Gameday Recap: Trampoline of Doom

Wednesday was game night. Last week the party had rescued a sleeping-beauty style princess from an island (reaching 3rd level in the process). As reward for her rescue, she gave us her keep. This week began with the party teleported to her keep.

First things first: the teleport spell put us up in the air falling towards a trampoline. We had two snap choices: try to avoid the trampoline and hit the floor instead (taking the requisite damage) or fall onto the trampoline. Those of us who opted for the trampoline were bounced into different rooms within the keep (it was a magic trampoline).

Through the whims of chance, my necromancer and the fighter-wizard ended up in the same room. The thief and evoker ended up together. The cleric, barbarian, and monk were all separated into different parts of the keep.

Two half-ogres confronted my part of the group but, thanks to some expert marksmanship by the fighter-wizard and a late save by evoker who, with the thief, found us, we survived. My major contribution was summoning undead to act as fodder. Three demons confronted the cleric and, via some Harm-like special abilities, laid him lo. When we found him, he was almost unconscious. After a long fight, the demons were defeated.

About halfway through, I was ensorcelled. The thief almost died but, in the end, the demons were beaten back. At that point, the barbarian and the monk finally found us to reunite the party proper. We then set off to explore the rest of the keep.

We found a vault and a secret bedroom with a sleeping ogre (ah, love that coup de grâce!) and the dead brother of the princess. Next week, we need to finish cleaning out the keep.

Story Time

SIMULTANEOUS STORY TIME. 001
Originally uploaded by tumlib08

I've been listening to the Shakespeare and Dragons Worldbuilding 101 Podcast (thanks, Emmet!) and it has inspired me to buy a couple of books: Story and Guns, Germs, and Steel. The former I have in hand, bought from a convenient Barnes& Nobles while the latter is on its way from Amazon.

Of the podcast, I've listened to five of the episodes so far and I like the discussion of the particulars of world-building. As I've recently come down with the world-building bug myself (which I will detail in all its grueling minutia soon enough), it's been a serendipitous find.

Of Story, it looks good and will fit in well with some of my other writing-related books. I hope to tuck into it tonight.

Addressing the New Realities of Sci-Fi

I've been thinking a bit recently on sci-fi settings as they are and the realities of the most probable futures as dictated by today's science and technology. The biggest disconnect I've found exists in the realm of automation. At this point, with our present ability to send completely automated probes across interplanetary distances, how probable is it that there will ever be a culture built around human-powered space travel?

Dune at least posited an explanation for the incredible twist that occurred in the advancement of technology: a war against intelligent machines. Barring that, what could cause a culture that is inexorably moving towards full automation turn from that goal?

Asking that question is, to my mind, important. Otherwise, the setting might engender the same sort of quaintness that old TV shows and movies do that show a future already outmoded, like the original imagined tricorder in the reality of the iPhone. Particularly when the setting uses a future Earth as the basis, one has to ask the question: why didn't future Earth follow the path that present Earth is clearly moving towards?

One answer is the aforementioned human-machine war. Another answer could come from a religious angle: a new religion (or a reformulation of an old religion) might posit that man must always be at the center of all things and thus must command machines locally and not from a distance. Obviously, if such a religious feeling arose, we must again ask ourselves why it did so.

Of course, it's possible that a sci-fi setting might not involve space travel adventures at all. Maybe the mechanics of space travel are handled completely by automated intelligences. In that case, interesting avenues open up for characters involved in exploration or warfare which is indirect rather than direct, fighting a war by sabotaging A.I. control centers a system removed from the combat zone.

In such a setting, a soldiery might be the least desired skill set. Engineering, intelligence and counter-intelligence, and science might be king.

We're a long way from Flash Gordon but most settings still fall back on the space opera mold. It's time to break that mold. By breaking it, we might find how rich in possibilities a more modern view holds, not less but different than the old models we've used for so long.

Wheel of Fire, Part 2

Still reading the Burning Wheel PDF. Something I really like: they include rules for creating (called burning in the book) the campaign within the framework of the overall setting. It's a very nice tool and something I wish more systems would do (maybe they do do it but I haven't seen them).

Wheel uses a dice pool system for rolling checks, ie. rolling groups of dice. I'm not that keen on such systems because, as you progress, the amount of dice to roll can become prohibitive. I haven't read far enough (and certainly haven't played it) to see if this becomes an issue or if, down the line, shortcuts emerge to keep the die-rolling in check.

Wheel of Fire

I had heard some good things about Luke Crane's Burning Wheel game. I've been thinking hard about trying to put together my own game system. I thought that reading this might give me some ideas of what's out there and, for some reason, I've always enjoyed reading rulebooks. While I wait for the actual books to arrive in the mail, I've been reading the Burning Empires PDF. Empires grafts the Wheel rules on a sci-fi setting. I haven't gotten too far into the meat of the book yet but, so far, so good.

I missed the UPS man on Friday so I'll have to wait until Tuesday at the earliest to get my hands on Shadowfell.

I Succumbed to the 4E Temptation

I've been a tabletop gamer (RPGs mostly) for quite some time. Right now, I'm in a D & D group that I joined six or eight months ago. The majority of this group have been playing together for the better part of thirty years. I'm still getting used to their style of play. It's quite a bit different from what I'm used to.

There's been some lively discussions lately about the new fourth edition rules that are coming out shortly. Having not invested heavily in 3.5 edition books, I'm not as hesitant to jump into the new books as others might be. However, I hadn't really considered buying the new books (not right away at any rate) until I started reading some positive previews, reviews, and playtests that have trickled out lately. I caught the bug.

So now I've got the starter module, Keep on the Shadowfell, on order (should be delivered tomorrow) and the Core Rules Set pre-ordered. So much for my iron will.

Depending on what I ultimately think about the new system, this may be the first and last purchase I make in this generation of the game. However, I am looking forward to tucking into the new materials, digesting them, and giving them a try. I don't know if this will be the answer to all the woes of generations current and past but I have hope. For now, that is enough.