Lindy Beige does a good job of explaining things. Sometimes he drones on past the point of having explained it, but I enjoy his videos.
So he debunks what most of us think of as berserkers in his latest video. Will that change how people play berserkers? Probably not.
I still find it interesting, and can see how a viking type campaign can use berserkers in a more historical way. Can you imagine how freaked players would be when they hear that they are greeted by the local lord’s berserker?
Why can’t the real world be more like D&D? I’ve been helping my son and his family and have some funds tied up that I could be spending on fun stuff. What I need is a dungeon to loot and get rich enough to not have to work for awhile.
So I have to cut back on some purchases, like Mythoard, and buying stuff online as it strikes my fancy. I need to make sure I have the funds for the two conventions I plan to attend in the Fall, Con On the Cob, in Ohio, and UCon, in Michigan.
I will have fewer reviews of new stuff. I guess that means I need to finish up reading things I have bought recently and get my reviews posted. I will have more time, now that my son and his family are not living with me. Not seeing my granddaughter every day and enjoying her smile is tough, but they’re close enough I can visit every day, if I wanted.
I’m looking forward to a slow weekend in a few days, when I don’t have to travel for work, or help do a move.
I’ll be doing a staycation the weekend after this coming weekend, so I can get more done on getting my AD&D campaign ready to go for online play. Hopefully, getting caught up on some projects around the house doesn’t take up too much time.
The New Horizons probe does its flyby of Pluto today.
This is a big deal, technology and a sense of adventure all in one.
I am old enough that I remember knowing about the nine planets, when Pluto was still a planet, and how many moons Jupiter and Saturn had. Voyager 1 and 2 changed the count of the moons, as did subsequent probes, The count of moons around other planets has changed so much, I can’t remember the number of moons I had memorized way back when. It is that realization as a kid that we don’t know it all that grabbed my attention.
A solar system is so huge that it is easy for exploration and travel to reveal new features all the time. Even if everything in a system was mapped, interstellar bodies could be captured, or pass through a system.
If one planned a science fiction campaign limited to one system, there would be plenty of locations for the action.
I just got the email that the Monster Manual PDF was updated. Based on last week’s email about the Player’s Handbook, I assume that means that the Monster Manual PDF with the Gygax Memorial cover will be available for sale tomorrow. It is not currently available for sale at the moment, just like last week.
So my guess is that next week will be the DMG.
I read a post last week on OSR Today thatsuggested WOTC might release one PDF to market each week in the build up to GenCon. I’m hoping this is a sign that is right.
Can the PDF’s for OD&D and Chainmail be far behind? I would also like other manuals that I have a hard copy, but not a PDF, like Unearthed Arcana. I like some of the spells and weapons.
Well, my download finished, and just like the Player’s Handbook last week, it is the one with the Gygax Memorial cover. The artwork and text is crisp. The multi-creature stat blocks copy and stay in columns, for example, Beetles. There is only a single space between each column, but this is good. The table of contents and index do not have clickable links, but it is searchable. A welcome textual replacement at about 1/3 the size of the original Monster Manual PDF,
Here are what should be the valid [affiliate] links when they release the PDF for sale.
[UPDATE: Collected Errata for all AD&D 1st Edition Re-Prints at Dragonsfoot.}
The preview trailer for Ash vs. Evil Dead looks cool. I wonder if I’ll be able to watch it eventually on either Hulu or Netflix?
Lots of great on liners, my favorites are from Army of Darkness, “I said the words.”
I didn’t get to watch much Firefly. I didn’t get to finish the pilot and never had a chance to watch it consistently, so I never knew what was going on. I did watch the movie, and enjoyed it.
The Conman crowd sourced show, from this trailer, is best described by me as a real life Galaxy Quest, without the aliens.
From the trailer, I am hooked and plan to watch it.
The medievalist.net has an article calling The Conqueror, starring John Wayne as the worst movie ever made.
It depends on what qualities you are judging this movie. John Wayne as Timojin, AKA Genghis Khan is a stretch. The acting and script may not be the best, but the action scenes, as I recall them from 30+ years ago were a lot of fun. I only saw the movie once.
I watched the trailer and the cavalry charges and other fighting scenes are cool. The clip with the dancers wasn’t bad either. Of course, my judgement is as a 1950’s action movie. There is action and adventure and challenges to the hero. There is also a love interest.
I don’t think this is the worst movie I have ever seen. I think it is one that I will track down and watch again. It fits a lot of the stereotypes of the fantasy adventure genre of RPG’s. If you play D&D or a similar FRPG, this movie should be a fun little diversion.
As with much else in life, I find that the things I want to do related to RPGs and the new ideas that come into my head keep growing, and the available time to focus on those ideas is shrinking.
I have found that my summer “TV” watching is much less than the rest of the year. I don’t have regular TV, and only watch shows that I can get on the free version of Hulu, NetFlix, and YouTube. This is good, since I also spend more time outside, when Michigan finally thaws.
Coming to a focus on an article for today seemed harder than usual. I persist in writing a daily article for this blog, because I made a commitment to do so at the end of January. So far, I have not missed a day, since I decided to blog every day.
Some days and article seems like a stretch, and other days, I am able to write multiple articles in one go and schedule them out.
It has been chaotic around here the last few weeks, and traveling for work, trying to keep up with mowing my yard and weeding my garden, and recovering from a summer cold seem to have tapped out my creative reserves. I managed to build up enough posts to get me through last week when I had to go out of town for work, but for the last few days, I have been getting in a blog on the day it’s due. A few times it has been minutes before midnight when I post the final draft.
I won’t stress it, if I don’t have something to write about. I want to add value to my readers, not just drone on and one with no real point.
I have some half formed ideas for some tables and other ideas, but nothing worthy of sharing. For some reason, distilling tables down to their essence and making them a quick and easy to use tool, I struggle. Sometimes the struggle is coming up with multiple pieces. Sometimes the struggle is completing the idea. I have some all the dice style tables that need more polish before I share them. My ideas are to help me focus and plan out my own campaign(s), I hope others can getsome use out fo them also.
I just got an email that the 1st Edition AD&D Player’s Handbook has been updated. It is not 5 MB instead of about 25 MB, but it uses the new Gygax Memorial Fund Cover instead of the original cover by Dave Trampier.
The interior text quality is excellent, and all the interior artwork appears to be the same on a quick glance. Copy and paste, if you need some information appears to be smoother, but tables are still jumbled if copied to either a text editor or word processor.
The Table of Contents are not clickable links. I am good with that. I just wish I had the option of the original cover with the cleaned up pages. I suppose that I could make my own with various PDF editing tools and swap the covers.
However, the PDF is only available to those who have already purchased the PDF before it was removed from sale. I hope that this signals that the three core manuals for AD&D will soon be for sale again!
[UPDATE: The PDF is now for sale! – Affiliate Links]
[UPDATE 2: Thanks to the heads up from OSR Today, the new PHB does not contain all of the errata. See the Acaeum for the full list.]
[UPDATE 3: Collected Errata for all AD&D 1st Edition Re-Prints at Dragonsfoot.}
Today, I saw a post on my sister’s FB wall that our maternal grandmother’s cousin, Blaine Gibson, died.
Many don’t know his name, but he is a credited artist in several Disney cartoons: Fantasia, Bambi, Song of the South, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, and One Hundred and One Dalmatians, and others.
His desire was to always be an animator, but when Walt Disney found out that his hobby was sculpting, Walt made Blaine the chief sculptor.
Blaine always sent hand made Christmas cards to my dad and others, with sketches of him walking his dog in the snow. He also sent a nice color sketch to my parent’s for their 40th Anniversary.
As a sculptor, his first famous work was the head of Abraham Lincoln for the audioanimatronic exhibit at the 1964 World’s Fair. He went on to do the heads of all the presidents, except Obama, and came out of retirement to add H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and G.W. Bush. His apprentice did Obama. My mom’s favorite story from Blaine about creating all the audioanimatronic heads was the response from a glass eye manufacturer when asked for pairs of glass eyes. The mere idea was absurd and took some convincing that it was a serious request.
He also did the sculpture, Partners, that has Walt and Mickey holding hands.
The Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and other figures also relied on his sculpting talent.
I wonder how many more of the rides and attractions with your sculpted heads will be made into movies?
Hall of Presidents? Partners?
Way back in fourth grade we had to write a letter to someone and have them write us back. Getting a letter back from a real Disney artist with a sketch of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck on official Imagineer paper was a big hit. I wish I still had his letter. I do still have the sketches.
Cousin Blaine will be missed. He was the last of his generation on that side of the family.
As the keeper of the family tree started by my parents, it is with sadness that I enter the last piece of information about Blaine. He is survived by his son and grandson, who will miss him most of all.
Several news outlets mentioned him:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/disney-670361-walt-sculpted.html
http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/blaine-gibson-designer-of-lifelike-robots-at-disney-pa-1716008151
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/06/blaine-gibson-dead_n_7732992.html
http://www.themeparkinsider.com/flume/201507/4646/
http://thedisneyblog.com/2015/07/05/disney-legend-blaine-gibson-has-died/
He doesn’t have his own Wikipedia page, but has an IMDB and d23 pages, and is mentioned on lots of other Wikipedia pages.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0316863/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
https://d23.com/blaine-gibson/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moments_with_Mr._Lincoln
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Legends
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Disney_Main_Street_window_honors
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2015
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hall_of_Presidents
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Disney_Gallery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_a_Small_World
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Haunted_Mansion_characters
