The incredible austerity of D&D in 1980

i mean in the right mood i might even drop $3-5 on a monster manual or something and i'm never going to play D&D of any edition again

feel like I'm in the latter. those books bring a huge rush of nostalgia to me but playing again seems patently ridiculous

i find the reissue market half-baffling -- after they finally sort out the rules to the point of more or less making sense and being fun they flood the market with reissues of 1e ad&d and of basic set d&d -- which must be $2 thrift shop specials all across america. but then i guess the benefit of having a distinct elder generation with actual jobs that you can sell stuff to is that they might go into the nerd store and drop the money on a whim, rather than trying to market texts ppl feel like they ~need~

― attempt to look intentionally nerdy, awkward or (thomp), Thursday, January 24, 2013 3:00 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There is a very vocal and terrible minority of D&D fans who have a violent hatred of change, and see anything new in the hobby as a direct attack on their self-worth. They are also frequently opposed to the idea that role playing games should be fun.

Reminds me I forgot to post this link the other day -- the psych/stoner/metal dudes in the Linus Pauling Quartet have a new 3 CD collection out:

http://www.worshipguitars.org/LP4/LP4_WordPress/?p=1645

This is the cover:

http://www.worshipguitars.org/LP4/LP4_WordPress/wp-content/uploads/AVABL.jpg

They went ahead and created a self-contained, totally playable 28-page module, with appropriate hand-drawn art in full eighties self-made module style. You can download the module here:

http://www.worshipguitars.org/LP4/AVABL/Linus_Pauling_Quartet-Druids_and_Demons-Module_9204.pdf

And did I mention the promotional video:

http://vimeo.com/55408737

That reminds me - I need to order that.

album of the year

which must be $2 thrift shop specials all across america

these are surprisingly hard to find tbh - i have a handful of 1e stuff ive found used for cheap but it doesnt tend to come up much

i thought 4e was a good system to play - i dont have any nostalgia except borrowed nostalgia for earlier d&d and i liked the focus on tactical comabt - but im surprised by just how popular pathfinder is an alternative to it

I read the 4th edition rules and was turned off by the combat focus. Killing stuff is fun and all, but was never what I thought most fun about rD&D or most pgs. I mean, it's not old school Champions or anything, but I found it a bit much.

reading thru wiki on the 4ed rules. some of it is kinda interesting and streamlined, and giving every class something to do in a fight is a good idea probably. a lot of it looks like a naked attempt to chase after WoW. and the insistence on including every year's rules supplements in the core as well as semi-regular version overhauls reeeally looks like fan abuse to me.

Good call on WoW. It's very MMO on paper.

I just started playing for the first time ever after a regular game night kinda morphed into a D&D night. I'm surprised by how much fun I'm having. But it is still mostly a bunch of comedy dudes sitting around smoking and drinking, so not that surprising. My character is basically a dragonborn version of Whoopi Goldberg named Jackflashica. I barely have any idea what I'm doing.

That's the best way to play. Glad you're enjoying yourself!

Apparently, Ernie Gygax (Gary's son and original D&D playtester (he was Tenser!), and one of the people behind the Gygax magazine that may or may not be happening) just lost everything in a fire. No details yet, but it looks like a fundraiser is going to be set up through Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ernie-Gygax-Fire-Relief/188873261236363

Been listening to the Nerd Poker podcasts, really enjoying them.

I never knew that Brian co wrote the Deadpool comics either.

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/dungeons-and-dragons/classic-dungeons-dragons.php

http://www.lski.org/pictures/tabletopgaming/gw/wd%20magazine/

don't know if this is supposed to be secret or not but OMG

pdfs of White Dwarf going back to issue 1

nice find!

as much as anything it's the hand-drawn ads that bring the nostalgia for me

yeah heh looks like somebody dumped their torrent files on their webserver. The magic of websites.

nobody better tell Games Workshop about that, they're an exceedingly litigious bunch.

http://www.acaeum.com/index.html

I'm in the market for a copy of Dragon issue 51 that still has the cardstock Emperor's Treasure map intact. Glad to see that site values it at 12 bucks. Now I just have to find someone selling it.

D&D babes
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BzB2U4pCYAA0fqm.jpg

So not gonna happen

loool

ws preppy perm

"the dragon is over there, stupid"

Late great otm

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1430411066/50-shades-of-vorpal

i realized i revived the wrong thread the other day. anyway, i started my first campaign last night with some friends. it was fun! although i'm starting to seriously regret my decision to be a high elf wizard. within 10 minutes of starting, as i was humblebragging in character about how great and noble high elfs are compared to the rest of the party (a gnome, drow, half-elf, and half-orc) i was informed that my wizard was being a total racist

sounds like something an elf would do

i'm hi elf jared fogle

high elf more like a dick elf

speciesist surely

sounds like something an elf would do

see, that's what i thought

speciesist surely

you would think - but they are actually called races in D&D rulebooks

which is probably some holdover from Tolkien

is species based nationalism always frowned upon by benevolent lawful good societies bc of its suggestions of fascism? i'd think in most medieval era societies there's some sort of feudal / monarchy system which, by comparison, would make any populist nationalism seem practically democratic.

i do like the idea tho that all "adventurers" would have some kind of professional empathy with one another that transcended any species elements - a mutual recognition that both share the goblin-slaying trade

ZS u should play your elf like super haughty bc the elvish society is much more ethically advanced than other species and you love + tolerate all creatures not like the primitive heathens you're forced to work w/

lol

do people actually speak in character when playing D&D I don't recall this ever being a thing anybody I played D&D with would tolerate

like, speak in character to each other, that is

ime yes

social justice wizard

the average adventurer party is likely on the hook for a myriad of ethnic cleansings and genocides, particularly among the lowest species of society - the subaltern orcs, goblins + ogres that are already totally alienated from the contemporaneous urban cosmopolitan economy

hundreds of thousands of kobold massacres

well, i realize i kinda fucked up the way i was portraying the character, because he has the Urchin background (grew up on the mean streets with the help of a human) and i made this really generic story that he was abandoned/lost as a small child and didn't grow up in elvin (elvish? elf?) society. so i'd like to call a do-over on the prideful way i was playing him last night and make him more humble and eager to convince other elves he meets to stop being such assholes.

i was trying to defend myself against the accusations of elf racism when someone was like "...wait...aren't you a wizard, too?!"

i think at that point i busted out the mage hand cantrip out of nowhere and was like "hey look at this crazy hand drawing circles in the dust!"

When I dm I do character voices but I kind of don't dig the players doing so, it gets creepy

Inevitable q what edition did u play Karl