Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes twitter account for the week of November 14th through November 20th.
November 14 “It’s called gagh. It’s a Klingon delicacy, but only when they’re alive.” T’Pol “They look like worms.” Sato “They are worms.” T’Pol- Sleeping Dogs, Date: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
November 15 “I’m immortal again! Omnipotent again!” Q “Swell.” Riker- Deja Q, Stardate: 43539.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
November 16 “Doctor, you are a sensualist.” Spock “You bet your pointed ears I am.” Dr. McCoy- Arena, Stardate: 3045.6 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
November 17 “I’ve been working with sample specimens from a species native to Iota Geminorium IV, tribleustes ventricosus. People call them “Tribbles” for short.” Edward Larkin- The Trouble with Edward, Stardate: 1421.9 #StarTrek #StarTrekShortTreks #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“I am happy to see Spot, and yet I am crying. Perhaps the chip is malfunctioning.” Data “I think it’s working perfectly.” Troi- Star Trek Generations, Stardate: 48650.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“It doesn’t matter what you’re made of. What matters is who you are.” Chakotay- Projections, Stardate: 48892.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“It is not a crime to believe in yourself.” Jadzia Dax- The Quickening, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
November 20 “I think we’re somewhat alike, captain. Each of us cares less about our own safety than for the lives of our command. We feel pain when others suffer for our mistakes.” Rojan- By Any Other Name, Stardate: 4657.5 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“But in this fight, we have lost our way. A new leader is needed to fulfill my lord’s vision. I am that leader.” L’Rell- Will You Take My Hand?, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDiscovery #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
November 8 “Living is making choices.” Picard- A Matter of Time, Stardate: 45349.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Courage doesn’t mean that you don’t have fear. It means that you’ve learned to overcome it.” Paris- Faces, Stardate: 48784.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
November 10 “There is no such thing as the unknown. Only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood.” Kirk- The Corbomite Maneuver, Stardate: 1512.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
November 11 “I’ve been told that people are calling us heroes. When it comes to my crew, you won’t get any argument from me.” Archer- Home, Date: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“What about Rule of Acquisition 203? New customers are like razor-toothed gree worms. They can be succulent, but sometimes they bite back.” Rom- Little Green Men, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
One of the proud geek-dad moments that I have is knowing that my oldest daughter has been playing 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons with her friends for many years now. Even when all of the friends went to different colleges, they found a way to continue the campaign online (when schedules allow). My daughter mentioned that they wanted to get together over winter break and try to have a game. I mentioned that, if they were interested, I’d be willing to run a one-shot game introducing them to one of the old school rules. To my surprise, they accepted.
Oh boy, now what?
The first question I have to tackle is, which rule-set should I use? The only stipulation from the group was “we don’t want to play fourth edition“. I quickly explained that the OSR style are usually something before Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 or 3.5. So I started looking at all of the original and clone books (and PDFs) that I have available to choose from.
Dungeons and Dragons Holmes Basic– One of the earliest games that I’ve got in my library. But I don’t know if the players could find a copy of the rules. I have many memories of looking through this book.
Dungeons and Dragons B/X- This is the game that I cut my teeth on. The rules are available on DriveThruRPG if the players wanted. It is one of the most popular old-school rules.
Dungeons and Dragons Rules Cyclopedia- BECMI was the first set that I owned. Both the Basic red book and the Rules Cyclopedia are available on DTRPG. I would love to introduce this edition to my daughter’s group.
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons- The first edition of the AD&D rules. As I’ve mentioned previously in my blog, my early gaming group would rotate between B/X, BECMI and AD&D depending upon who is running. AD&D does give more options for players and this is an experienced group. But would it be good for a one-shot?
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition- I still have the original player’s handbook for this game from 1989. It is available on DTRPG. It is slightly different from first edition. I’d have to think about this one.
Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game- A big advantage for this retro-clone is that the rules are available for free on their website. It combines some old-school feel with some modernization in the rules that have impressed me. I also like the modular setup so if I wanted to add some additional rules (classes, races, special rules, etc.) I just announce which add-ons the players should look at. This option is very tempting.
White Box: Fantasy Medieval Adventure Game- This is a clone of the original Dungeons and Dragons white box. I picked up a POD copy of this game earlier this year. But it is also available on DTRPG for free. This would be a learning experience for both of us if this game is selected.
Castles and Crusades- I had a chance to make a character for this system in the Character Creation Challenge and it impressed me. I’m not certain about a one shot, but I’d love to play this game in a campaign.
There are also quite a few other retro-clones that I haven’t mentioned. I didn’t want to go through my entire collection, but there are a several other options as well.
The next question I need to decide is: do I want to have the players experience the character creation of the selected OSR? We are playing in person and will only have 4-7 hours of gaming time. I could easily create several characters for them to choose from. But I remember rolling up characters all of the time in my early years. If I have the players create their own characters, I want to be available to answer questions. I may set up an online session zero to create the characters so we can spend most of the in-person time actually playing.
And finally, what scenario should I select? With this being a one-shot I could easily run one of the many modules that are out there. I have memories of The Keep on the Borderland, but could I fit it into the time allotted? I modified the adventure, The Jade Hare, when my nephew wanted an introduction session to Dungeons and Dragons. I’m really leaning towards a published module. If this was an actual campaign, I might consider more of a homebewed world.
So what system and one-shot module would you use to introduce some experienced 5E players to OSR? Pre-make the characters or have the players experience OSR character creation styles? While I’m leaning in the direction of a few options, I’m still open to suggestions. Feel free to shoot me ideas to Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com.
Yes, there will be several follow up posts on this event. I would like to keep you informed. Stay tuned.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes twitter account for the week of October 31st through November 6th.
October 31 “Captain, I’m reading bio-signs on the planet. To quote Dr. Frankenstein, ‘It’s alive.'” T’Pol- Horizon, Date: January 10, 2153 #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
November 1 “I made an error in my computations.” Spock “Oh? This could be an historic occasion.” Dr. McCoy- Tomorrow is Yesterday, Stardate: 3113.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
November 2 “Perhaps if you indulged in a brief rest period you would be able to approach this problem with a fresh point of view.” Data- Identity Crisis, Stardate: 44664.5 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
November 3 “I will never cease to be amazed by the human capacity for hyperbole.” Tuvok- Parallax, Stardate: 48439.7 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
November 4 “We cannot allow any race as greedy and corruptible as yours to have free run of the galaxy.” Norman- I Mudd, Stardate: 4513.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“The riskier the road, the greater the profit.” (62nd Rule of Acquisition) Quark- Little Green Men, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
November 6 “Life is like loading twice your cargo weight on to your spacecraft. If it’s canaries and you can keep half of them flying all the time, you’re all right.” Okona- The Outrageous Okona, Stardate: 42402.7 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
I believe this was the third-edition of the GURPS rules. I don’t recall much about the rules other than all of the adding and subtracting I had to do in order to create a character. I was playing with a group of friends that I had in my early 20’s that enjoyed geeky things. I bump into one of those friends every once in a while. Another friend is a person who, I believe, ended up trading a lot of my early Dungeons and Dragons stuff with. Looking back, I wonder what would have happened if I had kept more of that stuff?
The character is David O’Shey. The campaign was set in the 1990’s and we were all characters from different backgrounds. Mine was a gun-smuggler for the Irish Republican Army. Why? I don’t recall exactly. I think I just needed something and I didn’t want to make someone from the UK or US who had a reputation with guns and a shady background. Looking at the date I noted down, this was the second GURPS character I had created. The first was used/planned for a sci-fi campaign. The adventures that David went on involved running into cultists who were trying to use blood sacrifices to bring some other-world entity to this planet/realm. We were not aware of this at the start of the campaign, I so I think we all prepped for some sort of paramilitary style campaign. We ended up putting aside our differences to counter this evil threat. The GURPS character sheets at the time had a basic outline for a character image that you could fill in to represent your character. The gun I tried to draw was the MAC-10. I’m sure that I had been inspired by it’s use in various shows.
“Ru’afo, we’re getting too old for this.” Picard “After today, that won’t be a problem… for either of us.” Ru’afo- Star Trek: Insurrection, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 25 “Diplomats! The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank!” Scotty- A Taste of Armageddon, Stardate: 3192.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“That feeling you get from healing someone – infectious, isn’t it?” The Doctor- Critical Care, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Have you ever flown a ship before?!” Jankom “No! Does it show?” Zero- Lost and Found, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekProdigy #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 29 “Something about us compels us to learn, explore.” Riker- Hide and Q, Stardate: 41590.5 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“How did you get in here?” Odo “I am Koloth.” Koloth “That doesn’t answer my question.” Odo “Yes, it does.” Koloth- Blood Oath, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October appears to be Spocktober for Pocket Books. There are a large number of Spock-centric ebooks that are for sale 99 cents each. This is a good way to build up a reading library without taking up a ton of shelf space. I’ve been using these sales to do that exactly. Links to the sales are listed below.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes twitter account for the week of October 17th through October 23rd.
October 17 “You’re in command now. The crew’s looking to you for guidance.” Troi- Gambit, Part I, Stardate: 47135.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 18 “We can admit that we’re killers, but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes.” Kirk- A Taste of Armageddon, Stardate 3192.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 19 “The point is it’s not up to me or you to decide. It’s her life and her decision.” Sisko- Equilibrium, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 20 “You’re re-examining your core beliefs. Something most people never do.” Dr. Phlox- Daedalus, Date: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 21 “I’m a civilized abductor, Captain Picard. Civilized… but still dangerous.” Moriarty- Elementary, Dear Data, Stardate: 42286.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Qapla'” (the first use of the Klingon word for success) Kruge- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Stardate: 8210.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 23 “There’s an ancient Chinese curse, Captain—“May you live in interesting times.” Mealtime is always interesting now that Neelix is in the kitchen.” Kim- The Cloud, Stardate: 48546.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
So 99% of the time, the online ads shown to me are worthless. I’ve grown accustom to placing them on a mental auto-ignore. But every once in a blue moon, an advertisement actually shows something that might interest me. One advertisement popped up for North to South Gaming, a family run business out of Texas, that was advertising free dice. Well, free for the product. They asked for help covering the cost of shipping which was reasonable. In return, they would be sending a random sample of two dice sets. A regular size and a mini-sized set both made with acrylic. They arrived in a package that looked like this.
This is the logo of North to South Gaming. The box itself was very well packed. The interior contents were protected and did not arrive with any damage. The glass tube the that the mini-dice came in had some bubble wrap around it as well. It also didn’t take very long to arrive. However with the holiday season quickly approaching, If you are thinking of ordering any, I’d recommend doing it sooner rather than later to avoid any delays.
This is a close up of the very nice glass tube with the North to South Designs logo. There is a cork that is used to keep the dice inside. The photo may not due the color justice to how the mini-dice look. The color of this set was an off-pink. Some of the numbers didn’t really stand out very well against the dull background. It may have been the light in my office, causing the numbers to blend in with the die. I don’t see myself using this set very often. However, in all fairness, I’m not a big fan of mini-dice. The last set of mini-dice that I picked up, I ended up losing a die or two fairly quickly. As I was handling this set, I was worried that I’d accidentally drop one and never find it again. Especially since I have two cats that like to knock the shinny clicky-clack sounding things around to the dark corners where they hide all of their “toys”.
The mystery dice arrived in a wrapped package covered with gaming sayings. My daughter liked reading the different phrases. She believes that they may have come from one of the online RPG group videos.
Inside was a plastic box (again with the logo) with a very nice set of blue-green sparkly gaming dice. I did not see any defects on this set. On the photo above, it looks like there is something just below the “18”, however that may have been from the plastic box. On the D20 itself, there is no mark. I was really impressed with this mystery set. I could see myself using this at an upcoming gaming convention that I plan to attend in early 2023. I am a little worried that the box itself may get crushed in my massive dice bag, so I may keep this set separate until the con.
Here are the two sets in a side-by-side comparison. This photo was taken in a different room than my office and without a flash. The photos that I had taken with the flash seemed to blur out the numbers on the smaller set. So again it might be a lighting issue there. When I compared the mini-dice with my surviving members of the last set, the older set had no problems with the numbers being read. I also compared the larger set with my Chessex set and my Dollar Tree set. The NTSD set was the same size and weight as my previously purchased sets. When I did my few test rolls, the randomness was present.
If you are looking to support a small business, I could highly recommend the mystery set. If you are good with mini-dice, you probably won’t go wrong with this company as well. There are several other sets of dice available from different materials and colors that looked interesting as well. Let me know if you picked up a set and what you thought.
Why no new posts last week? I was in training having this done.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes twitter account for the week of October 10th through October 16th.
October 10 “Remember the course in ancient history at Starfleet Academy? About the time when men still believed the Earth was flat?” Riker “Mm, and that the sun revolved around it.” Picard- Where Silence has Lease, Stardate: 42193.6 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 11 “I hope I’m not disturbing you, Doctor.” Spock “Interrupting another autopsy report is no disturbance, Mister Spock. It’s a relief.” Dr. McCoy- Obession, Stardate: 3619.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 12 “Where are you running to?! This is Bajor. We are Bajorans. We fought a war to regain our homeland. How can you abandon it like frightened Cardassian vole?” Li Nalas- The Siege, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 13 “Let me guess… no ghost stories on Vulcan?” Tucker- Strange New World, Date: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 14 “There may be a correlation between humor and sex. The need for more research is clearly indicated.” Data- Data’s Day, Stardate: 44390.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend.” Romulan Commander- Balance of Terror, Stardate: 1709.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 16 “No, Captain. When I say tomorrow, I mean tomorrow. I don’t exaggerate. Tomorrow is the best I can do.” Torres- State of Flux, Stardate: 48658.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
