andrew dockery's page

Fight the power!!

How about Geena Davis she was awesome in "The Long Kiss Goodnight" and "Cutthroat Island"

There are hundreds of games over the years that I have thought were awesome and sank alot of time into but below are the ones that I find myself re-installing or finding the disk/cartrage for over and over.

Final Fantasy 4 SNES version (FF2 in the US): first RPG I ever played.

Mass Effect: entire trilogy awesome story, great characters, lots of re-playability.

Skyrim: took what I loved about oblivion and made in 10x more awesome.

Fallout 3 and New Vegas: took what I loved about oblivion and added guns, mutants, ghouls, and a post apocalyptic earth.

Castlevania SOTN: Timeless gameplay and hidden endings. Father of the Metrovania genre need I say more.

Diablo II: this game ate a few years of my life lol.

1: What's that you're eating?

2: (Looks at what's in his hand for a little while) No idea.

Stargate? When they are eating with the natives.

...All the PC's have 2 first names....Billy Bob...Mary Sue...etc.

"And you haven't even been out of jail for 24 hours. He's habitual, Hershey. Automatic 5 year sentence. How do you plead? "

"Not guilty? "

"I knew you'd say that. "

"5 years? No! No! I had no choice! They were killing each other in there! "

"You could have gone out the window. "

"40 floors? It would have been suicide! "

"Maybe, but it's legal. "

"Judge Dread" with Stallone. Every time I see a character with a LN in the alinment block or hear a referance to hellknights I hear "I AM THE LAW!" in the signature Stallone voice lol.

Demands that Obvious Troll use the term fanperson since fanboy is clearly sexist.

"Whenever a man gets that drunk, he's either going to kiss a girl or kill a man. Which is it?"

Abe Lincoln: vampire hunter...

@toz: I recommend the google nexus 7. Cheap reliable and the screen is just large enough to view PDFs on without squinting.

If you can find a copy of the Hackmaster 4th ed. players guide has and entire chapter on dice ediqute and mojo/luck/superstition. Complete with various ways of testing new dice, blessing new dice, removing curses, and a list of circumstances that a die should be thrown away and the proper disposal procedure.

The chapter also has various rules about where to place dice when not being rolled and "fame rubs" signatures of various TT gaming superstars like Gygax that you rub your dice on for luck.

Since I am normally the GM im going to change the OP's question to "How often are you surprised by your players?"

Every. Single. Session.

While it is a little annoying it is not a bad thing. Out of the box thinking should be encouraged. Infact I would be willing to wager that most GMs have the same experiance like the saying goes "The best planned adventure never survives contact with the players,"....or something like that lol.

I also think every GM gets rules lawyered (or does the lawyering) every so often. Generally if the rule makes sence to me I will apologize to the player and roll with it. But if I think its silly I'll toss it out. So far I havent had a player complain any more than a grumble when the ruling is made.

Its not an excuse but telling a player no to an option then geing the sme option to an NPC is asking for angry players. But like I said that dosent give the player an excuse to be an ass hat.

I had a smiliar situation happen once when I was in the Army in South Korea.

A new (his first session with us) player demanded an option that I had banned at character creation (to be more precise I said that it do not exist in the world...period). When I told him no and cited the character creation guidelines he got irate cursed a bunch, knocked over some minis, etc. I kept my inner NCO in check took a breath and informed him that he had 3 options: 1. deal with it calm down and play 2. leave 3. be forceably removed my myself and the other players. He paused just long enough for one of the other players to take a step toward him...then he reaized I was serious and chose option 1. He played with us for about a year (until his tour was over) and was actually a decent player and person after that.

You wear them walking around a FOB because there is traffic. Never heard of anybody wearing them out on patrol or otherwise outside the wire.

This....infact in garrison (not in a combat zone) you only wear them when you are in your PT (physical training) uniform and a few other special circumstances. You dont wear them when on patrol...or even out side the wire.

semi off topic but:

So if I'm not mistaken the taxes they put on tobacco products pays for school programs of some sort or another...

I always wondered where they were going to get their money once enough people quit smoking. Looks like its going to be soda...since there area already bans in place...

Im just going to kick back and giggle since I no longer smoke and have instituted my own household soda ban lol.

Exactly similar to EVE it is a game of risk mitigation not eliminiation.

For example to mitigate you can: join a company/kingdom, hire guards, pay attention to intel channels, know where it is safe/unsafe for you to travel, dont equip or carry what you cant afford to lose, etc.

charm person..... so many applications...."Hiya Mr. Gates its your new bestie....so how bout you give me a bizzilion dollars huh?"

"Do you want to live forever?!"

I've never read the First Law trilogy but Best Served Cold was a great book that would be awesome as an HBO/showtime/starz mini series. I loved the delightfully sociopathic poisoner (whose name escapes me). Also I'm a sucker for a good Count De Monte Cristo style revenge story.

M'lord Merryweather Bloomingsdale III

bonus points if you RP the dwarf as insane and following "orders" recieved from the mole.

step by step pdf map to png/jpeg...

1. Click the map in the PDF this will highlight the map. you might have to drag a felection box around the map.

2. right click->copy image (or ctrl+c)

3. open ms paint.

4. right click->paste (ctrl+v) into paint.

5. file->save as...save with whatever name you want that choose the file extention you want .jepg or .png...or whatever you want to use. then save.

6. drag and drop the new file into roll20.net

EDIT: this also works with other art in the book if you want to do handouts for your players.

If you can get it the Hackmaster 4th editon players guide had an entire chapter on luck and dice. It had ways to test new dice for luck, cleanse bad luck from dice, "fame rubs" (rubbing your dice over a signature of someone like Gygax for extra luck), and a lot about dice ediquite (sp?).

The book is out of print now but it was pretty hilarious...and actually a fun system (modified 2nd ed rules)

IMHO there is no right or wrong way to create a game world there is only what works for your group or does not work for your group.

Oops seems I missed the point of the post lol i need to RTFP.

As for how we balance grinding with fun gameplay. The problem is that "fun" is different for everyone. You might like exploration and I might like collecting wolf paws and Mr. Snuffy might like RPing a lazy character sleeping in the inn.

So the only two ways I can think of to balance is to either give influence for everything in game or put influence on a real time system similar to XP. I doube either of these would work but it just the first two ideas I came up with.

Seeing an attractive and under dressed female of questionable age (17-19ish) and instead of thinking "Awesome!," I end up thinking "Who let her out of the house like that...where is her father..,"

But that could my age or could be that I have a daughter of my own now lol.

I cant wait for a researcher at FOX news to find this....just sayin....

After reading this thread I really want to play RISK: golarion edition lol

Dot

Just found this today and my reign of winter game is tonight...I think the PCs are in for a suprise on the way to whitethrone. I think at least one of them is going to bargin away all of his shoe strings and possiably all of his hair.

Yeah Ivan its a sad world when a 16 hr a day MMO player is considered almost normal but if you get together with your friends and play some D&D your the devil.

27. The rest of the party died...the show must go on!

28. "I had a bunch of onyx and animate dead in my spellbook what else was I supposed to do?"

I was in a very similar situation as the OP at one point in my marriage. My wife was mad that I was spending every sunday morning-early afternoon with my friends gaming. Just like the OP it stated at just complaining and slowly moved into full on fights. While I wont give you any advise, since I dont really know the whole story, I can tell you what worked for me.

I sat down with my wife and had a mature discussion about what was wrong. And obviously it was that I was playing too much. But when i brought up that it was just 6 hours a week she let me knwo just how wrong I was. It was the 6 hours a week + a few hours prep time for game + a few more discussing it with my friends between sessions + a little more reading random gaming books + time playing other games (videogames etc.).

As stupid as it sounds it was a little eye opening for me because in my eyes when I was spending all that extra time gaming I was at home and my wife could have come in and see me at any time. So it wasnt that bad, not like I was outta the house right? (wrong). But she (correctly) thought that she shouldn't have to interupt me to get me to spend time with her.

So after some discussion, or really listening on my part, I realized what I had been doing and ever since I have cut down on my gaming (the videogaming mostly we still have out D&D/PF group) and make it a point to spend more time with my wife and we both get what we want I get to game and she gets attention.

So the short version is think "How much do I game?" not just how long are you at session but how much time to you spend in total on games of all types and preparing for those games.

162. Polishing his wand. (comic version: Polishing his wand...*wink wink nudge nudge*)

Dot means that you post in a thread so that it shows with a dot next to its title when browsing the boards so it is easier to find later.

Also Dot!

I got all 4 of my wisdom teeth extracted on the same day, dispite a bit of begging on my part. They didnt out me under or give me any gas just alot of novacane (sp?). Infact I once moaned in pain and the dentist looked at me and said "Dont be a wussy," before applying more novacane. Hooray for Army dentists. It was free though...

I guess I would burn something...preferrably a dog...we are in goblinville after all.

1780's France. We know how that turned out

IANDB but....Time to bust out the final blades. Viva la galt!!!!

56. I'm plotting to kill them one at a time.

I love that I entroduced my son to pathfinder and he liked it.

I Love that while my wife is not a gamer herself she undersands and allows me the time to play.

I love that I was able to get out of the Army, move home, find a job, buy a house, and be otherwise successfull in short order.

I love that my son and daughter are both healthy children.

this is kinda therapudic, more to com later

I am the GM.

I am not here to tell you what to do.
I am here to tell you the consequences of what you do.

I, as the GM, control the WORLD and everything in it. I control the horizontal, and the vertical as it were. BUT my players control their CHARACTERS.

These +1..IMHO the GM has 2 basic responsibilities the overall story of the campaign and ajudicating the rules based on the decisions that the players have made. But the players are responsable for making those decisions and their characters individual stories.

anything that is evil and is or resembles a human child...."Come play with us Danny..." shudders

So in our last session we fought a young white dragon that was being grappled by our enlarged dwarven fighter...dont ask....anyway the other fighter moves to behind the dragon and this is dialog that followed.

GM: "are you going to attack into the grapple?"
Human fighter: "Are you kidding im going to cornhole me a white dragon with my flaming longsword."

I know a little low brow but it got alot of laughs from my group.

Playing Hackmaster (modified 2ed). After a successful adventure the party (NE elven fighter/thief, CN human wild mage, LE gnomeling thief, LE human monk) returned to the nearest large city and I ask them what magic items they would like to look for.

The fighter thief role playing that his character probably did not have any real knowledge of magic items gives a list of items that he would like to the CN wild mage. With things on it like "A ring that makes me invisible," and "a sword that burns," ect. and way down at the bottom of the list is "A lucky rock."

So as the mages player reads the list I see his eyes brighten and a cruel smile appear. After a bit he gets me alone and tells me he would like to cast magical aura (or what ever the spell is that gives a false magical aura to an item) on a rock. And I say "umm...ok."

After we return to the game table he tells the fighter that he couldn't find any of the other items he was looking for but he had found the lucky rock he needed but it will cost him 20,000gp (the PHB price for a luckstone in that system)

It took about 7 months for the fighters player to figure out that he had been screwed by the mage (and in-game the character still doesn't know)

even though those characters have long since been retired to this day every time the groups goes shopping the wildmage's player makes sure to announce that there are plenty of "lucky rocks" for sale.