tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72603688897567056322024-03-05T00:57:27.315-08:00Ubiquitous OrcsI share my musings on gaming, gamers, the games they play, the good, the bad, the ugly and the downright cliche.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-24931726549187218612012-04-30T09:26:00.000-07:002012-04-30T09:26:19.983-07:00Unimportant updateIt seems I am required to link this blog to my Gmail/G+ accounts...much to my chagrin. If I don't, I lose access to this blog and content.<br />
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Sorry for the random resurrection. Continue as you were.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-37170810252538290732011-06-20T12:12:00.000-07:002011-06-20T12:14:07.973-07:00"So THAT'S what I was up to all this time?" - Catching up once againGood grief has it really been more than a year since my last update here? I recall once warning my readers (all one of you) that I tend to fall off the face of the earth from time to time. D'ya believe me now?<br />
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As far as RPGs of any sort go, I have been almost completely inactive since my online "Olde Worlde" Swords & Wizardry game came to a long grinding halt near the end of last summer. I had one brief flirtation with Pathfinder as a player-character shortly after that, but a huge steaming heap of gamemaster politics and "draah-mah" brought that to a short conclusion.<br />
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Around a week or so ago my good friend Randy (Codename:Haldir) put up a cattle-call for players in a new S&W play-by-post game and I was fairly eager to take the bait. I believe "Oh HELLYEAH" were my exact words, but I digress.<br />
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I was considering playing a human fighter or perhaps cleric, but it wasn't long before Randy and I both seemed to come to the mutual agreement that I'm a character-actor, and by that I'm sure all my awesome readers know exactly what kind of character I'm talking about.<br />
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I freely admit I've got quite a few character sheets for various half-orc characters I've played in the past, some of which I routinely resurrect with minor adjustments to fit whatever game module or level of play they're about to join. But while I believe in recycling, I try to be very faithful to each character and not "reinvent" her entire personality. Janara is my favourite. She was my first...kind of like a schoolgirl crush, you might say. Even though she has appeared in D&D 3.0, 3.5, Warhammer and S&W, her basic attributes, personality and quirks have remained the same. I sometimes call her (after the Arthurian legends) "the Once And Future Janara". I hope one day to actually find a way to work her into a futuristic sci-fi game.<br />
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So, back on topic (in a roundabout way), I didn't think Janara the Hafforc Cleric would be the best fit for Temple Of Elemental Evil, so I called up another character from the minor league. She was one I made for our thieves' guild game using Labyrinth Lord rules, and her name was originally Burzug,...I admit not a particularly good name for a character, but I was in a bit of a pinch and had to name her quick. I will now claim the name was just an alias.<br />
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She is now going by the name Chara...which is coincidentally also the name of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zdeno_Chara">the team captain of the Boston Bruins</a>. She, like he, is a bit of a goon,..loved by some, loathed by many more. Though she is technically speaking only a fighter, her lifelong aspiration is to be a thief. In fact that is what she was doing before joining the party, and I'm sure the circumstances of her leaving behind her life of crime to become a traveling adventurer will be interesting..as soon as those details come to light.<br />
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In my new game, the adventure began at a crossroads. Our party was deciding which way to go first, and we all were already acquainted with one another. This saves us much in-game time getting to know each other, and permits all players the chance to reveal bits and pieces of our pasts as we (the players) get a better feel for our own characters and those of the other players.<br />
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So, Chara has somehow won the approval of a lady monk called Isha, a human cleric called Coriander Waterspout, or Cory, for short, and a dwarven magic user (yes, you read that right) called Golden Hammer, and Golden Hammer's bodyguard, who calls himself Body Guard. We're a motley crew and you can probably already imagine the fun sorts of group dynamics that can develop as the game progresses. At the moment, the magic user and cleric are kind of taking charge. Perhaps that is because Isha and Chara are "just girls", but somehow I suspect that neither monk nor fighter will remain wallflowers forever.<br />
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And now to compound Chara's troubles..and yes, she is a complicated woman, she has Body Guard following after her like a lovestruck puppy.<br />
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At this point, the adventurers have just arrived at the Inn of the Welcome Wench. No doubt there will be booze a'flowing soon, and I have invited the other players to fill in a bit more of Chara's history, specifically what happend any one of those times she got so drunk that she herself cannot recall what she did.<br />
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I only hope no players will take TOO many liberties with poor Chara's history. She is, after all, a distant cousin of Janara, and Janara might have her cut off from the family fortune.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-8687317419742653012010-04-14T08:48:00.000-07:002010-04-14T08:48:27.660-07:00One Monk makes all paper models FREE!I only just found out today, but according to <a href="http://www.onemonk.com/Home.html">One Monk's web site,</a> all paper models are now available to download and print for free.<br />
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(from One Monk's news page, April 1st 2010 ..and no, this isn't an April Fools gag) <br />
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<blockquote>After much thought and deliberation, I have decided to to change my hobby back into a hobby, and provide my designs for free download for all who want them.<br />
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I really want to thank those of you who have supported me over the years by purchasing my figure sets, and I hope they were of a good value to you. My decision to go free will hopefully not anger some of you who had purchased my figures in the past. Having a little boost to my income was a great help, especially as I transitioned from a high paying stress filled job, to a lower paying, but much more rewarding job in the adventure gaming industry. Now that I am a bit more established in my position at my new job, I no longer have such a great need for the extra income, and have lost my drive to design more stuff to sell.<br />
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So, what I want to do, is offer everything I have designed, and will design from here on out for free. This will allow me to design whatever I want. I can design figures based on published games, movies or TV characters, roleplaying games and more. Having this burden off my shoulders will allow me to do what's FUN! and that's designing super cool amazing miniatures that can be printed and cutout by anyone.</blockquote><br />
Some of you probably already know I have a huge collection of pewter miniatures, but I completely understand the "sitcker shock" that new gamers, especially young gamers, feel when they walk into a game store. With the average price of a single character mini being somewhere around $5 not including paint and brushes, and with that cost multiplied by at least 20 for tabletop fantasy wargaming or stocking a dungeon, and with the general state of the economy now, this could not have happened at a better time.<br />
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There are dozens of free or nearly-free fantasy roleplaying and tabletop wargaming rules available on the internet. I've mentioned several on this blog even. With those kinds of resources, and with free game-aides like One Monk's paper minis, all a kid needs is a pencil, some paper, a computer and printer..and maybe some dice. <br />
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And if you don't have dice, you can <a href="http://www.puam.be/freedice/">download and print</a> some of those too.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-5318169000952362722010-03-19T15:04:00.000-07:002010-03-19T15:14:13.721-07:00Family planning... orc style!Today's Reaper previews gives me extra cause to squee.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/previews/latest/03511"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvi9fxK0WjnfmkRE7OO3XsGNSXLsTNW-Mdr7XyRuHeT-WBZ0GlQz2hbreazThRUoqOvL3X7EkziGiFAPzuq1PtE5D4zdTSXWT6nJikoidzhe5zvPCnI0XAone_SyPcBe9SlDQZy4Mh7GI/s400/03511_g_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;">03511: Orc Matron and Brood <br />
by Jason Wiebe</div><br />
It seems like forever since I've been campaigning in the <a href="http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.php?/topic/36676-minis-we-would-like-to-see-fantasy-version/">"Minis we'd like to see" topic</a> on the Reaper forum for a baby orc, or orc kiddies..or orc-mommy. At long last, I got what I've been wanting..YAY! And hey..I have a birthday in June! </div>Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-56890581748215336872010-02-06T22:40:00.000-08:002010-02-06T22:40:11.740-08:00Olde Worlde - my first encounter in my first game as refereeThis is a cross-post from my "official" game blog for my online play-by-post S&W game. I was really nervous about this first encounter, having up until now only been a player. Would it be too hard for the players? Too easy? Would I totally botch up the flow of things? Would my players call me a nOOb? Well, here's what happened.<br />
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First off, let my just squee about how cool it is to have Matt "Mythmere" Finch joining in! Like I said joking with my husband, "Oh yeah..he's JUST the guy who wrote the rulebook I'm using. Uh-huh..No pressure, nope. None at all. Nosireebob!" <br />
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So.how do you insert a new PC into a game in-progress? Easy! He was there all along, but none of the nine-dozen other folks in the adventure-procession really noticed.<br />
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Anyhoo, whilst bashing down the door to a randomly treasure-seeded room, our brave adventurers called down a posse of three gnolls on themselves. Again I used the random-encounter chart to generate a wandering threat in the hallways, but to be honest I was kind of worried I had served up more than the players could chew. Gnolls are dang hard to hit, much less to wound and kill. And they're deadly. I should know. In a solo outdoor adventure last winter I lost my 3rd level elven PC and six hirelings to a patorl of gnolls. This was in spite of being armed with magic and lots of longbows.<br />
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I had no idea that Charm Person could be so much fun. Good thinking on behalf of Paraphin (Mythmere's Magic User character). If for whatever reason the gnoll had passed a Saving Throw, it could have been bad for the fighters up in the middle of the scrum.<br />
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So..what do you do with a pet like that? Well, you ask it to be your native guide as you tour the rest of the dungeon, <i>that's</i> what. To see how the gnoll reacted to the idea, I consulted the monster "Hostile/Friendly Reaction Table" from the Holmes Basic D&D book. I gave the charmed "person" a +6, and as it turned out, he was "enthusiastic - volunteers help". Then he had to convince his two gnoll comrades of the validity of Paraphin's idea. Being that they are of the low-intelligence follow-the-leader sort, I rolled for them on the table, but with disadvantages. One got -2 simply for being an unreasonable brute, and the other a -6 for having been shot at by the archer. The former turned out to be 'friendly' while the latter turned and bit the elf.<br />
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The dwarf Brag Ironballz (gotta love that name) jumped in and defended Chu-toi (gotta love that name too) and bravely killed the ever-lovin' bejimmies out of the gnoll. The DM gleefully awaits the Save-or-barf results.<br />
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So now comes the time to dole out XP. With so many players to divvy up experience points, I may have to up the danger level just a bit. I suppose they won't want to be low-level forever. But for what it all is worth, I'm really enjoying running a game and surviving my first encounter.<br />
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In other slightly-related news, I just ordered and received a small Chessex wet-erase game mat with 1" squares on one side and hexes on the other. If I ever hit my stride as a PbP referee, I'm wanting to run something face-to-face in realtime. I'd like to be ready for that by ReaperCon at the end of May.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-70030870894405104412010-02-01T11:21:00.000-08:002010-02-01T11:31:05.153-08:00Swords & Wizardry Play-by-Post - already in progress, actuallyI know I announced a while back that I was maybe going to gather up a play-by-post RPG using Swords & Wizardry Core Rules on the Reaper Miniatures forum.<br />
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Well.... following a hectic end-of-December/start-of-January, I jumped right in with both feet and started the game...and neglected my blog as usual. Sorry 'bout that, folks.<br />
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Finding five players willing to commit to my regular posting schedule was amazingly pretty easy. They all did their homework, downloaded the rules, got themselves familiar with character generation and how the game plays, and we were off and running in record time (compared to other PbP games I've seen).<br />
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The game-gathering topic may be seen here. >> <a href="http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.php?/topic/38425-spikes-olde-worlde-ooc/">Spike's Olde Worlde OOC (out of character)</a><br />
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Almost as soon as people began signing up, I figured I'd best get going on a dungeon and quickly. I'm what you might call a digital-junkie in a pen-and-paper world when it comes to old-school gaming, so I went to the Cartographer's Guild forum and found a great topic on mapmaking here >> <a href="http://forum.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?2461-Creating-an-old-school-map-in-Gimp">Creating an old-school map in GIMP</a> For those of you not familiar with GIMP, it does many of the same basic functions as Photoshop...except emptying your bank account. As for the tutorial, the instructions for GIMP translate seamlessly to Photoshop. While making my own map, I improved upon a few processes and will post my own tutorial here at a later time.<br />
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Next came the stocking of the dungeon. This was really a challenge for me since I've never even ran a game before, much less created an adventure. The S&W book has some guidelines, but in the end I referred to my copy of Holmes Basic for help with appropriate challenge levels, how many rooms to leave empty, and how to handle the monsters that inevitably wander the corridors. <br />
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Once that was done, I began making use of Chgowiz's <a href="http://sites.google.com/site/chgowizsite/Home/OnePageDungeonLevelTemplates.zip">One-Page Dungeon Template</a> in keeping track of what is where. This download was made for MS Word but works just fine in OpenOffice. As you can see, I'm a real fan of freeware.<br />
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I decided that it would be good to put all my game information in a single place seperate from the Reaper forum so that the players could be just a click or two away from their character sheets, game information such as marching order, passage of time, lists of looted treasure and such. For that purpose I made a new blog here >> <a href="http://spikesworlde.blogspot.com/">Oldeworlde Chronicles</a>. It's still a work-in-progress as I've not finished formatting character sheets and may yet put in some more fluff about the setting.<br />
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And now for the fun part...the actual playing of the game!<br />
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Like I promised, this game is whimsy-loaded and not meant to be taken terribly seriously. The story begins with all the characters conveniently railroaded into a tavern called The Epicurean Orc, at which they learn about Lord Arbitrary's reward of 16,353 gold pieces to have his dungeon made monster-free. And to make things even more convenient, there is a ready gang of day-labourers assembled at the tavern looking to hire on and help the party. These fine folks were lovingly though randomly picked from <a href="http://www.swordsandwizardry.com/henchmenforhire.pdf">140 Henchmen for Hire, by Garish (a.k.a. Steve Page)</a>. <br />
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Once the players picked their hirelings, I let the players take control of their own particular followers as far as actions and dialogue are concerned. Eventually when PCs start gaining experience (both in XP and in gameplay experience) I will let them pick a favoured follower who will probably be given an extra share of the party's XP in order to advance quicker and be better prepared to become the player's next PC should the player's current PC become incapactiated or worse yet "teh dead".<br />
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If you want to follow along, the in-game topic is here >> <a href="http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.php?/topic/38696-spikes-olde-worlde-rpg/">Spike's Olde Worlde RPG</a><br />
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The cast of characters (in a metaphorical nutshell) are:<br />
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Solace- a very devout human female cleric, who would seem to be the voice of sense and reason of the party.<br />
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Kane- a sharply-dressed human rogue with shifty eyes and a taste for adventure, even if it means having to go slumming in orc-operated drinking establishments.<br />
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Taryn, human fighter who has brought his father's longsword out of retirement in hopes of finding fame, glory and gold...because he, like everybody else, didn't come there for the food.<br />
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Chu-toi- elven elf (since elf is also a class) archer and mage who has discovered that the cheese at the Epicurean Orc can probably double as "improvised weapon"<br />
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Brag Ironballz- dwarven warrior with some amazing abilities...except Charisma....but who really needs Charisma anyway. Just look at Steve Buscemi! <br />
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Jonah Redshirt- not a hero, nor really much of an antihero..but I can guarantee you that if this was a Disney cartoon, he'd have narrow eyes and a sinister moustache in addition to his one arm and fat pockets. He's what you might call a meatshield-broker.<br />
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Lord Arbitrary- Actually nobody knows much about him..not even the game referee. It's rumoured that he once single-handedly defeated the dread <a href="http://www.brunchma.com/archives/Forum13/HTML/000133.html">gazebo</a>.<br />
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Matilda- human serving wench, who is single, likes kittens, long walks in the evening, and men who aren't afraid to cry.<br />
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Spike- female orc bartender...but you already knew that, didn't you.<br />
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"We now join our regularly scheduled RPG already in progress" <br />
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It would seem the players just <i>miiiight</i> be about to encounter something as they begin exploring corridors. Thusfar all they've found is Lord Arbitrary's trash-dump, a little bit of buried treasure, and some mundane rats. Let's see what's behind Door Number One!Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-37776618963758103842009-11-30T18:09:00.000-08:002009-11-30T18:09:15.149-08:00The Whimsy Factor<i>Preface - Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.</i><br />
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Recently I got to take part in yet another PbP RPG implosion. This time it was a 3.5 game refereed by a self-proclaimed novice, for which a small amount of the blame may be entitled, but the more I think about it, the game in general was lacking.<br />
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The ref is one of those guys who prepares for everything. Mind you I'm not saying that preparation is bad, but it is possible to take it too far and in the process ignore the players' needs to feel as though they are still in control of their own destinies. Furthermore, it is entirely possible to turn a fun game into too much work for both the players and the referee and spoil the flow of the adventure with the nit-picking of details.<br />
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Getting to the point, I have a few people who want in on some retro style PbP roleplaying, and I want to have a go at refereeing. I may very well fall flat on my face, or lose the players' interest, or a little bit of both, but I digress. Some of the guys who played in that ill-fated game with me expressed their own opinions of why the game came undone and it seems that for most of us, it was the encounter-to-encounter pace, the lack of opportunity for players to be spontaneous for being "still in combat rounds" and the general feel of being run through the gauntlet for the sole reason of letting the referee see how quickly he can kill the party. While it is fairly well known that Challenge Ratings are not an integral part of old-style RPGing, there is such a thing as being the "killer GM". There should be a balance between the real risk of losing a character and the players feeling as though they've been thrust into an unescapable encounter that they can neither fight nor flee from. Most of the players also seemed to be quickly put off by all the bickering back and forth about various abilities and actions and just how or in what order things were to be done. And not one single player was happy with the referee's insisting that the players all use an online dice roller "for record-keeping purposes". The entire flow of the game was then at the mercy of a site that was often experiencing downtime, and when it was in working order seemed to have randomness issues. I would provide an example for you right now, but as luck would have it, InvisibleCastle is once again 505. <br />
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So, back on topic, a few of the players and I were chatting about retro-gaming and I kind of let them twist my arm a bit. One of the guys said he wanted something less serious and one of the girls said she just wanted to have some fun and maybe get the chance to do something with the really cool character she had made. It seems people want from gaming exactly what I want from gaming, and that is to above all have an enjoyable experience, be part of a story, and not feel committed to a pile of books, rules, and books about game settings that have their fantasy environment laid out down to the very last paving stone.<br />
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What we all want..is whimsy.<br />
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Before I go any further, if you are one of those uptight grognards who believe everybody should play old-school exactly the way Gygax did, you may with to click through to another blog. This might hurt.<br />
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My plan is to start up with a simple subterranean encounter for the players. It'll be like a training exercise in which they can learn their capabilities and how the game works while still having a good chance to escape or seek healing if things go badly..which they still can. That in and of itself isn't so unorthadox, but I am seriously considering an option which will likely have folks like Red Priest coming round to my house to revoke my OSR Secret Decoder Ring. I want to give the training exercise more of a short-term video game feel by allowing players who are killed to quickly return to the action and for new players to jump right in. This will be accomplished by reincarnation. Since the older games allow players to take along hirelings, there will be extra ready-made slots in the adventure party awaiting their chances to become primary player-characters as needed. I recall an article in one of the OSR zeens or blogs calling this the entourrage philosophy or somesuch, but it seems a good way to give the players a sort of safety-net of lesser-developed characters to fall back on rather than have to start completely from scratch.<br />
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This will also be a trial period for me. Not only do I get in some real-life practice in refereeing, but I get the chance to gauge the collective attitude of the players and see what style of adventuring they are suited for. They may very well decide they like a more hack-and-slay sort of game, or they might see the combat as nothing more than an interruption to inter-character theatre. And knowing these players, it might also turn into an episode of Three Stooges or Monty Python's Flying Circus. <br />
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I'm also completly open-minded to working with players who want to play a character type that is not in the book. The most important sentence in the book I will be using is "Imagine the hell out of it",and that is the main rule I plan to abide by. A player should feel at least some connection to their new character from the beginning. I'm also willing to hear out any players' requests for gear or spells that are not in the book. Why should the referee get to be the only one doing the imagifications.<br />
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Hopefully, once the game roster has settled down to a core of dependable players who are having fun and who have learned the ropes and have survived past the "glass cannon" levels, I will graduate the game into the "real" world where dead is dead, the wrong word to the wrong NPC can get you thrown in the geol, and in the woods you better beware because "dragons happen".<br />
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This game will hopefully begin in January. I'll post again in the nearer future once I post up a game-gathering topic on the Reaper forum where I will run the game.<br />
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As for the 4e game I had joined, it is still in progress, but the GM's computer crashed and took with it all his game-resource files. Hopefully it will be resuming soon, as I was really starting to like it.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-59416427452328082102009-09-07T08:24:00.000-07:002009-09-07T13:43:48.233-07:00The ubiquitous orc ventures fourth...Okay I will warn my old-school buddies right up front. This blog entry contains me saying good things about D&D 4e, so if your grognard sensibilities are easily injured, go ahead and put the duct-tape on your head now <span style="font-style: italic;">before</span> it 'splodes.<br /><br />A friend of mine has been running several play-by-post games on the <a href="http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.php?act=idx">Reaper Minis forum</a>, and recently had a slot come available in one of his games due to another player being unable to find time to post. I had mentioned early on that I would like to try out a 4e game so that I could at least offer up an actual <span style="font-style: italic;">educated</span> rant on why the game stinks, but now that I have begun reading the player guides and building my character, my opinion has shifted somewhat.<br /><br />Yeah we've all heard people say, "If you pretend it's not really D&D, it isn't so bad."<br /><br />I believe that is a pretty fair assessment, but in all honesty the same thing could be said about 3e by the folks who had been playing 2nd and earlier. It's different, but not so different that I feel as though I'm learning a new game. It's like comparing Windows XP to Vista. It feels different and it runs different, but it's still has its roots in the same game.<br /><br />And what about "It's D&D for dummies."<br /><br />Having looked at the player guides I can honestly say that isn't true. Yes, there are some game aspects such as skills, alignment, and combat actions that have been made more simple. Yes the book is less populated with charts and tables, and yes the game relies more heavily on combat maps with tokens and powers-cards and other visual aides, but this does not mean that the GM and players are required to "dumb down" in order to enjoy the game. It seems that the game's creators have tried to make less work for the players and especially for the GM. I don't think a 4e combat encounter could be done using only narrative, but for many people (who I personally do not consider to be dummies), keeping up with spatial relationships between combatants while worrying about the actual fighting only bogs down the action.<br /><br />Oh, and the AC is ascending.... for all the dummies like me. :D<br /><br />But then, "It takes too long to make a character"<br /><br />Yeah that is probably true if you are old-school and used to being able to put all your character notes on one index card. And of course like any other game system, your first 4e character will take longer because you are learning a new system. I'm guessing my second character won't take so long, but in my personal opinion, getting my head wrapped around 4e character building was easier than learning 3e. The player guide is far easier to understand and all but walks you through making your character choices and filling in the sheet. In addition, there is the <a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/insider/characterbuilder">free downloadable character builder</a> on the WoTC site that lets you make characters up through 3rd level. I used both the book and the builder program while making my character so I could get a clearer understanding of why the program does what it does.<br /><br />But "Do you really need a character builder? Are you an idiot?"<br /><br />I like to think of the free character builder as a good proofreader. It is designed not to let you take options that are not allowed for your character, and most options display a description that guided you toward making choices that are best suited for your character. But what really makes it a nice thing to have is how it can output a simple text character summary for online play, provide a printable character sheet that includes a page of powers cards to help you keep track during encounters. I've not played face-to-face yet, but apparently the little cards are helpful in that regard. I believe advancing a character won't be difficult at all, but if I were planning on playing a 4e campaign with my game group, I'd probably subscribe to DDI at least one month of the year just to get the full version of the program and an occasional update.<br /><br />Oh yeah I almost forgot, "But I don't like the limitations on characters and classes and soforth."<br /><br />Uh-huh. I doubt anybody who says that will get too much sympathy from anybody who plays old-school. Yes, the various classes are somewhat "samey", but at least there are no advancement caps, serious drawbacks for certain race-class combinations, nor vast inequities in how XP is doled out. And no I'm not taking pot-shots at old-school D&D, but that is how the games differ. To each their own I say. It seems that 4e tried to move away from some of those prestige classes in favour of what they call paragon paths. There also appears to be a real move away from multi-classing and munchkin-builds.<br /><br />But, "Every character is a munchkin now, aren't they?"<br /><br />It would seem so. Everybody has all these powers and healing surges and stuff. I'd sure as heck not bet any money on my Oe or 1e character lasting long in the 4e world. Heck, my old-school characters are lucky to live as long as they do in their <span style="font-style: italic;">own</span> turf. So yes, it's fair to say there has been power-creep in D&D.<br /><br />And finally, "If I wanted to play a video game, I'd play a video game."<br /><br />I can't honestly say that 4e is not closer to video-game mentality than other editions. The healing surges remind me far too much of the health-status bar that appears below your character in some of the cheesy online MMOs I've tried out. Who here has ever run up on the "boss", taken three whacks at him, then led him on a chase through the dungeon while your health points regenerated? Okay 4e isn't quite <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> gamey, but I can see how people make the connection. BUT in the defense of gameyness, it seems like videogames are becomeing more and more advanced with virtual reality so that soon somebody will say "If I wanted to play a LARP, I'd play a LARP." Okay, maybe that's a stretch, but you get the drift. In the defense of the game's creators, there is quite a bit of emphasis in the players manual on how to roleplay and use narrative during the game. It's up to the GM and players to set the tone for the game. If they all are roleplayers, then they will get a far different experience out of the game than a group whose prior game experience begins and ends with WoW. As for the gamey jargon, it is only a manifestation of the generalizations many D&D players have been making all along. I'm not real wild about it personally, but I suppose that is one of those things that comes with getting older and grumpier.<br /><br />And finally, "I don't like the new races and classes."<br /><br />Again, you'll not get any sympathy from this old-schooler. While I'm personally not wild about playing a gnome or a tiefling, I can understand others' excitement over the new diversity. In a roleplay-influenced game, the diversity can make for some real interesting group dynamics within the party.<br /><br />In conclusion, I will continue to play the old-school games I enjoy. I will keep playing the 3/3.5 games I enjoy, and I will go into 4e with an open mind. After all, it's all really about friends, adventure and imagination.<br /><br />So shuddup and go play.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-77188431114081990242009-08-18T09:19:00.000-07:002009-08-18T09:21:13.896-07:00"Natural Born Orcs" - YouTube funny-de-jourPardon me for my whimsical departure from my ordinarily serious profound content. :D<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PGXQ1VqWoI8&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PGXQ1VqWoI8&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-75624973553544043172009-08-14T20:36:00.000-07:002009-08-14T20:43:04.384-07:00And yet MORE big news for Reaper..AND for PaizoThis just went up on Reaper's front page, but in case anybody missed it, Reaper and Paizo are partnering up to produce miniatures to support the new Pathfinder RPGs.<br /><br />My own experience with Pathfinder is pretty limited thusfar, but if Ed Pugh says it's good..then it's good, goshdarnit!<br /><br /><br />(from reapermini.com)<br />________________<br /><br /><strong></strong><blockquote><strong>Monthly metal miniatures releases to support Paizo's new Pathfinder Roleplaying Game</strong><br /><br />August 12, 2009 (INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.) – Paizo Publishing and Reaper Miniatures today announced a new partnership that will see Reaper produce monthly metal miniature releases to support Paizo's blockbuster new Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. The line is set to debut in Fall 2009, with fantasy miniatures supporting the Pathfinder RPG, Pathfinder Adventure Paths, Pathfinder Modules, and the world of the Pathfinder Chronicles. All miniatures will be cast in the finest white-metal alloy and will be available through regular hobby distribution channels.<br /><br />"We're ecstatic to be working with the fine people at Paizo Publishing," said Ed Pugh, CEO of Reaper Miniatures. "The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game has set a new standard in roleplaying and gaming in our industry. We're proud to be a part of such a groundbreaking endeavor."<br /><br />With the formal release of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook scheduled for tomorrow , on the opening day of the Gen Con Game Fair, Paizo has already seen its initial print run of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook sell out completely to gamers and distributors, with the presses working overtime on a new second printing expected in early November. The massive Pathfinder Bestiary, featuring more than 350 fantastic foes for Pathfinder heroes, debuts in October. The Pathfinder RPG is an evolution of the 3.5 edition of the world's oldest fantasy roleplaying game, and is released under the terms of the Open Game License.<br /><br />"All of us at Paizo use miniatures in our games, and when it comes to marrying high-impact sculpts with excellent production and distribution, Reaper Miniatures stands at the very pinnacle of the hobby games industry," said Erik Mona, Publisher of Paizo Publishing. "I simply cannot wait to discover the incredible sculpts and dynamic characters Reaper will produce for its Pathfinder line."<br /><br />The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook and Reaper's extensive, award-winning miniatures line can be found wherever gaming products are sold.<br /><br />ABOUT PAIZO PUBLISHING<br />Paizo Publishing®, LLC is a leading publisher of fantasy roleplaying games, accessories, board games, and novels. Paizo's Pathfinder® line of rules, adventures, sourcebooks, and campaigns combines decades of game design experience into one evocative system compatible with the 3.5 rules. Paizo's GameMastery® accessories offer easy-to-use tools aimed at improving the tabletop RPG experience. Titanic Games™, Paizo's board game imprint, unleashes fun, challenging games like Kill Doctor Lucky™ and Yetisburg™ that appeal to both families and casual gamers alike. Paizo's Planet Stories® line of science fiction and fantasy novels promise thrilling adventure of the like not seen since the legendary pulps. Paizo.com is the leading online hobby retail store, offering tens of thousands of products from a variety of publishers to customers all over the world. In the seven years since its founding, Paizo Publishing has received more than a dozen major industry awards and has grown to become one of the most influential companies in the hobby games industry.<br /><br />ABOUT REAPER MINIATURES<br />Reaper Miniatures is a worldwide leader in the design and casting of metal science fiction and fantasy miniature figurines. Based in Denton, Texas, Reaper products are available in fine hobby shops around the world.</blockquote>Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-9977515577430532012009-07-29T16:02:00.000-07:002009-07-29T16:11:26.855-07:00Another big announcement from Reaper MinisFor those of you who like to game with miniatures, but do not necessarily care to spend hours painting them, this might be of interest to you.<br /><br />>>>> Official announcement from Reaper's web site <<<<<<<br /><blockquote><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.reapermini.com/images/asylum_miniatures_logo.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 186px;" src="http://www.reapermini.com/images/asylum_miniatures_logo.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Reaper Miniatures is proud to announce the creation of a new miniatures company: Asylum Miniatures.<br /><br />Asylum Miniatures is an independent company wholly owned by Reaper focused on the creation of pre-painted miniatures, games, and associated products.<br /><br />Under its own banner, Asylum Miniatures will launch with and supply the Reaper Miniatures pre-painted plastic line Legendary Encounters™. Asylum Miniatures will also pursue the development of products and lines outside of the Reaper Miniatures core brands.<br /><br />Offered in an open, non-blind, non-random format, Legendary Encounters™ pre-painted plastic miniatures will be packaged in Asylum Miniatures blister cards. Both single and multiple piece packs will be offered.<br /><br />Asylum Miniatures will continue to draw upon Reaper's vast miniatures catalog of thousands of metal models to expand the Legendary Encounters™ miniature line.<br /><br />From Ed Pugh (CEO of Reaper Miniatures): "This new company solves several problems Reaper has been facing concerning the creation, marketing, and brand awareness of our pre-painted products. Allowing Asylum Miniatures to operate independently of Reaper Miniatures will give management much more flexibility to create, market, and supply pre-painted miniatures, games, and products."<br /><br />Asylum Miniatures -- what you need, when you need it!<br /><br />Reaper Miniatures is a worldwide leader in the design and casting of metal science fiction and fantasy miniature figurines. Based in Denton, Texas, Reaper products are available in fine hobby shops around the world.<br /><br />For more information about Reaper Miniatures, visit the Reaper Miniatures website at ReaperMini.com.</blockquote><br /><br />>>>> END QUOTES <<<<<<<br /><br />I'm hoping that this will mean lots more new releases to add to the existing range of models we've seen in the Legendary Encounters™ line. Specifically, I'm hoping for MORE pre-painted orky goodness to further my plot of world domination...but that'll be our little secret.<br /><br />Also drop by Reaper's store to get the freshly released (yesterday, as a matter of fact) Warlord 2nd Edition. I think you'll like it too.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-42504693218970227512009-07-27T19:13:00.000-07:002009-07-27T21:20:59.401-07:00A bit of half-orc nostalgia<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">"I've been a half-orc almost as long as I can remember."</span><br /><br />-Janara<br /></blockquote>I started playing D&D during the reign of 2nd edition, and of course there were no half-orcs in 2nd edition, not even in the Monstrous Manual as I recall it. So I had to bide my time playing halfling thieves and human barbarian fighters and yes..even an elf wizard. It's all true. I have the dog-eared character sheets to prove it.<br /><br />Of course 3e came along and with it came my favored race. I mean, what's not to like about being a half-orc. You get a minus to your INT and CHA scores right away.... okay fine.. so maybe that's a bad example..but you get Darkvision, right? Oh..wait...so do all the other non-human humanoids..but hey, you get Orc Blood. But wait..that's not a good thing either. Wow, being a half-orc kinda sucks...except for the STR bonus. Now that I put it down in those terms, I wonder why all those disenfranchised half-orc players got so vocal when they had to wait a few extra months for their 4e 2nd Player Guide to come along so they could get their game back on. Being a Dragonborn ought to be so much cooler, right?<br /><br />So..let's have a look at a 4e half-orc, shall we?<br /><br />I've been following a PbP 4e game on the Reaper forum because 1) I don't want to be counted among the OSR pundits who hate the game but have never really played or even watched it being played and 2) the DM and players are all excellent roleplayers and writers and it should be an entertaining story to read.<br /><br />I personally don't own any 4e books, but might download the quickstart to get a better perspective on what's going on in the PbP. Anyway, here's the character stats for Kaanite the 1st Level Half Orc Two-Weapon-Fightin' Ranger who just so happened to have once been a cat burglar.<br /><blockquote><b></b><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>FINAL ABILITY SCORES<br /></b>Str 20, Con 14, Dex 19, Int 14, Wis 17, Cha 13.<br /><br /><b>STARTING ABILITY SCORES<br /></b>Str 18, Con 14, Dex 17, Int 14, Wis 17, Cha 13.</span></blockquote>Huh? None of his scores even went down...and he gained DEX...and he has 31 HP starting out?!<br /><br />And get a look at this!<br /><b></b><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><b>TRAINED SKILLS<br /></b>Dungeoneering +8, Acrobatics +9, Perception +8, Athletics +11, Stealth +9, Thievery +10 (+12 w/ Thieves tools)</span></blockquote>Acrobatics and Stealth? NO WAY! This guy's TOTALLY UBER! And I say that with the utmost respect for the player (Hi there, Orcsoul) and with no disrespect toward the game. If it works for you and it makes you happy, then go play.<br /><br />WHIIIIICH brings me slowly round to the point that I alluded to earlier. Early in this blog's archives, somebody corrected me on my assumption that there were no half-orcs before 3e. I had always assumed that it was the not the way of any reasonable game company to giveth and then to taketh away.<br /><br />Once I joined the old-school, I really had no good reason to look through the AD&D Players Handbook. I was content to play my homebrew-hafforc and call it good, but curiosity got the best of me and I decided to have a look at a 1st edition half-orc for nostalgia's sake. I've made a few observations.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">It's a man's world</span><br /><br />And by "man" I mean huMAN. Every other race (including half-orcs) has a glass-ceiling in the form of level limits. These limits are based on class of course, but even among the non-human-humanoids, half-orcs get the shaft. A half-orc Cleric can only advance to 4th level...a Thief only to 8th..provided his/her DEX isn't less than 17, in which case he'll get stuck at 6th. The only class that favors half-orcs, the Fighter, limits them to 10th..which is higher than fighters of other races...except humans, of course. THEY can do ANYTHING...pth.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">And it's a MAN'S world</span><br /><br />By "man" I mean hi-honey-I'm-home-what's-for-dinner-I-wear-the-pants-in-this-household...<span style="font-style: italic;">.that</span> kind of man. On the Race Ability Score Minimums/Maximums, it was for some reason necessary to break those scores out by male and female. As you might have guessed, humans are excluded from this table because...well..they're human. They don't have limitations. Also you probably guessed it... almost all women are weaker....by an average of 1.6 points of STR below their male counterparts. I suppose as a self-liberated woman, I should at least be thankful that the gender difference is limited to STR. Even Gygax "knew better than to go <span style="font-style: italic;">there.</span>" Interestingly enough, the only race to NOT have weaker women-folk was the half-orcs. Yep, it kinda makes a girl proud. :D<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">It ain't no world for a half-orc girl, that's for sure</span><br /><blockquote>Half-Orcs:<br />Orcs are fecund and create many cross-breeds, most of the offspring of<br />such being typically orcish. However, some one-tenth of orc-human<br />mongrels ore sufficiently non-orcish to pass for human. Complete details<br />of orcs and crossbreeds will be found under the heading Orc in<br />ADVANCED DUNGEONS L DRAGONS, MONSTER MANUAL.<br />As it is assumed that player characters which are of half-orc race are<br />within the superior lo%, they have certain advantages</blockquote>The description for Half-Elves is nothing like this. I mean, far be it from me to play a race-card, but this particular description about percentages and racial purity sound a lot less like the world of Tolkien and a bit more like the world of Alabama in the 1920s. Yeah I know it's only a game..a fantasy game at that, but in my opinion, D&D has certainly evolved in the right direction as far as sensitivity to race and gender are concerned.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> _____________________<br /></div><br />So, now I have actually defended 4e and then spoke disparagingly of 1e. I can almost imagine the angry mob gathering outside now with their torches and pitchforks and descending ACs to roast me on a spit.<br /><br />On the other hand, I've had fun looking at a bit of D&D history.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-4006866764655437312009-07-07T16:36:00.000-07:002009-07-07T17:17:47.501-07:00RPG off-season and how to feed the needDue to various family circumstances, friends taking vacations, work schedule conflicts and whatnot, it has been almost two months since our group has played any of our ongoing RPG campaigns. We've met a time or two since then, but for other games, one of which is still in closed beta.<br /><br />Which brings me with unusual swiftness right to the point.<br /><br />What do you do when you, for whatever reason, can't get a game on? <br /><br />In the past, I've fallen back on play-by-post online web forum games. Providing the players are all enthusiastic and share a common style of play (be it narrative, hack-and-slay, or even the much discussed "roll-play" attitude), these games can be a great outlet to sate the unrequited need for high adventure. But often these games fizzle because one or more players or even the game-master loses interest. Granted the same thing can happen with a face-to-face group, but the yawning and fidgeting usually cues you in. A PbP can sometimes lag for days or even weeks even if all players are still eager to continue. Eventually somebody will post "Are we still playing" in order to snap the game out of its slumber.<br /><br />Of late though, PbP gaming has lost its popularity to more flashy graphics multi-player games (not naming names here) that grant the player instant gratification and in spite of all those jokes about MMRPG online gamers having teeny spans of attention, they still manage to be able to play for hours. That being the case, there's always somebody online to game with, even at 4 AM on a Tuesday. I may not speak on behalf of all traditional gamers, but I just can't keep an RPG session going that long or start one that late, even with stockpiles of Mountain Dew and triple-fudge brownies. Besides, my relic of a PC probably can't handle the software...and yeah, my OSR friends would revoke my membership card and glow-in-the-dark secret decoder ring.<br /><br />And then there's the real-time online option. Depending on how sophisticated you and your buddies' computers and internet connections are, there are programs out there that can provide you with a virtual gametable map and virtual dice. For the rest of us who aren't quite so well-equipped or technologically savvy, there's still the opportunity to run a game in any ordinary chat application. Of course the beauty of that plan falls apart when one or more of your players is a slow typist or worse yet, completey incoherent in chat rooms. <br /><br />KTHNX LOL?<br /><br />So..for the past weeks I've been filling my usual gaming time with miniature painting and a good deal of blog reading. But I just can't bring myself to post on a regular basis about playing the games I love when I've not actually played lately. But I do want you, the Esteemed Reader, to know that I've not lost interest, nor have any of the guys in our group. We've just been busy. Life does that to a person from time to time.<br /><br />With the real promise that regular game nights will resume at the end of this month, I am thinking it is time to once again prepare for that little one-off adventure I blogged about a few months ago. It'll do me good to get out the books again and shake some of the dust off of my imagination. It's been rather underworked lately.<br /><br />Until my next blog ... sooner or later...hopefully.... I wish y'all happy gaming.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-31007140796028897362009-06-03T19:19:00.000-07:002009-06-19T14:44:57.356-07:00BIG news from Reaper MinisAs you may recall a LONG time ago (or so it seems) I posted here that I was going to ReaperCon out in Denton, TX for a weekend of mini painting, gaming and being around lots of cool like-minded people. As it turns out, I had a great time, did some old-school RPGing, a bit of Pathfinder, got to watch some 4e being played, took tons of pictures, and talked quite a bit about Reaper's own tabletop fantasy game called Warlord...which brings me to good news.<br /><br />Warlord has been revised and is slated for release later this summer. This isn't yet another pile of errata or repack of the same old game, but a complete new set of rules...so new that it is being called Warlord 2nd Edition (no 1.5 here, my friends). There's a brand-new cover art so you'll know it's the new edition, and below that is a snippet from the official Reaper web site's news.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbvMflZqcnsWA7Vko8jCnkv5DQ1itf30RjLgpRzYEtTh-Ad9MAbw66nzFasa9vAH27AKR_guudOvoiMn2oedcr0xh9oxZplN2PYz2NSI9OrHDEQII22pRK-GH1x6rdbd94N9manAyB66s/s1600-h/Warlord_Second_Edition_FrontCover.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 309px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbvMflZqcnsWA7Vko8jCnkv5DQ1itf30RjLgpRzYEtTh-Ad9MAbw66nzFasa9vAH27AKR_guudOvoiMn2oedcr0xh9oxZplN2PYz2NSI9OrHDEQII22pRK-GH1x6rdbd94N9manAyB66s/s400/Warlord_Second_Edition_FrontCover.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343293179916895042" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><li>Uses the same RAGE combat system as previous versions of the game.</li><li>Completely re-invented magic system that allows spellcasters to choose their spells during the game.</li><li>We got rid of all the little rules that either didn't get used, or were unnecessarily complex.</li><li>Reduced number of damage tracks for faster play.</li><li>Includes the 10 core factions that the first edition rulebook featured.</li><li>Remaining factions, as well as 5 brand new ones, will be featured in a follow-up book later this year.</li></ul>(end quote)<br /><br />Warlord in its beginnings was meant to be a quick skirmish game with simplified d10 combat, simple easy-to-learn rules, and each game model (made by Reaper of course) would come with its own data card with all the vital statistics needed for game play. And it was great fun, but as things often seem to go, it needed some "fixing" in order to make the game more fair as well as to add in more new models and factions and subfactions and new rules and new-improved data cards and ..... you get the picture. During the past three years or so, the game underwent so many changes that many players, myself included, lost interest and moved on to other things. And believe me, moving on was not easy. I loved that game. My husband and I along with many from our gaming group were part of the original beta play-test group and up until the first major revamp we played almost every Sunday. Then, when the first major revamp came along, we playtested that also, but in the end most of us agreed that too much of the game's selling points had been lost. It seems others felt the same way too, and eventually enough voices let themselves be heard that the game developers decided to take a second look at what made the game so popular in its original form, fixed what needed fixing, tossed out what didn't work, and gave us what we wanted.<br /><br />To quote my mother, "dance with the one that brought you"<br /><br />Right now, Warlord 2 is in the very last stages of open beta testing. The book and faction data are both being checked and double-checked to be sure that this WILL be the LAST new edition you'll be seeing for a long time. I'm very pleased with what I've seen and although I had no real hand in the development of WL2 aside from two years of grumbling about the state of the game I love, I am once again proud to recommend this game to anybody looking for some good tabletop skirmish fun.<br /><br />The game itself is simple. You and your opponent(s) buy armies using points. You have some models that are leaders, others that are grunts who require leaders, some who are elites such as mages or heroes and some who are solos such as assassins or monsters. Rather than the old I-go-You-go, players activate one leader and troop or one solo at a time and player activation is determined randomly with chances based on total number of troops per player. Combat is done using d10s versus the opposed model's defense number, and offensive and defensive strikes take place simultaneously. The point-cost of all magic-users includes their spells, which are chosen from spell-lists as the game is being played. All you need to play is a few d10s, a measuring tape or small ruler, a dozen or two minis, the rule book, a 4X4 table, half an hour to an hour to kill, and a friend to play with.<br /><br />The softcover rule book will be available July 27th. A hard-cover version shold be along not too long after. There will also likely be a PDF, but I'm not sure when that will be released.<br /><br />___________<br /><br />In other not-so-happy news, the reason I have been so long overdue in updating is that on May 20th, the day after we got back from Texas, Steve's father passed away of an apparant stroke. He died as he might've wished to..in his own home at his rocker chair with a book nearby. Since then, we've had much work to get done at his house and at ours, therefore not much time yet for gaming.<br /><br />Steve's dad was very supportive of all of Steve's hobbies as well as mine. Paint-&-Play was one of our pursuits he particularly liked, saying that "Anything that gets kids and their parents to do things together is a good cause."<br /><br />___________<br /><br />I promise there's more exciting updates to come. I'm working on a fun paint project right now and there's some interesting RPG news in the works. I'll have more on both as soon as I can. I also hope to be doing a review soon on Mythmere Games' new Swords & Wizardry monster manual, which just came available on Lulu this past week.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-21671277132481138882009-05-12T15:11:00.000-07:002009-05-12T15:31:23.538-07:00Tips for photographing your gaming modelsOkay, I know there's a few of you out there who don't use miniatures in your games, and that's perfectly okay. These tips and suggestions can be applied to any sort of closeup or "macro" photography, or even if you just want to upload a few images of some things you want to sell on eBay.<br /><br />The most common problem to overcome for most beginning photography seems to be getting the light just right. Sometimes the subject of the photo is too dark or the backdrop too bright. Other times the whole picture takes on a yellowy hue no matter what colour backdrop you use or what sort of white-balance setting you set your camera for.<br /><br />There are three things that almost EVERY experienced photographer can agree on.<br /><ul><li>Multiple light sources help prevent distracting shadows</li><li>If natural daylight is unavailable, then "natural daylight" bulbs are the next best thing. Most yellow or red shift is caused by overexposing the subject under tungsten lamps.<br /></li><li>Avoid mixing the types of light if possible. This makes white-balancing much easier.<br /></li><li>Diffusing the light helps prevent glaring bright spots or reflections on the subject</li><li>Do not use the flash if you can possibly avoid it</li></ul>If you're not much of a DIY person, there are a good number of home studio lighting kits available online. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Concepts-Ps-101-Portable-Lighting/dp/B000FBF400/ref=pd_cp_p_1?pf_rd_p=413862901&pf_rd_s=center-41&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B000BFGU9E&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1FF9MSWKBZ1EY3KW8BAX">This one by Digital Concepts</a> is quite popular and affordable, though I'm told that getting replacements for the lamps is difficult to impossible. There's also the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/XPRO-Studio-Photography-White-Photo/dp/B000BFGU9E/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=photo&qid=1242069497&sr=1-2">XPRO Light Cube</a> and other similar products out there. Unlike the first style I linked to, the cube allows you to light from any direction including underneath. Of course the lamps are sold seperately.<br /><br />If you're a bit more inclined to making your own, there are<a href="http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-make-a-inexpensive-light-tent"> some</a> <a href="http://www.pbase.com/wlhuber/light_box_light_tent">darn</a> <a href="http://www.jpgmag.com/stories/458">good</a> <a href="http://www.glass-fusing-made-easy.com/jug-light-tent.html">tutorials </a>out there to help you. I've also designed <a href="http://spikepage.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-make-light-box-on-cheap.html">one of my own</a>, which I have posted on my photography blog. (Yeah, I have other hobbies too. LOL)<br /><br />No matter what sort of camera you use (including a camera phone), there are a few basic things you can do to make better photos.<br /><br /><ul><li>Use a tripod or some other sturdy platform rather than "hand-held" if possible</li><li>If your camera has a shutter timer or remote shutter control, use that instead. Shaky hands make blurry photos.<br /></li><li>Know your camera. Read the manual and learn its capabilities and limitations.You might be pleasantly surprised.<br /></li></ul>Being aware of your camera's focal range is important. Most cameras have the macro function (the one with the tulip) that lets you get a bit closer, but in most cases, six or eight inches is as close as you will be able to go. Fortunately, most modern cameras have high enough pixel resolution that a photo of a single elf archer from two feet away can be cropped so that the subject fills a typical web 400X300 pixel image.<br /><br />For taking photos of games in progress, the real challenge is to do so without interrupting the game unnecessarily. This is when you may find you need to use the built-in flash. A simple way to avoid overexposed washed-out or red-eyed subjects in those situations is to diffuse the built-in flash. I've used everything from a folded slip of waxed paper to a potato chip can lid and got decent results.<br /><br />Again, a tripod always helps. If you don't want to be bothered with using a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tabletop-Tripod-with-Ball-Head/dp/B000IMDM00/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=miscellaneous&qid=1242072041&sr=8-7">tabletop</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/SunPak-620-786-Sunpak-Mini-Spider-Tripod/dp/B00009W3TY/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1242072041&sr=8-4">tripod</a>, you can use a plain old soda can to steady your camera upon. (Chances are there's an empty soda can sitting around the gametable somewhere.)<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING</span> to remember is that you are there first and foremost to play games. If your friends tell you to put that darn camera away, listen to them. Pictures are meant to capture a good time, not to spoil it.<br /><br />Anyway, I hope this post can be of help to somebody. HOPEFULLY I will resume a more directly game-related pattern of posting after <a href="http://www.reapermini.com/ReaperCon#Welcome/">ReaperCon</a>. There I'll be playing in several RPGs including one Swords & Wizardry advenure. I'll also be hob-nobbing with a lot of talented painters, fellow RPG enthusiasts, tournament gamers and nice folks in general.<br /><br />Here's a picture made using my own light box.<br /><br /><center><table style="width: auto;"><tbody><tr align="left"><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/FacjOEVl_CQ6qBZwLkvHqA?authkey=Gv1sRgCNen1u2uy6KZtgE&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLbcXtoffU83IE6zL-pmHY8Viwv1ctAG5PBpjJFZQ0wKU95NNnLHmWMVYE4K8FgPDqpYtEnsgzIpxbT4RpQ9FBrwtCU0XMBuWLdKVq37PbVzOh58jzwBn1F3gjvUOl8_O9R4-n8NTNT1g/s400/lightbox_084%20copy.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr align="left"><td style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/spikepage/LensFlare?authkey=Gv1sRgCNen1u2uy6KZtgE&feat=embedwebsite"><br /></a></td></tr></tbody></table>orcs of ubiquity (Reaper Legendary Encounter pre-painted minis</center><br />And yeah...when I get back from ReaperCon, I'll be posting tons of photos.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-50098924912049464822009-04-22T19:08:00.000-07:002009-04-22T19:32:08.889-07:00Mindless fun.... Ubiquitous Orc style!..and JUST when you thought this blog was getting all booknosey and educated-like, I've found you a new time-waster.<br /><br />When you finally have had enough complex plot twists, overdeveloped characters, laboriously-custom-designed game settings and all the multicultural and multinational intrigue they entail..and you just wanna go on a rampage, then Shotgun Orc's the game for you.<br /><br />Yeah..it's free, and it's in my sidebar right over there. >><br /><br />You gotta scroll down, but trust me it's there. I just lost an hour of valuable house-cleaning time because of it.<br /><br />Basically, you're an orc. You've found a shotgun, and because you're an orc with a shotgun, you get to shoot people..mostly knights, wizards, elves and the like....hopefully before they can get a whack or shot or spell at you. The game is multilingual so you can play in English, Swedish or Japanese. Sorry, elves. It don't speak Sindarin.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-53870899246283923112009-04-20T19:58:00.000-07:002009-04-20T20:58:35.383-07:00Book Review - Orcs, by Stan NichollsAround a week or so ago, a friend of mine was in a Books-A-Million and saw a copy of <a href="http://www.knibbworld.com/nicholls17/orcs.html">Orcs, by Stan Nicholls</a>, and in his own words <span style="font-style: italic;">"If I didn't get it for Spike, she'd kill me."</span> ..and also in his own words was initially compelled by <span style="font-style: italic;">"the badass orc on the cover"</span>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPnEE1Q9VzB5cnmB2O0ca1qdtdJA38m0Y8wYtMbyoCs5gqPR1Y284vEE52No0ATb4or2Zj2Ue_PmlSPsYZos4waXE58-jugg47a7toxN33M7R2bIfVM0QSXTYfXW__ckgFTY5PRbEWG3Q/s1600-h/orcs-us-08.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 180px; height: 263px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPnEE1Q9VzB5cnmB2O0ca1qdtdJA38m0Y8wYtMbyoCs5gqPR1Y284vEE52No0ATb4or2Zj2Ue_PmlSPsYZos4waXE58-jugg47a7toxN33M7R2bIfVM0QSXTYfXW__ckgFTY5PRbEWG3Q/s320/orcs-us-08.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326978198455992898" border="0" /></a>Yeah...I was smitten too. And that was without even reading it.<br /><br />As the blurb promises, this book will change how you feel about orcs..unless of course you are like me..but then, few are. Anyhoo, this is a story of the Wolverines, an elite warband of orc fighters, who are sent on a quest by a particularly wicked half-human queen who needs a magical artifact in order to further her evilness. After an unexpected delay in returning the queen's prize, the orcs realize they have likely brought her wrath down upon themselves and soon find themselves branded as renegades. Next thing they know, they are on the run from everybody including a trio of bounty hunters, a band of human religious fanatics, and a small army of orcs who still remain loyal to the queen.<br /><br />These aren't Tolkien's orcs, nor WoTC's orcs, nor Blizzard Entertainment's orcs. If you are expecting brutish thugs who kill for the sake of killing, have low Intelligence scores, and speak gratuitous Cockney, then you'll probably be disappointed. These orcs never say "WAAAAGH", nor "Zugzug", though they do freely drop some of the more choice four-letter words. After all they <span style="font-style: italic;">are still</span> orcs.<br /><br />Without giving too much away, the story's "plot" almost takes a back seat to the real story, which is in my opinion about different perspectives of race relations and intolerance. The world of Maras-Dantia is a place gripped by spreading chaos. Glaciers are quickly advancing upon civilisation and the world seems to be dying. Worse yet, the magic that once coursed through the earth in ley lines has been bled almost dry. And it would seem the humans are to blame. Of course there are many races of beings in this world, but the course of their history has pitted the elder races and their many gods against the humans and their one god. Of course not all humans are "the bad guys", and throughout the story there are plenty of situations in which various characters learn to put their differences behind them and work together. During their adventure, the Wolverines (including a dwarf sergeant) encounter gremlins, pixies, brownies, centaurs, goblins, trolls, friendly humans, bad orcs, and even a dragon or two.<br /><br />The battle scenes are quite embellished; a good thing for those of you who enjoy the works of Robert "Two Guns Bob" Howard. And so are some of the vignettes concernign the bloody rituals of the wicked queen. This isn't a book for the youngsters or the faint-hearted. If you don't care for adult language and some adult content, you may want to pass this one over. I'd say it's rated M14 at the very least. <br /><br />The book picture above is actually a trio of shorter novels bound into an omnibus publication. A second trio of books bound under the title "Orcs - Bad Blood" should be coming available right about now. and I for one will be on the lookout for it.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-40868530866176766972009-04-14T20:53:00.000-07:002009-04-14T21:31:30.481-07:00The Seven Minute OrcFor some, painted miniatures are an essential part of the role playing experience. Back in the Long-Time-Ago when old-school was still new-school and TSR was known for historical games, it was necessary to improvise and compromise, because very few manufacturers of miniatures delved into fantasy at all, and those that did ran a rather limited repertoire of models to pick from. Luckily, the hobby grew, and so has selection. Nowadays you can not only find just about any creature imaginable to stock your dungeon, but if you shop around, chances are there's a model that can represent fairly well just about any player-character a player can conjure.<br /><br />Of course, not only have miniatures "grown up" a bit in the last 30 years, but so has the hobby of painting them. Once, you could slap a quick base coat of model paint on an unprimed mini, and so long as the other guys at the table could easily guess what your mini represented, then you had succeeded. These days, however, mini painting has become an art form, complete with its own "masters" and numerous arenas of competition such as <a href="http://www.coolminiornot.com/">CoolMiniOrNot.com</a> have sprung up so that novice painters can have their self-esteem put into proper perspective publicly..for better or for worse. There are painters who sell single painted minis for upwards of $300 apiece and often sink 40 hours or more into the mini to do so. (Do the math... minimum wage?) But the craziest thing to come about in the world of minis is that people actually paint the darn things and then DON'T PLAY WITH 'EM!<br /><br />Three years ago or so, on the occasion of an upcoming local "convention" my husband and I organized, it was decided by mutual insanity that we should have a massive miniature skirmish game involving a single unified orcish horde taking on all the other races of the fantasy world. It was just a few weeks until the Con, and we were a few score orcs short..and he went to painting. My kitchen table looked like some kind of Isengard assembly line with queues of unpainted orcs lined up waiting for their latex makeovers. And of course he started bragging about how fast he could finish one. "I can paint an orc in seven minutes..quicker than you can make cake-frosting." said he. "Put up or shuddup!" said I, and I got my camera and stopwatch.<br /><br />When I uploaded the video (no sound, bad focus, old camera) to Reaper Miniatures' forum, I think it scared some folks. He might be what you call an old-school painter. He doesn't use any of those fancy-schmancy Liquitex additives. He don't wash his brush in between colours, and he paints straight from the pot..sometimes even mixing colours in the lids. If he were any more old-school, he'd be <span style="font-style: italic;">pre</span>-school..using his fingers and wearing a plastic smock.<br /><br />So that year, at ReaperCon '05, somebody (Reaper Kit, I think) asked him to repeat his seven-minute orc feat in a much higher quality video with sound and titles and narrative and all kinds of groovy things. A few days ago, I got permission to repost the video to YouTube.<br /><br />So...here it is..... kinda like Saruman.<br /><br />Enjoy!<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/eE_3J2PMxUQ&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/eE_3J2PMxUQ&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-5234019041661335892009-04-10T19:46:00.000-07:002009-04-10T20:30:49.951-07:00Magical item - Hammer-pants - +3 to bustin' dope rhymesAnd you were expecting something enlightening and/or sophisticated here? No?<br /><br />The topic came up on Mythmere's S&W message forum about the alleged negative impact of the term "old-school", in which I responded with my $.o2 concerning the culture I grew up in. Methinks some folks are missing the difference between "old-school" and "old farts". But then The Venomous Pau came in behind me and REALLY "took 'em back to school" on the subject.<br /><br />Here's quotage.<br /><br /><span class="corners-top"><span></span></span> <p class="author"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span></p><blockquote><p class="author"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">by </span><strong style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The Venomous Pao</strong><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> on Thu Apr 09, 2009 8:12 am</span><br /></p><br />Spike beat me to the punch on mentioning the Hip Hop connotations of the phrase (nice work, Spike!), so I'll just echo the sentiment.<br /><br />{beatbox}<br /><br />Old School is cool, I must insist,<br />not negative, nor exclusionary<br />Brothers are whack if they resist<br />and claim the phrase is too contrary<br /><br />Step back y'all and roll the dice<br />The way they did in seventy fo'<br />Don't need no lists of skills and feats<br />Just play the game, let imagination flow<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Yo elf! Whatcha class?</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I'm a martial striker with seven ranks in rules lawyer...</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">No, elf! Whatcha class?</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Um, I'm a Fighter/Cleric/Magic-User with nwops in rope use?</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">NO, ELF! Whatcha class?</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I'm an elf, pure and simple<br />Don't need no incidentals<br />I kick it hard, the old school way<br />Tomorrow I fight but I cast spells today</span><br /><br />Word.<br /><br />Step back y'all and roll the dice<br />The way they did in seventy fo'<br />Don't need no lists of skills and feats<br />Just play the game, let imagination flow<br /><br />East Austin Represent, Yo!<br /><br />{beatbox}<br /></blockquote>WHO SAYS there's no Bards in Original Edition!Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-63060921922720314562009-04-06T19:11:00.000-07:002009-04-06T21:17:00.676-07:00The Perfect CampaignFor those of you who just dropped in from RPGBN or other quality places, there's no doubt you've already read the news about WoTC's move to pull all WoTC-related PDFs from the various download sites such as Drive-Thru RPG and Paizo...and you probably also have heard the sad news concerning the ailing Dave Arneson. The fact that the former event has had the poor taste to concur with the latter event only makes both seem worse.<br /><br />Therefore I will not try to contribute any furhter commentary on either. To quote that song by REM, "Let's try and find a happy game to play."<br /><br />So, how about a campaign that lasts a long time? Yeah, I suppose we'd all like something like that, so I'm not really bringing any new suggestions to the table here. I've been playing on-and-off for a little over ten years and have yet to get a character past 5th level, not because she gets killed or retires, but because the campaign just fizzles out. Sometimes it's because one or more players leaves the group, or maybe the GM just gets bored. It's hard to say, but it just happens. And it has happened so often that I actually have a sense of dread for my poor character who has just reached 5th level. Rather the same sense of dread one feels when the 3-year bumper-to-bumper warranty has just run out and there's a strange new noise coming from the transmission. But what makes this so funny is that in all honesty I really do not care so much about gaining levels as I care about gaining experience. And when I say experience I'm not talking about XP either. I mean real campaign-setting worldly adventuring experience of the kind that turn ordinary game sessions into memorable stories and perhaps legends.<br /><br />So how about a campaign where more XP is needed to gain levels? Or maybe let XP only count half? Yeah sure it would make the game take twice as long, but think of the extra time spent as opportunity for character development and growth. If I had my way in that regard, the game referee would not need to spend near so much time coming up with "epic" level encounters to challenge the player characters. Of course after a while, players might get bored with fighting the same level of creatures, so it would be up to the referee to find new ways to make the gaining of XP more challenging without pouring on more creatures or badder creatures. Players who like "kobold bashing" or "grinding" probably would not enjoy playing in my Perfect Campaign.<br /><br />So, how about lots of new traps, monsters never before encountered in anybody's 'manuals", and maybe some new and imaginative cursed items to place in the path of ambitious PCs? Okay, so there would be players grumbling about "killer referees" spoiling the game for them. So maybe the ref should find other ways to challenge the players besides with deadly combat. Maybe the players could face other challenges that involve non-combat abilities. Maybe these could even help earn XP for the players if they succeed. We could call them "skill challenges"...........or maybe not!<br /><br />So how about skills? Yeah okay I can see a few of you fellow old-schoolers rolling your eyes at me for such heresy. But seriously, there comes a time in a well-developed character's career that he or she has scaled enough walls, picked enough locks, or practiced his lute enough that he deserves a small bonus whether his chosen class dictates so or not. Now I know there are folks that play versions of The Game in which skills are bought with XP..and that's fine, but so much can be said for the personal satisfaction of having earned a skill through practice and mastery rather than having paid for it via a game mechanism. And maybe the character does not even know when he's actually achieved mastery of a new skill. Maybe it's the ref's little secret and the player is left to figure out that lately something has gotten a little bit easier to do.<br /><br />So how about a sort of character sheet for the ref? Now I see you new-schooler folks rolling your eyes at me (all theee of you) and wondering why in heck anybody would spend so much time developing a character just to give control of that character over to the referee. Of course the player gets to keep a character sheet. I don't want the ref having to do <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> the work, but there are certain things about one's self that most people do not know. Remember the first time you ever successfully hit a baseball? Did you know your batting average at the time? Okay, so sports metaphors might be lost on a few of us, since we gamers don't like to venture out of our social stereotypes for fear of being penalized as 'multiclass', but you get the point, right? To quote Han Solo (perhaps a more familiar icon to us), "Never tell me the odds."<br /><br />And that, my friends, would be The Perfect Campaign. It might be winter of 2025 before poor Janara the *cough* Fighting-Man has her own Barony, but dangit, the getting-there would make for one helluva saga.<br /><br />So in closing..tomorrow is game-night once again after a three-weeks layoff. Perhaps a Level Drain spell awaits?<br /><br />Also, remember Dave Arneson and his family in your prayers or meditations. Like others have said more eloquently than I can, his contributions to our hobby are great and he deserves to be memorialized with the perpetuation of the game he helped create.<br /><br />Fight on!Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-62928424801977696982009-03-26T19:42:00.000-07:002009-03-26T21:22:27.931-07:00"More money than sense" -- Carousing Mishaps from Fight On magazine #4For those of you not yet "in the know", <a href="http://www.fightonmagazine.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Fight On!</span> magazine</a> is a quarterly fan-zine "for fantasy role playing campaigns played with pencil, paper, and your imagination". Each issue so far has been packed with campaign ideas, dungeons, character and class ideas, randomization tables and lots of artwork..the latest issue being no exception.<br /><br />Now...like it says in my blog's little credo in the margins, I don't pretend to be any sort of authority on the history of RPGs or have some deep insight into how the game has changed. Heck, I freely admit that I still haven't committted to memory the timeline of the evolution of The Game We Love from the little brown books to present...and I also stated quite recently and truthfully that THACO does my head in. I've never lunched with Gary Gygax, killed a purple worm, or even made it past fifth level.<br /><br />BUT I know what I like in a game or game setting. I enjoy random and often stupid fun, whether it be at the expense of myself or some other poor player character. Leave it to Jeff Reints to come up with a random table for players who wish to spend their looted gold out on the town in order to build their reputations (and in theory gain a few experience points in doing so). The complete article can be found in Fight On! #4, so I won't spoil it for you, but I will provide a quick example of how it works.<br /><br />Let us suppose that you, the Esteemed Reader, are a human barbarian named Gorn The Crusher*. Let us suppose that you have just survived a fortnight in The Endless Tunnels of Enlandin and want to spend all your hardly-earned gold on whiskey, whores and Texas Hold-'em..and maybe just waste the rest. Let us also suppose that a few hundred XP is all that stands between you and the power and glory that is fourth level.<br /><br />First, roll a d6 to see how many hundred gold pieces you spend. This also tells you how many hundreds of points of XP you will gain through increased reputation IF you survive the night.<br /><br />Much to real-life, tying a drunk-on in a larger city affords you the chance to double or triple your chance to earn reputation as well as empty your pockets.<br /><br />And also true to real-life, if your character "can't hold his poison", then you better be ready for the worst....and of course "the worst" is defined by a random dice table.<br /><br />So...our imaginary Gorn goes into town and spends 300 gold pieces .... but fails his saving throw against poison. "Shouldda stuck to wine coolers, aye?".<br /><br />What happens next?<br /><br />"13 - Target of lewd advances turns out to be a witch. Save versus polymorph or you're literally a swine."<br /><br />Mind you there are also some good things that can happen to you too...but you'd likely have to hear about it second-hand because you can't remember a bloody thing after that last tankard of orcish mushroom elixer.<br /><br />But who cares..you're now 4th level... even if you ARE a pig.<br /><br />The entire Carousing Mishaps table is just as entertaining, and can make for some fun role playing opportunities in the hands of an imaginative game referee. This and other great articles are all in Fight On! #4. You might also enjoy the Dungeon Home Remedies article and the random table of Magical Weapon Drawbacks.<br /><br />Get Fight On! #4 in printed format and help it reach first place in the <a href="http://lulublog.com/2009/03/16/author-sales-contest-update-top-10/">Lulu monthly top-author contest.</a> Right now the editor, under the name Ignatius Umlaut, is firmly ensconced at #2. Seeing pen-and-paper RPG stuff in the limelight makes me think we're maybe doing something good around here. :D<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">* Any relation to player-characters living, dead, undead, or otherwise is purely intentional. </span>Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-68800603148704171872009-03-16T17:46:00.000-07:002009-03-16T20:02:08.374-07:00Descending Armor Class ....Does ANYBODY still use it?In my ongoing education toward becoming a game master (dungeon master, referee, labyrinth lord or whichever you prefer), I've been reading my Swords & Wizardry Core Rules book from front to back to be sure I'm not confusing my recollection of the rules I am going to use with tidbits from any of the other RPG systems I've played.<br /><br />Then I got to the part about Armor Class and how to use ascending and descending AC charts in combat...and felt compelled to thank my lucky stars that our group has always chosen ascending AC whenever we have been offered the choice.<br /><br />Okay..a quick refresher course in old-school weirdness for those of you who are late coming to the party and can't remember back to the times before there were Feats and when Half-Orcs were only allowed to be monsters.<br /><br />For some odd reason, back in the early days of The Game We All Know, it seemed like a good idea to let the lack of armour be represented by 9, and the very best magical protection to be represented by a -9.<br /><br />Uh-huh... less is more.... makes sense to me.<br /><br />So in the beginning when there was combat, and you were a first level Fighting Person,and you wanted to attack an orc with an AC of 6, you consulted a table and saw that you needed to roll a 13.<br /><br />Then along came THACO. (That's "To Hit Armor Class 0") in the 2nd edition of The Game We All Know, and suddenly each character had their own special "to hit" number based on what type of character they were and how large their group was. Of course there were tables provided to find your THACO number. Then, when facing an orc with AC 6, all you had to do was take your THACO number and subtract the orc's AC from it to know what you had to roll. This was ..and I'm quoting here.. "speed the play of combat greatly"<br /><br />Ummm.. oookay... so I subtract... unless of course the orc is armoured like a tank with AC-5...in which case I add...right? Math is haaaard. I'm just a girrrrrrl!<br /><br />Then somewhere around the end of the last century, some lazy person like myself got the bright idea to flip-flop the AC so that it goes up instead of down as you add on armour, and then to give your character a "Base Attack Bonus" instead of making you consult another table. I mean seriously... if we wanted to consult charts and tables all night long, we'd be playing Bosses & Board Rooms.<br /><br />Well...getting back to the here and now..and closer to my elusive point...I was reading through S&W Core Rules and came across the bit about ascending and descending...and how you can either use the table as it was intended OR if you choose to use ascending AC, a simple formula..which I will quote.<br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">"Here’s how it’s done: each character class gains<br />a base “to-hit” bonus as their levels increase. Add this<br />bonus to your attack roll, and if the result is equal to or<br />greater than the opponent’s AC, the attack hits."</blockquote>And somewhere, some poor schmuck is going NOW WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT!<br /><br />Now I normally consider myself to be just weird enough that I can actually find the bizarre logic behind just about anything, no matter how silly..but this one has me stumped. Perhaps descending AC is legacy rules from some old mothbally tactical historical game that TSR wrote back when TSR used to write such things..or maybe somebody wanted to make the math unnecessarily complicated so that non-nerds would shrink back in fear upon encountering such esoteric arithmatic.<br /><br />But far be it from me to pontificate about which method of AC numbering is "right" and which isn't. I certainly don't mean to say anybody out there needs to change if they prefer the descending method...but I am genuninely curious as to why.<br /><br />____<br /><br />And for what it's worth, in the two years I played 2nd edition The Game, I NEVER was able to totally wrap my head around THACO. I'd just grin stupidly and allow the DM to tell me how badly I flubbed the attack and to which corner of the room my sword flew from my hand.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-67212662386639411102009-03-13T22:04:00.000-07:002009-03-13T22:39:03.185-07:00You want me to run a game? Are you NUTS?As some of you may know already, my husband has been playing various RPGs for almost as long as I've been on this Earth, and is, at least in my opinion, pretty good at it. When he's not running our group's games, we have a second referee who I will hereafter refer to as Unglef, who has taken us through some pretty imaginative homebrewed adventures of his own. Being that I have as much fun as I do playing in the styles of games that both of them like to run, I have long wanted to try my own skills behind the game screen.<br /><br />About two years ago, I finally got up the courage to start an online forum play-by-post game, and was thrilled to find four eager players. The adventure was one I had played in before, and was very well composed and seemingly dummyproof. I spent about two weeks getting together player handouts (html files, actually) and drawing up maps and other stuff, and the game got off to a fabulous start... but as unluck would have it, two of my players almost immediately dropped from sight, and I didn't have the heart to spend another month wrangling replacements.<br /><br />That was two years ago though..and that was third edition. Since then, I've discovered retro-RPGs and am fortunate once again to have a few face-to-face friends who work reasonably regular schedules and who are eager to get a game in at the drop of a hat.<br /><br />So I'm going to give it a try again. This time I'm picking a small low-level adventure from <a href="http://www.iridiazine.net/">IridiaZine</a>, an online weekly fanzine which features content on all sorts of RPGs both current and out-of-print. The adventure is called "The Abandoned Shrine of Weyoun the Wanderer" and at first read-through looks like it will suit our group's style just fine. I'm hoping that a face-to-face session will, unlike PbP, move fluidly and keep the PCs focused.<br /><br />But there's one problem... and that is ME!<br /><br />The guys in my group aren't nOObs. They're not powergamers either, but they know their stuff far better than I do. They know the tables and charts by heart and NOTHING gest past those guys. So I'm doing my homework, folks. I've downloaded OpenOffice so I can make use of the numerous spreadsheet game-aides available (Thnx, Chgowiz) and am reading through S&W Core Rules, adapting encounter stats appropriately, making game notes, and crossing my fingers I don't come off looking like a complete pea-wit.<br /><br />I'm giving myself two weeks.<br /><br />And I promise I will blog all about it... come what may. If nothing else, you all are in for some good old fashioned low comedy.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-31648104847261341462009-03-09T17:43:00.000-07:002009-03-09T17:55:49.304-07:00Swords & Wizardry Core Rules-2nd Printing now available!The post below is "straight from the horse's mouth"<br /><br /><blockquote>Press Release<br />Swords & Wizardry Project<br /><a href="http://www.swordsandwizardry.com/">http://www.swordsandwizardry.com</a><br />mythmere at yahoo dot com<br /><br />I’m very proud to announce that the second printing of the Swords & Wizardry Core Rules is now available for free download here: <a href="http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/swords_wizardry_core_rules_%28pdf%29/6374501">Free PDF of Core Rules</a> and that print versions are for sale (and super-cheap) at Lulu.com at<a href="http://stores.lulu.com/mythmere"> our storefront</a><br /><br /><br />Swords & Wizardry is an OGL “retro-clone” of the original fantasy roleplaying game created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The Core Rules also contain some selected material from the supplements (1974-1978). With a thriving internet community and tons of support products, Swords & Wizardry is bringing back a lost style of fantasy roleplaying. Forget huge rulebooks - just play. If you can imagine it, you can do it in Swords & Wizardry. The rules are simple and quick to learn, and they are infinitely flexible and expandable. Take the basic framework and “Imagine the hell out of it!”<br /><br />Swords & Wizardry is supported by Knockspell Magazine, the quarterly magazine of fantasy retro-clone gaming, and by the active forums at <a>http://www.swordsandwizardry.com/forum.</a></blockquote> We downloaded the free PDF today, even though we already have the older version (as many of my wisest readers do also)..and the new artwork is astounding. Some needed corrections and clarifications have been added as well as a little new as-yet-unseen material. If you've not updated yet, you should..and if you've not gotten ANY of the previous S&W products, you REALLY need to check this game out. It's just that good.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7260368889756705632.post-35054435307267911712009-03-09T12:24:00.000-07:002009-03-09T12:39:23.897-07:00A fun blog-quiz for roleplayersThis one got sent to me years ago on LiveJournal..and is lots of fun, especially if you play a wide range of characters in a wide range of RPG systems.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">FIRST..</span><br /><br />Name 10 characters you have played in RPGs, <span style="font-weight: bold;">before</span> looking at the questions that follow. List your characters numbered 1 to 10, including the name of the RPG you played them in and maybe character class/race if applicable. Once you've picked your 10 characters, look at the questions and answer accordingly. (No peeking until you've picked your characters!)<br /><br />><br />><br />><br />><br />><br />.... hey..no peeking unless you've made your list already.<br />><br />><br />><br />><br />><br />><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">THE QUESTIONS..</span><br /><br />Who would make a better professor, 6 or 1?<br /><br />Do you think 2 is hot?<br /><br />2 sends 8 on a mission. What is it and does it succeed?<br /><br />What is (or woudl be) 9's favourite book?<br /><br />Would it make more sense for #4 ) to swear fealty to #6, or the other way around?<br /><br />For some reason #5 is looking for a roommate. Should they share a studio apartment with #9 or #10?<br /><br />#2 #7 and #3 have dinner together. Where do they go and what do they discuss?<br /><br />#3 challenges #10 to a duel. What happens?<br /><br />If #1 stole #9's most precious possession, how would they get it back?<br /><br />Suggest a title for a story in which both #10 and #4 attain what they most desire.<br /><br />What kind of plot device would you use if you wanted #1 and #3 to work together?<br /><br />If #7 visited you for the weekend, how would you get along?<br /><br />If you could command #1 to perform any task for you, what would it be?<br /><br />Does anyone on your friends list resemble #5 (either in appearance or personality)?<br /><br />If #2 had to choose sides between #4 and #5, who would it be?<br /><br />What might #10 shout while charging into battle?<br /><br />If you chose a song to represent #8 what song would it be?<br /><br />#1 , #6 and #7 are having dim sum at a Chinese restaurant. There is only one scallion pancake left, and they all reach for it at the same time. Who gets to eat it?<br /><br />What might be a good pick-up line for #2 to use on #10?<br /><br />What would #5 ) most likely be arrested for?<br /><br />What is #6's secret?<br /><br />If #8 and #9 were racing to a destination, who would get there first?<br /><br />If you had to walk home through a bad neighborhood late at night, would you feel safer in the company of #1 or #10?<br /><br />#7 and #9 reluctantly team up to save the world from the threat posed by #4's sinister secret organization. #6 volunteers to help them, but it is later discovered that he/she is actually a spy for #4. Meanwhile, #4 has kidnapped #9 in an attempt to force their surrender. Following the wise advice of # 5, they seek out #3, who gives them what they need to complete their quest. What title would you give this story?<br /><br />_____<br /><br />I'll likely post my own results up in a few days or so ... giving myself a chance to forget the questions so it doesn't skew how I order my list.Spike Pagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815664834043663899noreply@blogger.com0