Friday Night Videos: Women Rock!, Part 2.

A while back I posted a bunch of videos from women that rock.
It was quite popular.

I said then that a part 2 was in order.  So here it is!



K's Choice wis a band from Belgium that had some notoriety in the mid to late 90s.  The biggest album was 1995's Paradise in Me which gave us the hit "Not An Addict". This was a huge song for me during my Sojourn in Hell period, for what should be obvious reasons.  My biggest issue with K's Choice is that for years I swore they were Canadian.   This is the European version of the video which I prefer.




Speaking of the 90s, no one, and I mean no one, does angry like Tori Amos.  Don't think so?  Listen to her lyrics sometime, especially songs like "Me and A Gun", "Pass the Mission", "Spark" and "Cornflake Girl" or to a lesser degree "Crucify".  Taylor Swift sings about someone and it is fodder for Twitter. Tori Amos sings about someone and it is Primal Scream Therapy.
Though the song that always gets me is the first time I saw her.  "Silent All These Year" from the phenomenal Little Earthquakes.

My scream got lost in a paper cup
You think there's a heaven
Where some screams have gone

Never fails to get to me.




I am not all about pathos.  Last time I mentioned my love of Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees.  That is still true. But I was thinking back to the first song I ever heard of theirs.  Without a doubt it has to be "Cities in Dust".  I remember hearing this all the time in the hey of MTV. I actually sat down to listen to the lyrics once and realized it was about Volcano Day.




At this point do I really need to explain why I am including Stevie Nicks?  No. Ok good.  But I will add that this is my favorite song from the fantastic The Other Side of the Mirror.  This is a more adult and more mature Stevie.  This is a woman that knows who she is and where life is going.  At 31 she was more interesting than the "Wild Heart" girl of her early to mid 20s.




Last time I also mentioned Joan Jett, but I really need to give a shout out to the band that gave us Joan Jett, Lita Ford and Cherie Currie, The Runaways.  The Runaways have been given their due more lately. There was the bio-pic in 2010 and appearances of their signature song "Cherry Bomb" in both Lollipop Chainsaw and Guardians of the Galaxy.   The version from the movie is not too bad, but lacks something raw that original had in droves.




Taylor Momsen may have gotten her start as "Cindi Lou Who" but thankfully for all of us she sold her soul to darkness.  Just kidding...mostly.  Well years later she is fronting the band Pretty Reckless and she seems to be constantly trying to shed that wholesome image.  She is, in some sense, the spiritual successor to The Runaways.   She looks like Cherie Curry and tries to sing like Joan Jett.  She isn't bad and the band has some good songs.  "Heaven Knows" might be the most recognizable.




So who are your favorites?

New 5e Material Out Now

This did not take long.

+Mark Craddock over at the excellent Cross Planes blog has already gotten two new classes out for D&D 5 over at The DM's Guild.

Dhampirs and Way of the Telekinetic.

I picked up the Dhampir one and I like it. It is quick, easy and adds some fun to D&D5.
Plus it is only a buck so how can I complain about that.

It is nice to see this content come out and I hope this is a first of many new products from Mark but also others.

Everyone is fearing a repeat of the great d20 glut and flood of the early 2000s, but not me.
Bring it on! I am ready to drink from the firehose.

Congrats Mark!  Looking forward to more!

Reading Challenges

I am going to participate in a few reading challenges again this year.

Once again I am participating in The Witches & Witchcraft Reading Challenge at Melissa's Eclectic Bookshelf.

I doubt I will do as well as I did last year, but I am going to give it a try.

Also I "read" a lot of audio-books.  So this year I am also going to participate in the Book Nympho's 2016 Audiobook Challenge.  This one I expect I will do well on.  I have to commute everyday to work so I have lots of time in the car.

I have already started on both.

Another one I would like to do is the 2016 Victorian Reading Challenge.  But I don't currently have anything in my TBR piles that qualifies.  Except for games really.

Still.  I enjoy these and it is a fun way to talk about something I was going to do anyway.

ETA: A few more.

2016 Prequel & Sequel Challenge

Retellings Reading Challenge 2016

2016 EBook Reading Challenge

Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge

2016 Horror Reading Challenge

New to You 2016

Class Struggles: What Should a 5e Witch Be?

This post is an odd one for the Class Struggles series.  Instead of looking at different expressions of the same class or class-idea, I want to figure out what a 5e Witch class could be via the same sort of research and analysis.

Why do this?  Well the news came out yesterday that the 5e SRD is now released under the OGL.  While I had not really seriously contemplated the idea of a 5e witch.  I had been playing around with an idea I was calling The Coven for 5e.  Where I took established classes and tried to make them more "witch like" by working within the rules. I am still going to do that since it informs my own play and how the rules work for the various magic using classes.

I want to start by looking back to these posts, What Should an OSR Witch Do or Be? and Tom Moldvay on Witches.  Why? Well, this post represents my thought process when I was working on The Witch.  I like to walk through the same exercises for each version.  Start with the assumptions and then add in the game specific assumptions and see where that takes me.

Let me start by looking at the Moldvay Criteria again for 4e, Pathfinder and my Basic witch.  Why keep 4e? Well if WotC does their own witch it will be informed by the work they did in 4e.

Ability	4e Witch	Pathfinder Witch	Basic Witch
1. Ability to use Herbs	skills	skills	ability check
2. The Power of Fascination	powers	spells	spells
3. Clerical and Magic-User magic	Yes	Yes	Yes
4. Sympathetic Magic	limited to powers	limited to spells	new spell mechanic
5. Worshipers of forbidden religions	yes	yes	yes
6. Powers based on natural cycles	"Moon" builds	no	spells
7. Covens	Yes	only with hags	Yes
8. Ritual Magic	In PHB I only	limited	Yes

All 8 of these points must be met in order to create a new witch class.  Thankfully, this can be done in 5e.

So the ability to use herbs can be a Medicine or Nature check, depending on how it is used.
Fasicnation can be a power or spell or some combination (which also puts a vote in favor of Charisma as the prime stat).
Clerical & Magic-user magic. Not an issue.  I have a well-established list of spells.
Same with Sympathetic magic.
Covens, Powers based on the natural cycles, and worshippers of forbidden religions will need to be dealt with.
Ritual magic is well covered by D&D5.

Ok. So the framework is there and I have some ideas how to put the witch class on this framework. Time to start thinking about how 5e plays.

Covens as Builds/Archetypes
Each class has a "build" involved with it.  The Druids have Circles, the Sorcerers have their Origins, Warlocks have their Pacts and Wizards have Arcane Traditions.   Witches could have Covens.  In other books and games I have used "traditions" to cover this same basic idea.  But Wizards have that word now.   The Druid Circles struck me as being very coven like in truth.  Though the Warlock pacts could also be redone slightly to reflect some of the same ideas I have about covens and traditions.

Ability Scores
What ability score should I use?  I have, over the years, used Wisdom, Charisma and Intelligence.
The Witch uses Charisma.  Eldritch Witchery uses Wisdom and Inteliigence.  Pathfinder uses Intelligence and Charisma.  I used wisdom for both my 2nd and 3rd edition witches.  I can come up with reasons or justifications for any of them to be honest.  I prefer Charisma with Wisdom in a close second.  Trouble is D&D 5 already has two magic-users that use these abilities each.

I think I want to take a look at the 5 basic magic using classes in terms of how well they address the Moldvay Criteria.

Ability	Cleric	Druid	Sor	Warlock	Wizard
0. Ability Score	Wis	Wis	Cha	Cha	Int
1. Ability to use Herbs	Med	Med/Nat	No	Nat	Med
2. The Power of Fascination	spell	spell	spell	spell	spell
3. Clerical and Magic-User magic	Clr	Clr	MU	MU+Pact	MU
4. Sympathetic Magic	spell	spell	spell	spell	spell
5. Worshipers of forbidden religions	no	yes/no	NA	yes	NA
6. Powers based on natural cycles	no	yes	no	no	no
7. Covens	no	yes	no	yes	no
8. Ritual Magic	yes	yes	no	yes (pact)	yes

Looking at the list is seems that the best "witch" is either a druid or warlock.  This actually tracks with my playing of these two classes as wtiches.

In fact.  The Warlock is very much like what I would want for a witch, but only less "blasty".

Maybe a "Witch" is a warlock that has a "Goddess/God" Patron and instead of evocations there are spells.   I will have to experiment more to be honest. And certainly more time with the 5e Warlock.

I like the idea of of some powers (Occult Powers in previous editions) and spells.

I think IF I were to do a witch I would have to be very, very selective of her spells and make sure they balance out compared to the other classes. It is possible, even liekly that the Witch and the Warlock have similar lists, but who knows right now.

5e players. What do you think a 5e witch should do?

D&D 5th Edition SRD and OGL. Oh..and you can now write for the Forgotten Realms too.

Well no one suspected THIS I can tell you that.

Wizards of the Coast released the D&D 5th edition SRD along with the OGL 1.1 today.

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/systems-reference-document-srd

They have also opened up something they call The Dungeon Master's Guild.
https://www.dmsguild.com/index.php?affiliate_id=10748

You can now release material under the OGL for 5e using the SRD.  OR if you want to say, write Forgotten Realms material, then you can do that too.

The SRD is nearly 400 pages of D&D 5th ed rules.

If you are a publisher and have something ready to go, you might want to consider your D&D5 options now.

So I have to ask.  Anyone interested in a 5e version of The Witch?

Weekend Gaming

The Order of the Platinum Dragon picked up a new character this weekend.  Crowley, a tiefling warlock had been captured by the Slavers in A1, he decided to stay with the group as they journeyed up the Drachenslab hills to A2.

So far the Order has done well. They have killed Markessa and are about to encounter the Ogre Mage.

The maps from the new Against the Slave Lords PDF came in very handy!

They have all already looted close to 50,000gp worth.  I might need to adjust the treasure for future modules.

Satisfied with Alpha Blue

Alpha Blue is the latest release from Kort'thalis Publishing and +Venger Satanis.

Alpha Blue is a Space Station where the party never ends.  The book is 111 pages (114 if you count covers and extra page). The art is what you would expect from Venger; good and on the creepy side.  Some I *think* I have seen before, but I can't be sure really.  But all of it really comes with a nice vibe of late 70s/early 80s sci-fi cheese.  Basically if you grew up in the 70s and 80s watching any sci-fi you will recognize something here. If you are like me then something you will like.  They layout is clean and easy to read. I also appreciate the color and b/w versions of the character sheet.

The book has a basic system attached to it, mostly, as the author describes to set the tone for a game.  The character generation system actually would well as an additional bit of character information for your standard OSR game.  There is some good material here that can be used for something like White Star or Starships & Spacemen.  Print out your game's regular sheet and an Alpha Blue sheet back to back.

The rest of the book is the reall meat of the book and might not really be most people's cup of tea.  Alpha Blue is a Space Brothel.  The obvious nod here is to the old adult movie The Satisfiers of Alpha Blue.  I will happily admit I have seen and enjoyed the movie.  Actually the movie is an interesting social commentary that all the best sci-fi movies have. But that is for another discussion.

Alpha Blue, the book, is thankfully devoid of social commentary.  I am not trying to say the book is nothing but sleazy encounters, but there is a lot here that can be great setting material...and some sleaze.

I think that Venger missed a good opportunity here to call the game master a "Blue Dungeon Space Master" or a BDSM.  A little awkward? Yeah.  No worse than Dungeon Master I guess.

I mentioned in the past that this premise reminds me of the +Shon Richards' story Pleasure Station Sigma.   The comparison still holds, but there is more to Alpha Blue than just that.

Honestly there are so many hidden gems and easter eggs here that I am still finding them weeks in to reading this game.  Which brings up a point.
The one thing this book lacks, and really could use, is it's own "Appendix N". A collection of late 70s early 80s B and C grade Sci-Fi movies and TV shows.  Off the top of my head I saw influences of Logan's Run, Barbarella (ok 60s), Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek (TOS), Star Wars (the first trilogy only), Doctor Who (explictly mentioned), Galaxina, Cherry 2000, Westworld, Heavy Metal, Weird Science, the Buck Rodgers RV series, the Flash Gordon movie and of course, Satisfyers of Alpha Blue.

There are a lot of random tables in this book too.  Personally I am not a fan of a bunch of random tables, but here it works.  After all this is a space station with a lot going on. Plus it fits not only the Gonzo-Sci-Fi style VS has going here, but also the Gonzo-OSR style all his books have.

Alpha Blue is not for the easily offended.  It is also not really for anyone that did not grow up in the 70s or 80s; too much of the content will be lost on anyone that hears "Starbuck" and thinks coffee or Katee Sackhoff.   There is the right group out there for this book, and for that group it will be a lot of fun.  Some reviews have called this an "adult" title.  Maybe.  Personally I would say it is R-rated at the worst.  Though now I do know how much damage a jelly-double headed dildo will do if used in combat.

ETA: Just learned of the death of David Bowie.  I think some stats for Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane or The Thin White Duke are in order.

The stars look very different today.