4.5 reasons why I stat out store inventories

Most RPG systems come complete with rules regarding shopping for new gear and equipment. Generally, the rules boil down to the following:

Location A has a population of B, with a wealth of C. The most expensive item that can be found there, D, can be sourced and bought in E hours/days.

The above works well, since it lets you get to the action faster (by skipping through the humdrum chore of grocery shopping) and avoid needlessly dragging out or over role playing a rather mundane aspect of your characters’ lives. However, I sometimes find (when used sparingly) that a unique in-game store (complete with full stock list) can add a little bit of extra life to your game.

It adds flavour: In my real-world travels, I have found that food and drink can really define a culture. So, when introducing players to a new in-game culture, I sometimes describe or list tavern menus, the make-up of a parcel of trail rations, what goes into the local brew or even, depending on the type of game, play out a cooking or eating contest. Too bad my players hardly seem to notice the effort I put into menus… though, hopefully, none of them read this and put me on the spot one day (causing me to default to, um… stew… yeah, stew with bread).

Note to self: use mopane worms in next game with non-SAffers.

It makes the players paranoid: Every classic villain or monster has some sort of weakness – vampires can’t handle sunlight; werewolves hate silver; a circle of salt is always handy; PCs hate detail; and so forth. When players come across a store that’s selling silver weapons, they immediately jump to the conclusion that they’ll soon be facing werewolves. However, since I’m a mean GM, the werewolves will never materialise and the players would have wasted their money on vials of Silversheen. That’ll teach them to abuse their meta-game knowledge!

It helps prepare players: Playing off the above, a GM could use a store to enable players (especially newer players) to better prepare for more types of encounters, with less threat of TPKing a party simply because they were unprepared to face whatever the random encounter table happened to throw at them.

One day, I must write about the one werewolf encounter I experienced from a player’s perspective: the only silver item the party had was my silver holy symbol. Imagine clubbing a werewolf to death with the smiling face of Pelor.

It makes the players feel unique: Overusing magic items can make them feel boring. And I rather dislike it when players refer to their equipment solely in terms of the mechanical bonuses it provide. I use unique stores to get around this – it’s one thing to have a Cloak of Resistance +1; it’s quite another thing to have Ilgag’s custom-tailored Cloak of Mind-Body Duality Shielding.

It’s an easy way to introduce some RPing: I have often used the traveling merchant to add a break to an otherwise combat-intensive session: the kobold bootlegger; the chubby halfling and his beautiful human wife; or the gullible ogre quartermaster. Plus, nothing gets a combat-junkie-dislikes-the-talking-part player involved with some real RP like having money on the line. To reference a discriminatory television advert from South Africa’s checkered past: “Discount? Discount?”*

In the near future, I’ll provide a list of alternate names for numerous 3.X magic items, a random table of tavern menus or regional delicacies, some sample stores for your games and my favourite player-paranoia inducing items.

- jatori

*I’m allowed to reference it.

[Confession Friday] Back to the 90s – Gamebooks

I only got a chance to experience true pen and paper role playing in late 2001 / early 2002. I remember that first game quite well: it was a Dungeons ampersand Dragons 3rd edition game and I played a half-elf cleric, named Kaleb, of Fharlanghn (that’s where my still-ongoing love of the travel domain started). I met the GM on the day before the game (to get the backstory right, roll my character etc.) and, during the process, he commented on how I seemed to know a lot about the system (and role playing as a whole) for a complete newb. Thinking back on that moment, I realised that, though I didn’t do any ‘real’ (and I use real surrounded by a ‘ and a ‘) role playing during the 90s, I got involved with numerous hobbies and activities that, shall I say, prepped me for pen and paper RPGs. I hope to use these Confession Friday articles (meme started by PB and the Stargazer) to examine some of the activities and how they primed me for RPing.

My extended family is extremely large and I had the (mis)fortune to be the middle child of the whole clan. OK, not really, but I didn’t often get a chance to hang with the cousins closest to my age. So, family gatherings had me either hanging with cousins either 5+ years younger or 5+ years older than I. It was thanks to one older cousin, in particular, that I discovered such things as comics, 8-bit Nintendo games, Magic: the Gathering and… gamebooks. Remember those? They were kind of like a Choose Your Own Adventure, but also included elements of dice-based randomness. They fell somewhere between CYOA and true role playing games. I bought a tonne of them and spent hours reading and rereading my and my cousin’s collections. I was originally going to entitle this post: “I singlehandedly provided Steve Jackson with enough revenue to develop Munchkin“, but then, while doing some fact checking,  I discovered that there were actually two Steven Jacksons involved in gamebooks (imagine that!). Turns out, I bought more non-SJ Games Steve gamebooks than SJ Games Steve gamebooks. So that explains the unimaginative post title.

The Blood Sword series was (and is) my favourite gamebook series of all time (and it probably had the biggest influence on my developing geekling personality). This series, unlike all the others I tried, allowed for co-operative multiplayer games. I remember sneaking my cousin’s books to school and getting a group of friends together during breaks. We’d take turns reading aloud from the books and ended up playing through the entire series. As I type this, PB is shoulder surfing and calling me a nerd. Well, at least I’m not married to a nerd.

- jatori

Gaming in and around Cape Town and Durban

A friend of tenletter has just started a blog dedicated to advertising upcoming events in and around Cape Town (and he promises to advertise my Durban events too). Click through to Phaezen’s Cape of Games blog for more information.

In other news, due to work, I won’t be able to run DMG2 WWDDGD in Durban on the 19th of September. I’ll try and find a game in Johannesburg though. Cape Town, however, is having an event and you can find out about it here.

- jatori

Dominominominom

Another day, another board game.  I mean card game.  Normally I do not like games made up entirely of cards (especially collectable card games aka CCGs).  I want harder cardboard bits, miniatures and maybe a dice or two, to throw at offending opponents.  (Disclaimer: I do not actually throw board game around, but sometimes it is very tempting).  Luckily Dominion is Not a CCG.  It is a stand-alone card game.  Buy once and play forever. Though it does have a few expansions in the works, but which good card game/board game doesn’t?

Dominion  is a unique card game in which the players spend the actual game building up their deck of cards.  That might sound a bit strange.  Surely one would build the deck of cards before playing? No. Here one starts with a small number of cards and builds up a (sometimes) massive deck of cards…

RPG Superstar – Early Start Round 1 (Reprieve)

Paizo, the good people that bring us Pathfinder, have for two years now hosted the RPG Superstar competition. It is with shame that tenletter has to admit that it hasn’t made enough effort to compete in the dog-eat-dog cutthroat world of the hyper-elite RPG game designers. But no longer will we lower our heads dejectedly! Today I will start a process of development and refinement that will surely lead tenletter to the zenith of RPG superstardom! As such I will follow the rules and regulations of the RPG Superstar 2009 competition in an attempt to create the perfect wondrous item for round 1 of the competition. Turns out that the 200 word limit was a surprisingly hard restriction to comply with – early designs of the item were significantly more verbose. Nonetheless, I hope I can get a lively set of responses and constructive criticisms that can help to fine tune my current submission. Kudos to Neal Herbert for his extensive advice to improve the suggestion.

Pact Pendant of Mastery

Aura faint universal; CL 3rd
Slot neck; Price 200 gp; Weight -

Description

Few realize that these aptly-named pendants forge a contract with the bearer and the church of Asmodeus. Pact pendants of mastery create weak conduits of positive energy that, collectively, act as a reservoir of life force into which Asmodeus can tap. The pendants are designed to be subtly addictive by instilling a sense of achievement in the wearer. Despite the creation cost of pendants, the church of Asmodeus commonly sells them for as little as 100 gp.

After wearing a pact pendant of mastery for 24 hours the wearer suffers a -2 penalty to Constitution, but may add a bonus to one skill of her choice equal to her hit die. This bonus is reduced by 1 for every rank the wearer has in that skill. The bonus and penalty persist until the pendant is unequipped. The pendant does not grant the user the ability to use skills that cannot be used untrained.

Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, cleric of Asmodeus; Cost 100 gp

Alternate Barbarian (Pathfinder RPG)

Edit: Now with heading!

A little while back I presented a set of alternate class abilities for the barbarian class. But then put additional development for the other classes on hold, waiting for the final release of the Pathfinder RPG – since this is the format I now predominantly play. Now I’m taking up the reigns again and will go through each class in turn and present alternative class powers for each class. These alternative class abilities should (at least in part) emphasize attributes that are typically neglected on their respective classes.

I will start with the barbarian – giving my original redesign a peppy new look and feel to coincide with the new hotness that is the freshly released final Pathfinder RPG rules. (Comments and suggestions for improvement are very heartily welcome.)

Alternate Class Abilities (Pathfinder RPG)

Barbarian

Not all barbarians call upon the primal rages that their more typical brothers and sisters do. Instead of reserves of raw strength they call upon an inner reservoir of ferocity that heightens their speed and reaction. These barbarians utilize a power akin to rages, but rather than the brute power of a bear they gain the feral grace and speed of the wild cat.

1. Frenzied rages

At level 1 a barbarian may choose to forego the Rage, Greater Rage and Mighty Rage class abilities, if she does, she may instead gain Frenzy, Greater Frenzy and Mighty Frenzy class abilities at the appropriate levels.

Frenzy

The Frenzy class ability allows a barbarian to enter a frenzy – at level 1 she may frenzy for a number of rounds equal to 4 + her Constitution modifier. At each level after 1st, she can frenzy an additional 2 rounds. Temporary increases to Constitution, such as those gained from spells like bear’s endurance, do not increase the total number of rounds that a barbarian can frenzy per day. A barbarian can enter frenzy as a free action. The total number of rounds of frenzy per day is renewed after resting for 8 hours, although these hours do not need to be consecutive.

When in a frenzy a barbarian gains a +6 moral bonus to Dexterity. Additionally, during a frenzy if a barbarian is only wielding natural or light weapons, she gains Two-Weapon Fighting and Double Slice, as the feats, and if her base attack bonus equals or exceeds 6 she also gains Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and if her base attack bonus equals or exceeds 11 she additionally gains Greater Two-Weapon Fighting. She gains these feats even if she does not otherwise qualify for them, but she cannot use these temporary feats to qualify for any other feats. While in frenzy, a barbarian cannot use any Charisma-, Dexterity-, or Intelligence-based skills (except Acrobatics, Fly, Intimidate, and Ride) or any ability that requires patience or concentration.

A barbarian can end her frenzy as a free action and is fatigued after a frenzy for a number of rounds equal to 2 times the number of rounds spent in the frenzy. A barbarian cannot enter a new frenzy while fatigued or exhausted but can otherwise enter frenzy multiple times during a single encounter or combat. If a barbarian falls unconscious, her frenzy immediately ends.

Feats and class abilities that make reference to rages, synonymously also refer to frenzies. For example, at level 17 a barbarian gains Tireless Rage, this class ability applies to both rages and frenzy thus a barbarian that ends her frenzy is not fatigued if she has the Tireless Rage class ability.

Greater Frenzy

At level 11, when a barbarian enters frenzy the moral bonus to Dexterity increases to +8.

Mighty Frenzy

At level 20, when a barbarian enters frenzy the moral bonus to Dexterity increases to +10.

2. New rage powers

In addition to the normal rage powers, the following new rage powers are available to a barbarian:

• Frenzied Step – At the start of her turn the barbarian may expend a swift action to move up to her Dexterity score in feet (rounded down to the nearest 5 foot increment). Doing so incurs a -2 penalty to the barbarian’s AC until the start of her next turn. This power can be used once per rage.

• Frenzied Wielding – As a swift action the barbarian can wield a single one-handed weapon as if it were a light weapon. This effect lasts until the start of her next turn. A barbarian must be at least 8th level before selecting this power.

• Animal Frenzy – The barbarian’s hands are treated as manufactured light slashing weapons that deal 1d6 damage.

3. Vitalizing rages

A barbarian may choose to forego the ability to reduce damage on her person, thereby giving up the class ability of damage reduction. Instead she gains Vitalizing Rage 1 at level 7, at 10th level and every 3 levels thereafter the level of Vitalizing Rage increases by 1. While raging a barbarian  with the Vitalizing Rage class ability gains Fast Healing 2 for every level of Vitalizing Rage she has gained (thus, at level 13, a barbarian with Vitalizing Rage 3 would gain Fast Healing 6 while raging).

Confession Friday: PB

Stargazer had this up, I thought it was pretty awesome and having convinced the gang we need to do it, welcome to Confession Friday.

It all started one bright and not so distant tuesday, it was the day jatori and I started going out. Yes, lame, but seriously this is my story :p I did what any girl does when she starts going out with someone, investigate the hobbies. So after a few sunday afternoons of watching the gang hacking and slashing, came the q of  “Why don’t you play?” Co-incidentally they needed a ranged person, and thus began my fascination with Rangers, or was it cos Orlando Bloom was soo hot? * I rolled up my kick-ass elf, with the help of let’s see: jatori, foo, zen, l,e and g. Admittedly she wasn’t that cool the first session, but then my rolling got better and after a couple of frags I was hooked.

At this point I was a bright eyed 19 year old, and all I knew about gaming was The Sims. Sad, but true. So this new world opening up to me was pretty awesome. Rpging was my gateway into MtG, anime, Civilisation and more Sims The fantasy environment wasn’t all that unfamiliar, after all I am a bit of a book nerd and I’ve read Prattchet When I started playing my family and non gaming friends couldn’t understand it, at all, in fact they still don’t and it was all attributed to this strange boy introducing me to strange people and things. When I picked up MtG it was bad, I had to hide my beautiful, shiny Magic cards from my mother, actually she still doesn’t know about them. Yes, my mother is one of those hyper religious types, who think that the hobby is all bad.

Anyways back to the rpging. For the first year of playing I did the typical noob thing, playing the same race and class, pretty much the same character all the time. But then I saw that Healers could have unicorns and the experimentation began. I still played an elf,  only she was a Healer this time, but she couldn’t kick ass, so she had a sister who was a Ranger/Healer who came looking for her and joined the group.  Come to think of it I don’t think I’ve ever played a human in DnD; elves, halflings sure, but humans no way.  But I digress…the experimentation phase, ok so the unicorn thing isn’t really over, it’s just I could never manage to build a character that could have one and kick-ass in a fight, and boy do I love killing things.  I just remembered I had a pegasus once, she was awesome, until foo squished her

There is more to the tale, but this is turning into a long post. If you want to know more, drop a comment and we’ll see what happens.

-pb

*Yip I started playing the year the LOTR movies were all the craze.

Colour me a fangirl

I really enjoy watching The Guild. We pretty much watched the first season in one sitting, not that it’s hard to do, but you get my point. So it doesn’t surprise me that “Do you wanna date my avatar” is now stuck in my head, or that I’ve bombarded friends with the link and finally got them to watch the show. If you haven’t seen it…. watch it now

-pb

That’s a pretty serious Goat…

That’s no goat…that’s it’s Dark Young. Flee you fools!

It has been a while since my last post.  I blame sinister outside powers and pure laziness.  And in pure laziness I thought I would start with a small expansion for the Arkham Horror board game:  The Black Goat of the Woods.  If interested in my other Arkham Horror “reviews” search for them on tenletter using the cthulhu tag or category.  Moving on…

Some say this expansion to the Arkham Horror board game is nothing special, only good for collectors and enthusiasts.  Fools! Collectors and enthusiasts are one and the same.  Read on and see why…

[Durban] 3rd Game Day – 22/08/2009

In the grim darkness of Durban’s roleplaying scene there are only… game days at Destiny Bookstore.

Date: 22 August 2009

Time: 10:30am

Venue: Destiny Bookstore, Windermere Shopping Center

Fee: Nothing. It’s free!

Game: Dark Heresy quick start adventure

Facebook event page: Here.

You may wonder why I’m running Dark Heresy (especially since I just ran the Rogue Trader quick start). Well, as it turns out, not all self-contained quick starts (or one shot adventures) are made equal. While reviewing my options for this game day, I came upon several quick starts that lacked on one level or another. One, for example, focused purely on the combat mechanics of the game, showing nothing of its amazing setting or providing opportunity for any actual role playing. Another has enough material for maybe one hour of play – normally, I’d like that (allowing the group to continue and grow the story), but my personal time constraints etc. prevent me from doing the extra prep work required to fill up a full four hour session.

The Dark Heresy quick start, however, promises to show off the 40K setting, allow players to interact with the setting and (best of all) shoot lots of things. That’s why I picked it for this week. In the near future, I hope to start compiling a list of quick starts (and once-offs), comparing them to each other and giving ratings and acting suitably pretentious while doing so. Would anybody be interested in that? On the other hand, does anybody have any quick start suggestions for me?

- jatori