Showing posts sorted by relevance for query tunnels and trolls. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query tunnels and trolls. Sort by date Show all posts

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Ken St. Andre responds to James Shipman

Long time readers here know of the whole James Shipman debacle.  Briefly he stole art and content and is selling it as his own.  Here are some links to bring you up to speed.

http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2009/12/outlaw-press-uses-stolen-art-and.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/01/more-from-outlaw-press.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/06/outlaw-press-is-back-and-still-stealing.html

Well there is new movement on this front, none other than Tunnels and Trolls' own Ken St. Andre.

Ken has posted and open letter to RPGNet

An open letter to James Shipman from Ken St. Andre:
James,

I received your package yesterday with some surprise. Received six copies of the revised Gristlegrim Dungeon. This dismays me, as I told you to quit publishing it back in January of this year when I broke with you. If this parcel was an attempt at a reconciliation between us, then I appreciate the effort you took, but I reject it. Our friendship and partnership is broken and done forever. I do not wish to collaborate on Gristlegrim or any other project with you. Not now! Not ever again! You had no right to add your material to my work. You have no right to continue publishing and selling it. Please stop!

James, you no longer have any right to publish or sell my works. We have no written contracts. We have no formal accounting of royalties. Your habit of sending money and or copies of the items is no longer good enough. Any informal agreements we may have made in 2009 and earlier are terminated on my side of the deal. I no longer wish to associate with you, either professionally or informally.

Find some other outlet for your creativity. Leave me, and leave Tunnels and Trolls, alone. I am rejecting any further association with you.

I hope this is clearly understood. Do not publish anything with my name on it as author. Do not presume to collaborate with me on my projects. Do not keep attempting to infiltrate trollhalla.com under false names--you are banned and unwelcome on that site. Do not attempt to rewrite the history of Tunnels and Trolls on Wikipedia or any other online sources. Do not send me money. Do not send me product. I do not want it from you. However, I am under no legal obligation to send back things that arrive unsolicited in the mail. I won't waste the money or the effort to send them back. I am not interested in theatrical gestures. I simply wish to terminate our association and to move on with other things in life.

I hereby reclaim my rights to anything I ever gave you to publish. In particular, I assert my right to the novel Griffin Feathers which consists entirely of my own work with some input in the short sections of the book from the members of Trollhalla.

I am forwarding the "royalties" that you sent me to Jeff Freels, the artist whose work you have re-used to illustrate this version of Gristlegrim. He deserves compensation for his work.

James, I am not angry at you, and I do not hate you. I simply will not associate with you ever again. For several years we were, I thought, very good friends. Outlaw Press did a lot for Tunnels and Trolls. You know why that time has ended. Let it go. Move on.

James, I will be publishing this letter in open forums on the internet, so that all the world can see how I feel, and how I react to what I can only believe are attempts to manipulate me and to gain control of Tunnels and Trolls. If you have no ulterior intentions, then forgive me for being suspicious, but I no longer feel that I can trust you.

James, you have your own unique style of creativity. Please go and do your own thing, and stop messing with me and with Tunnels and Trolls.


Sincerely,
Ken St. Andre

He also posted it over on the Big Purple, http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?p=12781787#post12781787

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Review: Tunnels & Trolls (Troll Week)

Tunnels & Troll might be one of the first "clone" games ever, but it really is a proper game in its own right.  The story goes that creator Ken St. Andre was browsing through the original D&D rules and thought he could do better than that so he sat down and created the first Tunnels & Trolls game in 1975.  D&D was barely a thing on the wider scale, though very popular still, and here comes T&T.

Over the years T&T has been updated, re-released, and otherwise seen many ups and downs the game itself has continued and has a dedicated fanbase.  It is easy to see why. T&T is easy to learn, has some neat little quirks, and is just plain fun.  Plus if you ever get a chance to meet Ken St. Andre at Gen Con then PLEASE do it. He is a great guy.

The name, Tunnels & Trolls, almost wasn't. It was almost Tunnels & Troglodytes, but that name was shot down by his players.  Since then the troll has become a sort of synonymous with the game and St. Andre himself. His twitter handle is @Trollgodfather and he runs Trollhala Press.

Tunnels & Trolls now holds the distinction of not only being the oldest RPG still published by the same publisher, Flying Buffalo, but also still controlled by its original author/designer. 

The RuneQuest Connection
Yesterday in my review of RuneQuest's Trollpak I mentioned that in my earliest days I thought Trollpak was a supplement for Tunnels & Trolls. Indeed both games did feature a lot of troll iconography.  But I think two it may have come with one other obsession of mine. Elric. I was (still am) a HUGE Michael Moorcock fan and I loved the Elric books.  I saw the game Stormbinger and I knew it used a similar system to both RuneQuest and Call of Cthulhu.  I also knew that Ken St. Andre had worked on Tunnels & Trolls and Stormbringer.  I guess in my young mind I conflated all of that.  While I might never see my goal of a full Tunnels & Trolls/Trollpak mashup, my dream of an epic Stormbringer/RuneQuest/Call of Cthulhu crossover might still happen!

I have owned many different versions of T&T over the years. I have loaned some out, another is just gone (it is with my original AD&D books I think) and still at least one I resold in a game auction when I needed the cash.  I miss each and every one.
Thankfully I now have the PDF of Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls the most recent version and the one that is easiest to get.  I will be focusing my review on this version, with recollections of previous editions when and where I can.

Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls. 2015 Ken St. Andre, published by Flying Buffalo.
348 pages, color covers, black & white interior art (mostly) and a full color section.
Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls (dT&T) is a massive volume at 348 pages.  
The PDF is divided into Chapter sections, but more importantly, it is split into five larger sections; The Basic or Core Game, Elaboration, Trollworld Atlas, Adventures, and End Matter.

The Basic or Core Game
This covers the first 11 chapters and 160+ pages.  This most resembles the T&T game I remember playing sparingly in the 80s. This covers the basics of the game such as rolling up characters, equipping them, combat and magic.  T&T uses all six-sided dice for everything, so getting started is as easy as getting the rules and raiding your board games for dice.  Because we NEVER did that in the 80s.
Character creation is a bit like D&D and other RPGs from the time (or more accurately other RPGs are like D&D and T&T).  There are a few quirks that make T&T stand out.
Exploding Triples allow for some extraordinary characters. When rolling your 3d6 for stats (like D&D) if you get three of the same number, all "1s" or all "6s" for example, you re-roll and ADD the previous total.  In D&D rolling three "1s" is a disaster, but in T&T you then reroll and add that 3 (1+1+1) to your new roll.  Roll three "6s"? Reroll and add 18! T&T has eight abilities, Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Speed, Intelligence (IQ), Wizardry, Luck, and Charisma. They all map pretty close to D&D with the others Speed, Wizardry and Luck doing what they sound like. 
Kindreds, not Race. With all the discussion of the word "race" in D&D (yes, it is old and problematic and yes it should be replaced) T&T "solved" this issue by going with Kindred (and long before Vampire the Masquerade did).  This also leaves character creation open to all sorts of Kindreds. 
Personal Adds. For every point in a physical ability over 12 (the upper end of average), characters get +1 to their personal adds. Physical stats are Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, and Speed. These adds are combined and then used in combat.
Saving Rolls. All skills and nearly everything else use a saving throw like mechanic for resolution. The most common is a Luck roll, but others can be used.

There are three basic and one extra character classes. Warriors, Wizards, Rogues and the Specialist.
Kindreds include Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Fairies, Hobbs (Halflings), and Leprechauns. Each kindred then gets an ability multiplier. So if you are a dwarf and you rolled an 11 for Strength  your multiplier is 2 for a 22 strength! But your Luck multiplier is .75 so if your rolled a 12 it is now a 9.  Other attributes effected are height and weight. Fairies have multiples here of 0.1 and 0.01 respectively.

The equipment list is what you would expect with some odd improvised weapons (rocks) and even guns (gunnes) but these are still rather primitive in nature. 

Saving Rolls are covered in Chapter 5 and gave us what is essentially a dynamic Target Number mechanic YEARS before anyone else did.  You determine the level of the Saving Throw (difficulty) times that by 5 to get your target number. Players roll a 2d6 and yes doubles are re-rolled and added.
It's a simple mechanic that works well. 

Chapter 6 gives us some talents. Or things you can do other than wack monsters. 
Chapter 7 cover enemies and monsters and is a whopping 3 pages!  But that is nature of T&T monsters can be abstracted from just a few simple numbers.
Chapter 8 covers combat. If I remember correctly combat in T&T was a fast affair.  The rules support this idea. 

Chapter 9 is of course my favorite, Magic. There have been more than a few times I have wanted to adopt ideas from here for my D&D games.  In the end though I have kept them separate.  Spell levels go to 18 though you need some superhuman Intelligence and Dexterity scores to cast them (60 and 44 respectively).  Spells have a Wiz (Wizardry cost) so it works on a spell-point like system.  The spell names are something of a bit of contention with some people and my litmus test for whether or not someone will be a good player in T&T.  If they don't like the names, then I think they will not be good for the game.  Among the spell names are "Hocus Focus", "Oh Go Away", "Boom Bomb", "Freeze Please" and more.  I like them I would rather have a fun name than a boring one, but I am also the guy who made spells called "You Can't Sit With Us", "Live, Laugh, Love", "Oh My God, Becky!" and "Tripping the Light Fantastic".

Chapter 10 is Putting it All Together with general GM advice.  Chapter 11 covers the Appendices. 
This constitutes the bulk of what makes up the T&T game. 

Elaborations
This section consists of rules additions and other topics.
Of interest here is Chapter 13, Other Playable Kindreds.  This likely grew out of T&Ts sister game, Monsters! Monsters! In dT&T these stats for playing have been brought more inline with the M!M! book for more compatibility.   The attribute multipliers from character creation are repeated here for the main kindreds, and then expanded out for others of the Familiar (or most similar to the Good Kindred, like goblins, gnomes, and pixies) to the Less Common like lizard people, ratlings and trolls!  To the Extraordinary like ghouls and dragons.
The means in which this is done is so simple and so elegant that other games should be shamed for not doing the same.
Later on languages, more talents and accessories (minis, battle mats, virtual tabletops) are covered.



Trollworld Atlas
This section covers the campaign world of Trollworld.  A history is provided and the major continents are covered as well as a few of the cities. This covers about 70 pages, but it is all well spent.
This section also features some full-color interior art including some great maps.

Adventures
Pretty much what is says on the tin.  This covers the two types of adventures one can have with T&T; a solo adventure and a GM run adventure.  
Everyone reading this has experienced a GM run adventure.  But where T&T really sets itself apart are the solo adventures. This is a reason enough to grab this game just to see how this is done.

End Matter
This section contains the last bits.  Credits. Afterwords. Acknowledgments. A full index. Character sheets and a Post Card for the City of Khazan!


I am going to put this bluntly.

Every D&D player, no matter what edition, needs to play Tunnels & Trolls at least once.  They should also read over the rules.  I don't care if you walk away saying "I don't like it" that is fine, but so many of the things I see so-called seasoned D&D players and game masters complain about has a fix or has been addressed already in T&T. 

Like I mentioned with Trollpak who solved D&D's "evil race" problem back in 1982, Tunnels & Trolls fixed it in 1975.

Beyond all that T&T is an easily playable game with decades of material and support and thousands of fans online.  If you don't want to buy a copy to try out then find a game at a Con.  

Is T&T perfect?  No. It lacks the epic that is D&D.  If D&D is Wagner then T&T is Motzart. Easier to approach, but no less brilliant. 

For under $20 (currently) you get a complete game with enough material to keep you going for years. Plus there is such a wealth (45 years now) of material out there that you will never run out of things to do.

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Review: Trollpak (Troll Week)

In many ways, 1982's Trollpak from Chaosium (and then later Avalon Hill, then Chaosium again) is the reason for my decades-long fascination with trolls in RPGs.

Like many gamers my age, it was the ads in Dragon magazine where I first came in contact with Trollpak. The ads were quite effective too.  Going back to Dragon #65 we get a dissected troll with it's guts all hanging out.  Nothing like that EVER appeared in D&D.

Back then for some reason, I thought this product was for Tunnels & Trolls and not the very obvious RuneQuest.   Even when I learned the difference I still wanted to combine Trollpak with Tunnels & Trolls, something I am attempting to try this week.

Sadly I never knew any groups that was playing RuneQuest so getting my hands on one to view was non-existent.  And my gaming dollar was stretched as it was back then, so buying it blind for my D&D games seemed a bit of a risk for me. 

Reading over the PDF now and some of the very few reviews I see that I certainly missed out and wonder what my trolls would be like today had I owned this back in the 80s.  These days I think I am fairly set in my ways, but is still there is so much here to use.  So let's get into it 



For this review, I am considering the PDF version of Trollpak that is currently being sold on DriveThruRPG.  This is a reprint of the original Trollpak from 1982.
216 pages, color covers, black & white/monchrome interior art.
By Greg Stafford and Sandy Petersen for Runequest 2nd Edition.
The original box set of Trollpak contained three books (the "pak" part); Uz Lore, Book of Uz, and Into Uzdom.  The PDF combines all three into a single file.  The PDF was released in 2019.
The books correspond to the PDF sections, "Troll Legends and Natural History", "Creating and Playing Troll Characters", and "Adventures in Trolls Lands" respectively.


Uz is the name the trolls of Glorantha give themselves and how their creation is central to the lore of the world.  Already this set is going to be the sort of deep-dive into a topic that you know I love.

On the very first page, we get an "in-universe" side-bar about how trolls living near or amongst humans begin to become more human-like and how both groups eventually take on an equilibrium.  
This sets the stage for this book in two very important ways.
  1. This book is steeped in the lore and legends of Glorantha. So teasing out pieces to use in other games might be trickier than I first expected.
  2. These trolls are NOT one-dimensional collections of hit points and potential XP and treasure.  If you prefer your monsters to be mindless evil races to just kill then this book will be wasted on you. 
Book 1: Uz Lore, Troll Legends and Natural History
We get right into the myths and legends of the Uz people/trolls.  We get a feel right away since we get a listing of the Seven Sacred Ancestors of the Uz even before the Gods.  It is right before the Gods sure, but the importance of these ancestors is emphasized. We learn that "Uz" means "the folk" in the Uz language. So the Mistress Trolls (akin to the troll mother race) are the Uzuz.  Dark Trolls, the corrupted "evil" trolls are the Uzko. And so on. Speaking of the language we also learn that the mother tongue of the trolls is a debased form of the "Darktongue." So in D&D terms "Trollspeak" could be a corrupted form of "Abyssal" or something like that. I think in old forms of D&D anyone who spoke the Chaos alignment language could speak to trolls.  

Speaking of Chaos.  The Law - Chaos access is also present in RuneQuest, though not as an alignment as in D&D but as elemental forces.  Another clue that these are your D&D trolls comes up that trolls are often seen as agents of Chaos WHEN IN FACT they were really some of the first victims. 
Let that sink in for bit.  If that were published today there is a certain segment of the hobby that would be screaming that they don't want "social justice" politics in their games.  But this is from 1982, from two of the titans of the RPG industry.  

The section continues with more history and recounting of great troll battles. There is a quasi-academic feel to this and that is really fun.   An example is an experiment a troll researcher did on a troll and a trollkin (a smaller version of troll) in which they were locked in a room with various items and the researcher recorded what they ate.  The point here is that Uz trolls can eat and will eat almost anything. 

We learn there are many kinds of trolls (as to be expected). The Mistress Race is the mother race of all trolls. They are ancient and wise and claim to predate all other races and even the world itself.  The other races of trolls are the Dark Trolls (your stock evil trolls), great trolls, cave trolls, sea trolls, and the diminutive trollkin.


We even get details on troll senses and how they differ from humans. Differences in trolls from region to region. Even a troll evolutionary tree and "prehistoric" troll cave painting and idols, there is even a six-breasted "Venus of Willendorf" style troll idol of the troll mistress race.
There is even details on the types of pets trolls keep. 

There is far more detail about trolls in this 64 page section than in all five editions of (A)D&D.
Nearly everything in the section is system neutral.  While it is tied to the world mythology at a fundamental level, it can be used in any game.

Book 2: Book of Uz, Creating and Playing Troll Characters
This section/book is all about creating a troll character to play in RuneQuest.  Before we delve into this let's have a look at this from "Playing Trolls,"
It is tempting to use trolls as monsters with weapons.
However, they are intelligent creatures who have survived despite gods and men. Several traits set them apart from humans as well, and they naturally exploit those special traits to their advantage. You should do so as well.
D&D players may have issues with playing races as evil or not, but RuneQuest had it figured out in 1982.

You can randomly roll which troll sub-species your character is from, with a 1% chance you are from the Mistress Troll race and 63% chance you are a miserable little trollkin.  Adjustments for all the types are given. Your troll can be wild, semi-civilized, or civilized. You can roll for social rank and equipment.  You can even see what starting spells you have since all trolls have some magic. You can even figure out what you were before you became an adventurer. 

Trolls are a matriarchal culture. So various home habits are focused around this.  For example, the more husbands a troll leader has, the higher her social standing. Looks like my troll character Grýlka gets to pick out a couple of husbands!
BTW, I LOVE the troll greeting when offering you hospitality in their lair.  They cover your head with a blanket or hide and say "I extend my darkness to protect you."  I am totally going to use that in my next adventure. 

Some gods are covered next and their worship. They have goddesses and gods of spiders, darkness, insects (very important to troll life), and the hunt. There is even a goddess of healing.
Coverage of domesticated giant insects is also covered since these creatures often serve the same function as domestic mammals in human life. 

Some new troll types are also covered.

This section by it's very nature is more rules-focused, but there is still so much here that is just good that it can, and should, be used in any other FRPG.

Book 3: Into Uzdom, Adventures in Trolls Lands
This section covers going on adventures in lands inhabited or controlled by the Uz. 
This section is very rules-focused as well with the first part covering random encounters in troll lands. 
There are also sample/small adventures like "The Caravans" which details a troll caravan of a heard of giant beetles.  Imagine this long train of trolls, some in wagons, others walking and in between hundreds of giant beetles being led like cattle in a long line.  Quite a sight really.  Another is traveling to a troll village and NOT treat everyone like a walking collection of HP.  This one is fantastic really for all the troll alcohol available and whether or not your human character can handle any of them in a drinking challenge. 
There are five larger adventures here and several smaller ideas for seeds.  The best thing though is the inclusion of a "mini-game" of Trollball.  This game is played like football and is supposed to be a reenactment of a battle from the dawn of time.  The "trollball" itself used to be a now extinct insect so other things have been used like badgers and in rare occurrences a bear, but most often it is a trollkin.   The teams each have seven players and one can be a great troll.  They are sponsored by a Rune Lord.
The game is brutal and sometimes deadly, but since there is a religious element to the game anyone killed on the field is brought back to life by the gods whom the game honors. Full stats for the Sazdorf Wackers and Tacklers is included so players can try their own hand at Trollball, but warning, the troll gods might not raise a dead human. 

There is just so much to love about this product. It is jammed packed full of ideas.  Part of me wants to adapt my D&D trolls to use these rules and another part of me wants to insert the Uz as-is into D&D as their own race or something akin to High Trolls.  

Trolpak was updated in 1990 when RuneQuest was being published by Avalon Hill.  It was then split into the Trollpak and Troll Gods. 

The "new" pdf restores all the content back to the 1982 edition. 



Reading it now after so many years I am struck with a couple of thoughts. The first is what would have happened to my own games had I picked this up and used it in my games?  Would my trolls today have a decidedly Uz flavor about them?  What else would have changed?

Also, reviews in Dragon Magazine for this are glowing and heap high praise on this book and they called it a leap in game design.  It was, but it was not a leap everyone would take.  RuneQuest/Chaosium did this for trolls like Chill/Pacesetter had done for Vampires.  There are s few others I can think of.  Orkworld did it for Orcs for example.  But still, these sorts of deep explorations are rare. 

So if you are over one-dimensional monsters and are ready to expand your options then this is for you.
If you are RuneQuest player of any edition then this is also something you should have.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

More from Outlaw Press

So more Outlaw Press news. You might recal I talked about Outlaw Press and James Shipman stealing art and content from scores of people for his Tunels & Trolls publications. [1] [2] [3]

Well now I have heard from anothee one of the artists.  I have actually spoken to a few of them, many were shocked and saddened that their work had been stolen.  Let's be clear here; if this handful of people is correct then that means he has stolen at least from them. And theft it is. 
This new artist has asked if I can get more of the word out so more artists that have been affected can let their voice be heard, and to help prevent this from happening again.

I am only too happy to help.

-- Begin Included Message --

A small RPG Publisher (Outlaw Press, Inc. run by James L. Shipman II) that exclusively publishes Tunnels &Trolls RPG materials was accused of extensively using and publishing unlicensed art and text for profit by several artist and writers who own the copyright to the art and content in question. Some of the images used by this publisher are work-for-hire art copyrighted by big-name companies like Dreamworks, SKG; Games Workshop; Upper Deck/Blizzard; and Wizards of the Coast.

The discussion about the whole matter of this publisher using unlicensed art started on this thread at RPGNet: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=483885 (which is now 101 pages long, and has been closed). The thread started when it was brought to the attention of an artist, Kevin Bracey, that he was wrongfully credited with the cover art of a product that had actually been created by Mauricio Herrera and used without permission. Kevin Bracey was, however, the creator of the original cover for the product, which was changed when the work was made available in PDF format by Outlaw Press, Inc.

After repeated unanswered communications sent to the publisher by the growing number of artists who recognized their work as being used without a license, mainly as covers for his products, his Lulu and DriveThruRPG stores were taken down with all the questionable products removed. The products were also removed from his own website for a while, but soon afterward were re-listed without showing the cover art--the most readily recognizable and easily identifiable circumstance of copyright infringement. Moreover, Outlaw Press, Inc. removed their e-mail address from their main site, although the publisher’s actual contact details can still be found here:  http://www.biblio.com/bookstores/Hobbit_King.html and here: http://samspade.org/whois/gx6yobsirm43ed7uljbukcymte.

After many more unanswered communications to the publisher, some from past contributors requesting the removal of their freely contributed material from his publications (Tori Berquist, Simon Lee Tranter, Ken St. Andre, Gianmatteo Tonci, and M. E. Volmar included) as a result of their outrage and to show solidarity with the affected artists, the matter was still unresolved and being ignored by the publisher who continued to sell--through his own website, Lulu's Amazon Markeplace and Amazon's CreateSpace--products that were no longer just suspect (on a grand scale) of copyright infringement, but whose permission by the contributing artists and writers to sell their materials had been rescinded.

Some artists, prompted by a lack of answer from Shipman, resorted to leaving notes of art theft on the Reviews section of the products listed on Amazon.com. And eventually, all but 5 of the roughly 130 listed items were removed from the Amazon.com and Lulu’s Amazon Marketplace stores at the request of the art’s copyright owners who were left no choice but to contact Lulu and Amazon.com directly. Of the 5 remaining products (which can still be found here: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&sort=relevancerank&search-alias=books&field-author=James%20L.%20Shipman), 2 still present covers with verified unlicensed art--“Troll's Blood & Old Delvers: Tunnels & Trolls Anthology” with Jon Hodgson’s art, and “Lizardmen In Red Water Bay: A Tunnels & Trolls Fanpostal Novel“ with Allen Palmer’s art.

So far, the list of artists that have confirmed the use of their unlicensed art featured on the covers of Outlaw Press, Inc. products (without counting the 10+ contributors who have so far rescinded Shipman’s permission to use their materials) is overwhelming and growing (with around 20 or so other artists who are being contacted to confirm if indeed their art has been used without permission). These 30+ artists, some whose 70+ pieces of unlicensed artwork is featured on several of the publisher's products (see PDF file), include:
  • J. P. Targete
  • Sylvain Despretz
  • Simon Dominic
  • Mauricio Herrera                              
  • Jon Hodgson
  • Daniel Horne                                      
  • Michal Ivan
  • John Shannon                                     
  • Bill Corbett
  • Martin McKeown
  • Mats Minnhagen
  • Ursula Vernon
  • Jeff Lee Johnson
  • Henning Janssen
  • Zoltan Boros and Gabor Szikszai
  • Jhoneil Centeno         
  • Johann Valentin Andree         
  • Bera Károly
  • Alan Lathwell
  • Ken Jeremiassen
  • Jan Patrik Kresny
  • Fredrik Rahmqvist
  • David Lightfoot
  • Allen Palmer
  • Alejandro Guitiérrez
  • Daniel Falck
  • Storn A. Cook
  • Norbert Vakulya
  • Thom Scott
  • Darrenn E. Canton
  • Tibor Szendrei
  • Goran Josic
  • Per Eriksson
  • Kory K.                                                
One of the artists, Daniel Falck, wrote about the situation in his own blog: http://falckart.blogspot.com/2009/12/stolen-art.html
Others have also written about the matter at:
The publisher was also accused of reprinting and selling without the author's permission a magazine called "Mazes & Minotaurs," which is offered for free on the author’s website. The details of this accusation can be found here: http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=625915&sid=e042d3f6c1a9564ba2965e0f91eb94f8#p625915

Moreover, most of the art identified by the artists as used without a license is art featured on the covers of this publisher’s products, meaning that a thorough examination of the interior art used on his publications is yet to be undertaken, and that more artwork could have been used without a license by this publisher and more artists may be in reality affected by his practices.

The requests to remove freely contributed art and content, and the cancellation of the license to publish Tunnels & Trolls materials made by the makers of the Tunnels & Trolls game, Ken St. Andre and Flying Buffalo, Inc., have so far been completely ignored, and nothing close to an apology or explanation has been offered by the publisher to anyone--although he has appeared as Shipy (also his nickname on http://www.trollhalla.com --Ken St. Andre's Tunnels & Trolls website) here: http://trollbridge.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1163&page=1, (post 162 and 168) mocking the requests and comments about his practices made by the RPG community.

At this point, the publisher claimed that his art was bought from an art broker called David Levine (or David Levin) from the United Kingdom, of whom no record exists anywhere on the Web and to whom Shipman claims to have paid around $2000 for all the art used in his publications. Still, after having been repeatedly informed of his use of unlicensed art, the publisher tried to sell the infringing print products through his own website and made no effort to recall or remove the publications from any of his other still active sales outlets.
Subsequently, after the posts were made by Shipy on the Trollbridge, the publisher's website: http://outlaw-press.com/ announced on its homepage:

“All this month we will be having a X-mas sale. That means most of our T&T prices will be listed for half price or cheaper. So if you are looking to buy something, this month will be the best time to do so.”

And went on to boast about the money he was making off products that still featured all the unlicensed art in question.

“We have lots of new T&T items planned for the coming year (Novels, Solos, T&T Supplements and even a T&T Battle Dice Game Ken St. Andre created). Our sales have continued to grow with the site statics breaking down as such; roughly 3,241 people visit here each day, with 1 in 122 people making a purchase of $50 or more. We are shipping world wide and we continue to expand.”

It is also of note that the publisher sells a magazine called “The Hobbit Hole,” although the word Hobbit and its use is copyrighted to the Tolkien Estate, and highly unlikely to have been licensed to an obscure independent publisher such as Outlaw Press, Inc. and/or James Shipman.




This week, and after having been contacted through e-mail by Shipman (who cited bogus publication rights and falsely claimed owning the copyrights to freely contributed materials whose copyrights were never given to him by the rightful copyright owners), Ken St. Andre terminated James Shipman membership at Trollhalla--St. Andre’s own Tunnels & Trolls fan club--after issuing the following statement:
“Because James Shipman has shown himself to be neither truthful nor courageous nor ethical, I declare that he cannot remain a member of Trollhalla any longer.”


Although the publisher’s website has now been down for a few days, he continues to sell his products on E-Bay under various user names including: jimship1, Hobbit_King, actionseller99 and selling4u2, using the hobbit_king@yahoo.com PayPal account.

Still, a storefront for this publisher and most of his products (which still feature the unlicensed art) can be found by following the product links at the Noble Knights game store here: http://www.nobleknight.com/ViewProdLine.asp_Q_ProductID_E_2147404354_A_InventoryID_E_2147650378_A_ProductLineID_E_2137421451_A_ManufacturerID_E_2145083794_A_CategoryID_E_12_A_GenreID_E_, although Noble Knight has listed the products as no longer in print and are probably just selling old stock.

Not only have the actions by James Shipman been damaging and disrespectful to many, including his contributors and the Tunnels & Trolls community, but his practices have muddied reputations, impacted artists and fans alike, and cast a bad shadow on the whole RPG community and on legitimate independent publishers. This situation needs to be exposed, if only in the hope of helping the affected artists and contributors who have been wronged by Shipman, and the RPG community and independent publishers alike.

-- End --

So yeah, the drama continues.  I am including this more or less as is since it is a good summary of the situation to date and also gives some more information.  This confirms things other artists have told me, so it is nice to have it all in one place.

I hope this all comes to an end soon and the artists get their due.

Sunday, July 26, 2020

Troll Week Starts Tomorrow

I have been working from home since March 15th or so. It has been great really, work has provided me with all the tech I need. I wanted to make my life a little easier so I also set up my kid's old gaming computer in my office.  They still use for playing D&D online via Discord and Roll20, but I use it to test various things.  The computer still has CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives.

While digging through some old back-ups I found a download folder I had thought had been lost.

On it was a copy of Ron Edwards' "Trollbabe" RPG. 
I was reading through it and forgot how much fun it was.  It also got me thinking about trolls, troll magic, and all sorts of related topics.

I remember back in the earliest days of my Dragon magazine reading and getting mail-order catalogs from Games Plus and the Dungeon Hobby Shop one of the products that always jumped out at me was Runequest's TrollPak.  

It was the exact sort of deep dive into a singular topic that appealed to me then and now.  Of course at the time I thought it might be related to Tunnels & Trolls.  When I discovered it wasn't I figured I could convert it and have a Troll-focused game.

You can't read a bunch of myths, legends, and fairy tales about witches and not run across the occasional troll.  They are all over the place.   Especially any of the stories of Northern Europe.

What I never liked though was how the trolls of myth and in particular the trolls from the Hobbit looked and acted nothing like the trolls of D&D.  Sure ogres are fine, but thin rubbery dudes that regenerate? Not so much.  As time went on I of course saw where the D&D trolls came from and why they were chosen; a stronger differentiation between ogres and trolls needed to be made.  But I still never really liked them.

In my games I made a new troll, the Earth Troll, that was more like the trolls I saw in the books I was reading.  These trolls were often the lackeys of hags, in particular, the Wood Hag.  These were much closer and I would later go one to make more trolls.  The idea here that trolls are highly adaptable to their environment.  They are Lamarckian Evolution played out in D&D.  Put a troll near water and in a couple of generations, they are adapted to it.  

But one thing I never did and will do this week, is adapt Troll Pak and Tunnels & Trolls to the Trolls of D&D.


Looking forward to seeing what I can come up with!

Monday, February 26, 2024

Monstrous Mondays: Trollkönig (Troll King)

 Playing around with different layouts for Basic Bestiary. I did a few, and I didn't like most of them. Not a big deal, I have time.

Right now, I am trying to figure out if I want to break up BB1 into smaller 64-page volumes or one larger one. I like the idea of smaller volumes. To round that out, I might need to develop a couple more monsters here and there. Again, not a big deal.

If I did break up BB1 into say three volumes, they would have about 120-130 monsters each. Do I break them up by themes or alphabetically? I guess I need to see how big it is when I am done.

The "theme" of Basic Bestiary 1 is "Monstrous Maleficarum," or monsters I have read about, used, or developed while working on my various witch books. There are also more than a few here from various monster books I loved reading as a child and spent some time hunting down as an adult. 

In any case here is a new one I worked on when I was supposed to be doing editing and layouts.

Troll King Arthur Rackman
Trollkönig (Troll King)
Large Humanoid (Fey, Faerie Lord)

Armor Class: -5 [24]
Hit Dice: 18d8+108 (189 hp)
   Large: 18d10+108 (207 hp)
Move: 120' (40')
Attacks: 2 fist slams, 1 bite or 1 weapon (x2) or thrown rock, or roar
Damage: 1d12+5 x2, 1d8+5 or by weapon (x2) or thrown rock 2d12, roar for fear
Special: Magic resistance (45%), immune to  poison;  half damage to cold, can communicate telepathically, Magic +2 weapons to hit, regenerate, roar, summon trolls, sunlight sensitivity
No. Appearing: 1 (unique)
Save As: Monster 18
Morale: 10 (NA)
Treasure Type: C x20
Alignment: Chaotic (Chaotic Evil)
XP: 8,900

Languages: Elven, Sylvan, Telepathic, Trollspeak

The King of Trolls may not be the most eloquent or attractive of the faerie lords, but he is one of the most physically impressive.  He appears as a 13' tall troll of massive build. His skin appears to be a dense rock-like hide with patchy bits of hair and numerous scars from his many battles. His eyes, though, betray a keen and malign intelligence not seen in lesser trolls.

Like his subjects, the trolls, he attacks with fist slams and a bite. Though, unlike the lesser trolls, he is also intelligent enough to use weapons. He often chooses to use a giant battle axe doing 1d10+5 hp of damage per attack.  Like a giant, he can throw rocks. The Trollkönig can roar 3 times per day. This roar can cause fear (as per the spell) in any creature of 7 HD or lower, save vs. Petrification to ignore. Creatures less than 1 HD are not allowed a saving throw.  

As their king the Troll King can summon 3d8 trolls to his side. The trolls must be nearby, and they arrive in one turn.   

The King of Trolls also has 45% magic resistance, can only be hit by +2 or better weapons, and is immune to poison and only half damage from cold. This creature also regenerates like lesser trolls, but at an alarming rate of 10 hp per round; starting on the first round, he takes damage. Unlike common trolls, the Trollkönig can regenerate even from fire and acid damage. He can't regenerate if exposed to sunlight.

The Troll King is a powerful individual who has risen above the typical troll, ruling over a vast network of tunnels and caves with utter brutality. Driven by a twisted sense of hierarchy and ambition, the Troll King seeks to assert its dominance over anything smaller or weaker. It hoards treasures stolen from those unfortunate enough to cross its path.  The Faerie Lords tolerate the Troll King, not due to any sense of loyalty or familial ties, but because they often employ him to take care of their enemies and the physical fighting they can't be bothered to do themselves. 

There is a heated rivalry between the Troll King and the Goblin King, largely due to their respective subjects' own rivalries.

Monday, April 23, 2012

T is for Tunnels & Trolls

Tunnels & Trolls is another good game that I rarely got the chance to play.

It has spent it's entire life being unfavorably compared to D&D which, while somewhat merited, is disappointing all the same.   T&T was the SECOND RPG ever created.  It came right on the heels of D&D, written by amateur game designer Ken St. Andre. Ken saw D&D and decided that it was poorly done, so he went home and wrote his own rules.
You can read about his recollections here, but what I want to do is talk about mine.
I have talked about Tunnels and Trolls in the past, mostly dealing with the whole Outlaw Press affair.

I think one of the reasons my group avoided Tunnels & Trolls, other than the appearance that it was "D&D Little Kids" was the humor.  T&T had a humor about it absent in D&D.  Today I can look at it and appreciate it for what it is, but then that was too high a mountain to climb.  This roleplaying stuff was serious business to my 12-13 year old mind.  And there was the whole status deal.  I learned early that if you were not playing "The Right Game" you could get shunned.  Yes social elitism from a group of social outcasts (read: nerds) but it happened.  So even if I was so inclined to try T&T, I doubt if I could have gotten anyone to play it with me.

Looking back today I can say while I am disappointed that didn't give T&T the chance it deserved back then, I can certainly make up for lost time now.  I make an effort to go to the Flying Buffalo booth each Gen Con and buy something, even if it is something small. The T&T fan communities, Trollhala and Trollbridge are the two largest I know of, are very active.  Truth be told, maybe even more active these days thanks to the OSR.

Anyone familiar with D&D will recognize a lot in T&T.  Same sorts of creatures, same sorts of adventures. Players have levels, races and classes.  Plenty of weapons, spells that go 20th level and magic.
I would love to play this a couple of times with my kids, or even sit in on a Convention game.

You can still get official Tunnels & Trolls products from the Flying Buffalo website.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

White Dwarf Wednesday #76

White Dwarf #76 takes us back to April 1986.  The magazine feels a bit larger than past issues (68 pages now) and there is more color.  The cover features a could of eagle riders in a tie in with the AD&D adventure.The cover artist is Peter Andrew Jones, who I do not recognize.

The editorial covers the demise of such columns as Fiend Factory, Star Base, Crawling Chaos, Rune Rites and Heroes & villains.   But we knew this.  Also, and maybe they are taking a page from Dragon, they planning more "theme" issues.  This one is all about the AD&D thief with two articles and and an adventure.

Open Box opens up big this issue with 3 pages and 7 reviews.  Iron Crown Enterprises has some MERP offerings. The Riddle of the Ring board game (6/10) and Erech & The Paths of the Dead Scenario (9/10).  Alone Against the Wendigo is a CoC solo adventure. Surprising there are not more of these to be honest.  (8/10).   Send in the Clones is also reviewed. This is the only Paranoia adventure I have ever played myself, so I have nothing to compare it too.  Marcus Rowland gives it 6/10 and that matches my memory of it.  Graeme Davis LOVES Lankhmar, City of Adventure for AD&D (10/10), I'll admit it has made me want to read the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser books more than once.  Two Doctor Who RPG adventures are covered The Iytean Menace and the Lords of Destiny. I loved the Doctor Who RPG from FASA but I never played these. They get a collective 8/10. Finally Hero games gives Fantasy Hero, it gets an 8/10.

The first article on AD&D Thieves is up.  How to Make Crime Pay is for players in the form of a lecture from a guild master.  Once upon a time I would have eaten this up. In fact in 86 my favorite character was a thief turned assassin.  There is nothing in this article that screams "D&D only", it could be used with pretty much any fantasy game.

Accounting (no joke) is covered for Judge Dredd.
A scenario for Warhammer is up next.

The second article on thieves is up, this time for the DMs/Referees.   Again, useful, game-agnostic advice.  This one is more in the form of tips and tricks and advice rather than a narrative. Actually this would have been a good article to have back in 86 when I was working up the details of the various guilds in my game world.  Today I just hand wave that sort of thing away.

An article on running Golden Heroes is next.  There is also a lot of good advice here too for any supers game.  I think the next supers game I run there will be a tabloid, ala The Sun, involved.

Castle in the Wind is the next article on thieves and takes the form of an adventure.  This one in pure AD&D and the thief connection is a touch thin.  It's long and detailed and with a dash of Hayao Miyazaki it could be really, really awesome.  I might have to xerox this one for later use.  Plus I love floating castles in my D&D.

Treasure chest is still around, at least for now.  It has half-a-dozen new spells. Never can have too many of those.

There is this interesting ad for "Labyrinthe" LARP (it's not called a LARP but that is what it is) taking place in the London Underground.  At first I had to double-take cause it looked like an ad for Labyrinth Lord!


Not exactly, but you can see what I mean.  Granted EVERYONE used that Old Style font back then.  It was the Morpheus of it's day.

This followed by a lot of ads.
Tabletop Heroes covers painting with oils, part 2.
Large ads continue with some Doctor Who minis, the D&D Master Rule Set and the Tunnels and Trolls paperback fantasy/rule books.

The theme is nice for issue but it makes it feel like there is less content than there really is.  I used to think the same about Dragon when they did themes as well.  Though to be fair, when they did themes I enjoyed then the issue seemed much more full.
More than any other issue before it, WD#76 is the dividing line between the new and old White Dwarf.  

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

White Dwarf Wednesday #31

White Dwarf #31 covers months June and July of 1982.  Speaking of covers check out this great looking city. Good choice for the city article in a couple of pages.

The editorial is kicked off by Ian Livingstone celebrating the 5th birthday of White Dwarf.  The first 10 readers that send in a completed feedback form will get a White Dwarf t-shirt!  Also we are again promised a monthly White Dwarf.  Let's wait and see when that happens.

Paul Vernon is back and this time he is building towns for D&D.  The Town Planner starts it's run this issue with Part 1: Designing and Running Villages.  Again, a great, timeless/editionless article.  In fact there in nothing here that could not be used with any FRPG.

In an another return Ken St. Andre is back with a mini Tunnels & Trolls solitaire adventure.  How mini?  Well the first page of the The Mad Dwarf is taken up by an image of said dwarf.  The adventure itself runs along the bottom two inches of the magazine for the next 7 pages and then another 6 pages after a bit.  So a little more than two pages really. It is done like this due to the "programmed" nature of the solitaire adventure (ie if you do X go to A, if you do Y go to B).

Some new Traveller material in the form of Prior Service from John Conquest. An aside, I never quite understood why any sword type is considered to be basic training in some of the Traveller military.  We always played it off as the same reasons Marines get a sabre with their dress uniform.  Oddly enough the Marines in Traveller don't get a sword, but the Navy gets Cutlass-1.

Open Box has some cool SciFi entries this month.  Task Force Games brings us Federation Space, the Federation controlled area of Starfleet Battles.  John Lambshed gives it a 8/10 and says it is a must buy for Starfleet Battles fans.   FASA releases four Traveller books this time, Ordeal by Eshaar, Action Aboard, Uragyad'n of the Seven Pillars and The Legend of the Sky Raiders. They are generally well liked, but have their issues.  Bob McWilliams gives them 6, 5, 8, and 8/10 for novices and 7, 6, 8, and 9/10 for experts.
Thieves get some love in two books by Gamelords, Thieves Guild (I-IV) and The Free City of Haven.  Lewis Pulsipher generally likes them and gives them 9, 7, 7, 8 and 9/10 respectively.

Letters focuses mostly on questions from/about the DMG.

Lewis Pulsipher is back with another article that made that big packet of articles I was reading about this time.  Arms at the Ready takes all the weapons tables in AD&D and shuffles them up.  Now you can look at a weapon and then see how the attacks are by character class and level.  This might not seem to be such a big deal today, but back in the AD&D days various weapons had different attacks versus different ACs.  For example there might be no change at all to AC 5 but AC 4 had a +1 to hit.  Of course this is because it was called "Armor Class" and not "Defense Score", AC 4 was a different type of armor than AC 5.  A point Lewis makes in the article.

RuneRites is back again for Runquest.  This time Geoff Winn has Crime and Punishment on the mind.  This really is a good companion piece to the city rules above.  Sure is for Runequest, but it is also generic enough to work with any game, with some tweaks.    The great thing about the early days of gaming was how free everything was.  I remember using the RuneQuest demon rules from WD a lot with D&D.  This article would work even better.

Starbase has your Traveller needs covered. That is if your need is Additional Deflector Systems.  If it is then Antony Cornell and Martin Barrett have you covered.  I can easily see this converted over to Star Frontiers, in fact that is what I was starting to do around this time (though SF does not grace the pages of WD till later on).

Treasure Chest has more Amulets & Talismans, this time sent in by readers.  Some interesting items too.

Fiend Factory is still doing themes.  This time it is a theme+adventure.  In Search of A Fool is described as a "D&D" mini adventure. The stats are D&D and not really AD&D, though odd bits of AD&D are mixed in. The monsters this time are all faerie creatures like the Daonie Sidhe (fae), the Leanan-Sidhe (vampire, and different than my own), Lorelei Willow (plant, sounds like something I'd come up with) and the Dendridi (a type of gnome).  The adventure is very brief, but great for a side trek.  Honestly I read it and it sounds like something I could drop into a 4e game in the Feywild with no modifications.

News, classifieds and ads follow.

All in all this issue felt more "80s" than previous issues.  Great content that worked well together.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

White Dwarf Wednesday #83

White Dwarf #83 comes to us from November 1986.  Just to put things into my gaming perspective we were running our final end-game game.  The war that would change our game forever. Why? Well we were all going to college and though we didn't know it at the time 2nd Edition was on the way.
The cover art to me always looked like a painting of miniature figure than the typical fantasy painting. Not sure why.
Paul Cockburn discusses how hard at work the WD staff have been and how next month will be bigger magazine, 8 more pages, with no extra ads and no extra charge.

Open box kicks off with the D&D Immortals set. Graeme Davis calls it an interesting and well thought out addition to the D&D rules, but not an indispensable one.  The infamous Warlock of Firetop Mountain Boardgame is reviewed. Infamous at least to me since I have always wanted to try it out but can never get my hands on one and they go for big bucks at my local auction.  Spawn of Azathoth for Call of Cthulhu is next. Peter Green says it has some nice ideas but lacks the "Oommph" that would make it a classic.  The 2nd Edition of ICEs Middle Earth Role-Playing is also covered.  Graham Stapplehurst calls it a better introduction to new players.  I will admit to not knowing very much about the 2nd edition.  Continuing on the 3rd page we get a new idea, GURPS Basic Set from Steve Jackson games.  Marcus Rowland calls it ambitious but can't recommend it.   We also get a number Open Box "Quickies": Cities by Chaosium, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, Revised Recon, Talisman the Adventure and Introduction to Star Fleet Battles.

Big two page ad for Warhammer Fantasy.

Critical Mass covers the Postman before Kevin Costner got a hold of it.  More interesting to me is the review of William Gibson's Burning Chrome. Funny how Gibson's work is looked at these days.  28 years ago it was science fiction, today the review sounds more like the review of a modern day spy novel.

A Day in the Life Sector 255 is a Judge Dredd "Patrol Adventure".  Reading this over I get a much better idea of how the game should work.  I have no idea if this is a good adventure or not, but it is unique and it tracks with what little I know about Judge Dredd. Followed by a strategically placed ad. I might need to give this game a try one day.

20/20 Vision covers some movies.  In particular is a favorite of mine, Big Trouble in Little China.  This would make for a great game and I have though so for years.  Of course the best system to use for this is the Army of Darkness RPG with Jack Burton taking the "Schmuck" Quality.  Aliens is also reviewed. Saw that movie a hundred times at least.  Vasquez and Hudson would late make appearances in my big end-game mentioned above as Katrine and Kiev, two fighters that hated each other in the roster of NPCs I created for the war.  They died fighting side by side and were recorded as having loved each other.  The idea was I'd use them to haunt other characters as ghosts until their bodies were separated in their shared tomb.

Up next is a Paranoia adventure.  Paranoia is a game I can only take in small doses.  After a while the jokes get really thin with me.

Carl Sargent goes over the costs and the role-playing of training between levels. The central thesis here is that with the advent of the "new" proficiency system that training between levels is more important than ever before.  I get what he is saying here and it was certainly something "in the water" back then.  I remember our group suddenly becoming very aware of training and no longer leveling up midst-game, but only after games.  We did spend some time seeking out trainers, which became interesting when our characters were in the 30th level range (it was the 80s) and we did not know anyone higher level.  Sargent's system is very detailed but for me these days I prefer something a little simpler.

The Crude, The Bad and The Rusty is a Warhammer Battle and it is up next.  I have no experience to judge this one by.  It has a set up and a map.  Maybe that is all you need?  I think it is.  I do *GET* why games like Warhammer are popular and by that extension any war game with minis.  Then I never had the money to put into these games properly and now I don't have the time or the skills at painting to do it right.

Everything Went Black has some rule options for Call of Cthulhu.  House rules mostly.

Up next our Warhammer Fantasy/AD&D adventure. The Black Knight is an interesting beast. As a Warhammer Fantasy adventure it seems to have more dungeon delving than I normally associate with WF.  As an AD&D adventure, more fighting.  I guess that is fitting when you think about it.  Course it has me wondering was a Warhammer/Tunnels & Trolls adventure might be like.

Psionic Combat expands on the Psionic articles from WD #79. I have always wanted a good psionic or even magical battle system.  This one is good, but no where near simple.  D&D combat is simple really, even AD&D. Roll your d20 and see what happens.  That is a feature of the game. Psionic/magical combat should be the same.  This one isn't but it certainly works with the bolted on psionics system in AD&D1.  I will admit I am not a fan of mixing my psionics and magic.

Ads...Thrud...'Eavy Metal. The pages for Eavy Metal are not in color which strikes me as odd.  Granted nothing is painted in this one so maybe they were saving the color pages...for the Wilderness Survival Guide ad.

More ads.  The letters page has a splash of color. Odd.
Fracas covers Games Day 86.

We end with ads.

Again, not a terrible issue, and actually a good one.  We are getting into the age where the complexity of AD&D is beginning to weigh it down.  More books, more optional rules more opinions.
Not a mention of Traveller or Runequest really.  Though AD&D and Call of Cthulhu rule the roost still, other games like Judge Dredd and Warhammer are seeing more and more space.  While I knew players trying out Warhammer and Paranoia at this time, not really anyone one in my little corner of the world was playing Judge Dredd.

Monday, January 7, 2013

New Kickstarters

I really need to kick my Kickstarter habit.

Maybe later.
All of these are already backed.

First up is an update to the Ron Edwards classic Sorcerer.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/847190685/sorcerer-upgrade

And what I described as the Kick-Starter of the Year, the new Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/994700393/deluxe-tunnels-and-trolls

Not sure if I am going to pledge in either yet, but both are games I have enjoyed in the past and I am happy to see them get some cash for some high end production value.

There is also the new FATE Core rules.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/evilhat/fate-core?ref=home_leanback

That one is so ridiculously funded that it doesn't need my help really.  It is even linked on the front page of the Kickstarter home page. But you have to give Fred and Evil Hat credit (and kudos) for having such a successful campaign.  Plus for a buck you have access to the draft rules right now and a physical book for only 30 bucks.  Also, and lets be honest, cybernetic Kung-fu gorilla on the cover?  How can that not be cool?

The trouble with all three of these games is I don't need anymore games. But there they are, out there, taunting me.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

White Dwarf Wednesday #53

White Dwarf #52 comes to us from May 1984.  Our cover this time is an army of orcs ready for battle; a tie-in to the Warhammer scenario coming up and a D&D article about orcs.

Ian Livingstone discusses the growing pains of the hobby.  Sure it is nice that so many people are now interested in it, and it is too bad that so many people are now interested in it!  So the exclusivity is gone.
This is the time of "Red Box D&D" (see last page).  Was this something you noticed in your games?  Many reading came to the hobby before this time, what were your thoughts then?  I grew in a small town where I knew everyone my age that gamed.  Or mostly everyone.  There was a feel of "get off my lawn" to some of the newer gamers.  Which of course is funny because there was the generation of War Gamers that looked at us the same way.  This is reflected in Livingstone's editorial.  We are now seeing the first glances of a generational effect in the Edition Wars.  Livingstone though gives some sage advice then and it is still good now, it is up to us (the older player) to help the newer player along and teach them "the old ways".

Marcus Rowland is back with Part 2 of his introduction to RPGs.  Continuing where he left off on D&D he moves to other Fantasy games for beginners starting with RuneQuest. Rowland is obviously a fan, and RQ gets the lion's share of the article (but still less than D&D).  He follows up with other games such as Tunnels & Trolls, Chivalry & Sorcery, Warhammer and Men, Myth and Magic.  Though these only get a paragraph or two each.

In our new full color section we get Minas Tirith, the Battle of Pelennor Fields for Warhammer. It's a long one, described as a Mega-Scenario. If you are a Tolkien fan then this is cool. Honestly few battles are as iconic to the Tolkien/Rings saga as this one, save for the Battle of Five Armies.

Our color pages continue into Open Box.  Up first Richard Meadows reviews Game Workshop's Caverns of the Dead.  The first in a new line of dungeon aids.  It gets a 7/10 noting that it compares less favorable to D&D modules.   We also get the 6th and 7th Fighting Fantasy books from Ian Livingstone, Deathtrap Dungeon and Island of the Lizard King. Both get an 8/10 from Marcus Rowland. Andy Slack gives us more Traveller material in the form of Book 6: Scouts. It gets an 7/10 overall, but the component ratings are all 8s and 10s with only one 7.  Not sure why it was rounded down like that.

Thurd the Barbarian is in more trouble. It looks like his biggest problem was that he was drawn by Rob Liefeld. Ok, in this context it is supposed to be funny.

We get a short (one page) Gothic tale from Chris Eliot and Richard Edwards.

Lew Pulsipher brings back Lew's Views. This time it is about demons, devils and pacts.  Something that would work well with the new lot of demon summoning and binding spells that seemed to be popular at this time (Module S4, Unearthed Arcana).  Still useful today in any game to be honest.  Don't like demons? Or you game has robots instead?  No big, the rules are really more "programmed" of any sort of guardian creature. So it could be a robot, a sphinx, a ghost, a curse or a golem.  Whatever you need.

Next up is The Naked Orc.  A new look at Orcs in D&D.  I think I have read this one before cause my own write-up of orcs is similar.  It's a good read and have some very interesting ideas.

Crash Course is our Car Wars column written by the American Steve Jackson.
Part 2 of the Castle of Lost Souls is next.  Not as long as last months.

More fawning over the changes in letters.
Starbase has some Traveller NPCs.
RuneRites has some spells based on celtic Druid myth.  These are pretty interesting to be honest.  Of course I look to them for conversion for D&D.

Tabletop Heroes has some more minis, but they don't take advantage of the color pages this time.  More is the pity to be honest.

Fiend Factory has some creatures and mini-scenario. The creatures are good for the scenario and maybe some eerie woodland area.
Treasure Chest has an odd collection of random treasures.

The News section under goes another makeover.  This time looking like a Bulletin board; a real one with tacks, not a virtual one.  Of interest is the upcoming "Dragonlance" which is listed as an RPG in the same breath that Marvel is listed as an RPG.  Was there a plan back then to have Dragonlance be a self contained game?

Color pages are next again and they are saved for the ads.  We have a few pages of those and then end with a full color ad for the new Red Box D&D Basic game.

For lack of a better word this issue feels like a "reboot" of the magazine.  No surprise that now it is available in a wider market they want to make sure it is accessible to all sorts of people.  There are still some interesting things going on, but not the same sort of things that were being printed prior to 83.  Still though, quite a fun read just nothing (other than the orcs) that jumped out at me.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

White Dwarf Wednesday Issue 2

Welcome back to White Dwarf Wednesday.  Today I will talk about Issue #2 from Aug/Sep 1977.

This is an interesting issue if for one reason alone (though there are more), the editorial.  Ian Livingstone talks about the superior attitude being taken by the old guard war gamers against this "New" hobby of RPGs, though called throughout the editorial as SF/F gamers.
It is interesting reading this piece where D&D is the new kid on the block and defending itself against, well, the Grognards.
It is also interesting since none of the arguments have changed in 35 years. Substitute the names of the games and you have the same post you will see on any blog or message board.

Following that we have more details on Competitive D&D. A review on Asgard Miniatures by Ian Livingstone. Lewis Pulsipher gives us a three page review/article on The Green Planet Trilogy game by Richard Jordison. He doesn't particularly like the games and invites the author to write White Dwarf to clarify some rules.

An interesting tid bit is an article by Hartley Patterson called "Before the Flood" where he describes a game called "Midgard" that according to him, had many resemblances to D&D. He contends that there was no way that Gygax and Co. could have seen these rule beforehand.  The original manuscript had been written in 1972 by Will Haven and then rewritten by himself. I have never heard of it.

The regular Open Box feature gives us reviews of new games such as "OGRE", a new craze called a "micro-game", TSR's "Lankhmar", and a game called "War of the Star Slavers".  OGRE got an 8 total, Lankhmar got a 6 and Star Slavers a 3 due to the poor rules and counters.  There is also a review for a D&D enspired or rip-off game called Tunnels & Trolls (eek!), but no numerical rank is given.
We continue with the Monstermark system with a look at dragons, other fire breathing monsters and other "nasties". From what I can tell nearly every monster  from OD&D is listed here.

The Treasure Box feature gives us new crunch. We get a new magic item, a needle that can be anything it needs to be, and a new class the Scientist.  The Scientist is just plain weird. It is actually two classes, the Scientist (with level titles like Ph.D. and Polymath) and the Anti-Scientist (with level titles like Luddite, Jehovah's Witness and Football Supporter).  I can't tell if they are trying to be funny with it or not.

Finally we get to some crunch we can actually use, five new monsters: the frog-like Spinescale, a constructed bottle creature, The Ning, a Giant Caterpillars, the Blood Hawk, and the Dune Stalker which survived nearly unchanged save updated to AD&D from the OD&D here in the Fiend Folio.  None of the new monsters have a Monstermark score themselves just yet.

The issue ends with part two of "How to Improve D&D" and a letters section with people already writing in and telling them how do things different.  Gamers have never changed.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Art and Content thief Jim Shipman back

You all might remember Jim Shipman; the thief that has been stealing art all over the internet and putting them on Tunnels and Trolls products and selling them as his own.

Well he is back at it.

http://www.outlawpressinc.com/

Now he is trying to lie behind some bullshit disclaimer that the items are "second hand" and not published by him and he therefore has not responsibility over their content.

Can we please shut this asshole down once and for all?

Thanks to Tran Eskoor an Doon for this information.
http://quietdayinheimdall.blogspot.com/2011/02/breaking-news-shipman-is-still-asshole.html

Monday, August 2, 2010

Putting my money where my mouth is...

So I spent a lot of time and text ripping into Outlaw Press, James Shipman and his art stealing ways.
See:

So I have decided to put my money where my mouth is.
I am going to buy a copy of Tunnels and Trolls directly from Flying Buffalo this week at Gen Con.

I have no idea what edition, what book or anything.  But I want to show my support this way.  It looks like 7 (or 7.5) is the most up-to-date edition.  But maybe an older edition would be cool to have too.

If you are going to Gen Con and want to support one of the true pioneers of our hobby, then I suggest you do the same.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

White Dwarf Wednesday #30

White Dwarf #30 covers the months of April and May 1982.

Cool cover art this issue with some weird bat-like creature.

This issues' Ian Livingstone editorial talks about the new Dungeons & Dragons electronic labyrinth game from Mattel and the Intellivison video game.  I had the post of the dragon from the electronic board game (till my ass college roommate ripped it up) but I never owned the game itself till a few years back.

Roger E. Moore gives us another of what I consider the "Classic" Traveller articles for me.  That is, this one of the ones that we had access too as a big xeroxed packet.  Androids in Traveller tells us all about artifical humans, replicants and your plastic pal that's fun to be with.

Designing a Quasi-Medieval Society for D&D is back.  Paul Vernon presents Part 2: The Economy Mercenaries and Resource Owners.  Again, this is quite in-depth (for a gaming magazine) and has a lot of useful information.  What is most useful though were the presented incomes of NPCs.  In our age and in 1982 I think it was hard for everyone just to understand how little people lived on. A group of adventures coming in to town after slaying a dragon is likely to throw the local economy totally out of whack.

E. Varley writes about Unarmed Combat in RuneQuest.

Open Box has some items that gamers today still love.  First up is Thieve World from Chaosium.  It gets a 10/10 for very good reason.  I was a huge TW fan back then and I still have my copy of this.  Champions from Hero games makes it first appearance here along with a scenario/adventure The Island of Doctor Destroyer.  Dave Morris likes the game, but doubts anyone will run a Champions campaign.  He gives it 7/10 and 8/10 for game and adventure.  Adventurer from Yaquinto Publications gets a solid 8/10.  Anf finally another Traveller board game that convinced me I'll never understand Traveller, Invasion: Earth gets 8/10 from Andy Slack.

"Griselda Gets Her Men" is the sequel to Lucky Eddi from last issue.  I have been told they are worth the. Maybe I'll give them a try.  After all it is only a page long.

Letters follow next.

Phil Masters presents The Curse of the Wildland, a cool looking adventure for 4-7 characters of 1-2 level in AD&D.   A couple of pages long and featuring a new monster, the Hsiao.

Starbase looks far a field for more ideas for Traveller Referees.

In what was/is one of the more interesting articles from the time we had "The Apocrypha According to St. Andre" by Ken St. Andre himself.  He explains a bit about himself and his game Tunnels & Trolls.  A very interesting read about one of the early pioneers of the gaming world.

Fiend Factor is back again.  This issue's theme are creatures that are often found with other creatures.   The Stirge Demon, found with Stirges has no treause but his Stirge Summoning necklace.   There is also the Weresnake.  The Muryans are giant ants that walk around on their hind legs.   The next page the monsters improve significantly.  The Sprite Knight is a larger sprite that protects other sprites.  The Vampire Wolf (or Coacula) is an undead wolf that serves a vampire.  Other wolves are mentioned, but not detailed.  Finally the Minidrag is a minature dragon like creature.

Treasure Chest has a collection of spells.

We come next to 10 pages of ads and the back cover.
Again, not a stand out issue, but certainly a fun one.  The Ken St. Andre article is a great highlight and the AD&D adventure is a good one too.