Great Review from Gothridge Manor

I just got an amazing review from Gothridge Manor on my latest adventure "The Overrun Mines" http://gothridgemanor.blogspot.ca/2014/08/review-overrun-mines.html

The great thing about getting reviews is that it brings to light little things that you can do better.  For example on my maps, I need to figure out a way to darken them a bit.  The map for the overrun mines was drawn in pencil, I have been using quite a bit darker of a pen for some new maps.  I will keep that in mind in the future.

I appreciate the fact that Tim states that the adventure can be up and running in 5 minutes, that has been my goal, not to over complicate things as well to allow DM's to place adventures into existing campaigns.   I plan to continue that.

On Adventure Design

Great post by Wayne right here - http://initiativeone.blogspot.ca/2014/08/how-not-to-write-adventure.html

My thoughts: (going back to the drawing board).

All great ideas Wayne! this of course is now going to make me re-think my entire adventure module sadly. I have a section in it titled "its not necessarily a railroad, but here's the plot". As well, in order to get into one specific section of the dungeon, a certain amount of keys will be needed. And I had written in a NPC that will magically appear at a certain time. ugh. LOL!

List Of Links For Tavern Dice Games

After putting out the call on Google + I got a bunch of great responses to my post on Tavern Dice Games.  Here are the links.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/138788/dungeon-roll 
+Anders Nordberg

Christopher Paul Wrote
Liar's Dice/Perudo is a good tavern dice game.  I've played it in the bar multiple times.  Just google it and you can find the rules.  Each player will need 5d6 and a cup to shake and hide them behind.

Brett Elliot Wrote: 
A good tavern dice game is "Ship, Captain, Crew". Just Google it to find the rules, it's easy to learn. We were taught the game while having dinner at one of the Colonial Williamsburg taverns, it was a lot of fun.

Kirk Stone Wrote: 
Pit Fight" is pretty simple:
http://442644.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/secret-santicore-2012-games-of-chance.html

+snakeappletree white-lightning-gate 
You roll three dice and multiply the numbers by each other. Whoever scores highest wins the round. Most people hate this game because the maths involved reveals everyone to be crap at maths, except for that one person. But it sharpens you up and after a few rounds you get into it, you start seeing the patterns in the numbers. 

Tavern Dice Games

Anybody got some good ideas for "Tavern Dice Games"? been thinking it might be fun to incorporate those into a game session, whilst drinking actual mead, while we wait for the "mysterious stranger" to show up.  I plan to use Canadian pennies as gold pieces (1 penny represents 5 GP). And since us Canadians did away with the penny.  lol

New Magical Items

The Mirrorshroud - This cloak allows the wearer to change their identity to that of someone that they have met.  By donning the cloak, the wearer's features & clothes become that of another person.  This is extremely helpful for thieves, assassins or anyone needing to impersonate someone for a day.  In game terms, I believe this should have a limited number of charges, and the cloak will only allow one change per day, the effect lasts the entire day or until the PC takes off the cloak.  *Inspired by Terry Brooks, Shannara Series

The Staff Of The Elven Homeland (Aka The Ruhk Staff & Loden) -  Using this staff a person can take the entire city of the Elves and magically transport with a globe (Loden) at top the staff.  I would consider this a relic.  Within "The Elf Queen Of Shannara", it used to transport the city of the Elves from one location to another.  The Elves within the city live out their lives as if nothing has changed, there is a grey mist surrounding the city, all around the gates, and from above.  Time passes normally.  I am not entirely sure how this would work in game terms, but it could be a interesting quest to move the city of the Elves, or for that matter maybe the city of the dwarfs, in a magic warhammer, etc.  The staff carries magical properties that protect the user and the Elves contained within the globe. *Inspired by Terry Brooks, Shannara Series

Wraith Amulet - This amulet will allow a user to suck a wraith or any undead spirit into the amulet and back to whatever plane of existence (purgatory) they are from.  The Amulet can only be used once, specifically on level draining undead.  *Inspired by Charmed TV Show.

Image courtesy of Shiroke http://www.animevice.com/profile/shiroke/

The Overrun Mines is now for sale

Check it out here http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/134136/The-Overrun-Mines

The local mine has been overrun by foul creatures, stopping all mining operations! The Lord has dispatched a call for brave heroes to clear out the mine, but what lurks below the surface?

*Module includes two hand drawn grey scale maps, optional rules for Underworld travel & ressurection, also 4 pre-generated PC's

Mucho Love For PBP

Damn I am digging the play by post I"m currently involved in!  Its a module by +Johua De Santo (Awesome writer/GM).  I am playing a rather rotund halfling named "Gwimble Lardfeet", his main motivations are FOOD and DRINK!  As soon as we reach the village, I'm going straight to the Inn and spending the last of my gold buying rounds.  It's gonna be epic!  You can grab a copy of

Spectres of Usarm right here (its compatible with Swords & Wizardry) http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/130430/Spectres-of-Usarm?affiliate_id=210640

 

Further, I think I am going to hold off creating my own pBp until I finish up this one.  It really helps having the players perspective I think. 

Don't quit your day job aka in the spirit of DIY part 2

Did some doodling of some key areas within the latest adventure "The Overrun Mines".  When I get home I'm going to throw it into my copy and see how it looks.

In the spirit of DIY

As many of you may already know, I've just uploaded my second module, "The Overrun Mines", which is a 15 page, 2 map module for LL & B/X.  I am hoping that it will be up for sale in the next few days, as soon as I know, you will know!  Spoiler Alert - In my first module "The Caverns Of Ugard" I put a bad assed gangster minotaur.  In the new one there is a mad scientist!  Just trying to change up the idea of bad guys and their motivations.  Upon re-reading Ugard I realized that I inadvertently made him "Jabba The Hut".  Which would be a hilarious idea for role playing! The mad scientist in the "Overrun Mines" could easily be Gene Wilder from Young Frankenstein.

Now onto the reason for this post.  While working on the "Overrun Mines" I decided to use a little Google-Fu and find some decent RPG related clip art to spice up the module.  I managed to find a cool site that allowed me free use of the clipart/images, which was great.  However for future projects I think I am going to take a page out of Zak S from http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.ca/ book, and try to be as DIY as possible.  Specifically in this post http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.ca/2014/05/fix-me-fix-me-fix-me.html

And I quote on RPG design....

Here's some advice from me: Reinvent the wheel. Totally ignore how everybody else did it--they aren't giving people your game. Games need a totally specific presentation and graphic design and every RPG ever has pretty much fucked that up. There are no masters in this field at all. So caveman together some fucked-up folk art layout that you think might serve whatever you're doing. Have a vision and go for it. It can't be worse than what people are already doing and it'll be fun. You might even win an award--we did.

its totally punk rock, and I agree with it, the next time I am going to reinvent the wheel.

New horribly drawn logo

Rather than steal something off the internet I put pen to paper and created a silly logo.

Winding down

My vacation is slowly winding down.  It's been nice and relaxing so far.  My brain has slowly started to think about RPG's again, I really did need a forced sabbatical.  (see previous post).  Depending on the weather today, I may either do the following.

1  Go for a walk to the comic book store and guitar store down the way.

2  Work on some of my project enormity stuff.

Having spent a reasonable amount of time camping with a book in my hand has given me a bit of perspective on a few things, and also some great ideas to work on into the future.

I had a fun little sitdown with my nephews while camping.  I sent the eldest home with a copy of "Return To Firetop Mountain".  I'm pretty sure he's going to take the red pill of RPGing now :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Firetop_Mountain

My wife also finished up her Star Wars book while we were camping so she sat and ran thru "Return To Firetop Mountain" for a little while, she enjoyed it as well.  I've heard of a few people taking the old FF books and converting them to the new Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2.0 system.  I'm considering it as well, could be fun.  As the descriptions in the books are FANTASTIC! The only issue is there are a lot of cases where death will just happen, no escape, etc.  So I'm sure a bit of a re-write would be necessary.

Speaking of.. Arion Games is set to release a new AFF version of "The Warlock of Firetop Mountain" using the new version of the rules.  Here's a video by +Jenny Green detailing the coolness of this module! 

I also played some Cuthulu dice with my nephews, PS its a great game for camping, and my 12 year old nephew picked it up in like 10 minutes. Here's the deal on it http://www.sjgames.com/dice/cthulhudice/

Here is a list of a few cool thing's I've noticed lately on Google + that you may not have caught.  First off if you haven't heard about #Narcosa here's the lowdown.  Its a fucking brilliant idea. +Rafael Chandler

Rafael Chandler originally shared:

THE KING IN LLELLO

Join me in #Narcosa , where time is a flat circle; specifically, it's a Bongripper CD, which we blast during OSR deathcrawls.

Because I like doing fun happy things, and because I won't be at GenCon, I'll spend the week exploring the drug-addled kingdom of Narcosa by writing brief (or sometimes lengthy) descriptions of weapons, spells, items, bazaars, NPCs, monsters, alternate realities, and general weirdness. Weeds, mushrooms, spores, powders, liquid refreshments; you name it, you can find it in Narcosa.

If you want to join me, so much the better! Starting Monday morning, I'll be using the #Narcosa hashtag. All contributions are welcome, including links to relevant blog posts or articles (or anything else you can think of).

I'd like to compile all the #Narcosa stuff when it's over and done with, so if you're cool with that, please put "Okay for publication" or something when you share your contributions! I'll compile it all into a free PDF sometime next week.

Share this far and wide, and let us ascend together.

Another very interesting review I just read was by +Venger Satanis 

http://vengersatanis.blogspot.ca/2014/08/the-hanging-coffins-of-vampire-queen.html

This module looks killer! Very well written article great looking graphics & artwork.  

*This also makes me think that I may have bitten off far more than I can chew with the premise of the module I've been working on.  Sticking to one theme maybe a smarter way to go. 

Another really good blog post I read this morning was by +Wayne Rossi 

http://initiativeone.blogspot.ca/2014/08/modules-worth-emulating.html

That's about it for me today, the sun is shining, so rather than stay holed up in here, I"m going out for a walk to bend some strings and  grab a few new used comic books.  CHEERS! 

Review: Sword & Sorcery Anthology

Just finished this and returned it to the library today (The sage was pleased).  This is a great collection of S&S short stories.  As in most cases when you have a collection of stories there were a few boners, this happens.  All in all though I liked most everything I read.  I believe there was somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 to 15 stories.  I grabbed this from the library because I wanted to read a Grey Mouser story, and it was the only title in the entire library that had Fritz Lieber in it.  Interestingly enough that story was one of the boners!  I dug "Undertow" and "The Coral Heart", the short story about Conan was also great (I'll be picking up more Howard titles shortly).  The story by C.L Moore & Howard were written in 1932 which totally blew my mind.  Also the story written by George R.R. Martin was worth a read.

I rate this 3 pulls on "Old Toby" outta 5. 
You can grab this on amazon for fairly cheap like $10 its worth it grab it. http://www.amazon.ca/Sword-Sorcery-Anthology-Robert-Howard/dp/1616960698