Review of “Appendix N: The Literary History of Dungeons and Dragons” from Jeffro Johnson ~
Avery Abernethy, 12 April 2017
Appendix N is the list of books in the first edition Dungeon Masters Guide that Gary Gygax referenced as primary influences on the development of Dungeons and Dragons. Jeffro Johnson secured these books and read them. Mr. Johnson had two goals for Appendix N. First, identifying how each novel inspired specific aspects of D&D and other early role playing games. Second, Jeffro’s observations on how each specific novel inspired an aspect of D&D and the enjoyment that a modern reader would have with these books which were published from the 1910s to the 1970s.
Checking in on the original digital D&D classics ~
Avery Abernethy, 08 February 2017
The first computer adaptation of the Dungeons and Dragons game was Pool of Radiance released in 1988. The success of Pool of Radiance led SSI to release a series of D&D games often referred to as the “Gold Box” games. Almost thirty years has passed since their release, but they are still sold by www.gog.com in a package containing an additional six titles for $9.99. But are these games worth playing today on a modern computer?
Both Pool of Radiance (Pool) and Curse of the Azure Bonds (Curse) use the first edition D&D rules. These have some confusing conventions for gamers unfamiliar with the system. Armor class starts at 10 for someone with average dexterity wearing normal clothing. Plate Mail and Shield will get most characters to Armor Class 2. But add in magic items and your characters can have negative armor classes, up to -10. When you toss a fireball in this game you need to be able to assess the radius of effect, there is no convenient shadowed outline of the blast radius. Make a mistake and your front line fighters get singed. This will take a bit of refresher reading for someone who played D&D back in the 1980s. Players who never played tabletop D&D or the computer games based off that system will have to study the manual. Continue reading →
The nominations came in throughout 2016. After our annual January voting, we bring your the Readers’ Choice Award Winners for game-year 2016 ~
Congrats to our winners! OVERALL TABLETOP GAME – Star Wars: Rebellion OVERALL DIGITAL GAME – Twilight Struggle, digital edition Digital Wargame – Twilight Struggle, digital edition Digital RTS – Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak Digital RPG – Uncharted 4 Digital FPS – Battlefield 1 Digital Family / Sports Game – FIFA 17 Digital 4X Game- Civilization 6 Digital Expansion / DLC – Order of Battle: US Marines Tabletop Wargame – Wing Leader: Supremacy Tabletop Strategy Game – Star Wars: Rebellion Tabletop RPG – Star Wars: Force Awakens Tabletop Euro / Family Game – Terraforming Mars Tabletop Reprint – Silver Bayonet 25th Ed AAR of the Year – War in the Pacific AE – KyzBP & UCG
At GrogHeads, we give our readers the final say on the best games of the year, and here are the 2016 Readers’ Choice Awards…
We try to be as responsive as we can to our readers, and include every nomination, checking only for only one criteria: released in the correct year. We open the threads at the start of the year (2017 threads are already open!) and leave them up even into the first week of the next year. Somehow, even with an entire year to nominate games, we still get hate-mail from around the web asking “why wasn’t _____ on the list?” The answer is the same every time: no one nominated it! It’s your award, and you dear reader, get to pick your own choices.
This year’s winners? Here they go. And remember, all of them were selected by you!
GrogHeads Readers’ Choice Overall 2016 Tabletop Game of the Year was Star Wars: Rebellion, a game we discussed at length on the GrogCast last fall. Falling Sky, the latest in the COIN series, finished second. Ventonuovo’s visually stunning Moscow ’41 took third.
The GrogHeads Readers’ Choice Overall 2016 Digital Game of the Year was the adaptation of the excellent Twilight Struggle tabletop game. Second place was claimed by Strategic Command: WWII in Europe, and third overall was XCom 2.
In response to reader inquiries, we also added a new feature this year to recognize excellent After-Action Reports from games. Although we did not limit the category to those AARs that appeared on our site, it’s interesting to note that all three of the top finishers were in our forums, rather than on our front page, indicating that we clearly have to some talented writers in our forums. The overall winner of the inaugural AAR of the Year for 2016 was War in the Pacific AE, authored by KyzBP & Undercovergeekin the GrogHeads forums.
It’s time to get your votes in for the Readers’ Choice Awards for game-year 2016.
The only required items are the overall digital / tabletop games, at the end of each of those categories.
This year we’ve made a few changes:
We’ve consolidated the overall number of categories within the tabletop/digital divisions, to try to keep them as consistent as possible year-to-year
We’ve added an “AAR of the Year” category, at the request of the readers and members of our forums
We received no nominations for miniatures rules/expansions, so we’re not doing away with them as a category, but we can’t give you what you don’t nominate!
Call of Cthulhu (CoC) role playing game was first published in 1981 by Sandy Peterson. CoC was derived from the Cthulhu horror writings of H.P. Lovecraft and his successors. Lovecraft’s work was published in pulp magazines through the 1930s. Horrible alien gods are dead or sleeping but can become alive again when the stars are right. These gods would destroy all of humanity either without noticing or without caring. There are isolated cults of insane believers who try to awaken these malevolent forces. These horrific gods have spawn, alien races and other associated evils. The gods cannot be killed and their followers are often difficult to impossible to destroy. Mythos knowledge causes insanity.
