In the Land of Ooo

As a Dad I get to watch plenty of cartoons created for kids. I have been enjoying Dexter's Laboratory, Courage the Cowardly Dog and The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack for a while now, but this past year a new series began that is appropriate material for Ye Auld Grog n Blog. I speak of course of Pendleton Ward's Adventure Time.

Mr. Benedicto over at Eiglophian Press may have already turned some of you on to the show. If not perhaps I can encourage you to check it out.

I really took notice when one of the recurring characters, the Ice King, referred to himself as a “Magic-User” in an early episode. That's a term normally heard only in D&D circles.

In a later episode, the Ice King used the term “Magic Missile”. Another D&D term. Now I was fairly convinced of some ties to old school D&D.

The recent “Dungeon” episode sealed the deal, of course, with a Mimic, a Gelatinous Cube and a Trapper, amongst other things, protecting, what else, treasure in a dungeon. There's no doubting that Mr. Ward has some ties to old school D&D.

I recommend the Dungeon episode to any D&D fan, and I heartily endorse Adventure Time as a series. It's off-beat and is beginning to develop rather nicely.

~Sham

ODD Bits 1

ODD Bits is a web log series of trivia questions culled from the pages of Volumes 1, 2 and 3 of original Dungeons & Dragons. If you care to play along, answer each ODD Bit question to the best of your knowledge without referring to the source material. Answers are provided in the comments section, so don't peek there until you've tried to answer all five questions.

Grade yourself based on the number of questions you answered correctly*:

5: Unbelievable, 4: Outstanding, 3: Well Done, 2: Not Bad, 1: Not Good,
0: Embarrassing

* - Sham is the referee here, so any rules interpretations taken are final, even if viewed through his warped lens.

ODD Bits 1

1. Not counting Elves, name the three monsters able to Charm an opponent.

2. What's the to-hit and damage bonus of a Magic Arrow shot from a Magic Bow?

3. Characters with a Dexterity score of __________ or higher add 1 to their attacks when firing missiles. A. 12, B. 13 or C. 15.

4. True or False: In order for any character to change class a minimum of 16 is required in the new class's prime requisite ability.

5. Clerics first receive their highest level spells at what level of experience? A. 6, B. 7 or C. 8.

Good Luck!

~Sham

The Spirit of the Matter

The Spirit of the Matter, not the Subject nor the Sound.

It's nice to enjoy the musical tastes shared by other bloggers out there who have been encouraged by my short lived but inspirational Friday Flashbacks series. Sharing music vids seemed natch to me when I started doing so a couple years back. Now it seems rather ordinary to find Youtube vids along side D&D posts. Who woulda thunk it?

Recently my ears have been treated to pure audio gold thanks to the Music Genome Project at Pandora Radio. As I type this I am rocking out and alternating between my Stiv Bators and Johnny Thunders stations. Chew on that three-chord madness. It's both enlightening and scary as hell when you discover bands that are awesome as all get out yet were formed and disbanded before you ever heard of them. Argh.

Nevertheless, the internet once more proves to be mana from the gods, by Crom.

Anyway, all of this reminded me of a time when the "so-called OSR" (I have always loved that semi-derogatory term) was represented (there were countless others involed) by but a handful of bloggers (discounting the other forms of OSR types). Ha! Disclaimers abound.

To my knowledge I was the first fool to tie D&D to Punk Rock. It really stirred me up last year when some moron linked "fatbeards" with "punk" and old school D&D guys in general. Let me tell you that absolutely NO ONE ever related Punk and D&D back in the day and the very notion was downright silly. I was there in the late 70's/early 80's, D&D and Punk simply did not co-exist outside of my off-beat leanings. Perhaps that is why I eventually linked up with another self-proclaimed Punk in Amityville Mike. To see the opinions that I had spread across the blogosphere reduced to random uninformed insults almost made me delete my web log.

In many ways I should have been flattered. Ah well. To this day I am often surprised by what insults me, and that was certainly a weaker moment. But Ye Auld Grog & Blog survived.

Back to the point. Here's a proto-OSR post (yeah I know it's not even three years old yet) with comments from some important old school types who used to read my ramblings. The definitive OD&D-Punk post which at the time flew in the face of the accepted OD&D-Metal philosophy.

All of that floated out there, I am still taking the non-formulaic DIY approach to D&D. Maybe this post and older link will convince others to do the same.

Oh, and I highly recommend both Johnny Thunders and Stiv Bators for your own Pandora stations. More on those two at a later date.

~Sham, Quixotic Referee