Personal Blog

If anyone's interested in my more mundane comings-and-goings, I've begun a personal blog at http://grey-elf.blogspot.com/

I did this so as not to clutter up the Elf Lair and Wasted Lands blogs with off-topic postings.

Feel free to pop over, read, comment, whatever.

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The Darkness Spell in 5e is Pointless

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 Here's a fun observation. The spell darkness, in 5e, has absolutely zero mechanical effect in 5th edition D&D. Darkness creates a heavily obscured area .  Creatures within that area effectively suffer from the blinded condition. Blinded characters suffer disadvantage on attacks, and creatures attacking them have advantage. The spell negates darkvision . All characters within the sphere of magical darkness have disadvantage to attack, but advantage to attack other creatures in the darkness. This advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out . All creatures within the space of a darkness spell battle as normal. The spell is, from a mechanical sense, pointless and negated. Certainly this discounts a proper GM who looks past it and says, "no, that's stupid," but yeah, strictly BY THE BOOK it's a pretty gross oversight by the designers of the game from a mechanical standpoint. Also, I pointed this out to the Sage Advice people some time ago and they confirmed ...
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White Lightsabers in Star Wars: Legacy

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Please note that the following is entirely fan speculation on my part. You can disagree or agree as you like. It's just a neat idea I came up with given the new canon established for lightsaber colors in the Star Wars Universe. Now, note also that I'm sticking with the canon as established, but still tying the Star Wars: Legacy comics by Dark Horse into the mythology, as they take place over 100 years after the current films, and 135 years after Return of the Jedi. In the end, what I'm saying is, I don't care about orange and rainbow lightsabers from the old Expanded Universe, and how whether you were a Jedi Guardian meant green. I'm exploring the idea of the white lightsabers that first debuted with the Imperial Knights in Star Wars: Legacy  and how they might have come to be, based on how Ahsoka got hers in the canon novel Ahsoka.  Also note that all images here are linked directly from Wookieepedia. I don't own them. Now that I've got all that ramb...
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Original D&D

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"Why is he doing this?" you ask. "Buffy? With OD&D? That's insane. Why would you even bother?" Truthfully? Why not? I've done Star Wars and Conan rules. Why not tackle the Buffy crew using the OD&D rules? And when you think about it, the OD&D rules are so broad and open that it's not insane, and they actually work quite well. Yes, it's a modern game, but most modern technology doesn't need different rules to use, and the character classes present mirror the roles pretty well. Honestly, Tim Brannan over at The Other Side does things like this all the time, and I am kind of stealing a concept from him just for fun. So the rules for statting characters are pretty basic. I'm going to try and maintain the spirit of the characters from Buffy, while sticking strictly to the OD&D rules and paradigm. That means no new character classes, though I am opening the doors to supplements and The Strategic Review . Given that Buffy take...
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Lembas - Elvish Waybread: a real-world recipe

Here's a recipe I put together for Lembas bread. Didn't know I could bake, did you? Well, I can, and I'm pretty durned good at it when I want to be. Note: Okay, this isn't exactly directly related to OD&D, but we all know that there is a relationship between OD&D and Middle Earth, and this makes for a good holiday treat, or a nice, filling and fairly healthy snack at the gaming table. Here's how it came about: we were doing a Lord of the Rings marathon at my buddy Mike's house when the RotK extended edition came out. Mike has a 42" widescreen and a really kick ass surround sound system, so we got together at 9:00 AM on Saturday and watched all twelve-plus hours of the epic trilogy back to back. It was awesome. Anyway, I wanted to contribute something so I started searching for recipes for Lembas bread. My efforts that year were futile, but flash forward to last Christmas. I got the hankering to try again, so I looked up some recipes onli...
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Tech Blog: Xiaomi Mi Box S vs NVIDIA SHIELD TV Android TV Boxes

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Yeah, I know, this is an old-school gaming blog, but I needed somewhere to put this, and it's a bit of a ramble, so bear with me. If anyone is cutting the cord, this may come in handy for you. Juliette and I upgraded our streaming box today to an NVIDIA Shield TV. I had originally purchased a Xiaomi MiBox S as a test case for cutting the cord. I can now compare the two for anyone interested in going for an Android TV box.  Note that I did NOT go with the $190-$200 SHIELD Pro, which is the high end gaming version of the Shield TV, and comes with double the memory and an extra USB port. I went with the NVIDIA SHIELD TV "base" model, which looks like a cylinder. Xiaomi Mi Box S NVIDIA SHIELD TV Price  The MiBox S EASILY wins in this category, going for between $64 and $66 on Amazon. The Shield TV goes for $149 on Amazon and at Best Buy, where we bought ours.  Looks Again, I have to give the edge to the MiBox, here. It's a very unassuming small, black, square box that sit...
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Psionics in Dungeons & Dragons Part I: Original D&D

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I'd like to take a couple blog entries to explore the concept of psionics in the early editions of D&D--specifically, original D&D and AD&D first edition. Psionics, traditionally, have been a much-reviled part of the D&D opus, and those who do not include them in their game are certainly far more common than those who do include them. It's no secret that even Gary Gygax lamented and regretted their inclusion, and didn't use them himself. As with any aspect of the game, ask 100 players why they don't like psionics, and you'll get at least 50 different answers (if not more). The vast majority, however, will come down to one of two major points: They are science-fiction feeling and simply don't have a place in a fantasy game They are overcomplicated, confusing, and simply arcane and unworkable.  I can't really address point one. If you simply don't like the idea of psionics, if you feel like they're not fantasy-feeling, and y...
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B/X Companion Review

Okay, I've been kind of putting this off to get my thoughts straight about it. So much has already been said about the fantastic B/X Companion by John Becker, that I've spent a great deal of time considering whether I wanted to try to avoid trodding on already well-worn ground. In the end I decided to just give my best shot at a straight-up review. Now, for those familiar with my reviews on RPGNet, I usually do a "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" layout. "The Good" and "The Bad" are self-explanatory. "The Ugly" refers to layout and design. I will do my best to point out those things I think are just nitpicks on my part. The Good First things first: I'm going to skip the "spells" chapter, as it's mostly standard spells. There is a metric ton of good in this book. For a 64-page volume, it's packed to the gills with stuff. The obvious is level advancement to 30 and beyond. This is a given for a Companion set,...
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The Evolution of "Basic" D&D

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It's a wild understatement to say that Dungeons & Dragons has gone through a lot of iterations, forms, and incarnations over the years. One of the first big schisms in the game came very early on, when the original version of the game evolved into Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. I admit to being a bit fuzzy on the specific details of this evolution; it's possible that TSR originally intended to continue publishing OD&D alongside AD&D (otherwise, the need to clarify that the new game was "Advanced" seems superfluous), or it could simply have been a branding change. Regardless, around this time, they also decided that it might be a good idea to offer a "Basic" version of the game, to introduce new players. Enter Eric Holmes, and the beginning of what would become the first "Edition Wars" in the history of the game. These edition wars continue even down to today's fans of the game, many of whom are starkly (and harshly) dismissive...
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Psionics in Dungeons & Dragons, Part II: Advanced D&D

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Now that we've looked at how Psionics work in original Dungeons & Dragons, let's examine how they work in Advanced D&D. Readers may be shocked to discover that psionics in AD&D are, in many ways, much easier and more straightforward than they are in OD&D. The two systems are very similar, but there are some important and notable differences. The next blog entry in this series will compare and contrast the two systems, but for now I want to focus on how they work to keep a clean exploration and explanation of these two rules sets, both of which offer a lot of fun and something different and mysterious for D&D games that have become a bit rote in their approach. Psionics can present an interesting approach to mysticism in an AD&D game, particularly one that seeks to represent certain styles of 1970s and 80s fantasy, particularly those of writers like Mercedes Lackey, Ursula K. LeGuin, Andre Norton, and Marion Zimmer Bradley, which in modern terms system...
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