End of an Era

We are coming up on the end of an era.

The last Harry Potter movie will be hitting theaters next month and it has been a fun 10 year ride.
Regardless of your thoughts on the books, or the movies or any of the hype there are a few things I think are very true.

1. It has been a worldwide phenomena, not just in terms of the "World of Harry Potter" but something that got kids to READ!

2. It has been a wonder watching these young actors grow up.

The books have been fantastic. The movies wonderful. I am for one sad to see them go, but all good things right.

Here is a really cool video.

What's Next for the DragonSlayers?

I like to read PDFs while running, I feel like I am getting more done that way.  On this weeks's reading list: The Lost Caverns of the Tsojcanth and the 3.5 update Iggwilv's Legacy.

I loved this module back in the day and I still have my original copy.

Should be a lot of fun.

Interview at Lili's Lair!!

Hey all!  I am very excited about this!

You can read an interview about me and the RPG work I have been doing at Lili's Lair this morning.

http://www.lilislair.com/2011/06/timothy-brannan-ghosts-of-albion-rpg-co.html

Read about my involvement in Buffy, Ghosts of Albion and other RPGs.

Enjoy and don't forget you can get Ghosts of Albion, Buffy and other games I have worked on at DriveThruRPG.

OH! And the guy sitting in the chair in picture to my left? Wearing the blue shirt on sunglasses? That is my High School DM.   He is almost as much to blame for this as I am.

Could WotC support ALL D&D?

There is an interesting post on Wizard's site today where Mike Mearls discusses (basically) gaming style and which version of D&D best fits that style.
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20110614#74972

It is worth a read and reminds me a bit of the old GNS Theory that was so popular a few years back.

I am not going to get into whether or not X version of Y game fits where on Mearls grid or even Edward's GNS.
I don't particularly care about those sorts of things since they all take a back seat to the more important questions to me: "Is Game X fun?  Will I have fun with Game X?  Do I own Game X so I can find out on my own?"

Which gets me to my random though of the day.

Should WotC support ALL D&D?  

As a business model it is a flawed one, the cost to produce physical products for a game that is 10, 20 or even 30 years out of print is pointless.  But what about using their own electronic distribution?

Recently WotC has seemed open to print 1st and even 2nd and 3rd Edition related material.  Why not take that that a step further and offer a "Classic D&D" subscription.  You pay (or maybe it is part of the DDI) and get new material for your game.

Of course readers of this blog will see the error right away.  There are a ton of blogs out there now, producing for free or very, very cheap, material for those older games.  And thanks to the OGL WotC (unlike TSR in the past) is perfectly happy that we continue to do so.

But what WotC adds to the mix is something we as a group do not have.  Brand recognition.  I can say "my magic hats is for people that ply Basic Era games" (nudge nudge wink wink implied).   Only WotC can say "this is for you people that still love to play Basic Dungeons & Dragons".

Obviously there is cost.  Someone has to write and that someone has to be paid.  Art is a very important part of what WotC can bring to the table that a simple blogger or one-man shop can't do as well or as cheaply.  Of course art is still not cheap.

I am sure that a cost benefit analysis would need to be done.  How much would it cost versus how much return they could get.

So let me throw it all out to you.

Would you pay WotC for regular content for your particular favorite Old School D&D product?
How much would you pay?
Per product or monthly?
What would you want to see to make you seriously consider this?

Now keep in mind this is NOT market research.  You all are not a random sample. You are a sample that is used to get a lot of material free (if not her, then other places) but you are also a sample that is interested in this older games AND a sample that is open to other games.  You read my blog afterall, I talk about a dozen or so different games here and about a half dozen on a regular basis.  You answers are different than those of say the regular reader of Dragonsfoot or Grognardia or ENWorld.

Let me, and the world, know what you think.

June DriveThruRPG

Today is my Birthday!!

But it will be you that get the gifts today.

Here are the products you can get from DriveThru RPG for 20% off.



Ninja Burger RPG (2nd Edition) [aetherial FORGE]
Heavy Gear Blitz! Locked & Loaded [Dream Pod 9]
Hero's Handbook: Dragonborn [Goodman Games]  (I am picking this one up now!)
Splicers RPG [Palladium Books]
Noir Knights (Savage Worlds) [Savage Mojo]
Mekton Zeta Plus [R. Talsorian]
Judge Dredd RPG (Traveller Version) [Mongoose Studios]
Dark Heresy: Inquisitor's Handbook [Fantasy Flight Games]
Amethyst: Foundations [Goodman Games]
King Arthur Pendragon (Edition 5.1) [Nocturnal]  (A very, very awesome game and my fave on this list)

The 20% off code is: HotJuneDrive2011

Enjoy!!

They didn't kill the Ubues.

A while back my kids group, the Dragon Slayers, completed an adventure I was calling "Return to the Palace of the Silver Princess".  I used elements of both the "Orange" and "Green" versions (sounds like something I might have bought in Northern Ireland), the Tome of Horrors books and a bunch of other materials.   I turned it from a  low level dungeon crawl to a high-mid level campaign.

But I am not here to talk about my mad DMing skillz.

I want to talk about my players, my boys.

They got to the kitchen area, which is on the second level. They had been through the first level and fought goblins, giant rats, and mutant kobolds all as warm ups. The second level was where Arik's magic was in greater force and there were a couple of beholders floating around and some dwarves that had been turned into orcs and a giant prehistoric were creature that had elements of both bear and wolf (Aliegha*).  The Ubues were up next.  Like many of the creatures I increased their HD and attacks.  Either I multiplied their levels by 3 (which is what I did here) or added 10 levels.

The kitchen was of course home of the Ubues, and home to the art that got the Orange (or Loyalist, wait wrong orange again) version turned into a collector's item.
The boys rationalized that the Ubues, being all weird looking but living in the evil glow, were not really evil, but mutated innocent humans.
So instead of killing them they put them all to sleep (usign one of the sleep spells from my d20 Witch book).  They then moved them all to a room and Locked the door with a spell.

Now I could have played this by the book and kept them evil monsters.  I didn't, I like their idea so much I decided it was the truth.  In fact each Ubue was in fact three servants merged into one creature and that had driven them a little mad.  Also by the book rules would have also said they did not get an experience points for this "encounter" I gave them full XP.  I decided that since they did in fact defeat them and caused them not to be a threat anymore then they deserved full XP.

I am pleased with what the boys did and glad they were less bloodthirsty than others.

*Coming back to this, they did kill Aliegha.  In the Orange version she was a werebear and in the Green she was a werewolf.  Since I had already had the dwarves (orange) mutating into orcs (green), I had Aliegha mutating into were creature that was somewhere between bear and wolf.  I had just finished reading "Frostbiten" by Kelley Armstrong and I had been curious about the prehistoric Amphicyonidae (Bear-dog) since a trip to the Natural History Museum and seeing one on TV.  I figure she was changing into some creature that was the ancestor of the "modern" werewolf and werebears.  They did kill her, but now I kinda wish she had gotten away.  She would have made an interesting character.

Pathfinder

Today is my Pathfinder game with the "big kids".  The Northlands group.
To help explain my absence since late-February the GM has decided that my character was kidnapped.

We will see how it all goes.