Wandering DMs Live Chat Recording

I had a great time chatting with the Wandering DMs yesterday! We focused on the Ruined Tower of Zenopus and the original Sample Dungeon but naturally the conversation ranged to other Holmes-related & old school D&D topics.

The archive video recording of our conversation can now be found on their YT channel here:

Wandering DMs Season 02 Episode 10

There are also a podcast versions (no video) available in various places: Wandering DMs site Spotify Apple Podcasts Stitcher Listen Notes

Thank you to Dan & Paul for having me on their show!

I will be a guest on Wandering DMs live chat tomorrow

FYI, I will be a guest on the Wandering DMs live chat tomorrow at 1 PM EST with hosts Delta & Paul!

They are fellow bloggers at Delta's DND Hotspot and Paul's Gameblog, respectively.

Their YT channel is here: http://youtube.com/wanderingdms

The twitter promo is here: https://twitter.com/wanderingdms/status/1236290506931310592

"Set your clocks right, because we've got Zach from @ZenopusArchives on the show tomorrow to talk about his smash-hit Ruined Tower of Zenopus on DM's Guild, and his unmatched knowledge of Holmes Basic #DnD (1 PM Sunday)"

The Scrum Con Ad for the Ruined Tower of Zenopus

This is the advertisement for The Ruined Tower of Zenopus that was printed in the program for Scrum Con 2020! This sharp design was created by Second Saturday Scrum Club member John, who blogs at the 1000 Foot General. Read more about the adventure module in my earlier post.

The link in the ad (https://bit.ly/3bGicsr) goes to the DMs Guild page for the product. Coincidentally, they are having a 20% off sale for DM's Day, so the pdf is now only $1.79.

The entire Scrum Con program can now be viewed on Facebook here. There is also an ad for the second issue of Bayt Al Azif, edited by Jared Smith, which among lots of fantastic Call of Cthulhu scenarios includes a reprint of Holmes' 1983 review of the Call of Cthulhu, along with notes by myself. Read more about this here.

John also did illustrations and layout for the program book, which is a thing of beauty, including a neat dungeon map of the convention center. The editor of the program is Joe Procopio who blogs at Scrum in Miniature, and the photography is by Ellen Levy.

Scrum Con 2020 Post-Op

Scrum Con 2020 Program designed by the 1000 Foot General

Scrum Con 2020 was a resounding success! 

A big thank you to the organizers (the Scrum Club), the hard-working GMs, the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society (HMGS), who supported the con with a grant, and all of the attendees who came out and played in the games.

Guest of Honor Zeb Cook running Star Frontiers. Source: the FB Album

A large number of photos are up in a album on the Scrum Con Facebook page. Most of the games at the con are represented, and most are annotated with the names of the GM, scenario and rules system. So you can click through the gallery and see and read about what was played. There were two sessions, morning (10-2) and afternoon (3:30-7:30), with a few shorter sessions starting at other times. The games were an even split between Miniatures and RPGs. Update: there are now over 400 photos in a post on the Scrum in Miniature.

A familiar fiend appeared in Noah G's Dungeon Hack+ game

I've also re-tweeted a bunch of photos from the day, adding the #scrumcon2020 tag.

And there is another con report by John at the 1000 Foot General, a member of the Scrum Club who also ran a session of his Star Schlock game and also designed an impressive program for the con (photo above).

Registration Desk after the morning rush

The games were spread across three rooms in the new venue, the Silver Spring Civic Center which everyone seemed to like. Being a member of the Scrum Club, I helped out around the registration desk in the morning, while my son played in Dragon Hunt, a Blood & Swash miniatures game run by Eric Schlegel of the HAWKS (Harford Area Weekly Kriegspielers). 

The Flea Market was popular all day, with items coming and going, including an extra copy of Dragon Strike (TSR, 1993) that I sold, and a beautiful original Monster Manual that I picked up. Thank you to the Scrum Club members and auxiliaries who manned the fort there.

Food options were plentiful around the site; Cava was basically the closest, which is where we had lunch. After the con a number of us went to McGinty's Public House for dinner, a short walk up the block.

Me (in Sauron cap) running the Brazen Head

In the afternoon I ran In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus in the upstairs Fenton room. I'll write more about it in another blog post. 

At the same time my son played in A Dead Man in Deptford, a wild miniatures (Frostgrave) game set in an alternate reality Elizabethan London, where he was William Shakespeare! This was run by Jeff Wasileski. Below are a few shots I took of this game. The first shows the view my son had sitting at the table; he felt like he was actually in a town.

The picture below was taken just after his party recovered "a work of magical dramaturgy that would open the door to another dimension" in an attic and leapt out the window to escape a demon, leaving one injured and doomed member of their party behind to guard the exit. Nearby is a model representing the Globe Theatre!

Scrum Con 2020 is this Saturday!

The second annual Scrum Con is this Saturday, and you may want to attend if you are in DC Metro area. This year it has moved over to the Silver Spring Civic Building in Silver Spring, MD, just north of DC. The general info page for the con is here: Scrum Con 2020.

Tickets are $15 each, and there are are two sessions of games, from 10-2 and 3:30-7:30. Doors open at 9 AM.

The game sessions are evenly split between RPGs and Miniature Wargames. This close to the event most seats are taken, but there are a few open due to cancellations in the last week. For the latest availability, check the Events Schedule on Tabletop Events. As I write this, there are:

1 seat in Dragon Hunt (Miniatures) from 10-2

1 seat in WaT a Nice Village (Miniatures) from 10-2

2 seats in Incident at Space Station Accipiter (Miniatures) from 11-1 (2 hour game)

1 seat in B8 Journey the Rock (B/X RPG) from 3:30-7:30

I will be running a session of In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus in the afternoon, but the seats are all filled currently.

In the morning I will be helping to give out badges to attendees. If you attend, make sure to say hello! 

Playing at the World on Identifying Dice of the 1970s

C. P. dice (front) versus Holmes Basic dice (back). Source: Playing at the World

Jon Peterson has a new video on YT up looking at the dice that were available for sale in the 1970s, and how to identify them:

Playing at the World Episode #2: Identifying 1970s Dice

It's a great video, rich with information, examples and period photos. There's an accompanying blog post with more photos and dice maps. See embedded link below.

In the video the Holmes Basic dice feature prominently as a starting point for Jon to look at the other less common dice of the '70s. I did not know that the Creative Publications dice set sold by TSR, seen here in their original packaging, can be distinguished from the later set shipped with Holmes Basic. The most prominent distinguishing feature is the color of the d6, pink in the CP set and orange-red in the Holmes set. I had previously attributed the color variations to lighting in photos.

Identifying the Dice of the 1970s

How can you recognize a polyhedral gaming die made in the 1970s? The video above gives my tips for collectors and researchers who want to roll old school. After the cut, I give a quick reference guide to identifying these dice.

Gary Con XII games I'm running

Gary Con XII general event registration opens up tomorrow at 12 PM Central Time; this is also known as Silver registration and includes the vast majority of badge holders, approximately 2000 in number. Due to the new staggered release of seats for registration, there will be at least one more seat available tomorrow for every game at the con.

This year I'm DMing two different games, each a Holmes + OD&D game. This will be the first time I've run two different scenarios at one con.

Expedition to Skull Stack Crater is on Fri morning from 8 AM to 12 PM. The event listing can be found be found here. This is a "new" scenario; I wrote it a few years ago and ran it as part of my continuing annual kids' campaign.

Join an expedition to Skull Stack Crater to recover the legendary Spear of Decree, stolen from the Realm years ago by skull-masked raiders who then vanished from history. Your party has followed an old map to their hidden lair on an island in a water-filled volcanic crater. This 3rd level adventure from the Zenopus Archives celebrates the 40+ years of the Holmes Basic D&D set. Characters provided. 

In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus is scheduled for Sat night from 7-11 PM. The event listing can be found here; currently, 3 seats remain out of 8. This is the same scenario I ran twice last year, including once in the same time slot:

"Meet at the Green Dragon Inn and return to the dungeon under the ruined tower of the doomed wizard Zenopus to search for his legendary talking mask, forty years after adventurers first braved the passages. Play as Boinger, Zereth, Murray, or another character from J. Eric Holmes' stories. This adventure from the Zenopus Archives celebrates the 40+ years of the Holmes Basic D&D set." 

Other Gary Con links of interest:
Gary Con website
Gary Con Forums General Discussion
Badge Registration
Full Schedule of Events (searchable)
Grand Geneva Resort website
Facebook Group
OD&D Discussion thread
Dragonsfoot thread
Knights & Knaves Alehouse thread

According to the Events schedule, there are 24 games listed as OD&D, including mine.

Other GMs on this list include paleologos of the OSR Grimoire blog (2 sessions), Paul Stormberg (3 sessions) and Chicagowiz (1 session), plus 4 from Tim Kask and 1 from Mike Mornard. And Muddy at OD&D Discussion is running three Blueholme games.

Are any other readers of this blog going?