Recent content by Flying Toaster

Regarding the odd jobs that Gygax did to support himself and his family before TSR, that kind of struggle can definitely put a chip on someone’s shoulder, particularly if they believe that they were meant for bigger and better things. And “cobbler” is quite literally one of those humble...

“Your love for the halflings’ leaf has clearly slowed your mind!” 🧙💨

For further context, one of my best 1E characters ever was a 10th level Mountain Dwarf Fighter with 20 CON and 122 HP (we played with XP penalties for demi-humans instead of level limits). After a full adventuring day he might not even fall below half of his hit points. At the end of the day...

That initial quote about “superior racial stock” probably attracted little attention at the time, but is of course exactly the kind of thing that the Coastal Wizards, Paizo, and others have been trying to replace with new approaches, with attendant controversy. I must have read all of this...

When I played 1E in the late 80’s, level-draining undead were already so unpopular with the players in our groups that DMs effectively never used them. We discussed meaningful alternatives to level drain but I do not remember anyone actually implementing anything. I don’t remember demons or...

Off-topic, but this has always made me wonder “special compared to what, exactly?”. Fantasy races and alien extraterrestrials were invented by pulp writers and Appendix N authors trying (and arguably failing) to imagine a non-human perspective which (as far as we know...👽) does not exist...

“In that last thread, about overpowered magic items, I referenced the "Holy Trinity" in AD&D, which I thought was at least somewhat well-known. Well, I thought wrong!” Holy Trinity of AD&D? Huh? “A. So, do you like Thor?” And as soon as I saw the word “Thor” I INSTANTLY knew what this thread...

Task Force Games did actually have a license for Star Trek material, but it only included the Original Series, the Animated Series, and some ancillary materials like the Star Fleet Technical Manual. It did not include anything from the films or Next Generation and its spinoffs, so over time...

This new Labyrinth theme from Kobold Press looks interesting - weird adventures across the multiverse, like a KP answer to Planescape. They have several of these themed books which seem to be designed for their 5E-compatible Tales of the Valiant game and its Midgard setting, but there are lots...

OK, as someone who read through every page of those threads as they developed, I will explain the state of play so far and you can make up your own mind. I will also try to avoid breaking site rules about political discussions. Back in early 2020 Bob Bledsaw II, son of Judges Guild co-founder...

I had forgotten that it was just five 1st level characters, whereas OD&D parties were often twice that size or even larger. When I played B/X and AD&D we mostly played TSR modules and never used henchmen or hirelings, so we wouldn’t have dreamed of starting an adventure with fewer than 6 PCs...

Oops. Reading comprehension fail. 😀 When I think about my 1980’s B/X and AD&D groups, I remember that we noticed the areas where the rules did not perfectly model real warfare, but after a bit of discussion we would go back to using those rules anyway because we did not really want to pull on...

Every table is different. When the 2E PHB came out in 1989 we eagerly adopted it with no hesitation. I was already chafing at what I saw as limitations in the 1E rules and the only disappointment I felt about 2E was that it did not go farther: ditch the weird AD&D ability score tables and use...

Retreater’s experience of Shadowdark reminds me of something I read on The Alexandrian blog. Justin Alexander ran an OD&D Caverns of Thracia campaign in order to test out how the game played RAW. The 3d6-down-the-line method produced such poor characters that after several TPKs the players no...

There are definitely people who don’t want magic spells on their alien planets or laser rifles in their fantasy kingdoms. Pathfinder’s Golarion is already a kitchen sink setting with a steampunk gunfighter town (Alkenstar) on the same continent as African jungles (Mwangi) and an Egyptian...