Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Old School at the Olde Ship: Pictures and Recap

  Gamma World Late Shift
(Clockwise from left: Summerisle, St. Yossarian, Cylco, Harry)

On Sunday a gaggle of old school roleplayers took over a corner of the Olde Ship British Pub in Santa Ana, California. I counted a total of 16 attendees with gaming going on for 11 hours. Tables were filled with ales, meat pies, polyhedral dice, and character sheets. The hilarious British manager Jackie kept the provisions flowing while she was listening in and checking up on the progress of each game.

There were two concurrent afternoon sessions. There was a large D&D game of the Judge's Guild classic Tegel Manor (a prequel, actually) run by Brunomac of the Temple of Demogorgon blog (CLICK HERE to read Brunomac's report ). At the same time Trent Foster ran a D&D session of his massive homebrewed Castle Xanadu dungeon. In Trent's game I played a flying fairy named Sprincus and at one point we tangled with a gremlin witch doctor! Can't beat that, huh? It was super cool! CLICK HERE to read a thorough session recap Trent wrote up.

For the 6 players remaining after dinner I ran a session of the original Gamma World. I took the group through the Floating Castle of the Wasp Women - a scenario I ran at Gamex last year. The players started out trying to capture an anti-gravity-generating brain from a hive of giant wasp women, and found themselves in the middle of an insect revolution. I had fun and I hope they did too!

Everyone said they had a blast and want to do it again. The Olde Ship even offered to set up a private buffet for our group the next time we come. Maybe we can turn this into a semi-regular thing...?

Thanks to Saint Yossarian and The European for pictures!

 Brunomac's Tegel Manor D&D Game
(Clockwise from left: Juan, Monk, Robert, The European, Brunomac, Terry, ?, ?, ? )


Trent Foster's Castle Xanadu D&D Game
(Clockwise from left: St. Yossarian, Cylco, T. Foster, jallison, The Shaman) 


Alright, enough Speckled Hen already... 
(Clockwise from left: Cyclo, Harry, The European) 

Friday, March 18, 2011

Horror in the Cloud Mines: Sessions 15 & 16

So, for those of your who are newcomers to my blog, I’ve been running a Labyrinth Lord campaign that's slowed down significantly over the last 1-2 years when one of the couples playing in the game had a baby, then my wife (player) and I (DM) had a baby too. At this point, everyone in the campaign has a baby or toddler. Now that we are all getting our little kiddies on predictable sleep schedules we’re getting the campaign moving again!

If you want to read through the old session reports more thoroughly you can CLICK HERE. But, in a nut-shell, the party is now exploring an inverse aerial cloud mine “dungeon” composed of enclosed floating platforms attached to the ground far below by great chains. There’s a system of gondolas joining the swaying, creaking platforms together. It should also be mentioned that this cloud mine is located in a small valley completely engulfed in a pink mist writhing with wailing corpse ghosts that invoke great supernatural terror. Many of the platforms have large glass distilleries in them that seem to be extracting a gooey, red substance from the mist.

Current Mysteries:
Who is the child Cinnabar Witch depicted in shrines placed around the mine platforms?
Why are translucent ape-beasts roaming the mine?
Why are the mineworkers, small blue eyeless people, all dead?
What is the substance being distilled from the haunted vapor?

Session 15: Shortish session with a drop-in guest player. The group headed back into the cloud mines after, in the previous adventure, a cloud beast followed them back to Penelion, slaying a young girl. The party made it up to a third distillery level that had some sort of temple in it. On the floor was the body of a slain priest in red robes. The party was fell upon by temple-guardian wood golems, to which they responded cleverly with oil and fire. The group hastily retreated back to a gondola to let the golems burn. End of session. One party casualty: the only dwarf, who left behind his pet tunnel dog. Now we have a dog NPC in the group!

Session 16: My mother- and sister-in-law dropped in, taking over the roles of two staff-wielding monk priestesses of the Penelion Sisterhood. The party traveled back to clean up after the charred wood golems. They explored the temple, finding a silver mask effigy of the Cinnabar Witch encrusted with diamonds and bearing carnelian eyes. The mask appeared to be a device with which one could speak directly with the witch. The MU and thief both had short whispered conversations with the witch, learning that she was sending a group of reinforcements to assess the situation in the mine. The thief grabbed the mask, and the party headed back out of the mines, setting up camp just outside the valley in order to await the arrival of the witch’s people. Oh yeah, before their bedtime the party had to dispatch some giant wandering lizards that stumbled off Moldvay’s wandering monster table into their camp.

They were fun sessions, if on the shortish side (~2 hours). It was cool playing with my mother-in-law who’s in her 60s and didn’t even really know what D&D was. She always associated D&D with cults, satan-worship, drugs, and parent-killing. She might still might make this association, but at least she knows it can all be good fun - she got excited when she rolled a hot 20 and zonked out a cloud beast with her great staff!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

GAME DAY REMINDER: OD&D and Ale This Sunday in Santa Ana!

This is just a reminder that we are having an old school RPG day in Santa Ana (California) this Sunday! Three games will be going down. Two OD&D sessions run by Brunomac and Trent Foster, respectively, and a Gamma World session run by yours truly. Gaming starts at 11am and will probably go until 10 or 11pm.

One of the coolest aspects of this event is the location: The Olde Ship British Pub and Restaurant in Santa Ana. This place has awesome atmosphere, food, and ale. The event is FREE but we ask that you please purchase food and drink and tip the servers well if you attend.

CLICK HERE for further details and to check the RSVP status for the various games. As of now there are still a few seats open for OD&D, but the Gamma World session is full. I will jot down alternate names for any events in case of no shows.

Even if you can't break off time to game with us feel free to come by to say "Hi!" and put an ale or meat pie in your face!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Elf Ork Porn Welcomes You to OSR (And My Other Weirdest Keyword Hits This Week)

By this morning everyone is undoubtedly aware of James' brilliant idea to use his hottest blog keyword combo hot elf chick to pimp their blogs.

This is funny timing, because over the last week I have been keeping notes on the weirdest Google search keywords that have resulted in people finding my blog. Yes - elf ork porn uncovered my blog for some mysterious soul out there in the world. Don't ask me why, because I've never written about my feelings on this topic. Here are this week's keyword winners grouped by theme:

NAUGHTY:
elf ork porn   (cool)
cyclopeatron porn   (I'm flattered)
trent foster porn   (Another L.A. DM making naughty movies, eh?)
kitten raping clown demon
necro babe
limp hammer
3d tits   (Definitely better than 2d tits)
tits anaglyph

TATTOOS:
wizard castle tattoos   (Awesome - I want one of these)
happyclown tattoo  (I'll pass...)

MYSTERIES I CAN'T HELP WITH:
are there any tunnels on venus
how to identify water mycelium
the cost of cotton in 1840   (I hope this person enjoyed Cyclopeatron) 
80s fashion jcpenney    (Must be my new Arnesonian eyeglass frames) 
thought tunnel task sheet   (Sounds like an excellent gaming aide)

OBESITY EPIDEMIC:
fat larper
fat wizard  (This one has popped up twice this week)

GAME NERDZ:
half orc larp  (A result of human + orc larp gone to far?) 
larp hammer
dices my precious

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Blog Readers Don't Want Creative Content

My last post about the OSR Blog Graveyard generated an interesting discussion about the nature of OSR blogosphere content. I mentioned in a comment that even though quite a few blogs have gone quiet, there are still over 200 that are regularly pumping out a Dragon Magazine’s worth of material every day or two. This comment generated these thoughtful responses:
-C: “Entirely too much of that dragon magazine's worth of material is equivalent to forum letters, rather than articles. I am fairly frustrated during my daily blog roll review at the amount of posts that are nothing more than opinion pieces on "what OSR means" and the absurd "OSR is dead" other rubbish.”
Dyson Logos: “I'm with -C from Hack & Slash. Even worse than the navel-gazing though is the edition warriors. Keep to the content generation and talking about how awesome our games are (with examples of play, not with navel-gazing) instead of how un-awesome something is.”

As a blog READER I like the best of both commentary (i.e. history, news, and opinion) and creative content. I think both can be done quite well. As well, both are equally susceptible to becoming trivial and uninteresting in the wrong hands.

In contrast, as a blog WRITER I find myself constantly pulled towards writing more commentary. Why? These are by far my most popular posts. I would be lying if I said I don’t get some sort of positive reinforcement when a post gets a ton of comments and hits. I’m only human.

I’ve put a modicum of effort into a number of creative content posts – like my Gamma World character sheet, fillable-PDF henchman cards, and fully-illustrated culinary guide to wizard entrails. I like writing these kinds of posts and I will continue to do so. The attention these posts get, however, is miniscule compared to something like my pretentious and gametastically useless I Am D&D post from a few days ago.

So what does this all mean? Well, one obvious explanation is that the creative content I produce stinks, which may well be true. I think, however, that most blog readers truly prefer commentary over creative content. Grognardia is the biggest old school gaming blog around – how much creative content does it have? Virtually none. On the other side of the coin, I could easily name several blogs that regularly produce excellent creative content yet attract relatively little attention.

Even though I think most readers would say they like creative content the best, I bet you dollars-to-donuts their mouse clicks would say otherwise…

Monday, March 7, 2011

The OSR Blog Graveyard

For my blogometric exercises I need to track blogs by following them on blogger.com. Unfortunately blogger.com only allows me to follow a maximum of 300 blogs. I have now maxed out this number. In order for me to keep track of new and interesting blogs that pop up, I am now forced to unfollow blogs that are dead or inactive.

I combed my list for blogs that are either DEAD, EMPTY, or INACTIVE (i.e. no posts for ~2 months or more). Here I present a list of these 59 blogs. I will unfollow and stop tracking all DEAD and EMPTY blogs, and all blogs that have been inactive for four or more months. If you own one of these blogs and care, feel free to drop me a note telling me that you intend to revive your blog in the near future, and I will gladly keep tracking it for my blogometrics posts.


Links to all blogs that have content, even if they are inactive, will remain on my master blog list.

Blog
Status
Months Inactive
GONE

GONE

GONE

GONE

GONE

GONE

EMPTY

EMPTY

INACTIVE
2
INACTIVE
5
INACTIVE
2
INACTIVE
2
INACTIVE
3
INACTIVE
3
INACTIVE
3
INACTIVE
7
INACTIVE
2
INACTIVE
7
INACTIVE
9
INACTIVE
7
INACTIVE
8
INACTIVE
2
INACTIVE
4
INACTIVE
2
INACTIVE
11
INACTIVE
8
INACTIVE
6
INACTIVE
3
INACTIVE
4
INACTIVE
6
INACTIVE
2
INACTIVE
4
INACTIVE
6
INACTIVE
5
INACTIVE
7
INACTIVE
6
INACTIVE
3
INACTIVE
2
INACTIVE
2
INACTIVE
4
INACTIVE
5
INACTIVE
5
INACTIVE
5
INACTIVE
4
INACTIVE
3
INACTIVE
9
INACTIVE
5
INACTIVE
6
INACTIVE
4
INACTIVE
4
INACTIVE
3
INACTIVE
3
INACTIVE
9
INACTIVE
4
INACTIVE
6
INACTIVE
2
INACTIVE
5
INACTIVE
5
INACTIVE
6

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Wizard Banjo

One of the strangest and rarest of magic items: A Wizard Banjo!

Friday, March 4, 2011

F*ck Hasbro. I Am D&D.

So Are You.

What's up with these blog posts describing people shying away from saying "I play D&D"?

I play a game, and on the box it says "Dungeons & Dragons".

If someone is nerdy enough to know and care that there are different versions of D&D, it only takes two more syllables to say "I play old school D&D". Give me a break - Hasbro lawyers aren't going to break into your dining room to confiscate your Gary Gygax books. Hasbro might repress their legacy PDFs, but they can't unpublish the past. We need to fight, not acquiesce. Only through our constant use of the term "Dungeons & Dragons" can we promote genericization of the trademark. As the Old School Rebellion, I see it as our duty to do this. D&D is just too awesome and too personal to let it be co-opted by the highest bidder. It's not a simple boardgame like Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit - it's a beautiful, creative, life-long hobby we share with our friends. The dirty secret Hasbro wants you to forget is that you don't have to buy anything from them (or anyone else) to play D&D.

There is no reason to cede D&D to Hasbro. The only reason I can think of to use a silly code word for D&D is for commercial publishing - and that's what the retro-clones are for, right? End of discussion.

I play D&D. We all play D&D.

We are D&D, and D&D is us.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Poll: What Generation D&D Player Are You?

There's been a lot of interest in my last post, which outlines the six generations of D&D players. One commenter suggested a poll, which sounds like a fun idea! Soooo... based on the generations I outlined, where do YOU fit in?

Poll in right column ---->

Defining the Six Generations of D&D Players

People like to talk about what generation of D&D players they belong to (for example, see a post today at The Other Side blog). Here's how I've always thought of the six generations of D&D players. I consider myself late 2nd generation because I started with the Moldvay Basic Set.

I just started a poll in the right column -->

The Founders: Pre-1974
You belong to the tiny group of people who gamed with Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, Rob Kuntz, etc. before D&D was commercially available.


1st Generation: 1974-1977
Game: Dungeons & Dragons

Characteristics: You belong to a relatively small group that starting roleplaying with the three little brown books. These may have been blurry bootleg facsimiles, or, if you were lucky, they were originals tucked into a woodgrain or white box (shown).


2nd Generation: 1978-1982
Games: Basic Set (Holmes), Basic/Expert Sets (Moldvay/Cook), Advanced D&D

Characteristics: You belong to the largest generation of D&D players. You came of age in the late 1970s or early 1980s when D&D was a huge fad and sold zillions of copies. It's likely that you began playing with the Holmes "Blue Box" or Moldvay "Purple Box" (shown) basic sets, eventually "graduating" to the AD&D hardcovers. 


3rd Generation: 1983-1988
Games: Basic/Expert/Companion/Master/Immortal Series, "Updated" AD&D

Characteristics: Even though D&D went through a major popularity decline in the mid-80s, new players like you continued to pick up the game either through the expanded series of boxed sets - including Mentzer's famous "Red Box" basic set (shown) - or through the ever-expanding line of updated AD&D hardbacks with the Easley covers.



4th Generation: 1989-1999
Games: AD&D 2nd Edition, D&D Game, Classic D&D, Rules Cyclopedia

Characteristics: You primarily played AD&D 2e, although a small number of you may have been introduced to the game through the various basic editions (The D&D Game or Classic D&D). This was the lowest point for D&D as most roleplayers during this period favored games like Vampire or GURPS or skipped RPGs altogether to be part of the new collectible card game scene.
 


5th Generation: 2000-2007
Games: D&D 3rd Edition (and 3.5)

Characteristics: You started playing D&D with 3e or 3.5e, probably in the heyday of the d20 open gaming license. 3e breathed new life into D&D at this time, but interest eventually started to wane due to a glut of poor quality third party products, and a confusing progression of complex rule additions, updates, and errata.



6th Generation: 2008-now
Games: D&D 4th Edition, Retroclones (Pathfinder, Labyrinth Lord, etc.)

Characteristics: You first started playing D&D a couple of years ago, most likely the 4th edition. This generation is quite different than preceding generations, however, because many new players are choosing to start with earlier editions of D&D, especially the 3.5e retroclone Pathfinder which threatens to eclipse D&D 4e in popularity.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

The Fastest Growing OSR Blogs of February

Here's a list of 243 old schoolish roleplaying blogs ranked by the number of followers they gained between January 31st and March 1st. I rank blogs using this system - as opposed to raw follower number - in order to determine which blogs are "hottest" without being biased by how long a blog has been around. My main motivation for making this list is to highlight the blogs that are currently attracting the most reader attention regardless of the blogs' age. Out of respect, I DO NOT list blogs with zero or negative growth.

My usual blogometric caveats apply: (1) This list only has blogger.com blogs because follower numbers are not publicly available for WordPress blogs. (2) Yes, I know some blogs are missing. If your blog is on my big blog list as of today, it should be in the next ranking. If your blog is not on my list and you want to be included, please email me the link through my profile.

Last month's hottest blog was Dreams in the Lich House. This is a straight-up excellent blog focusing on classic D&D via the popular Lamentations of the Flame Princess retroclone. It has a good mix of opinion, creative content, and session reports. It also won Gothridge Manor's Newbie Blogger Award for February. Keep it up, Beedo!

The next hottest blog of the month was The Yaqqothl Grimoire, which focuses on classic D&D with a weird fantasy twist. Il Male writes great stuff and is super prolific. I highly recommend this awesome blog!

Other younger blogs that topped the list were Rather Gamey, A Pack of Gnolls (also a winner of the Newbie Blogger Award), Hack & Slash, and Gorgonmilk. Be sure to give them all a click (YES - you can click on the blog names below, they are all links)!


Blog Name
1-Mar
31-Jan
Change
80
46
34
47
14
33
813
783
30
58
28
30
30
5
25
54
31
23
54
32
22
641
619
22
140
119
21
247
227
20
129
109
20
111
91
20
160
141
19
122
103
19
233
214
19
305
288
17
172
155
17
139
122
17
143
126
17
138
122
16
99
84
15
54
39
15
66
52
14
14
0
14
91
77
14
165
152
13
78
65
13
429
416
13
33
20
13
47
34
13
95
83
12
118
106
12
45
33
12
268
256
12
141
129
12
60
48
12
136
124
12
97
85
12
61
49
12
122
110
12
246
235
11
47
36
11
224
213
11
116
105
11
354
343
11
122
111
11
153
142
11
99
89
10
75
65
10
40
30
10
52
43
9
189
180
9
91
82
9
66
57
9
61
52
9
166
157
9
228
219
9
41
33
8
20
12
8
88
80
8
61
53
8
188
180
8
29
21
8
28
20
8
32
24
8
8
0
8
118
111
7
22
15
7
45
38
7
112
105
7
29
22
7
22
15
7
138
131
7
140
133
7
60
53
7
208
201
7
105
98
7
46
39
7
161
154
7
68
61
7
46
39
7
195
188
7
28
22
6
101
95
6
177
171
6
54
48
6
218
212
6
21
15
6
66
60
6
125
119
6
36
30
6
62
56
6
119
113
6
40
34
6
114
109
5
30
25
5
47
42
5
245
240
5
41
36
5
57
52
5
35
30
5
138
133
5
98
93
5
120
115
5
156
151
5
195
190
5
24
19
5
50
45
5
51
46
5
95
90
5
175
170
5
44
39
5
70
65
5
93
88
5
38
34
4
32
28
4
90
86
4
20
16
4
36
32
4
56
52
4
50
46
4
17
13
4
73
69
4
19
15
4
48
44
4
37
33
4
138
134
4
5
1
4
12
8
4
28
24
4
29
25
4
22
18
4
73
69
4
36
32
4
43
39
4
109
105
4
91
87
4
60
56
4
27
23
4
141
137
4
17
13
4
78
74
4
98
94
4
73
69
4
100
96
4
7
3
4
51
48
3
40
37
3
56
53
3
53
50
3
116
113
3
62
59
3
19
16
3
83
80
3
64
61
3
21
18
3
16
13
3
37
34
3
48
45
3
52
49
3
150
147
3
57
54
3
58
55
3
9
6
3
49
46
3
42
39
3
199
196
3
13
10
3
40
37
3
70
67
3
48
45
3
38
35
3
21
18
3
54
51
3
134
131
3
3
0
3
19
16
3
6
3
3
45
42
3
49
46
3
23
20
3
18
15
3
49
47
2
2
0
2
30
28
2
54
52
2
48
46
2
36
34
2
24
22
2
48
46
2
37
35
2
25
23
2
17
15
2
14
12
2
35
33
2
46
44
2
86
84
2
40
38
2
56
54
2
37
35
2
56
54
2
44
42
2
36
34
2
6
4
2
15
13
2
28
26
2
30
28
2
76
74
2
79
77
2
78
76
2
13
12
1
36
35
1
26
25
1
14
13
1
35
34
1
19
18
1
75
74
1
26
25
1
24
23
1
23
22
1
38
37
1
45
44
1
35
34
1
7
6
1
24
23
1
25
24
1
14
13
1
16
15
1
28
27
1
14
13
1
72
71
1
64
63
1
40
39
1
129
128
1
26
25
1
18
17
1
9
8
1
48
47
1
7
6
1
9
8
1
50
49
1
50
49
1
37
36
1


NOTE: Yes, this is a REPOST. For some reason blogger.com would not forward the previous version to blogrolls or readers.