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.

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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.