Describing PC Levels or Weapon with Pluses in-game

 In-game trying to find a way to describe to somebody a weapon or other item with bonuses, or a character level, was always weird. There were not many ways around it. You just meta-described out of game and that was that. At least it's what I did. 

As far as character levels it seemed easier to describe a magic-users. And I don't mean using the dumb names for levels like prestidigitator and charlatan or whatever. I would just have the mages guild use designations for members such as "Ah yes, Peldifferous is a "mage of the 7th circle" or something like that. Spell ability is a good in-world judging gimmick for MU's. For example the Mages Guild in my main city of Tanmoor restricts even the lowest tiers of membership to 4th level or higher (there can be some exceptions for third level, such as a glowing recommendation from a high-level member). Easy enough to test them by having them show proof of appropriate spell ability. I remember having to do this in a Skyrim quest and it was pretty cool.

Of course, some old school classes, such as druids and monks, had some non-spell ability level requirements there probably had to be martial tests for at later levels. 

For most other classes; fighters, thief/rogue or whatever, you had to abstract it a bit. How they perform their craft out in the field or what not. Reputation. 

Mr. Satan is an example of how 
imperfect the system can be.

But for weapons and items that give pluses I no longer sweat it. I've recently started just letting characters understand what the numbers mean. An amulet of Extra AC that is +1 is almost useless. But a +5 one is certainly something you want to count on in a big battle. A shield with such even more. A plus 1 sword is about the same as an exceptionally crafted one, but a +3 is decent magic. It makes a difference.

A character only needs experiment a little to understand its magical quality. "Hey, I think this dagger is +2." 

Any other abilites the item may have is another matter. However its done, identify spell or what not, I don't really like to spend a lot of time on more minor items. If they have some kind of meaning beyond a little help in battle, I spend more time on it. But "hey, it seems like it is maybe a +3 axe" and getting on with the game is usually good enough for my players. And a little metagaming sneaking in never hurt anybody. YMMV.

Cheers

Gaming Inspiration out in the wild 2

 

Gaming inspiration is where you find it. Last year after a lovely, almost spiritual weekend in the deep Mendocino woodlands I posted about the moments where my mind went to games that take place in natural places. 

Now to do it again. After a long year at work in my healthcare related job (mostly hybrid so work from home, hold the applause) and not taking much time off from it, early this month I drove the several hours to Mendocino. Not to the woods, but not far from it. Some of my oldest friends and some of their Bay Area music friends, couple dozen in all, rented an old 1800's farmhouse (in great condition) right near the stunning sea cliffs and coves of Casper, California; pretty much Mendocino.

I made it an extra-long weekend. Leaving on a Thursday even though we had the house until Monday morn. I spent Thursday night in a small hippy town called Willits ("Gateway to the Redwoods"), in a quiet hotel where both that afternoon and the next morning had the sauna all to myself.

With the area being cold and misty, the town itself surrounded by woods, it was a great way to relax and prepare for an extended party in a house chock full of musicians.

I'm so grateful to still be a part of a scene where once a year or so I get invited to these terrific and exclusive weekends. At least once a year. And for this one I got to the property first and got to check out the house.

nice Night of the Living Dead vibe

There is something very cool about being their first and watching folk roll in and greeting them, beers and other drinks getting handed around (we had to wait a while for the cleaning ladies to get the place ready for us). 

But before long the party was in full swing. Rooms assigned (I got my own little love room), friends hugged, and more drinks. Great conversations and catch ups, big laughs, and eventually full-on music sessions. 

To many little weekend misadventures to be included here, but on Sunday early afternoon I did a little solo walk to the seacliffs. And of course with some alone time and such great views, some gaming ideas came to mind.

What a great location for characters to explore sea caves. I'm even thinking of having the characters in my upcoming western themed Call of Cthulhu campaign, located in the Pacific Northwest, visit this area. Deep Ones no doubt need to be included!

But yeah, another great vacation weekend out in nature and filled with friends and music. Something like this seems to becoming a yearly think. I don't want to make time fly by, but cannot wait to find out where we will do it next!

Cheers!

Dracula - dead, but not always loving it

 Obligatory Halloween post

I've been in a bit of a Dracula frame of mind lately. We all know there are LOT of Drac films out there from over the decades. And of course, some better (and less stupid) than others.

A stupid one, at least in terms
of casting choice

This little phase for me started a few weeks ago. I decided to pay for a few months of AMC+ to do my third or fourth rewatch of Mad Men, one of my favorite all time shows. But you also get some Shudder content with that, and I saw that my fave horror host, Joe Bob Brigg, had been doing his thing the last few years with his latest show The Last Drive In. I noticed he had an episode with the original Nosferatu. So I watched it. 

I probably never saw it before due mostly to it being and old black and white film. Those always seem so hokey. The organ music and what not. But what surprised me was this version had the original orchestral score from its first limited release (it was halted during its original run by Bram Stokers wife, and she nearly caused all copies to be destroyed). That made a HUGE difference. As with all great scores it was a character in itself. It lended so much weight to the now somewhat goofy goings on and helped a lot with the mood of it. And Joe Bob coming in now and again to explain some of the crazy backstory of the film and those involved also added interest. 

I have to say, I found it very spooky. unnerving in a way that more modern stuff just doesn't have. Maybe that dream like quality many old silent films have. 

Not long after, maybe that same week, I watched the Klaus Kinski version from 1979. Creepy in its own way, it had that sort of hyperrealism but also surreal thing that most Herzog films have, such as the great Aguirre the Wrath of God. 

I also rewatched Bram Stokers Dracula last week, but I had seen that many times. I mostly watched it because I heard a humorous podcast about it (and Australian pod called The Weekly Planet, with a youtube channel called Carvan of Garbage).

And just tonight, for laughs, I watched the Bela Lugosi Drac. I had seen that, but it had been a long time. It was a little over an hour long, so I whipped it through before dinner. I guess it counts as my Halloween movie. 

So without going into a long text about them, I thought I would just share some random thoughts:

First and foremost, I think 1922 Nosferatu is the most chilling at this point, in some part due to what I said above. But the biggest reason I think is the sheer inhumanity of The Count. He has none of the sympathy you can feel for the Lagosi and Kinski Dracs. No love longings or regret at his fate. This Count is more like an insect man, totally operating out of some almost alien instinct. This makes him extra frightening. Another thing I just love about the 1922 is the war of wills from hundreds of miles away Mina (I think she is Lucy in this) seems to be fighting on the pyschic plane with The Count, and man she never met and knows nothing about. Like so much in his film its way ahead of its time in concept. 

I was not blown away by the 1979 Herzog film. I found Kinski's portrayal almost comical. A several minute focus on him running back and forth across london carrying coffins made me laugh. Also in this version there is an amazing scene towards the end where plague-stricken townsfolk dance and feast in the town square, which historically was apparently a thing. The ending to this also had a twist that many folk, including myself think about at the end of a movie when a human-like monster is killed. Isn't this murder?

Not a lot to say about Lugosi Drac. Growing up with cartoons and such that parodies it does not help the mood. Everybody from Bugs Bunny to the Three Stooges have made fun of it. But it's interesting just how small the story is. It was based in large part of a stage play that Lugosi actually appeared in. Very little is explained about Dracs motives other than the usual stuff coming out of Van Helsing. And the ending is anti-climactic to say the least. What I did love was the understated brides of Dracula. When Renfield passes out, they come from behind pillars in a sort of methodical stalking mode, but looking almost like Elvish princesses. They are so focused on the prey. Scary. A moment ahead of its time, and I think more effective than the orgiastic brides from the Coppola film.

Francis Coppola's Dracula from the 90's is the biggest depiction of the story, adding a ton of origin material, but also maybe the most faithful. Lots of its dialogues are from the book. Its heavy on the love story, and I'm not sure how much I like Dracula being depicted so demonic in forms and powers, but so human at the same time. He bubbles and cries at least a couple times in this. So many schlocky moments. But damn if this had the best depiction of Van Helsing of all time. 

Not sure how soon I'll do it, but I have a hankering to watch some Hammer Dracula at some point, which I have not seen since I was a kid. 

Cheers and happy Halloween!

Balders Gate 3 and the banging of the Bears

 If you are even just a mild video game player who pays at least a little attention to the media surrounding Balders Gate 3 and its sexual content, you will know that at least to some extant there is, well, sexual content. 

Like me maybe a couple months or so ago you saw a trailer for it where a strapping dude and a bear give each other "come hither" looks and seem to be about to do the deed. The short scene cuts to a squirrel in a tree holding a nut. Then he drops the nut. BTW that is not a euphemism. They don't show if the nut busts when it hits the ground. We never see the actual character to character contact, but when they cut away one is still a bear. I think. It's been a while since I saw that bit, because in the following months much more has come out about the game, and it sounds great. The use of current edition D&D mechanics, plus an old school turned base system. 

Anyway, there ya go. A D&D video game with sexual content. And what the hell, some of that has been part of my gaming experience, such as talked about in these more recent posts:

Post: Edit (blogger.com)

Post: Edit (blogger.com)

But outside the sexy stuff yeah, the game sounds good.  

I don't mind a little CGI boffing. And hell, the bear is a human druid, though not sure how much a diff it makes. If it looks like a bear, and smells like a bear, and drools like a bear it probably kisses and knocks boots like a bear. Those things will mess you up. Ever see Revenant? Or Grizzly Man?

I am guessing any dating and sexy time cut scenes will be a small percentage of that will probably be hours of long ass cinematics that are popular now. Its turn based, so a lot of that will need to be spaced out to build the story. 

I guess the real "bear in the room" though is the identity politics that seem to be heavy in the game. I mean, OK. My only gripe is that so many things have to "present day" us. It's like fantasy worlds or anything else needs to be a reflection of Los Angeles of San Francisco. Maybe it's just an aging straight white dude thing, but whatever happened to escapism? Creativity should be the main goal, but that has been toppled from the number one spot to inject present dayism. I mean, OK, fine. I still might play it (when it comes to XBOX). Because at least you have a choice as to how deep you want to indulge in the Alphabet Mafia stuff. It's not like Starfield, where you are forced to choose a pronoun in character creation. No choice in it. But it would not be a deal breaker for me. Though I think my next space game might be Outer Worlds, because so many people think its way better. 

Anyway, I do hope I get to play Baldurs Gate 3 eventually. I'm usually 3-5 years behind on my games (and more...I'm still playing GTA % here and there). And I look forward to the sexy time in it. With a humanoid. Probably. I can't predict how I'll feel in 3-5 years. 

My 4th Campaign on Roll20

 

So as of last night my new 5th ed. campaign, The Lost and The Lurking (yep, title totally stolen from a Silver John novel). Well, actually, the first session zero was a couple weeks ago, but out of the four in that (long time player Terry could not make it) only two remain, the eager and adorable noob couple in their 20's who I, as I often do with couples, refer to as "The Twins." One guy seemed promising, but he wanted both a more dark ages setting, and he wanted orcs to be like Warcraft orcs. Well, my setting has progressed (after over 100 years of character continuity) to being sort of post Italian Rennaissance-like, and pre-industrial Britain-like. Strike one. And Strike two was my orcs are nasty, stinky, rape your wife and eat your guts Tolkien orcs. Warcraft? As if. Those are just big humans with tusks. Fucking boring. The worst thing to ever happen to orcs.  So he was out. The other was a girl who seemed great, I hit it off with right away, and immediately thought of her as player numero uno. The others were mostly new to the game, so it's always helpful to have a seasoned vet. Especially since I haven't exactly memorized the PHB. 

But then after the session zero, she started being problematic. She was running an Eloquence Bard. I didn't study up on it at first, because she was talking up how she was sort of an acrobat high wire performer. That sounded cool, but I should have seen a red flag when she kept asking about running some sessions featuring her circus family as the NPC's. Hm. That was usually a mistake in the past. OK. Maybe. But then another new guy told me "hey, do you know what you are in for with that class?" 

So I looked it up and was like "wow." This bard by third level will pretty much be successful with every persuasion roll. Its called "Silvertongue" or some such. Plus the character will get the ability to reduce the saving throws of foes, a lot, and will also be able to give almost endless bardic inspirations. So I was a little concerned. I told her so, and though I won't nerf it, we need to be on the same page on how some of this stuff would work. I was being nice about it, but she seemed offended. Accused me of calling her a power gamer (which she was being...she was also asking to start with a powerful 4th level feat). It was getting negative, so I bailed on her. I felt bad about it. Almost sad. I went from being excited she would be involved to in a week not wanting to deal with her. So out out out. 

More humorously, another girl, an 18-year-old, contacted off the forum practically begging to be in the game. I much prefer folk 25 and older, but she said she did art and likes to make images throughout a session. That was enticing. But when I let her into the Discord to talk more, she started demanding written up setting information. Well, I have an "info dump" setting channel for random thoughts on my setting I post, but she was all like "no, if people are going to play in your world you need organized and detailed info on politics, important families, etc etc." Sorry kid, I don't keep piles of notebooks anymore. I've had this setting since I was a kid. It mostly lives in my head. And that she should maybe be more concerned about what happens in the course of the campaign than detailed background durp. Then she started demanding to know what the "story" will be and was name dropping Critical Role. Ah, that makes sense now. I told her that CR is actors pretending to play D&D as a performance and there are plenty of groups doing that out there. So lotsa luck.

Ah well. I promised myself I would heavily vet the group, so that was what I was doing. But with a couple more dudes on board, and Terry doing her dwarf from the previous campaign, we were up and running. I used Marge, the major caravan master from the last campaign, as a sort of patron for this one. This would not be a caravan campaign. The NPC is simply taking a couple seasons off to invest in some expeditions. I'm using LOFP's Death Frost Doom as sort of an inspiration. I personally find that adventure to be sort of Unrunnable as is, but there are gems in there, including the Lichway rip-off ending. I love Lichway. 

From DFD I'm mainly using the mountain, town below, graveyard, and cabin. I would be using my own, decently smaller, dungeon map for the temple (I will show in a later post). The temple in this case will be a temple of Orcus. Here's is the information Marge will show the party next session (this session was mostly dealing with some town thugs and a kobold cave).

This cult arrived at the pass some 100 years ago (year 1 of the New Age), when there was still a well-trod overland trade route between the West and The Acherian Empire to the northeast. 

At that time in the area it had a force of several Orcus  (a foul devil lord who has nothing to do with orcs) clerics, a few dedicated and well-trained guards, and always a dozen or so slaves, and with the fierce power of the cult protector and anti-paladin Atrigan the Deathdealer, they carved a hidden complex on the top of The "Broken Spine," a local mountain with a high peak and a rambling trail that lead up to it. It was what the religion of Orcus called "a material plane undeath garrison", a place where worldly worshippers of the Demon God tortured living humans to drive them chaotic mad, and then murdered them to temporarily lay them to rest, seizing their souls so they could be unleashed to help create an undead army at such time as when Orcus decided he wished to conquer the living world with a great force. The bodies of most of the priests, after they passed away for whatever reason, would also share this fate. Even his worshippers will serve Orcus in death.

Apparently, there are many such temples and "garrisons" across the lands. And perhaps waiting undead armies of a variety of Lords of Hell. The thought is chilling. Perhaps many of the hostile undead encounters in the dark corners of the earth are souls who have awakened early to inhabit their devil-cursed material forms. 

In the 100 years since the creation of the temple at the top of the "The Broken Spine" the dead where never called upon. But over the years the progeny of Atrigan and the other priests continued to slowly accumulate victims from the trade pass and remote villages, and eventually bury their bodies in the dirt consecrated for Orcus. 

Captive non-humans, elves and dwarves, were unwanted as soldiers of the future undead army of Orcus (for Orcus was a devil brought about by human sin), so after proper torture, degradation, and murder, the bodies of any non-humans were burned in a kiln that the Orcus priests trapped a fire elemental within.  

In the year 40 of the new age, 60 years ago, the cult got greedy and instead of the usual furtive and secret capture of a select few unwary folk from year to year, attacked a well-guarded Acherian noble caravan going through the pass, as they had a surplus of living slaves to force into battle. A dozen captives were taken. Among them was Grunhix Maxima, the young niece of the then Acherian Emperor Decemberious Maximus The Third. Grunhix was on a sightseeing tour of the trade roads to the west.

The Emperor back in Acheria met with his royal Oracles,and was told of the cult and what they did with captives. The forces he sent to destroy the cult on the top of the mountain found the trail up The Spine to be treacherous, as both guards, slaves, and landslides were sent down to rain devastation upon them. The troops camped at the bottom of the mountain, and the emperor sent them three high priests of the Acherian Empires cruelest and most powerful gods of the time. A priest of Borias, God of the North Wind and Winter, a priest of Jubilex, lord of slime and corrosion, and the priest of Flambix, Goddess of flames and wartime destruction. The powerful Flambix priest personally killed the Orcus priests and their mad slave defenders, the priest of Jubilex cursed the underground temple with acidic green slime to keep the complex uninhabitable, and the priest of Borias covered the mountain top and its graves of woe with eternal winter. 

Ironically, it was a few handful of years before the Kingdom of Tanmoor ousted Acherian forces from the western kingdom and gained independence, and the great East/West pass became far less travelled. 

Apparently, there is a village at the base of The Broken Spine Peaks that was founded by the last freed slave of the Cult. 

But the temple of Orcus at the top of the spine still sits, quiet and undisturbed.  Only fear, and the constant chill of never-ending winter on the mountaintop, keeps the greedy away from any possible wealth there.

So a nice sense of grittiness there. This will be the first several games. I purposefully have no plans yet for the rest of the campaign. I wanted it to be open depending on the characters and hooks they get and so forth. So the characters are:

Female dwarf fighter

Female gnome wizard

half elf ranger (grasslands)

human fighter (cavalier)

Half elf warlock

(Pic unavailable)

I think it's an interesting and diverse group. More to come

Cheers

1980's D&D Cartoon characters in Honor Among Thieves!

 (Spoilers, other than the one in the post title, follow)

I don't really feel like reviewing the new D&D movie. Suffice it to say it exceeded expectations. 

I will say I like the nods to classic monsters (though they seem to be in most cases somewhat altered, though maybe not as much as the character classes), and tropes like leveling up (maybe multiple levels). And it was pretty funny, and sailed along in large part on Chris Pine's "silver fox" charisma. 

The only real signs of woke was that the two straight, white leads were buffoonish dipshits, but I was able to swallow it. And that is pretty much the way of Hollywood now, even in non-woke things. Yeah, whatever. The kind of folk who designed and built most of the world are the enemy, so dipshit-them up. 

The one jaw-dropping thing was the inclusion of the kids from the 80's cartoon. 

I know they are teenagers, but
acrobat is pretty damn hot. 

I'm lucky I noticed, because you could miss it. They are seen a couple of times in the final acts maze (dungeon I guess)  scenes; one of several groups who are trying to make it out of the hellish automated labyrinth. 

Clearly they are older. Did they make it out of D&D world in the cartoon? I did watch it, but don't remember. And how older? They all have that "25 year old playing a teenager" thing going on. Fine, but the youngest one now looks the oldest. 

The glimpses of them are literally seconds, but even then I thought that cosplay I've seen in the past captured them better.

The Cavalier dude for sure has that bitchy 
look that suits him from the cartoon. 

Based not on the movie version, but the cosplay photo above, I'd kind of like to see a live action version of the cartoon. Maybe its a couple years later and they having been a world devastated by Venger. 

I'm kind of glad to have not seen the little whiney baby unicorn from the cartoon. I hated that little thing. YMMV.

Cheers

So Lamentations of the Flame Princess had a PDF Sale

 I cannot think of a single PDF item related to gaming that I have ever paid money for. I have a small collection of items I found online that cost me nothing. I think over the years most were from The Trove website (does it still exist?) which I suppose can be considered piracy, matey. But most are very old. And mostly Judges Guild items from back in the day that I actually owned at some point in my youth, but are gone for whatever reason. Wilderlands sourcebook, Modron, etc. 

I always preferred to have a physical book on hand, and mostly still do. But in this day of the iPads, I can read a PDF without sitting at a computer. That's big. 

So, I don't have much experience with LOTFP products. Or James Raggi himself. Early in the OSR I remember seeing him post on his website a flyer he was hanging around his town looking for players. It had the image of a female thief at a treasure chest. I thought I saw it recently, but can't find it. But since at the time I was looking for players around 2008 I contacted him to ask about the flyer and if he had luck with it. He gave a friendly reply, and that was the only interaction I had with him. Lately I considered reaching out to ask about the expat experience, since I was considering getting the hell out of this fucked up country. 

It was not long before he had a business, mired in a certain amount of controversy. "Weird Fantasy" products. Cover images of female adventurers losing limbs to ochre jellies and such. But hey, to me all D&D was weird, so I never really looked into his stuff. A lot of the scuttlebutt was about shit monsters and character penis's getting turned into eels, etc. Stuff that was not exactly the call to adventure for me. But I will admit I always had some curiosity. 

I promised myself to spend no more than 15 bucks. Not because I'm broke. That's like 20 minutes pay for me. But because I did not want to get saddled with a bunch of PDF's I mostly won't use. Again, this was about curiosity, though I hope there are things I can use throughout. I went over a bit, and here is what my 16.50 got me.

Veins of the Earth: I found Deep Carbon to be interesting (though I had to change a lot to make it usable for me. For a Star Wars session no less). So I wanted to check this out. I'll do anything to make the stale old underdark more interesting.
Curse of the Daughterbrides: Sound like a father marrying his daughters. Curiosity killed me on this one.
Terror in the Streets: sounds like an urban adventure, so what the heck. Hopefully mine it for bits.
Frostbitten & Mutilated : like other Zak things I got, pure curiosity.
Fish Fuckers: Sounds like humans raping Deep Ones for a change. Pure curiosity. Maybe useful for Cthulhu games?
No Rest for the Wicked: heard somewhere it sucks. So spent a buck fitty to find out why.
A Red & Pleasant Land: I doubt I will get much use out of a setting about Dracula and Alice in Wonderland, but I just gotta find out what the hype is about. Erik Tenkar calls it Zak's masterpiece.
World of the Lost: the cover sold me.
Vornheim: Again, gotta see the hype.
The God that Crawls: Heard it was good.
Tower of the Stargazer: can always use a wizards tower.
Isle of the Unknown: heard good things. Heard bad things. But maybe has a lot of things to mine.
Death Frost Doom: The Lichway from White Dwarf is a fave I have used several times over the decades, and I heard this ripped it off. So gotta have a look.  OK, so there were some I knew well of but just decided not to get. There is Carcosa, which seems more or less a complete setting. I could tell over the years that I could not probably mine much ideas from it. But now that I think of it I should have just got it for a read. I think it is still on sale.  I may go in and see if there was an item or two I missed and want to add to my new collection.  I'll say this. I don't mind supporting Raggi. He does not seem like a bad guy. Not long ago on the Tenkar Discord I made fun of his comments about "why bother cleaning the toilet?"and got a chorus of Tenkars apparently high attendance of mentally ill people piping up about picking on those with mental issues. I just thought he might be a slob, not necessarily bonkers. But really, I can respect what he is doing...in gaming, not bathroom hygiene.   Cheers