...Shadowy Definitions of the OSR...

Seeking the shadowy definitions of the OSR I have followed the dusty trail from Tenkar's Tavern to The Chronicles of Ganth.  And so....

Megadungeon: A funhouse. A nightmare. A dreamscape.  An ever changing endless twisting of tunnels, chambers, caverns and worlds within worlds ruled by all manner of creatures, denizens, cults, sorcerers, races, demons leading deeper beneath the surface or out into cosmic realms or into the depths of a soul or just out into a back alley.  In other words anything can happen and real world rules don't apply. When you walk in be prepared for anything.  ANYTHING!!

Railroad: Start of an adventure; point A.  End of an adventure; point Z.  Don't worry, your not going to die while traveling from B through Y.  Stay off the grass!

OSR:  A revival in the interest and workings of the origins of the loose play-style of out of print Role-Play gaming rules putting good times, friends, adventure, carousing, gratuitous violence, raunchy jokes and beer above rule-lawyering and character builds.

Crunch & Fluff:  The ratio between complicated rules and dice rolling involving charts and bell curves and story padding with the sweet-spot being whatever a group prefers.  (Me, I gave up crunch back in 1982 with Champions and Top Secret. Never looked back).

Multi-classing: Face it, every character is multi-classing; you're a thief and a grave-robber with some other skills such as wielding a blade or casting a spell.

Clones, Retros, Sims, etc etc etc:   Interchangeable terms for DIY rules and house-rules that are made public in creation of or support of the OSR (see above). 

Module/Adventure: An interchangeable aspect of a campaign setting that can be inserted at any time and at any place during an ongoing adventure.  Can be customized as needed to compliment the mood or story presented in the campaign.

Hit Dice: Type and amount of dice that determine how much damage a character can take before he/she/it dies, usually from a horrible death, rendered meaningless if bit by a spider, centipede or other poisonous creature or after having consumed the wrong liquid.

Sandbox: An anything goes campaign setting where player actions determine the fate of kingdoms, destinies of characters, explorations of hidden lands but usually means getting drunk and setting fire to a tavern.  No planning required.

D&D Evolutions

At last, the 5th edition displacer beast is outta the bag. By these initial accounts, WOTC is foregoing designing a FRPG by committee and instead going with designing a FRPG by community.

Now, one might initially feel that by going with an 'open forum' style of design you might get the best of the best ideas, the creme de la creme. Well, I'm more of the belief of "too many cooks..."

Lets take a walk down the evolution of Dungeons & Dragons with the 1st level Wizard:

OD&D
Creators: Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson
1st level wizard was lucky to survive leaving the tavern. Hell, most characters were lucky to survive leaving the tavern.

1st ed D&D
Mostly Gygax (one man vision)
Wizards still started out quite weak but, if surviving initial adventures, became quite powerful. Big If. What?
I can only cast one spell!?!

2nd ed D&D
Zeb Cook
1st level wizards were still pretty wimpy, no doubt influenced by the earlier editions, but had much room to grow. Looks cool but still only 4 hp.

3rd and 3.5 ed.
WOTC (Okay, I don't know who really put this one together but it's not just a single vision).
The 1st level wizard begins to break away from the wizard tradition into something more super-heroic and super-profitable for WOTC.

4th ed D&D
Designed by focus groups and in committee meetings and directed by suits who know nothing about gamers, games or gaming but only how to produce the maximum profit.
Enter the indestructible Super-wizard.
"I can fuck you up with Magic Missile every round, sucka!"

5th ed D&D
Designed by a fickle community

Or in other words...

Being a graphic designer, there are many times when I have to please a committee and I can tell you from experience that you end up with a product and I would be ashamed to put in my portfolio. Sure, everyone is somewhat happy and was able to put in their two cents worth of their inflated ego onto paper or on the computer screen but they ended up with crap.

So, now WOTC is going to pass the buck and let the game be designed by a bunch of fickle gamers. WOTC can say don't bitch at us, we gave the community exactly what they wanted. Nice to show some real cajones.

So how much coin do you want to bet that 5th ed D&D will be a collectible card based board game?

But I don't really care one way or the other as I haven't bought any of their products.

Oh well, on to games that are actually fun created by people who love them.

Happy New Year From The Warlock

Greetings my followers! It has been many cycles since I have spoken as I have been traveling the Outer Rings of Alpha Space and return with tidings of 2012!

I feel that for me, 2012 is going to be a super year and by super I mean in the heroic sense! It seems that the ICONS campaign (which I'm calling Universe) will be moving forward with rotating GMs and all. Sessions beginning in 1942 and working their way up to the present day, whatever that may look like. I'm looking forward to being a GM as well as a player.

Great movies coming out this year including Ridley Scott's Prometheus, The Hobbit (part the first), and the highly anticipated Avengers! Don't forget John Carter too (I wish I can get past that flippin' Disney logo). Thankfully there won't be any new cinematic Conan debacle this year!

Our Swords & Wizardry campaign is still moving forward, clocking in at over two and half years and over 40 sessions now. I wonder if my players will finally come face to face with Zenopus? We'll see, but knowing this lot, they may end up on the other side of the universe before that happens!

So, 2012 looks to be shaping up nicely! Remember, however, there's less then a year until the Eater of Worlds arrives to really f-things up! So until then, Merry New Year and Game On!

Warlock's Ramblings

Last night we finally got back into some role-playing. This summer, our sessions have been a bit scattered as summers usually tend to be. But we continued our Savage Worlds campaign with a full house (eight souls around the table). Clay ran a great session and there was a lot of laughter as we haven't seen some of each other for a while. Sometimes you forget how great this group storytelling concept really is.

Two of our players, Clay (who is running Savage Worlds) and Mike are having babies within a week of each other. Once their little role-players come into the world we'll most likely be taking a break from Savage Worlds and delving back into our Swords & Wizardry campaign, tying up some loose ends.

During this past summer we've had a number of board-game sessions which is always great fun and a nice break from the rigors of a RPGs.

But that's not all we've been doing. This summer we've also been putting together a special project to present to all of you who enjoy classic adventures and tales! I won't say much more now except that I think you'll all enjoy it (well, I hope you will).

So be sure to check out tomorrow's post here at The Warlocks' Home Brew!

Projecting D&D

Sometimes movies that have nothing to do with fantasy interpret the old school style of D&D much better than many fantasy movies do.

For example, my wife and I have been watching the mini-series Lonesome Dove (1988) this week. It stars Robert Duvall (with pretty great performance, I must say!), Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Urich, Danny Glover, a young Steve Buscemi and Chris Cooper and a very attractive Diane Lane who all put in great performances supported by an outstanding script.

It is a western about two former Texas rangers (Duvall and Jones) who decide to move cattle from southern Texas to Montana.

Pretty standard fare, right?

Well, first off, morality is quite blurred as these 'good guys' rob, gamble, and have quite an affinity for chasing down the whores. And I don't mean some stereotypical broad stroke of a character. It's the underlying theme of the story. In fact, most of their conversations revolve around whores and killing Indians. Their whole venture is based on stolen cattle and horses from a rancher in Mexico.

Lonesome Dove is a godforsaken town in the middle of southern Texas along the Rio Grande river. It's not much of any type of settlement but these two rangers have cleared at least a couple of hexes worth of indians and bandits.

As they break out on their journey, they are accompanied by a number of great NPCs and are followed around by a number of interesting sub-plots.

It's a great slow-paced wilderness adventure filled with danger at every turn, small towns and gritty violent death. It doesn't hold back on any of the true darkness that is missing from most westerns. In fact, the violence can be quite pulpy if you take my meaning. Oh and being a woman in this movie is not something that anyone would find enjoyable no matter how tough a character they may be.

True, westerns are not a far cry from the worlds of rough D&D adventures but this has more of a classic pulp D&D vibe with it's camaraderie, blurred morality, tough characters, wild lands and savage violence than most other fantasy movies.

Am I just projecting D&D onto a show I'm watching? Well when my wife, who has only been playing D&D for about 6 or 7 sessions now, blurts out, "this is one old school adventure!", there must be something there to take notice.

So over this holiday season, if you can't roll dice and you have a taste for a great wilderness adventure I would suggest checking out the mini-series Lonesome Dove (I think they made a tv series after it but I can't vouch for that). You can watch it instantly on NetFlix.

Getting Older Is Okay Where D&D Is Concerned

I'm sure that many of you that take the time out to checkout what I'm saying over here at the Warlock's Home Brew probably started gaming back in the late 70's early 80's which makes us all around the same age and most likely the of the same generation (remember the whole 'Generation X thingy way back?).

Many of you started playing this fantasy game at a very young age, for me I was 10 years old. I was also the oldest in our group and thus the default Dungeon Master. Sure we had a great time exploring dungeons and killing things and taking their stuff and rolling up characters and all that goodness but, as a 10 year old, what did I know about the ins and outs of bringing a sense of realism to the game? Not much. My reality was pretty much colored by Science Fiction movies and comic books. We played on nonetheless.

So here we are, 30 years later and I find myself back behind the screen. Yeah, I took about 25 years off of playing RPGs as I stepped into the rivers of life but, like many of you, I too have returned.

Yes I have returned and returned much wiser (without a doubt this can be argued) in the ways of gaming.

With this older age comes a new perspective, for me anyway, on running my games.

Life experience has given me a better background to run my campaigns. I can flesh out my NPCs to give them a more realistic color than I could when I was 10. Same goes for my cities, towns and plot-hook and situations. Don't get me wrong, the game is just as insanely hilarious and at times disturbingly twisted as ever but I think that there's just more of a sense of groundedness that experience can bring.

Also with age comes the concept of just letting go. We're all in this campaign together so lets drink some beers, laugh a lot with some friends and have a good time! Playing off the cuff has become a much easier endeavor as flexibility has become the philosophy.

And with these years of experience comes patience which really lets me paint one hell of a mini! I've come a long way from the green paint glob with the bright red mouth. Though minis play a small part of our game, when I do get a chance to sit down and paint it is quite a satisfying experience!

When I was younger and playing these games, I always wanted to run games like the adults that I saw running games, I always wanted to paint those miniatures like those skillful hobbyists of the time.

Well, now with some life experience under my belt (and still colored by science fiction and comic books, mind you) I do and it's fantastic! It's one hell of a game and it's more fun than ever.

So here's to all of us (Grognards?) that have made it to this point to run and talk about our games and in living life have become better games!

Creepy Inspiration For Your Gamma World / Mutant Future Game

A new book, 'Micro Monsters', showcases some of the planet's most horrible insects and microscopic beasts, perfect inspiration for your post-apocalyptic Gamma World campaign!





More Creepy-Crawlies can be found here

I'm Not A Witch...

For those of you not keeping up to date with the crazy-ass politics here in the US of A we've got one wacko named Christine O'Donnell who's strong stance on anti-masturbation and her lack of knowledge on separation of Church and State really makes her jump out in a general pack of wackos running for office. Anyways, she dabbled in 'witchcraft' back in her High School daze (maybe even listened to Black Sabbath! Oh no!) so she actually felt she had to put a TV add out denying that she's a witch to pander to these crazy fundamentalists here in the states (the American Taliban). WTF has America come to.

I'm not going to post her ad here 'cause I don't want to spoil the purity of the Warlock's Home Brew....on second thought, tying her witchy-ways with the Warlock's Home Brew might be just what the Witch-doctor ordered.

Everyone's been parodying C O'D's ads but you gotta give the award to good ol' Elvira. Praise the Goddess of darkness and schlocky horror!!




Thanks to Adventures in Nerdliness for this one!
(awesome site, check it out now...NOW!)

For more delicious witchiness check these out:

Witchy Pictures

Swords & Wizardry Witch Class

Witchy Woman

One More Delve Back In Time...

James M's post last Friday and all the subsequent responses has brought to mind the early days of the hobby.

I know many of you were around during the first few moments after the Big Bang of the birth of fantasy role-playing games. Those of you so called Grognards may remember some of this quite well. The rest of you please sit back and enjoy the ride down memory lane as I give you my picture of my first experience seeing the game.

Growing up we had a great hobby shop near us that us kids could bike to or easily stop off at on the way home from school. It was called The Hobbyist and it had your usual plastic model kits and accessories, model rockets, and model trains. A couple of doors down we had a great little book store called The Book End that sold classic silver age marvel comics for only a few dollars (those same comics are now worth 10 times or more that amount). Another few doors down soon opened a used book store, a record shop and coming soon was one of the Chicagoland's original comic shops; Moondogs.

Pretty much heaven on earth for any kid.

All these shops were privately owned, no big corporate chain stores. These were the mom and pop stores that we hear talked about so much these days.

The Hobbyist was run by a Mr. Bill Wright and one or two assistants whom I can't quite remember, I think one might've been his son. Bill Wright was a great guy and ran a great little shop. He was always friendly to us kids coming in and hanging out at his store even though we didn't really have much money to buy anything.

After school we'd all stop over there or ride our bikes over on the weekends.

One day, while popping in after school I noticed this colorful and fantastic new box on the shelf squeezed in with other traditional hobby magazines. It had a giant red dragon sitting on a pile of gold, jewels and other treasure. Standing in front of the dragon was undoubtedly a wizard holding a torch and a magic wand and across from him some type of knight. The title on the box was Dungeons & Dragons, the original Adult Fantasy Role Playing game for 3 or more players. Basic set with introductory module.

I never before saw this in any hobby shop and was amazed by this box cover. It struck a chord within my imagination that still vibrates to this day. I had no idea what this was. It was a game, without a doubt, but what kind of game with a dragon and wizard. And what the heck was 'Role-playing'? It wasn't in your typical Parker Brothers box either. It was strange and I left mulling this over. And that name…Dungeons & Dragons!

I would return again and again to The Hobbyist to just stare and wonder at this game box, not having enough money to purchase it (I believe it was $10). But what was odd, was that almost every time I would stop in at the shop, which was quite frequent, another item would appear on the shelf. These items had fantastic covers of swords and fantasy. Some small packages began appearing with tiny unpainted figures, supposedly for these games I surmised. Next, games about the world wars and Napoleon showed up in larger boxes than that Dungeons & Dragons and others still which depicted more fantasy creatures and monsters and some kind of War with a Ring.

I became obsessed with this new game and all these other things that kept appearing around it as did my younger brother and our friends. I would talk about this with my parents trying to explain what this was and leaving them confused, I'm sure. I left obvious hints that this would be something that I would want for, first my birthday and then later Christmas. It wouldn't be until that holiday season when I would receive my 'gateway' game.

Week after week more and more of these games began showing up until they began to take up a larger portion of the Hobbyist floor space. It wasn't long until the Models began to take up less and less space and within a short year they were all crammed into a small 10 X 10 area leaving almost the whole store filled with Role-playing games, war games, dice, minis, paints and gaming accessories. The Hobbyist truly became a gaming store, one of the first if not the first in the Chicagoland Area. This was circa 1977-78.

The Hobbyist along with all of those great little shops where I spent all my hours and allowances have long since vanished but I can still see in my minds eye all those new and fascinating games staring at me on the shelves.

Being the obsessive graphic designer I put the below image together of all that I can remember seeing on the shelf in those early months before the rpg hobby really exploded. All of these covers to all of these games and publications were wonderful to gaze at during this innocent time of our favorite hobby.

Enjoy....

5 Great Things To Come Out Of The OSR / IEP3GCwC / Or Whatever You Want To Call It

Yeah, I use the label OSR, The Old-School Renaissance, and that's Renaissance as in 'a rebirth or revival'. Regardless of what you label it or refuse to label it, things have happened and are happening on a larger scale (some may argue that) in an independent way in recent years that has not happened since the birth of this hobby.

So lets take a look at some of the things that have come out of this 'Renaissance' shall we:

1. The Retro-clones, Simulacra and All Their Bastard Children.

Sure, people have always been playing the earlier versions of many of these games and there ain't a thing wrong with that. But what we have here is accessibility. I still have my Holmes, Moldvay, 1st ed AD&D books but not everyone else does. Free, pay, either way, anyone can pick up/download these rules. And who can't argue that some of these rules really needed to be rewritten and revised and not tossed out leaving room for a new more complicated set of rules. All these new rules and variations that have come out refined and enhanced the original game, not to discredit what has come before but to honor it. Sure some call it just house-rules but so what? After all isn't everything a house rule? Holmes seemed to have put quite a bit of his house-rules into his blue book. So without having to mention the incredibly long list of creative efforts (Swords & Wizardry, Labryinth Lord, Basic Fantasy RPG, OSRIC, Microlite, LOTFP and countless others rule, modules, supplements, etc.) just take a gander over here for just a brief glance at just the tip of the iceberg.

2. Blog Explosion.

It probably started with the Dragonsfoot forums or perhaps the passing of one of the great wizards himself, but wherever started it, the explosion of blogs related to classic style RPGs have created a fantastic resource of shared ideas. Good blogs, bad blogs, they're all out there. I know I've been inspired and 'borrowed' a'plenty from all of these interweb authors. I would have loved to have all this available when I was 10 and just starting out with the game.

3. One Page Dungeons.

Admit it, flipping through modules can, at times, be a pain. Yeah, I'm sure many of us have compressed dungeon making into a single page before but here we have a nice format put together by some thoughtful and inspired PnP gamers. You can cram a whole lot of adventure in that single page format and it has become my go-to process to whip out a new adventure for my players. One Page Dungeon Templates. Lets not forget the One Page Wilderness template either.

4. The Return of the Megadungeon.

Pure dungeon crawl joy. Nothing says Dungeons & Dragons more than an endless labyrinth of dark tunnels, cave, chambers, pits, traps and wonder leading a party deeper beneath the surface of the earth. From Stonehell to the Castle of the Mad Arch-mage to many others the wild and wacky worlds of wonder of the Megadungeon has resurfaced again to entice many'a adventurer to their fortune or doom.

5. Magazines and Fanzine.

Knockspell, Fight On!, Encounter, OD&Dities and Nod just to name a few. Nuff Said!

Regardless of what is happening and whether people see it differently or not, something has indeed created an excitement about the 'classic' game, something to bring in old players and new alike. Something to get us all delving once again.

Let's admit that TSR as we once knew and loved it is dead. For many of us it died at many different periods of it's history but it has indeed passed. Like all of you, I have fond memories of that brand, logo, creators etc. but lets face it, Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro has really done a shitty job carrying the torch.

Well, they did give us the OGL.

p.s. I'm not saying this is a movement or club or anything. Just play any game you want and have fun!

Destined Fate Of The Blog Spammer

d1gd21g231g21s said...

很喜歡看看別人的生活故事，謝謝您的分享哦~~............................................................

I know you all know this infamous spam poster here on my blog, your blog, hell everyone's blog. Every new post, there he is adding his two cents! Spammers are the goblins of the internet... no wait, goblins are fun. Spammers are the carrion crawlers of the internet - bottom feeders. There is a special place in the Virtual Nine Levels Of Hell for this spammer and all others.

Your destiny my friend...your destiny....

Odds And Sods

Just some odd bits and pieces that I'd thought I'd share.

Golden Age Comic Book Stories has been showcasing some incredibly fantastic Frazetta comic art and illustrations. A Must See for everyone!
http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/

In Conan news, here's some stills from the upcoming Conan movie courtisy of CROM! The ultimate Conan fan blog. I'm skeptical about this new movie but I'll withhold judgmental for now. Also take a peek at the new CROM! banner image designed by yours truly.

Conan: http://ultimateconanfan.blogspot.com/2010/05/first-sneak-peeks-of-jason-momoa-as.html
Header: http://ultimateconanfan.blogspot.com/2010/05/new-headerup-close-and-personal.html

Your all time favorite robots in cutout: Botropolis
http://botropolis.com/2010/05/50-awesome-papercraft-robots/

...And for your Saturday morning enjoyment.....

The Cultural Stew That Birthed Dungeons & Dragons

There has been much talk over the recent years about the early evolution from war-games to that fantasy game we all love with all those funny looking dice. But one must also keep in mind the mindset and culture of the times when the game was birthed. We're talking the late 60's and very early 70's. A time when fantasy and science fiction were being "rediscovered" so to speak.

Tolkien's high fantasy Lord of the Rings books achieved a popularity with it's peaceful hobbits and getting back to the land concepts very much in tune with the counter-culture philosophies and fantasy-trips of the day. There was a band called Gandalf, a London club called Middle Earth, and don't forget the infamous "Frodo Lives" T-shirts too. There was even talk of a Lord of the Rings movie to be directed by Stanley Kubrik and staring The Beatles.

The mid and late 60's also saw the publishing of the Robert E. Howard Conan stories in paperback by Lancer and ACE, albeit heavily edited. That, of course, lead to the Marvel Conan comics by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith. Other paperback companies jumped on board as well featuring Moorecock, Lovecraft and others, sporting fantastic cover art from the likes of Frank Frazetta and Jeff Jones.

Science Fiction, too, was leaving it's impressions on the experienced minds of young people. This was Science Fiction driven by concept and story and not laser-blasts and action. Films like 2001: A Space Odyssey with it's cosmic rebirth of earth's star-child, and grim post-apocalyptic dramas such as (Beneath the) Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green and The Omega-Man (okay, maybe Chuck Heston had a monopoly on the apocalypse). Bakshi's Wizards and even Jack Kirby's DC comic Kamandi can be added to this fertile stew.



Fantasy and Science Fiction were seeping deep into the pores of our culture. It was all around and still in a pure-form. It had not been commercialized or sanitized or even sharply defined or divided. It was Science Fiction and Fantasy and it encompassed many things with the two very much blurring into each other.

It is no surprise then that some creative war-gamers took those games to another level; to attempt to bring one into these realms of fantasy and to experience for one's self the excitement and freedom and in some cases grim horror of these worlds, if only for a few hours. Thus were born Greyhawk, Blackmoore, Dragons, Dungeons, Metamorphosis Alpha, Tekumel, Traveller and many other 'Fantasy Role-Playing Games', the affects of which are still being felt to this day.

More to come....

Research Or Just LARPing

The University of Regensburg in Germany has an interesting research project going on. Or perhaps it's just extreme LARPING?

http://www.thelocal.de/society/20100329-26185.html

Astropia

The other day I received a comment from one Astropia. As per usual when someone new makes their presence known, I click on their link to learn more about this person, who they are, where they're from and what might've brought them to The Warlock's Home Brew.

Astropia turned out to be quite interesting. At first I wasn't sure if this was an actual RPG or Movie or TV Show or combination thereof, but whatever it was it looked very interesting. I mean, gangsters, RPGs, Comic Shops, and live fantasy action! How can I not share this with all of you? Apparently it's one of the top grossing films from Iceland.



Astropia


UPDATE: Here's some more information about this film as well as some other tid-bits.
INDB
Heroes v.s. Astropia
I guess it's not so hard to find in these days of the interwebs

The Thrill of the Hunt

There was a time, not too long ago and I'm sure most of us can still recall, if you wanted to track down an out of print item or a classic toy or figure or other trinket, you'd have to get up off your butt and pull out the phone book, make some calls and journey from used book store to resale shop, far and near, seeking your treasured item.

Walking into these musty and dusty shops, you were overwhelmed with the sense of glorious hidden treasures lining the shelves and crammed into every nook. You had but to seek and you would find. And if you didn't find what you were originally seeking, you'd most likely, surprisingly find something you weren't quite expecting. Just ask James from The Underdark Gazette.

Sure, there was a bit more leg work involved but when you found that first printing of Ian Fleming's Thunderball or happened upon a wall filled with vintage pulp paper-backs from the 50's and 60's or perhaps a box full of Weird Tales, the thrill and excitement and the sense of digging up that obscure lost buried chest of gold is something that you didn't soon forget. And don't even get me started on the bargains you got with these items.

Now with the internet and sites like eBay you can pretty easily track down just about any odd, obscure item your crafty mind can desire. But really, where's the fun in that. Now you're just competing just for who can pay the most for something. Case in point.

Now, I'm not knocking any method of obtaining a cherished item. Hell, I've bought and sold my treasures many a time.

I bring this up because of one thing. I never owned the original boxed set of D&D. I remember seeing it on the hobby store selves next to Holmes Basic, the monochrome Steading of the Hill Giant Chief module and Traveller . Now I never bought those Little Brown Books as I was having enough trouble figuring out how to play this "role-playing game".

Last fall, I was determined to track down the original D&D box set and pay as little for it as possible. And by little, I mean around $10. Crazy you say? Impossible? You must think me mad? Perhaps.

So, I thought, hey, I'll start hitting up antique stores, yard sales etc. Nothing too revolutionary. But what are the odds, with eBay and all, of finding that item for that little?

Never tell me the odds.

So my first trek out, I headed to an antique fair just outside of Tucson where I now live. Middle of the desert. Odds seem pretty stacked against me, I'd say. But I'm going there for one thing.

So I take a glance around and see a lot of south western style antiques. Not surprising. But then I notice a table, right at the entrance, with some interesting items; toys, some comic books and other rusted trinkets from the 50's 60's and 70's. Some old cowboy sitting in the shade minding the table. I walk up and lo', I see the the famous Erol Otus Basic box cover. Well, interesting but I have those rules so no big deal. But upon opening the box, what do I find?




Yes, that's right. A bunch of 'classic' TSR adventure modules. Obviously, not first printing or anything but a surprising find nonetheless. And the best part is what I paid for them. $5. And no shipping fees! Not bad on my first day out - and in the middle of the frickin' desert no less.

Ah, the glory, indeed!

So, since then, I've always kept a casual eye out for this Holy Grail, my King Kong so to speak. And recently, I found my second clue.

A little obscure plastic box at a yard sale this past weekend. And inside? About 50 lead minis from '78 and '79 and for only $5. Some awesome dragons, some great Dungeon Delvers, even some of those Grenadier Hirelings. Just as random as a dice roll! Oh yeah, there were dice in there as well.

Now, those 3 LBB are yet elusive, but I feel that I am on the trail. The footprints becoming a bit clearer, the trail more recent.

After all, it's not bagging the beast, but the thrill of the hunt.

Avatar, Superman and Mars

It looks like I've got a busy couple of weeks ahead of me so posting might be a bit light. I've got a session this evening and I'm preparing for my first public DMing session at the Tucson RPG guild (more on that a bit later). I'm finishing up some illustrations for a classic fantasy adventure module and real life is getting busy with work and a leaky roof at home as well so I've got a lot on my plate right now.

There's an interesting post over at The Secret Sun about the synchromysticism of Avatar, Superman and Burroughs' Mars and Venus stories. Check it out.

Speaking of which, that planet Mars is at it's closest point to earth this week in our two year long infinite dance.

Role Up, Unplug, and Step Out

"The analogy I make is that pen-and-paper role-playing is live theater and computer games are television"
-Gary Gygax in a 2006 interview

The Diversity of RPGs

Over at The Word from the Outpost, a blog from Imperial Outpost Games in Phoenix AZ, they have an interesting post on their RPG sales breakdown. They have charted and broken down the genres and RPG game lines with some interesting results.

Let's take a quick gander at which genres are selling the most.

Now, this isn't much of a surprise. Fantasy RPG's are the market staple. (thank you Mr Tolkien, Mr, Howard, and Mr Lieber). In the store we have D&D and Pathfinder taking up much of the burden of fantasy RPG sales, but there are a few others contributing to that. Earthdawn, Exalted, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and a couple of the Indie games also added into that. SciFi games came in second with sales of Traveller, Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader and a few other minor ones.

Now for the chart that probably will be a big surprise. I know that it was for me.

Yep... not only was D&D NOT number one, it wasn't number two or three either. It came in at number 4 and from the looks of the chart, it sure wasn't too much higher than the number five, Savage Worlds.... (read more)

It would be interesting to see how this trend is across other gaming communities, but I have a feeling it would not be too much different.

Back in the day (and by that I mean the late 70's) RPGs were few and far between. Of course there was D&D, Tunnels and Trolls, Gamma World, Traveller, Boot Hill and a few others. It was generally a broad-stroke of medieval type fantasy, Sci-Fi or Outter Space. Of course there were a few others out there that people would play or buy but just a handful were the staple of most gamers repertoire. For the most part, D&D was king of the castle. The gaming community grew up around this powerful core, the roots of this great tree. As time passed, the roots grew deep and the branches tall. The one thing about these games, though, was that they could be altered or tweaked to fine-tune them into something more specific to the players tastes. But under the hood, they were all, generally, from the same game.

As RPGs evolved over the years (for better or for worse), there is now practically a RPG rule-set for just about any sub-sub genre of horror, sci-fi, fantasy or 'other' that exists or doesn't exist. This diversity, although good in and of itself, creates a splintering of players and groups. Cross-pollination of ideas or interests is less apparent as groups and genres become more isolated from each other. Though the world-wide gaming community is perhaps larger than ever, it also makes it smaller with everybody in their own little niche.

What does this all mean? Who knows? Perhaps it means that RPGs will just go rolling on for many a year but I doubt if we'll ever see that big wave of a unified interest where one game 'rules' them all.

Evolution of the Old School Revival

There was an interesting post over at the Swords & Wizardry Forums talking about the past, current and future trends of the OSR. I've actually been thinking about this for a while. I think it's a good discussion to have. I mean, we (by we I mean the community as a whole) can't be putting out revisions of the same game over and over again.

The way I see it is that the past few years have been a process of defining what we all enjoyed about the 'classic' style of gaming that has been missing or has been 'forgotten knowledge' for decades now. Things like sandbox, megadungeons and free-form play have sort of fallen into the forgotten corners of gaming. That's not to say that it wasn't out there, it just was forgotten.

So during these past couple of years we got the 'OSR' and all the retro-clones and all the products and blogs and things out there that support these rediscoveries so to speak. It seems to me that we've recreated the atmosphere of the origins of the game, the excitement and explosion of creativity of those times. The trend that I feel it can move into now is evolution. Evolution to what the game (in our vision (and by our I mean the community as a whole)) should/could have evolved into. Moving it into different realms without falling into the traps of complicated and over structured rules yet expanding the original intentions, the freedom and pulp aspects, of the game. I think we are starting to see that with the new 'supplements' that have come out, Carcosa and Majestic Wilderlands as well as Planet Algol and Savage Swords of Athanor and many others. Enhancing the (other) worlds in which the game is played without complicating the (rules of) the game as a whole and keeping the rediscovered elements. I think that's the underlying trend.

There's really no 'bottom-line' or 'investors' that will define the direction. It will be defined by an 'open-source' community whose love and care for the game will direct it's evolution.

We all know where one path leads but I think now is an opportunity to forge a new path. One that could have been taken 30 years ago.