Imagination quotes

Continuing the search of quotes about imagination, I found this one by Napoleon Bonaparte:

"Imagination rules the world."

And that's true for every world Dungeon Masters creates and players discover, explore and expand with their character's adventures. Keep building new worlds!

2010 World Cup - Third day encounters

From the North African sands came the Algerians with their scimitars ready to fight the Eslovenians, who made their first appearance in the competition as an independent realm. With one of the "Desert Foxes" out, the Balkanic hunting party had no problem to take down the rest.

Later, Ghana's "Black Stars" and Serbia's "White Eagles" measured their strenght. The fight was even until the last rounds when the Serbs lost a man and conceded a free attack that was not missed.

The day ended with the Teutonic juggernaut rolling over the "Socceroos", reducing them to a pulp.

2010 World Cup - Second day encounters

On the first of today's encounters, the South Korean party, making use of their secret and ancient martial arts, landed two critical blows on the Greek phalanx who failed their morale check, dropped their large shields and long spears, and scattered on the battlefield.

Later, the Agentinian adventuring party, sponsored by the mythical hero Maradona, managed to vanquish the Nigerian band. Of the myriad of attacks that the "Albiceleste" threw at the "Eagles", most were dodged, blocked and parried. But one hit the mark and the feeble counter attacks made by the Africans were not enough to turn the tide of the battle.

And in the final encouter the English "Lions" won the initiative and landed a vicious attack on the USA squad. But the english gatekeeper rolled a natural 1 on his save vs. paralyzation and allowed the Americans to even the score. In past times he would have been thrown in the dungeons of the Tower. The rounds passed as both parties hacked at each other, but no attack reached its intended destination.

Can't wait to see tomorrow encounters!

2010 World Cup - First day encounters

Today started the 2010 World Cup for Uruguay with an encounter against France. The melee between the "Charruas" and the "Gauls" was a very dull and boring, with only a few to hit chances for both parties but all misses. One of the Uruguayan party members was sent off by the Japanese Dungeon Master for making a critical fumble. He will miss the next encounter against the "Bafana bafana", the South African party that inflicted 1 hit point of damage to the Mexican party in the opening encounter. But "La Verde" retaliated and also inflicted 1 hit point of damage to the local team. And so it ends the first day of the 2010 World Cup. Stay tuned!

Imagination quotes

Almost a year ago, when I decided to start blogging in a more or less regular way, I changed the look of the blog an added a quote about imagination. On either side of the DM screen, I think imagination is the most important thing in role playing games. Imagination to create adventures, give life to characters and monsters, to picture what is going on when the DM describe a place or the players describe their actions, and so on. At that time I chose a quote by Carl Sagan:

"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere."

How many worlds are out there, canon and homebrew, teeming with characters adventuring, monsters to be vanquished, places to be discovered, treasures to be plundered, dungeons to be explored and more? Thousands, perhaps millions and every one of them, wonderful.

I then thought of changing the quote, not because I didn't like it anymore, but to see what has been said about imagination. So I searched the web and came across this quote by Albert Einstein:

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

Yes, logic will take you from A to B, with only one random encounter in between according to Vaarsuvius, if I may respectfully add. And everywhere are all those worlds we created and those yet to be. Then my search led me to a quote by Pablo Picasso:

"Everything you can imagine is real."

This is so very true in our hobby. Everything that that happens when we gather to play, around the table, by post, by Wave or even Twitter, becomes real to DM and players alike. As a side thought, it would have been great to have a monsters manual illustrated by Picasso, wouldn't it?

Then, why don't make this a regular thing? A weekly post with a quote about imagination, the heart and soul of role playing games. Let's see what I find for next Monday.

My RPG books

After putting in order all my gaming stuff, here's a picture of the gaming shelf. There's more material classified and stored in rigid type folders but it doesn't look as good as this.

From left to right: the World of Greyhawk (1980), the WoG & Glossography (1983), AD&D Dungeon Master Guide (1979), AD&D 2e PHB, DM and Monstrous Manual, AD&D 2e Complete Bard's Handbook, AD&D 2e Celts Campaign Sourcebook, AD&D 2e The Complete Books of Villains, AD&D The Complete Books of Elves, AD&D Against the Giants - The Liberation of Geoff (1999), some Dragon and Dungeon magazines, 3.0e PHB, DM and MM, 3.0e Book of Vile Darkness, 4 boxes of plastic miniatures and 3 boxed sets (The City of Greyhawk, From the Ashes and Planescape Campaign Expansion), AD&D 2e Volo's Guide to the North, AD&D Waterdeep and the North, AD&D 2e Campaign Guide to Myth Drannor, Ars Magica 5e, Labyrinth Lord Advancd Edition Companion and some books of drawing techniques. On top there's a bag from the English Heritage with a poster of Stonehenge waiting to put in a frame.

From that lot are missing the 3.5e books (PHB, DM, MM and the Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk module) and another box of miniatures, that were in the gaming backpack the moment I took the picture, and the Labyrinth Lord Revised Edition that is on its way.

Order is on its way

Just received news from Lulu.com that my copy of Labyrinth Lord: Revised Edition (hard cover) has been shipped. I already have the pdf version printed and bound, but wanted the hard cover edition in my shelf of RPG books. It should be down here, hopefully, in less than a couple of weeks. Can't wait to have it and use it along with the AEC in my new campaign.

Strange session

I'm not prone to comment much about our gaming sessions but last Sunday one was kinda strange. First, let me do some recap. I'll try not to spoil the module.

A couple of sessions ago the group found, under the Tower of Magic, what it could be a magical way into where the simulacrum of Iggwilv might be. After learning how it worked they left for the city and came back with the magical means to use it and get there, but in the last minute they decided, although knowing that time was a pressing matter, to try another route. And so, they went into the Tower of Zagig. I must admit that, with their decision, they caught me off-guard and I had to make it all on the fly. They explored the tower ruins, killed several undeads, found a secret staircase and took their way down. Of all the traps and constructs I put in their path, none of them prevented the group to reach the crypts . Then I begun throwing at them several mummies which they managed to turn or destroy in what they called "Mummy frenzy". With that, after two really enjoyable sessions we reached last one.

When they entered a maze of corridors and rooms, a ghost appeared, warned them not to continue further and left. They just ignored it and pressed on. After a little exploration, they reached a couple of unscratched magically warded double doors... guess what? They decided to go the other way! What they found were clues that they were in a place that has been already plundered. Visibly forced doors, those once trapped had the traps jammed or disabled, niches desecrated, sarcophagi pilfered, pit traps marked on the floor, crosses and arrows marked on the walls, tunnels made to bypass heavily warded doors, etc. They even found the corpses of an unfortunate group of adventurers. When they finally realized there was nothing to be found and decided to go back to the double doors, there was no more time to play.

After the session my wife told me that it has been a bit boring, with no combat and only some saves made. I just said that the players, with their decisions make the game funny or boring. There were plenty of hints of what was going on. They just chose to ignore them, kept going and backed away (for a second time in the last three sessions) from what would have looked important to any adventurer.

I don't like railroading, but I confess last session I was tempted to do it. They're all experienced players and that's why I found strange what happened.

New Campaign

As I said before, I was waiting for my group to complete the Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk module in order to begin a new campaign but, since we're not gaming as often as I'd like so finishing the module will take longer than I expected, I decided to start a new group for my Labyrinth Lord campaign.

I'm planning to also set it in the World of Greyhawk, more specifically in the legendary Archbarony of Blackmoor. It's a region in which, after all these years gaming in this world, I've never played nor DMed so it's a bit of a challenge. So far I've found a great article on the Oerth Journal #5 detailing the whole region and a low-level adventure on Dragon Magazine #115 called "Raiders of the Black Ice" (thanks to Bubbagump @ Canonfire!) which I'll have to convert from 3.5e to LL but that's no stress. I've also purchased from Faster Monkey Games a couple of adventures compatible with LL called "The Hidden Serpent" and "Wheel of Evil" (well done Bighara!) which I plan to adapt to the setting.

I know that Blackmoor has a strong component of sci-fi which I still haven't decided what to do with it, since the combination of medieval fantasy and sci-fi is not my cup of tea. Perhaps I'll check with my group to see if they like that or jump right into the water and see what happens. Of the people I've contacted so far only two have played both pen&paper and online RPGs before and only one in the World of Greyhawk. The rest are new to board RPGs but all play World of Warcraft online.

I plan it to be a sandbox game with the group starting in some whaling village on the wind-swept shores of the Icy Sea. Let's see what the future holds...

How I keep track of initiative

Reading one of the many RPG feeds I have in the Google Reader, I came into this article about how to keep track of the initiative rolls. It's a nice article worth reading, but it made me think "Hey, why don't I share the way we do that in our game?". I guess every DM has its own way and thinks it's the best one. So here it goes:

1. In your favorite word processor (I used Word) just make a 4-column table and as many rows as you like. One for each charecter and enough for monsters or NPCs.
   
2. Columns 1 and 4 are 1,5 cm. wide and columns 2 and 3 are 7 cm. wide. All rows are 1,5 cm in height. Make sure all cell borders are a least 3 pt. wide. All are suggested values.
   
3. Use you favorite font type to write the name of the character in columns 2 and 3. For the example I used this one.

By now it should look something like this:

Make sure to use a heavyweight paper when you print it. Then cover the printed sheet with transparent contact paper. That way it'll last longer and you can write the initiative in the little box with whiteboard markers. Then you cut them along the rows like this:

The idea is to hand them down to the players, they write their initiative and the DM hangs them (not the players, put that rope down), in order, over the DM screen (you do use a DM screen right?) and use a pointer to mark whose turn it is. If you're using 3.x, and someone declares a ready or delay action, you just take it out of the queue util they act.

This is how it looks from the player's side (sorry about the worn-out markers).

An this is from the DM¡s side.

Hope you like it and find it useful.

Oriental Adventures

Yesterday we gathered to continue our OA campaign. We are five guys, four are married and three got small children. We get together maybe 3 or 4 times in the year, if we're lucky. It's more like a social reunion in which we hang out, catch up and roll some dices. As we waited for everyone to come, one of the guys commented about playing with his 8 years old son, so I mentioned some blogs he could check out and read about other dads' experience.

Later while having some pizzas, one of the guys made us notice that we begun this campaign back in May of 1994! That's 16 years ago! Since all of our characters are level 6, our party must have the worst campaigning time-level achieved ratio ever. It's not that we care about it, but we laughed heartily at the thought and I took mental note to comment it here.

Don't let the trolls win

It's sad to see two very interesting RPG-related blogs to go down in a few days. I'm talking about Michael "Chgowiz" Shorten's "Old Guy RPG" blog and Christopher Brackett's "A Rust Monster Ate My Sword" blog. The former has been taken is off-line by its owner and the latter won't be seeing any update for the time being.

I specially didn't referred to those blogs as "OSR-related" because they covered many other, equally interesting, topics. I very much respect the reasons that each one had to made their decisions. Maybe I don't agree but I respect them and hope to see both online soon. And if not, others will come forward and pick their flags to carry on.

Gary Con II

I've just realized that tomorrow Friday starts Gary Con II (March 19 - 21) and it made me get green with envy for all of you attending. No seriously, I wish everyone there good gaming and hope to read many cool stories in the blogs I follow. I hope some day to attend and share a game with some of the people I know from here, the Google Wave game, Canonfire! or the Greychat. Happy Gary Con! I'm still green... Bleh...

What to put in a portable hole?

Last session, one of my players (Fede V.) decided that Falquian, his figher/mage-slayer, while in the city, will stock the portable hole he had gained the previous session. But he didn't tell me and we didn't do all the roleplay of the "shopping & buying"; he just made the list and anounced he was done. The dialogue was something like:

Player: "That's it, all we need is in the portable hole."

DM: "W-what? All right, read me the list."

Player: (reads the list aloud)

(everyone laughs)

DM: "You mail me that list, I'm gonna put it in the blog!"

And so here it is:

a freestanding bookshelf (already there)
a worktable (already there)
a comfortable cot (already there)
3 barrels of dried food (already there)
4 barrels of fresh water (3 were already there)
1 barrel of oil
5 bedrolls
5 winter blankets
5 cold weather outfits
500 ft. of hempen rope
10 lbs. of soap
a shovel
a miner's pick
a crowbar
100 trail rations
5 sacks (empty)
2 iron pots
flint & steel
2 tents
firewood (for some days)
a small steel mirror
3 manacles
50 iron spikes
10 wooden stakes
10 everburning torches
a grappling hook
a 10 ft. wooden ladder
a portable ram
a sledge
20 flasks of holy water

I don't know if all that fits in a portable hole and didn't do the math, but since I liked it so much I allowed it. As I recently read here, saying yes is more fun.

Finnaly!

Last friday when I got home there was a note from the postman that they had a package for me at the post office. Since they don't work on weekends, and I couldn't go on their office hours, today my wife went to get it. So, I came from work and there it was on my desk, a perfectlly bound cardboard box from Lulu and a post-it from her that today dinner was on me. I finally have in my hands the Labyrinth Lord's Advanced Edition Companion from Goblinoid Games! The binding and printing of the book are of great quality. The artwork is so old-school, I love it. Enough, I'm off to read it and plan my next capaign. Uh-oh, wait, I have to make dinner. :-)

D&D 2010 Season

Yesterday after several tries our group finally got together to start the Dungeons & Dragons 2010 season. It's the final leg to end the Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk module. I guess that by playing a couple of times per month we'll be finishing it around mid-year. There was no combat during the first session, only a couple of dices were rolled for some checks, it was all role-playing. It was a change of pace after several sessions of dungeon crawl and they were all longing for some time in the city. They did plenty of things, from selling loot, to buying equipement, enchanting items, interrogating a prisioner, following leads, information gathering, scrying a potential enemy, sending a message to Mordenkainen informing him about their plans and asking for advice, even communing with Boccob for guidance. By the end of the session they were ready to go back to the Castle.

Read An RPG Book in Public Week

Tomorrow ends the first "Read An RPG Book in Public Week" of the year. It's a curious event to promote the hobby. Click on the image above to find out more about it.

Two years...

It's been two years now since Gary Gygax left us. I'll never forget what I felt that day, it was a mix of sadness and frustration. Sadness for the loss and a state of emptiness that comes along. And frustration because I never had the chance to meet him at a GenCon or other convention. The chance to have a picture taken with him or having some book autographed by him. That day I promised myself to some day visit Lake Geneva. It'll be a sort of pilgrimage to the origins of D&D. To finish this humble homage I found a phrase somewhere some time ago that I think abridges this day's feelings: "Gary, you're critically missed."

Photo by Alan De Smet

One Page Dungeon: Dungeons of the Forsaken Abbey

Here is a link to my sumbission to the One Page Dungeon Contest 2010. It's called "Dungeons of the Forsaken Abbey" and it's based on an actual homebrew adventure we were playing not long ago. Hope you like it and wish me luck!

Azincourt

I've just finished reading "Azincourt" a novel by Bernard Cornwell. He's my favorite writer of the historical novel genre. So far I've read the Grail Quest (Harlequin, Vagabond and Heretic) and the Saxon Stories (The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman, The Lords of the North and Sword Song) series. Now I'm waiting to get my hands on "The Burning Land", the last one published (but hopefully not the last to be written) of the Saxon serie. Cornwell masterfully entwines a fictional storyline with historical facts to create a literary masterpiece. All the research made by the author is evident in every detail described and one feels transported to the time depicted. A book worth reading.

Drawings (5)

This one's inspired in the old Dragon magazine. I don't remember clearly, but I think it was drawn sometime during a gaming session. I miss that magazine...

Drawings (4)

This is a quick scketch that I called "Champion" and it portraits an old character that one of my actual players used in another campaign. The character's name is Elthanas, an elven cavalier and Prince of the Gamboge Forest, which I mentioned in an old post here. The visor of the helmet is the beak and wings of a raven (or at least that was the intention) which was his coat of arms that can be partially seen on his shield. He's weilding a flaming sword.

Drawings (3)

Here goes another one. This was inspired by the ranger in the Unearthed Arcana and it was the portrait for one of my characters (Finloss).

Drawings (2)

Continunig with the serie of "artistic" posts, here goes another one. This one is called "Knight in dungeon" and, as yesterday's, are inspired in the books of "Prince Valiant" which belonged to my father and I literaly devoured as a kid. More to come soon.

Drawings

As I hoped here, on 2009's last post, I'm now starting to post material from one of my hobbies: drawing. I'm not a professional artist, so don't expect too much quality (I wish I had more time to better my skills). Anyway, here goes the first one and it's called "Archer". ;-)

Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition Companion Available!

Even though as a member of the Labyrinth Lord Society I've received in advance a special preview (no artwork) of the Advanced Edition Companion, I also bought (juat a couple of minutes ago!) the hardcover edition from the print shop at Lulu and made use of the Groundhog Day coupon code ("SHADOW") toget a 15% off. (valid until Feb 3). Between printing (10-15 days) and shipping (7-12 days) it'll take a while to get down here, but it's worth the waiting. I hope it comes right in time for the start of my new "Old School" style campaign I'm planning for this year. Can't wait to have it!

Design A Dungeon Room Contest 2010 fail

It was a really busy week and weekend with some friends (all fellow players of World of Warcraft online ) coming from abroad (Argentina) and I completely forgot about the deadline! I was really excited about this contest and had some ideas to submit. Well, maybe next time...

One Page Dungeon Contest 2010

It looks like another instance of the One Page Dungeon Contest has been set in motion by Alex Schroeder, one of the judges of OPDC 2009, as we can read in his wiki/blog. The best of luck to him and the would-be judges!

Design A Dungeon Room Contest 2010

This cool initiative can be found at Robertson Games website. The idea is to create a dungeon room following the Old School style. It can contain an encounter with a creature, an NPC, a trap or trick, etc. You can check the judges and prizes here. Last year experience with the One Page Dungeon Contest was great. I had a lot of fun creating the dungeon and really liked the format, so I guess I'm going to use it again for this contest. I'll be posting it here as soon as I have it ready.

D&D in Google Wave 2

The AD&D 1e/OSRIC campaign on Google Wave I'm in is going really well and I'm having a lot of fun playing it. Everyone posts everyday and some several times a day. This is a key aspect of the game. This enthusiasm made give it a try as a DM so, as we're in a summer break in my 3.5e campaign, I set up a wave for a one-on-one side adventure with one of my players. We did PBP style and online gaming, using a wave for the action and another one for maps, references and character sheets. It's been a great experience so far, with both the player and DM enjoying the game.