I took stock of all of my Appendix N reading to date, which entailed a mix of staring off into space, combing my shelves, and blowing the dust off my long-dormant Goodreads account. Of the 29 authors in Appendix N (well, 28 plus an editor), I have: I made it further than I thought back […]
Cataloging my Appendix N reading Read More »
Back in 2012, as my interest in old-school D&D was returning and flourishing, I started a project to read all of Gary Gygax’s famous Appendix N. I came up with a detailed plan, researched and assembled a 100-book Appendix N reading list that included recommendations for those authors whose works Gary didn’t note by title
Returning to Appendix N (vewy vewy quietly) Read More »
This past weekend I worked in a bit of painting time. Somehow painting my first Blood Angels model feels more like the official start of my army than any of the preceding steps — buying, assembling, priming, and basing. Audiobook as painting soundtrack I’m listening to the audiobook of Guy Haley’s Dante (paid link), narrated
WIP it good: painting Sergeant Karios Read More »
There are a lot of things to love about Twilight: 2000 (paid link) but one of my favorites is its hook (one of the best hooks in RPG history): The PCs, all soldiers, are stuck in the middle of Poland after five years of global war, including exchanges of nuclear and biological weapons, and then, “As
Twilight: 2000 and its amazing hook Read More »
Space pirates! I buy 99% of my RPGs only in PDF these days, but when a product as special as the Pirates of Drinax (paid link) ) campaign for Mongoose Traveller (paid link) comes along, my heart goes pitter-patter and I have to make an exception. It’s a sandbox campaign with a fantastic hook: The
Space Pirates of Drinax: a gorgeous Traveller sandbox Read More »
neuzd offers a dandy Traveller system generator for 1st edition Mongoose Traveller (paid link), and it’s free. What makes it so dandy? For starters, it’s dead simple: click link, get system. The abbreviations for bases and trade codes appear on every output screen (you’ll have to reference the rules, or the web, for the UWP and
Mongoose Traveller system and sector generator Read More »
My online group just wrapped up our second playtesting session of Brad J. Murray‘s upcoming space-fantasy RPG Elysium Flare, and I wanted to talk a little bit about it. The current public playtest draft is v4, available for free on Brad’s Patreon. Background For context: Our sessions are short, and we’re talkative; so far, we’ve
Playtesting Elysium Flare: what drew me to this game Read More »
Earlier this month, at Go Play Northwest, I played a game of Traveller Carcosa run by Alex Mayo that really made me want to play more Traveller. It also reminded me to prod my long-simmering, largely unrequited interest in Traveller and see if Mongoose Traveller was still my favorite iteration. I then bumped into this
A new appreciation for the 1977 version of Traveller Read More »
Thanks to the inimitable Alex Schroeder, I followed a link to this excellent 2005 essay by Michael Andre-Driussi: Deciphering the Text Foundations of Traveller. Here’s Driussi’s thesis: “The creators of CT wanted the anarchic, amoral, and violent adventure of fantasy role playing translated into a science fiction setting. They also wanted a kind of science
Traveller’s literary sources Read More »
After I posted about Devil Ghost’s character generator for Classic Traveller, Frank Filz mentioned that he hosts the same generator on his site — and that he’s made it user-configurable. I tried it out, and it rocks. To get a character, just open the generator page. For a new one, just refresh the page. Easy
Frank Filz’s excellent Classic Traveller character generator Read More »
