Sometimes You Have to go to the Postman

Did I mention my local Post Office sucks?  Big time?  It appears my Flying Buffalo order is being sent back, not that they ever made the attempt to deliver it.

My big T&T purchase on Ebay?  tracking finally updated last nite, it appears they've had it since LAST Friday... again, no slip to let me know, thank god for (delayed) online tracking.  All that being said, it wasn't waiting at my zoned post office, but a neighboring one.  Yep, two trips.

That being said, I now have a 2nd printing of Monsters! Monsters!, and 13 of the first 14 Solo adventures.  Oh, and a second copy of the 5e rules for T&T.

I guess you can say it was worth the wait ;)

Nother Contest Bump!

Contest ends in less then 5 1/2 hrs. I'll even add a 2nd prize, so we should have 2 winners. Let's get it done!


- Posted from my iPhone

Contest Bump!

Quick post to remind all that the current contest end tomorrow night at midnite.  You chance for a free PDF copy of Realms of Cthulhu is ending soon.

Witless in the City

I intended to post a witty piece on the use of published adventures in an ongoing campaign, but parent teacher conference earlier tonight has left me exhausted.

Police work is way easier then parenting, let me tell you ;)

I'll try and be witty this weekend.  If I'm not witty, at least I'll be verbose (SAT words for the kid's benefit)  heh

My Thoughts Posted Elsewhere

I spent way too much time posting on Greg's blog yesterday. Apparently I am like a fine beer... I take a while to ferment. Synapse Design Blog

Don't forget the yesterday's contest. Entries must be in by midnite, this coming Saturday.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Contest: Win a PDF Copy of Realms of Cthulhu

Let's get this party started!

The contest is really simple, but it will require a minimum amount of work on your part to enter.

You are going to roll up a Tunnels & Trolls character, and one random poster will win a PDF copy of Realms of Cthulhu courtesy of RPGNow.

So, what you need to do is:

1 - download a free copy of the Tunnels & Trolls rules if you don't already own a copy of the 5e/5.5e/7e or 7.5e rules - any edition of the T&T rules will work

2 - roll up a character (or many, but only the first posting will count).  You'll need some d6s for this.

3 - name your character

4 - post your character in this thread with a sentence or two describing him / her

5 - at midnite on Saturday, October 30th, 2010 I'll randomly choose one the posted characters as the winner, and send out the prize via email.

Pretty easy if you ask me ;)

P.S.  Yes, I really do have T&T on my mind these days.  So sue me!

Bits & Pieces

Well, someone was kind enough to buy me what looks to be a HUGE canning jar with a flip lid for my dice.  So, needless to say I had to order 2 more pounds of dice to attempt to fill the sucker.  Still a work in progress.

I'm pretty impressed with the Delver's Pack for Tunnels & Trolls.  While the box doesn't overflow from the cramming of too much stuff (can you really cram too much gaming material in a box), what is there is pretty good.  All that and a whole stack of character sheets (the core box just comes with 4).

I'm going to be posting a new contest in a few (minutes?  hours?), and the prize will be a PDF copy of Realms of Cthulhu.  Seems to be the right prize for Halloween ;)

Landshark! Who? Postman! OK, Let Me Open the Door... Arrggh!

Sorry, there's an old SNL joke somewhere in that title.  Must be my frustrations with the US Postal Service.

See, this is what I don't understand.

When James shipped LotFP Weird Fantasy from the netherland known as Finland, I believe it took 3 days to go door to door to my house.

CDs purchased on Ebay from Australia?  2 days.  Holy cow!

The Delver's Pack for Tunnels & Trolls that I ordered?  Arrived at the Jersey City, NJ Postal sort facility last Wednesday.  I know, I had the tracking info.   It was updated last Thursday - Jersey City.  Friday?  Updated as - Jersey City.  Saturday?  You guessed it, Jersey City.  Yesterday it finally hit my local post office and it arrived at my door today.

To put it simply, the USPS sucks a large amount of ass.  I think the postal beast devoured two small orders from Flying Buffalo earlier this month.  Rick is going to check the status after he settles in from con time in Germany.

UPS?  God bless 'em.  Never lost a package yet, and Amazon is where I do more shopping then anywhere else.

Anyhow, I'm finally getting a chance to look thru the T&T Delver's Pack.  Looks good so far.  I also got Steve Jackson Game's Zombie Dice via Amazon/UPS.  Should be some family dice fun this weekend.

Five Hundred and One

Yep, the last post was my 500th blog post.

I want to thank my readers, posters, fellow bloggers and most importantly my family... I'm sure if my son totaled up the time i've spent blogging he'd be really pissed it wasn't spent killing stuff online with him and taking their stuff ;)

Thanks everyone. You've kept it fun, which is why I come back every day. Keep up the good work and I'll try and keep my end up :)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Review - Tunnels & Trolls 7.5e - The Rest of the Box

I've covered all the books and booklets in the T&T Boxed set.  Now we have the bits and pieces, so to speak.

First up is the counter collection.

Tunnels & Trolls isn't really a game that worries about facing and exact positioning, but counters, just like miniatures, can help the players visualize the game they are playing.

Fiery Dragon always does a nice set of counters, and these are no exception.

72 counters, covering both PCs and adversaries.

I believe the artist is Claudio Pozas, as he did the illustrations in the monster book and the special edition monster / magic book.  His look fits Tunnels & Trolls pretty well.

We get a handful of character sheets, which are nice but small.
I expect one would get better use out of a sheet printed off the internet, but it's nice for inclusion in a boxed set, as it adds to the idea that it is complete in the box.

There is a fold out map of Trollworld.  It's actually pretty cool, even tho' I don't know anything of the places on it.  That's a hint Ken.  Maybe a small wordbook for Trollworld, no more in depth then the 1st Printing of World of Greyhawk.  I know I'd buy it as fast as Ken puts it to paper / word processing program ;)

Last is the 4 small six sided dice, about the same size as were included in LotFP's Weird Fantasy Boxed Set.  Which means its nice they were included, but a bit small for everyday use.

I'm sure the formatting of this post is going to be all over the place, but screw it.

All in all I'm very happy with the T&T 7.5e Boxed Set.  It's a lighter game then most of the D&D OSR clones and is certainly Old School, which is where I'm sitting my gaming table these days.

I'm waiting on the Delver's Pack to show up, maybe tomorrow ;)

edit:  500th post... go figure.  That kinda snuck up on me ;)

Review - Tunnels & Trolls 7.5e - Hot Pursuit

Hot Pursuit is the GM Adventure included in the Tunnels & Trolls 7.5e Boxed Set.  In a sense, it suffers from a similar problem to the included Solo Adventure - it's not written for a starting party.   Instead, it's written for characters of up to 5th level, and even tho' level in T&T doesn't necessarily have the same meaning as in D&D, this isn't really written for new players or average starting characters, which is a shame as it is a well written adventure.

Still, all that being said, a smart and lucky party can probably survive the adventure in some state.  T&T is a game where character demise is to be expected, at least more-so then many other fantasy RPGs.  Besides, rolling up a new PC is quick and easy in T&T ;)

Ken St. Andre offers a nice piece of advice at the beginning of the adventure for the GM, and I found it valuable enough that I am quoting it here:

I do recommend that if you find that demanding players are causing you to make up a lot of details on the fly, you should write down what you made up so you can be consistent later. Plot developments and adventure hooks will probably arise as the adventure unravels, so jot these ideas down as they arise or as you think of them. You might want to use them later or introduce them if play slows-down or goes in a different direction from what you had planned.

There is an editing problem with some dropped text on the bottom of page 3.  It's not a game breaker, just a minor annoyance.  It's in both the print and PDF versions for the curious

Review - Tunnels & Trolls 7.5e - Monsters & Magic Book (Special Edition)

The Tunnels & Trolls 7.5e Monsters & Magic Book (Special Edition) is a 22 page booklet included in both the T&T 7.5e Boxed Set and the 30th Anniversary Tin.  As far as I can tell, this booklet introduced Special Damage to the T&T game (I don't see it in my 5e copy of the rules, and I'd need to dig to find my 5.5e copy).

You can read about the Special (Procing) Damage in my previous post about the Monstrum Codex.

We also get a few paragraphs on Balancing Encounters in T&T 7e/7.5e, which is based on a 4 character party.  Strangely enough, the Balancing Rules that make mention of the Revised T&T rules (presented in the 30th Anniversary Tin and available for free at Trollhalla for registered members) refers to a Standard 3 person party.  I might need to give the Revised (think alternate) T&T rules a closer look.

In any case, the booklet details 20 creatures for use in your T&T game.

The rest of the booklet gives a short and dirty introduction to magic items in T&T.  It's enough to give the GM some ideas, but little more.  Sample staves, wands, potions and weapons are stated out.  It's a start, but leaves me hungry for more.

All in all, there's a lot of info crammed into those 22 pages.  How about we get a book 2? ;)

Today is a Do Nothing Day... Maybe

After long negotiations (all of about 2 minutes) between the kid, my girl and myself, we've decided that I need a "down day" on most weekends.  No shopping, no movies, no driving... just me and my stuff.  Unless of course, the kid wants to play a MMORPG or two... somehow that clause got snuck into the contract... at which point I'm apparently gaming.

The biggest winner in this whole thing?  The pets.  My girl's dachshund gets to have her mommy home one day a week and my feline Ashley thinks I'm home to keep her occupied all day.  Pets really are the center of the world.

Did I mention that the girl and I have now designated one weeknite a week to be "Pub Dinner Nite"?  This is working out to be a Win Win across the board!  Heh.