Search Results for: gygax

Mar 13 2013

What about Open Gaming Monthly? A short review…

OGM 01After my review of Gygax Magazine and my bemoaning of the loss of Kobold Quarterly, I discovered another magazine that was recently released in digital form Open Gaming Monthly, a digital only magazine supporting open gaming and brought to you by the folk at PFSRD.com and Fat Goblin Games for $2.99. You might be wondering is the price of admission worth it? Most certainly!

Ok on to the fiddly bits…

The magazine is 99 pages long, full color, with a good balance of ads and content and a catalog of the items for sale at the PFSRD Shop in the back. Right off the bat I must say this did not feel like a shopper, the ads were there but they did not overwhelm me. They had certain columns, like previews, news, notes, and upcoming releases; with a print magazine such content can quickly become dated, but taking advantage of the digital format it’s all hyperlinked and really useful. And there is so much goodness here, from the small columns and asides, like GM Advantage with links to articles and tools, a Resources column, and Random Treasure, little boxes with items all around the magazine.

The content is solid, almost all open content! They had interviews, but they were NOT the main focus of the magazine. The focus was actual content, fluff and crunch I can immediately use in my game. Monsters, items, races, locations, adventures, optimization advice and an open content shared setting to be developed each issue.  There is an artic theme running through many, but not all, articles, which is very nice. The theme ties together parts of the magazine but does not make it so that people NOT running artic or cold themed setting are left hanging.

The largest chunk of the magazine is really Pathfinder content, but with publishers also hosting the Sword and Wizardry SRD and the Mutants & Masterminds SRD, I hope there is space for content for both these games and other OGL games in the magazine.

There are other details, like a full reproduction of the cover art with artist info, and even a recipe! Yes you read that right, a food recipe for Spinach Lasagna Rolls. The art, layout and everything about the magazine is top notch. If they can continue producing such a wonderful magazine month after month they have a regular client here.

An excellent product all around, if you like Pathfinder, Open Gaming content games and want to support PFSRD.com and their related sites, check it out!

By • Just my two cents, Mutants & Masterminds, News & Reviews, Other Systems, Pathfinder, Random musings, Reviews & First Looks, RPG, Swords & Wizardry • 0

Mar 6 2013

What about Gygax Magazine? A review… (and a rant for good measure!)

Gygax Magazine #1When Gygax Magazine was announced I was thrilled. Although I am not a big super of the OSR movement (more on this later!), I understand its appeal and there are instances where I enjoy it. Also if you’ve read my past reviews of Kobold Quarterly you’ll know I’m a fan. I always compared it to the old print Dragon Magazine. It was to me the spiritual inheritor of said publication. So what about this magazine that was clearly setting itself up to be the direct descendant of Dragon, from font, to art to content? Would it work?

When the release came out I was REALLY disappointed… I wanted to participate of the fun and get the magazine, but alas there was no electronic version when it came out. That, to me, was a head scratcher; in this day and age to ONLY go with print at launch was a miss. I understand the nostalgia, which was confirmed upon reading the editorial, but that was not communicated effectively beforehand.

In their defense they cleared up questions really quickly, communicated effectively and assured us there would be a digital copy soon. And there was, but no having the digital copy right there and there took the wind off my sails a little bit. Despite the excitement in the RPG community I was a little disappointed by everything I saw about the magazine. It looked TOO MUCH like Dragon magazine; I feared it might not be a tribute and become merely an aping of glories past.

More

By • Blogging, Humor, Just my two cents, News & Reviews, Other Systems, Random musings, Reviews & First Looks, RPG • 8

Dec 14 2012

The Known Author… An Interview with Bruce Heard!

BHBruce Heard is a name I will forever associate with classic D&D content, but for the uninitiated I have just one word, Mystara!  Of course it wasn’t always called Mystara, once upon a time it was just the Known World, the starting setting and the greater world hinted at in the Dungeons & Dragons boxed sets with which I learned how to role-play.

That world came alive for me with the Gazetteer series. I remember when I got my hands on the first one, The Grand Duchy of Karameikos. It showed me what a D&D setting could be, it was at once familiar and surprising. I learned the word gazetteer that day. Of course the book that really blew my socks of was the Principalities of Glantri, the land rules by magicians cemented what this world was like in my mind and made me a long life fan. Back then I didn’t really know much about who wrote what but I remember looking at the cover and wondering just who this guy Bruce Heard was…

Imagine my surprise when I got to talk to him online not too long ago! After all these years I actually was exchanging messages with someone who was instrumental in my formation as a role-player and game master. Isn’t social media grand! Of course one of the first things I did was pester him about and interview and he was so kind as to answer the long list of questions I sent him. So now without further ado, here is my interview with Mr. Bruce Heard…

More

By • Blogging, Interview, Legacy D&D, Other Systems, RPG • 6

Sep 10 2012

Dungeons & Dragons: A Documentary

A couple of days ago I was made aware of the D&D: A Documentary Kickstarter. What is the project all about? In a nutshell a group of people want to make a movie documentary about the roleplaying game phenomenon that started with Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson and D&D.

Alas even though the KS ends in just 6 days they haven’t reached their goal, yet. For a pledge of just $15 you can get the HD digital download version of the movie. If you would like to see that project succeed after all, check it out, spread the word and pledge. Smile

By • Kickstarter, News & Reviews, RPG, Video • 0

Jun 6 2011

“Spanish, Spanish, Spanish saving throw, Spanish”: Role-Playing in different languages

Recently I had a tweet exchange with Shaun and Michael about which language we role-played in, and Shaun wrote an excellent post about languages in RPG games here in the blog last week. However our exchange made me think about languages on the other side of the equation, or the screen so to speak, the language we speak as we play.

I am well aware that role-playing is an international affair. While I knew this to be a fact, writing in the blog has confirmed it as I have met people from all over the world. I also know that games have been created, written and played in many countries, but (to the best of my knowledge) they first appeared in the United States of America and have spread to the world.

The first RPG games I read where all in English and it was years before I actually saw games in my native Spanish. I became aware they existed, but did not see one for years. I live in Puerto Rico and our socio-political situation means we are very close to the US so it is not surprising that RPG games would become available in English here. When I finally found RPGs in Spanish it was actually cheaper for me to buy them in English. That did not stop me and I have a few Spanish RPG books in my collection, the gem being a Traveller boxed set and the main rule book and some supplements for Aqularre, an excellent RPG from Spain.

Despite this, the majority (99%) of my RPG collection is in English. Shaun asked (and I paraphrase here so forgive me in advance for any mistake) whether we played in Spanish and only used English for certain terms, thus the title of the post: “Spanish, Spanish, saving throw, Spanish, Spanish”. Michael chimed in and confirmed that was the case when he games. Of course in his case its, “German, German, attack of opportunity, German German”. Like I told Shaun, that was not the case for me…

More

By • Advice, Ask The Readers, Improve Your Game, Other Systems, Pathfinder, Random musings, RPG • 11

Nov 4 2010

I laugh and I cry at Knights…

Besides being a longtime gamer I have other hobbies. For the longest time I’ve been a comic book fan, I’ve written about it before (here and here), and even if I don’t read that many these days (Fables, The Walking Dead are among the few that make the cut) there is one comic that I can’t take out of my pull list Knights of the Dinner Table.

I guess games, comics, sci-fi movies and TV series and videogames form a strange vector where many of our hobbies converge, and Knights of the Dinner Table is a comic about games, but the magazine is so much more, besides the humorous misadventures of a gaming group, the aforementioned Knights, and their gaming community, poking fun at games, MMOs, relationships and everything in between; the comic has gaming articles ranging from advice, to NPCs and reviews. The last issued had three NPCs for AD&D 2nd edition, imagine! That was a trip down memory lane for me.

I am amazed at how much I care for these characters! The creator, Jolly R. Blackburn, and the entire Kenzer & Company team have made me come back month after month not just for the jokes but to see what happens to these characters that feel as real as your gaming buddies. I went to their booth in GenCon in 2007 but I was too much of a geeked out fan to muster up the courage to actually talk to any of them, just like with Gary Gygax, guess that puts them in high company in my mind.

So if you have not read it, or only heard about it, I cannot recommend it enough. There are collections of previous issues, their Bundles of Trouble, if you want to catch up to the story and even a free issue you can try (free stuff and it’s not even Friday yet!).

Now let’s see if I muster the courage to send out a submission to them. Getting published in KotD is a dream of mine, but I actually have to send something to even attempt it! Give it a try you’ll not be disappointed.

By • Fluff/Inspiration, Freebies, GenCon, Just my two cents, News & Reviews, Non-RPG, Other Systems, RPG • 4

Jul 27 2010

Remembering A Legend

Gary Gygax, was a writer and game designer. In the 1960s Gygax founded Gen Con. In 1971 he help develop the war game Chainmail. He co-founded the company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR), and in 1974 Gary Gygax along with Dave Arneson created the legendary Role Playing Game, Dungeons & Dragons.As players of the role playing games we all owe a great debt to Gary Gygax. Because of him we get together with great friends to play great games and act out great adventures. We use our imagination to create wondrous wolds and grand encounters that the most advanced computer game can’t even come close to emulating.

All of us would like to take a moment and share how Role playing and Gary Gygax has affected our lives.

ROBERTO: I was star struck by Gary Gygax!

When I first started putting together my contribution to this post in my head I had a longer post in mind. My “relationship” with him (Well isn’t he pretentious! But you know what he means…) is a long one and has gone through various stages, but I’ll just tell you what happened when I saw him.

Yes in 2007 when I went to Gen Con Gary Gygax was there, at some booth, I really can’t remember which one, there was a line to get his autograph. Since I had no book by him with me (What was he thinking?) I passed on the line and figured I’d get to see him sometime later in the convention.

Later that same day I was walking down a convention center corridor and saw him coming in the opposite direction, he looked frail on his wheelchair and my mind was filled with things to say to him. “Hello, I’m a big fan!” or, “Hello Mr. Gygax, I came all the way from Puerto Rico because I discovered the magic of role-playing games through a company you helped found,” or even better, “Thank you for helping create something that has given me so much enjoyment, so many great memories, so many wonderful friends and has been such an important part of my life.”

Before I go on let me tell you something about myself. I have NO fear of speaking in public, let alone to important people. I’ve spoken to governors, first ladies; important local figures of politics and industry, and I’m not saying this in any way to be pretentious (He’s not, really!) and while I do get nervous I shake off those nerves pretty easily and go on. I only get dumbfounded when confronted by someone I truly admire, and artist who I feel has really contributed to the human experience. I’ve had that feeling on few occasions in my life, but that day, in that corridor in Gen Con I felt just like that.

So I was star struck, unable to compose a single sentence, Gary went by, mere feet away, and I was unable to say anything. All I could do was smile…

So I’ll say it here and (sadly) posthumously, Gary Gygax, thank you for changing my life!

MICHAEL: As a German roleplayer and someone who began his gaming career with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition instead of D&D, I have been oblivious of Gary Gygax’ existence for a long time. I might have heard or read the name but I didn’t actually know who he was or what he has done. It was much, much later, when I finally found interest in D&D 3rd Edition, when I started reading his column in Dragon Magazine. “Up on a soapbox” was always an entertaining read and this column finally lead me to do some more research into the early days of D&D. Today, veterans of our hobby like Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, Ken St. Andre and a lot of other are a great source of inspiration to me. It makes me proud to step in the footsteps of these giants and it gives me hope that roleplaying will be a hobby I can engage in for whole my life. And for that I thank you, Mr. Gygax!

YOUSEPH: I remember reading about Gary Gygax’s (“Long may he role 20′s!”) passing on the internet. I was still recovering from a recent Presidents Of The United States Of  America concert when I heard about it. Sadly at this point in my life I had not really gotten into Dungeons & Dragons, or any role playing games for that matter. But the ideas was there to get started. Living in Juneau Alaska, with our dark months I was wanting to get into a hobby that would entertain me over the winter. It was not till February of the following year that I really sunk my teeth in to Dungeons & Dragons.

When I started to really explore and write about D&Ds on my blog you can see it really took hold. With all the information and youtube videos I was finding it’s hard to not get swept up in it. The game took hold of me so well that most of my blog post for that whole year where in some way related to Dungeons & Dragons. As I started to play the game with friends and understand more about how everything worked I eventually started writing for Stargazers World. I have since poured my role playing energy into Stargazers world and left my own personal blog for more personal writing.

Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson created something truly wonderful with Dungeons & Dragons. Five of my closest friends and I net get together once a week to Role Play our weekly adventure through a home brew campaign. We laugh, talk, visit, and make some good food in the process. It gets us Alaska people out and about during the dark months and keeps everyone in touch with what is going on in each others lives.

WORLDSMITH: Gary in some ways is an inspiration for me. Through my gaming life D&D has been the preferred gaming system for myself and my friends, it’s simple and adaptive style allowed us to concentrate more on the  story that was being told and the actions of our characters through these adventures and campaigns while providing us with some great settings.

Yet he has done more than simply provide an avenue of amusement to fill my late nights and early mornings he has brought to life a portion of myself that has helped to define, unashamedly, who I am and for that I do say thank you.

Finally D&D has brought a huge amount of enjoyment and entertainment for myself and my friends and that in part is what I would like to pass on to others of the gaming community through my own work. So let’s hear a HUZAR to the man who has given us all so much.

Gary Gygax and Dungeons & Dragons have had such a positive impact on people and on the role playing games as a hobby. A great debt is owed to this man and his creation. He has taught us all to use our imagination and acting skills to their fullest. May he rest in peace.

By • Feature, Guest Post, RPG • 2 • Tags: , , , ,

1 2 3
%d bloggers like this: