Mapping Beyond the Flanaess: The Sundered Empire and Lynn

Apologies for not posting much in the last couple of days, and for not having any updates to my "Mapping Beyond the Flanaess" series lately. Hopefully today's post will make up for that with three, count 'em, three new maps. These cover Thalos, the Free States, and Drazen's Horde, finishing off the Sundered Empire region. This batch also includes the Empire of Lynn, detailed in François Marcela-Froideval's series of graphic novels Chroniques de la...

Read More

Reminder: Adventures Dark and Deep Open Playtest Ending Soon

Just a gentle reminder that, if you want to participate in the open playtest for Adventures Dark and Deep, you'll only be able to download the playtest versions of the three rulebooks-- the Players Manual, Bestiary, and Game Masters Toolkit, for another couple of days. As of May 1, the open playtest will be officially over, and they will no longer be available. Naturally, input and feedback after May 1 is more than welcome and encouraged via the Adventures Dark and Deep forums, but no more playtest versions of the rulebooks will be available. Until...

Read More

Average Healing by Level

Just a quick number-crunching exercise today. This is the average amount that a cleric and druid can heal, in a day, assuming they get the 2 bonus 1st level spells for a high wisdom score and memorize the maximum number of Cure Light/Serious/Critical Wounds spells. Some of the variations are interesting, because even though the druid's curative spells are higher level than those of the cleric (cure light wounds is a 1st level cleric spell, but a 2nd level druid spell), they still get more of them at certain experience levels.LevelClericDruid114021814318184231852323623337333784347964471090571195781299105131091311413616215157n/aUseful...

Read More

Geekdad Interviews Steve Jackson re: Ogre on Kickstarter

Over at Wired Magazine's Geekdad, Steve Jackson was recently interviewed about the phenomenally successful Ogre Designer's Edition kickstarter campaign. So far it's only halfway done, they've blown past $300k, and they're still trying to think up more stretch goals. Definitely worth checking o...

Read More

It's Reprintapalooza at Wizards!

EDIT2: Nope. Not a hoax. It's up on the Wizards of the Coast website. EDIT: WotC has apparently confirmed that this, along with the 3.5 reprints, is a hoax. I just can't keep up with all this. Now they're reprinting the original Dungeon! board game this October. Excellent news, of course, but why can't they just come out and SAY what the heck they're doing!? Why all this dribbling it out in secre...

Read More

Is "Provolone" D&D Next?

EDIT: Turns out B&N has now taken down "Provolone" and the two 3.5 reprints that were up there yesterday. I think D&D Next is scheduled to be released on September 18 of this year.In the comments of my post from last night pointing out the "reprints" of the Players Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide, sharp eyed James Mishler pointed out that the Wizards RPG Team also had something called "Provolone" scheduled for release the same day, which...

Read More

More WotC Reprints; 3.5 This Time. WTF?

EDIT: Turns out B&N has now taken down "Provolone" and the two 3.5 reprints that were up there yesterday. Well isn't this interesting? It's certainly been a day for news from Wizards of the Coast.Remember how the reprints of the core 1E rulebooks caused such a stir, and they were then postponed a bit? Well now it seems that Barnes & Noble has put two of the 3.5 rulebooks up on their website for pre-order, going on sale September 18:Players Handbook Dungeon Masters GuideMaybe Monte Cook disagreed with the corporate decision to re-release...

Read More

D&D Next Public Playtest Starts May 24, Sans Monte Cook

So it seems that WotC is giving me my birthday present a day early this year.It's just been announced that the public playtest of D&D Next (whatever it ends up finally being called, that seems to be the going nomenclature), is starting on May 24, the day before my birthday. So we'll have an open playtest version of the rules to kick around for a while. I've been cautiously optimistic about the next version, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they've come up with, and whether the details can live up to the broad strokes they've been talking...

Read More

Harold Johnson on the Mythology Behind Tamoachan

Over at ENWorld, someone posted a question about one of the figures in the venerable Greyhawk module C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. Greyhawk scholar Allan "Grodog" Grohe then consulted one of the original authors of the module, Harold Johnson, and got the following in reply. I thought it was a fascinating look into the background of one of the classic modules of the early 1980's, and deserved to be repeated. Allan, It's been a while since I checked...

Read More

Gary Gygax Defends D&D on "60 Minutes"

From a 1985 episode of CBS's venerable news magazine "60 Minutes", with Gary Gygax in a particularly dapper sweater...

Read More

Mapping Beyond the Flanaess: Ravilla and Mordengard

Now we really start getting to the heart of the Sundered Empire; the elven Empire of Ravilla (a collection of gray elf city-states in the open land, and wood elf settlements in the large woodland I call the Deepingwood) and the dwarven People's Republic of Mordengard. Tucked away in the southeast corner of the map are several of the numerous human, gnome, and halfling lands and settlements that sprang up when the Empire of Ravilla withdrew to consolidate...

Read More

The Politics of Competitive Board Gaming Amongst Friends

...

Read More

So Many Pots A-Boilin'...

I just wanted to step back a minute and take stock of the various projects I'm working on right at the moment.A Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore: This rules supplement for AD&D, OSRIC, and compatible games was successfully funded on Kickstarter. The manuscript is done and sent off to the editor, the artwork is being done as I write this, and we're on-track for a July release.Adventures Dark and Deep™: The rulebooks are pretty well done at this point. The open playtest ends one week from today (all comments and observations still more than welcome,...

Read More

Some More Greyhawk Heraldry

Last year I used Inkwell Idea's wonderful Coat of Arms Visual Designer to come up with some .png files of heraldry from the World of Greyhawk. These have the advantage of being sharp and scalable, which often isn't the case with scans from the books. Now I've got the pro version and have been doing some more work in it, finishing up the images in GIMP when needed (such as adding the Iron League's signature fret in the upper-right corner). Here are...

Read More

They're Made out of Meat

Do yourself a favor and take 5 minutes to listen to this radio adaptation of Terry Bisson's short story "They're Made Out of Meat." I had heard of it, but never read (or heard) it before. Terrific stuff.Hat tip: Contrary B...

Read More

Do We Want Ogre Miniatures? Steve Jackson Wants to Know!

As most of you know, Steve Jackson Games is currently in the midst of a hugely successful Kickstarter Campaign for a new edition of Ogre with top-notch components. They blew past their initial goal almost instantly, and are now undertaking an online survey to see what their next stretch goal should be.One of the options is to commit to bringing back the miniatures line in 2013.I realize that my love of Ogre miniatures is not something shared by all...

Read More

1970's Sci-Fi Marathon

If I was going to organize a movie marathon of pre-Star Wars 1970's science fiction movies, I'd probably pick:RollerballLogan's RunWestworldSoylent GreenColossus: The Forbin Project Coincidentally, TCM is running all but the last of those movies tonight (they chose Close Encounters of the Third Kind instead of Colossus: The Forbin Project, which is a choice I can understand even if I don't agree with it). The only problem is, how do I stay up 'till 5 AM to watch them all?...

Read More

Minifigs World of Greyhawk Gallery Updated

As I find new pictures of the old Minifigs World of Greyhawk figures from the 1980's, I tend to save them up and post them in batches. Well, another batch has been put up on the page. This one includes heroic mercenary cavalry, a picture of the Overking's Heavy Guard Foot in the blister, a better shot of the armored dinosaur/flying dinosaur blister, and a few other odds and ends. Enjoy! (And as always, there's a direct link to the page over to the right, in the "Free Resources" sectio...

Read More

Mapping Beyond the Flanaess: Ahmut's Legion and the Blasted Desert

Hot on the heels of my last map comes the next in the series, this time finishing up (completely) the lands of the Celestial Imperium and moving more into the territories of the Sundered Empire. I've also redone the last map somewhat, adding a number of petty states west of the mountains to fill in what are collectively known as the Disputed Regions, and the Celestial Sea also got a touch-up in the southwest corner, adding a couple of coastal towns....

Read More

I Blame the High Cost of Miniatures on Instability in the Mid-East

Back in the mid-1970's, the price of oil was so high because of the various OPEC embargoes that SPI actually had to stop including a tiny die with their games because plastic was too expensive. They included a little piece of paper in the game explaining why there was no die, and offering to send one to the gamer if they really wanted it, for the cost of postage. Eventually prices went down and dice started appearing in SPI games again.I recall that story because there are two games in which I'm very interested, and for which I just saw some pricing...

Read More

The Kingdoms of the Marches and the Disputed Regions

As I continue to move westward across Oerik with my "Mapping Beyond the Flanaess" series, I find myself on occasion needing to reconcile disparate sources. In addition, I am keenly aware of a problem with the various sources that cover western Oerik; specifically, they're just too frigging big and empty, compared to the Flanaess. (This last point was explicitly mentioned by Nellisir in the comments of my last post, and it's one I completely agree...

Read More

Mapping Beyond the Flanaess: Naresh and Northwestern Suhfang

Apologies for the time it's taken to get to the next map in my "Mapping Beyond the Flanaess" series. I was waiting for some materials to come, since the maps are now definitely moving into the Sundered Empire region. Here we have the northwestern portion of Suhfang, the demonic gnoll realm of Naresh, and the western High Khanate. I'm including the central Suhfang map next to it, so you can see how it connects to the whole.As usual, click to embiggen,...

Read More

End of an Era

I got to see the shuttle atop the 747 transport aircraft back in 1990, when I was in basic training in the Air Force and the plane flew over Lackland AFB. My wife got to see it today, as she was in Washington, D.C. on a field trip with her class. Coincidentally, we both got to see the shuttle Discovery.I am a huge supporter of manned space exploration, and it's one of the few things that breaks my normally libertarian sensibilities to say it's worth the expenditure of large amounts of public money, because the payback really is enormous, as opposed...

Read More

Monday is Sundered Empire Day

That's what it seems like, anyway. Today the postman dropped off the research materials for my Mapping Beyond the Flanaess project, as I'm now moving into the territory that was used as the setting for the Chainmail miniatures game from 2001/2002, known as the Sundered Empire. It sits in the northwestern corner of Oerik, and fits in pretty nicely with the rest of the info we have. I was able to snatch up the three books I needed from eBay at low low prices. So I'll start to scour the three books; Blood & Darkness, Fire & Ice, and the Ghostwind...

Read More

Open Playtest Ends May 1st

With the successful conclusion of the Kickstarter campaign for Adventures Dark and Deep™: A Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore (and a big THANK YOU again to everyone who pledged!), the open playtest for the full-blown game can move into the next phase. The full stand-alone Adventures Dark and Deep™ game consists of three books; the Players Manual (currently 266 pages without art), Game Masters Toolkit (144 pages), and Bestiary (358 pages). As of May 1, the playtest versions of the books will no longer be available for free download. The open playtest...

Read More

Genre-Specific Cross Promotion

A day or two ago, I came across a website called Celstyle. It's an intriguing idea-- they present themselves as a one-stop-shop for various role-playing games designed by different people and sold by different companies, but all dealing with anime-type themes. (What we used to call "Japanimation" back in the day.)Now, I know that anime has a rabid fan base all unto itself, and thus something like this could make sense. Get into the zeitgeist of anime fandom, mentions on the prominent anime blogs, podcasts, etc., and you have a good chance of not...

Read More

Last Day for the Kickstarter

No hard sells, no more stretch goals, just a quick reminder that the kickstarter for the Adventures Dark and Deep™: A Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore ends tomorrow at midnight eastern time. If you've been waiting 'til the end to make a pledge, well... the end is here....

Read More

The Mystic

From the upcoming Adventures Dark and Deep™: A Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore, by the incomparable Brian "Glad" Thomas.(Click to embigge...

Read More

New Bonus Goal for Kickstarter!

Wow... Kickstarter trifecta in effect!I just wanted to thank everyone who helped us surge past the first bonus goal. Everyone who pledges $10 or more will now get a copy of the bonus adventure, specifically designed to show off the new character classes.But wait! This adventure will also tie in to one of the seminal projects in gaming today, James Maliszewski's megadungeon Dwimmermount, which just so happens to be in the final days of its own Kickstarter Campaign. A treasure map found on level 2A of that dungeon can lead to the bonus adventure...

Read More

Ogre Designer's Edition Kickstarter

Keeping with the Kickstarter theme, some of us on the official Ogre email list were given the word that the Ogre Deluxe Edition game is now on Kickstarter!This is one gorgeous-looking game. Thick, chipboard counters, three-dimensional cardboard Ogres, nice big maps... If I can't have Ogre Minis, this is the game to have. They're measuring the thing in pounds, for crying out loud. 14 pounds, and perhaps more if they meet some of their stretch goals.But...

Read More

Kickstarter Stretch Goal: 5 Days and $337 to Go!

As of right now, we stand a mere $337 away from meeting the first stretch goal for the Kickstarter campaign, and have 5 days to go until the campaign ends.The stretch goal should be a lot of fun; a pdf adventure module specifically designed to showcase the new character classes in the Adventures Dark and Deep™: A Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore book. The new character classes: bard, jester, mystic, savant, and mountebank will get to strut their...

Read More

Is a Samurai Just a Fighter in Funny Armor?

This past weekend I posted about how I might approach an "oriental adventures" rules supplement, essentially saying that, where the OA book published by TSR was jargon-heavy and skewed more historical (and was heavily weighted towards Japan), I would skew mine more towards Samurai and Kung-Fu movies, and would try to make it more accessible to an English-speaking audience with a limited knowledge of historical Japan and China (and that I would balance...

Read More

How the Enterprise Almost Landed in Las Vegas

When I read this story, I was absolutely flabbergasted. I fancy myself a hard-core Star Trek fan, but had absolutely no idea that there were plans to build a life-sized USS Enterprise and put it in downtown Las Vegas as a tourist attraction. Let alone how close they came to actually going through with it.Apparently they had the plans, the permits from the city, the funding from backers, and the license from Paramount. All they needed was the blessing...

Read More

...and feasted on their brains

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. --Matthew 27:51...

Read More

How I Would Approach Oriental Adventures

I was as thrilled as anyone in 1985 when I got my copy of Oriental Adventures. And instantly a group of NPC adventurers from the West showed up in my Greyhawk campaign for a few sessions, then faded away. I put an OA adventuring party in my Castle of the Mad Archmage, just to spice things up, as well. But on the whole the published OA book was kinda... meh. And I think I know why.First, it's filled with terms that nobody either recognizes nor understands....

Read More

11 Years Later, and We're Still Nowhere Close

On this day in 1968, one of, if not the greatest science fiction film of all time debuted. I was but a wee lad of 2, but seeing this movie in the theater is one of my earliest memori...

Read More

Dungeon Crawl Classics: First Impressions

Folks who pre-ordered the Dungeon Crawl Classics game from Goodman Games got their link to download the accompanying .pdf version last night, and I've had a chance to look mine over. Note that I've not done a thorough cover to cover reading, nor have I played the game, but I did glean enough to get some first impressions.My overall impression is that this is going to be one raucous game to play. Some of the basics; the rules and appendices are 450...

Read More

Happy First Contact Day!

Star Trek lore tells us that on this date in the year 2063, space pioneer Zephram Cochrane, inventor of warp drive, will make first contact with a Vulcan scout ship, leading to the eventual formation of the United Federation of Planets. Well done, Dr. Cochrane.Of course, in the Mirror Universe, he killed the vulcan crew and looted their ship, which eventually led to the enslavement of the planet Vulcan by the Empire. Well done too, Mirror Dr. Cochrane....

Read More

Space Battleship Yamato 2199

ICV2 had this up this morning. I knew Space Battleship Yamato (known in the US as Starblazers) was popular, but had no idea they were re-doing it. The clip below is in Japanese, but wow... just... wow...

Read More

Kickstarter Bonus Reward!

Well, we've got a week and a half to go, and the pledges keep coming in. Here's something that will hopefully stir up a little more interest for those who haven't yet pulled the ol' pledge trigger.If we pass the $3,500 mark, each and every person who pledged $10 or more will also receive a pdf adventure module specifically designed to highlight the various character classes in the book and how they can be used in an urban, wilderness, and dungeon environment. The adventure, to be written by the same Humble Author who wrote "A Curious Volume...

Read More

Mapping Beyond the Flanaess: The Celestial Sea

As promised, yet another in my series of Darlene-style maps that take things on Oerth beyond the confines of the Flanaess. This time, we see the Celestial Sea, southern Suhfang, the Isle of Dragons, and Erypt. This brings most of the lands of the Celestial Imperium into view, with only a few of the westernmost provinces and border marches left to do. I also touched up the Zindia/Golden Jungle map based on decisions made doing this one. As always,...

Read More