Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Not Too Much to Report - Additions to the blog roll.

Progress on the new versions of my Player Character Sheet for Unearthed Arcana have slowed to a crawl. I had hoped to have it up on Veteran's Day, but that didn't happen. I'm still plinking along at it, so real soon, now.

I continue to add people to my blog roll. I just started reading WELCOME TO THE HOME OF SOME GUY ON THE INTERNET by Robert Aronson. Again, MeWe doesn't disappoint when it comes to highlighting great talent, however I keep the blog roll going because I fear a G+ like collapse. All it takes is a good link on MeWe to your blog, a request in the comments below (with link) or a friend request on MeWe to get that link added here. It's easy.

Robert's blog might be the longest title on my blog roll. One of my favorite points about his blog was the source of the URL, which is kind of like my character Reg. On another point, it is also another good opportunity to mention Red Dice Diaries like I did in my post about Reg.

Three more plugs and I am done with this post. First, to prevent a second G+ like collapse, go follow these two aforementioned mentioned blogs. I gotta be honest, I hit the Red Dice Diaries blog to access the podcast more often than I read it. I love hearing John Alan Large's ideas and those of his guests and callers.

Next, go over to Campaign Wiki and register your blog. If you have a blog, go ahead and do what John Alan Large did and add some info about you. Starting with a name or handle, so people can find you, hear from you and praise you.

And for the final plug, you can pick up all of my products at DriveThruRPG. Each one is PWYW so feel free to give it a try before dropping some change in the tip jar.

Swashbuckler Character Class. A non-standard D&D character class. 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners. Rules to standardize your non-adventuring NPCs. 
Character Sheet for Use with Unearthed Arcana. A scan of a 80/90's character sheet. 
The Compass Rose Inn Minisetting. A ruleset agnostic mini-setting. 
Kobold's Folly A ruleset agnostic mini-setting.

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Disney+, PayPal and Error Code 83

I am super excited for Disney+. I ordered it today and was pleasantly surprised that they accepted PayPal. As an added bonus, because I opted to PayPal it simply imported all of my consumer information from that platform. I ordered the total package, Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN+. 

Right now, my daughter is watching the new live action Lady and the Tramp, which looks awesome! She's on the PS4 while I am down on the computer in the basement watching clips from ESPN+. 

Now for the pseudo-downer. If a video clip is something used for the website, I can watch it on my laptop. But if it is inside the Disney+ continuum, I get an error message. On Disney+, the error is Error 83. 


Hulu gives a little more wordy error that my browser isn't compatible. I haven't nailed down an error on ESPN+ because so much of the content is feeding public websites. It's hard to find something behind the wall, so to speak.

Ok, at this point, I bet you think I am pissed. I'm not. It's all right there in the name: "These Old Games". I run old hardware to support this site. My Chromebook, which I love is 7 years old as of this month.

With this particular package, I can have 10 devices and four simultaneous streams. It's $13 for 30 years of the Simpsons, ageless Golden Girls, 40+ years of Star Wars plus all of the Disney goodness I can stand. I have 4 other Chromebooks which should work and a pair of PS4's, 5 phones and maybe a tablet. I'm not going to cry because my main work machine doesn't work.

Heck, I am lucky not to have that distraction.

Once the kids are in bed, I'm watching one of my favorites.




Monday, November 11, 2019

SimEarth

SimEarth is one of those classic sandbox games, something with a charm that is ageless. I finally found my box and installed it on an old G4 Sawtooth Mac. It turns out that I am very rusty at all of this, so it will be a while before I do a review and some gameplay videos.

Here is a 90 second clip of the software in action.


I was concerned about this old Mac's specs, so I updated it a bit. I have max memory and four hard drives. Unfortunately, I can't seem to run OS 7 on this and don't believe OS 8 will run either. Time will tell.



Sunday, November 10, 2019

uMoria on a Mac OS 9

uMoria or Mac Moria 5.5c is one of those classic games that is strangely addictive. You pick a race, a class and you are off to the Dungeon. This classic game was created in 1983 by Robert A. Koeneke and has gone on to be ported to most OSes. I happen to like the old classic mac app best. 

A typical Mac Moira Character
At the bottom of this screen are two options, change name and file character description. The file is merely this page suitable for printing. While the 6 Statistics are close to D&D, they are slightly out of spec if you wanted to use this as a character generator. Also, some of the classes don't work at all like D&D classes. For example, a Druid can cast both clerical and magic user spells, rather than their own spell circle as in the PHB.

In the video below, I take a few seconds to generate a character and play for a bit. There is no sound.



For first time players, you need to purchase items like weapons before proceeding into the Dungeon. Also, the little [p] characters moving around are town drunks who can hit you or thieves who can steal from you. They are relatively easy to avoid.

In this second video, I linger on screens longer. I apologize for the blurriness for the first few seconds. It was something in the file conversion.

Here is a screen shot of a typical first level (50 feet) dungeon.


You can colorize your screen, but black and white is fine for me.

You can find more information about uMoira and downloads over at Beej's website on the game.

Saturday, November 9, 2019

Image Resources for Future Reviews

I'm going through my shelves and getting read to review some older products. This is the first post of images needed to get that done. I have some classic books right along side some classic games. Most of the games are Mac OS 9 stuff.

In looking at some of the D&D stuff, I might not do reviews, I'm thinking about sharing how they have been worked into my campaigns. I mean, what more can be said about Deities & Demigods which hasn't been said to death?