Showing posts with label A-Doodle-A-Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A-Doodle-A-Day. Show all posts

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Edition War

Entrance to a local coffee house.

The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge

Day 16: Did you remember your first Edition War?  Did you win?

I think the first edition war I ever had was within myself.  When I first got into D&D, I didn't really understand the distinction between the Basic and Advanced sets.  I bought what I could afford - the Basic - and played that.  But those Advanced books always taunted me on the shelves.  Since they were big and thick and more expensive - they surely were better.  Right?  So I began harassing my mother for money until I could get the first three AD&D books.  I don't think I ever played with the Basic after that - except in the guise of the OSR.  Now I look back on Basic as a better all-around game.

So I won -and lost - my first Edition War. :)

- Ark

Saturday, February 15, 2014

My Lawn - You Are On It

The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge rolls on . . .

Day 15: What was the first edition of D&D you didn't enjoy?  Why?

All RPGs seem to get on my nerves eventually, so the first edition I eventually didn't enjoy was Basic.  But all versions I've played I liked initially.  Well, except 3.5.

Why?  Well, it was very . . . jarring.  I sat down expecting to play some D&D, and instead, I got this game that used some of the D&D words that I was accustomed too - but everything else was so foreign - and too so damn long - that I didn't have a good time at all.  Yeah, yeah, get off my lawn and all of that. :)

I think that Pathfinder improved upon 3.5, but still, it didn't gel with me.

- Ark

Friday, February 14, 2014

AOL Hell

The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge rolls on . . .

Day 14: Did you meet your significant other while playing D&D?  Does he or she still play?

Well, sort of.  It wasn't D&D - it was a watered-down version with no DM that you could play in chat rooms on AOL.  But it was definitely roll-play - electronic room dice and everything. :)

And no, she doesn't play anything these days.

- Ark


Thursday, February 13, 2014

By Mattel

The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge rolls on . . .

Day 13: First miniature(s) you used for D&D.

Actuall, the first miniatures I used for D&D were the minis that came with the Mattel Electronics Dungeons & Dragons Computer Labyrinth Game.  That is sort of cheating - but then again, it's sort of awesome too. :)

On the art front, I got in a big batch of Japanese art supplies - blue lead, pens, etc - and this is the result of me dorking around with them for three minutes.  Wheeeeeee!

- Ark

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Gemini @ Saturn

The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge rolls on . .

Day 12: First store where you bought your gaming supplies.  Does it still exist?

I found my first fix of D&D at a Waldenbooks in a mall in Clear Lake, Texas.  There was this spinny rack thing with all sorts of books and modules.  I remember it well, and made many, many trips back.

But no, I don't think Waldenbooks exist anymore.

As an aside - at the time, I lived in an apartment behind Mission Control - you know 'Houston, we have a problem.'  Yeah, that place - at the corner of Saturn Lane and Gemini Street.  Some guys from NASA come to our school when Voyager 1 was at Saturn and showed us raw video of the pictures beaming back.  Then, some NASA scientists organized a summer school class to teach us programming.  In 1981.  I wrote a character generator - of course. :)

- Ark

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Splat?

The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge rolls on . . .

Day 11: First splatbook you begged your DM to approve.

Um . . . I don't understand the question.  I don't think I've ever done that . . . beg . . . that word - no - or splat.

:)

- Ark


Monday, February 10, 2014

First Magazine

On with the Anniversary Blog Hop . . .

Day 10: First gaming magazine you ever bought (Dragon, Dungeon, White Dwarf, etc.)

That would be Dragon #45.  As soon as I found out there was such a thing as a gaming magazine - I was hooked.

Now this dragon over on the left . . . well . . . he needs some work.  Been experimenting with markers.  Apparently I need a heck of a lot more experimentation. :)

- Ark

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Welcome to the D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge!

Day 9: First campaign setting (published or homebrew) you played in.

That one is easy.  I bought The World of Greyhawk folio early on, and everything, by default, happened there until I got around to making my own worlds.

- Ark

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Hardcore Wax Play

Welcome to the D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge!

Day 8: First set of polyhedral dice you owned.  Do you still use them?

They were in my box, of course.  With a crayon!  We were hardcore back then - rubbing our little no-brand crayons against polyhedral shapes until we got blisters.  I've got some of those dice still - but no, they are too chewed up to use.

- Ark

Friday, February 7, 2014

The Box

Maybe Some Things Shouldn't Be Drawn
Welcome to the D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge!

Day 7: First D&D product you ever bought.  Do you still have it?

It was the nifty Holmesian box with rulebook, dice, and, the B2 module.  I chucked the box pretty soon after buying it.  It was just in the way and the sides had split with me carrying it around everywhere.  I still have some of the dice, but as for the rest of the contents - well - they are lost to time.

- Ark

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Death Cubed

Welcome to the D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge!

Day 6: First character death.  How did you handle it?

I just rolled up another one.  Dime a dozen and all that.

:)

- Ark

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Urlik Banork

Welcome to the D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge!

Day 5: First character to go from 1st level to the highest level possible in a given edition.  (Or, what's the highest level character you've ever ran?)

My first character of note, after a slew of hopeless cannon fodder, was a wizard named Urlik Banork.  He was modeled after Gandalf - and I started him as a gray-bearded old man, not some young punk whippersnapper.

He got amazingly high in levels - not from my skill, or even luck, mind you.  Urlik was in multiple campaigns, had multiple DMs, was a Mary Sue NPC sometimes, and sometimes us kids would just narrate adventures with no DM and assign our favorite characters levels on a whim.  Not that, in the early days, we really understood - or cared to understand - all that AD&D had to offer.  We were playing for fun, and all of our characters ended up being '50th level' - whatever that meant.

Urlik was adamant about being Lawful Good and really hated Orcs - so much so that he got his buddies together, raised and army, and wiped the Bone March clean of evil.  At that point, we were only playing with those characters as narration, but still, it was fun to redraw the maps of Greyhawk.

As far as an actual character I leveled up to the tippy-top of the level limit?  Um - never, I'd guess.  At least not the honest way. :)  I was too busy DMing.

- Ark

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Here There Be . . .

Welcome to the D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge!

Day 4: First dragon your character slew (or some other powerful monster.)

I DMed through most of my early D&D days, and of those characters I played back then, I don't recall ever slaying a dragon. In fact, the first dragon I slew wasn't until WOTC was bringing out the Essentials line, i.e. D&D 4.5.

The Boy and I were playing pre-gens for some sort of demo WOTC was doing. I remember I played the magic user who had the newly revamped magic missiles that auto-hit. And so, our first level PCs went up against a baby dragon.

Okay, now that I think about it, my pre-gen died in a burst of dragon breath. The whole party did, actually, now that I remember it.

So, um, I never did slay a dragon. Dammit.

- Ark

Monday, February 3, 2014

The Tower of Zenopus

Tower of Zenopus with the Stone Mountain in the background.

Welcome to the D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge!

Day 3: First dungeon you explored as a player-character or ran as a DM. 

The first time I ever player D&D, I DMed - as explained in my previous entry.  I just turned to the back of the blue book and began running my friend through the Tower of Zenopus.  I don't actually recall reading the adventure beforehand - and for years after, I couldn't figure out why there was a giant skull at the top of the tower, and an ancient domed city down below.

There was a lot of confusion about the rules - but we pushed through.  I seem to recall the most horrible monsters were the Green Slime and a randomly rolled Gelatinous Cube.  There was a lot of pc death.  We didn't realize that the party should contain more than one adventurer.  But it was tons of fun.

It's funny how a simple little game could grab my attention and never let go - even after all of these years.

- Ark

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Fezzes are Cool

Merlin never looked so suave.
Welcome to the D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge!

Day 2: First person who you introduced to D&D.  Which edition?  Their first character?

So from the last post, my introduction to D&D wasn't incredibly informative.  But I was in love with the idea of what Dungeons and Dragons might be, so I acquired the Blue Box from the book store in the mall and dove in.

I guess you could more accurately say that Doctor John Eric Holmes introduced me to D&D.  It was his words that flowed into my brain, telling me finally, really, exactly what D&D was.

After perusing the blue box rules, I decided the game was definitely something I should be doing.  I arranged a sleepover with my friend Chris, determined that we could figure the whole thing out.

Hats.  We were sure hats were an important part of the D&D experience.  After all - every hero in the blue book was in a hat, right?  So he both made wizard hats out of construction paper and tape. You have to have your priorities straight - right?  Then we sat on the floor in his room.

Chris rolled up a character, and I began to DM - and play D&D - for the very first time.

Honestly, I have no recollection of what his first character was.  There were a lot of them.  And a lot of death.  Glorious, limb rending, flesh melting death.

Can life be any more enjoyable than that?  I think not.

- Ark

Saturday, February 1, 2014

First One's Free

Dude Whose Name I Can't Remember
Welcome to my first entry in the D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge!

So here is the first topic:

Day 1 : First person who introduced you to D&D.  Which Edition?  Your first character?

I don't remember the name of the guy who introduced me to D&D.  It was back in 5th grade, and he came into class clutching a freshly minted copy of Deities and Demigods.  Yeah, the version with Elric and Fafhrd and the whole gang.

My best friend Chris was in the same class, and we kind of knew the guy, but he was a self-important ass.  He was very much the Major Charles Emerson Winchester the Third to our Hawkeye and B.J. Hunnicutt.  However, I was absoluelty facinated by the book and convinced him to let me take it home to read.

I had no real idea what D&D was - and the book certainly had no explanation as how to play.  But here were gods and goddesses and mythical beasts all transcribed into some sort of classfication system that enabled combat between them.  Wow.

That night I sat down and began writing a game around what I thought the book was about.  I figured the game was something like chess, and each character had different moves on a chess board and dice were used to determine which piece won a battle.  I refer to that game now as 'God Chess.'

Eventually I learned more about D&D, but this was my murky and confused introduction.  :)

Oh, my first character?  Zeus, of course.

- Ark

Friday, January 31, 2014

Twinkie Doodle


We went to the animal shelter recently and came back with two rescue cats.  One stayed still long enough for me to draw her.  The Boy named her Twinkie because she is the color of a Twinkie.  But she also goes by Twinker Bell, Stinker Belle, and Hey You Damn Cat.

The other cat, Heidi, hides a lot.  She was pretty feral when they picked her up and is just now learning to play.  String is a big favorite of hers.

So this marks the end of the first month of the A-Doodle-A-Day project.  I'm sure that many of you are tired of being spammed by crappy pictures in your blog-rolls.  I originally set the goal to post a doodle ever day for a year.  It's harder than I had originally thought.  A big pain in the ass.  And the hand.  And exhausting.  So, with that in mind, I've decided to . . . oh hell.  I'll keep on doing it.  I enjoy drawing too much.  In fact, I'm going to make it even more difficult for myself.

How? you may ask.

Well, lemme tell you . . .

I recently noticed that d20 Dark Ages is holding the D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge in February.  It's one of those write a blog post ever day for a month about something kinda things that I've avoided my entire blogging career.  I'm enjoying my own, self-inflicted year-long challenge with the doodles, but I've been worried it's been a bit . . . random . . . in subject matter.  

So, in my ultimate wisdom I decided to participate in the Blog Hop, AND to do a doodle along the same subject as that day's particular blog topic.

What could go wrong????

- Ark

;)

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Elsa Growed Up Doodle


I was drawing Elsa from Frozen and, well, she growed up unexpectedly. :)

- Ark