Weekend R&R: Kobold Quarterly

Kobold Quarterly.  Some consider this to be the spiritual successor to Dragon Magazine and for what it is, it is quite good.  I've always liked magazines usually I have some sort of subscription going on.  My most recent subscription to a (video) gaming magazine has run its course and normally I would just renew it or try a different one.  I should clarify that my latest subscriptions have been digital as well -- very convenient depending on the sort of magazine you are dealing with.  When it comes to 'tech', I don't find there is much value in holding on to physical copies of magazines so a less expensive and paper-free option for my tablet was a no-brainer.  The point is, I am currently without a magazine subscription and sadly, my current Crusader subscription can't count.  We haven't seen a single issue this year and, I believe there was only one issue released in 2011.

So, with that in mind, I decided it was time to give Kobold Quarterly a good look-over and the magazine is impressive enough.  From the modest first issue, there was been careful devotion to quality and hallmarks which are very reminiscent of classic Dragon Magazine.  I was also impressed at the pace the magazine grew and expanded from the very first issue.  By issue 4, it had more than doubled in page count and its subscriber base surpassed the 1000 mark with distribution happening world-wide.  The magazine is nothing but a success.

It has several interesting articles of course -- various Ecology articles... book reviews... and other regular columns and interviews of writers and designers in the industry.  There was also a great series on the Princes of Hell when the magazine first started off.

As the magazine matured, the look became more and more polished but the content, while still solid, interested me a bit less than the first few issues.  There's a lot of crunch in the pages of the magazine given the fact that there is a lot of 3.x, Pathfinder, and 4th Ed. material.  There were also articles I hated such as 'Optimizing Power Attack: The Mathematics of Combat'.  This sort of stuff simply bothers me and screams power gamer -- something I got relatively sick of when I played 3rd Edition.  I'm not saying these articles don't have a place in this magazine... the magazine certainly caters to a segment of the gaming crowd and others will won't be bothered by having a few articles they won't care for.  It's a magazine after all and it should have something for everybody.  The question I have is simple if the magazine offers enough for me.  The price of a digital subscription is reasonable enough given page counts they are delivering ($16 for 4 issues) though I wouldn't consider the print version  being comparatively steeper.  While I remember Dragon Magazine and it's various ads, I find the ads in Kobold Quarterly less interesting and somehow more intrusive given a couple magazines had roughly a quarter of the page space available devoted to ads for stuff I have next to no interest in.

Of course, the magazine is completely devoted to fantasy which is fine but I think I would like to see more varied material in its pages as well.  It's certainly not the perfect magazine for me but then again, such a magazine has yet to exist.  Kobold Quarterly is a solid offering nonetheless.  I will have to consider the magazine a bit further before I make a decision.

That said, I have heard there was some C&C material (a collection of 4 critters) in a recent issue (number 22) so this also reinforces that what is published in the magazine is dependent on the material actually submitted.  Maybe if there was some OSR related material in the mag (some Sword & Wizardry stuff maybe), it could endear itself to me further.  And if there already was, I am just not aware of it but I think it's a good idea to have.  ;)

Do any of the readers of my blog have had much exposure to Kobold Quarterly?  What are your thoughts if you have and would you recommend it or not?  Should I go back and read my classic Dragon magazines (thanks to the Dragon Magazine CD archive) instead?

M

Dejected...

There are times when I walk into a stocked gaming store but feel more than a bit tired of it all. It's a feeling of being a bit apatheic and dejected about the whole array of products I see on the shelves and how so little of it actually interests me. It's a bit strange actually but I can usually pinpoint what led me down this path.

I think part of it started with the difficulties in trying to reach Troll Lord Games as a customer. I had been having problems with an outdated download link to the newer and revised 'Amazing Adventures' PDF at the very start of October. With increasing misfortune, my actual physical copy came in damaged just last week. During the entire month of October, I was just not getting and word back from TLG. They finally did contact me but only after I took to explain my problems in getting a hold of them on the forums. I was polite, which helped, and the fact that a few other people saw this and probably pointed this out to the company really must have helped.

During the month of October, I was also putting the latest Domesday together -- a labour of love but one that gets little recognition and no mention.  Admittedly, it's a C&C / SIEGE Engine fanzine and, in the past, we've always taken what we could get.  I say we because, once upon a time there were more people involved in putting out an issue.  However, it is something that is time consuming and few people are willing to devote their time for such an effort.  After the fourth issue was put out, there was an aborted attempt to put out a fifth and, it was dropped and largely forgotten till earlier this year where I put together a 5th and just recently a 6th issue.  Admittedly, as much as I enjoyed putting it together, in the back of my mind I recognized the reality that a handful of people would actually appreciate it.  It didn't help that I've not been the happiest TLG customer around these past few weeks either.

In any event, the past month, I have spent more time towards the miniature aspect of the hobby and I'm accumulating more tools and paints to keep me going (5 months or so to go before my Reaper KS order drops).  I keep up on what's happening and what's new as far as RPGs go and I love keeping on top of the news and what other people are doing.  This is something that usually brings a smile to my face and a twinkle in my eye as I think about gaming possibilities.  I also had a friend lend me a bunch of issue of Kobold Quarterly (which may very well be the subject of my upcoming Weekend R&R) which I started flipping through.

As I did so, I realized that there was little in that magazine that truly interested me.  Some of the new things being developed left me 'cold'.  With a bit of irritation, I decided to take a bit of fresh air (it was a quiet day for a change) and take a trip to one of the larger game stores in Montreal which I only visit once in a while (probably about 4-6 times a year).  I like checking out the used section as well as the new but today, I clearly saw signs of what the store was working towards,  a third of the RPG material was 'gone' and while the remaining section was still HUGE, I found that there was nothing there that I care for or wanted.

I picked up a few tools for my miniatures -- a small curved set of files, a bit of contact glue (for plastic), and a nifty desk magnifying glass.  I was happy about my purchases but couldn't help but wonder about what I was feeling after what I've been seeing.  Was it me?  Am I the problem?

I considered this for a bit, considered my tastes of gaming material, the genres that appealed to me, the authors I prefer...  Thinking about Kobold Quarterly, I also gave some thoughts to the old Dragon Magazines and the reasons why I loved those issues of Dragon so much more in comparison.

You know what?  It's not me.

Despite the cool reprints and some of the various OSR efforts that are still going on, I find there is less and less that is interesting me.  There are still gems being produced but I'm simply finding it harder to come across something that touches more upon the things I like and care about.  The material being put out and advertised is just different that the sort of material that drew me into the hobby in the first place.

I think the solution if probably simple though: I just need to do some good ol' fashioned gaming and just ignore the rest -- at least for now.

M

Dungeon! Theft!

This past weekend kinda sucked for me and the group I play in.  A game was planned and I starting playing a knight in a friend's campaign which would have been the third session for this group.  Being friends that have gamed before and shared a few laughs, the suggestion of going of for breakfast was made.

On my way to the agreed upon meeting place, I was scooped up by a couple of friends and we drove over to the restaurant.  Food was had... jokes made... laughs shared.  We settled up and made our way back to the car with a couple other people leaving us.  We focused on getting to our next destination, our local game store, where we booked a gaming room for the afternoon.  We get to the car, and found the passenger window was smashed and belongings were grabbed.  More on that later...

After cleaning up the broken glass, we make our way to the store but, as one would imagine, no one was exactly in the mood to play our regular game.  The person running the game was one of the people who had their stuff stolen from the car so you can probably imagine how angry the person was.

Thankfully, as we get our bearings, we notice the Dungeon board game.  I didn't pay much attention about it at first since I already knew that WOTC has re-released it.  I had good things about the remake as well as the original which I never had an opportunity to play before.  What did get my attention was the price though.  At $20, it was an easy decision to make and proved to be an excellent game to try out and take our minds of of things.

We played three games of it, taking a break for supper between the second and third game.  We had a lot of fun and, while there isn't anything much to it, it's something to pull out if a player is late and we have to wait on them before we start our regular game.  It's simple enough that children can play (the box says 8+) which makes the game a possible 'gateway drug' into the hobby!  Much like those Fighting Fantasy books were my own introduction to the hobby.  Oh... and can play up to 8 players which is always a nice plus.

Production values is simple enough with a WHOLE WHACK LOAD of chits ... the tomb markers are the most numerous but need to be since you drop those on the board for the places you clear in-game.  Suffice to say that a few small snack baggies to keep the box in order will be handy.  Everything needed for the game is pretty much pouch out -- including the character figurines.  On top of that, you have cards for treasures and monsters for levels 1 through 6.

Being the group that we were, cracking jokes though out the game, we started houseruling after the second game when we say the game was going to end with certainty because the Thief got all the treasure he needed and started heading back to the Great Hall to take the game.  Not that there is any problem with that but, given that there were no obstacles to stop him or slow him down with no one in a similar position, we introduced a simple house rule for the third and final game:

Wandering Encounters.

In short, when the possibility of endgame is triggered and a character reaches the needed amount to win the game, the Dungeon is on alert!  From this point on till the end of the game, anytime a character ends their move in a corridor, a 1d6 is rolled.  On a roll of a '1', the character encounters a random monster of the adjacent level / zone.  No treasure is gained by defeating a wandering encounter but, depending on how fickle the dice are being, it could mean the character will lose treasure, a turn, or even their lives opening the possibility of a different winner.  In play, we found the rule worked very well.

Well, with three games done, we called it an evening slightly earlier than usual but we already began talking about other possible house rules.  I'm sure there was something in older Dragon magazines about some options as well which may be worth looking into.

The game is well worth it at $20 and probably cheaper online.

Back to the smash n' grab.

Three passengers with stuff left behind in the vehicle.  Among what was lost was a bunch of electronics -- an ipad, an asus tablet, a netbook.  Beyond the tech, there were a few irreplaceable things of sentimental value that happened to be in those bags.  The losses also included dice.  Now... dice might be a weird thing to lament about but consider that one of the bag of dice (the GM's dicebag) had well over 100 and much dated back three decades.

As gamers, there is a lot of sentimentality with some of the books we have, the miniatures we use, and the dice we roll game after game.  At the gaming table as we were discussing the loss of the dice and other things, one of the gamers pulls out 4d10 (inked gamescience dice) which he had received a few weeks earlier.  Though also impacted by this, I didn't lose my entire dice collection so I decide buy him a set.  A couple of his friends through facebook read what happened and are in the process of sending him some dice.

Somewhere along the line, he gets an idea for what he calls a social experiment: The Good Gamer Karma Project.  He's basically accepting dice from whomever and whatever single die anyone may want to send him.  He writes about it all HERE but you get the idea.  If it reaches 100, he pledges to do something to 'pay it forward' though he's still unsure what.  It will likely be something gaming related though.

M

Weekend R&R: Castle Zagyg

For fans of Dungeons & Dragons, the 'crown jewel' of mega-dungeons has got to be Castle Zagyg.  It is also known as Castle Greyhawk.  Sadly with the passing of Gary Gygax a few years ago and with issues of IP and legalities, this Mega-Dungeon has only been shown in bits in pieces but the whole picture was never revealed.  It is perhaps the greatest of them all because of the stories that surround it shared by those who were fortunate enough to sit down in one of Gary's games.  It has also seen various re-imaginings over the years which only serves to cloud this even further.

Castle Greyhawk was special.  It served as a testbed for the Dungeons & Dragons game in the early 70's and was Gary's own personal campaign.  Publication of Greyhawk material didn't see much in terms of the Castle and its dungeons but there were occasional hints -- though never any real detail.  Some modules were even linked to the Castle such as 'Dungeonland', 'Land Beyond the Magic Mirror', and 'Isle of the Ape' but yielded no real information to the Castles itself.

The first published treatment of 'Castle Greyhawk' was done in 1988 and was unfortunately something of a farce (some consider it an insult to Gygax having left TSR).  The company revisited Castle Greyhawk in the 'Greyhawk Ruins' in a more serious attempt to create something more akin to what fans had been waiting for.  Having tracked down a copy of the Greyhawk Ruins, I do think it is more quickly dismissed than it should be.  Some people must have considered the material good though since it did get updated for the 3.5 ruleset in the 'Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk' book.  Of course, none of these match Gygax's original mega-dungeon -- I mean how could it?

Enter Troll Lord Games.  When Gygax began working and publishing material through TLG, this was also a chance to see some of the Yggsburgh (aka Greyhawk) and the Castle itself.  Like most things from the small company, certain things did not get developed in the pace that fans would have liked.  There were other problems earlier on as well -- Robert Kuntz was on the project early on but that just didn't work out.  Eventually, the city began taking shape a piece at a time in a line of accessories to complement a wonderful book on Yggsburgh.  This was 'Volume 1' of the Castle Zagyg series.  A folio was released, entitled the East Mark Gazetteer and along with it, a module reminiscent of the 'Keep on the Borderlands', which served as the introduction to the surrounding and entry to the Castle.

It was during this time that work seemed to begin in earnest to produce the rest of the material and Gary Gygax guided and worked with Jeffrey Talanian to produce a definitive version of the Castle.  The Upper Works was released in the last quarter of 2008 but with Gary's passing earlier in March of that year, the licensing agreement for the material was dissolved and the material was no longer available as of December 31st of that year.  No PDF version was ever produced for electonric distribution and there were stories of a lot of damage to the few numbers of box sets that made it overseas and a number of these may have been 'pulped'.  In North America, some made it various stores but numbers were slim.  Simply put, the demand was higher than what could be supplied in the limited amount of time TLG had.  It became instantly collectable and sought after which led to some buying multiple sets if they could manage it which they would turn around and sell for a profit.  Just looking on ebay now, I see a copy for $325 and Noble Knight Games have a couple of copies for around $290.  In the past year or so, the cheapest I have seen for one of these box sets was for $165.  Retail price was originally $44.95.  Kinda depressing when you think about it.

I was fortunate to get my copy for two reasons: Originally, I was under the impression that the box set would at least sell into 2009 giving TLG at least a few more months to meet the demand of those who wanted a copy. Because of that, and with the ludicrous pricing of shipping TLG was asking to ship the box set to me (it was around $30), I decided to wait and get a copy at my local retailer and left my name with the store instead.  As it turns out, the store was only able to get 2 copies in and the distributor was unable to supply anymore.  One of the two is the one I got but the other box set sold within hours.

Castle Zagyg (as it was renamed) effectively met with swift end and all of the Yggsburgh material -- a lot of it still in developmental stages is now just 'gone'.  It's a shame because the Upper Works as well as the rest of the published material were all top-notch.  The Upper Works set itself was fantastic and Jeffry Talanian should be commended for all the hard work he had put in.  The contents of the set include 'The Mouths of Madness' (previous published in the Gazetteer), the 'Ruins of the Castle Precincts', the 'East Wall Towers', the 'Castle Fortress', and the 'Storerooms' which is the first level to the dugeons.  You also got an illustration booklet and maps in the box.  And this is where it 'ends'.

Many think this to be a huge problem but, I find that in a weird way, it's probably fitting.  The Upper Works does a fantastic job to set the tone and there is plenty material available to borrow from if you truly aren't the type to go at it 'on your own'.  However, the most 'obvious' choices may not be the best fit for on reason or another.

For a while, you could freely download the 'Castle of the Mad Archmage' by Joseph Bloch.  He designed this with admirable the goal to supply the remaining levels as he interpreted and envisioned them.  It is a nice piece of work which is unfortunately also unavailable now due to an agreement made with Black Blade Publishing to publish it.  Black Blade had a press release in April of 2011 which stated that they hoped to have it out by December of 2011.  We're coming to a year late with the once free alternative no longer in sight and the latest news provides a hopeful 1st quarter release in 2013 but may end up slipping in the 2nd quarter for a May 2013 release.

Heh... I don't feel so bad about the delays Arcana Creations has had developing certain projects with that bit of news.  ;)

So, what else is there?  Well -- when I first looked at Castle Whiterock, it struck me as the perfect solution to for the levels beneath the Store Rooms detailed in the Upper Works.  In fact, a lot of mega dungeons with a minimum amount of work could be fitted to work with the Upper Works.  You could even go a step beyond that though.  Scrap the multiple levels and create a couple to bridge the Upper Works with some of the material you can find in the 'Halls of Many Panes'  -- another interesting box set which could work given how 'Dungeonland', 'Land Beyond the Magic Mirror', and 'Isle of the Ape' were linked to the Castle.

Of course, you could also track down the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk and rework some of the material there to use with the Upper Works.  No matter which way you look at it, there will be some work involved but given how many of the levels in Castle Whiterock work independently of each other as well as the obvious tribute that Castle Whiterock is the classic D&D and Castle Greyhawk, it seems like a natural choice.

If you don't like any of those options, take Castle Zagyg or Castle Greyhawk and just make it your own.  This is what Gary did... he made his game and his campaign truly his own and I think this is the best way to go about it.  There is no reason the dungeon even has to stop at level 15 -- it could be as long as you want or need it to be.  The goal with all of these is to have some fun after all.

Anyway, sorry if this was a few days late.  I originally intended to post this for Halloween but with everything else, it got pushed a few days.

M

Miniature Modification

Nothing really major here but I'm proud of it.  While I haven't gotten much painting done since I started in this aspect of the hobby, I have managed to start a few figurines but finish none.  In preparation for a friend's game, I have now finished one figure which a fellow player will be using for the campaign.

Because of the influence of a friend who is majorly into miniature painting and because this just happens to be Warhammer 40k, I've been using Citadel paints and have been pleased with the results I was getting.  The miniature here is originally a WOTC piece from the Desert of Desolation line of D&D Minis -- the 'Snaketongue Cultist'.  This would be the green robed figure on the right.

On the left is what one of these miniatures was turned into.  Nothing fancy and largely just a new paint job as well as a quick bit of work with some cutters.

After priming, I used 'Kantor Blue' for the base coat on the robes and used 'Altdork Guard Blue' as a layer to promote some of the highlights for the folds.  I then used 'Drakenhof Nightshade' for the shading / wash for the robes.  Now because of the close proximity of the various blues, I get a more subtle result for the blues in the robes given shade and highlight but I think it worked really well.

Beyond the robes, I used 'XV-88' for the rope belt and some 'Ironbreaker' for the metal found in the clasp, belt and buckle, as well as the tips of the staff.  This was followed by a tiny amount of 'Nuln Oil' for the metal.

The footwear consisted of 'XV-88' like the belt but with some 'Argrax Earthshade' as a wash.

Finally I touched up the wood from the staff with some Rhinox Hide.

Not too shabby for my first completed paint job.  I sealed the deal with some 'Purity Seal' which is basically a spray on varnish which has more of a matte look compared to the glossy coat the original figure had.

M