On paint

I don't have enough colors so I want to buy a huge paint-set thingy. I knew it was time for an upgrade from Citadel paints, but I wasn't sure what brand to go to. So I bought a few Reaper paints and a few Vallejo paints to give them a try. Both of these come in droppers instead of paint pots and have a good reputation (and cost a little more than Citadel paints). I tested them alongside the Citadel paints on a Reaper Bones model. I liked the Reaper paints, they went on a bit more cleanly than the Citadel paints and the droppers are nice. The Vallejo paints are awesome. They go on in a smooth, even coating layer and practically cling to the model.

Provisional list of skills

Basically the list of skills I might include, cobbled together from various sources and my imagination along with a few notes. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Artistry

Athletics

Trade and appraisal

Combat (melee - maybe heavy and light separate?, missile, thrown, unarmed) – not sure if I want to include this aspect from SWN. But I thought I'd at least consider it.

Armor (heavy, light, unarmored) these wouldd probably give some sort of bonus for skill (not necessarily AC)

Culture adventurer/criminal/region/race, culture adventurer might include: how to get along in a variety of cultures, and basic adventuring skills: lighting fires, riding a horse (out of combat), appraising common goods, recognizing common monsters.

Gambling

History (probably not available to most PCs)

Instructor

Language

Leadership

Navigation

Listening

Profession (whatever trade you can think of!)

Religion (probably not available to most PCs)

Science & mathematics

Security

Stealth

Steward

Survival

Tactics

Engineering

Tech (primitive, arcane) – contemporary technology would be covered under other skills or the relevant profession

Riding

Sailing and boating

Healing

Animal handling

Poison use

Sleight of hand

Tinkering

I'm not dead yet!

But you might think my blog is.

But no! It returns from the grave! Skip to the bottom if you don't want to read personal ramblings and just want some cold hard analysis on PoD providers.

September and October are crazy months in my profession under normal circumstances (guess what I do). I started a new job this year. So yeah. No blogging happened.

What did happen though was Swords & Wizardry. I formed a new group and we have been playing Swords & Wizardry biweekly with fair consistency. The players have nearly completed The Tomb of the Iron God and some of them are level 2. We have had only a few PC deaths but many hireling deaths. It's been a blast and I will be posting some thoughts based on honest to goodness play sometime soon.

Other projects (magic realm and fantasy SWN skills) are not dead or forgotten just on hiatus.

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It's been just over a year since I first became aware of the OSR movement and realized I was not the only one who felt that modern D&D was an abomination. It is also just over a year since I bought my first PoD books from Lulu - Labyrinth Lord and Stonehell. I have bought many (too many probably) OSR products since and have developed some clear preferences.

The two main providers of print on demand for OSR products are RPGnow and Lulu. RPGnow usually includes free pdfs which is nice. But the Lulu books are much better. If you compare for example the softcover I have of Barrowmaze I with my Stonehell softcover, the Stonehell is easily the superior book. (better paper, better binding, cover is better material). Likewise, compare my Labyrinth Lord hardcovers with my Barrowmaze II hardcover (sorry Barrowmaze), again the Lulu books are made with better materials and are better constructed. While I am generally pleased with the content of books I have bought from RPGnow, the books themselves are inevitably a little disappointing.

Upshot: my recommendation would be buy from Lulu unless you really care about PDFs. I have also heard that Lulu has ridiculous shipping fees for outside of the US. That would also be a good reason (provided that RPGnow is better, I have no idea).