Tilted Tower: WIP Interior View

For my game this Thursday I am working on producing a view of the land inside the tower.

(Produced in sketchup 8, Photo textures are my own)

As I said previously the geometry is a bit tricky. Each of the crosses are one mile wide and tall (for scale). This is very much a work in progress.

NaNoWriMo Thoughts

It's been some time sense I last posted anything real here (2009/06/01 as a matter of fact). So many things I have missed commenting on:

Mega Dungeons

Mapping

Gencon

RPGBloggers Controversy

etc.

However I am not goning to comment on any of those today.

Today I am thinking about NaNoWriMo and what I might do during November.

I am Tempted to use that time to actually do a write up of "My Campaign World" which I call "The Living Lands": A world suffering from a plague of Immortals into which the Players, or Heroes, are born.

The world is, save for an excel spreadsheet and a map, existing largely in my head and I do believe that it is time to commit it to "Paper". A Friend of mine did something similar last year for his world and I am rather pleased at the result.

I plan to use the very nice "How to Make a Fantasy Sandbox" guide from Bat in the Attic as a road map for the development of the document.

Places of Intrest in the Living Lands that should be covered in the Gazetteer:

• MoonFell
• Libraries of the Ancients
• City of Glass
• Tilted Tower
• Sky Thread
• Shattered Dome

The Races of the world that will be covered are:

• E'tenal - a mixed population of standard PC races (elves, humans, Dragonborn etc) that were rendered childless but functionally immortal.
• FeralKin - which includes Clawfoots, Wigs, Bigtooths, Dog-Faces and many other of the non-immortal, "Uncivilized" humanoids.
• GreyKin - a race of Undead once noted as the greatest of Healers.
• Plauge Dreamers - Rarely encountered diabolical undead.

The premmis of the game is that very rarely, an E'tnal will give birth to a child, who is mortal (or "Hero" as they are know) and has no normal role in society. So the Heroes are trained and set out into the world to "Make a Difference". Three major hero quests are:

• Return the memories that were lost 691 years ago.
• Cure the Infertility of the E'tnal
• Remove the curse of Immortality from the E'tnal.

With much effort I do believe that I can get 50K words in 30 days (but I am not certain enough to actually sign up for it). Maybe, after some review and editing I will post a PDF of the world.

As for this blog, I want to post snippits and progress on the project. After it is done I will get back into a regular posting schedule of NPCs for Pathfinder, 4E, Traveller and Call of Cthulthu (4th edition and possibly Trail of Cthulthu).

Note: this post is a result of me committing to my self that I would spend an hour writing and this was the easiest place to start. I am also attempting to see what pace I write at and after 43 minutes I now have 519 words. Given that I need to write 1666 words a day that means that I will need to write for 2.3 hours (or improve my writing speed by 130%).

Thanks,

Snork

My Game Prep

I am blessed to be a part of a consistent gaming group that has a bounty of GM's (no less than 4), so we frequently alternated between two different games: Currently we are going between a GURPS adaptation of Mass Effect and my 4E intro; Previously it was 3.5 D&D using classic modules ; Everquest; A home brewed 3.5 setting (soon to be published) ; Starwars and so on. 

Regardless, this alternation allows me some luxury in terms of prep time: On the odd weeks when I don't run, I get to explore, experiment, and play with ideas. On the weeks that I do run, I knuckle down and generate content.  All the while I turn ideas over in my head. 

When prepping I try to keep 3 rules in mind: 

1. Keep it fun
   
2. Don't over prep
   
3. If the players don't see it (or it's effects), it might as well not have happened. 
   

So learning CC3, Dungjinni and The Gimp are fun. But I am only creating what I need to run and only what the players will "See". 

When I set up encounters I only create 3-4 of them (that is about all the group will get through in the 2-3 hours of productive play that we have).  Though I do keep in mind what might be coming. 

For "Grand Plots" I will make notes, but no plot is set in stone until I bring them to the table. 

I do this because I am a firm believer in the dual edged quantum nature of plots: If players don't observe a plot it doesn't exist. However, until the players observe the plot it can be anything I want it to be, thus I can change it as I see fit.  This allows me the luxury of not having to figure out everything in advance and the adaptability to match step with the players interest. 

I have learned the joys of "Filing off the serial numbers" on creatures, especially in 4E where no-one has memorized the Monster Manual. So an Orc, goblin or Hobgoblin becomes a "Wig", Or a Kobold becomes a "Claw Foot". I have grabbed stat blocks off of DDI and renamed as I see fit. So what was a Thuggish Cultist now be came a Wig Devote. 

On the previous off week:

I produced some Photo Comps of the Temple and a near by village

Gave thought to the social implications of a Glyph based language, and Mechanically affected Immortality on a small, elite, yet diverse population.

Worked on local maps in CC3 (still trying to get good at that).   

During the on week I:

Generated some encounters with Asmor, only 4 of them. 

threw together some battle maps in Dunginni.

Made scant notes about how I though things may play out. 

Printed chits and maps. 

Enough rambling, I need to find a Magic item suitable for a bard...

Quick Memorable Names

As a good GM I try to have list of NPC names handy when I run. I've used imdb, looking up genera relevant movies and mixing Actor and Character names (Though Mark Skywalker didn't work so well, but Luke Hamel did); I've used census data and name generators to modest success; I jumbled sounds/letters together with less success. 

I recently hit upon a naming scheme that seems to work so far:

Take the name of anyone you know (co-workers, classmates, relatives) and remove the first letter so that Smith becomes Mith; Carter becomes Arter; Tim becomes Im and so on. 

The nice part is that I can remember them latter when I write up my notes. 

Snork

Playing With Gimp: part 2

Over the last few weeks I have improved my Gimp'in skill to the point that I am producing Photo Illistrations for my game.
Here are a couple examples:
This first example is a view to the south looking at the Thread (or Great Tower as the locals know it.) (this image was built from my photos from Ireland)


The second one is of the Temple:
Tree back ground from: Axel-D
Field from: CatDancing
Path From: Ana Carol Mendes
Temple from: Koshyk
Clouds by: Kevindoley




Both Images are released under the Creative Commons 2.0

Snork

Panic Attack: Two Days: More Spiders

Fell Claw Spider				Level 1 Skirmisher
Small Natural Spider				XP 100
Initiative +3				Senses Perception +4
HP 29; Bloodied 14
AC 15; Fortitude 14, Reflex 14, Will 12
; Vulnerable 5 Fire
Speed 6; see jumpy
Bite (Standard; at-will)
+6 vs AC; 1d6+3 damage
Spit Attack (Standard; at-will)
Ranged 10/20; +6 vs AC; 1d6+3 damage.
Jumpy (Minor; at-will)
The spider can shift (jump) 1 square and ignore terrain effect.
Alignment Unaligned				Languages
Skills Acrobatics +7, Athletics +8, Stealth +7
Str 16 (+3)		Dex 15 (+2)		Wis 8 (-1)
Con 8 (-1)		Int 10 (+0)		Cha 10 (+0)

The claw spider is a bit larger and redder in coloration than the minion hunting spider. It prefers to attack and then jump away while making clicking sounds.


Thanks to Monster Maker 3.1 from Encounter-a-day. Also submitted to The Open Archive. Source image from spilopterus

Panic Attack: Three Days: Changing the Rules: Skill Challenges

Today I had a vision of how I want to handle an encounter: I want a skill challenge leading up to combat with the success or failure of the challenge dictating the advantage the players get. I also wanted all the players rolling and describing their actions so that everyone is participating.

The Setup: The players are tromping through the woods in pursuit of the fell spiders when they hear screams in the distance.

Rules: For the next 5 rounds the screaming continues along with the growing sounds of battle. After the end of the 5th round the noise ends abruptly. Assuming the Characters run toward the battle every round the characters must make several skill checks.

A player running full out can make it to the encounter in 3 rounds.

The ideal situation is to be quick (athletics), precise (perception) and quiet (stealth). Additionally if you are agile (acrobatics) or have wood land guile (nature) you may be able to find a better route. Given the undergrowth having some stamina is also of importance (Endurance). Some skills get easier the closer to the encounter, other get harder. Those that succeed in a roll may "spread the wealth" of any overage that they got on their roll to help those that failed.

If there are more successfull athletics checks in a round than failures then the group(s) will move one range increment tward the encounter. Failing (more failures than successes) result in only making 1/2 a range increment progress during that round. Using Acrobatics or nature may shorten the distance by 1/2 range increment per round (re-check each round). Note that Acrobatics check success may not be shared but nature checks can be.

Range 3

Blasting off the path into the dense undergrowth is difficult and tireing.

A hard perception check to find the direction; an moderate athletics check to start moving; an easy stealth check will keep their movements unnoticed.

Note for this perception check is still a group effort even for the maverics.

Range 2

Webfilled deadfalls and bramble bushes hamper progress.

Moderate athletics to make progress, Easy endurance checks to keep going (or suffer a -1 on athletics checks until a short rest). Easy stealth checks to avoid attracting attention. Moderate perception checks to find an easier path (+2 to athletics checks next round) success may be shared by the people within a group.

Range 1

The brambles become very dense as the cannopy of trees thins for the upcomming clearing.

Hard athletics checks are required to make it through the undergrowth; Stealth check are moderate in the lush grenery. Another round of individual endurance check is need to avoid being winded (-1 to attacks until a short rest).

Timeline

Round 1: There is a distant trio of voices screaming (a hard insight will reveal 1 male, 1 female and possibly a child's voice).

Round 2: The voices continue shouting and screaming but are closer.

Round 3: The panniced voices are very close and you can hear the chattering and hissing of spiders.

Round 4: The trio of voices dwindles a bit for a moment, and then regains in volume and urgency as a pair (insight says that the child has fallen).

Round 5: The pair of shouts changes to a single sobbing screaming male voice.

Round 6: The lone male voice abruptly goes silent.

If all three stealth checks have more success than failures then grant a surprise round and combat advantage until the end of the next round.

If two stealth checks were successful, grant a surprise round.

If only one Stealth check was successful, grant combat advantage.
With no successful stealth checks, grant the enemy combat advantage until the end of the turn.

If all three athletics checks were successful, grand full cover and range 2 from nearest creature.

If two of the Athletics checks were successful, grant partial cover, but the range is 4 to the nearest enemy.

If only one Athletics check was successful, grant partial concealment, but the range is 6.

With no successful athletics checks arrive at the edge of the battle map (range 10).

Mavericks that push ahead and arrive prior to round 5 will be gifted 1 extra minion per round of early arrival (so arriving at round 3 will result in there being 2 extra minions).

As far as XP goes I would treat this as a normal (at level) encounter/quest.
The fate of the three victims is to be determined later.

Panic Attack: Three Days: Maps, I Need Maps

Although I am a procrastinator I do have standards: I feel that nothing helps sell a scene as much as a nice looking map.

RPG Mapshare is a wonderful place for finding all sorts of maps. Including this Camp 1 which would be good for setting an ambush scene.

Dungjinni is a nice application for doing pretty maps fairly quickly and has a fantastic user community that is continually producing mind blowing art. With a bit of quick searching I found this map that I can use for the nest/temple transition. Here is one for a deeper forest encounter. Given that I have un-exercised drawing talent that is not quite up to stick figures I managed to produce this in about 15 min using the stock art that comes with Dungjinni.

There is also the Cartographers Guild that appears to have a wealth of ready to use maps and more mapping tips than you can shake a stick at (though you will need a login to see many of them).

Panic Attack: Four Days: Encounter Mix

To promote a party of 6 characters to 2nd level requires 6,000 xp. Based upon the guidelines from page 104 of the Dungeon Masters Guide I think the encounter breakdown should look like this:

#	XP	Encounter
1	450	6 minons (lvl 1 at 25xp or 150xp total); 3 Skirmishers (lvl 1 at 100xp or 300xp total)
2	500	4 minons(lvl 1 at 25xp or 100); 3 Skirmishers (lvl 1 at 100xp or 300x); 1 Brute (lvl 1 at 100xp)
3	550	2 minons(lvl 1 at 25xp for 50xp); 1 Skrimisher (lvl 1 at 100xp); 1 Brute (lvl 1 at 100xp); 3 artillery (lvl 1 at 100xp for 300xp total)
4	600	3 infested Deer (3rd level creatures 150xp each)
5	650	8 minons (lvl 1 at 25xp for 200xp); 4th level trap (200xp) and 2 lurkers (2nd lvl at 125 or 250xp)
6	700	2 brutes (1st lvl 100xp or 200xp), 2 artillery (1st lvl for 200xp total); and a controler (3rd lvl elite at 300xp)
7	750	Controlled villagers (1st lvl minion at 25xp each, max of 10 no more than 4 active at a time) and Queen(1st lvl solo);
8	800	Temple skill challenge; most likely in several parts.
9	1000	To kill a god

With the controlled creatures an attack targeted at the Fell Mind Bore OR any area affect spell that penetrates its defenses will return the controlled creature to a normal state of mind.
This is just a first pass and is subject to change.

Panic Attack: Four Days: Designing Encounters

Allegedly 4E is GM frendly in terms of game prep so I am going to give it a try.

Adventure: A spider nest in the forest is starting to attack a village.
So I am going to use Kobolds but "file the numbers off": Shifty becomes Jumpy; The javlin is replaced with a Spit attack. The +2 trap sense I'm replacing with +2 for stealth checks. Dark vision becomes tremor sense. So what does our Fell Spiders look like:

Fell Spider Minion				Level 1 Minion
Small Natural Spider				XP 25
Initiative +1				Senses Perception +6, Tremor sense
HP 1 a missed attack never damages a minion.
AC 15; Fortitude 13, Reflex 13, Will 13
Speed 6; see jumpy
Bite (Standard; at-will)
+5 vs AC; 4 damage
Spit Attack (Standard; at-will)
Ranged 10/20; +6 vs AC; 4 damage.
Jumpy (Minor; at-will)
The spider can shift (jump) 1 square and ignore terrain effect.
Alignment Unaligned				Languages
Skills Acrobatics +6, Stealth +6
Str 13 (+1)		Dex 13 (+1)		Wis 13 (+1)
Con 13 (+1)		Int 13 (+1)		Cha 13 (+1)

Thanks to Monster Maker 3.1 from Encounter-a-day. Also submitted to The Open Archive.
Source image from spilopterus

Panic Attack: Four Days

So I was twiddling around the galaxy, just minding the Grox's (Spore) business when I suddenly recalled that I am introducing (and running for) my group there first 4E game this coming Thursday.

Eep!

So the first thing I do is play more Spore (Behold the power of Denial). The next day I do the accounting, dishes, vacuuming, run some errands, Play with Monster Maker 3.1; write this post. I do everything save actually working on the game. I do believe that I have truly mastered it the fine art of procrastination.

I suppose I will rationalize this post as a way to "just start writing".

2009/02/18 Note: Closing off comments to prevent spam.

WoAdWriMo: The Plan

For World Adventure Writing Month I plan to create a D&D 4th Ed adventure for the Epic Levels of 21 to 24. It's a some what daunting task I admit but it should be fun. I plan to break it up into 3 parts:

Part 1, Ascensions' Door: has the party pursuing a BBEG to the Elemental Dome. I estimate 12 encounters using Wizards' two page encounter format (24 pages) . There will be another 4 pages of background, 3 new magic items (1 page), 8 new monsters (mostly in the elemental theme, I guess 3 to 5 pages for this), 2 full page maps (over land and temple layout).

Part 2, Temple of Ascension: is set on a series of islands deep in the astral sea, I figure 18 encounters with a final battle against the BBEG, hopefully just prior to their ascension to god status. If they succeed, there are all of the materials and info for becoming a god them selves (which would then lead into part 3). In the case of Failure, BBEG ascends to god hood and the players are tasked with ridding the universe of the BBEG.

Part 3, To Kill a God/Setting up house: - is a hypothetical successor to part 2, as the players attempt to destroy the newly formed god (from part 2) OR set up shop in a newly created realm as gods them selves, or something.

Of course, given the amount that I have written so far (you are pretty much looking at it). My plans may change, fall apart or decompose into so much compost.

4E Session - Character Generation

Due to absences our usual session of Giant Smash (3.5 D&D port of the classic module Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl run by Bill) or Geth Blast (A Gurps port of Mass Effect run by Rob) had to be scrapped. So instead my victi... er fellow players started generating characters for my D&D 4th Ed game that I will be running.

Stephen chose to be a human Paladin with a ranger ability by way of a multi class feat.
Andrea is going to be a Warlock.
Bill has created a Dragonborn Warlord.

Dave, Rob, Laura, and Kevin were not in attendance.

Over all the session went well aside from torrents of not entirely unfounded criticism from Stephen, which is fine, it's the way that Stephen is. Most of his complaints were around layout and editing issues, with a smattering of arbitrary summary "is broken" judgments.

I probably won't be running the game until early fall, but that should almost be enough time to prepare.

Snork
--
Snorkey: is posting.