Danny Copperfield, Novice Wizard and Amatuer Sleuth

Happy Halloween!!!

So I'm writing this post coming off the conclusion of the long-running Curse of Strahd campaign that my friend Eric has been running for our Saturday night online group (used to call it the Skype group, but we've pretty much switched over to Discord at this point as it's given us far less grief that Skype so far, and the ability to have separate channels for general and game-specific discussions is quite nice).  I don't think any of us were really expecting the campaign to end the way it did; yes we managed to defeat Strahd, but it was a very bitter victory indeed, leaving the party largely broken and ultimately going their separate ways.  I did have fun playing Sir Thomas, even though in hindsight there are things I would have done very differently if I'd had a better handle on who the character was.  Still, it's nice to bring that campaign to a conclusion, with the advent of running a campaign that's far more cheerful and bright on the near horizon.

Now, to continue with my string of Samhain appropriate blog postings, I thought I'd post up a character that I'd made a while back, got to play briefly, have remade and may have a chance to play again.

The character in question was originally made for the Dresden Files Role-Playing Game by Evil Hat Productions, taking place in the world detailed in the highly enjoyable Dresden Files series of novels written by Jim Butcher.  Personally, I prefer the audiobooks as I honestly feel that James Marsters (best known for playing Spike on the classic TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer) does a bang up job of giving voice to the many characters; it's at the point where to me he's pretty much the voice of series protagonist Harry Dresden.

Said character was Danny Copperfield, a young/novice wizard of the White Council, and can be summed up as Dresden-Lite.  This was deliberate, as I liked the notion of playing a still-fresh and mostly-untested wizard, just barely into his 20's (Harry started out in mid to late 20's I believe), albeit one that had proper training as a wizard and lacked the many tragic elements of Harry's personal history.  In his original incarnation, Danny had a solid mix of control and power, in that while he might not have been hitting at the same level of power as Harry Dresden, but neither was he quite as likely to set the immediate on area with an errant blast of flame.  I did get the chance to play him in a rather short campaign, and he was quite a bit of fun, delivering snark and unexpected bouts of sheer magical power with aplomb.

So when Evil Hat released the Dresden Files Accelerated RPG, updating the material to work with their very fun Fate Accelerated Edition, I decided (mostly on a lark) to do an updated version of Danny, just to see how the character would work out given DFA's method of using Mantles to set character archetypes.  And overall, I think it worked out pretty well.  The fact that in DFA a spellcaster isn't nearly as restricted in hurling magic (that was an issue with the original DFRPG was that spellcasters had very limited mojo, an issue that in the books really only affected Harry "powerhouse slob" Dresden given his own admittance for simply grabbing as much power as he could and hurling it at his foe with little to no finesse) means that Danny can make much more use of his evocations, in particular attacking enemies with fire.  As a bit of a trade-off, he's not quite as adept starting out with divination or ward magic, but seeing as how his Mantle gives him a much broader bonus to thaumaturgy makes up for it.

One thing that is nice about DFA is that by essentially rolling spellcasting into a character's approaches, there's not as much worry about balancing things out for the Pure Mortals; yes a spellcaster does get to work their mojo at a higher power scale, but magic may well not always be the answer.  That and I suspect a GM could easily compel the Wizard part of the character's aspect to have modern technology breakdown around the spellcaster.  And even the higher power scale isn't that huge of a boost when competing with Pure Mortals, whose own Mantles have some pretty neat tricks of their own.

With my friend Doran wanting to run at least a one-shot of Dresden Files Accelerated (to the great delight of the entire group as we're all fans of the Dresden Files), I'm looking forward to an opportunity to once again don the red canvas duster and whip out the blasting rod (mind out of gutter, thank you very much!) and step into the role of this character.  Given the interesting personalities that I'm sure the rest of the players will bring to the table with their own characters, it should be interesting to see how things shake out... preferably without multiple buildings being on fire (especially if it's not his fault)!

Danny Copperfield
Mantle: Magical Practitioner
High Concept: Novice Wizard of the White Council
Trouble: Chronic Wiseass
Aspects: Amateur Sleuth; Don't Underestimate My Power!
Refresh: 1

Approaches
Good (+3): Force
Fair (+2): Haste, Intellect
Average (+1): Focus, Guile
Mediocre (+0): Flair

Stress and Conditions
Stress: [1][1][1][1][1][1]
Combat Wizard: [1][1]
In Peril (sticky): [4]
Doomed (lasting): [6]
Indebted (sticky): [_][_][_][_][_]
Exhausted (sticky): [_]
Burned Out (lasting): [_]
The Third Eye (sticky): [_]

Stunts
Evocation: You are able to cast spells on the fly and without need for ritual preparation.
Thaumaturgy: You are able to cast a variety of arcane rituals, adding a +2 bonus to the roll.
Soulgaze: You have the ability to look directly upon the soul of another person, and they can look at yours in turn.
Combat Wizard: Gain two stress boxes explicitly for enhancing evocations.
Evocation Specialist: Gain +2 bonus when making a Force attack using the element of fire.
White Council Membership: Once per session, you may request aid from the White Council.

Appearance
Danny is a tall, lanky young man just under six and a half feet tall, with shoulder-length charcoal black hair, several strands of which constantly hang in front of his dark blue eyes, a good-natured lopsided smile befitting his generally irreverent nature on his face, although his expression turns much darker once his ire has been raised.  His preferred attire is a dark-hued shirt, a pair of blue jeans, simple sneakers, and a full-length red canvas duster, with his blasting rod tucked away but always within easy reach.

Notable Possessions
Blasting rod (made of hickory), red canvas duster with extra pockets, assorted ritual tools and aids stuffed in said extra pockets.

Some updates

Not a whole lot to say, other than there are times I honestly forget I have this blog.

As far as gaming goes (the main reason I started this blog), I've been very much enjoying Ben's Sunday Night Star Wars: EotE Skype game, in part because the character I'm playing is quite fun.  Valin is at his core a Force-sensitive street rat, and a character idea that I had from way back in my D6 days.

I'd tried to convert him to WotC's various d20 versions, but with no real success as he frequently ended up being more powerful in terms of his Force-usage than I really wanted him to be.  So I'm quite pleased with how he's got a lot of room to grow as a Force-user in FFG's Star Wars system, and how simply having the Jedi Initiate specialization from my Ways of the Force document doesn't make him automatically more capable than someone using the F/S Exile from EotE or the F/S Emergent from AoR.

The most recent session had part of Valin's past come back to haunt him, namely that he's on the ISB's list as a "person of interest in relation to a known criminal," this being a Bounty Obligation.  All from doing what he thought was a harmless bit of searching on the general topic of "Jedi" using the data archives on The Wheel.  Figures I'd roll a Despair; probably should have simply had him do a search for "busty Twi'lek dancers" as that would have been safer.  Oh well, at least our Hired Gun got a snazzy new disruptor rifle out of the encounter and Valin's traded in his dinky light blaster pistol for a heavy blaster pistol, providing some much needed extra firepower for the inevitable firefights the group will be getting into.  Also got to spill a bit of his backstory, which is always a plus.  We've also embarked upon the "Beyond the Rim" adventure, which I recognize in part because I did a GSA review on it.  I'm waiting until we get through the first Act before I go back and see what we missed in terms of the adventure, as the GM hinted that we'd skipped a fair chunk of that part.  We are slated to play again this coming Sunday, so that's certainly something to look forward to.

My reformatted Saturday group has opted to put 7th Seas to the side, at least for now.  Which is a mild shame, as I very much enjoyed playing the role of Estevan Santiago de Montoya... though the fact our party's Fate Witch bestowed him with a number of Swords Blessing dice makes him a great deal more potent than he really should be.  Then again, if the GM was worried about the Fate Witch's magic causing problems (even if she's only half-blooded), he probably shouldn't have allowed Sorte into the game in the first place.

We're still playing Legend of the 5 Rings, so AEG's Roll & Keep system is still being used by our group.  I must say, the L5R party that we've got now is rather interesting, with my Hare Bushi (Usagi Hiro) and the Mantis Shugenja (Moshi Kamahime) being the only hold-overs from the previous group.  Now, we've got a Shosuro actress (whom the party doesn't know is such; we just think she's a minor Scorpion artisan that's been given leave to travel Rokugan because she's of such little importance back home; c'mon, she's a Scorpion, we should know better!) and a Kuni Witch-Hunter, who takes the "grim and dour Crab samurai" to new levels.  We do look to be adding a fifth, with that player wanting to run a Kitsuki Investigator... which should be interesting given the presence of the secretive Scorpion.  The campaign itself has taken an interesting turn, as the Hare and Mantis PCs have had their "year of wandering" since participating (and in the Hare's case, winning) the Topaz Championship, and now we have to be "responsible adults."  Of course, since the GM wants us to still be adventurers, he took the easy route and had Hiro be promoted to the rank of Emerald Magistrate, with Kamahime being "honored" with the position of being one his yoriki, with the Crab Witch-Hunter being in a similar role (was assigned with no input from Hiro, who does not care for the Crab given a still-too-recent event), and I suspect the Kitsuke Investigator will be much the same, though at least Hiro's had good experiences with samurai of the Dragon clan, including an amusingly rowdy and Ise Zumi tattooed monk who was notable for his very informal sense of humor as well as his portly physique and preference for displaying such; think Uncle Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender before he buffed up for his Season 3 prison escape.  At least with one of us being an Emerald Magistrate, that makes traveling the Empire a good deal easier, as we can be assumed to be on "Imperial business."  Plus, being on friendly terms with the current Emerald Champion doesn't hurt either.

As far as I know, the GM is still using the Heroes of Rokugan II: Champions of the Sapphire Throne series of modules as the basis for his campaign, though I suspect we've thrown a few monkey wrenches into the established campaign, particularly as it was supposed to be a rather arrogant Mirumoto Bushi that won the most recent Emerald Championship, but instead we'd done enough things in the background to allow the more honorable and sensible Kakita Bushi that had reached the finals to emerge the victor, with one of those things being Hiro and the Kakita having an introspective discussion on the nature of iaijutsu, which was interesting to roleplay given that Hiro uses an unorthodox style that relies heavily on speed and agility (more so than the usual Hare Clan fighting style) and factors into his iaijutsu, while the Kakita Bushi is obviously much more of a traditionalist.  I think the Scorpion courtier/temptress also played a role in making sure the Mirumoto's mind was not as focused as it should be, but we don't know the details other than she went to "have a polite conversation with the man."  She returned unharmed, so whatever she said or did must have been effective.  Of course, given that she was a social monster (Fortunes help you if you had a number of Social or Mental disadvantages), she probably did only have to "talk" with the Mirumoto to throw him off his game.  Still it's been an interesting campaign, and I'm looking forward to more chances to play.

So what are we looking to play now that 7th Seas is being moth-balled?  Well, the GM had picked up the PDF (and now core rulebook) for the 5th Edition of Shadowrun.  To be honest, the last time I gave Shadowrun any serious thought was back during my college days, when I played in a couple different semester-long campaigns and ran a couple mini-campaigns myself.  As much fun as I had with Shadowrun, the system had its problems (heaping handfuls of dice being one of them), and looking at the 5th edition, it would appear that some of them are fixed, but there's new things that, at least on paper, look problematic.  The huge handfuls of dice are still there, but the dice system looks to have been streamlined to make task resolution much quicker, which is a plus.  There's a few other changes from what I remembered of 1st and 2nd edition, but most of them are good.  The section on the Matrix and deckers still makes my eyes glaze over, so if we do go for Shadowrun as our alternate Saturday game, I'll most likely go with a street samurai or perhaps a physical adept of some type.  Keep your eyes tuned to the GSA, as I've got a review on the SR5e book in the works.

We've also played our initial session of that Dresden Files game I mentioned in my last update.  That one I'm not so sure about, but it could just be that I was mentally wrung out from the way my work day had gone, and thus not in the best of moods.  It did seem (at least to me) that the GM allowed one of the players to gobble up precious gaming time by simply letting her ramble on, but again I wasn't in the best of mindsets, so that's probably not a fair assessment.  We're due to play this Friday, so we'll see what happens.  If I truly feel that I'm not a fit for that group, I may just bow out, but I'll probably play at least a couple more sessions before I make that call.

I did get to run a couple demo games at a local game shop not too long ago, those being the new Firefly RPG (using the GenCon preview copy I picked up at GenCon) and Age of Rebellion.  Both of those went pretty well, particularly the Firefly one as I took a suggestion offered by Jay Little on how he runs convention games, that being to simply take a single word (in my case, "ponies") and see where the players go with it.  Turns out this particular crew of custom-made characters took the word "ponies" and spun it into a job hauling horses for a racing operation on the edge of the system on behalf of Badger (something to do with fallout from a recent shindig from what the PCs had heard), but they also had to fly through a section of space that had a string of Reaper sightings and then deal with a local wannabe mobster that was trying to carve himself a piece of the racing tracks' profits.  It was a beautifully chaotic mess, and probably the highlight of the afternoon.  The Age of Rebellion game went well, as I'd co-opted and blended the intro adventures from the 1st edition WEG rulebook and the 2nd edition R&E WEG rulebook.  It worked out pretty well, and I had a full table of six players.  I built the PCs using the standard character creation rules from the AoR Beta, though I did mix in a couple of EotE species (a Wookiee Soldier/Commando and a Twi'lek Spy/Infiltrator) just to see how the EotE species rated in comparison to the AoR Beta's "new hotness" species.  They worked together quite well, showing that FFG's design intent of "three separate core rulebooks that can be linked together into a seamless whole" is certainly achievable.

In non-gaming related news, I finally got rid of the aging computer desk that I've had for close to 20 years, having accepted that it was long past time for it to go.  I took my friend Ben's advice as to which computer desk to get.  While I kinda miss the hutch that my old desk had, frankly most of the stuff that was stored in the hutch was crap that should have been thrown out years ago.  Still getting used to the new desk, but it was surprisingly easy to put together, particularly as I didn't bother using the dinky toy screwdriver that was included and instead used some real tools.  Amused my stepdad (who knows that I'm not much of a handyman) to hear that the screwdriver set he'd gotten me as a 'useful gift' several Christmas' ago had been so useful to me.

In tech news, I took ownership of a 4th-gen iPad.  Overall, the major difference I'm seeing between it and my old 1st-gen hand-me-down iPad is the new one runs apps a lot faster, which is certainly nice.  I also upgraded to iOS 7, and to be honest, I'm not having a lot of issues with it.  In fact, the only "issue" I'm having is that I can't resize images when setting them as backgrounds, which in the grand scheme of things is a minor annoyance.  The kiddy look of the app icons doesn't bother me, as I stuff most of them into a sub-folder anyway given I infrequently I use them.  But since the main thing I've been using my new iPad for is to play video games (KOTOR, Secret of Mana, and Plants vs. Zombies) or store various game-related PDFs (such as books and character sheets), I probably count as a "casual user" more than anything.

I did do some updates to the Unofficial Species Menagerie, and have handed it off to my partner-in-crime Ben Erickson so that he can do what updates he sees fit to do for it.  So that's in the works, but there's no time-table for when it'll be done other than the old Duke Nukem 4ever adage of "when it's finished."  Also still writing for the GSA, though I've eased up over the past few weeks on producing articles, as this fall allergy season has really been kicking my butt, leaving me weary by the time I get home, enough so that the last thing I want to do is stare at a computer screen after spending the bulk of my workday staring at a computer screen.

And that pretty much covers the bulk of what's been going on in my life over the past month or so.  While I hope I'll be a bit more punctual in updating this blog, the way things are going, I'm not really counting on it.  Odds are I'll post again sometime around Halloween, unless something really interesting crops up.

A Collective Bout of Creative Craziness...

Just a quick update (something I'd promised myself I'd do more often).

Last night, we finally got characters set and ready for a Friday Night Skype game, this one being Evil Hat's FATE-based Dresden Files RPG.  Why was last night such a milestone you might ask?  Because that's when we tackled Phase 4 and Phase 5 of creating one's background aspects.

I kinda feel for our GM, Eric aka oghen, as there were points where it was very much like herding cats in trying to keep everyone on the same page as we bounced ideas for how each character interacted with another character's Phase 3 background aspect.  But he did a pretty good job of keeping a handle on things, and it was a lot of fun to discuss and suggest various ideas.

I must say, the early signs are showing this to be an interesting group, as we've got four players and most of the bases covered.

Dedicated wizard?  Check (though he's more of an apprentice really)
Divinely inspired/empowered channeller?  Check
Vanilla mortal? Check (though nowhere near as badass as Murph, but then who is?)

And me?  I'm playing a member of the Alphas, Chicago's very own resident pack of collegiate werewolves.  Though the game is set a fair distance away from Chicago, it's set to involve the early stages of the Paranet, which gives a reason for my character to have roamed so far from the Windy City and the rest of the pack.  Though I also entertain the personal idea that he tried to score with Andi (the very buxom redhead member of the Alphas that's been named in the Dresden Files series), moving away after a very harsh crash & burn; maybe Andi was still going through her "sexy" phase (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World film reference; check it out, it's an enjoyable decent movie in spite of Micheal Cera's rather lackluster performance).

Given the only other character I've really played in this game was himself a White Council Wizard (and was rightly called Dresden Lite), playing a non-caster in this game will be different, and a new experience.  What is interesting is how shape-shifting in this game works, namely in that it not only lets my college graduate werewolf access other supernatural powers, but it also lets me completely reshuffle his skill tree, making so that his human self is both smart and a capable investigator, but his fuzzy self is a nasty customer when things get violent.

Note to character: loose shirt, loose-ish pants, easy-to-slip off shoes, and going commando when you're expecting there to be trouble.  Going from one of Billy Borden's comments in the "Your Story" DF rulebook, getting your tighty-whiteys all tangled up when trying to shift into wolf-form doesn't sound like a fun experience.  Sadly, the Rite of Pants isn't an option (very old Werewolf: The Apocalypse joke).

I'm debating about doing a Heroes on Demand entry for Lucas (my investigator werewolf), much as I did with Danny Copperfield, the Young Wizard that I mentioned previously.

We're set to actually have our first session in a couple of weeks, and I must say that I'm looking forward to it.

And the Star Wars EotE Skype campaign has finally gotten rolling, with our next session being tomorrow night.  Valin is a fun character to play, as he's not a combat-heavy character and nothing about him really screams "leading man" material.  Yeah, he's Force-Sensitive, and the GM is letting me use the Jedi Initiate specialization, but Valin's Force-stuff right now is at the very minor level, so he won't be doing any spotlight hogging for a very, very, very long time, especially with the rather eclectic cast of characters that comprises the rest of the group.

And lo, there was a flurry of writing...

Not too much to say, other than it can be pretty amazing how much writing one can get done if one simply sets aside the time to do so and sticks to doing said writing.  Also amazing how much pizza one person can eat while doing that writing; it's been many a year since I polished off a 12-cut pie in the course of a single day all by my lonesome.

I'd decided a few days ago, after realizing that I had nothing prep'd for a weekly Heroes on Demand entry for the Gaming Security Agency.  Quite a shock, as I'd gotten used to having a few buffer articles just in case I hit a dry spell.  After a coin toss, taking a break to go watch a move, and then a brief scramble to get an article together, I decided it was well past time to correct that.

But I also figured that if I was going to spend a day doing nothing but writing articles, why limit myself to just character builds?  Per a Twitter conversation with Brian Casey, aka Agent 00 on the GSA or more commonly known as Fiddleback on Twitter and d20 Radio forums and former host of the Game On! podcast, it came up that something he'd like to see is vehicle and equipment articles.  They didn't have to be for Star Wars, but seeing as how I'm such a Star Wars junkie, that's what I ended up going with.  I've got a handful of vehicles written up for FFG's Star Wars: Edge of the Empire game (primarily the Beta, but I don't think there's going to be any huge changes between the Beta version and the final product when it comes out in a few months).  I'm sure there are plenty of other players and GMs that have compiled homebrewed stats for various creatures, rides, and gear that have never seen print in an official supplement, and there's probably a lot of other gamers that might benefit from your creativity.

For the Heroes on Demand series, while I've been the primary contributor to it (seems fitting, since it was my brainchild to being with), there's been a few other folks that have made some fine contributions.  I don't know how many of my fellow Agents at the GSA will read this, but you guys are more than welcome to make your own contributions, and they emphatically don't have to be for Star Wars.  Ben Erickson aka Agent 66 aka Cyril did an entry for Pathfinder, and I've done entries for Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing 2nd edition, Cubicle 7's One Ring, Evil Hat's Dresden Files RPG, and AEG's Legend of the Five Rings.  Frankly, there's been a real dearth of D&D builds, and though I'm pretty much out of D&D at the moment, I know there's folks that are still actively playing many versions of D&D, from 1st Edition to 4th Edition, so there's room for GSA Agents to contribute their own Heroes on Demand articles for D&D characters, regardless of where you fall in the D&D Edition War.

And I know there are plenty of older RPGs that are still being played even though the companies that produced them have either dropped the line or simply gone out of business, and what better way to encourage folks to check out the games you've loved for so long than to do a review on it?  I myself did just that, taking a look at what is on my gaming shelf as opposed to being boxed up in my storage closet, and why it's sitting on my gaming shelf.  While only Dresden Files has so far really hit the "you really gotta play this game!" button for me, games like Green Ronin's Dragon Age and Wildfire Studios' CthulhuTech are on my shelf alongside such notables as Star Wars (various editions) and Deadlands for a reason.

Also, as I mentioned to a couple of friends via Twitter, contributions don't have to just be reviews of active/hot RPGs or character builds.  The GSA has some great articles on campaign advice and fleshing out character backstory, as well as a very informative look into how Edge of the Empire's dice pool system came into being by none other than Jay Little, the man responsible for said system; talking about getting your dirt straight from the horse's moutth, you can't do much better than that.  Dave Villegas aka Agent 42 aka GM Dave has started up a designer blog about Hauler, a new card game that Gamer Nation Studios as a follow-up to their very enjoyable Edition Wars card game.

Ben and his ever-so-charming wife Nateal had a Build-Off Competition series of articles going, noting their respective efforts in designing their own campaign.  It was really neat to see their respective thought processes, and while I myself am not currently working on any sort of campaign, I'm sure there are other people who are.  One thing that can always be useful to new GMs is advice and examples by old-hat GMs on how to go about building a campaign or setting of their own.  We even have at least one professionally published author amongst the GSA Agents who could probably offer some insight into creating your own setting and telling stories within that setting.

So I guess maybe this is my attempt at a call to arms, both to my fellow GSA Agents that are already signed-up and to those that have yet to jump on board.  If you're interested in providing resources to your fellow gamers, be they board gamers, table-top gamers, or card gamers, the GSA is on the lookout and in need of submissions.  The submission guidelines are pretty straight-forward; keep it fun, keep it informative, keep it honest and fair (while my review of the EotE Beginner Box was overall very positive, there were a couple of minor quibbles I had), and pictures are nice as are links to the companies involved in the game you're talking about, though in a number of cases Brian has proven willing and able to do the picture hunting.

The GSA has been in existence for six months, and while we've covered a pretty impressive amount of ground in that time, there's the feeling that we could cover so much more.

Okay, really didn't mean for this to turn into a long-winded soap box speech.  Sorry 'bout that.

Oh, and some semi-obligatory links if you are interested in signing up to be a GSA Agent:

GSA Article Submission Guidelines
http://gsa.thegamernation.org/article-submission-guidelines/

GSA Writers Wanted!
http://gsa.thegamernation.org/writers-wanted/

Honestly, when the GSA first started, I wasn't sure how much of a commitment I'd be able to make, or for how long.  So I was quite surprised to learn that in the course of six months, I've written almost a full fifth of the site's articles... not bad for a part-time gig.

Two posts in the same month? Madness!

Nope, not Sparta.  At least not the last time I checked.

Hopefully, if you've been following along with this little blog of mine, you've also been keeping tabs on the Gaming Security Agency, devoted to whatever aspects of gaming the rather broad stable of authors feel like gabbing about.

If so, then I hope you've been enjoying the Heroes on Demand series, something I started on a bit of a lark way back in the early days of the GSA, and has apparently become one of the sites' running features.  Truthfully, I was really hoping other people would be contributing ready-to-play PCs from a variety of different systems, as there's not really any way I can cover ever RPG out there, either because I don't have the books (most versions of D&D) or simply don't have the interest (Pathfinder and White Wolf's offerings)

Lately though, I've taken to adapting characters that have been seeing actual play in the games I'm in.  The process actually started off with Estevan Ramirez do Soldano del Castillo, a Castillian duelist, which was released along with my review of the long-defunct 7th Seas RPG on "Talk Like A Pirate" Day appropriately enough.  I had meant to also have an actual pirate character, but I got a bit too wrapped in trying to find a good image for Estevan to get said pirate built.

The next Hero on Demand that had seen actual play was my proto-Ranger Branden, a Dalelands Warden that was published quite appropriately on December 14th, the day that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey hit theaters.  Depending on responses from the rest of my Saturday play group, I may be using their characters as Heroes on Demand submissions, particularly the two Hobbit PCs as they were quite entertaining.

A couple weeks later, I do the same with bringing a couple characters from the Dresden Files psuedo-campaign I'm in, starting off with a fellow gamer's PC, one Jessie Armstrong, a modern day Amazon that's been described at the table as being "Karrin Murphy with an extra foot of height and super-powers," particularly after she almost literally turned a ghoul into a pretzel (in the first session no less!), to the point we debated having her change one of her aspects to "Cute Bruiser."

And this week, I keep up the from-table-to-article parade, this time putting my own PC up for grabs.  To be honest, Danny Copperfield has been a lot of fun to play, not only for the fact of being a badass wizard (not quite up to Harry Dresden levels of badassery, but then who is?) but just that I can be rewarded in-game for being an irreverent smart-ass, something I tend to do with most of my characters anyway.  To say nothing of the sheer versatility of the magic system that Evil Hat put together for this RPG... honestly, Danny is the first spellcaster that I've truly enjoyed playing, as the way magic works in the Dresden Files RPG is so incredibly open and freeform that the only real limit on what a spellcaster can do in this game is your imagination.  Hell, one of the campaign's comedy gold moments was Danny creating an impromptu spell to send him hurtling through the air away from Mayantec-wannabe villains (after snagging the special knife they needed to complete their crazy end-of-Western-civilization-as-we-know-it ritual), complete with the classic Goofy Holler as he went zipping away to a not-quite-so-soft-landing after soaring several blocks through open air.  Or taking a page from Gandalf the Grey's playbook and making himself seem a hell of a lot more impressive than his usual twentysomething self would be to a group of mobsters?  Then there's turning a Red Court Vampire into charbroiled gibbles and bits with a super-concentrated blast of eldtrich flame after being openly mocked by said RCV; his buddies (all thralls) were a lot less gung-ho after their ring leader went ka-blooey.  Not as hilariously cool as impaling a vampire with a guided frozen turkey missile, but having the GM (female, if it matters) describing the reactions of the thralls at being spattered with steaming bits of their ex-master still brings a collective grin to the group's face.

So for future Heroes on Demand articles?  Not sure yet, though I've got a couple more in the pipeline, including a White Court Vampire who doubles as a rock star and a chivalrous young knight, just to name a couple.  I will say that this series has been quite entertaining, as it forces me to come up with a variety of different concepts as well as a chance to explore how those concepts might come together into the form of a playable character.  I've not yet heard of any of these characters have actually been used in peoples' games, which would be cool in and of itself, but one can always hope.

My Big List of Star Wars Saga Edition NPCs, now on GoogleDocs

Not much of an update, as nothing super-exciting been going on of late.

Saw the Hobbit on opening weekend, and enjoyed it quite a lot.  Which given how much I enjoyed the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, that was pretty much a given.

Like the title says, I've finally gotten off my duff and put my big ol' listing of NPCs for the Star Wars Saga Edition RPG up on GoogleDocs.  It can be downloaded here:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-bx0pVzywUJcVdxcFI4dEt1Wjg/edit

In Star Wars news though, I've been playing a fair amount of FFG's new Edge of the Empire system, having run the Beginner Box adventure for my Wednesday gaming group, who enjoyed it quite a bit.  Enough so that they're eager to play the follow-up adventure Long Arm of the Hutt, available as a free download off of FFG's website.

Recently finished the audiobook version of Jim Butcher's Cold Days, the latest installment of his Dresden File series.  As seems to be the case for poor Harry Dresden, victory in the end was bittersweet at best, but it was an enjoyable story, and I very much enjoyed having James Marsters back doing the narration.  Nothing against John Glover and his narration of Ghost Story, but James has these different characters down pat, giving each character their own voice that reflects their mannerisms and mindsets perfectly.

Not much else to say, other than I've been plugging away at various articles for the GSA (Gaming Security Agency) website, getting the first of my three Deadlands-based reviews up, this one for Deadlands: Reloaded, with Hell on Earth: Reloaded and Deadlands: Noir on their way.  Also been playing around with CthulhuTech, both in terms of writing a review (still not happy with what I've written so far, and I'm on the third attempt) and in maybe seeing about getting a mini-campaign together for it.

Oh, and Happy New Year.

And another campaign bites the dust...

Again, been fairly quiet, though it's at least been less than a month since I posted anything here.

Work... well, it's still hectic and still nuttier than a jar of peanuts.  Everybody wants everything done at once, and as always I simply don't have the time, which frankly gets a bit annoying when half the stuff I'm doing really should be the responsibility of another department.

Got to hang out a bit and have a nice dinner with a couple of my former co-workers.  After missing the November get-together due to illness, it was nice to see them again.

Still cranking out the Heroes on Demand articles on a weekly basis for the Gaming Security Agency, and to be honest I was quite tickled to hear Brian "Fiddleback/Agent 00" and Dave "GM Dave/Agent 42" give this long-running article series a mention on GSA Briefing #5.  You can listen to it here: http://gsa.thegamernation.org/2012/11/27/gsa-podcast-briefing-5/

Also been watching episodes of Young Justice via Netflix, and I'm really enjoying this series.  I never read the comic book, but I'm a big ol' fan of the DC Animated Universe, particularly the Justice League and Batman Beyond, and enjoyed Teen Titans as well, so I'm very much enjoying Young Justice, particularly Robin (just finished the episode "Downtime").  Also been getting in some older-school gaming by way of Final Fantasy I (level-grinding to get ready to take on the first Elemental Fiend) on my iPhone and Dragon Quest 8 (just starting on the monster-hunting for the fighting pit) on my PS2.

Sadly though, it seems that the Marvel Heroic RPG campaign I was in (in which I played Darkhawk, a favorite comic character of mine from back in the day that's seen a surge in recognition over the past few years after lingering in comic-book limbo) has come to an end, as the GM simply doesn't have time to come up with scenarios anymore (increased job responsibility and small child will do that to a person).  In a way, it seems kind of fitting to the game's comic book roots that series staring our rather oddball cast of heroes suddenly got cancelled.  Ah well, such is the way of things, and it was fun while it lasted.

Also, I think the semi-regular Dresden Files game, in which I play a youngish (early 20's) White Council Wizard by the name of Danny Copperfield, is winding to a close.  The GM has set the stage for a potentially catastrophic event; you know the drill, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.  If you're a fan of the series or at least know the background of the Dresdenverse, the short version is that someone (or more likely several someones) is setting the stage for the supernatural equivalent of World War III, dragging the Winter Court, the Summer Court, the White Court of Vampires, the White Council, the Denarians. and even a couple Freeholding Lords (such as Gentleman Johnny Marcone and Donar Vadderrung) into a big ol' apocalyptic fracas of a scope that would make Buffy crap her too-tight pants in terror.  And it's up to a lone White Council Wizard, a freshly-minted Knight of the Cross, a junior SI detective, and a Summer Court changeling to find out who the guilty party is and stop this mess. So yeah, no pressure (I wonder if that counts as a self-compel on my "Habitual Snarker" Aspect?)

Upside though is the Saturday group (most of it anyway) is getting back into Legend of the Five Rings, so I get to step back into the role of Usagi Hiro, Topaz Champion aka the "KIller Bunny" (an in-game nickname give how devastatingly effective some of his batojutsu attacks have been as well as his Yoda-esque style of fighting).  A bushi of the Hare Clan (one of the many Minor Clans in Rokugan), Hiro's been a fun character to play, being kind of the "odd man out" given the rest of the group are Major Clan samurai (Crane yojimbo, Mantis priestess, Scorpion socialite, and a Dragon investigator, though I think the last one is pretty much gone at this point).  The GM has been using the "Heroes of Rokugan: Champions of the Sapphire Throne" series of modules, adapting them to a slightly different version of Rokugan.

As for the Wednesday group, while the Marvel game is done, I may very well be picking up the GM reins to run Star Wars: Edge of the Empire for them.  Our next get together (which won't be until January) will be me running my conversion of the old Star Wars Gamer adventure "Rendezvous at Ord Mantell."  I've not put this one the web, as I'd like to give it a second "shakedown run," particularly in light of some of the changes FFG made.  As there is also the Beginner's Box due out later this month, itself with an introductory adventure, I may very well wind-up running that instead, following up with "Crates of Krayts" and "RatOM" if there's enough interest.  Most of the players are interested in giving the new system a try, and I'm already playing in one EotE game so I don't mind being the GM once again.  There was some initial talk about a campaign using D&DNext, but after how the last playtest went, that notion pretty much got sunk.

Speaking of Edge of the Empire, the Order 66 Podcast, the original podcast dedicated to Star Wars RPGs, had it's swan song for Saga Edition this past Sunday, bringing a close to several years of entertaining and informative podcasting about what I honestly think is the best d20 system to have hit the market (Mutants & Masterminds is a close second though).  This however now paves the way for Order 66 to focus on Edge of the Empire and the later materials from FFG's Star Wars RPG line.  Will be a tad odd at first to hear Chris and Dave jawing on about a system other than Saga Edition, but I'm sure it'll be just as enjoyable as their SWSE-based efforts.

Well, that's about it for this month.  On the off-chance I don't make a post until next month, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Been awfully quiet 'round these parts...

Not to much meat here, just a quick post to explain why it's been fairly quiet of late.

Main reason is work, plain and simple.  Mandatory OT and amount of stuff that needs to get done (everyone else in the company can dawdle and twiddle their thumbs 'til the cows come home, but gods forbid I don't get everything done ASAP) pretty much doesn't leave me with a whole lot of mental bandwidth after the working day is done.

Also, a decent chunk of my time has been spent writing articles for the GSA website, ranging from homebrew species stats for Fantasy Flight Games' Edge of the Empire beta to RPG reviews (latest being one on for the 4th edition of Legend of the Five Rings) to the weekly Heroes on Demand column, which itself covers a gamut of RPGs.

The other big thing that's been gobbling up a lot of my time of late has been the Edge of the Empire beta, both in analysis of the official rules and experimenting with various rules tweaks, to say nothing of playtesting when and where I can.  Though with the final update having been posted a few days ago (I even did a couple GSA articles running through the updates week by week), I imagine that will be quieting down a bit, now that the rules are more or less "stable" until the final product is released sometime next year.

Gaming wise, the Sunday Star Wars Skype game I play is still going strong, and there's been a positive reception to the notion of alternating between the existing Saga Edition campaign (which has proven quite interesting so far) and an Edge of the Empire campaign.  It was even suggested that we might record the EotE sessions as a live-play podcast, a notion that's both exciting and daunting.  If said live-play podcast does occur, it won't be the well-edited sort of podcast that Garrett of Threat Detected produces, but probably something more akin to Brev's Real Gamers podcast (though hopefully with far less Skype issues).  But, we'll see.

I've also been playing in another Edge of the Empire game via Skype, this one a weekly game occurring on Friday nights.  In this one, I'm playing a Clone Wars veteran named Auron Riggs (Hired Gun/Bodyguard/Mercenary), and he's proven to be quite badass.

There's also the bi-weekly Wednesday group, in which we're playing the Marvel Heroic RPG.  The party are comprised of teenage heroes, with three out of the five players using existing characters (Darkhawk, Slapstick, and Patriot) with the two ladies are using (mostly original) concepts.  As much as the MHRPG system didn't wow me when I first read through it, I must say it's really started growing on me, and I've still amazed at how much variety is available in the system with what a character can do, particularly when Slapstick (living cartoon) and Miss Hex (teenage spellsplinger) use their various abilities to create complications and assets.  Me?  I mostly just break stuff, including an film!Iron Monger knock-off.

Saturday gaming has seen some changes, as the One Ring game I was has pretty much come to a screeching halt.  I was pretty darn sick that particular Saturday, so I don't know the full details, only that I wasn't the only missing player and that the remaining PCs wound up either dead or incapacitated and in the hands of some very savage goblins.  But, in lieu of that, most of us are delving right back into Legend of the Five Rings, something that we had a lot of fun with, using modules from the Heroes of Rokugan II: Champions of the Sapphire Throne living campaign as the basic framework, though with some very different NPCs.  I must say I missed playing my Hare Bushi, and getting the chance to let the "killer bunny" get back into the thick of things was a blast.

There's still the monthly Dresden Files game on Saturdays, with the GM promising a suitable holiday-themed session given it's the last session before Thanksgiving, and quite possibly the last Dresden Files game for the year.  Looking forward to seeing what sort of mischief my "freelance paranormal consultant" aka White Council Junior Warden gets embroiled in next, particularly since the GM has moved the campaign to Chicago and has made it clear that she's diverting from the novels after the events of Changes.  So no Harry Dresden, leaving me as Chi-town's resident wizard.  Yeah, it's about as enjoyable a role as you'd expect, but at least there aren't prolonged periods of boredom.  Granted, Danny might really like some boredom after the events of the past few sessions (such as getting dragged into a pissing match between the Black and White Courts of the Vampire Nation), but you don't get to be a respected member of the magical community by collecting bottle caps.  Still haven't had a run-in with Gentleman Johnny Marcone, and I think I'd like to keep it that way for at least a little while longer.

So, that's whats been going on since I posted here last.  I can at least look forward to a few days' respite thanks to being able to take all of next week off, so maybe I'll work on developing some material for this wee little blog of mine.

BTW, if you're interested, here's a few links to some of my recent work on the GSA website:

Star Wars: Edge of the Empire: The Game has Changed
http://gsa.thegamernation.org/2012/09/27/star-wars-edge-of-the-empire-the-game-has-changed/

Star Wars: Edge of the Empire: Is the Game Still the Same?
http://gsa.thegamernation.org/2012/11/15/star-wars-edge-of-the-empire-is-the-game-still-the-same/

RPG Review: Legend of the Five Rings, 4th Edition
http://gsa.thegamernation.org/2012/11/14/rpg-review-legend-of-the-five-rings-4th-edition/

RPGs You Need to Play: Dresden Files
http://gsa.thegamernation.org/2012/10/09/rpgs-you-need-to-play-the-dresden-files/

Other Campaign Updates

In light of the New Jedi Order campaign having pretty much wrapped up (GM said he wants one more session to 'tie up a few loose ends' this coming Wednesday), I thought I might review the other campaigns I've been playing in, as well as ones that I might be planning for the future.

Sadly, it seems that the Dresden Files game I was in had fizzled out due to the GM having no clue where she wanted to take the story as well as some difficulties handling a couple of characters (my Dresden-esque wizard being the lesser of the two offenders),  There may be some hope of this picking back up once the Paranet Papers supplement comes out, but if not, then at least it was fun to play a smart-ass young spell-slinger for a while.

My friend's The One Ring campaign is still going strong, though I never did make a post about the last session we played a few Saturdays back.  Our odd group of would-be heroes were tasked by Gloin to deliver an urgent missive to none other than Radagast the Brown, member of the Order of Wizards and White Council.  We had a pretty "interesting" trek through wilderness along the Old Forest Road that cuts through Mirkwood, including a chance encounter with a group of Wood elves, a few run-ins with goblin raiders, as well as a pack of spiders that had pretty much subdued a feisty Woodman lass and slain what we presumed to be her two male traveling companions.

After coming to the comely lady's rescue, she introduces herself as Derawyn, apprentice and ward of the Brown Wizard, but when teased by both the elf and dwarf as to why she didn't just use her magic to banish the spiders, she grew a deal more modest when replying that the magics she knew were more subtle and better given to tending the ills of body and spirit, which she proved by using a song of healing on Brander, who'd taken some nasty hits from the spiders during the attempted rescue.  She was returning to Rhosgobel after concluding a task for her mentor, and would be much appreciative if the Company would permit her to travel with them the rest of the way.  Well, we reach Rhosgobel without further incident, only to find that scouts returned only hours before with word of a massive orc raiding force that will likely strike that night. Better still, Radagast is absent on "some wizard's errand," leaving the Woodsman village without it's most powerful protector.  Gee, if only there were a group of stout-hearted adventurers in the neighborhood... oh, wait there is.  So we wind up joining in the defense of Rhosgobel, and many an orc was slain that night, with Brander, Bruni, and Caranlas making like Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas during Helm's Deep :)  Finally, just when it seemed we were about to be overwhelmed by one last desperate surge of orcs, the dawn came and with it Radagast, with the combined presence of the two forcing the foul minions of the Shadow to flee back into the depths of Mirkwood.

Once the injured had been seen to, Radagast gathers the Company so that he might hear the message we were tasked to bring.  The message was from Dain Ironfoot, King Under the Mountain, and concerned a rising number of orcs spilling down from the mountains as well as those that survived the Battle of Five Armies, and the Brown Wizard concurs that some fell power had caused the orcs and goblins of the Wilderlands to stir in such numbers; he fears the attack on Rhosgobel will not be the last settlement of the Free Peoples to be laid siege to by such reckless hate.  Fearing that a new threat lurks on the horizon, Radagast asks that we ferry a message for him, only this time we are to bring that message to none other than the King of the Elves of Mirkwood.  The wizard also makes it a point to thank us for coming to the Derawyn's aid, and as such he owes the hero a minor boon to be named once they have delivered his message to the Elf King, though we were permitted the chance to rest.  The Company agreed to make Rhosgobel a sanctuary as our Fellowship undertaking, so at least we've got an additional base of operations, one that's closer to Mirkwood even.  We gather once more on July 7th to continue the adventure, and I'll admit to being very curious as to where this is going.  Timewise, we've passed through spring and are into early summer.

Back to Star Wars, the Skype-based game that Ben "Cyril" Erickson is running is still going strong, with our next session planned for this coming Sunday night.  The session before last ended with us getting knocked unconscious after a prolonged fight aboard a supposedly derelict freighter, only to have us wake-up next session with a (most likely) drug-induced dream sequence that left a few of the characters freaked out and us apparently trapped in a compound someplace.  We finally managed to escape our freaky captors (vestigial heads for extra freakiness) and made our way to a docking bay, just in time for another firefight.  Which was where the last session ended.

While I've stepped out from behind the GM's screen after the last two Star Wars campaigns I was running pretty much fell apart due to lack of player interest, I've been getting an itch to run something.  And spurred by a bit of gaming nostalgia and a recent Kickstarter for Deadlands: Noir setting, I picked up Savage Worlds and Deadlands: Reloaded.  Just so you know, I was a huge fan of Deadlands back in the day, though I'll confess a minor preference for Hell on Earth, the post-apoc Deadlands setting.  While I wasn't all that impressed by Savage Worlds on the first go-round, I picked up a hardcopy of the Savage Worlds Deluxe book, and I must say I'm pretty intrigued by how much quicker and cleaner the system runs compared to Deadlands Classic.  Big handfuls o' dice for skill checks are gone (generally a good thing in my opinion), and the Edge/Hindrance system looks to have been very nicely streamlined.  I've got a bunch of notes pertaining to a Deadlands Classic mini-campaign that I never got to run, and while it needs a bit of polish, I might just be able to get that sucker into play-worthy shape.  Trick will be rustling up a posse of players, but on-line gaming might make that task a mite easier, though time'll tell.

Also on the horizon is our SW NJO GM is looking to giving the Marvel Heroic RPG a try as a campaign, with the agreed upon theme being "TeenAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D."  Yeah, we're playing teenage supers that are working for/with S.H.I.E.L.D. in some capacity or another.  X-23 and Darkhawk are already going to be part of this group, but not sure yet who the others will be, though I'm sure it'll be interesting.

So that's whats going on campaign wise for me.  How about you guys?

The building was on fire, and this time it was my fault.

Got another chance to play some more Dresden Files a while ago, and I think our GM is really starting to get a feel for what sets games under this setting apart from your typical RPG, particularly in terms of group dynamics.

For starters, during our first run-thru, she seemed convinced that we had to follow the typical party dynamics, up to and including starting the campaign by having us all meet outside of a coffee shop. This time around, she seems to be taking more of a note from Jim Butcher's books and letting each of us start on our own side story before we wind up getting pulled into the main plot, much like how Harry, Murphy, Thomas, and the rest all do their own thing before their respective stories get interwoven together. We each had our one B-plots that linked up to the A-plot, and nobody really felt short-changed, which is always a plus.

What also set this apart is that the GM's starting to let go a bit and let the players have a bit more narrative control in terms of aspects, both the declaration and invoking, particularly when it comes to the bad guys and being "close enough" in guessing an aspect and trying to invoke it; then again, maybe she's just willing to let the aspect be applied to the NPC based upon how she's portraying the character. Now that I think about it, for a lot of scenes, she also used to go ahead and establish most of the aspects for a scene, rather than giving a few basic details and then letting the players flesh it out. Granted, it forced us to be that much more creative in making declarations about the scene, but I suppose that's a matter of opinion on whether its a good or bad thing.

I do think she took my suggestion to give the Actual People, Actual Play podcast episodes pertaining to Dresden Files a listen, if only due to the appearance of Red Bliss, which by the adventures' end we'd learned what it was (in a word, yuck!) as well as what the intent was (for our game, it was a power-ploy by a White Court vamp looking to earn favor with the Red Court vampires).

City Creation for this game was done in an odd fashion, as instead of it being a group effort, the GM did all of it by herself, adapting the setting she'd worked up for a very short-lived Buffy RPG campaign. So it was noticeable that we got to spend time getting to know people/faces of the city a bit better as well as meet some new ones, both the good and the bad. And perhaps true to the source material, I did wind up burning down what used to be a very nice suburban mansion (it was White Court vamp's personal base of operations). That's Danny for you, saving the city, one random act of destruction at a time (^o^)

Since the re-launch of the campaign, the characters in the group have changed quite a bit. Of the original crew, only Danny the Young White Council Wizard and Jessie the Scion of Athena have returned. We met one of the two new PCs in the form of Anthony something-or-other, Knight of the Order of Saint Dumas, who is pretty much a Champion of God wielding a watered-down Sword of the Cross (still holy, but not quite as much righteous mojo behind it). And yes, in-character I made light of the fact that he was on "a mission from God" and even asking if he had shades or enough gas in the tank of his car to make it to Chicago. Still have one more new character to meet, but as the player couldn't make it to the session, I have yet to see what sort of character she'll be playing.

Looking forward to some more Dresden Files sessions, particularly if my suspicion is right and the Vampire War is about to heat back up. I may be adding "Warden" to my High Concept after all..

A Dresden Files Fiasco or I Played a Pinball Wizard

For a while, I've been playing in a Dresden Files game run by one of the players in my (on-hiatus) Star Wars Alternate Universe campaign. In said game, I play a Young Wizard of the White Council by name of Danny Copperfield, who I will freely admit has morphed into Dresden Lite (not as tall, not as powerful, and not nearly as broke).

Well, we sort of picked up the campaign this past weekend. So after some retweaking of a couple characters (GM confessed that she was a lot more generous with handing out the Major Milestones or "level ups" than she should of been), we sat down to play. Only instead of the usual troupe style play, it wound up being me and the only other returning character from the old campaign, an honest-to-the-Greek-gods Amazon by the name of Jessie Armstrong, being pitted against a group of supernaturally-empowered crooks as they sought to pilfer a tome containing forbidden lore about "things beyond the outer gates" aka Lovecraftian-style horrors. Apparently the GM had gotten the idea courtesy of a Dresden Files supplement called "Hocus Focus" for an indy game named Fiasco. The general idea behind Fiasco is that you play a bunch of hoodlums that get involved in a scheme, but the scheme invariably goes awry due to someone or something "tilting" events to make things start falling apart for the crooks. In this case, my wizard Danny was "the tilt" (and yes, he did get called a pinball wizard) after getting looped into what the crooks were after and some of the not nice things they had done in pursuit of their goal.

I have to say that in spite of the adversarial nature of the set-up, it actually proved a very interesting change of pace, with the players of the crooks getting a chance to try out character types they otherwise might not try, such as an Outsider-worshipping focused practitioner (game terms: Sponsored Magic, Outsider patron, limited to entropy-based effects) or a Hollywood Voodoo Diva or a White Court Vampire that feasted on despair. I don't know if I'd be in a hurry to play that kind of set-up again, but it was fun to get back into Danny's red canvas duster and start slinging around the fire and wisecracks once more.

Read about Fiasco here, courtesy of Wikipedia:
Fiasco RPG