My first roleplaying game was Original Dungeons & Dragons. I started playing D&D sometime in 1975, and I recall buying my first copy of the game at the Little Tin Soldier Shoppe in south Minneapolis, shortly afterwards. At the time, D&D was the only roleplaying game around, and that created an interesting moment in this… Continue reading The Origin of My Viewpoint
James Maliszewski and I have been thinking about doing a podcast about Traveller, with a focus on Classic Traveller and MegaTraveller. We already produce a podcast – the Hall of Blue Illumination – about the world of Tekumel. Since we both have a deep appreciation for Traveller, we thought this might be of interest to… Continue reading Hexadecimal
John M. Ford’s writing will be available again next year. That makes me really happy: Mike was a friend, someone who was happy to talk about almost anything and everything. I knew him for many years, and had expected to know him for many more. Alas, that expectation was cut short by Mike’s death in… Continue reading John M. Ford
The Sandbox of Doom is back. After a two-and-a-half year hiatus, I am bringing my blog back into production. The Sandbox is where I will post my views on various issues in tabletop roleplaying games and gaming in general, as someone who has been playing for a good long time. There are a number of… Continue reading A Fresh Start
It’s been a bit since I have posted to The Sandbox of Doom. In the intervening time, a lot of things have changed, most of them good. I have been gaming on Tuesday nights as part of Madison Traditional Gaming. MTG – as we sometimes refer to it – now has about 45-50 people every… Continue reading Picking Up Where I Left Off
So I’ve picked up a copy of the new Players Handbook. Even a cursory examination revealed that this is NOT the “5th Edition” that some people were afraid it might be. However, I have to admit that I’m a little concerned about the $50 cover price – not so much because I think it’s out… Continue reading Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Players Handbook
The Bundle of Holding has gone completely Old School for the next four-and-a-half days. Buy all of this now while you can, for a practically a song. It is definitely worth it. http://bundleofholding.com/index/current
GameHoleCon (yes, that’s the name) was this past weekend. Had a great time running Classic Traveller, Empire of the Petal Throne, and Original D&D (well, S&W White Box if you wanted to be precise). Towards the end of the convention, I noted the convention deal being offered by the rep for Castles & Crusades. I… Continue reading He Meant Well
Tuesday nights have been very very successful. We’ve got anywhere from 25-30 gamers showing up each week, and games range from Star Trek (CODA) to a Superworld/CoC mash-up to Microlite 74. The Star Trek game is mine – it’s set in 2270, and uses some interesting fan stuff and some material from Mike Ford and… Continue reading Keep it simple
The original questions may be found here. (1). Race (Elf, Dwarf, Halfling) as a class? Yes or no?Most of the time, no. I used to think absolutely not, but more recently as I considered monsters as classes (e.g. dragons, vampires, etc.) it made more sense to consider some races as their own class, when the… Continue reading Answers for Random Wizard
