19th Level

Concept For Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day I thought I'd revisit something I'd thought about two years ago . One of my frustration with older versions of D&D is the fact that some classes, like thieves, just aren't very good at what they are supposed to do at low levels. A 1st level cleric is decent at combat and can turn undead. A 1st level thief has limited armor, low hit points, and thief abilities which have very high chances of failure along with some pretty nasty consequences. What I'd like to do is realize a version of the thief that has a reasonable amount of competence at low levels such that a 1st level thief feels like he or she is contributing to the group. But I don't want it to be so awesome that everyone lines up to take it - 1st level should be scary after all... I've used Supplement I: Greyhawk as my starting point. I'm using the White Box rules for this, though the concept would not be difficult to transfer to the Comp...

Cover from Goodreads.com I was recently flipping through Goodman Games' "The Chained Coffin" adventure. Author Michael Curtis refers to his primary inspiration being Manly Wade Wellman's "Silver John" stories. Manly Wade Wellman appears in the original Dungeon Master's Guide "Appendix N: Inspirational and Educational Reading". I decided to do a quick ebook search and much to my disappointment there wasn't an ebook to be found. I did order a few used books and discovered his first "Silver John" novel, The   Old Gods Waken,  available on audible.com . Most people seem to have a preference for Wellman's short stories but I figured "why not" and purchased the audiobook. It's a well done narration by Stefan Rudnicki. There's two things to discuss. First, what the book is about and second, what it feels like. In this case the feel is more important aspect but I'll discuss both. The "Silver John...

Tull from "The Gunslinger" by Stephen King; Art by Michael Whelan Games like Dungeon Crawl Classics make the suggestion that one should strive for a smaller scale world - a world where the way to find out what is in the next valley is to go to that next valley. Maybe there's travelers who can give you some hints of what is out there if you're lucky, but if you want to be sure, you need to go there. I'm a big fan of works like A Song of Ice and Fire  which deals with large nation-states, battles for the throne, long distance travel, worldwide threats and organizations. That's pretty far in the opposite direction. I got to thinking what are some examples of works that focus on a smaller world. Worlds where when you go into a new village it feels different, with a whole new set of traditions. It's been a while since I read Jack Vance's Dying Earth series but that is one inspiration that came to mind quickly. It's also something you see in his...

Like a lot of gamers, I support a lot of Kickstarter projects. Most of the projects I've supported have come through though I've had a few busts. I was going to make this a Google+ post but it kept getting longer and longer until I realized I'd pretty much written a blog post. This is a bit of stream of consciousness, so don't consider it a detailed analysis. I'll get the bad news out first... Accepting I've lost my money on two Kickstarters. As far as percentages go it's not horrible - like I said, most projects I've funded have either delivered or at the very least stayed in communication - special credit to Autarch to pulling off Dwimmermount in the face of the author vanishing on them. The lost causes are Todor Minev's "Cthulhu and Zombie Mugs" (yeah, kinda goofy) and Jess Nevins' "The Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes". The Encyclopedia is especially disappointing as I was in it for just digital delivery of i...