Corralling Stray Thoughts

Like I suspect most gamers who hit their gaming prime back in the 80's and early 90's, I read a lot of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I still do, but my patience and free time have cut that down by order of magnitude.

During my summer breaks in my College years, it was not unheard of for me to read a full length novel in a day, sweating up a storm as I laid out on the same enclosed porch I am currently sitting in. When I wasn't reading, I was gaming. If I wasn't reading or gaming, I was probably writing.

Truth to tell, my "Writer's Voice" back in those days pretty much mirrored the author(s) I was heavily reading at the time. Which isn't a bad exercise in writing, but it's a piss poor way to write anything of consequence.

These days, the only author I follow with any regularity is Terry Pratchett; I simply can't get enough of his writing. I'll read Neil Gaiman's latest if I can grab it on my Kindle and I'll occasionally read some short fiction. Which isn't to say I hardly read, I just read less fiction these days. I'm quite sure that tide will turn again.

It does mean that when I write Tales of the Blue Knight it is truly in my own "Writer's Voice". Forgive me as the voice falters and cracks, I haven't tried to use it much in years. It will take a few tries for it to find it's range.

It's not that I lack ideas to write, it's just that the pieces are currently half finished as new ideas pop into my head. I'm fairly sure this over-abundance of ideas isn't infinite, and I'll be able to pick thru the chaff to get to the good stuff in semblance of a timely manner. Or not ;)





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Words in the Clouds

I've posted to my blog from my desktop, laptop, net book, iPhone and iPad, never really given much thought to the device I was using. That is, until I started with the Tales of the Blue Knight column. I've found that I have ideas that need to be put down without being fleshed out at the moment. I also need to be able to access those pieces from any device.

Therein lies the joys and strength of Google Documents, cloud computing at it's best. A free office app that is accessible anywhere you have Internet access? Priceless!



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An Abudance of Gaming Goodness

I've got a virtual stack of PDFs to review, even if it is just to give it a quick once over.  Sean over at OneBookShelf / RPGNow / DriveThruRPG was nice enough to set me up as a featured reviewer, and while I'm going to try and do the privilege justice, I'm sure to overlook a lot of stuff.

I did get to skim through some recent acquisitions while serving Jury Duty these past two days, but the free time was no where near as I remembered in the past.

I do have vacation coming up at the end of the month, and I suspect that with the exception of the holiday weekend it will be a Stay at Home vacation... so much reading, writing and posting will fill the downtime.


One product I did get to spend some serious time with the past two days was On Silver Wings for Witch Hunter: The Invisible World RPG.  First and foremost, I do not own a copy of the RPG rules, so I'm keeping my review to the story itself.  I was immediately drawn in by the cover, which I find to be an amazing piece of artwork. (see below)

It is a very compelling story, which read very well even without me having a grasp of the system underneath it.  It's hard to go into without giving up some of the story (and this adventure would suffer if the story were leaked).  It is deep in roleplay with a nice horror angle to it and little is as it seems... if bugs make your players squirm this is a good fit.

Most of the paths the party may take seem to be covered pretty well. The Witch Hunters should have their hands full, but smart play should rule the day for them.  I highly suspect a decent GM could convert this to run with the Solomon Kane RPG without too much effort.

As for the (virtual) physical presentation of the adventure, the layout is spot on, the artwork is professional and evocative of the story and I didn't notice any editing issues.  A lot of adventure is packed into 32 pages (plus front and back covers)

Overall it served me well during my two days of Jury Duty.  When time frees up I may have to pick up the rulebook itself.  The system seems to be full of roleplay opportunities.

The Duty, Day Two

Waiting on the lawyers to arrive so they can get back to questioning more of us prospective jurors.

Even got feedback on yesterday's Traveller freebie on Facebook. There is something about Traveller that makes it THE classic game. My problem with it was the lack of character advancement. I need to dig up my copy of the Mongoose Traveller pocket rules and see if that changed. Advancement is a big carrot in the "keep player's coming back" scheme of things.

Time willing I'll work on the next entry of Tales of the Blue Knight while I kill time.

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Happy Hour at the Tavern June 9

Short and sweet today. 

Spent the day at jury duty, heading out to a retirement party in a few, then back to jury duty tomorrow.  So today's offering is just a single item.  It's a cool one tho'.

Campaign 1: Secrets of the Ancients for Traveller from Mongoose.

I doubt I could explain this better then RPGNow does:

Welcome to Secrets of the Ancients, a completely free, downloadable campaign for Traveller that will see your players cross the stars and uncover some of the deepest, darkest mysteries of the universe...

Secrets of the Ancients is a ten part campaign, with a new part being available for free download every few weeks (if you play once a week and start right now, you should find that a new part comes available just as you are completing the last). It will build into an epic campaign of huge proportions which should keep your gaming group going for many months!

The new Secrets of the Ancients campaign is based on the Classic Traveller Adventure #12, Secret of the Ancients. Like that adventure, this campaign delves into the dark past of the Third Imperium setting, and the legacy of a race of incredibly advanced and powerful aliens. Over the course of this campaign, the haracters will see sights no human has ever dreamed of, meddle with powers beyond understanding, clash with secret factions within the Imperium, and ultimately help shape the destiny of all Charted Space.

A free campaign for Traveller with a new part released every few weeks.  What Traveller fan could ask for more?

My But Things Have Changed

The last time I served jury duty was over 8 years ago. The jurors waiting room was hot and sweaty, the chairs were uncomfortable and the entire experience was a real PITA.

Today the A/C is kicking to the point I am tempted to put my jacket on, the chairs are large and comfy, free high speed Internet for your laptop or iPad (and computers for you to use if you didn't bring your own), widescreen TVs... This is not the Jury Duty that I remember.

With New York States no-excusal police, I can't help but think how much fun it would be to have a superhero serve jury duty ( in his secret ID) for a villain he arrested / apprehended. Might make a decent solo supers adventure of sorts. Not that I play supers (I do have the Icons PDF and it is tempting) but I do find the concept interesting.

Anyhow, we've already been told we will be here until 5 pm. Gonna be a long day even with distractions to be found.


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My Number Came Up...

I report to Jury Duty tomorrow.  Boo!

On a plus note, it keeps me out of work for at least a day, and I will draw my full salary as I surf the net, read my emails, write some blog stuff, read some gaming material... thank god for my iPad.  It will start paying dividends tomorrow at 0830 hrs ;)

I'm currently trying to figure out a method (or methods) for giving out the free (with a coupon code) PDFs that OneBookShelf has been kind enough to give me to reward the readers of this blog.

Leaning towards rewarding my Google Connect Followers with a prize or two for a random follower, but I'm open to other ideas.

The Most Dreaded Duty of All

I'm on telephone standby jury duty.  New York State doesn't have blanket excusals from jury duty these days for certain professions, and my number literally is up.

I escaped today, and I'm not needed tomorrow, but I'm 150 names away, and they grabbed about 700 for tomorrow, so I figure I'm going on Wednesday at the very least, longer if I get picked (and I have a habit of getting picked)

The jury pool rooms have free wireless now (I confirmed that with my phone a few months ago).  So now I'm busy putting together a bag of reading material:

Maximum PC
Mac Life
Some recent Pathfinders
Loading up my iPad with some PDFs to review

I'm sure I'll be bloggin' from the jury pool as I wait.  JoetheLawyer probably
does this crap for a living ;)

Tales of the Blue Knight - June 6

Tenkar peered through the spyglass at the dimly lit  street below.  He kept his body bladed, so that the window curtain would partially obscure his presence from the curious.  The room next to him was filled with the noise of young romance, but that was little if any distraction.

"Male Hobbit" he signed with his right hand.
"Tan leather coat." 
"Right hand". 

Most of the buyers would take the clack with their right hand and hold onto it for dear life.  Others would push it deep in a pocket, possibly ashamed of their addiction.

His message was read by the two uniformed watchmen below.  They casually yet quickly made their way within view of the buyer.  They would follow him for a block or two before making the pinch.  Even at this late hour of night, there was enough foot traffic to make the sight of them fairly common.

That's the sixth buyer we picked of tonight.  Will the Sarge give us the order to grab the dealer, or is this going to be just another exercise in numbers for the Watch Commander to show the City Council?

This precinct in the city had more then its share of crime, much of it driven by the pursuit of illegal narcotics.  Many of the addicts committed petty crimes to fuel their addiction, and the dealers and suppliers frequently turned violent on their rivals.  It took Tenkar some real effort to remember that over 90% of the population, while poor, was law abiding and generally good folk living in a bad situation.  He grew up in this city, but not in a neighborhood like this.

"Ten, give the signal.  Grab the dealer.  We have enough bodies pinched tonight to make this one stick."  Tenkar's hands were still passing the words on as the sergeant went downstairs to oversee the ending of the night's operations.

Hopefully the perps we pinched will allow the Cleric on staff to cure their addiction, but even then more then half will be right back.  Apparently the Gods can only cure the body, not the mind.


Game Rules (just a tad more harsh then real life)

Clack - Highly addictive narcotic.  Cheap to get started with. 
Save vs Poison with each use until failed save, at which point addiction sets in.  Once addicted, the drug must be used daily.  If unable to pay for the clack, character in question will steal / kill for clack / money for clack.

Within 2 weeks of addiction, CHA and CON drops 1 point.  It drops another point each following week, until a maximum loss of 8 points is reached.  At this point, 1 HP is lost per week permanently.  Upon reaching 1 HP left, save vs. poison each week or death.

Cure disease will cure the physical addiction and restore all lost attribute points / HP at a rate of 1 per day (just one casting is needed, the body needs time to heal).  A save vs spells (WIS bonus applies) must be made to be able to fight of the mental / emotional addiction

(with thanks and blame to scottsz)

Weekend Buybacks for June 6th

Yep, some more goodies to be found.  This weeks weekend offerings only number 2, but we had some freebies mid week, and a 20% discount yesterday... besides, these two have a nice page count.

This week's freebies are from Vajra Enterprises.  Both are playable versions of their respective games, but they lack options available in the full product.  Still, for a try and (possibly) but later, they are very good options to take a peek at.

Fates Worse Than Death: Spare Change Edition -  Fates Worse Than Death is a game of violence, fear and hope on the streets of New York City in 2080 -  The Spare Change Edition only has character creation options and setting information for creating and playing characters who are street people.  As usual, I find free products are ripe for ripping and stealing for other games even if I don't use them as printed.  241 pages.

Tibet the Role Playing Game: Monastic Edition  - Tibet is a game of war, intrigue, magic and mysticism in 1959 Tibet. The Monastic Edition only has character creation options and setting information for creating and playing characters who are monks. 169 pages.  There is enough here to help you decide if the game is to your liking or not.  Both are way more then a quickstart, yet less the a full package.

That's all for now.  Cranking away some other writing.

Oh, and received my 5 copies of Dark Dungeons in paperback from Lulu.  Little surprise for the seasonal gathering of my old gaming group.

RPGNow Specials for June

Sometimes you get thrown a curve ball.  Sometimes the curve ball is a sweet one.  This is a sweet one ;)

OneBookShelf / RPGNow / DriveThruRPG has supplied certain bloggers with a discount code to give to their readers.  I happen to be lucky enough to be one of those bloggers.  (Even luckier that I heard about the program in the first place).  The code for June is:

JunePodBlogDriveThru2010

It's worth 20% off all products from the following list of publishers. It's good for one month from today (actually, yesterday), with unlimited uses (but only three per customer).

AEG

Bards and Sages

Battlefield Press

Chaotic Shiny Productions

Crafty Games

Cubicle 7

Dream Pod 9

Fabled Environments

Fat Dragon Games

Goodman Games

Inner City Games Designs

Mongoose Publishing

Palladium Books

Pinnacle Entertainment

R. Talsorian Games

Ranger Games

Reality Blurs

Sceaptune Games

There are some really nice games from these publishers.  Damn, now I really need to work on a review of Starblazers from Cubicle 7.

I also have some freebies to reward individual readers with.  I'm going to need to think on this one.  Should be fun.

Back later with the weekend's buybacks, but in the meantime enjoy the 20% savings ;)

Irregular Thoughts

Or is it just thoughts on an irregular column?

I'm thinking of writing some Tales of the Blue Knight as an irregular column for this blog. Kinda my work experiences mixed with my gaming experiences and life observations in general. I'm learning after a year of doing this i'm a bit more focused when I can stick to a general theme. We'll see how I do over the weekend ;)


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A Thought About Free...

Earlier this week, a valid point was raised about the cost of "Free".  Would I want someone to do my job, law enforcement, for free?  People already do.

Steven Seagal - Lawman - Reserve Officer with full police powers.  I've never watched the show, but he's doing it.

NYC doesn't give arrest power to it volunteers.  NYPD Auxiliary Police Officers serve more as eyes and ears, as well as a visible deterrent to crime.  Their job is probably more thankless then mine. Later tonight I need to pick my son up from the Police Academy... he's taking his first class to be an Auxiliary Police Officer.  God bless him.

I got into this line of work partially because I was taking every civil service / utility company test I could find.  I wanted a union job, just like my father.  I was also looking for something a bit more rewarding, emotionally and economically, then retail sales.  I was tired of being inside 8 hrs a day.  I wanted to be outside and get paid for it.

I was also the geek that tended towards playing Paladins in his early AD&D days.  Being a cop kinda puts you in that Paladin / Knight in Shining Armor role - at least until you put the domestic abuser in cuffs and now his girlfriend is attacking you because, despite the black eye and loose teeth, you weren't supposed to do that.
It plays out like a great roleplaying game, with twists and turns and the need for creative solutions thought up on the spur of the moment.

If someone wants to do my job, or aspects of my job, for free, God bless them and keep them safe.  There's more then enough crime and abuse and problems to go around.

One day I'll have to relate some stories about how my experience playing D&D helped me solve problems on the streets of the South Bronx ;)

Happy Hour at the Tavern June 2

So, my plan was to pimp Starblazers with a short review, but that will wait a day or so. Instead, Fantasy Flight Games has been busy pimping out their Warhammer 40k RPG lines with some free offerings in June. I'm not a huge fan of quickstart rules in general... most leave me unsatisfied, even uninterested in the product they are intended to showcase. Not so the case with FFGs latest quickstarts. Nice flavor and decent introductions to the rules in question. (Of course, I have both Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader in hardcover... even played in a FG2 campaign of Dark Heresy for the better part of a year).

Anyhow, lets see the latest offerings:

Dark Heresy Edge of Darkness - Quickstart - 48 page long Dark Heresy introduction. Nice presentation and decent adventure. But I'm biased - WFRP and 40kRP settings are some of my favorites. The fiction is generally good too.

Dark Heresy Salvation Demands Sacrifice - 8 page supplement, it offers 3 new radical careers for your Dark Heresy game. Of course, it requires the Radical's Handbook, which I don't own and isnt mentioned on the download page. If I thought I was going to be playing in a Dark Heresy game in the near future I'd think of picking it up.

Rogue Trader Forsaken Bounty - Quickstart - 24 page long introduction to Rogue Trader. The included adventure is about 10 pages long. Between the 2 quickstarts you should have a decent idea if you like the system and the setting. Cool cover art ;)

Rogue Trader Dark Frontier - 12 page sequel adventure to the quickstart.

Rogue Trader Epoch Koronus - 13 pages of game history / timeline. You either love this stuff or you hate it.

Rogue Trader Drydock - 7 pages - more like 4 pages on ship design, 1 page on ship combat. Handy reference if needed, but little more

K, that's it for tonight. Some nice free samples from a very well produced and written sci-fi line (with heavy fantasy overtones). Enjoy!

Creative Mountain Games $1 Sale

If you, like me, never brought your gaming out of the 3.5 era, this sale might just be for you.  Creative Mountain Games has put just about their whole RPGNow catalog on sale for a buck.

My favorite, which I've owned for years and can't say enough about, is the SRD 3.5 Revised (Full) Bundle.  It's a very convenient way to carry your 3.5e rules, and 3500 pages for a buck is a steal. 

The Favorites Bundle is also a buck.  It includes a low level adventure, some small source books, a tile generator and a dwellings generator.  

Really, you can't go wrong even if you are just into Old School Rules.  Everyone needs a SRD to call their own ;)

The Price of Free

Yeah, i know with my current schedule of posting weekend freebies, it appears I am focused on free stuff.

Truth is, price is just one factor I look at when I make my purchases.  Cubicle 7 has sucked 55 bucks from me with 2 PDF purchases:  Starblazer Adventures and Legends of Anglerre.  I got majorly screwed when I picked up this piece of sh!t for FG2 a while back.  What a painful waste of 20 bucks.  Then again, I bought into the Dresden Files Preorder, and I couldn't be happier.

Here's the deal as I see it.  Most of the QUALITY free stuff available hits one of the following categories (with some major overlap):  OSR or the Classics Re-imagined, The Full Piece Company Sample, and the Hobbyist Publisher.

Most game companies these days are run by hobbyists, so this category will overlap with the other two in most cases.

OSR games tend to have a no-frills FREE PDF.  In these cases I've bought the still low prices art-filled PDFs, but its nice to have the option not to have to.  The vast majority of OSR adventures are not free (but there are some quality free ones to be found).

The Full Piece Company Sample that is given away for free is the typical retail loss leader.  I spent 8 1/2 years working retail for a major NYC Department Store... I sold electronics, men's clothing, candy, the bargain table.  The major sales had items that were sold at cost or less to bring people in to buy higher profit margin items.  Some RPG companies do something similar.  Heck software companies do that daily at Give Away of the Day.

Many of the hobbyists are just happy to see their work being read, used, praised and critiqued.  Some might be building up their resume for a shot at the big(ger) time.

Then you have the handful of companies that are not one of the elite, yet they are still trying to make a living (or supplemental income) off of their hobby.  God bless them.  They are aiming high yet the market makes their prices seem out of whack, excessive even to some.

That's the market.  You can't change it.  Either make yourself stand out from the crowd and justify your price, join the crowd and adjust your price, or find your own solution.

I spend a good time of my shopping at Indie Press Revolution.  Very little free.  Most of it is what I would call "premium pricing".  When there arent too many low priced items to shop against, the prices seem fair.  When you price yourself against free and low priced, you can price yourself out of competition.

95% of free is total crap.  50% of the not free RPG gaming material is easily total crap.

I don't like crap.  I doubt many do.  I cull through the crap to post items that I think have value, whether they are free or not, so others can avoid crap.  It takes a lot of due diligence before I'll spend my cash on something to check it out.

I'm not trying to demean the time or effort that writers, artists, publishers, programmers, etc put into their work.  I'm just reminded of a recent thread on EnWorld.  A certain new publisher was selling stuff on RPGNow.  His writing was atrocious, his editing worse, his art was computer manipulated to hide the plagiarism, and his data was stolen word by word from computer games.  His books were "premium priced".  He was reported and after a long couple of days his items were removed.

No consumer should have to buy something like he was selling.  And his selling that sh!t (beyond just crap) devalues other products that are worth their premium pricing.

Not sure if this became a rant or not.  I know pricing of products is a very personal thing to publishers... its their bread and butter.  Thing is, as a consumer, if I can get value for free I will.  If I can get an awesome product for a premium price that I can use and afford, I will.  Same goes for a great product at a reasonable price.

Who decides what price is reasonable?  What price is premium?

The customer.  I always hated that little f'er when I worked retail, cause the bastid changed his mind constantly. ;)

Weekend Buybacks for May 31st

Wow, nearly 11 am and no calls or texts from work.  Phew!  Time to enjoy the last day of my 3 day weekend ;)

Lets see what buybacks we have for this weekend:

TrollZine #2 from Flying Buffalo:  Tunnels and Trolls holds a special place in my personal Golden Age of Gaming.  Before MMORPGs or even the Gold Boxes of AD&D from SSI, before the average gamer had access to a computer, Tunnels and Trolls allowed one to game solo.  With books and dice. And it was fun!  Enjoy this fan created magazine for T&T

The Hounds of Adranos for Fantasy Grounds:  Free module for Fantasy Grounds 2.  You need the Basic Roleplaying Ruleset to use this (which I have and must say its a beautiful ruleset).  It includes tokens and maps.

Dark Dungeons in the D&D Rules Cyclopedia retro-clone.  Its a huge beast of a book.  If you play any of the D&D retro-clones I'm sure there is stuff you can lift.  PDF is free.  It is also offered in hard and soft cover versions on Lulu.com.

At 11:18 am I got the call from work.  Sigh.  They hopefully can handle the problem.  Hopefully.

Zoom Zoom Zoom!

Alright.  My chauffeur service lasted about 3 hrs.  I didn't have a single drink during my son's 17th birthday party, but I certainly did after I drove everybody home.  Black Cherry vodka and coke... damn nice.  30oz tin cup... way to big.

Anyhow, I'm playing the holiday weekend card.  I'll do the buybacks tomorrow.  I'm off.  That is, assuming work doesn't go all to shit and I get called in.

Celebrating a Year at the Tavern

Yep, I started posting on this blog on May 31, 2009.  I've been doing this for a year.  Can hardly believe it.  It's morphed a bit since the beginning as it (and I) have tried to find the proper voice.  I expect to some extent it will always be a work in progress.

It's also my son's 17th Birthday.  My god but time flies.  Party Time!  Excellent! (Wayne's World Flashback... heh)

I'll post some buybacks later today.

Dead Tree 4e Dungeon Crawl Classics

Tanga.com had a deal last week on a collection of Dungeon Crawl Classics for D&D 4e.  I don't play 4e... I have the core books but I would need to find a way to de-miniaturize the rules (this coming from a major user of VTTs and virtual miniatures)

Still, for less then $40 bucks I received DCCs 53 - 63 (I'm working on the assumption that the $2 DCC is number 59).  11 books.  Not bad for over $150 worth of gaming material of any kind.

I prefer PDFs for most of my gaming these days, but this was a price that could not be beat.  Time for me to steal ideas for Labyrinth Lord ;)