Saturday, June 30, 2012

Schrödinger’s Ferrit: Character Death and The Boy


The last three gaming sessions have been chock-full of character death. Kaye, on of our players, has been the recipient of most of the death, losing three characters in the last three game sessions.

He lost a 1st level half-orc fighter in the Labyrinth Lord game by charging into a pack of ten orcs. His 7th level bio-espionage robot was crushed by falling debris in Stars Without Numbers. Then a failsafe installed by his creators, the alien Methans, kicked in, creating a micro-black hole which wiped out a city block. Then in Spelljammer, his mil-wiz-black-ops spellsword maic-user fighter hybrid thing was gunned down by a squad of mind-flayer controlled, arquebus wielding, hippopotamus headed Giff.

Kaye lost three characters in eight days. Interestingly, he bounced back quickly and remained rather chipper.

In the same time frame, The Boy lost one character. He did not remain chipper.

I've been running a group of players through B1: In Search of the Unknown at the FLGS. It's a continuation of the Labyrinth Lord game I was running last year. The Boy was playing his favorite character - Ferrit the halfling thief.

So, Ferrit and the crew were running from the band of orcs who had sliced up Kaye's half-orc into tiny little pieces. Since you don't have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun your friends, I asked about the characters' encumbrance. The rest of the characters were carrying little-to-nothing, as they had been newly created. But come to find out, Ferrit was laden with about three donkey's worth of stuff.

Ferrit was the last in line during the mad dash to the entrance of the dungeon. The orcs threw their clubs, hitting the halfling in the back. He kept on running, but they would be on him unless he loosened his load.

So, he began to toss stuff aside. The heaviest thing he had was his huge mass of coins - which he refused to part with. But he began throwing everything else.

The party suggested - strongly - that he get rid of his cash. He refused; instead letting go of his Morlock spears.

"How many Morlock spears do you have?" I asked.

"Nineteen," he said.

So, now the angry orcs were armed with spears. They rained death down on Ferrit, knocking him down into negative territory and bleeding out. The rest of the party raced on, got out of the dungeon, spiked the front door, and ran back to the fort.

I decided that it was not the time, quite yet, to tell The Boy that if he would have dumped the gold out behind him, the orcs would have stopped to pick it up.

My son was angry. Very angry. Ferrit the Halfling was his favorite character ever, and he was not taking it well.

I talked to him about it on the drive home, but you know, there is nothing to beneficial to say in these circumstances. When we got home, he broke down emotionally. He wanted Ferrit back.

"Ferrit wasn't dead when we last saw him. He was still bleeding. He could have survived. The orcs could have patched him up."

"I'm sorry," I shook my head, "The orcs were interested in the rest of the party."

"I know - I'll roll up a new character and call him Ferrit!" he said.

Now that is completely against my own style of playing. A character in the ground is a character in the ground. But he is not me, so there was little I could say. I nodded, "Sure."

"But," his faced dropped, "It's not the same Ferrit."

I scrunched up my lips and thought for a second.

"You know what?" I looked at The Boy. "As a DM in this case, I am primarily interested in mechanics."

He looked at me like I was speaking Orcish.

"The numbers. The numbers that make up this character sheet here. This numbers here died today. This character sheet is finished. That is the mechanics of it. The numbers died."

He looked at me blankly.

"Whatever Ferrit is - the spirit - the idea of Ferrit - he still lives on in your heart."

"I don't want him just in my heart."

I smiled. "Like I said, I am primarily interested in the mechanics here. The character sheet died. If you want to make a new character and call it Ferrit, then that is okay. If you want to make up a story about how Ferrit somehow survived the dungeon and crawled back to the fort - that is okay too. Remember, he doesn't have the same stats. He was 4th level and is now 1st level. He lost everything. He would have gone through something horrible that reduced his physical abilities and changed his very being."

The boy smiled.

"And remember, if he dies again, and he dies in front of people, this type of story really doesn't work. He went below ten hit points while no one was watching, so he's like Schrödinger’s cat. Ferrit's quantum state was uncertain."

He smiled again. He got the reference. He’s an eleven year old addicted to the Science Channel. "I think I can live with that," The Boy said.

So - Ferrit will be back. He's a lot weaker than he used to be. His body is covered in scars. He doesn't even remember how to be a thief anymore. He just knows how to be a fighter, since The Boy shose a new class for him. But, Ferrit is back.

And hey, I get to retain my Kind, Compassionate Dad Card and my Asshole DM Card - at the same time.  Talk about quantum states.

- Ark

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Dungeonspiration: The Garden Monster


Sometimes the backyard garden spawns monstrosities fit only for inspiring a game of Dungeons and Dragons.  Pictured here is a freakish carrot we pulled out of the ground today.

Do me a favor.  Please post a caption to the image above.  It needs a good caption.  Thanks. :)

(Hirst walls by me, mini painted by The Boy, carrot by the grace of God.)

- Ark

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Glacia Facia


I'm still working on the Glacia Cover, slowly but surely.  Here is here face so far.  Not bad looking for a half-yeti barbarian ice queen.

In Crazy-Ass Tim's 2e Spelljammer game, I came up with the idea that Glacia's helf-yeti tribe abhors the undead.  To combat undeadness, the members of the tribe eat anything they kill - thus ending the problem before it begins.  This usually means that Glacia is normally coated in blood and guts, very full, and looked upon by everyone in a 50 mile radius with disgust and revulsion.

Glacia's travelling companions, wanting to impress the military leadership of an outpost, tricked Glacia into taking a bath - the first bath of her life.  She was not amused - swearing fiery vengeance upon everyone who was armed with a bar of soap during the violent coup de scrub.

- Ark

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Where is Chaotic Lame on the Chart?


The Demon Lord Soulvex is . . . well, let's just say he is a very challenged individual.   Understanding that, in these parts, being a Demon Lord is largely a hereditary position, may explain a lot.  Still, he has a legacy to live up to, so he tries.  Well, not really, now that I think about it.  Yelling at dogs doesn't really count.

- Ark

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Friendly Local Game Store: Roll2Play

Yesterday was the soft opening of Roll2Play, a new game store within comfortable cycling distance from my house.  Roll2Play has been an online store for a while, but the owner, Tiffany Franzoni, finally realized her dream of going brick and mortar.  She's a vocal and active advocate of gaming and spends lots of time at conventions around the state.

Roll2Play isn't just some hole in the wall.  Tiffany Franzoni has made her store into something quite wonderful, jam-packed with games and done up with natural wood displays, tables, and chairs.  It's equal parts store and gamer hangout, and the vibe is - well - it just feels like home when you walk in.  Board games are available to play at any time, and heck, there is even a setup for mini painting.

So me, The Boy, and a couple of friends stopped by to support the 'Amazing Tiffany' and her staff last night.  I brought Labyrinth Lord and a copy of In Search of the Unknown just in case we felt like playing some D&D.  Well, we plopped down at a table, and within no time, gamer gravity took effect and we had a D&D  game of 8 people going - some of the people I had never met before and who had never played an old school RPG.

You know, for a long time, I had this dream of running an open-type rpg - where people could just wander in and start playing an rpg I was running.  Other games store were . . . okay . . . but nothing ever clicked like I saw it in my head.  My vision was very similar to the way I heard Tim Kask describe game nights at Gary Gygax' house in the early years.  Well, last night felt exactly like that. Well, sans Gary Gygax.

So, looks like my new home is Roll2Play, where I'll be slaughtering countless people I've just met.  And  playing some boardgames too.  Tiffany has stacks of them just sitting there waiting to be played on her 'free to play' shelf.  Space Hulk and Dragon Inn were just sitting there, beckoning to me.

Excuse me.  The drool on my chin is unsightly - I know.  But I just can't help it.

:)

- Ark

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Dungeonspiration: Virgil Finlay

At this year's NTRPGCON, I had the good fortune to sit down with Diesel LaForce and discuss art.  As he was digging through a box of his his Deities and Demigods remakes to show me, I began to grill him on his pen and ink technique.  After describing his approach, Diesel began to talk of his influences - one of the biggest being Virgil Finlay.

Finlay was an illustrator for pulp magazines back in their heyday.  Diesel was particularly impressed with the stippling and cross-hatching techniques that Finlay did in his works.  I hadn't heard of the artist, so looked him up after I got back home.  Well, of course I had seen Finlay's work - I just didn't know who he was.  And Finlay's art - yeah - wow.

Here is a brief sampling:

Strange Compulsion

Roads Claus Rescue Serinna

Call Him Demon

The Sheeted Dead
On  the Edge of the Galaxy

I know Virgil Finlay's work definitely inspires me.  Not only to improve my drawing abilities, but to run games in settings that spring to mind when viewing Finlay's work.  Check out Virgil Finlay on the various search engines.  His stuff is out there, all over the place.

Enjoy.

-Ark

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Who wins? Mearls or Gygax?


Okay, that title may start people beating each other senseless with clubs - but let me 'splain.  Yesterday, I detailed my group's experience with the D&D Next Playtest.  To sum up, while I had issues with some of the fiddly bits, the players liked it so much they wanted to continue through the Caves of Chaos in future sessions.

My initial thought was, well, Mike Mearls pulled it off and developed a decent game.  But then I got to thinking.  The adventure we were actually playing was Keep on the Borderlands - that's Gary Gygax's baby.  All the WOTC team did was to stitch together a ruleset where you could play through the Cave of Chaos properly - something that Gygax and Arneson and Holmes and Moldvay and Cook and Mentzer already did years ago - in four (or more?) different versions.

Of course, you could say it was the DM and the players - but let's keep us out of it for now.

So there probably is no real answer here, but it's fun to think about.  Mearls or Gygax?  Is it the ruleset or the adventure? Both or neither?

Anyway, I'll let ya'll duke it out, if you are so inclined. :)

- Ark