Castles and Crusades

[Ancalagon]

Yep. I'm gonna have to pick up that bit o' gaming goodness.

[Necron 99]

Not directly game related, but Steve made a cool post on his Troll's Den blog about his recent road trip. Good read about a trip for a good cheese burger.

I love his quote:

Outside of family and close friends, I do not take pleasure in many things. A good book. Finely crafted tv show. Music of many genres. New Mexico. A cold, cold can of Dr. Pepper. And a good cheeseburger.

It made me think of the quote from Thorin: “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
Which in turn, made me rephrase it to fit Steve, lol, "If more of us valued good cheeseburgers and cold Dr. Pepper and role-playing games above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."

There is a lot more to his adventure, including aliens, open spaces, hidden lakes, and of course, a cheeseburger.
You can read it on the blog site: HERE

Something he touches on, though, sparked some memories of my own. Road trips and travel by car. He says:

Enlisting the aid of my youngest son, Wilson, (he is virtual schooled, which gives us this freedom), we planned to set off first of the week.

Monday morning, at 8:30 a.m. saw my old truck heading west on I40 to Oklahoma. Though recent years have seen me a little tired of travel by car, it is such a part of our culture here in the States that it seems almost sacrilegious to travel any other way. The open road, your own space on it, the freedom to go whither you will, makes for a comfort no other mode of transport yields. It’s who we are and I embraced it for the cheeseburger.

I was just thinking the other day about how I miss family road trips. My first Basic Red D&D Box Set was purchased on a road trip that my family would take every year. We'd drive up to Stone Mountain, Ga. in our conversion van, camper in tow, and set up in the park. The days were spent mucking around the park, hiking up to the top of the mountain, just enjoying the vacation out of doors, with family and any friends that we made while at the camp ground. Evenings we'd grill out and watch the laser light show that animated the generals on the mountain and brought them to life, followed by the fireworks.

The local town at the time had a Waldenbooks (still to this day, my favorite chain bookstore), and I always became fascinated with the selection of D&D items on the shelves. After my first run-in with D&D, played by older guys from my church, I really wanted a set of my own. My mom was nice enough to buy the box set for me and I spent the remainder of the trip and the 4 hour ride back home, devouring everything between the covers of the two booklets, eventually rolling up my first few characters. Great times; probably some of the best from my youth.

We did a lot of travel back then, trips out west to see my grandfather in Arizona, trips north to Massachusetts and Wisconsin to see my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Unfortunately as a kid around the age of 10, I had no clue about Gary or Lake Geneva, but one memory I have that has always stuck out in my head, which never made sense until I was old enough to start playing AD&D.

My daughter is 7 this year, she's getting to the age I was when I remember most of the best things about my life back then. I'm guessing it's about time to start some new, old, traditions and see if I can give her the opportunity to have memories similar to mine.

[Ancalagon]

Thorin's quote is always relevant. I seem to find a reason to break it out every few months... usually when societal bullshit starts getting on my nerves again.

I remember hiking up Stone Mountain and watching the laser show. Very cool!

[Necron 99]

Tales from the Table
Steve talks briefly about the positive aspects involving character death, through the retelling of an adventure Davis was running.

[Ancalagon]

That was a good way for a character to go out. Strength and Honor!

[Ancalagon]

Looks like the Trolls are spitting out a new CKG screen: HERE

After much searching, most of it failed, Jason Vey (author of Amazing Adventures and other games by TLG and Nightshift), found us a printer for the Castles & Crusades CK Screens. This iteration will be slightly different that the last couple. It will move away from the heavy board that we have been using and return to a lighter board with UV coating on it. It will be very similar to the origanal C&C screens and those aware of them, the old AD&D screens.

Basically we were the first to put out heavy board screens. Everyone followed and now we are going back!

These will sport some of the old material, but a we think, be even more functional with the content. We've added things like like lodging costs, names, unarmed combat and made the movement rules much easier to digest.

TLG 80126 Interior Screens.jpg

TLG 80126 C&C Outer Screens.jpg

KS launched today:

[Necron 99]

Yep, I'm looking at grabbing a copy of the CK screen, and I need to get a copy of the new Player's Handbook when it's available.

On another cool note for TLG, Steve made a great post over on the TLG Blog. I won't post the entire thing as it's a bit long but here are some highlights:

I have read a great deal about catastrophic delays in the RPG and board game industry, all brought on by the pandemic and the economic turmoil that it caused and/or exasperated. There have been press releases explaining it, kickstarter delays, conferences and so forth. I felt it was high time I let you all know how TLG has and is coping with this. So below is a long note to all those who have so generously supported TLG over these many years as well as the curious viewer, to let you know where we stand and how it has impacted us. You can read the short as desired, or the long, as desired, or skip this and go watch the X Files (I shall try to refrain from discussing the mysterious crash of ’47).

...
The SHORT

We manufacture domestically. The pandemic has had almost no impact on our releases and caused TLG no delays. We offer Veteran discounts and programs and recycle about everything. Any delays and problems have nothing to do with the supply chain, pandemic or any other cause and lie squarely on my desk.

...
Sidenote: And this is important, all the sales reps at these businesses and the owners in several have reached out on numerous occasions to thank us for our business, something they had not done often before. That is telling. And of course, I tell them, they need to thank you guys. You are making all this possible.

...
Wrapping Up

We have 2 outstanding Kickstarters, the Players Handbook, 8th printing which should be shipping to backers in the coming weeks and the NPC Almanac which we hope to have out in December. Beyond that we just launched one this week for the C&C Castle Keepers Screens. All of these, including the screens, are printing domestically and we should see no delays for all the aforementioned reasons. We have all the necessary shipping supplies, from labels to boxes to fulfill all of these without a problem.

It has been a wild and difficult year. Many of us have suffered losses we never wanted to face, nor even thought possible. With a little luck and a lot of hard work, we’ll continue to provide games for your table and fun for your family and in turn you a fueling a whole microcosm of businesses and the people that labor there.

Sincerely. From us here at TLG, and all our suppliers and printers, Thank You.

[Deil the Yin]

Cheers to that! Loving the new 8th Edition cover art/style the more I see it, significantly more than their usual artist, too. Hopefully they have also updated their editing game... I think C&C pales in comparison to D&D5e, but there's definitely a lot of sentimentality for me with this system. It'll be a cool bit of eye candy for ye ol' gaming shelf if nothing else.

Yep. I'm gonna have to pick up that bit o' gaming goodness.

[Ancalagon]

Cheers to that! Loving the new 8th Edition cover art/style the more I see it, significantly more than their usual artist, too. Hopefully they have also updated their editing game... I think C&C pales in comparison to D&D5e, but there's definitely a lot of sentimentality for me with this system. It'll be a cool bit of eye candy for ye ol' gaming shelf if nothing else.

Yep. I'm gonna have to pick up that bit o' gaming goodness.

Emphasis mine.
WHOOOAAAA there!!! Its nice to have high standards but daaay-uumn that might be asking too much!!!

[Deil the Yin]

What can I say...I'm a dreamer.

Cheers to that! Loving the new 8th Edition cover art/style the more I see it, significantly more than their usual artist, too. Hopefully they have also updated their editing game... I think C&C pales in comparison to D&D5e, but there's definitely a lot of sentimentality for me with this system. It'll be a cool bit of eye candy for ye ol' gaming shelf if nothing else.

Yep. I'm gonna have to pick up that bit o' gaming goodness.

Emphasis mine.
WHOOOAAAA there!!! Its nice to have high standards but daaay-uumn that might be asking too much!!!