Scribbling on Vellum: -5% chance of failure

I’m nursing a bit of head cold and wasn’t feeling much up to tackling any post of depth for today when I received the news that this here electronic fish-wrapper was deemed worthy of a Superior Scribbler Award. Things such as this very much surprise me, considering the relatively short amount of time Pole and Rope’s been on the old-school blogosphere, and I’m still amazed that the few stones that I’ve thrown in the Grognard Pond have made as big of a splash as they’ve had.

James Maliszewski, who’s “Grognard’s Challenges” were primarily to blame for me starting this blog, had these kind words to say:

Michael Curtis truly embodies the spirit of OD&D and the early hobby. His posts include many I consider instant classics, like the multi-part "The Dungeon Alphabet." Michael is positively brimming with ideas and is never afraid to reconsider long-held notions in the pursuit of fun.

I’m indebted to him twice now - once for getting me blogging, and secondly for picking me as one of his five recipients. As one of the stipulations of claiming this award, I must now pick five blogs that I feel worthy of being acknowledged for their contributions to the blogging community at large.

Rather than burden myself with the tracking down who the latest slew of recipients have chosen, I’m going to nominate the five that I constantly visit and consistently walk away from with new things to ponder or steal for my own use. I suspect that more than one of these five has been nominated in the past, but take their return to the award podium as another confirmation of their skills, rather than laziness on my part. In truth, my selection pool is not as deep or broad as I’d like. There are many, many fine blogs out there, but in the short time that I’ve been following the old-school blogs, I’ve not become nearly as well-acquainted with the sum of what’s out there as I would have liked.

Kenneth Hite’s Journal: There is no one in the gaming industry with a more esoteric collection of historical and pseudo-scientific facts than Kenneth Hite. While I often find myself doing mental gymnastics to try and follow his train of thought, these intellectual exercises do nothing to keep me away from visiting his LiveJournal on a regular basis. If only I could gain access to his personal library, I’d be a happy man.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Opinionated, sure. But that’s one of the reason’s I like James Raggi’s blog as much as I do. He speaks his mind and does so with little need for niceties, and while this can rock some people’s boats, he also isn’t afraid to put his money – in this case, Euros – where his mouth is by publishing gaming materials he wants to see out of his own pocket. I like the D.I.Y. frame of mind, what can I say?

Sham’s Grog ‘n Blog: I know for sure that Sham a.k.a. Dave Bowman has been chosen this round, but I can’t emphasize enough how much I enjoy his blog. His various treatises on OD&D are enough to make even the staunchest 3.5 or 4th edition player rethink his choice of edition, and almost completely swayed me to drop AD&D for OD&D.

Uncle Bear: Berin Kinsman’s been blogging about games and geekery since before there was a term for all this. His blog is a roller-coaster of highs and lows, ranging from utter enthusiasm for the hobby to periods when he just wants to chuck the whole mess out the nearest window. While not always agreeing with him or feeling empathetic to his state of mind, I still keep coming back to see what’s coming next.

Wilderlands OD&D: This might be cheating a bit, since Scott has moved on to World of Thool as of now, but it was Wilderlands OD&D that really got me itching to play in a sandbox hex-crawl, so I’m choosing his original blog as worthy of the award. Chances are his new one will continue the good work he’s done previously, but I’m certainly glad he came back from in absentia to tie up some loose ends in Wilderlands OD&D before he made the jump.

Of course, as with every Bloggy Award, there are A Few Rules. They are, forthwith:

• Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.
  
• Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.
  
• Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to This Post, which explains The Award.
  
• Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we'll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!
  
• Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.