TBBYANR: Movie Blogs

I love horror movies of all sorts.  I have a special place in my heart for sexy, cheesy euro-sleaze horror from the 70s to the early 80s.  So for the first set of "The Best Blog You are Not Reading" I would like to pick two film review sites that feature a lot of the movies that would be in my personal Appendix N.

The first is The House of Self-Indulgence

http://houseofselfindulgence.blogspot.com/
Truthfully HoSI breaks a lot of the rules of TBBYANR. It's not new, not small and has over 300 followers.  But it is also not one I see listed in the blog rolls locally, so I am going to let it pass.  Also the film reviews are so in-depth that I imagine that the author, Yum-yum, sits there in a private viewing room, whisky in hand with a leather bound journal and an Aurora Diamante fountain pen writing notes and witty insights to later be given to a secretary (who looks like Lina Romay in her prime) to be put on the blog.  Or something like that.
The reviews are long, in-depth and contain a surprising breadth of knowledge.
So yeah HoSI doesn't really need me to sing their praises, but I am anyway.

Another movie review site is For It Is Man's Number.
http://foritismansnumber.blogspot.com/
Again the focus here is horror, but a lot of other types of movies are covered. Owner Kevin Mathews has some solid old-school tastes. What attracted me to this blog was his coverage of Dracula AD 1972. One of the weakest Hammer Dracula films to be certain, but one I have used in my own games over and over.
Honestly this is one of those blogs where you want to start at the beginning of his blogging and read all the way up to the present day.  The reviews though are also the right size for getting a good feel of the movie.  He provides some Amazon links (which is nice).  I particularly liked going over all his Dracula movies.
What I find odd is that Kevin has been posting quality reviews since 2011 and he still only has 30 followers.  I think that is a crime to be honest.

If you enjoy movies then these are both worth your time.


This week I am running my irregular feature "The Best Blog You Are Not Reading" every day.  If you can instead of replying here, go to the blogs I am featuring and reply there.  I think the owners would like that.

Chronicles of Mystara? Yes Please!

I was just thinking the other night I really need a video game to help my D&D itch late at night when I want to game but everyone else is asleep.

This might just be what I need.

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4news/20130322#85749
http://www.capcom-unity.com/gregaman/blog/2013/03/22/announcing-dungeons-dragons-chronicles-of-mystara

It's Mystara on the Xbox.  How can that be bad?


Ok. So it is not going to replace D&D or even Skryim or even Minecraft in my house. But it will be fun and that is all that counts.

Out in time for my birthday.

Zatannurday: Young Justice

Young Justice ended last week. I have posted anything about it because I still have not watched it yet.  I am also avoiding spoilers on it.
But I thought that in it's passing I'd post a few Young Justice-era Zatanna pics to remind us of how it was or could have been.



Young Justice Zatanna by *Glee-chan on deviantART


Zatanna - Young Justice by ~1984neptune on deviantART


Zatanna Zatara by ~bechedor79 on deviantART


Young Justice: ZETA by *camilliette on deviantART


Young Justice by ~Lola-Gainsborough on deviantART


zatanna by ~matsuri0w0 on deviantART


Zatanna by ~Fueled-by-Rage on deviantART


YJ: The Mistress of Magic by ~galaxyshiba on deviantART


New 52 Zatanna (YJ Style) by ~Youngjusticeaddict on deviantART


Do you believe in magic? by ~Mazrilin on deviantART

And since we didn't stick around long enough to see the rest of the Titans, here are some Ravens.


Young Justice: Raven by *Glee-chan on deviantART


YJ: Raven by *Glee-chan on deviantART


Raven by ~alykam on deviantART


Raven Teen Titans by *jamietyndall on deviantART


Raven by *RagingBarbarian on deviantART
Gonna miss this show.

New Book Stores

I am HUGE advocate of supporting your FLGS and your local book store.
If you have the choice, please always support your local stores when you can.

That all being said there is a new online book store that I am calling "The Book Store of all of Tim's Favorite Things."

Wednesday Mourning from "Oddities: San Francisco" has started a new online book store Orphic Vellum Books.

You can read about it here: http://wednesdaymourning.com/blog/?p=18#comment-38
And see the store here: http://www.wednesdaymourning.com/zencart/

A lot of the books I would want here I already have, but I am hoping to see more soon!
The place looks great and getting these old books would really be nice.

If you buy something from her tell her I sent you!
Not that it would matter at all, but I have always wanted to say that about something...

Friday Updates

hmm this might a regular feature.

Ok so next is a busy, busy week for me.
I am going to post a bunch of "The Best Blogs You Are Not Reading" posts.  I may not though be able to adequately respond to responses or even properly promote the posts.

I am also unsure whether I'll have a White Dwarf Wednesday ready to go at all either.  Yeah, it's going to be that kind of week.

In other news the new D&D Next playtest packet is out. People seem to like it. I have not read it yet myself.

So let me get this all straight WotC is A.) distributing their playtest material for free for anyone to play with and they are updating based on the feedback they are getting. B.) selling PDFs again and C.) have the reprints in physical stores for people to buy.  Oh and every so often Dragon features material for older editions.  It sounds like they are listening to their customers.

Eldritch Witchery Update / Elf Lair Games Update
Ok so. Yeah. I am way late on Eldritch Witchery. It was due out at the same time as the Witch, but needed some additional editing.  In talks with Jason Vey (head Elf at Elf Lair Games) we decided to merge in a couple of other products with EW that fit.  My celtic themed Old School game based on Spellcraft & Swordplay is for the most part dead in the water.  I know. I am saddened by it too, but Jason did not want to be in a position of competing with Troll Lords who publishes his Amazing Adventures game.  I can't say that I blame him.  Besides, the Codex Celtarum looks fantastic.  Éire will see the light of day, someday, but not as a Spellcraft & Swordplay book.  The materials though that went into it have been folded into EW rather nicely.  The other book I was working on was a book on demons and devils for Old School games.  But since that project started we have had a number of good monster books come out.  So that is also being folded in and the Warlock class in EW is getting a nice boost because of it.  I am editing down some things too to make sure this is not going to be a 300 page book.  Some of that will appear here on the blog.

A to Z Blogfest
I am doing demons. Should be fun. I have 100s or so to talk about, so the trick narrowing it down to just 26.
What pushed Demons up over Vampires?  Easy. I found a "Q" demon before a "Q" vampire.

The Big Reveal Bloghop

Mina Lobo from Some Dark Romantic and David Macaulay from Brits in the USA are hosting the Big Reveal Bloghop.

Bloggers who have signed up for the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge are letting us know about what their theme is going to be.

Well.

I have gone back and forth a number of times on this. Talked about it in a round about way here and I am finally ready to say I am doing....

Vampires.

No wait. Demons.
Vampires.  Defiantly vampires.....maybe not.

Demons.
Yes Demons.

Yeah.

Ok so I am going to do Demons.

I am going to talk about all sorts of demons, but these will be firmly rooted in an RPG environment point of view. How to add them to games (all sorts) and things like that.
All leading up to their inclusion in my oft-delayed Eldritch Witchery.

I suppose some explanation is in order about EW.  Yes. It's late.  Part of the deal is that it needed more editing than The Witch did.  Also I was talking with Jason at Elf Lair Games and we wanted to merge in the bits from my Celtic game that we are no longer doing and the delayed Demons & Devils book.   The nice thing is you will get a much larger book in the process.

So join me as we go investigating the evilest creatures of myth and fairytale!

Next year I'll do vampires. ;)

Want to see what everyone else is doing?  Check below:

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Second Chance: Swords & Wizardry (Frog God Games)

A while a back I posted that I was giving some products another chance.  One of those products was Swords & Wizardry.

I picked up the Frog God "Complete Rulebook" and spent a lot of time with it.  I think my biggest issue with S&W is that was sold to me as "0 Edition" or "OD&D" and it isn't. I played OD&D and S&W is nothing like it. Well, not "nothing" but it's made some serious changes.  Those changes I think kept me from enjoying the game for what it is.  So after staying away from the game for a number of months I came back and looked at in a different light.  I dropped the idea that is an OD&D clone but instead a Retro Clone stripped down to it's most basic form.  Now that is game I can get behind.  If you ever played any version of D&D or any clone you can play this.  S&W is really the basic essence of what D&D is. The most basic stuff you need to play.  In this new light I saw the changes for what they were, really nice and intuitive changes.
The classics are really basic, but they work. In this Frog God edition you have a more classes, Assassins, Paladins, Rangers, Druids and Monks join Thieves, Clerics, Magic-Users and Fighters.  Races are Human, Elves, Half-elves, Halflings and Dwarves. So again all easily recognizable.
There are a set of good multi-classing rules (which is always nice in an OSR game).
Spells go up to 9 for Magic-Users, 7 for most others.
There are plenty of monsters, tons really.  The monster blocks are simple like everything else.

Really S&W does take a lot of what made OD&D/Dasic D&D so fun, the advances in AD&D and the features that made 3.x so popular.  Yes. It has Ascending AC (which is still the best, sorry old school guys) and I like single saving throw bonus.
This Frog God version shares a lot of the art that appeared in The Tome of Horrors Complete and the layout.  This is not a big deal as far as I am concerned.

At a 134 pages it is a complete game. You don't really need anything else here, though you can use it with nearly other OSR product or any of the scores of products created for S&W.

I am glad I gave this another chance.

If you have this then The Tome of Horrors Complete is a great supplement to have.

If you are new to S&W then there are some other supplements to help you out.

MCMLXXV (aka 1975) is a new introductory module and old-school primer.
At just under 24 pages (minus cover and ogl) this is designed to be something akin to Keep on the Borderlands for S&W, only not as big.  The adventure is small, but in old school terms it is good sized really.  There is less in terms of pages of descriptions than modern day modules. It leaves far more to the imagination of the players and GM.  If there was a Frog God Games S&W box set then this would be included.
Great little adventure that really helps set the tone of the S&W game.

Swords and Wizardry Monstrosities is a new monster book.  New in that is newly published, but some of the monsters we have before either in the SRD or other books.  That though does not detract from it's value as this is a 560+ page book since in addition to that there are some new monsters.  The cover is very evocative of the old-school (pre 1980) covers.
There is much in common between this book and The Tome of Horrors. Each monster is given a page of stats, description and a plot hook.  While ToH used some recycled art, this all seems to be new art.  Even Orcus (which we now have 3 listings for) is new.  Actually the art is pretty darn good and I don't mind the occasional repeat of a monster to see some new art.
Honestly there is so much great stuff in this book that even with the occasional repeat monster this is still a top notch collection. If you play S&W then this is a great monster book to have.  I am even going as far as to say it is a must have for any serious S&W GM.

OD&D
If you really want a game that is close to what OD&D really was like you do have some choices.

First up there is the OD&D set from WotC coming out this fall.
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2013/02/original-d-premium-edition.html

There is also Spellcraft & Swordplay, a personal favorite of mine.
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/04/s-is-for-spellcraft-swordplay.html

While S&W has some neat ideas, S&S comes closer to OD&D for me.

In any case you can use all of these game to party like it's 1975!