The title's not exactly what this blog will be about, but it's as close as I could come to summing it up.  We had really nice weather here last week--a teaser for the coming spring season--and as I do at such times, I put on some old Iron Maiden CDs in the car and waxed nostalgic. Adding to this was a visit to my local comics shop, owned by the same gent who owns one of our FLGSes here in Pittsburgh.  I have a buddy who has several boxes of old (90's era) comics he wants to unload because they are taking up space. When I inquired for him, the answer I got was, "Nope, back issues are the kiss of death, now.  That market is dead." Comic stores now focus on memorabilia and trade paperbacks.  That's where the business is.  Hell, when I read comics these days it's in TPB format.  I can't be bothered to try and keep up with all the various overcomplicated, dimension-hopping monthly storylines anymore.  I'd rather just wait for the collected edition ...

I can already hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the people crying, "He's nothing but a WotC-hater!  What does he know??" First things first: I'm unequivocally not a WotC-hater.  I'm no fan of fourth edition, and I've made no bones about that.  But that's neither here nor there, and has absolutely nothing to do with this blog. This particular blog is not setting out to bash D&D or WotC or any group of fans.  It is, however, going to attack an idea that has somehow come to be commonly accepted as a Great Truth(TM): that the demise of Dungeons & Dragons would somehow mean the End of Days for the RPG industry. Why?  Why is that?  Can anyone give me a good, coherent reason that goes beyond, "Well, they're the big dog on the block"? Not only do I disagree with this sentiment, I believe that the death of D&D as a roleplaying game would actually be beneficial to the role playing industry as a whole. And again, it has nothing...

Listen, children to a story That was written long ago About a kingdom on a mountain And the valley folk below On the mountain was a treasure Buried deep beneath the stone And the valley people swore They'd have it for their very own So go ahead and hate your neighbor Go ahead and cheat a friend Do it in the name of Heaven You can justify it in the end There won't be any trumpets blowing Come the Judgment Day On the bloody morning after One tin soldier rides away So the people of the valley Sent a message up the hill Asking for the buried treasure Tons of gold for which they'd kill Came an answer from the kingdom "With our brothers we will share All the secrets of our mountain All the riches buried there." Now the valley cried with anger "Mount your horses, draw your swords!" And they killed the mountain people So they won their just reward Now they stood beside the treasure On the mountain dark and red Turned the stone ...

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...

Posted stats for Red Sonja using Spellcraft & Swordplay. The Other Side blog: Red Sonja Enjoy!

Now in production: Masters of the Mind, an original edition psionics supplement which will be compatible with Labyrinth Lord, Advanced Labyrinth Lord, and OSRIC, but should work with any old-school simulacra game. As with Spellcraft & Swordplay, this particular supplement came about "by accident," as I was writing an exegesis on the original psionics rules in Supplement III. I discovered, upon reading, that the only thing difficult to grasp on the original rules was the presentation. Once I had read them through several times, they seemed quite easy and it struck me that it's rather a shame that a good presentation wasn't ever put out there; they may have been adopted into many more games. That's my goal here, to put forth an easy-to-grasp version of these rules that will enhance and expand your old edition fantasy games. The work will include a restatement and reorganization of the original rules for psychic powers for the game, in as cle...

In case some of my followers here are unaware, part of the reason I don't post here more frequently is that I maintain another blog, a personal blog, and I split time between that one and this one, which is dedicated solely to gaming. If you are interested in following that one as well (and I'd love to have more followers over there) check it out: http://grey-elf.blogspot.com/ Also, spread the word about this one! 64 followers (not counting facebook followers) just isn't enough!