Cover to the dead tree version of Star Trek: The Fall: The Crimson Shadow
I love reading the Star Trek novels. As you can see from the photo above I have a lot of books on the shelves (I need to get them organized). I’ve been trying to catch up on my reading, but that time is often rare. Lately I’ve discovered that if I have soft copies of books and comics I can pull them upon with the Kindle app on my Fire tablet at any time. When I purchase the Star Wars comics, they come with a code I can put into their website and get digital copies of the books that get imported into Kindle. When I reviewed the first Star Trek: Picard novel “Last Best Hope”, I read it on my tablet. I was able to highlight great quotes and tidbits that I might want to look up later.
Owning a large number of the dead tree versions of the books makes me very hesitant to re-buy electronic versions of books. But I love finding items that I could pick up at a bargain price. Pocket Books has been running a special sale on a handful of Star Trek novels each month for 99 cents each. Some months Amazon would even give me a $1.00 credit if I selected certain shipping options on other purchases. There were several months I already had 3-5 bucks in credit waiting when the next month rolled around. Free books baby.
So while there was one Star Trek book that I still refused to buy (another topic for another blog post later) I’ve been gathering my eBook copies of various titles. This has helped me build up a library of books to read when time allows. Even if I’ve read the book before in the dead tree version, there are still a few that I like to re-visit.
Here are the books that are on the 99 cent sale for May 2022 which includes several sets.
Feel free to tell me which book you picked up so we can compare notes about them later. I’m interested in seeing if others thought of the books in the same way that I have.
A few days ago the independent TTRPG designer @TitanomachyRPG, asked on Twitter “Biggest turn-off when checking out a new #TTRPG?” While I gave a response to the post, I kept thinking about the question. I felt that it needed more than a quick jumble of words that fit into 240 characters. When I see a role playing game on the shelf at my favorite gaming store or online at DriveThruRPG, what makes me think that I should or should not pick it up?
Not only did I think about it, I pulled a few books down to find both good and bad examples. I collect the books, both in physical and PDF style. I love seeing the different styles and systems. When I open a role playing game, I see opportunity. Opportunity for creativity, adventure and an escape from this crappy world we live in. However since I have limited time, limited shelf space and limited funds, sometimes I have to stop myself from purchases. So when contemplating a purchase what am I considering? What turn-offs will make me not want to purchase a game?
First, am I currently playing (or plan to soon play) the game in question? Unfortunately, I am not playing a lot of role playing games right now. This is something I hope to remedy soon. Also am I planning to homebrew for the system? Right now I’m trying to homebrew for the various Star Trek RPGs so I’ve been trying to pick up the various Star Trek Adventures books and other Trek-based systems when the funds allow it. Yes, the cost of the game will make or break a purchase decision. There are several games that I’d like to pick up, but the price is a little beyond my reach. I’m also a bargain hunter, so finding an opportunity to save will help greatly in pulling the trigger. A lot of times the Bundle of Holding, Humble Bundle or DriveThruRPG Deal of the Day have offered me inexpensive options to pick up some titles in PDF version. Sales can often be found at game stores, conventions and online for the dead tree versions. Every once in a while, I can luck out and find a game at a thrift store. That is how I found the Holmes version of Dungeons and Dragons at a very good price. Now this doesn’t mean that I won’t pay full price for a book, but the higher the price, the more I’m putting it off (or using a gift card for it).
So now that the 800 lb gorilla is out of the way, let’s get down to the other items that I consider when thinking of making a game purchase. I will say that probably one of the biggest is how the game is explained in the rules. A publisher is asking me to pick up their game and play it. As RPGs are social games, I would need to explain the game in a nutshell to potential players how the game is played. So if a game takes a page or two and explains the basics of the game, I’m more inclined to buy it. I remember being at the game store and flipping through the pages of Modern Age. Right near the front the explained how the game system worked in simple terms. I ended up buying the game. When I used the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game by Cubicle 7 in the 2021 Character Creation Challenge, I spotted this.
I could show this to potential players and they would understand the concept quickly. The core concept was explained on a page or two with the extra details provided in the deeper parts of the book. This also helped me out when I was creating my first Doctor Who character in this system.
Speaking of character creation, one of the things that the Character Creation Challenge has taught me is that a book that clearly lays out the character creation system from start to finish is one that I’d be more inclined to pick up. Not just roll dice for your attributes, but step by step. This should include the equipment acquisition and a clear ending to the process. Too many times the character creation process would start, then suddenly go into the next chapter, then the next and then… well am I done? Give Step One and keep going until you give a clearly marked final step. As with the core rules, summarize then go into more details later.
Hopefully the RPG book will flow from beginning to end. When I’m flipping from one section back to another then to another just to understand how the rules work, it gets a little frustrating. So I’ll look for an index in the book. If there is one, that’s points in favor of a purchase. If the books in in PDF, is it bookmarked? Bookmark entries will also be points in favor of purchase.
We now have two methods of reading our games. Dead tree versions and soft copies (PDF primarily). While I’d prefer the dead tree version if I’m learning a game for the first time, but that doesn’t stop me from trying to learn from the PDF version. Publishers, please make sure that your books are readable in both formats. For example, here is one of the few things that I didn’t like about the Star Trek Adventures core rulebook.
I’m not a graphic designer. I don’t even play one on TV. But as a consumer, this was frustrating to me. The light fonts on a black background was very difficult to read. The over-use of the little side boxes also made it difficult to read. I’m trying to read the actual rules and these, for lack of a better term I’m going to call them pop up ads, side items would try to grab my attention. I already hate it when websites try to do this, but to see it in a book was just doubly frustrating. Yes the system was good, but as I was looking through the book, I kept wanting to re-write the chapters so it was just the rules. Luckily the publisher has received feedback on this because the PDF versions also come in a “printer friendly” option. While this doesn’t resolve the “pop up ad” items, it did make it easier on the eyes. Now Modiphius took this feedback and released the other books, like the Klingon Core Rulebook and Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, with a much better layout. It wasn’t so busy, it was easier to read. Thank you.
Speaking of graphic design, the art on the cover and in the book can add or subtract from the points towards purchase. Yes the old axiom is “Never judge a book by it’s cover”, but a good cover will help. I’ve had bad covers put me off on making the purchase. When looking at the interior art, I try to look at it more objectively now since I have a college aged kid studying this subject. I’ll ask her questions and show art examples to her to get her feedback. It’s really helped on some books. I was looking at one game that I picked up cheap on the DriveThruRPG Deal of the Day and some of the interior art, while good, didn’t fit the page it was on. You’re describing equipment, and you have the art of a character headshot that has nothing to do with the subject matter. It made me raise an eyebrow. For my final photo, I’m going to show a good cover and a not-so-good cover. The Operations Division Sourcebook for Star Trek Adventures and Technoir.
In my opinion, the cover for The Operations Division showed action and a clear image of what the book would be about. Starfleet officers in gold uniforms commonly worn by those in the Operations Division doing their jobs. The Technoir cover is, well noir-ish, but bland. It could have been a 1930’s detective cover or a futuristic style cover. Had I not been gifted the Technoir book, I don’t think I would have purchased it.
The last item that could move the needle towards or away from a purchase is the support the game has. Are there free “quickstart” versions of the game that will let me read some of the basic rules? (I have made purchases after reading the quickstarts) Is there an online community for the game? How does the vendor respond on social media? Can I grab some basic freebies from their website like character sheets, handouts, or other items?
Now stepping back into the personal realm, I do tend to gravitate towards games that are part of my general interests. Specific franchises such as Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who and other popular shows will catch my attention. As will specific genres such as espionage, westerns, pulp-era/gangsters, science fiction and post-apocalyptic. For fantasy, I’m sticking with Dungeons and Dragons or a good clone for that itch. Retro-versions of past games can also be picked up by my radar. What fails to grab me are horror (I’m really particular about my horror tastes, plus how can I be scared in an RPG), romance, and super-heroes. While I love hero movies and shows, I’m just not drawn to the super-hero RPGs at this time.
So in conclusion, publishers please make your game easy to understand so I can explain it to others. Make your publication readable and easy to use and investing in some good artwork will really help. Hopefully this insight into one of your consumers will help you with future sales.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some more RPG books I’d like to read through.
One of my favorite shows is the British Sci-Fi comedy Red Dwarf. What? You haven’t heard of Red Dwarf yet? OK, go watch this clip showing three of the main characters and then come back to this blog.
Done? Good let’s continue.
Long story short, Red Dwarf is a show about the last human left alive (Lister, the guy trying to teach the android Kryten how to lie) who is marooned in space on a mining vessel called the Red Dwarf. His companions are a life form that evolved from his cat (the snazzy looking guy who they called over), the hologram of Lister’s dead bunkmate called Arnold J Rimmer (he’s a smeghead) and an insane artificial intelligence that runs the ship called Holly. The crew is attempting to return to Earth after being lost in space for three-million years (there is a very good reason for this in the pilot episode called “The End).
Being one of my favorite shows and a collector of resource books, I had to pick up the two volume set called Total Immersion: The Comprehensive Unauthorized Red Dwarf Encyclopedia written by Paul C. Giachetti. These two book were published by Hasslein Books in 2014 and are very, very detailed. The title of the books is a reference to the Total Immersion artificial reality video game that the crew finds and uses in several episodes. Think a holodeck but you have to wear special VR goggles and equipment. Players get plugged into a virtual world for various roleplaying in realistic environments. Let’s just say the title is very appropriate for these two encyclopedias. The entries cover everything from the various TV series (including both American pilots), novels, resource books, roleplaying games, smegazines (magazines), official websites, DVD extras and more. I’m talking the level that would normally be seen in a fan Wikipedia. If a label was on a container in a scene, that information will be found in these books. Was there a difference between the close captioning and the script on the spelling of a name? It has been documented here. With the show being British there were some comments and jokes that I didn’t get at first. Total Immersion explained the reference to me and let me in on the joke. Everything is referenced to the source(s) that the entry came from. Here is an example.
This guide was at the bottom of every page that did not contain the art found in the book. This helped document where certain information came from. This also lead to my only snag in the book. Every once in a while an entry had a reference that wasn’t listed in the bottom guide. For example in the photo above one of the entries is listed as coming from “X-APR”. The “X” is for the miscellaneous category, but the code of “APR” is not defined. There isn’t even an APR in the other categories. This is something I could forgive because it was very rare. These two publications are the type of books that I would love to write. Detailed an interesting without being overly burdensome on a subject that I just can’t get enough of.
Another interesting feature of this two volume set is the artwork. The covers are based upon the panels seen on the side of the Red Dwarf vessel. Internally there is a bunch of black and white artwork drawn by Pat Carbajal. It wasn’t just the main characters and devices, there were some drawings of characters that only made small, but memorable, appearances. A lot of these were very detailed and impressive. Here is an example I randomly pulled from the books.
The back of the second book was an appendix which contained a categorized index. If you are looking for a list of inmates in “the tank”, you will find it here. Locations by address, yes that is here as well. Listed is all entries related to “Starbug”. While everything is listed alphabetically, it would have been helpful to give page numbers here. But I did find this to be a helpful section when trying to look up some of the details.
It is my fondest hope that there will be an updated volume to these books as we’ve been blessed with additional seasons of Red Dwarf. Until then, these books are a must for any fans of the Red Dwarf franchise and merchandise. To date, I have not found any other printed encyclopedias for the show. This two-volume set was written by fans, for fans.
This is one of the posts that would have happened last month if I didn’t have a 31 day challenge going on. They say that there is an official (and sometimes unofficial) cookbook for everything. Late last year I picked up Heroes’ Feast, the official Dungeons and Dragons cookbook. This 212 page hardbound book was published by Ten Speed Press in 2020. ISBN: 978-1-9848-5890-0 with a cover price of $35.00US. The book was written by Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson and Michael Witwer.
My college age kid wanted to see this book after she had heard about it. It sounded interesting so I picked it up. I do some minor cooking on the side (nothing too deep, mostly crockpot experiments of recipes that I find online) but nothing that I’d write home about. My wife has some secret recipes that she has which I am very grateful for. Her meatloaf is to die for and often requested in the house. For me, if the recipe is too complicated, I tend to find something easier. While I’m still reading the book, I’ve flipped through several of the recipes. We decided upon the first recipe that we were going to try came from Mithral Hall, Potato Leek Soup. We already had a family recipe for this and we wanted to see how it compared.
Bubble, bubble toil and trouble…
For something like this, I wisely stayed out of the way. And I’m glad that I did. While I’m not going to post the recipe here, I will say that they had a special ingredient, bacon. The family loved the soup with this special ingredient. We’ve added bacon to the family recipe and it has been added to the rotation. This Dwarven recipe was listed as one of the Heroes’ Feast entries that was specially marked.
In the book is divided into several sections with specific recipes for each. Human Cuisine (with 19 recipes), Elven Cuisine (with 13 recipes), Dwarven Cuisine (with 12 recipes), Hafling Cuisine (with 11 recipes), Uncommon Cuisine (with 11 recipes from different races) and finally Elixirs & Ales (with 13 drinks, some of them alcoholic). There are also menus from several famous inns and taverns from different Dungeons & Dragons game worlds. Included in the book are tips on cooking and prepping for meals around gaming sessions. I was also impressed with the art and photos that the book contained. Some of the images looked like something you would see on a restaurant website, but they looked really good.
A few of the recipes that I am interested trying are Hand Pies, Otik’s Skillet-Fried Spiced Potatoes, Tavern “Steak”, Greenspear Bundles in Bacon, Meal’s End, Bangers and Smash, Black Pudding, Arkhan the Cruel’s Flame-Roasted Halfling Chili, “Orc” Bacon and Barovian Butterscotch Pudding.
Even if you are not big on cooking, I’d still recommend this book for some of the back story behind some of the locations and recipes. Heroes’ Feast will be sitting on my shelf next to the other Dungeons and Dragons books that I have collected. As for my daughter, she stated that she felt like Ratatouille after she had completed the recipe so she was very happy.
Some of the games that I plan to use in the 2022 #CharacterCreationChallenge
When participating in a month long challenge, like the Character Creation Challenge, it is always a good idea to put a little prep work in ahead of time. I took some of the preparation and after action lessons from the 2021 challenge and I am putting them into use here.
I’ve once again took advantage of one of my online spreadsheets and created a schedule for the month of January. I’ve tried to place the games that I’m not very familiar with on my days off so I can dedicate more time to them. I’ve heard from some participants stating that they would also be doing prep work before the challenge starts.
Speaking of participants, I’ve had several people email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com stating that they would be partaking of the challenge. Good for you. A lot of people have also been posting on the Character Creation Challenge post at RPG.net stating that they would be releasing their entries there. Several blogs will also be posting entries and others will just post them on social media. If you use social media, please use the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge so that others can find them and enjoy them.
If you are reading this after January 1st and you still want to jump into the challenge, please do. A few participants last year either did a quick catch up or just made sure they ran a full 31 days. The choice is yours. This challenge is just for fun with our gaming systems.
I’ve re-read some of my past entries and entries from other participants. In fact, while I was researching one of my games that I selected for the start of the challenge, I found a blog that had participated in 2021. The World of Philosopherzeus had several good entries that were also written like game reviews. I’m going to have to look more into the Low Fantasy Gaming system that the blog recommended. If you participated in 2021 and I did not link your blog to the Character Creation Challenge page, please email me and I’ll add it. If you are participating in 2022, also shoot me the link so I can promote it.
The image above is some of the physical books that I plan to use for the 2022 challenge. Several of them were purchases that I’ve made over the past year or gifts from friends who were looking to unload books. I made sure they had a good home to go to. I’ve also got several games in PDF format that I’ve purchased from DriveThruRPG or on one of the various bundle sales that are out there. One of the PDFs that I’m looking forward to trying out is the original Traveller little black book editions. Another PDF game is the Wendy’s Feast of Legends marketing game that was put out a few years ago. A participant used it in the 2021 challenge and I smacked my head not thinking about it then. So I’ve added it to the list for 2022.
Another interesting tidbit recently came up that the 2021 challenge helped me with. I’ve been wanting to play Star Trek Adventures for quite some time (a lot of local groups are still unable to get together). On one of the STA facebook groups a GM announced a game with a day warning that it would start. I sent him the link from my 2021 STA entry and asked if I could play. The GM accepted it because it was actually rolled up and not created with one of the quick generation websites. So I’ve had at least one session with the game and we hope to wrap up the adventure in a follow up game.
Remember to have fun with this. That was one of the primary goals of the challenge.
You can also use this graphic to help promote the #CharacterCreationChallenge.
Feel free to share this image on social media to spread the word.
I posted a bunch of scanned catalogs from FASA in a previous blog entry. There was also a second blog entry where readers had sent me a couple of scans that were missing. Well I’ve come across a couple more catalogs for my collection. Technically both of these catalogs have been posted before on this blog, but now that I have physical copies, I decided to scan them in myself. As I continue to empty out boxes in storage, I’ll keep an eye out for additional catalogs that I haven’t scanned in yet and post them here.
In the first blog post, I only had photos of this catalog provided by a friend. In the second blog post, this catalog was posted but was in two parts. I had recently picked up a 1st edition Klingons boxed set by FASA off of Ebay. This catalog was one of the books contained within the boxed set.
I found this catalog while going through some of the boxes in my garage. When a reader sent me a PDF of this catalog for a previous blog entry, I knew it looked familiar. And my suspicions were confirmed when it had been uncovered. Since that catalog only contained the Star Trek items, I decided to scan the entire book into a PDF format. This will allow anyone wishing to conduct research on early FASA products to see the book in it’s entirety. One thing I did notice while going through the PDF. The description for the module “Decision at Midnight” talked about how the commanding officer of the USS Arkadelphia was Captain Barbara Vellacora and how she was the youngest woman to ever be promoted to the center chair. When the module was published, the name had been changed to Ian Vellacora and the sex changed to male.
The quest to get more of my collection out of generic (and falling apart) cardboard boxes continues. There are several items that I’ve got listed down in my records, but I am unable to locate now. I’m really hoping that I haven’t lost them. Seeing some of the prices for things that I already own on Ebay has only made me more determined to find them. I really can’t afford to replace these games.
I follow several twitter accounts that cover the subject of Role Playing Games and I noticed a trend over the past month. Gamers buying the cheap sets of RPG dice from the local dollar stores and then posting photos of them. It was a cute trend that allowed the collectors of the shiny math rocks to show off their latest acquisitions. As photos of dealers tables from gaming cons have shown up online (mostly to display the older books that were for sale) fans noticed that the dollar store dice had been picked up by vendors and added to their booth with a mild markup (usually $3-5 for a set).
Before this trend had started, I noticed that my local Dollar Tree had a bunch of dice for sale. Like most items you pick up at the dollar store, you are not going for quality. Of the three packages they had at the time, I noticed that one package had two D8 dice instead of two D10s that you normally find in a dice set. So I chuckled and passed on getting a set. The dice sets that I’ve usually picked up from the local gaming stores come in containers that allow you to open them up before purchase. I like giving a few test rolls before purchase to get the “feel” for the dice. Since these dice were sealed in a package, I had no way to test the dice beforehand.
When I realized that the trend was gaining steam, I decided to go grab a set for myself. Not because I wanted to follow the trend, but because I wanted to give a review for the blog. New gamers may want to buy a set for themselves at a lower cost. Other gamers had posted that they were buying the cheap sets to give to potential gamers showing interest in the game. Or perhaps you discovered that you had left your dice bag at home while at the con and you wanted a quick set to play with for the day.
As you can see from the image above, the dice were packaged for English and French speaking markets. According to the limited information on the back (see image below), the set was made in China but imported for the US market by a company called Grenbrier International. Canadian markets had this product imported by DTSC Imports. A quick Google search revealed that this was the parent company that operated the various Dollar Tree locations across the US and Canada.
Lot’s of white space, but that saves on ink costs.
When I decided to do a review of the set, I decided to compare them against another set I had in my collection from Chessex. Primarily because it was the only set I still had the original container for with the detail sheet inside.
“In this corner…”
One of the things I noticed is that the choking hazard warning had different ages listed. The Chessex recommended over the ages of eight while the Dollar Tree dice recommended over the age of four. Personally I’d probably feel more comfortable with any players closer to the age of nine than four. The Dollar Tree dice were made in China while the Chessex set came from Denmark. I had actually never paid attention to the country on my Chessex dice until now, but the Denmark dice sounds kinda kewl.
The Dollar Tree dice set by itself…
…and side by side with the Chessex set.
From the various social media posts that I’ve seen, the Dollar Tree set only comes in the satin brown color. If anyone has seen any other colors besides that one, let me know. As you can see, the sizes are about the same. I didn’t notice any difference from the different angles. I did notice a difference in weight. When you hold a D20 from one set in one hand and the other in the opposite hand, the Chessex dice were heavier. While taking the photos I noticed that the number locations were slightly different. The D4 seemed to be the only die matching the number location. I figured this was due to the lack of options in the smaller die. I pulled out several other die from my dice bag and noticed this trend continued with different die depending upon the source. I wonder if this is a copyright issue? Most of the D20s had the “20” opposite of the “1”, but some of the D12s had a “5” opposite of the “12”. This was another item I had never really thought about until now. As long as the dice continued to give me good rolls, I continued to use them.
I can see how the Dollar Tree set could be a good intro set for game masters wanting to give sets away to new players. The lack of a storage container would hopefully encourage the new players to obtain a dice bag of some sort. The dice make the right rolling sound when played on a hard surface. I had thought about doing the 100 roll test and seeing how many of each number comes up for the blog. But I started having flashback to the oddball math questions that came up in school so I elected not to take this route.
So I’ll be tossing the package in the recycle bin and slipping these new dice into the dice bag. Hopefully someday I’ll get a chance to participate in a game around a table with friends soon so I can actually see these dice in action. But before I decided to put the dice away, I wanted to take one more picture with a D4 from the Dollar Tree set, another D4 from the Chessex set and one of my original D4s that came with a boxed game many years ago just for an off the wall comparison.
The evolution of the D4.
UPDATE: I’ve been informed by a reader that there were other colors besides satin brown. So you may find different colors at your local stores.
I have loved boxed sets for different role playing games. Besides the various books, sometimes there are extras that are included in the box. Dice, maps, character sheets, player aids and (one of my favorites) catalogs. I also think that the boxes look better than some of the books when I’m taking a shelfie (a picture of books on a shelf) of my role playing game collection.
The bad thing about the boxes is that they are made out of a type of cardboard. This cardboard can be easily crushed or damaged at the corners. Games that have been kept in temporary storage boxes (more cardboard that can easily be crushed), over stuffing the box with more than it’s capable of holding, moved from place to play by friends who don’t know what’s inside, constant opening, etc. can take a toll on some of these boxes.
Here are some photos of some of the boxes that I have in my collection that are in need of repair.
The Doctor Who RPG boxed set by FASA.
Several boxed sets for the FASA Star Trek Role Playing Game.
Boxed Romulan supplement for the Star Trek RPG by Last Unicorn Games.
Damaged corner from the Pirates and Plunder boxed set.
Split corner from the Pirates and Plunder boxed set.
A split corner on the Top Secret boxed set by TSR.
As you can see, some of these boxes are so damaged that I don’t even want to move them on the shelves. This is not good. I’ve been researching how to repair these boxes without damaging them further. I really don’t want to tape up the box as the tape will eventually fade and fail (I’ve got one book that I did this to in the 90’s and I wish I had done something differently now). One site suggested getting candy boxes with thin cardboard and cut them for use in the corners of the box that you wish to reinforce. I’d have to make sure the box is free of any food particles before I do that.
I think the first thing I’m going to do is buy some used board games at a thrift store that come in boxes with similar thickness. Toss the game contents and then use the boxes as my test platforms. I can experiment with different glues and repair styles. This way if I mess up, I’m not further damaging a collectable. I don’t know if I want to go all the way in my restoration project to make the game like mint. Sometimes having a little bit of wear and tear shows the love for the game. But I’d like to be able to pull my Star Trek RPG box out without praying that the entire box doesn’t disintegrate on me.
I’ll make a future blog post with details when I take this project on.
Final Thoughts:
“Welcome” could easily be a post about how to make sure that all players feel welcomed at your gaming table. “Tradition” could be a host of things, none that are coming to me currently. “Fresh” could be a post on how to keep your game from becoming stale and stagnant. I could see some possibilities in today’s recommendations.
All right. The topic of the day is “Supplement”. I’d like to post some covers from my favorite role playing game supplements that I’ve collected.
The Star Trek Ship Construction Manual by FASA: I used this supplement for the Star Trek Role Playing Game so much that I had to tape the book together. Not only had I collected every starship for the game from different supplements, modules and magazine articles, I used this book to create stats for vessels found in various tech manuals and blueprints. I started scanning some of the printouts that I made in the 90’s and you can find the ships (or links) here.
The Gazetteer series by TSR: I LOVED this series. I was a bigger fan of the BECMI Dungeons and Dragons game in my earlier days of gaming. As I mentioned during the Maps entry into the #RPGaDAY2021 Challenge, I loved the created world that was presented in the game. When I heard about the Gazetteers I knew I had to check them out. I remember hoping on a bus and taking a ride to a downtown book store just to pick up the first book. It had pull out maps and a ton of details on the lands that we had only briefly seen in the game manuals. I also liked how it added elements to the game such as Dwarf Clerics in The Dwarves of Rockholme supplement. I wondered if these extra rules ever got collected into a single book.
The Prisoner by Steve Jackson Games: I had played a few GURPS games, but I was not a big fan of the system. What I did like was the many, many supplements that was released for the system. Even though you may not play GURPS, the supplements contained a good amount of information that you could use for other games. Being a big fan of the British surreal spy-fi television series, The Prisoner, I had to pick up this book when it came out.
Final Thoughts:
This was a great topic. When I was creating the spreadsheet in July with all of the suggestions on them, I filled in an idea for this topic right away.
One of the marvels of our internet age is the ability to obtain almost any role playing book from a variety of sources. DriveThruRPG has a large number of current titles and some classic favorites. Charity sites such as Humble Bundle and Bundle of Holding always have sales where you can get a large number of PDF books at a very good price.
However there is nothing like the feel of a physical book in your hands. Every time I pick up a role playing book from the shelf, I feel like this..
These books had weight. The best books were laid out eloquently and had wonderful artwork. Even in my later gaming groups, while we still have access to the information in soft copy and internet, we still had our books on the table. If you had just one or two books, it wasn’t that big of a deal to throw them into a backpack and head off to your friends house for the session. I’ve known some RPG buddies that have started placing their books in those portable filing boxes (with the lids that lock and the handle on top). I even recall a friend from the early gaming days that purchased a moving trunk to put his books into. This way he could just place the trunk in his car when it was time to go to the game.
My last wizard character had an Excel spreadsheet for a character sheet (provided by the DM). I remember spending time making links on the spell list to the online descriptions for quick access. I’m starting to get use to reading books on my tablet (and I like the fact that I can mark some of the text for later reference). Having the RPG books at my fingertips on my laptop for quick reference has been very useful. But when it come time to introducing myself to a new gaming system or just reading an older gaming book to relax, there is nothing like the weight of a heavy book in your hands.
Final Thoughts:
“Wilderness” wasn’t a bad suggestion and I’m sure it will generate a lot of posts about hex crawl adventures. However I think I already touched upon that topic with “Explore” a few days ago. “Listen” will probably generate some posts about past stories of trying to listen at the door. Both were decent suggestions. “Despair” made me scratch my head. I don’t know how that could be a positive #RPGaDAY2021 entry.
