the Thirteen Clocks "'She's weeping semiprecious stones!' the Golux wailed." --The 13 Clocks M has been driving me crazy for years now with quotes from this book. I'm going to do something about it soon... just as soon as I get some "mad money" saved up.
AD&D Stats from Real Life? I'm really thinking these are too high. I've done something like this before, but here's the results I got on this one after doing it twice and taking the lowest numbers:
Relationships :: Eternal City sketching up a short list of the ways my Elders connect to NPCs
takes a while to get images and notes to jibe, but like the visual clutter...
(update: orig concept and templates from House of Cards: An Amberway PBeM)
Timing is much of everything in the world of Buffy.
Principal Wood coughs up relics from the past: his mom's kit of tools. Turns out that the Watchers have been holding out on Buffy (which we already knew.) There is a book and little shadowtellers that hint about the origins of the Slayer. Buffy intuits that this is an info source she needs right now-- as all the civilized replacements are quite exhausted at this point. She goes for it, as she has just 'bashed' everyone for not 'surprising yourselves' in the willingness to push the envelope in the fight against the First Evil.
Xander, Willow, Kennedy, and Dawn all rise to the challenge. Spike realizes that he hasn't been near challenging himself since his 'visionquest' resulted in getting a soul. He sets about changing that--- and confirms everything that Woods suspects about his killer past.
A very densely plotted, very satisfying episode for fans like myself. I look forward to each episode more and more. Even Angel, which I think is slightly out of control (storywise), has sharpened and challenged itself.
Ravings of a Textual Deviant spinoff :: WISH 34 :: Non-Standard Characters
"So, let's spin off a discussion on the topic of playing a character who doesn't fit into his/her group. How do you make it work? Why do this in the first place? Anyone have a good war (or anti-war) story?"
As Ginger commented to my response to WISH 34, this author may have a tame view of what actually constitutes "non-standard" characters.
I think of "standard characters" as those that don't take a lot of chances in the creation phase, that could have--for instance--been used as examples in the basic rules. These are the "bread 'n' butter" characters that populate most games.
So "non-standard" characters become those where the envelope is getting pushed. Where chances are being taken. Where something strange or even outrageous is done, whether for advantage or invention. I get to see both kinds of characters from the folks I game with. Since I like to put enigma's inside of my characters, my own creations tend to "look" like standard characters while being a bit "odd on the inside."
Either "standard" or "non-standard" characters can fail to fit the group in play. Recent example was a "standard orphan son" of Martin who was built using standard powers and guides. This young prince very quickly turned out to not fit the group in play or the culture of Amber (despite growing up there.) Some of this was Player generated (or lack of experience with roleplay), some was wrapped up in the motivations the character held dear. As play progressed, the Character (or Player) chose to make an issue of the fact that "royals" were stuck-up elitist wankers and that He was regarded as "common clay" and a putz. Basically, this was potential roleplay material, but the group could not make it work. The majority of the group just didn't buy into the confusion and attitudes sown by the young prince-who-acted-like-a-putz.
Why did he do it? I think it was a mistake. The Player did not take an in-game "critical social dynamic" into account. The Family looking down on his Character did not appeal to him, nor did the manner and mistakes of his Character appeal to the other Family members. When in-game responses started to chastize his Character, the Player wondered why folks were "ganging up" on his prince. When Players out-game tried to explain that his Character was causing grief for the King and Family, he reacted as if that was his Character's business and no one else's. The Player left the game over this and other issues.
In another game, I had a Player choose to play a mute loner; very "non-standard." That lasted one session. It just didn't work. A case where invention was not justified or pragmatic to play.
Yet, I've had a Player develop a background where their Character eventually discovered that they (and their sister) were of full dragon blood, born of a dragon in human form. They grew up human, and played out human, only learning slowly of dragon heritage as things went along. It never impacted the group dynamic, though it generated a lot of plot. There were no "groans" or "power gaming" issues at all. In fact, other players felt sorry for the Character as his dragon nature developed in fits and starts of odd, comic, and awkward moments.
Tip from my friend, Jvstin:
Mega site of Bible studies and information :: sometimes also known as shadowthriller.blogpsot.com
All I can say is, "Lord, grant me strength"
I apologize to anyone who gets redirected based on mis-spellings.
(update :: it appears that these folks just went and bought the domain so they could get any misspelled urls, not related to me/us)
I just want to go on record as saying that the GM guide "Book of Vile Darkness" is an idea that provides so much fuel to rpg-bashers that I'm very surprised and disappointed that it was issued. Is it bad business? Probably not. Is it bad press? I would certainly think so. Does the rpg hobby need to go through the last twenty years of bad press again? No. Please, no.
I've flipped through the pages of a copy and it definitely is for mature audiences. Not that retailers will check age of buyers.
Google Search :: vile darkness
Angel Mills relates some TKC goodies that put small tears in my eyes. Happy. Sad. Grateful.
(possible spoilers)
From Portia's diary about Random:
I wanted to reach out to him and tell him I was sorry he was going to die, but it didn't seem right to do so. I just watched him. He seemed to accept the situation. He seemed content, even. I nodded.
OK, here's something I haven't talked about before, the topic is suggested by recent posts from Dorothea and Ginger about healing and clerics, also note my previous answer to Jvstin's post about Queen Vialle's damaged eyesight:
Health, Immortality, and Endurance Or what E. Wujcik might have told you about amberites
Royals of Amber get mussed, stabbed, and in extreme cases, killed. Knowing how quickly they "bounce back" is a nice yardstick to have around for those players who hope there is some sort of objective scale to this.
General 'glowing health' is the way I see Amber. A body restores itself because that is a natural fact of the ideal realm. As an example, joints wear more slowly because the material is literally denser and more resilient and lasts for a few centuries. Natural death for folks arriving in Amber as adults might be little different from their own home shadow. Natural death on the Golden Circle is normally at about 150 years; while in Amber it is probably closer to 300 years. Whatever numbers your GM uses, the important thing here is that Amber is a summit of health.
Amberites are hard to kill.
For this little ramble, I'm going to ignore the attributes except Endurance. Yes, good Psyche might tell you to duck before the trigger is pulled. Mighty Strength will blunt the impact of the fall from the East Stair. Amazing Warfare might mean that your wounds are much less than the other guy's. Some positive Stuff could make a terrible situation prove less so in final outcome. Such matters are interpretive based on GM and specific game conditions.
All assumptions are built quickly from this: Dramatically speaking, how fast does a human die in combat?
If you want to have a bitter and edgy game, you can set this to one single mistake. One traumatic wound and a mortal is dead. If you want to have mortal companions often fight alongside your Amber princess, then you may want to set this value to three or four. In my Amber I set this value to two. Two serious wounds, two dangerous gunshots, two well-placed arrows etcetera and so forth. Dramatically speaking, in my games I want life to be tenacious, so a single mistake does not kill a mortal.
Ah, but there are so many permutations. What about double damage? What about weapons that throw a missile-a-second into a crowd? What about nuclear explosions?
Well, what about them? They aren't the normal dramatic means are they? If they are, I suspect your Amber game is very different from mine. Move along, nothing to read here.
Like in the novels by Zelazny, in my game, daggers, swords, slings and arrows are the outrageous misfortune you can expect dramatically. So my theory goes, that even Dalt cutting down a shadow-dweller will take two "actions" or two turns or two "decisions" as to how he is going to do that. Some characters will be of "no dramatic importance" and might expire faster, but the yardstick is still there to provide a measure of how quickly peril will be dished out.
So, for example, when confronted by two officers of the law while hauling Corwin's ass out of a lake, Brand runs off. He does not pull a blade and snicker-snack a couple of trained guys who have guns.
Ah, but of course, Amberites are tougher than mortals. You knew that, of course. Chaosians on average are twice as durable as mortals and Amberites are twice as durable as Chaosians. So Chaosians get four serious mistakes and Amberites get eight such wounds before they are near to death and unable to defend themselves.
No Amberite would want to annoy two law enforcement officers with some twelve shots between them. Who knows how practiced they are? How many shots can they get off and how quickly? No, immortal lives are worth more discretion.
And Endurance is really, really important. Look at this chart.
Yes, isn't that handy? Corwin, our hero of never-ending-endurance probably is top of the chart. He can soak up sixteen serious wounds. I want to assure you that I don't mean that you literally are guarenteed that shooting the man seventeen times means he's dead. But all things being equal and advantageous to your schemes, this should work for you.
On the other hand, there is that double-damage thing to help you along. Knock yourself out.
Everything else follows from common sense. How long to heal a broken bone? Well, certainly eight weeks would fix most things for a healthy mortal. That's four weeks for a Chaosian unable or unskilled at shaping an advantage in healing or about two weeks for an average Amber royal's Endurance. Perhaps four days for Corwin. So now you know how long the fella was kept in that hospital before he woke up and decided to leave in chapter one.
If the simulationists in your gaming group want to tell you that bullet wounds, stab wounds and magical wounds are all too different to be lumped into a "serious wound" category, then write me and I'll put you in touch with trans-dimensional health experts. For our game purposes, I think they are dramatically equal. More importantly, I've always felt that the system has to be simple enough to keep in your head, but respect the Zelazny canon and something of Wujcik's rule base.
I'll leave it for the more bloody-minded GMs out there to decide just where/how the dangers of the universe fit into double, triple, and mega-damage types. It would be fair to consider that Brand might have lived with three arrows in him had he not also fallen off a cliff; that Caine probably did not have a double-damage or 'cursed' weapon (though it was silver); that Oberon sustained tremendous stress to be killed repairing the Pattern.
As always, your mileage may vary.
Additional healing information:
-magical or high-tech repairs will hold only in the shadow that spawned them (you might be able to save someone's life, or revive someone dead less than five minutes)
-amberites heal at slightly faster rates when shadow-repaired (brought back from the edge, your body will recover faster if the shadow tech/magic is allowing you mobility and exercise while your Real Healing goes after the Real Damage. You aren't as healthy as you appear, and shouldn't leave the shadow)
-shadow-regenerated parts will fail quickly upon return to Amber (missing parts atrophy within weeks, as they cannot be sustained by damaged systems)
-the more basic the shadow-healing method, the better it helps an amberite (rest, splints, transfer of energy from a cousin)
-the more esoteric the shadow-healing method, the less it helps an amberite (nano-tech, regen tanks, divine-gifted healing)
-full regeneration is a twenty year process (longer for below 0 Endurance, shorter for ranked Endurance)
-0 Endurance heals four times faster than shadow Endurance, and twice as fast as Chaos Endurance
Saw the film :: Daredevil :: yesterday as part of my "snow day."
It was done well, as these things go. The ability of Hollywood to mess up a well-written bit of myth is amazing when you consider how films get made. (Witness what was done to poor, poor, Batman. First film excellent, second good, everything else junk.) Daredevil's story is not quite as accessible as Spiderman's, but the film-makers did a good job of compressing about four or five storylines into two hours. I've seen comments elsewhere that the fight scenes were too dark and choppy, but I disagree. The cast and director did a good job of making the tale gritty enough to be apropos of the "Hell's Kitchen" background. As for those film critics who claimed this story was just boring (my S.O. had a white-knuckle grip on my arm many times)... I think the Matrix has thrown a lot of 'action-meters' out of whack. And wait until the two sequels to the Matrix come out this year... YOW!
From Thy Kingdom Come There is no comment feature in this linked blog, but I have a great deal of respect for the GM posting here. So I refer you to this at No Longer Strangers, where she describes how she sees her own GMing. I've learned things from this lady and hope she continues to post tidbits.
No office today. Like many others, I've spent the last two days shoveling. Sunday was two passes of the same driveway, first for two inches, then again for six inches. Today I opened the garage to find twelve inches, drifting higher in some places. But I didn't have the heart to shovel it all again, so I cut two tracks one shovel-wide and did finally get the car to the street.
But roads proved to be impassible and unsafe. So here I am at the castle.
