30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 8

Day 8: Favorite Character You Have Played

This is a tricky one, and I assume it means "played as a player" because I have countless NPCs I've handled over the decades, and I mostly GM. That said, I have played a few characters of note...

I think my fourth favorite character was a very simple one, a polearm warrior from 2E named Lakuna Helbyrn. She was a tough, no-nonsense warrior woman with a halberd who wore lots of black, kept her hair short, and survived multiple tournament adventures over different conventions. She was an anrgy man-hater with probably more than a little Red Sonja in her. I made a version of her in "Pool of Radiance" as well (along with Rik Kochet below).

There was Erik the Paladin, who also got co-opted as an NPC later on, who played in my friend Terry's brief games as he tried to DM (and did a good job at it) chasing down a mad lich in the Forgotten Realms. He was a noble idealist, typical paladin, for whom the moral vision of the world was black and white.

There was the gnome halberdier (yes, a gnome with a halberd) from my 1E days named Rick Kochet (groan please) who was noted for charging everything with his polearm flailing about. I was later allowed to revive him for a short Pathfinder campaign a few years ago, though I admit to being largely less interested in that game than I once was....I've found that my enjoyment as a player is far, far lower in recent years; GMing is where it's at for me, I've done it too long to feel otherwise.

Of all of them though my first and most favorite was Gilrad, who started as a 1st edition fighter and bounced between being an NPC and a player character for me. He was one of two survivors of a whole team of adventurers in the caves of chaos. He was a burly blonde barbarian of the north, who over the years encountered a temple to the god Death itself and was given the sword Rishelka, the Ruby Death (Nine Lives Stealer), subsequently prompting him to dual-class into cleric. He was mostly an NPC by my 2nd edition days, but I played him whenever I could for years in the eighties. He was a cypher for Fafhrd, Conan, Kane and other prominent literary heroes I admired in my youth, and he was effectively my first D&D character. He's still out there somewhere, an avatar of the god Death, deathless thanks to the Immortality Stone, and maybe way past due for a guest appearance. Admittedly, he tends to stay out of sight these days because as GM I am keenly aware he'd be something of a darling and a show-stealer, so better for him to work surreptitiously in the background as a patron for younger, fresher heroes!

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 7

Day 7: Favorite Edition

This can be a tricky one, because there are merits to every edition, and people tend to favor the ones they got the most out of over time. I like each edition of D&D for different reasons, but I have to say that it was AD&D 2nd edition that was the version which I got the most mileage out of over time. Even though I am no longer so enamored with it, it's still the edition that I played the most (at least until 3rd edition, combined with my time in Pathfinder). Why?

2nd edition AD&D was the version that started looking at the broader picture of fantasy gaming. It wasn't just about dungeons, it tried to shed some of the more stoic and crusty mechanics of 1st edition and utilized a style that was more appealing to people who were interested in gaming and enjoying the story as much or more than crunching numbers on their character sheet. I've heard 2E criticized for dumbing down the text a bit, but honestly I enjoyed the more readable and easy-to-use, easy-to-reference approach to 2E. The fact that AD&D 2nd edition cleaned it up so much, made it easy to use....it was a huge, huge bonus. It was a game that demanded less effort to master than its predecessor and other contemporaries (in retrospect I have to scratch my head at what possessed me to run Dragonquest for a whole year, for example!)

2nd edition introduced the idea of multiple settings for D&D, a different flavor to cater to different audiences. Ravenloft as a setting, Spelljammer, Planescape....all AD&D 2E. It also introduced bad business practices (thanks Lorraine), or at least accelerated them. The novel lineup for AD&D got dramatically more robust in this period.

When 3rd edition arrived it was time for a clean-up. AD&D 2E was getting crusty by then, and the game was getting too convoluted in the post-Player's Option era of expansions. That said, 3E introduced its own set of problems with mechanics that despite an aim toward a unified resolution mechanic remained as arcane as ever. All I really wanted out of 3rd edition was "2E, but with better multi-classing options." 3E did introduce a lot of new concepts I ended up embracing....but it never felt quite as accessible and easy as 2E, and only got worse over time as the char-op mini-game permanently changed the way D&D was played.

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 6

Day 6: Favorite Deity

This is a hard one, because if there's something I have a bad habit of doing it's manufacturing entire pantheons (when I'm not slaughtering said pantheons in the name of a good setting). The world of Lingusia setting has around a hundred deities over several pantheons. My Chirak setting is full of dead gods but lots of avatars and demiurges trying to steal their lost power. Enzada is a setting built on the premise of all the deities, everywhere....hundreds, maybe thousands of gods ranging from cosmic lords of chaos to petty kitchen deities of curdled milk. My under-exposed Irkalla campaign is focused entirely on old Sumerian deities. The Sarvaelen campaign has one official deity and a plethora of mythoseque old gods.

All that said, if I had to choose, I guess I'd go with Hermes, the Greek messenger god.

Why? Well, from 1981 through 1992ish Hermes was part of the patchwork pantheon of my original Lingusia campaigns, primarily as an instigator, messenger and also patron of thieves and tricksters. He was the patron deity of my sister's favorite character, and often intervened at odd moments to provide clues and minor assistance to the adventurers, being a deity who by his nature was allowed to interact directly with mortals without consequence (the old days of Lingusia emphasized a sort of Cold War between the gods of order and chaos, and if one were to intervene with mortals on one side, the other could retaliate in turn; Hermes was for odd reasons considered exempt).

Hermes is also a good example of a somewhat whimsical god, one who is allowed a certain measure of kindness and almost a trickster god, but without the usual baggage that comes with the label. He's usually on the side of mortals, and actually works to aid man against the uncaring habits of his fellow deities. Hermes is cool, in other words.

I need to bring him back into the game again, someday. Hmmm.

Movie Review: Riddick

Riddick

First off, I liked it. And as a bona fide Riddick/Vin Diesel junkie who has watched all of the movies many times and played the games through twice, you can assume I am biased. That said, I think this movie did a lot right.

I can summarize Riddick pretty quickly: Vin Diesel and David Twohy realized that the coolest stuff from the prior films and games were "hostile fauna," "treacherous shit hole worlds," and "mercenaries who HAAAAATE Riddick with a passion." Then someone said let's put Hawkeye AND Starbuck in...and an impressive CGI alien dog that steals half the film, and lo' there was movie magic.

The actual story starts with Riddick in bad shape, dumped on an alien world with a lot of hostile wildlife. it quickly summarizes how he got here from his last appearance (and neatly wraps a bow around the Necromongers and sends them packing) then proceeds to give us a lot of Riddick doing what he does best: surviving against all odds. Along the way he picks up a local alien canine, which quickly becomes a real darling.

Dahl - hates men but likes Bad Boys with Shivs

If you don't like Diesel as an actor, or don't like his characters, you probably won't be swayed by this movie even if I do tell you that it toys with the idea that even Riddick is fallible. What this movie does extremely well is make you want to play a down and dirty Traveller game, because this movie is a big budget CGI example of a backwater planet with an impressive array of creature encounters rolled up in detail, and filled to the brim with professional mercs, one treacherous wandering assassin and an occasional sympathetic character.

The movie isn't even just about weird SF survival horror (even when it is). It manages to flit about between surviving a hostile world, hostile mercenaries and ultimately a touch of redemption...or at least understanding. I'm not sure I fully bought in to the character arcs as presented, but it was still a fun ride to see everyone play out their weird little drama-with-guns-and-shivs.

The movie has two tropes which rear their ugly heads, one of which it deftly avoids, and the other of which it sadly spins right into. Spoiler alert, read no further! Trope avoided is a potential female love interest that is played up very quickly and then gunned down just as fast. Trope hit head on is the valiant and show-stealing alien canine which perishes while saving Riddick. I suppose you could label all the "Riddick is so 'effin cool" moments as tropes too, but let's be honest....if you didn't come to this movie expecting (and wanting) to see Riddick being cool then you might want to look at investing your ticket money more wisely.

Mental Note: stop hanging around Necromongers

I had one gripe....and it's a hard one, because my wife did not see this issue. Merc Dahl, played by Katie Sackhoff (alias Starbuck) comes of as a tough as nails, cruel, man-hating lesbian merc. During the film she gets played off as maybe less "lesbian" and more "Red Sonja," in so far as apparently she just needed a man tough enough to tame her...a bit (guess who that guy is). Part of me liked this weird personality Dahl exhibited, and part of me felt like "this is going to offend some people on the interwebz, a lot." But my wife loved her character, so what do I know.

The film ends in as open a way as you can get, as all Riddick movies do: ready for a sequel. I hope we see another one before Diesel hits retirement age, though....

So was it worth it? For me, absolutely. This is the sort of movie I desperately need to see after a gruelling week of overtime in meetings and debacles all week. I will get it on Blu-Ray and watch it several more times. When my son is old enough I will enjoy it with him, as well. Also, think I'm gonna break out Traveller and the "Animal Encounters" supplement for some SF survival planet gaming soon. This movie definitely put me in the mood!

A+

A Boy and His Dog

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 5

Day 5: Your Favorite Set of Dice/Individual Die

This one has to go to a special gray die with black lettering that I got at a 1989 convention in Phoenix (I think) and may have been part of a set of slate gray dice. It was a die I used regularly for a couple years when I ran Cyberpunk 2020, and it always seemed to roll a 7-10. I still have that die, and although I am sure it has some air pocket causing it to skew, it's still fun to drag out on occasion.

I don't have a lot of dice stories outside of that, although I own a lot of dice, as most of us do. My favorite dice story is a long time gaming friend of mine, who still has his original gumby dice from the seventies, worn so smooth as to be almost impossible to read at times!

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 4

Day 4: Favorite Gameworld

This is a tricky one because my favorite gameworld is one of my own creation (The Realms of Chirak), but I assume the intent is to look at published D&D worlds. Hey, waitasec, my world is published...heh...

So the Realms of Chirak. It was spawned in 1992 as a Gamma World scenario which I had worked out, in which the daring heroes of some remote town had to reach the lost City of Eristantopolis by traveling through the badlands where a mutant lord named Gaminok Makrenz lurked, a region where the mysterious lost-technology robots of a factory called the Black Dome patrolled, and eventually to the sacred city where lost knowledge of the ancients would save the town. The Gamma World game was aborted, however, and never saw actual play.

Later that year I was inspired to do a Runequest campaign (using the 3rd edition Deluxe set from Avalon Hill) and I began constructing ideas for a new setting. As I pieced the setting together, I was aiming for a very low tech environment, and I decided that I wanted the gods to be extremely low key, something behind the scenes, primarily to contrast it with my Lingusia campaign where the gods were as active, if not more so, than your typical Greek pantheon. Then I got this idea: what it this was a fantasy land that had been annihilated by an apocalypse, and there were no gods anymore? It was the world after Ragnarok! I fished out the Gamma World material for ideas, and realized I could retool the scenario I had to fit a fantasy realm. This fantasy land had a magical epoch of greatness, in which the old Clark adage of technology being indistinguishable from magic was true, but in reverse....so lost magical artifacts bordered on the technological, essentially. The idea of sentient golems, which I called animates, filling the niche of robots in a typical post-apocalyptic setting was appealing as well.

By the time I was done stitching together the thematic notions of a post-apocalyptic land with a low-tech godless fantasy setting I had created a short (about 20 page long) precis for an interesting campaign setting. I produced an elaborate map, and from then on I had a decent setting into which my planned Runequest campaign could go.

That Runequest campaign was short, lasting a semester, but it sparked many more ideas for me, as I saw a lot of unrealized potential in the concepts I had toyed with in Chirak. Later on in 1996 when I had moved to Seattle I revived the world, added in more Planescape tethers to it (the damage done to the world had left a great many planar rifts in the wake of the apocalypse) and began a new campaign that started out the gate with the theft of the Manual of the Planes from a sacred library in Barcen, where the powerful and ancient book was kept under lock and key. This campaign was powered entirely by AD&D 2nd edition, and it was the first of many, many D&D-only campaigns (although Chirak was revisited by later editions of Runequest in the future).*

In case you're wondering....if I had to pick a single D&D setting that was not written and published by myself, it would be Spelljammer. The core conceit of Spelljammer was just too great for me not to tinker with, especially when I was in college and studying the history and development of philosophy, science and astronomy, and the idea of a universe powered by Ptolemaic and Aristotelian physical properties was just too cool for me not to indulge in! Plus, Beholders and Mind Flayers in giant theme ships attacking asteroid colonies defended by gun-happy Giff hippo men....what's not to love?

*I should note that I also was really into the "Mighty Fortress" historical resource for 2E at the time, and had run some historical scenarios using that book. When I revised Chirak for the 1996 game I expanded on the island kingdom of Espanea, and turned into a strong cultural and technological analog to England (Mercurios), Spain (Espanea), and France (Esterehabau) during the height of the renaissance, complete with gunpowder and advanced sailing ships. The old low-tech campaign remained entrenched in Legoras, Syrgia and elsewhere....the idea was that at the center of the setting a new budding revolution was under way, but it was centered amidst a sea of forgotten empires, fallen kingdoms and barbarians risen from the ashes.

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons Day 3

Day 3: Favorite Playable Class

Well, this would seem to be a question that depends on edition. I have a class or two in mind that transcend editions. I am very partial to the warlocks of 4th edition, for example, and whenever I got to play back in the 2E days I tended to favor paladins. That said, my favorite class would have to be...

...the fighter. He's basic, functional in almost any environment, and his all-purpose utility of being able to hit things, hard, and get hit a lot in return makes him the best and most efficient class for "getting the job done."

Sure, you've probably heard lots of complaints (usually in specific editions) about how his versatility is shadowed over time by the mage....but the fighter tends to remain the hero, despite the mage's impressive potential. Some versions of the fighter are also pretty impressive, and even when he's at his most threadbare his ability to dish out and take damage round after round still means that long after the spell casters are begging for a nap he's usually still ready to charge in to action.

30 Days of Dungeons & Dragons: Day 2

Question 2: Favorite Playable Race

I am torn between two....

The tiefling, because they are singularly unique to D&D in a great many ways, reflecting a racial option that is defined by the planar cosmology and all of its alaignment-coded monstrosities commingling with normal folk to create a devilish race that can fit many niches, from hapless underclass scalawags cast down from society by virtue of poor breeding to the fallen descendants of a lost empire that made a deal with devils. Tieflings are reflective of other races that have been in fantasy for a long time (deevils, for example, from Myth Adventures), but humanized and made accessible to ordinary players.

And the Gnome, because the gnomes of D&D have transcended their roots in literature and folklore to become another race singular to D&D. Gnomes can be earthy folk, tinkers of technology, alchemists, quirky, madmen, thieves, murderers, all-around nice guys and sometimes even bad-asses. Gnomes have been portrayed in many ways through D&D's history, and have been been ripped off by Blizzard when making World of Warcraft. It is a rare campaign that I run in which a gnome NPC doesn't play some importance, proving either useful or vexing to the players.

If I had to choose I'd pick tiefling by a hair.....but I hate to choose!

30 Days of Dungeons and Dragons Day 1: How I got Started

Kicking off the idea started by Polar Bear Dreams and Stranger Things I present Question #1: How I got Started:

It was late in 1980, and I was nine years old. My parents had a keen interest in keeping myself and my younger sister occupied, for we lived on a ranch and had plenty of mischief we could get up to. My folks first bought some games, which included Dungeon, and later at a Kaybee Toys a brand new copy of the Mentzer red box Basic D&D set. My sister and I tried hard to get our father to learn how to play, but to no avail; we grasped Dungeon easily enough but the D&D Basic set seemed to make a lot of assumptions about how to play the game that were not evident to us.

Cut to October of that year and while on a trip to Santa Fe I find myself in a local toy and hobby shop off the plaza, where a copy of Gamma World is commanding my attention. I buy it, take it back to the fair where my parents are selling art (they have been artists their whole lives) and something "clicked" that night in the hotel room while reading it....don't ask me why, but for some reason Gamma World filled in the missing bits about understanding the concept of a role playing game and how it worked. I put my sister and her friends (we were all between ages 7 and 12) through a gruesome Gamma World TPK scenario involving a missile silo the next day, followed by another adventure based on the ruins of the Hilton Inn we were staying at. When we returned home I dragged out D&D Basic and proceeded to figure it out and then ran The Keep on the Borderlands (with a near-TPK in the Caves of Chaos).

So that was how I got started....indoctrinated at a very, very young age!

Matmos - Very large Green Triangles

This is a very cool video, and the music is great...Matmos is now on my "must get" list of music:



Matmos - Very Large Green Triangles from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.