Jousting for Glory

I wrote a while ago about new house rules I was going to implement for Jousting in my GPC game.  Well, I finally got to test it out this past weekend as my group found themselves at the Roman Tournament.  Three characters entered the joust and all three managed to make it to the 4^th round before being defeated.  Not to toot my own trumpet, but I think the new rules worked rather well.  At least one contest was decided by a single point.  A few NPC knights were forced to retire due to injuries, thanks to some crits by the Player Knights, but for the most part this joust has quite the sporting feel.  I was a little disappointed that we didn’t see a PK vs. PK joust, but as we’re quickly coming to an end of the Conquest Period, I’m sure that will show up soon.  I’d love to hear of any other experiences with these rules, or if anyone has any other variant rules for doing jousts.

Nuts

Yeah, it's that kind of day.  Enjoy.  :)

Hello, Computer

So I was thinking the other day about typing.  I have a device at work that is a touch-pad and allows for input by pressing on a flat space.  The issue is that there are no “home keys” on it, so I have to look at it to be sure I’m inputting the correct item.  Now, I never learned how to properly type, I use at most 4 fingers at a time, but I know my mother took typing classes in high school, and it really good at it.  Of course, most kids today type only using their thumbs, so there’s no chance of them even knowing what “home keys” are. 
 

The way my mind works I immediately jumped to Star Trek 4, where Scotty, a man from a time period where standard keyboards are obsolete, is able to type faster than anyone.  Why is that?  Shouldn’t he be the slowest typist, not the fastest?  Even if he does know how to use a keyboard, when’s the last time you saw a qwerty-style input device on Star Trek?

 

Yes, this is the kind of stuff that gets stuck in my head.  Aren’t you lucky that I can share it?  ;)

Pendragon Materials

A question will often come up about what materials (read: books) are required to play Pendragon.  I am by no means an expert, but I have bought or seen pretty much all the available books out there and here is my take on it.  It depends.  Yeah, it sounds like a cop-out, but it really depends on the type of campaign that you and your players want to be a part of.

All Campaign Types:

·         King Arthur Pendragon – Core Rules.  The only “must have” book on this list to run the game.  Whether this is the most recent rules (version 5.1, as of this writing) or another set, a basic rule book is needed.  If you don’t already have one, I would recommend getting the latest one, as all the other books build on this.

·         The Great Pendragon Campaign: While not really necessary for all games, I would recommend getting this simply for the background information.  It won’t hurt you to not have it, but it certainly helps a great deal to have it.

·         Gamemaster Characters: Useful even without the GPC, since it gives you the stats of major NPC’s in the various game periods.  No, these stats are not in the main rulebook.

·         The Book of Knights and Ladies: Advanced character generation for all game periods.  There are also now new skills for each culture, which can be quite useful in game play.

Court Heavy Campaigns:

·         The Book of the Manor: Want to micro-manage your manor?  This is the book for you.  Not a necessity for all campaigns, but it does add nice flavor to the winter phase.  Beware; there is a decent amount of number crunching in the advanced rules, but worth the benefits, especially for the skill checks.

·         The Book of the Entourage: This will help you flesh out your player knight’s followers and how useful they are.  Worth it, in this author’s opinion, just for the random wife table. 

Battle Heavy Campaigns:

·         The Book of Battle: Want to run a large scale battle?  This is the book for you.  If you don’t want a lot of combat in your game, you can easily skip this.  Version 2 is fairly streamlined, but still has some crunching for everyone at the table.

·         The Book of Armies: A must if you buy BoB.  Many useful armies, even what battles they are used in.  I used this recently for the Roman Campaign and it proved its worth immediately. 

You will note that RPG Now has several bundles available, so if you haven’t gotten any of the books you should be able to save some cash.  Keep in mind, though, that there may be a newer version of a certain book in these bundles, so you’ll want to do your homework first.

It’s Alive!

Yes, boys and girls, one of the most anticipated* Old School RPG projects is now out there and ready for purchase.  Of course, I’m talking about Adventures Dark and Deep, the system that answers the question “What might the world’s most popular role-playing game have looked like if Gary Gygax had been allowed to keep developing it?”  Developed by BRW Games’ founder Joseph Bloch, ADD has been thoroughly researched and play-tested over a number of years.  How do I know?  I am not only good friends with Joe, but I was part of his home playtest group.  While I have gotten more and more away from Class & Level games in my old age, I can say that Joe has done a bang up job on this one and I highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of 1^st Edition Dungeons & Dragons, or any of the retro games out there that emulate it.  Well, what are you waiting for?  Follow the links and check it out!

 

* Most Anticipated by this author, at any rate.

Incredibly Well Done

I recently had a chance to re-watch “The Incredible Hulk” (no, not that one, although I did like the movie).  No, I mean the TV show with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, specifically the pilot episode.  I was quite pleased with the level of writing involved and how well the translated the premise to a believable show that both adults and children could enjoy.  There be spoilers ahead (although I don’t know if revealing information about a 30+ year old show counts as a spoiler) so be ye warned.

The episode opens with a musical montage of scenes with a man and a woman, obviously husband and wife or in some other kind of relationship, going through a variety of life events.  Overall, they seem to be happy.  The montage comes to a close when they are involved in a car accident, the man being thrown from the car (remember, seat belts were still optional in the ‘70’s).  The car lands on its roof and flames have started to appear.  The man can’t get the door open, no matter how hard he tries.  Finally, he wakes up in bed, alone.  He has had a nightmare.

In case you haven’t guessed it by now, that man is Dr. David Bruce Banner.  We learn that his wife, Laura, died in that car accident 11 months ago and since then he has not only bee having nightmares (for which he has seen a psychiatrist multiple times) but he’s been obsessed with his research.  That research is trying to find out why certain people manifest incredible strength in times of desperate need and, more importantly to him, why he didn’t.  Banner and his partner, Dr. Elaina Harding Marks, examine blood from people they have interviewed about these occurrences.  They use an electron microscope, boosted in power by the resident tinkering maintenance guy, to see the DNA (yeah, we’ll just gloss over that bit of mis-science) and discover that they all possess an abnormal sequence. 

Banner feels relieved, since that means he couldn’t have saved his wife after all, but Marks points out that they don’t know that he doesn’t possess the same abnormality.  Of course, testing Banner’s blood reveals that he does have that abnormality.  In fact, it’s larger than all the others.  So why didn’t Banner turn the car over?  That’s right, gamma rays.  Banner discovers that during each instance of incredible strength, sun spots had been producing a high amount of gamma radiation.  Banner’s car accident occurred during a low point on the readings, hence no strength.

As any good scientist would, he decides to experiment on himself by exposing his body to a high amount of gamma rays.  Since Marks has gone home, and is not answering her phone, Banner does this all on his own, not noticing that tell-tale tape on the dial that indicates that tinkering has been done.  He turns the gamma ray projector all the way up and turns it on.  Since he’s alone, he doesn’t see the “Danger” light flashing.  (One would think that there would have been some kind of alarm sound as well, but maybe the maintenance guy took that off-line.)  After the exposure … nothing happens.

Frustrated, Banner leaves for home, walking out into a downpour and heading for his car.  On the way home he gets a flat tire.  While changing it, the tire iron slips and he hits himself with it.  This makes him angry.  Cue transformation.  The car, the focus of the Hulk’s anger, is flipped down into a ravine and he runs off.  He apparently wanders in the woods until morning because the next scene is in the daylight.   The Hulk, much calmer, runs across a little girl fishing in a lake.  He approaches her, hoping to make a friend, but she screams for her father and gets into a boat to row away.  The boat tips and she falls in.  Unable to swim, or just too scared, she starts to flounder.

It is at this point that her father returns to the campsite and sees the Hulk pushing a tree over on to his daughter, although we know he’s trying to save her.  After shouting for him to get away, the father pulls out his rifle and shoots the Hulk.  Now he’s done it.  The Hulk runs towards the father, a wound on his arm, while the daughter grabs a branch of the felled tree.  When the Hulk reaches him, the father goes for a swim as well, being thrown 30 yards into the lake.  The Hulk runs off and, eventually, calms down and changes back into Banner.

Banner shows up at Dr. Marks’ apartment in his tattered clothes, explaining what he did and how he blacked out on the way home.  She is, understandably, upset at his recklessness.  He shows her his gunshot wound and she tells him that it looks like it’s been healing for almost a week.  While he’s there, a reporter, Jack Magee, knocks on the door looking for an interview with Dr. Marks.  He sees Banner in a mirror and, seeing as how he works for a tabloid, he figures he’ll follow them and see what juicy details he can find out.

Thinking that they are alone, Marks and Banner head to a remote laboratory, part of the same institute for which they work, where a deep sea lab module has been tested.  Banner wants to recreate his transformation under laboratory conditions, so they know what they’re dealing with.  Marks just wants to try an x-ray cure, but Banner resists.  He locks himself in the lab and tries to recreate all the circumstances of that night, while Marks monitors his vitals from outside.  It doesn’t work and, frustrated, Banner tries to sleep.  He has the same nightmare as the beginning of the episode and transforms, destroying the lab module.  Marks is able to get a blood sample (apparently smashing the inch thick glass cut the Hulk’s hands up) and calm him down, reverting him to Banner.

It is eventually discovered that Banner has absorbed 3 million Gamma Units (whatever those are), not the 200,000 he had intended.  This, combined with his DNA abnormality, has created the Hulk.  They decide to try the X-Ray cure, and so return to the main lab.  While they are out, Magee breaks in, after having failed to obtain entry while the doctors were there, and hides in a storage closet.  Of course, the cure doesn’t work, so Banner and Marks return to the remote lab to plan their next move.  When they arrive, Magee overhears them talking about their “friend”, which he pieces together with the damaged lab and Banner’s wrecked car, and concludes that the Hulk is an artificial being that was created in the lab and hence escaped.

When he exits the closet to confront the doctors, Magee knocks over a bottle of acid, which flows over to some broken bags of chemical compound.  Banner escorts the reporter out, warning him that “you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”  Marks, still in the lab, smells the acid and yells for Banner, just as the whole lab explodes.  Banner leaves Magee and tries to get in.  He transforms and rescues Marks, who he then carries off to the woods, past a stunned Magee.  Marks dies of her injuries, but not before telling the Hulk that she has always loved Banner.  The Hulk leaves the body and runs off.

Magee prints a story recounting how Banner and Marks were killed by their own creation, for which he is berated at their funeral by a laboratory colleague.  Banner is shown, over his own grave, ready to begin his journey to cure himself.  It is left unsaid, but I presume that the reason he can’t return to the institute would be that he would then have to explain what happened to him, and why he was using himself as a guinea pig.

Overall, I think that this episode holds up very well.  The changes from the comic are all very well done and help to lend more believability to the story.  Banner is no longer an aloof scientist not caring what his research brings about (such as the gamma bomb), but someone who genuinely wants to find the answer to why he couldn’t save his wife.  The Hulk is no longer invulnerable, even though he does heal quickly, making for more tension in those scenes.  All of my memories of the series are from when I originally saw it as a child during its original run, and the variety of repeats during the years, and I am quite pleased that the show holds up extremely well.  Yes, there are some fantastic leaps and bad science, but no one was going to watch The Incredible Hulk expecting hard science fiction, so I can forgive them.

The True Meaning of Brotherhood

As most of you know, I’m a native and current resident of the great state of New Jersey.  As such, I was among those affected by Hurricane Sandy, to the point where our residence was rendered unlivable.  We’re all fine and now have a new place to live (thanks to my wife annoying the heck out of the real estate agent who was assigned to work with us), so there’s no reason to go into that.

What I would like to talk about, however, is the 3 weeks that we were without a home of our own.  My wife, 4 year-old daughter and I (the dog was being boarded) descended upon the Philadelphia apartment of my good friend and Fraternity Brother, Kurt.  For three weeks he not only put up with us invading his single life, but cooked us dinner and helped with the clean-up/recovery at our old place.  There aren’t many people in this world that are anywhere near as generous or patient as Kurt, who treated us like family.

Many people accuse those that join fraternities as trying to buy friends, or the like.  But when you have someone that offers you a place of stability in an extremely chaotic situation, you see just what kind of people you have joined up with.  Kurt and I took an oath (at different times, mind you) to treat all members of Triangle as brothers.  As a Heathen, I take oaths very seriously and I have to say, Kurt has upheld his in spades.

So I want to take this opportunity to publicly thank him and salute him for being a pillar of brotherhood and a man of unimpeachable character.  Wassail, Kurt!