It is a sad day here at The Other Side.
My hard drive died a couple weeks ago. Normally this is a cause for panic, but I didn't because having been doing this for a while I thought I had everything backed up. Well. I didn't.
I didn't lose any of my PDFs save for maybe the most recent ones I bought since May, but I can always go back to DriveThruRPG and re-download those. My current OSR/Old-School books were in the hands of editors, so they were saved.
I did though loose all my documents for my Ghosts of Albion adventures Blight, Obsession, Wilderness and Synchronicity. I have printout of Blight and Obsession, so that isn't too bad. And I lost all my personal emails from 2011-2012.
Figuring it was the circuit board (given the errors I was getting) I worked with a company that specialized in this brand of hard drive (Seagate Barracuda) called PCB Solution.
I worked with Kevin to find a new board for this drive and in truth my hopes were high, even if he felt (and he did tell all this upfront) that my drive might be further gone that I thought it was. Undaunted I picked up their repair kit and got it in a couple of days. It easy easy to do as long as you have no fear of cranking open your computer or drives. I got it in installed and slapped it into a new external drive enclosure and ... nothing.
I worked on a few other tricks I have picked over the years. Back in the day I ran the official usenet alt.sys.pc-clone.gatewat2000 FAQ, so I consider myself a bit smarter than the average bear in this respect. But if there is one thing I have learned, there is always someone smarter. And it will take someone smarter than me to fix this one.
Here is what I have learned (and should known already):
1. It doesn't matter how much you back up. Back up more.
2. Stop buying Seagate drives. Every single one has died on me and took much valued data with it.
So that is what I know.
I do want to publicly thank Kevin at PCB Solution. He really went above and beyond the call of duty to help me.
Friday, July 6, 2012
OSR Links and Call for Editors
Here are some links and news for all OSR fans out there.
First, I want to repeat that Jason Vey of Elf Lair Games has a poll up.
http://elflairgames.blogspot.com/2012/07/contemplating-kickstarter.html
Howling Tower, the blog of long time vet Steve Winter has both an article up at Kobold Quarterly, http://www.koboldquarterly.com/k/front-page13022.php and listing of some of the best free OSR products, http://www.howlingtower.com/p/old-school-renaissance-resources.html.
Also we need some editors to expand this Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_simulacrums
This article is about all the D&D clones, near clones and other such games we love in the OSR.
Please be sure to include any external and third-party refs.
First, I want to repeat that Jason Vey of Elf Lair Games has a poll up.
http://elflairgames.blogspot.com/2012/07/contemplating-kickstarter.html
Howling Tower, the blog of long time vet Steve Winter has both an article up at Kobold Quarterly, http://www.koboldquarterly.com/k/front-page13022.php and listing of some of the best free OSR products, http://www.howlingtower.com/p/old-school-renaissance-resources.html.
Also we need some editors to expand this Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_simulacrums
This article is about all the D&D clones, near clones and other such games we love in the OSR.
Please be sure to include any external and third-party refs.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
EN World Game Day
Please don't forget that if you are in the Chicago area come by and play Ghosts of Albion with the author (that would be me)!
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/325572-chicago-gameday-32-july-14th-sign-up-play.html
Saturday July 14, 2012.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/325572-chicago-gameday-32-july-14th-sign-up-play.html
Saturday July 14, 2012.
New Kickstarters
My buddy Jason is looking to see how many people would be interested in a Kickstarter of his two games, 12 Parsecs and the Wasted Lands.
Stop by his blogs and let him know what you think.
http://wastedlandsfantasy.blogspot.com/2012/07/contemplating-kickstarter.html
http://elflairgames.blogspot.com/2012/07/contemplating-kickstarter.html
Stop by his blogs and let him know what you think.
http://wastedlandsfantasy.blogspot.com/2012/07/contemplating-kickstarter.html
http://elflairgames.blogspot.com/2012/07/contemplating-kickstarter.html
D&D4 Group: Follow-ups
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I had the chance to talk to the parents of the kids (and a couple of the kids) of my son's D&D4 group.
The big news is that they all had a good time. The biggest surprise to me though was the the ones that enjoyed it the most were the youngest one in the group. My youngest (9) loves his Bard. The two younger kids (almost 9 and 8) also really like their characters and they like the system.
All three were told by their parents that if they didn't enjoy it they did not have to stay. But so far all three are staying.
The older kids had fun too. They had more opinions on what worked and what didn't. My oldest son still enjoys 3.x more he thinks, one of the twins loves his character so as long as he is playing that he is happy. The other twin prefers C&C, but that is fine.
The next game is July 16. We have mysteries to solve, some kobolds to take care of, and there is that rumor of a dragon's graveyard.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
White Dwarf Wednesday #22
We close out 1980 and start 1981 with more subtle changes to White Dwarf. We are getting to the tiem where so many of us started that these magazines now elicit memories of games past.
Let's start with this awesome cover. Warrior riding a giant beetle while the Death Star-ish thing rises on the horizon. Really, does anything scream 80s Sci-Fi/Fantasy more? Sure I suppose if he had a scantily clad barbarian queen/space princess on his side. But this is good.
Page 1, we get what I think is the first full page ad for the Fantasy Trip. I could be wrong. All in all five pages of ads. Our editorial this issue is the discussion of what is the best Fantasy role-playing system. Ian Livingstone is asking what the readers think is the best and why among D&D, C&S, RuneQuest, The Fantasy Trip and others.
Pictures from GamesDay '80 cover the next couple of pages and the 1980 awards results.
Mervyn Lemon gives us some advice on how to build 3-D dungeons. A good one for today's world to be honest.
Rick D. Stuart writes "Robe and Blaster" upgrading Aristocracy in Traveller. Page and a half.
Treasure Chest is up next. It's a mixed bag. Crystal Fruit (magical crystals full of fruit juice) and the Assissin's Quill (brass knuckles with crossbow bolts), Stonerings (turns you to stone till taken off), the Stones of Li-Chao (all sorts of cures), Tenser's Shield (floating disc turned on it's side) and others.
Open Box gets a little facelift and some new games. Charles Vasey gives Mythology from Yaquinto Games a glowing 9/10. Likewise John Lambsehd gives Metagaming's Stellar Conquest a 9/10. Not doing as well are Runquest's Bestiary (Andy Slack gives it a 6/10) and Task Force Games' Asteroid Zero-Four (also a 6/10 from Alestrair Brown).
Lew Pulsipher pulls out all the stops and gives us an article about evil priests, "Black Priests" that also includes art of a nude woman about to be sacrificed. Certainly not something we would see to today in any gaming magazine. Odd, when I first saw this pic I thought her right arm had been cut off. It is just how the blood spill is.
The class is, well, evil. The have abilities of clerics, some Monster Summoning ala magic-users and even some thief and assassin talents. They use cleric spells and cleric level titles only with the word "Black" added to them so Black Curate and so on. Their experience point per level is more inline with magic-users. We got a few "evil" classes around this time. Anti-Paladins, the revised Witch and Death Master from Dragon. Not sure what this trend was about really. I am guessing it was because the "normal" classes were very safe and played to be good.
Barney Sloane presents "The Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire" an AD&D min-module for 7 2nd-4th level characters. It was used as a competition module at Dragonmeet III. It is four pages long, but no scoring for competition. Just good little adventure.
Letters concerns itself with alignments, again showing us there are no new arguments.
Star Base, the Sci-fi regular feature. This is one of the first reader submissions, this time from S.L.A McIntyre on Port Facilities for Traveller. And to understand how much Traveller was the only game in town, the game's name is not even mentioned till 3/4 of the article.
Fiend Factory is back and again sporting the new design. This time we get some heavy hitters. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are undead vassals of Orcus. They remind me of Skeleton Warriors under the control of a Death Knight, and in fact that is probably how they were played, save that these warrirors have 12 HD and the leader is 16 HD. We also get Ungoliant the (Demonic) Queen of the Spiders. Yes we do. She is more powerful than Lolth, but not as much personality. There is the Capricorn (in case you forgot how close the 70s still were) which is an aquatic goat of some power and good. Actually the concept of the monster is so interesting that it would be worth reviving it as a powerful celestial beast. Might need to come back to this one. We end the article with the Crystal Golem. Not a bad little creature. Described as the only golem that an Illusionist can build.
Lew Pulsipher is back with a treatise on character stats in AD&D and what the numbers mean. It is one of the first "Simulation" articles I ever recalled reading back in the day; and that is that AD&D is not a Simulation game. But he does refer to it as a wargame.
We get News of the newest game company, Steve Jackson Games. Chaosium is coming out with a boxed set for Runequest. More news on their new Elric game. TSR releases A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity (one fo the first modules I went through in AD&D). And plenty of Traveller news with Games Workshop getting the ok to produce official Traveller material in the UK.
Classifieds and more ads follow.
A very solid issue that highlights the growth WD was experiencing at the time. The switch in my mind will be complete over the next year or so. D&D/AD&D and Traveller still reign supreme among the games. That's fits my experiences as well. I bought Traveller because of the ads in Dragon and White Dwarf.
Page 1, we get what I think is the first full page ad for the Fantasy Trip. I could be wrong. All in all five pages of ads. Our editorial this issue is the discussion of what is the best Fantasy role-playing system. Ian Livingstone is asking what the readers think is the best and why among D&D, C&S, RuneQuest, The Fantasy Trip and others.
Pictures from GamesDay '80 cover the next couple of pages and the 1980 awards results.
Mervyn Lemon gives us some advice on how to build 3-D dungeons. A good one for today's world to be honest.
Rick D. Stuart writes "Robe and Blaster" upgrading Aristocracy in Traveller. Page and a half.
Treasure Chest is up next. It's a mixed bag. Crystal Fruit (magical crystals full of fruit juice) and the Assissin's Quill (brass knuckles with crossbow bolts), Stonerings (turns you to stone till taken off), the Stones of Li-Chao (all sorts of cures), Tenser's Shield (floating disc turned on it's side) and others.
Open Box gets a little facelift and some new games. Charles Vasey gives Mythology from Yaquinto Games a glowing 9/10. Likewise John Lambsehd gives Metagaming's Stellar Conquest a 9/10. Not doing as well are Runquest's Bestiary (Andy Slack gives it a 6/10) and Task Force Games' Asteroid Zero-Four (also a 6/10 from Alestrair Brown).
Lew Pulsipher pulls out all the stops and gives us an article about evil priests, "Black Priests" that also includes art of a nude woman about to be sacrificed. Certainly not something we would see to today in any gaming magazine. Odd, when I first saw this pic I thought her right arm had been cut off. It is just how the blood spill is.
The class is, well, evil. The have abilities of clerics, some Monster Summoning ala magic-users and even some thief and assassin talents. They use cleric spells and cleric level titles only with the word "Black" added to them so Black Curate and so on. Their experience point per level is more inline with magic-users. We got a few "evil" classes around this time. Anti-Paladins, the revised Witch and Death Master from Dragon. Not sure what this trend was about really. I am guessing it was because the "normal" classes were very safe and played to be good.
Barney Sloane presents "The Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire" an AD&D min-module for 7 2nd-4th level characters. It was used as a competition module at Dragonmeet III. It is four pages long, but no scoring for competition. Just good little adventure.
Letters concerns itself with alignments, again showing us there are no new arguments.
Star Base, the Sci-fi regular feature. This is one of the first reader submissions, this time from S.L.A McIntyre on Port Facilities for Traveller. And to understand how much Traveller was the only game in town, the game's name is not even mentioned till 3/4 of the article.
Fiend Factory is back and again sporting the new design. This time we get some heavy hitters. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are undead vassals of Orcus. They remind me of Skeleton Warriors under the control of a Death Knight, and in fact that is probably how they were played, save that these warrirors have 12 HD and the leader is 16 HD. We also get Ungoliant the (Demonic) Queen of the Spiders. Yes we do. She is more powerful than Lolth, but not as much personality. There is the Capricorn (in case you forgot how close the 70s still were) which is an aquatic goat of some power and good. Actually the concept of the monster is so interesting that it would be worth reviving it as a powerful celestial beast. Might need to come back to this one. We end the article with the Crystal Golem. Not a bad little creature. Described as the only golem that an Illusionist can build.
Lew Pulsipher is back with a treatise on character stats in AD&D and what the numbers mean. It is one of the first "Simulation" articles I ever recalled reading back in the day; and that is that AD&D is not a Simulation game. But he does refer to it as a wargame.
We get News of the newest game company, Steve Jackson Games. Chaosium is coming out with a boxed set for Runequest. More news on their new Elric game. TSR releases A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity (one fo the first modules I went through in AD&D). And plenty of Traveller news with Games Workshop getting the ok to produce official Traveller material in the UK.
Classifieds and more ads follow.
A very solid issue that highlights the growth WD was experiencing at the time. The switch in my mind will be complete over the next year or so. D&D/AD&D and Traveller still reign supreme among the games. That's fits my experiences as well. I bought Traveller because of the ads in Dragon and White Dwarf.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
New Games!
Is there anything better than a new game? Sure! Lots of new games.
Here is what I picked up over my lunch break. Cause new games are fun.
B/X Companion. The Book We Never Got. You can now take your Basic/Expert characters past 14th level.
Deadlands: Hell on Earth Reloaded. I don't know a lot about this game, but it has a good pedigree, and it is Savage Worlds, so it can't be all bad. ;)
Primeval RPG Core Rulebook. I loved this show when it was on. A bit like Torchwood, a bit of Doctor Who. All British. Well Cubicle 7 has finally got it out to us and it is great. This game uses the same game system as Doctor Who (which is very nice) so you can have all your Time Travel shenanigans in one place. This book will sit nice on the shelf next to my Doctor Who game.
Extreme Edge Volume Two Collection. Ok, so. I like the Hot Chicks RPG. It's silly fun and it doesn't take itself seriously at all. Plus I know Dakkar and he is a good guy.
Supers Unleashed. A simple supers game that has a lot of potential. The layout is beyond simple into the sparse category and the artwork is the cover only. So think of it as a minimalist game. It has a price to match.
More detailed reviews soon.
Here is what I picked up over my lunch break. Cause new games are fun.
B/X Companion. The Book We Never Got. You can now take your Basic/Expert characters past 14th level.
Deadlands: Hell on Earth Reloaded. I don't know a lot about this game, but it has a good pedigree, and it is Savage Worlds, so it can't be all bad. ;)
Primeval RPG Core Rulebook. I loved this show when it was on. A bit like Torchwood, a bit of Doctor Who. All British. Well Cubicle 7 has finally got it out to us and it is great. This game uses the same game system as Doctor Who (which is very nice) so you can have all your Time Travel shenanigans in one place. This book will sit nice on the shelf next to my Doctor Who game.
Extreme Edge Volume Two Collection. Ok, so. I like the Hot Chicks RPG. It's silly fun and it doesn't take itself seriously at all. Plus I know Dakkar and he is a good guy.
Supers Unleashed. A simple supers game that has a lot of potential. The layout is beyond simple into the sparse category and the artwork is the cover only. So think of it as a minimalist game. It has a price to match.
More detailed reviews soon.
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