Random Bits for 1/12/2024

Random stuff for Friday

- Fun quote from Keith Ammann, over on a page about the origin of Daemons, er, Yugoloth:

And finally, Dungeon Masters get to make this stuff work however they want to. [. . .] All of this is made-up, and you’re at liberty to make stuff up as well.

Yep. I enjoy a debate now and again, and I'll quote rules and pages to people who say X is actually Y instead, but it's your game and you can do things how you please, so long as your players will put up with it.

- There is an Ogre Miniatures Backerkit crowdfunding campaign going on. I'm good - I kept the only ones I want, which is basically one of every Ogre, from Ogre I to VI and the Paneuropean Fencer in there, too. So I'm not seeing anything better by getting the plastic . . . but it's a better deal than the metal ones, were. It's already funded, if that helps you decide.

- These looks at Polyhedron are pretty interesting . . . I disliked most of the contents of Polyhedron when I finally got it as an RPGA member. I have to look and see if these are available anywhere - I'd like to read James M. Ward's articles on Gamma World. I especially thought this was interesting:

Ward begins the article by explaining that "90% of all the adventure that goes on in the GAMMA WORLD game" is instigated by cryptic alliances

Interesting. That's now how we played . . . but I think that's probably how I'd run it now. You'd get the usual "Rites of Adulthood" travels . . . but most of the game would be Cryptic Alliance vs. Cryptic Alliance fought out in the borderlands between that that no one has real control over.

Here are some thoughts I had:

Rise of the Belief State

More Thoughts on Cryptic Alliances

I really miss andi jones running 20th Homeland / Gamma Terra. He ran a truly outstanding Gamma World campaign. I was quite invested in it, and I'd play again in a heartbeat.

- What's Doug up to? He reveals it here.

- $18 for 38 Pratchett books. I'm debating this one. I like several of these books a lot - Small Gods, Reaper Man, the Colour of Magic - and the others are often a bit too British for me. And that's coming from someone who has early memories of watching the Unexploded Scotsman Disposal Squad in action as a kid. It's a good deal, though . . . might be too good to pass up. And they're all good, even if I'm not always in the mood for them. Just $1 for Colour of Magic is worth it, and that deal comes with two extras.

- Fifty Years of D&D. Interesting, as always.