RPG a Day, James’ Appendix

+James Mishler also added some questions.

1. Best non-RPG property to licensed RPG you’ve ever played
Easy. Ghosts of Albion.

2. Best RPG you’ve ever read but never played
Keltia from Cubicle 7.  It looks amazing.

3. RPG core rulebook you would take with you on a desert island
Only one?  The D&D Rules Cyclopedia. One book, endless possibilities.
That or the WitchCraftRPG.

4. Favorite RPG vaporware.
I hate to throw another designer under the bus, so I won't mention the one I am thinking of.
So I will go historic.  I would have to say the B/X Companion from TSR.  There was a BECMI Companion and a couple of other B/X Companions, but the TSR one is the one I wanted back in the day.

5. Best houserule that ended up with the worst results
Using a d30 for anything.  I know they are fun looking, but damn a flat 1 to 30 range is nearly useless for most games.

6. Worst kerfluffle that ever ended an otherwise good, ongoing campaign
The biggest campaign killers for me have been time to meet.

RPG a Day 2015, Day 31

Day 31: Favorite non-RPG thing to come out of RPGing

That's a pretty easy one.

The friendships I have made over the years.  Going all the way back to Jr. High to today I have had the pleasure to meet so many really cool people.  Not just "famous" people, but people I consider friends.

One of the the things I love most about Gen Con, or any large Con, is walking around and seeing so many people enjoying the same hobby as me. Maybe not always the same game, but the same sorts of things.   These people are kindred. They are my tribe.

Despite anything else that happens in gaming I still value to people I have met along the way.

RPG a Day 2015, Day 30

Day 30: Favorite RPG Playing Celebrity

I will be honest I have never given it much of a thought.

I did think it was cool that Vin Disel plays, and not only plays but knows things about the Silmarillion that only a true fan would know.

But I will be honest and say that I have recently become a fan of Felicia Day.  She seems to have been the model for the word "adorkable".  Plus I loved her on Supernatural.  No, I have not seen Season 10 yet.

I also have not seen "The Guild" yet either. But I do at least know about it.

Zatannurday: Spider-Gwen and Batgirl

I have mentioned earlier this summer about my love for Spider-Gwen and more times than I care to think about about my love for Batgirl.

Well here they are together.  Personally I would like to think that super-smart Barbara and super-smart Gwen Stacy would be BFFs, if in a sort of rival-ly way.   So here they are together.

RPG a Day 2015, Day 29

Day 29: Favorite RPG Website/Blog

Again, so many.

I think I am going to have to go with DriveThruRPG/RPGNow.

I LOVE the idea that any game I want is at my finger tips.  Old, new, sometimes free.  It is one of the best things about gaming in today's age.

Friday Night Videos: Haunted House

I have always had this reoccurring nightmare of haunted house.
I love horror of course but this dream was quite the horror story.

Over the years I come to call it my "Very Haunted House".

Of course I had to turn it into adventure.  So I am running it for the first time tomorrow!

Here are some musical inspiration for the adventure.  No. I am not going to play Ghostbusters or Thriller.

I have mentioned many times about how much I enjoy the music of Eric Burdon and the Animals.  "House of the Rising Sun" is top of my list of not just Animals songs, but all songs.  I have featured it many times in many adventures.




Back in High School and College Genesis was a big deal.  Not the Peter Gabriel version, but the later pop friendly Phil Collins version.  "Home By the Sea" is about a house full of ghosts.  It maid it's way into "Ghosts of Albion: Blight" and now in my new adventure too.




Growing up in the midwest in the 80s it was not possible to turn on the radio and not hear the Eagles.  "Hotel California" is not their best song. It's not even a great song. But it is ubiquitous and it is evocative of Hell.  Thus it always stuck with me.




Too Much Joy was the ultimate College band when I was in Grad School.  They are fun, they sing about things that college guys like, namely drinking, girls, drugs and girls.  "Sort of Haunted House" is not a song about a real haunted house. It's about a breakup, but when I was having this nightmare this was the song that was always on.  BTW I am sure the nightmare was stress related due to defending my thesis, breaking up with my crazy ex girl friend, moving up with my new girlfriend.  So in a way it fits.  Plus like my haunted house this one has a "ghost in every room".  One of many great hits of the critically ignored Munity.




I don't have a lot to say about Rockwell.  His "Somebody's Watching Me" makes for a crazy paranoid one hit wonder.  Notable because Michael Jackson sang backup on the track.  But the video is properly creepy and that's a plus.




"Shadows of the Night" by Pat Benatar from her wildly popular Get Nervous album is not about ghosts.  But don't tell that to my 12 year old self listening to it while rereading the Cook/Marsh Expert book.  Shadows of the night were real shadows, as in the monster that could be turned in AD&D but not in D&D.  For years I have always wanted to use this song.  So this adventure reintroduces a similar monster, the Memento Mori.




Another song that featured prominently in Ghosts of Albion: Blight is the ethereal voice of Loreena McKennitt.  "The Old Ways" features a woman and her evening spent with a ghost, or maybe it was an old druid.  Either way a gulf of time separates them.  From the haunting The Visit.




Happy Hauntings.

Kickstart Your Weekend

This one seems like a no brainer to me.

Globetrotters' Guide to London

A Gothic Guide to Victorian era London?
YES PLEASE!