tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86533019515747389732024-03-17T23:03:24.060-07:00THE LAND OF NODROLE PLAYING GAME CONTENT FOR YOUR EDIFICATION AND ENJOYMENTJohn Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.comBlogger1355125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-73665869896690574172017-08-21T09:02:00.000-07:002017-08-21T09:02:57.287-07:00The Migration Has BegunIt was inevitable - whether Sarmaks, swallows or Indo-Europeans, folks have to migrate eventually. Thus, the good old Land of Nod blog is making a move to Word Press. The transfer is not 100% complete just yet, but new posts are happening over there rather than over here.
CLICK HERE FOR THE ALL-NEW*, ALL-DIFFERENT* LAND OF NOD!
* Actually, it's neither new nor differentJohn Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-61184175571927415872017-08-02T19:37:00.003-07:002017-08-02T19:37:58.866-07:00The Antiquarian - Thumbnail Class Sketch
When I forget my phone at home, I usually spend lunch writing in a little notebook rather than reading. Today I had a few ideas for a class, which I present before in "thumbnail sketch" format, rather than fully realized.
This fellow will probably find his way into Esoterica Exhumed in a more fleshed-out form.
The Antiquarian ...
- Rolls d4 for hit points
- Fights and saves like a John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-28723422826701624692017-07-30T15:03:00.003-07:002017-07-30T15:03:54.398-07:00Downtime and Special Guest Heroes [Notion]Yesterday, I had an idea about how one could model a magic-user taking time off from adventuring to research spells or make magic items. It occurred to me that the mechanic could also be used to balance adventurers belonging to organizations. Here's the idea in a nutshell:
Magic-users should be able to get a palpable advantage from researching spells and making magic items. In the "real world", John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-61908980218616746522017-07-22T12:01:00.000-07:002017-07-22T12:01:31.035-07:00Eurafrika Attacks! [Campaign Idea]Around about 1929, a German architect by the name of Herman Sörgel came with an idea he called Atlantropa. The idea was simple (no, not really) - he was going to create a new utopian continent out of Europe and Africa by building hydroelectric dams in the Strait of Gibraltar and Dardanelles and the mouth of the River Congo. This would allow the lowering of the level of the Mediterranean Sea, to John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-43441419472294143192017-06-25T21:33:00.005-07:002017-06-25T21:37:43.576-07:00Yo JoeIf memory serves, I promised to do this post two weeks ago. How time flies! In between, the family has gone through a high school graduation and a college orientation, and I've written about 8 quarterly reports for my real job. But now it is time - some G.I. Joe vehicles for GRIT & VIGOR.
I've spent the last four weeks writing High Frontier, a setting toolbox for GRIT & VIGOR based on John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-62949023047412430232017-06-10T19:56:00.001-07:002017-06-10T19:56:32.694-07:00Shameless Self PromotionI don't normally do this, but I have three new books out and about at the moment, so a little self promotion seems appropriate. Tomorrow I'll find some time to do that G.I. Joe post I mentioned last week.
NOD 32
NOD 32 features a new hex crawl that is right next door to the Nomo crawl from last issue. Nomo was a falling empire, but in Kisthenes the whole world might be going straight to Hell John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-17860611026100836712017-06-04T23:14:00.002-07:002017-06-04T23:14:21.793-07:00Teleporting With StyleTeleport and teleport without error are old spells, and in the old school they leave the look and feel up to the imagination. Here are a few ideas on what teleportation might look like ...
via GIPHY
1. You appear line by line, like being printed by a dot matrix printer in the 1980s
2. Appear as free-floating fetus and age into current form
3. Appear as skeleton and grow muscle, tendons etcJohn Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-53859223527671406512017-05-26T08:59:00.003-07:002017-05-26T08:59:59.210-07:00Magic from the Masters
When I was about 10 years old, Mattel introduced its He-Man toy line. I remember going over to a friend's house to see the entire original line, which his grandparents had bought him for Hanukah. If I'm honest, they didn't do much for me. I was a freak for G.I. Joe and military stuff at the time, and really had no interest in swords and sorcery. As a result, I never had an interest in He-Man. IJohn Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-89474192204545069132017-05-10T22:07:00.001-07:002017-05-13T17:13:42.454-07:00Mars, Venus and BeyondIf you have read Blood & Treasure Second Edition, you might already know that I had a sample planar system that resembles the old geocentric model of the universe combined with Gygax's idea of the outer and inner planes. At some point, I'm going to expand on these ideas and write a book called The Outre' Dark - sort of my version of the Manual of the Planes.
To that end, I've already writtenJohn Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-11666218225725427382017-05-07T21:32:00.000-07:002017-05-07T21:44:33.834-07:00Scads of Magic
Imagination!
I've long been a fan of Seventh Sanctum, and tonight I decided to play around with the magic item generator. You get names for items that don't always make sense, but often have in them something you can use ... with a little imagination!
So, here's a scad of magic items in thumbnail sketch form, plus a couple with names I loved that even I wasn't sure how to flesh out with John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-65629156878492314572017-05-06T10:11:00.001-07:002017-05-06T10:11:28.013-07:00Simplicity Himself
I discovered Warhammer in high school. Some friends I met in art class were into the miniatures, and brought a catalog with them to school one day. Needless to say, I was impressed. I'd never been into miniatures before that, and the old Warhammer stuff was pretty cool. That led to me playing Warhammer Fantasy Battle and buying, though never actually playing, WFRP and Rogue Trader. I didn't John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-26657922375696755082017-04-13T15:34:00.001-07:002017-04-13T15:34:33.239-07:00Menace of the Mer-Mongrels [Mini-Dungeon]Here's a quickie dungeon for you, featuring mer-mongrels (essentially aquatic orcs), just in case you need something dark, wet and dangerous for your game.
Overview
This is underground and near the sea. Sea water flows down the entrance corridor. Everything is slimy and the water is about 2 feet deep (so gnomes and halflings might need floaties) throughout.
There are clumps of phosphorescentJohn Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-66505720200430943082017-04-09T09:59:00.000-07:002017-04-09T09:59:18.524-07:00Dragon by Dragon - November 1981 (55)
Getting back on the blogging track means getting back into the Dragon by Dragon articles.
This week, I'm going to take a look at Dragon #55, from November 1981. This one has a really good beginning - a cover by Erol Otus. The best thing about the cover - I have no idea what that monstrous thing is. This, to me, lies at the heart of old school games - the freedom to invent something new every John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-53215229944969952512017-04-07T14:30:00.001-07:002017-04-07T14:30:18.193-07:00Dread KisthenesWell, it is time to get back into the swing of things here at NOD after an unfortunately and unavoidable absence. Though I haven't been as active online these last few weeks, I have been writing in what spare time I had, so I thought the easiest way to get back into blogging would be to share some of that material.
The Kisthenes hex crawl is proceeding apace - I can wrap up the basic writing in John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-7974859268858051702017-02-27T09:05:00.002-08:002017-02-27T09:05:18.861-08:00Flights of Fancy
MAGIC!
The fly spell is a good example of a spell that succinctly (at least in old editions) explains what the spell does, but does not describe what the effect looks like. It's easy enough to assume the flyer looks something like Superman, but how about some other possibilities:
1. Magic-user rides a rainbow, with sparkles descending like a gentle rain on those below
2. Magic-user sprouts John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-34701092744175873802017-02-12T19:24:00.002-08:002017-02-12T19:24:50.151-08:00Dragon by Dragon - October 1981 (54)
Has it been that long since the last Dragon by Dragon? Time flies and time is tight, but there should always be time to travel down through that great gaming oak to the roots and ferment in the brew of our elders.
What the hell am I talking about? The bourbon is doing its job. Let's get started on issue 54 of the venerable Dragon and see what inspiration we can pull from this issue. Yeah, thisJohn Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-3729846613018794152017-02-07T20:14:00.002-08:002017-02-07T20:14:17.737-08:00New Spells and a Way to Use ThemNew magic-user spells - fun to create, but hard to get into a game. After all, a magic-user only has so many spells he can cram into a spellbook, and when it comes time to choose, the average magic-user is going to go for the most useful, and thus usually the most standard, spells in the game. Detect evil might be boring, but it sure is useful.
Since I was inventing a bunch of new spells John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-15414477338137879922017-02-06T09:12:00.000-08:002017-02-06T10:01:29.935-08:00Shadowlord! - A Timely Review
Once upon a time, a young me and my best friend Josh played a wondrous game of universal conquest. I have no idea where Josh got the game - maybe a gift, maybe stole it from his brother's room. No idea. But it was awesome. There was this board with all these circles on it, and cards with cool pictures of people, including this one really hot chick that Josh and I both wanted on our team, and John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-89321138524812076582017-02-03T09:58:00.002-08:002017-02-03T09:58:31.777-08:00Dig DeepYou never know what will inspire an idea, and this one came from watching an episode of Father Knows Best before driving to work. In this particular episode, good old dad tells Bud to use his charm when trying to apologize/ask out a girl. Now, Bud was already in the position of apologizing to the girl because of his so-called "charm", so the interchange got me thinking about the value of putting John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-62876897158536867522017-02-01T08:24:00.003-08:002017-02-01T08:24:45.079-08:00What are Powerful Friends For?Answer: To get you in trouble!
Quick post today on a trope not uncommon in fantasy fiction, but which doesn't see much use in gaming (at least, not that I've seen). Allow me to paint a picture for you ...
A powerful wizard appears before a startled group of people and declares that seven of them must at once come with him on an errand of terrible importance. Seven step forward, and once they John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-80318575563768595222017-01-30T12:17:00.002-08:002017-01-30T12:17:52.431-08:00Mannix!
Mike Connors recently passed away. He’s best known for playing Joe Mannix, private investigator, on the TV show Mannix, which ran from 1967-1975. Great show, and one of my all-time favorites. It was also an odd duck for its time because it forewent the idea of a detective with a gimmick (fat, wheelchair-bound, old, etc.) and just created a detective in the hard-boiled tradition. James John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-5389858234287553292017-01-27T09:32:00.001-08:002017-01-27T09:32:58.129-08:00The Coming of the Triphibians #NewMonsterThe triphibians have their origin in a delightful Japanese film with numerous titles, the most common in the U.S. of A. being The Monster from a Prehistoric Planet. Another title (Gappa: The Triphibian Monster) refers to the monsters in question being triphibians. I really dig that word, so I decided to make them into more useful monsters for the average fantasy/sci-fi game - i.e. I resized them John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-49118820537473385152017-01-26T15:52:00.000-08:002017-01-26T16:09:39.933-08:00Spider Mage #NewClassHey, do hash tags work in blog titles? Guess I'll find out.
I've been needing to get back into the nittygritty of daily blog updates for a while - it's just hard with all the writing and layout and editing and such that I've involved myself in. So, here's another shot at it, based on tiny inspiration and a bit of "hmm - I guess nobody has done that before".
The Spider Mage
Not every John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-28776152115289339322017-01-23T13:48:00.004-08:002017-01-23T13:48:56.456-08:00Rediscovering Pars Fortuna
Bo'al, Ilel, Caledjula and Cakrol
It was about seven years ago that I published Pars Fortuna, my first game. It used the Swords & Wizardry engine, with a few alterations by myself just to test out ideas for alternate mechanics. Seven years, and now it's time for a little revision.
Revising seems to be my main hobby at the moment. I've just done a 2nd edition of Blood & Treasure, so John Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8653301951574738973.post-62476407235978527542017-01-08T20:55:00.000-08:002017-01-08T20:55:42.993-08:00Dragon by Dragon - September 1981 (53)
Glory be - I finally have enough time this weekend to do another Dragon by Dragon, this one on issue #53 from September 1981.
The first thing I noticed about this issue was the cover. This was not an issue I had as a young nerd, but the cover painting by Clyde Cauldwell, which makes it seem very familiar.
I started playing D&D in 1984, introduced by a friend, Josh Tooley, in 6th grade. HeJohn Matthew Staterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02310914386482078369noreply@blogger.com3