YouTube Tuesday: Windy City Level Edition
“One toot on this whistle will send you to a far away land!”
The Dungeon Reality Show: Half-Time Showdown, Part 2
First Down, 5 Kobolds to go
Okay so after having, for all intents and purposes, killed the game by the time that 8h PM rolled by, I asked all three players if they’d be willing to play the original 2nd scene of the adventure.
I’m grateful that they accepted.
As I had planned it, had the heroes won the skill challenge from the first scene, their next task would have been to play a short game of “Blood Bowl” against a team of level 2 kobolds (3 Skirmishers and 2 Dragonshields).
Halfling MC: “Listen, since you killed off all the players during your show, we thought it would be fitting that you play the game now! We’ll just grab a few Kobold extras to face you and this should be just peachy! Makeup!” [Read the rest of this article]
Inq. of the Week: PHB2 Power Creep
Last week we asked about Worldwide D&D Game Day. 68% said that did not go (yours truly included), 28% went and enjoyed, while 4% of attendees went and had a bad time. This week we’re going to look at the state of D&D now that the dust has settled after the release of the PHB2.
In the heyday of 3.5 I’d browse every new splat book, not for intriguing new play options (many, many sucked), but for the overpowered Prestige Class de jour. After all, who didn’t want to dip into a single level of six prestige classes for awesome abilities? With a few exceptions, the poor original DMG prestige classes were forgotten, unless of course something new came out that made a dog suddenly viable (Duskblade -> Dragon Disciple). Now, with the PHB2 out I was curious to see if this newer, more-balanced D&D suffered the same fate as its predecessors: Power Creep.
Having perused the PHB2 myself, but not really having played with the classes too extensively, I have to say that it’s a very tightly balanced book. If anything, some classes come across as too bland and conservative rather than new and powerful. With that in mind, we come to this week’s Inquisition:
Loading ...Of Healthy Bodies and Minds
(Warning, this post as NOTHING to do with RPGs, it’s another of my Stream of Consciousness stories about my health and my musings on them).
A few weeks ago, I was officially diagnosed with my second severe depression in 4 years. Like many people out there, I am often fighting what I call inner demons. Such demons manifest themselves as anxious thoughts and recurring fears of failure and a certitude that I will end up losing everything I have obtained in life.
The ironic thing about it all is that by letting those fears take over me over these last few months, I ran the very real risk of losing everything: my job, my wife, my kids and my friends.
Because I became such a nervous wreck, I was prescribed an extended leave from work (as well as anti-depressive drugs) and I’ve been home for the last month. Some days have been good, many bad.
A lot of this time has been spent feeling guilty about not having been strong enough to weather this.
Try as I might, I failed to recognize the sources of my fears and I was unable to face them and change how I react to them.
In the last few weeks, I’ve tried the tricks of this book (excellent I might say) and I’ve gone to weekly therapy sessions. While all this has helped me, it wasn’t enough. Anxious thoughts still creep in my head and stay there for hours on end.
Little piece of advice to those suffering similar disorders: sitting idly in an empty house is NOT good therapy! Only the evil voices keep you company and its impossible not to listen to them.
Then two things occurred over the weekend that may be showing me the way out of this mess. First, both my physician and my therapists forcefully reminded me that I had to exercise more if I was serious about recovery. A psychiatrist once told me that regular exercise was a better anti-depressive therapy than drugs were. I believe that. Its just that when things go sour, exercise is the first thing you stop doing and you rationalize a gazillion reasons for having stopped.
I also recently read that an anxious mind can’t occupy a relaxed body.
That’s why I fished out the dusty Wii Balance Board from underneath the living room’s sofa Saturday morning. I fired up Wii Fit, and took on the gentle reminder that I hadn’t used it in 316 days. I’ve been using it for the past 3 days (including a full 30 minutes this morning) and for the first time in a few weeks, I felt fine on a Monday morning.
That’s an encouraging sign!
Secondly, through my friend e of Geeks Dream Girl, I stumbled upon this post by James of Men with Pens. It discusses how to stay sane and alive if you are a creative person. In it was a 20 minute video by author Elizabeth Gilbert.
You don’t have to watch it all, but it’s very good. In it she talks about the anxieties of being a creative person (in her case a writer) and how daunting each success you have can be because you start pressuring yourself and doubting that you’ll ever again be able to create something at least as successful.
Then she hits on a subject that rang so true to me about how ideas and inspiration often feels like they are given to you by an external, intangible “thing” and that you as an artist/writer/etc are just the vessel of that idea. I was struck at how real this felt to me. I will often be walking along the street and an idea will strike me like lightning and I know that if I don’t reach a keyboard within the next hour or so, the idea will slowly fade and won’t come back.
Now here’s the thing. Gilbert says that she uses that belief as a psychological construct to help her deal with all those anxious thoughts and feeling of inadequacy. By believing that you are not the only one responsible of your own creation, by externalizing part of the creative process, you can detach yourself from the huge self-imposed pressures of performing all the time.
Interesting!
Now this morning I was thinking, if ideas come from whatever external source you decide to define for yourself and if you can choose to be receptive or not to them, then maybe anxious ideas and dark thoughts can also be modeled like that.
Now instead of feeling guilty about how anxious a thought makes me feel, I could say “Okay then, if I don’t concentrate on this dark idea, if I don’t give it life like I do when a crazy cool idea strikes me, then it will go away like all ideas do. Thus, I can free my mind to focus on better ideas and thoughts”.
Nothing of this is based in science or in facts. Yet, the thing is about the human mind is that it doesn’t so much care about what’s true. Rather, it cares very much about what it believes!
And I choose to try to believe this. Very much so.
Lastly, yesterday evening I came to terms with the fact that in spite of my scientific background, training and experience, I was first and foremost a creative person. I’ve always been about ideas and creating stuff, not running them.
And therein lies my salvation.
Here’s to seeking a healthier body and mind… and finding them!
The Dungeon Reality Show: Half-Time Showdown, Part 1
As I more or less coherently described here, Friday night was a “let’s test some Players Handbook 2 classes” session. Yan, Mike and Franky showed up with a level 2 Sorcerer, Invoker and Shaman.
While fishing for concepts for the adventure, I had the idea to use a shtick I had tried once before. I decided to make the adventure about a Fantasy Reality Show. Last time, I used the Kobold Hall adventure and cast it as an American Gladiator type of obstacle course. We had a blast!
This week, I decided to try something I had been thinking about for a long time, which was mixing D&D 4e with Games Workshop’s Bloodbowl game of Fantasy Football (American).
See the previous post to follow my creative process to create the 3 scene adventure. [Read the rest of this article]
Critical Bits for the week ending 2009-03-28
- Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Games Blogs is out now. Go buy it!
- d6 Damage… err, speakers
- WTF D&D, 1st Edition Monster Manual
- Newest Character Builder update available, including PHB2 data, and fixes retraining/power swap issues.
- Heaven is Funky Moose coming to Rock Band 2
- PHB2 errata already at Wizards. (Thanks, newbiedm)
- D&D, Mario, Street Fighter, and more new iGoogle themes
- XRP picks up the rights to produce 4e Freeport Companion. (Good move for Green Ronin)
- Minor updates to Skill Challenges, Race, and Class features.
Preview: Ranged Warlord
When preview material for the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons first started to come out, what excited me the most was probably the addition of the Warlord class. The Races & Monsters preview book described the class alongside pictures of armored warriors covered in weapons (both melee and ranged), shouting orders and pointing out tactics to their allies. When 4e was finally released the Warlord class was extremely interesting and very new, but completely lacked that “Weapons Master” feel that I had really wanted to associate with the concept. In fact, it had no ranged attacks or abilities at all.
It wasn’t until late last year when I found a post by Wyatt on his blog detailing rules for a ranged Warlord build, and I found myself thinking it could definitely be presented as a great add-on to the core rules. So that’s exactly what I set out to do, and today I present to you a preview of the first three levels of our Ranged Warlord!
These rules were originally written entirely by Wyatt from Spirits of Eden, but I liked it so much I asked for his permission to take his ideas and run with them. In the end I worked to edit them, balance them against the core rules, and format them so that they fit in with the other rules provided for 4th Edition. Then I ran everything by Wyatt and received his blessing on it. If you’re as excited as I am to try it out, please use these rules here as a playtest. We welcome all feedback on it and are definitely curious how it stands up during play. The rules presented here are still a work in progress: the final build will include powers all the way up to level 30 (excluding utility powers because the existing ones are just as useful for a ranged warlord as they are for the melee builds), as well as possibly a few paragon paths to go along with the ranged concept. The full build should be released in the next two months, but if I hear a lot of good feedback and encouragement I just might finish it sooner!
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Backrow Commander Warlord
Your leadership takes the form of quick commands, cunning strategy, bold action and tactical superiority – but not from the front lines. Behind your allies, or close to them, you observe the battlefield with your sharp wits and quick reflexes, seeing through your enemy’s tactics and finding the flaw that can shatter them. [Read the rest of this article]
The 1-day adventure challenge: Blood Bowl/D&D 4e Mashup!
Introduction (March 26th 5h00PM)
Okay, here’s the thing. I’m short on time and my friends are coming over to play a 4e game using the new PHB2 classes tomorrow night.
I’ll have time to work on it tomorrow but I’m throwing my thoughts here as ideas arrive.
The party will be made of three 2nd level adventurers. An Invoker, a Shaman (Bear Spirit) and a Sorcerer.
Therefore I want a 3 encounter adventure, based loosely on the Kobold Hall model, that will feature challenges specifically for these classes. (i.e. Minions, traps and a cool solo boss)
I was thinking something crazy, like the PCs interrupting an American Gladiator-like contest between 2 crazed necromancers. I’d have the players be ‘drafted’ once again into ‘The Crawl’ reality show. (An idea I use when I’m doing one-shot adventures).
Here’s me thinking out loud:
Scene 1:
Players are sent to be the half-time show entertainment into the middle of a Gridiron-like dungeon where a team of Zombie Rotters are playing Blood Bowl against a team of Decrepit Skeleton… …except the undead players are not bright enough to stop playing.
Lots of minions and 2 ‘coaches’ (Artillery and Controller)
Scene 2:
The PCs must capture the “Ball” (Maybe a Kruthik baby?) and bring it back to the equipment room… The encounter would feature corridors, fans trying to get the ball. And the ball’s ‘Parents’ not too happy with the setup.
(I’m open to better ideas here)
Scene 3:
Disagreement with the owner.
A Dragon fight in the dragon’s VIP booth. Probably the same dragon as in Kobold Hall… plus some minions to challenge the PCs as they are veteran players that will likely kill the dragon real fast.
Anyone want to riff on that and help me? Tomorrow, if I can, I could possibly live-blog my work process to make the adventure into something playable.
Thanks in advance!
Second mental Draft (March 26th, 8h00 pm)
While driving to and from an appointment tonight my thoughts about the adventure became clearer.
As Yan puts it, this is a perfect setup to work my atrophied improvisation muscles.
So here’s how I see Scene 1 (and it might be the only scene of the night)
The PCs are going to be the Half-Time show of a Zombie vs Skeleton game of Football. This means I’ll set up my Blood Bowl map on the table and I’ll use my Dungeon Tiles to build a Stage.
The scene will be the biggest Skill Challenge in the book: 12/3. All Skills allowed, as long as it makes sense to Wow the crowd (read: the DM).
Any success counts for the 12 successes AND can be used to recharge any Encounter Power or Cancel a Failure
Any failures will bring something bad/hostile to the terrain, looking for trouble, the higher the # of failure the worst the threat.
A Complete failure will bring in a Boss monster (Think Bone Chewing, Necrotic spewing Zamboni!), regardless of the tactical situation on the board.
Hell yeah! I’ll work on this tomorrow!
The Bonegrinder Zomboni (March 27th, 11h50 AM)
All right so the stage is set and I have most, if not all the adventure planned out in my noggin’.
Scene 1: half-Time Show as described above.
Scene 2 (If skill challenge of scene one succedded): Players are invited to play the second half of the Blood bowl game because the players are almost all dead. I think I’ll make a Kobolds team as opposition.
This will be a Rule 42 (as in the page in the Dungeonmaster Guide) heavy scene, completely improvised.
Scene 3: Show’s Over, Zomboni time!
Here’s the final boss for those who expressed an interest in it.
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| HP 156; Bloodied 78 | ||||||
| AC 17; Fortitude 18, Reflex 18, Will 16 (Can be targeted by Turn Undead effects) |
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| Immune Gaze | ||||||
| Saving Throws +2 | ||||||
| Speed | ||||||
| Action Points 1 | ||||||
| R Skull Cannon (Standard; at-will) | ||||||
| Ranged 10/20; +8 vs AC; 1d10+4 damage plus 5 ongoing necrotic damage (save ends) | ||||||
| m Bonegrind Engulf (Standard; at-will) | ||||||
| The Bonegrinder Zamboni attacks one or two Medium or smaller targets; +6 vs Reflex (automatically hits an immobilized creature); Hit: 3d8+4 damage, the target is grabbed and pulled into the Zamboni’s space; the target is dazed and takes ongoing 5 damage until it escapes the grab. A creature that escapes the grab shifts to a square of its choosing adjacent to the Zomboni. The Zomboni can move normally while creatures are engulfed within it. | ||||||
| c Ghoulish Blast (Standard; encounter) ? Necrotic | ||||||
| Close Blast 5; +6 vs. Reflex; 3d6+4 Necrotic Damage and the target is immobilized (Save Ends) Recharges when an engulfed creature dies. | ||||||
| c Raise Cleaning Crew (Standard; encounter) | ||||||
| Burst 4. Place 4 Zombie Rotters and 4 Decrepit Skeleton in empty squares within the burst. | ||||||
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This is going to be fun!
Blood Bowl, 4e style! (March 27th, 13h00)
Okay, here’s the final part of the adventure. Scene 2.
If the Skill challenge of Scene 1 was won, the PCs are “invited” to field a team to play the second half of the game (since all players were destroyed during the show and the crowd wants to see the new stars in action).
So shall I play this.
Here’s the rules:
Make the ball a Kruthik Hatchling. 1 hp, Defenses between 12 and 15
Whenever it’s ‘free’ it moves toward the center of the field and stays there.
When it’s in the hands of a player it bites during its turn and damages the carrier on his turn (aura power).
Picking up the ball = Minor Action, Grab attack on ball.
Running with the ball: Move Action. No rolls necessary, I’ll ignore the “drag a grabbed creature” rule.
Passing the ball (i.e. landing it in the targeted square):Std Action, Dex check vs DC equal to distance thrown squares.
Kicking the ball: Str attack vs DC equal to distance thrown squares
Catching the ball = Immediate Reaction: Dex attack vs ball’s reflex defense
Intercepting an in-flight ball = Same as catching, must have immediate action available.
Failing on a throw/kick/catch: Pick ball up and drop it from a few inches over the spot.
Dropping the ball: A carrier drops the ball whenever it is immobilized, Knocked Prone, Stunned and Dazed.
A goal is scored when a ball carrier finishes his turn across the goal line with the ball in hand.
A goal scores one point and recharges one Encounter Power to one player of the scoring team (or allows one monster to spend a Healing Surge).
The game will last one hour of game time, or three points. (Subject to change if players are having too much fun).
The opposing team would be: 3 kobold Skirmishers and 2 kobold Dragonshields(making it a level 2 encounter)
Credits: Graham Poole (For suggesting using the Gelatinous Cube as a model), Dave Chalker (Suggesting I tweak the monster’s name ), Yan Décarie (For suggesting scene 2)
Pain of Campaigning: Actually Planning
After a long hiatus of actively DMing, I was roused from my gaming slumber. The results are a bit unusual and probably not going to be to everyone’s liking, but after droves and droves of articles detailing how to run games, I figure I’d do an article of my current work in progress: XIX.
The strange confluence of events inspired my current D&D project
- My impending departure from Miami and return to Maryland would put me in an area ripe with players in friends interested in RPGs.
- The release of the PHB 2 (and some of the grousing about “too many options”) made me consider a way to let people get a flavor of it all.
- My own article, and Original Sultan’s comments supporting my “War is Hell” flavored D&D campaign caused me to consider a fun way to have high fatality games.
- The strange convergence that unwittingly occurred between a long gestating fiction project and my first ideas for this game.
I decided I wanted to have a game where characters died (and over the course of the game a lot would die,) not through my own mean-spirited intent to kill, but through insane difficulty and the need to sacrifice lives for military objectives. So, I decided I would make a game where there were a preset number of characters, far outstripping the number of players, but I had trouble initially settling on a number and method of deciding the composition of a party of characters, but not necessarily full-time PLAYER characters. Then, in struck me, why not just have one of each class? Hence, I came up with the idea for eighteen characters (PHB 1 & 2 + Artificer + Swordmage) , but quickly remembered (thanks to The Game) the impending release of the Monk. Hence, 19 characters… or the much cooler campaign slogan: XIX.
Sensing that XIX could be a ready-made theme I decided to just have be important to well… everything. I had already decided on a military-based theme and figured “why not have the party have the unfortunate task of dealing with a large force of varied power, numbering precisely 1900 monsters?” (Imagine a Battlestar Galactica-like opening scene at the start of each adventure with the total enemies remaining). And why not have them defending 19 hapless towns? At this point, having overcome a few initial intellectual hurdles, I had a few logistical problems crop up.
Problems
- I needed a “timer” to force the characters to actually do something against the horde of monsters (or “Profanes” as I later flavored them). It couldn’t be so arbitrary that the players felt like they’d lose on a whim, but there had to have some flexibility so I could move the game along.
- I needed a reason why some CR 25 baddy wouldn’t just waltz in and slaughter the characters at first level.
- I needed a way to succinctly hand out information on the setting and foreshadow some of the events to come.
- A reason to avoid the Video Game RPG pitfall of neglecting fully half of playable characters in favor of leveling up favored characters.
- Satisfying the people that LIKED having their own character without undermining the whole point of the “massive team.” Also, making sure I didn’t have to level up 19 freaking characters.
Solutions
I wrapped up Problems #1 and #2 with a neat little bow: a magical barrier of blood powered by the poor frail Elders from the 19 towns. Those very same barriers will only survive 19 months (shocking, huh?) and would degrade, only recognizing more and more serious threats as time passed. The PCs would also have to consider those poor old folks, as keeping the barrier up would eventually cost those noble oldsters their lives. I envisioned instances where the Players would take on a mission, leave some other characters at home base, only to have a bunch of “leftovers” from earlier missions storm into their once-safe territory.
For problem #3, I quickly settled on creating a prophecy. With my own fetishistic obsessions with the number 19 in this game, a prophecy revolving around the number seemed like an easy fix, provided I could write one that didn’t make me gag (I’m not fond of my poetry skills).
Problem #4′s solution came to me from its source: video games. Games like Chrono Trigger and X Men: Legends incentivized using certain characters together. Continuing my number 19 obsession, I whipped up 19 different combinations of character types that would unlock specific advantages (later dubbed The 19 Harmonies) for the party usable in every encounter. Moreover, successful “unlocking” a Harmony would result in EVERY character getting XP and the award of yet-to-be-defined prophetic bonuses/resources (something along the lines of plot magic). I decided to tie this in with the aforementioned prophecy, making the Prophecy/Ritual of the Elders become a force unto itself, willing the PCs to win against their seemingly insurmountable odds.
Problem #5 resulted in a compromise. I decided that each player could designate a “Primary” character that was reserved for them to use when they showed up and acted as their default persona for role playing between missions. I intended to farm out the character leveling process to interested players anyway. This “Primary” rule guaranteed that I wasn’t stuck acting as custodian for the whole stable of characters. So, at least one character per player would be their responsibility, with the option of players taking on a whole “team”, with the understanding only one could be their primary character.
Conclusions
There you have it, my background planning for my D&D game. If interest on the subject is high I’ll actually post the XIX Prophecy and the XIX Harmonies I’ve created.
DM Chronicles, Session 12: Blind and Bloodied Dungeon Crawling, Part 2
See part 1 here.
With two PCs either vaporized or teleported away to the gods knew where, the remaining 4 PCs (Fizban the Wizard, Naquist the Cleric, Bjerm the Fighter and Takeo the Warlord) entered the room hidden behind the black velvet curtains. They had their eyes firmly fixed on the wall ahead, were blindfolded or (in the case of Naquist) with helmet worn backwards.
It so happens that the room was furnished with several square pillars on which trapped mirrors were mounted on each face. Each pillar had one of three group of mirrors that ‘attacked’ people gazing in them: a Draining mirror that dealt necrotic damage, a Teleporting mirror that sent the PCs to another pillar with the same type of mirrors and a trapping mirror that sent PCs to an enclosed space with no issue (The Oubliette of the Empty Mind).
Rocco the Rogue and Masaru the Warlock had been sent to the Oubliette, where a starved, insane Gnoll attacked them. They killed it rapidly and started looking for a way out, with no success. [Read the rest of this article]
