Personal blog

Hey, if you're interested in my normal day-to-day goings-on and in my writing projects outside of the old school community (fiction, other gaming writing, etc.) check out my personal blog at The Whole Wide World:

http://grey-elf.blogspot.com/

I tend to split posting between here and there, so following both will give you more frequent postings from me. Plus, I'd like to have more than 29 followers over there.

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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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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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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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Star Wars and Me: Re-Watching The Force Awakens

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 Let me preface this by saying if you hated the Prequels or Sequels I don't care and I don't want to hear from you about it. Kindly scroll on past. If your comments are anti-prequel or anti-sequel, I WILL delete your comments without responding. They won't even be approved to show up on the blog. Now, that being said... I will NEVER forget how excited I was when the fanfare kicked up on December 18, 2015, at around 7:30 PM as I sat in the theater with my good friend Erika after a 24-hour marathon of all 6 prior Star Wars films, and that title: "EPISODE VII: THE FORCE AWAKENS" scrolled up the screen.  I'm not exaggerating when I say that moment was one of the greatest, most exciting times in my life. Now, my wedding day notwithstanding (which naturally stands head and shoulders above all others) the only other time I felt anything matching that level of anticipation was when the lights went down for  The Rise of Skywalker. But we'll get to that in a moment.
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Corellian Spike Sabacc with Betting Rounds

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First Things First First things first: Someday I'll get back to updating this blog at least three times a week. I appreciate everyone who's stuck with it through the lean years, and I'd love to see some more comments and discussion rocking. Bear with me if it takes a day or two for your comment to get approved until I get back into the swing of things. Like a lot of old blogs there's a TON of spam comments that come through, so I'm curating them for that reason only. Okay, now onto the topic of today's blog... Official Sabacc Exists at Last As you're aware unless you live under a rock, Solo: A Star Wars Story is in theaters, and you should absolutely go see it. It's probably my second favorite of the new canon films, after The Force Awakens. It's galaxies better than Rogue One, and I won't mention Last Jedi because quite frankly, the butthurt over that one is too controversial to bring it into this discussion. In any case, Solo gave us
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Gummi Bears - Bouncing Here and There and Everywhere

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I don't care what anyone says, Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears was a damn great fantasy cartoon back in the day, and it deserves a D&D treatment. If you've never heard of it, here it is on YouTube for free, or you can watch it in a less clumsy format on Disney+ www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcdHhJ83WveO5S9AeAeDKD-qQrsfB4dpw Also, the theme song is one of the catchiest cartoon themes ever. Okay, so...   Source:  https://www.deviantart.com/tomarmstrong20/art/Adventures-of-the-Gummi-Bears-1985-1991-566374688 GUMMI BEARS (Stats for Original, Basic, Advanced and most OSR games) No. Appearing: 1-8 Hit Dice: 1-5 Armor Class: 7 (2 with gummi berry juice) / 13/18 high AC Attack: By weapon or bounce slam (1d6) Special: Gummi Berry Juice, Stealth Move: 12 (18 with gummi berry juice) / 30ft/45ft Modern games Size: Small % in Lair: 60% Alignment: Lawful Treasure: C XP: Varies by hit dice Primes (for Castles & Crusades): P,M Description
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Diabetes-Friendly Orange Julius Clone!

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  One of the things I've missed the most after being diagnosed with the 'beetus is a good old-fashioned Orange Julius! I used to love these things - Orange Julius, Strawberry Julius, of course with a banana in it. For years I've wondered how I could get one without spiking my blood sugar, and that, of course, led me to develop a sugar-free recipe. I'm 99% sure this is accurate in terms of flavor and texture.  Note that this recipe contains a raw egg. If you are concerned about consuming raw eggs, you can substitute  pasteurized egg whites or egg beaters  instead. Also, it does contain milk so it's not completely sugar-free (a cup of 2% milk has about 12g of sugar from the lactose).  I expect substituting 2 packets of  strawberry drink mix  would work to create a functional strawberry Julius, but it might taste more "artificial" than actual strawberry puree would. Likewise, you can add a half banana to it if you like but that will certainly up the carb coun
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