Wednesday 16 October 2013

D&D 30-day Challenge - day 10

Day 10: Craziest thing that's happened that you saw (to party/character/your players etc).
I can't recall. I got a concussion this morning, so I'll blame that.

These questions are really horrible, to be honest. They're not even fun. There are some that are fine, but others are just tedious and/or insignificant.

Favourite Adventure? Sure
Favourite Dungeon Type? Ehh.
Favourite Trap/Puzzle? Eh.
Favourite NPC? I guess I can answer that.
Day 15-20 are all variations of "Favourite Monster" :/
Favourite Dragon Colour...
Then "Favourite monster overall" :/
Least favourite monster.
Favourite energy type?
Favourite magic item.
Favourite non-magic item. I mean wat. "Yeah, I really like 10' poles."
A character you want to play in the future.
A character you will never play ever again.
What is the number you always seem to roll on a d20?
Best DM you've had.

Of these, favourite adventure is by far the best one. Possible variations can be "favourite room in a dungeon", because even if a dungeon is horribad it can have some rather nifty ideas. "Favourite monster" should have been one question, not 7 (five types + overall + least favourite). "Favourite magic item" is pretty good, I guess. Non-magic item is just a boring "oh we've had about magic items let's fill out the list with non-magic items too. One more down!"

I mean, I guess it could work as a starting point, but I'd really want to rework that list in some way, because as it is now I'm not looking forward to answering most of these questions. Yes, I guess that dragon colours are important for (many) D&D players, but I'm not one of those. I guess "Atomic Tangerine" is my favourite dragon colour.

Right, so let's rework that list into something a bit more inspiring, that promotes discussion or creative answers. Let's keep "creating stuff" away from this, because my next 30-day challenge will be to create something each day, for 30 days straight.

Day 1: How you got started. This can stand as it is.
Day 2 and 3: Favourite Playable Race and Favourite Playable Class. Ehhh, not a fan. I'll scrap those two.
Day 4: Favourite Gameworld. I think "Favourite setting" is better personally, because I don't buy many game worlds as such. Setting can also include gameworlds, whereas gameworlds seem to exclude settings. I don't know. Leave it as it is.
Day 5: Favourite set of dice. No. This is a lazy question. Scrap it or rework it into a better one.
Day 6: Favourite Deity. Ehhh, boring.
Day 7: Favourite Edition. I get it, I get it -- this is a D&D-specific challenge, and I never played "pure" D&D much. I'll leave it as it is.
Day 8 and 9: Favourite character you have played and haven't played. Eh. Boring question, let's scrap those two.
Day 10: Craziest thing that's happened... Yeah, I guess it's not that bad, but I really can't remember one right now. Stories are generally remembered when talking with someone else that is saying something, which reminds you of that one time...

I just went through day 11-30, so to summarize:
Scrap days 14-24, 26, 27-30. That's what, 16 days? I'll come up with 16 questions. Probably won't be as easy to answer though.

Tuesday 15 October 2013

D&D 30-day Challenge - day 9

Day 9: Favourite character you haven't played?
Hmm. Jaevan. Jaevan was a character I made for a play-by-post game that never happened. I'd done details for where he came from and his family and EVERYTHING. He'd be perfect for the DM, because he always ends up in trouble, but was a happy guy. I rarely play "happy guys" because I'm a depressed bastard myself and I don't actually know how you act when you're "happy", so they're tricky to play.

We actually got maybe... 3 posts in before the DM called the entire thing off, so technically I got to "play" him, but I don't think that counts. I'd still like to play him. He was reborn for another play-by-post game, but not as amazingly cool as the first time and that too, was scrapped real soon after it started.

Monday 14 October 2013

D&D 30-day Challenge - day 8

Day 8: Favourite character you have played
There was this count. I can't recall where he was from (I've forgotten the actual name). Old, wizened. Fell down a mine shaft and was presumed dead for several years (in which he were adventuring). Returned to his lands only to find his son having taken over. Decided that his son was unworthy, fought to regain control without killing his only relative.

GM had someone cut his throat, without him getting a save. Yeah, there's a story behind that but fuck that GM to be honest.

Sunday 13 October 2013

D&D 30-day Challenge - day 7

Day 7: Favourite Edition
I don't know! There are so many weird names, like B/X, Moldvay, whatshisface etc etc. THE ONE WHERE YOU PLAY THE GAME AND DON'T BICKER ABOUT RULES. That one.

In short: six attributes, Ascending AC, 5 saves, weapons do between 1d4 and 1d8 in damage, spells are random for MU.

Saturday 12 October 2013

Lost in Shadowbrook Manor

We were supposed to play board games yesterday, but one player didn't show up. I guess it's feasible to play boardgames between three people, but nobody felt like it. Instead they wanted to play a roleplaying game. Since I just so happened to have Shadowbrook Manor available, we rolled up characters.

Allow me to introduce the cast:
Mother Russia
Neutral Fighter
Cha 9, Con 12, Dex 15, Int 10, Str 13, Wis 7

Gregor the Cleric
Lawful Cleric
Cha 7, Con 14, Dex 11, Int 7, Str 11, Wis 15

Gear is an assortment of odds and ends: armour, donkeys, 10' poles, tents. You know, useful stuff.

They start out in the main hall of the inn The Grotesque Cousin (an unfortunate misspelling of cuisine that nobody bothers with fixing). Backstory, what's that? They make small talk and overhear a couple of mud farmers talking about how Shadowbrook Manor suddenly reappeared on top of that hill don't you know? And it's totally haunted so nobody dares go there. "Well well well well well" our intrepid adventurers think, "maybe there's some stuff there that we can sell?" After some inconspicuous inquiries ("hey you, what's this about Shadowbrook Manor?") and some warnings from said mud farmers about triffids in the forests, they leave the village of Tolb... Talb? Something like that. Who cares? But not before buying the worst liqour they can find and stealing a dress hanging to dry; in case they need to "make fire arrows" or "burn down the village... I mean, clean wounds with."

Our mentally stable adventurers make their way without incident to the manor proper, notices the WHOA SPOILERS, let's use white text instead:
So they notice the stone gnome, think "that's an ugly statue", knock on the door (making the connection between the Medusa head and the gnome, but not bothering about it for now) and it swings open. Seeing the light from a fire in one of the room they move there, sees the fire burning without smoke, gets interrupted by zombie maid. Zombie maid punches Mother Russia in the face, and gets a sword through the chest in kind.

They check the library but don't enter, since they can see the banshee floating about in there. I suppose I could have had them walk in and then run into her, but they're two PCs in a place for 4-6 PCs. They find a magnifying glass in one of the rooms, gets scared away by a familiar in another, and notices the magic runes above a door but don't dare try opening it. They find the lavatory and the zombie maid's room. Just as they're about to go through her footlocker the Zombie Butler attacks. He goes down easily. Mother Russia fixes the pocket watch to her armour, announces it to be "Fashion!" They look outside, but don't bother with it, move to the big room... and someone knocks on the door.

It's a neighbor! And he's drunk! Not terribly so, but we take a break and socialize a bit. Apparently he's gonna go on tour with Bam Margera next year? After some hesitation he joins us, and
Àri
Chaotic Magic-User
Cha 12, Con 5, Dex 8, Int 12, Str 12, Wis 11
Floating Disc, Mending, Read Magic
shows up at the manor.

After some "who are you?" and "what're you guys doing here?" the party moves on. They return and kicks the familiar's ass, pick up a black rock and a quarterstaff they named "Death." Since they've been taking a beating they decide to head out into the forest and take a rest, but not before Gregor and Ári decide to scout the grounds. They get almost killed by the groundskeeper (Ári at -2, Gregor at 1) but manage to take him down. Hasty retreat to erected tent, where Mother Russia is already sleeping (the nerve!).

For Gregor's watch (since Ári is unconscious) nothing much happens. A vampire bat tries to attack, but a trusty baseball swing takes care of that. When Mother Russia takes over she's attacked by a werewolf that proceeds to rip her face off. She dies, and wakes up at The Grotesque Cousin, together with Gregor and Ári. (Yeah, I made that call. Sue me.) They decide to call it a day.

The musician guy that played Ári was the first to ask when we were gonna play again. So that's a win for RPGs/OSR, I guess. All in all, the group is happy although they admit that OSR (none of them had played osr-style games before) is muuuuch more lethal than what they normally play.

D&D 30-day Challenge - day 6

Day 6: Favourite Deity
This is a rather boring topic, since I usually just make my deities up on the spot. Like Brotherhood of the Twelve Spokes; they worship the dinosaur ape Yaldu, that in the beginning of time destroyed one of the two moons in a fit of rage. From the remnants the world was created. This is also why there's only one moon, and why it moves across the sky: it's obviously trying to avoid the dinosaur ape. Duh. I don't think I have a favourite one though.

I'm not even familiar with any sort of "official" deities. I guess I've read some of them, but they all seemed pretty bland?

Friday 11 October 2013

D&D 30-day Challenge - day 5

Day 5: Favourite set of dice
Horror of horrors! I don't have one! Dice aren't anything special for me, so they just pile up in a weird collection that happens when I think "oh yeah, I forgot my dice" or "maybe I need another d4 to step on?" So the answer would have to be: none. There are fancy sets out there though, but I don't own them, and for me they're just things.

Thursday 10 October 2013

D&D 30-day Challenge - day 4

Day 4: Favourite gameworld?
I assume we're talking about settings here? I'm really fond of Shadowrun, at least the stuff until FASA sold the license. Everything after that is the beginning of the end of that world, I'm afraid. I also liked Traveller and Castle Falkenstein. But the most evocative setting I've ever heard of has to be Dark Sun. I've never played it, but the description alone makes me love it. That's how good it is.

Wednesday 9 October 2013

D&D 30-day Challenge - day 3

Day 3: Favourite playable class?
I absolutely loved the assassin in Chronopia. Awe~some. Of course, I was a wee kid back then, but the image (I might scan it for you guys but then again that'd be copyright infringement) is just awesome and really good to get your imagination going.

If we're talking "strict" osr stuff I'd probably go with Magic-User. There's something about rolling to see what spells you get.

Tuesday 8 October 2013

D&D 30-day Challenge - day 2

Day 2: Favourite playable race
For a long time I loved elves and half-elves, but that was the munchkin in me. I never quite liked half-orcs or orcs, and dwarves... hmm, nah. However, I'd have to say it's definitely human. It's easiest to imagine, and humans are kinda awesome.

That said, I find myself stuck on the wrong side of the GM screen to really answer this very well. I am all the races. At the same time.

Monday 7 October 2013

D&D 30-day Challenge - day 1

I've decided to do the D&D 30-day challenge. I don't know where it originated, but that's alright. Here is a list of what it consists of though. Yes, I just grabbed the first result when searching for "D&D 30 day challenge" on google.

So the first day is today. Totally not because I should be tidying up the apartment because the realtor is coming tomorrow to take photos.

Day 1: How you got started.
It's been so long now that I barely remember it, but here's what I do remember. In 5th or 6th grade one of my school mates brought along a table top game where each player controlled a miniature and explored a dungeon. You already know the characters: a dwarf, a barbarian, a magic-user, an elf... I can't actually recall the name of the game, or many details about it, but I distinctly remember that it was in Swedish, because we were pretty bad at English back then. No matter.

The board game was a huge hit among a few of us, and we continued playing it between classes. Cut to the summer before 7th grade. A friend called me over for trying out this new "roleplaying game" he'd bought. It wasn't D&D, but a game called Chronopia. It's pretty well known in Sweden, but mostly for being so bad. That didn't matter though, because we didn't know better (and I still argue that whining about how bad Chronopia was is useless. I can't even remember the rules any longer, but the game sold us on RPGs, so it had to have had something). The book was also cheaply made and fell apart after a few uses, so you could basically ask for the equipment list and you'd get the pages but not the book itself. I kinda liked Chronopia -- the basic setting was this huge, old wooden tower-City. We never used it.

I recall an introductory adventure where my assassin (haha, yes -- my first character ever was an assassin) snuck into a room on the second floor and slit the throats of 20 sleeping guards. Or something like that. Maybe not 20. But yeah.

In other news: I had hoped to finish Death Frost Doom yesterday, but one of the players got sick and so we had to cancel. It happens, we'll play some other weekend. I'll write a short review sometime this week, I think.

Friday 4 October 2013

Open letter to Penny Arcade

To those whom it may concern.

I've never visited PAX, and as such this email might be disregarded by you, because I'm not a person who is giving you moolah. But even so, I hope that you take the time to read this and maybe think about what I'm saying.

You guys have a problem, and it's spelled Mike Krahulik. It goes further than that, but I'll get to that in a bit.

Mike's a fucking cancer in your company. He'll kill it, slowly. Listen, people call PAX the most inclusive show/convention/whatever there is, but when you do rape jokes or keep the lid on Enforcers sexually assaulting women I'm starting to wonder how inclusive you actually are? I mean... If I'm a rape survivor -- which I am, I might add -- I don't think I'd feel entirely comfortable if you do rape jokes or condone them. I mean, I get that you have the right to do so, but... you know, I'm not sure I'd feel welcome. So rape survivors are clearly not part of your inclusiveness.

Then we have the trans people. They're also, clearly, not part of the inclusiveness. Maybe you don't actively try and discourage trans people from visiting your convention (so far, but maybe next year you could do a joke about that? That'd be swell, I'm sure), but Mike's opinion has been voiced and it's definitely not inclusive.

Mike is in a position of power. He's straight, white and male, and he's got an audience that listens to him. He could do so much good shit if he ever wanted to, but he continues to bully -- yes, bully -- his critics. That shit aint cool, yo. It'd be nice if he actually thought about his own position in the company and the world, instead of trying to debase criticism raised against him or the comic. Criticism that is, I might add, valid.

The thing is, it's not just Mike. Gabriel is a problem too. He's not as caustic or as likely to say downright stupid things as Mike is, but he's not stopping Mike from doing it. He's actually enabling Mike to continue his shit. That aint cool neither, yo.

I don't know who, between Gabriel and Mike, said that taking down the dickwolves joke was a mistake, but it really doesn't matter any longer. This shit has got to stop, and it's got to stop now.

I've followed the comic since pretty much the start. I've ordered PA stuff over the years. I've wanted to visit PAX, and I was actually planning on doing so next year, because you know -- travelling across the world is fun, but if you can time it to a really cool convention that'd be even better. But guess what? Until Mike learns how to behave like a fucking adult, I won't. Mike needs to grow up, and Gabriel needs to "grow a spine" and tell him when he's out of line.

I won't visit the site any more. I won't buy PA merch any more. I won't visit PAX.

And you know what? It's not my fucking loss. I loved the comic and the gaming stuff, but if the people behind it says and condones behaviour like what I've seen? Yeah, I'd rather live without it.

-- 
best regards,
Robert S.