TFT Basic Set that was and wasn't: Dragons of Underearth

A while ago I wrote a rambling missive on my strange fascination with TFT and it's status as the biggest "just miss" in role playing for me.  Late in the life of Metagaming Inc., a new boxed set was released call Dragons of Underearth.  This was a basic and trimmed down FRPG based on Melee, Wizard, and TFT.  Strangely, Dragons of Underearth was apparently tied back to another Micro Game Lords of Underearth.  Lords of Underearth is a fantasy war game that has some ties to TFT, but it's definitely not a FRPG.  You control companies of fighters and battle using a CRT. More odd? Apparently the never published follow up to Dragons, Conquers of Underearth, served to expand and tie Dragons of Underearth and Lords of Underearth together into a "company based" FRPG solitaire play war game.  What would THAT Frankenstein monster of a game have looked like?

The Lords of Underearth is a unique and fun war game, and I suppose if your gaming style consisted of parties of adventures battling hordes of goblins, orcs, or other beasts in company sized units then a mash up with a FRPG is certainly a lost treasure.  Perhaps this sort of thing could have been invaluable to say an avid Birthright player or to the players who wanted to run their own kingdoms and have their party of characters involved in mass combats.  I never understood that need myself, but I'd never turn down another tool in the old gaming toolbox.

Back to Dragons of Underearth, while it is a basic FRPG based on TFT, its' pretty clear it's goal was to serve as a bridge to the Conquerors of Underearth product.  This again seems like yet another Metagaming mistake.  Where TFT became too complex and rules/ exceptions heavy, Dragons scaled back (too far mind you) to the core basics of the system presenting a simplified (and unfinished) core FRPG system.  Yet it's apparent goal was only to set up the basics needed to get into playing Conquerors.  I make this assumption based on two sources: The Dragons of Underearth rules which mention Conquerors multiple times for reference and rules expansion.  Second, from the designer himself commenting on it.

What a waste.  As Thompson did not like the direction Jackson took TFT, and Dragons seemed like the potential product Howard originally envisioned TFT to become, it's sad to think of Dragons as a bastard "son of TFT" meant only as a bridge to some other game. I created my own version of what a basic game might have looked like with Heroes & Other Worlds.

Below posted are the Dragons of Underearth designers notes from Interplay #8. 

Pocket Full of Peril #8: Ruins of Rhee-Suh-Uhs

Rhe-Suh-Uhs' tentacles of power once stretched over the land.  Slowly he lost power as others arose to challenge his rule.  In the end he fled into the southern ruins and caves of Mount Lepos with his family and retainers.  Rumors abound of fabulous wealth stashed in his tomb but its been hundreds of years surely there is nothing left to loot...or is there?

Tip of the cap to Tim Ballew over at Risus Monkey for the geomporphs edited and used to create this Pocket full of Peril.

Download the PDF version in the PfoP repository on the right side of the page!

Pocket Full of Peril #7: Lair of the Lunartics

 

People in the small  villages around Mount Lepos have an ongoing problem, their folk are disappearing during nights of a full moon.  Worse, occasionally they come back with a misshapen neck and back, gaunt, stumbling and feeding on the flesh of any they find.  Mount Lepos is a notorious site filled with caves, ancient mines, hives of goblins, and strange creatures no man can name.  What is abducting the villagers and can it be stopped before the next full moon?

I ran this using my Roguish RPG system and its become something of a "Hive Crawl" at this point.  For now I'll post this first level PFoP version.  All the wicked cool hive geomorphs were made by Stonewerks and you can find them by clicking the link.

The Lunartics
The Lunartics in my game are an alien species that have been stranded for ages inside of Mount Lepos slowly growing in numbers.  They are now venturing out and using hive leaches to create zombie workers to dig new areas, or food for this brood.  The lunartics themselves look like pale gray/white upright walking ticks.  Huge bloated abdomens that are inches above the ground. The top short arms are used for feeding and grasping things up close to their poor vision eyes. The longer middle arms are used to hold tool or weapons, and two large power full legs propel their bodies uprightly like a humanoid.  The lunartics feel vibrations in the air via antennae,  through their feet, and through millions of small spiny hairs more than they actually see things.  So things like invisibility or hiding in shadows serve no purpose if the person doing these things is also moving.

There are lunartic workers who use a bite or claw to defend themselves.  Their carapace is equal to hardened leather or scale armor. The lunartic warriors use spine throwers which are sort of a shotgun firing d6 darts. These are fueled by a strange spiney larva.  In addition they use spore "grenades" which are a fungal growth that when broken does one of 3 things: Fails, creates a choking gas cloud, or creates a poison gas cloud.  This is determined by the age and moisture richness of the spore. They fall back on using dual wielded sharp dagger like knife hooks which grow from their claws and mark them as warrior caste at birth.  Their armor is also harder, like chain mail when young and plate mail when veteran.

Hive Leaches
The hive leaches are slow moving centipede like creatures which glow faintly in the dimness.  They range from a 12 to 18 inches in length.  They bred as food by the lunartics and secrete a mind altering fluid that effects humanoids by turning them into zombies.  A hive leach when attached to a humanoid well first paralyze, and the slowly feed off the victims spinal fluid until the back breaks and the victim is crippled.  This usually takes a few months.  In the meantime the victim is kept alive an nourished by the hive leach producing a protein based saliva that keeps the subject alive and also "zombifies" the victim.  The lunartics turn these victims into simple miners.  When threatened the hive leach secrets an adrenaline into the victim causing the fight or flight reaction in the host.

Spore Flies
In the hive players can also come across spore flies. These look like bat-winged grub insects with glowing abdomens. They bite and leach onto victims drain 1 hp per turn they are attached.

Mushmoons
These are strange yellowish mushrooms that glow in dark and give off a candles worth of light for up to 30 days even after being picked.  When eaten by humanoids it can create various effects depending upon the age of the mushroom.  Dried mushrooms can be eaten like an iron ration and fill like a full meal.  Young ones are deadly poisonous, and full grown ones can induce madness.

What lies lower in the lair?  Time will tell...

Download Pocket Full of Peril #7 PDF  in the PFoP Repository link to the right. 


Also note my first dozen COLLAPSE RPG Administrator kits are now for sale!

Roll your own dungeons

I saw this new Dungeon Morph Dice kickstart project and wanted to call it to your attention.  in essence each die face is a different dungeon geomorph, and they intend on producing a set of 5 different dice!

The goal is $6500 to produce the sets and there are a range of different pledge levels to see them get produced.

One thing I'd like to see is a firm pledge for everything: dice sets, battle maps the whole works.  As is if you add $80 to the top level you get the works, but that seems a bit of a gray area.  Just add a firm pledge level for "the werks!" Note, i did make my pledge today!  I hope they also use geomorphs from Stonewerk's Blog as he has produced some great geomorphs I have used in my Pockets full of Peril adventures.

I have a couple large sized D12 that have different dungeon halls and rooms on them so you can roll your own dungeon, and they have made some cool on the fly dungeon maps.  Maybe I'll roll up a couple and post them at some point.

New dungeons crawls await

UPDATE:  My copy just shipped (3/23) from The Warstore.  I have bought lots of stuff from Neal, his selection, service, and shipping are tops! Get yours there today!

I am a huge fan of dungeon crawl boardgames.  Note that does not mean I think they are all good, just that when good they can be a fun way to spend a couple hours.  Often times getting someone to sit down and try one of these types of games has led them down the forbidden and dark path to full blow role-playing! (Insert our own sufficiently diabolical laugh here-go on, I'll wait...)

There are two new dungeon crawl games coming soon that you might be interested in.  One is sufficiently dark and brooding and the other is refreshingly cool and unique.  Note neither is really out yet, but you can get minis and in both cases the full blown games should be coming soon.

First from Mantic Games- The Dwarf King's Hold: Dead Rising.
It looks very Space Hulk like in that it is simple to learn, easy to play, and will probably (unlike GW) include future supplements like Orcs as villains.  I could go on about it, but the video below does a swell job of outlining the rules and demoing game play.  The only problem I'd point out in the video is that in demoing, the Scottish host gets a bit too caught up in playing and trying to win rather than just illustrating the game play. Well I can't blame a fellow for wanting to win.




Next is a decidedly anime styled crawl called Super Dungeon Explore from Soda Pop miniatures.  While the full boxed game is not out yet, the miniatures supporting the game are.  Some will hate the designs, but I think they rock, it's nice to see sculpts outside the usual range of fantasy archetypes.  The demo game is a free down load and although I have not had a chance to play it yet, I have purchased all the minis in hopes of doing so.  With my luck the boxed game will be out before that happens, but in the mean time, here is a look at the minis.

GAMA 2011 Report: When the king abdicates the throne...who will rule?

Well at GAMA this year, the RPG throne was noticeably vacant. Last year I wrote a bit about my take on the GAMA trade show. This year, it was both better and worse. Note, working for a game company I had access to the show floor yesterday while MFG's were setting up so I got to see it all and talk to folks before the show officially opens today.

Of note it seemed like the number of retailer attendees was up. That's good although whether it was due to increased freebies at the show, the timing of the show this year, or a strengthening of the hobby market overall is not clear. Attendance was strong in the “new retailer” presentation by distributors so that is a good sign. In speaking with some retailers, they have seen sales remain strong in the first quarter this year up from same time last year. What categories are strong? Boardgames lead the way in the strength of sales, card games second, then minis, then RPG's a distant 4^th. Now that is not a blanket statement for the industry, only the feedback I got from ten different retailers in different parts of the U.S. Mostly west coast and mid-west stores. Distributors I spoke with concurred with retailers on a category by category basis. RPG's were as an average less than 20% of overall sales. Of that 20%, roughly 90% would be split Paizo/WOTC, with everyone else dividing up the last 10%. Again that's not biblical, just a breakdown of hearsay conversations from multiple industry distributors and from retailers.

Okay so RPG's are the weak horse in the hobby industry currently, but what did I see from the RPG companies at the show? Not much at all.

It was a bit of surprise here as really only Green Ronin and Indie Press Revolution showed anything. No Paizo, no Fantasy Flight, No Steve Jackson Games, No Goodman Games, and WotC was only an INFORMATION BOOTH! So in terms of the RPG market, for all intents and purposes NO ONE was showing! All the gorillas who OWN the market did not show a damn thing. Is it arrogance? Laziness? Cost cutting? You make the call on your own as I think its a stew of all of the above. Furthermore in discussions with a Paizo person, they believe WotC has ceded the RPG market to Paizo at this point. It's a statement I can't argue against.

You see WotC is cutting back on all D&D RPG because it does not earn enough revenue for Hasbro to invest resources in. Regardless of what you or I consider to be “enough revenue” current D&D is NOT meeting Hasbro's goals. The scuttlebutt with distributors was a potential D&D 5.0 announcement this summer. D&D 5.0 may print only core books (and or boxed sets) and then everything else goes PDF. Apparently Hasbro is happy with the online revenues generated by D&D, but print is dead and not worth the expense to Hasbro. So the edition wars may have one edition less to deal with, but a new one could be on the horizon. Now 5.0 is one possibility, alternatively-they could sell it off to someone else and divest themselves of the brand. I think that is less likely unless someone overpaid Hasbro for it.

You see the D&D lines of board games are successful, and that could be the way Hasbro chooses to represent and sell the D&D brand going forward. This would not mean a death of the Original RPG, only a reduction in stature to possibly a tertiary brand treatment. Anyway you look at it though, the king is at least grievously wounded and no one is looking for a cleric to save him.

So enter Paizo, with it's version of the grand old game. I never liked 3.0 nor 3.5 when I worked for WotC, so my own interest in the continuation of Encyclopedia Gamika books and manuals is nil. Regardless a HUGE amount of RPG players love it and actively play it. Game shops sell the heck out of it, and I can't see an end in sight as D&D continues to weaken, Paizo continues to pick up steam. Plus there is an interesting, though overdue, Pathfinder product coming. I am not sure the target audience for this product will be interested, but the market will decide.

If RPG's are less than a 2% showing at GAMA then what's the rest of the show? Well trading card, and constructable card games are huge. Board games remain big, and miniature games continue to hold their own. Here is an odd thought. As the RPG market declines to a no show status at a major retailer trade show, will dice manufacturers sink as well?

RPG's require a large commitment in terms of time and energy from individuals to play. A card game can be over in as little as 10 minutes. A simple board game, maybe 45 minutes. Sure on average a card game or a board game (depending upon the game) can be much longer, but even at an hour or two hours, it is much less time investment than an RPG and you can play it and put it away with no further commitment. .

My point being the barrier to entry on an RPG is substantial compared to a card game or average board game and the notion of campaigning is fairly central to playing an RPG. Character leveling and improvement over time of playing means campaigning IS a central tenet to RPG's. They system itself assumes you will be playing for a long time to come. If I win or lose a game of Monopoly, Settlers of Catan, or Memoir 44, there is no expectation that it will have any impact on my playing the game again, whenever I chose to do so. With RPG's that is not the case. In an age of on demand, twitch gaming, is there any room for RPG's in the long term?

Absolutely.

Just because it will never be the golden age, nor the silver age, nor the cubic zirconium age, does not mean it isn’t still a viable and potentially strong game format. It's about adjusting your expectation and accepting and building upon they way things are rather than how they have been in the past.

SO here is a perfect opportunity for one or more small press RPG companies to steal the show-there really is no competition on the show floor, you have hundreds of retailers, every major distributor at the show, and you are...maybe reading this blog and hopefully kicking yourself in the ass. Next year you may not be so lucky to have the floor to yourself, but maybe you will?

Ian Livingston on Tricks & Traps

Inspired by a post by Jim at Carjacked Serpahim I began thinking about tricks and traps.  Note Jim's article is not specifically about tricks and traps, but the lesson gleaned from his post is a great one!  Anyway I half remembered an article in an old Fighting Fantasy magazine.  It is a simple but good one and was originally presented in Warlock Magazine #4 (oh for the heady days when the term Warlock had nothing to do with Charlie Sheen or his brain.) WINNING!

Even hardy adventurers often have a difficult time overcoming all the monsters they encounter on their quests. But I am sure that many have suffered wounds caused not by monsters, but by the devious traps that are set inside the Gamebooks. How many have bad memories of the portcullis levers in The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, or the deadly devices riddled throughout Deathtrap Dungeon? Traps are the perfect obstacles to thwart even the toughest adventurers, since overcoming them often requires brain instead of brawn. Traps can be simple – for instance, if you walk through a left-hand door, something unpleasant is going to happen to you, but if you walk through the right-hand door, you will benefit somehow. Or traps can be complex, requiring more thought than simply choosing one of two options. Visual clues in an illustration of a trap can be spotted. Simple mathematical puzzles can be applied to tricks to make them more challenging, as in the Statue Room in Deathtrap Dungeon. There is obviously plenty of scope for tricks and traps. Traps can be applied to doors, floors, tunnels, rooms, stairs and passageways, and feature arrows, daggers, spears, teleporters, chutes, rolling boulders or iron balls, gas, acid, fire, poison – the possibilities are endless. As an example, a common trap is a stone which falls down from the ceiling when triggered by the opening of a door. Another example is the floor of a room which pivots at its centre and deposits the unfortunate adventurer down into lower rooms/pits/ cellars. Wounds may be received as a result of the fall and, even worse, escape may not be possible if the adventurer does not already possess a pole or some rope.

Tricks can be presented in the form of riddles, rhymes, illusions, animated objects, dialogue, unseen messengers, puzzles and anagrams in or on scrolls, walls, etchings, paintings, carvings, doors, pillars, idols, fountains, ashes, ceilings, floors, chests, chalk, etc. A passageway appears to come to an end at a doorway. The adventurer may be given the options of trying to open the door or walking back down the passageway. The door is in fact an illusion which has been placed over a pit. If the adventurer tries to open the door, he or she will fall down the pit and lose STAMINA points. However, the adventurer might have found a ring of illusion-detection
earlier in the adventure, and will be given a chance to see the illusion should he or she opt to open the door. Another example might be that the adventurer walks into a room where there is a lantern. The door slams shut behind the adventurer and a genie emerges from the
lantern. The genie asks the adventurer a riddle which, if answered correctly, will benefit the adventurer, but will cause injury, if answered incorrectly.

The Name Game (and art update)

The whole idea behind using "Roguish" as a game title stems from my love of roguelike pc games.  The endless dungeons, random things you find, and always different dungeon maps fit well with my experience playing pen & paper games.  One of the most popular roguelikes is Diablo. In essence Diablo is nothing more than a super chrome job and "real time" combat version of classic roguelikes.  So while Roguish as a fantasy RPG name brings up that classic exploration and combat connotation to me, to others it could mean:

a) nothing
b) non-rpg based reference
c) something thief based only 

None of those is an accurate mental pigeon hole for my game.

As I work for a game company, I am familiar with branding and how important it is to successfully marketing and creating interest for your product.  While Roguish may catch the concept to me, as a name it's not really working.  The more I write and work on the game the more I feel it's a miss on a number of different levels.  To that end I have come up with a few possible names to replace Roguish.  Your vote is important so let me know what you think of:

Peril & Plunder
Sword & Shield
Tombs & Terrors
Adventurous
Roguish (hey I could be wrong)

UPDATE
Also I thought it worth noting (and posting with some pride) my wife will be supplying some of the art for my (TBD) Fantasy Role Playing Game, below is something I might use either as introductory pages or possibly as inserted chapter break pages for added "feel" in the game.

Sorry for the long silence

Work and travel have swamped my schedule leaving me with little time to do much more than eat, sleep, and....spend time with my wife.

I come home and see my box of COLLAPSE admin kits just waiting for me to post the purchase button and start mailing them out.  So this weekend FOR SURE they go up for sale because its my one non crazy week when I know I can mail them out!

I did not want to talk someone's hard earned $ without assuring them its on the way without delay.  Now to catch my breath and have a few beers and see what I have been missing over the past few weeks around the blogosphere.

From the Syllabus of Dr. Fenway

But for one choice at the end of my senior year of college, the choice to no longer be poor and beholden to student loans, I would have become a history or Poli-sci professor.  My passion for history and political science run through me along with my passion for gaming.

To that end it is unique to see a a serious political work mashed up with one of my favorite topics-zombies.  This is the kind of scholarship that I not only enjoy, but smack myself wondering how something so clever hasn't been done before.

The book in question is Theories of International Politics and Zombies by Daniel W. Drezner

In a brief 100 pages of text (152 pgs with notes and index) Mr. Dezner outlines and defines various philosophies of international politics and how to each handles crisis.  In this case it is illustrated in terms of a global zombie apocalypse.

NeoCons? Liberals? Realpolitik? Liberalism? Constructivism?  All forms of International political theory are put to the test and illustrated in how they would respond to a outbreak of the living dead.

Now if you have zero interest in International Politics (can that be possible? --I kid!) I can't really recommend it, except to say-once you read it you might start having any interest.  For those already interested, this is a great read and for your friends, can help illustrate the different philosophical theories behind dealing with International Crisis.

From a gaming perspective, I intend to use this cool resource as part of the background info for setting up my Zombie "blue book" reference for my COLLAPSE RPG.

Sorry posting is random and erratic-work is back into its grind, my cold is finally weakening, and time to do what I want is quite limited.  I'll have the COLLAPSE kits packed this weekend for sure, and plan on offering them up for sale Sunday so I can ship them out on Monday.  With around 20 copies of the kit, I don't think they will last long.

Finally a Happy Friday!

Well it took a lot of work and waiting, but all the bits for my limited run of the COLLAPSE RPG Administrator kits are here!  I am only making about 25 kits and when they are gone, I don't know if or when there would be another run.   Each Administrator's Kit includes:

• A used military surplus rubberized canvas bag(condition is good but varies no two are alike!)
• 3 Ticonderoga pencils
• A Staedtler pencil sharpener
• 25 graph grid index cards
• 25 lined index cards
• 2 red six sided dice
• 2 yellow six sided dice
• a mini compass
• a mini led light
• and I am tossing in a printed digest sized copy of the beta v1.1 COLLAPSE RPG manual

Price
$45+$5 shipping in the lower 48 US
Ships in a padded plastic envelope.

Intl. shipping prices will be on an individual location basis

I'll post an email where you can contact me to purchase a kit once I have all the kits completed and ready to ship.  I'll also post a picture of the completed kits this weekend so you can see it before you decide.

OGRE/GEV... Lovecraft?

Ogre and GEV from Steve Jackson are near perfect war games.  To the left you will see some of my own OGRES including the dreaded OGRETHULHU. Yes I love the game enough to play the miniatures version! Owning and having played a few hundred different war games, OGRE/GEV remains my most played-and one of the few I can get anyone to sit down and try.   Let me break down why:

1. Theme: One big guy versus lots of little guys, David and Goliath in tank form
2. Clear Goal: kill the base or kill the Ogre
3. Low focus factor-The newbie has one piece to control the OGRE
4. Early victories-the OGRE crushes lots of people and stuff before you can get close to stopping it. This gives the OGRE early successes and keeps that player hooked right away.
5. Simple terrain rules-you go fast on roads, slower in swamps, things in cities and trees are harder to kill. NO LOS nor any ZOC's, if it is in range you can try to shoot it.

In its simplicity, and focusing on the basics of what makes a war game, Jackson created a simple but effective design.  What is surprising to me is by adding GEV he created a true war game while retaining the simplicity of design established by OGRE.  This is frankly suprising.

If you look at Jackson Game designs, he starts with a pure skeleton of a game that is playable, understandable, inexpensive, and fun!  Then for whatever reason he takes that pure design and begins "improving it."  The improvements being to bury   the core system into a morass of exceptions and special rules that leech the fun out the original.  For your consideration:

1. Car Wars started as a small pocket box game, added a few more pocket boxes that added some new stuff...but then it exploded into huge boxed sets including formula 1 racing, tanks, airplanes, helicopters and boats! WTF??

2. Melee/ Wizard-small box games that evolved into a more complex TFT...that then evolved into GURPS.  I like the idea of GURPS because Melee/ Wizard is still int here somewhere...but damn if I'll ever play it there is simply too many exceptions and special rules to make it any fun!

 Given his game design history and penchant for over complication one must question how OGRE/GEV survived unscathed?  Frankly its remarkable!  The only missing element in my opinion from OGRE/GEV is air power.  In my opinion they could be added like they were super GEV's or something like that.  I think it would be quite simple to add them without breaking the system nor creating a host of new rules or complications.

There are a few different official maps for OGRE/GEV, but a lot for the fun I have had is with finding maps from my war games to use with OGRE/GEV.  A couple of snow bound maps representing the Soviet invasion of Finland from WW2 inspired an alternate time line in my own version of OGRE/GEV.  After the breakdown of the EU, the Soviet Union rose again. In response to threats from the NuSOV the Scandinavian countries protecting their oil reserves and people united under a new Gustavus Aldophus. The soviets start out their campaigns with tanks and troops,and eventually have to send in OGRES to try and beat the Scandinavian forces.  We played through this inc college tracking the battles on maps and playing them out in a little more than an hour when we had a chance.  At the time we colored the white OGRE/GEV counters red to represent the NuSOV army and the Scandas were black.

 A few years ago in remembrance of those great games I created Soviet Counters and Royal counters for revived Northern Alliance of Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.  I upload them here for your use. Enjoy!

There is talk (and has been for a few years now) of bringing back OGRE/GEV in a new boxed form with super thick counters and hard mounted maps.  I will snap it up for certain, and if you have the chance to play it or buy it, I can;t recommend it highly enough.

Traveller: The Fantasy Trip Edition

Inspired by Superhero Necromancer sharing some fantastic TFT resources, I've decided to put up my Traveller TFT stuff I've collected.  Some is Dark City Games Legends of Time and Space and includes their rules and 2 solo programmed adventures.  In addition are Ty Beard's Traveller and Hi Tech TFT rules.  Dark City also has a number of sci-fi modules based on their rules for purchase.  I own them all and they are good!

Between Ty's rules and DCG's rules you have a pretty good core set to play sci-fi TFT.  It's not complete but I think it shows the flexibility and possibilities of the TFT engine.  Too bad GURPS took this simple set and went off the rails because I think in about 36 or 48 pages you could create a pretty good rpg using this as a basis.

UPDATE: I have created my own Melee/Wizard/TFT inspired fantasy game Heroes & Other Worlds. You can checkout an initial review from Robert Saint John on RPG geek.

Pocket Full of Peril #6

Pocket Full of Peril #6: The Viper's Nest
The coastal town of Gorath is suffering from a sudden rash of disappearances.  Some believed press gangs might be the cause until a kuotoa was slain by a citizen guard group near a dock.  The town militia spotted light in the old seaside temple.  They went up and were ambushed by dark elves an only one cam back bearing a letter of warning from one who called himself The Viper. Now they'd rather pay you gold, then pay with their lives to find out the secret of the temple. 

Tip of the cap to STONEWERKS for the Geomorph and inspiration!

Well my creative burst this week is now at an end.  Back to the salt mines tomorrow.  It amazes me how having some time without the shackles of the daily grind frees me up to pursue with passion these kinds of things.  I get more satisfaction from creating a little adventure or mini game in an afternoon then I do from a month of work.  I hate to bid adieu to this little creative jump, but it may be awhile before I get the opportunity to focus on gaming stuff again. 

2011 is my year to finish my Roguish Fantasy RPG, so I will be posting updates as I go on that site.  The COLLAPSE Administrators kit bits and pieces are on order and once put together and ready to ship I'll post its availability on my COLLAPSE site, I am making a very limited number of them so keep a weather eye out. Sword & Shield will remain my site to talk about gaming in general and posting random bits.