I'd rather be home reading RPG books - but as we are having work done on the house, that probably wouldn't have happened if I'd been able to stay home anyway.
So, what are you doing on this icy, snowy, wet, windy Thursday in February?
Eastern PA - snowed in. You'd think that might be a day off, but today's corporations are all about the "virtual office", so it just becomes another work day. In sweat pants and lazy clothes.
I got hit with pneumonia last week, so I'm way behind on doing outside stuff. I've got fruit trees that need pruning, and a couple kids who need to go sledding!
It has been Snow-Hell here in Vermont for weeks now so this latest storm will just be adding another layer. Otherwise it is just another day in the box till I can get the new leg.
Sitting at home commenting on blogs and trying to decide which RPG book to read. Thankful for the first time that my employer does not permit work from home. Considering asking neighbors if they have a shovel I could borrow, but not particularly motivated.
Forecast here of 85. Wish I could go out and play, but I have to get ready for a desert camping trip. Forecast for where I am going, 90F. Currently waiting for and oil change and wheel alignment.
Watching our politicians blaming each other for the biblical flooding here in the UK. Other than that a 12 hour day sawing up trees blown down in yesterdays gales. Bit of snow would be a big help, at least I could take a day off then.
I'm up in the NW exurbs / Hudson Valley. Did my therapy exercises for recovering from an arm I broke last month (slipped on ice); spent an hour doing an online math refresher class; read bunch of random news via Google News; checked some LEGO sites I frequent; finally the snow slowed down and spent an hour doing some digging - but 3-5 more inches still by morning; watched some History Channel DVDs I've been saving; checked RPG blogs...
It's been snowing here in southern NH for 12 hours or so, it'll be done sometime tomorrow morning and there will not be another snow storm until Saturday !
In Winnipeg, was about -30c with the windchill today. Had about 7cm of snow last night so I paid the kid down the street to shovel my driveway. Business as usual.
Spring seems to be here in St. Louis. Finally above freezing today (after it not being for a few weeks) and it will stay that way for the next week, with temperatures reaching the 50s and 60s in a few days.
Even though it's only the middle of Feb, it's been a long, long winter. I don't know how Canadians can take it, I really don't.
My teen daughter and I just came in from shoveling, lucky us the snow is changing over to freezing rain. The problem this year isn't total snow it's the darned cold and except for a few minor exceptions it's snowed a lot when it does snow (and doesn't melt much at all). It was 45 degrees colder than it is now a couple mornings ago and it took 2 hours for my wood stove to get the kitchen (where the woodstove is ) to 68.
I run group homes for kids, this makes the snow a joy. Getting staff in or shuffling them around. Just wonderful fun. :) Spent the day figuring all that out. Gonna spend the evening with the wife, a Tröegenator and the A1 Slavers module!
Altogether in Cahoots
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By Steve Jensen Archaic Adventures Generic/Universal Level ? An illegal
brothel in Havaroon City has burnt to the ground, conceivably along with
the brothe...
Solitaire: Bumbling
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As the title suggests, *Bumbling – a solo RPG* is about bees. Or rather
about being a bee, a worker bee, to be precise. Published by Button Kin
Games, als...
Classic BattleTech Master Rules (2003)
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From the back of the book:
"Welcome to the 31st century, a time of endless wars that rage across the
known universe. These epic conflicts are won and los...
All The Glitters...
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I haven't statted any Fortnite characters out in a while so I thought I'd
stat out a major player in the games narrative. Midas is a master of
espionage an...
Three quick links for 6/2/2023
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- Dredd posters!
Miniature Dredd Posters
- In theory, I like geomorphs. I love looking at them. I never actually use
them for dungeons - not since way, wa...
[REVIEW] The Carcass of Hope (2023)
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*The Carcass of HopeThe Carcass of Hope (2023)*
by Zherbus
Self-published
Levels 3–4
Hello, and welcome to part TWO of **THE RECONQUISTA**, wherein ent...
d100 skills for B/X and AD&D
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One thing that drives me crazy about old school D&D is how random skills
checks are - to the point of the same character having two different
methods of ma...
Session summaries from May's AD&D/OD&D games
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(continuing from last month's OD&D and AD&D game recaps - 500 characters or
less each!)
Eastern Borders AD&D game:
*4/8 session:* PCs regrouped after esc...
Tales of the Variants
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As I noted back in February, following the great “OGL Crisis” of Janurary
2023, a couple of companies that produce materials for 5th edition *Dungeons
an...
Sorcery & Super Science! Bundle of Holding
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Heya folks, we've got a quick-deal Bundle of Holding going on right now
that includes *ALL* (yes, you heard right) *ALL* of our Sorcery & Super
Science! ...
On Overlooked Spells and Paths Not Taken
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D&D spells can be divided into three camps. There are the *Favourites*,
which everybody recognises to be not just useful but potentially
game-changing in...
Gaining the Upper Hand
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I've spoken about how I give Bonuses before, but I've revisited the topic
for *Mythic Bastionland*. The current rules look like this.
And here's what th...
Making RPGs live up to their promise
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I’ve been running campaigns for 23 years now, but it’s only been in the
last ten or so since I really started to think about roleplaying games and
the proc...
Solo expeditions, part II
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Again we delve into the solo west marches campaign ran on LegendKeeper!
Again, I used Goodnotes on my iPad to track the adventure, Shadowdark as
the rules...
Ride the Giants, Development Blog 1
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As mentioned here, I am attending the 'Cauldron' Con in Germany and am
trying to develop a 'real time' adventure to run there. This is a
development blog f...
More Bookbinding Shenanigans
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I've been experimenting with cloth-binding a book I put together recently,
printed from Chaosium's 99 cent DTRPG PDF of their *Basic Roleplaying* book.
...
How to Keep Megadungeons Fresh
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People often consider megadungeons boring. Not because the play style is
boring, but because they are in the same locale for a majority of the
campaign. If...
OSR: Class: Speed Demon
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Some people think devils turn up in cool cars. They are complete wrong.
Cool cars create devils.
It doesn't start immediately with the invention of the...
Heroic Legendarium is Electrum!
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Today, almost exactly two years to the day after its release, *The Heroic
Legendarium* has officially become an Electrum bestseller at DriveThruRPG,
whic...
Gateways to Adventure...
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So I famously got my Holmes Basic set for Christmas 1980, and the rest is
history. That delightfully primitive offering fueled months of gaming
activity ...
Cobra Trooper Week Part III - Hat Trick!
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Finally rounding out the Cobra fireteam that I displayed about a week and a
half ago, here's a tough guy from north of the border...
Hat TrickCobra Troope...
Warsmith's Words: Mayhem! Trophies!
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Welcome back to the Vault. I had a fantastic day at the Mayhem tournament.
Gaming wise I placed 13th out of 30 having games against Votann, Iron Hands
a...
My First Experience Using ChatGPT
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I used ChatGPT for the first time for preparation for today’s game. St.
Mark Turnip Festival The players lost a beloved NPC, Mark, whose luck ran
out. So t...
Vecna Rebooted and Greyhawk
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Having spent most of my life working as an archaeologist and now as a
public historian, I suppose it is not surprising that I would be drawn to
puzzles ...
Why I love rules light games when playing online
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I tried Shadowdark RPG for the first time this evening and throughly
enjoyed it. I should likely preface this statement by stating the
following:
...
Free GM Resource: Rae'chel Does Some... Stuff
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[image: Free GM Resource: Rae'chel Does Some... Stuff]
I recently discovered a cool YouTube video making small terrain squares
that were really, really ...
On the Creative Crocodile Conundrum
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Are modern gamers objectively less creative than old-school gamers?
Here over at Monsters and Manuals, Noisms discusses some of the
agency-sucking, mind-re...
THE UNDERCLOCK: Fixing the Random Encounter
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For a long time, I had the same random encounter table rules as everyone
else:
*Every 3 rooms (or 30 minutes of exploration time), roll a d6. If a 1
co...
Best Supporting Actors for Old School Essentials
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Douglas Cole, over at Gaming Ballistics, is in the last 24 hours of his
latest Kickstarter campaign, "Best Supporting Actor". In the spirit of
AD&D's Rog...
Solar Sagas! SoSa (not SS please)
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Omer Golan-Joel gave me the fantastic opportunity to write for him and his
marketing skills and connections to advertise my books. My first major book
i...
Random Encounters: Love Them!
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Picture swiped for my own purposes from Random Encounter. I want this
sticker!
It's been a while since my last entry. More health issues. More computer...
The Terrible Salt
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For a generation, the tides at Vincha stopped completely. What was once an
enormous tidal flat was lost under bitter waters. Now they have returned,
and ...
Magical Magic That Feels Magical
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*14. Heart Of The Beast: Cast this spell on a slain monster’s heart (or
reasonably equivalent organ or portion), then consume it. At any time, you
may ...
More Thoughts on 5e and D&D
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Real life has again stepped into the path of our gaming sessions which have
stalled - but I'm kind of ok with that.
You see, as an old-school DM running ...
Flux Space
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I’ve been inspired by my time working with Gus on Tombrobbers of the
Crystal Frontier, and want to play at making something similar: a big intro
adventure ...
The Blade Itself
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I just finished listening to the audiobook of The Blade Itself, volume one
in Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law trilogy. This was my first exposure to
his wo...
Genteel Magistrate at FenCon XVIII
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Victorious author Mike Stewart will be a guest at FenCon XVIII this weekend
at the Sheraton DFW Airport hotel, 4440 W. John Carpenter Freeway, Irving,
TX, ...
This is an Important Game Mechanic
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*"That's the GM's Regional Map from my AOWG. And it's a damned good
regional map. It's not a good map for a Simple Homebrew Campaign. It does
some s$&...
Clean Your Room
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Looking back at my little blog here. That last post… wow, I was having fun
playing WOW Classic! That was August of 1999 and I was having a blast… it
was ...
People of the World, Spice up Your Life
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I have seen the *Dune*. It’s good, but, like all “content” now, too long.
The forms of many designs are quite nice (love the costumes of the imperial
de...
My RPG Zine Trilogy is on Kickstarter!
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I can't believe I didn't post about it here!
The Dead are Coming, Screams Amongst the Stars and Running Out of Time are
on *Kickstarter right now!* Thes...
Maximum HP 004, one week to go
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Just one week to go for Maximum HP issue #004, the undead. We are pushing
through stretch goals and wracking up contributions for the best issue yet.
We...
Steve Jackson Interview
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James Maliszewski recently did an interview with Steve Jackson over on his
Grognardia blog. Steve chats about the beginnings of The Fantasy Trip and
upcomi...
Undermountain Map Origins
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As documented on the Ruins of Undermountain sales page, "TSR didn't
actually use Ed Greenwood's original maps," at least not in their entirety.
This post d...
WB:FMAG Total Print Sales
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Hello Folks,
The last time I did a quick sales report was in September 2018.
I pulled reports from Amazon, Lulu and DrivethruRPG from October to current
fo...
The Minotaur for Old-School Essentials
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*Minotaur*
*Requirements:* Minimum STR 9, Minimum CON 9
*Prime Requisite:* STR and CON
*Hit Dice:* 1d10
*Maximum Level:* 8
*Armor:* Leather, including shield...
WIZARDS OF POHJOLA
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Init +0
Melee Atk
• sword or dagger +1 (1d5 or 1d3)
Ranged Atk
• hot iron sparks +3 (1d4+2 to two targets within 20' but not closer than
5')
AC 14
HD 12d...
Dungeons & Dragonmead Fall Schedule
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*As you know, I run public classic Dungeons & Dragons games at **The Loaded
Die**/Metro Detroit Game Night's Board Game Nigh at **Dragonmead**, in
Warren...
D&D Sling Damage vs. Large Targets
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In many early editions of D&D, weapons were assigned two damage values: one
for small/medium targets (i.e. man-sized) and one for large targets (giants
and...
James A. Smith, Jr. Memorial Video
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A beloved father, devoted friend, and D&D Dungeon Master extraordinaire. We
miss you! To view video, click here Memorial Video
Note - The original video...
Let's Talk About Pacing!
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The idea, I think, is that the RPG is ultimately about the long game. Even
rolling back to the early days of Basic & Expert, the goal of the player
was...
Profane and Profound Prep Part 2
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This is part 2 of my work to edit my magic items for a DMsGuild release,
along with adding cursed items along the way. Here is part 1. Bone of a
Saint 8000...
SHORT BREAK.
-
I'm going to take a break for a week or so and will start up again in the
New Year. Thanks for reading and we'll start with Level 6 when I get back.
Iain Lovecraft, 3D Sculptor
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Nope, it's got nothing to do with Cthulhu. I just did a video conversation
with Iain Lovecraft, who designs 3D miniatures and terrain. If you're not
doi...
New website!
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Slowly but surely, all the content here will make its way — in updated
form! — to my new website: timbannock.com. For fairly obvious reasons, that
site wil...
Please Update Your Link!
-
If you're seeing this, it means your link to the Greyhawk Grognard blog is
out of date.
Please update your link to www.greyhawkgrognard.com (RSS feed is
h...
Mord Mar - Session 6
-
We weren't able to play Mord Mar last week, due to a family funeral. This
week we played on Monday for the first time, due to kids returning to
school and ...
A Small, Quiet Plea
-
There has been a great deal of discussing political agendas, social
grievances, and personal attacks within the little corner of gaming that is
my hobby....
Don’t Sleep It’s Broken
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Expanding/editing my comments from What Makes Something Broken G+ thread:
“Broken”, for me, is anything that makes normal character choices, tactics,
or ro...
Swords & Wizardry Light-Themed Birthday Party
-
Last month, my wife and I helped our oldest to celebrate his birthday in
style. Ever since 2013, we have hosted a themed birthday party for our
now-15-ye...
I work at a hospital I came in , I brought extra clothing... I'm also getting a bit tired of this.
ReplyDeleteSnow won't make it up here until this afternoon. So we're working (or surfing...).
ReplyDeletePraying for rain. The warm, thawing kind.
ReplyDeleteEastern PA - snowed in. You'd think that might be a day off, but today's corporations are all about the "virtual office", so it just becomes another work day. In sweat pants and lazy clothes.
ReplyDeleteWorking on the next RQ6 book and wishing the US would give Scandinavia back our winter, you snow thieves you...
ReplyDeleteI'm suffering through 40 degree weather in Dallas... :D
ReplyDeleteI got hit with pneumonia last week, so I'm way behind on doing outside stuff. I've got fruit trees that need pruning, and a couple kids who need to go sledding!
ReplyDeleteI'm working and trying like hell to avoid financial ruin!
ReplyDeleteIt has been Snow-Hell here in Vermont for weeks now so this latest storm will just be adding another layer. Otherwise it is just another day in the box till I can get the new leg.
ReplyDeleteSitting at the office, wishing I was at home reading RPG books. Or reading anything fun, for that matter.
ReplyDeleteSitting at home commenting on blogs and trying to decide which RPG book to read. Thankful for the first time that my employer does not permit work from home. Considering asking neighbors if they have a shovel I could borrow, but not particularly motivated.
ReplyDelete(Ended up borrowing a shovel and going to work anyway)
DeleteForecast here of 85. Wish I could go out and play, but I have to get ready for a desert camping trip. Forecast for where I am going, 90F. Currently waiting for and oil change and wheel alignment.
ReplyDeleteWatching our politicians blaming each other for the biblical flooding here in the UK. Other than that a 12 hour day sawing up trees blown down in yesterdays gales. Bit of snow would be a big help, at least I could take a day off then.
ReplyDeleteI'm home. second day off in a row. sleeping past noon. With a three day weekend coming up. :)
ReplyDeleteTrying to finish my darn OSR Superstar item.
ReplyDeleteI'm up in the NW exurbs / Hudson Valley. Did my therapy exercises for recovering from an arm I broke last month (slipped on ice); spent an hour doing an online math refresher class; read bunch of random news via Google News; checked some LEGO sites I frequent; finally the snow slowed down and spent an hour doing some digging - but 3-5 more inches still by morning; watched some History Channel DVDs I've been saving; checked RPG blogs...
ReplyDeleteSitting by the fireplace, drinking brandy, and reading Featherstone's Solo-Wargaming.
ReplyDeleteIt's been snowing here in southern NH for 12 hours or so, it'll be done sometime tomorrow morning and there will not be another snow storm until Saturday !
ReplyDeleteyeah, more snow over night here in NYC and another 2-4 inches on Saturday
ReplyDeletethank God we finally bought our first all wheel drive vehicle in dec
Ugh. We're getting snow tomorrow afternoon. Again. I feel nausea coming on. Enough snow already. Is it spring yet?
ReplyDeleteIn Winnipeg, was about -30c with the windchill today. Had about 7cm of snow last night so I paid the kid down the street to shovel my driveway. Business as usual.
ReplyDeleteSpring seems to be here in St. Louis. Finally above freezing today (after it not being for a few weeks) and it will stay that way for the next week, with temperatures reaching the 50s and 60s in a few days.
ReplyDeleteEven though it's only the middle of Feb, it's been a long, long winter. I don't know how Canadians can take it, I really don't.
We've given up on life :)
ReplyDeleteMy teen daughter and I just came in from shoveling, lucky us the snow is changing over to freezing rain.
ReplyDeleteThe problem this year isn't total snow it's the darned cold and except for a few minor exceptions it's snowed a lot when it does snow (and doesn't melt much at all). It was 45 degrees colder than it is now a couple mornings ago and it took 2 hours for my wood stove to get the kitchen (where the woodstove is ) to 68.
I run group homes for kids, this makes the snow a joy. Getting staff in or shuffling them around. Just wonderful fun. :)
ReplyDeleteSpent the day figuring all that out. Gonna spend the evening with the wife, a Tröegenator and the A1 Slavers module!