Wayward Kickstarter - Codename: Morningstar - "not pledging is telling the industry that you are happy with the status quo."

Copper plated? I mean, not even solid copper?
If you are going to plate, as least go silver...

I'm really not in a good mood tonight, so the quote in the post title generates one response from me:

Trapdoor Technologies - Fuck you!

Who the bloody fuck are you to guilt anyone into backing your failure of a product? I call it a failure, with all due respect, as WotC apparently preferred to lose the money already invested in Codename: Morningstar rather than put even more good money after bad.

Not pledging says a lot of things. Let me count the ways:

1 - I don't play Pathfinder, so this shit is worthless.

2 - We apparently have different definitions of "grognard."

3 - Maybe I don't have a use for a tablet at my gametable.

4 - Maybe I don't have a regular gametable, but use a VTT.

5 - Maybe I've never spent a fucking hour looking up rules - before, during or after games.

- let me insert the following thanks to Midwest_Gamer: "Tenkar's Corollary:"

"Wrong ruling plus pacing plus immersion plus fun, is infinitely better than right ruling minus pacing minus immersion plus frustration."

6 - $1.2 million already spent. Looking to raise $425k from the Kickstarter -

7 - A staff of 16 - Does Paizo even employ that many?

8 - Maybe I don't have the 50 bucks to spend, or would rather spend it some other way.

9 - Arrogance is priceless. It's also a turnoff.

10 - The less referencing rules at the table, the better. This looks like more rules, all the time.

11 - From what I've read, the Beta was abysmal. Not a selling point.

12 - Ever hear of "stretch goals?"

13 - Doesn't Pathfinder have other computer aids that do much of the same?

ENWorld has an active thread on the subject

Catching Up Aint Hard to Do - I Hope - Mythoard, Day 4 Winners, Emails, Messages and more!

I'm FINALLY finding time to do catch up, here at The Tavern, my emails, my G+ messages, my projects around the house and more. It didn't hurt that today is day 5 after little Danke's surgery, and her long snout seems to peek out from any Cone of Shame you put on here. Part of my duties have been to ensure she licks her wound as little as possible. Notice I didn't say prevent - IO gave up on that last night ;)

(picture "borrowed" from +Tony T ;)

I got my Mythoard envelope on Saturday. I'm also one of those Lott Crate fans. Not idea why. haven't found a use for anything but I still find it cool. Kinda like a monthly Christmas present for adults, and in general, you know you won't be getting socks. Mythoard has no socks - it has gaming goodness. Where / when do I sign up for this to arrive monthly? Never mind, it's at the Mythoard website. Dec 29th for open sign ups. Dec 26th for those that did the "beta." Woot! Christmas once a month is in my grasp!

I just, as in minutes ago, finally forwarded the addresses for the Day 4 gift receivers. Still waiting on darthbrooks. Yeah, it's been that kind of a month for me. I'll be forwarding Day 5 info tonight.

I can't even begin to tell you how many emails and G+ messages I need to catch up on as it's beyond my ability to count. Lots. If you feel I've been ignoring you, I haven't. Playing catch up today and tomorrow. Hopefully I get there.

Tonight we record more of The Brainstorm Podcast.

Busy busy. Just made room for the cat's pan near my desk and out of the living room. Ashley is happy, my wife will be thrilled. Myself? Less so ;)

OSR Christmas 2014 - Day 6 - Fantasy is Basically a Collection of Cartographical Presentations

I am still majorly out of sorts (as is my stomach - never fails - go on vacation, get sick.)

Here are the OSR Christmas Day 6 Giveaways:

Billy's Books and More (Amazon and Ebay) is gifting a Basic Fantasy RPG Print Bundle. This is US only. It includes the BFRPG Core Book, Morgansfort, Monkey Island, Chaotic Caves and the Fortress, Tomb and Tower Adventure Anthology

+matt jackson is donating two print copies (US Only) of the elite and very rare A Collection of Presentations, Cartographical in Nature.

This post will be open until December 24th at noon NYC time. Add a comment here to enter. US shipping only.

The plan on December 24th is to put up TWO DAYs of Christmas goodies, one international and one US only. Lets see how well this plan comes together ;)

Hitting the Reset Button - Current Tavern Plans for Christmas Week

The events of this past weekend really took the wind out of my sails. Time to hit the reset button and see where we are at.

OSR Christmas Day 6 should get posted tonight. Perhaps his afternoon. We'll see what state I'm in after I share some adult beverages with my bartender who is an NYPD vet from the 70's and 80's, when police across the US were being ambushed and killed. Knowing history is always the best way to avoid repeating it.

I'll finish off forwarding the gift receivers info from Days 4 and 5 later today.

As for the rest of the week?

Gaming posts, pure and simple.

More OSR for the Lapsed Gamer, more reviews, more thoughts - quite simply, a whole lot of more.

Keep on keeping on. It's what we do.

No Gaming Post Today - Mourning the Loss of Two Fine Officers

It's rare that I step away from gaming over here at The Tavern. This is a roleplaying blog, and the posts obviously reflect that. I make an exception yearly for 9-11. Today is going to be one of those rare exceptions.

Yesterday two officers of the NYPD were executed in their patrol car. We almost lost a third officer last night when a perp put a gun in an officer's face but the firearm was empty of rounds, as the perp had just tried shooting at someone else (the reason the cops responded.)

My mind is far from games and gaming at the moment.

My thoughts and prayers are with officers Liu and Ramos and their families.

My fear is this is just the beginning.

Carl Sargent - Whatever Happened to the Man that last Defined Greyhawk 2e?

The great +Joe D asked the following question during tonight's game session:

What ever happened to Carl Sargent, the man who defined Greyhawk for AD&D 2e?

So, does anyone know?

After Hours - Prepping To Run a Game at a Convention (or any one-shot really)

Convention gaming is very much NOT like gaming with your home or regular group. While open ended sandbox styled gameplay is my favorite style at home, for convention play, you generally do need some rails to keep the session on track.

While I'm the only one of the three hosts on The Brainstorm Podcast that hasn't run a convention game, I've played in my share. Successful convention games generally have a few features in common, at least as far as I'm concerned:

- A knowledgeable GM - Know thy system. There is a good chance that you may be running a game where one or more of the players art your table don't know the system well, or even at all. If the GM is constantly referring to the rules pacing will be lost.

- Pacing - Remember, convention games have a limited amount of time slotted to them. While you don't want to end the session to early, running late will either leave you and your players with an unfinished session or have you running into someone else's game time.

- Prep beforehand - pregen characters, handouts, battlemat - whatever - all should be waiting for the players as they arrive at your table. Otherwise you are losing potential gameplay time.

- Playtest - this goes hand in hand with knowledge, pacing and prep. Playtest the adventure with once, or preferably twice. Doesn't matter if it's commercial or homebrewed. It will give you an estimate of how long it will run for and help you figure out where to cut or add to if needed.

Happy Jacks has mentioned con prep in the past on various episodes. You could probably have someone on their forums track down the relevant episodes for you. Just ignore the belching ;)

Win Some free Crawl! That's NOT Part of OSR Christmas ;)

Head over to the Channel Zero blog and win some cool Crawl! swag. +Ryan Moore is giving away print copies of Crawl! 5, 6, 7 and 9 to 4 luck winners (to be picked on December 23. +Dak Ultimak will be adding PDF copies for the luck winners.

What are you waiting for? Tell Ryan "The Tavern" sent ya! ;)

Casting Times - A Segment on Segments in 1e

I remember using "segments" in AD&D combat rounds, especially as it came to casting times. I don't remember if we ever used it right, but if you are going to use spell interruption in your campaign, it's kinda necessary.

I also remember that we slowly forgot to use casting times, and when we put that to the side, segments transformed into initiative order and little more. Of course, as casting times went to the side, so did casters loosing spells to interruption. I'm sure it change the game balance, but we didnt care, as it sped up play.

It went both ways. Getting the drop on an enemy caster was no longer as effective, as his spells were no longer getting interrupted either.

Maybe it was one of out earlier house rules, along with ignoring weapon speeds (as we could never make hide nor hair of it, and we tried) and weapon vs armor type adjustments (because we wanted it to apply to monsters and humanoids too, but as written it didnt.)

Soon We Will be Back on Pace - OSR Christmas, OSR For the Lapsed Gamer and More

Left for work at 530 AM. It's a bit after 8PM and I just got home. It's been that kind of a month. I've fallen behind on lots of planned stuff, but I'm on vacation for a week starting whenever I get home tomorrow, so yes, there will be some catching up to do.

There should be a bunch of gifts for OSR Christmas going up tomorrow night. I'm thinking PRINT and INTERNATIONAL shipping. That is, of course, assuming I get home at a reasonable time. If not, Saturday morning. I expect the pace of the posts to pick up.

I'll be getting back to the OSR for the Lapsed Gamer series of posts this weekend too. I've been away for it for too long, so time to pick up where we left off.

Other stuff too. I got's plans, I just need some down time to do them ;)

Weapon Damage Vs Size - Do You Use It?

I was introduced to role playing games with AD&D 1e and weapon damage vs size was my baseline. Now that I'm playing and running clones for the most part, I appreciate the lack of a single die type regardless of monster size.

Still, I do remember the damage charts for a good 80% of the weapons from 1e. Many of them didn't make much sense to me (such as broadsword) but we didn't stress it back in the day. After all, it was canon ;)

Do you use weapon damage vs size these days?

OSR Christmas 2014 - Day 5 - The Loot!

It is (finally) time to find out the lucky readers that will be receiving the OSR Christmas 2014 Day 5 Gifts. We'll see how interesting events are in the City That Never Sleeps next this and if I can get   back on something that resembles a schedule ;)

(I've managed to work 30 hrs of overtime this month so far without even trying...)

Without further delay, lets get the goodies awarded...
The first bundle is a set of Dyson's Delves Volumes 1 and 2 donated by +Tony T (there will be more Dyson's Delves given away on a later day.) +Nathan Panke , you are the lucky gift receiver

The second bundle is a set of five miniatures donated by +Boric Glanduum  - a human cleric with a tome on a stand and 4 male elves in heavy plate and big ass swords. William Dowie, you are the lucky gift receiver

The above need to email me at tenkarsDOTtavernATgmailDOTcom with DAY 5 GIFT in the subject. Provide me with the mailing address you want this sent to and I'll forward it to the awesome gift giver.

Day 4 gifts will have the gifter notified tomorrow. There was a straggler from an earlier day who needs to have his gifter notified. Trying to find those moments of in between time to do so. 

Dumping on Dump Stats or Have Followers but No Charisma - Do You Have a Favorite Dump Stat and Why?

From what I've seen during my 35 years of gaming, Charisma seems to be "the" dump stat of the various D&D editions. I never fully understood why, as Wisdom and Intelligence can serve the same purpose for most non spell casters without giving you a negative reaction adjustment. Or maybe I understand why, but don't agree with the "why."

Wait, your DM doesn't take Charisma into account for reaction rolls? Heck, he doesn't even bother with reaction rolls? Yep, that's how we were as teens - Charisma adjustments got handwaved and therefore Charisma become the dump stat.

High intelligence gives extra languages, high Wisdom gives a bonus for certain spell saves (at least in AD&D) but if you are ignoring Charisma adjustments to reaction, loyalty and even more importantly - maximum number of followers, you're playing it wrong (IMHO - your opinion may differ. No opinions were harmed in the writing of this post. Lack of sleep due to overtime and puppy power may have influenced this post. Don't post and drive.)

One of my favorite characters had a 5 intelligence and 7 wisdom with decent combat stats and a 13 for charisma. Of course, I named him Gru and he had a fondness for cheese dip...

Kickstarters Arrive - Metamorphosis Alpha and Barrowmaze Complete

Found these waiting for me when i got home from my extended tour at work. Technically it's a Kickstarter (Metamorphosis Alpha) and Indigogo (Barrowmaze Complete) that completed well, but who's counting?

Love the cover for Barrowmaze and my God, Metamorphosis Alpha is huge.

These did not make my Wayward Kickstarter list, as linked to on the EN World10 Biggest Tabletop RPG News Stories of 2014 list.

OSR Christmas Day 5 remains open BTW - I'll award prizes tomorrow night. I just tallied up the overtime numbers thru the first half of the month - 30 hrs thus far... sleep calls...

After Hours - Embracing Lycanthropy - Following Up on The Brainstorm Podcast Episode 22

On yesterday's episode of The Brainstorm Podcast, we answered a letter from a DM that wanted a way to cure two of his players of wererat lycanthropy. True to my nature, I argued that instead of trying to get rid of the "curse", the DM and the players should embrace it. Let's put aside that two of the players are age 5 and 6 for the moment ;)

First, don't introduce ANYTHING into your campaign that you aren't ready and willing to deal with for the long haul. Magic items, unbalanced PCs or NPCs, curses, whatever - don't introduce it if you aren't ready to deal with it. Players rarely do what is expected, and the item or whatnot that you expected to be short lived may become a permanent feature.

Second, as I mentioned in the podcast, cursed characters generally do not want to be uncursed. Lycanthropy may or may not be a curse, but as it involves an alignment change for the most part, it is safe to assume that the character (if not the player) is embracing the change.

Player characters ARE the exception to the rules. If a player becomes a lycanthrope, I'd allow a one degree change on the alignment axis (assuming a 9 axis alignment system) in the direction of a player's choice. So, a Lawful Evil lycanthrope, as a PC, could be Neutral Evil or Lawful Neutral.

(After Hours posts are expansions and follow ups to thoughts and ideas mentioned on The Brainstorm Podcast - Join +Vincent Florio , +Glen Hallstrom and myself twice a week, thirty minutes or less at a time)

OSR Christmas 2014 - Day 5 - Miniature Delvers in Two Volumes (US Shipping Only)

Alright, we have two bundles up for grabs.

The first bundle is a set of Dyson's Delves Volumes 1 and 2 donated by +Tony T (there will be more Dyson's Delves given away on a later day.)

The second bundle is a set of five miniatures donated by +Boric Glanduum  - a human cleric with a tome on a stand and 4 male elves in heavy plate and big ass swords.

Now, you know what to do, right?

Add a comment to this post and sometime after 800 PM tomorrow night (NYC Time) two random commenters will be drawn to receive the above gifts.

Current events in NYC may delay me, so this post may remain open longer than expected, but don't delay - comment now!

(these gifts are only shipping to US mailing addresses)

I'll be sending out the mailing addresses to the Day 4 gift receivers to the donor tomorrow - so if you haven't emailed me yet, please do so.

Potions - Labeled or Not?

When a potion is found in your campaigns, are the bottles labeled as the the contents (accurate or otherwise)? Are there common symbols use for healing, invisibility and the like? Do all healing potions have the same color (and can the experienced alchemist identify potions by color and or smell alone?)

I'm always on the fence as to whether or not the party should be able to quickly ID the more common potions they find in their adventures.

How do you handle potions?

So, What Comes First? The Character Concept or the Characteristics

I had some idle thoughts last night as our weekly game was canceled, and I thought about how I decide upon the type of character I want to play. Depending on the campaign, I can go can go either way - character concept first or characteristics / stats / abilities.

In our current campaign (AD&D 1e) I decided to go with a Bard (Dragon issue #56 version) before rolling the stats. As a party we had most of the niches covered and I really do have a weekness for bards.

At NTRPGCon, in +Matt Finch 's S&W game, I rolled my 3d6 in order before deciding to be a fighter. The fact that I had rolled a natural 18 for strength had (almost) nothing to do with it ;)

In general, I'm the type of player that tries to fill a roll need by the party before worrying about that I want to play, as I enjoy playing most character types and classes.

Do you roll you abilities first and than decide upon a class or do you have a class in mind and arrange the rolls to fit the character?

"After Hours" Will be the Place to Be for Expanded Thoughts from The Brainstorm Podcast

Looks like I'm holding on to the $10 RPGNow Gift Certificate for just a little  longer, as my wife just came up with the post title / theme I was looking for - "After Hours". Keeps the Tavern theme going as well as hints at after thoughts from The Brainstorm Podcast. I may go back and do post for previous episodes too.

Don't worry about missing out on the 10 bucks - it will be added to the OSR Christmas 2014 prize pool.

Day 5 of OSR Christmas 2014 will go up tomorrow. Every other day is a pace I am finding impossible to keep up with or even come close to this December

Time to Brainstorm an Overall Post Title For a Series of Posts that Serve as Follow Ups and Expansions to Brainstorm Podcast Episodes

Damn, that is a horribly long post title, aint it?

This morning I made a post that followed up on and expanded upon the episode of The Brainstorm Podcast that was released last night. The post has been fairly well received and I enjoyed writing it so I'd like to make it an ongoing series of post. So, we need a label. Or a theme.

I've come up with Brain Drippings and Late Thoughts. Not sure if either really hits the bell.

Here's what I'm doing.

Open call.

Give me some ideas as comments to this post. If I decide to go with one of the suggestions, I'll send the commenter in question a $10 RPGNow Gift Certificate. If I choose none of the suggestions, I keep the GC - so make some good suggestions ;)

I'll leave this open until 6PM tomorrow night (Dec 14th)

Yes, you can make more than one suggestion...

After Hours - Whereupon We Discussed Some Dungeon Master Tips and I Make Some Expanded Observations - Brainstorm Podcast #21

It's funny. When +Vincent Florio , +Glen Hallstrom and I go through prepping for the next episode of The Brainstorm Podcast, I probably do less prep than the other two do. Or at least, less written down prep.

My commutes to and from work are usually filled with listening to assorted gaming podcasts and thinking gaming thoughts. When it comes to prepping for the next podcast, I spend part of that commuting time brainstorming ideas and answers to the next topic we will be discussing.

I use much the same process when I prep for a sandbox styled game session. The  main difference is, after the brainstorming for a game session. I write more than just a few words down jar the memory - I go with a sentence or two - sometimes even more, as I may be doing this a week or more in advance. For podcast prep, much of it is done the same day, so the thoughts are fresh and don't need much to jar them lose.

While I like the idea of a "DM's Binder", I couldn't even keep colored index cards in any semblance of order. These days I use a 5x8 notebook in chronological order - doesn't matter whether I'm DMing or running a PC, my notes go in chronological order. Yeah, maybe my advice isn't the advice to follow... heh.

I always go for rulings over rules to keep the session's pace moving. Nothing sucks more than a 10 minute library search to look up some obscure rule. Wrong ruling plus pacing plus immersion plus fun is infinitely better than right ruling minus pacing minus immersion plus frustration.

(as future episodes of The Brainstorm Podcast are released I'll be expanding upon my thoughts in a series of posts here at The Tavern)

OSR Christmas 2014 - Day 4 - The Loot!

It is (finally) time to find out the lucky readers that will be receiving the OSR Christmas 2014 Day 4 Gifts. We'll see how interesting events are in the City That Never Sleeps next week and if I can get OSR Christmas 2014 back on something that resembles a schedule ;)

Without further delay, lets get the goodies awarded...

The following are six print bundles donated by Keith N. Three are for Swords & Wizardry, one is for DCC RPG and the last two are Necromancer Games d20 bundles.

1)  Set of Swords and Wizardry card decks - Monster, Spell, Hireling, and Equipment decks - this gift goes to - Stephen Lawrence

2)  Swords and Wizardry Monstrosities hardcover - this gift goes to -  Kevin Searle

3)  Swords & Wizardry adventures - Grimmsgate, MCMLXXV, and Strange Bedfellows - this gift goes to -  Peter V. Dell'Orto

4)  DCC adventure - Sailors on the Starless Sea (technically not a bundle, awesome adventure in any case) - this gift goes to -  Ned Leffingwell

5)  Necromancer Games d20 adventures - The Six Spheres of Zaihhess, The Coils of Set, Vindication - this gift goes to -  darthbrooks

6)  Necromancer Games d20 supplements - Tome of Horrors III hardcover; Unusual Suspects NPC Gallery - this gift goes to -  Johua De Santo

The above need to email me at tenkarsDOTtavernATgmailDOTcom with DAY 4 GIFT in the subject. Provide me with the mailing address you want this sent to and I'll forward it to the awesome gift giver.

Free Adventure - The Tower of Bells (Frog God - S&W / Pathfinder)

 The Tower of Bells is a sneak peek of the forthcoming Sword of Air adventure compilation,

If OneBookShelf Banned a Game, What Would the Potential Fallout Be?

(it is nearly 830 PM - I just had dinner and I'm ready to fall asleep - OSR Christmas Day 4 remains open at least until tomorrow morning - overtime 5 out of 6 days is wearing on me)

So, if OBS banned a +James Desborough Gamergate Game, based in part on a threat by Evil Hat to pull their releases from OBS, would anyone care?

It's drama for the sake of drama, which both James and Fred are good at, but banning the game is NOT the way to handle it. The market polices itself. All the banning did was polarize fans and publishers.

OBS seems to know this but doesn't really seem to know how to fix it.

Here's the letter OBS sent to publishers (and thanks to the anon reader that sent it to me)


Dear Publishers,

We elected to ban a title from our marketplaces. Of the tens of thousands of titles that we carry, and after operating for 13 years, we have never before banned a title (other than for
legal reasons). I hope those numbers make it clear this is not an action we have
undertaken lightly, nor is it one we will undertake frequently, if ever again.
Nonetheless, as this is the first time we’ve decided to ban a title, I
thought a letter of explanation was in order.


The title in question is a card game whose theme is the Gamergate issue. The game attempted to present the issue in a satirical manner.


Normally, satirical works would be welcome on our marketplaces.
However, we feel that there are situations where satire is inappropriate. For
example, we do not think that a game released today that satirizes police
killings of minorities in the USA would be appropriate. Regardless of how one
feels about an issue like that, we feel that it is too current, too emotionally
charged on both sides, and too related to real-world violence or death to make
it an appropriate matter for satire.


Similarly, no matter how one feels about Gamergate, it is likewise too current, too emotionally frought, and too related to violence to be an appropriate subject for satire. Additionally, we considered that the violent element of the Gamergate issue has a basis in misogyny. For
these reasons, we felt that this card game title was not welcome for sale on our
site.


Note too that this is a card game, not a roleplaying game. Some may feel that if we
were to ban an RPG from our marketplaces, that action would levy a significant
economic penalty on that title since we have a long reach in the overall RPG
market. This is not true of card games, where OneBookShelf is currently a tiny
corner of the card game market. Our not carrying a card game should have minimal
impact on that card game’s economic viability.


While we also considered the customer complaints on both sides of this issue (we are a business, after all, and we cannot ignore customer complaints and survive), these were not a major factor in
our decision. Not surprisingly, given the gaming fanbase, many of the complaints
we received were intelligently written and provided us with additional,
thoughtful perspectives on the issue. Unfortunately, most customers were not in
a position to review the content of the title itself and were therefore forced
to be “judging a book by its cover” only.


Some publishers also complained about this title, and a few publishers let us know they would not be interested in continuing to work with us if we carried it on our store. We will not allow any
publisher to dictate content policy onto any other publisher, explicitly or
implicitly. If any publisher ever decides to discontinue business with us
because our content policy errs to the side of being too open, rather than
restrictive, then we will respect their decision to leave our marketplaces and
wish them well. To be clear, no publishers’ comments had any bearing on
our decision to discontinue selling this title.


Having now banned a title for the first time, we asked ourselves if we needed to establish any explicit policy for banning of future titles for reasons other than legality or production quality.
Given that this is the first time such a thing has happened in 13 years, and
given the difficulty of defining policies of this nature, we elected not to
invest the time in creating a policy that would probably end up a poor guideline
anyway. Our time is better spent getting back to retailing your titles to fans.


We carry a lot of titles on our marketplaces that some or all of the members of the
OneBookShelf staff find morally distasteful (and we’re generally a pretty
open-minded lot), but we find anything that smacks of censorship even more
distasteful. We will continue to have a content policy that is more open than
will give many of our publishers and customers comfort.


Regards


Steve
Wieck

CEO

OneBookShelf

Normall Grumpy would be inserting all sorts of obnoxious comments, but as he dictates and does not type, that won't be happening tonight.

Alright - discuss. I'm putting my head down and catching some zzzzzzsssss...

Radio Rivendell - Fantasy Music Streamed for Free

I'm going to tip my hat to +Glen Hallstrom . Last night, before we recorded the latest episodes of The Brainstorm Podcast, Glenn mentioned Radio Rivendell. I didn't think much of it at the time, but after we were done for the night I decided to give it a listen.

Very good background music to listen to while surfing the web, blogging or just reading thr latest RPG purchase. Much of it feels Celtic in nature.

All it needs is an android app...

Give it a listen and tell me what you think.

How I Lost a Day and Other Quirks of Christmas Time

So, last week, due to various events here in NYC (primarily protests) I seem to have lost a day. I started work on Thursday at 6 AM and didn't head back home until nearly noon on Friday. Amazing how much that screws with your internal clock.

My weekend was basically a wash too.

What does all this mean? I'm still playing catchup on this end. I need to forward the info for the Day 3 gift receivers on to their respective gift givers. That makes thirteen matches I need to make and send

I need to actually open my Lulu hardcover box of goodness that has been sitting in the living room since Friday.

I probably should flip through the 5e DMG that arrived yesterday, and then there's the small package of goodness from +Lloyd Metcalf that I haven't even unbagged yet.

At least the overtime from last week will take care of paying for the recent gaming purchases and more ;)

We haven't even mentioned the chores around the house that need to get addressed, have we?

What does that mean? OSR Christmas Day 4 will stay open for comments through tomorrow as I play catch up on my end. Besides, the awesome bundles deserve at least 150 comments :)

Does that mean that the Twelve Days of OSR Christmas is going to run through the end of the month and not rap up before Christmas as planned? Shit, when does anything go as planned?

OSR Christmas 2014 - Day 4 - Monstrosities make Strange Bedfellows of Horrors on the Starless Sea but Grimmsgate hides the Usual Suspects (Print - US Only)

I came very close to not putting up this post tonight. I was stuck with overtime at work, recorded some episodes of The Brainstorm Podcast with the talented +Vincent Florio and +Glen Hallstrom and all I want to do is sleep. Luckily the podcast recording was invigorating. My lack of sleep is your gain ;)

The following are six print bundles donated by Keith N. Three are for Swords & Wizardry, one is for DCC RPG and the last two are Necromancer Games d20 bundles.

1)  Set of Swords and Wizardry card decks - Monster, Spell, Hireling, and Equipment decks

2)  Swords and Wizardry Monstrosities hardcover

3)  Swords & Wizardry adventures - Grimmsgate, MCMLXXV, and Strange Bedfellows

4)  DCC adventure - Sailors on the Starless Sea (technically not a bundle, awesome adventure in any case)

5)  Necromancer Games d20 adventures - The Six Spheres of Zaihhess, The Coils of Set, Vindication

6)  Necromancer Games d20 supplements - Tome of Horrors III hardcover; Unusual Suspects NPC Gallery

Now, you know what to do, right?

Add a comment to this post and sometime after 800 PM tomorrow night (NYC Time) six random commenters will be drawn to receive the above gifts.

Current events in NYC may delay me, so this post may remain open longer than expected, but don't delay - comment now!

(these gifts are only shipping to US mailing addresses)

Are You Experienced? Awarding Expo Houserules

Gold.

Magic items found.

Defeating monsters.

That is pretty much the ways to get expo in 1e by the book, as well as being in order of importance.

I find that expo awarding is one of the most house ruled parts of gaming. Me, I house rule it for pacing purposes.

In my once a month S&W delve into the Castle of the Mad Archmage, I find I need to award more expo than I would in a weekly game. My players want to explore, I went them to explore, and the only way to accomplish that is to award more expo so they can level a bit faster.

What I do with them is I offer a "room bonus" based on the number of rooms explored without taking a break to camp or re-memorize spells. The first room is worth 10xp for the party, the second 30xp, the third 60xp and so on. I cap it ay 1k per room, and dungeon levels that are not much of a challenge either grant reduced xp or none at all for exploring.

This has the potential of pushing my party to take risks. One more room could be an extra 1k xp in the party xp pool - it could also mean a TPK when they are low on HP and spells.

Does it get any better than this? ;)

OSR Christmas 2014 - Day 3 - The Loot!

these are the gifts being given this day:

- a complete set of The Manor zine in PDF, donated by by +Tim Shorts - if you haven't read The Manor, you are missing out on an excellent OSR zine.

The Manor is gifted to: +Alasdair Cunningham 


- 6 PDF copies of Assault on the Southern Horn (osr) are gifted to the following:

+Brett Slocum 

christopher potter

+David Fisher 

sean ellis

+Tim Shorts 

mattruane



- 6 PDF copies of Paranormal Investigators and Exterminators (PIE) for mini-six donated by +Johua De Santo

+Christopher Wood 

KristianH

The Angry Monk

Libri

mike monaco

+Gavin Norman 

If your name is listed above, email me at tenkarsDOTtavernATgmailDOTcom with DAY 3 GIFT in the subject. Provide me with the mailing address email address you want this sent to and I'll forward it to the proper gift giver (yeah, I still haven't recovered yet)

Listen Up! New Episode of The Brainstorm Podcast - We Talk About Wizard Spell Books and More

I'm an avid podcast consumer, as it gets me through my daily commute with some semblance of sanity.

I'm also a podcast host.

The Brainstorm Podcast is a short (30 minutes or less) podcast that I do with +Vincent Florio and +Glen Hallstrom . I consider myself blessed with amazing co-hosts that bring out the best of "my brain" ;)

If you listen and like what you hear, please go to the link above and give us a rating on iTunes. We've gotten some feedback but could always use more.

Our latest episode is #20:  

Join Vince, Glen and Erik this week as they speak about wizards spell books and how to handle them..

They also take a look at how many spells should be given out, and then quickly get off track talking about Priest/cleric spells as well in the mix!

OSR Christmas 2014 - Day 3 - Mind your Manors when the Paranormal Investigators Assault the Southern Horn (PDF - International)

Yes, Day 3 of the OSR Christmas 2014 madness was delayed. No, I can't promise it won't happen
again. I'll do what I can to keep on track tho' ;)

So, these are the gifts being given this day:

- a complete set of The Manor zine in PDF, donated by by +Tim Shorts - if you haven't read The Manor, you are missing out on an excellent OSR zine.

- 6 PDF copies of Assault on the Southern Horn (osr) and six pdf copies of Paranormal Investigators and Exterminators (PIE) for mini-six donated by +Johua De Santo

Now, you know what to do, right?

Add a comment to this post and sometime after 830 PM tomorrow night (NYC Time) thirteen random commenters will be drawn to receive the above gifts.

Current events in NYC may delay me, so this post may remain open longer than expected, but don't delay - comment now!

Bundle of Holding - RuneQuest 6

I like RuneQuest 6, but I find the character generation to be a tad tedious. Others will find it extremely thorough and just their cup of tea.

At $6.95 for the core book and the Book of Quests (basically a campaign's worth of adventure right there) it's probably hard to go wrong.

OSR Christmas 2014 - Day 2 - The Loot!

Sorry for the assorted delays. Work life has been interfering a bit with gaming life (and all other life labels I might have.)

OSR Christmas Day 3 will be tomorrow. Get ready to comment. (tomorrow the emails from the Day 1 recipients will be forwarded to those gifting - yes, the week turned out to be that kind of week.)

In the meantime, here's the list of recipients for OSR Christmas Day 2:

- Lesser Gnome, aka +Zach Glazar , has been a generous supported of The Tavern and it's patrons the moment Whisper & Venom was released. Zach claims he owes me a beer at the next NTRPG Con, but the truth is, I owe him a dinner or two. (Edit - Zach WILL ship this internationally-indicated if you are out of the US, so I can put you in the right pool)

This year, Zach is offering two gifts, given to one random patron as a bundle. One of the very last Whisper & Venom boxed sets AND The First Sentinel (Limited).

And the lucky Holiday Child that will be receiving this at his or her doorstep? +Dyson Logos 

+James Spahn , he of Barrel Rider Games, is offering a signed copy of the Player's Companion for Swords & Wizardry. I'm very happy to have had some small influence on bringing James to the dark side to the world of Swords & Wizardry ;)

And the lucky Holiday Child that will be receiving this at his or her doorstep? Boris Worm

+Joseph Bloch , the man behind Adventures Dark & Deep and the Greyhawk Grognard blog, is offering a set of his Castle of the Mad Archmage megadungeon books in softcover as a bundle. This is the adventure book, map book and illustrations book. I've been running this with my Friday Nite "B Team" for a number of months and my players eagerly return for more with each session.

And the lucky Holiday Child that will be receiving this at his or her doorstep? Matt Snodgrass

Email me at tenkarsDOTtavernATgmailDOTcom with DAY 2 GIFT in the subject. Provide me with the mailing address you want this sent to and I'll forward it to the proper gift giver.

My Frog God Games Holiday Grab Bag was Waiting for Me (Swords & Wizardry)

Wow. Simply "wow!"

This year's Frog God Holiday Grab Bag was full of Swords & Wizardry goodness. With the exception of the core Razor Coast book, I don't think any are dupes of what I currently own (and one of the three D20 releases included was Caverns of Tracia.

Now, each grab bag is different, so if you order one expect your contents to be different. Mine were divine ;)

Tavern Doors to Reopen Tomorrow

I worked 30 hrs straight from yesterday until today. I napped for about 2 hrs this afternoon and expect to fully crash shortly.

I know that The Tavern is known for consistent posting and my plan is to obviously continue with that, conditions permitting.

Tomorrow expect updates for the 2014 OSR Christmas (as well as emails out to those providing PDF gifts from Day 1), list of Day 2 gift receivers, photos of my amazing Frog God Games grab bag and other bits and pieces.

As for now - I do believe sleep calls...

Tavern Doors Temporarily Closed

Doors will reopen ASAP.

In the meantime, listen to some podcasts from The Brainstorm; )

OSR Christmas 2014 - Day 2 - Whisper First, and find a Companion before entering the Castle of the Mad Archmage (Print - US Only)

Wow. Simply wow. Putting the 12 Days of OSR Christmas together, I never expected the amazingly generous response it received. I know our community is awesome, but they have outdone themselves.

Day 2 is an "In Print - US Only" Day. Have no fear my international patrons of The Tavern - there are physical gifts that will ship internationally coming up and more PDF goodness to be had.

Where to start?

- Lesser Gnome, aka +Zach Glazar , has been a generous supported of The Tavern and it's patrons the moment Whisper & Venom was released. Zach claims he owes me a beer at the next NTRPG Con, but the truth is, I owe him a dinner or two. (Edit - Zach WILL ship this internationally-indicated if you are out of the US, so I can put you in the right pool)

This year, Zach is offering two gifts, given to one random patron as a bundle. One of the very last Whisper & Venom boxed sets AND The First Sentinel (Limited). 

+James Spahn , he of Barrel Rider Games, is offering a signed copy of the Player's Companion for Swords & Wizardry. I'm very happy to have had some small influence on bringing James to the dark side to the world of Swords & Wizardry ;)

+Joseph Bloch , the man behind Adventures Dark & Deep and the Greyhawk Grognard blog, is offering a set of his Castle of the Mad Archmage megadungeon books in softcover as a bundle. This is the adventure book, map book and illustrations book. I've been running this with my Friday Nite "B Team" for a number of months and my players eagerly return for more with each session.

Now, you know what to do, right?

Add a comment to this post and sometime after 830 PM tomorrow night (NYC Time) three random commenters will be drawn to receive the above gifts.

Current events in NYC may delay me, so this post may remain open longer than expected, but don't delay - comment now!

(remember, these ship to US addresses only. If you are outside the states and can strong arm a US resident to forward any possible gift to you, by all means, jump in)

OSR Christmas 2014 - Day 1 - the Loot!

Yep, time for OSR Santa to pick the recipients of the Day 1 gifts.

Drum roll if you will...

- Attack of the Frawgs (PDF) goes to  +Tim Snider

-  Haunting of Larvik Island (PDF) goes to +Jason Vines 

- Stronghold of the Wood Giant Shaman (PDF) donated by +Stephen Newton goes to ProudBaptist

- 2 PDF copies of the complete Straycouches collection (Crawl! and other goodies) +Dak Ultimak go to Tom (time stamp 8:36 am) and +Boric Glanduum 

- PDF copy of the Sunken City Omnibus (DCC) +Jon Marr goes to +Sophia Brandt 

Here's what y'all need to do:

Email me at tenkarsDOTtavernATgmailDOTcom with DAY 1 GIFT in the subject. Provide me with the address you use at RPGNow and I'll forward it to the proper gift giver.

Congrats to All!

Day 2 goes live sometime tomorrow :)