The 2025 Busan Tabletop Gaming Con Was a Success

Last Sunday, November 30, was our first game con. I picked up Justin around 9am, and we arrived at the cafe just a little before 9:30. Richard was already waiting, as well as Jonathan (Kojaq) who I only had interacted with online before this. We got everything set up, and most players, and Peter the other morning GM, made it there by 10am when we were scheduled to start. But Kurt, the cafe owner, didn't show up until around 11 so we had to make due with water or drinks people brought in from outside for a bit. Kurt had given me the door code so we could get in early, if you're wondering. 

In the morning session, I ran Classic D&D, using the same dungeon from the previous Online Summer Con arranged by Amae's Seoul group. This party followed the same route at first, but had a TPK in their first encounter. Four carrion crawlers took out a party of five 6th to 8th level PCs. As they can, especially if the party only has a cleric as a caster. The players got new PCs from the pre-gen pile and set out again in a different route. They didn't have time to make it to the dragon, but they had a great time anyway. 

Just before the thief misses on a backstab and everyone fails their saves (the Dwarf is already down).

Richard's Call of Cthulhu game only had one character death, but that PC died, was brought back, and died again. 

Richard brought his King in Yellow robes.

 

I didn't hear of any PC deaths in Peter's Black Sword Hack game, but everyone said they had a great game. 

Justin's BSH character sheet

We took a lunch break, and more people arrived for the afternoon games. A couple of people also went home (or elsewhere, anyway) after the morning games. I was a player in Keith's Cyberpunk Red game, which was a lot of fun. I got to play the Solo (combat character), which is always nice. But our new player David (who played his first RPG ever in my morning D&D game) was the star of the show. Of course, Richard's PC managed to shoot Peter's PC in the back...twice! None of us died, though several gang-bangers and scumbags died at our hands. 

The start of the game, in our gang's alley base, dealing with druggies

Jonathan's Mothership game was really good, too, from what I heard. There were definitely some PC deaths as well. 

An alien gestated inside one of the PCs. You'll never believe what happened next~!

Both Scott's 5E game and Elyse's Pathfinder game went over time, but this is something they'd planned for, and the players were aware of this. Scott did have one PC death. Elyse runs a more story-forward sort of game, so no PC deaths in her game. She did a think where players started with blank, or nearly blank character sheets, and had to discover who their PCs were as they played. 

Scott's got a lot of style when he runs a game. We could hear lots of laughing and some shouting from them.

Elyse's players were all really intent on the story that unfolded. 

Then it was the dinner break time. Most folks went home (or elsewhere), but a stalwart few soldiered on through into the night. Peter, Richard, Elyse, Jada, Justin, and I were there the whole day. Keith and his partner CC stayed for evening games, too, but they weren't here for the morning session. 
 

Justin had his group (Jada, CC, Elyse) play board games including Whitehall Mysteries. They also played a few smaller games. Justin had planned to play 1775, a tactical wargame of the Revolutionary War, but I guess they never broke that one out. 

London was scoured for clues.

 

My evening game was Gamma World. Richard, Keith and Peter chose their mutants and set off to explore a ruined tower. They dealt with crumbling infrastructure, hungry mutants, friendly mutants, and at the top of the tower androids intent on capturing Richard's mutated ape PC. Keith dropped to negative HP twice, and Peter once. At the end of the game, Richard escaped with his companions' bodies, evading the androids to survive the horrors of Gamma Terra. We had a blast. 

Peter's altered human scout is down thanks to poisonous two-headed bat mutants. The espers are about to meet the androids. 

It was a long day, but very much worth it. And we plan to do it again sometime soon. Scott wants to do the next event in May. I'll be back home for my son's high school graduation that weekend, but I'll probably help with the organizational side of things as best I can. 
 

 

 

Prepared

The 2025 Busan Tabletop Gaming Con is in a few days (Sunday). I'm ready for the game. I'm running D&D in the morning, playing Cyberpunk RED in the afternoon, then running Gamma World in the evening. It's gonna be a full day. Luckily, my Monday schedule will be light on Dec. 1st. 

We're ready for the event. The cafe is prepared for us. I've got all the schedules and games sorted. Justin bought some supplies (name tags, extra pencils/paper/etc.).  I guess I could make a sign-in sheet to make things feel more official. But with fewer than 25 people involved, I don't think that's completely necessary. 

I ordered dice sets online, planning to give a set to each GM as a thank you gift or as a reward to their MVP player, whichever they chose. The listing said it was seven sets (49 pieces) and we originally had 14 games people were prepared to run, so I ordered two. They arrived yesterday and to my happy surprise, there were ten sets of dice in each pack. And we're down to only 9 game sessions, two of which I'm running. So enough for me to give each GM a thank you set and an MVP player prize set. And I'll have some sets left over to keep for another time. 

For my games, I've got a dry erase mat, some board markers, minis for the creatures in both my D&D and Gamma World games (close enough on the GW side) organized, adventures and pre-gen PCs printed. I tried to write up the adventures so I'd have minimal book references during the games, but I'll bring the rulebooks anyway. 

I'm ready for the first (hopefully annual) BTGC!  

On Track

 After a frustrating at times past 24 hours, we have our table rosters set for the 2025 Busan Tabletop Game Con. Nine tables open, and around 23 total participants. Small, but close to what we were shooting for. We had hoped for around 30 people to participate. Close. [I need to update the webpage game rosters, we had a few changes/additions during the day.]

Next Sunday, we'll be gaming it up. I'm running Classic D&D and Gamma World (4th). I was going to play in the Mothership game in the afternoon, but John M. didn't get anyone signing up for his evening board game, and we got a request from John D. to also join that game. I was gonna hop over into Cyberpunk Red, but then the last guy to sign up on the official form before I closed it wanted that spot, so I'll be free in the middle of the con. That's actually alright with me. I can troubleshoot any problems, take pictures to document the event (I'll probably do a write-up for the local expat scene mag Busan HAPS), and just get a bit of rest between my games. 

We're using the Discord server used for last summer's Daegu One-shot Extravaganza and also for the Online Summer Con. That ended up being a bit of a headache, because Rowan, who owns the server, and Scott, who is an admin, both know Discord functions way more than Justin and I. So they kept hinting at things we needed to do, saying it was simple - just watch/read a tutorial, and then letting us fumble through things until they had to step in and fix our mess. [Hence the past 24 hours' frustrations.] But we've got it done. We've got players all sorted with their GMs, and everyone has both a Discord channel on the server and a KakaoTalk (Korean version of What'sApp) group chat for their games. 

All my pre-gens for both Classic D&D and Gamma World are on my work computer, so I'll be posting them for players to look over and discuss over the next week. I also (on Friday) sorted through minis to get some suitable ones ready for Gamma World. Not all of them are the right fit, but close enough. Various D&D minis, cheap-o toys from Japan and the U.S., old MUSCLE wrestlers and Battle Beast toys... I think I will sort out minis for the D&D game as well. 

After all the organizing was done (and a few family errands), I sat down to consider my OSR Modern game design. I'm still tinkering with the Starting Occupations and class Talents, but I think I'm getting closer. I also made a list of things that probably need rules for resolution in the game (and could potentially be used to earn XP). Here's the list so far: 

What do people do in this game that require mechanics (and might earn XP)?

Movement (jump, run, swim, drive, climb)

Investigate/Gather information

Socialize/Intimidate/Bluff

Get permission/authorization/shopping

Sneak/infiltrate/avoid ambush

Drive/Travel

Hack Computers

Fist Fight/Sword Fight

Gun Fight

Car Fight

Chase/Escape

Sabotage/Destroy

Repair/Build

Heal/Treat Illness

 I plan to implement a set of Challenge Awards in addition to XP for combat. Since it's a modern setting, I want it to be able to implement genres where fist fights or car chases are more prominent than gun fights just as easily as those that do feature prominent gun fights/explosions. For Challenge Awards, I'm thinking 5% or 10% of the amount needed to gain a level for small goals, and 25% for large goals. 

And speaking of genres, I've got a list of adventure/encounter types that I want to give examples of in the book: 

Encounter/Adventure Types

Wandering Do-Gooders

Cops & Robbers

Special Forces

Hot Rodders

The Big Heist

Investigators

Explorers

On the Run

Home for Christmas

X-Treme Action

From Sea to Shining Sea

Out for Vengeance

The Conspiracy

All in “The Family”

 And while I mainly plan to keep things mundane (well, Action Movie heightened reality), I will have some notes on adding some fantasy/sci-fi to the game: 

Mundane, Paranormal, Supernatural, Sci-Fi

Setting the campaign tone. PCs are all normal (heightened reality) characters, but the world also contains: 

Mundane: heightened realism, but otherwise normal (Die Hard, Rambo, Dirty Harry, A-Team, MacGuyver, Cannonball Run, Murder She Wrote, Goodfellas, The Goonies)

Paranormal: cryptids, psychics, ghosts, aliens (X-Files, Lost, The Shining, Scanners, E.T.)

Supernatural: magic, monsters, demons, other realms (Interview with the Vampire, Stranger Things, Indiana Jones, Nightmare on Elm Street)

Sci-Fi: clones, aliens, high tech, superscience (Knight Rider, Blade Runner, Predator, V, Terminator, The Island, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure)

 This should give everyone an idea of where I'm going with this idea. 

 

 

 

 

October Means Castlevania

 Last month, I replayed Castlevania Symphony of the Night. I'll probably replay a few more CV games over the course of this month, as we head towards Halloween. And of course, as I've mentioned before, some day I want to create a Castlevania megadungeon and run that campaign. I've made two abortive attempts at it in the past, and way way back, when I finally made my version of The Haunted Keep in Karameikos (BECMI Known World), the dungeon was heavily inspired by Castlevania. But it wasn't a big, sprawling, exploration-focused megadungeon. It was really pretty railroady looking over it these days.

While on my evening walk with my 11yo the other night, we were talking a bit about gaming (computer and table top), and he was asking about my SotN replay. I finished it off last weekend (I took a trip to Istanbul, maybe more on that in a future post). And I mentioned I'd like to run a D&D Castlevania game some day. But he suggested I should run it not with D&D but with d6 System. 

That's something I hadn't considered before. Besides D&D, I have considered RetroPhaze, the OSR game designed to emulate 8-bit and 16-bit JRPGs as the game engine. I think it might make a decent fit for the game. I've also considered modifying d20 Modern/d20 Past for the game. But honestly, I don't need to get back into the headache of running the 3E-era d20 system again. 

d6 System may be easy to run, but as I was saying in my previous post, one thing it (and many other games) lack is a good step-by-step procedural system for managing exploration. Star Wars d6 assumed you'd be running the game almost like an interactive movie, jumping from scene to scene. And while that would work if I wanted to emulate some of the NES CV games (and various remakes), if I want something like SotN, where exploration of the environment leads to hidden treasures and access to new areas, D&D is still the way to go. 

Or port some of those systems into d6, something I could do. I did it with 5E, and more or less it worked. I quit running 5E mostly because it's too focused on the simple core mechanic but with way too many exception-based special abilities. 

If I ever do this, it will still likely be old school D&D based. The monsters, character types, spells, mechanics, etc. are all there. I'd be going through and removing some options from what exists, rather than adding in new stuff that isn't there to begin with. That's always a lot easier to do. 

This is making me reconsider my revision to the first draft of Flying Swordsmen 2E. I've been going through it and streamlining the presentation. Simplifying my wording. Making the martial arts techniques simpler and easier to understand and hopefully implement. I'm nearly through the techniques, having about half of the Ku (black magic) techniques, the final set, left to pare down. I've done the Introduction, How to Play, Character Creation, and Skills sections. Once I get through with Techniques, I have Equipment, then GM focused stuff. As I revise and slim down my verbiage in the GM section, I may be putting in a few procedural systems for running exploration, NPC interactions/relationship building, martial arts training, etc. It's already there for Combat, of course. 

I've got a real good feeling about this revision to the draft. I think it may end up being my best bit of game design. We'll see.  

Gearing Up for the Online SummerCon

The TTRPG in Korea community is hosting their online SummerCon at the end of the month (Aug 29-31). I'm signed up to run a Classic D&D game during the con. Hopefully, I'll have time to play in a few other games as well. It's right before the start of the new semester (Sept 1), but I'm more or less ready for my classes. 

I posted about my idea for the con game a few weeks ago. And in the mean time, I've redrawn the maps, revised and switched around some of the encounters, and added a few puzzles/challenges for some of the extraneous monsters. I also updated the pre-gen characters that I posted about a few weeks ago. 

This weekend, I created a Roll20 game for the adventure. I also digitized the maps using Dungeon Scrawl (a crash course in that app, which I'd only noodled around on before). I've got the basics of that down now, and the maps in the R20 game look pretty good. Not professional level, but good enough. 

I spent a lot of time today creating custom character sheets for the pre-gen PCs. Roll20 has a BECMI (RC) sheet, and a BX sheet, but neither exactly fits my house ruled version of D&D. I'm not running full TS&R rules. I've still got Dwarf, Elf, and Halfling as classes for this game. But otherwise, I'm using my house rules. I've got all 14 pre-gen sheets done -- two for each class. I still need to make token images for them, and get the tokens set up. 

I've got the character sheets set up with macros to roll for attacks, saving throws, and things like Thief skills or Turn Undead. That way the players can just go to the sheet and press a button to roll, and all the math is done for them. It will save a lot of time dealing with new to old school players. Considering the types of games on offer (5E/Pathfinder games of course, some neoOSR games like Bastionland and BlackHack derivatives, Free League games, various story/indie games), I'm likely to get some newbies. 

 ________

In other news, I've been playing at the cafe I think would be good for our face-to-face Busan Tabletop Con, and it is a pretty good place to play. Scott and Justin have both visited, and they approve as well. Scott is pretty busy right now with the SummerCon, but after that's settled, I think we'll get to work organizing our local event. 

I plan to run this same adventure, and maybe either a Flying Swordsmen 2E adventure or a Chainmail-based tabletop skirmish/dungeon crawl game. AKA, reviving my idea from last year.  Probably more Chainmail than Gauntlet, but similar. I'd need to get off my ass to prepare for either of these two additional games, but that's a good thing. It will keep me engaged with the ideas. 

Mistborn of the Thorn Isles (Appendix N Jam 2025)

 I'm not on itch.io...or rather, I wasn't on itch before last week. So I wasn't aware of the Appendix N Jam adventure writing contest until Justin (of Vaults of Ur fame) told me about it. With his encouragement, and with only a week left to submit something, I applied, got a title, and made a 4-page (A5 size) adventure. 

 You can see my submission here. If you use itch.io, you can log in and vote for it. And check out the other submissions, too. I've only had time to look at a small fraction, but there's a ton of creativity and cool ideas on display. 

 If you're unaware (as I was), the idea is that the guys running the contest pick a title that sounds like it could be a story or novel in Gary Gygax's Appendix N. Something written by Lovecraft, Leiber, Anderson, Howard, Tolkien, Moorcock, Burroughs, or one of those other luminaries of early genre fiction. Then you design an adventure for an old school style RPG with similar flavor. 

There's a cash prize for the two best entries, but I'm not likely to win and don't care much if I don't. It was just a fun way to spend a weekend. I had a few ideas in my head for adventure ideas in the old adventure fantasy style, but when I got my title, Mistborn of the Thorn Isles, none of my preconceived notions fit. But it seemed like the sort of title a Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser, Conan the Cimmerian, Solomon Kane, or maybe Corum story would have. 

So I came up with an idea for a cursed island, Celtic themed (with definitely a dash of Christopher Lee in The Wicker Man), and with some elements that might be found in Appendix N style stories (a cursed people, pirates chasing damsels in distress, and a treasure map leading to the isle). It's for 3rd to 6th level PCs, and written for BX/BECMI, but should be easy enough to convert to AD&D, OD&D, or your retro-clone or modern OSR game of choice.

Of course, I had to leave some stuff out. With a mock up cover page taking up 1/4 of my page space, that left three pages for background, a map, a time counter, random encounters, placed encounters, and a new monster write up. I had ideas for making a small dungeon, or notes to expand on the adventure, but there was no space for that. Maybe, after the contest is over, I'll expand it a bit. But I think it's good enough as it is. 

Anyway, if you were unaware, check out the Appendix N Jam. I'll be looking over more submissions over the next couple of days. I doubt I'll have time to read them all before the audience judging portion is over. But I'll be downloading a lot of them to look over when I have more time. 
 

The "Your-Canon-Concerns-Me-Not" Middle-Earth Campaign

I've been re-reading Lord of the Rings the past two weeks or so, getting through a chapter some mornings, and one to three chapters in the afternoon/evening. I started on Feb. 28th (Monday) and I'm currently up to the chapter Flotsam and Jetsam. And of course it's got me thinking about how I would run a Middle-Earth campaign. 

I'm not going to do this. At least, not any time soon. My TS&R Jade game is going strong, and I've got some ideas percolating for continuing my Star Wars campaign. But maybe one day, I'll do this. 

__________________

So, the first thing is, what rule set to use? There are plenty of "official" Middle-Earth games to choose from, and unofficial OSR games like Balrogs and Bagginses. But me being me, I'd probably stick to either BX or BECMI style D&D, just with a few house rules. Maybe this could be a TS&R Silmaril version? I'd have to file off lots of serial numbers if I did that...

I've seen ideas bandied around to modify BX/BECMI for ME gaming. Some say use the Elf class but with the Cleric (or Druid) spell list for elves (or at least the Noldor) and the Cleric minus weapon restrictions for the Wizards (Istari). Some say use the Cleric class for the Noldor and use the Elf class for the Wizards (with a curated spell list, or the Cleric spells). Some say all Men should just be Fighters, but Numenoreans might get some Cleric spells (like the BECMI Paladin/Avenger), or porting in the Ranger and/or Paladin from AD&D. I've seen debate on whether Burglars (the Thief class, but for Hobbits) should be included as its own class or not, or if a few more Thief skills should be added to the Halfling class. It seems that the only BX/BECMI class people find suitable without change is the Dwarf.  

I would probably end up doing some combination like the above, except I might still keep the MU class for the Istari, only with an edited spell list and a few more weapon options, and probably the Lore ability of my TS&R Bard class. Possibly with a custom spell list for each Wizard! This would limit player options for Wizards though, and as the title of this post says, this is a "screw canon" campaign. 

For Elves, I think probably the regular Elf class could be the Noldor (Galadriel, etc.) just with the same edited spell list for the Wizards. Sindar (like Legolas) would use the Fighter class, but with the Elf class special abilities (ghoul touch immunity, secret door finding). Some Sindar might use the Cleric class to give them some magic ability.

For Hobbits, there could be Bounders (the Shire's guard/militia/border patrol) using the regular Halfling class, and Burglars using the Thief class plus Halfling special abilities. I don't think there would need to be a difference between the different types of Hobbit. 

Dwarves? Yep, as is. 

Men -- now we need to consider a few things. Are they all just Fighters (and maybe Thieves) with some cosmetic differences for Breelanders, Numenoreans, Men of Dale, Rohirrim, Beornings, etc.? Or do we need special classes for some? I'd say most Men could be covered by the four normal BX/BECMI classes, with a few limitations to make Clerics and Magic-Users rare. 

I could modify my old Barbarian class (cut from TS&R before release) for Beornings, and make it into a werebear class with increasing transformation abilities as they level up.

Numenoreans/Dunedain are the tricky part. The Rangers of the North are all Dunedain, but not all Dunedain are/were Rangers. Also, Gondor had rangers, but while they may have been descended from Numenoreans, they don't seem to have the pure bloodline like Aragorn. I'd probably just use normal human classes for them, including Cleric and Magic-User, and give them my TS&R Human special ability of rolling twice for hit points each level and keeping the better number, but making sure they have some ability score requirements like the demi-human classes to be one. 

Nope, sorry, you can't play an Ent or Eagle. Or an Orc or Troll or Giant Spider. 

The biggest "chuck canon out the window" thing I'd do would not be related to PC options, though. It would be the campaign world itself. I'd use one of those maps that float around where 1st Age Beleriand and 2nd Age Numenor haven't sunk under the waves, along with the 3rd Age Shire, Mordor, Mirkwood, etc. most people are familiar with. I'd keep Aman on the 'straight path' while the world is bent thing, to keep all except very high level PCs (if we ever got there) from raiding the Undying Lands.

Now, to really chuck the canon out with the bathwater, Morgoth would rule over Angband, Sauron would be in Mordor, the Witch King ruling Angmar, and sure, the Necromancer in Mirkwood. Elves would have several kingdoms in Beleriand, plus in Mirkwood, Eregion, Lothlorian, and Rivendell. Hobbits would have the Shire (and share Breeland), and maybe I'd throw in Smeagol's folk in Wilderland near the Beornings. Dwarves would have isolated strongholds in Moria, the Lonely Mountain, the Iron Hills, Belegost, etc. and they would be commonly coming and going between their strongholds. Arnor would still be a kingdom, as would Gondor, Rohan, Dale, and other human lands from the 3rd Age. There would also probably be a kingdom of Men somewhere in Beleriand, for Beren, Turin, Hurin, and all those guys from the Silmarillion. Oh, and yeah, I already mentioned Numenor would be there.

Basically, it would be more D&D in Middle-Earth than Middle-Earth role-play. And in proper D&D fashion, it all goes in the blender and gets turned into what James Mal once called an "unholy goulash" of a campaign setting.

Price Discrepancies

I'm continuing to work on the GM Guide for TS&R. I'm at the Dominion Management section now. I've never really come up against the prices for stronghold construction in the Expert Set/Rules Cyclopedia before, but while putting my version together (including some Asian style architecture and a few other things that I thought should be added), I checked out both the 1E DMG and the 2E Stronghold guide (one of the splatbooks...which I could only find in a fan-edited OCR version, not a scanned original PDF) and there are some big differences! 

The BX/BECMI prices are generally a lot higher for most buildings compared to 1E. 2E goes a bit overboard IMO with a whole formula to calculate the type of terrain, climate, vegetation, available materials and workforce. So instead of a simple price list, there's a (badly formatted in the version of the book I found) table with lots of numbers that seem all over the place. It may be a list of prices for the example castle they present. It doesn't seem very usable to me. Maybe if I had the original version with proper formatting, it would make more sense. 

Anyway, this leaves me with BECMI and 1E for my sources (and I suppose I could look at 3E+...but nah). 

For the construction costs, I stuck to the numbers I know. It's more expensive, but castles and other strongholds should NOT be cheap. 

However...in addition to structure costs, the Companion Set (and RC) have a list of monthly wages for various retainers and officials for your stronghold and the domain at large. Some of these seem very overly priced to me these days, and others are comically underpriced. Really, the Seneschal of the castle, the most important person you can hire, only gets Mercenary pay rates? Assuming it's a human knight (heavy horse), you only need to pay 20gp per month for this official. Meanwhile, the guard captain gets 4000gp per month. Say what? 

1E doesn't actually provide listings for these sorts of officials, from what I've found so far. Maybe it's in a sourcebook I haven't looked at, or a Dragon Magazine article somewhere (I don't have the archive...maybe I should track that down). So I had to just adjust the numbers to something I thought was more fitting. Every official I list is given a price to hire them, and most have had significant reductions from the Companion Set numbers. 

When we were kids, first making our own strongholds, our PCs were already pretty wealthy for their levels (my cousin Ben was a bit of a Monty Haul DM when he ran games), so paying the prices in the book for the various retainers didn't seem so bad. Besides, as we got up into the high teens and low twenties in level, we had copious amounts of treasure even without Ben giving out generous amounts. 

But if, going by the rules, a PC were to start a domain in a Wilderness or Borderland territory, it would take them a long time to build up the funds just from the domain income to hire many of these positions, so the money would have to come from adventuring spoils (as we did as kids). And going by the rates of treasure going to my group these days, by the time they reach Name Level, they will be spending most of their money on the strongholds, not leaving much for staff. So I feel fairly justified in reducing the staff costs. I may want to reconsider the construction costs as well... We'll see.

Mass Combat: Testing and Adjusting

On Saturday, Steven and I messed around with my new mass combat rule revisions (streamlining the War Machine rules from the Companion Set). Unfortunately, his ADHD got the better of him, as watching his big brother play GTA5 was more interesting than doing a bunch of math and pretending that math was creating armies and having them fight. 

But I pressed on. We made two armies, a Cleric leading a mixed force of men and skeletons with cleric officers, and an army led by a Fire Giant consisting of orcs and hobgoblins with ogre officers. We had them fight a battle, with the clerical army winning, but taking 20% losses and being fatigued. The fire giantish forces lost 50%, were exhausted, and had to retreat. 

Creating the forces (each had a budget of 5000gp) didn't take long, and calculating their battle ratings and resolving the conflict was pretty quick as well. Steven provided some details to the battle based on a few questions from me (terrain, time of day, other conditions), and it was pretty easy to figure out the battle modifiers. Steven selected tactics for the cleric's army, I did for the fire giant army. Then we resolved it with opposed d100 rolls. 

I have a roster of troops, expanded from the Expert Set mercenary costs, to include more humanoid troop types (hobgoblins, gnolls, lizard men, gnomes), and then based on the 2E AD&D Battle System point costs, I made a roster of upkeep costs for monster troops. I added the creatures from the 2E BS book, and some more that I thought would be cool to have in armies, estimating their costs from those given. I had this done before we started, but afterwards, I was thinking that maybe the monster upkeep values were too high for most of them. The point costs for most standard troop types in 2E Battle System are higher than the Expert mercenary upkeep prices, so I decided to cut them down. Most were cut in half, some were reduced more or less, depending on how powerful the monsters might be. 

I also added notes on HD and any special bonuses the troop types would qualify for, such as flying, spellcasting, or special abilities.

Of course, what we did yesterday was just one battle, with no maneuvering, no costs over time to worry about, etc. So I was thinking that we should create a map with various forces, let him create a larger army (maybe 20,000gp) with the new, reduced monster upkeep values, and have him try to fight his way across it. But I didn't have time to do that today. 

What I did have time to do was look over the "Fall of the Black Eagle Barony" scenario at the back of the Companion Set's DM book. It's the tutorial to help players get used to the War Machine rules. What I did have time to do today was figure out the by the book Mentzer War Machine values for each force, and then figure them by my rules. There are a few places where the information doesn't match perfectly (I have changed some factors), but overall, the values are relatively similar across the two systems. Some forces did better in War Machine, some did better in my system, but the values aren't crazily different for any except the "Men of Kelven" force. I may plug the values into SPSS at work tomorrow and see if they're statistically similar or not. 

For anyone curious, the various forces and their values in War Machine and my system are: 

Black Eagle Guard 165:154

Men of Kelven 33:59

Ducal Guard 109:109 (surprised by that one!)

Western Elves 106:123

Eastern Elves 109:118

Thyatian Mercenaries 151:143

The above use the full War Machine rules, the forces below use the "quick BR" system in Mentzer. For the forces below, information on their training times or the presence of mounted troops would increase all their scores in my system.

Gnomes 52:60

Orcs 51:49 (assuming at least half have ranged weapons, no percentage is given, otherwise 39)

Bugbears 54:50 (assuming some have pole arms, something I often arm these creatures with, otherwise 40)

Goblins East 29:27 (assuming a fair number of wolf riders, not listed, otherwise 17)

Goblins Northeast 29:27 (again assuming wolf riders, otherwise 17)

Lycanthropes 75:83

Rules for Mass Combat: Fiddling Around

This week, I've been fiddling around with Frank Mentzer's War Machine rules from the BECMI Companion Set. I've always liked these rules. They can handle huge wars or small skirmishes with just a few calculations, a pair of die rolls, and some table look-ups. The only problem is that those calculations can be a bit clunky at times. 

For those that don't know, the War Machine has you first calculate a Basic Force Rating (BFR), depending on the leader's level and mental ability scores, the level/HD of the troops and their officers, and a few other things. This score determines the Troop Class (Poor through Elite). 

Once the BFR and Troop Class are determined, there are more calculations to get the Battle Rating based on things like training, arms and equipment, and force composition (how many archers, what percent of spellcasters, etc.). These bonuses are based on a percentage of the BFR, so different for each force. This produces the Battle Rating (BR).

Oh, and then when the army finally takes the field and meets the enemy, the BR of both forces gets modified by various factors of the encounter (relative force size, high ground, favorable/unfavorable terrain, defensive positions), and there are options to add on battle tactics with a 6x6 table reminiscent of the Chainmail Jousting table. 

Once the BR has been modified for each side due to the battle conditions, each side rolls a d100 and adds it to the modified BR. The higher total wins, and the difference in totals is referenced on a chart to show how many casualties each side takes, whether or not the forces are fatigued by the battle, and whether the loser has to retreat and whether the victor is allowed to hold the field or advance. 

Sounds complicated, but when we used to use it as kids, it worked really well for us. Most of the calculations get made when the force is created, with updates for training or for purchasing better equipment, or hiring a different cohort of troops (adding more cavalry, for example). And once a battle happened, it was kind of fun to go through the list of factors to see what we could add or subtract from our forces. Then then die roll! Sweet victory, or agonizing defeat all in one roll. It was pretty exciting. But it can be a bit time consuming.

So I've been looking to streamline the process. I've got a first draft of a simplified version of the rules, but they're not actually all that simplified looking over them again. Basically, I take out the Troop Class and separating BFR and BR. Just calculate a BR from the factors I've kept to consider. The factors that make BR based on a fraction of the BFR have just flat values now. Most of the things to consider in a battle I've kept the same (or nearly so, I did change around a few numbers, and incorporated many of the optional rules that we used to use). 

Now, the Companion Set does include a "quick BR" formula, which ignores a lot and is a lot faster to calculate. We would usually have full long-form BRs for our Name Level PCs' armies, but when a rampaging horde of orcs and trolls showed up, we'd use the quick BR to get their values (which often gave us a big advantage, as the quick BR ignores a lot of things that might give bonuses). 

This weekend, I plan to run a few war games with the boys to try out my current first draft. If it goes well, great! If it's a bit clunky still, I may modify it to be more like the Quick BR alternate system, as it is very fast and no fuss, no muss. I think that if all armies are made with the same system, it will be more fair.

The one thing I still need to set up before the weekend games would be "mercenary prices" for various monsters. I've included the mercenary tables from the Expert Set in TS&R, but that just covers humans, dwarves, elves, orcs, and goblins (plus halflings in my version). There are no prices for having ogres, manticores, ghouls, dragons, or giants in your forces, although the War Machine has rules to handle armies containing creatures like these. I never had a set price guide determined when we were kids, as the DM (usually but not always me) could just create opponent armies from scratch, and our PCs mostly stuck to standard mercenaries (and the occasional subdued dragon) in their forces. 

I think it's time to open up my Chainmail PDF and compare point costs for troop types with point costs for fantasy supplement creatures and get some ideas.

Mundane-scape: Planar gaming advice is hard to give

 I've been slowly working my way through TSR advice on planar gaming. 

Mentzer's Companion Set has some rudimentary, but functional, advice on the Ether and Elemental planes. There's not a lot to go on there, but as a kid, I felt it was enough that I could riff off of for planar adventures. 

The Mentzer Master Set, however, gives some information on Immortals and Artifacts, and adds to the planar monster roster, but doesn't actually give much good advice about the Outer Planes (something advertised in the Companion Set). As such, as a kid reading these books I always felt a bit hesitant to do much with the Outer Planes. I was familiar with the Great Wheel of AD&D, but Mentzer suggested a different type of Outer Planes which intrigued me, but there was never enough stuff for me to really dig into the implications. 

I only acquired the Immortal Set a couple of years ago, and was reading up on the Outer Planes the last two days. Hmm. It definitely sets things up in a more interesting fashion than the Great Wheel, with an infinite number of possible planes, weird planar intersections, and planes hidden behind other planes. But there's too much focus on statistical measurements (how big, how many stars/planets within, how many dimensions, what mix of the five Spheres or the four elements) and not enough examples of what a plane might be like on the inside. And from a straight reading, each one is just a mundane little pocket universe. A limited area of space with stars, planets, etc. within. Maybe those planets are unlike anything in our universe, but they're still planets. No vast infinite plains of blood-soaked land under an ominous orange sky. No paradise of solid clouds. No M.C. Escher-esque mind-bending realms. Or rather, you could have them, but the game implies just lots of Class M planets to explore. 

AD&D is interesting. In the PHB, we get a basic rundown of the planar geography of the Great Wheel. We get a few notes on adventuring in planar realms, plus encounter charts, in the DMG. But not that much. I don't have the Manual of the Planes in hard copy, so I haven't dug into that yet. That's gonna have to wait until I get a bunch of assignments graded, and Halloween costumes finished. But I will. But just from the core books, there's a bit to spur your imagination, but not much. 

Anyway, while I can appreciate the need for all the statistics and discussion of how 3- or 4-dimensional beings interact with 6-dimensional spaces, the Immortal Set is a bit of a let down. AD&D without the MotP is also a let down. 

Why is it so hard to come up with good material for outer planes? Is it just that the game designers didn't want to infringe on DMs' imaginations? But the Great Wheel suggests otherwise. I guess I'll need to find some time to read the MotP, and later get into some 2E Planescape stuff to get a better grasp on what TSR thought planar adventures should be like.

Choosing Your Ruleset as Difficulty Level

This is an idea that's been knocking around in my head for a while, but playing some emulated games with Steven (my 8 year old) this evening* reminded me about it. 

Video games used to have difficulty levels that you could choose before you started the game. I'm sure there are still a few games that use them, but one reason I don't play a lot of video games anymore is that they seem to be designed to either give you "an experience" or else they want you to subscribe/pay lots of microtransactions, so either they are too easy (experience or subscription) or too hard (microtransactions), with no choice. But back in the day, we had this.

So, here are my very subjective and probably wrong estimations of which version of D&D is at which difficulty level. This assumes a few things. One, it's difficulty for the players to play the game, not for the DM to run the game. Two, it assumes you're running things more or less by the book, at least as far as assumptions for things like encounters, healing, goals of play, and the like are concerned. If you play 4E in an "old school style" then that's outside of what I'm talking about here. I'm considering a group that plays 4E (or whatever edition) as the designers intended it to be played. Three, let's leave supplements out of the equation for now, they just complicate things. So no Skills & Powers, no Greyhawk/Blackmoor, no Unearthed Arcana, no Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. Just the core rule books.

And I'll reiterate -- this is just my feeling about it. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am down in the comments. But the next time you start up a campaign, consider selecting the rule set that fits the challenge level you wish to give the players.

 I'm Too Young to Die (Very Easy Mode)

4th Edition D&D This is about as easy as it gets for the players. It's designed so that you would have to go out of your way to create a "suboptimal" character. The play assumptions are two to three easy fights then a tougher but still winnable "boss" fight as an adventure. Magic items are fairly easy to acquire, and you're not expected to have to do much more than ride the railroad from set piece battle to set piece battle, with a few "skill challenges" here and there to spice things up.

5th Edition D&D A bit more challenging than 4E, but still a lot easier than most other editions. It's possible to create a suboptimal character, but the rules tend to be a bit more forgiving with character creation. Advancement is very fast at low levels. Healing is ridiculously easy. And again, the adventures seem to be mostly an assumption of a few easy fights leading up to the boss battle. If players just go along and make sure to rest often, and the DM only places recommended encounter difficulties, it's not too hard at all.

Hey, Not Too Rough (Easy Mode)

2nd Edition AD&D The rules and systems for play, including character creation and character advancement, can lead to challenges for the players. You might get stuck with a suboptimal character through dice rolls as much as through character choice. But, the big mitigating factor of this edition is the design goal that players play "heroes" and go on epic narrative adventures. So while death is very much possible from the way the rules are written, the DM advice suggests that this be mulliganed or nerfed to serve the ends of the story. 

 Hurt Me Plenty (Normal Mode)

BX or BECMI D&D  I'm lumping these two together because while BECMI incorporates a lot more complexity of play at the high levels (not to mention Immortals level play being a completely different and more challenging game), at the earliest levels, play is pretty much the same in them. Character creation by the book can be a challenge (roll 3d6 down the line), but ability score bonuses are more generous than in the AD&D line. There aren't many choices to make at character creation, either. Adventure design assumptions are that encounters are not balanced, and it's up to the players to know when to push on for more and when to quit. But there are also rules that make treasure pretty generous, which speeds up advancement if the characters do survive.

3rd Edition D&D This edition has a lot of the design assumptions of the later editions. Character creation is generous with abilities and ways to optimize the character, but the complexity of the "exception-based rules" design, with all the skill points and feat choices and whatnot make it more of a burden to play than other editions. The adventure design assumptions are not quite so forgiving, but still, healing is fairly easy to get, magic items are easily purchased, and it's pretty easy to get around the "save or die" type effects. If the rules weren't so complex and fiddly, this would be in an easier tier.

Ultra-Violence (Hard Mode)

Original D&D It all started here, and it wasn't easy! Characters were randomly generated and didn't have a lot of "powers" to rely on. Monster encounters can easily be with overpowering odds. There's an assumption of thinking your way through encounters, rather than just hacking and slashing. You're dead at 0 hit points, and healing is not easy to come by. The incompleteness of the rules (remember, this is assuming the base rules only, not the supplements) may also up the difficulty a bit, as the DM will need to make a lot of guesses as to what's an appropriate challenge, and players will have to have their wits about them to survive.

1st Edition AD&D This edition has a good mix of difficulty in character optimization (it's got generous die rolling for ability scores but stingy bonuses for high scores, race/class combo restrictions, ability score restrictions, level caps for demi-humans, etc.) and difficulty in adventure assumptions. Monsters are challenging. Tricks, traps, and whatnot are expected, and can really mess you up. Sure, there are lots of opportunities to find powerful magic items, but the most powerful have serious drawbacks. And the level of detail in the rules give the DM all sorts of ways to make things difficult or more challenging for the players.

Nightmare (Extra Hard Mode)

Holmes D&D Rolling 3d6 down the line for stats and rolling your hit points randomly and you can only go up to 3rd level, but the book expects you might run into all sorts of dragons, vampires, purple worms, and the like? Yeah, this is the most challenging version if you play it straight.

*We have a Super Console X, an Android TV box with EmuElec, Retroarch, and about 30 systems emulated, with thousands of games. Tonight, we played some Twisted Metal on PS1 and Gauntlet 4 Quest Mode on Sega Genesis.

Magic Item Distribution in BX/BECMI and expected progression of power

 I was musing on the fact that when we were young, playing D&D, some of the iconic magic items of the game seemed a lot more common than they do these days. Maybe it's because we were pre-teens/teens, fudging the treasure results to skew for more items. Maybe we were selecting the "cool" stuff instead of relying on random rolls when magic treasure popped up. But maybe it was an artifact of the way the game is structured in Basic-Expert-(Companion-Masters) play that is different from AD&D, RC, or any WotC edition. 

What am I talking about? Pull out your Basic Set book (Basic DM book if Mentzer) and open it to the magic item tables. What do you see? For each category of item, there are six to ten items that can result. And some, especially the Miscellaneous Items, are some nice finds: elven cloak and boots, bag of holding, gauntlets of ogre power, crystal ball, rope of climbing, helm of telepathy and medallion of ESP. Sure, there's also the bag of devouring. But a lot of those items are pretty nice finds, especially at low level. 

Similarly with rings, we get animal control, invisibility, protection +1, water walking, fire resistance, and the cursed ring of weakness. 

For Wands/Staves/Rods, we get wands of enemy detection (meh), magic detection (nice!), paralyzation (pretty good), staff of healing (YES!), snake staff (cool, but not so great in play), and rod of cancellation (really powerful). 

Potions and scrolls are consumables, but still, with only eight types of potion available, healing potions are a lot more common, in particular.

And then there are the magic weapons and armor, but that's not so different as you go up in power. Just the attendant special abilities can expand, and the plusses can go up. 

Anyway, rings, wand/staff/rod, and miscellaneous items are what got me thinking about this. When we were young, starting with only the Basic Set, this made these types of items much more common. There were multiple bags of holding, staves of healing, gauntlets of ogre power, rings of fire resistance and invisibility, etc. Going from 0 to 8000xp (more or less) with only these options meant lots of chances to find these particular magic items. And so these items were more common in the campaign. 

If you start with the expansive lists of AD&D or the RC, your chances of finding those gauntlets of ogre power to boost your Fighter's meager Strength, or the Elven Cloak to make your Thief sneak better, or the staff of healing to help the Cleric maintain everyone's hit points are a LOT lower. Even just the modest expansion of items from the Expert Set makes these items much less common. 

Of course, there's lots of other good stuff that can be found. Some better than the items here. But some not better (and I'm not talking about the cursed items even). 

You're not likely to roll up a Fighter with 18 Strength. If you're rolling down the line, no switches or point adjustments, you've got a 1 in 216 chance to get that +3 to hit/damage. Placing or switching scores, or dropping a score by 2 to increase PR by 1 obviously betters the odds. 

And the chance of rolling gauntlets of ogre power is 1 in 400. But, that's a 1 in 400 chance checked EVERY time there's a magic item in a treasure hoard. How many treasure hoards with magic items are there likely to be by the time a PC accumulates 8000xp? Quite a few. So maybe the odds aren't better than getting an 18 Str at char gen, but it seemed like good enough odds when we were young that you'd find a pair somewhere along the way. Again, my perception of this could be skewed because we were kids and didn't always follow the rules or stick to what was rolled. 

But I'd be interested to run a new campaign some time in the future, starting at 1st level, and only using the Basic tables for magic items until the party had at least two 4th level characters and see how it shakes out. I have a feeling at least one fighter will have the gauntlets, the thief will have elven boots or cloak or rope of climbing, the cleric will have a staff of healing, and the magic-user a wand of detect magic. The party will probably have a few nice rings as well. And that will make a difference in how encounters play out.

Pushing the Envelope

 I've been thinking lately about ways that I could streamline my Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins (TSR) house rules for BX/BECMI style play. Right now, the rule set is as close to AD&D 1E as I think I can take it without adding too much additional complexity. But the TSR-East rules add just a small amount of complexity and variation that I currently think I should get rid of. 

One thing is that the TSR Thief (and related classes) use % Skills as normal for BX/BECMI, but the TSR-East Yakuza and Ninja use x/d6 for their skills. I like the x/d6 rules, as they streamline with the racial ability skills in Classic, but part of me wants the Thief to still be the Thief -- even with the super low chances of success at early levels. 

But that's not the main thing I want to discuss here. I think anyone who's downloaded Flying Swordsmen or purchased Chanbara knows that I like the 2E AD&D conceit of the character kit. 5E D&D also does something sorta similar with their Backgrounds, but also with their class archetypes/specializations. And now I wonder if I could make a version of Classic D&D that looks something like this: 

3 classes, as in OD&D: fighty-type, casty-type, hybrid-type

Kits/Backgrounds that can modify the special abilities and restrictions of the class, while the main core (hit die, XP progression, to hit and save progression, saving throws) remain unchanged [for the most part]. 

Demi-human races would actually be listed among the kits/backgrounds. This would allow me to mimic the original rules for the demi-humans, and expand them when desired, but leave players with reasons to play human PCs as many of the kits/backgrounds are for humans only. 

Some of the kits/backgrounds would be for one class only, while others might be options for more than one class. Of course, the danger is going overboard with kits/backgrounds. But it would allow for easy modding to different cultural milieux like TSR-East. All you need to do is provide an alternate set of kits/backgrounds. 

Looking at Classic D&D's seven classes, in this version they'd look like this: 

Warrior Class 

*Fighter

*Thief

*Dwarf

*Halfling

Caster Class

*Magic-User

Hybrid Class

*Cleric

*Elf

For TSR-East, you'd get something like this (not considering the optional demi-humans for the moment):

Warrior Class 

*Hwarang

*Ronin

*Ninja

*Yakuza

Caster Class

*Mudang

*Wushi

Hybrid Class

*Sohei

*Xia

With AD&D 1E, it would be much more complex with race/class combos, but stripping out the demi-humans for the moment:

Warrior Class 

*Assassin

*Fighter 

*Monk

*Thief

Caster Class

*Druid

*Magic-User

*Illusionist

Hybrid Class

*Bard

*Cleric

*Paladin

*Ranger 

If we add in demi-humans, even with some restrictions that play to the key tropes of each race, it gets pretty complex: 

Warrior Class 

*Assassin

*Fighter 

*Monk

*Thief

*Dwarf Fighter

*Halfling Thief

*Halfling Fighter/Thief

*Half-Orc Assassin

*Half-Orc Fighter

 Caster Class

*Druid

*Magic-User

*Illusionist 

*Elf Magic-User

*Gnome Illusionist

*Half-Elf Druid

Hybrid Class

*Bard

*Cleric

*Paladin

*Ranger 

*Dwarf Cleric/Fighter

*Elf Fighter/Magic-User

*Half-Elf Cleric/Magic-User

*Half-Elf Ranger

*Gnome Fighter/Illusionist

So, definitely not perfect when it comes to streamlining, unless each kit/background is really just a small number of changes. 

Still, something to think about.

The Great Kobold Debate

Now that the orc alignment/racism thing seems to have blown over, time to move on to a more pressing question about D&D humanoids: Kobolds -- dog-men or mini dragon men?

Starting with Mentzer, I took the dog-like description as more telling than the hairless & scaly description (like I thought that meant they were mangy and diseased) but when later editions made them specifically little crappy dragonmen I didn't oppose it since it was an interesting twist. Anyway, here's the evolution of the kobold for the first 30 years or so. Feel free to chime in in the comments about how you view them.

In Chainmail, they're interchangeable with goblins, and no description given.

In OD&D, they're still just slightly weaker goblins.

Holmes goes with the folkloric description. Interestingly, they've got a save bonus to everything EXCEPT dragon breath.

In AD&D 1E, we get a lot of description, and for the first time they are described as hairless, scaly, and with small horns. The Sutherland illustrations have very dog-like faces, but the bodies are scaly (or wearing chain mail?)

Moldvay is the first time the kobold is described as dog-like. The Errol Otis illustration seems to support my 'diseased' assumption. Mentzer was the first set I owned, but I had seen BX before I got it. So maybe this picture colored my view?

Mentzer's text is nearly identical to Moldvay, but there is no illustration.

AD&D 2E of course gives us more information on kobolds than most people really need, although a lot of it is identical to the 1E information. The DiTerlizzi picture is definitely a hybrid dog-lizard here, which likely shaped their future development by WotC.

And in the Rules Cyclopedia, of course the text is again nearly identical to Mentzer, only adding in the note about spellcasters (from Mentzer's Masters Set).

And in 3E and forward, the kobold is finally specifically tagged as "reptilian" and given the draconic heritage. The heads are still described as dog-like, though.

The indie (and very fun) Kobolds Ate My Baby rejected the reptilian/draconic angle, and made them little furry nasties. I really appreciated that. I don't have a copy of that game to post, though.

Are they dog men? Mini dragon men? Something in-between? Or do you go to the folklore sources and make them evil little fae like redcaps? Something original?

I HAVE THE POWER!!!!!!

Not actually a blog post about MotU. Sorry. Talking about the Immortal Rules, the I of BECMI.

I've only gotten a few pages into the book. I've been pretty busy converting my classes from face to face to online. That, and Netflix. But I did get through the first few pages.

So I kind of knew this already, from my previous perusing of my PDF version, and from what others had told me about it. When your PC achieves immortality, their XP total is converted to Power Points at a rate of 1PP per 10k XP. So starting immortals have a few hundred PP, depending on their class/level when they achieved immortality.

When you convert your character, and play as an immortal, these PP are EVERYTHING. They're still the "xp" you collect, or rather XP you continue to collect is converted to PP. But you can also earn them in other ways, by advancing your personal goals and the goals of your Sphere.

PP are your hit points, as well. The only way to truly destroy an immortal is to reduce them to 0 PP.

PP are your spell points. You can cast any spell, and create plenty of other powers, by temporary expenditure of PP. These come back in time.

They are also character build points. You can improve your character, construct your own Outer Plane, create artifacts, and make other permanent changes/improvements through permanent expenditure of PP. In fact, the "advancement table" looks fairly easy to achieve, until you read the rules about needing minimum stats in certain ability scores to advance, which require these permanent expenditures of PP.

So while I have looked at the sections on using ability scores as % chance to perform "godly" tasks (which is pretty loosey-goosey story gamey, or at least it appears to be in the Players Book), and the section on the new saving throws, the main take-away so far is that Power is the metric of the immortals, and it's what drives the game.

Cool. And I'm gonna wait until I get through everything, but I've got an inkling that these PP based character mechanics might possibly work for a Supers game or maybe something like the Ambers in Zelazny's books. Yeah, there's Amber Diceless for Zelazny, but I don't have it and have never seen it.

Immortals

Back in February I got some of my late cousin's old gaming stuff. This includes his copies of the Mentzer Immortals rule books.

I think I mentioned previously that I have the PDF. In fact, I've had it for a very long time. I bought it online from Paizo back when they were publishing Dragon magazine and selling the old TSR catalog online. It was a different time.

But even though I've had the PDF for what, nearly 15 years? I was in Japan when I bought it and I've been in Korea for 12 now. So at least 13 years. But even though I've had it that long, I've never given it a deep reading.

Now I've got the physical books. I'm gonna start reading them this evening. I don't know that I'll do a "cover to cover" style series of posts, but expect lots of posts about it in the coming days/weeks.

Uncovering Treasure

Been on vacation. My family spent most of 2019 in the USA while I remained in Korea. I've been in Illinois with the family for the past three weeks, and two more to go before I head back for work. The family's sticking around here for a while longer. It's hard, but it's been great for my wife and our boys.

Back in December, I ordered myself a copy of the AD&D Dragonlance Adventures as a birthday present for myself. Since the seller only did domestic shipping, I had to wait until I visited here to get it. Been reading it in short bursts when I have time.

It's not the best copy, pretty beat up, but it was only $20 or so. I'll have thoughts on Krynn coming soon(ish).

The real story I want to tell tonight is that I met with my second cousin and his wife two weeks ago. They're a generation older than me, and their son was one of my best friends growing up. He died of cancer when he was only 20, during my senior year of college. They mentioned that they still had a lot of his old gaming stuff in their home, and that I was welcome to have any of it that I wanted.

I stopped by a week later and found some long lost treasures. There weren't any of his old character sheets or dungeon notes, and if there had been, I most likely would have gotten really emotional looking through them. A lot of his gaming collection is probably now in the hands of one of his brothers. But I did get some gems. Another copy of the 1E PHB, a Mentzer Basic DM's Guidebook, both books of the Immortals box set (which I had only in PDF form until now), Unearthed Arcana (which I also only had in PDF form and almost ordered instead of DLA back in December!), and his old crayon-fill TSR dice (minus a d6, plus a few other d6s from other games). Also, there are the cards and some tokens from Tom Wham's Mertwig's Maze.

This is some unearthed treasure that I will cherish for a long time. I have so many fond memories from elementary through high school playing D&D, Star Frontiers, and other games with him, not to mention the usual stuff kids did back in the 80's and 90's. People knock nostalgia, but this trip has been full of it, and it's really recharged my gaming batteries. 

I'll have some updates on gaming with my sons soon, too. Some cool developments there as well.