Set Your Wallet on "Buy"

Because Behind the Spells: Compendium just became even easier for you to shop. See the Tricky Owlbear blog for details!

GenCon '03

I've been to one GenCon in my lifetime and that was in 2003, the first (?) in Indianapolis. There were two things I distinctly recall from the 11-hour drive out there. First, the severe thunderstorm that hit Columbus the same time I was driving through it. Cars were pulled off the road due to the poor visibility but would I give in? Nope!

The second item I recall is this...

The Alphaville Singles Collection. I had been to Doylestown a week or two prior to GenCon to visit 'Sirens' (I think), their used music shop, to search for some driving cassettes for my journey. Sure, I had heard "Forever Young" but the rest were a mystery to me. The "Big in Japan" title seemed vaguely familiar but I'd likely heard it then forgotten in the ethers of the '80s. This disc has 4 of Alphaville's more prominent mixes (8 songs in all as there are 2 mixes of each song).

That's right, I bought this tape which had but 4 songs to each side. Since it was like $1.99 I figured that it wouldn't be much of a loss. My first day to the Con as I drove from my hotel to the site in-city I popped in the tape which I had listened to once on the way home from Doylestown. How was it, you ask?

Fantastic! The synth-pop, or whatever you'd like to call it, melodies pounded into my ears and out the open windows every day I drove around Indy. I couldn't have made a better investment. Today, some 6 years later, I received the cd of said album in the mail from Amazon. Didn't pay much more than for the cassette. Now, I can carry those tunes with me once again at my leisure. Good memories I can add to the ones from this good birthday (didn't win at the casino but had fun!).

34

Today I turn "the big" 34. I think they're all "big" after like 21, right? :)

Took off from work so Linda and I can head out to the new Sands casino in Bethlehem. Wish us luck!

BtS KQ Finale

When Behind the Spells: Unseen Servant makes its appearance (probably this week) at koboldquarterly.com it will be the final iteration for the site. I received an email from Wolfgang saying that traffic was down for the series (which I can't say I'm all that surprised by) and that new things are being launched there in the next couple months. All that and, of course, his editorial time is stretched paper-thin.

Naturally, it's sad to see. Wish I'd known ahead of time so I could have made the last article a bit more climactic (see Dispel Magic when I thought the line was going away forever). But in a way it's good because now I can devote proper time back to Tricky Owlbear pursuits which have been sorely lacking over the last few months. Time to ramp up our preparation for Pathfinder and really start hammering down what "old-school" rules I want to use for some adventures.

Lifescapes

Celtic music has become one of my favorite genres and I'm always looking for a new collection of tunes that I haven't heard yet. Whether it's original Irish material or just Celtic "inspired" it's usually a good listen.

When shopping at Target some time last year I came across a cd stand with music piping from its small speakers. The quality of these discs is usually suspect but after sampling a couple of them decided to try one.

To say I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement! Celtic Dreams was good enough to make me buy ~5 cds from the Lifescapes label since that time. There's a good selection at Target of different Celtic, world, classical, and stress relief titles as well as mp3-only releases at the lifescapesmusic.com website. And the average price for these? Less than $10! They're not all great, of course, but they're cheap enough to not regret buying them.

Didn't Get that Memo

Apparently, I missed the point (some 4 years ago) when cell phones went verboten in New Jersey. As I was entering I-295 after delivering my bank stuff I passed a cop while checking in with my mom and dad who are visiting Massachusetts for the weekend. When I saw the cop car immediately move after I passed by it flickered a memory that cell phones were maybe not the best things to be seen using in that state. Bingo!

The cop was nice enough but, after explaining (i.e. lying) that I needed to call into my warehouse because of the courier drop-off I just made, proceeded to give me my ticket. I asked how much it would be but he replied, "I'm not sure." Bwa? Okay, whatever. After consulting the NJ municipal website it looked as though the fine is likely to be $100 (my info wasn't in the system yet). No points at least.

But the night wasn't a total loss as I struck a bit of gold at Deleware Park casino. I don't really have a slot game of choice but I've become partial to the Deal or No Deal game. It's like any other slot, this one a 2-cent machine, which has 5 reels and "243 ways to win"--that's quite a few paylines! The big attraction is getting 3 suitcases of money on the first 3 reels which activates, as the name suggests, the DoND game. You pick a case and literally play the game with offers from the banker and everything (no Howie in sight which is surprising given the number of times he visits Atlantic City).

Anywho, I played the case game like 4 times total for the evening but the real winning came with one spin when 4 wild symbols appeared on reels 2-5. Before I knew what was happening, I had won $218! Not bad for me. Now I had close to $300 total after having brought $50. Well, I then played more than minimum in an attempt to play the case game again (upping the bet would mean greater case amounts) but, alas, that was not meant to be. Came home with $240 for a net gain yesterday of $90 after the ticket and after my initial $50. Not bad at all.

Today I'm banging away on BtS: Unseen Servant for my KQ masters. This will, as it stands now, tie-in with an upcoming BtM: Invisible Stalker for Tricky Owlbear.

Hope everyone's having a great holiday weekend. No work tomorrow and I'm off Thursday for my birthday so it'll be a nice short week.

What If Old Doesn't Mean Used?

There's an expectation in a dungeon adventure that many people have come before but few have survived. A dungeon always has legends and the maimed hero in the nearby tavern to tell them. But here's a thought I just had--what if the dungeon has no history? As if transplanted from a totally different world, a dungeon is uncovered by your party first. The construction, pictographs, traps, monsters...all unfamiliar. Who built the place? When? Why?! The dungeon is obviously old but not "ruined" by past adventurers. Is there a civilization which existed for so brief a time that no one heard of it before its desctruction? Or did this place suffer some kind of magical calamity that brought it from a totally different world/reality?

Would something old but not used make an interesting adventure?

That's for your own group to determine.

Swords & Wizardry pdf

I'm not sure if this was available in pdf before, much less for free: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=62346

Enjoy some more old-school gaming!

12 Practical Ways...

...to Become More Creative: http://ow.ly/8jCT Applies 100% to gaming in all its facets, says Daniel, who originally tweeted this. I agree. And, yes, now I'm bringing relevant news and info from twitter for those of you still not associated with it. :)

Free At Last!

I called in this morning (as I must every morning) to "log on" and was told that my first pharmacy stop was stop 5. Nothing unusual there and, I thought, means I'm not through with the pharms yet. However, when I arrived at the warehouse Marsha got this shocked look on her face and said, "Charlie's here! I'm such an idiot!"

Yes, my dear. Yes you are.

So it looks like the end of the "forever" run was this morning and, as expected, I didn't learn about it until I got down there. Typical but I wasn't overly upset. How could I be when it means I now get to sleep until at least 8am!

Alright, so why does all this make me so happy? It has to do with writing. No, I'm not kidding. When I was getting up at 630am, I would get to bed around 1130pm. Since I get home from the job around 630pm, that left 5 hrs to get something to eat and unwind from the work routine. I also like to get a walk into the schedule and then watch something on tv (if applicable). What this didn't leave a lot of time for was writing. Now, I don't have to worry about getting to bed until 1am or so and it feels like I have much more time to fit in my usual activities and bang out some words.

In short, its good to be back.

Morning Pharm Report

I'm home after dropping to my 2 pharmacy stops. I decided to query Marsha about Charlie's info about him getting back to this Hamburg route in its entirety. She surprisingly confirmed that that would likely happen. I sqeaaked with joy (not kidding) and she said not to smile because "it's like a Chinese school in here--no smiling." Of course she was joking but, with any luck, this means I'm definitely not going to have to get up at the butt crack of dawn for much longer!

Still Going to the Pharms & New Podcast

As of this morning, no new news concerning the pharmacy stops I have for my job (as mentioned a couple blog posts ago--anyone noticing that I'm posting more?). However, the vehicle which I heard the new guy is driving was at the warehouse so I'm guessing Charlie has him out for orientation on the Allentown route. Perhaps as early as tomorrow I'll be sleeping in later. One can only hope!

The podcast I mention above is not necessarily new but it is new to me. For the last 4 years, a musician by the name of Marc Gunn has been producing the 'Irish and Celtic Music Podcast' on iTunes. If you're at all into this kind of music (the podcast features independent artists both instrumental and vocal) you have to check out this awesome podcast. I've been downloading shows and burning them onto cd for my drives. Great stuff!

Send in the (Retro-) Clones!

With the resurgence of "old-school" game systems bursting through the woodwork in the last couple years, it's hard for me to keep up with what's out there. What's everyone's favorite and why? I thought Tricky Owlbear might use OSRIC for its retro adventures but Labyrinth Lord might be even less complex (i.e. easier to write for--up yours 3e stat blocks and balance!). Then there's Swords & Wizardry, which is like, what, 0 edition? I will say that I bought the Fight On! issues available from Lulu and am happy with the retro feel and massive amount of content. These mags also let me know what stat format is "universally" acceptable (and their popularity lets me know I need to get on this bandwagon).

In other news, I watched the finale of Family Guy and...was not impressed. This whole season has been pretty much of a letdown. I mean earlier they had the entire cast of Next Gen and they use them as a frickin' B-plot! Lost opportunity there. Finales were the order of the week this week. Lost was pretty damned good and I'm happy I still don't really know what the hell is going on. We've got one season to go so I should still be in the dark. Then there's Prison Break. The writers managed to wrap everything up even if they did shoehorn in characters like Kellerman, C-Note, and Sucre. Nice touch giving the General the electric chair and for Sarah to shoot Michael's psycho-bitch mom. I did regret Michael dying from that brain thing the Company supposedly cured him of but I guess he had cheated death one too many times.

Watching finales always put me in the mood for writing grand adventures for my home campaigns. Unfortunately, our play schedule has been infrequent. Even if it wasn't, though, I just did run the big ending to our "stop 4th edition" story arc for the planar campaign. I'll just have to make notes and put them aside for later. That's the beauty of GMing--your "show" isn't cancelled until you want it to be so there's always time for that next great plot.

Welcome Back

I've neglected over the last month or so to replace a blog link here. Friend and fellow author Mike Ferguson is back in the blog-seat again and sharing some of his memories of writing and sharing good times. You know him best from Goodman Games' 'Dungeon Crawl Classics' line and maybe know him from Tricky Owlbear's 'Behind the Monsters: Xorn' pdf. And if you don't know him yet, well it's about time to remedy that: http://www.emeraldlich.com/

New BtS at KQ

Almost forgot to post this here, but the newest mini-BtS article is up at KQ.com: http://www.koboldquarterly.com/k/article750.php

This one focuses on (Drawmij's) Instant Summons. I was fortunate to get Jim Ward to pen a short blurb describing how this spell came about in real-life which hopefully is a neat treat for my regular readers. I'd love to get ahold of the other creators (Nystul, etc.) for future articles but tracking these folks down is probably going to be more difficult than tracking down the Loch Ness Monster (cue Family Guy clip).

Forever Is Not Always Forever?

Okay, so everybody knows that I'm doing the courier thing--going to different banks (mostly in Schuylkill Cty) and delivering/picking up their mail and other items. In recent weeks (I'd say since March at least), I've also been given two pharmacies to deliver items to as well. Seems the normal guy on the route (Charlie) was diverted to Allentown to run a pharm route before starting the one that begins, conveniently for me, in Hamburg. So, with Charlie requiring extra time in the morning before starting his Hamburg run, I was given the first two stops on the run (again, both in Hamburg) which was okay since it added no miles to speak of but gave me an extra $16/day. However, it also meant having to wake up around 630am instead of my usual 8am. Quite the difference, no?

I'm not a morning person so this "temporary" (for that is what Marsha, the head dispatcher, told me) pharm thing didn't sit too well with me. Now I was up to 9+hours of work a day instead of 7-1/2 hrs. Well, after two weeks or so back when this began, I finally asked Marsha how long I would need to do the pharm stops. "Forever and ever," came her response. Bwa?! I said, "I thought you said this was only temporary." Well, I don't recall her response but apparently as long as Charlie had to cover Allentown (the original driver was out of the picture for some reason) then I needed to cover the Hamburg stops so Charlie wouldn't get behind.

Well, it made sense but, as an independent contractor, it didn't make me happy that this decision was arbitrarily made without my consent. Time passed and I grew accustomed to the extra ~$80/week but never to getting up early. Today, however, I learned that "Forever and ever" might not be so. Charlie, who I see everyday, said the big boss said he had some relief lined up for the Allentown route. This tells us that Charlie will be back to his Hamburg route soon and then I can go back to sleeping in and staying up later. At least I hope so. At this place, the old axiom, "I'll believe it when I see it," applies in spades.

More news as it becomes available. Stay tuned!

Posting and Star Trek

Apologies for the lack of posts but I've moved the bulk of my ramblings to the very convenient twitter.com. Search for my there under "TrickyOwlbear". I'll continue to post here at irregular intervals but there's just something appealing to keeping my thoughts limited to twitter's low character count. (Edit: Okay, one of my friends said he checks the blog daily so I'm guessing he's not the only one. I'll post more as of now)

I went with the Cuthberts to the new Star Trek flick on Sunday night. My thoughts? Loved it! Only a couple things made me go, "Hmm". First--why was Scotty put in charge of anything after being beamed aboard? He was manning an ice outspost and virtually unknown to anyone on board. "Oh, just stick him in the transporter room. Okay, he did well there so let's stick him in engineering now where he'll probably have to eject the core at some point." Second--why did Chekhov have to run to the transporter room to save Kirk and Sulu? Could he not have relayed what to so instead of wasting time running through the ship? And why was he the only one that had this knowledge? I smell Wesley Crusher syndrome for the sequel!

Nitpicks aside, the reboot was quite good and deserves however many sequels they want to throw after it. Great job by Leonard Nimoy too; out of retirement for this and JJ Abrams must like him so much that he's now the nemesis on FOX's Fringe.