They are rather marvellously making all the original D&D adventures available again. Happy news for any committed old-schoolers, nostalgics, or dungeon masters on the look out for a new (old?) source of inspiration.
Happy geeking,
Rab
22 January 2013
Dungeons and Dragons PDFs available once more
Thanks to a heads up from Bat in the Attic games I'm now the proud owner of a free copy of the .pdf of B1, In Search of the Unknown basic Dungeons and Dragons from http://www.dndclassics.com/, the newest venture from RPGDriveThru.
They are rather marvellously making all the original D&D adventures available again. Happy news for any committed old-schoolers, nostalgics, or dungeon masters on the look out for a new (old?) source of inspiration.
They are rather marvellously making all the original D&D adventures available again. Happy news for any committed old-schoolers, nostalgics, or dungeon masters on the look out for a new (old?) source of inspiration.
16 January 2013
Dredd's ALIVE
Shamelessly stolen from Facebook, I figured that at least some of this blog's readers would appreciate this rather delightful combination of two 1980s geek-icons. Proper British old-school!
Oh, and watch this space for the draft version of Goblinquest. I'm soooo close to having a single coherent document, I can smell it!
Happy geeking,
Rab
10 January 2013
So, no apocalypse then?
Happy new year, everyone, and I hope you all had a marvellous Christmas!
It would appear the Mayan's bought a new diary after all, so Time Itself didn't come to a crashing halt with unfortunate consequences that even a towel and a packet of peanuts wouldn't protect against. However, on the down side, the school term started again and I got my traditional New Year Lurgy. Nice.
Despite being genuinely lovely, toy monsters and dice-wise, Christmas was a total bust. Not a geeky present received or game played. EDIT - sorry, one of my brothers took out a subscription for me to Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy. Regardless, 2013 needs to have more dice and monsters for me, now I just have to try and sort it out...
In stuff-what-I-stole-from-a-much-better-maintained-blog news, legendary games designer Nick Priestley may have summed up what has irked those like myself who were brought into wargaming and roleplaying by Grandma Wendy, and now find she has developed some sort of dementia so we don't recognise her any more:
The modern [GW design] studio isn’t a studio in the same way; it isn’t a collection of artists and creatives sharing ideas and driving each other on. It’s become the promotions department of a toy company – things move on!
Yup, that's about the sum of things, Nick. And with nothing of my own to contribute (although there are rumours that painting will take place on some of my lead/plastic pile in the near future) I shall leave it there for now.
Happy geeking,
Rab
It would appear the Mayan's bought a new diary after all, so Time Itself didn't come to a crashing halt with unfortunate consequences that even a towel and a packet of peanuts wouldn't protect against. However, on the down side, the school term started again and I got my traditional New Year Lurgy. Nice.
In stuff-what-I-stole-from-a-much-better-maintained-blog news, legendary games designer Nick Priestley may have summed up what has irked those like myself who were brought into wargaming and roleplaying by Grandma Wendy, and now find she has developed some sort of dementia so we don't recognise her any more:
The modern [GW design] studio isn’t a studio in the same way; it isn’t a collection of artists and creatives sharing ideas and driving each other on. It’s become the promotions department of a toy company – things move on!
Yup, that's about the sum of things, Nick. And with nothing of my own to contribute (although there are rumours that painting will take place on some of my lead/plastic pile in the near future) I shall leave it there for now.
Happy geeking,
Rab
9 December 2012
The Widow's Lantern
Tweaking the rules for Goblinquest (still not entirely happy with that name...) is progressing nicely enough for me to claim that I 'won' at nagademon 2012 by finishing and playing my game within November. Anyone else who has designed a game will, I hope, understand that just because I think it's going well doesn't mean I've anything to share yet, so for my 120th post I thought give you another Echo of Averaigne and welcome the two most recent followers of this blog, Dreamfish and Tenz - hello chaps!
Right then, are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin...
Up in the hills towards The Gap there are many remnants of earlier communities, self-styled noblemen and petty kingdoms. Some are undoubtedly still malign, like the Black Hand Barrows, others merely shocking to modern sensibilities, like the frescoes in the Temple of Perpetual Dissipation. Any traveller to nearby towns and villages will, if not driven away by suspicious locals, be treated to tales of heroism and misdeeds, tragedy and treasure about these ruins. One such tale is of the Widow's Lantern.
All that is left of the castle/great house/private chapel/monastery (depends on the teller of the tale) is one end wall, complete with huge, exquisite window. The glazing is long since lost, but the fineness of the supporting tracery that is still intact tells of a level of workmanship not seen in these days outside the capital. Anyone who looks carefully through the window will notice something odd; tracking a bird or cloud across the sky, they will see that as it passes behind the window it fraction of a second longer than it should before it appears through the window. Indeed, if you stand at the right angle, the bird might still just be visible through the window and have reappeared beyond it. The real mystery, though, is the light that blazes forth from it on midwinter and midsummer nights. In summer, the light is accompanied by the sound of great merriment, as if a host of fine ladies and their paramours were feasting and dancing. At midwinter, the sound is different. Very different. The moaning worms into the listener's very guts, filling them with such sadness and dread that none can stand it. Very few stay long enough to hear the screams, and they never talk of it.
Why the widow's lantern? A learned man from the king's schola came once and decided it was a corruption of 'window' by an illiterate villager many years ago and that simple countryfolk had built superstition around a spelling mistake. The villagers know better. They say the moaning is that of a beautiful maiden from a distant land who was married to a nobleman on midsummer's night in that house. He treated her brutally and shamefully for many months after she objected to his predilection for serving girls until, broken-hearted and broken-spirited, her piteous cries brought down heaven's judgement on that evil man and his corrupted household. At midwinter, fire fell from a cloudless sky, consuming all of the building and its inhabitants, but for that window.
Even now, should a man within five leagues mistreat his wife or sweetheart in any way on midwinter's night he will surely be dead by morning without a mark on him, except for sooty marks around his nose and mouth and the stench of smoke clinging so tight to him such that no washing will remove it!
The stories also tell of those who have been invited to the midsummer wedding feast within the long-vanished hall and have come away laden with gold and jewels handed out as largesse to the guests. Reason enough for any adventurer to try their luck and risk the Widow's displeasure...
Happy geeking, and be good to your lady,
Rab
Right then, are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin...
Up in the hills towards The Gap there are many remnants of earlier communities, self-styled noblemen and petty kingdoms. Some are undoubtedly still malign, like the Black Hand Barrows, others merely shocking to modern sensibilities, like the frescoes in the Temple of Perpetual Dissipation. Any traveller to nearby towns and villages will, if not driven away by suspicious locals, be treated to tales of heroism and misdeeds, tragedy and treasure about these ruins. One such tale is of the Widow's Lantern.
 |
| Picture taken from Coopdevil's tumblr feed - great source of inspiration |
All that is left of the castle/great house/private chapel/monastery (depends on the teller of the tale) is one end wall, complete with huge, exquisite window. The glazing is long since lost, but the fineness of the supporting tracery that is still intact tells of a level of workmanship not seen in these days outside the capital. Anyone who looks carefully through the window will notice something odd; tracking a bird or cloud across the sky, they will see that as it passes behind the window it fraction of a second longer than it should before it appears through the window. Indeed, if you stand at the right angle, the bird might still just be visible through the window and have reappeared beyond it. The real mystery, though, is the light that blazes forth from it on midwinter and midsummer nights. In summer, the light is accompanied by the sound of great merriment, as if a host of fine ladies and their paramours were feasting and dancing. At midwinter, the sound is different. Very different. The moaning worms into the listener's very guts, filling them with such sadness and dread that none can stand it. Very few stay long enough to hear the screams, and they never talk of it.
Why the widow's lantern? A learned man from the king's schola came once and decided it was a corruption of 'window' by an illiterate villager many years ago and that simple countryfolk had built superstition around a spelling mistake. The villagers know better. They say the moaning is that of a beautiful maiden from a distant land who was married to a nobleman on midsummer's night in that house. He treated her brutally and shamefully for many months after she objected to his predilection for serving girls until, broken-hearted and broken-spirited, her piteous cries brought down heaven's judgement on that evil man and his corrupted household. At midwinter, fire fell from a cloudless sky, consuming all of the building and its inhabitants, but for that window.
Even now, should a man within five leagues mistreat his wife or sweetheart in any way on midwinter's night he will surely be dead by morning without a mark on him, except for sooty marks around his nose and mouth and the stench of smoke clinging so tight to him such that no washing will remove it!
The stories also tell of those who have been invited to the midsummer wedding feast within the long-vanished hall and have come away laden with gold and jewels handed out as largesse to the guests. Reason enough for any adventurer to try their luck and risk the Widow's displeasure...
Happy geeking, and be good to your lady,
Rab
30 November 2012
Game design advice needed
Righto, gaming parents (and any other readers, of course), I need a spot of advice.
In the game I'm writing and probably known as Goblinquest, characters start with a d20 as their combat dice and then, as they lose combats, this is reduced through d12, d10, d8, d6 and then d4 before ultimate glorious and heroic death (or victory, of course).
Now, the question is this. Should I keep my original plan and allow heroes to increase their Combat Dice by one (eg d8 to d10) if they kill a foe, or should I go for a more traditional RPG approach and have each foe worth a certain number of points which can then be traded for the equivalent poly-dice (eg collect eight points and you can buy back your d8 if you're down to a d6)?
As I see it, the advantage of 'original' is that it is simple enough for the introductory, parent and child game I intend it to be. The advantage of 'traditional' is that it gives more weight to slaying a dragon than a goblin, and it would allow the finding of treasure to have an in-game effect.
Help!
Rab
In the game I'm writing and probably known as Goblinquest, characters start with a d20 as their combat dice and then, as they lose combats, this is reduced through d12, d10, d8, d6 and then d4 before ultimate glorious and heroic death (or victory, of course).
Now, the question is this. Should I keep my original plan and allow heroes to increase their Combat Dice by one (eg d8 to d10) if they kill a foe, or should I go for a more traditional RPG approach and have each foe worth a certain number of points which can then be traded for the equivalent poly-dice (eg collect eight points and you can buy back your d8 if you're down to a d6)?
As I see it, the advantage of 'original' is that it is simple enough for the introductory, parent and child game I intend it to be. The advantage of 'traditional' is that it gives more weight to slaying a dragon than a goblin, and it would allow the finding of treasure to have an in-game effect.
Help!
Rab
26 November 2012
Liebster
Woohoo! My little Geekly Digest is now an award winning blog, thanks to Tenz over at Basement Motive nominating me for this Liebster Award for "creative gaming from a geek Dad's point of view".
The rules of the Liebster Award are:
1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog
2. Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you
3. Copy and paste the blog award on your blog
4. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 blogs of 200 followers or fewer who you feel deserve to be noticed
5. Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment at their blog
So, points 1-3 completed, here are my five nominations (once I'd culled the blogs with over 200 followers already), in no particular order:
Phreedh's Miniature Stuff - a little quieter than usual at the moment, but an absolute goldmine of old-school fantasy miniatures with a highly enjoyable ongoing campaign, "Songs of Stillburg"
Drums in the Deep - a great new blog which is the home of Cavern Crawl and now sports some witchfinders as a new project
Somewhere the Tea's getting cold... - he spent two and a half years collecting, painting, and then refighting "Blood Bath at Orc's Drift" but didn't burn out and still is churning out mountains of cool stuff
Realms of Miniatures - excellent modular game boards and an enthusiastic participant in the online revival of WFB 3rd Edition
Extraordinary Gentlemens Journal - loads of wonderful VSF stuff on here, a treasure trove of found items and rivets
Thanks again, Tenz, for the awards and happy geeking to you all,
Rab
The rules of the Liebster Award are:
1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog
2. Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you
3. Copy and paste the blog award on your blog
4. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 blogs of 200 followers or fewer who you feel deserve to be noticed
5. Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment at their blog
So, points 1-3 completed, here are my five nominations (once I'd culled the blogs with over 200 followers already), in no particular order:
Phreedh's Miniature Stuff - a little quieter than usual at the moment, but an absolute goldmine of old-school fantasy miniatures with a highly enjoyable ongoing campaign, "Songs of Stillburg"
Drums in the Deep - a great new blog which is the home of Cavern Crawl and now sports some witchfinders as a new project
Somewhere the Tea's getting cold... - he spent two and a half years collecting, painting, and then refighting "Blood Bath at Orc's Drift" but didn't burn out and still is churning out mountains of cool stuff
Realms of Miniatures - excellent modular game boards and an enthusiastic participant in the online revival of WFB 3rd Edition
Extraordinary Gentlemens Journal - loads of wonderful VSF stuff on here, a treasure trove of found items and rivets
Thanks again, Tenz, for the awards and happy geeking to you all,
Rab
16 November 2012
Doorway to adventure
I made stuff!
Irritated by having to put open doors to one side of the playing board when they were opened, I made two sets of opening doors. A quick scan of the interweb shows I can't claim this approach is new, but I was quite pleased with myself for coming up with it. With easy access to a laser cutting printer thingamabob I knocked these up while the class I was expecting to be teaching were all in a mock exam.
The one on the left is obviously what they look like closed, with the one on the right with it in 'fully open' and 'diving under the blast doors' modes! A bit of Billiam Babble's old skool art stuck on to them and they'd look just the ticket, I reckon :)
Happy geeking,
Rab
Irritated by having to put open doors to one side of the playing board when they were opened, I made two sets of opening doors. A quick scan of the interweb shows I can't claim this approach is new, but I was quite pleased with myself for coming up with it. With easy access to a laser cutting printer thingamabob I knocked these up while the class I was expecting to be teaching were all in a mock exam.
The one on the left is obviously what they look like closed, with the one on the right with it in 'fully open' and 'diving under the blast doors' modes! A bit of Billiam Babble's old skool art stuck on to them and they'd look just the ticket, I reckon :)
Happy geeking,
Rab
10 November 2012
Goblinquest continues
No sooner do I think I've settled on a name, when eldest son comes up with his own name for our rapidly evolving game - "Knights and Dice". Well, whatever it ends up being called, the action was about to start again. When we left our heroes last time they had split into two groups, one having had a nasty scare fro a skeleton almost literally in a closet and the other facing down a gang of sneaky goblins. Lumbering in between them was a particularly disgruntled troll. What would happen next.....
First off, Sir E's crossbowman stuck a bolt straight into the lead goblin, wounding him slightly and making him easy meat for Sir E himself. A good job too because the troll was soon upon them, trapping the valiant band.
Sir E swung his trusty blade left and right, while his spearman rushed to the aid of the rather outmatched crossbow chappy. Meanwhile, supremely confident in the ability of Sir E to look after both himself and his retainers, Sir C and his merry band had opened another door to reveal another skeleton warrior.
They had learned from their previous encounter, however, and withdrew to allow the crossbowman to shoot his bolt; an incredible shot that shattered the skull of the foul revenant and returned him to the sleep of the grave.
Free to come to the aid of their fellows, they'd left it almost too late.
The troll had slain Sir E's crossbowman and the spearman was hard pressed, all the while Sir E's arm was aching from cutting down the horde of gobbos from whom he could not disengage.
Sir C's arbalist tried to even the odds by shooting bolt after bolt into the back of the creature but to no avail - Sir E's spearman was crushed before Sir C could smite the brute.
All that remained was for Sir E to finally eradicate the goblin menace and all was still.
Actually, Sir E's mourning his loyal fellows rather disrupted the board (clumsy child!), but the survivors withdrew, honour intact and the kingdom safer than before. Time for tea and cake....
[This was a really successful playtest of the almost-ready-for-sharing rules, confirming the missile rules nicely and the change in Combat dice reclamation that I've instituted. I'll post more thoughts on that early in the week, but suffice to say Playtesters Wanted Soon!]
Geek well,
Rab
First off, Sir E's crossbowman stuck a bolt straight into the lead goblin, wounding him slightly and making him easy meat for Sir E himself. A good job too because the troll was soon upon them, trapping the valiant band.
Sir E swung his trusty blade left and right, while his spearman rushed to the aid of the rather outmatched crossbow chappy. Meanwhile, supremely confident in the ability of Sir E to look after both himself and his retainers, Sir C and his merry band had opened another door to reveal another skeleton warrior.
They had learned from their previous encounter, however, and withdrew to allow the crossbowman to shoot his bolt; an incredible shot that shattered the skull of the foul revenant and returned him to the sleep of the grave.
Free to come to the aid of their fellows, they'd left it almost too late.
The troll had slain Sir E's crossbowman and the spearman was hard pressed, all the while Sir E's arm was aching from cutting down the horde of gobbos from whom he could not disengage.
Sir C's arbalist tried to even the odds by shooting bolt after bolt into the back of the creature but to no avail - Sir E's spearman was crushed before Sir C could smite the brute.
All that remained was for Sir E to finally eradicate the goblin menace and all was still.
Actually, Sir E's mourning his loyal fellows rather disrupted the board (clumsy child!), but the survivors withdrew, honour intact and the kingdom safer than before. Time for tea and cake....
[This was a really successful playtest of the almost-ready-for-sharing rules, confirming the missile rules nicely and the change in Combat dice reclamation that I've instituted. I'll post more thoughts on that early in the week, but suffice to say Playtesters Wanted Soon!]
Geek well,
Rab
8 November 2012
Charitable adventuring
I popped into a hospice charity shop last Friday with a couple of bags of clothes my mother-in-law wanted to donate. My instant reward for such helpful behaviour was to find a mildly foxed box...
... and inside, some pristine goodies...
... the Moldvay Basic and Expert rules, plus B2 Keep on the Borderlands, and even...
... the catalogue and registration documents absolutely printer-fresh. Now, I'm not the sort of person who gets excited by an unpunched registration card, but it does show how untouched it all is. All for the princely sum of £2.50! Woohoo! Seriously, not a bent corner or pencil mark to be seen anywhere.
May your charity shop exploits be as fruitful,
Rab
... and inside, some pristine goodies...
... the Moldvay Basic and Expert rules, plus B2 Keep on the Borderlands, and even...
... the catalogue and registration documents absolutely printer-fresh. Now, I'm not the sort of person who gets excited by an unpunched registration card, but it does show how untouched it all is. All for the princely sum of £2.50! Woohoo! Seriously, not a bent corner or pencil mark to be seen anywhere.
May your charity shop exploits be as fruitful,
Rab
6 November 2012
Decisions, decisions
With some helpful feedback from fellow blogger Thatsants (find him over at Somewhere the Tea's getting cold), I've tweaked the character cards. Minor stuff, but I think it's an improvement. I now need to decide whether to have the white or parchment background. Any thoughts?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)