Books by Mike and Shell Dibaggio

For the longest time, I have run a side panel ad for Dibaggio's book, The Ascension Epoch series. I'm doing a refresh of the blog and moving them here. Very shortly, I will be running reviews as many of them as I can. So moved but not forgotten. 

As of this moment, I'm spending a lot of time trying to get the garden complete so reviews are momentarily on hold. I can't wait for this brief burst of lawn activity to be done so I can get back to reading and blogging. 

Be sure to check out these and all of the other great titles by Mike and Shell Dibaggio at your favorite retailer.

Books by Rick Wayne

For the longest time, I have run a side panel ad for Rick's books, The Minus Faction and Feast of Shadow series. I'm doing a refresh of the blog and moving them here.

Very shortly, I will be running reviews of all 8 of them.  So moved but not forgotten. 

As of this moment, I'm spending a lot of time trying to get the garden complete so reviews are momentarily on hold. I can't wait for this brief burst of lawn activity to be done so I can get back to reading and blogging. 

Be sure to check out these and all of the other great titles by Rick Wayne at your favorite book store.

No time. No time!

Time is short today. I prepped the lawnmower, filled the raise beds and stopped at Dragon Snack Games.

It's gorgeous out today, so I'm staying outside. 

I found a great deal on a lawnmower and with the money I saved, I dropped it all on some gaming products. The chance score were dice for 3 bucks a set. 

I love the way the look outside. Nice for pictures this summer. 

The zucchini and cucumbers are almost ready to plant. I also picked up some tomatoes and peppers. It's kind of late for those, so maybe I'll grow them inside. I don't know. We'll see. 

Inspiration

When I was 10 or 12, Dungeons and Dragons was a big thing but the content was fairly limited. Not just the sheer number of modules, but the tone and such were limited by the player's personal preferences. Out of dozens choices only a handful leave an impression. Face it, it's really a chocolate, vanilla or strawberry choice. We like what we like for no other reason. 

This creates a cycle were the player was introduced to the module, then they presented the module as a DM to replay. The story gains additional replayability through this introducing it to others. I can repeat by placing a twist on the source material so that it is disguised. By the time you have your own kids, you see the cycle start again. It is very much like some beloved concept such as drawing, woodworking, camping, Disney, etc. to be passed down.  

The activity is the same, but different depending on where you are in the cycle. This naturally leads to the idea of maps, guides, handbooks, t-shirts. I find it amusing that there could or would be some sort of insignia, brochure or mission patch for an old module because the are simply loved and repeated. 

That is the source of inspiration for these images and my love of the OSR. 

The difference between 6 and 10 is not very great in terms of time, so I recall my bedroom decorated with classic Disney posters, 60's and 70's baseball pennants and other object de art which were done in these odd colors and styles. It's no wonder that I have associate these images with those conjured by D&D. 

Tired Doodling

Words... words... words... it's one am. 

Done. 

More and more and more good ads

I like doing these posts of ads, which is unfortunate for my readers. Lol. 

Today's Ad of Six are from DriveThruRPG. These modules, gazetteers and guides are great. If I get a chance to play D&D after quarantine, I'm gonna run a few of these. 

SM06 The Warren SM06 The Warren

SM04 Gazeteer of the Land of the Young SM04 Gazeteer of the Land of the Young

SM01 A Players' Guide to Dunromin SM01 A Players' Guide to Dunromin

Hottest New Book GM's Maps Post-Apocalyptic and Dystopian Bundle [BUNDLE]

New Book SM16 The Book of Legends

Games to Teach Your Kids Pugmire Core Rulebook

Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting

Run Faster Shadowrun: Run Faster (Second Printing)

Filling in the Blanks by Todd Leback

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. 

Camera Test for Spring Model Series

I'm doing a camera test for my spring model series. This is just a quick and dirty edit. The images were downsized to 11 inches across, then the canvas was resized to 7" by 5" with the image centered. On the webside, I downscaled the images to 65%. We'll see how that works.