How do you say "Hello" to a grizzly bear?

Do you quietly say hello, and anticipate his response? Do you quietly say hello and run screaming?    Well, how do ya and "How do you do?"   Hello to you grizzly bears of tabletop rpg die hards!

The rpg urge has been sneaking forward in my consciousness due to a younger generation of Gamers. I had noted that they are a bit too tied to the rule books, not a problem we often had when playing old school rpgs. So, I devised the following survey to give them some ideas about flexibility within their role-playing game settings.

While this survey may seem vague or sophomoric at first glance, I should point out that these young Gamers which I designed it for are preteens. I hope to patch together an adventure using Risus or a diceless rpg as our base mechanic.

I'll attempt to attache a link for a Google Doc, the text format of the survey is as follows.

An RPG which I would like to play other than fantasy.

Choose one option from the following lists or combine choices within the categories.

1.      The game setting would be:

Pre-Historic --  Horror --  Mystery --  Sci Fi --   Comedy  -- 1920s  Gangsters  -- The Wild West

Pirates --  Lost World Adventure (like King Kong) --  Super Heroes – Time Travel

Wizarding world of Harry what's-his-name

Combine two of the above or add your own suggestion:

2.      My character race would be:

Human – Wookie – Frankenstein – Vampire – Zombie --  Werewolf  --  Grey Alien --- Giant

Half-dragon --  Puppy, kitty or bunny --  Centaur – Klingon -- Robot or Android -- Caveman

Primate or ape -- Dinosaur  -- Godzilla -- The Hulk -- Mutant (like Ninja Turtles) -- Alien

Pokémon --  Other Fantasy --  Other Horror  --- Other?

 My character class would be:

Warrior -- Wizard  -- Thief or rogue -- Monk (Asian or European) – Gunslinger --  Gangsters 

Space Pirate  -- Detective – Con Man --- Scientist --- Jedi  --- Bard or Musician –

Star  Fleet Commander ---    Pioneer or Adventurer  --- Caveman – Other?

My weapon would be:

Sticks and stones ---  a sling and a club ---  a magic wand --- a gun --- a laser  gun --- magic beans

a broken bottle --- a magic lamp --- a laptop --- Fire or other element --- spider senses (mutant ability)

a musical instrument --- a magic harp --- The force --- a light saber --- other?

My vehicle would be:

A water buffalo -- a little red wagon -- Model T Ford -- a space ship -- time machine -- flying carpet --- a dragon --- a robot or android --- a unicorn ---  Mystery Machine or A Team van --- a pirate  ship ---- Other?

My companion or spirit animal would be:

Sticks and stones --- a dragon --- a robot or android --- a Wookie --- A hologram or spirit --- a pixie fairy --- a Smurf --- a pet rock ---- a parrot ---- a talking dog ---- a laptop --- Other?

Another Encounter Critical Community Project!

No gaming activity, or blogging, for me since I moved to Alabama and returend to school back in Dec. The term is over at school so I discovered this Encounter Critical commuinty project over at No Signal. I'm having fun with it, come join us, if you will.

Gygaxian Democracy -  Planet of Tombs !

Technical Difficulties...

Oh yeah!

Some of you probably noticed or heard about this; the RPG Blog Alliance was hacked back in Dec. This resulted in a mass mail informing members of the alliance that they had been rejected.

My reaction was, "Oh, I don't post for thirty days so I get the boot. I don't need them," and I removed their badge from my blog. No offense RPG Blog Alliance, it's common for old farts like me to think like this. It's commonly called "grumpy." A few days later I received an e-mail which informed me of the hack.

Now that I've crawled out of  hibernation I welcome back the RPG Blog Alliance to The Polyhedral Dicebag and I welcome myself back to the RPG B. A. Everybody; Welcome Back!

I have put the badge on the bottom of the right hand column. It's right above the Order of the D10000 badge which I need to do something with or remove. Now, where's that map I was working on?

Polyhedral 2013 Premier

First, I confess, I whiled most of my Holiday vacation time away, creating a Tumblr account and other such useless activities. I did complete a new Encounter Critical adventure. But, I can't tell you about it, in case we find ourselves in an E.C. game using the G+Hangout in the future. It is not a totally new adventure, it is loosely based on a previously published piece for a prominent rpg franchise. I'm intrenched in the old grindstone now and my free time will be limited until July or August, there probably will not be any Hangin' Out in my near future.

I also did a little work on an OSR community project; The Young Green Dragon over the Next Hill. This was lots of fun and I am very happy with my contribution. Now I am itching to run a Labyrinth Lord game. When the weather's a bit warmer I may commandeer a table on the patio at my favorite pub for just this purpose.

Heck yeah, Classic Sci-Fi! Actually, I ended up with two pages on Tumblr. Heck Yeah, Classic Sci-Fi  is the newest and is, obviously, dedicated to images of and related to Classic Science Fiction and Pulp Sci-Fi. I was posting a lot of Sci-Fi book covers to the other page, Fanatical Recycling Inc, and HYCSF evolved out of this practice. Fanatical Recycling Inc. started as a dump for images that would inspire environmental elements in rpg adventures. Then I started putting images of nature on there and the content became a bit ambiguous. Darn nature and all it's beauty! Hopefully I will manage to keep these the two pages distinct.

Ah yeah, how could I forget to share this?  Thanks to Billiam of Adventures in Shopping 
I learned of Dyson's Delves.  I don't buy many new RPG products, as few as one or two a year, but this tome looks both useful and fun. I'll be watching the e-mail and snail-mail boxes for this anticipated arrival.
(Those minis in Bill's article look great too.)

I'm gonna go draw a map for you all now, if you can find a copy of Marvel Apes for $4, I suggest you purchase it. It was a fun read and even has zombies.

Look a' this!

I'm still lurking about and am, of course, grossly behind schedule on any projects I should be completing. The Adventure Capitalist have been roaming the halls of the Temple of Elemental Evil for about a month now and had a near TPK a couple of weeks ago. (We play each Tuesday evening, usually.) Funny, no mater how long we play frpgs, we seem to make the same silly mistakes over and over.

My main point here is, I just wanted to post this lovely illustration as a bit of gonzo gaming inspiration. I found this via Tumblr/Goddess of Smut. It's apparently by Chris Achilleos.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess: July Grand Adventure Campaign wrap up

The LotFP July Grand Adventure Campaign has ended at Indigogo and you probably don't need to get your news or information on this topic from me. Perhaps we should just file this post under; Note to Self.

You can read the official wrap up at the LotFP blog, and probably have. Four of the nineteen campaigns funded, each was project had a funding goal of $6000. Yes, I contributed to each of these four projects. I didn't expect two of them to fund. I also contributed to one of the projects which did not fund.

I will be happy to be receiving prints of three new adventures some time in the near future and a pdf of a fourth adventure. Will I use them for Encounter Critical or Labyrinth Lord, only time will tell?

Besides the perks of these funding campaigns, my reward from this experience is; words and imagination are valuable. Of course, I have known this fact a long time but, perhaps now I'm reaching a point where I can use this knowledge. If I should ever attempt a crowd funding campaign, I believe I'd set my goal at $350. Would $350. pay for my time to write a "professional" adventure? No, but it would be a starting point and if I did a second crowd funding campaign I could set the goal at $650.

On the other hand, this is all just crazy talk and speculation.

No door on the west wall. (Polyhedral Newsbag)

Last night, my game group, the Adventure Capitalist, met to play Labyrinth Lord as we do nearly every Tuesday evening. We're in the middle of the game, I'm reading some old notes I had made when I was creating the name for the blog, and I hear our D.M. say, "there's no door on the west wall." I think, "that would be a good name for a blog too." One of the names on the list I was reading was "1d4+4" which is silly stuff but could be a fine name for a blog.


We are playing the Temple of Elemental Evil, yeah we use the Advance Labyrinth Companion. I've never visited the T.E.E. before and, if any of the other guys have they're not ruining it for the rest of us. My character, Leerc Sirc, a race as class elf, just reached level 4. My h.p. is 19 but my A.C. is 3 (plate, of course!) I mostly stay in the back of the party and use my Wand of Magic Missiles or a long bow and need to hire a body guard so I'm not the last guy in our line of adventures.

I've been trying identify what really defines my character as an Elf. I don't believe it's the ability to wear plate and cast spells. Perhaps it's the spell casting and archery and the smarts to use the bow thus improving his chances of survival? I am probably putting too much consideration into the psychology of an imaginary character. 

In other news: I'm still working on the layout for the E.C. fanzine #5 and progress is still slow, I'm not going to make my deadline of June 30. I think the middle of July is going to be a more realistic deadline.

But, the E.C. wheels are still churning up in the old noggin. I have had the idea of running an E.C. campaign for a few months and have written some notes to this effect. I'm not sure who I'll get to play this though? I don't think the A.C. will want to part with their Labyrinth Lord fun. But, they have been known to surprise me, our current D.M. might like a break too. More news as this develops, honest!

New Blogger thing-a-ma-bob, watch out!

So, we've had this new Blogger layout for a while now, all year I guess? And, now that I have some spare time to revisit the Blog-o-sphere, I've noticed at least two bugs. 1. Earlier this week some one hacked the blog Save vs. Spells and made it "Personal Financial Planing." I'm sure a few other folks noticed this too. The hacker basically hacked new info into the blog, thus filling up the blog roll.

Which leads to number 2: How do ya delete a blog from you reading list in this new format? I had to go back to the old format to remove Save vs. Spells. Today I found that Embrace the Dungeon was hacked a month ago and changed to "Animal Pets" and filled with advice concerning domestic pets.

 Guard your passwords gentlemen, change them early and/ or often. If you go on a hiatus, at least, log into your Blogger/ Google account from time to time to run off the vermin of the entree-net. 

Help needed to recreat the art of Deities & Demi Gods

I am sure that most of the rpg blog-o-sphere is, by now, familiar with Kickstarter programs. And, you have probably heard that Jeff Dee is recreating long lost illustrations from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. (I'm assuming you all know this story.)

Now, if you have a buck or twenty, is the time to help with another Kickstarter program. This one is to recreate illustrations from Deities and Demi Gods that are the work of Diesel LaForce. There are only five days left to fund this project but over $1500. needs to be raised. You know you need another old school illustration to decorate your huge ruined pile. (I mean humble domain, of course.) When payday rolls around this weekend you can treat yourself, and some loved ones if ya like, and pledge your support to this program.

Now I'm gonna go up-date my resume and send it to my local NPR affiliate.

Merry Polyhedral Christmas to all!

And here's a little cake I made for everyone from sugar wafers. It turned out to be a bit to square for a Christmas Tree but I'll give it a try again next year.
Merry Christmas!

Knox Gamers Pub Crawlers

For the past two years and nine months I've been involved with a local game group who meet twice most months to relax and chat at a local watering hole. Here in Knox-vages we have a game forum; Knox Gamers, so our group is called the Knox Gamers Pub Crawlers. A majority of our meetings have been at Union Jacks, a beer only pub in West Knoxville. They do serve food, if you'd like, along with the beverages.

While the ol' Poly-dice Bag doesn't get much local traffic, I thought I'd share this info as further evidence of gaming socialization in East Tennessee. We will be meeting two more times this year, on this coming Thursday and on the 22nd. The Pub Crawlers social schedule can be found at Knox Gamers and there is a Knox Gamers Meet Up group too. If ya just happen to be in West Knoxville at 7pm on any given Thursday look us up!

Fight On! tables compilation

I was wondering what is, or is not, happening with the Fight On! book of random madness that we all submitted our blood, sweat and tears to a few months ago. I looked at the ODnD forum and found the answer. Calithena says, "I am planning on getting to the limited release hardcovers and the second softcover (issues 5-8) as soon as issue 13 is out. Then the tables book."

So, I'll save my tables for the publication and get back to writing up those magic items I had started based on the short stories of Saki.

Late for the "Show me your dice" party

I had noticed that bloggers were revealing their dice on their various sites. Today I had some time to read a few blog posts from earlier this month, who doesn't love to show off their dice! You can see a few of my dice in my banner (above.)

The dice on the left are the remains of my original dice from the Holmes basic set. Soon after acquiring the Holmes boxset, I promptly lost the d4. Ah yeah, the red d10 in the back is the first d10 I ever purchased and the light blue d8 is from some other TSR box set. These days the old dice are retired to a box on top of a bookshelf.

The dice on the right I purchased from e bay. I never can recall the name of the manufacture, Dwarven Forged or something, but the dice greatly resemble Gamescince dice. I keep them in my Crown Royal dicebag with a fairly new set of blue Chessex and the blue d30 in the banner photo.

There are many more dice in my dicebag and the box with the old, retired dice. I may post a photo of some of them in the future.

Now, back to our Month Old News Dept.

What do Adventure Capitalist do when the cat is away?

Our Nightwick Abbey game is on hold for a few weeks while our DM has some summer fun. He said he was going to New Orleans to attend a wedding but I think that is just an excuse... I mean, who would get married in New Orleans in the middle of July? That would be like getting married in Birmingham at the end of August, hot, hot stuff!

So, for our part, what old grognards do when their frpg is on hold is play West End Games Star Wars. Our party consisted of three storm troopers. We were in the Imperial Navy equivalent of the F Troop. If our Star Wars adventure continues our tenure in the Imperial Navy will most likely come to a terminal, deadly end or we will all defect and become renegades like the scoundrels we truly are.

Polyhedral Update

So Jimmy, who looks like a moody Nathan Fillion, commented:

-- Aye! Awaiting more soon, been a month since the last post. :) --

Thanks for the prompt Jim, new bits of rpg related material coming soon to a blog near you.

Polyhedral Newsbag: Not rpg related

Over at my other blog, Fanatical Recycling Inc, I'm attempting to write about 52 beers in 52 weeks. I'm trying to focus on the micro breweries of Tennessee and Western North Carolina and, may venture into Georgia and other Southern states. I didn't have time to write the blog last week and hope I can write an additional entry this weekend.

Okay, here's some rpg news; in our Nightwick Abbey game, my M.U. has finally reached level 2!
I hope to write about more items from Saki's Varied Menagerie soon too.

Polyhedral Newsbag

Last month (March) was the second anniversary of my game group, formerly known as the Old School Pastafari. We play on Tuesday nights and three of the original six members still gather with three new companions to roll funny dice or gather around a board game. We have played a number of different rpgs, most of them either old school or retro-clones; 1st Ed. AD&D, Labyrinth Lord, Encounter Critical, Mutant Future and we played d20 Spycraft for about a month.

With the ushering in and out of different players in the group we have developed a generation gap. It is funny how the younger players are the same age as my step-sons but I don't sense a generation gap around the game table. Well, on a personal note, I don't feel a generation gap with my step-sons either because they have been adults as long as I have known them. We now refer to our Tuesday night group, more or less officially, as the Adventure Capitalist.

This past fall I discovered that there was another rpg blogger in my own backyard of Knox County, Tn. I expediently attempted to contact this blogger when, through his blog, he expressed a desire for a group to run through his frpg setting. Around Halloween, he and his wife and another member of the OSP/A.C. and I met at a local game shop for a social ice breaker. This meeting lead to his becoming our DM, I believe, in November of last year and said DM/blogger is still lording over the territory of our game table.

His blog is still going strong too, much stronger than the ol' Polyester Dicebag. The blog is In Places Deep and I am the player of the recently deceased party magic-user Thign (we hardly knew ye.) My new M.U. will be known as Pilsen and will be my fourth character, all magic-users, in the Nightwick Abbey campaign. How's that for old school for ya, four characters in as many months into the game and I still haven't reached second level.

I'm enjoying playing in the Nightwick Abbey setting and maybe, if I intend to reach second level, I need to send my character running at the first sight of danger. That's most the news from the ol' Dicebag for today. I've been working on another adventure for Encounter Critical and intend to use the Adventure Capitalist as guinea pigs once it sufficiently reaches the play test stage. I'll probably be throwing some Swords & Sorcery bookish nonsense at you all next.

As we say in East Tennessee, "Have a good un."

--I see that Blogger indicates I posted this blog around 3:40 am. It's actually 7:40 am here in E.S.T.--