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All You Zombies: A Lesson on Hate Speech, Identity and Blogging
I think this post may be of interest to both my RPG game friends and my political/religious friends, so I'm cross-posting it on both of my blogs Save Versus All Wands and Mahound's Paradise.In the...
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R.I.P. Grace Lee Whitney
Captain Kirk: "No beach to walk on." Yeoman Rand: "Sir?"From Variety:Grace Lee Whitney, Yeoman Janice Rand on ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 85by Pat Saperstein Actress Grace Lee Whitney, who was most well known...
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Philippe Petit on the Twin Towers
Do you remember?On 7 August, 1974, The French tightrope artist Philippe Petit spent forty-five minutes in the air between the newly constructed Twin Towers. He didn't merely go from one tower to the...
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Gamma World: How to Determine Probabilities for Chart A
I've been doing work on a post-apocalyptic or far-future supplement to Seven Voyages of Zylarthen. The idea is sort of to do for Zylarthen what Mutant Future did for Labyrinth Lord--not a clone of...
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An Oddity in the Gamma World Artifact Use Charts
Yesterday, I discussed how to estimate the odds for the Gamma World technology charts using the RandBetween function on an Excel spreadsheet. But today, I want to look at an oddity in the charts...
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"Imagine the Hell Out of It!"
"No. Giant Ants are diurnal."I hope I don't embarrass Matt Finch by calling him one of the "fathers" of the old school gaming movement. He created Swords & Wizardry and I called Swords &...
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My Son's Favorite Book is the Fiend Folio
Okay, he's four years old.Before anyone calls Child Protective Services, at least let me explain.First of all, I didn't exactly start it or encourage it. The proximate cause was that my kids get into...
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That Chesterton Misquote: a Detective Story
Old School RenaissanceIn a post a few days ago, I made a quasi-defense of allowing our four-year-old son to read the 1981 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Fiend Folio. In my Google+ and Facebook intro...
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Tabletop Library: Now You Can Keep Your Shirtless Heroes Where Your Husband...
The post title is my unsolicited attempt to create fake banner ad text for the new Tabletop Library. It was inspired by this real banner ad:Tabletop Library: Digital games that won't stack up where...
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Top Ten Reasons Why I Hate Drow
BoringOne of my current projects is rewriting or reimagining most of the monsters in the Fiend Folio, in among other things a more minimalist OD&D or Seven Voyages of Zylarthen style. As I implied...
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The Zylarthen Drow
Actual SizeThis is a follow-up to yesterday's post, showing what I came up with.Most obviously, I call them "Dark Elves" not "Drow." If I thought I could do it without offending too many people, I...
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Seven Voyages of Zylarthen Play Report: The Haunted Tower, Part 1
So this is the first game of Zylarthen/OD&D that my kids have played.I didn't impose it on them. They asked to play after becoming fascinated with the Fiend Folio and Monster Manual. They don't...
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Towers in RPG Modules are Larger Than They Appear: Zylarthen/Haunted Tower...
A Candy Cane GolemClarification: Chris Gonnerman commented after Part 1 that much of the module was really the work of Stuart Marshall. I should have pointed this out, as there's a bit about the...
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Giant Spreadsheet of OD&D, Holmes, AD&D and B/X Spells
In preparation for writing some new material for Seven Voyages of Zylarthen, I made an Excel spreadsheet of most of the canonical old school spells.Others have put together similar lists, but I haven't...
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16 Great Television Shows for Kids: Introduction
For the honor of love!No, this won't be some ponderous list of Traditionalist Catholic approved, Very-Holy-and-Very-Good-for-You efforts.Not that there's anything wrong with it.Rather, the operative...
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Notes on Wilderness Movement
The wilderness is problematic I'm currently putting the finishing touches on Book of Fiends, a Seven Voyages of Zylarthen/OD&D reimagining of the Fiend Folio. Among other things, it's going to have...
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Weather Generator, Part 1: Introduction
Illustration from "Weather in the World of Greyhawk" from The Dragon #68In writing Book of Fiends, I decided to add some "additional" spells - many of them originally Druid spells from Eldritch...
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Weather Generator, Part 2: Weather Parameters
Illustration from "Weathering the Storms" in The Dragon 137I made some general comments in Part 1, yesterday.If you haven't downloaded the Weather Generator Excel Workbook and would like to, you can...
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Weather Generator, Part 3: Climate Templates
Illustration from "Weather in the World of Greyhawk" from The Dragon #68Previous posts:Part 1, here.Part 2, here.Download the Weather Generator, here.Today, we'll look at the second tab or sheet from...
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Save or Die! is Dead
DM Mike, DM Liz and DM JimSave or Die!, the pre-eminent OD&D and OSR podcast is dead.A few days ago on Facebook, Dragonsfoot and the OD&D Discussion Proboards, the three current members of the...
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