Order is on its way

Just received news from Lulu.com that my copy of Labyrinth Lord: Revised Edition (hard cover) has been shipped. I already have the pdf version printed and bound, but wanted the hard cover edition in my shelf of RPG books. It should be down here, hopefully, in less than a couple of weeks. Can't wait to have it and use it along with the AEC in my new campaign.

New Campaign

As I said before, I was waiting for my group to complete the Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk module in order to begin a new campaign but, since we're not gaming as often as I'd like so finishing the module will take longer than I expected, I decided to start a new group for my Labyrinth Lord campaign.

I'm planning to also set it in the World of Greyhawk, more specifically in the legendary Archbarony of Blackmoor. It's a region in which, after all these years gaming in this world, I've never played nor DMed so it's a bit of a challenge. So far I've found a great article on the Oerth Journal #5 detailing the whole region and a low-level adventure on Dragon Magazine #115 called "Raiders of the Black Ice" (thanks to Bubbagump @ Canonfire!) which I'll have to convert from 3.5e to LL but that's no stress. I've also purchased from Faster Monkey Games a couple of adventures compatible with LL called "The Hidden Serpent" and "Wheel of Evil" (well done Bighara!) which I plan to adapt to the setting.

I know that Blackmoor has a strong component of sci-fi which I still haven't decided what to do with it, since the combination of medieval fantasy and sci-fi is not my cup of tea. Perhaps I'll check with my group to see if they like that or jump right into the water and see what happens. Of the people I've contacted so far only two have played both pen&paper and online RPGs before and only one in the World of Greyhawk. The rest are new to board RPGs but all play World of Warcraft online.

I plan it to be a sandbox game with the group starting in some whaling village on the wind-swept shores of the Icy Sea. Let's see what the future holds...

Finnaly!

Last friday when I got home there was a note from the postman that they had a package for me at the post office. Since they don't work on weekends, and I couldn't go on their office hours, today my wife went to get it. So, I came from work and there it was on my desk, a perfectlly bound cardboard box from Lulu and a post-it from her that today dinner was on me. I finally have in my hands the Labyrinth Lord's Advanced Edition Companion from Goblinoid Games! The binding and printing of the book are of great quality. The artwork is so old-school, I love it. Enough, I'm off to read it and plan my next capaign. Uh-oh, wait, I have to make dinner. :-)

Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition Companion Available!

Even though as a member of the Labyrinth Lord Society I've received in advance a special preview (no artwork) of the Advanced Edition Companion, I also bought (juat a couple of minutes ago!) the hardcover edition from the print shop at Lulu and made use of the Groundhog Day coupon code ("SHADOW") toget a 15% off. (valid until Feb 3). Between printing (10-15 days) and shipping (7-12 days) it'll take a while to get down here, but it's worth the waiting. I hope it comes right in time for the start of my new "Old School" style campaign I'm planning for this year. Can't wait to have it!

Two months without posting... shame on me!

The truth is that I've been DMing a lot trying to finish before the end of the year the module Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk (3.5e), but I won't be able to do it. I've also been working on the Spanish version of Labyrinth Lord Rev. Ed. but the advance has been sluggish at best. It's a titanic task for one person only, so any help is welcome. No wonder the recently released Italian version was done by seven people.

I was expecting to begin the new year with a new campaign under a new system. It'll most certainly be Labyrinth Lord but I have some doubts about the spell system. What happens in the actual system is that the party spends almost all their most powerful spells in one encounter, so after that the group calls it a day. I'm afraid the same will happen with any other system based on Vancian magic. Any thoughts?

Those are my plans for the future, but first I'll gather my players and ask them what kind of game they want to play. I know some of them may want to try 4e (be my guest, go find another DM) while others may give a rules-light system a try. We'll see.

Spanish version of Labyrinth Lord

Long time no post. The news are that with the go ahead given by Dan Proctor I've started the huge project of translating the Labyrinth Lord Core Rules into Spanish. Although I've always used D&D books and modules in English, I thought it would be a good idea to make LL available to Spanish speaking fans. I know there's a lot of work ahead (almost 90k words!) but the cause is worth the effort.

Labyrinth Lord Revised Edition

I've got from RPGNow my PDF version of the latest edition of Labyrinth Lord by Goblinoid Games. This new effort by Dan Proctor has more artwork, which I fancy a lot, and corrects some minor details from the previous version. I hope to have it printed and binded soon. I also find really handy Lord Kilgore's idea of printing booklets with pages 1-60 for the players. If we continue to play every weekend, I hope to end our current campaign (3.5e) before the end of the year. And I say "hope" because we spent last session (9 PM to 3 AM with 1 hour break for dinner) in just one combat. Man, this is so wrong. I guess we're not playing a roleplaying game anymore but a tactical wargame. In combat every decision taken by the players is the result of a maximizing algorithm, and that's what makes the pacing so slow. I have nothing against wargames (hey, RPGs evolved from them and their creators were wargamers first) but it's not what I want to play. At least for now.

Goodbye 3.5e

I never played D&D or B/X. I started playing AD&D 1e, then switched to AD&D 2e, then to 3e, then to 3.5e, always thinking that the new rules set was better than the prevoius one without giving it much thought, but no more. I now DM three 3.5e campaigns all set in the World of Greyhawk; one ongoing (Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk) and two other "on hold" (a long term one that we left in the middle of Maure Castle from Dungeon magazines - heathens! - and a homebrew one).

With time I've realized that allowing the use of books like the "Complete" or the PHB2 was a mistake. I should have known better that with the three core books was more than enough. What was done in the eagerness of adding flavor to the game, in the end became a cumbersome corset for me. I don't need more rules, spells, feats or classes to do what I intended to.

So then it's decided, once we've finished EttRoG I plan to go back to the roots, back to 1e, or B/X, or some of the OSR rules set like Swords&Wizardry or Labyrinth Lord.