Davey
Did EPT come in a box?
I’ll be interested to see how you get on with it.
Check out this site.
It’s a blinder.
October 24th, 2008
Did it come in a box
October 23rd, 2008
Runequest
Yes, Davey, I know what you mean about Runequest. I loved the idea of the game but playing it was a bit difficult. However, I was one of those people who liked weird combat systems.
Weren’t there some games, though, that you just bought to look at? To dream about the game you could be having if you worked out how to use it? I liked the Runequest universe – I had the original name White Bear Red Moon, which was a tabletop thing for armies. Designing characters for Runequest used to take me between dinner and tea on Sundays if I wasn’t gaming. For some reason I couldn’t do it on weekday nights. They were more fantasy novel reading territory. I don’t know why I should have compartmentalised my week like that.
I have a game called The Emerald Tablet that I think is just about unplayable but it looks great and had a brilliant name, so I bought it twice – once when I was 14 and again on Ebay.
How much did you pay for EPT? I laid out through the snout for mine on ebay. I was always a player of that game rather than a DM and couldn’t afford the original £13 ($20 or so, more or less) . I think it cost about £80 which means it won’t have gone up in real terms all that much in 30 years.
I do like the dice-shaking side of the game, I have to admit. I also like the fact people cheat. If you write down every hit you take, characters can be toast pretty quickly. It’s great that it’s realistic people die in combat but annoying if a character you really like gets a kobold arrow in the back of the head when he’s just about to pop the CLW spell. Did you ever get into ‘negative hit points’. This was that a character was bleeding to death for a certain number of rounds, taking a point a round for every round he was on zero or below . He could be brought back to life if the cure out scored his minus hit points.
As system-heads go, I am something of a lightweight. However, I would have preferred hit points to remain level but effective armour class to go up as the character got better at evasion. Seasoned warriors can take damage better than civilians, to an extent, owing to trained bodies etc but not to the rather ridiculous level of being shot through the eye and it basically not hurting. I also liked to know where my character had been hit. That said and done, the first edition D&D rules were workable and satisfying, if not realistic.
I will remind you, and myself, upon reading this that my addiction is cured. Oh yes. I haven’t had a conversation like this in 30 years and, somehow, it all comes flooding back.
October 22nd, 2008
Me on You Tube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGh1Dh-26nE
This should be me showing some first edition D&D stuff – first edition Strategic Review (before Dragon magazine), D&D, Empire of the Petal Throne, first edition White Dwarf. I am nerd, hear me roar. There’s a second part too, that I’ve just posted. OK, so it’s not exactly juggling with chainsaws but some of you might be interested. A bit.
M
October 21st, 2008
I am infested
Been getting some pleasing reviews for the book on the net. Also, noted that the book is now available on Amazon. It’s not due out until November in the shops but, for those who are interested it’s there online now.
Here’s a review from Bookviews
Coming in November is The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons & Growing Up Strange by Mark Barrowcliffe ($25.00, Soho Press, softcover) is the engaging memoir by an author who says he had a chance to grow up to be normal, but while other teenagers were being coolly rebellious, Mark and 20 million other boys in the 1970s and 80s chose to spend his teen years pretending to be a wizard, a warrior or an evil priest. Armed only with pen, paper, and some funny-shaped dice, Mark gave himself up to the craze of fantasy role playing games. This is a laugh-out-loud funny memoir that is sure to please anyone who ever played the game. Growing up in Coventry, England, he would become a stand-up comedian before writing his first book, Girlfriend 44, followed by Lucky Dog and Infidelity for First-Time Fathers. It is hilarious.
There’s also some stuff on a blog here from a gamer
http://blackdiamondgames.blogspot.com/2008/10/elfish-gene.html
I thought I was obsessive – here’s a guy who books into a four star hotel to spend a weekend painting miniatures. Excellent stuff.
Also, for those of you who know his work, and I’m sure there are many, David Lee Stone (Illmoor) has reviewed my book on his blog
Finally, here’s a review from a non gamer.
http://www.frikaworld.com/gazette/2008/10/bit-of-innocent-role-playing.html
The book’s started promisingly in the US, so I’ll be interested to see if it picks up any reviews in the big publications over there.
Fantasy novel currently still out for sale to publishers - week three of being out there and lots of interest, kind words and enthusiasm. For those who don’t know how the publishing industry works, the book goes to an agent, who evaluates its market position and sends it out to editors. In my case it’s been sent to around 14 people in the industry. The editors make a judgement which is based on a lot more than whether they think the book is great, though that helps enormously. Among other things, they will assess:
1 Is this sort of thing selling at the moment?
2 Does it fit with their existing books? Have they experience of selling this sort of thing? It’s to be hoped that, if the agent knows their onions – as mine does – this will normally be a ‘yes’.
3 Is there the budget to market it correctly.
4 Will the investment justify the return?
Then they kick it out to ‘readers’. These are the marketing department, the sales team, the PR people, the managing director and finance director. If all of them agree its great, or at least most of them, then you might have a deal. This is why things rarely happen in five minutes.
So far most of the editors have liked it and I know for a fact that some have kicked it on to readers. Even those who haven’t thought it’s for them have given it to other editors in their company and we’ve only had two straight turn downs. That’s pretty remarkable as it takes a cast of people to say ‘yes’ but only the editor to say ‘no’, so the ‘no’ comes early. So currently the book is still live with about 12 people. It is driving me nuts, though.
I love this new book as much as anything I’ve ever written and I’m desperate to see it published. It was enormous fun to write – it started off at 200,000 words – about a third as long as War and Peace. That had to be slashed down for various reasons – number one that the plot was rambling with too many characters. Half the cast were thrown in the bin and the book extensively rewritten to tighten it up. That took three drafts (partly because I didn’t have the courage to do the necessary pruning all at one go) and finally it was ready. So it’s been great fun, a lot of work and I’m tremendously proud of the finished product. Add this to the fact that I have a sequel germinating and you can see why I’m leaping up every time the phone rings.
My mind is hatching all sorts of scenarios: ‘They haven’t read it yet’ (likely in at least some cases), ‘They’re clearing it with the bank for the biggest deal in publishing history’ (V. unlikely), ‘They’ve forgotten about it’ (possible, though unlikely) ‘They’re about to offer but all their money is invested in Iceland and they’ll go broke before they pay (possible too).
This is the scene Chez Barrowcliffe
Interior, day. A fat man is trying to work but finding himself incapable of thinking straight.
Barrowcliffe: Would it were day!
Wife Claire: It is day.
Barrowcliffe: You know what I mean.
Claire: Are you on about that bloody book again? Are you aware I’m having a baby in a week?
Barrowcliffe (making magicking gestures at phone): Call, you dogs, call.
Phone: Ring ring.
Barrowcliffe, (siezing phone like Ensign Ewart took the Eagle of the 45th at Waterloo) Yes!
Phone: Is Mr Barrowleaf there please?
Barrowcliffe: ‘Which publisher is this?’
Phone: Congratulations, you have won an all expenses-paid trip to St Lucia.
This is my life at the moment.
Finally, a word about the US election – just an outsider’s view but one I feel we’re entitled to as the US has such a big effect on the rest of us. Also, like it or not, we have an effect on you, so how your president is received makes a difference in everything from trade to support in wars.
I like John McCain. He’s old, which is good, angry, which is also good and seems to be the sort of guy you would like to have a beer with, at least until he started hitting people.
He’s pleasingly sarcastic, and aggressive, though not up to the level of British politics. (My favourite was Churchill on Atlee – ‘a modest man with much to be modest about’ and ‘a sheep in sheep’s clothing’)
On top of this, McCain’s quite clearly sane, which is a real bonus considering some of the nut jobs who have been stalking the White House in recent years.
Obama on the other hand is stuck up, dull and you get the feeling he hasn’t had too many beers with anyone on his way to the top.
Both candidates are intelligent, which is a step forward from the last guy.
That said, if I were American, Obama would be getting my vote. Definitely. A huge opportunity was missed when whacko Bush got elected because I do believe Gore, scary fat alien though he is, would have done something for the environment and at least understood issues, no matter if his opinion was right or wrong. On top of that, unlike Bush, he seemed more interested in politics than golf or ranching. Someone needs to tell the GOP what a mistake they made with W, not just for America but for the world.
Anyway, it’s a relief that the Republicans have realised that if they put up a brain donor again they will take a spanking at the polls. Did no one in the party look at W and think ‘hmm, this guy’s going to inherit the tradition of Lincoln and Eisenhower’?
I don’t expect this to influence anyone, I just offer it as an outsider’s view.
On an entirely different note, I appear to have an animal living in me. My stomach keeps palpitating and I thought it was just a stomach bug picked up in the Amazon. Now I have realised it may actually be a bug, with horns and teeth. I have dropped my plan to watch Alien this evening and I am going to the doctor in the morning. Maybe it is, as my wife contends, the bullshit trying to get out.
Will publish Amazon story as soon as it’s out in the newspaper.
Yours, in infestation.
M
October 14th, 2008
Back from the land time forgot
Sorry no blog for ages but have been in Amazon.
I was reporting on an adventurer who is walking from the source to the mouth of the river and was in the unexplored depths of Peru. Highlights: Getting lost, being captured by indiginous amerindians.
More after the article comes out. I’m glad to be back and alive, though, it was like real life D&D and, on a couple of occasions, I didn’t think I was going to make my saving throw.
Jet lagged so must go to bed.
Mark