Weeks of Updates!

Lately, updates have fallen by the wayside. This has happened for a couple of reasons. I have taken on some new responsibilities at work, I've begun working overnights in a group home in addition to filling in for a teacher out for training this week.

How does he know he lost anything?
His tent looks like his room.

My son has been working a camp in Wyoming county and managed to lose a whole backpack of critical supplies for his work week. Between stints at work, I've been ferrying camping supplies to him at random because he doesn't know what he lost until he needs it.

I am bone tired.

Let me give you the updates for the past couple of weeks.

In the middle of July, I put the 52 Weeks of Magic of series on hiatus. That will be back at the end of August. I have also decommissioned three other blogs and imported their data to These Old Games. I am still in the process of vetting data from that process, some posts will be completely deleted while others will be adapted for here.

To this end, should now see some new tabs above: Short Stories and Hardware. "Short Stories" is exactly as labeled, some fictional and some from real life. "Hardware" is comprised of a series of links to computer support issues that I have run across while maintaining old hardware, usually for this site.

On July 15th, I launched The Compass Rose Minisetting title on DriveThruRPG. On July 28th, I launched a similar title called Kobold's Folly. Based on the feedback I have received, I separated the maps from the books, causing me to relaunch Compass Rose to match the style of Kobold's Folly. These are ruleset agnostic titles and are merely maps and descriptions for quick plug and play into your campaign. Sort of like a travel guide for DMs.

Zero to Hero and the Character Sheet continue to do well on Drive Thru. Thank you for downloading them.

Compass Rose follows the lives of the von Landskeep family and I have always intended to expand this title and align it to D&D and AD&D. Look for that in late August. I intended Kobold's Folly to be a one shot with no expansion, but King Minwan and his sister Hermin are so interesting, it may receive the same treatment as Compass Rose. When? Not sure. Maybe September.

The final update was to the Tek Tab, with new data for July being added.

Upcoming changes to website are based off of my experience from this round of updates. Right now, the Gemstone IV tab, Maps tab and Pregenerated characters are all static pages. It is more logical to break them down by subject and recreate them as individual post. The tab feature can pull up a chronological list of posts by subject. This makes far more sense, as my web stats do not include static pages.

One last item is, it has recently come to my attention that I will be going to Disney in November.

Thank you for being so patience with all of these updates and changes as I get everything in order to present more content to all of you. I couldn't and wouldn't do it without you.

The Tek - July 2019 edition

As promised, here are the webstats and download stats for DriveThruRPG for the month of July. I have begun collecting data in Google Analytics, and if possible I will start proving that information in September, 2019 for August.

July 2019: 
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 10
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting - 90
Kobold Folly Minisetting - 43
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 9

Webstats July 2019 - 2294

June 2019: 
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 48
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 8

Webstats June 2019 - 1380

May 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 6

Webstats May 2019 - 1965

April 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 2

Webstats May 2019 - 3011

March 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 12

Webstats May 2019 - 1838

Febuary 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 4

Webstats May 2019 - 1423

January 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 12

Webstats May 2019 - 2792

Keep in mind, these are raw stats from the reports I have available. While the DriveThruRPG stats are rock solid, the webstats are coming from the report that Blogger provides. I am sure there is some crap in there that shouldn't be. I am working to refine these numbers by using Google Analytics going forward.

Books are not sales, they are downloads only. My sales rate for the lifetime of all products is an averaged 6.5% (as of today, 7.8%) of all downloads. This is owing to the fact that I offer PWYW and specifically told people not to pay for the character sheet or the Compass Rose Inn maps in the product description. It hurts sales, but I am 100% certain that the downloader got what they needed.

In the future, I plan to move away from the PWYW model for a lot of titles, but only once I feel confident that the production quality is high enough to support it. You can click the link in the upper left (THE TEK) for the latest update.

The Tek

Why 'o why?

When I was a kid, we lived near a pharmacy called The Tek. The store is long gone, I have no idea why it was called that, but it was great little shop with all kinds of books, medicine and tchotchkes for sale.

Like every normal parent on planet Earth, my parents didn't have enough for every wish and desire. But they did their damned best.

One day, my dad took me to The Tek for something and told me flat out, "I don't have any extra money to get you anything." When he picked up his script or whatever he was buying, he found me looking at a book called: What is Dungeons and Dragons by John Butterfield, Philip Parker and David Honigmann.

As I put it back on the shelf to leave, my dad said, "Oh, a book. I have money for a book. As long as you read it."

Fast forward 20, 30 maybe even 35 years, I remember that lesson. Knowledge is worth more than money. I spend time making sure my kids read, just as my parents did for me. When they couldn't read, I read for them. When they don't have time or money to read, I make sure I close those gaps so they can.

But reading isn't the point of this post. It's about THE TECH. Sometimes, I wonder where I stand in the whole scheme of things. I have no idea. Do I sell a lot of books? Don't know. Do a lot of people read my blog? What is "a lot"? No idea.

To that end, I have decided to post my web stats and copies download from DriveThruRPG stats. Why? Because information is power and perhaps you too are wonder where you are at. This isn't a bid for transparency, I love the fact that someone reads my stuff, simply for the joy of it.

So, here are the year to to date states for my site and books.

July 2019: 
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 10
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting - 90
Kobold Folly Minisetting - 43
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 9

Webstats July 2019 - 2294

June 2019: 
AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 48
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 8

Webstats June 2019 - 1380

May 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 6

Webstats May 2019 - 1965

April 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 2

Webstats May 2019 - 3011

March 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 12

Webstats May 2019 - 1838

Febuary 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 4

Webstats May 2019 - 1423

January 2019: 
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 12

Webstats May 2019 - 2792

Keep in mind, these are raw stats from the reports I have available. While the DriveThruRPG stats are rock solid, the webstats are coming from the report that Blogger provides. I am sure there is some crap in there that shouldn't be. I am working to refine these numbers by using Google Analytics going forward.

Books are not sales, they are downloads only. My sales rate for the lifetime of all products is an averaged 6.5% (as of today, 7.8%) of all downloads. This is owing to the fact that I offer PWYW and specifically told people not to pay for the character sheet or the Compass Rose Inn maps in the product description. It hurts sales, but I am 100% certain that the downloader got what they needed.

In the future, I plan to move away from the PWYW model for a lot of titles, but only once I feel confident that the production quality is high enough to support it. You can click the link in the upper left (THE TEK) for the latest update.

The Kobold Warren Folly

Update - This post has been expanded into a short book with 4 maps on DriveThruRPG. It's priced at PWYW, with a suggested price of $1.99.  

Like the Compass Rose Inn Mini-Setting, this set of maps and descriptions are rule set agnostic. 

And now on to the original post from my birthday, Jan. 17th, 2016. 

This map is of a folly in the southwest of Potamus Bay. Who built the folly is lost to time. There is a larger ruin closer to the Lake, but it isn't as well preserved or interesting as the folly.

The tale of the folly's preservation is very odd and owes its history to the river. The river is subject seasonal flooding and one of those floods brought the kobold's to the folly.

The kobold's had their own underground village, which made them very happy. They stole the best food, killed the prettiest animals and had wild political intrigues that often ended in bloodshed. One day, the ruling clan pushed the wrong buttons and were tossed in prison to await their doom, as soon as the method could be decided.

A chance rainstorm freed the rulers, but washed them deep into the cave system. The village rejoiced at the apparent deaths. They were very kobolds happy, indeed. The ruling clan was washed away into the cavern system under the folly. They were able to squeeze and claw their way into the basement of the structure. The family rejoiced when they discovered the ring of pear and apple trees, the fresh water and rabbits.

There are no furnishing, no details inside the Folly.
The kobolds keep the interior bare.
The ring of trees continues, but is obscured by the
upper two levels. 

Over the years, they have set themselves up a kings and queens of the folly. They do not understand the principle of a folly, they believe that human or elven kings hold court in an empty building. The six rulers have set themselves up as the High, Middle and Low Kings and Queens. They receive guests through the windows, as there are no doors except trapdoors between the levels. They keep the folly up, but they do not live in it. They live below in finely finished chambers. Recently, they have hung curtains in all of the windows of the folly, purple, yellow and red. 

The family plans on enlarging the chambers, but for now they are satisfied.

The lowest level is almost all natural, only the eastern side has any finished features. The western side is often flooded with fresh water and sometimes contains fish.

Folly Details:
One Square equals 5 feet.
Height: 45 feet.
Depth: 75 feet below ground, as near as anyone can tell.
Population: 17 adults, 33 children.

Feeling X2 Château d'Amberville

One of my favorite modules was X2. It was so rich in detail and called back to Poe and Clark Ashton Smith that I immediately wanted to plug it into my AD&D campaign. Well, it didn't work out so well. The theme of Castle Amber was too... "weird" for my normal campaign. It was the one time my players demanded a "redo". Their main characters had crossed the mists and as they explored the castle, they became disenchanted with this setting as their characters were way too out of place in it.

I agreed. We rolled up a new set of characters, restarted the scenario and began playing the module as if the prior events never happened. My players were so good at role playing, they willingly ignored the details they gleaned from the last adventure and let the action replay itself again for their new characters.

We were actually playing two different campaigns, alternating between them as the mood struck us. This must have been 1995 or 1996. We were still using the original AD&D books with Unearthed Arcana. When we switched from our main AD&D campaign to the world of Castle Amber, we took it to the extreme.

I allowed the use of Tome of Magic, I would quietly play Love and Rockets Body and Soul alternating with Glen Danzig's Black Aria.


Being older, I'd place a bottle of wine on the table, which few of us knew how to use properly, and old candle sticks or bottles with candles jammed in them for effect. Incense was burned and dinner or light snacks were had as we gamed. 

On top of that, I produced a set of feelies for the players. They were old maps, journals and letters based on the action of the module.

We never completed the module, because the players found the land of Averoigne to be so enchanting. If I could collect up those players again, we would totally go back to Averoigne.