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Post by cadriel on Apr 17, 2017 8:41:31 GMT -6
I read L. Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall over the weekend. I'm split on how I feel about it. On the one hand, I think particularly the first half of the book was witty, clever, and engaging, and it appealed to me having studied Byzantine history. On the other hand, the second half feels rushed and poorly executed, particularly an unforgivably sloppy account of the climactic battle. Being an Italian-American I particularly disliked how de Camp tried to make the ineffectual Italo-Gothic kingdom somehow a useful vessel for jump-starting the Renaissance.
It was a fun time-travel adventure book, comparable in some ways to the later and better Harold Shea stories. It just bogged down at the end, and definitely shows that it was a product of its era.
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Post by cadriel on Apr 13, 2017 11:39:09 GMT -6
The price ($19.95 + shipping) is steep for a book that's only 72 pages long. Is it only going to be offered from Rob's online store? Is there a possibility of an ebook release?
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Post by cadriel on Apr 5, 2017 17:18:48 GMT -6
I'm pretty jazzed after skimming the monster list in the backer preview. It's fun to have a clone game with so many Lovecraftian baddies, alternating with the weird humanoids and the simply whimsical monsters. It's a really nice mix, and it makes me wish there were even more white spaces destined for art.
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Post by cadriel on Jan 25, 2017 14:37:46 GMT -6
Speaking of you speaking, how's the memoir coming?
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Post by cadriel on Jan 17, 2017 16:37:22 GMT -6
I'm not at all a fan of that style of Kickstarter video; it seems like they're obligatory, though. It's fine given what it is. I'd rather have a video explaining more of the motive behind the project, but that seems to be on the out.
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Post by cadriel on Jan 15, 2017 5:31:20 GMT -6
Just started on The Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs, having recently finished The Chessmen of Mars following a near-overdoes of Amber over the holidays (Guns of Avalon, Sign of the Unicorn and Hand of Oberon in short succession). I have the first two Venus books in a Dover book with illustrations, which is also how I have the second Mars trilogy. The shame is that all of ERB's oeuvre is not available in such a format.
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Post by cadriel on Jan 14, 2017 14:10:31 GMT -6
No way to print from Kindle and no way to use it on a screen large enough to read, only the tiny Kindle screen. That is simply not true. There is the Kindle Cloud Reader that can be used from any web browser, and the iOS Kindle app can be used on an iPad Pro with a 12.9" screen. You could use Chromecast or some other technology and even read on a big screen TV. There is no way to print a Kindle book with DRM, but there are many other ways to read a Kindle book.
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Post by cadriel on Jan 11, 2017 8:20:29 GMT -6
Okay, so you know how the Chainmail "reprint" got linked on this forum? That caused the print on demand book to be removed and the person's account to be suspended from Lulu, because it got reported by someone. Lulu is sensitive to such reports.
However - when I upload a PDF on Lulu and set it to "private to only me", I've never had a problem using this to turn PDFs I bought into books. Just don't make the book available to others and they will print it with no issues.
I've had problems printing specific PDFs at print shops because of the copyrights in the books. At one point I had to point out that Basic Fantasy RPG had a license in the book and eventually FedEx printed it for me, but they've caused more issues than Lulu ever has.
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Post by cadriel on Jan 10, 2017 13:01:23 GMT -6
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Post by cadriel on Jan 6, 2017 14:22:24 GMT -6
If money was no object ... There are a couple of things, I guess. First is that I'd try and get the rights to Castle Greyhawk from Gail Gygax, I guess. And then have it published in a few forms. You'd be able to buy a tome with photographic reproductions of Gary's maps and notes as an art book, like the Voynich Manuscript that I have. And then there would be a version of the castle cleaned up and formatted for actual at-the-table play, done after the style of Maze of the Blue Medusa. I'd also see about doing the same with Dave Arneson's Blackmoor maps, and Phil Barker's Tékumel underworld. There's quite a bit that could be done with history of gaming, really. I'd love for there to be an RPG museum in Lake Geneva with original maps and miniatures and game books and APAzines and so forth. If possible it would be both a museum and a comprehensive (non-circulating) library with full runs of all the APAzines and gaming rarities and such. Since I have unlimited funds in this scenario, I also employ increment full-time to run the place and work on his updated history. I'd also sponsor an oral historian to put together a comprehensive oral history of gaming from 1970 up until 1977 or so while folks are still with us. Outside of this massive historical undertaking, I'd get the license to Dune and a really great designer to write a roleplaying game (unfortunately my first choice, Erick Wujick who did Amber, is no longer with us).
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Post by cadriel on Jan 5, 2017 14:02:12 GMT -6
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Post by cadriel on Jan 4, 2017 16:29:51 GMT -6
I'd break the kind of games on my list into 3 categories.
Classic games - originals and pioneers: Empire of the Petal Throne Gamma World Pendragon RuneQuest II Skyrealms of Jorune Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness Warlock
Modern games - high concept and experimental: Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game Apocalypse World Ars Magica De Profundis Dungeon World The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen Monsterhearts Over the Edge Sorcerer
Clone games - modern variants on the classics: Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea Dragons at Dawn Mutant Crawl Classics Warriors of the Red Planet White Lies White Star WWII: Operation Whitebox
Aside from that, I'd like to run in a few specific settings: Barsoom Carcosa Middle-Earth Wilderlands of High Fantasy
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Post by cadriel on Dec 27, 2016 10:39:15 GMT -6
These were the gaming-related things I got:
- El Raja Key archive (standard edition) - DC Adventures: Heroes & Villains, vol 1 and vol 2 - Mutant Year Zero
I also got a very nice photographic reproduction of the Voynich Manuscript, which is not a gaming thing, but is something of a thing of wonder.
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Post by cadriel on Dec 21, 2016 6:00:04 GMT -6
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are ostensibly taken from the histories in The Red Book of Westmarch. The book also presumably contained a translation into Westron of the Ainulindalë, the Valaquenta, the Quenta Silmarillion, the Akallabêth, and Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age (the component parts of the Silmarillion) - in effect making these books the realized versions of fictional works.
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Post by cadriel on Nov 23, 2016 9:22:51 GMT -6
This is from a reviewer who did not realize it was an endorsement. I mean, if that doesn't make you want to grab a fistful of dice and try to zap a Spawn of Shub-Niggurath with a ray gun, I don't know what will.
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Post by cadriel on Sept 15, 2016 10:48:22 GMT -6
1994, although I'd done a solo introductory scenario in 1993.
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Post by cadriel on Aug 20, 2016 5:51:05 GMT -6
2. I conceive of these lands as lying immediately west of the Elphand Lands and of the realm of the City State of the World Emperor (both parts of the Wilderlands, originally published by Judges Guild). How does this affect your campaign? Do you work in material from any of the Wilderlands books and/or the Ready Ref Sheets? So are your elves quendi, speaking Sindarin? Is there any deep history from the Silmarillion or Akallabêth to your setting, or is that all discarded with LotR? Do you play with any of the touches of technology in The Hobbit? For instance, Bilbo has a thoroughly modern clock in the opening chapters, and there are a few other hints of anachronism in the book such as mentions of trains. Are Illuvatar and the Valar / Maiar part of the setting at all? Ditto for Morgoth and Sauron.
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Post by cadriel on Jul 28, 2016 15:30:20 GMT -6
It's funny what is collectible. Somebody recently sold an original copy of Carcosa - the hand-made ones you did eight years ago - along with Fungoid Gardens of the Bone Sorcerer for $125.
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Post by cadriel on Jul 27, 2016 12:31:23 GMT -6
I hope that the review here will be taken in the sentiment it is intended: Initial Thoughts: Barrens of Carcosa. I think the modules geoffrey has put out are probably 7/10 or 8/10 on the basis of their strong imaginative content, but putting them in a single, strongly illustrated book with good information design and unique spells and monster listings would easily have made them a 10/10.
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Post by cadriel on Jul 13, 2016 18:13:38 GMT -6
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Post by cadriel on Jul 12, 2016 17:22:20 GMT -6
I received my copies today. It's looking good, geoffrey , though I was a bit surprised to see standard AD&D spells in the hex descriptions. Love what I'm reading, though.
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Post by cadriel on Jul 12, 2016 7:51:02 GMT -6
I own all of H.P. Lovecraft's fiction in three volumes from Penguin Books, but most of the stories I've read were the ones in the Ballantine collection The Best of H.P. Lovecraft. So I'm going through everything, currently working on The Thing at the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories. I'm currently on The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, most of the way through the story, hoping to either finish it at lunch or after work today. Next will be "The Dunwich Horror," then At the Mountains of Madness and "The Thing on the Doorstep" will ensure that I've read at least all of those stories. I've read most of the stories in The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories but will probably go back through all of them, since the last six of that book are some of the strongest of Lovecraft's work. From The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories I've read a few of the short Dreamlands pieces, as well as "The Dreams in the Witch House" and "The Shadow Out of TIme," but again I'll go all the way through the book since in the case of the last two, it's certainly been a decade or two since I read them.
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Post by cadriel on Jul 11, 2016 6:34:36 GMT -6
There is a free 29-page preview of Mutant Crawl Classics, which I had printed at Lulu and is proof positive that the game is headed in the right direction. I'm not sure what you mean by addendum to the rulebook, @rafael. DCC RPG is, on purpose, complete in one book. As of the latest update, MCC will be as well.
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Post by cadriel on Jul 5, 2016 4:05:17 GMT -6
It's worth trying a few discount codes for anybody buying the modules off of Lulu. (This doesn't affect the royalties paid to authors, only the price you pay for print books.) Last week there was a 35% off code LULU35 but this is no longer active. Today I was able to get a 25% off code, LULU25 to work. If that doesn't work for anyone, always try LULU15 and GETIT15 for at least a 15% savings. The site does a lot of flash sales. You can also find discount codes by going on to RetailMeNot.com and searching for Lulu. It goes without saying that I'm really looking forward to digging into these, geoffrey - as well as the forthcoming modules 1-4.
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Post by cadriel on Jun 24, 2016 8:43:08 GMT -6
I own two boxes (OCE) with excellent condition booklets and reference sheets. I also have a fifth printing (with Hobbits/Balrogs) and a sixth printing (no Balrogs) set as loose booklets. And I have the boxed set reprints that WotC released a couple of years back.
Also, I own a couple of books that are printings of OD&D from Lulu. One is a digest size hardback that reprints the OCE set, the other is a version that changes the layout and restructures the book to be organized like the Moldvay B/X booklets, and incorporates some of the text from the OD&D FAQ.
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Post by cadriel on Jun 22, 2016 6:38:38 GMT -6
I've been looking forward to these, geoffrey - excited to hear they'll be out soon. Any chance we can get an art teaser?
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Post by cadriel on Apr 17, 2016 12:34:35 GMT -6
A robot also from 1e Gamma World:
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Post by cadriel on Apr 17, 2016 12:31:41 GMT -6
A mutant from 1e Gamma World. I get a kind of underground "comix" vibe off this one ...
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Post by cadriel on Feb 17, 2016 10:02:17 GMT -6
It'd be weird for Gondor to be the subject of a Viking invasion parallel. Tolkien already has two explicit Englands in Middle-Earth. On the one hand, the Shire is an idealized version of idyllic English country life circa the 19th century or so, and the Hobbits are meant to parallel the traits of the English people that Tolkien was fond of (and also some of their pettiness that he was not altogether fond of).
Meanwhile, the Rohirrim were explicitly patterned on the Anglo-Saxons circa 1066. Their names and speech patterns were specific to Anglo-Saxon England and their look was based on the Bayeux Tapestry. Tolkien, of course, was an expert on the period and put his knowledge to use with the parallel.
Given that, it is quite odd to see the orcs invading Gondor as a parallel to the Viking invasions of England. The people of Gondor, being generally descended at least in part from the men of Númenor, were not British in either the sense of the Hobbits or the Rohirrim.
The other problem with drawing a parallel is that the orcs are highly industrial, in a way the Norse and other invaders never were. It was a deliberate breaking of any historical parallel by making the "barbarians at the gate" the more technologically advanced people. This was not a direct allegory but certainly a commentary on Tolkien's opinion of technological progress, one certainly driven by his personal experience in World War I.
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Post by cadriel on Jan 29, 2016 5:31:50 GMT -6
Three points on why Gary included Chainmail references:
1. As Rob says on the Ruins of Murkhill thread, there was a compatibility element to this. The idea of D&D was new, so letting people use Chainmail as a sort of familiar starting point from a more typical wargame made sense.
2. There was an expectation that experienced wargamers would have their own way of resolving situations that would come up in D&D combat. It was a small scene and changing the existing rules was the norm.
3. Gary had a financial interest in D&D drumming up some sales for Chainmail. He wasn't blind when it came to money, and if one game could help sell copies of another, all the better.
There was certainly no expectation that forty-two years later, people would be parsing his rules with a fine toothed comb and discussing them as we are today.
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