Carcosacon 2019

So that was Carcosacon and it was a lot of fun. A bunch of us drove up from Prague to Czocha Castle for a weekend of games, panels and live action roleplaying all dedicated to the Cthulhu mythos. We got there on Friday morning, checked in and were gaming by one o’ clock that afternoon in a library that looked like something from Dennis Wheatley complete with a secret doorway hidden in a bookcase that swung out to reveal a spiral staircase up to yet another gaming room. I thought there never was a better setting for a Call of Read more…

The Black Hack Review

Among the several anniversaries I somehow neglected to celebrate on the blog this year was the fortieth of my first encounter with Dungeons and Dragons, back when it came in three tiny booklets in a white box. I bring it up now because reading The Black Hack takes me right back to my student days of late night dungeoneering sessions and permadeath treks across hexcrawl wildernesses. And I mean that in a good way. The Black Hack describes itself as an OSR First Edition Hack. It’s named after its author, David Black. The game reads like the distilled essence of Read more…

The Burning Legion Returns

I’ve spent the last month in the country with very limited access to internet so I missed most of the build-up to the release of Legion. No dread lord invasions of Ogrimmar for me. Last night though, after attending a Legion launch party at Geekarna, a splendid local cafe, I hit the beaches of the Broken Islands and began to do my part in rolling back the demonic invasion of Azeroth. Blizzard has done an excellent job in making this feel suitably epic. I was with Sylvanas during the doomed attempt to close the demon gates and witnessed Vol’jin’s last Read more…

5th Edition D&D Goes Open License

Wizards of the Coast made a big announcement this week. The fifth edition of Dungeons and Dragons has gone Open License in much the same way as the 3rd edition was. In some ways they’ve gone even further with 3e by making some of their intellectual property open(ish) license as well. It seems that through their Dungeon Master’s Guild program people will be able to set adventures and supplements in the Forgotten Realms, release them and get paid for them. I think this was a good and necessary move. I really like the 5th edition of D&D. In many ways Read more…

D&D Fifth Edition

Yesterday was the official release date of the fifth edition of Dungeons and Dragons. It won’t hit my FLGS for some time yet so I haven’t got my hands on a copy. I did celebrate the release by picking up the Starter Set and downloading a copy of the rules from the D&D website. My recent D&D related experience has been with Pathfinder and the retro-clones of the Old School Renaissance. I was not a big fan of the fourth edition. It pretty much killed my interest in D&D. It wasn’t that the fourth edition was badly done. It had Read more…

Prepping Ptolus

It’s been just over 34 years since I first encountered D&D. I can think of few things that have changed my life more. It got me interested in reading fantasy again at a time when I was slowly drifting out of it and it led indirectly to my involvement with Games Workshop and my present career. In a world where World of Warcraft exists, it’s hard to convey exactly the impact that getting involved in D&D had back then. A generation and a half has grown up with access to movies with astonishing special effects, video games and the Internet. Read more…