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@KevinLamb74 Star Wars (the movie) somehow manages the light tone of a pulp adventure, all while stacking up a body count vastly higher than Dune or Starship Troopers. It's quite a remarkable sleight of hand, and speaks to the genius of George Lucas, Marcia, John Williams and the rest.

This post obviously made a lot of Andor fans very upset. They may have just not understood it. Allow me to explain. What I was trying to say is that Andor is dumb and not at all the type of fairy tale story that Star Wars was meant to emulate. Hope this helps!

@ElmoOfTheApes I still occasionally see a shelf of Alan Dean Foster when I'm out in the larger book stores

Spellsinger by Alan Dean Foster (Warner Books 1983) cover by Carl Lundgren. Good light fantasy from Foster who knows how to tell a good story (his books used to crowd the bookstore shelves for years; sadly, no longer). First in his Spellsinger series.

@DaddyWarpig Everybody I meet has something to teach me.

Just because I saw "The Exorcist" when I was single-digit years old doesn't explain my entire personality and way of life. I grew up being smarter than everybody around me, and that kind of stamps you with the feeling that the world is full of idiots, which isn't totally exactly true. People who aren't as smart as you can also be terribly smart. The smarter you are, the truer this is. Don't treat them all like total idiots. People who aren't as smart as you can also know a hell of a lot about subjects you are totally ignorant of. People who aren't as smart as you can also be much older, and hence experience and wiser, and can offer you much practical guidance you can't synthesize from mere intelligence alone. Intelligence is a great asset and the single biggest predictor of success across most fields of endeavor. But assuming everyone else is an idiot is a stupid way to live. Even if quite a lot of people actually are idiots, from your POV.

@DungeonNoir @rpgcyrusrite Great rundown. I've always been curious about the Midnight setting.

Long ago, the gods went to war. In the end, they cast out a being known as Izrador, the villain of this story. He is Neutral Evil, untainted by any concern for Law or Chaos; he is simply Evil. His fall is catastrophic, severing the campaign world, Aryth, from the other gods. The ancient Elthedan civilization collapses. The surviving Elthedans become the various fey races. A great deal of time passes. Men arrive: Scots/Viking-like people called the Dorns. The Nords from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim are a good comparison. War follows. More time passes. Other humans arrive: the Sarcosans. Think Arabian Nights, Prince of Persia, and Nilfgaard. A series of wars eventually ends in a truce between the Dorns and the Sarcosans, sealed through marriage. Their descendants become the Erenlanders. More centuries pass. Izrador has finally recovered and has twisted captured dwarves into orcs. Massive wars erupt, very much in the style of The Lord of the Rings. This time, the peoples of Aryth win. Time passes again. Humanity grows complacent and forgetful. Izrador turns to deception and corruption, and they prove devastatingly effective. When the final war comes, it is a total victory for the Shadow. Betrayed from within, the human kingdoms collapse. The apocalypse arrives. You play as one of the last members of the final resistance, among those who refuse to bow to the Shadow. The world itself seems to recognize your greatness, granting you a Heroic Path that bestows powers as you level all the way to 20th level. After all that worldbuilding, the setting itself is extraordinary. Everywhere you go, the iron boot of the orcs and the priests of the Shadow, the Legates, press down upon the land. The Fall also affects any angels, demons, or outsiders who became trapped. With no access to the planes, these beings cannot truly die. Instead, when “killed,” they become incorporeal spirits, able to influence the world only by possessing objects or living creatures. Even the dead cannot rest. They have nowhere to go. Many return as the Fell: zombies who can sustain their existence only by devouring the flesh of the living. Cruelest of all, a Fell awakens with its mind and memories intact. Hunger slowly degrades them until they become completely mad and feral. Izrador’s ultimate plan is to drain all magic from Aryth. The foul temples of the Shadow contain Black Mirrors ~the Zordrafin Corith~ vast pools of blood fed by human sacrifice that drain the very essence of the land itself. The elves are besieged. After suffering loss after loss due to Elven Cunning, the forces of the Shadow have resorted to simply burning the Great Forest. The Burning Line stretches for miles upon miles: a wasteland of flame, smoke, and ash. If any of this intrigues you, realize that I have covered less than a tenth of the work that has gone into this setting. It is designed to feel like “The Lord of the Rings, but Sauron won.” Characters are vulnerable in ways rarely seen in a typical D&D campaign. There is little hope of riches, and perhaps not even victory. The very people the PCs try to help may betray them for a chance at mercy or a scrap of food. It is an incredibly dark setting, but it allows players to become heroes in ways most campaigns never achieve. It places characters in brutal moral dilemmas and forces difficult choices. It is perfect for players who truly want to be heroes and who can handle a campaign where not every story ends happily.

@TheBillAllan @ManFirestorm Badass art, and wisely given a whole freaking page in the DMG.

What makes this a classic? Is it the detail? The action? Is it because it’s black & white?

@OGCrimsonJester You know I love RPG displays!

Don't I wish

@KevinLamb74 Oh I didn't know the errata had been incorporated into the text.

@Waynes_Books That version of Unearthed Arcana is the best ever released. It has the errata page inserted directly into the book AND finally has a premium quality spine. 👍

AD&D Deluxe Hardcover Premium Reprints (2012-13). Wizards of the Coast releases the best nostalgia items between editions; in this case D&D 5e was in development. (These are the originals, not the PODs on DTRPG) See my explainer post over at my photoblog, link in the comments.

@AgrivarDragon They're straight reprints. I'm not aware of any changes.

@Waynes_Books Are these reprints true to the original releases or modified to include WoTK modern vision?

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition Premium Cover editions (2012-3) waynesbooks.games/2022/07/29/adv…

@GigagodSesamar This is so great. Never seen this Conan movie art before.

What is good in life? Conan the Barbarian alternative poster artwork 1982 by Boris Vallejo #RealmOfSesamar

@OGCrimsonJester The Polynesian colonization of the Pacific would make a bang-up model for a sci-fi setting. I'd even keep the very limited recon and inter-colony communication and century-long spans between settlements. All while lavishing Tolkien-like focus on their travels.

And yet it still seems to blow some academics minds that they reached South America

The gold is a good point, forgot that one. The MU's lack of abilities extends well beyond 1st level. Even if they have a few spells, that means any given encounter, they'll have one action per fight at best - more often zero - since they have to frugally ration spells until the next sleep. When they acquire 3rd level spells, that's when they start the long path to demigod status. They're fragile, so they may not survive to get there in any case. And most campaigns peter out around 8th level, so for most MUs it'll never happen. It's fine. I played AD&D for years. The disparity is part of the charm.

@Waynes_Books @Nobleshield @memeslich They are hardly "useless". MUs are often the only ones with extra gold at CharGen, so they can afford to hire the men-at-arms, purchase & operate the dungeoneering equipment, etc. Besides, you're only L1 for 2-3 adventures, it's not the entirety of the game.

What's something about Dungeons & Dragons that disgusts you?

@WorldofWeirth @Nobleshield @memeslich This isn't about being a badass. Players should have something to do on their turns. Yes, there are workarounds for the MU like spamming darts and being a party caller, potion-dispenser, etc. But they're just workarounds for a class that is inherently useless at low level.

@Waynes_Books @Nobleshield @memeslich That wasn't "terrible game design". It models a beginning adventurer. There is literally nothing stopping you from creating a higher level character if you want to start off as a badass. FWIW, the Holmes edition overcame this by letting first level magic users make scrolls.

@TheBillAllan Yes! My players love terrain.

Did a set up for the first part of a Pirate Borg adventure. It’s fun to use my crafted terrain. #pirateborg #ttrpgs #limithron

@yum_dm Tharizdun favors purple, mauve, and violet. waynesbooks.games/2022/05/12/tha…

There is something way more interesting happening in G1 than fighting hill giants. Area 17A is a weird temple to some chaos god or unknown entity. If I were to run this module I would have the temple the PCs goal. How they get there is up to them. #DnD #DungeonsAndDragons #TTRPG

@Nobleshield @memeslich Terrible game design for MUs, to be sure. So I never felt bad about cheesing darts at 3 per round. My MUs always had a bandolier of them.

@memeslich in older editions, How weak/useless spellcasters are at low levels. Great gameplay to be "Sorry guys I used my one spell for the day I'm going to read a book while you all get to actually play the game"

@YoDanno That was me. I'd never looked closely at these years. Figured they were 2nd tier compared with the earlier calendars. Wrong! So many great pieces of art in them.

Brand New Post! AD&D Dragonlance Calendars (1993-1995). One is all Dragonlance art, the other two are a mix of TSR campaign worlds. A deep dive over at my photoblog; link in the comments.

TSR AD&D Dragonlance Calendars (1993-1995) waynesbooks.games/2026/05/10/tsr…