Monday, June 27, 2011

Random thoughts while I can't sleep

I know, it is past 4 in the morning.  I can't sleep yet.  Far to much to do.

I am still working on a fantasy novel of mine.

I'm working on a 1st edition campaign that I hope will rock people's socks off.

And, currently I'm listening to the RFI podcast, which can be found here.

Some of my thoughts...
I am loving this guy's blog.  I'm finding so much stuff from his blog to put in that my campaign folder has reached over a hundred pages.  I just now found a god that he has been referring to again and again and again.  After finding it, I love it and it is going into my campaign.

I like RFI.  I also like the others, Save or Die and THACO's Hammer.  All of these are great podcasts, mine is a pale imitation at times.  (Yes, I will be getting a podcast up soon.)  Something I like about them is they get me excited about gaming.  About wanting to run a campaign.  It could also be a bad thing when I get a campaign going, yet that is the nature of the beast.

And, I really, really, REALLY want to run a 1st edition AD&D campaign.  This is the campaign I am working on right now, been working on it for some time.  It will still need a bit before I finally get around to running the dang thing, yet that is also the nature of the beast.

And now, I am going to try and go to sleep.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Life...

I know I haven't posted for awhile.  Been busy working on a fantasy novel.  I have also been ignoring gaming for the most part.  (I haven't played much of the Temple game in the last two weeks and my friend's Fallout game at all.)


This is just the way of things.  Life gets in the way of things.

However, that doesn't mean I am going to stop reading other blogs, or stop working on this one.  The podcast should be up sometime next week.  I will keep you gentle readers up to date on that.

Something I have noticed in the blogsphere is how annoying some people can be about their own ideas.  I realize it is kind of silly to say that when my own blog has the name Rant in it.  Yet, I try to understand where other people are coming from.  There are others out there who have such a myopic opinion that they immediately say that if you don't agree with me, you are wrong.  (I will not be acting like a tattle-tale, saying who is doing this or that.  That is rather silly in my opinion and not what I set this blog up for.)

Also, I do realize that the blogs are someone's opinion and nothing more.  AND, if you don't like it, don't read the rest of the article, blog or whatever and go on to the next one.  Or, just stop reading them in general.

More to come later...

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

DCC and 1st edition

If you haven't heard yet, Goodman Games has a beta of their Dungeon Crawler Classic rules, get it right here.

I have looked over the beta a few times and I like most of what they have.  This is not the heroic AD&D, this is gritty and harsh.  I fucking love it!  I plan on trying to get some guys together for a short game or two.  But, it has already burrowed its way into my head.

Luck is involved in this game.  Thieves need it for a boost to skills.  Fighters get it for extra boost to a weapon.  Wizard and Clerics get it for helping get through spell checks.  This is an amazing little rule that I have added it to the 1st edition AD&D game I am working on.  I need to change a few things, but hey, it happens.

Also, another thing I am adding is the way magic works in DCC.  Two things happen in DCC.  One is whenever a magic user learns a spell, something weird and/or bizarre can happen.  Wind could shoot out from the wizard, tiny demons could spill out and surround the caster for a few rounds or it could be harder for him to cast the spell.  Also, there is a mechanic called corruption.  Arcane magic is dangerous again.  This is something I have been looking for, to make magic strange again.  Clerics have their own deal as well.  I highly recommend this game after just skimming it.

However, a warning, this is not a complete set of rules.  This is just a beta.  You take characters from 0-3, (YES, you have to start at lvl. 0), in a short campaign.  The rules come out in November--I already have my copy pre-ordered.  I am looking forward to it.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Desert Adventure

I'm going on a sort of vacation for the week.  I will update this blog as much as I can.

I do find one thing interesting.  For the next week, I'm going to be a condo int he desert and I packed up a few clothes and the like, don't need to bring other things, it is my parent's condo.  But, I did bring D&D books and modules.

I see this as an opportunity to really flesh out this world I am creating and this campaign.  I will try and post pix of all the books I brought.  What is interesting is that I have brought such a range.  I have most of the 1st edition books with me.  But, I also brought a few 4e books, after stepping off the bandwagon of the war, I find I am looking at them in a different light.  They have some interesting points, some nice fluff and a nice dungeon design or two.  That is the reason I brought them, not to play the game.  (Though, I might find a game out here with some other gamer nerds.  You never know...)

Also, brought a few things from Hackmaster.  This isn't to big of a mindboggle.  It is a synthesis of 1st and 2nd edition with some real extra crunch thrown in.  Also, brought some Castles and Crusade stuff, using the Castle of Zagyg setting for encounters and random stuff.

Yet, this will be a 1st. edition game.  Completely...well, there might be a minor change or two to the rules.  Yet, Gygax said they are guidelines.


Now, I am off to try and find some graph paper and work on a map.  I like drawing them, yet at the same time, I am horrible.  I can never get the scale right for world maps.  Oh well...

Sunday, June 5, 2011

PODCAST!!!

At long last, we get another podcast up!  Finally.  Get your piping hot podcast here.

Also, here is the blog about the post-apocalyptic game and his thoughts.  He has a list of his previous blogs on D&D.

Here is the story about a killer door.

I can't find the blog about the random encounters.  And, I am off to smite evil in the Temple of Elemental Evil.  Will Sir William survive?  Or will he die much like the previous cavalier, Sir Jeremiah Wallace, the Baron of Greystone?  Only time will tell.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Campaign ideas

Been working on my campaign world and thought I was going to take a break for a day or so.  Then, I realized after I left my girlfriend's place, my mind was already working on something for the game.  It is the same when I write fiction.  I take a break for whatever reason and I realize when I come back to it, my mind has had something on the back burner, simmering away.  Though, if you wait to long, the pans can be cooked right through and your idea is one burnt black thing that you need to work to even understand or just give up and hope that it comes back...ok, enough food analogies, I'm getting hungry!


Moving on...I discovered that there were several things that mind mind flashed to.  One was an old episode of a cartoon with a guy who lost his family and started carrying a photo book with him.  He called it his book of rage.  (If you know the name of the cartoon, good for you.)  My mind tweaked it and has used it before in a two episode game, changing his lost of family from the government to the gods.  And, because I needed something to challenge my players, I gave them rage zombies.  (Something like the things, not zombies from the movie 28 Days Later.  Those things are not zombies in the traditional sense, yet it worked for me then and it works now.)

Another idea that came was from the Sword for Truth series.  The nightstone.  In the book, it summons shades from the Underworld.  In my world, in summons undead.  Anyone holding it will attract any kind of undead.  And, it makes turning them harder.  (Yes, I am evil.)

Another came reading the Vornheim City Kit.  (This is an amazing product by the way.  I can't recommend it enough.  No matter what edition you use, or retro-clone, this is going to help any campaign you make.  Not just for the city games either.  There are threads of adventure that can start out in the wilderness that can lead to your big mega-city like Vornheim.  I'll even give an example of something I plan to do.  If my players are reading, be cool and either skip to the end of the paragraph or don't be a meta-game dick!  There is a library, run by a man named Zorlac who loves books.  He hires library thieves to find more and more books for his ever growing collection.  I plan to have the PCs either help these librarian thieves by bring back books or having a librarian of Zorlac stumble into them in the hinterlands, see that they have a tome of some unknown author and/or subject and steal it, or attempt to steal from them.  I can see more than a few sessions spent trying to keep the book away or trying to get the book back.)

Another came from combing through this guy.  (A special shout out to Ancient Vaults, you come up with some amazing stuff!)  Looking through his blog, I was stunned by the number of adventure seeds and partial campaign ideas that sprang from reading that one blog.

Finally, the last place where I get my ideas comes from a actual play podcast.  This one has been around for awhile these guys do all kinds of games, Pathfinder, 4e, Temple of Elemental Evil, World's Largest Dungeon, etc.  I was trying to sleep and listening to one of the actual plays of their Keep on the Shadowfell.  I have read through it and suddenly, while I was trying to fall asleep, listening to them tangle with the kobolds, my head started to spin a little nugget from a few pieces I remembered from the module and from what they were doing.  It didn't help me get to sleep though.  Bu thtese thigns happen.

In closing, I never know when my mind will grab and idea and start to play with it.  Turn it around and exam it, looking for ideas.  Even now, something sprang to mind from a different blog, talking about shrines, a link and now, I must go.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Around the blogsphere

Something I have noticed while I ponder upon my own games is I read blogs.  MANY, MANY blogs about gaming.  I have a list of some of them to the right of this post.  Yet, that is a drop in the bucket to the amount I actually look at on a daily basis.  (Though, to be fair, not all of them update EVER day.)

Some of them play the same edition I do, some are very old school, a few are buffet style gamers, picking and choosing.  None of these are the wrong approaches to gaming at all.

I suggest in this short little post that anyone who reads my blog go out and read someone else.  Find one on the side there or just type in "role playing blog" and you will get a jillion of them.

Try it, you might find someone you like.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Campaign making

Recently I started making a 1st edition AD&D campaign.  I have no idea how long it will last, yet I always try and make these campaigns that will last a long time.  And, one thing happens ever time...

I find something better I want to try or the game runs out of steam.  When I say "better" I mean something different.  The "new shiny" as some gamers put it.  I have tried to squash this as much as I can when I started the Star Wars Saga game awhile back.  It worked, to some extent.  Yet, I wasn't helping my case with listening to various podcasts about the different D&D editions that I listen to repeatedly and randomly pulling out role playing books and leafing through them if I was bored.  Yet, this is something that will happen.  This is just how I am.

But, does that mean I am going to stop planning?  No.  Cause I think there is something else.  The Star Wars Saga game ran out of steam for various reasons.  There were problems and inter-party issues.  Yet, mostly, it was me running out of ideas to throw at the party.  I made that game a sandbox and it was just to vast for me to really get the story moving when I switched from a gunning style to letting the characters catch their breath.

This new campaign I have based partially on some ides from the podcast RFI and their real play podcast.  Also throwing in a sprinkling of modules from various editions and and some clones of the game as well.  This is something that I have wanted to do for awhile.  Have these modules in the game, set out in various places waiting to be discovered.  Some aren't exactly what the actual modules are like, needing to be adjusted for the campaign world itself.  This is just the way of things when it comes to a campaign.  Or at least with my campaign.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Edition Wars...I want off the bandwagon

I have been wondering around the hills, dales, vales, dungeons and even braved the nodes of the Temple of Elemental Evil, Existential Evil and even braved the Return to the Temple and though I wanted to sally forth again into Hommlet for the current rules, I never have.

Yet, I have always complained, bitched and ranted about the rule sets that aren't MY edition of D&D.  And, I think I might have mellowed a little with age.  Because, I have gotten to the point where I just don't care anymore.  I will talk about the edition I want to, I might bring up a note or two, perhaps with a sarcastic quip along with it, yet I can't do this fighting anymore.  I am done, I am burning my draft card for the 2nd edition light brigade and just getting back to playing the damn game!

Am I saying I want to hold hands and sing?  NO!  Everyone is going to have their own edition or retro-clone that they want to play.  I am one of those people who love 2nd edition.  I also have found 1st edition AD&D to be an intriguing system.  But, I can't gripe and bitch about how something that is coming out now is horrible and a piece of shite.  Just done with this petty bull.

Everyone is going to play the edition that they want to.  GO FOR IT!  It doesn't matter what others say.  If all your friends want to play 4e, and you want to play Metzer, find a group who will.  OR, ask your friends to try it.  They might actually like some of it.  If they don't and call you stupid, go get new friends.

All of the edition have merits and flaws.  It is the nature of the role playing beast.  Everyone will have a favorite.  I know what mine is.  You know what yours is.  Should we get over this edition war bull, yes!  Do we have to agree?  FUCK no!  Should we at least be civil to each other?  YES!!!  We are all gamers here.  Be cool to each other.  Try a different edition ever once and again.  If you have and think everything after Holmes is horrendous, then by all means play your little heart out of Holmes.  If you think 4e is the bee's knees (yes, I went there) have fun!  Long as you tolerate other gamers and maybe try something new every once and again, things will be fine.

There is something for everyone out there.  As for me, I'm going to my shelf and work on a 1st edition campaign.  And, play in the Hackmaster/1st ed. mash up.  And, Serenity and the Fallout game.

Thanks for reading.