Saturday 15 May 2010

What's going on?

The times they are a-changing; things begin, things happen, things end. I'm not pulling the plug on the blog, never fear, but I am making a few changes that will affect what you read here.

Firstly, SNFC - I've decided to put it on a sabbatical for a while; I've been running low on ideas and I wanted to prevent it getting stale. It has been running for about six months now. It may return in another format, I'm not sure. Anyway, just wanted to say that up till now, it's been a lot of fun to do and I do appreciate those of you who commented on it and whose support gave me the confidence to keep it going. Hopefully, it may have spurred some of you into giving some lesser-known monsters some OSR love.

Secondly - I've decided not to blog unless I've got something worth blogging about. Depending on how full the ideas pot is, that may mean that quite some time goes by without a post. I'm working on something at the moment that may see the light of day next week.

And to completely contradict myself, I'm also planning something a little bit unusual. Lots of bloggers post their adventure logs and until a few weeks ago, I was doing the same with Junior Grognard's activities. He's gone a bit meh on gaming at present - may restart it, may not. Anyway, to get over the lack of players, I've decided to do the following:

Using the random dungeon tables in the DMG and a bunch of characters from the 1e Character generator on Dragonsfoot, I'm going to do a solo dungeon and write it up. I'll not know what's coming up until I make the rolls, and I'll report the rolls as they fall, honestly and without fudging. I think it'll be interesting to see how the dungeon develops - TPKs and dead ends notwithstanding. Comments on the posts may affect what the party does the next session. What is rolled up will stand and may generate hooks and ideas for further adventures.

I'm not allocating a particular day for it - when I have time (RL issues permitting) I'll do some rolling and writing.

Following a suggestion by Lawrence Blake on my recent post "Things to do in D&D when you're dead", I may also start to do a Hooks Alphabet. If anyone has any ideas on stuff they'd like to see hooks for, let me know and I'll see if I can jump-start the brain into action.

My module writing will continue in the background; a second session of playtesting the first one will (hopefully) happen soon thanks to Dungeonmum's gang - then it's getting it illustrated and converting it to pdf. If anyone knows a freeware reliable pdf converter, could they let me know?

Many thanks!

And now I'm off to attend to RL issues.

11 comments:

  1. Don't know what the best freeware solution is, but I write my stuff in Open Office, as it can convert files to pdf.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Please do send me some solo roleplaying tables, ide love to solo roleplay, Im also changing my blog soon. Good to see your not leaving,

    Steve

    ReplyDelete
  3. Whoo! interesting times. Looking forward to the dungeon, esp with the audience participation thing. I must rally the troops!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey, I'm glad to see that you're considering the "Hooks Alphabet" project. I think it would make for a great RPG accessory.

    If I can think up any hook subjects, I'll send 'em your way.

    ReplyDelete
  5. the solo, randomly generated DMG game with input from comments here sounds like a great idea, it'll be interesting to see where that goes. enjoy your sabbatical!

    word verification: gagard - closest it'll ever get to grognard i reckon.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for the support, chaps. As an adjunct to the above, I'd like to say that if anyone feels that they can bring a new slant to it, they are more than welcome to pick up the SNFC concept and run with it. I had trouble trying to work out a way to pitch two magical creatures against each other - the variables were too high but if a system could be devised, there are still plenty of great matches there.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Don't stay away too long mate, I know the "real world" can get in the way (I've had problems up the wazoo again) just take care and come back soon!

    ReplyDelete
  8. You couldnt tell me where I could find some of those tables online? Ide really love to get my hands on some.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Online I'm not sure about, but they are in the appendices of the 1e DMG (you can usually pick one up for under a tenner on Amazon). I'll have a nosey around and see what I can find but it'll have to be during the week.

    ReplyDelete
  10. That dungeon sounds interesting. It gives me an image people at the cinema shouting at the screen and actually affecting the film.

    ReplyDelete
  11. We'll have to see how it plays out but yes, that is generally the idea. I'll probably end each session at a decision point - "Cross the bridge or go back to take on the gnolls" sort of thing and depending on the comments, the decision will be made.

    ReplyDelete