Chatty's Bedtime Campaign: Nico's Quest
I have mails to read and posts I planned to do but this… this I have to share with you.
8h15 PM. Nico, my 6 year old son, is playing in his room waiting for me to come and read him a story.
As I come into his room, he tells me he’d rather play than have a story. Knowing my 6 year old’s sharkness, I gently refused, telling him he’d try to hustle me out of a story anyways.
Then inspiration struck! What I’m about to tell you, I never, ever did. I’d like to thank James Wyatt for that.
I tell Nico to get in bed, we’ll make a “Game Story”. He distrusts me. Dad is trying one of his parenting tricks again. After a bit of father/son negotiations, he tentatively agrees to the project.
Here’s a Play by Play.
Nico’s Quest, Chapter 1: Character Generation:
Chatty: Okay, what’s the name of our character in this story?
Nico: Nicolas… looking unsure and still trying to determine where I was going.
Nice name. What does Nicolas do for a living?
(Mumbling): I don’t know.
Is he a Knight, a Pirate, a Spaceman…?
A Knight.
Okay…
(Nico Warms up and cuts off his father): With a Big Sword, a magical sword. It has this Diamond that you press and it shoots lasers!
Cool power, So you’re, like, a Space Knight?
No! I’m just a Knight, you know?
All right, how about another power?
Hmmmmm (Shrugs)
What if you get attacked by Snowmen?
Oh! I got it, another gem button activates flames on it and melts the snowman.
Awesome, do you have anything else on you?
I have this magical armour!
Does it have powers?
Yes, it can control the weather (like Storm in X-men).
Wow, that’s good, anything else?
(Nico is really into it by that time): I can, I can… roll into a ball of steel and move real fast!
Great! So where do you live? What kind of house do you have?
A Castle.
Of Course, are you living alone?
No, You, mom and Rory (his 5 year old sister) live there too
I do?
Yes. Hey daddy, What powers do you have?
I’m not going to be in this adventure Nico.
Oh come on dad!
Well if you must know, I’m a Wizard-King of great power, so that makes you a Prince-Knight.
Cool!
Maybe later we’ll do adventures together. Are you ready to start the story?
Yeah!
Chapter 2: A Strange Visitor
Okay, one morning, someone knocks at the door of the castle.
Are you going to open the door daddy?
I am. Who do you think is at the door, a good guy or a bad guy?
A monster!
What kind of monster?
(Nico, who’s lying beside me, climbs over me and reaches over to point at his Pokemon Poster on his wall) Let’s find someone real bad looking. (He picks and discards a few)
Nico: This one! (Points Pokemon #62, Polywrath)
Chatty: Scary! Okay, well daddy opens the door and talks to someone and then you hear a loud noise. What do you do?
Nico: I go down… No! I grab my Sword and Armour and I go down.
Chatty: The door stands open, empty. A paper is nailed to the door. It says:
Nico, I kidnapped your daddy because I want to be the king! Bring me the Crown to my secret cave before Sundown and I’ll free your father. My cave is super secret and only Sandshrew knows about it.
(Nico helped me pick the Good Pokemon)
Chatty: Okay Nico time for bed, we’ll continue in 2 days. (My wife and I take turns telling stories to each of our kids).
Nico: Daaaad! Just a few more minutes (For once I wasn’t annoyed, I was grateful!)
Okay, one more adventure. So what do you want to do? Outside your home you see a small town, a forest beside it and a large mountain with lots of caves.
I want to use my armour’s weather powers to blow all the trees away!
Why do you want to do that?
I want to see if someone in the forest is running away.
Hmmm (I then decided to blow whatever thin plot hook I had and run with it), okay do you uproot the trees?
No I want to keep the stumps there so they can regrow (Regeneration trees? Check.)
Okay, so you use lightning to shear all the tress clean off their stumps and you shape lightning buzzsaws to cut all that wood in neat stacks of wood.
Cool!
Then the Lumberjacks come out of the village and see all the wood and they explode in cheer!
Yay!
Then an old man comes out of the forest, he has a huge white beard and asks you ‘Why did you destroy the home of all the animals and the birds of this forest? Look at all these animals behind me, looking sad”.
(Nico makes a wry/worried face, realizing the consequence of his action) Well, can I ask the lumberjacks to build a huge farm to be a home to all the animals?
That’s a great idea! The lumberjacks get to work and build a luxurious Forest farm. The old man, who is a druid…
What’s that?
It’s an old forest magician.
Okay.
Well the druid plants a few trees in your farms’ gardens and uses magic to grow them so the birds can stay here too.
Yay!
You did it Nico, you repaired your action and made the animals a better house, the lumberjacks cheer you and say that you are a hero! Time for bed!
This was the best story ever, can we continue next time?
Of course!
Chatty’s Conclusion
I could add 100′s of words analyzing that… There were tons of lessons here for me, even after 25 years of DMing.
I’m not going to do it. If you don’t get it, come back and read it later, I don’t think I could explain it.
Should I do weekly updates?
Credits: Nicolas Menard (Story), Nintendo (Image)
Interview: Mike Mearls, Scott Rouse, and Randy Buehler (Part 2)
Check out the first part of the interview, then continue on. Here, we mainly talk with Mike Mearls about R&D/rules questions.
Critical-Hits: We’ve been hearing complaints about lack of customization on fourth edition. How are you going to add to fourth edition as far as customization, and options for classes?
Mike Mearls: One of the important things is that with the structure of the roles, whenever we add new options that are meant for a specific class, we have to work within that class’s structure. The roles are a very important part of the design, and the philosophy of fourth edition is like playing on a basketball team. In earlier editions of the game, all the classes wanted to score. The only function was how much damage you are putting out there, and that’s what you optimize your character for. In fourth, with the roles, we wanted to put out there different ways the characters could excel. So it’s not just who’s doing the most damage, it’s also “I’m the leader, so I’m keeping the party together, and I use my abilities to initiate a cool plan. We can get across this bridge if I teleport the rogue across the bridge, so he can take down that wizard.” [Read the rest of this article]
Critical Hits Podcast #8: Interview with Rob Heinsoo
Again at GenCon 2008, we spoke with Rob Heinsoo, one of the writers of the Player’s Handbook and lead designer of D&D 4e. (We previously spoke to him at D&D XP.) To start, Rob asked if he could ask US questions, which we were happy to oblige. Then, when we get to ask the questions, we talk about reception of 4e, his work on Oriental Adventures and similar (including mention of sequel books to class supplements like Arcane Power 2), minions (getting deadlier and saucier), dealing with errata (some bigger fixes coming), and the product that he’d really like to work on but can’t.
Interview: Mike Mearls, Scott Rouse, and Randy Buehler (Part 1)
At GenCon 2008, we sat down at a round table with several WotC staff members: Mike Mearls (Lead Developer for D&D), Scott Rouse (Lead Brand Manager for D&D), and Randy Buehler (VP of Digital Games.)
The first part mainly deals with D&D Insider and the GSL. Part two will deal more with Mike Mearls and R&D questions.
Critical-Hits: How’s the show been going for you so far?
Mike Mearls: Pretty well so far, pretty busy schedule with all the events and stuff, but so far so good.
Scott Rouse: Yeah, it’s been going great. Like Mike said, it’s been busy, but the response to fourth edition has been tremendous. People are here checking out D&D Insider, so all in all I think it’s going really well.
Randy Buehler: I spent all day at the D&DI kiosk watching people come up and start using the tools. It actually made me feel better. I certainly wish we had those things up and running already, and turning our company into a technology company is hard, so it’s nice when people come up and say “can I have this? When can I pay? Can I give you money? I want this now!” People are just frothing at the mouth, so it’s really nice to see people enjoying the tools we’re working on. [Read the rest of this article]
Epic Laundry Basket: Laser Clerics!
I like Laser Clerics. Like Jeff Rients, I think there should be more lasers in D&D.
You disagree? That’s fine with me. Here’s the thing: rules are lies, especially the Fluff!
You want a darker, grittier Cleric? Why don’t we just apply Chatty’s patented template of Doom to this ability then?
The Evil Eye
With a slight smirk and a spark of glee in your gaze, you flicker your wrist slightly and rip part of your target’s essence. You transfer this essence into a nearby ally, the shared bond guiding his next strike.
At-will, Divine, Implement, Psychic
Standard Action Ranged:5
Target: One Creature
Attack: Wisdom vs. Will
Hit: 1d8 + Wisdom modifier psychic damage, and one ally gets a +2 power bonus to his or her next attack roll against the target.
Increase damage to 2d8+ Wisdom modifier at 21st level
So please leave my laser cleric alone.
154 words
Credits: Robin Stacey (Image), Graham Poole (Stuff)
Critical Hits Podcast #7: Interview with James Wyatt
At GenCon 2008, we sat down (well, he sat down and we stood) and interviewed James Wyatt, Story Lead for D&D and primary author of the DMG. We talk about the game he ran for us (full report to come later), writing the DMG, his upcoming projects (Eberron Campaign Setting, Eberron Player’s Guide, and Player’s Handbook 2), the implied setting for D&D 4e, building your campaign world, his campaign idea about a Conan-esque/Fool Wolf-esque setting for D&D, and we manage to squeeze a plug in at the very end.
YA5WKEPACLB*: What Gen Con 2008 meant for me
It was the Monster Mash!
Yax, this one is for you!
Feeling: I entered Gen Con 2008 feeling like a Nobody, I left it feeling like a Rockstar
Lesson learned: Edition Wars hate mongers are idiots. Rules are lies, Game systems are guidelines at best. Bask in the awesomeness of your bile and leave us alone while we have fun.
77 words.
*Yet Another 5000 word epic post about the contents of my laundry basket.
Image Credit: Robin Stacey (AKA Greywulf)
Back from Gencon, Coming attractions
No, I wasn't quite broken yet...
(Photo credit: Bartoneus/Dave: The Game)
I’m back home! Still under the grip of it all. My rational brain has gone into Coma when my “friends” (Said with a totally snooty French accent) broke me sometime during the 1st Drunken D&D game. My Emotional Center has been running the show since then.
Since I assume that a lot of people are sick and tired of reading about Gen Con, I will do only 2 Gen Con posts in the coming days.
In fact here’s a short list of things I plan on posting soon:
- Gen Con lessons learned, per day. Some key things I learned from all that madness of awesome bliss.
- The Unauthorized Ascension of the Drow Pathfinder Society Spy Report
- The One Sentence NPC contest winners! (I promise I’ll do them this week!)
- New Series: Project Kobolds love… (What is that?)
- New Series: YA5KEACLB*
See ya later all, I’ll go sleep for 24 hours now.
*Yet Another ‘5000 word epic about the contents of my laundry basket.
Preview: D&D Insider
This afternoon Dave and I had the chance to talk to Randy Buehler and Didier Monin while they showed us some of the D&D Insider features. Dave will be posting an interview that we conducted with Mike Mearls, Scott Rouse, and Randy Buehler which will discuss some of overall aspects of D&D Insider such as prices and timeline so this preview is more about the hands-on demonstration we were shown by Didier and our impressions of what we saw. [Read the rest of this article]
GenCon: Live ENnies Coverage
Dave and I are at the ENnies Awards, Dave is covering it live on our twitter feed.
Winners to be posted here when we have wireless!
EDIT: Winners below cut and pasted from ENWorld‘s Homepage. Or check the archives of our twitter feed to re-experience it. Also check out our pictures from the event.
Loading ...
