Unchained and out on the Mean Street(s) again.

In the wake of some recent (mediocre) tuneage from the yet-again reunited VH/DLR combo, I feel the need to post the following old school masterpiece for your sonic pleasure:



Yep, another long delay between posts, and then on top of that it's another music-related post. I simply haven't gamed in quite some time, or really even dorked around with anything game-related (minis, modules, books, etc). Life: it is what it is. Maybe I should make it a point to bust out the old polys with my boy sometime during this extended weekend. Maybe? Nah. Definitely! As Chris Knight once declared...

"It's a moral imperative!"

Annnnnyway, this classic VH album was in heavy rotation on my boombox, back when I was first introduced to, IMO, the best version of D&D to ever grace the (border)lands: Moldvay's Basic box set.

Pure and utter coolness.

OK, wait a sec. This is starting to get kinda gaming-related; I better stop. LOL - Seriously, gotta go. Have a great one folks. Gonna listen to the jams, while I try to get through this seemingly never-ending Friday at work. Hopefully you'll have a dungeon crawl happening soon, and if so maybe you'll choose to have this amazing *record* as the soundtrack to your maniacal monster killin' and tempestuous treasure lootin'. It sure worked wonders for us back in '81.

They'd be so much cooler with some VH on the boombox.

B4 - The Lost City boxer shorts?!?!?

Oh the humanity!

My apologies for not yet posting the follow-up to my romp through M1 - Blizzard Pass. I still have to get the audio sorted from my son's run through it. If it doesn't work out, I'll just summarize the session. Kinda like ending one season with a cliff-hanger, and then having the show canceled. I suck, I know. Sorry. It'll be up soon.

Anyway, I was cleaning up my hard drive here and found a saved pic of the awesome cover art for module B4 - The Lost City captured on the front of a 3/4-sleeve concert jersey. Now that is freakin' cool, eh?

How appropriate. Setting the way-back machine to 1982...anyone wanna come along?


Well, I am a huge fan of basically all of the old Basic/Expert D&D and 1st ed AD&D artists, and Jim Holloway's works are most certainly some of my faves. His awesome art is a constant source of inspiration for gaming, blogging, and just plain fantasizing in general.

On top of that, B4 is an incredible module, loved by many. Of course Tom Moldvay deserves most of the credit for that affection, but Jim's artwork helps solidify B4 as one of my (and numerous other players'/DMs') favorite D&D modules.


From the home page at www.jimhollowayart.com you can find the link featuring his work on t-shirts, mugs, and stuff. The first one you'll see is the B4 cover, but you can get several other Holloway D&D/AD&D gems at this site too. Heck maybe I should snag this one too. It's the absolute inspiration I used when imagining Beechum, the halfling I played in JimLotFP's recent online Labyrinth Lord game. I'm not kidding when I say I had that illo printed out right next to my PC. Maybe a golf shirt version would be best. That way I can get away with wearing it to work. Business Casual? Sure.

So if you dig Holloway (and if you don't, you should), and especially if you dig B4, then head on over there and snag a jersey or a coffee mug...maybe even a wall calendar. Oh and don't forget the boxers! If you need any further prodding, check out the item description on the site:

"Enjoy the roomy comfort of our sexy boxers as underwear or sleepwear. They're 100% cotton, open fly for thinking outside the boxers. Boxers, because you don't want to be brief."

You may wanna hurry up though, as it looks like a few of these guys might be needing a new pair soon enough too. I know I sure would.

Ohhh @#$%!!!

Solo module (M1 - Blizzard Pass) conquered?

A couple weeks ago I posted that I was going to run some solo mods, mainly because my gaming had dried up with the abrupt closing of a local game store and the fallout/disconnect of the gaming group following that move.

Well a few things happened since then:

• I solo'd thru M1- Blizzard Pass
• I DM'd (sorta) M1 for my 5 y.o. son
• I played in a session of JimLotFP's Labyrinth Lord game
• I reconnected with my former gaming group...sorta

The last point is a "sorta" because the gaming group is now a mixed bag of some of the guys I gamed with before the store closing, and some of their other gaming friends from other groups (these guys game a lot!). At any rate, I've played in two sessions now, both different campaigns with mostly the same folks. These are weekly sessions, alternating between the two campaigns. One is currently level 3, and the other is level 11. So that's cool.

I also am especially hoping that JimLotFP will run some more online LL for us, as that was a complete blast.

In summary, I'm all smiles.


Anyway, back to the solo stuff...

So I looked thru the pile of solo/solitaire mods (D&D/AD&D/Tunnels&Trolls/etc) and decided it was gonna be M1 - Blizzard Pass:


I have three copies of this thing (don't ask why), but it kinda worked out nicely as a means to make the most out of some of these old and no-longer-revealable invisible ink text boxes. I also made heavy use of that very cool online project I mentioned last time, which is a collection of the revealed entries from all of the text boxes in M1.

So I printed out those text box entries, grabbed the module, and then gathered up this stuff...

• My "lucky" dice cup and some precision edge dice (of course - well except for the d100...ha! that was just for fun with thieving skills), mostly gamescience BTW:

• A photocopy of my favorite character sheet ever to fill in with the stats for the character I rolled up for this solo mod - they recommend the pre-gen guy, but I wanted to roll some dice early, so I created a Footpad named "Grep" (any old timer DOS... err... Unix users out there?) and played by the module character's gear rules/restrictions:

I neglected to jot down his (un)bonus to damage and opening doors from that whopping 7 strength...not sure why, I guess we'll blame it on being 2am. It never really mattered...ha!

• The red box set (even though I prefer Moldvay's Basic, this module was released with the Mentzer version, so I figured I'd stay true to that for this run) and my battered and beaten DM screen (AC2 - Combat Shield and Mini-adventure...love that ratty old thing):

First off, the screen is obviously useful for easier lookups on charts and lists:

But also for this guy! I mean the graphic alone of this crazy halfling running for his life is reason alone for propping this bad boy up for the session:

• Some old Grenadier minis too, to add to the whole vibe. I mean, I am playing this darn thing alone in my kitchen, at about 2 am, so I need to make this as cool as I can, right?:

That action shot there is my thief Grep and his new buddies Roderick (the cleric) and Salamdros (an elf) duking it out with some lizardmen (reptile-men, I think they called them...meh). Here's a shot of the module, pretty close to that time-frame:


That's one tough predicament our heroes are in, eh? Did they put it to those dastardly lizardmen and prove victorious? Or in the end did module M1 get the best of Grep and his new friends?

"Tune in next time for the conclusion of Blizzard Pass: passed or failed."

A cliffhanger...ha!


Actually I will only provide some details of my run through the module in my next post. I really don't want to give too much away as far as decisions and such go. Sure, there are numerous paths which you could take and have a totally different story than I did, but you may not want to hear too much of the story in case you do decide to play through it yourself.

However, I will let you know the outcome of my solo session next time. Additionally and more importantly (at least to me) is that after I ran this myself, I DM'd it (sorta) for my 5 y.o. son Bobby. He's been all into minis and D&D related stuff as of late (too many past posts to reference - half of this blog is Bobby playing cool stuff with me), and his eyes lit up when he awoke the next morning to find all this stuff left out on the kitchen table from my late night session.

I ran him through it and took some fun pics of that event too. I also recorded some of it with the voice recorder function on my cell phone, so maybe if those turn out ok when copied here, you'll get a chance to hear some of the fun we had. I've yet to upload any audio to this blog, so that may not work out, but I hope it does so that you can experience Blizzard Pass as played by a very young future D&Der.

So until next time, what do you think...did Grep and his gang conquer Blizzard Pass or was it a TPK?

Iron spikes, 10 foot poles, and lots and lots of rope!

Well we did it. We played in Jim Raggi's (LotFP - Lamentations of the Flame Princess) online Labyrinth Lord game, session #2 in this case for a couple of the guys.

And we lived! Well, most of us did....sorta.

A couple of my adventuring comrades have already posted on the fun that was had, so I'll send you over to The Dwarf and The Basilisk for Matthew's (Sunniva the chaotic dwarf) take, and over to Running With Dice, where jerm (Cerran, our curious thief) also discusses the session.

As noted in both of those great posts, we were playing (playtesting?) through some of Jim's own personal creation, which will be published very soon. Thus the details will be very few, as to not give away any of the coolness.

Three members of the crew were returning vets from last week's session, and jerm and myself joined up in a return to the ugly. In full force we were as follows:

• Sunniva - chaotic female dwarf
• Cerran - neutral male thief
• Vander - lawful male cleric
• Roland - neutral? male fighter
• Beechum - lawful male halfling

and of course the doombringer... err... storyteller/gamemaster himself (Jim):


Sunniva and Cerran have been described a bit by their players in the blog links noted above, so I'll let you check those out for yourself. For a description of my little guy Beechum, I will refer you to this Jim Holloway drawing, which is what I had printed out next to my character sheet last night as inspiration. This is almost exactly who Beechum was/is to me:
...well, except for the armor and the axe at his side. Beechum wears chain mail and a shield, or at least he did until he had to beat-(hairy)feet, running for his life.

Additionally although he does in fact prefer the sling as a weapon, being graced with a nice talent at missile attacks, he also carries both a spear and a silver dagger for up close and personal scuffles, whenever they might present themselves. The spear, of course doubling as a throwing weapon if need be.

The silver dagger is more for show than for any real practical use (ie, lycanthropes, wights, wraiths, etc), as Beechum falls victim to his race's characteristic weakness for a finer thing or two. He can often be found twirling it between his fingers and thumb, grinning with pride and complacency. Don't get me wrong though, if such a fiend would happen to wander upon him, he'd whip that baby out as fast as you could say "roll for initiative."


In typical 1981 fashion, and as the title of this post implies, our brave group of adventurers took to:

• spiking doors - both open and shut
• brandishing 10' poles - as door openers and floor testers
• collecting and testing strange unknown liquids - if you don't have any hirelings, just have the thief stick his pinky in it
• minor dentistry - no comment
• keeping the local rope maker in business - with about 200' of the stuff in our collective packs, we had no qualms to using it at every juncture, securing certain objects as well as a certain thief
• tossing torches - as a distant light source and the occasional act of arson
  

We actually rolled very few dice, spending nearly all of our time exploring and having fun role-playing our crew. In fact up until the last few minutes of the session, the only rolls were for thieving skills, stonework checks by the our resident dwarf, and opposing STR checks, IIRC. In our full-on retreat to seemingly nowhere, we did have to make CON checks, which we all did....wshew!

We did however, spend a massive amount of time worrying about our (incorrectly) presumably-charmed/cursed thief friend, Cerran. As noted and commented on in the other blogs, we were darn sure he was out to get us (not of his own free will, mind you), and we were contemplating tieing him up (we did have the extra rope, that's for sure), knocking him out cold, or pushing/tripping him grade-school playground style over Beechum's back (wouldn't even really have to kneel for that move). It got so bad, that someone nearly accidentally let him drop into a very, very deep pit/hole!


But that's not quite a deed of lawful nature now is it? Sunniva?!? Feeling a tad goody-good, Beechum reminded a couple party members that although we were certain that Cerran was no longer on our side, he was still "one of us" and we needed to find a better way of dealing with him than watching him fall to his doom. But then again, he wasn't holding the rope now was he? MUUHAHAHAHA!!!!!

In the end things got so hairy that it didn't quite matter which side Cerran was on any longer. We needed to get the F outta there! So we did.

After the session was over, Jim answered some questions we had about certain points in the adventure, and also offered up quite a lot of info on the rest of his very cool creation. I will not reveal any of those details, but I will relay the interesting fact that Cerran was... in fact... absolutely... NOT charmed or cursed or otherwise affected in any way. He was just roleplaying a different take on something that had happened to him during the crawl, and totally hammed it up. OMG!

Well sadly his peculiar behavior was a bit costly, as he was the chosen one to be left behind. It was all about encumbrance and time, Cerran. Honest.

Oh and a massive amount of undead!


In summary, it was a total blast! Jim, thanks so much for creating, hosting and running us through your new project. It is very, very cool...creepy as hell, and a very fun crawl for anyone looking for something a little different than your average hack-n-slash adventure. I highly recommend it.

To my comrades, you guys were tons of fun! So we doomed everyone..big deal, right? Just think how much XP we're gonna get killing all of that crap. Job security, baby!

It was a pleasure to meet and adventure with each of you and I sincerely hope we can do it again sometime soon. Hit me up here or shoot me a message any time you like.

So a bugbear, a werewolf and 3 goblins walk into a bar...

Ok, so there was no bar...not even a tavern. Well then let's just focus on the fact that Reaper has some new members of their Legendary Encounters Pre-painted Plastic minis line coming out this summer. Sweet!

I was over at Spike Page's awesome blog Ubiquitous Orcs, reading a post about Reaper's Warlord tabletop minis skirmish game being released in a new rev (version 2), and I decided it had been a little while since I visited Reaper's site, so I headed over there to see if there were any more details on the new version.

It was then that I saw these:

Bugbear

Werewolf

3 Goblins

"Yes, please. May I have another? And another? And another?"

Man, I freakin' love that Jeff Dee drawing. Always have. That lighthearted halfling looks like he just stopped in from the local frat toga party. Bottoms up!

Ok, so back to the minis: I really like Reaper minis, especially their current pre-painted line, as I am having trouble finding time to sit down and paint the buggers myself....ugh. I have tons of WotC's plastic D&D minis too, but I seem to favor the Reaper minis when they are an option. I've noted on a few occasions my usage of their LE plastic line figs. I especially have gotten some good mileage out of two of these figs for both a Human Cleric of Kord and a Elf Archery-style Ranger that I currently have as 4e characters. Heck, I even used those same two minis when my son and I played Dungeon! the boardgame.

My feelings on the pricing is somewhat mixed. I think $5.79 for 3 goblins is ok - $2 a piece for something you know you are getting, and can plan for your usage requirements isn't too bad.

The Bugbear at $4.99 is getting pricey (I do have a number of Bugbears from WotC - mostly the same guy though, IIRC) but the sculpt and paint job as shown on this new Reaper one looks pretty darn nice.

The Werewolf though, is the real tricky one, IMO. It's listed at $3.99 which unless this thing is sized along their current Minotaur or maybe even Troll's scaling, then that just seems too high to me. I guess I may be skewed a bit on that one, as I also have picked up various werewolves in Heroclix, Mage Knight, and other collectible miniature game used and/or commons bins at local gaming shops and conventions, spending anywhere from 15 cents a piece for the smaller ones to 70 cents in the bigger/nicer versions. Here's one of my cheapos:

Sure, I usually have to re-base those, mostly for cosmetic purposes, but still that makes this Reaper one a bit tough to take. We'll see though. Maybe when I see it for real-realz, I may just have to have it too.

Now, looking back on some older pics I saved off to my HD, I recall that Reaper had previously posted some future releases for the LE pre-paints, including gnolls, kobolds, a mummy, an ettin, a dwarf warrior, a war dog, a succubus, and even a type V demon... err... marilith... err... female demon. In fact they also already had goblins in that list. However those earlier posted guys sported a different paint job. Potential gang wars? Don't wear the wrong color, bro':


Oh, they also have a Giant Spider in the mix too:


But honestly I will likely pass on that one. It's showing a $3.99 price tag, and unless it really blows me away, I will probably stick with my Target $1 bin ones, or some new smaller ones (about half the size of the Target one) that I just snagged for 35 cents each. I bought four of those critters thanks to the advice of Mr. Moldvay:

I guess time will tell. First if these things actually are released or not (like the last "next" batch?), and secondly just how many gold pieces I'll hand over to get me some.

Now, back to the original premise...sorta: If you are ever in a bar/tavern/etc, especially once named after a certain wild animal of a certain color (ie: The Black Stag, The Red Lion, The Purple Worm...hehe), and you see a bugbear, a werewolf, and a trio of goblins come strolling through the front door, I leave you with three simple words of advice (again illustrated *awesomely* by the great Jeff Dee):

"Hit the deck!"

"Irontooth": 2008 4e D&D villian or 1981 Judges Guild region?

I was just perusing my blog list and saw James Mishler's latest post at his very cool blog Adventures in Gaming. He is selling some Judges Guild stuff that he recently unearthed from his pile of old-school gaming coolness.

I am having a very hard time not buying the lot. Must...be...strong! Must...not...cave!

Anyway, just looking through his list, I saw a number of JG items that I had not seen before. This particular item caught my eye - Portals of Irontooth:


Now I know that some of you are pure OD&D-ers and AD&D-ers, and that's cool. But I like to play 1981 game one day and the 2008 one the next. Sure I love no version more than my Moldvay/Cook/Marsh boxsets of B/X D&D, however I've also fallen pretty darn hard for 4e D&D too.

If you happen to be in the 4e camp (either just cracking it or already a vet) then you very likely have run across the name "Irontooth." If not, then you might wanna snag H1 - Keep on the Shadowfell:


You can get it free now in a pdf download they are providing (you know the whole "no more pdfs of our stuff" thing...meh) here.

Anyway, enough of the 4e module thing, and back to the JG stuff. Here's a snippet from the Portals of Irontooth describing a new magic item. Oooooooooooo...:

Iron Dragon's Tooth: Each adult or older Iron Dragon has two teeth which grant special magical abilities to beings who wear them on a chain around their neck next to their skin. Anyone so wearing a tooth gets a +3 to all saving throws versus Dragon's Breath and a -1 to each die of damage from Dragon's Breath. It should be noted that not all the Dragon's teeth have this power, only the two smallest ones.


I do have some Judges Guild modules and supplements, etc, but I would like to get some more. So maybe I'll hit James list again and see if I can talk myself into it. If you dig any of their stuff, you should hit it too. Grab that bag of gp and head on over there!

M1 Blizzard Pass: Basic D&D solo mod'n without the cool invisible ink pen

So recently I've been blessed to have a regular local weekly game of D&D (4e in this particular case) for the past 4 months or so. It began as the WotC/RPGA sanctioned Delve Night series, in which I played an 8th level Elf Ranger (Archery Style) sniper... errr ... "striker." That then morphed into a custom campaign where I played a level 4 Bastard Sword wielding human Cleric of Kord (let's just say he liked to get up in there, ok?). This campaign was created and DM'd by the DM of the Delve Nights at my friendly local game store, Blue Dragon Games.

Now I'd usually link the store's website to that last phrase there, but ya see that's when "teh suck" struck.

"Uhm...ouch."

Out of the blue, the store closed. Boom. Blam. Done. No warning. In fact I got an email stating from the site's fourms stating that as of right then, they were closed for good. Wow.

I was stunned. Not only was this store a great source of gaming items, which I purchased quite frequently, but this was the place that got me back into playing real tabletop PnP D&D, no matter what version it might be. It just so happened to be about 5 miles from my home, which was the freakin' icing on the cake.

Now look, the economy blows... understood. We are especially feeling it in the metro Detroit area (ugh), so I won't comment on the store owner's reasons. I'm sure it has been tough making money, so my best wishes go out to the store owner in whatever direction he decides to go next.

The part that leads us to this blog entry is that even though I played every Sunday night with the same crew for 4 months, I have no idea on how to reach them, now that the common ground has been removed. Sadly, I never got their cell numbers, or even their last names...jeesh! I guess I just got spoiled on just calling up the store if need be to chat with the DM (he was an employee/manager/etc of the place) if there was ever a question of game on/off.

At any rate, until I either reconnect with the members of that group, or find a new local one, I am in severe need of some adventuring!


This past weekend I got a little fix from the Worldwide D&D Gameday - Monster Manual 2 event, but I had to drive about an hour and a half to the next closest gaming store that was running it. I did have a blast with the gameday, playing the part of the bravura tiefling warlord "Chance" and I think I'll post a little about my xp with that gutsy general. Additionally, I have been to that particular store before (Heroquest Comics), purchasing a fair amount of stuff, and they would be a great replacement for the other (now defunct) store, if they weren't so far away.

So...

Time to bust out the old solo/solitaire modules again. The terms solo and solitaire get a bit tricky with some of these old modules. Sometimes solo means a single player and a DM. Other times solo means solitaire, just you the player, no DM required. I'm talking here about those solitaire mods (even if they call them solo mods...ha!).

Looking back to last fall, I had some fun playing through the Basic D&D solitaire module BSOLO - Ghost of Lion Castle:

I never actually finished that one, so I could hit that again and see if my sucky Elf can get past a Giant Fire Beetle or a Rock Baboon before dying (twice) this time.

I also have tons of Tunnels & Trolls solitaire adventures, and those are all kinds of quick and easy fun, so maybe I'll run a couple of them.

However, first I think I wanna take a shot at the M1 - Blizzard Pass, the invisible ink Basic D&D mod by David Cook:

Now, as the blog post title states, I will be taking on this quest sans magic pen. Ugh! Some folks have said that a yellow highlighter can work, and my kids have some more modern invisible ink pens that they use to reveal sections and words in little Spider-man books etc, but I don't think those are gonna work. We'll see.

I do have 2, maybe 3, copies of this thing, but they are all in varying degrees of "revealed ink" status. So I need to kinda watch how I progress thru it, and try not to accidentally reveal a choice too soon. Wouldn't wanna spoil all the fun, right?

On that note, one very cool project that I found online is this one here, where some folks have put some serious effort into compiling (most of) the invisible entries into one big entity. That just might be the route I will have to take, at least for Blizzard Pass. Thanks to all of those who helped compile those notes. Very, very cool.

After MI I may have to keep the solo mode going for a bit, unless I find a good local group. If so, these beauties are all waiting in the wings:

M2 - Maze of the Riddling Minotaur:

XS2 - Thunderdelve Mountain (At least I think I have this one...man, I need to get organized!):

XSOLO - Lathan's Gold (Similar in style to Ghost of Lion Castle, IIRC):

CM5 - Mystery of the Snow Pearls (Ooooooo, a Companion Level mod...nice! - utilizing the Magic Viewer thingie too.):

MV1 - Midnight on Dagger Alley (1st ed AD&D here - using the viewer again to reveal parts of the map.):

Rage of the Rakasta (An early '90s D&D Game Box module, which is mostly spent exploring a palace. It can be played with or without a DM. In pure solitaire mode I don't think it's much more than "enter this room, fight this baddie, rinse repeat" but I could be totally wrong...never played it. I'm not sure if I have the stand-up figs with my copy...hhmnnn. Again the need to get organized.):**EDIT**: When I first posted this, I had this mod mixed up with another in the same series, In the Phantom's Wake. That mod takes place mostly on a boat. See below. **END EDIT**

In the Phantom's Wake (Another in that same early '90s D&D Game Box series. This is the one that features a boat floor plan. It's recommended for 4-6 players, (so not a solitaire mod...kinda), butit can be played with or without a DM....weird. So I guess a person could play solitaire, playing all 4-6 characters, with no DM. So that's like playing in accompanied solitary? Regardless, I'll still include it here because of that possibility. Both of these '90s D&D Game Box mods reportedly can be played with those Game Box rules, the Rules Cyclopedia, the Dragon Quest game, or even 2nd ed AD&D witha little fudging, I presume.):**EDIT**: Added this one here late, after checking them at home and realizing I mixed it up a bit with Rage of the Rakasta. See above. **END EDIT**

Wshew! Well that's quite a little bit of solo-play (man, that just sounds wrong) to be had, if need be. I've only messed with one or two of these mods listed above, and that was a loooooong time ago. I recall buying some of these, but never really needing to play them, as we always seemed to have the old kitchen table group back in '81 (and '82-'85 too). Even if sometimes the "group" meant a whopping two of us. A few others I aquired later in life, and just never really got around to playing them.

So that being the case, do any of ya'll have any favorites in this list, or any advice on which one(s) I might enjoy more? Do you favor the invisible ink over the magic viewer? Or is the good ol' "choose you own adventure" style of Ghost of Lion Castle still the best way to go? I think I'll start with Blizzard Pass and see if I dig the invisible ink thing. But if you have a better choice, please let me hear it.

Until then I'll be kickin' back enjoying a little "solo time" (still sounds just as bad, dunnit'?):