Read these two descriptions of how two different groups of players deal with a potential threat of otherwise incapacitated humanoids.
1) http://lotfp.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-my-players-taught-me-today-no-rope.html
2) http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/06/they-didnt-kill-ubues.html
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that both groups are equally as dangerous to the PCs and if given the chance will kill them. Which is the "better" solution?
Now this is not limited to adults or kids as one or the other. I just played a 4e game with a bunch of 10-11 year olds that wanted "to slaughter everyone" and fight the other characters. I have played with adults that are the same way. I have played with both age groups that would rather fine a more rational action.
Here is a question from Tenkar on "Why are PC's so hooked on Torture?"
And we wonder sometimes why we can't get new blood into our games.
Do we as a group encourage this sort of play? Is it something inherent in the rules or the agreed upon reality? That is a "violence begat violence" sort of deal?
I did my fair share of immature violence back n the day, but my DM quickly cured me of that.
I had a thief that I felt was a real bad ass. So while going through the adventure "Death's Ride" he shot a guy in the back with a crossbow. The NPC was annoying him (aka me) so I shot him. Throughout the entire run of the classic H-Series modules (Throne of Bloodstone) this NPC, now an undead revenant kept coming back to screw things up for me at the exact wrong moments. He went from a vague pest to a Deadpool like character that couldn't be killed or turned. And that included the insane humor. In the process the already deadly modules turned into a meat grinder with this guy (Kirkroy was his name) letting all the demons know we were coming.
In the adventures above if I were the DM for both. In #2 (which I was the DM) the characters were rewarded and considered to be heroes and saviors, not mass murdering thugs. In #1 (where I wasn't), well nothing screws up your day like a bunch of unstoppable undead warriors claiming vengeance on the murder of innocents.
What do you all think? Am I being overly sensitive?
Mind you for this argument I am not accepting "it's just a game" as an excuse. Maybe it is just a game. But I am talking about in-game behavior. You might as well say "oh that is because we are on Earth".
Friday, February 17, 2012
Zombies vs. Robots
IDW has a new series of short stories up called "Zombies vs. Robots".
I'll admit I knew nothing about it but today my friend (and Ghosts of Albion RPG co-writer) Amber Benson has a new book out in the series.
Zombies vs. Robots: Mademoiselle Consuela and Her Army of One
She is also running a contest around the book and you could win a lunch with her over Skype.
So go. Download. 99 cents won't buy you much, but it will get you Amber's newest book. And would make her happy. Unless of course you have something against happy.
In other Amber/Tara news, Zap2It is running a poll on the most "crush worthy" dearly departed TV character. If you enjoy my blog, pop over and give "Tara Maclay" a vote.
http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2012/02/tvs-most-crushworthy-dearly-departed-mischa-barton-ian-somerhalder-amber-benson-vote-now.html
I'll admit I knew nothing about it but today my friend (and Ghosts of Albion RPG co-writer) Amber Benson has a new book out in the series.
Zombies vs. Robots: Mademoiselle Consuela and Her Army of One
She is also running a contest around the book and you could win a lunch with her over Skype.
So go. Download. 99 cents won't buy you much, but it will get you Amber's newest book. And would make her happy. Unless of course you have something against happy.
In other Amber/Tara news, Zap2It is running a poll on the most "crush worthy" dearly departed TV character. If you enjoy my blog, pop over and give "Tara Maclay" a vote.
http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2012/02/tvs-most-crushworthy-dearly-departed-mischa-barton-ian-somerhalder-amber-benson-vote-now.html
Thursday, February 16, 2012
February DriveThru Deals
It is that time again.
The new February Discount code for the following items is now out from DriveThruRPG. Here are the games:
Aruneus Bundle - Troll in the Corner
Part-Time Gods - Third Eye Games
A Peculiar Pentad - Savaged - Super Genius Games
Ultimate Dice Tower 2 - Fat Dragon Games
Exodus Post Apocalyptic RPG Survivor's Guide - Glutton Creeper Games
And here is the code to get 20% off: GeekLoveRules2012
This code is good until March 14th, 2012.
Enjoy!!
The new February Discount code for the following items is now out from DriveThruRPG. Here are the games:
Aruneus Bundle - Troll in the Corner
Part-Time Gods - Third Eye Games
A Peculiar Pentad - Savaged - Super Genius Games
Ultimate Dice Tower 2 - Fat Dragon Games
Exodus Post Apocalyptic RPG Survivor's Guide - Glutton Creeper Games
And here is the code to get 20% off: GeekLoveRules2012
This code is good until March 14th, 2012.
Enjoy!!
Leave a signature
I am participating in the A to Z blogging challenge again this year.
As a value add to my regular readers and to new readers each post will be about a different game. I'll have a review, maybe some new crunch or fluff, something for everyone (I hope).
Regular readers get to hear about something new and new readers can get a better insight to our hobby and maybe find something they would like to try out.
But that is not why I am posting today.
Today I want to encourage YOU my readers to leave your signature when you reply.
If you are reading my blog and you are a blogger, chances are you are saying thing I might want to read or other readers might. So I want YOU, my readers to leave a signature.
This idea was posted at the main Blogging A to Z site, http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/2012/02/how-to-make-hyperlink-signature-guest.html
For the Challenge we are being asked to leave signatures on the posts we make.
Now typically I (and many of you) do not do this. It can be considered tacky or SPAMy by most and even rude by others.
But I think I am going to be ok with people leaving comments here to leave your signature. If you take the time to read my posts and then even more time to post something then I should repay you the courtesy of reading your blog and posts AND have others here do the same.
As long as I think this is not being abused then I am not going to delete anything.
Using Sue Travers cue, here is how you do it.
Leave your name and your blog title as a signature.
So replace the text in red with your link and the text in blue with your name. So I would do this:
You now have my explicit approval to use that here. Your experiences may very on other blogs.
If you wish you can try it out below.
As a value add to my regular readers and to new readers each post will be about a different game. I'll have a review, maybe some new crunch or fluff, something for everyone (I hope).
Regular readers get to hear about something new and new readers can get a better insight to our hobby and maybe find something they would like to try out.
But that is not why I am posting today.
Today I want to encourage YOU my readers to leave your signature when you reply.
If you are reading my blog and you are a blogger, chances are you are saying thing I might want to read or other readers might. So I want YOU, my readers to leave a signature.
This idea was posted at the main Blogging A to Z site, http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/2012/02/how-to-make-hyperlink-signature-guest.html
For the Challenge we are being asked to leave signatures on the posts we make.
Now typically I (and many of you) do not do this. It can be considered tacky or SPAMy by most and even rude by others.
But I think I am going to be ok with people leaving comments here to leave your signature. If you take the time to read my posts and then even more time to post something then I should repay you the courtesy of reading your blog and posts AND have others here do the same.
As long as I think this is not being abused then I am not going to delete anything.
Using Sue Travers cue, here is how you do it.
Leave your name and your blog title as a signature.
So replace the text in red with your link and the text in blue with your name. So I would do this:
You now have my explicit approval to use that here. Your experiences may very on other blogs.
If you wish you can try it out below.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
White Dwarf Wednesday Issue 6
April/May 1978 gives us the topic of today's White Dwarf Wednesday, White Dwarf #6.
So we at one year of WD and we see some changes. The first, most notable change is the right justification of the the text. I does make the magazine a bit easier to read and looks cleaner. The second is the introduction of a new feature called The Fiend Factory. Something that in time will be a major feature of WD and spawn the AD&D Fiend Folio.
First up though is an article ripped from today's Internet postings on various types of Armor Class vs. various weapons. Very old school yes, but the solution reminds me of the various armor classes we see in 3.x.
Next up is the Fiend Factory. The monsters presented here are from various authors but edited by Don Turnbull. The format is near-AD&D/Basic D&D (no longer in OD&D format). Each includes a picture (most times) and a Monstermark rating right there with all the other stats.
Out of the gate we have some monsters that would later live on in the Fiend Folio and some even in infamy. We have in this issue, The Needleman, The Throat Leech, The Mite, Bonesnapper (no "The"), The Fiend (which later became something of the mascot of later articles), Disenchanter, and the first appearance anywhere of The Nilbog. The article is longer than most WD articles have been to date (which were about 2 pages max). This is a significant jump in the evolution of WD.
An article on minis follows then an article on how to adapt Jack Vance's The Dragon Masters to a D&D game.
Open Box reviews two new games, "Knights of the Round Table" by Little Soldier (no ranking is given) and "Elric" by The Chaosium which they loved, but still graded it down in terms of the price (7 out of 10). Also reviewed are various D&D playing aids from Judges Guild.
The letters section has someone complaining about last issue's comic and another giving reasons why players should be allowed to roll your own attack dice. See none of you are really old school at all if you let your player roll their own dice! What's next? 4d6 and drop the lowest die? Anarchy!
Don Turnbull treats us to a lengthy overview/review of Traveller. He does spend a lot of time comparing it to D&D, which at the time I think made it read unfavorablly even if the article is positive. Today of course it reads differently where our assumption is it should not be like D&D at all. While he likes the game he feels there are some serious drawbacks to it. Namely what to do with it once you have it. While we can wink at that now, I do see where he was coming from.
Another full page of Kalgar.
Some new magic items in Treasure Chest.
Part 2 of the Asbury System of rewarding experience points by level and class.
A hit location system for Melee combat.
And finally an expanded Classified section.
Issue 6 now sees all the early vestiges shed from the pages. No joke classes, no silly treasure. White Dwarf has stepped up. Issue 6 can stand side by side with Dragon issues of the day and content wise I feel they are comparable. The art is not there yet and the content is still only around two dozen pages (but the pages are longer and the font smaller).
Next month, cover art takes a big leap forward.
First up though is an article ripped from today's Internet postings on various types of Armor Class vs. various weapons. Very old school yes, but the solution reminds me of the various armor classes we see in 3.x.
Next up is the Fiend Factory. The monsters presented here are from various authors but edited by Don Turnbull. The format is near-AD&D/Basic D&D (no longer in OD&D format). Each includes a picture (most times) and a Monstermark rating right there with all the other stats.
Out of the gate we have some monsters that would later live on in the Fiend Folio and some even in infamy. We have in this issue, The Needleman, The Throat Leech, The Mite, Bonesnapper (no "The"), The Fiend (which later became something of the mascot of later articles), Disenchanter, and the first appearance anywhere of The Nilbog. The article is longer than most WD articles have been to date (which were about 2 pages max). This is a significant jump in the evolution of WD.
An article on minis follows then an article on how to adapt Jack Vance's The Dragon Masters to a D&D game.
Open Box reviews two new games, "Knights of the Round Table" by Little Soldier (no ranking is given) and "Elric" by The Chaosium which they loved, but still graded it down in terms of the price (7 out of 10). Also reviewed are various D&D playing aids from Judges Guild.
The letters section has someone complaining about last issue's comic and another giving reasons why players should be allowed to roll your own attack dice. See none of you are really old school at all if you let your player roll their own dice! What's next? 4d6 and drop the lowest die? Anarchy!
Don Turnbull treats us to a lengthy overview/review of Traveller. He does spend a lot of time comparing it to D&D, which at the time I think made it read unfavorablly even if the article is positive. Today of course it reads differently where our assumption is it should not be like D&D at all. While he likes the game he feels there are some serious drawbacks to it. Namely what to do with it once you have it. While we can wink at that now, I do see where he was coming from.
Another full page of Kalgar.
Some new magic items in Treasure Chest.
Part 2 of the Asbury System of rewarding experience points by level and class.
A hit location system for Melee combat.
And finally an expanded Classified section.
Issue 6 now sees all the early vestiges shed from the pages. No joke classes, no silly treasure. White Dwarf has stepped up. Issue 6 can stand side by side with Dragon issues of the day and content wise I feel they are comparable. The art is not there yet and the content is still only around two dozen pages (but the pages are longer and the font smaller).
Next month, cover art takes a big leap forward.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Sex and D&D
Man, you take a little break to collect your thoughts and the next thing you know the bloggers are going crazy again. We all need to need to switch to decaf!
So the latest dramarama is WotC jokingly or not posting a list of choices to include in the next iteration of D&D. One of which was gender-based attribute limits.
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120213/2#78477
Don't bother to look for it, it is gone now.
Now, the first thing I suspected was it was just a joke. Something no one wanted to take seriously.
Of course they started getting a lot of notice for it (planned maybe? Nah...even I am not that cynical), so it was taken down as a choice.
This lead to the next level, blog posting, here three different takes.
The people on the side of realism say, "yes, it should! look at the evidence!" and they point to the real world.
People on the side of gender inclusion, or at the very least, people on the side of "less rules = better play" say there should be no differences".
I am, at least on the opinion side of things, on the side of equality. Mostly because a.) I really don't need a rule for this, I have plenty ok and b.) I want to encourage more women to play the game, I don't want to give them any reasons why they might not want to.
In practice though, I am falling short.
In AD&D we did use this at first, but we countered it with giving female twice the amount to develop a psionic wild talent (per the old AD&D 1st ed rules) since we logicked out that since psionics are a dominate sex-linked trait on the X chromosome then women had twice the chance to have it than men. The balance of course didn't pay off since there was always a good chance that female character had some psionic power.
In Ghosts of Albion "Female" is a minority and worth a 1 point Drawback. Women also have 1 level less of Status and have a 1 Point Obligation to cover the loss of their freedoms.
All of this is of course appropriate to the time in which Ghosts of Albion takes place. I will also point out that one of the most physically powerful characters is the ghost of Queen Boadicea and the most magically potent character is Tamara Swift; and this is all from the mind of Amber Benson (who even got higher billing on the book cover than i did!).
So yeah. I might not have a leg to stand on this one. I do see both sides.
This is not Dead/Evil Lesbian Cliché bad or even Women in Refrigerators bad.
For me. I 'd rather not see it since I am going to ignore it anyway, and it is one less thing I barrier to the game I'll have to overcome to get people to play.
How about you? What are your thoughts?
So the latest dramarama is WotC jokingly or not posting a list of choices to include in the next iteration of D&D. One of which was gender-based attribute limits.
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120213/2#78477
Don't bother to look for it, it is gone now.
Now, the first thing I suspected was it was just a joke. Something no one wanted to take seriously.
Of course they started getting a lot of notice for it (planned maybe? Nah...even I am not that cynical), so it was taken down as a choice.
This lead to the next level, blog posting, here three different takes.
- http://lotfp.blogspot.com/2012/02/whats-orc-babys-maximum-strength-score.html
- http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2012/02/in-defense-of-gender-based-ability.html
- http://tao-dnd.blogspot.com/2012/02/no-sex-please-we-play-d.html
The people on the side of realism say, "yes, it should! look at the evidence!" and they point to the real world.
People on the side of gender inclusion, or at the very least, people on the side of "less rules = better play" say there should be no differences".
I am, at least on the opinion side of things, on the side of equality. Mostly because a.) I really don't need a rule for this, I have plenty ok and b.) I want to encourage more women to play the game, I don't want to give them any reasons why they might not want to.
In practice though, I am falling short.
In AD&D we did use this at first, but we countered it with giving female twice the amount to develop a psionic wild talent (per the old AD&D 1st ed rules) since we logicked out that since psionics are a dominate sex-linked trait on the X chromosome then women had twice the chance to have it than men. The balance of course didn't pay off since there was always a good chance that female character had some psionic power.
In Ghosts of Albion "Female" is a minority and worth a 1 point Drawback. Women also have 1 level less of Status and have a 1 Point Obligation to cover the loss of their freedoms.
All of this is of course appropriate to the time in which Ghosts of Albion takes place. I will also point out that one of the most physically powerful characters is the ghost of Queen Boadicea and the most magically potent character is Tamara Swift; and this is all from the mind of Amber Benson (who even got higher billing on the book cover than i did!).
So yeah. I might not have a leg to stand on this one. I do see both sides.
This is not Dead/Evil Lesbian Cliché bad or even Women in Refrigerators bad.
For me. I 'd rather not see it since I am going to ignore it anyway, and it is one less thing I barrier to the game I'll have to overcome to get people to play.
How about you? What are your thoughts?
Victorian Games
I have gotten a bunch of "new" Victorian Games in the mail here recently.
I don't have a lot to say yet, but you can follow the discussion with myself and some of the authors of these games.
We are talking over at the Victorian Gamers Association (on Facebook).
Come on by.
I don't have a lot to say yet, but you can follow the discussion with myself and some of the authors of these games.
We are talking over at the Victorian Gamers Association (on Facebook).
Come on by.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)