Tag Archives: DCC

RPGs

2015 A to Z Challenge Reflections.

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I planned to write a follow up on my A to Z experience this year, and a survey that arrive just before midnight alerted me to a Reflections Post, that needed to be done by May 8th. I am doing catch up on articles and clearing a backlog of things to review, on this rainy, thunderstorm laden weekend.

This was the second year that I participated in the A to Z Blogging Challenge to write a post every day, except Sundays, in April. As with last year, 26 blog posts is not difficult for me. I had most of them done and scheduled before April. Also, like last year, I only had time to keep up with the blogs in the (GA) category. This year, I read most of the posts.

For me, the hardest part of the challenge is a theme that I feel good about. This year, I wrote about different aspects of planning a city, whether it is a living city or an abandoned/lost city. Once I had a topic, I came up with 26 topics. I then scheduled each topic for the appropriate day and wrote on the topics that interested me.

I had most of my topics written with at least a few paragraphs or notes of things to be sure to mention. I dug in and wrote several posts in a marathon session, so that I only had to let them sit to do cleanup before they posted. A few topics seemed a bit harder to write, and I got a bit repetitive when some topics had overlap.

I did not come up with as many tables and generators as I had hoped. I did get some ideas for building them. Once those ideas have sat for awhile, I will gather them and see about making a more coherent PDF to share.

My goal of a system to randomly generate parts of a city did not materialize. I think because of the all the dice table in Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad #1, that +Adam Muszkiewicz showed me. It touched on most of what I was after. I don’t really need all the details I think I do, I just WANT them.

Since I scheduled each post, I had no problem posting on the correct day.

I am currently on the fence as to whether or not I will participate next year. I like that I used it to help me clarify and flesh out ideas for my own use. If I participate again, I will have to use it to do something helpful to my own needs and desires as a GM; whether it be a module, series of new creatures, a collection of maps, or NPC’s, it will have to be something that serves a dual purpose.

This year, there were twelve blogs with the (GA) tag for games. Of those, one was geared towards game books and not directly RPG related, that I could tell. Perhaps it was just not my thing.

Nemo’s Lounge gave up doing custom NPCs with a drawing after 16 posts. Both the drawings and NPC’s were great!

Wampus Country was doing a town a day and got up to E when it stopped. He had some interesting ideas, that I enjoyed while it lasted.

Others missed a beat here and there, but most of us managed all 26 postings for the month.

Tower of the Archmage had a great series of vignettes of a party of adventurers. He often included a map. He hiked the Appalachian trail and was gone for the whole challenge, so he wrote and scheduled all of his postings before he left. This series would make a neat short story and/or a module/dungeon.

Tim Brannon at The Other Side did vampires, as he promised he would last year, after doing witches. Who knew there were so many vampires in different cultures. He began with A for Aswang, which I not too long before learned about from watching Grimm. When White Star came out, he even did an A to Z special with a Space Vampire, modeled on the one from the 80’s Buck Rogers TV Show.

Mark Craddock of Cross Plains reviewed his favorite things about D&D.

Keith Davies of In My Campaign built several mythologies/pantheons and had a system to help him build them.

Sea of Stars had a series of NPC;s.

Spes Magna Games did a series on the “Boogie Knights Of the Round Table”. I have not seen the movie, Boogie Nights, but I got the reference. What if King Arthur and his knights where in the age of disco? He kept it going until the last few days, but did all 26 posts.

Another Caffeinated Day did a series of NPC’s,

The Dwarven Stronghold did NPC’s and magic items.

If you need NPC’s, items, maps, images, vampires, or city planning suggestions, there is a lot of good stuff collected in these posts, check them out.

RPGs

Clean up of New Purple Game Science Dice

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I tried using my camera for better pictures to show the burrs on my new Game Science dice, but it is a cheap camera and better suited to taking pictures of people and larger objects.

The burrs turned “white” and did not come off in big pieces, so what I ended up with were flecks that barely showed up. I did not have a dark background to place them against.

Below shows the transition in brief.

I have had this X-Acto knife for a couple of years, but only now took it out of the package.

I had to buy silver Sharpies. This was not a fine point, so ink was both in the groove of each number and on the face of the die. As soon as I filled in the number, I used a napkin to rub the face and only the ink inside the numbers was left.

I have about five reams of paper that is printed on one side, from moving to working at home. I use it for taking notes when I am on the phone or when working on a data issue for a client. I folded over about ten sheets of paper and slowly shaved off the burrs. The burr on the d24 was huge. A large piece of it broke off and I heard it bounce off something, so I don’t know where it went. NOTE: An old catalog or phone book or magazine also works well for a surface for using an X-acto knife.

I like the final results, and it makes these dice usable. Without coloring them in, I had to pick them up to attempt to read them. Certain rolls, you don’t want to pick up without others verifying. Older eyes make reading un-inked dice quite the challenge. I used to be able to do the fine work, like inking these dice with my glasses on, but now I have to take them off to see clearly such close up work. Let that inform your purchases and products going forward.

Exacto
Exacto

Exacto
Exacto

Silver Sharpie
Silver Sharpie

Burrs
Burrs

De-Burred
De-Burred

Inked Dice
Inked Dice

 

RPGs

Who Knew? – Dice Sets Arrive

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Last week I ordered two sets of Who Knew? dice by Koplow Games, the black with white numbers [Amazon Affiliate link] and the red with white numbers [Amazon Affiliate link]. This is in time to game in the next session of +Roy Snyder’s DCC game.

I also ordered a d12 Body Parts die, officially known as a d12 28mm Critical Hits Location Body Hit Dice [Aff link]. Each right/left body part is not quite on the opposite side of the dice from each other, i.e. Right Arm/Left Arm. The locations are Right Arm, Left Arm, Head, Stomach, Left Leg, Right Leg, Right Hand, Left Hand, Chest, Full Body, Left Foot, and Right Foot. One can easily use a table with a d12, but this dice is the table! I don’t do critical hits in my game, but I am sure I can find a use for it. Some ideas: What part of a statue is the trigger for a trap, or to open a door, or release a treasure? What part is stung by a giant insect? What body part touched the mold/fungus/slime/acid/poison/undead? What body part has the king’s birthmark? I am sure there is probably some place that prints custom dice. One could easily get a set of dice printed with parts of a table for a roll all the dice table without needing a separate table.

The Koplow dice seem rounded, much like Chessex dice. The d30’s rolled like crazy, but not quite as bad as a d20 from back in 1978 that is so chipped it’s almost a sphere. Yes, I’m a Game Science fan.

The Koplow d3, d5 and d7 are actually doulbe the number of sides, just repeating after 1-3, 1-5 and 1-7. The d6’s are numbered 1-3 twice, the d5’s are actually d10’s numbered 1-5 twice, and the d7’s are really d14’s numbered 1-7 twice. There is no d14. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the d7 and d14 are the only dice that can’t be simulated with a combination of other standard RPG dice. So roll a control die with the d7 if you need a d14. I must have mis-read when I ordered, I thought there was a d14 in the package.

I like the black with white numbers. I would use the red ones on my mom’s birthday, since red was her favorite color. I already wear red on her birthday.

I read a review on another dice set a few days after I ordered this shipment from Amazon, so I have another package of dice coming in a few days, so look for a few words and pictures.

Every gamer likes dice pron, right?

Opening
Opening

Koplow Packages
Koplow Packages

Koplow Sets
Koplow Sets

Black
Black

Red
Red

d12 Body Parts
d12 Body Parts

RPGs

Details On The As-Needed Character Generation

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+Adam Muszkiewicz over at Dispatches From Kickassistan has his write up of what he calls “emergent characters” that I touched on in my write up of Marmalade Dog 20, and in more detail in my post about collaborative roll playing.

Adam goes into details about its origins and how it has worked in actual play from the GM side.

All I can say it, it is a blast and keeps one on their toes and revving up their off the wall ideas. After two sessions at Marmalade Dog, my character still doesn’t have hit points because he was never hit. I can imagine that it will be a nail biter if I play that character again and have to roll HP after being hit in combat.

I think that style of play works well for a con, and for the right group of regulars it could be a lot of fun. In a con game, it allows one to get up and running with a character quickly that one is more invested in than a pre-gen passed out by the GM.

As I mentioned before, Adam and I talked about this, and a GM with mastery of the rules, or a simple set of rules, like Delving Deeper, by +Simon Bull would best facilitate this style of play.

RPGs

Excellent Write Up On Marmalade Dog 20

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+Adam Muszkiewicz has a great write up over on Dispatches from Kickassistan about the OSR track at Marmalade Dog 20. Adam’s a graduate of WMU so he brings a much different perspective on this con.

Adam and some of his long time friends and others joined in on my first time as a DM for a con. They were nice and didn’t get too crazy. I am thankful that they restrained themselves, for I think I would have easily been in the deep end of the pool with concrete galoshes if that’s they way they wanted it. That would not have been a bad thing. My reactions to that would have been worth the price of admission to everyone else. I am sure that I would have eventually recovered.

We had a blast in Adam’s DCC sessions, and I was reminded of the no-holds-barred craziness of the way we played in high school, oh so many decades ago. That “What is a box?/We don’t need no stinkin’ boxes.” style of play is an eleven on the dial. It’s on par with firing off a full magazine of a Thompson or a Sten gun; fun, exciting, and over way too soon!

I would gladly play in Adam’s DCC Ur-Hadad and with that crew in any other RPG.

I am so looking forward to next year!

I can’t wait for UCon in November!

RPGs

Koplow Who Knew Dice

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Koplow is a company that only sells to retailers, so you have to order from your FLGS or online.

My FLGS only has Chessex dice, and last time I checked did not have any d30’s, so I won’t go looking for d3, d5, d7, d14, d16 or d24 from them. I did a Google search for “koplow who knew dice” and found some available on Amazon. I prefer to order locally, but I resorted to online for this.

I ordered a black [Amazon Affiliate link] and a red set [Amazon Affiliate link] of the Who Knew Dice and a body parts die to qualify for free shipping. I should get them well in advance of my next time at Roy Snyder’s every other Sunday DCC game.

I would like to see a full set of dice d4 to d30 and d% including 3d6 so they all look like they go together. If there’s anyone in the RPG industry, whether manuals, supplements, or dice – a full set of all such dice would be valuable. I know that I am not the only one who would buy them.

I really like Game Science dice and if they ever have a full set in stock, I would buy it.

Do I need to become an online dice retailer to sell full sets of dice? IF I could make enough to make it worth the hassle, I would consider it. Barring the finances needed up front to make that work, nearly anyone could do it. Perhaps there are others out there already doing that. I would prefer to support gamers serving gamers rather than a faceless corporation.

RPGs

Every Other Sunday DCC Game

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I sat in on a DCC game ran by Roy Snyder. There were 3 players with existing characters and one other experienced player who was rolling up four zero level characters like I did.

We had fun and avoided any deaths so far, and had 4 combats. It is a module, the name I did not get, but so far it is off the wall and fun. I’m not used to such off the wall thinking, so it is a stretch to get up the that level of the others. It suits my sense of humor and quirkiness. I am not used to being plopped in with no clue of why we are there and winging it. This kind of role playing stretching is good for me and forces me to step it up a notch. Having four zero level characters to run made it more challenging to differentiate them, but in the 6 hours of play, I was just getting them sorted.

Two members of the party encountered two basilisk type creatures after managing excellent sneak rolls. One creature fell to a back stab, and the other got off two gaze attacks, and through a halfling being at the right place at the right time, was able to burn enough luck for them to make their saves. In our previous combats, we made some very close rolls to avoid falling off slick stairs in the side of a canyon.

I didn’t need to refer to the rules, other than a few pages in a handout from Roy, so I never referred to my tablet. I only needed a couple of dice I didn’t have, so I borrowed from other players for those few rolls. Roy mentioned some options for dice, so I will continue looking into those and try to get some ordered to arrive in time for the next session.

We had fun and I look forward to the next session in two weeks!

RPGs

My Sunday Game

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Sundays had been reserved for running my AD&D campaign with my oldest son and his girlfriend. We were playing almost every Sunday for over six months. It was a lot of fun and they both kept coming back for more.

At the end of September, they moved in with me to pay off some bills and save up for a nicer apartment because they had a baby on the way. One of the selling points my son made of their moving in with me, is that we would get to play more. We haven’t had one session since they moved in. I am OK with that, Now that my granddaughter is here, they would rather spend the time my son isn’t at work figuring out how to be a family and enjoying Nikola while she is at the tiny stage of life. This past Friday she was one month old. I don’t mind. I should have done more to flesh out my campaign.

I have thoughts of perhaps getting things ready where I can run my campaign on Roll20 with Google Hangouts. Perhaps someday I will.

Last weekend I played DCC for the first time and two of the players were Roy Snyder and Jared Randall. We had a blast playing together in Adam Muszkiewicz’s first session, and Roy and I were in Adam’s second session. Roy has a group that gets together every other Sunday, and he invited me. Since I am not gaming, I decided to join in. We meet this afternoon, so perhaps I will post a play report for tomorrow. It will be DCC, so their will be character generation. I don’t know if we are doing a funnel, or if we are starting at first level. It will definitely be interesting.

I have the DCC PDF that I got for free or low price in April of last year. I was proactive and put it on my tablet and put the Purple Sorcerer Crawler’s app on my tablet too. I also downloaded and printed the blank character sheet PDF, that has four character sheets on one page. I packed up my game bag and have it ready to walk out the door.

The only thing I don’t have are all the funky dice: d3, d5, d7, d14, d16, and D24. The d6, d10, d16, and d24 are easy to emulate with existing dice. D6/2 = d3, d10/2 = d5, d8 & d6 to emulate d16, and d12 & d6 to emulate d24. For example emulate a d16, roll a d6 and a d8. If the d6 is 1-3 add 0, if the d6 is 3-6 add 8. If I had either a d7 or a d14, I could easily emulate the other. I read online that one can use a d8 and ignore rolls of d8, but that leads to extra rolling that slows things down. I guess I can use my tablet, or borrow dice until I can snag some of my own.