Five Games...

Concept cribbed from American Barbarica: Five roleplaying games I would like to run if I had the time and the players group.

1) Deepest Sea - A OSR game, using a slightly modified Labyrinth Lord engine and my own home made setting of, well, the Deepest Sea.  A grity low powered dungeon crawl, with a few sandbox elements, and some political hooks for those who are so inclined.
2) Wandering Weißenland - WHFRP sandbox game set in eastern Weißenland, exploring the ruins left from the destruction of Solland, the local politics, and whatever else the players would fancy.  The WHFRP game is pretty low magic oriented, and deadly, so cautious exploration would be key.
3) Skype/Electronic tabletop dungeon crawl - A game played with friends online, using some of the various electronic tabletop replicators out there.  Would probably devolve fairly quickly into a silly inter-party bash like most of our games played in high school.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.
4) Dark Heresy/Inqusimunda skirmish/role play hybrid game - Battling teams of Inquisitors/Rogue Traders/gangers, on a declining world, combat played using Inquisimunda rules, running around looking for clues, and hopefully roasting each other.
5) Dank Medieval city game - Massive rotting city, inspired by the Lies of Locke Lamora, highly political, complex multifaceted religious situation, and low magic.  neighborhoods with different customs, complicated guilds for all aspects of the economy, alchemists, corrupt nobility, etc.  Players as rogues/bravos, trying to make a big score, and escape a debt.  Would have a heavy reputation factor.

Come to think of it, most of my imagined settings are pretty low magic gritty settings.

Also, spent some time today looking through Rolang's Creeping Doom.  Lots of excellent ideas there, including a cleric class which worships a pantheon of gods, but only one per day, which one determined by a d6, with completely different modes of worship and rewards for same.

Photography

Today I had the help of my lovely wife in taking a few pictures.  The new and improved (?) header is a direct result.  It is amazing what a quality camera, tripod, lighting, and a skilled operator will do for you.

As an example, here is a new picture of the giant. Compare to this old one.

Games Workshop News

As you are probably aware, Games Workshop(GW) produces a game based on the Lord of the Rings (LotR) movies, and later got the licence for pretty much all Third Age related material. The release of the LotR movies, and the resulting boxed games and figures for the game was a HUGE boost to GW's business, and has resulted in the LotR game becoming one of the "core" systems pushed by GW. It has even spawned a mass battle version of the game, which I have not played, but which is supposed to be pretty good.

Now, GW has signed an agreement to make games based on the two new Hobbit movies. This should be good for the company, and seems pretty exciting to me as well. A Hobbit based version of the basic LotR game would be great, more interest in the Battle of Five Armies would be great, and figures would be great too! [maybe they will even re-release the Bo5A metal figures!?] So a pretty exciting, if not unexpected announcement.

Also, the Warhammer Orcs and Goblins are getting a new book soon, and in GW language, that means new models, and specifically, new plastic kits. This seems to mean mostly savage orcs, which interest me not at all, but the Skulkers and huge spider could be interesting.

Unfortunately, there are no new common or forest goblins on foot, which is what I was really looking for. Maybe those will come out in the "second wave".

Online but "in person"

Sorry for the silence lately, but I was in a car accident, and totaled our old car. After a couple of weeks of looking around, and lots of online review reading, we got a new vehicle, so things are back to normal. (and I am fine, only bruised my knee)

Anyway, last weekend, my wife and I had an enjoyable video chat with some friends of ours via Skype. During the end of the conversation, we added my friend's brother to the conversation using the new multiple person video chat(which is a paid aspect of the service). We BSed a bit, and then someone (maybe me) mentioned that it would be fun to play Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) using this sort of technology. I did endure some ribbing with regards to having time to RP online, but not to play in the D&D online game that they already participate in. (my friend, his wife, his brother, and his brother-in-law all play)

As you might expect, there are already many ways for people to play games, and in particular role playing games online. Besides the obvious MPORG type situation (back to D&D online), which certainly skew more to "roll playing" than "role playing, there are dice rolling tools, specialized chat boards, and the like. Beyond that, there are entire mapping programs that allow for the DM to set up a map, and have players negotiate it. (and similar ones aimed at board games)

Still though, there is something to be said for seeing and hearing someone while you play, after all, the social aspect is what makes RP games so much fun, and conversely so hard to get going sometimes. What do you think? Would you, or have you, played a game online?

Look, I can paint!

Just very very slowly. Shown here are a rune stone (from the stone in the WHFB giant's hand), and the three reaper townsfolk figures I talked about previously. Sorry about the crappy picture, I used my old camera with no prep.

Still need to repaint the base edges, a few highlights, and then dullcoat. Plus flock, etc. So, only about 70% done, really.

In the background we have a wood, neo-soviets, and 15mm French.

Temptation

I have been planning on creating a Copplestone Neo-Soviet platoon for a while (for use in Star Grunt II), but have somehow resisted the urge to buy miniatures for future projects.

And now I see that Copplestone has a platoon on offer for £62... that is around $2.4 per figure (in metal!). The figures are not exactly what I would pick, but golly if it is not tempting.

Militant worship

First of all, welcome to Jim & Jody, new follower(s) of this blog. Hopefully you find some interesting posts.

Second, thinking a bit about the role of the cleric in classic D&D games. I had a very vivid dream last night that featured children's books, the title of one of which was St. Sebastian and the Water of Life. Not knowing anything about St. Sebastian, I of course headed to Wikipedia. That lead me to reading about military saints. If you think about it, a religious person would be pretty common in a dark ages type setting, particularly if you count those who merely labor as lay persons for the church. Priests would be slightly less common, and true clerics in the D&D sense, who can cast "spells", or otherwise more directly interact with a deity would be uncommon indeed. This person might be seen as a sort of military saint, someone who was/is a military person, but has a religious calling as well.

Bat in the Attic has a couple of posts talking about just this sort of demographics, and comes up with the following numbers:

• 1 non-spell casting clergy per 40 people
• 1 leveled (spell casting) cleric per 1000 people.

Which seems to be pretty reasonable. In some eras, you could say that there is a crisis of faith, or if an enemy of the deity is active, and modify the numbers to suit. Not every cleric is going to be a saint (indeed in true OSR games, most will be martyrs), but those that get up higher in levels would be seen that way by believers, and it seems like they would become famous later as well.

This also leads one to consider the role of an Ignatius, a famous cleric who founds an order of clerics. Would that not allow for both opportunity and restraint on the actions of the player character? No longer would they be a wandering lonely cleric, but now they are members of an order, and would gain both the benefits (equipment, support) and the drawbacks that entails (obedience, poverty etc.)

What do you think?

[for much more on Christianity, and its expression in D&D, see the fine blog Blood of Prokopius]

Hail Caeser!

Always on the lookout for a set of rules to refight Greek city state wars, I noticed that Rick Priestley, recently of Games Workshop, talks here a bit about the upcoming adaption of the Black Powder rules for ancients gaming.

Not sure that I like multiple figures on one base, but it does create a good look... and I have used regimental bases in Warhammer (20x80mm). Games without figure removal are also a bit odd to me, even Warmaster allows for base removal.

Anyway, something to keep an eye on for 28mm ancients...however sensible it would be to go for 10mm and Warmaster instead.

Old School Renaissance

Back in the summer, I was thinking quite a bit about running a WHFRP sandbox game, as mentioned in this post. During that time, I was reading the Bat in the Attic blog quite a bit, and came across the term "Old School Renaissance" (OSR).

As I see it, the OSR is a movement mostly amongst older gamers to eschew the new and shiny heavily detailed rules of today, and return to the simpler times of their youth, when Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) was new, and rules were simple. This is facilitated by the "Open Gaming Licence" created by Wizards during the third edition of D&D, which allowed for basic D&D rules and concepts to be used freely by other publishing companies, originally to allow for additional source books. With careful work, this has allowed for "retro clones" of various early editions of D&D, (some from before I was born!), and ultimately new rule systems as well. [a primary example of this would be Labyrinth Lord]

The OSR and D&D has become my obsession de'jour after I had a flash of inspiration on the way home from work one day. I was thinking about something else entirely, and suddenly, I started thinking about a dark age pseudo-European setting suitable for dungeon delving. (decaying empires, howling barbarians, and all the usual accouterments) Now I think about it obsessively, and read tons of blog posts about games, rules variations, items, metagame concerns, and so on. Some material has even be cribbed for future use. (Google docs is very helpful in that regard) Not helping matters is that I got Baldur's Gate for Christmas (only 12 years behind the times), and now D&D subsumes most other hobby thought.

Figurewise (every game must have figures), I have been looking at Perry First Crusade for the humans (such as these chaps for thieves), Hasslefree for dwarves (these fellows), and am a bit stumped for elves. I made a post on the Lead Adventure Forum seeking advice, and game away with a few options to try. The Thunderbolt Mountain elves may be perfect, although they tend to scale armor instead of mail, and like many Tom Meier sculpts, look a bit "dead" (the uncanny valley at work?).

So anyway, that is the OSR, and my D&D obsession. Sometime I hope to post more about the setting, and Lord forefend, something about playing a game or painting miniatures.

A Review of 2010

First off, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and yours. Sort of late, but there you have it.

As you might recall, way back in mid January of last year, I made five resolutions for 2010.

Here they are, with a few thoughts about their completion (or lack there of)
1. Get in a Game or two: Complete failure if you count only miniatures games.
2. Paint More Figures: Complete failure. I have painted a mere two figures, and put a few layers of paint on some others. Nearly made it a whole year without painting a single figure.
3. Figure out Figure Storage: Partial failure. Have spent way too much time looking at plastic boxes, trying to find the "perfect" one. Decided that a 4" high box would be ideal.
4. Get Hobby Room Finished and Set Up: Pass. Room is still full of in-laws, therefore can not be set up. Hopefully will be empty in 2011.
5. Use airbrush again: Complete Failure. Did not finish building the Baneblade, and therefore did not use the airbrush to paint it.

Well, that is somewhat depressing. In my defense, we did have an addition to our family, which has absorbed 90% of formerly free time. I think that for 2011, I will just try to accomplish the 2010 resolutions. I have started painting again, so hopefully at least #2 will be accomplished.

In other gaming related news, we gave some Friends of ours Puerto Rico as a Christmas gift, and were able to get a couple of games in. Pretty fun, although it is component heavy. I did not win either game, but I did come in second the second time we played, and as usual with new games, acted as rules reader and arbitrator. I asked my wife if we should get the game for ourselves, and she was quick to say no, not that she did not enjoy the game, but due to the number of pieces, and the likelihood of the offspring consuming them.