Will Mistretta is a old-school (A)D&D enthusiast from Washington. Born in 1978, he also enjoys video gaming, weird folklore, and zoology. His job is not worth mentioning. He has far too many wonderful pets.
Unispirations
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It's common for people to list the inspirations for their campaigns, but do
you have uninspirations? For example, The World After and it's earlier
version ...
Mother Goose is my Dungeon Master!
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I was watching *Babes in Toyland* the other day (like you do), mostly
because the daughter and I had a hankerin' for Laurel and Hardy, and while
viewing i...
One Page Dungeon Results Out!
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*Here*.
And my *Old Bastard's Barrens* is a winner, in the most perfectly
appropriate category: Best New Presentation.
It's great when a long-brewing ide...
Barrowmaze Google+ Game Rescheduled (Friday)
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Ok, so we'll reschedule the google+ game for Friday night 8pm.
I'll host it. If you are tech savvy and know how to record google sessions please drop some k...
Pointcrawling Undercities
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Today we resume where I left off with Tuesday's “Designing Undercities” post.
(Those late night Google Plus marathon sessions of the Hill Cantons
invariab...
A new "one page dungeon"-like project
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For those of you who have missed it, the excellent podcast Happy Jacks RPG
Podcast are having a contest in the style of the One Page Dungeon one. It's
call...
Lost Colonies Session 54
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I have to admit that my players took me completely by surprise during this
session. When we had last played, they had agreed to scout out in detail
the arm...
Hanafuda and the Seasonal Random Effect Device
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I have a fascination with all different kinds of games. This blog is mostly
about RPGs, but I also play a lot of wargames, some board games, and,
especiall...
Re-Mapping
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Some of you may already be aware that I had a computer crash on me last
month ... which totally sucks. I'm sure everyone can agree on that. One
of the th...
RIP Knand
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DnD is a funny game. I know, I know, I'm currently playing Labyrinth Lord,
but this game will always be DnD to me.
Anyway, it's a funny game.
If you all...
"The Shadow Out of Providence" Kickstarter
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So I am excited to be participating in a project called "The Shadow Out of
Providence", a book being Kickstartered by Ezra Claverie. Ezra is not just...
All about Harn
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Harn is still very much alive although still afflicted by Harntime. A
in-joke among Harn fans about the length of time it between releases.
Where to find H...
The Fat Game
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So there are Skinny Games and Fat Games.
This is different than rules-heavy rules-lite, but related. It's more like:
how big is the library of useful-but-n...
Wizard vs Fighter Part 2
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Ok, after doing some tweaks here are the partial builds. After looking
closely at the wizard, the fighter is going to lose. It is only a matter of
time. A ...
The Vacuous Grimoire
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From page 155 of the *Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide *(1979)
by Gary Gygax:
A book of this sort is totally impossible to tell from a no...
A couple of high powered magic items for Normandie
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*Ancient Armor of the First Men*
This rare, magical armor of the First Men provides excellent protection as
well as increased physical strength. The wearer...
Brak vs. the Sorceress: A really bad read
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Ever the optimist, I managed to find a silver lining in the extreme
suckiness of John Jakes’ 1977 novel *Brak vs. the Sorceress*, though I
struggled might...
Swapping Gold for Strength
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Timrod has a post about 3d6 in order, followed by allowing players to swap
the gold pieces/wealth roll for one ability score. This is not only
something I'...
Diana Jones Shortlist Announced
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The shortlist for the coolest of all gaming awards, the Diana Jones Award
for Excellence in Gaming, has been released, and it’s got me, at least,
very exci...
Super-Duper
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Yesterday I had the day off work AND off *“baby duty,”* and consequently
had a chance to get down and finish proofing (first proofing) the new game,
*CDF*....
Toys, Imaginary Worlds, and New Projects
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I picked up a terrific new toy at the miniatures convention last weekend:
an entire Aztec-style pyramid complex in 25mm scale. It's made by
Stonehouse Mini...
[New Magic item] Sword of Long Suffering
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Sword of Long Suffering The ogre grunted as the man neatly sliced the
behemoth’s arm off. Lackeys scurried to retrieve the twisting appendage
before the mo...
Gold vs. Abilities: Unintended Consequences
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How much will it cost to make me smarter?In my AD&D-ish game, characters
roll 3d6 seven times in order for their abilities, the 7th being for Gold
which is...
Misc III
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Yeah, boring post titles, sorry. I'm 50% done with a fun subsystem for
your old school games but I'm having a tough time fitting all the flavor I
want whi...
Crowdfunding a Three-Ring Circus?
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I think it's pretty clear now that crowdfunding through places like
Kickstarter and IndieGoGo has totally changed the dynamic of small press
publishing (...
The post you haven't been waiting for
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So, it's finally time for me to talk a bit about the 5E/Next playtest
documents. I've got them. I've read through them. I've found a few
interesting thi...
Fear of Leprechauns
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In a recent Team Adventure session, Alurax ran into a leprechaun in a forest encounter; the little fellow delighted in using his invisibility and shape chang...
One More DCC RPG-Related Announcement
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A new Kickstarter campaign has just been launched for *Tales From the
Fallen Empire*, a 3PP supplement for Goodman Games’ *Dungeon Crawl Classics
RPG*. T...
The Druid's Artifact
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In the sequence of games to come for which the campaign has shifted focus
from Florence up around the bend to the north and the west of Genoa, *The
High...
Designing Backgrounds for Super Teams
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[image: Click to view full size image]
Back in the day I played the crap out of some superhero games. While the
majority of it was with the classic Marvel ...
WoTR/ToEE Campaign: 17 Things You Need to Know
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17 things my players will need to know before the start of the new campaign:
Choosing Sides: White Rose of York or Red of Lancaster?
*Setting*
Recent Histo...
Light Posting Ahead
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You're probably going to see a lighter-than-normal posting schedule from me
in the next few weeks. I've got three big gaming projects that are all
coming d...
Oranj / Birthplace of the Ice Elementals
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Northern Finland I've been trying to squeeze in some D&D before the move
north. I have three unreported sessions in our whitebox campaign I'm hoping
to ma...
Playin’ Pathfinder
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Ok so instead of carrying on manically playing Crypts and Things or even
driving OpenQuest into the ground earlier in the year me and my group
invested in ...
Deckbox!
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I've been playing tons of Magic lately and I spent the weekend loading
almost all of my collection into Deckbox. (There are a couple of strays
that have ye...
Check out "Dungeon of Signs"
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Check out "Dungeon of Signs" - a new blog, detailing a sadistic DM sending
his poor players into ASE1. I've exchanged emails w/ the author, and he's
got a...
Lets Read Mythus pt15
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*Dangerous Journeys: Mythus* + opinionated gabshite + alkyhol: mix and
stand well back.
You know the drill by now.
A note to the confused: You will see ref...
Robots & Rockets goes live!
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Point your browser here to find Rockets and Robots, my new Cafe Press shop!
You can find prints, mugs, shirts and much more! The focus right now is on ...
[Eldritch Enterprises] Heroes & Magic II
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... und es geht weiter mit den nächsten beiden etwas umfangreicheren
Geschichten aus der Anthologie.
*The false prints* (Clark)
Schon die Einleitung verrät...
2nd edition Monstrous Compendiums
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If you play old school games, I really recommend you find and buy the
Monstrous Compendiums for 2nd edition, particularly Planescape vol. 1 and
Ravenloft v...
The Typical B/X City
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One thing I am fascinated by is the setting that is implied by the rules
and tables in the B/X rulebooks. For example, the average B/X Armourer is
far bet...
D&D next open playtest is out...
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The materials for the open play test are quite different from the closed
play test items my group has been playing with. My first reaction to this
new stuf...
History of Dice
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Kilgore is not a big dice fanatic like so many oldschool gamers, but
History of Dice at Awesome Dice blog is definitely worth a look. And the
discussion in...
Surviving the Apocalypse
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I'm actually kind of surprised to have done this well; I was sure that
living in a core neighborhood of a large city would really hurt me. [image:
Gamquist...
300
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This is my 300th post!
I'm somewhat amazed that this blog is still chugging along. Its focus has
changed slightly over the past three years. Lately I'...
Ill Met in Dietershafen
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Tonight was the first real session of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. (2nd
edition)
It was pretty laid back and mostly improvisational. I introduced a few plot ...
A Pathfinder AP for Blackmoor fans?
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I have previously suggested that Numeria is the equivalent of Blackmoor in
Pathinder's Golarion Setting. I was therefore disappointed by Paizo
officials m...
Runequest: Dragon’s Pass is so Passe
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So far so good with my old school Dragon’s Pass Runequest campaign. I think
the players are liking it, despite not everybody really investing a ton of
i...
ICONS Issue 5
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*DEATH AT 30,000 FEET!!*
Lord Genovasis - The father of Meta-humans
Automaton - The Mechanical Marvel
Nate Brown - Lowly janitor (AKA The Sponge)
The Scarle...
Why Won't Whistler Call?
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Why Won't Whistler Call?: Today is Mother's Day. If you're fortunate enough
to have one, call her. She's wanting to hear from you, I'm sure. If you are
a m...
The Manor #1
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*Master Cylinder's not dead. Really. It just looks that way due to the
heat. *
Today I had the pleasure of receiving The Manor #1 by Tim Shorts. It's a
d...
Where has she gone? SALT?
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I'm over at Google+ most of the time. I'm running five nights a week, or
more. I'm in friends' games, including Reed Decker's Boot Hill, Ghost
orbit, C...
Happy Star Wars Day!!!
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May the 4th is upon us once again; a day specifically set aside to fondly
recall that sense of awe and wonder that seems - for me at least - to have
been s...
Unimportant update
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It seems I am required to link this blog to my Gmail/G+ accounts...much to
my chagrin. If I don't, I lose access to this blog and content.
Sorry for the ra...
Snare of the Spider Kings
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I've always had a thing for Ettercaps, and not entirely because they were
one of the few interesting monsters in the first monster manual I ever had
acces...
You Say "Industry," I Say "Potato!"
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Recent discussion about Monte Cook bowing out of the development of 5e has
lead a certain someone to declare that her initial decision to not care
about 5e...
Orcs of the North
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Orc by Aleksi BriclotAn Orc class for ACKS.
This will be for the War in the North campaign. (We've been playing a wilderness
mini-region hexcrawl/dungeon...
OED Update (v.0.11)
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New update to the OED house rules that I'll be using at several games at
HelgaCon this weekend. Mostly some minor updates and language clarification
(altho...
GaryCon IV was a blast!
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Downside of this past weekend: I had been unsure if I was going to make it
to GaryCon, so I had not registered to run any events.
Upside of this past week...
Dim Carcosa, or darn that Shub-Niggurath...
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...in dim Carcosa.About 10 days ago I managed to run a G+ session of
Geoffrey McKinney's Supplement V: Carcosa, now available in a gorgeous
edition bound i...
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I have not had a chance to blog for quite some time as I work on my dissertation. My gaming writing has been sparse and not blog-worthy. Instead, when I am n...
Favorite Quote
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Here's one of my all-time favorite Referee/GM advice quotes:
"The purpose of a referee is to present obstacles for players to overcome
as they go about see...
Time Flies
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In celebration of the first true anniversary for Sham's Grog & Blog a theme
inspired new Monster is in order.
*Time Flies(N): AC 2 Move 9 HD 1* Swarm of ...
New Link-New Blog-New Start
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New Link-New Blog-New Start
Since I have no idea what will happen after March 1st to all the Google
users who have not agreed to the new terms of use I tho...
My Adult Fantasy Collection
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Here’s hoping “Adult Fantasy” racks up my google rating! Anyway, I recently
reorganized my bookshelf, and I decided to add a list of my in-progress
collect...
Brushing Elbows With Tolkien And C.S. Lewis...
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... sort of. This weekend my family and I went to visit my parents, they
live in the northern suburbs of Chicago. And as part of our weekend we
went ...
Ten Dragon Traits
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Sometimes you just have to mix things up a bit. Maybe the PCs are bloody effective at what they do, or maybe they just know all the stats ... whatever the r...
Here's What Happened - Part 1: New Ways to Play
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D&D is pretty hard to classify. Even experts on D&D can often disagree on
exactly what it is. This makes it something that is very difficult to
study. As J...
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Terminal Space blog is closed. Time has showed that I am unable to maintain
two blogs at the same time, so I decided to move all creative content from
here...
Awesome Games I Own
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Here's a picture of some of my favorite games. Bask in their glory.
(And yes, those ARE my crappy ancient slippers on the left side)
Reprint (?) of 1rst ed AD&D coming in April
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Follow the link for details:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/02410000
Doesn't look like it will be something supported outsid...
Unchained and out on the Mean Street(s) again.
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In the wake of some recent (mediocre) tuneage from the yet-again reunited
VH/DLR combo, I feel the need to post the following old school masterpiece
for yo...
Wandering Monsters and GNS
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So, Fr. Dave's startlingly acute insight into the role of the Wandering
Monster Table got me to thinking (an aside: this is at least the second
post that c...
Closing Today
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The Underdark Gazette will go Down, sometime after 11:00 PM, Central Time,
this evening. Please, if you would be so kind, update your links to my new
blog ...
New Year - BIG Changes
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Greetings, Kids, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!
It's the new year, and while you might have noticed that I didn't do a
"year in review" type post, there's a good reas...
A Very Gainsbourg Christmas: Year 6!
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It's that time of year again! The presents have all been opened. The
Swedish meatballs are being digested. Snow is(n't) in the air and on the
ground, and I...
Isle of the Unknown and new blog
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I'm thinking about shutting this blog down. I'm finally finished with
school and I want to get back to talking about various OSR shenanigans, but
I've let ...
First Session Winter 2011
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We got back to it yesterday...And here's a brief look at how it went:
The girls started off in Sandpoint (where we left of before), and decided
to spend t...
Eight months later....still pimpin'
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Anyone who has published a RPG product in the last year;
The 2nd Annual Three Castles Award is still accepting submissions through
the end of the year (De...
Fin.
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This blog is no longer actively maintained. This blog was a personal
journey and exploration of an old guy who loves playing OD&D (Original 1974
D&D), AD&D...
Spielemesse, ho!
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Hallo Allerseits!
Morgen geht es also wieder los, Zeit für die Spielemesse in Essen!
Wie jedes Jahr werde ich natürlich auch wieder da sein!
Dieses Jahr ...
Dark Dungeons has Moved!
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Dark Dungeons is no longer alone. It now has a sister game – Darker
Dungeons – and another one on the way. Because of this expansion, I’m
moving from this ...
Unholy Matrimony
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Hey look, more Adventurer Conqueror King content!
As I was a "Visionary" contributor to ACKS' original Kickstarter funding
project, I was given the opport...
[Review] AA9 The Lost Pyramid of Imhotep
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The Lost Pyramid of Imhotep
Author: Alphonso Warden
Contents: 12 saddle stitched black and white pages, 1 title page, 10 pages
of adventure, and 1 open g...
New blog at Wordpress
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I've switched to Wordpress and will be posting all new stuff here. The old
blog will remain as is but will no longer be updated. I'm still learning
the Wor...
The Great Pendragon Campaign (485)
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I've started up yet another Pendragon campaign, this time using the Book of Manors, Book of Knights and Ladies, Book of Armies, and Book of Battle supplments...
Dungeon Magazine Indexes
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So the other day I was thinking to myself about how it would be good to
have the various Dungeon Adventures organized not only by level, but also
by topic,...
The Shame of it All
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Alright, so here’s the deal: I’ve had this post sitting in my unpublished
tray for a year now. I wasn’t ever entirely sure where I was going with
this; it’...
Play post of the Brigand Crypt
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Hey!
Just popping my head in to direct you to TKB's Blog. On there, you will
find a play by play account of PRG's Fabled Curse of the Brigand Cryptadventur...
Pallas Cat
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I am fascinated with the Pallas cat. If you notice, the pupil of their
eyes are round, not slit-like other cats.
Since it is Monday, here is a random beh...
4e powers are nice but...
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Before the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons was released, I was eager
to make the change to the new system. I had heard much about how this set
of rule...
New, more general blog
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I've finally realized - undoubtedly several steps behind my exasperated
online colleagues - that given my habit of working on a setting for a while
and t...
Our debt to the Wizard of Chicago
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So, I’ve been waiting to write this sorta naively hoping Mike would change
his mind, put up his blog, and keep going like he hadn’t been gone. Looks
like t...
Final AGP Subscriber Compensation Deal
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Okay, here's the final deal... I now have permission from both *Judges Guild
* and *Troll Lord Games* to compensate subscribers for their remaining
balance ...
Digby the Toematurge
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Something foolish for April, originally written for the sadly moribund Lexicon
of Vanth.
Ptolemy "Digby" Digicarpus (1245-1321 Blackhawk Municipal Calenda...
Ripper DMing: Temple of Elemental Evil VIII
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We didn't get very far, but then again we haven't seen each other for
almost a month, so the mouths were flapping! It was also that stupid
daylights saving...
Thoughts about constructing a Traveller Universe
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I've been thinking about what my Traveller universe might end up looking
like.
I'm almost certain to use Paul Gazis's Eight Worlds rules for star ships
(a...
Harold & Kumar Go To GenCon
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On a Deadhead board recently, I read a post detailing what kind of erm,
chemical help, the band was availing themselves of during the recording
sessions f...
Building the Sandbox
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After thinking about running a campaign to the roots of gaming and
considering the various possibilities offered to me for a while, I finally
settled for t...
D&D was a Wargame
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I have been giving this one some thought recently. I was first introduced
to wargames, and it was only afterwards that I started into D&D. The
concept of t...
Random Impedimenta (d100)
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Slowly returning to blogging life, I’ve been making an effort to catch up
on a few things. Over on Trollsmyth’s I mentioned a d100 table that I’ve
been fin...
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