Some good titles from some of my favorites including Avalon Adventures, Cubicle Seven, Kobold Press, and Purple Duckgames. Was going to buy ORSIC adventuers from Expeditious Retreat , but they are still cheaper per adventure in the bundle ten packs, and she-must-be-obeyed recommended focusing my $100 budget on rules rather than adventures (I ignored that recommendation for Kobold Press). You too can get in on the savings but you have to hustle because the sale ends tomorrow (the 14th).**Update sale still on Saturday the 15th, Drivethru rpg account reports 1 day 1 hour 13 minutes at 8:47 AM Eastern Daylight time. Going to pick up some emperors choice Arduin eternal things and hunt for more ***
P.S. my biggest problem there is so much on sale its hard to sort through (unfortunately not the tile sets I am still missing from Skeleton Key games).
Although I am a big fan of Tolkien and Lord of the Ring, having first read them when I was only 11 and re-read them three times since, I have not been a big fan of Middle Earth roleplaying. To me at least, Middle Earth (which seems to have limited wizards to only seven semi-divine beings and has no apparent clerics whats so ever) was a poor fit for classic Dungeons and Dragons (although fighting the big battles of middle earth with Chainmail rules seems completely plausible, not that big battles are are going to save Middle Earth). It also has the issue of when do you set it? Before the books anything the players do won't matter. After the books the great evil has already been defeated, and the magic is fading from the world. I like D&D games where the the player characters are causal agents (much more Conan king by his own hand) rather than bit players in some giant overplot. However my web surfing today revealed that quite clearly many people do not agree with my position.
Off surfing the web ran into this site rating classic Dungeons and Dragons modules (disclaimer I do not agree with his rankings Tomb of Horrors sucked when it first came out and still does, Queen of the Demonweb still rocks). However, I also noticed his comprehensive review of Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP) modules from Iron Crown. I do have a bit of a soft spot for MERP as Arms/Claw/Spell Law light, and some of the modules sounded lots better than Moria and the Corsairs of Umbar, which are the only two I own. So I went to see what was on the web. Unfortunately MERP itself seems locked in the property rights graveyard (where games go to die) having lost their license from the Tolkien estate in 1999. I can find are boot-leg copies (no I'm not giving the links, you can find them yourself). However, in addition to the Decipher Lord of the Rings Game (also property rights defunked, although the card game seems to still be continuing) and the the One Ring from Cubicle 7 available from Drivethru RPG (although at $30 quite expensive) I found several quite interesting home brew game systems. On MERP.com there is both Adra Marred and Ea d20 , as well as a GURPS adaptation. Also of use was a collection of lord of the rings fonts (the tar.gz format is not real pc friendly, but 7zip was able to handle it). Several folders for other games exist but have no content. There is a Hither-lands entry but the link is broken, luckily I was able to find the teaser edition of Hither-lands on http://vgunn.globat.com/ The teaser edition is a really very interesting 30 pages, as well as being enough rules to play, although lacking DM guidance for monsters and building encounters. I would like to see more, however since the last date on the news page is 2010 and the forum link crashes this project is probably abandoned. Pursual of the links page of MERP.com lead me to the The Heren Turambarion website their own game Ambarquenta is currently a password locked beta test (and has been since 2012, I'll try asking for the key anyways). However, they also have a copy of The Middle-Earth Adventure Game (MEAG) which is not locked. Other site of interest included the fanzines Other Minds and Halls of Fire , and an archive of MERP fan modules and game aids. I signed up for the fan MERP module yahoo group, but they have not let me in yet. There are also a number of sites to devoted to literary critisms of the Lord of the Rings, but since I think Lord of the Rings is one of the most over analysed books there is I won't bore you with them further. As some of the younger folk at work were pointing out its my generations Harry Potter, the book you love because you grew up with it. Unfortunately I am beginning to get that collectors itch to go acquire MERP modules I turned my nose up at when they were easy to get a hold of. Hopefully the free stuff I downloaded today will stave that off. Updates: The password in Open Minds 4 for Ambarquenta still works! The Open Mind site also contains the fanzine Open Hand for download as well. Am in on the yahoo group (interesting files but not well organized) it points athttp://fanmodules.free.fr/ another depository of even more stuff (but no better organization)
Working my way through my capsule review for the rulenomicon (I have it made to the letter "S") I ran into Gabor Lux's Swords and Magic (long time readers may remember my vain attempts to translate this long ago, luckily for you can get Gabor's own translation here). This reminded me that I have forgotten to check Gabor's Blog Formhault for awhile (most of the time its in Hungarian, but the English posts are gems, one can wade through the Hungarian ones with google translate as well although some of the magic is gone). The good news Gabor had just published a new game. The not so good news its in Hungarian. Click here and you'll be taken to a site to download the free .pdf. Cover of the boxed set is shown below
The blurb on coachmen and robber knights reminds me of the central European folktale book of my youth. If I remember my Hungarian traditions, it was the coachman's job to tell the grooms stories while they worked on the horses. It also seems to have a three musketeers vibe as well, in my opinion a bit neglected era for roleplaying (En garde and Seven Seas being the exceptions) I have the .pdf already but will wait for an English translation before ordering the boxed set. I'll probably run the .pdf text through google translate, but based on past experience the results won't be pretty. Only one more thing left to say
*** Warning any Hungarians under the age of 18 should cover their eyes as what is coming is what my Hungarian friends refer to as a term of amusement ***
Kurva jó !
P.S. actually one more more thing to say in learning Hugarian, unfortunately I seem to be following the long language learning tradition of learning the swear words first
P.P.S She-who-must-be-obeyed would highly frown on the other time tested language learning technique of picking up a Hungarian girlfriend.
So hunting for Strongholds in minecraft has cut into my blogging time. However, since I am home from work this morning I though I would give it a shot. Happy birthday D&D! Jon Peterson has declared it so, watch his video on youtube.
I enjoyed Jon's book Playing at the World greatly. I do agree with the several other blogs that this is yet another WoTC marketing opportunity lost. Kobold press seemed to give some coverage as did Pazio, but WoTC is behind the internet power curve as usual *** UPDATE Wizards of the Coast actually did post something for the 40th Anniversary of DnD. Unfortunately they are still not selling many things that I do not already own ****(When I am running my game company, I'll be hiring some 18 year old who's job is to surf the web and tell me what people are saying, he can also log on my website and tell me what links are broken and what people on the forum are complaining about). Unfortunately my 4th edition living forgotten realms game group seems to be winding down. They are piling in the car next week and heading to Fort Wayne for the final winter fantasy blowout. I'd have gone too, but I couldn't take as much time off from work as i would need to ride with them, and she-who-must-be-obeyed doesn't like me driving long distances by myself anymore (besides I missed the 24 hour window between when tickets went on-sale and when they sold out). As wind-down for our group we have been writing MYRE for other peoples favorite characters to run through out the spring. I am working on one for my friend's dragonborn Talak'talon. Here's the introduction (Lucas Cornelluis is my epic level warlord who is multiclassed bard, Captian Bellmourne is another players character from the Sunday night spelljamming MYRE series I ran over the Summer):
You
sit in your cups in the Roaring Griffon Inn in Marsember listening to Lucas
Cornelius the Singing Warlord perform the Dragonborn Opera “Lost Arkhosia” all
on his ownsome. It tells the tale of the fall of the dragonborn lands from
Abeir to Toril during the time of trouble. It’s a small crowd and gets even
smaller once the aria of “Wails and Screeches” begins. This part tells how
during the fall the Royal Palace cracked in half and is a song about the Crown
Prince of the Dragonborn watching his principal consort, her newly laid egg, and
the Queen Mother drift off in the half separated from the part still attached to the ground.
The fact that it is normally sung as duet does not seem to deter Lucas. The
high pitched screeches offensive to both
human and dragonborn ears, are meant to jar the soul. The dull metallic clunk
of the Chon Bek, although hammered in a rhythm unfamiliar to most, is in
keeping with the traditions of the Dragonborn High Court Ceremonies. The low
rumble of the principal consort to her egg sounds strangely familiar. As the Opera closes Lucas receives polite applause,
except from you who gives it a loud screech and a standing ovation. As you are
doing so, you feel a tug on your cape. You whirl around suddenly hands on your
khopeshes, to see two dark-skinned dwarves, one with a hook for hand who is
doing the tugging, and another with patches over both eyes. The dwarf with the
hooks speaks “Yar there be a strange tale indeed, but didn’t blind Smee here see
a piece of a dragonborn palace floating in the bottom of the East Rift on a sea
of stars when he had eyes to see. And weren’t he clutching an egg in a stasis
field when we rescued him from the Ilthid slave caravan. Don’t bother talking
to him direct all he speaks is deep speech now.
Took him years to crack the stasis spell and what the thanks he got?
When the egg hatched they took the dragonborn bairn away and told him no one
should be raised by an Ilthid touched like him, but didn’t he keep the shell?
If you matched the shell pattern to the Royal Egg records, wouldn’t you have
something. Of course the Royal Egg records from that time are in the part of
the Palace that broke away. You’d need a Spelljammer, and a Captain with balls
as big as dragon eggs, and no sense at all. But didn’t that Capt’ Bellmourne
fly that bat winged spelljammer over the Cormyr Wizards guild and have his crew
give them a twenty-one moon salute. We hear tell you’re a dragonborn raised by
dwarves, perhaps you’d like to come with us and have a chat with Cap’t B?”
I have been poring through the Rulenomincon by reading all the rules I have downloaded to look for a suitable substitute for 4th edition (The group all agrees from what we have seen that the 5th edition play test rules are not it, and we burned the Pathfinder bridge hard a year or two ago {some people have been sneaking of to play Pathfinder in secret anyways}). I am also trying to write capsule reviews as I go. So far I am up to letter M in the Rulenomicon, when I get to letter Z I will rework the Rulenomicon to include the reviews. Thought I had an near hit with Dungeon world (even signed up for a dungeon world kickstarter by the guy who did the fourthcore Fane of the Hesiearch for 4th edition, Kickstarter's over but there's a late subscribers link here , at least as of this morning, they send me a link to the draft .pdfs the same day I signed up). However, the more I read Dungeon world the less I like it (too much make stuff up, and caped at 10th level; more on this later). 13th age finally send me the group play modules I asked for in December, so we may give those a go instead...
Unfortunately she-who-must-be-obeyed suggestion that I set up a Minecraft server for the holidays has eaten heavily into my blogging. Since she is currently asleep I can quit digging out gravelled in lava pits to look for seams of redstone and diamonds. There is a village in the server world, but I am banned from visiting it for fear of triggering a zombie attack. She-who-must-be-obeyed claims there is a witches hut, but I have never been to it. Finally found a lost mine two days ago. She-who-must-be-obeyed has indicated her displeasure at my plan to link all the seven plus caverns we have discovered into one giant underground network but the first four are already linked and I am not stopping. By judicious use of our pick of fortune two we have amassed a horde of over ninety diamonds but I am not allowed to build either weapons or armor with it. I have managed to enchant enough iron armor, so that creeper blasts no longer kill me instantaneously. I think the monster list is even shorter than one in the three little brown books I bought in 1975, but since I don't fight better even after I gain levels that is perhaps a good thing. Still not used to a game where gaining levels does not make you fight better. Is minecraft a RPG? Yes, but not a particularly good one. As I told she-who-must-be-obeyed Minecraft is seven different genre of games, all done halfway. And no I am not turning off the monsters, just so we can mine diamonds faster. At least its not dwarf fortress (we'll talk about the angry ghost left in the wake of the ax murderer some other time). I do enjoy watching Minecraft on youtube One of my favorites is the Yogcast Galaticraft Moon Quest:
It's kind of like the three stooges play Minecraft, but Simon's voice is so soothing. Unfortunately none of interesting mods they threw into this world pass muster with my virus checker. She-who-must-be-obeyed is more interested lately in Panda4994. Here's the video where he beats the Ender dragon with snowballs.
Unfortunately, playing the game panda's way although totally awesome, destroys any illusion of minecraft being an RPG at all. Think of your worst rules-lawyer/loop-holer run amok.
P.S. Either what I didn't get for Christmas but bought for myself, or the 4e Thursday groups plan for the Grand Finale.
O.K. what started me down this path was post on Tenkars Tavern pointing to his friend +Charles Akins list of list of Blogs at Dyvers and claiming it as most complete. Dyvers has a pretty good list and the fact that it has a paragraph review of each certainly makes very useful. Shear numbers is not always the best metric and its Tenkar not Akins who is making the claim of completeness, but the numbers are worth looking at. At 170 blogs it's pretty large, certainly more than the 119 I tracked for Swords and Wizardry Day, or the number of blogs I track on my rulenomicon page. However this far less than the 245 blogs tracked for growth by Cyclopean in 2011, or the 289 Blog snapshot I took of my blogroll last year and certainly less than the 320 Roleplaying blogs I am tracking on Feedly (which includes wordpress and other blogs not well tracked by blogger, and is not capped at the 280 something maximum of the blogger blogroll). The RPG Roleplaying Alliance clocks in at 594 members. One could try to claim that the Dyvers is exclusive to the Old School Renaissance, but he includes GURPS and 4e sites, so this clearly not the case. Personally I have always struggled with the OSR label, it is an arbitrary designation, but has caused me to think twice about posting on the 4e Dungeons and Dragons I am actually playing these days, for fear of losing OSR cred. I have apparently diluted it enough not to make Dyvers list (Hey! he could pick up one more by linking to me). **Update Akins indicates here that he will trying to add another 50 blogs soon so perhaps I will be in the second round***
P.S. Akins effort has inspired me to actually finish my long neglected Blognomicon page, look for it on the header tabs (although I have not got around to adding commentary, sometimes just reading the names gets my imagination going).
P.P.S Warning, the Blognomicon is based on my year old snapshot. Although the links were live at the time, some may have gone dark, or worse turned into Zombie blogs selling used cars and washing machines
