Pleasantly surprised

While I know it is just in it's beginning stages and all awash with novelty, I am pleasantly surprised by my enjoyment of Tenkar's Discord channel. It's been a long time since I choose to spend time in a chat room. My experiences on AOL often left me feeling less appreciative of online discussions. The discussion there the last couple of days have been great. While I have no idea who many of these people are, their shared interest in the hobby and overall random pleasantness in conversations has been fun. It is time well spent.  Thanks Tenkar!

Bucket List item - Dragonquest 4th Edition

     My first and longest love in gaming has been Dragonquest. I am so thankful that Dad suggested it instead of D & D. Nothing against my many friends that have played various editions of that wonderful game.  TSR, Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro have offered some of the finest material to borrow and Frankenstein into my game.
     36 years later and I am looking to start on a revised version of the classic 2nd Edition of the game. Clean up the text, incorporate house rules, and collate the various materials I have horded over the years. My track record for completing such desires is poor.  It is a hobby after all and life often calls me away from it for protracted periods of time. But hope springs eternal and I have a gaming itch right now that needs some fulfillment.

Have a good Friday everyone!

Monday

An interesting listen and some good advice

Greetings all,
        I played Magic the Gathering from 94 until 2000 or so. I think I opted out of Magic around the time of the Mirage chapter of play. Here is the lead designer of Magic who shares some personal insights to the game. From YouTube:

Magic the Gathering head designer Mark Rosewater shares 20 lessons learned over twenty years of designing one of the world's most popular collectible card games.  ~ Enjoy!

It's a good day

I enjoy all kinds of music, in the last decade I have really rediscovered Lounge Music. If you are ever looking for some good music, Martini in the Morning is an awesome site.

I listen to MITM on radio.net.    Happy Friday all!

About the Blickish

The Blickish were one of the races that I pilfered from a 3rd edition race supplement.  It was an attempt to make playing halfling more interesting. While halflings are fun in movies, I find most player reluctant to play one unless they seem to have a particular devotion to them like I do gnomes.

What was different about the Blickish? The Blickish were a little less frail than halflings, were able to resist the life draining effects of the undead and had limited teleport ability. A few people played them over the years of Dragonquest, but not too many.

Tuesday morning artwork

I always liked this image from Dragon Magazine. I picked up copies of the magazine before I actually started gaming during Christmas of 1981. The race eventually was added to Dragonquest and became one of my favorite races.

Gaming now & then

One of the first images that really stuck in my mind was the adventurers leaving the dungeon. I don't remember if it was from one of the boxed sets or the 1st Edition AD & D books.

It was a simple image that really captured the core of the game. Go exploring, fight the monsters, 

come home with the riches. When I was in the recruitment phase of gaming in college and explaining the game to those really unfamiliar with RPGs this image was the one that I would often show to potential games as I explained the game as a playing in an interactive story.

The real game changer for RPGs was the LOTR movies. That opened up the cool aspects of gaming and adventuring to the general public. For me, it was a wonderful time to pass on my love of the hobby to many other people. I still have not lead that many other people into hosting games as a GM, but many more know the joys of character creation, shared story telling, the fellowship & shenanigans of the gaming table, and talking about complete fictional events as if they were real. 

Friday Night Song - Led Zepplin

Without a doubt one of my favorite Zeppelin songs! When the levee breaks!

Feeling the itch again

Greetings all if any,
       Hoping to reassemble some of the gamers this summer and get another campaign up and rolling. Not sure what they might want to play, but I am open to running about anything they might be interested in playing. I am thinking fantasy would be fun, but I do really like the flexibility of playing in the Cypher System and have become very fond of it. Of course I could go back to Dragonquest at any time and start there, just need to tweek combat so that it goes a little quicker if that is the route they choose. -