I've been doing a lot of work, research, writing and organizing on:
animal bite forces, sizes, weights, senses, abilities
diets, care, space, speed, burdens, abilities for horses (need to do dogs, birds, tigers, bears)
I realized that in the Solomon Kane game I run, and others, I've had people with either just trained animals or pets, or actual NPC allies which they've even turned into sidekicks (NPCs that can gain levels like PCs), but I have little or no real support or treatment of how these are to be treated or used in play, or what other features they may have outside of "monster manual"/bestiary stats, and that needs to change.
Also:
medieval measurements: linear (ancient measures: fingers, cubits, roods, perchates, chains)
medieval measurements: area (acres, hides, baronies, manors, etc)
deep settlement (village/city) creation and development, including land features (water, arability, resources)
deconstructing the Solomon Kane plot hooks, to add to an adventure generator to produce a very involve level of detailed elements from which to create new adventures, using randomness/die rolls
putting hopefully 3+ adventures together to sell on an rpg site
This Table Scraps is a retrospective look back and review of the 1985 board game, WWF Wrestling Stars Game, before they were even called Superstars, from the Hulk Hogan era, or heyday and genesis of professional wrestling's soaring popularity in the mainstream. Unlike most of the other Abstruse Decapod videos, this actually has live camera video, rather than screen capture, as we rummage through what is left of this board game from over 20 years ago.
As a special bonus, various images, including the board, rules, all the wrestler cards and stand-up pawn miniatures with full body photos of the wrestlers, are all available for free download as an historical curiosity of trivia, for those interested in seeing a genuine relic from the hazy past of pro wrestling, the WWF and board games.
As of 2012, the standard WWE ring is one of the largest, dimensions-wise.
"Ring Size": 20 x 20 feet mat area (measured between the turnbuckles)
Ring Apron: 1 foot beyond ropes
Turnbuckle to Post: 12-18 inches from ropes
Turnbuckle Pad: padded coverings bound over steel rope-anchoring turnbuckles
Total Ring Floor Area: 20' x 20' + 1' x 1' = 21 x 21 feet
Mat Height: 4-6 feet from floor, 4.5' average
Rope Heights: average 1, 3 and 5 feet from mat (1.5 to 2 feet between ropes)
Rope Dimensions: at least 1 inch diameter, 60-80 feet per rope (15-20' per side)
Number of Ropes: 3 top to bottom, 3 per side, usually 12 tightened segments
Rope Material: rope (as opposed to cables used by some companies)
Mat Material: padding, heavy Canvas, plywood, steel Crossbeams and wires
Ring Posts: heavy-duty material, usually metal, 9-10 feet tall, 3+ inches diameter
Total Ring Height: 10 feet from floor to top of post, 9.5 feet from floor to top t.b.
Congratulations to Barack Obama for being re-elected as President of the United States of America, for his second term, in November of 2012. Also congratulations to "Flaghair Lady" for becoming an instant meme for wearing a flag in her hair and positioning herself directly behind the president in camerashot throughout his entire speech. She is going to have more fame than she will ever wish. I will help start us off.
Flaghair Lady for President 2016! I love you Flaghair Lady! I will vote for you!
I posted a small slideshow type video of "scary images" and a text to speech voice reading HP Lovecraft's poem, "Nemesis" to Youtube, in honor of the spooky season. Enjoy!
Thro’ the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
Past the wan-moon’d abysses of night,
I have liv’d o’er my lives without number,
I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.
I have whirl’d with the earth at the dawning,
When the sky was a vaporous flame;
I have seen the dark universe yawning,
Where the black planets roll without aim;
Where they roll in their horror unheeded, without knowledge or lustre or name.
I had drifted o’er seas without ending,
Under sinister grey-clouded skies
That the many-fork’d lightning is rending,
That resound with hysterical cries;
With the moans of invisible daemons that out of the green waters rise.
I have plung’d like a deer thro’ the arches
Of the hoary primoridal grove,
Where the oaks feel the presence that marches
And stalks on where no spirit dares rove;
And I flee from a thing that surrounds me, and leers thro’ dead branches above.
I have stumbled by cave-ridden mountains
That rise barren and bleak from the plain,
I have drunk of the fog-foetid fountains
That ooze down to the marsh and the main;
And in hot cursed tarns I have seen things I care not to gaze on again.
I have scann’d the vast ivy-clad palace,
I have trod its untenanted hall,
Where the moon writhing up from the valleys
Shews the tapestried things on the wall;
Strange figures discordantly woven, which I cannot endure to recall.
I have peer’d from the casement in wonder
At the mouldering meadows around,
At the many-roof’d village laid under
The curse of a grave-girdled ground;
And from rows of white urn-carven marble I listen intently for sound.
I have haunted the tombs of the ages,
I have flown on the pinions of fear
Where the smoke-belching Erebus rages,
Where the jokulls loom snow-clad and drear:
And in realms where the sun of the desert consumes what it never can cheer.
I was old when the Pharaohs first mounted
The jewel-deck’d throne by the Nile;
I was old in those epochs uncounted
When I, and I only, was vile;
And Man, yet untainted and happy, dwelt in bliss on the far Arctic isle.
Oh, great was the sin of my spirit,
And great is the reach of its doom;
Not the pity of Heaven can cheer it,
Nor can respite be found in the tomb:
Down the infinite aeons come beating the wings of unmerciful gloom.
Thro’ the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
Past the wan-moon’d abysses of night,
I have liv’d o’er my lives without number,
I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright
I have consolidated a large number of weather-related charts into one image, which may help people educate themselves to some degree, about tornadoes, hurricanes, wind, wave heights and other related information.
Welcome to Abstruse Decapod's Tabletop RPG Debris; the retrospective that takes a look at obscure and homebrew role-playing games you either might have never heard of, or which have simply been lost to time - sometimes with good reason.
Alright, well, let me get this out of the way. I was never a fan of Bill and Ted or Wayne's World - in fact, I can't honestly say I have seen either all the way through, with certainty ... and I have no immediate plans to remedy that. I just don't like the type of humor that these movies, and shows like them, tend to rely on. Like Napoleon Dynamite, they have a number of quotable lines, and that's great, and I know many people of all ages enjoy these movies - but not me. Maybe it's because I never knew anyone like any of the people in the movies, therefore can't identify with any character whatsoever.
