A Hero Twice A Month

Red Sonja: Queen of Plagues Issue 4

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Tue, 24 Apr 2018 03:36:00 +0000

As you may recall, last issue ended with the death of Red Sonja (Dead Sonja?). So it is not too surprising that we open on Dark Annisia patrolling the fence she demanded built around the doomed city of Patra.

Dark Annisia spots an old man climbing over the fence, a task that is not that impressive as the fence cannot be more than three feet high at the most. Seriously, when she said in issue two that she was going to build a fence around the plague city and turn it into a “living cemetery”, I envisioned something more impressive. At the very least I was expecting something that an elderly man would have trouble scrambling over.

Dark Annisia stops him, but he claims that there is no plague in Patra; No one has died from the plague since Dark Annisia killed their king and exiled Red Sonja! Unfortunately, the people in the city are now starving since the fields lay outside the quarantine zone.

Even more unfortunately for the old man, Dark Annisia asks the ghosts she always sees following her to decide the man’s fate—unsurprisingly they have her kill him by striking his head from his body. Apparently triggered by the old man’s reverence towards Red Sonja, Dark Annisia declares to her monster men soldiers that from now on she wants to be called “Red Annisia”.

Back in the snowy mountains, Red Sonja is apparently less dead than her rescuers claimed when they found her at the end of the last issue.

Not that she is doing very well though. Red Sonja has gone blind, which apparently is a sign that the plague is nearing its final stages. While Red Sonja is somewhat delirious at this point, her young rescuers manage to convey to her that the king’s son may be able to cure her if they bring her back to Patra. Similarly, Red Sonja manages to convey to them that she wants alcohol. As a compromise, the girls create a makeshift stretcher to pull her behind their horses while Red Sonja drinks from a wineskin and sings poorly.

At this point we have a flashback to the Zamoran Slave Pit with a younger—or at least slightly less well-endowed—Sonja meeting Dark Annisia for the first time. At this point Annisia has a somewhat mocking tone when talking to the younger woman. She informs Sonja that names are forbidden in the pit and warns Sonja that her willful attitude will get her sent out fight first. Sonja simply declares that she has a name and if she gets sent out first she gets sent out first.

Despite Annisia’s condescending tone, she does give Sonja some advice on how to fight—advice Sonja will get a chance to use right away as the two women are sent to the pit to fight together against a team of four men for the amusement of the Zamoran king.

During the battle, Sonja manages to kill three of the four men by herself, much to Annisia’s surprise. Sonja then methodically cuts off the heads of the men she killed. Holding the three heads aloft, she proudly declares to the Zamoran king that her name is Red Sonja!

Back in the present, Ayla and Nias are foraging in the woods when they are set upon by a group of Zamoran monster men. Their captain declares that an example must be made of them for breaking the quarantine. So in somewhat ironic fashion he declares that the girls should be literally gutted like fish. Specifically, he says, “Bend them forward, cut through to the spines as they do with fish. Pull out the bones my friends. Clean them and gut them.”

A still mostly blind Red Sonja hears this pleasant exchange. Telling the “Deep Ones” that the girls are not seafood, she proceeds to slaughter the monster men despite being her physical limitation. The captain turns out to be the same monster man who picked which slaves would fight back in the Zamoran pit.

Saving the girls and killing her old tormenter seems to reenergize Red Sonja. She vows to return to Patra and take down Dark Annisia.

Thoughts

I know I mentioned it before, but that fence was truly unimpressive. No wonder people keep escaping.
Dark Annisia rechristening herself as “Red Annisia” seems a little out of left field.
I felt the flashback this issue was the weakest one so far. We already knew Red Sonja and Dark Annisia had bonded in the Zamoran slave pit and I didn’t feel like we got enough new information of what it was like to justify the pages spent on it. Young Sonja seemed pretty much fully developed, personality wise at least, by the end of her first fight, I wish more time was sent showing how her time in the pits shaped her into the bad ass she is today.
I’m having a hard time determining how much time passed between young Red Sonja killing the raiders that destroyed her village and her fighting in the slave pits. She seems almost as young as she did in last issue’s flashback in the initial scenes with Dark Annisia, but in the fight scene that takes place a few panels earlier, she looks a few years older. This doesn’t seem intentional as the dialogue implies the flashback is all happening over the course of a few hours.
Red Sonja literally calls the Zamoran monster men Deep Ones in this issue. They still seem more like Davy Jones’ crew from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies than Lovecraft to me though.
As the exception that proves the rule, the deep one captain describing how to gut the young women like fish in great detail was well done and creepy. This was the first time the monster men seemed truly inhuman to me.

Red Sonja: Queen of Plagues Issue 3

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Sun, 15 Apr 2018 06:33:00 +0000

The story picks up two fortnights after last issue, with Red Sonja is leading her horse through a frozen forest. The effects of the plague and the isolation are taking their toll on her. She realizes she has lost the will to care for herself—the only thing keeping her alive is the fact that she is caring for her horse. Red Sonja hears a noise in the forest and quickly draws her bow, only to see a magnificent white stag.

Despite the fact that the stag would provide her with much needed food, Red Sonja cannot let loose her arrow. Having lost all hope, the exhausted warrior collapses into the snow ready to die. Strangely for a wild animal, the stag lies down beside Red Sonja, keeping her warm. Lying in the snow, Sonja begins to hallucinate.

First Sonja is visited by an image of her father, who tells her that it is time for her to join her family. Sonja then suddenly finds herself in the past, a young girl chasing after a different (?) white stag on her first hunt. During this hunt Sonja also fails to kill the stag, much to her father’s disappointment. He explains to his daughter that by letting the stag go Sonja has cost them food they need to survive. Sadly he tells Sonja that despite her skills with woodcraft and the bow perhaps she is not yet ready to be a hunter.

The conversation is interrupted when one of Sonja’s brothers sees a column of smoke and fire rising up from the village. Realizing the village is being attacked by marauders, Sonja’s father insists she wait in the woods while he and her brothers rush back to aid in the defense of their home. Sonja doesn’t listen though, and follows after she hears screams coming from the village. When she arrives, Sonja is stopped short by the hellish scene before her.

Before Sonja can join the fray, one of the marauders on the outskirts of the village sees her and grabs her from behind. The man has a bit of a sadistic streak in him, and decides to hold her tight and make her watch as her family and friends are killed. To her horror she realizes that these men attacked her village not because they wanted anything the villagers had, but merely because they were bored.

Sonja realizes she needs to be slippery, “like the stag”. She squirms in the man’s grip, and he realizes too late that she managed to get hold of his dagger, which she plunges in his gut even as he strikes her head with the pommel of his sword. Sonja stays conscious just long enough to finish him off with an arrow.

Sonja wakes the next day to see the marauders have moved on, leaving her people laying where they died in the village streets. Sonja takes it upon herself to bury all of the villagers, digging graves until her hands bled. Only once they are all attended to does Sonja decide to “truly hunt” for the first time.

Back at the marauder’s camp, the men joke that their recent slaughter of “pig farmers and dirt tillers” was actually doing them a favor. The leader, a man named Ryshak, wanders off into the woods to take care of the call of nature, but Sonja is waiting for him and shoots him in the neck with an arrow. As he lies there dying, Sonja pulls out a dagger and tells him that she is “really doing him a favor” as well.

When Ryshak’s men come looking for him, we find out what Sonja has been doing with the dagger. Before they can react to the signt of Ryshak’s head hanging from a tree, Sonja begins loosing arrow after arrow. She keeps to the trees and stays out of their reach. There were twenty men in the band, but over the course of four hours in the dark, the young girl known as Sonja kills them all.

Back in the present day, Red Sonja wakes up next to the stag. Her horse is gone, and in her confused state she hears the stag tell her she has one last task to perform before she can rest: digging her own grave. Since Red Sonja only has a sword to dig with and the ground is frozen, she doesn’t get very far before collapsing in a heap.

Wolves close in on her prone body when they are driven off by the sudden arrival of Ayla and Nias—her young “bodyguards” from the previous two issues. They excitedly babble at Red Sonja about how they have been looking for her everywhere and that king’s strange son, who everyone thought was a fool, managed to find a cure to the plague! There is only one problem.

Yep, Red Sonja is dead. Well, that was a short series.

Thoughts

The appearance of the white stag ties the present day and the past story together nicely. Of course, the sudden appearance of a white stag is full of symbolism all on its own. I like the true nature of the stag is left ambiguous.

Here we get Gail Simone’s new origin story for Red Sonja. It gets rid of some of the more problematic elements of her original origin story including her rape and her vow to the goddess Scathach that she would never lie with a man unless he defeated her in fair combat lest she lose her strength.

I do find it interesting that the future “She-Devil with a Sword” almost exclusively uses her bow to dispatch her enemies in the flashback. I guess she picks up swordplay when her and Dark Annisia are in the arena?

Another cliffhanger ending, although I doubt most readers truly believe Sonja is dead three issues into her own reboot series.

Red Sonja: Queen of Plagues Issue 2

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 23:45:00 +0000

The issue begins with Red Sonja facing off against the only other survivor of the Zamoran slave pits: Dark Annisia. While fighting the woman she once considered a sister, she remembers her time in the pits. On the evening before they were to face each other in combat, Annisia vowed that she would not fight Sonja. When Sonja grimly informs Annisia that they will simply kill her if she doesn’t fight, her response shows the depth of emotion Annisia has developed for Sonja during their time in the pit.

None of this seems be relevant now as Dark Annisia comes after Red Sonja on the battlefield in a rage, screaming at Sonja that her actions “dishonor the dead”. Despite Red Sonja seeming to have the advantage early in the fight, things take a turn in Annisia’s favor when she pulls a dagger and stabs Sonja in the thigh.

In the meantime we get to see how the battle between the forces of Patra and Zamora is going. Considering how outnumbered and undertrained the Patra forces are, they seem to be doing pretty well. We also get to see that the Zamoran forces contain a lot of weird “monster-people” fighting on their side, which pretty much cements that they are the bad guys in this situation.

Back to the battle between Red Sonja and Dark Annisia, Sonja attempts to talk down Annisia and convince her to leave the people of Patra in peace. Annisia is having none of it though, claiming Sonja’s life is one of “selfishness and betrayal.” When Red Sonja claims she never betrayed her, Annisia screams it is not her who was betrayed by Sonja but “the dead”, specifically the ghosts of the slaves they killed in the pits.

It quickly becomes obvious to Red Sonja that Dark Annisia is not being poetic; she literally believes the ghosts of the dead follow her around and that it is her duty to bring them new companions to ease their solitude. She also believes that Red Sonja has forgotten them and merely pretends not to see them. In other words, Dark Annisia has lost it.

Unfortunately for Red Sonja, even if Dark Annisia is not all there mentally, she has lost none of her deadliness on the battlefield, as she illustrates by casually killing King Dimath.

The sudden death of their monarch has a predictably detrimental effect on the morale of the Petra forces. Nevertheless, Red Sonja is determined to fight on and make Dark Annisia pay for what she has done. Almost sadly, Dark Annisia informs Sonja that instead of killing her, it will be Red Sonja who stands down today. When Sonja asks why she would ever do that, Dark Annisia shows Sonja her reflection in her blade.

Yes, Red Sonja has contracted the plague. Dark Annisia mocks her for throwing away her life for “scribblers and basket weavers”. However, Dark Annisia gives Sonja a choice because of who Sonja is and what they once shared. Rather than put Petra to the torch, they will build a fence around the plague city where it will become a “living cemetery”. All Red Sonja will have to do is kneel before Annisia and surrender.

Ultimately Red Sonja surrenders to save the people of Patra. Dark Annisia has her marked with the plague markings we saw on the scavengers in the first issue and she is exiled to the snowy mountains of the north where she is to speak to no one and avoid all human contact until she dies.

Thoughts

It is a bold move to have Red Sonja fail so completely in the second issue of the reboot.
I was not a fan of having “monster men” as part of the Zamoran army. I prefer my Hyborian Age adventures to have a more Lovecraftian horror vibe when it comes to such creatures. As part of this army, they just seemed like a replacement for standard fantasy goblins or orcs.
There is a definite implication that Dark Annisia’s feelings for Red Sonja are more of a romantic love than a sisterly one, although Red Sonja herself seems oblivious to this.
I think that the reveal that Dark Annisia believes herself to be literally haunted by the spirits of the people she killed was handled well.
Ending the issue with Red Sonja wandering the snowy mountains with her plague markings is a hell of a cliffhanger.

Red Sonja: Queen of Plagues Issue 1

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Sun, 08 Apr 2018 06:30:00 +0000

After a long hiatus, I am going to try getting back into blogging. So in the tradition of my Forgotten Realms comic book recaps I am going to turn my attention to another swords and sorcery series: Gail Simone’s run on Red Sonja.

Red Sonja was created by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor Smith for Marvel Comics back in 1973. She is very loosely based the the Robert E Howard character “Red Sonya of Rogatino” but is a distinct character in her own right. She (in)famously wears a chainmail bikini into battle, and was popular enough to headline her own Marvel comic series at several points during the seventies and eighties. Dynamite Entertainment acquired the comic book rights to Red Sonja in the early 2000’s, but my recaps are going to start with Gail Simone’s 2014 reboot.

The comic starts “three turns of the season past” in the aftermath of a great battle. The man with the sword is King Dimath. Dimath seems like a decent enough king, but in his conversations with his lieutenant it soon becomes clear that his son Tiath is cut from a different cloth entirely. While the battle was going on, Tiath was collecting humors and various other specimens from the dead rather than fighting by his father’s side.

While searching the keep, Dimath is informed that the only survivors are in the dungeon. Originally there were eighty prisoners, but each night the Zamoran king would have them fight to the death for sport and only two remain alive. King Dimath asks to see these “fierce men” only to find out they are not men at all—they are women!

The two survivors seem completely feral and incapable of speech. King Dimath’s lieutenant suggest the kindest thing might be to dispatch them, but Dimath will have none of it. He insists both of them be given food and a bath, then be given a horse and free passage away from the site of the battle. Upon hearing this one of the women manages to grunt out her name: Red Sonja!

The story then jumps ahead three years. On the border of Cimmeria, Red Sonja sleeps as three somewhat inept scavengers with strange markings on their faces case her campsite. Without moving, Sonja interrupts their whispered conversation telling them to go ahead and take the food and the gold if they need it, but if they try to touch her or her sword that they will die. The scavengers bluster, but Sonja informs them they are only getting this opportunity because she is drunk and she doesn’t want to get their blood on her horse.

It looks like the the scavengers are about to back down, when two young girls armed with bows arrive on the scene to “rescue” Sonja, who they refer to as “your radiant ladyship”. Things go south and Sonja quickly dispatches two of the three scavengers, leaving the third to beg for his life before vomiting up blood on her boots and collapsing.

The two girls explain that the scavenger has the plague, and that they have been looking for Red Sonja because their king begs her assistance. Red Sonja explains that “no “king” summons Sonja”, but when she hears it is King Dimath who needs aid, she agrees to go with them. Before going, she leaves the remaining scavenger wine and a blade so that he can end his life on his own terms.

Arriving at city-state of Patra, Sonja reluctantly dresses up for banquet being held in her honor. King Dimath explains to her that the plague has come to Patra and decimated his army. The Zamorans have marked any city-state touched by the plague to be put to the torch. With no army King Dimath knows they won’t be able to stop the Zamorans, but at least wants his people to die fighting.

Sonja agrees to train the civilians to fight, even though she knows it is likely pointless. Only four days in the Zamorans converge on the city. Sonja mounts a horse and rides out to meet the invading army. To her surprise, the Zamorans are being led by someone she knows—the woman known as Dark Annisia, her sister from the Zamoran slave pits!

Thoughts

Even though this is a reboot of the Red Sonja character, Gail Simone doesn’t waste any time getting straight to the action. I think it was the right choice to start with Sonja as an established heroine and parcel out the updated origin story over the next several issues.
Walter Geovani does an excellent job on the art. He has a very clean and detailed, if somewhat conventional comic book style.
Even though Red Sonja wears her traditional chainmail bikini in this issue, Gail Simone lampshades the improbable outfit a bit when Sonja’s young “rescuers” at one point refer to her as “she of the excellent cleavage”.

Forgotten Realms and other D&D comics are available now as part of a Humble Bundle

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 06:18:00 +0000

Sorry for the delay in posting, but things have been crazy at work recently. However, considering how much time on this blog I have spent recapping the old DC/TSR Forgotten Realms comic book series, I would be remiss if I didn’t note that the entire series is now available as part of a Humble (Book) Bundle.

And it is not just the old Forgotten Realms series either. The old Advanced Dungeons & Dragons series is also part of the bundle, not to mention several of the newer Dungeons & Dragons series produced by IDW.

This is a seriously good deal and at the time of this post it is still available for five days or so. So if you have enjoyed my postings on the old comic series and want to check it out for yourself, now is the perfect time to do so.

A quick programming note and Gen Con quick hits

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 15:00:00 +0000

This weekend I had some issues with the Windows 10 upgrade to my study PC that ultimately took the better part of Saturday to resolve. Since that is when I was planning on finishing up my Monday blog post, it will be postponed to my normal Thursday post.

In lieu of a full post, here are a few quick Gen Con news items:

Tribality posted the demon lord write ups from the upcoming D&D Adventure League storyline Rage of Demons.

Wizards of the Coast and D&D 5e did really well at the ENnies, winning the gold in thirteen catagories. The full list of ENnie Award winners can be found here.

Onyx Path Publishing has announced Vampire: The Masquerade 4th Edition. I find this a bit odd as they are already publishing both twentieth anniversary versions of their classic World of Darkness material and a second edition of their new World of Darkness material.

Random Reviews: Ant-Man

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 15:00:00 +0000

My feelings about the Ant-Man movie are complicated. I was really excited about Ant-Man when it was first announced that Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) was going to be directing it. Needless to say I was disappointed when he left due to creative differences with Marvel Studios. So for me Ant-Man will always have to compete with the pure Edgar Wright version of the movie that only exists in my head, and like anytime when reality has to compete with fantasy it is tough for reality to compete.

That said, Ant-Man is a fun movie. Marvel Studios seems to have making superhero movies down to a science now, even when translating their lesser known properties to the screen. Also, with the sheer number of movies Marvel Studios has produced in recent years they have smartly started to play with the genre a bit. The Captain America: The First Avenger was naturally a superhero film mixed with a period piece, but the Captain America: The Winter Soldier was also a mix, this time of superhero film and a spy thriller. Ant-Man is a superhero film mixed with a heist movie.

Like any heist movie, Ant-Man establishes what needs to be stolen, then establishes all the reasons why it is impossible to steal the item. It then has the ringleader establish a crew with specialized skills that can overcome the security around the item to be stolen. Of course, the heist has complications which are only overcome by quick thinking on the part of the crewmembers during the heist. In the end, despite these complications the heist is successful.

Of course, since it is not a pure heist movie Ant-Man also has to fit in time for a traditional superhero origin story and a big supervillain battle before the movie is over. Like Avengers: Age of Ultron it also takes some time away from the main plot to establish ties to the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe by having Ant-Man fight an Avenger to get a MacGuffin “needed” for the main heist. Personally, I wish they had kept it closer to the traditional heist film structure and eliminated the battle at the end, merely leaving Darren Cross raging at how Hank Pym had pulled one over on him. I am guessing my opinion is in the minority on this though.

As someone of Latino descent, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk a bit about Luis. Played by Michael Peña, Luis is one of the first* Latino characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While I wish he was more then a comedy sidekick, he is genuinely funny and gets the most to do of any of the secondary characters. Welcome to the MCU Luis, hopefully we will see you in the sequel.

All and all I enjoyed Ant-Man. It had a good mixture of action and humor. I don’t feel it was quite as enjoyable as last summer’s Guardians of the Galaxy but I would definitely recommend it to superhero movie fans.

3.5 carpenter ants out of 5

*Maria Hill is Latina in the comics, but in the MCU she is played by a white actress (Cobie Smulders). Conversely, Agent Sitwell is white in the comics, but is played by a Latino actor (Maximiliano Hernández) in the MCU.

Game Recap: Princes of the Apocalypse Session 3–The Temple of Sacred Stone

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 15:00:00 +0000

Dramatis Personae

Glidion: High Elf Wizard (Enchanter) who exaggerates stories of his past triumphs. Unwitting pawn of the Zhentarim.

Gracealyn “Darkeyes” Droverson: Tethyarian Human Noble Fighter (Champion) who seeks to restore her lost family fortunes. Member of the Lords Alliance.

Milo Miller: Lightfoot Halfling Cleric of Pelor (Life Domain). Seeks to spread worship of his god to Faerun. Watcher of the Harpers.

Salazar Tomoki: Shou Human Monk (Way of the Open Hand). Hermit who walks Faerun seeking enlightenment like Caine from Kung Fu.

Wrenna: Forest Gnome Rogue (Thief). Little is known of Wrenna’s past other then that she has been on the wrong side of the law from a young age.

Recap

Having defeated the gargoyles and deciding that their suspicions about the monastery being a haven for evil were correct, the party decided to throw caution to the wind. Well, not entirely to the wind as Wrenna snuck a peak into the central temple area prior to the group kicking open the doors. Wrenna reported that there were a priest and two guards inside gathered around an altar at the far end, with four large columns of natural stone dominating the room and a large set of stairs heading down in the center.

The party seized the initiative and attacked. Glidion lead the attack with a fireball to “soften them up”, followed quickly by the a fleet-footed and stealthy Salazar armed with shurikens. Wrenna used her bow to great effect while Darkeyes was less effective with her javelin as she tried to close the gap. Milo used a guiding bolt of magic to both attack and assist his comrades. Glidion was able to take down the weakened priest and guards using magic to put them to sleep.

Tying the three up, they proceeded to wake the priest and interrogate him. The priest, a man named Qarbo, was quite talkative if openly contemptuous of his captors. He told the group that no matter what they did, they could not stop the rise of the Cult of the Black Earth. When asked if the Cult of Black Earth was behind the attack on the party by monks wearing wingwear, he spat and said those “vulture riding fools from the Cult of Howling Hatred” were weak and would be “the first to fall when the Black Earth ascended”. When asked what was below, Qarbo told the party to “go down and find out, but do not be surprised if the Black Earth devours you.” Having enough of his attitude, Darkeyes literally picked him up by the ankles and shook him, and was gratified when a pair of keys on a chain around his neck fell to the ground.

Meanwhile the group discovered a bronze lever close to the altar. Wrenna could not determine its purpose, but Glidion had a hypotheses it might have to do with the stairs. Deciding to test this, the party placed the three tied up cultists on the edge of the stairs. Qarbo was asked if he had anything to say before the lever was pulled. While he looked nervous, he did not give the party any more information. The lever was pulled, the stairs collapsed, and the three cultists slid into the darkness below. More mechanical noises were heard in the distance, followed by screams, followed by a clacking, scrabbling noise as the umber hulk below tried to make it up the ramp. The party decided it was best to explore elsewhere.

Leaving out the small doors to the west, the party entered a hallway with Wrenna in the lead. Her sensitive gnomish nose detected the smell of baking bread. Making their way through the empty dining area, the group entered the kitchen where four monks in dun colored robes were preparing food. Seeing the party they hastily donned gargoyle masks and attacked. The monks proved no match for the party however, and once they were vanquished the party use the opportunity to restock their provisions. The deceased monks were also liberated of their robes and masks.

Heading back out the way they came and travelling south, Wrenna listened at a door and heard some people speaking in what she thought was a dialect of dwarvish. Darkeyes decided to have a little fun, donned a gargoyle mask, put a (poorly fitting) robe over her armor, and charged into the room to attack. The dwarves, actually duergar, were taken off guard by this unorthodox attack. Only three of the six duergar in the room were awake and the group worked to push their advantage while they could. Two of the duergar used the strange powers innate to their race to grow to gigantic proportions. Regardless, the party took the day and defeated the evil dwarves.

Continuing their explorations, the party found another dormitory with four sleeping monks who were slaughtered before they were even fully awake. The group then discovered the sleeping quarters of the priest and his guards they encountered earlier. One of the keys they had liberated from the priest opened an iron coffer containing priestly vestments, gold bracelets, and several magical scrolls which were claimed by Glidion.

To be continued…

Why PDFs of Fifth Edition D&D still matter

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Thu, 23 Jul 2015 15:00:00 +0000

In some ways Wizards of the Coast has made great strides in supporting electronic gaming. They have been steadily releasing their impressive back catalog in PDF through the D&D Classics website. The D&D Basic rules are available as a free download from the Wizards of the Coast website. They provide officially licensed content for the Fantasy Grounds which gives them a virtual table top, a character creation tool, and even a digital distribution tool for their books. Despite these strides though, there is currently no way to legally buy the D&D 5e Core Rule Books in a PDF format. This is frankly unbelievable in the year 2015.

PDFs are important. While there may be some issues with PDFs, the format has been around since 1993 (22years) at this point. It is an open format, which means there are a plethora of PDF readers available, and they are available for any OS on the market. PDF is the standard for RPG books, and indeed most reference style books.

No offense to the Fantasy Grounds guys, but I will be extremely impressed if it is still available in 22 years to read the content Wizards of the Coast has made available through their license. Also, launching Fantasy Grounds just to read the core rule books is frankly overkill. While it is a competent virtual table top, it would be crazy to invest the money in Fantasy Grounds if all you want is the books in an electronic format.

So what is wrong with just reading the physical books that Wizards of the Coast is publishing? It is not that there is anything wrong with them, but PDFs have advantages that make them more practical for many people. For starters, they don’t take up as much space. It is easy to bring your entire library of game books over to someone’s house in digital format, obviously not if they are physical books. It is amazing how much space these books take up. When I moved to Arizona, my gaming books filled more than twenty banker boxes, most of which are still stacked up in my garage! For many people, storing this many books is simply not practical.

PDFs are also easily searchable, which helps both with game prep and when looking up a rule during the game. Can’t remember how grappling works in D&D 5e? Just type in “grappling” into the search box and you will have the answer in seconds. Lets say you are entering your character into Roll20. While you can retype all your spells by hand, cutting and pasting them from a PDF is a real time saver. Believe it or not, PDFs are a competitive advantage in today’s market place, and are one of the primary reasons why the Lords of Tyr switched to Pathfinder for one of our two regular games.

What about piracy? Well, not making legal PDFs has not stopped that from happening. Illegal copies of all the current D&D 5e books are readily available online if you want them. The only people prevented from getting PDF versions of D&D 5e books right now are those who want to pay for them.

Look, I like the beautiful, high quality physical books Wizards of the Coast produces as much the next guy. Even if PDF versions of the core rulebooks were available, I am sure I would have bought both the physical and PDF versions of these books, especially if Wizards of the Coast offered a physical and PDF bundle like most RPG companies do nowadays. PDFs would also make me much more likely to try out books that I am not certain I would want to take up room on my ever more precious shelf space.

So come on Wizards of the Coast…

Virtual Table Top Review: Roll20

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 15:00:00 +0000

The Lords of Tyr have been using virtual table tops (VTT) in our games from pretty much the creation of the category. Early on we used kLoOge.Werks, but ended up switching to MapTools pretty quickly. MapTools was our mainstay until recently, but as support for that tool seems to be winding down, we have been looking elsewhere for our virtual table top needs.

Roll20 was one of the first alternatives we checked out, and honestly one of the best. So I thought it might be good to give it an thorough review for anyone out there who is thinking of using it.

OS Support

Roll20 is a web hosted Virtual Table Top. That means that if you have a computer with a modern browser, you can use it regardless of whether you have Windows, Mac, or Linux. This is great for a group like the Lords of Tyr where all three of the aforementioned operating systems are represented at the table. There are also apps for iOS and Android, although I haven’t really used them enough to give a decent review of them.

Game System Support

By default, Roll20 is system agnostic. It provides you with the basics of a VTT (map, grid, tokens) and character sheets to which you can assign various attributes and abilities. These can then be referenced in macros which you create, allowing you to simplify your game play.

This only tells half the story though because there are a large number of community created character sheet templates which can be applied to a campaign and that will do most of this work for you. Since they are created by the community, generally the more popular the game the better the character sheet. The character sheet templates we have used for our D&D 5e and Pathfinder games are very robust and professional looking. However, the template we used for the Dragon Age RPG was a bit less polished (e.g., strength was misspelled, poor font choice), although in all fairness it did do the job.

Play Experience

Since Roll20 is web hosted, there is minimal setup. The GM and the players need only create accounts on the Roll20 website and login. Unlike traditional client/server VTT setups, there is no need to worry about opening ports on your router for NAT traversal, something that can trip up less tech savvy GMs. However, this does mean that if the website is down, you aren’t playing. We also would occasionally have issues where a specific player’s screen would not update and we had to have them hit refresh on the browser.

Game play is generally pretty smooth. The GM controls what maps the players can see. Die rolls can either be made through the GUI or by a simple chat command (e.g., “/roll 1d20+5”). The turn counter is pretty generic in order to keep it as system agnostic as possible, but works really well with the initiative based games I have played on Roll20. It even allows you to keep track of durations by adding an item with an incrementing counter (e.g., “Flaming Sphere 1).

The Roll20 team prides itself on using a high entropy random number generator. They even provide statistics on the website of every roll made just to show how perfectly random everything is, which is handy to show players who have had one too many fumbles in a game session.

Roll20 also has built in chat, video, and audio (using WebRTC). You can also run Roll20 inside of a Google Hangout, but personally I found I had too much lag when I did that.

GM Preparation

The GM creates an account on the Roll20 website and starts a campaign. Maps, tokens, and other bits of virtual set dressing can be uploaded to the site or acquired from the Roll20 Marketplace (both free and for a nominal charge).

Maps you have created are shown across the top of the screen. These maps have three layers: a map layer, a GM layer, and a token layer. The map layer is where you put everything that you want the players to see but not interact with. The GM layer is where you put things that only the GM should see. These can be things like monster tokens, pit traps, or room numbers. When it becomes appropriate to reveal these things they can be moved to either the map layer or the token layer. The token layer has objects that can be interacted with, although who can manipulate a token is still limited by who owns it.

There is also a dynamic lighting layer available to people who have either a supporter or mentor level subscription. Dynamic lighting is an advanced feature which limits what the players can see of the map based on their light sources and line of sight. This layer where you define light sources and objects that block the players line of sight like walls.

When players are logged in you can either present all players a map by moving a virtual bookmark called ‘Players’ to the appropriate map, or drag individual players to a screen if the party decides to split up. I have found it useful to have a generic page to park the player bookmark on when I am not using a map.

Players, NPCs, and Handouts all reside on the right hand side. Like tokens, who can see or edit these items are controlled by access control lists (ACLs). So if I want anyone to see a handout I set ‘all players’ as being able to see, but leave able to edit blank (the GM always has access). All of these items can be organized by folders, but are also searchable by name or by tag (you define both). Tagging monsters can be very useful if you want to bring up a specific category of creature (e.g., undead, goblinoid, etc).

Maps, players, NPCs, and handouts can all be archived if you want to get them out of the way but don’t want to delete them. I find I archive pretty much everything except what I think I will need in a given session, since bringing items back is just a couple of mouse clicks.

Cost

You can sign up and use Roll20 for free. While not every feature is available at the free level, it is surprisingly usable without paying a dime. The main limitations are you only have 100 MB of storage and no access to advanced features like dynamic lighting or tablet support.

You can upgrade to the Supporter ($4.99/month or $49.99 /year) level or Mentor($9.99/month or $99/year) level if you choose. Supporter basically gives you 1 GB of storage, dynamic lighting, and tablet support. Mentor gives you 2 GB of storage plus features like access to the Roll20 API and the ability to get support from the development team.

One nice feature is that if you have access to a feature, anyone joining your campaign has access to that feature. For example, if I have access to dynamic lighting and use it in my campaign, none of my players need anything but the free level to use the feature.

There is also the Roll20 market place where you can purchase community created tokens, maps, and modules for a nominal fee. Alternatively, if you are a content creator, you can sell your wares here.

Personally, I joined up at the Supporter level and found it more then met my needs. My fellow GM Chad joined at the Mentor level. None of the other players used anything but the free level of Roll20.

Customer Support

Roll20 has a wiki and a robust community supporting it. I was able to learn how to use the interface via YouTube tutorials and how to create all the macros I needed by reading up on them in the wiki. Users who have Mentor status are able to get support via email from the developers, but since I am only Supporter level I cannot comment on it.

Community

Roll20 has a great community. It also provides excellent tools for finding players or games built right into the website. Since I have a group I play with regularly I haven’t really taken advantage of these myself, but from what I have heard the ease with which you can find players or games is one of the big selling points of Roll20.

Final Thoughts

I love Roll20. I think a web based VTT is the way to go and it continues to get better. The interface is also more modern feeling then pretty much any other VTT on the market. That said, I am not currently using Roll20 for my ongoing Princes of the Apocalypse game. Why not? Well, that will be the topic of a future Virtual Table Top review.

A quick programming note

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Fri, 17 Jul 2015 15:25:00 +0000

To get back in the habit of blogging, I have been trying to post every Tuesday and Thursday. I am going to modify this to a Monday and Thursday schedule as it probably doesn’t make much sense to only have one day in-between posts, then four days until the next post.

This doesn’t mean that I will never post on other days, just that I am going to try to keep to a minimum of posts on these two days each week.

Now back to your regularly scheduled blog.

Game Recap: Princes of the Apocalypse Session 2-Manticore Hunt

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 15:00:00 +0000

Dramatis Personae

Glidion: High Elf Wizard (Enchanter) who exaggerates stories of his past triumphs. Unwitting pawn of the Zhentarim.

Gracealyn “Darkeyes” Droverson: Tethyarian Human Noble Fighter (Champion) who seeks to restore her lost family fortunes. Member of the Lords Alliance.

Milo Miller: Lightfoot Halfling Cleric of Pelor (Life Domain). Seeks to spread worship of his god to Faerun. Watcher of the Harpers.

Salazar Tomoki: Shou Human Monk (Way of the Open Hand). Hermit who walks Faerun seeking enlightenment like Caine from Kung Fu.

Wrenna: Forest Gnome Rogue (Thief). Little is known of Wrenna’s past other then that she has been on the wrong side of the law from a young age.

Recap

Arriving in Red Larch, the group traveled through the village, taking note of the various shops. Salazar made a quick trip into Lorren’s Bakery to pick up a mushroom cheese-topped bun for Wrenna. These smelled so good that the weary travelers soon all stopped at the bakery to indulge in this savory treat.

Continuing to the Allfaiths shrine, the party met the two intendant priests: Imdarr Relvaunder a stout follower of Tempus (god of war) and Lymmura Auldarhk a follower of Sune (goddess of beauty and love). Imdarr seemed a little put off by Sister Garaele’s decision to become a third intendant at the shrine since traditionally only two priests act as intendants at any given time. Lymmura however welcomed Sister Garaele with open arms and offered to share her cell with the young acolyte of Tymora for the duration of her stay.

The group then pressed on to Bethendur’s Storage to drop off Gundren Rockseeker’s platinum ingots for eventual pickup by a caravan headed to Secomber. There they met Aerego Bethendur who was quick to tell them that his storage offered absolute privacy and that anything stored here would not be disturbed unless it started to rot; even then the contents would be disposed of discretely. When Glidion asked if that happen often Aerego simply said, “Not often”.

At this point the group sought out a tavern and ended up at the Helm at Highsun. Once again the group heard rumors of missing people, in this case a well armed delegation from Mirabar. A half-orc named Zomith invited herself to the party’s table and immediately displayed an interest in Glidion. The noble elf was more intimidated by her advances then aroused, but he did learn that the caravan Zomith had been travelling with had encountered the Mirabaran delegation about fifteen days ago somewhere between Beliard and Westbridge, and that she had brawled with the Mirabaran guards during the encounter. When she offered to discuss things in more detail with Glidion “in private”, the elf beat a hasty retreat.

Late in the evening the party bought rooms at the Swinging Sword across the street. The proprietor of the inn, an Illuskan woman in her forties named Kaylessa Irkell, was grateful to see a well-armed party of adventures in town and expressed her hope that they would put an end to the “fell magic” that was sweeping through the Slumber Hills. When they mentioned the missing Mirabaran delegation, she introduced them to Brother Eardon a half-elf acolyte of Lathandar (god of the dawn). Brother Eardon had recently came from Beliard by way of Westbridge, and confirmed that the delegation was in Beliard two tendays ago. The group resolved to travel the Larch Path to Beliard in search of the missing delegation in the morning.

Heading down the Larch Path, the group was distracted from this quest when they realized they were getting close to Feathergale Spire. Intrigued by the wingwear they found on the monks who attacked them earlier and curious about the Feathergale Society they left the path and travelled into the Slumber Hills. They arrived at Feathergale Spire in the evening.

The spire was separated from the road by a cliff with a shear drop of hundreds of feet. A brass bell hung from a wooden post near the ledge, and when they rang the bell a knight of the Feathergale Society named Savra Belabranta opened a small window near the gate and asked the adventurers what their purpose was at the spire. Convinced that their intentions were peaceful, she invited them in and brought them up to the pinnacle of the Spire to meet the Feathergale Society’s leader Thurl Merosska.

Thurl greeted the party and asked them their business. The party described their encounter with the wingwear wearing monks and asked if it was possible if any suits of wingwear had been stolen from them recently. Thurl declined to answer, but since the party seemed to be men and women of valor he invited them to join in the feast that below.

The party partook in the grand feast and traded stories of valor. As the feast was winding down, a knight burst into the room stating that a manticore had been sighted over the valley. Thurl believed this to be an opportunity to slay the beast and offered his ring to the man or woman who brought back its head. He asked the party if they wished to partake in the hunt, offering them hippogriffs to use. The party agreed to join the hunt and mounted on three hippogriffs with Wrenna and Milo doubling up with larger party members. The Feathergale Society knights mounted on giant vultures.

The beast was quickly spotted and the knights and the party took chase. Glidion caused a great deal of damage by loosing fireballs on the manticore from afar and Darkeyes proved a dead shot with her javelins. Salazar found himself frustrated by his lack of ability to engage at range, but Wrenna’s shortbow found its mark. The beast was brought down by Darkeyes’ final javelin, falling to the ground below. The party followed it down and Darkeyes used her axe to remove the dead beast’s head.

Returning to the Spire, Darkeyes was awarded Thurl’s ring. After the feast, Thurl confided to the party that he believed the monks of the Sacred Stone Monastery were a source of the evil in the valley. The party choose to spend the night in Feathergale Spire and resolved to check out the monastery in the morning.

During the night, Salazar was awakened by Savra. Salazar explained that because of his vows he was not interested in an assignation, but Savra patiently explained that was not why she was there. She was impressed by the valor of the group and wanted to confide the true purpose of the Feathergale Society: that they are on a secret mission to master elemental air to annihilate the enemies of Waterdeep. She was telling Salazar this because she was going to approach Thurl about allowing Salazar, and possibly his companions, to join the Feathergale Society. Salazar, and the rest of the group when he told them the next morning, said they would think about it.

The next morning the group headed off to find the Sacred Stone Monastery. While travelling through the Slumber Hills, they came upon a number of shallow graves with vultures circling overhead. After some debate, the party decided to exhume the bodies to see if they could be identified as any of the missing people they had heard about. They found one dwarf in artisan’s robes and one female human dressed as a member of Mirabar’s army. They also found one human male dressed in a black cloak with strange stony armor and one human male in white robes with black feathers at the shoulders. All were dead from arrow wounds or crushing blows. Convinced that at least two of the bodies were from the Mirabar delegation, they reburied the bodies and Milo performed funerary rites.

Continuing down the path described by Thurl, the party came upon the Sacred Stone Monastery around noon the next day. An impressive stone edifice, the group decided rather than knock on the front door they would look for a secondary entrance. Locating one on the southeast portion of the building, Wrenna examined the door and picked the lock.

Wrenna scouted ahead of the main group, who are not well known for their stealth. At the first interior door she heard the sounds of people sparring, similar to the katas that Salazar would do in the morning. She decided to leave this door alone for the moment and motioned for the group to move forward.

The next door was sealed by an arcane lock. Having no way to bypass the mystical protections, the group moved past this door as well. Wrenna then discovered stairs going down, but the party decided to continue exploring the upper level before braving the depths below.

Continuing forward they group entered a long narrow open air courtyard paved in red sandstone. To the north of them was the main temple area with large copper-sheathed doors and as well as another set of doors to the west. Gargoyle statues guarded each set of doors. Glidion expressed his concern, noting that “gargoyle statues always seem to come to life”. Giving the statues as wide a berth as possible the party approached the copper-sheathed doors.

Of course the gargoyles came to life and attacked, although contrary to Glidion’s expectations only two of them became animate. Showing uncharacteristic bravery, Glidion moved forward an loosed a lighting bolt on the two gargoyles. Salazar was able to use his newly acquired magical Yari to good effect against the creatures stone-like skin, while Darkeyes’ reliable magic axe Hew caused similar grievous wounds. The gargoyles were quickly dispatched.

The party then prepared to check out the copper-sheathed doors to the temple.

To be continued…

A little side project

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 16:00:00 +0000

So the insanity begins. I have a friend named Rob (not me) who is a member of the 501st Legion. He has made a number of Star Wars related costumes (Commander Cody, a rebel pilot, a tusken raider, etc) as well as a BB-8 droid (which seems to be his newest specialty). He has a Facebook group called Rob’s Armor Diary where he chronicles his builds

His armor diary has inspired me to start a project of my own and chronicle it. I have never been into cosplay myself (although I respect the dedication and attention to detail making those amazing costumes entails), so instead I am going to build and paint the DeAgostini Millennium Falcon. It is an incredibly accurate 1:1 copy of the shooting model of the Millennium Falcon from The Empire Strikes Back. This is a subscription model kit, so I will receive four magazine issues and four packets of parts each month for the next 25 months. Each issue is chock full of information about the Millennium Falcon, as well as instructions for how to assemble the parts that came with the issue.

I plan on taking pictures and keeping a journal of the build along the way similar to my friend Rob's Armor Diary. I may create a Facebook group of my own and/or a Google+ group, but since I have this blog I figure I may as well use it as the central repository for all of this.

I don’t have a lot of experience making models. I would build the occasional model when I was a kid, but really haven’t done any model-making since then. I have a little more experience with painting, as I used to paint miniatures for Dungeons & Dragons. I have no experience using an air brush, although I imagine I will get some before this is all over.

I can’t really explain why I decided to jump back into model-making with this project. Part of it is I simply love the Millennium Falcon. When I was a kid I owned the old Kenner Millennium Falcon toy and I would be lying if I didn’t say that the removable hull and interior details of this model didn’t remind me of it. Nostalgia is a powerful motivator.

Also, it will be an amazing display piece when it is finished. The blueprint below is 1:1 with the finished model (Xbox controller included for scale).

Hopefully you will enjoy following this build as it progresses over the next two years. I know this is will be an interesting journey for me.

Thoughts on Unearthed Arcana’s new Psionics rules for D&D 5e

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Thu, 09 Jul 2015 16:00:00 +0000

I think psionics is the scab that D&D can’t stop picking at. What began as a set of optional rules from the first edition AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide has been revisited in every edition since with varying degrees of success. They tend to be either poorly integrated into the core mechanics, the worst offender being second edition’s Complete Psionics Handbook, or presented as simply an non-Vancian alternative magic system. Neither approach has been very satisfying. As magic in D&D has become more diverse with the addition of core classes like sorcerers and warlocks, psionics has had to work harder and harder to justify its existence. Still, I am always interested in new psionics systems when they come out, so I made sure to check out the PDF.

The first thing that stuck out to me at this most recent attempt had nothing to do with the mechanics. Rather it was tying psionics so closely to the Far Realm. To some extent this makes sense, after all the monsters that are most likely to be psionic have always been aberrations. Less successful to me was their attempt to explain why psionics are more common on some campaign worlds than others, which boils down to the “weirder” your campaign world is (Dark Sun, Eberron), the more influence the Far Realm will have and the more common psionics will be. If anything this simply seemed to highlight how out of place psionics tend to be in a normal D&D fantasy setting.

As for the crunch, these rules present the Mystic class and two orders: The Order of the Awakened and the Order of the Immortal. These are roughly analogous to Psions and Psychic Warriors from previous editions. The core mechanic is that a mystic has a certain number of psi points that can be spent on certain class abilities or to activate disciplines. Your Psi points completely regenerate after a long rest, which makes book keeping easier but does little to differentiate it the way magic works in D&D 5e. Disciplines don’t have levels but can often be manifested to greater effect by spending more points. This used to be a mechanic that set psionic characters apart, but nowadays most spell casters use the similar mechanic of getting more bang out of their spells by casting them with higher level slots.

Of the two orders presented, I think the Order of the Immortal has more to distinguish it from the other base classes. The class it reminds me most of is actually the magus from Pathfinder. Both have a full range of weaponry, midrange armor, midrange hit points, and a pool of points they can spend to boost their martial prowess and enhance their weaponry. Neither is ideal as the main fighter in a party, but both can function as an off-tank with a little extra versatility to make up for some squishiness.

Personally, I didn’t quite find enough to differentiate psionics in these rules to convince me that they are a necessary addition to the game. It is important to note though that these are presented as an early playtest of the psionics rules, not as a finished product. One of the things that helped make D&D 5e such a strong version of the game was the extremely open nature of the D&D Next playtest and the willingness of Wizards of the Coast to listen to player feedback. If they follow the same template with these rules, maybe there is hope for psionics yet!

Game Recap: Princes of the Apocalypse Session 1–The Road to Red Larch

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 16:00:00 +0000

Dramatis Personae

Glidion: High Elf Wizard (Enchanter) who exaggerates stories of his past triumphs. Unwitting pawn of the Zhentarim.

Gracealyn “Darkeyes” Droverson: Tethyarian Human Noble Fighter (Champion) who seeks to restore her lost family fortunes. Member of the Lords Alliance.

Milo Miller: Lightfoot Halfling Cleric of Pelor (Life Domain). Seeks to spread worship of his god to Faerun. Watcher of the Harpers.

Salazar Tomoki: Shou Human Monk (Way of the Open Hand). Hermit who walks Faerun seeking enlightenment like Caine from Kung Fu.

Wrenna: Forest Gnome Rogue (Thief). Little is known of Wrenna’s past other then that she has been on the wrong side of the law from a young age.

Recap

The group was enjoying some well deserved rest after successfully locating the Lost Mine of Phandelver. Well everyone was resting except for Salazar. During meditation, he was troubled by reoccurring visions of a large unblinking eye.

The party was approached by their friend and occasional employer Gundren Rockseeker. Since reopening the Wave Echo Mine, he had one major problem: Phandalin was simply not large enough to provide a suitable market place for the raw platinum ore him and his two (remaining) brothers were extracting. Gundren asked it the group would be willing to escort a shipment of ore to Bethendur’s Storage in Red Larch, where it will be picked up by a caravan bound for Secomber. The market for platinum ingots is quite good in more easterly lands and Gundren anticipates he will make a tidy profit.

Before they leave, Milo is approached by Sister Garaele. She has been having visions of her own, and has decided that they are directing her to become an intendant at the Allfaiths Shrine in Red Larch. She wishes to travel with the group to Red Larch for mutual protection. She also implores the group to make a stop along the way at the ruined village of Conyberry in hopes of questioning the reputedly prophetic but twisted groaning spirit Agatha.

Heading west down the Triboar Trail, the group reaches the ruins of Conyberry. The group follows the northwest trail to a strange hut made from the warped branches of nearby trees. The party could hear sobbing emanating from the hut and cautiously approached.

The sobbing was coming from a ghostly child, sitting among the ruined remains of a bed inside. Sister Garaele, Milo, and Salazar approached while Wrenna, Glidion, and Darkeyes remained outside the hut. The sobbing girl was incoherent, babbling “you shouldn’t be here” and “she won’t like it that you are here”. The party tried to comfort her, but the spirit became angry before screaming “she’s here!” and transforming into the banshee Agatha.

Agatha admonished the party for bothering the child and told them that they would pay for their insolence. She called forth the child’s “brothers and sisters”, four will-o’-wisps which rose from the swamp. Initially, the party was loathe to engage the spirit, still hoping to calm it down and reason with it. The creature then let out a horrifying wail which scarred their very souls and left Sister Garaele and Milo hovering on death’s door.

Salazar focused on the banshee, although his blows were somewhat less effective against the incorporeal creature. The rest of the party engaged the fast moving will-o’-wisps. Things were looking grim as both healers were down and the undead inflicted grievous injuries on their living foes. The tide turned when Glidion managed to make his way to the Milo, and forced a potion of healing down the throat of the fallen cleric. With Milo’s divine magic to revitalize them, the party was quickly able to turn the tide and dispatch the unclean spirits.

After Agatha and the wisps were vanquished, the ghost child reappeared. The child claimed to have been born with the gift of prophesy and that Agatha had been charged with keeping her safe. However, the elf eventually grew obsessive and her extreme methods led to the child’s death. Unhinged, Agatha began finding other “special children” to protect, who’s spirits became the will-o’-wisps when the tragic cycle inevitably repeated. Because of her evil deeds, when Agatha was killed by the same Elk Tribe barbarians that destroyed Conyberry, she rose as a banshee. Over the years Agatha’s grip on sanity became even more tenuous and eventually she became convinced she was the same child she had killed all those years ago.

The ghost child, or maybe the innocence left in Agatha, thanked the party for allowing her to “move on”. She offered to answer any one question posed to her utilizing her second sight. The party decided to allow Garaele to speak. The young acolyte asked about her dreams and how she could stop the rise of the unblinking eye. The spirit somewhat sadly said that the only slim hope was in the hands of her current companions—either they would stop the rise of the eye or no one would.

Uncertain what to make of this, the party searched the hut. They eventually found the skeletal remains of Agatha and of several small children which they buried. They also found a small chest which contained a diamond ring and a philter of love.

The party continued down the Triboar trail, eventually reaching Triboar itself. Sister Garaele and Milo’s Harper contacts allowed them to stay at the Home of the Boars, a lodge slightly outside of Triboar proper. There they met Darathara Shendrel and her companions ‘the Twelve’. Darathara takes Milo and Garaele aside to tell them her concerns that people have gone missing. A half-elf adventurer named Grevor and his companions are over a tenday overdue. Additionally, two important merchants from Waterdeep, Kharloss and Jarlee, have been missing even longer.

After a well deserved night of rest, the party turned off the Triboar trail and headed south down the Long Road. While traveling through a ravine, the party was set ambushed by a group of strangely garbed monks. Their outfits had leathery flaps which stretched between their arms, waist, and legs that allowed them to glide from the top of the ravine to surround the party. The outfits caused Glidion to derisively refer them as “squirrel monks” due to their resemblance to flying squirrels.

The leader, a cold-eyed woman wielding a strange looking spear that Salazar identified as a yari, demanded that the group throw down their weapons and surrender. Unfortunately for the monks they had underestimated their opponents. Despite the fact that they were escorting a pair of oxen pulling a cart, these were not paid caravan guards but battle-hardened adventurers. The battle was brief and violent, and the party ultimately captured one of the monks alive.

The monk was not very forthcoming, but did answer some questions. When asked about Grevor, Kharloss, and Jarlee he stated he did not know the names but that perhaps “they now serve”. He called the adventures fools who had no idea what was going on and that they would end up dying or serving the new order. Eventually he would speak no more and simply said the group should either kill him and be done with it or let him go. Darkeyes meted out grim justice to the monk with her enchanted axe.

Salazar claimed the yari by right of battle. It was enchanted and had “Zephyr” engraved on the blade in the Shou language. Wrenna had ‘liberated’ a scroll case from the leader in battle. It seemed to contain many of the teachings of this monastic order. They learned to pattern their movements after the cycling motion of the hurricane, which is how they refer to themselves. Although he found many of their teachings perverse, Salazar did gain inspiration from some of their techniques. Glidion gathered the strange leather outfits from the deceased “squirrel monks” and took note of the symbol on them, an inverted triangle with three branching lines above it.

The party continued south down the Long Road, eventually reaching Westbridge, staying at the Harvest Inn. While there, the group was disturbed to hear of more recent disappearances. The whole town was abuzz about the Oric and Lathna, siblings who were abducted by raiders from a homestead a short distance outside town. The proprietor of the Harvest Inn, an affable halfling named Herivin Dardragon, also expressed concern about one of his regulars, a shield dwarf prospector named Wulgreda. While he could not prove she was missing, she had not stopped by in a very long time.

After leaving Westbridge, the group encountered a group of mounted knights on the road led by a knight named Sir Gerald. Darkeyes identified them by their heraldry as the Knights of Samular, an order dedicated to Tyr, god of justice. After establishing their good intentions, the two groups spoke about the rash of missing people. Glidion told them to watch out for anyone wearing the strange leather suits they found the monks in. Sir Gerald identified the outfits as wingwear, which he was only familiar with because the Knights of the Feathergale Society used similar outfits. As far as Sir Gerald knows, the Feathergale group is an honorable one, if somewhat pampered and rich. Sir Gerald could not identify the symbol on the wingwear, but he had seen it before at the sites of some of the kidnappings. Sir Gerald also took the opportunity to sketch out three other symbols he had encountered during his investigations.

Sir Gerald and his men bid the party adieu. He did invite them to come to Summit Hall in the future and recommended they speak to the Feathergale Society about the wingwear. The party continued down the Long Road, knowing that Red Larch was less then a day away.

Random Reviews: The Martian

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 15:00:00 +0000

I am not normally someone who gets bent out of shape by movie adaptions. I understand that movies and novels are different mediums and that sometime changes need to be made to the way the story gets told. I also don’t sweat it too much if the movie sucks. After all, the book will always be there regardless of what sins against cinema the movie commits. So the fact that the first thing I though when I heard that they were making a movie out of Andy Weir’s The Martian was, “I hope they don’t screw this up”, is a sign of how much I love this book.

The Martian has an incredibly simple premise. Astronaut Mark Watney is accidentally left behind on Mars when he is injured and believed killed during a dust storm that causes the Ares 3 mission to be scrubbed. With no way to contact Earth, and no hope of rescue before his supplies run out, Mark Watney must find a way to survive on a planet that cannot support human life. It is basically Robinson Crusoe on Mars.

So if the premise is so simple, why do I like it so much? Well, first off the science is exceptionally good. No work of fiction will every be 100% scientifically accurate, but Andy Weir obviously worked very hard to make everything as plausible as possible. In an interview he had with Adam Savage (worth a view BTW), he talked about how he had even worked out the launch date where the distance between Mars and Earth would be favorable for a mission where the astronauts would be on Mars over the Thanksgiving holiday for plot reasons. Please note that Andy Weir never actually mentions the launch date in the novel, he just wanted the novel to be as accurate as possible.

When you are calculating orbital mechanics and trajectories for interplanetary travel just to make your novel more accurate, well you sir are a steely-eyed missile man.

With all of this focus on scientific accuracy, you might figure that it is a dry read. That is where you are wrong. Knowing that we would be alone with our protagonist for the majority of the novel, Andy Weir makes sure Mark Watney is an enjoyable person to spend time with. Smart, inventive, and possessing a sarcastic wit, there would be no one I would rather be trapped on Mars with. OK, maybe a sexy starlet, but I am sure I would survive longer with Watney to work through problems as they arose.

As for the challenges Watney has to overcome, Andy Weir does a great job of making them appear insurmountable before showing us how the protagonist overcomes them. In the interview with Adam Savage linked to above, he mentions how he wanted all of Watney’s problems to be a “cascade failure”. In other words, almost every issue Watney faces is either a result of the initial dust storm that stranded him there or the result of something he had to do since then to survive. This is not the story of someone with incredibly bad luck; it is the story of someone forced to overcome incredible odds.

I know this review is a bit of a love fest, but I can’t help it. The Martian is easily my favorite book of the century so far.

Now I just hope they don’t screw up the movie.

So the Lords of Tyr tried out the Dragon Age RPG…

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 17:00:00 +0000

While I am not the video game fanatic that my wife is (few people are), I do enjoy playing them from time to time. One of my favorite video game franchises at the moment is the Dragon Age series. So I have been curious about the pen and paper incarnation of the franchise for awhile, but only bit the bullet with the recently released Dragon Age RPG Core Rulebook, which combines and expands the rules from the previous three sets that Green Ronin has produced.

The basic mechanic of the system will be familiar to anyone who plays RPGs. Roll some dice (in this case 3d6 instead of a d20), add the appropriate ability modifier, and then compare it to a target number. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

The most innovative concept introduced in the Dragon Age RPG is the stunt system. You are rolling 3d6 for most rolls in this system, and whenever you roll doubles, you generate stunt points. How many stunt points depends on your dragon die (one die of a different color). You can then use those stunt points immediately to do something cool, like get an extra attack, push an opponent back, or even perform multiple stunts together if you have enough points.

I was intrigued by the stunt system and was curious how it would function in actual play. I also wondered what gamers who were unfamiliar with the Dragon Age video games would think of the system and the world.

So I gathered together some of my fellow Lords of Tyr and decided to run Duty Unto Death, the introductory adventure featured on Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop. Only one of my players was at all familiar with the Dragon Age video games, so I figured they would be a good group to evaluate the game on its merits without affection for the franchise seeping in.

The group quickly divvyed up the pregens, a Ferelden Freeman warrior, a Dalish Elf rogue, and a Human Circle Mage. Because they were new to Dragon Age, I spent some time discussing the world and how they fit into it. Luckily, the introductory adventure made this easy, as the characters were all new recruits to the Grey Wardens, and it begins with Duncan explaining key concepts like darkspawn and the Blight to the characters.

The first combat was very interesting. Stunts came up a lot more frequently then I expected and really added a bit of variety to the “I hit it with my axe” rut that fighter heavy games can fall into. It also forced the group to think tactically, especially as it was discovered how squishy the non-armored circle mage could be when darkspawn closed in on him.

(The circle mage also learned the importance of the rock armor spell from this combat, and he became a bit obsessed about keeping it up as much as possible since it is not a spell that can really be cast once combat has begun because of its long casting time.)

Because the game started a bit late, we only were able to fit in one more combat encounter in the session. By this time the group was pretty acclimated to the rules, and were really looking forward to stunts when they came up.

After the session, feedback was pretty positive. Stephanie, still the newest gamer in this particular group despite having years of experience at this point, gave the most positive review. She liked the stunt system, but seemed even more intrigued by the setting, which she thought had a lot of depth. So I guess that is more of a thumbs up to Bioware, which created the Dragon Age setting for their video games.

All and all, it proved to be a very fun session. It probably won’t become our regular game, as the group is pretty invested in the two long-term campaigns we currently are running, but I can definitely see us returning to it as time permits.

A quick update

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 18:21:00 +0000

I normally try to keep my posts here strictly geek related. It has been long enough since I posted last though that I thought a quick update was warranted before I (hopefully) begin posting regularly again.

So a lot has been going on in my personal life. Most significantly, my wife and I have moved halfway across the country from the Windy City to the Valley of the Sun. We moved because of my work, which has been pretty hectic since I arrived here. Things have calmed down a bit now though, which is why I am going to try my hand at blogging again.

I am still gaming with the Lords of Tyr using the various amazing digital tools which are available nowadays. Currently I am running Princes of the Apocalypse (Dungeons & Dragons 5e) and playing through Rise of the Runelords (Pathfinder). I also recently ran Duty Unto Death (Dragon Age) for my old group when a few of them were in town visiting.

Over the next few weeks I plan to post about virtual table tops, my experience running the Dragon Age RPG, a couple of book and TV show reviews, and possibly a major model building project I am thinking of undertaking.

So if you have been waiting for my triumphant return, here I am! If you have stumbled across this page by accident (more likely), then I hope you like what you see.

Random Reviews: Guardians of the Galaxy

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Sun, 03 Aug 2014 00:04:00 +0000

Unlike most of the movie going audience, I actually knew who the Guardians of the Galaxy were before it was announced they would be appearing in a major motion picture. That being said, I was pretty ambivalent when it was first announced. Even though I am a Marvel fanboy, the Marvel cosmic characters were never my thing. I figured I would catch it on Netflix at some point. Then the quirky marketing campaign started and I decided to take a chance and see it in the theaters. I am glad I did.

Guardians of the Galaxy is less of a superhero movie and more of the kind of old-fashioned sci-fi romp that they don’t make anymore. There is more Star Wars in its DNA than Iron Man. Peter Quill, or Star-Lord as would prefer to be called, is part Han Solo and part Captain Kirk—at least when it comes to Kirk’s penchant for banging alien-chicks of various skin colors.

Despite being the only human in the cast, Peter Quill is not a point of view character. By the time you see him as an adult, he has been in space since he was eight years old and is fully acclimated to the strange universe he inhabits. That is one thing I appreciate about this movie, it is confident enough to do its world-building on screen and drop you straight into the middle of the action. They filmmakers felt no need to put earth in peril to artificially make the audience care about what was happening. Instead, the spent the time making you care about the characters and the universe they inhabit.

A lot of the credit for the success of this movie goes to Chris Pratt. I have been a fan of the actor since I first became aware of him on Parks and Recreation, and his charisma and humor come through full force on the screen. Much like I have trouble seeing anyone but Robert Downey Jr. playing Tony Stark nowadays, I can’t imagine what this movie would be like without him in it.

This is not to undercut the other performances. Bradley Cooper is amazing as the voice of Rocket and Vin Diesel is able to convey a surprising amount meaning in saying, “I am Groot”. Even some of the smaller roles, like John C. Reilly’s “beleaguered cop” member of the Nova Corps and Michael Rooker’s “blueneck” portrayal of Yondu were a joy to see on screen.

Most importantly, the movie knows how to have fun. It is not the full on comedy you might think it is from seeing the trailers, but it had plenty of laugh out loud moments. Perhaps more surprising is that the movie was just as good as evoking pathos as it was at evoking laughter. There are many moments where you really felt the pain of the characters in the movie, even if they were a CGI raccoon or a green skinned alien.

This is my favorite Marvel movie since the Avengers, but the impressive thing is I have been a fan of the Avengers since I was a kid and the Guardians of the Galaxy were a group I mostly knew about as a point of trivia. The fact that I enjoyed this movie so much is an impressive feat.

Dropping skills for backgrounds in Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 03:52:00 +0000

I am the kind of guy who writes pages of character backgrounds for my characters. Some of them probably qualify as short stories. Sometimes they are written from a first person point of view, other times in the form of a journal, occasionally from a third person omniscient or the point of view of another character in the story. I feel I need to write these backgrounds in order to properly play my character. Even in the MMORPG City of Heroes, where I never played with deep role-players, each of my ‘toons’ had surprisingly detailed character backgrounds.

I realize not everyone plays this way. When I am running games getting character backgrounds from some of my players is like pulling teeth. Often players will present me with character backgrounds no more complex than “I grew up in a peasant village and when I was old enough I left to find my fortune”. That is OK, everyone has a different playing style.

Still, I like games that encourage characters to develop their background a bit. Probably the first game I encountered that did this was Warhammer Fantasy in which your character development was tied to your career path. Knowing that your character was a rat catcher or a merchant before they began adventuring wasn’t much, but it was something. Last Unicorn Games short-lived Star Trek: The Next Generation RPG took a similar path, where during character generation you would take a number of ‘tours’ on previous starships to determine your skillset. Maybe you spent a tour on the USS Hood as a security officer even though you were in command now so you were handy with a phaser.

I think my favorite take on this mechanic so far is in 13th Age. During character creation you allocate a number of points to backgrounds. Rather than specific skills you might say you spent time as a cat-burglar, a guild mage, or a merchant. Maybe you were a poacher (4 points) who was drafted as a soldier (2 points) and then became a animal trainer (2 points) when you got out. Rather than have a specific list of skills, you roll and add an appropriate ability modifier plus points in your background where you would roll a skill check in D&D. If the party needed to track someone through the woods and one character had a poacher background while another had a bounty hunter background, both could make the roll using their background points plus their wisdom modifier. However, if they needed to tie up a captive probably only the bounty hunter background would be applicable.

During the D&D Next playtest, I always thought this system would be easy to implement as a house rule. D&D Next was already more skill light than D&D 3e or D&D 4e after all. So I was pleased to hear that at Origins there was talk of an optional module that would use backgrounds instead of skills in a similar manner. Assuming it is well implemented, I would definitely use that option in any D&D 5e games I run.

Or I guess I could just run a 13th Age instead. It really is a fun system.

What digital offerings I want from D&D 5e

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 03:26:00 +0000

My gaming group makes extensive use of digital tools when playing. We have vast PDF libraries that keep us from breaking our backs hauling books back and forth. We use various character generation tools to assist with character creation and tracking. We use virtual game tables both for ease of play and to allow members who cannot attend locally to join in the fun remotely. Digital tools are an essential part of our game. Trapdoor Technologies, a new licensee for Dungeons & Dragons digital tools, asked on their website what we want out of Codename Morningstar. Here is my wish list.

Affordable PDFs

This is more in Wizards of the Coast court than Trapdoor Technologies.

Wizards of the Coast has a spotty history when it comes to PDFs. In third edition PDFs were priced exactly the same as the physical book. This meant that they often cost more than you could get the physical books for off of Amazon and even most local game stores. It also meant that at $30 or more a pop that most gamers had to make a choice between buying a physical book or buying the PDF. Personally, I enjoy reading a physical book but love the convenience of a searchable PDF during game play. By offering PDFs at a reasonable price Pazio and other publishers have encouraged me to purchase both.

In fourth edition Wizards of the Coast moved away from PDFs and offered up the D&D Compendium as a digital alternative. The D&D Compendium was great, but it didn’t allow you to see the rules in their original context. There is a place for a tool like the D&D Compendium, but I does not replace PDF versions of the books.

Of course Wizards of the Coast has made great strides in their PDF offerings with the D&D Classics site. However, they still tend to be a bit pricey on the newer stuff and don’t tend to release PDFs concurrently with their new releases. I hope that this will change with the release of fifth edition.

A robust and customizable character generator

I like character generators and I even liked the D&D Character Builder offered through D&D Insider. It had a major flaw though, as it did not handle house rules very well. This is why I prefer a character generator like PCGen. The ability to load my own datasets far outweighed the occasional quirkiness of the program. Strong support for house rules is a must.

A useful virtual game table

There are a lot of great virtual game table products out there. Personally, we use MapTools, but Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds are great products as well. A great virtual game table must be customizable, allow easy access to remote players, and provide useful management tools for the DM to run encounters. All three of the virtual game tables I have listed above do this.

To be honest the opportunity here is almost closed. Where there is still opportunity is to integrate this in with the vast stores of data Wizards of the Coast can provide. Making it seamless to drop in monsters with full stats and seamless integration with character sheets would make all the difference. I know it would convince me to switch.

Campaign management tools

There is probably a lot of room for improvement here. Realm Works is great for campaign prep, but Obsidian Portal is probably the leader here. It bills itself as a campaign wiki site, but it provides a lot of tools for game masters to keep track of the locations and characters while only surfacing to the players what the game master wants them to know.

Outside of the gaming software world, I have found both Workflowy (an outliner) and Evernote (a robust note taking program) to be invaluable tools for organizing campaigns. I have also been considering trying Scrivner, which is intended for authors who are organizing a novel, but would probably work just as well for a campaign.

I would look to all of these tools for inspiration.

It is more than just a Windows world

D&D Insider ran on Microsoft Silverlight. While some of my group members use Windows laptops, some use MacBooks, Ubuntu Linux laptops, iPads, and Android devices. Silverlight did not work very well for them.

Please make sure that whatever digital solutions are created are multi-platform. Make sure that these solutions are mobile friendly as well.

Wizards of the Coast’s new model?

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 02:20:00 +0000

Wizards of the Coast is working with a new licensee, Trapdoor Technologies, to deliver digital tools for Dungeons & Dragons 5e. In May, Wizards of the Coast announced Kobold Press designed two of the adventures to support the Tyranny of Dragons storyline. DriveThruRPG has been powering Dungeons & Dragons Classics for awhile now. I think this may represent a subtle shift in how Wizards of the Coast is handling Dungeons & Dragons.

I’ve already talked at length about how I feel Wizards of the Coast should focus on their core competencies and let others develop tools for the game in the context of the OGL. It looks like Wizards of the Coast is doing this, except instead of an open source model they are planning to work with specific licensees to fill the void.

While I would personally prefer an open source model, this makes sense from Wizards of the Coast’s point of view. They can focus their internal resources on the rules and farm tasks that go outside their core competencies to other groups while still maintaining a tight control over how their intellectual property is used. Seriously, this is win-win for them.

Hopefully, they will open things up a bit more down the road, as Mike Mearls said they would in 2015. I still maintain that a robust gaming license is good for the hobby, and that what is good for the hobby is good for Dungeons & Dragons.

Mike Mearls (briefly) addresses the gaming license.

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Thu, 29 May 2014 05:44:00 +0000

At the end of my last post, where I expressed my concern that D&D 5e might not have a gaming license, I stated that “for all I know Wizards of the Coast will announce a liberal gaming license tomorrow and I will look like an idiot”. Well, that didn’t exactly happen but I was quite surprised to see Mike Mearls bring up this very concern in his post today.

I wish I could believe he was aware of my tiny little blog, but the reality is it shows how important the concept of a gaming license is to the gaming community as a whole. Obviously my concerns were shared by many.

Parsing Mearls post we can only be sure of a couple of things. First is that there will be some kind of “mechanism” that will allow fans to create their own gaming materials. Second is that whatever this mechanism is that it will not debut until sometime in 2015.

This doesn’t alleviate my concerns, although I am glad to see that it is on Mearls mind. I did notice that he was careful not to use the word “license” in describing how fans would be able to create their own materials, although I am not reading too much into it at this early stage of the game.

Whatever mechanism Wizards of the Coast provides I doubt we will ever see anything as broad as the OGL again. Maybe they don’t have to. In the comments of my last post it was noted by Nicholas Bergquist that the OGL is broad enough to make material that is functionally compatible with D&D 5e even if it can’t technically be billed as such. Ultimately that genie is out of the bottle already.

Regardless I hope that Wizards of the Coast does this right. Beyond simple books, it would be nice if they were willing to open things up a bit on the digital side. The D&D 4e’s GSL was much more restrictive, about how the license applied to digital tools than the OGL was. This isn’t surprising since Wizards of the Coast launched D&D Insider at the same time.

Unfortunately, software is not what Wizards of the Coast does best. Rather then control the tools I think it would be a smarter move to create API’s to allow others to create the tools while controlling access to their intellectual property. I believe having robust digital tools supporting D&D, even if they didn’t create all of them, would help fifth edition reach its full potential.

D&D Basic is free, so how can I ask for more?

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Wed, 28 May 2014 02:15:00 +0000

Mike Mearls revealed today that Basic D&D will be a freely downloadable PDF. This is big news. I thought it was genius when during the fourth edition Wizards of the Coast made the Keep on the Shadowfell module alongside the standalone character generator (which allowed you to create characters of levels 1-3 without a D&D Insider subscription) free downloads on their website. It was a great gateway into the new edition for those who wanted to give it a try but weren’t ready to plunk down $35 a piece on the 4e Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Manual.

Obviously providing Basic D&D as a freely downloadable PDF is an even bigger deal. According to Mearls’ post, “It runs from levels 1 to 20 and covers the cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard, presenting what we view as the essential subclass for each. It also provides the dwarf, elf, halfling, and human as race options.” Frankly, this is awesome. It really lowers the barrier to entry for those that are even vaguely curious about the fifth edition. When the price is free, if you are at all curious there is no real reason not to try it out!

So why am I disappointed about this?

Well, while I appreciate “Free as in Beer”, I really appreciate “Free as in Freedom”.

For those who are unfamiliar “Free as in Beer” versus “Free as in Freedom” (see also “libre” versus “gratis”) is used by the open source software community to explain the difference between “free software” which is built on closed source but given away free of charge and “free software” that has a license that allows others to build on what you created.

Since D&D 5e was first announced I wondered if there was going to be a license that would allow others to build upon it. When D&D 3e came out, the most revolutionary thing about it were the Open Gaming License (OGL) and D20 license. I could not believe that Wizards of the Coast had open sourced D&D! With the D20 license, as long as you didn’t violate the terms anyone could create content compatible with D&D. Perhaps more importantly, the OGL allowed an even greater variety games to be created from the same basic set of rules.

True, there was a lot of crap in the initial glut of material that was created after D&D 3e was released. However, amazing games like Mutants and Masterminds and (much later) Pathfinder were a direct result of the freedom the OGL allowed. There were also a variety of software tools, such as PCGen, which took advantage of this license. It is amazing how much this license helped the hobby thrive.

Unfortunately, this may not seem like such a good thing from Wizards of the Coast’s point of view. After all, one of their biggest competitors now is Pathfinder, a game that is really just a refinement of their own D&D 3e rules. It must be hard to explain to the bean counters why another game company is outselling you with your own rule set.

There is really no reason to expect D&D 5e will have a license like the OGL. No such license existed for AD&D 1e or 2e. D&D 4e had a Game System License (GSL), but it was much more restrictive and much less used. I get the feeling that Wizards of the Coast feels they gave away the crown jewels with the OGL and is determined not to make the same mistake again.

I cannot be sure whether or not the OGL was the best move for Wizards of the Coast. However, I do feel it was good for the hobby, providing a robust base that people could build on. As talented as the game designers at Wizards of the Coast are, they can’t fulfill every need. Ultimately, I feel what is good for the hobby is good for D&D. It may be hard to prove, but I don’t think it was a coincidence that D&D was at the top of the heap when the OGL reflected their most recent edition.

Of course, for all I know Wizards of the Coast will announce a liberal gaming license tomorrow and I will look like an idiot. I tend to doubt it though. I think Wizards of the Coast feels giving away D&D 5e Basic for free (as in beer) will be enough to keep their fans happy. It is both a shrewd marketing decision and a genuinely nice move for the fans. I even feel like a bit of a jerk complaining about it, after all who doesn’t like free beer?

I guess I was just hoping for a bit more freedom.

Crazy Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. theory of the day

noreply@blogger.com (Medraut) — Mon, 11 Nov 2013 23:00:00 +0000

So my wife has a theory about Skye. The whole reason Skye joined up with our intrepid group of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents is because she wants to find out what happen to her parents and she runs into documents redacted S.H.I.E.L.D. whenever she gets close.

So what if Skye’s real parents are Agent Phil Coulson and Agent Melinda May? The people who she thinks were her parents were just the people who adopted her and they were killed by someone who knew of Skye’s real parentage?

The evidence is admittedly pretty circumstantial:

May and Coulson obviously have a history together, possibly a sexual history based off of May’s seemingly flirtatious comments in The Girl In The Flower Dress.

Coulson was awfully quick to recruit Skye in the Pilot. Similarly, he was pretty insistent that May join the team.

Chloe Bennet, the actress who plays Skye, is half-Chinese and half-Jewish.

Personally, I am still not convinced of this theory. I just wanted to get it on the record though. If it turns out to be true I am declaring my wife a genius!