Maritime Campaign about to set sail

Looks like we're finally getting things going! This Saturday, we're going to launch the Maritime Campaign.

Last Saturday night, board games fell through again, so Josh and I ended up drinking in front of a convenience store (legal here in Korea to do that). We were both pretty drunk--I was on my third bottle of baeksaeju, Josh his fourth--when Dave happened to wander by. I called him over, we started talking, then I went to take a piss and he and Josh started talking. They worked out their differences, and so Dave is in!

Alex, who normally doesn't want to play any version of Classic or pre-2000 AD&D, is excited about the sandbox oceanscape, with no demands on battling monsters or fulfilling quests unless they choose to do so.

Josh is just itching to play anything, since we've had so many cancellations.

The only down side is that Dave is going on a trip up to Gyeongju on Saturday to see the old Silla kingdom ruins, and probably won't be back to play. So it might just be me and Alex and Josh. But we'll roll up characters, see what sort of ship they end up with, and just hand-wave that Dave's characters are part of the crew.

Oriental Accents -- Journey to the West

If there's any work of Chinese literature that could be considered as influential in Asian culture as Three Kingdoms, it would have to be Journey to the West.

The journey that the book is about was inspired by the actual journey of a Chinese monk to India to get better translations of Buddhist sutras.

The beginning of the book tells of Sun Wukong, also known as Monkey (and the story is often titled Monkey as well, since he's the main character). Monkey gains Taoist power, and upsets the Heavenly Realm (other-planar Asian adventure fodder here) and the Buddha steps in to trap him.

500 years later, the monk Xuanzang sets off on his quest, and the bodhisattva Guan Yin provides him with Sun Wukong (Monkey), Zhu Bajie (Pig), Sha Wujing (Friar Sand), and Yulong Santaizi (the Dragon Horse) as his companions and protectors on his journey.

The lion's share of the book is their journey, and all the (often formulaic) encounters they have in the exotic wilderness between China and India. They constantly run into demons, goblins, sorcerers, animal spirits, and plain old evil people that want to do them in. Rumor has it that eating Xuanzang will make you immortal and erase your sins, so lots of monsters want to catch and eat him. Many monsters have past beefs with Monkey, so there's double impetus to waylay the group.

Most of the episodes involve someone in the party getting captured (usually Xuanzang), and the others have to effect a rescue. The magical powers of Monkey often save the day, but sometimes Pig, Friar Sand or the Dragon Horse manage to pull off the victory. Often, Guan Yin has to step in to help them out when their usual tricks don't work.

The episodes can get a bit tedious in their repetition, but the monsters and demons do seem to learn, and things that work once or twice stop working in later encounters.

There's a lot of humor in the book, as the pious and pure Xuanzang has to control his protectors. Monkey is violent and prideful, Pig is lazy, lustful and greedy, and Friar Sand is dependable but not so bright. The interplay between their personalities gives life to the repetitious monster encounters along the way.

The books is chock full of magic, monsters, Buddhist and Taoist philosophy and symbolism, unusual locations, devious monsters with motivations besides just hanging out waiting for heroes to show up and slaughter them, and all sorts of great ways to inspire your gaming.

And of course, besides movies, games, comic books and what not based on the original work, they inspired Dragonball (Sun Wukong, read in Japanese, is Sun Goku), sci fi retellings, and all sorts of stuff both in Asia and the West. Wikipedia has a good list here.

Why should you read Journey to the West?

Despite it's length and occasional repetitiveness, it's an engaging, exciting, comic story. It's full of magic and monsters, and exotic strange locations. That alone should make it required reading for any GM running a fantasy Asian game.

Where Three Kingdoms is good inspiration for the Fighters in your game, Journey to the West is great for the Spellcasters, and for giving life to dungeons, wilderness, and especially the monsters.

Random Encounter

Had a busy weekend, including a hiking trip/drinking session with my wife's uncle and his co-workers that took up the whole day yesterday, so I didn't get to post my next Oriental Accents piece like I wanted. Don't have the time today either, so here's a short little post to bide my time and waste yours. :)

Last Friday morning, I was going to the radio station to record for the Saturday show and then do my normal live show. I got off the subway and up onto the street, listening to my mp3 player. There's a homeless guy, 50-ish, who walks up and says to me in English, "Are you a foreigner?"

Well, I think to myself, "That's bloody obvious," and keep on walking. He runs up and kicks me. Not hard enough to bruise, but it did hurt. I turned around and knocked the asshole on his ass. Then I went about my way.

Now, what's this got to do with RPGs? It made me think about the rate of XP for encounters. Now, in D&D terms I'm just a Normal Man and so was the homeless guy, so by the book I'd get no XP for that. If I had been of a character class, I'd have gotten like 5xp from the bum (didn't take his stuff--if he had any, so only monster xp). At least if I were playing any old school games.

If I were playing 3 or 4E, that would have been a level appropriate challenge for me. Since I was alone when I was accosted, all of that XP would have come my way. I don't need 3-4 other guys to take down a bum. I don't know for sure the 4E XP scheme (10 appropriate encounters to level I think...), but for 3E it was 14 encounters. Since I did this alone, I'd be about 1/10 of the way there in 3E, maybe 1/8 of the way to a new level in 4E.

Seems like levels mean more to acchieve if they take more than knocking 10 homeless guys on their ass to earn them.

A 'Second' look

For some reason, the urge struck me about an hour ago to pull the old 2E DMG off the bookshelf and see what sort of rules it had for ocean travel/combat. I found a small section for travel, nothing for combat (was it in the PHB? Have to look later). I was wanting to see if there was anything I might port over for the Maritime Campaign if we get it off the ground.

I started flipping through the book after reading the small section I was looking for, and was reminded that there's a lot of good stuff in there. Sure, it lacks the simplicity of BX or BECM or the grandiose verbosity of Gygax in the 1E DMG. But there are some nice little tidbits to find within. [And the art wasn't quite as bad as I remember--better than the RC anyway.]

In particular, I'd forgotten that there are about 20 different types of Protection scrolls. I've always been a fan of them, and missed them during my 3E era. They provide cool effects, and are usable by any class. Scrolls don't become the 'dump on the M-U' item with them available.

Usually when I think of 2E I think of the rules bloat of the Complete this and that series. But the core books are solid, and deserve another look every now and then from those of us not playing them.

You never know what you might find that you can use in whatever other edition of the game you're playing.

Considering RPOL again

Looks like the either Star Frontiers or D&D game isn't gonna happen this summer after all. Chloe isn't interested (she plays darts every Saturday evening) and Bill's not interested and will be away for 6 weeks anyway. There had been some hope that if Chloe played, Bill would (they're dating).

That leaves just me, Josh and Alex, and Alex doesn't want to play RPGs with only 2 players, if the other player is Josh especially. So we may just stick to board games for now.

So if I want to put all this work I've sunk into the Maritime Campaign to use, the internet would be the way to go. With my crazy work schedule, Skype or chat games won't work. But something like RPOL, a message board game, could maybe.

But every time I've tried to get into a game on RPOL it's always died a sudden death shortly after things get interesting. People just don't seem to have the attention span to stick with it. And I get obsessive about checking for updates all the time, and waste so much of my day on the site hoping someone's posted something.

Bummer.

Dragons!

I've got this guy, his red buddy, and the green version without large wings. But the other day the wife agreed to let me order these guys:





I spent a lot of time trying to find black and white dragons, but the only ones I could find were either too expensive ($35-50 each) or had saddles and bridles/hoods. So I'll pick two of the above to repaint and see how that goes.

Once I finally get the time to paint anything, that is...

Iron Man 2 Review

My wife and I, and my friend Dave, went to see Iron Man 2 last night. We all enjoyed it. It kept up the fast-paced balance of action, comedy and character development that the first one had.

I had actually been expecting it to not be as good as the first, since it was a rushed sequel in order to capitalize on the popularity of the first movie. Was it worth pushing back all of the other Avengers lead-up movies for this? I'm not sure about that yet. We'll have to see how the others end up before I answer that. But it was a fun, entertaining movie that didn't get bogged down in techno-babble exposition or simply trying to repeat what made the first one a hit.

Don't want to add any spoilers, but the major weak point of the movie is the simultaneous reveal of Howard Stark's legacy/solving the palladium poison problem, which was basically deus ex machina thanks to Samuel L... I mean Nick Fury. The fact that the story didn't stop long enough to dwell on it makes it passable, but IMO the elements should have been introduced earlier in the film so Tony would have had some time to mull over the problems. As it is, Nick Fury gives Tony a MacGuffin that instantly solves two problems in short order, with no real complications.

Other than that, though, I really enjoyed it. I think the final battle with Iron Man and War Machine against the Hammer Drones and Vanko was better than the Iron Man/Iron Monger showdown in the first one. I still need a day or two to think over things from a screenwriting perspective, but from a fan perspective it was worth the price of admission.

See this movie if:

You're a fan of superheroes, Marvel in particular. It's well done superhero fare, without the need for Shakespearean dramatics (The Dark Knight) or silly self-parody (Superman III).

You enjoy a popcorn action movie that doesn't treat the audience like total idiots (Avatar).

Skip this movie if:

You're not into superheroes or action movies.

You expect Oscar level dramatic tension and acting in any movie you want to see on the big screen.