Zatannurday: Serinda Swan

It dawned on me this week that I have never posted anything about Serinda Swan here.
Afterall she has the honor of playing the only live action version of Zatanna on TV in Smallville.   She was just recently spotted on the CW's updated Tomorrow People.  I have a feeling we will be seeing more of her.

In the meantime here she is as Zatanna from Smallville.

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 8

Day 8: First set of polyhedral dice you owned. Do you still use them?

My first set came with my Moldvay Basic set.

I still have them, but I don't use them much.  I only pull them out on special occasions.

LiveChat and Kickstarter shares

I wanted to remind you all that I will be participating in the live #RPGNet Q&A Series tonight (Friday 2/7) at 8:00pm Central time (GMT -6:00).

http://tinyurl.com/rpgnetchat

I will be talking about Ghosts of Albion, my upcoming work for Gaslight and of course the Strange Brew kickstarter.

I also wanted to let you know about two other Kickstarters that I have been following.

Fall of Man came up around the same time we were getting ready for ours. It is also Pathfinder but in a post-apoc world.   It looks like it could be a of fun.  It reminds me a bit of the cool post-apoc games of the late 80s.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2033407677/fall-of-man-a-post-apocalyptic-gothic-horror-fanta?ref=live

Flip Flash is a new family card game from Naomi Tripi that looks like a lot of fun.  I am always looking for a new family game that can learned and played quickly.  This one looks fantastic.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/296612146/flip-flash-a-super-fast-new-card-game-from-tripi-g

So please check these out!

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 7

Day 7: First D&D Product you ever bought. Do you still have it?

Ever bought with my own money as opposed to a gift?

Not exactly sure.  It was either a copy of B3: Palace of the Silver Princess or the AD&D Deities and Demigods.

I still have my copy of B3. In fact a few years ago I ran my kids through an adventure with it that I was calling Return to the Palace of the Silver Princess.

I don't have my DDG anymore.  It was the updated version without the Elric and Cthulhu myths.  Since that time I picked two more.  Both with the Elric and Cthuhlhu myths in them.  One is autographed by most of the authors and artists.

Live #RPGnet Q&A Series

I wanted to let you know that I will be participating in the live #RPGNet Q&A Series tomorrow night (Friday 2/7) at 8:00pm Central time (GMT -6:00).

http://tinyurl.com/rpgnetchat

I will be talking about Ghosts of Albion, my upcoming work for Gaslight and of course the Strange Brew kickstarter.

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Hope to see you all there!

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 6

Day 6: First character death. How did you handle it?

My first character death was my first Elf character (back when Elf was a class).
Silverleaf was killed by an assassin's blade. Never saw it coming.

I remember at the time thinking "well, I guess takes care of that lame character".
But later I was a little bummed, I had been playing him for a bit.

I got over fairly quickly with a swift progression of character deaths including my only other Elf character, a dwarf and one of my thieves.  Life was cheap back in those days.  My Dwarf, Creeper, died due to one of those awful traps from Grimtooth's Traps books.  Their death dates are listed as June 1982 on the sheets.  He was followed in Death by Arendil (Elf), Rad (Cleric) and Roscoe (thief).  I then burned through something like 10 characters during the "Winter 1984" sessions. No exact dates, but a lot of them were classes that came from early Dragon magazines, I saw a lot of "Spies", "Bandits" and "Samurai".  It was also obvious that this must have coincided with my switch over to full AD&D.

I have kept all my "dead" characters.  I have a folder called "The Graveyard".  I figured if I ever needed an NPC I could pull one of them out.

Bring out your dead!

White Dwarf Wednesday #96

White Dwarf #96 is the last issue of 1987.  I had considered stopping here to be honest. This issue marks the first of what I consider the "All Warhammer, all the time" issues.  But hey, I have gotten this far and 100 is more round number.
The cover art is the same as Casket of Souls by Iain McCaig.  We have a competition for it later in the issue.
The editorial is a bit of nonsense from Sean Masterson on what gaming is.  I guess the only really interesting thing about this is that it is a reflection of the gamin scene of the late 80s; everything going in a thousand directions at once yet still gaming.

Marginalia covers Dungeonquest, a game I have wanted to try out, and Warhammer Fantasy Battle, 3rd Ed.
This review of Dungeonquest only revives my desire to find a copy of this game.   By my estimates this $10 box of White Dwarf magazines has cost me a couple to three hundred extra bucks.  I had to buy other WDs to fill in the gaps (I still have a WD 105 that I am not going to review) but mostly in old games I see reviewed and want to pick up.  Some have been cheap. Most have not.

Culture Shock is the oft renamed news/rumor column.  Of interest, Citadel is selling a million miniature figures a month.  I wonder if that rate kept up.
Critical Mass covers the books of the time, none jump out at me.  I was reading the Chronicles of Corum at this point.

Barroom Brawl is the first Scenario for Warhammer Fantasy.  In my mind most of Warhammer was about fighting in large scale wars and then going to the pub to fight again.

After that, Elfwardancers for WH Fantasy.  This is something I could see being snagged for D&D or even ShadowRun.  I have seen stranger things in both games.  Plus it helps get rid of some the "Tolkienesque" qualities of elves.

The conclusion of "To Live and Die in Mega-City One" is next. I am told it is quite good.  I personally don't know enough about Judge Dredd to know for sure.

In a rare departure (and soon to be rarer) we have The Beast of Kozamura, an Eastern-themed adventure for RuneQuest. Overtly for Land of Ninja rules.

An article/ad for Casket of Souls.
The first Warhammer 40,000 regular article "Chapter Approved" is up.

On the Boil details various topics in Warhammer Fantasy, this time Middenheim the City of the White Wolf.

An aside for a bit.  There is a lot of Warhammer stuff going on here now and really I have no clue. I read through WH40k once and I see the appeal, but I am not into painting mins all day.  By extension I also guess I see the appeal of Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Wish I could offer more at this point.

'Eavy Metal paints some dragons.

Last issue we discussed The Madcap Laughs, this issue we have the first adventure in the series.  A Heart of Dust, A Hand of Death is for Stormbringer but it could be adapted to RuneQuest easy enough.

We end with the usual run of letters and ads.

So. Much less in this issue for me to be honest. Nothing against the change WD is making or the Warhammer stuff, just not where my gaming went at the time or now.