Happy Birthday, Robert E. Howard

Today marks the 109th anniversary of the birth of pulp writer Robert E. Howard. It has become a tradition on this date for Howard fans to read a favorite story and raise a toast.

Howard wrote something for every taste: sword and sorcery, hard-boiled detectives, weird horror, historical fiction, boxing, westerns, pirates, and poetry.

I have a copy of Conan Meets the Academy checked out from the library, so I might read a few of the essays rather than one of his stories this year. Brian Murphy wrote an outstanding review and critique of the book at The Silver Key (the comments are good, also).

For more information on his life and career, start with the following sites:

• Robert E. Howard United Press Association
• The Robert E. Howard Foundation
• Howard Works bibliographic database
• The Cimmerian (archive; no longer updated)

I would also recommend Mark Finn's Howard biography, the Locus and World Fantasy Award-nominated Blood and Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard. An new expanded edition was released by the REH Foundation.

What to expect here in 2015

I have become wary of promising myself too much in these New Year "looking ahead" posts. Inevitably some crisis will knock me off track from what I've proposed, and I'll feel like I haven't been able to keep up. Even so, putting these ideas out here still seems like the best way to focus on projects.

I'm eager to run an RPG campaign again. We had a short test run of D&D 5e for three sessions, using the Starter Set adventure The Lost Mine of Phandelver. The players and I had fun, although I'm not sure it was enough time to really test the system. My takeaway -- based as much on other reviews I have read as on our playtest -- is that it delivers just what I want "D&D" to be. There will always be tweaks and house-ruling, but it works as written, and at the right balance for me between simplicity and complexity.

The campaign ideas foremost on my mind at the moment:

• D&D 5e, possibly starting with Phandelver and leading into Horde of the Dragon Queen (a heavily hacked and curtailed version) and The Rise of Tiamat (dragon cultists!). Or something completely different.
• A Red and Pleasant Land, using 5e for the rules system
• Shadowrun, perhaps using Savage Worlds.
• Night's Black Agents: Dracula Dossier (not out until August/September)
• Call of Cthulhu (a perennial favorite)
• Conan, using Barbarians of Lemuria (The Mythic Edition of the game is due any moment now)

I'm in the very preliminary research stages for my Golden Age of Ballooning RPG, and one of my main gaming goals for the year is continuous movement towards a fully-polished game for public release.

On the blog, I'd like to write more reviews -- both of games and gaming products, and of films, reviving the Cult Classic of the Week series.

Goodbye to 2014

2014 was full of personal loss and challenges. I know it was the same for many other people, and the news stories were usually grim.

There were some great things that happened and fun times were had, but even so, I'm glad to have it in the rear-view mirror.

Next post: What to expect in 2015.