Bala's Role-playing Blog

Faalor V, Finale'

2006-12-02T16:18:00.000-08:00

Thus ends another thrilling campaign. Thank you all for helping me realize another great story.

Arwin successfully avoided killing the evil mayor.

The party managed to complete the campaign and score the neutral outcome. The bad outcome would have been the elves taking over Havenshire. The good outcome would have been the party getting the good elves to broker a peace and thus allowing the elves to slowly regain their place on the Island. The neutral outcome is as follows: the party saves the town but the remaining elves become even more embittered. The elves that remain become essentially monsters, roving is small bands and attacking any human they encounter, enslaving them or killing them on sight. They continue to take slaves of anyone (orc, human, dwarf, gnome, etc.). Elves are probably not going to be a playable race from here on out. Thanks! Faalor now has drow!

Was it possible to beat the red dragon? Yes. You had several means including a dragon-slaying arrow, a book in dwarven (thus why the vampire was told to kill the dwarves) that told how to make said arrows, and a cult of monks who specialize in killing dragons. I had hoped that you would have gotten to know the Ahzeen Monks a bit more; they might have been interesting allies.

The dragons head their separate ways, seeking to renew their battle in 10-20 years.

The Ahnzeen monks plod along, mysteriously toiling behind their walls and letting few if any enter.

Vlora, the powerful vampire from Ravenloft, moves on to seek greener pastures, most likely in one of the bigger cities where she will probably attempt to set up some kind of vampire kingdom again. She is now a perminate major NPC in the campaign.

Grabo continues a popular run as Mayor of Havenshire, apparently settling down from all of his adventures.

Yes, Westerbrook was the werewolf, gah, who couldn't figure that out?!? I wasn'tt sure how I wanted to play this guy, but it was an interesting dove-tail into Vlora's story. Those two are arch enemies and it will be interesting to see if the werewolf finds the wise old vampire . . . and what, if anything, he can do against her.

Faalor V, Chapter Three (Sept 23, 2006)

2006-09-25T11:02:00.000-07:00

The party staggered back to Havenshire for a bit of peace and quiet. Unfortunately, tensions still high. The soldiers in town were on edge. The commander, Captain Grannau, told the party that one or two men were still being murdered every night, though the elves themselves have not made any full attacks on Havenshire. Small groups of easily-dispatched undead were making raids on the town, but so far the commander felt the situation was well under control.

The players made their way to the Inn where they caught up with Bill and the Mayor, who sung the praises of the group for defeating the vampire Serrakh. He seemed genuinly pleased and relieved.

That evening, Rilen was confronted by Vlora as he took a strole through town. She demanded that he turn over her diary. In exchange, Vlora volunteered that the elf necromancer Verlydaar exerts some control over her, and that she would probably prefer to leave Havenshire if she could. Unfortunately, she is compelled to pick off certain targets in Havenshire. When Rilen refused to return the diary, Vlora attacked and chanced Rilen back to the a large group of soldiers. Vlora disappeared.

Faalor V, Chapter Two (July 29, 2006)

2006-07-29T20:29:00.000-07:00

With the vampire-lord defeated, the party is now faced with the task of getting off the island while avoiding a dragon out in the bay.

The myserious gnome apparently convinced the giants to let the party pass through their territory. The party then entered the abandoned lair of the dragon, Vraalrym the Red. Dragon scales and dung littered the cave along with a goodly cashe of treasure. Unfortunately, the party had to pass through two magical barriers, doors and traps. Those with sufficiant willpower were able to pass through the barriers, but those lacking had to wait for Cyril to cast dispell magic to temporarily disable the barrier. As that was happeneing, Arrand continued down a hallway, where he discovered a group of barbarians. After a brief, but bloody battle, the party began to explore the area.

Apparently, the dragon had a sizable horde of treasure here, but took most of it as he found a better home away to the east. In one room, a lever was found. Just when everyone was inside, Kala pulled it and released a fog of sleep gas. Fortunately, it quickly wore off and the group was again searching for treasure.

Before long, the treasure caves appeared to be exhausted and the party began to move through an underground city built (apparently) by the Splurgorth who lived down there in great numbers. The running battle lasted until the party found one of the teleporters mentioned by the gnome.

Faalor V, Chapter Two (July 8, 2006)

2006-07-08T17:47:00.000-07:00

Faced with the capture of Mary Reed, Gregory Oak, Rilen Gadeli, and Valdo Bross, the party made it’s way back to the beach cave for some planning. It was decided that Kala and Cyril would go to the giants and see if they wouldn’t help attack the barbarians. It wasn’t hard to convince the giants’ leader that the barbarians had planned an attack on them and, in turn, the giants should retaliate.

With one of the lead giants as a shock trooper, the party quickly overcame the majority of the barbarian guards, who had arrayed themselves at the mouth of their cave. Meanwhile, Jack snuck into the cave to find the captured members of the party harassing their guards. Unfortunately, the barbarian leader, a descendant of the vampire Serrakh, escaped with the Barovian flame sword that Rilen had claimed for his own.

Quickly healing up, the party decided to press on to find and destroy the vampire lord who, it was said, was waking this very night. A few barbarians were found along the way, but resistance was relatively light (thanks, in part, to the mysterious gnome).

Once the party entered the lower levels of the vampire’s lair, it was clear that the architecture was an ancient elven-Teussian effort. Small patches of Stydroidus Kampi waited patiently for the party to attack and then retaliate by spewing their noxious gas. A strange doorway blocked the party's progress, but when the key was finally found undead waited.

In the final level, Cyril was paralyzed by a fleeing undead as he tried to open it's final resting place. A lone coffin waited in the next area, and the party found a diary ("Vlora's Diary") that read:

I start this diary as a record of my progress in this strange land.

The Mists have seen fit to remove me from the Core and bring me to an unknown land called Faalor. Nice enough place except that the bard and his lapdog have followed me.

(pages of meaningless pining for "home")

Our kind seems to be fairly rare here, but apparently, I am not alone in my transportation to this realm. Others, weaker now, have followed. This isn't a bad thing, yet, I must cull the herd of my weaker siblings or I run the risk of tipping off the locals. But one such fool taught me a valuable lesson.

I cannot be killed by traditional means!!! A stake does not truly harm me. The Mists have give me power to survive anything on Faalor. Who knows? Maybe I can survive even the sun's rays!

(page or two about how she lived in Bridalveil and Gundar)

The elves seem to be a bit different here. At home, they confine themselves to Soth's lands, but here it seems they plan to usurp human rule-most unnatural, if you ask me. I killed three for fun as they snuck through the woods. Wonder it was that their leader proved to be an incredible diversion!

The "Opposition" as they call themselves plan on waking one of my kind. This youngster of a Prince (supposedly only 200 years old) is in torpor on a pathetic island far away from food or pleasure. This elfling spell-flinger, he tells me, plans on waking a new vampire lord of Faalor, an old time warrior from "long ago". Strangely, this elf DOES exert some power over me, not that I couldn't snap his neck like a twig.

Amazingly, this "powerful" vampire lord is completely cowed by the elf. Even the stronger, yet younger vampires in Faalor quake at Verlydaar's power. While I wait on this cursed Island, I plan on finding out exactly the nature of that power.

Then, the party came upon the tomb of Serrakh himself. Quickly, Rilen pushed through the magical barrier and stabbed the slumbering creature. Meanwhile, some of the others discovered a strange gem held in a stone claw. Kala smashed it before anyone could react. But the mission was accomplished: Serrakh had met his final death.

The party made it back to their temporary home at the beach cave where the mysterious gnome finally found them. In short, the gnome told them of a teleporter found underground beyond the giants' land. He said that the cave was used by Vraalrym the Red some time ago as he rested from destroying the human-elven settlement on the island. Below that lie a series of old elven ruins, now held by the Splurgorth, what he called "degenerate elves".

Characters attending today's game:

Rilen Gadeli (Jas)

Duskfang (Patricia)

Arrand (Lazarus)

Cyril Tormund (Veth)

Jack Reed (Arwin)

Gregory Oak (Carn)

Kala Horntaper (Rangarig)

Valdo Bross (Mayvik)

Faalor V, Chapter Two (June 24, 2006)

2006-06-24T15:00:00.000-07:00

Having decided to find and destroy the vampire, Serrakh, once and for all, the party moved out from Havenshire. Passing through Reldon and the swamps, they finally made it to Blevinost. There, Jack's dilapidated "ship", the "Jynee III" awaited them. The party was faced with a decision: fix the boat up or hire another ride to Aladrich. Fortunately, a merchant was willing to take the group for 10 gp each.

Once the party landed on the beach, they began exploring. They found a small cave and a tract into the forest. When they decided it was time to signal the ship, a sea creature of some kind took their raft and, apparently, chased off the ship. Strangely, the small cave had a few animated mushrooms and a room that appeared to be set for the party.

Once the party moved in land, they encountered a group of barbarian humans. When the party mentioned that they were looking to find and destroy the vampire, one of the leaders brought the party in to see the Elder. The Elder explained that, in order to open the vampire's lair, they must get a key from the giants who lived on the island. As the party was leaving, Cyril noticed that the Elder was carrying an elven longsword.

The giants, contrary to what the party was told, were aggressive and killed Kala's animal companion. Battle nearly broke out between the giants and the party until the leader of the giants, a Fire Giant, came and told the party to leave. Once the party left the giants, they decided to go on toward the place where the vampire was supposed to be. There, they encountered a gnome who answered their questions: the "barbarians" were descendants of Serrakh who remained on the island to serve the vampire over the years.

With that information, the party returned to the barbarian's cave. Battle ensued when Kala attacked one of the barbarians. Pushing their way into the cave, the party was overcome with the magic of the elder. Mary Reed, Gregory Oak, Rilen Gadeli, and Valdo Bross were knocked to the floor while the barbarians chased out the rest of the party.

Characters attending today's game:

Rilen Gadeli (Jas)

Duskfang (Patricia)

Mary Reed (Floria)

Arrand (Lazarus)

Cyril Tormund (Veth)

Jack Reed (Arwin)

Gregory Oak (Carn)

Kala Horntaper (Rangarig)

Valdo Bross (Mayvik)

Faalor V, Chapter One (June 10, 2006)

2006-06-10T14:18:00.000-07:00

The party found itself going deeper into under the ruins of Castle Droth. Having to fight a number of vampire bats, hell hounds and zombies, the group slowly made it's way down two levels. On the lower level, the body of Kala Horntaper's father was found. Later the party had to face off with Serrakh, the vampire lord. Apparently weakened by his "recent" awakening, the party was able to easily defeat him. He turned into a mist and traveled through the walls. Kala's mother and a militia man were saved. The party found a notebook, apparently written by Serrakh Kethlan:

A month ago . . .

Verlydaar has returned with details of the plan. The General feels the time is right to begin. I make no demands on him and he makes none on me, yet there is wisdom in the path we have chosen. I have sent Vlora to the crypts to begin preperations.

My body has finally condensed again. If something happens to it again, I should be able to recover fully in a much shorter period of time now: I suspect a matter of weeks next time instead of a year and a half.

Two months ago . . .

Vlora tells me that she has met with the good sherrif and made arrangements. I do not trust her kind though. From a distant land, she is willful and grasping in her own right. My age and brood keep her in line though and her ablility to deal with the locals where I cannot is of tremendous value. The pieces are being moved into the center of the board.

Five months ago . . .

I have set up in the village of Havenshire. My descendants have done well, subduing the lesser races and fending off the wilds of the elves. I find it remarkable that they seem weaker, nonetheless. Very strange indeed.

Since I awoke, I have not needed to feed more than twice. It must be a sign of age as my alabaster flesh requires less and less to sustain it.

Twelve months ago . . .

I have left Aladrich, the home of my true body, and seek a place called Havenshire. My brood is pleased to find abundant prey.

Sixteen months ago . . .

Verlydaar awoke me from my slumber. The creature has great power over me, yet, he seems a useful ally along with his master. The elves have plans for the rule of man. It is of little consequence for someone like me and my brood. The plan seems sound and profitable.

The party then returned to Havenshire.

In Havenshire, the group encountered the Mayor and told their story to him. Then they set off to find the sheriff. The sheriff was forced to admit that he know Vlora and had, indeed, brokered a deal with the vampire in order to save the entire town. The party returned to the Inn where Gildmara, the bard talked a bit about vampire and werewolf lore. When an Army captain entered the Inn, Rilen offered to take him to the mayor's place. On his return, he was attacked by a werewolf. Later, the group encountered Vlora who was apparently tracking the werewolf herself.

The party then found the Sherrif wandering around and when Cyril lowered a crossbow at him, the big man ran out of town toward the Ruins or toward the Ahnzeen Abbey. The party returned to tell the mayor what had happened. The mayor agreed that he would take over the militia. Meanwhile the party planned to wait for the army to return then they would move out to find the vampire on his island home.

Characters attending today's game:

Rilen Gadeli (Jas)

Duskfang (Patricia)

Mary Reed (Floria)

Arrand (Lazarus)

Cyril Tormund (Veth)

Jack Reed (Arwin)

Gregory Oak (Carn)

Kala Horntaper (Rangarig)

Faalor V, Chapter One (May 27, 2006)

2006-05-27T20:55:00.000-07:00

As the characters began to searching for the little girl (Kasha Bross), Sheriff Westerbrook appeared. He helped the party search for a while, but then had everyone gather in the inn. It was soon decided that Westerbrook would go check in on the Bross family. When he returned, he said that the girl was fine and the family seemed safe enough.

Kala was concerned that her father was not home so Westerbrook took her home. She quickly found out that her parents were gone and returned to town. There the mysterious woman was engaged in combat with the dwarven guard. When the PCs began to help, she disappeared quickly. The dwarves acted strangely, quickly retreating as if the humans might be involved with the woman.

Westerbrook ordered everyone to stay in the Inn, but it quickly was decided to go to the crypts (where the zombies probably came from). On reaching the crypts, the party made their way into the Crypt of Mulhuld, a large and very old crypt used primarily by the elders and founders of Havenshire. The dead body of a man was found, but it appeared as if it had shuffled out the coffin it was in and collapsed. A ghostly figure, maybe in clerics robes was seen soon enough and the constant sound of a woman in pain could be heard.

After a brief run-in with some spiders, the party encountered a group of undead. After they were dispatched, a dead townswoman was found. It soon became apparent that the undead were using the crypt as some kind of base of operations. When the party finally broke into the main crypt, the mysterious woman changed into a mist and sank into the wall, leaving her near-mindless underlings to die at the hands of the party.

In a coffin, lay a young girl no one had seen before. Her arms were crossed and she appeared quite dead. Oddly enough, she had bits of blood coming from her mouth. A small note was found in the coffin as well. It read:

(In a flowing hand, written in red ink)

Vlora,

The crypt is to be used for our forward base, make sure it is kept secret. The young ones will want to hunt in the town, but do not let them yet. When the time is right, you will do as our ally, Xadryd, asks and find those who are ripe enough to provide valuable information for him. In 10 days, you will pick those among the townsmen that you feel will provide the proper information for Xadryd. Feed the young ones if need be, but send back to the ruins at least 5. I await your faithful service.

Serrakh Kethlan

Once the party returned to the Inn, Westerbrook was not too happy even though progress seemed to be made on defending the town against the vampires. Westerbrook seemed incredibly angry that anyone would question him or disobey his orders. This led to some speculation about the good sheriff's motives and allegiance. By 3 AM, the party decided to turn in for the night.

In the morning, the party found Gildmara, the bard, reading in the upstairs. Rilen was surprised by her and questioned her sternly about her involvement. She knew that there was a vampire at the performance the night before, but indicated that she did not get involved in matters unless there was some danger to people. She seemed to think that the female vampire at the performance was harmless enough to stay neutral in the affair. "We all have a path in this life," she told an angry Rilen. "So, you'd just sit back and let a dragon rampage through town then," Rilen retorted. Gildmara seemed to think about that then proceeded to indicate that she would help if she could. The help that she offered seemed ineffectual at best.

With that the party prepared to head to the ruins. Arrand was able to find out that the person named Serrakh Kethlan, was a Teussian nobleman who lived nearly 250 years ago, a very powerful warrior who, tales say, disappeared one night never to be seen again.

As the party approached the Ruins of Castle Droth (an elven castle that, rumor has it, was destroyed by Vraalrym, the Red nearly 500 years ago, big brutish wolves attacked. Inside the ruins of the upper level, two elven mages seemed to be hurrying out, as if they were on some mission. Overcome by bloodlust the elves attacked, but were quickly dispatched. Into the darkness of the lower levels the party descended . . .

Characters attending today's game:

Rilen Gadeli (Jas)

Duskfang (Patricia)

Mary Reed (Floria)

Arrand (Lazarus)

Cyril Tormund (Veth)

Jack Reed (Arwin)

Gregory Oak (Carn)

Kala Horntaper (Rangarig)

Havenshire locations

2006-05-16T20:05:00.000-07:00

A short list of locations all PCs might know about:

Bywater Inn – one of the oldest establishments in Havenshire, the Bywater Inn serves as the cultural center of town. It is used both as an inn, a tavern, a meeting hall and a theater. Master Thantor owns it, but for all practical purposes, Bill Greenwood runs the place.

Marlow’s Smithy – Marlow Blakenschir has owned and operated the smithy for almost 20 years. He is a good man, stern and a bit unyielding, but he is fair in his prices and satisfactory in the quality of his goods.

Temple of Aurday – The Temple is a focal point for the town. It was named in honor of Edwyn Aurday, a holy man who lived in the cave beneath the current foundation of the temple nearly 200 years ago. The temple sports a local Spirit College that houses between 5-20 students at any given time. A fairly expansive library also can be found here (though most of the books deal with theological issues). The library is run by Paurian, The Scribe, who is likely to sell clerical scrolls.

Talisman Hill – South of the river, sits an old graveyard. The graveyard has been used for almost 150 years now and houses two old crypts. The area is also home of the mystic Johnathan Strock, known for selling of magical bobbles and scrolls.

The Ahnzeen Monestary – on the Night of Fog and Fear, a strange monastery appeared about a miles east of town. The Ahnzeens as they call themselves are a reclusive lot. They allow no one in without a very good reason. Yet they do not themselves go out except to occasionally trade in town. They never speak and seem fairly self-sufficient. Rumor has it that they are an evil sect of monks and wizards from some other land yet to this day they have caused no trouble with anyone.

Castle Droth – North east of town sits the ruins of an elven castle. According to local legend, the red dragon Vraalrym torched the place nearly 400 years ago. It is now said to be haunted. Whatever the truth of the matter, people avoid the ruins, especially at night. In recent years, a species of large and aggressive wolf has taken up residence near the castle.

Faalor V, The Prelude (May 13, 2006)

2006-05-13T19:04:00.000-07:00

This session had quite a bit of waiting around for the players but I think it was worth it. Once characters were made, we briefly introduced the party to Havenshire, the main base of operations for the campaign.

10 years ago, a good number of number of the player characters were involved in a church service. The venerable and much-loved Rector Wilmer Ralm was in the middle of giving a sermon on the nature of evil. "Evil had not come into the world all at once," he said. In the begining, there was peace.

In those days, Aergot was alone with his two children. Both Maelwar and Adrahil were at peace, when Maelwar said: "The planets are beautiful and the sun is bright. Yet there is nothing for me to do." Aergot asked: "What then shall I do?" Adrahil replied: "Make things that live." And Aergot did, first the trees, then the flowers, then the insects, fish and animals.

For a long while, the Gods enjoyed life, watched it grow and change. After a while, Adrahil said: "Make us creatures that we can commune with." And Aergot did. It was neither a man, dwarf, elf or orc, but a creature that walked upright and possessed a spirit, a featureless Lemurian. This made Adrahil and Maelwar happy.

Unfortunately, Maelwar became bored and began to meddle with the life. Humans decended from the Lemurian as were the elves, gnomes, dwarves and orcs and trolls. The trolls and orcs were the product of Maelwar's bordom . . .

As he spoke, mist began to shroud the town, and infiltrate into the church. A great shape appeared from the back of the church. With a blood-curdling howl, a werewolf materialized and attacked the Rector, tearing out his throat. People were aghast and scattered. The creature lept out of the church and into the woods. People of Havenshire say it still lurks in those woods.

Then I spent some time talking individually with players about what their characters did in the intervening years after the Night of Fog and Fear. After each character was seequippedd equiped, I leveled them and moved into the main part of the campaign.

Each character was free to wander around Havenshire until they congregated in the Inn. It was announced that tonight a famous bard, one Gildmara of Duath was to be in town. Some of the party met Sheriff Westerbrook, a gruff man with little patience for loiterers and never-do-wells (Jack and Rilen were his main targets).

As night fell, the bartender, Bill, announced that the bard was ready to give her performance. After a brief introduction, Gildmara began to tell the tale of the heroes of Aaerdowns, who, with the help of Ghuilrym, the Gold Dragon of the Woods, repelled the orcish forces under the control of the Illrigger Lord some 11 years earlier. "The point of this tale," she intoned, "was that not eveything is as it seems, and, more importantly, help in times of trouble can be found in the most remarkable places." She sang some wonderful songs and told many tales, but the evening was marred by an unhealthy presence. Some of the PC's may have noticed a mysterious woman who sat attentively in the back of the room, others had no recollection of such a woman.

When the tales were told and the song sung, Gildmara bid everyone good night and left. No one was sure where she went. The mysterious woman on the other hand, walked out and simply vanished. As the night deepened, Valdo Bross and his family were walking home, when the woman snatched up the youngest child, Kasha, and disappeared into the darkness . . .

Characters attending today's game:

Rilen Gadeli (Jas)
Duskfang (Patricia)
Mary Reed (Floria)
Arrand (Lazarus)
Cyril Tormund (Veth)
Jack Reed (Arwin)
Valdo Bross (Mayvik)
Gnoth (The Beggar)
Gregory Oak (Carn)

The Dungeon Master: A Job Description

2006-02-25T09:13:00.000-08:00

Being a Dungeon Master (DM) is a pretty big job. It can be frustrating and time-consuming. It can also be very rewarding if the DM is up for the challenge. A DM must create an entire world (or memorize one that has already been published) and a story that the players can inhabit. The DM must have a fair understanding of some basic mathematical ideas as well as a complete grasp of the entire rule-book for the game he/she is running. Finally, the DM must be a councilor and a guide, willing to help players fulfill their dreams through the characters they play.

Basically, a DM must be able to create intimate encounters within a larger story. This means creating a believable and consistent setting in which magic, monsters, villains and heroes can be safely placed. This basically means creating a "world" along with believable inhabitants, physics (and metaphysics), cultures, economics, geography and everything else that a world needs. During the actual game sessions, the DM must display encyclopedic knowledge of the game setting, keeping details straight, not only for himself but for the players themselves--without which the players will flounder.

Then, the DM must be able to accurately judge the relative chances his/her players have to succeed in certain circumstances. That is, the DM must know the rules of the game well enough to balance encounters and obstacles as to avoid killing off the party, or making it seem like there's no chance at all for failure (both of which will destroy a well-devised campaign). This is especially important when we use NWN to play through a campaign, because NWN is not as forgiving as a live, table-top game. A solid understanding of basic probabilities theory is a must: (bell-curves, averages, equipartition, "Gambler's Ruin", etc. [even if he/she doesn't know exactly what these terms refer to, a good DM should be able to calculate, at least roughly, the chance of a given fighter of a given level with a given weapon to defeat a given opponent]). The goal here is to make the campaign easy enough to for your PC group to get through, but difficult enough to make it challenging.

Finally, a DM must have a number of social and managerial skills sufficient to the task of entertaining and managing small groups of very creative people. Role-players invest a lot into the characters they play and it's the DM's job to encourage that in every one of the players. The DM must have the patience to teach players about his/her world and help them to create characters that would fit into the DM's over-all story, finding ways, where appropriate, to fit the player's vision of the campaign. It also may mean helping to settle differences between players.

A DM is a referee, telling players what areas are out of bounds (say, which races are playable) and arbitrate rules in a fair and consistent manner. He or she is the leader of the campaign, inspiring, co-ordinating and facilitating the activities of the players. In the end, the DM is largely responsible for the success or failure of a campaign because so much rests on his/her shoulders.

Faalor V (WIP) Jan. 4th, 2006

2006-02-04T21:35:00.000-08:00

This week, I finished a complete physical sketch of all my major locations, including Havenshire, as well as all interiors. Most NPCs are sketched out, but I still have some work to do on that score. More importantly, I decided on an XP reward scheme that will be a gradual climb. Players will advance much more quickly at lower levels, but will begin to slow down as they progress. I decided on a standard reward per week of about 4000 xp + another 1-2000 xp depending on level and stats. (The exact formula will remain a secret but it should be known that multi-classing will have a mild penalty.) Combined with this, I decided on a straight 1000 xp reward for reaching certain plot points, with additional rewarded of 2-500 xp when a PC makes certain saves (i.e. makes a save to avoid slipping, notice a secret object or bluffs past a guard). This will give me the proper framework for sketching out enemies and their appearance as well as gauging the party's strength for the long haul.

I'm an artist!

2006-01-27T09:02:00.000-08:00

Check out this video, Arwin sent me. We D&D freaks are something else! The best lines:

Society has always scored the truly unique. Umm but that’s the burden we choose to bear when we can bend the very walls of reality with the power of your imagination. That’s a gift to be respected . . . and feared.

and this sounds like something I might say:

I’m an artist. My campaigns are multi-layered tapestries upon which I texture themes and subject matter which, quite frankly, would simply be too strong from your hobbyist gamer.

Civilization IV

2006-01-26T08:49:00.000-08:00

So far the small group of us have figured out how to play a play by email game (which technically is still underway) and a Pitboss game. Pitboss is very nice because we can log in whenever we want, and, occasionally get together for fast turns when everyone is online at once. Next, we may be attempting to create our own Civs. We're using the article How to: Add a Civilization to walk us through the process. I'm thinking I need to make a Byzantine empire!

Faalor IV Campaign Wrap-up

2006-01-07T14:40:00.000-08:00

During the summer of 2005, a group of hearty players met for a weekly Neverwinter Nights game. The campaign was designed to accommodate two small groups of PC's that would eventually meet up and interact. The campaign centered around returning Bridalveil to the world of Faalor. In the first full Faalor campaign, the PCs allowed the Mists of Ravenloft to take it away; this was a chance for the players to answer some questions and return things to their rightful place.

Session one was not documented

Session 2

Session 3

Session 4

Session 5

Session 6

Session 7

Session 8

Session 9

I, as a Dungeon Master, certainly learned a lot and I think the next campaign will be even better.

A Christmas Present - Fallen Style - New cutscene, new music, and more!

2006-01-05T00:23:00.000-08:00

If you're wondering what I mean by "Fallen Style", the obvious answer is: "A few days late..."

As I promised, I have finished work on the first cutscene of Fallen 2, titled "The Fallen 2 - Conspiracy". It is available for download here:

fallen.silellak.com/Fallen2Conspiracy.zip

BEFORE watching it, please get the latest Fallen music hak here:

fallen.silellak.com/FallenMusicHak.zip AND the latest music files, here:

fallen.silellak.com/Fallen2Music2.zip

As usual, the hak goes in your NWN/Hak folder (simply overwrite the old music hak), while the new music goes in the NWN/music folder.

For those of you unfamiliar with watching my cutscenes, you simply load them as a single player module in Neverwinter Nights, select any character, and they should play themselves. Since running a cutscene removes the interface, you will have to use Ctrl-F4 to exit NWN when you are done watching them.

Now, for some extra bonuses, to thank you all for being patient with me these last two months while I finished up school. The first bonus is that I have gone back and restored the original Fallen campaign cutscenes so they will run with the latest version of NWN. I have also modified "The Fallen - Admonition" so that the Fallen Council's appearance matches their appearance in "The Fallen - Destiny" (Yay continuity). If you did not play Fallen 2, I recommend you watch all of these...even if you do not understand all of what's going on, some of these characters will be mentioned in Fallen 2 (or already have). In particular "The Fallen - Destiny" has quite a few plot threads that continue on in Fallen 2. Here are the cutscenes, in chronological order:

The Fallen - Admonition (should not require any additional files):

fallen.silellak.com/FallenAdmonition.zip

The Fallen - Movements of Shadow and Light (requires legacy HAK files FallenHak1 and rhedd_cloaks available below):

fallen.silellak.com/RheddCloaks.zip

fallen.silellak.com/FallenHak1.zip

fallen.silellak.com/FallenMovements.zip

The Fallen - Destiny (should not require any additional files):

fallen.silellak.com/FallenDestiny.zip

FINALLY (no, I'm not quite done), I've created a BONUS cutscene for Fallen 2. It's available here:

fallen.silellak.com/Fallen2BonusScene!.zip

Also, as you may have gathered from the URLs, the Fallen webpage has been moved to:

fallen.silellak.com

Well, that's it. I hope you all enjoy the fruits of my labor. PLEASE let me know what you think, one way or the other - I've worked quite a bit on getting this ready, and so I'd very much appreciate some feedback. Also, PLEASE download the custom music, as I feel it adds quite a bit to the campaign, and the bonus scene above in particular :)

If you have any questions, or any problems with the cutscenes, please post here or contact me in IRC. Thanks for playing, and I look forward to starting up again on the 14th!

- Your friendly Neighborhood Dungeon Master

Villains

2005-12-15T07:07:00.000-08:00

In this post, I'd like to sketch out the way in which I create villains and main antagonists for the campaigns I create. Villains are the heart and soul of any good adventure. They don't have to be human. They don't even have to be physically present in the campaign. They just have to set up a conflict, against which the Player Characters must contend.

I usually start out by examining the setting I am working with. If it's a pre-existing setting, say Ravenloft, the Forgotten Realms, the World of Darkness or even Faalor itself, I look for groups, factions, races which would naturally be at odds with the PCs. This doesn't necessarily have to be the case, though playing to the PC's expectations should be taken into consideration. There's no sense in setting up a world in which dark elves are the natural enemy and then cast your main villain as a kindly wood elf--the vast majority of the time. I may work with existing groups like the Red Wizard of Thay or Azalin's Kargate, or the Sabbat. Again, it's not necessary to stick with something the players know; I may come up with something just to throw something totally new at the PCs and give the players something to think about. In Faalor IV and the Winter's Chill campaigns, I used an elf of a little-known faction allied with Maelwar.

Once I've decided on a general background, I begin writing a more specific background for the villain. Where was it born? How old is it? I come up with a tentative name and class. What kind of allies, bases and other resources does it have? Most importantly, I think about the NPC's current plans and why would the PCs want to interfere? This is when I think about the heart of the campaign.

Once I come up with these tentative details, I begin to look at the adventure from the PC’s perspective. This is when I begin to come up with the story aspects of the campaign. I need to know how the PC’s start the campaign, their races, backgrounds and motivations. Once I know this, I can play off those motivations by creating counter-motivations in the villain. This naturally creates the conflict necessary for a good adventure.

At this stage, I begin to fill in the details of the villain’s lair, contacts, minions and other resources. Keeping in mind possible adventure locations (places where the PCs will go), I create dungeons, crypts, towns, wizard labs and dark forests appropriate to the villain’s motives, i.e. where the PCs and the villain can physically be in conflict with one another. In Neverwinter Nights, this means laying out areas and placing objects and monsters.

Finally, I will create a detailed list of traits, habits and strategies the villain will use. While I don't always do this, a list like this is very handy when dealing with long campaigns by helping me to maintain a consistent character over time. Once that is done, the campaign is ready to roll.

Some nice villain-related links:

Nitty-Gritty Villain Tips

5 TIPS TO CREATING A TRULY EVIL VILLAIN

A QUICK & DIRTY GUIDE TO CREATING GREAT VILLAINS

EXIT STAGE LEFT: HOW TO PLOT YOUR VILLAIN'S DEMISE

EXIT STAGE LEFT: HOW TO PLOT YOUR VILLAIN'S DEMISE (Part 2)

READERS' RESPONSE: 14 GREAT VILLAIN TIPS

First Look at Civ 4

2005-11-04T14:34:00.000-08:00

I've been a fan of Sid Meier's Civilization games since they first came out in the early '90's, but Civilization IV takes the cake. As you can imagine, it's a massive game that takes you through six thousand years of human history. The game comes with a massive double-sided Tech Tree & Secifications charts" and the 200+ page manual. I've yet to play a whole game, but I've gone through the very nice tutorial (featuring Mr. Meier himself).

Faalor Halloween

2005-10-29T14:29:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, the mod was only about 50% complete, but it still was a blast. I'll work on it over the course of the next year and we'll have something really nice next year.

Here's Jas' screenshots:

Faalor V (WIP)

2005-09-16T16:52:00.000-07:00

Things completed this week:

the town of Havenshire (some interiors)

Talisman Hill graveyard (some interiors)

the Temple of Aurday (main floor)

some scripts for monster/NPC AI (esp. the evil rat)

Completed all major NPC sketches (no plots designed yet)

Change to Experience in Fallen 2

2005-09-11T13:52:00.000-07:00

To anyone who still reads this:

I'm considering changing the XP system in Fallen 2. Please read and respond here:

http://nwtc.floriarama.info/fallenboard/template.shtml?msgid=26

The Fallen, PC Orientation

2005-09-03T18:01:00.000-07:00

Today, we got our first glimpse of Jas' The Fallen 2 campaign. Basically, today was just a matter of setting up characters and making sure the haks work properly. Of course, we had to be regaled with Jas' musical selections!

I'm playing Casper Hunnet, a young rogue. My hps beat the wizard's by one, so I'm feeling rather confident! hehe I just put all my stat points into Int and Dex and called it good. Should be a blast.

NWLexicon

2005-09-02T16:23:00.000-07:00

What a Godsend! I could bug Jas all the time with my stupid scripting questions, but the awesome folks over at NWLexicon usually is my first place to turn, if I want to feel like *I* have accomplished something. To put as much time and effort into this resource as they must have is just incredible.

New DM and PC wands

2005-08-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

I need to remember to put the new DMFI wands in the next Faalor campaign. It appears to be updated with new skills from all the expansions and added functionality.

Planning the Campaign

2005-08-25T12:06:00.000-07:00

While I'm waiting to jump into Jas' campaign, I decided to take a few weeks just to think about what Faalor V will be like. On-going Campaigns, Part 2 by Jay Watamaniuk and Venture seems like a pretty good place to start thinking about how I want to do this. Obviously, I'll be a DM, but, if I can give it more time (which it looks like I'll have), I should have a lot of DM-less content, areas where players can just go on a whim.

Shadows of the Sword Coast

2005-08-24T09:56:00.000-07:00

Of all the persistent worlds I've seen (but not played), I think I'll give this one a shot. Shadows of the Sword Coast has a gimpy Website, but what I can tell, it looks pretty good. I like the rules, what little there are.

Faalor V (a work in progress)

2005-08-19T17:44:00.000-07:00

This week, I sat down with a pad and paper and sketched out some basic ideas for the campaign. This is what I came up with so far:

1. A campaign map (I think, I'll set this campaign in an area between the city of Faalor and the Faewoods)
2. A very brief sketch of one of the villains, let's call he/she/it "W" for now. *grins*
3. Some ideas for how the campaign might start, i.e. some prelude ideas to introduce the campaign and get people back into Faalor.
4. I did some more analysis of the poll and sketched out what that might mean for the campaign and experience of the players.

Computer characters mugged in virtual crime spree

2005-08-18T11:27:00.000-07:00

A man has been arrested in Japan on suspicion carrying out a virtual mugging spree by using software "bots" to beat up and rob characters in the online computer game Lineage II. The stolen virtual possessions were then exchanged for real cash.

The Chinese exchange student was arrested by police in Kagawa prefecture, southern Japan, the Mainichi Daily News reports.

Several players had their characters beaten and robbed of valuable virtual objects, which could have included the Earring of Wisdom or the Shield of Nightmare. The items were then fenced through a Japanese auction website, according to NCsoft, which makes Lineage II. The assailant was a character controlled by a software bot, rather than a human player, making it unbeatable.

Poll results

2005-08-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

It looks like we have a more diverse group than I expected, considering the current poll results. Analysis of the player type (gamer/sim/story-teller) questions reveals that the player base is, generally speaking:

65% Story-focused
27.5% Gaming-focused
7.5% Simulation-focused

Dungeons and "other dangerous places" only received one "Sim" vote out of ten votes; no other "Sim" option received any votes.

The players will be given a complete campaign background and then I will ask for character sheets. It appears that people want a campaign where they need to generally get along and use most of the available skills in order to successfully complete the campaign. There will be specific side-quests and/or prelude quests that will require the characters to act alone or in subgroups. (At this point, I'm thinking that we'll start at first level and have individual prelude sessions for each character.) Magic will be a rarer commodity than in past campaigns.

Game players say Blizzard invades privacy

2005-08-15T17:50:00.000-07:00

A number of "World of Warcraft" players are up in arms over software being used by the game's publisher to scan users' computers for hacks prohibited under its terms of service. They say it invades their privacy. I have to admit, I do have some mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I don't see any problem with a company actively policing it's intellectual property and trying to ensure fairness among it's customers. Apparently, Blizzard even puts a notice in it's EULA, stating their intentions. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to read a EULA and decide if you're going to abide by it or not. On the other hand, it does require a bit of trust in Blizzard and it's coders; you are allowing them to peer into your computer.

Faalor IV Finale'

2005-08-13T14:32:00.000-07:00

Wow! Nice campaign. Probably the best I've run, if I do say so myself. So it ends . . .

Six days after leaving Bridalveil, the party was making it's way back to Duath when the guardsman from Hamog suddenly "forgot" and wanted the party to follow him to Hamog. Then he changed his story and arrested everyone. Luckily Rowan was there to create a pilar of fire on the guy. After that the party was able to sneak into Duath, but the guards were everywhere. So the party decided it was best to sneak into the sewers.

Once down there, the party encountered a number of orcish and Yurissan troops but did not find a way up to the Citadel until they ran into Tal, a Adrahil priest who was on his way to speak with Yurissa. The "old man" appeared again, and assaulted the party outright, before they could move up to the Citadel. In the shadows, the lone vampiress was killed (and subsequently turned into mist and floated into the walls).

The group was able to enter the lower levels of the Citadel, fighting its way through Yurissa's troops and the "old man's" spells. On the main level, they encountered the Red Dragon of Faalor, who, mistaking them of orcs or Yurissan troops left the party alone. Finally, the party cornered Yurissa herself. Some of the party members wanted her dead of course (Aven), but once again Rowan stepped in to save the day with his spells, casting Flesh to Stone on her. When the party tried to move her, she fell and chipped off a part of her cheek and nose, so they decided to leave her where she was.

After a week traveling, the party managed to get to Ottershaw, where it was able to discern where the Cave of the King was. Bravely, they entered, fighting the vampiress and mummies before engaging in a hit and run battle with the "Old Man", none other than King Athelstan IV, who had been raised some months before. Finally, the party defeated him and the mists grew thick once again. An earthquake followed then a searing shaft of light broke the Mists and they evaporated.

Now, Faalor is safe once again. People assume that there was some soft of evil insanity that swept the island, leaving it in shambles for a week. Bridalveil is a thriving community (no one remembers it ever remembers it disappearing), Nywith remains a prisoner in the Citadel of Faalor and Yurissa rules Faalor in semi-peace. The orcs have fled, leaving behind a number of pregnant human women and the Illriggers have returned to their sulking ways. Vraalrym the Red found himself suddenly in the middle of Duath, and, after reeking some havoc fled north where he disappeared.

Man Dies after 50 Hours of Computer Games

2005-08-10T10:52:00.000-07:00

Ermm this is just strange. While I've spent A LOT of time playing computer games, I don't think I've ever played more than 6 hours--with plenty of breaks, etc. At any rate, this guy decided it would be cool to quit his job to pursue a career in online gaming! Apparently the stress was a bit more than he could take.

S. Korean man dies after 50 hours of computer games

Encounter-based vs Area-based modules

2005-08-07T17:59:00.000-07:00

Last Faalor game session, I tried a new approach to module creation in which I created several areas in which a specific encounter occurred. In one, I had an old man. The old man had specific characteristics I wanted to convey to the party. I wanted to move the story forward, while still leaving the players wanting more information. In another, I had a village full of rabid "witch-hunters" who were about to burn a Gypsy girl. In that encounter, I wanted to impress upon the party the seriousness of the situation: those caught using magic would be put to death. This encounter dovetailed into the next, where the party could actually ask someone in the know about what they should do. This should give the party pretty specific ideas and goals associated with the campaign's finale'. I didn't have any area transitions; the party had to tell me (the DM) when they wanted to move on. This also allowed the party to have more control and could mitigate the running-off-alone syndrome. This is what I call an encounter-based adventure.

In some ways, it's much easier to create and run as a Dungeon Master but may create a situation where the players feel confined to a set pattern. On the other hand, when I create areas and let the players go where they want (Area-based adventures), the players could easily miss important points in the module and can feel like they can scatter about without the group, exploring at their own pace, in their own way.

It was a good experiment and it appeared that the players enjoyed the session, so I may incorporate more of this type of adventures in the future.

Weekly Faalor Game (Aug 6th)

2005-08-06T14:21:00.000-07:00

The party set off through the Fenmark Forest, where they encountered an old man. The old man appeared to know quite a bit about what was going on and claimed to own the forest.

As the party headed off, they ran into a guardsman from Hamog, named Kradon, who claimed to remember Faalor the way it used to be. He claimed to be part of a group out looking for the party and was assigned to watch the eastern end of the Fenmark while other larger groups headed for Gundar and south of Duath. He wanted to join the party because he had no other choice: either go back with his unit and face the probability that he'd be found out and killed or go on the run. The party reluctantly agreed to take him along. As darkness fell, the party found a spot to rest in a small forest. It soon became apparent that they were not alone as Wood Orcs and Faewood elves began a mindless attack on the group. Quickly the party fled and ran through the night with elves harassing them.

When morning finally came, the party made it's way through a nameless village west of the main road. Here an angry crowd was in the process of burning a "witch". Quickly the party acted to save the girl. Rowan cast a fear spell which scattered the crowd, while the "Gnome" turned into a white dragon and blew out the flames. The girl, who turned out to be Vistani, was scooped up and the party made a run for it.

Luckily there was a gypsy camp nearby. There the leader of the tribe, none other than Madam Thaloshi, gave the party some insights into the nature of the Mists and what they could do to possibly return Faalor to it's normal state. At that time, Madam Thaloshi gave each of the party members a personal reading, giving each some insights into why they were there and what may lie ahead. With a quick nod, the party set off for Duath.

That night, the lights of Duath glowed in the distance, the old man appeared briefly and looked as if he was trying to cast some spell. Fortunately (or not) the spell did not work and he disappeared.

Darkfall Online

2005-08-04T16:26:00.000-07:00

My online role-play bud, Arwin, was good enough to bring this upcoming game to my attention. He writes:

The link below is to Darkfall Online, an upcoming fantasy RPG. It seems to be very much like UO. Short summarization:

-Open PvP.. everybody can attack everybody, like oldschool UO
-Skill based system with 300 to 500 skills and spells
-Player housing
-Player horses
-Player controlled ships
-Nice graphics (though a bit blurry?)
-Equipment plays a minor role, skills play a larger role
-Some twitchy skills will make your char better
-No supergrind (I think)

So.. check it out. Anybody heard of this before?

This looks like a promising game, and as indicated, appears to be reminiscent of the early days of Ultima Online. I really like the racial system here. It gives each player a specific base of operations. At this stage and from what I can tell, the graphics give me a headache; I hope it's just the quality of the screen shots not how the actual game looks (though you'd expect they'd want to accurately portray their visuals). Though I have to tell everyone, I'm pretty gun shy any more when it comes to MMORGs. They're great for playing a game, but in terms of real RP, it's unlikely that I'd give it much of a shot. If I can approach the game in that light, it just might be worth getting.

Darkfall Online

Weekly Faalor Game (July 30th)

2005-07-30T14:59:00.000-07:00

We have a brand new cast: "Gnome" (the amnesic shifter), Aven (the stranger than life dark warrior), Bryan (the paladin from Faalor I), Tori (the cute and lovable halfling, also from Faalor I) and Rowan (the nearly evil sorcerer from Faalor II).

The Fog lifts and we find our "heroes" in Bridalveil, a place that MAY have been swept off the map for six months. The place is weeeird. Inquisitors and Illriggers acting like old buddies, elves randomly raiding the town, witches burning at the stake, dogs and cats living in harmony. While the party was on it's way to the Tavern, an elf attacked the guards, after which the elf was tossed into the river and accused of witchcraft. The party finally gathered in the tavern, where they encountered an Inquisitor, who, come to find out was old friends with an Illrigger. The Illrigger was an instructor at the College. Needless to say that caused some tensions!

The party eventually fled Bridalveil and briefly encountered a demoness (who shouted “I’m free” as it fled from the party). After running into a few goblin claiming to be scouts for Yurissa’s army, the party fled toward Hamog. At the Village of Hamog, the party was stopped by a guard who questioned the party. Obviously not terribly impressed with the odd group, it was only until the party’s paladin stepped forward that the guard appeared to be responsive. Unfortunately, the party answered incorrectly the question: “Where is the headquarters of the Church?” The party answered “Gravemist”, which earned the party’s dismissal from Hamog.

Now the party is on the run in the wilderness south and east of Bridalveil and Hamog, trying to make it’s way to Duath.

This first session was full of questions; let’s see if we can get to any of the answers before the party gets killed. Needless to say, it’s going to be particularly tough.

(As a side note, I think this campaign will last for about 3-5 more sessions before I need to take a break from DM’ing.)

ZBoards--Gaming Keyboards

2005-07-29T09:53:00.000-07:00

I actually saw one of these while I was in Fry's Electronics not too long ago, but dismissed it as silly. I have to admit, though, something like this would have been really nice for Ultima Online. Now it looks like ZBoards has a keyboard for Battlefield 2 and World of Warcraft. But more importantly, of course (!!!), it looks like they have one for Neverwinter Nights. Very cool!

Video Game Updates

2005-07-28T09:44:00.000-07:00

Hmm I actually found another blog on Blogger that deals with gaming!Video Game Updates

An Alternative View of "Hit Points"

2005-07-21T11:27:00.000-07:00

Whee, my first post here. I've already posted this on the forum, but Bala suggested I post it on the Blog as well, so here I am.

Since there has been some discussion about the resting system, healing items, etc. I wanted to post my view of how "Hit Points" work - this is the way I've thought of it in UO and NWN, and I believe it makes sense, although it differs quite a bit from the 'accepted' D&D standard. This is the basic system I'll be using in the Fallen - it has no impact on your gameplay, but I thought it might be good to know some of what's going on in my head while I'm DMing.

I don't consider Hit Points to directly coorelate to a character's health. This is a bit silly to me. Instead, I consider it to be a general measure of various aspects of a character that all come together to determine how long a character can last in combat - aspects such as adrenaline, drive, luck, etc. When a character runs out of Hit Points, they simply become unable to fight...they collapse due to fatigue, injuries, etc. They aren't 'dead', so to speak - but they are out of the fight. Now, in this state, they are obviously very vulnerable to injures, death, etc., but they are not 'dead' in the strictest sense of the word. This is why simply resting for a minute recovers all your 'Hit Points' - your character isn't magically healing their wounds, but rather, they're taking a break, composing themselves, and thus are ready to return to the fight at full effectiveness. Thus, a character could have full Hit Points but still be rather injured.

I prefer this system, because it simply makes more sense to me - but also because, to me, it tells a better story. Death should be a serious thing for a campaign, and should almost always be irriversible. This isn't reflected well in the Hit Points system, especially in the computer game world where many things can go wrong. It makes much more sense to me for 'death' in combat to simply mean incapacitation - otherwise, you have characters dying on a fairly regular basis, almost always 'miraculously brought back from the brink' or even completely resurrected. After awhile of this, a character's death tends to lose its meaning as a serious event for the party and campaign, and leads to questions like "If death is so easy to avoid, why does ANYONE in this world die?" To me (and in the Fallen), even Ressurect or Raise Dead aren't literal 'bring me back to life' spells - they're just incredibly powerful healing spells that can bring someome back into the fight after serious injury.

While this isn't quite as realistic as a harsher system, I tend to think the PCs, by their very nature of being the center of the story, are rather 'special', and a few stab wounds aren't going to be enough to keep them down for long. I don't expect Bala to use this system for Faalor (although I'd be flattered if he did!), but for those of you planning to play in Fallen, I think these are good things to know. I'll be sure to post this in the Fallen forum and website at some point in the Death section.

I look forward to any feedback you have my views!

- Bala's trusty sidekick Jasman

On Having Fun in Role-playing Game

2005-07-20T12:39:00.000-07:00

Having fun, of course, is the ultimate goal of any leisure activity--and role-playing is no exception--but what exactly constitutes “fun” in this context? It’s a question that strangely never came up until I started playing Ultima Online, nearly twenty years into my role-playing “career”. Not even Ultima Online itself that raised the question but rather, more specifically, role-playing online (the PK’s that I hung around with just played the game and if they “lost” we all knew that it was just part of the game). Therefore, is role-playing online something especially prone to “not being fun” if certain conditions are not met? Is it harder to have fun?

Certain frustrations might crop up with online play that are not necessarily obvious for the pure online player. After all, players do not have the complete freedom offered in tabletop games. If I wanted to add a new rule or break an old one for the sake of the story, it could be easily done. On the contrary, online games trade the elasticity of pen & paper games for a concrete reality, with rules that are hard-coded into the system. Even with Neverwinter Nights, it’s often almost impossible to make even simple adjustments on the fly and completely impossible without advanced planning.

Another frustration for online gaming is the pace, especially where combat is concerned. For table-top players, a single fight might last anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour. There’s plenty of time to think out each move, discussing tactics with your fellow players as the action is unfolding, carefully choosing spells and expending magical items. That is just not the case in online game play, where a typical combat sequence only lasts a few seconds. This makes combat in online games much more dangerous and difficult to control (as much so for the Dungeon Master as it for the players).

The final obstacle to fun in role-playing games is the issue of “winning and loosing”. Certainly, everyone wants to play the game to overcome the bad guys, gain treasure and have experiences that allow for interesting character development. Everyone is required to focus on their character, to give their character the benefit of doubt, to take that character wherever it goes. This is great fun: watching your character grow, advance, solve problems, overcome obstacles, and acquire wealth, prestige and power. This process is, in reality, almost competitive in nature, especially when the character itself is competitive. I know many players do, in fact, see role-playing games as a completive activity to one degree or another, and, perhaps, they are correct to think so.

For me though, it’s difficult to think about role-playing in those terms. For role-playing games, I think a different definition for “winning” is required. Indeed, it hinges on the concept of fairness and a player can be expected to have fun if the playing field is level and there is a reasonable chance of overcoming odds.

Is it fun to watch as your character dies because he or she wandered into a pit of sulfuric acid, perhaps rolling a 1 on dex check? Is it fun to have a high level wizard/rogue steal all of your character’s magic items and then disappear into the fog, never to be seen again? Is it fun to get hopelessly lost in a maze when the fate of the world rests on your character’s ability to quickly escape? The answer, in my opinion, is yes. While I think it’s would be impossible to have fun when I have to come up with a new character every time I play (due to death, etc.), having the prospect of real death or “defeat” makes the “winning” much more enjoyable.

DnDResources

2005-07-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting resource for all of us D&D geeks, DnDResources: Thousands of Gaming Solutions at Your Fingertips.

First off, my complaints. In the work I'm currently in, I see the word "solution" all the time and it annoys me. OK, I know what you mean by that, but there has to be a hundred other more useful words you could have picked. Also, the Web design is kinda awful, especially in terms of color contrast. It also, seems to me, that it's just getting started. My other pet peeve is the use of frames to show items from other Websites. But then that must just be me. Finally, some of the entries are pretty short and seem to more like advertisements than useful information.

As for the good. I really like the idea of offering advice, products and ideas being collected in one spot. And there is some pretty good stuff here. At the bottom there, there's a simple tutorial for making maps in PhotoShop and complete guide to running a campaign in ancient Greece. Very nice stuff.

Should PCs ALWAYS win?

2005-07-18T14:59:00.000-07:00

I've been giving this some thought lately, especially in light of recent events in the Faalor campaign world. The question is "Should PC's ALWAYS win?" and the answer is, in my opinion, an emphatic "No."

My conclusion is derived from the following:

1. PCs are the central characters is a morality play, where failure has to be a reasonable outcome or else there could be no morality involved ("you mean the world would have been destroyed whether I acted cowardly or bravely?").
2. PCs are free moral agents.
3. While role-playing, consequences of all actions (NPC and PC) should be allowed to play out as "realistically" as possible.
4. PCs are heroes who's actions matter to the greater world, whether in small ways or large.
5. Winning and loosing are not the material goal of role-playing (rather, playing a role is).

“The Spirit of D&D” (essay excerp)

2005-07-14T13:47:00.000-07:00

Reliance on others

It has been my experience that online gaming has created an odd situation where individuals can create characters that can effectively act independently of others. With a few notable exceptions, differences between characters are reduced in terms of role and teamwork. In Neverwinter Nights, for example, healing is a skill native to all classes and characters can freely mix and match up to three classes, i.e. leaving room for a fighter/rogue/cleric character. That’s not to say that these options should never be available; it simply seems unrealistic to me, and it fosters an attitude of unhealthy self-reliance.

The “class” system for role-playing games was designed with one outcome in mind: reliance on others. No single character could do it all. Each class had a definite strength and several weaknesses. A thief (rogue), while physically weaker than almost all other classes, could gather information about an enemy or protect the party from traps but would easily fall but for the magical augmentation of a magic-user. A fighter (warrior) could stand up to the most punishing damage with a cleric (priest or druid) behind him healing and offering divine protection. A ranger specializing in archery could cover the party’s rear while covering the charge of dwarven fighter.

In a multi-player game, dual-classed characters actually diminish the effectiveness of the party as a whole, by diluting the performance of a single, specialized class.

The Mordent Cartographical Society

2005-07-12T07:51:00.000-07:00

One of the things I like about Ravenloft is that is a fairly small world. The immense size of the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance worlds has always put me off, but Ravenloft is small enough to orient yourself pretty quickly. The Mordent Cartographical Society has a done a great job putting together a fairly comprehensive overview of the game world. The maps in the "Domains of Dread" page are pretty accurate, if a bit hard to read at times. The "Who's Doomed" section is really nice. As a player in the current Faalor campaign, you might not want to know TOO much here, but it's there for your education should you be curious.

Ravenloft Campaign World

2005-07-11T08:32:00.000-07:00

The Ravenloft Campaign world grew out of a single AD&D module written in the 1980's. It focuses on Gothic horror reflecting the styles of Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, H.G. Wells, and Edgar Allen Poe. The setting focuses on fear and horror over spatter and gore. The world has an intriguing moral sense to it; paladins and good clerics receive special attention from the "world" and no evil deed goes unnoticed. In fact, with each evil act, a character can be pulled further into evil and madness. So, obviously being “good” is the way to go in Ravenloft. It's obviously been a favorite of mine since it first came out. (I mean, please, look at the name of the place where the Church of Faalor calls it’s HQ: “Gravemist” hehe)

Weekly Faalor Game (July 9th)

2005-07-09T15:28:00.000-07:00

Faalor - The Bridalveil Incident (Or: Faalor - The Ending So Nice, We Used it Twice!)

With the help of the leader of the Vistani, Madam Thaloshi, the party was able to escape the Dreamscape. Shortly afterwards, our session began, with both groups in their respective locations preparing for the journey to Bridalveil. Those in the Gundar party were a bit skeptical as to the reality of the Dreamscape, although the arrival of the other party, as planned at the end of the Dreamscape encounter, helped to alievate some of those beliefs.

The party, united (if you can call their interaction 'unity') once again, made their way towards Bridalveil. On their way, they encountered a Dwarf, also on his way to Bridalveil. Knowing what lie in wait there, the party brought him along. Just outside the Bridalveil swamp, they found that Xorkazz and his two agents, Llywyth and Grugmort, had ambushed the Vistani they were to meet and ally with. A quick fight finished off Llywyth and Grugmort, but Xorkazz was able to escape, and Madam Thaloshi was mortally wounded in the fight. With her last breath, she told them there was little time and they must hurry. Grugmort, the Dwarven agent of Xorkazz, also happened to be the brother their newfound Dwarf ally was searching for in Bridalveil. Some well-chosen words by the party kept the Dwarf by their side, although he appeared to be skeptical of their explanation.

Passing through the swamp, the party arrived in the remains of Bridalveil and began exploring, fighting their way pasts Wisp-creatures that had made the place their home. Some exploring revealed a mirror in the swamp similar to the ones encountered in the Dreamscape - one of the party members attacked and destroyed this mirror, perhaps because the mirrior in the Dreamscape had shown a vision of the party's death.

The exploring continued, with the party entering an abandoned Dwarven hall after passing through an acidic lake. Several doors within the hall were locked, however, so the party was forced to retreat. Around this time, the Mists filling the remains of Bridalveil began to gradually thicken, likely a side effect of Xorkazz's spell weakening the barrier between Faalor and Ravenloft. Also, one of the party members vanished into a mist-filled tunnel near the Dwarven hall, after having left the party due to personal conflicts. This tunnel apparently led to a small area of Ravenloft.

Once more in Bridalveil, the party continued their exploration and found the old mayor's house. Within, they found the re-animated corpse of the mayor, who they gave final rest too, and recovered several keys to the doors within the Dwarven hall. Exploration of the hall revealed Undead Dwarves, several keys, and an undead priest of Adrahil who held yet another key.

With only one place left to search, the party made their way to the crypt. Around this time their new Dwarven ally stumbled into the same Mist tunnel that the other party member had discovered. While the party used their new keys to explore the crypt, the two party members now trapped in Ravenloft searched for a way to return, eventually discovering a small temple. After a brief conversation, they managed to slay the inhabitants and return to Bridalveil using a portal in the temple, although not before one of them was bitten by a vampire.

Meanwhile, back in the crypts, the party discovered a key to the Bridalveil college. On their way out, though, they stopped to explore a portal, that led to the same area of Ravenloft the other party members had been trapped in. Here, they encountered the vampire, who killed two of the party members before fleeing into the temple. With one of the fallen members resurrected and the other being carried, the party entered the temple in pursuit of the Vampire. Around this time, the two members who had been in Ravenloft previously had stumbled through the crypt portal and found their way back to the temple. They explained that the way back to Bridalveil was through the temple, and prompty returned, with the vampire having already used the portal.

After another running battle with the vampire, the party went to the old militia barracks to rest and tend to their fallen comrade, who they were able to bring back with some care. Finally, they began to make their way towards the Bridaveil college, once more fighting the vampire and finally slaying her before entering the college. On the college grounds, they encountered a small girl in tears regarding the fate of her home. Some of the party did not believe her story, and attacked her, driving her - or whatever it was - away.

After facing some wandering Undead and some Elven allies of Xorkazz, the party was finally able to breach the lair where Xorkazz was performing his spell using the captured Ravenloft stone, but they were too late - his spell had been completed. They were able to defeat Xorkazz twice - once in his lair, apparently as an illusion and once in the college where he had gained some control over the Undead. Despite his defeat, the Mists around the party grew thicker, until they could no longer see or hear one another...Xorkazz had succeeded, and the continent of Faalor had been drawn into the realm of Ravenloft.

Summary writen by Jas.

Option 2 missed by 2 minutes!

2005-07-09T14:40:00.000-07:00

Well . . . that was a good game to watch. I hope y'all enjoyed playing it.

The party though too one too many left turns and missed saving Faalor from the Mists. They were able to kill the bad guy, but the timer expired. So, over today and tomorrow, I'll be updating the Website and posting a synopsis of today's game. It might take me another week to get ready for the continuation of the campaign but I was warned to be prepared. I'll see if I can't dig up some good links on Ravenloft and post them if you're interested.

So, you are free to continue to use the same characters, create a new character, or re-create a character from Faalor I (or any other campaign). Just let me know what you plan on playing this week.

More news to be updated soon!

Three Possible Outcomes for Tomorrow's Game

2005-07-08T12:57:00.000-07:00

Without going into too much detail, Jas and I have devised three possible outcomes for tomorrow's game depending entirely on what the PCs do.

Option 1: Totally bad
Massive effects to the campaign world and PCs = SCREWED but the slim possibility of redemption exists.

Option 2: Mixed bag
Campaign world (Faalor) left unscathed; PC's hatin' it but alive and able to make amends through much effort.

Option 3: "You have beat this level"
Faalor SAVED! PCs = WINNERS!!!

I'm not making any bets on this one, but there's a roughly equal chance of fulfilling the conditions of each option. Should be a great game session!

A Brief History of D&D

2005-07-07T12:30:00.000-07:00

Well, here you all go, the complete history of Dungeons & Dragons.

I had a friend who was using the Chain Mail rules for a while until I convinced him that the "First Edition" had everything in ONE book . . . well three (Dungeon Master's Guide, Players Guide and Monster Manual).

My first experience with D&D was with the module Keep on the Borderlands, which, if I remember correctly, was designed for the Basic Set. I remember not liking any of any of the "Basic" editions, because they were too simplified. For example, "dwarf" and "elf" were classes and you could only pick "lawful", "chaotic" or "neutral" for alignments. I was though forced to play them from 1980 to 1983 (I think) because the crowd I was with wouldn't buy the Advanced books. After that, I was running my own campaign (Faalor, The Lost Years!) with the Advanced books I got for Christmas, 1981!

Back to School for NWN

2005-07-06T08:12:00.000-07:00

I always knew role-playing games can be educational, but I guess I never thought about using them to explore human behavior. Peter Gorniak of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is running a Neverwinter Nights game module to study human behavior:

Computer role playing games are an intriguing platform for studying people's behaviour [sic] in a socially and contextually rich setting. At the same time, they still allow you to shape the world and the interactions between people in ways such that people's behaviour [sic] does not get out of hand. That's exactly what I'm doing in this work - having players interact as they would otherwise, while solving a puzzle within Neverwinter Nights.

While he does not go into any real detail, I can certainly imagine some interesting scenarios, especially using the DM client as a blind.

I'm not sure when this study is being conducted or when (and where) the results will be published. I suspect he'll be posting more information here: MIT Media Lab.

Back to School for NWN

War of the Worlds Review (spoilers!)

2005-07-04T16:24:00.000-07:00

Yeah, once again, I'm getting away from talking about role-playing and Neverwinter Nights, but I just got back from Spielberg's War of the Worlds and umm . . .

*minor spoilers ahead*

*turn back now if you don't want spoilers!*

. . . It sucked!

I've been a big fan of H.G. Wells and War of the Worlds in particular (followed by The Time Machine) and I'm waiting for someone to capture that certain feeling, that pre-Great War innocence and hopefulness. What Spielberg and Cruise created was nothing less than Nihilistic/Existential/Post-modern bummerville. Schnidler’s List and Saving Private Ryan at least made you feel like there was some hope for humanity. If you're gonna rip off a classic at least make it feel the same. Granted the 1953 movie version came close, but no cigar. (Speaking of the '53 version, wasn't that Ann Robinson and Gene Barry playing the "Grandparents" at the end?)

First, let's just say, there was some gaping holes in the fictional continuity. I won't go into them and they weren't HUGE, just annoying. I also hated Tom Cruise's character; what a complete jerk. I wanted "them" to get him. Thirdly, the blood flying all over the place was odd, but the biggest problem for me was getting my mind around “their” plan. Ermm . . . bury your armored fighting vehicles underground in very distant territory, then after a few thousands or million years of watching the enemy advance and use up the valuable territorial resources, man your weapons and attack. Now THAT is some long term planning! (And why had no one found these things before? Stupid question, I know . . .)

There were some nice parts. I enjoyed Dakota Fanning; while I never felt like she really added anything to the story, she did help me to feel like SOMEONE needed to survive (her older brother sorta fit that bill as well). The special effects were plain moving, with a little nod to Schindler’s List and/or 9/11. Finally, I loved the Darwinian propaganda at the end; Wells would have loved it as well!

Faalor game postponed

2005-07-01T09:30:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

Just wanted to let everyone know that the Faalor game will be postponed. We won't be having a game tomorrow due to the fact that us Americans will be out getting ready to burn something up. I'll be taking a trip down the beautiful Columbia River Gorge.

I know this has nothing to do with roleplaying or Neverwinter Nights (other than where I got some of the place names for Faalor), but the least I can do is leave y'all with some cool pictures of beautiful Awreegahn! We'll be heading to our famous Multnomah Falls, which is right down the road from Bridalveil State Park:

Introduction to Roleplaying by Dave

2005-06-29T20:33:00.000-07:00

It's not often that one finds quality information on Geocities (of course, it has the obligatory animated torch!), but "Dave" does a fairly good job of covering his bases. Role-playing is playing a character, "just like an actor does, but unlike acting, there is no script. Everything that you say and do is done in an ad-lib fashion according to the situation and the personality and background that you've established for the character." Roleplay is about creating fictional worlds with the help of other players.

In an Introduction to Roleplaying, the author focuses on Dungeons & Dragons, but also covers several other games, most notably Vampire: The Masquerade.

Neverwinter Nights Scripting

2005-06-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

For all of you out there struggling with NWScript, here's Bioware's own Scripting Tutorials. Topics include:

Setting Variables
Defining An Object
Creating Objects
Regarding Animations
Explaining Waypoints and Walkwaypoints
The Userdefined Event Is Your Friend
More Fully-Commented OnSpawn Script
Rewarding Gold and XP
Making Skill Checks
Making Unique Items
Sitting In Chairs and Sleeping
How Do I Make My NPC's Initiate Dialogue On Their Own?
How Do I Make My NPC Attack The PC He Is Talking To?
How Do I Start My Store?
Using Module Events
Using Area Events
Using Creature Events
Using Placeable Object Events
Using Trigger Events
Adding & Removing Effects
Using Dialogue With Placeables and Triggers
Factions, Shouts and Attacking My Enemy

Even I sometimes need a refresher and this usually gets me on my way . . . unless I beg Jas to create the script for me!

Three Approaches to Roleplay

2005-06-27T08:18:00.000-07:00

There are many reasons to play role-playing games, but I think the diversity can be reduced to three main motivations.

The Gamer is involved in the game as a matter of competition. There are clear cut criteria for winning and loosing. A gamer wants to command the rules and these rules of the game offers boundaries in which players may compete against one another. Creating the "best" character (power gaming or min/max'ing) is often the focus of a gamer, or, for a DM, working out systems (or encounters) that are fair and balanced within the framework of the rules.

A Sim is a player who wishes to explore imaginative worlds. They are looking to immerse themselves in a world that seems to behave realistically, with economic, political and social activities. Even combat must be rooted in the physics of the real world. Does this world have a realistic economy? Can my character be an active part of the world, enhancing the economic, political and social fabric of this world?

The Story-teller is a player who wishes to create a story with rich thematic elements through their role-playing. Their characters are formal protagonists. The world in which they inhabit is a complex psychological and thematic tapestry against which a recognizable plot unfolds. Players are often consider themselves co-authors in a vast unwritten novel.

For my part, I enjoy all parts equally, with maybe a bit of leaning toward the Sim. Perhaps, that’s why I enjoy being a Dungeon Master so much!

Weekly Faalor Game (June 25th)

2005-06-25T14:22:00.000-07:00

This session was entirely Jas' baby, and he did a very good job too.

Basicly, the session was a dreamscape session. The party "wakes" up in a dream where they can see each other. Okami, Arwin, Carn and Veth were the lucky ones who showed up for the game.

The Gypsy matron showed up in the dream and let the players know they have to defeat some evil or Faalor will be swallowed by the Mists. The Stone that our dwarf and elf employers were after is actually a powerful artifact created on some other plane of existence. If used, it can cause things to be moved all over the place, including to the Mist realms. The party was told that it needed to stay alive and keep moving in order to escape the dreamscape.

Unfortunately, the dreamscape included an alternate Gundar (where the druidess was a bad guy), Duath (where the was some kind of armed rebelion going on) and Faewoods (where humans were actively destroying the elves). The party encountered the elf "Master" in the dream briefly before they were split up.

The most memorable part of the session was the kids puzzle, where the PCs had to figure out which of 6 kids was a werewolf or a vampire. My DM client went wild just as it was getting interesting, and my vampire kid attacked and I crashed. Meanwhile, the other group had to actually work at figuring out who was the werewolf. Man, I wanted to evilize someone who attacked an "annoying" kid!

In the end, the PCs ended up in a dreamscape Bridalveil, where they wandered around for a while until they found the mirror. They discovered that it didn't work like the others and faced an army of mist creatures. After 20 minutes of watching Augustine beat on mist creatures, the party finally fell and were returned to another area where the Gypsies were waiting.

And then they woke up!

Will the Harvald find the dwarf and beat the snot out of him? Will the party trust the Vistani? Will our evil elf succeed in his evil plan (whatever that is)? Will Kurt finally realize that his pants are on backwards? Tune in next week to see!

(P.S., I plan on giving out an XP bonus based on how well people have been playing their alignment and stats/skills next week. So don't feel like you've lost any XP.)

'Cop killer' video game targeted by U.S. senator

2005-06-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

"The last thing we need here in New York is to reinforce a destructive culture of violence and disrespect for the law. Little Johnny should be learning how to read, not how to kill cops," says Sen. Charles Schumer, (D) New York.

Well, honestly, I don't see the harm in playing a game that portrays evil, necessarily. Killing police officers, using innocents as human shields, unashamedly committing crimes, etc., isn't the worst thing in the world to make a game about. There's also a million other better choices, I'll grant you that!

Now, one could argue that it's not what we take into our lives that makes us bad people, it's what comes out of our lives that causes us to be bad. It's how we act and reflect on what we take in that creates moral and ethical value in our lives.(Sounds familiar, no? Mark 7:15. Yeah, I know the context here is dietary laws, but I think it's appropriate to other legal/moral issues like violent video games.)

My only concern about such games like this '25 to Life' or 'Grand Theft Auto' is that there's absolutely no consequences to your evil actions in game. You actually 'win' by doing evil; your unlawful and unethical actions actually build your in game assets. That is something worth protesting, I suppose. I just don't know how we should legislate such things. *shrugs*

'Cop killer' video game targeted by U.S. senator

(edit now with comments allowed! hehe)

Roleplaying Tips

2005-06-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

I was really into this site about a year or so ago, but then lost the favorites link to it. If you can overlook the funky page design, you can still find some pretty good stuff here.

Roleplaying Tips

Rent a character?!?

2005-06-21T18:33:00.000-07:00

Tired of having to work up a new character in your favorite online game? Spending all those weeks trying to create the perfect set of stats so you can 0wnerize all those lame-o's who actually developed their character? Never fear, capitalism strikes again!

Powerlevel: "GamePal is the leading power-leveling service provider. We can level up your characters [sic] levels, skills, stats, complete quests, and more. Our team consists of veteran players with over six years of playing experience that have been trained to offer quality and profession [sic] power leveling for all our customers."

GamePal Account Rentals: "GamePal allows you to rent MMORPG accounts for 14 games. Renting accounts means you have the option to go from game to game, server to server, class to class. Now you can experience MMORPGs in an entirely new way. In just a few more days, you will be able to experience our newest MMORPG feature." Oh boy!

I umm almost don't want to put a link to this site, but I guess I should so no one thinks I made this up: GamePal

Sounds like an excellent career opportunity for some people I know . . .

Interview with Gary Gygax

2005-06-21T10:17:00.000-07:00

For all of you yougun's out there: Gary Gygax is the "father of RP", creator of Dungeons & Dragons and, in this interview, lets us in on some of his perspectives on the evolution of his gaming life.

Interview with Gary Gygax

Area Design Theory

2005-06-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

In light of recent comments, I guess I could write out some of my informal guidelines I use for creating areas, especially dungeon areas.

As people have pointed out, most game designers don't create areas that are "optional"; they want players to explore every inch of their fantastically, awesome dungeon. This is especially true for single-player games, like all of the published Bioware modules for Neverwinter Nights.

My theory is that I create a game world and it's up to the players to decide where they want to go. For example, I don't think anyone's run into the hermit in the forests between Gundar and Hamog yet. It's nice little area with a pre-made NPC with an interesting little side quest (if I may say so myself). It has nothing to do with the main campaign story, but I thought it would be a nice touch. Same goes for the areas in parts of the dungeon we did on Saturday. You missed some minor treasure and a nice little fight or two. But it doesn't make me feel bad when players "miss" areas I have created.

The only way it might make me a bit annoyed is if players decided to avoid the dungeon all together!

Weekly Faalor Game (June 18th)

2005-06-18T14:30:00.000-07:00

Well, everyone got ready to go one a little adventure . . . and then there was chaos.

This was a pure dungeon crawl and I made it much more difficult that usual. Mainly because, once the party left the second level, they couldn't rest; there was a one-way teleporter that brought people back to the a safe place.

So, what happened?

The party went through level one alright, until they decided to split up for the first time. Okami's character had to be rescued by "friendly" dwarf boy so he had to use all his spells to defeat a big bad monster before the adventure got on the road. The party missed some treasure here when they sped off.

The group ended up in a one way teleport to some elven crypts where they ran around for a while looking for a key to go forward. Everyone lost one item to some mischievous spirit. They ran into a banshee who had a key. (This is where my modem died, so I got a 15 minute break!). Instead of searching the level first, they pressed on into the Elven ruined city. Here, they showed their usual discipline and scattered about! (DM's note to self: make it easier for lone characters to die.) After running around, the party ends up fighting some Spurgs (I wonder if anyone knows what they are yet). Though there is no place to rest*, there was a nice little healing pool and a cash of scrolls for the magic-users.

On to level 4 (a couple of times). The party was finally able to find the key to the tower, where they got smacked around by golems. I had to kill some of them to make it fair, but the party pulled through with only one major hit. Dwarf-boy got his Stone and then the party went down and divided up the treasure.

After splitting up and returning to the crypts (when I'm sure the deal with the Banshee was NOT to return to the crypts), the party found out what was behind door number 5: lots of undead. You guys just HAVE to use every teleporter you find, huh? hehe

*my theory about resting is this: Because resting fully heals and puts all spells back in memory, it seems to me that in RL, something like that would take a week or more (it took me about 6 weeks to recover from surgery once, and I certainly wasn't down to 1 hp). So, those places are very special; you can't just plop down someplace and expect to heal or memorize complex formulae.

Required for Saturday's game (June 18th)

2005-06-15T08:29:00.000-07:00

You'll need to do three things in order to play on saturday:

1. Update your NWN client to v1.66.
2. Download and install this hak: http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Hakpaks.Detail&id=5226
3. Sign up for the new Forums: NWTC Forum and look on the Faalor forums. If you send a tell to the DMs with the secret word, you get a fabulous XP bonus!!!

UPDATE NWN NOW!

2005-06-14T21:06:00.000-07:00

Bioware just published their new NWN update. We are up to v1.66. UPDATE NOW SO YOU CAN PLAY IN THIS WEEKEND!

Here's the short list of more interesting fixes:

*Added 3 portraits and 3 music themes from the BioWare Premium Modules Kingmaker, ShadowGuard, and Witch's Wake 1 to game resources.

*Fixed Damage Immunities against weapons with more than one damage type (e.g. Halberds with slashing/piercing damage) to work correctly.

*Fixed an issue that could rarely cause your character to become illegal if you leveled up during an episode of game lag.

*DMs can now still login to a server when the server is full, so that they are not prevented from performing any required administration tasks. If you go above the 64 player maximum, server performance may be adversely affected until some players leave the server (your mileage may vary).

*The game no longer displays encumbered feedback messages for DMs, since they actually can't ever be encumbered.

*Added a "Test Module" option to the toolset's Build menu that allows you to quick launch the game (for testing module changes). Selecting this option will give you the choice of saving your module changes. The game will then automatically launch, load the module, select the first available premade character in the list and enter gameplay with that character. The Hot Key for this new functionality is F9.

*Added some missing IP_CONST_FEAT_* constants to nwscript.nss

*Fixed a compiler issue that was causing the script debugger (DebugServer.exe that is in your NWN utils directory) to not work properly when stepping into/out of case statements (see the scripting command SpawnScriptDebugger() for more information regarding the script debugger).

For full details, you can read Bioware's 1.66 Patch Details.

Pen & Paper

2005-06-14T09:32:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, this blog is supposed to be about online and computer games . . . mostly, but here's a pretty cool site devoted to table top gaming. I'd like to spend some time going through this site some more and gleaning some nuggets for my online role-playing group. That will have to wait. This can just serve as a reminder. Yeah, that's it!

Pen and Paper, A Collection of Resources for Pen and Paper RPGs

New Faalor forums

2005-06-12T15:42:00.000-07:00

After years of putting up with Voy forums (which were really easy to set up and run), we have ourselves a new forum system. Unfortunately, it is done in a UOTC style so the aweful memories can continue to reverberate, but we can't be too picky can we?

Faalor Forum

Required Hak for Faalor

2005-06-11T16:52:00.000-07:00

In addition to the CEP haks, you MUST have this file downloaded to your hak folder of your nwn directory:
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Hakpaks.Detail&id=5226

Weekly Faalor Game (June 11th)

2005-06-11T14:35:00.000-07:00

Well, the Duath group and the Gundar group finally got together, meeting up in the town of Hamog. Once they all met, got a gander at the “map” and key, Grugmort explained that he was going on this trip for a specific item: an ancient dwarven shield and Llywyth is looking for a “worthless” rock. Everyone seemed pretty alright with the arrangement so they proceeded south, but not before witnessing a spat between the two “employers”.

Two gypsies attacked the party as they left town but the attack wasn’t strong enough to really do much. So, the party head south on the old Faalor road toward Aaerdowns. Of course, they had to get into trouble with the law by casting magic and OBVIOUSLY lying; the campaign nearly came to a screeching halt when the party floundered in front of a high-ranking Yurissian commander guarding the south road.

Once the party got to Aaerdowns, tensions began to grow between the parties. (Should be fun to see what happens if I ease the PvP settings.) But they were quickly off. Unfortunately, they had to pass through an orcish outpost to get to their destination. Once they reached the Black Morass, it was easy enough to find the ruins. When the “map” was summoned, there was some squabbling about whether to let her go or not before the location of the ruins was confirmed. It didn’t take long for the party to realize that they were in the right place.

"No one steals from the Dark Lord of the Elven Freekeep of Yllyss, Draelus Klumanthax, and lives!!!"

2005-06-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

Umm . . . riiiight . . .

A forty-one year old Shanghai online gamer who stabbed a fellow player to death (in real life) for selling his virtual magic sword has been given a suspended death sentence, which in effect means life imprisonment, Chinese state media said. The case had created a dilemma in China where no law exists for the ownership of virtual, online "property".

Online gamer gets life for cyber-sabre stabbing

Some nifty bits of Role-play info

2005-06-08T09:43:00.000-07:00

Here's a few quick and dirty tips for Gamemasters and players as well as some misc. role-playing items. I like the Gamemaster tips especially the "Golden Rule": Have fun. It's often lost on use DM's/Game Masters as we get very focused on making sure the players are having a good time. I suppose it's happened to me. In fact, I know it has particularly with the last few years of playing UO.

While most of these are resources for traditional (non-video game) role-playing games, a lot of the tips are quite appropriate for on-line gaming as well.

Nation States

2005-06-07T14:52:00.000-07:00

I have to say, I'm having a great time playing Nation States. It's kinda odd, and there's often no middle ground between extreme choices, but it certainly is interesting, if you have a political mind.

The game lets you create a country by making a few basic choices, like how well your people are treated and what size of government you have. You get to choose a national flag, motto and currency. Then the game sends you "issues" you must decide on every day (well you can set it to send you issues slower too). As you decide these political issues, the game makes corrections to your country and reflects it in a three-paragraph description. The issues range from whether to cut down the rainforest to mine for uranium or whether to ban Harry Potter books from school libraries.

You can join or create your own region of the world and play with others. Some of us Ultima Online refugees have created a little region call . . . bum bum bum "Yew" (what else?!?), where we jockey for position as the most extreme nation in Yew or most beautiful lands. Unfortunately, we can't PK each other, but we do have some great emote wars (yeah, there's no way of actually battling each other in game).

"NationStates is a nation simulation game created by Max Barry and based loosely on his novel Jennifer Government."

[rtc] v1.0 Hak

2005-06-06T08:43:00.000-07:00

Eeeegads!!!

Some of these haks people put together for NWN are just incredible!

Here's an example: The [rtc] v1.0 Combo. I've played around with it in the toolset for about an hour the other day. But I really haven't scratched the surface. It just has too much!

First off, it's a huge download, as you can imagine, with about 36100 files all told.

Now here's the "short" list of contents:

Abyss, Deadlands, TB Swamp, Drylands, DLA Sewers, Gribo's Undeground City, Gothic Garden, Jacoby's Jungle, Desert City, Dwarven Halls (Pasilli & JDA), Elven City (with all adds), RedGranite (Canyon&Flats), Rocky Mountains, DC City Exterior, Crypt, Ice Cavern, Daggerdale Swamp, Deep Canyon, DC Dungeon, Mines and Caverns, Elven City, DC Castle Interior, DC City Interior, Lost Valley, DC MicroSet\Combo, Desert/City with addons (the best desert ever..), Snowy Mountains, Mountains with Grass, Shadow Mines, DC Desert (from FK Tiles), Forest (Full Forest Base + some trees, castles), Frozen Wastes, Foothills, DC Rural (from FK Tiles) with LOTS of addons, like castles, towers.., City/Rural builder base with CCS (by Zeon), Rural Winter, Underdark, Desert Mines, CCS, Aztec, MEH69 doors & addons.

Most of the tile-sets have several new peaceable buildings and locations as well. If I were really serious about Faalor, I'd probably use this one, but the toolset combined with the CEP is difficult enough to use without MORE options!

Menzoberranzan, Drow server

2005-06-05T19:29:00.000-07:00

I guess I should mention that a couple of us (primarily Kracus and I) have been playing on the Menzoberranzan NWN server for about a month or two. It's still in Beta, so there's still a number of issues going on and there's not a whole lot to do. But all in all the role-play has been great, if, understandably evil!

It's a tough server to play on, everyone's always plotting against everyone else and XP is very difficult to come by (I only have a little less than 6oo after 6 weeks of play). There's a few Catskill-like, childish out of character issues, but all in all the server is a good place to RP. People are still trying to get a handle on what it means to play a Drow elf "for real".

I would recommend this server to anyone who is serious about RP, very serious about RP and can hack playing an evil character with all it's twists and turns. Most characters are very evil, and consequences thereof are swift and brutal.

Weekly Faalor Game (June 4th)

2005-06-04T14:29:00.000-07:00

Well, we had our second Faalor IV NWN campaign session today.

What happened:

Server problems!!!

The Duath group got to talk to a gypsy stalker-chick, then went on into the Foothills of the Crags with their trusty dwarf guide, where they found a key to the Elven City of Kaless.

Meanwhile the Gundar group talked and got lost. Oh, they did go find the "map" to Kaless in the "Mist Dungeon". Too bad it took the (int 8) "Mother" of Gundar to help the PCs figure out how to use the "map".

This is turning out to be a very interesting campaign to DM. There's a lot of active NPCs, and both PC parties are having very different experineces which they can bring to the table when they join together. Jas is doing a great job as co-DM, bringing ideas to the table and then running NPCs in a consistent and creative maner, and all the players seem to be getting into the spirit of the thing.

The Christian D&D Player

2005-06-03T16:21:00.000-07:00

As a Christian, I sometimes encounter worried skepticism when people find out that I play D&D. It's big taboo in most Christian circles to talk about D&D, with all it's alleged demon-worship, evilness, wizardry, and even real life player suicides and murders. Without question, D&D is filled with awful images. It goes without saying, too, that D&D can become addictive and/or an improper use of free time.

I just got done reading this great article by M. Joseph Young (http://www.mjyoung.net/dungeon/confess.html) and it really reaffirmed what I've always thought about the Christian D&D player. There's no harm in it, as long as we never compromise our values. Primarily, the value "being in the world, but not being of the world". There's some very good things that can come out of playing D&D.

My main goal whenever I play a RP game is to enjoy myself, while exploring some aspect of myself represented in a fictional character. Secondly, I try to accurately depict what life would be like for these characters, assuming the "reality" they find themselves in. That means that evil is not rewarded in the long run, and that good can triumph over any situation (though it doesn't always in the short run).

I have a feeling I'll have plenty to say on this topic in the future.

Jacmus Prime

2005-06-03T11:57:00.000-07:00

I found this nifty little site. It's a nice little "world creation" site, with a lot of interesting ideas. Mainly, I wanted to just check in with some of those folks to see if they had any comments about my Faalor site. http://www.jacmus-prime.com/

Faalor now has a Blog . . . for some reason

2005-06-03T11:45:00.000-07:00

This is my first post. Yay!