Kickstarter - Calidar "Beyond the Skies"

Back in the heyday of Dragon Magazine, one of my favorite reoccurring features was The Princess Ark series by +Bruce Heard . It was fiction, but such game-able fiction, that along with the actual game rule bits, inspired my imagination as a DM for years to come. Heck, it's one of the main reasons I want to work on a White Star / White Box mashup. Yes, the airships :)

+Bruce Heard has been working hard on the World of Calidar, a fantasy world of his own design with - airships. I'm ready to swoon like a school girl in a bad 50's movie. Anyhow, Beyond the Skies is the 2nd in the Calidar series (In Stranger Skies was the first and presented the world) and presents the gods, their cults and the special powers their followers can earn. Temple maps. Other goodies as described here. Bruce has done a pretty good job in the past keeping the crunchy parts minimal (thereby making conversion to the system of your choice fairly simple) and I expect much of the same from Beyond the Skies.

Of course, you can always add the first book, In Stranger Skies, to your pledge. $6 in PDF ($10 if you just want to snag a copy on RPGNow)

Alright, all this makes me want to reread the fiction from In Stranger Skies. Maybe tonight at work. In between phone calls. Shhhs! Don't blow up my spot!

Current List of OSR Christmas Gifters and Gifts - Updated with Huge Amounts of New Swag!

Every year the community here at The Tavern never ceases to amaze me.

Below is the current listing of gifters and the gifts they are offering:

(assume US only for Print items unless otherwise noted when the post for said items goes up)


Lesser Gnome / +Zach Glazar              - Death & Taxes Boxed Set (Kickstarter Edition)

                                                              - Death & Taxes Minis

                                                              - Whisper & Venom Hardcover

                                                              - Possibly some assorted TSR era signed stuff

Barrel Rider Games / +James Spahn    -Class Compendium (hardcover)

                                                              -White Star core book (hardcover)

                                                              -White Star core book (x2, softcover)

                                                              -White Box Omnibus (hardcover)

                                                              -White Box Omnibus (x2, softcover) 

New Big Dragon / +Richard LeBlanc  -Creature Compendium (x12, softcover)
                                                              -Basic Psionics Handbook (x12, PDF)

+Reid San Filippo                                 -Under a Broken Moon 1-10, UX01 (PDF)

BRW Games / +Joseph Bloch              - Adventures Dark & Deep core rulebooks - set (softcover)

Precis Intermedia / Brett B                   -PDF of receiver's choice from the Precis Intermedia catalog                                                                    (Lords of Olympus, Shatterzone, Two-Fisted Tales,                                                                                Hardnova, Coyote Trail, Story Engine Plus, Treasure Awaits!,                                                                etc.)      

+Dyson Logos                                       -Dyson's Delves Vol 1 + 2 (print - ships anywhere)

Mark Craddock                                     -Cypher System Rulebook

thunderbunnypress.com / stieha           RND (zine) - (3 print + PDF)

+Dak Ultimak / Stray Couches Press   -1 complete set of Crawl!, printed+PDF.
                                                              -2 complete sets of Crawl!, PDF editions.
                                                              -3 single copies of anything in print.
                                                              -4 copies of no.11.
                                                              -5+ copies of Dungeon Crawl Basics (proof of                                                                                          concept/beta/not final print copies, and free copies of the final                                                                edition when finished.)      

+Matt Snodgrass                                   -6th Printing of C&C PHB
                                                              -$15 RPGNow GC

eric samuels                                          -5e Monster Manual

+Art Braune Skullduggery Press          -1x Art's Polyhedral Dice Super Font Bundle
                                                              -1x Set of all 5 of my Classic Dungeon Tiles PDFs

+Sophia Brandt                                     -2 sets of Swords & Sixsiders, international giveaway
                                                              (1 set consists of: a 24 page Player's Book, a 36 page                                                                               Gamemaster's Book, a few character sheets and 1 adhesive                                                                     label for making a box set (no box).)

+Pete Spahn / Small Niche Games       -Gray Nebula, Star Gods Help Us and Stuck on Etholk (PDF)

Jimm Johnson / The Scribes of Sparn  - HG1 The Kringle Castle Invaders (PDF)

Joe Johnson / Taskboy                          -Manse on Murder Hill and Tranzar's Redoub (Print and PDF)

Forrest Aguirre                                      -Heraclix and Pomp (Novel / Print x 3 US / Canada only)

(big edit / update)

+Tim Shorts / Gothridge Manor            -Starter Adventures
                                                               -a print bundle of Manor Zines

+matt jackson                                         -two large manila envelopes with the original, hand drawn                                                                        maps. Mailed anywhere on the planet

keith nelson                                            -Transylvania Adventures - softcover.
                                                                -Castles and crusades 5th printing set of 3 core books, new.
                                                                -Dyson's Delves I and II - softcover
                                                                -Razor Coast for S&W
                                                                -DCC adventures - In the prison of the squid sorcerer; Cast                                                                      Tower of the Blood Moon Rises!

+James Carpio / TSR                              -Tales From the Fallen Empire Hard Cover
                                                                -Tales From the Fallen Empire Soft Cover
                                                                -2 Copies of Gygax magazine issue 6




I'm sure I missed something from someone ;)

Some gifter's I have neither email nor G+ for contact. Please, if you only added a comment and didn't email me nor do you see a valid G+ link for you, I need your contact info to make this work. tenkarsDOTtavern at that gmail thing. Put OSR Christmas in the email subject line.

OSR Christmas will kick off in a few days...

A Wayward Kickstarter - After the Apocalypse - Bad Math and No Details Make it a Failure Out of the Gate

A tip of the hat to +Andy Kitkowski over at the Kicksnarker Community.

So, just how bad is the After the Apocalypse Kickstarter? They can't even center their art correctly:

But wait! There's more!

Actually, no there isn't. Well, not much more:

That's it. That's the whole description of the game. Mechanics? Who gives a fuck! Setting? Fogetaboutit! Because as we all know, games that can cover all possible end of the world situations just aint out there. If you want a Mad Max meets Gamma World meets Walking Dead meets Mars Attacks, this is you game. No other game can do the same.

Or not.

But hey! Look at the amazingly affordable support levels and low goal:

But math! Only $5k can be raised by print backers, so I hope the other 1,500 backers like their 50 dollar PDFs. Or 7,500 backers like their $10 PDFs. How many backers did Numenera have? 3,317...

Sometimes the Brain Box Rattles

Something has been on my mind for the last few days. Nothing major. Nothing urgent.

Just a definition of a simple word. One I've seen thrown around in politics, on Kickstarters and even other crowdfunding endeavors.

Transparency.

Does it mean what we think it means? Does it mean the same to you as it does to that Kickstarter creator? At what point does transparency become opaque?

Here ares some definitions of Transparency:

The first doesn't apply to much of what we come across in gaming, unless it's at the gaming table. The fourth doesn't really apply at all.

The second and third seem really important when trying to vet any project that is seeking crowdsourced funding.

How important is transparency to you and the crowdfunding you back?

Tavern Chat Tonight - 930 PM Eastern Till Whenever

Topics?

Gygax Memorial Fund and the responses received? Check!

New Tenkar's Tavern Facebook Group? Check!

Piss poor amount of gaming content posts? Check!

Latest Whit Whitman witticisms? Checkity check check!

Remember, it's the chat box on the right side of this very page...

Update: Tenkar's Tavern Opens on Facebook - Ask and Ye Shall Enter - And Stuff

What a day.

The Tenkar's Tavern Community over on Facebook is currently at 140 members. Pretty much all in the last day and a half. Simply amazing. You all rock. I expect it will be a fairly active community and it will be a vetting place for some post topics and themes.

I've been laid up on the couch most of the day will a rebellious stomach, so no work for me tonight. If I had been at work, I'm sure today's events in California would have been on everyone's lips.

+Dyson Logos drew this with The Tavern in mind earlier (no ill intent - I'm sure it relates to some pushback I've received for my more active use of Facebook) but it has a further meaning for me today. I'd like to send this out to ISIS and their sympathizers:

I'm getting really close to swapping out my off duty 5 shot 38 for my duty 9mm 15 + 1 with some extra mags. That's a whole 'nother non gaming discussion.

Tenkar's Tavern Opens on Facebook - Ask and Ye Shall Enter ;)

Yep, I finally did it. I formed a Tenkar's Tavern group on Facebook.

Why?

Because it has been requested numerous times.

What goes on there?

That's for you all to decide ;)

Seriously, it's a semi private place for discussions and lord knows at times we all need that.

Alright, time to shake the cobwebs and work on the updated OSR Christmas post...

It Appears Ken Whitman's Old D20 Entertainment Website Has Gone Rogue

Priceless.

Here is the actually link:

http://d20entertainment.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Screen-Shot-2015-11-29-at-6.44.52-PM1.jpg

Gail Gygax Responds to the Community's Questions Regarding the Gygax Memorial Fund

Gail Gygax has responded to the questions posed by the gaming community and previously posted here at The Tavern.

I am posting her responses as screenshots below. You can read the questions asked at this previous Tavern post.

Tavern Update - Christmas Time and All That Jazz

You can tell it's the holiday season. The days have gotten shorter, the air is crisp and folks at work are piling up on annual vacation - yep, it means overtime for me ;)

I'm hoping to get out the master list for OSR Christmas 2016 tomorrow. I was going to attempt it today, but stayed late this morning, head in early tonight and stay late at the end (tomorrow morning.) The list is huge and full of awesomeness and generosity. It's going to be lots of fun to watch this take off.

Yes, I'm still playing catch up as certain issues and events took priority at The Tavern and the community at large. Hopefully we'll have some answers about the state of the Gygax Memorial Fund by the end of the week. The questions posed by the community were well thought out and many are probably questions that need more that a sentence or two to answer.

Alright, time to get my shit together for tonight's shit...