What a horrible night to have a curse...

Accordions in the Deep

2012-01-28T21:58:00.001+09:00

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Especially if you're one of my players.

I've spent most of the evening playing Weird Al songs for my son. I can only believe that this will have a positive effect on my megadungeon. Planning to do a bit more stocking of it now.

Your books are overdue.

Beast of the Week: Jubokko

2012-01-27T14:49:00.000+09:00

It's a Japanese plant monster this week.

Jubokko
AC: 0 (20)
HD: 10**
Move: 0 (0)
Attacks: 2
Damage: 3d8 each
No. Appearing: 0 (1)
Save As: Fighter 10
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: E
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 2300

Jubokko, also known as vampire trees, are sentient evil plant monsters. They are immobile (but see below), but have several means of luring victims to them. Once a human, demi-human or humanoid is under their branches, they strike one or two targets, entangling the victims with branches if their attacks succeed. Entangled victims are drained of 3d8 hit points each round. Each round after the first, victims may make a saving throw vs. dragon breath to escape before they are drained again. Jubokko can use the following spells: growth of plants 3/day, hallucinatory terrain 3/day, dimension door 3/day. They may also control plants, as the ring, at will.

Eureka!

2012-01-25T14:45:00.000+09:00

I re-scanned the Flying Swordsmen map this morning. I gave up on trying to find a print shop that had a big enough scanner to digitize the whole thing at once, and settled on the fact that to get a good scan I'd need to fold the original and use my home scanner.

Which I did. I spent about an hour piecing the two scans together and more or less removing the seem, which was much easier to do than last time. Anyway, my netbooks' almost out of power, so I'd better upload it here to show it off before I run out of battery.

Year of the Dragon Begins!

2012-01-23T15:09:00.000+09:00

It's the Chinese New Year today. Happy Year of the Gold Dragon, everyone!

Yesterday, we had a marathon session of Brian's Pathfinder game. Lots of stuff happened, some good, some bad. It was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to the next game in two weeks.

As for the players/cast, Robbie was sick so he couldn't make it, leaving us without Toki the Sorcerer and his meddlesome ways. Marc, who had played Ragnar the Dwarf Cleric for one session, seems to have dropped out (Marc, if you're reading this, and you're still interested, of course you're still welcome to play - but as you'll read below, you'll need to roll up a new character if you do!). We were joined by Dean, who will also be playing in Adam's upcoming Birthright game. Brian and Jesse quickly rolled up a Cleric of Wee Jas for Dean to run, since the whole mission is to help out the death cultists fighting the undead. Dean named his PC Brother Repose, and played him as an oddball ascetic who could cast some spells, but not do much fighting.

Jeremy is still playing Oxide the reckless and vicious Warforged Fighter. Greg started out playing Plato the Half-Elf Rogue, but for in-character reasons sent Plato off mid-game and switched to his backup, a Half-Orc Cleric of Olidamara named "Red." Jesse continues to play his Half-Orc Alchemist Zesser. I'm still playing Elwood the Human Paladin (and still skirting those pesky alignment issues in the hopes that I can do some good).

SPOILER ALERT!!!
If you plan on playing through the Age of Wyrms Adventure Path, spoilers will follow.

So we started the session with a long tactical discussion of how to take on Kullen (it's spelled with a K, apparently) and his goons. When we finally got down there, Kullen wasn't around but his lackeys were. We actually got the information we needed without a fight, but Jeremy had Oxide stick around discussing potential employment with them while the rest went out. Then Oxide started a fight, just as Elwood and Zesser returned to drag him out again. Turns out the thugs weren't nearly as tough as we'd thought they would be. We killed two, captured the other and looted them for masterwork weapons, some potions, and a couple of other minor magic items.

At Allustan's house, we met our new companions Red and Brother Repose, and got the loot identified. We decided that we didn't need Filge (another mis-spelling corrected!) the Necromancer, since we'd need to go knocking on the door of Balabar, the town's big boss to get him. So we headed out to the graveyard and met with the Wee Jas priests. They'd been ambushed by both the worm zombies and some creatures in the darkness shooting black, poisoned arrows. Zesser ID'd the poison as a Drow sleep toxin. The high Priestess asked us to try to find the source of the zombies, and prevent any more attacks. We also learned that fire seemed to stop the worms from spreading, so we decided to head back to town to stock up on oil, alchemist's fire, and such before heading to the Dwarven mines of Dourstone, where Filge had told us he'd gotten the worm he was investigating.

We were ambushed by kenku on the way, but killed some and routed the rest. They were using black poisoned arrows.

In town, all Hell broke loose, as zombies were attacking along the docks. We spent some time helping the town guards hold them off until Allustan and the local Paladin arrived with more reinforcements. During the battle, Murlynd showed his displeasure with Elwood's behavior when I tried to activate the section of the Staff of Law (Rod of 7 Parts part 1) to aid us. I blew myself up again. Such is life. I also got a worm infection, but managed to get it out with a Heal check before it got too far toward my brain. Allustan berated us for wasting time trying to save the town when we needed to be headed to the mines. We took the hint and booked it, since we'd barely made a dent in the zombie hordes anyway.

At the mines, there was an elevator with three marked levels, and one unmarked. We headed straight to the 'cleverly disguised' fourth level, and were ambushed by tieflings or half-demons or something of the sort. We found a pool of slime and a key in one room, and three corridors with locked doors, each with one of the trio of evil deities (Hextor, Erythnul, and Vecna) that the Ebon Triad cultists worship. The key led through the Hextor door, and we ended up in a MASSIVE battle with the high priest and his minions.

Luckily, we managed to carry the day. I ended up using all 5 of my daily uses of Lay on Hands on myself only during the battle, and Smite Evil on the lead priest of Hextor (got the final swipe in on him), but still ended the battle with negative hit points thanks to the lackey clerics.

We'd already played beyond the venue's closing time. The owners are cool dudes, and the one working let us hang out and game while he had dinner and read a book. We bought a ton of drinks (Jeremy mostly!) so they had a good day, I'm thinking. He also offered to open up early on our gaming days if we give them a heads up. Might be good, as the place got really noisy for a while.

Some of Dean's female co-workers also were there, and came over to ask about the game, but decided they didn't want to get involved with games that took multiple hours over multiple weeks to play out. They offered to play Settlers of Catan with us one of these days, though.

All in all, a good session. And we leveled up, so Elwood will be a 4th level bad-ass the next time we play, and hopefully won't get kicked around so much (both in combat, and with the difficult balancing act of trying to keep his companions - and himself - on the good side).

"D&D Next"

2012-01-22T07:23:00.000+09:00

So the working title for 5E is "D&D Next."

Damn, they better come up with something better than that before release time. I've never studied marketing, but that sure sounds like "buy this crap now, we'll be selling you more crap later" to this customer.

Ug, not again!

2012-01-21T22:01:00.000+09:00

We've got our next Pathfinder session tomorrow. I finally got around to completing my backup PC this afternoon while my son and I watched sumo and played with toy dragons. All I had left to do was buy equipment, so it didn't take that long.

But now, despite all the fun I'm having playing Elwood the Paladin, this new backup (made only in case Elwood doesn't make it in the big coming dust-up) is looking really fun, too. And Jeremy's got the same itch, judging from his posts about his backup PC on Facebook.

Back when we played Classic D&D, this feeling would hit us too. We'd get some idea, or read some book, or watch some movie, and want to make a PC from that inspiration. And then we would. All of us had a large 'stable' of PCs, and living in really rural Illinois, whenever we would play there's a good chance it would just be the DM and one player, so we'd run a small squad of PCs (even the DM would bring a few along). So having plenty to choose from was never an issue. But then with the more episodic nature of those old games, it didn't matter. We'd almost always leave the dungeon at the end of the session, so if a different lineup went in next time, there were no problems.

But these days, when a player gets that itch to play a new character, not only does the character building process take longer with the newer editions, there's also the more 'literary' (to use a kind word) plot lines of modules or DM created adventures. That makes it a lot harder to work new PCs into things.

What's usually called "Gamer ADD" is mostly referring to game masters getting the itch to start new campaigns or run different rule systems, but it's a problem for players, too. Someone (sorry, can't remember exactly who, and can't find the link) was pointing out the other day that they read about LOTS of people starting Pathfinder Adventure Paths, but never reads about anyone finishing them.

Have we gotten that bad, both as players and as DMs, that we can't stick with something to the end? Granted, high level d20 play is a pain in the ass, but still, I think it's the fact that both players and GMs have ALL THESE OPTIONS staring them in the face that it's hard to avoid a "grass is greener" feeling when considering them.

Yes, Elwood is an awesome character, but Hogan the Red may be cooler! Still, I'll do my best tomorrow to keep Elwood alive, even if that means Hogan never ever gets to see the light of play.

Zak's been asking questions

2012-01-20T14:47:00.000+09:00

1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?

Probably my unique magic items series. It hasn't really affected my occasional players yet, but as a DM it gives me all sorts of inspiration to have a limited number of unique magic items in a campaign, rather than just popping in whatever the random charts spit out, and having the only things with stories attached to them be artifact level items.

2. When was the last time you GMed?

When was, it, last October? November? Ran a couple sessions of my Megadungeon with Classic D&D.

3. When was the last time you played?

Jan. 8, 2012 in Brian's Pathfinder game

4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven't run but would like to.

Terminator: The War Against the Machines (all that future stuff you only see glimpses of in the movies) run with Star Frontiers (minus the Dralasites and stuff).

5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?

Sometimes pay attention and try to think of ways to turn their ideas back on them. Usually, though, I'm going through my adventure notes one more time to jog my memory of what's probably coming up.

6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?

In Japan, we always seemed to get MacDonalds takeout for games. Here in Busan, it's mostly just some chips and whatever drinks we prefer (beer or baekseju if I'm drinking, Coke or Mountain Dew if not).

7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?

No. Mentally exhausting sometimes, though.

8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?

In our PF game I've been running a Paladin who is trying to clean up the town, scour the dungeon, keep the party from tearing itself apart from internal rivalries, and when I've got a spare moment, visiting my favorite prostitute. He's a busy dude.

9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?

I tend to end up making my (rare) serious settings unserious all on my own. I've yet to have players turn my (much more common) unserious settings serious on me.

10. What do you do with goblins?

Stick them in dungeon rooms, sometimes with some treasure, and usually a few notes on interesting things they are up to.

11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?

See my Beast of the Week series, turning monsters from myths and legends into monsters for the game.

12. What's the funniest table moment you can remember right now?

Lots of them, but the first one that came to mind was in our Gamma World game last year, where Jeremy's mutant bull character bull-headedly blew himself up by trying to bash through a trapped security door with his horns. Josh kept telling him how much damage he'd done and asking him every so often if he wanted to keep going. He did, and at 1000 points of damage, BOOM!!!

13. What was the last game book you looked at--aside from things you referenced in a game--why were you looking at it?

In real life, the 2E Monstrous Compendium, for stocking my Megadungeon. On the computer, the 3.5 Complete Aracane for building my Birthright PC for Adam's upcoming game.

14. Who's your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?

I grew up with Elmore art in my BECM and Star Frontiers.

15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?

It has a few times, but as mentioned above, I rarely run serious games so such occurrences are rare.

16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn't write? (If ever)

Hard to say, but it was likely either with "Isle of Dread" or "Crash on Volturnus," as I ran both of those modules several times.

17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?

Good sized table (plenty of room for character sheets, books, snacks & drinks, plus minis if necessary) in a large room, comfy chairs, adequate lighting, and few distractions.

18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?

I'm liking Pathfinder well enough as a player (doubt I'd like it as a DM after my experiences with 3E), but I also like silly little indie games like "All Outta Bubblegum" or my own "Presidents of the Apocalypse."

19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?

The Castlevania video games, and Three Kingdoms, the classic Chinese novel.

20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?

Smart, adaptable, with a sense of humor, well-read and well versed in pop culture (to get my lame jokes and odd references used as clues in the dungeon), and willing to play an Old School version of D&D.

21. What's a real life experience you've translated into game terms?

The first time I went to Japan, I visited Kakegawa Castle. I turned the floorplans to that castle into a location in an OA game and had the players' Ninja PCs infiltrate it. Having actually been to the place, and then using it in a game worked well for me in visualizing and describing it.

22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn't?

A version of the Rules Cyclopedia without the tacked on skill system and expanded Mystara setting, but with the missing tournament rules, and with the original Elmore/Easley art instead of the Terry Dykstra art that's in the RC.

23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn't play? How do those conversations go?

My (foreign) coworkers, and my adult conversation students. With the coworkers, it's usually just a "what did you do this weekend" sort of thing with maybe a few questions about how the game works here and there. With my adult students, it's mostly a curiosity thing - they usually don't know what I'm talking about so they ask lots of questions, but usually don't show any interest in playing.

Beast of the Week: Amdusian

2012-01-19T12:27:00.001+09:00

Going for a high powered baddie this week. Amdusias is one of the Dukes of Hell. Not sure if he's already statted up for AD&D somewhere, but here's a non-unique version of the devil that could be a follower of the duke, if you prefer.

Amdusian*
AC: -2 (22)
HD: 15***
Move: 120 (40)
Attacks: 1 gore or spell
Damage: 4d6
No. Appearing: 1-4 (1-4)
Save As: Fighter 15
Morale: 9
Treasure Type: H
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 3100

Amdusians are large storm devils with human-like bodies and black unicorn heads. They stand 12' tall. Their purpose is to spread cacophany and discord, although they can create beautiful, if disturbingly haunting, music when they choose. Amdusians can be summoned to the Prime Plane by a Magic-User who knows the proper ritual, but they can be difficult servitors unless the mission they are given is not adequately destructive.
Amdusians are immune to normal weapons. In combat, they may gore with their horns, or use spells. All Amdusians can use a lightning bolt, as the spell, for 10d6 damage up to three times per day. Once per turn, they can create a thundering blast of sound (treat as a Horn of Blasting). Amdusians are immune to all electrical and sonic damage and effects, and to Silence 15' Radius spells.

Somebody jog my memory, please!

2012-01-17T21:24:00.000+09:00

So I've been reading about 5E. Even signed up with Wizards to be a play-tester. It seems like a natural fit for the Busan Gamers, since some of us are old school and some are new school. If the game will be designed in a way to placate both parties, then we're the kind of crew that should be trying it out and giving them feedback on what works and what doesn't.

Anyway, about the jogging of memory (since I have no insightful things to say about 5E itself). About two years ago, when I first started blogging, someone in the nascent OSR blogosphere was running a game using BX for the DM's rules, and letting the players use the 3.5 PHB to craft their characters. And it worked out.

I'm thinking that's the sort of thing Mearls, Cook, and Co. are hoping to achieve with 5E, so it would be interesting to read those old posts again.

If it's your blog, or you can remember better than me who it was, please drop a line in the comments.

Thanks!

With great power comes...

2012-01-15T20:23:00.000+09:00

...a bunch of nasty rogues!

I met up with Jeremy, Adam, Greg, and new Busan Gamer Dean this afternoon to discuss our next game after the Pathfinder game wraps up. Adam is going to run a Birthright game using 3.5.

Man, for an OSR guy, I'm not getting much old school gaming action lately. Oh well, I DON'T have time to run a game, and I don't mind playing 3E/PF. And if that's what Adam wants to run, that's cool.

But man, it's time consuming. I'm taking my character concept from a now defunct PbP game on Dragonsfoot that was supposed to be a domain-level game, but never got past the supposedly fast leveling.*

So I'll be revising Sildarn Stormborn, Human Wizard. The original was BECMI, so he was Chaotic, but I'm making him Lawful Evil for this game. The idea originally was that he would be the Chaotic Magic-User with orc mercenaries when we got to the domain game. My new Birthright version has Air Element affiliation as his Blood Power, so I get air elemental troops in addition to whatever followers/troops/mercenaries I might be able to afford.

We just went over character creation basics today. We've got to roll up our main PCs, lieutenants, and then sub-PCs that can be in the courts of other leaders. Dean's and my characters are in the same domain, so we don't need sub-PCs for each other, but that's still four 3E characters to create, plus my domain.

It's a lot of work, but I've always enjoyed domain-level play, so I'm looking forward to this game.

*The DM spent way too much time trying to actually calculate adventures or something, from what I could tell. He advertised it as just a few roleplaying type posts per level, but then had us scouting missions, following leads that sometimes didn't pan out, and generally doing WAY too much in order for us to have 'organic' backgrounds for our rulers.

Beast of the Week: Cuegle

2012-01-13T10:31:00.001+09:00

This week's monster comes from Spain that I found surfing Monstropedia. It's the Cuegle, a creature that can fill the niche of the ogre, but be a bit of a surprise for players. It may also be the inspiration for the BECMI Athach. Maybe I'll go ask Frank Mentzer about it on Dragonsfoot some day. Not today, though. Too much else to do. Anyway, on with the Beast!

Cuegle
AC: 3 (17)
HD: 5
Move: 90 (30)
Attacks: 3 fists
Damage: 1d6 each
No. Appearing: 1-6 (2-8)
Save As: Fighter 5
Morale: 10
Treasure Type: E
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 175

Cuegles are human-sized, black skinned creatures with three fingerless arms and three eyes, and a horn sprouting from its forehead. They tend to rove in remote mountain ranges or underground, searching for prey. They are primitive, but cunning, and will track prey that they find interesting. They hoard gold and valuables, and will find any group that appears to have wealth to be prime targets. In combat, they bludgeon foes with their club-like hands, and may charge with their horn against opponents not in melee, dealing 2d6 damage if they hit. Cuegles dislike oak and holly leaves, and Druids with these plants in hand can attempt to Turn Cuegles as if the Cuegle were a Wraith and the Druid were a Cleric of equal level.

I see a little silhouette-o of a man...

2012-01-11T23:28:00.000+09:00

Inspired by Telecanter, and needing some small graphics for space filler in Flying Swordsmen, here are a few kung fu silhouettes.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

2012-01-09T21:46:00.000+09:00

Yesterday, we had our third session of Brian's Pathfinder game.

To recap, I'm playing Elwood, a Human Paladin. Jeremy's playing Oxide the Warforged Fighter. Greg's playing Plato the Half-Elf Rogue. Robbie's playing Toki the Human Sorcerer. Jesse rolled up a new PC, Zesser, a Half-Orc Alchemist. Marc is vacationing back in Spain, so his Dwarf Cleric sat this session out.

We're going through Paizo's "Age of Wyrms" adventure path. Spoilers await.

So last session, we ended it right after the necromancer Filch surrendered to us. We manacled him (luckily I'd bought a few pairs!) and interrogated him. He was a slimy, crafty bugger who evaded as much as possible. Just as you'd expect. And we had a quandary. Cullen the Half-Orc brute wanted Filch's eyes as proof that we'd defeated him. Well, Plato and Elwood had a problem. The other two (Zesser hadn't made his appearance yet) were all for ripping his eyes out to take back. For some reason, though, since he'd surrendered to me, it was assumed that Filch was MY prisoner, so I had final say. After dragging as much info out of him as I thought we were gonna get, I gave him an ultimatum. We take him back to town and dispose of him as we like, or we set him free as he desired - but minus his eyes. He chose to go back to town.

We bundled up all the loot we could gather, the dead bodies (the family of the ghost we'd promised to help and Tagolad the Alchemist - remembered his name this time, now that he's gone!), and marched our captured wizard back to town.

When we got there, Plato was begged to head off to the Imporium by a messenger boy, and off he went to meet his lady. Turns out the wizard of the rival adventuring party discovered some evil book and then turned on his former colleagues, killing the fighter and severely wounding the elf chick (not sure what class she is...). She was dying and only trusted him, being a fellow outsider. He then spent most of the rest of the evening searching for the town's doctor to save her (which he did, and she told him she was leaving for Greyhawk City in the morning, never to return, and he should find her there if he ever got out of the stinking pit of Diamond Lake). She should have known better. The turncoat wizard's name was Kelek.

I've GOT this action figure! If I'd known the NPC's name, maybe I could have prevented that bloodshed...

The rest of us took the necromancer to Cullen, and when he tried to shake us down I luckily managed to use Diplomacy to get him to let us leave after just turning over the necromancer. After a brief interlude of Toki the weakling sorcerer trying to muscle his way past the butler of Alistan the Sage (our employer), we turned in for the night. In the morning we got a bit of help from Alistan, met our new Alchemist Zesser, and then set out to bury the bodies in the graveyard and proceed to the Whispering Cairn.

This time, we managed to explore the remainder of the cairn, fought one more battle (Plato got taken down to negatives, but I was right by him to heal him up), and found some interesting artifacts - two of them were evil. Oxide had one of the evil artifacts, and I'm not sure if there was an influence from that (notes from the DM were passed), or if it was just the alcohol Jeremy was drinking, but from about this point in Oxide was getting really nasty and bloodthirsty.

We were all getting a bit suspicious of Alistan the Sage, however. He kept the necromancer's spellbook, and got snippy about paying us when we brought back the obviously powerful artifacts from the Cairn. Oxide went so far as to attack, but luckily the priestess of Wee Jas (yeah, my Paladin's not hanging out with the correct circles, but luckily Brian's being really cool with my cowboy Pally's code of ethics) who was still in the room used Hold Person on him. I got the baby owlbear out of his pack (remember that?) and Plato took out the evil artifact and tossed it to Alistan, who took pains NOT to catch it!

Anyway, Ruby Sorceress of Wee Jas has undead trouble, possibly related to the mine troubles, and what do you know, they think we need the necromancer as he's a specialist about undead. Now, Cullen's had him for a full 24 hours. He may very well be dead. But we get a few healing potions to ease our suffering, then head back to the Feral Dog.

This time, I'm thinking we're definitely going to throw down with Cullen and his boys, so I suggest we get the half-ogre bouncer out first, since he's upstairs, and get him out of the way. I bluff him (yes, my Paladin lied to sucker him into an ambush - I am planning to spend some time in prayer and contemplation once the undead threat is stemmed) outside, where Zesser used his poisoned greataxe (he's a melee alchemist) to paralyze him. We tied him up and drug him into an alley, then Oxide decided to just slay him. He got initiative, so before we could stop him, bam!, short sword in the head. Half-ogre dead, we proceed back inside to face Cullen...

And that's the cliffhanger ending for this session.

We had a lot of in-character bickering and tension, which was really really cool, actually. And very little combat. The fight with the half-ogre barely counts. We're having a good time in this game, and we've all really come into our characters. Even Jesse was really into his new PC, who was the apprentice of his first PC. It's a shame that Brian's leaving at the end of February. We've only got a couple more sessions to see how this all plays out.

Beast of the Week: Dokkaebi

2012-01-05T21:27:00.000+09:00

OK, so I'm starting off my weekly monster series with a Korean monster very similar to the Japanese Oni, the Dokkaebi (or alternately spelled Tokebi or Tokaebi). This creature looks much like the oni, but is said to be the spirit of an inanimate object made self-aware. They have characteristics similar to many Japanese Yokai creatures, being at times scary, helpful, or comical depending on the story.

Dokkaebi
AC: 4 (16)
HD: 6+1**
Move: 120 (60)
Attacks: 1 mallet
Damage: 1d10+2
No. Appearing: 1-4 (1-10)
Save As: Fighter 6
Morale: 8
Treasure Type: B
Alignment: Lawful
XP: 950

Dokkaebi are hairy ogre-like creatures standing 6-9' tall, with tusks, clawed hands, and unruly manes of hair on their heads. They may be nearly any color, and their hair is typically a different shade from their skin. Dokkaebi are creatures of justice, who seek out wickedness to punish. When they are not punishing evil-doers, though, they often delight in playing pranks and jokes on those who have some peccadilloes but are not evil.

In combat, Dokkaebi fight with magical mallets or spiked clubs. These weapons strike as if they were +2 magical weapons. Dokkaebi also gain a +2 bonus to damage due to their great strength. They are also fond of wrestling. Instead of attacking with a mallet, a Dokkaebi can make an unarmed attack, grabbing an opponent and holding them with a successful attack roll. The victim may Save vs. Wands each round to escape the hold. Dokkaebi can make themselves invisible, as the spell, three times per day.

Dokkaebi can also use their mallets to "create" inanimate objects, as a djinni, except all goods are permanent. The objects created are actually teleported to the Dokkaebi's location from some other place, not conjured from thin air. Because of this, Dokkaebi are careful about how they use this ability, only conjuring goods when there is a great need. Dokkaebi mallets only function in the hands of a Dokkaebi.

Monsters, monsters, and more monsters

2012-01-04T22:00:00.000+09:00

On my trip back to the States last week, I took some of my megadungeon stuff along. I'm currently keying the 3rd level of the dungeon, and got from 18 rooms up to 100 rooms keyed.

But I only had my listing of Classic D&D monsters (a homemade document with most of the non-planar BECM/RC critters, plus some of the Creature Catalogue monsters I use a lot and some of my home-made critters thrown in too). For the past couple days, I've been going through my PDF collection of monster books, looking for other stuff to use.

There's a lot of good stuff out there, between Classic, AD&D 1E and 2E (especially the 2E Monstrous Compendiums of various campaign worlds and annuals), and 3rd party stuff like a PDF a friend sent me of White Dwarf's various creature feature articles (many of which are in the Fiend Folio, but not all!).

I feel like I'm swarming in monsters! And that's not a complaint.

I've had an idea to try and make a new monster every week here on the blog. That's my goal, anyway. 52 new monsters (or stats given to various non-D&D monsters like I usually do) in 2012.

Stay tuned, the first one should be coming up maybe tomorrow or Friday.

A Christmas Miracle

2012-01-03T07:32:00.000+09:00

This is NOT a gaming post, but it's to let you all know what I've been up to and why I've been posting so infrequently. And there's a little bit of the weird/unexplained about it, so who knows, it could maybe provide a bit of inspiration for something in a game.

On Dec. 2nd, my sister and her family were in a car accident. My brother-in-law and his father (who was driving) suffered some minor injuries, while my two nephews, Ben (10) and Brian (7), both were badly hurt. Ben suffered a broken hip-bone and some lacerations. Brian had a serious head injury.

Ben made a speedy recovery. Last week while I was visiting, he was mobile (we went bowling even!) and in good spirits. The doctors say he's fine, he just needs a bit of PT to get back full mobility.

Brian, however, was close to death several times. On the night of the accident, the doctors say if he had gotten to the hospital 30 minutes later, he would have died. They thought he wouldn't make it through that first weekend, but he did. Two weeks after the crash, the swelling had gone down enough that they could remove some of the monitoring equipment and take a full MRI of his brain. One of the doctors thought the damage to his brain stem was so severe that he had 0 chance of recovery, and would likely die if taken off the respirator.

My sister and her husband made the painful choice that being in a coma on life support was not a life, and decided to have the respirator turned off. But Brian didn't die. He was breathing on his own. Still, the doctors said Brian wasn't likely to live out more than a week. I was making my travel plans about this time.

I arrived in Statesboro, GA on Dec. 26th in the evening, and word was that Brian was doing fine. The next morning I went to see him, and walked into his hospice room to find him with eyes open, looking around at people, and perhaps trying to recognize me (I hadn't seen him in person since he was only 1 year old). He was making gurgling/humming noises. If someone called to him, he would turn his head or eyes in their direction. If you took his hand, he would squeeze it, if weakly. These were all things the docs had thought he'd NEVER be able to do because of the brain stem injury.

That day, the doctors examined him again, and recommended moving him out of hospice and back to the hospital in Savannah. That afternoon he was moved. We spent the afternoon/evening with Ben, taking him to a comic shop, book store, bowling, IHOP, etc.

Wednesday we drove down to Savannah and had more good news. The doctors were going to do surgery to replace the piece of skull they'd removed when his head was swollen. When he recovers from that, he will be admitted into a rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta (where they live now). He'll get PT, speech therapy, everything he needs to regain as much functionality as he can. I'm praying for a full recovery, and so are thousands more.

OK, here's the weird part. Wed. evening, at dinner (I flew out Thurs. morning, so this was the last I saw them for this trip), my sister told me this. On the night of the crash, she never lost consciousness. Their car had been hit from the side and flipped over, and they were all trapped inside. Another car came by and stopped, and a young petite woman was trying to help get them out, but was too small. Both she and my sister remember there were suddenly three or four people dressed like EMTs who showed up, and helped get them out of the car. When the ambulances showed up, those helpers were nowhere to be found. My sister and the woman who helped think they were guardian angels.

One of the other cars to arrive on the scene shortly after the wreck was a man who IS an EMT, although off duty. He had forgotten to buy something for his wife, and was taking a different way home than normal, and passed the accident scene. This man called for airlift helicopters for the boys before the ambulances arrived - something that normally only the ambulance EMTs can do. That saved Brian's life that night.

So even if there were no guardian angels, just some good Samaritans who somehow managed to slip quietly away after helping, I think we still witnessed a miracle this past month. Brian is not only alive, but he's recovering from injuries that the doctors thought were irrecoverable.

Airport

2011-12-26T16:31:00.000+09:00

Sitting in Narita airport, stocking rooms in my Megadungeon. It's as good a way as any to spend layover time.

My Unexpected Christmas Bonus

2011-12-23T22:41:00.000+09:00

Today was the Christmas party for the kids at my kindergarten. And as usual, after the explanation of Christmas, Quiz Game, cello performance, giving of gifts by "the Santa Brothers" (us five foreign teachers), crafts, games, face painting, and all that sort of stuff -- we had the "Christmas Market."

We'd been awarding fake dollars to the kids all month, and this was their chance to use them. Amongst the pens, pencils, cheap toys, and Angry Birds and Rilakkuma goods, were these fine educational toys:

Not sure why Blogger put this in portrait when it's landscape on my hard drive

Scooped up six packs. One's a stocking stuffer for my son, the rest are mine! Mine! MINE!!!

And yes, I've got plenty of dollar store d6s to finish out the sets.

There are also more packs at the school, but I didn't want to seem greedy. I may grab a few more when I return to work in January after the vacation.

And that reminds me - I'm heading back to the States from the 26th to the 30th, so likely won't post anything here. I will post about the reason for the trip though when I get back (or depending on internet access and time, while I'm there).

Updates

2011-12-20T07:19:00.000+09:00

Woke up to find two emails, one from Daxiong, another from Lee, both about Flying Swordsmen.

Daxiong hadn't been on Deviant Art for a long time, so didn't see my message. He finally checked it, and emailed me the picture with no watermark. Which is good, because I'd already wasted a day trying to remove the watermark manually, and was not doing such a good job.

Lee has sent me a couple versions of cover designs he's created. We're still working on them, but he's got some good ideas and the cover is going to look sharp.

What do you think, folks?

A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy

2011-12-19T12:27:00.001+09:00

or, Of Owlbears, Laughing Ghosts and Necromancers

We had our second Pathfinder session yesterday, and it went fairly well. We had two new players. Marc found out about the game through this blog, and Jesse is a friend of Greg's who was at the bookstore the last time we played, teaching another guy how to play Axis and Allies. Marc had a Dwarf Cleric, and Jesse had an Elf Alchemist (a cool but strange class from a PF splatbook, I take it).

Our motley group returned to the mining town that is full of evil lowlifes and of course got into trouble. Our Sorcerer Toki went to find out if our dead torchbearer (he fell down a pit trap) was really the sheriff's nephew. He was, and the sheriff decided to shake down Toki for it. He threatened to arrest the sorcerer if he didn't fork over 100gp.

Plato, our half-elf Thief, wanted to fence his strange black glassy rocks, and lost one to a greedy dwarf miner who he asked to appraise it. He tried to swipe it back when the dwarf refused to return it, and earned the ire of that mining company.

Oxide, the warforged Fighter, went to get repaired.

My Paladin, Elwood, went to see Allistan our employer, gave him copies of our maps, details of what we'd explored, handed in some historical artifacts (which he paid us for), and got our magic items identified. That's where Allistan introduced our new cohorts, Ragnar the Dwarf and... can't remember the Elf's name, something -lad.

My Paladin took his earnings and bought some gear, and a little present for the prostitute who had shared the information he needed the night before. She accepted the gift, and asked what I wanted. I told her it was just a gift. She said she had some spare time. I took her up on her offer. Good thing, too, otherwise I might have risked losing my abilities.

While I was carousing, everyone else decided to lay an ambush for the sheriff (who must have tons of gold if he's shaking down Toki for 100!). They didn't want to confront him on the street, so they staked out the sheriff's office, waited until he left, and then planned to wait inside to trap or kill him, and rob him.

They couldn't get the lock open. So they had to settle for Toki lighting the papers on his desk on fire, then running away.

We finally headed back to the Cairn, and used the colored lanterns to open the way to the real tomb. But the next room was a trap where both my Paladin and Greg's Rogue went down to damage from the trap and a monster, and a laughing ghost told us the way was barred and only he could open the lock. And he'd only do it if we took his bones and buried him with his family.

Of course, that wasn't simple. We found his family's farmstead. His family had died of a plague 30 odd years before, but their graves were freshly disturbed and empty. And something was lurking in the farmhouse. After another fight, we ended up with a pet owlbear cub (or is it chick?). Oxide and Elwood want to raise it, everyone else wants to sell it. We also found a clue as to who the grave robbers were, a local gang led by an albino half-orc named Cullen (sparkly jokes ensued).

We leveled up at this point.

Cullen and his gang were beat up from their owlbear encounter, but they outnumbered us counting their dogs, and I had a feeling they weren't a 'level appropriate' challenge, so we got the information that we needed and after a heated discussion of whether or not we should try to kill them anyway by locking them in their basement and setting it on fire (again, at risk to my Paladin status), we let them be for the time being and set off to find the necromancer they were grudgingly assisting, who had stolen the ghost's family's remains.

We ended the night by capturing the necromancer, but not without cost. We lost our poor Alchemist whose name was too long for me to remember (I'd just been thinking of him as 'Lad until I got a chance to get used to his name). Zombies tore his poor elven head off after he was paralyzed by a spell.

Jeremy was again surprised that my Paladin took the evil necromancer prisoner instead of slaying him. Well, it was tactically sound. Oxide had ran off from a fear spell, the Alchemist was dead, the Sorcerer was nauseated, the Rogue was toe-to-toe with two zombies, the Cleric with two more, and I had been hit by a wand of enervation sapping my strength. Also, we can try to get some information from him, and if I feel his crimes merit it, we can execute him later. Or someone else can slit his throat while I'm not there to stop them. I'm not trying to play my Paladin in a way that will hinder everyone else, but at the same time I'm not gonna play him as some bloodthirsty unthinking ass who slays everyone he pings as evil simply because they're evil.

Besides, I think keeping him alive for now will be more fun.

The place was closing by that time, so we'll interrogate our prisoner and then bury the bones, maybe deal with the gang or maybe not, and then see if we can get more than just one more room of the dungeon explored.

Brave Sir Robin Ran Away

2011-12-14T15:33:00.000+09:00

So, a little while back, Zak S. posted four little words that spawned as of this writing 66 comments. He later added a Venn Diagram that spawned a few more. He doesn't like the Bard class.

And he makes a good point, but also shows off his own blinders in his latter comments and the second post. He seems to limit is conception of the Bard to the picture from the 2E PHB. While any other class can be given a unique personality, he seems to think bards only conform to this image:

And Zak's right that this image is laughable.

The reason Bards suck, though, is less to do with the above image and more to do with the wide variety of ways they've been implemented, and the contrast between the mythic, legendary, and modern fictional sources.

Bards suffer from trying to cram too much stuff into one class. In 1E, they were (as most of you know) a nearly impossible class to achieve, needing to gain several levels in Fighter, then Thief, then Druid (and needing the ability scores for all that dual classing, which were higher than the Bard's requirements IIRC). And what did you get for all that effort? Some Lore abilities, and Magical Music.

2E turned it into the Jack of All Trades, with a bit of Fighter, a bit of Thief, and a bit of Magic-User right from the beginning. But as the JOAT, he is of course master of none. Oh, and then there's the Lore and Magical Music.

3E continued in the 2E vein. 4E, I don't know, don't care. Someone else can comment if they want.

My own houseruled Bard started out as a variant of the Classic D&D Elf class (a Fighter/Magic-User) for Human PCs, but then somehow morphed into the Cleric/Thief role. And I'm not 100% satisfied with it, and no one has yet tried to play one at my table.

But what were bards historically? What mythic/legendary/fictional sources do we have to build the archetype around for this class?

Historical bards were court poets and lore-keepers. Not much record of them being warriors, rascals, or spellcasters. There were some Victorian scholars who posited that bards were a sub-sect of the druid, serving as a sort of priest-judge in Celtic societies, but that's been discredited, I think (and I gave away the books I read that in, so I can't source it - take it with a grain of salt). There were also historical scops (Anglo-Saxon), scalds (Norse), troubadours (French), minstrels (English), etc. They were poets and singers of various sorts, usually telling heroic tales of the current lord or king's ancestors. Again, basically lore-masters. In pre-literate societies, these guys were living Kindles.

Based on this, the D&D Bard would best be a type of Specialist NPC. Someone you hire to sing your praises and those of your illustrious ancestors (real or imagined) to increase your renown.

In myth and legend, though, we do have lots of instances of magical music. Amergin sings the seas calm so the Milesians can invade Ireland. Orpheus was able to charm people and beasts with his songs and stories, and also provides the idea of the "bardic countersong" by helping the Argonauts pass the Sirens. Taliesin was supposed to have the gift of prophecy and transformation. Towards the end of the Volsung Saga, Gunnar plays a harp with his toes to keep poisonous snakes away.

These mythic sources could just as easily be covered by the Cleric and Magic-User classes in D&D, with just flavor from the player that the spells are created with magic-infused music instead of the traditional D&D hand-waving and flinging of bat poop.

We also have less magical legends and fictional characters of musicians who adventure. Alan-a-Dale in the Robin Hood cycle, Sir Dagonet the Fool in the Matter of Britain, and the image of the wandering minstrel or troubadour. These guys don't use magic, they aren't lore-masters, but they wander around and sing songs and get into trouble.

In D&D terms, again, these guys should likely just be Fighters or Thieves with a talent for singing.

Finally, we get some instances in fantasy fiction of actual bard characters, or magic accomplished through song. Fflewddur Fflam of The Prydain Chronicles is a would-be-bard, who wanders around with his magical harp getting into trouble. This was my first introduction to the concept of a bard, and it is one of the reasons why I like the idea of having a Bard class in the game. Another source for music-as-magic is Tolkien, where Tom Bombadil and Goldberry, as well as the Elves, make 'magic' through song, and in the Silmarillion we learn that Middle-Earth was created by song, so music is the stuff of creation.

So, various versions of D&D throughout the years have tried to meld these distinct images together into one class. And some people like it, some hate it.

My thoughts? At the moment, I'm thinking my idea to make the lore-master/poet into an NPC specialist (who may follow you around and sing your praises, and provide snacks in hardship as with Brave Sir Robin's minstrels) is a good one.

Otherwise, as Zak suggested, just add some musical talent to your PC (of whatever class) and be a bard that way.

Paladin, yes, that's a Paladin

2011-12-12T12:10:00.000+09:00

We'll be playing our next session of Brian's Pathfinder game next Sunday. At the end of the last session, there were a few questions by the other players about how I was playing my Paladin.

Specifically, when we were given our offer of employment by the sage, in a brothel, the sage mentioned that he had paid for the room for the night, and any of us that wished could stay. My PC was the only one who did. Of course, while he was enjoying himself, he also used the opportunity to gather information from the lovely ladies there.

What can I say, I'm modeling his personality on Elwood Blues and Johnny Cash, and he's a Paladin of Myrlund, who is a fantasy Cowboy. It seemed to be an action perfectly in character, and Brian agreed with my logic.

Now, this is not a post to get into the inherent morality or ethicality of prostitution. What it is a post about is to show that one can be a Paladin without being a stick-in-the-mud, or an overzealous moron. The last thing I want to do in a game is play Lawful Stupid and ruin everyone else's fun by forcing them to play along to some overly restrictive moral code.

Anyway, here's a good post I found today about how Paladins should really be played, found via the Hitting Dirtside blog.

Luddites from Beyond the Grave!

2011-12-10T19:44:00.000+09:00

Halloween's over, but my blog has apparently just been visited by a Luddite from Beyond the Grave. That should be good inspiration for someone's game somewhere.

In other news, tomorrow is my 38th birthday, and also the 27th anniversary of me getting the Mentzer Basic Set.

Stupid Random Shower Thought

2011-12-07T22:27:00.000+09:00

Yesterday morning, as I was in the shower, this hit me:

In fantastically awesome (yeah, some of you are saying fantastically cheesy, that's OK, there's no accounting for taste) 80's fantasy movie Krull...

...could we possibly have an unofficial prequel to...

...Star Wars?

Well, hear me out! Don't click that back button yet.

Think about it. In Krull, we have this prophecy:

From the sky will come the Black Fortress. From the Fortress will come the Slayers to devour the planet of Krull. Then shall a girl of ancient name become queen...she shall choose a king...and together they shall rule the planet. And their son shall rule the galaxy.

We have Clarke's Law magic (alien technology being used on a medieval tech level world).
Yet we have an actual 'magical' power that allows the hero to move things telepathically (the glaive), resist damage (sticking his hand into lava), and control energy (the wedding flame). More or less what the Force can do in Star Wars.

Could Palpatine be Colwyn and Lyssa's child? Taken from them (or they fled Krull) to Naboo (not than anyone knew about Naboo, even George Lucas, back in 1983), and he eventually becomes a Dark Lord of the Sith and rules the galaxy.

Daddy could shoot fire from his hands, son could shoot lightning.

Why are you looking at the screen that way? I told you in the title this was a stupid thought.

Cover Mockup Pt. 2

2011-12-06T07:20:00.000+09:00

Here's a version taking into account some of the suggestions my first attempt landed. Looking at it now, I'm thinking the Chinese should actually be above the English in the title. And I'm not sure if the crimson-ish font works or not. Suggestions, please!

Lee B, if you're interested in making a logo and need some more input - like stroke order for writing the characters or whatnot - email me. the_boy_from_illinois [at] yahoo [dot] com

Some art and calligraphy

2011-12-04T15:40:00.000+09:00

Here's an inked composite image of the two kung fu dudes I presented earlier on the blog. Toying around with coloring it in GIMP, but not too happy with the results. I'll likely just keep it black and white.

And Lee B, here are the Chinese characters for Flying Swordsmen written big, in both thick marker and fine-tip marker.

I'm kinda excited to see what Lee might come up with for a logo. Of course, I'm going to have a professional looking cover and a very amateurish interior, but hey, you'll be getting more than what you pay for with Flying Swordsmen. Cause you'll be paying nothing and getting some pretty cool rules for making D&D into a wuxia-style game.

Cover Mockup

2011-11-29T22:45:00.001+09:00

Instead of doing the work I needed to do on my grad school final project (procrastination - I can do it tomorrow...), I was messing around with OpenOffice's version of PowerPoint, with some touchups in GIMP, and mocked up a cover for Flying Swordsmen.

Still needs some work, and I need a version of the picture without the DeviantArt watermark. Waiting to hear from Daxiong about that.

Anyway, opinions wanted. And don't hold back if you don't like it. I can take criticism and it could save me from releasing a game with a crappy cover. :D

Edit: Lee reminded me that I had meant to use the Chinese characters in the cover somewhere. I posted them in the comments, but they're small. Here they are bigger:

翔剣客

Pathfinder game begins

2011-11-27T21:58:00.000+09:00

Just got back from the first session of our new Pathfinder campaign, run by Brian. It went well, although the venue was a bit noisy, especially toward the end of the evening.

When we first started up, things were sounding familiar to me, and by the time we got to the dungeon and Brian mentioned the name, I realized that yes, this was indeed the adventure I'd partially played way back with the Ebisu Group in maybe 2006. It didn't play out the same way as before, of course, and while I did remember some things, I didn't remember enough to avoid a trap or two.

And in fact, we covered more territory tonight than we did before with the Ebisu group, at least as far as exploring the tomb dungeon. With the Ebisu Group, we spent a lot of time in town, fixing up the shack we were using as a home base, and committing and hiding the murder of the town's sheriff (who was Evil and had it coming). Today we spent only a modest amount of time in town, and then hit the dungeon and explored quite a bit of it.

There wasn't much combat, but what combat there was went fairly fast and easy. We sprang some traps, gathered evidence, and solved a few puzzles. Gained some loot along the way, too. Next session, we'll try to get the magic items identified, fence the loot...I mean pass the historical objects on to the sage who hired us, and get a bit better equipment, then head back to explore the rest of the ruin.

No deaths, although I was down to 1 hit point due to a Use Magic Device malfunction, and Jeremy's Warforged Fighter got taken down to negatives by a water elemental who was luckily evil so I was able to smite it to its watery grave. A heroic untrained Craft skill check by Greg's juvenile delinquent Half-Elf Rogue, aided by my Paladin and Robbie's Sorcerer, brought the Warforged back into commission, and some magical beds healed up the rest of us, more or less.

Definitely looking forward to the next session, probably in three weeks.

Stop the Presses!!!

2011-11-25T22:36:00.000+09:00

Just checked DeviantArt. I'd sent messages a while back begging a few artists there for cover-worthy material for Flying Swordsman.

And I just got a "Yes" from Daxiong Guo.

Who is he? Well, read about him here, and take a look at his work here. In addition to a ton of books and comics when he was in China, he's been working for Dark Horse and DC Comics since coming to the U.S., among other things. Top notch artwork here.

I am really happy right now. But the little guy's asleep (so is the wife) so no jumping and yelling with joy.

How to play my Paladin

2011-11-25T09:54:00.000+09:00

No, this is not about how YOU should play YOUR Paladin. This is just some thoughts about how I'm gonna play my Paladin in Brian's PF game starting this Sunday.

When I rolled him up, I was thinking (as I mentioned before) I'd play him mostly like Elwood Blues. Pretty much unfazed by things blowing up around him and whatnot, but dedicated to his "mission from God." And his moral view would be sort of a Johnny Cash apocalyptic. He's had a vision of the End Times coming, and that's what made him choose the path of a Paladin.

And last night, I was looking through the Greyhawk deities, since the game will be set there. And among the Lawful Good ones was Murlynd, Don Kaye's old character turned into a hero-deity by Gygax after Kaye died.

I'll be imagining the Murlynd that gives visions to my Paladin something like this.

This dude is a frickin' fantasy COWBOY. With six-shooters and chaps and a Stetson hat and all.

Perfect deity for my Paladin to follow.

Even if he has been ret-conned as the 'god of magical technology.'

Sketch 2, Thanksgiving, and some progress!

2011-11-24T22:06:00.001+09:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers. We had a small but nice Thanksgiving dinner here with my family and my sister-in-law's family. Big old smoked turkey drumstick sliced into bite-sized pieces for the kids, mashed potatoes, and some salad. Simple, but delicious.

And thanks to everyone that reads this blog. Even Woodstock. Without you guys reading and enjoying (or trashing) what I write here, I wouldn't still be doing it.

This is the sketch I did last night, the second element for the cover of Flying Swordsmen.

I also checked a print shop near one of the universities right near where I work tonight, and they have a scanner that can scan A3 size paper. My Zhongyang Dalu map is smaller than that, so it looks like I'll be taking my hand-drawn map there to get it scanned. Then I just need to get the cover done, get a few more pictures from Dylan and some last minute edits. Once all that's done, I think Flying Swordsmen will be ready for release.

Flying Swordsmen Character Sheet

2011-11-23T16:34:00.000+09:00

Well, I think I'm happy with this version of the character sheet for Flying Swordsmen. I may make a few minor edits before release (maybe give a bit more definition to the "Water" save title, or some adjusting of frame sizes), but this will probably be good enough for general use.

Flying Swordsmen Character Sheet

Of course it will likely be a couple more months before the game is ready for release, but I might as well put this up here now since it's pretty much done.

Pencil Sketch

2011-11-20T16:41:00.000+09:00

Drew this sketch this morning. I've got an idea of what I'd like the cover of Flying Swordsmen to look like, and this, cleaned up a little, inked and colored, will likely be one element of the cover. I'll be combining all of my hand-drawn elements on the computer. It's been a long while since I've done much drawing, other than cartoons on the white board to help teach my students.

Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

2011-11-19T08:26:00.000+09:00

Saw Deathly Hallows Part 2 on VOD last night. I'd been waiting for this to show up on our VOD, since I saw Part 1 a while back. [And I thought I'd written a review of Part 1, but I just spent about half an hour reading through old blog posts because I didn't find it under my 'movie' tag. Still can't find it. And I've got other stuff to do today.]

Anyway, since I can't link to my thoughts on Part 1, I'll just say I think they did a good job in Part 1 of editing out the long boring parts of the book to keep the action moving more. But the ending, while a logical place to cut off the story, really felt underwhelming to me.

So, Part 2. The big finale. The Battle of Hogwarts. Lots of dramatic character deaths. Harry and Voldemort finally face off. How did it turn out on film?

Well, for one, watching it on my TV in a well lit room, it was often too dark to actually see anything. Especially during the Battle of Hogwarts scenes. Maybe we should have gone to see it in the theater after all, because what I was hoping to see was lots of the big magical battle. But what I got were brief glimpses of cool magical battles between shots of black screen with a few shadowy movements or a bit of indistinct CGI glow.

And all the dramatic deaths didn't feel so dramatic. I guess it might have been for ratings purposes, but there weren't that many deaths shown, and when they did show for example Fred Weasley, Lupin and Tonks, and a few others' corpses laid out, it was so brief that it wasn't really moving.

Maybe I should have watched the movie before reading the book. I found the second half of the book to be really well done, and wrapped things up nicely. I found myself caring for the various minor characters who died when I read the book. In the movie, not so much.

So a bit disappointing end to a nice movie series, in my opinion.

My first Paladin

2011-11-15T23:43:00.000+09:00

Brian, who found out about our Busan gaming group by discovering this here blog, is gonna start up a Pathfinder game two Sundays from now. I never got a chance to play a Paladin before, and I've had a few ideas about what could make for an interesting (and hopefully not cliche) one.

So I've rolled up a Human Paladin. I almost went with a Half-Orc, as I've got a soft spot for the ugly ones. But I thought about the character I really wanted to play, and decided he should be a human. Named Elwood. On a mission from God. Probably with a healthy helping of Johnny Cash wisdom thrown in.

And I'm now encountering one of the things that made me want to drop 3E in any form as a DM and return to Classic D&D.

I may well be not only the only human character in the group, but the only character with a race from the standard Tolkienesque racial lineup!

Jeremy wants to play a warforged fighter. Robbie wants to play a kobold sorcerer (although he did consider a halfling ninja). Greg wants to play something called a 'stonegrunt' and while I have no idea what they are exactly, I can guess.

Now, I'm not passing any value judgements. One of the big selling points of 3E-based games is the whole openness of any race+any class, no level limits, blah blah blah. And veteran players like to try out things they've never done before (like myself, who's never played a paladin before, although Gwydion my old Fighter considered the option before becoming a land-holder and moving up the ranks of the nobility).

I guess it's just a different perspective. I take a stock character type and try to breathe a unique and hopefully fun personality into that archetype. Everyone else is trying to be unique through their 'build.'

As a DM, it used to drive me nuts. Players always asking to be the weirdest things they could imagine, just because they could. As a player, I'm more mellow about it. Sure, you're some freaky Rock-beast Fighter. Just be sure to do something with the character to make it an interesting rock-beast Fighter, rather than just the same as if he were a Dwarf, only with different numbers on the sheet. :)

OA, OA, everywhere, and not a drop to drink

2011-11-13T11:08:00.000+09:00

Um, OK, the literary allusion in the title is misleading. Because it seems there are posts about Oriental Adventures related stuff all over the place lately.

Not only am I knee deep in Flying Swordsmen RPG (wuxia kung fu fantasy), but Fabian at Blade Sharp is working on a conversion of the original OA to Labyrinth Lord.

In addition, Dangerous Brian is converting horror modules to OA.

BrunoMac has some OA musings and inspiration, and a recommended movie I need to watch.

Even James of the Underdark Gazette is working on a monk!

Seems like there were a few other OA related posts over the weekend, but I'm having trouble tracking them down now. Anyway, looks like more people than me have OA on the mind.

It's that dreaded time...

2011-11-10T22:45:00.002+09:00

...when grad school rears its ugly head.

Just got hit with a 'final paper' that is basically doing the prof's personal research for her. To be expected in grad school, but damn, it's gonna be a time sink I don't need right now.

So I'm officially giving up on my goal of getting Flying Swordsmen out there by the end of the year.

Likely not a whole lot will go up here on the blog in the next couple weeks, either. If it's quiet around here through the Christmas season, check back in January.

Need some inspiration for a game?

2011-11-09T07:15:00.000+09:00

Found this on Facebook this morning. Figured it would be worth a chuckle to repost it here.

Return to Yeffal's Castle

2011-11-07T15:21:00.000+09:00

Yesterday, I got together with Jeremy and Brian again, and they ran their characters through my Megadungeon one more time. [Read about their first delve here!]

This time out, they had a bit more of a plan. They heard a few new rumors in town, but were still thinking they'd like to get the Eye of the Frost Troll because it's just a cool name. The rumors said it, as well as the Wand of Skelmis, were in the Keep. But after buying a wagon and horses to haul loot, and hiring a teamster to drive it, as well as a pair of crossbowmen to help guard the pansy Elf, they decided to return to the former bandit stronghold (a structure in the first court yard called the Lesser Donjon on my map) and investigate the stairs leading down from it.

That took them to Level 1 of the dungeon proper, and they spent some time exploring it and fighting some monsters. They found a not so well hidden stairway that led down to not only Level 2, but deeper. They explored some of the second level as well. They had two near deaths, both Brian's Thief and his Dwarf were bitten by giant spiders. The Thief happened to have a potion of antidote, and so was fine after drinking it. The Dwarf almost missed his saving throw the third time he was bitten, but we remembered the +2 bonus to save vs. Crab Spider venom, which just put him over. So no PC deaths again, but some close scrapes.

Both Jeremy and Brian are building up personalities for their characters through play, which is something I enjoy watching. It's hard that each of them is running 3 PCs, though. So far, the Dwarf and Barbarian each are getting the most 'screen time' because they're the most heavy hitters and the group has not shied away from any combats yet. But the Thief and Elf who cower in the back most times are developing as well, and to a lesser extent so are the Cleric and Fighter. They didn't find a whole lot of treasure (they found too much last time anyway), but they covered a lot of ground, and have some new mysteries about the dungeon to investigate.

Hopefully next time I run the Megadungeon we'll have a few more players and that should help things out.

We're gonna try to get a rotating DM schedule of some sort going. In two weeks, Brian is offering to run a Pathfinder game (and we should be able to pull in a couple of the guys who don't want to play OSR stuff for that), and Jeremy is trying to make a Microlite/True20 cludge game that he can run as well. So, hopefully there will be more gaming in the near future.

Decisions, decisions

2011-11-03T22:25:00.000+09:00

Jeremy sent me a link to one of the Microlite 20 games. It's called the Golden Edition. And at 142 pages, it's not so micro. Haven't looked through it enough to see if it's "lite" or not.

Anyway, it reminded me that I've had the Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition Characters pdf sitting on the hard drive unread.

I gave it a look yesterday. I was impressed. It doesn't remove all of the unnecessary cruft from AD&D (IMO, of course), but a lot that's left behind is optional. I'd play AD&D more often if it weren't for my (possibly irrational?) despising certain wonky mechanics (percentile strength, different weapon damage vs. large creatures, 1-minute combat rounds with segments, lots of fiddly little things that don't add to the fun but add to the book-keeping).

I'm pretty seriously considering switching from my homebrewed version of Mentzer to LL+AEC. Of course, there are some things from Classic and my own houserules I'd likely keep, but I may be switching.

The big decider was the notes on using AD&D style race+class along with Classic's race-as-class. Well, that and the no percentile strength/damage vs. large creatures/1 minute rounds things.

Halloween Party

2011-11-01T07:16:00.000+09:00

Here are me as a werewolf (for kindergarteners, so not too scary...) with my son, Superman!

Hope everyone had a fun Halloween!

Oh crap, it's Halloween!

2011-10-31T22:36:00.000+09:00

In fact, here in Busan as I write this, Halloween's almost over -- 2 hours to midnight. And I've only gotten what, three Castlevania monsters statted up this month? That sucks.

Oh well, I've been busy with grad school, reading the Wheel of Time books, and general father/husband stuff.

The kindergarten where I teach had its Halloween party last Friday. I was a werewolf in the morning. Let my beard grow, put on some face paint and rubber fangs, and wore a ripped up collared shirt over my t-shirt and jeans. Simple yet effective. In the afternoon, I was in the haunted house, where it was too dark to see the face paint, so I switched to a skull mask. Much haunting was had by all. My son was Superman for the second year in a row. He loves that Superman outfit. He'll likely wear it again next year.

Saturday, I spent the majority of the day, and all Sunday morning as well, finishing up The Tower of Midnight, Wheel of Time book 13. Got it from the local English library, and had to return it Sunday, so I wanted to finish it rather than check it out for another two weeks. I'm really liking the way Sanderson is writing these last books. He's just less focused on the insignificant details, and he's doing a good job in wrapping up all these little sub-plots that Jordan should have wrapped up two to five volumes earlier in the series. It's also cool to see a fantasy world going into Armageddon in a way that really feels like it's the end of the world. I'm glad now that I finally got around to reading these, and I'm actually looking forward to the final book next spring, now! What a difference a month makes.

And today I was working and had grad school class. Got a bit of work done on Flying Swordsmen during my breaks at work. Probably should have posted something here though, instead of just reading about the demise of YDIS and Vincent Baker vs. Jim Raggi.

Anyway, here's one last Castlevania monster for Halloween!

Skeleton Ape
AC: 7 (13)
HD: 4*
Move: 60 (20)
Attacks: 1 bash
Damage: 2d6
No. Appearing: 1-4 (2-8)
Save As: Fighter 4
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: E
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 125

Skeleton Apes are animated simians created to cause chaos and destruction. They are rarely used to guard crypts, instead being used by necromancers, liches, or other evil sorts as shock troops. Skeleton Apes typically carry a barrel of flammable materials that they toss as an initial attack. The barrel can be thrown to a range of up to 60', and explodes in a 15' radius, dealing 3d6 damage to all in the blast. A save vs. breath weapons reduces the damage by half. After tossing its barrel, the skeleton ape lumbers forward into melee and clubs any opponents that come near it mercilessly until it is destroyed. Skeleton apes are Turned as ghouls.

Hunchbacks/Igors!

2011-10-26T10:30:00.000+09:00

I gotta say, I seem to find these Castlevania monsters with erratic movement patterns or just simple annoying ways to avoid Belmont whips to be good fodder for conversion to D&D. Well, the skeleton/zombie type monsters that just walk forward trying to kill the good vampire hunters aren't that interesting, and plain skeletons and zombies are already in D&D. So here's another of those monsters that tends to give me (and I'm sure many of you as well) fits, the Hunchback/Igor/Fleaman!

Hunchback
AC: 6 (14)
HD: 1*
Move: 120 (60)
Attacks: 1 weapon
Damage: by weapon
No. Appearing: 2-16 (3-18)
Save As: Thief 1
Morale: 9
Treasure Type: A
Alignment: Chaotic
XP:13

Hunchbacks, also known to some adventurers as Fleamen, are Halfling-sized humanoids with twisted deformities in their backs and powerful limbs. Despite their small size and deformities, Hunchbacks can leap great distances, and do so with great acrobatic skill. On any Round in which the Hunchbacks win initiative, they may leap in, strike, and leap away before their opponents can counterattack.

Poll Closing in a few hours!

2011-10-23T08:07:00.001+09:00

Just an update to remind anyone who has a preference on the layout of Flying Swordsmen, the poll closes in a few hours. Right now, it's a runaway for 2-column portrait. I doubt enough people are gonna read this blog and vote for another format in the next few hours, but here's your opportunity if you'd prefer another format to let your voice be heard!

Taoist Element Saving Throws

2011-10-22T07:42:00.000+09:00

Just a little more thought on the Taoist (Daoist) Motions, commonly called Elements for use as saving throw types for Flying Swordsmen.

Wood (Yang) - Generative: strength, flexibility, cooperation, growth, life

Fire (Yang) - Expansive: dynamism, persistence, heat, agression

Earth (balance) - Stabilizing: stability, conservation, empathy, harmony

Metal (Yin) - Contracting: rigidity, control, materialism, transformation

Water (Yin) - Conserving: stillness, intelligence, softness, fear/calm

So how to best use this in an RPG context, specifically a D&D-based context? First was deciding which element to replace each traditional save category. That was fairly easy.

Death/Poison/Paralysis is now Wood. Your vitality/life force counteracts these negative forces.

Magic Wands is now Water. This one ended up actually by default, but since there aren't magic wands in the game, there wasn't really anything for this save to do, besides 'unofficial uses' like saves vs. traps and stuff. And in that context, your stillness/calm can save you from getting decapitated by the spinning blades or from plunging feet first into a pit trap, so it sorta makes sense.

Petrification/Polymorph is now Metal. Your affinity for Metal prevents you from being transformed to another shape/substance against your will.

Dragon Breath is now Fire. Your dynamic nature and persistence allow you to avoid or resist area attacks and heat (and come on, despite there being 5 basic types of dragon breath, don't we usually imagine a fiery blast of dragon breath by default? I know I do.)

Spells is now Earth. Your stability and harmony with nature, not to mention balance of Yin/Yang, becomes the default save vs. magic without any type, and against many unusual monster attacks.

How they work in play:

First of all, if a spell has an element type listed, use that element to save. Second, all spells are labeled as Yin, Yang, or Chi. If there's no element to override Yin/Yang association, use the better Yin or Yang value for your class. Chi spells only have one save to use, Earth.

Now to tinker with the numbers for the classes. Traditionally, every class in D&D is best at saving against Death/Poison, and worst against either Spells or Dragon Breath. That will be changed. I'm currently thinking about which element to assign as best to each of the 4 classes. Here's the best I've got so far:

Fighter: strongest in Wood. High hit points, lots of vitality and strength.

Wizard: strongest in Metal. Control and transformation being the key points of magic, this seems to fit to me.

Shaman: strongest in Water. Stillness and conservation seem to fit the image of the Shaman/Cleric.

Thief: strongest in Fire. The image of the Thief is one of action and motion contrasted with patience and perseverance.

I may also consider using Earth for the Shaman and then Water for the Wizard, but I kinda like the idea of keeping Earth as the default "everyone sucks at this, and any attack that doesn't fall into another category goes here" save, like traditional Save vs. Spells. So I'm probably going to go with the above.

Now, the final question I'll have to decide. Once the 'best' save is set, do I order the other saves by the generative motion (circle in the image above) or the opposition motion (star in the image above)?

A Subtle Threat

2011-10-20T07:18:00.000+09:00

Here's another Castlevania monster for Halloween. Sorry this one's a bit late in coming.

For this monster, I want another threat that is not just a hit point bash then collect the XP. This monster is a nuisance that will hopefully make for interesting encounters, once the players finally figure out what it's doing to them.

Bitterfly
AC: 3 (17)
HD: 1**
Move: 30 (10), Fly 180 (60)
Attacks: 1 touch
Damage: poison
No. Appearing: 3-12 (3-12)
Save As: Fighter 1
Morale: 8
Treasure Type: nil
Alignment: Chaotic
XP:16

Bitterflies are creatures with skull-shaped bodies with large moth wings sprouting from the side. They can change their coloration for short times to match their background, surprising on a roll of 1-4 on d6. Once detected, they may disappear again on a roll of 1 on d6 even while being observed. They do not usually attack directly, but when they do, their touch is toxic. Opponents hit must Save vs. Poison or die in 1d4 Turns. The biggest threat that these creatures pose is an aura of doom that they project. Creatures within 20' of a bitterfly must Save vs. Spells or be affected as with a blight spell for one hour. Undead, constructs, elementals, and slimes/oozes are unaffected by this. The auras of multiple bitterflies are not cumulative in effect, but the area of effect can be increased.

Rolluminati?

2011-10-18T07:36:00.000+09:00

For Atom Kid at Maximum Rock and Role Playing.

New Poll Up!

2011-10-16T07:58:00.001+09:00

I'm doing the preliminary formatting for Flying Swordsmen, just trying to see how easy it is to piece it all together in a way that looks good, and get an idea of how much art and flavor text to include. I'm shooting for a 128 page book, and it looks like I'll manage that easily with a picture or two or some flavor text on nearly every page, including most monsters.

Still, I'm interested in what you, the potential downloaders and hopefully users of this game would prefer. Since I'm not planning to put out a physical edition yet (hopefully in the future, if it gets enough positive feedback and enough downloads in electronic format, but that's a discussion for another day), how would you like this presented for reading on your computer?

Only five options, and only one vote allowed. I have my draft text in single column portrait, and the current formatting test in double column portrait. But I also like how, frex, Greg Christopher [should I have linked to his G+ account instead? He seems to have given up the blog for G+] does all his games in landscape because they're meant to be read on the computer.

Anyway, the poll will be open for a week. Let me know what you think. Thanks!

Update on my RPG developments

2011-10-14T13:09:00.000+09:00

I've made another small change to Flying Swordsmen from the original D&D based Dragon Fist game. Instead of the standard D&D style list of saving throw types, I've instead made each save against one of the 5 Taoist elements, Earth, Water, Fire, Metal, Wood. Each has a Yin/Yang association for effects that are not obviously of an elemental type, with Earth being the Chi save for spells/effects without either an element or Yin/Yang association. I'm gonna tinker with the numbers a little bit, as well. I think each of the four classes should be good against one type of save in particular, but I'll need to think a bit to decide which element best fits each class. Earth (Chi) will be the save that's not so good for everyone (map to Save vs. Spells in D&D), but I don't want everyone to be best against Wood (AD&D's Poison/Paralysis/Death save).

Preliminary formatting is coming along apace. I'm almost through with the monster section. After that, it's treasure/rewards, then the Campaign Setting section which still needs a bit of fleshing out. Finally, the appendices.

In my other RPG, Presidents of the Apocalypse, Paul and I had another one of those cycles where one of us adds a bunch of stuff that complicates the game (me this time), and the other wisely cut it down again (Paul, obviously). Paul had some good ideas, riffing off of some of my good ideas from last time, and some new simplifications that will help keep this game as the beer-and-pretzels simple silly fun game we want it to be.

I'm gonna try to see if any of the Busan gamers are brave enough to get silly roleplaying a cyborg Ben Franklin or mutated John Quincy Adams and give this new slimmed down set a try.

Last Year's Castlevania fun

2011-10-12T11:55:00.017+09:00

In case some of you are too lazy to use the search or tags, here are last year's Castlevania monster related posts.

Restless Spirit (Castlevania/Gauntlet style ghost)
Phantom Bat
Robber Bat (not Castlevania, but could work for it)
Medusa Head
Grim Reaper (Classic and 3E stats)

And a map of the CV version of Transylvania for a campaign I never got off the ground.

1st Level Magic-Users Suck?

2011-10-10T22:07:00.000+09:00

Did Grognardia stir up this old chestnut again? I know there's already a ten page or so thread on Dragonsfoot about it just within the last couple days (although it's been semi-hijacked by a debate about whether using hirelings makes you a 'wuss gamer' or not).

How can a 1st level Magic-User survive to 2nd level? And find ways to be useful while doing so?

And of course, all these people are either stating how there's nothing to do but fire your one spell then run away to rest so you'll be 'effective' again. Or on the other side, bringing out the old standby of 'prepare lots of flasks of oil, marble bags, 10' poles, Swedish-made penis enlarger pumps, garlic, wolfsbane, catnip, spare socks, iron spikes, reading glasses, and cooking pots to make yourself useful.' Then of course, the idea of hiring meat-shields to protect your AC 11, 1d4 HD ass which touched off the near derailment of that DF thread. [Sorry, no link today. Just got back from grad school, and don't feel like hitting DF tonight just to snag a link. It's in the General Discussion section if you want to track it down yourself.]

Anyway, words of wisdom from old Jack Burton. Er, um, I mean Lord Gwydion.

ALL CHARACTERS SUCK AT 1ST LEVEL.

No, your Fighter cannot beat down goblins all day long. He can take one hit if he's lucky, then he'd better retreat.

No, your Cleric (even if using AD&D where they get spells at 1st level) is not going to be casting spells and turning undead all the time. He's got better than 50% odds to turn skeletons, but the first time he botches that roll, he's done for that encounter. And even with an 18 Wis, he's still got a limited number of spells. And remember, in Classic (my preferred game), he's got no spells. Just the ability to take one hit if he's lucky and maybe turn some undead.

No, your Thief is not gonna be finding every trap, unlocking every door, and if he gets really lucky and actually manages to sneak up on someone, likely is gonna miss that backstab roll and get his AC 6, 1d4 HD ass handed to him.

They all suck. That's kinda the point. And EVERYONE should be getting all that miscellaneous equipment and using it at every opportunity. First level characters get to become second level characters by being smart, not by acting like 6th level characters.

Another Castlevania Monster for Halloween

2011-10-09T19:00:00.000+09:00

One problem of converting CV monsters into D&D is that in a video game, a different sprite and attack pattern makes it a new monster. Not so in D&D. There are a ton of skeleton-type monsters in Castlevania, and most of them don't really need new stats for D&D. Just arm them appropriately, and you've got them.

This one, however, is a fun little variant undead spellcaster. No where near as powerful as a lich, it's a niche that's been filled before, but I'm doing it in a Castlevania way.

Dhuron
AC: 5 (15)
HD: 4**
Move: 90 (30)
Attacks: 1 weapon or spell
Damage: by weapon, or spell
No. Appearing: 1-8 (2-6)
Save As: Fighter 8
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: B (U)
Alignment: Chaotic
XP:175

Dhurons are criminals executed by decapitation who have risen as skeletal undead. They carry their skulls in one hand, and wield weapons in the other. Dhurons are not mindless, and can be quite crafty. They will often hide amidst normal skeletons to surprise opponents with their spellcasting ability. Dhurons cast spells as a 4th level Magic-User in addition to being adept with weapon attacks. Due to their magical nature, they save as 8th level Fighters. They are immune to sleep, charm, and hold spells. Clerics turn Dhurons as Mummies.

A bit of a surprise

2011-10-04T09:51:00.000+09:00

When Robert Jordan died a few years ago, I'd read all 11 volumes of The Wheel of Time series at that point. And I'd really been reading everything since about volume 8 mostly on inertia. I'd read that much already, I might as well keep reading them, I thought. Even though the series was obviously being strung along just for the sake of stringing it along, and the bloated descriptions were getting annoyingly bad. It's kinda like Jordan ran out of descriptive phrases around book 4, and just recycled them over and over and over again. But, I was working as a public school teacher in Japan, and had plenty of free time on my hands.

And then Jordan died. And I thought, "I'm done with WoT." I just didn't care anymore to finish the series, especially when I found out that Sanderson would not be writing one final book, but three.

But then this past summer, Steve was giving away books before he left for Singapore, and one of them was a copy of The Gathering Storm, WoT book 12. And I said, "What the hell, it's free."

I finally started reading it this weekend. After two days of reading, I'm 200 pages into it and finding I'm liking Sanderson's prose more than Jordan's later prose. It's that bit of freshness that the series needed. It's still long, and bloated, and I'm looking at having to trudge through another 3000 or so pages, but I may just finish the series after all.

A New Blog and a Halloween Monster

2011-10-03T08:25:00.001+09:00

So there's a new blog that's just come to my attention, BladeSharp. Fabian is working on a conversion of Oriental Adventures (1E, 2E and 3E stuff mashed together) for Labyrinth Lord. I'd actually considered doing something like that but decided instead to focus on Dragon Fist. Since most stuff for the various clones/simulacrums is easily interchangeable, and fits easily with most TSR versions of D&D, I'm looking forward to what he comes up with.

And since it's October, it's time for WaHNtHaC's annual (well, since last year anyway) Castlevania monsters converted to Classic D&D!

And we're starting off with a true classic creature of the CV games. You really can't call a game Castlevania unless it includes a few of them--the Red Skeleton!

Red Skeleton
Armor Class: 7 (13)
Hit Dice: 1/8* (1 hit point, but see below)
Move: 60 (20)
Attacks: 1 claw
Damage: 1d6
No. Appearing: 1-2 (1-4)
Save As: Fighter 1
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: nil
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: special (see below)

Red Skeletons look like normal animated skeletons, except that they are a deep blood red color. They are slow, plodding creatures, and appear very weak. Any hit with a weapon or spell, or a Turn Undead attempt, will seem to destroy them. But 1d4 Rounds later the red skeleton will reform in the spot where it was 'destroyed.' Scattered bones will fly back to the spot if nearby. More distant bones will teleport back to the spot.

While it is possible to knock them down and then flee, adventurers gain no experience points for doing so. However, if a means can be found to permanently destroy them (at the DM's discretion), the adventurers will gain a special XP award of 1000 XP the first time they discover the process. Only by discovering a new method to destroy one will grant this special XP award again in the future.

As Undead creatures, red skeletons are immune to sleep, charm and hold effects.

Rough Week

2011-09-29T23:06:00.000+09:00

Forgive the lack of substantive posts this week, please. Working too much, grad school, all that. Instead of more blathering about games, here's something to think about.

Dungeon Design: Moldvay Basic D&D

2011-09-28T10:33:00.000+09:00

At long last, this little series continues. Read about OD&D, Holmes, AD&D 1E.

In Tom Moldvay's Basic Set (Erol Otus cover), we get a very well organized two pages on dungeon design. We're given a six-step process to follow, which helps DMs conceptualize their dungeon quickly and easily. It's mostly a clarification of the information in OD&D, but with one big difference. As with AD&D 1E, we've got a very different focus. OD&D assumed a megadungeon, while Moldvay assumes smaller dungeons created for each adventure (although they can easily be re-used).

Moldvay's steps are:

A) Choose a scenario [10 sample types listed]
B) Decide on a setting [10 sample locations listed]
C) Decide on special monsters to be used
D) Draw the map of the dungeon
E) Stock the dungeon [using the random system from OD&D, and providing six room traps, six treasure traps, and ten ideas for 'specials']
F) Filling in the final details

Moldvay then, after discussing Wandering Monsters (which actually may be part of step F, making it three pages of dungeon design advice), gives us The Haunted Keep. He goes through and explains his six steps above, and provides a fully detailed and keyed map of one of the two towers, and a cut-away map of the two dungeon levels.

What Moldvay has done here is take the dungeon design principles of OD&D and the 'site-based' preference of AD&D and married them nicely together. One could easily design a megadungeon using the Moldvay method, even though the text assumes smaller complexes made for their own separate adventures. All one needs to do is decide on what sections of the megadungeon will or could be used for the various types of scenarios listed, then follow the rest of the instructions for each section.

Humor for a Monday Morning

2011-09-26T06:37:00.000+09:00

Didn't get much sleep last night, and not looking forward to this Monday. So here's a funny pick I snagged off a friend's Facebook account yesterday.

I didn't get to do any gaming this weekend. Enzo, who was DMing 4E, suddenly found a job in Seoul, where his girlfriend lives, and moved there. So that game's finished. And we're not sure what do do next.

I'm just too damn busy to be full time DM, even for something like Classic D&D.

Jeremy is thinking about running something with the Microlite20 system, and having looked over the player's book last night, it looks interesting. No one else has shown any interest in that yet, though.

Then there's the guy in Gimhae who wants to play Pathfinder. I'm not against playing PF, but the dude lives fairly far away from all of us, and wants us to go to his place to play. So that's not likely to happen unless he gives and agrees to run the games at some location here in Busan.

So who knows what's going on there? We've got this fairly large group of potential gamers that we can now contact online, but it looks like I'm going to have to be the one to take the initiative and form the new group.

Spooky Adventure Writers Wanted!

2011-09-25T07:19:00.000+09:00

Blogger Fenway5 of Sword & Shield put forth the proposition that a bunch of us (well, 31 to be exact) each write a spooky 2-page adventure. One page map, one everything else. Get some artists to donate some spooky cover art and borders, the compile it all as a free PDF/at cost Lulu print publication.

If you're interested in helping out, visit his blog post RIGHT HERE.

Flying Swordsmen RPG Phase 3

2011-09-23T15:09:00.001+09:00

Well, I've went ahead and done it. I've started working on layout of Flying Swordsmen. My volunteer editors (David, Matt, Brandon, if you're reading, send more suggestions any time) have helped me get the first section with character creation info into decent shape, so I'm formatting that section.

As a little teaser, here's a bit of flavor fiction I'm including in the game, along with art of the character involved, Xiao Shen, by Dylan Hartwell.

Xiao Shen lept across the temple courtyard, over a dozen fallen monks. The masked adversary awaited the attack of the final Jade Fist standing. “How could one man defeat all of the martial monks by himself?” she wondered. His kung fu was impressive and had easily countered all of the Jade Fists' techniques. But Xiao Shen also had a few tricks up her sleeve.

Just before Xiao executed her Golden Palm Strike, the adversary switched to a Winter Lotus Stance and used Xiao's momentum to hurl her over his shoulder and sent her flying into the main hall.

“No Jade Fist can stand against the techniques contained in the Dark Phoenix Manuscript. Not even you, Xiao Shen,” the stranger laughed.

Xiao burst back through the bamboo wall and hurled a blast of her focused chi energy at the assassin. The energy struck his head, sending the mask flying. Behind was a handsome face Xiao had known since childhood. The man leered at the young woman and struck the earth with his fist, sending pieces of flagstone flying in all directions.

“Elder Brother!” Xiao Shen cried, dodging the flying debris. “Not you!”

Micro-Review of a Micro-Game: Out of Time

2011-09-21T22:37:00.000+09:00

JB of BX Blackrazor has released a one-page RPG based on the "Land of the Lost" type setting where temporal rifts strand folks from various times in a prehistoric wilderness. The idea is to survive long enough to find a way home.

Here's his post, and the download link is in it.

My brief thoughts on this brief game? It looks fun. It's the kind of game I'd love to just pull out at a bar, along with some dice and a deck of cards (lots of d6's and a standard playing card deck with jokers). Who doesn't like lost world settings? Time travel is cool. Getting to play a Sengoku samurai palling around with a Norse viking and Al Capone's lowest ranking hitman and his Tommy gun? And running away from T-Rexes together? Again, what's not to like?

Being a one-page RPG (with plans for future expansion?), the rules are brief and have one basic resolution system involving rolling X dice and trying to get Y successes (4 or better on d6 is a success). Your stats are determined by randomly dealing playing cards. Each suit grants abilities in one of four skill areas, and it's up to players to make their attempts to solve any problems relevant to the skill area they wish to use. The other cool thing is that cards can be traded for automatic successes, or damage reduction. So there's the trade-off of needing to succeed now, but making success potentially harder in the future.

I don't know if I'll be able to play it any time soon, but it's definitely something I'd like to try out. I'm guessing it will be as fun as the other one-page RPG I tried out a while back, All Outta Bubblegum.

DC's New 52

2011-09-19T22:52:00.000+09:00

Finally got a chance to check out a few of the new DC titles. I read Justice League #1, Detective Comics #1, Action Comics #1, and Green Arrow #1.

JL1 was interesting enough. Nothing super spectacular, though.

DC1 seemed like a fairly typical Batman story. Decent, but nothing unexpected.

AC1 had a good setup for the story, and we appear to have a lower-powered Superman (for now), but what's up with the short sleeves and jeans uniform?

GA1 was more than a bit cliche. Not impressed.

Any recommendations for other titles I should try out? I've always been more of a Marvel than DC fan, but I figure this is as good a time as any to read more DC (and I haven't really read any comics for over a decade).

Dungeon Design: AD&D 1E

2011-09-18T22:34:00.000+09:00

So to continue this little series [part 1, part 2], I'm next looking at the AD&D 1E DMG.

The bulk of advice for crafting a campaign (not necessarily a dungeon) is from pages 90 to 96. We get sections on placement of monsters, monetary treasure, magical treasure, and a bit later a sample dungeon (with map).

By this time, Gygax had moved away from the megadungeon-based campaign. The advice he gives applies to both the dungeon (he still assumes the presence of one, it's just not assumed to be the only starting point for adventure) and the wilderness. His monster placement advice is to try to keep things as logical and connected as possible. The vast majority of monsters should have some rhyme and reason for being there. And there's a very strong Law/Chaos war vibe as he stresses how adventurers tend to clear terrain of monsters, who usually don't come back, creating more peaceful settled lands -- until the monsters get forced out of the wilderness into the borderlands and peaceful settled lands beyond...

For treasure placement, both of monetary value and magical, he stresses both moderation, and challenge with the treasure. Don't just have a big pile of gold lying around the goblin's den. Give them a big locked, trapped chest of coppers that are a logistical challenge to return to town. Convert coins rolled on treasure tables into trade goods that might be overlooked. Make sure magic items are rare, well guarded, and if possible used against the PCs before they acquire them.

The sample dungeon map is serviceable, but to me at least not so inspiring. The Holmes map, with its secret ocean harbor caves, mage's tower basement, rat warrens, and all seems more alive than DMG p. 95. And he only gives a sample key for the first three numbered areas.

So there's not really much advice about creating a dungeon itself.

Aha, but then we have the Appendices!

Appendix A gives us the random dungeon generator. Even if you don't roll the dice, it's still got lots of good lists for types and sizes of rooms, corridors, caverns, and what not. It also tells us that 60% (12 in 20) rooms should be empty, 10% should have monsters with no treasure, 15% should be monsters with treasure, 5% specials (or stairs if there are too many specials in the area), 5% tricks/traps, and 5% unguarded treasure. That's a lot more monsters and a lot less traps and specials than OD&D/Classic D&D. It's nearly twice as many empty rooms as well.

Later, Appendices G: Traps, H: Tricks, and I: Dungeon Dressing give us some more ideas for fleshing out a dungeon.

We've got a lot less nuts and bolts advice for crafting a dungeon here, but there's plenty of good advice for adding details and life to the setting. A lot of people I know started with one or another Basic set, then 'graduated' to AD&D, so they likely had a good idea about general dungeon design from there. But people who only played AD&D might not have. AD&D, at least by the book, seems more geared for wilderness gaming, where you go look for monster lairs in the wilds, rather than being focused on the dungeon. But even then, there's not a whole lot of straight-forward advice on crafting those lairs as a challenge in and of themselves. There's just generally more of a 'go get the monsters' tone than that of 'go out and explore.'

Dungeon Design: Holmes D&D

2011-09-16T10:30:00.001+09:00

In the 1978 Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, edited by Dr. J. Eric Holmes, the dungeon design advice of OD&D is pretty truncated. It's mostly the same advice, but it's so condensed that it could be easier to miss.

However, Holmes did include a much more detailed sample dungeon, and a more evocative megadungeon cross-section than OD&D. Also, the Basic Set came with either B1 In Search of the Unknown, or B2 Keep on the Borderlands, which both provide good examples for budding DMs to use to craft their own dungeons.

One bit of advice from Holmes that jumped out at me was this quote:

Try to keep the dangers appropriate to the levels of the characters and the skill of your players. (emphasis added)

While I mentioned that in OD&D Gygax points out that there are certain types of encounters that would make players angry, Holmes explicitly states that the goal is to challenge the players. New players with 5th level characters will likely be less effective than veteran players with 1st level characters, despite the additional hit points, better hit probabilities and saving throws, and more spells of the novice group. Because the veteran players will play smart. And maybe they can take on those Frost Giants or Vampires or Purple Worms at the 1st to 3rd level span of the Holmes edition.

A few weeks ago, Ian at Magician's Manse was blogging about his own megadungeon. His players seem intent to fully explore the first level before venturing on. He was worried that if they did, they'd be too high level and the second dungeon level would be too easy for them. It made me think of some of the advice given on Dragonsfoot and other places about only designing and keying just enough of the dungeon. That way, you can fit the dungeon to the players, rather than to some ideal of the Platonic Megadungeon.

If the party gains character levels but doesn't descend to lower dungeon levels, then more monsters and traps of their level should show up on the level they're on. Of course, tricks and traps and specials are often less about the party's level, and more about player skill anyway, so Dr. Holmes' advice above is a good addition to the basics set forth for dungeon creation in OD&D.

And so ends the 500th post on this blog. And there was much rejoicing. (Yea...)

Dungeon Design: OD&D

2011-09-14T22:32:00.000+09:00

I just skimmed through the first section of OD&D's Volume 3: The Underworld and Wilderness Encounters. Having started playing D&D with Mentzer, a lot of the information was actually pretty familiar to me. that's why it only got a skim. I'm probably missing a few important points, but for the most part, Gygax and Arneson had figured out a lot of good advice for creation of a dungeon.

Make sure the place itself is interesting to explore.
Don't overcrowd it.
Allow for discovery, and re-use.
Keep monsters mostly appropriate for the level.
Place important monsters and treasures first, then if the place is too big, use random stocking to fill out the rest.*

Of course, Gygax assumes creation of a Megadungeon, similar to his Castle Greyhawk. By the time Mentzer was re-editing the Moldvay/Cook edit, more thought went into creation of smaller dungeons with specific purposes. But all of the above main points were still there. There's not a lot of actual advice for the crafting of the dungeon, other than the sample map and semi-explained key, and the example of play, though.

I do like the fact that in the sample dungeon, there's a 'special' which he notes is basically a Dick DM move to use, so don't use it.

Interesting differences from the later Classic D&D game include (old news to some of you, of course):

2 moves per Turn while exploring. I guess this was taken from Chainmail, with its split moves each turn to allow for reconsideration/reactions. 240' (120' encumbered) per 10 minute Turn is still really slow, but better than in the later editions.

Doubled chances to find secret doors when searching. Elves 1-4 in 6 (1-2 in 6 innate, rolled by the DM in secret), 1-2 in 6 for everyone else.

*I'm guessing that this picture of Gary's notes for Castle Greyhawk are so sparse because it's just the specials only. The rest he was able to simply roll randomly as he ran the game. Or maybe not even roll by the time this picture was taken.

Megadungeon Success!

2011-09-13T07:54:00.000+09:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, we got together last Sunday and played around in my megadungeon. Things didn't go according to plan, but they did go well.

First off, I'd never been to the venue - a new used English bookstore with beer on tap, run by a pair of foreigners - as it just opened about 2-3 weeks ago. Our usual start time on Sundays was 1pm, so I suggested we all meet there at that time. Place didn't open until 2.

I met Jeremy, though, so we hopped into Starbucks, he updated the Facebook page with the info on his smartphone, and we rolled up his characters. Brian, new to the group and found out about it through this here blog, also got there, and tried to call me, but I'd accidentally given him my wife's number, not mine. My wife's and my numbers are only one digit apart, and I rarely have cause to call my own number, so I've made that mistake before.

Anyway, at 2, Jeremy and I had finished the char gen and talk, and headed back to the book store. Brian was there waiting for us. After introductions, I got myself a beer, they got cokes, and we got set up. About that time, Pat, Alex (from the board game group, not the 4E group), Bill, Greg from the FB group, and a dude named Dan I'd never met before online or off, all showed up. Wow, didn't know if we'd have room!

But then they informed us they were gonna play a board game instead of D&D. Figures. Alex doesn't like OSR type games, and Bill's really only interested in 3E D&D, so I knew their interest would be low. Oh well. We decided to just have Jeremy and Brian run all 3 PCs they'd rolled up (Brian had made his in advance) simultaneously, rather than using the extras as reserves.

I was testing JB's idea that Thief skills should just automatically work if the Thief has time to do the job (sorta like Taking 20 in 3E), but if the Thief didn't have time they had to roll. I'm not sure I like it. I've actually placed enough keys around that failing an Open Locks roll would just mean search a bit more and come back later. Both Jeremy and Brian did a good job of roleplaying how to bypass the traps they encountered. We had one instance of climbing, but they could have used a rope and grapple in that situation if the Thief didn't want to risk the roll. And the only time the Thief tried to be stealthy was in an area with a non-animated skeleton, and another area with Yellow Mold. So the rule seemed to be overkill. Don't think I'll be using it again.

On the DM side of things, I realized one failure of making this dungeon piecemeal and converting stuff from the old dungeon to the new. They ended up finding a treasure box, locked but completely unguarded, with 1000pp, and a bunch of gold and silver (dont' remember exactly how much). Mistake on my part filling in the encounters, but I had written it down, so I let it stand. That, plus the bandit treasure they got by killing the 3rd level Cleric leader in one hit with a Potion of Giant Strength/thrown feast table combo, and the monster XP (I was still using the OD&D 100xp per hit die thing) meant they all went up a level. I'd started them on 2500 xp per character, they each earned around 2600 xp for their actions.

Jeremy and Brian both posted on FB that they enjoyed the game. I really enjoyed running it. They had some really creative play, and I had fun throwing challenges their way, working in random encounters, and trying to give them just enough info in any situation that they were wary of traps/ambushes, but not overly cautious. No PC casualties, although Brian's Cleric was down to 1 hit point at one point, and his Dwarf got beat up a bit as well, while Jeremy's Barbarian managed to make it out with only 2 or 3 points of damage total for the session.

And they both want to play again. They had a few rumors of Key Treasures and are hoping to get their hands on the famed gem, The Eye of the Frost Troll in the future.

The 2 Year Curse

2011-09-11T07:54:00.000+09:00

So, it's 9/11. Hope nothing's been blown up in New York for the anniversary of the terror attacks. It's also my blog's second anniversary!

I started reading the blogs mostly through Jeff's Gameblog. It was my gateway blog. I'd read whatever awesome craziness Jeff had posted, then go through his blog list and read interesting titles. And one day (just happened to be 9/11, but living overseas the date actually wasn't on my mind as anything significant), I decided to start my own.

Since then, I've rambled on about all sorts of stuff, some stupid, some serious, some funny, some antagonistic. And I've gained a decent amount of followers. Thanks, and I'm glad you find something of interest or use from my keyboard scribblings.

But I've got a game today. An open table Classic D&D one-shot, using my Megadungeon. Game starts in about 5 hours (1pm local time). And I've got to see if I can write up some pre-packaged equipment lists to speed char-gen before my son wakes up. So enough self promotion, back to work!

Throwing Down the Gauntlet

2011-09-09T15:14:00.000+09:00

While I'm always happy to talk about how much I like the 80's arcade games Gauntlet and Gauntlet II, this post unfortunately is not about them.

On Facebook, we've got a group now for D&D in Busan. I told everyone that since we can't play our 4E game this weekend due to the holiday, I'd be happy to run a Classic D&D one-shot in my Megaduneon. Another guy wants to start a Pathfinder game, and is looking for players interested in a campaign.

Now, I could be talked into a game of PF, if I weren't already committed to the 4E game. I just don't have the time to play in two campaigns right now. And so far, there's been more interest shown in my game than in the PF game for this weekend. So maybe it's a bit of frustration that he can't get the game he wants to play going. But he posted this in response to one of my comments about scheduling:

What is classic D&D? That garbage system with negative AC?

I responded to him this way:

Robbie, yeah, it's got negative AC in the book, but one of my house rules is to use attack bonus and ascending AC. It's still the version where Elf is a Class, not a race option. ;)

So, trying to defuse the situation with a bit of humor. I haven't met the guy in person, but I'm wondering if our little group of RPGers are about to enter into a bit of a civil war?

[Jeremy, Brian and anyone else in the group who reads the blog, this is a bit tongue in cheek. But if Robbie wants to discuss the merits of Pathfinder vs. Mentzer D&D, I'll be happy to engage him!]

What are we supposed to use, harsh language?

2011-09-07T14:31:00.001+09:00

For Greg at Gorgonmilk.

Something Simple

2011-09-06T22:33:00.001+09:00

Looks like the 4E game won't happen this weekend -- it's the big Korean Thanksgiving festival of Chuseok. Instead, we may do a one shot in my Megadungeon. Maybe. It's still not decided yet.

Anyway, if we do, I made up this simple little time tracker. Each hour has six Turn boxes, and every second one is shaded to remind me to roll for random encounters. Feel free to use it as you like, modify it, whatever.

Dungeon Delve Time Chart

Weekend Reading

2011-09-05T06:57:00.000+09:00

In addition to getting my reading done for my grad school class, I read a few awesome blog posts over the weekend. If you didn't read these yet, you should! These blogs are fun, and fun is good!*

How to write a module by Sean

How to let your players have fun by -C

How the game has changed by Justin

How to put Justin's ideas into play by John

*Dr. Seuss was also read to my son over the weekend.

So I'm on Google+ Now

2011-09-02T10:50:00.000+09:00

Thanks to Greg Christopher for the invite. I'm probably joining it at the completely wrong time, as the second semester of grad school started yesterday, and I just took on a couple of new private lessons. Not likely the best time to get involved in another social network. But what the hell, right?

If any of you out there reading this wanna look me up, my real name is Dennis Laffey and I'm currently using the same pic for my avatar on + as I am here on the blog.

Now I gotta get back to work. Maybe I'll check out that ConstantCon thing I keep reading about first, though...

d100 Room Types

2011-08-31T23:32:00.003+09:00

Edit - not sure why Blogger keeps changing my numbered list into bullet points. I guess copy/paste this into your word processor of choice and add numbering. Sorry!~ L.G.

d100 room types

Alcove
Atrium
Attic
Balcony
Ballroom
Barn
Bathroom
Bedroom
Billiard room
Boathouse
Boudoir
Box room
Breezeway
Butler's pantry
Buttery
Cafeteria
Chariot-port
Changing room
Classroom
Cloakroom
Closet
Common room
Conference hall
Conservatory
Courtyard
Deck
Den
Dining room
Doctor's surgery
Drawing room
Entryway
Equipment room
Fainting room
Family room
Forge/smithy
Foyer
Function hall
Great chamber
Great hall
Great room
Guest room
Gym
Hearth room
Kitchen
Kitchenette
Larder
Laundry room
Library
Living room
Loading dock
Lobby
Loft
Loggia
Long gallery
Lounge
Lumber room
Mud room
Nook
Nursery
Office
Pantry
Parlour
Portico
Recreation room
Refectory
Restroom
Root cellar
Safe room
Salon
Saucery
Scullery
Secondary suite
Security
Servants' hall
Server room
Shrine
Sitting room
Smoking room
Solarium
Spear closet
Spicery
Stable
State room
Stillroom
Storage room
Storm cellar
Studio
Study
Swimming pool
Terrace
Theater
Toilet
Undercroft
Vault
Veranda
Vestibule
Waiting room
Wardrobe
Wine cellar
Workshop

The List

2011-08-31T13:09:00.001+09:00

So a little while back I asked all you readers for some help, telling me what wuxia books, movies, video games, etc. you found inspirational, or at least cool. I did this for inclusion in Flying Swordsmen RPG as a sort of "Appendix N" for the game. I may have presented myself as less knowledgeable than I am in that post, in order to elicit more responses. A lot of you recommended films that are already on the list. Still, I did get some new ones, and I'll be trying to locate and watch them before this game goes to print.

And without further ado, here is the list:

Appendix I: Inspirational Media

Books, Fiction:

Cha, Louis (Jin Yong) The Book and the Sword, The Deer and the Cauldron, Heaven Sword & Dragon Sabre, etc.

Gu Long The Eleventh Son

Luo Guangzhou Three Kingdoms

Shi Nai'an Outlaws of the Marsh (also known as The Water Margin)

Wu Cheng'en Journey to the West (also known as Monkey)

Tony Wong/Jademan Comics The Blood Sword, Oriental Heroes, etc.

Books, Non-Fiction:

J.A.G. Roberts A Concise History of China

Charles D. Benn China's Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty

Film and Television:

The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk (1993)

Swordsman Trilogy (1990, 1992, 1993)

Dragon Gate Inn (1992)

A Touch of Zen (1971)

Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Hero (2002)

House of Flying Daggers (2004)

A Chinese Ghost Story (1987)

Mr. Vampire (1985)

Drunken Master (1978)

The Bride with White Hair (1993)

Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1980)

Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983)

Legend of the Liquid Sword (1993)

Ashes of Time (1994)

Enter the Dragon (1973)

A variety of adaptations of Journey to the West and Three Kingdoms for both film and television.

Games:

Dynasty Warriors series (Koei)

Jade Empire (Bioware)

Thanks to everyone who contributed. If anyone else has something to suggest, or I left something out that you think needs to be there, please let me know. There's always room for more.

Two things that bug me

2011-08-29T23:14:00.001+09:00

Edit--note to self, don't post right before bed next time. I may mess up the post title. :)

Yeah, another 4E post. Those of you who can't stand to hear anything negative about that edition (Woodstock, I'm typing at you) feel free to click that back button on your browser right now.

In my post the other day about the skill chapter, I mentioned the lack of a feel of progress in certain areas due to shifting goal posts. Skill bonuses go up with level, but so do target DCs.* They'd do just as well having skills linked to your ability score, with bonuses for training, and that's it. Then just keep the DCs static as well. Same difference, and it would save everyone time erasing and rewriting their skill bonuses every two levels.**

The other thing that's bugging me right now is the idea that every battle must be EPIC!!! Seriously, do we need kobolds with 30-40 hit points? Does a fight with kobolds need to take an hour or more? I've still only played 4E at level 1, but wouldn't having these "epic" fights all the way from level 1 to level 30 make the ones up there at the top just feel like more of the same?

Basically both of these problems come down to a feeling of lacking growth/progress. There's something to be said about starting out weak and ending up strong. It felt good to have a 20-something level Fighter in BECM who only rarely failed saves and could face down dragons with relative ease, knowing that once upon a time he wasn't so strong and every group of goblins or giant spider potentially had his number. Or having a similarly leveled Magic-User, with Death Spells and Disintegrates and Teleports at his fingertips, who used to venture into the depths with a single or small handful of spells once upon a time.

I used to be the weakling Bat-Boy. Now, I'm Batman!

*I realize this was inherited from 3E. It's one of the things that soured me on high level 3E play.
**Yes, there are some skill DCs that are static, you get better at them as you level. Why not just add level bonuses to THOSE skill checks since they're in the minority? KISS principle failure here.

Mopping Up

2011-08-28T22:51:00.000+09:00

We had our second session of the 4E game today. It went fairly well. We had a time limit, as Alex had to go somewhere this evening, so we only had 4 hours to play. Still, within that 4 hours we managed to finish off the first section of the module.

In the last session, we'd fought some pugwhampees, small jackal-headed humanoids. They give off a bad-mojo aura, so everyone needs to roll to hit twice, take the lower roll, if you're near them. That made me fairly valuable fighting them, as I'm ranged so I was usually out of their aura, and when I was in it I had auto hitting magic missiles. Adam, playing a Warlock, is similarly ranged, and was doing good as well. Our Fighter (Jeremy) and Warlord (Alex) were doing well when they could hit, but that aura is nasty.

At first, we spent some time investigating the alter the pugwhampees had desecrated, and I found a gem in a gnoll skull decoration. Then a pugwhampee started sniping at us from behind, so we bashed it pretty good and made it run away. Of course we followed.

Well, we finished off the last of the little beasts, then fought some stirges and found a bit of treasure. There was also a statue of the monastery's patron saint, with hands upraised in offering, and scratch marks on the floor showing that something's underneath, but we couldn't find the key to open it.

We went to the next section of the monastery. The first door was to a library, where there were swarms and swarms of rats. We thought about trying to just shut the door and run away, but I used my daily power, Phantom Chasm, which made a zone that made any rats moving into it fall prone. How can a swarm fall prone? Who cares. Say they're stunned, or temporarily disoriented, or whatever. My Icy Blast that lets me slide targets hit was handy after that, as I could slide them out of the zone and when they re-entered they fell prone again. So with bashes from the fighter-types and zaps from the Warlock, we finished them off. The only book that was intact was a book about elemental creatures. We saved it for later.

Time was running a bit short, so Enzo decided to just narrate the rest of the search of the first floor. No more monsters, no more treasure. The caravan arrived, we were congratulated, the prodigal NPC Cleric returned, and we took an 'extended rest' to recharge. During the rest I read the book, which was about powerful djinn warriors of wind who fought evil with four legendary weapons (one of them being the patron saint of this monastery).

Our boss then showed us how to open a sealed door with stairs leading down behind it, and asked us to clear out these crypts. We were expecting undead, but instead encountered a weird SCIENCE!!! type lair with all of these strange vats and devices with greenish goo inside. Alex's Warlord Minotaur found a big cleaver with a syringe attached, and we thought it would be fun to fill it with some of the goo. Turns out (likely you saw this coming, I sort of did) the stuff was Green Slime, which attacked. It was a long fight, but we managed to put it down without serious injury (the slime's attack is toned down over Old School versions for sure, but man did it have lots of hit points!).

We then got rewards from the boss lady (I got a Staff of Wind +1, not sure what the others all got yet), and we advanced to Level 2. And we managed to finish right at 5:00 when Alex had to leave.

Enzo, Jeremy, Alex and I are all now getting the hang of our characters and how best to use their abilities and powers. That made the combats go faster. Fighting things besides pugwhampees was nice, because those re-roll auras were annoying! The stirges went down fast. We're coordinating out attacks better, and remembering to use those encounters and dailies. That helps move things along faster.

It was fun today. Enzo is a pretty good DM. He's still not completely familiar with the rules, but he did a good job of making rulings and moving on if we couldn't find a relevant rule quickly in the books. He was really encouraging us to describe our attacks more, and that makes a difference. The first combat against the remaining pugwhampees was long, as was the green slime battle, but the stirge fight and rat fight were both fairly quick affairs, and we had some good chances to roleplay our characters during combat. I'm still not quite sold on 4E, though. I'm seeing the system and the play-style it's designed for better, and while it's not bad, it's really not what I'd prefer. But the group is good, and it is fun, so I'm definitely not going to quit.

Dull Reading

2011-08-27T22:27:00.000+09:00

Finished the next chapter of the 4E Essentials Rules Compendium, the one on Skills.

BORING!!!!!

But anyway, it's out of the way. 4E, like most successors to 3E, has pared down the number of skills, combining similar ones into one bigger skill. So "Athletics" covers running, jumping, swimming, climbing, and the like. "Thievery" covers most of your typical Thieves' Tools operations (find and remove traps, open locks) with Pick Pockets. 3E's Knowledge skills are for the most part now subskills of other areas. "Nature" covers survival and Knowledge: Nature, and IIRC Handle Animal.

So they've made improvements on the skill set, and the system. Automatic level bonus (1/2 level, round down) to all skills, and training gets you a +5 bonus to that skill. Much easier than trying to assign skill points. I'm sure this is a big benefit when designing NPCs. Skills were one of the worst things about NPC/monster design in 3E.

Still, it was pretty dry reading. Glad it's over with. And if we have another skill challenge in Enzo's game tomorrow, I'll have a much better idea of what that entails.

My project for next week

2011-08-26T15:29:00.000+09:00

The Flying Swordsmen draft is coming along nicely. I've just finished an alphabetical listing of spells. I still need to add page numbers, but until I get into the formatting phase (still a while off), there's no point in doing that. I've also decided to nix the appendices with the "100 Chinese family names" and the Pinyin/Wade-Giles pronunciation guides. This is a fantasy RPG, not a history text. Who cares if people pronounce Cao Cao so it sounds like a pair of bovine? Or if they name their character Sum Yong Gai?

So that frees up a couple more pages for other stuff (probably more art). I'm shooting for a 120 page book when this is all said and done. Although a switch from single column format to double column format might allow me to reduce that further. I'm still not sure about that. Printed, I like double column, but if most people are reading this on computer screens, single column is better.

Anyway, that leaves me with really two more big projects to complete. One is adding in some descriptive flavor text at the beginning of each chapter. The other, the one I'm gonna try to tackle next week, is designing a character sheet that's both simple and complete. Oh, and that looks good. We'll see how well I do on that last part.

Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!

2011-08-24T22:11:00.000+09:00

Someone had to say it.

So, many of you have likely seen the DM Merit Badges over on Stuart's blog Strange Magic. If you haven't, go take a look. They're designed to be a visual shorthand to show players how a GM likes to run their games.

I've been told my DMing style is like a Mel Brooks movie, so the picture and quote above are rather appropriate. But what the heck, here are my DMing badges:

Gonzo, with a map but improvisation is important. I tinker with the rules rather than by the book, and don't always make every encounter "appropriate." I make most rolls in the open, and don't fudge them. PCs can die, and players need to use their brains to keep them alive. And if the players come up with a good idea, I'll be sure to use it.

Hey, and I get to use my "Mel Brooks" tag again!

Homework Complete

2011-08-23T22:51:00.000+09:00

Next Sunday we'll be playing Enzo's 4E game again. He let us know that we'll probably level up in the middle of the session, at the end of the module's chapter. Knowing it takes some time to choose powers and feats, he asked us all to decide in advance what we'll take to make the process go smoother and allow us to continue the game.

So I've decided on my Level 2 Utility powers and my next feat.

Feels like doing homework.

A Potion by any other name would still smell...

2011-08-22T23:24:00.000+09:00

[rolls dice] like goat piss and cinnamon.

I've been planning to do something like this for a while now. Here's a short list of some alternate 'potions' for D&D. All follow the normal rules for potions as far as usage and duration and effect. Only the form has changed.

Xi Wang Mu's Peaches of Immortality/Apples of Idunn: potion of longevity
Egg Shen's Steaming Gourd: potion of heroism
Gummi Berry Juice: potion of giant strength (unless you're a Gummi Bear, then it's a potion of jump)
Black Lotus Flower: potion of poison
Atalanta's Golden Apple: potion of speed
Rapunzel's Tear: potion of cures (or specifically cure blindness)

Got more? Feel free to add to the list in the comments.

Movie Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2011-08-21T13:06:00.001+09:00

The Korean theaters are frustrating me. We had planned to go see Cowboys and Aliens, but for some reason they're only showing it at really late showings. The grandparents don't mind babysitting in the afternoon/evening, but want to go to bed early, not stay up watching our son run around not going to sleep while we go enjoy a movie. So that was out. Next movie on the list? Rise of the Planet of the Apes. So we went to see it yesterday instead.

Minor Spoilers Ahead!

I really enjoyed the movie. My wife's initial reaction was that it wasn't so good, but she keeps talking about it, so it's definitely made an impression on her. It was not a perfect movie, but it was a fairly good movie overall, and much improved over the Tim Burton reboot Planet of the Apes from 10-12 years ago.

The basic plot is that Harry Osborn and Gollum battle Agamemnon and Draco Malfoy. Just kidding! I actually did NOT see the actors as their more famous prior characters (well, except for Brian Cox but he seemed more like William Stryker from X-Men 2 than Agamemnon, but then he's pretty much a character actor, isn't he?)

The real story is that a company trying to come up with a treatment for Alzheimer's Disease finds a formula that not only works, but actually increases intelligence. An accident involving the first test chimp, Bright Eyes (wink wink, nudge nudge, get the reference? There was a lot of that in this movie.), causes them to scrap the serum, but then the lead scientist finds out that Bright Eyes went nuts because she'd just given birth. And the effects of the viral gene therapy had passed to her son.

Scientist and Alzheimer's affected dad raise the baby chimp in secret, naming him Caesar. Caesar is a smart ape, and develops rapidly. But an incident causes him to be locked in the San Francisco ape sanctuary. He uses his smarts to become the alpha male, and plots an escape. He escapes, only to steal more serum from the scientist's house to uplift all the other apes. The second dose improves Caesar's intelligence again.

And the virus that uplifts the apes just happens to be fatal to humans...

Don't want to give away too much of the ending, but I'll just say that it ends a lot earlier than what I was hoping for, being that the title is "Rise of the Planet of the Apes." We don't really see the rise, just the very beginnings. It's more like "Inception of the Planet of the Apes," but maybe they didn't want to get into any skirmishes with the folks that made Inception.

There were a couple of big plot holes that I noticed, but for the most part the story is solid. The effects were good. There were only a few times when the various apes looked overly CGI. The acting was pretty good. It actually took me most of the movie to finally place where I'd seen Tom Fenton before (Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies), hence my little joke above. All in all, it was entertaining.

I don't know that I really want a sequel to be made, though. Even though I said above I was hoping to see more of the actual formation of the Ape world, I don't know if we need a reconceptualized remake of Battle for the Planet of the Apes. There's something that just can't be recaptured from the original movie, and while it's likely going to be entertaining watching a new series of films, doing them in chronological order instead of more or less reverse order could make the latter films less entertaining, I'm guessing. Well, we'll see.

Help me, Internet Hivemind, you're my only hope!

2011-08-19T15:12:00.000+09:00

OK, not my only hope, but you awesome and wonderful readers can sure save me a ton of time!

I'm starting in on the Appendices for Flying Swordsmen (still got some campaign setting work to do, and the sample characters to write up, and some more exposition/flavor vignettes to help explain the way I see the game being played, but I'm working on the Appendices now as well). My Appendix I (Roman numeral I, not letter I) will be inspirational sources. I'm not gonna get all the way up to N with my Appendices, so I'll start with this one.

Anyway, I've seen plenty of wuxia/martial arts movies. The original game, Dragon Fist, only listed wuxia movies in its inspiration appendix. I want to expand that to books, comics, video games, whatever. That's where you all can help out. If you've got a favorite wuxia/martial arts movie, book, comic, or game, please let me know in the comments. Even if it's only tangentially connected to wuxia (like say, TMNT comics), go ahead and let me know you like it or find it inspiring.

I can't guarantee everything will go in the book, but it will give me a bit of help trying to find things I'm not familiar with but should be! I'm not the world's #1 expert on martial arts or wuxia, I just find the genre really fun and thought Dragon Fist was a cool game that never got a chance and would like to give it a bit of a revival.

Megadungeon Campaign Conventions

2011-08-18T18:53:00.000+09:00

So reading, and agreeing with, my buddy Dave's comment to my last post, and reading the FLAILSNAILS Conventions over at Jeff's Gameblog got me thinking about what I'd do if I ever had my new Busan group ready to try an Old School game run by yours truly.

First off, I'd sign off on the FLAILSNAILS thing, except for two reasons. One, there aren't enough RPGs going on in Busan for it to matter. I think there's one other group besides ours. MAYBE. Oh, possibly two if the group of Korean college kids we saw one night nearly 2 years ago playing 4E are still at it. But my Korean's not good enough to be a player or DM for them, and I have no idea how good or bad their English may be. So it's pretty much the fellow ex-pats for me right now. Secondly, is anything in there any different from what anyone would do if they had a PC from another campaign entering their game? It pretty much just reiterates what both Gygax in the AD&D books and Mentzer in his box sets said about allowing visiting PCs. I guess the value is more in declaring your game open to such, more than the lists of actual details of how it's to be done.

Anyway, back to what Dave said. If a GM wants to run a certain kind of game, they need to be up front with the potential players about what sort of game they want to run. Players need to be up front about what sort of game they'd like to play, and what sort of character (if they've already got an idea or two). And both need to be open to the possibility that some characters aren't really appropriate to certain games.

So, if I ever get the guys interested in running through my Megadungeon, here's a first draft of some of the "Conventions" I plan to give them. It's a work in progress, so if any readers have any suggestions or ideas for other things I should mention, please chime in in the comments below. Thanks!

Conventions for "The Great Dungeon Campaign"

All the action is in the dungeon. You can spend time role playing in town, or exploring the wilderness, but most of the good loot and interesting encounters will be underground.
NOT a hack-and-slash game. Yes, this is in a dungeon, but that doesn't mean it's only combat. There are factions, potential allies, puzzles, mysteries, and plenty more that may require you to think and act in character.
The DM doesn't have all the answers...yet. The dungeon is the DM's creation, but fleshing it out will be a group effort.
The DM is not out to kill the PCs, but is under no obligation to save them. The dungeon is dangerous. Players will need to be cautious and clever to survive. PCs will die, but a replacement is just a few die rolls away.
Players need to be proactive. It's up to the players to decide on a purpose for any delve, goals to shoot for, and the like. Rumors are available in town and research is possible. Hirelings and any equipment you might need (within reason) is available in town. Utilize them.
When the session ends, so does the delve. To facilitate irregular player participation, the joining of replacement characters, and the like, it is assumed the party leaves the dungeon at the end of the session. If this is impossible, the Triple Secret Random Dungeon Fate Table of Very Probable Doom will be used.
You earn it, you keep it. XP totals are kept by the player when a PC dies. Replacement PCs begin play with XP equal to the total of the lost character at the start of the delve. Yes, that means if your Elf bites it you could create a Thief several levels higher.

Dungeons and Dissenters

2011-08-16T20:53:00.000+09:00

A couple days ago, Eldrad Wolfsbane over at Back to the Dungeon blogged about those gamers who think dungeons suck. Not the troll who thinks YOUR dungeon sucks, just gamers, like my buddy Alex in the Board Game Group, who dislike the dungeon as a setting for adventures and dismiss the genre as simple and lacking in RP elements.

Bear with me, folks. His post is a couple days old, but it's been on my mind since I read it the other day. It's been a busy 3-day weekend (so no post since last Saturday's rundown of the Gamma World Game). We were busy taking our son to the beach, a picnic, the beach again... Thanks, Japan, for surrendering to the U.S. on what was a Monday this year, instead of a Sunday! Not so good for blogging, good for the family. But I digress. Majorly. Back to dungeons.

So Eldrad gives some good advice for spicing up dungeons and making them feel like living places, where you can roleplay to your heart's content. Still, though, I get the feeling that those gamers he decries, who sniff at the very thought of entering a dungeon, wouldn't give it a chance. Or they'd be pretty hard to convince, at least. I've blogged about the phenomenon before.

I really don't see a dungeon adventure, let alone an entire dungeon campaign set in a megadungeon, as any less worthy of providing role play opportunities than a city campaign, or a grand save the world quest (cue Tolkien/Brooks/Eddings/Jordan/Goodkind reference here). It's got the same opportunities for RP as an urban cyberpunk game. As a space opera. As a stone age survival game. As a 20's/30's gangster game. As any other genre.

Because that's the point. It's its own distinct genre, but it's not that different from the games the 'dungeon haters' want to play. A dungeon game supposes certain forces will motivate the PCs. Exploration, treasure finding, and monster slaying.

What does a grand quest to recover the McGuffin of Pelor, in order to slay the evil overlord Drolrevo suppose? Exploration, treasure finding, monster slaying.

What does a city campaign of rival factions and backhanded politics involve? Exploration (social often more than geographical, but exploration no less), treasure finding (maybe not gold, but secrets or alliances are a form of treasure), and monster slaying (come on, this is an RPG...are you really gonna let the evil mastermind behind the grand plot to steal the city's chamber pots walk?).

Yeah, a lot of us, when we were young and inexperienced, just drew rooms, populated them randomly with monsters and treasure, then let our friends wander aimlessly until they had filled their bags or exhausted their spells and hit points, fighting any old monsters they came across. But most of us, especially those of us in the OSR who've been doing it for a long time (or are newer but have the wealth of knowledge provided by the OSR blogs/forums/wikis) aren't doing it like that any more.

We're also not creating dungeons the way the old TSR modules were created, for the most part. I know I'm spending a lot of time working on special treasures that would be worthy of searching for, special monsters that would make one legendary to slay, and also populating the dungeon with factions that aren't always hostile to the PCs. They can be bargained with, fooled, allied with, double crossed before they double cross you, ignored, or even helped. I'm trying to come up with trap and "special" encounters that will lead to role playing, not just problem solving. I'm trying to make my megadungeon a cool place where fun things can happen, and players don't just need to kick in doors and roll initiative.

Too bad those anti-dungeon players will probably never give it a chance. Oh well, their loss.

Survival of the Fittest on Gamma Terra

2011-08-13T17:19:00.000+09:00

Or, how to almost turn friends into enemies, and just barely influence them in the end.

We finished up Josh's run of Gamma World module GW6 Alpha Factor last night. WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW!

Read about our previous adventures in the prelude, here, here and here.

So, having made it back to the Restorationist town in our hot air balloon, we were treated for radiation exposure and injuries, and spent a month recovering. Linka found out she could now project illusions into people's minds -- useful for an Esper, too bad she's got Int 5! Wing Lao, my Examiner, found himself with a second brain! And it gave him direction sense, telekinetic flight, and illusions as well! John Smith XXXII managed to survive unmutated. We were joined by Hornsby, a Mutant Rhino Enforcer, bought some supplies, and headed back to the Mind Keep in the balloon.

We first went to the room with all the records and spent a lot of time investigating them, learning of a secret base to the south designed to fight an alien invasion the purpose of Mind Keep (to create psionic super-soldiers to fight the aliens), and some other stuff. Then we went to the basement level 1, but didn't find anything useful. We decided to skip the rest of basement level 2 where we had met the obbs that caused our long convalescence and new mutations. Now we decided to climb all the way to the top.

On the top floor, we found a locked door with some sort of odd panel and slot opening mechanism that we couldn't decipher. The next door opened easily, but a security bot was right behind it, and came out shooting! Luckily, it was only using a stun gun. Hornsby took a hit, and was out for the combat. Pat had the good idea of trying to lure it into the elevator shaft and drop it.

We retreated to the elevator shaft and split up. Linka went right, John Smith left, and Wing Lao flew to take cover behind all the cabling in the center of the shaft. The robot came in, and Linka used her teleportation to appear right behind it and tried to knock it into the shaft, but failed. It took a swing at her, but missed. John Smith fired on it with his sniper rifle, and Wing Lao flew in and tried to stab it with his sword/electrical generation mutation combo, but both missed. The next round, Linka had a couple of good rolls, and managed to shoulder butt the bot down the shaft.

It fell, smashed, but wasn't destroyed. Terminator-like, it then started its slow way up the long ladder with a bad leg and arm slowing it down. Being at the top of a 12 story building, it had a long climb but we knew we had to think of something to stop it. We decided bombarding it with heavy objects would be best.

The room the live metal was guarding was an office with a large desk. It was booby trapped, but for whatever reason fragmentation grenades only do 3d6 damage in this version of the game, so we took some minor damage opening the desk. We found a hidden button that opened a hidden safe, but we had no way to open it without the combination. Another room had the computer we were looking for, but it had no interface. The final door on the floor was also locked, this time with a circle of eight buttons. Stymied, we descended to the next level down. Here we found the Alpha Factor chamber, where genetic modification experiments were carried out, a medical bay with a droid that would cure our two human characters (who had ID bracelets), and medical supplies.

Nothing to drop on the robot.

One more level down, we found Jeremiah, the lone survivor of Mind Keep, who was totally insane, and accompanied by a pair of demon-dog things. Expecting him to be a very powerful Esper, Linka used her mental boosting power on Wing Lao, who caused an illusion of the giant flying weasel thing to appear. Luckily, our own party managed to avoid panic, while Jeremiah and his rhino-hide mutts began running around in a panic themselves.

While Jeremiah was occupied firing his musket (he only had a musket? Strange module, but oh well...) at the illusion and usually missing, Hornsby was following him and doing a charge/gore attack. Linka circled around the other way, then added some claw-claw-bite attacks to the mix, and every time she tried Mental Blast failed. John was taking pot shots with the sniper rifle. Jeremiah kept reloading and shooting, or making swipes with his rifle butt, but not hitting very much. Finally, we took him down, and then had the dog things to worry about.

John Smith started worrying about the robot at this time, too, and decided to try to use our final mortar shell (explosive) against it. He needed Linka's help, though, so she disengaged from the battle (she'd been trying to knock the dog things over the edge of the pit -- she got one, but the other kept at it and eventually started trying to knock our guys over the edge). Hornsby and Wing kept up the attack on the dog, while John had Linka hold the mortar shell in place with tekekinesis while he aimed and fired on the robot. Linka, not being too bright, failed to let go of the shell at the right time, causing the shot to miss and blast a section of the ladder below the security bot.

We managed to kill the last dog thing, and dropped its carcass on the robot. It connected, doing some damage, but failed to dislodge the bot. We then gathered all the heavy junk we could on the level, and bombarded it. We smashed it up a bit more, but it kept on coming. Linka remembered that she had a bomb (as a Zoopremist, she could make them herself). She went down a couple floors and set it, then we waited for the robot to hit that spot. When it did, we set off the bomb, but it also failed to knock it off the ladder (good grip on that robot!). Eventually the robot got to our floor, but it just kept climbing, trying to get back to the top floor. We made a few more attacks while it was climbing past, and finally managed to shut it down! Big XP award ensued, leveling up the three survivors of the previous adventures.

Amid Jeremiah's stuff, we found he had a few useful things, but the best IMO was a nice futuristic assault rifle that Linka got to keep. Hornsby inspected the body of Jeremiah, and found suddenly that his telepathy didn't work any more. Strange...

Anyway, we then proceeded to search the lower floors. That part was a bit of a blur in my memory now, as there were a lot of rooms with nothing much of note in them. We eventually found the ring that opened the weird panel and slot door above, the combination to the safe in the CEO's office, and the combination to the 8 circles door as well. Still no computer interface, but it was getting late and although we had only one more floor to explore, we decided to go back up to the medical bay with the medical droid to camp for the night.

The next morning, Hornsby felt sick, and had a -1 to all checks and what not. The droid refused to treat him, though, as he didn't have an ID card (and it had taken photos of John and Wing when they presented their cards to prevent trading). Anyway, we checked out the CEO's office first, and in the safe we found the CEO's level 5 security card and a letter with the location of a secret military base to the south. The ring we found opened the weapons locker, granting us several grenades, a vibroblade each (sweet!) and a plasma gun (very sweet!). The next room, with the 8 circles combination code, had a suit of power armor and nuclear fuel cells, but was guarded by two highly armed security robots. Pat wanted to attack with our new-found weaponry, but I suggested we wait. Josh suggested Hornsby use his size-up opponent skill, and he learned we'd be out of our league even with the new weapons. So we finally went back down to the 4th floor, the only one left to check, and finally found the keyboard we needed, and fought a couple of snake mutants.

Going back up, we accessed the computer, got the info we needed, and left Mind Keep. We then debated whether to return the mortar to the Ranks of the Fit in Oskar village, or just go back to base. Linka wanted to go back to base, but Wing didn't mind returning the stuff (in other words, didn't bother me either way). Pat then decided to go ahead and return. I suggested we didn't land, but just drop the borrowed gear over the side. Unfortunately, the leader Timon then threatened to shoot us out of the sky if we didn't land.

We landed, he captured us, and forced us at gunpoint to join his army. That night, Gene Pool and the Restorationists raided the village, wiping out their army and capturing us. Gene was about to banish us from the Flower Lands when we managed to persuade him that we were under duress, and would have tried to flee the RotF at the first opportunity. We finally convinced him, and that concluded our adventure.

An awesome series of games, Josh, and if you feel like it, I'd be up for continuing it with the next module next summer.

NPR Listener Poll of the 100 Best SF/F Novels

2011-08-12T07:17:00.001+09:00

[Saw this mentioned on Jeff Grubb's blog. Thanks, Jeff!]

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
22. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King
26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
28. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
49. Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God's Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
74. Old Man's War, by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel's Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

Not sure what to think of this

2011-08-11T12:56:00.000+09:00

I acquired the 4E PHB 2 and PHB 3 on pdf yesterday. Spent a bit of time looking through them briefly (pain in the but on pdf, but I'm not shucking out cash for physical copies of gaming books I don't really want or need).

Anyway, I was struck by the massive apparent overlap in many of the new classes presented. Here's a couple more divine casters who fulfill the "Leader" role, just like the Cleric. Here are some variant wildernessy classes that duplicate the Ranger. Here are some more arcane strikers similar but different from the Warlock.

I mean, it's bad enough that the classes' powers are more or less really similar within just the PHB. I'd have thought they'd have gotten a bit more creative. I mean, it's really just flavor text anyway, but why not have an arcane caster Defender? Why not have a martial Controller? Hasn't 4E broken down the class niche protection enough that it really shouldn't matter?

Anyway, I was mostly doing it because I was curious about how they did the Monk class. I was thinking about the 4E Power system, and comparing it to what I'm doing with Flying Swordsmen. Something like that (without all the grids and tactical minis focus on combat) might work for a Wuxia type game.

No, I'm not considering a revised edition of Flying Swordsmen before I've even got the original completed. Just pondering. The way it works now is that every level each character learns a certain amount of maneuvers. Some are attacks, some are static bonuses and some are situational bonuses to movement, defense or some other aspect of the character. Once you've got it, it's always on, like 4E At Will powers. The idea that a character might have certain more powerful abilities only usable once per encounter or once per day could be an interesting addition, but not one I'm planning to make at the moment.

Serendipity

2011-08-10T22:36:00.000+09:00

I've been jotting down ideas for adventures to write up for Flying Swordsmen during the commute lately.

And the other day I finally got to fill in one of those gaps in my cultural knowledge. I finally watched the original 1971 film Shaft. And funny thing, one of the ideas I've got in the notebook is fairly similar to the plot of Shaft. Now I know how to flesh out the rough ideas I've got for the module.

This...

...plus this. Win?

Gamer Rock

2011-08-09T19:33:00.000+09:00

Paul and J.D. of the Yamanashi Group have a new garage band with a suitable gamer name, Critical Hit. Here's a video from their performance last Saturday. The audio's not so good, but oh well.

Paul, if you're reading this, tell J.D. the band needs... more cowbell!

My Map-Making Method

2011-08-07T16:36:00.000+09:00

So I got some good positive responses about my last post, where I was showing off my hand-drawn map for Flying Swordsmen RPG.

I think the biggest key to making that map look so good was that I took my time with it. And believe me, being my own biggest critic there are some things I wish I could have done better with it. But once I started inking parts, there was no going back unless I went pretty much ALL the way back. So I just kept on rocking with it until I got it done.

Before I started the actual map, I'd been considering what sort of map I wanted. Zhongyang Dalu had a predecessor, an old d20 OA game I ran in Japan. That continent was a self-contained great island, like Australia. I didn't want that any more. I wanted more landmass off the map connected to the setting. And I wanted lots of coastline, peninsulas, and the like. Basically, the ecosystem mirrors China (deserts NW, steppe N, high mountains and plateau SW, jungles and mountains S, sea and islands E, with two major rivers), but the topography is more similar to Europe.

To start, I made quite a few sample sketches in my pocket notebook or on scrap paper. I used that to get the general idea of the shape of the continent I wanted in my head. Then when I finally knew what it was I wanted, I started sketching rough outlines of the coast in my sketch pad with a mechanical pencil (easy to keep the marks light and erase as needed that way).

I made quite a few changes during this sketch phase. When I more or less had it the way I wanted, I went over it again with a normal pencil, and added detail to the coast. I added small inlets, bays, and peninsulas or headlands here and there. I just generally broke up any areas with straight lines. I started adding in some of the islands along the coasts at this point. I also used the mechanical pencil to plot out where mountains and hills might go. This allowed me to add more islands in logical places.

I went over the coastline one more time in pen, and actually ended up adding even more detail the third time through. I erased the pencil before inking, to avoid the chance of smudging the ink.

Once I had the coasts finished, then I sketched in the rivers using the exact same three step process. The only difference was that I used blue ink for the rivers. Most of the lakes were added after the fact, when I had inked the rivers and thought that I needed lakes here and there.

My next decision was how to draw the mountains. I used Google to look for some actual ancient Chinese maps, and found one that used the style I copied for mountains. After erasing the first roughly sketched (in mechanical pencil) mountains, I just used a ballpoint pen to draw in the mountains in that style.

Before I drew the provincial borders, I just looked at certain features to decide where would be logical places to divide things. Rivers, mountain ranges, and the like usually are good for that in real life. I tried using a highlight pen (orange), which on the map looks fine, but it didn't scan well. So I went back and used a red ballpoint pen and traced the highlight lines with it. I used a red felt tipped marker to write in the province names (and practiced that on scrap paper first to get the capital letters right).

For cities, I used a felt tipped marker and just made dots on the map where I wanted a city to go. I put on about 25 cities the first time, then added more later. I'll have to count again, but I think there are about 40 on there now. I took all of the names from my old OA campaign's maps. The names are in black ball point pen. I thought about adding Chinese characters to the city names, but decided that would both make the map too crowded, and be too time consuming, as I'd have to look up characters that matched each pronunciation.

For the colors, I used color pencils in various shades to try to depict different types of landscapes. Mixes of various greens and blues make up the forests (and I think I used some yellow as well for what's supposed to be bamboo covered hills in Qin province). Yellow and brown for the desert. Straight brown for the arid mountains and plateau. The grassland/steppe used an olive green with some darker green and a bit of brown. I'm not too fond of the color pencils I've got now (bought here in Korea). I miss the ones I had and left behind in Japan. I got better color from the old ones.

Finally, I added in the names of the rivers, lakes, mountain ranges, seas and bays, etc. I used a blue ball point pen for this, and decided, since I was making all these up instead of importing from the old setting, to pull out the Chinese dictionary and add in the characters for the names. That did end up cluttering the map in a few places, but I like the touch it adds to the map.

I've still got the problem that the sketch pad is too big for my scanner. After piecing the two scans together and adjusting brightness and contrast to try to hide the seam a bit (not so well, I know), it looks better. I think I'll still see if I can locate a print shop where I can scan it in one piece before I put it in the book.

And as I mentioned at the beginning of this long post, I took my time with this map. Most of the steps were done one day, and then the map would sit for a few days, or a week or more, at times, before I went on to the next step. Especially early on, this allowed me to evaluate what I'd done before I started inking, and change things I didn't like. I posted my first "Cartography" post here back in June, when I'd gotten the coasts and rivers inked. So all told, this map was made over the course of about three and a half to four months.

Cartography IV

2011-08-06T10:56:00.000+09:00

Here's the final map for Zhongyang Dalu, the world of the Flying Swordsmen RPG. Now that I've got the map done, I feel like I can get to work on detailing the setting. The goal is to just provide a bare-bones setting, maximizing opportunities for conflict and adventure, rather than present a likely boring socio-cultural overview of what's basically China with magic and monsters. If anyone playing the game wants to bone up on Chinese history, culture, and all that, I'll be providing a "recommended reading" section in the appendices.

More Gruesome Death on Gamma Terra!

2011-08-03T23:19:00.001+09:00

This afternoon, Josh, Pat and I got together to play some more Gamma World. Jeremy and Adam had to work, and Adam seems to be no longer interested in the game due to the long gap in play. Anyway, you can read about our previous exploits here.

We quickly ret-conned the ending to the last session. It was Wing Lao, my Altered Human Examiner, and John Smith XXXIV, Pat's PSH Examiner, who showed up in the balloon. Tom Petty was ret-conned to have died along with Saeng the Minotaur in the blast (read the previous post for details on that hilarious episode!). Wing and John joined Jar-Jar-Jar, Pat's Altered Plant Scout, and Linka, my Mutant Cougar Esper.

Well, we found out we couldn't get into the Mind Keep from the roof, where we were, so we climbed down the side of the tower to a plateau below. We tried to get in a door, but there were motion sensors all around and a live-metal guard (security bot) sent us on our way since our keycard got vaporized with one of the two above fatalities.

We explored a hangar and found a wrecked aircar with a full tank of fuel and a few other goodies, after defeating a flying Grey Ooze type creature. There were some stone huts out back, which we next explored. The first had some kind of growling animals, so we left it alone. A few were empty, one collapsed as soon as we touched it, and another was home to a pair of Jaggets, mutant cheetahs. The female was home, and scared, and lashed out with a mental blast at my cougar, Linka. It missed, so Linka fired back with her own mental blast, hurting the Jagget. Someone else (forget exactly who) also attacked successfully, and she died. Just then, her pissed husband attacked from behind, but he went down quickly as well. We searched around, and found some goodies, including a generator buried in the dirt, another key-card, and some various random goodies, including car keys.

Our weather indicator told us bad weather was approaching, so we took shelter in the hangar while it rained torrentially for a week. Then we got a blizzard for anther week, but this time we sheltered in one of the stone huts to conserve fuel. We were now officially low on food. We found another small building that was full of boxes to the south, but it was also home to some weird humanoid mutants with rock-covered skin and lots of hit points. We had a long fight with them, but Wing's Confusion ability and Linka's mental blasts worked well on them, as they had high AC but low Mental Defense. Jar-Jar-Jar was severely wounded, down to only 1 hit point by the time we finished them off! Inside the building, though, we found an intact ground car! Keys fit the ignition, and we could transfer the generator and fuel from the hangar to get it working again.

Well, now we tried the door to the Mind Keep again. The security bot accepted John Smith's key-card, and ignored Jar-jar-jar, so those two went inside. Linka and Wing had to figure something else out. Inside, the two J's fought another of the flying blob things, and discovered a strange crystal cone creature that ignored them completely. And they found out that the elevator wasn't working. Meanwhile, outside, Wing circled the tower and investigated another of the sensors, this one wasn't on. They were pretty flimsy, so we thought we'd try to destroy the one by the door to keep the robot from appearing. We fired on it with our muskets, with Linka's shot hitting and destroying the sensor. Then we waltzed in unopposed and met up with the other two.

While searching that floor, we found more loot, including another security card and a chemex grenade. We also opened a door to a room full of black mushrooms that began spreading exponentially when exposed to new air. One chemex grenade later and the mushrooms were no more (Josh letting us know that was a very good thing!). We still couldn't find a way to get the elevators activated, so we pried open the doors and used the ladder to descend into the basement.

Well, in the bottom floor, the first room we explored was home to three Obbs. Yikes! One super-radiation blast from them finished off poor Jar-jar-jar (he'd had so many close calls, and finally met his match). Wing and John were incapacitated by the radiation. Linka was merely weakened, so she grabbed up Wing and John and ran out of the room. She waited until the Obbs quieted down, then quickly opened the door and used telekinesis to get Jar-jar-jar out (luckily Obbs are carnivores, and didn't want to eat a cactus mutant).

Linka got everyone into the balloon outside and with our NPC scout companion (who did nothing but hang around away from danger and offer occasional advice) we floated back to our starting base to heal and regroup.

We decided that was a good place to stop, and spent the rest of our session time just talking and Pat rolled up a new character. We needed a new Enforcer, so he choose a Mutant Rhino. But then he rolled poorly for Str, and also got a Size Reduction mutation which upped his poor Dex (but not enough to give a bonus) and reduced his Str even farther! He also got a Gas Generation mutation (hallucinogenic!), which of course Josh and I insisted to Pat must be a flatulence attack. Add in a dual brain (Josh again said it must be located in his ass), and telepathy, heightened Intelligence, and I don't remember what, and we've got a fun new character to join the expedition for what will likely be the final session in a week and a half!

[Jeremy, if you read this, don't worry, your new character can rejoin us easily next session. If Adam decides to come, that's fine, but Josh had Pat erase the Tom Petty character sheet for Pat to make his new one though... Hope Adam doesn't mind!]

[Barking Alien, if you're reading this, this session I'd say qualifies for 'super-fun.' We had a blast.]

There's just something about dinosaurs

2011-08-03T06:30:00.028+09:00

There really is, isn't there?

Yesterday we took our son to a dinosaur exhibit at the local convention center, BEXCO. It was half strange insert yourself into Biblical art thingy, a magic show, and giant robo-tronic dinosaurs. My son was pretty much only interested in the dinosaurs and the obligatory toy shop set up inside every children's event there.

Preparing for Module X1

When I heard the exhibit was on, sometime last week, and we decided to go, it got me thinking about the good old thunder lizards.

Specifically, about all the OA games I've run in the past. Why did I never include dinosaurs in them? I mean, really, Isle of Dread is based off of King Kong, which is a modern pulp story, so doesn't that mean it translates just as easily to a "katana and kung fu" setting as it does a "swords and sorcery" setting?

I've never pitted samurai and Taoist magicians against stegosaurus and T-Rex. Why not? I don't know. It's not like other people haven't thought of the idea already. I've just never utilized it. But I'm tempted now to include some sort of Lost Valley in one of the Flying Swordsmen modules I'm planning for when I finally get the rule set finished.

Very superstitious, writing's on the wall

2011-08-02T18:31:00.000+09:00

I'm not actually a very superstitious person, but I do have a few. My one dice superstition is that the old dice I collected from my TSR box sets are now MY dice. No one else gets to touch them.

Back in the day, we just didn't have that many dice. KillingMachine, my cousin Ben, and I each had two sets from our Basic and Expert sets, an extra pair of d10s each from Star Frontiers (which usually stayed in the SF box), and whatever extra d6s we scrounged from old board games. And if one of us was at another's house and didn't bring our own, of course we shared our dice.

Now, though, I've got more than enough other dice that the old ones stay safely far from others in their own little gray dice bag. And I mostly use them when rolling up my Megadungeon encounters or monster hit dice or number appearing and all that, not much for actual gaming.

Anyway, last Saturday, for some reason I brought that set of old dice to the 4E game. And they were rolling quite poorly.

I wonder if my dice were trying to tell me something.

Just in case, I'll be bringing a different dice bag to the next game.

Movie Review: Captain America

2011-08-01T23:26:00.000+09:00

Yesterday we went to see "Paseuteu Abenja" as it's called here in Korea, Captain America: The First Avenger everywhere else. I'd been really waiting to see this movie, although I did have some doubts about the casting of Chris Evans as Cap.

For those of you arriving here from a web search with the keywords "Captain America Horrible" I hate to disappoint. I really liked it. If you googled "Captain America curse words" or something similar, the language was mostly tame. Don't worry. The name of the blog gets a lot of those searches. Now to continue the review.

As most of you likely know, this is the final lead-in movie to next year's Avengers movie, which will bring Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, and Captain America together (along with some of the other Avengers, like Hawkeye, who didn't get their own films). I've enjoyed all of the previous four movies (Iron Man, The Hulk, Iron Man 2, and Thor) but each had a very different feel (well, the two Iron Man movies were of course similar in style). Captain America had yet another style of its own, this time doing a good job of blending the tropes of super hero films with a fairly solid war movie framework.

Aside from the first one and last two scenes, all of the movie takes place in World War II. The Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) is the leader of Hydra, Hitler's super-science program. Red Skull believes that Norse Mythology is real (and of course, in the Marvel Universe, it is -- see Thor) and wants to tap the super-science of the Aesir for his weapons. He locates the Cosmic Cube in Norway, and decides he doesn't need Hitler any more and embarks on a quest to destroy the world so that he can take over the remains.

Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, shrimpy wimp Steve Rogers has tried everything he can think of to enlist. His buddy Bucky is ready to ship out. They visit the Stark Expo, and there Rogers is approached by Dr. Erskine and talked into joining the Super-Soldier Program (although he doesn't realize it yet). Of all the super-soldier recruits, Rogers is picked to be the first experiment because of his sterling character. And of course the procedure is a success, turning him into Captain America.

However, things don't quite go according to plan. He ends up performing in USO shows to raise money through War Bonds. Eventually, though, Rogers really becomes Captain America, showing his prowess and his brains to battle The Red Skull and Hydra.

There are some very cool action scenes, reminiscent of films like The Dirty Dozen, as Cap and his team take down one Hydra location after another. There's a bit of romance. There's some good comedy, a lot of it revolving around Howard Stark (Tony Stark/Iron Man's father for those who don't know). Evans did a good job of making Steve Rogers seem like a real person, and Captain America as a believable hero. There's always a risk with characters that are so archetypal as Cap that they seem two-dimensional in films, but that didn't happen here.

I thought it was a well done film over all. I liked it better than Thor and The Hulk, although I still enjoyed Iron Man and Iron Man 2 better (I think it's the snappy banter that Robert Downey Jr. does so well). Captain America was top notch, though, and now I'm really excited about The Avengers.

Oh, and if you didn't know, stick around through the credits for not only a teaser scene link to The Avengers, but a trailer as well!

A Winner is Me!

2011-07-31T00:08:00.000+09:00

Just got home from the new 4E game. It was fun, but not super fun. We had a few interesting challenges, one short battle and one long one. As a Wizard, I ended up using Magic Missile more often than any of my other powers. It's guaranteed damage, and the bad guys we were up against had a 'bad mojo' aura that made you roll two attack rolls and take the lower, so it was safer just to blast with auto hit MM. Not exactly varied tactics, but it was effective, and I guess that's the name of the game.

The module, one of the Pathfinder modules that Enzo is converting to 4E, is decent. A bit railroady at the beginning, but it looks to open up some more as we progress.

In more exciting news, I just checked the lotto numbers, and we matched three of them! I just won 5000 won! (about $5). I'm sure we'll spend it on next week's lotto. :D

Changes of Plan

2011-07-29T22:14:00.000+09:00

I didn't get to go see Captain America tonight. I wanted to. It opened yesterday in Korea. I had private lessons last night after work, so that wasn't an option. Tonight, no privates. I said to my wife, "Let's go!"

She told me we couldn't. Her in-laws were making samgyetang, a rice and chicken stew. There are certain times during the summer when Koreans are supposed to eat it "for health." So we went, and ate. It was good. I'd still rather have gone to see the movie, though.

Anyway, my week of summer vacation from the kindergarten starts this evening. We've got plenty of time to go see Cap. Also, my father-in-law wants to go hiking and eat boshintang. I'm not sure I want to. I had boshintang once before, the day before my wedding. My buddy Atley came to Korea with us for the wedding (we all lived in Japan at the time, he was a member of the Yamanashi group) and wanted to try it. I thought, hey, it's an experience. So we went. We ate. It wasn't bad tasting. But it's not something I ever felt like eating again.

Boshintang is dog meat stew. And supposedly it's a magical curative for "men's health." My in-laws are hoping for another grandchild and they think if I eat it I'll be firing magic bullets of love and paternity. Or something like that.

Anyway, Korea's got plenty of food superstitions or general strange beliefs that could be mined for interesting details to use in an RPG or fantasy novel. A lot of them are simple sympathetic magic. Like eating eel is good for "men's health" because, you know, eels are long and tubular and so are men's... Well, you know.

Others, though, are a bit less easy to figure out. Like tonight's samgyetang. You're supposed to eat it piping hot on the 'hottest days' (set by some almanac or geomancy or something, it wasn't that hot today or the day we ate it last week either). Fighting fire with fire is more or less the logic behind this one. Make yourself hot on the hot day and you'll be fine the rest of the summer.

Anyway, I ought to ply my wife for more of these Korean eating superstitions. I'm sure I don't know the half of them. But here's a cool one, especially for anyone using Vampires heavily in their games:

If Korean men can catch a deer alive (as my friend Ahna's uncle did in his company's factory building one day), the men subdue the animal, cut a small incision in the upper neck, and drink the deer's blood. Again, it's supposed to impart vitality and good health. And again, not something I think I'd want to try myself.

Promotion: The Cell Within

2011-07-27T20:58:00.000+09:00

Dylan Hartwell, of the cool blog Digital Orc, has a new free adventure module out called The Cell Within. It's a nice, short, but very evocative module. It'll give you a good night or two of play. You can check it out here.

Full Disclosure: I'm one of the editors of the module, and Dylan's one of the artists contributing to Flying Swordsmen RPG. So of course I want you all to go check out his stuff! Seriously, though, it's a cool module. Serial killers and pig-men. What's not to like?

My 4E Character

2011-07-27T10:04:00.001+09:00

So here's my 4E character. Thinking about a simple description and background for him has really made him "come alive" in my mind. The character should be fun to play. As lots of people mentioned in my last post, I need to go into the game with the mindset that it's a table top tactical minis game with RP elements. Sorta like what I suggested could be done with HeroClix a while back. Do that, and I hope I'll have fun with it.

Belgan Breg, Half Elf Wizard (Illusionist)
Alignment: Unaligned
Languages: Common, Elven, Primordial

Str 8
Con 15 (pb 13 +2 racial)
Dex 10
Int 18
Wis 15 (pb 13 +2 racial)
Cha 10

Init +0
Speed 6
AC 14
Fort 12
Ref 14
Will 14
Hit Points 25 (bloodied 12)
Healing Surge value 6, 8 per day

Feat: Staff Expertise
Trained Skills: Arcana, History, Dungeoneering, Diplomacy

Powers:
At Will
Ghost Sound, Light, Mage Hand, Magic Missile, Freezing Burst, Phantom Cage
Encounter
Knack for Success (racial), Illusory Obstacles, Icy Terrain
Daily
Freezing Cloud, Phantom Chasm

Special:
Low Light Vision, Dual Heritage (Human/Elf), Group Diplomacy, Apprentice Mage (Illusion, target hit takes -2 to attacks against me next round)

Description:
Tall and slender, with shoulder-length gray hair (naturally gray, mother's was silver, father's was black), beard but no mustache, bright blue eyes.

Background:
Trained as a Wizard by his Elf mother. Captured by slavers and brought to the city by them. Recovered his spellbook and escaped. Now out to seek his fortune and maybe one day get revenge on the slavers.

Bring out your dead!

2011-07-25T14:55:00.000+09:00

OK, no dead to bring out, but this is the sort of post that's guaranteed to bring out the trolls. It's funny, but there are so many people on the internet apparently just waiting for someone to make a negative comment about 4th Ed. D&D so they can sweep in on their pretend moral high horse and castigate someone for having a different opinion and expressing it. I don't go to 4E players' blogs and complain if they post something negative about Old School games...just don't see the point. But oh well, bring it on. I'm gonna get negative again, although there will be some positive as well.

So as I mentioned, there's a guy here in Busan who is putting together a 4E group. Josh's Gamma World game will be finishing soon one way or the other (only another month before he leaves, and if we don't finish it next month we're never gonna...). As I mentioned in my comments in my last post, I'm also curious about how the game plays over a longer period than what we, the Board Game Group, tried before. My old Yamanashi Group got a good long campaign out of it, and had a lot of fun.

So is it just the fact that a good group of people can have a good time regardless of the rule set used? Or are my first impressions of 4E somehow skewed? It's possible that it's the latter. Pat had us do a few playtest encounters, then ran us through part of Keep on the Shadowfell, a module that has gotten nothing but bad press from what I've read.

I'm gonna give it another try. I'm creating a Half-Elf Wizard, specializing in illusions and ice magic (having read the entire Lankhmar series recently, that may be the unconscious inspiration for my guy. No, he won't be like Khakht (or however it was spelled), but illusions and ice are his theme.

I use the word 'create' above, and bolded it, because I can't say I rolled up a character. No dice were involved in the creation of the character. Point buy ability scores, set hit points, pick and choose your class, race and powers. Not even a roll for starting gold. Everyone gets 100gp to spend. Now, I can deal with this, but it's definitely a lot less fun than throwing in some rolls and seeing what you get (and having to work with the consequences, both good and bad).

The next stumbling block for me with character creation is one of tone. I just can't help but laugh when the rule books give some predetermined arrays of scores that you could create with point buy, and one of the arrays leaves that low 8 as an 8. Then it says something like, "This character is good in a few areas, but still has a significant weakness in one area." A -1 to a few checks you likely won't use ever anyway is a significant weakness?

Seriously, they've done just about everything they can in this rule-set to ensure that your character really only needs three good ability scores and the rest are dump stats. All the defenses: AC, Fortitude, Reflex and Will, are governed by two stats, take your pick of the better one. Most of the attack powers likewise give you a choice of two or three abilities to use for hit/damage modifiers. And if you've got a crap stat in that ability, you can pick a different power anyway. So, as I've done, I've dropped that 8 in Strength. I doubt I'll be doing much melee as a Wizard, and if I have to take a -1 penalty to any Athletics skill checks, so be it. It's not crippling my character in the least. It's a minor nuisance at best to have a slight penalty in an ability score I don't need to use.

Finally, there's the choice overload. I'm playing a Wizard. I still haven't looked over enough of the other classes to know if there's something I'd rather be playing. Seriously, there's a lot of reading to be done there to make an informed decision. Now, if I were a high school kid out on summer vacation, with plenty of time to dive into the books, sure, no problem. As a working adult, with a wife and kid, side writing projects of my own, and just general other stuff to do, I don't have time to read through the literally hundreds of pages worth of information on all the various character classes.

Now, the good side. I downloaded the two Essentials character books, Heroes of the Fallen Lands and Forgotten Kingdoms, and used them to build my character. From what I did see, especially with regards to the Fighter class, Essentials cleared up some of the suck from the original set of rules. The Fighter looks much more playable, especially since they're not trying to make it work exactly as the Wizard or Cleric (never looked at the Rogue or the other classes enough to really judge). No Daily powers, and several general purpose At Will Utility powers at first level so the Fighter can enter each fight with some tactical options besides when to use the Encounter Powers (and hope they hit).

That leads me to the final problem I'm having. There are tons of errata out there, and I'm not reading any of it (don't really care), but it seems like the DM might. He's asked me several times now to subscribe to D&D Insider so I can get whatever updates and the character builder program and what not. Sorry, Enzo, not gonna happen. I've got better ways to spend my money, and I'm fairly happy with the character I created who mixes IMO the best stuff I could find from the two Essentials character books and the PHB1. There may be stuff I'd enjoy using from PHB2 and 3...there is a 3, right?...but again I just don't have the time or motivation to scour through another 50 or so pages of Wizard powers just because there might be one power that is slightly more advantageous than one of the ones I already picked (and seriously, there's often not much difference between two powers of the same level, other than what minor secondary effect it might have, or energy type).

So, 4E has not won me over from its character creation stage. Maybe playing it will grow on me. If it doesn't, I may be out of gaming for a while.