I've been playing tabletop RPGs since 1981 and reading comic books even longer. Here I'll talk about TTRPGs, Comics, Fantasy, Science-Fiction and other Geek Stuff, including product reviews, game history, and details on the 1981 Moldvay Basic ("B/X") Dungeons and Dragons game I'm running for my (currently) 13 YO daughter and her friends that I started for her when she was 11 during the pandemic lockdowns.
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I really enjoy Mystara. It uses tropes to quickly convey the setting to players, so as GM you don't need a ton of player buy-in for something like Empire of the Petal Throne. When someone asks "what's X?" You can pretty easily say "It's kind of like Y." It's not TSR, or strictly for D&D, but any chance of doing something like this for Harn?
I had forgotten about Devo, but someone else pointed it out. I did remember Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders but didn't mention them because I didn't want the entire bonus content to become a 30 minute segment of me mentioning every band from Ohio! But... I sincerely appreciate you watching through the bonus content! Thank you so much, and cheers to you!
It was on purpose to see if you were paying attention. 😀 I've just always said it that way to myself and never heard of said outloud but Bill Connors who worked on it dropped into the comments to tell me how they pronounced it when they worked at TSR and I will try to remember that. When you've said a word for 30+ years a certain way, it's difficult to change!
Ha! I've mispronounced a thing or two here on the channel and people are always helpful (and very quick) to point it out and now I'm almost gunshy! I've pronounced it "sen-TOR" my whole life but right as I was saying it, I second guessed myself and wondered, "Have I been pronouncing it wrong this whole time?" But turns out I was right and should've gone with my gut. Anyway, thanks for watching and commenting!
Your channel is fantastic, I love the way you explain things and you are an incredible source of inspiration for my games. Thank you so much for your work and passion.
Yes indeed! The short summary is that it's, in part, an adaptation of Clark Ashton Smith's Averoigne stories, and it's actually set in the fictional medieval French province of that name. There's a haunted mansion, interdimensional portals, a "slightly" demented family, and more. Moldvay drew not only on CAS, but also Edgar Allan Poe and Roger Zelazny. After this module, the Amber family became a main part of the Known World and they show up as one of the ruling families in Gazetteer 3: Principalities of Glantri (the principality is ruled over by a bunch of magic-using houses including two elf family factions, a family of medieval Scots [some undead!] from the same world as the Ambers, and a bunch of others). You can pick up a PDF and/or POD at DriveThruRPG here: www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/17088/X2-Castle-Amber-Basic Goodman Games also put out one of their "Original Adventures Reincarnated" versions a while ago but those are going for a lot of money on the secondary market now that they've discontinued them.
Taking over RU-vid would be amazing! I think I have a long way to go, though, since I don't do "outrage." 😀 I appreciate your support! Thanks for watching and commenting!
There’s a pretty rough rule-of-thumb that I’ve come up with to figure out what OD&D content was authored by Gygax, and what was written by Arneson: Look at a rule in the LBBs. Compare that rule to what is published in 1e AD&D. If it made it over with little to no editing other than a slight expansion and/or clarification: it was most likely Gygax. If it was heavily edited, and the rules and numbers are all different: that was almost certainly Arneson. I remember reading a Grognardia post years ago where James was comparing some OD&D and Basic set rules to the AD&D counterparts. The AD&D ones were really different… and not in ways that made them more realistic. They seemed more complex, but less rooted in reality. (I believe the rules were all dealing with air and sea movement and combat, and perhaps domain construction and management.) He was baffled at the changes. I’m pretty sure that was an example of Gary changing Dave’s rules and figures in order to present the 1e rules as an entirely different game. It probably won’t hold for every single example… but in general, I’m pretty sure that is something you can look at and get a sense of where Dave’s major contributions were.
I never picked them up myself but I know they were quite popular, especially after I made this video and a few folks such as yourself chimed in. Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
Oh my goodness, that sure was a brain lapse! Would've made total sense. But, also, alas, I don't own any Devo on vinyl. Cheers, and thank you so much for watching through the bonus content. I really appreciate it!
Vids on the TSR micro-game(s) would be wonderful! I remember very little about them, it's been so long. I recall having Antares and one or two others but those memories have long gone to the recycling bin in my head.
I always thought of Karmeikos as having a rather Slavic inspiration due to a few of the town names in later modules. Since it has some ties to the Byzantine analog, perhaps it was more of a Balkan & southern Slavic inspired place. Since the Balkans were often under the rule or influence of Byzantium in the medieval period and consisted of it's northern frontier.
Totally makes sense. Someone else pointed out the reason Karameikos sounds "Greek" is because its founder was formerly a duke of Thyatis and he basically just turned his territory into a self-governed Grand Duchy, so thematically it still fits the Thyatis Byzantine mold. But your comments on the Slavic/Balkan influences I think are spot-on. Thanks so much for watching and commenting!
Would have been cool to watch this, but 1 min Ads are a piss take. DaddyrolledaAd. Why not make your videos accessible to all rather than premium only or Ad block users?
One thing I find interesting about level titles is that in AD&D, a level 1 Fighter is a Veteran, implying you're already seasoned as a level 1 fighter to an extent.
Yes, for sure! It matches perfectly with something I said in another video, which is that when I referee a game I assume character "competence," meaning I don't make them roll for every single task they attempt. If it's reasonable and fits within the scope of something a person with their skills/class/background would have, then I usually just rule that it works unless there's a huge consequence for failure.
Oh my goodness, that is so awesome! Thank you so much for your support! In looking back at my data, on the 8th I generated +8.23% higher revenue in pledges versus the day prior, so I suspect you sharing it helped a lot!
Karameikos sounds Greek because its founder, Stefan Karameikos, was a duke in Thyatis before switching his duchy for a Grand Duchy, naming it for himself. Karameikos would map better with Slavic kingdoms in the Balkans/Eastern Europe, with a heavy Byzantine influence on top, while the actual dynamics and society would likely be closer to England after the Norman Conquest: Thyatian (Norman) upper class/soldiery ruling over the native Traladarans (Anglo-Saxons). Thyatis moved more to the Imperial Rome in subsequent publications.
Thank you so much for this additional context and background! I really appreciate it, and now it all makes sense. As I mentioned in the video, I'm not really all that up-to-speed on the specific history of the cultures and nations of the setting as much as I am just the general history of how and when the setting was created for game purposes. So I appreciate you sharing this. Cheers!
Nice video, thank you for making it! I hate being that guy, but I think you're mispronouncing Magocracy. It should be pronounced like Mage-Ocracy Majocracy.
I can see that! I was thinking of it more like how "magic" is pronounced, but I just looked it up and in a video I saw on how to pronounce it, it's like a combination of both our thoughts. It's the long A like you suggest (as in "Mage") but a hard G (as in maggot). So, may-GOCK-ruh-see. Interesting!
Fantastic! Which adventures are you using? I ran my daughter and her friends through "most" of B2 (they fled Cave K and didn't return, so there will be consequences!) and thought about trying to figure out how to incorporate B4 but instead moved to U1: Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, where they are right now.
@@daddyrolleda1 I started with B6 The Veiled Society, which I ran pretty much straight, had the Grand Duke induct the PCs into his road wardens, gave them a side mission to Shepherds of Pineford (a BFRP adventure), and now they're in B10 Night's Dark Terror. Mystara (we're in Karameikos) has a better set of factions and works better for faction warfare than the Forgotten Realms, at least to me. That's been the theme of the campaign so far.
That sounds like a lot of fun! I used B6 The Veiled Society as the base for m 3E campaign that started way back in May 2001. I changed the names (I placed it in my home campaign, not Mystara) but I really like that adventure.
@@daddyrolleda1 Professor DM also likes B6 though he emphasizes the thieves guild piece. I like the whole faction warfare aspect since it works for any type of campaign.
AH-HAH!!! I thought I had heard Imirrhos somewhere before! Revolt on Antares was released in 1981 and was designed by Tom Moldvay, probably at the same time as B/X D&D. It even includes a guest appearance from Black Dougal (who dies from a poison needle trap in the basic book, if I remember right). B/X promised us a third Companion set which if it was anything like the C set from BECMI would have included a mass combat system. I'm thinking that Moldvay did develop one but the Companion set was cancelled and the mass combat system was quickly re-skinned with a Sci-Fi trapping to make it a different game, which makes Revolt on Antares the missing B/X mass combat system. At the very least, this does make Antares the star which Mystara revolves around, which also adds a very strange and eerie element to the world seeing as Antares is a red super giant. The entire place should be bathed in red light.
Lots of really fun connections! Yes, Moldvay designed Revolt on Antares like I mentioned in the video, but I never had that game. I do recall it being advertised a lot! Since you mentioned the promised Companion Set for B/X D&D (instead of the one we got for BECMI), Steve Marsh (who worked with Dave Cook on the B/X Expert Rules) has a Facebook group in which he is sharing ideas for *his* version of the Companion Book, all these years later. Looks like it's going to be really fun! Thanks for watching and commenting!
The whole Basic D&D and Advanced D&D games being kept up and maintained over an extended period of time kind of smacks to me of Apple computer coming out with the Macintosh but maintaining the Apple II computer. I think nowadays, corporate-think would say to consolidate your resources and focus on just 1 of those products because your essentially cannibalizing your sales by having 2 similar but separate products, and neither product is getting the full attention it needs to maximize the quality and profit. Not saying I agree or disagree with that; just an observation.
Oh, for sure! I don't see any modern companies trying to do this. It's confusing, and it was even confusing back then for D&D/AD&D! There's a huge overlap but then there are significant differences, despite the names being nearly identical. And, why *wouldn't* someone assume that they should "start" with regular ("Basic") D&D and then move to Advanced? It was bad marketing and business decision making by TSR back then (at least, to me). However, the bonus that came from it is that I think the B/X-BECMI line ended up coming out with some of the most innovative and unique products at the time that wouldn't have seen the light of day had they been proposed for the AD&D line. What I've read is that the TSR "suits" kind of ignored the B/X-BECMI line, and that let the folks managing them games to make their own decisions and be more flexible with the content they released. Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 Thanks, Martin. That all makes sense. Once my friends and I started playing AD&D, we never went back to any of the basic rules. Sounds like we migh have missed some good stuff.
Did you ever happen to game with Lawrence or Tom (or their contemporaries)? I see you played at the University of Akron (from another comment you made). Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
As a Kent State alumni I find it such a small world that these guys with so much impact on the game walked the same campus! I learned this of course from your earlier video! And as someone who graduated Summa Cum Laude in just 8 semesters, I had no time to play! Thanks for another great dive!
Firstly, @michaelwest4325, thank you so much for watching and commenting! What a small world that you went to college there! And, how cool that all these years later, on the Internet, you "met" another fellow gamer from the same area (@ryanmichael1298) so you could reminisce about some of your old haunts together!
It might have seemed that way at the time, but no, it was a planned world that expanded and grew beyond its original designs, just like Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, etc.!
I don't think there was ever an official way to get the orange Palace of the Silver Princess but I think someone uploaded a pdf with the original art and some of the text had to be retyped.
Wizards of the Coast did "officially" put the PDF up for a while online as a free download back in 2000 (I remember snagging it at the time while at work!) and it's now housed at the Vaults of Pandius Official Mystara site.
You should give them a go! Although, to make a Paper Plane, you would have to buy a few ingredients you probably don't already have (specifically Aperol and Amaro Nonino). Cheers! And thank you so much for staying through the bonus section. I always like when people watch it!
They originated in Larry Niven's Known Space series. One of his short stories that featured Kzinti was used in the animated series, which is how they ended up in Start Trek.
Thank you all so much for sharing this info! I've watched Star Trek: The Animated Series and also now remember them showing up in other Star Trek media, but just totally didn't remember the name or make the connection. So cool of Larry Niven to write that story and use them in a Star Trek episode so they could become part of the canon outside of his Known Space stuff!
@@daddyrolleda1 I think it was mainly generic characters they made up for the game. It's based off of basic D&D since the Elf and Dwarf in the game are considered classes. I know the final boss of the first game is a Lich, though I can't remember the name. Check out gameplay of it sometime, they're called "Tower of Doom." And "Shadow over Mystara."
Thanks for this - I was going to say "I don't know how I missed this!" but I really do know how. It's because I just don't really do video games, and never did. It's one huge gap in my knowledge of gaming and it's funny often times when people mention things that are very well-known in that "world" and I have no idea what they're talking about!
