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?

Jack Lantern-head: a D&D mini concept drawing by a 5 y.o.

So my son is pretty enamored with D&D minis. Yeah you could say he kinda digs 'em. Hmmn....I wonder why. Well yesterday I overheard him from the other room describing with great enthusiasm to my wife the drawing he was working on at that moment. The part that really made me go "huh?" was when he said:

"Look Mama, doesn't it look like a mini? Look! I'm gonna go show Daddy. Wait 'til he see this guy!"
"Wow! That's great!" she said. "Daddy, you should see Bobby's drawing. He's been really concentrated working on it in here."

So he comes rushing into the den and flips the paper around, flashing this fiendish fellow right in my face:


"Woah!" I exclaimed. "Who in the world is *that*?!?!?"
"He's... uhm... Pumpkinhead." he replied. "No, wait!... He's the headless pumpkin!"
"Wow, that's awesome!" I told him. "But I'm not sure a pumpkin *can* be headless, can it?"
(Actually, it's a pretty interesting notion - a headless pumpkin. I should have let him run with it...ah well.)
"Oh yeah. Well what's those things? Ya'know, when we carve the pumpkins?" he asked.
"You mean 'jack-o'-lanterns'?" I inquired.
"Yeah! That's it! He's Jack Lantern-head!" he declared. "Or the Headless Pumpkin Guy...mini!"
(There we go. He got to come back around to the idea of headless pumpkin. Cool.)

As soon as I saw his picture, I couldn't help but think back to a few posts by some veteran bloggers Jeff Rients and James Maliszewski and a phenomenal artist Steve Zieser. You know them from their blogs Jeff's Gameblog, Grognardia, and Curmudgeons & Dragons, respectively.

Anyway, I did a quick search through their sites and found the posts I was thinking of. Here's a post Jeff made which features some pics of a similar looking dude...actually two similar looking dudes. First there's the Knight of Autumn Gate mini from Dreamblade:


Now if you took away this guy's sword and set his head was on fire he'd be a shoe-in for Marvel's Jack O'Lantern. But then... his head would be... well... on fire:


And then there's this pic of an OD&D bugbear, of which Jeff comments in his post as who/what the Dreamblade mini reminds him:


Pretty sweet, eh? Nice stuff there Jeff.

That last OD&D image there is reborn in a work posted at Curmudgeons & Dragons by that blog's own Steve Zieser, an amazing fantasy artist who has that sweet old-school flavor. Steve's work has been featured in such great retro-clone gaming works as the Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game, the very cool Fight On! magazine, and some of the B/X combo-remake Labyrinth Lord's supplements, etc.

Here's Steve's cool pic from Halloween '08:


The last post is this one at Grognardia which James claims this illo by Erol Otus to be "hands down, one of the best depictions of any undead creature in any edition of Dungeons & Dragons.":


One of my faves there too, James. At least the face of this spectre has that carved jack-o'-lantern look to it. That along with the whole clawing-tree-branch, Michael-Jackson-Thriller-video-undead-dance-move-thing, is exactly why it reminded me of my son's creation.


Hey I think she may have been at my '80s themed 40th b-day party this past November...hmmn.

Anyway, three great posts there by three great gaming bloggers. /salute

Now I understand that one could look at my son's drawing and think yeah but what's that have to do with a D&D mini? Well look at the base. He specifically added that black base to the picture, just like the D&D minis that we play with have. Most of the time I try to steer him clear of the old lead figures, painted or not, just to be safe...sorta. Even though I played with them as a kid and I turned out ok...right?...RIGHT!?!?!? Anyway, when he and I play minis we use the plastic ones, mostly from WotC, which all have the black circular base. And so here it is in a full length shot:


Thus as of today, thanks to Bobby's awesome artwork, Jack Lantern-head the headless pumpkin guy is standing guard in my office at work, and I must say he's doing a fine job. In fact folks have been runnin' scared from my cube all day. What a bunch of wussies!

"BOO!"

"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'?):

Throwing those Erol Otus -esque figures a bone

My son really digs his Plasma Kreaps. And since we recently added those cheapo rubber/plastic Erol Otus -ish figs to our arsenal of cool crap to dork around with, he frequently creates some pretty fun scenes with them.

The other day he got all into tidying them up and packing them back into their original plasma, then stuffing that into their crate/egg, and finally stacking up the crates. I'm not sure where he gets this rare "must...clean...up" notion from, but when he does, he runs with it.

At any rate, it kinda seemed like he was done playing with them, and was on to something else, when I made a trip from the den/office to the kitchen for a beverage. He saw me coming and exclaimed,

"Daddy! Watch out for the crazy guys! They're all killin' the skeleton! Look!!!"

Now, although I did feel a slight urge to explain that the skeleton wasn't truly alive to begin with, but the time just didn't seem right to go into a whole dissertation on what it meant to be "undead." There's also that lesson on using bludgeoning weapons...then again, that depends on which edition you're playing...so I let that one slide too.

Anyway, I stopped in my tracks and stared open-jawed at the hideous sight of all four of these monstrosities muching away at our poor old boney friend.

Tonight's meal features...

Torso'd Salad:

Honey-glazed Hand:

Skulloped Potatoes:

and a slice of Coconut Cream Thigh:

So, anyone for seconds?

a breathless Blue Dragon, a short-staffed Ogrillion and a non-green sword-wielding Troll?

"I'm so confused..."

Allow me to explain.

As recently witnessed, I have failed my save vs. The Papo Pit, also known as the following aliases: The Safari Snare, The Schleich Seduction, The Target Tangle, and sometimes even The Dollar-Store Deadfall.

After (subconsciously ;^]) looting the idea from Christopher B at A Rust Monster Ate My Sword and posing the old-school-ish Red Dragon with some even older-school lead figs, I decided I needed more of these "toys."

So I made my way to a local miniatures shop (models, games, terrain, etc) and initially added the Papo Blue Dragon (winged and sans fire-breath, in this case), and the Papo Ork (which is...well...an "orc"). He actually kinda looks a little Ogre-ish to me, or maybe even more so Ogrillion or Orog, but whatever. Here he is chillin' with a veteran lead Druid/Shaman/WildMage/Wizzie/etc (info on the skull-topped walking-stick later):

I will most likely use him for an oversized Ogre, or some orc/ogre/goblin deity, like this Jeff Dee rendering of Maglubiyet:

Regardless, this "Ork" fig was in their clearance bin (50% off) because the fork at the top of his forked-wooden-staff/stick was broken off. Big whoop! I mean, first off these figs were priced at $5 (or less) anyway at that shop, so at $2.50, I couldn't say no to the big green guy. Here's his broken shaft (ouch!):

And here's the quick little mod my son and I came up with for an impromtu photo op:

I won't permanently affix that skull, as that's the head to the Plasma Kreaps Ghoul (basically a very cool winged skellie), and we like that fig way too much to eternally behead him. At any rate, it's a thought starter and for some pics it's kinda works.

Next up, the fire-breath-less Blue Dragon fig. I'm not sure if it was another fig-injury or not, but the shop wouldn't take clearance price on this particular fig. I tried to tell them that it was "missing" the fire-breath (as other Blues in the same shop had it spewing from their mouths) but it wasn't going to happen. So I just snagged it anyway at $5.24 or whatever. See, I was gonna cut off the flames from a normal Blue anyway, as we all know (heck even my 5 y.o. son knows) that Blue Dragons breathe lightning, not fire. I guess I could have bought a normal Blue fig, and saved the flames for some other mod, but whatever...this way I didn't have to cut the poor cerulean wyrm. Here's a closeup of him/her in all his/her flamelessness:

Now I just need to find a cool plastic/rubber bolt of lightning to glue to the back of it's throat. Any ideas on where I can find one?

Paired up here with the original Red in this shot, you can see their slight differences, including big wings vs tiny wings and flames vs no-flames:

Now for some comparisons between these Papo Dragons and some offerings from the WotC line of D&D minis. Again, I don't have the massive, colossal, gargantuan, just plain huuuuuuge WotC Dragon minis to compare, but then again $40-$300 vs $5.24 isn't a fair fight to begin with, eh? Anyway here's some side-by-sides of the Papo Dragons vs WotC Basic Game and Against the Giants boosters Dragons:

As much as I am totally pimping these Papo Dragons for some old-school feel, I must say I do also like this new WotC Red from the AtG boosters. It has a very proud look to it, which seems right. However in the end the Papo fig wins outright for me. It just hits me too hard in the Moldvay box set gut. I will do the reverse mix here for a sec though and throw in the new WotC Dragon vs my old 1983 TSR "Fighter with Platemail" from their Fighters, Rangers & Paladins box set:

Still lingering in the local shop, I couldn't leave without snagging this guy for $2 or $3...can't recall. Papo calls him a Troll with Sword, and that might possibly be in the Three Billy Goats Gruff "mean dude under the bridge" theme, but it's certainly not the stinky, green, pointy nose, must-use-acid-or-fire type that the term "Troll" conjures for me (and you I presume).

Names aside, I dig this little Papo Troll (uhm ...with sword). I think in an old-school themed game, he could play the part of some generic brute. He has a look that to me seems to be a mix of ogre, orc, hobgoblin, and maybe even a tad bugbearish ...sorta ...dunno. He looks fun though, especially with that shortsword jabbing ya in the face. Doink!

Here's a closeup of that ugly mug:

And one more shot of him going toe-toe with that venerable Shaman/Druid/humma-humma from the earlier "Ork vs Oldguy" scene:

Ok, one final fig before I left the local shop a little lighter in the gold pieces bag. This guy is what Papo calls a Dwarf King, but as Jay suggested in this comment to this post over at Grognardia, I may use him as a Fire Giant. BTW, it appears from Jay's comments and links to pics of his figs, that he tends to dig the Reaper minis too, especially the one I use a lot for my 4e Cleric of Kord and other holy warrior stand-ins in games and pics...cool! Anyway, I'd say this Papo Dwarf King could also be used as some Dwarven God, Aspect of Moradin, etc. but I kinda like Jay's Fire Giant angle. Maybe add a little custom paint job, mixing in some blackened skin look, etc. Dunno. Here's a shot of him just about to cleave our (apparent) undefeated world champ, "Old Guy in Bathrob with Cane" in half:

Ah well, toys they truly are, but useful props in future games I hope they will someday become.

BTW, I also snagged a few others from another shop (some of which I bought for trying some mods and paint jobs), but have yet to take pics of them, so I'll save them for another post. Fun!