Tag Archives: Fluff/Inspiration

RPGs

Day 23: First song that comes to mind that you associate with D&D. Why?

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I recall a song that a friend came across, perhaps an early Dragon. “You Bash The Balrog, While I Climb The Tree.” Four of us, two brothers each from two families sang it. We recorded it on a cassette tape. I’m not sure if it was a handheld tape recorder or a higher end system.

I think we just made up our own tune. I still remember all the words, once I get going.

Also, “We must away ‘ere break of day” from “The Hobbit”. The tune we came up with was close to what is in the recent Peter Jackson movie.

RPGs

OSR Superstar Contest

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Tenkar’s Tavern is hosting the OSR Superstar Contest.

There are three stages. If you make the cut of the first stage you move on to the second stage.

The first stage involves submitting a magic item. You can submit up to three of them. Don’t post it on the blog, it will be disqualified, it must be emailed to the specified address. The deadline is “Sunday, February 16th, at 1PM Eastern (NYC) Time.”

I have decided to participate. So far, I have two magic items sketched out in pretty good detail. You have to use the Swords and Wizardry rules, so I am having to refer back to those. I can do AD&D without a lot of thought and just for specifics. At least it will be flexible to work with any OSR like rule set.

If you make the cut with the magic items, next is a monster.

If you make it to the third round you must use an assigned dungeon map to craft an adventure using the magic item and monster.

 

OSR Superstar
OSR Superstar
RPGs

Day 14: Did you meet your significant other while playing D&D? Does he or she still play? (Or just post a randomly generated monster in protest of Valentine’s Day).

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My ex would not go near an RPG, she does not get it. She considers D&D to be evil. Oddly enough, she bought “Magic The Gathering” cards for our sons.

I have known very few female gamers. There were none in my high school and in college they were girlfriends of other players.

It would be awesome to meet a woman who does not think you are odd to be playing D&D.

RPGs

Ravenloft – Cool Maps!

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I saw this post on RPG Bloggers about Ravenloft today on The Geek Life Project  and I had to make a comment here.

This is only one of two modules from the glory days that I own, the other is Village of Hommlet.

I bought Ravenloft because the maps are cool. When I got back into planning my own campaign a few years ago, when I found a copy of the Dungeoneers Survival Guide and it has a section on how to do those kinds of maps, I bought it.

I think one of our gaming group from the 80’s had his own copy of Ravenloft and ran it. I know that I never ran it. I did read it, but the maps are what got me.

I love maps. I could get into trouble buying maps. When I was in college, I was too poor to take advantage of a USGS office in town. I love all kinds of maps, just to look at them. I can draw OK maps by hand and modern graphics programs make it easy to do decent maps, but I am addicted to well done maps done by others.

I think we played Ravenloft and maybe the sequel. I don’t recall when it came out. Maybe we did our own return to Ravenloft, it has been too long to recall for sure.

I have downloaded several free modules from various places across the internet and like the ideas I get and the maps I can use from the OPDC.

I also prefer the “classic” vampire to what many modern authors and movies have done. See my article on playing 1st level vampire hunters for a laugh.

RPGs

Day 13: First miniature(s) you used for D&D.

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We could not afford a lot of miniatures. We often used the redcoats and continentals you could order from the back of comic books, since they were small. We we lucky if every player had a miniature of their character.

We used Ral Partha mostly. I know there were a lot of companies doing them back then. You would pick up a package of goblin archers, some orcs. Slowly those who DM’d the most built up a collection.

Miniatures were not needed most of the time. Usually we only used them for the party to show marching/riding order or where we were relative to each other. A big piece of paper or wet erase mat would then have marks for the enemies, or a unique die, Lego, small Lincoln Log, etc.

We have played with nothing more than X’s and O’s or initials on the mat or paper to distinguish players from monsters.

Not all miniatures were painted, and not all that were painted were painted well.

[EDIT] – Here are pictures of my entire miniature collection. All but one is from Ral Partha, 1979. The skeleton, I am not sure of, and I can’t read what is on the bottom of the three-pack minis. They all have lead, and the warning on the back of the box mentions it. the cool thing about the three stage minis is that you could change your character’s pose mid-game, or you had three minis for whatever you needed.

I have also participated in the Hero Forge Kickstarter at the level to get my own mini. This will be fun! It has four days to go as of February 13, 2014.

Skeleton and Goblin
Skeleton and Goblin
Dwarves With Mattocks.
Dwarves With Mattocks.
Ral Partha Three Stage Character - Half-Elf
Ral Partha Three Stage Character – Half-Elf
Ral Partha Three Stage back of box.
Ral Partha Three Stage back of box.
Closeup of Ral Partha Three Stage Character.
Closeup of Ral Partha Three Stage Character.
RPGs

Day 12: First store where you bought your gaming supplies. Does it still exist?

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The hobby shop in Independence Center in Independence, MO. It had trains of various gauges, plastic model kits, and games. We bugged our parents all the time to drive there so we could see if they had anything new. Hoping we had the cash to get the items we desired. I think it went out of business in the late 80’s, that would have been when I was in college. But I’m not sure it stayed in business that long.

One guy two years behind me in high school said that he planned to start a game store and he did and is still in business. Some people from the same group still play with him.

RPGs

Day 9: First campaign setting (homebrew or published) you played in.

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This would by my brother, Robert’s, “Quest For The Dice Of Destiny.” We did not finish it, but we did have a lot of fun up to that point. Prior to that it was someone made a dungeon and those that didn’t make a dungeon bought modules.

There was a lot of build up as to what we would do, but the game stalled and we never got it going again. We were having fun with it. As I recall, Robert got bored with it and dreamed up something else.

It would be best described as a complete world with ecology, weather, calendar, places, plots, NPCs and lots of ideas with lots of materials to back it up. There are lots of places we have never explored, and only one character has ever gone off the map. The area is about the size of France and Germany. It also has a sandbox quality as Robert has planned out enough of it that he does not have to make it all up as he goes along, but he is creative enough and go with the flow enough to make it all up as he goes along. I have a hard time telling when he is making it up as he goes and when he is going off planned information he has in his head.

I can sort of do that with the campaign I developed for my sons. It surprised me how ideas just came to me to fill in the gaps and make things happen. I still find it a challenge to scale things to be appropriate for low level characters, but we are having fun with it.

RPGs

Day 8: First set of polyhedral dice you owned. Do you still use them?

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Yesterday when discussing the first D&D product I ever bought, the blue-box set, I mentioned that I still have the dice that came with it.

Their utility is limited.  The d4 is the only one I still use. The d20 is nearly a sphere from all the edges chipping off over the first couple years of play. The d6, d8, and d12 have also had a lot of chipping and aren’t good at a roll. The d4 does not really roll, so I still use it.

These were the ones that the numbers were not colored. We drew the numbers with the crayon provided, but it did not work well. I remember a couple of years ago reading on other old school blogs that you were supposed to run the crayon over the numbers like a cheese grater to get them filled in. I never understood that from what I read. Since I don’t have that box anymore, I can’t re-read it to see if it had it or not. That would have been a lot better. I think we ended up using a red felt-tip pen with a fine point. It still managed to fade easily, so new dice were soon purchased.

See this picture to really understand. At the moment I can only find the d4. The d6 is orange, the d8 is green, the d12 is blue and the d20 is white.

D4 From Blue Box
D4 From Blue Box

[EDIT] Now I am not so sure if the dice came in the box or what. I located the rest of my old and worn dice and I have two sets. I do not recall if one set came with the blue box and I bought a second set so my brother, Robert, and I would each have a set, or if I bought two sets, etc. It is hard to tell from the pictures just how rounded the d20s are.

My Original Dice
My Original Dice

I also found the second dice a bought, two all-whited d20s and two all-white d10s for d100 rolls. The d10s and d20s are badly rounded. I quit using them as soon as I got some clear dice with sharp edges. I don’t recall exactly where I got my current dice.

My second set of dice.
My second set of dice.
RPGs

Marmalade Dog 19

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While attempting to find players within close driving distance, I checked the area D&D Meetup and they had pictures of play at a prior Marmalade Dog gaming convention, held by the Western Michigan Gamers Guild (WMGG). I knew they had it in the first few months of the year, so I checked and No. 19 is this weekend, Fri., Sat., Sun. I have always remembered to check when it is and learn it happened a week or two before I checked.

Most conventions are on the eastern part of the state in Ann Arbor or Detroit, or in Chicago, or Indianapolis for GenCon. Detroit and Chicago are both about two hours from where I live. I always wanted to go to GenCon, but never have. Not sure I can make it happen this year. Real life gets in the way. I’m trying to not talk myself out of things that might be a once in a lifetime experience when they are things I can realistically accomplish and afford to do.

It’s within 20 miles of where I live and Saturday only is $20.

I haven’t been to a gaming convention in decades, so I may go check it out. They have Pathfinder and D&D Next for RPGs. Never played Pathfinder, I understand it is a D&d 3.5 clone. I never did 3.5. I have looked at D&D Next via the playtest downloads and have the last download. It looks to be what I can tell is D&D based on my blue Box and AD&D experience. They only have 3 sessions of D&D Next, all Temple Of Elemental Evil, which I never played, all run by same DM for 6 players.

I’m not up to learning a new game or laying out the cash for new books. They start at 9:00 AM and go until 11:30 PM. I’m not up for that long, but will go check it out. Who knows, I might meet some other Old School Grognards like me for future gaming.

I will post a follow up of my experience.

RPGs

Day 7: First D&D Product you ever bought. Do you still have it?

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The first D&D product I ever bought was the blue box basic set with rules up to 3rd level. I never bought the white box set as we had the opinion that it was “old” and not the same thing.

This was before the AD&D Player’s Handbook came out, the first of the three main rulebooks. We had the idea that “advanced” was better. I think a lot of that was judging a book by it’s cover.

I got the Player’s Handbook for Christmas the year it came out, then it was wait and wait for the Monster Manual to come out and go plunk down twelve dollars. Then wait and wait for the Dungeon Master’s Guide to come out and it was the expensive price of $15.00. When you made $10.00 for an hour or more of mowing one lawn in the hot and humid Missouri summer, that was a lot of money. What I remember was that there was never a huge line for the release of these books and they were always available when you went to buy them.

I don’t remember when I did it, but I gave my blue box set to my brother, Kent. He may still have it. I did keep the dice that came with it, see tomorrow for that story.

I still have my original Player’s Handbook, but it is worn from use. My ex is anti-D&D so I left my stuff boxed up most of our marriage. It was boxed up when we lived in an apartment in Kansas City, Missouri. There was a small water leak that we did not discover until it had damaged a lot of my gaming stuff. My DM Guide, Monster Manual, and Dieties & Demigods with the Melnibone mythos, Unearthed Arcana, Monster Manual II, Fiend Folio, one of the two DM Screens (The one with the combat tables and the fighter and the dragon.), World of Greyhawk Gazetteer and map, and some other game materials for other games, like Metamorphosis Alpha. The information on my characters and ideas for my own games were undamaged.

Thankfully I have managed to rebuild my books with both hardcover and PDF copies from before Wizards of the Coast stopped the PDFs. I have updated the PDFs as Wizard has updated them since they resumed allowing them. eBay has also helped in rebuilding my collection.