books | Swords & Dorkery

Where I promote a polarizing publisher when I should be talking about my own books that will be coming out later in 2026

Lamentations of the Flame Princess, if you haven’t heard, is at a bit of a critical junction. I was pretty sure the owner had taken leave of social media for his own good, but a video popped up on YouTube where he explains his somewhat dire tax situation. It sounds like he really needs to raise some cash quickly, and to assist with that is giving away some books with every order over a certain threshold. (It’s different stuff depending on whether you order from his US or EU stores — this link is to the US one.)

I think Raggi gets a lot of unfair criticism but I think he’d be the first to admit he’s his own worst enemy sometimes. His style comes off as edge-lordy to a lot of people. But whatever else he is or does, he publishes high quality books and interesting adventures, and in a way that is, for better or worse, unflinchingly true to his vision. Some of it is undeniably excellent, like this book of historically-based floor plans. I would recommend that to anyone running an early-modern campaign. The True Relation campaign is intriguing and the sort of thing anyone would be proud to release. And it seems like everything becomes highly collectible once out of print, even the books that are mostly dick-jokes and poop-jokes.

Full disclosure: I don’t have dog in this race. Those links are not affiliate links. I barely know the guy, but I do respect what he’s doing, even if I don’t always get it or agree with it. I’m just posting this in case anyone who reads this might decide to finally check out LOTFP and buy something while you can. The RPG industry is more interesting with LOTFP in it, and it would be nice if the spirit moves people to buy something to help ensure the publisher can continue to upset people with high quality work.

Additional disclosure: I hope to have some news about my own books soon. I’ll be leaking excerpts and progress reports here eventually. If I haven’t mentioned it I’m working with the fantastic artist Heather Ford, who illustrated my last book, although most of the art will be more in a historical style, and Paolo Greco/Lost Pages, whose work speaks for itself.

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on December 14, 2025 at 5:00 pm Comments (1)
Tags: books, LotFP

Pergamino Barocco

Great news! The Lost Pages just launched a Kickstarter to release a hardcover edition of Pergamino Barocco, Roger G.S.‘s weird scroll of new spells for D&D.

“A hardcover scroll?” you might ask.

Yep. It’s what you might call a concertina-bound book: the scroll is folded like and accordion for easier handling and use, and protected by a hard book cover that is bound into. There’s a video showing how it works at the Kickstarter. They already funded the first day in, and it looks gorgeous.

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on September 10, 2025 at 5:00 pm Leave a Comment

Beggars

One piece of feedback I got on Burgs & Bailiffs Trinity was that I gave clerics reasons to go on pilgrimages but not so much for other classes. The upcoming Advanced Burgs & Bailiffs (AB&B) gives some reasons for other classes to travel generally and go on pilgrimages specifically, but I ended up making revisions to most of the classes that basically made them new classes. The changes to Fighter types are relatively minor but the other classes are almost completely reworked: in case of the magic-using or miracle-using classes, this is because I revamped how spells and magic work; in the case of thieves (or “Rogues” now) I wanted to expand there possible skill sets so that a rogue character could be a burglar like the classic D&D/OSE Thief, but could equally be something else: an entertainer, or a minstrel, or a jester, or an assassin, or even a beggar.

Beggars don’t sound terribly appealing as a character class, unless you happen to learn about the vast network of professional beggars that are described by late medieval writers: “Argotiers” (as they were called in France) who had a sort of organization where masters (Archesuppots) trained apprentices in a number of scams and skills and collected a vig from their students; these masters in turn paid up to a “Grand Caesar” at the top of the organization. Other countries seem to have had a number of scams and perhaps even an organization like France. The anonymous Liber Vagatorum (Book of vagabonds and beggars) describes the scams carried out in Germany.

In AB&B, rogues can learn the standard thieving skills or spend their pips (I’m using a d6 thieving system building on Paolo Greco’s system here) on a number of other skills. You could reverse engineer an assassin (take Disguise, Poison Use, and Fencing (Shield), neglect your other thieving skills to pay for these, and put more points on Back Stab as you advance) or you could customize something else like an Argotier (lean into Disguise and Pick Pockets, neglect Lockpicking and Climb Walls), etc.

It’s a little wild that there seems to be a ton of literature from Europe about different kinds of beggars and the scams they are pulling, but far less from say the Middle East (apart from the Book of Charlatans). One scholar explained that this probably had to do with some societies encouraged charity for religious reasons (Islam and Buddhism being prominent examples) while there was a uniquely shameful aspect to poverty in Christian lands, particularly those that considered wealth to be evidence of divine favor, logically implying that poverty might be divine disfavor/evidence of sinfulness. The aforementioned Liber Vagatorum, which lists 26 distinct types of beggars, says that only two types that should be given alms, although a third or fourth type might deserve alms in certain circumstances. Here are the scams from the Liber Vagatorum. Many of these scams are also mentioned among the Argotiers under different names; Italy and England have some some specific scams as well. This could easily be made into a d30 random-beggar-encounter chart if we add those to the end as numbers 27-30.

True beggars (“Bregers”), who reside in the town or village they are begging in and don’t pretend to be pilgrims, and demonstrate some shame about begging. They should be given alms.
Bread gatherers, who travel from town to town begging in the name of some saint and often dressing as pilgrims. They can also be given alms, although most are dishonest.
Freed prisoners (“Lossners”), who claim to be prisoners or galley slaves who escaped the infidels by some miracle and are now on a pilgrimage of thanksgiving. They are all liars and should get nothing.
Cripples (“Klenkners”), often appearing to be crippled or maimed and who beg at church doors and fairs. They should be kicked, the Liber says.
Church mendicants (“Dopfers”), often posing as friars and displaying contact relics (items imbued with miraculous powers from having touched an authentic relic). They will say they are collecting for a church building or similar, and should only be given alms if they come from a few miles away or closer.
Learned beggars, who are students or clerks that have gone AWOL from university and are begging to support their gambling, whoring, drinking, and other vices. They (and all the following types) should not be given anything.
Rambling scholars (“Strollers”) who claim to know the black arts and offer to ward off witchcraft or bad weather. They say they have fallen on hard times and need to beg because of it.
“Grantners” who claim to have “the falling sickness” (epilepsy). Some chew soap to produce foam about their mouths and claim to be unable to work. Others claim they were struck with epilepsy because they denied alms to another beggar. The writer says to only give alms to an epileptic who has no such story or display.
“Dutzers” who claim to be collecting alms because they need to make up for their failure to go on a promised pilgrimage due to a long illness.
False priests (“Schleppers”), who claim to be collecting alms to pay for an altar, vestments, or other things needed by their parish.
Blind beggars (“Gickisses”), who may be faking their condition, and should only get alms if you know them well.
Naked beggars (“Schwanfelders”), who arrive in town naked and say they were robbed. The writer says most simply hid their clothes and should be given nothing.
Demoniacs (“Voppers”), often led into town in chains by others who say they are mad or possessed. Some fake other diseases. All should get nothing.
Former hangmen (“Dallingers”), who scourge themselves and feign regret for their past careers. They usually return to being hangmen eventually, and should get nothing.
Lying-in women (“Dutzbetterins”), who lay under a sheet and claim to have lost their babe, or miscarried, or given birth to a monster.
Murderers (“Suntvegers”), who claim to have taken a man’s life in self-defense and need raise some amount of money lest they be executed. Some are women who say they were falsely accused of poisoning or witchcraft and also need a certain amount to defeat the charge.
Bil-wearers, who are women pretending to be pregnant with false bellies.
“Virgins” who are young women pretending to have leprosy.
“Mumsen” who are men pretending to be mendicant friars that need to beg for a living.
“Over-Sonzen-Goers” who are nobles or knights that have fallen on hard times and need to beg.
“Kandierers” who pretend to be foreign merchants that have been robbed. They and the previous type carry forged letters to prove their claims.
“Veranerins” who claim to be converted from Judaism, and also carry forged letters attesting to this.
“Calmierers” who pretend to be pilgrims, with badges and souvenirs of their travels.
“Seefers” who smear themselves with salves to imitate skin diseases.
“Burkharts” who claim to be paralyzed.
Blind Harpers, who sing about travels they have never taken and beg for alms.
“Capons” who beg as a pretense to get close enough to pick pockets.
“Hubins” who claim to have been bitten by mad dogs (and use the soap trick to foam at the mouth!). They claim they are travelling to St Hubert’s shrine for a cure.
“Courtauds-de-Boutanche,” posing as unemployed craftsmen, carrying tools.
“Wardes,” claiming to be merchants who have had their tongues torn out, carrying a hook or pinchers and a false leather tongue, and making rattling and roaring sounds.

Granted — these don’t sound much like appealing player character concepts. But a PC rogue who was a beggar might be on the run from his former colleagues (who they owe money) and this background explains why they have skills like disguising themselves, picking pockets, forgery, and so on. Argotier is just one of FOURTEEN backgrounds presented in the AB&B player’s handbook.

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on May 24, 2025 at 6:34 pm Comments (2)
Tags: Burgers & Bailiffs, classes, history, thieves

Relics for sale!

I had no idea there was still a thriving trade in Christian relics. I stumbled onto this site while doing some “research” for Burgs & Bailiffs: Forth!* — a sales site with lots of religious memorabilia, icons, art, and of course relics of saints and supposed biblical items.

It looks like most of the relics are in are pendants — personal reliquaries you could take with you anywhere on a necklace, or pinned to some other article of clothing. A few are larger items including a number of monstrances (receptacles for communion hosts used during masses) which I imagine were looted from churches at some point.

But, if you needed some teeth, drops of blood, or slivers of bone from a bona fide canonized saint, you can get one from the comfort of your computer or mobile device; no need to risk a pilgrimage and furta sacra (sacred theft) or deal with dodgy abbots, palmers, pardoners, or other religious flimflammers.

*Originally planned as an update to Trinity but now pretty much a whole sourcebook on grim~~dark~~silly medieval adventures with new classes, optional races, and reimagined system for magic and miracles, along with new or expanded essays, a few dozen medieval monsters, and more. It will be a while before release, as there’s still some writing, editing, and illustration & layout, and so on to go.

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on April 21, 2024 at 10:24 am Leave a Comment
Tags: Burgers & Bailiffs, saints, shameless commerce

The book of charlatans

Al-Jawbari’s The Book of Charlatans is the only one of his three books to survive to modern times. A lot of it is a hoot, or at least the translation I’m reading is (New York University Press, ©2020.). It consists of 30 chapters, each titles “Exposé of the tricks of X.” X may be “Fake prophets,” “Monks,” “Fire-and-Brimstone Preachers,” or other religious charlatans; X may also be assorted medical frauds and con artists, illusionists and alchemists, and burglars and assassins. The variety of tricksters being exposed is almost staggering, even more so because Al-Jawbari admits to practicing many of these tricks in his travels. Most of the exposés end with his refrain “Wise up to these things!” Al-Jawbari was alive in the 13th century, so it’s an intensely Medieval take on mythbusting and exposing scams.

Some of the tricks seem to be instructions for simple magic tricks, such as mixing and applying an herbal make-up to give the illusion of leprosy which the faker “cures” by washing it off the schill for an audience. Some of the recipes are presented as real magic, used in questionable ways, such as a concoction that al-Jawbari says will stop the rain from falling if burned in a fire; the “trick” is that the charlatan claims this to be a holy miracle. The longish chapters on alchemists and “Masters of the Crafts”* expose alchemical procedures and magic spells. These too generally give credence to the effectiveness of magic and seem to be intended to expose occult secrets rather than “tricks.”

Other “tricks” are poisons used for various purposes, which may or may not be effective: one “trick of those who practice war and bear arms” is to dip their blades in a mixture of onion juice and “high grade alum,” which makes the weapons deliver “severe wounds.” Alum can certainly irritate exposed skin, so I imagine this poison will make the wounds extra painful and debilitating. Another poison applied to blades and points uses oleander — which is definitely a deadly poison if eaten, though I don’t know if it is effective delivered directly into the blood. There are also several accounts of sleep-inducing poisons, most of which involve opium as an ingredient and which would presumably work.

Adulterated or fake foodstuffs and spices are another common trick, which dutifully provides recipes for. Similarly he describes rogue jewelers and their fake jewels.

Other tricks are drawn out scams and cons, often taking advantage of people’s credulity and/or cupidity, and are not too different from the cons that are practiced today — most typically scams involving claims that a small amount of money is needed to yield a huge return, money0changing scams, and so on.

Disappearing inks are described (for use by rogue notaries who draw up fake contracts), as are invisible inks that can be made to appear when exposed to heat, water, or other catalysts. These are used in various fortune-telling scams or to convince onlookers that someone has magical powers or knowledge.

The author naturally spends a fair amount of space on the tricks of infidels. The “Tricks of the monks” exposes Christian miracle-working, and the “Tricks of those who manipulate fire” exposes Zoroastrians. The chapter on charlatan monks expresses sympathy for victimized Christians but the chapter on Zoroastrians condemns the whole faith. There are some really ugly parts, too. Antisemitism, misogyny, and a smirking indifference to sexual abuse. The “tricks of the Jews” suggests all Jews are constantly on the prowl to drug, poison, ravish, rob, or simply kill. Similarly the last chapter, on the tricks of women, paints all women as untrustworthy. The chapters on the trick of “Solomon’s ant” and the tricks of “those who creep up on beardless boys” give leering accounts of sex abuse and rape — the author even claims to have participated in the last trick.

Much of this review is based on a casual skim of the book, which is kind of invited by the format — each chapter is broken into sections, most less than page and some just a paragraph. I expect I’ll dive more deeply into the front matter (introduction, etc.) and then give it straight read-through.

*On closer inspection, the chapter on the tricks of “Masters of the crafts” is meant to cover advanced chicanery, including some more alchemical secrets as well as tricks used for things that can’t be accomplished by magic. Some of these “masters” are mystics or religious leaders too: there is a section on creating the illusion of a talking severed head, whereby an accomplice conceals their body in a chamber in the floor of a specially prepared room. Distressingly, after the trick is accomplished the accomplice is beheaded for real!

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on June 7, 2023 at 6:00 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: history, magic, scams, thieves

Review: Fief, by Lisa J. Steele

Fief : A look at medieval society from its lower rungs / by Lisa J. Steele

I picked this PDF up in a bundle deal from itch.io (which has unfortunately expired). It’s basically a system-neutral sourcebook on medieval rural life under feudalism. Its companion volume, Town, covers urban life. Both are designed with the gamemaster in mind, though the huge range of topics necessarily means that most subjects are touched on fairly briefly. I’m surprised I never heard of this book before, but apparently it was self-published in 1996 and not very widely distributed until the current (2001) edition was put out by Cumberland Games.

As one might expect, England is the the real focus — specifically Norman customs in England and northern France, which indicates a somewhat narrower scope than the timelines and lists of data might suggest. These are two bits worth some comment.

The timeline offered on pages 87-89 (the whole book is a concise 100 pages, with pages 90-91 being sources and the rest a nice index) covers 395 to 1525, though most of entries are the 13th-15th centuries. It’s a great resource with pivotal events listed such as battles, disasters, the beginnings and ends of reigns, and so on; there are also mentions of new inventions being introduced, major edicts from kings and the Church, and even literary events like the completion of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

The lists of data are impressive, suggesting that the author scoured many different sources. This is both a positive and negative, though. On the positive side, the lists give a a lot of different years and places for comparison; but on the negative side there is generally not enough information to know what the variations really mean. For example, the wages of a chaplain are listed (in the table of “Church Incomes and Expenses”) as 14£ in the 13th century but 50 s. in 1295 — why this discrepancy? The fee to avoid churchwarden duty in England is 20 pullets in 1363 and 1 s 6 d in 1364. How much is a pullet normally worth? Well, the prices list under Fairs gives 1d for a fowl. Elsewhere we see that one livre = 20 sou or 240 dernier, so at 12 d to 1 s, 20 pullets is about 1 s 8 d. Maybe. Some price lists, such as the cost of tournament supplies, do gather around a single year, making the relative values more easily discernable, but we also see some costs listed for the same place a few years apart increase or decrease wildly. The timeline might help explain this. Because the locations are often a handful of recurring towns or counties, we can guess that the lists were drawn from books or articles that explained by, for example, the cost of sheep in Farnham changed (6d in the 1180s, then 4 d in 1192, then 10 d in 1201, finally hitting 1 s 3 d in 1265 — maybe these years had significant events, maybe they are just what happened to be recorded in various sources). Even so, as raw data the lists have some value.

The book is divided topically into logical chapters (“Fundamentals” which defines terms and explains feudalism in general, then “Architecture,” “Agriculture,” “Forests and Wastelands,” “Governance,” “Husbandry,” “Monopolies,” “Population,” “Society,” “Taxes, Tithes, and Tolls,” “Trade,” “Warfare,” “The Decline of the Manor.” These chapters are generally concise, though there are some areas where the generalizations could benefit from better detail. I often found myself using “control-F” to check if I missed something — why would someone pay a fee to avoid churchwarden duty? We can guess, but the only other mention of churchwardens just says they are “elected” and paid a small fee to care for church property. So, maybe too concise. But still a great handbook.

Some highlights: lists of crimes/sins and the punishments/penances meted out, ransoms for various nobles, and the sample manor. Lists of Church feasts, explanations of feudal obligations by social class, and wages for different occupations.

I can’t fault any of the research. In my quick read-through, the only glaring error seemed to be mention of Italian peasants growing “pumpkin” (which couldn’t have been in Europe before 1492 — maybe one of her sources confused melons and pumpkins, as Europeans in the New World described pumpkins as a kind of melon?).

It’s not clear what was revised for the current (2001) edition apart from adding an index and possibly the art and layout. I didn’t spot anything published after 1996 in the sources list, so some of the material may be a bit dated. On the other hand some of the sources are absolute classics that are still authoritative.

There is a hard copy available via Lulu.com, while the PDF is available from the publisher (Cumberland Games & Diversions) and DriveThruRPG. I have not yet invested in Town but is seems to be of comparable quality, from the samples I’ve seen at Cumberland. As it was published in 2010, I imagine it will have some more recent sources.

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on May 31, 2023 at 6:00 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: book reviews, history

Vintage RPG podcast!

I was honored to be interviewed by the Vintage RPG Podcast! Have listen herehere!

I talk about Fantasy Wargaming and my book about Fantasy Wargaming. The interview was unscripted but I think they’ll have edited out my worst fumbles.

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on April 3, 2023 at 9:00 am Comments (2)
Tags: Fantasy Wargaming, podcasts

“Medieval authentic”

D&D’s medievalism inspired a lot of players to try to develop something more verisimilar to the real world medieval period. In the early days, games like Chivalry & Sorcery made a nice effort but couldn’t give up the Tolkienisms (elves, dwarves, hobbits, etc.). Similarly Harn imagines a very realistic world, but stocks it with kingdoms of orcs and similar. Fantasy Wargaming laid out an impressive sourcebook and innovative rules but never achieved any kind of following because it didn’t look or read like a rule book. A lot of games took inspiration from myth and legend and focused on some limited aspects of history, like Pendragon and Ars Magica. More recently three games have appeared with explicit or implicit claims to “medieval authenticity” (only one actually uses that awkward term). They are: Lion & Dragon, Wolves of God, and Aquelarre. How do they stack up?

I previously reviewed Lion & Dragon, and was very impressed with the magic rules, less so with the rest. Its failures helped me identify what a game really needs to create a sense of authenticity in its medievalism. In medieval Europe, the most important relationships every person had were to their lord and to their God. Which is to say, social standing and religious standing. How well a game incorporates that into play seems, to me, to be the critical piece. I always thought Fantasy Wargaming set the benchmark for this with its system for social class and piety. (It added a third all-present relation to the supernatural via the magic system, which in some ways subsumed the religious rules and extended them to include one’s relation to the macrocosm with detailed astrological correspondences, but I’m not convinced many people outside of medieval universities really thought much about that.)

So really my minimal standard for medieval authenticity would be having an adequate system for social hierarchy and having the Church accurately represented. Lion & Dragon failed pretty badly in those departments, with a very underdeveloped and barely used Social Class attribute and generic sun-god church that barely imposed any kind of restrictions on people’s daily lives, being egalitarian and even benevolent in a way that brushes aside all the conflict between Church and state that drove the Middle Ages.

Wolves of God on the other hand does a fantastic job of setting D&D (by way of the OGL) in later Anglo-Saxon England. My only complaints would be that, given the very specific time and place, it is set a good deal earlier than what most folks think of as the Middle Ages (the High Middle Ages really), and it is written in a style and tone meant to suggest it is contemporary to the Anglo-Saxon age. High Gygaxian replaced with the Venerable Bede. The art and style make this a fantastic artifact, though I wonder a little if the quirkiness of the rulebook will make it a little tedious. It’s absolutely perfect for Dark Ages adventures, though, and seems to have a workable system for domain management and full scale battles. Everything about this game feels authentic. The focus on a narrowed period and setting is both its strength and weakness, though, since you the game offers just four character classes (a warrior, a holy man, and a wizard, and a fourth which can choose some abilities from any two of the the three other classes, which adds some versatility, to be fair) and the rules will probably be stretched if the party leaves England — which you certainly would want to have happen if you think about the possibilities for interactions with Vikings and the wider world. Still, it is easily my favorite attempt at medieval authenticity so far. It really deserves a full review, which I might do later.

Aqualerre takes the opposite end of the medieval period from Wolves of God and is set in the late High Middle Ages, the 14th and 15th centuries. This is a great choice. It uses the Iberian peninsula as its setting, which is natural (the authors are Spanish) and provides all the expected Church-state conflict and adds the clash with Islamic Moors, since the Reconquista has not been completed. But the focus of the game is more horror than adventure, from what I can tell. The main threat is not the Moors, or the Inquisition, but witches and demons. Reviews indicate that it emphasizes the gritty, dirty grimdark view of the Middle Ages, which is not necessarily inaccurate. It’s also very adult, and the sales page even describes the artwork as “disturbing” and not for kids. So, it’s probably not exactly what I was hoping for either. If/when I get a copy I’ll post a full review.

I kind of cant’s stop with those recent games though. Broadening out to source books for specific games or even rules-agnostic supplements, there seem to be a lot of options.

Cumberland Games & Diversions offer two sourcebooks: Fief and Town, which attempt to provide the GM everything they need to know about feudalism in rural and urban settings, respectively. They are not available in print, so I have not actually read more than the samples of the PDFs offered at their web site. (Actually, I broke down and bought Fief just now, as it is available in a bundle that supports a good cause.) It covers a lot of the same ground as you’ll find elsewhere but it is gathered neatly in one place. I could do without the “price lists,” though, which take up a lot of space without really being useful. Nice work though on the timeline and bibliography, and the index (Monsters, see Children, Beasts”)! I should mention that the tables of contents of Town and Fief might make you think there is a lot of repeated material, but from the full Fief text I just got and the sample of Town, they are covering the same topics from different angles and would probably be complimentary. I’m still disappointed there is not a print version available, given how easy print-on-demand is, but that might be a publisher’s decision. I can hardly talk since my own book is now out of print and available only as a PDF. I’ll need to post a full review of Fief, anyway, it seems really well done.

A Magical Medieval Society is in its third edition. I’ve only seen the first edition. It tries to help a GM generate a fantasy kingdom with calculations for populations, demographics, and even the income generated at the level of a manor! I found it kind of exhausting, but I’m sure it has has its own audience. The most interesting thing for me is the effort to work out how magic would affect a medieval society. It falls more on the side of high fantasy than gritty realism, though, and doggedly imagines the typical D&D pantheons of deities and multiple religions rather than including the Church. For me, that’s definitely a bug. The economics are probably solid though. (I have no idea, that’s not my forte.) In some ways it reminds of the very old series on creating medieval towns and villages in the early issues of White Dwarf. The author there (which I’m drawing a blank on) recommended using existing prices for items and hirelings in AD&D to work out the annual wages of various professions, and I like the simplicity of that approach. It might be giving those price lists too much credit (Gygax after all admits they inflate everything associated with adventuring, much as tools and such were inflated during the gold rush) but I agree in principle with changing as little as necessary.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the GURPS sourcebook Middle Ages I. It’s meant as a historical setting, rather than something to use for FRPGs, but it does have some notes about incorporating magic, horror, or science fiction, being GURPS. I found it mostly interesting for the details on England’s kings and queens (the number I indicating they hoped for follow ups covering other parts of the Europe). The GURPS fantasy setting, Oerth, is actually a fairly good imagining of high fantasy mixed with medievalism, as actual regions of medieval Earth were transplanted by a cataclysmic event onto a fantasy world, so a relatively authentic if idealized set of European and Saracen kingdoms exist alongside elves, dwarves, and the rest.

At this point, I realize how impossible it would be to cover all the RPG sourcebooks that try to add authentic medievalism to FPRGs. RPG publishing has reached a level of democratization and independence that there are probably hundreds of games, sources, and so on I haven’t even heard of. I should mention my own publications in the first two Burgs & Bailiffs booklets, and my follow-up solo book B&B Trinity, are only semi-serious and indulge in some sensationalism. I plan on playing it a bit more “straight” in the revised & expanded second edition of Trinity, which is what occasioned the thoughts leading to this post to begin with. Looking at some of these other efforts has helped me firm up my own vision of what I’d like to see and of what to keep, what to remove, and what to change in D&D to make it so.

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on April 2, 2023 at 6:01 pm Comments (5)
Tags: DMing, medieval authentic

A quick note

Working on another post I stumbled upon something that I wanted to mention before it ends. itch.io, a site for sharing indie games, has bundled HUNDREDS of items for just $5. It’s a limited time offer, running out in about a week. I couldn’t resist because it’s both for an important cause (supporting trans rights in Florida, where I think it’s reasonable to say fascism is slowly is inserting the small end of the wedge into their politics with the scapegoating of trans people) and because it included a nifty sourcebook on manorialism and medieval life (Fief by Lisa J. Steele). $5 gets you all 505 RPG books, modules, and mini games in electronic format, though you have the option of paying more in increase your impact.

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on March 31, 2023 at 9:50 am Leave a Comment

Fantasy Wargaming news…it’s kind of a big deal

It’s hard to believe that it was over a decade ago that I decided to revisit Fantasy Wargaming. It all began with a search of a bibliographic database (WorldCat) to see if the authors had written anything else: Bruce Quarrie was a familiar name from his books on historical wargaming, but the rest of the authors were more mysterious. The name “Bruce Galloway” turned up on an intriguing array of titles: some histories, some political tracts, even some guidebooks for hikers. I decided to find out if any of the authors were the same as the FW author, and the journey began.

Since then I’ve learned a lot more about the authors and the larger circle of people who were involved with developing the book in various ways, most of whom were very generous with their time and memories, helping me put together a picture of how the book was written. The blog posts became quite numerous as new bits emerged, and I gave the rules a cover-to-cover read. I concatenated the posts into one page, which has seen a regular flow of visits and even been cited in an academic paper on gaming. Someone even asked if I could edit the posts into a short book, and during the COVID shutdown I took up the task in earnest.

I soon discovered that there was more interest in FW than I realized, with many blogs, YouTube channels, and podcasts posting their own revisits and reviews. I also began to find more reviews from the period when it was published, and several other people passed along their finds. The one coauthor of the book who is still with us even found a cache of documents that adds a lot more more information and fills in gaps I thought unrecoverable — letters to and from the main author, notes for a sequel, and more. The new information I’ve gathered since posting the page has revealed a lot of new information and confirmed or refuted many of the guesses and conjectures I made.

And now the book is here, with a lot of updates, corrections, and additions to what I originally wrote. It might be a book no one reads about a game no one played, but I can honestly and with pride say it will be a contribution to gaming history, covering what I still believe to be a fascinating and singular work in roleplaying game history.

Preparing the book has been a trip. Initially, I was pretty sure that a small academic press would be publishing it, but that press became a casualty of COVID. Nevertheless Heather Ford from that the press went ahead and did an amazing and flattering job of making my manuscript into a gorgeous illustrated book — providing many original illustrations no less. And we found a new home for the book at Carnegie-Mellon University’s ETC Press, a publisher of academic and trade books on entertainment technologies.

The price for the full color hardcover will be commensurate with the markup you see on academic books, partly due to the costs of distribution but also due to the higher quality paper needed for the images to come out clearly. ETC Press is an open access publisher, though, so you can also download the full PDF for free. I’m also looking at options for making another edition that will be more accessible for those using assistive technologies, or for those preferring a traditional e-book. Watch this space.

You’ve read my blog, so why should you buy or at least read the the book?

I added a full and as-comprehensive-as-possible literature review with all the reviews, notices and discussions of FW I could find, annotated.
I was given access to Bruce Galloway’s personal file of clippings and manuscripts, which answer some questions about the rules and outline the sequel to FW which would have covered the ancient/classical world. Some of that material is reproduced in appendices.
Heather Ford’s cool art and graphic design made this into a gorgeous artifact for your RPG research collection. I mean it really looks amazing and could be a coffee table book.
Lawrence Heath, who illustrated FW, has allowed me to include some of his artwork from the period, and it’s pretty dang awesome too.

Click here to download the *free* PDF of the book (or buy a hard copy) from ETC Press!

Click here to buy the full color, hardcover book from Lulu.com!

Click here to buy the full cover, hardcover book from Amazon.com

coming soonish(?): an ebook edition for purchase