Kickstarters of the Week

We are in the final hours of the Tunnels & Trolls Deluxe Kickstarter.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/994700393/deluxe-tunnels-and-trolls

We are also at the start of Bite Me! The Gaming Guide to Lycanthropes.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/962794554/bite-me-the-gaming-guide-to-lycanthropes

Both are worthy projects and I'd like to see them both on my shelves someday.

Tenkar tells you about the late and/or dead ones, I let you know about the new ones!

Ugh...Here We Go Again.

Just when I was beginning to forget about Jim Shipman we get another one.

This time I am not going to post any of this guy's "art" since he is sending out DMCA notices to all sites doing this.  Effectively silencing all his critics.

Who is this guy?  Mykal Lakim of Dark Phoenix Publishing.
What is the charge?  Stealing art is the big one, but he is also accused of blatantly ripping of White Wolf's games.

First the art.
Steven Trustrum of Misfit Studios has been collecting all of these.
You can see all the art and the comparisons on his Plus page.
The amount is not Shipman staggering, but still very damning. Of course the balls this guy has claiming his stuff is original is just as staggering.

If it were only one person making this claim that's one thing.  But this is Matt McElroy and he is not prone to this sort of thing.  More to the point he is a professional and would not make claims like this lightly.
Also he is not the only one.
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/02/02/swipe-file-j-scott-campbell-and-dark-phoenix/

Secondly is the content of his books.
Matt McElroy also covers some of that in his link, but your best bet is read the RPG.net forum threads.
A review, http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/15/15765.phtml
Discussion on the review, http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?667642-RPG-Vampire-Undeath-reviewed-by-Darren-MacLennan-(1-1)
and finally a discussion on the books and art that got Lakim permabanned, http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?665698-Holy-White-Wolf-Ripoff-Batman!

Now keep in mind that I have seen dozens of D&D-clones in the last few years.  Some are built on the SRD others are rip offs.  This seems to be a different sort.

You be the judge and report back here if you see it or see it differently.

Edited to add:  I added Steve's link instead of Matt's.

Game Room Walls meme

Over at the Savage Afterworld people are posting what they have on their gameroom walls.  This is very timely since I just put up some more art on my walls.  So here is my game room!

Please ignore the wood paneling.  It was there when moved in and I have not had the time or money to tear it off and replace it with something more modern. Also I don't mind it.
Here they are.

On the west wall I have some prints from Eden Studio's WitchCraft game line on either side of one of my favorite Larry Elmore paintings.

The South wall I just got up.  An autographed picture of Zatanna cosplayer Alouette, an Elmore poster from my kids' first Gen Con (and the one where we were hit at 70mph by a guy that fell asleep. The poster was messed up pretty bad, but I kept it).  An original drawing from George Vasilakos for Conspiracy X.  And an evil looking worm from my brother Dan.

Better view.

And the East side for my custom shelves.  The area below are for games I am not playing, binders of PDFs and board games.

My basement is not just my game room.  I also have my office down there, the video game room and workout area.

Above my office desk.  Put it up for Halloween and never to it down.

The back wall of the video game room/workout area. These are not reproductions, I got these from a local theatre when they were being shown.  They had two of those Star Wars ones, I kept one and gave the other to a friend of mine.  He can trump me because his has been signed by George Lucas.

And the clock on the wall.

So that is my game room.  Worked pretty hard to get it like that.

Codex Celtarum

The Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum only has a little bit more to go.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/676918054/castles-and-crusades-codex-celtarum

It made it's funding now it is all about those stretch goals.

Again, I am sorta torn by this one.  First is looks awesome. I know Troll Lords will do a great job on this.
But it sorta kills my own Celtic book.   I am not sad, but I was looking forward to writing it and putting my own spin on it all.

Anyway. I am getting this one and I hope to run a Celtic based C&C game with it one day.

The cool thing is I have spent some time talking to the author, Brian Young and one of the artists, so I am actually very, very excited about it.
Plus all those new spells and Celtic magic?  Honestly, how can I say no?

I just upped my own pledge to take advantage of all the stretch goals.

An Open Offer to GROGNARDIA readers

Hello!

I want to extend an offer to the many, many readers of the Grognardia blog.

Like you I have been a fan of James' writings from the early days of his blog.
Like you I have also noticed a visible lack of presence in my Google Reader and blog rolls.

Well today I would like to offer you something of consolation.
Please subscribe to my blog, the Other Side.  Go ahead and click that "Join this Site" button there on the right. Just scroll down a bit.

We all know that James has been going through some tough times and is really busy with real life and getting his magnum opus Dwimmermount done.  I wish him all the best and hope it lives up to all the hype and beyond.

I am not asking you to replace Grognardia with the Other Side by any stretch.  I am giving you something extra to read in the interim.

Now why should you read my blog when have been to this point reading his?  That is a very good question.  Here are some points in favor for my blog.

- My age and background is very similar to James.
- We began playing around the same time. We have had similar experiences.
- He does retrospectives and I have done them as well.
- He has done Ares and Imagine, I am doing White Dwarf.
- We both have ties to the early masters of the game.  My DM in the later part of 1986-87 was a guy that had learned from Gary himself (his name was also Gary), that year I played D&D straight out of the White Box.
- We both do reviews of products.
- We have both published a number of books.
- We both have written for WotC. Granted James has done more of this than I have.
- Chicago (where I live) is a lot like Toronto (where James lives).

In my favor:
- While I have played a lot of *D&D I have also played tons of other games too.
- I like every edition of D&D and can find something good in all of them.  No edition wars here.
- I make it a point to post at least once a day, some days twice.
- I read a lot of blogs so I know what is going on in that realm and I am friends with a lot of designers and freelancers.
- I write about more games. Granted I have a few I really like, but I have a few more that I have never mentioned in the queue ready to go.
- I actually liked Ratatouille.  (ok that one might be a low blow).
- I give stuff away! Well, it has been a while, but I should find something to give away in concert with this.  Though I do provide a Downloads area of some free stuff.
- Kurt Wiegel at Game Geeks has only reviewed two games more than once.  One of those was mine.

So until he comes back, give the Other Side a try.

Like the great sage Stephen Stills once said:


Don't be angry - don't be sad
Don't sit crying over good times you've had

And if you can't be with the one you love honey
Love the one you're with

If this sounds like a thinly veiled attempt to gain more followers then I failed. I was looking for a more heavy handed one. ;)

Basic Fantasy Role Playing Blog Appreciation Day

I am participating in "Basic Fantasy Role Playing Blog Appreciation Day" hosted by Tenkar's Tavern.
You can follow the links here that lead to this day:

• http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2013/01/the-red-headed-step-child-of-osr-basic.html
• http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2013/01/roll-call-request-for-those.html
• http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2013/01/basic-fantasy-role-playing-blog.html

I really enjoy Basic Fantasy.
For me this is the D&D Basic/Advanced hybrid I was playing in 1981-83.
I liked Basic D&D and I loved Advanced D&D, just not every part of each.  The game we played was mostly Basic/Expert with bits of Advanced thrown in.  There were no "races as classes" and instead it was class and race.  We didn't worry about weapon speeds, or to hit bonuses for different ACs and weapons (though I kind of dig that stuff now).  We wanted simple, fast and fun.

All just like Basic Fantasy.

Basic Fantasy has suffered a bit I think because it tends to be overshadowed by Labyrinth Lord. There is nothing wrong with either game, and I proudly own both, LL just has better (and dare I say, more aggressive) PR.

Even I was not that familiar with it back when I started doing this OSR thing.
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2009/05/i-went-on-old-school-bender-this-last.html
But I later realized what I had,
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/04/b-is-for-basic-clones.html

Basic Fantasy though has a lot going for it.  For starters, it is free. You just go to the Basic Fantasy website, http://www.basicfantasy.org/, and grab a full version.  Grab other stuff too, it's all free as well.
Even the books on Lulu are sold at cost to keep the price down.
I also like it because it sticks closer to the SRD in terms of descriptions.  This is a good thing because for me it also acts as a nice bridge game between editions.  It also means that things that were not in the original Basic Game but are in 3.x/SRD can be converted back fairly easy.  Love 3e Sorcerers? Love Basic? Well conversion then is pretty easy.

I also like it because it reminds me more of the Eric Holmes edition of Basic.  Labyrinth Lord feels more like Moldvay/Cook/Marsh.  Holmes was my first D&D.

Basic Fantasy and The Witch
Since Basic Fantasy is so very close to Holmes and close to the SRD, I did a lot of playtesting of The Witch using these rules.
I think I can say, without worry, that The Witch and Basic Fantasy get along fantastic together.
One of the assumptions of the Witch class is that it can be open to any race.  I have an appendix in the back of the book to use demi-humans either as race-as-a-class or race-as-a-Witch-Tradition.  Either way you go,  I have you covered.

Of course I do prefer to have my spells to go a bit higher in level.  BFRPG caps at level 6, the witch goes to 8.  But I cover 7th and 8th level spells as special.

Using The Witch with Basic Fantasy
To make many allowances to cover the most games there are some odd specific game quirks.  So here is my recommendations for using my Witch class in BFRPG.

Limit the witch to 20th level. So no Witches Court witches, a witch of 20th level is the Queen of Witches.
At 13th level a witch can cast a 7th level spell only if she is part of a coven. The witches in the coven must also know the spell.  Same for 15th level and 8th level spells.  OR drop the 7th and 8th spells completely.

In the spirit of BFRPG, here is a free preview of The Witch.

If I have done nothing else in this post, then I hope you will at least give Basic Fantasy a try.
The price is right, the game is solid and you have nothing to loose.

Even if you have never played an RPG in your life then you also can't go wrong here.
You can even try the Beginner's Essentials from the downloads page. Again for the fair price of $0.00.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

New to Old School Gaming: Give this game a try.  It does a great job of handling the "farm kid to hero" arc that is so important in so many tales and games.  I enjoy 3E and 4E, but the characters can start out so powerful; especially in Pathfinder and 4e.

NON-GAMERS:  If you ever wanted some insight to what I talk about around here, then grab this free copy.  It is a complete game. Just add dice and friends.

Want to know more?  Visit Tenkar's Tavern to see all the other blogs participating.
http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2013/01/basic-fantasy-role-playing-blog.html

EDITED TO ADD: Chris Gonnerman, the brains behind BFRPG has a blog up as well.
http://basicfantasy.org/blog/

White Dwarf Wednesday #50

Wow. 50 Issues.  We are half-way through my collection now, give or take a couple of Best of's.  The staff of White Dwarf is just as excited in this February 1984 issue.  Let's go!

Now this issue I have some pretty fond memories of.  First I enjoyed it when it came out and it was also one of the first one I sought out in the 90s when I wanted to get back into Call of Cthulhu.  The cover art represents the main feature of this issue, a new CoC adventure.

There is a big ad for Warhammer which includes some game bits about Dark Elves.  I liked how "elf maidens are a as cruel and murderous as their menfolk."

Ian Livingstone starts out my also being amazed at 50 issues. It's a pretty big milestone really.  He lets us know some more changes are on the way by Issue #52.

Garth Nix is up first with Red Tape in Traveller.  Almost as exciting as red tape in real life.  Glad he went on to bigger things.

Open Box has the first set of reviews in a long time that do not have any D&D or RuneQuest books.  Marcus Rowland reviews GW's Steve Jackson's Socrcery for use with Fighting Fantasy. He liked it but didn't think it brought anything new to the game, 7/10.   A bunch of ICE Middle Earth RPG supplements are also reviewed.  Back in 84 ICE's Middle Earth was a big deal for me.  I loved the books, but no place local had them and no one around me would play it.  Reviewed by Jonathan Sutherland are: Guidebook and Gridded Map (6/10), Angmar - Land of the Witchking (7/10), Court of Ardor - In Southern Middle Earth (7/10), Umbar - Haven of the Corsairs (7/10), Northern Mirkwood - The Woodelves Realm (8/10), and Southern Mirkwood - Haunt of the Necromancer (8/10).    Rereading this review still makes me want these books, even if I never play MERP.  Finally Tarsus for Traveller is up. It is called an "Adventure module"; scenario having been dropped. Andy Slack, Traveller expert in residence, gives it 9/10.

Critical Mass reviews some Brian Aldiss.  Aldiss gives me a headache sometimes. I get why he is liked, I just don't share it.

Fiend Factory self-indulges in stating up the various personalities from White Dwarf in both RQ and AD&D versions.  Included are The White Dwarf, Gobbledigook, Thrud the Barbarian, Agaroth the Unwashed (guy from the ads), Ugbash Facesplitter,  and Ian Livingstone (??).  Also included are Griselda and Wolfhead for AD&D, their RQ stats having premiered earlier.  While I normally am cool to these sort of things and don't care for the stating up of real people as themselves in game, I like this because of the dual stating.

Jim Bambra has another look of Clerics in Divinations and the Divine.  I remember using some of this for my cleric classes.

The Watchers of Walberswick is the aforementioned CoC adventure.  I was excited for this adventure back then, and it is fine, but it doesn't stand up to the tests of time and memory.

Dean Aston has some "hardware" for RuneQuest characters.  Again this one is generic enough to be used anywhere.

Part 2 of the The Key of Tirandor is next, picking up right where Part 1 left off.  It is quite long at 5 pages.

Thrud is messing things up on the next page.

Microview is still chugging away, this time with two short programs on vehicle capacity and costs for three different games.  I liked this one becuae it ws using the flavor of BASIC I was using at the time, so no need to convert.  Though I seem to recall that the ' for comment didn't work on my CoCo and I had to use REM afterall.

Letters has some quibbles about the survey.

Lew Pulsipher has an alternate view of leveling up in AD&D in Going Up.  The same idea would end up being reused in True20 and D&D4 (for the most part).

Counterpoint covers ICE's The Fellowship of the Ring board game.

Treasure chest has weapons for the Assassin: Garrote, Two-Stage Poison (used a lot of that!), The Killing Cup and Dagger of Slaying. I don't recall this article per se, but I do recall these items.

Another attempt at a gossip, rumor, small news page is rolled out.  This time it is "KaLi Presents: Baelpen Bulletins".  Still under the "News" header.  Nothing jumps out at me in this one save that TSR is working on a "Spider-man" game.

Travellers is next, followed by Small Ads and Gobbledigook.

We end with ads.

All in all a great issue.  I remember using quite a bit of these things back in the day so this issue holds up for me.  Funny that the reason I re-bought it turned out to be the least interesting to me now.