Simply put it was a game to play kids in a magical school. Since that time this sort of thing has been better done by Witch Girls Adventures.
I also have material laying around for Licensed properties that never saw the light of day and I am now the owner of again (the RPG material, not the properties). One was d20 and the other True20.
So. What's a guy to do?
Well the natural thing is to bring them all together under one system to do the one thing they all kinda of were doing anyway.
A few caveats though.
I want to use an old-school system. I think it would be a great addition to all the material we have out there now and NOT redo something everyone else has already done.
I want to be able to play any character I want. If I come up with an idea or see something in a book then I need to have a system that can do that.
While it is an Old-School game, I don't want to forget about the advances made in other games. There are a lot of great games out there and they are great for a reason. This my chance to distill that into a new game.
So. Look for more information coming from me on this. I think this is one I will design live on the blog. Posting ideas, sending up files for playtests. Things like that.
First thing I need to figure out. What system should I use?
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.
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.
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
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
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
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.
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.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Ghost of Albion Review!!
The newest Game Geeks is up and look what Kurt Wiegel has reviewed this week!
Quote: "Do you need Ghosts of Albion? Yes you do."
and
"You can not possibly go wrong with Ghosts of Albion."
If you recall he had reviewed this before.
Quote: "The best modern urban fantasy game you can use."
I am THRILLED TO DEATH that this game still gets all of these positive reviews all these years later.
I love all my Witch books, but Ghosts will always be very, very special to me.
Quote: "Do you need Ghosts of Albion? Yes you do."
and
"You can not possibly go wrong with Ghosts of Albion."
If you recall he had reviewed this before.
Quote: "The best modern urban fantasy game you can use."
I am THRILLED TO DEATH that this game still gets all of these positive reviews all these years later.
I love all my Witch books, but Ghosts will always be very, very special to me.
Fantasy Art: Stainless Steel Dragon
I am not feeling so hot today so I went shopping on DriveThruRPG/RPGNow from some dragon art.
In my search a company called Stainless Steel Dragon came up and they have a few products. I had a few bucks burning a hole in my pocket so I decided, what the heck.
The first thing I grabbed was the Ultimate Fantasy Photo Art Collection.
I grabbed it because it came up in a search for "Dragon art", there are no dragons in it. That was something of a disappointment, but I kept on going, after all there are a 150+ pages here.
The art varies from semi-serious, to cheesecake. It is all photos with fantasy style trappings and backgrounds. There are some topless women here (and me, fair is fair), but it is all of an artistic sort.
There are not many images here I can use in my games, but the ones that I can seem perfect. There is an African-American male vampire in this is perfect (and they must have also thought this since we get a couple of him), but my opinion was changed with the picture of the "witch" on page 101. Again it is a case of the right thing at the tight time for me. NOTE To publisher: I appreciate the names of the models, but is there anyway to know what page they are on? Ok, just who is the model on page 101?
The models are all attractive and we get a variety of types, genders and ethnicity here so that is certainly a plus. One of my first thoughts was there are a lot of good visual images here for a Ravenloft game or some other dark fantasy.
There are also 24 pages of "character sheets" featuring the various models (again the witch on 101 is back on page 150), plus a blank and a back page. Suitable really for most games, but certainly a FRPG in mind.
So while it was not exactly what I was looking for and I also like to buy art I can reuse somehow, I can't fault the publisher any of those.
Great fro printing out and using in a game as a visual aid. Or if there is a character you really want to detail then it's perfect if the character you envision is here.
NOTE To publisher 2: maybe small thumbnails of the pictures on the character sheets might be good on your website? That way if someone sees something they like they have a good reason to buy this.
In truth you get a ton of images for $5 (when on sale). Can't really complain about that.
EDITED TO ADD. You can find some of the images on their website, http://www.fantasyphotoart.com/
I found my witch and picked up the jpg for a buck.
I also checked out some of the other images on DTRPG/RPGN to fill in for other characters. Here is what I grabbed.
Fire Witch
Blue Moon
Water Nymph I would like to have one of this model as a witch/warlock too.
Succubus
Sword Maiden
All are huge HiRes images. Most are right around 2542 x 3386.
I had actually picked up AoV: Fantasy Art (Reflections of Voldaria) in some sale a while back and forgot about it.
Looking forward to more.
In my search a company called Stainless Steel Dragon came up and they have a few products. I had a few bucks burning a hole in my pocket so I decided, what the heck.
The first thing I grabbed was the Ultimate Fantasy Photo Art Collection.
I grabbed it because it came up in a search for "Dragon art", there are no dragons in it. That was something of a disappointment, but I kept on going, after all there are a 150+ pages here.
The art varies from semi-serious, to cheesecake. It is all photos with fantasy style trappings and backgrounds. There are some topless women here (and me, fair is fair), but it is all of an artistic sort.
There are not many images here I can use in my games, but the ones that I can seem perfect. There is an African-American male vampire in this is perfect (and they must have also thought this since we get a couple of him), but my opinion was changed with the picture of the "witch" on page 101. Again it is a case of the right thing at the tight time for me. NOTE To publisher: I appreciate the names of the models, but is there anyway to know what page they are on? Ok, just who is the model on page 101?
The models are all attractive and we get a variety of types, genders and ethnicity here so that is certainly a plus. One of my first thoughts was there are a lot of good visual images here for a Ravenloft game or some other dark fantasy.
There are also 24 pages of "character sheets" featuring the various models (again the witch on 101 is back on page 150), plus a blank and a back page. Suitable really for most games, but certainly a FRPG in mind.
So while it was not exactly what I was looking for and I also like to buy art I can reuse somehow, I can't fault the publisher any of those.
Great fro printing out and using in a game as a visual aid. Or if there is a character you really want to detail then it's perfect if the character you envision is here.
NOTE To publisher 2: maybe small thumbnails of the pictures on the character sheets might be good on your website? That way if someone sees something they like they have a good reason to buy this.
In truth you get a ton of images for $5 (when on sale). Can't really complain about that.
EDITED TO ADD. You can find some of the images on their website, http://www.fantasyphotoart.com/
I found my witch and picked up the jpg for a buck.
I also checked out some of the other images on DTRPG/RPGN to fill in for other characters. Here is what I grabbed.
Fire Witch
Blue Moon
Water Nymph I would like to have one of this model as a witch/warlock too.
Succubus
Sword Maiden
All are huge HiRes images. Most are right around 2542 x 3386.
I had actually picked up AoV: Fantasy Art (Reflections of Voldaria) in some sale a while back and forgot about it.
Looking forward to more.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Here There Be Dragons updates
With The Witch out and EW in the hands of the publisher it is time to move on to other projects.
I want to talk about "Here There Be Dragons" for a bit. We paused on this last year to give my son time to concentrate on his school work. Over the summer things were just way too busy and then I needed to finish the Witch.
Be we are back. One of the things we want to do is come up with a good dragon statblock that covers the Old School feel we wanted but also includes all the information we want to get out about dragons. I also want to retain as much good information from the SRD as we can.
In the 1st Advanced Era dragons had 8 age categories. In the 3rd Edition/SRD era there are 12.
The age categories are also significantly different. In earlier editions of the game the differences were not great. In the newer versions there is quite a bit of difference between a Wyrmling and a Great Wyrm.
This can be seen in the SRD here for Blue Dragons.
There are plenty of good and open under the OGL stat blocks for dragons. OSRIC has one, Labyrinth Lord Advanced Companion is another and slightly different. The stat blocks in Castles & Crusades are also open and try to merge the best of 1.x and 3.x in their own way as well. In fact they even fit 12 age categories into 8 rather well.
Additionally Dragons should have more spells as the age, have more treasure and be more powerful, not just harder to hit or kill.
So here is a rough draft of a dragon stat block for a Blue Dragon.
Blue Dragon
Frequency: Rare
No. Appearing: 1d4
Size: See below
Move: 90' fly 240' (AA: level II)
Hit Dice: typically 8 to 10
Armor Class: typically 2
Attacks: 1 bite, 2 claws or magic
Damage: 1d6 / 1d6 / 3d8
Special Attacks: Breath Weapon, Dragon Fear, Magic Use
Special Defenses:
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Very
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Treasure: ????
Chance of:
- Speaking: 40% + 5%/Age
- Magic-use: 20% + 5%/Age
- Sleeping: 10% + 5%/Age
- In Lair: 20% + 5%/Age
Level/XP: See Below
Breath Weapon: Lighting Bolt, 100' long, 5' wide, line
Spells: As Wizard of level equal to HD
These tables will be tweaked as we go along.
Not sure if this is the final version, it is though a working one.
I put in the the average hp on a d8 per HD since I also had the idea that HD could stay the same (say 10) and a dragon gets it's age category in hp. So Wyrmling would have had 10 hp and an Ancient dragon 80 hp. It works for the Blue here, not sure about the rest; I think it might.
Did not calculate the XP yet.
Still have no idea how I want to do treasure. Should I use LL Hoard Classes or list out like in OSRIC?
Credit where credit is due.
Section 15 of the OGL.
System Reference Document copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
OSRIC copyright 2006-08 by Stuart Marshall, adapting material prepared by Matthew J. Finch, based on the System Reference Document, inspired by the works of E. Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, and many others.
Advanced Edition Companion, Copyright 2009-2010, Daniel Proctor. Author Daniel Proctor.
Hypertext SRD, 2005 Jans Carton.
Castles & Crusades: Monsters & Treasure, Copyright 2005, Troll Lord Games; Authors Robert Doyel and Stephen Chenault.
Blue Dragon: Here There Be Dragons, Copyright 2012, Liam and Timothy Brannan.
All material is open under the OGL.
I want to talk about "Here There Be Dragons" for a bit. We paused on this last year to give my son time to concentrate on his school work. Over the summer things were just way too busy and then I needed to finish the Witch.
Be we are back. One of the things we want to do is come up with a good dragon statblock that covers the Old School feel we wanted but also includes all the information we want to get out about dragons. I also want to retain as much good information from the SRD as we can.
In the 1st Advanced Era dragons had 8 age categories. In the 3rd Edition/SRD era there are 12.
The age categories are also significantly different. In earlier editions of the game the differences were not great. In the newer versions there is quite a bit of difference between a Wyrmling and a Great Wyrm.
This can be seen in the SRD here for Blue Dragons.
There are plenty of good and open under the OGL stat blocks for dragons. OSRIC has one, Labyrinth Lord Advanced Companion is another and slightly different. The stat blocks in Castles & Crusades are also open and try to merge the best of 1.x and 3.x in their own way as well. In fact they even fit 12 age categories into 8 rather well.
Additionally Dragons should have more spells as the age, have more treasure and be more powerful, not just harder to hit or kill.
So here is a rough draft of a dragon stat block for a Blue Dragon.
Blue Dragon
Frequency: Rare
No. Appearing: 1d4
Size: See below
Move: 90' fly 240' (AA: level II)
Hit Dice: typically 8 to 10
Armor Class: typically 2
Attacks: 1 bite, 2 claws or magic
Damage: 1d6 / 1d6 / 3d8
Special Attacks: Breath Weapon, Dragon Fear, Magic Use
Special Defenses:
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Very
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Treasure: ????
Chance of:
- Speaking: 40% + 5%/Age
- Magic-use: 20% + 5%/Age
- Sleeping: 10% + 5%/Age
- In Lair: 20% + 5%/Age
Level/XP: See Below
Breath Weapon: Lighting Bolt, 100' long, 5' wide, line
Spells: As Wizard of level equal to HD
|
Age
|
Size (length)
|
HD (hp)
|
AC
|
Breath Damage
|
Breath Range
|
Level/XP
|
|
1
|
4'
|
4 (18)
|
5 (15)
|
4d8
|
40'
|
4/
|
|
2
|
8'
|
6 (27)
|
4 (16)
|
6d8
|
60'
|
6/
|
|
3
|
12'
|
8 (36)
|
3 (17)
|
8d8
|
80'
|
8/
|
|
4
|
20'
|
10 (45)
|
2 (18)
|
10d8
|
100'
|
10/
|
|
5
|
25'
|
12 (54)
|
1 (19)
|
12d8
|
120'
|
12/
|
|
6
|
32'
|
14 (63)
|
0 (20)
|
14d8
|
140'
|
14/
|
|
7
|
48'
|
16 (72)
|
-1 (21)
|
16d8
|
160'
|
16/
|
|
8
|
60'
|
18 (81)
|
-2 (22)
|
18d8
|
180'
|
18/
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Age Category
|
|
Age Years
|
|
1
|
Wyrmling
|
0-10
|
|
2
|
Young
|
11-25
|
|
3
|
Juvenile
|
26-50
|
|
4
|
Young Adult
|
51-100
|
|
5
|
Adult
|
101-250
|
|
6
|
Old
|
251-500
|
|
7
|
Very Old
|
501-1,000
|
|
8
|
Ancient
|
1,000+
|
These tables will be tweaked as we go along.
Not sure if this is the final version, it is though a working one.
I put in the the average hp on a d8 per HD since I also had the idea that HD could stay the same (say 10) and a dragon gets it's age category in hp. So Wyrmling would have had 10 hp and an Ancient dragon 80 hp. It works for the Blue here, not sure about the rest; I think it might.
Did not calculate the XP yet.
Still have no idea how I want to do treasure. Should I use LL Hoard Classes or list out like in OSRIC?
Credit where credit is due.
Section 15 of the OGL.
System Reference Document copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
OSRIC copyright 2006-08 by Stuart Marshall, adapting material prepared by Matthew J. Finch, based on the System Reference Document, inspired by the works of E. Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, and many others.
Advanced Edition Companion, Copyright 2009-2010, Daniel Proctor. Author Daniel Proctor.
Hypertext SRD, 2005 Jans Carton.
Castles & Crusades: Monsters & Treasure, Copyright 2005, Troll Lord Games; Authors Robert Doyel and Stephen Chenault.
Blue Dragon: Here There Be Dragons, Copyright 2012, Liam and Timothy Brannan.
All material is open under the OGL.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Zatannurday: Zatanna Witch
Maybe should have done this one last week, but hey Halloween is not something confined to one day or even one weekend for me!
Friday, November 2, 2012
Halloween Hangover
Well. That was the most postings I have ever done in one month.
Please don't expect that for November!
I doubled my normal abut of visits and page hits and I added about 20 new followers. I also discovered a bunch of new sites and blogs, so that is always welcome to me.
The Witch is selling rather well and I am pleased with the sales. I never expected it to sell thousands of units; it's a niche product inside a niche market for another niche set of rules. There are only so many ways to cut up this pie.
I have a few WIPs on my harddrive. A couple for another publisher, my son's dragon book and a couple of others that people have told me will never sell because they are too "out there". I will share more about those in the next few weeks. Gotta see how they shake out. Maybe I will release them for free.
I still have a desire to write a modern-supernatural game even though I well know the market is flooded with them.
I also have a number of reviews I am really behind on. Have to get those done too.
Please don't expect that for November!
I doubled my normal abut of visits and page hits and I added about 20 new followers. I also discovered a bunch of new sites and blogs, so that is always welcome to me.
The Witch is selling rather well and I am pleased with the sales. I never expected it to sell thousands of units; it's a niche product inside a niche market for another niche set of rules. There are only so many ways to cut up this pie.
I have a few WIPs on my harddrive. A couple for another publisher, my son's dragon book and a couple of others that people have told me will never sell because they are too "out there". I will share more about those in the next few weeks. Gotta see how they shake out. Maybe I will release them for free.
I still have a desire to write a modern-supernatural game even though I well know the market is flooded with them.
I also have a number of reviews I am really behind on. Have to get those done too.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
And the Winner is...
a Rafflecopter giveaway
David of Tower of the Archmage!
Emails have been sent.
Thanks everyone for participating in everything this past October..
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
October Challenge: BloodRayne: The Third Reich (2011)
BloodRayne: The Third Reich (2011)
I am a glutton for punishment. Each year I watch something from Uwe Boll. And each year I ask myself why.
This year I didn't, because I finally get Boll. He is not trying to be Spielberg, or Howard or anyone. He is just trying to have a good time and make some movies.
BloodRayne though really has a lot going for it on paper. Hot half-vampire Rayne who is a little bit of everything (she's half-vampire, half-human, ambidextrous, bisexual) is fun to watch. You have Nazi's as the big bad, and really watching them die never, ever gets old. And unlike the first two movies, this one is somewhat closer to the video game.
Don't go into this expecting high entertainment. This is B-Movie all the way. But it is fun. The plot holds together surprisingly well. Michael Pare chews up scenes all over the place and Natassia Malthe still can't act to save her life, but that is fine.
It has all the right elements of a horror or action movie and I will say this. I doubt a "better" director would have done better on this. Sometimes you get steak, sometimes you get cheeseburgers and sometime you get a slider. This is a slider, don't pretend it is steak. That is OK. Sometimes a couple of sliders is exactly what you need.
I enjoyed this movie quite a bit to be honest.
Tally: Watched 33, New 24
I am going to go back over all the other participants (next month) and see what they watched.
What are you watching?
This year I didn't, because I finally get Boll. He is not trying to be Spielberg, or Howard or anyone. He is just trying to have a good time and make some movies.
BloodRayne though really has a lot going for it on paper. Hot half-vampire Rayne who is a little bit of everything (she's half-vampire, half-human, ambidextrous, bisexual) is fun to watch. You have Nazi's as the big bad, and really watching them die never, ever gets old. And unlike the first two movies, this one is somewhat closer to the video game.
Don't go into this expecting high entertainment. This is B-Movie all the way. But it is fun. The plot holds together surprisingly well. Michael Pare chews up scenes all over the place and Natassia Malthe still can't act to save her life, but that is fine.
It has all the right elements of a horror or action movie and I will say this. I doubt a "better" director would have done better on this. Sometimes you get steak, sometimes you get cheeseburgers and sometime you get a slider. This is a slider, don't pretend it is steak. That is OK. Sometimes a couple of sliders is exactly what you need.
I enjoyed this movie quite a bit to be honest.
Tally: Watched 33, New 24
I am going to go back over all the other participants (next month) and see what they watched.
What are you watching?
October Challenge: Paranormal Activity 1, 2, & 3
Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
I wanted to save these for a last. Glad I did because they do live up to the hype.
PA1, the first has this great charm about it. You really feel like this is something that has been going on for a bit and just now they (Micha & Katie) have deiced to something about it.
It starts out slow. Maybe too slow, but I love the build up and payoff was great.
This movie is a very, very effective mix of "Blair Witch Project", "The Exorcist" and any number of good haunted house movies. My only complaint really is the Ouija board scene. It seemed a little over the top compare to the rest of the movie. I think if it had just spelled out the name and not caught on fire that would have been better. Some of the creepiest scenes are also some of the most understated ones. Shadows and noises you can hear in any house at night. I LOVED the scenes were Katie would get up and just stand there starring at Micha for 2-3 hours at a time.
Of course the biggest issue was also why not get more people into the house with you to help. After all that video evidence I'd be calling everyone to help out. Well that doesn't serve the script/movie at all of course.
I'll talk about 2 & 3 together since they share some similar positives and negatives.
I kinda wish I had done my research more on these movies, it might have been fun to watch them in reverse order, but chronologically correct for Katie. The sequels (or prequels rather) are more polished and go for the faster scare. Unlike the sequels to "Blair Witch" and the "Exorcist" these do add something to the mythos of the movies. The biggest issue of course is why wasn't information from movies 2 and 3 mentioned in the respectively later movie 1? Well we know why, of course. For me, I also suffered from Paranormal Activity fatigue. After a few hours I was wanting to see something a bit more. That is more due to me though than the movies I think.
I liked 3 a little better than 2, but 1 was the best.
I am going to say this though, while I have not seen PA4 yet (and I will), I think this well might be dry.
To do something else or even to take it up another notch will make the movie more like the Exorcist really.
You can only jump at so many shadows and creaks. I am reminded of a scene in Tom Hanks' movie Big. When his character as an adult is scared of all the noises outside his apartment, many scenes later the same noises are occurring but he only gives them curious glance and goes back to eating chips and watching TV. That was me, except sitting in front of my computer typing this.
I beat the Challenge! So far I watched one extra movie, but saw one less new movie over last year.
Though I still have one more I can watch and I might even have the time to get it in.
Tally: Watched 32, New 23
What are you watching?
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
A lot going on here today!!
First, don't forget that you have less that 13 hours to sign up for "Spread the Witch"!
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/10/wicked-after-dark-blog-hop-spread-witch.html
I have some movies left to review and put up for the October Challenge (and I am draggin' today).
Also White Dwarf Wednesday.
Foremost though Happy Halloween! The Best of all holidays!
First, don't forget that you have less that 13 hours to sign up for "Spread the Witch"!
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/10/wicked-after-dark-blog-hop-spread-witch.html
I have some movies left to review and put up for the October Challenge (and I am draggin' today).
Also White Dwarf Wednesday.
Foremost though Happy Halloween! The Best of all holidays!
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
History of The Witch
The Witch is my latest book of rules to play the Witch character class for a version of the World's Largest and First Fantasy Roleplaying game.
It is not my first book. Or even my second. To date this is my third book on witches.
My first was a "netbook" called "The Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks" for the 2nd Edition version of the game. It was totally a fan-driven work and most of it had been written for the 1st Edition version of the rules. Back then the file on my computer was called "thewitch.doc".
This original "thewitch.doc" was never really meant to be seen by anyone but my gaming group. Indeed, I figured I'd be the only one to ever play a witch character. I took a Magic-User character I had rolled up with the idea of playing her like a witch and then stopped her MU advancement and started her out as a 1st level witch. Occult Powers were spells back then and all I had was a list of spells from the Cleric and MU lists that I felt were "witchy". That document grew to become the "The Complete Witch" and then finally "The Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks".
The CNoWaW was in my mind a great sucsess. I released it between October 28th and October 31st of 1999. In fact I remember sitting in the hospital room right after my first son was born posting it on a laptop while my wife and new baby slept. Well that baby turned 13 over this past weekend! Kinda nice that my newest Witch book was released 13 years later.
After that in 2002 released "Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks". This one was far more polished and I considered a "real" release. It used the OGL and the d20 logo. I worked with what was then called the FANCC, or the Fantasy Community Council. Their goal was to make and release quality netbooks that adhered to the OGL. Many of the members would later go on to do other things. I went on to Eden to work a number of their books including WitchCraft, Buffy and Ghosts of Albion.
In the case of all my books I would go back to my ever evolving research notes. Pictured above and below is just one of maybe 4 binders of information I have collected over the years. One of the print outs has a date scrawled in red pen (former teacher here!) of March of 1997. I know I have some materials even older than that. Lots and lots of notes.
So I went back to my books. I re-read not just game books and the latest retro-clones, I also hit books about witches and witchcraft from the 60s and 70s. The things the first and second generation of gamers would have read if they were making a witch class. I watched the old movies like "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Initiation of Sarah". In fact, look over my lists of movies from the October Challenge of the last couple of years. That will give you an indication of my "Research".
You can still find my older books online, I don't link them here really for a couple of reasons. First they were done a LONG time ago and I would like to think my writing has improved significantly since then. Also, at least in the case of CNoWaW, they are predominantly fan works and written under that assumption. Those assumptions are not the same that The Witch (well and Liber) was written under. While I don't explicitly state any compatibility I did do a lot of playtesting to make sure that The Witch works with what ever version of the Basic Era game you are using, be it the original games or the newest Retro-clones.
You can read more developments notes under the Basic and Witch tags (there are a lot though).
It is not my first book. Or even my second. To date this is my third book on witches.
My first was a "netbook" called "The Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks" for the 2nd Edition version of the game. It was totally a fan-driven work and most of it had been written for the 1st Edition version of the rules. Back then the file on my computer was called "thewitch.doc".
This original "thewitch.doc" was never really meant to be seen by anyone but my gaming group. Indeed, I figured I'd be the only one to ever play a witch character. I took a Magic-User character I had rolled up with the idea of playing her like a witch and then stopped her MU advancement and started her out as a 1st level witch. Occult Powers were spells back then and all I had was a list of spells from the Cleric and MU lists that I felt were "witchy". That document grew to become the "The Complete Witch" and then finally "The Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks".
The CNoWaW was in my mind a great sucsess. I released it between October 28th and October 31st of 1999. In fact I remember sitting in the hospital room right after my first son was born posting it on a laptop while my wife and new baby slept. Well that baby turned 13 over this past weekend! Kinda nice that my newest Witch book was released 13 years later.
After that in 2002 released "Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks". This one was far more polished and I considered a "real" release. It used the OGL and the d20 logo. I worked with what was then called the FANCC, or the Fantasy Community Council. Their goal was to make and release quality netbooks that adhered to the OGL. Many of the members would later go on to do other things. I went on to Eden to work a number of their books including WitchCraft, Buffy and Ghosts of Albion.
In the case of all my books I would go back to my ever evolving research notes. Pictured above and below is just one of maybe 4 binders of information I have collected over the years. One of the print outs has a date scrawled in red pen (former teacher here!) of March of 1997. I know I have some materials even older than that. Lots and lots of notes.
In every case and especially when starting a new project I like to go back to my notes. Revisit old ideas, question why I rejected some and kept others.
The Witch is different from the CNoWnW or LM. While in each book the witches have "Occult Powers" their mechanisms are different. Each witch can for example cast "Wave of Mutilation", but how it works is slightly different. Complete Netbook witches are akin to that edition's Priests. Liber witches are more like Wizards. The witches in The Witch are something new. Older versions of my witch needed high Wisdom as their primary stat. Witches in The Witch need a high Charisma.
It is a ritual for me to go back even further when I start a new project to go not just to my notes, but my primary sources. For the Witch I really wanted that feel of a game supplement from the late 70s early 80s.
You can still find my older books online, I don't link them here really for a couple of reasons. First they were done a LONG time ago and I would like to think my writing has improved significantly since then. Also, at least in the case of CNoWaW, they are predominantly fan works and written under that assumption. Those assumptions are not the same that The Witch (well and Liber) was written under. While I don't explicitly state any compatibility I did do a lot of playtesting to make sure that The Witch works with what ever version of the Basic Era game you are using, be it the original games or the newest Retro-clones.
You can read more developments notes under the Basic and Witch tags (there are a lot though).
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
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
Monday, October 29, 2012
MONSTROUS MONDAY: My Monster
How is your MONSTROUS MONDAY going so far?
Mine is GREAT! I love seeing so many cool monsters. I have not gotten to everyone, but I will.
In fact you can still sign up! I am sure I am going to spend the next couple of days going to every site and reading what you all posted. If I am going to run a blog hop and people are going to work to get posts up then you can expect that each and everyone will get my attention.
I wanted to talk about what sort of monsters I like. I have spent this month posting all sorts of monster stats in preparation of this day.
- Wine Nymphs
- Ruslaka
- The Awakened Golem
- Witch Monsters
I also talk a lot about monsters here as can be seen from my posts tagged Monsters. Now it is natural to assume that I would want to talk about Witches today. Though honestly I don't see witches as monsters. Witches are witches. No in truth my favorite monsters are Vampires.
I have talked more about vampires than pretty much any other monster, maybe even all monsters combined. The vampire is our dark mirror of our times. He can be plague and pestilence, or smooth killer, or even ersatz super-hero. While Edward my not look a thing like Dracula or Count Orlock, he does share more than one quality with the likes of Lord Ruthven or Lestat.
My favorite of course is Dracula. He can be suave, sexy and cool and then in a flash be violent and bloody; a rampaging monster. He is the best of what is great about vampire literature and film.
I have talked a lot about Dracula and the subject never gets old to me. Back in the day I had this folder that I had written "Project Dracula" on. It was one of my first attempts at multi-stating a character for more than one system. Near the end of the 90s I had worked him out in dozens of systems.
I would later go on to do the same thing for the real life Countess Erzsébet Báthory. If I have written more about Dracula, Bathory wins in terms of shear number of visits to my site. She fascinated me and horrified me at the same time. I could not imagine the scope of her crimes or even how she got away with it all. I guess in the end she didn't and she got her everlasting youth afterall.
I also spent a lot of time discussing the cheesy horror movie Vampyres. I will not lie, I enjoy the hel lout of this movie. What I like about it is how the vampire has evolved yet again here to be victim and villain. Likewise I have felt the same about Carmilla.
Looking around this blog I seem to have stated up more vampires than I have witches. Oddly enough I have not played all that many games of Vampire. Either the original Vampire the Masquerade or the newer Vampire the Requiem.
If vampires are thing and you also like old-school gaming then might I suggest my free book, The Vampire Class. You can play a vampire character in Basic Era games and it is 100% free and 100% compatible with my new book The Witch.
So what about you all? Do you like vampires? Why or why not? Share your thoughts below!
For me they are the ultimate in Halloween monsters.
Mine is GREAT! I love seeing so many cool monsters. I have not gotten to everyone, but I will.
In fact you can still sign up! I am sure I am going to spend the next couple of days going to every site and reading what you all posted. If I am going to run a blog hop and people are going to work to get posts up then you can expect that each and everyone will get my attention.
I wanted to talk about what sort of monsters I like. I have spent this month posting all sorts of monster stats in preparation of this day.
- Wine Nymphs
- Ruslaka
- The Awakened Golem
- Witch Monsters
I also talk a lot about monsters here as can be seen from my posts tagged Monsters. Now it is natural to assume that I would want to talk about Witches today. Though honestly I don't see witches as monsters. Witches are witches. No in truth my favorite monsters are Vampires.
I have talked more about vampires than pretty much any other monster, maybe even all monsters combined. The vampire is our dark mirror of our times. He can be plague and pestilence, or smooth killer, or even ersatz super-hero. While Edward my not look a thing like Dracula or Count Orlock, he does share more than one quality with the likes of Lord Ruthven or Lestat.
I have talked a lot about Dracula and the subject never gets old to me. Back in the day I had this folder that I had written "Project Dracula" on. It was one of my first attempts at multi-stating a character for more than one system. Near the end of the 90s I had worked him out in dozens of systems.
I would later go on to do the same thing for the real life Countess Erzsébet Báthory. If I have written more about Dracula, Bathory wins in terms of shear number of visits to my site. She fascinated me and horrified me at the same time. I could not imagine the scope of her crimes or even how she got away with it all. I guess in the end she didn't and she got her everlasting youth afterall.
I also spent a lot of time discussing the cheesy horror movie Vampyres. I will not lie, I enjoy the hel lout of this movie. What I like about it is how the vampire has evolved yet again here to be victim and villain. Likewise I have felt the same about Carmilla.
Looking around this blog I seem to have stated up more vampires than I have witches. Oddly enough I have not played all that many games of Vampire. Either the original Vampire the Masquerade or the newer Vampire the Requiem.
If vampires are thing and you also like old-school gaming then might I suggest my free book, The Vampire Class. You can play a vampire character in Basic Era games and it is 100% free and 100% compatible with my new book The Witch.
So what about you all? Do you like vampires? Why or why not? Share your thoughts below!
For me they are the ultimate in Halloween monsters.
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!
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!
Sunday, October 28, 2012
October Challenge: Army of Darkness (1992)
Army of Darkness (1992)
I debated doing this one too. But it was a first time viewing for my kids, so I thought that made it ok.
I would say I forgot how much fun this one is, but I have seen it so many times now I have it memorized.
Great, fun. Some sorta-scary bits and a generally a great horror-comedy.
Puts me in the mood to see the new Evil Dead.
Tally: Watched 29, New 20
What are you watching?
I would say I forgot how much fun this one is, but I have seen it so many times now I have it memorized.
Great, fun. Some sorta-scary bits and a generally a great horror-comedy.
Puts me in the mood to see the new Evil Dead.
Tally: Watched 29, New 20
What are you watching?
Retrospectives
I have to admit. I really enjoy reading the Retrospectives over at Grognardia.
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/search/label/retrospective
James usually covers something I know, but every so often something comes up and I am seeing something new. But in every case I learn something I didn't know before.
Here are some of my favorites:
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/search/label/retrospective
James usually covers something I know, but every so often something comes up and I am seeing something new. But in every case I learn something I didn't know before.
Here are some of my favorites:
- The Book of Marvelous Magic - I was looking for a copy of this at the auction, so this was the right thing at the right time.
- Authentic Thaumtaurgy - Issac Bonewits was one of the first people I talked to on the Internet back in the old Bitnet days. He was kind of a jerk. But I liked this book.
- Dragon Dice- precious jewels!
- The Dying Earth - How I learned to love Vancian magic.
- Palace of the Vampire Queen - managed to score a copy of this.
- Alma Mater - this one too. One of the strangest games in my collection.
- Chill - again my love of Chill knows no bounds.
- Castle Amber - one of my most favorite adventures.
- Castle Greyhawk - I also own this one, and yes it is bad. It is also deadly, maybe one of the deadliest dungeon crawls to be published by TSR. Yes. Even more deadly than Tomb of Horrors. If I remember right CG features at least two elder vampires, three Death Knights, a couple of demon lords and everything but a Kitchen Sink Monster.
- Ravenloft - Still my favorite adventure ever.
I have used these retrospectives many times as a starting point to do more research for articles on Wikipedia or for my own benefit.
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