Tuesday, April 19, 2011

It's a Trap!

I've been going through the various variants on the trap game over the last week, trying to understand how they work and how the versions work, but I've been having some problems.  I'm a bit thick in the head sometimes and I have to chew over a thing like a cow chews its cud.

Eventually I just started to do what I do when my mind really refuses to wrap itself around an issue - I make pictures.  This issue seemed to lend itself to a flowchart.  I am a computer dude, so distilling a problem into a flowchart is something I'm trained to do.  Don't try this at home.  I'm a professional.


The blue shapes indicate the optimum path.  The diamonds are decision points - whether to bump, grind, or whatnot.  Each decision point has 4 answers, but only one right.  So for "Guess 1" the player has a 25 percent chance to guess right, and a 75 percent chance to guess wrong.  I follow the whole flowchart down, determining percentages.  Each main decision gets a 'second chance,' as indicated by the Sticky column.

This, I think, is the basic system distilled.  There are a lot of fancy add-ons, but I think that this is it at the core.  Please let me know if I'm on the right track here.

My big worry was that the system seemed pretty hard to beat, even with second chances.  My math indicated that there is a 6.25% chance of success, and a 93.75% chance of failure in the basic system.  That's a tough nut to crack.  So, if I've got this right, there would need to be other factors making some locks easier, and some characters more capable.  I think there is a good library of these things available now, I just want to make sure that, at this point, I am on firm ground.

So, does this chart make sense?

Thanks.

- Ark

(I updated the flowchart as I noticed a computational error.  All fixed now.)

Monday, April 18, 2011

NTRPGCON and Golf Ball Sized Hail

So I registered for my events at NTRPGCON last week.

Late. 

Cyclopeatron's blog post reminded me.  I had intended on staying up till midnight and signing up.  The thunderstorms rolled in that evening, however.  The golf-ball sized hail smashed the windshield of my car and knocked out power in my neighborhood until the wee hours of the morning - long after I had passed out on the floor next to my computer, surrounded by candles, in a pool of drool, waiting and hoping for power so I could sign up to play D&D with Erol Otus.

I woke up late for work and in that fluster-cluck of a morning, I forgot to sign up until Cyclopeatron reminded me with his post later that day.  Piss. No Erol Otus game. :(

But in it's own Taoist way, the universe has handed the boy and I the perfect NTRPGCON schedule.

Thursday
 
Evening - URUTSK!

After reading Timeshadows' blog for a bit, I still have no idea what the heck UTURSK is, but it seems so cool and mysterious.   I look forward to it.

Friday

Morning - ???


Okay, this one is a little confusing.  The description block goes something like this:

Game Title : ???
Game System : Eldritch Entertainment
Number of Players : 4-6
Pregens/Level of Characters: ?? /??
World Setting: ??
Short Description: ??

Normally, I would have walked on by this one.  However, the name at the top was James M. Ward.  I couldn't get into his Metamorphosis Alpha game.  I think sitting with his for a few hours would be cool all by itself - even if the only thing he did was fold napkins or try to sell me a time-share in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  But a little research told me that Eldritch Entertainment is some kind of start up by Frank Mentzer, Chris Clark, Tim Kask, Jim Ward.  Well.  Again, I don't know what the heck this is, but it kind of sounds like the boy and I get to be guinea pigs for, in the words of Dave Bowman, "Something Wonderful."

Afternoon - ART!

The boy and I get to watch Erol Otus, Paul Jaquays, Jeff Dee, and Jason Braun draw for an hour.  I mean, how cool is that?  To answer my own question - that is BOOYA cool.

Evening - Frank Mentzer

Gaming with Frank.  Nuff said?

Saturday

Saturday is psycho hectic day.  At least for everybody else.  I only scheduled one thing up.  While everyone else is flitting around like crazy, I'm gonna bum around the vendor stalls and pretend I picked up smoking again and find old grognards to hang out with in the parking lot.  I did schedule one thing:

Afternoon - Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game

I think this means that Harley Stroh is going to be play testing the new DCC RPG from Goodman Games.  I hadn't even heard of the product until I saw it mentioned on George Strayton's blog.  Seems like it might be pretty cool.  I get he feeling that the boy is going to like it a whole heck of a lot.  Luckily I have a set of Zocchi dice.

As an aside - have you seen the artists who have worked on the DCC RPG book?  Jeff Easley, Jason Edwards, Tom Galambos, Friedrich Haas, Jim Holloway, Doug Kovacs, Diesel Laforce, William McAusland, Brad McDevitt, Jesse Mohn, Peter Mullen, Erol Otus, Stefan Poag, Jim Roslof, Chad Sergesketter, Chuck Whelon, and Mike Wilson.  Even if the game blows, it would probably be worth it for the art alone!  Holy moly.

Sunday

Morning - OD&D + Spelljammer + Cyclopeatron

I really can't think of a better way to wrap the Con up than with Ochre Jelly in Outer Space and Dave Areson's fashion twin.  Can you?

Let's just hope their are no thunderstorms concealing golfball sized hail over the weekend.  But we'll be safe.  We never have thunderstorms during the spring in Texas.

o.O

- Ark

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Garbage In, Language Out

I once created a program that created languages.  Well, not whole languages, just the words.  There may have been many inspirations for it, but I can only remember two of them.

The first was a Dragon magazine article that I've never been able to remember the name of or find again.  The article contained a good bit of detail on creating languages, and brought to my attention the components that made a language 'soft' or 'hard,' and went on to create, if I remember correctly, to start an elven and orcish lexicon based on those principles.  Fascinating article that I haven't seen for 25 years or so.

The second was the Vargr supplement for Traveller.  The Vargr were an uplifted star-faring canine race.  In the supplement were tables to enable the referee to generate random Vargr words.  Using the system, you could create a bunch of noises that sounded somewhat like growls and barks, but was completely serviceable for naming your wolf-man characters, their starships, and worlds.  It was really neat.

I figured I could take my Commodore 64 and write a program that spat out randomized words based on sound chunks that gave all of the words a certain feel.  I was successful, and have rewritten program many times on many different platforms, whenever I remembered what I had done and felt a need for it again.  Some versions were really complex, some incredibly simple.  All fit a need.

The current version I have is in Visual Basic Script - so it will work on just about any Windows type box.  If anyone is interested, I have it available here. Simply download it and unzip the directory.  You don't have to know butkus about programming to run it, or adjust the important bits.

RatherGameyWordCreator.vbs is the script.  You can usually just double-click it to make it run.  It reads in the SoundFile.txt, which is comprised of one sound per line.  The script them randomizes the sounds into variable length words and spits them out in a file called Word.txt.

I have a couple of example sound files that you can play with, just rename them or copy the contents to Soundfile.txt and let 'er rip. Create your own collections of sounds and create your own languages.  It's fun!  Well, geeky fun, but still - fun!

For the lazy, I'm copying the content of the script here so you can peruse it.  There are lots of variables up at the top you can tweak to adjust the lengths of words, the amount generated, etc.  It's a pretty simple program, and smarty-farty programmers could probably improve it a thousand fold.

I release this script to you as open source - so open source that it ain't even BSD or GNU.  It's just yours.  Run wild. ;)

'
' RatherGameyWordCreator.vbs
' Makes Words from SoundFile.txt
' Writes them to Words.xt
'
Option Explicit
RANDOMIZE

Dim FileSystemObjectInput, InputFileName, InputFile, InputFileLine
Dim FileSystemObjectOutput, OutputFileName, OutputFile
Dim RandomSound, RandomLength, SoundMax, SoundMin, LengthMax, LengthMin, Word
Dim NumberOfWords, Count, i, j
Dim Sounds()

Count = 0
NumberOfWords = 10
SoundMin = 0
LengthMax = 6
LengthMin = 1

InputFileName = "SoundFile.txt"
OutputFileName = "Words.txt"

Set FileSystemObjectInput = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

If FileSystemObjectInput.FileExists(InputFileName) Then
 Set InputFile = FileSystemObjectInput.OpenTextFile(InputFileName, 1)
  Do While Not InputFile.AtEndOfStream
   InputFileLine = InputFile.ReadLine
    If Trim(InputFileLine) <> "" Then
      Redim Preserve Sounds(Count)
      Sounds(Count) = InputFileLine
      Count = Count + 1
    End If
  Loop
 InputFile.Close
Else
 WScript.Echo "The sound file was not there. Please create SoundFile.txt"
End If

Set FileSystemObjectOutput = CreateObject("Scripting.fileSystemObject")
Set OutputFile = FileSystemObjectOutput.CreateTextFile(OutputFileName, TRUE)

SoundMax=Count-1

For i = 1 To NumberOfWords
 RandomLength = (Int((LengthMax-LengthMin+1)*Rnd+LengthMin))
 For j = 1 To RandomLength
  RandomSound = Sounds(Int((SoundMax-SoundMin+1)*Rnd+SoundMin))
  If Word = "" Then
   Word = RandomSound
  Else
   Word = Word & "-" & RandomSound
  End If
 Next
 OutputFile.WriteLine(Word)
 Word=""
Next

OutputFile.Close
Set FileSystemObjectOutput = Nothing
WScript.Quit(0)

- Ark

Saturday, April 16, 2011

. . . But You Can't Pick Your Friend's Nose

Wow.

I am rather overwhelmed at the response. Who knew there was such a huge, swollen balloon of hidden angst about lock-picking waiting to explode with a simple little prick? I guess I was the prick.

[Watches a tumbleweed roll by as he awaits his rim-shot. Only silence.  Oh well.]

Excellent stuff, excellent stuff. Thanks a whole lot, folks. I was sitting here without an answer, and now I have a truck load of answers. Now to sort through them all and start play-testing.

To my knowledge, the following blog posts, or their comments, have addressed the lock pick/trap disarm added fun value question.  If there are any others, please let me know so I can peruse their wisdom:


Wouldn't it be cool is doctors and pharmaceutical companies had blogs? Some Endocrinologist could pop up and say "You know, this AIDS things suck. Anybody got a cure?" And then 500 bloggers would descend and formulate not only one cure, but 501 viable variations.

Okay, at least I can dream.

The boy has some concerns, though. He thinks that dice or flowcharts may not be the best way to open a lock. He told me - with a serious face and everything - that dynamite would be the best method.

- Ark

Thursday, April 14, 2011

You Can Pick Your Friends And You Can Pick Your Nose, But . . .

The smell of molding paper was overwhelming.  Collapsed wooden bookshelves lay in scattered heaps around the ancient library.  The party stood around a large metal box attached to the wall.  Ferrit the Halfling thief knelt next to it, a set of metal picks, hooks, and a torsion wrench in his hand.

"I search for traps," the boy smiled and picked up two ten-siders, his mohawk flopping from side to side.  Each summer since he was very small, he has requested a mohawk.  Now that he is home-schooled, Texas school haircut regulations need not be enforced, so he can hawk his mo all he wants.

"The DM rolls that in this version, remember?"

"Oh yeah," he sighed, his mowhawk drooping a bit.  I rolled the dice behind a can of Coke Zero.

"You search all around the cold iron box and the lock and don't find any traps," I said.  "What do you do now?"

The boy nervously looked around the table at the other players.  One nodded.

"Okay, I try to pick the lock," he said, grabbing his dice again.

I sighed.

At least in 4e the boy would get to do SOMETHING if his thief was doing his job.  He could at least toss a d20 around.  Thieving by DM die roll in the old school just seems quite . . . unfun.  The boy hasn't complained openly, but the drooping mohawk says it all.

There has got to be another way.  He needs to feel empowered and involved.

I suppose I could have him describe what Ferrit is doing, and then add or subtract some percentage o the skill roll based on how good what he said sounded.  I've done that a lot in the many skill based games of the past.  It just doesn't seem right in this circumstance.

I had a thought, though.

Why not toss the dice.  Not to roll them, just put them away.  Then I could make traps and locks a puzzle for the boy to solve.

I'm not really sure how to do this.  I envision something like . . .

"Okay, you see the lock has four tumblers that you can see from the keyhole," I say casually.

"I take a stick and wiggle it inside the hole a bit,' the boy says.

"Okay Mister Smartypants, you set off the poison needle, which stabs at thin air where your thumb <i>would</i> have been, were you trying to pick the lock with your tools."

"Boomshakalaka," the boy pumps his fist, his mohawk fully erect.  "I carefully roll the first tumbler to the right until I feel resistance . . ."

Okay, something like that, but without the boy and I having to become experts ourselves in the art of ancient lock-picking. And not boring the rest of the party while we are doing it.   I'm just not exactly sure how to pull it off.

Any ideas on this?  Any pointers to someone who has already come up with something similar?

Thanks in advance.

- Ark

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Old School Rocks! World Tour

A Childhood Dream . . .
Joseph Browning of Expeditious Retreat Press contacted me last night about using the Old School Rocks logo.  Since I gave the logo away to all-a-ya'll last month, he didn't have to ask, but it was very nice of him anyway.

He's wanting to use in for t-shirt logos and booth images at the OSRG booth at Gen Con.

Hot.

Frikkin.

Damn.

They've got quite a ginormous booth this year due to a Gen Con scholarship (or something like that) and need to pimp it out big time.  Spinning hubs caps, suicide doors, and a diamond grill.  You know, that kind of thing.  They needs help. Go buy a t-shirt form them!

I'm so pleased!  Okay, not pleased.  Head explodingly wowed.  If someone could figure out how to get them stacks of the t-shirts to sell directly at the booth, I think that would be way cool.  I'm not making any money out of this.  I just want to get the world out and reanimate some grognards or cook up some grognardlings.

By the way, Old School Renaissance Group consists of Black Blade Publishing, Brave Halfling Publishing, Expeditious Retreat Press, Frog God Games, Goblinoid Games, Henchman Abuse, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Pacesetter Games & Simulations, Sine Nomine Publishing.

That's quite a list of rock stars there! Oh, and some metal dude too.

When I was 11, Gen Con was my Mecca.  I never got to paint my donkey orange and go on Hajj, but at least this time I am going in spirit. 


Boo! :)

- Ark

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Crotchety Old Sour Man

So I'm on a message board that doesn't have anything to do with role playing games (yes, I have a deep life outside of role playing games) and a post pops up about older Dungeons and Dragons and getting a local game together.  I was all over that (okay, so my deep life outside of role playing games is more like a very shallow bathtub.)

Even though I have a group already going, I could always play some more, eh?

The organizer asked about what versions people are interested in, and I pop up with my 0e or 1e Old School Rocks spiel.  Then the avalanche of 3.5, 4.0, and Pathfinder post start.  People are hooking up right and left and I'm siting there with my dick in one hand and nothing else in the other. 

It made me feel old.

Old and lonely.

I remember when I was absent from D&D for years, then came in when 4.0.  I was with it, brah.  I was NOW.  I heard other people bitching about 4e and man - those guys were old crotchety bastard who just couldn't get with the future, baby.  They were stuck back in childhood nostalgia and were perhaps just bitter and nasty old people to begin with. 

So I sat there feeling bitter and nasty. 

But maybe . . .

Maybe I should give 4e another try.  I mean, what does a paltry 2 years of campaigning really tell a person about a gaming system?  Or maybe I should embrace Pathfinder?  Forget the boring ass game I had when I tested out 3.5.  Pathfinder couldn't really have hour long combats, could it?  Maybe if you just halve everybody's hit points or something.  I mean, maybe there was a way to be hip and modern and fun and not have to rewrite the newer D&D versions completely in a way that I hadn't tried yet?  Maybe?

Maybe I was just a stubborn bastard who would rather wallow in self-pity and melancholy rather than get with the new times and have some fun.

Then I received a private message on the board.  It was from a guy and his friend and they really wanted to get together with me and play some 1e.

BOO FUCKING YA.

Suck on THAT, modern day burnt coffee swilling smart phone addicted hipster D&D!  Imuna go crawl back into my caveman cave with some caveman buddies and play some real shit!

;)

- Ark