BECMI D&D at DnDClassics.com

I learned D&D from a badly xeroxed copy of Holmes basic.  I later cut my teeth on The Basic book by Moldvay and the Expert book by Cook.  When the BECMI (not the B/X) sets came out, I ignored them.

Well now these books are hitting DriveThruRPG and DnDClassics and I for one am thrilled.

I know that when I say "Red Box D&D": it is the Mentzer set that most people think of.  This one the one that introduced so many to the game.  The dragon cover is iconic, so iconic in fact it has been used to sell the 4th ed of the game and the style was also used for the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon boxed set.  It gave us Aleena and Bargle, though I was always more partial to Morgan Ironwolf and Black Dougal.

I did pick up a near mint copy of the Red Box rules.  It still had dice in the plastic bag.  I got it signed by Frank Mentzer a couple of Gen Cons back, great guy. Really happy to sign the book. It is a piece of D&D history that I had missed out on.

But that is now changing.
Today the Red Box was released to DriveThruRPG/RPGNow and DnDClassics.

Player's Manual: http://www.dndclassics.com/product/116578/D%26D-Basic-Set---Players-Manual-%28BECMI-ed%29-%28Basic%29?affiliate_id=10748 

DM's Rulebook: http://www.dndclassics.com/product/116619/D%26D-Basic-Set---DMs-Rulebook-%28BECMI-ed%29-%28Basic%29?affiliate_id=10748

To celebrate the 30th Anniversay of the Red Box DnDClassics is offering a code to get the B series of adventures at 50% off.

Additionally we have seen the release of the fantastic D&D Rules Cyclopedia.  Which might be the best version of D&D ever.  And the release of the Creature Catalog for BECMI.

For me getting these books is like rediscovering the game that I loved.  There are little bits here and there that I have never read before. The game is the same, but the feelings are new.

White Dwarf Wednesday #72

This week I cover White Dwarf #72 from December 1985.  Not quite sure what I was doing at this time, I was a Junior in High School and generally speaking having a pretty good time of it.  Lee Gibbons provides the Cthulhu-esque cover for this edition.  I remember thinking it was cool when I first saw it.

Open Box has two staples of "why I thought the British were just better" when it came to games.  The FASA Doctor Who RPG was one of my favorite Sci-Fi games ever.  Despite the fact there was some wonkiness with with the timelines (wibbly wobbly) and the system was just the Star Trek one.  I loved it.  It got an 8/10 but looking back on the game now I can see we were all just starved for anything Doctor Who.
Up next is Chaosium's fantastic Pendragon. It got a 9/10 from Graham Staplehurst. It should have gotten a 10/10.  And just to really drive the point home, the only American company to have a game is one of my favorite companies, Pacesetter, delivering a game I had thankfully had forgot about, Wabbit Wampage.  It gets a generous 6/10.

An article on Talisman and the new expansion set is up next after some ads.  It is advertised on the cover as "Expansive Coverage" and it is, but it also feels a little like an advertisement.

Fear of Flying is a short Call of Cthulhu adventure taking place on a plane.
Heroes & Villains this issue covers mad and super science.  It is written generically enough to use in any supers game, or even any steampunk one.

The Necklace of Brisingamen is next. An AD&D adventure for 7-10th level characters.  Pretty high for a magazine adventure.  It is also pretty long too.  It is generic enough to use anywhere, but I like the Nordic feel to it.  My first thought was it could be used as a nice side adventure while doing the whole GDQ series.

Pete Tamlyn covers character generation in Origin of the PCs. While there are some interesting ideas here, in particular to designing a new game, it is my experience that people come to the game with an idea of what they want to do early on.

Sliegh Wars is a Christmas themed board game for 2-4 players. Frankly it just doesn't look that interesting to me.

Crawling Chaos has a bunch of books for characters to read, not players. Too bad really.  But these are still cool and can be used anywhere to provide some color to a Victorian or Modern horror game.

Big ad for the new game Dragon Warriors.

Treasure chest offers up some tables and events for characters.  Things like "Arrested" and "rumors".  Neat idea, but takes control away from the DM and players in my mind.

Tabletop Heroes covers dioramas. I knew this guy in high school that was fantastic at doing these dioramas of the Grenadier lead minis.  I think he rather enjoyed doing those more than the actual gaming to be honest.

The last 14 or so pages are ads, including one for the D&D Masters rules, Marvel Super Heroes and more MERP.

I am happy to still be getting regular CoC and AD&D material.  The adventures are still rather good. There are still some new games being featured.  I am looking forward to seeing some Doctor Who material, if there is any, I don't remember. don't spoil me. Dragon only ever had 2 articles on it if I recall.  More Pendragon is always nice.  I always put Pendragon into that category of "Way Serious RPGs".  I hope it gets covered more in the next 20 some odd issues.

John William Waterhouse

I have mentioned here before that I am a huge fan of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood style of painting. I am also a fan of their poetry and philiosophy, but that might be another post.  It is one of the few artistic styles where I see it overlapping most of my gaming interests (fantasy, horror, Victorian).  In particular I am a fan of John Collier (whose Lilith is still one of my favorites), Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and his sister Christina Rossetti (author of the poem "The Goblin Market"), though she was not part of their "Brotherhood".

Though my favorite is John William Waterhouse.  He rose to prominence a few decades after the Pre-Raphaelites but his style was considered to be part of their tradition and he is often called the Modern Pre-Raphaelite.

I seen his work many, many times before.  I think it had to be the cover of Rosemary Ellen Guiley's 1999 "The Encyclopedia of Witches & Witchcraft" that made me want to seek out who this artist was.  From that point on I knew I wanted to have his art on the cover of one of my books.

The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft, Second Edition

The original painting done in in 1886, oil on canvas, was purchased for £650. It is on display at Tate Britain galleries.  Called "The Magic Circle" it features an unnamed witch (thought to be Morgan Le Fey) creating what is commonly believed to be a summoning circle or a protection circle. There are a multitude of diverse pagan elements in this painting reflecting the magical beliefs of many different cultures that it is not hard to see why it is embraced by those who like witches.  There are number of little things in the picture that I enjoy.  She is using her right hand to draw a counter-clockwise circle  for example.  This means this witch is up to nothing good.  Her brazier is more Mediterranean or even Middle Eastern than it is Anglo-Saxon, though her hair style and sickle are Anglo-Saxon style.  There is just a lot going on here.

Given my love of all things witch and witchy it was Waterhouse and the Pre-Raphaelites that I associate with my early gaming memories as much as Otus, Dee, Caldwell and Elmore.

The Witch: A sourcebook for Basic Edition fantasy games

Obviously I am not the only one.

Magic & Miracles

and

10 Witch Magic Items (PFRPG)

I feel like I am in pretty good company here.

Magical Theorems & Dyson’s Delves Sale

Dyson over at Dyson's Dodecahedron is running a sale on his two big products Magical Theorems & Dyson’s Delves.
http://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/magical-theorems-dysons-delves-discount/

I reviewed Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts last month so no is your chance to grab a copy.

2013 Ennies

The nominations for the 2013 Ennies awards are now up.
http://www.ennie-awards.com/blog/2013-ennie-awards-nominees/

Here are some random thoughts.

Best Adventure
Achtung! Cthulhu – Three Kings (Chronicle City/Modiphius Entertainment)
Deadlands Reloaded: The Last Sons (Pinnacle Entertainment)
Enemy Within (Fantasy Flight Games)
Pathfinder: Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition (Paizo Publishing)
The Zalozhniy Quartet (Pelgrane Press)

Outside of Rise of the Runeloards I don't have any of these.

Best Aid/Accessory
All We Have Forgotten—Music for Ashen Stars (Pelgrane Press)
Night’s Watch (Green Ronin)
The One Ring Loremaster’s Screen & Lake-town Sourcebook (Cubicle 7)
Protodimension Magazine Issue 13 (Kinstaff Media LLC)
The Unspeakable Oath (Arc Dream Publishing)

Nothing here either.

Best Art, Cover
Champions Complete (Hero Games)
Iron Kingdoms (Privateer Press)
The Magnificent Joop van Ooms (Lamentations of the Flame Princess)
NPC Codex (Paizo Publishing)
The Whole Hole Volume 01: Keister Island (Mutha Oith Creations)

The OSR is represented in Raggi's adventure-not-an-adventure in Joop van Ooms.

Best Art, Interior
Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster’s Forgotten Realms (Wizards of the Coast)
Night’s Black Agents (Pelgrane Press)
Night’s Watch (Green Ronin)
Shadows of Esteren Book 1 (Agate Editions)
The Whole Hole Volume 01: Keister Island (Mutha Oith Creations)

First of only 2 products from WotC this year.

Best Blog
Gnome Stew
The Illuminerdy
Nerd Trek
Triumph and Despair
The Rogue Warden

Gnome stew is doing quite well this year!

Best Cartography
Ancient Temple Interior (DramaScape)
Deep Blues: Nautilus (0One Games)
Drake Starship Map (Blackwyrm Games)
The Lands of Ice and Fire (Random House)
Sprawl Sites: High Society and Low Life (Catalyst Game Labs)

Best Electronic Book
Curse the Darkness (Growling Door Games, Inc.)
Deadlands Reloaded: The Last Sons (Pinnacle Entertainment)
The Deadly Seven (paNik productions)
Experimental Paradigm of Cinematic Horror (EPOCH) (Imaginary Empire)
Hobomancer (Hex Games)

Best Family Game
Doctor Who: Adventures in Time & Space—11th Doctor Edition (Cubicle 7)
Hero Kids—Fantasy RPG (Hero Forge Games)
Mermaid Adventures (Third Eye Games)
Project Ninja Panda Taco (Jennisodes)
Wandering Monsters High School (Bold Pueblo Games)

I have all of these, all are great..

Best Free Game
Mazes and Perils RPG (WG Productions)
Phantasm (2010) (End Transmission Games LLC)
Nights of the Crusades (Aetheric Dreams)
Silent Memories (Morning Skye Studio)
Throwigames Simple Roleplaying System (Throwigames)

M&P is up for the OSR.  The 3rd Ed is an improvement over the 1st ed.

Best Free Product
Battletech: A Time of War Quick-Start Rules/Shadowrun Quick-Start Rules (Catalyst Game Labs)
EPOCH: Road Trip (Imaginary Empire)
Fools Rush In (Privateer Press)
Night in the Seyvoth Manor (Darklight Interactive)
Wayfinder #8 (Paizo Fans United)

The Shadowrun Quick start is my favorite of this list.

Best Game
Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea (North Wind Adventures, LLC)
Broken Rooms (Greymalkin Designs, LLC)
Champions Complete (Hero Games)
Iron Kingdoms (Privateer Press)
Night’s Black Agents (Pelgrane Press)

Best Miniature
Dungeon Command: Blood of Gruumsh (Wizards of the Coast)
Freeblades: Black Rose Bandits (DGS Games)
Pathfinder Battles: Shattered Star Gargantuan Blue Dragon (WizKid Games/NECA)
Pathfinder Bestiary Box (Paizo Publishing)
Spot of Bother Set One: Royal Highland Guards (Okumart Games)

I rather enjoyed both the Dungeon Command game (played at Gen Con) and the Pathfinder Bestiary Box.

Best Monster/Adversary
Champions Villains Vol. 3: Solo Villains (Hero Games)
DC Adventures Heroes & Villains Vol. 2 (Green Ronin)
Inner Sea Bestiary (Paizo Publishing)
Mutants and Masterminds Threat Report (Green Ronin)
NPC Codex (Paizo Publishing)

All of these are good.

Best Podcast
Atomic Array
Indie Talks
Haste: The Official Obsidian Portal Podcast
TableTop: Dragon Age
Transmissions from the Ninth World

I am only familiar with Atomic Array.

Best Production Values
Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea (North Wind Adventures, LLC)
Doctor Who: Adventures in Time & Space—11th Doctor Edition (Cubicle 7)
Iron Kingdoms (Privateer Press)
Rimward (Posthuman Studios)
Shadows of Esteren Book 1 (Agate Editions)

AS&SH another OSR book. And a great looking one at that.  Doctor Who though is just fantastic.

Best RPG Related Product
Edition Wars (Gamer Nations Studios)
Eighth Day Genesis: A Worldbuilding Codex for Writers and Creatives (Alliteration Ink)
The Express Diaries (Innsmouth House Press)
Kobold Guide to Wordbuilding (Kobold Press)
The Lands of Ice and Fire (Random House)

Best Rules
Champions Complete (Hero Games)
Dungeon World (Sage Kobold Productions)
Experimental Paradigm of Cinematic Horror (EPOCH) (Imaginary Empire)
Iron Kingdoms (Privateer Press)
Night’s Black Agents (Pelgrane Press)

Another set of good choices.  I didn't play any of these though.

Best Setting
Broken Rooms (Greymalkin Designs, LLC)
Magnimar: City of Monuments (Paizo Publishing)
Menzoberranzen: City of Intrigue (Wizards of the Coast)
Midgard Campaign Setting (Kobold Press)
Mythic Iceland (BRP/Chaosium)

Make that 3 noms for WotC.  The Mythic Iceland book is fantastic.

Best Software
The Crawler’s Companion (Purple Sorcerer Games)
Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia (E-book Edition) (Arc Dream Publishing)
Dice & Dragons – 3D Dice Roller (simpleFun)
PCGen (PCGen)
Roll20 (The Orr Group, LLC)

I didn't use any CharacterGEn or gaming software all year.

Best Supplement
Dark Roads & Golden Hells (Kobold Press)
Doctor Who: The Time Traveler’s Companion (Cubicle 7)
Night’s Watch (Green Ronin)
Menzoberranzen: City of Intrigue (Wizards of the Coast)
Shadowrun 2050 (Catalyst Game Labs)

The Time Traveler's companion is very good.

Best Website
Adventure-A-Week
The Escapist
Gnome Stew
Modus Operandi
See Page XX

Not sure what separates something from being the Best Blog or Best Website (other than the obvious) but Gnome Stew made both lists.

Best Writing
Doctor Who: The Time Traveler’s Companion (Cubicle 7)
Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding (Kobold Press)
Never Unprepared: Guide to Session Prep (Engine Publishing)
Night’s Black Agents (Pelgrane Press)
Wolsung Steam Pulp Fantasy (Kuźnia Gier/Studio 2 Publishing)

Product of the Year
Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea (North Wind Adventures, LLC)
Broken Rooms (Greymalkin Designs, LLC)
Champions Complete (Hero Games)
Doctor Who: The Time Traveler’s Companion (Cubicle 7)
Experimental Paradigm of Cinematic Horror (EPOCH) (Imaginary Empire)
Iron Kingdoms (Privateer Press)
Menzoberranzen: City of Intrigue (Wizards of the Coast)
Night’s Black Agents (Pelgrane Press)
NPC Codex (Paizo Publishing)
Shadows of Esteren Book 1 (Agate Editions)

This one is always a hard call.  Nice to see AS&SH there.

Judges’ Spotlight Winners
Hooper - Leviathans (Catalyst Game Labs)
Matthew Muth - School Daze (Sand & Steam Productions)
Jakud Nowosad – Deniable Asset (Random Encounters)
Megan Robertson - Killshot: Director’s Cut (Broken Ruler Games)
Kurt Wiegel – Eldritch Skies (Battlefield Press, Inc.)

Nice to see Eldritch Skies get a nod.  I read through the drafts of it for Cine Unisystem content.

Looking to Buy, Sell or Trade RPGs or Minis?

Well then there is a new Facebook group for you.  And by new, I mean just a few hours old.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/roleplayinggamestradesell/

Created by Keegan Reid the group's aim is to connect gamers to trade, sell & barter RPGs and Minis.  Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin.

Join the group to see what is going on.

I love June

Doing some late end of the month analysis out at the pool and noticed that June was my best month of sales since October.

That is really awesome.

I am working on a few more books and hope to get them out to you all soon.  Not just OSR, but Gaslight, Pathfinder and more.

I have also had a couple requests for for a hardcover version of the Witch.  Any more takers on that?

Zatannurday: 1887 Cover from SCCC 2013

Here is the finished version of Michael Dooney's Zatanna 1887.





Zatanna1887 cover SDCC 2013 by *MichaelDooney on deviantART


He has a bunch of 1887 super heroines on his Deviant Art page as well.

ShadowRun and the Deep Web / Undernet

I was talking to my wife last night about ShadowRun in hopes I would have a review ready for you all today.

That didn't happen.

Instead she distracted me with something she had found out about the Deep Web.

I still want to get a ShadowRun 5 review up soon.  It is pretty cool.

Darwin's Guidebook of creatures, Mythical and Mundane for the Gaslight RPG

So I have been quietly working on this:

Art by Nolan Segrest

Darwin's Guidebook of creatures, Mythical and Mundane for the Gaslight RPG.

It is the first Victorian age monster book I have ever done.

The Gaslight RPG is a late Victorian Age Setting for d20 and Savage Worlds from Battlefield Press.
The Second Edition game will be out soon. along with another book I co-wrote, Dr. Challenger's Guide to the Unknown.  I did a whole bit on the Hollow Earth which was wicked fun.

Darwin's Guide was fun, but a lot harder than expected.
The design goal was easy enough.  Write a monster book with some common monsters, do it for the Victorian age, but write it in the style of Charles Darwin.

Since I am a fan of Darwin I went back to his most popular works, "The Voyage of the Beagle", "On the Origins of Species" and "The Descent of Man".  I also read his autobiography and a couple biographies.
Darwin was an interesting man and soon it became obvious there is no way he would have accepted a world that had magic in it.  He was too rational, too ordered.
Soooo I had to cheat. A lot.

In the end I hope the book is pleasing for Game Masters and players.  I hope that through this book you pick up one of his books.

Not sure when this will hit the shelves.  The publisher is in control of it now.
But expect a lot more from me on it when it comes up.

White Dwarf Wednesday #71

White Dwarf 71 takes us to November of 1985. The cover art is another one by Alan Craddock. I would say it is a cavalier and a barbarian in honor of the newly released Unearthed Arcana, but I have nothing to back that up.
Ian Livingstone is still at the helm here talking about Game Day and looking forward to more success with Judge Dredd.

Of the bat we go into Open box with two books from the Way of the Tiger. These books seem something in between an RPG and a choose your own adventure sort of book.  Chris Elliott gives it 8/10 but I can't exactly figure out way in reading his article. He says it is fun, but something like AD&D with Ninjas and Kung-fu.  We get a new Paranoia book, Vapors Don't Shoot Back (7/10), a review of the almost legendary Masks of Nyarlathotep (9/10) and Thrilling Locations for the James Bond game (9/10).  Interestingly enough this is the first Open box in a long while that does not have any D&D related material.

The Face of Chaos is another look at alignment in AD&D.  Frankly even then I was tired of alignment discussions. Still am.

RuneRites gives us a couple of water-based creatures; the Frostgrim and Neried.

Cults of the dark Gods is the start of what promises to be a new feature on a "translation of ancient texts" for Call of Cthulhu.  This one deals with the original order of assassins and the Knights Templar.  I have often said you can't have a proper conspiracy theory unless it somehow involves the Knights Templar.

An ad for the D&D Masters game.

A Box of Old Bones is an AD&D/Dragon Warriors adventure for starting characters. Five pages with map, it looks like it could be a good starter adventure or better yet a good starter adventure for someone familiar with one of the games and learning the other.

Starbase covers Avionics failures.  Honestly I thought something like this was already in rules.  Of course the biggest issue is not that, but the assumption that you could have complete failure like this with out backup systems.  Plus today we would call these Sensors and not Avionics (which are in aircraft).

Two pages of Letters this issue.  I think this was around the same time Dragon had less letters.

Tower Trouble is an adventure for 3-6 Traveller characters. It is also quite long at 6 pages.

Monsters Have Feelings Too, Two is a follow up to the article in WD38 about playing monsters as intelligent opponents and not as walking collections of XP.

Fiend Factory is back, but it only has one D&D monster, a Psychic Vampire, and a weak one at that.

Treasure chest has treasure this time, with two magic items for divination and prophesy. A card and "tellstones".  Interesting ideas that I don't think work as well on the game table as they do on paper.

Gobildegook is still a full page. The newsboard/rumor page talks about an update finally to T1.

We end with ads including full page, full color ads for Unearthed Arcana, Marvel Super Heroes and Talisman.

This issue feels bigger than the last one, though I am not sure and don't want to grab #70 to find out.  It feels larger and that is what matters when buying it at the store. Speaking of which I am pretty sure that this was the time that all my local, and not so local, book stores stopped carrying White Dwarf.  It would not be till I got to college in 87 before I would find back issues of WD on the shelves next to back issues of Heavy Metal.

A solid issue with a lot of material, just nothing that jumped out at me.  Of course my apathy was also pretty high at this time and I was strictly AD&D and nothing else from late 85 to 87.  The great thing is that this is really my first time going through these issues in depth since I got them, so really everything is new to me.

Pacific Rim True20

Ok I am totally getting geeked out over Pacific Rim.  I have loved giant monster movies since I was a little kid.  And unlike some movies, the more I hear about this one the more excited I am to see it.  So are my kids.  Let's be honest that scene in the trailer where the Jaeger beats the Kaiju over the head with a boat? Damn.

This got me thinking about the True20 campaign setting Mecha vs. Kaiju.

It's pretty much Pacific Rim, only done 5 years ago (5 years? holy crap).

Giant mechs aka Jaegers and the pilots vs. Kaiju in True20s simple system.
Anyone that has been a longtime reader here knows of my love of True20.  I would love to see True20 make a comeback, but I am not holding my breath on that one.

On the other hand there is nothing in MvK that could not be adapted for Mutants & Masterminds easily.

I might have to give it a go after this weekend.

Gygax Magazine?

Gygaz Magazine was released to much pomp and circumstance this past winter.  The idea was to capture the feeling and joy of the Dragon magazines of old and it did this. For one issue.

I was/am a yearly subscriber but yet I have no idea really when Issue #2 will arrive.  This is despite the communications on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

The main trouble here is trying to release a new print magazine in this day and age.  Most print magazines are failing and some, like Newsweek and Dragon, have gone over to all digital format.

Gamers can be be obstinate to the point of pig-headedness (and old school gamers even more so) when it comes to print, but sometimes economic reality is, well, reality.

It's not as if the content of the magazine doesn't have value, sales of the print and pdf versions can attest to that.  Is the value worth more than the cost to print, sell and ship.  One issue I have heard coming up is the rise of shipping costs which I am sure is the killer for most magazines.

I hope things get worked out for Gygax.  I'd like to see it succeed.

Deviant Art: Raven

Been a busy weekend this weekend.  The neighbor's apple tree fell in our yard so I have been out with the chainsaw and cleaning up wood.  So here are some pictures of Raven, my other favorite DC magic girl.



Raven from Titans by ~MLauNeim on deviantART


Raven by ~KidNotorious on deviantART


Raven by ~CeruleanRaven on deviantART


Raven Inks by *Jon-Moss on deviantART


Raven Rising by =JamieFayX on deviantART


Not creepy, just different. by *oO-Fotisha-Oo on deviantART

Have a great Sunday!

Zatannurday: Cosplay

In celebration of San Diego Comic Con here are some great Zatanna Cosplay.





:DC: Fishnet Heroines by *AlouetteCosplay on deviantART


Zatanna Zatara Preview by *MagicYuu on deviantART


Ecerapa Namrepus by *MagicYuu on deviantART


Zatanna Appears! by *MagicYuu on deviantART


Zatanna by ~kelldarian on deviantART


Zatanna by ~spazz75 on deviantART


Magic Show 7 by ~NyghtwyndX on deviantART

And a special one from SDCC by Michael Dooney.


Zatanna cover SDCC 2013 by *MichaelDooney on deviantART

Happy Fourth of July

Here is reminder from Captain America on what we stand for.

I wasn't the biggest Cap fan, but I love this panel.  Especially since he is giving this advice to a doubting Peter Parker.  That's your Paladin class right there.

Happy Fourth everyone.

Bloglovin post

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

just a post to set up Bloglovin.

Moving Day Finds

At my day job we are all moving up a floor in my department.  No I am not getting a bigger office, but I am also not getting a smaller one.  But I did find a notebook of things I had started working on during Gen Con 2010 and then when I was at the repair shop after we got hit.

Not sure what is in it, I saw some 4e material, what looks like some notes on The Witch, and some Savage Worlds stuff.  Looking forward to seeing what I have.

ETA: Seems to have some Cortex and Pathfinder stuff as well.

White Dwarf Wednesday #70

White Dwarf for October 1985 feels like it should be ushering in a new era in WD.  It doesn't, at least not yet, but there is change coming.  We begin with a cool cover of a barbarian of some sort fighting an undead wizard or lich and his demonic concubine/familiar/slave in front of a golden idol.  Pretty cool.  The cover is by Brian Williams.

Our editorial is interesting since it covers the demise of Imagine.  I picked up the first dozen or so issues of Imagine myself and wanted to do a retrospective of them as well.  When James over at Grognardia was doing his I was hoping that the months we reviewed would have been close together to get a good idea of what was going on in 1983-1985 gaming wise, at least from a perspective outside my own local one and my own remembrances. But like Imagine, the retrospectives stopped short of their full potential.  Pity really.  Maybe I will pick up Imagine someday.   Ian waxes nostalgic as well.

White Dwarf had been over the last few issues moving into newer games, mostly Golden Heroes.  This issue though is a pretty firm "D&D" one.  We begin with Graemme Davis discussing literacy and languages in AD&D.  The rules he suggests are more complicated than what most of us would want to use today, but I can totally see people using this.

The Coven is a group of super villains for Golden Heroes and the focus of Heroes & Villains this issue.  The members are listed, but only one is detailed.  They are a bit (ok a lot) cliched, but for comic book/supers villains they are not so bad.  There are five members and each one takes on the name of some other mytho-historic figure (Morgan, Salome, Cain, Moloch and Maximilian).  With some tweaks they could be fun.

Crawling Chaos has a great article on converting 1920s Call of Cthulhu prices from American dollars to British Pounds, Shillings and Pence (Britain was not on a decimal money system till 1971).  This article seems quaint to us now, not just because we have Cthulhu by Gaslight, but also because such things are easy to find on the net now.  Heck even in the 10 years since I wrote Ghosts of Albion this stuff is easier to find (unless of course you happen to have the rates of inflation between 1837 and 1845 memorized).

Open Box does D&D this month.  The X modules are reviewed, X6, X7 and X8 as well as the AD&D DL5 module. Graham Staplehurst reviews all four giving them 8/10, 8/10, 8/10 and 6/10 respectively.  Megan Robertson, who still reviews today for DriveThruRPG reviewed The Lost Shrine of Kasar-Khan. It is an adventure for any FRPG (coughh*D&D*cough) and gets 8/10.  The AD&D Battle System for large battles is reviewed by Graeme Davis. He says it is a good system but maybe over priced.

We get a Golden Heroes and Champions adventure next, Reunion by Simon Burley.  I was never sure why Golden Heroes was given precedence over Champions.  Must have been a local thing.

Diane and Richard John discuss Bounty Hunters as a career in Traveller.  Pretty much every character I ever conceived of in Traveller was some sort of bounty hunter.

In Too Deep has nothing to do with the Phil Collins song out at the same time but an underwater AD&D adventure for 3-6 characters. The adventure is quite detailed and I am struck by how I could work this into the whole Saltmarsh series with some tweaks.
Following up on this is Part 3 of Beneath the Waves.  This issue covers Creatures of the Depths.

Treasure Chest pretends to be Fiend Folio this issue and gives us some monstrous NPCs, a lizard man, a stone giant and an intellect devourer.

Tabletop Heroes covers customizing minis.  My favorite is the saxaphone playing T-Rex.

Gobbledigook is now a full page. The last few pages are all ads.

All in all I like this issue and I hope it is signals some positive changes in the future of WD.  Looking ahead I think I will be pleased, but I know the changes are coming.

D&D Rules Cyclopedia is up on DNDClassics

The PDF of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia is now up on DNDClassics.com, DriveThruRPG and RPGNow.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/17171/D%26D-Rules-Cyclopedia-%28Basic%29?affiliate_id=10748

Hailed as the best "1 book" D&D ever it is the evolution of the BECM (no I in this one) game.

If you don't own this one now is your chance.

Everything you need to play D&D from young farm-boy or girl to Master of all you survey and plenty of challenges in between.  Maps of the world of Mystara are a nice touch too.

This is the one edition of D&D I wish I had played more.

July? That can't be right?

Today is July 1st.

Wait-What??  That can't possibly be right.

Work is kicking my ass at the moment (I just picked up a new school to re-design their entire curriculum) so I have not had the time for fun things since most nights have me working till about 11:00pm.

So the time I do have to work on things, around 6:00am after my morning run, I am usually too brain dead to come up with anything. In fact I have pretty much been staring at this screen (of and on) for the last 4 hours.

So....
Let's see.

Google Reader is dead, or soon will be.
I could get some reviews up while re-charging my creative batteries. I have been itching to review Monsterhearts and Otherverse America.

I have been thinking about picking up one of those Chromebooks to just use for game writing.  Though I love my MS Word and have been a user of it since Edition 1.1.  Google Docs, while nice, is just not the same.  Anyone use one of these?

Zatannurday: Northern Belle Cosplay

This week I found Northern Belle Cosplay on Facebook.
She is more famous for her various interpretations of Marvel's Rogue, but she does other cosplays as well.  Including a kick ass Zatanna.

Here are some of my faves.

Photography by Clint Adam Smyth

I think that this one is my favorite.

Photography by Clint Adam Smyth

Photography by Scott McCutcheon, Norm Cheung 

Photography: Robert Brown, Norm Cheung P.C.

You can also find her at http://www.kristaroguebenjamin.com/

Stop by her Facebook page.  She will have some prints up soon.

Why Plagiarism is a problem

So I wasn't going to go on (and on) about this, but I had a number things happen this morning that made me rethink it.  For starters I read this posting in my feed today about how plagiarism is a huge issue in the novel writing business.
http://authortammydenningsmaggy.com/2013/06/28/authors-stealing-from-authors-who-can-you-trust/

Then there was an unrelated Facebook posting about reporting plagiarism and piracy when you see it (I am not at liberty to link that though).

And this one has been sitting in my drafts now for a bit.
http://www.themidnightgarden.net/2013/01/plagiarism-in-ya-community-my-own.html

Then to top it all off I got a renewal notice today at work that my subscription to Turnitin was updated.

One thing we should do though is talk about what plagiarism is and what it means to the gaming community.
Look, there is no why to gloss this over, plagiarism is theft. It is the theft of ideas, or expressions or words and it still theft even if you can't touch it or feel it. It is intellectually dishonest and frankly arrogant.  
Turnitin actually has a nice infographic on the various types of plagiarism and how prominent they are in academics (the data they have).   http://www.turnitin.com/assets/en_us/media/plagiarism_spectrum.php.

The types of abuse we see most often are of the CTRL-C and Mashup variety (and I can think of a few cases of the 404 Error type).

We have had our share in the RPG world of late. So for the Tracey Alley types she used something and then tried to pass it off as her own.  If you are smart you there two things going on here. There is the willful use of someone else's ideas AND the arrogant presumption that it was ok to do so because no one was watching.   Somewhere below that is the Mykal Lakim types that try to pass of someone else's work as their own and then stubbornly and arrogantly defends their rights to do so. Where you might argue that in the first case she "forgot" (which I don't buy) where the map and names came from, in the second there is art and text lifted right out of other peoples work.  The Jim Shipmans of the world might be the worse, taking the material from multitudes of others and passing it off not only as his own, but selling it as his own against the repeated requests of the IP owners.

Now bringing these to light is never a good thing really. It causes animosity and even ends up putting money in the pockets of the people selling stolen goods.  Hell I have to admit I have wanted to shell out the bucks for a copy of Lakim's Vampire book just to see how bad it really is.  But I am loathe to give him any money.

The accusations of being an "internet bully" also come up.  To that I say, what else do we have? Getting the word out is the only recourse a fan has. If the above linked authors (and more I know personally) are to be believed they are very appreciative of the negative attention thrown on the thief.   Plus I have purchased books from authors and game designers because their material had been stolen as a show of support.  I have this blog and a little bit of cash to throw at the problem.

But people around here will say, but what about the OSR? Haven't they based their entire existence on plagiarism of one level or another? Well I do believe in Intellectual Property (and Intellectual Capital) but I also believe in community.  The OSR as a whole is a community using a set rules release specifically for the purposes of sharing and publishing your own materials based on it. This isn't a contradiction. Now I do feel that some products out there are a little too close to the source material. I also feel we simply do not need another retroclone to play the exact same game we have been playing for years.  But I also know market realities.  I could have released my Witch book for example using a proprietary game system and my sales would have been about 5% of what they were.  The OGL does the heavy lifting it also brings in an audience.

Sometimes I feel this is often more Quixotic than some of my other crusades or activism. And I am atheist that grew up in the bible belt, so you would think I'd know a hopeless cause when I see one.

I don't know. What are your thoughts?
Do I have a point or should I just go back to my windmills?

Review: Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts

Finally picked up Dyson's Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts.

Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts (MT&DP) is an Old-school reference for all things Magic-user.
The book is designed with what I call "Basic Era" in mind, so the rules from right around 1979-1981 where "elf" is a class, not just a race. Overtly it is designed for Labyrinth Lord.  That being said it is still compatible in spirit to 99% of all the OSR and books from that time.

The book itself is 6"x9", black and white interior and 161 pages.  So for a "Class" book there is a lot here.  There are 5 Chapters covering Classes, Spells, Magic Items, Monsters and a section on using this book with the "Advanced Era" books (and their clones), along with an Introduction and OGL page.

The introduction covers the basics.  What this books, what it is for and it's very, very open OGL declaration.

Chapter 1 is the heart of this book really.  It details 13 Magic using classes. The two two core classes, Cleric and Magic-User (Wizard) and 11 new classes.
From the product page:

• Cleric (warrior-priests)
• Wizard (classic magic-users with 10 levels of spells)
• Elven Swordmage (elves from the core rules – arcane warriors)
• Elven Warder (wilderness elves, guardians of their kin)
• Enchanter (artists, con-men, and masters of… duh… enchantments)
• Fleshcrafter (twisted magic-users that work with flesh)
• Healer (compassionate and tough hearth-healers)
• Inquisitor (ecclesiastic investigators and master intimidators)
• Merchant Prince (elite merchants with spellcasting support)
• Necromancer (you know exactly what these guys do)
• Pact-Bound (magic-users who sell their souls for power)
• Theurge (divine casters who learn from liturgical texts)
• Unseen (thieves with an innate knack for magic)

Clerics are as you know them, but Magic-Users are now Wizards (since everyone here is a magic user) and they get 10 levels of spells.  The "Elven" classes replace the "Elf" class in the book.  The others are as they are described, but there is more (much more) to them than re-skinned Magic-Users (not that there is anything wrong with wrong that).  The classes are re-cast with many new spells, some powers (but nothing out of whack with Basic Era) and often different hit-dice and altered saving throws.
Nearly a third of the book is made up in these new classes.

Chapter 2 covers all the spells.  Spells are listed alphabetically with class and level for each spell noted (like newer 3.x Era products).   There are a lot of spells here too.  Many have been seen in other products, but some are new. In any case they are a welcome addition.
This section makes up slight more than a third of the book.

The last three chapters take up the last third or so of the book.
Chapter 3 covers Magic items. There are 28 new magic items with these spellcasters in mind.
Chapter 4 covers some magical creatures.  These are monsters listed in many of the new spells for summoning.  There are not a lot, but needed.
Chapter 5 is the Advanced Edition conversion materials. It covers HD changes, racial limits and multi-class options.

So what are my thoughts.  Well you get a lot of material in 160+ pages to be honest.  At 10 bucks it is a good price.  For me it is worth it for the classes.  Sure we have seen variations of these over the years, but it is here all in one place and they all work well together.  The spells are good.  At first I balked at 10th level spells, but really they are for the most part other people's 9th level spells, so they work for me.

The magic items are nice, but for me the value is in the classes and the spells.

Who should buy this?  If you play old-school games and enjoy playing different sorts of Magic-Users then this is a must have book.  If you are looking to expand your class offerings or even add a few new spells then  this is also a good choice. Personally I think it is a great book and I am glad I picked it up.

Does it Play Nice with The Witch?
Honestly I debated doing this section since it is tacky really to use a review to pimp your own product.  But in this case I decided to do it for the simple reason that people who liked my book will find things to like in this book as well.  MT&DP works great with the Witch.  The obvious and easy cross-over are the spells.  Spells from one book can be used EASILY with the other.   So easy I would consider even putting up a list of the Witch book spells with the spell levels of the various classes.
There is some of that now for the Wizard and the Cleric, but the rest of the classes too.  In terms of classes the Pact Bound is closest in theme to the witch, so what is true for one is true for the other.
In fact you could take the Pact Bound and turn it into a Witch Tradition, say the Pact Bound Tradition.   The Pact Bound's "Twisted Gift" becomes the The Witch's "Occult Power".

I like that Dyson did more or less the same thing with the Wizard that I did in my book.  No surprises at all, it seems like the logical progression.

So I will say this. If you liked and use my book in your games, then this is a great book to have.  There is a enough overlap to make them complementary but not so much that you think you are buying the same materials twice.

Of course if you are reading this because you own MT&DP and don't yet have the Witch, then it would be a 5 bucks well spent!

White Dwarf Wed...ah damn!

I forgot today is Wednesday.  I have been rushing around all day thinking it was Thursday.
My next term starts on Monday and I still have three more tests to write.

Maybe later tonight.

Cheeses from Around the World

Over at Rather Gamey Ark has collected a list of over 300 art, rpg, old-school and geekery blogs.

http://rathergamey.blogspot.com/2013/06/breathing-blogs.html

Stop by and see his impressive list!

Magic for Savage Worlds

Hey all!

What do you  all say is the best magic supplement, or supplement that features as lot of magic, for Savage Worlds?

I am doing some research and not quite sure where to start yet.

Review: Crypts & Things

Crypts & Things is one of those games that has been sitting in my "to be read" pile forever.  It is an Old School game built off of Swords & Wizardry.  Some of the material is familiar to anyone that has played S&W or any of the various D&D/Retro-clone games.  Where C&T differs is in scope (what the characters can eventually do vs what the creatures can already do) and tone.  C&T is very much "Conan vs. The Horrors".  It tries to go after the same ethos as say Dungeon Crawl Classics or Lamentations of the Flame Princess.  I think though it succeeds where those two games fail with me because it still assumes that the characters, rough cut as they are, are still something of a hero.

The game begins with the same basic info on Abilities found in all old-school games.  We get to classes.  Here there are some changes.  The Barbarian is a core class for example.  The Magic-User and Cleric are now rolled into a Magician, which is not a bad change really.  They are stronger than their OSR counterparts (d6 HD vs the more common d4).  The Magician also can channel White, Grey or black magic; so effectively 3 classes. The other classes are Fighter and Thief.  If you don't like Clerics (as a seperate class), well this is your game.

Hit points are also handled differently in C&T. It is less health and more a measure of health, will, and determination to live. Honestly it is the same as a house rule I used to use back in the day.

There is a completely old-school Random Life Events table (which, like most everything in this book, can be used with other games).There are a few pages on equipment, on styles of play and about 20 pages of spells.
Additionally there is a minimalist Sanity mechanic that I thinks works rather well.  I am a huge critic of sanity mechanics in RPGs and I feel that most never get it right, especially in a heroics-based rpg.  While there is a lot of room for interpretation in these rules, the gist of the rules are good.  I can certainly say I don't hate this mechanic.

The rest of the book (about 3/5 ths) is devoted to the game master or Crypt Keeper. This includes a little bit about the assumed game world, a pastiche of Howard, Lovecraft, Smith, Moorcock and other Appendix N luminaries.  Normally I scoff at this, but here it works rather well.  More to point it can also be ignored or added as needed since it doesn't take up a lot of space.
Next we have Treasure. Like many games of this sort there is not a lot of magic items.  Indeed there are only 20 total; designed to be rare and special.
After that is the monster listings.  This is what really sets this game above and beyond it's peers.  There are plenty of monsters here both new and old.  There is also a monster creation section.
We end the main book with a sample adventure.
13 Appendices follow that would work for any game and finally a great looking character sheet.

What is Crypts & Things good for?
It is a great addition to any S&W game for starters.  Get it for the monsters alone, or the revised Magician or Barbarian.  There is something here new for you.
It is a great addition to any OSR game for a grittier, "us against the darkness" sort of game.
In terms of horror, it is the subtle creeping horror.  It is somewhere between Ravenloft (minus the camp and cliches) and Call of Cthulhu.  Though unlike those games which has the implication of "looking for trouble" in C&T trouble comes for you.

Honestly almost everything you need to know about C&T is on that cover.  A magician and barbarian fighting snake-like lizard men.

Imitation is the most sincerest form of flattery but ...

Not when you are imitating me on Wikipedia.
But it is funny.

So I was looking up some Scooby Doo episodes (I have kids, I am allowed) and I discovered that much of the "information" on the Hex Girls actually came from my blog here.

 I'd go in and change it, but frankly I am too busy and find I don't honestly care.   In truth I find it a bit amusing and I am kind of curious to see if anyone else catches it.

Thorn is as confused as I am.

Yeah, yeah I am obsessed with a band that doesn't exist and are secondary characters in a cartoon.

Well at least these guys get me. ;)

Monday Monday

So nothing really to post or chat about today.

The day job is kicking my butt this week.  Our next Summer term starts next week so I am busy getting ready all this week.

In game news I am re-reading "The Silmarillion" for the first time since high school.  I am loving it and enjoying it on a completely different level than I did 30 years ago.  It's just fantastic really.  I had just finished reading "The Children of Húrin" and loved it.

I should have some game reviews up sometime.

Something interesting.
Tenkar has a post about advertising and marketing the OSR.   Go over there read his post, watch the video.
http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2013/06/marketing-your-rpg-panel-on-air-with.html

Me. I am happy with beer money (I make enough at my day job to pay bills and get the things I want).  Or rather, I use the money I make to buy more games or material for new game books.  It's a crazy little eco-system that I am happy with.

Maybe something will motivate me later today.

Zatannurday: Theater Posters

With maybe the exception of Clark Kent, we see Zatanna at her job or around it as much as her superheroics.

So it is no surprise then there is a lot of art associated with her "day job" (which is actually more at night).

I'd love to have one of these as a print for my game room.

Spellcraft & Swordplay Summer Sale!

Elf Lair Games (who also publish The Witch) are holding a summer sale.  You can get their core rules product Spellcraft & Swordplay for half price and PDF thrown in!

Spellcraft & Swordplay Core rules

Spellcraft & Swordplay is a "what if" game. It uses the original combat resolution from 0e and the best of the OGL to create a new game with an old school feel.  It is one my favorite old-school games to be honest.  I own a hard copy and the limited edition boxed set.  All you need is this book, some friends and a couple of d6s for everyone.

If you have been curious about this game then this is the time to get it.

TBBYANR: Old School Plus

I enjoy Old-School gaming blogs for a couple of reasons. First is most of them like going over the roots of the hobby, talking about how things were not just out of the dreaded "N-Word" (Nostalgia) but more of an academic foray into games and the applications of those games.  Sure the the is a bad signal to noise ratio at times with many blogs covering the exact same ground in the exact same way (and this blog is no exception to that) I am still entertained.   Also the authors tend to be from the same gene-pool as me; metaphorically speaking.  Not that I always want to listen to a bunch of middle aged white guys, but their interests are the same as mine; so if it veers "off-topic" into family, jobs, kids what have you, I don't mind.  In fact most times I am nodding in agreement.

A couple of these Old-School+ blogs are the subject of todays The Best Blog You are Not Reading.

Billy Goes to Mordor
http://billygoes.blogspot.com/

Billy Goes to Mordor has to win some sort of prize for the blog name that always makes me smile.  Plus any blog that can put up a still from Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal and not get all maudlin about it is doing something right.  Around since 2011 and hitting half a dozen or so posts a month you can read through all his posts in a dedicated afternoon.  There are thoughts on D&D, Horror and playing Pirates.  Though I think his notes on Game Design are the most interesting.  Insight on how another guy does his game.
A lot of thought goes into each post and really I think he is just a few dedicated followers (and regular commenters) away from really growing as a blog.  Or maybe it is fine the way it is, but I bet some more followers would be appreciated all the same.

The Disoriented Ranger
http://the-disoriented-ranger.blogspot.com/

Another Old-School blog around since 2011.  This is a solidly OSR blog with links to free resources and notes on his RC based game.  There are a lot of world building articles with his recent ones exploring "Karik Thel - The Island of the Floating Trees" which could easily be used anywhere so very much worth the read.
What got me into his blog was the day we both posted the same Racial Class within minutes of each other, Feline Humanoids vs. Cat Girls (I think it is easy to tell on name alone which is mine).  In truth combining the two would make for a great class!
Like Billy, JD also posts more than just gaming material.

I would encourage you to check both blogs out.

Do you Remember This?

Do you remember this ad?

Pretty much sums up popular culture's romance with S&S.

So how many of you cut that ad out of Playboy er Popular Science and taped it to a folder?
Better yet, who among you based a character on her.

ETA my contribution:

Made around 85 or 86.