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Yeah I just checked a couple things out. Looks pretty great.
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Jan 22, 2013 21:50
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It looks like it has a lot of potential, I was rather disappointed in their current planescape selection though. 3 products out of 30 and it was three of the products that arn't very helpful to running a campaign. I am really hoping they put out the full campaign setting and the planes boxed sets at some point. On a side note with digital editions most things are fine but is there a good way to get the maps printed at a decent price? Large format prints seem to be exceedingly expensive. To get the four maps from the planescape campaign setting alone printed would cost almost $100 at most print shops I have found.
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Jan 22, 2013 22:52
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TheGreySpectre posted:It looks like it has a lot of potential, I was rather disappointed in their current planescape selection though. 3 products out of 30 and it was three of the products that arn't very helpful to running a campaign. I am really hoping they put out the full campaign setting and the planes boxed sets at some point. http://arje.net/rasterbator and a lamination machine/modgepodge and canvas possibly?
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Jan 22, 2013 23:42
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Red_Mage posted:http://arje.net/rasterbator and a lamination machine/modgepodge and canvas possibly? I have thought about doing something like this all though it ends up looking like crap compared to a single print. There has to be someway the prints are done at a reasonable price otherwise all DND campaign settings that would with maps would be stupidly expensive. I am hoping eventually WoTC will open up the DNDclassics page to doing reprints or at least map reprints as they could do volume printings.
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Jan 22, 2013 23:47
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People get playmats and stuff printed from here quite often: http://www.bannersonthecheap.com/ I don't think you're going to find any really good ways to do it cheaply and with tons of quality.
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Jan 23, 2013 00:41
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I've added the Drivethru storefront to the OP with sirens and whistles. If you want my recommendation that aren't the usual three everyone always talks about, I'd buy B10 Night's Dark Terrors, as it has very good guidelines and rules on how to run a party through the wilderness, and I particularly enjoy B4 The Lost City. To celebrate this thing, Dagon and I spent some time yesterday making this for running your B/X games. Ringing endorsements: quote:Clever little device with icons for keeping track of your Basic Era turns. quote:<WinsonPaine> hahah RulebookHeavily this owns e: Also! Here's something I'm hoping I can get people on board for. Fatal & Friends is a great thread, but it's very bulky, and if people start reviewing D&D stuff in there it might both get lost and drown out other, more obscure things. D&D is hardly obscure in this hobby, too. So I'm opening this thread for people who want to review older D&D products in whole or in part in the F&F style. I may do some soon-ish myself, but now that some of the products are out and available for purchase and easily acquired by everyone, a review or two will go down even better. Rulebook Heavily fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Jan 25, 2013 |
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Jan 25, 2013 17:22
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Time for some more gaming products that time has passed by. I posted earlier on the Arduin supplements which were quite probably the very first 3rd party product made for an RPG. They may have been the first, but they were NOT the most common. Following after Hargrave's creation was... JUDGES GUILD  In December 1975 General Electric shut down its factory in Decatur Illnois. This left a guy named Bob Bledsaw out of a job. Now Bob was a wargamer and was just getting into this newfangled RPG thing as a DM. He talked to a couple of his buddies (Bill Owen and Marc Summerlot) and decided that they could get into this business. In 1976 Judges Guild was created. Their first product was City State of the Invincible Overlord...      This was based on Bob's campaign, he drew all the maps and did all the writing, while Bill handled the business and printing end. With $200 in printing costs they took the base campaign maps up to GENCON '76 and sold out. While they were there Bob came up with a 'subscription' idea for supplements. Pay 'x' per year and receive gaming product through the mail! By December '76 they had finished writing printing and shipping the remaining components of the City State. (34" x 44" Campaign World Map, 56 page Guide Book, Player's Map, Judge's Map, Thunderhold, Journal #0, 9 Dungeon Levels, and some charts.) In January '77 both Bill and Bob went full-time due to the success of this one product. Over the next five years JG releases a poo poo ton of adventures and supplements for OD&D and AD&D 1e, but in 1982 TSR pulls the license. This license had been negotiated with TSR's business manager at the time Bryan Blume and apparently the Gygax hated it as it "Didn't require Judges Guild to have the quality control TSR was renowned for...". So when it was up for rewewal it got denied hard. JG tried to keep it going with "Universal" releases, but TSR, lawyers in hand, broke them financially and they had to close up in '85. In 1999 JG was aquired by Necromancer games which was then aquired by White Wolf and a revised version of the JG world for D20 was released. In 2008 Bob Bledsaw dies and the world did lose a gaming visionary. JG basically shut down after his death. So what did they make? Amazing things...         One of the greatest AD&D adventures ever written by Paul Jaquays who later moved to iD and worked on the Quake series...  also by Paul...  The very first actual module I ever bought...  and this insane thing...  There is a ton more product that they put out...  ...as you can see. I'll get deeper into some of it in a later post.
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Jan 25, 2013 20:55
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The First Fantasy Campaign is grognard city. Arneson kept track of so many minute details from economy to military throughout his world. It also details a really awesome experience mechanic where PCs only gain experience if they spend their wealth on frivolous things: booze, prostitutes (male and female, Arneson makes sure to mention), bards to boast about your exploits, and... church stuff, if that's your boring fancy.
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Jan 25, 2013 21:14
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I use Ready Ref Sheets for inspiration to this day! Combined with another overlooked classic, TSR's Monster and Treasure Assortment Sets 1-3 you're good to go in almost any old D&D or clone thereof. 
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Jan 25, 2013 21:25
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What JG product do you want me to start with? I have most of them (sadly no Verbosh but that may change soon!). Tegal Manor is a good one, as is the original City State
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Jan 25, 2013 21:32
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VacuumJockey posted:I use Ready Ref Sheets for inspiration to this day! Combined with another overlooked classic, TSR's Monster and Treasure Assortment Sets 1-3 you're good to go in almost any old D&D or clone thereof. I reviewed the Ready Ref sheets and some of the other supplements (like the Villages and Islands books) in some detail for the F&F thread. Short version: if you want as old-school as it gets, eBay copies of these RFN. Villages 1 and Temples 1 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3421366&pagenumber=185#post401733123 Two posts on the Ready Ref Sheets, which, I'll say again, is a product I love: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3421366&userid=115420#post401812572 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3421366&userid=115420#post401840584
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Jan 25, 2013 21:44
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mllaneza posted:I reviewed the Ready Ref sheets and some of the other supplements (like the Villages and Islands books) in some detail for the F&F thread. Short version: if you want as old-school as it gets, eBay copies of these RFN. RRS VB1 VacuumJockey fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Jan 26, 2013 |
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Jan 26, 2013 15:55
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Have you guys had any experience with Encounter Critical? Would it be a good fit for an Earthbound style game? Are there any pitfalls you've noticed when running it? Any advice would be much appreciated.
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Feb 4, 2013 13:56
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Encounter Critical is a joke game, it's not meant to actually be played. Use Mutant Future instead.
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Feb 5, 2013 00:39
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Silhouette posted:Encounter Critical is a joke game, it's not meant to actually be played. Use Mutant Future instead. Seconding this. Mutant Future is completely badass and can be really fun for a quick one-shot or a long term game.
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Feb 5, 2013 19:30
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Thanks guys, I had no idea EC was a joke. I came across a fan blog and it seemed pretty cool from what I saw.
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Feb 5, 2013 19:43
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EC is pretty cool, and it is also a perfectly playable joke game - but yeah, Mutant Future is probably more what you're looking for for Earthbound. MF is awesome, that's for sure.
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Feb 6, 2013 17:45
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Well, look what I found in my attic! Shame I've got nobody close by to play a game with.  I'd forgotten just how much stuff there is in the rules, especially in AD&D - when I played it in my teens, most of it would have been ignored because it was too much of a faff to keep paging through the book to find whichever table you needed to see that a glaive had an extra -1 to hit against an AC3 enemy, or whatever. Gygax's "What ho, my good fellows!" thesaurus-vomiting writing style quickly gets wearing, too. But it was still entertaining to re-read them after all these years, and also to realise that even though they're dated (and flawed in a lot of ways), the systems still work.
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Feb 24, 2013 18:19
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Payndz posted:Gygax's "What ho, my good fellows!" thesaurus-vomiting writing style quickly gets wearing, too. Someone needs to write a browser plug-in or something that takes input from gaming-related sources and translates it into High Gygaxian. "Magic items can be a useful addition to any campaign." -> "As any Game Master worth his proverbial salt needs must be aware, the inclusion of sorcerous artifacts, relics of power, and other valuable trappings of dweomercraft into the setting milieu can and will provide countless, aye, endless opportunities for Player Characters to gain riches and experience during their ceaseless quest for High Adventure."
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Feb 24, 2013 20:26
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I suspect that Gygax's writing was a big reason the game sold so well, at least in the beginning. I mean, a hell of a lot of people complained when the writing was cleaned up a bit for 2nd ed (and 3rd ed, and 4th ed), so they must have really enjoyed the way that the AD&D DMG felt very much like a book of arcane lore written by a doddering lunatic wizard. I know I did when I was 12.
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Feb 25, 2013 00:49
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AlphaDog posted:doddering lunatic wizard Pretty spot-on description of E.G.G. right there.
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Feb 25, 2013 20:55
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I am about to start my traditional gaming career! I've been wanting to play for a long while, and have enjoyed many D&D based computer games. I saw an ad on craigslist with a guy trying to get a group together near me, and soon we will begin. For my first character, here is what I have come up with as a rough outline. All I know is that we are doing pointbuy and playing 3.5, but I figured swashbuckler is a safe, non overpowered class. Level 1 Human Swashbuckler 10 str, 16 dex, 12 con, 14 int, 9 wisdom, 10 charisma. Weapons: Dagger, Rapier, Sling (figure I can pick up rocks, and I have good dex) Feats: Dodge, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (Rapier) Skill ranks: 4 of Bluff, Tumble, Diplomacy, Jump, Balance, Use Rope, and Climb Items: Backpack, Flask, Flint and Steel, Pouch, 2 Rations, a 50' rope, Soap, 1 Torch, a Waterskin, and a Whetstone (to sharpen my rapier and dagger) Am I going to be performing feats of acrobatic prowess and daring swordsmanship, or will I be crushed like a drat ant? Any stat hints or different feat suggestions to optimize this guy?
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Feb 26, 2013 07:32
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One thing I've been looking into a bit and finding somewhat interesting is old old school style locational play for lack of better word, or I guess multi-DM play. The idea being that you have more then one character and there is more then one DM and more then one game going on. So Tuesday I might put my dwarf fighting man into the dungeon Bob is running, Wednesday I put an elf M-U into a game that Sue is running, and on Friday I go to Misha's table and play...my dwarf fighting man again! The idea was that there were no real long term storylines or even "sandbox" style adventures, but rather potentially a few MEGADUNGEONS and whatever adventures could be made from the surrounding lands, and that characters weren't devoted to one DM's game but instead simply adventured where it took him, teaming up with different groups or teams to get that wonderful wonderful wealth. It's the sort of play that was somewhat expected in ye olde OD&D, which is why there were such howls against "Monty Hall" DM's - their disregard for magical items and balance would screw up other peoples' games if you wanted to put your character in, and, the vague customs at the time stated that DMs should typically allow for whatever characters. This is also incidentally where the whole "I demand they roll their stats in front of me" comes from - not because people are going to seriously sit at home and roll up stats for characters, but that they would cheat and claim to have done it at another person's game. Anyways I bring this up because it's a style of play that I've quite frankly never seen once in my life, and only vaguely heard of it happening in the past. I was wondering if anyone here had any experience with that sort of thing.
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Feb 26, 2013 09:56
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furiouskoala posted:I am about to start my traditional gaming career! I've been wanting to play for a long while, and have enjoyed many D&D based computer games. I saw an ad on craigslist with a guy trying to get a group together near me, and soon we will begin. For my first character, here is what I have come up with as a rough outline. All I know is that we are doing pointbuy and playing 3.5, but I figured swashbuckler is a safe, non overpowered class. Consider either starting first level as a rogue (I know, I know! Hold on!) instead then going into swashbuckler, or taking it directly as your second level, then alternating back and forth once or twice as needed then grabbing the Daring Outlaw feat which lets you sorta merge the two classes together. Take Rogue 1 for skills, swashbuckler 1 for not being awful at combat at level 1. A level or two dip into swordsage when you get higher level wouldn't be a bad idea either.
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Feb 26, 2013 10:06
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ProfessorCirno posted:Consider either starting first level as a rogue (I know, I know! Hold on!) instead then going into swashbuckler, or taking it directly as your second level, then alternating back and forth once or twice as needed then grabbing the Daring Outlaw feat which lets you sorta merge the two classes together. Take Rogue 1 for skills, swashbuckler 1 for not being awful at combat at level 1. A level or two dip into swordsage when you get higher level wouldn't be a bad idea either. Makes sense, according to the character generator I used the best stuff for the Swashbuckler comes early (Insightful Strike). I guess I'll just do whatever the group needs, if they need a melee guy I'll start fighter and if they need a rogue, well there you go. Swashbuckler does seem a bit weak now that I look over it again, I just really like the flavor and simplicity of it.
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Feb 26, 2013 10:20
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Rulebook Heavily posted:I've added the Drivethru storefront to the OP with sirens and whistles. If you want my recommendation that aren't the usual three everyone always talks about, I'd buy B10 Night's Dark Terrors, as it has very good guidelines and rules on how to run a party through the wilderness, Hah, that was exactly the module I was coming here to recommend. Best D&D module ever? Maybe. What I do know is that it fueled months and months of regular marathon sessions when I was in high school, and then I used it again as the center piece of a "retro" campaign a decade later. That's well over a decade ago now... hell, if I ever get around to drumming up a regular group again, I'm pretty sure the first thing I'd do would be to grab some streamlined BECMI clone and my tattered 25-year-old copy of B10... 'Twas written by some of the same guys who then went on to write the Enemy Within campaign for WHFRP, incidentally.
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Mar 1, 2013 08:47
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ProfessorCirno posted:One thing I've been looking into a bit and finding somewhat interesting is old old school style locational play for lack of better word, or I guess multi-DM play. The idea being that you have more then one character and there is more then one DM and more then one game going on. So Tuesday I might put my dwarf fighting man into the dungeon Bob is running, Wednesday I put an elf M-U into a game that Sue is running, and on Friday I go to Misha's table and play...my dwarf fighting man again! The idea was that there were no real long term storylines or even "sandbox" style adventures, but rather potentially a few MEGADUNGEONS and whatever adventures could be made from the surrounding lands, and that characters weren't devoted to one DM's game but instead simply adventured where it took him, teaming up with different groups or teams to get that wonderful wonderful wealth. My group does this in theory, but the only case I can actually remember of anybody taking advantage of it is one mage in the group's other long-running campaign who would accidentally sneeze his way between dimensions/campaign worlds every now and then. That said, we do cycle DMs out pretty frequently--each week we take a tally of who is free during which days, and if the regular DM is busy on the day with the most people available (or if the regular DM just wants a break) somebody else runs a session or two in one of their own dungeons. What I'm actually working on doing is almost the opposite of this, though--having one big self-restocking megadungeon and running it for different groups, so that the actions of one group can actually leave effects for the other groups to find on their next visits.
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Mar 1, 2013 09:01
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Not all OD&D players hate fighters and want to keep them from having nice things.quote:What are these "mythical" capabilities that the OD&D Fighting-Man is owed from Chainmail? Details here: http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=menmagic&action=display&thread=8509&page=1
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Mar 5, 2013 05:10
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There's also a rule in Chainmail that states that a Superhero (10th level Fighting Man) will outright kill a dragon with an arrow shot one out of every six times, iirc. The "weak peasant fighter jock who sucks" meme is very much a late addition to the game, as is the idea that fighter types will never be supernaturally good at anything. The real underdogs of older editions are thieves.
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Mar 5, 2013 15:31
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Yeah, Thief was pretty much a legacy holdover until 3rd edition. In Basic, you're better off playing a Halfling, and in 2e AD&D, the Bard could do all of the useful poo poo a Thief could do, plus they could cast wizard spells and had better THAC0 growth.
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Mar 5, 2013 16:05
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Collin McComb apologizes for the Complete Book of Elves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwDWx1cAqP4
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Mar 13, 2013 00:15
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I apologize if this is off-topic but it seems like the best place to ask. I was thinking about when I played D&D back in the day. I used to buy any rule book or supplement I could find. There's one that I'm trying to remember but I can't recall much about it so Googling hasn't been very successful. Maybe someone here knows it. It was essentially some type of supplement. Possibly aimed at DMs. It may have been some type of log book but there really wasn't much to it. The main thing that stood out to me was a section that had illustrations of each type of weapon. I don't know if it was for D&D or AD&D but I think it was the latter. Either way it had a classic D&D look and illustrations. It was softcover, I think a white cover. It wasn't that popular or even that useful. Does anyone remember? It's driving me mad. EDIT: I found it! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Masters_Adventure_Log http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=3780 That feels better. I had to find an old TSR catalog. RoyKeen fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Mar 26, 2013 |
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Mar 26, 2013 22:16
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Sounds like the AD&D 2nd Edition Arms & Equipment Guide, but that had a faux leather cover.
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Mar 26, 2013 22:22
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Silhouette posted:Sounds like the AD&D 2nd Edition Arms & Equipment Guide, but that had a faux leather cover. They put one out that matched the Complete Book of... series, too, so that would probably be it.
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Mar 26, 2013 22:49
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So I'm a level one Wizard with mediocre stats specializing in Necromancy and who foolishly took Quarterstaff as my weapon proficiency instead of Darts. I have 2 HP, and am overall feeling real worthless. Also our bard is somehow now level 3 while I'm level 1 and vastly superior caster. What the gently caress do I do to not feel useless? 
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Apr 8, 2013 05:26
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mango sentinel posted:So I'm a level one Wizard with mediocre stats specializing in Necromancy and who foolishly took Quarterstaff as my weapon proficiency instead of Darts. I have 2 HP, and am overall feeling real worthless. Also our bard is somehow now level 3 while I'm level 1 and vastly superior caster. What the gently caress do I do to not feel useless? Fantasize about higher levels. While maybe not the quarterstaff part, that's more or less how the game is meant to go. Wizards are really, really weak at low levels, but make up for it later with their spells (while sill generally being pretty weak outside of said gamechanging spells). Bards get a bunch of abilities that generally don't matter but mix it with faster leveling so they an throw fireballs sooner, at the cost of leveling out not much later and indeed ending at level 6 spells, as well as the cost of needing much higher stats. Alternately, depending on which edition, leverage that intelligence and use it to solve problems! Or just roleplay like a champ.
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Apr 8, 2013 06:20
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ProfessorCirno posted:Fantasize about higher levels. It will depend on the exact levels involved but from memory, at equivalent XP, the Bard is a spell level ahead of the wizard until like level 13 or something. Bard doesn't get as many spells, but it's still kinda weird. Bard still manages to be crap somehow.
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Apr 8, 2013 07:59
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Silhouette posted:Yeah, Thief was pretty much a legacy holdover until 3rd edition. In Basic, you're better off playing a Halfling, and in 2e AD&D, the Bard could do all of the useful poo poo a Thief could do, plus they could cast wizard spells and had better THAC0 growth. Bards only get 4 of the 8 thief skills in 2e. They can't Open Locks, Find/Remove Traps, Hide in Shadows or Walk Silently. They can only Pickpocket, Read Languages, Climb Walls and Detect Noise. Thieves also start with 60 points and get 30 per level, whereas bards start with 20 and get 15 per level. Thieves in 2e should specialize in one or two skills early on, because it's best to do a few things reliably than everything terribly. As for mages in 2e, don't be a mage. Be a specialist. That single extra spell per spell level is huge early on. A 3rd level mage has three spells, a 3rd level specialist gets five. And while quarterstaff is the magely thing to take, a better one would be dagger, because it can be used in melee and ranged. You really don't want to be in melee range as a wizard though, but it's nice to have a backup weapon just in case. Assuming you got to use your bonus languages as non-weapon proficiencies, you should be overflowing with knowledgeable stuff. See how useful various knowledge things and other non-weapon proficiencies can be. You can get experience via roleplaying and coming up with good ideas, assuming the DM plays with those experience rules. Just, as a wizard, take spells that are things that can't be duplicated by other members of the party. Magic Missile early on is pretty terrible, because your one spell for the whole day is less powerful than a single shortbow shot. Take something that can only be done by a caster type instead.
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Apr 8, 2013 15:46
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The problem with specialist is stats; many specialists require a 16 or 15 in something other then intelligence, which can be hard to roll. You might simply not have the stats for it. My advice is to throw caution to the wind, put your highest roll in Intelligence, go Wild Mage, and hope your DM has a sense of humor. I take no responsibility for anyone taking my advice. Also Magic Missile interestingly enough becomes more and more useful as you level up, not because of damage, but because it becomes a decidedly effective anti-mage spell - not, mind you, because of it's damage. Not much protects against force, it hits multiple times to drill through stone skin, and it has a lightning fast initiative to ensure you go first and break their concentration. At level one, Magic Missile is meh. At level 6 or 7, where you start fighting more magic casting dudes, it leaps in power.
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Apr 8, 2013 17:01
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ProfessorCirno posted:The problem with specialist is stats; many specialists require a 16 or 15 in something other then intelligence, which can be hard to roll. You might simply not have the stats for it. Totally agree on Magic Missile. Which is why I said at level 1, don't take it. Every other level it adds another bolt, and by then you'll have enough spell slots to allow a few for Magic Missile. If you want more spellcasting during the day, and a more interesting character, see if your DM would allow Channeler from the Player's Options: Spells and Magic. They use a spellpoint system, giving some freedom in spell choices, but the meat of it is the fatigue system. Casting a spell generates fatigue based on the level of the spell, the level of the caster, and a few other things that are semi-optional (hp and sp levels). The effect is, if you cast a few spells in short order early on, you could die from shock. But you get spell points back by resting, so if you space out your casting, you can cast more in a day. It's pretty awesome. I've been running a 2e campaign of my own devising for the past few years. Have had a solid 5-6 players the whole time, with some waiting in the wings to fill in when someone leaves. I post a ton on another forum for oldschool gaming (dragonsfoot) as well.
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Apr 8, 2013 17:07
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