Writing about witches I read a lot of fairy tales. Trust me, the real ones don't have Disney-style endings.
If you are here you already know that.
But did you know that sometimes it is even worse than that?
The Glass Slipper Confessionals deal with life with Cinderella after her divorce. And presently it is cracking me up.
Here are the first and last episodes just to give you an idea what it is like.
Yeah things are rough for Cindy and Tink. Vodka and pixie dust.
They join other Unreality Shows, BAMF Girls Club and Adult Wednesday Addams.
Watch and enjoy!
Yeah I might need help.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
White Dwarf Wednesday #93
Today's issue features the first Warhamer 40k inspired cover. When you get right down to it, WH40k is pretty much everything White Dwarf ever did in one game. It's fantasy (like WH, D&D and RQ), it is Sci-Fi (like Traveller), it is horror (like CoC) and it is minis. I guess it really is no surprise.
Mike Brunton delivers his last editorial urging folks not to read editorials and instead read the rest of the magazine.
Open Quest hits us with five Games Workshop related products. Block Mania and Mega Mania are board games, Death on the Reik is a supplement for WH, The Talisman Dungeon a board game expansion and GW's reissue of RuneQuest Monsters. The Talisman Dungeon board game expansion is an interesting one to me since I recently did something similar to my own sets of TSR's Dungeon game (not related). Also covered are a couple of TSR aAD&D books. The I3-5 Desert of Desolation series (which Jim Bambra liked a lot) and Treasure Hunt a "well crafted and truly creative" adventure from TSR. Something that Carl Sargent says is a rarity these days. There is a board game called "Chase" from TSR as well. Mike Brunton calls it easy to learn but easily one of the hardest games to play (in a good way). It sounds interesting but I don't recall it all.
Awesome Lies discusses how soon you will be able to see your own local GW store! There is mention of TSR releasing Car Wars books, I am not sure if that is a typo or something that never came to pass. More on the New Infinities and TSR troubles. One bit of interest to me is a mention of the GW Dracula game. Later released as The Fury of Dracula. I rather enjoyed the plot behind this one, 8 years (7 in this article) later Dracula is back and fighting the original hunters.
Critical Mass covers more books, but the only one I had read on the list was Wielding a Red Sword by Piers Anthony. I also had a number of issues with this book, though not the same as the review. I tried to read Mirror of Her Dreams, but gave up and decided that Stephen Donaldson just isn't for me.
The first feature article is a Tournament Adventure for AD&D. Getting Away From Most Of It is designed for 8 characters of levels 2-4. Interestingly enough the idea here is the characters are on vacation and have motivations while they are here (to get a tan, to get drunk, to buy/get souvenirs). It is a bit tongue in cheek, but the fatality rate looks like it will be pretty high. The adventures are pressed into returning a minor artifact to a demon and they only have 2 hours to do it. That is 2 hours of real time. Looks like it would be fun with the right people or even in a convention setting.
Vances Evocation of Arcane Delight covers, what else, the "Vancian" magic system of D&D. The author, Simon Nicholson, states that the magic of Jack Vance is far more interesting than what we typically know of it in AD&D. Reading through this I am motivated (again) to do more with my *D&D spells and motivated (again) to read the works of Jack Vance. Spells should have cool names and, well, magic about them. This is one (of 100s of) thing CoC gets right.
The main focus of the issue is next, a huge color supplement/advertising for Warhammer 40,000.
Some miniatures awards are next.
Eureka is a smaller adventure for Warhammer Fantasy. Though it is overshadowed in my my mind by the next adventure.
"Letters from a Foreign Land" easily wins the golden WTF award for concept. It is an adventure for Warhammer Fantasy, Call of Cthulhu and MERP. Imagine the Venn Diagram of that. What can possibly be the spot where all three overlap. And why not just throw AD&D into the mix while you are at it! This is one of those adventures I would want to run just to be able to say I did it. Granted, this is not a crossover, but a triple-stated one. Still though. It is a decent size and would take a couple of sessions to run. If it were smaller, say four hours, it would a fun thing to try at GenCon, running it under a different system each night.
'Eavy Metal covers painting. I new painting minis is hard, but there are lot more steps here than I ever knew about.
All The Lonely People gives us some NPCs for Judge Dredd.
Sound Familiar? discusses familiars and pets for your FRPG. While nothing I haven't seen elsewhere, it is a nice treatise on familiars and how they can be used.
We end with letters and ads.
In general I have to say the articles are improving. Everything is actually better quality than it was in the last two years. Yes the focus is shifting, but it mirrors what was going on in gaming at the time too. At this point in 1987 I wasn't playing much myself. Though there is an interesting note. I introduced a friend to the game around this time and her character later stuck around in my games as an NPC that became a vampire. That character is still being used in my games today as the only known human to have ever been cured of vampirism.
I keep expecting each issue to have less and less that interests me, and that is roughly true, but the issue themselves have been quite good.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Come Endless Darkness,Part 2
So yesterday I posted this great idea I had for adventures for my kids for their 1st Ed game.
I *thought* I had a cool original-ish idea. Well...not so much.
It was pointed out to me (thanks Sciamantis!) that this was already done in a series of 2nd Ed adventures.
I *thought* I had a cool original-ish idea. Well...not so much.
It was pointed out to me (thanks Sciamantis!) that this was already done in a series of 2nd Ed adventures.
I must have had some knowledge of these, at least in a broad sense. I don't own them and they date from my D&D hiatus of the late 90s. They are written by +Bruce R Cordell, so that gives me confidence but otherwise I know very little about them. Anyone have any experience or knowledge of these? I'd like to know more about them before I start cruising Half-Price Books and eBay for them. They are not up on DnDClassics.com yet.
That also brings up a larger issue. I am using modules in my game here to give my kids a shared experience with other gamers. B2 is a rite of passage, the GDQ series is equally iconic. These are things they can talk about with others. Hell I don't even need to describe them, I can just say B2 or GDQ.
But these other adventures are not the same are they? They might be great, they might even be perfect for me, but if I didn't even recall them then how much of a shared experience can they get?
Monday, January 13, 2014
Come Endless Darkness
No. Not the Gary Gygax book, but related.
I have been thinking a lot about the 1st Ed AD&D game my kids are in now. They love play 1st ed more than 3e I feel, but what is missing from this game, at least how I initially conceived it, is an epic arc.
In this campaign the characters are going to get involved in something huge, something world changing. Since these characters are the sons and daughters of their 3e characters I also want some thing that alters the feel of the game world to help explain the shift in rules from 3e to 1st Ed.
So I am going back to an idea I had years ago that I originally wanted to try for 3e. It was going to be called Shadow Earth and bits and pieces live on in my other products and posts.
I am planning to blot out the sun.
This was something that I toyed with now and again and thought it might make for a good plot. It was also one of the ideas I threw out later on as an idea for my "no big bad" game Season of the Witch.
The idea is a simple one really. The vampires, drow and mind flayers* (or maybe the mi-go have not decided yet) join forces to blot out the sun.
The PCs discover part of this plot after they bust up a slaving operation being run by vampires (A series). Unlike like other games though, the bad guys succeed in their plans and the sun goes dark. While the big powers of the world are meeting to discover how to reverse it (and thus not able to help out their offspring) the new generation is sent off to investigate reports of giants attacking a village nearby (GDQ).
So yes I am using modules with this. I figure I have come up with say about 100 unique adventures over the last 35 years or so. These allow me to ease some of the heavy lifting AND also to give my kids a shared experience with other gamers.
Here is the plan so far.
The idea then will be that the PCs discover the plot and have to destroy the device blocking out the sun on Lolth's plane. IF things work out and we have more time or they want to go on then I *might* work in the old H4 Module, Throne of Bloodstone and redo it a bit to give them a second part to destroy.
Things I have not yet figured out. I would love to use my Ophidians in there somewhere. I should really since they a cool race and work well. I will have to use my take on Demogorgon then as well.
Mindflayers seem like a no brainer to me which means I should really investigate why I am using them. I think they should be part of a more Mythos-like mindset. Their goal of course is to enslave the entire world. But do they have a demon lord they answer to? Not likely. Given this many factions I need to figure out their motivations. Why? Well that will tell me how the players will be able to succeed.
Maybe the Ophidians are in league with or controlled by the mind flayers.
I want to give them an epic. I want this to feel like opera; like all three parts of Wagner's Ring Cycle.
At the end I want to be able to look over the table at their faces and know they know what it is to shake the pillars of Heaven. I felt that when the I was done playing in the "Dragon Wars" in 1988 and again when I ran "The Dragon and the Phoenix" in 2002-2004.
Regardless how epic it might be, it will be fun.
I have been thinking a lot about the 1st Ed AD&D game my kids are in now. They love play 1st ed more than 3e I feel, but what is missing from this game, at least how I initially conceived it, is an epic arc.
In this campaign the characters are going to get involved in something huge, something world changing. Since these characters are the sons and daughters of their 3e characters I also want some thing that alters the feel of the game world to help explain the shift in rules from 3e to 1st Ed.
So I am going back to an idea I had years ago that I originally wanted to try for 3e. It was going to be called Shadow Earth and bits and pieces live on in my other products and posts.
I am planning to blot out the sun.
This was something that I toyed with now and again and thought it might make for a good plot. It was also one of the ideas I threw out later on as an idea for my "no big bad" game Season of the Witch.
The idea is a simple one really. The vampires, drow and mind flayers* (or maybe the mi-go have not decided yet) join forces to blot out the sun.
The PCs discover part of this plot after they bust up a slaving operation being run by vampires (A series). Unlike like other games though, the bad guys succeed in their plans and the sun goes dark. While the big powers of the world are meeting to discover how to reverse it (and thus not able to help out their offspring) the new generation is sent off to investigate reports of giants attacking a village nearby (GDQ).
So yes I am using modules with this. I figure I have come up with say about 100 unique adventures over the last 35 years or so. These allow me to ease some of the heavy lifting AND also to give my kids a shared experience with other gamers.
Here is the plan so far.
- B1 In Search of the Unknown, levels 1-3 (played at Gen Con 2012)
- B2 Keep on the Borderlands, levels 1-3 (playing now, will include a shrine to an evil god of chaos)
- T1 Village of Hommlet, Intro-levels (might not use now, depends on how the Temple of EE fits in)
- L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4 (maybe)
- X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 (the MiGo plot)
- A0 to A4, levels 4-7 (the vampires get their victims from the Slavers)
- A5, The Last Slave Lord, levels 5-9
- I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City, levels 4-7 (snakemen - minions)
- C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, levels 5-7
- G123, levels 8-12 (drow)
- D12, levels 9-14
- D3, levels 10-14
- Q1, levels 10-14
The idea then will be that the PCs discover the plot and have to destroy the device blocking out the sun on Lolth's plane. IF things work out and we have more time or they want to go on then I *might* work in the old H4 Module, Throne of Bloodstone and redo it a bit to give them a second part to destroy.
Things I have not yet figured out. I would love to use my Ophidians in there somewhere. I should really since they a cool race and work well. I will have to use my take on Demogorgon then as well.
Mindflayers seem like a no brainer to me which means I should really investigate why I am using them. I think they should be part of a more Mythos-like mindset. Their goal of course is to enslave the entire world. But do they have a demon lord they answer to? Not likely. Given this many factions I need to figure out their motivations. Why? Well that will tell me how the players will be able to succeed.
Maybe the Ophidians are in league with or controlled by the mind flayers.
I want to give them an epic. I want this to feel like opera; like all three parts of Wagner's Ring Cycle.
At the end I want to be able to look over the table at their faces and know they know what it is to shake the pillars of Heaven. I felt that when the I was done playing in the "Dragon Wars" in 1988 and again when I ran "The Dragon and the Phoenix" in 2002-2004.
Regardless how epic it might be, it will be fun.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Mega-Dungeon!
We are big fans of the board game Dungeon around here.
My kids love to play it and have even gotten their non-gaming cousins into it. I have several copies including two copies of the original 1975 version in slightly different boxes.
So last night we tried something we have been wanting to try for a while: Mega Dungeon.
We decided that there are secret doors between the two dungeons and you can teleport from any chamber to any other chamber. Wizards get twice the amount of spells and magic swords can "stack" so if you have a +1 and a +2 sword then you have +3. We also used minis instead of pawns cause that is more fun.
The monster rolls are on a d12 instead of a 2d6. A roll of "1" means the player gets another attack. We also require twice the amount of gold to win.
So far it has been a lot of fun. We are continuing later today.
My kids love to play it and have even gotten their non-gaming cousins into it. I have several copies including two copies of the original 1975 version in slightly different boxes.
So last night we tried something we have been wanting to try for a while: Mega Dungeon.
We decided that there are secret doors between the two dungeons and you can teleport from any chamber to any other chamber. Wizards get twice the amount of spells and magic swords can "stack" so if you have a +1 and a +2 sword then you have +3. We also used minis instead of pawns cause that is more fun.
The monster rolls are on a d12 instead of a 2d6. A roll of "1" means the player gets another attack. We also require twice the amount of gold to win.
So far it has been a lot of fun. We are continuing later today.
Friday, January 10, 2014
Ultimate Witch & Warlock
Been sitting on this one for a little bit but now has come the time to talk about it.
I am currently working on a new project with Misfit Studios called "Strange Brew: The Ultimate Witch & Warlock" for the Pathfinder game.
You can read my first post about it over at Misfit Studios blog.
http://misfit-studios.com/blog/uncategorized/tim-brannan-strange-brew-ultimate-witch-warlock/
The idea with this began a long time ago as a way for me to update my old Liber Mysterium to D&D 3.5 and to include what I felt was some of the best OGC. That project never materialized, mostly because I switched focus to instead produce The Witch and Eldritch Witchery.
Recently I began talking to an old friend Christina Stiles. We had worked together on Buffy and a few other projects for Eden and generally ran in the same circles. She was looking to update her old Citizen Games book Way of the Witch and thinking about "getting the Coven back together" and adding me on as an editor/designer. I had mentioned to her that I had already done most of the work she was wanted to do. We got to talking and soon The Ultimate Witch was born.
Again the idea was to take work I had done (now close to 500 pages), edit it, combine it with the best witch-related OGC out there, and recraft it all for Pathfinder. The goal is to have a one stop book for all everything you need to play a witch character in Pathfinder. Not just new spells, but hexes, backgrounds, new uses for old skills, magic items, feats and backgrounds.
I am not ready to release too many details, but this book would be the spiritual successor to both Liber Mysterium and Way of the Witch. Neither of which are available in print anymore. It would also update a lot of great d20 witch material, some of which has no equivalent for the Pathfinder game.
Now there are a couple of really obvious questions.
First what is in this book that is not in my other books? Simple answer is "a lot". When working on the first draft of what would become the Ultimate Witch I converted it over to "Basic" for The Witch. What didn't fit or I could not convert I threw out. All that stuff is back. I don't want give the impression that it was thrown out because it was bad. Some of it, like feats for example, just didn't work. Others there were no good rules for with the way I saw the Basic Witch, like 9th level spells. Plus the d20/Pathfinder system gives me a lot room to work on things too. Some of the OGC I want to use did make it's way into The Witch and EW, but only the stuff I had used in playtests and my own games. With the Ultimate Witch a lot more great stuff is going back in. In particular the OGC from Way of the Witch.
I am also being joined by others on this, so the vision is not mine alone (that would be dull!)
Another question is why do this? I mean I do have two books I am really, really happy with and proud of. Why go back to well? The answer here is again a simple one. I like the Pathfinder witch, but she could be so much better. As it turns out I have those things on my hard-drive.
So stay tuned. I'll have more to say on this and how I plan to have a Witch and a Warlock classes.
I am currently working on a new project with Misfit Studios called "Strange Brew: The Ultimate Witch & Warlock" for the Pathfinder game.
You can read my first post about it over at Misfit Studios blog.
http://misfit-studios.com/blog/uncategorized/tim-brannan-strange-brew-ultimate-witch-warlock/
The idea with this began a long time ago as a way for me to update my old Liber Mysterium to D&D 3.5 and to include what I felt was some of the best OGC. That project never materialized, mostly because I switched focus to instead produce The Witch and Eldritch Witchery.
Again the idea was to take work I had done (now close to 500 pages), edit it, combine it with the best witch-related OGC out there, and recraft it all for Pathfinder. The goal is to have a one stop book for all everything you need to play a witch character in Pathfinder. Not just new spells, but hexes, backgrounds, new uses for old skills, magic items, feats and backgrounds.
I am not ready to release too many details, but this book would be the spiritual successor to both Liber Mysterium and Way of the Witch. Neither of which are available in print anymore. It would also update a lot of great d20 witch material, some of which has no equivalent for the Pathfinder game.
Now there are a couple of really obvious questions.
First what is in this book that is not in my other books? Simple answer is "a lot". When working on the first draft of what would become the Ultimate Witch I converted it over to "Basic" for The Witch. What didn't fit or I could not convert I threw out. All that stuff is back. I don't want give the impression that it was thrown out because it was bad. Some of it, like feats for example, just didn't work. Others there were no good rules for with the way I saw the Basic Witch, like 9th level spells. Plus the d20/Pathfinder system gives me a lot room to work on things too. Some of the OGC I want to use did make it's way into The Witch and EW, but only the stuff I had used in playtests and my own games. With the Ultimate Witch a lot more great stuff is going back in. In particular the OGC from Way of the Witch.
I am also being joined by others on this, so the vision is not mine alone (that would be dull!)
Another question is why do this? I mean I do have two books I am really, really happy with and proud of. Why go back to well? The answer here is again a simple one. I like the Pathfinder witch, but she could be so much better. As it turns out I have those things on my hard-drive.
So stay tuned. I'll have more to say on this and how I plan to have a Witch and a Warlock classes.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
PWWO: Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts + The Witch
Recently I spent some quality time with Dyson's Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts.
Well I rather enjoy this book and I have been looking for more ways to use it. It occurred to me while reading over the Pact Bound and Enchanter that many of the spells would work great with my Witch class and a number of my spells would work great with these classes.
So I went through the book and my book and figured out which "witch" spells would work good for the MT&DP classes. You can see the fruits of my efforts here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aus4EyYHejOidFlsQVhVUVJPcDhIYWpoQ1RyYmFQMXc&usp=sharing
All my witch spells and the MT&DP classes, with levels. I want do the reverse later as well, which new MT&DP spells can be used with the Witch. If you pop into that sheet you might actually see me working on it live. I am getting rather fond of Google Drive for collaboration.
Dyson is also talking about his book today, looking at some of the Elven classes and subclasses. Worth checking out and adding in a bunch of new spells.
This book also works quite well if you use his "d12 subclasses" idea. Here are his tables for the Wizard, Cleric, Enchanter and Elven Warder.
I could do something like that with the Witch, using the Traditions as a guide.
- Amazon: +1 to all hits, able to use a sword, spear and bow as weapons. See also.
- Aquarian (from the Witch)
- Classical (from the Witch)
- Craft of the Wise (from the Eldritch Witchery)
- Faerie (from the Witch)
- Family (from the Witch)
- Gypsy (from the Eldritch Witchery)
- Maleficia (from the Witch)
- Tradition of the Magna Mater (Great Mother) (from the Eldritch Witchery)
- Venefica: Bonus to creation of potions, poisons and balms.
- Eclectic: Mix
- Choose one or make up a new one.
Certainly works for me.
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