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Saturday, August 4, 2012

Only 10 RPG books and a few other things




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.  

4 comments:

  1. On the back of your recommendation bought the Wilderness Alphabet.

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    1. If 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.

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  2. I somehow missed this back in October. :( Thank you very much for your kind words about my book.

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