Yes, this photo – taken at a Starbucks in south Minneapolis – reveals the sinister dark underside of the Old School Renaissance. Gathered for nefarious purposes are (from left to right): Aaron Kesher, of Sandbox Empire (AKA Kesher on the Original D&D Discussion Board), then myself, and then Tom Juntunen, one of the contributors to… Continue reading Proof of a Conspiracy
Jones Soda has developed a new limited edition of soda pop geared for D&D players. And while this news has probably bounced off the far boundaries of the internet a couple of times already, I’ve just heard about it. It reminds me of the very early days of gaming, when a potions of healing were… Continue reading It’s not Dr. Pepper, but it looks tasty
Rob Conley has some interesting ideas about a kind of Living OD&D that might be something TARGA might eventually run. (Is that enough “might”s? It’s very exploratory in nature, or so it would seem to me.) What I find fascinating about this is that in matches what people did oh-so-long-ago, where characters and campaigns were… Continue reading Campaigns and Living OD&D
“Five dollars an hour.” “For a table?” “Yep.” “…And that’s if the game is out of print or unavailable from your distributor?” “Yep.” I stood, slightly dumbfounded. The gaming tables were in a next-door store front, at that moment completely empty of gamers. The Not-So-FLGS manager smiled that “I’m with a customer but I don’t… Continue reading Table Fees
Dan Proctor, author of Labyrinth Lord, gets interviewed over on RPG Blog II. It’s an interesting interview, since I chose Labyrinth Lord over Swords & Wizardry for OD&D simulation. I found myself curious about it and the Advanced Edition Companion – since much of what I wanted to add to my game was somewhere in-between… Continue reading Dan Proctor interview
I’m working on a project that might be rather interesting when it’s done. What I need is this: a global project of the Earth with the poles in different locations – the South Pole somewhere around the Black Sea, and the North Pole somewhere in the South Pacific. Some more glaciation would be cool, too. … Continue reading Need some help
“I’m a loafer with a dead-end job in real life; why can’t I play a hero in a fantasy game?” I’ve heard comments like this fairly frequently from gamers with whom I’ve played, over the years. Aside from the self-esteem issues implicit in the comparison, there’s a fairly good reason why not every player-character is… Continue reading Player-characters are….
When I first started roleplaying, back in 1975, there were no modules. Instead, people spoke of “dungeons” – as in, “Say, we’re going to play in Steve’s dungeon on Saturday – want to join us?” The idea of going on an adventure was firmly inside the frame of a larger campaign. Some people had elaborate… Continue reading What are these “modules” of which you speak?
One of the more interesting aspects of the early days of role-playing games was the assumption that campaigns were something that lasted some time. Certainly Greyhawk and Blackmoor lasted a very long time – but in the first decade of gaming, there did not seem to be any sort of assumption that a campaign would… Continue reading Open-Ended Campaigns
I’m moving to Madison, Wiscowsin at the end of the month. Not too surprisingly, I’ve decided to invest in a lot of standard-size boxes to make the move go more easily. A quick check of Uline revealed that they had 12x10x10 boxes (that’s 30.5cm by 25.4cm by 25.4cm for metric folks), for 51 cents in… Continue reading Moving and various issues
