Get Some Free Stonehell

One of the advantages of trying to organize my PDFs is that I find myself going back to the sources that I made the purchases at  and discover new goodness in turn.  Such is the case with Lulu. 

Among my Lulu purchases was Stonehell Dunngeon.  Little did I know that Michael Curtis had released a free Supplement for Stonehell - The Brigands Caves and a free preview of Stonehell itself..  Download the free products and you'l be back for the full Stonehell... trust me.  Its that good.

Now back to my regularly scheduled disorganized organizational attempt ;)

Organization Frustration

Following on the heels of yesterday's rant, I am sitting with my netbook and the external HD that I started dropping my gaming PDFs into/onto/unto.  First offender that I am calling out is... Goblinoid Games, publishers of my Rules of choice at this point.  I can get over the naming of the core books by letter and number code, but I feel strongly that adventures especially, should be labeled with a file name that is somewhat descriptive.  "GGLLM1" doesnt mean diddly to me as I scour my HD for an adventure for a nite's game.  It certainly doesnt come close to "Idol of the Orcs" which is the name of the module in question.

Yes, I can guess that GGLLM1 stands for Goblinoid Games Labyrinth Lord Module 1 - but trust me, that will not occur to me as I scan a file listing trying to find something suitable to run.  It's F'n frustrating.  There is no need to name the file anything other then a descriptive title.   Heck, even "Labyrinth Lord Mod 1" would be more intuitive.

See what happens when I get vacation time and make organizing my PDFs a project?  This crap is going to take weeks.  Sadly I'm back to work on Monday.  Sigh.

I'm not picking on Goblinoid Games, they just happened to be the publishers of the first code named module I was trying to organize.  I've got many more offenders.  That being said, I've got alot of material to review for LL alone.  I'm sure everyone is waiting with baited breath for the review of GGLLM1 ;)

Disorganized Adventure

(Be advised... there is a Rant below)

This afternoon I started prepping myself for the last part of my vacation... heading back to the Poconos and hoping to get even more reading in then last weekend.  Part of that prep was scouring my hard drive for LL and S&W adventures.  I've made PDF purchases from RPGNow, Lulu, Yourgamesnow, publisher sites direct, downloaded from Dragonsfoot... and they are all over the friggin HD, named things like "GR6657" which tells me absolutely nada.

I am not an organized person by nature.  I try at times, but the sustained effort frequently escapes me.  So yes, I have files here, there and everywhere.  Which is bad enough.  But with the advent of modern day operating software and such, there is no need to have some random esoteric file name for "The Big Ass Dungeon From Hell".  Why name it "IS66494e" when you can simply name it "The Big Ass Dungeon From Hell, or "Big Ass Dungeon" or even "Bigassdungeon".  For the love of all that is Holy, can we get some files that actually have descriptive names?  Is it really that hard?  Am I missing something?  Cause I KNOW I'm not the only disorganized schmuck that purchases PDFs.

Anyhow, my new portable 500 gb HD is the proud owner of new directories, such as "LL Core Rules", "LL Adventures", "SW Core Rules", "SW Variant Rules" and such.  The files I'm finding I'm renaming to say what they are, not some random binary code.

I'm trying to be organized.  Really.  Maybe some more publishers could help by doing the same.

No More Destination Unknown

Its the end of the blog Destination Unknown.  The RPG Corner was nice enough to post Christians farewell before the blog went down.  I missed it myself, so I'm lifting it from the RPG Corner for a repost here.  I hope no one minds.

Hello all,

The blogging has been a lot of fun, but I've decided it's time to head back to zines forever and for good. I've really enjoyed the experience and plan on following your blogs for a good, long time.

For the new year I've been trying hard to get back to basics: gaming, cooking, surfing and writing. The writing part has been a huge challenge because of how much time I spend online. I really want to cut down and that and focus on face to face or at least reaching out to people with print media.

We'll see how it goes!

I will be sending you (well, some of you ;) ) stuff in the mail soon, so be on the look out.

Peace
Christian

Anyhow, if you like Christian's stuff, you can find his current zine, Iridiazine and downloads of his older zines here.  Christian's zine is a print, dead tree, delivered to your mailbox zine.  Send him a donation to get the paper version, or DL the zine for free from the site.  In any case, its well worth your time.

All the best lad.  :)

P.S.  Gonna miss the Cooking blog too

LL via Which VTT...

I'm a big fan of what the guys at iTabletop / Silvetable are working on.  When Silvertable is complete I'll have a VTT that supports pretty much everything that Fantasy Grounds 2 does (although with far less automation) with voice and video built into the software.  Heck, you can even link sound effects to play in certain locations of the map.  Silvertable is still in Beta and will be for an unknown amount of time, and I'm itching to get a game going of Labyrinth Lord.

So, my foot dragging must come to an end.  FG2 will be the tool, using the LL ruleset.  I'll dig up a short PDF adventure for it, rip the map, scrub the room numbers and see how it plays.  I've been meaning to do this for a while... tooling around trying to design my own One Page Dungeon has got me itching.

Grown Geeks - The Reckoning

Watching the the Dungeons and Dragons documentary last nite got me thinking about my old gaming group.  The core of the group are still close friends and we aim to get together about once a season (The Gathering of Fools).  Of course, we rarely get close to any type of gaming in these gatherings... we distract ourselves by ac ting silly and watching stupid, but gaming related, movies.

Looking at the group I'm not sure if any of us found the career we expected to find when we gamed multiple times a week:

Dave and Bri - managing techies for a large international firm (also known as the Stormbringer Brothers)

Tony - VP at a major American bank

John (Tony's brother) - physical therapist for the stars

Erik (me) - Sergeant in a major metropolitan police force

Paul - lost on 9-11 but not forgotten - the first of us to find success and inspiration for all

None of us became rock stars, or got to make a living off our love for gaming.

But we did find our way.  We did maintain our friendships.  In the end, that is what has always made gaming such a huge part of our lives... the friendships we found and strengthened.  It why I've never been able to fully step away from the hobby.  One can never have enough friends :)

D&D Experience - Video Documentary

I wish I could find the blog that posted this link to the Dungeons & Dragons  Experience.  It's a decent documentary on D&D, its players and a bit of the history of the game.  It includes interviews gamers, writers and with members of the gaming industry, including EGG.

There where more then a handful of cringe inducing moments, quite possibly because I could relate to them.  The last part in the series has a nice EGG interview after the credits.  Altogether the 7 parts add up to about 70 minutes of viewing.

The Valentine's Day Post

So, I'm on my weekend getaway to the Poconos with my girlfriend, my son, and the g/f's dog.  Needless to say I had to pack light, but I wanted to bring a good amount of reading material with me.  Therefore I loaded up my kindle DX with all my recent RPG PDF purchases, packed up the mini-notebook, a change of clothes and here we are.

How much reading will I get in?  No idea.  My son is eager to get every possible minute of driving in (16 with a permit - and he's a fast learner).  The g/f will give me some reading time, but will I have all the time I want?  Probably not.

Anyhow, on the top of that list is the World of Onn.  I want to borrow and steal for my upcoming LL game, and although World of Onn is written for S&W I know I can find some gems.

Crap.  Looks like its time to be driven to Pizza Hut for a late lunch.  I need a longer day )