Keys From the Golden Vault

 

At the shop I work at our copies of "Keys From the Golden Vault" have arrived. Beforehand I was saying I wasn't impressed with the design of the hobby shop cover this time around. But once I saw them in person I will admit they do look a lot better close up. Pictures just don't do it justice.

Much as WotC/Hasbro has done to piss everyone off they still manage to put out a good looking product. Not sure how many are going to sell though. We still have several groups who of have either quite DnD altogether or have stopped buying any official product from them.

Time will tell I guess. 

How To Make Powerful Wheel Slingshot | Post Apoc style

Really neat video of a guy making an arrow slingshot from a wheel. Perfect idea of some post apocalyptic games for weapons made from scraps. 

Jaded Gamer Diary - The DnD exodus continues

 

Whenever there is some big blow up online in the gaming community it sounds like affects everything. But then when you look around your local gaming community it becomes evident that most people either don't know about it or simply do not care one bit. For me I rarely ever saw anything local reflecting the opinions online. 

Until Wizards of the Coast pissed in their own bed.

Working at a game shop I saw some immediate results. Some people coming in asking how it will affect them, or asking if we keep carrying DnD material, etc. Then we saw people voting with their wallets, and did they ever. 

We sold more non-DnD games over the last three weeks than we usually move in six months. Games I didn't think would ever move like the new Stargate SG-1 book. Pathfinder sold out so fast it was like blinking and poof no more books, we would still be selling the corebooks if the distributors weren't sold out.

Cyberpunk RED, Forbidden Lands, Sla Industries, Conan, Fallout, Monster of the Week, Numenera (much as I hate to say) and so many more. We had to just keep restocking. 

I've seen people leave DnD before. Back near the tail end of 2nd edition before WotC bought out TSR and then again during the 4th edition era. With 2nd ed we saw a lot of folks just leaving the community altogether. Stopped gaming and moved on to another hobby. There was no internet and little ways of finding new games other than an ad in Dragon or whatever the local ship happened to carry. With 4th ed people seemed to mainly just to stay with 3.5 and then jump ship to Pathfinder once it hit the shelves.

None of that happened this time. From what I can tell people are surging out into lots of other games. Nobody is leaving the hobby just changing who they give their money to. This is a great thing. Part of me is actually hoping Wizards/Hasbro does something stupid again just to keep this change going.

The Monitor Celestra Larp Movie

Why Larp in a park when you can do a Battlestar Galactica Larp on a decommissioned destroyer?

Always thought this was rather amazing. Props to the folks who pulled this off and those who were lucky enough to participate. 

Dragonlance 5e Shadow of the Dragon Queen

 

The latest version of Dragonlance "Shadow of the Dragon Queen" is now out at game shops starting earlier today, or yesterday actually, it's late here and I need sleep. Working at a game shop I got to flip through one a few days early when they arrived and I must say this is a really good looking book. One of the best hobby shop covers in a while, great artwork and maps throughout, easy to read and it even has a pull out map. 

So what do you folks think of it? Anybody have an opinion of the boardgame that comes with the Deluxe edition? Let's hear some opinions. 

New games starting

 

Well in the Tuesday group I play in things are shaking up a bit. We were alternating every other week with games, one week was Alien and the next was ADnD 2nd ed. However my friend running DnD is burning out a bit from running games so much (he runs games at his shop three days a week already and gets paid for those) that he is stepping back to player mode for a bit. 

So tonight we made up characters for the Fallout 3 RPG from Modiphius. Now I know next to nothing about Fallout except that we carry it at the shop I work at. So it was a learning experience on some of the very basic details of the setting. In the end we have a Survivor, a Ghoul and I made up a Mister Handy Robot of the military type (our other player wasn't able to make it tonight). Have to say the character generation process was pretty simple and fun. The little 'thumbs up' guy was all through the process.

Hopefully next week we'll get the game rolling and see just how well the system works. I'll put up an initial after action post on that. If you're interested in the Fallout RPG you can pick it up on DrivethruRPG or Amazon pretty easily.

Also the Alien campaign had reached in end a couple weeks ago. But since we like the system and setting we decided to start on a new one with all of us playing Colonial Marines. So it's time for a bug hunt. 

Jaded Gamer Diary - Grifter comeback alert

Watch out folks it's looking like Satine Phoenix is getting ready to squirm her way back into the ttrpg community again. Here's her post she put up over on Instagram. 

I appears this abuser and abuse enabler is trying to paint herself as a recovering 'victim' as well. For those who don't know about her and her shitball husband Jamison Stone here is a link to page covering a lot of their recent bullshit. Also here's a link to their Kickstarter that is turning into a royal crap bonanza. Also remember she was a hardcore Zak S supporter when he was really riding the wave of being a full on shitlord. Defended that asshole Mike Mearls when he sold out abuse victims to their abuser. Still friends with other wastes of sperm and egg like Grim Jim. 

Hell you can just use google and pull up plenty of shit she's been involved with. Also I'm pretty sure Stone will be right behind her trying to grift everyone out of their money so they can keep living their 'high end game geek chic' lifestyles. 

Be warned if you see any of them involved in anything. Do not give them a slim dime because they are making it by screwing others over and treating them like shit in the process. 

UPDATES

Here's a link to an article about them on thefandomentals.