Zatannurday: Other Days of the Week

We know you have a choice when it comes to super-heroine cheese cake and here at the Other Side are happy you have chosen Zatannurday for your DC Heroine needs.

But did you know there are other days in the week?!?

Love this picture by the way.  

It is true.  And one of the great things about being a part of the blogging community is the ability to see and share what others are doing.  So just as there are other days of the week and super girls, there are other blogs doing something similar too!

I have posted this one before from Adam Hughes.  That is because I like it.

First off I have to give a big shout out to Toyriffic. It was his posts about Harley Quinn ever "Qwednsday" that gave me the idea to do this!

• Wednesday: Harely Quinn - Qwednseday
• Thursday: Cat Woman - Purrrsday
• Sunday: Poison Ivy - Poisunday Ivy

Hero Press has sent me 1000s of hits over the last few years, it is always nice to send some back. Tim also has a few features.

• Wonder Woman Wednesday
• Super Girl Sunday

Cal up in Calvin's Canadian Cave of Cool is an old friend to the Other Side.  His posting schedule dwarfs all of the blogs mentioned above, including my own.  In addition to being the Fortress of Solitude for some nice little witches, he loves his super girls.  Maybe none more than Batgirl herself.

• Wednsedays with Wonder Woman
• There's always room for Batgirl (typically Fridays)
• Supergirl
• Fridays with the Furies (which includes a lot of super heroines)

By my count that leaves plenty of DC Women and Monday and Tuesday with no love.
Ones that could use (and support) their own days are Starfire, Black Canary, Raven (she fits with the theme of my blog), Vixen (though she is given a lot coverage over at Justice League Detroit), Batwoman (maybe not enough of her yet since the Kate Kane version is still pretty new), Renee (The Question) Montoya and personal favorites, Fire and Ice.

I should point out some other great blogs featuring DC women.

• Amazon Princess, dedicated to Wonder Woman
• DC Women Kicking Ass talks about the women of DC and some Marvel
• Justice League Detroit for Vixen, Gypsy and sometimes Zatanna. 
• Supergirl Comic Box Commentary
• Who is The Question?
• Comic Knockouts, featuring DC and Marvel women

IF you know of any more let me know!

Dropbox

I am adding some Dropbox functionality to my blog so you can download items or share them with me.

You can click on the link above and get your own Dropbox account, but I am also going to open up some public folders for everyone to use.

The Other Side

Let me know what you think!

D&D Next Playtest: First Thoughts

Ok. I have the playtest docs in hand now.
Now there is lot here, and there is a lot I can't say due to the NDA.

Let me take a bit and talk about the NDA.
Every game company on the planet uses an NDA. There are exceptions of course, but those companies are exactly that. Exceptions.  Plus the two that are often mentioned, Pathfinder and Dungeon Crawl Classics, are so derivative of the SRD that there is not really much in the way of new material to protect.  Plus the "beta" of Pathfinder was much more polished than this playtest of Next/5e.  This is not kick the tires or looking for bugs, this is a real play test.

That's out of the way what did we all get?
Well.....I can say there pages of rules, a bunch of pre-gens, a descent set of monsters and an entire adventure based on B2.

My thoughts, in no particular order.
- Someone put all their favorite rules from all editions of the game in a blender and hit frappe.
- Very much like 3e, with some 4e ideas.  I have noticed things though from 1st ed and 2nd ed.
- Lawful Evil and Chaotic Good are back
- like how they are doing hit points.
- advantage and disadvantage.  neat ideas. Not sure yet on how much I'll like them.
- Monster stats can now be written in one line of text!  Just like AD&D1

Characters now have Race, Class, Background and Theme (this is all old news) but damn it is nice to see it all working on one page of a character sheet.  Heck once you have your class, race, backgroun and theme down you can put your entire sheet on a half piece of paper.

On the character sheet I see bits from 3e, 4e, 2e and a lot of Basic D&D.  I also see things that are new.  Not new-new, but certainly new to official D&D rules.

I have often asked for a rule set that combines the best features of all of D&D from the last 40 years.
Damn if D&D 5/Next doesn't come really, really close to all of that.

We are going to play it this weekend.  I'll let you know how it goes.

D&D Next

I now have it in my hands and while I am not 100% sold yet, man it is a lot neater than I thought it would be.

I am much more excited now.

There is an Old School vibe to this game, yet it still has the things from 3x and 4e that I liked.  Did WotC hit a home run here?  No. But it is was a solid Double moving the runner to Third.

I don't even mind it took a long time to get.

Next Day

The playtest docs for D&D Next/5e come out today.

I am expecting them to be kinda raw to be honest, but who knows.

Are you planning to try it out?

New Class

I got some word on Eldritch Witchery today, still in edits.
The Witch will be back to from the editor on June 1.

So I figure while we are all waiting, I have a new class to share with you all.

It's not done yet, and it is designed specifically for "Basic Era" games.
It will be released as 100% Open under OGL and even better, I am going to give it to you for free.

Just give me a couple of days (or less) depending on how much I get done tonight.

White Dwarf Wednesday #17

We kick off the 80s with White Dwarf #17 for Feb/March.  Again we see a noticeable jump in quality in terms of cover art.  This piece by Angus McKie has always been a favorite of mine.

Ian Livingstone talks prices of games in his editorial.

The Fiend Factory is next with the "Near Misses Monsters", the ones that did not make it the Fiend Folio.  What is  nice about this batch is we are given the reasons why they were not included.  First up we have a Night Rider, which is to humans as drow are to elves.  The Spice Worm (should be obvious), The Heat Skeleton and the Green Worm (both not included because there were already too many skeleton and worm like creatures). The Bodach (nothing at all like the Bodak) and the Goom, both of which were not really all that interesting.

Open Box gives us reveiws of Time War (8/10), Under the Storm Giant's Castle (5/10) and Dark Tower (9/10), both Playing Aides from Judges Guild. Also we have two games from Judges Guild, Operation Ogre (5/10) and Caverns of Thracia (8/10).

Lew Pulsipher gives us a classic, "My Life as a Werebear", or rules for playing Monster Characters in D&D.  The tables and the rules are very D&D while the art and monsters are AD&D.  It was an interesting time when the two rules existed side by side like this.  The rules are solid and could be reprinted today and branded OSR and sell.

A couple of pages on painting minis.
The Sable Rose Affair is a short Traveller scenario.
Letters again focus on Fiend Factory.
Treasure Chest has a couple of Artifacts, the Tablets of the Ish Than, the Skeleton of Zzkeel, The Marvellous Flask of Suethrin the Mystical, The Ring of Manfred the Sage, The Sword of Ehemakil and Gurthlin's Silver Harp.

We have the Questionnaire results next.  Most people (51%) read WD for the RPGs, with D&D (53%) being the largest percentage of that. Most readers want a questions and answer page, and only 31% want a comic.  Most readers want WD to come out monthly.  Soon...very soon.

There is a nice interview with Chaosium's Greg Stafford.

A new Ability for D&D is introduced, Perception.  Neat idea, but it never really took off.

We end in ads.

So the start of the 80s has us looking at WD that still looks 70s.  There are improvements, but not a lot so far.  The issue is really solid, but lacks a solid feature article.

For comparisons sake check to see what is going on over at Land of Nod.  He is doing the Dragon magazines one by one, with Dragon by Dragon.