foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on May 8, 2017 15:50:02 GMT -5
We're in process of moving from urban Hollywood (where I've spent the past 20 years) to more suburban Encino. Our apartment is more than double the size, meaning there may now be shelf space for at least some of the game books that have been boxed away in storage for the last few years. More intriguingly, though, we'll have space inside our place for a full-size dining-room table, and there's an even bigger shared rec area across the courtyard. Both of those have visions of hosting D&D games floating in my head - something I was never even able to consider at the old place. Alas, the window of interest seems to have passed for the time being - the folks who were making noises about being interested in playing a few months ago are no longer doing so - but that could possibly be rekindled (maybe if we have a house-warming party and they see the books on a shelf). I suppose I could also try reaching back out to the folks I was playing with ~10 years ago, but TBH I don't know that I'd even want to play with any of those guys again (with the exception of Wheggi, who moved away...).
We're going to be moving, unpacking, and buying furniture for the foreseeable future, but maybe, like, sometime this fall I could test the waters...
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Post by geneweigel on May 8, 2017 18:19:03 GMT -5
Heh, I just went to search through old D&D player e-mails and I forgot all about some of the crap that advertising for open to the public games generates. You really have to have tolerance for assholes on a public servant level. The people who sounded/read the most normal were the most crazy and the reckless slob replies were everyday people.
I almost went into the Compleat Strategist with my teenaged daughter last week but I stopped short and did a Graham Chapman," No on second thought. Camelot is a silly place..."
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Post by grodog on May 10, 2017 22:36:50 GMT -5
I suppose I could also try reaching back out to the folks I was playing with ~10 years ago, but TBH I don't know that I'd even want to play with any of those guys again (with the exception of Wheggi, who moved away...). We're going to be moving, unpacking, and buying furniture for the foreseeable future, but maybe, like, sometime this fall I could test the waters... We tried a virtual game with some K&K folks some years ago, but it didn't quite stick. Might be worth trying out, perhaps?? Allan.
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Post by geneweigel on May 11, 2017 7:01:33 GMT -5
Thats the thing about virtual games is that its so awkward that their is no proper place setting in social time and space. If I was going to "have a game" that would be different than taking turns DMing with DM caliber people. I would rather converse while the opportunity presented itself so as to not miss anything. Although its not really the same instance, I felt like my last trip to Wisconsin was wasted on the gaming when I should have been discussing stuff with everyone there.
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Post by geneweigel on May 11, 2017 8:34:54 GMT -5
That said, I am available until the end of time for anything AD&D and whatever even if its for support without play or DMing. Just ask and I'll tell you my schedule.
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Post by geneweigel on May 12, 2017 11:10:02 GMT -5
I made some side links on my blog, one is to here, but my video channel link just is insane. I can't get the official YouTube link to function so I had to make my own which is overlapping of course. If anyone can tell me how this looks on a computer that would be great: justkeeponrollin.blogspot.com/
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on May 12, 2017 12:39:42 GMT -5
The link works, but it's double with width of the rest of that column. It looks okay on my screen - everything is centered and the YouTube frame just sticks out further to the right but doesn't overlap or block any of the other fields. Thanks for including me as an Interesting Link
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Post by geneweigel on May 12, 2017 13:20:20 GMT -5
I guess thats okay as the phone version has no sidebar at all but once I get some downloadable files finished I'm going to add a link to the download website.
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Post by geneweigel on May 16, 2017 8:51:19 GMT -5
Coming along slowly but surely on the first module for publishing. Lots of correlation of the campaign to give it palpable flavor that isn't just superficial*. I still have to finish the cover painting and scan a lot of illustrations. So its a ways off yet. I don't know if want to do a painting for the back cover illustration. I know I'll do a "Kuntz" and put me and my wife. Seriously, I had an idea but now I'm thinking it might be better left as a different media instead of paint. *As for what exactly I'm doing with this adventure, I think the idea is self-contained but open for more if needed and tie-ins that are relevant only. I'm introducing the idea of what exactly Skulldon dungeon is here, with related area map of the entire region, in this one before I put Skulldon dungeon out too so its implied to follow up but completely not necessary. In Skulldon dungeon, when that comes out will be the entire campaign playing area map but its only there for corellation to see this is from an actual campaign and then the location of the big multi-part modules can be put into perspective as well later on. The important part is the tie-ins to new game content thats playable. Thats the take home message because thats all I care about and thats the thing that I always find lacking with rpg products. I'm not writing this to mock a Gygax D&D module either I'm doing this completely to serve DMs/GMs as my only goal. Any land area details will only be in adventures. I'm never doing gazetteers because I don't believe it'll help people play this stuff. I have endless heraldry of course but only two devices are going to featured in this first one on the cover. The people in this adventure are all my NPCs. No special guest appearances from old campaign characters because I'm saving that for the Skulldon Dungeon because its more relevant to the action.
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Post by GRWelsh on May 18, 2017 11:40:21 GMT -5
Are you talking about painting with oil or acrylics or something like that?
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Post by geneweigel on May 18, 2017 12:43:58 GMT -5
Are you talking about painting with oil or acrylics or something like that? Acrylic is what I usually use because of my familiarity with the texture through miniatures. I don't believe that I have any viable oil paints so I was thinking of something else but I don't want to commit to anything. My need for perfection is bad enough! Yeah, its looking good so far but I want to finalize up to the last bit of text so it can really be representational..
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Post by geneweigel on May 22, 2017 8:41:40 GMT -5
Last week, I was trying to blog post an old campaign reference as is then as I was typing it up realized that it was very slanted towards things that I preferred that were official D&D and not everything as it was. (specifically too much slant on my own creations and overlooking all the "new" elves while keeping track of duergars and 1/2 ogres)
My campaign notes are total savagery so many missing notes its painful.
Campaign-wise the converting of the old campaign to Greyhawk in the late 80's was probably the most profound and organized effort. The importat step was to have leaders of each country have a character sheet so that it could grow with the campaign. Looking back its like hey look at all this Greyhawk research but it also had a problem with everything prior being fit in and the details forgotten. Library legitimacy was the capital that I was mining every chance that I got. When someone would show up with a DRAGON article based concept to bring to the campign I would say yes every single time but the caveat was that it was not universal.
I have no charts for rolling anything. Every single rolling chart that I created was stolen. I have researched notes related to the charts but the charts totally gone. I had a chart of weaponless combat combining UA with the standard and I always look for it like its going to roll out of a stack. Someday I'm going to redo it but I feel like its going to show up. That is a curse.
Anyway, still working on the post maybe a few days. I want to make it see through for universal use so I'm leaving the campaign stuff so it can be clearly notated and ironing out all the official material. I don't want to spoil anything but its obviously racial related.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on May 22, 2017 13:13:43 GMT -5
Going through boxes from the move I found a folder containing multiple drafts of "module O1: Against the Orcs," which I worked on for like 2-3 years as a kid. The first version started out as a flagrant rip-off of the A-series modules (I think I even included tournament scoring); by the time I stopped working on it (c. 1986) it seems to have morphed into some kind of Dragonlance rip-off with detailed pre-gen characters and an "epic" linear story. When things have settled down a bit and I have some time I'll probably delve further into this, try to organize it a bit, and see if there's anything in there that's either actually decent (doubtful) or so bad and naive that it's funny in retrospect (more likely) that's worth sharing. Unfortunately, it looks like that might be the only thing from the 80s that survived. I've got a couple binders of stuff from the 90s, but most of it was written in pencil so lightly and so small, and has faded so badly in the decades since, that it's pretty much illegible, at least without a lot of work. And, honestly, I doubt much/any of that is worth sharing, anyway.
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Post by grodog on May 22, 2017 23:13:10 GMT -5
Sounds like the move went well, then, Trent? The Twisting Stair #2 is nearly done with layout and should be available at North Texas RPG Con next month (in Dallas), as well as by mail order afterward. We should have some preview information able to post after I talk to Tony tomorrow about it I sent Tales of Peril to press ~10 days ago, and it should also be available at NTX. I've been posting previews on my blog, in case you're curious: grodog.blogspot.com/Allan.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 476
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Post by foster1941 on May 23, 2017 11:27:45 GMT -5
Sounds like the move went well, then, Trent? It's still in process. We'll be going through boxes for at least a month. We just yesterday finally unpacked enough of our kitchen stuff to be able to cook dinner instead of ordering takeout. AT&T's installation crews were on strike last weekend, so after wasting half of Saturday waiting around for them, we still don't have the phone/cable/internet set up, and won't until next Saturday at the earliest (assuming the strike is resolved by then). But those are minor setbacks. The place is gorgeous and huge and we totally love it. Without TV or internet we're catching up on reading and working our way through my DVDs (luckily, the most easily-accessible box of DVDs was the one with all the Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks movies, so we're having a "classic Hollywood auteurs" marathon .
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Post by grodog on May 23, 2017 19:20:42 GMT -5
Going through boxes from the move I found a folder containing multiple drafts of "module O1: Against the Orcs," which I worked on for like 2-3 years as a kid. The first version started out as a flagrant rip-off of the A-series modules (I think I even included tournament scoring); by the time I stopped working on it (c. 1986) it seems to have morphed into some kind of Dragonlance rip-off with detailed pre-gen characters and an "epic" linear story. When things have settled down a bit and I have some time I'll probably delve further into this, try to organize it a bit, and see if there's anything in there that's either actually decent (doubtful) or so bad and naive that it's funny in retrospect (more likely) that's worth sharing. Yes, my V1 Vanquish the Evil module had very little that was useful to salvage, but... Unfortunately, it looks like that might be the only thing from the 80s that survived. I've got a couple binders of stuff from the 90s, but most of it was written in pencil so lightly and so small, and has faded so badly in the decades since, that it's pretty much illegible, at least without a lot of work. And, honestly, I doubt much/any of that is worth sharing, anyway. ...since it was handwritten in green magic marker pen (and the maps drawn in that ink too ), it hasn't faded at all. Yay Sounds like the move went well, then, Trent? It's still in process. We'll be going through boxes for at least a month. We just yesterday finally unpacked enough of our kitchen stuff to be able to cook dinner instead of ordering takeout. AT&T's installation crews were on strike last weekend, so after wasting half of Saturday waiting around for them, we still don't have the phone/cable/internet set up, and won't until next Saturday at the earliest (assuming the strike is resolved by then). But those are minor setbacks. Glad to hear it's going well. Tony mentioned today that he and Kelly would be coming out to visit over the summer, which sounds cool, too The place is gorgeous and huge and we totally love it. Without TV or internet we're catching up on reading and working our way through my DVDs (luckily, the most easily-accessible box of DVDs was the one with all the Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks movies, so we're having a "classic Hollywood auteurs" marathon . Nice! Allan.
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rredmond
Evoker
& Mag - Filling in the Gaps for Old School Gamers
Posts: 20
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Post by rredmond on May 25, 2017 17:06:03 GMT -5
Jim Kramer had put out that "Adventures from Middle School" series of modules. They were fun to read, not only for the craziness of what you did as a kid, but for the nostalgic mood it puts me in. Good times! --Ron--
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Post by geneweigel on May 26, 2017 1:02:41 GMT -5
This blog post is almost done its real core AD&D heavy this time around with years of concentration. It could be expanded but its good enough. Expect it tomorrow.
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Post by geneweigel on May 27, 2017 9:17:45 GMT -5
Total unintended sidewind yesterday. Sorry about that. File was so busy that I mistakenly used an earlier version so spent rest of yesterday reassembling while a million other things to do. Big mess. I need a drink at this point.
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Post by geneweigel on Jun 9, 2017 8:39:26 GMT -5
I'm derailed lately I sat down to try to hammer out module and spent the last twelve hours (-4 hours sleep) trying to figure out why computer seems buggy. BURRRRRN....
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