Monday, December 31, 2007

Happy New Year and all that stuff

Christmas was very good. I think everybody I gave a gift to enjoyed what they got. As for myself I was quite happy with the presents I received. It was also nice getting to see a fair chunk of my family (my parents, grandparents, brothers, the nephew, and a nice sampling of aunts, uncles, and cousins).

My birthday, on the other hand, was pretty crappy. I was in a car accident. Not a particularly serious one, nobody was hurt, but my car did suffer around $3200 worth of damage (estimated). The brief run down would be both me, and the guy who hit me approached an open intersection that was icy and snow-packed. Neither of us were speeding, but we were both probably going a bit faster than advisable for the road conditions. I started entering the intersection, and noticed the oncoming car, I tried to break and turn away from him, he tried to break and turn away from me, but because of the icy roads, we both just kept sliding in our original directions. He hit me pretty much right on the rear wheel on the passenger side, and spun me a quarter turn. Of course he was driving an early to mid 70s Cadillac, which held up much better than my 1999 Pontiac Bonneville. So while the Cadillac suffered a bit of damage to the paint job, and possibly had the chrome on its bumper scuffed, my car had to be towed away.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Two movies - one delightfully good, the other delightfully bad

I’ve a new movie to add to my MTWSB(IMHO)TIOWTAWFSWMMT list.

Skinwalkers

I watched it on Thursday, and laughed way too much during the course of it. I also spent a lot of time while watching it wondering why it seems so hard to make a good movie about werewolves. An American Werewolf in London was actually pretty good; An American Werewolf in Paris was alright, but pretty disappointing when compared to the former. I haven’t seen any of the classic black and white wolf man movies, nor have I seen the original The Howling (I have seen a few random sequels to The Howling, and wow are they ever bad). Silver Bullet was okay - nothing really noteworthy about it, but nothing horribly wrong either. I have a soft spot for Underworld, but that isn’t a pure werewolf movie. Blood and Chocolate wasn’t awful, but I wouldn’t really call it good either. So really that’s one good werewolf movie I’ve watched, and the rest have been at best "meh."

Those musings aside, the basic plot of Skinwalkers is as follows: there’s this kid who is about to turn 13, and Navajo legend states when he reaches 13 there will be no more skinwalkers. So those werewolves who don’t want to be werewolves are trying to protect the kid from those werewolves who want to remain werewolves (who naturally are trying to kill the kid). For me, the one high point of the movie came fairly early on. I found the first major gun fight between the two groups to be quite enjoyable, but not, I imagine, for any reason the filmmakers would appreciate (or at least not for the reasons they likely intended). The evil werewolves (who also greatly resembled a biker gang which is neither here nor there) had managed to track down the kid to the town he was being hidden in. As the inevitable firefight ensued I was treated to a scene that reminded me greatly of Hot Fuzz (which is pretty much the only reason I enjoyed the scene in question). The various good werewolves living in the town apparently go nowhere without several concealed weapons on them, and they conveniently also keep caches of weapons hidden everywhere in town. My two favorite examples would be the mailman with the sawed off shotgun in his mailbag, and the kid’s grandmother who is revealed to keep a huge freaking revolver in her purse (I also enjoyed the bit where she tosses the now empty revolver to her confused grandson and advises him that explanations will come later but right now he needs to learn how to reload a gun). If you’ve watched Hot Fuzz, the above description should sound pretty familiar to Sgt. Angel’s assault on the town of Sandford. The difference being Hot Fuzz was meant to be half spoof, and half loving homage to action films, whereas the scene in Skinwalkers was played completely straight which makes it precisely the sort of ridiculous action sequence Hot Fuzz was spoofing.

The rest of the movie was pretty painful.

The other movie I watched on Thursday was far, far superior. Sadly I doubt I'll have as much to say about it. Let me start with the basics: I highly recommend Stardust to everybody. I had wanted to see this in a theatre, but I didn't ever get a chance. At the time of its release I knew only a little about the movie, mainly that it was based on a Neil Gaiman book of the same name - that I'd never read. In fact, at that time, I hadn't read anything by Neil Gaiman (except for Marvel 1602). I have since rectified that little oversight. Of his novels (that I've read, I haven't made it through all of them yet) my favorite thus far has easily been Stardust. Upon completing the novel, my desire to see the movie adaptation (which was already pretty high even before reading the novel) increased greatly.

The story (in either media) is a modern (relatively speaking) go at telling a classic fairy tale. And when I say fairy tale here I do not refer to the watered-down whimsical story for children we tend to associate with the term, but the more old school story of magic and wonder intended for an adult audience. The kind I think Tolkien would have approved of (not that I'm in any way an expert on J. R. R. Tolkien, but I direct you to his essay "On Fairy-Stories" to help form your own opinion on the matter).

The movie stays true to the spirit of the book, it changes things here and there, simplifies the beginning a bit, expands a few parts, and alters the ending. All-in-all the sort of things you'd expect to happen when a book gets adapted into a movie. I didn't find any of the changes to be terribly jarring, or painful. At worst I waffle a little bit on how I feel about the movie's ending. I found it to be the most obviously "Hollywood-esque" change made to the story, and part of me is a little disappointed in that. However the other part of me is somewhat embarrassed and reluctant to admit I might just slightly prefer the movie's ending over that of the book's.

So to sum up: Skinwalkers - bad so mock with friends, Neil Gaiman - good author, Stardust the book - really good so go read it, and Stardust the movie - really fun so go watch it.

Friday, December 14, 2007

A brief update from the World of Warcraft

Captured Firefly
Last night I reached another milestone of WoW geekery. This particular milestone intersected with my Sci-fi fandom, and in actuality I probably only consider this a noteworthy achievement because of that intersection. After much grinding in Zangarmarsh, a Captured Firefly dropped for Chipple. So what does this this little guy do for my mage? Like all vanity pets in WoW, it does absolutely nothing. Well it looks pretty cool, and of course the real reason I wanted it was because it's a reference to Joss Whedon's late, lamented TV series Firefly.

To illustrate the reference I directolol the small pets your attention to this post's second picture, specifically to the flavor text located just below the green instructional text. If you aren't getting that reference, you aren't much of a Firefly fan. For the curious you'll note I have several other small pets happily sitting next to my Captured Firefly. I've got a Parrot Cage from my first trip into the Deadmines, my Rat Cage from Children's Week, and my Wolpertinger's Tankard from Brewfest. What can I say I like my non-combat pets.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Bad movies and good friends

I’ve decided to start a list:

Movies that were so bad (IMHO) that I’d only watch them again with friends so we might mock them.

I’ll call it MTWSB(IMHO)TIOWTAWFSWMMT for short. My first entry for this list:

Ghost Rider

So yeah, that was an awful movie.

Actually this whole idea was born last night while watching Ghost Rider, it made me reflect upon my viewing of the movie The Punisher (because I seriously didn’t want to think about the movie I was watching). Wow was The Punisher also a bad movie, but I watched it with a friend who is about three times the comic book fan I am (and I am a pretty big comic book fan) and our snarky MST3K style side comments made the whole experience rather enjoyable.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

General musings on role playing

I’m not sure what it is about October and November that distracts me so, but it has obviously been a while since I had anything to say here.


Gaming has continued to be fun. I’m really enjoying my steampunk tech genius. We’ve had three more people join the campaign each playing a unique and interesting character, so that’s worked out well. I believe we’ve had three sessions since I last mentioned anything about Matt’s campaign here. We’ve finished up with the D&D world, and Matt had us hit all the D&D high points: we fought a dragon, we fought an NPC party, and we received loads of magic items.


The acquisition of magic items illustrates an interesting difference between level based systems like D&D, and point based systems like BESM. Level based systems don’t really have a method (or at least a very precise method) for maintaining character balance when magical goodies are acquired (D&D 3.x at least assigns a monetary value to magic items, and then gives you the wealth ranges per level the designers thought were appropriate for the standard game of D&D). It basically falls to the GM to make a judgment call about whether giving out “magic doodad x” to characters of “level y” will unbalance the campaign or not. Under a point based system (assuming items are built using the same rules as characters) it is very easy for the GM to determine if characters are advancing at basically the same level. If character A gets a 25-point magic sword, and character B gets a 5-point magic sword the GM at least knows there is now a 20-point difference between the two characters. Whether this is significant will depend on which system is being used, the nature of the campaign, the nature of the players, and the GM’s style, but the tools are there to easily identify any potential balance issues.


These magic items also brought to light another interesting difference between level based systems, and point based systems. Generally in a level based system you get treasure and move on, in a point based system the GM has to decide if the characters have to pay character points for their treasure. If the GM decides that characters don’t have to pay for items (magic or otherwise) the game plays just fine (level based systems have been doing this way all along so it is a perfectly viable method), the GM’s ability to determine game balance is lessened a bit, but is still superior to that of a level based system. If the GM decides to make characters pay for items, then the balance issues are completely sorted out, but you can get some suspension of disbelief issues – such as looting some cool magic item from your defeated foe, only to find you cannot use it because you don’t have the character points to pay for it. Or maybe something like this:


Player1: What do you mean I can’t use Excalibur to smite my foe, the Lady of the Lake gave it too me?!?!

GM: Yes, but you blew all your character points making Arthur a king, so until you earn some more points and pay for it, Excalibur is a paperweight.


Most GM’s get around this by allowing the characters to use the item on a short term or temporary basis but make them pay to use it long term, for example: when you wrestle the wand of fireballs away from the evil wizard you can immediately use the wand to blast your foes, but if you want make this a permanent addition to your character you have to pay the points for it. Another popular option is to allow the character to use the item, but require them to spend some or all of the future character points they earn on it until it is paid off (so basically an installment plan). One interesting variation on that is to limit the item’s abilities to what the character can pay for, and as the character spends more points on the item, it gains more abilities until it is back to full strength.


The main downside, as I see it, to making characters pay for their magic items is it robs the items of their wow-factor, and largely negates their status as a reward. In a role playing game like D&D if your fighter gets a magic sword, that is pretty much a clear bonus. In a point based system where you have to pay character points for your magic items, that is no longer the case. If your fantasy warrior gets a magic sword, and then has to pay character points for it, you didn’t just get a bonus, you got a suggested path for character advancement (although if your GM is strict about what you can spend your points on, magic items can be a path to buying abilities you wouldn’t normally have access to).

Thursday, October 18, 2007

A really long post

So lately I've been working on a D&D campaign I'm going to be running over Ventrilo for some people from the PAA forums. Since I'm always looking for feedback on my campaigns, I'm going to post the background information I've written up for it here. I'm fairly sure this will end up as one of my longest posts.

The Big Picture Stuff

Representing the basic facts commonly known, and the beliefs commonly held.

Geography

A subject the average person has only a limited grasp of beyond their local area. Still most people know that wizards and sages refer to their world as a whole as Ainwaith (long “a” in both syllables). The concept of continents is also a bit shaky for the average person, but again most know that wizards, sages, and other learned types call their landmass Tirith, or more commonly western Tirith. Most know that Tirith stretches far to the east where the wild barbarians of Kesh and other even less civilized people make their homes. Most have heard that to the west across the vast ocean lies another strange land, the exact details of which vary by who is telling the tale, but usually boil down to monsters out of your worst nightmare live there. It is widely known that far to the south beyond the Great Middle Sea lies a vast land of fire that even the mighty Vodaccian Empire dared not explore too deeply. To the north is a land of ice and home to the Thrain barbarians, although most just call them Northmen.

History

Once long ago, farther back than mortal minds can easily comprehend, before the gods decided to populate the world with its current abundance of thinking peoples, there were the four first born races: the elves, the dwarves, the giants, and the dragons. For countless ages these four races were masters of all the world, until gods brought forth the younger races (more than one dwarf has been heard to lament the passing of this golden age in a tavern after his 20th ale or so).

Naturally once the younger races showed up things started getting interesting. Most importantly the human city of Vodacce (vo - dauch - cha) was founded on an island in the Great Middle Sea just off the southern coast of Tirith. It was here that humans figured out the secrets of civilization that the elves and dwarves had been reluctant to share with them. The people of Vodacce felt quite compelled to share the glory of civilization with other the humans (and the halflings and gnomes) of western Tirith. And after about three centuries Vodacce found itself in command of a vast empire covering most of western Tirith (as well as some lands to the east, and holdings on the northern shores of the lands of fire across the Great Middle Sea).

For the next 800 years or so the people of western Tirith prospered under the Pax Vodacia until the terrible Vash Khan drove his hordes of barbarian Keshian horsemen westward from the empty plains of eastern Tirith and pillaging half of western Tirith, laying siege to, and finally sacking the city of Vodacce itself forever sundering the Vodaccian empire some four centuries ago. Most humans stop the story at this point, elves and dwarves go on to point out that the Vodaccian empire had been in decline for nearly three centuries, and in steady decline for just over one century prior to the Keshian invasion. Even then the Vodaccian empire likely would have survived and even greatly limited the Keshian damage had it not been preoccupied in a particularly nasty civil war stemming over succession to the imperial throne. They also point out it was the elves and dwarves who rallied the sundering Vodaccian provinces to limit the Keshian’s pillaging to only half of western Tirith, and and led them to eventually drive the Keshians back to eastern Tirith.

With all major claimants to the Vodaccian throne dead at the hands of the Keshian horsemen the empire broke apart into numerous successor states usually along provincial lines. Although some of the farther flung areas of the empire reverted to barbarism. The Vodaccian empire did leave behind a great network of roads, a common human language, and its fair share of ruins (the latter being of most interest to those adventurer types).

The more immediate picture stuff

Geography

The campaign will start in the Elvish Kingdom of Myhree (My - hree, like hurry but without the u). The bulk of the kingdom is found in the Shalto river valley which is mainly comprised of great forest of Lonthalas. It is ruled by King Malgalad, Elfking of the Seelie Court of Myhree, Lord of the Glittering Throng, Defender of the Forest of Lonthalas, Blessed of the Moon, Protector of the March of Adarond. Myhree is bound to the north by the mountains of Durnhold and the dwarven kingdom of the same name - at least that is its name in the common tongue. The dwarves have basically given up correcting the pronunciation, but in their tongue the kingdom and mountains are called Dernharad (DERN - ha - rad) which translates into common as rock home, and both dwarves and humans will sometimes refer to the kingdom (but never the mountains) as Rockholm. The elves call both the kingdom and the mountains Basa Ashvae (BA - sa ASCH - va), which also translates into common and rock home. Myhree is bound to the south by the Wulfspeak mountains, or in elven Warga Basalon (WAR - ga BA sa lon) which translates into common as wolves’ mountains. The denizens of these mountains are far less friendly than the elves' neighbors to the north, and are comprised mainly of various goblin tribes, and a few particularly antisocial tribes of stone giants. Myhree is bound on the west by the ocean.

Myhree’s traditional eastern border was the eastern edge of forest of Lonthalas with the lands beyond being home to scattered tribes of humans and halflings, which later became the Vodaccian province of Adarond. Since the partitioning of Adarond Myhree’s eastern border now continues northeast upstream along both sides of the Shalto river until the Kron hills (foothills of the Durnhold mountains). From this point the lands north of the Shalto belong to the dwarves of Durnhold. Myhree’s lands continue northeast long the southern banks of the Shalto as it runs the southern length of the Kron hills. At the southeastern edge of the Kron hills the Shalto turns west (well really since the Shalto runs from the east to the west it hits the Kron hills and turns to the southwest before flowing into old Myhree, but we are following the river upstream so bare with me) and marks the northern boarder of Myhree’s new territory (the Machland of Adarond). Northwest of the Shalto is the County of Adarond the Dunhold’s equivalent of Myhree’s March of Adarond. North and northeast of the Shalto the lands were only nominally under the control of the Vodaccian empire and as such after its fall they quickly reverted to wilderness with scattered independent freeholds. Far to the north are found the cruel Northmen and the land of ice they call home. There isn’t any real geographic border to Myhree’s east. The Elf kingdom lays claim to all the land within a weeks ride east by horse from the edge of the Lonthalas forest (in reality more like 10 days ride unless you feel like killing a few horses during the trip). Beyond the eastern reaches of Myhree lies wilderness - peopled by scattered tribes of different races and a few independent minded freeholds - for a good weeks travel by horse before another surviving successor state of the Vodaccian empire is found. The southern border of Myhree’s expanded territory follows the old provincial boundary and the Duchy of Sohma (a human power and obviously a successor state) lies to the south. A journey from March of Adarond’s southern border to its northern one would take about five days by horse.

History
About 380 years before the start of the campaign the Vodaccian empire broke apart for reasons described above. Aside from providing aid to their southern and eastern brethren in halting and driving out the Keshian invaders the elves and dwarves of Myhree and Dernharad didn’t pay this event too much heed. So long as humans remained reasonable trading partners, and otherwise left them alone, they were content to leave the humans alone. Had Adarond followed the example of most of the other provinces Myhree would still enjoy its original borders, and its state of pseudo insolation. However Adarond broke up into numerous fiefs composed mainly of bandits, brigands, and other petty warlords (with just enough of the local Vodaccian nobility managing to protect their own personal fiefs to provide the bandit lords ample raiding targets). This state of affairs continued on for about 50 years until a particularly successful bandit lord named Mallory changed everything. Mallory managed to take over the holdings of six other petty lords and looked like he was well on his way to reuniting Adarond when for reasons lost to history he decided to shift his focus west to the kingdom of Myhree. He sacked the village of Elengalrion (EL - en - gal - rion)- which means Evening Star in common - putting most of its nearly 800 members to the sword and burning the Lonthalas forest for ten miles in every direction.

The elves, as can be expected, were furious. Their dwarven neighbors saw this as an opportunity, while they had suffered no signal massacre to equal the horror visited upon Elengalrion, the dwarves were always more focused on trade than the elves, and fifty years of trying to move goods to the markets in the south through bandit infested lands (yes they have an ocean on the western border of their kingdom, but dwarves do not sail) had more than tried their patience. The dwarven ambassador in Myhree offered the Elf King his peoples sincere condolences for their loss, and a plan to prevent it from happening again. Dernharad and Myhree divided Adarond in half (mainly along the Shalto river) and each conquered and pacified their half. The campaign lasted about ten years, but elves and dwarves are nothing if not patient. Mallory and most other bandit lords were hauled away to Myhree proper to face the Elf King’s justice; for two generations after the annexation humans whispered among themselves that the lilies at the Elk King’s court bloomed red from the blood of the executed bandit lords (to this day the elves of Myhree consider it a great insult to be presented with a red colored flower by any other race as they feel it is akin to being called a murderer). To the northwest the dwarves handled the justice in a much more direct manor, when they bothered to accept the surrender of a defeated bandit lord, they simply found the local people he had most preyed upon and let them decide the prisoner’s fate.

The Marchland of Adarond

Margrave Landon Spellsword is the current ruler of the March, and is a controversial figure both there and back in Myhree proper as he is a half elf and the first person to command the fief who wasn’t a full blooded elf. He is the acknowledged bastard child of the previous Margrave Saranathal Mithedel (SAR - an - a - thal MITH - e - del) who abdicated the March to him in a surprise announcement about six years prior to the start of the campaign. Why he did so, and how he convinced King Malgalad to approve such an action is a topic still subject to intense speculation both by peasants and nobles alike. Strangely Saranathal left the kingdom shortly after abdicating and his current whereabouts are not common knowledge (and thus another topic ripe for wild speculation among both the peasants and nobility). Saranathal’s legitimate son Gilthalion (GIL - thal - ion), prior to Saranathal’s surprise abdication the heir apparent to the March, remains and serves Landon as his chief advisor and court wizard. As if his parentage were not source enough for controversy, the margrave - as his chosen surname indicates - was a mercenary prior his accepting his peerage.

In addition to the Margrave’s direct holdings the March is composed of 32 baronies: 14 ruled by human barons, 17 by elven barons, and 1 by a half-elf baron. Ten of the human barons can trace their reign back to the days of the Vodaccian empire. For administrative purposes most barons divide their fief up into between four and eight shires overseen by various constables, bailiffs, and reeves. The city of Dortmund (approximately 6000 residents) is the March’s capital, and only true urban area. The northern and eastern areas of the March are mainly plains broken up by the occasional woods while the southern and western areas grow increasing more hilly especially as one travels southwest towards the Wulfspeak mountains. Most streams and rivers in the March flow north and west out of those hills and into the Shalto river.

The Barony of Umbria

The campaign will start here. The barony is March’s most northeasterly territory, and its only one ruled by a half-elf. The baron, one Archer Witherwind - a former mercenary colleague of the margrave, has held the barony for the last five years. He was installed as baron after the previous lord, a human named Kanto, died without heir. While he suffered the standard reaction most half-elves get, too human for elves and too elven for humans, his rule has begun to win the people over. Kanto, and both his father and grandfather before him, had all be unremarkable barons. Not incompetent, nor corrupt, but neither were they driven, nor particularly interested in doing anything beyond maintaining the status quo. Archer has undertaken a long list of improvements to the barony’s infrastructure and financed it all out of his own pocket a move that not surprisingly has proved most popular among the residents of Umbria. Persistent rumors state that Archer suffered a grievous injury (or possibly a horrible magical malady, or terrible curse) that forced him to retire from his mercenary work. He politely changes the subject when questioned about his days as a mercenary.

Umbria’s largest population center is the village of Alesbury located near the baron’s keep alone the banks of the Shalto river. It has some five hundred residents; about 80% human. Archer’s most recent project is converting the village’s defensive outer wall from a wooden stockade to proper stone work (his words). Alesbury itself is overseen by a council of elders.

To the west and southwest of Umbria is the barony of Zephon ruled by the elven baroness Eladil Calamdel (EL - a - dil CAL - am - del). Relations between the baronies are polite, but formal. Eladil has been baroness in Zephon since before Archer’s last three predecessors ruled Umbria and it is a widely known secret that she exerted considerable influence over Kanto. Acher seems unlikely to allow Eladil’s opinions to hold as much sway in Umbria, although all of her public statements to date have been extremely generous towards Archer a few have even come remarkably close to criticizing the rule of Kanto.

To the south of Umbria is the barony of Tamsyn (TAM - zuhn) still ruled by the human family of the same name. The family Tamsyn can trace their nobility back to the vary founding of Adarond as a Vodaccian province, and boasts a history as one of the few Vodaccian noble families to be largely successful in defending their holdings and peasants from the worst of the banditry during the days after the fall of the empire. While the family was certainly grateful to Myhree for ending the threat posed by the bandits, they were never particularly receptive to the idea of elven rule over Adarond. The current baron is Ahthelrad Tamsyn (ah - thel - rad). It is common speculation that the baron is sympathetic to the aims of the Wind Dukes.

Points of Interest in and around Umbria

The Akaya Marsh
A marshland along the northern banks of the Shalto river located about a day and a half east of Alesbury (by horse). Lizardmen are known to inhabit the marsh.

Alesbury
The largest village in Umbria (around 500 people). The nearby presence of the baron’s keep makes it the defacto capital. It is located along the southern banks of the Shalto River and is generally considered to be the eastern border of Umbria (and thus Adarond).

The Blackfang tribe
A nomadic goblin tribe that has been driven south by the events to the north. They launch occasional raids into the northern and eastern baronies of Adarond.

The Daven River
A river that flows out of the Vulture Hills northwest across Umbria and into the Shalto River at Elmshire.

Davenford
A mostly human hamlet (300 people) located just northwest of the Vulture Hills along the Daven river, near the border with Tamsyn. The ford for which the hamlet is named as long since been replaced with a bridge. Davenford is a local trade way stop. Most goods from Tamsyn and points farther south pass through Davenford and either continue north to Alesbury, or northwest down the river to Elmshire. Much trade also heads back upstream from Elmshire or south from Alesbury to Davenford and then into Tamsyn and beyond.

Elmshire
An predominately halfling hamlet (about 250 people) located along the southern banks of the Shalto river where the Daven river flows into it and against the border with Zephon. Elmshire is a trade way stop. Most goods headed for Myhree go there via the Shalto river, so most trade headed west is either brought to Elmshire for shipping or arrives there from Alesbury or Davenford via river travel.

The Shalto
A major river that marks the northern border of Umbria (and much of the March of Adarond). It eventually flows into Myhree.

The Tanglewood
A very old growth forest whose southern border is not quite a days ride north of Alesbury. It is so called because the trails and paths through it seem to shift and change location. Peasants routinely declare that it is haunted. It is also known that an ogre named Thulak makes his lair in the southern Tanglewood. Strangely King Malgalad has decreed that Thulak posses no danger to Adarond and should be left alone.

The Vulture Hills
A rocky bunch of hills that mark the eastern and southern border of Umbria. So named both for their large population of vultures, and for Vulture point. The hills periodically become infested with Kobolds until an expedition is mounted by either Umbria or Tamsyn to route them out. The last one was undertaken 10 years ago by the late baron Kanto.

Vulture Point
A rocky outcropping atop the largest of the hills that comprise the Vulture Hills. It bares a striking resemblance to a vulture with wings outstretched. Some speculate it may have been carved, perhaps by the kobolds.

The Dragon Kingdom

About ten years ago Myhree, Dernharad, and other lands first started noting the rumors coming down from the far north. Whispered stories of a half-orc warlord rallying orcs, hobgoblins, barbarians, and even, in some of the more wild stories, dragons to his side. These sorts of rumors crop up from time to time, and most dismissed them as nothing more than a tavern tale. Then the first of the refugees arrived in the south. Thrain peasants fleeing their Jarldoms, displaced barbarian tribesman, scattered bands of orcs, and even whole tribes of goblins made the journey south out of the lands of ice. The tales they told confirmed much of whispered rumors of this half-orc. He had united the Yellowdeath, and Twospears hobgoblin tribes with the Severedhand orc tribe and then raided several and eventually conquered a Thrain Jarldom. His success attracted more tribes of orcs, hobgoblins, and even a few barbarians. Over the next five years his army conquered another three Jarldoms before he halted his advances, presumably to consolidate his holdings.

In the four and a half years since he stopped his conquests little more has been learned of this warlord. It is believed that his name is Garthag, of his origins nothing is known, but the most popular of recent rumors is while one of his parents was an orc, the other was clearly something a bit more demonic than a human. Shortly after his conquests halted his forces started using a battle standard depicting a two-colored, two-headed dragon: black on the right side, red on the left. It is from this that people started using the name Dragon Kingdom to describe Garthag’s holdings. Many with experience in politics and/or warcraft think Garthag must soon resume raiding, if not attempt more conquests, or risk his disparate army splintering apart.

The Wind Dukes

The lands of southwest Tirith along the shores of the Great Middle Sea were among the first acquisitions of the emerging Vodaccian Empire, and so long were they held that their people enjoyed a standard of living equal to that of the residents of the city of Vodacce itself. This area was also spared the mercies of the Keshian invaders at the fall of the Vodaccian Empire. By all rights this area should have been the wellspring for western Tirith’s recovery from the Keshian invasion; the rulers of this area, however, proved to be far more interested in pursing personal political gain. The first century after the fall saw the worst of the outright warfare between the former provinces and once they had exhausted themselves militarily their infighting became more political while all sides rebuilt their armies. Things would likely have eventually erupted into another round of free for all open warfare were it not for events in a small county.

About two hundred years ago (about 80 years after the outright warfare had ended) Kestral, Count of Avavil (Av - a - vil), was pressing his feudal master Darius, Duke of Bonham for greater autonomy. Every Avavilan count since the fall of the empire had been making similar demands to the Bonhamer dukes, but Darius, who fancied himself a skilled general, saw this annoyance as an opportunity to give his army a little experience and perhaps as a stepping stone towards some future conquest of neighboring territories. The Duchy’s army launched a surprise attack on its rebellious province, but things quickly took a surprising turn. The Duke of Bonham’s estimation in his own military prowess proved to be grossly inflated, while Kestral revealed himself to be military mind the likes of which humanity hadn’t seen since the dread Vash Khan drove his Keshian horseman to the gates of Vodacce itself some 180 years prior. Once Darius’ ill-advised assault on the County of Avavil stalled the lukewarm support his other vassals had provided his efforts quickly dried up, and without a clear numeric advantage the Duke’s forces proved to be little obstacle to the Avavilan army. Particularly impressive was Avavil’s aerial cavalry of griffon riding knights built around a small strike force of warrior mages (lead by Kestral himself who was equally skilled with sword and spell). A short year later when accepting the surrender of his former feudal lord, Kestral declared himself the Wind Duke of Bonham and Avavil.

Flush with success and leading freshly blooded troops Kestral launched a series of campaigns and carved a kingdom for himself out of the successor states in southwestern Tirith. By the time of his death, he had altered his title to Sky Marshal and oversaw a council of seven Wind Dukes; one for each of the six territories he had conquered plus his original holdings of Avavil. Kestral’s military genius is not a trait often repeated. While his successors have all proved to be quite competent in military matters, over its 200 year history the Wind Dukes have come to rely less on straight military conquest and more on advantageous alliances, carefully worded treaties, political opportunism, and economic domination to arrange for the proper circumstances for a well timed annexation as their main tool of expansion. The current Sky Marshal, Gimlyr Ramesh, commands a council of 14 Wind Dukes.

The Marchland of Adarond’s immediate neighbor to the south, the Duchy of Sohma is little more than a client state for the Wind Dukes, most in the Kingdom of Myhree think within a human generation (or perhaps two at the outside) Sohma’s newest ruler will the 15th Wind Duke. The current relations between Myhree and the Wind Dukes are polite, but decidedly neutral. It has not escaped the notice of King Malgalad that every Wind Duke emissary, ambassador, or trade delegation that passes through the March finds opportunity to discuss the benefits of Wind Duke rule with the human nobility and peasantry alike.

Friday, September 28, 2007

Officially Minnesotan - with "i" dotted, and "t" crossed

My years of flagrant disregard for Minnesota state vehicle laws has come to an end. Today I purchased my official Minnesota License Plates, and they nicely match my offical Minnesota Driver's License I got back in December. Huzzah! I can now be pulled over without fear of accruing additional fines for driving a car with South Dakota plates despite having been a resident of Minnesota for the last decade or so.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Tangential Thinking

Clare crying
I watched the 26th, and likely final, episode of Claymore today. It was good, and the entire series was highly enjoyable. It did get me thinking about the inherent problem with watching anime based on an ongoing manga series: it is really hard to provide resolution when they story the anime is being adapted from isn’t complete yet. Assuming Wikipedia can be believed the anime’s plot stayed pretty true to the manga through episode 20 before diverging, presumably to set up an actual ending. The ending we got is by no means bad; it just leaves a lot of unanswered questions. So here’s hoping Claymore was popular enough to warrant a second season. Also I really should look into getting the manga.

I spent some time thinking about the various options the creators of anime adapted from an ongoing manga series can take. There is the Claymore/Fruits Basket option: stay basically true to the manga until the final few episodes and then try to set up a satisfactory ending. Fruits Basket’s ending worked for me, I’m still mulling over Claymore’s (but it didn’t make me want to throw anything so that’s a good sign). This is a pretty standard choice for when there is more manga than anime. There are also varying degrees of divergence: Fruits Basket doesn’t diverge all that much from the manga, and no major plot points are resolved in the anime’s ending (at least none that also exist in the manga). Whereas X comes to a complete and unequivocal ending (something the X/1999 manga hasn’t and may never do) which means at a certain point its creators just started making stuff up. InuYasha, on the other hand, just plain stopped with a little bit of voice over detailing the character’s desire to keep on hunting Naraku (they did have the decency to finish up the story arc they were on).

At the other end of the spectrum you can have more anime than manga. This happens mostly with long running anime. Bleach and Naruto are two popular examples of anime that caught up to their manga. In both their cases the anime continued with episodes not based on the manga, until enough additional chapters of the manga had been published to make returning to anime adapted from it a viable option. Interestingly the Hunter × Hunter anime just stopped when it ran out of manga, only to return with OVAs as more manga was published.

Real Bout High SchoolThese ponderings lead me to consider Real Bout High School; partially because it represents a manga that has next to nothing to do with the anime “based” on it (much like how the movie The Lawnmower Man has nothing to do with the Stephen King short story of the same name). The manga (I’ve read five of the six volumes) is alright, nothing earth-shatteringly good or bad about it. The anime that was “adapted” from it, however, is really bad (or at least the first 4 episodes were - I couldn’t make myself continue on after that). The quality of the manga, or the anime's lack-there-of isn’t what really captured my fancy today, instead I mostly reflected on how I came to purchase it (the manga, thankfully the anime was a rental), mainly because I'm fairly sure Real Bout High School is the first manga I ever bought(I know it is certainly the first I ever purchased in a store and not online).

Love HinaA few years back my company moved their corporate headquarters to a new building (from Plymouth, MN to a building that has a Minneapolis address even if it is still technically in a suburb). They, as businesses are wont to do, had an open house to celebrate the event (actually they had several, but one I’m concerned with was for employees and their families). My corporate office opted to hold a raffle for anyone from my little satellite office who was interested in attending, the prize for which was them covering the cost of the hotel room. Other people from our office were of course free to come, they just had to pay for their own hotel rooms. I was one of the winners. Obviously this has nothing to do with manga, but the day after I, and several of my coworkers, found ourselves in the Twin Cities with some time to spare. So we went to a mall, either the Ridgedale Shopping Center in Minnetonka or the Southdale Shopping Center in Edina not that it really matters. I eventually ending up in a store with actual anime for sale (I picked up Vampire Hunter D for sure, and maybe Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust as well). Then I noticed the manga, and I thought, "why not take the plunge?" I first looked at Oh My Goddess!, but decided against it because I couldn’t find the first volume. I kept picking up Love Hina, but in the end I grabbed the first two volumes of Real Bout High School. Not because I’d heard anything about it, but solely because the Love Hina covers were a bit heavy on the eye candy, and I was too embarrassed to be seen by my coworkers reading them on the drive home. A silly reaction to be sure, and one that didn’t persist; within a few months I had no problem bringing Love Hina manga to work with me.

Alright, enough of my meandering train of thought. W00t for post 60! And to celebrate I leave you with a host of amusing videos (host being defined here as four). To start things off, one my friend Todd just today sent me in an e-mail with the subject: WATCH THIS NOW! (his emphasis).


And now I venture into the realm of the Penny Arcade Alliance forums and to the land of the <Burley Men> who took time out from their usual activities to point these three videos out:


Monday, September 24, 2007

"You even grill geeky" - Matt

This last Saturday I gathered with my gaming buddies for more role playing geekery. We added a bit to the usual mix this time around. Paul acquired a portable grill. In his e-mail informing us of the purchase he mentioned it had about the same grilling area as a hibachi, which I mistakenly took to mean he’d be bringing something similar to an actual hibachi. In retrospect I should have known better.

While I was expecting something like this:A portable grill
Instead we ended up with the Grilliput (this is picture is taken from ThinkGeek and sadly isn't an actual action shot of us using the grill):The Grilliput in action
The Grilliput consists of two parts. The actual grill (assembled on the left, and in its storage mode on the right):The GrilliputAnd the optional fire bowl (fully open on the left, and again in storage mode on the right):The fire bowl
We cooked hamburgers, brats, and corn on the cob. It was all very delicious.

With food out of the way we settled down for a rousing game of Super Munchkin.Super Munchkin
We also couldn't pass up the opportunity to play some four person Mario Strikers Charged. As a general note, I really ought to get a Wii.

Amazingly after all that we still found time to actually role play. Matt wrapped up the Shadowrun portion of his BESM campaign. I found it pretty amusing how quickly our dimension hopping characters started thinking like stereotypical shadowrunners. We may be on a mission to save the universe, but when we found ourselves in need of money we pretty quickly hatched a plan to rob a few of Seattle's local mafiosi to obtain it (we had some fun with Jedi mind tricks).

Matt ended the session by depositing us in a classic D&D style world where we quickly got to save a halfling cleric from some owlbears. I'm not sure how many campaigns out there have featured vans trying to run down owlbears, however I cannot help but notice I've taken part in a few campaigns now where vehicles have been used as weapons.

All-in-all, a very fun weekend.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

This one is for all the geeks in the house

So while browsing the "My WTF video of the day" thread on the Penny Arcade Alliance forums I came across this beauty. Enjoy.



To the best of my knowledge I have five people who read this blog with any regularity (hi guys). So for the two people in my known audience who aren’t big anime fans the soundtrack the above hacked ROM is set to is the ending theme to the thoroughly delightful anime The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Two Topics. Unrelated, but of Equal Importance.

If you like webcomics, but still value your free time then Tangents is a dangerous website. I have found out about far, far too many interesting comics there. Most recently it pointed me in the direction of No Rest For The Wicked. All I can say is if you aren't looking for another webcomic to read then stay away, because it is damn good.

I almost let the day go by without mentioning it's International Talk Like a Pirate Day! So allow me to go out with a nice choice quote from Treasure Island, "There! That's what I think of ye. Before an hour's out, I'll stove in your old block house like a rum puncheon. Laugh, by thunder, laugh! Before an hour's out, ye'll laugh upon the other side. Them that die'll be the lucky ones."

Because I’ve apparently mistaken my blog for Twitter

As I sit here and admire my (and my coworkers’) handiwork I have to reflect that nothing says “competent professional” quite like a computer held together with packing tape (and just to be safe a fair amount of black electrical tape). If I ever figure out how to move pictures from my cell phone to a computer I’ll be sure to show you. . .

Saturday, September 08, 2007

Playground Fun Now Coming to an Office Near You

I had planned on posting about something today. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to talk about but it was probably going to be either WoW (because both Chipple and Cominius are over 40 and I have pictures of them on their mounts), or BESM (because we gamed again on Labor Day). Instead you are getting a rare post about work.

This morning I took a call that has to rank in my top ten most ridiculous calls I’ve ever handled. I’ve mentioned before (last September in fact) that one of the things my company does is provide an after hours repair service for various telephone and cable companies. In general these companies are all pretty small (as compared to a Qwest or AT&T) and generally have a pretty limited number of exchanges that they serve. Now with the advent of local number portability things aren’t completely as cut and dry as all that, but for the most part if a caller’s exchange isn’t on the list provided to me by the phone company s/he is trying to call it is a pretty safe bet s/he is calling the wrong phone company.

So this morning I got a call from John Customer calling Fake Name Telephone Company (henceforth I’ll be calling it FNT). He told me he had no dial tone, and gave me the phone number and as soon as I heard it I knew two things, the city and state he was calling from (and FNT does indeed have customers there), and that he probably didn’t get telephone service from FNT (because his exchange was XYY instead of XYZ). Still with number portability it is possible he was a FNT customer (he would be the first one I’ve ever had for that company in that city with that exchange, but that doesn’t guarantee he was wrong), so I asked the all important “cover-my-company’s-butt” question, “and you get this phone service through FNT?” He answered yes, so I moved on. After gathering up all the relevant information and ending the call, I called up the on call technician for FNT and told him what I had. The tech responded with, “Yeah, he’s not our customer, but give me the information and I’ll check it out to be sure.”

About 30 minutes later I get second call from John Customer. He told me that he’d reported no dial tone a little bit earlier, and a tech had called him back, but the tech told him he wasn’t a customer of FNT, and John Customer knows he is a customer of FNT. That’s right John Customer didn’t believe the tech, and despite not being found by the tech on the FNT customer rolls, he knows he’s a customer. I did a quick run down in my head of my options at this point. I could try and convince the caller that no he probably isn’t a customer of FNT, I could call the tech back as say guess what that caller is back and he says he is too a customer of FNT, or I could try and slam by head through my computer’s monitor. I opted to call the tech back. I offer up the fact a reached his answering machine as proof of a benevolent God.

I, of course, made it sound as professional as I could, but the message I left on the tech’s machine still boiled down to, “am too!” John Customer called back a third time, no doubt to say, “am too plus infinity*,” but blessedly he was interrupted by the tech calling him back. Either the tech had discovered he was in fact wrong, or he was able to convince John Customer that he really wasn’t a customer of FNT, but in any event that ended the whole ridiculous exchange.

I cannot resist making this analogy, even though there is only one known reader of this blog who will fully understand and appreciate it, so Dan this is for you. This call was like Staghmar and Carthris having one of their “No U!” fights, but with private messages instead of in /gchat and naturally one of them would have to use me as an intermediary. So basically it would start with Stag sending Chipple a PM saying tell Carthris, “NO U!” I would send Carthris a PM saying, “Stag says no u.” Carthris would reply to Stag with a hardy, “NO U!” Staghmar would come back to Chipple. . . I think you get the picture. And sadly in the exchange this morning there was no Zilpah around to fop or /gkick the involved parties.

*He might also have been calling back to say, “am too, I’m rubber and you’re glue, whatever you say bounces off of me, and sticks to you!” In actuality he was probably calling back to say, “Hey the tech hasn’t called me back, and I want my phone fixed!” However I think my first two guesses are much more fun.

I leave you with this completely unrelated video that shows German women can be a little weird (but really I don't think weirdness knows either gender or international boundaries). There is nothing inherent to this video identifying the performers as German, but for further information about Lynne & Tessa try here, or here.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Goodbye, So Long, Farewell, Long Live the New Edition

BESM 1e
My first impression of using BESM 3e was quite positive, and I’ve been thinking about the differences between the new BESM and the previous edition. I’ve mentioned, briefly, the basics of the BESM 2nd Edition mechanics before. The characters are defined numerically by three stats: body, mind, and soul (quantifying the physical, mental, and metaphysical/supernatural). The success of non-combat actions are determined by rolling two six-sided dice (or as those of us in the hobby would say 2d6) and comparing the number to the relevant stat (body for physical actions, mind for mental actions, and soul for basically everything else), if the result is equal or less then the stat the action succeeded. Various skills and abilities can be taken to make success more likely (for both combat and non-combat actions), but those are the basics.

BESM 2eCombat itself is slightly more complicated, but only slightly. If one of the PCs in my campaign were to try and put the hurt on a hapless NPC it would have gone something like this. First the player would have tried to hit NPC (probably with a sword, they all seemed to like their swords); the player would roll 2d6 hoping to get a result equal to or under his attack combat value (which starts out as the average of all three stats). If the result was over the combat value the attack was a miss and we moved on, but if the player succeeded then I’d make a defense roll for said hapless NPC. I’d roll 2d6 and hope to get under the NPC’s defense combat value (which starts out as the average of the NPC’s three stats minus two). If the defense roll succeeds then the NPC managed to block, dodge, parry, soak, or otherwise some how avoid what would have been a successful attack. Should the roll fail the player would gleefully announce how much damage his attack just dealt.

BESM 2eRDifferent variations on the “roll this number or less” mechanic have been with role playing games since the very beginning of the hobby. It is certainly a serviceable mechanic and I’ve played many fine game systems that make use of it (GURPS and the Hero System come to mind, but they hardly scratch the surface). It can have some drawbacks however. Depending on exactly how it gets implemented it can be counterintuitive – for example in BESM 2nd Edition bonuses are expressed as negative numbers, while positive numbers are penalties. It can also start to break down when a character has enough skill, bonuses, or other modifiers to raise the target number above whatever the highest possible number you can roll on the dice the game is using making it basically impossible to fail. In BESM 2e, which uses 2d6, that number is 12 (while in GURPS and Hero that number is 18 because both systems use 3d6). This point can be reached pretty quickly and easily in BESM 2e even by starting characters.

With BESM 2e in particular another problem that could arise during combat is the characters that go first in a combat round tend to do nothing but burn through the opponents defenses allowing the slower acting characters to actually damage them. First off combat rounds - almost every role playing game divides combat time into discrete units generally called rounds, turns, or phases which usually represent a few seconds of time (I’ve seen systems where a round was as fast as one second, and others where it was as long as one minute). Now as for burning through defenses – the simple combat example I gave above covers one person making one attack, but there are various abilities that allow for multiple attacks during a round (alternatively more then one person can attack the same target in a round). BESM handles this by making the target’s defense combat value decrease by two for each use after the first in the round. If the target also has multiple actions during a round the penalties start once all of those actions are used up. I tended to throw one powerful opponent backed up by some cannon fodder at my players so I tried to design them to be able to fight multiple opponents. Since for most of my campaign the PCs had two actions a round, their opposition usually had three.

All of the above added up to make most fights look something like this (in a very simplified sense): the first PC would attack twice (almost certainly succeeding both times), the villain would defend twice (again almost certainly succeeding both times), the second PC would attack twice, the villain would successfully defend the first attack and have about a 50% chance of succeeding at the second attack, the third PC would attack twice, the villain would try to defend but at this point had only a minute chance of succeeding, and this was repeated until the villain was defeated. Fortunately creative players can go a long way to alleviating this problem, and my players were nothing if not creative. Seriously how many players would think to have their characters use Ethernet cable to first lasso an attacking dragon, and then use it as reigns to ride said dragon while fighting other dragons? And the great thing about BESM 2e is it is flexible enough that when aforementioned player announced his plans regarding Ethernet cable and attacking dragon, or any of the other countless wild/crazy stunts they all pulled I didn’t need to grab the rule book and start madly flipping pages to try and find a relevant rule, I just had them roll their attack and applied whatever seemed relevant as a modifier and adjudicated the results.

BESM 3eSo how does BESM 3e differ? Well it does away with the “roll under” mechanic in favor of roll 2d6, add your relevant skills and other modifiers (or subtract relevant penalties), and total your result - if it is equal to or higher then a target number set by the GM you succeed. These types of systems tend to be a bit more intuitive for people to grasp, although the need to judge what an appropriate target number is can be annoying for the GM. As for combat both sides roll 2d6 and add their combat values (plus other relevant modifiers) and the higher total succeeds (ties go to the attacker iirc). Character creation is more complicated then it was under 2e. Characters in BESM 2e where built on fairly small point totals as compared to most point based role playing games. I favored 25-35 points for starting characters, whereas GURPS 3rd edition suggested 100 points for most of their starting characters (really 145 points since it was 100 points + 40 points in disadvantages + 5 points in quirks), while HERO 5th edition suggests 150 points for their starting characters (at the heroic level for super heroes it suggests 350 points). Granted each of these games uses a completely different system so you cannot really just compare point totals, but in general the more points you have to create a character the more complex your options are going to be and the more powerful (or diverse) your character is going to be. The characters we created for Matt's campaign were built on 300 points and I'd estimate are about on par with a 2e character of 30 or 35 points. So obviously the costs of the various abilities in BESM have been completely reworked for 3e, and the number of options available to you has increased significantly. This certainly doesn't hurt BESM, character creation was extremely flexible under 2e, and it only becomes more so under 3e. While I have to reiterate that character creation has become more complex, I'd still say it is far easier than say Hero 5th edition or Shadowrun 4th edition.

Anyway to sum up, my first taste of BESM 3e was positive and I look forward to playing some more. I believe we are getting together again on Labor Day for round two of the Mattoverse, so I'll probably have some more to say about it after that.

Before I go I'd like to point out I've been blogging for one year. Woohoo! I'm a little surprised I've kept it up, all previous attempts at anything resembling a journal have failed quite miserably. By my count I've been blogging for 381 days and with this being post 54 I'm averaging just over one post every seven days; which is pretty much exactly what I wanted to do. So huzzah for me! In celebration I leave you with this amusing picture that has nothing to do with BESM, or anything else I've talked about in this post.Steampunk, Yeah it's like that

Friday, August 24, 2007

Well Played Matthew, Well Played

BESM 3e
A month has already passed since the end of my BESM campaign. I remain extremely satisfied with how the BESM campaign turned out, easily one of the best I’ve ever run under any role playing system. My players remained true to form, coming up with interesting and completely unexpected things to do right up until the end. I was particularly impressed with their decision to try and remove every soul in the Hell of Hungry Dragons before they sealed it up forever. Dan’s character was the driving force behind this little decision, apparently he felt infinite suffering for finite sins was terribly unfair, and he was able to convince Matt’s character that something needed to be done about this. For the record they succeeded (probably a testament to how ridiculously overpowered I let them become, and also to how as a GM I’ll allow almost everything that amuses me).

As (parenthetically) noted in my last post we got together on Saturday for BESM 3rd edition, which was also Matt’s first attempt at GMing. Matt has been talking about his multi-genre, anything goes, chaos campaign for as least as long as I ran my BESM campaign (quite probably longer). The general idea is any sort of humanoid character we could come up with (and build on 300 points) was basically fair game (there were a few restrictions, mainly don’t build a character whose abilities are completely derived from his social standing since he won’t be staying in his original world). Matt ended up with a Jedi (courtesy of Paul), an elven wizard (Dan’s contribution), and a steampunk tech genius (my character - heavily inspired by the Girl Genius webcomic). Interestingly Matt informed us that our characters had all died, and had us come up with the circumstances of their deaths.

The campaign opened with our characters waking up on a hill after being pulled away from their own worlds at the moment of what would have been their deaths. We don’t actually know who did this, or exactly for what reason. We’ve been told it was to save the universe, but the person who presumably did the summoning is currently in a vegetative state due to an accident during the complex magic ritual used to snatch our characters away from the jaws of death (or more precisely his soul had been sundered from his body and is currently lost). Just as we were getting a handle on our situation (we were on earth, but apparently the only humans in the world live in a village protected by a magic bubble that keeps the dinosaurs from coming to eat them), and hot on the trail of a clue to return the architect of our situation to consciousness, we suddenly found ourselves sucked into another alternate earth.

First RunFor me this is where the night was made (I suspect Paul probably harbors similar sentiments). We found ourselves in a convenience store staring face to face with a troll who was doing a little shopping. For numerous reasons that mostly have to do with shared gaming experience, and knowledge of the GM, I very quickly suspected (I imagine Paul did as well), and Matt soon confirmed that we were in a Stuffer Shack. If you’ve played Shadowrun, you almost certainly know what that is. Matt continued to delight by running us through Food Fight which is a classic Shadowrun introductory adventure (at least from 3rd Edition, and I think from 2nd as well, but I don’t know if it made the jump to 4th edition). After trouncing the thrill gang that was trying to rob the place we made good our escape, and Matt brought the evening to a close.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

OMG!! ONOZ!!

Evil Mage


WoW has made me a tool of the Devil!!

That is all. Come back in a few days for a real post. Possible topics for this post include the end of my BESM campaign (yes it really has ended), the inevitable "OVA" sequel campaign, my thoughts on Matt's "all genre-chaos campaign" (it's BESM Saturday!!!), my reaction to finally using BESM 3e (did I mention it's BESM Saturday!!!), Chipple hitting level 40 (I really need a picture of her on her horse), the anime I've been watching, and maybe even how I feel about my job these days (that last one is a pretty remote possibility).

Before I go I should mention the final Harry Potter (see below) book did not disappoint.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Can't blog too busy reading

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
I just got back from the local book/music/hobby/Sprint® store with my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I will pause in my reading of it long enough to pass along the finest spoilers ever. The following spoilers were obtained from the US Government by my good friend Paul through judicious use of the Freedom of Information Act.

[Redacted] killed [Redacted] and [Redacted] [Redacted].
[Redacted] kills [Redacted].
[Redacted] is [Redacted].
[Redacted] isn't [Redacted]
[Redacted] dies.
[Redacted] marries [Redacted].

Really after that list of spoilers, I'm not sure why any of us would bother to read the book.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Insubstantial!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Cominius my Warlock has joined the ranks of Exuberance! For a small amount of context consider looking first here, and next here. In any event Exuberance is another of the Penny Arcade Alliance guilds on Dark Iron.

I really don’t have anything else to say at the moment, except I think my Voidwalker in the background makes this a pretty sweet picture. Also w00t for post 50.
Cominius

Friday, July 13, 2007

Three Unrelated Topics

Chipple
I’m going to go with reverse-chronological order for this post.

My main character on WoW is a mage on the Dark Iron server named Chipple. She is a member of a guild called the Fancy Lads. The Fancy Lads is one of twelve guilds that comprise the Penny Arcade Alliance; which for those who don’t know is a group of guilds made up of Penny Arcade fans and was originally founded by Penny Arcade co-creator Mike Krahulik. Now I have on any number of occasions been quite happy to have Chipple a member of the Fancy Lads as its members have proved to be both friendly and helpful, but tonight (technically yesterday since it is now after midnight) was the first time I really, really appreciated Chipple being a part of the PAA as a whole.

I was running Chipple around a zone called the Thousand Needles working on some quests when a level 70 orc hunter happened by and killed Chipple in one shot. I panned my camera around to see if I could get a look at what just killed me, and got to witness a level 70 night elf rogue (unguilded and I never did make note of his name) give this hunter a little payback. Happy with the outcome I released my spirit and ran my ghost back from the graveyard to my corpse so I could resurrect and continue on with my quests. Sadly upon reaching my corpse I found the orc hunter wasn’t alone, he had been joined by another orc hunter, a tauren druid, and a forsaken warrior. The helpful night elf rogue was already dead, and these three horde were battling it out with two level 70 members of the PAA guild Kung Foo Roostaz (a gnome rogue and a human mage). With three to two odds the horde prevailed, but then they didn’t leave the area, and with the resurrection of the original orc hunter outnumbered the two KFR members two to one; thus when any of us tried to resurrect the results were predictable - we died. This continued on for around five minutes before the horde finally mounted up and rode off, after waiting a bit longer to make sure they were gone I and the two KFRs resurrected and started the process of healing and reapplying useful buffs. Unfortunately the horde leaving was only a ruse and as they came sweeping back in Chipple was quickly killed, and outnumbered and not fully healed my two PAA companions soon followed suit.

Once again the these four horde camped the area making resurrecting pretty pointless. During this time a few other alliance players (with levels lower than Chipple’s) had the misfortune to wander into the area and found themselves dead and corpse camped right along with the rest of us. Well a call went out to the PAA as a whole regarding our plight and a raid group of 10 or so PAAers was put together (most of whom were level 70, Chipple being one of I think 2 or 3 characters who weren’t). Once enough of the raid group arrived to even out the number of level 70s on both sides we launched our counter attack and emerged most victorious. Granted Chipple and the handful of characters in their 30s in the raid group were pretty much only useful as a distraction, but every attack one of the horde spent killing one of us was an attack not being directed against one of the alliance characters that could actually hurt them. With the horde all dead, and the remainder of the raid group was summoned courtesy of a PAA warlock, we settled down for the revenge portion of the evening. For the 15 - 25 minutes worth of camping they inflicted upon Chipple and the two members of the KFR, we (well not so much Chipple, but I hung around to enjoy the show and act a decoy) returned the favor about two to three fold spending somewhere around 30 - 50 minutes camping them in return as well as the two or three other level 70 horde who showed up to try and help them. It was very therapeutic, although I did feel bad for the three or so low level horde players (levels ranging from 25-37) who had the bad luck of wandering into the area while all this was going on (that I felt bad for our raid group killing them is further proof that I probably shouldn’t be on a PvP server).

Moving on to topic number two. I went and watched the Transformers movie tonight (again technically yesterday). Seriously what a ridiculous movie, but I mean that in a very good way. I wouldn’t waste time thinking about the plot, while the basics are quite easy to understand, there are some holes big enough to drive Optimus Prime through. However this movie was just too damn much fun for that to matter at all. I started laughing pretty quickly once the movie commenced, and didn’t really stop while it was playing, and continued to laugh about the movie my entire walk home. I know it is cliché to say you were on the edge of your set, but I quite literally found myself perched there on more then one occasion during the movie.

When I first heard about the Transformers movie, I refused to get excited about it. I mean a live action adaptation of the cartoon that existed solely to sell the toys (I knew that fact even as a child watching those cartoons, but that hardly stopped me from loving them), how could that movie be anything but awful? Then I read some reviews for it and they were surprisingly good, and then a few friends went to see it and came back saying it was a pretty good movie, so I started to get a little excited about it. I have to say Transformers is as about as good as you could ever hope to get from a movie based on an 1980s cartoon; which amazingly enough turns out to be a remarkable fun movie. Who knew?

Finally I should say a few things about last Saturday. It was a very fun time, it certainly wasn’t what I expected, as the only role playing that took place the entire evening lasted from 11:30pm until midnight. The vast majority of our time was spent playing the Order of the Stick Adventure Game (probably from about 5:30pm - 10pm). The rest of the time was spent actually working on characters for the anything goes/chaos campaign Matt has been talking about running for something like 2+ years.

For your consideration I leave you with two pictures one is another screen shot of Chipple, the other is a picture of the actor Sarah Chalke who plays Dr. Elliot Reid on Scrubs. I do this because I think Chipple looks a bit like her.
ChippleSarah Chalke