Saturday, November 16, 2013
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Enron's Halfling Badassery
lulz. That gayming tile set is pretty badness in and of itself. Sounds like a fun night of Magic-the-Eight-Ball auto-DM'ing. :D
Friday, November 15, 2013
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Down the nerd rabbit hole with Dungeon Crawl Classics and the Mythic GM Emulator (cont'd)
OK. So having created characters, we moved on to the next order of business, which was to watch this blast from the past:
I actually watched, and was bewildered by, this when I was a kid.
Anyway, then we needed to come up with the plot of the adventure. We started by rolling up a random event. We rolled that something bad had happened to one of the NPCs, specifically Aeryk's (Mordecai the Black), and that what had happened to him was "Imprison". We talked it over and decided that Mordecai the Black was the wizard who'd killed Eric's 0-level character, and he'd stolen an heirloom that we desperately wanted back... but Mordecai in turn had been captured by the Lion Clan, who called themselves the "Champions of Light". We decided that the first scene would be in his village, which had been overrun by slavers. Asking questions and rolling for answers, we determined that a few survivors lingered on. We questioned a dying old man for information; clAeryk tried to heal him, but Justicia found him wanting. The players basically decide when a scene is over; when that happens, you write down any NPCs that came out of the scene (the Lion clan; their leader, the she-bitch known as The Griffon; the dying old man; the villagers; and Mordecai the Black himself), as well as any plot threads (rescue Mordecai; free the other townspeople). Next, the players decide what the logical next scene would be, then check to see whether the scene they come up with is altered (changed slightly) or interrupted (transformed into a totally different kind of scene).
We decided that logically, the next scene would be the entrance to the dungeon (the Lion's Den), and the dice agreed:
We figured it was likely there would be a couple of guards, and the dice agreed, so we set up a couple guards at the entrance; then we asked whether we'd been able to see them before they saw us, and the answer was no. We weren't in the mood for parley, so shit was on immediately. At this point we used the standard DCC rules to resolve the fight. I'm bad with this stuff but basically in every fight me and Aeryk's mains didn't do much, enr0n's halfling always critted with one of his staves, and my 0-level acquitted himself really well. Anyway we whipped those guys' asses. We determined the door wasn't trapped or locked and entered the Lion's Den, which seemed like grounds for a new scene.
That scene over we decided that the next logical scene would be entering the Lion's Den and hearing voices from further inside.
However, the dice threw a curveball and we had to alter the scene. We decided that if the voices weren't coming from INSIDE, they were coming from OUTSIDE. Holy shit, a patrol!
My characters scrambled to recover the guards' bodies before they could be spotted, but it was too late -- a ranger patrol caught us right in the act. We determined that these guys were crack shots, so they had some good ranged attacks on us (killing one of the 0-levels) before we got in there and gave them a proper whooping. enr0n, once again, critically staff-attacked one of the poor sons of bitches to death. I think he basically went apeshit on the attack and hit me too.
ANYWAY, I'm not sure I need to keep going blow-by-blow, but basically we did two more scenes after this. Going back to the dungeon interior, we determined that two members of the cult were arguing over differences of opinion of what to do with the prisoners. One of the cultists was shocked by the idea, but we didn't overhear much more before overrunning the room, commanding one by the word of Justicia to attack his friend (courtesy of clAeryk), then having the halfling demolish one or both.
We then determined all the other exits from the room were locked from outside and decided to enter the room with the weird circular structure. We determined that it was a pool -- specifically a strange summoning circle -- and that it was obviously unstable, but that it was not presenting any immediate danger. However, there was a demonic entity trapped in the prison cell adjacent to the room:
At this point, in the most anticlimactic possible ending to the game, we totally ran out of steam (well, me and Aeryk at least; I think enr0n could've kept going) and so we shut it down at this point. BUT, my feeling was, and I think the others agreed, that as a way to play an RPG with basically zero prep time, that it was a success. I totally want to try it again at some point.
There are other things you can do with it too. For example you could still have someone be the GM, in terms of running the monsters and guiding the tone of the answers from the dice, but still have no or little prep work and have everybody guided by the answers the GME rolls up to the players' and GM's various questions. You could even try playing solo.
jr0n: "The first scene is that I play a solo RPG with the GM Emulator, and I'm super happy about it!"
GME: "The first scene is altered. You play a solo RPG with the GM Emulator, but you are instead very sad."
I actually watched, and was bewildered by, this when I was a kid.
Anyway, then we needed to come up with the plot of the adventure. We started by rolling up a random event. We rolled that something bad had happened to one of the NPCs, specifically Aeryk's (Mordecai the Black), and that what had happened to him was "Imprison". We talked it over and decided that Mordecai the Black was the wizard who'd killed Eric's 0-level character, and he'd stolen an heirloom that we desperately wanted back... but Mordecai in turn had been captured by the Lion Clan, who called themselves the "Champions of Light". We decided that the first scene would be in his village, which had been overrun by slavers. Asking questions and rolling for answers, we determined that a few survivors lingered on. We questioned a dying old man for information; clAeryk tried to heal him, but Justicia found him wanting. The players basically decide when a scene is over; when that happens, you write down any NPCs that came out of the scene (the Lion clan; their leader, the she-bitch known as The Griffon; the dying old man; the villagers; and Mordecai the Black himself), as well as any plot threads (rescue Mordecai; free the other townspeople). Next, the players decide what the logical next scene would be, then check to see whether the scene they come up with is altered (changed slightly) or interrupted (transformed into a totally different kind of scene).
We decided that logically, the next scene would be the entrance to the dungeon (the Lion's Den), and the dice agreed:
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| The "path" |
That scene over we decided that the next logical scene would be entering the Lion's Den and hearing voices from further inside.
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| This event was sponsored by Lagunitas Brewing Company. Professional hand model. Do not attempt at home. |
My characters scrambled to recover the guards' bodies before they could be spotted, but it was too late -- a ranger patrol caught us right in the act. We determined that these guys were crack shots, so they had some good ranged attacks on us (killing one of the 0-levels) before we got in there and gave them a proper whooping. enr0n, once again, critically staff-attacked one of the poor sons of bitches to death. I think he basically went apeshit on the attack and hit me too.
ANYWAY, I'm not sure I need to keep going blow-by-blow, but basically we did two more scenes after this. Going back to the dungeon interior, we determined that two members of the cult were arguing over differences of opinion of what to do with the prisoners. One of the cultists was shocked by the idea, but we didn't overhear much more before overrunning the room, commanding one by the word of Justicia to attack his friend (courtesy of clAeryk), then having the halfling demolish one or both.
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| That halfling was seriously a motherfucker |
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| It's lucky for him he didn't have to take a beating form the halfling too |
There are other things you can do with it too. For example you could still have someone be the GM, in terms of running the monsters and guiding the tone of the answers from the dice, but still have no or little prep work and have everybody guided by the answers the GME rolls up to the players' and GM's various questions. You could even try playing solo.
jr0n: "The first scene is that I play a solo RPG with the GM Emulator, and I'm super happy about it!"
GME: "The first scene is altered. You play a solo RPG with the GM Emulator, but you are instead very sad."
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
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I opened up a create new post window
And have since forgotten what I had to say. So, instead, I give you:
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Down the nerd rabbit hole with Dungeon Crawl Classics and the Mythic GM Emulator
Bleryk and Blenr0n came by last Friday for a little drinkin' and gamin'. We're old: we didn't even make it to midnight, BUT we got in a game of Sentinels (fun!) and played Love Letter a few times (fun! bought it the next morning and we played it again! again fun!). But the big event was that I wanted an excuse to play DCC and use my fancy new Dwarven Forge tiles, but fucked if I was going to stay sober enough to GM. So we tried adding this weird indie product called the Mythic GM Emulator to the mix and I think it worked pretty well!
In a nutshell, the GME is like a magic 8-ball that you ask questions of then roll some dice to generate a response. (It's a set of charts, not literally an 8-ball, that is a metaphor.) The players come up with a yes/no question and the likelihood that the answer would be "yes" (50/50, unlikely, almost guaranteed, etc.) then roll dice. Based on the "chaos rank" which is a measure of how out of control things are at the time, the dice return a Yes, No, Exceptional Yes, or Exceptional No result, and sometimes throw a curveball into the proceedings by indicating that a random event has occurred.
To start with I built an empty dungeon. I didn't think of any context or stock any monsters because we would do that collectively while playing. Then, we started drinking beers.
Next we rolled up three 0-level characters each, named them, and generated their starting equipment. Then we killed one at random, picked one to promote to first level, and kept the last as a 0-level henchman. This was the hardest part of the evening because I absolutely could not convince my printer to print the 1st-level character sheets. Finally, we needed to make up an important NPC and a plot thread for each 1st-level character to use with the GME.
We ended up with:
- Mort of Ort: This gravedigger-turned-fighter had an unrequited love for beautiful Queen Milfia, and an equally burning desire to find the legendary Axe of Azgør.
- Dire Badger McPherson: Once a humble dyer, this 2-4' foot tall (we're not sure), 70-pound halfling was now a dual-stave wielding punishment machine. His NPC relationship was with "Mira Threshbottom" (a target for his dual-stave approach? perhaps an opposing halfling practicing the same technique? BOTH!?) and had it in his mind to acquire the golden fleece of cloaking.
- I either lost Bleryk's character sheet or he has it, but his character was a priest of Justicia who wanted to find Mordecai the Black.
That done, we started to actually play. To start with, we needed an adventure hook! To do that we generated our first scene. This is where the NPC and plot hooks we created for our characters came into play. First we rolled...
TO BE CONTINUED!
In a nutshell, the GME is like a magic 8-ball that you ask questions of then roll some dice to generate a response. (It's a set of charts, not literally an 8-ball, that is a metaphor.) The players come up with a yes/no question and the likelihood that the answer would be "yes" (50/50, unlikely, almost guaranteed, etc.) then roll dice. Based on the "chaos rank" which is a measure of how out of control things are at the time, the dice return a Yes, No, Exceptional Yes, or Exceptional No result, and sometimes throw a curveball into the proceedings by indicating that a random event has occurred.
To start with I built an empty dungeon. I didn't think of any context or stock any monsters because we would do that collectively while playing. Then, we started drinking beers.
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| A beer |
Next we rolled up three 0-level characters each, named them, and generated their starting equipment. Then we killed one at random, picked one to promote to first level, and kept the last as a 0-level henchman. This was the hardest part of the evening because I absolutely could not convince my printer to print the 1st-level character sheets. Finally, we needed to make up an important NPC and a plot thread for each 1st-level character to use with the GME.
We ended up with:
- Mort of Ort: This gravedigger-turned-fighter had an unrequited love for beautiful Queen Milfia, and an equally burning desire to find the legendary Axe of Azgør.
- Dire Badger McPherson: Once a humble dyer, this 2-4' foot tall (we're not sure), 70-pound halfling was now a dual-stave wielding punishment machine. His NPC relationship was with "Mira Threshbottom" (a target for his dual-stave approach? perhaps an opposing halfling practicing the same technique? BOTH!?) and had it in his mind to acquire the golden fleece of cloaking.
- I either lost Bleryk's character sheet or he has it, but his character was a priest of Justicia who wanted to find Mordecai the Black.
That done, we started to actually play. To start with, we needed an adventure hook! To do that we generated our first scene. This is where the NPC and plot hooks we created for our characters came into play. First we rolled...
TO BE CONTINUED!
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Good Ole Games is having a Woot-like sale today
HORDES OF GAMES ON THE CHEAP. lol I grabbed Tales from Monkey Island for $4, and Spell Force Platinum, a game I had heard about before but completely forgot about. Weeeeeee
GOG.COM FTW
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For those that like Torchlight
An indie game out there called Krater is pretty fun. It's more on the RPG side of things, and to be fair I'm not too deep into it yet, but the upgrade / crafting system is really pretty neat. The graphics and animations are solid, and the combat is interesting so far. Looking up the reviews, it seems like it either got top end grades or people pissed all over it, so the metascore is kind of misleading I think. Anyway, if you can catch it on sale or whatever, would recommend.
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Larry Potter
Check out these awesome transcripts from the meetings George Lucas, Spielberg, and Larry Kasdan had planning out Raiders of the Lost Arc in 1978. TRANSCRIPT
It's kind of amazing. It's totally one of the best movies ever.
It's old but heard about that link from Scriptnotes, which is a screenwriting podcast I really enjoy.
It's kind of amazing. It's totally one of the best movies ever.
It's old but heard about that link from Scriptnotes, which is a screenwriting podcast I really enjoy.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
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Awesome sauce on the FTL expansion
And I was surprised to see it's going to be free! That's both really cool and really unexpected. I would have gladly shelled out another $5-10 for it.
Weirdness: 500 views on the FTL Black Box blog (say that 10 times fast) in the last 3 days and accelerating. lol Can honestly say I was not expecting to have more than a few dozen people read it, let alone a few hundred. That's kind of fun! I am still slacking on the new log entries on my end, but I have enough still laid up from the previous sectors that I can crank out some material by just polishing up what I've already put down.
In other news: Looks like the battery is dead in my cell phone. WIN. So I get to pay $40 for a new battery and hope that fixes the problem, or I can sign up for indentured servitude with AT&T for another contract, or I can accelerate my plans to jump ship over to the Metro PCS deal - seriously.. 4 unlimited lines for $100 a month, including tax and all the bullshit? THAT'S MADNESS. Even if I have to chip in anther 10-15 a month to get my phone to unlimited 4G, that's completely worth it to me. I just dunno if my phones will work on their plan and if not, what that's gonna cost me to switch them over. Meh. Guess I'll go do that shopping tomorrow.
Monday, November 11, 2013
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Heh.. MINECRAFT MEGA PROJECTS FTW
Will have to think on that. Of course, by the time I get done with it, everyone will be burnt out again and no one will see it. haha
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And When the FTL: Kenny Loggins Returns Home
You can always hop in the Minecraft server and build an enormous castle for all to enjoy!
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RIP Annie
Yeah, it's not easy to stay with it. Although, I'm now into Sector 4... half way there (assuming the ship/crew doesn't die a horrible death before reaching the Rebel Flagship, lol)
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Ah, Action Team Annie - RIP
The FTL write-ups reminds me of my time trying to do write-ups for the B-17 game and the adventures of Action Team Annie. I stopped fairly early in my career, and using the kewl new search option on the side of the blog here, I re-read one of the write-ups. It was like I was ghost writing because i have no recollection of doing it. Wylie had just been born so I wasn't in my right mind, which makes sense why I cain't remember nuthin'.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
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FTL Kenny Loggins
So, I've been writing. A lot. And I thought to myself, man.. that is going to be a shitload of words on the Action Team blog if I copy-pasta all that over. So, I got a wild hair up my ass and decided to make one of them blog things to Encapsulate it.
FTL Black Box
Hopefully I make it through the whole thing before I stroke out or die of old age. This shit takes a lot of time but in some way, I think it's a good mental break from thinking about real life. At least I haven't taken up drinking booze like an alcoholic. Yay!
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So there's a giant satelite about to deorbit and no one knows when or where it's gonna crash
Apparently the Ruskies were doing some kind of low-orbit science and it needs a constant ion drive to not fall out of orbit and, well, the fuel for that ion drive just shit the bed. So now it's a waiting game and anyone's guess as to where it's going to impact. Good times!
GOCE RE-ENTRY TRACKING
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