Thursday, September 22, 2011

Looking for Inspiration

If you look back at earlier posts in this blog, you will notice that I used to post 3 times a week, fairly regularly. Since then, I've pretty much fallen off and I just generally post horribly written notes about the last role-playing game session I played/ran. These grammatically questionable posts notwithstanding, I really want to try adding new content here to work on my writing skills and provide an outlet for creativity and entertainment.

Starting now, I've decided to try to commit to 30 minutes a day of being creative here (and elsewhere). Hopefully, this will recharge my batteries somewhat and give my loyal band of crazies something they (e.g. you) vaguely amusing.

Of course, no new project goes unpunished as NOW, I need to find new sources of inspiration so that I can provide you, dear reader, with my personal brand of geekdom, nerdity, and dorkitude that you expect from this blog.

I'm not sure what will come of this "Creativity Push". Furthermore, I don't know how it will effect this blog. Hopefully, it will be vaguely entertaining to me and to you, my audience.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Star Wars - Jedi and Mandalorian - Episode 9 - It only matters if nobody's looking (or: Stealth Contained)

The party proceeds to Malachor. Kailess upgrades the scope on his rifle while Trysha meditates on the crystal.

Trysha figures that the crystal would fit in a lightsaber, just not hers. She decides she will eventually construct a second one.

Upon entering the Malachor system Kailess scans and notices that a ship is already in orbit around Malachor V. He determines it is a Republic Cruiser. The Stellar Wave assumes a parking orbit around the moon in such a location the cruiser cannot see them.

They  note that the Cruiser is in geosynchronos orbit. Kailess checks and verifies that the datapad package has arrived. They plot a course to avoid the cruiser and land. Avoiding contact, they land 3 miles from the location. They proceed there and Kailess determines that the Cruiser is over the location of the datapad.

They approach the mesa and about a mile and a half they note that there are spires on top of the mesa. The spires appear to be naturally occurring, but have been enhanced by construction.

They attempt to approach stealthily (Slyk rolled a 2) - but thankfully the party wasn't seen.

Kailess hacks into the building and the party enters (completely missing all notice checks). The party encounters a series of stairs and starts down then. About half way down, they notice lights coming up from the bottom. Trysha senses darkness and deflects an attack through the Force against her.

A group of troops come from below while a Sith Lord (GM Note: Darth Namhaid) comes from the top. Trysha leaps up to defeat the Sith while Kailess fires on the the troops from below. They quickly deal with the threats against them.

Monday, September 12, 2011

RPG tips from the player perspective

In an attempt to kick your role-playing experience up a notch*, I figured I should post a few tips on my views on being a good and fun roleplayer. My goal is to improve your fun in playing and hopefully the fun of the rest of the people in your role-playing group. Whether you play Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, Storyteller, or Savage worlds, I hope you can find useful information here.

First a few observations on my my playstyle.

1. When it comes to playing, I like powergaming. Yes, really. I like having the powerful character who can do cool things like blasting bad guys with a single thought while they attempt to beat my character to death with mithral coated rattlesnakes that end up doing no real damage. I'm not necessarily great at it, but I like having a character that are uber when I'm on my toes . Interestingly, no one has accused me of powergaming, probably because it takes me a lot of research and more thought than I usually give to do it. Furthermore, I try to put a LOT of story into my chars and give them motivation.

2. I *LOVE* combat in my RPGs. I want my character to be swinging a sword** and blasting away with guns to take down baddies. If they can be doing backflips, round house kicks, and casting fireballs even better!

So here are some tips and tricks I've found that you can put into making your games more fun AS A PLAYER!.

Now for tip number the first: Write a backstory with tons of hooks for your GM to write about.

Now, immediately, I can hear readers saying, "What? Are you crazy***? Why would I give my Game Master a loaded gun to mess with my character?"

Because, lets face it, you want the GM to shoot it at your character.

Yes, I said it. Bare with me and I will explain.

If you are like me, and I know I am, I want to wade into heavy combat with my character and be the one to kill the big bad Vampiric Draco-Lich Fiend. If you want to do that, you need to come up with a reason for your character to find the draco lich.

Think of it this way. In games that provide a disadvantage system, you probably look at items like "Hunted" and "Enemy" and "Bronie" and avoided them like the plague! Remember how I like combat in my games? I always take "Hunted" and "Enemy" and provide enough details and make a point to draw my GM's attention to it. Then I can be guaranteed of the following facts

1. I will have combat centered on me.

2. I will have a plot line that is centered around me.

3. My GM will happily give me that spotlight because I've made his/her job easier - yay, more killing!

What about parents, siblings, children? Yeah, my character probably has them. I don't deny it. I just make it more useful by saying "I don't know who that person is."

Now, my GM can say "Why yes, you have a son - his name is Modred, he is you and your half-sister's son (ewww) and they both want to kill you." This messed up story is one of the reasons King Arthur is such a cool legend. AND NOW, my character has that cool back story and 10 more building points to give me a bonus to round house kicks.

If your game DOESN'T have those building points, you will still have those wonderful things, "Combat" and "Spotlight".

I'll be writing up more tips in future as I identify them!

* BAM!
** Preferably a lightsaber
*** Yes, but that doesn't matter here.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Star Wars - Jedi and Mandalorian - Episode 8 - Honey Badger don't care!

Yes, a week late, but here is another poorly edited post of the last session!

Kailess and Slyk work on how to mount the weapons on the Stellar Wave.

They party returns to the world of Nar Kaga in Huttspace so they can mount weapons and plan their next move and let Vyri know what has transpired. Kailess and Trysha return to Vyri.Vyri pays them and lets them know that a posting will be on the Holonet job postings for "as fate would have it." to indicate that he is looking for them. Vyri pays them 600 credits per person.

Kailess and Ossa look for an arms dealer to find a new gun. They head to a small store run by an alien named Jando Knippa. They buy many weapons

Trysha looks through the shops an uncovers a lightsaber crystal that stirs the force. She gets a flash when she touches it and purchases it. She pays 5k for it.

Slyk upgrades his ship.

Kailess indicates that he wants to follow up on Malachor.

On the way back, Trysha meets up with Kailes and Ossa just in time to hear, "Hey! There they are" as a gang of 15 attack led by a Hutt.

The party makes short work of the group. They demand to know why they attacked. The Hutt says it was because they were responsible for cutting into their business.