stratochamp wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:Merry Christmas everybody!

Merry Christmas!

Ha! Nice ornament =)

--Thor

Turn your Roomba's travels into 'Doom' maps
"Game developer Rich Whitehouse has found a rather unusual way to celebrate Doom's 25th anniversary: make your robot vacuum pay tribute. The industry veteran has developed a script for the game data conversion tool Noesis that translates the floor maps from Roombas to playable maps for the original Doom -- yes, of course it's called Doomba. You'll have to specifically record the robot's journeys for this to work (you can merge files if the run is interrupted), but it can otherwise whip up a hellish version of your home with minimal effort."

I think there's a Knights-of-the-Dinner-Table story of a novice DM who improvises dungeons from the floorplan of his own house. I guess the manufacturers of this product figure that if you're too lazy to vacuum, you're too lazy to create maps for games.

Happy Boxing Day! (Unless you feel culturally marginalized because of heritage from a part of the world that has not yet discovered the technology of boxes or other containers, in which case, Happy Holidays!)

Wishing you all a belated Happy Holidays and hopes that you have a Great New Year!

I know this video has been around a while, but I have always wondered, how did Jon acquire all these amazing artifacts and inside history/knowledge? Was he best friends with Gary or Dave?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EVQsIETO_A

--Thor

haha, thanks Jon, was wondering if you were going to see the post and respond. Your articles and videos are truly awesome and informative and I even find myself going back and reading/watching them multiple times due to it being so packed full of information.

Great stuff, keep it coming!

--Thor

I am sorry to hear this stratochamp, I have a few Mayfair things and am grieved about hearing another passing of those within the industry.  Enjoy life people.  Now for a quote from Criswell...

"The future is where we spend the rest of our lives".  Here's to a good future to all those on the Acaeum!

I read all eleven books in the John Carter of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  It's classic science fiction fantasy with a Star Wars vibe.  It's an idea mine for D&D scenarios, monsters, and weapons.  What surprised me most was that the first book was published in 1912, because he includes many technologies not present in that day and age, like autopilot, the transplanting of major organs, artificial hearts, pneumatic tube transport systems, aircraft carriers, solar energy, one-man flying machines (Equibilibrimotors), flying taxis, guided missiles, altitude ranging sonar, surveillance cameras, and copy machines.  He also includes some technologies we still don't have like invisibility paint, invisibility pills, Nerve Index Machines (which record the nerve patterns/matrix of each person which can then be used to track them), the Magnetic tower of Kadabra (which is such a powerful magnet that any aircraft within a mile or so will be sucked in and destroyed), astral projection, synthetic men, and anti-gravity ray devices.

There are numerous races described in the series.  There are green men, red men, yellow men, black men, and more.  The most interesting to me were the keldanes who look like grotesque heads with spider legs.  They breed human-looking bodies, that have a hole in their torso where normally a head and neck would be.  They are able to extend their legs into the hole, tap into the spinal nerves and control the body.  This allows them to exchange bodies if they are damaged or become old.

There are numerous monsters described like white apes which have two legs and four arms; banths which are like ten-legged lions; tharks, the green men of mars with two legs and four arms; apts, which are huge white, six-legged, bug-eyed predators; calots, which is a ten-legged lizard that acts like a guard dog; malagors, huge birds which can be ridden by humanoids; and thoats, which are a cross between a camel and a huge hippo used for transportation.

There are excellent web-sites with additional articles, links, and art to all things John Carter.
John Carter of Mars Official Site from Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., Tarzana, California
Encyclopedia Barsoomia Wiki | FANDOM powered by Wikia

There are rpgs based around these worlds, one which came out recently by Modiphius, and another produced by Heritage Models, Inc. in 1978 as a 64-page book which didn't get good reviews (it uses "princess points!").  Heritage also created and sold miniatures for that game.  Of course, Warriors of Mars, was produced by TSR back in 1974.  Gary Gygax and Brian Blume created this without permission from the Burroughs' estate, and were almost immediately told to cease printing and selling these books.  By today's standards it is not particularly well written, organized, or illustrated.  It's not so much an rpg book as a wargame/reference. A simple web search can find a pdf of this publication.  This publication reveals however, how inspirational these books were to EGG and early gamers.

Some books are better than others.  Overall, the farther along you go, the quality goes down.  Each is relatively short averaging about 200 pages each.  I should have read these books years ago.  They aren't as good as Michael Moorcock, Tolkien, and many others, but they aren't a waste of time.  It's a bonus that all of them can be procured cheaply.  I was able to get the last eight books of the series in Disney Edition compilations for about $10 including shipping!  If you haven't read these foundational books, I recommend them.  

stratochamp wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:Books 1-3 are the best followed by 4, 5 and 10.
I can't believe you hadn't read these before Chris, were you living on Sasoom?

I am embarrassed that I haven't read them sooner. Twenty plus years ago I took it upon myself to read many of the books from Appendix N. This was after I had already read books by CS Lewis and Tolkien. I read Poul Anderson's the Three Hearts and Three Lions; Fritz Leiber's the "Fafhrd & Gray Mouser" series; Michael Moorcock's STORMBRINGER series; books by Fred Saberhagen; books by Jack Vance like The Dragon Masters; and Roger Zelazny's "Amber" series. I then read Stephen Donaldson's White Gold Wielder series, some Shannara books by Terry Brooks, a bunch of Camber series books by Katherine Kurtz, a bunch of Xanth books by Piers Anthony, and the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, plus a bunch more. I say all that to say I feel pretty well read overall, but I do wish I had read them sooner. They are truly foundational and inspired.