Jim Roslof Commission

By now, those in the old school gaming community know of the unfortunate passing of one of the early TSR artists, Jim Roslof. Jim's unique style helped form the "look" of TSR just as much as Trampier, Sutherland and Otus. James at Grognardia and many other bloggers have spoken of Jim and his influence on the hobby, but mine is a more personal note.

Several years ago I realized some of the old guard TSR artist from the early days of TSR were still active (due to the DCC covers by Jeff Dee and Erol Otus). I began thinking about whether or not it would be possible to get a commission done by one of these guys, a personalized scene that I could share with my original gaming group. Back in the day (late 70s/early 80s), I was not one for writing up my own adventures. We ran through every module published by TSR, from the letter modules to the contest winners in Dragon magazine. So, my original group did the great GDQ crawl with their first characters, finally escaping the Demonweb Pits sometime in 1984 or so after a good five years of off and on gaming.

While looking for something to memorialize these times, I thought about the classic covers of the modules (all by David Sutherland) except for Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits. Dave Sutherland was sadly already gone, so I thought about asking Jim if he would do a "reinterpretation" of the classic Q1 cover, only with my group's favorite characters as the subjects. Through various online sites, I acquired his contact info, presented the idea to him, and he was very enthusiastic about the project. He told me that he had no problem going back to one of his classic pieces, and as a matter of fact it would be a lot faster and easier for him (as he could work with the original cover for reference instead of creating it from whole cloth). Jim was super easy to work with, and I remember him being very particular about what each character was wearing, what weapons they used, spells they liked to cast, etc. He wanted to make the art as "authentic" as he could so it wouldn't be just a generic fight scene.

I was simply blown away at the art Jim did for me (only taking 30 days from start to finish). Each character (From the left: Krago the Dwarf, Gandolin the elvish mage, U-gor the half orc fighter, and St. Michael the cleric) is clearly recognizable to everyone in my old group (U-Gor using his flaming sword, Gandolin casting one of his ever present fire spells, etc) as their personal characters. It is something that I will treasure forever, now even more so that Jim is no longer among us.

It is very obvious that Jim's skills were far from declining, and very sad he couldn't get more work in the gaming field in his later years (except for a few DCC covers and some incredible spreads in The Dungeon Alphabet). Jim still "had it", and in my opinion, his recent work was better than some of his originals (while still being recognizable as a Roslof piece).

Not much more to add, except that I wish I had gotten Jim to do some other commissions. As always, we don't know what we have until it's gone....one reason for the North Texas RPG Con is for the old school gamer and fan to mingle with these guys while they are still with us....no one is getting any younger. If you are putting off sending an email to or attending a convention with one of the old guard, DO IT.

Three Castles Award 2011 Nominees

Last year I posted about the Three Castles Design Award and how the NTRPG Con was proud to present this beautiful hunk of statuette each year to the RPG game rules, adventure, supplement or settings that was a high point of achievement in the hobby for the past year. In the last few years there has been an explosion of releases, mostly by solo writers or designers, that are a testament to the intelligence, imagination and resourcefulness of gamers playing and writing RPGs. What better way to put a small regional con like ours on the map than by sponsoring an award like this, and recognizing a field that often gets short shrift in other yearly awards (the RPG field, specifically the OSR).

After due consideration the Steering Committee was able to choose five nominees of the many submitted to move onto the final round of judging. Some seminal names in the history of the hobby...Dennis Sustare, Paul Jaquays, Steve Winter, Tim Kask, and Rob Kuntz....have been asked to choose among these five for the first ever winner of this annual honor. The standards are very high, yet I feel that these five items are the creme of the crop of last year's releases, and one should walk away with the award. As you can see all four finalists (one had two nominations) are solo game designers often operating at small profit or even a loss, and it is our hope that by winning this award (or even by being nominated) they can all see a small boost in exposure and profits. I won't pretend this award will make or break anyone, but hey I can dream!

We plan on changing members of both the Steering Committee (who are different than the judges and are kept secret so as not to bias the proceedings in any way) and the group of five judges every year to keep things from becoming predictable or stale, and will choose members from the fields of game design, art, writing, and production, as well as the occasional respected fan or blogger to make things interesting. We are also looking at possibly working each years previous winner in the mix somehow as either a judge or special guest at the NTRPG Con.

This is the first year of the award, and I hope the standard it sets will cause it to grow in stature year after year, someday becoming as respected an achievement as winning, say, and Ennie is at Gencon every year. Anyway, we hope that if you are reading this and don't have all five of these products in your library you use this chance to purchase these and see why they were selected as this year's nominees.

Three Castles Design Award 2011 Nominees:

B/X Companion (Jonathan Becker)
LOTFP Weird Fantasy Roleplaying (James Raggi)
Stonehell Dungeon(Michael Curtis)
The Dungeon Alphabet (Michael Curtis)
The Majestic Wilderlands (Rob Conley)

NTRPG Con 2011

The fact I haven't posted in months, with not so gentle reminders from friends, coupled with this wake up call by Cyclopeatron, here is the latest info on the North Texas RPG con...

First, before the prepared promo text below, I totally agree with Cyclo on the subject of minicons. These are a perfect, if not preferred, way to grow the OSR. Cheap and efficient, the rewards are huge, the outlay is small, and the enjoyment is worth any aggravation. When Doug and I started NTRPG Con, one of the things we discussed was being able to promote small, local mini-cons across the US where our preferred types of games would be played. Well, entirely without our promotion (we had a small hand in giving the Central Texas mini-con space on our website for registering attendees) this things are popping up all over.

All you need is a place for a couple dozen or more gamers to meet (if you are going budget, a local civic center, library, KOC hall, church, school or pizza place may let you meet for free), some volunteers to run games, and at least one masochistic soul to put it all together. Advertise in local game and comic stores, online at local websites, blogs, or larger sites that cater to old school gamers. Have a contact point (preferable a web site, but a blogspot or message board forum would work as well) so you can get word out of changes or updates to interested gamers. Schedule at least 2-3 games, with space for pickup games that could develop, and make sure food is available either nearby or at the gaming location itself. It really is that easy!

NTRPG Con 2011:

Less than 5 months away, the 3rd annual NTRPG Con will take place June 2-5 in Irving, TX (same location as last time, the Staybridge Suites). NTRPG Con is the south's premier old school con, focusing on pre-2000 RPGs of all types, particularly D&D in it's many forms. No card games, no board games, no 4e, etc. Only OOP or old school oriented games need apply!

Special guests this year will include (deeep breath):Returning Guests: Paul Jaquays, Rob Kuntz, Frank Mentzer, Tim Kask, Dennis Sustare, Steve Winter, Jason Braun; New Guests Steve Marsh and Erol Otus, and a surprise guest (Doug just informed me this week) will be Jim Ward, who has accepted an invitation and we hope will be recovered enough from his illness to travel here in June. As some of you might know Jim was scheduled to appear at last year's con, but had to cancel at the last minute due to a serious illness that has dogged him for the entire year. Jim says he will run a Metamorphosis Alpha game, and something from Eldritch Enterprises.

Some tidbits:

This year we will award the first ever Three Castles Design award for achievement in RPG design. The statuette is stone cold gorgeous! We have had some great submissions this year and we are still going through them.

Doug and I have discussed giving out an annual NTRPG Con award for best release at the con itself. Basically, any adventure released at the con for the first time will be eligible. We need to work on it a bit more but it looks like we'll take votes on all submissions and give out the award sometime at the end of June, to be awarded at the next year's con.

Reminder that registration for events goes live midnight April 15th....as some of you know events fill up VERY fast, especially premium events.

Speaking of which, this year both Erol Otus and Paul Jaquays will be gamemastering events. I believe Paul has not gamemastered (is this a word?) at a con in many, many years, and I think apart from games with friends Erol has not either. Paul is running a Runequest game and Erol is running D&D. Should fill up fast!

Some of you looking over events may have noticed this year's games seem to have taken a slight turn towards the sci-fi. Besides Jim's Meta Alpha game, we have two other MA games by Tavis Allison, more Urutsk from Kyrinn Eis, a Paranoia game by Ben Burns, another Gamma World scenario by Steve Winters as well as one by Rollin Kearney, and a Spelljammer retro game (using OD&D rules!) from Bob Reed. We didn't plan it this way but it sure looks quite interesting if you like mutants with your swords and sorcery!

This year we will have a special charity game (the first event of the con, Thursday afternoon) DM'd by the esteemed Taco Jon Hershberger, which will contain all the special guests we can round up a the time. Two prime seats in this session will be auctioned off to a pair of lucky gamers, who can then say they sat at the same table as some of the founding fathers of the game! This game will be in the lecture room with seats for sale (for charity) to anyone wanting to watch; I expect this to be quite....interesting. Taco Jon is going to have his hands full with this one.

Like last year we will have a mini-auction on Saturday, with some goodies from the prize closet. Included will be one of the 65 signed copies of the limited edition Erol Otus print done exclusively for The Acaeum last year....63 of these are owned by Acaeum members, which means there is a 99% chance none of these will ever see the light of day. This is the ONLY limited edition print Erol Otus has ever done!

As usual the raffle (get your tickets now!) will have some great items including a Dragon magazine #1, Dungeon Magazine #1, a Castle Zagyg boxed set, and some signed items from past cons. We are tired of Cimmerian and JohnGaunt winning everything the last two years.....

We will again have seminars this year. Friday there will be a 6 hour long (lunch included) adventure design seminar by Rob Kuntz where an adventure will be designed to be run by Rob on Saturday night! There will be an art seminar with Jason Braun, Erol Otus and Paul Jaquays; A "Tips for DMs" seminar with Matt Finch, Harely Stroh and Frank Mentzer; and an adventure writing seminar with Tim Kask and Dennis Sustare.

This year we will again offer tables and shelves for vendors. We have a few tables left at $40 a pop ($50 after May 1st); these are good if you have a volume of material to sell and don't mind sitting there shooting the breeze with buyers during the day. We have several vendor shelves available at $15 each ($20 after May 1st); these are a GREAT deal if you don't want to have to worry about taking time out of your day to sell stuff, or you aren't going to attend the con. We do the work for you, displaying and selling your items, and only ask for 10% of your total sales; the shelves sit by the register and can hold at least 4 modules flat, more if they are overlapping. One vendor last year who bought a few shelves made $900 at NTRPG Con!

Please post at this thread with any questions! Can't wait to see you guys again this year!

NTRPG Con Home Page

List of Events

Buying Raffle tickets ($5 each)

Staybridge Suites Info

Mike B.

'Bout That Time Again....Drama!

Ah, it's been awhile since the latest dust up that lets gamers get all indignant and go on about suppression of freedom, oppression of free choice, and dire conspiracy theories....but enough about whether Edition 5.0 is reality or not....

The publication of the module "Insidious" by Die Cast Press has finally penetrated the blogger consciousness and the result is the typical S-storm such events bring. The main point of contention seems to be the use (front and center) of "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" on the cover, while availing themselves of the OGL at the same time. Reactions at Grognardia and The Underdark Gazette from the common folk seem to be full of doom and gloom that this gives "THEM" the ammo they need to finally awaken the ghost of Lorraine Williams and come at the OSR, retro-clone movement, and anyone with even a thought about publishing a D&D compatible item with both guns blazing (Yes, there have actually been comments about C&Ds, carpet bombing, IP and trademarks....it's 1994 and T$R all over again!!!).

Unless the WOTC police are coming to my house to pry my 1E and 2E books out of my hands (ok, they can have the Wilderness Survival Guide, but that's it), it shouldn't affect me one bit...nor should it affect the die-hards who have been slogging through these dramas for the last 30 years. We have been creating, self-publishing and sharing material before the Lorraine Williams driven internet purges of the '90s (btw, how did that work out for them? Sure shut down those ruffians for good!!!) and will continue until they pry our solar powered cognition memory boards out of our cold, dead hands sometime in 2050 or so....

Some observations:

1. This is a genius marketing move by Die Cast. Either nothing happens to them and they sell tons of modules due to the publicity of marketing a (gasp) ILLEGAL module, or they get a C&D letter and promptly stop publishing after having sold tons of modules due to the publicity...while holding back a handful of copies for collectible purposes (think a 2010 version of an Orange B3). Props.

2. Maybe Rob Kuntz was right when he said (during the Kask/Raggi flap) one didn't even need the OGL to publish compatible material...

3. Didn't Kenzer just publish a "compatible with 4E" box set awhile back? Anything happen to them?

4. If Hasbro was going to go after "everyone" as the result of this, even those legally abiding by the OGL, wouldn't they start with Paizo? Aren't they the only ones really making any money off this stuff? You know, Paizo, the guys who just won a dozen Ennies....yeh that'll happen.

5. And why all the sad faces and wringing hands from the guys who are diligently following the rules? The one guy that steps outside the lines is going to finish you all off? Sounds like a pretty precarious deal you got there....should have kept publishing under the table stuff using Microsoft Publisher on the home computer. Oh, wait, you could STILL do that even if tomorrow WOTC told everyone in the world to stop writing your own stuff, we really mean it....

6. Reminds me of the time way back when, I admitted on an online forum that I used to photocopy Dragon magazines back in the 80s and give them to friends....which prompted lots of "seruz biznez" posts about what an awful pig I was by breaking the law like that. While our hobby attracts some of the most intelligent, creative and imaginative guys in the world, it also seems to be a magnet to the most overly anal retentive, finger pointing, tattle taling, hyperbole spouting conspiracy theorists ever.

7. As I understand it, the OGL is for perpetuity. As in forever. Right? So when the Negative Nellies drone on how this will make things more "difficult" for publishers using the OGL, what are they talking about exactly?

8. Just THINK of all the good will WOTC would engender to gamers should they come down on the OSR like a ton of bricks. Why, look at the reverence and respect gamers even today hold a figure like Lorraine Williams after her actions of the 1990s. One can only imagine, with the preponderance of blogs, internet forums, and you tube personalities of today, how such a well-intentioned public relations move such as this would endear the failing 4E even MORE to gamer nation!

9. Man, the OSR sure has gone respectible. I remember when the OSR was a bunch of scruffy dudes with hand drawn maps, photocopied rules sets, and badly drawn artwork trying to set the world on fire. Now they are the "suits" with the haircuts and ties and pinstripes driving 55 in their Volvos. Hey, I understand, I know a lot of guys who stood in line with me for Clash tickets back in 82 that love a good Dave Matthews Band hoedown these days....

10. Everyone is just mad because they didn't think of it first (See Post #1)......

Sandbox fun in The Lost Frontier

In prior posts I've talked briefly about a sandbox campaign I've set up for play when everyone can't show up for my "regular" campaign. The Lost Frontier has seen four sessions since then, and while I have been remiss at getting up the play by play, it's been going along exactly as planned. So far, there has been a different mix of players each time, with last week's session having the most players (four, with five PCs)and things being suitably, well, sandboxy.

Last week's session was remarkable in that as a DM I had to engage in not one, not two, but three complete focus shifts until the "real" adventure happened, which just highlights how non-scripted and seat of the pants such a campaign can become. The session started with the group meeting in the favorite inn/tavern of the town of Barnacus, and me presenting them with several (randomly rolled up) rumors from a rumor sheet of about 20+ adventure seeds. Some had been heard before, and dismissed (for the second time, a certain PC decided there was NO WAY he was going to try to find out why intelligent white apes were attacking caravans going to and from the city). Finally settling on a tried and true cliche ("A village at the foot of the mountains has had several young ladies kidnapped for an unknown fate")the party hired three NPC fighters, bought a pack mule, and headed off.

On the way to the adventure, the party passed through an area where undead were said to be attacking people. The party clerics decided it would be a good idea to look into this while they were in the neighborhood, so convinced the party to just stop and take a look-see. This led to a battle with ghasts and a delve into a underground crypt, and a room with four doorways, all with cryptic clues to which sort of undead lay within. The first room they choose was a skeletal figure on a throne, and after disturbing it, it waved it's finger at them....and teleported them all far away. To a completely different adventure!

They ended up spending the afternoon battling a small orc army (over 200 strong) protecting a freehold on the edge of civilized lands,and getting a better view of the wider campaign area (and the subtle idea that orcs are once again building up to another invasion of civilized lands, something that happens every decade or so with alarming regularity in The Lost Frontier).

For my part, I enjoyed the fact that the adventuring focus changed three times: from rescuing village lasses, to cleaning out a tomb of undead, to defending a fortress against orcs, and it was more or less all player driven. Had different decisions been made at approximately any point (choosing a different initial rumor, not investigating the undead, certainly not choosing the tomb of the Crypt Thing over the other three tombs) we would have had a totally different experience. It definitely kept me on my toes, even if I experienced the mental whiplash of three entirely different DM foci in the period of an hour! Typical adventuring behavior seems to have players focus in on one goal (which happened the 2nd and 3rd sessions, as two different groups decided to clean out one dungeon due to the rapidly escalating reward for such an endeavor) and move on from there. I'm interested in seeing where the more scattered sandbox approach will leave the landscape (half-finished dungeons? Rumors never followed up on? Threats ignored that will have to be dealt with "off stage"?)

Interestingly, hex crawling is a perfectly viable endeavor in my sandbox, yet the players have yet to go about adventuring in that way, although I hope they do at some point; simply because I've taken the ridiculous amount of time to plant over 1000 adventure seeds, treasures, NPCs, ruins, dungeons and what-not in the campaign area.

Probably my only "disappointment" so far has been no character deaths. NPCs have not been so lucky, and the different groups have been smart in hiring cannon fodder every time out (once losing four NPCs in a single session in a dungeon delve near town). If this keeps up the group may develop a reputation in town (although the NPCs that do survive are very comfortably compensated, so this might mitigate the criticism somewhat among possible hirelings). These are all experienced players, however, who know the value of caution, retreating, and can recognize a threat that is too dangerous for their low level group (an entreaty from the priests of the Temple of Elemental Fire hiring adventurers to clean out their temple invaded by rogue fire creatures met with nothing more than a chuckle or two). Now that the two longest lived characters are 2nd and 3rd level, I'm interested in seeing the player's reactions if/when these characters bite the dust, and they are forced to begin again from scratch. In the other campaign I run, characters that die are raised by their companions; I'm wondering if this same dynamic will hold in the much looser confederation of "game as you go" sandbox playing style. Certainly in the case of the lost NPCs no consideration beyond running away was taken in their unfortunate deaths....

Three Castles Design Award

One of the joys of creating and running a convention like the NTRPG Con is the ability to actually influence people's gaming habits. Whether it's the fact you've managed to convince gamers from all around the US (and some from out of the country) to attend your little shindig, or the fact they sit around meeting and gaming with old school gaming luminaries like Rob Kuntz, Tim Kask, Paul Jaquays, Steve Winter, Dennis Sustare and others, or maybe they will be introduced to a RPG they would have never thought about picking up like The World of Urutsk or Swords & Wizardry...well you get the idea. It's a little like being a DM, setting up the convention (dungeon), giving people choices and watching them decide what to do with those choices....except unlike a dungeon adventure there is no chance for a TPK.

Besides the fun of bringing old school gaming to a bunch of really great gamers, through our association with Rob Kuntz the NTRPG Con was able to begin a tradition that I hope will go many, many years (well, at least ten years, as this is as long as we have guaranteed to run the NTRPG Con). The Three Castles award was created by Rob Kuntz and Doug Rhea, and it's purpose is to recognize excellence in gaming design. The three castles in question---Greyhawk, Blackmoor and El Raja Key---were the three original megadungeons, and their legacy has influenced fantasy roleplaying to this day.

Here is Rob's original post explaining the award; below is the criteria for the award, which can also be found on the NTRPG Con website.

Needless to say I'm very proud to be part of this award and of the process itself. I hope everyone reading this who has published something since October of last year throws their hat in the ring. The award is absolutely beautiful and an incredible item to have upon your shelf looking down on you....don't miss this chance to be part of the first ever Three Castles Award.

1) This is an RPG award. Qualified works must be printed and bound (*) and
include the following categories: RPG rules, settings, adventures, sourcebooks
and/or combinations of these. No fiction, board games, miniatures, electronic
media, magazines or loose game aids (cards, screens, etc). Where the design is
unique and might make use of a board or other unique components, please
query with a detailed synopsis and sample copy of the work. Enclose an SASE if
you want the sample returned.
(*) Only the following binding types are acceptable: hard bound, perfect bound, saddle-stitched
(at least 2 staples), spiral bound and comb.
2) This is a DESIGNERS award. Companies may submit titles from their author
base, however, if a win occurs the award will be sent to the lead designer. The
plate attached to the trophy will be inscribed with up to two (2) designer names in
the cases of co-authorship. The press release regarding the win will specifically
mention the company name with address that the product was published
through. An entry is automatically disqualified when no designer name appears
in the submitted printed work.
3) No more than two (2) titles may be submitted by any one company or
independent designer in a year.
4) Submissions open October 1st and close December 31st. All published works
from the current year and those published in the last three (3) months of the past
year can be entered for consideration. Final Publication Date Range: Oct 1st
(previous year) to Oct 1st (current year).
5) This is a multi-stage qualification process. Each entrant must initially submit
two (2) copies of each work that they wish considered. Submissions will be
reviewed by the Steering Committee for the final round. If the entry(ies) makes it
to the final round starting January 31st you will be informed to submit an
additional four (4) copies of each work that qualified for final adjudication (note
the 3C Award Judges below). You will be informed by email and mail that one or
more of the entries made it to the final round. The cut-off date for us to receive
your additional copies is February 15th. The Judges’ final decision will be
received no later than May 1st. The winner will be announced at NTRPGCON in
June. All dates are final and if not met will unfortunately disqualify entries from
further consideration. Unless otherwise noted submitted materials are not
returned to the entrants. We strongly suggest that you purchase tracking
services for parcels you send to the 3C Award Steering Committee.
6) There can be only one (1) award awarded per year. This is an award for true
excellence in RPG design. As such the guidelines for adjudication are detailed
and stringent. The 3C Award Judges may rule that no entry qualifies to be
awarded and thus no award would be issued that year.
7) Complete the following entry form in full once or each title submitted and
enclose it with the mailing(s). This form is not required for the final round
(additional) submissions.


The 3C Award Judges for 2011 are:
Dennis Sustare
Paul Jaquays
Steven J. Winter
Tim Kask
Robert J. Kuntz

The full info on the award can be found here at the NTRPGCON website.

Tim Kask Adventures At NTRPG Con

First post in a month and I'm pimping the con; hopefully I can put out some game related stuff in the next few days or I'll have to admit this blog is nothing but a fancy promo instrument for NTRPG Con!

The NTRPG Con is proud to announce we will be selling limited edition booklet copies of Tim Kask's adventures "High in the Hellgate Mountains" and "Temple of the Weaver Queen" at the con. ONLY AVAILABLE at the con, in limited quantities of 50 copies each, these adventures were presented (respectively) at the 2009 Gencon Acaeum Game and 2009 NTRPG Con, and have never been available before except in extremely rare DM copies auctioned or given away at the Gen Con Acaeum dinner or NTRPG Con #1.

The adventures will be in small booklet form, limited to one per attendee, with only 50 copies available of each adventure. Tim plans in the future to present these and other specially written adventures in a more traditional format, but for right now this is the ONLY way to get a look at two great old school OD&D adventures in their original form!

I've read both of Tim's adventures, and they don't come more old school. Tim Kask, 1st editor for Dragon magazine and one of the first TSR employees, stopped taking in D&D rules and other innovations about 1979 or so, thus his stuff is firmly rooted in the OD&D/White Box tradition. Some day these and other adventures from Tim''s marvelous imagination will see more wide-spread appreciation when he has them printed up in a more proper format. Until then, they will only be available at NTRPG Con.

As an item of interest, "Temple of the Weaver Queen" produced the con's first TPK last year at the Friday night game. Something about a lich riding a nightmare......!

Each year we hope to present some of these booklet sized, con only collectibles so NTRPG Con can be on the map as a "Must attend" for old school players, writers, designers and collectors.