Saturday, March 1, 2014

The Reachers

The D&D Blog Hop last month was interesting.  it helped me think over my gaming career.  But it's time to move on.  Our GURPS Horror Noir game reached a pause point after the group brought down a vampire in Transylvania, and we are off to new skies.

New skies.  New atmospheres.  Distant atmospheres.

So, we'll be kicking off the GURPS sci-fi campaign Distant Atmospheres soon.  The idea is to try to take everything I like about Traveller, Star Frontiers, 2300AD, Stars Without Number, Mass Effect, Lexx, Ghost In the Shell, and Revelation Space, pop in all into a GURPS blender, and see what happens.

In the Distant Atmospheres universe, humans are three centuries into exploring and colonizing their local neighborhood of space.  While they have a high level of technology, going faster than light is beyond their abilities.  That's where the Reachers come in.

The Reachers are intelligent creatures that can bend the fabric of space time enough to break off a piece and move it around, simulating faster than light travel without actually moving themselves anywhere.  It's clear that the Reachers did not evolve this way, but were manufactured by some species long ago whom they do not remember.

Luckily for humans, the Reachers enjoy interstellar travel, can shift around their internal organs to create livable compartments, and they can grow to huge proportions.  They can't actually travel in space in their 'natural' state, but humans have learned to augment the Reachers to survive in a vacuum and exceed the speed of light, and perform various feats of heavy lifting and hauling.

To the Reachers, this is all just good fun.  They also create such a powerful magnetic field around their body that any human inside a Reacher ship is subjected to a constant MRI in which the Reacher can read their every single thought.  It's really, really hard to bluff a Reacher in a card game.  Well, unless you are wearing a tin-foil hat.

Originally I thought that the Reachers might look like space whales or something, but after a few drawing they became more squid like.  The savvy player might be reminded of Cthullu, or some other non-euclidean nightmare.  And to those accusations, this GM can only shrug and grin.

- Ark

Friday, February 28, 2014

Have You Learned Nothing???

More Marker Experimentation
The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge

Day 28: What's the single most important lesson you've learned from playing D&D?

I learned that everyone is different.  They have different reasons for coming to the table.  They have different goals for themselves, and their characters, while playing.  Some want to solve problems.  Some want to avoid problems.  Some even want to create problems.

Humanity is a diverse tapestry of personalities - even the very small subset who play D&D.  Before I started playing, I didn't have much experience with people, and figured that everyone was pretty much like me.

Well, I was eleven when I started to play. :)

The gaming table is a little crucible of life.  It's a social game where you are expected to be acting like someone else.  Actually, what happens is most people just act MORE like themselves - more like who they really are without societal constraints.  People get magnified.

Decades of DMing has shown me a lot of interesting interactions.  Friendships were destroyed simply because a player refused to wake his character up for a fight with orcs.  Well, another player did kick his head in multiple times trying to wake him up.  It escalated quickly.  My own relationship with my sister hit a big bump when I refused to let her take a bag she had in the real world into the imaginary game.

Over the years, I've tried to be an arbitrator - a table-top ombudsman - to help settle differences.  But sometimes, people are so different from one another the best thing is to not to keep them in the same crucible.

The differences are not all negative, of course.  I've seen many people far smarter than I play - and been marveled by their ingenuity.  Wittier people as well who have set me off laughing until my stomach muscles hurt.

It was irritating when I was younger, and people were so far from my point of view that I felt like I'd never be able to communicate with them.  But nowadays, I really like it when people are different.  You know, different almost to the point where some type of calamity might happen if we sat in the same room together too long - but not quite passing that line.

Vive la différence.

- Ark

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Nothing Different

The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge

Day 27: If you had to do it all over again, would you do anything different when you first started gaming?

No, I wouldn't do anything different.  I think tomorrow's question is more relevant, anyway.

In the meantime, over to the left is my third try with Prismacolor markers.  I think I'm getting the hang of them.  The big problem is that I don't have an oranges, reds, or yellows.  If I had to do it all over again, I'd probably grab some warmer colors. ;p


- Ark

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge

Day 26: Do you still game with the group that introduced you to the hobby?

No.

But here is a picture I drew to distract you.  Okay, not really - just still practicing with those new markers.

- Ark

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

A Tale of Fire and Ice and Grass and Wood

The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge

Day 25: Longest running campaign/gaming group you've been in.

That's kind of like two questions in one.  Gaming groups are kind of hard to nail down for me - they grow and change over time.  So it's hard to say where one group ended and another began.  Campaigns can be that way too if you stick with a setting and always play in it, no matter who is around.

So, let's limit this to a campaing with a specific group.  Okay - that's easier for me. :)

It would be the Sea of Tears campaign - lasting from the summer of 2008 to the summer of 2010.  It was (gasp) a 4e game in a world that had been flooded so that only the tops of mountains stuck out of the sea.  I had just returned from a lake vacation - thus the aquatic feel.The campaign focused on a save the world plot, and after two years, the party did indeed save the world - twice.

It was a fun campaign and I met some great people.  Sadly, we lost a player at the end due to cancer.  Give the blog a search for Sea of Tears if you are interested in more about it.

- Ark

Monday, February 24, 2014

What is Best in Life?

Prismacolor marker experiment.
The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge

Day 24: First movie that comes to mind that you associate with D&D.  Why?

Conan the Barbarian.  Why?

"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women."

That's why.

- Ark

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Black Blade

The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge

Day 23: First song that comes to mind that you associate with D&D.  Why?

"Black Blade" by Blue Öyster Cult.

Why?  Why?  Because it was written by fucking Elric of Melniboné, that's why.

Oh, and we whee listening to A LOT of Blue Öyster Cult at the time. :)

- Ark

Saturday, February 22, 2014

D&D Books

Coffee shop patron in a small Texas town.
The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge


Day 22: First D&D-based novel you ever read.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight was the first D&D novel I read.  My mother had read Quag Keep years before, but her description of it never interested me enough to pick that one up.  I immediately fell in love with the world of Dragonlance.  Fizban was awesome, and even the Kender couldn't sway my interest.

I even remember fretting all summer long (1985) over the sickeningly sappy love triangle, waiting eagerly for Dragons of Spring Dawning to come out.

Then there was the series that went back in time - which was kind of interesting.  But all the stuff that was printed after that - meh.

A year or two ago I went back and read Dragons of Autumn Twilight again.  Nostalgic, yes, but it definitely fits into that whole YA thing, and doesn't really lift it's chin above that pigeon-hole.

The Boy loved the series - that's all that matters. :)

- Ark

Friday, February 21, 2014

Sad Books

A chat at the coffee shop.
The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge

Day 21: First time you sold some of your D&D books - for whatever reason.

A couple of months ago - actually.

I've lost A LOT of gaming books and modules and paraphernalia over the years.  Moving once or twice a year, not being able to pay the storage bill and having the items auction off, just being stupid - yeah - those all took a huge toll on my collection.  But selling D&D stuff?  No - Never - I Never, Ever, Ever would do that . . .

Oh, wait.  Just before we moved back in December I looked over everything that I was going to have to move and decided that my huge collection of books had to get whittled down.  It was actually easier than I thought - and a trip to Half-Price Books later and all of my 4e stuff was gone.  Weeeeelll - I kept the stuff from the Essentials line.  And the Dungeon Tiles.  And the Minis.

Oh, I did keep the Hammerfast.  The module - um, I mean "Roleplaying Game Supplement," is a neat little dwarven town full of adventures.  It is so unlike any other 4e adventures, it makes you do a double-take.  There is a description of the town, places in the town, people in the town, and possible adventures.  And some maps.  And LINE DRAWINGS.  But no pre-programmed overly scripted combat scenario monstrosities that plague every other facet of 4e.  It really feels like an original D&D product - just scrape out some stat blocks and insert your favorite rule-set.  I'd recommend it.

But the 14 metric tons of rules, adventures, and splat books all went splat.  I still see them sitting on the shelves at the Half-Price Book store three months later - along with everyone else's copies of 4e books.  It seems rather sad.

- Ark

Thursday, February 20, 2014

It's a Secret

He really wasn't this sad.  The sketch just turned out that way.
The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge

Day 20: First non-D&D RPG you played.

While I am pretty sure I bought Gamma World before Top Secret, we actually got in a Top Secret game before the mutant-fest began.

As a kid, I really enjoyed James Bond movies, history, weaponry, geography, politics, and foreign languages and cultures - so Top Secret was perfect.  I loved the name of the first module - Sprechenhaltestelle and enjoyed the name of the game author so much that Merle M. Rasmussen became the name of the agent's handler at the bureau.  Oh - and the percentile dice.  I loved them.  The system - to me at least - made so much more sense than the whole polyhedral thing going on with Dungeons and Dragons.

Interestingly, I never got the Top Secret Companion with its rule changes.  Even when I purchased Top Secret/SI - I just didn't like the rules revamp.  I liked the original rules written for the original boxed set.  As far as I was concerned, they were perfect for the types of games I was running - and I ran Top Secret Games from 1981 till 1987.

Gamma World, on the other hand, didn't make sense to me at all.  Hated it.  It was just completely crazy and non-sequitur.  Of course, it was that way by design - and if I had met Jim Ward back then, it would have clicked. :)

- Ark

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Day 19: First Gamer That Annoyed the Hell Out of You

Two of my current players sitting at IHOP.  The topic of this post is merely coincidental.
The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge

Day 19: First gamer that annoyed the hell out of you.

Early in my gaming career, the family moved from a real city (Houston) to a not-real-city, Stephenville, TX.  Back then, the town had something like 10,000 people, a Rexall Drug Store, a movie theater with one screen, and absolutely no where to buy D&D supplies.  There were a couple of kids there that liked D&D, but Satanic Panic was pretty heavy there, so it was hard to get a game going.  I just read my old D&D stuff over and over again.

Then, about six months after moving, my mother decides to take a trip 80 miles or so to the nearest mall for a shopping spree.  I high-tailed it to the nearest bookstore - and lo and behold - they had D&D stuff.  I saw this little manila book called Swords and Spells, and had to snatch it up.  That's when HE came in the store.

He was this kid - about as old as I was, who LOVED D&D.  Loved it to tears.  He loved his 87th level Thief/Bard/Magic-user/Ninja/Cyborg/Chiropodist too, and told me all about Magnifidorf the Magnificent's adventures.

For like thirty minutes.

I tried to chew my leg off and limp stealthily away, but no, he was too strong in the force, and held me in place as he accounted for every piece of copper his character had ever found, and recited poems in iambic pentameter lauding his talking, singing, magic vorpal sword of freezing annihilation named Brutus.

Eventually I escaped, reeling from the onslaught.

For decades, I abstained from talking to anyone about the adventures of my characters, or the contents of the campaigns I ran, unless someone specifically asked - and then - I tried to be a brief as possible.  Magnifidorf the Magnificent's player/operator really put the fear in me - the fear of being perceived as a boring, obsessed, geek/dweeb with a thin grasp of reality and even thinner grasp of the patience of others.

Of course, now I blog about that kind of shit. :)

Oh, and if Magnifidorf the Magnificent's player/operator is out there - I'm sorry.  Follow your bliss.  Talk all you want.  I'll make popcorn.

- Ark

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

FurstKhan

Them there mobile phone addicts at the coffee shop.
The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge

Day 18: First gaming convention you ever attended.

My first gaming convention was NTRPGCon on 2011.  My experience inspired a few posts:

NTRPGCon - 2011
Stapled
Get Thee To A Convention
Gaming on a Harley - The DCC RPG Experience
Why I Am Broke
Not Amused Door is Not Amused
Dungeonspiration: Urutsk
That'll Do, Pig. That'll Do.

- Ark

Monday, February 17, 2014

For Every Dollar You Send Me, God Will Give You Two Dollars . . .

Random people at the coffee shop.
The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge

Day 17: First time you heard that D&D was somehow "evil."

My grandmother threw a fit as soon as she saw the cover of the DMG. She was one of those old ladies who would sign her retirement checks over to Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Oral Roberts, Robert Tilton, Kenneth Copeland, and a host of other proponents of Prosperity Theology. She had learned - on the PTL Club, I think it was, that the Beatles brainwashed children, Ouija boards held demons inside of them, that the Smurfs promoted homosexuality and necrophilia, and that Dungeons and Dragons was the preferred vehicle to proliferate Satanic worship.

She demanded that I turn over all of my D&D books to her so that she could burn them in a bonfire.  Images of Opernplatz danced in my head.  I refused.  My mother backed me up.  The lady did burn my mother's Ouija board though - in secret.

Yay Texas!

- Ark

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Edition War

Entrance to a local coffee house.

The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge

Day 16: Did you remember your first Edition War?  Did you win?

I think the first edition war I ever had was within myself.  When I first got into D&D, I didn't really understand the distinction between the Basic and Advanced sets.  I bought what I could afford - the Basic - and played that.  But those Advanced books always taunted me on the shelves.  Since they were big and thick and more expensive - they surely were better.  Right?  So I began harassing my mother for money until I could get the first three AD&D books.  I don't think I ever played with the Basic after that - except in the guise of the OSR.  Now I look back on Basic as a better all-around game.

So I won -and lost - my first Edition War. :)

- Ark

Saturday, February 15, 2014

My Lawn - You Are On It

The D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge rolls on . . .

Day 15: What was the first edition of D&D you didn't enjoy?  Why?

All RPGs seem to get on my nerves eventually, so the first edition I eventually didn't enjoy was Basic.  But all versions I've played I liked initially.  Well, except 3.5.

Why?  Well, it was very . . . jarring.  I sat down expecting to play some D&D, and instead, I got this game that used some of the D&D words that I was accustomed too - but everything else was so foreign - and too so damn long - that I didn't have a good time at all.  Yeah, yeah, get off my lawn and all of that. :)

I think that Pathfinder improved upon 3.5, but still, it didn't gel with me.

- Ark