When I posted my Unboxing Ceremony for the New Black Blade/Usherwood OSRIC imprint, I mistakenly said that they had a new imprint of Monsters of Myth as well.
While Black Blade is currently selling Monsters of Myth, these latter are Lulu printings. Thanks Jon for correcting me, here.
Welcome Back Kotter! :)
I mean, Christian.
Been on Something of a Spending Spree
I've picked up more dead tree gaming stuff in the past six weeks than I think I purchased all last year! This month is my birthday and I'm seriously toying with trying to get a White-Box! If I see the right auction on ebay, I'm going for it!
And Speaking of Grails, I Got one of Mine!
A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across an ebay auction getting ready to end. The high bid was still cheap and I decided it was time! With less than a minute left, I put in my high bid and crossed my fingers. The Gaming Gods smiled upon me and with shipping, I paid just under $30. The Mail Gods soon delivered this 3rd printing of The First Fantasy Campaign!It's in beautiful condition! Almost perfect!
Which means I'm reticent as hell, to handle it! :)
I can't make out the numbers in the map hexes at all. And it's a "magic eye" trick to make out that cover image! It's a dude that looks like Hermes, surrounded in flames. I've read that it's supposed to be a fire elemental.
As for the material itself, it looks like Bob called Dave and said "I wanna publish your campaign world. You've got 48 hours to get it in the mail!" And then, Dave gathered his notes, typed out anything not already typed, organized the pages a bit and mailed it in. In other words, It's Perfect! :)
Prepping for Greyhawk! Some Help from Rob Kuntz
Ooh! Rememeber that Loot! deal I reported on last month? A hell of a deal! With shipping I got all this for $20.98!
Plus a flyer, which looks cool enough that I put it in a cheap wal-mart frame to hang on the wall! The modules were all new & shrinkwrapped! Maze of Zayene #3 has some hard crease issues, but I'm ok with that, considering I got em for a steal! They actually came from Noble Knight, which still has them available for the regular price.
"This epic series of modules was originally written for the World of Greyhawk by Gary Gygax's co-DM Rob Kuntz. Rob Kuntz published credits also include the original "Greyhawk" supplement, "Gods, Demigods & Heroes," "Legends and Lore," "Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure" among others. This series was originally set in the Great Kingdom as the party prepares to assasinate King Ivid the Mad but soon discovers the archmage Xayene is at the root of the King's madness. Soon the characters find themselves desperately trapped in the labyrinthine wake of Xayene's web of deceit.
"After leaving TSR to found Creations Unlimited, Rob Kuntz took this Greyhawk module and transferred it to his own campaign world of Kalibruhn. To protect his work from TSR he changed the game statistics and names, e.g., King Ivid is King Ovar, Xayene is Zayene, etc. All are minor changes that can easily be altered to transport these modules back to their proper setting. The statistic and spell changes are pretty minor and are identical to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in most respects. Indeed, the series claims to be "compatible with the most popular ADVANCED FRP game system(s)" :-) How's that for a thinly veiled reference?
The four Zayene modules are each 32 pages long and from my quick glance through, look really good!
The Garden of the Plantmaster is 72 pages long and doubles as a source-book for "...creating and stocking fantastic gardens and forests." Haven't read this one yet, either, but it looks impressive!
And Speaking of Noble Knight:
Noble Knight Rocks! While some of their prices are a little ka-ching!, many are quite reasonable and when you factor in the excellent service, shipping speed and honest, forthright descriptions, they're often a superior choice to the sometimes irritating ebay game. I ordered this pastel T1 on June 30 and it arrived in my PO box on July 5! Not bad for media mail, over a holiday weekend! It's a solid copy, the only major defect is a name in ink at the bottom of the first booklet page. Which, Noble Knight disclosed on the item's sale page. I was ok with that, though. So, I'm happy with my T1. It's the first pastel module I've ever owned.
With shipping, NK charged me a little less than $25. It would have probably taken me several weeks to beat that price on a decent pastel T1, on ebay. And even then, it probably wouldn't have been by much. Pastel T1's are fairly hot items. The Green Cover ones usually don't go cheap, either and while I haven't followed T1's on ebay for long, they're often suffering from detached inserts and a lot of other defects. T1 modules, in general, seem to have seen a lot of play. I'm not surprised! This is the exact sort of thing I prefer to hunt for on Noble Knight!
Canada Mail is Fast!
Or, it's just those Mail Gods, being nice again. I posted on June 27 about copies of the free DCC Starter on ebay. Got it yesterday, all the way from Canada! The seller still has copies available for $4.99 + 4.00 shipping to the US and Canada. I don't know if that's still the cheapest on ebay. Search for Dungeon Crawl Classic Free RPG Day 2011 Starter and that should take you to game_keeper's item page.
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd rather shell out $8.99 for a print copy than $4.99 for the pdf. And I'm with Drance on this one. I know times are tough, but I think it's kinda bizarre that Goodman Games would charge for this pdf, when everyone else is giving away their Free RPG Day pdf's.
That said, I think it's a snazzy little game book. Definitely worth heading to ebay for, if your local store didn't participate.
I Never Thought I Would be Saying This...
So, 2nd & Charles, the most awesome used bookstore in the multi-verse, sent me a coupon and with said coupon I got these for about $3 each!
Not the most highly regarded 1e HC's but for that price I wasn't going to let them just sit on that shelf! They now have a nice home, sitting cozily with my other AD&D HC's.
And now, I'm hunting ebay for the cheapest, decent copy of The Wilderness Survival Guide I can find. Because, it's the only 1e HC I'm missing and The Collector isn't going to let that sort of thing go!
Some Appendix N type Goodness!
Well, Jack of Shadows is mentioned in Appendix N, anyway. I checked and didn't see C. L. Moore, though she gets a passing mention in Moldvay Basic. And when it comes to Conan pastiches, I recommend John Maddox Roberts over Robert Jordan, any day.
Congrats on your grail!
ReplyDeleteThat's a lovely Grail to own, isn't it? And well done on your other purchases. Thanks to you I managed to snag one of the Dungeon Crawl Classic Free RPG Day 2011 Starters - so cheers :D
ReplyDeleteI can check the dealers at DexCon tomorrow for a copy of the WSG if you want. Just tell me how much I can spend.
ReplyDeleteI can pop it in the mail with that copy of B1 I told you about.
Howdy Joseph! Thanks for the offer, but if I can't get WSG dirt cheap on ebay, then something is very amiss! :) Might take me a few weeks, but I'm patient! And it might have to wait, if I decide I'm serious about bidding on an OD&D box this month.
ReplyDeleteHi bliss! And very cool TAF!
ReplyDeleteNice haul. :)
ReplyDeleteSpoiling your fun is not my intent, who knows the book may be good enough for you, but I have to say The Manual of the Planes is utter shite.
ReplyDeleteI'll take the opportunity to ask you again. Why would you use Osric instead of AD&D?
Hi Kent! Well, it was $3. (Shrug) And like I said, I'm now one book away from having all the 1e HC's. Collecting considerations aside, I may have call to refer to some of the less than stellar entries in the series. Research, bitching about them in a blog post, etc.
ReplyDeleteI missed the first time you asked, apparently. I don't always catch comments if they're a few posts back, so perhaps that's what happened.
Part of it's the whole "promoting the OSR thing." Part of it's wanting to look at the game from a different perspective. Part of it's that I have a player who will be skyping in from Belgium and has never played AD&D. I want him to have quick and easy access to the rules. And I get to use my new OSRIC HC.
On the other hand, I recently said this:
"I'm prepping a Greyhawk campaign, for which I'll be using OSRIC. There is a chance I could get all excited reading the DMG and go with AD&D instead, but that's not my plan.
"Gary's writing in the AD&D rulebooks was a brilliant synergy of fantastic imagination, prose and game mechanics.
"He expressed all that mythological and archetypical lore in such a way that his mechanics created another level of resonance, one not seen in such mediums as film and literature.
"As far as I know, his performance here, has never been matched."
So, I'm likely to end up using Gary Gygax's tomes, instead.
@Trey - Howdy! Thanks! :)
So I guess I'm gonna be reading John Maddox Roberts next...
ReplyDeleteHe's a fun read. :)
ReplyDeleteThree dollars! Knowing what I spent on those books could cry.
ReplyDeleteI am in agreement with Kent here: the MotP is a horrible product with no redeeming qualities, and takes a lot of the fun out of planar adventuring. It is one of the earlier examples of AD&D shovelware - bland rubbish churned out to fill a product slot.
ReplyDeleteAlso, something more general: I recommend that you should list Raven Crowking's blog (http://ravencrowking.blogspot.com/) on the rolls; the man writes a lot of sensible things, and it looks like you have missed him.
@DB - Sorry. :(
ReplyDelete@Melan - Blog added! :)
James, you made a good case for the beauty of this new Osric edition and its certainly a bargain but Ive yet to read an argument *anywhere* for its actual use so the effort seems wasted.
ReplyDeleteCheap as it is new players will find a PHB cheaper on ebay and I seriously doubt there is such a beast as a new DM for AD&D who would discover Osric before he found Gygax' books.
It is possible that some parts of it are interesting or it presents a case for rule interpretation such as for initiative but Ive yet to see attention drawn to any such thing even on the forums. Personally I don't have any space left for useless pretty books.
I like your description of Gygax work.
"Cheap as it is new players will find a PHB cheaper on ebay and I seriously doubt there is such a beast as a new DM for AD&D who would discover Osric before he found Gygax' books."
ReplyDeleteI think OSRIC can serve the purpose of introducing new Players and DM's to the game and there are people out there, who are coming to the older editions through the clones. Also, the day may come when AD&D HC's aren't so easily procured. But...
But, I'm still sorting out the Buts. I've been reading OSRIC for the past few days and I'm beginning to appreciate, just how much was lost in the cloning process.
Nice FFC: happy exploring! :)
ReplyDelete> As for the material itself, it looks like Bob called Dave and said "I wanna publish your campaign world. You've got 48 hours to get it in the mail!" And then, Dave gathered his notes, typed out anything not already typed, organized the pages a bit and mailed it in. In other words, It's Perfect! :)
Not far off - Bill (uncredited, IIRC) and Bob pulled that together, so be careful if you're thinking about taking /every/ last word as being in Dave's original. Still a darn sight closer than Supplement II, of course! :)
=> http://www.acaeum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=116254#116254
Hi irbyz - Yeah, it's sweet! And thanks for the link! :)
ReplyDeleteJames, I checked, and can pick a WSG up for you for $5. Send me an email at joseph at josephbloch dot com tonight or tomorrow, and I am happy to do so for you.
ReplyDeleteAnd perhaps this might be germane to the conversation; I saw a big fat OSRIC book on one of the tables at DexCon today. Someone was using it to run I6: Ravenloft. So it *is* being used out there, Kent. I'm an eyewitness.
Howdy Joseph! Cool OSRIC sighting!
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the offer, but don't worry about the WSG right now. I blew next week's gaming budget on a Noble Knight order, yesterday. :)
I'll get one off ebay, sooner or later.
Wow, I'm super-jealous about FFC, and agree with you about the awesomeness of Noble Knight. Great acquisitions and pics thereof!
ReplyDeleteHi Carter! Yeah! I made another NK order Friday and they sent me a shipping notification the same day! Apparently, they want my business. :)
ReplyDeleteYou've been scoring some awesome stuff lately... and generally on the cheap! KUDOS! I love these posts. Thanks for the add to my new blog...I of course reciprocated.
ReplyDeletepeace,
Jeff
"Retro"