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Gotcha. Yeah. My Open Table/West Marches game had just me running it. The West Marches/Shared World server I played in online was a multi-DM affair, all running OSE/B/X in a shared setting with characters allowed to hop around.

I remembered the game having some balance issues (Reflex being the god-stat even above Dex in D&D), and dug up some interesting post-mortem posts from Reddit on the game. I did love the setting and feel, though (I think I still have my copies of the game and at least one expansion), so it seems...

I'm not sure I find it inherently more ghoulish than gamifying physical injuries or other forms of death, dismemberment, or disability which PCs suffer from. But you could be right that it was a factor in WotC's thinking.

It can be an issue. Folks have mentioned three of the top ways to handle it: 1. Just force the players to manage their time well, and/or extend the session until they make it back. This is how I often did it when I was running a game like this online during the pandemic. We were playing...

How about Mekton? Or Teenagers From Outer Space? Human, Satyr, Centaur and Harpy, IIRC. A Pauli Kidd design with Donna Barr art, to my recollection. Pretty sure the rules included card-based systems for dueling, for magic, and for social repartee.

Maybe I'm misremembering Maliszewski's take (here?), but I know some versions of that argument (like Delta's) absolutely don't focus only on the historical pulps. Dan does suggest that it's a problem if/that D&D has become too self-referential, but argues that it should include more references...

I was going to say, "or a DM who had been running OD&D already for years", which is basically what the 1E books are written assuming. Yes, you've hit on it. It was a huge thing in wargames. The hobby wargame community (especially miniatures gamers, somewhat less so board-wargamers who could...

If you didn't want to do the math of converting to percentages and reconciling all those, you might be fortunate enough to get a copy of Dragon issue #133, in which Leigh Krehmeyer did that work for us. Sadly, that didn't come out until the year before 2E did, so DMs before that were left to...

Thankfully you can still make a killer Mai Tai with other good dark Jamaican rums. But yeah, it'd be cool if it were still possible to taste the original recipe.

QFT.

Yeah, it's more challenging in recent years. Around here supply has kept up with my (reduced) demand, at least since I'm not making as many cocktails recently.

Naked and Famous has been one of my favorites the last few years. I'm near the end of my bottle of Maraschino;I should refresh and try out the Division Bell. :)

Finally finished Bowling Alone, and had our second book club meeting on it yesterday. Overall it's very good, though the original final chapter of proposed agenda items and suggestions for a renewal of social capital and civic participation "by 2010 let us" now evokes a mix of laughter and...

It it from a Cugel story, or elsewhere?

That last bit reads like Vance, and I am here for it.

Note that we (and Jon) didn't find out about how much and how directly Chainmail borrowed from an amateur Middle Earth wargame until four years after Playing at the World was released. Gary's story was that he borrowed from Tolkien due to popular appeal, but that hasn't entirely been supported...

To my recollection the regular-sized (not special large ones) Heroclix bases are about an inch and a half across, which means the figures for what would be medium-sized creatures are not suited for use with the usual 5' = 1" gridded map. They just won't fit, unless you re-base. For larger...

Got in for a moderate upper body session last night. Benches were all busy so I did machine work. Four sets of overhead press, four of bicep curls with drop sets, and four of tricep extensions with drop sets. Thought about adding a pulling exercise or two but I got a late start. Hopefully...