Kickstart Your Weekend: Gamer Badges

When you are in Scouting (Cub, Brownies, Boy or Girl) you can earn badges for various merits or activities.  Now you can earn them in your hobby too!

Gamer Badges by JBM Press is the latest Kickstarter I'd like to bring to your attentions.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1705440407/gamer-badges

I have to admit I love the idea of these.  Not just in terms getting the badges (which is fun) but also this is exactly the sort of thing Kickstarter is about; helping a small company get the capital they need to get a unique project off the ground.  Plus JBM Press are good people.

It would be great to see these in game stores.

Seriously if you have a good group these would be a lot of fun.
They are offering a shirt, a sash and a bag to display them on.  I like the bag to be honest. I always need a good bag and mine are all covered in pins (a habit from my undergrad days).

So please spread the word on this one and kick in a few bucks if you can.

I'd love to do the Design Your Own level but have not thought of anything I would like to spend that on.  "Game Designer" one or maybe "40+ year veteran" badge?

Anyway, check them out!

Against the Giants - Prep Time!

The boys are about a session or two from completing the A series.
Time to start thinking about getting ready for the G series.

I have already made a list (likely incomplete) of all the monsters in the G series.
Currently, I am gathering up supplies and minis, but I am coming up a little short.

There are these sets of paper minis that could work for me:

• Giants Set from Arion Games
• Giants from Sanity Studios
• Cardstock Miniatures: Giants—Large and In Charge from Rogue Genius Games

While searching for minis (no one makes giantesses that I have seen...well there is this set, but not for my kids use) I did find this adventure:

• Dungeon Crawl Classics #21: Assault on Stormbringer Castle

But I really know nothing about it other than it has a Storm Giant...which I am missing from the G123 series.  Looks promising though.

I Survived the 2016 A to Z Challenge...

but just barely.

I had known for a while what I wanted to do this year and as far as posting goes I got it.  It was fun to share my thoughts and read others thoughts and remembrances of this old (and some new) adventures.  While I focused on the top 30 Best, I also looked at others.  In the end, they are all adventures I will either run or have run in the past.  I had a great time.

There were also a lot of great blogs in this Challenge, and I didn't get anywhere close to visiting them all.  I didn't even get to visit all the blogs I had really wanted to visit.  Lots of reasons for that, but mostly it was work related.

Next Year

Every year I struggle with the questions "Do I do this again?" and "What should I do?".
I have done "Witches", "Vampires" and "Demons" already. I have considered "Undead" and have many of the creatures already picked out.  That could be fun and I have this old red notebook full of undead creatures I created back in the 80s that have never seen the light of day anywhere else.

One of my own goals for this Challenge is to spread the word of our little hobby here.  I don't have to guess, I can look at my analytics and I know my audience shifts in April.  I get a lot of new people coming in from the Challenge.  This is my time to speak to people outside of our little corner of the internet. I want to evangelize our hobby.

I think doing a month where I focus on different OSR game might be nice, but I had done something like that in 2012.  Are there even enough OSR games/products with all the different letters?  Can't think of "Q" at the moment unless I cheat and do something with "Queen" again. Though I do have X and Z figured out, so that is something.

The point of that sort of posting would be to get someone that is new and put them on the path to a game they could play.  I buy and hand out copies of "Basic Fantasy" all the time, but I can get so many more people here.

I suppose the criteria for me would be these would have to be complete games and OSR ones are preferred.  I guess I could start a list.

What would you all like to see?
You are the reader, what would bring you back each day?

New Releases Tuesday. Witch Edition.

It's Tuesday and that means new releases.

Today I am very excited to report that The Witch is now available on iTunes and Amazon Instant Video.

I am going to be staying up tonight to see this one.

Also out is the third book in Barb Hendee's Mist-torn Witches series, To Kill a Kettle Witch.

While not exactly a new release for today, it was released on Friday.  Rob Zombie's The Electric Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration Dispenser.

On the D&D/OSR side of things The Rogues Gallery is now out.
I remember getting this and being quite excited.  I remember years laters rediscovering it and recognizing some of the names.

Weekend Gaming: Against the Slave Lords!

The Order of the Platinum Dragon made it to the throne room of the slave lords and encountered the first five.

The battle was fierce with many HP lost on both sides.
I did notice that in some cases the Playtest version of Next has slightly different monster stats than the final version of 5e.  I have used both more or less interchangeably.

Sadly the heroes were all knocked unconscious and awoke in a deep, dark dungeon with no weapons, gear or armor.   Adventure A4 begins next!

Of course while they were unconscious they had more dreams.
I am using dream sequences and flashback to give them tidbits of information about what is going on in the world or the past.  I am going with the old adage that it is better to show and not tell.  Each different dream sequence or flashback I use a different version of *D&D.  The next one uses AD&D 1st Ed for a trip back 30+ years ago (natch).

I have used Basic already and even have one planned using 4th ed D&D.

I have my summer gaming mapped out.  This is going to be epic!

A to Z of Adventure! Z is for Zanzer's Dungeon

Z is for Zanzer's Dungeon.

Here we are once again at the end of the A to Z challenge.

Z, like some other letters here, does not signify a module code.  In this case there is an obvious choice.  Back in the early 90s the D&D brand was in transition.  There was the Dungeons & Dragons line, with rule-books named Basic, Expert, Companion, Masters, and Immortal (BECMI) and a single book Rules Cyclopedia that combined the first four.  Then there was the completely separate Advanced Dungeons & Dragons line which had rules-books named Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monstrous Manual.  These books were in their 2nd Edition.
Confusing?  Yeah it was to us too.

In 1991 TSR, the then publisher of D&D released their newest, and what would be one of their last, in the "Basic" sets. The set was called "The New Easy-to-Master Dungeons & Dragons Game" but gamers often called it the "Black Box".  The adventure inside was a bit of preview of things to soon come.  Zanzer's Dungeon was laid out like a board game complete with little plastic minis for the characters and paper fold top minis for monsters.  This was compatible with the BECMI flavor of D&D and worked as a replacement for the Basic Set and an introduction to the Rules Cyclopedia.

While the game was highly praised for it ease of use and intuitiveness. I never bothered getting it at the time.  I picked up my copy (pictured here) many years later as a means to teach my kids how to play.  Turns out they learned like I did...just by playing.

The board-game like play area is welcoming to new players.  Now they can see what they are doing.
Persoanlly that annoyed me because for years my rule books would say that you don't need a board, only your imagination!  Though today I use tiles and maps just like this.

In fact Zanzer's Dungeon here is the same scale as the maps used in 3rd and 4th edition D&D (and 5th if you care to), so the minis we have been using will work here too.

This set would later be expanded with the Dragon's Den boxed set, which was also board game "shaped".

One day I'll use these as an intro game for something.  Better than them collecting dust on my shelves!

Werewolves For Basic Era Games

Tomorrow night is Walpurgis Night.  A night when witches, vampires, and werewolves are known to be out.
I have already given you Witches and Vampires so now I present Werewolves.

Werewolves: The Beast Within is a 10/20 level race-as-a-class class for your favorite Basic Era OSR game.

From the back cover:

Werewolves…
The fear to loose control and become a hungry, blood lusted
beast has haunted our nightmares since we clutched together
in the dark. It has also been the secret desire of others.

Lycanthropes been a staple of role-playing villains, monsters, and
anti-heroes since the dawn of the role-playing hobby.

Now you can play these fearsome monsters of horror tales and
movies in your Basic-Era style games.

Presented here is a full 20 level class with all the classic
werewolf powers.

Fully compatible with the werewolf monsters you have been
using for nearly 40 years.

Also fully compatible with my books for Witches and Vampires.

This one is a buck, but that is really just to pay for the art.

So celebrate "Half-aween" (half way to Halloween) with some classic monsters.