Filling in the Blanks by

Todd Leback Filling in the Blanks

Title: Filling in the Blanks
Publisher: Old-School Essentials
Author: Todd Leback
Cover Artist: Jenna Drummond (jendart.com),
Interior Artists: Chad Dickhaut, Adrian Barber, and Dan Smith
Year: 2020
Pages: 79 pages
Rating: 5 of 5 stars

This particular book comes in two forms, the preview edition and the regular edition. I have both. The preview edition is a text only copy of the main concepts of the full book, which is more than enough to let you know if you would want or need this title. 

Starting at the beginning, let me tell you about the author. Todd Leback is the author of a series of books on Hexcrawling. He has also written on topics such as domain building, authored a one page dungeon and had two successful Kickstarters. The most recent, as mentioned before, is the book Into the Wild. This should be out in about a month or so. He started playing with the Red Box D&D set and enjoys the OSR style of play with family. He runs a great Patreon page which provides 5-8 pages of Hex based content to his patrons every 3-4 weeks. As I mentioned in my review of Hexcrawl Basics, the link to both his Patreon and Jenna Drumman's sites are too small so I have reproduced them here. 

Filling in the Blanks is all about generating hexes. He covers geologic features, habitation of a variety of sizes, resources, hazards, lairs, etc. Of course there is a bit about magic and weather. This product is totally table driven with the text providing guidance and examples for usage. Those three together are great for demonstration of how the game is supposed to work. It's also a great way to allow for adaption to specific campaigns and thematic settings. 

My personal favorite part is on graveyards, but I think most people will like the section on Inns. That one seems to be the most useful for any campaign. Maps are in color, while the art is black and white. Somehow, I suffered a printer mishap and all of the black and white art came out blue tinted. I actually like that, but is probably my own problem. 

All in all, this is a great book on the someone who is well versed in hexcrawling. The only slight weakness is the lack of links back to Hexcrawl Basics. That title makes a good primer for what this book covers. While this title is only 79 pages, it is can feel like drinking from a firehose. There is a lot of information packed into this book. 

It would make a great addition and edition for anyone desiring a full featured exploration of the concept of Hex Crawling. While written for Old School Essentials, it can be easily adapted to any rule set. I might even be using this for a continuing Star Wars campaign. 

Rare Find! Giac My

Title: Giac My: The Game of Tactical Combat in Vietnam
Author: F. MacCrae, B. Lutz, and M. Ratner
Illustrator: F. MacCrae, and R Foerster
Rule Set: Unique
Year: 1978
Pages: 48
Number of Players: 2+
Rating: Not Yet Read.

Today, someone asked me to look at my comicbooks for an old ad. I couldn't find it, but I did find this: Giac My.

Excuse my thumb. This little treasure is from way back in 1978 and is clearly a mix of handwritten, hand drawn images and a typewriter. I have no idea how I came by it. It was stuck in the center pages of X-Factor Annual 1.

I can't wait to read this one. Required equipment are a way of generating numbers between 1 and 20, several 6 side dice, a tape measure, figures or paper counters. That's old school.

On the back page, there is an ad for other games by FanTac for Space Marines, Orbit War, Space Assault and Space Force.

Nerd Cred, 1970's Edition

Muffit. Like Boxey, he only had
a single scene in the re imagined series

Do you know what was hot in the 1970's? Hook Latch.

Do you know what else was hot in the 1970's? Battlestar Galactica.

The only thing that would make this more nerdy would be if I had one that had Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict all shooting a thumbs up.

I might not have been born this way, but boy did my mom plan it this way.

Drawing from the Past

This week, artwork has been on my mind. In July, I am going to challenge myself to learn to draw hands and feet. Those are tough subjects, especially if you have little skill. If only I drew more, I would be a better artist.

For inspiration in this self-challenge, I found a book Drawing for Printers by Ernest Knaufft. It was published in 1899 and is available at Gutenberg. It is a treatise printers, not a how to book. Since I also like writing, it may be beneficial for a couple of purposes.

At the very least for publishers of Old School Gaming products, this sort of book captures the style of early game publishers. If you would like a more modern look at publish games, check out A Brief Study of TSR Book Design by Kevin Crawford. I did a review of it about a year ago. I wish I had found it before I started developing my BD&D/AD&D supplement, Zero to Hero.