Real Life Intrussion

So, I'm about to leave work when my cellphone rings - I don't know the number, but I pick up anyway - which is rare.

"Trace the phone and wipe it!  I think he had a gun, or maybe a knife... CLICK!"  Yep, my son's phone call put me into panic mode.  Rain kept my commute home at a standstill.

Long story short:  my son had his cellphone snatched in the NYC Subway this afternoon by another "youth".  He was going to fight for it when something didn't seem right to him, and he stood down and let it go.  In the end he thinks the other kid had a knife, as he didn't run and was enjoying the confrontation.  My son then used one of those rare payphones you occasionally find in NYC to tell me briefly what happened.

Discretion, the better part of valor.  Property can be replaced.  People can't.

Of course, I'm a father and a sucker, so tomorrow I'll be supplying my kid with a new phone... no contract discount... ouch!

The thing is, after I was comfortable with the idea he was OK, after he talked about what happened, the story he painted, the details he remembered (and those he couldn't), were laid out like a damn good DM setting the scene for the party's latest encounter.  My son weaves an entertaining story.

My kid get's robbed, and I think about his gaming potential at the table. ;)

Most importantly, he is fine, and learned a lesson about showing valuables in public.  Course, my wallet is paying for that lesson...

ICONS on the iPad

My iPad is gonna need a sneeze guard.  I just got my preorder PDF of the ICONS superhero RPG.  Its FATE based, so it should be fun.  K, time to read.  I'll give my feedback after I digest this for a bit.

Allergies Suck Azz!

I sit here before my 28" computer screen (a TigerDirect.com bargain this past winter) wondering how long I have before one of my sneezes nail it dead center.  This afternoon the sneezing started full blast, and it hasn't left yet.  Would this count as an "At Will" power in 4e?  Alright, stepping away from the keyboard for a bit.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll be less congested.

Weekend Buy Backs at the Tavern

It never ceases to amaze me:  the amount and free and quality publications that are usable in old school (or really any school), gaming.

This weekends freebie finds:


Zor Draxtau, Issue 1 - official newsletter of the USHERWOOD ADVENTURES.  OSRIC compatible, it consists of 6 pages you can steal for any of the Old School D&D homages.


The One Page Dungeon Codex 2009, Deluxe - Dozens of dungeons (and other maps) that fit on a single page and are system generic.  If you can't mine this for ideas you need to go back to GM school.

Signs & Portents 80 - Yes, it is Mongoose's house organ, but its an excellent house organ.  This issue is lighter then others in the past, but still priced well.

D6 Core Set - D6 Adventure, Fantasy  and Space.  For free.  Under the OGL too.  (when you follow the link to the download page, download each book separately.  My "Bundle link" just game me the D6 Adventure book).  Further downloads for the D6 system (including the books I just listed) can be found here.

PDF Apps to Read RPGs on the iPad

I'll get back to reviewing more of the VTT market shortly.  At the moment the damn iPad is occupying way to much of my time.  The main use it is seeing, besides surfing the web and emails, is reading my gaming material.  There are different apps that allow it, each has its own quirks.

In brief, we have the following (that i have used so far):

GoodReader - probably the best all around choice based on price, features, and convenience of importing PDFs.  It works nicely will most of the popular Cloud Computing services out there.  I've been using DropBox and Me.  It handles every PDF I've sent its way, even the over 100 MB ones.  Can do bookmarks and search your document.  $0.99

DropBox - my first choice for Cloud Computing.  It also serves as a bells and whistles free PDF reader.  Free

FastPDF - it has a pretty looking bookshelf like Apple uses for their iBooks app.  Damn pretty.  Getting your PDFs there is a damn PITA.  The bookshelf does look very nice with all those striking Old School Covers.  $0.99

Downloader - this app lets you got to websites and download whatever... music, videos, PDFs, etc and let you open them with another app.  So, using this app, I log into my DropBox via the web, download some PDFs, open them, then click to open with FastPDF, and they land on my pretty bookshelf.  Seems to choke on PDFs larger then about 50 MBs or so.  $2.99

iAnnotate PDF - let me start by saying it is a bit buggy right now, as importing PDFs is more then a PITA.  However, for those that you do import, you can highlight, underline, mark up, pin notes, bookmark - it is simply an amazing tool to use when you are going thru a PDF and want to make it yours.  Needs the ability to erase your changes, which I haven't found yet.  Pricey at $6.99, but will be priceless when they work the bugs out and refine it.  Amazing what it can do right now.

Alright, stepping away from the iPad...

My Swords & Wizardry White Boxes!

I have my Swords & Wizardry White Boxes, and they are good!

Only one came with the adventure and map insert, but that's okay, as the extra box will be a giveaway at the next "Gathering of Fools", tentatively scheduled for some time in June (its when my old gaming group gets together a couple of times a year).  I plan to have them do a last man standing with some pre-made PCs... winner gets the box, losers will get the Swords & Wizardry Quickstarts.

I tend to bring gaming material as to pass out at these.  C&C Player's Handbooks when they were for sale real cheap on Buy.com a few years back, Rolemaster Express when it was $5a book if you bought 6, OSRIC soft covers, Labyrinth lord soft covers... you got to feed the beast ;)

Okie, I'm just damn excited.  Going to touch the pages a few more times.

Decision Time

I know the main campaign I'll be running with Fantasy Grounds will be using the Labyrinth Lord rules and the AEC supplement.

My struggle now is do I use the Basic Roleplay rules for the side games or the FATE rules. Can you tell that FATE is fully on my mind now? Heh

Decisions, decisions. Could be worse, I could like none of the available rules as opposed to too many ;)



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I'm Crazy - Really Loopy

Yep, on my weekend getaway I made a purchase at RPGNOW / DriveThruRPPG. Nothing new there, I tend to pick up PDFs there on a nearly weekly basis. I need to find time to read them... heh.

It wasn't the purchase of OUBLIETTE Issue 2 that makes me label myself as crazy. The first issue was a good one and I have no reason to expect anything less from the second issue. This purchase probably marks me as somewhat sane. Haven't done more then glance at it yet.

No, the purchase that marks be as loopy, crazy, jumped into the deep end of the pool is Legends of Anglerre. I'm a big fan of the FATE system even tho I've yet to use it in game. Spirit of the Century, Starblazer Adventures (nice, loose sci-fi rules), Dresden Files... its a great system for storytelling. Legends of Anglerre makes the FATE system accessible to us Fantasy roleplayers. And it looks good so far. I say so far because its a huge friggin book. The damn iPad is getting a workout.

Now all I want to do is read ALL of my FATE powered RPGs and see what I can steal from each. There is not enough free time for me to do so. And it is really driving me loopy. It's not like I can read the stuff at my desk at work... or I could, but the results won't be pretty, work-wise.

I need another vacation. ;)

Posting From the iPad

Hmmm... It seems Blogger and the iPad's default browser have some issues. In order to enter text for this post, I had to "edit HTML". A work around, but not a great solution. I probably should have used a specialized app ;)

Anyhow, all my reading material for this weekend's country getaway resides on my iPad or in a Dropbox folder, waiting for me to grab it. Therein lies another problem I've been having today... Everyone wants to play with the damn iPad, preventing me from reading (and preparing RPG reviews). It looks like one iPad in the family is not enough... Heh

Hopefully back to VTT and RPG reviews tomorrow or Monday. I just need to squirrel away some alone time for me and my iPad. Wait, that doesn't sound right.

Urh? OOTS!

Somehow, someway, I have failed thus far to post about my uber-favorite online comic - Order of the Stick by Rich Burlew.  Major damn oversight on my point.  It single handedly brought me back to gaming.

Go.  Read.   Start at 1. There are 719 strips to go, not counting the extras in the printed collections.

I'm open for suggestions of other comics to follow.  High standard to be met ;)

Midweek Meltdown - Or at Least Rescheduling

Looks like this weekends proposed first session of the Fantasy Grounds 2 / Labyrinth Lord Campaign will need to be rescheduled... Mother's Day is more like Mother's weekend these days, especially when you have two (or more) sides to the family.  Ah well.  Soon.

As a complete aside (and bizarre tangent)  my "get paid to play with your firearm training" has been postponed and instead tomorrow I will be sitting in a classroom learning "Basic Powerpoint".  If you can think of more diverse training I'd love to hear about it.

I've been putting the iPad through a nice workout with the plethora (always wanted to use that word) of PDFs I've been loading up on it.  I'm even going to bed early just so I can read in bed ;)

Next up (or at least soon) should be a small write-up on Battlegrounds.  I just need to find one of the two external hard drives I have it installed on.  Too many gadgets, not enough organization.

Twofer Tuesday

Yep, its a Twofer Tuesday here at the Tavern.

What's the Twofer you might ask?  Two short reviews ;)

First up is  Dark Fate, a Swords & Wizardry Campaign Setting.  Quite simply put, it is a product full of great ideas to lift for your own campaign (assuming you don't want to stick with the included campaign).  Actually, the included campaign information is so thorough, a prospective DM would be well adviced to just read up on a small corner of the detailed world.

It includes some variant rules (personal favorite... undead are harder to turn then in standard rules, but every 2 points of damage inflicted adds +1 to the turn roll - priceless).  It does suffer from one minor (or major problem depending on your sensitivities) issue -  the author is not a native English speaker, and it shows with the tense of verbs and some other awkwardness in writing.  The ideas and presentation rise above this in my opinion, but others may feel differently.  I'd like to thank my iPad for making this a very pleasant read from bed ;)

Next is OpenQuest, a free, total open ruleset of Mongoose's RuneQuest.  As Runequest is published using the OGL.  From the site:

Open Quest is based on the Mongoose RuneQuest SRD (MRQ SRD), with ideas from previous editions of Chaosium’s RuneQuest and Stormbringer 5th, mixed in with some common sense house rulings from the author’s twenty years of experience with the D100 system.

I don't own the Mongoose version of  RuneQuest.  My last experience with RuneQuest was from Avalon Hill, although I did pick up the Chaosium 2nd Edition years ago.  The price is right for me to start checking out the system again.  You can also pick it up in paper format on Lulu, but that kinda defeats the point of free ;)

Fantasy Grounds / LL - Soft Start Set

It looks like this coming Saturday will be the first session of the Fantasy Grounds 2 / Labyrinth Lord campaign I'm starting up.  I call it a "soft date" as it works for me, barring any unforeseen circumstances.  It may not work for my whole group, as the next day is Mother's Day.  The following week won't work for me, as I'll be playing as a player in a C&C campaign.

I've also been trying to get feedback from my players for an alternate campaign or two of one offs - kinda used for pick-up games when we don't have a full group.  I was figuring on using Basic Roleplay for that, as the rules can cover most genres, and a level-less game works better when your party is less likely to be balanced.

Of course that means they overwhelmingly voted to make the alternate campaign Star Frontiers.  Now I need to translate that into Basic Roleplay.  Eh, could be worse... I could be trying to translate Paranoia (great game, decent rules - don't think I could EVER translate it).

Weekend Wrap-Up

So, what did I accomplish towards getting my Labyrinth Lord Campaign up and running?  Nothing

How about getting ready for my next blog piece on Virtual Table Tops?  Nada

Maybe I found a nice RPG product to write a review of?  Maybe.  Dark Fate has my attention at the moment.  It's written for use with Swords & Wizardry, but that hasn't stopped me in the past.

No, Ive been a slave to the iPad.  Dumbass name but an amazing little product.  Dropbox is my friend for moving my PDFs over to the iPad and I've been ignoring family and fiends as best I can to keep my new toy in hand as much as possible.

Now, if someone could write a basic VTT that would run on the iPad... that would be damn sweet.

Back to work tomorrow.  Back to my regular blog posting tomorrow.  Tonight, I'll be reading some gaming material on my newest toy ;)

iPad-arama - 24 hrs with the iPad 3G

Yes, I've gotten about 24 hrs... less sleep, driving, travel, socializing, visiting family... sigh, alright, maybe more like a solid 6 hrs, much of that time spend searching the Apple App Store for, what else?  iPad Apps.

First things first.  The iPad doesn't do flash, in doesn't do external memory, and it doesn't do USB ports, so put your flash drives away.

What it does do (among a whole lot of other stuff) is read PDFs.  That's muy importante to me and just about every other gamer out there that has a collection of RPG PDFs and enough disposable income to pick up what is, for all intents and purposes, an expensive proprietary touch screen computer device.  Thank god my family understands the importance of my "family recycling program"; they know at some point my latest gadget will be theirs when iPad 2 comes out next spring ;)

Back to the PDFs.  Regretfully, most of the apps on my iPhone do not work natively on my iPad.  They either work by using just a small portion of the screen, or they can be blown up, like digital zoom on your camera.  Digital zoom can ruin the sharpness of a picture, and this is no different.  Not a big deal on most games, but for text (like a PDF) this is a game killer.  Now my nice (and expensive) document editor and viewer on my iPhone (DocsToGo) is pretty useless reading PDFs on my iPad.  Definitely annoying and discouraging.

Then I remembered an app I had read about in preparation of receiving my iPad - GoodReader.  If my short term memory is correct it cost 2 bucks in the app store.  There are different ways to get your documents transferred from your computer to your iPad, but the least stressful method (and I tried the stressful ones first) was to use a Cloud computing storage solution that the app could connect to and download the documents I wanted it to transfer.  I used Dropbox, but it supports about 6 cloud storage services.

Basic Roleplaying looks amazing, but the art didn't seem to work in the PDF.  No biggie.  Very readable, especially when one pinches out to get rid of the white margin.

Dark Fate, a S&W campaign setting, looks as good as the printed version would, assuming I had a printed version.  It really looks that good.

Take 5 minutes.  My son is happily playing the piano on my iPad at the moment ;)

The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game - Beautiful in full color.  The Kindle DX has been put to shame.  I pinched out to get rid of the margins.  It was readable at the default size, but the little extra made it so much nicer.

Labyrinth Lord, Advanced Edition Companion - Just a pinch and it was perfect.  I no longer need a hard copy of my gaming material if I wont be GMing (still quicker to flip thru a book then slide the page scroll to fast advance, but not by much).

Knockspell 4 - I was putting off the full in depth read for the arrival of my iPad.  This will be my reading tonight.  Again, just a pinch to enlarge slightly and it is perfect.

Basically, every PDF I've opened on the iPad has looked amazing.  Better then reading on the computer screen.  My preference for all that I've listed above (with the exception of Dark Fate, which didn't need any adjustments) was to pinch out the margins just a tad.  Probably has a lot to do with my eyes going just a tad bad at close work these days (43 is just around the corner).

The iPad is a winner, and for reading PDFs it is damn close to perfect.  The Kindle DX is going to have to drop in price to remain competitive, because as a PDF reader it is a very distant second (and will drop further as more devices get released).

Time to play.  I  want to load up The Dungeon Alphabet and see how it compare to the hardcover I have ;)

iPad - My Girlfriend is Gonna Kill Me

I can't put the sucker down.  Didn't get a chance to start playing with it until about 90 minutes ago, and I've been uploading some PDFs to read tonight.

I'll give a write up tomorrow when I can take an extended break from playing with it ;)

Geek Anticiation - Awaiting the iPad 3G

Yep.  I've gone off the deep end of Apple Geekdom.  I was doing OK until December of 2008, when my son convinced me to get iPhones.  Then there was the Macbook this past fall.  Now I await tomorrow's iPad delivery.

I'm excited for the techie geekness of it, but I'm even more excited with ability to read my PDFs in a native format.  Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed reading most of the RPG PDfs I've placed on my Kindle DX, but the iPad should blow that away.

I fully expect tomorrow's posting will be a review of the suitability of the iPad to read PDFs.  Probably a quick review of some appropriate PDF reading apps.  Some pics of the iPad with some PDFs displayed. 

I never wanted to turn into an Apple fanboy.  Really I didn't.

I even took off from work to ensure someone would be there to sign for the package.

I'll go to my corner now...

(then I'll go back to the VTT reviews and such... might be doing a Q&A with someone involved with MapTools - look Ma, I'm a professional! ;)

Fantasy Grounds 2 - Review(ish)

Its much easier to review a game or RPG supplement than it is to review a Virtual Table Top.  Everyone has different gaming habits, as is easily seen by the different and overlapping style of play, let alone "Old School" vs "New School".  It seems to be even further afield when it comes to VTTs.  The major ones each seem to have found their niche, tho there is overlap with features.  So take my opinions with a grain of salt... or maybe even a pinch.

Fantasy Grounds 2 is probably the most popular commercial VTT on the market.  What are it's main draws?  They are simple really.

Amazing 3-d dice with physics and everything.  You know how players like to play with dice at the table, rolling even when they are not up?  The dice in Fantasy Grounds 2 are so cool you'll find your players doing the same online.  It's addictive, what can I tell you?  heh

Character sheets.  Nothing quite like interactive, self bonus populating, character sheets.  It really does speed things up having all of your character's info right there in front of you, laid out professionally.

Support for many of the major games out there.  Some are commercial add-ons (yes, you have to pay) and some are community created (free).  Generally speaking, the commercial ones add in bells and whistles and access to the rules in game... community driven projects rely more on accurate character sheets.

Off the top of my head, supported games include:  3e, 4e, C&C, Savage Worlds, Labyrinth Lord, CoC, Basic Roleplaying, GURPS, Traveller... there are more, and there is also a genric character sheet for use in unsupported games.

An active community.  An active gamers seeking games / games seeking players forum.  There are always games looking for players, although it may not be for the system you want.

Of course, there are some weaknesses with FG2.  They are big or small, depending on how important the feature is to you.

There is a Fog of War for mapping, but it is not line of sight based (like some other VTTs have).  As the GM you have to reveal the map as you see fit, it is not dynamic.

The dice aren't the easiest to convert to games that need special dice.  There is an extension for FATE/Fudge dice, but the work around isnt the most elegant - hell, its plain awkward.

No built in mapping program, just a chalk board.  There are free and commercial mapping programs out there that do great jobs, but some have remarked on this lack of a feature.

Price.  It isnt cheap.  Then again, neither are commercial RPG game books, video games, computer games, MMORPG games.  It's a one time expenditure.  For some, the bells and whistles pay from themselves.  For others, free alternatives do the job they need.

No VOIP built in, but again, if you want the feature there are many alternatives for free (Skype).

There is a learning curve.  Really, expect to be lost for a bit.  Play as a player before running a game if you can.  Watch the damn tutorial videos.  I can't stress this enough.  Watch and learn.

I've really enjoyed playing in FG2 campaigns and I'm working on running my own to start next month.  It will be my first time DMing in over 13 years.  This is the VTT I've chosen to run with, although that may change down the line.  It fits what my group and I are looking to do at the moment.

So, how do I rate Fantasy Grounds 2?  An exceptional Virtual Table Top that does what it does well.  It's not perfect, but then we are all waiting on perfection for a long time ;)

Fantasy Grounds 2 - Hands On Experience

This isn't going to be a review.  That will come later.  Nope, this will be about how I've used FG2 as a player, and soon, how I will as a DM.

I first picked up Fantasy Grounds back in late 2005 or early 2006... not really sure.  I had already found Klooge, even spent an evening playing in a playtest of a Rolemaster add-on for it, but except for a Play-By-Email game back in the heyday of AOL (damn I wish that game had continued, the GM was an amazing artist and storyteller) I didn't have any experience in on-line gaming.


I'll admit I was overwhelmed at first, and it wasn't until spring of 2008 that I actually got to play in a Fantasy Grounds campaign.  A nice Warhammer 40k Dark Heresy campaign.  The game rocked.  Some personalities conflicted.  New players were brought in.  Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Savage Worlds, Serenity - entertaining false starts. That group lasted a bit over a year and I have no complaints.  Those patient souls taught me a lot about using the Fantasy Grounds Software.  They made me ready from my next campaign:  Castles & Crusades.

I've been playing in a monthly (was weekly, then hiatus, then back again) Castles & Crusades game since fall of 2008.  Not a bad length of time for an online campaign.  Lost players.  Gained players.  Not one personality conflict that I've noticed, just an overall fun group to game with.  Leveling is slow as molasses going up hill, but at the age of 42 I've discovered its not the levels, its not the loot, but the time you spend getting there that is important.  Wonder how well that carries over to real life? ;)

Soon I'll be getting my own Labyrinth Lord game running via Fantasy Grounds.  I doubt I'd be at this point without the fellow gamers that guided me so well.  My hat is tipped to all of them.

Next up I'll give a more review like article on Fantasy Grounds 2.  I just felt the need to ground myself in a bit of personal history first.  :)

Basic Roleplaying Gets GORED

I totally forgot when I was writing up last night's post about Chaosium's Basic Roleplay that Goblinoid Games has given it the "open rewrite" treatment.

Meet GORE, a nice reworking of the percentile system seen Runequest, CoC, Basic Roleplay and others.  Its a nice alternative for gamers on the cheap.

I'll now return you  your regularly scheduled blog ;)

Basic Roleplaying - The Other "Old School"

I remember picking up a copy of Runequest 2, Pavis, Big Rumble and one other damaged (name escapes me) but perfectly usable Chaosium Gloranthian product at a gaming con at Columbia University back in the late 80's.  The amount of care that went into these products was amazing to me at the time (and I am way overdue to pull them ut of storage).  I had hoped the Avalon Hill edition would build upon the the gems that I had found, but it was an unwieldy, unnecessarily complicated beast.

As time went by I found Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, Hawkmoon, Elfquest and the under appreciated (even by me) Worlds of Wonder.  All using the same core gaming engine, nearly unchanged (the core - options galore as time has progessed) since Runequest's initial release back in 1978.

Why all this reminiscing?  I've had the Basic Roleplaying release sitting on my shelf for a bit... truthfully not giving it much of a thought until I saw that Smiteworks had released a Basic Roleplaying ruleset for Fantasy Grounds 2.  It brought back fond memories of Runequest and Call of Cthulhu.  So I picked it up.  Then I went to the Chaosium site and picked up an adventure book and the fantasy rules. (there is a perfectly usable and FREE quickstart pdf available)

Why, when I'm starting up a Labyrinth Lord game in the coming weeks?  Because I've already had a player ask for a quick pick up game, and a RPG without levels, without undue complications, will make it easier to pull a short scenario that is balance for 1-4, then a D&D variant.

Hmm, if I put them through a CoC session, any sane survivors is a sort of victory for them.  ;)

This is post 203.  Seems I passed 200 without even paying attention... heh

OD&DITIES Issue 15 On Sale Now

Full Color cover with this issue.  Not bad.  So, what does your 2 bucks get you in OD&DITIES 15?

First things first.  There is a call for submissions.  If you have something you are looking to see in virtual print, this may be your chance.  Go to the author's blog at OD&DITIES and let him know if you have something to submit.  There are deadlines you know ;)

So, what do you get for your 2 bucks? 

A new class:  The Elementalist.  Its an interesting twist on the arcane caster type, it comes with its own spell list.  Quite possibly worth the price of admission on its own.

An article dealing with what you way encounter traveling on the road.  Nice little piece.

A few pages on resurrection and other such spells.  Since my games tend not to reach the level players can cast, or afford to have other cast, these spells, it hasn't come up for me recently.  It may be a good article for others.

Alternate Alignments:  This goes hand in hand with the new class, as the new alignments are elemental in nature.

Elemental Beasts:  See a pattern?  heh.  Imps and Mephits for you Labyrinth Lord game.

An article and charts for treasure maps.  Useful if you need to define one that the party just found.

All of this ends with "Mr B's Last Word".  

The issues have gotten consistently tighter and professional with each release.  A bargain at 2 bucks.  You owe it to yourself to check out a copy.

VTTs - Where's the Damn Book?

I've noticed that probably the most frustrating aspect about running your RPG sessions with a Virtual Table Top, or VTT software is the lack of newbie usable documentation.

Case(s) in point: 

Fantasy Grounds 2.  The online documentation is really next to worthless in explaining to a new user how to set up and run a game.  Sorry, it sucks.  The download-able manual?  Might help a newbie player, but the GM?  Not enough to run a game.The documentation on how to mod rule sets is pretty much limited to users that have some experience in writing in computer language (XML).

What was the cure for this horrible handicap?  A community created series of tutorial videos.  Vids so good it 's gotten me to the point that I can convert a printed module into FG2 format.  Yes, when I get my game of Labyrinth Lord running, I should have both feet on the ground and some confidence in running a fun and enjoyable game for my friends.  All this thanks to Xorn on the FG2 boards.

BattleGrounds has an outdated user manual, and updated (yet still a bit outdated) user manual and tutorial video.
The included manual is much, much more thorough than FG2

Maptool has a very nice set of community created tutorial videos.  Which helps with the steep (almost overwhelming) learning curve due to the immense amount of custom-ability of the software.

What do these 3 VTTs have in common?  Very active development / revision / patching / enhancing of the software, to the point that keeping an up to date Instruction manual  is next to impossible without stealing man-hours from improving the software.  All there also have active forums and frequent participation by the developers... many questions get answered quickly, but may be hard to find later as they get lost in the forum chatter.

Most learning is either by watching as a player (or as a pure observer) in game, and trial and error as a new GM.  Thankfully these videos put the new GM on firmer footing, which makes for a better game for all involved.  At least, I hope that is the case for me.  We will know in a couple of weeks.

Virtual Table Top Roundup - Part 2

Hmmm... Part 2 of the VTT Roundup is also post 200 for me.  Huzzah!

Oh, and thanks to Heruca over at Battlegrounds for a "holy cow that's alot of VTTS" listing that he's compiled.  Way more extensive then I'm presenting here.

Gametable - Simple and effective VTT for free.  I was playing around with this last year before deciding to take the FG2 plunge.  Simpler then MapTools in my opinion.  A nice choice for a free option.

EpicTable - in development.  Screen shots look good but no ETA given for a playable release.  Forums are relatively active for an unreleased VTT

Glittercomm - freely available as long as hosting costs are covered.  Forums are fairly dead, but it might be a viable option for the gaming group on budget

WeRole - Uhm, I think its a video / chat service.  No screen shots.  Little info.  Subscription based.

JParanoia - Name is pretty descriptive.  This VTT is pretty much all Paranoia all the time. The main site also has a nice general Paranoia forum.  Free

GRiP - Generic Roleplaying for Internet Players.  Forums are up but fairly dead.  Software seems to be no where to be found.  From the looks of things it wasn't that bad a VTT.  Just looks tho, I've never tried it

ViewingDale - Appears to be more of a way to share maps interactively than a true VTT.  Forums are fairly dead.  Paid

TTopRPG 2.0 - A frequently updated VTT with an active designer.  Free

Of course, after listing all of these Virtual table Tops the past few days, I've never really gotten around to explaining what they are.  Cart before the horse I guess.  Next up:  What is a VTT?

Virtual Table Top Roundup - Part 1

Alright, lets get this Virtual Table Top Roundup Started.  I'll go deeper into each of these, as much as I can, later.  In the meantime, consider this the cheat sheet.

Fantasy Grounds 2:  If there is a giant in the VTT playground, this is it.  It has the virtual dice that WotC "borrowed" for their proof of concept VTT.  Recently under new ownership, it has gotten much more responsive to community requests.  Paid

iTabletop / Pandoren: While other VTTs get by with IM's and Group chat features, this one stresses Voice and Video.  iTabletop is the current (much less enhanced) version while Silvetable / Pandoren is the hopefully, soon to be released on the masses, gaming nirvana.  At least, I hope it hits that high note ;)  Paid

Battlegrounds RPG:  Before FG2 came under new ownership there wasn't a VTT that had as responsive a developer as Battlegrounds.  More map centric than other VTTs, Heruca is constantly updating it with new releases and patches.  Paid

Klooge:  One of the granddaddies of the VTT sphere, there are still some VTT grognards working on mods for it.  Paid

Screenmonkey:  Just the GM needs the software - the players log in and interact thru their web browser.  Paid for Full version, Free for the Lite version.

Maptools:  The constantly updated free alternative to the paid VTTs.  It has a large following and a very active community.  Free

OpenRPG:  Probably the grandaddy of the freeware, and one of the oldest VTTs still out there.  Free

K, that a quick list of the main VTTs (in my humble opinion).  I'll dig a bit for the more obscure or up and coming VTTs for part 2 of the list, and then get into the VTTs themselves.

Monday Mashup

First, I'd like to thank Kiltedyaksman for being my 25th follower.  Welcome.

Secondly, I'm working on a quick post to be used as an overview of the main (as I see them) Virtual Table Tops out there.  Later on I'll go into each one in a bit more depth, and include personal experiences where applicable.  Safe bet the Fantasy Grounds 2 will be the first one to get the in depth treatment.

Tonight is Zero Session part 2.  Working with my fourth player to get his character ready fro the campaign.  Should be fun :)

Correction, it is fun.  Edit: Was fun.

Party consists of a Fighter, a Thief, a Cleric and a Druid.  Might be able to guilt a 5th player to play the Magic User ;)

Keeping it Positive

As mentioned in my last post, last nite was a kind of "Zero Session" for my new Labyrinth Lord Campaign. It was character generation, playing with the Fantasy Grounds interface and general discussion of the rules. Skype was a godsend.

At one point one of my players (who had already decided on being the party cleric) frustratingly announced "I guess I'll be a human". He had been deciding between dwarf and gnome, but then he noticed the level restrictions and was backing away from his character concept. Not a good start when trying to bring people back to gaming who have been out of it for 12 years or more.

My solution last nite? I told him to make the choice based on concept and I would adjust the rules.

A few weeks ago the issue of demihuman level limits was making it's way around the OSR blogs. My idea was making the listed level cap a "Soft Cap" and reducing expo by 50% after hitting the soft cap (adjusted by any expo bonus due to high stats). I'll be sticking with that with one exception: single class characters have their soft cap increased by 2 levels. My reasoning is that the focus on one class allows them to push themselves that much harder. We will see how it plays out in game.


- Posted from my iPhone

Fantasy Grounds / Labyrinth Lord - Session Zero

I just did a 90 minute Intro to Labyrinth Lord / Advanced Edition Characters and Fantasy Grounds 2 for a few friends and I can already tell its going to be one hell of a game when it gets rolling ;)

We used Skype as we've all been friends for anywhere from5 to 25 years or so... no awkward silence, just many bad jokes told by all.  It was nice seeing guys from my old weekly face to face game from 13 years ago slinging virtual dice as they created characters.  So far we have a Cleric, a Fighter and a Thief.  I think our fourth player is going to be a Ranger, so they may be magic poor, but I'm sure they will cope fine.

I'm going to need to sit down and rewatch Xorn's amazing FG2 tutorial videos.  Especially if I plan on using some of the LL modules that are out there.  A few hours of prep time will speed the game up many times over.

ze bulette has a valid point about my idea to review some of the VTTs out there, or at the very least give a comprehensive overview of what is available.  Consider the challenge accepted.  It will start appearing on this blog on a fairly regular basis, perhaps as early as Monday if I get lucky ;)

Tomorrow is a six hour round trip to pay my respects for 15 minutes at a former co-worker's wake.  Thank God my kid can drive :)

Knockspell 4 is Out

Ah, the joys of electronic publishing and instant gratification for the consumer. I caught the post at The Society of Torch, Pole and Rope last nite that Knockspell 4 was released.  Minutes later it was mine to hold.  Well, maybe not literally hold, but virtually hold.

Then I promptly  went to sleep.  What can I say?  I had a long day.

Tonight I've flipped pages... okay, I've scrolled thru the magazine and it appears to be quality as always.  That being said, my eyes were drawn immediately to the article reporting on Online Gaming.  Play by Post, mail, blog, Google Wave, chat, VTTs.  Sorry, but a bit of a disappointment.  I know its billed as a quick overview, but I really wish there had been a mention of more of the Virtual Table Tops that are available.  Half the article dealt with VTTs and was pretty much... well, not much of anything.  It centered on OpenRPG with a throw away mention of Fantasy Grounds.  I guess this is something I could write up myself for submission to one of the mags.  I've toyed with at least a half dozen of the VTTs out there ;)

Bits N Pieces

Jeff over at Jeff's Gameblog has critters that were rejected from the Fiend Folio. For something to fail the Flumph test it has to be good. Go ahead, check it out. I'll be here when you return...

See, still here.

Anyhow, I was / am one of the Charter Members of Monte Cook's Dungeon a Day. Kinda haven't been to the site in a while, what with all the goodies elsewhere on the web. Went back today and the first 4 levels are available in PDF format, free to current Charter members. Sweet!

I'm trying to decide what to run when my Fantasy Grounds 2 / Labyrinth Lord game gets off the ground. Convert some C&C mods, convert Dungeonaday or run with Stonehell. Decisions, decisions.

Well, the first session or so will be the Tomb of Sigyfel I think. Nice and short. Should work well as a reintroduction after a dozen years out of the game for most of my players ;)

Dresden Files: A First Impression, Part the First

Wow.

Ack! I guess you want a bit more then that. First things first, I'll be referring to the pre-release Dresden Files RPG PDFs here. Yes, they look awesome. Not suitable for printing as the page background has a graphic to make the pages look yellowed: it's a nice effect but an ink waster. Then again, at over 400 pages who the hell plans to print out the PDF? I'll happily wait for my dead tree copy to arrive.

The book is presented with fake handwritten notes from the game designer, "Harry" himself, and a few others. Very entertaining and they offer a nice inside glance into the system. Some might find it distracting I expect, so know your own tastes in this one.

I've made it up to (i've begun reading but far from finished) Chapter 3. This is where the group decides on and designs the city the campaign will take place in. Interesting twist as this is done before generating characters. Baltimore is the default if your group doesn't want to go through the process and it is provided as an example.

Alright, that's as far as I've gotten so far. More soon. Remember, you can get a free preview here.

Get Savaged for Less

With Pinnacle's fairly liberal licensing scheme for its Savage World's rule system there has been a proliferation of Savage World's compatible releases. It a way its almost like the D20 explosion, but this one is mostly (thus far) PDF in format.

Some publishers have gone as far as giving a good chunk of their products away as a free preview. I'm not talking a dozen or two pages, more in the range of 60+. Certainly enough to get an idea if the book full bok is right for you, and a great way to borrow and steal freely available material for your own campaign.

Interface Zero (Savage Worlds edition), Players Guide Beta test From Gun Metal Games is the first 3 chapters (over 60 pages) of cyberpunk for your Savage Worlds gaming. Your character generation rules are here. Also works well as a Player's Character Creating Guide so all the players aren't looking over the GM's shoulder.

Savage Suzerain Play Now, For Free From Savage Mojo is nearly 100 pages. For this I'm gonna borrow in the publisher's own words:

Not sure whether you want your characters to be a pantheon in the making? Before you invest in some major gaming pleasure… Product Contains: A 98 page full color, hi-resolution PDF. It is a large download file and art intensive. Inside are 24 pre-generated character sheets for six characters at four power levels, plus all the universe background and game rules needed to play those characters at any of the power levels. There’s also a detailed description of how those characters were made from our resident Savage Worlds guru, Alan Bundock and five One Sheet adventures to get your GM started.

Not too shabby for the gamer on the budget.

Then again, there's the game I've been waiting for for ages, and I've already plunked 90 bucks down for the dead tree / PDF preorder (and its not savage Worlds, its Fate / SotC):

The Dresden Files RPG Preview: Nevermore From Evil Hat Productions, LLC. If you've read ANY of the books in the Dresden series you'll know why this excites me. If you haven't, you owe it to yourself to start. I already have the PDFs from the preorder... the 2 books combine for some 900 pages or so... time for me to take a week off sick from work to start reading. ;)

Carcasonne Big Box, Big Hit

My mother and my girlfriend have both become hugeCarcasonne fans, even moreso since I picked up the Big Box set with the expansions.

What I've done over the past few weekends is add one aspect / element of an expansion each day we play.

It's going to be a while before I'll be able to tear them away to play any of the other board games I picked up ;)


- Posted from my iPhone

Talislanta - Elf Free for Free

GROGNARDIA: New and Free Games of Interest

Thanks to James over at Grognardia for bringing this to my attention. I remember the ads for this game vividly back in Dragon magazine, but was far too much of a TSR fanboy to stray too far from AD&D those days (Traveller and Rolemaster/MERP were as far as I went).

Talislanta apparently has been released under the Creative Commons license. I say apparently because a quick reading of the forums shows there is some confusion as to the restrictions (if any) to the distribution with some conflicting wording. In any case, it is a treasure chest of material to rip for your own game of choice. Use it well

Back Behind the (Virtual) Screen

Anyhow, I'm sitting in a semi crowded room, waiting for my son to get interviewed for a volunteer position he's interested in, and I'm feverishly answering emails on my iphone from my gamer friends.

Suddenly, I get the "Wasn't Erik going to run a game using one of those online interfaces he's been using?" Next thing I know I have 4 players (2 from my old pen n paper group from 13 years ago) talking about what they want to play.

It appears I'll be running a Labyrinth Lord game (possibly with the Advanced Edition Companion thrown in the mix) using Fantasy Grounds 2. I would use Silvertable (from the guys at iTabletop) but it's not outa of alpha yet. I have 2 weeks to prep. Wish me luck ;)

Classic Traveller for Free

Lo and behold, I logged into my RPGNow account when I got home from work and I see the Classic Traveler Starter Set, the very same set I purchased as a teenager. It was the second game I purchased for myself (Gamma World was the first... my parents bought me the three AD&D books that got me started in roleplaying).

Anyhow, the set is being given away for free. You may need to check your email on your RPGNow account to download part 2 (the charts) and part 3 (the adventures).

This is a great game at a great (free) price. Get it now, before someone on the other side changes their mind and actually puts a price on it ;)

Vacation is Over... Did I Miss a Party?

After a fine 9 days off, I'm back to work tomorrow. If things had gone perfect in the scheme of grand karma, the iPad would have shipped on its first reported date and in all likelihood the iPad w/ 3G would have come out this past week and I would be giving a hands on review right now... especially as to how it handles PDFs.

Alas, the 3G won't be shipping until the end of April... which means I won't be getting my iPad until then. In for a penny, in for a pound. If I'm willing to blow 5 bills, may as well blow the whole wad and have access to the net away from Wi-Fi.

Yes, I'm a techie AND a gaming geek... so beat me! See, the money I save getting my gaming in PDF format is funding my iPad purchase. Really! Or not, but it sure sounds good ;)

In the meantime my Kindle DX is serving me well. As an aside, if any of my Kindle subscribers (and there are a few) have trouble with any links i may have posted (or will post) email me at Erik AT Trublunite DOT net. Amazing what you have to do to fend of the trolling spam bots!

Amazing Thing About the OSR

Is that there are always new products hitting the Virtual Shelves. Or old products that gets rediscovered.

Course, if you are like me and want just about every new product that is Old School in presentation price, and space becomes an issue. PDFs tend to cost less then print and consume no space... tastes great AND less filling.

So I say thank God for access to PDF publishing software. And PDF distributors. And PDF publishers, writers, artists and fans. Without all of them I doubt much of the OSR would have taken hold.

PDF publishing lowered the cost to enter the market. Yet with little overhead for PDF distributors the D20 Implosion won't be an issue.

Oh, and Lulu isnt all that bad... except when the US Post Office loses your stuff... but that's a rant for later.

Enjoy the Holidays / Holy Days all!

Are You a Fan... zine?

It seems like this little thing collectively known as the Old School Renaissance (wow, spelled that w/o the spell checker)has spawned another fanzine. We have two print / PDF magazines so far (Fight On! and Knockspell) and two PDF only magazines / fanzines. OD&DITIES is a fairly recent resurrection and bang for the buck has been good so far. Really, at 2 bucks an issue its hard to go wrong.

The newest addition is Oubliette. Again, bang for your 2 bucks is pretty good. My personal highlight? Subdual rules for LL. My low? The gobbie themed adventure. Sorry, too far from the norm for me to take to it.

4e has one print mag, and its not even from WotC.

Long live the OSR ;)

I Was a Teenage Gamer

Hey, I made the big time! ;)

Anyhow, last nite my son (soon to be 17... oh those teenage years) was looking over my shoulder as I was blogging / reading blogs. He says to me "people are still playing those games?" and later asked "how many people play those games?". These questions are leaps and bounds past the usual "You call Fantasy Grounds graphical?"

That and he's looking to read novels based on the TV series The Unit. My kid HATES reading. I think I might turn him in to a gamer yet. At least, he's thinking about it... in that of so frustrating teenage way. Me, I was so taken in my Lord of the Rings I was ready to get my gaming feet wet in 8th grade.

In the meantime we still have Star Trek Online together... and he's outleveling my ass in that game.. god bless him ;) Oh, and its very graphical... heh

Mythmere’s Adventure Design Deskbook

This is gonna be a quick and dirty review of Mythmere’s Adventure Design Deskbook, Volume One: Principles and Starting Points. Damn, how's that for a long ass title?

Anyhow, to some extend the introduction reads like a college textbook about RPG adventure design. Don't let that fool you or deter you. The meat of this product is its charts... and yes the do deliver.

This is NOT The Dungeon Alphabet. That was a slick production with amazing art and themed charts. Some people even complained about the scarcity of charts and tables in the The Dungeon Alphabet - 26 letters in the alphabet should have given most of those interested in the product a general idea of the number charts and tables they could expect to find.

Mythmere’s Adventure Design Deskbook takes a more practical or workman like approach of its presentation of tables and charts. This 46 page long, sparsely illustrated book is packed with charts that will flesh out the who, what, where, when and why of the latest adventure you plan to subject you group to. Motivations, twists, hidden history.. its all there.

5 bucks for the PDF version is a steal! Well done... this is dying to be put in a small program that will kick all the chart results out to the DM in waiting. Already looking forward to the next volume.

By the Letters...

There have been a good number of reviews of The Dungeon Alphabet since its release.  I even did one on the PDF version, which I liked alot.  I found the dead tree version on Amazon for 10 bucks, free shipping, so I had to bite.

As much as I enjoyed the PDF, the dead tree version is a killer with its artwork.  Any one of these pieces would look fine on my wall as a framed print.  They are that good, and that evocative of my gaming years when I was a teenage gamer.

If you can find yourself a copy in hardcover, do yourself a favor... grab it!

On a side note, this is day two of my country getaway.  Wheee!

Tomorrow I may give a short write up of Friday nite's C&C game I played in via Fantasy Grounds 2.  Or perhaps another review.

A Game I Regret I Wont be Attending

Quick repost of the game Joethelawyer will be running tomorrow in Manhattan (lifted from the TARGA site and The Mule Abides) .  This is the 2nd Annual Dave Arneson Memorial Gameday tomorrow, March 27, 2010.

Thanks to the generous support of the Compleat Strategist, we will be meeting in the gaming space of   their New York location:
11 East 33rd Street (between Madison and Fifth Avenue)
New York, NY 10016
212-685-3880
Games will begin at noon and wrap up at 5, to allow time for cleanup before the store closes at 6.

I had planned to attend, but it appears that events (vacation) are going to preempt the attempt.

I need someone to roll some dice it my stead ;)

Thankfully I do get to play in my monthly FG2 Castles & Crusades  game tonight... small consolation, but still better then no gaming at all this weekend.

One a Positive Note

It seems that the loss of quality bloggers has increased my blog's traffic immensely.  Damn fools ;)

Anyhow, I need to cheer myself up, so I think I'll do a review.  As the vast majority of my reviews are of products I actually like and enjoy, they make me feel good when I write them.  Come to think of it, my negative reviews are cathartic in their own way... so all the reviews I write make me feel good.   

I just loves me some OD&Dities.  OD&Dities Issue 14 to be exact.

Now, it is a thief themed issue, and I've never been all that keen on playing thieves let alone bring their Guilds into the campaign as anything more then a distant backdrop.  Suffice to say the articles on Thieves Guilds I could take or leave, but that is a personal prejudice.  The article on Thief Skills however, was an excellent read.  Some decent ideas I'll need to keep in mind when DM'ing.

Worth the price of admission alone is the article on the not so lowly Magic Missile spell.  Very nice, useful and probably not all that balanced variations of the basic spell.  Keeps the PCs off guard with one of these choices.  Very well done.

A new class, or sub-class of Magic-User is introduced:  The Puppeteer.  Just as Illusionists specialize in illusions, Puppeteers specialize in charms and mind control.  Having given the class a quick read thru, I expect it would play better as an NPC (nice reoccurring Bad Guy type) but proof is in the play.  I've already have ideas coming to me as to making a nice party nemesis with this at the template.  Mmmmm... brains!

Those are the highlights.  There are a few other articles for your enjoyment.  I've been thinking that the one page QUALITY article was the thing of the past (I'm looking at you Crusader) but the Unusual Enemies one pager is good.  A thinking man's article (or woman's).

2 bucks for 25 pages of Labyrinth Lord goodness.  Well worth the price.

Three Down

I have my count of lost, or soon to be lost, OSR blogs at three.

Chgowiz's Old Guy RPG Blog  was the first to tap out.

 

The Old School Ranter is wrapping up on Friday apparently.

The Rusty Battle Axe will be leaving at the end of the month, for reasons dissimilar to the first two, but a damn shame none the less.

Three damn good blogs, not because of the topics they posted, but because of the people that did the posting.  The damn 'net is a double edge blade. 

Shit's getting damn depressing.  Tomorrow I'll sneak in a review.  I need something to cheer myself up.

Was it a Full Moon last Weekend?

I only ask because of the lunacy that prevailed in the little corner of the web I like to relax in.

After all this is said and done, do we have to redefine what constitutes "Old School Gaming" and by its very nature, what is "Porn"?

Because the gaming in the video in question might have loosely hit upon old school gaming, but I certainly missed the porn  (really, as in "WTF!  Where is the T&A in this vid?)

Chgowiz  has left the building.  Dude, don't EVER leave in anger.  More importantly, don't let an ASSHOLE dictate your actions.  'Nuff said.

TARGA - leaner?  smaller? larger? unfocused?  more focused?  tastes great?  less filing?  Did you even know about it before The Old School Rant up and ranted the mother of all rants? 

More people probably knew about Zak and his weird as all shit Pornstar filled gaming group.  Weird as in "what kinda pornos do they star in" kinda weird.  As a gaming group goes... fairly normal composition... except that its full of girls.  That stuff NEVER happens in real life. (Well, according to one reviewer this was played by an all girl group - she also insinuated I lacked brains... which might be true, but the product still sucked)

Okay, I'm getting off topic it seems.

Then again, the whole weekend of Ranting was off topic.

Listen, if there is one thing I've learned having a 16 y/o son is that he will find the porn no matter the method I try to block it.  Kids are smarter then most give them credit for, and if they want to find it on the web odds are they will find it quicker then you ever could.

Besides, I'd expect he'd be very disappointed in Zak's little video ;)

It's a Classic Two-Fer Tuesday!

I'm always looking for adventures written for the Classic D&D / AD&D rulesets.  Sometimes I find two on the same search.  This time I found 2 in 1.  Yep, its a damn flipbook, which is annoying as a PDF, but cool in the "it's got 2 short low level AD&D adventures in 1" sort of way.

I'm talking about the Dungeon Crawl Classics Flip Book from Goodman Games.  Now, I'm sure the flipbook format works great in print, but as a PDF the presentation is less then ideal.  Get ready to use the rotate button in your PDF viewer.  Still, for less then 5 bucks you get two quality adventures that can be easily used with any Old School system without much work.

Figure 2 sessions of gaming for less then the price of a Subway's Footlong.  

Isn't that better the Classic Rock Two-Fer Tuesday on the local rock station?

Random Monday Madness

Sigh.

Spent the weekend going thru bouts of food poisoning.  Not fun. 

Still, I'm home and I'm finally able to appreciate Fight On! #8.  Is it just me or is the artwork getting better and better?  7 bucks for the PDF is a steal for the amount of material that is packed into this issue.  I do have one little quibble... hyperlinks... why are there no hyperlinks in the PDF?  Yeah, I can copy and paste the link, but a hyperlink makes it effortless.  No biggie.  More curious then anything.

Nice.  Thunder and Lightning here in NYC at the moment. 

Just got the complete Little Rascals DVD collection delivered earlier today.  Hmmm, that could make for the setting of a simple and silly RPG at some point.  Backburnering that ;)

Trying to track down my sources of free and cheap old school RPG material.  Might take a wee bit.

See, I told you it was going to be random.

Bits n' Pieces

My intention was to do a quick and dirty review of Fight On #8.  I made my purchase thursday nite of the PDF, promptly downloaded it to my desktop, took a peek and went to sleep.  Yesterday (Friday) the family headed to the country for the weekend.  I figured I'd download a second copy via my mini lappy and el cheapo DSL... but Lulu has thrown me a curve ball.  I can download anything in myvaccount with the singular exception of... you guessed it, Fight On #8.  So, that review will have to wait.

In the meantime, let me point you in the direction of The Outpost on the Edge of the Far Reaches, available as a free download at Lulu.  Its a Old School adventure for 1st to 3rd level adventurers of the OSR ruleset of your choice.  Ascending and descending ACs are included to make it easy on the DM no matter the system of choice.

Haven't done more then a quick read thru, but what I've seen looks very usable, and I can always use another low level dungeon to wear down and toughen up some new PCs.  The price is definitely right... Free.

I'll give this a further read tonight as I look forward to reading my Fight On #8 tomorrow.

Half a Hobbit is Better then None

Over the past few days there have been a couple of blog posts here and there dealing with the level limits demihumans in particular suffer in the various "old school" editions of D&D / AD&D.  Most, if not all of the suggestions, included giving humans an expo boost if one were to remove the level caps from the other races.  I lean in a different direction in my "solution" to the issue (assuming there is even an issue at all, as except for halflings in D&D, most races can hit a level well in the range that the vast majority of the campaigns I've played in have ended at... but that's a whole 'nother post for another day).

My way of dealing with it, if it comes up in the next game I run, will be to treat the level caps as "soft caps".  Once a character hits a "soft cap" on their level, they suffer a 50% reduction on all future expo (if they have an expo bonus due to an exceptional stat it lowers the penalty by the amount of the bonus).

Demihumans under the "soft cap" method will keep pace with their human companions for the early levels, but the advanced levels will come slower to them.  That being said, they will still have the opportunity to increase in level and power... they will not need to be retired, nor will they be forced to adventure for no experience gain.

Hmmm, unless someone plays a halfling in my next campaign it will be a while before this plays out.... assuming it even gets that far.  Time will tell.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day!

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day.  Of all the Western European / American style holidays, I think St. Pats converts the easiest as a drop in even to a campaign.  Just get the locals drinking a strangely colored beer, a band playing some weird bladder powered instruments, a nice march through town square and lots of people wearing the same color clothes as the strangely colored beer and your set.

Heck, I left out any sort of religious significance, as for the most part there is very little, at least here in the states (there are special masses, and occasional dispensation when the holiday falls on a friday and the masses want to eat their corned beef).  St. Pat drove the snakes from Ireland... what kind of miracles would a D&D "St.Pat" have performed to achieve such a status?

Crit or Miss.. Why?

Critical hits and Dungeons & Dragons have a long, if largely unofficial history.  Most DMs have put together their own critical hit tables and fumble tables, or at least have borrowed from some of the many tables that have found their way into old issues of Dragon Magazine, Rolemaster or other games.

Most of those tables rely upon a to hit roll being a natural 20 (or a natural one for fumbles).  Which basically means a fighter that almost always can hit has a small percentage of crits, and a large number of his misses are fumbles.  Something about that just doesn't seem fair.

My solution, or at least, what I'll be experimenting with in my next Labyrinth Lord game, is the use of a control die.  I may us a d10, or even the lonely and rarely used d12.  Roll maximum on the control die when you score a hit with the d20 and you've scored a crit... miss when you roll a 1 on the control die and you've scored a fumble.

As for the effect of a critical hit or a fumble, choose you favorite tables or use the maximum damage for crit, attack lost next round for the fumble.  You can even make the control die open ended if you wish, adding damage or negative effects as warranted.

Any thoughts?

I Was Lost, Now I'm Found

Well, not really lost... more like sleep deprived and stuck at work.  I went to work as usual around 715 Thursday morning and didn't leave until 1115 Friday morning.  No naps, no dozing.  28 hours, nearly 11 of which were cash over time.  It is, most definitely a beautiful thing, but it does take some time to recover to a normal sleep schedule afterward.

It did get me thinking about D&D, adventuring parties, and how far they could push themselves before succumbing to the need for sleep, the penalties for sleep deprivation and ways to combat those penalties.

I found that burning anger at a co-worker that wasn't around to unleash at was better then any caffeinated beverage ;)

I also paid close attention to the ebb and flow of my energies and alertness.  Once I rolled around to 6 am on Friday I found some renewed energy... probably because that is around the time I roll out of bed on workdays.

I'm going to be looking closer at sleep deprivation and the Adventuring Party later on.  I'm too tired to think about it now :)

If its Free, Its For me...

"If its free, its for me" is a bit of an on going joke on my job.  Public servants seem, for the most part, to be frugal with their money...hell,  they're damn cheap.  We're  in it for the pension, not to make it rich.  So if you can pinch some pennies, so much the better.

RPGNow is running a Read an E-Book special for the next four days or so.  The vast majority of the 1000 plus free downloads were free before, and will be free afterward, but there are gems to be found.  One is White Wolf's World of Darkness Rulebook.  I might not play with the Storyteller system myself, but if it's free, it's for me ;)

I've yet to find an RPG product that can't be strip mined for another system.

As most of those that follow this blog know, I'm big into E-Books and E-Book Readers, so this promotion is pretty interesting to me.

Adventure Games Publishing has Ceased

Adventure Games Publishing, James Mishler's RPG Company, has ceased publishing.  This is truly a shame, as James' work on the Wilderlands of High Adventure for Castles & Crusades was top notch.  I would know, I was one of the early subscribers to his proposed line of products.  Regretfully, what James planned and what was finally produced never really worked as planned.

James' problem was neither talent nor work ethic.  It was a soured economy and his aiming at a niche within a niche within a niche within a niche (Wilderlands of High Adventure - Wilderlands from Judge's Guild - Castles & Crusades - OSR - Roleplaying).  His market was small, and if he didn't convert a large percentage of it, business was going to be tough.

His planned, extremely ambitious for a one man show, monthly releases, lasted two products (high quality products mind you, both in production and in usability).  Small releases followed.  Credit for those early subscribers, and how to convert the credit into the newer products was decided upon.

In the end James aimed extremely high.  He missed his target, which I'm not even sure was attainable.  If you have to ask your readers and customers to donate money so you can buy a paper cutter, that is a good point to probably re-evaluate your business model.

I have no words of wisdom via 20-20 vision to suggest what James could have done differently for a different outcome.

I mourn the failure of a endeavor by a talented man, who gave the OSR and roleplaying in general extremely useful and professional gaming material.  Maybe not so much failure, because I do own his early successes.  Potential unfulfilled instead.  A shame.

James, I wish you the best in whatever career move presents itself to you, now and in the future.  Maybe, when things sort out, you can again share your vision with us.  On a pace that best serves you... no AGP, not your readers... you.

Wasted Weekend Wrap Up

For the first time in... forever... I did a whole lot of nothing this weekend. When I say "nothing", I'm comparing it to the "two 4 hour shifts of driving lessons for my son, shopping, trip to my folks' place in the Poconos for even more driving lessons for my son, trips to the girlfriend's side of the family (aka: more driving lessons for my son)." This was a very nice, low key, snuggle up and watch TV and walk around the park kinda weekend.

Except for the dog / cat interaction that was worked upon. See, the girlfriend is a dog person, I'm a cat person, and trying to get the two pets to interact is full of trials and failures, but each time gets closer and closer to working it seems. My little girl Ashley does the avoidance method, but then can't help but checking things out as the day goes on. She is curious. Chloe (my g/f's little long haired Dachshund) likes to act all big and intimidating, but the truth is she is a pussy cat at heart.

Calls to mind the Old School / New School chest bumping that's been going on recently. I'd like to think it will resolve itself as a "can't we all get along" and "the differences is what makes us so special" as opposed to "typical dogs and cats". 'Cause dogs and cats aren't that typical.

You Got Your Guns in My Fantasy

I remember 1st Edition AD&D having short conversion notes on using Boot Hill and Gamma World Characters in AD&D. Back in the day it struck me as strange. Who would want to mix guns with their fantasy? It seemed unrealistic to me (in retrospect how can that be any more unrealistic then fantasy itself, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms).

Then we were introduced to the Quasi Deities of the World of Greyhawk. Muryland (guessing at the spelling there) was a Paladin with a six shooter. Obviously guns were around in EGG's campaign. Yet if I recall correctly gunpowder was inert in Oerth... no gun powder, no guns. (copout way to handle it if you ask me)

Not that I would want guns to be a part of my fantasy gaming. For me they never felt right for the genre, but that doesn't mean it couldn't work. I did try to integrate them into a campaign years ago... the players to a man preferred the firearms they weren't proficient in over their usual weapons. I ended that experiment shortly there after by removing usuably ammo from circulation.

See what happens when I watch a special about marksmen and trick shooters on the History Channel? Of course my favorite segment was hitting an arrow with an arrow (if it had split the original arrow it would have been even cooler).

Flame Off!

Alas, the yesterday's short Flaming Troll incident over at LotFP was extinguished by James last nite (early morning his time). It kept me up a bit later then I had intended, but a good show can do that.

Anyone can be quoted out of context and shoehorned into supporting whatever arguement one wants to make.

New School, Old School... It's all Rock and Roll to me ;)


- Posted from my iPhone

Two Years Ago...

Two years ago we lost a legend. I remember the day well. I was in my office, catching some posts of the Troll Lord Games Forums, and there was a thread that Gary Gygax has passed. I was floored. My eyes teared up. Not a pretty sight in a 40 year old hardened member of law enforcement.

2008 hasn't started out well at all. Mid January I was transferred from to a unit that was just starting up. An amazing conflict of personalities ensued.

On the last Thursday of the month, my ex (my son's mother) had a brain hemorrhage. She passed on the 3rd of February, never regaining consciousness from that Thursday. (Rest well Minnie)

My plan for that summer was to go to the Lake Geneva Con, and kindly accept and invitation Gary had extended to me (and I am sure many others), to roll some dice with him on his front porch. Alas, that was never to be.

Still, some good did come out of all these losses. My son and I are closer then we've ever been (he's counting the days until he's 17 and can take his road test for his driver's license). I got off my ass and started to actually game again, as opposed to just reading about it... thank God for Fantasy Grounds 2 and other VTTs... they are a great tool for the gaming single parent. I mean, if I couldn't game with Gary, the least I could do was game again.

This hobby of ours helped me realize a lot of the stress of 2008. Its a shame it took Gary's passing to make me realize just how important gaming and the friendships it helps start and old friendships it strengthens really is.

As long as people game, and long as they can bond across the dining room table, the Virtual table, any playing surface, the game lives on. I don't think Gary would really care which game it was, as long as you were playing with, or making new, friends,

Distractions...

My god but today is a day of distractions. Lets see, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 arrived... looks damn purty even if it has nuthin' to do with RPGs (well, except maybe rocket propelled grenades).

I also had my latest (and last for now) delivery of board games. Dominion (really a card game it seems), Nuclear War (er, also a card game) and Descent. Holy crap but that comes in a big and heavy box.

All those goodies and RPGNow is running a GM's sale. I'm thinking about picking up some 1e Dungeon Classics. It's just that there is so much to look at...

Gamer ADD. It's an awful disease. It attacks the wallet and your free time ;)

Quick edit: I didn't realize White Haired Man Games was part of the sale. If you use Fantasy Grounds 2 for your Virtual Table Top of choice they made some real nice products... on sale they are even nicer.

Edit to the Edit: Goblinoid Games (publishers of Labyrinth Lord) have their products on sale. That's it. No more shopping for me tonight. Sale lasts to March 8th anyway.

Back to Basic

So, I used to have my bedroom closet stacked with my gaming crap, floor to ceiling. It was never very orderly. When my son moved in full time, I gave him my bedroom. Shortly thereafter I moved everything out of the lower part of the closet to give him storage and basically pile the crap haphazardly into different closets and storage space... I wasn't paying attention to what went where, let alone what was what.

Tonight I started trying to go thru and organize my old rule books, magazines, modules and such. Lo and behold I find my copy of the D&D basic rulebook, 1st print Moldvay. Haven't seen it in years... heck, I never actually played it, as I started with AD&D. I picked up the boxed set at some general discount store back in the day. All the boxes for sale were beat to crap, but all were shrink wrapped and they were like $3 bucks a pop. Ah, memories.

Seems like my 1st edition, beat to hell, AD&D PH and DMG are still in the top of my son's closet. That will be for another day. Damn, and my old MERP stuff. Did get to flip thru my Warhammer Fantasy Role Play 1st Edition rulebook.

In any case, look like I'll be rereading Moldavy's Basic D&D tonight...

Ancient Odysseys: Treasure Awaits! Maybe...

Ancient Odysseys: Treasure Awaits! is billed as a beginners / introductory role playing game. How well does it accomplish its task?

Well, first things first: Ancient Odysseys - Treasure Awaits! can be played with or without a GM (referred to as a Director in the rules). Having read thru (yet to play) the game rules, I would say that it probably works okay without a GM, but if a group were to play more then once or twice a GM would be needed to add depth to the roleplaying experience.

Task resolution is resolved using a single d6 and adding and subtracting the appropriate modifiers.

The system is simple, as it should be for an introductory game. There are just three classes (Vocations): Warrior, Rogue and Wizard and four character races (gnome isn't one of them, so you can work that out on your own).

Character generation is simplified in that you roll randomly for one of 6 sets of predetermined ability stats based upon your class. So, random and not... kinda. Characters have 3 stats, ranging from a score of 1 to 5. Wizards will be higher ranked in Reasoning, Rogues will excel in Awareness, and Warriors will be the ones with the highest Fitness.

Choose four skills (Pursuits) for you character, roll for some armor, choose a weapon package, if a Wizard choose your spells and lastly pick your other gear (torch, rope, satchel or grimoire). They say you can be up and running in about 10 minutes... I suspect you can prepare a character in less.

Spells descriptions remind me a bit of OD&D. Short, simple and to the point.

So, overall the rules look workable. They are composed of three books: Basic Play is what is says it is, the game rules. The second book is The Dungeon. Here we find the introductory adventure, suitable for solo, group, or group with GM play. The third book, Further Adventures, give the GM information on running a game, some monster stats and a nice amount of simple but random tables too flesh out one's own dungeon designs.

The author states at the end of the book three that he was aiming for simplicity for beginners and nostalgia for veteran gamers. I definitely feel he found a decent introductory system for new players (but it would definitely work much better with an experience GM at the helm, but then, so do all RPGs. Does it hit the nostalgia mark? Maybe if RPGs weren't so rooted in wargames... there is a lot of abstractness in the system... you are either front line or in the back of the marking order for example. The Conflict Action Map has the positions of closest, farthest, sneaking or behind. You won't be measuring squares or flanking opponents. You will get to kill things and take their stuff - success is based upon killing things and taking their stuff. Wait, I guess that does make it a RPG that hearkens back to the early days of role playing ;)

I'm going to give Ancient Odysseys a 4 beer steins out a 5. Nice introductory RPG but long term re-playability may be lacking. AS for DX-ability, 5 steins out a 5. I've really enjoyed reading this on my DX in bed at night.

Oh, and it also includes a PDF suitable for printing in digest size, if you are into digest sized books in your collection ;)

Theives Can... or Cant

Thieves' Cant. It was one of two secret languages mentioned in the 1st Edition AD&D Player's Handbook. Dragon Magazine, somewhere in the late issue 60's or early 70's even published a dictionary of the Thieves Cant suitable for removing from your Dragon Mag, folding along the lines, and having a pocket reference of sorts. But really, what is Thieves Cant? Another language? A dialect of Common? Choice coded words? Probably more of the later then anything else.

I came across A Hairbag's Guide to Cop Speak for the NYPD today, and it is pretty much Thieves Cant for cops, localized. That is the way I expect Thieves Cant would work in game... a local coded speak for the Thieves Guild.

Below is the Hairbag's Guide to Cop Speak for the NYPD, added to and edited by me to add omissions as I recall them (it is the lingo of my job). It is extremely regional... Police Departments neighborng NYC may use some of the same terms and may use different terms... as I said, it is extremely localized:


Adult Beverages: Alcohol

Back in the bag: An officer who is demoted from a plainclothes to uniform detail

Bag OF Shit: A miserable, no-chance-of-being-solved case

Boss: General term for any police supervisor

Bus: Ambulance

Bracelets: Handcuffs

Choir practice: A drinking party

Cocktails: Manhattan detectives are fond of this term for getting drinks

Dee Wee: Driving While Intoxicated

DOA: dead person (literally, dead on arrival)

EDP: crazy person (literally, emotionally disturbed person)

The Farm: Rehab

Flopped: Bounced out of a detail

Fly: to move from one command or detail to another

Gentleman: What cops call a stand-up boss. Top commanders, however,
sometimes think this means the boss is a pushover who doles out too much OT

Hairbag: An old-timer who thinks he knows everything

Highway Therapy: Transfer against will to a command furthest from one's residence. An “Unofficial Punishement”
The House: Stationhouse

Housemouse: A cop who is afraid to leave the station house and go on patrol; a sissy

It is what it is: A euphemism for a screw-up with political overtones

In the wind: At large, said of a suspect

The Job: Working at the NYPD

Job: A radio run or assignment

Loo: Friendly term for a lieutenant

Mope: Criminal

One Way / One Way Street: Cop out only for themselves

Perp: Perpetrator of a crime

On a Personal: Bathroom Break

Puzzle Palace: A derogatory term for NYPD headquarters in lower Manhattan

Rat Squad: Internal Affairs Bureau

RMP: A squad car (literally, radio motor patrol)

Rumproaster: Vice squad term for a perv who rubs up against an unsuspecting person

Sarge: Sergeant

Skel: Criminal

Snitch: Informant

The Squad: Beat cop’s term for a precinct detective squad

The job is on the level: Sarcastic phrase meaning the job is unfair

Tool: Asshole

Tune Up: To beat someone up

Wood shampoo / Bronx Party Hat: To beat an unruly suspect about the head with a baton

Think how this would work in a D&D Campaign:

"Man the Loo is a tool. He's all bent that I gave a skel a wood shampoo. What did he expect, the guy was an EDP. He's even sicked the Rat Squad on me!"

You don't need a lot of words or phrases to make your own Cant... a dozen or so choice ones will keep your players on their toes and you can add more as you find the need.

Carcassonne - The First Step to Assimilation?

I mentioned last week that I was picking up some Euro-Family games to replace the weekly Friday Nite Uno / Other Card Games my girlfriend and I play with my mother.  The ladies love the bonding and knitting talk, I get to cement the future family relationships.

The game plan, so to speak, was to break out one of the newly acquired games this past Friday nite, but Thursday's 21" of snow put a damper on that.  So, yesterday afternoon we pulled out Carcassone.  My girlfriend was excited about trying the new game ( and was only moderately disappointed it didn't use any "funky" dice ) and my mother was willing to humor us.

By the end of the first game all 3 of us were hooked.  It's a simple game with unexpected depth.  The pieces are high quality.  It plays fast.  You're never quite sure who is going to win until the end.

We played three games before we pulled ourselves away to watch a DVD.  My girlfriend is already talking about breaking the game out this afternoon, although Catan and Ticket to Ride are also tempting here.

Before you know it I'll have them playing Decent, then a game of White Box Swords & Wizardry ;)