Search results

We found Dragon Magazine’s “Finish Fights Faster” system by Roger E. Moore was a great replacement for AD&D 1e pummeling (And added kicking!). We used it a lot for subdual/city brawling situations. But it didn’t help us solve grappling...

Thank you for your service. The Shield Lands needs more soldiers like you.🫡 Well, needed. But if past future history is any guide: they may need you again.

Yeah I was a backer on that, but by the time it delivered(?) I was deep in some crisis or another, and never figured out how to get it. (And similar now. Passing time here on my phone while waiting through a couple current hopefully-minor family crises.)

That’d be great!! I’d prefer an American Experience-style documentary, myself - I prefer documentary over docudrama - but I don’t think GG has reached even that level of stature. “American Oz” regarding L. Frank Baum would be the equivalent I’d hope for, but I’d guess we’d need D&D to become a...

Schley's mountain ranges look like actual mountain range maps! Ridges of mountain peaks, with valleys running between them. I truly love Darlene's maps. I have three pairs! (Plus the 2e Ashes revised one, and the 3e ones.) Unlike all of those, this map suggests how/where to explore/adventure in...

This. For fun, I’d add in the wahoo oddities of the first Star Wars comic books and maybe the early daily newspaper strip. I’m not saying those are better stories, but I suspect it’d be a better RPG setting than the standard. Not nearly so constrained.

We assumed Greyhawk’s ‘Bandit Kingdoms’ were ruled by high level, semi-retired adventuring thieves. It gave us something to aspire to.

Shortly after the original TSR went belly up in the 90’s, vast quantities of unsold TSR 2e box sets and sourcebooks - from all their 2e worlds/series - suddenly filled the shelves of several Milwaukee Half Price Books stores. Over a few weeks and several stores, I bought most of Planescape and...

👀❗️ I have one of those, and it’s not worth that to me. Time to add it to my growing stack of “Sell” boxes… full of stuff that I never get around to selling.

I bought most of my AD&D, BD&D, and OD&D in used book stores between 1985-2005. Most at half the cover price or less. I rarely find any D&D I want in used bookstores any more though. Not at a price I'm willing to pay at any rate.

In the early/mid-90’s, I found the original Metamorphosis Alpha at Milwaukee's Downtown Books for a few dollars. I'd never even seen it before, and only knew it existed from references in Gamma World and Best of Dragon. I also found pristine copies of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and...

News is worth paying for. I'm glad I can afford to support a handful of local, legal, and political/national/international journalists and organizations. I'm also glad to subscribe here. (I stopped for a while after suddenly/unexpectedly retiring 16 years sooner than planned, but that's sorted...

Yes, all that: our primary 1e DM was a math nerd/chemistry major. The 1e DMG was also my introduction to the bell curve, and understanding probabilities. In junior high I wrote several Basic programs to analyze the DMG's various ability score generation methods. Each evening, I asked my little...

Fiascos become legends

Our PVP problem was solved when one player’s mother forbade him playing our satanic game, and the other problem player - Mr. Conan “I come to rape and pillage your village.” T. Barbarian - got a driver’s license and went off in search of real-world girls. (Most of us were Boy Scout nerds a...

Our (eventually very house-ruled) “by the books” campaign became very, very interested in wills and inheritance. The DM eventually introduced a Judges’ Guild* which took great interest in enforcing them. (*: A great name, known only to us from mysterious ads in Dragon.)

I'm pretty sure I've been at at least one table when a player argued for XP for a friendly fire kill.

Yes. I thought I covered that with "But even a legitimate unaltered document merely records what someone wanted it to record when it was made." Everyone sees things from their own perspective. Documents do the same, for the person(s) who created them, those who preserved them, and those who dug...

Both have value. I wouldn't rely on either (documents or memory) without significant corroboration. Memory is inherently malleable and unreliable. I have several well-formed, clear memories that are demonstrably untrue. My wife recalls in detail the dumbwaiter in her childhood home... that was...

Agreed. My love of Gish originated with low-level BD&D and AD&D. I really wanted to cast spells, but low-level 1e magic-users had just about nothing to contribute 90+% of the time. A fighter/magic-user lagged behind a pure caster in spellcasting - and behind a pure fighter in everything else...