Monstrous Monday: Campaign Idea - Monster Naturalists

It is no secret that I am a huge fan of the Harry Potter universe. The books, the movies, pretty much everything.  So it was with great joy I went to see the new "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" movie.

So happy in fact I went back and this last weekend in 3D.

Between this, playing a lot of Pokemon with my kids and this past weekend's gaming I came up with an idea.

Why not have a D&D-ish game (it really could be any system) where the characters are not out to be murder-hobos and instead be something else.  The characters can work for a mage school or something similar with high ideals, to collect various magical creatures and bring them back to their employer.

I am thinking that the entire idea revolves around the premise that these creatures are to brought back alive for study and care.  So not killing them and not even really seeing them as evil; more as something that would be collected and studied.  I would include monsters like Owlbears, Basilisks, Leucrottas, Perytons and the like.    I would certainly use the Baby Bestiaries vol 1 & vol 2; the books are too good not to use.

I'd have to figure out some non-fatal means to capture monsters.  Magic ropes, cages and the like.  Plenty of hazards would be manifest too. Bandits, other monsters, not to mention the competition from other groups hired by the same employer or competition.

Sounds like a lot of fun to be honest.

Gaming Weekend

Did a little bit of gaming this weekend. My son got to play some Mongoose Traveller with his other group.  Here at home we started up a new D&D 5 game set in the Skyrim universe that my oldest is going to run.  So far it's a lot of fun. We are hunting down the murderer of the Emporer and have managed to hit level 2 already.

I also got a desire to dust off an older game and give it another go.  It was a lot of fun back in the day and I have been itching to do some more with it.

Should be fun.

Wizards of the Coast Print On Demand: The Results, Part 2

I received a few requests for some more pictures of the Shady Dragon Inn.

Here is the spine.  It is Perfect bound. No staples.

Various shots of the text.  It appears the same as the early editions.  Maybe a touch fuzzier, but nothing that I consider a deal breaker.  Barely noticeable in fact.

How can you tell this is a new print versus a really, really well kept original?  This page. This is the same sort of page found in all DriveThru/OneBookShelf/LightningSource books.
Note how the bar code is not an ISBN one.

Hope this helps.

Wizards of the Coast Print On Demand: The Results

Yesterday I got a surprise in the mail from DriveThruRPG/OneBookshelf/LightningSource.

My copy of the Shady Dragon Inn came in.  It looks fantastic.
I don't have an original one to compare it too, but inside it looks great.

The maps are part of the book, not detachable, but that is fine really.

They are set to 1" = 5', so D&D 3, 4 & 5 standard.
They do not print out to 1" exactly, but when you buy the pdf you get the maps as files to print on your own.

The characters inside can be converted to 5e easily enough.
Ignore the saving throws, and recalculate the base to hit as 20 - THAC0.  I find that 22 or 23 -THAC0 actually works out a little bit better for 5e.

Plus $8 is better than the $30 or so it can go for on eBay.

I do kind of wish now I had grabbed something that I have an original of just to compare.

The quality is very good; what you would expect from a high quality print of a high quality PDF source.  Though the source of that PDF is a scan of the original that has been seriously cleaned up.
The results are something fantastic for the table or reading, but no collector will be convinced it is an orignal.  That's perfect for me really.  I am a collector, but a pragmatic one and a "playing" one.  I like to have these books, but their value to me is not on my shelf, but my game table.

 DriveThru has promised us new Wizards of the Coast Print on Demand updates each week.  So check back on every Tuesday to see what is new.  In fact they have new items up today.

Bookmark this link to check back on what's new each week.

Thanksgiving Break

Taking some time off for the Thanksgiving break.

Only sporadic posting this week.

Zatannurday: Justice League Dark Animated Movie

How I missed you Zatannurday!

This is exactly the sort of thing I was waiting for in Zatannurday's long run.  A new DC Animated movie of Justice League Dark.

This isn't exactly JLD, it's more Justice League Dark + Batman, but it still looks cool.
It's also rated R, which I guess is not a big surprise given the content.



Looks like it will be out in early 2017.

Kickstart Your Weekend: Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea 2E

We are coming into the last few hours of the Kickstarter for Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea 2E.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1806106772/astonishing-swordsmen-and-sorcerers-of-hyperborea-0

I am very, very fond of this game. There is just so much potential here that I become overwhelmed with ideas.  Do I want to do do the dawn-time of humanity when the Old One have left the Earth?  Do I want to do an older, colder Earth of the far future under a dying sun?  Or just smoosh it into my current games? I want to do it all, to be honest!!

There is a lot love about this game really and I can't wait to try out this new addition.