Nuadha Prime
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "nuadha_prime" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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04:33 am
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Dungeons and Dragons 4e thoughts
I finally got to play in some D&D 4th edition games recently. After running it for a year, I was starting to come to the same conclusions as this guy did in the quote below (from the D&D forums):
Combat is absolutely the primary focus of 4E. A quick look at all the revisions, errata, and subsequent magazine articles trying to fix Skill Challenges is proof of that. They made the combat of 4E awesome. It's deep, descriptive, and has oodles of options for every class (almost to the point of making them a bit too interchangeable). Comabt in 4E is what you do. Combat is AD&D is what you could do.
They made 4E combat so intense and fun, that other aspects seemed to take a back seat. Every time I would make a combat-light or combat-free adventure, it never went well. There was always a lot of goofing-off, not paying attention, etc. They were so itching to try out New Power X, that they grew bored with RP. As a long-time DM, that didn't set well with me at all. I've always been about making it fun for the players, so I tried to gear it toward their combat-focused mindsets...but that became simply too much work for me.
Since I was the primary DM since 4E came out, I decided to try it from the other side of the screen for a while...and found myself doing the same thing, to a degree. I had this pile of cool powers that I was chomping at the bit to try, and let my love for RP take a back seat to it. That was the last straw for me. I always looked at D&D as an RPG first, and a combat game second. Combat was what you did after trying other things first. 4E just seemed to go the opposite way for me and my groups. After the game, instead of sitting around talking about the different cool things they came across/conversations they had/RP experiences, they just talked about "Did you see how much damage I did with X?", or, "I wated three hours to use Power X, just to have it miss....and it was a Daily!"
Take the premade adventures, for example. You could simply pull out all of the combat scenarios, put them back to back, and you end up with Dungeon Delve. Little to no RP, and tons of fighting. That might be perfect for many players, but I love RP, and hated that every time I tried to push RP on the players, they grew bored. I finally told them that their playstyle was too different from my own, and that someone else could DM 4E for them. I was going back to AD&D. Much to my surprise, many of them came along with me.
I like 4e a lot. It is a blast to play, but it is a blast to play combat. Anyone who says it isn't a roleplaying game because it doesn't have rules for all of the non-combat stuff, has it all wrong. We don't need rules for roleplaying stuff and rules just get in the way. We need rules for things like combat. However 4e did such a good job making combat fun to play that you kind of feel cheated as a player if there isn't a lot of it. I played in a game at U-Con recently and the scenario only ended up with two combats and a whole lot of roleplaying scenes. It was fun. It was interesting. However, I had built this character for the game that was really good at teleporting around the battlefield in a combat. I envisioned it being a blast to play as I built the character as my little goblin warlock constantly would get chased down by the bad guys (who usually love to try and kill the squishy wizards) only to see my goblin blink away and open up with more fireballs. All those fun tricks I built in to the character never got to get played.
On the other side, I played in a 4e game the same weekend that the GM described as a hack and slash dungeon crawl and felt cheated because I was the only player at the table even bothering to give my character a name and personality while we fought through room after room of nasty critters.
Tags: d&d, gaming, hard-core geekery, roleplaying
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09:54 am
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Gaming
I ran a Star Trek RPG yesterday for some friends. It went really well, I think. I dumped the official ST RPG and used some diceless rules. I had some good players and they seemed to enjoy the plot of recovering a stolen Starfleet ship from Garth of Izar. Posted via LiveJournal.app.
Current Location: United States, Michigan, Washtenaw County
Tags: gaming, star trek
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05:34 am
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Gaming
The Monday night D&D game has been going really well. The group' side trip in the Planescape setting has been fun and they are unraveling the mystery at the heart of the campaign: the identity of the beings who calls themselves "the Masters," the beings who invaded their world from another dimension.
Have I mentioned I am really loving the Planescape setting? I like to run magical cities as they are the perfect place to set mysteries. That is why I came up with my Dreaming City setting. This setting is like that in D&D.
As a plot-light action-heavy game, I am loving running D&D 4e. I have run about 16 sessions at this point and think I am really getting a hang of designing exciting encounters for the player and the players have said that they really like the plot as well.
I have been trying to get at least one game of Warhammer 40K in each week, though it usually works out to one every other week. I mostly have been playing my Necron army. My Ork army has been built up and and a lot of it has been painted very nicely, but I find the hassle of transporting such a large army can be a pain in the butt, where my Necrons use nowhere near as many figs. In a typical 1500 pt game, my Necron army uses about 40 figures. My Orks use well over 100 figs.
Wanting to take a break from painting Orks, I painted up some of the Chaos minis I have recently and they look really nice. For those of you who know what this means: I am painting my Chaos Marines mostly as Word Bearers with some Night Lords, one squad of Plague Marines and squad of the Emperor's Children Noise Marines.
Other than D&D and the occasional game of Warhammer 40K, I haven't been doing much gaming these days. I have once-a-month game that I play in of Star Wars (using a diceless system), but it hasn't been able to meet that often and I have the once-a-month Harry Potter-esque game that I was going to be running, but had to cancel this last month and will miss again next month because of my trip to Paris.
Tags: d&d, gaming, warhammer 40k
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12:16 am
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A gaming horror story
(Looking over my old Blogger blog, I found this post of one of my favorite horror stories from a roleplaying game. I thought it was old enough that it could use a reposting to share with people who did not read my Blogger blog back in 2002.)
Several years back, a friend of mine picked up the new (at the time) game of In Nomine, a game allowing players to take the roles of the angels and demons of Judeo-Christian mythology. Going with my "heart character" I made an angel who was once allied to the archangel of Dreams but has since fallen from God's grace. You see, my angel served in the dreaming realm, where he met and fell in love with a mortal dreamer. He went to earth to be with her but then she was murdered. Using his power over dreams he ripped apart the mind of her murderer with nightmares. This began his fall. He didn't fall all the way to Hell, but he's closer there than ever. He is now living as a con artist on earth, a character inspired as much by Vertigo's John Constantine as by anything else.
I built my character so that he was the equivalent of a mortal human in physical stats and spiritual stats. It was only on the sphere of Ethereal (mental) that he excelled. As the game started, my character was arriving in New York's LaGuardia airport when he came across a fight between a few angels (the other PCs) and a demon.
I ask, "How do we figure out initiative? Who goes first?"
My friend looks confused for a moment and begins looking through the book. He can't find it. Instead of making something up, he keeps looking. We all take turns. In Nomine has a very pretty book, but its horribly organized. (Possibly worse than White Wolf.) None of us can find it. GM still refuses to move game forward. "It must be in there." I'm wishing I kept my big mouth shut. Finally I convince him of a way to handle it and the game continues...a half hour later.
It was a physical fight and my character would be completely outclassed, so he stands back and waits for a critical moment to toss somebody's luggage at the demon, distracting it when the other PCs could finish it off.
So, then the plot starts developing and I decide my character would slip into the ethereal realm to research the origins of the demon. The GM says, "You can't do that yet."
I ask, "Why?"
""The ethereal sourcebook isn't out yet. I don't know how to run it."
"Can't you make stuff up? It's your game."
"Yeah, but the sourcebook may contradict me."
The whole game was like that. Another physical fight broke out and once again, I couldn't use by mental powers in the fight because the GM didn't have a sourcebook. As my fellow angels fought the demon in the street, I went to the truck of the car. I pulled out my suitcase and pitched it at the demon.
Unfortunately, I don't think they ever came out with an ethereal sourcebook.
Tags: gaming, roleplaying
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02:15 am
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A question for roleplayers
When you think of Orcs, what color are they? Are they green like in Warhammer? Grey like in D&D? Browns and yellows like in Lord of the Rings?
Same question regarding Goblins. Are Goblins green-skinned in your mind's eye? Are Hobgoblins the same color?
I am finding it amusing that in D&D the Goblins, Hobgoblins and Bugbears are all supposed to be related races, but have such a huge difference in their skin colors. (Goblins are green or brown, Hobgoblins are red and Bugbears and yellow and furry.)
Tags: d&d, gaming, roleplaying
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05:35 am
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Somebody stop me!
I have submitted another game I will run for Ambercon US: "The League of Quantum Gentlemen and the Curious Case of the Missing Planet."
( Read more... )
Tags: amber, ambercon, doctor who, gaming
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11:25 pm
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For Gamers: Ogre's Dice Quiz
(Via ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ogremarco)
Do you re-roll cocked dice? No, unless it isn't clear what side it landed on.
Do you re-roll floor dice? I don't roll dice on the floor. At least, I haven't since I was a teen. When I was a teen, I kept the roll. I personally like the idea listed in the new edition of Warhammer 40K. The author relates that he knows a group that plays by the rule that if your roll goes off the table, it fails automatically. If you can't keep your dice on a 6'X4' table, then you deserve to fail.
Do you roll where everyone can see it? I try to, unless I am GMing a game. Then I may hide the rolls from time to time.
Do you feel betrayed by your dice when they roll poorly? Yes. My "Necron Dice" have been failing me a lot lately. It upsets me. They used to do so well.
Do you have a favorite die? What is it? I have a favorite set of dice, which are the ones I mentioned in the last question....though if they keep failing me, they may lose that status.
Do you have different dice for different functions? No.
Do you have different dice for different games? Yes.
Do you have more of a single type of die than the others? What is it? d6s, of course.
Do you have FUDGE dice? No.
Do you have scatter dice? Yes.
Do you let other people touch your dice? Yes.
Do you have dice superstitions? What are they? I do believe that when playing a mini game, if the dice are themed to your army/warband, they roll better.
Do you buy more dice even though you don't need them? Only to buy dice themed to my latest army.
What your favorite die? The d12. I love it and wish more games used it.
If you were to put custom symbols on a die what would they be? Skulls, Shields and Monster Shields to replace my old Heroquest Dice.
Do you have dice made of anything particularly different than normal? What? I have a big foam d6 somewhere and an electronic die that only has one face but when you throw it hard it changes what number shows on that face.
What do you keep your dice in? metal lunchboxes mostly. My themed army dice are in the plastic things they came in and in with the carrying cases for the army they go with. I also have a really nice crystal bowl that I fill with dice and leave out in my living room. I's classy AND geeky.
Do you have more than one dice container? Oh yeah.
Do you keep dice in your pocket? Your glovebox? Your workplace? I have a bunch of dice in the change holder of my car.
If you have a partner that games, do you have separate dice? I did when I was married to a woman who gamed. Flavia hasn't gotten in to the games that much and I wouldn't mind her using my dice if she does get more in to gaming.
Do you have any of the first dice you bought or recieved? I do. I have one lunchbox filled with all of the pretty dice that I have bought and another filled with the beat-up plain old dice of my earliest gaming days.
Do you play certain games just because they have you roll lots of dice? Yes.
Do you love your dice? How much? We have a platonic love.
Tags: gaming, meme, roleplaying
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05:56 am
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Dungeons and Dragons
The Lord of the Rings,
the Dark Crystal and things,
we use these as a reference tool.
When we put on our cloaks,
and tell warlock jokes,
we're the coolest kids in the school! (No, we're not.)
A video from youtube (Not completely safe for work, but mostly fine.)
I offered up this video before making an admission. I am thinking about picking up and trying 4th edition D&D. Mind you, I couldn't stand AD&D. Neither 3.0 or 3.5 scratched my itch either. You see, I don't want D&D for any sort of serious roleplaying. I would just like a simple and fun system to do some "Beer and pretzel roleplaying." I want to run or play in a game where we roll dice, move figs and crack jokes (warlock jokes!). I have plenty of great systems for serious roleplaying but have yet to find my system for doing a fun dungeon crawl that is somewhere between the board game Heroquest and an actual roleplaying game.
So, I want to ask the folks out there who have played 4e: Does it run smoothly and quickly? I have heard it called "D&D for Dummies," but since my problems with the old D&D was that the rules made little sense for serious roleplaying (getting in the way of roleplaying), yet required way too much bookkeeping for a hack-n-slash dungeon crawl.
I am reluctant to buy more roleplaying books these days but if I can find 4e at a decent price, I am getting tempted.
Tags: gaming
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06:32 am
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Current Games meme
Okay, so this has been going around my friends list: people posting about the RPGs they are currently in/involved in. So, behind the cut...
( Read more... )
Tags: gaming, pooh, star trek
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12:55 am
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Warhammer 40K: For the Emperor!
For the first time in weeks, I got a good, complete, game of 40K tonight. A friend, Mark, came over and challenged my Deathwing (ultra-elite Space Marines) with a huge horde of Orks. I squeaked out a victory, barely. It was a lot of fun and a nailbiter until the end.
I certainly find I like playing at home a lot better than playing at game stores. You can turn on the stereo, order a pizza, and not be annoyed by kids asking you questions about your miniatures, or sales staff trying to sell you on the newest army.
I am constantly being amazed at how good a job GW did of writing and editing the newest edition of the rules. It seems that almost every time there is a question about rules, I can easily find a clear, concise answer in the rules. The newest edition has led to the least rules arguments of any edition of game.
In other Warhammer 40K news, Fantasy Flight Games has announced the roleplaying game I have waited for ever since I got a copy of the first edition of Warhammer 40K. They are releasing Rogue Trader: The Roleplaying Game. I have been imagining running a "Firefly in the W40K universe" game for years and when the WH40KRPG was released a couple years ago, I was disappointed to find it only included the stuff for running a game based on Inquisitors, not smugglers and Rogue Traders. Now there will be rules! (Thanks to cochese for pointing this out. For your reward, I will run a diceless Rogue Trader game at the next con we share. You just need to remind me when I go to submit games.)
Tags: gaming, roleplaying, warhammer 40k
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11:06 pm
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Star Trek game
The first "episode" of the Star Trek RPG was today. For the first game, there was only three players, but that seemed best as I was still working out a feel for both the system and how the games would feel.
Since the PCs were an engineer, a doctor, and a "redshirt," I tried to make the first plot one that would be of definate interest to each of them, so the first plot dealt with the discovery of an ancient space station created by "The Preservers." The satellite was once used to take genetic samples of races and seed them through the galaxy and is one of many once created by the Preservers and the cause for all the humanoid species in the galaxy. (In my mind, another one of the satellites was to be the "Caretaker" from the pilot episode of Star Trek: Voyager.) It was now capturing the crews of starships with the plans to seed these "new lifeforms" across the galaxy. With genetic stuff and rare diseases, there was something for the doc. With ancient technologies and computers to talk to, there was something for the engineer. For our daring, "man-of-action," there was things to sheet, a "bad guy" to punch and a woman to romance.
It was awkward at times, as I expected it to be. It was the pilot episode, afterall. However, I think the series has promise and look forward to the next episode.
Tags: gaming, star trek
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10:40 pm
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Erick Wujcik has passed on.
http://www.palladiumbooks.com/press/erickwujcik.html
I've met Erick on several occassions but never gotten to share more than a few words and a handshake with him. He always seemed like a nice guy and from what many people I know who knew him have written, he was as nice as he seemed. I do not know what waits after we leave this world but if it fits how we lived our lives, it sounds like he will be in good shape in whatever is next.
Erick Wujcik was the first game designer whose name ever stood out to me. It wasn't for Amber, believe it or not. It was for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I started gaming with Palladium Games, particularly Heroes Unlimited. While I couldn't stand most things about the system, I remember that the character generation used for Mutant Animals in HU and TMNT was wonderfully brilliant and I remember thinking that this Wujcik fellow really knew what he was doing. I payed special attention to all of the Palladium books from him and, again and again, I found him to constantly provide good game ideas.
I wish I had gotten more time to talk to him and gotten to know him as others but I always met him at Ambercons or other Amber-related events (including one wedding) where plenty of people who already knew him were busy talking to him. He seemed to have a lot of friends and I think that is the greatest sign of a successful life. I know that he will be missed.
Tags: amber, gaming
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11:15 pm
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Five Good Things
1. That 70's Show
2. Rain saved me from having to water the seeds.
3. Front garden is almost weed-free now.
4. Flavia was here this morning and then Matt S. stopped by for a while on hiw way home from work. I like company.
5. A Magic the Gathering combo idea I had the other day and the cards finally came in the mail: Last Stand and Prismatic Omen.
Tags: gaming
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05:32 am
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Star Trek Roleplaying- Alpha Teams
I am currently planning to start a monthly episodic Star Trek campaign and have been thinking a lot about what I would want to do with that. I think I've just about narrowed it down to what I will do and should be sending invites out soon. If you live locally and would like an invite, let me know. The game would meet once-a-month (on a Sunday) and you do not have to commit to being there every adventure. You just need to let me know during the week before the game each month if you will be there.
The game will be set in the years just after Star Trek: The Next Generation and DS9. (After the Dominion War.) The PCs will be members of an "Alpha Team," a group attached to a Starship to be the pool of people for away-teams. The Alpha Teams are a new Starfleet program that keeps a seperate team of people than the bridge crew to beam in to the dangerous situations. Alpha Teams have members with a variety of skills and are formed for each mission depending on the needs of the mission. (The Alpha Team idea is basically the "Prime Team" set-up from the Prime Directive RPG, a RPG set in the Starfleet Battles setting.)
Each game will be a stand-alone mission, so if you decide to play and can't make it to the next game then your character simply stays on-board the ship. System-wise, I have a few ideas. I have the Prime Directive Roleplaying Game, which would work very well since it is basically Star Trek and would only need some new races and equipment to represent the 24th century. I have also run Star Trek years ago with GURPS and it ran really well. (I have often said that Star Trek is the type of setting GURPS does well, where the main conflict is problem-solving and mysteries and fights are not nearly as important.) I also have an idea for a diceless system like the one I used a few years back for Battlestar Galactica.
Tags: gaming, star trek
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11:30 pm
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Ambercon 2008 in Review
I had another great year at the con. I played in three great games and ran two great games and two OK games. Best of all, I got to see lots of fantastic people I only get to see a few times a year. Details on the games below the cut.
( Read more... )
Tags: amber, ambercon, gaming
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12:08 am
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Ambercon US Game Selections
For those who are interested....
( Read more... )
Tags: ambercon, gaming
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07:18 pm
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Roleplaying Purity test
Several friends recently posted this and I realized it had been a while since I had taken it. Since having been to a good share of Ambercons since then probably dropped my purity score even further, I decided to retake it. I am pretty sure this is lower:
Your
Ultimate Roleplaying Purity Score | | Category | Your Score | Average | | Hacklust | 50%
Will kill for XP | 53.5% | | Sensitive Roleplaying | 24.05%
All the game's your stage | 54.7% | | GM Experience | 22.46%
Closer to a novel than to a campaign | 69.3% | | Systems Knowledge | 71.19%
Local rules guru | 90.4% | | Livin' La Vida Dorka | 28.74%
Carries dice in pocket 'just in case' | 63.2% | You are 41.5% pure
Average Score: 68.7% | |
Tags: gaming, meme
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07:17 pm
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Talisman!!!
It is here! It is here! My copy of the New Talisman edition came in the mail today. It is very pretty and seems to be very close to the 2e edition of the game that I played in the past. Can't wait to play. Any locals up for a game sometime this weekend?
Also, from Black Library, the early issues of Warhammer Monthly, the anthology comic series, can now be downloaded in PDF format. I bought these early issues back when they came out. About half the stories in them were good and worth checking out.
Tags: gaming
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06:19 pm
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Gaming News and Links
Talisman is back!!! GW released a very expensive limited edition version of Talisman a few years ago, but this one looks more like the classic one and is half the price. Dare I hope that whomever is behind publishing this new release will re-release the classic expansions?
Thanks to cochese for pointing this one out to me: The Warhammer 40K RPG book is almost out and now has a website with a downloadable intro kit.
Finally, all of this gaming news reminded me to check on this. The Savage World of Solomon Kane has been released. It is $50, so with Christmas upon me, I will need to wait on getting it, but I am very happy to see it is out and can't wait to read it. (Technically, I CAN wait, because I have to....but I really look forward to reading it.)
Tags: gaming, links, savage worlds, warhammer 40k
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01:59 pm
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Gaming in the grim darkness of the far future...
I played Warhammer 40K Apocalypse for the first time yesterday. The local GW store was having a big game. I haven't bought the rule book for Apocalypse (and don't really plan to since they made it an oversized HC for $50 when it could have easily been published as a normal-sized paperback for $20), but was assured I would be OK without knowing the rules to play.
( Read more... )
Tags: gaming, photos, warhammer 40k
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