Contest ends

The Celtic themed short adventure contest ends, not with a bang, but a whimper. I got a single entry for it was all, despite the many questions I was asked.

No worries, we can do another sometime when things are more settled.

I have had a lot going on during this quarantine, I lead a great Klingon house now (Kurkura, the line started by late KAG founder John Halvorson [Thought Admiral Kris epetai-Kurkura], and thus the oldest line in Klingon fandom), I started a classic Battlestar Galactica costumed fan club (currently on Facebook and Discord), and I have watched a lot of TV.

I am currently watching season 2 of Netflix' Korean zombie show “The Kingdom”, which of course makes me want to play some AD&D Oriental Adventures. It's a seriously cool show, best zombie thing I have seen since the early seasons of “The Walking Dead”. I put it off for a long time because I hate to watch things subtitled, they require my full attention, so I can't multi-task. Now I have the time, and I am glad I started it.

My late sister's birthday was yesterday, so I thought quite a bit about her. Today is my mother-in-law's birthday, we haven't spoken a lot since Mona died, but I sent her a birthday greeting, and got a response; so that got me thinking about Mona again. Truly, she's never far from my thoughts, my house is full of reminders of our life together, but this was in a more active way.

The State of The Great Khan Today

I am not going to lie, this has been an odd month. I started the month on fire with a renewed zeal for blogging, gaming and all the historical themes for old school D&D that I love. We entered our quarantine, which has sucked. I had a couple of recent deaths hit close to home, one was a kid that grew up in my tiny neighborhood, younger than me. The other a friend, and something of a mentor, older than me, but not what I'd call old. I am a little amused that my definition of “old” keeps changing as I age. In July I'll be 51, when I was a teenager 30 was old, now it seems like you need to be maybe 80, at a minimum, to qualify.

I am sliding into depression. I have had a tendency towards depression as long as I can remember. I am a Gen-Xer, so we're a little more open about talking about this sort of thing than say, the Greatest Generation, but not really much; Millennials and Zoomers are a lot more keen to share what we'd consider weaknesses. I take a little comfort in knowing that I am not alone, and it has touched the lives of great men like Winston Churchill (not really an opening for a debate on Churchill, he was a complex individual and a product of the British empire at it's height).

The short adventure design contest. There are six days left in the contest, and I assumed a general quarantine worldwide would make it a wee bit more popular. Maybe it's because I never announced prizes? Maybe because I failed to get sponsors like in contests past? I have received a single completed adventure and perhaps a dozen or so inquiries about the parameters of the contest itself. Several people have stated that they'd love to enter, “if they have the time”. I could extend the deadline, I could cancel right now, but I don't think either would help. I've extended the length of a contest in the past to allow more time for entries, and it didn't really work. Canceling seems like admitting failure.

The Klingon Assault Group, a Klingon centered costumed Star Trek fan club I have talked about before here on the blog, lost it's founder, John Halvorson (AKA Kris epetai-Kurkura) on March 26^th. He was also the founder of House Kurkura, of which I was a member. He was the friend and mentor I mentioned above, and the reason I had the KAG logo with the black line through it as my Facebook profile picture. Last Saturday I was selected from among the Kurkura to lead the House, the oldest in KAG. This has drawn a good deal of my attention for the last couple of weeks away from gaming and any other pursuits. I pray I am up to the task of leading them, and that I might honor John's legacy in doing so. He was a lion of a man, may he rest in peace.

As far as gaming goes, I am having a hard time moving online. My internet connection gets really spotty pretty much every evening, I am having trouble keeping Roll20 and Discord working at all. I am also having focus issues with running things on Roll20, and I pretty much hate using the maps there. I have tried playing in a couple of games since the pandemic started, to get my sea legs back, as it were; but the quality of my internet connection has prevented me from really participating. I cannot wait to get back to face-to-face gaming, and I really hope my group sticks together after this is over.

My overwhelming feeling about setting things up on Roll20 is that, if I am going to go to this much effort to set up the maps, why wouldn't I just make it a Neverwinter Nights module? I ran the Norseworld server for like 18 months before catastrophe struck there. I spent days creating new areas while the kids were in school and Mona was out of the house, the kids would playtest/stress test new stuff when it was ready, and when te bugs were worked out I'd add it to the server. The added bonus was everyone got to play there. I could run as DM or play a character. I didn't hate that.

Not seeing people has made me start to miss people I haven't seen for years along with the ones I still see regularly, old friends I fell out of contact with for one reason or another, people I used to game with especially.

Possibly related is that I have sought out the things I used to love, comfort TV and books, to pass my time. I am currently running through the classic 1978 Battlestar Galactica as my obsession du jour. I was pretty deep into it's fandom back in the 1990's. I wonder why it never got the cosplay fandom that Star Wars and Star Trek both got? I remember as a kid I thought those BSG uniforms were the coolest, and I really wanted to order the Colonial Warrior jacket out of Starlog when I spotted it.

No hate for the new Galactica, if that's your jam, mine will always be the original though. Man I loved that show! BSG taught us how to swear without swearing, with words like “Frak” and “Felgercarb”, which was useful when I was 9 years old. I built those models as a kid, and I was terrible at building models. I owned the Viper toy, and it fired it's missiles. I remember BSG being as big as Star Wars had been the year before, maybe bigger, because it was on every week with new episodes.

Let's not forget the absolutely epic score either -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n8sCDODxqQ

Contest Update for April 1st

We have 15 days left to this contest. The Celtic theme, which seemed so popular in the poll, has apparently stymied the creativity of many of you, so I have loosened the restrictions and opened the contest up for any short, TSR era D&D edition Compatible adventures. Now adherence to the Celtic theme will grant bonus points for an entry, but is not required.

I am a little concerned that I have only received one entry thus far, but since there have been a myriad of questions concerning the contest, I remain hopeful that we will meet some minimum threshold for this to be considered an actual contest.

I have been told that we should avoid sending out physical prizes as long as the plague still stalks the land, so I will instead give DrivethruRPG gift certificates. I am thinking the prizes will be proportional to the number of entries received, the more entries, the greater the value of the prizes, and the number of prizes as well.

I don't think it makes sense to give more than a single prize for fewer than ten entries, and I don't think a single entry even constitutes an actual contest. So I am thinking a single small prize when we reach five contest entries.

I have heard from a few of you out there that you would write something for this contest, but you've never written an adventure before, or you've never written anything for other people to read. My advice is be bold, everyone starts somewhere, and most of us have this kind of anxiety over whether or not it's going to be “good enough”. The worst thing that happens is you fail, however you define failure, and failure is a great teacher.

Anyway, good luck, and I hope that you all receive some inspiration to write and adventure for the contest.

Just write Something

unrelated Erol Otus art

You know what? This corona virus related out of work time is pretty stressful, so I am going to open the contest up to any adventure, and just give bonus points for adherence to the Celtic theme. So if you all want to write any style or type of adventure, feel free. Any of you that voted for another theme as your preference, write an adventure in that theme, or no theme at all. 

All adventures are welcomed here. I am now thinking I will look towards gift certificates at DrivethruRPG as prizes, as I am told that parcels should start being kept to a minimum for the duration of the pandemic crisis.

In non-contest related news, I am going to be running my Stonehell Dungeon campaign on Roll20/Discord starting Thursday evening at 6:00PM (EST), let me know if you'd like to join.

Keep yourselves busy during this difficult time, but take care of yourselves.

Gaesatae Class for B/X (OSE)

Starting as far back through the mists of time as I can, I am creating a class for the Celtic Adventure Challenge Contest in hopes that it may inspire some more of you to enter. To be honest there isn't a whole lot known for sure about the Gaesatae. Polybius tells us the name means “mercenary”, but it literally means “armed with javelins/spears” in Gaulish, and is a cognate to the Irish Gaelic Gaiscedach “Champion”. You can learn that from wikipedia though, I just looked it up there as a refresher myself. I am making them an alternate take on the Fighter class, one that eschews armor other than a shield and helmet (maybe). They appear to have been a pan-Gaulish warrior movement, similar in nature to the Norse Jomsvikings, but with more evidence of their actual existence. It's partly a warrior society, partly a religious cult, so I'll be adding a few religious bits there too. These are the “naked” Celtic warriors that struck fear into the hearts of the Romans.

A few cultural bits might be useful going into playing this class, so, in no particular order of importance we have-

Head Hunters. The Celts are head-hunters, they take the heads of important or valiant enemies as trophies. They would preserve them and bring them to feasts and talk to them, there was also a trade in prestigious heads.

The Torc. A torc is a neck ring, and it has some religious significance to the Celts, they were known throughout the Celtic world and were important enough to a warrior that he would rather not go into battle without it, even non-Gaesatae warriors wore them, and it is said would put them on before armor or weapons in an emergency situation. They were generally made of as precious a metal as the warrior could afford, examples have been found in bronze, copper, silver and gold (although primarily bronze and gold); and as ornate as possible. It is also possible they were used as a form of currency. In any case, every Gaesatae should have one.

Fearlessness is somewhat religiously motivated. Celts were said to be fearless in battle because they were certain of their afterlife. An account I read spoke of warriors making deals to pay back debts to each other in the next life if they died in battle. Their fearlessness is such that they accidentally disrespected Alexander the Great when he asked them what it was such great warriors as themselves feared, expecting the answer to be some idle flattery like “you alone my lord”, instead they answered that “they feared only that the sky above might fall”, which is to say “nothing really”.

The head is the seat of “personhood”, this may be the motivation behind head hunting.

All right, the bullet points about the Celts and their culture done, I guess you can see why the Romans saw them as barbarians. We have inherited much more of the Roman attitude than the Celtic one about most things in our culture.

Completely untested, and no doubt with balance issues, I present the Gaesatae

EXP Table

Level                         XP                                       HD        Class Ability

1                                 0-2,250                               1d8              A

2                                 2,251-4,500                        2d8

3                                 4,501-10,000                      3d8              B

4                                 10,001-20,000                    4d8

5                                 20,001-40,000                    5d8              C

6                                 40,001-90,000                    6d8

7                                 90,001-150,000                  7d8              D

8                                 150,001-225,000                8d8

9                                 225,001-325,000                9d8              E

10                               325,001-650,000               10d8

11                               650,001-975,000               10d8+2

12                               975,001-1,300,000            10d8+4

Notes-

A – All Gaesatae have a base encounter movement rate of 45'/round when unencumbered. The Gaesatae has a natural unarmored AC of 8. The Gaesatae gets double the normal bonus to AC from DEX (13-15 +2, 16-17+4, 18+6). When the Gaesatae lands a killing blow on an opponent, they immediately get another attack on an opponent within their weapon range, up to as many opponents as the Gaesatae has hit dice.

B – Gaesatae base encounter move goes up to 50'/round unencumbered. When a Gaesatae defeats an opponent of equal or greater level/hit dice and takes a round to remove it's head as a trophy, they cause fear as per the 1^st level Cleric spell. This only applies to humanoid creatures with heads, creatures that are immune to fear will be unaffected. Natural AC increases to AC 7.

C – Natural AC increases to AC 6. Base encounter move increases to 55'/round unencumbered. 1d4 1^st level Gaesatae approach to become apprentice/followers, treat as retainers with a base morale of 10.

D – Natural AC increases to AC 5. Base encounter movement rate increases to 60'/round unencumbered. The Gaesatae now causes fear (as the 1^st Level Cleric Spell) in all opponents of 4HD or less within 120'.

E – Natural AC increases to AC 4. May establish a Stronghold and attract followers of appropriate classes (Fighters, Gaesatae, Druids, Bards).

Gaesatae must have a minimum STR 12, DEX 12 and CHA 9, they have no Prime Requisite and do not receive XP bonuses.

Gaesatae can use any weapon, but they eschew the use of armor other than a shield and helmet. They must be unclothed save for wearing a torc to use any class abilities. Gaesatae save as Dwarves of equivalent level.

I suggest using this generator for names here

I Am The Historical D&D Guy

I am the historical D&D guy. I realized that today after watching Jason Graham's FB Live video this morning, and I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before. I went to college for history, it's always been a passion of mine. My living room is encased in book cases, most of which are filled with history books (most of the rest are RPGs). On some topics I have a better selection of works than the universities I attended.

My wife Mona used to say that my D&D campaigns come with homework, and it was only half a joke.

When I prep a new campaign I almost invariably read some kind of history, even if it's just a “daily life” kind of a thing. I create new equipment lists as a matter of course, keeping the gear to a specific time and place that fits my historical/cultural theme, and there is always a theme, whether I planned it or not.

Sometimes my stated goal was to immerse the players in a campaign setting modeled on a historical culture completely. I started doing that before the 2^nd edition AD&D HR series arrived on the scene, my first “Viking” campaign predating the Viking Campaign Sourcebook by maybe a year or so, I don't remember when it came out, but my Viking campaign started in September of 1990.

I can't stop myself from making pseudo historical settings. My longest running D&D setting “Garnia” (created circa 1982, long before I went to college and studied this sort of thing) was essentially a “what-if” you took groups of people from earth and planted them on a fantasy world. It started with ancient Celts, a pan-Celtic religious movement really, started in northeastern Gaul by a Druid Seer that saw the coming of the Romans and the destruction of their culture and way of life. In the late 1990's I ran a campaign set on earth during that time, the PCs were essentially early converts to the cause, being from the tribe where the Druid resided, the Boga-Treveri (who I made up as an offshoot of the historical Treveri tribe). They wandered Gaul attempting to unite the tribes into a single nation to avert disaster, as well as spread the word to the rest of the Celtic nations. I don't remember all of the characters now, and the campaign notes are long lost, but I do remember one of the PCs was a Druid that studied under the Druid Seer that had made the prophecy, another was a half German warrior bard.

I created Ostschild for a random group of D&D players I threw together, it was set in a mythical kingdom in central Europe, it's king was an elector in the Holy Roman Empire, the entire place colonized by Frankish warriors from the period of Charlemagne to hold back the hordes of the Elf-King who was invading from the Fairy realm in the east. There's more to it, but I did that for a campaign I started as “straight” D&D with B1.

I used to think I was the Oriental Adventures guy, but even there the hodgepodge of D&Dism, fantasy and east Asian culture needed refinement for me. I turned to history to make it happen, then Japanese samurai films, then their historical novels, manga and anime. OA has always been, more or less, feudal Japan for me, probably because of OA1 being such a good sandbox to run. OA1 “Swords of the Daimyo” is set in Kozakura, Kara-Tur's fantasy Sengoku Jidai era Japan analogue.

Most of my D&D games tend to be fairly low magic, more gritty-realistic than the high fantasy that we usually see in D&D. Most of my players avoid playing magic using characters too, I don't know if they are reading subtle signs I am sending out, or if old school D&D just has too great a reputation for being hard on Magic-Users. Like EGG, I assume that people are going to want to play the fighting man, the hero, you know? But I don't think I am projecting my bias onto the players.

Anyway, I am good with being the Historical D&D Guy.

Now, on the contest front- I have already received one submission, and it's pretty good. I do need to add an end date for submissions though, so I am going to say April 15^th, Tax day here in the US (and my late sister's birthday), so it's easy for me to remember. Midnight US Eastern Standard time April 15^th for submissions, just like taxes.

Poll is Closed – Celts Win!

Cool Todd Lockwood art I found on the internet to set the mood.

I closed the poll this morning and “Celts” was the clear winner among the proposed themes, with roughly 50% more votes than it's closest competitor “Norse”. The people have spoken, so the fairly broad theme of Celts shall be the theme of this short adventure design contest. Given that my long running “Garnia World” campaign has a Celtic theme, these adventures could prove quite useful to me personally, and I hope that they will be equally valuable to the rest of the community.

I am still working on prizes, but I am thinking the grand prize may well be a copy of the green cover AD&D 2^nd edition historical reference series “Celts Campaign Sourcebook”. I'll see what else I have here and update you all.

I am thinking I will make the submissions available, after the contest, for free on DrivethruRPG, unless those of you that submit entries specifically ask me not to. I had similar plans for earlier contests, but never got around to it, as I had not set up a publisher account there yet.

Adventures should be short, no more than 10 pages, including any maps or art. Adventures should be compatible with TSR era D&D or their retroclones.

Adventures should have a Celtic theme. I understand this covers a broad swath of history, so I should limit it to ancient or medieval, but I also think it might be pretty cool to see an adventure set in the Scottish highlands around the time of the Jacobite rebellions, maybe featuring Bonnie Prince Charlie as an NPC? So go where your muse takes you, head-hunting Celts vs. Romans in a darkly magical version of ancient Gaul, to King Arthur's knights of the round table, to the Easter Rising of 1916; and that's just historical fantasy, feel free to take us in other fantastic directions with the Sidhe or the Fomorians.

Send entries here. Before midnight on April 15th 2020.

Stonehell Dungeon and an Adventure Design Contest

A cool bit of Erol Otus Art to set the mood.

So lately I have been running an Old School Essentials (B/X) campaign centered around Stonehell Dungeon. We're 10+ sessions in, have had several PC deaths along the way, and about half finished with the dungeon's first level (the north half). I created a pretty half baked new campaign world for it, just a nearby town to rest and resupply at, with a steady flow of Meatshields created help to hire on. Essentially dungeon/town. Kind of Keep on the Borderlands inspired.

I am not going to lie, it's a tad outside my comfort zone, and I keep forgetting to do some standard megadungeon stuff, like track torch/oil use. I also need to start restocking the dungeon some in the cleared areas. I have been running overland/political adventures with smaller locations and dungeons, mostly using AD&D for a long, long time now, and that's how I am comfortable. I am still getting used to the more frail characters in OSE (B/X), and the save or die poisons are somehow also a bit of a shock to me (that's killed a few PCs and NPCs now), despite their use in AD&D as well. Maybe I have been relying on using my own material for too long, and subconsciously avoiding the use of poisons?

I have traditionally preferred to use my own settings and adventures to run games, so running any canned adventure is going to be a bit of a challenge for me. They make me less certain somehow, like I am always thinking I missed or forgot something, and sometimes it's true. I have occasionally screwed up an encounter, or missed a locked door (or added one) or any of a number of other minor things here and there when running other people's adventures over the years. The one page dungeon format works pretty well for me, what with all the relevant information being right there, and being pretty close to how I write stuff for myself to run. That said, my stuff could never be run by anyone else, my adventures are more like notes used to trigger my own memories, and I change things on the fly to fit what we're doing or because I got a better idea in the moment pretty often. Plus sometimes I just make stuff up along the way, I have gotten pretty good at things like turning a random encounter in to something that seems like an important planned encounter, and random lair generation in my head on the fly.

Anyway, that's what I have been running lately, Stonehell.

I do have a contest coming up here on the blog though, and I am running a poll to see what the theme will be. There's a poll in the Facebook Group running, if you don't have FB just comment here on what you'd like to see and I'll add the votes here to the poll tally. The poll choices are Celtic, Norse, Roman, East Asian (China/Korea/Japan), Mongol, Norman/Crusader, Greek, Egyptian, Gonzo D&D, and “Straight up D&D (No Theme)”. You can also add a category to the poll if you like, suggest it here and I'll add it there too, Voting through the weekend, I'll do the final tally Monday morning; vote for your favorites, but no more than three please!

New Contest Here

It's been literal years since I ran a themed adventure contest here, some were super successful (by my standards anyway), some less so. I have a bunch of swag here to use as prizes, I haven't sorted any out, but will probably base them around the adventure theme.

Which brings me to theme. You all know I like to run with a historical fantasy adventure theme. We've done Vikings, Romans and Mongols, just off the top of my head. Should I repeat an older theme? Or come up with a new one? St. Patrick's Day is right around the corner, so maybe a Celtic or Irish theme?

Format should be short adventure, I am thinking just a few pages, but I know some of you need a little extra space to stretch your muscles and really get an adventure out, so maybe a hard limit of 10 pages? Including maps and art.

I guess I'll put a poll up on my Facebook Group I set up for this blog here.

Recently...

I discovered that, with the purchase of the "Otosan Uchi" boxed set, I had nearly everything printed for the first, second and third editions of the "Legend of the Five Rings" RPG. Everything except the "Tomb of Iuchiban". Imagine my surprise when I went looking for that particular item and saw the prices that it fetches. I am not a collector, I play my games, but when I see a $120.00+ price tag on what has been called "the Tomb of Horrors for L5R", I get a little annoyed. What, did they only print like 50 copies? I'll stop ranting now.

Last weekend I played "Barbarians of Lemuria" and it was pretty cool, met some cool new people and they seem like my kind of playing group, a little laid back, the GM made rulings instead of looking stuff up in the book every 5 minutes. I even had a beer there. Plans have been laid out to make this their summer game and I intend to keep playing. It was fun, my only comment was that we could have played the exact same adventure with D&D or a retro-clone (my current favorite being S&W).

Now I see it's June and I have an obligation to run my contest, the sole prize for this is a box of Warlord Games 28mm scale American Infantry for their Bolt Action line. I haven't played Bolt Action yet, but I did order the rules recently, because I like skirmish scale WW2 stuff. Warlord games sponsored this contest, and usually I like to pick a best adventure, with my judges, to decide who get's the prizes; but I haven't been all that bloggy lately, didn't come up with a working set of OSR style rules for WW2 (yet), so I will choose the victor at random from the comments section.My original idea had been to run an OSR D-Day/Battle for Normandy adventure contest.

For those of you still waiting on prizes from my last Roman themed contest, my wife is busy with other art commitments, but assures me that your portraits are next on her list, in the meantime I am going to just mail the dice to the winners, sorry about the delay.

I've Been Absent for a While

I haven't blogged for a while. I had some health issues, my daughter Ashli has had some health issues and two of my Aunts died this year, which just brought me back to the same depressed funk I was in following my sister's death last September. Mostly though I haven't been writing anything because I haven't had anything to say. I haven't gamed at all since December, and I didn't want to turn my blog into just a series of announcements of what cool new stuff I got in the mail and contests.

Speaking of contests, my last Roman themed contest in particular, I still haven't sent out the dice. I was kind of hoping to mail them with the character portraits my wife offered to do, but she's still waiting to hear from the winners what exactly they want. You can email her directly at monelun AT yahoo Dot com, but I suggest CC-ing the messages to me at WilliamJDowie AT gmail Dot com, so I can catch them too if they end up in her spam folder.

Spring is here now, and aside from plotting my planting and doing some clean up and repairs around the house, I think I may just get a chance to game again soon. I got the entire Basic Fantasy RPG collection available on Amazon and I picked up Swords and Wizardry in both the White Box and complete flavors. I am hoping to do something for Swords and Wizardry appreciation day, but I am unwilling to commit since it falls two days after my sister's birthday and I am not sure I'll be in the mood for anything; this being the first year without her.

I had planned on running a Celtic themed contest in March, but my depression kind of got in the way of that, so I think I'll run it later this year, maybe October so we can get the whole Samhain/Halloween thing going with it.

My more ambitious plan is to put together a D-Day/Normandy campaign themed contest for June, I think an OSR game can handle any genre, Sci-Fi has been done more than once, so why not WW II? What do you all think?

Warlord Games has already generously agreed to sponsor both contests.

Roman Contest Prizes Awarded-

Grand Prize-

PDF copies of 43 AD and it's supplement Warband, courtesy of Zozer Games.

8”x10” Canvas Print courtesy of easycanvasprints.com

Print copy of William Morris's House of the Wolfings

Print copy of LC1 Assault Against the Menace on the Mountain

PDF of LC1 Assault Against the Menace on the Mountain

Roman Numeral D4(x2), D6(x2) and D10(x2).

One commissioned Character portrait courtesy of Mona Dowie.

Goes to Ned Leffingwell for “Mayhem at the Manor”

Second Prize-

PDF copy of 43 AD courtesy of Zozer Games.

PDF of LC1 Assault Against the Menace on the Mountain

Roman Numeral D4, D6(x2) and D10.

One commissioned Character portrait courtesy of Mona Dowie.

One Old School 1984 Ral Partha Roman Legionary lead miniature, unpainted.

Goes to David Jaske for “Road to Antioch”

Third Prize-

PDF copy of 43 AD courtesy of Zozer Games.

PDF of LC1 Assault Against the Menace on the Mountain

Roman Numeral D4, D6(x2) and D10.

One commissioned Character portrait courtesy of Mona Dowie.

Goes to Ian MacDougal for “The Crooked Baths”

May the laurels of victory be placed upon the brows of the victors!

Roman Contest Over

I declare my latest themed contest officially at an end. I probably should have done that yesterday, but it was a snow day and the kids were home. The relatively small number of entries should make judging easy and fast, so I'd expect to see an announcement before the weekend as to who has won what. Thanks to everyone that entered, refrigerator magnets will most likely be going out in the mail the same time as the prizes; most likely Saturday.

Contest Deadline

It has been suggested, and I agree, that I should maybe move the contest deadline through the weekend. I have a couple of good reasons for doing this- a number of people have contacted me and said they probably would not have their submissions ready on time, so an extra weekend to work on them might make for a more robust contest; and I am not running a February contest, so it doesn't conflict there either.

So I guess that's about all, unless someone wants to volunteer to judge. I lost two judges this time around, so I am down to three. That's not much of a panel.

So I've Been Sick

For most of January I've been sick and not promoting my contest at all, or blogging to speak of. I just came on today to thank everyone who did submit an entry for the contest and remind everyone that there is still a little over a day left to get an entry in.

I also wanted to get a public shout out and HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my son John who turned 18 today.

So, I haven't been at my computer a whole lot, other than WotC opening the vaults on D&D Classics and me missing my own Blog's Anniversary; did I miss anything important?

I have mostly been doing a lot of reading and laying in bed this month and it looks like it may go on that way for a while longer, so I will not be running a February contest. I have already planned a Celtic themed contest for March though, running from the 1st through the 31st. Warlord Games is already signed on to sponsor that one, so I figure I have to run it.

Contest?

So I am running a contest here, and maybe I should be promoting it a little more, but I have to say I am a little disappointed at the response so far. The Viking themed contest was so successful I thought that themed contests were sure to be a hit, but maybe I was wrong. My Mongol contest was a bust, I only got one entry. I suppose I should have just declared him the winner of all three top prizes, but I figured nobody wants to win by default. Mongols were somewhat specialized though, so I thought Ancient Rome would be a good theme, easily as popular as Vikings, if I can believe film and literature.

But now the contest is half over and I still haven't received any entries, which is probably a bad sign; and nobody sending me a progress report, which is a worse sign.

So I have to wonder, is it the themed nature of the contest, or did I make the rules too open? Do people just not respond to the Ancient Roman theme? Something else entirely?

Will I be inundated with contest entries as the deadline approaches? I am curious, I generally receive a lot more feedback than I am getting now, and this contest has been advertised to a much wider audience, so I would have expected more rather than less.

Anyway, there are a bunch of cool prizes at stake.

Comment if you have an opinion about my contests, whether it's the theme, the way I run them, whatever; I can handle constructive criticism.

Maybe next time I'll put up a poll to vote on a theme.

Roman Dice...

...are here.

Click to embiggen.

Now we're just waiting for some contest submissions so I can give 'em away!

Ave Caesar! A Contest Update

I just want to reiterate all of the contest rules and prizes here and announce that I am extending the submissions deadline until the end of January rather than the Ides, because, while the Ides sounded cool, don't think it gave enough time with the holidays in the way.

So here we go-

The contest is to write an Ancient Roman Empire themed adventure for early edition D&D, AD&D or one of their popular retroclones. One Page Dungeons are fine, but I have had people need more space, so short adventures are acceptable too. I am willing to accept anything you are willing to submit, up to and including huge hex-crawls; every adventure will be judged on it's own merit.

The fine print- I intend to publish these submissions to the web as a free series for the OSR community, if you want to opt out of having me give your work away to everyone, mention it in your submission email.

All adventures should be submitted via email to me at williamjdowie AT gmail DOT com by midnight on January 31^st EST. I will then email them to the rest of the judges.

The good stuff-

Everyone who submits an entry, or really, really wants one gets a refrigerator magnet. So far the magnets have made it to Europe and Australia, as well as all over the USA, let's see how many continents and countries we can hit while the supply lasts! Just send me your postal address with your submission and my wife will mail it out within a few days, unless you live in Maryland or Germany, in which case I will have to nag her for weeks.

Grand Prize-

PDF copies of 43 AD and it's supplement Warband, courtesy of Zozer Games.

8”x10” Canvas Print courtesy of easycanvasprints.com

Roman Numeral D4(x2), D6(x2) and D10(x2).

One commissioned Character portrait courtesy of Mona Dowie.

Second Prize-

PDF copy of 43 AD courtesy of Zozer Games.

Roman Numeral D4, D6(x2) and D10.

One commissioned Character portrait courtesy of Mona Dowie.

One Old School 1984 Ral Partha Roman Legionary lead miniature, unpainted.

Third Prize-

PDF copy of 43 AD courtesy of Zozer Games.

Roman Numeral D4, D6(x2) and D10.

One commissioned Character portrait courtesy of Mona Dowie.

Prizes may be updated, as I am constantly on the lookout for more sponsors and I am not averse to opening my own vault of gaming goods if I think we need more submissions.

My Gamer ADD...

...and why it should drive my players crazy.

I have a tendency to create entirely new campaigns when we have too long a hiatus between gaming sessions and sometimes just because I got a good idea and wanted to run with it. My players have the patience of Job; week to week they don't know what setting they'll be playing in or if there'll be character generation involved.

They just roll with it. Work and school kept us away from the Norse game for too long? I needed to play some adventures I got for a contest so I could accurately judge them? I am running my Roman themed contest and decided it would be cool to start a new adventure to set the mood for all the new adventures I am sure will start pouring in any day now? It's December and we always play OA in December? I need to play-test my WW II B/X game? They are cool with it all.

I actually said to them last month that part of the reason I keep all the character sheets here is so I can restart old campaigns where we left off if that's what strikes my fancy that week and they were cool with never knowing what campaign or even RPG they are going to be playing from week to week. I have long running campaigns, but they run like British television, you might have three to five episodes then have to wait a year before the next series.

My daughter Ashli has a Halfling Thief character that is probably her favorite character of all time, Ruby Cloverleaf. She's had that character since she was maybe fifteen years old, she's twenty now, Ruby gets played maybe half a dozen times per year. The thing is, I guess, as a DM I'd rather DM something I am super enthusiastic about than just go through the motions if I am losing interest in a game for a little while. Sometimes I need to have a little time to recharge, to think about what's going on in a specific campaign and so taking a break will be my idea; more often than not though, a change of campaign is usually brought on by a lack of gaming for at least a couple of weeks, during which time I will have had a cool idea.

That's not how it used to be. I used to run a campaign practically forever. Being a grown-up and having life get in the way of gaming has kind of put a damper on that. I haven't gamed with the Darryls for months now. I haven't gamed with Lance in the better part of a year, although he says he wants to do some board gaming this week. Lee's new job in the ER has kept her away from our game table for most of the last six months, so it's a nice surprise when she can make it.

I have got maybe the best group of players on Earth, they put up with not knowing what we'll be doing from week to week, just to suit my desire to DM whatever I feel like DMing because I can be fickle. What they don't know is that whatever the genre, where ever it takes place, whatever RPG system is used it's all part of the grand design anyway; it's all one unified campaign setting; everything that happens in one “setting” (or sub-setting) has subtle effects on the others.

I just wish I had the ability to dump my brain onto paper and have it all make sense. When people ask me questions, usually the members of my design team, I always know the answer, pretty much regardless of how esoteric the question might be. The setting exists fully formed in my head, the rest of the team are there to help me bring it out, and to do illustrations. I am no good at art. Poetry might be nice too, setting-wise. Flavor stuff, I know the flavors, I just need some help with getting them to the masses.

January 1st 2013 or 2766 A.U.C.

Happy New Year to everyone and I hope that you are all hard at work on you adventures for my contest because I ordered the Roman Numeral dice today for the winners, D4s, D6s and D10s. I'll post some pictures when they arrive.

I also want to pimp the Up FrontKickstarter again, it's got less than a full day left, but it's already fully funded and met every stretch goal, so the 125.00 sweet spot gets you a hell of a lot of game. If you like World War 2 games or card games it's worth every penny.

Now this is going to be short, but I feel like I should mention it, my Aunt June passed away today. She was my mother's older sister and my last surviving blood relative that was a veteran of WW II. My mom came from a huge family, there were 14 kids and she was 3^rd from the last, so I have a lot of relatives on her side of the family, but my Aunt June was special and I will miss her.

Now, I am two play reports behind, and, to be honest, I don't know whether or not I'll ever get them done; anything more than a really brief synopsis anyway. The Roman themed game and the traditional December Oriental Adventures game. The Roman game had a bit of a dungeon crawl in it, which reminded me that I wanted to mention that I had really quit doing dungeons for the most part before the OSR came along. Now I have my Viking Mega-Dungeon, the ruined Temple of Apollo just off the Via Salaria and my OA game with it's overland travel and court politics is out of the norm.

Just an observation.