Dead Calm Vs. Postcards From The Edge

Things are busy, hopping in fact. The ‘1st’ D&D Group hit the end point of the Heroic Tier last Saturday. I have to admit that it went alright, but it should have been so much more. The other players didn’t react to Zack’s AWESOME speech in quite the way I thought they would. I felt like my opening information drop and set-up was pretty ‘meh’. And we were missing a PC, as one of the guys got sick. SO there was a lot of on the fly adjustments to the encounters. I’m not the best at that, which is bizarre because I so enjoy improvisation at the table. However when you are at the climax of the first ten levels with the fate of The Known World on the line it needs to be smooth, and it wasn’t. I really wanted the PC’s to get the vibe that the Monastery was on the verge of falling into absolute chaos as madness was spreading like a plague and Sid’s plans to open the ‘Stairway To The Stars’ was at its apex point. It just fell a bit flat in my opinion.

The first Encounter was geared to slow the PC’s down a bit, as the entire adventure was a ‘timed’ run. The PC’s had 30 rounds to get to, and to KILL Sid! I thought that this might give them a reason to push pace, take risks, and utilize more inventive tactics. So the first Encounter did slow them down a bit, but it also was a lot more difficult than I thought it needed to be. The Farspawn Ghouls, Dolguant Monks, and the ‘Son Of Sid’ were much more dangerous to the PC’s than I had originally planned for, and the layout having a HUGE hole in the center of the room robbed them of mobility and I think really gave them fits. I really thought that the PC’s would catch on sooner to just throwing guys down that chasm, and when they did they rolled so badly that it made the tactic a non-starter. In addition, I was rolling insanely well, but more on that later.

They did persevere and rushed off to the 2nd Encounter. Here I had an Illithid Servitor and its Thralls, some Far Realm tainted Skeletons, and the remnants of ‘The Son Of Sid’ reforming into a Gibbering Mouther. This is where the PC’s do what they normally do and take an Encounter made to give them fits and CRUSH it beneath their boot heels. Zack used an Encounter Power to shoot all the way across the room and immediately destroy the Minion Thralls. The rest of the PC’s then destroyed the Tainted Skeletons, who were clustered, with area of affect abilities. While Zack devastated the Illithid, and my rolling was pretty weak here, the rest of the PC’s dealt viciously with the Gibbering Mouther eventually sending it careening off into the chasm. I figured this would take them a bit of time, perhaps ten of their 30 rounds, and it just didn’t. However the extended rest time they needed to heal and regroup did put them on the time frame schedule that I sort of had planned in my head for the penultimate conflict.

The final Encounter was against Sid, the newly ‘Liched’ Jocelyn, a gaggle of Derro’s, five starving Intellect Devourers, and four Gricks. This wasn’t the ‘Sid’ that the PC’s had known, this was ‘Sid, Chosen of The Stars’ in all his full blown degenerate glory.

In the portal to that was/is ‘The Stairway To The Stars’ was Isobella, sister to Bob character, sister to Sid, and love interest of Joe’s character. She is literally being pulled apart atom by atom to fuel the portal itself. Sid, being a villain, of course offered Bob’s character, his brother, one more chance to join him and kill Joe’s character for ‘defiling their sister’. Bob of course refused and all hell broke loose. The Derro were on the board simply to be killed and for Jocelyn to bring them back as Tainted Skeletons, essentially a ‘two shot’ Minion with some nasty offensive capabilities. The Intellect Devourers were also there to simply eat a turn or two for the PC’s, which they did. The Gricks were the ‘Personal Protectors’ for Sid, and there to tie down any characters that got up to the riser he was on and give him some space to use his ‘Ripple Of Betrayal’ power that has the Dominate effect. My rolling was outrageous here. I think overall that night I rolled around 15 Critical Hits. In my games a Critical Hit is automatically maximum damage doubled. If you roll a 20, you re-roll, roll another 20 and you do quadruple damage. There were no ‘Double Crits’, but I essentially at one point ‘critted’ Joe twice in two rounds for around 50 points per hit. This left him ‘dead’ twice if not for healing abilities and potions.

I have to admit that I had built in this moment where Joe’s PC FINALLY gets to spend a moment with Isobella as he ends up in the portal with her. She tells him that they are both ‘Dead’ and that they can now spend eternity together. This was supposed to give Joe’s PC what he wanted, and then Asmodeus shows up and sends him back because he wants Sid stopped from ruining what he and Erathis have built. This should have been a ‘No F’NING WAY!’ moment, one that inspires a PC to swear bloody vengeance on Asmodeus, Erathis, Sid, hell me as the DM. This was a moment set up to allow for a Role Playing moment to expand on who Joe’s character ‘Adler’ is. An opportunity to set up his character from here to the Epic Tier as he could go on a sojourn to find the soul of his beloved.  And it died on the vine. Maybe because Joe is a robot and has no heart, I kid Joe, I kid. I had such high expectations for this moment and it just came and went. When logging things in my brain I have to realize that I shouldn’t give those ‘character moments’ to someone who isn’t really into them. It was my error, and luckily it didn’t derail the game entirely.

If I’m being honest my hot hand did what ‘meh’ Encounter planning couldn’t, it added MASSIVE tension to the game. This brings me to a play tangent that bothers me, players bitching at other players regarding their play styles. I have been on the receiving end of this, and quit a group over it. I don’t want nor need another player telling me how to play my character. In my time DMing 4E we’ve had this happen a few times, and it really ruins the experience for not just the person catching grief, but for me as well. I’m all for making suggestions, even passionately explaining your reasoning at a time of duress, but there have been times where I’ve been on the verge of asking folks to leave the table due to attitude regarding this. The game should be fun, even if you and I differ on our definition of fun, it should not feel like work, nor should someone feel like they are being browbeaten towards a certain end at the behest of another player. It soured some of the game for me and at least one other player.

Anyway, the tension survived that little hiccup and played out as the clock counted down. I think I should also point out that I went ‘sans screen’ this time for some strange reason, which took away my ability to fudge rolls, which is something I freely admit doing. If I’d had that screen up I wouldn’t have counted some of those crits, and wouldn’t have had to let off the ‘tactics gas’ at the end to allow the PC’s the reasonable opportunity to ‘off’ Sid. The thing is it worked out perfectly. Jocelyn had to escape, Isobella had to be ‘torn apart’ physically, and I needed Sid to get into ‘The Stairway To The Stars’. His dominating of Bob’s PC and forcing him to throw his dying form into the portal was a PERFECT way to have it end. This led to the ‘tie up’ where the PC’s dealt with the aftermath of their decisions, looted a bit, and had to deal with NPC’s. It also let me give Dave & Mike’s PC’s ‘endings’, wrap up some loose threads of plots, and give the PC’s a blank slate for the next tier. I thought this went well for what it was. Bob’s character is about as obstinate as possible and the definition of a loner, Zack’s a zealot and plays it perfectly, Joe is working on his Role Playing but when pressed you don’t see it come out just yet, and Cassandra is just there. I hate to put it that way, because I love my wife, but there is abhorrence to engaging in Role Playing in those situations that borders on painful. This left me with an opportunity.

For the beginning of the Paragon Tier I’ve decided that my PC’s will have a ‘year’ between. I’m asking them to give me three ‘events’ for each of the twelve months of ‘Game Time’. In addition they also need to give me three ‘major events' that took place during that time period. Here is how I explained it in e-mail;
- 3 Minor Events Per Month - That means 36 Minor Events for the 12 month period. These can be as long as a three sentence description to one simple sentence, but they need to be events that mean something to your character. An example would be; Gronk The Unbreakable joined a mercenary company in August and helped to put down a Troll Uprising in the Shazrak Moors. This is an opportunity to flesh out your characters a bit, add supporting characters and affect the setting in a new way.
- 3 Major Events In The Year - These should be longer, more in-depth write ups, at least 4 sentences. This is where you can get to tell me and the other players about your more fantastic exploits. It is also a way to explain why you are now 11th Level. An example would be; In May Gronk The Unbreakable had heard tales of a Drow slave caravan in the Teeth Of Gruumsh Mountains. The rumors said that these were the same slavers that had destroyed Gronk's village when he was but a stripling. His blood oath of revenge had to be satiated. Gronk took his faithful manservant Yancy, and his mercenary cohort Kovan Kerrot on the week long journey into the Mountains. On the way they saved a waylaid Merchant Caravan from a Gnoll Pack, and Gronk skinned the Gnoll leader, crafting a new cloak from its very hide. Eventually the companions found a small contingent of Drow in the 'Shallows' of the Underdark trafficing in humanoid slaves. Gronk's bloodlust couldn't be held in check and he forgot his meticulous planning and began slaying left and right. In the battle Yancy was horribly maimed trying to free the manacled slaves, losing his left hand and left eye. Kovan was not so lucky dying horribly from the effects of Drow poison. Gronk would not allow their deaths to go unavenged massacring his enemies and cutting a bloody swath through their thralls. Finally in utter exhaustion and for a lack of living enemies Gronk laid down the sword of his father. He had the freed slaves dig the grave outside the caves for his comrade Kovan, leaving his father's sword as the grave marker and in hopes that his ally would have it to defend himself in the afterlife. He then led the survivors down the mountain to Clearfalls, the nearest outpost, where he could get Chancy to a Cleric. One of the survivors was a blacksmith of no small renown, he took the adamantine weapons of the dead Drow, melting them down and creating a new sword for Gronk The Unbreakable, a sword known as 'Drowslayer'. After Chancy was well enough to travel, he and Gronk headed back to Shadowspire to drink proper toasts to their fallen friend and hear the lamentations of the women.

It’s a goofy couple of examples, but I think they serve their purpose. I figure Bob & Zack will excel at this, and since Siegfried, the NPC companion Cleric of Kord, sided with Zack’s PC at the end of the last adventure Zack is writing his ‘Year’ as well. It has been suggested that he might ‘retire’, which I think would be pretty cool. I’m very eager to see where Cordell takes it. Joe and Cassandra have an opportunity here to get better at Role Playing by building backstory to draw from. I’ve offered help to both of them and hope they take me up on it. I have high hopes for this endeavor we’ll find out soon enough whether it pays off.

Ok enough D&D talk, I’m sure the 10 people who occasionally read this are board of it by now. The other day we went to Half-Priced Books and I used my Gift Card and a coupon to get a PILE of books. Of those books I mainly indulged in $1 D&D fair. You know the stuff that isn’t ‘War & Peace’, but entertains the hell out of me. I decided to jump into the deep end of the pool and devoured Thomas M. Reid’s novelization of The Temple Of Elemental Evil (** ½ out of 5).

I know that I shouldn’t love these things with the passion I do, just like I shouldn’t find such unbridled joy in bad movies, but I can’t help myself. These books are like Saturday mornings in the back of the liquor store with my Dad watching Godzilla movies when I was five. They are just fun. My thing with these books is they usually read like a module playtest, and this one isn’t that much different. The dialogue is sort of clunky, the pacing slightly odd, and there are moments that make you just scratch your head. Don’t get me wrong I still enjoyed it. The frustrating thing about that is I could see this working great as a serialized comic book. You could compress or de-compress the story telling as needed to get across the point, elongate the action with a visual flourish, and really flesh out the characters so they feel less sparse or ‘cardboard’. In fact I’m not sure I could give you the name of any of the characters in the book, beyond the villains or the HORRIBLY dubbed ‘Elmo’. They are just sort of forgettable; it’s the adventure itself that is the star. So if you are looking for something that a teen might enjoy this is a good bet, or if you just like to devour things like this then you can give it a go. I have to admit I’m a third into the ‘Against The Giants’ novelization and it is already at least a star and a half better, but then again I’m a sucker for Giants cooking children.

Tuesday night my lovely wife and I sat down and watched ‘For A Good Time Call’ (*** ½ out of 5).

I will warn you now, this movie is cute. It is adorable in fact. It is as adorable as it is raunchy and it is DAMN raunchy. The premise is simple; two gals who cannot stand one another have to live together because their lives are in various states of disarray. One finds out the other does phone sex to pay the bills and due to her joblessness decides to help her out. HIJINX ENSUE! First off the two main actresses, Lauren Miller & Ari Graynor, are fantastic. Secondly there is a ‘twist’ at one point that I didn’t see coming which felt real organic. That sounded SUPER pretentious, sorry. In addition, both leading ladies are funny, at times sexy, and did a good job of making me feel like they were more than just bit parts of a bigger whole. I also have to say that Justin Long as their gay friend was bizarrely humorous as well; however he was a bit more of a plot device in spots than a character. It isn’t a perfect movie. It is predictable in some spots, some won’t find the humor as funny as we did, and it felt short. However if you are looking for a good ‘date night’ comedy you could do a LOT worse than ‘For A Good Time Call’.


Since we are out of the Shattered Star previews Paizo and Wizkids are tiding us over with a smaller theme release called ‘Here There Be Goblins!’. It is apparently a random one mini ‘booster’ set-up with 12 miniatures in the set total. So it’s like a ‘Gravity Feed’ model, but slightly different. There will be some older sculpts, but also some new sculpts like our first preview.

Our first preview is of Poog Of Zarongel. He is apparently a Goblin Cleric who is a bit of a coward. I really love this mini. It’s a static pose, but look at that little smirk on his face and his slightly imperious stance. The frog on his head is bizarre, and by ‘bizarre’ I mean it is GLORIOUS! This mini has a ton of character. It would make an outstanding Companion character to a PC, or as an underlying for a ‘Big Bad’. If I somehow managed to grab a bunch of Poogs then they’d make interesting docile barbarians, who then lick their ‘toads’ and go into murderous rages. That in itself might be a perfect set-up for the 2nd D&D Group's adventures. Something for me to contemplate I guess. Anywho, this mini is a MUST BUY for me.

Lord almighty; let’s wrap up this long blab session with some…

RANDOM CRAP!

- I’ve been watching the 2008 CHIKARA King Of Trios and just finished a match between El Pantero, Lince Dorado, & Incognito (aka Team Mexico) against El Generico (OLE!), Player Uno, & Stupified (Team IWS).

I have to admit I’m not sure the reason Lince Dorado got such a HUGE push from CHIKARA at this time, he is unimpressive to me. The other two luchadores really give half-ass effort in my opinion. Watching that match magnified my feelings on that. El Pantero is an old dude, so he sort of gets a pass from me, but both he and Incognito ‘No Sell’ moves like they are Hulk Hogan in the middle of a “Hulk-Up”. All the while Generico, who is amazing, and his partners collectively known as the ‘Super Smash Brothers’ take every move like they’ve been shot out of a cannon. Add into that the fact that Team Mexico just looked slow, worked strangely stiff, and their moves were dated compared to a trio that at the time on its way up. It baffles me why the match was booked with Team Mexico to move on. I’ve noticed that a bit in all of El Generico’s matches in CHIKARA. He gets MASSIVE ovations from the crowd, comes out, puts on an amazing match, and almost always does ‘the job’ at the end. It’s a shame that a guy who was one of the best on the Independent Wrestling scene didn’t get a better run in my favorite company.
- Tonight my lovely wife and I go to Ocean Buffet, I am going to gorge!
- It sounds like Heidi is going to be painting a map of our D&D Campaign World!  This could be incredible.  I'm really excited by the idea of it.  She'll be charging a reasonable fee, and I know from her work that it'll be outstanding.  Thanks Hides!
- I desire beer cheese soup soon.
- I’m hoping to get back to painting minis here pretty soon, most likely though it won’t be until after the 2nd D&D Group meets a week from this Saturday. We’re doing a get together to roll up characters, let everyone get to know one another, and figure out the general direction of the group. It was Zack’s idea and really a fantastic one at that. I’m hoping by then to have a firm handle on what I want the initial part of the game to play out like. Right now it is just sort of formulating in my head, but I’m really leaning towards a ‘West Marches’ style campaign.
- Tea warms up my insides and makes me happy.
- For a guy trying to cut down on my social gatherings I’ve utterly and completely failed. Tomorrow night is a Double Date with 2/3rds of the King Ghidorah Of Friendship, Zack Attack & Lady Christy, Saturday is Mick’s Munchkin Day, Sunday is a family thing, a week from this Friday is the 3rd Annual Blaxplotation Movie-A-Thon (Action Jackson DEMANDS your attendance while doing his best El Generico impersonation apparently...),

and then the next Saturday is the 2nd D&D Group. We are busy beavers.

- My two bricks of Shattered Star will be here next Tuesday. As always Mighty Mike at Hot Comics, Richfield and New Hope locations (SHILL!), has come through.






And with that I’m done for the day.

“The demon skin is covered in fine mist
Opened his hand in my hand
Holding my eyes to the future
Hovering above myself
Letting loose the guided
Punching these holes in my head
The space time paradigm

Omnipresence
Primal instincts

Let it go

Calling reason
Finding you
These wild hearts run
Even deeper
Burning through
These wild hearts run

Let it go

Letting me free the quintessence
In fine mist
Opened his hand in center
Holding my eyes to the future
Cupping the blood myself
Letting loose the guided
Punching these holes in my head
Losing my skin to the landslide

Omnipresence
Primal instinct

Let it go

Calling reason
Finding you
These wild hearts run
Even deeper
Burning through
These wild hearts run

Let it go

Shield failure
Speed farewell”

      * = Here is some good ole fashioned Nightmare Fuel for you!