RIP R.A. Montgomery

http://www.cyoa.com/pages/r-a-montgomery-1936-2014

The man responsible for the Choose Your Own Adventure series passed away. I have to say, he was very influential to me. Without his books, it's quite likely I would have quit gaming when I was a kid. He really helped me visualize what adventures were all about.

Still haven't picked up 5e yet

Most of the reviews of 5e that I have seen have been pretty positive. I've flipped through the Players Handbook and it did look pretty good. I haven't seen the DMG or MM yet, and I'm kind of hoping there will be a discounted set of all three books before I actually buy in.

It's kind of weird, as I bought 3e, 3.5, and 4e all on the day they were first available, and had read them within a week after that. I just really don't have that fire anymore. Maybe I'm just getting too old for this stuff. :)

5e DMG preview

Bushi D6 updated

I've updated Bushi D6  for those of you that are interested. Added in some more NPCs, fixed a bunch of minor errata, a couple new items, and other small stuff. Please let me know what you think!

Bushi D6 - doing some more work on it

I've been working more on Bushi D6. Just adding some stuff that I missed (like how the heck did I not include the yakuza at all?). I'm also adding some more NPCs and monsters, as well as more perks and complications. I've also added in a few more magic items (I really, really need to expand this section). I figure I'll be posting an update in a few more days, once I've got enough new stuff to make it worthwhile.

Dwimmermount in hand

I was one of the Kickstarters for Dwimmermount. I finally have the hardback, map book, and image book in hand. I like them a lot. It was a very long, turbulent process, but the final product is actually quite good. I can easily run a campaign for years with this book.
Parts of the dungeon are fairly standard, which is a good thing. But it also has a lot of pseudo-science/technomagic bits which work quite well.
The background is cool, and there are different groups of monsters in the dungeon, and their relationships are mapped. Some work together, others hate each other. If the players are smart, they could easily gain allies to help them.
The art if very old school in style. The book is big, and looks like it will take a lot of punishment.
Overall, I'm glad it is finally here. The final product looks to be very usable, and well thought out. Congrats to everyone involved in finally getting this setting into print!

5e sounds like it's going to be very good

I still haven't picked it up, but I'm planning to. From everything I've heard, 5e is going to be a very good version of the game. It appears to combine some of the best aspects of every edition. While I was not a fan of 4e as a whole, it did have some good ideas, like the wizard blast ability. I'm glad to see little things like that have remained.

D&D 5e Starter Set now available

The website for the Starter Set is HERE. It should be in your local gamestore and probably B&N. I'm not really interested in this, but it's only another couple months until the real game comes out. Looking over the Basic Set (available for free HERE), they are doing a whole lot right with the new edition.

The Wizard's Amulet for 5e (free)

Frog God Games/Necromancer is giving away a pdf of The Wizard's Amulet adventure revised for 5e. See here: http://froggodgames.com/5th-edition

5e and rpg forums

Rob Schwalb, one of the lead designers of D&D 4e, had a blog post where he basically says 4e catered way too much to the munchkin math geek crowd and he's glad that 5e is going back to its roots, where the impact of the number-crunching min-maxers should have a much lower impact.

Reactions to this blog are interesting. Over on The RPG Site, it's been mostly positive. A lot more old school D&Ders post there than you might expect.

The reaction on RPGNet is the complete opposite. They are raging about this. They HATE that he called their pet D&D version basically a bad game compared to its predecessors. If you have an account there, don't make the mistake of defending Rob's post, as you will probably get banned. (Not that the mods are biased or anything).

Please take the time to look through both. If you have only been active on RPGNet, I strongly recommend you give The RPG Site a chance. The forum runs a lot like RPGNet did 12 years ago. Mostly gamers, with little moderation.