Post S&W Appreciation Day

I wish I could have had a little more time and energy going through all the blogs.  I got through a ton of them, but I'm sure there were some I missed.  People are doing it all week, some did several posts and they were everywhere.  I got to giveaway a few Manors to some very cool bloggers and one lucky guy (ERIC!) won the PDF of the S&W Complete ruleset.  A good day and a huge success for +Erik Tenkar who coordinated this giant blogfest.  +Matt Finch must have been feeling the love for his baby.  +Frog God Games +Bill Webb +Rachel Ventura and all the others must be feeling pretty energized after seeing all the outpouring for S&W.

I am not one to waste a perfectly good coupon, the Whisk sees to that.  So when I get a gaming coupon I am going to use it.  I mean 25% off how can I not.  So I rolled over to Frog God Games and picked up copies of the hardcover and PDF of the Black Monastery  and a print copy of Fane and the Fallen.  I was eyeballing a copy of Rappan, but I didn't have quite enough scratch to cover it.  Plus I would want all the other stuff that goes with it. 

Then +John Reyst had a 25% sale over at his d20pfsrd shop.  Well I couldn't let that one go to waste either.  So I got a copy of Valley of the Hawks and The Troll Hills.  Both belong to the S&W Hex Crawl Chronicles.  Where I think I could do a hex crawl while napping I really like to see how others do it so I can steal from them. 

Tonight I'll be printing out the Mini Manors and sending them out.  It'll be a limited number I'm making so once their gone they are gone...unless I print more.  I underestimated the time it took me to get through the blogs last night.  I thought I was going to do both.  BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, wrong answer, but thank you for playing.  Don't let the rice-a-roni packets hit you in the ass on the way out. 

The wife is going help out.  We'll get an assemble line going and shooting them out tomorrow morning. 

That's all for now.  Great work to those who participated yesterday.  It was a lot of fun. 

This WIll Not be a Post About WotC Releasing a Wooden Version of the White Box

Okay, got that out of the way.

Actually this post is about is about buying stuff.  Just not that.  Too much for me.  It looks impressive, but it would probably sit on a shelf and collect dust.  Not to mention Ivy would probably knock the crap out of me and put rainbows and bunnies on my blog.

I posted yesterday about all the work that goes into a zine.  So what do you get to do with the profits.  Well, first keep some set aside for more supplies and art.  Always good to have a stash.  The rest you get to play with.  Most of my print sales cover the cost of the zine biz.  What I make on PDFs is what I usually get to shop with.  So my RPGNow and Lulu sales are my fun money.

This fun money goes towards games and other zines.  While I could buy the $170 Wooden White Box.  I would rather get Bare Bones Fantasy, 4th issue of Wizards Mutants Laser Pistols (which was just released yeah!), eventually I want to fill in the holes for Knockspell and Fight On!.  I want John Staters stack of Land of Nod magazines.  The reissues I do want to get are the S and A series they are releasing.  I'm on the fence about Dungeon World.  I want to get a hardback of Savage Worlds.  Tim Brannen's, The Witch in print.  I've been eyeballing Jalizar, City of Thieves for a while, it looks good.  I think I would want that one in print.  Get a copy of Dyson's Delves, probably the paperback.  And all I've hearing about the Teratic Tome, I gots to get me a copy of that also.

This is just a sampling off all the cool stuff I'd love to get.  There are probably a hundred other items I'm forgetting that could easily be on this list.  So that's where my profits go.  Back to buying gaming stuff.  Shocking, I know. 

What Makes You Support an OSR Product...or Not?

I've been having a discussion with a few other OSR bloggers about the reasons why someone would support an OSR product or why they wouldn't.  Some of the factors that came up were:

• cost of the product
• saturation of the product
• quality of the product

Other factors, more personal, that come into play are:

• buyer's current financial situation
• like or dislike of the author
• personal interest in the product

I'm aware this is not a complete list, but base to use.  Besides I need to be to work a half hour so time is precious.

There are tons of OSR products out there and more and more folks are getting into the game.  Two of my personal favorites recently released were Weird Adventures by Trey Causey and Blasphemous Brewery of Pilz by Dylan Hartwell.  It should also come to no surprise I really like both of their blogs.  I can say that I bought Trey's because I've been getting samples of Weird Adventures on his blog for a while, I like the genre he selected and the art was fantastic, so my interest in his product was a done deal when it came out.  As for Dylan's adventure, he released his soon after he had a discussion on his blog whether to sell it or not.  I encouraged him to sell it.  Did I know much about it?  Nope.  I bought it purely because I wanted to see his style and what kind of adventure he would create.  I was not disappointed.

But there are a ton of other products which I can't list them all, but just off the top of my head, Micheal Curtis's Stonehell Dungeon and Dungeon Alphabet (Three Castles Award winner) and how could I forget Realms of Crawling Chaos.  I bought Stonehell in print because at the time I wanted to check out how a mega-dungeon was built.  Michael came at it from a fresh approach that I think is still one of the best ways to go.  The ever changing dungeon.  Dungeon Alphabet I wasn't all that interested in, but after the hype and chatter about it I got it on PDF.  I like it, but haven't used it for much.  Then the Realms Of Crawling Chaos, I bought on PDF and will buy in print in the future.  I really enjoyed this one and will definitely use it in the future.  I use Micheal's three products because most everyone knows them and the important thing, at least to the publishers, I bought all three.  I like supporting Micheal's products, because so far he is given me value for my money.  So when he releases his next product and I may not know many details, but because I have enjoyed his work in the past I'll probably get it.  The only real decision is whether get it in PDF or print.


One of my favorite OSR publishers is Expeditious Retreat.  Before I knew to much about them I bought A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe on PDF.  Than I immediately bought it in print.  Then I purchased several other items from Joseph Browning and crew, A Magical Society: Ecology and Culture in print, and one of my favorite bestiaries Malevolent and Benign which I lucked out and was able to purchase from the damaged bin with a few adventures.  Great stuff.  But his Sorcery & Super Science! has not interested me.  Again, not because I think its bad, just at this time I'm not interested in mixing genres like that for my games.  Hell when S3 came out and all the PCs were running around with laser guns I lost interest in the game.


Magazine wise we have Fight On!, the original OSR backed magazine.  Which I like, but if I only have enough for one magazine I prefer Knockspell overall.  And Christian's zine Loviatar is a favorite of mine.  But if I have money for both I usually buy both.  Because you really can't go wrong with any of them.  I know there are other magazines out there like Land of Nod and though I am a big fan of John Stater I haven't bought any of his magazines yet.  And this is due to I only have so much money to go around.  And those who saw my running total for 2011 it was long, but still I have only so much I can spend on gaming.  So for Land of Nod, which I still want, the only reason I haven't supported it was money.

Rob Conley had a great success with his Majestic Wilderlands.  I helped him out with a small portion of it.  He's been running the same campaign world forever and it shows in its depth.  I got a free copy because of my help, but also bought a couple of copies to give away to others, to help support him.  Rob and I have been friends for 20+ years and if he ever needs help with a project he knows he can always call on me and the reverse.  But, we dropped the ball on this one a bit.  Rob was giving me small segments to edit then would give me another small portion with some of the last portion that was the unedited version so our organization stank for that.  Then as time wore on I got a new job that required a ton of my time and the second half of the book shows that.  Because of this we changed our strategy, when he wrote Blackmarsh it was given to me as a complete manuscript, I did the edits and then we went over it together.  Then we sent it out to test readers to catch things both of us had missed.  Again, I bought two print copies to give away to support him.

I can't go through every product out there or the reasons why I buy or don't buy a product.  I think my two main reasons why I buy is does the product fit my interest and do I have the mula.  Why I don't buy a product, I admit that if I am not a fan of the person I am less likely to buy it.  This rarely is the case, but it does happen.  And the other reason why I don't buy a product is mainly there are so many to choose from and that you just have to pick.  Doesn't mean the others aren't fantastic, but choices need to be made.  We only have so much money and time.  And real life demands its share.  Just like now.  I have to go to work.

So if you get a chance let me know what influences you to buy or not to buy a gaming product. 

Completed My Collection

One of my favorite book series is Thieves World.  They also released a series of six graphic novels.  I bought the first three when they first came out, but never could find the last three.  I kept forgetting about them then recently I took another look at them, hopped on ebay and scored the remaining three I needed.

If you are a fan of the series I highly recommend them.  Tim Sale's art style really compliments the tone of Sanctuary. 

Great Finds at the Halloween Store

It's that time again when all those Halloween stores pop up in abandon store fronts.  Whisk and I went into one and I scored two very cool things and she got something for herself.  First off, I got a sign, "Zombies next 200km.  Love it.  It's hanging over my desk right now.  It suits the season and the fact we recently got the first season of The Walking Dead on BluRay it fits right in.

The second thing I scored was skull dice.  I got two sets of four.  How could I not get them.  I think they are a mandatory buy for any gamer.

Game night.  Third session.  It should prove to be an interesting one.  We left off with two of the three players getting showered with rot grubs.  I know I ended the session at the right time when all the players cry out at the same time.  Okay, one more picture of those beautiful dice.

And the GM Day Purchases Continues

So I made two more purchases.  I bought the Toolbox from Alderac Entertainment Group.  I have a couple of their print books I purchased in the 50% off bin at the local gaming shop, but was always interested in the Toolbox.  I know they have the Ultimate Toolbox, but I think this one is more manageable.  I won't be printing this one out.  More of a reference book.

The second purchase was the Realms of Crawling Chaos from Goblinoid Games.  For only $3.71 I had to check it out.  Again, this is one I've been looking at for a while.  At 64 pages its on the edge of what I'll print out for a PDF.  But I plan to read it through and if I am digging it than I'll probably buy a nice print copy.  I've liked Proctor's and Curtis's stuff in the past so I'm guessing I'll be making another order.

Like I guessed and the cool thing about selling something RPGNow is transferring it site credit.  So my profits from Knowledge Illuminates is going towards buying other gaming products. 

That's all for Sunday night.  Ivy just made a kick ass dinner and we'll be kicking back for the rest of the night watching some weirdness on Netflix.

A Trifecta at Ludibrium Games

As you can see by my side column of my running total for the year I am a game buyer.  Love reading new material.  I decided to get into the GM Sale at RPGNow and pick a few things I was curious about.  I bought all three adventures from Ludibrium Games.  Ironwood Gorge, The Sanctuary Ruin and their latest offering Kingmaker.  I printed out two of them and plan to read them.  The only request I would have to the guys is please oh please do not use a black background for your maps.  It eats way too much ink.  Especially some of the full page maps you have.  Admittedly it looks good, but if I gotta buy another ink cartridge to print out an adventure that is less money to get more gaming goodness.  I'll do some mini reviews probably later on in the week.

I also picked up Oubliette 5 for the low low price of zip, zilch, nada.  I'm still waiting for my print copies (issues 1 thru 4) in the mail.  Again will try to do a mini review later on in the week.  Tenkar has shown me the way that reviews don't have to be exhausting to write. 

And my final self promotion plug for the GM Sale.  Grab a copy a Knowledge Illuminates for only 3 bucks if you haven't yet.  The sale ends tomorrow.

Now go hug a sleestak.

Even More New Purchases

I'm on a roll this weekend.  I ended up buying five new items off of RPGNow.  I took advantage of Avalon Game Company's $1.00 day in celebration of hitting 600 products.  They have a series called How To...I got How to Create a Great Campaign and How to Create a Great Villain.  I read through the campaign one and was glad I only paid a dollar for it.  It would be good for someone who is just beginning, but for someone with experience will find it too rudimentary.  The also purchased The Fantasy Maker Handbook.  This beast comes in at over 200 pages.  Its a work book to develop a campaign.  I glanced through it and again, glad I got it for a dollar, but may use it for something.  But still need to look at it closer.  The last one I bought for a dollar was Markets and Merchandise.  This one is a great buy.  I've enjoyed what I've seen so far. 

The last product I bought was Cerberus Royalty Free Clip Art Pack.  Over 175 images and 6 page backgrounds.  This one went for twenty bucks.  I think there is a lot of art in there I can use.  I went through and tweak a lot of the pictures and I'm happy with the purchase.  My purchases for 2011 are starting to total up. You can see the total in the right hand column along with all the links to the products I purchased.

Knowledge Illuminates is hanging on in the top 15 at #12.  Sales are steady and at the end of the month I'll post how it gone.  I've been enjoying the process and looking forward to putting out the next adventure.  Have great Saturday Night everyone.  It's a night to get some popcorn and watch a black and white horror flick.  So it is said, so it shall be. 

New Purchases and Reoing An Old Project

I just made a purchase on Lulu for Oubliette Issues 1-4.  Got them for a heck of a deal for only $15.11 for print copies.  Looking forward to getting those in the mail.  I only know a little about them so I'm looking forward to the surprise. 

Tonight I'll be taking down my free download area.  Hold the yawns or the rotten tomatoes.  I am redoing Starter Adventures.  I plan on doing and one or two scenarios for each class (which doubles the size) and con Rob into doing some nice mini maps for them.  It will remain free of charge when I put it on RPGNow. Starter Adventures was downloaded 618 times.  Wow.  Never thought it would get that many hits.  And the 0-level Spells were downloaded 98 times. 

It's the weekend so I need to get some writing done.  Black Ops is calling me though.  I've been on a tear lately, but no no, I shan't give in.  Now go kill a Umber Hulk.