Tenkar's Tavern: 2013-04-07

Saturday, April 13, 2013

There Are Many Planets, But This One is Mine - Gemi B400442-B

There's my planet, in the center of the map - Gemi.

All you need is a dollar (to have your upgraded Beta Disc mailed to you), and a dream ;)

Fucker appears to get bypassed by the trade routes too...

I Finally Have My Traveller5 Beta Upgrade Disc - and no desire to even read it...

On April 18th, 2008 I ordered the Traveller5 Beta Disc. I had some fond memories of playing Traveller back in my High School and College years, and thought this would be a fine way to catch up. Betas are betas, and the early version was a confusing mess, at least to my eyes. Besides, I ordered the Classic Traveller disc at the same time, and that was the shiny that kept me occupied and distracted.

I did remember the promise of an updated disc when T5 was complete, but in truth, all that was forgotten until the T5 Kickstarter. It took me a while to figure out what the "beta supporters" were going to get, and when I saw we were promised the disc, there really was no reason for me to jump into the Kickstarter.

Then, no disc. I later found out I had to Paypal FFE $1 to "verify my address". Nope, it was apparently to pay the shipping. Whatever.

Five years and the Mongoose Traveller Edition later has lost me any excitement for T5. But hey, I'm assigned a world. Maybe I should look that up ;)

A Completed Kickstarter: Maelorum, an epic Gamebook

Maelorum was due in January and shipped in April. Updates were informative and frequent, so it never really felt all that late.

When it arrived earlier in the week, it actually came with 2 copies of the book - one numbered and one standard, which means I get to share ;)

It's a damn heavy book, coming in at trade paperback size and 430+ pages. As it is a solo RPG adventure book, I think I'll try to read an entry or two a night and see how long it takes to get killed or succeed :)

I'm impressed enough by the offering to look forward to Volume Two.

edit: for those looking to pick up a copy, the store is here: http://maelorum.com/store/

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks - Cartoon Style Walk Through

This thing is huge. Go to the WotC site and grab this, White Plume Mountain and Tomb of Horrors. They are truly classic walkthroughs.

I would put a ::spoiler alert!:: but if you are reading this blog you've probably played through these modules numerous times ;)

Friday, April 12, 2013

Let Loose the Hounds! Time to Spread the Word About the S&W Appreciation Day

April 17th, the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day, is a mere 5 days away. I already took the day off from work and figure to run a LotR Marathon in the background as I take care of keeping everything updated.

There is still time to spread the word. I've seen mention of the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day blogfest popping up on G+ in the Swords & Wizardry Community and on a few blogs, but you are mostly preaching to the choir there.

Spread the word on G+ publicly. Share it on Facebook (did I just say that?). I'd say "tweet" it, but I hardly ever tweet myself ;) Hit the usual forums. Hit the unusual forums. The S&W Appreciation Day event isn't just for the community, it's there to grow the community.

We currently have 127 blogs signed up to participate. If that isn't major event in the RPG Community, I don't know what is (well, yes I do - look at what the current news is ;)

The blogs:

1 - Chronicles of Ganth! - Homebrewed heartbreaker

2 - Secrets of the Shadowend - Something wicked this way comes

3 - They Might Be Gazebos

4 - Mad-Kyndalanth - 'to share good stories afterwards'

5 - Dizzy Dungeon - New School falls for the OSR

6 - Gothridge Manor - OMG, its full of Sleestaks

7 - Lapsus Calumni

8 - 19th Level - Musings on RPGs & Fiction

9 - Sycarion Diversions - "One day, Spelljammer will return!"

10 - Dorkland!

11 - Worlds Galore

12 - Dreams of My Mythic Fantasy

13 - Daily OSR fix - Random tables makes me smile

14 - BrewLab Gaming Concepts

15 - Realms of Chirak - "Eclectic Gaming Madness from Camazotz"

16 - Quickly, Quietly, Carefully - OD&D exegis, retro stupid fun

17 - Dreams in the Lich House

18 - Hereticwerks

19 - RPG Delisi - A Turkish blog about RPGs

20 - The Retired Adventurer

21 - Semper Initiativus Unum - Rethinking Classic Tropes, Sharing History

22 - Red Box Denver - Old School Adventure in Denver

23 - Bat in the Attic - Hexes, Sandboxes, and Wilderlands

24 - Reverend Dak dot Blogspot - Bicycles, Beer and 20-sided Dice

25 - The Ongoing Campaign - Obscure Games and Famous Ones

26 - The Other Side

27 - d20 Dialectic

28 - Once More Unto the Breach - Rediscovering the joy of roleplaying!

29 - Venger's old school gaming blog

30 - Fear No Darkness - reasons...not rules

31 - Mythmere's Blog (Mr S&W Himself ;)

32 - Gamers & Grodnards

33 - Dispatches From Kickassistan

34 - Six Sarcophagi

35 - Edgar's Game Blog

36 - Spes Magna Games

37 - The Space Cockroach's Hideout - Space, Modern and fantastic Adventures

38 - inthecitiesdotcom

39 - Sorcerer Under Mountain

40 - Tenkar's Tavern - "OSR To the Core!"

41 - No School Like the Old School

42 - Blessings of the Dice Gods

43 - Porky's Expanse - a nebulous region of hobby space

44 - The Clash of Spear on Sword

45 - Roll to Carouse!

46 - Ilea jacta Est - A 20-Sided Look at Life

47 - Blood & Battle - Swords & Wizardry resources, reviews, recaps

48 - Starting Over With the OSR

49 - Sandbox of Doom

50 - Lord Archaon's Grimoire

51 - Battle Axes and Beasties - Sporadic Babbling about Various Stuff

52 - Apathy Blogs

53 - Applied Phantasticality

54 - Strange Stones - Strange Stones: Demons, Rogues, and Lemurian Barbarians

55 - Mystic Bull Games

56 - Le Verre Violet - Hexcrawls, Blackmoor, Carcosa and OD&Dities

57 - The Sorcerer Speaks! - Purple Sorcerer News, and stuff

58 - The Crazy GM

59 - O Druida Hierofante (The Hierophant Druid) - Swords & Wizardry in Brasil

60 - The Rusty Battle Axe - Home of Haiku: The RPG

61 - Keith Davies -- In My Campaign - Too heavy for Tenkar's reading ;)

62 - Necropraxis - OD&D, rules hacking, necromantic musings

63 - Rended Press - Free typos deal double damage!

64 - Hunter's Quarry

65 - hDan's YAGB - Traveller, D&D and related interests

66 - Like Being Read to From Dictionaries - It's Like Reading A Dictionary

67 - Vargold - The Wolf-Time

68 - The Wizard's Chest - Gaming Like We are 10

69 - Wampus Country - Whimsical tall-tale fantasy frontier

70 - Troll & Flame

71 - Epic RPG Blog - San Diego's RPG Scene

72 - Kingdoms in Trevail - Infrequent & random old-school gaming thoughts :)

73 - Jeffro's Space Gaming Blog - Microgames, Monster Games, and RPG's

74 - Swords & Dorkery - the name is the description

75 - Dice of Doom - Old School Cool

76 - Infinite Dragons - Adventure Unlimited

77 - Dyson's Dodecahedron - Award Winning Dungeon Design

78 - The Ultimate Josha - RPG reviews, stories, and thoughts

79 - Places to Go, People to Be - RPGs are easily accessible self-expression

80 - Tales From the Tower - Recaps, Campaign Info, Game Art

81 - Tenfootpole - Hypocrite reviews OSR adventures

82 - Ynas Midgard's OSR Blog - irregular musings and content for D&D

83 - Castelli & Chimere (Castles & Chimeras) - My musings on D&D (OSR)

84 - What Do I Know? - One Gamer Yapping; Many RPGs

85 - Dungeon of Signs - Drunken OSR glossolalia

86 - The Frothy Friar - Advancing back to basics
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87 - Edgar's Game Blog - Recaps, Philosophy, & Games Within Games
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88 - The Adventures of the Clock Caravel - Eclectic Crowdsourced Virtual Steampunk Roleplaying

89 - Requiem for a Muse

90 - Scottenkainenland

91 - EdoWar's Blog

92 - Pilgrims Guide to Zeitgeist - A journey into the worlds i play in

93 - Forgotten Runes

94 - @ Padre's - Dragonquest lives on!

95 - Heropress

96 - Basic Fantasy RPG Blog - The Basic Fantasy RPG Blog

97 - Rather Gamey - "How squirrel tastes."

98 - Into the Dungeondark - TPKs Continue Until Play Improves

99 - ubiHEX

100 - Mesmerized By Sirens - Carrying the torch of defunct fantasy role-playing games

101 - Tower of the Lonely GM

102 - The Frog God's Blog - where you can be the frog, not the flies

103 - The Dice Are a Lie

104 - Acirema Mountain - Playing the first Finnish rpg

105 - Ruthless Diastema BlogCast - Life From a Gamer's Perspective

106 - Jack's Toolbox - tools and tips for DMs

107 - Infinite Dragon - Mostly OSR-themed game blogging

108 - Lost in Time - D&D, Jorune, and other gubbins

109 - Jasper's Rantings - Random D&D/OSR/RPG and Geekish Amusements

110 - D20 Dark Ages - From 1989 to the Present

111 - The Iron Tavern - Cold Dwarven Ale and Casual Conversation

112 - Machpants' Blog - Mashing S&W for my kids

113 - My RPG Characters -

114 - The Campaign Expanse - Settings perilous and other sundry

115 - Hexgeneration - Post Punk & Old School Role Play

116 - The Warlock's Home Brew -

117 - iDungeon Crawl - RPGs, macs and other things

118 - Theoretical GM - Sporadic Musings and Adventurous Ideas

119 - Aeons & Augeries -

120 - Observational Epidemiology -

121 - Polar Bear Dreams and Stranger Things - Being the demented ramblings of a crazy person

122 - About Bruce Heard, D&D, and new stories

123 - Places to Go, People to Be

124 - Under Siege

125 - New Grog on the Block - OSR from a younger perspective

126 - …and the sky full of dust.

127 - Barbarians of Provo

128 - Back to the Dungeon

129 - The OSR Library

130 - 5 Stones Games

131 - Realms in the Mist - gaming, the osr, reviews, and house rules

132 - I Am Teh Badger - Gaming, geekery and groanery

133 - JOETHELAWYER'S WONDROUS IMAGININGS

134 - Der Goblinbau -

135 - Alex Schroeder: RPG - Old School Sandboxing & some code

What Type of Articles Do You Want to See in the Relaunched Knockspell?

As I posted earlier, +Matt Finch is relaunching Knockspell with the help of the community response to the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day Blogfest (coming your way April 17th and currently sitting at 126 participating blogs).

Now, as someone that plans on submitting material to the Knockspell relaunch, I figured I'd ask the community at large:

What do you want in your Knockspell?

Classes, spells, adventures, encounters, monsters, NPCs, charts, tables, GM advice - the list is nearly infinite, which is why I ask - what do you want?

Matt might be the man putting the package together, but Knockspell belongs to the Swords & Wizardry Community and the OSR at large. Without the community's participation, it simply won't be.

So, even more important than what you may want to find in upcoming issues of Knockspell is:

What do you want to write?

You ARE going to submit something, right? ;)

Matt Finch to Relaunch Knockspell!

It seems the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day bug has fully bitten +Matt Finch :

One of the key ideas that will help this work is that several of the bloggers who are writing material for the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation day will allow Knockspell to publish their work in printed/pdf form. To that end, I will be asking all of you who are participating to send me a letter (the form of it later in the post) containing your approved form of the manuscript and the permission to use it.

This is awesome news. Hopefully the community can supply Matt with enough material that it could actually release on a quarterly basis :)

Read the full details at Matt's Swords & Wizardry Blog.

Frog God to Put Swords & Wizardry Releases on One Day Sale for the S&W Appreciation Day

If the fact that nearly 125 blogs are participating in the Swords & Wizardry Blogfest isn't enough, Frog God games has just announced that they will be putting their S&W releases on sale for 25% both at the Frogs own store and d20pfsrd.com on April 17th, to coincide with the blogfest.

I think it will be time for me to grab the Rappan Athuk subscription...

The blogs: