Star Wars (1977) Original Trailer and Movie being shown in the Video Room at Tuscon 44 this weekend.

I should have posted to this blog way before now but I have been very busy with preparations for TusCon 44 This year and we have a lot planed this year! I want to know,  are you a science fiction or fantasy fan? Do you have an interest in space opera or do your tastes lean toward the macabre? Whatever your fancy, TusCon 44 (Website Found Here) will have something to whet your appetite. 

There looks to be a terrific lineup of authors, artists, and film producers to meet. Your days could be a flurry of panel discussions, art viewing, gaming in the game room, anime and film viewing, as well as shopping to your heart's content in a fully stocked vendor room. Bring your costume and attend a Masquerade or join the Star Wars LARP campaign. 

With Timothy Zahn being our Author Guest of Honer this year it sparks an ongoing Star Wars live action roleplaying campaign sponsored by Tucson Blood and Tears who brought you the Houses of the Blooded Fantasy Game last year! They are proud to bring you a Star Wars LARP this year. More info about this event will be coming soon In further updates.

There will be art demos, making and taking, writing instruction, and how-to's. Autograph sessions will happen with some of your favorite authors and perhaps you will find some new favorites to enjoy as well. On Saturday, you could learn how to publish your own work and then step into a workshop on how to create hair clips to accent Steam-punk attire. If the supernatural draws you, there will be a panel discussion with haunted survivors.

For the gamer in you, there will be late night gaming every night to keep the adventure going well into the wee hours of the day. As the Dawn of Dice Gaming lounge returns with new RPG Games this year from 12:am to 6:am.  And if you still have steam come morning, tabletop gaming starts at 8am with Tunnels and Trolls on Saturday Morning.

Curtsy of Isle of Games Ben Penner will be running two sessions of the Star Wars RPG.

Darkrock Ventures Play to Win Tournament

Table Top Gaming (Sage Boardroom)

6:00pm - 9:00pm

2 to 12 players

Curtsy of Magic Meeple Games

Ian and Trish Stedman Who will also be demoing 
an assortment of their other games this year as well.

The action starts Friday, November 10th, at 10am, when registration opens and ends when the video room closes on Sunday, November 12th at 7pm. However Also from 3pm to 7pm will be the Last Larp Session with me Captain Hedges running the Captains Yacht Scenario.

Cyber-Armed Street Orc Ganger Build

Chris Hulvey at Polyhedren Game Store invited me to come play with his Tuesday night group he wanted me to watch then give him some pointers after the game was over about how he did. He said it was a street level campaign set in the Seattle Sprawl, So I decided to build the following a cyber-armed Orc Ganger adept: I guess this might become my preferred build. I will be reporting twerks as the campaign progress. I have one week form today to make him work out.

A: Ork (or Dwarf)

B: Attributes

D: Adept

E; Skills

C: Resources

Atts: Max Intuition, softcap Agility, Reaction, and Willpower, get Body to 5. get Charisma to 3, Dump Logic and Strength. You can get Edge 4.

Skills: Max and spec Swords, put 1 or 2 + specs in Sneaking, Perception, Con, and Etiquette.

Ware: Get a standard cyber-arm with maxed custom Agility and Strength, well as added Agility and Strength Enhancements. Fill the rest of capacity with fun goodies. If you have positive qualities to spare, you can get bio-compatibility cyber-ware just so you can get a very useful data-jack.

Gear: Get a rapier, or another one-handed bladed weapon with a high accuracy (add a Personalized grip too). Turn it into an R1 or R2 weapon focus (it will help you hit things like materialized spirits and up your dice pool a bit). With investing karma into nuyen, you can have more than enough cash for more than just basic starter gear.

Adept Powers: You can have 5 Magic: I would just get a combo of Improved Reflexes (2 or 3), Combat Senses, and Improved Ability (Blades).

Qualities are pretty personable. Jack of All Trades will help pick of a point or two of skills in play (and Agility 9 arm goes a long way with a lot of 1 point skills). A Mentor spirit is always nice (Stag give Blades bonuses).

Character is pretty one-note mechanically. Basically just really good at hitting things hard with swords (20+ dice and high damage). Customize more with knowledge skills, negative qualities, and contacts. Elf version would flip Attributes and Meta priorities (B: elf, A: Attributes). Human would prob go (D: Human, A: Atts, B: Adept [for a few more skill-points]).

Update to add to this: September 12, 2017; So the arm didn't help as much as I thought it would after playing him in a new campaign, on nearly any non combat agility based skill. He was very hard pressed to argue even Palming, and that is the most likely skill I can see as a downside to this build. For the most part the arm didn't help much on skills, making them still rather dangerously low.

I honestly don't see much to recommend getting a single arm in this case. With the bioware agility our Orc can actually be good at melee skills, He can wield two handed blades if he wants to and if he wants to wield a one handed sword it opens up martial arts options for using two weapons like two weapon style attack which is just free damage and accuracy. I personally would go back and do over with Orc B attributes A, he loses a bit of augmented strength you don't really need, and some edge which does hurt, but in exchange our Orc can be decently good at stealth, climbing, and have a higher move speed which is important to a melee character. At that point thematically you are playing an arm with some flesh attached to it. The Orc is getting to the point where my character is starting to make very little sense and be more a stat block rather then a living breathing entity. (Sigh) The other issue is our Orc will effectively be ending up with less armor by going with a cyber arm. Stacking armor is based on strength, you have none. While the free armor on your arm seems cool, it is costing us just as much or more armor on his body.

Update to add to this: September 19, 2017 As noted above, character is pretty one note mechanically. Its primary function as a shadowrunner is to hit things hard with a sword. It is accurate enough with enough edge to one-hit lots of targets if needed, and to survive a tough encounter. More customization comes from knowledge, qualities, and contacts.

A single, very strong arm is useful for lots of things. An unarmed attack (can take unarmed 1 + cyberspec for a hidden built-in weapon with functional use). Throwing stuff (combine with Hawk Eye and be fairly accurate at far distances with things like grenades). Palming. Lockpicking. Grapple Gun. Gripping Stuff (with magnetic system).

An arm also lets you squeeze some more 'ware into it with its capacity. Future growth includes further updating the arm, getting modular arms, in addition to magical growth.

Game mechanics do privilege higher Agility, particularly in conjunction with Agile Defender, but it can be boring. Agility 5 is usually plenty for movement and as a base general Agility stat. Especially if mixed with a single level of .25pp Agility Boost (it can be taken at chargen or grown into or as a R1 Qi focus). Giving an average of 2 additional hits to an Agility test when needed that you can't use with Muscle Toner.

The build can up strength more if desired (likely taken from Willpower or Body), but Strength 3 (base for an Ork or Dwarf, as recommended metas for the build) is enough to fit lots of armor.

In all though, It leaves a lot of space to build a character around, and many options for growth. Melee weapon adepts are generally kind of blah (as opposed to gun or unarmed adepts), and I think a cyberarm can make the playstyle a bit more fun for me....

Yours Captain Hedges

Atlanteans, Lemurians and aliens

H.P. Lovecraft may or may not have said to Harold S. Farnese (with whom he briefly corresponded),

“You will, of course, realize that all my stories, unconnected as they may be, are based on one fundamental lore or legend: that this world was inhabited at one time by another race, who in practicing black magic, lost their foothold and were expelled, yet live on outside, ever ready to take possession of this earth again.”

but he did write, in “The Other Gods” (1921),

“…In cloud-ships the gods are wont to travel, and wise cotters have legends that keep them from certain high peaks at night when it is cloudy, for the gods are not lenient as of old.”

and, in “The Call of Cthulhu” (1926),

“…There had been aeons when other Things ruled on the earth, and They had had great cities. Remains of Them, he said the deathless Chinamen had told him, were still be found as Cyclopean stones on islands in the Pacific. They all died vast epochs of time before men came, but there were arts which could revive Them when the stars had come round again to the right positions in the cycle of eternity. They had, indeed, come themselves from the stars, and brought Their images with Them.”

and, from the same source,

“…They were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape...but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in Their great city of R'lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for them…”

and, in “At The Mountains of Madness”

“…Another race – a land-race of beings shaped like octopi and probably corresponding to [the] fabulous pre-human spawn of Cthulhu – soon began filtering down from cosmic infinity and precipitated a monstrous war which for a time drove the Old Ones wholly back to the sea. . . . Then suddenly the lands of the Pacific sank again, taking with them the frightful stone city of R’lyeh and all the cosmic octopi, so that the Old Ones were again supreme on the planet. . . .”

There are different theories about Mu and Lemuria, as there are about Atlantis.

Lemuria may be the ‘Kumarinâtu of Tamil literature’, metaphorical or physical, a place destroyed by volcanoes and earthquakes that sank beneath the sea, a land where the ancestors of both the Mesoamericans and the Egyptians held sway, a continent destroyed in a catastrophe so long ago that all memories of it have disappeared, whose descendants became space travellers and abducted by Daniel Fry in 1949, whose tunnels – like those of Atlantis – still exist under the earth, a civilization whose remains are to be found somewhere in the deserts of Western Australia, the continent inhabited by (according to theosophists) the Third Root-race and whose empire arose 78,000 years ago and lasted 52,000 years before being destroyed 26,000 years ago by a pole shift caused by the near-miss of the planet Nibiru. If the Elder Gods inhabited another planet in our solar system prior to visiting Earth (given that they existed in this spacetime and were sufficiently corporeal) then Nibiru is a prime candidate for such occupation since it has been claimed by Zecharia Sitchin that, “About 450,000 years ago, Alalu, the deposed ruler of the Anunnaki on Nibiru, escaped the planet on a spaceship and found refuge on Earth.” Nibiru is an Akkadian name and is the name of the planet associated with Marduk.

The anagram of Anunnaki is Ik-anu-nan (Ik – one of Quetzalcoatl’s names; Anu – the first part of Anubis, Egyptian god of the Underworld and Nan(na) – the Sumerian Moon-god whose daughter, Inanna, who has been compared to Persephone (because she went to the Underworld and was then saved).

Marduk was a god of wisdom and white magic and therefore the Sumerian equivalent of Thoth.

The priests and practitioners of white and of black magic who inhabited both Lemuria and Atlantis were clearly the descendants of genetically manipulated primates (i.e. human beings) by the Annunaki since the names of their Elder Gods may be traced to those aliens.

Perhaps Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth are, in some way, connected to Nibiru and its return!

Here's a cool A New, Speculative Theory on Nibiru (Extra-Dimensional!)  

Captain Hedges Favorite Qoutes

“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away.”  ― Gene Roddenberry

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.” ― Arthur C. Clarke

“Until we meet again, may the good Lord take a liking to you.” Roy Rogers

I was asked to write DEFINITIONS AND EXAMPLES in my PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY Class I was taking on Different kinds of Memory. 

I think a quote from one of my Favorite Arthur could sum this section of memory up with the following quote; 

"Five senses; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than minority of them - never become conscious of them all. How much of total reality can such an apparatus let through?" – C. S. Lewis

On September 17th 1983 Dungeons and Dragons first debuted on TV sets across America!

On September 17th 1983 it will have been thirty four years ago, sinse  Dungeons & Dragons The Animated TV Series came onto Saturday morning cartoons on Television Screens across America. Whether you think this was a good thing or a bad thing probably depends (as some old wizard/crazy old man once said) on your own point of view and quite possibly not mine.

Me? I loved it the first time I saw it on TV I loved it. I was 13 years old at the time, and I had to sneak out of my bed early and go into the living room plugging in my head phones so I could watch it on Saturday Morning to watch it before my parents woke up, because if they had known they would have never let me watch it. You see we were and stanch Christian family who believed the hype about Dungeons and Dragons being of the occult and driving teens to kill themselves and or friends killing friends believing they would come back to life through a resurrection spell it worked in game why not in real life? Because Fantasy is not reality that's why but some people even in today's world still think this way! This is really sad to say the least, so I never got to play the game because of this hype.

That is until I was a grown man in collage and decided to go to Gen Con for the first time in my life. It was here I met Bill Webb from Necromancer Games at the time who was Daubing a new Module the Wizards Amulet and I decided I wanted to play ever sense then I was hooked on D&D and never looked backed. You can find a copy of the Wizards Amulet here at Frog God Games updated for D&D 5e as an introductory module for new and old game masters alike.

Now on to the rest of the story as Paul Harvey would say on his radio talk show!

In Region 1, BCI Eclipse (under license from Disney) released Dungeons & Dragons - The Complete Animated Series on DVD for the very first time on December 5, 2006. The 5-disc set featured an extensive array of special features including documentaries, commentaries, character profiles and more. This release is now out of print as BCI Eclipse ceased operations in December 2008. I have this DVD set and Animated Series book.

Now my readers are probably asking themselves what is the point of this story?


So despite the silly amusement park ride premise of the show’s opening —

— Dungeons & Dragons landed immediately on my must-watch list of nostalgia DVDs I have collected to watch over the years. Sense I am a DM now running the Heck out of 5e. .I remember being excited the first time I actually watched the show when I’d recognize things from my 3.5 D&D books, like the Monsters Tiamat, Shadow Demon, Orcs, Lizard-men, etc. Venger was a nice touch i thought as the recurring villain you could defeat, but never kill I have had a few of those types in my campaigns over the years. And the closing credits shot of the amusement park always struck an oddly melancholic chord with me, maybe because, at the end, it was a reminder that those kids were still far from home.

I know I’m not the only one with a soft spot for this show; nor the game itself; so I have decided to run a game of Dungeons and Dragons The Animated Series at WesterCon70/ConAlope/LepreCon43/CONflageration (Gaming Event), this year,

I am planing on running the game using the D&D 3.5 rules set it was originally created for. I am planning on using the adventure Beneath the Blade of Sword Mountain which is a short Dungeons and Dragons Adventure designed as a prelude to "The Episode the Dragons Grave Yard!" 
Yes, there are aspects of Dungeons & Dragons that are just buried in ’80s cheese — and I’ll admit up front that’s a guilty pleasure — but the show also reflected sincerity and heart and a clear love of the source material. Or maybe I’ve just missed another saving throw versus nostalgia. Wouldn’t be the first time!

See the Dungeons and Dragons Animated Series Here Dungeons & Dragons The Animated Series (TV Series Full Episodes)  and please subscribe to my your tube channel please.

For Memberships/tickets to WesterCon70 go here 

For New on what I am doing in the Gaming Hall Go Here

Yours Captain Earl C, Hedges Jr

TusCon 43 and Tunnels and Trolls Deluxe

Saturday, November 12, 2016 Original Post

I first met Ken St Andrea for the first time at Tuscon 43 on November 12th through 2016. I was the game coordinator and he said to me "I thought I was supposed to run Tunnels and Trolls"? I said n "No one told me about that and I did not even know you were coming till two weeks ago. however if you want to run tunnels and trolls I will try to find a table with players for you with me as one of them". Ken said if you get a minimum of 3 players well play well his son James was with him and wanted to play so I found one other player by the name of Jason and the 3 of us found ourselves adventuring along a the path in Trollhalla. We needed to stay on the path and every time we got off we were attacked by something I was the only one to survive. Needles to say my other two companions died. However it was great fun, and I personally had a blast." The best part was meeting him getting to play an awesome game and getting him to sign my Deluxe Tunnles and Trolls Book, Thank you Ken.

Monday, April 4, 2017
So Today I was board and wanted to play something I got out my Tunnels and Trolls Deluxe Rules and went looking for a good solo adventures I found a few at Flying Buffalo's Drive Through RPG account Found Here Click Here Now I am playing through a couple of them and learning the Game my plan is when I am dune to write a review about to finish out this blog entry. This is a work in progress.

However I can over some of the basics with you now as I understand them Chapter One is simply an introduction to Tunnels & Trolls, along with an explanation as to how the book is laid out. Chapter Two is only a single page long and is a general overview about how to play a RPG. The next chapter is Chapter 3 and is two dozen pages long and it’s all about character creation. Instead of assuming everyone reading this has PLAYED T&T in the past (which is mostly likely NOT the case and considering I played for the first time at Tuscon 43 and I am still learning the game), I’ll give a quick break down of stats and classes. Vets, you can skim ahead if you like.

Okay, So T&T has eight stats: Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Speed, Intelligence, Wizardry, Luck and Charisma. So some very similar stats to D&D. you also roll 3D6 to get your starting stat, which again, is similar to D&D.



However if you roll a triple of any number with your dice (says three 4s) you get to roll again. You can keep rolling until you stop getting doubles. So there is a possibility of having a starting stat of say 36. If you roll three 6s, three 3s and then a total of 9 on your next roll, you start with a stat of 36. That’s pretty powerful, right? That’s how it goes in T&T. After that, you get your combat adds. For every point in a physical stat over 12, you get +1 to your personal adds. Physical stats are STR, CON, DEX and SPD. So let’s say that 36 was in CON. You would get +35 adds in addition to anything over 12 you had in the other three physical stats. If the 35 was in IQ (Intelligence), you would not get the bonus to your combat adds, but you would get any for stats over 12 in the four physical attributes. Combat adds are used with your dice rolls in combat and the more you have, the more powerful your attacks will be. This is a nice change from games where only STR adds to damage and attack rolls. With T&T you can have a high SPD and DEX and be a better fighter than someone who is pure brute strength.

There are three basic character classes: Warriors, Wizards and Rogues. The first two are self-explanatory but Rogues are not necessarily thieves ala most other RPGS. In T&T, rogues are simply people who are jack of all trades. They are adventurers but without any formal martial or magical training. As such they can do both, but not as well as the other two classes. There are also Specialists which are simply people in the other three classes who rolled a triple for a stat in character creation. This comes up more in the optional rules though.

Tunnels & Trolls also has different character races than most games. You can choose from the usual human, elves and dwarves, but T&T also lets you play as a faerie, leprechaun or Hobbs (hobbit). Finally let’s talk character levels. In T&T your level is your highest stat divided by ten and rounded down. Sound confusing. Well let’s do this as an example if your highest stat is 3-9, you are 0 level character. If it is between 10-19 (most starting characters), you are a Level 1 character. If you are the example we looked at earlier where you have a 36 stat, you are a level 3 character. So on and so forth. Stats raise as the game goes on (you buy increases with Adventure Points, T&S XP equivalent) and so it is up to the player as to what level they are. If you try to make a balanced character your level will be less than your friend who only puts his increases into the same stat every time, but you’ll have a better chance of surviving a myriad of things. The choice is up to you!

Now let’s get back to the quick overview of the chapters. Chapter Four is about equipment for your characters. This is a lot of lists and mechanics. Weapons, armor, poisons and more can be found in Chapter Four. Chapter Five is a look at Saving Rolls, which are how you avoid danger. Essentially you are given the target number then you subtract the specific attribute that applies to the saving roll. So if you need to make a Dexterity based saving throw with a target of 30 and you have an 18 in your DEX – you need to roll a 12 or higher on two dice. Like with any 2d6 rolls in Tunnels and Trolls though, if you get doubles, you get to roll again and add the new roll score to your previous one. Lots of simple addition in this game! Chapter Six is a list of talents your characters can pick up as the level up and/or start the game with. There are certain talents only Rogues can get, but otherwise this is pretty straightforward.

Chapter Seven is about monsters and how scaled back they are stats-wise compared to PCs. Chapter 8 is “Combat” and it’s probably where you will spend the bulk of your time with this book until you have the basics down pat. Essentially though both sides roll 2d6 and add up their personal adds and other factors. The side with the highest total hurts the side with the lowest total with the damage generally being the difference between the two rolls. That’s a very brief explanation of T&T combat and you’ll actually want to read the book for a better understanding but that’s the mechanics in a nutshell. There explinations of different types of combat here too. Magical, berserk, martial arts and more. Again, you will want to read the whole chapter as combat is notably different from many other RPGs.

Chapter Nine is “Magic” and it’s here you’ll learn how spellcasting work and receive a massive list of all eighteen levels of spells. I know, it is a unusual number of levels, but T&T is a very unique game. You’ll also want to read the spell names. Nothing shows off the sense of humour inherent in Tunnels and Trolls like the magic spell lists. You have names like “Take That, You Fiend” and “Better Lucky than Good.” There are also some spell names which are sure to provide an immature reaction like “Blow Me To…” This chapter also shows how characters learn spells, how you know if a character can cast a spell or not, how spell points (WIZ) recharges and more. Magic-users are extremely powerful in T&T so like chapter eight, you’ll want to spend a lot of time in this section of the rulebook if you are new to the game. You’ll go into the book not knowing the word Kremm and you’ll walk away with it being second nature to you by the time you’ve had a few T&T games under your belt. Finally, Chapter Nine contains information about magical items, wards, power storage batteries, and how to create your own spells. Like I said, you’ll spend a LOT of time re-reading this chapter.

Chapter Ten is “Putting it All Together” and it’s essentially wisdom for GMs on how to run a good cohesive game that everyone has fun with. Simple but sage stuff. Then you have Chapter Eleven which are a few pages of spell appendices and you’re done. That’s the rules. Well…mostly. Remember the rules are only the first 165 pages of the Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls book. Now it’s time for the “Elaborations” which are optional and/or advanced rules you can either use or ignore in your T&T game. The book assumes you will NOT use any of these for a list of reasons provided at the start of Chapter Twelve but you’re more than welcome to if you think any of these will improve your game.

So what is in “Elaborations”? You’ll find the concept of training, which actually determines a character’s starting age. There are more abilities added to each class, such as weapon of choice for warriors, racial magic for wizards and rules for Specialist classes. Chapter Thirteen gives you new races to play as. Many of these are usually monsters or antagonists and there’s a huge list of options. You have vampires, werewolves, gnomes, gremlins, minotaurs, lizard people, ghouls, trolls, dragons and even demons! It’s pretty crazy. The reason for all these different races is Monsters! Monsters! – the sister game to Tunnels & Trolls where you play the bad guys. Chapter Thirteen essentially fold the concept into DT&T along with a description of their races and how to play them. Very cool Ken I very much like this idea.

Chapter Fourteen is about languages. It’s four pages long and gives both a list of languages in Tunnels & Trolls as well as how you learn them (mechanics-wise). Chapter Fifteen is “Extended Talents” and is essentially a continuation and more in-depth version of Chapter Six. Chapter Sixteen is “Accessories.” Here is a frank discussion on using miniatures with T&T and how the game was never designed for that. Nonetheless the creators talk how miniatures and various computer programs or apps can be integrated with the game. It’s an interesting read. Finally we come to Chapter Seventeen which is entitled “The Kitchen Sink” since it is a massive hodge podge of odds and ends that simply didn’t fit anywhere else. There are lots of charts, a page on guilds, commentary on dice and more. It’s short, but the topics are quite varied. It feels disjointed but at least the chapter is named appropriately.

At this point we are done with the rules parts of Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls but there are still two more sections. Yes, this is a HUGE book. The Trollworld Atlas is the next section of the book and it easily could have been a supplement on its own. Sixty pages go into the Trollworld Atlas. That’s more than a third of the pages devoted to the core rules section. It’s that long and detailed. If you use your own homebrew you can skip this section but for everyone else, this is a fine look at the fluff/creative side of the game. There’s a timeline, maps, world history and continents shaped like animals. It’s a lot of fun to read and there’s even a 16 page color gallery slapped in the middle.

The last eighty (!) pages of the book are devoted to Tunnels & Trolls adventures. I was really happy to see the sheer amount of adventures in the book as these days it seems like only Chaosium actually includes adventures in their Core rulebook. This is a great slice of old school. There is a traditional GM led adventures where one person takes the role of GM and guides other players (that use characters) through adventures. There is also a Solitaire adventure similar to “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. It is with the Solitaire adventures that Tunnels & Trolls really has made a lasting name for itself over the decades and it’s fantastic to see some of each in the core rulebook. The adventure doesn’t include any beginner adventures though, so don’t look for a simple adventure designed to help teach you mechanic. In fact the very first adventure in the compendium is “Abyss” and it is designed for after your character dies. The next “Into Zorr” is a GM led adventure for four to eight characters between Levels1-5. “Into Zorr” is used in conjunction with the TrollWorld Atlas and give you a taste of the official world for T&T. It’s extremely long and will take several play sessions to get through. It’s a mini-campaign in its own right.

So 2,500 words later, I’ve had a nice long look at Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls. It’s pretty fantastic if you’re a longtime fan of the game. Younger gamers or people new to T&T with this latest incarnation might be a bit stymied at first with how different the game plays (and reads) compared to most other high fantasy RPGs, but the game has stood the test of time for a reason. It might not be your favorite RPG ever, but it’s one you’ll definitely have fun with and even laugh out loud because of at least once. I really enjoyed what was here and think Flying Buffalo’s team did an excellent job. If you didn’t take part in the Kickstarter and you’re a longtime Tunnels & Trolls fan, you’re going to want to snatch up DT&T as soon as it is available to the general public.

I expect newcomers can afford to be a bit more hesitant. Like with any core rulebook I suggest getting the PDF or playing in a few adventures with people that know the system like the The Troll Godfather himself Ken St Andre before making a large financial commitment to this or.any system on the market today. Although I am sure we all want to support Ken so he can write more Tunnels and Tolls.,. And I myself as of today decided to get whats available from Flying Buffalo at their Drive Through RPG account, The good news is that T&T is a VERY affordable compared to most other gaming systems (especially on the PDF front) and so if this review has piqued your interest you won’t break the bank trying out Tunnels & Trolls. I personally give it two thumbs up and 5 stars.

To answer your question before you have to ask it; the answer is a YES; this is how I spent my day today reading, then playing and writing this Blog post about Tunnels and Trolls Deluxe today. Next on my to do list for this blog post is to write a few reviews about the Solo Adventures for Tunnels and Trolls as I play through them. Have a great day and as always thanks for stomping by and reading my Blog Posts see you next time.

Talislanta: The Savage Land

This will be a short Bloger Game post however I want to say something about Talislanta is a fantasy role-playing game written by Stephen Michael Sechi, with significant stylistic input by artist P.D. Breeding-Black and initially released in 1987 by Bard Games. Talislanta has endured a bumpy publication history, such that there have been five different editions published over the years, nearly all by different companies. Talislanta is now freely available online via a Creative Commons licence.

I was in High School at the time and way to busy for games as I was heavily into my music career of learning and playing the saxophone in both Marching and Concert Band in which I was having the time of my life. However, summers were boring till I found a new game to sink my teeth into yep it was Talislanta and it was then an awesome RPG. Well, guess what it? It is coming back with a whole new RPG Take and it will be available for TSL, D&D 5e, and the Open D6 System. I am so excited to tell you about this awesome Kickstater and want you to watch the video about their new Kickstarter for it to the right of this Blog Post as well as others that I feature on here and if you get as excited as I do then please help to Kcikstart this awosme project. I have Kickstarted it and I am blogging about it to all of you! Yours Captain Hedges

5e, Pathfinder and Sword and Wizardy by Frog God Games is Amazing pieces of RPG awesomeness!

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Orgionl Post from 04/2/2017 edited and updated on 5/28/2017

On the opening day of Gen Con 2000, Third Edition Dungeons and Dragons was unveiled. That same day, Necromancer Games released The Wizard’s Amulet, more or less the second OGL/D20 adventures Found Here Click Here (that’s another discussion under Adventures R Us). I remember going this year and played the module with Bill Webb running from that point foreword I was hooked and became a fan of Necromancer Games Products.

When Necromancer, started working with other companies such as White Wolf, Judges Guild, and Kenzer and Company, became one of the most successful d20 companies. Their mega dungeon, Rappan Athak, is one of the best known Third Era adventures. The advent of Fourth Edition D&D spelled doom for Necromancer. However, when Co-founders Greg Vaughan and Bill Webb founded Frog God Games, it was clear to me that it was going to be a clear successor to Necromancer, as they published products for Paizo’s Pathfinder Found Here Click Here. Frog God produced new items and also updated old Necromancer goods as well, Pathfinderizing them. 

Now it's an all new game with a successful Kick starter in 2014 which I was Homeless and penny less at the time missed out on but was glad it successfully funded as Necromancer Games Just Went Froggie and over the top. However I did link it in this blog hoping my readers who are gamers would back it.

With the advent of Fifth Edition D&D Found Here Click Here, Frog God is now publishing for both lines (in addition to retro-clone, Swords & Wizardry Found Here Click Here.). Necromancer and Frog God adventures and supplements had loosely been connected in that they took place in Webb’s personal campaign world which at conventions  both of us were attending I got to play in his games.

Frog God is currently putting out that campaign world under the moniker of The Lost Lands and I am running the Hell of it for 2017. It is and has incorporated nearly everything ever produced by Necromancer and Frog God Games. Some products, such as their Judges Guild updates and the Hex Crawl Chronicles, belong to other folks and probably won’t be included. But if you look at the long list of products, there’s still an awful lot, including Gary Gygax’s under-appreciated Necropolis Found Here Click Here which I am planing to pick up at somepoint.

 Lost Lands Razor Coast Found Here Click Here while the actual campaign book is available along with many other products on Frog God Games Website. They’ve been releasing Lost Lands modules, such as Stoneheart Valley Found Here Click Here (which contains my all-time favorite adventures to run for new players, Wizard's Amulet, Crucible of Freya and The Tomb of Abysthor is available to use with the Pathfinder Role Playing Game). Another Favorite of mine to run is The Lost City of Barakus all these and more are through Kickstarters in which I started backing. Recently, one of Necromancer’s long rumored projects, The Sword of Air, Found Here Click Here was also funded for The Lost Lands and is also available now on their website. 

Meanwhile, newer products such as the kickstarted Rappan Athuk (for Pathfinder), the epic Slumbering Tsar series and the ill-fated but ultimately successful The Razor Coast, will all be part of this world. As well as a new set of books known as The Perilous Vistas line brings the great outdoors to life. Like their predecessors, the highly acclaimed Dunes of Desolation and Fields of Blood, a new kikcstater that fully funded takes the Mountains of Madness and Marshes of Malice are black and white, 225+ page supplements that build upon real world details and their gaming applications to provide all of the essentials and extras to run campaigns set in one of these remarkable biomes.

There are several other campaign worlds for Pathfinder, with Paizo’s own Golarion and Kobold Press’s Midgard two of the most popular. But with the back catalogue of Necromancer now available, the Frogs are adding to not only the impressive output of their Old Products but all of them are deliberately written by Frog God Games for each and every game system which means The Lost Lands Campaign looks to be awfully meaty now for which I am glad for.

Though some of it is a bit dark for me, as some material is not suited in my opionion for Public Play in my opinion the Blight and a few others should be reserved for your adult home game. However, Don't get me wrong as I’m a huge fan of Necromancer/Frog God: especially the history they’ve built into their products. And because one can never have enough monsters, you should check out their Tome of Horrors Complete Found Here Click Here: which include all three of their third edition Tome of Horrors books, Pathfinderized, with over 800 pages of monster goodness….err, badness. But that's not all their is a line of miniatures with a 3rd party company that successfully did another Kickstarter for the Line they are now Available at Pacesetter which features modules for many of today's most preferred fantasy RPGs including First Edition AD&D, Fifth Edition D&D, Swords & Wizardry, and the DCC RPG! Pacesetter Miniatures Line Can be Found Here Click Here

However let’s not forget the 5th Edition side of things as for me personally I am and have been running D&D sense 2014 when the Starter Box Set and Basic Rules set Came out for 5th Edition D&D came out by WotC which probably should be another blog post about "How I got back into gaming with 5th edition D&D". So let’s just say for now though I enjoyed some of the WotC products and leave it at that for now. You can see that in a Future Blog Post later on down the road.

However I always felt my games had lost something or was missing something special. Well not any more with a successful Kick starter re-launch of the Lost Lands Bards Gate with an updated map of the Gulf of Akados it has now became a reality for 5e, Pathfinder, and Sword and Wizardry. I was hell bent on running this in 2017 instead of WotC’s Storm Kings Thunder I was tired of AL League Rules not allowing certain things here and thier. Also my players wanted to paly something different that would allow them a bit more freedom to roleplay. 

The Local Store I was running at wanted me to keep it D&D because every Wednesday night is D&D Night Isle of Games 7747 E. Broadway Ave Tucson Arizona 85710 So for the 2017 Season, I am running a Dungeons and Dragons Lost Lands Bards Gate Campaign at my Non AL table using the new Frog God Games 5e Products now available at Frog God Games Website Found Here Click Here. 

However now I am updated this Blog Post today 5/28/2017 to vent a little on Wizards Saying the only game in town on Wednesday nights should be D&D adventures league only. So I had to move to Bards Gate Lost Lands to Tuesday Nights at Isle of Games from 6:00 PM To 9:00 PM.

I Do recommend Bards Gate and 5th Edition foes book because these two Items can jump start an all new campaign in the Lost Lands Setting and if you’re a new GM be sure to download the free copy of wizards Amulet it is written for new and Old DM/GM’s alike.

Like I said earlier I’ve been a big fan of Necromancer Games ever since 3rd edition.  They put out some really high quality material, most notably the Tome of Horrors monster book series, and Fifth Edition Foes is pretty much an update of that for the new edition of the game.  Due to an old licensing agreement with Wizards of the Coast they were probably not able to put out a book like this before the official OGL is released (which was released in 2014).

Anyway, Fifth Edition Foes is a 259 page book that takes many of the older 1st edition monsters from the Fiend Folio and Monster Manual II and updates them to 5th edition. Also included are many original monsters from Tome of Horrors. It’s a smorgasbord of beasts and nastier creatures from 1st edition D&D updated for 5th Edition D&D which in my book is awesome with that said it manages to evoke the same sense of weirdness that The Fiend Folio was renown for back in the day. 

Now they have an all new Kick starter out for the highly anticipated Starfinder by Paizo Found Here Click Here. Thier new moniker for this is take your fantasy to the stars with the Pathfinder Roleplay Game. 

Well Guess what yep the Frogs are added again with Frog God Games is announcing  an all new Kickstarter Frog God Games is excited to enlist your help in in this project to create our Starfinder Role playing Game Compatible Line of products! Which is found here and is avalible for pre order

Thanks for stopping by and reading this updated blog post I will continue to update this blog post as new Kickstarers come Available from Frog God Games with my reviews and opinions of them. Yours Captain Hedges

a game bio about myself for Westercon’s website

I was recently asked to write a game bio about myself for Westercon’s website the following is what I came up with.

Earl C, Hedges Jr brings over 30 years of gaming experience, as he has volunteered to run games at local conventions, stores, and other venues for only a couple of years, he brings a vast knowledge and experience about the gaming industry. He grew up with his family during the 70’s playing games together. During the 80’s he continued that trend and in the 90’s started playing at local game stores all over the country. As both a Game Master, Narrator etc.

As a player he has played just about at one time or another just about every type of game known to man or beast. During the 90's he played mostly Games Workshop products and now he mostly plays an assortment of Table Top RPGs. (you can see his Gaming and Hobbie corner page to the right for more info on games he currently runs and plays. As well as those he has played in the past).

So in writing out this bio, I am basically, reflecting on the important roles games have played in my life. This is an interesting challenge for me although no one else might be interested in my story.

I grew up in Flagstaff a small town in Upstate Arizona. During the 1970s most families had only one TV set and it received only three channels and children were shooed outside to play. I was fortunate in that I lived in town and there were a dozen kids my age within blocks of my home. We roamed in packs – sometimes coming together to play sandlot softball or kick the can or spotlight (flashlight tag). Games were an important part of my family life as well. Among my earliest memories is playing Chinese checkers with my mom and Regular checkers against my great-grandfather who possessed an actual wooden table with the board built in and tiny drawers to keep the markers. I wonder what happened to that table…then remembered it was lost with the house. During the long winters, my family of 3 which could grow to 6 when Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, cousins, or friends dropped by for a visit. We played board games and as we grew older we included friends and neighbors as well. We were among the first families to acquire electronic games. With an original tv game that prequel all of the Nintendo games. It was Atari’s missile command I can still remember how excited we were about other Atari Games coming out and how quickly we abandoned it for more exciting systems featuring games such as Donkey Kong and Frogger. Growing up in a small town also meant that sports played an important role in our community. However, for me I was not that much on playing sports I was a geek a musician who learned to play the saxophone so I was involved in the school band stuff, and of course football was the dominant sport for our town and fans cheered on. Friday nights were spent at the NAU Sky doom in the bleachers and the Coconino High School marching band would be performing at half time.

Reflecting on the role of games in my childhood I’m struck by the importance of games. As James Paul Gee notes, games introduce us to the concept of learning through and from failure. This is why I’m so drawn to gamification as a pedagogical tool, but I think it is an essential experience for children. It is just a shame that so many adults lose their fascination and love for games. I’m hopeful (although skeptical) that many adults today may hang onto this essential experience as gaming for all ages is more acceptable. I think game playing teaches us the benefits and drawbacks of risk taking and how to calculate the odds of both. Gee also notes that games help us learn about others and other worlds, and I believe this is true, but I also think games help us learn more about ourselves as well as our playmates. Hours of playing sandlot softball and kick the can with the same kid’s day after day, week after week, taught me a lot about those kids as well as myself. These are important life skills.

I know some people worry about kids who hole up in their bedroom playing video games for hours, but the truth is that both board games and video games are highly interactive and collaborative activities. It is a different experience than when I was a kid and we were the only family with a video game system so all the kids were sitting on our living room rug, but now headsets and chat apps as well as online discussion boards make gaming equally interactive just in different ways.

I think we lost something when we handed games off to children. My great-grandparents and grandparents would play checkers, dominoes, chess, and cards. They would play at home with family, have regularly scheduled games with friends that were a part of their social calendar, and tables were always set up at any party or gathering. Today my family continues to play euchre at family gatherings, but that is the only game that has managed to travel forward through time which I still hold onto my box of dominoes waiting for a revival. However, I found recently the chinse checker set me and my mom use to play on.

I remember my very first Roleplaying game it was FASA’s Star Trek First and then Second edition when Dungeons and Dragons came out my parents for baud me to play it at all and gave me Star Trek RPG to play with my friends. I was the Narrator for this game and have hung to it all these years, I still occasionally play it by myself when I am board and have nothing else to do. It has an awesome solo mechanic that I use to vacillate me as the captain of my own ship. In many ways Star Trek holds a special place in my heart, because I grew up believing we could always strife to better ourselves and those of us from around us.

However, I think now my peers are playing games more than ever and many of those games are highly social thanks to the many online forums that allow us to support and compete with our friends across time and space. As well as local game stores and conventions where we can gather socially. I don’t like to see my Facebook feed fill with gaming notifications (thank goodness that has been largely eliminated) but I am happy to give my friends magic potions or pigs or wooden nickels as they require them. It is a little moment of pleasure to give. But largely to my game playing today falls into two categories. I love Table Top Gaming at which can be done at local game stores and conventions. My weekly game seems to be Dungeons and Dragons every Wednesday night I have a full table, and this happens to be my new game of choice these days. I often wonder what my parents would say about this, remembering back to the times they said it was linked to the Occult and Devil worship. In life, we all make choices weather good or bad anything can be used for good or evil to me it is just a fantasy game to have fun with my friends to others it is the unholy grail of blasphemy, or the Holy Grail of Hell enough said. The second type which I found recently was a new diffract type of computer gaming as well but not by myself nope now I do what is called LAN parties and Virtual reality with other people which is very fun.

As a Dungeon master, Game master, Narrator Etc. I can plan and execute and win in ways that life does not allow me to do. I can get rich, be the biggest landholder in the city, and stay on top of the world. Mean while in life I am broke, homeless, and down on my luck bum. I think that games link us over time and space and generations in ways that I do not fully understand, but I recognize their power and importance. Games are important life laboratories and they provide connections between and among people and ideas in ways that I do not fully understand and that’s OK with me.

Now then this week's edition 02/13/2017 is to update and publish new blog posts now with that dune! Were moving along and editing this website and putting more content up!

For those who don't know me, I am Earl C. Hedges Jr. I am currently working on gaming updates for various conventions going on this year See Other Blog Posts and Hobby pages for more info on those Items.

 I wanted to talk about those that influenced my life through the following, which are my favorite quotes.

Favorite Quotes:

“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away.”
― Gene Roddenberry

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.” ― Arthur C. Clarke

“Until we meet again, may the good Lord take a liking to you.” Roy Rogers

Have a good Day every one I am dune blogging for a while!

Memories Are Not What They Used to Be July 14, 2016 reposted here

When was the last time you had to memorize a telephone number?

for me it was jut this last year as my old phone broke and i had to go get a new one the company 

I had at the time wanted to charge me $250 dollars for the new phone and service plan so I went to another company. I finally found what I was looking for $150 dollars not what I wanted to pay but 

felt I had to pay to get a new phone and number. Now i finally got it memorized after almost six 

months of having it.

For thousands of years, human beings have relied on stone tablets, scrolls, books or 

Post-it notes to remember things that their minds cannot retain, but there is something 

profoundly different about the way we remember and forget in the internet age. It is not 

only our memory of facts that is changing. Our episodic memory, the mind’s ability to 

relive past experiences — the surprising sting of an old humiliation revisited, the thrill 

and discomfort of a first kiss, those seemingly endless childhood summers — is 

affected, too.

I now spend an average of almost nine to twelve hours a day staring at my phone, computer, Ipad, 

or television, and when more of our lives are lived on screen, more of our memories will be formed 

there. We are recording more about ourselves and our experiences than ever before, and though 

in the past this required deliberate effort, such as sitting down to write a diary, or filing away a 

letter, or posing for a portrait, today this process can be effortless, even unintentional. Never 

before have people had access to such accurate personal histories — and so little power to rewrite them.