- Part 1: Copyrightability of #RPG Stat Blocks #DnD #copyright #iplaw
- Part 2: Copyrightability of #RPG Abilities and Spells #DnD #copyright #iplaw
- Part 3: The Damage Done by the Otherwise Ineffectual Open Gaming License #DnD #copyright #iplaw #ogl
- Part 3.5: A Mild Retraction That Makes Matters Worse for #WotC #DnD #copyright #iplaw #ogl
- Part 4: FAQ/FRI #DnD #copyright #iplaw #ogl
Friday, January 17, 2020
Best of the Web - The OGL Legalities
A blog called Frylock's Gaming & Geekery has a series of posts on problems with the OGL. I'm not a lawyer but its some fascinating reading and I hope he continues until his legal battles with WotC is over.
Thursday, January 16, 2020
For the Love of Maps
I need a break from cleaning up village maps and thought I'd do something slightly different.
I've always loved maps. When I went hiking as a kid I'd stare at the topomaps, when I went to Disneyland or another theme park I'd obsess over the map. I saw beauty in dungeon maps when I started playing Holmes back in the day and one of my first 'real' jobs was at a mapping company and I actually brought up D&D and the various maps during the interview.
When I was young I could draw pretty well, as the decades rolled on drawing morphed into photoshop and my hand-eye skills changed (I'm hoping to rebuild that skill with practice). So for most of the stuff on this site it's recycled Public Domain stuff from long, long, long ago.
Exterior maps are where I'm going with this, more specifically regional maps. I loved Darlenes map of Greyhawk so much I framed it and put it on my wall. It was a great large scale map with a sense of balance and beauty. I didn't like the slavish devotion to the hex standard though and it covered way to much area in insufficient detail but that was the DIY attitude of early TSR. Then I ran into Harn by Columbia games and their maps were amazing. Realistic but without going into the topo-lines that give me too much of a modern/sci-fi vibe. I framed Harn and put it up as well (and Ivania and others). But the kind of maps I found years later searching about on the internet were Hachure maps and Poetic Maps.
Hachure maps, are one of the earliest styles of topographical maps, before they settled on lines to show the vertical topography every x feet, instead they used lines that somewhat mimicked the verticals in a less accurate more stylized way. Although from post-renaissance in nature these maps feel they could have been drawn during the medieval period. They show most things without having to resort to symbols.
Poetic Maps (the term used by Columbia Games, I don't know the accurate name) date back even further. These are maps that draw out what you would see. They don't really need a legend as a hill looks like a hill, and a river like a river. The best known example would be the Middle Earth map. These can be hideous but I find most to be somewhat beautiful. Most maps created in the medieval period and the renaissance are Poetic maps. Most were done using metal etchings that could then be used to print books and occasionally they'd be colorized afterwards. The internet is full of badly colorized versions but the underlying maps are beautiful.
So doing my own maps I've been trying to settle on a style Ptolemy. Topographic maps were out as they were too modern. Harn style were difficult to get right, I'm too sloppy for that. I found a ton of Hachure maps and Poetic Maps and vacillate back and forth over which I prefer. It's likely I'll go with one style for one campaign world and the other for another, giving a very different feel to each. But which to spend time on now?
I've always loved maps. When I went hiking as a kid I'd stare at the topomaps, when I went to Disneyland or another theme park I'd obsess over the map. I saw beauty in dungeon maps when I started playing Holmes back in the day and one of my first 'real' jobs was at a mapping company and I actually brought up D&D and the various maps during the interview.
When I was young I could draw pretty well, as the decades rolled on drawing morphed into photoshop and my hand-eye skills changed (I'm hoping to rebuild that skill with practice). So for most of the stuff on this site it's recycled Public Domain stuff from long, long, long ago.
Exterior maps are where I'm going with this, more specifically regional maps. I loved Darlenes map of Greyhawk so much I framed it and put it on my wall. It was a great large scale map with a sense of balance and beauty. I didn't like the slavish devotion to the hex standard though and it covered way to much area in insufficient detail but that was the DIY attitude of early TSR. Then I ran into Harn by Columbia games and their maps were amazing. Realistic but without going into the topo-lines that give me too much of a modern/sci-fi vibe. I framed Harn and put it up as well (and Ivania and others). But the kind of maps I found years later searching about on the internet were Hachure maps and Poetic Maps.
 |
| Hachure map |
Hachure maps, are one of the earliest styles of topographical maps, before they settled on lines to show the vertical topography every x feet, instead they used lines that somewhat mimicked the verticals in a less accurate more stylized way. Although from post-renaissance in nature these maps feel they could have been drawn during the medieval period. They show most things without having to resort to symbols.
Poetic Maps (the term used by Columbia Games, I don't know the accurate name) date back even further. These are maps that draw out what you would see. They don't really need a legend as a hill looks like a hill, and a river like a river. The best known example would be the Middle Earth map. These can be hideous but I find most to be somewhat beautiful. Most maps created in the medieval period and the renaissance are Poetic maps. Most were done using metal etchings that could then be used to print books and occasionally they'd be colorized afterwards. The internet is full of badly colorized versions but the underlying maps are beautiful.
So doing my own maps I've been trying to settle on a style Ptolemy. Topographic maps were out as they were too modern. Harn style were difficult to get right, I'm too sloppy for that. I found a ton of Hachure maps and Poetic Maps and vacillate back and forth over which I prefer. It's likely I'll go with one style for one campaign world and the other for another, giving a very different feel to each. But which to spend time on now?
Friday, January 10, 2020
Best of the Web - The Ultimate Heresy, One Pages, Healing Potions
I stumbled across an old post called The Ultimate Heresy in which the Grumpy Old Troll thinks about using Middle Earth in a role playing game. This got me thinking how it could be fun to have a party of adventurers sent out from Rivendell with the intent to fake Sauron. This would probably be a suicide mission and they'd know that of course. Since they are to draw the eye of Sauron day from the Fellowship the party would need at least one Hobbit and they'd be forced to avoid the path taken by the Fellowship. Since the path of the Fellowship is so well known and the rest of Middle Earth less known you could even plop down the map and tell the players to pick a route. Do they want the Eagles to take them East to draw the eye of Sauron that way? Elrond can arrange that. Do they want a ride down south of Gondor in an Elven ship, well Elrond can arrange that as well. I think it could be a lot of fun.
Also digging through the depths of the OSR I found a post by Methods & Madness about One Page Rules (or: Taking a page from other people's books) in which the site owner Eric Diaz discusses creating rules so that they are one-pagers (the way James V. West at Doomslakers does). How doing this facilitates folks compiling their own book of house rules. I've thought something similar when it comes to bestiaries. See the 2E monstrous compendium had the idea of using a three-ring binder so you could compile a unique bestiary but they had monsters on front and back which screwed up the concept. With PDF you don't need to worry about that sort of thing.
Of course this reminds me of the 1-page dungeon contest and now I've dug up the Sea of O'SR from back in February 2011 (before I'd even heard about the OSR) which challenges folks to make an island n 3-hours. This would a DM to cobble together an archipelago as necessary. Looks like they tossed around the idea of a non-real-roady adventure path but I haven't seen any evidence that got further than the interesting idea stage. Something in me loves these short contained bits of RPG goodness.
Gothridge Manor posts A Take on Healing Potions which describes two types of healing potions, one that is natural plant-based and less effective one that is more magical and more like what we expect from a healing potion. I really like this and will probably build it into my own Fantasy Heartbreaker as my game will need healing and the non-magical healing makes a low magic campaign less deadly.
Also digging through the depths of the OSR I found a post by Methods & Madness about One Page Rules (or: Taking a page from other people's books) in which the site owner Eric Diaz discusses creating rules so that they are one-pagers (the way James V. West at Doomslakers does). How doing this facilitates folks compiling their own book of house rules. I've thought something similar when it comes to bestiaries. See the 2E monstrous compendium had the idea of using a three-ring binder so you could compile a unique bestiary but they had monsters on front and back which screwed up the concept. With PDF you don't need to worry about that sort of thing.
Of course this reminds me of the 1-page dungeon contest and now I've dug up the Sea of O'SR from back in February 2011 (before I'd even heard about the OSR) which challenges folks to make an island n 3-hours. This would a DM to cobble together an archipelago as necessary. Looks like they tossed around the idea of a non-real-roady adventure path but I haven't seen any evidence that got further than the interesting idea stage. Something in me loves these short contained bits of RPG goodness.
Gothridge Manor posts A Take on Healing Potions which describes two types of healing potions, one that is natural plant-based and less effective one that is more magical and more like what we expect from a healing potion. I really like this and will probably build it into my own Fantasy Heartbreaker as my game will need healing and the non-magical healing makes a low magic campaign less deadly.
Friday, January 3, 2020
Best of the Web - Scrapbook DMG, New Editions to Blogroll, Campaign Calendar
Hunting through the dark reaches of the internet I found a nice compilation post by Ice and Ruin called Scrapbook DMG. It's a bunch of great links that I would like to just copy directly into this post but that seems like more effort than I'd like and seems a bit cheezy.
A decided to add two new additions to my blogroll. The first is Alex Schroeder who's archives I've been digging through lately. His isn't a standard blog but it works out the same anyway. I find his posts entertaining and some of his tools are extremely useful. Since I've had him bookmarked for months I figure I might as well add him to the roll. That and he handles the Old School RPG Planet and RPG Planet which are my number one and two go to RPG sites at the moment.
The second addition to the blogroll is Bearded Devil run by Jonathan Newell. I don't know how or when I stumbled across Bearded Devil but he runs an urban crawl game and posts lots of pictures of his maps and I love his artistic style. Recently he put a product called Genial Jack (Called Gentle Jack at least once inside the book) for sale at DriveThru. The thing is a bit odd if you ask me, but its also amazing. Its one of those products that I would never use as is but which get the creative juices running and which I'll pick apart and use bit by bit.
Evlyn Moreau of le Chaudron Chromatique has a post on Fantasy Calendars that has a beautiful sample of a fantasy calendar. I love the choice of white text on black and the way it balances with her playful art. Her style reminds me a lot of Bearded Devil's style with very tight pen&ink linework. Anyway I posted a comment on the link so I won't repeat here.
A decided to add two new additions to my blogroll. The first is Alex Schroeder who's archives I've been digging through lately. His isn't a standard blog but it works out the same anyway. I find his posts entertaining and some of his tools are extremely useful. Since I've had him bookmarked for months I figure I might as well add him to the roll. That and he handles the Old School RPG Planet and RPG Planet which are my number one and two go to RPG sites at the moment.
The second addition to the blogroll is Bearded Devil run by Jonathan Newell. I don't know how or when I stumbled across Bearded Devil but he runs an urban crawl game and posts lots of pictures of his maps and I love his artistic style. Recently he put a product called Genial Jack (Called Gentle Jack at least once inside the book) for sale at DriveThru. The thing is a bit odd if you ask me, but its also amazing. Its one of those products that I would never use as is but which get the creative juices running and which I'll pick apart and use bit by bit.
Evlyn Moreau of le Chaudron Chromatique has a post on Fantasy Calendars that has a beautiful sample of a fantasy calendar. I love the choice of white text on black and the way it balances with her playful art. Her style reminds me a lot of Bearded Devil's style with very tight pen&ink linework. Anyway I posted a comment on the link so I won't repeat here.
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
New Year, but not a year old yet
I re-read my Initial post from Feb last year and realized I said I'd publish maps and I really haven't done that. I've covered a lot of territory, some of it pretty dull stuff, some of it along the lines of thinking aloud. I think now it's time to start publishing a few maps.
I think I'll start with village maps. Back in the day I used Homlet (T1) and Orlane (N1) again and again whenever I needed a village. Then Harn came along and provided a dozen or so villages which was nice. Still, you can never have enough villages so I've decided I'll clean up a few real village maps I found, include a trio of NPC for each.
For the maps I'll use the footprints of 3-Bay Hall House, Open Hall House, Saxon Hovel, and an Open Hall house with Eves.
I expect I'll eventually publish the villages when I have 20 or so. At that point I'll add the interior maps to the things to create detailed GMs maps that I figure will be super-useful for GMs. It'll be somewhat like the City State of the Invincible Overlord. I'm not sure how I'll deal with upper stories. Upper stories aren't used that much but they'd be nice to have. Perhaps I'll draw up a few and number them, then I can indicate somehow which ones apply.
Also the question comes up about deities and temples. It's an impossible problem so I'll just make them generic. Cult of Law is a monotheistic diety which as the name indicates is Lawful and so I assume good at the sort of political maneuvering that eventually leads to them gaining power and displacing competition. Also the Old Faith which is more of a pantheon of the Celtic variety, that is one with a horde of deities handled by a single priesthood be they Druids or Priests. I refer to them as Priestesses throughout but all of this will be generic enough to be adapted as necessary.
I think I'll start with village maps. Back in the day I used Homlet (T1) and Orlane (N1) again and again whenever I needed a village. Then Harn came along and provided a dozen or so villages which was nice. Still, you can never have enough villages so I've decided I'll clean up a few real village maps I found, include a trio of NPC for each.
For the maps I'll use the footprints of 3-Bay Hall House, Open Hall House, Saxon Hovel, and an Open Hall house with Eves.
I expect I'll eventually publish the villages when I have 20 or so. At that point I'll add the interior maps to the things to create detailed GMs maps that I figure will be super-useful for GMs. It'll be somewhat like the City State of the Invincible Overlord. I'm not sure how I'll deal with upper stories. Upper stories aren't used that much but they'd be nice to have. Perhaps I'll draw up a few and number them, then I can indicate somehow which ones apply.
Also the question comes up about deities and temples. It's an impossible problem so I'll just make them generic. Cult of Law is a monotheistic diety which as the name indicates is Lawful and so I assume good at the sort of political maneuvering that eventually leads to them gaining power and displacing competition. Also the Old Faith which is more of a pantheon of the Celtic variety, that is one with a horde of deities handled by a single priesthood be they Druids or Priests. I refer to them as Priestesses throughout but all of this will be generic enough to be adapted as necessary.
Friday, December 27, 2019
Blog Policies: A Word From Ronald Reagan
Ronal Reagan had a policy now known as the Eleventh Commandment. Basically the policy is that as a Republican he would not speak ill of other Republicans.
The policy of this blog is similar except replace the term Republican with RPG blogger.
We are all playing Elf games. I do not believe there is any right or wrong way to play Elf games. There might be ways that we find more entertaining than other ways but in all likelihood someone else has the opposite opinion so there is no point arguing about it. Put out your version and hope to win in the arena of ideas, debate fine points, but don't make it personal.
There are toxic folk in the RPG blog world, there is no question of that, but you won't hear me bash them as I'd rather promote role playing than tear down others who also might be promoting role playing, even if they are flawed, nasty, use straw men to win debates or whatever. It's possible such folks might drive new gamers away, but that's not really my decision to make. I'm not the RPG gatekeeper so I'll step aside and let those potential new gamers figure things out on their own.
At least that's the policy, only time will tell if it lasts.
The policy of this blog is similar except replace the term Republican with RPG blogger.
We are all playing Elf games. I do not believe there is any right or wrong way to play Elf games. There might be ways that we find more entertaining than other ways but in all likelihood someone else has the opposite opinion so there is no point arguing about it. Put out your version and hope to win in the arena of ideas, debate fine points, but don't make it personal.
There are toxic folk in the RPG blog world, there is no question of that, but you won't hear me bash them as I'd rather promote role playing than tear down others who also might be promoting role playing, even if they are flawed, nasty, use straw men to win debates or whatever. It's possible such folks might drive new gamers away, but that's not really my decision to make. I'm not the RPG gatekeeper so I'll step aside and let those potential new gamers figure things out on their own.
At least that's the policy, only time will tell if it lasts.
Friday, December 13, 2019
Thoughts on Blogger Comments
Jeff's Gameblog had a post about the Zak situation called re: Zak and the post got me thinking about a number of things so I thought I'd put them together. Note that this post has nothing really to do with the Zak issue per say, and I mention Zak has been accused of this or that a number of times below. This is not an indicate that I believe/disbelieve such claims but I can understand them as a rational for behaviors if others believed them. As the title says its about how the comments system on Blogger works.
- Anonymous comments as handled by Blogger are lame. Normally I'm not a fan of anonymous comments at all but folks have accused Zak of going after folks so i can see how it might be a protective thing. Having said that Blogger needs a way to separate out the Anonymous comments from each other. Anonymous_1, Anonymous_2, or Anonymous_Black, and Anonymous_Blue. Anything so that we can tell its different people.
- Creating sock-puppet accounts is lame. In this case Zak was accused of doing the same in the past on Reddit, and a few of the comments were actually funny, but that's besides the point. I'm not sure if Blogger should/can do anything about this issue but people shouldn't do it.
- Blogger really isn't very good at tracking the number of comments or highlighting which ones are new. The number of comments on that one post keep going up (although slower now) but I haven't been able to find anything new in some time. Blogger needs a way to make new comments stand out so folks can go directly to what is new. Even if the new stuff is at the end it would be helpful to know where you left off the night before.
- Like/Dislike button. Blogger really needs like/dislike buttons so folks can agree even if they have nothing additional to say. Zak has been accused of going after people for liking posts he didn't like. I don't know the truth of that but others could do so so it might be a problem. Blogger should allow only allow non-anonymous folk to like/dislike and should keep the names anonymous, just the numbers.
- Zak had some kind of response to all of this on his own page. he set down some rules and deletes any comments that don't follow said rules. Also, there is no way for anyone else to know if he's being honest about only deleting folks that follow the rules. I understand the intent, but it seems that nobody is following the rules so he's have a conversation with himself over there. I've been on sites before where anyone that got deleted had their post shifted to sort of a garbage dump thread That way they didn't hose up the works but were also readable. I think blogger should add such an option.
- An anonymous person mentioned my blog in a positive way in the comments. That drove 60 page views yesterday and 10 today so far. I've done zero to advertise this blog so far beyond the Blogger About page that links to my name in posts so these new views stand out. I haven't even linked the blog so that it shows up at the bottom of posts. I was expecting to list it on Old School RPG Planet in January when I have enough content to make the place worth poking around, but that's 2020. I was currently in a rather dull progression through the Pathfinder beasts and had decided they are 90% garbage so folks that came over for a glance were looking at some of the worst stuff so it'll be interesting if anyone comes back.
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