White Dwarf Wednesday #69

White Dwarf for September 1985 takes us to the end of the 60s with issue #69.  This one is going to be interesting to try to do because my copy is falling apart.  In fact I have it in a bag to hold it all together. When I started this I wanted to see if I could find a new copy and then forgot about it till just recently.   I am not even using my own scanned image of the cover. It is in too bad of shape. The cover is an interesting one. It looks like it could be the demon Graz'zt.  Or someone similar. The artist is Mark Bromley.

Ian Livingstone discusses Games Day.  Here in reality Origins just completed. I had heard from friends that it  was great fun but really small this year.

We start of with an article on Golden Heroes.  Man, I really should dig this game up sometime.

Part 2 of Beneath the Waves is next.  I am missing page 1 of this.  I think it was due to the fact that we were gearing up an ocean based game.  But I could be wrong, 85 sounds too early for that.

Open Box has some reviews that I can relate to.  First are some Marvel titles. MH-4: Lone Wolves, MH-5: Cat's Paw and MHSP1: Secret Wars.  I will be honest with you. I didn't like Secret Wars.  I thought it was a pale attempt to get at the same epicness of DC Crisis on Infinite Earths.  I was even just telling my kids this yesterday morning.  I was getting out of Marvel at this point and out of the Marvel game.  Marcus Rowland gives them 6, 6 and 7/10 respectively.
Next up is the Conan RPG.  Unlike my peers I never liked Conan. It wasn't even till recently that I actually read some.  I liked it because yes it is good stuff, but in 85? No way. I was an Elric (the anti-Conan) fan. Pete Tamblyn gives it 7/10.
We get a review of Toon Strikes Again, a completely silly game that I loved. So did Stephen Kyle who gave it 8/10.    Lastly we have the Chill-influenced board game Black Morn Manor. I had always wanted to play this game but never could get my hands on a copy.  It got an 8/10 from Paul Mason.

Letters and RuneRites are gone according to my table of contents.

The Surrey Egnigma is an adventure for Call of Cthulhu that looks fun.
Followed by an AD&D adventure Plague from the Past that also looks like it could be fun.

Starbase has ship battle damage for Traveller and Travellers has stats for more of its characters.

Fiend Facotry is back this month but the "monsters" are Golden Hero characters. Yeah, it's not as fun anymore.

First page of Table top heroes is gone, but there are pictures.

Treasure chest has some poisons for AD&D.  Not quite as good as the article from Best of Dragon Vol. 2, but still worth the read if poisons are your thing.

Gobilidgook, small ads and ads.

The 60s end in a whimper though I do think both adventures are good.

For those that say Mystara is dead

There is this, http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4news/20130618#87045

Ok, so yeah, it's not the same as having a game world or new product but it does show that Wizards is still interested in the IP and they still use it.

Either way I'll be buying this.

Skills in AD&D 1

I got to play some AD&D 1st ed again this past weekend.  The boys are really enjoying it.
But the one thing that now feels awkward are ability checks.

Back in the day if we wanted to do something that would require a "skill check" we would roll a d20 and aim to roll under the ability in question.  Easy and it worked for us till the 1st ed Proficiency system came along.

Looking back I remembered something.  I hate the 1st Ed Proficiency system.

I think what I want is something more simple.  AD&D isn't really about what skills and how many skill points you have.  Your skills are defined by your class or race and Ability scores are key.

So I am thinking of taking some ideas from d20, Castles & Crusades and even a little bit of D&D4.

Skill checks will still be Ability checks.
Instead of the roll under mechanic, I am going to use a d20 style Difficulty Classes. Since 3.x d20 and AD&D1 make the similar assumption of 20 levels I think the numbers are good.

Abilities will use their default modifiers.  So 0 +1, +2 or +3 (or negatives as the case may be).  Additionally characters will add +1 per level.  I *might* cap that at 10th level.  I have not decided yet.

Borrowing from Castles and Crusades each character will get two Primes.  These will be the same as the Prime Attribute for their class. Humans will get one extra. Primes will add +2.

So a skill roll then would be like this.
A 1st level Cleric with an 18 Wisdom is making a Spot check.  Wisdom is his prime.
His chances are +3 (wisdom) +1 (level) +2 (prime) for a total of +6.
That might sound like a lot, but a Cleric in 3.x with Spot as a skill would get +4 Wis and +4 for the skill for +8.

I might also give each character a chance at a signature or trained skill.  Something very specific that they get and extra +1 on.  So my cleric in the above example might have Religion as a signature skill, and get an extra +1.

I think this will work fine to be honest.  Course if I wanted that "old school" feel I could put it all in a chart.

Batwoman

Kinda brain dead today.  Busy weekend and a busy start to my work week.  So how about some Batwoman.



Batwoman, J. Metcalf by *sinhalite on deviantART


Batwoman by ~KidNotorious on deviantART


30-60-90 Batwoman by ~MahmudAsrar on deviantART


batwoman part two by ~JoelGomez on deviantART


Batwoman Commission by *mcguan on deviantART


Batwoman - NYCC 2012 Pre-Show Commission by ~MahmudAsrar on deviantART


Heroes Con Auction 2012: Batwoman by *gattadonna on deviantART


Batwoman by *gattadonna on deviantART


Batwoman II by *gattadonna on deviantART


Heroes Con Auction 2012: Batwoman by *gattadonna on deviantART


BATWOMAN by *89g on deviantART


Batwoman - Legacy by =JamieFayX on deviantART


:DC: Twice Named by *AlouetteCosplay on deviantART


:DC: Unmasked by *AlouetteCosplay on deviantART


Batwoman by ~Blindman-CB on deviantART

Birthday/Gameday/Father's Day Weekend!

Wow! What freaking great weekend this has been.

We started it off by going to see Man of Steel (most of the "Smallville" were shot in Yorkvillle, IL near where my wife grew up) and it was a lot of fun.  Not sure if it replaces the Richard Donner films in my heart, but it was still good.

Saturday was Free RPG Day.

We piked up some cool books and bought some more.

We were going to play some Tomb of Horrors under 3.x but my youngest one wanted to play some of the free things we bought.  So we settled on continuing our 1st Ed game where the characters are still around 2nd level and continued on in the Caves of Chaos.

I thought I'd pull in some material from the free stuff to help flesh out the cave some more.

Yes.  There is a good chance that my young sons will play "Better Than Any Man".

Might get some more gaming done later tonight.  They cleared out the Goblin Cave ("D") and started on the Hobgoblin Cave ("E").

Great weekend!  I even got in a 3 mile run today.

Zatannurday: Happy Father's Day!

Here is what looks like Zatara's first appearance in the new DC 52.

Kind of a downer image...

How about something from pre-52, Zatara going Liam Neeson in Taken on a bad guy.

Damn.
Don't piss off Giovanni.

I might need to up some of the stats I have made for him.

Happy Father's Day!!

Winners, Losers and the Tomb

Winners
Wow!  What a day yesterday.  All I wanted to do was celebrate my birthday and give out some free stuff. ;)

Well I have emailed the two winners, I am just waiting for them to confirm their emails.  (ok both have gotten back to me!)

So congrats to John Harp and Michael Bolam!  You can thank the d20 and d6 I rolled!

Honestly that was a lot of fun and I need an excuse to do that again soon.

Losers
The big loser of the week is (or will be) Tracey Alley for publishing Mystara books.
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2013/06/ugh-do-we-have-to-do-this-one-again-ip.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2013/06/ugh-do-we-have-to-do-this-one-again-ip_13.html
https://www.facebook.com/groups/mystara.reborn/
I did not set out to ruin her week but seriously folks, IP is IP is IP.

I have seen a lot of comments of "well WotC isn't doing anything with it".  Sorry, but there is no such thing as "Abondon-ware" in fact the Mystara property is alive and kicking with the release of the "Dungeons & Dragons Chronicles of Mystara Game" out next week.
Or even "She is not making a lot of money on it". The amount made (lots, little or none) doesn't matter.  I bought those books (but got a refund) because I thought they were official Mystara books. There are lots of people that would love to make more Mystara products, people that I would love to support.  But they don't make them because they know they are not allowed too.

Of course the other loser in this is me.  I thought I had found a new series to read and instead I have to drag all this out into the light.

The Tomb
The best news though is for my birthday and Father's day I am going to play some D&D with my kids!  YEAHH!

Since it is also D&D day I think a classic is in order.   So Liam and Connor will be headed to The Tomb of Horrors!

I have copies for every version of D&D (well 1st to 4th) so I am not sure which system to run it yet.  1st ed is the obvious choice, but the boys are playing 3e now and their 1st ed characters are only 1st level.

I am expecting it to be a lot of fun!

UGH. Do we have to do this one again?? IP theft, Part 2

Here is a comparison of the map from Tracey Alley's book and the map from the Expert set.

Tracey's map

The Known World from the Expert Set

And both at 50% opacity.

So not just redrawn, but maybe even traced.

In better news I am going to pick winners later tonight!

UGH. Do we have to do this one again?? IP theft

Before I go too deep here if you want to wish me a happy birthday and win a prize, go to this thread.  If you want to see me rage against the machine some more stay here.

Still with me?  Ok.

For the record I want you to know that I was not setting out to do this. I just wanted a nice little novel about Mystara and witches to read.  Been on a great Mystara kick all week.

So I treated myself to a bunch of books on my Amazon wishlist for my birthday.  Three of them were the "Witchcraft Wars" series.  I am not sure how I found them but all I knew about them that they dealt with the rise of Witchcraft in the Mystara game world.  So perfect for me right?
The cover art looked a little off from other Mystara books, but they were new and I thought that maybe WotC was trying something new.

That's not the case.

I was so excited that the first book was free for the Kindle that I grabbed it and the next two books.
You can get it too so you can see what I mean.
http://www.amazon.com/Erichs-Plea-Book-Witchcraft-Wars/dp/1453600973/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371123885&sr=1-1

There was a map inside. I was quite excited to see it to be honest. I saw Glantri..right next to Karameikos and way north of Alfheim (on the coast)

Wait. What??

I then noticed that the publisher was NOT Wizards of the Coast or Mirror Stone but "Amazon Publishing Services".

A closer dig into the other books from this author, Tracey Alley, revealed more books and two with some pretty blatant art theft.

Here are the books in question:
The Witchcraft Wars, Book 1, Book 2 and Book 3
A Very Hairy Adventure - A Kaynos History Tale with Clyde Caldwell art from a WW Werewolf game.
An Unholy Encounter (The History Tales of Kaynos) with art from an October 1988  issue of Dragon magazine.

There is a long discussion about it that I started last night over at the Facebook Mystara group.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/mystara.reborn/584320224945880/?notif_t=group_comment

But here are my point.  I bought all three books because 1. they were set in Mystara and 2. they were well reviewed. So I do feel a little like I was ripped off. I thought these were something like those "Dragon Codex" books from Mirrorstone; novels that take place in Krynn but are not part of Dragonlance (but still published by Wizards).
I mean really. A novel set in Mystara about the rise of Witchcraft? Why not just call it "Tim Read This Damn book Now!"
If you ignore the map it reads like a Mystara book. She has a Vestlander that used to be a Monk and is now a Druid. There are half-orcs that speak Hill giant. There are elves and dwarves, The writing isn;t bad, it's not great either, but I didn't mind paying whatever I paid for them BECAUSE I thought I was sending a message to WotC that Mystara books are a good idea.
Thankfully Amazon let me return the last two books of the series for a full refund.

I have started to reach out to people at Wizards, but no response yet (no surprise it's like 6:00am there now).  This is not how I wanted to spend my birthday.

Here are some links.
Her website/blog, http://traceyalley.weebly.com/novels.html
Amazon page, http://www.amazon.com/Tracey-Alley/e/B003OVMKFU/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

I should just stick with reading witch books where the witch gets pregnant by her lesbian lover.   After all, I have a reputation to maintain.

ETA: Part 2 is here.

Happy Birthday to Me! Here's a Gift for You!

Today is my birthday!

The great thing about being this age is I am pretty much at the point where if there is something I want I go out and get it.  So all I asked for this year was some time to play some D&D with my kids.

But someone needs a gift.

To celebrate this and recently reaching 1,000,000 hits I want to thank you my loyal readers.

Here's the deal.  I am gong to give away a $5 DriveThruRPG gift car and a $5 Amazon gift card.

What do you need to do to get it?
Almost nothing!
Just post below!

Make sure I have a way of contacting you (email is best) and I'll pick two people at random.
That's it.

Post. Get lucky. Win.
I'll email you and you tell me which of the two prizes you want.

Thanks so much for making the Other Side as much as it has been and here's to the next 1,000,000 hits!

White Dwarf Wednesday #68

White Dwarf continues to evolve here in the late summer of 1985.  We are now squarely in the issues where I have no personal connection with.  I wasn't reading WD anymore at this point, though I was heavily into Dragon at this point.  Also at this time I had pretty much dropped every other game I had played in favor of AD&D alone.

Our cover this time has some orcs and what could be a halfling or a small old human.  They are about to get ninja'd by a dude in the background.  I did say it was 1985.  This is another cover from Brian Williams.

Ian Livingstone discusses the data from the last reader survey.  People love the comics, which I don't get, but hey this thing is 28 years old now.  They also enjoy Open Box (which I do get).  Ian also mentions that WD subscriptions are on the rise.

Ok on to content.

First up is something we could use in the Old-school world now.  An Artificer character class for AD&D.
It's a pretty neat little class really and can help explain why the world has so many magic items.  What is nice is that was a way for dwarven characters to get some spells.  I am pretty certain I would have had at least one character using this class.

Open Box has a lot of products.  I think instead of talking about each one I'll focus on the ones that interest me.  There is a new Fantasy RPG called Dragonroar that I have never heard of.  It looks like what we call a Fantasy Heartbreaker.  It only gets 5/10 for being too narrow in scope and simple.  Maybe this why I have not heard of it.  The other game is Twilight 2000. It also only gets 5/10.  Now of course I knew about Twilight2k but I never played it.  I do recall years later picking up a copy at a game auction and it only confirmed what I had known for years.  I don't like Post Apoc games.  I like Gamma World and by extension Mutant Future, but so much in these games feels so contrived.  Plus I think I was reading it in 2002 so I rolled my eyes a lot and said "yeah. right" while reading it.
Interestingly enough there is a breakdown on what all the different aspects of the review mean.  Only about 60+ issues too late, but A for effort guys!

Nest is Critical Mass, an ad for the new TSR Conan game.

Crawling Chaos, another well liked article is next.  This time dealing with clergymen and hypnosis.
Beneath the Waves is a new series of dealing with aquatic adventures in AD&D.
Solo Adventures deals with running solo supers games.

The first adventure of the issue is Lone Dragon a scenario for Traveller.  It includes deck plans for the Lone Dragon.  These adventures are usually pretty hard for me to judge.  This is followed by The Travellers which has stats for two of the main characters.

The Star of Darkness is an AD&D adventure for 3rd to 4th level characters.  It uses the artificer class and would be a good introduction to the class.
Treasure chest has a lot of new spells.

While not an inspiring issue, certainly a serviceable one.  RuneQuest material has dropped off considerably but we have picked up more Call of Cthulhu which is nice.  AD&D continues to be popular though I despite my complaints on quality I do miss Fiend Factory.  

We are about to hit the 70s and 1986. My memory of this time tells me there was a lot going on publishing wise even if the industry was in the midst of a cool down period.  I'll see if the issues track with my recollections.

There was supposed to be a giant-sized poster with this issue.  My garage-sale copy is missing that.   Anyone know what it was?

I Cut up My B/X books!

Well after 32 years I finally did it.

I sliced up my Basic and Expert books to put into a binder.
Er...sort of.
Instead I printed out my copies of the Basic and Expert books out on PDF.

I printed them a page to a side because my printer here at home can't do dual sided.

Rearranged them by chapters.

And put some tabs in.

So far it looks really nice.  No cover yet, need to buy more ink.

OSR Specific Publishers?

Hey all!

I am working on a few side projects and it dawned on me that I am not 100% certain who all the players are in the OSR publishing biz.

Sure I know the big names. Even some of the smaller names.  But who else is there?

In particular I was looking for the smaller publishers to see what they are doing.  Maybe even feature a couple now and then here.

So. Who are you?  What do you sell?  If you are a small publisher then let me (and everyone else) know!!

1,000,000 Other Side Views Can't Be Wrong

I want to do a bit of celebrating here at the Other Side.

I just went past 1,000,000 hits here and had a pretty successful fundraiser.
Plus it's my birthday in a couple days.

Let's do something special.

I am going to give away some things.

Not sure what, not sure how, but something. and soon!

Keep an eye out.

(if you don't get the image, try here)

Basic D&D + Xacto Knife!

One of the things I always found interesting was that the Moldvay Basic and Cook Expert books were 3-hole punched.   The idea was to cut up your rule books and then re-assemble them in a binder.

While I liked this idea and thought I would do it once the Companion rules came out, I never could bring myself to cut up my rulebooks.

Now with the Basic and Expert books out on PDF I might print them up and do this.

Did anyone do this back in the day? How did it work out for you?

Ravenloft / Glantri connection

This post might not be all that interesting (I know the WRONG way to start a post) but I have been digging up some old information on an old campaign I ran at the end of the 2nd ed era.

Many, many years ago while I was still deeply involved in the online Ravenloft community I postulated that Barovia, the home of Strahd in Ravenloft, is a domain taken from the Known World of Mystara, and Glantri in particular.
I was very active on the old MYSTARA-L and RAVENLOFT-L listservs.

Here is a post from 2001 where I talk about it.  This might be the first time I even mention it.
http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0108a&L=mystara-l&P=5201

Hold on a sec I have my combined Ravenloft-Mystrara-Greyhawk Time line here.

Now keep in mind that Ravenloft has funky time.  So Ravenloft uses the
Barovian Calendar (BC) and the present day is 751 (according to the books)
or 753 (according to the kargatane).  That would make it 1,346 AC.  On *my*
time line.
This also coincides with 1,370 DR in the Realms (but who cares about that!).

I am correlating my dates based on the "fact" that the two Blackmoors are
the same in Greyhawk and Mystara and were destroyed at the same time,
possibly splitting Mystara and Oerth (and D&D from AD&D!).  Then I use
Azalin from Ravenloft since we know when he entered the mists and when he
was a king on Greyhawk.

Barovia is founded in "an unknown world" in year 1 BC, or 596 AC.  So what
areas were still ripe for conquest or settlement then?
Strahd is born in 299 BC (894 AC)
The "Tergs" invade Barovia 320 BC (915 AC)
Strahd pushes them back 321 BC (916 AC)
Strahd kills his family, Barovia is "cloned" and sucked into the demi plane
351 BC (946 AC).

So the world that Barovia is from, never knows it is gone since an exact
copy with out people is left behind.  Well, some of Strahd's family remains.

800 AC to 1000 AC is a fairly well documented period of time.

Castle Amber (X2) has some amazing "Ravenloft like" elements.  After all,
Old Averoigne *IS* from Gothic Earth! ;)
As does the Glantri Gazetteer.
Other modules from Mystara also have a very heavy Ravenloft feel to them,
more so than other worlds ("Death's Ride" anyone?)

There is an adventure where the character go to the Prime Material Barovia
around 740 BC (or 1,335 AC). Barovia of this time and place is rules by a
"King Strahd".

If I go with my "Holy Lands of Glantri"  future Time line, 1,335 is a blank
period of time for me. A time between the "true" kings in which a regent sat
on the throne.  It was an attempt by the mage guild to bring back the rule
of the Princes.  They had assassinated the true king and his heirs, but one
escaped not to be "discovered" again till 1,496 AC.

SO, given my time line, I'd say Barovia is/was a principality of Glantri.
Granted this is not conclusive evidence, but it fills the holes I have.

What else do we have?

Warlock.
--
Web Warlock,
Author, the Netbooks of Witches and Warlocks
The Other Side: http://www.rpghost.com/WebWarlock
The DnD Community Council: http://www.dndcommunitycouncil.org/~nbownw

Yeah I was still going by "Web Warlock" online all the time is a vain attempt to keep my academic persona (Timothy S. Brannan) seperate from my gamer geek one.  Finally I said screw it and embraced my inner and outer geek.

There is more here and elsewhere.  With James Mishler online now I should ask him what his theories were.

Here is something I posted years ago that I can't find the original of online anymore.  Though it was quoted at Dragonsfoot.  I have the original Word doc here at home still.

Barovia is from Mystara
While Ravenloft may be my favorite game world, it is not my first. No that (dubious) honor belongs to Mystara. So here is how I have used my two worlds together. We really don't know what world Strahd's homeland came from. Other lands are clearly defined as being from Oerth (Greyhawk), Toril (Forgotten Realms), Athas (Dark Sun) or Krynn (Dragonlance). That leaves both Barovia and Mystara obvious by their absence. So. I speculate that Barovia is a darker version of one the Principalities of Glantri. Of course this long before the Princes ruled. We know that from the adventure "Roots of Evil" that the original Barovia still remains on it's home world. Well Glantri has a principality called Boldavia that is surprisingly like Barovia. It is possible that they were nieghbors, but when Strahd and his Barovia was pulled into the mists, the lord of Boldavia took over the unprotected Barovia.

There are plenty of other clues of a Ravenloft-Mystara link.

The classic module, X2 Castle Amber, takes place in Glantri and the module reads like a proto-Ravenloft setting complete with mists and lands being pulled into demi-planes. X2 was based on the writings of Clark Ashton Smith, one of Lovecraft's inner circle, and both writers have contributed a lot to what makes up D&D and Ravenloft today.

Glantri has a very European feel to it. It is higher tech and higher magic than most of the other lands on Mystara and there is definantly a darker edge to it. Since Ravenloft also uses psuedo-European cultures, the ties fit rather nicely.

Demi-Plane or World
Ravenloft is a demi-plane. Or so they tell us. But this has never been a satifactory world for me. In my mind this only emphasizes the "weekend in Hell" feel of the world. So. With the latest edition of the Ravenloft rules, I have decided that Ravenloft is in fact it's own world. Granted it is a haunted world, but not much different than the "World of Darkness" of White Wolf. This has certain advantages for me. Worlds are easier to deal with. I can have a place that can seem real to it inhabitants and give me a reason to have native players. Plus if I want, I can use my Call of Cyhulhu, White Wolf, or Witchcraft RPG stuff to modernize the world, or give it a future. This is what I liked best about Gothic Earth. With 3E Ravenloft I could do a Gothic Mystara or a Gothic Oerth.

Personally I rather move the lot to Earth. But that is a topic for another time.

Plus this helps bring other ideas from the Ravenloft-list into line for me. Ravenloft has a mostly human population, but there are monsters. So a world can support a larger ecosystem. Monsters can run about. Another idea is move the mind flayers, Illithids, to the moon. This give them a more alien feel and ties in very nicely with Lovecraft. Plus I have the new d20 Call of Cthulhu book sitting on my self next to my Ravenloft one. So I am sure I can get something from their unholy union.

Another idea to flesh out this "world" is to use some of the new d20 products out there. Sword and Sorcery studios has some great books, like the Creature Collections and Relics and Rituals. The Scarred Lands of those books has the dark and gritty feel I like to inject into my games. I also have a few good official Wizards of the Coast products that also make a nice addition. Monsters of Faerun is a good example.

The Dark Powers
Who or what are the dark powers and what do they wnat? That is question that has been bugging players and DM of Ravenloft for a long time. We have had some clues. They could be evil outsiders, or gods. Or they could be Good and Ravenloft is a prison. Or maybe they started out as good and became evil. Who knows. The truth be told. I don't deal with them much in my games. While I dislike the idea of Ravenloft being a giant roach motel of evil, I also like to keep the players and the Dark Lords in check.

Plus there are the Dark Lords. Very powerful, not very mobile. I like to use a bit more flexibility with my Dark Lords and Powers. Granted this has not always worked out as well as I would have liked. But I'll keep experimenting. Normally I like to take a page out of the Masque of Red Death and not have Dark Lords at all. Or rather, they are there, but they are significantly weaker when they leave their area of control.

No Dragons?
How is it there are no dragons in Ravenloft, a Dungeons and Dragons game? Well I have added them. Yes they are evil and there is even a Dragon dark lord. The realm is Draconis, and it is also from Mystara. It is currently an island. It too has it's roots in Glantri. You can download it from PlanetADnD.com. Draconis.

If I continue the world metaphor then there are plenty of places for Dragon Dark Lords and Dragons. While Draconis is based on Glantri, it has it roots in the mystical "Dragon Isle" of so many fantasy stories, including the tales of Michael Moorcock's Elric.

BTW I still have Draconis laying around here somewhere.  I reused large portions of it for my Dragon Ilse in my kids 3.x game.

I'll have to see what else I have laying around.

Zatannurday: Villains & Vigilantes

Another post? Twice in one day?
Sure!

Here is Zee's sheet for Villains & Vigilantes.

Willow & Tara: Villains & Vigilantes

I want to continue talking about Villains & Vigilantes today.

It seems like years ago that Tim Knight of Hero Press asked me to do V&V write-ups of Willow & Tara.  I actually remember it being almost exactly 2 years ago because I was sitting in the DMV getting my licensed renewed. I had my copy of V&V 2.1 on my tablet and jotting down some notes on powers.

The biggest issue with any supers game is magic. It really is the "break all the powers" power.  Especially in systems where you can take Magic and then take all the other powers as spells.

Here are the girls in their post Dragon and the Phoenix versions.

Tempting Fate and Pay What You Want

So Evil Hat has released their two new Fate game and also released a new model of how they would like people to pay for their games.

Fate Core System and Fate Accelerated Edition are now out.
And YOU decide how much you want to pay for them.

Think Fate Core is worth $20 (at 308 pages that is a steal for a core book) then pay 20.  You only want to pay 5?  Pay 5.

It is an interesting concept really and I am curious on how it will work out.
Tenkar has listed a number of OSR Pay What You Want books including the very popular Teratic Tome and his own Minor Magiks & Miscellaneous Arcana Volume I.

I can't wait to see how all of this plays out really. I think it will be a success.  You may say but won't people pay less than what you should be charging? Sure, but I think there will be more people buying. Honestly which one is better? Five people paying $5 for a pdf or 50 people paying a $1 for it?  And you will get people that believe in supporting authors and game companies, so they will spend $10.

How about you all?
Would you do "Pay What You Want" for you books (game or novels or otherwise)?

Justice is Blind, Issue 6: Villains & Vigilantes

Today is the Heroes & Villains Blogfest  hosted by Jackie and Dani.  This is Part 2 of my post for that, Part 1 was posted earlier today.
http://danibertrand.blogspot.com/2013/06/heroes-villains-blogfest.html

I want to continue talking about Villains & Vigilantes I thought it would be interesting to bring back my superhero character Justice and introduce her new arch nemesis.

To bring everyone up to speed Justice is a character I created for the Mutants & Masterminds RPG for a game we were going to play that day.  Her real name is Astra Ka-el, aka Astra Kent and she is the daughter of Superman and Wonder Woman.  I based her off the last few pages of the comic Kingdom Come, which deals with the superheroes we know in about 20 or so years.  I won't spoil it all for you. Read it, it is fantastic (or watch this fan made trailer). But one of the futures they point to is the possibility of Superman and Wonder Woman having a daughter.  You can read the back story I did for her in "Issue 1: Justice is Blind".  The last time we saw Justice was Issue 5. In Issue 6 I wanted her to go to London where she could potentially run into the legendary, but retired, Acrobatic Flea.  This serves a number of purposes. It gets her to England to meet her new arch-nemesis, it ties in Villains & Vigilantes and it gives a shout out to +Tim Knight (the Flea himself!)  who has been wanting me to do more with V&V forever.

So I introduced my hero.  Here is my villain.

Maggie "Mags" Shaw nee O'Neill aka "The Iron Maiden"
Maggie O'Neill was a plain, if brilliant girl, who lived in one of the poorest areas in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Maggie hated being poor, she hate being scared all the time (the Troubles were at their height) and she wanted nothing more than to get away.  To her that mean London.  After a car bomb destroyed the bus she was supposed to get on for school that morning (no one was killed) she had haad enough. At age 14 she ran away from home and made her way to London a couple of months later.  The education she had on the road was a hard one, and it hardened her.  When she got to London she was "discovered" by a talent scout looking for young, and maybe disposable, girls for modeling. Mags, as she called herself now, quickly turned a would-be tragic situation to one where she was on the cover of every fashion magazine by 16 and a national and tabloid celebrity by 18.  She used her keen intellect, charisma and complete lack of moral center to get to the top of the heap.  Her looks, while plain as a child, transformed her into "The Face of London".  Her name even became so synonymous with magazine covers that people thought it was a play on words.
In her 20s her career took a dip when she tried acting and was terrible.  Same with pop songs. She quietly completed degrees in mathematics, engineering and robotics while people suspected she was out partying.
At 24 she stunned the world when she married multinational billionaire Halloran Shaw, depiste being nearly 40 years younger.  She took a keen interest in his business and became a full partner and soon rose (by much of the same combination of lack of ethics and keen intelligence) to a position of VP and a seat on the board.  Her enemies begrudged her polished public image and despised her ruthless private one.  When Shaw died he left everything to her including controlling stock in his company, locking out his own grown children.
Mags would have had it all had it not been for a PR stunt gone tragic.
Shaw International was responsible for making high capacity batteries for cell phones and small electronics.  Their factories though were located in India and were the worse sort of sweat shops.  Thousands, cramped into small spaces to build batteries with caustic chemicals.  Ventilation was poor, and deaths were common, but as they were the only employer for hundreds of kilometers she had all the workers she could want.  Protest groups caught news of this and were making a stink.  Mags herself went to the factory to hold a press conference. Most of the employees where cleared out (with out pay) so tours could be given.
In the midst of this pr stunt the factory exploded.   The death toll was high, but would have been much higher had it not been for Justice, who had been near by and heard the explosion with her super hearing.
One person though she didn't save, because she didn't know, was Mags.  Mags watched and Justice saved all these people, while she was pinned under tons of rubble while chemicals and fire burned her skin.
Mags was found, alive, but the damage was too great.  For a year she was in the hospital. She lost her legs, an arm, part of her face, some the fingers on her other hand.  She eventually recovered, but swore she would have her revenge.  The news (thanks to a healthy pay off) made the claim that eco-terrorists caused the explosion, so popular opinion was for the "poor woman" who had "lost everything".
Secretly Mags has built herself a suit of armor that not only keeps her alive, but also enhances all her physical stats.  She has been using it to steal what she can't buy or make herself.  She has killed and seems likely to do so again.  Though no one suspects that the armored thief the tabloids call The Iron Maiden is really Mags Shaw.  And no one know that she is building a weapon to kill Justice!

Here they are in their Villains & Vigilantes glory.  Justice and her arch nemesis The Iron Maiden!

There might be errors here.  It has been years since I played V&V.

See more posts here:

Heroes & Villains Blogfest: Villains & Vigilanties

Today is the Heroes & Villains Blogfest  hosted by Jackie and Dani.  This is Part 1 of my post for that, Part 2 is later today.
http://danibertrand.blogspot.com/2013/06/heroes-villains-blogfest.html

The idea is to talk about our favorite heroes and villains.  But I do that a lot here.  So I am going to do that today, but I also want to talk about about one of my favorite superhero role-playing games.  It is also the first superhero RPG I ever played.  Villains & Vigilantes.
The current edition is the 2nd edition and you can get the classic version from Fantasy Games Unlimited (the one I played) or the new 2.1 edition from Monkey House Games. They are functionally the same, even with the same text and some art.

V&V was written by Jack Herman and Jeff Dee.  Jeff Dee got his start on D&D doing some of the classic module art and book art for the 1st edition game.   So the game has some obvious D&D roots.
V&V was unique at the time (and still somewhat) in that in the game you play yourself.  You work out with the other players what your strength, endurance, intelligence and the rest are and then you roll randomly on a table of super powers.  It's a very interesting and fun concept that we completely ignored.  Back in the day we liked playing a "multi-verse" so our V&V characters were our D&D characters in a supers universe.  The stats were the mostly the same and both games had levels.  Plus it gave us excuses to have strengths of 50 or more (human max is 18).  I remember it being a very good time.

As typical of many old school games there are lots of random rolls, charts and a fair amount of math involved. I went back recently to make a character and was thrilled to see that Monkey House Games had an Excel character sheet.  The math isn't hard really, but Excel is still faster. Though such things have been around for a long time even with the older edition.

Powers are list by type.  So Power Blast is just a blast of some sort of power. It could be Superman's heat vision, Iron Man's repulsors, or even Zatanna's magical blast.   What is interesting is teh combat matrix of powers vs. defenses and how they interact. Again, the D&D DNA is here since it reminds me of the Psionic Powers Attacks vs Defenses in 1st Ed AD&D.

There is a V&V campaign world as well.  It is loosely defined in the core books, but much greater detail is given in the supplements.  It is also one of the few Supers games I can recall where the characters were working for the government at some level.  The ill-fated City of Heroes RPG was another.

There are a couple of great sections on Being a Superhero and Gamemastering that work great with any supers RPG.

IF you like old school RPGs and want to get into a supers game that feels like those, then this is a great choice.  The price is low and there are plenty of places on the web that support either version of the game with materials, character write-ups and community.

A little later today I'll have a write up of a hero and a villain.

See more posts here:

White Dwarf Wednesday #67

July 1985 brings us White Dwarf #67.  We start the issue with something new, a cover from Mark Bromley. I don't believe I have seen him before, but I could be wrong.  Given the size of the door, I am guessing this is a dwarf, but not the eponymous one.  Still though a nice cover.

In the editorial Ian Livingstone talks about how Britain is catching up to the US in terms of Fantasy RPGs.  While hindsight tells me that this is partially correct (the entire industry was hitting the mid-80s slump) it had always been my perception at the time that the best things were coming out of Britain.  Sure it was my perception as a young anglophile, but the games I saw from Britain seemed "grittier" to me and that meant "better" in my 16 year old mind.

Haunters in the Dark brought non-mythos monster to your CoC game.  I had bought this issue for this article alone back in the day.  Though I had forgotten I had until rereading it this week.  I remember wanting to convert the Black Dog to Chill and use some of the other information for D&D.  I was always looking to expand undead and the first house rule "notebook" I put together included some of this information.
Interestingly enough I never cared for Will-o-wisps as undead, thinking them more like some sort of evil Fae creature.

Open box covers Pacesetter's StarAce (or Star Ass as we used to call it) and some Dragonloance modules. StarAce didn't get enough credit from me then, I still prefer Chill and TimeMaster for my Paesetter fun. It barely got any credit though from Marcus Rowland, giving it a 5/10.  Graham Staplehurst covers DL2, DL3 and DL4 from the Dragonlance Modules giving them 7, 8 and 9/10 respectively. He praises the amount of information in modules and says there is plenty for DMs to do with them.  I reread them recently myself, I did find them to be fairly rail-roady, even moreso that I recalled.  Oliver Dickinson wraps us up with 6/10 review for Monster Coliseum from Avalon Hill. It gets knocked down I think due to the price.

Critical Mass has an embarrassment of riches, claiming that by 1987 there will only be enough room in the column to list the names of the books and authors and that's it.   I am not sure if the out of Sci-Fi/Fantasy books ever reached that, I do know it began to wane though soon after.  For my part I had moved over to the darker stuff like Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith.  Insights anyone?

RuneRites covers Barbarian magic.  Useful for any FRPG with Barbarians in a magical world that distrust magic.  Odd thing really.  Is this trope from Conan?

A Champions/Golden Heroes adventure is next, "Peking Duck".  Phil Master wrote this so I am likely to to like it.  But I know so little of Golden Heroes it is hard to judge.

Starbase covers "Wordly Wiles" or Social Customs in Traveller.

Michael Heaton brings us A Murder at Flaxton, an AD&D adventure for low-level characters. Pretty simple and straightforward, but easily dropped into any game.
There is also an article "Parlour Game" about the Arachnid Assassin.

Fiend Factory takes an odd turn this issue.  First it is now listed as Bi-monthly.  Also it presents an NPC.  I say its and NPC, but it could be a type of "monster" or a PC class with some work.  The vivimancer or a spiritual helper.  I am not happy that FF is going to every other month.  On one hand it was my favorite feature, on the other the quality has been suspect for a while.

Tabletop Heroes covers photography of minis.
Treasure Chest has a collection of useful backpacks for AD&D.

We end with ads and the notice board.

In general the quality of the issue is up even if the amount of useful material to me personally was down.

Threshold Mystara Magazine

I am a big fan of Mystara, aka The Known World from the "Basic" versions of D&D.

So I am very pleased to see on the Piazza that there will be a Mystara fan-zine.
http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10361 and
http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10610&start=0

Details on Threshold are here:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9ThpIUzMhtLRF85WFJNNnpqZW8/edit

Don't know if I have anything yet I want to contribute, but I'd love to find something uniquely Mystara.

OSRchive updates

I have a couple one more games to add today and need to tweak the background image a bit.

After that I am going to be looking for some serious feedback.  The OSRchive blog is really only a "draft", the idea is to get the files onto a physical medium.

On my to do list:
- Banner image
- fix the background image CSS
- figure out if I am going to link other sites
- figure out what other games we need
- look for cheap flash drives
- something else that I just forgot...

http://osrchive.blogspot.com.

Announcing the OSRchive

So I have spent the last few hours putting together the new OSRchive.
http://osrchive.blogspot.com/

The first two games are now up providing free copies.

Spellcraft & Swordplay: Basic Set
Lamentations of the Flame Princess Rules & Magic

More as I get the permissions to add them.
Once I get a decent amount I can start putting together a CD-Rom/zip/archive for you to download and share.

OSR Distribution CD-ROM, Part 2

I have a new proof of concept up at http://osrchive.blogspot.com/.

I will add more games as I get the permissions (and remove the Witch since that is not free).

OSR Distribution CD-ROM?

So I was posting this comment over at Once More Unto the Breach!:

I have run plenty of demos in my time.
The thing about running a demo game is if you are good then the players will want to go out buy that game. If I do it in a game store (my prefered place to run demos) then I like to take them to the product.

The problem with the OSR is that often the product is not there. I have taken books before and sold them at cost, but I am not a retailer so it's an as-needed/as-I-think of it thing.

I suppose what would be nice is if had permission to redistribute the free OSR books on a CD. Maybe build some nice interface and have the PDFs.

Pop in the CD-ROM and it runs on any machine.

Hmm. That sounds like an idea.

And that got me thinking.  What about a FREE OSR distribution CD-ROM?
We put on the most popular free products that we have the permission to use, build a front end (HTML) that has the links to the PDFs on the disk and then links to the various sites and links to whatever else.

Each game would need some promotional "Ad" copy written.

The idea then is we, you, me, whomever demos the game then gives out copies of this disk to the players.

Off the top of my head I think we should include:

• Basic Fantasy
• OSRIC
• Swords & Wizardry
• Labyrinth Lord (Free versions)
• Lamentations of the Flame Princess (the free versions that out there)
• Spellcraft & Swordplay (Basic version)
• Microlite74
• Matt Finch's Quick Primer for Old School gaming

There could be and should be more.  Plus I want to state right now I have not sought permission for ANY of these yet.  This is just a crazy half-baked idea, but it is one I have done before.  In the pre-WiFi, pre-HiSpeed, stuck in the dial-up days of the Internet I put together a lot packages like this, so I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do.

Would anyone be interested in such a thing?
Would anyone out there be interested in contributing to something like this? (Free PDFs to redistribute not money!)

QotA: Elvyra Queen of Witches

While re-reading Quest of the Ancients I thought a good way to bring one of the few stated up characters back over to D&D via The Witch.   I also it might make for a nice homage if one of Vince Garcia's signature characters lived on with my rules.  Like I mentioned in my review of Quest of the Ancients it was obvious to me that we had read a lot of the same books, watched a lot of the same TV shows and listened to a lot of the same music to get to our respective witches.

Plus Elvyra has a connection to the Daughters of the Flame/followers of Brigit. So she has a "hook" in both games.

Here she is in both sets of stats, Elvyra (pronounced "EL-veer-uh" according to the book) the Queen of Witches.  In Vince Garcia or anyone with a copyright claim wants me to remove this then of course I will.

Elvyra -- Queen of Witches (25th level witch)
Quest of the Ancients stats
Armour rating: 0 (-5)
Tactical move: 10' or as applicable in different form
BAR: 17/10/54
Stamina paints: 70
Body points: 13
Stats: St 12; Ag 20: Con 14; IQ 20; Ch 20: Ap 20: Lk 19
Attack 1
Dmg: 1D4+5 (dagger) or by spell
Ethics: I
Size: 6' tall
Special note: Shape change at will; possesses Artifact of Power-the Scarlet Flame: her symbol is a 4-armed spiral, eagle or hummingbird.

Elvyra appears as a tall elf with flaming red hair, typically attired in blue and white with a red sash but her waist. Upon her head she wears a silver crown over which floats large emerald acting as a device that doubles her 1st-3rd rank spell slots. She thus possesses 40 slots of each of these spell ranks, and 20 slots each of ranks 4th-7th
The flame removed from the temple was later enchanted into her wand focus, creating an Artifact of Power known as the Scarlet Flame. It appears as a wood and silver scepter with a huge ruby set into its tip, containing a burning name within. The wand absorbs all spells directed at the possessor, converting their ranks into potential that regenerates any stat loss, similarly to the Mind Sapphire of Serpen. In addition, the wielder is able to use any fire-based spell at the 35th level of skill at a cost of 1 charge off the wand per spellrank, castable in a single phase.
Elvrya's rarely used melee weapon consists of a BF 5 unicorn horn dagger, which provides the further benefit of making her immune to poison and disease of any sort.
One interesting fact about her relates to her ability to shape change (as per the witch spell) at will. When she remains in a single form, her eyes change color each minute.
The Queen has existed in legend since the dawn of time, and most believe that if she yet lives, she and her followers no longer remain on the Nexus, but instead dwell with their goddess, the Queen of Faerie, within Her enchanted realm. Nevertheless, some have claimed to have encountered the Witch Queen in the midst of isolated sylvan woodlands, and in a rugged area of volcanoes in Naz-Al. It is even been reported that she frequents the Witchwood, a forest in Avalon, but this story is given little credence.
If she is encountered, she will either be accompanied by her familiar, her chief handmaiden or both (20%/30%/50%). Last of all, Elvyra is believed to know lost spells that are vastly more powerful than many used today.

Elvyra - Queen of Witches (25th level witch)
The Witch stats

Strength:	12		Death Ray, Poison	5
Dexterity:	18		Magic Wands	6
Constitution:	14		Paralysis, Polymorph or Turn to Stone	5
Intelligence:	18		Dragon Breath	8
Wisdom:	18		Rods, Staffs, Spells	7
Charisma:	18

Hit Points: 55
Alignment: Neutral
AC: 1 (Bracers of Defense)

Occult Powers (Faerie Tradition)
Familiar: White Dragon Tiger
7th level: Speak to Plants/Animals
13th level: Fae Shape
19th level: Curse
25th level: Shape Change

Spells
Cantrips (7): Alarm Ward, Daze, Detect Curse, Object Reading, Open, Spark, Warm
First (7): Bewitch I, Cause Fear, Command, Faerie Fire, Minor Fighting Prowess, Sleep, Spirit Dart
Second (7): Alter Self, Biting Blade, Blast Sheild, Enthrall, Evil Eye, Hold Person, Phantasmal Spirit
Third (6): Astral Sense, Bestow Curse, Continual Fire, Feral Spirit, Fly, Improved Faerie Fire
Fourth (6): Air Walk, Betwitch IV, Dance Macabre, Neutralize Poison, Spiritual Dagger, Withering Touch
Fifth (5): Anti-Magic Candle, Blade Dance, Dream, Primal Scream, Song of Discord
Sixth (5): Break the Spirit, Control Weather, Find the Path, Moonbow, True Seeing
Seventh (4):  Ball of Sunshine, Breath of the Goddess, Etherealness, Serpent Garden
Eighth (4): Astral Projection, Greater Mislead, Mystic Barrier, Wail of the Banshee

In my games Elvyra didn't steal Brigit's Flame, but rescued it.   There is still a long standing cold war between the Queen of Witches and the Daughters of the Flame covens (the Eula want to forgive her, the Brenna want her to pay for what they still feel is the theft of the flame), though both factions of the coven want a better accounting on how she made the wand the Scarlet Flame.


Oh and if you don't have this song going through your head while reading this then you are not as old school as you think you are.

Blogfest: The WIP It Good: EW Cover reveal!

Today is the The WIP It Good Blogfest
http://dlcruisingaltitude.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-wip-it-good-blogfest.html

We are supposed to talk about our current WIP or Work in Progress.

I am going to be talking about Eldritch Witchery!  AND...my big cover reveal.

Eldritch Witchery is my next book for role-playing Witches.  In this case the game is Spellcraft & Swordplay.  The book will include a Witch AND a Warlock class.

And without further ado here is the new cover!

Lilith by Isra2007

I was able to get this wonderful piece of art of Lilith from Isra2007.
It will be updated in the Spellcraft & Swordplay trade dress, but nothing else will be done to the image.  It is too perfect as is.

Like the Witch, Eldritch Witchery will have new spells, magic items and monsters.  It will have traditions, but all new ones, different from the Witch, so new Occult Powers too.   Warlocks also have Lodges they belong to.  The biggest addition is the inclusion of all the demons and devils to the Spellcraft & Swordplay game.  If you were around for my April A to Z posting then you have an idea what will be included.

The book is done, more or less.  The first part with the witches, spells and magic items is being reedited.  The demons and devils are wrapping up.  I know this one has been delayed, but we are looking for a Halloween or earlier release.

So yes if you have the Witch then there is still plenty of new material here even if you don't play Spellcraft & Swordplay.  It can be played with OD&D as well.

It is a big piece of work. Maybe larger than The Witch.  I hope you all enjoy it.

EDITED TO ADD: Forgot the template.  Been one of those weeks.

WIP Title: Eldritch Witchery
Word Count (projected/actual so far): 150,00 projected 117,588 right now
Genre: RPG
How long have you been working on it?:  Seriously about 2 years. Of on on though for only the first 6 months

Elevator Pitch (if you came across an agent in an elevator ride, what couple of lines would you use to summarize your book):  EW is the follow up to The Witch for the Spellcraft & Swordplay game.

Brief Synopsis (300 words or less):  The witch and warlock classes are detailed along with hundreds of new spells, magic items, monsters and tons of demons and devils.

Are you looking for a Critique Partner?  Not really that kind of book.

Are you looking for a Beta Reader? Same.