T&T Deluxe, Paizo Anniversary Sale, Camazotz' Mud-Colored Nostalgia Glasses and More

So first, for Tunnels & Trolls fans it looks like Ken St. Andre and crew are going to collaborate on a Deluxe Edition of Tunnels & Trolls. There's more about it here on Trollhalla's Outer Sanctum and the Lone Delver also speaks on the matter in detail.

I'd like to see a Deluxe super edition of T&T and the fact that it's going to include collaborative work from Rick Loomis, Steve Crompton, Bear Peters and Liz Danforth along with Ken himself, of course, can only be a good thing. T&T 5th edition has long been regarded as the best (or most organized/well presented) edition of T&T thanks to Liz's work, and I am sure that we'll see the game shape up in the same fashion.

Next! Paizo is having a tenth anniversary sale right here.

I didn't find out about this until after visiting Barnes & Noble, where I purchased the latest Brian Fagan book Elixir, along with Dean King's Skeletons on the Zahara, Paula Guran's Extreme Zombies, Into Africa by Martin Dugard, and Immortality by Stephen Cave. All interesting books which I plan to blast through in the next month, and all helping me to alleviate my conscience from the engorgement on Steam games I engaged in just a couple weeks ago....but luckily this also served as a money sponge to avoid my succumbing to the ridiculous 75% off deals on print products over at Paizo. All of their older pre-PFRPG release OGL modules are up for sale, most at $2-3 apiece and all the adventure paths in stock at $5 each. PDF versions are also marked down across the board. It's madness, I tell you!

Luckily, a dearth of remaining discretionary income and a hearty mental kick to the noggin reminding myself that I never, ever run published modules (except on occasion for C&C) served to quell my insatiable consumerism. If you, however, wouldn't mind getting something around 37 adventure paths and single modules in print for 75% off, head on over. The PDFs of the core book are all $7.49 apiece right now. Kind of a steal, ya know?



On an unrelated note, I may have given up my chance to own the AD&D Premium edition rulebooks. My FLGS owner called up and inquired as to whether I really wanted them or not, to which I explained as I always do with books they've been holding for a week or more that yes, I do want them, but the problem is I absolutely don't need them so I've been having a hard time finding the discretionary income to throw at vanity ownership. So if she had someone else keen to buy them (she did) then she was welcome to sell them and I'll just take my chances on finding copies in the distant future. Such is life as a father and husband and sole breadwinner in the family right now.

And yeah, I could have saved up the moolah I spent at Barnes & Noble, but those books are something I'm actually going to read and enjoy, maybe learn something from. Buying pristine editions of AD&D 1st edition, simultaneously marvelling at the game I played as a kid and also mildly loathing it for the memories of my youth it brings up....just not quite the same bang for my buck.

I wonder if one's OSR-ness and love for all things 1980 and earlier is inversely proportionate to one's level of fondness for the memories from that period? I'm not saying I don't have fond childhood memories....but I definitely wouldn't repeat my childhood as it unfolded. On the other hand, I continue to hold a pristine boxed set of Runequest 2nd edition, which I do indeed enjoy perusing on occasion for the fond memories, and ironically I also still have my original 1st edition Gamma World books in startlingly good condition, still filled with my writing from age 9-12 when I played Gamma World to death. That there is one of the reasons I don't even feel mildly compelled to try Gamma World 1st edition again; every time I open the pages I see a snapshot of myself in my youth, and it reminds me that those days are unique and are nonrepeatable, at least in their original forms. That's what Mutant Epoch is for, anyway...!

Bah, enough introspection! Go check out Paizo and read what Ken has to say about T&T Deluxe.

Yet Another Summer of Steam Sale Sickness

I like to think of it as "stocking up on entertainment" in case I get laid off, I suppose...but sure enough, the Steam Sale is underway this week and I have indulged mightily. I don't really think of it as "buying games I am going to then play" so much as "buying games I will one day think I might get to play." Either way, I own waaaay too many games on Steam thanks to these stupidly fun sales.

Case in point: a Batman package with Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, and Gotham City Imposters. My first thought was, "I can buy Arkham City at last, and all the DLC." When you total up the sales cost it works out to $21 for the game plus all the DLC. But wait! There's a Batman bundle pack for only $25 available, which for $4 more includes the original Arkham Asylum along with Gotham City Imposters and all of the DLC released to date (and there's a lot of it). Sort of hard to resist...I mean, Gotham City Imposters was one of those "Hmmm, sounds fruity" sort of games, but for $4? Sure!*

And so it goes with Steam. So far I've snagged Max Payne 3, all the above mentioned Batman games, Hunted: The Demon's Forge, Star Wars: the Force Unleashed 1 and 2 (I played 1 long ago, but that was before this "Sith Edition" so...yeah), Trine 1 and 2, Bastion, Alan Wake's American Nightmare, some small and poorly received (yet still tempting to me) game called Deep Black: Reloaded, and (last but not least) Ridge Racer: Unbounded, the only Steam sale game I was anticipating, as I love racing games** but hate paying full price for them. So I don't.

I also snagged Spec Ops: The Line at Amazon for $25 so I guess that ought to be included in this list. Oh, and of course Secret World at a discount on Green Man Gaming. Now to find some time play it...

When you count the last two, that totals about $170 in game purchases in the last week. Ugh! I've done worse, though. Remember, I had over 400 games on Steam before this ever started....

When will I find time to play all this stuff? Who knows. I predict the first time many get played will be far in the future, when my son will be playing all these "retro games" on dad's accounts in a decade or so. We shall see...



I grew up with tabletop RPGs side by side with computer gaming. I had an Atari 2600 ordered straight from the Sears catalog. I acquired a TRS 80 (Trash 80) and was programming games in Basic and feed-loading text games from tape casettes. Over the years, tabletop gaming has remained consistent, and while its hard to deny that art and production values have gotten better over time, the overall quality of game system design more or less peaked somewhere in the early 90's and has remained a consistent but subjectively engaging experience....all RPGs are worth playing on their own merits, even if specific tastes may run a certain way. There's really no objectively "better" way to play than another (though one can of course still design a bad RPG).

With computer and console games, the experience is decidedly different. Graphic and interface design is through the roof in terms of performance, value, immersiveness and general satisfaction. The good ol' bad ol' days of PC gaming in the 80's is a thing of the past for all but some GOG releases, and I am happy it remains that way. The industry has created its own problems, of course, with AAA titles costing so much that major studios and publishers can't afford to fail, thus limiting what we see each year in terms of top notch designs, but even so indie and smaller publishers/studios still manage to slide in and fill the void with games that still prove worth playing.

Anyway, I have always found it interesting the extent to which players on both sides of the gaming fence have some crossover (or lack thereof). Likewise, I've also found it interesting just how many people look back on the "good ol' days" of PC gaming or tabletop gaming with a rosy glint in their eye while looking disdainfully upon today's big budget, deluxe graphic-intensive space-marine laden productions. I can say this much: if tabletop gaming had stopped evolving sometime in the mid-80's I do feel I'd likely still be playing those games today (probably still playing Runequest, Dragonquest, DC Heroes and of course AD&D), but if buying old fond-memory games on GOG has taught me one lesson, it is that I can't say the same for PC gaming. If PC games had stagnated in the mid 80's, I'd be done with the medium, completely. On the other hand, that nostalgia vision does seem to be making some much-needed comebacks happen (such as Wasteland II), so I guess some good is coming out of all that "way back when it was better" sense of perspective.




*After first downloading I couldn't figure out how to find any games on Gotham City: Imposters. It seemed to have an active community but there was something wrong with its default pnp protocols, near as I can tell. Very annoying. That said, it finally started working (no idea how or what I did that worked) and this game which was a mere "rider" on another deal turns out to quite possibly be one of my top favorite surprises....seriously fun run'n'gun gameplay with a lot of humor and weirdness.

** I found out I was good at racing games two summers back when I was severely sunburned (couldn't even walk!) and was out of commission for two weeks, right during the Summer Steam Sale. I bought the Flatout Series, then quickly added Fuel, Dirt, Grid and others. It has since become a sickness. My personal all-time favorite game that does not involve space marines, zombies or elves is Burnout: Paradise, a game best described as "A tale of a haunted city terrorized by insanely suicidal cars that have no drivers, because they are all driven by crazed phantoms desperate to crash into just about anything and everything. So hide the children and lock up the cats, Paradise City is on the fast track to hell!"

Botcon: A look down the rabbit hole for Camazotz

Weird! Apparently Botcon is a real thing, and there really are some hardcore, dedicated fan collectors out there. I mean, I figured this existed....but its funny to realize that there's yet another branch of geekdom (that I once, loooong ago had a connection to) which still exists. This must be what it's like when I talk to some guy at work or in a decidedly non-geek context and mention I am into RPGs. "Like, D&D? Wow, I played that back in high school. People still play that?"

That conversation happened in February, while moving. We donated a fish tank (with fish) to our neighbors. The husband came over to our almost completely vacated apartment and said, "You must have played D&D in high school."

Rather than get into the "Well I still do" component with someone I barely knew, I simply said, "Yeah, my wife and I both were into it. How did you know?"

Turns out he'd spotted a D10 next to the fish tank that had escaped our notice. "I played that game to death in High School. Absolutely loved it. Good times." and that was that.

Anyhoo.....

So when I was about twelve the Transformers arrived on the scene. I meticulously collected all Transformers, and even got a few imports from WorldCon and WesterCon (and other cons, when I attended). Hasbro/Takara had a release schedule that produced a specific set of figures annually, likely in stages (I forget now) over the year, no doubt with an emphasis on holiday sales. I was very efficient at this, spending all of my allowance money on Transformers. And RPGs. And books. I recall that by "season three" I had all of them but two. All Of Them. Thousands of dollars' worth of figures.

Those of you who might have seen my fanzines from those Middle and High School days may recall that Transformers and giant mecha seemed to crop up a lot thematically. I even published a little-known RPG called Mechanical Men that sold mostly at conventions I attended. Despite my love of the genre, I didn't advertise it much, however. It felt like one of those nasty little hobbies back in the 80's that you weren't supposed to be into, unless you were maybe seven years old. That might shock some kids today (and by kids I mean anyone under the age of 24), in an era when toys are specifically marketed at an older audience with money, or at kids who have parents pining for the nostalgic days of their youth.

So by the time I turned seventeen in 1988 I was still collecting Transformers but was also torn by other interests and a rapidly developing fascination for the opposite sex that it started to fall by the wayside. I think by the time I headed off to college they had sort of run the toy line into the ground, releasing non-transformable action figures that were cool looking but sort of defeated the whole point of the toy line.

In the end, many childhood hobbies I had went to the wayside, my fanzine died and I repurposed my existence to being a good student. My sole release for entertainment for years would boil down to only three elements: women, RPGs and movies (a majority of my college reading was study-related). I didn't even own a TV, and my aging PC was having trouble running stuff like Eye of the Beholder. I actually played no computer games in college, which ultimately was a Very Good Thing. I can't even imagine how students today pull it off (being poor may be the only saving grace, I imagine). (That's a whole different issue, too; my fascination for computer games today is very much a modern thing; my opinion of 99% of the computer/video game market prior to 1996 was very, very low).

So anyway, stumbling across this network of existing modern Transformers fans and collectors just sort of reminded me of that time when I at last shelved the whole collector-of-toy-robots things as I moved out of house and home and off to college. It was a worthy venture back in the day, as my desire to be a good student, develop a social life and meet women far outweighed my desire to collect toys. I have to say, I am glad that RPGs didn't go to the wayside. For whatever reason, when I started playing at age 10 I knew that this was one thing, one hobby that would mature and grow with me as I went along. It could carry its own prestige and not look scary to the stiffs and the mundanes, provided I was careful not to get carried away with it (or at least masquerade as someone who wasn't deeply obsessed about RPGs).

Anyway, I couldn't even imagine getting back into the giant-robot-toy-collection hobby, but its nice to see that others have kept it alive and well. It does make me wonder what life would have been like if I'd decided to keep the collection (and not sell it to a woman in Tucson who ran a used goods shop--she gave me a nice deal for the time, but I bet she made a killing on collectible reasales) and continue to pursue the hobby. Probably very expensive, and probably not the easiest thing to bring a date home to. Just sayin'. I don't care how much the movies tried to Sex it All Up.

And just between you and me, lapsed and former Transformers fans still have it good: we've got the movies (which I find perfectly enjoyable; I am under no illusions that we're dealing with sophisticated literature in the genre of giant transformable robots here) and the even better video game (Transformers: War for Cybertron, which was a real blast to play).