Hopefully Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves will be as good as the trailer makes it look

I like that it's set in the Forgotten Realms. I'm sure there'll be folks who wish it had been Blackmoor, Greyhawk, or Dragonlance. Who knows, maybe one day they'll each get their time to shine.

Also, Sophia Lillis's tiefling druid character Doric? Adorable.

So how do y'all feel about the upcoming D&D movie?

Here, have a hodge podge of D&D articles

One of these is several years old, but the rest are from within the last couple of months. Interest in D&D seems to be on an uptick, which I'm sure is delighting the sales departments at Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro.

From Polygon: We asked a simple question about the D&D timeline and got a wild answer

The Guardian: No more nerds: how Dungeons & Dragons finally became cool (I'm not a fan of the headline)

io9: ​The 20 Most WTF Magical Items in Dungeons & Dragons (The Wand of Misplaced Objects would be useful if facing a well equipped foe, wouldn't it?)

Now THIS might be the greatest D&D homebrew character of all time

This is art. ART!

Created by user u/Sir_Platinum on Reddit, this is pure genius and I will hear no slander against it. N O N E.

h/t to Wil Wheaton and Boing Boing.

Holy moly guacamole: Forgotten Realms edition

I got myself a nice little book haul at a thrift store yesterday. I was scanning through their book section when I stumbled upon books 6-16 of The Harpers series, what I think might be the original paperbacks of The Icewind Dale Trilogy, and a book from The Lost Gods series called Tymora's Luck. The whole lot, sixteen books in total, cost me nearly twelve dollars, but I figured it was worth it. For the most part, the books are in surprisingly good condition. The exception was The Crystal Shard. It had something stuck to the cover that I'm cleaning off.

I'll take pictures of them at some point and post them here.

Fellowship of the Ring by Mike Ploog

Credit: Mike Ploog.

It's Lord of the Rings, but it has a very D&D feel to it too.

Painting a scenario

Winter of The Iron Dwarf - Page 7.

Winter of The Iron Dwarf - Page 8.

I like the way Brendan sets up the background for the campaign. The pause he takes to drink from his cup is a nice touch because it adds a bit to the buildup. Table Titans is a pretty good D&D comic. It started off a bit meh, but I think it's finally finding its voice as the comic progresses.

I think I just found the perfect Christmas gift for RPGers

d20 ice mold from ThinkGeek!

I'm not even going to pretend that most of you folks don't know about this already, but it's so freaking cool, isn't it? Just imagine playing an OSR game, Traveler, whatever, with one of these bad boys in your glass.

Like a classy gent. They're only $11.99 too, which is surprisingly cheap.

h/t Laughing Squid.

There's screwed, then there's screwed like a prom date in the back of a Volvo. This picture is of the latter sort

This is why the Devil is never allowed to DM.
(via Doktor Archeville)

I feel like if the DM puts something like this into a game, you're morally justified and obligated to introduce your foot to their nads.

Andre Norton's Quag Keep

Stolen shamelessly from Blog of Holding,
because I am lazy.

Found a copy at a thrift store over the weekend. I only recognized it because there's a blog named after it that I read sometimes. The book cost all of a buck, so I figured what the hell and bought it. It wasn't until I did some Googling that I found out that Quag Keep is the first D&D novel and is set in the world of Greyhawk. Double neat-o.

The Realm of Darthon

I thought you guys might enjoy this. The other day, I was watching a marathon of Regular Show on Cartoon Network last Saturday and this episode came on called "But I Have a Receipt". In the episode, Mordecai and Rigby DM a tabletop RPG for game night, called The Realm of Darthon.

This reminds me of the box art to HeroQuest.
Regular Show wiki.

The episode is a homage to D&D and other tabletop RPGs and pokes fun at all of the stereotypes. For example, at one point during the game, the DM's guide says for one of the characters to roll a d50, but the game only came with a d48 and apparently, two marbles. During the same scene, Rigby is shown using one of those mechanical calculators, the ones with the spool of paper, in order to figure out whether or not one of the characters scored a hit. Eventually, Mordecai and Rigby realize that the game sucks and try to return it for a refund, but the store owner refuses because the game has already been opened. He also claims that they weren't using their imaginations when playing the game.

This is probably a bit more accurate than it should be, isn't it?
Regular Show wiki.

Well, what happens next is pretty typical of the show. Mordecai and Rigby decide to sabotage Darthon's sales by pointing out to potential customers how much the game sucks. One of my favorite parts is when they point out that all of the character classes and miniatures have the same head and face, but with different bodies. The store owner responds by raising the discount on the game until he's giving copies away for free with a purchase of gum. He then loses his shit and teleports (somehow. Just go with it) Mordecai and Rigby into the game, dressed as their characters, in order to prove that the game does not suck. Then, I guess he decides to murder them.

The two manage to turn the tables on him and defeat with a sword to the chest, which after they return to the real world, is revealed to be a ruler to the chest. Honestly, the attempted murder isn't even that shocking, given that they've been both directly and indirectly responsible for multiple deaths on the show. Anyway, the game store owner finally gives them their refund - seven dollars - and then drives himself home, with the ruler still sticking out of his chest.

I bet this would count as a critical hit. And attempted murder.
Regular Show wiki.

Pretty funny episode.

Here, have a funny D&D comic

Credit: Owl Turd Comix.

I'm sure this is a fate that has befallen many a potential D&Der.

h/t Wil Wheaton.

What the super ladies of DC Comics do when they're not fighting crime

Credit: Kyle Latino.

I found this on Rended Press while perusing Gothridge Manor's blogroll. This piece of awesomeness was drawn by Kyle Latino and it is just great. I really like the retro touches - the old style Mountain Dew cans, the Pizza Hut box (mwschmeer of Rended Press pointed that one out in his blog post) and Wonder Woman's DM screen. Class wise, I think Batgirl would probably be a rogue class. Alternatively, maybe a paladin. Black Canary a bard, Zatanna would obviously be a wizard, and Hawkgirl a fighter.

This is awesome.

There's a new webcomic called Table Titans and it's about D&D

Valerie Bronzebottom is a delight.
Credit: Table Titans.

Table Titans is a comic created by Scott Kurtz, who writes and draws another webcomic called PvP, and Wizards of the Coast. It's based on a storyline he did for PvP that I posted about last year where a trio of D&D players play through a almost mythical module for fame and to be unbanned from their FLGS. The storyline proved to be so popular, WoTC asked Kurtz if he'd do a new series revolving around the characters.

Credit: PvP*.

I can't really pass judgement on the comic yet, since it just started and aside from the original storyline, there are only two new strips. However, the original strips were pretty good, so I sort of recommend it. What's interesting about Table Titans, though, is the "Tales from the Table" feature. People can submit their favorite D&D stories (no idea if you can submit tales from other tabletop games) and they'll be posted on the site. I've read the ones they have now and honestly, most aren't all that great. Some are amusing, but the rest just aren't. There's another feature called Bestiary, which talks about different D&D monsters.

So, what do you think? Is Table Titans worth reading or an epic fail?

*I'll linkback to the strip as soon as Kurtz fixes his website.

HeroQuest: The first and only tabletop RPG I've ever played

When I was a kid, I used to sleep over at my brother and his family during the summers. One night, and this was something in like 1994 or there abouts, he showed me this new board game he'd gotten and some of you may have heard of it: HeroQuest.

While the game box says 2-4 players, I went solo, while my brother DMed. To say it didn't go so well would be an understatement. I ran into two skeletons and burned through all four characters - a barbarian, a wizard, a dwarf, and an elf - in short order. It was a one time session, because I didn't find it all that much fun as a result of my disaster first time. About two years later, he gave me the game, but I never played it again. Instead, I would set the board out on my bed and read the manual, setting up the board for each level and playing with the miniatures.

I don't know what became of it, but HeroQuest disappeared and I mostly forgot about it as time passed. The game would come to mind from time to time, but I could never remember the name. Since starting Swords, Dragons, and Nerds, I start thinking about the game more often and not being able to recall its name nagged me to hell. That is, until I saw this post on Tower of the Archmage* and I had one of them "aha!" moments.

With the name now in hand, I took to Google and found the Wikipedia article about HeroQuest and discovered some interesting tidbits. The game was a collaboration between Milton Bradley and Games Workshop. Not only that, but the game is set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe. It was much lighter than D&D, but probably succeeded in acting as a gateway to D&D and other RPGs.

HeroQuest wasn't the first RPG I played, Dragon Warrior on the Nintendo and some JRPGs on the Super Nintendo came first, but it and they helped foster my interest in RPGs. HeroQuest won't be the only tabletop RPG I ever play. Someday, I want to eventually find a group where I live who have an open spot for a newbie. Hopefully, they'll be into OSRs.

*Where I also snagged the picture. Tip of the hat for that.

Topless Robot's 8 Things That Ruin D&D Games

Foxtrot.

Before anything else, can we all stop and take a moment to appreciate the fact that Bill Amend managed to reference LOTR, D&D, and Warhammer in a nationally syndicated comic strip?

Now, on to business. As soon as I saw this list, I knew I had to post it. The list includes such things as poor gaming location, forcing a session when some or all of the players' just aren't feeling it, and having a craptastic DM. Number eight on the list really caught my attention, though: "Putting Wayyy Too Much Money Into It". It instantly made me think of OSR, and the retro-clones. Oh, OSR and your supporting blogs, you have spellbound me.

On dungeons, maps, and orc wangs (NSFW)

Fair warning, this comic has a bit of potty language.

Click to embiggen.

Oh, Hijinks Ensue, how I love you. It would be funny as f*ck if that happened in a game, though. Characters getting lost and winding up in completely different locations than their other party members.

"Dammit, where the hell is that tavern?"
"The directions said take a left at the Tomb of Horrors and a right at Blackmoor Castle, so how the hell did I wind up in the Abyss?"
"Huh, this looks more like a hive of scum and villainy than a tavern. No wait, it's just an Applebee's."

Then of course there's the guy who ends up at a brothel instead, but doesn't complain at all.

I double dare a DM to include an Orc fornication chamber in their next session. >:D

The OSR is not dead, it's just regenerating

Granted, I'm not a tabletop RPG player and have no connection to the OSR - Old School Renaissance, the community/subculture that popped up in response to dissatisfaction with Wizards of the Coasts' handling of D&D - but I'm a bit bewildered by the numerous proclamations going around about it being dead or dying. The reason behind these proclamations is the fact that at the recent GenCon, WOTC announced that they were going to be publishing their entire catalog of tabletop RPGs as PDFs, including the old D&D stuff. Somehow, having the original games and campaign settings that so many retro-clones are based on or inspired by making a comeback means that the OSR has no meaning or purpose anymore.

To be frank, this is complete, total, and utter bullshit of the highest order. I mean, are gamers supposed to put their copies of Dungeon Crawl Classic, Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, etc. to the torch now? Are Kickstarters for new retro-clones supposed to be abandoned, now that WOTC is putting  their old shit back out there? As I already said, the OSR is a reaction to and against the way WOTC has been handling the Dungeons & Dragons property, presumably ever since they bought out TSR, Inc. in 1997. Now, the OSR needs to transform from a rebellion to a celebration of old school gaming. Think of it like how on Doctor Who, the Doctor regenerates whenever he's gravely injured. You can play Blackmoor and still play DCC, no one's going to chop off your dice throwing hand, bro.

Like I said, I'm not a tabletop gamer and my only connection to OSR is from the blogs I like to read, but it just seems downright retarded to abandon an entire subgenre of gaming and its subculture for no real reason at all.

I think these shirts will appeal to the D&D crowd

And for the OSR geeks:

Both shirts are available at shirtoid and I wish I could buy them both.

Via Wil Wheaton.

Roll a die for him, Happy Gary Gygax Day!

Going by the plethora of posts I've been seeing, today is a geek holiday marking what would have been the 74th birthday of Gary Gygax, creator of D&D and father of roleplaying games in general. While I've never played Dungeons and really, only ever played a pen and paper RPG once in my entire life, I am a fan of RPG video games and because of that, I raise my glass in solemn and heartfelt thanks to him. Without him, there probably would not be a Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Star Ocean, Mass Effect, or Dragon Age series.

Thanks Gary!

Picture via Futurama Wiki. Oh, and hat tip to Eli Arndt, since I stole his idea of using a picture from the episode of Futurama that Gygax was in.

Food for the journey

Clearly, the Elf that created Lembas never met Hobbits.