Pick #95: PlaGMaDa archives

Have you ever wanted to get rid of your old gaming notes, scribbles, hand-drawn maps and doodles? Or are you instead intrigued by the scribblings and sheets of others? Do you want to see the real originals? The PlaGMaDa archives may be something for you then.

PlaGMaDa stands for the Play Generated Map & Document archive, and it takes any kind of paper and digital donations, as long as they pertain to paper & pen role playing games. So there's lots of old character sheets and hand-drawn modules that belong there.

You can surf through scans of the archive freely, and there are plans to have real life exhibitions in the future. PlaGMaDa even published a few shirts and books, including one by Ken St. Andre, game designer of Tunnels & Trolls. As I write this their shop is down, but it should be up in a week or maybe two if all is well. They also have a blog, and you can help fund them if you like the initiative.

We moved to The World Beyond

The Dark Dungeon 2nd Edition blog has moved to The World Beyond!
Well... it's got a new name. And a new banner. :-)

And soon, I hope, comes more news.

Pick #94: Yet Another Dark Dungeon!

Dark Dungeon is a wonderful name - so wonderful that there are various games bearing it - sometimes to my chagrin, as they are confused with my own Dark Dungeon. Still, most are good games in their own right, and this site is dedicated to Dark Dungeon in many forms, so... here's another one!

This Dark Dungeon is a fairly recent Flash implementation of the game you might know as "Rogue" or "Hack!" which used to be played on Unix mainframes in the 1980's. Actually it's nice, and plays smoothly. Enjoy.

Change the Name of the Game?

 The full color print proofs of the new rulebooks are in, and look cool! Apart from the color illustrations on nearly every page, there's one other big difference with the black and white edition... the name of the game. It used to be "Dark Dungeon 2nd edition".

Now I'm rooting for Angels & Dragons. Why? Because there are at least three other games with nearly the same name, and at least one this game is quite often confused with. The other games are nice in their own right, but this one is very different and deserves it's own attention. Hence a new name: Angels & Dragons.

But I'd like to ask you too, before I release the revised full color version on DriveThru.
What do you think? Is Angels & Dragons a good new brand name? Let me know!

And for all of you who bought the earlier edition, yes, you'll get a free pdf update in full color. Of course!

New Rulebook in Color?

Against my planning, I found myself redoing the whole Dark Dungeon The World Beyond rulebook in full color. Here are some samples. Would you think you'd like that?

Update: You can now buy The World Beyond in full color luxury hardcover & pdf indeed!

Pick #93: Star Wars meets Reality

Suppose the soldiers, creatures and droids from Star Wars appeared in our own reality. What would that make for a picture? That's what the work of French photographer Cedric Delsaux is about in his Dark Lens series.

If you don't know about it and you're a Star Wars fan, you might be jarred. If you like documentary photography, you may be jarred aswell. Enjoy in wonder, and join me in a nother thought: what would a Star Wars role playing game be like if we allowed it to mesh in with our reality? Naturally, Star Trek regularly went into its past, into our own time, but Star Trek has a different feel. What about Star Wars? Boba Fet in a parking lot, Imperial troops in Iraq and Shanghai, Darth Vader in Dubai. What intriguing stories can you spin from there?

Pick #92: What does a real sword weigh?

Have you ever wondered what a real suit of plate weighs, and whether you can move around in it if you're not like Lou Ferigno? Or have you ever wondered whether two-handed swords were really as cumbersome and heavy as the older GM guide said in Dungeons & Dragons? Thirty pounds for a sword seems rather hefty to use - that's about the weight of a bicycle. Because, what's the use of a big weapon or powerful armour if it badly slows you down?

Well, here are a few writers who bust the myth. They just tried it on and did their historical research. Plate armour was really made to be easy to carry. Maybe it's not as comfortable as spandex tights for the X-men, but it's surely workable. And two-handers? The well-balanced ones were easy to wield, they say, if you know how to. The less balanced ones were probably never meant for fighting, and if these were used at all, they would only have been used at executions. And how much do they weigh? A few pounds.

Check out what I Clausewitz and J. Clements at ARMA have to say about it. You might also have a look at the extensive information by the Metropolitan Museum in NY or laugh about the Dragon Preservation Society take on this one. If you're not handling swords every day, they may give you a few eyeopeners. They did for me, when I first read them!

Drawing by Urs Graf, borrowed from Dragon Preservation Society, picturing what a true 30 pound sword would look like.