Hardly worth an update, but I found the Mythic Dollar Store Dragon Dice set at my local Dollar Tree. See the image below. (Campaign Wiki Readers, you can move along unless you want to see the picture.)
A website dedicate to games of all favors and varieties, from video games to good old D&D.
Tuesday, November 2, 2021
Mythic Beast Found - Dragon Dice at the Dollar Store
Monday, October 25, 2021
Life is a Test. Testing 1-2-3.
A lot and very little was "up". I had pneumonia and a lot of time on my hands. You see, having pneumonia and no fever indicates COVID. That is basically the kill mechanism for COVID. You have an infection that doesn't trigger a defense which leads to pneumonia, then you die. So, aside from getting tested for COVID weekly, I didn't have anything to do except go online.
Coughing until you have a headache isn't conducive for reading or writing so the blog went on the back burner. I did some digital drawings, download a game to review and wanted to share them on one of my favorite websites: the Cosmoquest Forums. It's all about astronomy, but it's been around for 20 years or more and I have quite a few friends there. Right now they have an issue where you can't post images via an upload but you can via load an image via URL. Hence the images uploaded in that test file.
After a while, I started having 3 or 4-hour stints where I felt fine. I began building models and uploading the images to the blog post I didn't realize was live.
Then more bad news followed by some good news. My house... the one that burned... had asbestos in it. Yes, the irony. Now for the good news. Nothing in the garage was burned or contaminated with asbestos so it all needed to be packed up and moved to allow for cleanup of the interior house. Of course, this happened while I was sick so I had to pay someone do it. If you ever have the chance to not clean your garage and have someone else do it, I cannot recommend this enough. :)Dozens of really cool items were found in the garage. A headset with a microphone, a light ring, a second microphone, some models, dozens of painted... yes PAINTED! figurings, a set of drumsticks, some books, and a few Christmas gifts we had bought for the kids.
Suddenly, I had something to do that didn't require too much energy. Play with toys! But not the ones I bought for the kids. My wife was admendent.
When I started podcasting, I originally envisioned it as a video series, hence the light ring and extra microphone. Unfortunately, my face is not the stuff videos are made of and I stuffed all of it into a box in the garage.But you know what a light ring is great for? Taking pictures of models. And fortunately, all of my Star Wars models survived the fire and found hundreds of painted figures in the garage. So, my next series will be on figurines and models.
X-Wing | Poe's X-Wing | T.I.E. and T.I.E. Advanced |
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Wednesday, October 6, 2021
Introduction: How to...
D&D Basic Set Rulebook (B/X ed.) (Basic) D&D Basic Set Rulebook (B/X ed.) (Basic) | D&D Expert Set Rulebook (B/X ed.) (Basic) D&D Expert Set Rulebook (B/X ed.) (Basic) |
Saturday, September 18, 2021
The Curio Post
I have a lot on my mind and more on my plate. I don't get to post as often as I like, but today I'd like to share a series of pictures. Think of them as writing prompts.
All of my prior goals for 2021 have gone out the window, save one. I have only 14 more reviews to do to complete my goal of 52 reviews a week. What used to be on my goal list was scrapped and replaced with a few more manageable ideas.
In the coming posts, you'll see some reviews, some new thoughts on gaming, and some solo gaming sessions.
Now, let's have those pictures.
What's in the bag?
First up is an item from Dragon Snack Games. Dragon Snack is a local game shop and is my most frequently visited shop. I even did a semi-review of it.
The kitten is for scale. As near as I can tell, Dragon Snack Games does not give away free kittens. As least, they haven't ever offered me one.
They are awesome! You can use one giant die for each character stat. I just need 3 more. It's a new quest to stop into Dragon Snack until I find more.
Wednesday, September 1, 2021
Priorities, Priorities.
Rewind.
44 days ago, our house was devastated by a fire. My family made it out, as did 2 of 4 pets. My wife was found in the front hall attempting to rescue the animals. She was scorched, but is doing fine. As are the kids and Tori dog and Shinubo the cat.
Starting on July 19th, 8 pm, incredible support started pouring in to me and my family. I was at work at the time the fire began and raced home. On arrival, I found 7 fire departments fighting the blaze. Moments before I got there, they had retreated from the house as the temperature soared over the 1000 degree limits of their equipment. What I didn't know until weeks later, other fire departments had activated and were covering all of the areas those 7 departments normally cover. To say this was a massive response would be an understatement.
The fire was limited to the basement, but where it burned didn't matter. The temperature was rising throughout the home. If the roof caught fire, there could have been an explosion that would ignited the neighbors houses. To prevent this from happening, fire fighters cut holes in the roof to allow the heat and pressure to escape. This would cause the roof to collapse in and the whole house would be lost to save the surrounding homes. Since the heat far exceeded their equipment's ratings, this was the only safe option.
That isn't what happened.
Instead the fire fighters mounted a rally and reentered the blaze to fight the flames directly. It was all hands on deck moment. They first used sheets of water to cool the 1000+ degree heat on the upper floor, so they could advance deeper into the blaze. In the middle of the assault, the chaplain lead a group of men and women to rescue our cat, Benny. Although Benny had already succumbed to heat and smoke, they retrieved his body for proper burial, over which the Chaplain presided.
Wednesday, August 11, 2021
My D&D vs. Your D&D
D&D Basic Set Rulebook (B/X ed.) (Basic) D&D Basic Set Rulebook (B/X ed.) (Basic) |
D&D Expert Set Rulebook (B/X ed.) (Basic) D&D Expert Set Rulebook (B/X ed.) (Basic) |
D&D Basic Set - Player's Manual (BECMI ed.) (Basic) D&D Basic Set - Player's Manual (BECMI ed.) (Basic) |
D&D Basic Set - DM's Rulebook (BECMI ed.) (Basic) D&D Basic Set - DM's Rulebook (BECMI ed.) (Basic) |
Dungeons & Dragons Expert Set Rulebook (BECMI ed.) (Basic) D&D Basic Set - DM's Rulebook (BECMI ed.) (Basic) |
The big improvement in my mind was the two book set. That way the players had a reference and the DM had a reference. I was never a fan of the three column layout and the artwork was softer, grey scale instead of black and white line art. That style really didn't grow on me until Dragonlance came out.
Friday, August 6, 2021
Second Look - The Moldy Unicorn
It's been about 18 days since the fire. Today, I want to start taking a look forward. The inventory of the house is complete. Let me show you a shelfie:
Yeah. I can't dwell on that.Wednesday, July 7, 2021
Reading 'round the Web Wednesday...
I stumble across some cool stuff this week and wanted to share.
First up, Ruins of Murkhill. This is a group of players with the mission statement:
"Original Dungeons & Dragons the Old-School way. We are here to discuss ALL OLD SCHOOL table top role-playing games with a focus on OD&D; however, we also discuss Classic D&D and other TSR games and non-TSR games, Arduin, Gamma World, Metamorphosis Alpha, Retro Games; Clones, Retro Clones, Emulations and Old School inspired games, Classic Traveller and other Science Fiction games."
They have 3 bases on the web: The Blog, The Forum and a page on Mewe.
I've jumped right into the forum and have been loving it.
You'd be hard pressed to find a better resource for all things old cool gaming. I purchased a book, The Castle Guide from an offering in the forum. This week, it was my leading review post.
Speaking of excellent resources, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Campaign Wiki. Not only is a wiki, it's a massive RSS feed of old school blogs. You need to check this one out and if you're blog doesn't appear on the list, get it added.In other news, the users of DriveThruRPG went crazy and download many copies of my offerings, Kobold's Folly and the AD&D Character Sheet for Unearthed Arcana... at full retail price. I am extremely grateful to you guys. All of my titles are Pay What You Want, so this was amazing.
To close it out with an off note, check out The Revolution's podcast. It's like someone doing read at you or to you. Mike Duncan has a new book, Lafayette, Hero of Two Worlds coming out. He's kindly taken the time to read Chapter 4 as a preview on his podcast. This is part where the story gets good, Lafayette is shipwrecked on arrival to American and makes some interestings choices on the way to Philadelphia.
Monday, June 14, 2021
Science Phenomena to Pump Up Game Play
I am always a big fan of having realistic details of what is happening around my players to bring them into whatever world they are in. Each of these items is based on real-world technologies and phenomena.
Real lasers are silent unless they hit something. But the power supplies are not. They can sound like a hammer on a metal garbage can. This applies to medical lasers. Talk about making a trip to the auto-doc scary.
Industrial cutting and etching lasers are also loud, but more like a leaf blower because the beam is close to continuous. Again, it is the power supply and the drive required to move it around that is making the sound. This also ties into fashion. Characters messing with realistic lasers should always have goggles. If the tech level is high enough protective contact lenses would work nicely, too.
Sun Outages can drive plot points. When a satellite delivering information to a ground station passes in front of the sun the information gets garbled. The ground station loses its a connection because the sun is such a powerful source of radiation. In the real world, this happens to cable TV satellites in the spring and fall. This is a consequence of their orbit's aligning Earth's tilt. For a week or so, the satellite's signal is garbled for about 10 minutes at a time. It can be described as sparkles, pixelated or fuzzy pictures, picture freezing, audio distortions, or even a total loss of the channel.Since these satellites are in high Earth orbit it only happens once a day. If the satellite was in a lower orbit, it would happen several times a day based on the period of the orbit. This is great for plots involving a bit of mystery on a semi-regular basis, say every 40 minutes but the duration would be much lower, as in a few seconds.
Vacuum cementing is another phenomenon that can either stymie players or give them a power stunt. Two pieces of material will stick together in a hard vacuum as if welded or cemented together just by touching them together. This is a good way to force repairs using little-used skills to free moving parts. Alternatively, it can be used to add protective surfaces to objects to prevent or repair the damage with little or no skill and can use junk as a resource. Astronauts on the moon noticed this happened even to dust.
By the way, lunar dust smells like spent gunpowder or cooked meat, which can be an interesting detail to freak out the players. Why this smell (and taste) occurs is a mystery today. It is transient. Lunar dust doesn't smell like anything on Earth. It could be the release of charged particles or a quick, short-term chemical reaction with water or oxygen. No one knows how or why it happens.
I call another trick "Zinc-Clink". Zinc oxide sensors are used to measure the amount of oxygen around a sensor. If a sensor system gets some other material on it, say soot, it will believe there is no oxygen in the area and refuse to open the door. Again, players will have to resort to little-used or differently used skills to fix the problem. Say Vacc-suit or electronics. It's a handy way to slow the action down or pump up the drama because a hatch or door is misbehaving.
In space missions, these zinc oxide sensors are used to detect damaging oxygen around the sensor, which is counterintuitive. Oxygen in space is bad for some equipment.
I am also a fan of the idea of the Decadal Survey to land really sophisticated machinery in a small nook in the ship. In real life, the Decadal Survey is conducted once every 10 years and asks scientists to come up with very broad science questions to research. In ship terms, these research projects could place new sensors, small power supplies, and/or radios which are separate from the ship's normal operations. Think of it as an emergency lifeline for strange happenings on the ship. The crew would be versed in maintenance functions, so the equipment which is somewhat a "black box" would be understandable to the crew.
One of the more interesting types of research could be atmospheric aerosol tracking, which could enable a ship to use an alternative method to track other ships. GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) was a mission to look for gravitational anomalies (dense, heavy items) on the Earth's surface. In a sci-fi setting, it could locate shipwrecks, crashes, and other hidden items under the surface of a planet while also creating great maps.
Don't forget to put the "science" in science fiction.
Saturday, May 29, 2021
Let's Run That Railroad Through the Sandbox...
Here was the scenario: The party gets in a fight. The winner of that fight gets jumped and their cash and prizes are stolen. Then the party chases down the second group of people and gets their stuff back.
"You planned all of that in advance. You were railroading us!" they whined.
"No. I wasn't." I pulled out my notes and showed them.
The Party and Group A get in a fight. Only 4 things can happen: either the Party or Group A can win. Or they reach a stalemate and no one wins, either by flight or not starting or finishing the fight without winning.
Next. The first group out of the area gets jumped. Those 4 options happen again.
And finally, when the loser or second people out of the first situation one catch up, you basically have the same 4 options. Win, lose, or two different draws.
That's not a railroad. The players have a choice at each event they are present for and the dice can change that outcome. When the party isn't present, I pick the most viable option because I'm not stopping play to fight combat against two NPC groups against each. When the party comes back, they get another set of choices and outcomes.
A railroad would be if I decided what was going to happen TO THE PARTY before they were granted a choice. I know where the branches are and what should happen next, but I have 4-5 different possible choices to account for in every scenario. If the party has an obvious choice of 4 items, and they come up with the fifth, sixth, and seventh option, I have no plan and need to fly by the seat of my pants.
I gave the kids a good example.
I had a party meet at a tavern. They were supposed to stop the evil lord's men from shaking down the peasants for money. The party chose not to do that. So, the peasants got shaken down. Then the party gave the peasants money to replace what was stolen. I didn't expect that outcome.
In the next session, I decided to just re-run the whole thing. Again the party didn't bite. This went on for a bit with the peasants getting shaken down and the party replacing their lost funds.
Now the party was responsive to everything else I did in each session, but I was baffled by their lack of activity on this one point of defending the peasants. It almost rose to the level of a joke. After a few months of play, they checked back in on the peasants in the tavern.
Since they asked, I provided. This time the lord was there to get in on the fun. And the party sat there as the peasants got beat down and robbed again. It wasn't until the lord threaten everyone and turned to exit that the whole party opened fire with crossbows. In the dark, in the back.
The explanation for this behavior was, everyone in the party and a few of the players are lawful evil. It was just their nature to use the peasants for bait to draw the evil lord out.
Again, this was not railroading because the players themselves asked to check on the situation and determined the outcome they personally desired.
So when planning an adventure, you should plan for the obvious. What if the party wins? What if they lose? What if they run? What if they won't or don't fight? If you have those few things down, then the adventure probably won't go off the track, but if it does, the DM is only scrambling for a few seconds and not moment to moment. Which reduces the possibility of railroading the players.
Tuesday, May 11, 2021
Making a List and Checking It Twice...
These do not include continuing series posts which shall continue as per normal. So far, those are reviews, spring model posts and a summer gaming updates.
General cleanup on the blog will continue pace, which is something I try to hit once a week. I will be updating the photos of figurines to be compliant with my planned updates. This will allow me to play with my camera for item 5.
1. Rerelease Swashbuckler Character Class as "Character Pack for OSR and AD&D"
A. Write new character classes.
i. Write 3 Kobold character classes.
a. Classic kobold class as per monster stats.
b. Folklore kolold class as per legends.
c. The kobolds of Minawan tribe character class in my campaign.
ii. Adapt 3 new classes for this pack.
a. The Hoodlum/Gangbanger class.
b. The Monomach class.
c. The Unicorn/Pegasus class.
iii. Create 2 new classes based on military fiction.
a. The 70's Era Veteran class.
b. The Space Marine class.
B. Provide files in four types.
i. A4.
ii. 8.5x11
iii. 8.5x11 folding book style.
iv. 5x7 booklet style, requiring cutting on the purchaser's part.
2. Remaster Kobold's Folly on Drivethru.
A. Create a map suitable for printing, poster size.
B. Ensure this map is suitable for VTT online games.
C. Add the aforementioned mention Kobold character classes.
D. Write an adventure for this book.
3. Remaster Compass Rose Inn mini-settling on Drivethru.
A. Create a map suitable for printing, poster size.
B. Ensure this map is suitable for VTT online games.
C. Write an adventure for this book.
4. Record new podcast based on HuckSawyer's feedback.
A. Avoiding the TPK.
B. Why TPK's happen.
C. Avoid dicing your way through TPK's.
5. Put FridayNightDeathSlots.com into production
A. Record videos.
B. Edit video.
C. Record audio voice over.
D. Launch Pilot.
E. Collect data on viewer's opinions.
6. Update 716exchange.com blog
A. Coming phone changes in the Western New York area for national suicide prevention hotline launch. (Deemed critical. complete.)
B. More reviews of Western New York products, companies and events.
7. Update unpwned.com blog with tutorial on flash drives.
A. Purchasing.
B. Drive formats for a variety of OSes.
C. Troubleshooting.
D. Common flash drive ripoff schemes and how to address.
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Go Nuts!
Well, it's one of those days. Explosive creativity with little or no focus. In my last post, I shared the images I used to highlight my series posts. Not only did that involve Inkscape, it required Bluefish for html editing. I just need 5 more and I'll be done. I can do that another time. Can't stop now to finish something.
I ran to the store for stuff for dinner. Before I left, I painted a panel of wood for a photographic background for my model series.
When I got home, the background was dry. So, I took some photos using a single lamp. It's not how I will do it when I launch this series, but I wanted quick results. No need to get all fancy with tiny details like using the correct lighting.I edited the photos down to web sized chunks. (For my own future sanity, I cropped each 2520 x 1800 then halved the resolution so they be 1260 by 900.)
I took pictures of 3 unpainted ships and decided I needed some color.
Well, that wasn't good enough. So I photographed an X-Wing toy.
But that wasn't my paint job. I haven't painted figures in years. Since I had the paint out, I slapped some on a few mechs. Little details mostly, because I can't focus for more than a few minutes.
Not bad. I need some sort of vinyl cutter so I can do something with these. Because records are vinyl and these are images of records.
Yup. It all makes perfect sense.
I decided to add in a mix of water chestnuts, onions, celery and carrots. Sure, I'd have to go back to the store, but why not? I love that stuff.
I had the cutting board out, I decided to treat myself with riced cauliflower. Since I was playing safe with the dog, riced cauliflower is better for me than rice. I chopped it all by hand. Riced cauliflower is great because I can't eat rice. I'm diabetic.
Oh, shhhhiii.... I forgot one thing today. I didn't check my blood sugar after lunch. Hmm.
Yeah... the little details.
This is what I was fighting last year about this time. Nice to know things don't change.
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
No time. No time!
Wednesday, March 31, 2021
Camera Test for Spring Model Series
Both you and I know this will force me to go back and redo some of my other model photos. I don't mind as long as they look nice.