Chat time!

Courtesy of Scrap Princess

Finally I have found the long lost chat from Jez's Star Wars game! Rejoice!

The Set-up: Scrap's character Maurice is about to fight in the Robot Fightling League. Ian's character Golden Aamwa attempted to bet 1,000 credits on the fight,but my character (Rank Trill) convinced the bookie he said 100,000 credits. Reynaldo's character did not help the situation. The following is the chat log for that fight.

Ian Johnson 18:31
Oh god don't die

Reynaldo Madrinan 18:33
We technically can't die sir.

me 18:33
Fark!

Ian Johnson 18:33
KC-85, I am a highly agitated Ithorian right now, please allow me my mild incorrect word choice during this tense moment.

Reynaldo Madrinan 18:34
My apologies sir.

At this point Maurice has taken same damage and seems to be losing the fight.

me 18:34
Ok......run for the ship?

Reynaldo Madrinan 18:34
I have misguided loyalty for Maurice Captain.

Ian Johnson 18:34
You horrible human, I swear to the Jungle Mother that if you get me black listed from this entire planet, I may very well abandon my people's ancient aversion to violence.

Reynaldo Madrinan 18:35
You are at a pit-fight as it is, Sir.

me 18:35
Hey! You placed the bet!
I was like, whaaaaat? 100,000 credits? You crazy

Reynaldo Madrinan 18:36
The captain has a point sir. That was outrageous.

Ian Johnson 18:37
This is preposterous!Whoever programmed a droid to lie?!
What sort of a terrible operation is the Alliance running? This is an outrage!

Reynaldo Madrinan 18:37
I can't so much lie as tell very strategically selected truths, sir.

Ian Johnson 18:38
Protocol droid, if we get out of this alive, I am going to reprogram you into a floor scrubber and sell you to cover the debt.

Maurice is making a combat! Badassery is ensuing!

Reynaldo Madrinan 18:39
I do believe Maurice is winning sir, so I will have to lodge a protest for that course of action.
To speak in more common nomenclature; "I can't let you do that, Dave."

me 18:39
Mate, I'm starting to think you might have a gambling problem..

Ian Johnson 18:39
By the sacred forests of Ithor, I will end you

Reynaldo Madrinan 18:40
Denial is usually indicative of a larger problem, sir.

me 18:40
*Ranik gets another drink*

Maurice wins! At this point we cheered LOUDLY.

And so ends the tale of how we one 100,000 credits in Jez Gordons Stars Wars: The Malicrux Peril game, only to lose it all 5 minutes later.

Grand return.

This is my first post in a long while which is of no surprise of course as I have always been notoriously lazy with updating blogs. Hopefully that will change and this blog will be filled up with my late night, brain-dead ramblings and nonsense. One can dream!

Since my last post I have been playing in a lot more Constant Con/Flainsnail games on Google Plus and I have been loving every second of it. The G+ RPG community has been great overall and I've yet to play a game that I haven't had fun in. Everyone has been really nice and quite accommodating to new players (such as me!).

Drawing of our last DCC session

Claytonian's DCC campaign has continued to be my weekly highlight as we meet up every Monday evening to play using Roll20 which has worked it extremely well especially after they added Google Hangout support. I can't put in words how useful and simple Roll20 with Hangouts is, I've found that since we've started using it we've been able to do a lot more in our 2 hour sessions as battles and exploration have been greatly simplified. Getting back to the Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign, it remains consistently fun despite the loss of a few characters now (all mine), an influx of players dropping in and out and the party finding itself getting sidetracked. Claytonian continues to keep us on our toes though! Despite the party tending to find ourselves to scared to finish a dungeon and abandoning it in manly fear, he always has something else waiting for us.Two other favourites of mine would easily have to be Trent B's New Feierland and after an initial game that I played last night, Reynaldo's Barovania.

Typical Feierlander

I'll begin by praising Trent B on his horrible creation. I've had a few characters meet terrible deaths in this setting (Including Steve the Amazing the first PC I ever loved) but not once have I felt cheated. Trent isn't what I'd consider an evil DM, he just enjoys seeing us all in pain. Feierland is a harsh and unforgiving setting where pretty much everything is dangerous. I really can't get enough of it, despite the overtly depressing theme of life in New Feierland and the eventual bloody death my character shall receive. If you were to actually try to survive in Feierland it is of course possible, but where's the fun in that? Trent B encourages stupid and courages actions from PCs, giving them XP rewards for terrible plans and memorable moments which really helps in getting everyone to go crazy.

Barovania.

Barovania is the setting that I wish I made. To put it simply, Barovania is a mix of 80s Nintendo (Mostly Castlevania obviously), Ravenloft and a big ol' bucket of Awesomesauce. Reynaldo is a great DM and seems to have no problem working with whatever crazy schemes the PCs get up to. The use of NES tropes and occasional videogame cameo/reference are what really makes this setting stand out to me. I'd love to have more to say about Barovania (and hopefully I will soon) but having only played one session I don't really have much to write, apart from the fact that I simply cannot wait to return.


I love G+

Wizard Rap

Haven't updated in a while (sorry!) so I better get the world wide webiverse up to date with day-to-day occurrences. I picked up the new Ipad a few days ago which is so boss. I've been loading it up with comics and PDFs and it has been amazing to read with. Should be getting the Dungeon Crawler Classic PDF sometime soon which will be a treat to read. Once again I am STILL procrastinating about DMing a game, but for some reason I'm feeling really nervous about it.

Game of Thrones season 2 has started! I haven't watched the first episode yet, but the anticipation is there. I'm just waiting for the right night to be able to kick back and appreciate the badassery. Not much else to write about really, so I'll keep it short.

My thought as of late: ME3 ending sucked, Walking Dead season 2 was great, Legend of Grimlock looks cool, I love Netflix, still addicted to Pepsi Max and Wrestlemania was awesome.

AD&D

Chang!

Finally got all my AD&D 1E books in the mail and am watching the associated Community episode to celebrate. Now I just need to be bothered to start reading through them all. Hopefully I feel confident enough to run the adventure I keep claiming I will do, albeit with some house rules (eg. ascending armour class). Time will tell!

Look what arrived in the mail..

Holmes Basic Set

It took over 3 weeks to arrive but much to my delight it is finally in my grubby little hands. I also got dungeon modules B1: In Search of the Unknown (included in the set) and X1: Isle of Dread. Planning on picking up B2 Keep on the Borderlands at G1-3 from Tactics sometime soon. Exciting times ahead!!

Sunday Night Update!

Doug loves blog posts

So it's Sunday night and I am sitting at a dinner table on my laptop whilst my beautiful Tanya is studying for her test tomorrow. On the eve of my final weekend before I return to uni I have come to the realisation that I had accomplished nothing that I had set out for myself to do during my summer break. Although that sounds bad my goals were pretty pointless:

1. Complete every Zelda game
2. Finally complete MGS
3. Become slightly less awesome

Although none of them have been done yet (damn you MGS!!) I still had a pretty good holiday. Rediscovering my love for pen and paper games, I DMed my very first adventure....it was a disaster, but an enjoyable one. I had picked up the Pathfinder beginners box to run for a workmate and his friends who seemed to actually enjoy the game despite me constantly having to try and figure out the mechanics (lots of book referencing). I did enjoy being the DM though, I just didn't enjoy Pathfinder. I've played 4E and 3.5 in the past and even though I do enjoy playing them, at times I feel suffocated by all the mechanics. My discovery of the OSR and eventually joining my DCC group is the highlight of my summer.

In other news St Patrick's day is coming up! I plan to once again get blindly drunk and listen to way too much Dropkick Murphys. Also looking to give Binary Domain a play, that games seems like all the right kinds of crazy. I'm awaiting the arrival of the Holmes basic box in the mail along with the core AD&D 1E books which has me insanely excited. Until Dungeon Crawl Classics actually releases (pre-ordering foil cover this week) I plan on being lost in these books.

Galaxy Foamposite

Want.

Lazy, lazy post.

Haven't updated in a while which is a bit of a disappointment, but I really haven't had anything to write about! I've continued to play Dungeon Crawler Classic RPG on Monday nights with some people from Japan and it has been extremely fun. The combination of a great game along with great people  has me constantly counting down till Monday nights. I'm once again getting the itch to try and DM a game and it seems like I am probably going to give in. Still contemplating on what system I am going to use as I have the AD&D 1E core books coming in the mail but I am also thoroughly enjoying DCC RPG and am becoming quite familiar with the system. The Adventurer Conqueror King System is also on the cards but I still haven't finished reading through it.

My DCC Character

Mission Hill

I used to love this show.

Wassup?

I never get sick of this video

Want.

Nike Air Foamposite One

Everytime a new Foamposite colourway drops I never have money. So depressing.

ACKS!

Sunday night reading

Dungeon Crawl Awesomeness

This game has become my new obsession.

The Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG is a set of roleplaying rules inspired by old-school Dungeons and Dragons, that attempts to capture the essence of a classic dungeon crawling adventure. DCC started off as a set of modules created by Goodman Games for use with 3E D&D along with 4E and some adventures actually being adapted for the original Dungeons and Dragons. The game itself isn't set for actual release untill around April (hopefully), but Goodman Games has released a beta version of the game on their website for free (here).

As soon as I saw that cover I was in love. I recently attempted to run a game of Pathfinder for a workmate and his friends, it was a disaster. They all had fun, which is the point of the game really, but for me there were just too any rules and conditions to manage. The game ran really slow as I kept having to refer to the book and right from the very start players were all min/maxing their characters. This wasn't my idea of fun. That's not to say the game is bad, there is a lot to Pathfinder that I love (which is why I tried to run a game) but as a DM with no experience that game is just too much.

DCC RPG is the game I want to run. The game wears it's inspiration on it's sleeve, it takes what is good about oD&D and improves on it, much like what Pathfinder does to 3.5 although not as literal. In my opinion the greatest features introduced by this game is the character creation and 0-level gameplay. The focus is to create your character points first, you roll 3d6 for each of your ability scores in order (with no re-rolls) and choose your 0-level occupation (by rolling 1d100). The idea of 0-level play is that your characters start as regular people, you are not a hero yet, and so you start off with an occupation (eg. blacksmith). This starts you off with basic equipment for your career along with associated skills.

With 0-level gameplay each player is advised to make between 3-5 characters EACH! All these characters will be randomly rolled with differing abilities/occupations with some obviously being better than others. These average people will then set out on their first adventure, obviously not all are going to make it. The idea is that at least half of these characters will die, which ever characters are strongest or are most protected by the player will survive till the end and become adventurers. I feel that this helps players see their characters as more than just stats, their care about the character they want to play and will attempt to make sure that character survives and with the random nature of character creation it is impossible for a player to try and mix/max their characters.

The simplified rules and original character creation are what really make this game stand out to me, but the games charm in general is what I'm probably going to remember the most. The art and design of the game evokes a pulp fantasy aura, chock full of mystical creatures and grand quests. It has a certain campiness to it that really appeals to me. I seriously can't stop reading through these rules and have so many ideas of crazy campaigns I want to run. Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG is a must purchase.

tl;dr DCC RPG = Awesome

Left Boy

Left Boy = Artist I'm most excited about for 2012

Random Idea: Adventure Time RPG

Adventure Time is one of my favourite cartoons of recent, heck it might be one of my favourite shows in general. The show is about the a boy named of Finn along with his dog/best friend Jake and their adventures throughout the magical land of Ooo. The world of Adventure Time is something that I really want to try and use as a campaign setting.

My idea would involve the PCs playing as a group of kids who have been magically transported to the Land of Ooo, trying to figure out how it is that they arrived and how they can return home. Summoned by Princess Bubblegum, the ruler of Candy Kingdom, they learn that Ooo's two greatest adventurers (Finn and Jake) have dissappeared and that a great evil is coming. It is up to the PCs to find the duo and save the world.

While it's not the most original storyline in the world, I feel that it's something that suits the Adventure Time perfectly. A group of kids in a magical world partaking in a dungeon crawling adventure full of peril....what's there not to love?

First Post!!!!!!

Hello, my name is John and this is my blog. My girlfriend has bugged me multiple times in the past to write a blog but I've enevr gotten into it, simply because my life is boring. In 2012 that changes! Look forward to exciting posts such as 'This video is crazy: link' and 'Follow my girlfriend.' :)