I have been meaning to jump on the OSR
bandwagon meme of picking out which 10 RPG books I would take with me
to a desert isle, presumably with a group of fellow gamers, and I
realized that if I am limited to hard copies of books I actually own,
while I have an extensive collection, it's going to be mostly, if not
all, TSR (A)D&D books; and thus, a pretty boring list.
Essentially it's the books on my desk- 1st edition AD&D DMG, PH,
MM, OA and module OA1 Swords of the Daimyo, Holmes Basic, Moldvay
Basic, Cook/Marsh Expert and modules B2 Keep on the Borderlands and
X1 Isle of Dread. Now, if I get to assume that the last 2 modules are
part of the boxed sets they come with, I'll pick James Pacek's "The
Wilderness Alphabet" and the D&D Cyclopedia. I'll also have
an extra copy of B2, unless I am allowed to switch out and put my
copy of B1 in the Holmes box. There's only one non-TSR product on the
list, and it's an alternate; it is an excellent book and I picked it
over every other OSR product because of my preference for DMing
wilderness adventures. More people should buy it.
Next, I have been doing a lot of
reading. Legend of the Five Rings 1st edition RPG stuff, because I am
GMing a campaign of that now apparently. I didn't think this one
would take off as more than a one-shot, but everyone seems pretty
into it. Roman & Celtic history and historical fiction because I
am GMing a 43 AD campaign too, and I like to be both well informed
and able to steal ideas from real history and from good authors. This
game is off to a good start, even if some of the rules range from a
bit to extremely unclear. Anyway, I have got more long days and
nights of reading ahead of me, I just got these books over the last
couple of days-
The First Man in Rome is actually a replacement of a replacement copy, it's one of those books I keep lending out and not getting back.
I liked Pompeii, so I am giving this one a chance too.
Miranda Green is just a great scholar when it comes to the Celts.
Obviously the Yurt book and the book on
Khubilai Khan are not for the 2 currently running RPG campaigns, they
are for my Yurt building project and my long standing love of Mongol
history respectively; I just felt that I should add them for
completeness' sake.
I have also been working on my Garnia campaign
world, I have two different areas that I am detailing right now. One
area, I am waiting on art for from my wife, I forget from time to
time that I usually fall to the bottom of her priority list for art
projects. I want to strike while the iron is hot for me, while I am
inspired to write about a particular topic, she needs to wait for the
inspiration to strike her to illustrate that same topic. When we are
in sync, things are great, when we aren't it is an agonizing wait for
me; because it's always me waiting on art, I can't ever remember a
time when she was waiting for my writing. The other area I want her
art for too, because I want to move away from using public domain art
or just pictures I found on the net; I figure if I ever get around to
publishing any of this stuff it should have it's own illustrations
and she's a great illustrator. She just doesn't appear to prioritize
my projects over her own, which annoys me.
So while I have been cooling my heels
and NOT working on those projects and NOT reading for 24 hours a day,
I have fallen off the wagon and indulged in a few games of
Civilization. I say a few games because I haven't played in a couple
of years now and I apparently am not the Civilization powerhouse I
used to be, that's a humbling experience. I had to drop down two
levels of difficulty while I get my Civilization bearings back again
and I am still not doing great, just not getting trounced. I used to
play the game all the time heavily modded, I tried that and couldn't
remember what all the mods did, other than make the game harder. I
had to switch back to vanilla Civilization IV + Warlords + Beyond the
Sword. I used to create mods for this game, I made an awesome
Scotland Civilization, now if I make it to the modern age I am likely
to be a 3rd rate power.
On the back of your recommendation bought the Wilderness Alphabet.
ReplyDeleteIf you like wilderness adventures, you will not be disappointed. The set up in the book is very much like "The Dungeon Alphabet", which I will miss on the desert isle, but it was ineligible because I bought it in pdf form.
DeleteI somehow missed this back in October. :( Thank you very much for your kind words about my book.
ReplyDeleteWhoops. August. :( What a morning... LOL!
Delete