uMoria on a Mac OS 9

uMoria or Mac Moria 5.5c is one of those classic games that is strangely addictive. You pick a race, a class and you are off to the Dungeon. This classic game was created in 1983 by Robert A. Koeneke and has gone on to be ported to most OSes. I happen to like the old classic mac app best. 

A typical Mac Moira Character

At the bottom of this screen are two options, change name and file character description. The file is merely this page suitable for printing. While the 6 Statistics are close to D&D, they are slightly out of spec if you wanted to use this as a character generator. Also, some of the classes don't work at all like D&D classes. For example, a Druid can cast both clerical and magic user spells, rather than their own spell circle as in the PHB.

In the video below, I take a few seconds to generate a character and play for a bit. There is no sound.



For first time players, you need to purchase items like weapons before proceeding into the Dungeon. Also, the little [p] characters moving around are town drunks who can hit you or thieves who can steal from you. They are relatively easy to avoid.

In this second video, I linger on screens longer. I apologize for the blurriness for the first few seconds. It was something in the file conversion.

Here is a screen shot of a typical first level (50 feet) dungeon.

You can colorize your screen, but black and white is fine for me.

You can find more information about uMoira and downloads over at Beej's website on the game.

Image Resources for Future Reviews

I'm going through my shelves and getting read to review some older products. This is the first post of images needed to get that done. I have some classic books right along side some classic games. Most of the games are Mac OS 9 stuff.

In looking at some of the D&D stuff, I might not do reviews, I'm thinking about sharing how they have been worked into my campaigns. I mean, what more can be said about Deities & Demigods which hasn't been said to death?

Clean Up Time - Family time

I'm cleaning and sorting today. Here are some of my favorite pictures I rescued from various devices and platforms.

Due to the cleaning on my plate, I might be offline for a few days.

Epcot Family Picture on New Year's Eve 2019.
My phone glitched and my family had stepped away in the excitement.
Cool picture though. 

Leo the cat, as photographed by my daughter.
I use this for a "Personal Space" lesson at school. 

Benny's first Christmas

Our first Family Disney Trip, celebrating Catherine's final surgery. 

Cat as Fiona and Nate as Finn.

Tori mugging for Tim Bits.

A picture at Wegmans.

Tori's first Christmas

Me, many, many years ago.

My favorite picture at Disney.

Benny is chill.

I'm not sure what is happening here. Nate and Benny are playing something. 

Nathan, Paul and Catherine going to Home Coming.
This was the first and only year they will all be in high school together.

Kitty and I at Darien Lake. 

Kitty and I.

Catherine and I draw together. 

Paul's first day of work at summer camp, 2019.

The Mac Is Not A Xerox Machine...

Back in June 2019, I released a scan of a Character Sheet I created back in the 80's.

I thought it was the best sheet I'd ever made or used. Still pretty true. You can pick up this one for yourself on DriveThruRPG. This file is pay what you want and it is strongly suggest that you use it before putting any cash down. If you like it come back and drop some change in the tip jar.

Tonight I was looking at it and wished that I still had the disc it came from so that I could have the deep black lines the originals had. Well, I don't have that no matter how much wish I did.

But I still have a Mac.

It turns out that either I have gotten much better at Mac Draw or the processing power of G4 is so much better than a 512K or Claris software has improved before its demise, that I can recreate this document. I started working on it tonight, I hope to have a new version done by Monday. Ah, Veteran's Day.

The new versions will be tacked on the old version of the file on DriveThruRPG, as a thank you to all the people who downloaded it. Many of you paid for it, and I really, really appreciate the support.

What you can expect is a faithful rendition of the old version, a new version with the classic 6 instead of 7 and a few bells and whistles add on, such as Acrobat Abilities added to the thieves table, a better encumbrance chart, AC chart, a space for mounts and pets, and a few other things.

Obviously, this will be more than one file. I might even make a faded version to match my scan of the original.

9% of a plan

I have this idea for a project. Its part of an idea. Like 9% of an idea for a project.

Anyway, this is the first 1%. I have been working on a map of a Roman city for my campaign.

The light gray streets outline an insula. By definition, there are 64 of these areas in the city. My idea is to make 64 maps, one per page. On the left hand pages, there will be a mini-map of the insula with a large diagram highlighting one structure from the insula.

So, that is like 4.5% of my idea. That would look something like this:

The right hand pages would be character studies for some of the more interesting people that live in that structure. There might me more than one character study. There would be a picture of said character(s). That is the other 4.5% of my idea of this project. Perhaps it would be ruleset agnostic or specific to AD&D or D&D.

Not sure.

Like I said, it's like 9% of a plan.

I still haven't decided if this is a book or a patreon thing or something else. Let me know what you think.