tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Aug 25, 2019 17:50:08 GMT -6
Thanks!
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Mar 23, 2019 10:02:42 GMT -6
(re-posting this here from The Trollbridge) I know for the longest time you had a copy of the conversion rules for FanTac's Space Marines to use with OD&D and Metamorphosis: Alpha; I have the thread bookmarked on the Trek board where you posted the OD&D rules, but do you still have the sheets around with the M:A conversions? I just scored (YEAH!!! ) a copy of Space Marines the FGU edition on Amazon, and I see that edition doesn't have those rules, more's the pity. (I am so excited - this has been one of my holy grails for decades, since I lost the FanTac edition in a purge of stuff left home when I was away at college. I thought I'd have to pay $150-200 for a copy and I managed to find one for $40 - snapped it right up!)
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Oct 5, 2016 18:17:33 GMT -6
One thing I remember about the earliest days (before TSR started to get their game material in toy and book stores) was finding D&D and other games and miniatures at hobby and craft stores, which made an adventure out of just finding where to buy the stuff. EXACTLY. And nobody really knew what to order, so there was always the possibility of running into something really obscure and cool. (Like the early days of MTV, when they had to struggle to find stuff to play, and ended up with everything from Ronnie James Dio and The Police to Echo & The Bunnymen and Gary Newman.)
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Oct 3, 2016 15:27:11 GMT -6
Also the Sears Wish Book at XMAS time You could also get Star Fleet Battles from Sears:
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Oct 2, 2016 8:31:23 GMT -6
FLGs I've known? There's been a few...
*Point of Conflict, Fairport, NY, was the first - I have no idea what motivated me to go in & look around but it started something that's still going decades later. Bought Holmes D&D, Alien Space, OGRE, Melee, Wizard, and Metamorphosis: ALPHA there. Tiny store but still had a table up front for gaming. I saw old Dragon and Space Gamer issues there, as well as M.A.R. Barker's War Of Wizards and Metagaming's The Ythri. When they went out of business, I picked up the first two issues of The Strategic Review and the original Fan-Tac Space Marines (with rules for crossing over with D&D!)
*Campaign Headquarters, Rochester, NY, at both its locations; I badgered my father into driving up there one winter, even though I didn't actually know how to get there, so I could buy the Dungeon Master's Guide, which had just come out. When I lived in Irondequoit I often rode my bike up there; crossing Driving Park Gorge was always fun (I have fear of heights and you could see through the "floor"). Bought a LOT of Traveller and Champions stuff there (oh! and my copy of SPI's Outreach!; that's where I first saw Tunnels & Trolls and Runequest but passed them by as too thin. I still remember helping the owner with his karate practice, and when someone called him looking for pogo sticks.
*Compleat Strategist, NYC; the one on 33rd St. Didn't get there as much as I would have liked; once spent maybe a couple hours going through their backstock on the floor looking for old Metagaming micros.
*Men At Arms, Long Island; used to bike there from Mount Sinai and Port Jefferson; that's getting towards the 90s so there wasn't much RPG stuff there as wargaming and Magic cards. I did buy my Talislanta books there, I recall.
*Finally, a little game shop I can't remember the name of in Salt Lake City, UT; I rode the bus out there in 1988 or so and picked up not only Rommel's Panzers but the incredibly rare RPG Witch Hunt.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Oct 2, 2016 7:57:24 GMT -6
The first time I ever saw a D&D book for sale was the Monster Manual, at K-Mart. The amazing thing was how many "normal" stores sold D&D stuff. I bought my original Fiend Folio at Sears, and my (sadly & stupidly lost) white box OD&D at Kay-Bee. (Also remember Kay-Bee selling boxed wargames and HO scale tank miniatures?) I LOVE the story upthread about the hobby store in the middle of a hardware store! Hobby stores were where the D&D stuff was before actual game stores took off.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Oct 2, 2016 7:49:39 GMT -6
My fondest memory was saving my allowance and hiking in a snowstorm to a tiny toy store in Irondiquoit, next to the Great Great House of Guitars, to buy my very first Players Handbook! OMG, I think I remember that toy store! I stopped by there once, and don't remember if I bought anything. My usual target was Empire Comics down the block, where I think I bought my boxed Top Secret set and most of my Dragons.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Sept 27, 2016 17:23:05 GMT -6
Fairprot, another Western New Yorker! Yay! Never knew about that store sadly... I also fondly remember Campaign Headquarters in Rochester, where I bought my first edition AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. There was also a hobby store by the Canal in Penfield where I bought Traveller. Maybe we should start a thread on reminiscing about favorite gaming stores we've known...
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Sept 20, 2016 9:16:16 GMT -6
I believe it was 1978, maybe 1977. There was a campaign being run at our local game store (The Point of Conflict, Fairport, NY) and I somehow got to play a fighter for a whole session or so. I distinctly remember it was being run from the LBBs; there were references among the other players to White Puff Ball spells, which only existed in the Conan stuff in Gods, Demigods & Heroes as far as I know. I remember nothing about the actual play except the "sound of giant footsteps" in the dungeon that turned out to be a dwarf wearing giant boots, and trying to pay an NPC with "a dollar" (forgot about gold pieces) and being told he didn't want that weird paper.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Aug 22, 2016 16:18:53 GMT -6
Mr. Perpetually Behind the Curve here, and I want to point out how nifty I find this setting from back in FO! #5 - especially the artwork; I don't recall offhand who did it, but at first I was all like "THESE are DWARVES?" and, then when I thought about it for awhile, I decided I liked the idea of non-"short 'n' dumpy" dwarves.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 23, 2016 9:55:25 GMT -6
I said it for Tunnels & Trolls at one point, but I believe it in general for RPGs these days - any "character sheet" that can't fit on a 3"x5" index card is just too much for me.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 23, 2016 9:15:15 GMT -6
Construction may be done by using either graph paper or orthagonal graph paper, with 1 square = 3'/1 block. Remember to leave 2 blocks space for places that need to be accessed; though PCs may crouch, unlike in Minceraft, and therefore cross 1 block-size spaces. Monsters as a rule are incapable of crossing 1 block spaces; Skeletons and Zombies cannot (or will not) crouch, and Spiders are 3 blocks wide.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 23, 2016 9:00:42 GMT -6
Items may be crafted out of blocks, just as in Minceraft - a block of tree trunk may be crafted into four blocks of wood, a block of wood gives four sticks, etc.
Items such as axes, swords, picks, etc. degrade with use. Wooden items start with 1d6, stone with 1d8, iron with 1d10, and diamond with 1d20; roll one die of the given type for each use of the item; on a "1" the item degrades to the next lower die - d20 -> d10 -> d8 -> d6 -> d4. If a "1" is rolled with the d4 the item breaks and is useless. Items may be enchanted with "Unbreaking", which moves them up to the next die type (diamond items with Unbreaking use 1d30).
Items all do 1d6 damage, either to blocks or to monsters. The enchantment "Efficiency" doubles damage done to blocks.
Doing 10 points of damage to a block of stone creates 1 block of cobble, used for either building or crafting stone items.
Monsters are as per OD&D stats, but Skeletons are always equipped with a bow (and take full damage from arrows), and Zombies have a 5% chance of carrying a random item, armor, or weapon; if armor or weapon, the Zombie will be using it. Skeletons and Zombies both take 2 points of damage per round from full sunlight.
(EDIT: I know I stole the item degrading mechanic from somewhere; can't remember where, though.)
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 21, 2016 18:19:01 GMT -6
THESE HAVE SIX LEGS SHUT UP Now. Causing at least 10 points of damage, armed or unarmed, to a tree will separate its trunk into one 3'x3'x3' cube of wood, as appropriate to the tree type (birch, oak, teak, cherry, etc.) YES PUNCHING COUNTS Trees are considered to be 1d8+1 blocks tall; there is a 20% chance of finding a fallen trunk on the ground which will be 1d6 blocks long. EDIT: Changed dimensions of blocks; 3' per block fits the Minecraft scale better than 1' blocks; Steve is 2 blocks tall therefore ~6' tall. 1 block also may be considered to be 1 meter for people with reasonable measurement systems.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 19, 2016 16:33:24 GMT -6
I was at the game store yesterday, and pulled the new Monster Manual down & took a look at the art, and was seriously like "MEH." I like bits of 5E rules (particularly Advantage!) but the MM art - I can't even see hating it; it just has no spirit to it. It's professional and well-done art, but it just doesn't inspire. I don't care for Lamentation of The Flame Princess, but the art there is not only well-done but evocative of the game's atmosphere.
LotFP art says to me "dark creepy fantasy", Dungeon Crawl Classics art says to me "gonzo craziness", 5E art says to me "generic fantasy art #3546".
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 19, 2016 16:14:41 GMT -6
Keeping a 1HP character alive through a DCC funnel gives you a very special feeling of accomplishment. "Let others hold their manhoods cheap...' to paraphrase The Bard. Admittedly most of my accomplishment was done by hiding and chucking bricks from safety; the one time I tried to run out and bash the monster was when I fumbled the lantern.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 19, 2016 11:10:51 GMT -6
I played Svengar the elven glassblower in the local store's Dungeon Crawl Classics game, and, other than dropping a lantern and just missing setting myself on fire, managed to keep my 1 HP butt intact for a whole THREE combat encounters! WOOT
And I bought a copy of Greg Stafford's Pendragon. It's something I never looked at before, but somehow it called to me this time.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 19, 2016 10:57:06 GMT -6
I think a creeper would be slower than that. They are easy to outrun. But on the other side, they should have double the normal chance to surprise. Okay, let's try again - for OD&D/Holmes: Creeper Move: 40 feet/turn Hit Dice: 2 Armor Class: 9 Treasure Type: Nil Alignment: Neutral (chaos) Attacks: Special Damage: 0 Creepers are upright, six-legged horrors that roam the wilderness. They are man-sized, a mottled green, and have unchanging dour expressions on their blocky faces. They normally wander in a random distance and direction every round. Should they see a human or demi-human within 300', or if they are struck with missiles, they will take the shortest possible route to intercept their target, and then stand 5' away from the target, emitting a disconcerting hiss. If the creeper is not killed immediately, it will explode as a fireball one round later, doing 4 dice damage to all within 20'. If its target moves further than 10' away from the creeper within that round, it will pursue until it can either explode or until the target is outside its 300' range, when the creeper will continue its random wandering. Creepers may also be encountered underground; in the depths, they have both infravision and an uncanny ability to sense humans nearby and can move absolutely silently to intercept, with a 4 in 6 chance of surprising; often the first sign a creeper is nearby will be its hiss just before exploding. Rumors persist of creepers who have taken electrical damage which enhances their explosive ability.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 17, 2016 19:22:09 GMT -6
assuming you have explody things in your campaign.) Creeper - Neutral (Chaotic tendencies), 2HD, MV 90', no attacks, but explode for 4d6 damage (save vs. spell for 1/2 damage), emit a disconcerting HISSS noise one round before exploding
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 17, 2016 19:15:04 GMT -6
I don't see the turning function being related in any way to morale, but someting more akin to a protection spell. You might be interested to read this blog post I wrote on the origin and use of the turning mechanic linkThat's some interesting discussion there; I wonder how D&D would have evolved if the Cleric hadn't been able to turn undead, or just could turn Vampires. Level-draining undead would be a LOT more scary without a turn ability, even just encountered individually.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 17, 2016 16:06:38 GMT -6
WOW, and I have a copy I picked up at a library sale for I think all of a dollar. Not having looked at it too closely, I thought it was just another set of WWII miniature rules; never noticed the RPG aspect.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 17, 2016 11:29:43 GMT -6
Amazons, yeah! And some very nifty art. I dunno, it looks a lot more inspiring than some of the present work. Maybe I need to read some kid's books off of Gutenberg and see what I can find...
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 16, 2016 9:07:16 GMT -6
One might wonder what there is for the PCs to do in such a world; monsters will be rare and mostly solitary/unique (THE catoblepas or THE lich or THE dragon), magic items also unique & special (really low-level Artifacts/Relics) and no great hordes of treasure. To that end I'm appropriating Jeff Rients' rules on XP for travel and sight-seeing: By gaining most of their XP from travel, the PCs would conveniently also be forced to do a lot more socializing on the road - leading to more interesting talky encounters, problems to be solved, and suchlike.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 15, 2016 21:25:59 GMT -6
I can't recall if there is enough info there to build a campaign but I know that I liked the feel of the book. I'm not referring to a campaign based on the world of FitF so much as a campaign with that sort of feel - elder Wizards with magic mirrors and scrying gadgets looking at different eras, including our own, leading to a kind of genteel gonzo that's less about plasma rifles and starships and more about Dwarven-machined pocket watches and mid-level Mages living in houses with screen doors. There's a whole genre of "cozy" mystery novels, and I'm wondering if that might be something worth fooling around with D&D for. "cozy D&D?"
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 15, 2016 9:48:41 GMT -6
If you haven't read Bored of the Rings, now is probably a good time. It's lightweight and pretty funny. I for one can't read it in public, as I snicker 'way too much. The best part is that the writers actually read the trilogy; if you read LotR and BotR back-to-back, you realize just how closely the parody is to the original. "...but pity stayed his hand. 'It's a pity I've run out of bullets', he thought." Lin Carter's "World's End" series is all kinds of fun cheese, as is John Jakes' Mention My Name In Atlantis. I also recommend White Plume Mountain by Paul Kidd ("NOBODY messes with the pixie!"); not a bad adaptation of the module, either. It's been a while since I read either of them, but I'd also put in a good word for Expecting Someone Taller by Tom Holt and Gil's All Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez (and I see a copy of the author's Monster on my bookshelf I need to read; the opening scene has a Yeti breaking into a convenience store freezer to eat ice cream...)
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 15, 2016 9:21:24 GMT -6
Just finished The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch (GAWD I love The Gentlemen Bastards!), The Coyote Kings Of The Space-Age Bachelor Pad by Minister Faust (the main characters have their own character sheets!), and The Face in The Frost by John Bellairs, and I'm working on Nifft The Lean by Michael Shea, though as I'm at a convenient stopping point I might switch over to the "World's End" series by Lin Carter, as I'm in the need for something lite and good-stupid.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 15, 2016 9:05:18 GMT -6
Looking at that 3 page summary of 5e makes me wonder what the 0e version would look like! Something like this, maybe.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 15, 2016 8:25:58 GMT -6
Exactly what it says on the tin. I'm somehow envisioning a kind of D&D that's anachronistic without being full-on gonzo - eyeglasses, pocket watches, clocks, telescopes and a kind of early Renaissance feel. Bellairs, after all, has all three classes included - Figthing Men (the soldiers), Magic Users (Prospero and Roger Bacon), and Clerics (the plant-growing monk and Millhorn the Kabbalist).
As well, re-reading FitF made me realize that wizards in D&D should really take the place of sages - name-level Wizards should be not only researching spells but doing alchemy, biology, physics and should be the source of information for PCs about the world and how it works (for a price, of course). They might also be scrying not only the world but parallel worlds and other times, which is where the anachronisms might well come from.
Anyone else had thoughts like this?
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 4, 2016 12:31:44 GMT -6
Well, as the DM, I always had people keep their own character sheets. A couple of years ago one of my old friends/original players showed off his preserved oroginal character sheet, with the stats and die rolls in my hand, and the rest of the notes in his... I LOVE LOVE LOVE stuff like this, particularly when I buy someone's used box set of an RPG and there's old character sheets and such inside. I certainly wish I had kept my stuff from back in the day.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 2, 2016 12:20:58 GMT -6
Didn't TSR or Judges Guild edit some DM Spreadsheets for that , back in the days ? TSR's Dungeon Master's Adventure Log, from 1980. each character listed on one line, along with class, race, abilities, XP, etc. etc. It's for AD&D 1e, but I don't see why it wouldn't work with OD&D. Hum, now that I think about it, it's the format for characters in Searchers Of The Unknown, and I've been thinking of how to manage a party in that system. The DM'SAL had about a dozen lines per sheet, which would be perfect.
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