or even face-to-face games, but I still think Terra Nova might be of interest to some of you.
Month: September 2003
Thrunk goes Klunk
First fatality in the new (Jeff and Andy) campaign: Jeff’s character Thrunk Shillelagh got pinned in a corner by a trio of skeletons and hacked to bits. Andy’s character Link was running pellmell for the exit of the dungeon, and so wasn’t in any position to try first aid or to recover the body. Remember kids: In D&D always bring a Cleric!
Russell sez
Buried in a comment that nobody but me will read, so I’ve copied here:
It looks like I’ll be running a few Sunday D&D games while I’m on the East Coast. Sunday night players might want to browse the game web-page at http://www-cse.ucsd.edu/users/russell/DND to get a sense of the world and to start designing characters. I tend to make a lot of world information available, so much that it intimidates some. Most of the information is just for my own benefit, although there’s nothing most PC’s wouldn’t know. So don’t be put off by the bulk, and just skim the parts you need for your character or that you find interesting.
For Scott and Rachel on their long journey
Meanwhile, back at the ranch
Nothing in particular happened Sunday. Wendy and Doug were the only ones who could make it, and Doug had to bail when work paged him, so we ended up watching Teen Titans and Duck Dodgers. Thanks, TiVo!
Corrupting the Youth of Athens
We introduced Jeff’s nine-year old son Andy to the joys of D&D over the weekend, and I have to say that it went remarkably well. He caught on very quickly, no doubt because of Andy’s vast exposure to computer games, including some RPG-ish games (such as Kingdom Hearts). Granted, it wasn’t a real role-playing challenge, just a dungeon crawl, but you have to start somewhere, and there is a lot to be said for a linear structure and concrete objectives.
Roman Board Games
The Body Count Rises
The Joe Dimaggio of Fallen Heroes kept his streak alive last night — just in the nick of time it seems. The mighty Monkasho (sp?), Scott’s character, was unceremoniously squashed, sprayed and flushed last night, bringing his campaign to character death ratio back to perfect alignment. Some said it could not be done, particularly since Scott had just leveled up (making his character the toughest in the party), but Scott, always the resourceful gamer, proved us all wrong. Now, just like all great champions, Scott is going out on top. 🙂
Rachel and Scott will be deeply missed.
Alas, poor Nolan
we hardly knew ye.
My good friend Russell, who’s been playing RPGs with me for a little over twenty years now was with us last Sunday, and the group promptly abandoned his character Nolan to his doom. This was the first time Russell has lost a PC in one of my campaigns, which are notoriously hard to die in, in years and years and it shocked him a little. I mostly blame Rachel. <wink> Sure, the monsters they were fighting were probably too tough (even though I was confused about the rules, not having internalized D&D 3.5 yet , and made them much wimpier than their official stats would indicate), and I neglected to have the inexperienced young NPC who was tagging along play optimally which probably would have saved him, but it was Rachel’s character Pedro who first cut and ran, leaving the dying Nolan to get crunched. It’s entirely possible that Pedro couldn’t have helped, but what surprised Rusell was that he didn’t even attempt it. Of course, it was perfectly in character for Pedro; don’t let Rachel tell you that she never plays evil characters. Hint: if she’s playing a Rogue, that Rogue will be evil, no matter what the official alignment is. Stealing from party members, betraying their secrets to local criminal families, it’s all part of the job to her. Russell, however, was foolishly assuming an implicit “Band of Brothers” contract among the party members because that’s what he’s used to. This was foolish, because I’ve told him enough stories about this group of players that he should have known better; he’s even read this blog.
The game goes on: Russell’s already made up another character for next time we play, one that’s much more survival oriented. I kind of wonder whether a sniper with a cloak of invisibility isn’t too much of a reaction, though….
Tales of the Rambling Bumblers 