I had no idea SJG had done a licensed sourcebook for Andre Norton‘s excellent Witch World series. It feels awesome to crack open a book from 1989 — my salad years as a gamer — that I’d never heard of until recently, based on a universe I enjoy, for a game system I enjoy. I’ve […]
One of the joys of having no posting schedule and, let’s be honest, a very small audience, is that I don’t feel any pressure to post. Usually when Yore is quiet I’m up to a bunch of stuff and just don’t have anything to say. How about a quick round-up of the Yore-adjacent stuff? Reading
Quietly reading and playing Read More »
Any attempt to read Appendix N is necessarily going to involve some interpretation. If Gary just listed an author’s name and nothing else, how many of their works should you read? And which ones? How literally do you take “et al”? If Gary listed a book in the middle of the series, do you backtrack
Some thoughts on reading Appendix N Read More »
Since I decided to get back to reading Appendix N back in October 2024, I’ve had a great time tracking down old paperbacks and reading books. The mental shift to this being something I can do as much or as little of as I like, however I like, has been great. I’m currently chipping away
Ticking along on Appendix N Read More »
I took stock of all of my Appendix N reading to date, which entailed a mix of staring off into space, combing my shelves, and blowing the dust off my long-dormant Goodreads account. Of the 29 authors in Appendix N (well, 28 plus an editor), I have: I made it further than I thought back
Cataloging my Appendix N reading Read More »
Back in 2012, as my interest in old-school D&D was returning and flourishing, I started a project to read all of Gary Gygax’s famous Appendix N. I came up with a detailed plan, researched and assembled a 100-book Appendix N reading list that included recommendations for those authors whose works Gary didn’t note by title
Returning to Appendix N (vewy vewy quietly) Read More »
It’s 1977. D&D is wild and wonderful and everyone’s doing their own thing. So much so, in fact, that in that same year two people published alternate versions of one of the core mechanics of old-school D&D: earning XP for treasure. In 1977, Dave Arneson, co-creator of D&D, and Jon Pickens, who later became an
Debauchery & Dragons: Carousing for XP, 1977 to 2015 Read More »
My high school girlfriend introduced me to the Amber series back in the early 1990s, and shortly thereafter to Amber Diceless Role-Playing (paid link), the RPG based on the books. Zelazny, like a lot of Appendix N authors, writes with economy and punch. Nine Princes in Amber grabbed me with its opening sentence, “It was starting
Reading Appendix N: The Chronicles of Amber, by Roger Zelazny Read More »
Martin Brown from Grognard Games produced a great short video introduction to Appendix N, the influence the works therein in had on D&D — from thieves and paladins to plane-hopping and alignment — and the inspiration those works can provide today. It’s a bit surreal for me, though: He’s called Martin as well, and is
Grognard Games’ introduction to Appendix N Read More »
I finished Fritz Leiber’s The Swords of Lankhmar this morning — my 20th Appendix N book. I’m not a fast reader, or perhaps more accurately I’m not a hurried reader, so tackling all 100 books of Appendix N is going to take me a while. “Swords” took longer than the other Lankhmar books to date
Appendix N: 20 down, 80 to go Read More »
