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.

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!!