Showing posts with label community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label community. Show all posts

Monday, March 11, 2024

Blogging A to Z 2024 Theme Reveal

 It is that time of year again. Time to reveal my theme for the annual Blogging A to Z challenge.

This is the year I have known what I would do for a long time. Since it is the 50th Anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons and I am spending the year celebrating, for April, I am doing the A to Z of Dungeons & Dragons.

April A to Z blogging challenge 2024: A to Z of D&D

Granted, this might not really be much of a "challenge" for me, but I hope to inform and maybe even get some people into this weird little hobby of ours.

Who knows. Maybe I'll learn something new myself.

Catch all the other A-to-Z-ers doing theme reveals this week here: https://tinyurl.com/mv4nhbmj 

The main Blogging A to Z website is here:  http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/ 

AtoZChallenge theme reveal 2024 #atozchallenge


#AtoZChallenge 2024

Friday, February 2, 2024

#FollowFriday for #FollowFebruary

 I have been blogging for a long time. 16 years, 17 when April hits. Prior to that, I had a website, The Other Side, that I started mainly as a means to teach myself HTML and, later, PHP.  To point is I consider myself up on top of what is happening in my little nook of the Internet. It's not everything, but I am generally not surprised by things.

Simon Bunny
This picture has nothing at all to do with this post. I just love it. Simon Bunny is now 6.

So I was...well, surprised when a recent call for blog sites on a recent social media post turned up dozens of blogs I had never seen or read before.

My effort then for February is to follow and interact with more of these "new to me" blogs and expand out to more. Also, I want to get my own readership up a bit. Granted I know I am niche flavor inside a niche market. It might be likely that I have appealed to everyone I am going to. But I guess there is that off chance that I have not. I'd like to find those people, I'd like them to find me. 

The ultimate goal, of course, is to are new ideas to read and new things I have considered. This is D&D's and RPG's 50th anniversary, I have been active for 45 years of that. Even then, I don't pretend to know it all. I mean, think you know games? Go to Gen Con one year and be amazed at all the stuff you know and how much more you don't.

What can you do?

Simple! Recommend me a new blog. Recommend an old one you really like for me to read. Let's expand our circles of community.

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

Person of the Year, 1492 DR

 Never let it be said I am not up with the times.

Shadowheart

Goofing off instead of doing term-end work. No disrespect to Taylor Swift. Well deserved, really.


Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Looking Ahead to 2024: It's Always Sunny in Baldur's Gate

Image by Freepik
Image by Freepik
I have yet to talk much about my plans for 2024; it is a big year for D&D. It is the 50th Anniversary, a new edition (well...5.x or 5R) is coming out, and there should be a lot of nostalgia and navel-gazing.

Incidentally, 2024 is also the Year of the Dragon.

Tentatively, I am looking at the following "theme months."

January will be part of TardisCaptain's New Year New Character challenge. Mine though will be delving into some of my favorite characters since I started playing D&D.

April is the A to Z Challenge, where I will write about D&D and its history.

May is Sci-Fi month and I'll do a deep dive into Gamma World, Star Frontiers, and the d20 Star Wars. I'll also looking into games with a solid D&D connection with me. 

June has typically been Basic-era month where I focus a lot on B/X, BECMI, and OSE/LL. I really want to be sure I do that this year.

August is Dave Chapman's RPGaDAY month. I pretty much do this one as is. But I might focus on D&D more than other games. 

October is "horror" month for me. I want to focus on Ravenloft. All my horror movies will also all be connected to D&D in some way. Either movies from Appendix N authors or horror movies that mention D&D or fantasy/horror. I'll start putting together my list soon.

Additionally, I have something else fun planned throughout the year that I am keeping close to my chest for now.

But the big thing for me next year is going to be my year-long exploration of the Forgotten Realms. 

New Forgotten Realms

The Forgotten Realms and Me

I was never a Forgotten Realms fan. I dismissed it in the 1980s as an "upstart," ignored it in the early 90s, and actively disliked it in the late 90s. But it seems my ire was misplaced. Around the time the 3rd Edition Realms book came out I was beginning to soften my stance. By the 4th Ed era I was considering moving a campaign to the Realms. In the 5th Ed era I made it official, more or less.

Honestly, my coverage of Ed Greenwood's work in the pages of Dragon magazine changed my mind. 

These past few months, I have been playing the hell out of Baldur's Gate 3, and my desire to play in the Realms has only grown. 

To this end, I have amassed a small collection of Forgotten Realms books. Nothing special, just ones that I have come by easily either at game auctions, Half-Price Books, or as in the books pictured above, Print on Demand from DriveThruRPG. So I will go over them in detail throughout the editions.

I'd like to run a Realms-based game someday, but I am still figuring out what edition to use. Part of me thinks I need to do it in AD&D 2nd Edition since that was the edition that was the most "Realms" to me. 

The Forgotten Realms to me was always viewed through the eyes of a character, whether that was Elminster or Drizzt or whomever. Likewise, I am going to look into the Realms through the eyes of a new character. Presently I am leaning toward my half-elf sorceress Sinéad. I know I want use someone that has magic, and someone that I can tie to the rich lore of elves in this world. She is also one of two characters I had specifically created for the Realms in all my years of gaming. I think I owe it to myself to actually give her a spin someday.  However, my wife reminded me the other night that Keller the Silent Monk might also be fun.

In any case, 2024 is going to be a busy year of posting here and I am looking forward to it.

Thursday, November 2, 2023

October RPG Blog Carnival Wrap-up

RPG Blog Carnival

 October was my time to host the RPG Blog Carnival. This year my topic was Horrors, Gods, and Monsters. For this, I did a lot of postings about my Black Forest Mythos set of gods and monsters.

I did not get through all my Gods and Monsters so I am going to keep on going.

But there were others that participated as well.

The Ideocron of The Oracular Somnambulist had Spooky Scary Skeletons! with tables to make your skeletons more spooky and interesting.

Codex Anathema always has good stuff. Their entry covered "Horrors, Gods and Monsters" AND they helped me practice my Spanish. ¡Gracias!

Sea of Stars gave us a new monster, the Thornkin.  You know I love new monsters.

Seed of Worlds expands on their petty gods with d8 natures of this quasi-godlike entity. Tables for your OSR (or really any) game.

Stuffed Crocodile, one I have been lurking at for a bit for their Dark Eye content, gives us a new monster, Wiedergänger. This one will be a lot of fun to use!

Finally, we have V Donnut Valley. We get a monster and a god.  Not to mention that they are hosting the November Blog Carnival, Let’s Party! Festivals and ceremonies! I will certainly have to find something for my group of gods here.


I hope you enjoyed all these entries and the ones I did! Looking forward to participating again next year.



Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Scooby-Doo Day, the Hex Girls, and Earth-27

 On this day in 1969, I turned 3 months old. I didn't know it then but that same morning a new cartoon that would stand the test of time premiered. Scooby-Doo hit the airwaves on CBS on Saturday morning, September 13, 1969, at 9:30 Central time. It would later go on to several spin-offs, merchandise, movies (both animated and live-action), and give us some iconic characters.  To a kid obsessed with Hammer Films, Universal Horror Movies, Dark Shadows, and the Twilight Zone, it became something of an obsession to me. From my "first" witch to the Hex Girls, it is hard to overstate the effect this show has had on my games. 

So today is a good day to bring back the Hex Girls into my discussions here on the ole' Other Side. 

I have been wanting to do something more with them for a bit to be honest. They are just silly fun. I am going to try to get some stats up for both Tim Knight's (btw, check out his version of my Teen Witch Taryn!) and Pun Issac's respective games. 

I was online looking up some new information and/or art for the Hex Girls when I encountered the Earth-27 wiki. I was not disappointed at all.

Thorn Luna Dusk

This is a crazy site. First, I LOVE all their detail and their desire to throw everything into a blender and hit frappé. There is a solid mix of DC Universe, Scooby-Doo, and even Supernatural here. There are bits of Lucifer and a lot more. Honestly, it would take a long time to dig through the whole thing. I am speaking from experience because this was the rabbit-hole I went down one night and it was all great stuff.

First, I love the art and attention to detail here. This is all just fun stuff. And obsessive on a level I can really appreciate.

However, I could not help but notice something. There is a lot of "canonical" information about the Hex Girls that comes from this blog and my RPG write-ups of them. 

I can see how really. Back in 2013 (sheesh over 10 years ago!) I posted about how some details from here made their way into the Wikipedia entry on the Hex Girls.  Compare that old link to the current one, and you will see the information is now gone, as it should be.  Gone, but never forgotten.  Earth-27 adopts it all wholesale and then expands on it.

Some things I think are obvious; Luna is very obviously bi-racial to me. Their "real" names are taken from my blog with notable exceptions of Thorn's Sally McKnight (from the show) and Dusk's "Muffy St. James."  They keep that, but mention her real name is Margaret and she is just called Muffy. Ok. That's cool. I like that. 

Mind you. None of this bothers me. In fact, I think it is really cool. There are certainly some big improvements in what they have done over what I have done. Plus, they have a "user agreement" to share information, and it is not like these characters are "mine," really. So, in that spirit, I say share and share alike.  There are certainly some ideas they have that I can back-port into my own games. I love the art for example and the character sheets for the characters are a lot of fun. And, sure, let's go with "Margaret 'Muffy' St. James, AKA Dusk." And their mentor is none other than Elvira. So yeah, how can I say no to any of this?

I hope to use some ideas here (within their implied permissions of course) and see what it can do for my games. I know there is a lot more to explore.

Links

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

RPGs are Now Mainstream, example #254

 I want to share a few books with you today. Not reviews, but I do want to talk about them.

Most everyone reading this blog likely knows about this book.

Grimtooth's Traps Too

The Grimtooth Traps books were not official AD&D books, but nearly everyone back in my gaming groups in the 1980s had one or access to one.

These next two are less well-known.

Book of Encounters

They are the Game Master's Book of Random Encounters. The large hardcover (brown) we got my son for Christmas from Amazon. The smaller green "magazine" style one I bought last week. At a grocery store in South Carolina.

All three books share the same origins and goals. They are third-party products designed for "any RPG" but obviously for their respective current editions of *D&D. They fill a niche market of DM's tools, so a small number of people will buy these. 

The biggest differences?

For the Traps Too book, my then-DM and I had to drive to Springfield, IL, to get it. It was 35 miles away, and then we had to go to a store downtown (Black's Hardware) because our regular D&D stores (Waldenbooks and B. Dalton's) didn't carry this.

I found the magazine Gamemaster's Book of Random Encounters in the periodical rack in the checkout line at a grocery store next to copies of People, Us, and whatever holiday cookbook magazine America's Test Kitchen was selling.

This is just one more example of how ubiquitous RPGs are getting. 

Hell, even at my sister's funeral people from a side of my family I barely know were talking about how great Baldur's Gate 3 is. (Spoilers. It is great.)

Sometimes, it is easy to forget how great we have it now. Sometimes it is easy to forget how scarce or rare things used to be. 

We are really in a Golden Age of RPGs now and sometimes it is nice to sit back and soak it all in.

Thursday, September 7, 2023

Knight City: Trials of the Teen Witch!

 I love shared universes. I love shared multi-verses. But anytime I can see a collaboration of various creatives to bring new life to something old or bring to life something new, then I am all for it.

Last week, I shared how both TTim Knight over at Hero Press and Pun Issac over at Halls of the Nephilim brought to life my evil villain, The Refrigerator for their respective Superheroe universes. 

I'll play a little in their sandboxes, too and bring over one of my iconics to their worlds. Today I am visiting Knight City with one of my favorite superheroes Taryn, the Teen Wtich.

Tim is using a modified version of Villains & Vigilantes. I am not 100% clear on all his house rules, but I can't go wrong with a by-the-book super. 

Taryn "Nix" Nichols
Taryn and Mojo, created in ePic Character Generator

To recap, Taryn is the teen daughter of my witch Larina. I wanted a character specifically for supers that had a magical background. My comics reading through the 1980s was largely Teen Titans and X-Men (so...like everyone else) and I wanted a character that would fit into those sorts of tales. 

Her father is a faerie lord, and his relationship with Taryn and Larina is...complicated. He will feature in other plots, but I am working hard NOT to make this a Trigon-Raven retread right now. Scáthaithe would not really be interested in taking over the Earth. Bringing more magic to it? Yeah, that might work. But really, I think his issue would be for Taryn to stay in the Faerie Realms.

While I always considered Taryn a Millenial/GenZ girl, she is named after "Taryn" from the Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Which is my favorite of the series. She is pretty much equal parts Raven from Teen Titans, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service. She has a thing for flying fast and dating guys with fast Japanese motorcycles.

This is an update/revision of her Mighty Protector stats.

Taryn Nix, student and crime fighting witch
Teen Witch
Taryn "Nix" Nichols

Power Level: 6
Age: 17; Ht: 5' 3"; Wt: 114lb; Gender: F
Basic Hits: 3
Side: Good

STR: 9
END: 12
INT: 15
AG: 12
CHA: 17

Hit Points: 7
Power Points: 48
Carry Capacity: 110 lbs
Basic HTH Damage: 1d3
Healing Rate: 0.9/day
Move: 33"

Damage Modifier: +2
Accuracy: +1
ATT: +2
DEF: ??
PSYCHIC DEF: ??
Detect Hidden/Danger: 12% / 16%

ABILITIES/POWERS

WITCH BOLT: Power Blast, Range 54, 1d20 dmg
TELEKINESIS: 540 lbs 
FLIGHT: 108 MPH
HEIGHTENED SENSES: Detect magical auras
MAGIC SPELLS: Takes a full action to prepare

GEAR

Broom. Prop, needed to fly.

Cat. Her black cat is named Mojo.

LEGAL STATUS: Minor of the United States with no criminal record.

What is Taryn doing in Knight City? No idea! Maybe Tim will let me know!

Thursday, August 31, 2023

The Blizzard of Summer 2023!

One of the best things about blogging and writing about games for so long is I have gotten to meet so many really great people and made some really great friends.

Two such are Tim Knight over at Hero Press and Pun Issac over at Halls of the Nephilim. Both are great guys, and we all have many intersecting interests in RPGs, comics, and movies.  So it is no real shock then when we decide to go over and play in each other's sandboxes.

Over the summer, they graciously allowed me to use two of their iconic characters, The Acrobatic Flea and The Web Archivist, for The Wasted Lands.

Now they have returned to honor and built versions of my misanthrope villain, The Refrigerator, for their own respective supers games, along with tweaks to make him work in their worlds. 

The Refrigerator

Both are great takes on my villain, and I love the additional little details they have both added. 

What is the point of having an iconic character if you can't share it?

#RPGaDay2023 FAVOURITE RPG of all time

 This is a tough one. I have had so many favorites over the years. Each one representing a different point in my life and gaming.

Favorite RPGs

Most of these will be known to readers here.

Basic (B/X) D&D - not the one I started with that would be the Holmes Basic, but the one that got me deep into the hobby.

AD&D 1st Edition - This is the one I played the most in those early days. The Monster Manual was my gateway drug to RPGs coming from Mythology.

Chill 1st Edition - This was either my first or second RPG after D&D (tied with Traveller) but it was my first horror RPG, and it spawned everything after.

Call of Cthulhu - Not my first Horror RPG, but one of my favorites. Really set the bar on what a horror RPG should be.

Masque of the Red Death - not an RPG by itself, and a bit wonky, it did something I always wanted: it brought my AD&D 2nd ed rules to Gothic Victorian Earth and Horror. Ravenloft brought some of this earlier, and both were my game of choice throughout the 90s until D&D-burnout set in and I went to my next big thing. 

CJ Carella's WitchCraft - I can't overestimate how much this RPG changed things for me. The world was close enough to that of Chill, Call of Cthulhu, and Masque of the Red Death that my ideas for those games gained new life under Unisystem. I loved the game so much I pestered the publisher, Eden Studios, to let me write for them. The result was my next favorite.

Ghosts of Albion - while this might be self-serving, it is my favorite for a reason. Everything I wanted in a Unisystem game is here. Victorian era, magic, horror, and Unisystem. I would have happily written for Unisystem for ever if I could have.  Which leads me to my last one and the top of my list.

NIGHT SHIFT Veterans of the Supernatural Wars - Again, a little self serving but NIGHT SHIFT is everything I have ever wanted in a game. It combines the best mechanics of all the games above along with a play style I love and in a world, or more to the point worlds, I enjoy.

If I only get to pick one, then it will be NIGHT SHIFT.

NIGHT SHIFT

I have had the luxury and the privilege to work on a great number of RPGs over the years. Some of which were dream jobs and dream games. I consider myself lucky. But of all of those, NIGHT SHIFT is not just my favorite game, favorite rules, and favorite setting; it was also my favorite writing experience. Only Ghosts of Albion and my various Witch books come close.


Thank you, Dave Chapman for hosting this again! I had a great time.

RPGaDay2023


Wednesday, August 30, 2023

#RPGaDay2023 OBSCURE RPG you've played

 I have a soft spot for Obscure RPGs. But I think one of my favorites, warts and all, is Lee Gold's "Lands of Adventure."

Lands of Adventure

The game has some flaws, but it is such a fun concept and a great idea. Plus, the art and design are fantastic. 

I reviewed it a couple of years ago but have only played once or twice since then. It really is an old-school gem from the ancient days of Dragon Magazine.


RPGaDay2023


Tuesday, August 29, 2023

#RPGaDay2023 Most memorable ENCOUNTER

AD&D Lich

Ah. This one stuck with me as the most memorable encounter.

It would have to be the first time I encountered a Lich in the AD&D 1st Edition days. I think it was the summer of 82 or so.

The DM read the monster's description, and she decided that it had all these new spells because it was a former high-level magic-user. She played the monster as we would have today, but back then, that was kind of a new thing. Not only that she had poping in and out of the Ethereal Plane more or less at will. 

Needless to say it kicked our 6th to 7th level asses. That lich kicked our asses.

While I was annoyed, I later looked back on it and thought about how well she had done with it all. 

So yeah, freaking Liches are dangerous.

Since that day, my undead have all been way more powerful. 


RPGaDay2023



Monday, August 28, 2023

#RPGaDay2023 SCARIEST game you've played

 Scares do not come easy to me anymore. I consume horror movies like most people watch sitcoms (and laugh as much), nearly all my non-D&D games are horror and a fair amount of my D&D ones are as well.  So for a game to REALLY scare me, it has to be special. And it is usually NOT due to the rules being used.

Case in point. My online games from 2006 to 2009 that I called "Vacation in Vancouver."  I played it starting with WitchCraft and then moved over to True20 (a game not known for its horror).

True20True20 Adepts Handbook

The hook was that members of Vancouver's supernatural community were going missing.  Long story short, there was this entire underground where vampyres, demons, and witches were getting together and engaging in all sorts of lewd sexual acts in exchange for essence.  After a while, even open acts of magic were considered acceptable.

The game, though was not really about sex or even depravity (there was a lot of sexual slavery going on and it was hard to know who was using who), but about addiction and losing yourself.

A couple of characters had to be literally pulled back from the edge.

As a role-playing experience, it was intense.  There was not much combat, to be honest.  Part of that was out of choice (the characters were investigators, not thugs) and part out of necessity (combats online can be dull, even in Unisystem).

The game ended like many others, not with a big finale but gradually dying off.

The mystery of where all the supernaturals were going was solved, but not the one of the demonic sex trafficking. The demons never actually killed anyone. In fact, they seemed to be concerned for the welfare of the Gifted and Lesser Gifted in their "care".  And there were plenty of volunteers for the demons, too, since the exchange of Essence was pleasurable for both (but only humans can 'regenerate' Essence).

There were some very interesting games, though, that came from all of that.  It was one of those rare RPG moments where the bad guys might have won, and there was nothing the PCs/Cast could do about it.  While the game was fun and provided some of the best pure Horror roleplaying I have run in a long time, I am just not sure how it could even be revisited.

RPGaDay2023


Sunday, August 27, 2023

#RPGaDay2023 Game you'd like a new EDITION of...

 This is a two-fer for me. There are two games I want to see a new edition of and I hope that once again they are the same system.

I would love to see a new edition of Mutants & Masterminds AND a new edition of a DC Comics RPG.

DC Adventures and Mutants & Masterminds

I started with M&M back in 2nd Edition and I loved it. Such a great game.

When 3rd Edition came out I grabbed the PDFs right away and was going to pick up the print versions, but Green Ronin also had released the DC Adventures game that used the same M&M 3rd edition system. So I got all of those books.

I'd love a 4th edition of M&M and wonder if it couldn't move a little closer to their AGE system.

I also want a new DC comics RPG. I know there is a new Marvel game out and yes it looks great, but I have always been more of a DC guy.  I also want to buy more Green Ronin stuff.


RPGaDay2023


Saturday, August 26, 2023

#RPGaDay2023 Favourite CHARACTER SHEET

 Like games and dice I have a few favorite character sheets.  Though I will admit my all time favorite is a blank sheet. because at that point the potential is limitless!

Willow & Tara sheet

My "Willow & Tara RPG" sheet. I made this one myself for my combined Buffy/WitchCraft/Ghosts of Albion game. It had details for all three games so characters could easily move between the rules.

WitchCraft RPG Sheet

Likewise, I had a WitchCraft variant I used that also had similar information.


Mage Sheet

I love Mage, and the Sorcerer's Crusade sheet is one of my favorites.

D&D Basic

For pure nostalgia sake I love the Green D&D Basic sheets.

AD&D 1st Ed

AD&D 1st Ed

And the AD&D 1st Ed sheets too.

Though my own Witch character sheets are my most favorite of all.

Witch Sheets



RPGaDay2023


Friday, August 25, 2023

#RPGaDay2023 UNPLAYED RPG you own

 A couple fit this bill, but the ones starring at me, begging to be played, are both Age of Arthur / Chivilaric RPGs. 

Pendragon and Chivalry & Sorcery

Pendragon and Chivalry & Sorcery

Now I have played earlier editions of both of these, but these two have been sitting on my shelf all year and I want to do more with them both. 

Both have been around forever it seems and both are in their Fifth (or so) Editions. 

I really need to do a lot more with them both.


RPGaDay2023


Thursday, August 24, 2023

#RPGaDay2023 COMPLEX / SIMPLE RPG you play

 Complex and Simple RPGs. Ok.

Complex vs. simple

Playing wise (even it I haven't done much with the first one) I would say the most complex RPG I have is the Fifth Edition of Chivalry and Sorcery. I like the game, quite a lot, but it is a mountain to climb and character generation is not a fast process.  Still it is a gorgeous game and I have such fond memories of earlier editions. 

Simple of course goes to the classic B/X D&D, something I can more or less run on a dime. 


RPGaDay2023


Wednesday, August 23, 2023

#RPGaDay2023 COOLEST looking RPG product / book

 In addition to August being #RPGaDay2023 it is also #30yearsofMage. I knew Mage was going to come into this at some point and today is that day!

Mage the Ascension, especially in it's 20th Anniversary Edition format is one of the coolest-looking RPGs ever.

From its leather cover, to full-color art, to the ribbon bookmark (I am a sucker for a ribbon bookmark) and gilded edges it is one hell of an attractive book.

Mage Leather cover

Mage color art

Mage color art and ribbon

Mage color art

Mage color art

Mage guilded pages

Not to be ignored is one of my personal favorite versions of Mage, Mage for the Victorian Era.

Victorian Age Mage

Victorian Age Mage

Victorian Age Mage

Additionally, all the Mage books I own (all Mage: The Ascension, I unloaded Mage: The Awakening years ago) are not just fantastic to look at, they are great games too.

Mage: the Ascension

I do wish I could play it more often. 


RPGaDay2023