You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September 2009.
Hey, everyone! Dice Monkey is now 1 year old! And to celebrate, we’re announcing our new web site: dicemonkey.net!
Check it out! And let us know what you all think!
Make it your own.
This is the unexpressed tenet of all roleplaying. On an earlier post, my good friend Mark expressed that if you’re not having fun, then what’s the point? I couldn’t agree more; however, there’s another point I’d like to add to that. If there’s something you’d like to accomplish as a player, whether it be in character creation, roleplaying, or combat, you shouldn’t always let rules tell you that you can’t.
For example, in our new Eberron game, my friend Dave wanted to play a Shifter. However, he wanted to play something similar to a wolverine rather than the listed wolf (longtooth) and tiger (razorclaw). Historically, there has never been a were-wolverine, so we had to think of a way to make this work. After some thought, we decided that if a longtooth and a razorclaw were to breed, the hybrid might resemble a wolverine. So when we made the character, he picked and chose abilities from the two shifters to make his hybrid.
Back home, in our ongoing campaign called “Fire And Ice”, we had to face a super-advanced cryohydra. If you’ve never before faced a hydra, you must cut off all of the heads and carterize the wounds in order to kill it completely. My level 17 monk found a way to jump on its back, and with a ki-focus longsword and the whirlwind attack feat, could legitimately strike a large number of heads all at once. Obviously, there are no rules for this, but our speechless DM allowed me to hit half of the heads at once. This provided a cinematic solution that also allowed the DM’s creation to wallop on us for a few rounds.
I encourage anyone to step outside the box a little bit, challenge these “rules” that have been set forth. In the mighty words of Captain Barbossa, “They’re really more like guidelines…”
Good Sunday Afternoon. Here are some sweet treats to enjoy from the Forgotten Realms! Enjoy!
Zezir Zucchini Bread
Directions:
Sift together all dry ingredients in a very large bowl. Mix all wet ingredients in another bowl. Once incorporated fold wet items into the large bowl holding the dry ingredients. Gently fold in the zucchini 2 cups at a time. Bake in large bread pans (should produce 3-4 loaves). Bake at 325 for 40-60 minutes. Center should still look slightly wet.
Elaith Craulnober’s Easy Peach Turnovers
Directions:
Drain half the can of peaches and dice into small pieces. Place in a bowl where you will add the honey, cornstarch and cinnamon. Mix well till a sauce forms around the peaches. As you pre-heat the oven prepare the biscuit rounds by stretching them out with your hands till they are about 1/4 inch thick and form circles. Place 1 tsp. of the peach mixture onto the center of the dough. Fold the dough in half and place on the greased cookie sheet. Use a fork to crimp the edges. Once they are all on the cookie sheet sprinkle with the cinnamon & sugar mix. Bake at 350 for approximately 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. These can be served with a cream cheese dipping sauce or with a simple powder sugar glaze.
I’ve been off and on RPOL for a few years. I’ll hop on, make a character in a game, then forget about it and leave it alone to disappear. But this time, I want it to be different.
I’m thinking about starting up a new PBP on RPOL, and was wondering if there were any takers? I’ve got the blog to keep me in line, as well as twitter. If I’m not keeping things going, you can message me here or on twitter for the world to see.
Most likely, I think we’d go for a Savage Worlds type game, but the genre of game is open to discussion.
Are you interested? Drop me a comment here, and we’ll begin the discussion by email.
Let me begin with a little administrative stuff. You’ll notice our pictures for who is writing change, as noted by the picture of me on the left there. Also, our new web site is near ready, but still under construction. If you are an expert at CSS, HTML, and/or WordPress, contact me, I could use some help.
If you checked out the latest RPG Circus podcast (and you really should), my co-host Jeff interviewed Michael of Old Guy RPG Blog about old-school gaming. In the interview, the two discuss what old-school means.
A few points they hit on were: 1. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things; 2. You are not defined by your character-sheet; and 3: Rulings, not rules. They mentioned the Quick Primer of Old-School Gaming, which can be found here.
Now, Michael, in the interview, said that old-school is defined both my attitude and rules, in that the rules should support the feel of an old-school game. I agree, but I think that attitude is much more important.
I run a 4e game of D&D, set in Eberron. One thing to note is that the heroes are involved in maybe one combat per session, have to figure out things through their own intellect, not their characters and, I believe, have to play ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances. When we play, it’s not about combat (though some of my players want nothing more). If we have a rules question, I make a ruling, and we move on. We can look it up later.
In other words, I think I’m kind of an old-school gamer.
What about you? Do you think that you can make anything old-school with the right attitude? Let me know!
I’ve owned Burning Wheel for years. Since the Revised edition first came out, in fact. I love everything about it: The mechanics, the way character creation works, distances and stances, the duel of wits, burning up monsters, lifepaths… It’s phenomenal.
But I’ve never played it.
It continues to sit on my shelf, collecting dust, and I occasionally pull it out and look on it longingly, thumbing through the lifepath section, imagining what a character I made would look like.
So why haven’t I played it? I think one of the reasons is that our group gets together once a week and plays for only two hours. That’s not much time for gaming. The time we do get, we don’t want to spend learning new rules.
I think, also, it’s because I’m a little scared. For a couple of reasons.
One, I’m afraid we’ll sit down and play, and the game won’t be as cool as I thought it was going to be, ruining it for me. I’ve set it so high on a pedestal, I’m afraid I’m going to knock it down.
Also, I’m afraid that I won’t run it right. It requires a certain attitude to be able to pull of Burning Wheel, I think. And I’m worried I don’t have it.
What about all you all? Any suggestions on how I can sit down and actually play this thing?
Do any of you have any games you idolize, but just haven’t played?
