Holiday Shopping Picks for the Gamer in Your Life (or yourself ;)

At about the one-hour mark of Wednesday Night's Pre-Black Friday Livestream, we covered several gift ideas for the fantasy role player in your life.

They are linked below:

D&D Water Bottles Plus - https://amzn.to/3B15kyJ

Kennon9 T-Shirts - https://www.teepublic.com/user/kennon9

ShadowDark  - https://www.thearcanelibrary.com/pages/shadowdark

D&D Vinyl Minis - https://amzn.to/4g88WxW

D&D Random Minis - https://amzn.to/4i8JIBa

LEGO Minifigures Dungeons & Dragons 6 Pack - https://amzn.to/3B3xyZO

Dragonlance Chronicles - https://amzn.to/3Vg2Z9Z

D&D Classic Module Dice Sets - https://beadleandgrimms.com/products/d-d-classic-module-dice-set?variant=51694878032235

Dungeon! Fantasy Board Game - https://amzn.to/4i6F1YB

The Mad Scientists' Club - https://amzn.to/416GfNy

Trivial Pursuit: Dungeons & Dragons Ultimate Edition - https://amzn.to/3CGNMbx

Northwest Dungeons & Dragons Beach Towel 2-Pack - https://amzn.to/3Vej8wB

The Secret of Terror Castle - https://amzn.to/3Vep3ln

Dungeons and Dragons Dice Tower - https://www.gamestop.com/collectibles/replicas/products/dungeons-and-dragons-dice-tower/11109922.html

 

Note - some of the above are affiliate links

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.

DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Rumble or YouTube - Tenkar

Christmas Crunch Time......and RPG Holidays (or Lack Thereof)

It's a week before Christmas and it's pretty much crunch time for a lot of people. Last-minute presents, wrapping what you already have, maybe one too-many holiday parties/obligations, oh, and the inevitable travel plans (even if it's people coming to you).

For me, my "crunch-time" is trying to figure out just how I'm going to get in all of my Christmas movies: Elf, Bad Santa, Bad Mom's Christmas, Scrooged, Miracle on 34th Street, A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas, Anna and the Apocalypse, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Die Hard (I know it's not a...whatever), It's a Wonderful Life, Office Christmas Party, Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story, Eight Crazy Nights (I know, it's a Hannukah film, but deal), Fat Man, Mixed Nuts, and the Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas Special (for the 4th time). I have some other Christmas movies, but I don't need to see .....every .....single .....one.

Now as far as the holidays and gaming intersect, I have rarely seen a GM/campaign that has regular holidays as a thing. My HackMaster campaign did (I can envision of few readers rolling their eyes.......of course HackMaster had holidays!), but to be fair I didn't use my calendar, but one provided by somebody else. He had this whole bit of math done up to track lunar cycles (three moons) and specific holidays based on intersecting moon phases with some set holidays. I took all the math and created an Excel sheet so all you had to do was enter the year and *poof* here's a calendar for the year with holidays marked. My campaign was set thousands of years after the destructions of the Old Gawds, so I had to use Excel to make it work.

Granted, since Christmas is a religious holiday, as is Hannukah, and the majority of RPG campaigns have multiple gods...so would there be a LOT of "Christmas" holidays? Or maybe there is a predominate religion in each region and only that one has a "Christmas"?

Since before modern times almost all of our/the holidays we had were religious, not secular...holy crap that would be a HUGE amount of holidays to figure out for a campaign calendar. I mean I think it could be fun to do all of your gods, but if you use the Petty Gods book (like I do/would), you might need to lump a few together or your calendar would be only religious holidays!

Now.....if I can find the time between Christmas movies (and other last-minute holiday tasks), I think I'm going to stat-up Santa Claus for OSR....I'm thinking a dual-identity Fae that is Sinterklaas/Krampus that is (unfortunately) real easy to strike a bargain with, but like all dealings with the Fae.....there can be issues.

Getting Ready for the "Off" Season....

Note: Since I know that some of my home group read this....please know this isn't about "us".

This week marks the beginning of what I kind of refer to as the "shitty season" as far as table-top RPGs go. Because of the impending holidays, there aren't any conventions and there really aren't any weekly games going on. I'm used to there being attempts to game, but they almost never pan out. At best maybe there is a gaming group get-together that's a bit of a Christmas party, but that's about it.

Now this isn't really a complaint or condemnation, just an observation.

Gaming is important to me on a couple of levels, one of which is straight-up mental health. Most of my friends I have through gaming and sitting around slinging dice is probably one of the most beneficial social interactions I have outside of work. It's kind of important for me and I'm willing to bet that many, if not most, of us are somewhere on a similar line. 

Yeah, sure....you are perfectly fine, socially well-adjusted and all that. You've probably already rolled your eyes at least once and are only reading this far 'cause you got nothing better to do the Sunday before Turkey Day. In that case, make a quick mental review of your group and see if any of your fellow dice chuckers fit the bill.

Now I'm lucky in that I'll get to go home for some time this holiday season and I don't necessarily have co-workers, but brothers....so I should be good. Add in a little online gaming and a few extra trips to the FLGS, along with at least one Christmas Party...and I should be good.

.....should be. I'm lucky enough that I can send up a flare if I'm wrong.

At this point in this one-sided discussion I have but a simple ask: do a low-level reach out this holiday season to your gaming buddies and see if they might need a little more non-holiday social interaction if you're not getting together as much as you usually do...even those that are a bit more on the introverted side.

Indiegogo - Beware the Yule Cat (OSE, C&C, and 5e)

I do enjoy a good holiday-themed adventure to read and even occasionally play ;) Frog God Games has had a strong run of amazing Christmas-themed adventures, and Beware the Yule Cat looks like it will hit a similar high water mark as its predecessors. 

Beware the Yule Cat is 12 bucks in PDF or 24 bucks (plus shipping) for print plus PDF. There is a Print on Demand option for those overseas looking to potentially save a bit on overseas shipping.

You all know the cat of Christmas

— that cat was huge and fat.

No one knew where he came from

nor where he was at.

Night is falling across the frozen plains of the Northlands. It's Yule Eve, but you're tired, hungry, and footsore. Ahead lies the village of Köldhorn — Cold Corners in the Common tongue — where you are sure to find warmth, food, and shelter, especially on this festive night. But upon arrival you find the streets deserted, and the villagers hidden behind locked doors. Soon, you realize that you've inadvertently found yourselves in the middle of a generations-long struggle between the people of Cold Corners and the evil fae troll Grýla, her husband Leppalúði, their sons the mischievous Jólasveinar — or Yule Lads — and worst of all her favorite pet, the fierce Jólakötturinn, better known as the Yule Cat.

 

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 affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube,  or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar  

Hoping that the Tavern had a Good Christmas 2021

I really hope everyone had a good Christmas. I'd wish that you got what you all wanted for the holiday, but I figure a lot of us want a bunch of OSR collectibles and there is only so much to go around.....

I kid, I kid.....I hope that most of you got what you wanted and if you're one of the unlucky few who was waiting on a Christmas present from me, so not my fault it didn't arrive. If you're one of the lucky folks who picked something up from the Tavern's 12 Days of OSR Christmas I'm jealous. Highly doubtful the bundle of New Big Dragon Games Unlimited stuff I sent off has arrived yet, but if not, it is definitely on it's way.

Now I'm going to go on a bit of a stretch here and make an assumption that my gaming holiday experience (now) is a bit on the typical side for the average Tavern patron: been gaming since back in the day, family & friends know you're a gamer, but they don't really understand what that means. Maybe they know you sling dice, but the default setting for a definition of "gamer" is that you play video games. Now I don't expect this to describe anyone (other than maybe me) to a tee, but I'm guessing there's maybe a good 50-75% similarity in there somewhere.

For the most part not really "getting it" means you're not going to be getting any cool gamer stuff for Christmas. Of course you may just luck out in that regard (and if so, please share your Christmas loot with the rest of us in the comments!), but I know I didn't. Not a complaint mom (as if she reads this), just an observation. Actually since I mentioned good old mom, I'm in a weird spot in that my mother really doesn't have a clue what RPGs are despite my feeble attempts to explain. She has no clue what D&D is even though I'm certain she's read every single TSR Novel (Dragonlance, Drizzt, Forgotten Realms, etc.) made as an avid fantasy reader.

Too bad for me since I live 12 hours away. If I could get my mother to understand my hobby a bit better she might be able to look around for the rare OSR score at second-hand bookstores that I'm unable to visit. Can you imaging how cool it'd be to have your parents gift you a good copy of an OSR book (like maybe a 1st printing of the Deities & Demigods) that she found at a garage sale for $5? Almost as good as finding that yourself.......but I kind of like the thrill of the hunt, as it was, for collectibles.

Anyway, I "just" get money for Christmas. Really no complaint there as it is a gift and I can use that $ to buy some other things I didn't know I needed. On my trip this holiday season I found a new game/hobby store in Kansas City that had a bunch of miniatures I did not know I needed. I got some Warriors of the Dark Ages and Warriors of Antiquity minis from Victrix Ltd. I've never done armies of minis before, much less the mix & match sprue kind that remind me of Warhammer, but I couldn't pass these things up. I'll definitely have to work on these and report about them later as I think they have a lot of RPG potential even though they are clearly made for wargaming.

I also managed to stop by an "old" comic/hobby shop in the the college where I 1st went to school and scored some minis as well. I was at the university when this shop originally opened 30 some years ago....anyway I got some Reaper Mini Black Henchmen & Hirelings, which was pretty cool.

Altogether between these two shops I picked up 100+ minis that I can add to my collection of figures that will never get painted.

Not really a super cool score, but at least I did get some RPG stuff for Christmas and I still have a couple shops I can visit as I drive back home today.

Now I did not even know that these Reaper Minis existed and while not "super cool", I am actually excited to potentially add them to my game. I'm guessing that some of the folks here at the Tavern did get some stuff that is pretty awesome and honestly, I'd rather enjoy seeing folks share what they got in the comments. If nothing else I might get a couple of things I really want to be on the lookout for as I still have some Christmas money to spend.....

Any Non-Gaming Gaming Plans for this Upcoming "Season"?

By my rough mental math, and I hate to be the person to point this out (but....), we've got only a good week of gaming left for the foreseeable future. That's right, make sure you have a game scheduled, hopefully, for next weekend, or wait until 2022.

Think about it. We have next weekend free and then it's Thanksgiving. Turkey Day rolls into Black Friday, Cyber Monday and then it's all fricken downhill until Christmas. Holiday parties, Christmas shopping, and all the crap that comes with the social obligations of work, school, church, extended families, etc. Sure, you might have some good blocks of free time, but do they align with those free blocks for the rest of your gaming group? Probably not.

So what are you going to do to get your gaming fix on?

There are always video games, maybe some board games with your family (assuming you're lucky enough to be able to do so. Don't get me started about the 3 hour attempt to teach my in-laws a "quick" game of Munchkin.).

Now for me the holidays is a time I try to work on my gaming projects. "Try" is usually the operative word as I tend to bit off more than I can chew. For example, this holiday season I have on my "to do" list:

1. Build a miniature storage case
2. Work on reformatting my d30 tables for publications
3. Create some player tablemats
4. Create some miniature dioramas
5. Paint my minis (well, some of them)
6. Build some dice-rolling towers
7. Work on my digital gaming table
8. Frame the last of my RPG Art
9. Work on my travel table-side RPG case
10. Add to my Appendix N library
11. Work on my mobile arcade rig(s)
12. Build some table-top terrain

Now some of these items have to wait on my getting myself into a new house where I can setup a small woodshop I can actually use during the winter. Assuming that happens I can get some of these done...if it doesn't then all I can do is refine my blue-prints. 

Oh, and we all already know that I'm not going to get my minis painted. That's a pipe dream for certain!

Everything else, is doable and realistically I'll get about half of this list done between now and the end of January.

Now that I'm publicly stating what I'm working on it'll be really embarrassing if I can't follow-through! 

Assuming that you've made it this far and, presumably, have had a hot minute to think about it, do you have any specific non-gaming (as in not around the table) gaming plans for this "off season"?  

Why Does Easter Always Make Me Think about Raise Dead spells and the Like in D&D?

Actually, the why is kinda obvious. According to the New Testament "On the third day he rose again," referring to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

What's interesting in D&D is that the resurrection of Christ would not be a resurrection under the D&D rules - it would more likely be the result of a Raise Dead spell.

Lets see - must be raised within days of death and body must be whole - I guess we can hand wave the need for one day of bed rest for each day dead. Christ WAS the son of God after all.

Which makes me think about the use of Raise Dead and Resurrection (you died a messy death, or one a long long time ago type of spell - from the players' perspective, more likely messy death.)

In game terms, is a Raise Dead spell written as it is because the assumption is that the soul of the deceased hasn't yet reached it's final destination in the afterlife. The soul's attachment to it's mortal body is still strong, thus requiring less power (2 levels lower spell level) than a resurrection spell?

Is Resurrection (on par with a magic-user's Wish spell in power) recalling the soul from it's eternal resting place? If so, what happens if the soul recalled does not want to return?

This is what Easter does to me. Makes me think on multiple levels ;)

Holiday Hit-list Request

Am I the only one that has a problem figuring out what I want for Christmas? I really need to put a list together just to get my family off my back. I'm open to suggestions, whether its gaming, tech or otherwise.

Thanks in advance.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad