Finally after a long break!

Well it looks like our RPG sessions might start up again after a longer than expected hiatus. It's annoying when life gets in the way of play, but it does happen from time to time. Anyway I've spent the morning making sure the server is running up to spec, and that the QJ is updated with the latest email questing Gnarr has done. I've setup a couple of sessions, hopefully we can nail both of them, but if we only get to 1 today, I'll be happy! I think it is time to ramp up the quest a bit, and push the story line a little faster. So hopefully there will be some good stuff happening in the next couple "lunch time power sessions"!

New Players!

So I just got a couple more players interested in trying out our Lunch time Power session RPG experiment! It will be interesting for a few reasons:

1) they are my sisters
2) One has some limited RPG exp back about 10 years ago
3) the other has NO RPG exp at all.

That being said, I think the first couple of session will need to be in person so we can work through how to use our web based system, and just get the feel of how to play the game in general.

With that being the case, instead of rolling them into our current game, I think I will start them in a new game, and ramp them up a bit slower. Once they get ramped up, I will then roll them into the main game.

I think this will be really cool, as both of them will bring some very different perspective to the way the rest of my group has been playing.

So we shall see....

Lunch Time power sessions, and Email RPG

So a group of my buddies started an RPG session a while ago. Due to the typical constraints of our lives: timezones, families, kids sports, chores, work, birthday parties, holidays, and life in general, we have been running what I like to call the Lunch Time power session! Our first issue is this: we live on different sides of the US right now, so physically getting together is pretty much not an option. However this is our core group of players that started back when we were like 12 ( ok some of us started around 18 but most of us around 12 but I digress)! The point is this is the group we wanted to play with. So I configured a server, through team speak on there, and got to coding. I created online interactive char sheets that calculate bonuses, attack rolls, saving throws, damage, ect, cleaning up all the crap that we always forgot to include anyway. Then we realized that getting together at night and having an online chat session was pretty much impossible too! So we tried conference chat during lunch time for some of us, and just after work for others. This presented an interesting flow. See basically this chunks up our sessions into hour long peices that just like watching a TV show need to either start and finish, or at least have a point to the session! The funny thing is, it really changed the course of the campaign and I think in all honesty it makes the game time more fun. See when we get to playing, there is no BS, we are there to work ( or play I guess ). So as soon as those char sheets come up, we are in the game zone! I'm running the game, so I realized very quickly that having something important happen in each session is crucial, and that combat wasn't always needed ( I noticed early on, that many of the standard combat type situations we have run into in the past took to long to really play well for our session ( unless we wanted to have an entire session of resolving combat....umm boring anyone? ). So usually every 2 sessions or so there is a combat. It's kind of funny, but it almost works like a TV show now. Well it has been a while, so a combat must be coming up! Or that guy is important because he is talking to us only 15 minutes into our session! Anyway that portion of it worked out really well.

Then it happened. One of our players got deployed! Yup you guessed it no internet access for a while! Now granted this is just a short stint, but a bigger one is coming up. So I decided to take this short guy to try some ideas. Since I have everything on the server, I can run his char if need be. But that isnt' nearly as fun.....So here is what I did.
1) split off the guy that isn't there, so he isn't working with the main group.
2) lunch time power session are only once a week, so not too much ground is covered.
3) started email RPG with the deployed guy.

So the email RPG was interesting. See we tried it before, and it was very short little blurbs, and we ended up basically having someone roll a die and report the number. If you were within 3 of the GM's number than it went your way. All pretty awkward and really didn't take into account anything that your Char had in the way of bonuses, ect. So I decided, hey you tell me generally what your plan is, and I'll run it through just like it was a regular session, rolling up skills, npcs, ect. after all I had access to the char in question, since it is all on the server. And then I just spice up the verbage on the email. Plus since we do it every day, it pretty much keeps the two groups in sync! So once a week I compile the emails we have and post them to our quest journal. It's all working out pretty good so far. We are 2 weeks in on the email front, and the funny thing is, we are getting alot of good char backstory, with all the free writing time. Pretty much every action has some sort of "lost" type flashback, explaining why the char does what he does. So far pretty cool, so hopefully the campaign can continue when he goes out for the big deployment!

Am I the only one?

That Hates everlong by the foo fighters? I just heard it on the radio
and really don't get it. I'm reminded how much I hate it when we play
guitar hero or rock band and EVERYONE wants to play that damn song! Oh
well I'll just force them to follow it up with some crazytrain! Now if
I could just get the radio station to always do that....

Caleb's best friend list

1 Charlie
2 auntie Chrissy
3 uncle russ
4 grandma
5 auntie see ya
6 uncle Riter
7 lily
8 Adam
9 auntie mermaid
10 we ran out of people to choose according to caleb

If I was on southpark!

So I created my Southpark image and decided to post it up here. I still love Sho-Nuff to much to actually replace my logo for twitter, but if I ever get board of it, I think this is a good alternative. Long live Libre Fighting!

You would think after 16 years!!!!!!

I wouldn't leave my friggin ATM card in the ATM machine! I swear I'm an idiot sometimes! It's funny I always give people crap for losing their stuff ( wallet, keys, car, ect ) because I NEVER lose things like that. I take pride that I always put my stuff in one place when I come home, so if it isn't on my person it is in that ONE location! As for losing my ATM card, I have never EVER done that! But sure enough I pulled out some cash my wife wanted asked me to pull out, then I hurried off to the store to finish off my shopping for the day. ( Note I was doing great on time! handled Costco, and Walmart in under an hour, and was on my way to finish the trifecta at VONS! ) Of course after a breezed through VONS and was in checkout 10 minutes after my arrival! I realize I don't have my ATM card....where could it be? O CRAP! still in the ATM machine at the bank anyone? Ok well there is no real meaning to this post other than I'm a dumb ass! And now I have to walk my sorry ass in the bank anytime I want money, until my new card arrives. EPIC FAIL!

RPG experiences as a player instead of a GM

So with my new project and our current adventures, I'm currently the main GM for the group of players I have. It's a small group, only 3 of us including myself. But we have played together for a long time so the adventures are usually pretty full even with only a couple of players. Since we play as a small group the GM usually has a Character in the group as well, this allows for some extra firepower as well as if we ever want to rotate GM's we don't have to introduce a new char. Anyway, we got to a point in our adventure in which my Char ( a Kobold Wizard, 3rd level ) was separated from the party. Now playing in character my little wizard has an obsession with magic, and we were at the time inside an Elvin palace, so I decided the little guy would take this time to go out and find some magic ( hopefully a scroll or two to pick up some new spells ). So I talked to one of our players who has done some GM'ing in the past and asked him if he wanted to GM this section for me. Not to mention it would ramp him up on the GM tools I had created in my project, and see how someone else feels they work. So I load up my Char sheet and think to myself "wow, it's so much easier when your just worrying about this one sheet!". Anyway the GM starts and has me running away from some guards. I have only heard them but have not seen them yet. I end up running into a room that I had detected some magic from, and headed towards the source of the strongest magic I could feel. It was a small statue of a wolf sitting on a shelf. Now as a player and GM I knew exactly what this was, but being true to the game, I rolled my Magic Lore skill and epic failed it. So I think, hell yeah I just scored me a magic statue so I pick it up. So it grows into a huge hulking Wolf! So we roll init and I get the first go. I cast up my magic armor and prepare to parry with my trusty dagger. The first couple of rounds totally go my way. I do notice though that my spells only seem to be doing 1/2 damage. So I decide to play it smart and I cast telekinesis and start raining down furniture on the head of this thing. Using heavy object causing lots of damage. At this point I'm thinking to myself "yeah bitch suck it! No 1/2 strength crap is gonna slow me down!" at this point things start to go down hill. The GM feels that I am walking through this fight because the wolf has only hit my armor and not really caused any damage to me yet, so he decides that the chair I've been using to smash this wolf breaks, so I look for another chair ( after all the room was described as a waiting room filled with chairs and couches). I try another chair but now all the rest of the chairs are cheap knock offs and cause little damage, and break after one hit. Not to mention the wolf wises up and destroys the rest of the furniture, leaving me with nothing to attack him with except my dagger or my 1/2 power magic. At this point my roles start to go a little south, and I notice my PPE ( magic power ) starts dwindling. So I start switching from Magic power to my dagger, and now the real dilemma starts to show. See I'm a tride and true wizard with no real combat skills so I have a whopping +1 to my strike rolls with my dagger, and it only does 1d6 points of damage. Add that in with my low rolls and if I hit the damn thing I was only doing 1-3 points of damage :( ( for the record after the encounter I found that it had 80 HP and 80 SDC. so I had to deal 160 damage to this thing! So then the wolf actually gets past my magical armor and hits me, knocking all of my SDC and most of my hit points off. Now the GM sees the real issue here. See this guy is usually a fighter, and so he is used to taking hits and shrugging them off. He didn't realize that if I EVER get hit, it pretty much prepares me for death, after all I'm a wizard I can't take a real hit! So now the GM starts scrambling. I don't have enough magic energy to cast a spell, my magic armor fades away ( damn 1/2 duration! ) and I only have about 10 HP left. Basically 1 hit and I'm a dead man ( er kobold ). So the GM has me roll Lore Magic and I finally get it ( took about 3 tries! ) and I notice a magic crystal that seems to be draining my powers. I run over there and smash it, this frees up my spell strength issue and give me back 80 PPE. So I quickly summon my magic armor back and proceed to slam into this thing over and over with my magic bolts, finally bringing it down. However at the end of the encounter I am left with 2 PPE ( so no magic for me ) and back down to 20 HP and no SDC. We stopped playing after that because we ran out of time, but it was funny talking about it later, as the GM learned that Magic users are pretty powerful, but they do have weaknesses too, so if you take away the only power they really have, they are just bait :)

So anyway I had a really good time playing, and I think it was a good experience all the way around. I just hope next time, I don't have to use everything I got just to get past 1 silly statue ( or at least roll my magic lore skill before I pick the damn thing up! )

Am I the only person out there that likes GHWT better than Rock Band 2?

So I guess the first thing I should say is: I only own a wii ( no XBox360 or PS3 ). And having 2 kids and a wife means my gaming time is not all that much. So for XMAS we got GHWT the full band kit and RB2 the game only ( since the instruments from GHWT work with RB2 no issues ). So right out of the box we fired up GHWT with the family and had a great time. We threw in the cheat code to unlock all the songs so we could choose from a bigger selection in quickplay and it was a blast. So after about 2 weeks straight of GHWT goodness, my daughter and I decide we should throw in RB2 and see what it takes. After all, according to everyone on the net, GHWT instruments are better but RB2 the game is WAY better! ( so they say ). I mean this is exactly why we bought it in the setup we did. Anyway we popped in RB2, threw in the unlock code so we could try out our favorite songs. It seemed to have a more eclectic taste than GHWT, and a couple of the song selections I actually preferred RB2 to GHWT ( Battery vs Trapped under ice anyone? ) But that being said I really didn't enjoy playing RB2 as much. Maybe it is the fact that my first entry into these games was GH3 and the RB2 interface just bugged me a but. Not sure. So a couple days later I decided to give a solo shot a go and played around a bit more. It was a little better but I still enjoy the layout of GHWT better. And the drums seemed more fun to play. ( For the record I was playing medium drums on both ). Anyone have any insight into how I might enjoy RB2 more? Maybe I just prefer circles to rectangles? I dunno....