Guess Post: A Fey's Journal, 2nd Entry. Part 2
This is the final part of Yan’s second Player log. See the 1st part here.
At the shop everything went smoothly. Our shadier-looking members went in, pretending to be from another town and explaining they wanted to extend the market of this drug called Green Welcome. They gave the shop keeper a large bribe and he gave us his source without too much hesitation.
It seems that he was getting his stuff from some gnomes in the … you guessed it! SEWERS !!! Why was I not surprised!?!
Here comes the shock of the day. We are there, waiting for the Aravar’s wounds to close up, thanks to this neat armour he has. Then Nogard, our crazed Dragon Shaman decides to search the pile of Garbage the Otyugh sat upon. Needless to say we looked at with a mixed look of shock, disgust and disbelief!
The stench of that thing alone was driving me nuts, and there he was, shoveling in it with both hands! He came back with a bag of gold, grinning like a maniac. I certainly did not want any of his filthy money. We all agreed that he had earned the right to keep it all. Out of pity for my nose though I cast an Hygiene spell on him, at least I’ll only have the image burnt into my eyes; my nose should recuperate in a month or two…(Chatty DM: Priceless!)
As this entry comes to an end we did manage to have another surprise. As I was following the tracks leading from this cave, I had a nagging feeling… Gnomes, drugs… There’s something familiar in all of this.
As I was wracking my brain on it, it hit me… Well technically it hit Crueger first, as we were ambushed by them. Those were not gnomes! They where Spriggans! Well known for being members of the nefarious Dogbane fey Noble House.
This House has been expelled from the Faerie Queen’s Court for their vile rituals and prohibited activities. Finding them here might entail a more organized threat then was first anticipated… Especially if Raketi is behind all this…
YouTube of the Week: No Rolling Required Edition
Just a neat dice stacking video, of which there are many on YouTube. This particular one recommended by Boingboing.
Big Fluff, Small Crunch
I’m still working on the Big Eyes, Small Mouth-Pokemon game for my 5 year-old son. I also read Dante’s and Martin’s excellent post on Improvising. I’m taking notes here!
I bought 2 starters of The Pokemon Trading figure Game. My son whips my butt on a consistent basis and he loves those spinning figurines. I now have an Ash and a Pikachu figurine for the ‘party’
I also bought a Pokemon Trading Card Game 2 player Starter deck kit…I have more minor Pokemons to be captured, trained or fought in the Arenas of the gameworld. Ah yes, my son also beat me to our first game too…
Which means he’s a mean gamer or that I just suck at trading games or that I let him win (I soooo wish it was the 3rd one)…
Finally I am currently re-reading my copy of BESM 2nd Edition…
I know I’m a very D&D centric guy… because I love it and it’s the only RPG I have time playing. However, BESM is some good too! It’s heavy on Fluff and rather light on Crunch and still delivers a satisfying RPG experience for the Crunch Junky that I am.
The BESM character generation system is simple yet it delivers a Gurps-like feel for the range of concepts available. I remember having been able to pull off converting our 1 year old Gurps Fantasy campaign to BESM in one evening. If I recall correctly, each of the character’s flavor was maintained (do you agree Yan?). We played only 1 session, which ended up with the Big-Bad Dragon being sushied in 1 round but it was a satisfying RPG experience for me. I think my players liked it but were ready to move to another, non-point based system. (Then one of my players bought me the D&D 3.0 Player’s Handbook and the rest is history).
BESM’s task resolution system is so simple and the skill sub-system is even optional. One of the key rules is : Why roll Dice? How fluffy is that? 
As soon as I’m done re-reading the rules, I’ll read the Cute and Fuzzy Seizure Monsters supplement and make the characters. I’ve read parts of it and it is a very cynical and satirical approach to the Genre (Which I could have done without).
It’s a shame that fellow Canuck gaming company Guardians of Order folded.
Anyway, I’ll post my version of Ash and Pikachu as BESM character and Pocket Monster as soon as I’m done.
Oh and if you are a gamer with kids, do check Gamer Dad’s site. It’s more geared toward video games and board games but that’s where I learned about how good the Lego Star Wars games were. My son and I grinded (thanks for the grammar tip Dave) both to near completion!
Sadly missing the Brotherhood of Dada
Comics Should Be Good’s Top 50 DC and Top 50 Marvel characters list is up at last, the summation of over 500 entrant’s top 10 lists among each publisher. My man Green Arrow made it in at #7, and The Question made it in at #13. And as is no surprise, my #1 Marvel character matched the #1 on that list.
What’s important to note is how many characters on these lists are dead, formerly dead, or about to be dead/missing. Thanks big publishers, you really know your audience!
Inq. of the Week: Classic Game Trilogies
So, how about that Halo 3, huh?… ::crickets::
Over 80% of you don’t own an Xbox 360, and won’t be picking one up to see what happens to the intrepid Master Chief and his supply of Mountain Dew. (No wonder Super-Soldiers were eliminated right away in the Real Ultimate Showdown.) At least 3 of you are hardcore and picked it up as soon as you could, and 3 of us decided to buy the game when the lines had died down a bit. I really want to buy it, but I have the feeling that it would impact my performance in grad school. Plus, my Halo 1 & 2 co-op partner moved to Canada, and I don’t have Xbox Live (still don’t want to pay for an adapter) so it just wouldn’t be the same!
Game trilogies and series have been around since the NES. They may seem more prevalent, and indeed it does seem like the big companies are way more interested in churning out sequels than coming up with new ideas. However, that doesn’t mean that the sequels are any worse than the originals… indeed, because of technology advancing, I often enjoy them more. (This is different than the movies, as we’ve discovered.) Inspired by the huge Halo 3 launch, and in playing more classic games via the Wii’s virtual console, I ask…
Loading ...I’ve defined “classic video games” to be Super Nintendo era and before. If there are any that you feel absolutely must be included, leave a comment, and my crack team of researchers will look into it!
[image credit: Mushroom Kingdom for this snapshot of the classic movie The Wizard]
Guess Post: A Fey's Journal, 2nd Entry. Part 1
This is Yan’s second Player log. He tells the story of our game from his PC’s perspective. That’s why I now leave out plot points and details form my DM logs. Yan is an up and coming storyteller and it’s fun to see him flex his creative muscles on a new venture. Thanks for fighting the inertia man!
A Fey’s Journal 2nd Entry
As I’m writing these few lines we are yet again… (Cruguer! Stop moving around with the light I’m trying to write over here!)
Ah! Crap! Just forget it! I’ll make the light myself…
But I digress; let me go back to the beginning.
We were setting up to enjoy a peaceful evening of discussions and good natured fun. As I was reaching for my flute to further add to the sense of complete bliss, a Knight of the Pale burst in on us, asking for our help. Seeing how pale he was (Tee Hee!), we just could not ignore his plight. So, like they say: “no rest for the good guys” or was it ‘the evil ones’? Hmmm… Crap! I always get these stupid human sayings mixed up…
(Chatty DM: Its not the Knights of the Pale, it’s the Keepers of the Veil… but I might have screwed that one up…This is a very Ptolus thing, all players mix both organizations, Monte Cook’s group did too. I think I’ll just merge both groups and leave it at that)
Let’s just say, we went to Knight of the Pale’s HQ to meet with the knight’s superiors. In case you did not know, the office of these Knights is smack dab on Ptolus’ cemetery walls!… A pleasant place… really! Well, I would have chosen some other place but the rent must be as cheap as it gets since there are all these zombies and demons prowling around at night. The leader of this order definitely knows how to get the most out of his money..(Chatty DM: Yan you kill me! Lol!).
As we arrive, we can see that the Knights have had some action and that currently a weird, never seen before, plant-like humanoid creature is walking toward the Necropolis from deeper in the city. A few others broken forms of these creatures are seen lying around.
The knights don’t seem that intent in engaging it and once it enters the Cemetery they close the gate behind it. Obviously the knights want us to find the source of this new threat.
After some investigation by yours-truly, investigator extraordinaire (and friends, of course), we gathered the following information:
- These creatures seemed confused and came from the south.
One of them was not confused and came straight from the south-western part of the town. - This creature is from an unknown origin.
- One of the knights wound by these best transformed into one.
Our hypothesis was that someone, or something, was creating new ones somewhere in the southern part of town. Also, we think that the one that came from the other direction was one that had wandered long enough to get its bearings. Obviously their ultimate destination was the Necropolis.
On our way south, we meet with an overly-friendly, and reformed, Ogre-Mage that had taken a liking to Cixi. He (It? I’m confused!) had just dispatched one of those weird walking houseplants. Amongst his constant bragging we managed to gather that the creature was coming from the
