So, February was a rough month for me.  I was ill with/recovering from a two-stage cold for most of it with very little energy for writing.  At the end of the month, my employers closed down the Houston office and laid us all off.  Times are tough in the oil and gas industry, but I worked for a reputable company and received a severance package that did not suck.  The benefits of working for a privately owned company over a publicly owned one.

The upshot is that I'm now spending half my time looking for my next job/career and the other half catching up on all the things I didn't have time for plus writing again.  I have notes for several sessions of both games I'm in/running and no excuses, so, as the title says, Updates are imminent.

A combination of work getting really busy for me and several major social events recently means it won't be until Thursday morning before I get a posting up for this week.

On top of that, the Shadowrun Co-GM is a retail store manager in the computer games industry, so he's been swamped at HIS work the last two weeks and missed the last two game sessions.  As a result, Session 2 of Sam's Run hasn't actually happened yet.

So, that means this week's post will be Chapter 3 of the Pulp HERO Parks and Wrecks adventure, titled: Three Titans.  I'm not certain what next week's will be.  We did a research session this past weekend (one of my social events) and gathered a lot of information, which allowed us to determine which way we are going next, but the GM won't be ready to run again until June or July.  This is a combo of needing to do the setting research for the high level of verisimilitude she provides plus being a high school teacher.  Either way, I'm not certain that I can spin an entertaining story covering everything we did when a research montage would cover it better.  We'll see.

Later!

So, normally (as in for the last 10 years or so), the beginning of the year is a slow time for me at the DayJob and I can easily spend lunch time writing either blog posts or game stuff.

This year...not so much.

I've been solidly busy with a large document where the subject matter expert is a PRIME example of why engineers need technical writers.  If you cannot get your thoughts across in writing and explain your results, that year long study you just did is actually a waste of time.  So I'm at 200+ pages of document so far and I think I have another 200-300 pages to go to get the draft done so his boss can review it and verify he did what was asked.  Of, and the draft is due Feb. 10.  That's do-able for me, but not much time for slacking.

Additionally, the company I work for has recalled all company laptops for a security upgrade they are pushing out through the corporate network.  This will take 3-5 days as the push outs are random to keep the network from getting overloaded, with no way for remote workers to trigger it so we could get in and out in a timely fashion as we are under 10% of the workforce.

Long story short (too late!), I don't have my regular laptop and my back up is about 5 years old and has a bum power cord that keeps the batter from charging, meaning I have to always keep it plugged in when I'm using it.  Not very conducive to going out to some place and writing for an hour or two when most places don't have public plugs.

OK, now I'm just whining a bit.  I'll stop.

In other news, I've got a story for a sci-fi book I want to write and most of my writing time I have is now going to that.  I've been story-boarding and have the first arc outlined.  I'm fleshing out the major points right now (still in story-board format).  When I have some material for folks to look at, I'll post a notice here and request solicitations for reading and feedback.  That won't be for a couple of months as my writing time is somewhat crimped right now.  I'll keep you updated.

Oh, and I now have 6 sessions of Aldelle Group notes needing transliteration into readable format (with another one happening by the time you read this).  Sigh.

Later!

These are my thoughts on “Things Role Playing Bloggers Tend Not To Write About” from Noisms. I’m not certain I can do entire posts on these topics, so I’m covering them all here.  Once the DayJob and life slows down a bit, I'll get back to more regular postings.

Book Binding

See Hero System 5th Edition and 5th Edition Revised for how it should be done. You can run it through a dryer and it will hold together (although the pages will be a bit folded). Plus, it will stop bullets from handguns. Really. Look for demonstrations on YouTube.

Tangentially, I prefer paper I can write on, so I can write notes (or text corrections as some publishers are prone to typos – AEG, I’m looking at you). Slick paper sucks at this as ink either doesn’t stick or smears a lot. “Grainy” paper (like newsprint) tends to blob out a bit and is difficult to make small notes on and have them remain legible.

"Doing a voice"

Yes, I do “voices”. Not for every NPC, but for major NPCs or to differentiate groups, either by species or nationality. In my Southern Reaches game, each type of elemental had a different accent. Earth elementals had a Russian accent, which I did every time the wizard summoned one (which was often). Smaller species have higher pitched voices than larger species. Goblins are a bit more nasal while kobolds speaking Common sound like bad Viet Cong extras on a ‘Nam movie (“You die, adventurers! You die now!”). In their own tongue, they are more elegant, but tend to shout a bit.

Breaks

For week-day games, folks step away from the table when they need a bio-break. We keep going unless we need their input (or it’s the DM). When we game on weekends, we tend to game all day, starting just after lunch, making a dinner break around 5:00 to 7:00 (depending upon what’s going on in game), with bio-breaks as needed. We do not currently have any smokers in the group, so that is not an issue, but when it is, they go out on the porch and come back after a quick smoke.

Description

My descriptions are the minimum necessary to get the point across. During combat I may describe cool things the PCs or NPCs do based on how the dice rolled and what the PCs stated intent was (not all of my players give a lot of detail beyond “I swing at him”).

Where do you strike the balance between "doing what your character would do" and "acting like a dickhead"?

Creating a character who is a dickhead is a dick move and I police that. If you can’t play a character who is not a dick at least to the other PCs, I don’t need you in my game or really in my circle of friends. You are not normal nor an adult and I game only with adults, whatever their age. The point of the game is for everyone to enjoy the game, not just one person.

PC-on-PC violence. Do your players tend to avoid it, or do you ban it? Or does anything go?

My player group tends to avoid it (it can cause unnecessary issues), but if there is a story reason for it to happen and both players agree it should happen and are OK with playing it out, I’ll allow it. I would not expect it to end in character death outside of a Cyberpunk/Shadowrun game, where I fully expect it. Usually by ambush.

How do you explain what a role playing game is to a stranger who is also a non-player?

Assuming they ask, I use “It’s like D&D, but with slightly different rules.” A high percentage of the populace will get that, even if they have odd perceptions about it. If that gets a blank look, I go to “It’s like cowboys and indians but using Lord of the Rings characters.” Although really, I’ve never had to use either explanation before.

Alcohol at the table?

I don’t drink, but I don’t mind players having a drink. A drink. They are still responsible for everything their character does in game. Usually not an issue with my current groups.

What's acceptable to do to a PC whose player is absent from the session? Is whatever happens their fault for not being there, or are there some limits?

Usually we find a way to get them off camera for the session – they are doing something time consuming or the equivalent of “watching the horses”. Worst case scenario, they just fade into the background that session and fade back in the next session the player attends. Sometimes they just drop out of the narrative – see Luna in my Aldelle Group adventure log postings. Her player is often missing due to conflicting work and college schedule.

Now days, my campaigns are designed such that the PCs return to a safe point at the end of a session. Next session runs whoever makes it to the game. I have had to skip a session when someone critical to what is going on is unable to make it and then we do boardgames. For weekly games this is not a big issue, but for the monthly games I used to run it could kill a campaign if I was not careful about scheduling.

I was ill most of last week, starting Tuesday evening and recovering, well, mostly Sunday, but I've still got after effects, notably a gravelly voice and occasional cough.  During this time I read  four books (including The New Death and others, a compilation of short stories I liked and recommend), which I had time to do as coughing and sinus drainage made sure sleeping in was not really an option.

What I did not have time nor the inclination to do was write a lot.  So, no ready-written posting today, or at least not this morning.  I have three sessions worth of notes for the Aldelle Group that I need to type up and post.  This will happen this week, so look forward to that, starting tomorrow.

That's it for now.

As you may know, the A/C was out at my home for the last week and a half.  My wife and I were able to put together the funds necessary to get the condenser unit (the box unit that sits outside the house) replaced thatnks to the very kind contributions of friends and family.

Yesterday the actual repair took place and by 9:00 PM, the house had cooled off and the humidity dropped such that we no longer broke into a sweat just standing in the living room.

I'd like to than everyone who helped including Trey, who wanted to help but we couldn't work out a way to get it done.  Thank you.  Thank you all very much.

Now that I'm no longer scrambling to get the work done on my home nor working out ways to beat the heat, I'll be spending most of this weekend writing on my Hero Traveller campaign.  I will be running it from August through October as I promised the players I'd run it at least three months.  After that, I've decided that I will not be running any new campaigns for a while - I'm going to concentrate on my writing for publication plus a short novel I'm about a third through despite working on it off and on for three years.  One of my resolutions this year was to finish it, even if it never sees the light of day.

For 2012, I'll be converting adventure notes into product for Monohedron Games, a game company I started several years ago and never did much with.  Time to change that.  One of the first things I will be completing is a boardgame based on the old Greyhawk Wars! game from TSR.  I've already taken the rules and re-written them to be comprehensible and clear (the originals are pretty awful to read).  I will probably post them via Mediafire (but might not seeing the issues suffered by Trey) and put a link up here.  Next step there is a new map and updating the cards.  Don't know what I'll do about artwork at the moment, but public domain may be my friend here.

After that, I'll be converting adventures and adventure locales to inexpensive PDF products and possibly .mobi files for the Kindle (that's something I'd really like to experiment with).  I'll post more updates on this stuff in November, which is when I plan on switching gears.

Thank you for your time and interest and my apologies for those whom this was mostly spam.

Patrick

This week the DayJob is eating my time completely, such that there will not be a Southern Reaches game this week as any time I have to prep is being taken to finish a DayJob project.  I'm not a fan of overtime (mostly because I do not get time and a half) but I need to put in about 8 hours of it this week, plus all the other home related errands.

Therefore, no posts this week, but I will resume regular posting next week.  Until then, take care.

Patrick

Now that The Aldelle Group is mostly caught up (still need to type up last weeks notes), I'm catching up with the Southern Reaches game. In the future I will be making a stronger effort to keep both campaign logs up-to-date while still posting material for the Hero Traveller game. Not certain how it will play out, but there will be at least two posts per week, usually on Tuesday and Thursday. Additional material will post when I have something ready.

There has been some discussion on level names recently (I can't remember exactly where - if I do or you remind me I'll provide a link). My junior high school group never used them when playing AD&D, so I have no memories attached to them. Thinking on it, I've decided I like the use of something similar as a way of describing character levels in-game without getting all clumbsy about it. When I do the reboot of the Southern Reaches, one of the things I want to incorporate is a nomenclature for character levels certified by institutions ingame.

Sal wants to establish a university with a magical college, which would be good for covering arcane power levels. Su Bel wants to establish a temple, which would cover the divine. If Thorngrim's player has Kainen establish a training school for his signature whip and shield fighting style, then I would have something for martial characters (something like martial art belts). Fifty to seventy years later, each of these could become fixtures in the campaign background, providing certifications or at least a common set of terminology for each group, so when new players and/or characters join the game, they have a way to indicate what they are capable of without breaking character.

This is something I'll need to file away for now and bring out later when it is time to advance the Southern Reaches as a region.

Later!

There will be no posting today (other than this, of course) due to nose on grindstone project.  I should have time to post this weekend to make it up to you.  I hope yesterday's Godzilla movie fest post will tide you over.

Later!

This posting will be a mix of what's going on and such with the various games I'm involved with or planning.

I have managed to gain access to two ultra-rare books that translate Traveller material into the Hero System, which will keep me from having to stat out, say, two books worth of material on my own.  I and a friend are working on getting them into PDF format for easier access, but that should be done in the next week or two.  This secures the Hero System (5th Revised Edition) as the rules I will be using.  Right now I'm looking through the sector creation rules for Traveller (Mongoose edition) and Stars Without Number to see which I'm going to use to create the local star sectors.  I'll post more on this once I've tried the two systems out.

For my Southern Reaches campaign, I've settled on the 1E AD&D construction rules for use in the campaign as I find them easy to understand and generally straight-forward.  Plus, the construction times work better for me.  2E assumed that all castle construction happened in a year, which is patently wrong.  The 1E system assigns time and manpower for each component and then adds it all up for a total construction time.  That time can be lessened by adding more workers, but it requires long times of construction for large structures, which is what I expect and history bears out.  The players have constructed a lyre of construction, which will speed things up, but it will do so in a way that is easy to integrate into the regular work.

As a note, 3E, and by extension Pathfinder, does not have construction rules in the main book.  We were working on a compromise using the crafting rules, but I was unsatisfied by what seemed to be an abnormally quick construction time for buildings.  I still need to crank some numbers in a spreadsheet to see how they compare to the 1E rules, but I suspect the 3E craft rules are geared towards things that would go in a castle and not things like castles.

Tangentially, at the end of the last Southern Reaches session (last Friday), the players were left with a choice of opponents to tackle: an banshee or an adult red dragon.  Which is more dangerous?  Tough call.  The banshee has a sonic death attack and massive negative energy drain touch attacks.  The adult red dragon is, well, an adult red dragon with multiple attacks, a breath weapon, and spells.  Either way, this will be a significant milestone for the adventurers and will do much to boost their fame and reputations.  Plus, they will be able to make a claim on a copper mine out of the deal.  Look forward to the adventure log explaining all this on Thursday.

Finally, my weekday game has finished exploration of Dyson's Delve, or at least the first seven levels, which is all the DM is using.  From this point on, we are going into newbie DM territory, using material our DM has created as his first campaign.  It will be interesting to see how things go - whether it will be a sandbox, where we get to explore and find things, or a more traditional plot driven campaign.  I'm enjoying the game so far and the climatic battle against Tim Questgiver was tense and rewarding.  I'm looking forward to what new stuff we run into.

That's it for now.  Thursday's post should appear at 7:00 AM Central (a.k.a. "the regular time").

Later!