The Great Google+ Exodus
Whatever. Nothing that we can do about it, right? It does make me question the integrity of Google itself. I don't know about you, but I have a lot of time invested here! Is Blogger itself in trouble?
Needless to say, I am abandoning the G+ network. I see no point posting to a social network that has no future. I noticed that most of my contacts and folks I follow are going to MeWe, so I went too.
It makes me miss G+. I really liked the interface, MeWe is modelled after Facebook, but at least they won't conduct psychological experiments on us or block our feeds if do something crazy, such as going vegan or whatever.
Like G+ we aren't inundated with ads. You get only what you sign up for which makes it a winner in my book!
What this means for blogger, your guess is as good as mine. Many bloggers had linked their's up to G+, but I never did as it made all of the comments posted on this blog prior to G+ turn invisible.
If you were a friend or a fan of this blog, you can find me at mewe.com/i/rip.x1
Wednesday, October 10, 2018 | | 7 Comments
The Mystery of Dave Arneson's Engine
(This article was written as part of Murkhill's Week-long celebration of Dave Arneson. Click the link to find more great articles!)
Wednesday, September 26, 2018 | | 4 Comments
Playing Like it's 1973
We wrapped up the Second Season of Ravenloft: Masque of the Red Death, and we can now get started on a project that I have been really looking forward to; our own world! If Gothic Earth has taught me anything, it is that it is incredibly easy to create your own spaces. not to mention that it is more interesting to DM because I'm not even sure what is out there.
The biggest change to this game will be the ruleset. It is no secret that there are things in AD&D that I just don't like anymore, and through talking to some of the original players I have found the basic source materials that AD&D was based upon and use that instead. So, we'll be using mostely original Dungeons & Dragons and homebrew it on a need to basis. I want a game that is more Dave Arneson than Gary Gygax, but less tongue in cheek.
I am shooting for a classic game where the players don't know the rules. The more I examine systems, the more I notice the players basing decisions on game facts rather than their own imaginations. I've done my best to weed this kind of metagaming out of their thinking; you know, not limiting them to the character sheet. Is it too late to bring back that sense of wonder and amazement after 30 years of AD&D? I think so.
Monday, April 30, 2018 | | 2 Comments
The TSR Code of Ethics
An interesting article has popped up over at Shane Plays about how TSR had a "Code of Ethics" that might be of interest to you. Go ahead and pop on over there and give it a read, I'll wait here.
http://shaneplays.com/rpg-history-tsr-code-of-ethics-dd-comics-code-authority-rules/#codeofethicsimages
Oh! You're back!
The whole time that I was reading that, I kept getting images of all of the times that they broke those rules. Ultimately, the documents are worthless, or were they? Sure, they broke a rule here or there, but I can only think of specific examples. For the most part, they DID keep to this Code, and they did so at their own peril.
This goes back to the Satanic Panic, so they say, but what really happened was that TSR wanted to bring their product to the mainstream market. What they did had nothing to do with "Keeping Children's Minds Safe", the very idea of a normal someone suddenly losing their mind and identity to a game is insulting. This wasn't done to make the Pope happy, this was done to make INVESTORS happy. Investors who had no idea what in the world that this product was, but they weren't going to let a little thing like that get in the way of wanting to control it.
The Golden Age of Dungeons & Dragons, back when D&D was Pop Culture. Back when it was a set of tools and rough ideas which you the user used to create your own adventures and told your own stories. Those days were gone. Now TSR was into telling you what the stories were, and they were safe, sanitary, and bland . . . unless of course, that got in the way of TSR's profits.
TSR controlled the monologue, and they have always done this well. Heck, they convinced us that 2e was a new system that was even better than the OLD crummy AD&D, when it was just the same system but clamped down tighter so that they had better control of the product. I'm not even convinced that 2e could really even stand on its own; during my games, I've always got to go back to 1e because it was just more fun! How many 2e books do you need to do the work of the 1e DMG?
Yes, yes. I know that this is a 2e Blog. I enjoy the rules, but that doesn't mean that I'm drinking the Kool-ade and liking it. Whenever you spend time with these products as we do, critical thinking is crucial, and I don't always like what I see.
Like many users at the time, I was addicted to modules. TSR had me believing that it was just too hard to do this myself, and that I didn't have time, or that my work just couldn't compete with the fine Professionals at TSR. I was a sucker. TSR didn't want you to see how easy it was to do it yourself, so instead of spending hours writing my own material, I'd spend days fixing their modules and tailoring them to fit my group. Some of the things on this list I changed, but looking back, it wasn't much. Somehow they managed to get me following this code as well.
That said, if one thinks about it, this code defies the very nature of Role Playing Games. It defies what it is that we do. We are talking about a medium where anything can happen, and the possiblities are endless. What if we just don't care that the hamlet has problems with trolls, they don't have to live there, and if trolls are making things dangerous, why risk my character on protecting these fools who want to live out in the middle of troll country? Why would I want to kill all of those goblins when I can enslave them all and have my own army? This NPC who invited me into his house and is described in detail is no doubt the villain, why not just kill him now while he isn't expecting it? Then you've got the DM that says, That isn't the way that the story goes! But isn't that the whole point behind the game?
Further Reading:
Trollsmyth: Abandoned Territory
Thursday, February 15, 2018 | Labels: rants | 4 Comments
Can World Building turn into a huge Red Herring?
So what have I been up to while not updating my blog? Well, I've been prepping. Been second guessing myself a lot as well. I've got my major notes but I've noticed that I spend a lot of time crafting things that ultimately serve no purpose other than to expand a culture or project color. Things should function on multiple levels, aesthetics are good, but not when they distract away from ideas. I think that I kind of overwhelm my players with unintentional red herrings.
That said, I am working on tightening my focus, at least when it comes to preparing my notes. I know as a player I always hated blank worlds. I can't tell you how many times I played and the world was just too bland. I may had gone to the opposite spectrum. Designing an entire session based on just getting to know a foreign environment. Is that boring? We only get to play every forth Saturday, I really need to keep things moving.
Monday, January 08, 2018 | Labels: rants | 4 Comments
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My Blog List
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DDO Light Gravity Glitch – Dungeons & Dragons Online - A temporary Light Gravity glitch lets a player jump to places that are normally inaccessible in Sharn’s Clifftop Tower District in DDO Dungeons & Dragons...2 days ago
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Original Cantrips - Here are some original Cantrips that I wrote up in an unfinished thread back in 2019 that I need to get back to over on my forum and finish. I thought I ...4 days ago
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To Find the Fun in Traps, Did D&D Miss the Search Check? - Traps add fun to Dungeons & Dragons when players can (a) make choices that help uncover them or (b) interact with them. Interaction includes crawling to ev...5 days ago
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The Game Is The Thing - I've been neglecting the blog - a combination of house refurbishment and lots of extra work, but also DMing a regular weekly game. I've remarked before t...5 days ago
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Now for something completely different - Greetings, in this missive I am going to discuss comics – mainly my on and off love affair with Superhero comics and the Big Two. I’ve been a comic from th...6 days ago
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Another exorcism of thoughts: Who are the Nibelungs, Part 3 (final word on culture? magic?) - *I should be doing something else, but I felt the urgency to at least make an attempt to put those ideas down before they are lost in the bliss of a Sund...1 week ago
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Fifty Years of Fantasy Role Play Table-top games. - Today marks an interesting, possibly momentous, anniversary. It has been 50 years since the Boris Karloff movie *The Black Room* aired as part of a dou...2 weeks ago
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How to restart? (Again) - Hard to believe it's been nearly 8 months since I last posted, but here we are. COVID year two and still hanging in there. Family is good, nobody has ...4 weeks ago
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The Management Regrets To Announce... - The Management of this little confection deeply regrets to announce the passing of Captain Sir Thomas Moore, late of the Duke of Wellington's Regiment. Mo...4 weeks ago
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Be Wary of Wizards - So I'm still putzing around with *Tunnels & Trolls* solitaire adventures. There's a lot of them. At least 25 full-length solitaire modules were published ...4 weeks ago
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Ind of the Year - The Colors of Magic - On December 1st, there will be a nice bundle of small, indie itch RPGs from around the world called the *Ind of the Year Bundle 2020* that includes *The Co...3 months ago
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Quantum D&D - A funny thing happened to D&D in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s: it got popular. It went from a game everyone learned from someone whose knowledge of the...4 months ago
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Be The DM, 1 - OK, I've run plenty of games and I've talked with and read the thoughts of many other DM's. One thing is certain; No two DM's are the same. I have seen ...4 months ago
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The Crowning of King Harold - Here is a spooky story that comes from my latest novel, Lions Red and Gold, available now in digital and dead tree only on Amazon. I post it here in ho...4 months ago
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Still Alive - It's been a crazy year since the last post. I got married last Halloween. Yay! My diabetes kicked my ass. Boo! I've been in physical decline since bef...6 months ago
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Dungeon, exploration and the title: "Dungeons & Dragons" - This is the second post in a two-part series of posts on the title of Dungeons & Dragons as a means to empower hobbyists to start their own medieval fan...7 months ago
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MIDLANDS CHARACTER GENERATION - Character development (of Player via imagined formative experiences) in my dog in DMing. Placyer character development is a huge part of my sandbox. I use ...7 months ago
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Forbidden Lands - la modernità della Vecchia Scuola - Salve ragazzi, è veramente un sacco di tempo che manco da questi luoghi, ma come diceva qualcuno “non tutto quel ch’è oro brilla, né gli erranti son perdu...9 months ago
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The Mauve Plague, Gravy Urns, and Batlace Frills: News from the Hill Cantons - And now the News... In a statement beamed from the Oracular Society today *Morafans the Rickmaster*, the Psychosocial Health Minister of the Overking, ha...11 months ago
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Lake Geneva Original RPG Campaign: Merlynd the Magician: A Remembrance of Don Kaye, ... - Lake Geneva Original RPG Campaign: Merlynd the Magician: A Remembrance of Don Kaye, ...: LINK to Description and Ordering: https://www.tlbgames.com/colle...1 year ago
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Blackmoor Week 2019 (9/24/19) - Blackmoor Week and Dave Arneson Game Day running from September 24th through October 1st. This year 2019 is the 45th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons and ...1 year ago
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Dave Arneson Blackmoor Week and Game Day 2019 - Blackmoor Week begins today Sept 24, 2019. What are you doing this week to celebrate Dave Arneson's Birthday and his foundational game setting Blackmoor ak...1 year ago
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Blackmoor Week Day I 2019 - *Blackmoor Week* kicks off today and concludes on October 1st with *Dave Arneson Game Day*. [image: Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor - B-Ware - Sphärenmeisters Spi...1 year ago
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Character Concepts: Planescape pt 3 - Part 1 Part 2 Continuing my series on oddball Planescape Faction Personalities... Harmonium Sidby the Stick (LG/halfling/fighter) - Sidby's a good enough b...1 year ago
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D&D Sling Damage vs. Large Targets - In many early editions of D&D, weapons were assigned two damage values: one for small/medium targets (i.e. man-sized) and one for large targets (giants and...1 year ago
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Announcing the Contest Winner! (Plus Some Interesting US Coin Facts) - The third semi-annual Save Versus All Wands contest - What is the Value of this Coin Hoard - is over. $1,000 was the winning guess, only a bit below the ...2 years ago

Contact me at Ripx187@gmail.com
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