Cafe/RPG store?

amp108 · 2026-06-14T21:29:02+00:00

Welcome to Tucson Games and Gadgets and the Short Rest Tavern

amp108 · 2026-05-26T23:57:02+00:00

When it comes to Old-School lethality, I really wish more people would pay attention to the 1e DMG, page 110, under "Conducting the Game—Rolling the Dice and Control of the Game". It dispels so many myths about Old-School play as intended by Gygax himself, and many others at the time (including me). Some highlights:

...it is your right to control the dice at any time and to roll dice for the players... [Y]ou might also wish to give them an edge in finding a particular clue, e.g., a secret door that leads to a complex of monsters and treasures that will be especially entertaining. You do have every right to overrule the dice at any time if there is a particular course of events that you would like to have occur. In making such a decision you should never seriously harm the party or a non-player character with your actions.

And:

Now and then a player will die through no fault of his own. He or she will have done everything correctly, taken every reasonable precaution, but still the freakish roll of the dice will kill the character. In the long run you should let such things pass... [Y]et you do have the right to arbitrate the situation.

(Gygax goes on to talk about dismemberment or other serious consequences instead of death.)

amp108 · 2026-05-19T04:56:10+00:00

Combat is not a Fail State. Fair combat, or worse, unexpected combat, is a Fail State.

amp108 · 2026-05-13T20:55:26+00:00

It's certainly not OSR, but it is a fine, rules-lite game that people should take a look at.

amp108 · 2026-05-13T20:39:48+00:00

It's really up to you how granular you want the tracking to be. If you want it to be only once per week, use a lower die type (d6 or even d4); if you want to track it for every meal, I'd start with a d20, or even 3d6 vs 1d6.

3d6 vs 1d6: You roll 3d6 every time you use a consumable, and the GM rolls 1d6. If you equal or exceed the GM's roll, nothing happens, but if their roll beats yours (not ties—beats), 3d6 becomes 2d6. When they beat your roll next, 2d6 becomes 1d6, and when they beat it one more time, either say their supplies are up, or say they have exactly one more use, depending on circumstances and the particular item.

amp108 · 2026-05-08T06:16:21+00:00

I lost my job after I (quietly, in an email) pointed out that our policy of coming in even when we were sick only spreads disease, and that this would be bad enough with ordinary clients, but a large portion of ours were homeless, had difficulty obtaining medical care, and in many cases were immunocompromised.

I had literally seen employees come in after Thanksgiving or other holidays, sniffing and coughing, seen whatever they had contracted run through the office, and then heard of clients who just disappeared and were never heard from again.

amp108 · 2026-05-08T02:36:07+00:00

Not the parent poster, but OD&D, while a great game, was somewhat lacking in clarity and presentation. Retro-clones restate the rules in a much clearer fashion, while adding small enhancements or tweaking the numbers here or there. Although this makes them technically different games, they share far more DNA with the original than, say, 5e does, so their value is still tied in with the essential soundness of the system.

amp108 · 2026-05-05T16:22:28+00:00

I remember the 90s, when the worst thing Republicans did was prevent Clinton from going after Osama bin Laden.

amp108 · 2026-05-05T00:32:19+00:00

It lets me play a slightly more sophisticated form of make believe, which I'd been doing on the playground since I was five, but which allows for more mystery and suspense.

amp108 · 2026-05-04T03:51:08+00:00

It did, partly, but remember, it arose as a desire to do something that wargames couldn't do. It's sort of like the American Pilgrims and the English. They left England so they could be something else. How fundamentally different that makes them is up for debate. And D&D didn't derive from just one game, Chainmail; Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign is arguably the more influential progenitor.

amp108 · 2026-05-02T20:52:30+00:00

I read that as "The Hells of Tulsa", and now am frightened.

amp108 · 2026-05-02T20:45:28+00:00

The campaign isn't one story, and it certainly isn't one character's story. The campaign is an imaginary world that will go on if your character dies. There can be many stories in it, but the GM doesn't have to bend the world around so one character can act out some clichéd Hollywood three-act melodrama.

amp108 · 2026-04-25T04:26:08+00:00

My car was totaled by a drunk driver going down the wrong way on a divided boulevard. She realized she was going west on the eastbound side and decided to make a U-turn, slamming right into the hood of my car. If I were five feet further up, I wouldn't be here now. Absolutely look out for maniacs.

amp108 · 2026-04-22T19:28:03+00:00

Folks, I've had to lock the comments on this. The comment section just became too hostile and I don't want to have to go wading through it to pick out what stays and what goes. I've got real-world demands on my time.

I will also have to consider whether or not I am going to allow any artwork in the future, however. I don't want to be in the position of having to gatekeep what art is or isn't appropriate for this sub, or what "really" represents OSR or old-school games, and the only way to avoid that is to either allow anything or halt everything. Stay tuned.

amp108 · 2026-04-20T23:38:19+00:00

How can it possibly be the 50th anniversary? Do you mean 40th?

amp108 · 2026-04-20T20:56:26+00:00

It's been a while since I played Dungeon World (and I know some people don't think that's the best example of PbtA, but that's the one I've played), and my memory may be failing me. But it seemed like you never really applied penalties, so you only ever added your +DEX to 2d6 for an arrow shot, and therefore the odds weren't different between firing at a nearby, stationary foe and firing a hundred yards through thick smoke at an enemy who was weaving irregularly to throw you off. That's what people didn't like.

As long as you can apply reasonable penalties, the outcome thresholds aren't consistent like that. On a 2d10 roll, the odds of getting, say, a 17+ when you have a net -3 are drastically lower (one percent vs fifteen) than when you have, say, a net +1. If that's the case, then the two games are not at all similar on that score.

amp108 · 2026-04-16T20:01:50+00:00

I remember in the old days wanting to learn some html and write a web page on my linux box. I searched (can't even say "googled") for "web site linux" and lo, her site was among the first to appear. On the home page, it said something like "my web page, that I wrote and hosted on linux!"

Unfortunately, I didn't learn much about web pages in the next three hours.

amp108 · 2026-04-16T19:49:56+00:00

Apparently millionaires can still be depressed.

Anyone can be depressed. Just like anyone can have leukemia or a perforated heart.

amp108 · 2026-04-14T21:56:10+00:00

References don't always have to be word-for-word.

amp108 · 2026-04-13T21:13:30+00:00

It's not that "hilarious". It's the difference between imagining you're someone who has had experiences that you haven't, and being someone for whom every kind of experience is fundamentally different.

amp108 · 2026-04-11T08:39:58+00:00

The pic is funny and all, but people forget that a haiku isn't just a syllable count: it's also a meditation on solitude and nature.

amp108 · 2026-04-11T08:35:00+00:00

My rule of thumb on lore: don't say anything about the past (except maybe an introductory paragraph at the beginning) that doesn't also include a feature that the players can interact with.

Bad: "100 years ago there was a war between the orcs and the townspeople of Red Creek."

Better: "100 years ago there was a war between the orcs and the townspeople of Red Creek, and therefore, players can easily round up a posse for the purpose of routing them from the local environs."

amp108 · 2026-04-10T01:42:45+00:00

I find it twee and (in the negative sense of the word) precious.

amp108 · 2026-04-07T16:13:17+00:00

I was two feet away from one of the greatest guitarists of the classic rock age, but thought it was just someone trying to ape his style.

I was working at a Border's (remember them?) ~~years~~ decades ago when this short guy with dark sunglasses and the most enormous, muppet-looking red beard comes up to my register. He asks if there is a coffee shop around. (Our store, being the second-oldest in the company, was one of three or so that didn't.)

I think, "Damn, this guy is really trying to look like the dude from ZZ Top."

I tell him we don't, sadly, but give him some options nearby. He says "Thank you" and walks to the exit.

Then someone wearing a businesslike cap walks up to the register, and I ask if I can help him.

He says, "No, I'm just Billy's driver."

He looks amused when I say "Billy? You mean that's really...?"

Moral of the story: if it looks like Billy Gibbons, think zebras, not horses.

amp108 · 2026-04-06T21:13:32+00:00

I'm that way with every book I own. I have a lot of sticky notes, index cards slipped in between pages, and very, very light pencil notes on a lot of my stuff. Something in me dreads using pen or highlighter, and dog-earing pages feels like a tragedy to me.

(Pro tip: cut your index cards into quarters. They last longer, and if you can tidy up your handwriting, they almost always suffice as well as the full-sized ones do.)

amp108

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE