Cyclopedia Resurrected?

I am taking this news with a pillar of salt. It has come to my attention that the Rules Cyclopedia, the book that was my bible for a good part of my D&D playing is available as a Print on Demand. About a year ago I repurchased that same book, so I wonder if I should buy it again.

Being the father of a two year old, happy and healthy warp core son, I wonder if a working copy will help initiate him in my strongest hobby. There is no doubt that I would want to do it with this edition of D&D (a forthcoming rant on the subject of textbook-rulebooks is in the works).

I have no doubt that the entire old-school world is either extatic over this announcement or waiting to see the quality of the re-issue. Like pre-ording a game or early access be wary of this greatly. I have no doubt that Tenkar's Tavern will be roaring with this news in tonight's chat

One thing I felt good about is the price. At about thirty dollars it didn't seem that different from its original price of 24.95.

Seems like old times, but I will wait for the reviews, muchas gracias.

Review: Quill White Box

I think the word "Box" preceded by a color (white, red, blue or black) should be used in the role-playing world in the same way a dark mischievous and omnipotent demi-god's name should be used within his realm. That two-word combination, dangerously weighed down with hundreds of nostalgia coins, instantly transports us old-school gamers somewhere between the late 70's and the early 80's.

In short if you name your game "'White, Red, Blue,  or Black' Box" you better be ready and willing to back it up- like pulling a sword from a stone.

While many many old school systems fall far from this responsibility, "Quill White Box" by Scott Malthouse has not. While Quill took first person writing to the realm of medieval courtesy and etiquette, "Quill White box" supplements these rules for full fantasy gaming. In Quill you earn points for using words from a list called the ink pot, hopefully scoring points at the end of each paragraph.

In Quill, various medieval scenarios are given as well as characters (like the monk and the courtesan) with class points in penmanship (how well your letter is perceived), language (how the character uses the words) and heart (the emotion the writer has placed in the letter). Going over the rules I couldn't wait to start writing a letter. I started by writing a letter to a grieving father about their son's body being found on or about my recedences and barely scored seven points, a neutral reception to my letter. Since then I have not dared try out the scenario where one writes to the King.

Quill White Box takes these basic rules and trebuchets them into the realm of old-school fantasy. For those that have written under the hand of Quill rules, White Box is a true blessing, introducing gold rewards with marketplaces to spend your gold. Items in the marketplace such as King's Parchment, magic ingredients and holy water propel your letters to gracious reception by its fictional recipients.

The key to Quill and its White Box is immersion. Almost like LARPing, the letter writing takes you as far as you take it. As an example, below are two pictures. One is a letter I "Quilled" while looking after my two year old nuclear boy, the other is by +George Gillam, incorporating his love for calligraphy and rpgs. Any parent could tell which one is mine. Any parent could tell which one is mine.

Being a die-hard dungeon crawler, I confess I crave a way of having a good old-fashioned dungeon-romp. But, since Quill and Quill White Box are heavily supported by its community on Google+, with members posting created scenarios, it's just a matter of time before someone creates a dungeon-crawl scenario to "play-write". When that happens, no doubt I will either post them here, or retreat into my cloisters, a reclusive monk writing letters to the imaginary characters. I can't say right now which one I would prefer.

Conclusion: "Quill White Box" is an old school supplement to the very successful solo writing rpg "Quill". With it, writer/players will take their letters from humble medieval beginnings to the darkest lands of sorcery, swords and magical items. Its simplicity relies on its rules while its depth relies on the player- thus it deserves the title of 'White Box'.

PWYW Goodness

To advance my efforts in thwarting thick high-priced games books, a quixotic attempt to resurrect those thrilling days when all you needed was a thin workbook-like set of rules and a thirteen year old brain, I want to mention a Drivethrurpg.com Play-What-You-Want link and recommendations that Martin Ralya posted on his blog- Yore.

While I'm not sure if a blog should send you to another blog (this is all new to me), in the days where way too many games have turned into something like an organic chemistry text-book of rules, I think it is a welcome mention.

Thanks Martin!

Review: MiSO RPG

I confess I have an "envy" book, a book I wish I had written. The book is 'American Gods' by Neil Gaiman The moment I read through its pages, the moment I experienced the caress of pantheons of gods joining me here on earth, I felt a literary tear in my eye.

I am here to also confess that I have an envy role-playing game. The game is Minimal Solo RPG (MiSO) by Sophia Brandt and it is quite brilliant in its simplicity- serious "why hadn't I thought of that before!".

Inspired by Bivius RPG by Riccardo Fregi's strict binary choices, MiSO assigns a die of differing faces to one of two choices. Like reaching a fork in the road and assigning the high sunny road a (d20) and the low dark road a (d4) (I mean wouldn't you?) and rolling. The winning fork continues the journey that is the story/ game.

As many of you know that are still reading this blog or follow me on G+, I am always looking for a system, or a machine, that fuels both my fantasy writing and my solo gaming. That fusion is what most of my fiction (sparse that it is) stems from. MiSO is the perfect choice for anyone with gamer's/writer's block. Nearly an oracle, I have even given MiSO some real world choices:

                -watch another episode of Star Trek (d12) 

                 -vacuum the living room (d6) 

                 (wouldn't you believe that I vacuumed!) 

Expanding (or branching) on it, I have assigned characters, enemies, or things, a heavier die based on their skills or experience; much like The Window RPG. In the future I will be writing up a session where I use MiSO to knock out one of my fatal writer's blocks.

Conclusion: The rules are straightforward and clearly written for the storyteller-gamer in mind. The examples given are all about branching the story, and thus the creation of other sub-stories. So I would definitely recommend it. In fact, every time I read through it, I feel that tear on my cheek. A happy muse that something great was lying right there on the road less traveled (d4).

Before Entering The Keep

The following is something I wrote for my play-by-post game over on RPoL:

I just want to say something before we all enter the Keep on the Borderlands- Red Box edition.

As it says on my profile, I am an ancient role-player. I grew up with the original red box, way back in the day when a rule book was less than one hundred and fifty pages, rules scant, bent toward on the fly gaming, and more interested in 'fee' and 'atmosphere'.

I was lent the original Advanced books so never owned them. Now that I think about it, in the good ol' days all my friends had some weird library pool of roleplaying books that floated from one guy to the other. So going for broke and buying hard cover things just didn't do it for me.

I tried following the great game, Dungeons and Dragons, into its more coastal wizardly manifestations- ie. 3rd edition. Things got really really fat since I was gone (about fifteen years) and complicated. Feats was a lot like choosing a career, or meeting with a guidance counselor that never made you feel good enough. I tried, I tried hard but craved those times in the back of chemistry lab playing D&D with a disected frog on our table, rolling with a pencil (we did not dare bring in dice because the Catholic school authorities would be on us instantly. You see at our school we had samurai nuns) and making rules up by inspiration. We got so good at improv that we declared...

"Any rule that needs to be looked up should not be used..."

And we played on. And that's the way I play.

In the last twenty years I don't think I have payed more than ten bucks for a rule book (oh okay I just had to buy the Ars Magica bundle on the Bundle of Holding but when I do find people crazy enough to play, I think I will throw a good sixty percent of the rules out the window. I just like the feel, the idea of a Covenant). In light of that I have gotten into free and minimalist role-playing (fudge, Risus, The Pool, Donjon, The Bean, Sword and Back pack, Oculus, the Black Hack, MiSO and others I cannot think of right now because my two year old son is watching Chuggington and it causes me Brain Bleach) and pretty much never came back. I like words over rules, imagination over stats, and "wowness" over calculating experience or rewards.

That is how I am going to run this game. I think I left rules-lawyers back in 1990, imprisoned in a phantom zone in the past. So while we are playing D&D Red Box for inspiration and mood and labyrinth lord for some sort of structure and accountability it will be a bunch of thirteen year olds getting together in the basement dreaming of fantastical beasts and legendary locations.

Ok? I mean just look at the font I used!