Five for Friday 28: Shameful Desires

I have tried. God knows that I have tried to not lust after gaming stuff. But I am a weak man, so here is an accounting of my current sins in the form of a wish list of hard copy gaming items (in alphabetical order):

• Castle of the Mad Archmage: I love megadungeons and I have heard/read lots of great stuff about +Joseph Bloch's revamped entry into the field.
• The Dungeon Dozen: How could I not add +Jason Sholtis's collection of d12 tables to my dungeoneering bookshelf?
• Horror Companion (Savage Worlds): I haven't played anything using the Savage World systems, but I keep coming back to it again and again. I just picked up the Fantasy Companion and it has piqued my interest.
• Microscope: Ben Robbins' award-winning RPG game is described as "fractal role-playing." No GM. No prep. The more I read about it, the more I am intrigued. It can be used as a game in itself, but it can also be used by a gaming group to create settings via Microscope game sessions.
• NOD #6: I have been buying issues of +John Stater's NOD at a rate of one per month. This is next up on the list. I am currently using his Blood & Treasure rules for our Montporte Dungeon campaign. 

I will quietly break the rules here and add a few extras to the list...don't report me to the blog police. I'd like to pick up some GURPS stuff in hardcopy: GURPS High Tech and GURPS Powers. I might have to settle for the PDF version of GURPS High Tech, as it out of print and the priced for print copies is steep. Tome of Horrors 4 has also caught my fancy.

Sadly, the purchase of a custom order bass guitar dented the bank account but not my shameless desire for musical possessions. Daddy wants an upright bass and a high end acoustic guitar. And I have to postpone my wish fulfillment as my wife also wants a new acoustic guitar...hard to argue that it isn't her turn when I have my new bass guitar on a stand in the living room. Obviously, the solution is a winning lottery ticket, but for now I have to balance the spending across two money-sucking pastimes.

Five for Friday 26: An Updated RPG Product Wish List

I don't really buy much in the way of RPG gaming products anymore, with our money pit of a house, a child in college, and the expensive hobby of playing music (which never pays for itself despite getting booked a lot). However, a kid can dream so here is my wish list of hard copy gaming items (in alphabetical order):

• Fantasy Companion (Savage Worlds): I haven't played Savage Worlds, but I'd like to, assuming I will have the time and get the opportunity.
• Fudge, 10th Anniversary Edition: I like the idea of Fudge and it has been fun to be in on some of +Rob Conley's (Bat in the Attic) recent Fudge-based playtesting. I know that Fudge is available for free, but the Fudge website is not particularly user friendly.
• GURPS High Tech: Unfortunately, this has gone out of print and the prices for used copies on Amazon is sky high. But when the price drops, I might be there to scope one up.
• NOD #4: This is one product that I will be ordering in the near future. +John Stater's (The Land of NOD) materials are uniformly awesome. I have no idea how one person can crank out so much high quality material, especially as he is a husband, a father, and appears to hold down a job. The early NODs use Swords & Wizardry as the base ruleset, but I am already seeing in the first few issues of NOD how he was developing the Blood & Treasure ruleset (which we are currently using for the Montporte Dungeon Campaign).
• Tome of Horrors 4: This is a bit pricy, but one can never have too many monsters (in the humble opinion of this blogger).

When it comes to gaming, the reality is that all I truly need is a set of dice, some paper and a pencil or two. I try to remind myself of that from time to time.

Five for Friday (Saturday Edition) 12: My RPG Hardcopy Wish List

Work has been brutal lately...in the office by five a.m. and home after midnight. Fortunately, it hasn't cut into the gaming time but it has slowed down the the blog posts. Anyway, here is a post that I meant to do for Friday but didn't get done. It is my current wish list of hardcopy gaming stuff.

Everything on the list is pricey, with GURPS Powers at the low end ($25.24) from Amazon. Rappan Athuk weighs in at about $100 (ouch!!). My wife and I both work as nonprofit CEOs...with "nonprofit" being the operative and determinative term for our salaries. So, with kids in college, a money pit for a house, and four aging pets, I have to curb my buying of expensive gaming stuff. I also want a new bass guitar and amplifier...I should have mentioned that, too. I shouldn't whine about all this...I really do love my job, my wife, my kids, and most of our animals (sorry Pirate). The jury is still out on our house.

Here is my wish list of hardcopy game products:

• Barrowmaze II
• GURPS Martial Arts
• GURPS Powers
• Legends of Anglerre
• Rappan Athuk 

I have tried to talk my wife into finding a very wealthy older man for a boyfriend (for her, just to clarify, although if he was rich enough I might be tempted...). I thought it was a good plan for us--and quite generous on my part--but, alas, even with all of my persuasive powers brought to bear, nothing has come of that idea. Bummer, for sure. For now, I will just have to create wish lists.