trailers

Here's a coupla cool looking flicks:

A History of Violence

Revolver

Good stuff.

A multitude of reviews

Well, let's see. First, to recap the weekend, I was right. Didn't get the wizard school info done. Hell, didn't even touch on it. Got hung up on the one shot adventure. More specifically, I got hung up on treasure. Turns out, overall, the party's almost a full level ahead on treasure than they should be, most of which is in Gregorious and Levvy's hands. That fits, cause Gregorious salvages everything, while Levvy picks up as much as she can, all the while, Zeke is watching Crenius for any sign of theft....kind of weird, but if you look at the treasure values, you definitely see it. It's good, cause it means I'm not subconsciously padding my fiance's character or something.... But I still got hung up on it, and for now, I can't think of a way to fix it. Of course, that means I got nothing else done either, cept for a fair bit of working up some magic/religion stuff in my head on the drive. :( But anyway,

Clone Wars Risk
Fun little variant. Order 66 whoops all kinds of ass and really gives the Republic only 4 turns to beat the Seperatists. After that, the Seps can call it in desperation and have at least a 50/50n chance of stealing a planet. Wendy had a Seperatists army go from 5 planets to 23 planets on me. Tough nuggies for me, but it also marks the first Risk game she's played. I think I cracked a good strat for the Reps, but it still leaves you counting more on die rolls and card draws than strategy. But hey, that's what Risk is...

Gorrilaz: Demon Days
Grabbed this yesterday. I think I like the first one better, but I've only got to listen to this one once, thus far. Regardless, $9.99 at Circuit City makes for a GREAT buy, and I woulda spent $6 more on it easily. Good stuff.

But, most importantly:

SDF:Perfect/Ugly
The new comic from TorC Press is out and kickin. I love it. There're are a few little bits that pull on heart strings in it, for me, but the average reader won't pick up on them, since they're hometown specific. Joe's blog post about covers and fear was unfounded, though, cause the cover's solid. Add to that a great Cactus Joe story, good times with Walt & Sped (turns out Walt's got a girlfriend), and a slew of new characters (I'm gunning for a grilling apron with El Gorio on it) and this books well worth the price + shipping and handling. Now if I could only get the online shopping cart wrapped up!

Changes to RPGA's GM Rewards Program
Boo! Used to be 20 points netted you a D&D mini. Not anymore. :( Now you get the same bonus cards for RPGA games players get. Cause DMs always PLAY D&D at conventions. We never actually act as a GM at a sanctioned event. We all just get our points through sanctioned home games. Pah. I'll still continue to run RPGA events, but most likely, I'll just run em at home now, so I can use my damn cards at conventions and the like. All ONE that I may go to in the next year or so. :( At least mini's I could have used at home in NON-RPGA stuff. Buttfingers. The whole lot of em.

And remember kids....be excellent to each other.

me words not so well today

Hag! Can't remember words. like a collection of deities. PANTHEON! Yay.

Anyway, heading outta town tonight, so I won't be blogging for a few days. Gotta take care o' some wedding stuff. Regardless, the plans for the weekend production-wise go like so: Play a lot of Risk, specifically Clone Wars Risk. Scored it today and I gotsa see how fun it is.

D&D wise, here's what I *should* do - Cinch up the noble families of the Ichian Empire. (Just an outline/who's who should suffice for now.) Figure out what Myrrhlanthus (at least, the important figures of) think should be done with the tomb. Whip up the next one shot adventure. Work up the events/trek/adventure for Levvy's brother's funeral at sea.

Not adventure wise, but OGE-wise - Check SRD for OGL character classes. I'm working on the wizard school (do by Monday according to my production schedule), but I don't want to stat out some warmages and warlocks if they aren't OGL, cause these guys won't need stays ingame for several months if ever. If I gotta make em fighter/wizards and sorceres, fine. Honestly, I doubt I get this done on time, cause I forgot it takes my anal retentive self most of a day to make a high-level character as I agonize over the details of every piece of equipment. Hell, I'm technically done with the headmaster, but I still haven't figured out what scrolls and wands he has tucked away in the variouis nooks and crannies of the school. Not to mention part of this phase is cynching up a final look for all of the maps in the book.

Actually, I may dump the final maps back to closer to production. Work on them when I'm working on layout type of thing... Even without that, though, it prolly won't get done. I'd like to play the one shot next week, which means that takes focus this weekend. If I don't get that done or change my mind, sounds like Nick's rearin to go on the monster campaign, and I know Wendy'll NEVER pass up the chance to play her lizardwoman....

And hell, I haven't even mentioned the pantheon(s). I need to come up with the old religion(s), figer out how/why they changed, and decide if they're gonna change again.

AND I frickin had a sweet idea about the planes that bout made me crap myself. But I won't go into that here. Made me wanna go crazy and play air guitar though.

Shafe with a big ole' fart brewin. Thanks Erberts and Gerberts.

Eeash

So, this mountain of a woman just came into my desk to enquire about using the phone. There's a public phone not 6 feet away (free no less), but apparently, someone was on it. Rather than wait patiently for the phone, she jumps my ass for not letting her use mine. My line needs to stay open for the purposes of patient care of course, but I can't use the term patient care with her, cause she looks like the type of person that thinks helping her get home still qualifies as patient care. I tricked her, though. I threw a muffin out the door, and she went chasing it.

Not really. I just explained she had to wait. So she went and jumped the girl's ass that was on the phone about being on the phone when Queen Tectonic Plate needed to use it. Trust me, she's big enough that the world may revolve around her, but it's still a bad attitude.

I got nothing. Rough times coming up, so don't expect too much more than cynical humor as above here for a few days.... Oh, and gaming stuff.

Tremba Vine

Wha? I didna post yesterday? I thought I did. Oopsy.

Anyway, I'm stuck on a name and it's crimping my production style. I can't progress on the Myrrhlanthus sourcebook or the damn adventure I should be working on because of one name. Crap thing is, it's not even an important name.

See, last night, I was actually taking the time to research how to grow grapes and hops, as well as brewing beer and wine. (I know how to grow shit. Growing two living rocks right now. One's reproducing. Lithops if you wanna look em up.) I discovered that grapes don't grow so well in the Green River Valley. Too dry, bad soil, bad drainage, no real irrigation system, etc. So, what to do? I've got a figer a way for a winery to exist in this place, one that makes super popular wine, along with beer, ale, mead, and a few more drinks of questionable legality.

Simple, they don't use grapes. Instead, there's a plant that's native to the area. It actually blooms/flowers three times a year, but if you pick the berries in the spring, the summer and winter blooms don't hit and likewise with picking summer berries ruining the winter berry yeild. So, the winery has three different sets of crops to account for that trait. The blend of flavors the berries bring is what makes the wine so popular world wide. Awesome. One key note, though, picking flowers does not stop the next seasons berries.

BUT WHAT IS IT'S NAME!???

The simple thing is to just make up a name. Hell, make up the number 3 in some primitive language and call it that. Chlebany. or Bjordeen Vine. or Dehnsy.

In fact, here's what I'm gonna do. Trechkhar Frehyn. It's Nyran for three seasons fruit. Nyran sounds like a mix of Arabian and German, so it's prolly pronounced like Tree-sch-kar Free-hingn.

Yeah, I like that.
NOTE: Credit for making up the name in an old language goes fully to Wendy.

So, each berry has a distinctive flavor AND a type of magic associated with, as does each flower. So, the spring berry is slightly green tasting and tends to benefit healing magic. The flower (smelling of aloe and coconut) essence is more potent in charms, though. Summer berries taste fresh and sweet and are associated with spells of light and heat. The flower (smelling like honey suckle and lilac, with just a hint of sugar) is rumored to fend off undead, and summer flower jewelry is quite popular among the people of the area. Winter berries are more bitter and viewed to have necromantic properties, while the flower (smelling like rose with a subtle hint of orange) is linked with sleep and dreams.

Fun.

Danglin from a hang nail

I swear to God. I'm gonna run a rope from the bathroom to the food/water bowl and tie the cats on it at night. They can piss and eat and that's it. Consistantly, Arther (otherwise known as Captain Retardo) wakes me up at 5:30. No reason. There's food in the bowl, water in the fountain, everything is right in the world, except he's lonely and I'm his friend. Apparently, in his world, Friends Don't Let Friends Sleep In.

On top of that, this morning, as every morning when a window's open, the birds are singing and it's set to be a beautiful day, Ron decides it's time to set in the window and enjoy it. Trouble is, he's the laziest little bastard in the world. Instead of leaping into the window ninja mountain lion style like Arthur, he hops onto a basket, stands on his back legs and stretches out, not quite getting in the window sill, but instead standing on his tip toes to enjoy the morning sun. Of course, he weighs more than the basket, resulting in a falling basket a crash into the closet doors (good solid tin), flailing fat cat and almost falling curtains. Nice thing to wake up to 15 minutes after falling asleep from Arthur's morning "How ya doin?"

This is why I'm a dog person.

So now the question is, more caffeine or nap on the couch? Either one is gonna result in grumpy for the rest of the day, but I'm leaning toward nap. No sense going back to bed, as that'll wake Wendy up again, which isn't fair to her.

Ooh, here's a thought. Metal blinds for the window. Close em at night, and get cats with mild concussions. I like it.

The Rescue

Man. Lot of shit last night. Game first.

When we last left our cast, they were being charged by an enraged barbarian and 3 warriors in the foyer of a tomb they just discovered. A hail of stone, magic missile, couple of axes and daggers, and an unconscoius Gregorious later, and the party was alive and victorious.

After interrogating a prisoner, the group discovered that Levvy's parents and the other kidnapping victims they were tentatively looking for were being used as slave labor in the tombs. They headed right for em.

Some good tactics later and the group had defeated an adept and a zombie dire weasel to rescue the slaves.

Sorry my description is so brief and lame. Last night was a great game. For the most part, the group stayed on task and role played well. I didn't. Didn't really feel like rping much last night, so I summarized the family reunion and what not.

What can I say? nothing. Sorry. I suck. And worse, I'm stuck as to what happens next in the campaign.

What a crappy blog post.

A cat with a lime helmet

Nick's blog got me thinking about when I was the happiest and most excited about everything. Initially, I thought it was in New Mexico, as that's when the majority of my party stories come from, and that's when I spent the most time alone in the desert wilds around Tucumcari (such as they are). Realistically, though, I hated the school I was in, hated living in a trailer, hated taking responsibility for my family while my mom and step-dad worked their asses off, and hated not having any direction.

Then I thought it was Clay City, '96-'00, but if you think about it, I could have stayed there, delivering pizzas and doing odd jobs til something permanent came along. I made enough scratch to stay. My friends there rock, miss em tons, and there's a lot to be said about yer bros meetin you in the parking lot of yer job to pick you up for a night of partying. So, that couldn't have been the happiest, or I would have stayed. Prolly a lot of not staying stems from the complete lack of a future I felt I had at the time I left.

My next line of thought had me thinking it was now, and I still think it is, but for different reasons than I'd originally thought. Initially, I was thinking that I'm so satisfied with life (despite being unable to decide where to go with it) because I had good friends and Wendy at game night (which I'm totally pumped for tonight), a couple of jobs that I totally kick ass at, and just all around general goodness.

But that's not the case. No. I realized that I'm happiest when I'm learning something new. Cheesy as it sounds, it's true. Now, I'm feeling like I'm growing as a DM, and I'm loving the story that we're creating with the characters and setting. I'm learning how to run the game, yet concede the power to the players and their characters, instead of making the adventures that I want to run. That's helping in a lot of interpersonal ways, too (but I won't go into that much).

Hopefully, on top of the dork gaming crap, this summer I'll learn a little more about fishing, and near the end of it, a whole lot about saving money for something other than a wedding. I'd say there's room to learn about being married, but Wendy and I have lived together for 4 frickin years, so I don't think much is gonna change on that front, cept for taxes and health insurance.

What I wanna learn most write now, is how to close a blogpost without signing off in some uber gay fashion like:

Shafe-out

ConSed PSE 907 PRAD

That's one of those random titles I just yoinked from the first thing I read....

I've nothing today. I thought about comparing and contrasting animation vs. rpg as far as my goals and what not, but decided not to. Right now, I've done only one thing on my resolutions from New Year's....got an idea for an indy short piece. Now, if I start the rpg company, that's a viable excuse for not hitting any of the other goals. If I don't, though, I better get to animating. *shrug* That's my big hang up right now...which way to go. Honestly, what I should do right now is put that decision on hold and just bust out an online store for Joe's website, then come back to it. Of course, if I wanna travel that route, I could make some serious cash by making another site for a different friend's company. Unfortunately, both of those sites are waiting on feedback from the respective owners. *double shrug*

In other news, got fitted for me ole tuxedo today. Shit's gonna look sweet. Gotta get the info to me boys so they can hit it, too. Trouble is, anybody without my metabolism is supposed to wait til a month before the show so they don't get too fat after being measured. That's what the pros at Men's Wearhouse said. Too bad I didn't go sooner, though. I coulda got us all sweet ass engraved pocket watches. Still can, but since I'm dropping about $50 on the grooms gifts already, I don't really have the scratch for it. Such is the life of the poor.

Here's a funny note I realized last night. Taxes for '99, my return was over $1K. After the prez's new taxes, my '00 return was still over $1K, but closer to it than before. Each year after that, I've gradually got less of a return up to this year, when I had to pay in $10. NOTHING has changed as far as my taxes are concerned. Still single, still claiming 0 on my W4, still getting student loan interest as a deduction, etc. Nothing has changed cept the tax code. Grrrr. So much for helping the middle class (which I am according to present statistics, although I say I'm poor. Only reason I have ANY money left at the end of the month is cause my car is old and paid off.....)

The Divine Signal

I spent most of my adolescence gaming in Forgotten Realms and reading those novels. When I wasn't reading FR novels, I was hitting up the Dragonlance pretty hard.

As for the deities of the Realms, I remember two. Cyric, cause I really enjoyed when he kicked Bane's ass outta the realm of death, and Tyr, cause he plays a prominent role in Neverwinter Nights, which I'm playing now... Dragonlance, jack and shit. Bahamut and Tiamat is all I remember about divinity in those series.

Apparently, though, deites make the setting. Not Elminister, Drizz't, Tanis, the kender, the Knights of the Rose, draconians, or the lunar influences on magic. What evidence do I have of this? My campaign.

The only element in my campaign that is Greyhawk is the deites. This is for two reasons. 1)With two still fairly new players, it's easier on them to use the gods straight outta the PHB (hell, one can't even be bothered to read that before spouting deific knowledge). 2) With only one player ever making a character with any kind of patron deity, and no one in this campaign making clerics, the gods aren't the focus of this campaign, so why focus on them when making up the game world?

But, despite the fact that the Greyhawk deiteis are the "default" deities, my campaign's associated with Greyhawk. *shrug* I don't get it.

Too early in the morning for me to do more than rant about it, though.

Edit: Paladine and Takhisis. See. Justs proves my point. Thanks, Nick.

The calendar

I had a thought about turning my present homebrew into a campaign published by the as yet mythical Organ Grinder Press. Thus, I should stop throwing all of my ideas up here on my blog, but screw that. Then I'd just complain about the chance the Republican ran Senate is gonna kill filibustering as a viable alternative to Judicial crap coming from the White House. Wonder how they'll feel when the coin flips....

Anyway, I've been working on the calendar for my campaign. I'm thinking I'm gonna base it tentatively on the Mayan's three calendars. There will be two. The annual count is maintained by the "Ichian Imperial Count". This format runs like so Emperor.Age of present Emperor.Season (1-4).Day of Season. For instance, I think present day in the current campaign might be 6.16.4.98. This would indicate the era of the 6th Emperorer, he being only 16, on the 98th day of the winter calendar.

The second calendar is the seasonal calendar, simply counting the days of the season, with four names (duh). So, 32 Sharlter would be the 32nd day of spring. The seasonal changes are based on the changes in the Imperial capitol, so the 98th day of winter, or 98 Slumbrajen, would definitely not be literally the 98th day of winter in the heat of the Green River Valley.

I still need to work on holidays, but I'm thinking the new year is celebrated on Budding Day, which is when the trees first start to bloom.... There'll probably be an imperially sanctioned holy day for each individual deity, but each church will have its own set of holidays for its worshippers. There'll be a few standard ones for sure. The emperor's birthday, prolly the birthdays of the dead emperors, some sort of imperial celebration of the formation of the empire... Since the early empire stamped down on cultural celebrations, local stuff will only be things like a local prince's birthday or the founding of a city day, shit like that. Local planting celebrations and the like, too, though they'll be smaller than the seasonal celebrations held across the empire on those days in the capital....

Hope all that makes since, still haven't ran it by the players.

Now I gotta work on the wizard school and the social structure of the empire. Mostly the wizard school, cause, while I have the major figures taken care of, the setting is pretty lacking.

a bit of a mystery

OK. I'm a bad person, and I've let me Friday night game review languish in the ether for almost three days now. Of course, that erodes much of the detail. Sorry. Just haven't felt like mixing words much this weekend.

So, over the past couple of weeks, I've run a few solo type adventures with Levvy and Crenius. Zeke and Gregorious had one, possibly two, but unfortunately for John, Luke's lack of time or interest shot it in the ass. More importantly for everyone, they didn't discover a few key points of information that may bite them in the ass in a few adventures....mwuahahahah.

As build up (and unfortunately I can't give a play by play, because a player or two has been having problems with keeping game and character knowledge separate, but only in certain instances), Levvy went looking for an opportunity to buy her family out of slavery and Crenius, as a matter of focusing to deal with his fiendish dreams, took on a job as a book translator.

Crenius spent his time after that researching some information he found in the book he worked on, and discovered the possibility of an ancient tomb beneath the very foundations of the city. This tomb supposedly houses a great high priest of the Nyran civilization, which is the people that the Ichian Empire ousted in a genocidal assault. There writing and magic is based on geometric function, and Crenius is quite interested in this.

Parallel to this, Levvy discovered some books an artifacts from the Nyran civilization in her family's basement, along with evidence that the theives'/smugglers' guild was using her home as storage in her abscence. After some research by Levvy in the streets and Crenius in the library, they settled on this tomb being under the local mega-brewery, with hopes of finding out more about Levvy's family's associaton in all of this.

As a matter of preparation, they bought a rope ladder, Crenius made some extra scrolls, and everyone sharpened and oiled gear after retreiving Zeke and Gregorious from the temple of Heironious, where Zeke was attempting to teach Gregorious tactics, and Gregorious was attempting to teach Zeke tolerance. It looks like both failed.

After some sleep, the party made a late night sally into the brewery. After rifling through the owner's office (and Crenius stealing some fancy writing supplies), they headed downstairs. Crenius put a couple of guards to sleep to keep things quiet, and the group found a well with pumping equipment surrounding it. After tieing a rope to Crenius, they lowered him down the well. Near the end of the descent, the group slipped and dropped Cren, but he was caught by a net across the well and was immediately beset by a rogue guard. Cren put him to sleep too.

After picking a lock on the door the guard was protecting, Levvy opened it to a hail of darts from a trap. Again, the first trap gets em. Go me.

The party heads down a long circular stairway, with Levvy scouting ahead, only to discover that Levvy missed another trap, and woulda been cut in half had she not been an halfling.... After that, the group got way more cautious.

At the bottom of the stairs, a man with a weasel spotted Levvy. He sent the weasel running and attacked, chasing Levvy back up the stairs to the party, then chasing her back down the stairs as she slipped and tumbled past him. He didn't notice the rest of the group until they hit the bottom of the stairs and Zeke pummeled him into oblivion wit Fists of Stone.

Another door, no trap and the party was in a super long, completely dark hallway. This time, they had everburning torches. Halfway down the hallway, some zombies attacked. Crenius got a nice hit in with an acid flask, then stepped back to let the fighters do some good. Levvy's axes were flying, Gregorious actually used both weapons for a full three rounds (although to his credit, the 1-2 damage his shortsword would have done when he hit was probably not statistically worth the -2 to hit with both weapons), and Zeke pumped disrupt undead like a madman. Eventually, the zombie fell and the party continued on.

As the tunnel opened into a larger cave, a mysterious looking man in armor was looking for what could only have been his zombies, but Crenius put him to sleep really quick, too. Good thing, as he was a Hexblade, and they can cause some grief to casters...

About the time, Wendy was passing out, so we ended on a cliffhanger as the party entered the tomb they were looking for, only to be met with a charging barbarian and three little footsoldiers...

Spell of the day was obviously sleep, but I think Crenius is running out of those. Highlight of the day was Zeke smashing the guard to pulp with two hits. Annoyance of the day was Zeke and his "don't loot the bodies" attitude. Maybe next adventure, every opponent will be wearing a ring, keyed to his chemistry, that when he dies, he arises one minute later as a zombie. Every time. The only way to stop it is to take the fucking ring off. Although, I have other ideas for that.... Too bad I don't think the players do. They still haven't figured out how to manipulate Zeke's honor to get what they want. Which is funny, cause I see bout three opportunities for it in almost every encounter.

Anyway, tune in next time for Oh Crap, That Statue Just Winked At Me or A Devil Boy, A Fat Elf, and Two Midgets Walk Into a Bar....

Sails on the Horizon

Holy crap. I probably read this book in like 5 hours. Sweet.

Needless to say, it's pretty fast paced and the action rolls by. The love interest doesn't seem too forced. Pretty good book.

Complaint wise, I'd say I never really got into the main character. Supporting cast were alright, but the most interesting character was the main dude's love...

Overall, despite being great, the novel's pretty shallow, only slightly touching on the beliefs of the Quakers, not even looking at the politics of the war and just quickly introducing and wrapping up a series of minor events that could have added a large feel of depth and importance to the story. It felt mostly like the writer just wanted to get to the next sea battle (which are unarguably the best parts), but felt the need to try to add some humanity to the story, attempting to make the main character more normal and less heroic....

Still, a decent book to blaze through if you're not looking for serious literature, and a great rebound date after Don Quixote Book I.

Leisure now? Leisure later?

Hmm. Today we set up a wedding registry at Amazon.com. Unfortunately, also today, I started reading a great book (Sails on the Horizon, fiction set during the Napoleanic Wars). Now I can't decide whether to spend my down time reading said book or adding fun stuff to the wedding registry. I already packed it full of D&D, anime, and video games. I should add some more serious books, DVDs, a watch, a digital camera, and maybe some housewares, too..... But I just wanna read.

By the way, for those that are thinking Don Quixote beat me, he has not! The edition I have has BOTH books in it. I've finished the first one. I'm hitting a bit of light reading before starting the next.

Here's a review:

Don Quixote Book One

Good stuff overall. If you're looking to read this, look for an edition with solid paragraph breaks. That's my chief complaint. It's quite difficult to switch from the American taught each speaker gets a new paragraph to that not being the case, finding yourself slugging through three page paragraphs with three to four different speakers and descriptions in each.

Initially, I was rather bored with the book. Each of Quixote's misadventures is the same as the last, with only slightly different pieces to the puzzle. However, in his journeys, Quixote meets some rather interesting characters, and it is these stories which I found the most interesting, especially when combined with the authors footnotes about how the sub stories are related to Cervantes real experiences in life.

Given a more thorough reading, I'm sure I could tie Don Quixote into all of the issues I have with modern society, ESPECIALLY the way his tales of chivalry insight him into a mild insanity. If I were on one side of the coin, I could relate that to video games corrupting the minds of today's youth. However, on the other side of the coin, I could point out the lax care Quixote's caretakers took in ensuring that he not only knew the fictional nature of these tales, but also upon discovering his insanity the weak precautions to ensure his safety overall...

I'm sure I could come up with more, but there's no need to pull more out of my ass. Suffice it to say that Don Quixote is indeed a classic, and not just like a Model T is a classic, which was my first instinct. The book introduces a variety of characters, teaches a wee bit of history, and gives a sight into some of the minds of the time. I'll certainly be finishing off book two once I rock through a couple of lighter titles, and I'm looking forward to it.

Also, last night I discovered it's a really fun book to read outloud, whether it be to the cats or the woman. Good stuff, and a lot of it is funnier when said than when read. Almost makes me want to animate some of the bits from it. Plus, I'm now looking for a chance to say, "My head is more pregnant than the stinking whore that brought you forth!"

talk about lucky

So, you wanna know who's happy about a little plane flying into restricted airspace and taking up all of the national news time? Northwest Airlines, that's who. The last couple of days have been shit for that company.

On Tuesday, a truck driver, at the end of a 16 hour shift fell out or passed out at the wheel. Unfortunately that wheel was in control of fuel truck full of 2000 gallons of straight fuel and 1000 gallons of jet fuel. Poof. Or it would have went poof, cept he got lucky and the shit was 3 inches away from fatal.

Wednesday, nother bullet dodged. A DC-9 had hydraulic trouble during landing, but landed safely. Too bad for them. While taxiing into the gate, the steering locked up and they crashed into the back of a huge Airbus. Only six injuries out of a 150 possible, but still. This stuff would have been all over the national news.

Except nobody died.

And someone flew a plane in a threatening fashion.

I'm sure this is only ONE example from this week where the "important" news was overshadowed by the "entertaining" news. CNN's been on in the waiting room all day. I lost count of the amount of no-name DC residents that were interviewed about how horrible it was to think another plane could be crashing into them at any minute.... While I won't argue that the event COULD have been serious, it wasn't. Give it the 10 minutes it's worth, possibly 10 minutes every hour, and move on. It's no longer "news" after we know about it. It becomes "olds" the minute I hear about it. That's why the shit's called "news" and simply not "Information You Should Know As a Responsible Citizen."

Of course, how many of us can claim the title of "responsible citizen" anymore? When's the last time you contacted a senator or representative about anything? Made a consumer decision based on how the product would effect the environment or someone's job? Do you even know what our trade deficit was in March? How bout the cost of this administration's "black ops" budget? Playboy says they're training soldiers to kill hamsters with a thought, you know.... Hamtaro better reconsider those threats he made to America's safety. We got special forces just itching to take a crack at his little animated ass.....

Talk to Yourself About Quitting

I was originally going to post a continuation of the spell creation thinking, but since I made the first of the major decisions today, and it greatly affects the outcome, I'll wait til I've had time to talk to Nick about it.

So then, I was going to post a quick review of Crenius' four day solo mini and Levvy's solo mini, but then decided to wait until we've played a game and everyone's had a chance to get the in-character perspective of what happened. Then I'll post what happened in accordance to what all characters know.

Instead, first I'd like to give a big fuck off to the jack ass at Wendy's. Had I not been in a hurry to get to work, throw down might have ensued. Dig; I'm leaving. Walking across the parking lot at my normal pace (approximately 3.6 miles per hour according to the last time Wendy walked past a speed trap, hehe). No one's coming. Then, some asshole slooowly pulls into the lot and accelerates like he's running from the cops, honking at me the whole time. Man was he pissed that I didn't walk faster and made him slow down. Briefly, I thought about stopping and looking like a deer does, but again, kind of in a hurry. And if I wasn't hungry, I'da flung my food at his truck, too. Dick.

Reading my blog, can you tell how lamezor my life's been the last week or two.

In wedding news, I started printing the mini-map insert for the ceremony. Looks swankadelic on the card stock I'm using. Sweetness.

Oh yeah, and I found out there's a decent sized (50+ titles in print now) RPG company relatively close to my house. Looks like I'm putting an application together this weekend.

Yet another challenge

The fun continues on the homebrew campaign. This time, it's in the form of planar alignments. See, when an evil being goes to a plane that's mildly good, said being gets a -2 to Charisma checks. Seriously good plane? That's a -2 to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma checks. So, the question was raised, can a wizard replicate that effect?

Well, at level 2, my ruling is that a character doesn't even know that effect exists. I may throw a book in the good ole library that mentions such a thing, though. Depends if we decide a wizard CAN replicate that effect.

Which brings us to the first in a series of new power/spell questions.

Is this effect more of a divine or arcane effect? Unfortunately, I grabbed my PHB instead of my DMG (silly me), so I can't answer it thoroughly right now, BUT, initially, I'd say that since both types of spellcasters have access to planar travel spells, both spellcasters could replicate the effect.

And once again, train of thought derailed while at work. I'll have to finish this later.

A weekend and a review

I skipped gaming last night. I say 'I' which unfortunately means everyone, because I'm the designated DM and it's my responsibility to entertain the masses when no one else is able to. Last night, I failed. Chalk it up to a day in solitude spent in video gaming and development. I learned I'm incapable of "turning it on," and I must eeease into gaming. It's a social experience for me, so I need socializing before I can jump into it. Otherwise it's all numbers and dice. I can PLAY the game with numbers and dice, but I can't run the game that way. As the DM, the skill comes from storytelling, which is all social for me.

So, I apologize.

Review wise, tonight we caught Kingdom of Heaven. Rockin. I wasn't awed by the film. Unfortunately, it followed the cinematic formula for "Epic Films" set forth by Braveheart and Troy; introduce the hero, set him on a road, take away everything he knows, then show what he's made of.

That being said, the flick still rocked. Good acting, good visuals. I dug. Hell, I didn't even realize I had to piss til the end of the movie. And that's saying something. I did fart, though. Twice. It's a rare movie that keeps a man from farting.

I'll cut it here. I'm kicking around the idea of a short story style of blogging, wherin I introduce some of the events happening abroad in my campaign world. I was initially thinking of spending a little time on "cut scenes" in game just to get my ass in the mood to tell a story, but a couple of points were brought up over the last couple of days. First of all, as Wendy mentioned, it would be tough for the players to not only seperate that knowledge from character knowledge, but also tough to both remember that it didn't deal with their characters AND to pay attention knowing that it had no in game effect. Second, as Nick pointed out on a totally different subject, we game once a week for approximately four hours. Do I really want to spend 15 minutes of it tooting my own horn? No. I'd rather spend that 15 interacting with my friends in a fashion we all find enjoyable. If they're not having fun, why should I be?

So, I may or may not bring that info here. It would give me an excuse to write these events, and generally, once I get the stuff out, I can see where that road leads in-game and know whether I need to develop it any further..... We'll see. One major advantage to it is that the players could come and read a little bit about the world that's not quite "around" them, but near enough that they've probably heard rumors or learned a bit of it in school...

Woe is the delayed blog post.

Damn. This afternoon I was jazzed as hell to write this thing. Three hours and umpteen patients later, and the meat of the subject is still there, just not the excited fervor for blending the words into a piece of glory. Crying shame.

Today's blog entry is once again about my campaign. The world is now named....Argren. Still no name for the campaign, though. I hesitate to name it after one of the characters, because they're all important. Likewise, naming it after a villain reveals which villain is the Big'un... I'll work something up. Not important now, though.

Today, I was working on the cosmology. Since the world's flat, with portals and the like at the edges, how does that all link up? So, I sketched up the simplest of maps and pinpointed any interplanar travel spots.

A few places act as wormholes. You travel through a cloudbank, then BAM!, you're in a force tunnel in Limbo/the Astral or whatever, until you 'land' at the end of the tunnel and the plane it connects with.

A few places are gates. One being the previously mentioned gate to the demiplane of Fey on the Elven Isle. These are the portals that need some sort of activation, usually have some type of guardian, and are the easiest to avoid.

The third type is the worst. It stems straight out of legend. Certain areas just happen to be connected. One minute you're wallking across the frozen tundra and the next you're on the Demiplane of Ice. You're seeking shelter from a storm in a cave, but when you try to leave, you find you're on the Elemental Plane of Earth.

I still haven't figured out how the planar travel spells work in game. Got awhile for those I think....

Regardless, my excitement earlier came from the fact that this has got to be my favorite campaign EVER. We've got a good set of characters. The setting's starting to feel real (to me. I just have to get that feeling to the players.) The characters and players are thinking ahead and coming up with stuff that makes me think... Creativity is flowing good. That may change, but so far, we're golden. The best part, though, is that thrice I've been presented with a problem, question or concern that I've initially thought "Hell No. No way," over, but each time, with a little creativity, I've made it work in the setting. Love it. Tis good. I'm having fun, despite the mega amounts of work that making a fresh campaign on the fly takes.

Still, at times, Eberron is tempting. heheh.

Good will toward man.

First off, even though he won't read it, cause my mom's a technophobe, Happy Birthday, Justin. He's 14 or 15 today. Never can remember. Can't drive yet. That's all that matters, heheh.

In other news, I had a rant about an NPR article this morning about religious values in elections and what not. Stemmed around God giving man free will and all of that. It'll have to wait. This little bitchy, jackass of a patient just pissed me off.

Seriously, the ween bag is just being an ass. Scraped some skin off of his hand. Not even a lot, maybe a nickel size scrape. By his own admission, it doesn't even hurt that much, but I'll be damned if the piece of shit doesn't think we should let a patient die to take care of his hand. Little turd, little nugget. Lot to be said about today's society right there.

So again, no soapbox for me.

I was wrong

After some brief skimming, my thought on being able to read some kind of Trillian/Arthur romance into the Hithhiker's book was absolute crap. My apologies for misleading you.

On a "Holy Crap" note, I'm on the Campaign Cartographer mailing list and a challenge has been issued. The challenge is to recreate this map with the software. Oof. What's worse, a couple of the pros on the list have challenged each other to do it without bitmaps and easy ways out. Now, the software is a vector based program functioning like CAD software. Fades and blends and what have you don't happen. That's a toughy all around.

On the "God, please hurry" front, day 3 of waiting for my RPGA number is practically over. This is also like week 4 of waiting for a damn Dungeon magazine with my subscription. Add that Paizo failure to the fact that I've gotten NO response to the last three submission emails I sent out, and you're getting a Shafeman that's not too pleased with this company thus far, and a Shafeman that's not too hip on sending in any of the adventure ideas, race ideas, or campaign aid articles I have floating around in my head. :( Bastards.

Other than that, slow day. Not much worth mentioning unless I went on a long rant about news items. I won't do that. No need for a soap box today. I'd rather work on an adventure for this weekend. Unfortunately, the group is one man down. With him, the party level is just shy of 3. Without him, it's barely over 2. What worse is two possible encounters are a challenge rating of 4. That'll be almost a grand in experience each just for those two. Gonna be some levelin up this weekend fo sho. Too bad Zeke's gotta learn a little bit more about Heironeous....

In business....Again

New webcomic is up at Joe's. Hotmail's been screwin the boys down south, so that thing's been a long time coming. Whether there's any chance we can throw up a full month of the things in May to make up for the lack of em in April, I don't know.

On a similar note, our webhost revamped their install process, so I had to reinstall the store front software, dumping all the crap that I'd done, thus far. Oh well, I'll just start over. :(

Not much else here. Hoping my RPGA number comes in this week. If not, Zeke's gonna be studying Heironious' teaching pretty hardcore this weekend, as John's out in Butt-Fucked Minnesota for a wedding this weekend. We should all pray for him, as it sounds like not a fun time, but in the absence of prayer, what see we all just eat bacon to insult his non-Jewish sensibilities? Mmmm, bacon. The unclean meat of the heavens. Me Lubit.

Oh, on a happier note, faced with the decision of either making Lukas revamp Gregorious background a bit or figering out how orcs really "worked" in my campaign, I chose the latter, and once again the ranger's good to go. *ding*

Turns out, originally, orcs were just a simple savage humanoid tribe on a distant island. Til man came along and enslaved their asses. Now, even slave orcs are rare, and only "licensed" to very privileged families. Free orcs are virtually unheard of, and still hunted with reckless abandon.

And half-orcs? Half orcs live in hiding, and stay in hiding, cause their status depends on the judge they get. Some say the human parentage is the important part and they're free. Others rule contrary to that. Angry mobs usually don't care, and most good hearted adventurers tend to shoot first, kill an animal companion and ask questions later, eventually crushing the poor humanoids under tons of rushing water.....

So, that's how a half-orc druid was our first bad guy and two orcs were in the goblin raid that killed Gregorious' father. Thanks for the challenge Lukas. Glad I didn't just rule that one out.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Any mega descriptors on the history of the HGG I throw out here would simply be me copying Joe's blog style, so I'll skip the bread, mayo, and veggies and get straight to the meat of this sammich. The movie rocked. Plain and simple. Good acting, solid special effects, the HGG itself was represented well in the flick, good stuff all around.

But.

It's pure British humor, so if you don't get that, you'll prolly not dig the flick. On top of that, if you didn't like the book(s) or the radio program, don't bother. Douglas Adams had a hand in the screen play, so it's really damn close to the book. ALSO, it's up in the air whether it's a good film if you have no experience with the books or radio program. A couple of teenagers reviewed it, didn't understand the plot, and gave negative reviews, but Cactus Joe loved the film sans bookage.

The most common review I've seen is that the love interest feels tacked on. To this, I say fye. Many fans look at HGG as a form of social commentary, and it is that. But below that, it's a story of a dude with no balls and a completely normal existance that has everyone of his strongly held beliefs challenge by the destruction of his planet. It's a story of an ordinary dude changing through extraordinary circumstances. That's the story that gets told in the flick, cause realistically, that's the formula that modern big budget cinema has been marginalized to. Hithhiker's is a story that's tough to tell in 103 minutes, so it's gotta be broken down into its base form. It's easy to read over certain aspects of Arthur in the book, because as the reader you're constantly bombarded with new and exciting, be it aliens, locations, concepts, whatever. That's a lot to internalize, and the changes in someone as second stage as Arthur Dent are a miniscule thing.

At least, that's how I see it.

Deluvies Montagnes

Last night we gamed. Duh. Wendy was out, so Nick, John and I hit the home of Montezuma. Rolled up some characters for his Frostfell-esque home brew and headed out. Nancy the Teuton joined us.

The party ended up being a drow elf fighter chic (Nancy), a human barbarian (John), Goliath Barbarian (Nick), and human warlock (me).

With monster die rolls, Nancy's character has the best abilities amongst us. That, combined with her fighter feats lets her presently have a potential AC of 22, improved disarm, sleep in her scale mail, and I forget what else. Not to mention all of her drowey goodness. Strong character once she learns to play it. Last night was her first time.

John's barb got the worse rolls of us, so he's just dumb and mildly strong. He weilded his great axe to some good gob smashing enjoyment, though.

The real powerhouse in the party is the goliath, though. That bastard's large great sword does 3d6 + 5 damage, and with Cleave, he's hacking down two enemies a turn. Watch out at level 6 when he's at two attacks + possibly having Great Cleave. Sheesh. I think his body count last night was two gobs and two wolves.

Mine was two wolves and a gob, cause my 2d6 only rolled about 7 once, and my d20 consistently rolled 2 less than what I needed to hit with my ranged touch attack (weapon focused AND point blank shotted). That's sad considering I needed a 4 to hit the gobbies and a 3 to hit the wolves. Yep, that's right. Thrice I rolled a 2 and once a flat out 1. Blows mighty chunks in a five round combat.

To Nancy and John's credit, Cragwalker (goliath) and Morganoth (warlock) were acting as scouts, so we had two full rounds of combat before the other's made it in.

Improvements we need? Armor for the goliath....BIG TIME. Sure, he's got 39 hit points, but we don't have a healer, and with an AC of 10, everything's gonna hit him. And tactics for the elf. That's really just an issue of Nancy learning how to play, though.

As for the game itself, I gotta give Monte props for the detail. Very novelesque and VERY easy to picture the setting in your head if you pay attention. For those of us with ADHD, paying attention gets tedious, though, as all that detail makes for very long winded descriptions. Not a real problem, though, cause he understands and allows us ample time to ask questions. Good style.

The only problem is, much like my campaign, the world exists primarily in Monte's head. I run into this all the time as a DM. The questions the party *should* be asking don't get asked, because I've not given them enough information to know they should be asking. It's not that there's not enough information, it's just not the right information. How to solve this? I don't know. The width of gamer experience makes it hard. Some people could benefit from a Q&A session wherin the DM just lays a large local and/or world map out, gives a run down of the area, and the players pump him/her for info. Other players just want the map and a fact sheet/write up. Some would benefit from a short story about a local character of importance. Still more would completely fail to take advantage of any of those opportunities and just expect the DM to interrupt a potentially stupid action with a comment along the lines of "Your character knows that such an action is an extreme social faux pas likely to land his ass in shackles."

Granted, part of the excitement of a new campaign is getting to explore a new world and a new imagination with a new group of people.

Above and beyond all of that, good times. The obvious recommendation from everyone is, learn the rules. But we knew that going into it, and this was a quick shot for Monte's benefit, so he could figure out what rules were the most important and what have you. With our group, advanced combat will be big, magic won't. Sure, my warlock can use pretty much any magic item in the world whether it's race, class, religion, sex, alignment, or shoe size specific, but that's the briefest of sections in the magic item/skill use chapters. The only spells Monte needs to be fully prepared for are those his NPCs cast. Skills, feats, and travel/weather are gonna be his biggest concerns for awhile.

Good stuff all around. How frequently we play is all that's up in the air now. I get the sense that Saturday nights are gonna still be primarily my campaign, but I could have read that one wrong entirely. Personally, I hope so, casue I'm so excited about the shit that I have planned. Guess we'll just see where things go from here. I could reasonably see game night consisting of my campaign 2-3 times a month, Nick's once or twice and Monte's once or twice, specially in months where we can get a Friday and Saturday night in. I'm not opposed to that. Just don't know if everyone else is up for that much gaming.....

Oh yeah, and I'm officially a ranked DM for the RPGA now. Go me.