And here we are at the end of another #RPGaDAY for August. What new Expeiences has this given me?
From the start, this month has been about my reflection of a Summer with the BECMI rules and Basic-era rules in general. I spent a lot of time here thinking about what these rules do that is different than what I have been used too over the last few years (read: Modern D&D) and what I was used too back in the 80s (read: Advanced D&D).
My lens for this #RPGaDAY was these experiences. Because of that reading what others had posted gave me a very different viewpoint. It was not 2-3 blog posts and 5-7 tweets that were all identical and everyone talking about the same thing. This was nice. While I was not as responsive as I would have liked to have been to others on this, reading them all was fun.
Since I also spent a lot of time talking about my BECMI/BX campaign, War of the Witch Queens, maybe I'll use that map as a simple dungeon crawl. Maybe using ideas from my various posts here and when those don't work, well, I am sure I'll think of something.
Hopefully, next year when this starts I'll be at Gen con again with my kids. That would be really great.
There are all sorts of portals to be found in RPGs and D&D in particular, but one was the most important to me.
In these 16 pages, I got a glimpse of something more. More worlds than I knew existed out there and they could be mine...all I needed was more paper-route money.
Here I first learned the differences between D&D and AD&D, though it would be a longer before I really knew. Other games I have heard about but had not seen. Games like Dungeon! and Vampyre. I learned of Gen Con and I wanted one of those T-Shirts.
I am a little sad we don't have these anymore, but there are far too many products these days to make it practical.
I see Archive.org has a copy archived if you want to take a look.
DC FanDome was last weekend and there is more to come, but here is what was released for the future of DC on your screens.
Let's start on the big screen and with the one I am looking forward to the most. Wonder Woman 84!
It has Maxwell Lord, Cheetah (Barbara Ann Minerva version), and...Steve Trevor? No idea how they are going to do that, but I am betting it was Maxwell Lord's doing. In any case, the movie looks great and I bet soundtrack is going to be awesome.
For the next one, let me say I am cautiously optimistic.
Look, I am a Batman fan as much as the next DC fan, but there are other characters out there and we have had several Batman movies.
Speaking of other characters, there is one that not a lot of people know about so it will be interesting to see how it works out on screen. A sequel/prequel to the successful Shazam movie we are introduced to Shazam's main enemy, Black Adam.
On the smaller screen, we are going to get the "Snyder Cut" of "Justice League". I am also looking forward to this one as well.
Personally, I prefer the Donner cut over the Lester/Theatrical original. Given what I know of what was going on on the set of Justice League I am also hopeful that this one will be good too. Though I am now hearing it will be four hours long!
You are going to need HBO Max for it, but that is fine if you already have HBO.
We are also hearing more about one of the refected Justice League Dark ideas. This one was from Joseph Kahn. I am not sure how far along this one ever got, but there was some cool concept art.
Dan Stevens was cast as John Constantine. But the best is a punk-looking Zatanna played by Natalie Dormer. I miss the fishnets, but this is cool too.
There is another FanDome coming up in a couple of weeks. I bet they will cover more of the TV shows then.
Lost our Internet yesterday do to a neighborhood outage.
When it came back on finally I had day job stuff to finish. So I am "phoning it in" today with my Ride post. Though I am still doing the topic I wanted.
Today's post is "Why Do Witches Ride Brooms?"
Here a couple of videos to answer that question.
First up one that talks about in terms of the practice of witches and witchcraft.
Second, we have Greg Owens from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Utah, College of Science.
Maybe one day I'll work up an in-game reason for witches and brooms.
Here is a bit of an episode of Charmed to help explain why the Warren Witches are depicted on brooms. It is a little silly, but fun.
This is about the time of year that I close out Summer projects and inventory my Fall ones to see where I am at.
But this summer was a strange one really. The whole Covid-19 thing changed a LOT of plans, one in particular was available free time to get other projects done. The day job was just too involved.
So I am still closing out my Summer though and looking ahead to Fall and beyond plans. Here is what is going on for me and The Other Side.
Right now I am archiving old projects, both personal and work, I like to have a nice cleaned out work space on my computers. This also gives me the opportunity to see what I have been working on and what still needs to be done.
I still have a little bit more I want to do for BECMI month Summer, including a deep dive into the Shadow Elves like I mentioned on Day 9. That though is in a couple more weeks.
The War of the Witch Queens has been on my mind a lot since I want to run it under the B/X or BECMI rules. I just have not figured out all the points yet. I pointed out on Day 20 that Kelek is likely to be my bad guy. And I think that still works. In fact if the campaign only goes to level 14 (B/X, OSE) then that will be my guy. BUT What if Kelek sets thing into motion he didn't predict and it quickly got out of hand? The Witches, held in check by the Witch Queens are now doing some real damage? What then? Well. In that case we continue on to level 36! Who knows, I might even start it with the classic "You meet in an Inn".
Super Dungeon Explorer Adventure Team Go, Go, GO!
This is a bit of a goof, but it has gotten a lot of attention. I secured an artist this week for the first release of this. It will be for 5e and likely 180° away from anything Old-School.
Basic Bestiary and High Witchcraft
The first draft of Basic Bestiary is done, working on the beta draft now. I also put together my spreadsheet to track art development. Sadly I have not actually secured any new artists for this one. So that might be a delay.
The High Witchcraft book is no where near ready. I was going over my notes and I am not even sure I have anything that can be considered a draft at this point. Just about a dozen or so files of notes that need to be collated, edited and then made into something. Additionally I have files of materials that did not make the cut for some of the other books; usually due to space or because the idea was not as complete as I would have liked. If this is really going to be my "last witch book" then it behooves me to either find a home for those orphans here or on my blog. One such orphan was the Goblin Forest of Haven.
I really want the High Witchcraft book to be really special. I want it to feature some of the ideas I have been playing with for years and to be my Coda for this series.
I have a couple of other projects on the burners, but nothing I can share just yet.
Today is my younger Brother's Birthday. I also always associate this day as the real first day of the Fall Term. I have been in academia for so long (all my life really) that my calendar still pivots on the Fall term.
So my youngest son started his senior year last week. My older son can't go back to culinary school just yet. My Fall term started on Monday. Time to clear up old summer projects and move into new Fall ones.
And for this, I am asking for a Favor.
I want to get a few more of my books out into the hands of reviewers.
So if you are interested in reviewing one of my witch books or even (or especially) Night Shift, drop me a note. You can post below, but send me an email so you can include all your contact details and where you plan on leaving your review.
I could comment on these strange days, but I have other social media outlets for that.
I am going to comment on the #RPGaDAY2020 list itself in that these are a lot of strange words.
Ok, I get it, Dave has been doing this a long time and maybe he is running out of words to use. but knowing and the work he has done in the past I highly doubt he is lacking in ideas. So I'll just put this here as my commentary and that's it.
Ok. Strange. Let's get to the meat of this.
Many of my contemporaries will point to Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tolkien, Moorcock, and Lovecraft as their main sources of inspiration to D&D. While I share the Tolkien, Moorcock, and Lovecraft influences, I also add Clark Ashton Smith.
But those were not my only sources.
Dr. Strange and Tomb of Dracula
The 1970s were a strange time to be sure. The 70s Occult Revival fueled my tastes in games in ways I never knew at the time and only saw in retrospect. Case in point. Dr. Strange comics and Tomb of Dracula. Both were favorites of mine but when Strange, along with Blade, would battle Dracula? Yeah, THAT was an adventure. I wanted my games to have these epic world-changing battles that start small but then go on out to the cosmic scale. Strange didn't just defeat Dracula. He destroyed all vampires.
I was already a huge horror fan at this point and Hammer Horror in particular. So these comics sent me searching more and more strange ideas for my games. I think by 1982 I had read every book of occultism in my local public library. Creating a witch class was an inevitable conclusion at that point.
When the Ravenloft module was released it found a no more welcome home than mine.
My parents were voracious readers. Books filled every corner of my home growing up and every room had at least one bookshelf, some like the living room had three.
They, like many people of their generation, had a lot of Reader's Digest books. One, in particular, was Strange Stories, Amazing Facts.
This book should not by any stretch of the imagination be considered good literature or even good research. It is however good fun and a fun read.
While the book is divided up into roughly chronological sections including one on the future, it was the past and the monsters of myth that always grabbed my attention. Though flipping through it now that section on the end of the world would be fun to use.
For my birthday about 10 years ago my family found a copy and gave it to me. Complete with original dust jacket (I am book snob and prefer my dust covers intact).
I have been asked in the past to assemble my own "Appendix N". Maybe I'll do that one day.
