I'm back. I got busy on a project at work at the same time my trusty Toshiba laptop started having video problems. Although I also have a smart phone & netbook, neither of those devices suits my preference for doing editing. If we need more excuses I can rely on the old 'tripped on a rock, sun in my eyes & hole in my glove' series; they never fail.
Being cheap and somewhat tech savvy I decided to repair the laptop myself rather than buy a new one or risk paying someone else money to fix it and have them say it was a lost cause. The issue seemed to be a video cable, and after many hours of internet research I found one on Amazon for about $20. More hours of internet research taught me how to disassemble my old beast, replace the cable, and then do the disassemble steps in reverse, sort of. End result - success! I am typing this on my old laptop, almost good as new! I do have three extra screws.... however I know where they went and just didn't need one with the new cable, and couldn't make two of the eight LCD screen holders go back in. I think it will not fall out with six screws as long as I don't do acrobatics with it.
I'll give a shot at some 4e game updates shortly and maybe find a beer to comment upon.
Happy Summer!
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Monday, April 8, 2013
Around the World in Eighty Days
On my most recent vacation I continue to indulge in reading old classics. This is made quite easy via the free (expired copyright) books which are available on the Kindle.
Around the World in Eighty Days is unusual for a Jules Verne work, in that it is more in his now than predicting the future. It does in some respects predict how the future will look with recent completions of travel venues the major travel venues: US transatlantic rail, India subcontinental rail, & Suez Canal. Messier Verne does aptly see the coming new world of tourism on a whim.
The hero of the story is Phileas Fogg. He is a well to do proper English gentleman who lives an organized, highly structured, predicable daily life. This repetitive existence includes his daily trip to the gentlemen's club. To prove a point with his fellow club members Fogg undertakes a quest to circumnavigate the world in no more than 80 days using commercially available travel. A rather wager is made to prove the seriousness of the adventure, and off he goes, taking with him his newly hired man's servant, Jean Passepartout. To tell any more of the story is to spoil it, so I will leave it at that.
I find it interesting that Verne paints the two travelers as extreme caricatures of the English and French. Both have exaggerated traits supposedly held by their countrymen, and both have redeeming qualities designed to make them endearing to the reader. I might have expected the French Verne to favor the Frenchman in the story, but that is not the case.
As with most writing, this a book of its time. The modern reader will find the exciting adventure bits a little weak. There is even a section where Fogg goes off to save Passepartout and I suppose to raise tension, the exciting bits are done off screen. Much of the book reads like a dry travelogue. I imagine at the time since this kind of travel had been previously unimaginable the readers would have been fascinated with the little details which I found boring and tedious. The surprise ending would not have been all that surprising to the modern traveler, but to the reader in the 1870s this would have been all new and amazing.
The adventurous portions are fun to read, and overall the book is a quaint reminder of a bygone era. It was an easy read, not too long, and the language is readily understood by the modern reader. It is a classic and if you are curious about classics, I give it a moderate recommendation. I am glad I read it and did enjoy most of it. If you want an edge of your seat thriller, then you should pass this by.
Around the World in Eighty Days is unusual for a Jules Verne work, in that it is more in his now than predicting the future. It does in some respects predict how the future will look with recent completions of travel venues the major travel venues: US transatlantic rail, India subcontinental rail, & Suez Canal. Messier Verne does aptly see the coming new world of tourism on a whim.
The hero of the story is Phileas Fogg. He is a well to do proper English gentleman who lives an organized, highly structured, predicable daily life. This repetitive existence includes his daily trip to the gentlemen's club. To prove a point with his fellow club members Fogg undertakes a quest to circumnavigate the world in no more than 80 days using commercially available travel. A rather wager is made to prove the seriousness of the adventure, and off he goes, taking with him his newly hired man's servant, Jean Passepartout. To tell any more of the story is to spoil it, so I will leave it at that.
I find it interesting that Verne paints the two travelers as extreme caricatures of the English and French. Both have exaggerated traits supposedly held by their countrymen, and both have redeeming qualities designed to make them endearing to the reader. I might have expected the French Verne to favor the Frenchman in the story, but that is not the case.
As with most writing, this a book of its time. The modern reader will find the exciting adventure bits a little weak. There is even a section where Fogg goes off to save Passepartout and I suppose to raise tension, the exciting bits are done off screen. Much of the book reads like a dry travelogue. I imagine at the time since this kind of travel had been previously unimaginable the readers would have been fascinated with the little details which I found boring and tedious. The surprise ending would not have been all that surprising to the modern traveler, but to the reader in the 1870s this would have been all new and amazing.
The adventurous portions are fun to read, and overall the book is a quaint reminder of a bygone era. It was an easy read, not too long, and the language is readily understood by the modern reader. It is a classic and if you are curious about classics, I give it a moderate recommendation. I am glad I read it and did enjoy most of it. If you want an edge of your seat thriller, then you should pass this by.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
4th Edition: After three sessions
As noted in previous post, I am not experiencing a lack of roleplaying. Granted I am no newbie to roleplaying, and for new players there might be something which discourages roleplaying, but I am happily playing my character during encounters and between them.
I continue to experience a very tactical game, and cannot see playing without a grid. I do not see that as a negative since I have been using grids since AD&D days as preference. I also continue to find 1st level characters to be very powerful, much more than previous editions. Sort of like starting at 2nd level or more in another edition. Clearly in 4th you are already a hero, and the environment is more high magic and high fantasy. This might not fit the setting you want to play, but where it fits the setting I am not finding it 'un-fun'.
Some rituals are often a little too vague and require some DM adjudication. For example the Silent Image ritual did not give a range. I had to query the DM if my use of it was going to work. The Passwall ritual was fairly clear (you need to be able to touch the entry point of the passage) and the Silence ritual was not so vague that one could figure out you needed to be inside the area to be warded to use it - no casting from a distance. I am finding the cost of ritual components to be a bit prohibitive at first level. We will see as time goes on if that is really a control point for lower level and becomes inconsequential as my character advances.
In our last encounter our party druid was brought to zero hit points and tossed off a 40' high wall into murky harbor water. No one was nearby to help him, and the first one get to the wall section where he went off could not see him (it was dusk and he had already sunk beneath the waves). I now understand some comments I heard that 4E characters were hard to kill. Even unconscious, he was burning through healing surges before he took drowning damage. Wouldn't you know it on his second death saving throw he rolled a 20 to stabilize, and became conscious. We thought him dead for sure... but it seems 4E characters are truly heroes.
I also learned that one of my jobs as the controller wizard is minion sweeping. I say that humorously, because it is kind of cool to blow away a bunch of fodder and clear the decks for the others to attack the BBEG (big bad evil guy). Some may turn up their nose at this, but hey, it makes me stand out from the others and gives me an opportunity to roleplay big ego and I annihilate a bunch of enemies.
It seems to me 4E has another thing in common with earlier editions: resource management. Even though I have at will powers, I must manage encounter & daily powers, action points, healing surges, etc.
The litmus test so far as been passed. I am having fun. That may be more about the people with which I am gaming than the rule set. Either way, I am a bit of a grognard and I can play this edition just fine.
The dice never lie (even though I rolled a statiscally improbable number of 1s in our last encounter).
I continue to experience a very tactical game, and cannot see playing without a grid. I do not see that as a negative since I have been using grids since AD&D days as preference. I also continue to find 1st level characters to be very powerful, much more than previous editions. Sort of like starting at 2nd level or more in another edition. Clearly in 4th you are already a hero, and the environment is more high magic and high fantasy. This might not fit the setting you want to play, but where it fits the setting I am not finding it 'un-fun'.
Some rituals are often a little too vague and require some DM adjudication. For example the Silent Image ritual did not give a range. I had to query the DM if my use of it was going to work. The Passwall ritual was fairly clear (you need to be able to touch the entry point of the passage) and the Silence ritual was not so vague that one could figure out you needed to be inside the area to be warded to use it - no casting from a distance. I am finding the cost of ritual components to be a bit prohibitive at first level. We will see as time goes on if that is really a control point for lower level and becomes inconsequential as my character advances.
In our last encounter our party druid was brought to zero hit points and tossed off a 40' high wall into murky harbor water. No one was nearby to help him, and the first one get to the wall section where he went off could not see him (it was dusk and he had already sunk beneath the waves). I now understand some comments I heard that 4E characters were hard to kill. Even unconscious, he was burning through healing surges before he took drowning damage. Wouldn't you know it on his second death saving throw he rolled a 20 to stabilize, and became conscious. We thought him dead for sure... but it seems 4E characters are truly heroes.
I also learned that one of my jobs as the controller wizard is minion sweeping. I say that humorously, because it is kind of cool to blow away a bunch of fodder and clear the decks for the others to attack the BBEG (big bad evil guy). Some may turn up their nose at this, but hey, it makes me stand out from the others and gives me an opportunity to roleplay big ego and I annihilate a bunch of enemies.
It seems to me 4E has another thing in common with earlier editions: resource management. Even though I have at will powers, I must manage encounter & daily powers, action points, healing surges, etc.
The litmus test so far as been passed. I am having fun. That may be more about the people with which I am gaming than the rule set. Either way, I am a bit of a grognard and I can play this edition just fine.
The dice never lie (even though I rolled a statiscally improbable number of 1s in our last encounter).
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
4th Edition D&D: experience after first outing
This past weekend I played my first outing of 4th Edition. Yes, I know, I am late to the game. You might notice from looking around this blog that I was a long time player of AD&D, then of 3.5E.
First off, it was a nice group of people I got to meet and play with for the first time. We are playing the Zeitgeist adventure path. I am not going to tell the adventure story, but there could be spoilers.
One of the complaints against 4E I have read repeatedly on the web is how it discourages or makes difficult role playing. I just don't see it. Sure, 4E is much more tactical, and I cannot see running a 4E game in Theater of the Mind. However, you either will role play with the DM encouragement, or you will not. I did not experience anything I found discouraging in the rule set to keep me from role playing. Sure, I have been doing it for 30+ years anyway, so it would take a lot to keep me from role playing anyway.
As noted in a previous blog post, I have the controller role as a Wizard (arcanist). In the first round of the first encounter I was able to use a spell to effectively end the encounter by pushing two of the three antagonists off a bridge and into the water. The last antagonist, being outnumbered (and discovering he was facing a wizard as well) surrendered. I found a first level character to be very powerful and the system to be very tactical. I am not saying that is good or bad, it just is.
In the next encounter we were pretty much outgunned, and I think the DM pulled his punches. Fair enough, two of the four players had never played 4E before, and this group had never played together. Regardless, we just barely managed to come through. As a controller I was able to knock prone, push (repeatedly) and render unconscious the bad guys until help arrived. At that it was close as my Paladin ally was unconscious and on fire. I don't recommend that combination.
Not surprisingly for any edition, I noticed quickly you need to make wise decisions about which spells to use against which opponents. A good variety of spells which attacked will, fortitude and reflex defenses proved essential to the limited success we saw. Also, not surprisingly, splitting up the party creates hazardous conditions. I can see the huge synergies already by having the well balanced and complimenting party all together. Split us up and we are sadly lacking.
4E is quite a different game from its ancestors, but so far I don't see this as an obstacle to fun.
The dice never lie.
First off, it was a nice group of people I got to meet and play with for the first time. We are playing the Zeitgeist adventure path. I am not going to tell the adventure story, but there could be
One of the complaints against 4E I have read repeatedly on the web is how it discourages or makes difficult role playing. I just don't see it. Sure, 4E is much more tactical, and I cannot see running a 4E game in Theater of the Mind. However, you either will role play with the DM encouragement, or you will not. I did not experience anything I found discouraging in the rule set to keep me from role playing. Sure, I have been doing it for 30+ years anyway, so it would take a lot to keep me from role playing anyway.
As noted in a previous blog post, I have the controller role as a Wizard (arcanist). In the first round of the first encounter I was able to use a spell to effectively end the encounter by pushing two of the three antagonists off a bridge and into the water. The last antagonist, being outnumbered (and discovering he was facing a wizard as well) surrendered. I found a first level character to be very powerful and the system to be very tactical. I am not saying that is good or bad, it just is.
In the next encounter we were pretty much outgunned, and I think the DM pulled his punches. Fair enough, two of the four players had never played 4E before, and this group had never played together. Regardless, we just barely managed to come through. As a controller I was able to knock prone, push (repeatedly) and render unconscious the bad guys until help arrived. At that it was close as my Paladin ally was unconscious and on fire. I don't recommend that combination.
Not surprisingly for any edition, I noticed quickly you need to make wise decisions about which spells to use against which opponents. A good variety of spells which attacked will, fortitude and reflex defenses proved essential to the limited success we saw. Also, not surprisingly, splitting up the party creates hazardous conditions. I can see the huge synergies already by having the well balanced and complimenting party all together. Split us up and we are sadly lacking.
4E is quite a different game from its ancestors, but so far I don't see this as an obstacle to fun.
The dice never lie.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Harpoon Dark
not really complex, but it ends clean and crisp and leaves your mouth watering.
I would have this again, but I don't find it spectacular. I'll limit this to my 'on-sale' purchases.
Cheers!
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Victorian Shadows Chiswick Tunnel
I ran my D20 Past Victorian Shadows game last weekend. The evenings adventure revolved around an ancient Roman temple to Triva was discovered during tunnel excavation. One of the recurring bad guys got wind of the discover and lusted after the potential of finding a magic book inside.
As we game masters all know, the party never does what you expect. That is a good deal of the fun for me, watching them go where I am not prepared. They did not disappoint me.
There was only three players for this outing, which is not an issue because I build adventures in this campaign to be readily scaled based on who shows up. Starting at the British Museum, and working their way through an old pub they opted to jump right in and not take any opportunity to do additional research. They created their own sense of urgency out of thin air. Urgency keeps a game moving along which is good. What was not so good, for them, was not preparing. No knowledge, no supplies. It was all I could do not to rub my hands in glee.
Once they determine the location of the tunnel, they must get past the lone constable guarding the entrance. The come up with a simple plan which involves pummeling the poor man into unconsciousness. These 'good guys' have a long history of making life painful for the hapless local police. Of course now, they have created more urgency, they must get in and get out before the rest of the local constabulary comes down on them.
They spring one trap and manage to not take very much damage (they could have done research to learn this cult used to trap their temples), and then manage to disarm the next trap and take the valuable looking chalice from the alter. Finding nothing else (they really didn't look for much else), they are about to leave when the bad guys show up. Combat ensues.
At first, the intrepid group is handily eliminating the fodder the bad guy throws at them. But, the bad guy (a swarthy Indian fellow with a tacky accent I had a hard sustaining correctly) sends the next wave at them and things don't look so good. Indian bad guy hollers to them he will let them live if they give him the book.
Book? They look at each other and shrug before one of them yells back, "We'll never give up the book." or some such thing. Eventually they negotiate during the battle to surrender the book, and they place a book they have with them on the trap mechanism. They step away from the trapped altar and watch with anticipation as the bad guy approaches, hoping the trap does something nasty to him and turns the tide in their favor. Indian bad guy grabs the book, and yells out at them he is not fooled by this library book and the trap goes off.
Sadly for them, the trap was a pit trap and everyone in the room is affected, good and bad. One of the party manages to make a save and grab the end of floor as everyone else falls into the pit, which has three feet of fetid water in the bottom. The flare they were using for light falls into the water with a hiss and goes out. Complete darkness, two good guys and two bad guys in the pit, at least one bad guy they believe can see in the dark and the tough fighter type they need to fight the bad guy is hanging from the floor. Remember the lack of preparation mentioned earlier? No one has any rope or other tools to get them out of the pit, and no one has brought any light except for the flares which are now out. Internally, I am rubbing my hands with glee again. They remember they carry a couple of magical amulets which provide some light and some efficacy against these bad guys. There is still hope!
After a tough fight which nearly brings two of the characters to zero points (and in three feet of water falling unconscious is decidedly bad) they kill the monster and are about the converge on the Indian bad guy when he pulls out an ornate ceramic ball and threatens to smash it. He claims it would be bad for him, but far worse for them. After some tense moments when I am quite sure they are going to not believe him and attack (allowing me to break it and we all discover if he is bluffing or not), they instead decide to negotiate with him. I am surprised, this is the group that tends to kill first and ask questions later.
The tense negotiations was quite enjoyable and both good and bad guys held up their ends of the negotiations. They learned some valuable information about the nature of their opponents, gave me some adventure hooks, and made this recurring villain tremendously more interesting and complicated. They separated with each side trying to recruit the other to their side. A delicious outcome for which I had not any plan.
The dice never lie.
There was only three players for this outing, which is not an issue because I build adventures in this campaign to be readily scaled based on who shows up. Starting at the British Museum, and working their way through an old pub they opted to jump right in and not take any opportunity to do additional research. They created their own sense of urgency out of thin air. Urgency keeps a game moving along which is good. What was not so good, for them, was not preparing. No knowledge, no supplies. It was all I could do not to rub my hands in glee.
Once they determine the location of the tunnel, they must get past the lone constable guarding the entrance. The come up with a simple plan which involves pummeling the poor man into unconsciousness. These 'good guys' have a long history of making life painful for the hapless local police. Of course now, they have created more urgency, they must get in and get out before the rest of the local constabulary comes down on them.
They spring one trap and manage to not take very much damage (they could have done research to learn this cult used to trap their temples), and then manage to disarm the next trap and take the valuable looking chalice from the alter. Finding nothing else (they really didn't look for much else), they are about to leave when the bad guys show up. Combat ensues.
At first, the intrepid group is handily eliminating the fodder the bad guy throws at them. But, the bad guy (a swarthy Indian fellow with a tacky accent I had a hard sustaining correctly) sends the next wave at them and things don't look so good. Indian bad guy hollers to them he will let them live if they give him the book.
Book? They look at each other and shrug before one of them yells back, "We'll never give up the book." or some such thing. Eventually they negotiate during the battle to surrender the book, and they place a book they have with them on the trap mechanism. They step away from the trapped altar and watch with anticipation as the bad guy approaches, hoping the trap does something nasty to him and turns the tide in their favor. Indian bad guy grabs the book, and yells out at them he is not fooled by this library book and the trap goes off.
Sadly for them, the trap was a pit trap and everyone in the room is affected, good and bad. One of the party manages to make a save and grab the end of floor as everyone else falls into the pit, which has three feet of fetid water in the bottom. The flare they were using for light falls into the water with a hiss and goes out. Complete darkness, two good guys and two bad guys in the pit, at least one bad guy they believe can see in the dark and the tough fighter type they need to fight the bad guy is hanging from the floor. Remember the lack of preparation mentioned earlier? No one has any rope or other tools to get them out of the pit, and no one has brought any light except for the flares which are now out. Internally, I am rubbing my hands with glee again. They remember they carry a couple of magical amulets which provide some light and some efficacy against these bad guys. There is still hope!
After a tough fight which nearly brings two of the characters to zero points (and in three feet of water falling unconscious is decidedly bad) they kill the monster and are about the converge on the Indian bad guy when he pulls out an ornate ceramic ball and threatens to smash it. He claims it would be bad for him, but far worse for them. After some tense moments when I am quite sure they are going to not believe him and attack (allowing me to break it and we all discover if he is bluffing or not), they instead decide to negotiate with him. I am surprised, this is the group that tends to kill first and ask questions later.
The tense negotiations was quite enjoyable and both good and bad guys held up their ends of the negotiations. They learned some valuable information about the nature of their opponents, gave me some adventure hooks, and made this recurring villain tremendously more interesting and complicated. They separated with each side trying to recruit the other to their side. A delicious outcome for which I had not any plan.
The dice never lie.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Barad is going to play 4E
Our 3.5 game is on hiatus until the current DM is motivated to run a session. My d20 Past game is waiting for me to get off my own butt and put an adventure together (nearly ready). Life was busy the last several months with house sale, moving, house purchase, moving, holidays, and all. Enough of excuses, time to get playing.
I have been fortunate enough to connect up with a DM who is going to run the Zeitgeist adventure, and to be invited to play. I have never played 4E before. I read some material and decided it was not for my 3.5 group, though I did happily 'borrow' some ideas from 4E which became house rules. So this will be an adventure on a couple of levels. There will be no edition bashing found here, but I will write some about my experience mixed in with my other posts.
I am going to play a wizard (arcanist). I am going to favor controlling the battlefield and team work over being a blaster. Nothing wrong with blasting, I just decided I wanted to be supportive of my fellow players who I have never met. Nothing says 'thanks for having me' like the new guy showing up and playing a character who could appear focused on his own fun and not so much on the group.
A couple of impressions I am getting before I even arrive at the first session. This is a very different game and my previous edition experience is not necessarily guiding me to good decisions about character building. I don't find the relative usefulness of some of my powers is intuitively obvious. I'll need to play in a few sessions to really grok how things work. Next, I don't think the powers terminology is immersive. It does not feel 'right'. However I think this is easily rectified by my diligence in thinking of them as spells and using the word spell whenever I communicate about them. I will report back on the feel when actually playing.
All in all I am excited by the chance to play, meet some new people, and learn the rule set. In that order.
I have been fortunate enough to connect up with a DM who is going to run the Zeitgeist adventure, and to be invited to play. I have never played 4E before. I read some material and decided it was not for my 3.5 group, though I did happily 'borrow' some ideas from 4E which became house rules. So this will be an adventure on a couple of levels. There will be no edition bashing found here, but I will write some about my experience mixed in with my other posts.
I am going to play a wizard (arcanist). I am going to favor controlling the battlefield and team work over being a blaster. Nothing wrong with blasting, I just decided I wanted to be supportive of my fellow players who I have never met. Nothing says 'thanks for having me' like the new guy showing up and playing a character who could appear focused on his own fun and not so much on the group.
A couple of impressions I am getting before I even arrive at the first session. This is a very different game and my previous edition experience is not necessarily guiding me to good decisions about character building. I don't find the relative usefulness of some of my powers is intuitively obvious. I'll need to play in a few sessions to really grok how things work. Next, I don't think the powers terminology is immersive. It does not feel 'right'. However I think this is easily rectified by my diligence in thinking of them as spells and using the word spell whenever I communicate about them. I will report back on the feel when actually playing.
All in all I am excited by the chance to play, meet some new people, and learn the rule set. In that order.
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