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 Recent Posts
A criminal could probably download Tomaoachan on a filesharing program if he wanted to break the law. Then he'd have to lie low for a few years. I'd give you my copy but its beyond reach in a box in my attic. The only way I'd look for it was if I knew there was a bag of gold pieces stashed beside it.
Can 1st ed rulebooks be cool? PH, DMG, MM, DDG. That's at stretch. Can something that is a sign of abject dorkiness become cool 27 (or so) years later? Could it be? In the land of my dreams D&D will have a major renaissance and I can sell them for thousands of dollars as collectors items with the valuable crap, like my 70s X-men and Star Wars comics.
If anyone has tried it, then you too know that the point buy system created for Champions is a mathematical masterpiece with better balance than anything ever seen in Gaming. I'm glad you appreciate my humor. What a fun game to obscenely power game, though.
I've had this one repeatedly, liking rogues, thieves, and assassins: "I check for traps" ....fails die roll. Or the second last character I played, who was hiding in a tree as a platoon of orcs passed below, the rest of the party having scattered. I wanted to see if they had a prisoner we were trying to liberate: "There's no way they can see me up here. I'll see if they've got him." We were using detailed critical hits. An orc archer planted an arrow in my eyesocket.
By freaky I guess you mean freak out the players. I had a player with a PC who drank. I handled that by finding a way to get him to black out (he missed that CON roll after a night of boozing, but date rape drugs would work too...) then had him wake up in bed, naked, with a similarly unclad goblin of the same sex. Great for macho fighters or mild homophobes. My all time favorite came from a friend who DMed. After a brutal battle the characters sought shelter in the cabin of a sweet old lady who won them over with her healing potions, and who cooked for them a fabulously delicious meal. The session was "over" and they were off their usual guard. One of the characters, on a critical success perception roll, discovered from a few clues while glancing into the kitchen that they were not eating one of the pigs they had earlier spotted out back, but were in fact dining on human babies.
You guys are all very talented and the stuff you are publishing is splendid. Having mentioned old stuff myself, the reason is that I (and others) love the things that got us into this game, and we cherish the memories. But we are here now and as happy as ever thanks to the high quality publishing (writers, editors, publishers all) of today. I came back to D&D last year after a ten year vacation and this stuff blows me away. ....shaved, tatooed, pierced harpies... wow. Scuttlecove, very cool. And I can't leave out the illustrators and mapmakers, it's just getting better and better... can it get better?
My favorite, and the most memorable, was the the second module I ever played... Of Skulls and Scrapfaggot Green by Judges Guild. I remember being scared s***less when we fought the manticore. DMed by my bro. That followed Keep on the Borderlands, where, even at 12 years old, I felt a little guilty about walking in and slaughtering all those creatures (My mother's one and only DMing experience, having just bought us the game, and she added a few Kobold women and children... sick... my mom is a great guilt monger).
Having played some superheroes, I've gotta say that d20 just doesn't cut it if you really have an imagination, and so I personally prefer my superheroes from Champions (The Hero System 5th ed.). If anyone has tried it, then you too know that the point buy system created for Champions is a mathematical masterpiece with better balance than anything ever seen in Gaming. Hey, I love D&D though, I played it first... and I've played Rolemaster too for years, and love the critical hits, but found it too slow in the end. Dungeon and Dragon mags for fantasy gaming is fine for me.
Oh yah, I forgot:
If you are looking for stuff check out John Williams and Hans Zimmer (Zimmer demonstrates more versatility and has done more movies, Williams is very classical... Star Wars... enough said), their soundtracks are usually unobtrusive but cool. If players are in a temple sometimes i hit the chanting monks playlist, buddhist/gregorian, doesn't matter. I also have a tavern list full of folk and country music. My favorite is Baltimore Whores by Gavin Friday.
I have a DVD of ripped MP3s, and use some songs from the above as well as from these OSTs
I use Winamp, and break my DVD up into playlists that I can start depending on what's going on in the game.
As mentioned, kobolds are a little on the weak side for a PC race. I give them bonus skill points like a human and eliminate their light blindness.Light blindness on kobolds and orcs and such really irritates me. Mind flayers don't have it, but they live totally underground and have a racial mission to extinguish the sun. However, orcs and kobolds, who live only partially underground, get light sensitivity and blindness? WTF? Mine wear sunglasses.
When I was a punk and my brother DMed (1980-88), modules had little backstory. He made it all up himself. We (my characters) lived in a tenement in the City State of the Invincible Overload, had enemies, took jobs, and backstory just came. People want it, if its not there they make it up for themselves.
Why did my post disappear(was about at #47)? Logue cited it and his citation is still there? Go figure... ...magical pollution
I'm running my STAP in a previously developed campaign setting, with a well mapped Oerth I did using Illustrator and tracing off overlaid scans from Darlene's map, Amedio, and the two main maps of the world (which have some serious disagreement). The campaign includes trade with Oerth's "Asian" countries (not needlessly because I am DMing in China if you can believe it). And a problem I've had to solve is the proximity to Nippon. What I Am wondering is should Dread and Amedio not be crawling with Nipponese pirates? They are in my campaign. In fact, there is no logical reason to have pirates there unless company ships are carrying valuable exotic goods and gold between E Oerik and the rest of the continent. Its that, or the pirates are morons. Has anyone else asked this question? Does the Greyhawk canon not acknowledge anything outside the local map? Does anyone around here share my sense of horizon?
Sure, roleplaying and hack'n'slash are both a must. Although I've gotta say that I draw the line when my players start fleshing out their characters with annoying speech impediments, affectations and fake accents. But what about intellectually challenging problems, traps, tricks, and surprises. I'm a literature geek who DMs some math-heads and a programmer who are at their best cracking ingeniously safeguarded pirate treasures. Avoiding being drowned by a nameless mechanism because you are an intuitive lateral thinker really pleases some people, and I'm not talking about disarm trap rolls, I'm talking about solving riddles and foiling pitfalls with some old fashioned anti-Grimtooth thinking.
Let's see. You are wiccans and they don't object (freedom of religion?). You play D&D and the kid should be sent to a foster home while you game. Maybe shes a wiccan loather but doesn't want a FoR lawsuit.... so she justs snags you on the D&D. Whatever, that boggles my mind... your whole situation boggles my mind, dude. That in this day and age someone thinks playing RPGs is harmful to kids just doesn't make sense. Next thing its gonna be abuse to take your kid to a hockey game. Good luck
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