The Alexandrian

Ex-RPGNet Review – Hogwash

July 11th, 2013

Tagline: Hogshead is quickly becoming one of those companies I continually look to because of their consistent high quality. Hogswash, their sorta annual “newsletter/fanzine/thing”, not only helps you to keep an eye on them, but also has some pretty solid material in it.

Hogwash 4 - Hogshead Publishing I got subscribed to Hogwash one day while I was perusing Hogshead’s website. It wasn’t particularly difficult – all I had to do was drop them an e-mail with my home address in it and, before I knew it, I had the current issue of Hogwash (#4) sitting in my mailbox. Hogwash, you see, is a “newsletter/fanzine/thing” for Hogshead – it’s self-promotional content is rather high, so its distributed freely.

So why am I reviewing a “newsletter/fanzine/thing”? Because, having read it, I want to encourage all of you to drop Hogshead a line and get subscribed to it. And why do I want you to do that? Basically two reasons.

First, Hogshead tosses interesting tidbits of free game-stuff into each issue (mini-modules, monster write-ups, etc.). This is the “substance” of the issue, and it’s quality makes it well worth the handful of minutes it will take you to read through it. Its more than worth the price (since there is no price).

Second, Hogshead is quickly setting itself up as one hell of a fine game company. It’s finally beginning to produce original material for their licensed Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying line of products (having gotten almost all of the original line back in print), and the stuff that’s coming out looks like its going to be absolutely fantastic. On top of that they’ve released The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen (which I’ve reviewed elsewhere). In the near future they’ll be releasing Violence (by anonymous author who we all know) and Puppetland (by John Tynes), among other projects. Hogshead is hot, and Hogwash is an excellent way to keep an eye on the company.

Let’s take Hogwash 4 as an example. It was released in August 1998 (but I didn’t get it until just a couple of months ago, when I signed up). If you had gotten it in August 1998 you would have been treated to a sneak preview of The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Marienburg: Sold Down the River, and the Enemy Within campaign.

The main substance of the issue is a mini-module for WFRP, Bad Tidings, set in Marienburg and written by James Wallis. For eight half-pages, James packs in a lot of plot and background (involving a murder mystery, a Chaos cult, and even a handful of interesting adventure seeds). Very nicely done, and well worth the absolute nothing you paid for it (since, even if you don’t like the world of WFRP, it’s easily adaptable to any fantasy campaign).

In addition an “exclusive interview” discussing The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen (which is as cleverly done as the game itself), and a two page article explaining the changes which Hogshead will be making to the legendary Enemy Within campaign. Plus you get the “Not the WFRP FAQ” FAQ, and a rough pencil preview of the cover to Marienburg: Sold Down the River.

All in all, I strongly advise signing up for a free subscription.

Style: 3
Substance: 4

Author: James Wallis
Company/Publisher: Hogshead Publishing, Ltd.
Cost: Free!
Page count: 16
ISBN: n/a

Originally Posted: 1999/07/26

I really miss Hogshead. They were daring and clever and James Wallis was always marvelously kind to me as both a reviewer and a freelancer. James’ is still around, of course. You can find his blog over here, and he continues to share marvelous games with us on an entirely-too-infrequent basis.

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Check This Out – The Spell of Catherine

July 9th, 2013

First things first, you need to click through this link to Goblin Punch and read the blog post there:

A Spell Called Catherine

Okay? Done? Good. Because this next bit isn’t going to make any sense unless you know what I’m talking about.

Let’s start with a random rules check: Summoning spells physically bring the creature or object from some other place, they don’t create them out of whole cloth.

I’m not sure if that simplifies the ethical implications of this concept or makes it much, much worse: Are these actually versions of Catherine from alternate dimensions? If so, does the Catherine of this dimension actually deserve any recompense for their labors of her other-dimensional “siblings”? They’re effectively immortal while here and if they’re actually returned to the same place and time as the one that they left, are they actually being exploited? What if people start disappearing from this dimension and it’s determined that it’s a result of people summoning them?

Not all of these issues actually require “Catherine” to show up in your setting: The summon monster spells already allow spellcasters to summon intelligent beings to come and do their bidding. There’s a really tremendous ethical mire lurking there. “Catherine” just brings it into sharper focus and puts it center stage.

And even if you’re not interested in the ethical conundrums presented by this particular “what if”, consider all the immediate fantasy plots that fall out of it: You’ve got wizards fighting to gain (or protect) arcane secrets. You’ve got the wizard’s guild encroaching on the whore business. You’ve got mobsters trying to get their hands on the spell (and wizards possibly trying to stop them because they’re uncomfortable with that sort of thing). You’ve got people obsessed with the summoned/created Catherines trying to stalk or kidnap the “real deal”.

If you can’t find at least a half dozen potential scenarios in all of that, then you’re not really trying.

(In a modern setting with magic I’m imagining a similar scenario also resulting in organ donor scams. The PCs get called in when recent transplant recipients start dropping dead because their new organs have vanished inside them. Although I suppose it doesn’t take much imagination to imagine angry diabolists hunting down an arcanist because their human sacrifice retroactively vanished and their demonic patron is unhappy about it.)

Filed under: Roleplaying Games | Comments (4) Article tags: check this out, d&d

Check This Out – Legends & Labyrinths Review

July 7th, 2013

Inaki Lind posted a review of the Legends & Labyrinths: Black Book Beta at RPGNet awhile back. Check it out.

Of course, you can also download a PDF copy of the Black Book Beta itself now. That’s over here.

Filed under: Roleplaying Games | Comment (1) Article tags: check this out, legends & labyrinths

Site Update

July 6th, 2013

Comments have been opened yet again. So obviously the WordPress bug that’s periodically turning off comments on all the posts on the site has still not been resolved. If ya see the comments closed at any point in the future, please feel free to drop me an e-mail and let me know.

On the back end, although Akismet has been doing a generally great job keeping spam off the actual site, the Alexandrian has been getting hammered by spammers. (500+ spam comments per day.) So it’s clear that the math problem anti-spam thing has been completely cracked. On the basis of nothing except my gut, I suspect that all this spam may be triggering the bug.

So I need a new solution for preventing the spam from getting posted in the first place. Therefore, the math problems are gone and we’re going to be trying out a Turing Test check box. Let me know if you have any problems with it.

What I’m hoping to avoid is a CAPTCHA system. I find them to be both annoying and a bit of an eyesore. But I’ve got to do something to shoo away all these Russian Viagra dealers. (I blame myself for the essays I wrote about my translation of The Seagull. Apparently if you put Cyrillic text on your website you’re basically laying out a welcome mat for Russian spammers.)

Filed under: Site News | Comments (2)

Legends & Labyrinths – Black Book Beta

July 5th, 2013

To pull something of a silver lining out of the 8-Bit Funding version of Legends & Labyrinths getting a final axe to the head (as painful as that remains for me): I am now free to share the Black Book Beta with all of you. (And I know there are many people who didn’t have a chance to fund the project who have been begging me for months or years to get a peek at it.)

The Black Book Beta was designed to give funders a usable first peek at the rule system and it’s exactly what the name says it is: A beta version of the rulebook. Most notably the volume is missing an index and the full versions of the Grimoire, the Treasury, and the Bestiary. Fortunately, the game is 100% compatible with 3rd Edition, so you can just use the spells, magic items, and monsters from the books you already own (or use the online SRD if all else fails); so the Black Book Beta remains a fully functional and fully playable game.

For those of you currently unfamiliar with Legends & Labyrinths, check out this post describing its many virtues. Because it’s 100% compatible with 3rd Edition, you can use any supplement or adventure module for 3rd Edition in Legends & Labyrinths without any conversion whatsoever (despite the fact that Legends & Labyrinths is a massively streamlined and simplified version of the system).

The flip-side of 100% compatibility also means that you can rip out some of the awesome sub-systems of L&L and use them directly in your 3rd Edition campaign. For example, you should check out the stunt system, the hazard creation system, and the monster creation system. (The last of these also makes it really, really easy to convert pre-3E material to L&L or 3E.) Oh! There’s also a streamlined, budget-based system for building encounters.

But without further ado, here we go: