Holiday Gift Idea - "Grill Master by Day, Dungeon Master by Night" Grilling Apron

Folks,

I'm just putting this out there as a gift idea from my wife's Etsy account.  

The perfect apron for your favorite nerdy grill master.  

Designed by daughter, KamciazArt.

Board games that I play with my kids that don't require heavy drinking to get through.

Kill me now.

Although I have managed to get in one RPG session with my girls, by and large, we mainly play board games.  If you're like me and have had enough of Candyland and Monopoly Jr., give these a try.  These games are simple enough for younger players, but enjoyable for adults as well. In other words, I can play these with my kids without falling asleep.  At the time of this posting, my oldest daughter (Chaos) is 8 and my youngest daughter (Mayhem) is 4.





Seven Dragons: A domino-like, color matching card game with Larry Elmore art. Link seven dragons of your color and you win. The instructions include several variations of play, including a pre-school rule set (although, after a few games of that, your kids will likely be ready for the full rule set). The advanced game includes use of cards for messing with other players.

Labyrinth: Players shift the tiles of the maze on their turn, trying to create paths to treasure designated by a deck of cards.  Simple to understand, lots of fun to play.

Castle Keep: Each player tries to construct his own keep with tiles that connect based on color or shape. Instead of building your own keep, you can also destroy part of an opponent's keep by playing a corresponding tile on it.

Forbidden Island: A bit trickier than the others, but it is a cooperative game so it is easy to help the kids. After a game or two, they'll have it down.  Players work together to swipe artifacts from the island before it sinks.  You can also scale the difficulty if it gets too easy.

Cave Troll: Each player commands a small band of adventurers trying to gain control of a dungeon. The mechanic is very simple: each room is worth a particular gold value and the person with the most pieces in the room owns the room when it is counted. (Note: I actually own the 2nd Edition which, apparently is hard to find going by the price.  Funny enough, I got it on the cheap during a Fantasy Flight holiday sale).

Tsuro: Each player plays tiles trying to keep their token on a path that keeps it on the board, while trying to steer others off.  Teaches ruthlessness. You got to love it.

Oshi: A chess/checkers kind of game in which you must push all your opponents pieces off the board.  The more tiers a piece has, the more spaces it came move and the more pieces if can push. E.g., a 3 tier piece can move 3 spaces and push up to 3 pieces. Really fun game.

 

Fireball Island: You must grab the gem and get off the island first!  Use of cards to screw over the other players and boost your own play keeps this from being a simple "roll and move" game. I've had this since I was a kid.  A bit pricey nowadays.

Heroica: Probably the best way to relate the whole dungeon-exploration concept to kids.  Lots of fun little parts and sort of includes campaign play.  I have to admit, though, the bloom is coming off the rose on this one for me because it is more or less a roll and move game. However, there is a rule that allows a player to control the monsters... that might kick it up a notch.

The Classic Dungeon: Actually, although I used to love this game as a kid, I no longer care for it much. "I move 5 spaces.  I attack the monster. Rinse. Repeat." Still, nostalgia gets this one some points and if you are going to play a roll and move game, might as well play one with purple worms, liches, and ghouls. It will be interesting to see if Wizards of the Coast improves it all when they re-release it.

Battleground: Crossbows and Catapults: Toys R Us sold these sets dirt cheap a few Christmases back. Now they cost a fortune on eBay, etc.  This version is a revamped take on the classic, with Orcs and Knights instead of Barbarians and Vikings. I haven't tried to use the actual Battleground rules for it yet which are suppose to be pretty decent and more like a war game.  Right now, we just set 'em up and see who can knock down the most figures.

Having Awesome Players is Awesome

Dave "the Knave " White set up our whole group with this awesome shirt last session (Dave has a thing for t-shirts: Too Many T-Shirts):

The "% Liar" bit is a double joke.  Here is the story, per Monte Cook:
The original D&D booklets had a typo. In the monster entries, instead of saying "%Lair" (for the percentage chance that the creature would be found in its lair), it said "%Liar." The Arduin books embraced that concept (I'm guessing without knowing it was a typo): In those books, that game stat reflected the percentage chance that, if you talked to it, the creature would lie -- apparently at any given time. It was a rule to handle the roleplaying of the creature. And along with the expected "%Liar: 45%," the Arduin books even had monster entries that said, "%Liar: too stupid." So the monster was too stupid to lie.

(Dragon columnist Ray Winninger has a hilarious story from back then. His group, who also believed that the stat determined how often a creature would lie, applied this rule to the elf henchman with the party. The PCs would ask the henchman if he had enough food, or whether he needed healing after the last battle, and the DM would roll to see if he told them the truth. You can just imagine the poor, starving, beat-up henchman, when asked if he needed any help, feeling this odd compunction to lie... shaking his head "no" with a look of profound regret and helplessness on his face.) 

(Source)

Blog Update and Cthulhu Has Good Taste in Beer

Life has gotten rather hectic and I can't update this bad boy nearly as much as I'd like. So, in the mean time, I will be posting a few photo dumps and perhaps some audio recordings of a Savage Worlds game in which I play.

Also, Cthulhu has good taste in beer:

Bill Cavalier - Adventure Coach

Saw this on Monte Cook's Twitter feed.  Freakin' hilarious!

Full Length Conan the Barbarian Trailer Released

This one looks much better than the teaser trailer (I still can't believe they basically did the whole "In a world..." thing in that one).   I have my doubts about their being much of Robert E. Howard's Conan here, but it at least looks like a solid fantasy flick.

HOT ELF CHICK WITH UNREALISTICALLY LARGE BREASTS

Okay, so my Old School cred is suspect since I DM D&D 3.5.  I do think I DM in old school fashion and I tried to explain what old school D&D was all about at the GASP forum.

So, you might ask, why am I explaining myself?  So I can get in on James's sweet bandwagon over at the Underdark Gazette!   Sorry, it was just too fun to pass up.

As my contribution to the old school D&D movement, I'll share what I posted at GASP:

"In my opinion, if there is any unifying element to "old school", I think it's the acceptance of the DM as a referee and adversary rather than the GM as a story teller."


So you if you hit this post, uhm, unintentionally, but are actually interested in old school D&D, check out  the OSR (Old School Renaissance/Revival/Rules/Rectum).  You can find a much better write up of it over here: the ChicagoWiz's RPG Blog.

Oh, and here is what you are actually looking for (be sure to stick around for the NSFW link below, you perv).


magic gloves on an elf chick by *cyborg76 on deviantART

And if those aren't large enough for you, check out this NSFW pic: link 

I kid you not, I found that with a Google Image search for "elvish chick" on the moderate safety level.

D&D Metal Pandora Station

A few years back, this fellow named Theron over at ENWorld posted his customized, "D&D Metal" Pandora station. I've been rocking to it off and on ever since.  I give you...

ELFCORE!

Merry Christmas!

Ho! Ho! Ho! I'll swallow your soul!

Why do I love WotC’s Pre-Painted Minis?

Because they’re kid-friendly!

In case you’re curious about what to get me for Christmas…

… I would love a set of Skel-a-Gnomes.

Chaos on Halloween

My oldest daughter, Chaos, is going as Astrid from "How to Train Your Dragon" for Halloween.  The best part?  Her favorite part of her costume is the battle axe. Suffice it to say, I am one very proud Dungeoneering Dad.

Lazy Friday Fantasy Metal Post (Halloween Edition): Fastway - Trick or Treat

Ok, so the "fantasy" element here is suspect, but I do still feel a D&D connection.  This song is from an old 80s horror flick called "Trick or Treat" about a kid resurrecting his metal hero, Sammi Curr, by playing a record backwards (check out the trailer here).  Of course, Sammi comes back all evil-like and starts the killin’.  This film came out at the height of the "Metal is Evil" era which overlaps with the "D&D is Evil" era, so there you have my tenuous connection.  These two manias are always connected in my mind and  Classic D&D will always have a metal vibe to me. The movie features cameos by Gene Simmons and Ozzy. This was back when Ozzy really was seen as a Prince of Darkness and not some stuttering clown and, in a brilliant move, he was cast as an evangelist preaching against the evils of metal music (see his scenes here).

Now, full disclosure, I have never seen this movie. I was chicken shit little kid when it came out (too young to see it in the theatres, not that my wimpy butt would have gone anyhow).  However, my brother did have the soundtrack (completely by Fastway) on cassette and I listened to it all the time.  The movie is not on Netflix yet, so I still haven't seen it.  It definitely looks like a "so bad, it's good" kind of movie.

Anyhow, without further ado, here is the rocking title track.

My Contributions to the Too Many T-Shirts Project

Dave the Knave is still going strong with his Too Many T-Shirts project.  He was starting to run low a while back, so I shared a few shirts to help him out (I’m the “Dan” he mentions from time to time).  He wore most of these back in September (yes, this post is long overdue).  You can find the project at its official web site: link or at Flickr: link. 

Here are some of the gaming-related ones:

This one was given to me by Han Scharler for GenCon 2006 (he wrote about it here: link)


Ok, this one isn’t mine, but it’s too cool not to share.  It’s a “Roots” t-shirt designed by Wil Wheaton for J!NX.  Dave wore it to one of our Rappan Athuk sessions (on a side-note, updates on those forthcoming).


GenCon ‘97…


…and GenCon '98


Back in the day, TSR put out some nice t-shirts at one point.  I always loved the cover for the “Death’s Ride” module, so I couldn’t pass this one up.

15 Games in 15 minutes Meme

Ok, my turn for this meme. The rules for the uninitiated: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen games you've played that will always stick with you. List the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

In no particular order apart from how they popped into my head.

Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D through 3.5)

Castles & Crusades (was tempted to include this above, but kept it separate due to the SIEGE mechanic)

The Classic Dungeon

Stratego

Chess

Necromunda

Magic: The Gathering

Call of Cthulhu

Gamma World (4th edition of GW, not the current one based on D&D 4e which I have not played)

Arhkam Horror

Ambush Alley (made me realize there is such a thing as a rules-light war game)

Battle Tech

War Gods

Nite Life (and old RPG with vampires and werewolves)

Battle Masters (the old miniatures board game)

20-Sided Rhymes

Hipster, please! has posted a free, downloadable album called 20-Sided Rhymes.  Dave the Knave did the sweet-ass album art (he also did the art for Hipster-Free Singles Club Vol. 1).
There are a lot of great tracks.  I’m still working my way through them all, but “Random Encounter in the Cereal Aisle” and “Roll the Dice” are my favorites so far.

Front Cover:

Back Cover:

My Kind of Friday Night…

  Two growlers of Yuengling in the mini-fridge.   My motley crew chomping at the bit to roll  dice.  New sections of Rappan Athuk to explore.  It’s my kind of Friday night.

Great Old Spice Body Wash

It had to happen sooner or later…  thanks to Dave the Knave for the link.

Blatantly-Not-Fantasy-Related-Metal-Oh-Hell-Yeah-It’s-Game-Night Post

We have not played D&D since April 23, 2010.  It’s f@#kin’ Friday.  It’s f@#kin’ Rappan Athuk.  It’s the f@#kin’ last battle in the Upper Temple of Orcus.

Dice, Dice Baby by MC 117

Ok, this is pretty good. Thanks to Dave "the Knave" for this one: Dice Dice Baby by MC 117.