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Post by jeffb on Aug 24, 2023 9:31:46 GMT -6
Just saw the email.
Woot!
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Post by jeffb on Aug 21, 2023 19:15:54 GMT -6
I was only able to listen to the first few minutes so far (this w/e for the rest). I wanted to point out that I'm no big fan of AH's RQ3 either (barring best RQ character sheet ever), but to be fair it was completely designed in-house by Chaosium and they are completely responsible for it as a rules-set.
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Post by jeffb on Aug 20, 2023 9:18:27 GMT -6
Is OSE any better than this? Significantly! I’m surprised you don’t already own it, actually. But, yes. OSE’s core purpose was to make the full, actual B/X rules (instead of an approximation) not only exist in a modern rule set, but also excessive effort put forth to it’s being a great reference, That is, Gavin gave great attention to how it’s formatted, so that this or that thing is always on one page or two pages together, when possible as opposed to dragging on to a page following….if ya get what I mean. Honestly, it’s a total masterclass in formatting and the like. It’s in digest size, but the fonts, etc are very strong and clear as well as the font size. Also, the hardback is of great quality. It’s (the core rules) around about $40 and well worth every penny, IMHO. I've kind of avoided it as I have both Labyrinth Lord and BFRPG in print (and have since...2008?), and I'm generally not one for slick modern production values(and prices). But I do know that OSE has slick production values with an emphasis on utility. I may have to see if I can find a gently used copy somewhere. That or send off my PDFs of Moldvay/Cook/Marsh to one of those print services. MCM is my all time favorite D&D ruleset, for utility and aesthetics.
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Post by jeffb on Aug 19, 2023 17:28:48 GMT -6
I got the book and modules today. Sadly, I have to conur with machfront. Complete Revised is a difficult book to read for my aging eyes. The fonts are not terribly "strong", and they are lightly shaded against a light background. The modules are like the book as well. Matt Finch must still have 20/20 vision or printed these for young folks. I have to be in a very bright light situation to read these books without strain. My BHP single volume print of Whitebox is significantly easier to read as is my 1st print of Complete. Let's not even discuss how easy Moldvay/Cook/Marsh is to read (but I don't want to use mine for play copies anymore) Beautiful book, happy to see S&W KS'ed again, but it will get little to no use or read time from me. Disappointing. Is OSE any better than this?
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Post by jeffb on Aug 18, 2023 11:30:53 GMT -6
Yeah, after reading some of the reviews, I'm not sure if I really need to upgrade... Yeah. I don't feel any need at all. It would just be a shelf queen for me (or "folder queen" in the case of PDFs)
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Post by jeffb on Aug 14, 2023 19:48:45 GMT -6
Got an email today- Shipping label created. Should be getting my book and adventures soon.
I'm looking forward to being able to have the physical product in my hands and do some compare/contrast to 1st print Complete. But I'm REALLY looking forward to rolling up a character and tackling the solo adventure- there are so few good D&D solos and for whatever reason I've always liked playing solo modules or the old FF gamebooks, etc. I remember running through Dragon's Hall and Survival of the Fittest, but they were..just ok. Then a few years later Blizzard Pass, the other invisible ink one for the Expert set, the Ghost of Lion Castle, and the magic viewer one for AD&D. None of those were very good, and none were comparable to T&T's solos. This S&W solo looks pretty good.
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Post by jeffb on Aug 14, 2023 19:37:13 GMT -6
Thanks for the link. I was thinking "yes".... then I saw Index Card RPG and the analysis paralysis set in. Will have to ponder on this.
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Post by jeffb on Jul 30, 2023 8:07:46 GMT -6
What does AELF stand for? Alternative for Existing Licenses for Fantasy license. Yeah, not the most elegant acronym. You are too kind, Sir. It's flipping horrible.
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Post by jeffb on Jul 29, 2023 19:49:12 GMT -6
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Post by jeffb on Jul 25, 2023 16:45:25 GMT -6
And Target had a Raiders T-shirt featuring the poster art from RotLA, so I bought one. (They weren’t around back in the day, because those kinds of t-shirts weren’t yet a thing.) I had a Raiders T shirt not long after it came out. I mean, TSR had D&D shirts in the late 70s (had one, didn't wear it in public, lol ), and they were mass merchandising all kinds of PotA and Jaws stuff even before the insane boom of Star Wars merchandise.
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Post by jeffb on Jul 22, 2023 13:27:40 GMT -6
If I was to add one more criticism, and this one isn't so minor. This edition is much more verbose, but I don't think the "clarifications" have made it any more clear or easy to understand. I really like the terseness of the original S&W. It was succinct without being overly chopped down, like some of the "Hacks" and other minimalist OSR games. For example, this is Surprise in S&W 2nd printing (2009): And this is Surprise in S&W Complete (2023): (I know, this is virtually the same as S&W complete from 2010) I've not read the new book yet-only glanced through the PDF, and this doesn't surprise me. On a serious note, Complete had a lot of Bill Webb influence, and the desire to make the game less...light...in order to be more friendly to younger DMs who may be coming from whatever modern versions of D&D/PF. This way, it's not just a ruling and/or telling the to wing everything, they give some advice/rules. I don't care much for it either, but I understand why they are doing it.
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Post by jeffb on Jul 21, 2023 6:36:10 GMT -6
Getting old sucks.
I can't say for complete revised yet, obviously, but my eyes have deteriorated badly in the last 10 years and almost nothing is easy to read in bed by lamplight. Some books are easier to read than others for sure. I really like the 4E D&D books for sitting in bed. Bigger fonts and generally stark white backgrounds.
I've pretty much given up on archery and gone back to shooting rifles (scoped) because of it.
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Post by jeffb on Jul 21, 2023 6:21:08 GMT -6
Gave them both a 10 min once over last night.
I tried not to spoiler myself with the solo adventure, however this looks to have some interesting locations, and they have done a good job of adding some rules elements to make solo play more fun. I'd prefer to wait for the print copy as solos on PDF suck to play, but I still might give it a go anyway.
The GM adventure looks a bit..uninspired, or maybe just thrown together real quick. The locations seemed typical (in a plain uninteresting sort of way), and most of the encounters seemed to be made up of the same creatures with a few odds and ends. Nothing I hate more than a adventure full of the SOS monsters for the majority of encounters. I understand it's supposed to be an introductory adventure, but...this is no Tomb of the Iron God or 1975 adventure for Complete 2nd.
I'll reserve final judgement for a proper read through,but I'm not expecting much to change
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Post by jeffb on Jul 20, 2023 18:16:29 GMT -6
The two adventures- "Doom of Malakar" (solo) and "Legacy of Blackscale Lagoon" (sandbox) dropped in PDF today.
Just finished downloading them , so no impressions yet.
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Post by jeffb on Jul 20, 2023 18:14:00 GMT -6
Not wanting to derail this topic, can someone point me to the licensing info for this new S&W edition? I don't think there is a final version yet??? about 10-12 days ago there were several KS/email updates re: certain parts of the license, and Matt was providing some drafts for backers to look over and provide feedback (and I think he revised or threw something out completely and said he would provide another update in a week or so) Frankly, as I'm not a publisher or plan on creating anything for public consumption, I've paid nearly zero attention to what is going on there.
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Post by jeffb on Jul 20, 2023 6:52:12 GMT -6
I threw in for the KS for this too but haven't received my copy yet. :/ There was a test run for fulfillment and shipping. People who had only ordered the print book as above and even then only a portion of them. There was an update about this and general fulfillment from Matt a couple of weeks ago.
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Post by jeffb on Jul 15, 2023 12:26:18 GMT -6
If I'd first experienced 4E as a miniatures skirmish game not called D&D, I might have liked it. I had no idea the rules were that succinct though, my impression was it was hundreds of pages of excruciating detail. The wargame I was surprised at how relatively simple and streamlined it is when I first played a match was Warhammer. There is a reason it’s so popular. Everything you need to run your PC is on the cards. You have to understand about 2 pages worth of general combat rules otherwise.
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Post by jeffb on Jul 15, 2023 7:29:58 GMT -6
Other.
4E.
I'm mostly kidding.
However, I did not come to OD&D in the 70s through wargaming channels, and despite my efforts BITD to get into various AH, SPI, and other wargames (I owned the original WB WH set)- it's not my thing. I enjoy strategy and tactics to a certain extent, but not with the complication, scale (npi) and investment (literally and figuratively) needed for wargames.
4E on the other hand (RAW), scratches my itch for teamwork tactics- small scale, easily understood (with essentially all the rules you need to know on a card/character sheet) and plays out (relatively) quick.
I always wanted to get involved in the 3.0 era of Chainmail, but it did not seem to last long. My understanding is the system was not terrible but it was too expensive for WOTC at the time to produce all the minis.
That said- If someone said "Hey Jeff..wanna play a FWG today? Take your pick!" I think I'd like to try the original Warhammer- it *seemed* like a good system. Chainmail (original) I cannot be bothered to parse then, or now (great game it may be)
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Post by jeffb on Jul 13, 2023 17:04:30 GMT -6
More details ( I knew they sent an email a few days ago) $350.00 in print (a better value)
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Post by jeffb on Jul 13, 2023 17:00:31 GMT -6
That's straight-up krazy. $299 for a mere PDF?! That's got to be a typo. It's 1000 pages...of art. Too rich for my blood, even if it was print...but I'm sure the Howard estate gets a cut.
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Post by jeffb on Jul 13, 2023 14:29:09 GMT -6
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Post by jeffb on Jul 9, 2023 8:29:45 GMT -6
That said, he's an adult now, has some reservations about the prequels, and also completely hates everything Disney has done except for R1. There are only four Star Wars movies: 1. Star Wars (1977) 2. The Empire Strikes Back (1980) 3. Return of the Jedi (1983) 4. Rogue One (2016) R1 is by far the best of the Disney movies, with a few really good bits. But I don't personally feel it is up there with the Original Trilogy, even at 4th place. It and the prequels are in another lesser tier..where possibly R1 sits at the top. All IMO of course.
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Post by jeffb on Jul 9, 2023 7:22:07 GMT -6
Disney has ruined every single great property they have touched in the last 15 years- ERB/JC, Marvel, Star Wars, and now IJ. That's the nicest way for me to put it, as what I would like to say about them would get me banned. AFAIC, Temple of Doom is a perfect D&D RPG adventure and better D&D film than any of the D&D movies could ever hope to be. It may be my favorite of the IJ series. George Lucas took a dump on Star Wars and most of those franchises of his long before Disney came along. But, that's not to say Disney has been good to them either. I was quite miffed at George during the prequel era (and for the Special editions) , and when I heard Disney was buying them, I was happy and completely sure they would "restore" the property. I promoted them on various forums on line as cavalry coming to save the day. Maybe even here. I may never have been more wrong in my life. I came to appreciate certain parts of the prequels over the years. Raising my Son on SW he eventually convinced me to show them to him and his child age enjoyment of them softened me up a bit. Just a bit though. That said,he's an adult now, has some reservations about the prequels, and also completely hates everything Disney has done except for R1. As an aside, I actually like the John Carter movie, even if I don't like how they eviscerated the character of John Carter to make him sanitary for a modern audience. What a shame, because the movie was beautiful to watch.
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Post by jeffb on Jul 5, 2023 14:35:29 GMT -6
Disney has ruined every single great property they have touched in the last 15 years- ERB/JC, Marvel, Star Wars, and now IJ. That's the nicest way for me to put it, as what I would like to say about them would get me banned. AFAIC, Temple of Doom is a perfect D&D RPG adventure and better D&D film than any of the D&D movies could ever hope to be. It may be my favorite of the IJ series. Disney bought Marvel in 2009. Winter Soldier, the best Marvel movie, came out in 2014. No accounting for taste. Not a fan.
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Post by jeffb on Jul 4, 2023 16:29:47 GMT -6
Disney has ruined every single great property they have touched in the last 15 years- ERB/JC, Marvel, Star Wars, and now IJ. That's the nicest way for me to put it, as what I would like to say about them would get me banned.
AFAIC, Temple of Doom is a perfect D&D RPG adventure and better D&D film than any of the D&D movies could ever hope to be. It may be my favorite of the IJ series.
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Post by jeffb on Jun 12, 2023 13:19:38 GMT -6
Both Authors have stated over the years they specifically changed numbers on various tables for OGL reasons.
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Post by jeffb on Jun 10, 2023 5:40:11 GMT -6
Backers-
Make sure you hit up your Backerkit digital downloads section again- they've uploaded the revised (errata) rulebook, the spellbooks, the character sheet, referee screen inserts (P&L), an AD&D type DM log sheet, and a 20 page player reference booklet which looks great to hand out to players as a "all you need to play" document along with a spellbook (if needed).
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Post by jeffb on May 29, 2023 18:42:08 GMT -6
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Post by jeffb on May 27, 2023 4:31:02 GMT -6
As a major Fanboy of anything and everything Tom Moldvay has ever done (check out Lords of Creation!), I also have the Challenges system on PDF somewhere.
Or used to. That may be on my old backup drive.
Every time I think of Tom a wave of sadness comes over me because he was never able to take part in the boom of the OSR and see just how much his works are revered 40 years later. Not only did he (along with Dave and Steve) put out the most concise, easy to pick up and play, perfectly presented version of the rules, he also pumped out some of the very best adventures ever written for the game. He didn't do anything half-ass or lackluster (he even turned B3 into a better adventure*- considering the design direction and extremely short period of time he was given)
* IME running this multiple times, it plays MUCH better than it reads. Though it does not seem like it on the surface, the seeds of an entire campaign are woven into B3.
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Post by jeffb on May 25, 2023 5:28:38 GMT -6
Whitebox is my absolute favorite too. I'm hoping Matt will do something with it as well, but I'm not holding my breath. His last incarnation was very underwhelming. I know mamy like FMAG, but that also didn't do much for me.
I love the original Mythmere and the BH single volume prints best.
All that said, Complete is probably the closest to the actual OD&D games our group was playing in 77/78. The lbbs, GH, EW, amd the basic book from Holmes and the Monster Manual when they turned up new. Of course we ignored a bunch, and interpreted things in different ways, but as a set of rules, Complete mimics it well. I also use it as a supplement at the table to s&w white box for the extra spells/spell levels, magic items, monsters, etc. Sort of the way we used AD&D to supplement our OD&D games.
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