The Other Side blog

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Updated Witch Links

I spent some time over my Christmas vacation to update my witch links page.
I have expanded it to include message boards as well as blogs.

These are only links, you will have to go to the blog in question to read the article.

Have something you think needs linked here? Shoot me an email or post below.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Owl & Weasel Wednesday #23 February 1977

February 1977 gives us Issue number 23 of Owl & Weasel and at 20 pages it is the largest O&W to date (and ever in fact!). Though a lot of those new pages are dedicated to the 1977 Games Day, as the cover so proudly tells us.

The editorial has an introduction to Games Day and gives new comers an idea of what to expect.
Moving on Page 4 (and some of 6) cover an introduction to Table Top games, which at this point still refers mostly to war games. So far the content leads me to believe that they expect most people at Games Day and/or reading this zine not to be familiar with the types of games that will be there. This strikes me as a bit odd to be honest.

Page 5 (and 6) Ian covers the British 1977 Toy Fair with an eye towards the game manufacturers represented there. There seems to me to be more American game companies listed here than they discussed last year. To be fair they were pretty down on the Toy Fair last year so it could just be that they didn't mention it.

Page 6 contains the overflow of the previous articles, but of interest to me is the 1977 Scrabble championship. My brother is a big Scrabble fan (we all have our things) so I found this kind of interesting. Wonder how he would have fared? Well, terrible really, it was another year till he was born.

Page 7, 8 and 9 have ads. Lots of them in fact. These are all companies at the Games Day, stand numbers are included, but it is still interesting to see as this represents a shift closer to White Dwarf in terms of content. Games Workshop is hosting the D&D booth and a "Totally NEW concept in game design". Again the joy here is not simply nostalgia at looking at something I have already seen, but that feel of when everything was still new and untested. I guess this is also one of the reasons I have always worked at start-up companies and moved on when they get older and established.

Pages 10 and 11 have the map of the hall and the time table of events. Still not Gen Con, either then or now, but it looks like a lot of fun was had. Matchday, Diplomacy, Monopoly, and of course Dungeons & Dragons games are featured many times. The whole thing runs 10:00am to 6:00pm that day.

We get another 3 pages of ads, and then a page on "What Do I Do After Games Day?" It is actually a nice little bit of advice and something that Gen Con could even add to their programs. Though many of us know this stuff instinctively. They do explicitly state that many people that come to Games Day are new to all these games, so the split them up into "Family Games", "Board Games", "Table Top Games" (we call these Wargames now or miniatures games) and "Fantasy Games" or RPGs in the current nadsat. The continue on with "Postal Games" (play by mail), and "Abstract Games". They list some of the big name game shops in the area, along with publications and clubs.

Pages 18 and 19 are dedicated to the D&D society, including interestingly enough, an org chart of how the society is run on the national and local levels. Nice, but I wonder if it happened this way in practice. I will be honest, I don't recall reading much about the D&D society in White Dwarf.

Finally we get to the last page with the items Games Workshop is selling.

So a much larger issue, but only this one time. The overall impression is the hobby is growing steadily but as we know the big boom is yet to come. O&W makes more of it's evolution towards White Dwarf, but the next issues will be more telling.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

First Blog Challenge of the Year - Witches & Witchcraft Reading Challenge

I read a lot of books all year round. I have them on my phone, on my tablet, I listen to them in my car. I have even been known to pick up an honest to goodness dead-tree paperback or hardcover.

So a reading challenge is right up my alley really. What makes it even better is this challenge is made up of "Witch" books.

http://melissaseclecticbookshelf.com/2015-witches-witchcraft-reading-challenge-sign-up-post/

It should be fun. And as always as a "value add" for my own readers I will translate what I can into game terms.

So. Time to start gathering up some books!

Edited to add:
Here is my first book for the Challenge!
http://www.amazon.com/Witches-Echo-Park-Amber-Benson-ebook/dp/B00ISEOLZU/

Monday, January 5, 2015

New Year, New Game 2015

It's a new year and DriveThruRPG is running their New Year, New Game sale for 2015.

There some great games here all at 15% off. Many I have talked about here in the past.

Here are some of my top choices.

So lots of great choices here and even more on the site.
Do yourself a favor and try something new.

Plans for 2015

So what are your gaming plans for 2015?

Personally I want to get more gaming in with my 5e group. We have been having a great time and it has been a blast.

Get my Kickstarter projects done before +Erik Tenkar features me on his blog!

Maybe get some other smaller things out too. I have a Healer class for the OSR that I have kicked around and used for a number of years.

I have some ideas for some AD&D 1st ed / OSRIC / LL AEC material. But my current joy is 5e, so who knows really. I do know that there is still demand for old-school material.

For my blogging I want to wrap up the last couple of issues of Owl & Weasel.
Not sure if I want to pick up another magazine to go through or not. I have all these copies of Imagine and a few others. I have some Challenge mags, not a full set, all issues of Pegasus (I think). But not sure if there is any demand really. I enjoy them. There is a lot I get out of them.

Right now I don't have any other special features in the planning stages.

I would like to give a shout out to some more new blogs for "The Best Blog You Are Not Reading". Have someone you want me to cover? Send the link here.

I am going to cut WAY back on the Kickstarters. Both supporting and posting about them. I have been burned a lot recently with things I have backed.

More reviews of course. More goings on in my own games. More blatant self-promotion.

Let's bring on 2015!

Sunday, January 4, 2015

On the Road to Averoigne

So over the weekend my D&D5 group completed the castle portion of Castle Amber and the adventurers have entered Averoigne. They are currently taking a long rest before heading out to find the four items they need to return home.

So far this adventure has been fantastic. I forgot how much fun X2 was, both as a player and as a DM.

I am still playing around with the 5e rules. I might use the option that makes healing more like AD&D, but so far I still very happy with how things go.

Story wise I have been dropping hints of the "Oncoming Darkness" with both the ghouls and the Brain Collector/Neh-Thalggu mentioning it. Once they complete their quest here typically they are brought back to their own world. Instead I am going to have them go directly to Ravenloft via the mists and defeat Strahd. In both adventures they get items necessary for them to survive the adventures to come.

I am going to try out this Ravenloft I6 D&D 5 conversion I found here.
Ravenloft is one of my favorite adventures and I am really looking forward to it.

I still need them to come up with a name for their group.