I have some bad news.

So. I didn't really want to turn my OSR gaming blog into a litany of the various woes occurring in my, and my family's lives, but I feel I owe an explanation to everyone as to why I started blogging again and then abruptly quit. I have been thinking about this particular post for about a month, since my wife Mona's “surprise surgery”.

Her surgery was originally intended to stop a copious amount of bleeding. She was transfused 8 units of blood over 2 days and still left the hospital after her surgery dangerously anemic, but worse than that, they discovered and removed a tumor, which was causing the bleeding, and the tumor turned out to be cancerous.

Since then she has been waiting to see an oncologist to find out how bad it is. She finally got an appointment scheduled for Friday, January 9^th. The delay has been really driving me crazy, so I can only imagine how hard it has been for her.

She has been super tired for weeks now, and she knows that she will have at least one more surgery in the future, and possibly chemo-therapy and/or radiation following that.

So, that's why I haven't gotten around to writing anything really since around Thanksgiving; well that and moving to the new house. It's been a really slow move, we still don't have all of our stuff here, but at least we own the place we left, so there's no real hurry.

I recently moved

I recently moved and had 4 days without any internet, it gave me a bit of time to read through some OSR stuff and the 5e DMG. I will most likely be blogging about all of them soon, the list of coming reviews is -

Swords & Wizardry White Box Rules
Swords & Wizardry Complete
Delving Deeper Reference Rules Compendium
"Realms of Crawling Chaos"
"Red Tide", "An Echo, Resounding" and "Scarlet Heroes" (lumped together because they all cover the same campaign setting)
"AX1 - D30 DM Companion" and "AX2 - D30 Sandbox Companion" (same author, similar subject matter)
"The Dungeon Alphabet" (expanded 3rd printing)
"Malevolent and Benign"
5th edition D&D "Player's Handbook", "Monster Manual" and "Dungeon Master's Guide" (complete system)
"VA1 - Valley of the Five Fires"

and last, but not least, "The Basic Fantasy Field Guide of Creatures Malevolent and Benign"

 I thought I should show everyone my new S&W campaign at Obsidian Portal too.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Trailer Shot for Shot Remake with Original ...

OK, this was really cool. I like it more than the actual trailer.



 

5e edition D&D: My first impressions

Old School DM                                                          New D&D

I finally got around to opening up my Player's Handbook today and started reading. I had been putting that off for I don't even know what reason, but I figured I'd better familiarize myself with the new rules, as I am kicking off a new D&D campaign (probably) this coming Saturday. I decided to let my players vote on a rules set to use out of every RPG I own and 5e D&D seems to be a front-runner, it seems that some of them want to try something new (my inner grognard protests).

So, my initial impressions-

The art: I can't say I am a big fan, but I am only about 50 pages into the book, so that's one caveat. The art seems dark and somewhat uninspired. Technically the art is only mildly proficient, with many anatomy errors throughout. The subjects of the art range from mildly homely to butt-ugly, with only a few standouts that could be referred to as average looking. There is a distinct tone to the art that speaks to me as having a lack of inspiration among the artists, as though they were art directed to near death. I say all of this knowing that some of my favorite D&D art is somewhat amateurish at best, but in first edition AD&D and it's contemporaries (B/X, BECMI) the art was, at least, inspired; it was D&D fan art, and that made it subjectively good, despite it's technical imperfections. I know that art is subjective, so your mileage may vary. Zak S. was a contributor so why couldn't they have used him for some of the art?

The rules: I went through every phase of the public play-test, so I had an inkling of what to expect. I am not going to say I like everything about them, so far, but at least where changes were made they were either building upon the legacy of previous editions, or they were pretty well thought out. That said, I had an initially good impression of 3e, and I ended up hating it because it was a pain to DM and a playground for rules-lawyers. I have said before on this blog, probably more than once, that I don't like any rules set that takes away the power (and creative spontaneity) of the game master. I am a little gun-shy as a result of 3e, and that's probably why I have had this book for months and not cracked it open before now. All of that being said, I am willing to give it a shot, it still (despite the funky looking Gnomes, Dragonborn and Tieflings) feels like D&D. I just hope it retains the agency of the DM.

Funky looking

Ugly

 

Too dark in the book.

 

See, I didn't even notice the Dwarf until I saw the lighter version

Poor anatomy, at best average looking people, dark and not inspiring.

Iron Sky: The Coming Race - Teaser #1 (Official)

I love me some space Nazis, but Hollow Earth Nazis are way cool too.