Grand return.

This is my first post in a long while which is of no surprise of course as I have always been notoriously lazy with updating blogs. Hopefully that will change and this blog will be filled up with my late night, brain-dead ramblings and nonsense. One can dream!

Since my last post I have been playing in a lot more Constant Con/Flainsnail games on Google Plus and I have been loving every second of it. The G+ RPG community has been great overall and I've yet to play a game that I haven't had fun in. Everyone has been really nice and quite accommodating to new players (such as me!).

Drawing of our last DCC session

Claytonian's DCC campaign has continued to be my weekly highlight as we meet up every Monday evening to play using Roll20 which has worked it extremely well especially after they added Google Hangout support. I can't put in words how useful and simple Roll20 with Hangouts is, I've found that since we've started using it we've been able to do a lot more in our 2 hour sessions as battles and exploration have been greatly simplified. Getting back to the Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign, it remains consistently fun despite the loss of a few characters now (all mine), an influx of players dropping in and out and the party finding itself getting sidetracked. Claytonian continues to keep us on our toes though! Despite the party tending to find ourselves to scared to finish a dungeon and abandoning it in manly fear, he always has something else waiting for us.Two other favourites of mine would easily have to be Trent B's New Feierland and after an initial game that I played last night, Reynaldo's Barovania.

Typical Feierlander

I'll begin by praising Trent B on his horrible creation. I've had a few characters meet terrible deaths in this setting (Including Steve the Amazing the first PC I ever loved) but not once have I felt cheated. Trent isn't what I'd consider an evil DM, he just enjoys seeing us all in pain. Feierland is a harsh and unforgiving setting where pretty much everything is dangerous. I really can't get enough of it, despite the overtly depressing theme of life in New Feierland and the eventual bloody death my character shall receive. If you were to actually try to survive in Feierland it is of course possible, but where's the fun in that? Trent B encourages stupid and courages actions from PCs, giving them XP rewards for terrible plans and memorable moments which really helps in getting everyone to go crazy.

Barovania.

Barovania is the setting that I wish I made. To put it simply, Barovania is a mix of 80s Nintendo (Mostly Castlevania obviously), Ravenloft and a big ol' bucket of Awesomesauce. Reynaldo is a great DM and seems to have no problem working with whatever crazy schemes the PCs get up to. The use of NES tropes and occasional videogame cameo/reference are what really makes this setting stand out to me. I'd love to have more to say about Barovania (and hopefully I will soon) but having only played one session I don't really have much to write, apart from the fact that I simply cannot wait to return.


I love G+

Wizard Rap

Haven't updated in a while (sorry!) so I better get the world wide webiverse up to date with day-to-day occurrences. I picked up the new Ipad a few days ago which is so boss. I've been loading it up with comics and PDFs and it has been amazing to read with. Should be getting the Dungeon Crawler Classic PDF sometime soon which will be a treat to read. Once again I am STILL procrastinating about DMing a game, but for some reason I'm feeling really nervous about it.

Game of Thrones season 2 has started! I haven't watched the first episode yet, but the anticipation is there. I'm just waiting for the right night to be able to kick back and appreciate the badassery. Not much else to write about really, so I'll keep it short.

My thought as of late: ME3 ending sucked, Walking Dead season 2 was great, Legend of Grimlock looks cool, I love Netflix, still addicted to Pepsi Max and Wrestlemania was awesome.

AD&D

Chang!

Finally got all my AD&D 1E books in the mail and am watching the associated Community episode to celebrate. Now I just need to be bothered to start reading through them all. Hopefully I feel confident enough to run the adventure I keep claiming I will do, albeit with some house rules (eg. ascending armour class). Time will tell!

Look what arrived in the mail..

Holmes Basic Set

It took over 3 weeks to arrive but much to my delight it is finally in my grubby little hands. I also got dungeon modules B1: In Search of the Unknown (included in the set) and X1: Isle of Dread. Planning on picking up B2 Keep on the Borderlands at G1-3 from Tactics sometime soon. Exciting times ahead!!

Sunday Night Update!

Doug loves blog posts

So it's Sunday night and I am sitting at a dinner table on my laptop whilst my beautiful Tanya is studying for her test tomorrow. On the eve of my final weekend before I return to uni I have come to the realisation that I had accomplished nothing that I had set out for myself to do during my summer break. Although that sounds bad my goals were pretty pointless:

1. Complete every Zelda game
2. Finally complete MGS
3. Become slightly less awesome

Although none of them have been done yet (damn you MGS!!) I still had a pretty good holiday. Rediscovering my love for pen and paper games, I DMed my very first adventure....it was a disaster, but an enjoyable one. I had picked up the Pathfinder beginners box to run for a workmate and his friends who seemed to actually enjoy the game despite me constantly having to try and figure out the mechanics (lots of book referencing). I did enjoy being the DM though, I just didn't enjoy Pathfinder. I've played 4E and 3.5 in the past and even though I do enjoy playing them, at times I feel suffocated by all the mechanics. My discovery of the OSR and eventually joining my DCC group is the highlight of my summer.

In other news St Patrick's day is coming up! I plan to once again get blindly drunk and listen to way too much Dropkick Murphys. Also looking to give Binary Domain a play, that games seems like all the right kinds of crazy. I'm awaiting the arrival of the Holmes basic box in the mail along with the core AD&D 1E books which has me insanely excited. Until Dungeon Crawl Classics actually releases (pre-ordering foil cover this week) I plan on being lost in these books.

Galaxy Foamposite

Want.

Lazy, lazy post.

Haven't updated in a while which is a bit of a disappointment, but I really haven't had anything to write about! I've continued to play Dungeon Crawler Classic RPG on Monday nights with some people from Japan and it has been extremely fun. The combination of a great game along with great people  has me constantly counting down till Monday nights. I'm once again getting the itch to try and DM a game and it seems like I am probably going to give in. Still contemplating on what system I am going to use as I have the AD&D 1E core books coming in the mail but I am also thoroughly enjoying DCC RPG and am becoming quite familiar with the system. The Adventurer Conqueror King System is also on the cards but I still haven't finished reading through it.

My DCC Character