Intermittent Missives
A place to indulge my geeky pursuits. While no subject is really off limits, and for those who know me a bit about what I’m up to will sneak in as well, the crux of this blog will revolve around comic books, web comics, RPGs, HeroClix, manga, books in general, movies, anime, music, and any other similar topic I can think of. Enjoy.
Saturday, February 24, 2024
Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms
Monday, October 31, 2022
Happy Halloween - Let's Talk D&D
Sadly this will be in no way, shape, or form Halloween related.
Dragon Mountain |
I foresee a few
different issues. I don’t currently have
a plan for getting a party to 10th level to start Dragon Mountain. Depending on the group I could certainly have
them start as 10th level characters, but I wouldn’t want to do that
with relatively inexperienced players. If
I do start them at 1st or low level, then I’ve still got to actually
get them to 10th level, a not uncommon stopping point for many
campaigns, before we can even start my apparent goal of this campaign. Then I’ve
got to figure out how to transition from completing Dragon Mountain an
adventure that really does feel like a campaign climax, to but wait there’s
more here comes Return to the Tomb of Horrors.
Also I’d likely want to run this in 5th edition, and both of
these are definitely 2e adventures. Return to the Tomb of Horrors
I love the idea of
Dragon Mountain, but there are some details I’m not in love with. The whole first third involving investigating
the Mountain and obtaining the needed plot coupons to move on (if I recall
correctly a map and a game breakingly powerful magical amulet) has some issues. The plot hook seems really weak to me. A dude in a tavern is telling a story about a
plane hopping mountain with a dragon horde in it, the adventure assumes the
party will naturally want to talk to after hearing this tale. Even assuming you get 10th level
characters to bite on this hook, the most obvious and logical path forward (the
storyteller’s old adventuring companion who the storyteller explicitly identifies
to the party as having been to the mountain ) is a red herring. I’m
not saying don’t use red herrings, but maybe give the party a win or two to get
them good and committed to this investigation before dropping a false lead on
them.
I have some issues
with the starting town as well. I’ll concede
these are mostly minor nitpicks that few players would either notice, or care
about (but I’m definitely one of those few).
The starting town was supposedly founded (and the adventure assumes the
party will learn all this as it has the above storyteller drops all this
background on them before ever getting to the dragon treasure bit) by a guy
running a ferry at a strategic waypoint on a trade route. Then the founder managed to offend a powerful
wizard who dried up the river to teach him a lesson. And that is the why the town is in its current
shape when the adventure starts, an otherwise unremarkable pseudo medieval
fantasy village next to a dried-up riverbed with a rotting dock and ferry. That just makes me wonder, if the river has
been gone long enough for the dock and ferry to start rotting, why is this town
not abandoned? If the river has been
magically dried up, why does the region map in the adventure show the village
on the second biggest river in the region?
If this is supposed to be a waypoint on a trade route, why is the
village not actually located between any two points of interest on the map (it
mostly just looks stuck out of the way on the map, river access not
withstanding)? I know I’m probably
overthinking this.
I have also played
with many players who would immediately latch on to this dry riverbed and
wizard story as the plot hook and doggedly pursue it completely ignoring
anything about a mountain with a dragon horde in it. And frankly in most the actual campaigns I’ve
run, that would be fine. Generally, I
don’t have any specific goal in mind for the players, I just throw stuff at
them and see what they get interested in and expand on that. I have no doubt I could come up with numerous
sessions worth of content regarding a party learning how to and then actually
fixing the river. It’s just the point of
this exorcise is I want to run a specific adventure here.
Then we get to the actual dungeon part of Dragon Mountain, and the main opposition the party would
face before getting to the dragon. . . Tucker’s Kobolds (from a Dragon Magazine issue 127 editorial by Roger Moore). There isn’t anything wrong with Tucker’s Kobolds in principle, when implemented by a GM/DM that knows what they are doing. When it works, the DM remembers that monsters (even ones weaker than the party) want to survive, they want to win, and they know the place they live in much better than the PCs. So it’s just a question of the DM running the monsters in a devious, tactically smart manner that takes advantage of the monster’s natural strengths and knowledge of their home turf. However not every DM is all that tactically sound (I certainly don’t think I’m any kind of tactical genius), so the danger of Tucker’s Kobolds comes in two extremes. When implemented poorly, either the much stronger party repeated steamrolls the weaker monsters (less of an issue in 5e where numeric advantage can be a great equalizer, but still a real possibility when the monsters always fight on the PCs terms), or the party has to suffer through a seemly endless barrage of DM fiat, unavoidable damage, all the other little power trips used by a DM to keep a party in their place (because otherwise the stronger PCs would just easily defeat the weaker monsters that again aren’t fighting intelligently). So while Tucker’s Kobolds can absolutely be done well, I just don’t know that I’m the DM to do it justice.
On the plus side
the adventure does a pretty good job of giving you some ways of differentiating
between the different kobold tribes in the mountain, and provides a handy chart
of which tribes are allies and which tribes are rivals. A canny DM could certainly make sure the
party gets this information, and intelligent players can get a lot of millage
out of exploiting different factions inside a dungeon.
On the other hand,
although I haven’t yet reread it to the same extent that I’ve been looking at
Dragon Mountain, The Return to the Tomb of Horrors doesn’t seem to have as many
issues. So far, my biggest complaint is
I’ll need to rename Moil the City that Waits to something else. The problem is, and I’ve witnessed this in
action as I’ve been a player in a campaign using this adventure, the presumed pronunciation
of Moil, is quite similar to the presumed pronunciation of mohel. In the campaign I was in every damn time the
DM mentioned Moil, the flow of the game ground to a halt as the next two-three
minutes was made up of various players (and I probably joined in) making
circumcision jokes. Every damn time. I need to keep looking over the adventure, I
have no doubt I’ll find other things, but for now it’s just I’d need to rename
the city where much of it takes place.
Thursday, October 20, 2022
Surprise Post after a "Brief" Hiatus
Hello from 2022. So
been awhile hasn’t it?
I make no promises of any future posts, but really quickly
here’s what I’ve been up to.
I moved from Saint Louis Park to Eden Prairie, and from Eden
Prairie to Saint Paul. I’m still at that
job I had just started back in September of 2011. I greatly enjoy it. After working eight years as a telephone operator
in rural Minnesota (which wasn’t a bad job at all), and spending however long I
spent working for CPP (a company that doesn’t even exist in the US any longer)
trying to convince people to not quit their identity theft memberships they
signed up for on their random credit cards, I find working for a company that
manufactures actual useful physical products to be amazing.
We mainly manufacture and sell variable-frequency drives and
related products. I started in customer
service and a few years back moved to technical support of all things. It’s great.
I still play WoW off and on (I tend to come back for an
expansion, play a bit at the start and again a bit at the end). I still play City of Heroes (thank you
Homecoming) off and on. I play the odd
other video game off and on (Final Fantasy XIV for example) as well.
Still role-playing.
Ran a second BESM campaign set in Nayado using BESM 3rd
edition that ran for five years.
Enjoying D&D 5th edition quite a bit, trying to DM when I
can, and playing in a campaign as well.
I still watch the odd anime here and there. Still read the odd comic book. Still do most of the same things as before
really.
Totally lost that game of chess back in 2011, but I'm far to lazy to go digging around in old Facebook posts to find the moves.
Until next time.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Nutshell
So that's been my last three years or so in a nutshell.
Now to keep me honest, the breakdown of the Facebook chess match with my friend Joel:
Me Joel
White Black
1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bb5 Bc5 (Ruy Lopez, countered by the classical (Cordel) defense)
4. c3 Nf6
5. d4 exd4
6. e5 Ne4
7. O-O dxc3
8. bxc3 d5
9. Nd4 O-O
10. Nxc6 bxc6
11. Bxc6 ba6
12. Qxd5 . . .
I leave you with an amusing video found on CollegeHumor (the ending veers into NSFW territory YMMV):
Friday, September 09, 2011
It's the best day ever tomorrow!
A fair warning, the following is probably NSFW do to language reasons (I guess you all know your respective work environments best, but just so you can't say I didn't warn you). In any event this was originally uploaded to YouTube by bishopvids. Enjoy.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
My gift to you.
I felt like sharing some positive feedback. So here you go. To anybody that has done something good:
And to anybody that I like:
You may now return to your regular Internets. . .
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
How to Give a Surprise Post
I'm not sure why I keep forgetting how funny this web comic is. I really should read it on a regular basis. To be fair the list of things I should do on a regular basis probably has a few more important entries than go read this excellent comic, but that doesn’t lessen the fact I really ought to add it to my list. For some reason it always make me think of an old coworker of mine from the days I worked at Onvoy Voice Services. With that non sequitur out of the way, I disappear back into the void of no updates I emerged from.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Out of the blue
Friday, November 27, 2009
Comfort Food and Short Work Days
I realize looking over yesterday’s post I perhaps came out sounding just a bit more pathetic than I’m actually feeling. I didn’t spend the day sitting in the dark, drinking alcohol, and weeping over missed turkey dinners or any similar activities. I had a perfectly enjoyable time playing a few video games, and listening to the Theft of the Dial marathon on The Current. I also implemented the first step of my “Make This Weekend be About Comfort Food Plan” I had come up with earlier this week. I started things off pretty simply, I went with tomato soup and grilled cheese for supper. I have not had either for years, and I’ve been craving tomato soup for the last month so all in all it was an excellent substitute for the nonexistent turkey dinner leftovers.
I was about halfway to my car after getting off from work when a new step two dawned on me. I very quickly placed a to go order for some fettuccine alfredo, and a bowl of chicken and gnocchi soup from the Olive Garden down the street from my office. I’m probably going to have to rethink my supper plans however; I had planned on deciding between Annie’s Shells & Real Aged Cheddar, and Annie’s Shells & White Cheddar. Again something I haven’t eaten in years (I used to pick them up at the food co-op back in Morris), but I don’t think I’ll eat two pasta dishes on the same day. I may go with cooking up a half cup of rice (probably with some chicken or vegetable broth added for flavor), and one of those individual servings of chicken cordon bleu you can get out of a store’s frozen food section (strangely enough one of the few times I’ll willing eat ham). Alternatively I may have to go with a baked potato, the point is I have plenty of options.
Enough about food, and enough blogging, it is time for me to decide between (or probably more accurately choose an order for) anime, manga, movies, and video games. Surprisingly I have to report as a dark horse possibility I find myself actually tempted to go out shopping. This would be pretty unusual behavior for me as a basic rule-of-thumb I try and avoid retail on Black Friday (and really for as much of the Christmas shopping season as I possibly can), but for some reason I keep thinking that a trip to Best Buy, and Barnes and Noble could be rather fun.
Regardless of what I end up doing today, I bid you all a good Black Friday however you choose to spend it - be it sane or otherwise.