Oh the good old days...

Doesn't a part of you still yearn for...

...A5(ish) rule books in tiny print with folded card covers? Well, to be honest, at my age I'm not so keen on the tiny print, but the rest? Hell yes!

Nowadays of course, these old rule books look very amateurish. Indeed that's because a lot of them were in fact published by amateurs, or at least semi-professionals. The lovely original Dungeons and Dragons three little brown books, and the first supplements were done this way. Printed professionally but boxed up etc in Mr Gygax's basement. And this was the model for those first role players. Guidon Games and then TSR put their wargames rules books together like this. And there were maybe a dozen or so wargame rules publishers in the UK before that churning out these booklets.

But the spirit isn't dead yet. The do it yourself vibe shifted into 'zines and smaller publishers. Some like Olde House Rules and EMDT positively revel in the nostalgia. Great stuff all of it.

So, next time you have a fabulous idea for your RPG heartbreaker... how are you going to go about it?

Repairing old gaming books

Minor restoration process.

I recently got hold of some Starguard books from 1975(?)ish. Typical of the period they are made from fairly cheap paper with coloured light card as covers. So after nearly fifty years they'd both got a bit dirty with some damage caused by light and they are all a bit loose around the staples. There's not a lot to be done with light damage but on the upside, the dirt doesn't look like grease and the staples haven't rusted too badly

Here is a closer look .  

Here's what I did in order:  

1. Popped them in freezer bags and frozen them for a while. Later I was told my freezer isn't cold enough to kill all the bacteria which was the point of the freezing so, mah.  

2. Brushed the book down with a soft paint brush to remove surface crud.  

3. Carefully removed the staples with a palette knife. I couldn't find my small one so ended up using a cake making one- worked fine!  

4. I took all of the pages out and brushed them down too, especially near the staple fold.  

5. Using a putty rubber (eraser) I carefully and slowly, began removing the dirt on the cover. A putty rubber is good because you can mould it into different shapes to get at difficult areas. I found a stipple action worked well. I had to be very careful along the spine fold as the card was deteriorating.  

6. I reversed the cover and used document repair tape (sometimes sold as Librarian's Tape) to reinforce the spine. This tape is acid free and doesn't go brittle with age and the light. It's got a thin strip down the middle so that when you have removed the backing, you can see through the tape and place it very accurately. Once that's done you remove the backing from each side (one at a time) and press down with the palette knife to get rid of wrinkles or bubbles.  

7. I did the same with the centre pages of the booklet because it was here where the staples had caused small tears.  

8. I then used a WHITE plastic eraser (not a cheapo one nor a coloured one) to clean the larger areas of the cover.  

9. Finally I reassembled the booklet and restapled it with my long arm stapler.

It's not perfect. Some discolouration is impossible to fix. However, they are much better than before and I'm not longer worried about the covers coming off during use.

News from Tekumel

Victor Raymond of the Tekumel Foundation, those trusty guardians of the Empire of the Petal recently announced a major release for the venerable RPG:

"The Tékumel Foundation is pleased to announce the release of the first Blue Room Anthology - Tékumel: Temples & Gods!

The Blue Room Anthologies are reproductions of the "netbook" articles once available through The Blue Room discussion forum, dedicated to the World of Tékumel. Grouped by theme, the Blue Room Anthologies provide easy access to print copies of important sources of information about Tékumel.

Tékumel: Temples & Gods is the first Blue Room Anthology; it is a facsimile reproduction of the netbook articles written about the temples, gods, and theologies of the Empire of the Petal Throne.

Tékumel: Temples & Gods is not intended as a replacement for Mitlanyal, the compendium of all of the temples of Pavar's Pantheon. Rather, it is a precursor to Mitlanyal, and should assist anyone interested in understanding the roles of the gods in the world of Tékumel".

The Universal Fantasy Supplement

Calling All Grogs, especially those from San Francisco!

I'd like some info about The Universal Fantasy Supplement by Clint Bigglestone, friend to the gaming stars of 1970s California. It's not so well known, I'm guessing because actually it's a wargaming supplement. I think it was designed to add a generic Chainmail Fantasy Appendix to other ancient and medieval wargames rules around at the time. It's not a big book, about 32 pages. As far as I can tell there are twenty or so monster types with statistics which use general wargaming tropes (eg. treat as Light Infantry) as well as a tabletop magic system and several different kinds of Magic-User. I'm trying to find a copy and when (if) I do, I'm going to expand this post.

The Palace of the Vampire Queen, Part 4

The Palace of the Vampire Queen lives on...  

There are versions of this classic adventure available from Precis Intermedia Games and from Pacesetter Games.

Pacesetter Games have expanded the original dungeon and have just released Level Four and are calling it *Wicked Whispers*.. The pdf only version is £8. I'm not endorsing it as I haven't read it, but I think it's great that there are legs in this old game left.