Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms

Well what do you know. A new post not even a year and a half after the last one. 

World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting

Forgotten Realms Campaign Set

I have been on a bit of a nostalgia kick of late, and pondering two of the classic TSR campaign settings. Specifically two of the three to come out of AD&D 1e, namely Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms. I’m not sure why I’ve never viewed Dragonlance in the same vein as the other two, perhaps because Dragonlance was so tied up in a seemly all consuming story that just left less room for personal adventure. Or perhaps because TSR just never published as logical a starting place for Dragonlance as Greyhawks’s World of Greyhawk folio followed by the gold box World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting in 1983, or the gray box Forgotten Realms Campaign Set in 1987.

Modern me enjoys and appreciates both settings a great deal, but if you were to force me to choose one, I’d come down on the side of Greyhawk. This hasn’t always been the case. As I’ve stated here before (even if years before at this point), I got my start in the hobby as an 8th grader in 1990 in the early days of AD&D 2e, and I quickly became a bit of a Forgotten Realms fanboy. 

 A steady diet of Dragonlance fiction paved the way to adding the Forgotten Realms fiction into the mix. If memory serves the first two FR novels I read were Greenwood’s Spellfire, and Salvatore’s The Crystal Shard. Whatever else you want to say about TSR’s Forgotten Realms novels of that era, for me they certainly did a fine job of demonstrating how both adventure and adventurers had a place in the Realms. And did so without going the Dragonlance route of tying nearly everything to a massive campaign event, be it the current version of the event (the war of the lance as shown in the original trilogy and the DL series modules), the first version of that event (the first war of the lance with Huma and co.), or the aftermath of the event (the post war stuff, including the Legends trilogy which did the double duty of telling us the fates of Caramon and Raistlin while simultaneously presenting the history of the cataclysm). In any event fairly early on in my gaming journey (some time before the AD&D 2e version came out in 1993), I picked up the gray box, and tried to figure out how to make use of it. 

 I initially found the World of Greyhawk to be a bit silly. I was at that time completely unaware that any Greyhawk novels existed, so I didn’t have the in to it that I did with the Forgotten Realms. Also in those days my only sources of information about products was almost exclusively the pages of Dragon Magazine, and the Wargames West catalog (to a lesser extent the adventures in Dungeon Magazine suggested products I might want to consider picking up as well). The realities of TSR at the time meant a definite bias towards the Forgotten Realms. My knowledge of European political structures and how they changed from the middle ages into the 1500s, 1600s, and 1700s was rather lacking, so the idea of independent baronies, counties, and duchies outside of a kingdom seems strange and laughable to me. So all the various Ulek and Urnst states just confused me. My first major Greyhawk purchase was the 1988 Greyhawk Adventures hardback. It didn’t really help sell me on the setting. I also didn’t begin to collect all the classic 1e era modules set in Greyhawk until late in the life span of AD&D (and the majority were only picked up after the advent of later editions of D&D), so I didn’t have their legacy to stoke the fire of any Greyhawk fandom in me. 

 My opinions on Greyhawk began to change in the latter half of my high school days (probably in 1993). It was the Carl Sargent penned From the Ashes box set (October 1992) that started me down the road to appreciating and even preferring Greyhawk. Reading the history of the Flannaess and seeing a seeing a logical enough reason (perhaps not good enough to survive contact with an expert in geopolitics or history, but more than good enough for a lay person wanting a logical-ish fantasy gaming world) for the campaign world to exist as it did, dramatically changed my opinion of Greyhawk. 

 I went off the college in the fall of 1994 and entered my golden age of role playing (at least in terms of frequency). And I didn’t make much use of either setting. I used the specialty priests in the Forgotten Realms Adventures hardback (1990), but that was hardly my only source of AD&D 2e specialty priests. I did continue to pick up products for both settings. It wasn’t until D&D 3.0 that I finally set a campaign in the Forgotten Realms. I don’t remember much about it, aside from vague sense of being disappointed at how it went. For Greyhawk I didn’t actually acquire the gold box until sometime in the mid 2000s (before 2008 and 4th edition). And it wasn’t until the 4e days that I set a campaign in the World of Greyhawk when I translated the U1-3 modules from AD&D 1e to 4e (with some prep work ahead of time, but largely on the fly at the table). My memories of this campaign are much more favorable. 

 I think I’ll be continuing this soon, with thoughts on how the ‘83 gold box and ‘87 gray box compare to each other, and how useful I find their contents.

Happy Halloween - Let's Talk D&D

 Sadly this will be in no way, shape, or form Halloween related.  

Dragon Mountain

I keep turning over in my mind this idea of using both Dragon Mountain and Return to the Tomb of Horrors in the same D&D campaign.   Both are box sets published by TSR back in the 1990s for Advanced Dungeon & Dragons Second Edition.   Dragon Mountain was for levels 10-15 and featured the planes hopping mountain lair of a red dragon, plus the investigation leading up to finding the mountain.  Return to the Tomb of Horrors had suggest levels 13-16, but the one time I played in it the party was comprised of 20^th level characters and the adventure still seemed challenging.  So I’m thinking whatever level a party ends up at after Dragon Mountain ought to work just fine for Return to the Tomb of Horrors.

 

I foresee a few different issues.  I don’t currently have a plan for getting a party to 10^th level to start Dragon Mountain.  Depending on the group I could certainly have them start as 10^th level characters, but I wouldn’t want to do that with relatively inexperienced players.  If I do start them at 1^st or low level, then I’ve still got to actually get them to 10^th 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 5^th 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 10^th 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. 

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 3^rd edition that ran for five years.  Enjoying D&D 5^th 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.

Nutshell

So you may have noticed, I haven't had much to say here in the last few years.  So the brief overview of my geeky life:  I've stopped playing WoW, I've resumed playing City of Heroes, I've obtained a Wii (but I don't use it very much), I still enjoy tabletop RPGs, I plan on running a new BESM campaign soon, I got a new computer, I changed the OS on my old computer to a Linux distro (Linux Mint, plus dual-booting my main computer to Kubuntu alongside the Windows 7 it came with), I'm still watching anime (but not as much as I used to), I've rediscovered my love of Doctor Who, and I'm currently engaged in a game of chess over Facebook.   For any who care less about my geeky hobbies, but may be curious about my personal life in rough chronological order:  I left Onvoy, I moved from Morris to the Twin Cities, my father died (October 19, 2008), I floundered around a bit working some jobs that weren't very good fits for me,  my roommate moved to Vermont, I paid off my car, I became unemployed, I remained unemployed for far too long, and most recently (as in this week) I started a new job that I am extremely excited about.

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):

Gary Gygax

Gary Gygax died on Tuesday. The world is a less interesting place without him in it. I think had I ever met Mr. Gygax I'd have liked to say something like this to him:

Thank you. Thank you for D&D, and thank you for role-playing. Thank you for the hours of enjoyment this hobby has given, and will continue to give me. Well played sir, well played.

If I were feeling particularly fanboyish I'd probably have added something about how much I love the Greyhawk campaign setting.

I've got the sound, but do I have the fury?

I feel like there are about a hundred different things I'd like to talk about, and no way that I'm going to fit them all in. So let me mention a few things in passing with the (probably in vain) idea of addressing at least some of them in more detail in a later post (it could actually happen).

I finished off Sky Girls last week. I found it to be a solid, enjoyable mecha series. While nothing about it really grabbed me, made me want to run out, wrestle people to the ground, and shout "WATCH THIS" at them, I still have no problem encouraging people to give it a try. "Refreshingly straightforward" probably sums up my thoughts on Sky Girls more than anything else. There are no genre altering plot twists, no surprise villains, no secret organizations pulling the strings - just enjoyable mecha action. The fact these mecha were piloted by cute girls instead of angst-filed boys probably didn't hurt my opinion of it either.

I'm through the first story arc of Spice and Wolf. This series certainly started off slowly, but as the first arc progressed things did pick up nicely. Craft and Horo are very interesting characters in their own right, and watching their relationship develop has been quite enjoyable. My impression of Craft is he's a skilled merchant who is just a touch too cautious for his own good, but his dealings with Horo seem to be putting just the right amount of daring in him. As for Horo, she is a wonderful character. For a wolf spirit/harvest deity she is surprisingly human - very wise yes but also very fallible, confident and powerful but also emotionally vulnerable and even painfully lonely.

This is not your typical fantasy story, as stated Craft is not some stock fantasy archetype like a warrior, but rather a simple merchant; his big dream is to amass enough money to buy a shop in a city so he can settle down and stop being a traveling peddler. Outside of Horo's existence magic has been nowhere to be found, and even with Horo the flashiest bit of magic we've seen is her transformation into her wolf form - and that has only happened twice or perhaps more accurately once and a half since the first time we only got to see Craft's reaction to the transformation (it scared him witless). The main story arc revolves around economics with nobles, kingdoms, and rival merchant houses plotting and scheming to make money off a pending alteration to the purity of one kingdom's silver coins. For an anime the depiction of the economics gets pretty in depth maybe not quite "Moby-Dick's descriptions of 19th Century whaling" level in depth, but still I feel at times like I should be taking notes.

Oh what else: I've started in on Oh! Edo Rocket and it is ridiculously fun. When I try and think of a way to describe it I keep coming back to the fact it reminds me of Excel Saga, but only coherent with an actual plot. I'm not entirely happy with that comparison as I am at best ambivalent towards Excel Saga, while I am loving Oh! Edo Rocket. I would have to say that in every way that being silly is a good thing - Oh! Edo Rocket is just as silly as Excel Saga, and in every way that I found being silly a detriment to Excel Saga - Oh! Edo Rocket is actually logical and serious. The setting is Edo in 1842 (as the anime is quick to tell you Edo in 1842 was in the midst of numerous onerous restrictions on things deemed frivolous - like say fireworks), and the basic premise is a woman asks a fireworks maker to make some fireworks capable of reaching the moon for her. Anyone familiar with the anime will understand the magnitude of the understatement I’m about to engage in - there is more going on in this anime than I’ve just mentioned. I doubt I could do it justice were I to try and describe everything going on there, I think this is clearly a case of experiencing it for oneself as being the best policy.

I’m still watching Rosario+Vampire, I’m not sure I could even explain why. I know I haven’t made it through an episode yet where I haven’t thought, “now that is an excessive amount of fan service.” For some reason it actually makes me think of History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi. There are some similarities: Kenichi is the last anime I watched to feature a truly noteworthy amount of fan service (although nowhere near the level of Rosario+Vampire), many of the defeated foes in both go on to become staunch allies of the main characters, the female leads in both could kick the male leads’ collective asses, and while I wouldn’t really call Kenichi a harem anime the main character does pick up more than one female admirer over the course of the series. Where Kenichi differs from Rosario+Vampire (and most harem anime/manga I’m familiar with) is Kenichi (the character) actual grows and becomes more competent and mature (and since it is a martial arts comedy I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention stronger and more skilled). I doubt Tsukune is going to be much different at the end of Rosario+Vampire from how he was at the beginning.

Clannad and Shion no Ou both continue to be among my favorite anime I’m watching. I’ve been periodically pestering Dan to start watching Shion no Ou so I’d have somebody to talk about it with. Dan if you are reading this be warned I’m going to add Oh! Edo Rocket, and Spice and Wolf to the list of things I periodically pester you to start watching. I continue to make my way through Pretty Cure Max Heart, and I have only a few episodes left of Lucky Star. Sadly I haven’t gotten back to Dennou Coil yet. On that front I think it is actually an attempt by me to be responsible. I have a strong feeling that once I start watching it again I won’t stop until I’ve finished it, and because I’m only through 14 of the 26 episodes I’ve been hesitant to start watching it again since I haven’t had a window were I could comfortably devote the nearly five hours it will take to finish the series off.

I could continue on about anime for awhile yet, but time for a new topic instead. Despite what it must look like given the above paragraphs, my assessment last month that I’m making a transition away from WoW towards anime may have been premature. I’m starting to get the hang of being a level 70 character with Chipple. I’ve got my flying mount (sorry still no pictures), and I’m making slow, but measurable progress towards better gear. Assuming I keep up with the necessary farming of elemental motes, I should be making myself some Frozen Shadoweave Shoulders this weekend. I still need to get Chipple into some level 70 instances, and get her keyed for Karazhan (although given my current work schedule I just don’t see myself becoming a regular raider), but the tasks before me seem slightly less daunting.

I’ve also been spending some time working on a Tauren druid named Berenek on the server Zuluhed, because that is where my friend Erik plays (I’m sure I’m not spending nearly enough time there in Erik’s estimation). Speaking of Erik, I continue to wait patiently for move number three in our latest e-mail chess match.

Matt’s BESM campaign continues to go well. He’s seems quite happy to sit back and see where we (the players) take it, and speaking for myself I’m quite happy to see where we can get it to go. In my last post I mentioned that my character Cynthia had managed to retrieve a surprising amount of data from the memory banks/brain of our apparent main foe. It turns out this info is more memories and personality and less raw data, so Cynthia threw together a small robot to attach this personality to so we’d have something to interact with while obtaining what we’d like to know. Matt has portrayed the partial copy of our foe’s memories as being a bit morose, and more than a little bitter over the loss of its magical abilities. Its complaints on the latter topic lead Cynthia to retort something to the effect of (and I mention this mainly because Matt found it amusing), “I just grabbed the information we needed, it’s not my fault you don’t keep your magic in your brain.”

My character Kell continues to survive Ellery’s Eberron campaign, although after our last session, mostly by the grace of some amazing dice rolling. D&D has long had the idea of the “natural 20," meaning you roll a 20 on a 20 sided die, as being the best thing to hope for during combat. This has been true regardless of the version of D&D you happen to be playing (and outside of a few skill systems in the pre 3.x /d20 era rolling high on a d20 in any situation has generally been a good thing). I picked a very opportune time to get one during our recent combat with a mind flayer (technically a vampiric mind flayer but whose keeping score). Had I not rolled that 20 on my grapple check, my character was about 99% likely to have his brain eaten (just a little something mind flayers like to do). Near character death experiences notwithstanding I continue to have fun with Kell.

With that I think I've touched on most things I’ve been kicking around. So it is now time for me to go knock out a few dailies and farm some motes of water.

Once More unto the Breach

To say I've thought of nothing else but singing monkeys since Saturday would be hyperbole, but it has been in the back of my mind. Yesterday I heard the radio advertisement for a second time. I listened to it with palpable anticipation. My original recollection was slightly inaccurate, the commercial ended, ". . . order your flowers by the 10th, and receive a free CD of romantic piano music, and a chance to win a singing monkey."

At least I think that is what it said, it's not like I had any trouble understanding anything else this lady on the radio was saying, but I just cannot completely wrap my mind around the idea of winning a singing monkey. Some part of me just refuses to believe that is what she said, despite having twice heard her say it. That said, I find myself a little sad I don't currently have a significant other, because I think I'd like to present her with a singing monkey (whatever that is) on Valentine's Day. I fully realize such an act would likely result in my hypothetical lover becoming my hypothetical ex-lover, but damn would the bar story be worth it.

In addition to pondering silly advertisements, I devoted most of my free time this last weekend to role playing. On Saturday Matt ran his BESM campaign. Cynthia very nearly went down the dark path of torturing a prisoner, thankfully Paul's Jedi stopped her. That aside, Cynthia did have a few moments I was pretty proud of: hacking a 24th century military grade computer system on an abandoned moon base was rather awesome, as was the invention of a shrink ray to facilitate the transportation back to their home world of the numerous D&D monsters we kept finding in stasis as we explored the interdimensional portal network our enemies seem to be using.

Like most most role players I love those rare instances where I roll the best possible result on my dice, just when I need to do so the most. Cynthia had one of those joyous occasions on Saturday. Our aforementioned prisoner was more mechanical than biological so Cynthia designed a machine to forcibly download the information stored in his memory. As it was being hooked up, he countered by activating his hitherto unknown self-destruct and total memory wipe ability. I held little hope that Cynthia would be able to use/modify on the fly her invention fast enough to get any information from him. I rolled a twelve (as good as it gets on 2d6) on the electronics test, after applying Cynthia's insanely high mind score and excellent electronics skill the test result added up to 24 (even after the penalty Matt applied to the roll) which is the target number BESM assigns for improbable tasks (BESM's highest difficulty class) . All of this means we got the information we were looking for, and while Cynthia may be a 14 year old girl she is clearly technology's daddy.

Sunday saw the resumption after a nearly year long hiatus of Ellery's Eberron campaign. I'm still trying to remember exactly what character goals I had for my changeling Kell. Still it was a fun session, although it served to really reinforce my preference for point based role playing systems. After two years of BESM (plus some random GURPS and Hero action) I find the game mechanics of character creation and advancement in d20 (and really any level based system) to be incredibly restrictive. Sorting through the seemingly endless number of D&D's core and prestige classes for that magic combination that will approximate the admittedly nebulous character concept I have has been an exercise in extreme frustration. My advice for anyone playing D&D (or any other class based system) is look over the classes, and find one that makes you go, "ooooo," and build your character concept around that. Don't create a character concept, and then try and find a class that fits it.

Let's call it 1-2 with a Walk

Suggesting the possibility of some sort of law of conservation of shipping time my SATA cables arrived a day later than the shipping estimate I was given. I'm relieved to be able to report victory in the installation of my new DVD drive, but it was far from crushing. Getting my computer to recognize the existence of my new optical drive was a chore. One would think that with three open SATA ports, one would at most only have to guess three times which port to turn on before the computer found my new hardware. Not only did my first three iterations through my computer's set up fail to get my new optical drive recognized, but for some reason my computer stopped finding the hard drive connected to the fourth SATA port. That resulted in fair amount of salty language on my part. Eventually the repeated turning of port 0 (the port my hard drive is connected to) off and back on resulted in the seemingly spontaneous return of the recognition of my hard drive. Once that problem was resolved, I turned on the remaining three ports all at the same time, and finally - for reasons I cannot explain - the existence of my new DVD drive was recognized. One final trip through the set up to turn the two unused SATA ports back off and I was good to go. For future reference my DVD burner is connected to SATA port 2.

So Tuesday night Chipple hit level 70. The process of getting her some good gear seems even more demanding and daunting than the process of leveling her to 70 was. I guess my next few steps with her will be earning enough gold to buy a flying mount, improving her reputation with the various factions, getting her keyed to the various instances, and maxing out her tailoring and enchanting skills. Once I stop being lazy I'll get a screen capture of her, and put it up. Although I'll probably at least wait until I've got my flying mount before I do that.

Going further back in time we last gamed on the 12th. It was a fun session, of course they have all been fun sessions. My character went on a date (of sorts), that was amusing. I guess after some of the situations I put Matt through in the last BESM campaign, the date was a bit of karmic justice (although it is worth noting it was self-inflicted karmic justice). Perhaps of more importance to the campaign we captured the apparent villain, not that we have a much better idea of what is going on, but we really haven't had much of a chance to question him yet. I do find, upon reflection, that I'm a bit surprised by how ruthless my character can get when confronted with opposition. All-in-all Cynthia is proving to be quite fun, and I always look forward to our next session.

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).

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.

Well this month kinda got away from me

I really didn’t mean to let a whole month go by without posting anything, but obviously those intentions were for naught. It’s not like I wasn’t up to anything during March, granted I wasn’t up to anything new, but I continued on with my usual activities meaning role playing and anime. You’ll forgive me if I touch on some of this only briefly.

The BESM campaign continues to go extremely well. I can see the end approaching, but I find I am repeatedly under estimating the number of remaining sessions. I’ve been thinking only three more to go for probably the last three sessions. We should be holding our next session April 14 assuming things go as planned there will be at least one more session after that (but given how things are taking longer then I think they will probably two more sessions). I suspect my players are enjoying themselves as much as I am if for no other reason then some of the interesting plans they come up with for their characters (for example). We did meet once for the Eberron campaign during March, and I look forward to continuing that, although I haven’t heard anything about that for a while now.

A little aside I’ve mentioned that one of the things my friends and I do when we gather to game is spend some time with the Wii first. Well this ritual lead some of my friends to ponder while bowling on Wii Sports, why don’t we actually go bowling for real. So we did just that. I broke 100 during our first game (quite good for me), and struggled to get to into the 50s during the second game (all in all pretty typical).

So anime. . .

I watched a great deal of it during March. Probably the most I’ve watched in a month since last November (I may well have exceeded the amount I watched in November). First off I’ve stayed current with the same shows I’ve been staying current with for a while now namely Bleach, Busou Renkin, and Naruto Shippuden. I started and finished My-HiME, Mai-Otome, Kanon (the 2006 version), Onegai Teacher (including OVA), and Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~ (also including OVA). I also started (but not yet finished) BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad (18 of 26 episodes), Pumpkin Scissors (4 of 24 episodes), Kino's Journey (8 of 13 episodes), Kyo Kara Maoh! (25 of 78 episodes), and Doki Doki School Hours (15 of 20 episodes). I’ve continued watching Hunter × Hunter and am through all 62 TV episodes, the first 8 episode OVA, and 7 episodes of the second 8 episode OVA. I’ve also watched a few more episodes of Tokimeki Memorial Only Love.

I don’t know that I’ll do this tomorrow, but soon I think I’ll post my thoughts on Kanon and Kashimashi for sure, and probably something about My-HiME, and Mai-Otome after that. I only have one episode of Busou Renkin left to watch so I’m sure I’ll have something more to say about it once I’ve finished that series off as well.

A little light reading

No earth shattering updates in my life this last week to report which overall is probably a good thing. The Eberron campaign on Monday was fun, and we'll be meeting again tomorrow. We should probably wrap up the current adventure (or so our DM has estimated). The process of remote gaming is proving surprisingly workable, even if the occasional technological issues are still somewhat annoying. All-in-all I'm quite happy with the experience thus far, and I am really enjoying being a player again. My own BESM campaign should meet again this coming Saturday an event I eagerly anticipate. I estimate my current BESM campaign will be concluded in another three to five sessions, and while I’m more then a little sad to see it end, I’m also filled with a fair amount of satisfaction over how it’s developed.

I’ve spent the majority of my free time this last week rereading many of David Weber’s Honor Harrington books. I also ran across LibriVox.org and its collection of public domain audio books, and promptly making use of its services I’ve enjoyed having Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars read to me these last two days. I should start in on the The Gods of Mars in the next few days.

I also found time to watch some anime. I’m still keeping current with Bleach (episodes 114 and 115) and Busou Renkin (episodes 18 and 19). My research into the picture I used to end my post on 2/9 peaked my interest a bit so I’ve since watched the first six episodes of Blood+ (I’ll probably get around to watching a little of Fate/stay Night as well). Since I’ve only watched a few episodes I don’t have much to say about it yet, but I did find those six episodes to be pretty interesting. Over the last two weeks or so I’ve watched the first four episodes of Sumomomo Momomo mainly because I wanted to do a little investigation into martial arts comedy anime with an eye towards some future BESM campaign (I’ll probably get around to checking out Shijou Saikyou no Deshi Kenichi at some point for the same reason). I’ve found it to be enjoyable enough that I imagine I’ll continue watching it. Last night I watched the first episode of Tokimeki Memorial Only Love and I find myself at a loss for what to say about it. I enjoyed it to be sure, but I don’t think I could describe it other then to say I have no idea what to expect from episode two (I will say that assuming the remaining episodes follow in the footsteps of the first episode I could be in for quite an enjoyable parody of high school romance anime).

Finally I watched the debut episode of Naruto Shippūden. I was surprised how easy it was for me to follow the action and guess what had transpired from where I left off watching Naruto and where Naruto had ended prior to the new series. The short (and somewhat unfair) description of those events would be not much. For the record I watched 82 episodes of Naruto prior to stopping leaving 138 episodes before the events of Naruto Shippūden, of course the last episode of Naruto based on the manga was 135 (and remember episode 101 is an omake and episodes 102-106 comprise the first of the anime only filler arcs) so I’ve watched a bit shy of two-thirds of the anime based on the manga, but still I think I should have had a few more questions about what was going on when I watched the new Naruto series. All that said I really did like Naruto Shippūden and look forward to watching some more of it.

It did not escape my notice that pitchers and catchers reported to spring training this week. Obviously there is still awhile to go until the season opens, but never-the-less the phrase spring training always makes me happy.

I leave you with the following video I ran across on YouTube:

Thoughts on a future campaign - part three

For part three of this brainstorming experiment I'll start with Samurai 7. This anime is based on Akira Kurosawa's movie Seven Samurai. What I'm interested in here isn't the plot (it's a good plot, but it's also pretty basic role-playing game fare), but the anime's interesting setting. For a campaign inspired by this anime I'd be shooting for samurai versus mecha, and since the mecha in Samurai 7 have a decent steampunk feel to them, I'd likely play that angle up. So we could really call this setting Steampunk Samurai. A few things are worth noting here - one there is nothing saying the samurai have to be the "good guys," and there is plenty of room for blending after all the bandits in Samurai 7 were samurai before they turned themselves into giant mecha and Kikuchiyo (who may be my favorite samurai in both the anime and the movie) is a cyborg.

A number of different themes could be pursued from this setting. One of the anime's themes is what does a warrior do when there is no war to fight. If I stick with the idea of the samurai being the protagonists that theme meshes nicely the idea of traditional samurai trying to find a purpose when war has been taken over by giant mecha. On the other hand going with the idea of Samurai as the antagonists I could shoot for capturing the feeling of a civil war breaking out as mecha warriors struggle to overthrow their samurai oppressors. The idea of combining mecha (steampunk style or otherwise) with samurai appeals to me, so even if I don't end up using this for my next campaign it's an idea I'd like to continue kicking around and develop for future use.

From here my thoughts turn to the country of Ōto from the CLAMP manga Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle (and of course the anime Tsubasa Chronicle). The country of Ōto is based partly on Japan's Taishō era (1912-1926 during the reign of Emperor Taishō) an interesting time with traditional Japanese customs coexisting with westernized elements. That is all great from both a literary and historic point-of-view, but for the role-playing perspective the country of Ōto also features Oni hunters (and naturally Oni for them to hunt). In the manga/anime Ōto turns out to be a giant virtual reality video game which while I won't completely rule that out as an option, I am pretty unlikely to implement that particular detail. Sufficed to say I wouldn't set a campaign directly in CLAMP's country of Ōto, but I would draw heavy inspiration from that story arc for this hypothetical campaign.

The logical evolution from the country of Ōto is to ponder Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle itself. Using this as an inspiration yields probably the most wide open campaign of all the ideas I've floated to my players. If my idea to base a campaign on Suzumiya Haruhi is an opportunity to parody every genre, this campaign would be an excuse to play in every genre, and visit any world I'm familiar with be it from my own imagination, a book, manga, comic, anime, movie, or any other source of media under the sun. The keys to doing this right would be preparation (I'd want to have a few different worlds at the ready when going into this), and character creation (the player characters would greatly benefit from compelling reasons to be traipsing all over the multiverse). I'd almost guarantee that ×××HOLiC's Yūko would be the NPC responsible for sending the player characters on their merry way across the dimensions so it would be interesting to work out how I'd enforce the give-up-that-which-is-most-important-to-you cost she'd charge for giving them the ability to travel the multi-universe (and an example of why character creation would be so important for this campaign, the player characters would need to have a good reason for paying such a steep cost).

With that I think I'm ready to bring this experiment to a close. I certainly have more ideas for possible campaigns, but BESM 3rd edition wouldn't be my first choice to run any of them and since I'm operating under the assumption that my players want to do a BESM 3e campaign there isn't a lot of point in pondering them at this time (fun though it would be).

On a completely different note this talk of Tsubasa Chronicle and ×××HOLiC reminded my that not too long after I first posted descriptions of those two anime I ran across a brilliantly succinct description of them both on the message boards at HERO Games. When I read them I thought them so perfect I was actually mad I didn't think of them myself, and jealous because I wasn't sure I could ever write so clearly. With a little more thought on the matter I realized that while they were the perfect description to give to me, they perhaps were not universally useful to all people. I still think them brilliant, but admit they require knowledge of CLAMP and Doctor Who to get the full effect. Anyway from the HERO Games Discussion Boards I give you Michael Hopcroft's (one of the two big anime guys on the HERO Games Discussion Boards) descriptions of Tsubasa Chronicle and ×××HOLiC:

Tsubasa Chronicle: What Doctor Who would look like had CLAMP created it. A young man travels from world to world, recovering the "feathers" that signify the lost memories of the girl he loves, knowing the one he can never recover is her love for him. He is accompanied by the girl, a sorcerer who has given up his magic and a ninja warrior with serious anger management issues, and their means of travel a marshmallow-bunny-thing with a very perky personality and an enormous ego.

×××HOLiC, on the other hand, features a character who is what [the character of] The Doctor would be like if created by CLAMP. Yūko Ichihara, an enigmatic sorceress with a unique reach in time and space, runs a Tokyo shop that grants wishes for a price. She has taken a schoolboy with spiritual powers under her wing, subjecting him to a humiliating and dangerous indentured servitude. Yūko is amusing, witty and whimsical -- frequently alarmingly so (she created two little girls to keep her company and gave them obscene names) and drives Watanuki just as crazy as the Sixth Doctor drove poor Peri.

I leave you with some advice courtesy of Roy Focker of Macross Zero and Super Dimension Fortress Macross fame: