I'm pretty sure that most people reading this are well aware of the pop culture phenom that is "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic." And before you leap to a conclusion, I am quite emphatically NOT a "Brony."
However, that said, I did stumble across something related to MLP:FiM and a long-standing geek fave of mine, the BBC long-runner Doctor Who (started with the 4th, though I think Tennant's 10th Doctor is my favorite of the bunch). It's fan-produced series of audio stories called "Doctor Whooves and Assistant."The basic premise is "What if the Doctor came to Equestria, got turned into a pony, and had adventures in that setting?"
Well, the answer to that question is a result that is quite entertaining, with the VA for this version of the Doctor doing a very enjoyable job of channeling the 10th Doctor with elements of the others (predominantly the 11th) thrown in for good measure, particularly the Doctor's relish at the utter strangeness of being a pony and life in the MLP:FiM 'verse. And so far, unlike a lot of other fandom works in various genres, it's not trying to supplant the "official" events of the TV series, with the first three audio segments taking place rather neatly alongside the first two-part episode of the show.
I guess it says something for the MLP fandom that they could take a background character with a couple of suggestive character traits (wild brown mane and hourglass mark on his rump) and turn it into this. Heck, there's even an article on this fan-work to be found on TVTropes.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DoctorWhoovesAndAssistant
(it also has links to the various audio programs to boot)
Now my friend Nateal aka HotPinkJoystick has become fully engrossed in the MLP:FiM fandom, and is one of many that have been needling me, subtly or otherwise, to really give this show a shot. Admittedly, I did try briefly, but it didn't click for me. But that was before Doctor Whooves. So, I'll give it another go, perhaps slightly less-biased try; being an Adult Male, I do have an inherent bias against a TV show mainly aimed at selling toys to Young Girls. If nothing else, I can amuse myself with the notion that while the Mane Six are hogging the spotlight, the Doctor and his charmingly bubbly/ditzy companion are having their own thrilling adventures.
June 28, 2012
One story ends, another begins...
Well, last night we had the final session of our NJO Star Wars campaign. There were a couple of minor encounters/battles, part of the New Republic/Galactic Alliance's renewed offensive against the Vong invasion, mostly as a chance to give our 8th level characters a chance to show off a bit. But generally, it was a bittersweet ending as the heroes wound up going their separate ways.
Meerix Rhys, an Arkanian Offshoot and ace starfighter pilot, has been given full command of her own X-Wing squadron, which she got to lead into battle against Vong coralskippers as part of an offensive campaign to start liberating Vong-held planets.
Gorth, a rather crude-humored Trandoshan bodyguard, opted to take the offer of serving as full-time bodyguard to an up-and-coming young singer/diva while she embarks on a series of USO-type shows for the Alliance's troops.
SKT-R08, a rather interesting "probe" droid that proved to have quite an interesting history, is no longer amongst the functioning. Of course, as its body was never found, SKT-R08 could still be out there. Heck, it's story of having been abandoned by its prior masters could have just been a cover story for all we knew.
Shael, a Selkath medic and Jedi-in-training, has chosen to part ways with Skywalker's New Jedi Order and seek his own path in the Force, opting to "wander the galaxy" and trusting to the Force to guide him to where his healing abilities are most needed. He even went so far as to hand over his lightsaber to Master Skywalker, thanking the man for the opening his eyes to the ways of the Force.
Lyra Blyss, a Zeltron gambler/grifter also ultimately chose to go back to her larcenous ways, having only "gotten involved" by chance. She did enjoy herself quite a bit, but she'd prefer a lifestyle that didn't involve a near-constant risk of a horrible death. She did threat Alwyn (my character) that he'd be seeing her again, with her parting act being to plant on heck of a kiss on the lad's lips, leaving him speechless and the other characters laughing.
And lastly, there's Alwyn Reezaki, a Human Jedi apprentice, upon review of his conduct and actions in the past few months, Master Skywalker judged that he was ready for promotion to Jedi Knight. That Alwyn could admit that he'd come perilously close to giving into his anger was deemed a good thing, as it meant he was aware of the risk and thus could be wary of falling into that particular trap. As part of the New Jedi Order's renewed commitment to helping the Galactic Alliance defeat the Yuuzhan Vong, Master Skywalker has formed several Jedi strike force groups, with Alwyn being placed in one that is under the direct command of Jaina Solo (a humorous nod to something I'd included in my '3 Questions' answers for Alwyn way back when).
As Alwyn had started out as a 1st level "Force wizard" in Garrett's NJO Traitor's Gambit, I must say it was quite satisfying to have played Alwyn all the way to becoming a fairly badass Jedi Knight. I do seem to play a lot of those types of characters, as my good friend Linda/Zrissa often reminds me. But it was also nice to be playing a Jedi that wasn't an "uber-Jedi" like a couple of my prior characters had been. He's certainly competent in Force-usage and lightsaber dueling, but he's not a dominant force in either regard; perhaps helped muchly by not rolling nat 20's on every third Use the Force check like on Jedi PC of mine had a habit of doing. And with the exception of a single house rule (combining Block and Deflect into a single talent called Deflect Attacks), Alwyn was built using just the feats, talents, and classes from the Core Rulebook, proving you don't need a plethora of splats to build an awesome character. Probably helps that most of the really awesome stuff for Jedi can be found in the corebook to begin with. Still, while it's sad to be laying this particularly Star Wars hero aside, there's always the hope of a chance to once again pick up the dice and continue Alwyn's adventures in a galaxy far, far away. May the Force be with you, Alwyn Reezaki, who started from a "fire and forget" character for a 9-hour convention one-shot and developed into a fun and memorable character.
Meerix Rhys, an Arkanian Offshoot and ace starfighter pilot, has been given full command of her own X-Wing squadron, which she got to lead into battle against Vong coralskippers as part of an offensive campaign to start liberating Vong-held planets.
Gorth, a rather crude-humored Trandoshan bodyguard, opted to take the offer of serving as full-time bodyguard to an up-and-coming young singer/diva while she embarks on a series of USO-type shows for the Alliance's troops.
SKT-R08, a rather interesting "probe" droid that proved to have quite an interesting history, is no longer amongst the functioning. Of course, as its body was never found, SKT-R08 could still be out there. Heck, it's story of having been abandoned by its prior masters could have just been a cover story for all we knew.
Shael, a Selkath medic and Jedi-in-training, has chosen to part ways with Skywalker's New Jedi Order and seek his own path in the Force, opting to "wander the galaxy" and trusting to the Force to guide him to where his healing abilities are most needed. He even went so far as to hand over his lightsaber to Master Skywalker, thanking the man for the opening his eyes to the ways of the Force.
Lyra Blyss, a Zeltron gambler/grifter also ultimately chose to go back to her larcenous ways, having only "gotten involved" by chance. She did enjoy herself quite a bit, but she'd prefer a lifestyle that didn't involve a near-constant risk of a horrible death. She did threat Alwyn (my character) that he'd be seeing her again, with her parting act being to plant on heck of a kiss on the lad's lips, leaving him speechless and the other characters laughing.
And lastly, there's Alwyn Reezaki, a Human Jedi apprentice, upon review of his conduct and actions in the past few months, Master Skywalker judged that he was ready for promotion to Jedi Knight. That Alwyn could admit that he'd come perilously close to giving into his anger was deemed a good thing, as it meant he was aware of the risk and thus could be wary of falling into that particular trap. As part of the New Jedi Order's renewed commitment to helping the Galactic Alliance defeat the Yuuzhan Vong, Master Skywalker has formed several Jedi strike force groups, with Alwyn being placed in one that is under the direct command of Jaina Solo (a humorous nod to something I'd included in my '3 Questions' answers for Alwyn way back when).
As Alwyn had started out as a 1st level "Force wizard" in Garrett's NJO Traitor's Gambit, I must say it was quite satisfying to have played Alwyn all the way to becoming a fairly badass Jedi Knight. I do seem to play a lot of those types of characters, as my good friend Linda/Zrissa often reminds me. But it was also nice to be playing a Jedi that wasn't an "uber-Jedi" like a couple of my prior characters had been. He's certainly competent in Force-usage and lightsaber dueling, but he's not a dominant force in either regard; perhaps helped muchly by not rolling nat 20's on every third Use the Force check like on Jedi PC of mine had a habit of doing. And with the exception of a single house rule (combining Block and Deflect into a single talent called Deflect Attacks), Alwyn was built using just the feats, talents, and classes from the Core Rulebook, proving you don't need a plethora of splats to build an awesome character. Probably helps that most of the really awesome stuff for Jedi can be found in the corebook to begin with. Still, while it's sad to be laying this particularly Star Wars hero aside, there's always the hope of a chance to once again pick up the dice and continue Alwyn's adventures in a galaxy far, far away. May the Force be with you, Alwyn Reezaki, who started from a "fire and forget" character for a 9-hour convention one-shot and developed into a fun and memorable character.
June 23, 2012
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?
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?
June 17, 2012
On the closing of a Star Wars campaign.
A while back, I posted about how my Star Wars Alternate Universe campaign came to a rather abrupt conclusion due largely to burn-out on d20 games amidst the players. Which considering that for the longest time the only thing most of them played were d20 games, I guess it's to be expected, kinda like eating nothing but pizza every night for dinner.
Well, luckily that wasn't the only SW campaign I had going on. Up until last night, I've also been a player in a friend's campaign that was set during the New Jedi Order era. While the Vong invasion was certainly a thing, the Vong weren't the main threat in the campaign, but rather something else that was perhaps just as creepy and unnatural as RotJ Palpatine doing reading a book for a group of pre-school children.
In this campaign, I took the role of Alwyn Reezaki, a young Jedi apprentice and member of Skywalker's New Jedi Order. I'd actually played Alwyn with the notion of it being a one-time gig back in August 2011 for the NJO Traitor's Gambit as run by Garrett of the Threat Detected podcast. So when one of my local buddies whose gaming group I'd only recently joined mentioned he wanted to try his hand at running SWSE and was going to set his campaign during the NJO era, I was quite amused at the serendipity behind it all.
We played roughly every other week on Wednesday nights, though occasionally sessions had to be missed or rescheduled due to various real life events. Wherever possible, the GM was courteous enough to let everyone know as soon as he could that the game was going to be postponed, so kudos for him on that. Well, this past Wednesday the game got cancelled due to "excessive GM wife aggro," and was rescheduled for last night (Saturday). Now going into this, I thought we had another session or two, but it turns out I was wrong. All the stops were pulled, and what I suspect was intended to be a two-part adventure wound up being run non-stop until the wee hours of the morning.
The campaign had been building up to this point, a confrontation with the BBEG in a desperate bid to stop their deranged plan to cause further strife and mayhem in a galaxy already ravaged by a vicious war. Just about every character had a stake in stopping the villain, a (likely demented) ex-Imperial Inquisitor from the days of Palpatine's Empire that went by the name of Lord Raith that had risen to a position of power and influence within Black Sun.
I'm not going to go into too many details, although I've posted summaries of the previous campaign sessions, all from Alwyn's POV, over at the d20 Radio Network forums in the thread "Tales of an NJO Jedi Apprentice" which also includes Alwyn's stat block from first level all the way up to 7th level. But I'll just say that the GM did a wonderful job with handling a split-up party and running a starship combat, a running skirmish, and a duel that were occurring pretty much all at the same time. It was hectic, it was frantic, there were character deaths, but most importantly, it was fun. The only thing missing was the Ewok dance party at the end :D
While the campaign was fun and ended on a high note, I am sad that to be putting Alwyn aside for the foreseeable future. But who knows? The GM has hinted that he might run another campaign with this same group of heroes at some point down the road. After all, the Vong menace still exists and our characters have proven to be badass enough to be able to provide a meaningful contribution to the war effort.
Tales of a NJO apprentice thread @ D20 Radio Network forums:
http://www.d20radio.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8798
Threat Detected Blog: NJO Traitor's Gambit podcast sessions:
http://threat-detected.com/2011/08/11/gencon-special-edition1.aspx
http://threat-detected.com/2011/08/18/gencon-special-edition-part-2.aspx
http://threat-detected.com/2011/08/25/gencon-special-edition-part-3.aspx
http://threat-detected.com/2011/09/01/gencon-special-edition-part-4.aspx
http://threat-detected.com/2011/09/08/gencon-special-edition-part-5.aspx
(fair warning, first one is tough to hear as there was a very rambunctious table within spitting distance of Garrett's table)
Well, luckily that wasn't the only SW campaign I had going on. Up until last night, I've also been a player in a friend's campaign that was set during the New Jedi Order era. While the Vong invasion was certainly a thing, the Vong weren't the main threat in the campaign, but rather something else that was perhaps just as creepy and unnatural as RotJ Palpatine doing reading a book for a group of pre-school children.
In this campaign, I took the role of Alwyn Reezaki, a young Jedi apprentice and member of Skywalker's New Jedi Order. I'd actually played Alwyn with the notion of it being a one-time gig back in August 2011 for the NJO Traitor's Gambit as run by Garrett of the Threat Detected podcast. So when one of my local buddies whose gaming group I'd only recently joined mentioned he wanted to try his hand at running SWSE and was going to set his campaign during the NJO era, I was quite amused at the serendipity behind it all.
We played roughly every other week on Wednesday nights, though occasionally sessions had to be missed or rescheduled due to various real life events. Wherever possible, the GM was courteous enough to let everyone know as soon as he could that the game was going to be postponed, so kudos for him on that. Well, this past Wednesday the game got cancelled due to "excessive GM wife aggro," and was rescheduled for last night (Saturday). Now going into this, I thought we had another session or two, but it turns out I was wrong. All the stops were pulled, and what I suspect was intended to be a two-part adventure wound up being run non-stop until the wee hours of the morning.
The campaign had been building up to this point, a confrontation with the BBEG in a desperate bid to stop their deranged plan to cause further strife and mayhem in a galaxy already ravaged by a vicious war. Just about every character had a stake in stopping the villain, a (likely demented) ex-Imperial Inquisitor from the days of Palpatine's Empire that went by the name of Lord Raith that had risen to a position of power and influence within Black Sun.
I'm not going to go into too many details, although I've posted summaries of the previous campaign sessions, all from Alwyn's POV, over at the d20 Radio Network forums in the thread "Tales of an NJO Jedi Apprentice" which also includes Alwyn's stat block from first level all the way up to 7th level. But I'll just say that the GM did a wonderful job with handling a split-up party and running a starship combat, a running skirmish, and a duel that were occurring pretty much all at the same time. It was hectic, it was frantic, there were character deaths, but most importantly, it was fun. The only thing missing was the Ewok dance party at the end :D
While the campaign was fun and ended on a high note, I am sad that to be putting Alwyn aside for the foreseeable future. But who knows? The GM has hinted that he might run another campaign with this same group of heroes at some point down the road. After all, the Vong menace still exists and our characters have proven to be badass enough to be able to provide a meaningful contribution to the war effort.
Tales of a NJO apprentice thread @ D20 Radio Network forums:
http://www.d20radio.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8798
Threat Detected Blog: NJO Traitor's Gambit podcast sessions:
http://threat-detected.com/2011/08/11/gencon-special-edition1.aspx
http://threat-detected.com/2011/08/18/gencon-special-edition-part-2.aspx
http://threat-detected.com/2011/08/25/gencon-special-edition-part-3.aspx
http://threat-detected.com/2011/09/01/gencon-special-edition-part-4.aspx
http://threat-detected.com/2011/09/08/gencon-special-edition-part-5.aspx
(fair warning, first one is tough to hear as there was a very rambunctious table within spitting distance of Garrett's table)
June 2, 2012
The funniest table reading of Star Wars in history of history
It's been on YouTube for a while now, but I still think this is freaking hilarious.
http://youtu.be/SBzRmWeC6Ds
It's close to an hour and a half, so make sure you've got some time before you sit down to watch this. But it's quite simply worth it.
The set-up is simple: Get a bunch of talented voice actors together and have them read scenes from Star Wars, using various animated character voices and impressions for different characters. A lot of the humor comes from how at-odds the voices are to the characters, with examples such as Bubbles reading for Darth Vader, Rodney Dangerfield as Luke, Ozzy Ozborne and Bill Cosby for R2-D2, Pinky and Bender as Stormtroopers, or Porky Pig as Obi-Wan Kenobi, while various ad-libs only add to the fun.
So wait are you waiting for? Click the link, sit back, and have a few laughs already.
http://youtu.be/SBzRmWeC6Ds
It's close to an hour and a half, so make sure you've got some time before you sit down to watch this. But it's quite simply worth it.
The set-up is simple: Get a bunch of talented voice actors together and have them read scenes from Star Wars, using various animated character voices and impressions for different characters. A lot of the humor comes from how at-odds the voices are to the characters, with examples such as Bubbles reading for Darth Vader, Rodney Dangerfield as Luke, Ozzy Ozborne and Bill Cosby for R2-D2, Pinky and Bender as Stormtroopers, or Porky Pig as Obi-Wan Kenobi, while various ad-libs only add to the fun.
So wait are you waiting for? Click the link, sit back, and have a few laughs already.
May 19, 2012
MHRPG - Giving it a test drive
So this past Wednesday, instead of playing our bi-weekly NJO campaign, we opted to give the Marvel Heroic RPG a try.
By dint of having a PDF of the book, I had a partial leg up on the other players, mostly as I'd already built my character (though Darkhawk needed and still needs a bit of fine-tuning), so I could help the others with their heroes. After an hour, we had four of the six possible heroes ready to go (the other two players were still trying to figure out which non-movie comic book character they wanted to be), so the GM decided to throw us into a quick scenario to let us try and get a feel for the system and possibly make any tweaks before we settled on our respective characters. The scenario itself was pretty simple, a group of separate heroes minding their own business in downtown New York City when a mad scientist criminal mastermind shows up to cause trouble.
The group of heroes (won't go so far as to call us a team) were a pretty interesting lot. Aside from Darkhawk, we had the following:
X-23: This one was pretty easy to build, since she's pretty much Wolverine as a teenage girl, so she used the official stats for Wolverine as her blueprint, dropping the Weapon X powerset and replacing Wolvy's enhanced strength with claws to get her powers (though her recovery ability isn't quite as potent) and not being as good a fighter.
Miss Hex: Drawing heavily on the base concept of DC's Zatanna, this one turned out to be much easier than Darkhawk to build, as she only had one Power Set and just a few powers within it. To say nothing of her player using the write-up that she'd made for a Mutants & Masterminds game I'd tried to run in the past but ultimately went nowhere, so she already had the core character idea in place, making it easy to determine Distinctions and Specialties.
Maverick: I'm pretty sure the name's been used elsewhere in the Marvel comic universe, but the fellow for this session can be boiled down to "Captain America as the result of intense training" with some commando gear instead of a mighty shield. Naturally, the official write-up of Cap was used as the baseline for this one. Since we're pretty much going to be playing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the player chose to have Maverick be part of S.H.I.E.L.D. in much the same capacity as Black Widow and Hawkeye.
The villain was Professor Haywire, which if you've seen BARON's character threads over on Green Ronin's Atomic Think Tank forums you'll probably recognize. In short, Haywire is a mad criminal genius that relies on his "techno-cane" for his powers and a blonde, buxom, leggy fembot named Miss Marilyn that can toss cars as his "gal Friday." The good professor also had a mob of street thugs for some added muscle, and I think his stated goal was to intercept a couple of armored cars to build up some "venture capital" for his next grand scheme.
As an added bit of fun, the group member that's big into HeroClix brought his figures over, and I was able to use the Darkhawk mini for my character. Now while MHRPG doesn't really have tactical rules, having a map on the table and minis to place certainly helps the other players keep track of who's where in the scene.
The Affiliation aspect was proven to be a great deal more variable than I first thought, but that could just be the GM willing to play a little loose with the rules in some respects, as Darkhawk and X-23 weren't forced to use our Team affiliation, though it did cut down on the assets we could be given; X-23 often went it alone rather than work in a group or with a partner, and Darkhawk really got a chance to shine when working in tandem with a partner, while Maverick and Miss Hex were definitely built to work in a group.
Combat in MHRPG moved pretty quickly after some adjustment to how the dice pools work. To give an example, let's say that Darkhawk, having just seen Miss Marilyn almost flatten Miss Hex with a thrown car, decides it's time to put the robo-moll down with a Force Blast.
I start off with Affiliation, which since I'm directly aiding a single hero, the GM approves my usage of my Buddy die. Next is Distinction, which I first think Edge Against Crime since Haywire and Marilyn are known crooks, but since this is more of a gut reaction on DH's part, I suggest Anger Issues instead, which the group agrees fits the scene, which gives me a d8. Next up are Powers, and while the rules say you can pick one die from each Power Set (of which I have two), nothing in the Armored Form set leaps out as being applicable, so I skip to Darkhawk Weapons and grab Force Blast for a d10. I also decide to bring his Unleashed SFX into play, and go with doubling by the die type, so I now add 2d10 to my pool. Of course, this means that if my attack fails, I'm going to give the bad guys an extra advantage (likely narrated as being some excessive property damage). Lastly are Specialties, of which I can only pick one, and Combat is the natural choice. So, Darkhawk's dice pool to blast Miss Marilyn is as follows:
d10 (Buddy) + d8 (Distinction) + 2d10 (Power) + d8 (Specialty)
I grab 3d10 and 2d8, and roll them out, getting the following results:
5 (d10) + 8 (d8) + 7 (d10) + 1 (d10) + 6 (d8)
Now you only get to keep 2 dice to determine the total of your roll, so I'll take the 8 and the 7 for a total of 15. I could choose to spend a Plot Point to keep an extra die, but I think a 15 is good enough. Since one of my d10s rolled a 1, I set that aside (we'll get back to it in a moment). Of the remaining dice, I have to choose one to set aside as the effect die, which determines just how powerful my attack was, and since I want this to count, I choose the other d10 (the result on the die doesn't matter at this point). Now since I rolled a 1 on that third d10, the GM can choose to exploit that to increase his doom pool (what he uses to power bad guy abilities and resist hero rolls that don't target a specific opponent), which he opts to do, giving me a shiny new Plot Point point in exchange. However, since I know that Miss Marilyn is one tough broad, I choose to spend that Plot Point to add that last d8 to my effect dice. If this attack hits, it's gonna leave a mark, and the GM is regretting having handed me a Plot Point for that one.
Now, since Darkhawk is attacking a specific opponent (Miss Marilyn), she gets a roll of her own to resist, using much of the same formula: Affiliation die (probably Buddy given her partnership with Haywire) + Distinction die + Power die (likely a resistance-based power) + Specialty die (probably her own combat die). The GM rolls it, and spends a die from his doom pool to try and boost an otherwise lackluster roll, but only manages a total of 9. Not only do I beat the GM's total, but I get an extraordinary success, allowing me to kick my primary effect die up one step, meaning Miss Marilyn is getting hit with a d12 and a d8.
Okay, but of rules fuzziness here, at least on my part, but the way stress (damage) is tracked, if the effect die of the most recent attack is higher than the degree of stress you already have, the smaller die is replaced without any added effect. But if the most recent attack as an effect die that's smaller than whatever stress die you currently have, the existing stress die gets bumped up a level. For instance, if Darkhawk already had a d6 on physical stress and got hit by a d10 effect, he'd step his physical stress up to d10. However, if the attack only did d4 stress, he'd go from a d6 in physical stress to d8. Now, what if you have two effect dice? It makes sense to apply the highest die first and then use any subsequent dice to kick it up, but the rules (at least from what I can tell) are vague on that point. That was how the GM ruled it, so that's how I'm playing it out in this example.
As d12 is the highest you can go in terms of stress (physical, emotional, or mental), Darkhawk's force blast causes Miss Marilyn to hit the top of her physical stress track. If I only had the one effect die, then she'd be battered but not out. However, since I do have that extra effect die, I'd force her to step her physical stress track up a die, but as it's already at a d12, she becomes "stressed out" which translates to her being taken out of the fight. So Darkhawk just took out the heavy hitter of the bad guy duo, but wound up drawing Haywire's ire in the process. Good thing Darkhawk's got a force shield to help protect him form the inevitable retaliation that's coming his way...
In the end, the impromptu quartet of heroes claimed victory of the crazed crook, and there was a surprisingly low degree of property damage (three store fronts, one billboard, an armored car, three civilian cars, and one police cruiser). I did have to use my Null Zone Repairs after nearly getting taken out by Haywire's reprisal. The way initiative in this game plays also works to reinforce a "group mentality" in that you do need to keep your fellow PCs in mind, and sometimes going last in the order can be a good thing for the good guys.
I'm still not 100% sold on this system, but at least it was fun, so I'm willing to give it another go at least once more. It's also an interesting crew, though I've still no idea what likely obscure character the other two guys are going to wind-up playing (they're both comic book geeks), but it should be interesting whatever they wind up choosing. Even if the character bore no resemblance to the comic book version, I'm now glad that film!Deadpool exists, as I shudder to think what the one guy that has a weapons-grade man-crush on comic!Deadpool would be like if he was allowed to play that character.
By dint of having a PDF of the book, I had a partial leg up on the other players, mostly as I'd already built my character (though Darkhawk needed and still needs a bit of fine-tuning), so I could help the others with their heroes. After an hour, we had four of the six possible heroes ready to go (the other two players were still trying to figure out which non-movie comic book character they wanted to be), so the GM decided to throw us into a quick scenario to let us try and get a feel for the system and possibly make any tweaks before we settled on our respective characters. The scenario itself was pretty simple, a group of separate heroes minding their own business in downtown New York City when a mad scientist criminal mastermind shows up to cause trouble.
The group of heroes (won't go so far as to call us a team) were a pretty interesting lot. Aside from Darkhawk, we had the following:
X-23: This one was pretty easy to build, since she's pretty much Wolverine as a teenage girl, so she used the official stats for Wolverine as her blueprint, dropping the Weapon X powerset and replacing Wolvy's enhanced strength with claws to get her powers (though her recovery ability isn't quite as potent) and not being as good a fighter.
Miss Hex: Drawing heavily on the base concept of DC's Zatanna, this one turned out to be much easier than Darkhawk to build, as she only had one Power Set and just a few powers within it. To say nothing of her player using the write-up that she'd made for a Mutants & Masterminds game I'd tried to run in the past but ultimately went nowhere, so she already had the core character idea in place, making it easy to determine Distinctions and Specialties.
Maverick: I'm pretty sure the name's been used elsewhere in the Marvel comic universe, but the fellow for this session can be boiled down to "Captain America as the result of intense training" with some commando gear instead of a mighty shield. Naturally, the official write-up of Cap was used as the baseline for this one. Since we're pretty much going to be playing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the player chose to have Maverick be part of S.H.I.E.L.D. in much the same capacity as Black Widow and Hawkeye.
The villain was Professor Haywire, which if you've seen BARON's character threads over on Green Ronin's Atomic Think Tank forums you'll probably recognize. In short, Haywire is a mad criminal genius that relies on his "techno-cane" for his powers and a blonde, buxom, leggy fembot named Miss Marilyn that can toss cars as his "gal Friday." The good professor also had a mob of street thugs for some added muscle, and I think his stated goal was to intercept a couple of armored cars to build up some "venture capital" for his next grand scheme.
As an added bit of fun, the group member that's big into HeroClix brought his figures over, and I was able to use the Darkhawk mini for my character. Now while MHRPG doesn't really have tactical rules, having a map on the table and minis to place certainly helps the other players keep track of who's where in the scene.
The Affiliation aspect was proven to be a great deal more variable than I first thought, but that could just be the GM willing to play a little loose with the rules in some respects, as Darkhawk and X-23 weren't forced to use our Team affiliation, though it did cut down on the assets we could be given; X-23 often went it alone rather than work in a group or with a partner, and Darkhawk really got a chance to shine when working in tandem with a partner, while Maverick and Miss Hex were definitely built to work in a group.
Combat in MHRPG moved pretty quickly after some adjustment to how the dice pools work. To give an example, let's say that Darkhawk, having just seen Miss Marilyn almost flatten Miss Hex with a thrown car, decides it's time to put the robo-moll down with a Force Blast.
I start off with Affiliation, which since I'm directly aiding a single hero, the GM approves my usage of my Buddy die. Next is Distinction, which I first think Edge Against Crime since Haywire and Marilyn are known crooks, but since this is more of a gut reaction on DH's part, I suggest Anger Issues instead, which the group agrees fits the scene, which gives me a d8. Next up are Powers, and while the rules say you can pick one die from each Power Set (of which I have two), nothing in the Armored Form set leaps out as being applicable, so I skip to Darkhawk Weapons and grab Force Blast for a d10. I also decide to bring his Unleashed SFX into play, and go with doubling by the die type, so I now add 2d10 to my pool. Of course, this means that if my attack fails, I'm going to give the bad guys an extra advantage (likely narrated as being some excessive property damage). Lastly are Specialties, of which I can only pick one, and Combat is the natural choice. So, Darkhawk's dice pool to blast Miss Marilyn is as follows:
d10 (Buddy) + d8 (Distinction) + 2d10 (Power) + d8 (Specialty)
I grab 3d10 and 2d8, and roll them out, getting the following results:
5 (d10) + 8 (d8) + 7 (d10) + 1 (d10) + 6 (d8)
Now you only get to keep 2 dice to determine the total of your roll, so I'll take the 8 and the 7 for a total of 15. I could choose to spend a Plot Point to keep an extra die, but I think a 15 is good enough. Since one of my d10s rolled a 1, I set that aside (we'll get back to it in a moment). Of the remaining dice, I have to choose one to set aside as the effect die, which determines just how powerful my attack was, and since I want this to count, I choose the other d10 (the result on the die doesn't matter at this point). Now since I rolled a 1 on that third d10, the GM can choose to exploit that to increase his doom pool (what he uses to power bad guy abilities and resist hero rolls that don't target a specific opponent), which he opts to do, giving me a shiny new Plot Point point in exchange. However, since I know that Miss Marilyn is one tough broad, I choose to spend that Plot Point to add that last d8 to my effect dice. If this attack hits, it's gonna leave a mark, and the GM is regretting having handed me a Plot Point for that one.
Now, since Darkhawk is attacking a specific opponent (Miss Marilyn), she gets a roll of her own to resist, using much of the same formula: Affiliation die (probably Buddy given her partnership with Haywire) + Distinction die + Power die (likely a resistance-based power) + Specialty die (probably her own combat die). The GM rolls it, and spends a die from his doom pool to try and boost an otherwise lackluster roll, but only manages a total of 9. Not only do I beat the GM's total, but I get an extraordinary success, allowing me to kick my primary effect die up one step, meaning Miss Marilyn is getting hit with a d12 and a d8.
Okay, but of rules fuzziness here, at least on my part, but the way stress (damage) is tracked, if the effect die of the most recent attack is higher than the degree of stress you already have, the smaller die is replaced without any added effect. But if the most recent attack as an effect die that's smaller than whatever stress die you currently have, the existing stress die gets bumped up a level. For instance, if Darkhawk already had a d6 on physical stress and got hit by a d10 effect, he'd step his physical stress up to d10. However, if the attack only did d4 stress, he'd go from a d6 in physical stress to d8. Now, what if you have two effect dice? It makes sense to apply the highest die first and then use any subsequent dice to kick it up, but the rules (at least from what I can tell) are vague on that point. That was how the GM ruled it, so that's how I'm playing it out in this example.
As d12 is the highest you can go in terms of stress (physical, emotional, or mental), Darkhawk's force blast causes Miss Marilyn to hit the top of her physical stress track. If I only had the one effect die, then she'd be battered but not out. However, since I do have that extra effect die, I'd force her to step her physical stress track up a die, but as it's already at a d12, she becomes "stressed out" which translates to her being taken out of the fight. So Darkhawk just took out the heavy hitter of the bad guy duo, but wound up drawing Haywire's ire in the process. Good thing Darkhawk's got a force shield to help protect him form the inevitable retaliation that's coming his way...
In the end, the impromptu quartet of heroes claimed victory of the crazed crook, and there was a surprisingly low degree of property damage (three store fronts, one billboard, an armored car, three civilian cars, and one police cruiser). I did have to use my Null Zone Repairs after nearly getting taken out by Haywire's reprisal. The way initiative in this game plays also works to reinforce a "group mentality" in that you do need to keep your fellow PCs in mind, and sometimes going last in the order can be a good thing for the good guys.
I'm still not 100% sold on this system, but at least it was fun, so I'm willing to give it another go at least once more. It's also an interesting crew, though I've still no idea what likely obscure character the other two guys are going to wind-up playing (they're both comic book geeks), but it should be interesting whatever they wind up choosing. Even if the character bore no resemblance to the comic book version, I'm now glad that film!Deadpool exists, as I shudder to think what the one guy that has a weapons-grade man-crush on comic!Deadpool would be like if he was allowed to play that character.
May 18, 2012
MHRPG - Random Datafile generator
In my last post, I mentioned that character generation for the Marvel Heroic RPG was pretty free-form.
Well, as it turns out, there's a free download offered by Margaret Weis Productions off their own website allows you randomly generate a character, and can be found at the following link:
http://www.margaretweis.com/images/stories/bonus_content/mhr_randomdatafiles.pdf
This could also be used as a set of guidelines for GMs to help their group make their own set of heroes. Especially if they're worried about potential system abuse, namely when it comes to powers and specialties, or the GM wants the heroes to have a unified theme (all-mutants, all cyborgs, all-aliens, etc).
Well, as it turns out, there's a free download offered by Margaret Weis Productions off their own website allows you randomly generate a character, and can be found at the following link:
http://www.margaretweis.com/images/stories/bonus_content/mhr_randomdatafiles.pdf
This could also be used as a set of guidelines for GMs to help their group make their own set of heroes. Especially if they're worried about potential system abuse, namely when it comes to powers and specialties, or the GM wants the heroes to have a unified theme (all-mutants, all cyborgs, all-aliens, etc).
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