Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!

Well, no game last weekend, so no RPG post this week.

Instead, Ive decided to comment on a couple of video games I got at christmas time, and have been playing since.

Now, first up, we’ve got a game that most of you will have heard of, and will have heard way too much about already. Super Mario Galaxy.

Well, let me first confirm the greatness of the game. I was a huge fan of Mario 64 (it being one of the few games I’ve ever finished completely, and I even did it twice), and this was a spectacular followup.

You can beat the game with 60 stars (though I was already at 80 or so by the time it let me try), and there are 120 stars total. I currently have 121, and the game is still going.

“But Graham,” you say, “how can this be? 121 is more than 120, the maximum amount of stars, by your own admission! You’re a filthy liar and a cheat!”

No! Well, maybe. I am a GM after all.

But in this case, once you beat the game, collect 120 stars, and then beat the game again (the last 20-ish stars aren’t available until you beat it once), you get to play the entire game over, as Luigi this time.

Now, I don’t know if I’ll beat the game with Luigi. He’s annoying to control sometimes, and I just barely got the 120 stars the first time (one of the last stars was being really really annoying), but I find myself intrigued by what might lie behind the second 120 stars. so we’ll see.

In any case, I have a different way to play a very fun game waiting for me at home, if I so choose.

Which brings me to the second game.

While buying Mario, I came across a game that (with no prior knowledge of it) I could not pass up. It was $20, and it had the single greatest name in the world. This game was…

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Pathfinder 2 – Yay, we fought something that isn’t a Goblin!

Welcome back, whoever is reading this.

Second game was this past weekend. A bit too short, and a bit too disorganized, but still fun.

The characters present:

• Nox/Karen, Female Changeling Swordsage
• Elias von Rasenberg, Male Human Ranger, favoured enemy: goblinoids
• Mao Swiftpaw, Female Tibbit Rogue
• Nonnie Killing van Huttington, Chaotic Evil Male Halfling Sorcerer (“Killing is my middle name”)
• and introducing Reza, Dwarven Cleric of Desna

This game had some warning signs from the start. We normally start around 2:00-ish, but nobody arrived until almost 4:00. (Not due to anyone’s fault, as morning work schedules caused trouble.) Additionally, I had homework to do for uni that night, so the session wasn’t going to be a long one.

But we also had another player join this week. Now, our group is a bit odd, both demographically and socially.

Firstly, we have 5 players, 2 male, 3 female, for a 3:3 split including myself.

Second, the makeup of the group has been in flux for a while. A few years back, schedule conflicts mandated the change of group structure, and we brought in our Tibbit’s player. A short time later, there was a falling out in the group, and both Elias’ and Mao’s players ended up leaving for a while. Eventually, Raza’s player joined up with a couple others. Those others are too busy these days, and the falling out has been over for some time, so Elias and Mao came back since we had room.

Now, what this means is that while Myself, Nox/Karen, and Nonnie have played with everyone here, Elias, Mao, and Raza have not played together yet.

As such, the night became similar to the formation of a new gaming group, where players are beginning to get used to each other. Our friend ChattyDM would call it Storming.

Distractions came up too frequently, attention spans were short, and play time was limited. I was as guilty of this as anyone, of course, but it was all still there.

That’s not to say we didn’t have a good game, however.

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Pathfinder – Starting a new Campaign

Well, despite the crazy week I still managed to get enough prepped for a good 3-4 hours of play, after character generation was finished.

The characters present:

• Nox, Female Changeling Swordsage (goes by the name Karen in human form)
• Elias, Male Human Ranger, favoured enemy: goblinoids
• Mao, Female Tibbit (halfling-cat-thing) Rogue
• and Nonnie, Chaotic Evil Male Halfling Sorcerer with Black Dragon ancestry

Yeah, that’s right, a chaotic evil halfling sorcerer. My players tend to play good characters, for ease, but we figured this would be interesting. He’s definitely playing up the “self-preservation” aspect of CE, and turning into a little spellcasting Belkar.

So we started out with introducing the swallowtail festival, a reconsecration of the newly built church, after the last one was destroyed in a fire. Before I had droned on long enough to bore people (I think), the local priest signaled for everyone’s attention, and goblins attacked.

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Adventure Prep – Starting the new Campaign

Been a busy week, so sorry for not updating lately.

Starting the new game in 1/2 hour. I’ll be running Paizo’s excellent Pathfinder series. Thus far, I’ve been extremely happy with what I’ve read.

Characters in this game:

• Changeling Swordsage (trying out the Book of 9 Swords rules for the first time)
• Halfling Sorcerer (with an emerging draconic heritage)
• Tibbit (Halfling-cat-thing, from the Dragon Magazine Compendium) Rogue
• Human Ranger (archery focus)
• Dwarf Cleric of Desna (starting next game)

I’ll let you know more after the session. Time for some last-minute prep-cramming.

Redefining Alignment

“Do you think you know what the word Chaotic means?

Really?

Are you sure?

Care to place a wager…”

– Andy Collins, RPG System Design & Development Manager, Wizards of the Coast R&D

A while back, I got into a discussion over on Andy Collins’ message boards regarding alignment. It was called Redefining Lawfulness, and was created because the Law/Chaos axis of the D&D alignment system is not nearly as well-defined as the Good/Evil side.

Despite the focus on Law/Chaos, I felt the Good/Evil definitions were also very vague, and far too wordy. So pretty early on in the discussion, I proposed a new set of simple, yet complete, definitions for all four axes. I’ll be using these as my own guidelines when alignment questions come up in my new game that’s starting soon, and I’m going to share them with you now.

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Decemberween Presents!

What do you mean I didn’t post what I said I would? You’re just blind. They’re there, I swear… geez, what do I need to do to get a distraction around here.

Well, non-specific politically-correct seasonal holiday has passed. I hope everyone had fun.

I got a great geeky gift from my fiancee, as shown to the right. (Click the image for big-ass version.)

Yep, those are the Gargantuan Blue and Black Dragons from D&D minis. And the stickers are from one of our favourite webcomics (and one of the most geeky webcomics I know of), XKCD. They say “Actual Size”, and are meant for sticking on anything from 8-inch concert fliers with the band’s picture, to 30-foot tall inflatable coke cans, to airline ads at the bus stop with 3-foot 747’s on them.

One is on the black dragon already. I’m going to have fun with these. 😀

Normal posts should follow soon, including campaign prep and my rumoured post on investigations.

Throwing/Returning – a Variant

Image Credit: Green Ronin’s Hammer and Helm.

One of the more fun and flavourful enchantments for a weapon in D&D is the ability to take a normal weapon and make it a throwing weapon. Battleaxes, Longswords, hell even Greatswords. There is little scarier than a huge piece of metal flying at you.

But while it’s fun, it’s ultimately not that useful, and doesn’t increase the effectiveness of a weapon by a whole lot. It doesn’t alleviate the need for a bow, as the range on Throwing weapons sucks. Usually, it just means you don’t need to reach for a dagger to hit a flying enemy.

Add to that the fact that the Throwing property is almost never used on its own, and we have ourselves a small set of rules that need a rewrite.

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Killer, Cyborg Ogre Ninja

Holy crap! I’m actually posting things!

That’s right, exams are finished for the semester, so expect a few posts from me this week.

This one is going to be very crunch-oriented, and mostly to prove a point. But watch later this week for something on adventure design, and adventure prep as I get ready for my group’s next game.

Okay, so over on ChattyDM‘s message board, the “complaints” section is staffed by a Cyborg Ogre Ninja named Killer. Of course, this resulted in people statting him up, including Phil himself.

So what point am I trying to prove? Simple.

I can make a better Cyborg Ogre Ninja than him.

Or, more accurately, d20 Modern can make a better Cyborg Ogre Ninja than D&D.

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Away in a Dungeon…

Well, I’ve been kept busy these past few days, what with the semester ending and finals coming up. Expect more from us in the future, once things settle down.

Though I did manage to get one big thing accomplished this weekend. Our christmas decorations are up. And they are slightly geeky.

For instance, this is our wreath:

Yes, those shiny bits are what you think they are. Click the image for a larger view, if it’s difficult to tell.

But we aren’t the only ones geeking out at politically-correct-generic-holiday time. Behold, from For Tax Reasons, unrelenting christmas nerdery!

IM IN UR MANGER KILLING UR SAVIOR

Cold? What is this cold you speak of?

So I’m in Winnipeg, central Canada (hence the “Aboot” link above).

It is winter. It is currently -20 C out (somewhere around -4 F).

And I’m thirsty. So what do I do?

(Not actual size.)

No matter the season, the only true way to recognise a Winnipegger is by the size of the Slurpee in his hand.