Showing posts with label editorial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label editorial. Show all posts

Thursday, March 26, 2026

Campaign Milestones: New Notebook!

 As I was getting ready for the latest session of the Stonehell campaign, I grabbed the notebook to start a new page for the night's events... and realized we'd reached the end of the notebook! I was prepared for this and had another notebook handy, but it did give me a chance to mark the occasion with a picture. 

Over 300 sessions, 10+ years, and we're still going strong! 


 I'm looking forward to filling this next one up too. I have no idea how long we'll keep up this campaign... it was only supposed to be a filler after wrapping up a 5e game, but it's become so much more. 

Saturday, February 15, 2025

(Not) What I'm Looking For

Lately I've found that I'm much less interested in backing new games, and much more interested in things that provide inspiration. 2 years ago I got myself the Star Trek RPG core book. A month ago I finally started reading it. I got about 80 pages in and barely got to the rules. I also backed a Kickstarter for /Dungeon., an OSR style game that plays as an old style RPG computer game. I didn't get very far into that either.

On the flip side I devoured Valley of the Flowers, an Arthurian setting, and Aquilius zine issue 1-3, and every issue of Delver that comes out. 

In a similar vein, I've been very enchanted by the Idea of playing Tonks! Miniature game with a single Tank (Tonk) on each side, with the rules on a single page? Sign me the fuck up!

I don't have any great thesis about this, and don't claim that my personal preferences at the moment are indicative of any wider trends. Just something I've noticed lately, and probably due in large part to having a 4 year old. There's only so many hours in the day and at the end of the day when I have one to spare, there's little mental energy left to devote to something new. 

Thursday, November 14, 2024

Fuck Trump

It's been a week, and I'm still not over the stupidity of my fellow Americans. To be clear, I'm not surprised by the people who voted for him, but I'm disappointed by all those who didn't vote against him. 

The next 4 years are going to be long and painful and we'll be dealing with the fallout for decades. I intend to support the vulnerable populations that he and his evil followers will be attacking, and resist any and all attempts to normalize the horrors we're going to see.

But it isn't the end. Life is going to go on. The every day joys and frustrations. It's important to recognize that, and to take time to preserve the things that are important, if only so that you have the energy to face the oncoming shit show. For me, that's my gaming and painting, and so, just like in 2016, I intend to continue playing, continue painting, and posting about it here. 

 
 
 
But in case I wasn't clear, fuck trump, and fuck anyone who voted for him.
 

Sunday, September 10, 2023

14 Year Old!

It's amazing how time flies. I honestly couldn't have imagined that I'd still be actively blogging after 14 years when I stared this, and yet here I am. 

And because I haven't looked in a while, here's the stats! 

  • 2,156,496


Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Comprehending Comprehend Language

In (almost?) every edition of D&D is some version of a spell that will easily translate any non-magical writing or even speech. It's usually trivially easy for a wizard, and in some editions even for high level thieves. It's a bypass that lets those who memorized that utility spell avoid having to run back to town to consult a sage, if there even is one available. 

On one hand, as a DM, it I can see why this can be annoying, especially if the spell has a long duration. On the other hand, it is a choice the player took to have their character take that spell. It's a slot that could have been a magic missile or sleep. It's a choice the DM should reward, or at least not punish the player for making it. 

That's not to say that the spell is going to hand everything to the PC's on a silver platter. An important consideration for the DM to keep in mind that the spell translates the words literally, and that not all languages are constructed the same way. For anyone who's studied a language other than their native one, this probably does not come as a shock. Most people I know from the US took a romance language in school, French or Spanish mostly. Either that or German. Because English shares a lot with these languages there's a familiarity to them, and a lot of other languages follow different rules. 

For example, I'm learning Mandarin. You know how in English (and the romance languages) there are different tenses? Past tense, present tense, future tense, etc... Mandarin doesn't. There's context clues, but a literal translation could potentially be any. 

Also there's nothing that says that the words have to be in an order we're used to. Maybe they write like Yoda? Or the subject might not come first in the sentence. 

    We're going to the restaurant that's next to his school with your cousin. 

    Next to his school the restaurant your cousin is going with us. 

To go further with the idea, what if there's no word in the language for restaurant or school?

    Next to his reading place the cooking shop your cousin is going with us

That doesn't take into account proper nouns. 

    We're going to the restaurant that's next to Wang's school with your cousin Zhang. 

    Next to king's reading place the cooking shop your cousin open bow is going with the people. 

Clearly that would be a little more comprehensible with some punctuation, but maybe the language doesn't use any? 

Another trick is to have a word have more than one meaning, or to be used as a slang term. 

What does it mean if the person is described as square? Bad? A herbert? A literal translation isn't going to help much there.

Do I even need to go into memes? 

One last thought. Don't make it rhyme unless it's in a language the PCs speak. I always hated in movies and TV when that happens. 

All of this does require some prep work from the DM, a little more than what would be required if the PCs were using a sage who was familiar with the language and help navigate it for them, but used properly, it can be a fun way to make an ancient civilization (or current but not native civilization) more flavorful.  

Friday, January 6, 2023

Editorial: Hey #BrOSR! Grow the fuck up!

 My Old School Brothers* in Dice,


Do you want our corner of the hobby to die? Is that your goal? Because shit like this? 
 



And that's not even going into the classic assholes like Venger, Zak, and Pundit. (if you don't know who they are count yourself lucky!)

This is how you drive people away. This is how you make your tables unwelcoming. The RPG hobby has seen spectacular growth recently with 5E, and that's allowed a lot of very cool OSR and OSR adjacent projects to flourish. I have a shelf full of cool zines and boxed sets and rule books because people have been excited and able to make quality content for classic D&D type games. 

Assuming WotC doesn't ruin that first, your behavior will. That dumb PBS article that you're so up in arms about? They're talking about you. And I don't give a damn about your claims that "there's no politics at my table" and "everyone has always been welcome" because that's bullshit. 

How do I know it's bullshit? Because I've seen the other shit you talk about, the things you post with #brOSR and #SparkleTroll. I've seen the things you've liked and retweeted. You aren't subtle, and you aren't fooling anyone. 

And yeah, I can just block you and happily play my games, but I'd like to be able to get people interested in the hobby without getting a side eye when they find out the corner of it I generally play in. 

It's 2023, and time to stop acting like it's still 1979 (it wasn't good then, FYI). Your racist, misogynistic, homophobic bullshit needs to go. Your gatekeeping isn't helpful or wanted. Your puritanical zeal for a game written before most RPG players were even born is going to increasingly see you relegated to the same dank dark corners of musty old basements that hold the embarrassing collection of Nazi & MAGA paraphernalia that your kids or grand-kids will be embarrassed to have to deal with when you die.   
Kicking in the door, killing horrible monsters, and taking their treasure is a fun way to play. Get your heads out of your asses, grow up, and for fuck sake stop being colossal dicks so I can focus on making cool stuff for my game.

*Yes, brothers, because it's always a bunch of guys, usually older, and usually white.

Sunday, December 25, 2022

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you peace and joy this holiday season, and a stocking full of toys!
 

Sunday, September 11, 2022

13 years old!

I haven't marked the day in a couple of years, but yesterday was my 13th blogiversary. 


Go me!

It's interesting that this has kept on, even though at this point too many of my posts are the monthly wrap ups, and not nearly enough of them are session reports or new content. And I have ideas for new content stuff, and things from game that I want to share, but with a toddler in the house, finding the time has been hard. That's part of the reason this is a day late in fact. 

I don't foresee any big changes to things here at the Tower anytime in the near term. Likely you will be seeing more of the same, though I do want to keep posting some of the new characters I've been coming up with. 


 Anyway, happy blogiversary to me! Here's to another productive year!

Saturday, October 16, 2021

Off to a wedding!

It isn't every day that 2 of your players get married, but today happens to be one of those rare and lucky days. In fact, as this post goes live, the ceremony should be starting...


Congrats Kat and Julia!


I'm so lucky to have you two as both players and friends, and I'm so happy you two found each other. 


Now, quick poll for those readers I have... should I give them an in game wedding present?

Thursday, September 16, 2021

Meeting the Neighbors

I think last night might be my most memorable introduction of myself. I was painting after getting the boy down to bed, and I heard the new downstairs neighbors out on the patio having a dinner party. No biggie. A little bit later the tone of the chatter changed, and something caught my ear. Someone was doing a voice. I stepped out onto my balcony and looked down. The food was all put away, and everyone had their screens out. I couldn't make out most of what was being said, but then...


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"Make a sleight of hands check" followed by the clatter of dice.

They were playing D&D!

I went inside, and dithered a moment about how to get their attention. I grabbed a d20 and went back out on the balcony. When there was a lull, I said "Hi neighbors" and tossed the d20 down toward them.

Down 3 stories toward them.

"What the.... Did he just toss a dice down?"

"Yeah, and it's a nat 20!"  (I swear to all the gods I'm not making this up)

"Hey, you play D&D?!?"

"Yeah I do!" I replied.

"Can he join us? Do you want to come play?"

 Obviously, I could, and did. And that's how I met my new neighbors and their friends last night.

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Bonus, I got to pull out my old dwarf wizard Fulhoff! His newest adventure will be tomorrow's post.

Wednesday, June 2, 2021

Happy Pride!

 

Rainbow colored D&D dice drawn by Dyson Logos

Wishing all my readers a Happy Pride!

 

And anyone with a problem with that can go be eaten by a grue. 

Monday, January 11, 2021

Unanswered Comments

A little bit of blog business. Apparently sometime in the last 6 months, blogger has stopped emailing me when people comment on my posts. So there were about 2 dozen comments that people left that got filtered, and twice as many spam comments (which is why filtering is turned on).

So if you left a comment, and it didn't show up, and I didn't reply, that's why.  

Sorry about that... I'll be checking that more often now that I know.

Sunday, January 3, 2021

2020 In Review

Well, wasn’t that a fucking ride. In no way, shape, or form can 2020 be said to have been a good year. It had it’s bright spots, but the pandemic, and the insane science deniers and ‘conservative’ politicians that pandered to them caused this to be way worse than it needed to be. Over 300,000 dead. It didn’t need to be that way. At least the vaccine is being rolled out. By next fall things might be looking a little more normal. But I’ll have been out of the office, working from my tiny one bedroom NYC apartment, for over a year by the time I get the vaccine. 

Beyond the pandemic, there's the glaringly exposed racial injustices… the domestic terrorists that stormed state capital buildings armed to the teeth unopposed by law enforcement, the one that blew himself and a city block up, the greedy rich assholes who've only gotten richer while everyone else got poorer...

And then there's the bloody murder hornets! At least, for the time being anyway, that seems to be contained.

All of it being made worse by the insanity of the last year of the Trump administration. Fuck Trump and all his supporters.

And on the personal side of things, I said goodbye to my Lucymonster just before Thanksgiving. 14 and a half years is a good life, but what I’d have given to double it. She was the best, and her loss still hurts.

But like I said, there were bright spots. The pandemic meant that I got to spend a lot more time with my family, including both the last months of Lucy's life, and the arrival of my son.

Also the defeat of Trump in the election was a slow arriving joy. People were literally honking their horns, and cheering for HOURS once it was official. That was a joyous day indeed.

The year wrapped quietly. Both Christmas and New Years were spent home. I’m looking forward to seeing family and friends again, but until we’re all vaccinated that’ll have to wait.


Gaming
Gaming was limited this year, not just due to the pandemic, but also due to working on the CPA exam. However there was a fair bit of Stonehell played, right up until the arrival of the kid. I am desperately behind on writing up session reports, but hope to begin to catch up on that over the next month or so.

Miniatures
Including some terrain pieces, I painted over 90 miniatures this past year! I still need to pull them all out and make the final count, but that post should go up sometime in the next week or so.

Media
Not nearly enough books were read, but a lot of TV was watched, especially in the last 3 months.

Goals
It’s traditional to make resolutions for the new year. I’m keeping mine simple. To be a good husband and father. Those will continue to be my resolutions, but that doesn’t mean I don’t also have some other goals for the year.

The biggest one is of course Survive the Pandemic! This seems more likely now that there’s a vaccine.

Paint more minis! I have a dragon coming that I’m really looking forward to painting, though I have no idea where I’ll put it when it’s done. We may end up moving this year, so maybe there will be more space?

Get back to gaming - even if it’s solo gaming. Ranger of Shadowdeep should fit the bill!


Here's to a happy, healthy, and more sane 2021!

Saturday, December 26, 2020

Merry Christmas!

It's a weird year, but we're almost through it. I'm so looking forward to once again being able to see my friends, roll some dice, and not worry about getting or spreading the plague. 

by sandra

I hope you're all safe and healthy, and have lots of gaming to look forward to in the near future.

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Black Lives Matter!





And while we're on the subject: 
Trump is a criminal conman 
ACAB/1312 
Black Lives Matter 
People > Property 
You can't be neutral in the face of racism. Pick a side. 

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Blogiversary: Double Digits Baby!!

Somehow... I'm 10 years on, and still going!


I'm honestly not sure how this thing keeps rolling along, but it does, and what a long strange trip it's been. When I started this thing, I hadn't played D&D in ages, hadn't played in anything that looked like a long term campaign in even longer, but there was that itch that never went away. The urge to create, to explore weird worlds and fill it up with even weirder things for people to play with. Then I stumbled onto the OSR, to G+, to open tables and flailsnails conventions, to anti-gencons, to now having run several long campaigns, playing in others both online and in person!

I'm still painting and building minis and terrain, but I've moved on from Games Workshop's 40K and Lord of the Rings to Reaper and to Frostgrave.

I've moved on from Star Trek to... wait, no, still into Star Trek. I've just added on Discovery and (soon) Picard and Lower Decks. Okay, yeah, and The Orville too.

And real life has been even stranger!

And in case you're curious about the stats:
2343 Posts
299 Followers
1 really salty reader who didn't like the fact that I said Fuck Trump, but Fuck Trump and fuck him.
Uncounted spam comments

What will the next year... or decade bring? Much more of the same I imagine.

As always, thanks for reading.

Saturday, July 27, 2019

Happy Gygax Day!

Today is the feast day of Gygax, and the end of Read an RPG in Public week.



I haven't actually read anything RPG related this week, but I'll be making up for that today.

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Fuck Trump (part 2)

The response to my post on Sunday “Fuck Trump” about how RPG.net and Ravelry banned posts showing support for Trump was… well, there was only one response. A special little snowflake felt the need to try to comment on it.

Twice.

3 hours apart.

But I’ve got comment moderation turned on because of all the spam bots that would otherwise flood my blog. So poor triggered Brian’s attempts to spew bile failed.

So he emailed me. Because of course he did. He had to be sure that this "libtard" knew that my blog was "marginally interesting" until that post.

Brian Fiscus, I hope you see this.

Fuck you.
Fuck Trump supporters.
Fuck anyone who approves of children being kept in cages.
Fuck white supremacists, neo-nazis, neo-confederates, the KKK, gun nuts, and anyone who supports them.


Now, I'm gonna try to limit my politics here, and get back to the gaming material.



And now for your Joesky Tax

What do the goblins want?
1. Bug Juice, the good stuff...
2. The dwarf's boot laces
3. Something to add to their collection of shiny things
4. A pet
5. Picture books
6. Black leather outfits
7. Colorful wrestling masks
8. Something that goes "BOOM!"
9. A new home
10. A new god
11. A new boss
12. Lunch

Sunday, June 23, 2019

Sunday Inspirational Image: Fuck Trump

Both RPG.net and Ravelry have instituted anti-Trump support policies.


I can't think of anything more inspirational than this to share today.

Fuck yeah. Fuck Trump. And fuck anyone who supports this administration.

Monday, June 3, 2019

Bucket (of dice) List

Way back in august of 2011 I started a blog post, which I never posted. Don't know why I never posted it, cause it's a perfectly good post. Why is it important that I share that I wrote this 8 years ago? Keep reading and find out!


I got the idea for this list Norman of Troll and Flame who got it from John Four of roleplayingtips.com

I don’t know a single DM who has run every module that they want to. Whether it’s the newest thing, or an old gem, they’ve just never gotten the chance. In spite of DMing a lot of D+D, and using a fair number of modules, there is still a lot I want to do yet...

This list is in no particular order, and is not limited to any specific edition or company. If I want to run it, I want to run it! I have however limited myself to modules for D+D or one of it’s clones/neo-clones/simulacrums/bastard children/etc..

B2 Keep on the Boarderlands*
Return to the Keep on the Boarderlands*
Red Hand of Doom
Tome of Horrors
Death Frost Doom
Stonehell
Dyson’s Delve
Vornheim**
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
Castle Amber

I actually thought that this would be a longer list, but since I did limit it to adventures that I haven’t run, rather than adventures that I want to run again... but that’s another post!

*I’d love to run these two back to back with the same group, playing the kids/heirs of the first group.
**Ok, not an adventure exactly, and I don’t own it, but that’s not the point.



Since I wrote this, I now need to update it.

B2 Keep on the Boarderlands*
Return to the Keep on the Boarderlands*
Red Hand of Doom
Tome of Horrors
Death Frost Doom
Stonehell
Dyson’s Delve
Vornheim**

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
Castle Amber

I've now run 3 off my list, and played in a modified version of B2! But of course there are a few things I want to add to the list.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh
Barrowmaze

Would it be cheating to add a few of my own adventures? Cause I've written a few, and haven't gotten to playtest many of them.

What's your list look like?