My plans for an evening of rolling dice and pretending to be an agent of House Orien have been quashed. Work calls and actions must be taken. Seems there are painters doing that thing they do on the third floor tonight. It would also seem that the landlord did not mention to them that there is a break in the plumbing drain somewhere beneath the sink in the suite. This is only an issue because they are using that same sink to wash brushes, rollers, and buckets free of the paint they have become entwined with. All of that paint saturated drain water has found its way to my client's suite on the first floor. This has created something of a mess. And who's the first responder when there's a mess? If you guessed me, you got it in one. Good job. All of which is to say, I'll be doing something decidedly not D&D related this evening.

We use the Cyberpunk themed version of these Loke books in our game and they work really nicely. So I was inspired to buy myself some and of course I went overboard and bought three two-book sets. These aren't quite as large as the Cyberpunk maps, the giant books are 12x16 inches and these are 12x12 inches, but that still makes for a good size map. 12x24 if you use the two page spread or 24x24 if you combine two books as Loke intends them to be used. The quality is good. The art is fair. The usefulness... well, time will tell. I'm excited to use them and can envision a whole bunch of possibilities. Besides, each one of them comes with a blank grid map to increase their versatility.  I picked up three of the 2 book sets; The Dungeon, Castles, Crypts & Caverns, and Towns & Taverns. Like I just mentioned, each is a 2 book set of paired map sets. Meaning they can combined or used alone, depending on your needs and wants. You get 40 maps in each book, one per page or half th...

I have used a Chessex vinyl battle mat for years and outside of ruining a few of them with the wrong markers, have had no complaints. But as I've played more and more in public spaces the one thing I've noticed repeatedly is that identical tables do not line up identically when you push them together. And the more tables you bring together, the greater an issue this creates. This is not ideal for a supple and luxurious rolling battle mat. They much prefer a uniform level surface. This is true of the cheaper rolling mats and the large folded poster sheets as well. Even the folding stiff mats get wonky when the table heights don't match up. So, I started looking for options. These Andvari Battle Boards by GSM seem like they'll span the ridge without too much flex and solve at least part of the problem. I picked up the 9 board Mega Pack to give them a try. I don't know that I've found the ideal solution, but these ridged battle boards will work well with the foambo...

Happy Valentines Day.  We won't be having our usually scheduled gathering today as our wonderful Dungeon Master has a confluence of events culminating at this point in time and is unavailable to run the session for us. There was a very short discussion on someone else running a game in her sted, but that was pretty quickly quashed given the nature of the holiday and the dearth of significant others at the gaming table. Romance is the agenda today and the dice will need to be set aside. Instead, I give you chocolates, flowers, and romantic cards promising everlasting love. Not a bad trade. Until next we meet. Be good to each other.

I've been waiting for the dates on the revised core rules for D&D and they have finally been released. I have mixed feelings. I'm very excited to see them and get my copies, but the dates just don't make much sense to me. 2024 Player's Handbook                      September 17, 2024 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide November 12, 2024 2025 Monster Manual                     February 18, 2025 First off, it's the 50th anniversary of the game and they can't even get all the books out this year, which means it'll be next year before we can all get our boxed set of the three rulebooks. That's pretty lame. They missed the actual anniversary, which was at the end of January, and would have been the best date in my book, but probably not great from a sales and marketing standpoint. The end of January would miss the holiday season and be right, smack-dab, in the middle o...

I'm still working through season 2, so no spoilers. Please. Today, I picked up copy of the roleplaying game based on the podcast, Old Gods of Appalachia. This a horror podcast written by Cam Collins and Steve Shell that debuted on October 31, 2019. The show is produced by DeepNerd Media and is distributed by Rusty Quill. If you care about that kind of stuff, I'm not sure I do. Anyway, the podcast was adapted into a role-playing game by Monte Cook Games. I really like the podcast, the ideas behind the stories, and Monte Cook Games tend to make pretty good stuff, so I have high hopes. I've been looking at this particular copy of the game for several months. Today, it decided to come home with me. Each episode of the podcast uses a combination of narration and audio drama to tell historical fiction stories based on Appalachian folklore. The stories are original fiction that draws on a mix of history and folk tales for inspiration and address strange things from witchcraft to t...

 Amazon delivered a couple packages of dice to my door today. Not sure why I'm buying as many dice as I am lately, but I really like the 11 dice sets as opposed to the usual 7 dice sets and both of these orders were for a pair of 11 piece sets.  First off, I'll show you the set I was eagerly anticipating. One set of black and white dice and one set of red and black from Sumind Store. These came with small felt bags for each and I think they are really good looking dice. I was less excited by this second set, but I was looking for 11 piece sets and this double set fit the bill. The red/black dice look a lot like the above dice, but they have tiny gold flecks in them. These are CiaraQ dice, and I've bought and enjoyed them before. These also came with a pair of black drawstring bags. I can say that I like them more than I expected too, that dark green is particularly nice. Now, I need to decide which characters to assign them too...