Armed with some store credit, more time and backed up by my wife's bank card, the family and I headed out today, braving the Holiday Shopping Traffic, to go to Sam's, grab some lunch and get some stuff at 2nd & Charles. It's not the 1st edition boxed set I've been lusting after for several years, but I picked up this 5th edition of Stormbringer. I really dig Chaosium's d100 system and if I wasn't going to run a version of D&D, I would choose one of their fantasy games to serve as the rule-set for a campaign.
I also snagged that Gene Wolf omnibus, I mentioned yesterday. I read The Shadow of the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator 25 years ago, borrowing them from my father. I thoroughly enjoyed the first two books, but for some reason or another, never got around to completing my trip through Severian's world. What can I say? Shit comes up, when you're 17! I'm looking forward to rectifying the situation.
I've read a lot of people's opinion that Greyhawk Adventures isn't very good, but for $6.50, I wasn't going to pass up a 1e hardcover I didn't have. So long as the words Survival and Guide, weren't part of the title. Besides, it's Greyhawk! Surly I can find something worthwhile, or at least worth reading. At any rate, The Collector said "It's Greyhawk, buy it!"
The blurb on the cover states, "Become part of the oldest continuous fantasy campaign...,"
so I guess they were ignoring Blackmoor, or assuming everyone had stopped campaigning therein?
Here's something I've heard very good things about, though. AC9 Creature Catalog. Cool! I really dig the artwork. At a glance, there's some cool monsters in there, as well! The Grey Philosopher looks like a lot of fun! Way back when, I pretty much ignored the D&D line, as I played AD&D, Thank You Very Much, and like so many others, saw the "Basic" line as Kiddie D&D. On the upside, I now get to discover a lot of awesome gaming material, that is totally new to me today. 
Something else I've heard good things about is TSR's 2e era Historical Series. I'm hoping this proves true for the Celt's Campaign Sourcebook. The map is still tacked in at the back of the book, which was enough to entice me to go ahead and get it. I still plan on running a weird, Alternate Earth campaign one day, so the Sourcebook and Map may indeed, actually get used!
I thought of Christian while looking through their RPG section, as there were quite a few White Wolf items, including the Changeling rule book and several supplements. The next time I go, I might pick up the Changeling stuff, if it's still there. Even if I never play it, I bet it would be a fun read.
The Creature Catalog is great! I also love the artwork and varied critters within.
ReplyDeleteHi Christian! Yeah, I'm looking forward to reading it.
ReplyDeleteGreyhawk Adventures is really not too bad. Just take off the "...of the..." part of the magic item names, and the proper names off the spells, and you get a lot of really nifty stuff.
ReplyDeleteDamn, I read the New Sun books around the same time you did. Of course, back then I was reading 3-5 books a week... I'm lucky to read the same amount a year these days.
ReplyDeleteI never had a chance to play any Chaosium stuff back in the day. Everyone I gamed with was a TSR fan. This was amplified by the fact that in my primary gaming years were spent as a military brat in West Germany and the PX/BX system was very erratic in the type of gaming material they provided (not much has changed to this day). At any rate, I have always wanted to check out the Elric/Stormbringer/Hawkmoon stuff as Moorcock was by far my favorite author as a kid, but I never knew quite where to start. Good scores BTW.
ReplyDeleteDmed as much Stormbringer as I could back in the day. Good stuff, haevy atmosphere, lethal combat, and demon magic all made it much more visceral than D&D, which has to have a great DM to beat Chaosium IMHO. I preferred the old wonky random chargen rules to the 5e and beyond point buy - I've uploaded them at BRP central if you want to take a look.
ReplyDeleteOf the 2e campaign books, Celts was one of the finest. Between history, druid lore, monsters, and the random background table of perks or drawbacks that really gave that Celtic flavour to characters in our short-lived campaign, it was a memorable resource.
Oh, to have such a store nearby . . .
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the great cache there. I really enjoyed most of the Historical Series too. That's what the supplements were meant to be.
Ciao!
GW
In case you didn't know already, James, I thought that I would mention that the 1st edition of Stormbringer is available in PDF at RPGnow.
ReplyDelete