Happy Anniversary Hero Press!

Today Tim Knight is celebrating 8 years of blogging with Hero Press!
http://heropresstwo.blogspot.com/2015/01/eight-years-of-heropress.html

A very worthy achievement.
You can see his first post here and it gives you no indication of how useful or how vital Hero Press has become.

For me Hero Press is usually where I hear about all things comic, movie, sci-fi television or gaming first.  All with a style and a quality that I think only Tim can bring to it.

Let's all be honest here, blogging is as much about personality as it is about content.  Sometime those personalities can be so grating that it drowns out the content.  This is not so with Tim Knight.
I always feel like the implied welcome is "come on in, have a pint, hey did I happen to tell you about this thing that has me really excited right now?..."
No one has ever said a bad thing about Tim Knight or Hero Press ever.
Yeah I know I was just railing against personality cults last night.  But it doesn't count if the person is a genuine nice guy.

So please join me in celebrating Tim's great accomplishment. Stop by Hero Press now and give Tim your congratulations.  

I want to hear more about the Acrobatic Flea and Barney the Bunny and how your kids are doing. Keep telling us more about the new TV shows you are getting before we do and visa versa.

You have kept us entertained and informed for 8 years.  Here is 8 more!

I Want My Own Cult

Seriously.  Where do I sign up for that?

I spent part of my day arguing with a group of people (non gamers) about something and despite overwhelming, demonstrable evidence to the contrary of their opinion I and my small band of like minded rationalists were overwhelmed by their cult like mentality.

I could not even get to click on one link to Snopes that destroyed their entire argument.

I left that after my wife told me to stop poking the zoo animals with pointy sticks.  I came back to it just an hour ago to find the situation far worse.  I did the only sensible thing. I gave up.

Come back here to the safe haven of RPGs only to see more Cult of Personality type behavior and the inexplicable fawning over people vs. ideas.

So while I am watching these two "cults" fight each other over who thought up what ever idea first I have decided I want my own cult.

It really shouldn't take much. I'll post like I always do. You just agree with what I say!  You don't even have to read what I posted!  I get a sense of self-worth, you get that nice warm feeling of belonging to something larger than yourself.   Best part is when I eventually do something really stupid you have deep conversations with people on what it was I was really saying or not.  And when I totally go off the deep end you can have a moment of clarity and talk about how you knew all along I was full of shit!

So how about it? Join my Cult of Personality. No weird initiations. No fees.  But if I get enough people then maybe we can have a secret handshake. Or a secret milkshake. Whatever.

Quagmire

This has been passed around a lot lately, but still an interesting read.
The development of the module Quagmire by Merle Rasmussen.

https://medium.com/@increment/quagmire-the-making-of-a-1980s-d-d-module-c30e788ea5f2

The article is less about module design than it is about commercial module development.  It is insightful on how things were created in the heyday of TSR. Also if you look hard enough you can even see the seeds of TSR's eventual demise here.

I post this though because it is an interest footnote to me.  I remember this adventure. I picked it up and completely gutted it because what I wanted was a swamp with a tower in it.  All that hard work detailed above and I chucked it all!

This article did make me want to pull my old copy out, but I remembered that it was one of the many pre-2e materials I lost back in the mid-90s. Thankfully I do have the PDF.  I might use it in my current game, but everything is so packed now I fear I will end up doing exactly what I did in the past; chuck the adventure and make it an interesting locale to stop over in.

Owl & Weasel Wednesday #24 March 1977

Issue 24 of Owl & Weasel is fresh off of their packed Games Days and moving right on in their D&D Day.  To celebrate this issue is an all D&D issue.  My favorite bit in the editorial is where they mention the hall only holds 250 people and that unless you get there early you could be turned away.  "Sorry, you can't play D&D today, it is just too popular right now!"
The issue is pretty solid really. Very, very much like what we will expect to see in White Dwarf.
Though they do start off with some pretty bad game fiction. Yes it is supposed to be humorous. but I got bored with it really fast.

Page 5 gives some advice on dungeon mapping. Not bad really, but very much an "early days" sort of article.  You don't see stuff like this outside of blogs anymore.
In typical O&W fashion there is a naked angel at the bottom of the page telling us "the end is nigh! See page 11 for details."

Pages 6 and 7 are dedicated to the D&D Day hall and schedule. It runs 10 hours and there competitions for best mini, best room and best magic item. I do admit a certain level of curiosity to know what won.

Pages 8 and 9 give us some meat to chew on.  We have two new character classes.  The Samurai and the Psionist.  The Samurai is what you would expect; it is a take on the fighter with more attacks per round and an unarmed attack.  Not a lot in terms of flavor, but that was supposed to be what the player brought to the table and what the DM gave a background for.
On the other side of the coin we have the Psionist. Using the psionics rules from Eldritch Wizardry this class excels in psionic attacks, defenses and effects, but not much else.  They get a d4 for hp and then after level 10 they get .5 hp per level!  Their powers are determined by level and they have a 15% cum chance per level to develop another random talent.  There are Standard and Special abilities.  Despite it's lack of detail the class looks pretty solid and playable.   I could have used this class back in 1989 when I was playing an OD&D campaign with psychic (not exactly psionic) characters.  It is also something my youngest would like.
There are also some new weapons, interestingly enough nothing particularly related to either class.

Pages 10 and most of 11 are dedicated to the 80 names of people in the D&D society. This is the full list to date. Bottom of page 11 is the announcement that next issue is the last issue of Owl & Weasel. Ian and Steve tell us that they want to shift focus to more SF/F games with an occasional dip into other games.  The new magazine will be called White Dwarf and have higher production values.  Subscriptions will transfer over to White Dwarf from Owl & Weasel unless of course you don't want to.

Finally Page 12 covers all the games that Games Workshop has to offer in their store.  Far more than a year ago.

This is the most "White Dwarf-y" feeling issue to date. In fact, other than the size and layout it feels more like White Dwarf #1 than Owl & Weasel #1.

Next week, The End.

Crisis on Infinite Earths

This month is the 30th anniversary of the the biggest event in comics history.  Well. At least from my point of view.  In truth if it had not been for 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths we would not have seen a lot of the big events in comic we have seen over the last 30 years.  That can be good or bad.

Sure Marvel's Secret Wars predates it by almost 6 months, but Crisis was a much bigger deal to me.
At the time I was reading a lot of sci-fi and I loved the idea of alternate Earths, parallel dimensions and all that good stuff.  One of my favorite books from the time was Fredrick Pohl's "The Coming of the Quantum Cats" (1986) and Robert A. Heinlein's "Job, A Comedy of Justice" (1984).

I have always wanted to do my own Crisis-like arc.  Back in the day it wasn't too difficult of a prospect.  Back then we all played in Oerth. Greyhawk was the campaign setting of choice.  The idea was to do a huge Crisis like event and in the end have all of our worlds merged into one.

Later I thought about doing it with different systems; where each Earth was represented by a different game system.

Needless to say it has left a deep imprint in my psyche.

Now in DC we are coming up the new Multiversity.
The optimistic would say it has been all part of a larger super-arc.  The pessimist would say that DC is out of ideas and cashing in on their last good one 30 years ago.

One day I will do a Crisis-like campaign in one of my games.  Maybe something like CoIE where it is a large in scope but limited in duration sort of mini-campaign.

In any case I am sure it would be fun.

Witch spells for Nox

I have expanded on my write-up on Nox, Goddess of the Near Dark, for the Petty Gods project.

Here are some new spells for followers of Nox and a new minion.

As always the material below (except the art) is released as Open under the terms of the OGL.

Section 15: "Witch Spells for Nox" Copyright © 2015 Timothy S. Brannan.

Summon Fyre Fae
Affiliation: Nox, Goddess of Near Dark
Level: Cleric (Nox) 3, Magic-User (Wizard) 3, Witch 3
Range: 150’ + 50’/level
Duration: Special (see below)
By means of this spell the cleric or witch may summon a Fyre Fae, a small pixie like creature the glows much in the same way as a Will O’ The Wisp.  The cast beeches a boon from Nox, who knows the location of hidden things, and summons the fyre fae to find what they seek.  The caster must be specific in what they are looking for and it must be within the range of the spell.  So for example a caster can ask “please help me find the key to unlock the door to the Dungeons of Dragoth-umar” if the key is within the range, then the fyre fae will find it and return to the caster. Requests like “help me find the safest route” or “help me find the way home” may not always have the most direct route, but they will lead the caster in generally the correct direction.
The duration of the spell is equal to 10 minutes plus 1 minute per level of the caster.  The spell though will always end once the last rays of the sun are gone and true night has started.  When the spell ends the fyre fae will disappear.
Attacked fyre fae also disappear.  Casters that summon the minions of Nox and attack them will also discover that they will no longer be allowed to summon a fyre fae.

Summon Gloaming
Affiliation: Nox, Goddess of Near Dark
Level: Cleric (Nox) 5, Magic-User (Wizard) 5, Witch 5
Range: 50’
Duration: Permanent/till dispelled
The followers of Nox know that her power lies not in light or dark but in the shadows and near dark in between.  While many know of the playful fyre fae that serve Nox, few know of her other servitors, the Gloamings.
A gloaming is a shadow-like creature that often takes the shape of a large, but indistinct animal. The gloaming summoned will attack a group of creatures that the caster chooses.  The gloaming will attack until the creatures or itself are dead.
The caster may summon 1 gloaming + 1 per every other level.  A summoned gloaming does not have the fear causing effects of a naturally occurring one.

Gloaming*
Armor Class: 14
Hit Dice: 5*
Alignment: Neutral
No. of Attacks:  2 claw / 1 bite + Fear
Damage: 1d4/1d4 1d6 + 1 point Strength loss + Fear
Movement: 45'
No. Appearing: 1d6, Wild 1d10
Save As: Fighter: 6
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: None
XP: 660

A gloaming is a shadow creature that is typically found in wild, untamed places.  Mostly discovered in the time between sunset and the full dark of night these creatures appear to be large, but indistinct shadow creatures. They are on four legs and stand about 3’ to 4’ high with a massive head. The only features that are distinct are their eyes which glow amber, red or green.  Sometimes confused with hell hounds, a gloaming is an undead creature. It is the undead creature of a large predatory animal, but it does not attack on sight.  Typically a gloaming will radiate an aura of fear (as per the spell, cast by a 5th level caster) to scare off interlopers.  Failing that they will attack with a claw/claw/bite routine.  Only on a successful bite attack will a gloaming drain 1 point of strength.
A gloaming is an undead creature and can be turned as a 5 HD creature (or as a Wraith, depending on your system of choice).

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Ed DM's Screen

On Friday I picked up my new DM's screen for the 5th Ed. D&D game.

Like the 4e and Pathfinder screens this is a sturdy, thick screen of 4 panels.
Like 4e (but unlike Pathfinder) it is presented in Landscape format.

In comparisons to the screens of the "good old days" there seems to less information on these.  Granted the D&D5 rules are more abstract than the AD&D 1st ed ones were.  It does have the Conditions, and some various DC related tables.  There is also a panel dedicated to random NPC generation.

It is a good screen, but I might be taping my own tables on it after a while.  Though the conditions are nice to have right in front of me.

The feel is certainly similar to the 4e one, as well as the production values.
Looking over the 4e screen again made both miss and hate my time behind it.  I did have fun with 4e.  But the combats took SOOOOO long.  Even when I shortened them up.  In D&D 5 Ican whip through combats really fast.

I have had a love-hate relationship with DM screens.  I love the idea; iconic art on one side, useful tables on the other.  The trouble is the useful information is usually not the information I need.
The 1st ed one had a bunch of psionics information, which is cool when I was running a psionic game.   I might print out some tables of my own.  Like examples of various traps and their DCs to find and disable. Or situations where players have Advantage or Disadvantage.

Now all I really need is a good B/X DMs screen.