Ancient Kingdoms - Mesopotamia for $2

This was one of the best 3rd edition era supplements ever made, and easily converted to Pathfinder, S&W or 5th edition --or with a bit of work you could use it with For Gold & Glory, which recently became my favorite OSR game, but more about that later.

Anyway, it's a setting book set in ancient fantastic Mesopotamia, a sort of Howardian take on the mytho-historic realm as it might have been, with several fully loaded scenarios sufficient for a great campaign and plenty of details on Mesopotamian deities to boot. It's not precisely a historical book, though it is set in a version of the actual historial realm of the Tigris & Euphrates river....more like an agglomeration of the most interesting bits combined with the sensibilities of its time. The book was ahead of its time; this could have (and should have) been released as an OSR tome later on. Anyway......$2 for a PDF today only, so check it out! Use the code DD-AKM-1559

Chaosium Haul

Since Halloween came and went that means Chaosium had another sale. It's getting harder these days for me to find books at Chaosium that I don't already own, but I snagged a few....specifically a copy of Cthulhu Rising (my only other copy is a tape-bound pre-revised edition from ages ago), Jovian Nightmares and (finally) Val-du-Loup. 

So did you find anything interesting? Sale's still going on, I think..... 

Golem Sale at Paizo

Lot of stuff on sale through December 1st now at Paizo right here. Debating whether I should fill out my Pathfinder collection this way...hmmm....there's a lot of older stuff too worth checking out at the Paizo site, and some of it is on sale as well. A couple years back they acquired all the product from American Eagle games and hobby store...which was, when I was in Seattle, the de facto game store for old and out of print material in new condition thanks to the fact that the founding owner had a penchant for massively over-ordering product.

D&D Basic Mentzer Edition and B-Series Sale

If you peruse lots of OSR blogs then you should already know about this, but the 1983 Mentzer edition of Basic D&D is now up on dndclassics.com at 4.99 apiece for the player's book and the DM's book. I distinctly recall when these first came out; I was playing a 90% AD&D 10% B/X edition of the game by then, with the B/X side mostly to resolve mysterious portions of the AD&D rules that were impenetrable to I and my other fellow 12-13 year-old cohorts. I snagged the new Basic D&D set with an eye toward....not sure what, actually....I guess because it was D&D and I bought all things D&D back then whether I used them or not (some things never change). I remember disappointment, a bit, at realizing that the Mentzer edition felt a bit more basic than I was interested in, and realizing that it wasn't really much of a replacement for my older Otus cover basic book.

Despite that, I still relied on the basic set as a reference for a while, and it's nice to see the books in that boxed set again after all these years. Even better is that buying one gives you a coupon code to get any and all of the B series modules at half off, so if you haven't gotten them all yet now is a good time. I just snagged the eight modules I still didn't have so my B-series PDF collection is now complete. Many of these I never owned...back then I had run or played in The Keep on the Borderlands and Palace of the Silver Princess in the B-series, but that was it; so most of these modules are new to me.

Given my Old Guy fascination for Basic/Expert D&D this is a good thing. I'm still waffling on picking up the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, chiefly because for every person who says, "great scan!" there's someone else who says the scan is deplorable. Also...when the D&D Cyclopedia came out in 1991 I was deeply into AD&D 2nd edition and the idea of "downgrading" the D&D BECM seemed a bit preposterous. I adapted plenty of BECM modules from the time (Hollow World remains a favorite D&D setting of mine) but actually using the rules? Nah. That attitude has changed, though....it's really hard to beat the stark, simple elegance of what B/X D&D and it's BECM follow-up was all about, and I am pretty sure that when my son is old enough to start gaming that this is the edition I'll introduce him to.

Chaosium Sale

Chaosium has another one of its awesomely ill-timed sales going (ill-timed in the sense that it happens when I have no disposable income to throw about) but this means you could be getting a discounted copy of Magic World right now if you so desired. Just sayin'....BRP fantasy awesomeness in one affordable package....

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.

Green Ronin Blowout Sale

It's here, with Thieves' World, True20, Blue Rose, Mutants & Masterminds 2E and others that you may hold near and dear. I myself just snagged all the True20 stuff, a game system that I have rather liked in the past and unfortunately got rid of along with many other books when I moved from Seattle to Albuquerque many years ago; it's definitely a system I'd run if I can find a batch of players willing to try it!