D&D40 Bloghop: Day 20

Day 20: First non-D&D RPG you played.

It is a toss up really.  I am not quite sure of the dates but it was either Traveller or Chill.

Of course with Chill I never played, but I managed to run a couple of sessions.
Traveller, at least how we played it, ended up being D&D in Space.

Though now that I think about it is also could have Villains & Vigilantes.   But all we did in that was use our D&D characters.

Since then I have branched off into scores of games and have a few that I regularly play.

Social Media applet

Did a quick and dirty social media contact widget to the right (and below).

    
    

Now you can see what I am doing all over the web.  Just click on the icons.

I'll add more as they become relevant to me.

White Dwarf Wednesday #98

Heading into the last hurrahs now.  White Dwarf Wednesday takes us to February 1988.
On the cover "Games Workshop" takes front and center.  The cover is also a group of Space Marines by Dave Andrews.  While this is certainly a sign of the change here it is also the change itself.  This is basically how the issues will remain till the present day.

Sean Masterson's editorial covers how packed the issue is (it is) but that is about all he says.

Marginalia covers Timescape for Talisman and a Warhammer 40k product Chapter Approved.  Timescape is a boardgame expansion and includes a number of new cards.

Some articles on Centuars for Warhammer Fantasy battles and a preview of Chapter Approved for 40k.

Thurd and Gobbledigook both get the Warhammer treatment as well.

"Scenes for Courtly Life" is an article on using courtly characters in your FRPG. Examples of different sorts of characters are given, such as the King, Queen, Physician and so on. With some quotes from literature to help make the point.  There are some great ideas on marriage, rules, etiquette and more.  Think how popular Game of Thrones in now.  This article won't let you do all of that, but it will give you something to do in between dungeons.

Grapes of Wrath is a scenario for Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play for 5-7 characters, Advanced careers.  Scenario makes it sound small, this is one of the longest adventures I have seen in a while in the pages of WD. 17 pages with 2 pages of full color maps.  Again I look on WHFRP as something akin to trying to read Modula-2 or Oberon if you learned Pascal. Or Danish if you know German. The words are familiar and you can figure it out, but there is something lost in the translation do to my own lack of knowledge.  IF I do nothing else with this White Dwarf experiment I think I owe it myself to try out a game of WHFRP.

The Madcap Laughs is next with Part 3 of 3 of the Stormbringer Adventure.
Couple of pages of Letters and some Warhammer questions.

Not a lot for my games here, but the "Scenes for Courtly Life" is interesting enough on it's own.

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 19

Day 19: First gamer who just annoyed the hell out of you.

There have been a few.

I have had "the unwashed guy", the "creepy guy" and the "angry guy" all in my groups at one point.

But the one that I have to admit who annoys me the most is also one of the first I ever ran into, he is the "You're Doing it WRONG guy".

This is the guy who has been playing for a while and has decided, for whatever reason that your brand of fun is somehow wrong or deficient in some matter.

I would run into him when I was playing Basic/Expert D&D and he was playing AD&D. I ran into him while playing Chill and he was playing Call of Cthulhu.  I run into him all the time on internet.

Of course by "him" I mean a metaphorical "him", but I have never run into a woman gamer that did this.  Most times they are older than me (which is now thankfully rarer) but sometimes younger.

I look at this guy the same way I do Edition Wars. Ignore him and continue with my fun.

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 18

Day 18: First gaming convention you ever attended.

I had attended some smaller Con at Southern Illinois University back in the late 80s.  But being a poor college student I didn't get a chance to do much.

My first Gen Con was not until 2007.  I have had a blast there every year since (except for 2013, we didn't go).

This year I am taking my boys again.  It should be a blast!

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 17

Day 17: First time you heard D&D was somehow "evil."

I started gaming in the late 70s, early 80s.  So hearing D&D was "satanic" was part and parcel of the gaming experience then.  Especially in the ultra-religious town I grew up in.

I remember hearing it from one friend that his mom would not let him play because D&D was "from the devil".  And me being, well, me, told him how there is no devil in D&D...we killed him a few adventures ago.

Back in the early 80s we even had our own little satanic panic scare in town.  Someone had discovered "an altar" out in a cornfield near the high school.  Sent the school into a tizzy. People started wearing these inverted crosses with red line through them, Satan Busters. Like the Ghostbusters symbol.
Everyone was scared.  I thought it was hilarious.   I was a pretty hard core atheist already so I was fascinated by how panicked everyone was.  I DO remember being told not to bring my D&D books for a while.

I also had a copy of Jack Chick's infamous Dark Dungeons tract and I also did this, MST3k: Dark Dungeons.

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 16

Day 16: What was your first Edition War? Did you win?

I honestly can't recall my first Edition War. I personally find edition wars in general to be pretty stupid.

 I do recall a lot of complaining when 3e first came out.

I have participated in Edition Wars in the past, to be honest, I have gone in with the intention of defending whatever edition seems to be getting the wrong end of the majority.  Lately, that has usually meant 4th ed.

There is no "winning" in edition wars.

Zatannurday: What a Doll!

The new line up for the Toy Fair 2014 from DC is out.

In addition to some fantastic looking one of Batman and the Batfamily we get a new one to the Bombshell line.

So these have been running about $125.00.

I looks great but they forgot her fishnets.  Given that they had them on Black Canary I think it was a choice.
Still though the smoking rabbit is a nice touch.

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 15

Day 15: What was the first edition you didn't enjoy. Why?

Hmm. Generally speaking I have enjoyed every single edition. Sure for different reasons, but in truth as long as I am throwing dice with friends or family then I am happy.

Though I will admit I was getting burned out on AD&D 2nd ed by the mid 90s and when the Skills and Powers books came out I was pretty much done.

I felt the Skills & Powers books were overkill and took D&D into deep munchkin territory.
Picking up the new 3rd Ed Players Handbook in 2000 was the only thing that won me back to D&D to be honest.

Also at this point I was playing more WitchCraft RPG and branching out to other games more.  The AD&D Skill system was by then horribly dated.

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 14

Day 14: Did you meet your significant other while playing D&D? Does he or she still play?

No. I met my significant other playing cards.  She was over in our dorms because she already destroyed everyone her dorm at cards.  Her game at the time was euchre, but she also played a lot of pinochle.  Yeah she kicked my ass, but I am not very good at cards.

It was not till more than 10 years later that she played for the first time.  It think it was 1997 or so.  We played some 2nd Ed AD&D and I was running Keep on the Borderlands.
They never made it to the caves.  I swear she and two of our friends spent more time buying stuff at the Keep's weaponsmith.
The other oddity of this they all wanted to play gnomes.  All first time players.

Strangest session I ever ran.

A to Z Challenge Ambassador

I am signed up for the A to Z blog Challenge again for this April.

Not only that, I am once again one of the "Ambassadors" for the challenge. Basically this means I am a cheerleader. It will be my job to go through the sites in the challenge and give them encouragement.  I am once again working with Master Blogger Arlee Bird over at Tossing It Out.
In addition to the list of sites that my group will monitor I am also going to be hitting all RPG sites in the hop.

I think this is a great outreach opportunity. My hits increase by 300% and some of those stay on.  It is my version of evangelism.  If you are part of my regular set of readers and you are going to do this let me know!  I will make sure I add you to my list.

I mentioned here and here that this year I am doing an A to Z of Vampires.  This hopefully will support two different projects I am working on.  These projects are still in draft phase now, in fact one is not even in that yet.  But Vampires are something I have always enjoyed.  In fact in most circles before I was "the witch guy" I was "the vampire guy".

Like last year there will be plenty of RPG stuff, but there will also be more general horror posts too.  Trying to please all my audiences.

Hope to see you in the Challenge!

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 13

Day 13: First miniature(s) you used for D&D.

This ties nicely into Question 1. I bought some minis with my then DM, Jon, for use in our game.

We ordered them all from the Mail Order Hobby Shop.
I got my cleric, dwarf, halfling, thief and wizard.

These were the old made of lead, lead miniatures.
I used them for years, but never painted them.

I sold them or gave them back Jon.  He painted them and held on to them for nearly 25 years.

He had a few more that he painted.  Most have "Ral Partha 1979" on them. I think he got them at Black's Hardware in Springfield, IL.

Recently Jon sold them all back to me.  He loved the idea that my kids would use them.

My favorite is that Intellect Devourer.

Of course here are some of my favorites.  My recent batch of witches.

Strange Brew. Take 2?

So we have pulled the plug on Strange Brew.

Here is the official word from the publisher:

HI, all:

Thank you for your support on this project, but we are not making the needed traction to make this kickstarter a go. Therefore, I am closing the funding down on this and taking some time to reconsider how we can better interest the market on this project--which I still strongly believe in. We aren't giving up, just regrouping.

Meanwhile, three of my friends are producing some interesting kickstarter projects that you may be interested in:

Naomi Tripi has the family Flip Flash card game going--art is going to be by Stan!

Eloy Lasanta of Third Eye Games has AMP, a game of modern supers, going strong.

Hal Greenberg has the Fall of Man, postapocalyptic game ending soon. They've put up some very nice artwork and an interesting video. I've been asked to edit the final book.

Stay tuned for more information on Strange Brew. Thanks again.

Christina Stiles

We have been talk within our group and we felt that we could do better with more art, a video and some other levels.  Plus revamping the project too in an effort to bring it to you all cheaper.

Yeah, I am disappointed, but the reasons are all sound.

I will be working on it and hopefully be getting you something great here soon.

If you can, throw in your support for Naomi Tripi's Kickstarter or Fall of Man.

White Dwarf Wednesday #97

We begin 1988 with White Dwarf #97.  This is another one I picked up to be complete.  I bought though because it was an "attack of opportunity" so to speak; it was there and I had cash.

The dragon on the cover is nice. It's the same cover as Dungeonquest by Peter Jones.
The editorial is a blast against nostalgia and favors looking towards the new.  It is using the metaphor of rock bands and "Classic oldies" stations, but the message is clear. White Dwarf is changing and if you don't like that, well you can always listen to your dad's 8-Tracks.

Marginalia covers the Judge Dredd Companion.  Of course given the 80s hair and giant shoulder pads it could have also been clothing catalog.  It was the 80s after all.

An interesting bit, a couple of pages from Games Workshop mail-order store.
The next 50 pages are devoted to Warhmmer.  Not that this is a bad thing, but I have nothing to contribute to it.

An article for Call of Cthulhu is next.  Three cases for 1920s Call of Cthulhu.  Seems like a weak effort to me.

The Madcap Laughs is next with Ruins in Madness for Stormbringer. At nine pages is also fairly long.  It is nice and detailed.

We end with Letters and ads including a Dungeonquest one.

We all knew this was coming.  Sure there are more pages, but less and less of the things I am interested and outside the focus of this blog.  I was just talking with my son on Tuesday about Warhammer (because if you don't talk to your kids about Warhammer then who will?) and how I never got into it.  We were at our FLGS and I showed him all the stuff you can buy for it and the new weekly WD.  It dawned on me then and there that WH is younger man's game.  Not that you need to be younger than me to play it, but you need a lot of time.  Frankly I don't have that anymore.   So I am popping in my 8-tracks.  Get off my lawn.

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 12

Day 12: First store where you bought your gaming supplies. Does it still exist?

I actually devoted an entire post or two a while back to this.

http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/09/reflecting-on-d-sometimes-you-cant-go.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/04/o-is-for-otherworlds-club.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/07/alas-borders.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/12/in-praise-of-your-flgs.html

My first game store was Waldenbooks in the Mall over in Springfield. Later Belobrajdic's Book Store closer to home also carried D&D books.

All these places have closed.

When I was in college I was privileged to be around when Castle Perilous first opened their doors.  Bought most of my Ravenloft stuff there.   Now I spend most of my time at Games Plus.

A to Z Blogging Guest Post

I have a guest post up over at the Blogging from A to Z site today.
http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/2014/02/how-to-use-atozchallenge-to-help-your.html

I am going to participate again this year. Like last year I am doing "posting with a purpose" and will be doing the A to Z of vampires.

It should be fun!

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 11

Day 11: First splatbook you begged your DM to approve.

Hmm.  Not so sure.  There were not a lot of splats available then.

I think the first one had to be the Book of Marvelous Magic for D&D.

There were a lot of really cool magic items and I wanted my assassin (AD&D) to get some of them.

We used a few, but never all. It was one of the books I lost when all my AD&D hardcovers went missing in the early 90s.  Since then I was able to get a hold of another copy.  It is still a fun little book.

As seen on TV!

Hey everyone I have a question.

What do you perceive the value of a "celebrity" write a forward of an RPG book? This would not be an RPG person, but someone in a similar fandom. For example a comic author/artist or an actor for a supers game.

So as an off the wall example. Getting Robert Downy Jr. to talk about how playing a super hero is fun or Vin Diesel talking about his D&D character?

Mind you the cost with the book is no different, just something extra for the book.

Thoughts?

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 10

Day 10: First gaming magazine you ever bought (Dragon, Dungeon, White Dwarf, etc.).

The first ever Dragon magazine I ever bought was Dragon #85.

I had been hanging out in Belobrajdic's Bookstore in my home town and I looked at the Dragons every month.  But this one grabbed my attention for some reason.

Back in those days we milked every magazine for what it was worth.  It wasn't like now where the amount to fill a magazine is posted every day for free. Then the new material was few and far between.

My first issue of White Dwarf came later. The local bookstores didn't carry it so I had to order it.  Not knowing what to get, only that it looked really cool, I grabbed issue #44.

Very fond memories of reading both of these over the years.

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 9

Day 9: First campaign setting (homebrew or published) you played in.

The Known World for the Cook/Marsh Expert Set was my first world.
Later I would end up playing a lot in the World of Greyhawk a lot as well.

Around 1986 or so my then DM and I had this idea to merge our worlds into one.  So one half was Oerth and the other half was Mystara.

The map we came up with was no where near as good as this one, but the idea was the same.





I have detailed all of this on my Mystoerth page.

Zatannurday: Serinda Swan

It dawned on me this week that I have never posted anything about Serinda Swan here.
Afterall she has the honor of playing the only live action version of Zatanna on TV in Smallville.   She was just recently spotted on the CW's updated Tomorrow People.  I have a feeling we will be seeing more of her.

In the meantime here she is as Zatanna from Smallville.

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 8

Day 8: First set of polyhedral dice you owned. Do you still use them?

My first set came with my Moldvay Basic set.

I still have them, but I don't use them much.  I only pull them out on special occasions.

LiveChat and Kickstarter shares

I wanted to remind you all that I will be participating in the live #RPGNet Q&A Series tonight (Friday 2/7) at 8:00pm Central time (GMT -6:00).

http://tinyurl.com/rpgnetchat

I will be talking about Ghosts of Albion, my upcoming work for Gaslight and of course the Strange Brew kickstarter.

I also wanted to let you know about two other Kickstarters that I have been following.

Fall of Man came up around the same time we were getting ready for ours. It is also Pathfinder but in a post-apoc world.   It looks like it could be a of fun.  It reminds me a bit of the cool post-apoc games of the late 80s.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2033407677/fall-of-man-a-post-apocalyptic-gothic-horror-fanta?ref=live

Flip Flash is a new family card game from Naomi Tripi that looks like a lot of fun.  I am always looking for a new family game that can learned and played quickly.  This one looks fantastic.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/296612146/flip-flash-a-super-fast-new-card-game-from-tripi-g

So please check these out!

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 7

Day 7: First D&D Product you ever bought. Do you still have it?

Ever bought with my own money as opposed to a gift?

Not exactly sure.  It was either a copy of B3: Palace of the Silver Princess or the AD&D Deities and Demigods.

I still have my copy of B3. In fact a few years ago I ran my kids through an adventure with it that I was calling Return to the Palace of the Silver Princess.

I don't have my DDG anymore.  It was the updated version without the Elric and Cthulhu myths.  Since that time I picked two more.  Both with the Elric and Cthuhlhu myths in them.  One is autographed by most of the authors and artists.

Live #RPGnet Q&A Series

I wanted to let you know that I will be participating in the live #RPGNet Q&A Series tomorrow night (Friday 2/7) at 8:00pm Central time (GMT -6:00).

http://tinyurl.com/rpgnetchat

I will be talking about Ghosts of Albion, my upcoming work for Gaslight and of course the Strange Brew kickstarter.

Add to Google

Add to Facebook

Hope to see you all there!

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 6

Day 6: First character death. How did you handle it?

My first character death was my first Elf character (back when Elf was a class).
Silverleaf was killed by an assassin's blade. Never saw it coming.

I remember at the time thinking "well, I guess takes care of that lame character".
But later I was a little bummed, I had been playing him for a bit.

I got over fairly quickly with a swift progression of character deaths including my only other Elf character, a dwarf and one of my thieves.  Life was cheap back in those days.  My Dwarf, Creeper, died due to one of those awful traps from Grimtooth's Traps books.  Their death dates are listed as June 1982 on the sheets.  He was followed in Death by Arendil (Elf), Rad (Cleric) and Roscoe (thief).  I then burned through something like 10 characters during the "Winter 1984" sessions. No exact dates, but a lot of them were classes that came from early Dragon magazines, I saw a lot of "Spies", "Bandits" and "Samurai".  It was also obvious that this must have coincided with my switch over to full AD&D.

I have kept all my "dead" characters.  I have a folder called "The Graveyard".  I figured if I ever needed an NPC I could pull one of them out.

Bring out your dead!

White Dwarf Wednesday #96

White Dwarf #96 is the last issue of 1987.  I had considered stopping here to be honest. This issue marks the first of what I consider the "All Warhammer, all the time" issues.  But hey, I have gotten this far and 100 is more round number.
The cover art is the same as Casket of Souls by Iain McCaig.  We have a competition for it later in the issue.
The editorial is a bit of nonsense from Sean Masterson on what gaming is.  I guess the only really interesting thing about this is that it is a reflection of the gamin scene of the late 80s; everything going in a thousand directions at once yet still gaming.

Marginalia covers Dungeonquest, a game I have wanted to try out, and Warhammer Fantasy Battle, 3rd Ed.
This review of Dungeonquest only revives my desire to find a copy of this game.   By my estimates this $10 box of White Dwarf magazines has cost me a couple to three hundred extra bucks.  I had to buy other WDs to fill in the gaps (I still have a WD 105 that I am not going to review) but mostly in old games I see reviewed and want to pick up.  Some have been cheap. Most have not.

Culture Shock is the oft renamed news/rumor column.  Of interest, Citadel is selling a million miniature figures a month.  I wonder if that rate kept up.
Critical Mass covers the books of the time, none jump out at me.  I was reading the Chronicles of Corum at this point.

Barroom Brawl is the first Scenario for Warhammer Fantasy.  In my mind most of Warhammer was about fighting in large scale wars and then going to the pub to fight again.

After that, Elfwardancers for WH Fantasy.  This is something I could see being snagged for D&D or even ShadowRun.  I have seen stranger things in both games.  Plus it helps get rid of some the "Tolkienesque" qualities of elves.

The conclusion of "To Live and Die in Mega-City One" is next. I am told it is quite good.  I personally don't know enough about Judge Dredd to know for sure.

In a rare departure (and soon to be rarer) we have The Beast of Kozamura, an Eastern-themed adventure for RuneQuest. Overtly for Land of Ninja rules.

An article/ad for Casket of Souls.
The first Warhammer 40,000 regular article "Chapter Approved" is up.

On the Boil details various topics in Warhammer Fantasy, this time Middenheim the City of the White Wolf.

An aside for a bit.  There is a lot of Warhammer stuff going on here now and really I have no clue. I read through WH40k once and I see the appeal, but I am not into painting mins all day.  By extension I also guess I see the appeal of Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Wish I could offer more at this point.

'Eavy Metal paints some dragons.

Last issue we discussed The Madcap Laughs, this issue we have the first adventure in the series.  A Heart of Dust, A Hand of Death is for Stormbringer but it could be adapted to RuneQuest easy enough.

We end with the usual run of letters and ads.

So. Much less in this issue for me to be honest. Nothing against the change WD is making or the Warhammer stuff, just not where my gaming went at the time or now.

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 5

Day 5: First character to go from 1st level to 20th level (or highest possible level in a given edition).

Going back to my first character I have to say Johan Werper.  Since I was playing (mostly) Basic/Expert with bits of Advanced thrown in we decided the maximum level for playable characters was 36.  After that characters became immortal.  We had heard about the immortal rules, but never saw them.  I think at that point they were more rumor than reality.

Johan made it level 30 before my DM decided he was too powerful.  He was "retired" and became an NPC, St. Werper, Patron Saint of those who battle Undead in my games later on.

He had lost levels over the course of his adventure career, can't battle undead and not loose some levels sometimes.

I was quite amused when D&D 4e came out and the level max was back to 30.

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 4

Day 4: First dragon you slew (or some other powerful monster)

I will be honest with you. I can't remember the first dragon I killed.
I am pretty sure it was a blue one, but outside of that I can't recall.

Now I do remember what was one of the most powerful monsters I killed.

It was Jr. High and I was in a game with my friend Jon Cook, from posting #1.
His older sister was running us through a dungeon crawl one summer night and I remember we ran into a Lich.  
This was big deal because I had been mostly playing this odd collection of AD&D and D&D (B/X) and had not run into a Lich yet.  Plus Mary was your typical Chaotic Evil DM. So this Lich kept jumping in and out of the Ethereal plane and she ruled I couldn't turn it since it wasn't on my sheet.

We, that is Johan and Sneaker the thief, managed to kill it with best weapon we had.  We burned down the building it was in.

Still love throwing Liches at players.  It brings out the CE DM in me as well.

Kickstarter: Strange Brew - The Ultimate Witch & Warlock

The Kickstarter for Strange Brew: The Ultimate Witch & Warlock is now up.

Ok so what makes Strange Brew - The Ultimate Witch & Warlock, well...Ultimate?

The Ultimate Witch & Warlock began a number of years ago for me.  I was working on collecting everything I had ever done for witches for various games that never saw print (Buffy, WitchCraft RPG, Ghosts of Albion), items from my blog here and what I considered the best of the best OGC.

When the whole Old School thing hit, I shelved UW&W and produced "The Witch for Basic Era Games" and then later "Eldritch Witchery".

Christina Stiles approached me about a potential Pathfinder book a while and asked if I had material.  I turned around and gave her 500+ pages of things I have been working on.

UW&W is the spiritual successor to "Liber Mysterium", but also to "Way of the Witch" a product I very much loved.  If you liked either of those then you are likely to like this one.  With Liber I have had another 10 years of playing witches in a d20/3.x game and have made many tweaks that only real play can afford you.

Let me say this. I am so excited about this. Not only do I have a ton of great material, but the idea of getting it all together for the first time in one book is fantastic.

So please consider backing my Kickstarter!

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 3

Day 3: First dungeon you explored as a PC or ran as a DM.

Another one I have to really think about.
I think it is very likely that first dungeon I ever went through was a home brew on.  I remember a lot graph paper maps back in those days.

But I do know that the first dungeon I ever took anyone through was a home made one.  I remember writing parts of it in class at school and then adding to it later in the summer sitting on my front porch.  Yes I am sure I was drink a class of sweet tea.  Summer time in Southern Illinois.

I am pretty sure I have no idea where that adventure is.  I have some maps from around that time still, but not that one.