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I'll write up more about what happened when I both have the time and am not exhausted. However, I'm very pleased with the characters I came up with, even though the actual game wasn't quite as good as I'd wanted it to be.
( The character descriptions, cut for your protection )
( The character descriptions, cut for your protection )
I've set up a private Diplomacy judge on my server, and now have a couple of games running on it. I've got one open game if anyone's interested in playing, and if more than enough people are interested, more games can be created (tho I think I will not play more than 2).
One advantage to my diplomacy server is that any game I am signed up for as a player or an observer, I have scripts that will autogenerate mapit maps. If interested, the server's address is judge@logrus.com, and information on using a judge can be found at http://www.diplom.org/Online/judge.html. Since it's a private judge, the games do not show up on the master judge list, so those resources don't apply.
One advantage to my diplomacy server is that any game I am signed up for as a player or an observer, I have scripts that will autogenerate mapit maps. If interested, the server's address is judge@logrus.com, and information on using a judge can be found at http://www.diplom.org/Online/judge.html. Since it's a private judge, the games do not show up on the master judge list, so those resources don't apply.
Oddly, there's not a great deal to tell about my life right now. Most of it is consumed with weight watchers and trying to slim down. I promised I wouldn't post about that publically (I post plenty behind the lock), so I'll just mention it in passing, oh, and I've lost 15 pounds since I've started it. Which is a drop in the bucket for the amount that I'm overweight.
I made a batch of experimental salsa--roasted tomato, black bean and corn salsa. I'm curious how it'll turn out, but I don't think I'm going to know for at least a day, and from what I've read I get the feeling that the stuff is best 3-4 days after it's made. Er, at least, the stuff that I sort of based my recipe on. Which this kind of isn't very much like, except for having black beans and corn in it. We shall see! I also made my more normal roasted tomato chipotle salsa. That one ought to turn out well, tho I suspect it'll be quite fiery.
On the gaming front, at the end of the last session (oh crap, I never wrote it up), I sent my players off to WAR. Not that they know what the war's even about yet. They have some guesses, but I've set enough different things in motion it's going to be hard for them to really predict a whole lot of this. Some of what's going on has just been in the background and never made it to the players' knowledge. I'm looking forward to the next session, though I'm nervous about the scale of what's going on, and whether or not it'll actually work out in terms of fun play.
KublaCon is coming up around Memorial day. That one's going to be busy for me. I'm running a Feng Shui game there, as well as the bulk of the Shadowfist events. Should be interesting and exciting. And all those other things too.
I learned last night I make a really good margarita, now that I know how. And now I've gotten to put the martini and margarita glasses that Andrew got us for Christmas to use twice. Wish I had a place for them. We have so much stuff!
Also, I'm hungry now.
I made a batch of experimental salsa--roasted tomato, black bean and corn salsa. I'm curious how it'll turn out, but I don't think I'm going to know for at least a day, and from what I've read I get the feeling that the stuff is best 3-4 days after it's made. Er, at least, the stuff that I sort of based my recipe on. Which this kind of isn't very much like, except for having black beans and corn in it. We shall see! I also made my more normal roasted tomato chipotle salsa. That one ought to turn out well, tho I suspect it'll be quite fiery.
On the gaming front, at the end of the last session (oh crap, I never wrote it up), I sent my players off to WAR. Not that they know what the war's even about yet. They have some guesses, but I've set enough different things in motion it's going to be hard for them to really predict a whole lot of this. Some of what's going on has just been in the background and never made it to the players' knowledge. I'm looking forward to the next session, though I'm nervous about the scale of what's going on, and whether or not it'll actually work out in terms of fun play.
KublaCon is coming up around Memorial day. That one's going to be busy for me. I'm running a Feng Shui game there, as well as the bulk of the Shadowfist events. Should be interesting and exciting. And all those other things too.
I learned last night I make a really good margarita, now that I know how. And now I've gotten to put the martini and margarita glasses that Andrew got us for Christmas to use twice. Wish I had a place for them. We have so much stuff!
Also, I'm hungry now.
This is a topo-style map of the area my main campaign was just in.
County of Azorshoall
This was a lot smaller than many of the maps I've made, so only took me about 6...maybe 8 hrs of work.
County of Azorshoall
This was a lot smaller than many of the maps I've made, so only took me about 6...maybe 8 hrs of work.
This weekend I gamed. A lot.
On Saturday I finally got to have another session of Convergence, my epic fantasy mini-campaign in which the players are seeking the ancient magical mcguffins in order to stop the 5,000 year giant scary demon invasion thing from happening. The session went really well. We had one replacement player who, after about an hour of observing and seeming a little uncomfortable, suddenly jumped in and became a key voice for the rest of the session. The session took a month and a half of game time, due to large amounts of travel (they covered some 800 miles on good roads plus by boat, plus they hacked their way 6 miles through jungle). They had one almost meaningless combat, but that particular campaign has now had only 2 combats in 5 sessions, so it seemed like a good thing to throw in a meaningless combat. They'll probably have one or two more. The jungle is an unpleasant place, and they have a lot of jungle to go.
In the second game, I ran a D&D 3.5e one-shot. We had a paladin, a cleric (of Pelor), a sorceror, a half-orc barbarian, and an elven rogue. The party gelled together pretty fast, once chargen was done (which took about twice as long as I wanted, alas) and the mini-module I ran, while not great, turned out pretty fun. We had some good interaction, and the 'mystery', while straight-forward and simple, had just enough interesting bits to make the game playable and enjoyable. Also, the barbarian didn't get to sleep with the hot elf chick, even though she promised--because she insisted he bathe, and by bathe he meant "Be bathed by my eager and willing servants and...aww, you fell asleep. Poor half-orc. You had a good night, didn't you!"
On Saturday I finally got to have another session of Convergence, my epic fantasy mini-campaign in which the players are seeking the ancient magical mcguffins in order to stop the 5,000 year giant scary demon invasion thing from happening. The session went really well. We had one replacement player who, after about an hour of observing and seeming a little uncomfortable, suddenly jumped in and became a key voice for the rest of the session. The session took a month and a half of game time, due to large amounts of travel (they covered some 800 miles on good roads plus by boat, plus they hacked their way 6 miles through jungle). They had one almost meaningless combat, but that particular campaign has now had only 2 combats in 5 sessions, so it seemed like a good thing to throw in a meaningless combat. They'll probably have one or two more. The jungle is an unpleasant place, and they have a lot of jungle to go.
In the second game, I ran a D&D 3.5e one-shot. We had a paladin, a cleric (of Pelor), a sorceror, a half-orc barbarian, and an elven rogue. The party gelled together pretty fast, once chargen was done (which took about twice as long as I wanted, alas) and the mini-module I ran, while not great, turned out pretty fun. We had some good interaction, and the 'mystery', while straight-forward and simple, had just enough interesting bits to make the game playable and enjoyable. Also, the barbarian didn't get to sleep with the hot elf chick, even though she promised--because she insisted he bathe, and by bathe he meant "Be bathed by my eager and willing servants and...aww, you fell asleep. Poor half-orc. You had a good night, didn't you!"
The last couple sessions of my Altaia campaign, Village People, have been pretty darn good.
I know this won't interest most, but I know some like reading about other people's games. Tho I don't write much witty and creative about them, I do have a complete set of session notes (which is not as good as a log or summary sadly) on the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
village_people community. If you look, be sure to check the memories where I actually organize posts a little.
I know this won't interest most, but I know some like reading about other people's games. Tho I don't write much witty and creative about them, I do have a complete set of session notes (which is not as good as a log or summary sadly) on the
village_people community. If you look, be sure to check the memories where I actually organize posts a little.This is targeted primarily at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
evilmagnus who's been talking about how there's gotta be a better way to do MMORPG stats. Here's something I've been thinking about in a rough overview.
This system is entirely skill-based. There are no classes. There are some base aptitudes, which are unchangeable, skills, and abilities--abilities let you do things like spell-casting and advanced combat features. They're similar to the D20 concept of Feats.
Skills are things like Swords, Defense, Toughness, Crafting, Social -- the variety and balance of skills depends entirely upon the content of the game.
The only way to raise skills is to train. Perhaps tehre is some way to do self-taught skill raising at some kind of a penalty. Dunno. But various NPCs will train you. But to get them to train you, you have to have good standing with them. The most obvious way to do that is to be a member of a guild.
But really, guilds are more like unions--not all give and no take like on current MMORPGs, but instead if you're a member of a guild, you have to pay dues of some sort--provide services. You gotta give to the guild so that you can get what the guild has to offer.
You can be members of multiple guilds; but then you gotta pay dues to all the guilds, or they will revoke your status.
Different guilds will then train you in different ways. Magic-user type guilds will have fairly minimal combat training. Etc.
This helps control the progression and still keep identifiable professions without sticking everyone into a class/level system. The only level, really, is the total number of XP you have available. And you spend that XP at trainers to get your skills and abilities.
evilmagnus who's been talking about how there's gotta be a better way to do MMORPG stats. Here's something I've been thinking about in a rough overview.This system is entirely skill-based. There are no classes. There are some base aptitudes, which are unchangeable, skills, and abilities--abilities let you do things like spell-casting and advanced combat features. They're similar to the D20 concept of Feats.
Skills are things like Swords, Defense, Toughness, Crafting, Social -- the variety and balance of skills depends entirely upon the content of the game.
The only way to raise skills is to train. Perhaps tehre is some way to do self-taught skill raising at some kind of a penalty. Dunno. But various NPCs will train you. But to get them to train you, you have to have good standing with them. The most obvious way to do that is to be a member of a guild.
But really, guilds are more like unions--not all give and no take like on current MMORPGs, but instead if you're a member of a guild, you have to pay dues of some sort--provide services. You gotta give to the guild so that you can get what the guild has to offer.
You can be members of multiple guilds; but then you gotta pay dues to all the guilds, or they will revoke your status.
Different guilds will then train you in different ways. Magic-user type guilds will have fairly minimal combat training. Etc.
This helps control the progression and still keep identifiable professions without sticking everyone into a class/level system. The only level, really, is the total number of XP you have available. And you spend that XP at trainers to get your skills and abilities.
A map for a remarkably small section of my gaming world.
Of course, now I need a ton and another ton of text to accompany it. Ahahahaha.
Of course, now I need a ton and another ton of text to accompany it. Ahahahaha.
We were actually back yesterday, and pretty much everything of note is already in esmerel's journal, so I won't duplicate it.
On the plus side, I'm starting up a new campaign. Choosing players was kind of interesting, as I know there are many who would be interested in playing, but I really wanted to limit it to 6. With my housemates effectively taking half of that 6, and one person who inspired the campaign to even begin, that was 4; leaving only 2 choices. One of which is someone who I only get to interact with during gaming, and I wanted to game with more, and the other is someone I hardly know but in our brief meetings I'm quite sure I will find him enjoyable company and an excellent roleplayer.
esmerel's journal, so I won't duplicate it.On the plus side, I'm starting up a new campaign. Choosing players was kind of interesting, as I know there are many who would be interested in playing, but I really wanted to limit it to 6. With my housemates effectively taking half of that 6, and one person who inspired the campaign to even begin, that was 4; leaving only 2 choices. One of which is someone who I only get to interact with during gaming, and I wanted to game with more, and the other is someone I hardly know but in our brief meetings I'm quite sure I will find him enjoyable company and an excellent roleplayer.
