The Magic World PDF Is Live!

Another announcement of a "book" going on sale. This time it is the Magic World PDF from Chaosium. Yeah, that price is a bit wow. I don't set the prices, I just report them. Hopefully that's just a typo or something. I've seen the early stuff and +Ben Monroe has done a really good job with getting this new book together and spiffing up the old Elric and Runequest material for this. The physical book is supposed to be ready in March, from what I am told.

I do love that cover, however, and this is BRP Fantasy Role-Playing at its finest.

Bundle of Holding Is Live

Do you like eBooks? Sure, we all do. Do you like eBooks of fiction from gaming-related people? Now I bet that I have your interest.

The Bundle of Holding is open now and has eBooks from the following authors (some of whom you might even recognize from Dorkland! Roundtables):

• Matt Forbeck (Brave New World)
• Chuck Wendig (Hunter: The Vigil)
• Jenna Moran (Nobilis, Exalted)
• Stephen D. Sullivan (D&D/AD&D, Chill)
• Rafael Chandler (Scorn, Spite)
• Sarah Newton (Mindjammer, Legends of Anglerre)
• Derek Pearcy (In Nomine)
• Aaron Rosenberg (Asylum, Spookshow) 

This is a "pay what you can" bundle, with a minimum of $1. The monies raised will be split among the authors with donations being made to the Child's Play and Reading is Fundamental charities as well. This bundle is only available for another 18 days, so get it while you can.

Unearthed Arcana Returns

I know that it isn't a favorite of everyone, but I liked the book and thought it had some cool bits to it.

Starting today, D&D fans can check out the latest Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition reprint: Unearthed Arcana! The original 1985 release of Unearthed Arcana changed Dungeons & Dragons forever by introducing new races, classes, magical items, and rules written by Gary Gygax. This new printing will appeal to nostalgic D&D fans looking to add this classic to their collections, which has been faithfully reproduced in a new premium edition with gilded pages. The cover design mirrors that of the premium reprints of the 1st Edition Player's Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual, and this reprint includes errata originally published in Dragon magazine.

From the book's foreword by Gary Gygax:

As the original volumes of the game system (Monster Manual,Players Handbook, and Dungeon Masters Guide) have altered from their first editions, so the game has changed in form and substance. This new material grew from my own campaign, articles published in Dragon Magazine, and input from many Dungeon Masters and players also. The book has a single purpose: Unearthed Arcana brings new dimensions to the AD&D game system. The compiled material which lies herein offers fresh new approaches to play without materially affecting any ongoing campaign adversely. This work does not alter former “laws of the multiverse,” but it does open insights and vistas beyond those previously understood and seen…

and

Every Dungeon Master who has created a campaign milieu out of whole cloth, so to speak, can certainly understand that the more one learns, the more one comes to understand how little he knows. So too the multiverse of this game system. The farther afield one goes in exploration and discovery, the greater the realization of how vast is the realm of unknown knowledge which awaits discovery, as it were. However, such as with our actual world, the expanses of the game multiverse will always have frontiers and unexplored territories. This fact, indeed, is what makes the AD&D game system so wonderful and appealing.

Dorkland! Roundtable with Monte Cook

I studied journalism through high school and college. I worked on the various papers of the schools that I went to, and as a blogger I have tried to utilize the skills and training that I picked up while studying journalism. When I was in high school, still living in Indiana, my mom manager to wrangle my getting to interview (then) local morning radio personalities Bob & Tom. It was a big thrill, but I think being a full of himself teen took the edge of of the awe that I felt in talking with them.

Yes, there is a point to this.

A couple of weeks ago I was able to interview +Monte Cook for my Dorkland! Roundtable. I think for the first time since I have been interviewing people, I was nervous during my interview. I tried to work around it. Who knows, hopefully (if I wasn't telling all of you about it now) it won't be noticeable.

Monte Cook was one of the designers of D&D 3e, the game that brought me back into the D&D gaming fold after so many years of wandering in the role-playing deserts of the world. Monte also was given the opportunity to not only revamp the World of Darkness, but he was able to convert it into a different gaming system. Of course, we talked about all of that.

Monte also had a big Kickstarter for a game that he is working on now, a science fantasy game called Numenera. I didn't back the Kickstarter, but I am looking forward to when the game comes out.

One of my big regrets of my many years of not playing D&D is that I missed out on Planescape, one of the big second edition settings. Honestly, from what little I do know about it I think that I would have really enjoyed playing in the setting. That's also probably why Planescape, despite being one of the things that Monte has worked on over his career, gets so little mention in our interview. Maybe one day I will find the books for cheap and I will get to see what was such a big deal about the game. Until then, I guess that I just have my imagination. I hope that you all enjoy the interview.

Dorkland! Roundtable with E. Bryan Rumph

I spoke with +E. Bryan Rumph on the Dorkland! Roundtable. A new designer with a rules light Noir game called The Coin's Hard Edge. Like a lot of starting publishers in this technological world, he is using the Print on Demand services of Lulu.com to fulfill the printing on his game. I honestly think that this is a smart decision for someone starting out (the first print run of Spirit of the Century was done via PoD after all). We talked a bit about what it is like to be a publisher and designer starting out in gaming right now.

It was a good talk and if you are looking at starting out as an RPG publisher, or have just been thinking about it, Bryan makes some good points in his answers.

Random Old School D&D Class Generator

What's that? Not enough classes in your old school game, or you just want something weird and different? Check out the custom class generator page.

This is a class that I got, now I need to find a use for it:

Requirements: DEX 9
Prime Requisites: DEX, WIS

Members of this class must have at least 13 in one or the other prime requisite to get the 5% bonus to experience. If both prime requisites are at least 13, members of this class will gain a 10% bonus to experience.

Hit Points

Level	Hit Points
1	1d6
2	2d6
3	3d6
4	4d6
5	5d6
6	6d6
7	7d6
8	8d6
9	8d6
10	8d6
11	8d6
12	8d6

Armour
Members of this class may wear leather armour and carry a shield.

Weapons
Members of this class may only use swords.

Attacking
Members of this class roll to attack as a magic-user.

Magic Items
Members of this class may not use any magic items.

Magic-User Spells
Members of this class can cast magic-user spells as a magic-user of 70% of their level - that is:

Character Level	Spell Level
	1	2	3	4	5	6
1	1	-	-	-	-	-
2	1	-	-	-	-	-
3	2	-	-	-	-	-
4	2	1	-	-	-	-
5	2	2	-	-	-	-
6	2	2	-	-	-	-
7	2	2	1	-	-	-
8	2	2	2	-	-	-
9	2	2	2	-	-	-
10	3	2	2	1	-	-
11	3	3	2	2	-	-
12	3	3	2	2	-	-

Turning the Undead
Members of this class can attempt to turn the undead as if they were a cleric of their level.

Thief Skills
Members of this class have the same skills as a thief, but to a lesser extent. They gain the normal bonus when attacking unnoticed from behind, but their percentage chance with other skills is only 90% that of a thief of the same level. That is:

Character Level	pick locks	find/remove traps	pick pockets	move silently	climb walls	hide in shadows	hear noise
1	15	13	21	21	78	12	1-2
2	21	15	24	24	79	15	1-2
3	24	18	27	27	80	18	1-3
4	28	21	33	33	81	24	1-3
5	32	30	36	36	82	27	1-3
6	41	39	39	39	83	33	1-4
7	50	48	48	48	84	42	1-4
8	59	57	57	57	85	51	1-4
9	68	66	66	66	86	60	1-4
10	77	75	75	75	86	69	1-5
11	86	84	84	84	87	78	1-5
12	87	86	95	86	88	81	1-5

Saves
Members of this class save as a fighter of their level.

Advancement

Level	XP required
1	0
2	2228
3	4456
4	8912
5	17824
6	35648
7	71296
8	139250
9	253500
10	380250
11	507000
12	633750

As yet, I have no name or background for this class, but I definitely want one. You have a suggestion, put it in the comments here or over on G+.

Talking About Role-Aids -- Demons For AD&D

I don't think that I've ever made a secret out of the fact that Demons from Mayfair's Role-Aids line (and the rest of the Demons series as well) is some of my favorite gaming material out there. The Demons series comes from that sad period where TSR was downplaying the infernal in their D&D materials because of the whole Satanic scare gripping the hobby. So, of course, semi-official third party publishers would pick up the ball and run with it.

The Role-AIds line was a series of supplements, modules and even campaign settings writing with the AD&D rules in mind My box says "Presented by the editors of Role Aids for use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game." Some of the early Role-Aids stuff was officially licenses, but apparently that relationship had ended by the time that this line of supplements came out.

I've used swipes from the Demons stuff in my online Swords & Wizardry game. There is a lot of interesting material in this boxed set (and all of the others as well): demonic monsters, delightfully twisted new spells (admittedly a lot of which have to do with summoning and unleashing the nasty new creatures to be found in this material) there is even a new class and a new race.  They are even nice enough to describe a cosmology into which these new revelations fit (as well as future ones in the other supplements). All of this in about 100 pages, or so. Succinct.

The material in Demons is courtesy the imagination of Mike Nystul. Yes, the Mike Nystul who has a D&D spell named after his real name rather than a character. Also, the same guy who created Whispering Vault and did a bunch of stuff for Mayfair's other game lines, and worked on Shadowrun as well. That gives Demons quite a pedigree.

If you hunt around eBay or places like Noble Knights or Troll and Toad, you can find copies of stuff from the Demons line for fairly decent prices. I do need to track down a copy of the Apocalypse boxed set, I think that is the last thing that I need for this line (one of the very few game lines that I am kind of completionist about).

I think that Demons is ripe for someone to make an "homage" to the material. I would probably do it myself if I had a good enough of an artist that I could afford to pay out of pocket. There's nothing more old school than having a bunch of demons and demon hunters to stomp all over them. Just writing about it makes me want to run that sort of campaign. Needless to say, I really enjoy these supplements and think that you should check them out as well, if you haven't already. There is some really cool stuff that can perk up your campaigns to be found in all of these books. Not too many random tables, but a pack of interesting monsters, spells and a demon slaying class can be found for you in this box. Not to mention a new look at a universe that you've been gaming in, but that still has some new secrets for you.

Oh, and a slight disclosure. When I was still with Seraphim Guard I did spearhead an attempt to purchase the rights to the Role-Aid line from Mayfair Games. I thought the original material would be of use to people still gaming with the old systems, while at the same time brand new material could be spun out of all of these great books for people and their games now. Sadly, it turned out that Mayfair no longer had the rights to this line. Apparently in their legal battle with TSR over the copyright/trademark issues over the Role-Aids line, the rights had been transferred to TSR. That means, someplace in a WotC archive all of these lovely Role-AIds supplements are mouldering away.

Interesting Old School RPG Items On The Internet Archive

These archives were pointed out to me by +Tony Love, over at Google+ today. I knew about the Space Gamer archive up there, but these are new to me. Now, I cannot attest to the legality of these items (and I am willing to guess that they are not legally uploaded to the site), so that means that people should probably grab what they can (and archive) before they disappear. I am sure that these archives will be of interest to other gamers and bloggers who are interested in old school stuff, and may not have been able to see these magazines the first time around.

First off is the Ares Magazine archive. The description from the site (for those who don't know about Ares Magazine:

Ares was a science fiction wargame magazine published by Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI), and then TSR, Inc., between 1980 and 1984. In addition to the articles, each issue contained a wargame, complete with a foldout stiff paper map, a set of cardboard counters, and the rules. There were a total of seventeen issues printed, plus two special issues. The SPI company published the first eleven bimonthly issues (and had prepared a twelfth) before financial difficulties led to the company being bought out by TSR in 1982. A further six issues, published quarterly, were put out by TSR and then publication of the magazine was ceased. However, the Ares legacy lived on for another couple of years; a large new section called the Ares Section was added to Dragon magazine starting with issue #84 (April 1984) and was treated as almost a magazine within a magazine. This special section provided support for science fantasy and superhero roleplaying games such as Gamma World, Marvel Super Heroes and Star Frontiers. The Ares Section ran through Dragon issue #111 (July 1986) after which it too was discontinued.

The Space Gamer archive:

 The Space Gamer (TSG) started out as a digest quarterly publication of the brand new Metagaming Concepts company in 1975. Howard Thompson, the owner of Metagaming, and the first editor of the magazine, stated "The magazine had been planned for after our third or fourth game but circumstances demand we do it now" (after their first game, Stellar Conquest). Initial issues were in a plain-paper digest format. By issue 17, it had grown to a full size bimonthly magazine, printed on slick paper. When Steve Jackson departed Metagaming to found his own company, he also secured the right to publish The Space Gamer from number 27 on. In the first Steve Jackson Games (SJG) issue Howard Thompson wrote a report on Metagaming and stated "Metagaming's staff won't miss the effort. After the change in ownership Metagaming feels comfortable with the decision; it was the right thing to do." In the same issue, Steve Jackson announced, "TSG is going monthly.... from [number 28 (May 1980)] on, it'll be a monthly magazine." The magazine stayed with SJG for the next five years, during which it was at its most popular and influential. In 1983, the magazine was split into two separate bimonthly magazines published in alternating months: Space Gamer (losing the definite article with the split in Number 64), and Fantasy Gamer; the former concentrating entirely on science fiction, and the latter on fantasy. This arrangement lasted about a year. Fantasy Gamer ran six issues before being folded back into Space Gamer: "You see, we were churning out magazines - Space Gamer, Fantasy Gamer, Fire & Movement, and Autoduel Quarterly - at the rate of two a month!... We had to find some way to preserve what little sanity we had left. The best way to do this was to merge Space Gamer and Fantasy Gamer.... As it has for the past year, Space Gamer will appear bimonthly, giving us the time to get some games done, as well." Like Metagaming before it, the effort of producing a magazine became greater than its publisher was willing to bear. The change to bimonthly publication was not enough to allow SJG to focus on new games as they wished, and in 1985, it was announced, "We've sold Space Gamer. We'll still be heavily involved—but SJ Games won't be the publisher any longer. Giving up SG is definitely traumatic... but it gives us the time to do other things, especially GURPS". The magazine had been sold to Diverse Talents, Incorporated (DTI). They initially had it as a section in their own magazine The VIP of Gaming, but it soon became a separate publication again with the previous numbering and format, but with the name Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer.

Space/Fantasy Gamer PDFs are currently sold by Steve Jackson Games, through their webstore, so I will assume that these aren't legal uploads because of that.

The Polyhedron archive:

 Polyhedron was a magazine targeting consumers of role-playing games, and originally the official publication of the RPGA (Role Playing Gamers Association). Publication of the Role Playing Gamers Association magazine began in the year 1981, and the target audience was players of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. Articles were written by gamers for other gamers in the style of the Dragon magazine, and information was included on RPGA membership and events. The magazine was quarterly at first and became bimonthly in 1983. For several years it was available only to RPGA members; for some, joining the RPGA essentially amounted to a subscription to Polyhedron. Polyhedron was produced by RPGA members (some of whom were professionals in the game industry) for RPGA members.

In 2002, Paizo Publishing acquired publishing rights and merged the Polyhedron magazine with the sister publication Dungeon to form a single magazine (issue 90 of Dungeon and issue 149 of Polyhedron were one and the same magazine, and this dual numbering continued throughout this period). This ended the association of Polyhedron with the RPGA. It also marked a major change in the magazine's focus, from a primarily Dungeons & Dragons-oriented magazine similar to Dragon to a general d20 system magazine that often featured entirely new, simple role-playing games based on this system, along with support for non-D&D d20 games such as d20 Modern. Eventually another formerly separate magazine, the Living Greyhawk Journal, briefly became a section in Polyhedron as well. Though this version of Polyhedron had many vocal supporters, sales were poor, a situation many blamed on putting two magazines with distinct target audiences together in one somewhat higher-priced package. The Polyhedron section was removed from Dungeon as part of a major revamp of the latter magazine in 2004 and Polyhedron is no longer published in any form.

 The Dragon Magazine archive:

Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The final printed issue was #359 in September 2007.

 Also of potential interest to gaming fans are the archives for Starlog (which I read off and on, back as a kid), Galaxy and OMNI. I am posting these links, but I did not upload them to the Internet Archive. If you find this stuff interesting, you might want to move quickly.

Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Appreciation

Real life almost got in the way of my posting about this, which would have been ironic since I was the one pushing for more talk about this RPG. In case you missed my previous post about the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, just click there and get the basics. In case you're wondering why a bunch of bloggers are suddenly talking about this game, that isn't unintentional. This has rolled out of some G+ discussions on unnoticed free role-playing games. That's right, free.

The Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game is part of the retroclone movement, using the Open Gaming License (OGL) and various open gaming content (OGC) to create a "clone" or "emulator" of older, out of print games. One of the reasons that I like Basic Fantasy is because the creator (+Chris Gonnerman) didn't just make a clone, he also made Basic Fantasy his own with his own tweaks and changes to the material. Since I already talked about the game itself, and I am sure that some of the other bloggers on this project will do the same, I am going to focus instead on talking about some of the supplemental material that has sprung up around the game, and point out some of the bits that I particularly like. Basic Fantasy has developed quite a prolific community, a community that has  developed enough supplements and adventures (all available for free off of the Basic Fantasy website linked about) that you can get a campaign off the ground and go for (and this may or may not be hyperbole) a year or two without having to spend any money (except maybe your printing costs). This is DIY gaming at its finest.

While Basic Fantasy is available in at cost print editions on Lulu, the community is pretty much self-contained around the game's site. You aren't going to find Basic Fantasy over at RPGNow, and I think that is a strength. It does mean that it can be a bit harder for people to stumble onto this game, but that is what blog posts like this are working to overcome.

So, let's talk about some of the supplemental material that's available.

I like skills. Not having them is, for me, one of the weak points of old school gaming. Omer Golan-Joel came up with a short supplement that give you rules for skills, working off of the Ability Roll rules that are in the core rules of the game. I like the simplicity of the approach, and I like how the rules are robust despite this simplicity. If you're like me, and I know I am, this supplement is something that you will be attaching to your set of the core rules.

Chris Gonnerman, the creator of Basic Fantasy has a cool supplement for Sentient Weapons for the game. Stormbringer, anyone?

And, speaking of Stormbringer, or RuneQuest, Joe Carruthers has put together a supplement called Basic Fantasy Questing that merges some of the concepts of d100-based role-playing games with the core Basic Fantasy rules. There are some neat ideas in this supplement that creates a fusion of two different approaches to fantasy role-playing games.

Who doesn't like have more magic? Libram Magica by R. Kevin Smoot and various other contributors, gives you a whole parcel of new spells and options for your spell casting characters.

Honestly, these four supplements are just the tip of the Basic Fantasy iceberg. Check out the Downloads and Showcase pages for a lot more stuff. Even if you don't use the Basic Fantasy game, all of these things (new spell options, new classes, campaign settings and modules) can all be used with your existing old school games with little to no conversion work. That's just a small part of what makes all of these games so cool.

Like what you see? Tell me about some of your new or old favorite stuff from the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game.

Last.fm "Milestones"

I was playing around with my last.fm account and came across a way to make a list of some of the milestone scrobbles that I've made. For those who don't use last.fm, scrobbling is sort of like when the site makes a note that you've played a certain song/artist and can give you recommendation on other artists that you might like. It can be a pretty good method for finding stuff sometimes. The code that was generated was a bit ugly, but here it is.

I like the fact that it generates YouTube links (for those songs that it could find on YouTube at least). A couple of these I actually still listen to now.

Last.FM Milestones

1000th track: (26 Apr 2008)
Laurie Anderson - Example #22
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA9Q4RC10k4

3000th track: (11 Aug 2008)
The Illuminoids - Thats Not My Wild Name Game Thing (The Ting Tings vs. Shirley Ellis vs. Tone Loc vs.…

4000th track: (01 Oct 2008)
DJ Zebra - Old yellow freak (Arctic Monkeys vs. Rick James)

5000th track: (08 Dec 2008)
Bong-Ra - Coke Sniffah
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0M7RRNSk4Q

6000th track: (11 Feb 2009)
dj BC - I'm Too XXXy (Right Said Fred vs Proof vs DJ Assault vs 20 Fingers)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

7000th track: (23 Apr 2009)
Clubworxx Vs. Jerry Ropero - Put Your Hands Up In The Air 08
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTJ93k9dUOY

8000th track: (26 May 2009)
Dangermouse and Sparklehorse - Star Eyes (I Can Catch It) (feat. James Mercer)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lybWFw4pHpY

9000th track: (02 Jul 2009)
Ghost Orchids - Keep Your Secrets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lxcO_fV05U

10000th track: (21 Aug 2009)
Dice Man - Magic Cold Medina (Fatboy Slim vs. Tone Loc)

11000th track: (15 Jan 2010)
John Lennon - Stand by Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4_ghOG9JQM

Generated on 30 Jan 2013
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