Weapon vs. what?
This here post is a reply to "Weapon vs. AC" over at Grognardia. I wanted to show some charts I wanted to talk about, so I'm posting here rather than commenting there. First, let's take a look at the Man-to-Man melee c[...]Read on >>
Demos & Distro
So nobody showed up to my Castles & Crusades demo yesterday. My wife was afraid I'd be heartbroken but it's hard to be down on the heels of two successful demos. Besides, I knew I was swimming upstream by schedulin[...]Read on >>
Greyhawk Day #11: Languages In Greyhawk
Our two Greyhawk articles this week deal with language. One of the best articles I've seen on the subject is from Tim Bugler (with Ken Barns) entitled Languages of the Flanaess. This is an extremely accessible treatmen[...]Read on >>
Of diseased dwarves
So last night I ran an OD&D demo at my friendly local game store. I had four players and only one of them (my buddy Dave, one of the owners) had played the original version of D&D. One of the players was a youn[...]Read on >>
The New Cleric is the Old Cleric (Part 2)
This is the second part of a multi-part series and is intended to be a contributing article to the RPG Blog Carnival #4: Religion. The first part in the series can be found here.Clerics in 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons &[...]Read on >>
The New Cleric is the Old Cleric (Part 1)
For this months RPG Blog Carnival (the topic is "Religion"), I've been collecting a list of old DRAGON articles, source books, supplements, and other resources that all deal with religion, clerics (and other healers), an[...]Read on >>
Making Sense of Alignment Languages
I use alignment languages even less than I use regular languages in D&D. In fact, I'm hard-pressed to recall I allowed any alignment language shenanigans into my game. However, if I was feeling like I needed to inc[...]Read on >>
Review: Keep on the Borderlands
Over the next few months, I'll be reading some of Gary Gygax's more well-known works and writing about my reaction to them. I've been a gamer since 1993, but I've never actually had the opportunity to read anything by Gy[...]Read on >>
Languages in AD&D
I will readily admit to rarely paying attention to language rules in D&D. Usually when the party wants to parlay I just make a snap decision (perhaps based upon a die throw) whether or not the creature speaks a lang[...]Read on >>
demo this!
So today I tried something new: running a demo game at the friendly local game store. The store is Armored Gopher Games, which I still think of as the new game store in town despite being like 2 years old. Of course so[...]Read on >>
OK, Let’s Talk Game Balance
There was an interesting question addressed I suppose at the old-schooler crowd/gamer public over at Unnatural 20, namely "Is Game Balance Unnecessary For Fun?" There's two parts of RPG Ike's original post that are pret[...]Read on >>
Greyhawk Day #10: Allen Varney Talks Greyhawk
This is sort of an unusual Greyhawk Day. Allen Varney is one of my favorite RPG authors, but despite a long and productive career writing, he's perhaps best-known for his work on Paranoia XP. I did, however, scrounge u[...]Read on >>
This is how dumb I am.
In OD&D the section on the recommended number of players looks like this:Number of Players: At least one referee and from four to fifty players can be handled in any single campaign, but the referee to player ratio s[...]Read on >>
Up The Garden Path
A man can dream, can't he? A module printed exclusively in the United Kingdom by TSR UK. Using the 1986 National Garden Festival as its theme, this module was sold both at that festival, and at the 1986 Games Day RPG co[...]Read on >>
Swords and Wizardry
November 2, 2008 from The Call of the Dungeon
Filed under: ODANDD, Old School, RPG, RPG Hub, Swords and Wizardry
You know … I think I really like Matthew J. Finch’s Swords and Wizardry. If you haven’t yet checked it out, go do it now. I’ll wait.
…
See, I told you it was great. (You DID go look, right?)
Sure, it's [...] Filed under: ODANDD, Old School, RPG, RPG Hub, Swords and Wizardry
Read on >>
REAL-LIFE CLERICS: TSR HOBBIES needs you
This ad is from Dragon#40 (August, 1980). Classic wtf is all i have to say... ... [...]Read on >>
Stop whining about GG and Castle Zagyg
This whining about Gygax Games shifting gears with the publication of Gary Gygax's legacy is beginning to annoy me. It annoys me far more than the recent business decisions of that company.Am I the only one who was wonde[...]Read on >>
Greyhawk Day #9: Reviving The Greytalk Archives
Happy Halloween, and boy do I have some great Greyhawk goodness for you today! Some truly great Greyhawk and RPG discussion was thought lost when the Greytalk Archives disappeared from online. Scott Casper, however, is[...]Read on >>
Traveller Character Sheets
Having a few projects on my plate right now has kept me from daily posts here; however, today I have a little something for the Classic Traveller crowd ... JM.[...]Read on >>
Looking Back: Dragon Halloweens of the Late 70’s and 80’s
"For Halloween, we’re got something on tap that will tie past editions to the new edition in a way that just makes the DM in me tingle all over. I’ll talk more about that next month."-- from Bill Slavicsek, "Ampersa[...]Read on >>
The Deck of Stuff
For my last OD&D con game I got out a stack of index cards and turned them into a deck of miscellaneous equipment cards, like this:As I shuffled and dealt one card to each player I told them something like "As vetera[...]Read on >>
No, seriously. What’s attacking us?
One of my favorite old D&D books is The Dungeoneer: The Adventuresome Compendium of Issues 1-6, sometimes referred to simply as the the Dungeoneer Compendium. The Dungeoneer was Paul Jaquay's early D&D fanzine ([...]Read on >>
Swords & Wizardry, NaNoWriMo, and that Dang List
October 25, 2008 from How to Start a Revolution in 21 Days or Less
Filed under: Old School, RPG, RPG Hub, Swords and Wizardry, roleplaying
Who, exactly, was responsible for the decision to release Swords & Wizardry two weeks before National Novel Writing Month? I was getting ready to run an online game with some pals back home when I remembered that, i[...] Filed under: Old School, RPG, RPG Hub, Swords and Wizardry, roleplaying
Read on >>
Dragon #7 and TPKs
TPKs don't get much better than this... Nominate your favorite blog post from any RPG blog to The 2008 Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs!Let the us know what you want here - and you may win a free copy of the An[...]Read on >>
Greyhawk Day #8: Castle Zagyg & A Deific Map
Two bits for this week's edition of Greyhawk Day: -Earlier this week, Greyhawk Grognard posted the original release plans for Castle Zagyg. I'm hoping for the best still with this series, despite the disquieting develo[...]Read on >>
RPGS, Greek Tragedy, and Greenspan
I was watching the Newshour with Jim Lehrer tonight, and it triggered some "deep thoughts" about rpgs. The Newshour showed Alan Greenspan's testimony before Congress today about the economic collapse. Greenspan talked [...]Read on >>
Vintage Dragon Magazine Game Advertisements, Part IV
(Seriously, its an addiction. I do believe this will be my last installment on this topic for a bit, but I absolutely love looking at these old ads. They just seem so innocent, energetic, and full of optimism for havin[...]Read on >>
Uncle Sam Helps Your Party Survive Dungeons
I mentioned this over at I Waste The Buddha With My Crossbow yesterday, but this is one of the best resources I can share: U.S. Army Field Manual Library Aside from the obvious applications for warfare or modern games [...]Read on >>
Last Weekend’s Old-School Gaming Moment
October 20, 2008 from RPG Diehard
Filed under: Advice/Tools, Old School, Other Systems, Play, RPG Hub, Savage Worlds
Yep, we had our first great old-school gaming moment last weekend. The first of many, I hope, from Autumn Frontiers, my Savage Worlds/Points of Light sandbox mashup.The players were exploring a ruined holdfast situated i[...] Filed under: Advice/Tools, Old School, Other Systems, Play, RPG Hub, Savage Worlds
Read on >>
Surviving the Chaos Wars
The more I've been kicking around the idea of getting into 1:72 figures the less I've been digging on the original Chainmail as the set to use for mass battles. There's parts I like and parts I don't like, so I've been [...]Read on >>
-
Member Sites
- Dungeonmastering
- Scattershot Games
- KingSpoom's RPG Design & Theory Junkyard
- Mycroftian Horror
- The Geek Emporium
- Jason's RPG Ramblings
- Questing GM
- Atomic Array
- The Report
- HeroPress
- Chad Perrin: SOB
- Behind the Screens
- Greyhawk Grognard
- Cogito, ergo ludo
- RetroRoleplaying
- Geek Related
- Joey's Musings
- Elliot Wilen's RPG theory/design/philosophy Journal
- Worlds in a Handful of Dice
- hack/
- The Keep on the Gaming Lands (Mike Mearls)
- 3POINT75
- The Core Worlds
- The Book of Rev
- NPC a Day
- Purple Pawn
- The RPG Corner
- A Hero Twice A Month
- Accidental Survivors: The Modern Gaming Podcast
- Lords of Tyr
- Inkwell Ideas
- Dr. Checkmate's Lair
- DND Corner
- Drop the Dice
- The Tome Show
- Ratty Ramblings
- The Canon Puncture Show
- 6d6 Fireball
- Cyberpunk 2040
- The Outsyder's Blog
- The Hydra's Grotto
- Causal Gamer
- One Man and His Dice
- The Free RPG Blog
- The Elder Thoughts
- Dire Kraken
- Newbie DM
- The Verbing Noun
- Four From Fallcrest
- How To Start a Revolution in 21 Days or Less
- RPG Brouhaha
- Save Or Die!
- The Recursion King
- Apply to join today!
Subscribe to Feed