Delving into Minecraft -- Again

In my recent recap of 2015, I mentioned my last Minecraft series, the City Builder Challenge, died a death of ennui. Rather than trying to do something in vanilla, which always seems to end with me getting bored, I'm going to play a modded game. How modded? Very.

A Few Bits of Magic

More magic items are always a good thing, right? Here are a few things the party in my Wilds game found during their adventures. I thought I'd already posted these, but I don't see them anywhere. I did write up some of the older items, the Sword of Bees, the Steadyhand Ring, and the Dwarf Kettle a while back. Without further ado, here are three new items that can be used in most any OSR-style game.

A (Late) 2015 Recap

Looking back over the blog's post history, I see there's been well over a month of silence here. Even though the end of 2015 was quiet, I think a (belated) year-end wrap won't be a bad thing. Three major blog topics all came to an end within a few weeks of each other in November:

• My Labyrinth Lord play-by-email game, the Wilds came to a bloody end when the party found themselves caught in a complex ambush in Blackpool Maze.
• I finished the 100th Dungeons in Blue geomorph in my Tile of the Week series and decided that was a good ending point, at least for the moment.
• My Minecraft city building project died a slow death, the victim of the ennui that I often feel after playing vanilla Minecraft for a couple of months.

Of course, there were a few side posts here and there in 2015 too. I did a first look at the PC video games Skyforge and GRAV and did a write up of the deadly Cold Shades that killed off several of party followers in the Wilds. I also wrote a short piece on using the Mythic GM Emulator for NPC decisions, and posted regular updates on new PBE Games products -- more on that in a minute.

One of the good things about having a couple big, focused series to write about is you always know what you're going to have on the slate. The bad thing is, when they end, it leaves a hole. In this case, it left three big holes. I don't think I'm done with the blog, but I find myself struggling to write. At the very least I should cull through some of the magic items that are now in the hands of the Necromancer in Blackpool and post them up here. Beyond that, we'll see. RPGs are in a holding pattern at the moment, and my list of current video games, Diablo III, Mechwarrior Online and Minecraft with the FTB/Direwolf20 mod pack are all fairly well-trod ground. I guess we'll see what the next month brings.

As for PBE Games, well, the end of the year was quite busy. I've published 17 new titles since the last update. I'm not going to do an item-by-item list, it'd be embarrassingly long, but here are the highlights:

• Five new Dungeons in Blue Mega Tiles, available as a discount five pack
• Three new Dungeons in Blue Expansion Sets and the associated triple pack
• Three new Small Dungeons maps, also available as a discount bundle
• Two new One Page tables, Dungeon Architecture and Fantasy Fungi, along with a discount five pack that contains these and three older products

As you can see, I wasn't a total slacker in December. I'm sure something new will come along, or I'll start a new game that will spark the desire to write about RPGs. Until then, not dead, just resting.

Dungeons in Blue: The New Stuff

It's been quiet here since the TPK in the Wilds, and the last Tile of the Week post in the series, at least for now. It's nice to have a posting break, especially since work's been a bit hectic lately.

I took a look at my schedule of releases for 2015 and realized I need to push out some new products if I'm going to make my goal for the year. Here's a quick update on new Dungeons in Blue releases on DriveThruRPG.

I've added three new expansion sets: Set D, Set E and Set F, along with the discount bundle that contains all three. Expansion sets are collections of varied geomorphs that include all the features and tunnel styles available in Dungeons in Blue. You'll find sewers, mines, extra wide corridors and caverns and cross-tile water features in these products. You'll also start seeing tiles that include...

Lava! There are already lava tiles in Dungeons in Blue, but the new Lava Flows geomorph sets add cross-tile lava rivers and lakes that are perfect for a volcanic dungeon or a visit to the plane of fire. Lava Flows One, Two, Three and the discounted Lava Flows Triple Pack kick off this fiery addition to Dungeons in Blue.

Here are a few preview images (one-third scale), to show you what these tiles look like.

Expansion Set E Preview

Lava Flows Two Preview

That's it, for now! Thanks, as always, for reading!

The Wilds - An Ending, of Sorts

So, last week saw the end of my Wilds play by email Labyrinth Lord campaign. The party was completely wiped out in the depths of Blackpool Maze. This is just a final note to put a bow on the package, so to speak.

Tile of the Week #100

One hundred tiles. That can't be right, can it? I guess so. Here's the latest Tile of the Week geomorph. It's a four-way intersection with a built-in elevation change.

Player Version

GM Version

All Tile of the Week images are free for private use. You can download the images above using right-click/save as. Each tile is a 100px per five-foot square image, sized for compatibility with Dungeons in Blue geomorphs. The entire Tile of the Week Collection is also available as a pay what you want bundle if you're feeling lazy.

With 100 tiles in this set, I'm going to take a break from new tiles, at least for a while.

The Wilds - Demise?

It's a terrible thing when good parties go bad...