Let's roll some dice, watch some movies, or generally just geek out. New posts at 6:30 pm ET but only if I have something to say. Menu at the top. gsllc@chirp.enworld.org on Mastodon and @gsllc on Twitter.
Yesterday, I gave you a silly idea for a pufferfish lich. Today, I give you a video on Dagon, a member of the “artificial” pantheon care of H. P. Lovecraft.
I’m clearly obsessed with aquatic encounters in D&D, and two days ago was the first session of my official return to 1st Edition D&D, so I plan to break out the 3D map as soon as possible.
Sundays now are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, it’s (loosely) using science to imagine a D&D creature. I did that with the Ixitxachitl and now do it with the pufferfish. Behold the pufferfish lich!
I don’t care what spells it casts. I’m not afraid.
Who wants to do me a solid? If you have a #3e or #5e#DnD game this weekend, give me a tally of how many times each #spell was cast in a session (ignore spells not cast of course). DMs probably have no time for this, but a player should (if not surfing the net between turns). 🙂
— Rob Bodine, #Attorney by Day, #Nerd by Day & Night (@GSLLC) March 23, 2022
Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to, nor endorsed, the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)
Today’s the day! I’m playing 1st Edition D&D for the first time in almost a decade and running it for the first time since 1982. (I’m old.) I’m starting them out with B2: The Keep on the Borderlands, and it’s Caturday, so I thought I’d give you something on mountain lions today. No particular reason. 🙂
Ssshhhh! My players may be listening!
Here’s a video comparing them to yeti. They’re so mysterious that they almost qualify as cryptids. They don’t because, well, they’re real.
Okay, it’s kind of dumb to compare them to a yeti, but everyone likes to be dramatic. Don’t shoot the messenger. Here’s a completely unrelated cat video from the DoDo that hit my stream today.
I’m interrupting the gaming session to post this.
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Help!
Who wants to do me a solid? If you have a #3e or #5e#DnD game this weekend, give me a tally of how many times each #spell was cast in a session (ignore spells not cast of course). DMs probably have no time for this, but a player should (if not surfing the net between turns). 🙂
— Rob Bodine, #Attorney by Day, #Nerd by Day & Night (@GSLLC) March 23, 2022
Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to nor endorsed the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)
I’ve done a lot of lists on this blog. A lot of people have done lists of the greatest D&D mods*** ever. So, I’m going to do a list of my favorite D&D mods. One comes from 3rdEdition D&D (“3e”), but the rest come from 1st Edition D&D (“1e”). However, unlike most people, I’m not going to attempt to give you an objective analysis as to why these are the best mods. This is a purely subjective topic, and I’m not one to deny my lizard brain nature. I fully admit that the reason a mod is going to appear on this list is emotional in nature. Still, you should consider running them in whatever system you’re using. If for no other reason, you’ll witness the inspiration for your favorite adventures. In terms of the 1st Edition D&D (“1e”) mods on this list, these were the pioneers.
*** I once used the word, “mod,” for what others call adventure or module and received an odd amount of pushback. One person even accused me of lying that it’s what I called them growing up, as if there could possibly be a motivation for something like that. I grew up in Montgomery County, MD, and every single person I gamed with called it mod. We also occasionally used the terms adventure and module, but the point is that “mod” was the standard term. Your regional dialect, or even your specific gaming group, may have a different experience. I don’t care. I shouldn’t have had to write this aside, but if I didn’t, I might receive the same pushback over something that shouldn’t matter at all.
I left RPGs in 1982 due to the Satanic Panic. I returned in 2005 during the days of 3e. The first homebrew campaign I ran started with an adaptation of this mod. For what it’s worth, several of the players told me they enjoyed it quite a bit. It was nothing groundbreaking, so my sentimental attachment can get it only so high on this list, but it was very good, and it was written by one of the best DMs in the business.
Starts with a puzzle, which we got right, and I’ve had to change ever since. Then you’re given three paths to take, each of which leads you to one of three magic weapons you’re tasked to retrieve. These three weapons have maintained their iconic status in every edition of D&D since. There are more puzzles, both direct and logical (easily modified for repeat players), and some iconic monsters. The mod was the first one I played or ran that made great use of hindering terrain. Acknowledging that aspect of the writing, I was particularly proud of my conversion of the kelpie encounter to 4th Edition D&D.
D&D didn’t get me into mythology. Mythology got me into D&D. I wasn’t terribly familiar with Central American mythology, and even less familiar with other aspects of the culture. According to Jeff (who I spoke with through Facebook), Harold was the one that did research on the cultural aspects of the mod. He did a decent job, sprinkling in appropriate imagery and language. I used his work as a springboard to provide even more immersion. As I mentioned previously, I acquired sound files of Nahuatl phrases, both common and specifically used in the mod. I love this mod so much, I own two physical copies, one of each version. I’m always prepared to run it.
I loved Star Trek. I loved D&D. If it weren’t for the next entry on my list, this would be my favorite adventure ever. It was hard for me to run as a kid because there are a lot of rooms to prepare, and it was essentially a hack-and-slash dungeon crawl, but what a “dungeon” it was. Malfunctioning androids and robots, strange natural creatures from other worlds, but also an intellect devourer, a mind flayer (with what effectively amounted to a phaser), and a bulette to keep it grounded in fantasy. Love it.
This is my favorite mod ever, in no small part because of the artwork of Jeff Dee, which always makes mods more memorable to me. However, the mod’s content stands on its own. As a competition mod, it was designed to kill off everyone to assure that there was a clear winner at the end of the adventure. Sure, there were hack-and-slash encounters amounting to nothing more than resource drains, but there were also puzzles, which I love. The tower itself had a clever theme, with each level (before the last) representing a different element: air, earth, fire, and water. The water level has a nice twist to it as well, and the earth level has one of my favorite monsters from mythology.
By the way, this arrived today.
It’s not in the best of shape, but you should expect that from something so old. Note, though that it was reasonably priced, and I haven’t found any coffee stains yet. Will this make it into the top 5? Probably not, but I hear it’s really good, and it’s next on my scheduled mods to run after Keep on the Borderlands.
There are a bunch of other mods I love, but I’m not going to make a top 50 list.
Who wants to do me a solid? If you have a #3e or #5e#DnD game this weekend, give me a tally of how many times each #spell was cast in a session (ignore spells not cast of course). DMs probably have no time for this, but a player should (if not surfing the net between turns). 🙂
— Rob Bodine, #Attorney by Day, #Nerd by Day & Night (@GSLLC) March 23, 2022
Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to nor endorsed the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)
Even the worst DM is appreciated for giving players an opportunity to play, but c'mon. The chances of you being the *worst* DM are infinitesimally small, especially with me in the mix. #DM#rpg
— Rob Bodine, #Attorney by Day, #Nerd by Day & Night (@GSLLC) March 1, 2022
This was a timely question to ask me because this Saturday I’m going to run 1st Edition AD&D for the first time since 1982. I’m going to suck, but I don’t think anyone’s going to care. This is not only their chance to play a game, but also their chance to play an edition (relatively) rarely played today.
Who wants to do me a solid? If you have a #3e or #5e#DnD game this weekend, give me a tally of how many times each #spell was cast in a session (ignore spells not cast of course). DMs probably have no time for this, but a player should (if not surfing the net between turns). 🙂
— Rob Bodine, #Attorney by Day, #Nerd by Day & Night (@GSLLC) March 23, 2022
In case the tweet is ever deleted, here’s a screenshot of it.
Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to, nor endorsed, the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)
Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to, nor endorsed, the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)
“#RPG” and “#TTRPG” aren’t appropriate hashtags for this post, but screw it. This is about a board game that had great appeal among the 1st Edition D&D folk. Last weekend, I received a copy of a board game purchased on eBay. The game is called Demons.
As you can see, it’s not in mint condition, but considering this was a board game from the 70s that was probably sitting in an attic for decades, this is in remarkably good shape. Going into the purchase I was told that only a single chip was missing, but there are enough blank chips that I could reproduce it if needed.
I bought this game in tandem with the original Dungeon. If, when I mention Dungeon, you think about a box set twice this size with a hard map, then you’re not thinking old school enough. No, the copy I bought with Demons was the one from 1975 (though I purchased it around 1978 or 1979).
Back to Demons. I remember my older brother and uncle ruining this game for me by defacing the instruction manual with rules about how the characters would have to masturbate in a corner if they lost a fight. Juvenile garbage like that. Remember, just a few years later, the Satanic Panic hit me hard. That didn’t occur in a vacuum.
Now, this is clearly a trip down memory lane for me, but let’s not come away from this post without a lesson. Way back when, I was pontificating on how overpriced online sales have become. The reason is that too many of us are willing to pay unreasonable prices in order to relieve simpler times. With a little patience, you can generate that same reward for 1/3 the price. The first copy of Demons I saw on eBay was being sold for $39.99 plus $23.00 shipping. I explained to the guy that I didn’t think it was worth nearly that much, and the insane shipping cost was obviously a way to charge even more for it. I told him to lower the price to $7.00 so that I could pay a total of $30 for it. I thought that was fair. He rejected the offer, and as you can see, the dipshit is still sitting on it.
“30% off”? Seriously, who falls for that bullshit?
I moved on and found this copy for which I paid $26.99 with an extra $5.00 for shipping. He has money; I have my childhood. Everyone wins except the dipshit, and all we needed was just a little patience.
I think I’m going to mail these guys a check for $103.20. The subscriptions are cheaper if you commit for a longer time. At last I’m becoming a crafty consumer.
Naming this monster is a good exercise, but before you can do that, you have to decide its nature. Is it a gelatinous cube that was fed spaghetti to keep it from eating people, or is it a cube of spaghetti? If the former, we know its name, and this is boring. So, let’s assume the latter. Spaghettinous cube? Pastanous cube? Noondlenous cube? Is that really spaghetti and marinara sauce, or is this creature a small intestines surrounded by blood? In that case, intestinous cube?
Maybe it’s a magic device. The Spaghetteract?
Microsoft Paint is not Photoshop.
The more I think about it, the more interesting an intestinous cube would be (regardless of what we call it).
Going forward, Sundays are lazy for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today is a witty, visual commentary on the tension between DMs and their players.
On its face, I like it, so it’s worth posting, but I’d like to provide a link to the artist. At the top, he prints his name, which I think is Gavin Dea, but it could be Gavin Pea. Either way, for the life of me I can’t find a website or social media presence. This bothers me. If anyone can provide me a link so I can properly attribute it, it would be helpful.
EDIT: Help has been given. The origin of the comic is here.
Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to, nor endorsed, the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)
Play What You Want 