Not Soon Enough

I want this semester to be over so we can play again! Tomorrow is the last day, and then I'm going to be able to pay more attention to the various projects I've been wanting to handle.

Of course, we'll probably still wind up sitting in a circle on Fridays and playing Dawn of War rather than rolling dice.

SPACE MARINES GET SOME

With the considerable hiatus the group has taken, I've had some time to think about the Deathwatch game John ran for us to fill in the gaming void. The game was quite interesting and a lot of fun for me as a player. Playing a character that is a hulking mass of genetic engineering, unnatural resilience and power, and a brain like a supercomputer - all of this wrapped in a tank-like shell of neigh-impenetrable power armor and sporting some of the nastiest weapons ever designed - was a nice change of pace from the roleplay-heavy campaigns I tend to run.

There were some pretty awesome moments that came out of it, but I'm glad it was a short-lived campaign. Not because it was bad, but because playing as these inhuman warriors turned out to be fairly far removed from the epic waste-laying and slaughter I had envisioned. Once we had enemies of similar ability and power to fight, the game quickly went from "kill EVERYTHING that blinks!" to "who here isn't dead and still has functional armor/bodies?".

Now, we as players could have probably done more to increase our survivability - but really we were all looking for astronomically overpowered mindless combat as a way to break up the more complex political campaign I had been running. All in all, it was a good experience and certainly something that would be worth playing again (but with a lot more player planning and tactical thought involved).

On Spell Components

So I've been seeing a lot of stuff about the use of spell components and whether or not they play a big part in the game. There seem to be a few basic opinions on this issue.

1. This group prefers to assume that a magic user has whatever they need to cast their spells, UNLESS the component in question either has a monetary cost or is extraordinarily rare/magical in nature, such as the components for the spell Repulsion:

The material component of this spell is a pair of small magnetized iron bars attached to two small canine statuettes, one ivory and one ebony. (PHB pg. 86)

In the case of some spells (generally those that are either very high level or a necessary part of the adventure) a small quest or some form of sacrifice or difficulty is presented, effectively treating the spell in question as a reward of sorts.

2. This group believes that spell components should be treated as ammunition - if the magic user doe snot take the time to at the very least visit an apothecary or go foraging then he has no way of replenishing his stock. In this case components are logged and tracked much in the same way that projectile ammunition or potions are. This is seen as a way to keep the powers of magic users in check by limiting their ability to spew powerful spells that require fairly simple components (Fireball, for instance).

3. This group thinks that spell components are extras - and therefore not necessary to the casting of spells. However, if a player takes the time to gather the listed components, they can be used at the time of casting to amplify or extend the effects of the spell in some fashion. The components are still used up in the casting, but this allows a magic user to keep a reserve of components for when his spells need that extra boost.

I'm a fan of the easy route, or opinion 1. It is generally assumed in my campaigns that the magic users have a catch-all bag of components that they can draw from, and I still have them go the extra mile to find, buy, or otherwise obtain components that are bizarre or rare. I've considered other methods of dealing with spell components, but the players seem to be okay with what we have agreed on and I see no reason to change it yet. Maybe in another campaign.

Finally...

I finally finished getting everything squared away that happened last session. I also finished the prep for tomorrow's game, and I'm hoping it should be a killer series of events. Maybe not killer for the party, but in fun levels. Yeah, that's exactly what I mean.

But yeah, the party almost TPK'd last Friday, in a display of I don't even know what. Mr. Theeves Cant Spell decided to blow everyone up, everyone but the ranger...and the ranger only had 1 hp left. 1. It was bad.

I'm ready to put that all behind us, however, and plow into the combat-fueled killfest I have written up.

As long as they don't bite the dust en route.

Inspiration

I've been doing a whole lot of inspirational reading the last few weeks, to try and find something I can twist to work with my AD&D 2e game. Though I read a lot of fantasy stuff, I don't find that material working its way into my campaigns. When I read things, a lot of my inspiration comes from the characters in the literature. The personalities and conflicts make for good starting points, and from there it is easy to piece together a fully-formed character. The boastful general that is secretly a coward? Jack Gladney from Don DeLillo's White Noise. The shy character that is terrifying in battle? Robert Cohn from Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. The insane, religious, sexist dictator? Commander Fred from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. There's so much material out there it can be hard to keep track of, but that's part of the fun.

One of my favorite characters of all (besides Capain Ahab, of course) would be Minister Hooper from Hawthorne's The Minister's Black Veil. Over the course of a few pages, the character goes from a kindly minister to a ghoulish presence amongst the townsfolk, a sinister character that is shunned for his choices in clothing. The character is so interesting and so well-written that he makes for a really interesting fellow to pull ideas from.

I've always had a hard time with settings, rather than characters. I can't design a city worth a crap, but I can populate them pretty well, I like to think. I get to introduce a character I've been working on for a while during tomorrow's game, so I'm pretty stoked about that.

For now, it's back to statting up some monsters. Boatloads of fun.

Brief Update

So we've managed to pick back up on my AD&D 2e game pretty well. The guys got right back into the swing of it after a 6 month (roughly) hiatus. It was a pretty big relief, as I was expecting it to be a difficult transition from Dan's 3.5 game and John's Reverse Dungeon minicampaign (both of which were excellent) back into mine, but aside from a few minor details the guys slipped right back into character and picked up where we left off.

We're still in Ravenloft, and the characters have found a bunch of really ancient books in an underground library, while trying to figure out how to combat the highly addictive edible slugs (which happen to be the only food available) and being tasked with organizing and cataloging a prehistoric armory.

I'm hoping to get out of Ravenloft within the next two or three sessions, so hopefully I can pull that off and get into the real meat of the campaign as I have it planned so far.

In other news, James (Theeves Cant Spell) and I have begun work on our yet-unnamed post-apocalyptic utopia epic. Maybe we'll post some chapters or dialog when we get further into it. It's shaping up pretty well and we're really optimistic about it.

That's all for now, back to Transporter 3 on Showtime.

On Naming Characters.....

I know lots of people have trouble with names, but there are many easy ways to pick up some quick names for characters and NPCs, or even locations. Here's a few that I've learned over the years from some good people:

1. For somewhat modern-sounding names, a good place to pick up names is the spam folder in your email. I know a lot of people don't go in there, but there are some gems if you have the patience to look. Just a few from my spam folder, right now: Dena Lorna, Albert Faith, Karie Sammie, Jack Marietta.

2. For a name that sounds a little out there or fantastic, look to works both out there and fantastic (especially if your players won't go near it anytime soon). Now, I'm not saying that you should name all of your dwarves Gimli or all of your wizards Harry Potter, but in classic tales there are some great names. From Beowulf: Hildeburh, Aeschere, Herebeald. From The Canterbury Tales: Wilkin, Janekin (Jenkin), Alisoun (Allison), Phoebus. From The Iliad: Menelaos, Andromache, Priam. From Le Morte d'Arthur: Baldwin, Tristan, Urian, Mark. (And of course, Merlyn/Merlin!) From The Divine Comedy: Megaera, Cagnazzo, Apulia.

 3. Name your characters after things or noises or something. We've had many characters named silly things like Scribbles, Crunchy, Thouch, etc.

It's a lot of fun to find new ways to name your characters, in some cases more fun that playing them. :)