Thursday, 25 November 2010
Castles and Crusades: What do I NEED to buy?
I'm at a nexus. My mac had an update crisis at the weekend and ate my campaign world. After a little bit of a cry, I came to the thinking that within this dark cloud lies the silver lining of opportunity. I've been dissapointed with my experiences of DM'ing my campaign world with D&D 3.5 for a while so I'm off to Dragonmeet 2010 to buy Castles and Crusades. I know I'll need the Players Handbook and probably Monsters and Treasure but is there anything else out there for C&C that I should definitely buy?
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Troll Hunter
Caught this movie trailer on The Book of Worlds.
Released in Norway on 29 Oct 2010, but so far no details on when it will be scheduled for release in the UK, I expect it will be straight to DVD. Enjoy...
I can see this having lots of potential for a modern horror scenario, perhaps Cthulhu Now, Delta Green or Conspiracy X. How about mixing in a bit of Kaiju, Godzilla vs Grimetosser perhaps?
Update: This film was fantastic and everyone should see it.
Monday, 22 November 2010
Tintin and Lovecraft Cover Art
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
Sin? or is it just Karma
Thanks to Jeff Rients for his thought provoking post Sin and Sin Points draft as I've been struggling with a way to explain how my Evil races exist.
Back in the day I playtested a friend's game about fairies (it was self published and even though I'm a credited playtester, I can't remember the name of the system... Answers on a postcard to the usual address please) which utilised a Karma system to manage Alignment.
The fun thing about the Karma system was that if you were essentially Good and did bad things you became Evil and vice versa. The whole game was wrapped around this concept.. The scenarios were based around the eternal struggle between the Good and Evil Fairies, Brownies, Redcaps, Pixies and Unicorns of Englis folklore. The task of the PCs was to convert the Evil fairies by not just foiling their plans but making them do Good things and making them gradually less Evil.
One of the most fun aspects of this Whenever you lost Karma (or gained it) your physical appearance would gradually change until you eventually changed into your Evil variant. This led to a little subterfuge on the players parts as the GM might make you grow a wart, one of your eyes would change colour or you'd get Evil eyebrows overnight!!
I thought that this physical change might work in my world so thinking cap on, my thoughts are thus:
Every race has it's Evil counter-race. Except Humans, 'cause every rule has to have an exception, each Race's diametrically opposed race is the antithesis of the Good. So for Elves who are very cultured and graceful it would have to be Goblins, who are crude, vulgar ugly creatures. This could take some time to put together but once the different factors are weighed up I should be able to come up with some nice transitions for the 6 or so common PC Races and the more common evil monsters.
The Alignment wheel has potential. As a mechanism to gauge the transitions from Good to Evil it's crude so maybe sub divide it a little to make the shift more gradual and give the player time to repent.
My pantheon needs more Evil Gods - I've always thought that my campaign world's Pantheon was a bit loaded towards the Neutral or Good sides. It will force me to be a bit creative and there's more opportunity for plots which take place in my teutonic setting of Wulfschlossen where the boy King's army is led by a bunch of Bishop Generals.
It would give the Paladins a bit more colour. I've always thought that they were a bit too shiny and needed a few shades of bent copper added to the mix. Historically the Templars became tarnished when Pope Clement V abolished the order claiming that they were not Holy Defenders but Heretics.
Death is not the answer. However, when a PC gets to zero hit points and falls unconcious they should have a near death experience. As a result they could come back with a slight Alignment shift towards the darkside and maybe that wart or slightly greener shade of skin.
or I might be completely bonkers. You decide...
Back in the day I playtested a friend's game about fairies (it was self published and even though I'm a credited playtester, I can't remember the name of the system... Answers on a postcard to the usual address please) which utilised a Karma system to manage Alignment.
The fun thing about the Karma system was that if you were essentially Good and did bad things you became Evil and vice versa. The whole game was wrapped around this concept.. The scenarios were based around the eternal struggle between the Good and Evil Fairies, Brownies, Redcaps, Pixies and Unicorns of Englis folklore. The task of the PCs was to convert the Evil fairies by not just foiling their plans but making them do Good things and making them gradually less Evil.
One of the most fun aspects of this Whenever you lost Karma (or gained it) your physical appearance would gradually change until you eventually changed into your Evil variant. This led to a little subterfuge on the players parts as the GM might make you grow a wart, one of your eyes would change colour or you'd get Evil eyebrows overnight!!
I thought that this physical change might work in my world so thinking cap on, my thoughts are thus:
Every race has it's Evil counter-race. Except Humans, 'cause every rule has to have an exception, each Race's diametrically opposed race is the antithesis of the Good. So for Elves who are very cultured and graceful it would have to be Goblins, who are crude, vulgar ugly creatures. This could take some time to put together but once the different factors are weighed up I should be able to come up with some nice transitions for the 6 or so common PC Races and the more common evil monsters.
The Alignment wheel has potential. As a mechanism to gauge the transitions from Good to Evil it's crude so maybe sub divide it a little to make the shift more gradual and give the player time to repent.
My pantheon needs more Evil Gods - I've always thought that my campaign world's Pantheon was a bit loaded towards the Neutral or Good sides. It will force me to be a bit creative and there's more opportunity for plots which take place in my teutonic setting of Wulfschlossen where the boy King's army is led by a bunch of Bishop Generals.
It would give the Paladins a bit more colour. I've always thought that they were a bit too shiny and needed a few shades of bent copper added to the mix. Historically the Templars became tarnished when Pope Clement V abolished the order claiming that they were not Holy Defenders but Heretics.
Death is not the answer. However, when a PC gets to zero hit points and falls unconcious they should have a near death experience. As a result they could come back with a slight Alignment shift towards the darkside and maybe that wart or slightly greener shade of skin.
or I might be completely bonkers. You decide...
There's a rat in me kitchen what am I gonna do?
Well, over here in Blighty the nights are drawing in and the temperature has dropped, consequently I am now sharing my home with at least one field mouse.
I have to admit that, when we came face to nose, I did go a bit girly and shriek like Mammy Two Shoes when she sees Jerry the mouse.
It got me thinking about the classic movie scene when the heroes are going through a tunnel or sewer and a horde of rats comes writhing towards them and how whenever I've set the same scene in my game my players never react like I did when I saw the mouse? The D20 SRD says that a rat swarm will cause
"Distraction (Ex): Any living creature that begins its turn with a swarm in its square must succeed on a DC 12 Fortitude save or be nauseated for 1 round. The save DC is Constitution-based."
The problem with this is that I want the players to suffer the effects before they are in the swarm and I want a fear condition not nausea. Fear also escalates with exposure so a character who fails a fear check (Will save) is Shaken, fail twice and they're Frightened, fail three times and they're Panicked. I just want 1 roll so I'm going to try:
I have to admit that, when we came face to nose, I did go a bit girly and shriek like Mammy Two Shoes when she sees Jerry the mouse.
It got me thinking about the classic movie scene when the heroes are going through a tunnel or sewer and a horde of rats comes writhing towards them and how whenever I've set the same scene in my game my players never react like I did when I saw the mouse? The D20 SRD says that a rat swarm will cause
"Distraction (Ex): Any living creature that begins its turn with a swarm in its square must succeed on a DC 12 Fortitude save or be nauseated for 1 round. The save DC is Constitution-based."
The problem with this is that I want the players to suffer the effects before they are in the swarm and I want a fear condition not nausea. Fear also escalates with exposure so a character who fails a fear check (Will save) is Shaken, fail twice and they're Frightened, fail three times and they're Panicked. I just want 1 roll so I'm going to try:
- Fail by 1-3: Shaken
- Fail by 4-6: Frightened
- Fail by 7 or more: Panicked
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