June 6th 1944 D-Day

71 years ago today Allied forces invaded Normandy. That's 25 years before I was born, but I grew up knowing that WW II was the good war, the Nazis were bad guys and we won.

I have gamed WW II a lot. I probably started as a kid just playing at war with my friends. I also played with toy soldiers with my friends, and we almost always fought WW II. When I started wargaming I played a lot of WW II games, and when I play wargames these days, it still almost always a WW II game. Axis & Allies, 3^rd Reich, Soldiers, Hitler's War, Squad Leader, Up Front, Europa, no matter what the scale or complexity I've pretty much played it. My first foray into miniatures wargaming was with HO scale WW II minis, and I still have a pretty good sized collection of 28mm WW II stuff for Bolt Action and my B/X WW II hack. Opponents being more difficult to find as I get older, I play out WW II on my PC. I've played a handful of first person shooters and RTS games set during WW II, but mostly I play the kind of games I'd play if I had an opponent here at my house- essentially computerized board games. I loved Panzer General back in the day, and I play it's spiritual descendant Panzer Corps still today. Just yesterday I played Front Line: Road to Moscow for a while.

But WW II was more than just a setting for some of my favorite games. My paternal grandfather, a hal dozen or so great-uncles, 3 of my uncles and one of my aunts, and more cousins than I can count served in the US armed forces during WW II. One of my great-uncles died in North Africa, leaving my father's first cousin fatherless. Most of them were enlisted, a couple were officers. Some never saw combat, most did. My father's first cousin was seriously wounded and captured in Italy. My mother's oldest brother came back with malaria that would regularly flare up until the day he died. They were pilots, sailors, ambulance drivers and mostly infantrymen. They fought in every theater of the war that had US troops.

WW II loomed large over my childhood. My parents were both born during the war. My grandfather taught me to fight and shoot using the same techniques that he taught young GIs how to kill Germans. A lady that lived around the corner, with kids not much older than me, was a holocaust survivor. My elementary school bus driver had been pressed into the Hitler Youth as a kid in Lithuania. My wife's grandfather had served as an infantryman in the 28^th division during the battle of the bulge, his wife, her grandmother was an army nurse during the war.

I think it's odd that in the US we have Memorial Day, commemorating the end of the Civil War, and Veteran's Day for WW I; but nothing particular for WW II. We remember, some of us anyway, D-Day and Pearl Harbor Day, maybe V-E Day or V-J day, but there isn't a national holiday commemorating the end of mankind's most destructive conflict, a conflict that ushered in the atomic era and catapulted the US to superpower status.

Most of my relatives that fought in that war are dead now. I guess it makes sense, it was 70+ years ago. I am middle-aged now, and they were all pretty old when I was a kid. I really miss them though. They loved Roosevelt and the New Deal, because they lived through the depression. They loved America as you only can when there is serious sacrifice involved. They weren't perfect, but they were, by and large, pretty decent folks. This being one of those remembered anniversarys, I am thinking about them.

Buried the lead story again.

The result of a coin toss has given the June prize of Warlord Games 28mm American soldiers to LASGUNPACKER. I recently acquired the Bolt Action rules and am reading through them myself, so I hope you enjoy your prize.

As usual, send me your postal address to williamjdowie AT gmail DOT com, and I'll send the miniatures.

For those of you who won the Roman themed contest- I am sending the dice (and miniature) out tomorrow too. I have gotten a little weary of waiting for Mona's artwork backlog keeping me from sending the other prizes.

Recently...

I discovered that, with the purchase of the "Otosan Uchi" boxed set, I had nearly everything printed for the first, second and third editions of the "Legend of the Five Rings" RPG. Everything except the "Tomb of Iuchiban". Imagine my surprise when I went looking for that particular item and saw the prices that it fetches. I am not a collector, I play my games, but when I see a $120.00+ price tag on what has been called "the Tomb of Horrors for L5R", I get a little annoyed. What, did they only print like 50 copies? I'll stop ranting now.

Last weekend I played "Barbarians of Lemuria" and it was pretty cool, met some cool new people and they seem like my kind of playing group, a little laid back, the GM made rulings instead of looking stuff up in the book every 5 minutes. I even had a beer there. Plans have been laid out to make this their summer game and I intend to keep playing. It was fun, my only comment was that we could have played the exact same adventure with D&D or a retro-clone (my current favorite being S&W).

Now I see it's June and I have an obligation to run my contest, the sole prize for this is a box of Warlord Games 28mm scale American Infantry for their Bolt Action line. I haven't played Bolt Action yet, but I did order the rules recently, because I like skirmish scale WW2 stuff. Warlord games sponsored this contest, and usually I like to pick a best adventure, with my judges, to decide who get's the prizes; but I haven't been all that bloggy lately, didn't come up with a working set of OSR style rules for WW2 (yet), so I will choose the victor at random from the comments section.My original idea had been to run an OSR D-Day/Battle for Normandy adventure contest.

For those of you still waiting on prizes from my last Roman themed contest, my wife is busy with other art commitments, but assures me that your portraits are next on her list, in the meantime I am going to just mail the dice to the winners, sorry about the delay.

My Gamer ADD...

...and why it should drive my players crazy.

I have a tendency to create entirely new campaigns when we have too long a hiatus between gaming sessions and sometimes just because I got a good idea and wanted to run with it. My players have the patience of Job; week to week they don't know what setting they'll be playing in or if there'll be character generation involved.

They just roll with it. Work and school kept us away from the Norse game for too long? I needed to play some adventures I got for a contest so I could accurately judge them? I am running my Roman themed contest and decided it would be cool to start a new adventure to set the mood for all the new adventures I am sure will start pouring in any day now? It's December and we always play OA in December? I need to play-test my WW II B/X game? They are cool with it all.

I actually said to them last month that part of the reason I keep all the character sheets here is so I can restart old campaigns where we left off if that's what strikes my fancy that week and they were cool with never knowing what campaign or even RPG they are going to be playing from week to week. I have long running campaigns, but they run like British television, you might have three to five episodes then have to wait a year before the next series.

My daughter Ashli has a Halfling Thief character that is probably her favorite character of all time, Ruby Cloverleaf. She's had that character since she was maybe fifteen years old, she's twenty now, Ruby gets played maybe half a dozen times per year. The thing is, I guess, as a DM I'd rather DM something I am super enthusiastic about than just go through the motions if I am losing interest in a game for a little while. Sometimes I need to have a little time to recharge, to think about what's going on in a specific campaign and so taking a break will be my idea; more often than not though, a change of campaign is usually brought on by a lack of gaming for at least a couple of weeks, during which time I will have had a cool idea.

That's not how it used to be. I used to run a campaign practically forever. Being a grown-up and having life get in the way of gaming has kind of put a damper on that. I haven't gamed with the Darryls for months now. I haven't gamed with Lance in the better part of a year, although he says he wants to do some board gaming this week. Lee's new job in the ER has kept her away from our game table for most of the last six months, so it's a nice surprise when she can make it.

I have got maybe the best group of players on Earth, they put up with not knowing what we'll be doing from week to week, just to suit my desire to DM whatever I feel like DMing because I can be fickle. What they don't know is that whatever the genre, where ever it takes place, whatever RPG system is used it's all part of the grand design anyway; it's all one unified campaign setting; everything that happens in one “setting” (or sub-setting) has subtle effects on the others.

I just wish I had the ability to dump my brain onto paper and have it all make sense. When people ask me questions, usually the members of my design team, I always know the answer, pretty much regardless of how esoteric the question might be. The setting exists fully formed in my head, the rest of the team are there to help me bring it out, and to do illustrations. I am no good at art. Poetry might be nice too, setting-wise. Flavor stuff, I know the flavors, I just need some help with getting them to the masses.

Thanksgiving Update from the Great Khan

Mongol Month hasn't been a great success for me largely due to the fact that I have been sick for most of it. Cold, followed by the flu, it's been a miserable couple of weeks; once again, I blame my kids for bringing these sicknesses home from school :) Still, I had hoped to be more inspiring for my contest over the course of the month and I have dropped the ball. I haven't even done much gaming-wise except play some Civilization 4 and design a medieval town in the Sims 2 for a D&D campaign; complete with NPCs that have interactive relationships, I don't know why I never thought of this as a tool before.

I have been reading blogs and trying to keep up with the OSR, D&D Next and general gaming news, but I just haven't been compelled to do any commenting on anything until today. Today I figured, since I have the time and I am feeling better and it's been over a week since I posted anything to my blog, I thought I'd mention a couple of things.

First- I got my free miniature from The Assault Group for “Liking” their Facebook page. I really thought it wasn't coming, that I had missed a deadline on that or gotten lost in the shuffle or something because it had been so long since I had “liked” their page for their free mini promotion; as it turns out they mailed it in September. I am guessing customs held things up. Anyway, serendipitously, it's a Mongol General miniature and he's pretty cool. 28Mm scale and way more detailed than I am accustomed to seeing in a miniature from a wargaming manufacturer. Definitely RPG standards of quality there. Maybe I just don't buy enough 28mm wargaming minis.

Second- I just found out that there is an Up Front Kickstarter running. Up Front Was Avalon Hill's Squad Leader card game. I loved that game and I am going into that Kickstarter hard. I have the original version and all of it's expansions and I have been waiting for someone to bring it back into print and expand it some more. My original has been played hard and is starting to get a bit ratty and buying just a replacement set without expansions is generally more expensive than going all in ($125.00) on the Kickstarter. If you like Squad Leader, WW II games or fast paced card games I recommend this one.

Anyway, if you are in the US and you are celebrating Thanksgiving- Happy Thanksgiving!

April 29th is a break day in the A-Z Challenge

So I thought I'd write about a couple of other things that have been on my mind for the last few weeks while I have been doing all this Norse research work, which really wasn't all that hard for me because I am pretty into Norse stuff anyway. Next year though, if there is an A-Z challenge in April, I will think to pick a subject that has more letter options.

But I am digressing from my original point here, which was to NOT write about the Norse A-Z topic I picked this year and instead write about the other things that have been creeping into my brain during that time. First there's the whole Star Trek and Klingon Assault Group thing, both Star Trek gaming, mostly through Star Fleet Battles, but also a little through the FASA RPG have been a big deal for me and my game time in the past. The Klingon Assault Group, while it coincides slightly with the gaming, is another beast altogether. I want to recruit people to KAG, because dressing like a Klingon and acting like a Klingon is awesome fun; but I guess only if you are part of a particularly brave subset of Trekkie.

I have also been slowly working on my own realization of the 1985 TSR AD&D 1st edition Oriental Adventures book. I wrestle with some of the core ideas presented in that book, and I go back and forth over whether or not the book was too ambitiously focused on presenting an entire fantasy east Asia, while still being concentrated on Japan, or if they weren't ambitious enough and should have gone further in their attempt to include everything Asian with the same "kitchen-sink" approach they gave the western world with "regular" AD&D. As it stands, the book is a mostly Japanese game that could not decide on it's focus; was it going to be about court and intrigue? Those skills (sorry, proficiencies) were presented for the first time in any D&D product in the OA book. Was the game about serving a Lord or Clan or a Temple even? That's kind of implied in several class descriptions, but no real advice was given to the DM about how to make a well balanced party work together if it included, for instance, a Samurai, a Ninja and a Sohei. The "normal" adventuring paradigm of AD&D was broken in OA, and no fixed replacement was offered.

Add on top of that the fact that the game had a real issue deciding whether it wanted to emulate a Chanbara film or Ninja film or a Kung-Fu film and we have a problem. Many of the classes don't work well together, and, even if you are not a Monk, you can easily become a martial artist deadly enough to out class the party Samurai, as I saw in my last OA campaign when the Yakuza character took Tae Kwon Do instead of weapons proficiencies. The Wu Jen spell list is inadequate, and while I intend to reverse engineer that list from the 3e compatible magic books I snagged off Ebay that were designed for Rokugan and the Legend of the Five Rings Setting, I can only come to the inescapable conclusion, despite my love of 1st edition AD&D and my nostalgia for Oriental Adventures and the fun campaigns that I have played using those rules, that AEG and L5R were better conceived and better designed than the rush job that I suspect that 1st edition OA was. The best thing I can say about 1st edition's AD&D Oriental Adventures is that it is far superior to the abortion that was 3e OA.

There are gems in the 1st edition OA books, I have seen mentioned on other blogs recently the Yearly,Monthly,Daily events tables. The court game might have worked if they had separated out weapon proficiencies from the "peaceful" ones. The Samurai class might have been less the super class that it was if it hadn't gotten a requirement to specialize in two weapons, something BANNED to every other class. The Kensai, which should be spelled Kensei, needs a total reworking, it is a valid class idea, but screwing him over by never letting him wear any armor OR have a magic weapon of his "chosen" type blows. The two "Cleric" classes of OA both suck though, the Sohei is just a second class Fighter until finally receiving some spells at 6th level? The Shukenja (which should be spelled Shugenja) can't fight anything BUT spirits? Ninja as a "Split-Class" = dumb idea, easy enough to create a Shinobi class, I did it once and I can do it again.

Currently I am reading a lot of Japanese history, watching Samurai movies about the Sengoku Jidai era and reading books about the Samurai and Bushido written during the Tokugawa era, while I am not reading and studying up on Norse history and lore. Obviously, I think the focus of Oriental Adventures should be on Japan and Japanese history and mythology, more focus is better. This is why OA1: Swords of the Daimyo was such a good sandbox to play in, it ignored all of the other nations of Kara-Tur, except for brief mentions. I think every single copy of Oriental Adventures should have come packaged with that module, although the adventures presented are weak.

The other thing that has me feeling nostalgic is my old Steppe Warriors guild, I recently spruced up our Facebook tribute page a bit, and I tried to get in touch with some of the old guys that I lost contact with over the years. AOL's Neverwinter Nights did go offline in July of 1997, we tried a few other online games, even text based ones, but none had the awesome community of AOL's NWN. We weren't there for long, and the core of us were local to the Oswego county area, which is why it was easy for us to have our reunions, at least in the beginning. But I miss all those guys, even the ones I have fought with over the years; and it kind of makes me sad that I never did get around to playing that Steppe Warrior campaign that I always wanted to. I even have a good idea for it now, but we've scattered to the four winds, and the ones left in the area mostly don't talk to each other anymore. Upstate New York's greatest export has always been it's people.

Now, lastly, I have a Dawn Patrol play report that's more than a week over due. We had decided the last time we played that we were sick and tired of random encounters with Fighters versus Two-Seaters and the whole "I fly straight for six squares to complete my mission, now try and shoot me down before I get home" BS. So we just decided on a Fighter engagement, and randomly chose French or British to engage the Germans; then rolled a die to advance the war a number of days. Since I got thee time wrong, and was running late to start with, all of this was taken care of before myself and John even made it to Big Darryl's house.

The date was February 10, 1917. Two Fighter patrols ran into each other deep inside German held territory. My son John and I played the French, we were flying Spad VIIs and the two Darryls were playing the Germans who were both flying Albatross DIIIs. Darryl Jr. was playing his pilot Vizefeldwebel Oskar Schaeffer, who was flying his second mission. Darryl Sr. was playing his pilot Oberleutnant Erich Von Reinstadt, who was flying his 10th mission. John was flying his pilot Lieutenant Guy Bernet and I was flying my pilot, the Serbian volunteer, Lieutenant Vaclev Petrovic; Lieutenant Bernet had two missions and was deemed the flight leader.

Now is the part where I wish I had written this out while it was clearer in my memory, I took a few notes, but I didn't bring the mission logs home with me, maybe I should do that in the future.

The mission started out well enough for us Frenchmen, we were all at high altitude and the Spads outperform the Albatrosses at pretty much every altitude anyway, their only advantage is their dual Spandau guns, which are deadly. We closed to dogfighting range and ended up in a line firing at each other's tails, poor Darryl Jr. in the lead with no target, everyone took a little bit of damage, except me, because I was in the back. It got a little chaotic then, it broke into two dogfights that kept running back into each other, we ban overt table talk during the game, but we can give some pointers about rules and tactics to newer players like John or Dalton (who didn't make this game). Sadly, seven turns into the game Schaeffer scored a critical engine hit on Bernet's plane and it exploded.

Now, completely out of character, it was the luckiest of hits possible, and I felt kind of bad because I shot down John the last time he played (while he was playing MY pilot I might add), so the poor kid has played twice now, and gotten shot down twice. He's a quick learner and he didn't do anything wrong here, except be unlucky; yes, if he stuck around he might have gotten shot down anyway, he was the least experienced player in the game, but I really hope it doesn't sour him on Dawn Patrol.

At that point, outnumbered two to one, you might think I'd just cut and run for my lines, right? Nope. I stuck it out for another ten turns. I'd like to say it was purely for vengeance for my downed comrade, but part of it was also because I was, up until that point, the only one in the group with a legitimate kill scored on another player, so I was trying to shoot Darryl Jr.'s pilot Schaeffer down to keep my record intact. I almost had him a couple of times, I missed at 50' range twice, my guns jammed once, and I had to do all this while evading the other Albatross DIII, not always successfully. Not all the bad luck went in the favor of the Germans, there were a couple of occasions where I almost certainly should have been shot down, both of my wings had sustained a lot of damage and my engine was two hits away from gone, I was just incredibly lucky on critical hit rolls.

In the end, I shot Schaeffer's plane up pretty bad, and Von Reinhardt had some minor damage too, but I was in a position where, if I stuck it out any longer, I was most likely going to give the Hun another aerial victory. I managed to maneuver so that I was pointed towards home and they were either too far behind me or pointed in the wrong direction, and broke for home. My plane had sustained an incredible amount of damage in the fighting, but luckily only one, relatively minor critical hit, to the wing. My Spad was still faster and more maneuverable, so they gave up the chase and the game was over. Lt.Petrovic added a mission to his resume, Vizefeldwebel Schaeffer added both a mission and a kill, and Lt. Von Rienhardt added another mission to his pretty impressive score.

So, if you live in central NY and you have an interest in playing Dawn Patrol, or helping to fix the bugs of 1st edition AD&D's Oriental Adventures through campaign play, or want to play in a B/X Norse campaign, or are interested in alpha-testing a B/X D&D World War II game, or are an old Steppe Warrior from AOL's NWN or one of the other Ordus like Nyrthellan's Woods or The Realm or Everquest or one of the eight million Facebook games we played as a group, or are interested in Star Trek, especially Klingons, but not limited to them, leave me a comment and I'll get back to you.  

April 24th U day

I am not going to lie, I don't really feel good today. We have had snow, sleet, hail and freezing rain on and off all day and I spent half of my day tracking down a new Minivan and putting it on the road. Oddly, it looks pretty much the same as my old Minivan, which was a silver Dodge Grand Caravan, this one is a slightly newer silver Plymouth Grand Voyager. So I am not really feeling U day here at all, so it is fortunate that it is not an important letter day.

U is for Úlfhéðinn, an Old Norse word for a warrior that usually fought alone and often at night. Rumor has it that they specialized in long range operations behind enemy lines. Úlf means "Wolf" and Héðinn means "Skin or Jacket"; kind of sound like a Werewolf to anyone? They also apparently have a special dedication to Odin.

U is for Ullr, a God of the Aesir, strongly associated with hunting, winter and skiing. He is another candidate for one time king of Asgarð that Odin supplanted. He may also have a female counterpart named Ullin, with pretty much the same attributes. Also, while it chronologically doesn't fit, he is said to be the son of Sif and the step-son of Thor. He also has a dwelling at Ýdalir.

U is for Útgarðr, which stands for the "outer-enclosure", or pretty much every place that is not under the control of Gods or Men or Elves, a periphery full of shady characters like Jötnar and Thursar and Trolls and all manner of ill meaning Vaettir.

On a personal note, I am thinking that I need to be playing some more games, wargames, RPGs, doesn't matter. I know Lee wasn't super into my OA game, and that kind of threw that whole project under the bus, I am thinking about doing some more with that. Dalton has a D&D group in Oswego, I'd like to meet and maybe they'd be interested in picking up where we left off before. My B/X Viking game keeps getting bad luck in the way of gaming, what were the odds two of us were going to have vehicles die last week? We have a gaming convention at SUNY Oswego next weekend, so I am going to go to that Arcon XI, maybe I'll meet some more local and interested gamers there too. I also have my grand Mongol RPG/Wargame crossover that's been on a back burner for a long while that I'd like to start working on and my Dawn Patrol group said they'd be receptive to play-testing my B/X World War II game, so I guess we'll see which of these catches, eh?

April 19th Q Day

You know I am really trying to stick to my Norse theme here, but apparently I didn't consider that certain days are just going to suck for the purposes of A-Z blogging Q is worse than P. Q doesn't exist in Old Norse or even Modern Icelandic, so just what the hell am I supposed to talk about on Q day? I have been wracking my brain for an hour and I have got nothing but Quisling, the Norwegian Nazi collaborator, and that is WAY post Viking age and has nothing to do with either Norse lore or the events and circumstances of my current Viking age D&D campaign.

So, sorry, Q day is a total bust, on the plus side R day should be so totally jam packed I might not be able to fit it all in.

I'll still make sure you get a cool Viking picture for today though.

Gamer ADD and AD&D

It's no secret I have a strong preference for historical settings with a bit of fantasy thrown in for flavor, usually the folk beliefs of the peoples living in the setting at the time, sometimes something a little more fully fledged fantastic or even more gonzo stuff. When I set up a new D&D or AD&D campaign I usually take and create a quasi-historical setting with a new world and all the D&D monsters and toss in some real world cultures, usually from around the same time and place, so I know how they'll interact. I have found over the years that my players prefer a more "straight" fantasy D&D world, flavored with the cultures of our Earth to an actual historical setting, although they're usually cool with a historical setting if you leave in all the D&D-isms they've come to expect- Goblins, Orcs and other Humanoids, all the PC races, flashy, destructive Magic-User spells like Fireball, et cetera; which is why the 1139 AD Cornwall campaign is working so far, no restrictions.

That said, I am walking a fine line with my B/X campaign set during the Anarchy, I've been reading a lot of stuff about medieval England; which is really just supplemental to the knowledge I already have on the subject, but I need to refresh and build up my knowledge of that specific time and place. I understand this is more for me than it is for the players, but if I am not enjoying the setting, then it will show through into my game. The players are just as happy to be playing here as they would be in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos or the Kingdom of Furyondy, as long as they still have the opportunity to explore dungeons, slay Orcs and get some gold for their efforts.

My semi-secret plan is to start another game set in the same time and place with another group and have the two games influence each other. I may expand this to include an internet based game at some point too, but I am fearful of the new technology and DMing for a group of people I don't know, so that's in my "we'll see" category. I am ambitious enough to think that this game can last long enough to have players reach Name Level and have an effect on the civil war between Stephen and Matilda, or even start a new faction if they really want to. The current game is B/X and I am pretty happy with it, although the new Adventurer, Conqueror, King System looks like something I may want to check out.

I'd also be lying if I said I didn't miss AD&D, at least a little. Those bastards at WotC managed to announce the re-release of the 1st edition AD&D books at just the wrong time. I'd just about finished reading the Moldvay Basic book and was doing a lot of comparisons anyway. AD&D has a lot of nostalgia value for me and everyone I play with, even my kids, because I started them with it. People in my B/X game were already a little wary of the whole "Race as Class" issue, then we started taking casualties and the AD&D "Death at -10 HP" rule was sorely missed. My new Schrodinger's Adventurer rule hasn't seen play yet, so we'll see how it works out.

Speaking of house rules, I am having some trouble getting new house rules to stick; people just forget about them and so do I. I love "Shields Shall be Splintered", but it's useless if we never remember it. The d30 rule only gets used every now and again, usually when Dalton remembers it and reminds one of the other players to use it, or uses it himself and sets the example for the others to follow. The only "House" rule everyone remembers to use is the unwritten, never explicitly stated, I might face a player rebellion if I revoke, "Natural 20=Critical Hit=Double Damage"; every D&D or AD&D player I have ever played with has used that rule. I see on some blogs that some DMs don't use it to inflict double damage on PCs, but I have always figured what's good for the goose is good for the gander. The only thing I insist upon is that players roll 2 separate dice for damage rather than doubling one, and that strength and magic bonuses are only added after doubling.

Anyway, now everyone is all talking about AD&D again with the impending release of the core books and I am all caught up in thinking things like "Wouldn't it be nice to add a few more Class options? Multi-Classing? More PC Races", all those little rules that drew me into AD&D in the first place. Well, that and the fact that D&D was being marketed to kids and AD&D to adults. On the one hand I know a bunch of people would be pretty happy to switch things over to AD&D, on the other hand I really want to continue the game I have going with the rules set I have. Simple is nice. I am intrigued by the play possibilities of the stronger magic. The lack of multi-classing possibilities has significantly limited the number of non-Human PCs, which I like. There hasn't been a single Halfling yet, there were three Dwarfs and they all died, and just one Elf, she is still alive. The first adventure claimed the lives of three Dwarfs and two Magic-Users, I wonder what that says about the adventure? Other than Magic-Users should avoid the front line.

Should I switch to AD&D? Lance and at least two of my kids want to, Lee Ann favors AD&D, but is open to B/X, Mona doesn't care what rules set we use, I haven't asked Dalton yet, and Audra is brand new to gaming, so it doesn't matter to her. B/X was my idea to make the game simpler and faster; I also wanted to experiment with trying out gaming like it was 1981.

I went out and did some gaming on Saturday. I played a D-Day card game with maddeningly incomplete rules, as the Allies, I suffered a marginal defeat, but I think over the course of the game I figured out what the intent of the rules were. I played a tank battle board game from Milton Bradley, I think, that was sort of like a cross between Battleship and Stratego, I defeated Lance soundly at this. I played a Gladiator game called Arena Games that Lance had been wanting to teach me for a while, I also defeated him soundly at this. I then played Seven Wonders twice and lost both times, once badly, to Lance's 13 year old daughter. These new miniatures came in the mail while I was gone.



Heritage 25mm Historicals, they were Heritage and historical, I was compelled to bid, they needed a home.



Heritage Archers, same with these lads.



Martian Metals Wizard and Flunkie, you can't have too many flunkies, am I right? These are my first ever Martian Metals miniatures too.



This guy was just billed as "Wizard", the miniature itself is marked Ral Partha 1982.



These were billed as Ral Partha and Grenadier, I can attest to the Archer being Grenadier, he says so, the other guy either didn't arrive in the package or disappeared after I opened it when I got home that night.

Not pictured here are the two other guys that were inexplicably included in the package, a pair of older miniatures that I would guess are Grenadier, but I don't recognize them and they are mounted on bases that I am loathe to try and remove them from. They have a Norse/Saxon look about them, both have round shields, one with a tree on it, the other plain wood; one is armed with an axe, the other with a sword. Both are wearing chain and spangenhelms, the axeman's conical with a nasal. Both are bearded.

This book came in the mail today.



I said I was reading a lot about medieval England, this is the first book I have gotten specifically about the Anarchy. Currently I am reading 1215 - The Year of the Magna Carta, which is nearly a century out of date for my game, but keeps referring back to the previous century for comparison, which I was pretty sure it would when I bought it. King John is only two generations removed from King Stephen and the Empress Matilda after all, he is the grandson of Matilda and the Grand-Nephew of Stephen.



These miniatures came in the mail today too.



They are a variety of medieval axemen and I figured, no pun intended, that they might be useful during my quasi-historical B/X Anarchy campaign. They also have pride of place as the last things I am getting from EBay this month, as I ran seriously over budget by accidentally winning more of these miniatures than I expected to.

GM Questionnaire

So, I decided to fill out Zak's Questionnaire, here are my answers.

1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?

I am apparently a one trick pony, I can come up with good campaign settings. I can fill them with interesting NPCs and get some action started via plot hooks, after that it's all on the players. I don't really invent stuff like tricks, traps, spells or monsters.

2. When was the last time you GMed?

December 18, 2011, but that session and the one before it weren't all that great.

3. When was the last time you played?

Sometime in 2009? Right after Hackmaster Basic came out, my Daughter Ashli decided to debut as a gamemaster using that system, it went well for the first couple of sessions while she had pre-prepared material to work with, but once she had to start working with her own material and we started to do things that weren't covered in the book, things started to go bad; it ended shortly after that while we waited for the release of Frandor's Keep. I bought that for her when it came out, but we never went back to Hackmaster Basic, I think that the ultra-busyness of her senior year of high school and the bad memory of how it had ended before turned her off to the system. No, I forgot, it was last Spring when Lee's 1/2 Orc died, she DMed my campaign for a few sessions while I recharged my DM mojo.

4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.

B/X Pendragon, more of a campaign really though.

5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?

Eat, drink, chat with the other players; eventually roll a random encounter.

6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?

Usually Beef Summer Sausage, a variety of Cheeses, Ritz Crackers and Ranch Dressing or A couple of Different Types of Mustard make the standard "During the Game" snack tray, also Coffee (always), Hot Tea (Black, Green, or some types of Herbal- upon request), Hot Cocoa (upon request), usually some type of soda, always with a couple of diet options for soda. Sometimes the snack tray will include vegetables or other cold meats, this week's game will have Smoked Herring, for example. Since my game is every other week, I have the opportunity to stock up on snack foods when I find them on sale for a good price, so various Potato Chips and flavors of Doritos make their way here pretty frequently too. Since we always break for dinner, we almost always have some kind of food that is either easy and quick to make, or that we can throw in the oven or on the stove and not have to watch too closely, at recent game sessions we have had Beef Stew and Chili Con Carne; or alternately we order Pizza & Wings or Subs. Players are free to bring whatever other snacks they want to as well, as long as they bring enough to share, so this usually adds some Chips, Cookies and Soda to the mix too.

7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?

No, but I'm not 16 anymore either. I can't play D&D for 16 hours straight and then take a 5 hour nap before another 16 hour session.

8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?

Planning a tactical assault on a well guarded and somewhat fortified urban mansion with a party of low level PCs? I played a 1st level Magic- User. Seriously, I don't get to play much.

9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?

Sometimes they do, sometimes I do. It's a game. Sure I may get a little ticked off when one of the players decides to not take the game as deadly serious as I am, at the moment, but aren't we all doing this to have fun and blow off a little of our real life stress and hang out with our friends, and, in my case, my family too? Sometimes this game just takes a turn for the absurd, and there is nothing you can do to turn it around. When it's one player, it CAN get contagious, when it's the DM it WILL get contagious. The less said about the gay Orc discotheque, the better or the naked no-thumbed Orcs. Why do these things keep happening to Orcs?

10. What do you do with goblins?

After what happened to the Orcs, do you really want to know? Seriously, they're mostly evil cannon fodder.

11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?

The floor plan of a Korean bath house.

12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?

Funny things happen all the time at my game. We have a pretty fun loving group of players, but nothing springs to mind specifically.

13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?

Moldvay Basic Book, reading it cover to cover for a blog post.

14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?

Tough choice here, but I am going to go with Dave Trampier.

15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?

I would have to say no. Occasionally a little creeped out, but really scared, no; again, it's just a game.

16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)

Tough to say, I almost always heavily rewrite adventure modules anyway, because if I don't I am afraid I'll forget something important because I didn't write it, and the potential problem of players having read the adventure before hand. The only adventure I can run with a minimum of preparation AND be sure I am not forgetting anything is B2.

17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?

That would depend on the game now wouldn't it? An ideal set up for a WW II board game is going to be different than the ideal set up for a Star Trek RPG, but for the sake of argument I'll assume you meant ideal for D&D. Ideal for D&D would need to have some medieval ambiance in the room, a table large enough to seat 9 people at least, with room for books, snacks, an optional battle mat and minis. Good lighting. Access to a nearby rest room and kitchen facility, should probably be the DM's residence. Side table for the DM. Bookshelves are a plus, so reference books are in the same room. A good sound system would be nice too. Since we're going for ideal, I'd have a computer at the DM station too. The DM's chair would be more like a throne, so he sat higher up and in a nicer chair, projecting his more powerful status to the players. Actually with some redecoration, my old DM Marty's dining room where we used to play in his 2nd edition campaign comes pretty close, the only issues are that I am the usual DM now, his reference books were in an upstairs library room and it was a little on the small side.

18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?

Star Fleet Battles and Munchkin, they have got to be sitting at opposite ends of the spectrum.

19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?

Higher education, my 1st edition AD&D DMG, Conan the Barbarian, King Arthur.

20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?

People who follow the Wheaton Rule. Other than that be clean, no stereotypical gamers here; be on time and attentive to the game, it's respectful to the rest of the gamers here. It helps if we're already friends and would hang out with each other even if there wasn't a D&D game going on, because sometimes shit happens and we don't get to play D&D when we're supposed to and that can get awkward when there is a stranger that I only really know from D&D in my house.

21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?

Armored Combat with Sword & Shield (and other weapons) both in singles tournaments and in mêlée.

22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?

AD&D 2nd edition Oriental Adventures. I think it would have cleaned up a lot of the problems of the 1st edition version and probably would not have abandoned the Kara-Tur setting like 3e did.

23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?

I have in the past talked with people about RPGs that didn't play, but not with any regularity. Usually they either decide to give RPGs a shot themselves or we don't really talk about them after a while.

Mail Call 08 SEPT 2011

A GURPS WW2 extravaganza today, once again the pictures are from the EBay auctions.



I convinced myself this was research material for my, now largely back-burnered, B/X WW II project; but really I just like GURPS sourcebooks despite the fact that I really am not a big fan of the game system.



This gives us the specifics of the mighty British Empire.

Mail Call 28 JUN 2011

Once again the picture is from the EBay auction.



Honestly, I don't even know if I already have a copy of this. I saw an absurdly low minimum bid with low shipping and figured I'd give it a shot. I won. I am pretty sure I don't already own it, but I have scored a lot of d6 Star Wars stuff cheap over the last few months.

Also, I know I promised my take on shield walls for today, but I had to take advantage of the good weather today and get some outdoor work done. Soon, when I get the time to sit and think on it. I haven't forgotten my B/X WW2 project either, more is forthcoming on that front too.

Regular Blogging?

Maybe I was a little ambitious when I said I'd be back to my regular blogging schedule today. I have been taking advantage of the fact that the weather is good and my two oldest children, Ashli and John, are done with school now to get some much needed work done outside. We are clearing more land, mostly taking down dead and dying trees right now and processing them into smaller bits. My parents heat with wood, so whatever is good for burning will probably get cut into firewood for them and trucked over there. I need to buy a chain saw, I am getting too old to do this with axes anymore.

I did see Game of Thrones though. I hadn't read the books, so I didn't know what to expect. I am a pretty big fantasy snob, but I was pretty impressed with this first season. I bought the books for my wife Mona for her birthday in May, but she isn't done with them yet, and I have tons of other stuff to read, plus my B/X WW2 project.

Happy Father's Day

Wishing a very happy father's day to all the dads out there.

My wife and kids made me a nice breakfast of pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon; then I went to visit my dad and give him a card with a train on it (he is an avid model railroader), soon my wife and eldest daughter will have prepared the central NY standard summer feast consisting of Hamburgers (ordinarily this would also include Hoffman's Hotdogs, but we didn't get any this time), Salt Potatoes, Grandma Brown's Baked Beans and Tossed Salad*; and we will settle in to watching season one of Hogans Heroes and, perhaps, season one of Stargate SG-1.

On a personal note, my illness seems to be mostly gone now with just a few lingering, annoying effects so I will be resuming my regular blogging probably tomorrow.

*Potato Salad, Macaroni Salad, Coleslaw, Corn on the Cob, and Steamed Clams are also common for the CNY summer feast, but it's too early for Corn or Clams and with Salt Potatoes we usually opt out of the Potato and Macaroni Salads except in cases of large gatherings; I think we just overlooked the Coleslaw. Everyone loves Mona's Coleslaw.

AAR 29-05-11

Saturday's playtest of B/X WW2 didn't pan out as I had hoped; between the long weekend and us volunteering/giving blood at the Red Cross that morning it just didn't happen.

Sadly, Sunday didn't happen either, another victim of the Memorial Day weekend, which isn't to say I didn't get any gaming in at all; we just didn't get in a B/X WW2 playtest.



I got Lance W. to drop by and he brought the old FASA Battlestar Galactica starfighter combat game, which neither of us had played in ages. He had recently reread the rules so we played a one-on-one duel. He played the Cylon, I the Colonial. He took a the three laser, no torpedo variant Raider; I went with the standard Mk. II Viper from the series. We closed to range and I lined up on him with a decent shot and fired my 2 torpedoes and my 2 lasers and missed with everything. It turned into a twisty-turney dogfight after that and we nickle and dimed each other's ships a bit until he scored his customary "Cockpit Destroyed" result, ending our game. It was a good time though, so I don't complain.



Since that didn't take long, we decided to play one of our old stand by games- Up Front! He suggested we play the DiY 501 City Fight in 3 scenario, I was game. We rolled a d30 to see who picked first, he rolled a 30 and picked the Germans. I picked the Americans and we set to spending our 501 points to buy our "squads". Traditionally I am pretty unlucky at Up Front!, but today was Lance's day to have my unlucky breaks. We both set up in the fairly traditional 3 group formation. We both bought Strength 5 radios and double Snipers. He had LMGs in groups A and C, I had a BAR in my group A. I had a mortar in group C. He had a total of 16 men and I had 21. My best men were in my groups A and B, C was my burn off excess fire cards via mortar attacks early in the game and movement cards later group; it contained a number of men I probably wouldn't have considered taking except that the large number of them made them less attractive to move towards for his men.

The bad luck started for Lance with his first attack, my group A moved, his group A had enough fire power with their crewed LMG to fire at them, the first card he drew for resolution was a red 6, the LMG suffered a breakdown. When he tried to repair it on his next turn he drew another red 6 and the weapon was destroyed, pretty much ruining the firepower potential of his group A for the rest of the game.

After that Lady Luck loved me for the rest of the game. Every time he moved a group I had a stream or a marsh to discard and usually a Sniper and nothing else really to do anyway. Wire was a constant issue for him. Whenever I moved I would draw a building card to move into. My mortar group plan worked great. I kept drawing radio cards, and only had 2 out of 7 missions fail. My mortar never missed once. My only complaint is that my Snipers only ever pinned his men.

He never got a radio card, and after the first deck wouldn't have been able to use it if he had because the guy carrying the radio had routed. His one Sniper card he got I easily Sniper checked and killed. He popped smoke once only to see a breeze come along seconds later and blow it away. He was placing his men in open terrain so I wouldn't be able to put them into bad terrain after a while. The bad luck was really getting into his head.

I didn't play without mistakes either, his bad luck made me cocky, and I advanced my B group too close too his C group that still had a functioning LMG; and I voluntarily routed a guy to do so, and not into great terrain, just -2 buildings. To be fair they had all been pinned when I started the move, he got a rally all card, followed by a hero card; possibly his luckiest draws of the game.

Ultimately, the game ended when I had an attack that broke his squad. The score was 2 Americans KIA 3 Routed, 4 Germans KIA, 8 Routed. He held out a lot longer than his crappy luck would have led you to believe was possible and fought a lot harder, we were 1/2 way through the last deck at the end of the game. I had a good time and so did he, it was nice to see Lady Luck switch dance partners for a change though; much as I love this game, and I know I have the technical skill for it, I very often lose.

Memorial Day Long Weekend Hiatus

Pictured- A typical local parade.

Here in the US we celebrate Memorial day on the last Monday in May; giving us, at least, a three day weekend. The holiday started as a remembrance of our veterans and those who died during the American Civil War and after World War One was expanded to include the veterans and fallen of all of Americas wars. Ordinarily we Americans celebrate this civic holiday by attending parades, having picnics and watching war movies.

I explain this only because I see my blogger stats show a significant portion of my readership is non-American and thought you might need a heads up on the impending communications blackout.

For my family this year our parade attendance is more compulsory than it usually is because Ashli is marching in two of them with the Marine Corps JROTC. We used to just attend the one closest to home because my dad marched with the American Legion, which he still does and will again this year.

Anyway, we're also volunteering at a Red Cross blood drive on Saturday for a while. The kids are already off for the holiday "weekend", 5 days for them. So family and community stuff are cutting into my blogging time a bit. We should still be able to get playtesting B/X WW2 in over the weekend, I am hoping for 2 days worth.

Blogger Spasms Ate My Baby!

God Damn it!

I thought all of the Blogger nonsense was solved yesterday for me but it ate my bloody post.

It was nothing important, just some thoughts on stuff that I didn't get around to in the A-Z Challenge in April, busy work to clear my head while I wait to playtest B/X WW2 again this weekend. I had gotten into the habit of writing these posts in a word processor program and then transferring them over, but I figured "What the hell, it's just a short post."; and then wrote a long-ish post, only to see bloody Blogger tell me I needed to log in to post, try that and then have the damned thing disappear into the aether.

B/X WW2 & Mail Call 05-23-2011

I already had a copy of the Wizards book,which was kind of lackluster in my opinion, and I had previously read the Dwarves book, which I thought was the best of the race handbooks; the real trophy here for me was the Ninja book, which I had only seen once before and never had a chance to read. The Complete Ninja Handbook represents TSR's only real attempt to support Oriental Adventures in 2nd edition AD&D other than the updated monsters of the Kara-Tur Monstrous Compendium add on. Given my great love for 1st edition Oriental Adventures, but my dislike for it's seriously broken Ninja class I am kind of looking forward to checking this out.

On the B/X WW2 front I have made contact with another group of potential playtesters, centered around my old gaming buddy Lance W. who is almost always up for some WW2 action. His dad served in a US Army Airborne unit in the Pacific during the war and was a Flamethrower guy, they always had a bunch of cool stuff around the house when I was a kid that he had brought back from the war, including a longbow from New Guinea that Lance and I broke trying to use. Apparently that stuff gets all brittle when it's been hanging on a wall for decades as a decoration. I kind of wish we had paid more attention to his stories about the war when we were kids since now he isn't around to ask about the details. Same thing with my mom's older brothers and my father's father, all of them had 1st hand experience of the war, they were kind of thrilled that someone was interested in hearing about it, but I was too young to know the right questions to ask.

Along with that serious downer, I have apparently caught a cold and I hate summer colds the worst; so that's probably soured my mood somewhat, tired and all from cold meds.

April Posting Blitz

I am not going to lie, I kind of miss the April posting blitz; it gave me something to make sure I had to do with my blog everyday. Sure, a lot of the ideas were half formed or incompletely explored, and it seemed like I never had enough time to get everything done that I wanted to talk about; trust me, there's a list of unused topics left over from the A-Z Challenge. Now I am back to not posting every day though and it feels like a bit of a let down. I think I may start going back through my list of topics I didn't have time for or just didn't get around to for whatever reason, it'll give me a bit of a change of pace from tinkering with rules I haven't tested yet at least.

Now a wee preview-
Optional rule for elite troops character generation:
Roll all Stats with 2d6+6
This rule is optional and goes into effect if the gamemaster wants to run an elite forces campaign. Elite forces might be Airborne troops or Rangers or Commando units.

USMC JROTC and stuff

Hectic day yesterday. I advise against both entering your forties and having three teen-agers at once. Rain here during what is NOT supposed to be our monsoon season is still preventing me from getting some rather crucial outdoor work done. US Army keeping me from playtesting B/X WW II this weekend.

Anyway, Ashli's Marine Corps Junior ROTC Awards ceremony was last night and she was covered in glory. First there was a meet and greet pizza party dinner before the ceremony where first they handed out T-shirts to the members of their drill team, kind of like tour T-shirts for bands. On the front it has the Marine Corps devil dog logo and the name of their team and says " 5th place overall nationals champions 2011"; on the back it says 5 overall championships, 69 events, 52 trophies, 29 1st place, 10 2nd place, 6 3rd place, 1 4th place; which is pretty cool. Then when I was grabbing a slice of pizza Ashli's CO came over and shook my hand and told me that "Ashli is the best cadet we have in the program, I wish I could take credit for this, but she came to us this way."; I was a pretty proud dad right then.

Then we made our way up to the auditorium for the awards ceremony proper, which was quite lengthy, but there weren't any extraneous BS awards given out in my opinion, with the possible exception of the good conduct award which was given to every cadet in the program that had managed to avoid getting into any trouble over the course of the school year; that may just be sour grapes on my part though because I know there is no way I could ever have gotten it back in my day. There were a number of military and civic organizations there giving awards to cadets for various reasons. Ashli was presented with the Women Marines Association's Outstanding Cadet Award, The American Legion's Scholastic Medal and the following awards from the MCJROTC- Outstanding Cadet, Community Service, Distinguished Scholastic Achievement, Distinguished Conduct, Longevity/Fidelty, Drill Team and Best Drill Squad.

I try not to boast too much about my children, but I figure Ashli has it coming today. Some of those awards were no real surprise to me, she is also a member of National Honor Society and French Honor Society and has been volunteering at local food pantries since she was 14 years old. We only just moved to this school district just before the beginning of the school year though and all of the ROTC stuff was new to her, she really only joined because she had already joined the Army Reserve and wanted the benefit of some military experience before she heads off to basic training after she graduates; but she threw herself into the program with a will and it shows. She went from being a girl that had to lose a few pounds to get into the Army to being a girl that can easily pass basic training. She knows how to march, how to wear a uniform, how to shoot, and can ace a PT test (which she is doing today at her reserve unit).

Her reserve unit usually takes their pre-basics and makes them do busy work on drill weekends; Ashli has real responsibilities there now, which includes watching the other pre-basics and teaching them how not to act and keeping them in line.

Best part about last night though, I got a firm commitment from my son John and my other daughter Ember that they will both be joining the JROTC program. John is an honor student and a football player and on the weightlifting team, but I think the discipline of the JROTC program will be good for him. Em is an Honor student and does track. She runs the 200 meter and the 100 meter and throws the shot put. She used to run the 800 meter too.

Anyway, since the real Army took Ashli away again this weekend and I can't scrape up any other playtesters for B/X WW II around here; I will leave you with a mermaid my lovely wife Mona drew this afternoon that I scanned as I was writing this.