Why is Mariah Carey on the cover of my D&D supplement?

I was reading an article in the May 2006 Sharkbytes newsletter, where game author Shane L. Hensley goes off on the newbies in the industry and The Open Gaming license. He delares that

"Everywhere you looked D20 Gamemasters were
saying "only official WotC books" could be used in their
campaigns. Who could blame them? Some of the stuff out
there was absolute crap, and the easiest way to sort through
the chaff was to just stick with WotC, which was (supposedly)
play-tested and certainly better thought out than most of their
competitors."

I didn't play D20 back then, but I remember those days well, including the onslaught of "Crap". Flimsy supplements with huge pricetags. I particularly remember the Avalanche press books with their busty sword babes.

Now, I cant say that the Avalanche supplements were crap. I never used them in a game. but the reviews i've read online aren't great. But then again I recently learned that many online "reviewers don't actually play many of the games they review. But that's another story.

What I do know is that all the young gamers would drool at the covers and the moms would just shake their heads as they watched their little men fall for the oldest marketing trick in the book.

Motivational Monday

Thanks to RPG.net

PDF's rule!

Today I went with my wife on a shopping trip to Target, as usual I took along some reading material knowing that much of our visit would be in departments that hold little interest to me ( I can only spend so much time scoping out the toy and electronic aisles).
I had a copy of the new Ultimate Power supplement for Mutants and Masterminds. On our way home from the store I realized that I didn’t have the book with me. It turns out while loading the van with our purchases I left the book in the cart. We turned around and went back; luckily I found it still in the shopping cart in the parking lot. If it was a print copy I could have been out &36.95 + tax. Since it was a PDF, I would have been out the price of a binder and the trouble of printing it up.
So yes of course, nothing beats holding a real book in your hands. But the argument for PDF’s just earned a +1 in my book.

Free Games!!

Some of you older guys might remember the dwarfstar games from the 80's.
Jeff from Jeff's gameblog just turned me on to a place where you can download copies for free!

Conan for your PC

Dark horse comics has Conan desktops.

Motivational Monday

Thanks to the folks at RPG.Net

The Inner world of Skartaris -Part 2

I finally finished my rendition of the Map of Skartaris from Warlord Annual #4 (1985). Here are a few notes taken from that issue in regards to the map.

" It is not a map of the whole inner earth, but only that part of it which has been fairly well explored by Travis Morgan in his travels. There is much more to Skartaris...this map represents only a small section of that world."


“Various cultures often have their own names for places… The Desert of Sorrows, for example, is alternately called “The Great Desert” and the “Chyron Desert” by different tribes of people. The Haunted Mountains are known to some as the “Magic Mountains,” and so forth.”

“Krystovar’s map shows only the major city-kingdoms and does not include every little town, village, outpost, or camp throughout the area. And though the map shows some known towers, temples, and ruins, it is by no means exhaustive.”

“Except for mountains, deserts, and seas, most all of Skartaris is jungle. Those places called “forests” on the map are only arbitrary borders on one large continuing jungle, named for various reasons. In some places such as “Shadow Forest” the jungle is denser, while in other places, such as around the city of “Groniko,” the jungle peters out. But it is an ever-present form of terrain throughout Skartaris.”

The Inner-world of Skartaris - part 1

The other day I mentioned on the Savage World board that The World of the Warlord from DC comics would make a kick ass setting for Savage Worlds. with that in mind I have set forth on yet another project. I took the only published map of Skartaris (from Warlord Annual #4) and started to map it out using the AD&D core rules software mapper. I know there are better mappers out there but for some reason I like this one, even though you can't export to any graphic in the known universe. I'm half way done. I used Snag it for the various screen captures and then put it all together in photoshop. I still have the other half of the world to go. and then I might try to pretty it up a bit.

D20 and M&M

I had a couple of friends over late Saturday and tried to DM my first 3E game.
It isn’t half bad. I like getting rid of the THAC0, all the flatfooted, threatened squares, and tactical movement is going to take a bit of getting used to. We ran a simple first level game using core book characters, nothing fancy. I can imagine what a challenge a higher-level game with players who want to bring in characters from 100 different supplements into the game would be. The prestige class thing is like the 2nd edition kits on steroids. I said a while back that 2nd edition AD&D was created for the DM’s and 3rd Edition D&D was created for the players. After reading through the books and playing a session, I stand by that statement.

Everyone who games knows that the D20 system and the OGL has allowed anyone with a computer to publish campaigns and supplements. What I'm finding out now is that a good 80% of that stuff is crap. And from what I understand from D20 veterans was that it was much worse back when the system just started. One of the companies putting out a very decent product, in my opinion, is Green Ronin. I have been looking over their Mutants and Masterminds series for the last couple of days. When I get enough D20 experience under my belt from D&D3E M&M will be my next stop. I just picked up M&M Golden Age. If I cant get the D&D Meetup guys to stop suckling off the D&D teat, maybe I can at least get them to transition to another D20 game. Don’t get me wrong I love D&D, it’s just that it can’t be the ONLY game I play. If I can get a Golden age M&M game going then at least I can get a good pulp fix that way. Jeff R. suggested that I get real good at one system and then run a whiz-bang game at a meeting to generate interest. So I'm taking his advice and setting that as my long-term gaming plan.

Motivational Monday

Thanks to the folks at RPGnet.

I can now say I've been published several times

For those of you who just cant get enough of my rantings and ravings here, you can pick up this months Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine #118. I have an article in the "Lost games safari" column, covering the classic Pacesetter game "Chill".

Athena Voltaire

I originally picked up an issue of Athena Voltaire a while back. I enjoyed the hell out of it! But then it disappeared. Apparently the comic company went under. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the character and the series has been given new life by Ape Entertainment. I am hoping Athena is here for the long haul this time around. This series just cracks with adventure (see the free preview pages). I mentioned finding out about the Savage Worlds RPG the other day. The world of Athena Voltaire would make a fantastic setting for a Savage Worlds pulp campaign.
The guys at Ape entertainment should definitely have lunch with the guys from Pinnacle entertainment, hell, I'd buy lunch just to have a seat at the table and hear the brainstorming!

And by the way, Athena Voltaire isn't the only cool offering from Ape. The Blackcoat and U.T.F. are also titles well worth checking out for Pulpy coolness. They also have webcomics and...awww hell just go there already!

The Big Show

I’ve been a gamer since 1978. I’ve gamed just about everywhere, from foxholes in the Army to the beaches of Hawaii. But I have never been to the “Big Show”-Gen Con. Today at work the mail clerk came in with a package for me. I wasn’t too surprised since all my eBay stuff comes to the office. But this time the package wasn’t an eBay purchase it was from my buddy Chris. Chris went to Gen Con this year and he took the time to fill a swag bag for the Evil DM.
Wow. That blew me away. We never talked about it, I never hinted at it. It was total karma from the goodness of this guy’s heart. The bag was full of online coupons, pins, cards, mini games, stickers, comics (Conan!) and of course Gen Con DICE! I was like a kid in a candy store, as I sat at my desk “ooing” at all the shiny goodies. Everyone in my office thought it was the coolest thing, and it was! Chris even had the foresight to get TWO sets of all the Conan stuff. I’ve never been to the big show, but for a few minutes today I was there in spirit.
Chris is an online buddy. I can’t even remember where or when we first met but we have been gaming online, talking action figures and hanging out for a couple of years now. Chris is one of the reasons why the internet is cool because without it I would have never met him. You have to deal with the occasional Troll and Creep online, but you also get to meet guys like Chris who make it all worthwhile, thanks dude!

Savage Worlds

I’m usually a bit behind the curve with the newer games, mostly because my days of buying everything on the “New this week” shelf at the game store are long past. So while “Savage Worlds” isn’t new, it’s new to me.

I picked up a PDF of the revised core rules the other day and have really been enjoying it. I enjoy PDF’s up to a point but generally I get the print version when I can. But I must say this is one of the best PDF efforts I’ve seen.

Sunday Score

We went to the American Cancer society discovery shop today. It’s a thrift store but a very high-end thrift store, all the volunteers are well of elderly women who are very particular about what they offer at their store. about 40% of all the donations are passed on to the local Salvation army. But despite their discriminating eye, the prices are no higher than any other Thrift store. this is the place where I found a complete set of MEGO Knights of the Round Table figure for $15.00 each. Today while perusing the book room I found a copy of D&D for Dummies ($4), a first edition DM guide ($2) and a brand spanking new copy of the 3.5 player handbook ($7).

It looks like fate is taking a hand. One of my biggest gripes about D&D 3E was the cost of the damn books. And to add insult to injury 40 minutes after I bought the 3rd edition Core rules WOTC declared them obsolete and told us we had to switch to 3.5 suddenly almost $100.00 worth of books (PH, DMG, Psionics, MM and three splat books) became totally worthless.

I suppose the Gaming gods are cutting me a break by letting me find a PHB for $7, and though I resent the fact that they felt they had to throw in a Dummies book on 3E, I still bought that too. Hell, I even bought the old two dollar 1st ed DMG (I felt it was my duty as a Gamer).

Kicking and Screaming

About a week ago I attended a local D&D Meetup. There were about 4 tables worth of folks ranging from early 40’s to early 20’s and even a couple of honest to gawsh girls.
I wasn’t really prepared to play, I just wanted to scout it out and see what kind of turnout there was. On one hand I was please to see so many people, on the other I was dismayed to see that D&D3E was the only offering. I have dozens of games, quite a few I honestly haven’t played in years. I was hoping to find SOMEONE interested in say, a game of GURPS, CHILL or any kind of Pulp game. But all they wanted to play was D&D.

Later that evening I thought that maybe I’ll meet them halfway. So I posted that I would be willing to run a D20 game (Conan, Adventure, Masque of the Red Death, Mutants & Masterminds, Sidewinder, Etc,) at the next Meetup if there was any interest. Three days later I had 20+ views but no responses (the audacity of it all!). It looks like if I ever want to game again I need to get out of my Ivory Second Edition Tower and join the rest of Gamerdom at the 3rd edition altar.

Burt Lancaster and Robin Laws

I was watching a couple of Burt Lancaster movies last night (“The Crimson Pirate” and “The Flame and the Arrow”). I was thinking as I watched them how wonderful it would be if GM’s (me included) could pace a game as well as a Burt Lancaster swashbuckler. I have to try to keep that level of “Huzzah!” going in my game.


I’m also reading Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering. In his book he goes into a lot of things that GM’s should already know but may have forgotten over time. It’s a good read despite being edited worse than my Blog.

Daniel Boone Marathon on TVLand

Growing up as a child of the 70's I watched a lot of TV. Daniel Boone was one of my favorite shows. This weekend TVLand is running a Daniel Boone marathon. and then later on 09/26/2006 several DVD sets of this great old series will be released on DVD. Yes the history is a bit flawed, but the adventures are fun, it's safe for kids, and the scenery is beautiful (California and Utah).

LoS update- Legend Points

The following is a draft of the Legend Point system currently under consideration for the Legends of Steel RPG.

Legend Points

In Legends of Steel your character is expected to be a cut above the average human. He is the one who challenges the Emperor’s Champion to single combat, the one who faces down a horde of raving tribesmen, the one who scales the temple tower to retrieve the “Night Gems of Opara” from a serpent infested treasury. To accomplish these feats your character will need more than a strong sword arm and loyal companions. For this reason we have Legend points.

All characters begin play with 2 legend points. At the game masters discretion more points may be earned but it’s recommended that this not exceed more than one Legend Point award per session. Legend Points are special and should be awarded only in instances where the character has performed an exceptional act of bravery, selflessness, compassion or sacrifice.

A character that stays behind to hold off the enemy while his comrades make good their escape, should he survive, would have earned a Legend point. A hero who refuses a villages meager reward for aiding them in driving off a were beast is also a candidate for a Legend point.

In times of great need your heroes can spend their legend points to directly affect the outcome of the adventure.

Legend points will allow your character one of the following benefits:

· Double your chance-by spending a legend point your character is allowed to roll twice on the declared action and may take the better of the two as his result. The player must declare his intention to use this benefit BEFORE he rolls.

· Total heal- “It was just a flesh wound.” The player may use a legend point to totally restore all LIFE and STUN points lost. This can only be done while the character still has at least one point in both LIFE and STUN.

· Restore willpower- the player may use a legend point to totally restore all WILLPOWER points lost by his character. This can only be done while the character still has at least one point of WILLPOWER.

· Critical strike- by spending a Legend point the character turns a successful hit into a critical hit as if they had rolled a natural “01”.

Quotes from the victims of the Evil DM

“Until now, I didn’t think arch-devils traveled in groups”.
“I missed with a natural 20?”
“I didn’t think anything did 40-400 points of damage”.
“We should have become farmers”.
“I didn’t even know Zeus was mad at me”.
“He has a magic resistance of what?”
“You say we were completely surprised by a fifty-foot dinosaur hiding in that empty field”.
“The thief stole my fighter’s armor while he was wearing it?”
“Armed with only a silver belt buckle, my hero is surrounded by hordes of werewolves…”
“Well, you’re right that Vulcan vampires do have their hearts in a different location”.
“Each of the kobolds has a wand of Orcus?”
“So, this troll seems to be regenerating our fire damage”.
“Fighters can’t use edged weapons?”
“I never heard of a sword of party member slaying”.
“Since when is Gruumsh* a wandering monster?”
“You don’t use saving throws?”
“Thanks. I always thought having two arms wasn’t challenging enough”.
“But the A-bomb hasn’t been invented yet!”
“No, seriously, how much damage did I take?”
“A pack of tarrasques?”
“Come on, in a first-level dungeon? It has to be a gas spore”.
“That’s one tough kobold”.
“Tinker gnomes invented Uzis?”
“Exactly what is a ‘pantheon’, and why is it mad at me?”
“Just how many 30th-level evil wizards are there in this village?”
“I never knew Tiamat had so many twin sisters”.
“That’s its forty-third attack. Can we draw our swords now?”
“How did BattleMechs get into this dungeon?”
“Our group decides not to go to the Castle of Ultimate Pain, but instead back into town”.
“So you’re saying if you cut off their eyes, they grow into little beholders”.
“’Spontaneous decompression’ is a spell?”
“That’s okay, the spikes broke his fall”.
“Do you think we could use store-bought modules from now on?”
“But I’m already dead!”

Nobody beats up Filipino stuntmen quite like Jim Kelly

Rome on DVD

I'm not shilling for Amazon or HBO-just giving a heads up to my thousands of readers (heh). Amazon has the first season on DVD for about $60.00 that's about $30.00 less than it is in the stores. I cannot recommend this series enough. If you like this Blog then chances are you will like this series. I caught the whole first season from start to finish and it ROCKED! But hey, wait around, Netflix it and see for yourself.

New Chap Mei Pirates!

I just got back from BigLots. They have a whole slew of new figures in. My favorite of the bunch are this years new sets of Pirates from Chap Mei.
They have Two new Pirate figures and about four new sets including a hidden treasure set and a pirate ship. The pirate ship isn't huge but it's enough for the kids to have fun with. The figures still have lousy articulation, but the accessories and detail are excellent for the price. Here are a couple of pics of the box.

Heroscape, Marvel Heroscape, and Hollow Earth At Gen Con

I found some cool pics over at Gaming report.

GURPS

I’ve been a gamer for almost 30 years, I started like most with Dungeons & Dragons and continued with all the basics- Traveller, Champions, Runequest, Gamma World, Boot hill, Etc. But my gaming world was turned upside down with a crazy sounding game called GURPS. There was a time when I was known in my circle of friends as “The GURPS guy”.
I ran a campaign called “Everwhen” where my players were allowed to create characters from any genre or time period. They were then kidnapped from their home universes and teamed up with each other to deal with threats to the Multiverse. I also ran a Hyborian campaign for several years in Hawaii and a real fun “Cliffhangers” pulp game. Whenever I went to our local game store, the owner would show us the “latest innovation in RPG’s”, I’d flip through the pages, nod politely and say “Cool. But I can do that with GURPS”.
Through the years I’ve dabbled in many systems but I always came home to AD&D and GURPS. I really haven’t been doing much tabletop gaming in the last few years so when GURPS went to it’s fourth edition I didn’t rush right out to get it, first off like I said I wasn’t doing any gaming, secondly they split the basic book into two volumes with a sticker price of $39.99 each, and then add to that the fact that I got screwed by D&D 3.0 going to 3.5 almost overnight.
Well, the other day I saw Amazon had the Character book for like $25.00 with free shipping. I figured it was about time to take the plunge. I got the book yesterday and have spent every spare moment perusing it. They’ve tightened up the rules, gathered all the skills together in one place and finally gave the game some decent art. Next payday I’ll be picking up the Campaign book and hopefully I’ll find some folks at the next gamers Meetup who will be interested enough to play.

Funny, but for whatever reason I never could like 3rd edition D&D, I tried but it just wasn’t there for me. But I can hardly wait to play GURPS 4th edition.

Heromachine Dwarves

I ran across these Dwarves I made a while back using Heromachine. One of the most addictive programs on the net.  

Knights of Cydonia

My buddy Jeff at Jeff's Gameblog turned me on to this video.
It's so cool on so many levels.
Knights of Cydonia

Lone Wolf

Today I decided to take a walk during lunch and check out the local used bookstore. I saw a couple of the Lone Wolf game books in the bargain bin so I picked them up. I have a quasi-collection of these and the Endless Quest books from TSR. I collect them for my sons-can’t start the indoctrination soon enough eh?
Anyway, I did a little surfing back at work and came across a website that has a few of the earlier books on PDF. More importantly they have a PDF of the Magnamund Companion, A gazetteer of the world of Lone Wolf. This is one tough book to find ( I found a copy at a game store years ago and have since had several offers of up to $50.00 to part with it). One of the neat features in the book is a section with some ship construction guidelines,using paper, balsa wood and some household items, the results are impressive. I might take a crack at it one of these days.

Gotta Game!

There was a time in my life when getting a group together to game was a simple matter. I would make a few phone calls and my house would fill up with gamers, their girlfriends and other assorted hangers on. That was in the late 80’s – I was single had a pretty good job and nothing much else going on in my life to cut into weekend long gaming marathons. Those days are long gone. Now I have a family and a host of responsibilities and commitments. But never the less I still get the itch to sling dice and geek out for a few hours. The problem for me now is finding like-minded folks. My old gaming buddies are into other pastimes and I'm not into hanging out at the gaming room at the local game store because frankly, it smells bad- the place and some of the gamers.

Another problem I have is that I never really made the big switch to the newest editions of the games I played. I couldn’t see spending all that money again to catch up. So here I am a 42-year-old gaming dinosaur, trying to find that lost valley where the rest of my herd has gone.

I'm kinda leery of the "posting the name on the gaming board" route - I’ve had mixed success. On one hand when I was in Hawaii I answered a post for a group called D.O.G.S (Dedicated Oahu Gaming Society) and met a great group of guys and made some lasting friendships. On the other hand, I once had some pseudo / Satanist vampire wannabe’s show up at my door wanting to game. Oh, reckless youth!

Nowadays I have a wife and kids so I have to be very careful about who I invite into my home and my life.

I found this meet up site that has a D&D group in my area that meets monthly. I figured I’d give it a shot. They meet up at a local Denny’s and socialize and game. It seems fairly cordial. I looked over some of the profiles and it runs the typical gamut of folks that are into the hobby. Who knows I might get lucky and find a couple of other dinosaurs looking for a good game of Star Frontiers.

Not Pirates of the Caribbean

It's been a helluva long time since I posted any action figures here. Here is a group shot that my son Anthony and I made for a Pirate contest over at fantasynet.
It came out pretty darn good if I do say so myself.



Not all pirates hung out in the Caribbean. This band of Cutthroats led by Hung Wai Lo terrorized the coast of the Shang Tung province and The South China Sea during the early 1930’s. Here is a dated photograph of unknown origin that shows the Pirate lord and his officers celebrating with the spoils of a recent raid.

David Gemmell passed away

I am shocked and saddened beyond words. It was just announced that one of my favorite writers, David Gemmell has died at the age of 57.I have loved his work from the first time I read "Morningstar" back in the 90's. he was one of a handful of writers whose work I would gladly purchase the moment it hit the shelves. David's masterpiece "Legend" is considered a modern day classic in the genre, and in my opinion will hold up against any work as a great piece of fiction. My personal favorite work from David Gemmell is "Winter Warriors" a great story of three aged fighting men called up for one last adventure. David Gemmell was an incredible storyteller.

The Doctor "Z" conspiracy"

Dr. Z


and Doctor Z



Coincidence? You decide,

Mako

You may not have known his name. but you would recognize him the moment you saw him. His name was Mako, he was a prolific, Oscar nominated actor, with a resume that lists over 150 movies and Television appearances. He played opposite actors like Steve McQueen, James Caan, Bruce Lee, and Michael Douglas. He played everything from a Japanese Admiral to a Hyborian Wizard. Mako passed away last friday, after a battle with cancer. He will be missed.

"I'm a wizard, mind you. This place is kept by powerful gods and spirits of kings. Harm my flesh and you will have to deal with the dead!"

Marvel Legends Heroscape

Heres a photo from the Hasbro booth at the San Diego Comic Con. It looks like Heroscape is really going Hero! now we'll be able to stage our own Marvel Secret Wars. Kewl stuff!

Howard stories on the net

Found this on one of the Robert E, Howard boards I belong to.
It seems that in Australia Robert E Howard's works are entering the public domain and are now appearing on Project Gutenberg of Australia. follow the link and scroll down to the H's.
It's a great selection of many of his Conan and non-Conan works ("Pigeons from Hell" is a MUST READ)

Robert Ervin HOWARD (1906-1936)

Pigeons from Hell (1938)--Text--HTML
The Valley of the Worm (1934)--Text--HTML
The Purple Heart of Erlik (Nothing to Lose) (1936)--Text--HTML
Black Canaan --Text--HTML
Black Talons--Text--HTML
Black Vulmea's Vengeance--Text--HTML

Fangs of Gold--Text--HTML

Graveyard Rats--Text--HTML

Moon of Zambebwei--Text--HTML

Names in The Black Book--Text--HTML

The Black Stone--Text--HTML

The Cairn on the Headland--Text--HTML
Sea Curse--Text--HTML
The Fire of Asshurbanipal--Text--HTML
The Haunter of the Ring--Text--HTML
The Horror From The Mound--Text--HTML
The House of Arabu--Text--HTML
The Tomb's Secret--Text--HTML
The Valley of the Worm--Text--HTML
Wolfshead--Text--HTML
The Shadow Kingdom--Text--HTML
The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune--Text---HTML
THE 'SOLOMON KANE' STORIES:--

Skulls in the Stars (1929)--Text--HTML
The Footfalls Within (1931)--Text--HTML
The Moon of Skulls (1930)--Text--HTML
The Hills of the Dead (1930)--Text--HTML
Wings in the Night (1932)--Text--HTML
THE 'EL BORAK' STORIES:--

The Daughter of Erlik Khan (1934)--Text--HTML
Hawk of the Hills (1935)--Text--HTML
Blood of the Gods (1935)--Text--HTML
Son Of The White Wolf (1936)--Text--HTML
The Country of The Knife (1937)--Text--HTML
THE 'CONAN' STORIES:--

The Phoenix on the Sword (1932)--Text--HTML
The Scarlet Citadel (1933)--Text--HTML
The Tower of the Elephant (1933)--Text--HTML
Black Colossus (1933)--Text--HTML
The Slithering Shadow (1933)--Text--HTML
The Pool of the Black One (1933)--Text--HTML
Rogues in the House (1934))--Text--HTML
Shadows in the Moonlight (1934)--Text--HTML
Queen of the Black Coast (1934)--Text--HTML
The Devil in Iron (1934))--Text--HTML
The People of the Black Circle (1934)--Text--HTML
A Witch Shall be Born(1934)--Text--HTML
Jewels of Gwahlur (1935))--Text--HTML
Beyond the Black River (1935)--Text--HTML
Shadows in Zamboula (1935)--Text--HTML
The Hour of the Dragon (1936)--Text--HTML
Red Nails (1936))--Text--HTML
Gods of the North (1934)--Text--HTML