tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72070354650515936192024-03-18T23:27:23.496-04:00Monsters, Mazes, and MagicMy thoughts, opinions, and reviews about RPGs. Actively playing: Battletech, 13th Age, D&D 5th Ed. & Travelletmmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-8280108527584552992020-08-12T23:00:00.002-04:002020-08-12T23:00:26.656-04:00Important Tips For Running Good Convention Games<p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Convention games are a different experience from a home game. First the players probably don’t know you. Second the players probably don’t know each other. Finally and most importantly there is a finite amount of time the game has to fit in. These aren’t the only differences but by being aware of these differences you can set yourself up to ensure the game runs smoothly and your players have fun. </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-0e7d60b3-7fff-6489-6725-513dc4e06cb4"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What does it mean if the players don’t know you? It largely means that the trust in you, the DM, isn’t as strong as it would be with a group of friends. One way to mitigate this is to tell your players a little about you and what you like most about DMing. Don’t spend more than a few minutes on this, but it can help break the ice when setting things up at the table. To take it a step further, discuss what options are available in case a player is uncomfortable. One of the easiest and most common choices is the </span><a href="https://geekdad.com/2016/10/dd-for-young-dms-x-card/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">X-card</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Now, there is no need to dwell on it, just explain “if there is a problem with the game or anything that bothers you, tap this and I’ll do my best to change the subject.” On the other hand, if things are going well and they’d like more of that style of play then they can raise the O-card. If you are playing online, a player could privately message you an X or an O and provide additional details to help keep things moving and keep everyone happy.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The second hurdle that a convention DM has that most home games don’t have, or don’t have for long, is the players don’t know each other. To go along with the players not knowing each other in many organized play events the players may not have the characters available to make a balanced party. An unbalanced party or a balanced party that doesn’t know how to synergize and work together means that you, the DM, need to balance encounters as you learn the player’s skill. You will also need to ensure that an encounter doesn’t stall and take up the entire adventure, preventing the players from seeing the whole story. It is also important to not take combat too far and actively try to kill the PCs, instead give them the illusion of potential failure. The resources and GM course correction available in a home game are not readily available in organized play and joining a random game should be fun not life threatening to a PC that has taken many hours to level and may still have adventures to play at the convention that are level specific. The best advice for avoiding these pitfalls is to have experience. But to get experience you have to try and learn what works for you. Lacking experience it is critically important you read the adventure and think about what a group of players might have trouble with if they don’t have the right kinds of spell casters, don’t have enough high damage output, or charismatic or sneaky characters. These are just a few examples to keep in mind but when you read an encounter ask yourself what is the story here and what can be done to make experiencing that story flexible? Especially since going back to town regrouping and hiring some locals might not be available for the party or something the players have been taught to consider.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The third and most pressing problem that a convention DM has to deal with is that there is a time limit the adventure has to fit in. In a home game if the adventure runs long you can pick up again in the same place next week. Or have the party return to town heal up, gather new supplies, and try to conquer the dungeon again. At a convention this is the players’ only chance to experience this chapter in what may be a larger story; don’t rob them of that and make them confused for the next DM to have to fix. Staying within your time limit is also important because the convention has scheduled durations for events and often players will have another game starting just after yours is set to finish or the space you are using is booked for another game after yours. Be respectful and end on time. Just remember to tell a complete adventure during that time. The players are at your event to play D&D which means they expect a story of daring adventure that is “complete” and fulfilling. Keep the game moving and decide what encounters may need to be cut short or omitted to to help the players get through the adventure in the allotted time. The best advice I can offer is read the adventure and understand what is important. Make sure you understand the structure of the story and where important details are so if there is fat to trim or combats to abbreviate you’ve given them the clues and experience to understand how things advance and reach fruition at the end. That may mean narrating the resolution of a scene that is running too long, allowing alternative methods of advancing the plot with creative descriptions of skill use, or even just asking the players what they plan is and allowing it to work as far as the next part of the adventure. The idea with this is to ensure the players see and understand the plot beats and know the story they are playing in and helping to create. This allows everyone to experience the adventure and get the rewards they deserve. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With these differences in mind the game should warm up faster and help everyone enjoy themselves. Remember the golden rule that as the Dungeon Master it is your job to provide a safe environment and help everyone have fun. These players are at your table to experience an adventure. There is no reason to hide that adventure or story nor make it so difficult, complex, or deadly that they can’t experience the story in the allotted time. Everyone should have fun and be able to tell a great story at the end. Which is a good rule of thumb for every game session at a convention and at home. Pax Ludos!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you have your own experience, additional advice, or questions leave a comment below.</span></p><br /></span>mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-71326251044986013892020-03-09T23:24:00.001-04:002020-03-09T23:28:31.814-04:00The Campaign Pitch or How to see what your players are interested in<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Roman_Empire2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Red background with an Imperial eagle surrounded by a laurel wreath with SPQR written bellow it." border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="800" height="133" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Roman_Empire2.png" title="SPQR an imperial image for the Romanesque campaign pitch" width="200" /></a></div>
The Stellaran nation is ripping itself to shreds. “The Dictatrix is dead! Long live the Republic.” cry the traditionalists after the assassination. “Burn the Senate and restore Imperial glory” is the rallying cry of the Imperialists. The vassal states see this as a chance for freedom while everyone else sees the opportunity for conquest and riches. The dogs of war have been set loose. You can choose a side or strike out to build a new power in the world.<br />
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Catchy, right? Well I think it is and it will be one of my campaign pitches for a game in a world that will lean heavily on classic tropes with the added menace of a Rome parallel Stella. If my players choose to play this campaign. I hope to offer them a few choices once my current campaign ends.<br />
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While thinking about what interests me for my next campaign. I wanted to write out what a starting pitch for a fantasy RPG campaign should look like. A campaign has to catch your players and GMs fancy. If people don’t like the theme, ideals, or style of play then you are going to have players constantly butting up against what you want to run and what they want to do which can be frustrating. <br />
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This means it needs a catalyst that drives conflict and shakes up the status quo so the players can step in and set things right or shape the world in a new way. A threat of war, or an actual one, are classic examples. These events make heroes and give them places where their actions ripple across the world amplifying their effects and grandeur. <br />
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It should give the players options. In my example above the players could be trying to set the Republic back on track, they could be involved in establishing the empire as an even greater nation, they could be vassal state citizens fighting for the freedom of their people, or they could be barbarians seeking fortune, glory, and a place to burn or conquer. <br />
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To be clear, different PCs could have different agendas. But I would try to look for ways to keep the party from having bother Republicans and Imperialists so I can cast the other side as a decadent self serving power hungry faction that must be stopped. <br />
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It should also leave enough room that you can shift the focus a bit if the party loses interest. An example would be if the campaign started with lots of political intrigue but after a while they decide they want dungeon crawling or other fights. The campaign can shift towards protecting Stella from outside attacks or finding artefacts to bolster a right to leadership or even to stop the treacherous acts of another faction.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/The_Gerry-Mander_Edit.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="The political cartoon that gave rise to the name Gerrymandering" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="764" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/The_Gerry-Mander_Edit.png" title="Gerry's Salamander the cartoon that made Gerrymandering" width="305" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It may sound democratic bu I'm not above gerrymandering.</td></tr>
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I could run this in many different systems. I will probably run it in 13th Age’s Archmage system or 5E using rules and monsters from the new Theros book and Odyssey of the Dragon Lords. By hooking my players on the plot I could potentially run this in a system that my players are less comfortable with because the premise excites them.<br />
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My goal here is to find out what excites my players and me. It also gives me the chance to think about all the cool things I’d love to run or play. The goal is to make this a short elevator pitch that everyone will read. Once the players have picked a campaign I’ll work to flesh the campaign premise out into a couple of pages. This will let me add some details to inspire the players when they are creating their characters. Give them a bit more grounding in the campaign and hopefully inspire them to flesh out parts of the game as well to help keep them involved.<br />
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For anyone interested my other ideas, which still need to be refined, are:<br />
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“Behold a new god is born!” proclaim the oracles around the world. Some claim she will bring a new age of enlightenment to the world. Others cry she will destroy it while making something deserving of her. Atop of the Spire of the World the babe waits to be shown the world she has inherited and will grow up to make her decision over. The best and worst of are amassing armies to claim the land around the spire and take the god child so they can mold her into a weapon or salvation. Will you sign up with a cause or strike out on your own to shape destiny?<br />
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The dead rise. It is spoken about behind churches and among gravediggers. Even miners claim they can hear the shuffling tramp and ghoulish armies. Some even claim small villages and farmsteads have been overtaken and destroyed by this curse, or worse they’ve been dragged below to feed something worse.<br />
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The swamps are dark and cold. Hidden creatures stalk the darkness. It was slow at first but more and more have gone missing….are you ready to save Saltmarsh?</div>
mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-31354154498454557192020-03-02T23:17:00.002-05:002020-03-03T13:35:34.002-05:00What's in a campaign?What is a campaign? In D&D that question can have many answers and I think I'm going to change my approach the next time I start something new.<br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Treasure-Island-map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Treasure Map" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="493" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Treasure-Island-map.jpg" title="What campaign does this map belong to?" width="197" /></a>1) a campaign is a series of adventures that a party undertakes. It starts at low level and proceeds as the players level up. Eventually the PCs become leaders and the party decides if they want to continue or start something over. If they continue then new adventurers the followers do a lot of the grunt work and the leaders do more nation building and help flesh our parts of the campaign world. This goes on and on until interest is lost. Then new players are brought in along side some long term players or it is revived with new players but the world is the same the campaign continues.<br />
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2) There is a mega adventure that the party will undertake they will start at low level and proceed until the evil is stopped. WotC is making these campaign adventures as books. Almost every one of these is a self contained campaign. Sometimes one campaign book bleeds into another. But that seems to be the exception more than the rule.<br />
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3) A campaign is a goal the PCs set out to do. There might be several small adventures or just a large dungeon crawl that takes several attempts to complete. Think of this like a season in a television show. The season is a campaign and the series is a collection of campaigns. <br />
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I usually run something closer to option 1 that hybrids into 2 a little bit. I have an end goal the PCs can attain and once the PCs are sufficiently established as leaders they retire. Then I start up a new campaign at low level. The high level PCs are generally NPCs but they can be brought back in.<br />
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But I'm really leaning towards making Option 3 my new default even in a sandbox campaign. Give the PCs many options of things to do but once they start dealing with a village or large dungeon that is a campaign. After the campaign is over the PCs have a long period of "down time" as described in 5E and maybe as described by Matt Coleville. I'll take a month off work with the players off line and then start the process over again based on what the PCs want to do.<br />
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Also the formatting on my last post was went weird after I published it and made an edit. I've fixed that post if you want to try and read it.<br />
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Pax ludi and have fun.<br />
<br />mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-15595765357976617462020-02-23T23:07:00.001-05:002020-03-02T21:37:33.585-05:00To Fudge or Not to Fudge Dice Rolls<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">So over the past week a lot of digital ink has been spilled on twitter about fudgin dice. There I tried to </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">voice </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">my opinions but it felt disjointed. So I thought I’d share a bit more detail here and be able to point people </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">towards it when this conversation rears up again. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">I try not to fudge dice. I don’t like it when DMs do it to me and I don’t like doing it to my players. Dice are </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">there to determine things I want taken out of my or my players control. When we roll dice in an RPG it is </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">done to add dramatic tension of not knowing the result, to be an “arbiter of fairness” in combat, and </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">prevent the GM or players from just winning. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">So if I am going to fudge the dice I am violating one of these three statements for why roll the dice. If I am </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">going to fudge the dice I should ask myself “Why are you fudging the dice and was it the right reason or </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">should I have avoided a dice roll entirely?” In the heat of a gaming session it can be hard to be this </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">introspective. So note it down or ask a player to make a note</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: super;">1</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> for you and keep the game running. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Three main reasons I want to fudge dice and usually there are better work arounds that I should have used.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> 1) The PCs should have succeeded at this roll or needed to succeed at the roll for the adventure to </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> continue. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> 2) The monster is really tough and the players should be hitting more or the monster should be hitting </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> less or vice versa. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> 3) I backed myself into a corner and ratcheted things up to far and now I’m going to see a PC killed over </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> something stupid like a series of jumps across buildings that just got too hard and now she’s going </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> to </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">fail and fall.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">In the first case. The right answer is to not do that. If the players should succeed let them do it without the </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">roll. Or better yet use the roll to see if there are complications that will happen later on. This is referred to </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">in </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">some games as “Failing Forward”</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: super;">2</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">. A good example is the players toss a crime scene looking for clues. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">They ultimately need to find a clue here to keep the adventure moving and it will break things if they don’t </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">get the clue and frustrate me and the players. So give them the clue. But use the dice rolls to see if there </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">are other complications that arise. Maybe poor rolls mean they find the clue but it can’t be used as </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">evidence. Or they know contact poison was used because they managed to also come in contact with it. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Or the players take so long to complete the search another crime has been committed or the criminals</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> have shown up to clean up the scene and now there is a fight. These are some examples. But all ideas I </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">might jot down in adventures notes as ways to “fail forward”. The worse the players roll the more difficult </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the complication is to overcome or the more time lost. But at least the adventure can move forward. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">When </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">running a published adventure this can be harder to remember to do or determine ways to </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">i</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">ncorporate the </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">concept but it is worth taking the prep time to think about.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGBtGY4UTMVSV_KJj2dpZRZ8UvUzFsTndagaoFb0hLkdWUPZRIiHHf7kNiCSbXCEAhBwrDjOqyA6BmdizNvX1n2A4yhIYVJuaEhOoIsTSg347CH9fIzJ-DTqKAnM2LyEN-t3VGNy-nGpE/s1600/fudge_response.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="590" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGBtGY4UTMVSV_KJj2dpZRZ8UvUzFsTndagaoFb0hLkdWUPZRIiHHf7kNiCSbXCEAhBwrDjOqyA6BmdizNvX1n2A4yhIYVJuaEhOoIsTSg347CH9fIzJ-DTqKAnM2LyEN-t3VGNy-nGpE/s320/fudge_response.png" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The second instance of wanting to fudge dice is when a monster proves too difficult. This is also a harder </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">case for me to fudge my dice. This is because I always try to roll my dice in front of the players. They </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">can see what my dice are doing so if the dice are hot the players can see I’m not being a jerk chance </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">just isn’t on their side and my dice are cold (which seems to happen more frequently than I would like) </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">they can see that I’m not pulling punches to protect them. However, there are times when I’m testing a </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">new monster or trying something different that the creatures AC or attack is just too high. Rather than </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">fudge the dice and let the players hit a little more often or have my monster miss more frequently. I </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">would rather take the time to reduce the monster’s AC or attack roll. Maybe I’d even tie it to something </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">creative a player did to describe an attack or just in response to the monster getting hit. “When your </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">warhammer slams the orc chieftain you know its helm off. It seems stunned for a moment.” If my players </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">have pegged the creatures AC at this point I might tell them the new AC of the monster at this point. If t</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">hey haven’t figured it out yet I would keep it secret so they can keep guessing. The same would be true </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">if I had lowered the attack. Another option I use less frequently would be to have imposed a condition like </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">dazed on the monster for a round or two. But that is something I would certainly save for clever actions or </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">descriptions from the players.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The final instance is the hardest to identify and fix. It usually happens because I’m running the game and </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">my players have left any semblance of why I had planned for. We are not in uncharted territory and the </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">dice are helping to tell the story but also based on what the PCs are doing and how the dice are going </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">they also give me time to think about what might be next. So I don’t always realize when there are critical</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">rolls about to happen that really shouldn’t be left entirely to chance and by the time I do a PC is </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">plummeting to their death or I or the PCs are backed into a corner and people are starting to get </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">frustrated. During this time I often have to call a break on the game grab something to drink and sit back </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">down after 5 minutes. We </span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre;">recap</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;"> what has happened, what is going on, and what the PC are trying to do.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">During this step back from the immediate action I can get my bearing. Then I can figure out what the </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">forward looks like and understand what failure might be as well. Now I’m back on track with determining </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">ways to have the party fail forward. At times like this I might even lean on my players and ask them to </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">provide me with ideas for what failure looks like and determine how they move forward from here. It isn’t </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">my favorite style of running the game but sometimes you take a messy solution and keep things moving </span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">over ruining a whole session because I couldn’t plan it all out perfectly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">In summary (tldnr) there are more options for GMs to use beyond fudging dice. They might have the </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">same effect but feel less capricious and are applied evenly across all players and actions. So think </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">about why you fudge your dice and try to use other methods in the future. At the very least it will help </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">stretch your thoughts about the game’s rules and how to apply them to odd situations. I hope it helps.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Pax ludi and have fun.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: super;">1</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: sub;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">I try to get my players to keep track of things I may want to revisit later rather than stopping the game </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">to take the note myself. It usually consists of me saying something like “X, please send me an email </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">about the ruling I just made. To check if there is a rule we should have used.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: super;">2 </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Thanks Robin D. Laws I believe my first contact with this idea was reading about Gumshoe. I started to </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">get it while running 13th Age by Rob Heinsoo.</span></div>
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mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-23016699069348376642019-12-14T13:46:00.002-05:002019-12-14T13:46:41.725-05:00My RPG goals for 2020I have not posted much here. But I think I should. Or at least I should more often then twice a year. So in preparation for 2020 I am writing this post. It will be my "pledge" to write more. Some of it will be about mini painting. Some of it will be about games I am in. Some of it will be my ideas and reviews of RPG material. With luck all this extra writing will prompt me into even writing a few more details about a game and setting I'd like to elaborate on.<br />
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I know this blog isn't frequent enough to have regular readers but for those of you following it be ready to hear more from me.<br />
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Cheers,<br />
Mattmmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-48930269173966948912018-05-28T07:00:00.001-04:002018-06-01T09:46:28.633-04:00Psionic Sub Classes for 5E<br /><br />I've been watching <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-552hVebgPk&list=PLfS8QgUdeGYqNneY16sB2RFfWI40jlgIy">The Mike Mearls Happy Fun Hour</a>, lately. He's been showing off some of his design process a lot of it full of idea boards just tossed into a word document and him speaking about the story and feeling he wants represented in play. This is a messy process and it is inspiring to see such a prominent lead do this kind of work in public in an hour. He doesn't always finish what he starts in an hour but he makes a fair bit of progress. A few episodes ago he started looking at creating a psion like sub-class for Wizards. He made enough progress and had enough potential he went on to do this for the fighter and now the monk.<br /><br /><br />But, enough about how I feel about the videos. The import part is that it has inspired me to think about design. Largely in part because during a few episodes Mike mentioned that there was a design element for Barbarians thought of as the Nova Barbarian. The idea being when the Barbarian stops raging there is an affect that happens. What the design team found out was that it prompted players to enter rages and then end them the next turn to get that effect. This wasn't satisfying and didn't really feel like a barbarian tactic, so it was scrapped. I was thinking about this concept and wanted to try and make it work. That got me on the path to thinking of a barbarian that rages and while raging builds up a pool of damage that is dealt to everyone around her at the end of the rage. The longer the barbarian rages the more damage she will be able to do. But, I couldn't figure out a theme for it until Mike started the psionic sub class series. It made a lot of sense for this Nova Barbarian to be psionic themed. In addition it got me thinking of other classes and concepts to explore. So before showing off my Psionic Barbarian Path, the Path of the Telekinetic. I want to outline a few other sub class and psionic ideas in general. Mostly so when Mike beats me to developing them I can say I tried.<br /><br /><b>Telekineticist</b> - <i>Barbarian</i> - This class' psionic power is fueled by raw emotion. They are the most terrifying kind of wild talent because thing move and jump around them and often they will never control or understand their power. Those that do are terrible and dangerous because they've learned to tap into their internal turmoil and inflict it physically upon the world.<br /><br /><br /><b>Mind Spiker</b> - <i>Rogue</i> - This rogues sneak attack does psychic damage. At higher levels it causes confusion and maybe even lets them interrogate the minds of people outside of combat. In addition the mind spiker might even be able to render himself invisible to observers by removing the memory of his presence all together. The mental link to interrogate people might be the kind of thing that is a non-combat ability that the Mind Spiker achieves by "pickpocketing" the mind of another and allowing scrying like abilities on that person.<br /><br /><br /><b>Mental Mage</b> - <i>Wizard</i> - Mike already covered this and it might be better to run with his idea if it is ever released as an Unearthed Arcana. However I think there might be more options or space to play in particularly if this mage is about fear effects, illusions, and confusion, rather than the psychic damage/thought theft that Mike took the subclass in.<br /><br /><br /><b>Psychic Surgeon</b> - <i>Bard</i> (specialized in mind & body) - The bard already borders on psionic powers because this class is often about influencing emotions. But taken to an even higher level this class is so in tune with the effects of mind over matter that it can heal the body or tear apart the fragile minds of those that oppose it. <br /><br /><b>Etheric Summoner</b> - <i>Druid</i> (summons the essence of nature) - This "druid" is attuned to the spirit of nature such that it understand the mind of wild beasts and plants and is able to bring into reality the truest essence of the form. This druid would be able to summon not a bear but instead it summons the essence of a bears rage manifested in a form that perfectly fits that beasts emotion. Or perhaps the druid can cloak herself in the essence of a lionesses' stealthy strike granting her a form and powers beyond just becoming a lion, then after the strike has been made the druid channels the stability and resilience of the spirits in the rocks around her to protect her for the rest of a fight.<br /><br /><br /><div>
<i>Wild Talent</i> - If the design encourages adding some "psionic" abilities that are generic across all the psionic classes or even a pool of abilities that are psionic and not specificall exclusive to class this would make them available to everyone in addition it might be nice if a player wants to add more psionic abilities to their class.<br /><br /><br />As you can see these classes above are still germinating ideas. But I hope they interest people enough to want to play them and also to want to make their own ideas. However this post has grown long enough that I think the Barbarian should in it's own post. That will be posted this afternoon once I have cleaned it up a little.</div>
mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-10547874515583670192018-05-28T07:00:00.000-04:002018-05-29T08:45:25.043-04:00Path of the Telekinetic RageAs I mentioned in my previous post here is the for the Path of the Telekinetic Rage. And please if you play this or like the idea but think it needs improvement let me know. If you hate the idea please don't let me know. I am not sure I want to deal with that kind of vitriol the internet can produce here.<br />
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<span class="TextRun SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">This document presents a personally created and playtest quality option for the Barbarian: Path of the Frenetic Rage</span><span class="EOP SCXO143977171" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<span class="TextRun Highlight SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: #d9d9d9; font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: transparent solid 1px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXO143977171" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">This is content has not be vetted by or reviewed by Wizards of the Coast. It was developed after listening to too much “</span></span><a class="Hyperlink SCXO143977171" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-552hVebgPk&list=PLfS8QgUdeGYqNneY16sB2RFfWI40jlgIy" rel="noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;" target="_blank"><span class="TextRun Highlight SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: #d9d9d9; font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: transparent solid 1px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXO143977171" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">Mike Mearls’ Happy Fun Hour</span></span></a><span class="TextRun Highlight SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: #d9d9d9; font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: transparent solid 1px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXO143977171" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text;">”. I wanted to take a stab at a design the Mike Mearls shied away from. Feedback and comments are welcome. </span></span><span class="EOP SCXO143977171" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXO143977171" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web", Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; user-select: text;">
<div class="Paragraph SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;" xml:lang="EN-US">
<span class="TextRun SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: transparent; color: #365f91; font-family: "junction" , "junction_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 20pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 34px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">Primal Path</span><span class="EOP SCXO143977171" style="font-family: "junction" , "junction_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 34px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXO143977171" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web", Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; user-select: text;">
<div class="Paragraph SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;" xml:lang="EN-US">
<span class="TextRun SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">At 3rd level, you choose a path that shapes the nature of your rage. At the DM’s discretion, the following primal path is available to a barbarian in addition to those offered in the campaign.</span><span class="EOP SCXO143977171" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXO143977171" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web", Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; user-select: text;">
<div class="Paragraph SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;" xml:lang="EN-US">
<span class="TextRun SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: transparent; color: #4f81bd; font-family: "junction" , "junction_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">Path of the Telekinetic Rage</span><span class="EOP SCXO143977171" style="font-family: "junction" , "junction_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXO143977171" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web", Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; user-select: text;">
<div class="Paragraph SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;" xml:lang="EN-US">
<span class="TextRun SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">Those who choose the path of the Telekinetic Rage might have been thought of a possessed by spirits as a child or worse a controller of foul magics. As things around them occasionally moved. But in truth it was just the force of their emotions acting upon the world. As they grew they learned to control and harness those emotions until they could embrace The Path of the Telekinetic Rage. Releasing that emotional force as an attack and cathartic release.</span><span class="EOP SCXO143977171" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXO143977171" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web", Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; user-select: text;">
<div class="Paragraph SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;" xml:lang="EN-US">
<span class="TextRun SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: transparent; color: #4f81bd; font-family: "junction" , "junction_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">Building Rage</span><span class="EOP SCXO143977171" style="font-family: "junction" , "junction_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXO143977171" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web", Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; user-select: text;">
<div class="Paragraph SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;" xml:lang="EN-US">
<span class="TextRun SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">Starting when you choose this path at 3rd level, you can exert your emotion energy upon the world. When choose to enter a rage you may choose to enter a Building Rage. A Building Rage grants you a rage pool that adds one die at the end of every turn you are raging. When your rage ends for each die in your rage pool inflict 1d4 force damage to every creature within 10’ of you in addition you suffer one level of exhaustion.</span><span class="EOP SCXO143977171" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXO143977171" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web", Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; user-select: text;">
<div class="Paragraph SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;" xml:lang="EN-US">
<span class="TextRun SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: transparent; color: #4f81bd; font-family: "junction" , "junction_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">Kinetic Control</span><span class="EOP SCXO143977171" style="font-family: "junction" , "junction_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXO143977171" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web", Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; user-select: text;">
<div class="Paragraph SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;" xml:lang="EN-US">
<span class="TextRun SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">Beginning at 6th level you are able to control your emotions enough to alter the world around you in more subtle ways. This allows you to cast mage hand at will.</span><span class="EOP SCXO143977171" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXO143977171" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web", Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; user-select: text;">
<div class="Paragraph SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;" xml:lang="EN-US">
<span class="TextRun SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: transparent; color: #4f81bd; font-family: "junction" , "junction_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">Rejuvenating Rage</span><span class="EOP SCXO143977171" style="font-family: "junction" , "junction_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXO143977171" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web", Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; user-select: text;">
<div class="Paragraph SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;" xml:lang="EN-US">
<span class="TextRun SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">Beginning at 10</span><span class="TextRun SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 8.5pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXO143977171" data-fontsize="11" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: super;">th</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US"> level you no longer suffer a level of exhaustion when you expend your Rage Pool and it results in damage to at least one enemy. In addition when you score a critical hit you may expend all the dice currently in your Rage Pool without ending your Building Rage.</span><span class="EOP SCXO143977171" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXO143977171" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web", Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; user-select: text;">
<div class="Paragraph SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;" xml:lang="EN-US">
<span class="TextRun SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: transparent; color: #4f81bd; font-family: "junction" , "junction_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">Ranged Rage</span><span class="EOP SCXO143977171" style="font-family: "junction" , "junction_msfontservice" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXO143977171" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web", Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; user-select: text;">
<div class="Paragraph SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;" xml:lang="EN-US">
<span class="TextRun SCXO143977171" lang="EN-US" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">Starting at 14th level when you expend your Rage Pool you can channel the energy to a point you can see within 50’. This creates a creating a 10’ burst centered on the target.</span><span class="EOP SCXO143977171" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times new roman_msfontservice" , serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-32677071105854163472014-08-09T10:00:00.000-04:002014-08-09T10:00:00.627-04:001d13 things to Start or Change your 13th Age Campaign<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">1d13 events to start or drastically alter your 13</span><sup style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
Age Campaign.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">12 Golden barges of tremendous size with red
sails anchor at Santa Cora, the people from the ships spend their gold freely
and speak of their religion ‘The Church of the Unified Monotheism’. They seek
audience with the Priestess but quarrel with her when she refuses to
acknowledge that monotheism is the only valid religion, with all other gods and
goddess aspects and agents of their one true deity. Without warning, the
monotheists besiege the city. Their golden ships lift out of the water, their
golden masts and red sails forming great wings, from which they rain down
divine retribution upon the unbelievers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A storm hundreds of miles across rages on the
Sea of Monsters, at its heart a tornado 600’ in diameter destroys everything it
touches. As it approaches the coast it is kept at bay by the powers of the
Arch-Mage, and the storm shatters against his wards. As the days pass the wards
weaken eventually succumbing to the power of the storm. Many were evacuated and
much of the Dragon Empire survived, but the capitol has been lost and the
Dragon Emperor was wounded, and now seeks seclusion while he heals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Lich King quits, through his emissaries he
contacts the Dragon Emperor and informs the empire that he will abandon his
claim of dominion over the empire if he is permitted to claim the role as chief
arch-mage and purveyor over all arcane defenses and research. In addition the
Lich King offers to grant the Dragon Emperor immortality. Hearing that the
Dragon Emperor is considering the deal, the Arch-Mage leaves his official
holdings to wage a war of subterfuge against the Lich King.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Red Dragon returns erupting from a mountain.
The volcanic activity after this escape blocks the sun from the north plunging
it into a perpetual night. The lands in all other directions receive little
sun, the temperatures plunge by 10 degrees. The lack of direct sun causes crops
to fail and famine spreads across the land.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">5.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Crusader begins a new offensive against the
Diabolist. To bolster his forces he offers elite training to any that would
seek it at CASTLE PERILOUS. Those who go in return changed. Many appear normal,
but for their unrelenting fealty to the Crusader but others… they hide their
arms and faces. Rumors abound that the hidden feature are for the best lest
people see the maddening disfigurements they bear. Those of a learned nature
imply that those poor souls bear the fractures of demons and that their minds
have been touched by that wickedness, some even portent that they have the
immortality of a fiend wine a bit of their mind inhabits the maelstrom of the
abyss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">6.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A new Gold Dragon is born. While those would
ordinarily be a heralded event, some claim it is a sign that the Great Gold Wrym
has died in the Abyss and this is the Wyrm reincarnated. Without the Great Gold
Wyrm’s intervention to keep the demons at bay the Diabolist’s influence
increases. Her schemes hamper the Crusader and throw him off the hell holes he has
conquered allowing new forms of chaos to rage across the land.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">7.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The statue of the first dwarf, said to bow only
before the Dwarf King or Queen, has become active. For the first time in two
Ages it has sought out an individual and bowed before him signaling a divine
change in the leadership of the Dwarfs. Stranger still the statue of the first
dwarf has found and prostrated itself before the Orc Lord.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">8.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">While staring across the vastness of space and
learning the deeper truths of magic and the arcane world, the Arch-Mage
realizes that he now understands the secrets of ruling his people to create
Utopia. To achieve his goals he retreats to one of his flying realms. While he
finishes the preparations to bring about a new Utopia under his rule, the
customary rituals that keep the Lich King bound are not renewed, nor are the
rituals that redirect the lay lines to keep the sea of storms pacified.
Meanwhile the oracles for when to plant and harvest have been made by less
skillful magi resulting in famine as farmers plant before the frosts are
finished and reap after the dry season has already begun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">9.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the center of the Dragon Empire a new Hell
Hole has opened up with signs several others are about to open up. The creation
of a new Hell Hole has caused waves of fear and panic rippling throughout the
Empire, sparking new rumors that the Diabolist has begun a new offensive while
gaining greater powers of control over fiendish minions. While these new
openings are of her creation, it from a ritual gone awry, they are opening too
fast for her to control causing her dominion over fiends to weaken while other
summoners find they can bind ever more power fiends to their will without
risking nearly as much of their souls in the bargain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">10.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A new wave of Living Dungeons surge forth to the
surface. Lands once peaceful are plagued by the beasts that vomit forth from
these dark vaults. People from all over look to the Dwarf Lord, to learn why so
many Living Dungeons reached the surface. But, no messages are returned. Rumors
begin to spread that the Dwarf King and his court have been consumed by a
terrible dungeon and the creatures it birthed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">11.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The dead in heavily forested areas have begun to
rise from their graves. While many believe this to be a plot of the Lich King
and both the Dragon Emperor and the Arch-Mage hire bands of adventurers to reinforce
the grave-wards said to keep the dead in place. But all is in vain, as these
are not traditional undead. Instead the High Druid has found a new strain of
fungus that will reanimate the dead and given time even infect the living as
this plague spreads so too will nature while humanity’s oppression of nature
will be forced to an end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">12.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One morning everyone awakes to find that it is
midday, as time passes the sun does not waver in the sky staying always in the
middle of the sky. Astrologers are perplexed by this endless day. Even the
Archmage is uncertain as to why the Sun is not chased across the sky, unless
the moon were unable to do so. Rumors swirl and many, especially in the
underworld speculate that the moon was stolen by the Prince of Shadows.
Unwittingly his grandest heist has ruined his domain of darkness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">13.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Elf Queen accepts a rare invitation to
travel to a Winter Court of the fairies. While she is away the fey Duke Urien sits
the throne, declaring himself the Elf King; inciting a civil war throughout the
Elven Court. The Dark Elves near universally support Urien. Several of the
other courtiers remain silent to ensure they are not executed by Urien’s
exuberant Loyalty Squads. While others declare for their queen. The bloodshed
and mistrust running through the Eleven Court bleeds through to the world
creating greater mistrust between the fey and even resurfacing old rivalries
which threaten to unbalance the greater peace of civilization. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-22545577659606123432014-07-31T10:20:00.003-04:002014-07-31T19:49:51.809-04:00Awesome Gamer Day: Map<div class="MsoNormal">
For “Awesome Gamer Day” I offer a map. This area will likely
be called Tul’Aren in my campaign. A land covered in with thick jungles, wide
grassy planes, and steep mountains, curiously cut off from the ocean by an unnatural
blasted desert wasteland.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2918/14720852775_1640af7a28_o.png" imageanchor="1"><img alt="Created by Matt Maranda with Hexographer Pro." border="0" height="320" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2918/14720852775_1640af7a28_o.png" title="TulAren Map" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Feel free to use this map in your home games and expect to
see me flesh it out more. If people would like a version with hex numbers let
me know in the comments.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-33221628730029378352014-07-28T23:48:00.001-04:002014-07-28T23:48:13.223-04:00Fantasy in the Blasted Future<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
In my last post I talked about
setting a "Lamentations of the Flame Princess" game in the future
after a catastrophic event. But my description did not go into any detail about
what cultures and nations might look like in that world. So here I am writing
to further broaden the way different parts of the world devolved yet still
mimic the reality that had once been. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<b>Kandah</b> - The cold heavily forested planes of Kandah contain many small
remote villages. Hunters, loggers and farmers eke out a meager existence living
in constant fear of the long dark nights. To the West as the hardwood forests
climb great mountains the villages become larger and farther apart, here miners
explore the bones of the earth, wresting riches from the old mines of ages past
now the home to thriving colonies of beasts that would be best left undisturbed
in their holes. The riches of mining towns make them hubs for foreigners as
well as the people from the woods. Moving further north brings travelers to a
harsh arctic waste. Few beyond the tribes that live there have returned from
those frozen lands and those that do have merely explored its frozen eastern
coasts. The treasures and relics that might still exist preserved in that
frozen <a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/83001/Weird-New-World&affiliate_id=167339">wasteland</a>
will make legends of those strong enough to succeed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<b>Swerzirlind</b> - This land is nestled in and around steep mountains. These
mountains serve to insulate the land from predations of the outside world but
they they also divide it. This has caused two major factions to vie for power
over the people and trades routes. They are the Cantonians and the Zureich,
although many other small groups can be found living in remote villages hoping
to remain unnoticed by the conscriptors of forces larger than themselves. The
largest faction are the agnostic Cantonians, followers of the crown Prince
Haldritch Zwingli, who control the trade routes and given recent trouble with
religious fanatics have taken to eradicating all organized religion. These
actions fueled the ire and ranks of the opposed Zureich. Once just a free city
in the heart of Swerzirlind it has become the epicenter for the Church of
Monotheism. The Zureich defend their faith militantly with non-believers,
unwilling to convert, being executed without need for cause. Other prominent
groups vehemently against the dominant factions include Monotheists of the
Later Prophets, Monotheists of the First Church, and Monotheists of the Free
Orders.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<b>Ghula</b> - Walled holdfasts stand atop natural and manmade hills
bastions of safety poking out above the Black Forests of Ghula. These holds
frequently war with each other keeping trade and communication across long
distances to minimum. While some semblance of a once unified Ghulian people
might exist in the language and engineering, each village is a stylized subculture
with their own unique take own what it means to be Shulian creating a morass of
taboos and etiquettes difficult to master and easy to cross. Blood cults,
headhunters seeking to honor or trap the spirit of their enemy to prevent
retribution from beyond the grave, and ritualized necrophilia before the
deceased are interred are additional horrors villages might have in store for
explorers. As if the villages weren't dangerous enough, the untrod paths in the
black forests hide worse degenerates and beasts too wicked to be exposed to the
light of day.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<b>The Divided Isles of Welschlen</b> - The major island of Welschlen as
well as the smaller islands and newly founded island colonies are united under
one king, the recently coroneted Kyor of Rutland. But King Kyor does not sit
the thrown unchallenged. The Green Isle is fomenting a new bid for freedom. It
has rebelled several times throughout the years creating generations of
mistrust, harsh laws, and even famines all to keep the people week and
subjugated to the Welshlen throne. Yet
these are not the only troubles on the Green Isle, creatures of fairy also lay
claim to the islands and they too have gained a strong foothold on the Green
Isle and are branching out to the others. Kyor’s predecessors would have cut
down such insurrection quickly with iron and fire but the Welschlen squabble
internally over who should have been lord. Many support Kyor and his house
under the banner of the White Lilly others disenfranchised or slighted by Kyor’s
lineage have begun flocking to House Whelles of the Red Carnation. Weakening
the will of both houses to remain at war with one another are the savage
raiders from the North and West. They strike the Isles without mercy and with
the fastest, lightest, and shallowest ships known.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<b>Ravenna</b> – The Empire of Ravenna, is a corrupt nation, any kind of
vice can be bought or sold here. The empire has been held together and expanded
by generations of strong Emperors and a pragmatic approach to the absorption of
cultures and religions. But while every religion is theoretically equal two
religions have greater standings with the nobility the Arcane Cult of
Ottovacarian Divinity and the Devoted of the Quicksilver Blade. The Arcane Cult
of Ottovacarian Divinity are the only wizards tolerated within Ravenna and
their religious and arcane magic has been honed to help detect and defeat
threats to Ravenna and her rulers. This protection has naturally secured their
prominence, protection, and wealth. The Devoted of the Quicksilver Blade are an
order of militants that worship and train for war. This makes their devotees
the best trained and single minded forces in the empire. Many of in the warrior
class are lay adherents, paying for services and advanced training in combat
arts. This makes them first in line for promotion and elite duties. It is also
rumored that the Devoted have stockpiled and understand the use of weapons from
before the fall of civilization and rise of Ravenna.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/117257/Qelonghttp:/rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/117257/Qelong&affiliate_id=167339"><b>Sajavedra</b></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"> </span> – A war torn barely legendary land. Jungles
and abandoned rice fields dot the landscape. Meanwhile energies of a war,
incomprehensible to the people surviving in the Sajavedra today, leech into these
same fields and jungles warping flora and fauna alike. As this blasted and town
landscape loses its connection to the world that was petty ancient gods of the
land are awakening. Their sleep disturbed by the changes happening around them
and the lack of propitiations offered up to them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Although none of these regions
specifically mentions the ruins of fallen civilizations, I've intentionally
left that out. What technology or ruins are left is up to the game and much easier
to sprinkle into things. But cultures based on history and places takes a
little more planning and inspiration which is all I can hope to achieve with
this post.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
My inspiration for the places and
cultures are from many varied sources. Kandah was inspired by <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hieros-Journey-Sterling-E-Lanier/dp/0345308417">Hiero’s
Journey</a> as well as the ‘<a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/83001/Weird-New-World&affiliate_id=167339">Brave
New World</a>’ campaign/adventure. Swerzirlind is Switzerland with a dash of
the reformation and theories that Knights Templar hid there to avoid
persecution, now after the fall of civilization they return to rebuild
civilization under their view after thousands of years. Welschlen should obviously be the British
Isles during the War of the Roses with added rebellion and mythic fey from
Ireland. Ghula is Gaul at the peak of the Celtic civilizations. Ravenna was
once the seat of the Roman Empire and this is its rebirth. While the Sajavedra
if taken whole cloth from Kenneth Hite's <a href="http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/117257/Qelonghttp:/rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/117257/Qelong&affiliate_id=167339">Qelong</a>
adventure.<o:p></o:p></div>
mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-13417400709341300262014-01-29T17:47:00.000-05:002014-01-29T17:52:05.673-05:00A Campaign Idea for Lamentations of the Flame Princess<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHQdqx4X-GT8-YjJRxbQdWYvSPGNtOEg0keslrlK1XWKd7PSD9cSj9fCzrF3kZwiBQdY5G2fvT9-EbPq90IzfWktlvaIA6tCROyvsngvaT998Hdi8vxPWRFJc3ouE2wStUm8wpEIriyAN7/s1600/RulesCover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHQdqx4X-GT8-YjJRxbQdWYvSPGNtOEg0keslrlK1XWKd7PSD9cSj9fCzrF3kZwiBQdY5G2fvT9-EbPq90IzfWktlvaIA6tCROyvsngvaT998Hdi8vxPWRFJc3ouE2wStUm8wpEIriyAN7/s1600/RulesCover.jpg" height="320" title="Image from Lamentations of the Flame Princess Website" width="224" /></a>James Raggi the creator of Lamentations has vacillated on the subject of “should a referee use the earth or a new world while running Lamentations of the Flame Princess”. While it has been my experience that most DMs choose to use a fantasy world; there was, especially in the early days of the hobby and the fantasy that inspired it, a tendency to use modern human transported to the fantasy world which was populated by characters out of our world’s myths, legends, and sometimes history.<br />
<br />
<br />
The argument James makes against using the earth is “People know too much [about history] and not enough about it.” This quote appears in the ‘Referee’ guide from the ‘Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Grindhouse Edition’ of the book. It goes on to explain which some people will know a lot about certain subsets of world history and others will be fairly ignorant of it. Both groups will often have their sense of immersion disrupted and that can be distracting from the game.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9BXokteYsok/UcI-ATaL1cI/AAAAAAAAOV8/HWUCHbzu1kU/s1600/IMG_0945.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9BXokteYsok/UcI-ATaL1cI/AAAAAAAAOV8/HWUCHbzu1kU/s1600/IMG_0945.jpg" height="320" title="Image linked form TenkarsTavern" width="240" /></a>While the argument for using the earth is “Remember LotFP is a horrific game, and to make the unearthly elements stand out as particularly unnatural and awful a more mundane setting is required.” which is from the ‘Better than any Man’ the 2013 Free RPG Day adventure. This approach does work well which is why most horror stories take place in and around our world. \</div>
<br />
<br />
Although both sides have merit there is a third option which is to create take either a character from the modern or historical world and drop them into a world of myth and legend similar to but different from the actual historical world. This allows for them to encounter strange things but still meet people who are "normal" and better yet their basic assumptions of the world's history can still be satisfied while allowing for differences and inconsistencies from the actual past because of "magic"<br />
<br />
<br />
However, my favorite option which I believe can provide a referee with the benefits of both the freedom of a made-up world wit the implied understanding and 'reality' of the historical world. Set the game in the future 200+ years after a catastrophic event. During that time civilizations fell but people tried to rebuild in the memory of what was. However, these memories can be tarnished or for the good of the appearance of unity and normality dark and terrible things can lurk under the surface. Some communities can be nice and helpful having suffered less while other greedy and savage all the while trying to live up to the glory of the past. This approach to world building was inspired by Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" series and Clark Ashton Smith's "Zothique" cycle. Both however, are set after the world has aged to near extinction and the sun burns a harsh red. The other half of my inspiration came from an unlikely source, the old 'Thundar the Barbarian' with it's humanity crushed under the boot of powerful magicians crossing the line between science and magic, strange beasts and accepted humanoids, it hinted at a darker world ripe to inspire adventures appropriate for LotFP.mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-34427120289824880072012-08-01T00:37:00.001-04:002012-08-01T00:37:53.029-04:00A Norse Mythic Campaign Setting<br />
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.6636814484372735" style="clear: right; float: right; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/uuYED5LY3ZOrX0T1lumdUeDgJpPT8g00FjGEj7ENcO5uj3v3CxChdujycPBCvO2BqNDG9azTg9pLsD0fifXZBqXRbrgNRu7WGSWB4LhKxPXBpVUnAmQ" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/uuYED5LY3ZOrX0T1lumdUeDgJpPT8g00FjGEj7ENcO5uj3v3CxChdujycPBCvO2BqNDG9azTg9pLsD0fifXZBqXRbrgNRu7WGSWB4LhKxPXBpVUnAmQ" width="277" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve recently started readin “</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Norse Myths: Introduced and Retold</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” by Kevin Crossley-Holland. In it he discusses the 9 worlds of the Norse mythology. The highest two are Asgard and Vanaheim the worlds of Aesir and Vanir the gods of Norse Myth. Alfheim is the realm of the “Light Elves” those creatures that are not gods but still powerful spirits willing to help man. Midguard the world of mortals. Two worlds for the homes of Dwarves and Dark Elves Nidavellir and Svartalfheim, notably all the Dwarves are greedy self centered troublemakers most Elves also seem to fall into the Dark Elf territory making them nearly indifferent from the Dwarves. The Giants lay claim to Jutunheim these are beings as powerful as the gods but set on the disruption of the order of things and cause chaos and strife, they seek to see the world changed and if that means burning it down first then that is what they will do. The underworld is is Hel/Niflheim this is where the majority of the dead go guarded over by mighty beasts those deemed particularly troubles are punished in the torments of Hel. The final world in Muspellheim the land of fire, it is from here that, Surt will rise and with his burning sword will bring about, the ultimate destruction of worlds and it will come in blood and fire.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This alone would make a fantastic RPG campaign setting and certainly has been used more than once. However, having recently read several stories with a strong Sci-Fi element like the “Dying Earth” stories by Jack Vance this got me thinking. What if...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What if the worlds as described above were actual worlds? This number of nine world parallels our own solar system. The Sun would be Muspelhiem. Mercury and the Dwarf Planets of Pluto and Eiris would be Hel and Niefhelm split apart. I would keep the 8 planets that we have today and cast each as a Norse world inhabitable by humans but strange and with unique properties like those found in Burrough’s “Mars” stories and similar pulp Sci-Fi. The gods and Giants would be destructive and powerful aliens making and breaking deals with humanity as a proxy in their stalled war. The other races like the Elves and Dwarves might lack the ability to easily cross worlds. Those found on “Earth” would be lost colonies from the other worlds. Perhaps they are only able to travel in one direction or only travel during certain conjunctions of the worlds. Magic would likely be interacting with old technological bits or performing acts that trigger still operating systems placed by a lost civilization or the gods and giants.</span><br /><b id="internal-source-marker_0.6636814484372735" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></b></b><br />
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.6636814484372735" style="clear: right; float: right; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="http://img1.etsystatic.com/000/0/5452023/il_fullxfull.54370609.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="150" src="http://img1.etsystatic.com/000/0/5452023/il_fullxfull.54370609.jpg" title="From the Etc shop of Urbandon http://www.etsy.com/shop/urbandon?ref=seller_info" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I doubt I would reveal intricate details like gods and giants are really technologically advanced aliens to the players at the start of the game. Having them discover this and put such might powers to use for either law or chaos. Will they take part in causing Ragnarok or preventing it from occurring? I also suspect a campaign would need to alter the Norse Dwarves and Elves, not use those names for those creatures and instead find new terms, turning the traditional PC races of Dwarf and Elf into something more in line with the Norse, or my personal favorite make the PC available race human only.</span></b>mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-61048238402009708282011-06-19T23:05:00.000-04:002011-06-19T23:05:45.041-04:00Unboxing Birthright<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The original Birthright Boxed Set had a ton of goodies in it. I had forgotten just how much was there until I cracked open the box again. Here is a list of everything, according to the back of the box:<br />
<ul>
<li>The <i>Atlas of Cerilia</i>: 32 Pages detailing the history and features of the continent</li>
<li>The <i>Rulebook</i>: 96 pages of information on royal-blooded characters, governing kingdoms, and the Cerilian Pantheon</li>
<li>The <i>Ruins of Empire</i> book: 96 pages describing kingdoms waiting to be conquered</li>
<li>Two poster Maps illustrating the lands of Cerilia.</li>
<li>A Battle Mat and 112 War Cards for resolving all types of military clashes plus a custom-designed War Chest for storing the cards.</li>
<li>A four-panel DM<sup>tm</sup> Screen specifically for Birthright campaigns.</li>
<li>Twelve card sheets packed with handy reference material and descriptions of major enemies.</li>
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When I opened the box this is the chaos I was greeted with. Really no that teribble given all the stuff inside. You can see a smattering of “War Cards” and the custom-designed “War Chest” the chest was clearly designed to hold future expansion packs of cards. This just has a basic smattering of Anuirean forces (Anuir being the default starting realm for PCs in this game) Archers, Scouts, Knights, conscripts, siege engines, mercenaries, etc. As well as some common regional monsters, opposing nation units, terrain, and battlefield wide spell effects.
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The next book I found was the rulebook. There is a lot of information packed into these 96 pages and will in fact be the basis for most of the remaining posts discussing Brithright and adapting it to 4E. But I think I have rambled a length about some of my ideas. The rest I will present in a more structured format in the future.
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Delving deeper I uncovered Ruins of Empire. This is very much a DMs book. It breaks the world down into 5 basic regions. Southern Coast, Western Coast, Heartlands, Northern Marches, and Eastern Marches. Each section discusses some of the regional politics, threats to the area, and meta-plot that might inspire a campaign for the region. Each page outlines a nation for a region, provides a bit of color about the people details about the ruler and factions as well as statistics for provinces and armies. There are three other sections to this book as well. An introduction with world details, instructions on reading a nation’s statistics (necessary reading), and a few other bobs added in. The final sections contain dossiers on several prominent leaders around the world with special focus on the Southern Coast and a short adventure to familiarize DMs with how to structure a game of Birthright. This is especially important because the PCs are not expected to go dungeon crawling as often as those in in traditional campaigns and doing so takes time and resources away from other actions that can be taken during the game.
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After that I was present with the 12 card sheets and DM’s screen. These are card-stock nuggets of double sided goodness. The first is a cultural sheet, very fluffy and shows the depth of detail Rich Baker put into this world (probably far more than would be done in a product today. I’m not trying to pass judgement but a game with several pronunciation guides based on region, race, etc. is a lot more effort and detail than I have the time or memory-bandwidth for today). The second and third deal with domain turns and records, emphasizing how important leadership was to this game. The fourth and fifth are maps of the area and hex maps for detailing a region even more. The sixth is a another fluff card with some art depicting the dress of regional military, I like this extra bit a lot because a picture is worth 1,000 words and clothing styles help give a feel for what real world culture inspired them. The last 6 sheets are monsters, some special versions of creatures for Birthright and some abominations special powerful enemies intended to be epic threats in the world.
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The final book in the box is the Atlas of Cerilia. This is the fluffiest piece. It discusses the world the migration of races. The history of the people and cultures as well as the regions. It is intended for both players and DMs but I can’t see many DMs being thrilled with the amount of information duplicated between the Atlas and the Ruins books. The forward to this has a very telling story by Rich Baker. In it he describes leaving the navy and writing a 225,000 word novel that was unpublishable. He used it to get hired at TSR to prove he could “write a lot of words”. However, this omnibus was eventually used to create parts of TSRs next campaign setting. What I do not know is if it was Rich’s intent to use so many strange and made up, and often vaguely Celtic words, or just what was the fashion for game design and fantasy in the mid 90s. Either way the trend didn’t bother me then, but it does now. Mostly because today I understand just how badly I butchered the pronunciations of things which I didn’t notice or care as much about back then. Either way this book is good for perusing for ideas but I think it contains far too much detailed about a very broad area to see extensive use in many campaigns.
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The final three things in the box are poster maps. The first is a map of the Southern Coast region with nations broken up by provinces additionally there is a domain record log that has Anuirean dates included on it. The next map is the Mattle Mat. This is for use exclusively with the War cards, it allows for a very stylized and abstract mass combat system. A useful inclusion to the game but not something I can wrap my head around right now. The final map is of the continent of Cerilia. This shows all the world’s nations, as well as province borders, however names are left out for either the DM to fill in by guessing and using Ruins of Empire, or future expansions to the line. The continent is impressive and while too well defined to really fit in with POL I am sure something can be done to assist with that.
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So ends my unboxing and preliminary review of the Birthright boxed set. I leave you with a photo of what everything looks like when spread out.
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<sub>Post Script: I was toying with having a semi eclectic background of gaming accouterments to add something to these photos. I don’t think it adds anything and in fact seems a little distracting. Unfortunately, I wanted to get this post out quickly and I don’t have a lot of time for photo editing so these less than ideal photos are getting used. If anyone has suggestions or comments about photographing game components they are welcome to leave them below along with any other comments on this post.</sub>mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-2364981522093613042011-06-09T10:18:00.038-04:002011-06-12T14:35:02.809-04:00Birthright: A Retrospective<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Back in 1995 TSR released a campaign setting. This is not a surprise during this time TSR seemed to me making setting to throw out to suer just to see what stuck. I was very young at the time, old enough to play D&D but certainly not old enough to have the disposable income to buy campaign settings & all the paraphernalia that went with them. </span><br /> <br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small; white-space: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small; white-space: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">am hard pressed to believe the setting ever really caught on with that many groups. But, I recall seeing some compelling art in a Sierra advertisement for a video game that seemed to have licensed Birthright. It also obviously stuck with me because in the near future I hope to go through the boxed set and the interesting supplemental materials and dissect what was important to the game and how it might be adapted into something for 4E. </span></span></span></span><br /> <br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small; white-space: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">But before I do that I wanted to try an experiment. I want to write down what I remember being important mechanics and fluff and why 4E fits or doesn't fit it.</span></span><br /> <br />
<a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3387/3200226345_8ae1157241.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3387/3200226345_8ae1157241.jpg" width="96" /></a>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">1) PCs have divine bloodlines that grant them additional powers. 4E PCs are already superheroes compared to other editions and they just get better. This just explains why.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">2) PCs become rulers of the land and can gain class benefits based on how they develop the lands they own. Instead of making it class based make it power source based.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">3) The world has several distinct regions with cultures and peoples populating it. These regions could probably support at least the core races from the PhB1</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">4) Being leaders of the land PCs will be leading large groups against other large groups. There were rules for mass combat and rules for running fights large that squads but smaller than armies. 4E might have trouble here.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">5) The word had few good kingdoms, but several ruled by evil tyrants. This might be workable for PoL but the scale might need to be adjusted.</span><br /> <br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">These are what I remember without opening any books. In future posts with Birthright in them I will look at how to convert the game from AD&D 2nd Ed. to 4E.</span></div>mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-50674545159995615132011-05-27T12:52:00.000-04:002011-05-27T12:52:25.404-04:004E Called ShotsThis morning on that <a href="http://at-will.omnivangelist.net/at-will-webchat/">At-Will webchat</a> there was a discussion about how to develop called-shots for 4E. most of the discussion revolved around how powerful they should. Encounter long was right out. But would it be useful if a called shot only lasted until the end your next turn? Perhaps but it couldn't impose a condition like daze, even stun would be terribly powerful. Another question was how often could it be used. Some wanted it to be at-will. Others suggested it as an encounter. Finally the idea floated up to use it with an action point, I liked this idea because it is an under utilized item in the rules and in the economy of actions.<br />
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While I am still not sure this kind of thing is appropriate for 4E I wanted to take a crack at trying to write up a way to do it. So below is my idea. It isn't refined or play tested but it is a mostly complete and coherent rule. and an argument for adding it to the game.<br />
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<b>Called Shot</b>: Sometimes in a fight you are less concerned with damaging an enemy so much as restricting its abilities. This is the domain of controllers. But 4E has allowed everyone a chance to heal with second wind, encounter or daily powers can let other classes deal lots of damage like strikers, and many classes can make themselves a better target than another to help act a little like a defender. So why can't every class have some built in control? The mechanism for this is going to be termed a <b>Called Shot.</b><br />
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<a href="http://www.openclipart.org/image/250px/svg_to_png/Target_icon.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.openclipart.org/image/250px/svg_to_png/Target_icon.png" width="200" /></a>To perform a Called Shot the player must expend an action. All bonuses for using an action point are provided as usual with the exception of the granted additional standard action. Instead the player may apply an additional affect from the called shot list. The Action Point must be used before the PC makes an attack and may be applied to any kind of attack. This additional affect on the target remains until it makes a save. The use of an Action Point in this way counts towards the one use of an Action Point per an encounter.<br />
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<b>Called Shot List</b>:<br />
Attacker using called shot gain +1 to attack<br />
Attacker using called shot gain +3 per tier to damage<br />
Target take halves it current movement speed<br />
Target takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls<br />
Target takes a -5 penalty to damagemmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-78970453119995684842011-05-25T00:38:00.000-04:002011-05-25T00:38:00.748-04:00RAW vs House Rules vs Home Brew<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">R</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ecently there was a great deal of discussion about house rules, tweaks, etc. and how you play D&D. Well more specifically 4E D&D. Somebody, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://twitter.com/#!/saveversusdeath">saveversusdeath</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> or </span><a href="http://twitter.com/#!/EldritchReverie"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">EldritchReverie</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> asked if we could play 4E without the books.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/30/65158022_2729e66ce2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/30/65158022_2729e66ce2.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My gut reaction was NO! I would need the books to play 4E but 2nd Ed. we frequently play games without books. Several people people posted ways it could be done or encouragement to trying it. A few were condescending indicating people playing RAW were unimaginative sods that don’t get RPGs. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Could I run a game without looking in the DMG for a table with monsters pre-printed and PCs and power cards already. Absolutely. I consider using powercards akin to using the books. I also consider 4E such a carefully balanced game that it would break (in the DM or PCs favor) far too easily. So again I fear running with vaguely remembered powers just seems likely to end in a cakewalk or TPK. Additionally to play without the books I couldn’t level a PC or create on without the books, either. All of these make me feel like I’d need the books for a 4E game. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few of the more interesting ideas floated in that discussion included: </span><br />
<ul><ul><li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Using basic attacks and “powers” that skill training grant. Or just provide example powers based on skills.</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Skip races and just play classes, using simple powers choices.</span></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: circle; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Make all attacks basic and let players describe cool things in place of encounter powers</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></li>
</ul></ul><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, I think I missed the point of the question. The answer to could I play 4E without the books the answer is NO. But could I play D&D without the books, yes. I think that fine distinction rests only with me. But 4E is the rules as presented in the books and is a firm set of expectations playes will bring to the table. I could certainly play a D&D variant based on 4E. To me the fine line is would it be different enough that if a person at a game store saw me playing would they immediately know is was 4E or just that it was an RPG.</span><br />
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<a href="http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/downloads/1/23/22609/crop_120x90/chaos_symbol.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/downloads/1/23/22609/crop_120x90/chaos_symbol.jpg" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Given the above why do I still feel like I could play 2nd Ed without the books? Well a lot of it is that the rules are a loose collection. With lots of optional and expanded rules presented, as just that options or expansion but not something to be expected at every table. The game math is also looser, meaning that roughly recalling a chart or how something is incremented at a level is less likely to dramatically shift the outcome of battle. In other words the game was looser it had a lot more flexibility built into it. But that came at a price. Many groups had a great deal of variation and house rules making it harder to crash other peoples games. Additionally it wasn’t as balanced a game meaning some things were just overpowered resulting in.... more house rules!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To wrap this (intended to be short post up) to me: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">RAW</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is an explicit edition of the game and clearly and readily identifiable to anyone familiar with the game. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">House Rules</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> are a few additions to the game that shouldn’t often break game balance and are table/DM variants that still do not change the defining points of that game/edition. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Variant Games</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> are rules that have been heavily modified enough that if a player that knows the original game would not immediately recognize that version of the game or if they sat at the table their expectations of “clear” rules would not necessarily be met.</span></div>mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-29263939063821223062011-02-07T22:23:00.000-05:002011-02-07T22:23:17.693-05:00Tillam's Thoughts 3<div style="background-color: transparent; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span id="internal-source-marker_0.3296967891510576" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[This post, the previous one and the next soon to follow contains over 2 months worth of play reports summed up. For more details on our adventures follow the live tweets for mmaranda, or check out the compilations made from those tweets here]</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I woke up early. And went to see if Alexi had made it to the drop point we were interested in. It was a brothel, how exciting. I later learned this was the brothel Alexi grew up in and still calls home. More to the point Alexi wasn’t anywhere, but drunk and waiting, was Banacek. I was able to defuse him, not that he needed that much defusing. It seems he kidnapped or unkidnapped or rekidnapped the girl. That made him happy but loosing the box was a bit of a sore spot. He agreed to pay me half of what was owed, on top of that he’d take off the other half if I do a new job. He left me with details about where to meet the team I’d be working with. I wasn’t thrilled with the proposition, but if the house came calling on my debt I couldn’t pay it off so I had to do it. Yet another mess dad left for me.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Regardless I’d had a meeting to attend with Kiin, Hrothgar, Caleb, and Nero assuming the later bothered showing up. Upon arriving it was apparent Kiin had been busy. He met with some people last night including a representative of Yan Liao working as a middle man for House Taiapetra, the same people that put me and onto the path that got me here. They wanted to have a chat with Ingrid because they know she sold information to House Dandolo, as Dandolo is a house that deals in information I think Taiapetra is upset they almost got scooped. I was also able to guess that I could get a good deal this way. Kiin wants me on his team and Taiaptra through Banacek was going to remove my debt. While getting paid twice would be unthinkably grand getting a higher than average premium for my skills. The crew was the same as last night. Alexi, me, Hrothgar, Nero, Kiin, Hu, and Caleb.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Speaking of Hu, it seems he did very well for himself a the game last night. gaining a title as a minor baron of Vrolens </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and partial ownership of the Stabientia Blues.</span></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now we had to get down to business. We needed details about where Ingrid might have gone to ground. Hrothgar and I checked in with a fence of mine, Skjelmund, to see if he had heard of anything recently or if he might have known any of the old hidey-holes. He wasn’t able to provide us much. But Alexi and Nero discovered the gang might have come from the theater district. While Caleb believed they were from somewhere else. After regrouping we decided to split into three teams. Alexi and I would snoop around the theater district. Caleb, Hu, and Kiin would go check their sources, and Hrothgar and Nero would return to the Wyvern’s Sting to see if any stragglers came by or survivors returned.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alexi and I took a private gondola to the theater district. Ovidio, our gondolier, was able to give us a good idea of the theater district; he also thought it was charming that Alexi should his son out to the theater. We noticed we had picked up a tail and decided to loose it. The easiest method was to duck into a show. We happened into a one man Bruthalese how in High Salumar and the resulting scholarly discourse. Fortunately I was able to understand it and could navigate the groups leading us safely to the back entrance. In case of the tail having followed us in I also helped start a debate that came to blows.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ducking out the back we realized how close we were to the bordello side of the district. Given the natures of the house/people we were looking for, it seemed a reasonable place to continue looking for leads. We checked out two brothels with little luck, and while going to a third and final spot fort the evening ran into a pack of Varonian Marines. I was able to out talk them before things got terribly violent and sent them off to wreak havoc on little Shan-Li town. Our last spot of the night was fruitful. Using my stature and good nature as a distraction, Alexi got a name the name Tulio. Apparently he’s a small operator around here, that has been hiring a lot of girls and flashing coin around like he had just pulled off a big job. Amber, a slight young Salumar girl, was most talkative to me. I was able to ply her well and learn where Tulio’s place was, the nature of the back door the girls and wine had been brought through and a layout of the area. 2+ floors, 12+ guys and there were groups. Varonian and Skraeling there. It also seemed Tulio wasn’t in charge of the Skraeling and took orders from them.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With that info we went to regroup at the Swinging Claymore. I decided to grab some sleep and went to a room we had rented out. Before crashing I got the report of what the others did. Hrothgar and Nero went back to the Wyvern’s sting. There were was a Varonian gang looking for Scraeling. They evaded them and took up position in a nearby inn to watch for other stragglers, unfortunately they were tailed and a group of Varonians attacked them. They took out thier attackers and beat a hasty retreat. Caleb and company had a similar incident. Unfortunately Mr. Hu, took the brunt of the attack. However, they grabbed one of their assailants. and brought him back here. Kiin is going to interrogate him and wanted Alexi’s help. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That was when we heard a commotion accompanied by what sounded like squeaking rats. Just then Alexi burst in an letting us know of trouble. Rushing down stairs we find a standoff between Kiin and a gang. He seemed to have shot a girl in the head, and was psoturing to scare thje group off. With us rushing downstairs the Shan Li gang beat feet dragging the girl with them. After that we planned our assault. We had to move quickly. With a few more details provided by Kiin captive we were ready to move. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We came to the decision to go in through the back using Hrothgar’s race and gang knowledge to get us in. That worked until Hrothgar was ushered off and our cover was blown. I’m not really sure of the details after that. A Skraeling rushed me with an axe. I was able to get inside his guard which resulted in the blade missing me. But a kick to the head was good enough to knock me out. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I regained consciousness I learned that when the rest of the group began looking for Hrothgar and Ingrid, they found the place abandoned. There was an escape route used and the token resistance gave anyone else around enough time to escape. We were able to take one captive a weaselly rat faced punk, unable to provide us with much information. The safehouse also had a dragon roosting in the roof some treasure was able to be pulled out but once Momma dragon returned we left the safe house. The only other thing of note was a safe. I found a poison needle trap on the safe and deactivated it. However, I didn’t have time to unlock it and had to bring it home with me. With some potential powerful enemies it seemed best if we split up and went to our respective homes. We agreed to meet again in the morning and regroup on how to find Ingrid. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After sleeping, I woke up early and woke Ping up as well. I introduced him to the safe and taught him how it could be cracked. He was interested and will hopefully be a quick study. Inside was little of interest other than a map of the city of Varo with 9 locations picked out and some Scraeling script. My guess this shows all the safe houses. I also found a necklace made of dragon teeth. Locking them both up I decided to rejoin the team.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With that Tillam and the crew were alerted that Tendyra was insight.</span></div>mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-9400189751615294962011-01-26T09:16:00.001-05:002011-01-26T20:45:46.627-05:00Tillam's Thoughts 2<span id="internal-source-marker_0.918737709512296" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[This post and the next two soon to follow contains over 2 months worth of play reports summed up. For more details on our adventures follow the live tweets for mmaranda, or check out the compilations from those tweets here: ]</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tillam was sitting on boat, eating fish and hardtack, again. He sat thinking. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">How did it come to this. Two weeks ago! TWO WEEKS I was a reputable clockmaker and locksmith. A man with a shop a career and a chance at setting his sight on possibly becoming one of the Cittadini. Then I got two visits in less than 24 hours that changed everything. The first, the clockwork priest hasn't returned, but he will... Hell that business involves Dad and even Got Ren an SPQV to come looking for me. Only thing I could tell him was Dad did some speculative trade with the “Punchline”. I provided him what books I could. My hope is that he'll be able to track down the money that was made there, maybe even provide a clue to Dad's location, really he's the least of my worries but the money would be good.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The second that was what got me here. That damned Banacek Giovanni came collecting a debt I couldn’t pay, so to ease my fiunacial burden he offered me a deal I couldn’t refuse ‘Break into the Ferrante house and retrieve a box’. I’d be working for a Bruthalese named Alexi.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A day after that I had entered the sewers with “Sausage Fingers” Xan as a guide and and a Scraeling named Hrothgar. That ill fated reconnaissance resulted in Xan dieing a terrible death after stepping on some kind of poison sewer fish. Hrothgar and I got him out of the sewers and started looking for an apothecary. We wound up in a shop called the Magic Box where there was a Cebalese named Caleb. He seemed genuinely concerned and cut us a deal on treatment. Although he tried his best to help he was unsuccessful and Xan succumbed to the poison there. Caleb was fortunately able to dispose of the body, and ultimately that was worth the cost of treatment alone. His services weren’t cheap and we had to leave most of Xan’s gear with him to pay for the attempt. Meanwhile Alexi started staking out the the Ferrante house. It seemed he was stockpiling wine. After running a little more information gathering we learned he was doing that in preparation for a big celebration after the Stabientia Blues game. We also learned a great deal of his security team would be with him during that game. Leaving the house relatively empty. So that was when we planned to approach. The Blue’s game was 4 days away. Preparation of supplies and equipment to travel the sewers and deal with noxious gasses, poisoned fish, intelligent hordes of rats, and possibly getting lost down there began. Alexi, also decided to hire a little muscle before we went in. He got three Bruthalese men, possible related to Banacek named, the leader of the group was named Luigi the other two were his brother and cousin. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">That went well until we were just under Ferrante’s house. There was a second team, that was hired by, Ingrid, a Scraeling, who also got Hrothgar in touch with us. They dropped pretty quickly and we would have mopped the floor with them except for their Omulian mage. He put half of us to sleep. I was able to throw a few daggers at him and take him out of the fight but after that one of their warriors, cracked me on the head. Not sure what happened in detail but I was told Hrothgar woke up from the magical snooze and with the help of the hired muscle took apart anyone that got in his way. After people were revived from the fight and we had some time to search the other team we proceeded on into the subbasement of the Ferrante house. Alexi produced a map, from the markings on it it looked like it was my father’s handwriting and secret script. I never learned his code. But still, knowing he had done the work allowed me to guess where traps were. Alexi, also found a scroll of protection from undead on the other team.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Armed with the map and the scroll we proceeded a little too boldly. I missed a pressure plate on the floor causing hundreds of gallons of water to come flooding down on us. Sewer water and lord knows what else to come streaming down a side pipe. It was an old trap and disrepair prevented it from doing any harm to us. As we moved forward I spotted a classic pit trap/choke point and navigated our way around it. But that is as far as we got before things went terrible. We reached a closed portcullis. While we began to deal with that, noises started coming from a side tunnel, shufflings and groanings and a stench like I’ve never experienced. It was then that we saw the guardians. They were zombies or something like it. Undead, a creation out of nightmares. These things shambled out. I used the scroll as quickly as I could but they came on more quickly. Swarming us assulting not only our bodies but our senses as well. We forced out way past the gate. But lost several of out support. Leaving just Luigi, Hrothgar, Alexi, and myself. We ducked down a secret passage marked on the map. When we got tot he other end we met with what remained of a third team of people trying to crack Ferrante’s house. This team now consisted of two survivors Giovanni and his bodyguard Nero. The rest fell to undead like those we had fled from. It seems Banacek learned of the double cross and came to help us out. When he saw there was a fight he went on with his team.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">After we regrouped we found the entry to the actual basement of Ferrante’s house. We moved up and forward reeking of undead ichor and the sewers. As we progressed a time delayed trap caught the last of our spare muscle. We progressed deeper into the basement. We had to be careful, but were able to successfully evade the staff moving about. Yet there was something strange as we came to the location of Ferrante’s vault and the presumed location of our target. There was another man and he seemed to be threatening one of the servants. Hrothgar was first to approach and we were able to determine that he was there to collect the team Ingrid sent. Though perhaps that team was to keep Hrothgar alive if he didn’t put up a fight. Either way I was needed to open the safe the box was in and that I did. But far more interesting than the safe, and the box, that was never opened, was the structure that took up the bulk of this treasurery. It was an elaborate printing press. What he was printing and why he needed that much paper, and ink was beyond me. Also the full details of how it worked would have taken me weeks to suss out. This machine did not just impress type set letters onto paper. It did more than that. It seemed almost as though it could cast the plates that other printing machines could use. As if printing on paper was a secondary goal of this. Regardless I couldn't spend much time inspecting that device. I had a safe to crack and a debt to have lifted. So I retrieved it and put it in the hands of Banacek. We used Kiin (the man hired to extract the other team) and the servant he was pushing around to bring us to the wine. We put the box in the wine. Quickly bathed in fresh water and wine and began acting as porters for the stuff. The plan was to take it out of the building and away.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As we executed this plan, we found things made even easier because some Shan Li was dominating the Pai Gow Poker table. Turns out that crazy Shan Li was Mr. Hu the luckiest guy I know. As we were almost out of the building Banacek and Alexi spotted a woman on a balcony. They left me with Nero, Hrothgar, and Kiin to bring the box back to the drop point. We were able to give Kiin the slip. But not long enough. As we started up the rock Kiin and a ship full of people ambushed us. He had Caleb with him. We had little option but surrender.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Kiin was friendlier to Hrothgar than me or Nero. But Hrothgar seemed as blindsided by Kiin’s actions as anyone. He also advocated for my safety so I am still inclined to trust him. In the end we were hustled onto a boat and travelled to Terminalia. During the travel we established that Ingrid set us, and Hrothgar, up. Again to Hrothgar’s honor and credibility he said he would talk to Ingrid on my behalf to see about me getting paid. I also seems Kiin hasn’t performed many secret operations and was working well below scale. Eventually we pulled into a dock near a warehouse. I was left in the boat with Nero and a crew of Shan Li. The rest went into the warehouse with the box. They came back with money and no box. The decision was made that night to see Ingrid and try to get to the bottom of the details. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We took, what I learned later to be, Kiin’s boat up the canals towards The Wyvern’s Sting. This was Ingrid’s bar/base, I say was because when we arrived the place was on fire. Some were trying to put it out and others were negotiating looting rights. Either way there were no Skraeling to be found. Hrothgar began looking for a secret entrance, Kiin, Caleb and Nero were looking for witnesses or to determine if there were any Skraeling hiding in the area. Mr. Hu and I heard a child calling for help from inside the conflagration. Somewhere on the second floor. Scaling the building was relatively easy but inside was smoke and burning death. As we moved through the building we were cutoff from each other. Mr. Hu was able to go through the entire building and he found the boy. I however, found a dead body being consumed by a giant raven. It was confused by my stature and I was able to escape without it eating me. I was unfortunately unable to save the creature.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It took us some time to regroup after that. Hrothgar had found signs of a fight a blood leading out of the secret exit. Kiin, Caleb, and Nero hadn’t been able to learn much but they did catch Mr. Hu as he jumped out a window with a young Shan Li, boy named, Ping. I was able to calm him down. We learned the boy had no family but an old man who by all account perished in the blaze. By now dawn was starting to break and we were all exhausted. The rest of the group was separating with plans to rest for a few hours before meeting up at lunch tomorrow. As we drifted apart I found Ping following me. Realizing he had no place to go, I took the orphan in. If he is smart enough he can become my apprentice; if not then he’ll apprentice to somebody else in a career needing less finesse of both mind and hand. But in the meantime he can be a focus for Aunt Fiora and he might even be able to help her around the house. As we took a gondola home he told me some details of what happened.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It seems The "Fancy Boys", a gang or as we later pieced together possibly members of house Dandolo, torched the building. The were in Ping’s words “6 Varna (Shan-Li for Varonian) wearing fancy overcoats. Dark colors but very rich.” He claims they walked up to the Wyvern's Sting fought with somebody and then torched the place. Seems like they used Molotov cocktails. Nasty business that. We finally reached home. I set him up in what used to be my room. Then I collapsed on my bed stinking of ash, sweat, and stale wine.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">…</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To be continued in the next post. Broken up to keep it short enough that people might still read it.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-43381318252876120972011-01-04T21:40:00.000-05:002011-01-04T21:40:42.037-05:00New Year; Same BlogThis is hopefully going to be a quick little post because I have a long one brewing. But I wanted to record my hobby goals for the year of our lord two thousand eleven.<br />
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1) Blog more. Last year I started strong and promptly fizzled. I do now want to let this happen this year. So I've worked a deal with Oodja the DM of the Varo campaign that should encourage me to blog more. On a side note <a href="http://confessionsofagourmand.blogspot.com/">here</a> is his Varo story blog and <a href="http://haved20willtravel.blogspot.com/">here</a> his gaming blog.<br />
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2) Paint more miniatures at a quality level. I would like one day to be a crazy old man that paints well enough to fund his lead addiction and wins prizes for it as well.<br />
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3) Provide value. I tweet a lot as @mmaranda mostly for D&D and a lot with the 4E community this year I want to turn that into something that more than just my immediate friends find useful or entertaining because it shows the oddities that arise in their play style.<br />
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It doesn't seem like much but hopefully it will make this place on the web a little more interesting.<br />
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Cheersmmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-86610987631331423242010-09-29T00:18:00.001-04:002010-09-29T09:57:27.585-04:00In Defense of the Dungeon<div class="MsoNormal">In Defense of the Dungeon:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I know this blog seemed to be geared towards 2<sup>nd</sup> Ed. But I’ve noticed a trend within some of the 4E community, a version of D&D I also play. This trend has been the idea of rethinking the dungeon or abandoning it altogether. While they have some good or at least interesting points <a href="http://www.robertjschwalb.com/2010/09/reexamining-the-dungeon/">here</a> and <a href="http://www.sarahdarkmagic.com/content/death-dungeon">here</a> I feel a need to defend the dungeon and what it is. I also know my argument is incomplete but I felt it was important to say the words while people are still interested rather than refine them until after the point people. care. If you have comments please leave them.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-xLCc_wy3Z0/SbRO6M4PQrI/AAAAAAAAAAM/STaF0S5kxOg/s1600-R/284222197_6b8db24495.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br />
</a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-xLCc_wy3Z0/SbRO6M4PQrI/AAAAAAAAAAM/STaF0S5kxOg/s1600-R/284222197_6b8db24495.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-xLCc_wy3Z0/SbRO6M4PQrI/AAAAAAAAAAM/STaF0S5kxOg/s320-R/284222197_6b8db24495.jpg" width="249" /></a></div>In D&D the Moldvay Basic Set the <i>basic</i> definition of dungeon as this: "A place, underground and often among ruins, where the players adventure."<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I feel that is a good description but can be expanded just a little more. A dungeon is any confined place or places an adventure happens. It is where the PCs believe their goal lies, or at least treasure and monsters. It need not be underground and it need not be abandoned.<br />
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By my definition a dungeon can be many things. It can be sewers the PCs retreat into after benig chased by the guards because a local accused on of them to be a Witch. Or it could be warehouse the PCs break into to rescue an abducted merchant prince. Or it could be a series of caves the goblins raiding local farmsteads have holed up in. In any case it is likely to be the place battles will happen in and a map will be drawn for. However, the confusion/disapointment most people are railing against is the traditional dungeon. Like those found <a href="http://jrients.blogspot.com/2007/12/increbidle-cross-sections.html">here</a>.<br />
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These traditional dungeons are confined spaces. They help new DMs because it limits the options they can expect PCs to make and reduces the amount of space a DM must flesh out when creating something new. They can be very elaborate or simple in design, but allow a creative DM to tell a story if that is the type of game he or it can simple be a series of rooms that interconnect to create several combat encounters.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pzKQyddsnmU/SnhSvM6FXiI/AAAAAAAABU0/gVSYTnEcvjY/s320/dungeon+masters+guide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pzKQyddsnmU/SnhSvM6FXiI/AAAAAAAABU0/gVSYTnEcvjY/s320/dungeon+masters+guide.jpg" /></a></div>D&D is a fantasy game. And Gary Gygax writes in the 1st Edition AD&D DMG "Wealth abounds; it is simply awaiting the hand bold and strong enough to take it! This is a basic precept to fantasy adventure gaming ... And are not there dragons with great hoards? Tombs with fantastic wealth and fell guardians? Rapacious giants with spoils? Dwaven mines brimming with gems? ... Why the list goes on and on!" All of this is a typical pulp fantasy milieu. The common folk are too afraid and ill equipped to take the treasure lying around. This treasure and others can be found on the fringes of civilization while people continue to explore further and further out, the world grows older and darker and eventually what once was found is lost again and the cycle repeats.<br />
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To frame it in a 4E points of light perspective. Every time a light goes out new dungeons are beginning to form as castles topple and the land takes back what is hers. As the land fills in around a fallen fortress it is forgotten except in myth and legends. Eventually something happens and an opening is revealed. The creatures that are not part of civilization but instead prey upon it find these openings and begin using them to again plague local townships.<br />
But the above doesn't need to happen it could be something that has never ceased being populated but is far enough from civilization that most have forgotten about it if they ever knew it once existed. The type of dungeon is partly dependent on the location and the locations can vary greatly. And also on the type and variety of monsters inside as well as the relationships between those monsters. Sometimes it can be confrontational like the the cults in the T1-4 <i>Temple of Elemental Evil</i> and other times it can be helpfully symbiotic like the Orcs and Basilisks in A1 <i>Slave Pits of the Undercity</i><br />
A secret temple built by a religion to keep an ancient and powerful artifact safe. Might have humans guards on the first level. A few wandering deeper in to keep the monstrous guardians fed. But as you go deeper the wards get stronger and immortal representatives of the cult keep this artifact safe.<br />
A tower created by a mad wizard might have several areas where food can be scraped from walls or conjured via magical portals. Creatures once used for experimentation have broken free and formed small communities after the wizard disappeared. Lines of influence have been drawn and with the exception of small raiding parties these creatures cannot get further in or out from what they have staked out. The creatures have been struggling so long for mere survival the knowledge of the magical items that surround them have been lost to generations.<br />
Above are just two ways in which diverse dungeons can be populated and be seemingly maintainable without stretching too far the veil of suspended disbelief.<br />
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As the PCs enter and explore these areas it is up to their creativity to determine how they interact with it. If the DM restricts the space they can adventure in, he or she is not only limiting the creativity of the players by saying you cannot pass until you do complete this task he is also breaking the fragile suspension of disbelief and thin veil of pseudo reality created by the above. This is most notable by limiting the interaction of the dungeon as an ecosystem and creating that sense of pre-generated stagnancy of a dungeon awaiting in suspended animation awaiting adventurers to solve its problems. It also enforces the feeling of safety players get that the DM will only dispense level appropriate challenges and level appropriate times that can always be over come by level appropriate applications of violence.<br />
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This is why the traditional dungeon is something that should still be preserved and considered as a fundamental element of the D&D game in this generation and in the future. It is a place where strange things happen. It is the reason not everyone is an adventurer and rich beyond their dreams. It is also the reason we can have a world that "works" in our imaginations but also has monsters that can tear most things to shreds and yet the frail humanoid races without levels can still survive.</div>mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-1345458015014995122010-09-21T08:51:00.000-04:002010-09-21T08:51:16.122-04:00Last PC Creation Post: Going ShoppingThis will be my last post about character creation until Tillam dies horribly (possibly eaten by rats or in a fire). But I wanted to discuss something that seems to have taken a back seat in 4th edition. Equipping a PC with mundane items and having a detailed inventory of all your equipment how you are carrying it and how much it all weighs.<br />
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There are many schools of thought for equipping a PC. The quick summary of those I've encountered are:<br />
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1) Spend all your gold on a wide and varied selection of things eventually you will find a use for that stuff.<br />
2) Buy only those items you know you will need. Gold can be spent on items as you know you need them.<br />
3) Buy a standard set of equipment the same list of items every time for every character.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g34/genesphotobucket/inspirational%20illustration/blogsizebw/DG675-BRET-KNIGHTS-1bs2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g34/genesphotobucket/inspirational%20illustration/blogsizebw/DG675-BRET-KNIGHTS-1bs2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I must admit I usually option for something between options 1 and 3. This time, however, given that the campaign will be city based and Tillam is a moderately well to do businessman I've decided to go with a foppish style of equipment mostly clothing and changes of it along with a few pieces any good thief would need.<br />
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Very little of my equipment needs explanation it is all the basic stuff from the PhB but here I present his equipment. All the while trying to stay acutely aware of my carrying capacty of 35 lbs. I also do try to keep track of what is on Tillam's person and where in the event a pickpocket attempt happens.<br />
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<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: medium none; margin-left: 5.4pt;"><tbody>
<tr> <td style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(242, 242, 242); border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b>Item<o:p></o:p></b></div></td> <td style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(242, 242, 242); border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b>Notes<o:p></o:p></b></div></td> <td style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(242, 242, 242); border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b>Weight<o:p></o:p></b></div></td> <td style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(242, 242, 242); border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b>Local.<o:p></o:p></b></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Belt<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">-<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Worn<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Cloak<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal">Cloth<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">-<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Worn<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Leather Armor<o:p></o:p></span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal">AC 8<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">15<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Worn<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Dagger<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 8pt;">2 on belt 2 in boots 1 on chest<o:p></o:p></span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">5<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Worn<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Thieves Tools<o:p></o:p></span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal">Special Set<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">1<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Belt<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Boots<o:p></o:p></span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal">Soft<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">0<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Worn<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Surcoat<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">0<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Worn<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Tunic<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">0<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Worn<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Breeches<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">0<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Worn<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Hose<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">0<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Worn<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Gloves<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">0<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Worn<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Sack Large<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">.5<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Pack<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Sack Small<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal">x2 <o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">.2<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Pack<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Backpack<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">2<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Worn<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Pouch Small<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal">x2<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">1<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Belt<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Pouch Large<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">1<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Belt<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Flint & Steel<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal">in S. Pouch 1<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">0<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Worn<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Chalk<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal">in S. Pouch 1<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">0<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Worn<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Hooded Lantern<o:p></o:p></span></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal">Backpack<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">2<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Worn<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Lamp Oil<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal">x2 in L Pouch <o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">2<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Worn<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Lamp Oil<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal">2<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Stored<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Torch<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Stored<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Sealing Wax<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Stored<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Gloves<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Stored<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Hose<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal">3<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Stored<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Breeches<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal">2<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Stored<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Tunic<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal">2<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Stored<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Boots<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal">Soft<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Stored<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal">Belt<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">Stored<o:p></o:p></div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border: 1.5pt solid windowtext; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 76.5pt;" valign="top" width="102"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 1.5in;" valign="top" width="144"><div class="MsoNormal">Total Weight<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal">31.9<o:p></o:p></div></td> <td style="border-color: -moz-use-text-color windowtext windowtext -moz-use-text-color; border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: medium 1.5pt 1.5pt medium; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.9pt;" valign="top" width="65"><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</tbody></table>mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-83562498476064176962010-09-17T10:31:00.000-04:002010-09-17T10:31:06.298-04:00Tillam's Thoughts 1<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="entry-content">10-2-1758VR</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Tillam, sat in atrium and sipped his drink. It was raw outside but the alcohol helped to warm him. It also helped keep his head clear and he had a lot to think about. It had been a rough few days. He began to sort through the events. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">First there was the damage to repair to his house. But at least the trap worked, it is a shame when a security man cannot discuss or show the success of his traps. But still it works and helped even the odds. Well as much as the odds could have been evened. That “man” if he can be called that was strong and fast. He gave me a good drubbing. All because of something my father stole? I wonder if it has to do with the “Punchline” affair. That had the SPQV on my doorstep that morning and early as well. The two things almost have to be connected. Dad wasn’t a thief. I am, but he could barely run a business let alone become a privateer and take a ship.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">He sighed, took another sip and began to organize himself and his thoughts better. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">There is a lot to work out and the new job with Alexi and the Tiapetra’s. No, I can’t get distracted. First things first look at the past sort it out so I can deal with the future.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Last night a tall and incredibly strong “man”. named <span class="entry-content">Maliekas.</span> picked my masterful lock. He came in with 2 thugs. I don’t know why he hired the thugs they were completely unnecessary. They proved it by falling for the trap. One died and the other broke a leg. I suppose that’s why. To a “man” like Maliekas hiring thugs to trigger a trap instead of him was worth it. He was certainly looking for me, but I don’t know what his intentions were. Who holds up a man by the neck and then interrogates him? How did he expect me talk? Then with the pummeling. I’m just glad he missed me once in the dark. Probably means he can’t see in it. After the miss I got him talking. He wanted to know where my father was. I was starting to get some information from him until Aunt Fiora came bursting out her room like crazy bat she is. What did she think she was doing? She could have impaled me. All while I was getting the situation under control. Clearly, Fiora wasn’t thinking I’ll have to try and have a talk with her. Things are getting dangerous. <o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Back to events though, I got him talking about why he was there. He wanted information on Dad’s where abouts. I couldn’t give him anything because the old codger took off 19 months ago. I thought it was to find a quiet place to die. Apparently not! So Maliekas having revealed that information and easily dodging Fiora’s wild charge knocks here out and tells me ominously we will meet again to discuss the retrieval of what my father stole.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Tillam mulls those events over, then drinks a little more. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">After he took off, I began inspecting the carnage. The cantilever works dropping 120lbs of pain onto the would be thugs. One was crushed to other lamed. I learned Maliekas’name from him and that Maliekas either is or was once a priest. The lame duck also told me they got paid half in advance. I didn’t want to deal with the consequence or disposal of 2 dead bodies so I made him think he was getting off with a good bargain keeping his gold and crawling away. Maybe one day if I need a cheap thug that owes me the rest of his life I’ll try to collect that debt. But what to do with the body? I got lucky there. Xan “Sausage Fingers” was around sniffing at what might be scavenged from my shop. Seeing as I was still alive he seemed a touch disappointed. But I was able to convince him to come by at the start of his rat catching duties to pick-up some free rat bait. So at least the body wasn’t hard to get rid of. And he had some things on him. Hopefully the fillings and 5 of dinar can repair the damage to the stairs and banister.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That morning was almost as scary though. I open the shop to find an SPQV at the door. Don’t know if he saw anything interesting there. But he was looking for me. He wanted to know if I knew about my father’s location. Since I wasn’t much help he attempted to ply me with information to see if I’d let anything slip. It seems dad may or may not have had some correspondence dealing with a ship called the “Punchline” it was very unclear if he helped privateer the ship or if he had other dealings with it. But the SPQV wanted what information I could get. I asked Auntie to see if there were any notes in the old books. She kept them so hopefully she’ll know and find them within the next 3 days before SQPV Wren comes back. <o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My day went rather smoothly after that, until a very awkward thug, Giovani Benecheck, strong-armed me into being a security man on a job. His leverage was, the last of dad’s old debts, I got the ballooned interest cut down. At least it seems unlikely they’d kill me after the job is done. The deal wasn’t too good. After the job I’ll still have the principal balance to pay off. But it is something. Giovani told me to await a tall unkempt gutter Bruthalese named Alexi. The job could be interesting lots of new construction so the countermeasures are new but also likely untried. It will be a test my skills and probably everyone else’s as well.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Finishing his glass, Tillam, looks sadly at it. Then smiles, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Alexi Patrovovich, is what I was told to expect. He’s trying to hard to not be a street kid. But the details of the job are very unclear. He’s still putting together the team. What I know is this: The house belongs to a man named Ferante. It is a villa in Stabientia and has canal access. The building is a guarded compound and we need to get in to find a vault inside to retrieve a box that belongs to Ferante’s son Septimo. It seems unlikely Ferante made this money as the barge pilot he claims to be. I’ve advised Alexi to find some muscle and get more information on the man. I also got Xan hired on to get us into the building he know the sewers of Stabientia and with luck will help us avoid notice getting in. I think we should have at least 2 exits one of them being a boat on the canal the other going back into the sewers. If we rabbit onto the streets the odds are in Ferante’s favor because I don’t doubt a man that owns a compound also own some of the men and buildings around.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">With one last look at his empty glass, Tillam stands, straightens himself out. He claps warmth back into his hands. He has a meeting to go to and call him many things but never late for dinner.</div>mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-75684166605999193092010-09-12T14:58:00.001-04:002010-09-13T19:03:23.031-04:00Contacts in the City of Varo<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Oodja the DM pulled a card from Shadow run and has decided to use something similar to their contacts mechanic. A PC can have between 2 and 12 contact points. A contact has a level and a loyalty. The higher the level the more access they have to resources and knowledge. The higher the loyalty the more often the contact can be used and the more of their resources they are willing to devote to you. A contact maximum level and loyalty can be 4 each rank required one point. A PC can choose to accept a flat 7 or roll 2d6. </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Embracing the randomness and rolls found in AD&D I decided to roll I got a 10. Thinking about Tillam, I considered generating 5 1/1 contacts. But I like to think that Tillam is the kind of person everyone likes so I decided to generate a 3/3 contact somebody that Tillam trusts and trusts Tillam and is well connected. I then decide to generate 2 other 1/1 contacts. I now present my contacts and their details some things are intentionally left open and available for the Oodja to fill in and use.</span><br />
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<div style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">1) Fenzani Orentes 3/3</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://blog.students.ubc.ca/healthyminds/files/2009/10/chef-says-okay.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="314" src="http://blog.students.ubc.ca/healthyminds/files/2009/10/chef-says-okay.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Fenznai is the owner and occasional chef of Oentes'. For the most part he will only cook for his friends. And Fenzani is a great chef. He's the creator of Kobold Slathered in Nutella. Orentes' is a pub with rooms to rent. It sits just outside of Stabentia, but the area's kept clean and safe by Fenzani. He wants clientèle to feel safe. While he may want people to feel safe if anyone was thinking of being a deadbeat he's got a great payment plan. If you don't pay then you go fishing. Depending on his mood and how many fishermen he's got you either end up working the hauling, from his boat "Legitimate Girl" or you get put inside the lobster pots.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Fenzani didn't always have this life of legitimacy. For years Orentes' was the public facing side of his business and the "Working Girl", as she used to be called, was used to smuggle cargo in from larger vessels. They would drop the contraband off into his lobster pots or connected to his buoys and he'd pick up. But he's been out of the game for years. He left when he got fed up after finding his wife, and I forget if it was his 2nd or 4th or 6th wife, having her locks picked by his former security man. He had them both put out then he got out. </span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Fenzani for all his mischievous activities has done very well for himself in many aspects but his greatest failure has been with wives. He hasn't tad one in some time. But, when he did; the odd numbered ones weren't that interesting the even numbered wives all have stories that drive him to drink. Each has a tale and a nickname "Picked Locks" has already been described, there was also "Angel" face like one but a tendency to drink and to knife anyone dumb enough to think of "taking advantage" which made her a great girl until she shivved a rivals conciliator after peace talks turned to festivities, and there was also "Harpy" depending on how much Fenzani's been drinking "Harpy" either screeched enough to crack glass or was actually a harpy either way "she fell off a boat onto her own private island". The odd numbers just died unceremoniously, the first in childbirth, the 3rd on a ferry in winter while visiting her sister & newborn, and the 5th to plague.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As is clear he's been around. Still has some muscle to do work for him and he keeps things secure around his place. He's doing his best to go legit, well as legit as any crime boss will go.</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Vikings_sailing2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="293" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Vikings_sailing2.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">2) Skjelmund 1/1</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Skjelmund once was a viking. A great raider, was he. He had a tendency to put anything flammable to the torch, but he also had an eye for valuables. This served him well until one day a Skald told a tale that showed he made out better viking than the chieftain running it. He lost his right eye and most of his left hand. Now he resides in Varo fat and wealthy of the sales of his viking antiquities. He's a fence but nobody's ever hauled him up on charges, and those who know he's a fence wouldn't admit proven it and some claim for the right cut he'll provide his associates with weapons and munitions not normally available inside the walls of Varo.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Coin_of_Apollo_Agyieus.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Coin_of_Apollo_Agyieus.png" /></span></a></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">3) Fullmen Sattelles 1/1</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Fullmen Sattelles an adopted member of One of the Great Merchant Houses. He's an educated and swift individual he keeps the books and always tries to get ahead. However, since he's really only good at keeping the books it has limited his upwards mobility. He's an awkward man always looking at you like he's tallying your current value against the time he's spent on you. If the tally gets imbalanced to his; determinant he'll cut you off. But since he keeps the books, he could be useful and I suspect more people owe him favors for burying an expenditure here and there than he admits. But he also knows and catalogs each time it happens and has a price associated with each.</span></div>mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-92027759856858752572010-09-12T14:54:00.000-04:002010-09-12T14:54:23.125-04:00Skills, Kits, and Proficiencies Oh My!<div class="MsoNormal">Creating The First Character Continued</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When we left off Tillam had stats and a background but that was about it. Now I’ve got a lot of things to add to flesh him out. Including starting gold, assigning my languages, my non weapon proficiencies (the things I’m really good at), my weapon proficiencies (the weapons I know how to wield effectively), assign my rogue skill points, and pick a kit (a way to further customize my character similar to prestige classes or paragon paths but for 1<sup>st</sup> level characters)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://static.newworldencyclopedia.org/4/49/Medieval_writing_desk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="319" src="http://static.newworldencyclopedia.org/4/49/Medieval_writing_desk.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Now Tillam is, in AD&D terms, an exceptionally smart person so he knows 4 languages in addition to common and thieves cant, which is exclusive to rogues. I decide to spend 3 of them on regional languages of the system. I keep on in reserve this is because we are using an optional rule that allows bonus languages to be spent on additional Non-Weapon Proficiencies. The languages I have chosen are Shan-Li (a common language among the working class), High Salumar (the Latin of this world), and Channar (the language of poets)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">From there I began looking towards my Non-Weapon Proficiencies (NWP). Rogues get the short end of the stick here because they start with only 3 NWPs and get a new one ever 4 levels unlike the other classes which get a new NWP every 3. The PhB and other expansion books cover a lot of skills and deal with the things common people adventurers and skilled laborers would do.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal">I should also pause here for a second; especially since I’m ranting. Some Kits require specific NWPs be taken or provide you with bonuses so I should pick one before I go one. So I should look at that before going onward. The kit that most fits what I envision for Tillam is the Troubleshooter. This odd kit is a security expert, he is in many ways a white hat hacker. I like that about it. The kit requires the Observation NWP. It also has some bonuses to my thief’s skill. Aside from that the advantage and disadvantage is I’m a walking lightning rod for Murphy’s Law and for plot. Anything can go fantastically or terribly for me. It is up to the DM to dole that luck out in equal measure. I’m sure Oodja is up to that job.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now to, finish selecting my NWPs. I have observation. I also want to emphasize the business man aspect of Tillam so I add the Locksmith NWP witch will also work for clock repair. Tillam’s a charismatic guy and to emphasize that plus his intelligence I take Fast Talking hopefully it will help me bamboozle hirelings into taking a cheaper rate and also give me an advantage when working out contracts. Finally since I have High Salumar as a spoken language I should take Reading/Writing to emphasize his learned aspect and because High Salumar is mostly dead language found primarily in writing.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Degen_-_Fig._1,2,12._Neue_preu%C3%9Fische_Degen._%E2%80%93_3_u._4_Degen_Philipps_II._von_Spanien._%E2%80%93_5._Degen_....jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Degen_-_Fig._1,2,12._Neue_preu%C3%9Fische_Degen._%E2%80%93_3_u._4_Degen_Philipps_II._von_Spanien._%E2%80%93_5._Degen_....jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Next I look at weapon proficiencies. I immediately decide to select the dagger as one of them. It is an excellent weapon because it is a ranged and melee weapon. As a ranged weapon it is thrown and Halflings gain a +1 attack bonus to thrown weapons. As a melee weapon I can fight with 2 of them (one in each hand) and make one attack as normal and the second attack with a -1 penalty to the attack (the penalties are -2 & -4 with your dexterity modifier added as an offset but cannot provide bonuses). The second weapon I choose is a hand-crossbow. It will be a while before I can afford that 300gp luxury but I want to be able to use it when I buy one. Any other weapons I suffer a -3 penalty to attack with.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now I the next to last step to my character needs to have thieves skills picked out. I have a lot of modifiers. There are the base skills. The 60 points I get to allocate (no more than 30 can go into an one skill) the bonuses from my race and high DEX, the bonuses from my kit, and the bonus to lockpicking from the locksmith skill. I think it is best to use a simple grid to outline what is going on here</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br />
</o:p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br />
</o:p></div><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-insideh: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-border-insidev: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 480;"><tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;"> <td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 113.4pt;" valign="top" width="151"><div class="MsoNormal">Name</div></td> <td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 81.0pt;" valign="top" width="108"><div class="MsoNormal">Starting Value</div></td> <td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 63.0pt;" valign="top" width="84"><div class="MsoNormal">Modifiers</div></td> <td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 96.8pt;" valign="top" width="129"><div class="MsoNormal">Discretionary</div></td> <td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.6pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">Total Value</div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 113.4pt;" valign="top" width="151"><div class="MsoNormal">Pick Pockets</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 81.0pt;" valign="top" width="108"><div class="MsoNormal">15</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 63.0pt;" valign="top" width="84"><div class="MsoNormal">-</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 96.8pt;" valign="top" width="129"><div class="MsoNormal">7</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.6pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">22</div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 113.4pt;" valign="top" width="151"><div class="MsoNormal">Open Locks</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 81.0pt;" valign="top" width="108"><div class="MsoNormal">10</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 63.0pt;" valign="top" width="84"><div class="MsoNormal">+30</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 96.8pt;" valign="top" width="129"><div class="MsoNormal">11</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.6pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">51</div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 3;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 113.4pt;" valign="top" width="151"><div class="MsoNormal">Find/Remove Traps</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 81.0pt;" valign="top" width="108"><div class="MsoNormal">5</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 63.0pt;" valign="top" width="84"><div class="MsoNormal">+10</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 96.8pt;" valign="top" width="129"><div class="MsoNormal">15</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.6pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">30</div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 4;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 113.4pt;" valign="top" width="151"><div class="MsoNormal">Move Silently</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 81.0pt;" valign="top" width="108"><div class="MsoNormal">10</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 63.0pt;" valign="top" width="84"><div class="MsoNormal">+15</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 96.8pt;" valign="top" width="129"><div class="MsoNormal">1</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.6pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">26</div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 5;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 113.4pt;" valign="top" width="151"><div class="MsoNormal">Hide in Shadows</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 81.0pt;" valign="top" width="108"><div class="MsoNormal">5</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 63.0pt;" valign="top" width="84"><div class="MsoNormal">+20</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 96.8pt;" valign="top" width="129"><div class="MsoNormal">1</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.6pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">26</div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 6;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 113.4pt;" valign="top" width="151"><div class="MsoNormal">Detect Noise</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 81.0pt;" valign="top" width="108"><div class="MsoNormal">15</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 63.0pt;" valign="top" width="84"><div class="MsoNormal">+5</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 96.8pt;" valign="top" width="129"><div class="MsoNormal">0</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.6pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">20</div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 7;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 113.4pt;" valign="top" width="151"><div class="MsoNormal">Climb Walls</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 81.0pt;" valign="top" width="108"><div class="MsoNormal">60</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 63.0pt;" valign="top" width="84"><div class="MsoNormal">-15</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 96.8pt;" valign="top" width="129"><div class="MsoNormal">5</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.6pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">45</div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 8; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;"> <td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 113.4pt;" valign="top" width="151"><div class="MsoNormal">Read Languages</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 81.0pt;" valign="top" width="108"><div class="MsoNormal">0</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 63.0pt;" valign="top" width="84"><div class="MsoNormal">-5</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 96.8pt;" valign="top" width="129"><div class="MsoNormal">20</div></td> <td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 88.6pt;" valign="top" width="118"><div class="MsoNormal">15</div></td> </tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In another installment I’ll discuss equipment I will let everyone know that while rolling for starting gold I got the slightly below average 50gp starting value. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But I think the next topic I talk about will be contacts who they are and what we can do with them. While not an item from an actual AD&D product (although the Lankhmar rules might have mention of the concept) it is something this campaign is using, inspired by ShadowRun.</div>mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7207035465051593619.post-91255971936036672752010-08-31T23:10:00.001-04:002010-09-01T09:42:03.303-04:00Creating The First CharacterdunA few days after the decision to start up an AD&D 2nd Ed. game I start chatting with the new DM Oodja. I jokingly threaten to create a Psionicist. He laughs and says "You would, wouldn't you. Well, it would fit in nicely with the world." Crap, I start thinking about the Psionics rules in AD&D and the Complete Psion's Handbook and the Psionic combat. Ughh that makes my head hurt. I have to back peddle and fast.<br />
<br />
I start talking about another character I'd like to play. A halfling, but he thinks he is a human. He's got a dwarf problem. I don't know why but the concept of a halfling insisting he's a human with a "dwarf problem" in a fantasy world with dwarves elves and all the rest entertains me.<br />
<br />
I go on. So this halfling Tillam was raised by a human. The old guy never wanted Tillam to feel very different and Tillam never knew any other halflings so he just doesn't get that he isn't a human. Tillam's father is/was a well meaning clockmaker. But he wasn't very good with money so Tillam got to travel a lot often rather quickly.<br />
<br />
This was a good chunk of Tillam's life until they got word that his uncle, a successful merchant in Varo, passed away. They move to Varo his aunt starts keeping the books and things settle down. Tillam picks up the trade of clockmaking but also branches out into locksmithing. <br />
<br />
Ok so I've created a halfling Thief. But I don't want him to be a standard thief or a thief with a heart of gold. Oodja mentions that the complete books are available sources for the campaign. I look through them and latch on to the Troubleshooter kit.<br />
<br />
(For those of you new to AD&D 2nd Ed. a kit is like a theme from 4E Dark Sun. To my knowledge they were introduced in the Complete books. All a kit is, is a way to customize your character from the time of creation. They have requirements, perks and hindrances)<br />
<class> <br />
Now to roll up the character. We are using the relatively friendly char gen rules. 4d6 drop the lowest rolled 6 times and arrange them how you like.<br />
<br />
I get 8, 10, 12, 15, 15, 16<br />
<br />
Because I'm going to be a Thief Dex is very important plus as a halfling I get a +1 to it. So is Int because I want to be a worldly kind of halfling. CHA also seems important because I want people to believe Tillam is a human or accept his brand of crazy, plus followers are more loyal if you have a higher CHA and you can retain more of them. To play a halfling I need at least a 12 Con. Wisdom should be my lowest stat. It will help explain why Tillam imprinted on a human and still believes he is one today. Leaving Str as my second lowest stat it also will have a -1 applied to it because I'm a halfling.<br />
<br />
Meaning Tillam's stats are<br />
</class><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY1-PKlXJpcZSDlB2iodTsRz7l66afSj3g-X0wb5mBxZ2cO1JJAQpsYkvtvoCappjfoVhUvIIDhRxsKNLvrS02b2acgPMR_tRm4QAGwy4YZOlrtrAuRNLr68gcheEQBPIT4CCoDduXFZM/s1600/183.BMP" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY1-PKlXJpcZSDlB2iodTsRz7l66afSj3g-X0wb5mBxZ2cO1JJAQpsYkvtvoCappjfoVhUvIIDhRxsKNLvrS02b2acgPMR_tRm4QAGwy4YZOlrtrAuRNLr68gcheEQBPIT4CCoDduXFZM/s320/183.BMP" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Halfling from AD&D 2nd Ed Monsterous Compendium</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<class> STR 9 <br />
DEX 17 <br />
CON 12 <br />
WIS 8<br />
INT 15<br />
CHA 15<br />
</class><br />
<class></class><br />
<class></class><br />
<class></class><br />
<class></class><br />
<class></class><br />
<class><br />
I realized I've never actually played a halfling in this edition before so I read their race description it is very similar to the Hobbit source material. With one exception a strong relationship between the halflings and dwarves is drawn. So much so that there is a 15% chance of having infravision out to 60' and a 50% chance of having it out to 30'. Also If you make the 60' infravision check you have a 75% chance of knowing if a tunnel ascends or descends. Both are dwarf and gnome characteristics.<br />
<br />
I rolled for it and successfully gained infravision out to 60' with a roll of 04.<br />
<br />
Next up choosing proficiencies a kit and assigning my thief's skill points.<br />
<br />
<br />
</class>mmarandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02490528139399025561noreply@blogger.com0