Battlesystem reborn

Last year I needed to handle mass combat as the J Squad at Gold Star Anime as they ventured into a orc infested forest. I ultimately chose to use 1st Edition Battle System mostly because I discovered that the core combat formula is applicable for nearly every edition of DnD including many of the retro-clones. Another important reason is that Battlesystem scales seamlessly from mass armies to a single PC. It not until you run a mass combat battle you see how effective the old 1 attack per level rule is for fighters.

Along with this I found that the rules themselves are remarkably brief. The main rulebook is 32 pages but that mostly because it is illustrations and example. The actual rules amount to a handful of pages.

So what do I find on the Internet? An announcement that Wizards will be releasing Battlesystem. It short on details on the mechanics but it sounds like it will very much in the spirit of the 1st edition. I don't know if my blog posts had any influence on +Mike Mearls and his team, however it great to see this aspect of DnD to be supported again.

I do know that to this day that me breaking out all the Dragon counters still causes my friend +Tim Shorts  and +Dwayne Gillingham to break out in a cold sweat.

The original Traveller Book back in print.

I just became aware that Marc Miller and Far Future Enterprise has just placed the original Traveller Book on RPGNow as a print on demand book. Just ordered a copy as mine is battered to hell and back. I will post about the quality of the book when it comes.

As a bit of history Classic Traveller came in three forms.

The original boxed set with Book 1 (characters), Book 2 (Starships), Book 3 (Worlds)
Starter Traveller (free on RPGNow)
and finally a hardcover Traveller Book.

The Traveller Book became my primary Traveller reference and has seen much use over the years.

The Last Twenty-Four Hours for City-State

Judge's Guild City-State Kickstarter has entered the last 24 hours. If you are interested and haven't signed up yet now is your chance. Of 18 maps that could be funded it down to the last four.

As for my part, I am in the midst of drawing rivers for all 18 maps having done the coastlines, mountains, hills, and one of the more unique features of the Wilderlands the extensive escarpments. Christina who is doing the artistic presentation is in the process of turning in a completed Map 1 (City-State).

Here to hoping that all 18 maps get funded.

Magic Missile Dice!

I don't about you but I think this is cool. A kickstarter to make dice specifically for casting magic missile. I know I pull out about 5 d4s and set them aside when refereeing my DnD games just so I can quickly roll them for the enemy magic user magic missile spells. Since the effect of the Magic Missile has remained relatively constant across multiple DND editions. So I can see this being handy. for a lot of DnD Fans regardless of edition preference.

From the Attic: IUP Gaming Society

+Joseph Bloch posted an old picture from 1984 of his high school DnD club. This is a picture of me in college circa 1988 and its story.

Back in the late 80s I was one of the founders of the IUP Gaming Society. Our bread and butter for fundraising was running Battletech tournaments. The main advantage of the society was reserving rooms in the Student Union building which was easy for organizations not so easy for individuals. I believe most of our funds went into prizes for tourneys. I am not sure if we tried building a game library. There are some real impractical issues with maintaining a communal stock of games.



This was taken back in 1988 or 1989. I am in the lower right corner. Since then I told my barber to shear the hair off the top of my head.