Monday Motivations #12

Been hectic at work the last couple of weeks so this is a little late: 

Article #12 in a regular series where I offer up some ideas for character backgrounds by class.  I aim to collect these ideas together for a future pdf publication.

What made your character decide to become a wizard? Why did they leave their home town? Did they leave family behind or are they looking for something? These are all questions players face when generating their characters, with the best will in the world it's tempting to rely on cliché.

ASSASSIN

5. Family Business - Your childhood was a strange one, you were home schooled by both your parents in subjects as diverse as languages, preparation and application of poisons, mathematics, esoteric missile weapons.  You never questioned why you were being taught these skills.  On your 16th Birthday your father told you to go into town and deliver a letter to the baker insisting that you wore your best leather gloves.  Only moments after the baker read the letter his face turned purple and he keeled over stone dead.  You gingerly picked up the letter and to your amazement the postscript was written to you in your father's hand it read. "Happy Birthday Son, congratulations on completing your first job and welcome to the family business.  Now clean up any evidence that you poisoned the baker and come home..."


PALADIN

3. A Father's Secret - You were never close to your father and always saw him as an old an frail man, his body wracked by illness, old age and the rigours of farming life.  When he died during one particularly harsh winter you buried him as custom demands.  Being some twenty years old yourself and with no desire to continue trying to scratch a living from the soil you decided to sell the farm and move to the nearby town.  When you were sorting out the valuables from amongst his possessions you found a book, scrawled within it's pages in his familiar hand were journal entries describing the most fantastic adventures and acts of heroism you could imagine.  Was this really your father whose exploits you were reading about?  The final page was addressed to you and told you where to look for the sword and armour that your father had hidden and that his dying wish was that even though he had not schooled you in the ways of war, that you would take up the sword and shield and fight for truth, justice and honour...

MONK

4. True Wisdom from Experience - It is written in the teachings of one of the most venerable ancestors of your temple that one cannot be taught wisdom from a book and that the truly wise must learn from experience.  This tennet has been handed down to each and every monk of your order since and has formed one of the most important lessons that a novice must undertake... The life outside.  Stripped of the comforts of a daily routine and the wise words of his teachers a novice must journey outside the temple for a period of not less than 1 year and return to the temple to be tested by the abbot himself.  Some novices return and fail the test, fewer rise to join the ranks of the teachers, most are never seen or heard from again...


5. The Watchers - It is said that History is written by the victor.  This is untrue, History is written by you and your fellow monks of the order of the all seeing eye.  Once you have completed your training you are despatched to all the corners of the known world to record the passing of events.  Whenever a battle is fought you account for the losses from each side and the amount of land given or taken, you and your brothers have witnessed momentous cosmic events, the birth of kings, the death of dynasties and the rise and fall of nations all with an impartial impassive eye...

DRUID

5. Side Effects - After that nasty business with the mayor's wife's skin turning purple there was little call for your remedies in your home town.  You decided that there was more money to be made on the open road, so you sold what little possessions you had to buy a small covered wagon and set yourself up as a doktor of physick selling your own remedies for common ailments as you pass through the towns and villages on your way to who knows where...

 

No Monday Motivations this week

Sorry folks, but there's no new Monday Motivations this week as, in the words of the Fast Show's Jesse "I are mostly been having... a campaign arc breakthrough".  Once it's safe to spill the beans I will let the idea loose on this blog.

TLOD Campaign Report: The Teaser Trailer

Whilst running my current campaign game tonight I did something new and dropped in a teaser trailer. Whilst the PCs made their way back out of a forest after completing a mission they glimpsed a tower through a gap in the trees.  I made them struggle to hack through the jungle before being ultimately frightened off by a giant bear.

I hope that they appreciate the payback in a future session...

You can read about their exploits in my campaign site The Lands of Dual

Character Accents: Rastamouse "'im proper tuff"

UK readers will no doubt be aware of the mild furore that Rastamouse has been causing since he debuted on the BBC childrens channel CBeebies.  For those not acquainted, Rastamouse is a rastafarian mouse detective who along with his band "Da Easy Crew" solves minor crimes in mouseland.  The issue causing all this consternation  is should a public broadcaster (the BBC) be teaching impressionable under-fives Jamaican Patois.

I'm not going to concern myself with the wailings of the Daily Mail readership but draw your attention to this excellent resource which will help you to learn how to speak patois for those essential Jamaican character accents.

Citymorphs #021 to #024

Another 4 Citymorphs this week, and the secret theme is revealed...

#021 - Hospital District

A tightly packed complex of hospitals clinics and spa nestled in some parkland make Morphia the envy of most of her neighbours.  Morphians benefit from the wide variety of treatments for most common ailments and not just battlefield injuries. 

#022 - Beverley's Hills

Some of the richest Morphian residents have chosen to set up their homes in this lush but stepped landscape which overlooks the town.  Thought to have been created by an enraged mage many hundreds of years ago is the real secret that it keeps the residents looking young beyond their years... 

#023 - Citywall Breach

Many years ago in the last great siege this section of wall was breached in a powerful explosion, fusing the remaining stones together.  Over the years the residents using this new shortcut have worn a path over the earthmound and through the breach establishing a thoroughfare. 

#024 - Market

I thought it was about time that I provided a marketplace for the inhabitants to buy and sell all of life's little essentials.  A wide variety of stalls occupy the dirt square with a fountain at it's centre.  Animal pens are to be found in the southeast corner of this tile and the borders are filled with an assortment of cannopied shops and restaurants.









And the secret theme?

If you arrange tiles #013 to #022 in order they spell out CITYMORPHS, see:

which I've also added to my T-Shirt Store.

Enjoy

Monday Motivations #11

Article #11 in a regular series where I offer up some ideas for character backgrounds by class.  I aim to collect these ideas together for a future pdf publication.

What made your character decide to become a wizard? Why did they leave their home town? Did they leave family behind or are they looking for something? These are all questions players face when generating their characters, with the best will in the world it's tempting to rely on cliché.

WIZARD


5. Star Child - You do not remember much about your early childhood other than that your foster parents found you in a shallow ditch blasted in a corn field.  As you grew older and your powers manifested themselves they warned you to learn to hide that you were different lest others find out and turn against you.  When in your teens they succumbed to the ravages of old age there was nothing to stop you forging out into a new and strange world in search of answers...

ILLUSIONIST

3.  The Great Thespian - Your early years were an idyl spent playing with your brothers and sisters in the caravans of your parents travelling theatre.  Your schooling consisted of mimicking your favourite characters from the tragedies and comedies you saw your parents play night after night as you travelled from town to town.  As a teen you learned all the theatrical arts from actor to stage hand and honed your skills at night in supporting roles. 

Your parents recognized that somehow your performances, even in the smallest of parts would often bewitch and delight the audience, but they could never understand where this talent came from.  Until after a successful night playing in a sleepy village in the middle of nowhere a wizened old man asked to see your parents after the performance.  He said that your skill was the work of magic and as an illusionist of the first rank he could not allow your parents to waste your talent on the stage and proposed that he make you his apprentice. 

When several weeks later you had journeyed a thousand leagues from your homeland the illusionist disposed of his cunningly crafted disguise and revealed his true identity, he was infact the great thespian himself. You stood awestruck at the deception he had perpetrated on you and your parents and only narrowly avoided being skewered by his sword.  As he lunged and you parried, he explained how he could not allow a talent like yours to overshadow his own and had decided to ensure that you would never upstage him.  Sadly his talents did not extend to swordplay and his orations were cut short as you jabbed your rapier through his heart...
 
PALADIN

2. Dishonourable Conduct - Although you were happy being just a regular soldier in the Kings army, you never enjoyed the rough housing or esprit de corps as the officers called it.  Sometimes you thought your comrades were as bad as the enemy you were sent to into battle to kill.  All this changed for you when after a particularly bloodthirsty engagement you had to defend a young village girl from being sullied by one of your own sergeants.  You stood trial by courts martial for acts of insubordination, and were it not for the pleadings of the chaplain your neck would have long since been stretched by the hangman's noose.  Your punishment was commuted to life servitude in the order of paladins, a band of desperate men who, forced to give up their fate to the mercy of God, were despatched to the farthest reaches of the kingdom to despatch the Kings enemies no matter how suicidal the mission or overwhelming the odds.

DRUID

4. A Man in a Woman's World - You didn't realise it at the time, but all through your childhood your grandmother taught you the ways of the spirit world.  How to bend nature to do your bidding and when to bend to nature's will.  The skills and knowledge which have been passed down from mother to daughter since time began are not normally taught to boys but your grandmother insisted that as your parents only child you were to be taught these lessons lest the old ways be lost to future generations.  When the time came for her to pass into the spirit realm, the druids from the other nearby villages assembled to appoint her successor.  Their shock as you were presented to them was palpable, and even though you demonstrated your extensive knowledge of the rites and incantations your grandmother had so patiently taught you they would not accept you as one of their equals and cast you out as an abomination...

MONK

3.  Collectors of Truth - The training was arduous and the mortality rate high, but only the most proficient students of your order are selected to become collectors.  Their mission, to be despatched to the four corners of the world to accumulate knowledge in all it's forms and to return it to the monastery for recording and analysis by the multitude of scribes.  To survive the dangers of the outside world a collector must be wise beyond his years in order to identify Truth from Untruth, have the mental capacity to store the knowledge and possess the self preservation skills necessary to protect it on it's often perilous journey home...

UPDATE 2: RPG Google Mapping with MAPLib

I recently blogged my experiences with MAPLib 6 months on, wherein I postulated that if the map had placenames next to it's markers it might reach KILLER APP status.  Well, it looks like the guys at MAPLib were listening as lo and behold placenames now feature on my map and I didn't have to lift a finger to add them, awesome work guys.

I've been Dave'd...

For all of you out there following the Citymorph articles I've been posting, Dave Millar has kindly included my morphs in his Dave's Mapper Tool.  Admittedly citymorph's need a bit more fineagling than most but the results are very rewarding.  5 minutes spent rotating and swapping the odd tile here and there and hey presto!

A medieval urban sprawl is born...

Citymorphs #017 to #020

4 more Citymorphs for you this week, have you spotted the secret theme yet...

#017 - The Docks

The Bigger vessels need somewhere sheltered to do their running repairs out of mainstream river traffic.
A recent addition to the docks are the three large cranes which are singularly responsible for halving the stevedore labour force which would have been loading and loading the ships that berth here.  Needless to say the Stevedores Guild is mobilizing as we speak and there is likely to be an all out strike. 

#018 - The Keep

If the city walls should be breached the Morphian Lord has somewhere heavily fortified to retreat to.  However, in times of peace it has become little more than a museum in which to house many of the cities archives and is popular among the scholars of the university district.  Several enterprising market traders have therefore set up their stalls within its shadow to catch the passing students who are alway in need of parchment, writing instruments and ink. 

#019 - The Bath House District

Morphians like to keep clean so the municipal council invested heabily in it's public waterworks schemes.  The Great Bath House in the centre is fed continually with clean water and it disgorges it's waste into the river.  Only the richest can afford the luxuries of private bathing in these sumptuous surroundings.  Downstream are the ever popular public bathing steps where even the common man can bathe in full view of his peers.    

#020 - The Bastille

Morphians who fall foul of the law are incarcerated in this prison which rests on a pillar of bassalt giving its inmates commanding views over the city.  The Barracks block at the foot of the hill ensures that there is a ready supply of soldiers to keep any unrest among the prison population to an absolute minimum.

Monday Motivations #10

Article #10 in a regular series where I offer up some ideas for character backgrounds by class.  I aim to collect these ideas together for a future pdf publication.

What made your character decide to become a wizard? Why did they leave their home town? Did they leave family behind or are they looking for something? These are all questions players face when generating their characters, with the best will in the world it's tempting to rely on cliché.

BARBARIAN


5.  Left Behind - Last year your tribe set out on a raiding voyage and all was right with the world.  You pillaged a handful of villages along the coast, and then took the river inland like you had done many times.  However, when you rounded the bend near a particularly fertile spot of the countryside, to your horror the townsfolk were lining the banks of the river.  They'd never done this before, usually they were compliant and played by the rules, you raided their villages for crops, livestock and the odd wife and afterwards they went about whatever it was that they had to do to make ready for your visit next year.  When they started firing wave after wave if flaming arrows at the boat, the chief had had enough and ordered you to turn the boat around.  The oarsmen stroked the water with a new sense of urgency but it was not enough to put you out of range of the villagers bows.  When an arrow stuck you in the back you staggered to the side of the boat, slipped on the blood of your childhood friend Boggart and tumbled overboard, banging your head on the side of the boat.  You came too some minutes later as you drifted downstream, luckily you hadn't drowned, but there was no sign of the boat and you were a long way from home in a strange land full of people who wanted to kill you... 

CLERIC

5.  Roll the bones - your god demands blood sacrifice every solstice to give thanks for the bounteous crop which will sustain it through the winter.  This year however when you performed the choosing ritual and cast the bones to select a goat to sacrifice you were horrified.  Instead of pointing to one of the assembled animals it indicated that this years sacrifice would be human and would be the chieftains daughter.  You hastily performed the ritual three more times and each time the bones indicated that the god wanted the chieftains daughter in payment for his favours...

MONK

2.  World Harmony - Your order shoulders the heavy burden of  maintaining a ritual without which the world would eventually stop.   Your brothers chant perpetually all day every day, this constant background tone vibrates through everything on the planet and keeps the world in a constant state of movement.  People of a good nature will vibrate in harmony those of an evil disposition will vibrate dissonantly.  Your job is to journey out into the unknown and detect these dissonants and either train them to resonate harmoniously or to despatch them...


ILLUSIONIST


1.  Inquisitor - The king and his descendants have used your kind for hundreds of years to keep the kingdom free of dissent.  Your job is to travel from town to village to sniff out signs of rebellion using your powers of persuasion and mind reading.  "What happens after you write your report is not your concern" were the words of your old teacher, but you know that the people you report on are never seen or heard from again.  When you returned home some months ago, your father's mind was full of rebellious thoughts about the kingdom, you planted a masking which might last a year, but if another inquisitor were to read his mind he'd be able to tell that it was your spell...

2. The Puppeteer - You can't remember when your powers awoke, you've always been able to suggest things to people and they've done what you asked.  As you got older the tasks you asked people to perform for you were a means to enrich yourself and ultimately brought you to the attentions of the local sheriff and his mind was not as easy to control as the others especially when he had his mage with him.  You read the guards intentions from some distance away, the night they came to arrest you and you've been on the run ever since...

Citymorphs #013 to #016

Four more citymorphs to keep your appetite's whetted...

#013 - Parkland - 002

A small urban park surrounded by small buildings and some sort of barrack type building possibly a stables.  I leave the rest up to you. 

#014 - A River Runs Through It

More open spaces to keep the population healthy and happy.  A river runs through this one with a sort of tunnel affair.  On Sundays you just can't move for Anglers trying to land the big black pike that is rumoured to live in the river... 

#015 - Crematorium

Despite all the green spaces when you shuffle of the mortal coil your relatives won't wont you cluttering up the house so they bring your corpse here.  If you're rich enough they might bury you in one of the few grave plots that they've still got free, otherwise it's up the chimney like the rest of us. 

#016 - Temple District

The Gods like their worshippers to build big ostentatious Temples in their honour and big wide avenues along which to process.

UPDATE: RPG Google mapping with MAPLib

In an earlier article I wrote about How to make your own Fantasy Googlemap with MapLib without needing to be a code monkey, which has consistently proved to be the most popular article on my blog despite the lack of comments.  I always intended to replace the rather uninspiring "test images" I used to centre the maps with a demo map of my own creation.  Well, life has a nasty habit of getting in he way and I've been too busy with my current C&C campaign and other projects like Citymorphs.

So here at last is my demo map which I am actively using in my campaign.



Observations after 6 Months Use

1. ZOOM - As you can see the map zoom isn't perfect, the placemarker images don't scale with the zoom which means when you're zoomed out fully (as above) they don't "geolocate" anymore.  This is annoying but not a total disaster.

2. PLACE MARKERS - I've used the bog standard icons for everything but the Capital Cities (which is a shared marker) for fear that if an owner left the shared marker would disappear from the library.

3. PLACE NAMES - When you hover over a marker it displays the name associated with it, which is nice.  However it would be really useful to be able to set a display variable for each marker which would display the name alongside the marker.

4. REGIONS - Although you can draw regions, turning them into hotspots in a client side image map fashion, there are no options for just adding text to the map.

5. LINKING - I've managed to link some of the pop-up descriptions back to my campaign blog for "Read more" links (Try clicking on the Capital icon for Sankahar City), but this requires a bit of HTML knowledge to ensur that your link target is set correctly.  The editing interface is a little clunky for my tastes, for example if you don't submit an edit whilst still in HTML view it interprets and displays your HTML.

6. UPDATING YOUR IMAGE - The most annoying feature is that once you've done all the work and added your place markers, if you ever need to update your map image, you can't.  This does seem like a massive oversight on the part of the developers and could ultimately limit its usability as a tool, not just for RPG mapping but any mapping.  Maps have a tendency to be revised, in the real world political boundaries are redrawn on a regular basis and with regime change comes country name changing.

7. COLLABORATIVE MAPPING - I've not really explored the collaborative mapping functions but from some of the other collaborative mapping projects which feature in the MapLib gallery it seems that other users are getting on fine with them. 

8. SHARING YOUR MAP - The sharing options are standard fare but irritatingly if you choose to grab the link to a static image it doesn't show any of the place markers at all!!.  Again this seems like an oversight on the developers side (unless there's some overarching Intellectual Property Rights issue I'm not aware of) and this is where in RPG terms the text display of names next to markers feature would make this a KILLER APP.

Aside from the two big issues I've listed above it's still worth checking it out and I hope that any of you who've read this will drop me a comment and a link to your own maps.

Happy MAPLibing y'all

Monday Motivations #9

Article #9 in a regular series where I offer up some ideas for character backgrounds by class.  I aim to collect these ideas together for a future pdf publication.

What made your character decide to become a wizard? Why did they leave their home town? Did they leave family behind or are they looking for something? These are all questions players face when generating their characters, with the best will in the world it's tempting to rely on cliché.

KNIGHT

Paladin by Katie De Sousa

3.  Lost Crusader - You were born into a noble family trained from birth to be a knight and to fight alongside other noble sons as a knight in the kings army.  The tales of honour, glory and valour which were taught to yiu as a child did not prepare you for the grim reality of war when as a young noble you were sent to fight in a foreign land on a holy crusade.  Your training didn't contain lessons on how to kill women and children, or how to burn down whole towns and villages as the army roamed agross the land like some savage beast.  Eventually the tides of war turned on the kings army, in one ferocious battle the defenders had the upper hand and the army was routed, you were lost far from home in a foreign land surrounded by a people that only days before you were trying to slaughter...

4.  A Squire's Chance - You'd followed your knight across hill and dale, tundra and desert, forest and ocean since father entrusted you into his care.  The days are long and the work never ending with never a thank you nor a coin to spend of your own.  When you woke one morning to find him slumped over the table after a night's gambling and drinking in the local tavern you cursed that you would soon suffer one of his beatings if you had not completed your chores.  By noon he still had not stirred, so you went to check on him, he was still slumped over the table.  Gingerly you prodded him with your wooden practice sword and his lifeless body rolled off the bench and onto the floor.  His face was purple and his eyes had rolled up into his skull, there was no doubt about it he was dead.  Your years of hoping for a chance like this had finally paid off, and you swung your plan that you had rehearsed so many times into action.  You swapped your clothes with him, packed the armour and weapons and loaded the horses.  By nightfall you were 20 leagues away from your past and well on the road to fame and fortune as a true knight...

5. Country Justice -  The Prelate of your monastery bestowed the honour of Marschall upon you three summers ago.  Since then you have roamed the five counties tracking down bandits and thieves, defending villages from ravenous beasts which raid their homes for food and rooting out the odd band of goblins or tribe of kobolds who seem intent on setting up home in your peaceful homeland.  The lifestyle suits you, and you've never been happier than when you're riding out into the wilderness to pursue some vagabond or villain intent on meting out justice from the saddle at swordpoint...


PALADIN

1.  An Old Code - You were just a regular soldier in a regular army sent by your lord to burn the library of some town you can't even remember the name of.  The only difference between you and the rest of your company was that you could read.  You knew that setting fire to the library was a bad thing and that the gods would likely punish you for doing so, so you grabbed the first book you came across and stuffed it inside your breastplate.  Back at the barracks that night you opened up the book to read what you had saved from the flames.  It was the life account of a holy warrior who fought evil and injustice wherever he found it.  He was noble in thought, deed and word because he lived by a holy code.  The code which you committed to memory and which you have vowed you will live by from now on...

BARBARIAN

4.  Slave Child - You were not born into a barbarian tribe, you were enslaved into one.  You were born in a land far away, when your parents were killed in one of the tribe's pillaging raids, you were taken back to their land across the sea with the other loot.  You were given to one of the barren wives cast off by the chieftain to raise as her own and look after her in her old age.  Your new mother was outwardly grateful for the kindness shown to her by the chieftain, but as you found out later, secretly harboured revenge against her husband and his new wife.  As you grew up in your new home you were schooled alongside the other children by the best teachers the tribe had to offer in how to fight, track, hunt, fish, sail and survive in the barabarian way and by night your surrogate mother taught you about the world, where you came from and  that you had been sent to her by the gods as a weapon to strike down the Chieftain.  At age 15 you took the rite of passage to manhood and became a fully fledged member of the tribe and at age 17 you took part in your first raid during which you used the confusion of battle to your advantage, slew the chieftain and faked your own death in a burning house.  You have since put many leagues and years between you and your barabrian upbringing and embarked on a new quest to find your true family and true heritage...

Citymorphs #009 to #012

A big thanks to Risus for the plugging Citymorphs in the Geomorph Roundup.  Here's four more:

#009 - Parkland

Too many orderly streets makes the morphians walk in straight lines, they need to feel the wind in their hair and wet grass under their toes.

#010 - Citywall Bastion

Every old city will have seen it's fair share of war and it's ruler may have built some sort of defensive wall for the people to hide behind.  Notice the groundworks to elevate this section and the set of stairs to get those archers up high.

#011 - Citywall Straight

A straight section of citywall this time.  When laying this tile make sure you've built the stairs and earthworks on the same side otherwise the siege will be over in minutes.

#012 - Citywall Gatehouse

The wall needed some way of keeping the riffraff out but allowing the townsfolk in, so here's a useful gatehouse.

Monday Motivations #8

Article #8 in a regular series where I offer up some ideas for character backgrounds by class.  I aim to collect these ideas together for a future pdf publication.

What made your character decide to become a wizard? Why did they leave their home town? Did they leave family behind or are they looking for something? These are all questions players face when generating their characters, with the best will in the world it's tempting to rely on cliché.

BARD

4.  The Collector's Curse - As a child, whenever you went missing you were always found in the inn at the feet of whoever was telling tales of Legend, Lore, Myth and Mystery.  And so it went on until the boy became a man.  Until on stormy winter's night a strange, sick old man came in from the rain and took up the place at the hearth.  He coughed and spluttered his way through many tales and even when most of the villagers had long since left for their beds you begged another.  The old man began to tell his own tale, when on a night much like this one a wizard cursed him to roam the lands gathering up tales for all to hear, and with one last wracking cough the old man died passing his curse onto you...

5.  The Greatest Song - As a child you heard many wandering minstrel's pass through the village but none were as strange as one particular elf who passed through.  He captivated everyone that day and a lot of coin was thrown into his hat.  Of all the songs you heard before and since non were as sweet and enchanting as the one he played that day.  As a budding amateur player you decided that you would hone your skills and track the elf down and get him to teach you the greatest song in the world...

BARBARIAN

Dwarven Barbarian by Gold-Seven

2. Dreamquest - The Gods visited you in your dreams last night and led you on a journey to find a desolate volcanic island.  As you followed through many different lands you faced many challenges, some tests of strength, some tests of endurance and some tests of the heart, you gathered around you seven heroes each with a special talent destined to help you in your final challenge.  After many years of travelling you search for the Isle was over and you confronted the great beast who spoke your name and challenged you to mortal combat.  The battle was fierce and long and one by one your comrades fell to the beast, your bravery undiminished you finally spotted a weakness in the beast's defences and struck. It was at this moment that you awoke, sweating.  After several nights of dreaming the same dream and waking at the same crucial moment you consulted the village wise woman who told you that the dream was a sign from the gods that you would not have peace until you could slay the beast and fulfill your destiny...

DRUID

3.  New Official Religion - You take little notice of the political affairs of man, the rolling plains of your homeland bear the scars of countless Kings buried under their soil mounds and yet the forests encroach inexorably over them.  However, this new King has brought a religion with him from across the seas, he has proclaimed it to be the official religion and will not tolerate the old ways.  There's no alternative for you but to move on to a new home where you are free to dance naked in moonlight and talk to whatever animals you like be they chickens or men...

CLERIC

Field Marschall Kruger

4. Holy Child - Although your memory of the event is hazy, your parents began treating you differently when you healed your brother's broken arm when you accidentally pushed him out of a tree.  You said you were sorry and that you didn't mean it and like magic your brother's arm was mended.  Word got out that you had this gift and suddenly people you didn't know started turning up at the family farm wanting you to make them better.  Blind people, those with deformed limbs, even the occasional leper and they often gave your parents food or sometimes money.  You didn't mind helping, you would probably have done it anyway, but your parents made sure that any chores you might have had to do were done by your brothers and sisters.  Of course this didn't go down well with your brothers and sisters who hated you for being special and teased you mercilessly, but you never wished ill of them and always included them in your prayers each and every night.  A few years later a priest visited the farm and he had a retinue of soldiers with him.  You were examined by the priest and he watched as your father slashed his own wrist and you healed it closed.  They talked in private for what seemed like hours and when they emerged your parents fighting back tears told you that you had to go with this priest and he would take care of you...

KNIGHT

1. Penniless Prince - Being a Knight isn't cheap these days, there's the cost of feeding your horse and serf, armour repaired and polished, weapons sharpened, the list goes on.  When the Prince asked you and your fellow Knights to bear with him during his latest cashflow crisis you made cut-backs and economies out of loyalty but after 3 months without pay you'd had enough and you paid off your serf and headed out on the road to find a new employer who would understand that your honourable profession requires respect of the silver and gold variety...

BONUS BACKGROUNDS


Because I screwed up in Article #4 and both duplicated a background and only posted 4 instead of the usual 5, here are 2 extra ones to make up:

KNIGHT

2.  Tourney Pro - You abhor the idea of charging into a battle in your shiny armour to get it all scratched up not to mention the fact that you might die.  Which is why you've spent the last few years travelling from one tournament to another to earn a living.  You love the roar of the crowds the smell of the armour polish, the favours of a comely barons daughter or a serving wench when you're down on your luck.  When times are tough you might even partake in a spot of goblin hunting, but never when the odds are against you...

MONK

1.  National Service - Where you come from it is law that every first-born son enters the monastery and learns the fighting techniques that have been perfected by the countless generations that have gone before.  The Empire needs people to defend it's borders from marauders and people to ensure that the public remain compliant and law abiding.  Some do not survive the training to reach maturity, others do not master their chosen style, but you, and a handful of your class, have achieved mastery and will fulfill your destiny as servants of the empire wherever that may take you...

Papercraft: Ruined Columns

My regular Friday group began another chapter in their on-going campaign which called for them to explore an ancient ruined temple.  The scenario I'm DMing is lifted straight out of an issue of Dungeon Magazine and the map of the temple is dominated by a huge room with lots of toppled columns, some of which have crashed through walls exposing new routes and blocking off others.  I drew out the main room and was particularly unhappy with the result, it was hard to replicate the adhoc passageways and the columns just looked like giant frankfurters, so I decided to make some ruined columns of my own.

As I've found with my other papercraft projects like the Adventurer's Cart, a 3D element can be a real game changer when it comes to combat, so I quickly knocked up a design for a large 4" column and a short stubby 2" column using Google Sketchup and the Unfold Plug-in (See my Papercrafting article for more info) and then exported them as 2D artwork into Photoshop for resizing to the correct scale.

Once printed and cut out they're very easy to put together as they're simple tubes.  I inserted a large bolt into each column before sealing them up, it's not essential but it acts as a weight to keep them from toppling over when the player's get excited. 

• 2" x 1" Ruined Columns (PDF 1Mb) - makes 6 columns
• 4" x 1" Ruined Columns (PDF 934Kb) - makes 3 columns

Enjoy, and don't be afraid to drop me a comment with other papercraft suggestions.

Citymorphs #005 to #008

The first batch of Citymorphs taught me a few lessons (like making the jpgs 300 pixels square) and that if they are going to be used by a randomizer engine I'll have to incorporate some features like edge tunnels if I want another point of tesselation.  So here are four more...

#005 - Harbour and Canal

Another harbour tile, this time with a river or canal, adding a new middle edge feature, I'm still learning here... 

#006 - Very Little Venice

All towns and cities are going to have a river running throught them in some way, so here's a tile with a river bending through it's middle.  Of course to keep it tesselating I had to add in some bridges and edge tunnels which needed a bit of thought.

#007 - Harbour and factory

Enthused with the transparency experiments on the bridges of #006 Very Little Venice I decided to give the factory in this tile a bit of smoke for it's furnaces and of course some coal barges to keep those fires burning.  I have no idea what the factory makes but its location close to the harbour is ideal for exporting its products and importing its raw materials..

#008 - The Chasm

A few years ago a great chasm opened up in the ground and swallowed some buildings.  The river has greated a lake at the chasm's bottom but it must have found a tunnel to flow out of as it always seems to stay at a constant level.  The locals have recently built a bridge to keep some traffic moving through this area but some of the ruined buildings still rest precariously over the chasm edge.

Monday Motivations #7

Article #7 in a regular series where I offer up some ideas for character backgrounds by class.  I aim to collect these ideas together for a future pdf publication.

What made your character decide to become a wizard? Why did they leave their home town? Did they leave family behind or are they looking for something? These are all questions players face when generating their characters, with the best will in the world it's tempting to rely on cliché.

BARD

Bard by AIBryce

1.  Every Bard Needs a Hero - You've made a respectable living up to now sing in the various inns and taverns of your homeland, but singing the same old songs and telling the same old tales has begun to wear thin.  It is said that a bard is only as good as the hero he follows, you must therefore strike out and find your own hero who you can immortalise in song...

2.  The Great Bard's Instrument - When you needed to repair your instrument after a particulary rowdy evening in a local tavern you stumbled across a dusty tome of the Great Bard's work in the luther's workshop.  The tales and songs were familiar but it was the illustration of the Great Bard himself which captivated you.  You had never seen his image before or the instrument he played, so different from your own.  When you ask the luther if he can make such an instrument he tells you that the instrument was made long ago in a land far away and perhaps they have the skills and knowledge to recreate it.

3.  The Masked Mariachi - The people are a sad and dispirited lot, their backs and spirits have been broken by the work party enforcers sent by their despotic ruler to harvest the crops and mine the ore needed to further his own ends.  The people need to rise up and overthrow him, but to do this they need hope, the kind of hope that can be spread through song.  You know that this won't be easy, you'll need to travel swiftly from village to village, be selective in where you play, and you'll need a disguise but the people need you.  The people need the Masked Mariachi...

DRUID

1.  Blight - A terrible blight has cursed the land and the desperate townsfolk turned to you to save their crops, there was nothing you could do.  Your grove has withered and in order to save it you have uprooted it's heart vine which now sits safely in a pot of earth in your backpack as you try to find a new home far from your blighted birthplace.  Perhaps the townfolk will forgive you for abandoning them if you could only find a cure...

2.  Nature's Balance - You became aware of a shift in the natural order of things several months ago during a peyote ritual.  The visions you had showed a dark tide sweeping across the land and plants and animals alike withered and died in it's wake.  The visions grew stronger each time you performed the ritual and you became convinced that the only way you can stem the tide and regain the essential balance is to journey into the heart of darkness and cut out it's root...

Citymorphs #001 to #004

Inspired by Risus and Dyson, I've started geomorphing, but as I mostly enjoy DMing urban environments I thought I'd try something a bit different.  So here are the first in a series of Citymorphs:

#001 Palace District

Every city has to have a big cheese and they need a nice place to crash, of course the hangers on and other courtly types need somewhere to live close which makes for a similar architecture and style.

#002 Colliseum

The people have bread, so give them a circus.  Print off 2 of this tile and you have a whole colliseum for them to while away the hours watching chariot races.

#003 Harbour

Maybe your city is also a port, if so it'll need somewhere to land those ships and some warehouses to store goods and cargo.  It'll also need some sort of harbour master's buildings to control what comes in and what goes out.

#004 Municipal Buildings

With all this commerce going on there's got to be some sort of tax collection and administration going on.  Civil servants like nice buildings to make them feel important so grand architecture and domes are the order of the day.

Monday Motivations #6

Article #6 in a regular series where I offer up some ideas for character backgrounds by class.  I aim to collect these ideas together for a future pdf publication.

What made your character decide to become a wizard? Why did they leave their home town? Did they leave family behind or are they looking for something? These are all questions players face when generating their characters, with the best will in the world it's tempting to rely on cliché.

RANGER

2.  The King's Deer - Your family were starving and even though you knew it was wrong you shot the King's deer to survive the harsh winter.  Your Father was livid when you returned with the carcass, you explained that you were careful to clean the spot where you gutted it and bury the entrails but he didn't speak to you for weeks.  When the King's Warden posted bounty you knew that in order to protect your family you would have to leave your home and go on the run...

3.  Sacked - You were one of the Baron's huntsmen until the day the castle was sacked by a Goblin horde.  You had no love for the Baron, who was a blundering oaf when it came to tracking and stalking, but it was the beatings he personally administered to you as a stable boy which made you hate him.  You did little to help him when you chanced upon him in a clearing, soon after the castle had fallen, trapped under the weight of his dying prize charger.  The sounds of his screaming when the Goblin's found him still haunt you across the many leagues you have travelled since... 

4.  Trophy Hunter - The old ranger to whom you were apprenticed taught you many things, the woodcraft necessary to stay alive in the wilderness, how to differentiate and track prey from their prints and stool, how to set traps and lure the prey to them and how to butcher your kill quickly so the meat does not taint.  These challenges would satisfy most rangers, but your lust for knowledge is insatiable.  The day came when the old ranger told you that he could teach you no more, with some swallowing of pride, he admitted that your skills had far surpassed his own and that he had been learning more from you than he had been teaching you for the last year or more.  His advice to you was to travel to distant lands and to find new prey to hunt and new teachers to learn from...

5.  Big Fish - Your skill with the bow is legendary in the province where you were raised and your success in local tournaments earned you your freemanship.  However, in the last tournament you entered you were soundly beaten by a strange bowman with sun darkened skin from the desert lands.  His accuracy and speed drew gasps from the crowd and incredulity from you.  Your friends did little to help your dark demeanor that night in the inn, barracking you with taunts of "big fish, little pond".  To save face you brashly claimed that you would travel to the home of the black bowman and learn his secrets.  Their taunts echo in your mind as you pass through yet another backwater village on your long journey south...

CLERIC

3. Missing Relic - Your order was founded in a time of war, its' first and most revered Abbot was killed on the battlefield in a distant land as part of a crusade to bring the word of your God to the unbeliever.  Your Abbot has decided that your final test as a novice is to retrieve the lost foot of the founding Abbot and return it to the reliquary where it belongs.  You have been furnished with a map showing the approximate whereabouts of the battlefield and a scroll which Scrollmaster Deach has created at great personal cost to help you located the missing remains...

The Lands of Dual - A Dirty Dungeon Bash

After an introductory scenario my new campaign kicked off proper in Session 4 with a bit of light dungeoneering in the sewers.  The full session report can be read on my dedicated campaign site but my players seem to have enjoyed their first real taste of of Castles and Crusades.

Part of the sewer network of the town of Ayfal

I've been decorating at home recently and uncovered an abortive attempt to build a Worldworks style gaming board which promptly got canibalised for custom floorplans.  These seemed to go down well but the small rooms and even smaller corridors got the party stacked up in single file, resulted in two characters being involved in melee and blocking the entrance for others to assist.

This may be symptomatic of the 5' square concept for floor plans which I've always thought that however "materially" necessary it does lead to very cramped dungeons.  It may also be as a result of my players being a bit rusty at dungeon bashing.

Still I enjoyed DMing the scenario immensely (even though I hadn't spent too much time actually reading it) and can't wait for the next instalment.

Monday Motivations #5

Article #5 in a regular series where I offer up some ideas for character backgrounds by class.  I aim to collect these ideas together for a future pdf publication.

What made your character decide to become a wizard? Why did they leave their home town? Did they leave family behind or are they looking for something? These are all questions players face when generating their characters, with the best will in the world it's tempting to rely on cliché.

ASSASSIN

3.  New Sheriff in Town - When a new Sheriff arrived a few months back, things just started to take a turn for the worse.  He ferreted out some of your Assassin's Guild colleagues and the jobs started to dry up.  The final straw came when the Guild Master decided to close up shop.  You decide to strike out on your own, perhaps another town's Guild will have need of your skills...

4.  Set-up - That last job you did went South pretty quickly, those bodyguards knew you were coming.  Someone in the Guild is either supplying false intelligence or someone's put out a contract on you, but who? and why?  One things for sure, you can't go back to the Guild a failure, they kill failures...

WIZARD

3.  Magical Runt.  Being a wizard runs in your family your mother and father and your little sister are all wizards and they're far more accomplished than you will ever be.  Which is why you decided to run away and set up yourself up as a hedge wizard in a far flung corner of the world...

4.  Army deserter!  - Around your twelfth birthday your powers manifested themselves.  You were promptly registered with the local magistrate and you forgot about it completely as you buried yourself into your new studies.  Nine years later you shouldn't have been surprised when the kings letter arrived drafting you into the Mage corps of his army.  It wasn't long before you couldn't take anymore of the endless drilling so one night you escaped the compound and made a break for enemy lines...

BARBARIAN

3. A Legendary Blade - Whilst out hunting one day your prey darted into the relative safety of a small copse of trees and you hunter's instinct told you to follow.  The copse was deceptively dense and soon you needed to hack a path through the tightly knit trees.  You slash your way into a clearing and discover a pair of large boulders and lying at their foot a skeletal warrior holding a finely wrought blade.  The warrior has clearly been dead for many years, his disintegrating armour is of a strange design, the like of which you have never seen, however, the sword he carries is untarnished and as you slide it out of it's scabard you marvel at the keenness of the edge as it reflects the light.  After taking the blade back home your sleep is disturbed by strange dreams and a voice calling out to you.  Each morning as you strike out to catch the day's pray you feel compelled to keep walking and leave your dreary tribal hunter's life for that of adventure and distant lands...

Tuesday Trailer - Summer Wars

Mamoru Hosoda (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) returns to direct one of her own short stories in "Summer Wars".

The virtual reality world of OZ is a huge and highly embedded social network, it has millions of account holders who have given it control of many aspects of their modern lives. Unfortunately "Love Machine" an AI starts to take over OZ with catastrophic results. As the boundary between reality and OZ becomes blurred, the only person who can stop Love Machine is a high school teen mathematician, Kenji Koiso.



Possibly more relevant to today's Social Generation than the Tron franchise with it's melange of different artwork styles reflecting the diversity of user generated content which inhabits todays social networks like flickr or myspace.  Is this the future of facebook... only time will tell...

Monday Motivations #4

Article #4 in a regular series where I offer up some ideas for character backgrounds by class.  I aim to collect these ideas together for a future pdf publication.

What made your character decide to become a wizard? Why did they leave their home town? Did they leave family behind or are they looking for something? These are all questions players face when generating their characters, with the best will in the world it's tempting to rely on cliché.

ASSASSIN

1. Revenge from Within - A loved one was murdered by an Assassin, the only way you can wreak your revenge is to become an Assassin yourself, gain access to the Guild's records and find out who hired the killer and why your loved one had to die...

2. Assassins Orphanage - When your parents died in a tragic accident the city's council made you a ward of the city, as is the law, and placed you in the care of the city orphanage whilst a search for your relatives was undertaken.  Only a select few are aware that the orphanage is a front for the Guild of Assassins.  They select the brightest orphans to undergo the complex and arduous training to become a silent killer like yourself...

WIZARD

1.  Royal Edict - some people say that the King is paranoid, but most keep their tongues in their heads lest the tyrant pluck them out.  Worst still are the many heinous persecutions he has exacted on those who possess magic.  From the mere hedge wizard to the master of guild of wizards he has imprisoned , tortured and executed all those who show even the slightest sign of thaumaturgical ability.  What drives him is a mystery but his edict banning the practicing of magic on pain of death resulted in you being spirited away from your mother and father, as a child, by your crazy old grandfather to his tumbledown tower just outside the king's reach on the other side of the border.  Your life has been one long lesson interspersed with drudgery, your reward being able to bend arcane forces to your will...

2.  Power Awakened.  Your idyllic childhood on a smallholding in a peaceful part of the kingdom was shattered when you almost killed your brother with a lightning bolt.  When your magical powers were awakened, your families' attitude to you changed, where once there was love now you found fear.  One day your father brought a strange old man to the house who poked and prodded and waved his hands around you.  After a short discussion with the man your father took you aside and with tears in his eyes handed you a backpack full of  your things and told you to be good and do everything that azusul tells you.  And as your home disappeared from sight among the trees you knew that you would not see your family again for a very long time, until your training as a wizard was complete...

THIEF

5. Kleptomaniac - Some people say that even as a child you couldn't keep your hands out of other peoples pockets, but they don't know what they're talking about.  It's like there's a part of your brain which is autonomous and just picks up other peoples things which they've left lying around.  With that kind of natural ability it was only a matter of time before you started to actively looking for opportunities for profit...

The Lands of Dual - Session 1: Ayfal and The Challenge of Champions

My often touted new campaign has finally started, we had our first real session last week, and I'm pleasantly suprised with how my new group of players have accepted the switch to CnC.  As my free time is limited by family and work commitments I am trying to get back to the core concept of TLOD with this campaign (ie: to try to string together as many published scenarios as I can with only minor location tweaks) and evolve the story arc out of the player's backgrounds.

For the first scenario I've chosen "Challenge of Champions" by Jonathan Richards (Dungeon #58) which pits the PCs against a series of artificial "tests" created by the Adventurer's Guild as an annual competition as part of a membership drive.  This choice has set me a few DMing challenges right from the off, namely:

• The Scenario is designed for a party of 4 Level 1 PCs (1 of each class; Fighter, Mage, Cleric and Thief) who have entered as a team.  My party is 6 strong and none of them know each other at all, one is a Lizardman Cleric and another is a 2nd level Ranger!  Solution: divide the group of players along class lines and run two teams of three with NPCs filling the missing class slots.
  
  
• The PCs have to surrender their equipment and are only able to use items which are provided as part of each test.  As some of the "clues" to completing the test are contained within the items themselves, the question is how to visualise this?  Solution: create Item Cards for each piece of equipment provided.  As it is my intention to provide my players with item cards during this and future campaigns, this was a bit of a no-brainer and I've had some fun finding appropriate images from google images to depict the various items.  More on that in a later post.

Without giving too much away in case they read this.  I was pleasantly surprised with the different approaches my players used to tackle the first three challenges.

Angry Birds the RPG?

May will see the release of Mattel's Angry Bird's the Boardgame which I'm sure will be a huge hit and a guaranteed money spinner for the company.  This is the first translation of an iOS app to a Boardgame rather than the other way round.  I'm sure that the suits at Hasbro are watching this space closely and having all sorts of covert app to game discussions. 

Of course the knock on question for our little niche interest group is "When will we see an official D&D product on iOS (or android, i'm not platformist)?".

Apps are the hot ticket in gaming right now, heck even Nintendo are scared that their next gen DS will lose market share to the iPod / iPhone / iPad / Android devices before it hits the streets.  Surely WotC should be concentrating on how to make D&D products work on these new devices and more importantly make oodles of cash!!

Monday Motivations #3

Article #3 in a regular series where I offer up some ideas for character backgrounds by class.  I aim to collect these ideas together for a future pdf publication.

What made your character decide to become a wizard? Why did they leave their home town? Did they leave family behind or are they looking for something? These are all questions players face when generating their characters, with the best will in the world it's tempting to rely on cliché.

ANY CLASS

5. The Seven Saviours - Your village has fallen under the spell of an evil Sorceror, only you were immune to his charm.  You decide to leave the village on a quest to find some heroes who can help you storm his tower and release your friends...

THIEF

5. Kleptomania - Some people say that even as a child you couldn't keep your hands out of other peoples pockets, but they don't know what they're talking about.  It's like there's a part of your brain which is autonomous and just picks up other peoples things which they've left lying around.  With that kind of natural ability it was only a matter of time before you started to actively looking for opportunities for profit.

CLERIC

1. Plague Sister - When your little sister was struck down with the plague you asked your God to heal her and in return you would serve him for the rest of your life.  Her fever broke that very night and you knew that your plea had been heard.  The following day as you knocked on the heavy oak doors to the monastery you knew your new life of clerical servitude was about to begin...

2. Passing Healer - As a small child you had few worries in your life other than where the best place was to dig up worms for fishing.  It was on one of these bait finding trips that you were bitten by a poisonous snake, putting you into a deep coma.  At that same moment a Cleric was passing near by, heard your scream, and rushed to your aid.  Days later you awoke to find that the Cleric had saved your life.  You owe the Cleric a life debt and as is customary must serve him until the debt is paid in full, in return the Cleric has agreed to feed, clothe and teach you everything he knows...

Monday Motivations #2

Article #2 in a regular series where I offer up some ideas for character backgrounds by class.  I aim to collect these ideas together for a future pdf publication.

What made your character decide to become a wizard? Why did they leave their home town? Did they leave family behind or are they looking for something? These are all questions players face when generating their characters, with the best will in the world it's tempting to rely on cliché

ANY CLASS

3. Spurned Love - You thought you had a chance of happiness when you're eyes met across the harvest banquet table. But those hopes were soon dashed when her gaze landed on your older brother's.  The following Spring they were married and as is the custom she moved into her husband's house, your home.  After a week you realized you couldn't face another day in the same house as her so you left for pastures new and possibly adventure...

4. Accidental Death - Your oldest and best friend was your rival for the attentions of the miller's daughter.  Even though you were exonerated by the Sheriff from any wrong doing, the villager's believed that you were not entirely blameless for his accidental death.  After month's of putting up with the furtive glances and the whispered rumours you decide that life would be better for everyone if you just left.  Perhaps in another village you'll be able to start a new and more interesting life...

BARBARIAN

1. Born into it - You don't really have a choice you're father was a tribal chief, as was your grandfather and his father before him stretching back across the ages into the time when the Legends were born.  It is the tradition that tribal chief sons go out into the world far beyond the boundaries of the tribal lands and embark on a great quest.  Perhaps you will find a beautiful wife like your father, or great riches like your grandfather, or perhaps like your brother you will not return at all...

THIEF

3. Brutal childhood - You had two choices after your Father died and your Mother remarried; either runaway or die at the hands of the brute she married.  You chose the former and ran away at the tender age of 12 eventually falling in with a kindly old thief from whom you learned the arts of the con, the distraction, the palm, how to pick a pocket and a lock and many, many more...

4. Middle Child - As a middle child you felt you always got the raw end of the deal.  Your older sibling got the praise for doing everything first and your younger sibling always being praised for just existing.  The only way you got any attention was when you did something bad.  Eventually your petty thievery caught the attention of what passes for the Thieves Guild in your town you were given three choices; join the Guild, leave town or take a beating...

Mars Attacks! Bubblegum Cards on Flickr

Call me crazy but I do love a bit of pulp Sci-Fi every now and then, here's a Flickr set of the complete Mars Attacks! bubblegum cards.

Mars Attacks Bubblegum Cards

Most of you will know that these cards were the original inspiration for Tim Burton's 1996 movie of the same name, But

I've never seen the whole collection before or seen the card backs either so set the slideshow to play, sit back and enjoy a bit of nostalgia.

Monday Motivations #1

Article #1 in a regular series where I offer up some ideas for character backgrounds by class.  I aim to collect these ideas together for a future pdf publication.

What made your character decide to become a wizard? Why did they leave their home town? Did they leave family behind or are they looking for something? These are all questions players face when generating their characters, with the best will in the world it's tempting to rely on cliché.

ANY CLASS

1.  Slaughter - You were left for dead by the raiders who slaughtered everyone in your village.  You nursed your wounds and survived the cruel winter which followed fueled only by thoughts of revenge.  Now you must find out who orchestrated the raid and how you can destroy them. 

2.  Bastard offspring - On your mother's deathbed she told you that your father is a wealthy / powerful man who will never recognise you as his rightful heir.  You can't accept this and have vowed to either prove to him that you are a worthy heir or his equal.

RANGER

1. Track a foe beast  - You are the best tracker from your village and after a few of the villagers were killed by a savage beast you were tasked to hunt it down and slay it.  You have passed through many towns and villages along the way and have stopped to help the locals in exchange for food, lodgings and a little money.The beast's territory ranges for thousands of miles and you have been tracking it for months but it always seems to be one step ahead of you...

THIEF

1. Retrieve an heirloom - On your father's deathbed he gave you his signet ring, confiding in you that it was central to his fortune.  Stricken with grief you were drowning your sorrows in a local tavern where you were mugged.  After cursing your foolishness you returned home and in the following weeks creditors appeared from every corner claiming to be owed money.  It was not long before the business collapsed under the weight of it's debt.  Perhaps your father's ring held more significance than you originally thought so you vow to track it down and regain your family's fortunes...

2. Escape from poverty - After your family fell on hard times you decided to lessen the burden by going out on your own looking for work.  It was then that you realised how unfair the world is, the rich have far more than they'll ever need and are consumed with the need to gather more and more wealth whilst the poor go hungry and spend every waking moment trying to survive.  You decided to partake in a little wealth re-distribution of your own...

Happy New Year and Roleplaying Resolutions for 2011

Happy New Year to you all.

And, as sure as eggs follow bacon, the time has come to make some New Year Roleplay Resolutions:

1. Take more notes - Over the last few years, with respect to note taking, I have become just plain lazy and has often resulted in me taking a back seat in games as a player when I should be taking the lead. When DMing, I've been relying on my player's memories and notes way too much and I need to start driving the scenario rather than it driving me. This has got to stop!! My new campaign starts in a week's time and I want to start writting session resports again.  I find they invaluable in helping me record the improvised detail I generate in-game that you don't get during normal worldbuilding activities.  If I don't record it, type it up and publish it on the campaign website, it will be lost forever.

2. Build a weekly blog series - Frankly I'm jealous of the likes of Dyson Logos: Geomorphs and Land of Nod: Deviant Friday and thought it was about time I created a weekly(ish) series which might possibly be gathered together into some sort of publication perhaps.  Ideas so far are:

• Monday Motivations: Inspired by the excellent Campaign Mastery: Character Hooks, this series of articles gives some suggestions for PC Background Motivations, why does a PC become an "adventurer" or embark on a "career class" in the first place?
  
  
• Tuesday Trailer: I get a lot of my inspiration from movies and TV although I rarely lift a plot from a movie.  It might just be a single object or a character or it may even be something as intangible as the art direction which gets the creative juices going and I want to share that with you all.
  
  
• Dramatis Pictura: I hate reading NPC descriptions which don't have a character portrait to go along with them, in fact I find it hard to visualise a fully rounded character without one.  Shouldn't be too hard to find some good NPC portraits in deviant art
  
  
• Serious Locations: On my travels round the interweb I stumble across some amazing photographs many of which inspire RPG locations.
  
• City Geomorphs: There's enough folks doing dungeon geomorphs to last me a lifetime and most of my adventures take place in urban environments so I'm going to take a crack at cities.

3. Blog in advance more regularly - At the moment I blog when I have an idea it's a cause and effect relationship.  I'd like to get in the habit of writing in advance and maybe even set articles to publish on a time delay.

Anyway, I think that's enough to be getting on with, if you have any preferences for series ideas let me know.

1884 - A New Terry Gilliam Project

Just in time for Christmas comes the news that Terry Gilliam is producing a steampunk puppet movie.  No details (or IMDB entry) on the production schedule, cast or release date but two videos are available:

Animation Test Video

Teaser Trailer

Makes me want to dust off the old Forgotten Futures rules and get writing.