50 Years of Dungeons & Dragons -- Play!

 And so, as others have mentioned, we come to the end of the first 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons.

How to celebrate, you ask?

Play.

Play Dungeons & Dragons.

Play your favorite iteration with your family, friends, or strangers.

Play and have fun.

What about how those other folks over there are playing Dungeons & Dragons?

Doesn't matter.

But...

NO. It does not matter.

You play your Dungeons & Dragons.

And if you and your family, friends, and strangers are having fun?

Then you are playing it right.

And don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Play.

The End

In January of 2011 I launched a new blog, this blog, Adventures in Gaming version 2.

I had had several blogs before this one, most notably of course, Adventures in Gaming, not to mention other side blogs, including James Mishler Games. For various reasons over the years, they all were shut down or fell by the wayside.

This blog marks an era where I fully re-entered blogging and later re-entered self-publishing, and tracks developments in my gaming and publishing life for more than 12 years.

But now this blog, and my blogging, comes to an end.

For a long time now, this blog has devolved into just a place to stick notes about my various campaigns and pimp my various publications. I’ve not had anything new or interesting to say about games for an age or two. I am not alone in this. Once, blogging was an easy, breezy way to share ideas about games, discuss the history of games, and generally get to better grok games.

Now, at best, it seems a pointless chore. I have nothing more to say. I no longer have the time or energy to post about such games as I do run or play in, and my publications on DriveThruRPG are, well, to be found there far more easily than any sort of post to this or any other blog.

And so, I am officially ending this blog, as well as the James Mishler Games blog. They will remain up, for some time at least, as I have no reason to take them down. That may change if policing attempts to post spam comments becomes bothersome.

As mentioned, you can find new James Mishler Games Shadowdark and eventually, Labyrinth Lord 2^nd Edition products, on DriveThruRPG.

If the last 40-some years have taught me anything, it is that nothing ever remains the same, everything always changes. So eventually, I might return to blogging. If I do, I will post a link to my new blog here.

If, and until then, good gaming!

Intermittent Activity Warning

Well, the Shadowdark Kickstarter was an amazing success, and I am eager to get my books – I went all in with the Crawling Group level, so that the players in any group I run will have everything at their fingertips. The PDFs are all amazing, but I’m still old school when it comes to having the real deal and can’t wait to get my hands on that premium basilisk-skin tome!

One thing the success of the Kickstarter has created is an amazing mass of new Shadowdark players and hopeful publishers. It seems something new is coming out every day now. Lots of new designers who are eager to show the world what they have to offer.

I think for now I’m going to sit back and enjoy reading the works of others, rather than diving right in and adding more to the corpus of Shadowdark third-party works. I want to see what others have to offer, before dive back in. Dan Proctor continues to work on Second Edition Labyrinth Lord, so it is also a wait and see on that still, as well.

A few stupid hiccups aside, Hasbro remains quiescent on the OGL front. So, I’m leaving the existing OGL products up for now. Hasbro can change its mind on that as quickly as a Pinkerton can kick in a door, so make sure you’ve downloaded all my products you have purchased and saved them on backups.

It is back onto hiatus I go. I’ve been reading some books and comic books and watching a bunch of movies. Just enjoying leisure again, rather than pounding madly at a keyboard like a man possessed. I suppose it is because right now gaming sessions have been few and far between. Maybe once I get back to gaming more regularly, I will again feel the need to pour words into a computer and share them.

We shall see. Until then good gaming!

[Shadowdark] The Shadowdark RPG Kickstarter is Live!

The Kickstarter for the Shadowdark RPG by The Arcane Library is now live!

Click here to go to the Shadowdark Kickstarter.

This is the best new RPG since Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons.

It is the perfect expression of Old School feel with Modern RPG system design.

Check out those simple stat blocks!

Check out the AMAZING stuff you can get out of the gate with the Kickstarter!

There is already a bunch of support for Shadowdark by Third Party Publishers, and the Shadowdark 3PP License is simple, easy, royalty-free, and IRREVOCABLE.

I've already published three supplements and an adventure for Shadowdark... click here to check them out!

[Announcement] James Mishler Games Extended Hiatus & End of the OGL Sale

UPDATE: With Hasbro's apparent change of heart, I am at this point reconsidering removing my products from DriveThruRPG. That will depend on further developments. I will not be satisfied that this is all irrevocably resolved until they release OGL 1.0b, properly adding the term "irrevocably" and properly excising the term "authorized." At that point I will consider everything properly finished to my satisfaction for the protection of all OGL products. 

In any case, I still have to wait and see what shakes out with Labyrinth Lord and Shadowdark and other games and Open Licenses and whatnot before I decide how to move forward.

Until then, the 23% off sale continues as planned. Barring another reversal of Hasbro's decision, my existing products will remain available until further notice.

After much consideration, I have decided that the simplest course forward after the OGL Debacle is to simply purge James Mishler Games of all products, go on hiatus, and return when the whole situation clears up.

I have no desire to publish new products for game lines that might be forced to disappear overnight.

I have no desire to support games that were designed to support earlier versions of games that Hasbro still owns.

Don’t get me wrong; I still love BX Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and the Labyrinth Lord/Advanced Labyrinth Lord games that were developed to support those lines.

I will never stop playing them… probably in the Advanced Labyrinth Lord format, as that is closest to how I originally played the game.

But I cannot support them anymore.

Dan Proctor is working on a new edition of an OGL-less Labyrinth Lord. I will always support Dan with his endeavors.

Kelsey Dionne is working on an updated OGL-less Shadowdark RPG. I will always support Kelsey and her work.

If possible, I will support both games with published products.

But my current product lines are going away.

I am not going to wait until Hasbro decides what to finally do with “OGL” 2.0-whatever. I have no desire to follow all the malarky anymore. They are going to do whatever they want to do, right or wrong, moral or immoral, ethical or unethical, legal or illegal, fans, long-term viability, and simple common sense be damned.

I’m just done.

The JMG End of the OGL 23% Sale Off resumes on Friday, January 27th, and will run through Friday, February 24th. 

The sale might end sooner if Hasbro puts out the new “OGL” before then.

Everything comes down that weekend. 

Everything.

All my products on DriveThruRPG. Everything, including all maps. Everything will be deleted from their system. I’m just going to purge it all and start anew.

I will have something new. A placeholder, to keep JMG active on the site.

But otherwise, everything will be completely gone. 

This is the absolute last chance to buy anything JMG from the OGL era. 

This will be your last chance to download anything you have bought.

I will also be deleting all my Dungeons & Dragons, OGL, Labyrinth Lord, and Shadowdark-related entries on my personal and company blogs. Gone.

I will return to blogging sooner than later, and once things shake out for the new Labyrinth Lord and Shadowdark and other Open License Games, I will return to publishing. That might be three months, six months, probably a year on the outside. I will be happy to support them and other RPGs that pique my interest and have a true Open Gaming License. 

I will never support Hasbro or Dungeons & Dragons again. 

They get nothing from me. Nothing. Nada. Nix. Niente.

Not so much as a bent copper.

No more print books, no more classic PDFs from Wizards. No collectibles. I will not go to the movie, and I will not watch the streaming show.

I have been a hard-core Dungeons & Dragons fan for more than 40 years. My entire adult life, my career, was chosen because of the love of games that was inspired by Dungeons & Dragons. I met most of my friends through games. I met my wife because I got a job in gaming.

For 40 years, I have been a walking, talking advertisement for Dungeons & Dragons.

But no more.

Dungeons & Dragons is dead to me.

Long live Open Gaming.

Long reign the Age of the ORC.