tog
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Detect Meal & What Kind
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Post by tog on Jul 6, 2014 12:48:33 GMT -6
Cool! I have never seen a copy of Legions of the Petal Throne before.
Edit: DAT did the original art for the units in Titan? Wow. I had no idea - I mean, it's obvious now that it's been pointed out, but I never thought about it before.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 5, 2014 15:29:35 GMT -6
The tough aspect of MA gaming is that the players know the ship is there and are always searching for a way out, get through the walls, and get stuff. Don't forget the article in one of the early Dragon issues (reprinted in the Best Of Dragon Vol. 1, my favorite OD&D supplement) that allowed an alternate setup for the game - the players were clones, intended to man the ship in an emergency, only when they were revived the process went wrong (due to ship damage & radiation) so some of them have mutations and their knowledge of ship layout & operation is inexact at best.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 5, 2014 15:18:04 GMT -6
One more from Tekumel Where are these Tekumel pictures from? I really like his take on this.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 5, 2014 8:04:21 GMT -6
If they played some game like soccer, the low status clans would have a league, the medium status clans would have a league, etc. BLACK STONE TOMB CLAN RULES OK Drunken ball-game hooligans overturning Chlen-carts and setting fires "for Vimuhla"... (BTW - according to Swords & Glory, there is indeed a "footie" played in Mu'ugalavya - Me'era, which is a game in which a leather ball is kicked around an arena to be kept out of the team's "color area" ("goal", I'd guess); using hands is not permitted. Note that teams have wagers riding on the outcome, and players often switch teams if they feel they're on the losing side! Tsolyani play a similar game called Marotlan, involving carrying a scepter and a lot of body-blocking and contact; "no weapons or grappling" though. More like American football, I'd imagine. The losing team not only forfeits their wager but their clothes, though, unlike the ball-game, they keep their lives.)
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 4, 2014 17:41:54 GMT -6
As the traditional rules go, a fighter effectively has no choice, he will virtually always be forced to choose plate. "Forced" in what sense, exactly?
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 3, 2014 7:15:26 GMT -6
Nice work, krusader, (notice the Devil in Pacher's painting is what one might call "sickly green"), but it gets even more interesting! Cobalt, the element, was named after kobolds/goblins: So it was tricky, probably worthless (interesting in the links with greed!) and poisonous, likely to turn your skin - what? - blue as you asphyxiated. Cobalt compounds are famous among artists & glass/ceramic makers for the spectacular blue color of cobalt chloride, but there are also compounds which produce pink and blue-black, also popular colors for inimical humanoids. And when you mix cobalt with zinc, what do you get? Green.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 2, 2014 14:12:39 GMT -6
There was a animated statue of Kali in one of the Sinbad movies (the one with Tom Baker, I think) which had six or so arms each wielding a scimitar, but it had two legs, not a snake tail.
On the whole, it seems like a compilation of scary animals - vultures, dogs, huge apes, giant snakes, boars, crabs, octopi, etc. A lot of the devils came from Dante's Inferno - erinyes, Geryon, Dispater and the Malebranche (as well as their names).
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 2, 2014 11:30:21 GMT -6
Not OD&D, but the computer game of Temple of Elemental Evil (3e, though) has orangey goblins.
Seems most of the humanoids are described as being "foul" colors in general; sickly green/yellow, fecal brown, grey/blue like dead flesh and like that. There seemed to be a link assumed between chaotic nature and foul, disgusting colors for flesh, clothing and armor.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 1, 2014 15:33:18 GMT -6
This all reminds me - there's an interesting comment in the glossary of the DMG which says this about holy water:
I've searched the books, but I can't find any rules pertaining to holy water and poison. The DMG section on holy/unholy water mentions drinking it to stave off transformation into undead/lycantrope, but not poison.It's not listed as a material component for Slow Poison, either.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jul 1, 2014 6:39:17 GMT -6
Also, found this detailing the various types of helmets and their evolution. Thought it was interesting. View AttachmentThat's nifty - it's gone into my D&D folder with the chart I found showing the evolution of swords. You can puncture a shield with a dagger, let alone what a battle axe will do. Yes they will sometimes stop arrows from full penetration, and sometimes not. (Hurstwic has some information posted on this topic I believe) Ironically a heavy wood shield would do better versus arrows than a fancy metal one, if you think about it. On-topic, I think I prefer helmets as part of AC, and I like the idea of 2-handed swords getting sweep attacks - reminds me of the sweep attack rule from Melee in which a successful attack with a big sword does damage to every figure in your front arc.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 30, 2014 22:23:32 GMT -6
Put up two levers and a sign that says "Cake or Death" and by Crom, Jim's gonna yank a lever. Hey, 50% chance of cake, why not. Or have your henchman pull it. That's what they're FOR, man!
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 29, 2014 20:16:58 GMT -6
Arise mouldy thread! I've recently gotten a copy of the Star Probe rulebook, but, alas, the map is missing. The copy I have has the same missing map; maybe it was easy to lose back in the day? SP/SE use only three types of stars on the main map; hot (O-A), medium(F-G) and cool(K-M). There are about a billion systems out there for creating a new set of stellar systems; I'd personally use a big sheet of blank hex paper and work with that. It won't really affect the game play at all, as I recall.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 29, 2014 20:00:12 GMT -6
I read an old (OOOOOOOOWWWWWWWLLLD) review of OD&D a couple days ago, and the reviewer was of the opinion that $3.50 for the original books and $10 for the boxed set was far too much to ask for a rules set.
Which, adjusted for inflation, is about the equivalent of $45 now. So, call it about $100 for the full set through Deities, Demigods & Heroes, maybe a copy of Swords & Spells as well if you wanted to do mass battles.
Is that too much? Or not enough?
Of course, we have a lot of options they didn't have back then; print-on-demand, PDF stores, printable miniatures, the OGL, and tablets.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Apr 9, 2013 18:32:41 GMT -6
If you think bards are all just fops and dandies who play love songs, go read The Story Of Taliesyn (sp?) and the Kalevala.
Vainamoinen managed to sneak into the afterlife and get out alive, as well as tormenting the giant Antero Viipunen into giving him magic by building a forge in Antero's stomach. If I was going up against demons, traps, and trolls, d**n straight I'd want him at my side.
Plus, if you're running a campaign with a Bard, throw in more legends and stories! M-Us don't know legends, and it's sometimes useful to carry the equivalent of a (free) Sage with you, especially when poking around ancient tombs and lost cities.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Apr 6, 2013 9:12:08 GMT -6
For some reason I've always been amused by the Whip Of Summoning, from the Finnish mythos; crack the whip, and a Superhero Dwarf in mithril armor with a +3 Hammer appears in a puff of smoke to serve you. Well, I skimmed over the copy of the Kalevala on Wikisource, and actually read a fair bit of it, and while I discovered references to a lot of stuff that shows up in Deities Demigods & Heroes like Heal Iron Wounds, Thumb Height Man and Forlorn Incsitment, I can't find any whip that summons fighters, only a whip (I think belonging to Joukahainen) that summons a servant to take his sleigh. Any thoughts?
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Apr 6, 2013 8:53:09 GMT -6
Which causes me to wonder - who is this guy? Karl Kwickfingers chuckled to himself, "So this latest guy was a real trip." Okay, that's worthy of an Exalt. However, on thinking about it, summoning mooks from the vasty depths to do your serving is a classic fantasy trope, and something I've decided not to fret unduly over. After all, that Fighting Man or Magic-User you summon isn't there for clever conversation; they've been summoned to put the hurt on someone. (Of course, now I'm thinking of something like Summon Courtesan, which would possibly involve clever conversation... so what level would a courtesan be, anyway?)
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Mar 22, 2013 9:08:14 GMT -6
Aaaaah! Sturmgeschutz & Sorcery! WOOT. So who won? Is there an AAR somewhere? The EHP's pet looks like it had a sorry meeting with the Nazi's halftrack...
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Mar 19, 2013 7:30:17 GMT -6
An interesting find concerning this question, from a letter in Europa 6-8, 1975, from a new D&D player in the UK responding to a comment by Gygax: So rules lawyers were something to worry about, even in 1975!
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Mar 15, 2013 16:42:11 GMT -6
This is exactly how I started RPGs; I joined a game at my LGS not only not knowing how to play D&D, but never having read an RPG before. And look at me now.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Mar 15, 2013 12:33:48 GMT -6
Tolkien did mention cold-drakes. Although it was never specified that they had cold as a “breath weapon,” it is reasonable to presume something similar. If I remember rightly, "cold" referred only to the fact that they had no (internal) fire, therefore no fire breath. Just big lizards, pretty much.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Mar 13, 2013 21:29:52 GMT -6
The box that my Ethernet card came packaged in turned out to be exactly the right size for all seven books. And it's white!
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Mar 13, 2013 21:22:00 GMT -6
So I'm reading Greyhawk the other night, and I come to the realization that, while the lesser levels of Summon Monster just refer one back to the Wandering Monster lists, S.M. VII gives a small list of ideas for what to summon... including, of all things, a 15th Level Thief.
Which causes me to wonder - who is this guy? Does he have a name? Where did he come from? Would he have any sense of self? (And what's a M-U who can cast Summon VII need with a 15th Level Thief, anyway?) Just where do Summoned monsters come from, anyway? The vasty deeps?
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Mar 13, 2013 21:05:31 GMT -6
I just got done re-reading de Camp & Pratt's The Compleat Enchanter, and, to my surprise, in the first novella ("The Roaring Trumpet", set in Norse legend) there's a load of stuff that must have influenced OD&D, including a chlorine-breathing dragon:
The dragon might have been intended to be Fafnir, and it's not explicitly described as green, but there you have it.
(As well, I'm sure the worm-hair of true Trolls came from this story, as well as the description of fire giants as Neandertal-like, as can be seen from the illustration in the 1e Monster Manual. Plus you have flaming swords, Brooms of Flying, and a woman made of snow (Simulacrum).)
I've just started The Carnelian Cube, which also seems to have been an influence on the game, at least in the form of a certain miscellaneous magic item.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Feb 27, 2013 15:02:40 GMT -6
If you put a dungeon in each 5-mile hex of the Outdoor Survival map, which doesn't seem unreasonable to me, you would have 1462 dungeons. That's awesome. I second the awesomeness of that idea! Yeah, as long as someone else digs & stocks all those dungeons! ... or it could be 1462 entrances to one huge megadungeon...! But since neither Holmes nor Moldvay have any rules for travel, I guess I need to go back to the LBBs for that. Otherwise it'd be difficult to get from The Town to the dungeon... EDIT: Actually, y'know what, glob that. The way I'm understanding Holmes-level D&D is that the trip between The Town and The Dungeon is fairly safe and uneventful, and 1st level characters are hardly going to be hexcrawling, so I'm just not going to worry about it. B2 has simple outdoors travel rules as well, if they're necessary.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Feb 26, 2013 12:57:01 GMT -6
Yeah, I just skimmed Holmes and what I thought was true - there aren't any rules in there for outdoor adventuring! Not even travel! Mmmph.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Feb 25, 2013 8:10:12 GMT -6
So. I've been into D&D for decades now, having started in a campaign run at our local gaming store (The Point Of Conflict, in Fairport, NY) and having bought Holmes Basic as my very first RPG. I own OD&D, Holmes, B/X, 1st Edition, and *sigh* 3rd. All which is leading up to say that I've realized recently just how much I've been reading and not playing. I have social issues, and I'm prone to switching interests every so often (plus the cost of gas!), so I'm more interested right now in a solo campaign than finding a group. So. A couple questions: 1) I'm deciding between OD&D and Holmes (with an expansion) as my set, hopefully treating it as if i'm picking it up for the first time and having no preconceptions about the rules. Which would you recommend as my choice? I'm leaning towards Holmes, just out of nostalgia and being so familiar with the rules, but OD&D is more complete. 2) I want to use the Outdoor Survival map as my starting world; the question being a) what scale do I use and b) is there room enough on there for multiple dungeons? Inspired by the blog Roll To Carouse (http://rolltocarouse.blogspot.com/2012/11/flashback-friday-taking-solo-trip_30.html) I want to use the first couple B modules, a couple more classic TSR modules, and maybe S3 if I get a group of characters high-level enough. Any advice on any of these would be welcome. Thanks!
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Feb 24, 2013 20:00:01 GMT -6
Neat!
In just the half-dozen or so times I've tried it, I've gotten two demihumans (a hobb *ahem*, halfling and a bald elf).
Any chance later on of support for rolling higher level characters?
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Feb 23, 2013 20:32:44 GMT -6
Was the bit on MUs being able to use scrolls to re-memorize spells yours? 'Cause that's something I never thought of, and it's all kindsa cool. Consider it stolen.
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Feb 23, 2013 18:45:31 GMT -6
Oh, I just noticed this thread.
So - do I shell out the 20 pazoors for the official shirt, or do I buy a blank tee and a color inkjet transfer and make my own...?
Decisions, decisions...
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Feb 23, 2013 18:39:40 GMT -6
OMFG THEY HAVE A HOLMES BASIC SHIRT
*pant pant pant*
WANT
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