Reflections on Stranger Things - II

Continuing the Stranger Things theme and digging out stuff from the back of the closet -

Like the sister in Stranger Things, I too had a Trapper Keeper notebook. It was green. Inside was a blue folder (along with other colored folders). It held the D&D stuff. (The other folders held mundane things like math and english assignments. 

I kept some of the original stuff. When we first played D&D, it was the boxed beginners set with the blue rule book. We did not have figures or fancy dice. We used paper cups filled with little chits of paper for our non-d6 dice roles; a d4 cup with four little pieces of paper numbered 1 through 4; a d20 with 20 chits.

Character sheets were hand-written affairs. Some of my adventure notes were typed on a manual Smith-Corona typewriter. 

Battles took place in our heads or on graph paper. A copy of an early conflict is on the left in the picture below. On the right are variations of Tolkien's Elvish runes. I thought they were cool. 

So yea. I saw the Trapper Keeper notebook in Stranger Things and am reminded of my 80s. I remember getting my hands on the original Monster Manual from a classmate and using lunch time to copy as many of the creatures as I could onto paper. No xerox or scanning. Good ole' #2 pencil and loose leaf paper. And then, Friday night, we fought them! 

More Steve Jackson Games - Cthulhu Lives!

Last week I mentioned how we bought some games while on vacation in Boston.  Along with Zombie Dice, we purchased "Cthulu Dice".  It is another simple dice game (die game actually - is that a pun?).  In this game, each player picks a target player and tries to curse him in an attempt to steal their sanity.  Sanity is measured with little glass stones.  When only one person has any sanity left, he is the winner.  If everyone runs out of sanity, Cthulu wins.

We have played this game with different groups of friends.  Learning curve is short - maybe three minutes to learn.  Like Zombie Dice, this game does not have the depth to be the sole focus of a game night.  Unlike Zombie Dice, Cthulu Dice has the "screw your neighbor" quality that many find fun - Kinda like "Lunch Money" - a long time favorite that I should write about later.

Brains . . . must eat BRAAAAAINS!

While in Boston, Tony and I did some game shopping.  Since we seem to be stuck in a Zombie mode, Steve Jackson's "Zombie Dice" seemed like a good pick.  A little more complicated then "LRC" and more complicated than Yatzee, this novel game can be mastered in under a minute.  We have played it on several different informal occasions.  Zombie Dice does not have the depth to be a stand-alone game for a game night, but would be fun as a filler between games or for casual play while shooting the camel turd.  No previous experience with undead required.