Big news as Frank Mentzer announces preparations for a Kickstarter to be announced after GenCon 50. Frank was talking about this at Gary Con 9, and the big pitch was that Darlene will be doing the maps! Press Release: Historic Dungeons & Dragons® Campaign Returns Loxley, Madison WI, August 11 2017 Legendary game designer Frank Mentzer, famed for his worldwide …
Guest Review: White Dwarf #6
Guest Writer: Matthew Stephen Sunrich British game publisher Games Workshop has, for a few decades now, been known for its superb board games, such as Space Hulk and Blood Bowl, and miniatures games, such as Warhammer Fantasy Battle and The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, but it got its start distributing Dungeons & Dragons rule books in …
Handling the Table Personality: The Rules Lawyer
(and the lesser known counterpart the Rules Guru) Guest Writer: Christopher Bishop Ahh, the indomitable Rules Lawyer! At some point in a Gamemaster’s career, you are bound to run into this crafty table personality. Not to be confused with the Meta-Gamer, this personalities chief purpose is safety and control for themselves. While many of them might view every game as …
Guest Review: Imagine Games Magazine #5
Guest Writer: Matthew Stephen Sunrich It’s hard to deny that we live in a wonderful age. Thanks to the Internet, we can access vast amounts of information on just about any topic with a few simple keystrokes. We can find out about upcoming books and games directly from publishers, as well as revisit classic ones, on websites and myriad …
L1: The Secret of Bone Hill, 36 years later
An oddity of days gone by L1: The Secret of Bone Hill is an odd module from the classic days of TSR. Actually, the entire L-series has an interesting history, which I will touch on later. Written by Lenard “Len” Lakofka, TSR published The Secret of Bone Hill in 1981 with the code number of 9045. What makes this module different …
Guest Article: Encounter Building in OSRIC Part 2
Guest Writer: Dave Johnson Encounter Building in OSRICv1.4 Balance The Game Master ‘s Manual 1st ed FRPG rulebooks are replete with references to “balance” — Author Unknown In OSRIC core rule book, the word “balance” is mentioned on sixteen pages, so it too is important in the game — Dave Johnson GAME BALANCE Some instances of balance in first edition …
Guest Article: Encounter Building in OSRIC Part 1
Guest Writer: Dave Johnson Encounter Building in OSRICv1.4 Expert Thoughts OSRIC and 1e FRPG doesn’t need encounter-building guidelines, other than the very basic idea that the 1st level of a dungeon should have mostly 1st level monsters in it! — Anonymous Hello folks, this is Dave Johnson of Dave Johnson Games and unofficial OSRIC cheerleader on Twitter(@osric_rpg) Today I ‘d …
Guest Review: GAZ1 The Duchy of Karameikos
Guest Writer: Nick Monitto When I started playing Dungeons & Dragons, I jumped in with the relatively new Basic and the very new Expert boxes, a nice foundation to learn. But I was quickly drawn upward to the large books and supplements of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rule set. At that time, I found much more material there to …
Reviews You Can Use: DNDICE
If there’s one thing that DnDice (in Great Britain) does well, it’s innovation in polyhedral design and presentation. Luckily for us tabletop gaming enthusiasts, DnDice does many things well. Inspired by metallic dragons and topped off with an electroplated finish, these British beauties were born for battle. Each metal case containing the dice is lined with a specialty foam denser …