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The Larch

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I was recently gifted by my very generous gaming group, a couple of books. The first and second editions of MERP. I was overcome by this, very generous present, and have been flicking through these two essentially new copies of my most cherished game. It has certainly been bringing back memories to go through these volumes, and look at the art again.  One thing that is very notable in the 2nd edition book, is the move away from the use of stock art and clip art, towards the delightful and beautiful black and white line art of Liz Danforth. With the huge number of pieces Danforth provided for the 2nd edition of MERP, there was no need for the very basic and not-quite-Middle-Earthy clip art of 1st edition. Wonderful. Well, except for one piece. One piece of clip art made the jump from 1st ed to 2nd. And it isn't really one that has all that great a tie to Middle Earth. The Larch. The Larch is just that. A wood cut or black line art piece, clearly modified to add what I always though ...
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Map of the Gaelic World

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Maps are very powerful tools. Relatively small changes in perspective can lead to you literally seeing the world in a different way. For me, this is one such map. I've been doing some research on the western Isles and their history. Both for reasons of family history, and also as research for a current RPG project, so I am immersing myself in the Gaelic world view, and folk tales. As part of limiting myself to doing a good job of reading up on the tales of the Western Isles, I have been trying to avoid delving too much into Irish lore, however, as this map brings to light, that is in some ways a pointless task. As I was already finding out, the nearer you get to Ireland on the islands, the more the tales speak of Irish heroes and myths, and many of the tales have folks going from Eire to Alba and back again with little to no thought. As this map shows, that's because they were in many ways all one land. When you look at things this way, the Western isles go from being the outer...
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Steve Jackson's Sorcery!

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Sorcery! is a book from 1983. A Fighting Fantasy Choose your own adventure book, which is from a set originally released back in 1983. This set of game books differentiates itself from the original FF set, through allowing you to use magic. I picked up a copy of the first of these books, 'The Shamutanti Hills' a couple days ago, and with this week being spring break for the kids, I had time to sit down and play it. I decided to go with the Sorcerer, instead of the normal warrior, taking 2 less skill points, and sticking in. Thankfully, I rolled well on my stats, so the difference was not really noticeable. I assumed that you'd pick up spells on the way, but I got to the end of the book, killed the Manticore, and made it to the ending that led on to the next book, without once picking up a spell to use. I saw plenty of options of using spells, but at no point did I come across the three letter codes to learn any. I though I had just been unlucky, but a quick google (see Wiki...
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Montreal in 1958

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New Year New Games

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Each year, I try to play and run new games. Sometimes they make it into the permanent rotation, sometimes they do not, but it has been a part of my gaming life since the very start, as the group I grew up with were always open to try new things.  This year, I'm trying out something new, I'm going to sit with my gaming group and planning to discuss their expectations and wishes for the next year in terms of gaming. There are a couple of reasons for this, the first is that 2 of my players may be taking a break from the gaming table. They already drive over an hour to come to play with us each week, but life changes mean that that may not be feasible for the next while (maybe years). Secondly, one of my players has stepped back from or Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign as she is already playing the same campaign with another group. I have suggested ways round this, but she prefers not to make her life complicated by playing in both, and I respect that decision. So that would mean I...
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A Year in Gaming 2024

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Another bumper year of gaming, with 93 sessions over the last 52 weeks, 30 as a GM, 63 as a player.  A few gaming highlights were playing Legend of the 5 Rings (1e) with John Wick as GM in January (that's a post of its own). 2024 was of course a NecronomiCon year, which brought a bunch of Highlights (I'm going to call out 2 games with Oscar Rios as the games that have stuck with me). This was also the year when I started to run Masks of Nyarlathotep again, and getting through 2 chapters, plus a couple of self insert mini chapters was also fun, however, since there is a new prologue chapter of the campaign, I am yet to reach mu own high tide mark for running that campaign (London), but we are a total of 18 sessions in all so far, with more to come in the new year.  Special mentions also to Ten Candles, Heirs to Heresy and Deathmatch Island as games that I really want to play/run again. Now, on to the facts and figures. Games Played Games Ran In that selection of games for 2024...
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Wood-Paneled Webring

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  I've joined the Wood-Paneled Webring .  What is that you ask? well, it's a TTRPG webring for creators, artists designers etc. Oh, you mean what's a webring ? Well, gather round children and let me tell you a tale of the old ways. In the before days of the internet, back in the 1900's there was no Google, there was just Jeeves. It was in this time that the webrings were formed, from the very elementary units of the initial internet. They allowed you to find sites of interest to you by grouping these sites together, and adding a little link box somewhere to allow you to follow the trail of ethereal breadcrumbs from one site to the next.  Why this exercise in nostalgia? Well, for the same reasons as I initially started this blog, communication. As the social media landscape as we know it crumbles and fractions and continues its route to silofication. As search engines are eaten alive by the AIs developed to improve them. Where are we to turn but to the old ways. The ways...
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