So, Justin LaNassa, the main individual apparently behind the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum and the one attempting to license the iconic TSR trademark images to third parties, has had some choice words to say about my prior observations and speculations over on Facebook:
Saturday, October 17, 2020
Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum - Membership Rates and Pay-To-Play Game Table Pricing
X5 Temple of Death & X6 Quagmire! for B/X D&D each 4.99 for POD & PDF at DTRPG
I'm not sure if these were miskeyed or not, but I've already placed my order for X5 Temple of Death & X6 Quagmire! for 4.99 each for the Print on Demand & PDF. Normally WotC would price these around 4.99 for the PDF, 9.99 for the Print version, and 10.98 for the Print plus PDF package, so this is excellent pricing. As someone who has few of the Expert series of D&D modules in my collection, this is an inexpensive way to plug some holes.
This pricing may be limited, so I wouldn't wait long if this interests you.
If you, the gentle reader, find other unexpected bargains at DTRPG or elsewhere and would like to share it with The Tavern's community, you can drop the mention as a comment below or email me at tenkarsDOTtavern at that gmail thing.
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Friday, October 16, 2020
Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum Claims Ownership of "Classic" TSR Logos, Offers to License them to OSR Publishers
The Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum, located in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, is offering to license a selection of "Classic" TSR Logos via a claim of state trademark of "TSR".
Note: The Federal trademark for TSR is WAS owned by TSR Games (edit - the TM was CANCELED last year - wow, this is a magilla) publishers of the Top Secret New World Order RPG. TSR Games registered its federal trademark in 2011. The trademark was formerly owned by WotC, who were determined to have abandoned the trademark in 2004. At this point, TSR Games would be relying upon Common Law, which is shaky ground in trademark law.
Additional note: The iconic images of the various "classic" TSR logos would likely still fall under copyright law. The images created from 1978 onward would then still be owned by WotC. Ownership of images prior to 1977 would need the consultation of an IP lawyer, as the possibility is some may be in the public domain.
Observation. The Dungeon Hobby Shop has filed for at least three federal trademarks regarding the various TSR Logos:
https://uspto.report/TM/90124287
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Thursday, October 15, 2020
Ashley, My Feline Daughter
Originally sharted on Facebook:
This evening Rach & I took our feline daughter to the emergency vet. Our cat Ashley had been acting off the last few days. Her stomach was distended, she had some difficulty walking and no longer was able to jump up on my desk. She no longer was getting up to greet me in my middle of the night trips to the bathroom.
Ashly was 14. That's 86 in human years. She was diagnosed with cancer. As a cancer survivor myself, I couldn't see me potentially putting Ash through such a discomforting and painful experience when she'd have no understanding of why it was happening.
I'll miss the comfort she gave me during some really low times in my life, and her efforts to nurse me and mother me when I was suffering from congestive heart failure earlier this year.
She'd only play with a toy once she figured out how it worked, would ask for food NOW so she would have it for later, actually touched my glasses inside and out to understand how they worked and woke me up for snoring too loudly.
I've lost many pets in my 53 years, but only one feline daughter.
Ashly, you will be greatly missed.
Wednesday, October 14, 2020
Kickstarter - Space Scoundrels - A Not Too Serious Science Fiction RPG
Thom's latest project is Space Scoundrels - A Not Too Serious Science Fiction RPG, which is being funded on Kickstarter. Light-hearted SciFi is right up my alley, and the pricing is certainly right for my wallet. 4 bucks for the PDf and 8 bucks for the at-cost POD and the PDF (really the sweet point I think). I'm in for 12 bucks, same as the above but I get credited as a backer in the final release.
Designed as a beer-and-pretzels game with minimal rules and fast-paced skill progression, Space Scoundrels takes a lot of the science out of science-fiction for those that love the genre but don't want to get mired in lots of physics and math.
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Tuesday, October 13, 2020
Amazon Prime Day RPG Sales
Let's just dive in, shall we?
edit: Sigh - the thumbnails and links all work in the preview, but apparently not in the full post share... nevermind, you need to disable your adblocker - Tenkar
Note: Some prices are time-limited.
The following dice have 80% off coupons, making the sets a buck a set with free shipping:
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Monday, October 12, 2020
Watch the Fireside Chat with Vince Florio, Podfather of the OSR
Yesterday I sat down with Vince Florio, Podfather of the OSR. Yes, "Podfather" is a bit of a joke, but the reality is, Vince was the primary force that brought podcasting to the OSR. Other amazing podcasts have followed, either in his footsteps more or less or finding their own path (huge thanks to Anchor.fm for opening wide the doors of podcasting in general, and the OSR in particular)
For The Tavern, YouTube is the Final Frontier. Much of what will appear on the Tavern Chat Podcast will be recorded on YouTube, in a large part to the ability to Livestream. Feedback, as I record, is literally priceless, and I think will strengthen the Tavern Chat Podcast. There will be other content that will be unique to YouTube and Vince did suggest that the return of the dragon puppet Feltothraxis should happen, so it will ;)
If you want to participate in the Livestreams and give realtime feedback, subscribe to The Tavern's YouTube Channel at YouTube.com/ErikTenkar. I truly appreciate your support, and every subscriber to The Tavern's YouTube Channel is important, as is every member of this community.
The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are the affiliate programs that support The Tavern.
You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection.
Sunday, October 11, 2020
Keeping Track of my Gaming Ideas
Right now is a weird moment for me.....
I probably should be taking part in Gary Con's Autumn Revel Virtual Gaming Event, which I have already played in once so far (so I'm not ignoring it). Now I normally have the TV on when I'm blogging, and my TV of choice is frequently YouTube....
....and I'm seeing Erik's live YouTube interview with "The Evil DM".
Just weird....
Now I have to admit that I'm one of those guys who always seems to be thinking of gaming in one way, shape, or form. Sure, I shut off/down a bit when I'm geeking out on something else (I just finished Season 2 of The Boys this morning!), but even then I see a lot of things filtered through my gaming lens. I get some (I think) awesome ideas when I'm busy doing other stuff. So much so I have to keep something to write with nearby lest I lose a good idea.
In a pinch I can use my cell phone, usually a quick picture or a note written in Evernote, but nothing beats a mini notebook and pen/pencil. I tend to lose digital notes or just forget they are there.....did I save that in Evernote, or did I use Google Docs? Wait....maybe I have a screenshot....
This morning I saw a cool word, Palimpsest, and thought "I could use this in an adventure seed.....again.*" Evidently some ancient word nerds have discovered some new ancient languages, and expanded on others, by looking at ancient texts from a monastery that had to get creative and recycle old parchments they normally wouldn't have. I took a screenshot and of, course I lost it. If not for having to post today I think I'd have lost the idea.....
Just a few minutes ago, just before starting this post (I was going a totally different direction today) I was checking Facebook and mis-read something that has to go into the notebook. Hopefully you'll see what I saw:
Here's a link to the actual article.
I totally need to play a WWI RPG placed on the Eastern Front where we have to face off against Werewolves, or maybe we get to play the Werewolves. As a vet I'm leaning on the side of the soldiers.....
In case this becomes an itch I really have to scratch, I need to ask what system should I use for this? My Initial thoughts were to take and alter Operation Whitebox, which is basically Swords & Wizardry. Anybody have any thoughts on this?
*This came from a news article I was reading over breakfast, and NOT a messed-up segue to my stuff on DTRPG. It's PWYW and if you go there from here.....don't pay anything!
Blogs of Inspiration & Erudition
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King for a Day (Revised) - By Jim PintoPort World GamesGeneric/UniversalLevel- Ha! The Valley of Brycshire has been infested with a foreign and strange problem for a quarter of a cen...36 minutes ago
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The Other OSR: They Came From The Necropolis - *They Came From The Necropolis* is supplement for *Forbidden Psalm* and Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition is a miniatures game published by Space Penguin ...47 minutes ago
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Birthright: Player's Secrets of Endier (1995) - second copy - From the back cover: "Welcome to Endier, one of the smallest domains in Anuire. Carved from the treacherous forest known as the Spiderfell, it is precari...3 hours ago
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The Future isn't What It Used To Be - - Orbital Decay (MicroRed version) From The Red Room, Red Novanexus, & The New Flesh Rpg Setting - Alien Battleground - We pick up from our last session with the player's PC's flying into Heyettville New York state where there's been activity from unknown beings who have ...7 hours ago
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Building A New World For My Convention Scenarios - For the last few weeks I have been streaming on Friday night from 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm on Twitch. I had an idea a year or so ago to make a campaign world set...7 hours ago
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Reconsidering random encounters (again) - I'm reconsidering D&D random encounters... again. OSE (B/X) says this about the chances of random encounters: *Clear, grasslands: 1-in-6.* *Barren lands, h...13 hours ago
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Hex 7-9 Chagrinspire: Update and continuity check - This is a recap on some important hexes. I might try some more big single hex maps for the setting. These hexes were oc...13 hours ago
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Crisis In Infinite Zines #1 Art Preview - Greetings True Believers!I'm doing a writing overhaul on the zine and using some "editorial mandates" Dave and I have decided on. I'm also working on anoth...13 hours ago
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Fantasy Fridays: Adventurer Conqueror King System - [image: ACKS II Rulebook] Getting back to the real purpose behind the Fantasy Friday posts, helping you to find that perfect Fantasy RPG and showing that...21 hours ago
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Goblin soldiers - I built these minis a long while ago, and they were part of that batch that I printed with white spray primer that got super chalky and hard to work with...22 hours ago
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Wyllow & Brannoc, session 0 (Arneson Gaming) - Playing around and doing some playtesting of the AG rules, whipped up (rather quickly) some basic fantasy types to go on a little adventure. I used some ra...1 day ago
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On Manon Quarterly Kickstarter Youtube! - Check it out. I talk about Sinless, canceling, and the future. https://www.youtube.com/live/YmEnK8-sh6M?si=MnBE1E6dS4xaUJTN www.kickstarter.com/projec...1 day ago
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Ten People You Would "Meet" in a Marlinko Bathhouse - Three immense bathhouses--the tidy Punctilious Polevik, the seedy-chic Black Pomegranate and the dimly-lit Mongotarium--serve as popular centers for bu...1 day ago
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Cheap and Easy Improvised Lighting Stage - Lighting stage setup #1 Raw camera result, no editing For most people's needs, an expensive lighting stage setup is not necessary for model photography. ...2 days ago
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Holding Threads - You’ll have noticed that if you stick around a holding in Mythic Bastionland then the land is, well, less mythic. In fact, Myths kind of pause when the Kni...3 days ago
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Red Ochre & Ruins: The OSL Returns... - Well, there's an Open Supplement License for Epoch, allowing those so inclined to publish original content for the game. Interested parties can *visit ou...3 days ago
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Zock Bock Radio return engagement - German AD&D superfan and podcast host Settembrini (who already had me on his show a couple-three years back) recently completed a two-year-long run thro...3 days ago
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Un-American Activities - I am halfing prices for all False Machine books held outside the U.S.A. This discount will last until sales the the U.S. are re-started, OR until the ...4 days ago
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October Lantern Advance Copy Available - I've finished the advanced version of the October Lantern, posted on patreon. I've taken the requisite three hours rest and now I'm writing about it her...4 days ago
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Grozz keeps gettin' graphic...plus, a Soldier! - I hate to start out posts by just lamenting my lack of posts... BUT...man, I'm really having a tough time working regular blogging back into my schedule,...4 days ago
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Greyhawk News You Can Use - Harvester 2025 Edition - I’m well-overdue for another Greyhawk news roundup, and a recent post by /u/talktoh in /r/Greyhawk prompted me to complete catchup on Greyhawk news for the...5 days ago
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Random Links & Notes for 8/29/2025 - - 9 and 30 Kingdoms talks a bit about mapping. I'm okay with players mapping or not mapping. It's up to them, as long as their characters can do it. If the...1 week ago
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Up Your Game with Rubber Stamps - [image: Up Your Game with Rubber Stamps] This isn't a Free GM Resource, but a product, well company really, that I think is a useful resource for the prep...1 week ago
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Against the Starmaster: Playtest materials available - I thought that I would mention that there is a space opera version of *Against the Darkmaster* coming out. It’s called (somewhat unsurprisingly) *Against ...1 week ago
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Tomb of the Blind and Deaf Dead - 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 ...1 week ago
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Alien, Predator, and Bladerunner (and others!) in Chronological Order - I’m a big fan of the Alien, Predator, and Bladerunner franchises, and the fact that they all apparently intersect in a shared universe is really great to m...1 week ago
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Eyes of Idola, Part 2 - 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...2 weeks ago
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The 'I Want' PC - 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...3 weeks ago
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More Star Wars/Traveller ship scale - 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...3 weeks ago
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[BLOG] News on the March! Episode X. - 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...4 weeks ago
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GM Companion for Shadowdark - 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....4 weeks ago
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The First Dungeon Crawl in History - Mapping a Lost Session Report, Part II - Today detailed reports from game sessions are common. Until recently, some of the oldest I knew of were to be found in Alarums & Excursions, but only ra...5 weeks ago
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Rulings, Not Rules: A Foundation, Not an Oversight - 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 ...5 weeks ago
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How I Run OD&D Combat - 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...1 month ago
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A long overdue hobby update! - 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...3 months ago
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Pulp: Adventure Location: Trindade & Martim Vaz - History is fractally interesting. Start examine any event, or following any citation, and interesting facts emerge. But some places, for whatever reason,...3 months ago
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All Work and No D&D Makes Homer Something Something - I have a problem. I haven't played an RPG in about a year. Circumstances in my life are such that I have precious little free time. Now that I've written...3 months ago
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Playing at the World 2E V2 Arrives - 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 ...4 months ago
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Blogs on Tape season 6 has begun! - 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...4 months ago
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Lexicon of Klarkash-Ton, Hierophant of Atlantis: Lupanar - This time, we follow the good High Priest to the far future, to the final continent of Earth, Zothique, for a a tale of ennui and love: Morthylla. Witho...5 months ago
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Into the Wild Blue Yonder: A Journey Through Blackmoor's Dark Realm - *We have been thinking about you.* *We know what you want from Rob Kuntz.* You want more than another brand-new RPG module. It has to be a *First Edition ...7 months ago
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Articulations - 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...8 months ago
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Writing playlists for all occasions - 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...8 months ago
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The Tarot of Pips - 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...8 months ago
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Pirates and Necromancers, a Play Report - 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...9 months ago
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It's been a bit - 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...1 year ago
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*'s in SpaaaaaAaaaace - 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...1 year ago
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Last move - to self-hosting! - 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...1 year ago
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Osamu Tezuka (1928 - 1989) - [image: Osamu Tezuka - Shonen Magazine Cover, 1970]Shonen Magazine Cover, 1970 [image: Osamu Tezuka - Shonen Magazine Cover Illustration 1970]Shonen Maga...3 years ago
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Clean Your Room - 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 ...3 years ago
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Steve Jackson Interview - 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...4 years ago
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The Hero’s Journey 2nd Edition, Campbellian roleplaying at its best! - (this review done using the reviewers own purchased copy) I have been a James Michael Spahn fan since he wrote his Swords & Wizardry Companion. His writing...4 years ago
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ToAD Monster of the Week: Crocoman - 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...5 years ago
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More Arden Vul Art - Another great piece from Del, this one's the Forum of Set: a place that the PCs may spend quite a bit of time within.5 years ago
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OCHRE SAND - Init +0 Ranged Atk • fire burst +3 (1d14+1, 20') AC 17 HD 3d6 MV 60 Act 1d24 SP 'breath' weapon, sideslip, perfect silence, morphing Fort +5 Ref +8 Will...5 years ago
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Strange, Dangerous, and Inhuman: The Fey and Fairie - 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...5 years ago
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The Faithful - An Optional Archetype for Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells Revised Edition - Work on the revised edition of Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells is moving along. This will be a hefty tome, with a LOT of tools and new options to customiz...5 years ago
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Dungeons & Dragonmead Fall Schedule - *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...5 years ago
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Fiction in Airhde - 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...6 years ago
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Ravensburg Reboot: Streamlined City Map - 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...6 years ago
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The Withered Crag available now - 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...6 years ago
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Annihilation Rising Goes live - 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! ...6 years ago
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James's Celebration of Life - 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...6 years ago
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Trap Tuesday: A step back - 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 ...6 years ago
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Let's Talk About Pacing! - 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...6 years ago
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Profane and Profound Prep Part 2 - 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...6 years ago
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MIDDLE DUNGEONS LEVEL FIVE 158 STAIRS. - 158 STAIRS. These stairs descend thirty feet to Area 79 on Level 6.6 years ago
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Please, I don't do paid advertisements - don't ask. - A little note since people have asked me about this. My video channel's *not* an advertising platform, so I'm not available for hire if you want to promote...6 years ago
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New website! - 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...6 years ago
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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...6 years ago
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Total Sales for WB:FMAG - 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*...6 years ago
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How can We Destroy this Campaign World? - 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...6 years ago
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Mord Mar - Session 5 - We had another successful delve into the dungeon yesterday. The delvers: Moira, the Magic-User Radovan - Human Cleric (of Odin?) Khazgar Stonehand - Dwarf ...7 years ago
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Yodeling For Yokels or The Further Misa(d&)dventures - This is the one of those posts that points out the lack of current posts. Over the last week or three, there has been postponed Labyrinth Lord (twice, one...7 years ago
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Bundle of Fantasy Age - Bundle of Holding: Dragon Age/Fantasy Age: Available until March 12. PA Presents: Fantasy AGE Freeport live play Green Ronin in 2018 The Fantasy Age RPG ma...7 years ago
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New Free PDF Module: The Hyqueous Vaults - 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...7 years ago
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Session XCIII: One Pissed Off Dragon! - Our ongoing Swords and Wizardry sandbox campaign... *Current Player Characters:* *Thenus* (Ranger) *Wang Du* (Monk) *Wolfheir* (Viking) *Arg* (Half-orc) ...7 years ago
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Swords & Wizardry Light: Session # 6 - 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 ...8 years ago