The Big Birthday Haul of 2016 - Part Two

I took a small break from this unboxing to give a thorough read-through of the three books I got.  As I read them, I realized a way that Dragons of Eberron and Secrets of Xen'drik can be combined to do a sort of epic mega-campaign.  Wait, I forgot, I never mentioned that I also had Secrets of Xen'drik, did I.  I guess I jumped the gun at the excitement I had that there was symbiosis between two of my books.  So, where did I leave off...

Oh yeah...

My second package was in a manila envelope that came alongside the cardboard box.  I actually thought that this envelope was going to contain one of the Swashbuckling Adventures books, seeing as they are soft cover and all.  In truth, I had no reason to think that, I received hard covers in such packaging before.  I did rip off a corner of the opening flap, which was the only part of it free from tape.  Not wanting another struggle, I turned to a small pocket knife to carefully assist in the opening process.

Out of the packaging slid Secrets of Xen'drik.  Quick blogger bio, Xen'drik was one of the things about Eberron that sold me on the setting.  It's exotic and alien, something fresh for D&D and fantasy settings as a whole.  I was a little let down on the dearth of information on the continent, and how the book leaned more on crunch on a passing glance.  C'set la d20, that is all I can say.  I sped-read the entire book, cover to cover, before even thinking of writing the unboxing blogs.

I know this post is a lot shorter than the previous one, seeing as how this was one book in a package that required very little back story.  So far, this birthday haul has been a good one.  I still have two more books floating around in the mail system, which will be subjects to parts 3 and 4 respectively.  I also received more gift cards for my birthday, and more than likely will receive more for Christmas.  Therefore, there shall be many more unboxings, and many reviews of these fine products coming in the near future.  Some of these have even made me think about crunch in OSR products, which will also be blogged about in the future, like THAC0.

 The haul so far...

The Big Birthday Haul of 2016 - Part One

My  birthday was this month!  For my birthday, I usually don't ask for much from my parents.  I normally don't ask for much, and what I do ask for is easier to find online; and they don't do much online shopping.  My mother-in-law had to teach my mom so she could get the my grooms attendants (and my wife's one male bridal attendant, I had a female groom attendant as well, for balance) their gifts.  So, because of that, I usually ask for Amazon or Barnes and Noble gift-cards.  I had $100.00 in Amazon cards, so I decided to have a big RPG blowout!  Multiple books were ordered, and today three came in at the same time.  Also, seeing how I am iced in on a mountain and unable to attend Parade of Spirits in Philadelphia, what better thing to do than do a birthday unboxing.

The two packages.  Address not shown for anti-stalker purposes

My first reaction is probably the same reaction that you have seeing that picture.  Two packages, two books.  My parents, whom I am staying with until the house I am renting is finished up, certainly thought so to.  I brought the books up to my old room and proceeded to open them.

The tiny image to the left, placed off center and ensmalled (opposite of embiggen) to hide my shame, was the shredding of the box that greeted me on this adventure.  Let me go on a tangent here, if I may.  I understand that packaging needs to be secure.  Selling stuff to make rent because of a shitty job in Florida has taught me everything I needed to know about packaging.  But then there comes certain glues that can glue two unstoppable forces together.  Forget about the "spear-shield" paradox, this glue can end that.  This box was indestructible!

Okay, that was hyperbole, I'll admit.  But that glue really did give me a hell of a fight for a minute there.

This picture, also pushed to the side (because of my shameful cell phone photography skills, I mean, what the hell), displayed my sudden realization that I got two books in one box.  No wonder it needed a Strength score higher than an 8 to open.  The book on top is Swashbuckling Adventures: Islands of Gold - The Midnight Archipelago.  It's interesting that I get the supplement book before the main one.  Anyway, I will post more about it when I get the main book.  My initial review?  I like it.  I am a fan of pirate related things, and this book is all pirate (and a bit of Doctor Moreau in my favorite adventure in the book).

The second book is Dragons of Eberron.  Okay, this I have a pdf of, but I am a bibliophile damn it!  This book I really do like.  It showcases Argonessen, one of the mysterious continents of the Eberron setting, as well as giving ways to effectively place dragons within other parts of Eberron as a whole.  Also, being a culture fan, having a detailed culture of the Seren and for dragons made it an awesome purchase!

Over all, my satisfaction with this first part was pretty high.  I have always bee interested in 7th Sea, but couldn't find anyone willing to play outside of d20 rules.  This makes it possible to play the setting, as well as be an intro to possibly expanding into the more setting-compatible rules.  Being an Eberron fanboy, to get new Eberron related books was a nice touch as well.

Now let's see what's in the second package... *rips a small part of the package, making it more difficult to open*

To be continued in Part 2!!!

My thoughts on E6

It's obvious I have a love-hate relationship with the d20 System.  I cut my teeth on it, it's universal and solid.  It's also very crunchy and can make a minor choice in character development turn you into a god among men or the worst adventurer ever seen, as well as downplay role-playing by making everything a dice roll.  I understand, after a time, that a lot of the issues with the system comes down to the individual group/DM, but some are ubiquitous; it's as if some of the issues are built in.  I brought up the Fighter/Wizard issue last post, but the issues are much bigger.  I barely even touched on CoDzilla, and didn't even begin on the whole "Tier System" of classes that exists.

The main problems come from power creep in splat books, as well as being unable to see non-casters and half-casters as anything more than mortal men or muggles that only swing battleaxes or look for traps.  We have entire stories about superhuman strongmen like Gilgamesh, Samson, and Hercules; and d20 melee classes sometimes feel like they come up short.  One article states that Gandalf was a level five Wizard, and he solo'd the freaking Balrog.  Which brought up a solution, a game within a game.

Meet "Epic 6."

Epic 6 puts the level cap at 6 instead of 20 (actually the level cap in d20 is infinite, but the rules for playing past 20 are in different books). This keeps the game at low level play, where things are still balanced.  There are a few variants to E6; M6 is a Pathfinder version that adds on Mythic rules for some advancement, E8 raises the levek cap to 8, and so on.  Even the official Pathfinder Society caps their games at 12th level, where their characters retire.  The low-to-mid levels were where the characters were balanced, each member of the team contributing equally, with Fighters starting to bow out to Wizards but the power-balance remains. Low-to-Mid level also covers most fantasy tales.  Lower levels are like Robert Howard, Mids akin to Tolkein.

But how would E6 and related play, and what sort of settings would be best for them?  I feel more pulpy settings like Dark Sun, Eberron, Lankhmar, etc. are best.  Forgotten Realms and Mystara almost need high level play, and possibly Golarion (I am not that well versed in Pathfinder's main setting). Play would probably be as normal at first, increasing to more deadly and epic once you hit the cap and fight enemies much more powerful.  In other words, truely epic adventures in a shorter span of time.  The common mooks also stay deadly for a longer period of time.

Obviously this is more of a judgement call for certain types of settings and certain kinds of play styles.  But if you like d20 but hate crunch, maybe give this a shot.

Dark Dungeons, and falling in love with OSR

My first introduction to OSR in general came when I began reading Zak Sabbath's D&D With Porn Stars blog.  On an older blog of mine, back around 2013, I posted a story about my infamous "naked paladin" and joked that people found my blog by Googling Naked and D&D, trying to find his blog.  Instead they found my old blog and everything goes on from there.  I won't go into why that old blog fell apart, too many reasons to list.  But from that blog I began reading.  Zak had me hooked on table-top games that weren't all about optimizing characters with the right feats combined with the right spells from the right splat books.  I think the biggest problem with 3/3.5/PF, besides power-creep, was that D/GMs became to permissive.  Let me state that we have every right to, but that comes with the responsibility to read up on what was "OP" and what would turn a character into a card-carrying member of the "Pirates Who Don't Do Anything."

I mean, Fighters are basically vegetables already...

I have my own d20 system that I personally use.  It is somewhat E6 mixed with a few rules that made each class unique: Fighters alone can get the Fighter Bonus Feats, no one else can touch them; and Clerics were spontaneous casters like Sorcerers.  Even there, you can still get Wizards who could not only be Fighters and Rogues, but do those jobs ten-times better.  Even Pathfinder Society games have characters retire at 12th level, because they couldn't fix the problem of the end game.  Basically, if you did not roll up a full-casting class, you might as well pack up and go home.  People don't like getting replaced, everyone wants to feel like they are special or that they are contributing.

After a while I cam across the idea of retroclones and discovered Dark Dungeons, a clone of the Rules Cyclopedia which was published in 1991.  Many have called this their "desert island" RPG, since it covers a wide variety of play styles.  And how!  Dungeon crawling, kingdom management, extraplanar adventures, and other things fill up the original book.  Few other fantasy offerings before and since have covered such a vast array of offerings.  And with a bevy of alternative rules, you can increase the replay factor of the rules.  For once, I can say I give a shit about the rules!

Dark Dungeons isn't a pure clone of the Rules Cyclopedia, that would be a copyright issue.  However, what is found in there is a loving adaptation that anyone who loved those now 25-year old rules will embrace.  The artwork is all public domain woodcuts, which sometimes feels like they don't match the text around it, but that can happen with such things.  This held me over until I got a PDF copy of the Rules Cyclopedia.  However, I still desire to play from these updated rules more, since anyone can get a hold of them for little to no cost.  

I think that is what I started to love about the OSR, they are like craft beer.  They are, for the most part, lovingly made and show a desire to make a fun game that anyone can find entertaining.  Some do hold strong to archaic and confusing rules, but many seek to clarify, and adapt.  I don't see one getting rich from being and OSR author, but one can certainly become a master at their craft and provide entertainment around a gaming table for years to come.  And that is why I love this subculture within a subculture.

You can find Dark Dungeons, available at DriveThruRPG, by following this link.

Unboxing! Karameikos: Kingdom of Adventure

I love Mystara!

My old group in New Jersey and my current one in Orlando know I am a Mystaraphile.  I have so many pdfs, mainly Threshold and the old Gazetteers.  Yet, I have had no physical Mystara item.... until now!

Before I crawl in, I want to make you aware that, yes, I am aware of what a lot of the Mystara community thinks of the AD&D Box Sets, excluding the Red Steel ones.  While not reviled, many state they do not hold up a candle to the old Gazetteers.  I will leave my thoughts on the matter by saying that I personally disagree, but I can see where they are coming from.  I have read the old Gazetteer for Karameikos, and love it deeply.  It made the Grand Duchy/Kingdom my favorite setting with its realism and detail.

I got the box set because I came across a pdf of it and wanted to find a hard copy. That, and I have AD&D books but no Classical BECMI in hard copy.  Let me state that the art is beautiful, and I can't wait to play a game in this setting.

Now let us get into the unboxing!

I'm going to start with the box already opened.  I am posting with my phone and the box closed would have given away my address, which is a dumb thing to do on the internet.  The first glimpse into the box and seeing that typeface made my heart race, and I was already dead tired from working an overnight and then going to Aquatica and SeaWorld with barely any rest.

And then the box itself.  I like evocative art.  Its what attracted me to the newest edition.  Well, that and the fact that it was no longer 4e.  Here we have a knight fighting a red dragon.  Evocative, but kind of trite, even for the old days of gaming.

When I first opened the box, I was kind of scared of the possibility that some of the material would not be there.  From my last check, I believe the only missing material is one or two of the handouts.  That's okay with me.  Disappointed?  Yeah, but it could have been worse.

And here is the meat of the set, the campaign book and the adventure book.  I love these books.  I'll start with the adventure book by saying that the adventures are basic but solid, and ends with more adventure hooks that you could use.  I would work with these as well as using the Mystara fan edit of Lost Mines of Phandelver, placing the action near Verge and Threshold.  This would make for a good intro campaign for 5e until they get around to an official 5e Mystara.

The campaign book is basically an updated version of the Gazetteer to bring it up to speed both with the rules and with the Wrath of the Immortals plotline.  Again, I know what people think about WotI, and again, I didn't mind it much.  To me, it made Mystara become less like the generic medieval fantasy.  Amazing medieval fantasy, perhaps one of the best ones, but still Tolkeinesque and generic.  Immortals are important to the setting, and WotI brought them out in force.  But I digress.  The campaign book has in depth info on the landscape and its history.  We also get a solid cast of characters to put in any Karameikan campaign.

Also, sexy leg time!

Here we have two poster-sized maps.  I guess one of my only criticisms of the set is how ugly the maps look.  I have better maps on my phone that I will use for any campaigns, but these would make for amazing wall art when framed and put on the wall of a future game room.  But the region map does have nearby nations mapped a little, for out of country adventures.

Lastly, if I send this in I feel like the ghost of TSR might come and haunt my apartment.  If it does, I don't think I would want to exorcise it at all.  Hell, I would be holding nightly seances for all my friends so we could get campaign ideas and adventures.

I guess a downfall of this is that it gets hard to find people who want to play the old stuff.  Most gamers I know get nerdboners over Pathfinder.  The NJ group didn't want to play 5e when I came out, not crunchy enough.  However, a beautiful thing about Mystara material is how easy it is to adapt to any D&D ruleset or clone of said ruleset.

When Elves were Elves; or looking back at Classic D&D after being able to choose any class.

I began gaming with the second version of the third edition of Dungeons and Dragons also known as 3.5.  One thing I loved with this was being able to play a variety of classes with any race I basically wanted.  Half-Elf Ranger was a personal favorite.  A friend of mine loved Halflings and would play a variety of classes as a Halfling.  Rogue, Cleric, Warlock; he did them all.  Looking back, I think his race of choice would have probably been Kender if he could choose it.

I remember this one hilarious adventure where our Druid (who was a Dwarf btw) left the party to face the undead without any divine help, except for my Paladin.  Of course, my Paladin gets killed almost immediately.  Upin the Druid's return, my character was reincarnated via the spell of the same name, and became an Elf.  Reincarnate would be a huge deal back in AD&D.  My Paladin would, in the normal rules, no longer be a Paladin.  Elves cannot be Paladins, only Humans.  This would have left quite an awkward situation for our party, as well as been almost a character ender since the now Elf non-Paladin would be somewhat of a sucky Fighter without Fighter abilities or Paladin ones.

While the 2e DMG suggests that the class restriction rules can be waived, this would be for rare situations, and Paladins are supposed to be rare as is.  Its weird to think that my character's career would have ended due to changing race.  Were the deities in 2e racists who saw Elves as only Chaotic?  Or maybe Elves have some other divine warrior fate.

In the Threshold e-magazine for Alfheim, they had Elf classes for Classic BECMI D&D.  In that list was the unique name level class of Druid Knight, a Paladin-like character that uses the forces of nature for his powers.  Something about the Druid Knight seems so perfectly Elvish, something alien and mystical, a warrior who takes his prowess to an art form.  This would be something I would pilfer for AD&D.  Something akin to the Druidic Knight appears in the current edition eith Oath of the Ancients, a subclass of Paladin.

I guess its just weird for me, a child of the d20 era. Here, Dwarves can totally become wizards if they wish to. With older editions and retroclones, I would sooner run into a scientists and tell him that pi is exactly 3 instead of suggesting a Dwarf Wizard.  The overwhelming ability to choose my character without debating the idea to the DM is something the newer generation takes for granted.  Forget Classical D&D for a moment where Dwarf was a class, the idea of an arcane casting class for Dwarves is such an alien concept.

And yet, I find it somewhat artistic in its own way.  Dwarves, Elves, what have you; the older editions seem to make then feel more like a vibrant culture with some of the restrictions.  I believe something similar to this is the explaination to Race as Class.  The explaination being that non-humans are so rare that they only have that ine example to work with.  Its why Dwarf Clerics only came into being eith the Rockhome Gazetteer.  Its a weak defense, but I can understand it.

So what do I, a child of the d20 era prefer?  I guess what was done in the AD&D era, but with caveats.  Humans were unique with choice, but even certain human cultures would probably have class restrictions.  I can't see the Red Wizards really be okay with non-magical warriors running around all the time.  Then again, my expertise is not in Realmslore.  So if we only view class restriction as a cultural thing, then the concept comes into view.

What is your take on this subject.  Do you see yourself agreeing more with Classical, AD&D, or the d20 and post-d20 era?  Post in the comments below.

Let's Open the Chest!

Welcome to my blog, fellow travellers.  I am Kyle, your storyteller and a fellow adventurer in the world of table-top gaming.  I began gaming in 2004/2005, back when 3rd Edition and 3.5 was in full swing.  I began reading old-school material and OSR in 2014.  As such, I am a newbie who is finding his way.  As a newbie, we can all discover together why Elf is a class and why Thieves are the only ones who sneak.

I also love reading and writing.  So I will also review OSR and other books to let you know how they are and if I think others would like it.  I will also post writings of my own here, as well as hints and tips on making your own campaigns.

So let us journey on...