So, I think we got another player into RPGs, the youngest in Bulgaria.
She's 6 years old, and she's my daughter.
Unlike many people, her first game isn't D&D, because her mother Refereed (if you think I dislike D&D, you should realize I'm quite moderate in comparison - though as a Referee, Elitza's mother doesn't care all that much about the system).
Actually, the system is a mix based on Zenobia by Paul Elliott. Meaning, Zenobia provides all the rules except character generation.
The character generation is based on a mix of Traveller's skills and attribute system, but generated using the Playbooks and Threat from Beyond the Wall". There's a Blighted place outside of the Village and Castle/Manor.
(She's using Nobleman's Wild Daughter, I'm one of her best friends - the Village Id...I mean, Hero she grew up with. Her aunt is also playing, she's the local witch's apprentice who talks to animals or some other boring magic shit. But at least the witch's apprentice has persuaded a wandering swordsman to show them some tricks with a sword...she's not a complete loss! Plus, she's a friend.
The daughter's character, on the other hand, knows I doubt my worthiness as a hero!
BTW, These Details Were Provided For You By The Awesom Beyond the Wall Playbooks!)
Bottomline: my daughter is playing a Princess, and we're her friends accompanying her on a quest to find a lost treasure! We already passed near a Magic Lake. A Giant Talking Turtle gave us a quest to bring her a chestnut of the tallest tree from a meadow that we're going to encounter after we pass through the forest. In return, the Giant Talking Turtle got us through the lake on her back.
Once there, we made camp, they gathered berries and mushrooms, and we made soup. I mostly kept the fire going (and provided the kindling).
Then we got to sleep, and during my watch, I detected something that was, maybe, approaching us covertly in the bushes. Of course, I imitated going to take a piss, and stabbed it with my trusty spear!
Took the piss right out of a goblin. And got jumped by the other four.
That's when I raised the alarm, while keeping my distance. We killed them in a fight with some lucky dice. Don't think anyone was even hurt.
Any of us, I mean.
On the morning, we heard the calls of a dwarf who had fallen in a ravine. Now, when I say a dwarf, I do mean a dwarven-dwarf, small and short-legged...think "hobbit miner", or "Santa Klaus helper". So keep in mind it couldn't get out alive, but to us, it was a kid's game.
We saved it, of course. It turned out he was looking for a very special stone...not some mere diamond - they were digging those out of their mine - but a whetstone. Those picks ain't sharpenin' themselves, it seems.
It thought it was seeing a natural whetstone, actually, but then tumbled and fell in the ravine.
So, reacting quickly, I traded it my whetstone for a diamond! Hey, Stephan might be a simple village boy, but he knows a good trade when he sees one...
The dwarf also told us that the "meadow" where we could find the chestnut isn't a natural one, but a magical clearing, prairies-sized. The Little Fairies lived there, in the Giant Flowers.
And they've created the Three Giant Eagles to protect their flowers by killing any animals that went to the meadow.
Sick bastards, those fairies.
After giving us that info, the dwarf left. I searched for the whetstone he'd spotted, and after finding it, had earned a diamond for basically nothing. A good deal, I'm telling you!
We made plans, but the current one is to go to the Magical Meadow during the night, and to negotiate passage with the fairies.
Fun fact: the daughter totally refused to start playing until and unless we provided her with a miniature to represent her character!
So she got a paper miniature, because all of us were able to help preparing that (and we've got a printer at home).
Then she demanded we should also have miniatures for our characters.
We took some of her dolls. Which means our Village hero is some kind of bug-man, and the witch's apprentice is some Disney princess I can't identify...
Miniatures are alive with the new generation, it seems! And even Theater of the Mind people like me and her mother bow to the demands of the New Generation.
Thursday 19 July 2018
Thursday 12 July 2018
What do you know...
I actually got a reply to my previous post regarding the political situation in the USA!
Actually, that's two replies. The one I'm going to post I've received via PM on a forum I frequent. Because the poster said he can't post a comment, for some reason...
(I just tried to reply on the other comment, which was hugely amusing. No luck. How do you lock yourself out of commenting on your own blog? Either way, it seems quite likely he was unable to post.
If anyone else encountered the same problem, I'm sorry! Will try to fix it, too, though I'm no expert.)
Still, here's Frank Mueller's reply. I'm quoting with minimal editing (mostly new paragrpahs, which I think were lost during the copy and paste).
"Perhaps not the 1860's, so much as the 1850's, and then the War in Missouri in the '60's
The main war during the ACW, was regional and despite the protestations of some, it was about slavery - and in support of Asen's original thesis, just [like] the current President, Democrats of Lincoln's day didn't even wait for him to attain office to decide that they just knew that he was going to ruin their world, before he'd even had a chance to act.
Today's American division is far less a matter of region, and more of a neighbor vs. neighbor and brother vs. brother divide, the way "Bloody Kansas" was divided in 1854 by the Douglas Kansas-Nebraska Act. I used to live twelve miles from the place where John Brown lead six of his neighbors down to a creek where he decapitated them with a broadsword. 35 miles north was the site where pro-slavery Missourians trapped a group of Free State men in a school house. They blasted them out with a cannon.
Once the War started, Kansans called Jayhawkers would form vast companies of raiders to pillage Missouri homes of Union and Confederate alike, while in Missouri itself, neighbors and relatives alike would murder one another by night and broad daylight alike over politics. Missouri Bushwackers would wear Union uniforms and ride around and shoot any civilian that tried to 'helpful to them Yanks', while the real Unionyroops would march about and punish those who weren't helpful by burning their homes.
No part of America was torn apart like Missouri was, and that's what we're walking into. I see old pictures of the Civil war in Lebanon in the 70's and wonder not if, but when that happens to our cities. Beirut was once a beautiful city. By the mid 80's it looked like some dystopian Sci-Fi end of the world set.
But the really desperate part is, I no longer see a way out. We have become two separate peoples, and contrary to what some would say, diversity is not strength, unity is. Not unity of color, but unity of culture and belief. If we could find a way to separate into our respective people's and just go our own way, civil war might be avoided, but I've yet to see that kind of maturity on either side.
So hunker down my fellow Americans, teach your children good principals and Survival, and pray like your lives depend on it, because they do.
Frank Mueller"
Well, I just got a lesson in American history.
But then this actually supports my original gut feeling. Though I can't say I'm glad to have confirmation.
Actually, that's two replies. The one I'm going to post I've received via PM on a forum I frequent. Because the poster said he can't post a comment, for some reason...
(I just tried to reply on the other comment, which was hugely amusing. No luck. How do you lock yourself out of commenting on your own blog? Either way, it seems quite likely he was unable to post.
If anyone else encountered the same problem, I'm sorry! Will try to fix it, too, though I'm no expert.)
Still, here's Frank Mueller's reply. I'm quoting with minimal editing (mostly new paragrpahs, which I think were lost during the copy and paste).
"Perhaps not the 1860's, so much as the 1850's, and then the War in Missouri in the '60's
The main war during the ACW, was regional and despite the protestations of some, it was about slavery - and in support of Asen's original thesis, just [like] the current President, Democrats of Lincoln's day didn't even wait for him to attain office to decide that they just knew that he was going to ruin their world, before he'd even had a chance to act.
Today's American division is far less a matter of region, and more of a neighbor vs. neighbor and brother vs. brother divide, the way "Bloody Kansas" was divided in 1854 by the Douglas Kansas-Nebraska Act. I used to live twelve miles from the place where John Brown lead six of his neighbors down to a creek where he decapitated them with a broadsword. 35 miles north was the site where pro-slavery Missourians trapped a group of Free State men in a school house. They blasted them out with a cannon.
Once the War started, Kansans called Jayhawkers would form vast companies of raiders to pillage Missouri homes of Union and Confederate alike, while in Missouri itself, neighbors and relatives alike would murder one another by night and broad daylight alike over politics. Missouri Bushwackers would wear Union uniforms and ride around and shoot any civilian that tried to 'helpful to them Yanks', while the real Unionyroops would march about and punish those who weren't helpful by burning their homes.
No part of America was torn apart like Missouri was, and that's what we're walking into. I see old pictures of the Civil war in Lebanon in the 70's and wonder not if, but when that happens to our cities. Beirut was once a beautiful city. By the mid 80's it looked like some dystopian Sci-Fi end of the world set.
But the really desperate part is, I no longer see a way out. We have become two separate peoples, and contrary to what some would say, diversity is not strength, unity is. Not unity of color, but unity of culture and belief. If we could find a way to separate into our respective people's and just go our own way, civil war might be avoided, but I've yet to see that kind of maturity on either side.
So hunker down my fellow Americans, teach your children good principals and Survival, and pray like your lives depend on it, because they do.
Frank Mueller"
Well, I just got a lesson in American history.
But then this actually supports my original gut feeling. Though I can't say I'm glad to have confirmation.
Tuesday 10 July 2018
The political climate in the USA and the 1930ies
I swear, the next time I see any Internet "expert" comparing the situation in the USA to the 1930ies, I'm just closing the tab!
My friends in the USA: you shouldn't be afraid of comparisons with the 30ies. It's simply not the right comparison.
But you should be worried. And, I don't know, take some kind of measures.
Because the right comparison with a time in American history is with the 1860ies.
Yes, the way I see it, your nation is that divided. I hope you'd prove me wrong, or at least that you'd prove that you've learned better conflict management.
That's all for today.
My friends in the USA: you shouldn't be afraid of comparisons with the 30ies. It's simply not the right comparison.
But you should be worried. And, I don't know, take some kind of measures.
Because the right comparison with a time in American history is with the 1860ies.
Yes, the way I see it, your nation is that divided. I hope you'd prove me wrong, or at least that you'd prove that you've learned better conflict management.
That's all for today.
Sunday 1 July 2018
Do you have "secret shortcuts" for grokking the way to roleplay particular concepts?
Sometimes we, especially as Referees, roleplay people we've got a hard time understanding with our usual logic (whether it's elves in Glorantha, or Fair Folk in Exalted, or inquisitors who are genuinely concerned about their victims...)
So, how do you go about it?
My example is the Fair Folk in Exalted. My secret is that I model them after "dirtie hippie storygamers playing a traditional game and trying to get their schtick to apply".
Yes, the Fair Folk are the guys and gals who pick a genre and try to behave like the heroes and heroines. And expect the game to accommodate them by inserting the tropes.
And are then disappointed when my NPCs seldom do.
What are your secrets?
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