Old School RPG Planet

May 21, 2013

Swords & Stitchery - Old Time Sewing & Table Top Rpg BlogTerror Tuesday - Free Post Apocalypse PDF - Thirty Sider Apocalypse: Urban Encounters

Thirty Sider Apocalypse: Urban Encounters
Fish Wife Games once again brings the awesomeness with a Free 

Thirty Sider Apocalypse: Urban Encounters PDF
You can down load it right HERE
The Description  From Drive Thru Rpg : 
As the player characters wander through the wastes of a ruined future world the GM suddenly pulls a dusty old artifact from his dice bag. The players lean forward and stare with curiosity. “What is that thing?” One is brave enough to ask. Grinning, the GM gives this mysterious, long forgotten object a roll. Thirty Sider Apocalypse is a series of free random charts that incorporate that must have oddity of the dice bag, the 30 sided die.
This first installment of the thirty sider apocalypse features a random chart of encountered characters, creatures, and events that the characters might stumble across as they wander through the remains of a once proud major city.


How To use The PA Urban Encounters:
This is a great opportunity for a party of adventurers to run into something weird bizarre or just plain freaky. …

The Nine and Thirty KingdomsRead Magic House Rules

To continue with my investigation of the Read Magic spell, here are my current thoughts on how it works.
It's a shortcut.
Spell research can be used to decipher any magical writing, but that takes time and money. Read Magic lets you read magic right now.
It applies to both spells and words of command.
... And almost all magic items have words of command. Potions and other magical substances don't. Magical enhancements of natural functions (improved protection from magical armor, improved attack ability for magical weapons) don't have command words, either, but other special powers (flaming, for example,) do. All rings, amulets, wands, staves, magic cloaks, etc. have magic words of command.
It doesn't apply to spells you know.
... Unless it's a different version of the spell. Find a scroll of Read Magic? You recognize that's what it is immediately. No need to cast the Read Magic spell to use a Read Magic scroll. This is easier to keep track of than keeping a list of scrolls that …

HeroPress[HOUSERULES] Corruption Redux...


Whilst I am determined to keep houserules to a minimum for my planned Castles & Crusades campaign next year, some will be included to help create the flavour of the world.

In the world of Tekralh, magic is wild energy that must be 'tamed' by wizards and their ilk (this also includes spiritual magic as channelled by clerics, paladins and druids, but we'll come to them later).

Constant exposure to these energies can have lasting effects on magic-users and so to represent this, every time a wizard or illusionist goes up a level of experience he must make the following save or suffer a random form of "corruption".

Save:
  • A Wisdom Ability Check (to see if the mage has the willpower to resist corruption) - TN: 18
Modifiers:
  • Add Wisdom ability modifier
  • If Wisdom is a Prime Attribute: +6
  • Add wizard/illusionists level (his current level, not the level he is rising to)
  • Good alignment: +1
  • Evil alignment: -1
  • Chaotic alignment: -2
  • Lawful alignment: +2

Challenge Level = the level of the most …

Random WizardZeFRS FASERIP

I have written quite a bit about FASERIP in comparison to other systems here and there. And, recently, I ran a game of "Four Color System" (aka 4CS, aka FASERIP clone) for my friends. I always thought it would be a "cool idea" to take the 4CS rules and make a game that was medieval high fantasy themed (instead of super hereos).

A reader responded that I should check out ZeFRS (Zeb's Fantasy Roleplaying System). This is a facsimile of the TSR Conan RPG that was released in the mid 80s and written by Zeb Cook. Recently, I even got the chance to ask Mr. Cook about the Conan license and what was TSR's plan during that time.

So, I have read through the rules again and tried to do a comparison to the FASERIP task resolution chart. The task resolution is very similar, but different enough that the two games are not compatible.




The first difference is ZeFRS went with a "roll low" approach versus FASERIP "roll high". I rather like "roll low" and even converted FASERIP from "roll high" to "roll …

I Waste The Buddha With My CrossbowBetter Living Through Chemistry, Part III -- Control Has Enabled The Abandoned Wires Again, But The Copper Cables All Rust In The Acid Rain

The Iron TavernWhat is a Game?

According to Wikipedia a game can be considered an organized activity in which the participants engage in activities aimed at achieving a goal, either in competition with others, or in cooperation with them. The article in question notes that games … Continue reading

A character for every game » Maps[Tuesday Map] Darkling Depths Level 2

The MegaDungeon Continues! Level 2 of the Darkling Depths is broken up into three distinct areas.  The main complex of …

Continue reading »

MF WARSCards Against Humanity's Success Story

Recently on the Chicago Grid website, an article featured the game Cards Against Humanity and detailed its success.  Read more here!


Creative Mountain GamesPicard Face Palm Meme Cookie Cutter on Etsy

Over on Etsy.com you can get a "Picard Face Palm Meme Cookie Cutter." See more here!


Random WizardHexenbracken

You can expect to hear more about the Hexenbracken as I have been working on making a tablet friendly PDF that should be available soon. (Sneak peek preview here). What is the Hexenbracken you ask?

It all started when Zak Smith made a post, calling for contributions in detailing a map by Brendan Strejeck. The rules were simple. Make a two or three sentence description of what lay in wait in a hex from the map. Contributions started pouring in, and after four days, over 700 descriptions had been submitted.

And, best of all, all of this creativity has been placed in the public domain.

Since Zak and Brendan were gracious enough to allow their works to be free for all to use, I went through the process of compiling all of the contributors posts and reformatting them to fit in a spreadsheet. I have often done this process for companies that are migrating to use a database, and the process was similar. The resulting spreadsheet is available here.


Random WizardThree Things Hexenbracken

The Portable Hexenbracken
As I mentioned in my last post about the Hexenbracken, I spent a lot of time organizing the data so that it would automatically generate links. My ultimate goal was to make a decent PDF that anyone could download and use at their game table. To get to that goal, I also thought it would be good to have a web application that would generate an interactive map. I started concentrating on the map.

The original map was done by Brendan Strejcek with colour pencils. Some of the hex numbers were blurry as a product of the scan. I set about adding a more uniform colour to the hexes and attempted to sharpen the hex numbers. Then, as the map was being described, I manually added labels to the settlements.

Then I worked out a way to generate links for each individual hex on the map. Part of that process involved writing it for a web application. Tired, I decided to call it a night. The next day I awoke to find out that a very smart fellow, Ramanan Sivaranjan, had made a …

Havards Blackmoor BlogWil Wheaton vs. Bargle!

D&D fans love hearing about famous people who have played our hobby. Joss Whedon, Vin Diesel, Kevin Smith, Metallica, My Chemical Romance, the list is too long to mention everyone here. We all know Wil Wheaton was a D&D player of course, but I did not know that he had journeyed to Mystara. "I started playing with the 1981 Red box" Wheaton says and goes on to mention having throughly explored the Caves of Chaos (B2 - Keep on the Borderlands) and many other known D&D locations.


Wheaton then goes on to mention what may have been the peak of his D&D career "One time, I even talked to a wizard named Bargle." What happened when Wheaton explored the caves north of Threshold in the world of Mystara? Was he magically ensnared by Bargle, like the rest of us, or did he manage to talk himself out of it?

You can listen to Wheaton talk about his early D&D memories at the video recording of the PAX 2012 Penny Arcade DND Celebrity Game (Not Safe For Work: Strong language). Thanks to my friend David …

HeroPressWarehouse 13 Is Closing Its Doors!


The brilliant, inventive, witty and generally freakin' awesome Warehouse 13 is coming to an end with a six-episode fifth season, it has been announced.

The show, one of the SyFy channel's flagship programmes, is currently in its fourth season and proving, as ever, that it is consistently able to come up with new variations of its central "snag it, bag it, tag it" framework.

I love this show - and not just for the presence of Allison Scagliotti (although she's an enticing cherry on top of an already wonderful cake) - and will be gutted once it's gone.

Of course I realise that shows can't keep running forever, but Warehouse 13 wasn't showing signs of staleness or shark jumping.

On the plus side, there's every hope that we'll still see our favourite Warehouse agents in the rumoured HG Wells spin-off, with Defiance's Jaime Murray returning as her iconic Warehouse 13 character.

I just think it would be such a shame, given the broad mythology created for the show, if we never get to …

Castelli & Chimere (Castles & Chimeras)Flying Swordsmen il clone di Dragonfist


La copertina di DragonFist
Subito prima della pubblicazione della 3a edizione di AD&D, quando ancora non si sapeva che avrebbe perso la A di Advanced, la Wizards of the Coast pubblico un gdr completo e gratuito: "Dragonfist". 

Dragonfist era basato sulle regole di AD&D 2a edizione con alcune modifiche interessanti, l'uso di modificatori dinamici per le caratteristiche (1d4 invece di +2), e sopratutto un sistema di arti marziali molto valido frutto delle grandi capacità creative di Chris Pramas - poi fondatore della Green Ronin (Mutants & Masterminds, True 20, Dragon Age, A game of throne rpg....).  

Il gioco si proponeva di portare nel mondo di AD&D il genere Wuxia e sorprendentemente ci riusciva!

La copertina di Oriental Adventures per AD&D 1a edizione

Questo gioco, prezioso tesoro sugli hard disk degli appassionati dell'epoca (presente!), è ora tornato fruibile in modo gratuito ed è per di più in formato open, il tutto grazie all'opera di "clonazione" operata da Lord Gwydon, il clone …

Jeffro's Space Gaming BlogMadicon 22: BattleTech– Trial by Fire!

I blew into the early morning time slot a few minutes late. The two players were brand new to the game, though, so I didn’t feel too bad about grabbing a soda from the drink machines while they set up and went over the rules. The guy that blogs at The Rhetorical Gamer was running […]

Save Vs. DragonSeparated at Birth - BX/Duck Dynasty Edition

Okay, I know I've done several Separated at Birth posts before, but I think this may be my most inspired one yet! I've been wanting to do another one for a while, but just haven't had any luck thinking of a topic. Until last night... I was looking through the BX red and blue books trying to figure out who I thought some of the illustrations looked like, and I started noticing how many of the characters had beards. I could hear Duck Dynasty on the TV in the other room, and I though, "I gotta work with what I got. It's called improv-isavation."

The dwarf from the character section of Moldvay Red, and Duck Commandor CEO Willie Robertson.

The frost giant from the monster section of Cook Blue, and head of manufacturing Jase Robertson.

The alignment guy from Moldvay Red, and family patriarch Phil Robertson.

The female halfling from the character section of Cook Blue, and family matriarch Miss Kay. (Check out how similar the hair and the eyebrows are!)

The female elf from the same picture as …

Tower of the ArchmageReview: Empires of the Shining Sea (Part I)

A while ago (I honestly don’t remember exactly when) picked up the Empires of the Shining Sea boxed set. Seeing as I have a stack of stuff I've managed to collect, and haven't really read yet, I decided to pull this one from the pile, and have a go, based solely on the cover.

Summoning a genie to fight a dragon? Awesome!


It’s a fairly typical 2nd edition forgotten realms setting boxed set. Here’s the text from the back of the box:

Calimshan and the Lake of Steam Revealed!

The dusty trails from the North have brought you to the warm and welcoming coasts of the Shining Sea and the Lake of Steam. Here is history spanning millennia, not just centuries; passion, profit and danger; dreams of power and conquest; and wonders mysteries centuries older than any hedge realm north of Dalagar's Road and the Snowflake Mountains.

Empires of the Shining Sea goes farther and deeper into the southern reaches of the FORGOTTEN REALMS campaign setting, providing a breadth of scope and a level of detail …

HeroPressTonight On Defiance...

The City of IronBrave the Labyrinth Fanzine Accepting Submissions

Just spreading the word that Pete Spahn's new fanzine for Labyrinth Lord, "Brave the Labyrinth", is looking for submissions by the end of May.

See here for the details.

I've submitted a description of an arch-mage, his henchmen, a special magic item he owns, and some unique spells in his repertoire.

Elfmaids & OctopiFrom the Labyrinthe with Love: Science Dungeons

Ongoing weird science game done as dungeon zone like my long stair stuff. Useable in gamma world or Psychon settings but also good for weird fantasy or even carcosa. In a more fantasy setting could mix with other earlier dungeon zones. Actually the under land zone would fit mostly in weird science too. Im thinking for Psychon letting players pick 6 levels in anything - dwarf2 elf2 orc2 or a sorcerer3 monk3 or something stranger. Tempted to run Devilmount ot Anomylous sub surface environment on psychon.

Science Dungeon Zone
A world under psychadelic skies, insane artificial life, mutants and ancient remnants of forgotten science and magic. Psychonian dungeons are often ancient bunkers or vaults or remains of the ancients. Some complexes have been repurposed many times.

Planet Psychon Underworld Hazard d50
1 Electric eye activates trap
2 Alarm klaxons and red lights
3 Doors seal automaticly
4 Console puzzle to open door
5 Toxic chemical waste leak
6 Live electric wires
7 Collapsed roof …

Paper Brain GamesSavage Worlds Character Build - The Thief

This is the second installment in a series of character builds designed for players new to Savage Worlds. The builds take you from character creation up to the first Legendary rank. The first few character builds will demonstrate how to create characters which progress like those in traditional fantasy classes. We kicked off this series with the classic party tank: The Fighter. And now in this

Belched from the DepthsThe new flickr

I hadn't heard, but flickr hasn't been doing good lately and they are trying to get back in the game. Today they rolled out a new look and huge incentive to be a free member.

If you haven't seen in yet, you can let me know what you think. Here's my photostream, the default view, here are the sets, and the collections, which I would prefer to have front and center, are still shortchanged and hidden, never to be seen by anyone unless you follow a link from here (go on, see if you find the collections starting on the photostream).

I have a flickr account for one because in order to justify my miniatures projects to myself I need to see them organized well all in one public place. For two I want a more robust backend than blogger and Picasa offer. I had a go at hosting my own galleries with Gallery2 and a lesser known one (but far superior feature-wise) called Piwigo, but I found the development and upkeep not worth it, and I found an isolated gallery or one tied only to a blog a real …

Zenopus ArchivesD&D: Dangerous For Your Health?

Cover of the Winter 1982 issue of the short-lived Beyond magazine, image from philsp

The author's blurb in Maze of Peril mentions several magazines with articles by J. Eric Holmes. I tracked most of these down long ago, but the one from Beyond eluded me until a few days ago. I wasn't even sure what publication it was in, as there have been several Beyond magazines over the years. I still don't have a copy of the article - the publication appears to be vanishingly rare - but I finally located a citation for it a few days ago in the amazing Internet Speculative Fiction Database. ISFDB is a "community effort to catalog works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror" and it goes deep, listing every article in the periodicals that it covers. 

It turns out that Holmes' article was in a Beyond periodical that existed briefly in 1981-1982,  a "SF magazine containing stories by Harlan Ellison & Robert Silverberg apparently issued only as free supplements in (some) college newspapers" as a "

People them with MonstersWelcome to Skullfuck Mountain!

In a far-off land there is a small lake. On the lake's south end, there is a small village that has a cozy inn, a few shops, and a well-regarded brothel. On the north end is a giant fucking skull-shaped mountain reputed to have monsters and treasures in it. What would you like to do?

Last Saturday my home D&D group of friends met up in my back porch to play. It had been over a month since we played, and I was hemming and hawing about whether we should continue our Gamma World game, or the DCC-based Demonland game we played last time we met. So I did what any good ADD-afflicted DM would do - I started a brand new game!

I've been drawing some modular maps in the style of Stonehell Dungeon, or the One-Page Dungeon if you prefer. The only difference is that I did mine 20x20 instead of 30x30, just as a matter of personal preference. I'd also been daydreaming about a Castle Greyskull/Gamma World-based megadungeon for a while, and the kicker was when I stumbled upon this old thread about the …

Tales of the Grotesque and DungeonesquePlanet Motherfucker: Brickhouse Amazon and Creepbot 2000

Here's some ready-to-go character archetypes for PLANET MOTHERFUCKER statted out in Savage Worlds.


Brickhouse Amazon or Neo-Barbarian Stud
Yeah, the world has gone to hell in a hand-basket, but who cares? Your abs are ripped and you turn heads. And if those heads don't do what you want, you can crush them. Love 'em, leave 'em, crush 'em.
Agility d6, Smarts d4, Spirit d6, Strength d8, Vigor d8
Skills – Climbing d4, Fighting d6, Intimidation d6, Persuasion d6, Survival d6, Swimming d6, Taunt d6
Charisma +2; Pace 6; Parry 5; Toughness 6
Hindrances – All Thumbs, Stubborn, Arrogant
Edges – Attractive, Strong Willed
Gear – $500 in trade goods (toilet paper and beer)

* * *


Creepbot 2000
Although you've got a human brain floating around up in your chrome dome, you're still more machine than man. “Yeah, replace my feeble human body with a sweet robot chassis!” you said. What a gaff; now you're a hulking beast made of twisted metal, rusted circuits, and frustration on overdrive.
Agility d10, …

A Wizard's KissDCC Fimbulwinter - Session 5

http://education-portal.com/cimages/multimages/16/brutus_betrayal.jpg
Once again the session revolved around Magnus McAnthony, the asshole wizard with the d30 choking cloud spell.

Eventually one of the level 0 characters tired of this and stabbed him in the back, ending his reign of dungeon genocide. Then he was stabbed in turn by the other PCs.

Meanwhile the players encountered two really cool villains I'd developed and killed them both before they got to do anything cool.

PC deaths: 5
Treasure obtained: ~1500sp (that's silver standard mind you)

The high lethality has been fun but it's getting old. Only one character still survives from the 2nd session. Most of the deaths today could have been prevented if they hadn't fought each other and if they'd remembered to bring a cleric.

The Wisdom Frog CroaksShining Akenia, Land of Adventure!

To the west of Barovania is the land of Akenia, known by many as a home to heroes and wonders.
It is also known as a sundered country of deceit and betrayal.

Even more people think of it as a terribly dangerous place filled with crazy zealots, dreadful monsters and any number of sublime places that can kill you.

In the end, no one disputes it is a land filled with opportunity for fame, riches and glory.


Most adventurers begin their career in Tower Town, a bustling settlement built around the Spire of Asmodal. Since the entire city was created to capitalize on men and women attempting to conquer the famed tower, its stocked with plenty of places for eager climbers to rest and supply themselves. It is also home to the Lapine Bleu tavern and Puella Potion's Akenian branch, both considered to be essential spots in any grand tour.

The Castle of the Cloud, The Stone Spire, The Temple of the Tide and The Flame Fortress are all dedicated to the four primordial elements. It is said that a …

Semper Initiativus UnumHolmes on Options


On the OD&D community for BLUEHOLME (an excellent simulacrum available free here) I came across this article, a review by J. Eric Holmes of the 1981 Dungeons & Dragons boxed set edited by Tom Moldvay. It's mostly positive, but Holmes says this:
Character classes: Player characters are restricted to being a Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Magic-User, Elf, Halfling or Dwarf. This probably covers the roles most beginning players want to try, but I am personally sorry to see the range of possibilities so restricted. The original rules (the three little brown books) specifically stated that a player could be a dragon if he wanted to be, and if he started at first level. ... I enjoyed having dragons, centaurs, samurai and witch doctors in the game. My own most successful player character was a Dreenoi, an insectoid creature borrowed from McEwan’s Starguard. He reached fourth level (as high as any of my personal characters ever got), made an unfortunate decision, and was turned into a pool of green …

Under Siege'Twas Busy This Weekend...

And it will soon be back to the grind.

However, before any of that happens, there is still a couple of hours left for the lower prices I was offering for stuff I'm trying to clear off my gaming shelves.

Check it out HERE.

M

Tenkar's TavernCadaver Hound - (Swords & Wizardry Monster)

Art by Matt Bulahao

Cadaver Hound

Hit Dice: 2 (10 HP)
Armor Class: 4 [15]
Attacks: 1 Bite (2d4)
Saving Throw: 16
Special: For every Cadaver Hound beyond 1 attacking it's target, all hounds get +1 to hit (pack animals)
Move: 15
Alignment: Chaotic
Number Encountered: 3-12
Challenge Level/XP: 3 / 60

Cadaver Hounds are undead pack animals. When attacking as a pack, they attempt to surround their prey. By doing so, they increase their chances to hit. For each Cadaver Hound attacking a target beyond the first, give a + 1 bonus to each hound as far as it's to hit roll.

For example:

Tenkar the Drunken Dwarf Fighter suddenly finds himself surroundeds by 5 Cadaver Hounds, nipping and biting at him. Each of the 5 hounds gets a + 4 bonus to hit this round. Next round there are only 4 Cadaver Dogs attacking Tenkar, as he downed one the previous round. For the 2nd round, they are only + 3 to hit the poor drunk bastard.

Between Are the DoorsCrumbling Epoch

After getting a play session in, I had some additional insights into what would make this game better. It has come a long way from its humble roots. I give you the May 20 update for the Crumbling Epoch system, … Continue reading

Playing D&D With Porn StarsThanks For The List, TSR

As blogland well knows, every sneezerag and post-it Tactical Studies Rules ever produced is secretly useful so long as you read it right.

And so, yes, that includes this.

What to do with TSR's list of things never to do? Well, obviously: do them.

But why? Because offending people with a D&D book generally only happens when people start acting nuts and people only start acting nuts when they start having genuine emotions. That's why they call crazy people "emotionally disturbed".

Offense is just the worst worst-case outcome for talking about things that people care about. So TSR's list is really just a list of things people care about.

Use them.

What'll Make Today's Game Interesting?
(Roll d20)

WHOA HEY: As everyone probably already knows, some players may have experienced traumas in their past which may make discussing some of the situations described below emotionally difficult for them. I mean, I guess--I've never actually seen it in real life. But, hey, I've heard about it on the …

HeroPressTwo Of A Kind: The Pact and Lovely Molly...

The Pact (2012): Tough biker Annie (Caity Lotz) is called back to the family home she hasn't seen for years by her flighty sister, Nichole (Agnes Bruckner) to help sort out their late mother's estate.

Unfortunately by the time Annie rocks up, Nichole has disappeared. Then family friend Liz (Kathleen Rose Perkins) comes to stay for the night - and she disappears.

And that's when things start getting really freaky.

The Pact is a nice, low-budget horror that blends a quite traditional ghost story with a murder mystery that's entwined in a dark, family secret.

Based upon an equally-enigmatic short (starring Firefly's Jewel Staite), writer-director Nicholas McCarthy's film does a good job of letting constantly building tension and atmosphere drive the chills, rather than gore and sudden jump-scares.

Where it comes apart slightly is that it is perhaps, ultimately, too clever for its own good and leaves too much of the plot to the audience's imagination.

Caity Lotz, who has a bit of a …

May 20, 2013

Wampus CountryOn Ubiquitous Sorcery

THOUGHTS ON UBIQUITOUS SORCERY
Opinion by Harcourt Runcible, Esq.
(as published in the Gazette two weeks ago)

It would be of no great inaccuracy to state that magic is everywhere in the Wampus Country, yet such a proclamation yields no real useful information.  Equally fatuous would be to suddenly notice that fish tend to be surrounded by water.  Of more use to the keen mind is careful consideration of those tangential points at which our society touches the raw, feral sorcery which thrums throughout the warp and woof of the frontier - and it is upon that subject which I shall now enlighten the Gazette's gentle and ignorant readers.

Thrust your mind backward in time, if you will, to the most recent occasion upon which you felt the need to consult a wonderworker of any stripe or hue.  Perhaps you partook in a minor restorative ceremony at the local church (no doubt surrendering several bills in the process) - or perhaps you sought out a local wizarding-type for some specific aid. …

Gothridge ManorLookie What I Got! Mail Call!


+Rafael Chandler sent me a copy of SlaughterGrid.  I've started reading it, but need to give this bad boy more time to read and digest.  More to come.  Thanks Rafael!

The RPG CornerWhat I'm Up To

These are halcyon days, dear readers.

Back in the early 90s, I had the misfortune of coming of age in a gaming desert. For reasons best left to a doctoral thesis on the statistics of population distribution, I attended a junior high and high school that was extremely gamer-poor. There were absolutely no established gaming groups at my class level, and very few at higher or lower grades. So I got used to taking it as it came, gaming with whomever I could scrape out of the recessed corners, often serving as mentor to would-be gamers who had never played but were interested. In the process I made friendships that endured to this day, but I also gamed with some notable duds, and group size almost never rose above four people.

In the years since my adolescence, I've gone through periods of further gaming want as well as periods of gaming plenty. But nothing compares to what's going on these days, plenty-wise. If you take a gander over to the right-hand column and scroll down a bit, you'll …

The Dice Are A LieAs vacations go . . .

. . . this one is teh suk.

Going to be away from the blog for a little bit longer than I hoped.

Realms of ChirakNook-pocalypse! Microsoft Eyeballs the Nook like a Tasty Hamhock

Just ran across this tidbit: Microsoft is considering buying Barnes & Noble's Nook Media Division (story here). In the document it indicates that B&N has planned to phase out Nook hardware entirely by the end of 2014, transitioning to an App-delivery approach on other devices.

Anyone know of a good app that can strip out the DRM from books?* I have this nervous feeling I'm going to regret having bought so many books through the Nook store soon.....


EDIT: I guess the real concern I have is, "What if the Nook folds? What then of my DRM-locked books?" Sooner or later something like this will happen, and it will be interesting to see both how the event is handled and how people react to it. The public hasn't been burned yet, but all its going to take is one major distributor of electronic entertainment to signal something of a panic. The GOG.com stunt from a few years back was a great indicator of just how potentially vulnerable we are to one of these distribution services going belly up …

The Nine and Thirty KingdomsRead Magic Investigation

I've seen some debate again about Read Magic, which I've looked at before, but I'd like to really delve into again. The problem some people seem to have is that, to make use of Read Magic, you have to define what kinds of magic can be read, and how many magical inscription types are covered by the spell. Some people haven't done that, or have defined Readable Magic in ways that are punish spellcasters too much or make the spell nearly useless.

Readable Magic always includes magic scrolls found in dungeons. If that's all it's meant to cover, and if magic scrolls can't be used unless Read Magic is cast immediately before the scroll is used, then it's just a "tax" on Magic-Users and doesn't have much utility. An M-U under these conditions gains two benefits:
  1. Can postpone spell selection until the moment a spell is needed. Example: 2nd level M-U memorizes Read Magic twice and has one scroll for each 1st level spell; the M-U doesn't have to decide in advance whether Sleep will be the most …

Raven Crowking's NestThe Revelation of Mulmo


At the time of this writing, The Revelation of Mulmo has just been approved by Joseph Goodman, and should be available soon at the usual locations, such as rpgnow and drivethru.  

This pdf is 76 pages long.  Even including maps, a one-page advertisement, and covers, that is a lot of pages of adventure, with 60 described areas, a new spell, and three new patrons.  

(These are incomplete write-ups - no patron spells! - but I think you will find them useful.)  

Important information is reproduced from Angels, Daemons, & Beings Between for judges lacking that reference work.

If you backed Angels, Daemons, & Beings Between, well, this was the last piece in the puzzle.  Lead developer Sean Conners will be up late tonight sending emails and moving the project to a close. So good news there.


In addition to using the same terms as Angels, Daemons, & Beings Between and Tomb of Curses, allowing other writers and publishers to use the included patrons in their own approved DCC work, The Revelation …

Greyhawk GrognardForgive my gloating...

I've been collecting books and other products relating to the World of Greyhawk pretty much since there was such a thing to collect. So as you might imagine, there are very few lacunae in my collection. Today, I filled one of those lacunae with something rare and wondrous. It's a graphic novel called Vecna Hand of the Revenant by Iron Hammer Graphics, and tells the story of Vecna's early days in the ancient past of the Flanaess. It came out in 2002 and is notoriously difficult to find, and when it comes up on eBay usually goes for north of $100 easily. No more were ever produced in the series. It arrived today in the mail.

Just finding one is a coup, but I ended up paying four dollars for the thing. Hence my gloating. :-)


I've only flipped through it, but the artwork is glorious. I'll do a full review once I've had a chance to read through it, as part of my explorations of obscure Greyhawkiana. But man, I am a happy Grognard today.
__________

Also, please don't forget the Adventures …

Dorkland!Let's Visit The Doctor's Grave...For The First Time In Lawrence Miles' Alien Bodies

This week's season finale of Doctor Who was a lead-in to the upcoming 50th Anniversary Special. And it had to do with a visit to the final resting point of The Doctor. Recently I decided to embark upon a return journey through the Eighth Doctor Adventures published by BBC Books during that horrible period of time when there was no Doctor Who on television, and the only way that we could

Paper Brain GamesSavage Worlds Character Build - The Fighter

One of the things I really like about Savage Worlds is how customizable the characters are. In both character creation and when advancing from experience point gain there are a range of options for you to choose from. But sometimes the sheer number of available options can be overwhelming for new players. Characters can end up lacking focus and I've seen some players become frustrated and want to

RetroRoleplaying: The BlogNew Monsters: The Thunderstinger, Red Doom, and Flame Wings

Long ago, I picked up a copy of The Dungeon #10 at my hobby shop just as they arrived. This was the October 1977 issue and was one of the first issues of The Dragon magazine to be available at Dibbles. This issue had a couple of good articles and the Snit Smashing boardgame -- the first Tom Wham game published in The Dragon. The best article in the magazine from my point-of-view was "Random Monsters" by Paul Montgomery Crabaugh. Two pages full of tables for rolling up random monsters. Not random monsters as in what standard monster appears on Dungeon Level 6 on a roll of 8 or what monster appears in a forest hex on a roll of 12, but a method of creating completely new monsters that had never been seen before.

I rolled up a lot of them and wrote each one on a 3x5 index card. When I needed a new monster for an encounter, I'd let a player draw a card from the deck and that creature was what they ran into. As the discovering group, they would get the honor of naming the monster if they …

Realms of ChirakDiving Back into Comics...Justice League Dark, Voodoo and Pathfinder



I've been in a funk lately....video games have been unfulfilling (usually), MMORPGs feel like stale toast to me these days, my focus on RPGs has narrowed down to Pathfinder for now as I find I only have time to focus on it for my Wednesday game and (occasionally) the DDN playtests. On the other hand some fiction I've discovered has been very engaging...I've especially enjoyed Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim novels and Tim Curran's awesome writing (especially Zombie Pulp, a fantastic collection of short fiction that reignited my inerest in both short stories and zombie fiction). Both are excellent reads if you're in the mood for some grizzly, down-to-earth weird horror and modern supernaturalism.

One thing I used to be into which fell to the wayside was comic books. Among my old favorites were Planetary, the Wildstorm universe books (Grifter, Wildcats, Stormwatch, Backlash, Team 6, etc.) and the unbeatable Top 10. Eventually Wildstorm sort of fell apart, and its inconsistent revival …

Havards Blackmoor BlogAfridhi Queen Miniature is Mine!

As I reported back in January, the miniatures made by Lance & Laser for the Dave Arneson's Blackmoor line are now once again available from Armorcast! I recieved my first batch of miniatures a few days ago and they are awesome!

The piece I really wanted to get was the miniature of Toska Rusa, the Afridhi Queen. Sculpted by Kevin Contos, this miniature was originally only a limited print item so I was pretty excited about picking it up.

Along with this miniature, I also got the Thouls, Afridhi Scouts, and I also picked up a miniature called Frogman Scout, which although I cannot confirm that it was originally part of the Blackmoor line, it just felt like it would feel very well at home in Dave Arneson's Temple of the Frog! 

For some reason I always imagined the Afridhi to look more middle eastern or asian rather than the "human-sized Frost Giant" types that these miniatures look like, but they are based on how they were presented in the D20 Blackmoor line so I cannot really complain …

Mad-Kyndalanth[magic item] Manuals of Lasra

After Lasra had received a magic quill by an elven witch he did not write poetry, only. A collection of manuals is attributed to his authorship, as well. These manuals had been written by device of the quill and enhanced with several obscure enchantments that allow students of the manuals to make rapid learning-process by following the given instructions, affirmations, and exercises. Powerful

Mad-KyndalanthCharacter Development: XP for encounters, gold, and stuff (as in 'good role-playing'?)

This post was inspired by quite a few blog articles on XP, such as Ghoultunnel's EP für Monster.  For Gold and Glory For years I did not have to face giving away experience points as a DM, because there are no XP in my favourite game: the Saga-System. It uses adventuring days, and you merely have to keep track of active days of adventure and skill use. Now, that I started a campaign using

Blood of ProkopiusThe Burglar Class for ACKS

My first step in converting some of my ideas about a Homes/Cook Averoigne campaign to ACKS is the idea that the primary purpose of the Thief is that of door opener. As such, I have re-cast the Thief as Burglar and have replaced the Thieves Guild with the Adventurer’s Guild.

Mechanically and philosophically, it is important for the feel of the game I want to play that PCs will encounter a semi-intelligent and hostile environment whenever they enter a dungeon. One way to emulate this is that all doors are locked. As such, the primary way of opening doors is to muscle through them. If the attempt fails, however, all chance at surprise is gone. Therefore, PCs have two alternative ways of attempting to open a door without giving up that chance of surprise should that attempt fail. One is magical (Knock) and the other is the Burglar.

Enter the ACKS Player Companion. Ostensibly, it is filled with extra classes, races, spells and equipment for use in Autarch’s house campaign world. …

Blood of ProkopiusThe Averni Ranger Class for ACKS

The second class that I am attempting to convert to ACKS for my Averoigne campaign is the Holmesian Ranger. Although, the impetus for the original was my own interpretation of the missile combat rules in Holmes (which implied random targets), ACKS still has one hold-over from the Holmes rules. No one can fire into melee without a special proficiency. Therefore, that is where I began constructing what I call the Averni Ranger (thus named to add a bit of color and to differentiate it from the plethora of other rangers that exist):

The Averni Ranger for ACKS


Prime Requisite: STR and DEX
Requirements: Must be Averni or have an approved backstory for a non-Averni
Hit Dice: 1d6
Maximum Level: 14
Averoigne has large swaths of land that are wilderness creeping into the lands of civilization. Therefore, there is a long warrior tradition within Averni culture that learns the ways of the wilderness in order to protect civilization from the wilderness.

Averni Rangers may wear chain-type armor or …

Blood of ProkopiusThe Salian Scion Class for ACKS

The next class to tackle in my conversion process to ACKS for my Averoigne campaign is my Holmesian Paladin. This class really came about as an opportunity to offer an HTH-only fighter type in the way the Holmesian Ranger is missile/thrown-only. I also took advantage of the DEX-based initiative system of Holmes by allowing the Holmesian Paladin to trade places with people on the initiative order.

Since initiative is dynamic in ACKS and a mere +1 to an individual’s initiative is considered a custom power, I am not going to try and go the initiative route. Rather, I am going to play up the original meaning of paladin which refers to a trusted military leader or imperial officer.

Since I have heavily used the history of the Merovingian Kings as a source of inspiration, I thought it apropos to allow the Salians to have a flavored version of the fighter type in the same way that I made my ACKS ranger Averni for flavor purposes. Thus, I will use the name Salian Scion to describe this …

Blood of ProkopiusWhite Mage Class for ACKS

The next classes I will tackle for my conversion of Averoigne to ACKS are some of the alternate magic-users suggested by Tolkien’s rainbow of wizards (white, grey, brown and blue). You can see my original post on the subject here. I will begin with the color white.

This is the first major conceptual bump on my journey to converting Averoigne to ACKS. It is possible to interpret Holmes so that only magic-users can use cleric scrolls. This, in turn, suggests that the cleric spells can be both divine and arcane. I took full advantage of this with my Tolkien homage.

ACKS, however, makes a much clearer distinction between the two types of magic. Indeed, should a custom class wish to cast magic from the other spell list, the proficiency that accomplishes this (4 spells at a time) is called Apostasy and the custom power is called Forbidden Spells.

If I were to follow this internal logic, it is possible to create a mage class that can expand their spell list by 12-16 spells, but can cast …

Blood of ProkopiusThe Brown Mage Class for ACKS

The next type of Tolkienesque Mages from my Averoigne campaign that I am going to convert to ACKS is the Brown Mage. Originally, these were supposed to be the mages free to operate outside the Guild and who could add some of the Druid spells to their repertoire. I have therefore tried to give the Brown Mage nature/animal friendly-type Custom Powers:

The Brown Mage for ACKS


Prime Requisite: INT
Requirements: Must be Lawful or Neutral
Hit Dice: 1d4
Maximum Level: 14
Brown Mages are arcane spell casters who study the way in which the patterns of nature parallel those in the arcane. Some see this as God speaking through nature, others simply see it as an intellectual curiosity. Many are allowed operate outside the Mage Guild because their studies normally are benign. In addition, this path of study tends to garner less arcane power than that of the normal (Grey) Mage.

Brown Mages gain and cast spells like normal Mages, however, at 2/3 of their character level (with anything .5 or higher …

Age of RavensHistory of Steampunk & Victoriana RPGs (Part Five 2009)

THE PUNK-HEADED LEAGUE?
For this point forward, the lists go by year. I could have consolidated them a little, but they become a little unwieldy and over 4K words. 2009’s significant as there’s a groundswell of independently created and freely distributed rpgs, not only in steampunk, but other genres. Some of these are modest, the result of creation competitions. But others are impressive demonstrations of their creator’s skills. From these emerge all kinds of new creative directions.

Steampunk itself is a kind of splinter, arising during a rebirth in exciting speculative-fiction. I’ve written about Cyberpunk and rpgs before. Steampunk’s a neologism apparently coined by K.W. Jeter to echo cyberpunk. It has grown and become a loose amalgam of ideas- as you can see by these crazy and diverse lists. I think what’s interesting is to consider the other variant forms which also spun out. I’d argue these grew more out of steampunk than cyberpunk- and we’ve seen many of them pop up in rpgs:

Reverend Dak dot BlogspotQuick post Amsterdam post!

Ok, I've been out of town for the past week. I went on a little vacation with my girlfriend to Amsterdam, the city of... I don't know, beer? Who knew it had such a burgeoning Craft Beer scene. I'm not talking about traditional, 400+ year old classic beers, like pretty much all of Europe, but American Style Craft/Micro brews in various styles. It's awesome. If you want to check out all the beer I drank over the past week, go no further than Untappd: https://untappd.com/user/reverenddak

That's it for now. I have a ton of things I need to do to catch up. Such as a bunch of orders and errands. I hope to share a bunch of pics and other stuff soon.


Telecanter's Receding RulesSerendipity XXII - Maps

Sometimes I find cool pictures when I'm looking for something else. These are all public domain, which means you can use them any way you wish:
I like all of these, but love the style of the last one.  It's close to what I was talking about in my post here, showing players what to expect visually.  I wanted to stitch it together for you, but after several days of putting off the post because of it I realized I was procrastinating and decided to just give you the halves.

CirsovaDavou, Covered in Snow

Emperor Orrin Tormant’s father, the Emperor Evane Tormant II, once commissioned a painting of Davou by famed Ortian realist painter, Horas Yunara. Near the painting’s completion, Horas decried his work and destroyed it before beginning anew, creating a massive canvas depicting Davou in ruins, half buried in snow. Upon hearing this, Emperor Evane thought of […]

The Other Side blogReview: Castles & Crusades Core

Three books make up the Castles & Crusades core.  The main one is the Castles & Crusades Players Handbook it focuses on character creation and leveling, plus many of the rules around equipment and combat.  The Castles & Crusades Castle Keepers Guide is a massive tome about running all sorts of C&C games. Finally, no old-school FRPG is complete without monsters or treasure so the Castles & Crusades Monsters & Treasure book had you covered.

Today I want to talk about the first two.

It is often said that Castles & Crusades is the Rosetta Stone of Old School Gaming.  It certainly is that, but there is a lot more going on here than just that.  Castles & Crusades is very much a stripped down version of the basic 3.x SRD.  As such there are lot of concepts that are modern including a one-roll mechanic for all sorts of situations.  Though if that were all then there would be nothing separating this from say True20 or other "lite" d20 iterations.  Castles & Crusades plays like good old …

Tenkar's TavernI Played More AD&D 2e Than Any Other Version of D&D - So Why Do I Detest it So Much?

Actually, the answer to that is fairly simple, at least at its core:

Bloat.

Sure, 3e probably had more bloat, but it wasn't all coming from the same company, despite the best efforts of FFE.

2e just seemed to collapse under it's own weight - and I'm not just talking about it's infinite number of settings. No, I'm referring to the series of Complete Handbooks. Talk about ways to unbalance and kill a campaign. I guess it was good that there was always a new setting to move on to after the pervious campaign imploded under the new and better unbalanced rules (not even going to touch Skills & Powers or whatever it was called).

Heck, I didn't even know of the EGG drama going on behind the scenes, as this was before the internet for me.

I started gaming with AD&D 1e and ended my first tour of gaming with 2e. When I returned, I wanted a game that felt like 1e. C&C was close but not quite. 3e seemed like 2e on steroids. 4e didn't even seem like D&D to me anymore.

So now I run AD&D 1e / OSRIC …

Dispatches From KickassistanMonster (Book) Monday: Malevolent and Benign

So, it's Monday again and it's time for me to pull out yet another monster book from my imaginary bookshelf. Today, I'll be riffing off of a book whose title means it should be right up my alley: Malevolant and Benign by Expeditious Retreat Press. For those of you keeping score at home, it should be obvious that the title of this thing is a direct shout out to the Fiend Folio, so award these guys bonus points for that, but remember that they'll have to deliver on some serious Foliosity here due to it. You don't set the bar that high for yourself unless you can deliver, right? Don't call out the FF if you're not ready to present on same level, am I right?

Details

Malevolent and Benign is available from Lulu in a 128-page hardcover edition for $40 or through the usual suspects as a pdf for $10. I picked this up in pdf, so my thoughts will be based on that. The pdf is nice-looking and polished, I just wish it used links on the table of contents or in the monster lists at the back. That …

The Warlocks Home BrewGo Fer Yer Gun! New Character Class: The Whore

My wild west game of choice is Go Fer Yer Gun! by Simon Washbourn and put out by Beyond Belief Games.  As written, the rules define ten character classes; the Brave, Doctor, Drifter, Gunslinger, Maverick, Mountain Man, Muckraker, Preacher, Scout, Wrangler and the Wandering Monk optional class.

Though the west was quite the rough and tough setting and "no place for a woman", women played a big role in establishing the foundations of America's Manifest Destiny.  Though the classes mentioned above can be played by a women as equally as a man, there were two roles common in the western milieu that come up time and time again and were strictly the realm of the tough western woman;  that would be the whore and the widow.  I've added these two classes to my upcoming Go Fer Yer Gun game.

Josephine Marcus "dancer" who
became Wile Earp's third wife.
Whore

It's hard not to think of the wild west and it's sparse towns and rowdy saloons without the comfort to those rough riders; the Prostitute.  …

d20 Dark AgesThe Expeditions in the Northlands Resurrected (The "Next Big Thing")

"A View Near Tivoli", by Thomas Cole

After about a month of promoting my Expeditions in the Northlands Campaign, things came full circle yesterday afternoon at Treefort Games with four players, with a few more people interested, but couldn't play at that time. We had a great time in this West Marches-style campaign.

I started them off with 0-level characters, 10 total (two the players had two characters--because they already had characters from the last session, the other two had three characters). At the end of the session, 5 characters survived. A wild board had gored three of them to death. One went crazy, attacked another character with a shovel, who promptly hit him back with a torch. The character caught fire and when tumbling down the slanting tunnel they were in and down into a bottomless pit. A fourth character took a strange fever and just got up in the middle of the night and left the group.

The rules of course, were Swords & Wizardry, with a couple sheets of house rules. …

Swords & DorkeryYour swords library!

I just read The book of swords — not the Fred Saberhagen series (the first three of which were pretty good but not strong enough to make me really want to read the many sequels) — but a nonfiction book by the late Hank Reinhardt.   (Link goes to memorial page; it turns out his personal […]

I SEE LEAD PEOPLEBloggers For Charity



New Bloggers for Charity is in the works. Check it out here to check out the outline for the upcoming year.

Fabled LandsHow do we make gamebooks a pleasure to read?

This is a topic we've been discussing in comments for a while now (here, here and here). But let's first agree on definitions. Gamebooks are evolving, just as the whole object class of books is evolving, and some of the directions they’re going may not use text at all. So, to describe the core medium of prose-plus-choices, I'm going to use the term interactive literature. (And by literature I don’t of course just mean Dostoyevsky. For the purposes of this discussion, Dan Brown is literature too.)

Okay, so here’s the problem. These days you’re as likely to read a gamebook – sorry, a work of interactive literature – on a liquid-crystal display as a printed page. And something happens to the way we read these things in the new medium. There’s a tendency to skim the text and just look for the next set of options. The author puts: “Something whistles out of the darkness of the roof opposite. You twist aside, feeling it graze your scalp. An arrow! The figure is outlined for a second …

Age of RavensHistory of Steampunk & Victoriana RPGs (Part One 1983-1996)

LIGHTING THE BOILER 
This list begins to trace the history and development of Victoriana and Steampunk RPGs. I did this earlier with Horror RPGs. I focus on tabletop games, though many video games could easily fall into this category (the classics Thief: The Dark Project, Arcanumand Final Fantasy VI). Because of these two concepts have been tied closely, I opted to link them for this list. I could have presented them individually, but the lists would overlap heavily. Victoriana’s reasonably easy to spot, but Steampunk offers more of a challenge.

There’s a good deal of debate about what constitutes Steampunk- resulting in many argument panels at various conventions. I think of it generally as a set of design and aesthetic elements- generally recognizable symbols. If it had a political or social content at the start, that’s been streamlined away in favor of “the look.” Like other subjective genre elements it has a continuum, with some books, movies, games and TV shows having embracing …

Age of RavensHistory of Steampunk & Victoriana RPGs (Part Two 1997-2003)

CHECK THE READOUT
This list continues tracing the development of Victoriana and Steampunk rpgs. There's an odd gap between this list and the previous one. We don't see multiple games in either genre appear until 2001; we have several dead years. I suspect several reasons account for that, but these are simply hypotheses. First, we had three visible game lines which put these elements at the forefront: Deadlands, Space 1889, and Castle Falkenstein. Publishers may have felt the market had already served- especially since only the first of these had done well and sustained itself. Second, we saw a shift in game publishing- with many smaller companies collapsing in the 1990's and others focusing on core products. Problems with TSR meant problems with the industry as a whole. That could be tied to changes in the hobby industry- the expansion and collapse of the collectible comic market affected many game stores. That also shifted distribution and put additional pressures on publishers. …

Age of RavensHistory of Steampunk & Victoriana RPGs (Part Three 2004-2006)

ELEPHANTS ON PARADE
I’d like to address the Babar in the room.

I’m always wary of considering political dimensions within role-playing games. Classic fantasy rpgs have a certain amount of baggage. I’ve talked about questions of Ethnicity before and Ken & Robin covered the perennial problem of Orcs in a recent podcast. But with Victorian Era games we consider real world history. I’d argue it is a history close enough to our modern age, that we can really see ourselves in those times. The distance of time creates a certain amount of insulation. Despite the incidents of awfulness and inhumanity, events of the Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern world don’t raise my hackles in the same way as those of the Colonial era.

There’s much to love with the Victorian Era, but it is also a time of exploitation, racism, and sexism. How do we consider those in our games? Some games, such as GURPS, have a mechanical aspect to that. Players can take second-class citizen status for being ethnic or a …

Age of RavensHistory of Steampunk & Victoriana RPGs (Part Four 2007-2008)

MEET THE NEW TROPE
There’s a few less items here than on previous lists. In fact a couple are edge-cases that I opted to leave on. I suspect that may be random, but it does coincide with the arrival of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. That shook up the gaming industry and forced d20-heavy companies to start looking at where they wanted to go. At the same time, gaming pdfs also settled into comfortable acceptance- with stable lines of distribution and more tools to easily use them at the table. Before they’d been revolutionary, now they became a standard feature of the trade. Outside gaming, the same kind of shift happened to Steampunk as a genre. It was simply here- in covers, in cosplay, and in spec-fic generally. Look at the advancement of graphics and images related to the genre. A few years before many publishers used the same gear clip arts and sets of details. Now they had thousands of new visual approaches. Novelty had well and truly worn off. You can see some of that by the …

The Retired AdventurerA Procedure for Wandering Monsters

Foreboding is a difficult emotion to evoke, but amplifies the enjoyment of having wandering monsters in adventure games. This is a procedure for using them in old school D&D. I used a variant of this procedure in Emern, but this is the cleaned up version.

Example of a wandering monster table using monsters from Necrocarcerus.

You will need
A wandering monster table organised into rows and columns as above.
A blank table with the same number of rows and columns as above.
3d6, with one die distinct from the other two.

Procedure

Designate one PC as "the guard" or "on watch" who will roll. Whenever a random encounter is rolled for, they pick up the 3d6 and roll it. The distinct die determines the column, telling you what they encounter, while the other 2d6 tell you which monster it comes from. The guard should fill out the grid as entries are rolled.

Each of the top six columns has a different effect:

1 - Monster - The party encounters the monster(s). Roll surprise and opening distance.
2 …

The Other Side blogCastles & Crusades Week

So just about a year ago I asked for some advice on Castles & Crusades.
The response was overwhelming and overwhelmingly positive. I went out and picked up everything I thought I needed for the game, then picked up some extra copies for my kids.

Since then I have gotten the chance to play some more and some really awesome books like Amazing Adventures and Codex Celtarum have been released. I have picked up more books including some adventures.  So I figured that there was a need for me to spend some quality time with these books.


I am going to posting some reviews and my thoughts from the last year of playing, reading and generally loving this game.

Stay tuned for more!

CirsovaAlignment in MYFAROG

Though I’m sure most of you folks out there have yet to glimpse into the dark depth that is MYFAROG, discussions on the virtues of Alignment and Alignment systems are ongoing and ubiquitous throughout the gaming community. Some time ago, when I was posting my first reactions to MYFAROG, I’d mentioned briefly how alignment worked, […]

HeroPressStar Wars Rebels - A New Cartoon Series In Development...



While we may still be mourning the loss of the (generally) excellent Clone Wars serial, here's a chat between Pablo Hidalgo and executive producer Dave Filoni about Lucasfilm's new animated series, Rebels.

Swords & Stitchery - Old Time Sewing & Table Top Rpg BlogEcology Of Dave Hargrave's Star Spider For Your Old School Space Opera



A modern reference guide to the space spider and much more "The Arduin Eternal Bestiary And Treasures book. 

Marcus Orearlus addressed the floor of the college of Alchemists and Elementalists. "Ladies And gentle brothers of the Holy Corporate Empire. Nineteen of our best hyper space carriers have been destroyed. The burnt corpses of some of our best and brightest astronauts  have been found aboard. The counsels of the empire are meeting right now and the slaughter shall continue unabated unless we know our enemy. I tell you now it is not life as we know it! 
This is not a new enemy but a very old one that we face! The Space Spider has stalked us through the ages! We must beware its tendrils and its eye that burns with the light that never warms. I myself have heard the howling, sucking, roar of this stalker from between the dark of the stars. Observe the stellar scope for a three vi broad cast of the Ultra probe incident."
I refer you now Ladies and Brothers to World Space Commission …

Terre TormentateIl Diario di Eramundo

Ricevo e come sempre pubblico un resoconto di gioco: questa volta potete leggere un estratto dal diario di viaggio di Eramundo, negromante da poco aggiuntosi al gruppo, anche perché riconosciuto da Lio lo Sveglio come “il Prescelto“. Attenzione: i riferimenti all’impiccagione, nella conclusione, sono poco chiari perché riguardano qualcosa che giocatori e personaggi non hanno […]

IronspikeTreasure Crypt of the Salstine Pirate

salby R. Lawrence Blake Prime Requisite Games Labyrinth Lord Levels 1-3 The legend of the Salstine Pirate tells of a sea captain who turned pirate, killing off most of his crew and taking his treasure to land. Salstine found an … Continue reading

The Nine and Thirty KingdomsChekhov's Gun Syndrome

In my explanation of crossing a slimy rope bridge, I only required a roll if the characters move too fast or do something else while on the bridge. Other people, I know, would always call for a roll. I think the reason for this is what I referred to elsewhere as "Chekhov's Gun Syndrome".Chekhov's Gun, of course, is the dramatic principle that you shouldn't include something (like a gun) unless it's going to be used (by shooting someone with it.) It's not ironclad: you could have a tense moment in a story where someone threatens to grab the gun and shoot it, but doesn't; that still counts as "using the gun". The point is really that including a gun causes readers or audience members to expect the gun to somehow be part of the story.

In RPGs, there's a similar idea that there's no reason to include something in a situation unless it's going to matter in some way. You don't include a rope bridge unless someone can fall off that bridge. This encourages GMs to call for rolls to avoid …

Digital OrcD20 Distraction

I downloaded a new Xbox game the other day called Blood Dragon.  If you're a fan of 80s action movies such as Aliens, Terminator, and Predator and you like first-person shooters I reckon you'll enjoy this little nostalgic gem.  Heck, for fifteen bucks it's a heck of deal.

It's voiced by Michael Biehn and features lots of digitized cut scenes reminiscent of Nintendo's 8-bit heyday (think Ninja Gaiden).  There is a lot of tongue-in-cheek material, not only in regards to action movies, but also to violent video games in general.  The controls are tight and intuitive (I think they're based on the Farcry engine). The graphics are razor sharp and intense, but a little too dark at times.  Occaisionally the self-referential humor is laid on a little thick, but overall it's a fun, if not short (~8 hours) experience.

I had to crack up when I discovered that the main character keeps twenty-sided dice that he can throw to distract his enemies.  Oh, there are dragons, too.  Believe me, the …

The City of IronTear, City of God -- Finished Hex Map

Here is the (initial) finished version of the hex map of the City of Tear -- Seat of the Empire. The city will form the foundation of the Dying Sun campaign.

As you can see, there are still many many empty hexes. So far I've only marked on the most important features of the city, the landmarks which are known to anyone who lives there. As the campaign progresses I'll no doubt add lesser known features that the PCs come across.


Places of Note in the City of Tear

The Plateau of Radiance
The Great Hayyem Tree (1006) – The mighty tree which shades the imperial city and brings forth life from the barrenness of the desert. The holy waters of lake Jzan well around the base of the Hayyem.
The Floating Palace of Radiance (1007) – Built upon the pristine waters welling at the Hayyem's base. Here dwells Zyklor, God Emperor.
The Arch-Hierophant's Palace (0909) – On the west bank of the River of Tears, upon the imperial plateau.
The High Temple of Zyklor (1109) – Administrative centre of the …

The Iron TavernBuilding Your Own Campaign World

Last week I asked the question of if you brew your own campaign world and gave some cost effective options for those people that wanted to get into a pre made campaign.  This week I am going to run through … Continue reading

Random WizardYou Got Your One Page Dungeon in My Hexenbracken

Last week, I stumbled upon some free icons. That led to tinkering with different ways of displaying a hex based map. I am still fond of the Known World map from the Expert Set (also in the module Isle of Dread). So I took the Hexenbracken map and started to rework it into the style of the old map.

Yesterday, I converted the entries to last years One Page Dungeon Contest 2012 and put them up in an image gallery for ease of browsing. This gave me the idea of what if the Hexenbracken was combined with the winning entries from the 2012 contest? I had to skip a few of the winners because the content would involve space flight, a large hex map of its own, or a modern city with secret agents, but most of them fit quite nicely into the environs of the lands of Hexenbracken.

Here is a map with my best guess as to where to put the One Page Dungeons. Below the map, I will link to the dungeons for ease of use.


Aaron Frost & Mundi King – Meckwick’s Pair O’Dice
Alan Brodie – Splashdown in Fiend’s …

MF WARSSubmissions and Timing for Dungeon Crawl #3

Wayne Rossi recently posted about "Submissions and Timing for Dungeon Crawl #3." Read more here!


Creative Mountain GamesNottingham's Robin Hood Theme Park

According to bbc.co.uk website, developers of the "Nottingham's Robin Hood Theme Park" are on schedule.  See more here!


Tower of the ArchmageChainmail Gnolls

Like I said in my last post, I've been working on old minis while waiting on my Bones.

Sunday night I based up my Chainmail Gnolls.

I'm really pleased with this red guy. The demonic aspect really isn't subtle...

Pair of archers.

It's really hard to see in this picture, but these guys have one clawed foot and one with a hoof!

This pic shows how his face is half ripped off.

The ax gnoll in the middle, and the flail on the left were painted together years ago. The rest of them were started back in March.

They are rather flat minis, but I'm pleased with how they came out.

The Other Side blogBloghop Giveaway

To further help promote the Bloghop Against Homophobia and Transphobia I am going to give away a copy of The Witch.


The rules are pretty simple.
Share the url to this post or my blog far and wide to promote the bloghop.  Enter your name in Rafflecopter widget below and on the 27th when the hop has ended I'll pick a winner!

Make sure you leave a way for me to contact you.

Good luck!!
I am still giving money to charity, so that hasn't changed.  This is on top of that.

Edited to add: The Rafflecopter thingy wasn't working. So just post below. Thanks!

Realms of ChirakWarlords of Lingusia VIII: The Fire Knives



The Fire Knives are one of the oldest and most persistent villain organizations in my campaign. As such much of their history has translated from one era to the next, but the core conceit: an elite order of dedicated assassins who revere a god of killers with utter dedication remains consistent throughout the ages.

The Fire Knives

   The Fire Knives (also known as Flame Knives) have long served as the secret assassins and cultists of Haro, the ancient betrayer god, and have remained so to this date. Their cult is indomitable and persevering, and even the grand purge of 1110, during which the king Edelaird of Hyrkania sought to destroy the cult was unsuccessful, for the Fire Knives simply disappeared for a time, only to resurface when once again their dark deeds would prove most nefarious and profitable.

   Among the sundry cults and guilds of assassins spread throughout the world, the Fire Knives have remained the most secretive and formidable. Steeped in an ancient tradition of lawles …

MiddenmurkAuld Crummock



78. An ochre pond in an ash-grey field by a broken mill. In it there is a fish larger than a bull with archaic malice in its heart. If offered tribute of manflesh newly murdered it will vomit forth the Thanatos Flask.

LotFP: RPGAnarchy in the UK! Plus Interviews!

I will have a table at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham this weekend. Stop by, say hi, spend money.

Over the weekend I did some online media appearance stuff.

I was on a "Making Games Magical" panel with Julia Ellingboe (Steal Away Jordan) and Kyle Simons (Magicians); you can watch that video here.

I was interviewed by Pete Figtree about the LotFP Free RPG Day adventure. You can watch that video here.

The Rusty Battle AxeMonday Moodsetter 19

RPG Rorschach: What is the first gaming thought that pops into your head?

From the Sorcerer's SkullRetrofuture Crosssections

So Haynes Publishing has just released Dan Dare: Spacefleet Operations as part of their Owner's Workshop Manual Series, which already includes a couple on ships from Star Trek and one on the Thunderbirds.

While I have only passing familiar with the venerable British science fiction comic book hero, the sample illustrations shown in this article (from which the base above is taken) lead me to believe this manual would be very useful for any pulp sci-fi game.

HeroPressWin A Witch And Promote Human Rights!

Talented Tim Brannan, author of The Witch supplement for old school games, is offering a free PDF of his book as a draw prize.

All you need do is promote his blog, The Other Side, and his competition - then let him know.

This little competition is to help promote the fantastic, cross-blog Bloghop Against Homophobia and Transphobia - which, of course, in this enlightened 21st Century shouldn't even be an issue.

So come on, people, show your support!

Roles, Rules, and RollsReign of Wizardry: Unacknowledged Gygax Source?

The first AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide, as grognards well know, contains the touchstone Appendix N, in
Frazetta cover, 1964
which Gary Gygax lists literary influences on the game. One of the writers who appears without any specific works listed is Jack Williamson. I don't think anyone yet has realized that Williamson may well be the direct source for a few aspects of magic, monsters and adventures in AD&D.

Williamson is one of those science fiction writers I read as an adolescent without really absorbing his name. His career started in the 1920's and his last novel, a year before he died at age 98, was published in 2005. Along the way, he is credited for inventing such terms as "terraforming," "genetic engineering," and "Prime Directive" - the latter from his classic 1947 story "With Folded Hands," a wry subversion of the ideals in Asimov's contemporaneous Robot stories.

It's been assumed that Gygax's reference to Williamson's influence is indirect, and based on those science fiction …

Jeffro's Space Gaming BlogThe Isle of Dread: A New Campaign Frame After Much Death

(SPOILER WARNING: If you intend to play the Isle of Dread, you probably shouldn’t read any further!) — “If the PCs unknowingly venture into an area they’re not prepared to handle, they should suffer the consequences, including death.” — Justina’s Player Here’s the score: Last I heard, you are chomping at the bit to go back into […]

The City of IronDomesticated Animals of Ix

I've written before that cats, goats and rats are the only mammals on Ix, apart from humans. All other animals are of the reptile, bird or insect families. It thus makes sense that humans would have domesticated some of these creatures for various purposes. Here are a few such beasts.


Ixilots
Gargantuan 25' long tortoise-like reptiles bred for their might and stubbornness. Ixilots are commonly found at the head of large caravans, as they can pull tremendous loads. Their shells are ringed with barbed tusks, and they bear two curved horns on their foreheads -- Ixilots are a formidable force in battle, despite their slowness.

Ixilots are a purely domesticated animal, without any extant wild relatives. The downside of the use of Ixilots as beasts of burden is their appetite for huge quantities of plant matter and water -- caravans using them have to be well stocked.


Like other animals of the tortoise family, Ixilots have the unusual capacity to enter a deep hibernation sleep. If placed …

The Omnipotent Eye

While we wait for me to find something intelligent to say about our current Savage Worlds game, I felt like bringing some worthy cause some attention. Check out this blog about focusing on latent homophobia. Next time you make a character in a game, think about why it should be a straight, white guy. Just think about it.

See you later.