For reasons I can't fathom, the Blogger feature that emails me when someone posts a comment seems to work with complete randomness. I got no emails for a month, despite folks posting comments (and me in due course finding them and belatedly answering), then this afternoon a flurry of several emails, but still one email fewer than there were comments posted. Hmm.
In any, Elliot asked about grick recipes. And I have been the source, and I have answers. Here's the word from Bladesbat on grick cookery:
1. The tentacles should be lightly cooked and eaten with salt.
2. The body should be slathered in garlic and spit-roasted
3. Don't cook the beak. It's not good to eat, but you can and should save it to gnaw on, as it keeps your teeth sharp.
Sounds pretty tasty to me!
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Sunday, May 27, 2007
How It Ought to Work
Any prospective blogger really should be aware of the basic requirements of their craft, at least if they care whether anyone reads their stuff. The most basic requirement, it seems to me, is regularity. I think most people still consume blogs in a fairly low-tech way (that's actually sort of a term of art in the tech sector, at least for me, and is not necessarily derogatory: low-tech is often the simplest and best solution, and the admonition to "stay low-tech on this design" warns us not to make things more complex, fussy or expensive than they need to be). By low-tech I mean the practice of periodically returning to the bookmarked blog and seeing if there's anything you haven't seen. A few hardy souls may consume your blog via more high-tech tool such as an RSS reader or other aggregator that scans a variety of data sources, pulls them together and lets you know when any specific data source (a blog, say) has new stuff.
But regardless, regularity is still a requirement. As indeed it is in any form of writing. Speaking of other forms of writing, perhaps I can use that as a bit of an excuse. In a by-now-typical fit of overconfidence, a couple of my colleagues and I have once again signed up for vastly too much technical writing in too short a period. We have just finished a six-week period of revising one of our technical books to keep up with new software, and are now engaged in a rewriting the training curriculum for said software from the ground up. I've also personally signed up to write two technical white papers (yes, on the same software release), as well as put together two talks for the annual developer conference. It's nice to be invited to do all of these things, but there's definitely some eyes >> stomach going on there.
So that, for what it may be worth, is my excuse, and it's taken me so long to write that I'm going to have to postpone the actual intended content of this post till some unspecified future time.
OK, kidding! Let's move on. I left Thorgun on the castle steps, peering down into the dark.
One thing we learned about half-orcs is that they have darkvision. Sixty feet of crisp black and white visibility even in complete darkness. Mostly this has been useful since it eliminates some cumbersome game mechanics; when E wants to do something in the dark I don't face the choice between letting little issues like lighting slide, or pedantically insisting he needs to remember to bring a lantern. No fussing with lanterns, no oil flasks, none of that. (Some of you may recall games in which oil flasks were a primary weapon, deemed to be as flammable as naphtha and as safe to carry as beef jerky).
Below the stair, and the shattered ruins of its door (recalling that marvelous chapter in Narnia 2, Prince Caspian, where the Pevensy kids are wandering in the ruins and find a broken door gaping on darkness, and slowly begin to realize they're in the ruins of the castle they ruled from, Cair Paravel, itself one of the greatest names in fantasy lit but I digress) was a small warren of rooms and passage (see the earlier map). Most notable were the scattered shells of large eggs. Thorgun recognized them right away as grick eggs, and proceeded cautiously. The first room to the left was filled with these shells. From there, three arches opened onto a huge space further west, which for now he decided to leave alone. Instead he crossed the main passage and found a second passage twisting east, then north. Here the obligatory slithering sounds commenced, and he had soon met and defeated the day's first grick. If I recall right, a second much larger one then appeared from deeper in, driving him back out into the daylight.
Once more, at Bladesbat Cave, Thorgun caused a bit of a stir. Not only had he brought back the usual grick, but also tales of hidden ruins. As we know from some of his earlier outings, not everyone in the cave bore him the best will, and it seems likely that plans were laid to raid the caves and tunnels for the treasure that presumably lay there. (It might even be that Thorgun himself sparked those ideas by talking a bit too freely about the loot he had discovered, which in the end was a handful of coins dropped by grick victims of old).
All of this occurred, believe it or not, over the course of about two days in early April 2007, owing to E's discovery of his uncle K's gaming books. Uncle K was busy with work-related matters but expressed considerable eagerness to join E in the game, and at this juncture he did so. Good thing too, as opposing forces were beginning to scheme against our crew. Hearing the rumblings in the camp, they made hurried plans to return to the castle and delve deeper. Not long on their way, they heard shouts and the clatter of armor behind them, and picked up their pace.
They reached the castle at speed. A look back over the dank forest, and a sharp ear, told them a stout band of malcontents was not far behind them. Standing and fighting was a poor option, as was running away. Instead, they decided to plunge straight into the dungeon, hoping their enemies would lack the courage to do so, or in any case the resourcefulness to make a success of their descent.
From the main passage they headed west, through the eggshell-scattered room and through the three arches into the wide hall beyond. This hall had once been paved with huge stones, but many of these had been lifted and thrust aside, apparently from below. Underneath, the sandy soil was pocked with dark, inward-twisting holes. "Burrows" was the word that came to mind, but they had no time to think too hard on the matter, as the gang of Bladesbat thugs was now making their way cautiously down the outer stair.
It turned out that crouching in the dark (OK, granted that all parties involved have darkvision) was the best approach. Darkvision or not, the marauding band was most uneasy in the dungeon. They stood firm during what sounded like one grick encounter, but shortly afterward, Something Emerged to drive them moaning from the underground. There was a brief sound of retreating feet, then silence.
Thorgun and uncle decided it would best to get out of the plowed-up hall. The burrows looked threatening, and they had begun to notice that the air was pungent with a sharp, sweet reek (formic acid, as it happened). They got out of there and went back to the main hall, where they found a dead grick, presumably left by the fleeing thugs.
They made further explorations. The main hall twisted left and ended in a locked door. My memory of the room was imperfect, but E has reminded me that, once they broke the door down, they found a number of sealed boxes, with high-grade weapons carefully packaged in oilcloth or the like: good steel swords and shield. They availed themselves of some upgrades, though Thorgun decided that the swords were no improvement on his huge greataxe. Further east, they ventured into the passage that seemed to be as far as anyone had yet penetrated. From ahead came a faint sound of running water. That was what probably masked the sound of the approach of a truly immense grick, all barbed tentacled and menace, doubtless getting very tired of having to chase off one visitor after another.
These visitors, though, did not chase. They fought. Uncle K, though level 1 to Thorgun's 2 or 3, proved to hit nearly as hard as he did, and the beast went down in a flurry. Alone, one imagines Thorgun would have been hard pressed.
And so onward, down some stairs and into a large round chamber with six inches of water on the flow, flowing slowly eastward. They soon discovered that a natural stream flowed through, from some small caves to the west, over the floor, and away eastward, to tip over a ten-foot drop in the eastern passage and spill out a grate in the hillside. Clearly a sewer, built in such a way that anyone wrestling the grate out of the hill would have faced a wet, ten-foot climb to get into the castle's underbelly.
And finally, at the back of the room, a barely traversable crack into darkness. Actually, traversing it didn't come up much at first, because it promptly disgorged its inhabitant, an enraged carrion crawler.
Now, I have deep affection and nostalgia for carrion crawlers. They were somehow emblematic to me of the first Monster Manual. Nothing ever quite said ADVANCED D&D (as opposed to the rudimentary form we'd presumably been playing) as a carrion crawler. That said, I had forgotten how they actually worked ...
How they work is by secreting a paralyzing goo that knocks you out of commission for many tens of minutes -- in effect, for an entire combat. And that was just what happened to Thorgun. In all truth I had been fudging the dice not infrequently on e's behalf, and this time I was somehow disinclined to do so. So Thorgun was out of business, and uncle K fought on. E was as put out by this as by earlier near-death experiences, and threw himself in a corner, but soon recovered as his uncle handily defeated the critter (maybe not so handily, it was a bit touch and go, but uncle pulled through).
Once they'd composed themselves they explored the crack. It opened into a series of caves, finally reaching the hillside burrow of the rest of the carrion crawlers. They looked to be too much to handle, so it was back into the underground.
The only unexplored area was the torn-up hall with the ominous holes in the ground. These turned out to be the burrows of giant ants. They tried a bit of burrow exploration, but were quickly put off by the teeming numbers. They retreated and, with a bit of daring, went ahead to where the hall turned a corner.
From there the hall stretched out straight as an arrow for much farther than either of them could see. Beyond the turn was an ancient plaque on the wall, covered in what appeared to be writing. Though neither of them could read it, Thorgun alertly copied it, reasoning that Vishara, the Bladesbat shamaness, might be able to make sense of it. Then, with the ants chittering menacingly at burrow openings, they finally headed for daylight.
Old Vishara seemed perplexed by their intrusion when they found her,and spent a long time squinting at what they'd written. Finally she peered at them and said "Were ya near a park somewheres?" A park? In the swamp? Certainly not. Well, she said, the plaque alluded to a "park highway." She ordered Thorgun to draw a P, then a D (here I was glossing over the fact that barbarians start out illiterate and need to spend skill levels to learn writing). He did so.
"Ah," she said. "I had it wrong. It reads:
HERE BEGINS THE DARK HIGHWAY*
Dark, dark. That's more like it!"
More like what, exactly? Thorgun and uncle K retreated to lick their wounds, watching their backs for any more mischief from the Bladesbat gang.
Still ahead:We visit a game store, and E decides to try his hand at game-mastering.
*A fellow I gamed with a bit in my college days, Mr. John Bedell, once said (or at least is said to have said) that "originality is the art of concealing your sources." As a veteran cobbler of things together, I agree with that sentiment, whoever said it. I'll strike a blow against my own originality, then, by admitting that the phrase Dark Highway has rattled around my head for 20 years, ever since another old gaming friend, Mr. Chuck D., included a Dark Highway in a game he ran. Now, CD may have had it from other sources, but I can trace the chain of non-originality no farther. Credit where credit is due. Or wait, this would be non-credit where credit isn't due ... well, see the trouble the whole idea of attribution entails?
Let's just say, "I've always like the sound of The Dark Highway."
But regardless, regularity is still a requirement. As indeed it is in any form of writing. Speaking of other forms of writing, perhaps I can use that as a bit of an excuse. In a by-now-typical fit of overconfidence, a couple of my colleagues and I have once again signed up for vastly too much technical writing in too short a period. We have just finished a six-week period of revising one of our technical books to keep up with new software, and are now engaged in a rewriting the training curriculum for said software from the ground up. I've also personally signed up to write two technical white papers (yes, on the same software release), as well as put together two talks for the annual developer conference. It's nice to be invited to do all of these things, but there's definitely some eyes >> stomach going on there.
So that, for what it may be worth, is my excuse, and it's taken me so long to write that I'm going to have to postpone the actual intended content of this post till some unspecified future time.
OK, kidding! Let's move on. I left Thorgun on the castle steps, peering down into the dark.
One thing we learned about half-orcs is that they have darkvision. Sixty feet of crisp black and white visibility even in complete darkness. Mostly this has been useful since it eliminates some cumbersome game mechanics; when E wants to do something in the dark I don't face the choice between letting little issues like lighting slide, or pedantically insisting he needs to remember to bring a lantern. No fussing with lanterns, no oil flasks, none of that. (Some of you may recall games in which oil flasks were a primary weapon, deemed to be as flammable as naphtha and as safe to carry as beef jerky).
Below the stair, and the shattered ruins of its door (recalling that marvelous chapter in Narnia 2, Prince Caspian, where the Pevensy kids are wandering in the ruins and find a broken door gaping on darkness, and slowly begin to realize they're in the ruins of the castle they ruled from, Cair Paravel, itself one of the greatest names in fantasy lit but I digress) was a small warren of rooms and passage (see the earlier map). Most notable were the scattered shells of large eggs. Thorgun recognized them right away as grick eggs, and proceeded cautiously. The first room to the left was filled with these shells. From there, three arches opened onto a huge space further west, which for now he decided to leave alone. Instead he crossed the main passage and found a second passage twisting east, then north. Here the obligatory slithering sounds commenced, and he had soon met and defeated the day's first grick. If I recall right, a second much larger one then appeared from deeper in, driving him back out into the daylight.
Once more, at Bladesbat Cave, Thorgun caused a bit of a stir. Not only had he brought back the usual grick, but also tales of hidden ruins. As we know from some of his earlier outings, not everyone in the cave bore him the best will, and it seems likely that plans were laid to raid the caves and tunnels for the treasure that presumably lay there. (It might even be that Thorgun himself sparked those ideas by talking a bit too freely about the loot he had discovered, which in the end was a handful of coins dropped by grick victims of old).
Strength in Numbers
All of this occurred, believe it or not, over the course of about two days in early April 2007, owing to E's discovery of his uncle K's gaming books. Uncle K was busy with work-related matters but expressed considerable eagerness to join E in the game, and at this juncture he did so. Good thing too, as opposing forces were beginning to scheme against our crew. Hearing the rumblings in the camp, they made hurried plans to return to the castle and delve deeper. Not long on their way, they heard shouts and the clatter of armor behind them, and picked up their pace.
They reached the castle at speed. A look back over the dank forest, and a sharp ear, told them a stout band of malcontents was not far behind them. Standing and fighting was a poor option, as was running away. Instead, they decided to plunge straight into the dungeon, hoping their enemies would lack the courage to do so, or in any case the resourcefulness to make a success of their descent.
From the main passage they headed west, through the eggshell-scattered room and through the three arches into the wide hall beyond. This hall had once been paved with huge stones, but many of these had been lifted and thrust aside, apparently from below. Underneath, the sandy soil was pocked with dark, inward-twisting holes. "Burrows" was the word that came to mind, but they had no time to think too hard on the matter, as the gang of Bladesbat thugs was now making their way cautiously down the outer stair.
It turned out that crouching in the dark (OK, granted that all parties involved have darkvision) was the best approach. Darkvision or not, the marauding band was most uneasy in the dungeon. They stood firm during what sounded like one grick encounter, but shortly afterward, Something Emerged to drive them moaning from the underground. There was a brief sound of retreating feet, then silence.
Thorgun and uncle decided it would best to get out of the plowed-up hall. The burrows looked threatening, and they had begun to notice that the air was pungent with a sharp, sweet reek (formic acid, as it happened). They got out of there and went back to the main hall, where they found a dead grick, presumably left by the fleeing thugs.
They made further explorations. The main hall twisted left and ended in a locked door. My memory of the room was imperfect, but E has reminded me that, once they broke the door down, they found a number of sealed boxes, with high-grade weapons carefully packaged in oilcloth or the like: good steel swords and shield. They availed themselves of some upgrades, though Thorgun decided that the swords were no improvement on his huge greataxe. Further east, they ventured into the passage that seemed to be as far as anyone had yet penetrated. From ahead came a faint sound of running water. That was what probably masked the sound of the approach of a truly immense grick, all barbed tentacled and menace, doubtless getting very tired of having to chase off one visitor after another.
These visitors, though, did not chase. They fought. Uncle K, though level 1 to Thorgun's 2 or 3, proved to hit nearly as hard as he did, and the beast went down in a flurry. Alone, one imagines Thorgun would have been hard pressed.
And so onward, down some stairs and into a large round chamber with six inches of water on the flow, flowing slowly eastward. They soon discovered that a natural stream flowed through, from some small caves to the west, over the floor, and away eastward, to tip over a ten-foot drop in the eastern passage and spill out a grate in the hillside. Clearly a sewer, built in such a way that anyone wrestling the grate out of the hill would have faced a wet, ten-foot climb to get into the castle's underbelly.
And finally, at the back of the room, a barely traversable crack into darkness. Actually, traversing it didn't come up much at first, because it promptly disgorged its inhabitant, an enraged carrion crawler.
Now, I have deep affection and nostalgia for carrion crawlers. They were somehow emblematic to me of the first Monster Manual. Nothing ever quite said ADVANCED D&D (as opposed to the rudimentary form we'd presumably been playing) as a carrion crawler. That said, I had forgotten how they actually worked ...
How they work is by secreting a paralyzing goo that knocks you out of commission for many tens of minutes -- in effect, for an entire combat. And that was just what happened to Thorgun. In all truth I had been fudging the dice not infrequently on e's behalf, and this time I was somehow disinclined to do so. So Thorgun was out of business, and uncle K fought on. E was as put out by this as by earlier near-death experiences, and threw himself in a corner, but soon recovered as his uncle handily defeated the critter (maybe not so handily, it was a bit touch and go, but uncle pulled through).
Once they'd composed themselves they explored the crack. It opened into a series of caves, finally reaching the hillside burrow of the rest of the carrion crawlers. They looked to be too much to handle, so it was back into the underground.
The only unexplored area was the torn-up hall with the ominous holes in the ground. These turned out to be the burrows of giant ants. They tried a bit of burrow exploration, but were quickly put off by the teeming numbers. They retreated and, with a bit of daring, went ahead to where the hall turned a corner.
From there the hall stretched out straight as an arrow for much farther than either of them could see. Beyond the turn was an ancient plaque on the wall, covered in what appeared to be writing. Though neither of them could read it, Thorgun alertly copied it, reasoning that Vishara, the Bladesbat shamaness, might be able to make sense of it. Then, with the ants chittering menacingly at burrow openings, they finally headed for daylight.
Old Vishara seemed perplexed by their intrusion when they found her,and spent a long time squinting at what they'd written. Finally she peered at them and said "Were ya near a park somewheres?" A park? In the swamp? Certainly not. Well, she said, the plaque alluded to a "park highway." She ordered Thorgun to draw a P, then a D (here I was glossing over the fact that barbarians start out illiterate and need to spend skill levels to learn writing). He did so.
"Ah," she said. "I had it wrong. It reads:
HERE BEGINS THE DARK HIGHWAY*
Dark, dark. That's more like it!"
More like what, exactly? Thorgun and uncle K retreated to lick their wounds, watching their backs for any more mischief from the Bladesbat gang.
***********
Still ahead:We visit a game store, and E decides to try his hand at game-mastering.
*A fellow I gamed with a bit in my college days, Mr. John Bedell, once said (or at least is said to have said) that "originality is the art of concealing your sources." As a veteran cobbler of things together, I agree with that sentiment, whoever said it. I'll strike a blow against my own originality, then, by admitting that the phrase Dark Highway has rattled around my head for 20 years, ever since another old gaming friend, Mr. Chuck D., included a Dark Highway in a game he ran. Now, CD may have had it from other sources, but I can trace the chain of non-originality no farther. Credit where credit is due. Or wait, this would be non-credit where credit isn't due ... well, see the trouble the whole idea of attribution entails?
Let's just say, "I've always like the sound of The Dark Highway."
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Local Rivalries
Thorgun was moving up in the world. He'd become an accomplished hunter of the grick. Not only was he bringing home food to the larder, but he was starting to accumulate actual treasure.
Apparently his exploits were becoming well-known. What was more, we were getting bored with grick battles. This led me to introduce a new foe, and to cross an invisible line without quite knowing it (though JP would later point this fact out to me).
After Thorgun's next victory over a grick, he was confronted, as he was dragging his prize home, by two burly gnoll brothers. Here, for the first time, Thorgun faced sentient, semi-intelligent opponents. That this was an important was not clear to witless me till JP later noted the fact. Ah well.
Since I was still misreading the concept of Challenge Rating (see previous post), these gnolls were more than a match for Thorgun. He did kill one of them, but the other mastered him. Once again, the chance appearance of a Bladesbat war party was needed in order to save the situation. E was still very disgruntled at losing.
Back at home, the Bladesbat chief ordered a patrol, to go find the other gnoll and avenge the dishonor. Thorgun was to lead the patrol. Unfortunately, it was staffed with malcontent half-orcs, including one large troublemaker (whom I never blessed with a name) who was clearly No Good. Once sufficiently out into the woods, this rascal induced most of the party to abandon Thorgun. Happily, one fellow stayed behind, but there was no sign of the offending gnolls. Eventually they went home empty-handed, and were roundly mocked by No-Good and his gang.
That was two setbacks in a row. Time to try for something bigger. Grick could certainly be found in the odd crack in the stone, but what was really needed was some Serious Underground. Well it happened that not far away was the obligatory Ruined Castle, and of course, walled away beneath it, a basement area (yes, a.k.a A Dungeon)
A dungeon, a dungeon. Now THAT takes me back. It didn't take me long (as you can tell) to bang out the above. Fired by the thought of fresh grick, Thorgun hustled his way off to the castle, dug about till he found the dark weed-choked steps leading into the earth, and vanished into the darkness.
Apparently his exploits were becoming well-known. What was more, we were getting bored with grick battles. This led me to introduce a new foe, and to cross an invisible line without quite knowing it (though JP would later point this fact out to me).
After Thorgun's next victory over a grick, he was confronted, as he was dragging his prize home, by two burly gnoll brothers. Here, for the first time, Thorgun faced sentient, semi-intelligent opponents. That this was an important was not clear to witless me till JP later noted the fact. Ah well.
Since I was still misreading the concept of Challenge Rating (see previous post), these gnolls were more than a match for Thorgun. He did kill one of them, but the other mastered him. Once again, the chance appearance of a Bladesbat war party was needed in order to save the situation. E was still very disgruntled at losing.
Back at home, the Bladesbat chief ordered a patrol, to go find the other gnoll and avenge the dishonor. Thorgun was to lead the patrol. Unfortunately, it was staffed with malcontent half-orcs, including one large troublemaker (whom I never blessed with a name) who was clearly No Good. Once sufficiently out into the woods, this rascal induced most of the party to abandon Thorgun. Happily, one fellow stayed behind, but there was no sign of the offending gnolls. Eventually they went home empty-handed, and were roundly mocked by No-Good and his gang.
That was two setbacks in a row. Time to try for something bigger. Grick could certainly be found in the odd crack in the stone, but what was really needed was some Serious Underground. Well it happened that not far away was the obligatory Ruined Castle, and of course, walled away beneath it, a basement area (yes, a.k.a A Dungeon)
A dungeon, a dungeon. Now THAT takes me back. It didn't take me long (as you can tell) to bang out the above. Fired by the thought of fresh grick, Thorgun hustled his way off to the castle, dug about till he found the dark weed-choked steps leading into the earth, and vanished into the darkness.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
The Trail of the Grick
Let's get back to Thorgun, E's new half-orc.
After handily defeating the first giant centipede, and battling the next till he passed out, E went on another monster browse in the ol' Monster Manual. This time his eye lit on a creature called a grick, a loathsome crack-dwelling tentacled horror. (I could describe them further but, alarmingly enough, you can find out the same things in the Wikipedia entry). He decided it was Thorgun's mission in life to hunt them. So off went T into the dank forests around Bladesbat cave, in search of likely cracks.
Monsters in the newer Monster Manuals are each assigned a Challenge Rating. Apparently, a monster's CR is intended to indicate that the creature is a fair fight for about 4 PCs of that level. A monster with CR 8 should give a good fight to 4 eighth-level PCs, supposedly.
E and I picked up on challenge rating, but I did not pick up on the number "four". As a result I had the tendency early on to send him up against creatures with a CR equal to about his level, oblivious to the fact that, at least per the game designers he was outmatched as much as four to one.
This further explains why I had to fudge some rolls to keep him alive in the early going. It also further explains why he seemed to be leveling up at an alarming rate! The DMG explains to us that monster challenge and awarded XP are intended to be balanced in such a way that a PC will require about 13 encounters of a CR equal to their level, in order to advance a level. Thorgun on the other hand was advancing every 3-4 encounters! Hmm.
On reflection, I have to admit, alarmingly, that my gaming senses have been deeply affected, and likely dulled, by the horribly addictive World of Warcraft. WoW has, in effect, two challenge modes. Certain types of monster can be handily mastered by a character of the same level as the monster. In fact, when fighting "regular" monsters, a skilled player can generally take on 2-3 monsters of the same level as himself, and survive. A second kind of monster, known as an elite, generally has triple the hit points and hands out a great deal more damage than a regular monster of that level. Most players will be hard pressed to defeat an elite of their level single-handed. So a level 35 player can take on several level 35 monsters, or a single monster of level 37 or 38, and prevail. The same player will likely barely make it through a fight with a 35 elite.
I have a feeling that this system was on my mind in looking at Challenge Rating. Hence, in evaluating monsters for Thorgun to tackle, when he was level 1, I figured a CR 1 monster would be a fair fight, and a CR 2 monster a reasonable stretch with some good rolls.
That turned out to be not quite the case.
There was one further wrinkle with the grick: it has four tentacles, each with significant damage potential. Soon I understood why a create with weak hit points had a challenge rating of 2 or 3. (Thorgun was level 2 by now, on the strength of 3 small and one medium giant centipede). Alas, I didn't understand how monster multiple attacks worked ... I gave the creatures four attacks at full bonus, whereas each additional attack after the primary is supposed to sugger a -5 penalty ...
It all added up, as you can imagine, to a tough challenge.
Well, I'll admit it's been so long I don't remember all the details of the grick encounters. I do know that I needed to teach E the wisdom of running away. Alas, once he picked up on this tactic, he began using it at the slightest hint of danger, after even one hit from a monster! So I then had to advise him on the wisdom of how to stand and fight.
In the end it turned out grick was a half-orc delicacy, and the larders at Bladesbat received several deliveries. More, these monsters had actual treasure! Now that was a thrill.
From Bladesbat cave, then, the sounds of contented gnawing and the clatter of picked Grick bones ...
After handily defeating the first giant centipede, and battling the next till he passed out, E went on another monster browse in the ol' Monster Manual. This time his eye lit on a creature called a grick, a loathsome crack-dwelling tentacled horror. (I could describe them further but, alarmingly enough, you can find out the same things in the Wikipedia entry). He decided it was Thorgun's mission in life to hunt them. So off went T into the dank forests around Bladesbat cave, in search of likely cracks.
Another systems digression
Monsters in the newer Monster Manuals are each assigned a Challenge Rating. Apparently, a monster's CR is intended to indicate that the creature is a fair fight for about 4 PCs of that level. A monster with CR 8 should give a good fight to 4 eighth-level PCs, supposedly.
E and I picked up on challenge rating, but I did not pick up on the number "four". As a result I had the tendency early on to send him up against creatures with a CR equal to about his level, oblivious to the fact that, at least per the game designers he was outmatched as much as four to one.
This further explains why I had to fudge some rolls to keep him alive in the early going. It also further explains why he seemed to be leveling up at an alarming rate! The DMG explains to us that monster challenge and awarded XP are intended to be balanced in such a way that a PC will require about 13 encounters of a CR equal to their level, in order to advance a level. Thorgun on the other hand was advancing every 3-4 encounters! Hmm.
On reflection, I have to admit, alarmingly, that my gaming senses have been deeply affected, and likely dulled, by the horribly addictive World of Warcraft. WoW has, in effect, two challenge modes. Certain types of monster can be handily mastered by a character of the same level as the monster. In fact, when fighting "regular" monsters, a skilled player can generally take on 2-3 monsters of the same level as himself, and survive. A second kind of monster, known as an elite, generally has triple the hit points and hands out a great deal more damage than a regular monster of that level. Most players will be hard pressed to defeat an elite of their level single-handed. So a level 35 player can take on several level 35 monsters, or a single monster of level 37 or 38, and prevail. The same player will likely barely make it through a fight with a 35 elite.
I have a feeling that this system was on my mind in looking at Challenge Rating. Hence, in evaluating monsters for Thorgun to tackle, when he was level 1, I figured a CR 1 monster would be a fair fight, and a CR 2 monster a reasonable stretch with some good rolls.
That turned out to be not quite the case.
There was one further wrinkle with the grick: it has four tentacles, each with significant damage potential. Soon I understood why a create with weak hit points had a challenge rating of 2 or 3. (Thorgun was level 2 by now, on the strength of 3 small and one medium giant centipede). Alas, I didn't understand how monster multiple attacks worked ... I gave the creatures four attacks at full bonus, whereas each additional attack after the primary is supposed to sugger a -5 penalty ...
It all added up, as you can imagine, to a tough challenge.
Well, I'll admit it's been so long I don't remember all the details of the grick encounters. I do know that I needed to teach E the wisdom of running away. Alas, once he picked up on this tactic, he began using it at the slightest hint of danger, after even one hit from a monster! So I then had to advise him on the wisdom of how to stand and fight.
In the end it turned out grick was a half-orc delicacy, and the larders at Bladesbat received several deliveries. More, these monsters had actual treasure! Now that was a thrill.
From Bladesbat cave, then, the sounds of contented gnawing and the clatter of picked Grick bones ...
Monday, May 7, 2007
Ambition
The day after the MFCA show there was much watching of the "Making Of" bits of the Lord of the Rings extended edition DVDs. Lots about making monsters, and sets, and "miniatures". Especially interesting to E was the "small" Minas Tirith. Ever since inspecting the "siege of Azure City" as part of a miniatures game, in the Order of the Stick comic strip, E has been fascinated with the idea of building a city for miniatures to romp about in.
So tonight he asks me "Dad, how big would a Minas Tirith have to be to be the right size for your action figures?" (as he calls my miniatures).
The answer was easy, because Weta's "small" Minas Tirith for LotR was exactly 1:72 scale, if I recall, which is very good match for 25mm figs.
Weta's "small" Minas Tirith was the better part of nine feet tall.
"Well," I told him, "it would fill this room."
"Wow," he said. Pause. "Well can we build it?"
I am having visions shades of Mrs. Winchester, and/or Richard Dreyfus. "Local recluse added to city for decades, shunned all contact."
But the vision is worthy ...
So tonight he asks me "Dad, how big would a Minas Tirith have to be to be the right size for your action figures?" (as he calls my miniatures).
The answer was easy, because Weta's "small" Minas Tirith for LotR was exactly 1:72 scale, if I recall, which is very good match for 25mm figs.
Weta's "small" Minas Tirith was the better part of nine feet tall.
"Well," I told him, "it would fill this room."
"Wow," he said. Pause. "Well can we build it?"
I am having visions shades of Mrs. Winchester, and/or Richard Dreyfus. "Local recluse added to city for decades, shunned all contact."
But the vision is worthy ...
Västra Götaland, come on down!
I was looking for some nice means to track traffic to the blog, and I eventually settled on Google Analytics. Free, easy to integrate with Blogger, and it gaves you some great reports and views of your (in my case tiny) traffic data.
My favorite is the breakdown by geographic region. I can see this as a list of city names, or as dots of various sizes on a world map.
I don't know whether it's just that the blog's been up for a little while, and various spiders and hacker bots are starting to find it, or if Google, plus some Technorati tagging is starting to influence traffic at all, but I'm starting to see a tiny trickle of traffic from outside the immediate circle of people I know -- including hits from France, Singapore, and Sweden. Hmm, as of tonight, Costa Rica as well.
It's amusing to inspect where the traffic comes from. The site in Costa Rica is called Heredia province, which in addition to sounding like a nice place to visit, what with volcanoes and a national wildlife refuge, also reminds me of the author (José María de Heredia) of one of my favorite poems in high school, Les Conquérants (French, I couldn't find a translation), which in turn reminds me of Archibald MacLeish's mighty Pulitzer poem "Conquistadors", which I commend to anyone who's interested in seeing the other uses to which history can be put ...
My French hit (singular) is from Les Pideaux, a bit to the west of France. Scrupulous Googling is unable to reveal to me what a pideau might be.
Singapore we all know.
And finally, my Swedish traffic, from Västra Götaland. West Goth-land? I'm envisioning a fella in furs and a horned helmet, crouching on the outer walls of a huge bulwark, jiggling his laptop and cursing how weak the wireless is outside the main castle.
West Goths, indeed. Where's an Alaric or a Chindaswinth when you need 'em?
My favorite is the breakdown by geographic region. I can see this as a list of city names, or as dots of various sizes on a world map.
I don't know whether it's just that the blog's been up for a little while, and various spiders and hacker bots are starting to find it, or if Google, plus some Technorati tagging is starting to influence traffic at all, but I'm starting to see a tiny trickle of traffic from outside the immediate circle of people I know -- including hits from France, Singapore, and Sweden. Hmm, as of tonight, Costa Rica as well.
It's amusing to inspect where the traffic comes from. The site in Costa Rica is called Heredia province, which in addition to sounding like a nice place to visit, what with volcanoes and a national wildlife refuge, also reminds me of the author (José María de Heredia) of one of my favorite poems in high school, Les Conquérants (French, I couldn't find a translation), which in turn reminds me of Archibald MacLeish's mighty Pulitzer poem "Conquistadors", which I commend to anyone who's interested in seeing the other uses to which history can be put ...
My French hit (singular) is from Les Pideaux, a bit to the west of France. Scrupulous Googling is unable to reveal to me what a pideau might be.
Singapore we all know.
And finally, my Swedish traffic, from Västra Götaland. West Goth-land? I'm envisioning a fella in furs and a horned helmet, crouching on the outer walls of a huge bulwark, jiggling his laptop and cursing how weak the wireless is outside the main castle.
West Goths, indeed. Where's an Alaric or a Chindaswinth when you need 'em?
Sunday, May 6, 2007
It's fun to stay at the MFCA
Years ago, in my youth (approximately 1978-1984), I was an avid painter of 25mm fantasy figures. Besides building up large collections of painted fantasy figures, my friend JP and I were regular visitors at the annual meeting and trade show of the Miniature Figure Collectors of America (MFCA). This show used to fill the field house every year over at Widener College, near West Chester, Pennsylvania. We'd go for the better part of a day, eat there, stagger home laden with loot.
Fast-forward almost 25 years. My figure painting hobby trailed off during college. I probably painted my last figures senior year. And I moved away from Pennsylvania, perennial home of the MFCA show, and stayed away till 2005.
Now that I'm back, I thought to scout around and see if the MFCA was still alive. JP mentioned that the shows had gone on, but much diminished. I made plans to see the 2006 show last year, but because of schedule confusion (the show runs Friday-Saturday, and I had assumed Saturday-Sunday), I didn't make it. JP did, and he informed it was disappointingly small. Despite that, and despite the $10 entrance fee, I made plans to go back this year.
I figured E would want to go. At the last minute R (two years younger), decided firmly that she wanted in. I anticipated boredom and an early meltdown, but agreed. Per JP's warnings, I was expecting a disappointing setup of four or five rickety tables with paunchy white guys crouched over them discussing the best way to paint the thick mustaches worn by the British office corps in India.
But no, not so much. The show may have looked a little smaller due to the large space it was in, but it was plenty large. If it was smaller than the Widener days, it was not by much at all. It took us the better part of an hour just to casually walk the aisles.
Size aside, my worry was still that the hobby would be moribund. It turns out that figure painting, like the other key hobby of my youth, model railroading, has taken on plenty of new blood, and is in no danger of immediate death.
The show, as it always has been, was divided into a vendors area and an exhibition area. The exhibits were grouped into skill ranks from Junior to Master, and would be judged at some point, though they hadn't been yet.
The skill of the painters was staggering. I lingered over a few, despite the fact that the bulk of the figures were 54mm figures and up (as opposed to the 25mm that used to be my forte), and a mix that was mostly military/historical, along with a small mixture of celebrities, superheroes and pin-ups (not age-appropriate, indeed).
Out in the vendors area, it became clear that the sale of painted figures has become big business. In the old days, if I recall well, the crowds were mostly painters and modelers. Most figures on sale were unpainted, though a number of painters did offer small numbers of their painted works for sale at high prices. You didn't have the feeling that too many people were making a living off of selling painted figures, though.
I stopped by one booth and commenced to marvelling over an extraordinarily painted 54mm war elephant. I mused aloud to JP as to the price, and extrovert that he is (relative to me) he insisted on actually asking. The person he asked was Nikki Johnson of Aero Art International, one of the main (if not the main) importers of these figures. She let me know the elephant cost $1500.00, and we then briefly talked past each other as I asked whether that were the painted or the unpainted price. She finally understood my question, and still seemed puzzled that anyone would think to try to buy a figure unpainted. "They're all painted!" she informed me. And indeed, given the quality of what we saw, the price tag began to seem more reasonable.
Here are a few samples of what we saw:
(all images are reproduced courtesy of Aero Art International. Click an image to view the full listing on the AeroArt site)
Apprently the story behind this figure line is elaborate and long-running: how the Russian sculptors and painters worked without a market under Communism; how they learned their craft using whatever materials they had; and how the "opening" of Russia eventually led to a market for their work. To hear the MFCA vendors relate the story, the Russians are well paid for their work, and indeed reap the majority of the rewards. To the extent this is true, it's an interesting preview of the future. We all know some of the things that happen as "other" part of the world "develop":
No doubt in 2045 the world's greatest figure painter will be from one of the old Altaic peoples of northeast Mongolia. From his spiffy studio in Ulan Bataar he will upload realtime video as he works on his latest piece, a beautiful 54mm fantasy of the war chariot of the Ice Princess, pulled by three snarling Amur (Siberian) tigers. Of course, the tigers will have been extinct in the wild for twenty years by then -- but our Mongolian friend will be free, free, free.
Fast-forward almost 25 years. My figure painting hobby trailed off during college. I probably painted my last figures senior year. And I moved away from Pennsylvania, perennial home of the MFCA show, and stayed away till 2005.
Now that I'm back, I thought to scout around and see if the MFCA was still alive. JP mentioned that the shows had gone on, but much diminished. I made plans to see the 2006 show last year, but because of schedule confusion (the show runs Friday-Saturday, and I had assumed Saturday-Sunday), I didn't make it. JP did, and he informed it was disappointingly small. Despite that, and despite the $10 entrance fee, I made plans to go back this year.
I figured E would want to go. At the last minute R (two years younger), decided firmly that she wanted in. I anticipated boredom and an early meltdown, but agreed. Per JP's warnings, I was expecting a disappointing setup of four or five rickety tables with paunchy white guys crouched over them discussing the best way to paint the thick mustaches worn by the British office corps in India.
But no, not so much. The show may have looked a little smaller due to the large space it was in, but it was plenty large. If it was smaller than the Widener days, it was not by much at all. It took us the better part of an hour just to casually walk the aisles.
Size aside, my worry was still that the hobby would be moribund. It turns out that figure painting, like the other key hobby of my youth, model railroading, has taken on plenty of new blood, and is in no danger of immediate death.
The show, as it always has been, was divided into a vendors area and an exhibition area. The exhibits were grouped into skill ranks from Junior to Master, and would be judged at some point, though they hadn't been yet.
The skill of the painters was staggering. I lingered over a few, despite the fact that the bulk of the figures were 54mm figures and up (as opposed to the 25mm that used to be my forte), and a mix that was mostly military/historical, along with a small mixture of celebrities, superheroes and pin-ups (not age-appropriate, indeed).
Out in the vendors area, it became clear that the sale of painted figures has become big business. In the old days, if I recall well, the crowds were mostly painters and modelers. Most figures on sale were unpainted, though a number of painters did offer small numbers of their painted works for sale at high prices. You didn't have the feeling that too many people were making a living off of selling painted figures, though.
Lose a Rain Forest, gain a museum-quality Phillipe de Crécy?
Things are different now. The big deal at the moment is apparently coming from Russia, which is now turning out painted figures of extremely high quality, with correspondingly staggering prices. These figures are known generally as "St. Petersburg."I stopped by one booth and commenced to marvelling over an extraordinarily painted 54mm war elephant. I mused aloud to JP as to the price, and extrovert that he is (relative to me) he insisted on actually asking. The person he asked was Nikki Johnson of Aero Art International, one of the main (if not the main) importers of these figures. She let me know the elephant cost $1500.00, and we then briefly talked past each other as I asked whether that were the painted or the unpainted price. She finally understood my question, and still seemed puzzled that anyone would think to try to buy a figure unpainted. "They're all painted!" she informed me. And indeed, given the quality of what we saw, the price tag began to seem more reasonable.
Here are a few samples of what we saw:
(all images are reproduced courtesy of Aero Art International. Click an image to view the full listing on the AeroArt site)
 |
 |
 |
Apprently the story behind this figure line is elaborate and long-running: how the Russian sculptors and painters worked without a market under Communism; how they learned their craft using whatever materials they had; and how the "opening" of Russia eventually led to a market for their work. To hear the MFCA vendors relate the story, the Russians are well paid for their work, and indeed reap the majority of the rewards. To the extent this is true, it's an interesting preview of the future. We all know some of the things that happen as "other" part of the world "develop":
- "Climate change," perhaps catastrophic
- The razing of the last rain forests
- The disappearance of species
No doubt in 2045 the world's greatest figure painter will be from one of the old Altaic peoples of northeast Mongolia. From his spiffy studio in Ulan Bataar he will upload realtime video as he works on his latest piece, a beautiful 54mm fantasy of the war chariot of the Ice Princess, pulled by three snarling Amur (Siberian) tigers. Of course, the tigers will have been extinct in the wild for twenty years by then -- but our Mongolian friend will be free, free, free.
Still At It
Lest anyone have "worried," based on recent posts, that D&D was a passing fad for my kids (OK, I'm sure that doesn't rank on the scale of actual worries for you, and I would be Actually Worried if it did) ... no fear of that. E. is back at it -- his new character and his goblin ally Gibble have stowed away on a ship, conversed with a sorceror via his owl familiar, and been shipwrecked on a strange coast. I'll try to get that story up to date as fast as I can.
This morning I woke up and I heard various noises from E's room:
"Let's play D&D! I'll be the gamemaster."
"OK. Is this the story of how I get to your island?"
"No, I'm not in your game." (Meaning, E's character is in a different game from the game is intending to run for R. Some tricky multilevel cognition there)
"OK, well, you're walking along ..."
At that point I think I rolled over and went back to sleep.
This morning I woke up and I heard various noises from E's room:
"Let's play D&D! I'll be the gamemaster."
"OK. Is this the story of how I get to your island?"
"No, I'm not in your game." (Meaning, E's character is in a different game from the game is intending to run for R. Some tricky multilevel cognition there)
"OK, well, you're walking along ..."
At that point I think I rolled over and went back to sleep.
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