D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge Day 2

This post is part of a series of posts in the D&D 40^th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge.  The information in many of these posts is related to events that occurred primarily in the1980’s. Since it is now 2014, I can not guarantee complete accuracy with such a large passage of time but I will present the events and information as best as I can recall.

Day 2: First person you introduced to D&D. Which edition? Their first character?

The first two people I introduced to D&D was Ray and Neal Carman.  I had playing for years with Jamie, Dan, and various other people since the second grade.  Ray and Neal moved from Iowa to Oologah with their family and started living just around the block from us.  We met one day and found out that we shared many of the same interests – reading, comic books, and heavy metal music to name just a few.  After we discussed some of our favorite fantasy books and did some trading I brought up playing Dungeons & Dragons.  They had both heard of the game but never played so I got out the books and a short time later they were ready to start rolling some dice.

I used AD&D to introduce the Carman brothers to this hobby.  We would play quite a bit and they fit right in with the rest of the group so there was anywhere from 3 to 7 of us on a regular basis.  It did not stop with AD&D and we would branch out to other games also.  The other games we would regularly play included Villains & Vigilantes, Marvel Super Heroes, Talislanta, and Palladium Fantasy.  For quite a stretch the AD&D campaign was basically put on hold while Neal ran an enjoyable Palladium Fantasy campaign. 

I can not recall the names and other details of their first characters but I do remember that Ray and Neal were like Caramon and Raistlin of Dragonlance fame when it came to their characters.  Ray was the athlete – football, wrestling, and track – so he was interested in playing powerful warrior type characters.  Neal was the quintessential picture of a nerd – tall with a narrow and slim frame, he wore glasses, and was a bookworm – and seemed to always be interested in the magic-user of one type or another.  They seemed to follow that general pattern throughout our games and would switch it up every now and then but would always play the opposite type of character from the other brother.

D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge Day 1

This post is part of a series of posts in the D&D 40^th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge.  The information in many of these posts is related to events that occurred primarily in the1980’s. Since it is now 2014, I can not guarantee complete accuracy with such a large passage of time but I will present the events and information as best as I can recall.

 

Day 1: First person who introduced you to D&D. Which edition? Your first character?

If you have read the About Me area of my blog then you know I give a lot of credit to my uncle David for jump-starting my journey into the role-playing hobby by passing down his various A/D&D material to me.  Specifically, I received the AD&D Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, Monster Manual, and Deities & Demi-Gods (with the Cthulhu & Melnibonean information even), and a Holmes Basic.  The funny thing about this is that I thought I was introducing him to the hobby after hearing about it from a friend of mine only to find out that David had been playing since the original set.

The person that introduced me to D&D was a friend of mine named Dan Boston.  We met in the second grade after my family moved from Tulsa to the very rural Oologah.  Dan and I were in the same second grade class and we were the odd ones out because we were in to stuff like comic books, fantasy movies, B movies on cable, and other stuff that did not line up with the “typical interests” at that time; there was a third member to our group – Jamie King – but I can not recall whether or not we were all in the same second grade class.  I have a strong suspicion that we were but that has honestly been lost to the passage of time.

In short, Dan had three older brothers that were all gamers of various sorts.  They introduced him to the game.  Dan and I met because I brought some super hero comic books for the reading table at school and he picked one up.  We started talking and hanging out from then on.  Eventually, fantasy stuff was brought up and he told Jamie and me all about this great game called Dungeons & Dragons.  Of course, we both wound up playing at his house some time and would continue on for years to come. 

I am not 100% sure of which edition I played at Dan’s house.  I believe it was probably AD&D because I know there was some sort of feeling about “Basic is the kid’s version” nonsense going on.  Sure, it made sense at the time but not at all now.  Plus, I remember his brother Steve talking up his own homebrew game – top secret information – that was “way better than D&D” but I could not see any of the material because it might somehow get leaked and someone else could beat them to the stores!  I actually did get to play “the game that must not be mentioned so no one can steal the name” years later and it was fun and the world was definitely more flavorful offerings with an insect-like humanoid race and a very interesting campaign world; a heavy influence from stuff like Arduin.  By the way, I was even told the actual name of the game – Dragon Stalkers – but I still have yet to see it in the stores from them or “someone else”.

I do not remember anything about my first character but I am highly confident it was one of the fighter type classes.  I understand the appeal of the magic-users and the others but I always wanted to play the warrior.  I was reading Conan books, watching the He-Man cartoon, repeatedly borrowing the Excalibur movie from my uncle, and interested in much more stuff that seemed to have a warrior type for the lead.  I can not recall the exact details but I know for a fact that D&D was like no other game I had ever played and I would continue to play pretty solidly for the next decade. 

  

[Adventures in Fantasy] Alternate Character Sheet

I am still working on resources for Adventures in Fantasy among my various projects.  I have come up with an alternate version of my original design; the only difference is the addition of the variable damage table at the bottom of the sheet.  I am not quite happy with the Dragon Record Sheet(s) yet but maybe I will put them up later today...  

The House of BTS

I frequent the Palladium forums from time to time because I enjoy several of their games.  As I was reading the responses to a "sell me on BTS" thread I started, I was given the link to The House of BTS.  Even thought I do not own or play BTS yet, I found the fan site to be extremely well done and should be of use to others; here is what you can expect when you visit.

Home Page

This page has a short introduction, some great quotes, site news, and a list of the following pages.

BTS Books

Descriptions of the official BTS material from the original edition plus the second edition. This section also includes a list of Rifters with BTS material, RIFTS books useful for BTS, and the unreleased source books for BTS. 

Adventure Ideas

Five pages of adventure ideas to keep your campaign moving! These are always a big time saver for me.

Creations

Custom content for BTS such as characters, NPCs, Commissions, The Supernatural, Special Equipment, and skills added by the site author.

House Rules

This is a description of the house rules used by the site author.

Horror RPG Tips

A section of advice for running horror games with topics such as being a good BTS GM, being a good BTS player, when investigative skill rolls fail, and using sewers - think dungeons - in your game.

Inspirational BTS Material

This section covers additional material that might serve as inspiration for your games.  The subjects covered include movies, books, comic books, tv shows, video games, and music. I spend quite some time browsing this section because I am a big time fan of horror movies.  There was an excellent selection of old and new offerings to choose from.  I discovered some books that I had not been previously aware of also.

Links Worth Investigating

Obviously, this is a list of links to other sites that are of interest to people visiting The House of BTS.

Who Am I?

A little bit about the host of The House of BTS.

Contact Me

A form to fill out for rules questions, suggestions, tips, comments, etc.

In short, if you are a fan of horror gaming - probably horror in general would work also - or Beyond the Supernatural specifically then you should check out The House of BTS.  This site is basically what every gaming fan site should strive to be.  I was a little discouraged by the first couple of responses to my sell me thread but after visiting The House of BTS I am sold!    

D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge - I'm In, Are You?

Adventures in Fantasy - What I Have Planned Next

Over at the Original D&D Discussion forums it was pointed out that I may be the only person producing stuff for Adventures in Fantasy. I never gave it much thought before he mentioned it but that's cool; maybe it will inspire some others that own the game to put something out there for interested people. I have produced a few resources so far but I have more that I am working on currently.  Consider this a list of what I have planned in the coming weeks.

Revised Character Record Sheet

I have a functional character sheet available for download right now.  There will be adjustments made to that sheet whenever it is deemed necessary through play experience.  I have an alternate sheet I am working on that includes the variable weapon damage table from the reference sheets.  Other than minor tweaks - something like an AiF logo - I suspect there will only be one big update of the character sheet.

Dragon Record Sheet

It is suggested that all Dragons should be generated before play since each one is unique in a range of 13 characteristics. This is simply a form to record all of the generation results and any other important notes for the Dragons used by the Referee.

Dragon Hoard Record Sheet

As each Dragon is unique, so is their hoard.  If there is not enough room for the hoard on the Dragon Record Sheet then I am going to do a separate hoard sheet.

House Rules

I am gathering notes for some proposed house rules as I make my way through the rules again.  I am hoping for a short list that would be easy to maintain.  I am shooting for something similar to "The Perrin Conventions" that was used by some groups for early D&D.

New Game

I have not ruled out the possibility of making a new game that is clearly inspired and influenced by AiF.  This new game would be designed in a similar fashion as comparing T&T to D&D.  Honestly, I feel the same way that Ken St. Andre did when he was reading the early D&D rules.  There is a lot of like about AiF but there is also a lot that makes me scratch my head.  Who knows?  Maybe I will...

[Adventures in Fantasy] Character Sheet (work in progress...)

I have yet to find a character sheet at all for Adventures in Fantasy.  I got the hookup on some character write-ups for AiF from a fellow blogger and decided to make one.  So far, my results are not the greatest BUT at least it is a starting point.  The character sheet is a work in progress; some stuff needs centered up, some needs verified through play test, and some is just not quite ready...lol.  If you have any suggestions then feel free to send them my way.

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Notes

There is no entry for race because AiF is very human oriented.  The non-human races face great penalties and I do not want to mess with that right now.  They should be special and rare PCs and not the norm as in D&D.

Weapon damage is not listed because it is either: (1) all D6 or (2) variable depending on the results of rolling Hit Location Chart O.

Alignment seems to only be for Magic-Users.  Every magic-user can use neutral spells but lawful & chaotic magic-users are limited in their other selections.

Hakkenslash - The Simple RPG System

I know that a 2D6 fantasy role-playing game seems to be a fairly popular idea at some of the forums I frequent.  If you are interested in that sort of thing, there is the Hakkenslash RPG Google+ Community.  If you are interested in play testing I am sure that S.D. Houston would appreciate all the feedback he can get.   

More Loot: the T&T Delver's Pack

As I was cruising through the old posts at Vin's T&T Trollbridge when I found a nearly month old post titled Got A Delver's Pack Up For Grabs with only a few replies.  I had no idea what was included in this Delver's Pack - I am a fan of T&T but I do not have an active group so I do not keep track of accessory products - but I was sure that it was already gone. 

I got lucky because no one had come forward so I replied that I would like it.  A few PMs later and the information was exchanged.  I still had no idea what exactly this Delver's Pack was but it was on the way to me.  When I picked up the mail my package was waiting there for me already. I hurried back inside the house and sat down to investigate further. I opened the package to find a small box resembling the picture to the right.

I still had no clear idea of what exactly was contained in this product so I opened up the box and found items similar to the manuals in the 7th Edition set by Fiery Dragon.  The following items were in the box:

Dice: A set of small D6 dice.  

Monstrum Codex II:  A 46 page booklet of additional T&T monsters with entries such as Chemeleorc, Gremlin, Ratman, and Wendigo.  Most of the entries take up only half of a page and each one is illustrated.

Codex Incantatem II:  A 32 page booklet of additional T&T spells for levels 6 - 20.

Trollgod's Exciting Random Rooms of Ruination:  A 34 page solo adventure designed for "really tough" characters.

Hunting Party: A 21 page GM-moderated adventure.

Character Sheets: A pad of half page T&T character sheets.

As you can see, I hit the jackpot!  The MSRP on this item was $30 and "smokestack jones" just gave it to me; I did not even have to pay the postage.  I have to give a shout out and a big thank you to smokestack right here; I also need to come up with some sort of payback or something.  Not because he asked for it but because it is the right thing to do.  

I have yet to play T&T with a group but this product has me highly interested in doing so. Maybe I can make a few phone calls...

   

   

Warage Card Game Kickstarter

I just ran across the Warage card game kickstarter and thought some of you guys might find it interesting. Warage is billed as a "role-playing card game with deck building" so it is not another trading card game. I have been looking for a fantasy themed card game and this just may be what I would like.  Warage was originally a European release that is crossing the waters to come to the United States.  The kickstarter here funded in 48 hours and it is approaching a stretch goal.  Might be worth a look...