Well, I’ve really done it now. I signed up to GM three slots, one each day, for Marmalade Dog 20, the weekend of February 6-8, 2015.
Roy Snyder is putting together an OSR track.
I’ll be running Village of Hommlet, AD&D 1e rules.
I look forward to getting a chance to play in the other tracks.
This will be my first time running a game at a con.
The Hero Forge Kickstarter was one of the first Kickstarters that I backed. I got swamped with real life and missed out on playing with the beta websites.
Tonight I finally made time to go online and design my mini and place the order. My Kickstarter pledge for $30.00 gets me a detail mini and free shipping. As one of the backers I have access to the beta hexagonal base, for no additional cost.
What is really cool, is that you can name and save the character and then click the share button to get a link to that character. My mini is my interpretation, limited by the options of the Hero Forge site, to make Griswald Stewart, my long-time character in my brother, Robert’s AD&D 1st Edition game. Griswald is a half-elf fighter/cleric/magic-user of 10th/10th/11th level , and is the one for whom Robert drew the wolf’s head image that is Griswald’s personal symbol. Griswald was the only one with a magic weapon when the group he was with encountered a wolfwere. Slaying this magical beast gave Griswald the appellation, “The Wolf”. Griswald’s father was a hillsman, who are based on the Scottish clans, so he is supposed to be wearing a kilt, it is the lower half of robes.
I will show pictures of the unboxing when it arrives.
I will now have to locate paints and other supplies to prepare it. I will do my best to put the wolf symbol on the shield. I will have a post or two on the progress as I paint it. That could take some time, as January is my busiest time of year at work, plus my first grandchild is due in mid-January, so I may not get to it until sometime in February.
I found the Hero Forge website to be easy to use. I could have chosen from many different genres, like science fiction, western, modern, or east-Asian. You pick a genre, body type, racial type and design from head to toe including facial expression. It is all point and click. The low end mini is $15 and is not suitable for painting. The detail mini is designed to hold paint, and there are three inch and six inch versions available, for a big increase in cost. Standard shipping is $5.00. It is also very cool that you can change your view of the mini in design to make sure you know how the whole thing looks and if it is to your liking.
If you want a mini that is massively customizeable, this is a quick and easy way to get one, although I find the cost to be one to limit my purchases to either favorite characters or major NPCs to use in my game. I only have eight lead/pewter miniatures from back in the day, so I don’t use minis in games I run.
I will include further impressions of the actual mini as part of my unboxing post in the coming days….
It’s been a long day. Snow and cold last week, followed by warmer temperatures and a lot of rain and a thunderstorm last night. I only new there was a thunderstorm because I had to get up in the middle of the night, I can sleep through most anything once I get to sleep. That was at 3:30 and the power was out.
I got back to sleep.and was sleeping soundly and dreaming, on the edge of lucid dreaming when I swore someone was pounding on my front door, so I stumble downstairs to see who it was. No one. The dogs in their kennels were all excited and wagging their tails into the sides of the kennels making a load of racket. Did my dreaming translate that into pounding on the door? That was at 5:30 and I couldn’t fall back asleep. At 6:30 the power came back on and the streetlight across the street filled my room with light. (I need blackout curtains.)
At 7:00 my alarm went off, so I grudgingly got up and got ready for work and stopped to get massive amounts of caffeine to help me get through the day. At about 9:30 I dozed at my desk for a bit. Thankfully, it was a relatively slow day at work.
We finally got a CostCo in Kalamazoo, within a couple miles of my work, and just off the way home. My son presented me with a membership card, as he got two with his membership. Since he lives with me, we are in the same household. I made the mistake of shopping while I was hungry, but got things that are healthy…or mostly so. I saw what I consider a good deal on a mini desktop with Win7 Pro. My last desktop got zapped and all I could salvage were the peripherals and the hard drive. My laptop has a failed screen and keeps freezing up and having issues with Google+ Hangouts with the weekly AD&D game I’m in. I do some work for a non-profit, so I need a working PC to keep up. I was on the look out for a good buy.
Did I bury the lede well enough? LOL
My tired brain came up with a name based on some of the OSR and original modules, and I thought I’d write about that tonight.
The Caves of Cavernous Caverns. Awesome, right?
Or, The Caves of Chaotic Caverns.
The Crumbling Caves of Chaotic Caverns.
The Terrifying Terror of The Terrible Trolls.
What this is calling for is a random adventure/module name generator. I recall having read about something like that a couple years ago, there is probably more than one, but I don’t feel like googling for them right now.
Alliteration add punch to it, like : Red River of Raging Ravenous Revenants. Although a horde of raging revenants would be silly without the proper story and narrative elements, psychobabble and circumlocutious obfuscation….
It’s not a complete set of tables to generate a module/adventure/campaign name, since I didn’t put a die and a roll with each table, just something to get started. This is more a placeholder for me to refine my idea and come up with some sort of finished product or PDF to share at some point in the nebulous future. Ah what fun a tired brain can generate! Here is the current PDF.
d3 ARTICLE
1-3 – A/An
4-6 – The
LOCATION
Cave(s)/Cavern(s)
Tomb/Crypt/Vault/Grave
Hill(s)/Knob/Mount/Mountain(s)
Plains/Tundra
River/Lake/Sea/Ocean
Idol/Altar/Shrine/Temple
Pit/Dungeon
Fort/Castle/Fortress
Aerie
Coast
NOUN/ITEM
Secret
Night
Gold
Hoard
Horde
Clan/Tribe
Idol
Deep
Dark
Unholy
ADJECTIVE/DESCRIPTOR
Shiny
Adjective form of the Location
Frightful
Awful
Awe/Awe-full
Dread/Dreadful
Mischievous
Ravenous
Raging
ALIGNMENT (Use Lawful, Good, and Neutral if you want.)
Chaotic
Evil
CLASS (Mix in some of the AD&D Level Titles or find a Thesaurus)
Wizard/Mage/Archmage/Necromancer
Priest/High Priest/Acolyte
Monk
Thief/Rogue
Assassin
Warrior
Ranger
Paladin
COLOR
Black
White
Red
Blue
Green
Yellow
Ochre
Mauve
Taupe
Plaid
WEAPON(s)
Sword
Dagger
Staff
Hammer
Axe
Spear
Bec-de-corbin (not so much….)
Arrow
Club
MONSTER(s)
Kobold
Goblin
Orc
Hobgoblin
Drow
Pirates
Lizard/Lizardmen
Frog
Ogre
Troll
Dragon
Gelatinous jelly of slimy oozing spores (Now I need to stat that out….)
etc.
I picked up a copy of the 3rd Edition Holmes blue book Basic D&D rules at UCON 2014 this weekend.
As I read through it, I found eight bold references to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
This is the third edition, which is copyright 1979. I started playing D&D in April, 1978, so I had either the first or second edition of this boxed set. This was when the three white books and any boxed set were not on the shelves and available to us, and before the revised Red Box full set of rules came out.
I am making an assumption here, but with all those bold faced references to ADVANCED D&D, that colored the thinking of the group I played with. Basic was “simple” and for “children”. We had to have Advanced. We decided to wait until the advanced books came out and managed to keep playing until then. I remember getting the Player’s Handbook for Christmas of 1978, then I bought the Monster Manual and the DMG when they came out.
If it had not been for our ignorant adolescent understanding that there wasn’t that much difference between the two games, we might have used more of the Basic information. Although cost was a factor back then. I had thought about getting Chainmail back then, but I had a subscription to Dragon and had to give my parents money to write a check to renew each year’s subscription. Mowing lawns at $10 each made that money precious and it did not get all the things I wanted. Had I been more industrious back then, I would have been able to afford more of the things I wanted, but had less time to enjoy them. Much the same problem still exists today, if I want paid so I have food, clothing, and shelter, I have to go to work instead of play.
A few things I noticed, after not seeing this for a few decades. While it only goes up to 3rd level for characters, the monster combat table goes to 11+ hit dice, and the monster list includes creatures that are well beyond 3 hit dice. All distances are in feet and some equipment on the list here did not make it into the Player’s Handbook.
This was a how to play book that reorganized the rules. It was not clear to us that this was the case back then. I have so far only had time to skim the rules, but it is clear that one can get a full set of playable rules and a wide selection of monsters in 50 pages, and easily in 60 pages or less. Delving Deeper is only 128 pages of rules with several full page charts and full page illustrations.
I look forward to reading these Holmes Rules and seeing what nuances I missed way back when. I will also read my red box rules and see how it compares to the AD&D I favor over others.
I had fun at UCON and wish I had had the ability to be there the whole weekend, instead of the whole day. I did get tired and ran out of steam at about 7:00 pm, so I made the 2 hour derive home. Thankfully, the worst of the weather did not impact the interstate. This was my third con for 2014. Before this year, I had not been to a con in about 30 years.
I got there about 7:45 registration opened at 8:00. I took a chance and asked if I could get my stuff, and they were kind enough to accommodate me. I had pre-registered and prepaid for the day, so all they had to do was check my ID and have me sign something. I ordered a UCON bag, in case I needed it.
I then looked around to find where the two games I had signed up would be, they were in the same conference room at different tables. I had about and hour to kill before my first game at 9:00.
At 8:45 I worked my way back to the conference room, which was by now open, and found the table for Keep on the Borderlands, with S&W Rules. I had never player this module, or had no recollection of it, if I did. I started with Holme’s Blue Box, and modules were not a thing my brother and I could afford, so we only played modules when friends provided them. We had a father, John, and his ten year old son, Jack. This was Jack’s first con game. The other two players were friends Frank and Michael. Our DM was Forest Ray. We had a good time. We were given max hit points and our magic user, John’s character, was allowed to be third level. the magic user also hired a lantern bearer. Other than the power boost from the magic user and lots of sleep spells, we did very well in combat and the DM could not hit us for anything. We did have a couple of people get hit, but it was not knock down damage. Even if we had not had the extra spells of the magic user, we would have still done very well. Jack got the UCON token to redeem for a prize since this was his first game at a con. It was fun, but I can see where a lot of younger players would misunderstand game design and every player end up with a magic weapon or item of some sort. If there is a closet with a magic sword for every fighter in the group and other things, why aren’t the orcs using them on the players? In three hours we rolled up characters and got past the bandits, kobolds, and orcs. It was fun and I would have liked to keep going.
Next I viewed the vendor area. It was not very big at all. I had expected there to be more vendors there, but there was a bit of something for everyone.
I bought some things that I had not planned to by, but isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be at conventions? I had to have something to put in my UCON bag.
I picked up Gygax Magazine No. 2 at the Pacesetter Booth, that’s all they had. I have the PDFs but like having a real one. I wished I had the chessmen covers, those are too cool and remind me of the ones on Dragon, by the same artist. I wish I had my old collection of Dragon Magazine.
At Newera Enterprises, ran by Roy B. Snyder, I found a Blue Box Basic D&D Manual. This is what I started with. I gave my original to my youngest brother. But over the years, found myself wanting one.
I also picked up some things that I never owned back in the day: the red box basic rules that has a module in it – Keep on the Borderlands; the blue cover Expert Rules and red cover Player’s Manual with a Dungeon Master’s Handbook.
I spoke with Roy for awhile and found out that he live in Kalamazoo, and that one of the police officers in the village where I live has written for Castles & Crusades. It’s a small world. I had no idea.
While in the dealer room, I way a guy with this awesome shirt, and he was kind enough to let me take a picture of it.
I then introduced myself to Tim Snyder, of The Savage Afterworld, who was manning the Goblinoid Games booth. Tim sums up our conversation on his blog. Yes, Tim, it was good to meet you. One thing I will mention, is that it was priceless to see Tim’s reaction that I played Keep on the Borderlands for the first time that morning. [Tim – The Village of Hommlet is the module I was struggling to recall the name.]
From 2:00 – 6:00 I played in Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, DM’s by Shawn Dry. This was ran as three four hour sessions, so one player could go through the entire adventure, if they signed up for all three sessions. I played a high level priest of Odin. I had played this module once way back in high school, so I remembered bits and pieces. As the DM showed us pictures of the creatures and other things we were finding, I recalled more of it. This was the middle session, and we had done well. I was having such a good time, I wanted to play in the next session. We had one character die, and mine got knocked down. We thought for sure we had a TPK on our hands, but we prevailed and survived for the next round of players to finish the module.
My only real complaint, it that on the website for UCON when I signed up, it was not clear playing through the Peaks module was an all day thing. I did try to sign up for the third session online before I knew this, but it and the first session filled up before the second. I did go downstairs and try to sign up for the third session, having forgotten it was already filled. I did not think to ask about an “alternate” ticket, in case someone didn’t show up. The person assisting me did not ask if I was interested in another session at that time, and I did not think to ask. It didn’t help that some guy came up asking her about shirts in the middle of her helping me, so she was well distracted, as was I. (What is it about people and their social skills and waiting their turn? I find this in places other than cons, usually at convenience stores all the time where the person behind me is putting their stuff on the counter around me, before I can put my change or my receipt in my wallet and put away my wallet and grab my stuff and get out of the way.)
I would suggest that the website show filled sessions in red or whatever color it is that works for color blind people, so one can see at a glance which ones are still available. That doesn’t mean one can buy the “alternate” tickets in case someone is a no show. Also if any games have the potential to be an all day thing, make that clear, so one can decide if they want to play the whole thing or just a portion. I would gladly play another module with Shawn as DM.
My plan was to meet others I have met and followed in online RPG settings, but I ran out of steam too soon. It is hard to fit all one wants to do into a single day at a three day con.
I was impressed by this con. It was big enough to have lots for everyone. For the board game set, the ball room was filled with tables. I would say 50+ tables. The venue was big enough to accommodate the attendees with only momentary crowds in a couple of places and not the press of a horde, like at GenCon. There were all kinds of RPGs, many I had never heard of. I loved that they had an OSR track. There were several DMs using their Dave Trampier cover AD&D DM screens.
I am already looking to next year. I plan to get Friday off so I can be present from the beginning, and to get Monday off so I have a day to rest. I will also get a room, so I don’t have to deal with all the driving and weather. I just wish I didn’t have to wait until January to put in the request at work.
NOTE: I went down the Wikipedia rabbit hole on this one – Wikipedia or a regular Encyclopedia is good for that when I find something I want to learn more about. Short version, there would be about 100 Roman gold Solidi in a US pound. In the early Roman empire the standard silver coin, the Denarius was a day’s wage for an unskilled laborer. A system where silver is the standard coin of trade would require one to determine how much that would buy and what the fractions of a silver piece, i.e. copper pieces, would buy.
This was mentioned in the past week and has come up on various RPG blogs over the years. Gold as the main coin is the default in AD&D. The weight of the coins is ten to the pound, which would be huge coins.
I was reading up on ancient Roman coins last week on Wikipedia, and the Romans used 72 coins to the pound of gold, for the Solidus. Another gold coin, the Aureus, was valued at 25 silver denarii, and its mass in relation to the Roman pound went from 1/45 under Nero (7.3 g) to 1/50 under Caracalla. The Solidus was a new coin under Diocletian and started at 1/60 of a Roman pound and equal to 1,000 denarii, under Constantine it had the 1/72 pound and was worth 275,000 of the massively debased denarii. In later years the Solidus equaled 4.6 MILLION denarii. The aureus was about the same size as a denarius, but weighed more due to the higher density of gold. They had copper and bronze coins that were common, but were debased just as severely as the denarius. This example shows that the price sheet in AD&D or other FRPGs is a snapshot in time, and as the economy is flooded with loot, prices should go up, if you want to model reality that closely.
The fantasy vs. reality, is that in the real world it is estimated that all the gold ever mined would make a cube of almost 21 meters on a side. The pile of loot Smaug has and other depictions of dragons has could not all be gold, based on the real world. Silver is another matter, I found this graphic that illustrates the amount of various sizes and weights of gold and silver and compares the size of all the gold every mined vs. all the silver ever mined. The ratio of gold mined to silver mined is 1:10.48 in modern times. Prior to current methods the ratio was about 1:8.52, and historically 1 ounce of gold has had the power to purchase 15 ounces of silver. Now, as of March, 2014, an ounce of gold is valued at over 64 ounces of silver.
However, in the ancient world, the silver coin was the standard. It was a day’s wages for an unskilled laborer. What I found interesting, is the for Roman soldiers, their annual pay in the Republic was 112.5 denarii per year, and was raised to 225 denarii a year by Julius Caesar; and they had to pay for their own food and arms. Centurians’ pay varied under Augustus from 3,750 denarii and the highest ranking, 15,000 denarii a year.
Depending on which era’s size and value of coin you wish to use in your game, or make your own standard; you can greatly vary the number of coins and the amount of wealth a single person can carry. In AD&D 1,000 coins weighs 100 pounds. A roll of quarters contains 40 quarters and weight 8 ounces, or 80 quarters to the pound. That would make 1,000 quarters weigh 12.5 pounds. Based on a modern pound, with 16 ounces, being 453.592 grams, or 28.3495 grams to the ounce, and a Roman pound being 328.9 grams with 12 ounces, each 27.4083 grams. This makes the Roman pound 72.5% of the modern pound, meaning that 1,000 quarter would weigh 17.24 Roman pounds. Similarly, a gold solidus would be 1/100 (1/100.798) of a US pound. With 100 gold solidi in a US pound, 1,000 of them would only be 10 pounds. Thus it would take 10,000 coins of this size to equal 100 pounds. This makes the ability to carry a large number of coins and large amount of wealth somewhat easier. Gems and jewels would still be a more compact means of carrying a large amount of wealth great distances.
A quarter has a diameter of 24.26 mm and is 5.67 g. Based on Roman coins of about the same era, both the Aureus 7 g and Solidus 4.5 g gold coins were about 20 mm. The Denarius was about 19mm and was about 3g, about the size of a penny – 19.05 mm and 2.5 g. The sestertius was about 35 mm and 20.3 g. A half dollar is 30.61 mm and 11.34 grams. The Eisenhower “silver” dollar is 38.5 mm and 22.7 g with a copper core and a copper/nickel cladding. A Morgan silver dollar is 38.1 mm and 26.73 g, so 0.4 mm smaller but just over 4 grams more massive, thus the heft if you pick up a “silver” dollar and a silver dollar.
BTW – The Troy pound is 373.241 grams with 12 ounces, Troy weight is used for precious metals. This is why a pound of feathers weighs more than a pound of gold if each is measured with their usual method and not on the same standard.
I have played in games with the default AD&D coinage system, and games with a silver standard of ten silver to one gold and ten copper to one silver and platinum and electrum are rare or non-existent, having only been used by the ancients.
My current game uses this silver standard with ten silver to a gold and ten copper to a silver. However, I have been re-thinking that. Yes, it is easy and decimalization makes the math easy. However, I am thinking about a new silver standard with 1 gold = 100 silver and 1 copper = 100 silver. That makes the copper nearly worthless, so maybe more like 50 silver in a gold and 20 copper in a silver.
Something to think about.
With 1 silver = to a day’s wage for an unskilled laborer, the value of a copper would need to be a reasonable breakdown of that. How many loaves of bread can that buy? Can a single silver buy enough to feed a family? How big of a family? A family of four, six, bigger?
The drawback to fiddling with the money system, is that you have to revise the price sheet to accurately reflect the new prices. Without a quick way, like a spreadsheet to fiddle with the relative value of each coin to the other, it becomes tedium.
[EDIT 11/16/2014 – Removed last line to remove incorrect information and a very confusing sentence.]
Tenkar has a post asking about Magic Shops. My reply grew as I thought of things to add, so I had to write a post, as I needed one for today anyway.
Game balance and maintaining a challenge for players is the key here.
Magic shops are only places where one can acquire inks (from a magical or fantastic creature, like a giant squid’s ink, or the blood of a troll), quills (from a magic creature), paper/vellum/papyrus for scrolls, and some standard items/ingredients for spells. Any special/unique/plot hook worthy ingredients are not to be found.
There would be a market for wizards and others for body parts of various creatures for potions of control, strength, etc. How common is it for busy wizards to trade scrolls, potions, knowledge, etc. for a “favor“, choice of found magic items, body parts, and a lot of gold or gems/jewelry?
Any place with a lot of magic items/ingredients is either a wizard’s tower, occupied, or long “abandoned”, a temple or shrine, or a tomb or dungeon.
All the really good stuff, the players have to find, or find someone who has something they want/need and is willing to trade; or live long enough to have the party wizard make it.
In AD&D 7th level is awesome because scrolls can be made, with the proper materials. Also, potions can be made by wizards and illusionists with the help of an Alchemist. This makes potions, other than healing, hard to come by.
Even holy water in AD&D has rules for how much can be made and the minimum 5th level cleric needed for all the requisite spells. Holy water can be hard to come by if the cleric at the local village shrine is not high enough level or does not possess the appropriate font.
While magic was once common in the ancient world, and many of its marvels still exist and function. Knowledge of all its features and functions are lost to time, or rare manuscripts, or word of mouth teaching from one wizard to the next.
Thus adventurers have to go where they hope there are unexplored ancient ruins, in hopes of finding the things they need to reach a level where they can make their own items or easily make deals to get the good stuff from NPCs.
I have played in games where one could buy anything they wanted, and it overpowered the game and the DM ended up scrapping the campaign and launching a new one that was low magic.
I find it much more interesting to have to figure out how to survive in a low magic campaign where wizards are reluctant to share fireball and lightning bolt with up and coming wizards. What kind of favor is needed to get access to these items?
While magic wands,rods, and staves are fairly common in my brother’s game, finding one that is permanent is rare. If one makes a wand of fireballs, if the wand is not re-charged with at least one fireball within 24 hours, it ceases to be a magic wand. I have a character with a wand of ice that can only do wall of ice, because of this. It still has its uses, but is not the awesome instrument of icy death it once was. This forces much more judicious use of these items. One can blast the enemy into submission, but at what cost?
In my brother’s game, another player finally reached archmage, 18th level, via an ioun stone, and made a very complex staff, that my brother declared is an artifact, due to permanency and very good rolls by the player for the success of most of the spells. It took a lot of time in game, a lot of gold, and a lot of other ingredients and preparations. The accomplishments of this player are much more impressive than a magic rich environment where powerful things are easily required. Back in the early days, I knew players that had archmages, high priests, lords, etc. after a few sessions. Monty Haul syndrome isn’t prevalent among experienced DMs, but can suck a lot of fun out of it.
Even an alchemist making certain kinds of potions should be regulated so that players can’t just buy their way into everything. Even if there were such things, how long until the alchemist is out of ingredients to make more healing potions, or they become scarce and the price goes up?
Or as Gygax advises in the DMG, a huge influx of coin from the dungeons eventually inflates the cost of goods and services?
I am sure one can have a high magic campaign where there is balance, but for me, that would take a lot of thought and effort to plan and keep up with it all and assure a balance.
I do like a Dragon Magazine article that discussed a high level fighter going out to fight a dragon and limping back victorious, but his magic weapon and shield failed their saves, and are no more. I don’t recall which one it was as that was probably 30+ years ago that I read it, but the imagery stuck. That would bring balance with either a high or low magic campaign. One big, bad, nasty dragon gone, two or more permanent magic items destroyed in the fight, along with healing potions, henchmen and hirelings.
If magic is easily acquired, it should be easily lost. Even magic items that are acquired with great difficulty can be easily lost.
A halfling fighter/thief with a girdle of storm giant strength, gauntlets of ogre power, a ring of regeneration, and a +2 sword is nearly invincible in melee. The back stab from such a character is a death blow to the majority of creatures on the receiving end. Who needs to pick locks on doors when you can just run through them? It takes some of the challenge and fun out of it, unless the DM can present challenges, like an invasion of a lot of giants, or massive hordes of orc, or trolls, etc. The DM must give a challenge equal to the power available to the players, or it can become the same old boring slog. A magic shop where one can buy any item in the book, makes that challenge harder to maintain over time in my experience.
The one line I remember from E.T, besides “ouch”, “E li ott” and “I’ll be right here.”, is “Negative Charisma!” My friends and I all laughed at that, as Dieties and Demigods had already come out and we all knew about negative charisma.
Thanks to OSR Today, I was directed to an article about the game scene at Dungeons & Digressions, and a second article at Geeky Rant about the role of D&D in the making of the movie.
I ordered a Dieties & Demigods with the Cthulhu and Melnibone mythos from Wayne’s Books on Wednesday evening, October 29th, and it arrived on my doorstep today, Saturday, November 1st! I am sure it made it to me so quickly is that I live in the lower penninsular of Michigan, which is the Eastern Time Zone, and Wayne’s Books is in Arizona, which is in the Mountain Time Zone, so a one or two hour difference. Wayne commented on my article that it was being shipped that same day! Excellent service!
Below I will have pictures of the unboxing, the contents, and a group picture with the DDG from my son. My son got home from work about two hours after I placed my order, and gave me a belated birthday present. We had a big laugh about that!
Below you will see what you can expect when you order something from Wayne’s Books.
The self-sealing box from the USPS was also well taped with packing tape. It wasn’t coming open without some effort, and care!
It was packed tight with cardboard and paper grocery bags, so it had no wiggle room.
Here’s all the packing material. It is obvious that it needs to come out before the book, so the book comes out easily.
The book is in a plastic protective cover that is taped shut then placed inside a UPS padded mailing envelope.
The book before the final layer is removed. This is kind of like those Russian dolls….
Taped to the plastic book protector is the packing slip with a handwritten note of thanks.
Inside the plastic protective cover is a business card with notes on this order. This is a very good idea! Others who ship things should do this.
At first I wondered if this was a catalog, but soon saw it was a module or something. Was this a mistake? I didn’t order this!
No, it’s not a mistake.
Woo hoo! Free stuff! I read a couple of the Elric books way back. I don’t recall details. This looks interesting and has some cool art. I’ll add this to my reading list.
Finally, my new books side by side. The one from my son on the right, and the one I ordered on the left. The quality of the book I got from Wayne’s Books matches what he advertised, and it is in noticeably better condition than the one my son got me, but the one my son got me had a kid’s name on the front and it was obvious that it had been used at the table, or at least was well read.
The one I bought is going back in the plastic sleeve, just in case.
I really liked the art of the Cthulhu and Melniboe mythos, plus there are some cool critters and ideas in there. I’m not sure I’ll ever get to use them in my campaign world, but you never know.
I have mentioned elsewhere the Water Damage Incident that destroyed most of my original AD&D manuals and other game things. My character notes and campaign notes survived.
Below I will show pictures of what I was left with and then the now end results.
Two manuals, my dice bag, my miniatures, and one half of my Dave Trampier DM Screens survived.
I also had two modules, the Player Character and NPC Record Sheets, and I photocopied the Combat Calculator from Dragon Magazine, rather than cut up my magazine. (I had all the Dragon Magazines from about issue 50 to about 150 or so. I needed money and gave them to my brother. He never gave me any money, and my parents had a water leak in their basement, and all the Dragons were mush….)
I only bought one Hexagonal Mapping Booklet. I still have 6 sheets left. I could make that 7, as one has a lightly pencil drawn star chart for my footsteps into Mega Traveller. I started building a campaign about 25 years ago, and that’s all I did with it. I still have the box for that and the manuals.)
I really wish you could just go buy these like in the good old days….
I only ever bought two modules back in the day. I bought Ravenloft for the cool 3-D style maps. I bought Village Of Hommlet for a low level adventure. I have never ran either of these. If I recall correctly I have played Ravenloft. I do have several of the classic modules in PDF from DriveThruRPG, etc.
What’s not to like about these maps. I think they are cool, and like most players of RPGs, I like maps!
The saddest part, was that one of the books was the Dieties & Demigods with the Cthulhu and Melnibone mythos. Several years ago, when I decided to rebuild my collection, I soon found most of the other rule books at my FLGS. All except the DDG. Then a few days ago, I ordered the DDG with Cthulhu from Wayne’s Books. About two hours after that, my son got home from work, and gave me one as a belated birthday present.
Below is a picture of my rebuilt collection with the DDG from my son, including a Dave Trampier DM screen.
I also added the Wilderness Survival Guide and the Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide, which I never had.
Also this past summer, I stopped by Table Top Game and Hobby, on my way to my baby sister’s wedding, and picked up the core book re-prints. (This is the 20th year of operation, and the owner, Phil Kilgore, who was a year or two behind me in high school, but we gamed together often back then, had customers roll a d20 for a percentage off. I rolled bad, a 2, and he let me re-roll and I got 8% off, I think. Phil said back in high school that he wanted to open his own game store, and he did.) I am keeping them in their plastic wrappers, just in case.
I also have another Player’s Handbook with the Dave Trampier cover. It is in near pristine condition, but I could not find it to include here.
I also managed to get most of the PDFs before WotC halted them. I got the Player’s Handbook, which is now unavailable since they started selling them again. I didn’t get the Oriental Adventures PDF, I don’t remember if it wasn’t available, or because I kept mis-remembering and thinking I had the book. I picked up Oriental Adventures last year, and the Fiend Folio this past spring.
Here is an inside shot, of my precious…. I mean, the birthday present from my son. Now my collection is restored and expanded.
Here is the “final” stack of my AD&D Manuals, less the like new Dave Trampier cover Player’s Handbook, and the Dieties and Demigods I order from Wayne’s Books, on Wednesday, October 29th. Of course, just after I finished uploading these pictures and putting my manuals away, the mail came with my new precious. I will write up another post with the unboxing.
