I picked these up last week but forgot to mention them here.
These are the first class "Forever" stamps and there are 20 stamps of 10 designs. At 73¢ each this sheet costs $14.60.
Given the amount of letters I send, this might last me till D&D's 60th anniversary!
There is one accessory that I have to say has helped me more than any other when it comes to my games. That is Wikipedia.
Wikipedia first went online on January 15, 2001, and was created by Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales and Larry Sanger. As of July 2024, English Wikipedia hosts approximately 6.85 million articles and has about 47.68 million registered users, of whom 114,409 have made at least one edit in the past month. As of early 2024, there are over 1,300 articles on Wikipedia related to "Dungeons & Dragons."
While I don't use Wikipedia for my "day job" as an academic, it is great for D&D and other RPGs. I would not use it for an academic paper of any sort, but I will go there to get a summary of something. Or if I need to know something like when were sewers introduced in Europe or how a flying buttress was made. It is also great for RPG and D&D specific information.
I started as an editor back in September of 2007 and I have touched a majority of the D&D articles over the years as an independent fact checker and source finder. I helped get a few articles to "Good Article" status like Drizzt Do'Urden, Dwellers of the Forbidden City, and Bunnies & Burrows. I even got a small grant for that last one. Even better, I got the Ravenloft and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks articles to Featured Article status.
I don't edit there as much as I used to, but I still check in on various articles and provide support where and when I can.
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I am participating in Dave Chapman's #RPGaDAY2024 for August.
Not 100% sure what is being asked here, but to me there are a couple of RPGs that can fall into this. Though admittedly, I could be confusing "good form" with "good formatting."
The first ones to come to mind are Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition and Old-School Essentials.
Both for the same reason. Their layout facilitates laying the book open at the game table with all information needed on facing pages.
OSE takes this a step further, with all the information needed on a particular topic fitting on just two pages.
So much so that I took it upon myself to get a spiral-bound copy made of Old School Essentials Classic.
It's not an easy task getting all the text to fit like this but the results are impressive.
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I am participating in Dave Chapman's #RPGaDAY2024 for August.
Lucy has no word from Jonathan.
6 August.—Another three days, and no news. This suspense is getting dreadful. If I only knew where to write to or where to go to, I should feel easier; but no one has heard a word of Jonathan since that last letter. I must only pray to God for patience. Lucy is more excitable than ever, but is otherwise well. Last night was very threatening, and the fishermen say that we are in for a storm. I must try to watch it and learn the weather signs. To-day is a grey day, and the sun as I write is hidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness. Everything is grey—except the green grass, which seems like emerald amongst it; grey earthy rock; grey clouds, tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the grey sea, into which the sand-points stretch like grey fingers. The sea is tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar, muffled in the sea-mists drifting inland. The horizon is lost in a grey mist. All is vastness; the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and there is a “brool” over the sea that sounds like some presage of doom. Dark figures are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded in the mist, and seem “men like trees walking.” The fishing-boats are racing for home, and rise and dip in the ground swell as they sweep into the harbour, bending to the scuppers. Here comes old Mr. Swales. He is making straight for me, and I can see, by the way he lifts his hat, that he wants to talk....
I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man. When he sat down beside me, he said in a very gentle way:—
“I want to say something to you, miss.” I could see he was not at ease, so I took his poor old wrinkled hand in mine and asked him to speak fully; so he said, leaving his hand in mine:—
“I’m afraid, my deary, that I must have shocked you by all the wicked things I’ve been sayin’ about the dead, and such like, for weeks past; but I didn’t mean them, and I want ye to remember that when I’m gone. We aud folks that be daffled, and with one foot abaft the krok-hooal, don’t altogether like to think of it, and we don’t want to feel scart of it; an’ that’s why I’ve took to makin’ light of it, so that I’d cheer up my own heart a bit. But, Lord love ye, miss, I ain’t afraid of dyin’, not a bit; only I don’t want to die if I can help it. My time must be nigh at hand now, for I be aud, and a hundred years is too much for any man to expect; and I’m so nigh it that the Aud Man is already whettin’ his scythe. Ye see, I can’t get out o’ the habit of caffin’ about it all at once; the chafts will wag as they be used to. Some day soon the Angel of Death will sound his trumpet for me. But don’t ye dooal an’ greet, my deary!”—for he saw that I was crying—“if he should come this very night I’d not refuse to answer his call. For life be, after all, only a waitin’ for somethin’ else than what we’re doin’; and death be all that we can rightly depend on. But I’m content, for it’s comin’ to me, my deary, and comin’ quick. It may be comin’ while we be lookin’ and wonderin’. Maybe it’s in that wind out over the sea that’s bringin’ with it loss and wreck, and sore distress, and sad hearts. Look! look!” he cried suddenly. “There’s something in that wind and in the hoast beyont that sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death. It’s in the air; I feel it comin’. Lord, make me answer cheerful when my call comes!” He held up his arms devoutly, and raised his hat. His mouth moved as though he were praying. After a few minutes’ silence, he got up, shook hands with me, and blessed me, and said good-bye, and hobbled off. It all touched me, and upset me very much.
I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spy-glass under his arm. He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the time kept looking at a strange ship.
“I can’t make her out,” he said; “she’s a Russian, by the look of her; but she’s knocking about in the queerest way. She doesn’t know her mind a bit; she seems to see the storm coming, but can’t decide whether to run up north in the open, or to put in here. Look there again! She is steered mighty strangely, for she doesn’t mind the hand on the wheel; changes about with every puff of wind. We’ll hear more of her before this time to-morrow.”
Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous
The Demeter has entered into Mina's life, though she does not know the importance of this just yet.
When it gets right down to it, you can't get more basic than Basic D&D.
Like many of the RPGs I am going to talk about this month, this one is so easy that everyone can go from no knowledge to playing their new characters in a matter of minutes. I know people have very fond memories of the Mentzer set and I personally got my start with the Holmes Basic set, but it is this one I consider my first "real" D&D.
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I am participating in Dave Chapman's #RPGaDAY2024 for August.
This one was a bit harder since there are so many well-written RPGs, many with well-designed rules and others with well-crafted narratives. But the one that ticks all those boxes for me is CJ Carella's WitchCraft.
I talk about this game a lot here, and with good reason. It is one of my all-time favorite games.
Mere words can't express my love for this game. Though I have tried many, many times. This is the game I come back to. This is the game that I hold up as my Gold Standard of Games. Not that it isn't without its own issues, of course, but nothing I can't work around or even with. I have often said I wrote Ghosts of Albion as nothing but a giant love letter to the WitchCraft RPG.
WitchCraft was the game that pulled me back into RPGs. I was ready to give up until I found this game. I have never looked back.
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I am participating in Dave Chapman's #RPGaDAY2024 for August.
Final Log of the Demeter.
4 August.—Still fog, which the sunrise cannot pierce. I know there is sunrise because I am a sailor, why else I know not. I dared not go below, I dared not leave the helm; so here all night I stayed, and in the dimness of the night I saw It—Him! God forgive me, but the mate was right to jump overboard. It was better to die like a man; to die like a sailor in blue water no man can object. But I am captain, and I must not leave my ship. But I shall baffle this fiend or monster, for I shall tie my hands to the wheel when my strength begins to fail, and along with them I shall tie that which He—It!—dare not touch; and then, come good wind or foul, I shall save my soul, and my honour as a captain. I am growing weaker, and the night is coming on. If He can look me in the face again, I may not have time to act.... If we are wrecked, mayhap this bottle may be found, and those who find it may understand; if not, ... well, then all men shall know that I have been true to my trust. God and the Blessed Virgin and the saints help a poor ignorant soul trying to do his duty....
Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous
These logs are published along with the account of the Demeter when it runs aground.
