Zatannurday: More Cosplay

It's summer. SDCC, NYCC and GenCon are all still ahead plus many other cons. How about some more Zatanna Cosplay!




Zatanna wp starring Callie Cosplay by SWFan1977 on deviantART


Zatanna by walker1812 on deviantART


zatanna X batman LOVE LOVE LOVE STORY by GhiandaiaCosplay on deviantART


MCM Expo May 2014 69 Zatanna by cosmicnut on deviantART


I'm A Spellaholic by ArienReign on deviantART


Zatanna Zatara cosplay by Naomi-VonKreeps on deviantART


Zatanna TV show promo by wedoitinthedark1 on deviantART


Supercon: Zatanna by Figmentsmedia on deviantART


Pay Attention by ArienReign on deviantART


Wonder woman Zatanna Batgirl by Asuka10 on deviantART


Hokus Pokus by ravikaa on deviantART


cigam thiw yalp annaw ouy oS by ArienReign on deviantART


Zatanna by AnchronismInAction on deviantART


ZATANNA identity crisis by dashcosplay on deviantART


Zatanna by jpop52 on deviantART


Zatanna - Sorceress Extraordinaire by ShatteredStitch on deviantART


Zatanna by Katsurag on deviantART


Zatanna Teaser by KohakuRose on deviantART


Zatanna portait by Lux96 on deviantART


Zatanna Zatara Cosplay - DC Comics by SylunaHirokashi on deviantART

Kickstart Your Weekend: NPC Player Cards & Another Witch

I have not been doing my Kickstarter posts here because there hasn't really been anything that interests me.

Well I have found a couple and look very cool.

Non-Player Cards: An Artful & Inspirational Generation Tool
by Andreas Walters
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/metalweavedesigns/non-player-cards-npc-a-card-based-npc-generator

Creating memorable NPCs can sometimes be a chore. Creating even marginally interesting ones can even be a challenge.  NPC Player Cards help with this task and can even flesh out any already created NPC.
The cards include Names, Professions, Relationships, Personality, Traits, Quirks, Goals and Secrets.
By my quick count that is 48,828,125,000,000 different NPCs.
Not too bad of a deal to be honest! Certainly worth checking out for the art alone.

Sean K Reynolds presents "Goody White's Book of Folk Magic"
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/seankreynolds/sean-k-reynolds-presents-goody-whites-book-of-folk

Sean K. Reynolds gives us a book of Witch magic for Pathfinder.  Hmm. Sounds neat!
It is a book on Folk Magic for witches, so there should only be a little overlap between his book and mine.
In fact I have already sent in my pledge.

Check these both out!

Castles & Crusades 6th Printing

Castles & Crusades is now on it's 6th printing. So like many others I got in on their latest Kickstarter and the first book, the Player's Handbook, has been sent out.

No we could debate the need for a copy who is successful and on their 6th printing of even using Kickstarter, but I am not. If Troll Lord wants to give a portion of their pre-orders to KS then who am I to judge.  Plus I think there is an advertising bump just being on Kickstarter vs. just doing pre-orders.

In any case the book is fantastic looking and a step up from their 5th printing.

The text is easier to read and the graphic images sharper and more colorful.

The increased text size also adds about 50 pages to the book.

Though there might be more text as well.

The character sheets are also subtly different.

I really, really enjoy Castles & Crusades.  I think it is one of the best D&D-like games out there. I just wish I got to play it more.

Banner Code

Working on some new code to change my top banner at random.

Not quite working yet....

Biggest List of Retro-clones I have seen

This list was posted to my Facebook feed today.
http://taxidermicowlbear.weebly.com/dd-retroclones.html

It is easily the biggest list of Retro-clones, near clones and other Old-School games I have ever seen.

Do yourself a favor and check it out.
The website's owner is also the author of Full Metal Plate Mail and Grey Six.
Grey Six includes an interesting take on the Warlock class and uses a lot of my OGC witch spells.

Owl & Weasel Wednesday #2 March 1975

Owl and Weasel hits Issue #2 and doubles in size!  That is something even White Dwarf can't claim.
Still mot of the articles are by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson, but some other talent is coming in.

Steve Jackson discusses the Brighton Toy Fair on page 1. Interesting in this perspective since this is a hobby on the verge.  How so? Well by how little he mentions is there. The Fair is big enough to take over "3 hotels"  he only mentions a handful of games and these are all board games.  Yes, at this point D&D has not come to England but there are no War Games mentioned either.

So a question the true Grognards out there.  Were War Games already dying out in 75?  I was under the impression that this was a good time for them.

A brief mention that the board game magazine Albion was no more. I had not heard of it at before this.

A little math puzzle for you to try at home:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 = 100
Add mathematical notations to make the answer equal 100.
(eg. 123 + 4 - 56 ... etc.)

Let me know if you figure it out.  Puzzles seem like a must add really to a games magazine. I wonder why it wasn't done more.

Ah that is why.  In the Editorial on Page 4 Steve Jackson reports a reader saying "get rid of the puzzles".  A thus the first irritated gamer raises his voice against the establishment or something. The editorial does mention more exciting things to come.

There are some more puzzles and a bit about the recent resurgence of Mah Jong.  1975 Percy Kenyon would be happy to know that nearly 40 years later the game is still played and in various formats.  At one point I remember my FLGS carried nice and expensive Mah Jong sets for a while.

The overall feel of O&W2 is a zine starting it's stride. It is obvious that Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone feel they are on to something big. While retrospect tells us they were right, it is not the same "big thing".

What I love is the frontier feel of this.  These are two guys, passionate about their hobby and want to share it with everyone and anyone they can.

How to Run Your Game

We have a couple of independently produced books out now to help you run your game.  One new and one getting more attention.

The first is +Alexis Smolensk's How to Run: an Advanced Guide to Managing Role-playing Games.  It just came out last night.  From what I can gather (and I could be wrong) this is a guide that is more directed towards the long time gamer (thus the "Advanced" part) and it might be exclusively drawn from a D&D perspective.

The older book is +Mike Shea's  The Lazy Dungeon Master. It has the feeling of being on the other end of the spectrum from Alexis' book, but I don't have it either so hard to say.  What it says it is guide to help the time constrained DM.  It has some good reviews and the content seems to be drawn largely from later editions of D&D.  You can read a more detailed review of this book over at The Traveling Spellbook.

While I am sure both of these are very fine books I am wondering about their scope.  Or to put it bluntly are they only about D&D?  That is fine. D&D is a great game, one of my favorites. But it is not the only game I play. I also don't think I am the target audience anyway.

Over the last 35 years or so of my game playing I have read numerous books on how run games.  After a bit they do tend to get a little repetitive.  By the late 90s I was focusing most of my time and energy on running Horror games and Horror-themed fantasy RPGs; so my own reading took me in that direction.

For my money the best guide for running a game is still the 1st Edition AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide.
Not only is it a perfect example of High Gygaxian Prose, it is also just so filled with material you need to run a game.  I have often thought about doing an RPG.net style read-through of the DMG.  Follow it up with the 3rd Ed D&D DMG which is not as good, but still a surprisingly good guide.

If you want to run a horror game (and I often do) then the best guide is still Nightmares of Mine.  Written by Ken Hite and published by ICE and Chaosium it is small but filled with material, but it also out of print and not cheap. This handy little guide is everything you need to run every sort of horror game. Straight up horror, survival horror, personal horror, comedy horror. You name it, this book covers it.  Failing finding this a copy of Call of Cthluhu or GURPS: Horror are also good choices.

I am looking forward to hearing what people will have to say about these two new guides.