Welcome to the Troll Mystic site!

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Hail, adventurer! You’ve managed to find me, the Troll Mystic. I’m actually a Trolf, which is a half-elf, half-troll male (the females are called Trelfs), but so many people think I’m a troll, I just go along with it. Now you know differently. As I write this, October 2, 2011, this site is just getting off the ground. Within a few weeks, I hope the site will have much more to offer. I’ve got big plans.

If you are looking for the resources that were previously available on eposic.org, please be patient. I did not mean for my former web host to change the name servers for eposic.org just yet, only eposic.net, but they did not understand my request, and changed both (and eposic.com). I had planned to make it a more smooth transition from the old eposic.org server to the new one, but my former web host thought they knew better what I wanted than what I did. That’s why they are my former web host. But this means that pretty much every thing that was on eposic.org is now unavailable, until I have a chance to port it here. Some of the resources from eposic.org won’t make the cut. If there are any tools or other pages you used to visit frequently on the original eposic.org site, and you want to know my plans for porting them here, feel free to leave a comment below.

More on the Outlaw Press / James Shipman Saga

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My previous post addressed my grievances with Outlaw Press / James Shipman. Since then, Outlaw Press / James Shipman has removed my Down Time solo from the “free downloads” section of the Outlaw Press site, and has stopped selling print copies of issues of TrollsZine from the site. Some other infringing materials by other authors have also been removed from the site. These actions appear to have been in response to a message I posted to the Blue Frog Tavern Yahoo group, publicly stating my opposition to Shipman’s practices, especially with regard to his violation of my rights. I also terminated my membership in that group, because it appeared to me that the group moderators condoned Shipman’s illegal activities.

The removal of these materials from the Outlaw Press site is a bittersweet victory for me, because the rights of many other authors and artists are still being violated. I know that Ken St. Andre has publicly asked Outlaw Press / James Shipman to stop publishing Ken’s materials. Yet many materials that Ken has independently published since his split with Outlaw Press can still be obtained as free downloads from the Outlaw Press web site. Some materials independently published by others who have been publicly vocal about this subject are also still being distributed as free downloads from the Outlaw Press site. Hardcover copies of older materials that were never printed in hardcover and to which Outlaw Press / James Shipman clearly has no rights are being offered for sale. Continue reading →

Taking Action Against Outlaw Press / James Shipman

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Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. Do not take any statement I make herein as legal advice. Do your research, just as I have, and make up your own mind. Then decide to take action if you will.

As can be seen by performing a web search for the terms “Outlaw Press James Shipman,” much has been said online about the once-great publisher of Tunnels and Trolls gaming fare, who has fallen out of grace with the Tunnels and Trolls community for the alleged theft of intellectual property, publishing said items without permission of the copyright holders. Other Tunnels and Trolls blogs have urged their readers not to buy from Outlaw Press / James Shipman. I now join the call to boycott his site and ask my readers not to buy or download any products from him.

James Shipman not only has taken a very liberal view of his rights to materials I submitted to Outlaw Press in the past, but now is redistributing some materials I never submitted to him, and never gave him permission to redistribute. My solitaire adventure game, Down Time, now appears for download from the “Free” section of the Outlaw Press web site, without my permission. Down Time appears in TrollsZine 4, a digital-only ezine available for free from DriveThruRPG; James Shipman has clearly downloaded a copy of TrollsZine 4 and extracted Down Time from it, formatted the game in Microsoft Word, and uploaded the Word file to the Outlaw Press site, from where anyone can download it. Some might say I should not mind that he redistributes Down Time, since I have agreed to make it available for free anyway as part of TrollsZine 4, but as the copyright holder of Down Time, how I choose to distribute my material is my decision to make, not his. One might say that James Shipman is helping to spread my name and I should be grateful at least for that, but even that is not true; in the MS Word version of Down Time distributed by Outlaw Press, my name has been removed as author of the product. I don’t even get credit for my work.

I have emailed James Shipman at Jimship2@midwest.net, the email address posted on his web site, and demanded that he cease and desist redistribution of my copyrighted material immediately. As of this writing, he has not yet complied. Continue reading →

Phantom’s Bane Online

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The Eposic text mini-adventure Phantom’s Bane is back online as part of the Eposic archive. I’m not planning to expand or improve the game, but you’re welcome to leave comments here about it if you like.

Phantom’s Bane is coded entirely with HTML and JavaScript (so make sure you have JavaScript turned on). It uses iframes for asynchronous remote server access as needed. (All of the code could have been stuffed into one huge file, but it seemed better to break it out into manageable modules.)

The use of cookies allows you to save a game in progress. Since four different domains all are hosted on the Eposic web server, you can actually save up to four different characters, one per domain name, if you want. The links to the different domains are listed on the first page of the documentation. If you save the game and want to play it again later, be sure to visit the game on the same domain as the one you were on when you saved it.

When Will the Torch Go Out?

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This article was previously published on Eposic but has been offline for a while.

Some people find the bookkeeping aspect of role playing games annoying. Some precise bookkeeping is inevitable, such as tracking how much damage your PC has taken. But such bookkeeping can become tedious and detract from the fun for some players and GMs, especially if several effects need tracking simultaneously. But there is a way to reduce the bookkeeping and at the same time add some suspense to the game. Continue reading →

Fire and Magic

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Some of my visitors have seen this essay before. It is posted on writing.com, but I’ve added to it since the last time I mentioned it to my fellow Tunnels and Trolls fans, and some people who have started visiting The Troll Mystic more recently may not have seen the original essay. I post the updated essay here in full. Though it is written from the perspective of a fiction author, designers of role playing games and adventures might also find it of interest. Enjoy.

If you are writing a fantasy short story or novel that includes Magic, have you thought much about its nature, or is it just something that is there to be used whenever you need it? If you have a clear picture in your mind of how Magic works in your fantasy setting, it will help give your writing that consistent feel that readers expect. With this essay, I put forth one possible view of Magic, not necessarily for you to emulate, but with the hope that it will spark some creative flame within you to devise your own concepts of Magic.

I view Magic as akin to Fire. It isn’t there until the conditions are right for it. The wizard knows how to bring about those conditions. The right conditions might also happen accidentally, whether it be nature starting a random Fire or creating a random outburst of Magic. The careless handling of Fire can be dangerous, just as can be the careless handling of Magic. Continue reading →