I’m sorry, you want to do what?

I have always considered myself to be an open minded kind of guy. I don’t really judge….much, to each his own and different strokes for different folks etc…maybe this is born of listening to peoples problems day in and day out , or maybe it is something internal or dynamic that pushed me towards listening to peoples problems day in and day out and finding empathy and compassion when it is in short supply. Needless to say I am pretty unflappable and can easily go with the flow, but there was a situation the other week when I was DM’ing at Fan Expo that did give me a brief pause.

I don’t know what it is about the younger generation, maybe growing up sniping your buddies’ faces off in multiplayer death matches does something to you, but several of the younger pups at my tables took a very evil bent to their characters. But like I said I can roll with pretty much anything, so when there was the call to rid the town of the bandits thereby supplanting themselves as the new overlords..well that’s just enterprising, showing initiative, you know real go getters. When the bandits started a bar fight and were clearly doing non-lethal damage and they turn around and just slaughter them..well I guess sometimes you need to send a message that you’re not to be trifled with. But it was during one of the formulaic skill challenges that are standard fare for live play mods that I had a kid do something that almost left me speechless if you can believe that.

The rundown is that the bad dudes have set the town on fire and the heroes (and I say that loosely) need to organize the townsfolk to combat the fire. I am going around the table asking people what they want to do. I start with a veteran player so he can show the noobs how things are done. He doesn’t disappoint as he tells me he screams and yells at the peasants trying to shock them out of their complacency. This is exactly what I am looking for and I ask for an intimidate check, and were off to the races. Things are going smoothly until I get to this kid playing in his first game of D&D and rocking the Human Knight. He looks at me and asks if there are any dead bodies from the bandits they killed lying around. I answer yeah as my spider sense starts to tingle a little. Then he goes “well can I roast one in the fire and eat him?”…..I was like “what?….w-w-w-why why would you want to do that..like really why?” and he just smiled and shrugged. So I was like alright if you really want to dude dig in I guess. The grognard next to me leaned over and said that’s what happens when you remove alignment from the system. I also gave him a +10 bonus to intimidate checks for the rest of the session and told him that when the game was over we would be leaving from separate exits.

I know people have been playing evil pc’s since the dawn of D&D, illustrating that civilization is really a thin veneer at the best of times, but really come on man eating people, like wtf. Where is the inner voice whispering that maybe that’s not the thing to do at a public event with people you don’t know, or fuck how about ever?

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Fan Expo-part deux

Twas the night before Fan Expo when all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse…well actually there is a mouse stirring but that’s another story….the backpack was filled with dice, maps, and mini’s and was hung by the couch  with incredible care….

I am just wrapping up prep for the first game tomorrow, and between this, work and family I am pretty tired. Although it is hard to get angry when your 2 year-old in the middle of the night pads his way to the side of you bed and wakes you up by breathing like Darth Vader and asking you to join the dark side. I made 6 pre-gens, all essentials builds for simplicity and consisting of human slayer, dwarf warpriest, elf mage, Halfling thief, and 2 human knights complete with somewhat optimized Divine Talents. I apologize in advance if you have trouble reading the Divine talents as I have the handwriting of an 80 year-old arthritic.

I found the section of magic items in the player’s guide and can see one of the ways they are addressing game balance is by putting the clamps on magic items. You are unlikely to get any items as loot (although the middle-aged DM can be bought with some cool limited edition con swag-just saying ) and you definitely can’t buy them, but instead will have to spend your divine talents on imbuing your mundane gear with some of your divinity. So you won’t have a level 1 item until you hit 3^rd level.  That is an interesting way to handle the craziness that is magic items in 4^th edition. I am looking at you duel wielding staff of ruins and other such shenanigans like replaying mods. Although the slayer with his Domain of Destruction is still rocking  +10 vrs AC 1d10+11 on a charge and 2d10+11 with power attack at first level but whatya going to do, I hope no one picks him. I didn’t have to stomach to give that to the thief who would be hitting me with 2d6+2d8+9 when backstabbing so he got Divine Prescience instead. I actually like the idea of not being able to buy magic items as it fits my sensibilities more, although I think my true preference is inherent bonuses with access to very limited items as loot.

I hope we get some players this weekend; I am kind of concerned as the coordinator suggested that there wasn’t a huge turnout last year. You can see on the schedule that we are the only RPG game running whereas, if I remember correctly, there were several different game systems offered last year. But in fairness this is really a comic and video game deal. Although, how sad in that this shows my age, I remember way back in the day when it was just a comic show and at the CNE. It was at that show I bought Macfarlane’s first run on Amazing Spiderman…but I digress and need to get off the bed so I can be awakened in the middle of the night by my young sith-lord. I had to make assurances that my threatened ball-stomping was in fact just hyperbole, but mind you I am not above a gentle fondling

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Fan Expo

Here ye here ye, come one come all and let the Middle-Aged DM try and stomp your balls. That’s right Fan Expo is next week from August 25^th to 28^th and I will be running two D&D 4^th Edition games. Fan Expo is the big deal convention in downtown Toronto Canada that has burgeoned over the years into a massive cornucopia of comic, sci-fi, anime, and gaming goodness. Yours truly graciously offered to run 2 slots (August 26^th and 27^th, 11:00am to 3:30pm) out of the goodness of my heart. The free pass to the convention that just happens accompany running 2 slots had nothing to do with my generous offer I can assure you.

I will be running “The Fire Within”, which is an introductory adventure for a new living campaign that is being promoted at Fan Expo called “Living Divine”. The campaign is set in a homebrewed setting and the basic gist is that you have a spark of divinity within you, a god living among men. As you progress throughout the campaign and your power increases you gather followers and build an empire.

My first impression, at a quick glance, is that the concept is an intriguing story and premise for a campaign, particularly with 4^th edition D&D where at the epic tier you are quite god-like and well….epic. What I am not really sure about is how it will actually play out at the table. For example, at each level your character chooses a “divine trait” which is essentially a power, ability or talent that is meant to illustrate your growing divinity. While cool and flavorful story wise, my concern is the level of power creep that this creates. I think PC’s are already overpowered and hard to challenge as is without adding extra bling to the mix. In a similar vein, I also noticed that the villain/monster stats are pre-Monster Manual 3 leaving them a little underwhelming in the damage and threat department. This has the potential to result in a bit of a snore fest, similar to a lot of the early LFR adventures. But don’t worry, if you are planning on sitting at my table as I obviously pimped the damage to more respectable levels. You see, I don’t like to be hindered or stymied in my attempted ball stomping. I haven’t had a chance to really look deeply at the mechanics for having followers or the mass combat so I can’t really comment too much on that, but cursory glance appears to be more of the same in terms of adding power the more followers you have. There is also a mechanic called “Divine Manifestation”, were the DM, after the adventure can dub your character with an a adjective that is meant to exemplify an important action your character takes or way they behave during the adventure, which then physically manifests in your appearance. for example, say you do something that is kind of douchey, the DM at the end of the adventure can dub you “Evil”.  Every time you level you put all these key words into a hat (not making this shit up honestly) and roll a d20, if it is 15 or higher you pull a keyword out and take on that manifestation. If you pull evil “when you laugh, you scare small children. Unconsciously, you often rub your hands together conspiratorially”

Overall, Living Divine seems like a interesting home campaign and  not something you should necessarily subject the public at large to. For my tastes, if I am going to participate in a D&D living campaign I want it to be set in one of their worlds such as the Forgotten Realms or Dark Sun like the more recent living Campaign “Ashes of Ashes”.  There are also a lot of fiddly bits for both the DM and players to manage in a system that is already high on fiddly bits to manage,while adding to power creep and bloat.  that being said, I don’t think I will run or play in this living campaign after Fan Expo, unless their is cool swag to be had as the Middle-Aged DM can be easily bought with shinny baubles.

So if you want to roll some dice bring your best 1^st level character and let’s tango. You can find the specific character creation guidelines here as there are some limitations and extra powers that are specific to the campaign or you can use one of the pre-generated characters which I promise I won’t make too full of suck. Don’t worry, if you just want to bring a regular old character I won’t turn you away.

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