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!
On Bounty, Sadness
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Does it strike anyone else as odd, that we have small altars containing
stacks of rune etched stone, powered by trapped lightning, while we look at
a w...
Old John Stuart’s Mill
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Archie Fields III, Matthew C. FunkWitch Pleas Publishing5eLevel 1 Set in
the richly detailed settlement of Greenspires, a town nestled among the
elven ruin...
Stirrings
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A few years ago, in 2021, I bought a set of PoD reprints of the core AD&D2e
books from DriveThruRPG.
Many, many years ago, when it first came out, I bo...
Mail (and Yard Sale) Call Tuesday, 80s Style!
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Double hitter today. Went out on a hunt for some old-school D&D and came
home to some mail.
[image: Old school games and books]
Dragged my wife and youn...
Mythic Rivers
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Not *The *River, of course.
A typical *Mythic Bastionland* realm, following the procedure in the book,
has a navigable river. It’s an extremely fast way t...
[Fanzine Focus XL] The Travellers’ Digest #7
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On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the
rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial
publica...
Tomb of the Blind and Deaf Dead
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So the cat is out of the bag thanks to Tobias Schulte-Krumpen, who posted
the above image to the Lamentations of the Flame Princess facebook group. I
...
Spider-Verse x Street Fighter Art
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I've shared some of Monster_Wolf's anime/Spider-Verse crossover art. Check
out this awesome Street Fighter/Spider-Verse art.
Spoonfuls of Sugar
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Maximillian asks,
"Why do you insist on saying that you play D&D when the evidence clearly
shows that D&D is about bizarre stadium shows and infantile, non...
Eyes of Idola, Part 2
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This is Part 2. Here is Part 1.
*Concept 1: Entering the Dungeon*
Descending the stairs into B1, the party reach rooms that are dark,
crowded, flooded, a...
Card Game Update
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The long awaited publication of my card game is nearing the final stretch!
I have contracted with the artist Michael Perrotta for card art that is
more in ...
The 'I Want' PC
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Readers who do not live in the dank earth beneath rocks with only woodlice
and earthworms for company will no doubt have heard of something called *K-Pop
D...
More Star Wars/Traveller ship scale
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Today’s contribution to I Made It So I Might As Well Share It. Might be
interesting or useful to someone else as well. A selection of some of the
most icon...
[BLOG] News on the March! Episode X.
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This post continues the series of brief play reports I have been posting on
Discord. This does not cover every single session (sometimes, recon and
setup...
A New Epoch: Stone and Spell...
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Why does fantasy have to be medieval? It doesn't, and our hobby provides
numerous examples (Call of Cthulhu comes immediately to mind). Great stuff;
but ...
Turand Kamlat Monastery
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A return to form? I do not know, but I received a new Apple Pencil and
wanted to give it a go so what better way than to draw a map. Last night I
watched ...
GM Companion for Shadowdark
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Let's talk about Mr. Chubby Funster. Greg. If you go on RPG DriveThru and
check out the Shadowdark section you'll see he had three books in the top
ten....
July ‘25 In Review
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Only one month of summer to go, but I'm so ready for fall. We've had
multiple sets of near 100 degrees days, and I'm over it. Even with my cool
basement ...
Rulings, Not Rules: A Foundation, Not an Oversight
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There's been a lot of discussion over the years about how Original Dungeons
& Dragons handled (or didn't handle) the common situations you'd expect in
a ...
How I Run OD&D Combat
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Link to discussion
Over the years I’ve settled on a way to run 0e/OD&D/White Box combat that
keeps the action moving and is pretty simple, while covering...
A long overdue hobby update!
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Welcome back to the Vault everyone! 2025 is going by in a blur; I last
posted in February, almost started a post in March and now it's the end of
May. W...
Pulp: Adventure Location: Trindade & Martim Vaz
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History is fractally interesting. Start examine any event, or following any
citation, and interesting facts emerge. But some places, for whatever
reason,...
Playing at the World 2E V2 Arrives
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With the release of its second volume, the second edition of *Playing at
the World *is finally complete. The two books combined total well over
1,000 ...
Blogs on Tape season 6 has begun!
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Hi everybody! Its been a minute. How are you? Everything is awful all the
time? Horrors never cease? You’re being driven mad by the weight of the
unfathoma...
Articulations
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Creating house rules, custom rules specific to a local group or campaign,
has been common throughout the history of D&D. What makes an effective
house rule...
Writing playlists for all occasions
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Hello again! Going off the idea of inspiration elaborated on by the prior
post, I also have music playing while I write my various games and fiction
pieces...
The Tarot of Pips
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Somewhere in your dice collection is a die like this one, the humblest of
dice. Although you don't know it, this small white die carries with it a
secr...
Pirates and Necromancers, a Play Report
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Over the Thanksgiving weekend we did a lot of gaming ranging from
“off-table” domain level stuff to some solo adventures to spell and magic
item rese...
It's been a bit
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Hey everyone, I hope you are doing well! I've had a lot going on and
haven't had much time to blog lately. Heres a recap of gaming events and
other st...
*'s in SpaaaaaAaaaace
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A lot of SF (including a certain 2D6 RPG grandaddy) deal with ancient
aliens taking humans from Earth and dropping them, fleas and all, on one or
more w...
Last move - to self-hosting!
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As my vote regarding Substack in the “marketplace of ideas”, I’m moving to
self-hosting.
I’m now at (and hopefully staying for a long time at)
Blog: ht...
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 ...
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...
ToAD Monster of the Week: Crocoman
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Now that I'm back doing the blog thing I thought I would use Tome of
Adventure Design to create monsters for The Black Hack.
Using the monster tables in th...
Strange, Dangerous, and Inhuman: The Fey and Fairie
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When I was a boy I loved fairy tales. Jack and the Beanstalk, Puss in
Boots, Rumpelstiltskin - I devoured all of it. My fascination that there
was a strang...
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
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Fiction in Airhde
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On a whim this weekend, I picked up some fiction off the TLG store. *A
Houseless God & Other Tales* and *The Mirrored Soul & Other Tales*, both by
the T...
Ravensburg Reboot: Streamlined City Map
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I mentioned in my last post how I was tweaking and reworking parts of my
Ravensburg setting. Today I streamlined the city map. The old map had lots
of redu...
And Now the News Draft Download on Patreon
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It's self-styled Throwback Thursday and *having just released the 34-page
draft booklet of Hill Cantons news to my Patreon backers* I am going to
indulge m...
The Withered Crag available now
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I just enabled the sale of the PDF version of The Withered Crag at
DriveThruRPG a few minutes ago, and the custom print version will be
available startin...
Annihilation Rising Goes live
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The latest in Fail Squad Games’ Quick Kick projects has gone live and needs
your support!! This project is only running 11 days and ends on 5/28/2019!
...
James's Celebration of Life
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We could not have asked for a prettier day for James's service. It was a
bit chilly and windy but gorgeous. A heartfelt thank you to all that joined
us tod...
Trap Tuesday: A step back
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I will get back to Tomb of Horrors soon. I found a topic that was
interesting enough to take a break. While interacting in a 5E group on
Facebook I talked ...
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
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Please, I don't do paid advertisements - don't ask.
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A little note since people have asked me about this. My video channel's
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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!
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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...
Total Sales for WB:FMAG
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Hi Folks,
It's been a long time since I provided an update for the sales of White
Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game.
*LULU*
Print: 396
PDF: 433
*OBS*...
How can We Destroy this Campaign World?
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d12
1. You must trick a bard into strumming the *Chords of Fate* on the *Lute
of Annihilation*
2. Legends tell of thermonuclear weapons beneath megadunge...
Mord Mar - Session 5
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We had another successful delve into the dungeon yesterday. The delvers:
Moira, the Magic-User
Radovan - Human Cleric (of Odin?)
Khazgar Stonehand - Dwarf ...
Bundle of Fantasy Age
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Bundle of Holding: Dragon Age/Fantasy Age: Available until March 12. PA
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New Free PDF Module: The Hyqueous Vaults
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A new dungeon module—written in celebration of OSRIC's 10th Birthday—by
Rebecca Dettmann, Allan T. Grohe, Jr., Jimm Johnson, Matthew Riedel, Alex
Zisch, a...
Swords & Wizardry Light: Session # 6
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Two months after our last session (thanks to things like 8th grade finals,
a 4 year-old's birthday and party, Father's Day, etc.), we finally had our
next ...
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!