tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-180951302024-03-19T01:48:02.070-07:00SaurondorHome of the Saints & Sinners RPG and other crazy game ideas.Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.comBlogger303125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-47590954894526448652017-12-22T13:44:00.002-08:002017-12-22T13:48:26.303-08:00Fejérváry-Mayer Codex icons<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7D7hxdtaNW0/Wj1fCoN8FII/AAAAAAAAiv8/xFwWJqD-cY8Y5cTjeE2hawiGFSZdY0OfQCLcBGAs/s1600/article%2Bcover%2Bblack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7D7hxdtaNW0/Wj1fCoN8FII/AAAAAAAAiv8/xFwWJqD-cY8Y5cTjeE2hawiGFSZdY0OfQCLcBGAs/s1600/article%2Bcover%2Bblack.jpg" /></a>Ok, so I'm working on some Aztec themed maps and I'm building a collection of icons from the <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?assetId=568539001&objectId=662518&partId=1">Fejérváry-Mayer</a> codex. Most of the images are 200x200px and some, such as the Aztec world are around 400x400px. All are PNG with transparency so you can easy apply them to any background or underlying texture.<br />
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This first set of images contains the gods Mictlantecutli, Tonatiuh, Tezcatlipoca, and Xolotl, as well as the Aztec cosmos and a few extra images of travelers.<br />
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These images are available in a Creative Commons <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licences/by-nc-sa/4.0/">Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)</a> licence in accordance with the British Museum's codex licence.<br />
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Feel free to download the images from the following link:<br />
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<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/dzh9tdkmgf0y8jm/codex%20fejervary%20mayer.zip?dl=0" target="_blank">DOWNLOAD</a></div>
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Don't forget to follow my blog for updates!</div>
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<br />Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-16537497012840459512017-10-28T11:16:00.000-07:002017-10-28T11:16:23.541-07:00Are we a step away from 3D augmented reality rpg tabletops?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NnhgzfWf79A/WfTCrUkSklI/AAAAAAAAhwY/Q1e2-cAXtPQigAEtrZQbpMpRNJf72ObMQCLcBGAs/s1600/c7f4ef3ba71c5846e6fc24577cc96414--s-kids-a-ha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="500" height="160" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NnhgzfWf79A/WfTCrUkSklI/AAAAAAAAhwY/Q1e2-cAXtPQigAEtrZQbpMpRNJf72ObMQCLcBGAs/s200/c7f4ef3ba71c5846e6fc24577cc96414--s-kids-a-ha.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Wow! That's quite a term there on the post title, LOL!<br />
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If you're a player from the 80's like myself you certainly remember seeing or at least listening the song "Take on me" by a-ha and of course there's Star Wars, right?<br />
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Well a few apps nowadays deliver technologies that promise a not so distant 3D augmented reality rpg tabletop.<br />
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The following app (to available in the app store :( ) uses ARkit to recreate a realtime Take on me video using your own house.<br />
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZBdRAdSosv4/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZBdRAdSosv4?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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Pretty cool huh!</div>
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Now the latest Disney app is also an augmented reality game that allows you to engage in light sabre duels inside a virtual reality.</div>
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uulAytXG_TM/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uulAytXG_TM?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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The game, as you can see in the video, also allows for holochess and strategic combat (a 3D rpg tabletop). Put all this together and we have a virtual 3D rpg tabletop that doesn't stop there. Turn around to see fellow players in their PC outfit (talk about larping!).<br />
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I can certainly see a market here for tools and specially content. I see huge potential in 3D virtual tabletop figures the likes we haven't seen since the 80's. Ral Partha anyone?<br /><br />Thoughts? 3D printing of figures is already a big thing, as are virtual "sprite" tabletops on a screen, but this is quite a step forward that will require a lot of investment and having a standard platform game shops can provide content for. How would this work for you as a player?Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-63034403825122369022017-06-26T08:26:00.001-07:002017-06-26T08:28:33.524-07:00Character progression in the Black Swan System<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-obq7gFD-g94/WU45_4_rtfI/AAAAAAAAcxo/e0agWGBHTW4N0DiiGJVd8I0Xvv66AsukgCLcBGAs/s1600/DnD-tiers.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="296" data-original-width="800" height="118" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-obq7gFD-g94/WU45_4_rtfI/AAAAAAAAcxo/e0agWGBHTW4N0DiiGJVd8I0Xvv66AsukgCLcBGAs/s320/DnD-tiers.png" width="320" /></a></div>
Last post I introduced the Black Swan System and it's resolution mechanics based on a skill system that maps to a particular 3d8 die roll. Instead of adding more dice, the skill mechanism allows you to reroll and add low values, the higher your skill the higher the values you can reroll. For example the "trained" skill level allows you to reroll any ones rolled. The next level, "skilled", allows you to reroll ones and twos. In turn "experienced" allows you to reroll ones, twos and threes, and so forth until you get to "legendary" which allows you to reroll values between one and six (inclusive).<br />
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It was also pointed out that there is no upper limit to any of the rolls. A "trained" roll can equal a "legendary" roll since, improbable as it may be, the player rolling for "trained" can get a streak of 20 ones and just keep adding to the roll and in that manner inch its way to beating an opposing "legendary" opponent that just happens to roll a low or at best an average "legendary" roll. But how far apart is the average "skilled" roll from an average "legendary" roll? In other words how much do I need in modifiers to (on the average) equal one with the other.<br />
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Turns out the modifier bonus required to equal a "skilled" roll to a "legendary" roll is in the order of +23. That's quite a bit! Thinking in D&D combat terms, that's like matching a 1st level fighter with a 20th level fighter!<br />
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The chart below shows the difference between the rolls' mean values.<br />
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<table border="0" cellspacing="0">
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<td align="left" height="17"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Unqualified</span></b></td>
<td align="center"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Trained</span></b></td>
<td align="center"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Skilled</span></b></td>
<td align="center"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Experienced</span></b></td>
<td align="center"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Expert</span></b></td>
<td align="center"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Master</span></b></td>
<td align="center"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Legendary</span></b></td>
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<td align="center" height="20"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Unqualified</span></b></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#B2B2B2" sdnum="1033;" sdval="0"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">0</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="2"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">2</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="4.5"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">4.5</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="8"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">8</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="12.5"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">12.5</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="19"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">19</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="27.5"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">27.5</span></td>
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<td align="center" height="20"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Trained</span></b></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#B2B2B2" sdnum="1033;" sdval="0"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">0</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="2.5"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">2.5</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="6"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">6</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="10.5"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">10.5</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="17"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">17</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="25.5"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">25.5</span></td>
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<td align="center" height="20"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Skilled</span></b></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#B2B2B2" sdnum="1033;" sdval="0"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">0</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="3.5"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">3.5</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="8"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">8</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="14.5"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">14.5</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="23"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">23</span></td>
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<td align="center" height="20"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Experienced</span></b></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#B2B2B2" sdnum="1033;" sdval="0"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">0</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="4.5"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">4.5</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="11"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">11</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="19.5"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">19.5</span></td>
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<td align="center" height="20"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Expert</span></b></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#B2B2B2" sdnum="1033;" sdval="0"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">0</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="6.5"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">6.5</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="15"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">15</span></td>
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<td align="center" height="20"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Master</span></b></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#B2B2B2" sdnum="1033;" sdval="0"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">0</span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#66FF00" sdnum="1033;" sdval="8.5"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">8.5</span></td>
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<td align="center" height="20"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Legendary</span></b></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#CCCCCC"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#B2B2B2" sdnum="1033;" sdval="0"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small;">0</span></td>
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I like to see things graphically rather than laid out on a table, so the next graph shows the information in a radial layout on which each spoke graphs the mean difference between its level and the skill levels above it. Starting with unqualified on top and moving counter-clockwise we see that all points are at zero since unqualified is above no other skill level. The next skill counter-clockwise is trained which is slightly above trained as you can see the blue line begin to spiral downwards. Skilled is above the yellow and blue lines, and so forth. You can clearly see how much faster the lines circle downwards as we approach the master and legendary skill levels. This means these higher levels are distancing themselves faster and faster from the lower levels. In other words you'll need exponentially more and more modifiers in the form of weapon bonuses, magic modifiers, blessings from the gods, etc., just to keep up to the skill's improvement rate.<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fK-kdAlaPqE/WVEOtjqM-aI/AAAAAAAAc1E/AR9N2pYQ3OQg03phKvxykZlEzZWTO0hTACLcBGAs/s1600/skill%2Bchart.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="569" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fK-kdAlaPqE/WVEOtjqM-aI/AAAAAAAAc1E/AR9N2pYQ3OQg03phKvxykZlEzZWTO0hTACLcBGAs/s1600/skill%2Bchart.png" /></a></div>
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You can't just buy yourself into master or legendary skill levels, you've got to sweat it out through adventures, learning and training.<br />
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So what do I seek to achieve with this?<br />
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For starters a simple skill representation with levels that aren't just +1 points away from each other. This makes reaching each a significant milestone, specially for the upper tier. It's something you can be proud of as a player. It's not easy for an NPC or another player to simply stack up modifiers and reach the roll values of a master or legendary. But don't feel 100% safe in your master or legendary skill level! Remember that the Black Swan System allows lower levels to reach higher levels if they keep getting low rolls and adding these to the total (called a black swan roll in the game, an unexpected and highly impacting event). As a high level character you can feel confident, but not 100% safe, in your high skills. A lowly goblin can always happen to roll a black swan and beat your master roll!<br />
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<br />Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-988034410201427822017-06-18T18:07:00.000-07:002017-06-18T18:07:12.305-07:00Black Swan System<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oVHx1rrkMiM/WUbEG0gS6FI/AAAAAAAAchI/7Nvg6sHU2iEVAh7eM-8YnXTkgd4WGgeoQCLcBGAs/s1600/icon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="177" data-original-width="236" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-oVHx1rrkMiM/WUbEG0gS6FI/AAAAAAAAchI/7Nvg6sHU2iEVAh7eM-8YnXTkgd4WGgeoQCLcBGAs/s1600/icon.jpg" /></a></div>
The Black Swan System is the roleplay game engine I developed for Itza (a prehispanic roleplaying game) that picks up from the red-blue dice mechanics used in Saints and Sinners. It builds on the concept of representing skill levels with adjectives which in turn relate to a die roll and not a specific value. It simplifies the dice by using only 3d8 and addition only, instead multiple d6 and addition and subtraction as with the red-blue mechanics of Saints and Sinners, yet the most distinctive feature is its reroll lows and add rule which is core to the representation of skill.<br />
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Skill is represented by the low die values you're allowed to reroll and add. Less skilled characters are allowed to reroll and add all rolled ones, more skilled characters are allowed to reroll ones and twos, and so forth until legendary which are allowed to reroll and add any value between 1 and 6 inclusive. What this does is remove all low die rolls from your roll and actually reward you with an additional die you may roll and add. If the next roll is also low you may add this value and roll again. This is quite intuitive as you'd expect characters with higher skills to be less affected by low values in their dice.<br />
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Lets do an example to clarify this. My character, a novice thief who has basic lock-picking skills (is just "skilled") would roll 3d8 and reroll all ones. On the other hand my character is also an "experienced" pick-pocket. Experienced characters roll 3d8 and reroll and add all ones and twos. When picking a lock my character rolls the following:<br />
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3, 4, 1<br />
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The one is rerolled and I get an 2 and I stop rerolling. The total is now:<br />
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3+4+1+2 = 10<br />
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When pick pocketing my character rolls the following:<br />
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2, 4, 1<br />
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The one and two are rerolled and I get 1 and 1, so I roll both again and get 5 and 8 at which point I stop rolling and adding. The total is the following (rolls have been grouped with parenthesis for clarity):<br />
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(2+4+1) + (1+1) + (5+8) = 22<br />
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This is quite a high roll, almost near the max for a natural 3d8 which is 24. Being experienced at something sure pays off!<br />
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The keen observer will notice that technically I can keep rolling and adding ones and twos to infinity and obtain very large die rolls. Indeed it is a correct observation. Skill rolls are bounded at the bottom, there is always a minimum value you can get, but there is no maximum value. Odds of getting ever higher rolls drop off to infinitesimal odds but they do exits.<br />
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Simply put I don't want my character to hit a home run, I want my character to send that ball out the park, break through the roof if need be. I'm looking for dice mechanics that will surprise me. I want to spend a luck point on a roll or use some magic item or invoke the favor of the gods and boom something amazing happens.<br />
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Imagine the following for a moment. I have a "luck point", the gods' blessing if you will. I don't use it to get an extra roll or add a bonus or activate some extra fixed modifier roll. What I do is use it to increase my reroll value from 2 to 3. Now I get to reroll ones, twos and all threes too.<br />
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I roll:<br />
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8, 7 and 3<br />
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Great initial roll and I get that three which I reroll and get a 2, and I reroll again and get another two, then a one, then another three, a two, a two, a three, a one and finally an 8 at which point I can't reroll anymore. Let's see how that looks all laid out:<br />
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8+7+3+2+2+1+3+2+2+3+1+8 = 42<br />
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I just inched my character's roll by 16 (2+2+1+3+2+2+3+1) points and then had the cherry on the pie of rolling a closing 8 for a whooping +24 modifier! Had I not had the benefit of rerolling threes on top of ones and twos the roll would have stuck at 18, a good roll nevertheless, but nothing to call home about. A 42 on the other hand is good enough to overcome a typical epic or legendary challenge.<br />
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Thoughts? How do you like to handle your perks, bonus points and modifiers and how much of the story's control do you expect to get when you use them? Personally I'm hooked on this type of die rolls with unlimited top values because a small modifier, luck point or similar element when applied to the dice can potentiate the outcome considerably and go way beyond expectations, send that ball right out of the park, and make for an epic storyline worth remembering.<br />
<br />Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-13068464817727362332017-01-10T06:31:00.002-08:002017-01-10T06:31:49.275-08:00Trade, commerce and the merchant guild in Itza<br />
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2M232Pn_SbY/WHRRhVOwHcI/AAAAAAAAZ88/FwE69lqFXfUEfYAFx1y0cG8ODWp4SCXGgCLcB/s1600/efe3e1bcf62c8fb8e1c94efda4780341.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2M232Pn_SbY/WHRRhVOwHcI/AAAAAAAAZ88/FwE69lqFXfUEfYAFx1y0cG8ODWp4SCXGgCLcB/s320/efe3e1bcf62c8fb8e1c94efda4780341.jpg" width="171" /></a>The pochtecatl is a strong person indeed, a long distance trader, a wealthy man, sometimes a warrior, sometimes a priest and at other times a spy. He will travel the vast expanse of Itza, going from one city to another and bringing back wealth and information to his king, taking his fair share of the deal and enlarging his wealth and power in the process. He is part of the pochteca class and member of one of the most powerful guilds in the empire. This is his story.<br />
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The pochteca are a very elite class of merchants in the realms of Itza. They travel to distant lands, take great risks in the thick jungles and high mountains to obtain the wealth of distant realms so these may increase the might of their emperor and lord. They bring gold and jade artwork and jewelry, beautiful and sometimes magical animals from distant lands, strange and exotic magic components, strange artifacts of power and why not, slaves and prisoners as well.<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DYC4lnE3OCU/WHRRhCwzT8I/AAAAAAAAZ8w/91GtBYuZKCcq-bnlzqY7CS5WnQAn4EkWACLcB/s1600/7a7517a5ebbbd7b62cb0139f4d583ffb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DYC4lnE3OCU/WHRRhCwzT8I/AAAAAAAAZ8w/91GtBYuZKCcq-bnlzqY7CS5WnQAn4EkWACLcB/s200/7a7517a5ebbbd7b62cb0139f4d583ffb.jpg" width="156" /></a>They are a social class composed of many character classes, these may be warriors, priests, magic users, scribes, and even thieves and spies. Many times they are multiclassed, since more than one skill set is sometimes needed to survive in the demanding wilderness of Itza. They all know how to read and write as well as do numbers, and aside from this they will know two to three additional languages. Many or their porters or tameme are experienced fighters, some are hired mercenaries and some are enslaved men defeated in battle. The pochteca should not be confused with the tlanecuilo, or local traders, the later being traders of lesser social standing and considerably lesser wealth and power.<br />
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There are various types of pochteca:<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sKxwzFj6v6Q/WHRRg_tQZcI/AAAAAAAAZ9E/rVNp_QwHVzosAHGL_GI-kWLdb4UrEKf7gCEw/s1600/08f37b9be79f272ad3eb69f825b58a6d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="173" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sKxwzFj6v6Q/WHRRg_tQZcI/AAAAAAAAZ9E/rVNp_QwHVzosAHGL_GI-kWLdb4UrEKf7gCEw/s200/08f37b9be79f272ad3eb69f825b58a6d.jpg" width="200" /></a><i><b>The Oztomeca</b></i>, the oztomecatl (singular of oztomeca) is the typical long distance trader working to bring great wealth from far away lands and explore new commercial routes.<br />
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<b><i>The Tlaquixtiani</i></b>, these are the wholesalers. They arrange trade between the travelling caravans and the local markets in a city-state.<br />
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<b><i>The Tlanecuilo</i></b>, the retailers. They handle the day to day business of selling goods to the locals in the tianquiztli or local markets.<br />
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<b><i>The Teucnehnenqueh</i></b>, these pochteca specialized in trading on behalf of nobility. They quest for goods of greater value and power.<br />
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<b><i>The Teyahualonime</i></b>, these are a warrior type pochteca whose caravans are led by a merchant-general known as the Acxotecatl. Usually the arrival of the teyahualonime meant only one thing, invasion.<br />
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<i><b>The Tecouanime</b></i>, the slave merchants and quite often the riches of their class due to their direct links to priests, rituals and sacrifice.<br />
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<b><i>The Iyahqueh</i></b>, pochteca stationed in very distant and outlying trade stations. The help open new trade routes as well as warn of impending danger that might close in on the empire's borders.<br />
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<b><i>The Tlanamacani</i></b>, representatives of a pochteca guild. These are usually scribes and lawmakers that see matters of price, justice, theft, and taxation.<br />
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<b><i>The Naualoztomeca</i></b>, the disguised-merchant, or spies. They traveled with great wealth and resources to obtain the best products of foreign lands and bring the best possible information about distant city-states.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jL4nxRfmizI/WHRRhDOr1YI/AAAAAAAAZ9E/togrrhgjk5kNI1U_O6WEBK7YTz3EvX80ACEw/s1600/c0e5c910e8884f86d9ef24c5e4885e8f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jL4nxRfmizI/WHRRhDOr1YI/AAAAAAAAZ9E/togrrhgjk5kNI1U_O6WEBK7YTz3EvX80ACEw/s320/c0e5c910e8884f86d9ef24c5e4885e8f.jpg" width="224" /></a>The patron god of the pochteca is Yacatecuhtli "The Lord Who Guides", also the lord of the nose or lord of the long nose. He is the god of commerce, trade and travel and his symbol is a bundle of sticks. Usually seen with his walking stick, Yacatecuhtli paints his face black and white and wears great blue quetzal feather tassels on his head. He wears a matching blue coat beautifully decorated with feathers and covered with a black mesh. He wears gold cactlis (sandals) and adorns his ankles with small sea shells made out of gold and his ears with gold ear gauges. The image to the left depicts Yacatecuhtli with a pochteca.<br />
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The pochteca priests are proficient in all types of protection magic. As you can imagine travelling long trade routes in Itza is extremely dangerous and requires all the protection magic one can obtain. A very common spell cast nightly when travelling is the kauitlojtli, the "calmed path" or "calm road" spell. This is performed by bundling all the pochteca's walking sticks (otatl) at night and sprinkling them with blood from their tongues, ears and noses as copal (ceremonial resin) is burned at its center. This spell will grant the traveling caravan a protection from wandering creatures and thieves, reducing the odds of such encounters by one half and also making them less dangerous if they do happen to occur. It is not uncommon for the pochteca to have annual celebrations and rituals which will further protect them during the year as well as ceremonies upon their safe arrival back home. A very common home welcoming ceremony is the "feet washing" ritual. During this ceremony the pochteca place their walking sticks (otatl) in the guilds temple, offer flowers, food and acayetl (incense) to the god Yacatecuhtli, and they have their feet ceremoniously washed by the priests. This is meant to please the god as well as ward off evil collected on the travel so this may not enter the city nor "build up" for future trips.<br />
<br />Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-15779762009069400562017-01-08T08:07:00.004-08:002017-01-08T08:08:41.014-08:00Money and trade in Itza<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HjUa4rVm5ng/WHJF4ikL2dI/AAAAAAAAZ4o/XYa1KQhsDBU-YIbCSP7zyRGweSIfP0PNACLcB/s1600/Cocoa-Beans-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HjUa4rVm5ng/WHJF4ikL2dI/AAAAAAAAZ4o/XYa1KQhsDBU-YIbCSP7zyRGweSIfP0PNACLcB/s1600/Cocoa-Beans-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="140" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HjUa4rVm5ng/WHJF4ikL2dI/AAAAAAAAZ4o/XYa1KQhsDBU-YIbCSP7zyRGweSIfP0PNACLcB/s200/Cocoa-Beans-4.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
As you probably guessed by now the currency is cacao beans. So yes, your character pays for things with chocolate.<br />
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Cacao beans is the common everyday currency with which things are paid for in Itza. Things from basic items like corn, chile, avocado and beans, to services like farm hand and porter. The average fee for a porter to carry goods to a neighboring kingdom is in the order of 20 to 30 cacao beans.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KV7ZMCR2kNs/WHJT7YQFTqI/AAAAAAAAZ5A/7SYDwRMRUA0zvKjf9sjoAQufcRnKswLiACLcB/s1600/371_09_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KV7ZMCR2kNs/WHJT7YQFTqI/AAAAAAAAZ5A/7SYDwRMRUA0zvKjf9sjoAQufcRnKswLiACLcB/s320/371_09_2.jpg" width="320" /></a>There are other currencies as well. Currencies which allow for the carry of higher sums of "money" in a more compact form. These are the quachtli, or cotton mantle or cape, copper axe head and gold filled quill.<br />
There were various qualities of quachtli, ranging from poor at 65 cacao beans per mantle, good at 100 cacao beans per mangle (this is the standard game exchange rate) and then exceptional quality at 300 beans per mantle. As a reference the average yearly income of a commoner is 20 good quality quachtli. The following table gives a reference of exchange values. It is important to note that these values are not "written in stone" and fluctuate from city to city, market to market and even week to week.<br />
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<table border="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 100%px;">
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<colgroup span="2" width="112"></colgroup>
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<td align="left" height="17"><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Cacao Bean</b></div>
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<td style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Quachtli</b></div>
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<td style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Copper axe head</b></div>
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<td style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Gold powder quill</b></div>
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<td align="left" height="17"><b>Cacao Bean</b></td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;" sdval="1">1</td>
<td align="center">1/100</td>
<td align="center">1/1000</td>
<td align="center">1/5000</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" height="17"><b>Quachtli</b></td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;" sdval="100">100</td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;" sdval="1">1</td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;0;MM/DD/YY">1/10</td>
<td align="center">1/50</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" height="17"><b>Copper axe head</b></td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;" sdval="1000">1000</td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;" sdval="10">10</td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;" sdval="1">1</td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;0;MM/DD/YY">1/5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" height="17"><b>Gold powder quill</b></td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;" sdval="5000">5000</td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;" sdval="50">50</td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;" sdval="5">5</td>
<td align="center" sdnum="1033;" sdval="1">1</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ia4Em0RpfsI/WHJF3zETt5I/AAAAAAAAZ4k/b7APEFtC7eEDF5zTIqx7SCq8oDE2XZyKACLcB/s1600/1181.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ia4Em0RpfsI/WHJF3zETt5I/AAAAAAAAZ4k/b7APEFtC7eEDF5zTIqx7SCq8oDE2XZyKACLcB/s200/1181.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--apGCb0N7tM/WHJGA5-vONI/AAAAAAAAZ4s/Lrc0hZ2DT-4y4PHMksCSKI1ffUM6XRYJwCLcB/s1600/BigGooseFeathersforQuills-150.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--apGCb0N7tM/WHJGA5-vONI/AAAAAAAAZ4s/Lrc0hZ2DT-4y4PHMksCSKI1ffUM6XRYJwCLcB/s200/BigGooseFeathersforQuills-150.jpg" width="107" /></a>Alongside quachtli, copper axe heads and gold powder filled quills are also used as currency. Jewelry and common gold items found in other cultures are an exclusive right of the noble class in Itza and getting caught with such items can mean imperial punishment to the transgresor.<br />
This has lead to the rise the pochteca, a social class specialized in trade, commerce and spying, the later performed by a group close to the tlatoani (emperor or king) know as the naualoztomeca. These traders lead caravans of tamemes (porters who carried goods on their backs ) to distant lands to bring exotic goods and items desired by the nobility. Except for Coamixtitlan, the cloud city and home of the a feathered lizard race, no city state has burden animals such as horses, mules or donkeys. They simply do not exist.<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oYWZg7qr5aU/WHJiBizjyzI/AAAAAAAAZ5g/zW-sayBRsSIK_troY9EIr0AAsOhvZ90XACLcB/s1600/437_02_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oYWZg7qr5aU/WHJiBizjyzI/AAAAAAAAZ5g/zW-sayBRsSIK_troY9EIr0AAsOhvZ90XACLcB/s200/437_02_2.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X8X8IhscUWM/WHJg1wnC6lI/AAAAAAAAZ5Y/Ojtm_o82ekcZ6ImP0XZuYLJogZevLqvMwCLcB/s1600/bc19c479a732eea9e85b5a312b7a3270.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X8X8IhscUWM/WHJg1wnC6lI/AAAAAAAAZ5Y/Ojtm_o82ekcZ6ImP0XZuYLJogZevLqvMwCLcB/s200/bc19c479a732eea9e85b5a312b7a3270.jpg" width="200" /></a>The pochteca trade in huge markets known as tianguis. A tianguis in a large city can have as much as 60,000 people doing business on any given day. Large cities usually have a tianguis move across town day after day. Moving from district to district depending on the day of the 13 day week called trecena.<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6L30Y8zawl0/WHJg1jGaF2I/AAAAAAAAZ5Q/y4dQqLY3LYEpd1FBICNHQX4V9slj-qP9QCEw/s1600/07832ae5ebadaf32dea1f37e42bca63e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6L30Y8zawl0/WHJg1jGaF2I/AAAAAAAAZ5Q/y4dQqLY3LYEpd1FBICNHQX4V9slj-qP9QCEw/s200/07832ae5ebadaf32dea1f37e42bca63e.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5nvUdkhU9Ng/WHJg1ojvoCI/AAAAAAAAZ5U/QuayuCkHFZYynxILZF6DwhJ921rhQjd0wCEw/s1600/e854cc199c9e85dcc98a0e047bb88825.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5nvUdkhU9Ng/WHJg1ojvoCI/AAAAAAAAZ5U/QuayuCkHFZYynxILZF6DwhJ921rhQjd0wCEw/s200/e854cc199c9e85dcc98a0e047bb88825.jpg" width="149" /></a><br />
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Modern day tianguis in Oaxaca, Mexico.</div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image sources</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.texashorsemansdirectory.com/BigGooseFeathersforQuills-150.jpg</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.ancienttouch.com/1181.jpg</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/maya/chocolate/beanz-meanz-money</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://healthyrise.com/cocoa-beans</span>Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-53979302868513904082016-12-26T07:49:00.000-08:002016-12-26T07:50:28.680-08:00Roleplaying Rogue One<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rlAfQwoYN6Q/WGEyl8Cx8DI/AAAAAAAAZqc/_F5p0iUS_QUvVnQYBMmrs27J-ZBxi4V2ACLcB/s1600/rogue%2Bone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rlAfQwoYN6Q/WGEyl8Cx8DI/AAAAAAAAZqc/_F5p0iUS_QUvVnQYBMmrs27J-ZBxi4V2ACLcB/s320/rogue%2Bone.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
So I finally got around to watching Rogue One and if you haven't seen it you might as well stop reading here. Take this as a spoiler alert.<br />
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EqUGFrn-Re4/WGE0Pf2hgaI/AAAAAAAAZqs/YCJOOU2oSEgl5cEdMagE8f8g3m1FWuaFgCLcB/s1600/logo%2B%25282%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><br /></a><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EqUGFrn-Re4/WGE0Pf2hgaI/AAAAAAAAZqs/YCJOOU2oSEgl5cEdMagE8f8g3m1FWuaFgCLcB/s1600/logo%2B%25282%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><img border="0" height="121" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EqUGFrn-Re4/WGE0Pf2hgaI/AAAAAAAAZqs/YCJOOU2oSEgl5cEdMagE8f8g3m1FWuaFgCLcB/s200/logo%2B%25282%2529.png" width="200" /></a><br />
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Ok, so you're still here. Good. First thing I have to say is that I loved it. And yes, I got chills during the last scene seeing Princes Leia Organa take the Death Star blueprints and jumping away into what becomes the start of A New Hope.<br />
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I must comment though that I was falling asleep during a few brief moments. Thought it was the age or lack of exercise, or maybe I was just expecting a movie with a lot of CGI and a happy <i>deus ex machina</i> ending in which the rebels are saved. But then it began to happen, things begun to get really tough. Main characters begun to die. First is Saw, which might go by like some NPC, but then Bodhi (the imperial pilot) also gets blown away. The grenade drops in and it's all over with just a brief "oh shit" moment. Same for Baze after his heroic dash after Chirrut's death. K-2SO also goes down holding the line against what seems like an interminable barrage of Stormtroopers. Finally Jyn and Cassian also perish in an inescapable situation. Oh and then there were all those Tie fighters, so many of them, like a swarm of bees. And the rebel ships crashing into Darth Vader's ship as they rush to light speed just as his ship drops out of hyperspace. Boy that's got to have hurt. Oh and Darth Vader was actually kicking ass with his light lightsaber in the last scenes. It was all awesome and I was jumping around in my seat like a 7 year old, which I am, but nobody seems to notice anymore, lol.<br />
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Anyway, back to the point and question I want to raise. Can we roleplay something like Rogue One? It is technically a TPK. All our characters die. Imagine you've been roleplaying Cassian for the last 5 sessions and he's a real good covert ops character by now. A new friend you invited to learn what roleplaying is takes Bodhi, the imperial pilot. Jyn is a character that a friend played a way back and is now "in prison", but she's freed so she can join in the game. K-2SO is run by another player who's shared many adventures with Cassian's player. Baze's and Chirrut's players rolled these characters up for the session, taking a long time to fill up the high skills and stats of such a character.<br />
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And then they all die.<br />
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Over the last few years I've heard endless ramblings about fairness, balance, equal participation, etc., all so players get to participate, all so players don't get upset by character death, all so players don't leave the hobby after their first session with only a TPK game on their belt. Simply put, ramblings that make roleplaying Rogue One near to impossible. Yet Rogue One is a great movie. A movie that left me with a great admiration of the sacrifice done by everyone of the characters involved. It really gave weight to the statement in A New Hope about the sacrifice made to "obtain those plans". Some of the characters died in "normal" battle related injuries, just like any other rebel soldier, also raising the value of everyone involved and not leaving the common rebel soldier as just some background prop.<br />
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How do you handle your games so they don't become a boring succession of "stat increasing" successes?Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-76077735300970548822016-09-03T13:34:00.001-07:002016-09-03T13:34:21.832-07:00Wayobs<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qznSXXE5mdY/V8pOjqyz2xI/AAAAAAAAW0w/gBHPxBXS6W0IDu59hNVcjtt0fwYKESUngCLcB/s1600/tumblr_mo7zftcixq1qeardzo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qznSXXE5mdY/V8pOjqyz2xI/AAAAAAAAW0w/gBHPxBXS6W0IDu59hNVcjtt0fwYKESUngCLcB/s320/tumblr_mo7zftcixq1qeardzo1_1280.jpg" width="256" /></a>The wayob is the animal spirit inside every character in Itza. As a character you are born with it, and you can learn to tap into the immense power it can grant you, but such power also poses great risk. Tapping too much or tapping recklessly can make your character succumb to the animal nature of the wayob.<br />
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Wayob powers are tempting as the game mechanics allow you to succeed while failing. This presents a great temptation as you can try to tap into powers way beyond your character's reach and preparation, and still succeed in triggering them. As a player I can deliberately try to tap into a power far too strong for my character's skill level, a power so strong I'll certainly fail in invoking. Yet it will succeed. How is this? Simply put, it's the animal within your character taking over and turning a success into a failure. My character isn't very skilled, but wants to grow bat wings and fly out. Such a task is beyond the character's current skill, I roll and get a terrible outcome and my character grows wings and flies out. What happens is that it's the bat within my character flying out and taking temporary control over my character.<br />
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This control can affect the character physically and mentally as well as affect fellow party members. There is nothing stopping the bat within turning against party members and draining a fellow player's character dry. Your character may also start to develop permanent physical changes such as fangs, leathery skin, strange eyes, etc., changes that may pose risks in towns and cities afraid of such creatures.<br />
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Overall, the final result is a grey zone of failure bordered on both sides by a zone of success when the character can control the wayob and a zone of success when the character can not control the wayob. Yielding control to the wayob can be tempting for a short term benefit with a superb and uncontrollable power.<br />
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How much are you willing to pay to gain such an advantage? As a player it may be seem ok to tap into such immense power once to save the character, but if you know there's this "safety net" wouldn't you be tempted to run greater risks in the adventure which may corner you to tap into uncontrollable wayob powers more and more often? Can you, as a player, roleplay the wayob against your own character's interest?<br />
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Thoughts?<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image source</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://artparasite.tumblr.com/post/54129835760/nahual-tavo-montanez</span><br />
<br />Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-19378805435069818632016-08-28T14:01:00.002-07:002016-08-28T14:01:21.874-07:00You're on a need to know basis<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The hardest part of writing Itza was boiling the player's handbook into two sheets of paper. That's it! Four pages going from 1 to 4.<br />
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Get your stats, write your character out, understand the skill system and get down to playing. You're on a need to know basis, and the less you know the better off you are.<br />
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That is the basics of old school gaming I grew up with and the basics of the games I want to design from now one (at least for the foreseeable future). The less you know about the rules the more creative you'll be as a player.<br />
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As a GM I want you to tell me what your character is and how such description will lead to a kick ass scene.<br />
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A few points:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Less rules means you get down to playing the game sooner.</li>
<li>Less rules means you get to play <b>your</b> game rather than the "rule's games".</li>
<li>Less rules means there's a lesser divide between the "rules savvy" and the "noob players" (more fun for everyone)</li>
<li>Less rules means a lot more burden on the GM or person running the game. Trust and communication is a must (which of course is a must in any situation involving many humans).</li>
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Of course all this goes against the intuitive business logic of selling more shit. So how do things unfold?</div>
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Thoughts?</div>
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Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-7109529599312003632015-11-20T10:14:00.003-08:002015-11-20T10:14:24.591-08:00Firearms, cover and damage in Weapons Free<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_B5igjYDYiA/Vk9dbUl3jOI/AAAAAAAATGY/O0jb4yloJt4/s1600/2296509322_f2bbcfc114_b%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_B5igjYDYiA/Vk9dbUl3jOI/AAAAAAAATGY/O0jb4yloJt4/s320/2296509322_f2bbcfc114_b%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="212" /></a><br />As a modern warfare game you can imagine firearms and damage take a center roll. Yet surprisingly damage is something that's rolled less often than you might expect. You and your opponents will take a lot of precaution in not getting hit. Actually achieving a hit should be an uncommon event. Suppression and rolling for damage on armor and cover, well that's quite another thing. Suppression plays an important roll in the game and is something you need to learn how to leverage as a player and use it to move around the battlefield and obtain a better position against your enemy. As a GM you should see few deaths and should remember that your NPCs don't want to die. They will seek to retreat if they can and surrender if they can't do anything against an advancing force. Of course history is full of cases in which troops fought to the end, but aside from a one shot session it is highly discouraged that you engage in these types of style of play. NPCs should not stand up fearlessly to take that shot that would kill the characters. Play it out as if you want to live through the campaign and get back home or at least live to fight another day. Now without further delay let me jump into the actual example.</div>
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First of all the thing to remember is that combat and attacks is just a more specialized version of a skill check. As such it is resolved by two die rolls just like skill checks, one for the attacking party (skill roll) and one for the defender (task roll). The outcome is determined by the difference between the rolls. The character's skill determines the skill roll and the distance to the target determines the difficulty of the attack and thus the task roll. The possible outcomes are: critical miss, miss, suppression, hit cover, hit, or critical hit.</div>
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Unlike normal skill checks with just four outcomes: critical failure, failure, success and critical success; combat has two more outcomes and a deeper interpretation of each. Suppression is the outcome of an attack that misses the target but comes close enough to scare or hits the target's cover without actually penetrating through. Thus a hit to cover also produces suppression as we'll see below. The second additional outcome is hit cover. This is when the attack would actually hit the target but something stands in between, be this an obstacle or body armor.</div>
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Simple attack</h3>
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Lets take for example an attacker who rolls 3d8 and a target that rolls 3d8.</div>
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For this simple attack example if the result of subtracting the target roll (difficulty) from the attacker roll (skill) is less than -4 the attack totally misses(cyan area). If the roll falls between -4 and -1 (yellow) it generates suppression. If the roll falls between 0 and 5 it hits cover (green) and also generates suppression. Depending on type of cover and damage it may penetrate and hit the target. If the roll is 6 or better (orange) it hits the exposed parts of the target. If it rolls 10 or above additional effects will be experienced due to a critical hit and if the roll is -10 or worse the inverse happens due to a critical miss.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DvOtZAYEb3A/Vk6Qj3I57qI/AAAAAAAATFg/SHlYVnnyhMI/s1600/attack%2Bgraph%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DvOtZAYEb3A/Vk6Qj3I57qI/AAAAAAAATFg/SHlYVnnyhMI/s320/attack%2Bgraph%2B1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The values for cover and suppression depend on the degree of cover (obviously) and the weapon being used. Higher rate of fire will lead to better suppression. Thus heavy machineguns and Gatling guns can generate suppression on a -6 or better.</div>
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Complex Attack</h3>
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Now let me analyze a more complex real life situation as shown in this diorama. A group of GIs are protecting a point from an Axis advance. We've got men in the open, prone, behind sandbags and in the trees. This presents varying degrees of cover and targets with different cross sections to the advancing Axis soldiers. Needless to say the smaller the cross-section the harder it is to hit the target.</div>
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Let's take a look at what the German soldiers see from their point of view (POV).</div>
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As you can see from this photo the same targets that were easily visible from the eagle eye view shown before are now very hard to distinguish. Cover, cross-section and camouflage make them hard to spot and even harder to hit, and I'm not even adding movement to the equation.</div>
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In the following image I'm overlapping the eagle eye view and the Axis POV and labeling targets so I can work out the mechanics for each in this and upcoming posts.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LQS_PDB3V9E/Vk6VRAx3pPI/AAAAAAAATF0/Nvz2udbtH4E/s1600/attack%2Bpov.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LQS_PDB3V9E/Vk6VRAx3pPI/AAAAAAAATF0/Nvz2udbtH4E/s400/attack%2Bpov.jpg" width="393" /></a></div>
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A is the rifleman kneeling behind a tree. His cover is so good it hard to distinguish from the German POV. Instead, from the German point of view you see the GI throwing the grenade from behind.</div>
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B is the rifleman prone by the tree. This target isn't even visible from the German POV.</div>
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C is the bazooka kneeling in the middle of the road getting ready to zap the tank.</div>
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D is a rifleman prone in front of the sandbags.</div>
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E is the rifleman standing behind the sandbags.</div>
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F is the MG crew kneeling behind the sandbags.</div>
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G is the rifleman running toward the Germans.</div>
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The Germans are in turn armed with MG-42 by the looks of it, some rifles, submachine guns and of course a StuG IV, a formidable armored vehicle with a 7,5cm (StuK 40 L/48) cannon and a MG-34. With this the Germans can attack point targets, attack an area or shell a target.</div>
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The German riflemen and the MG in the ruins have a clear view of the treeline and the man with the bazooka, but the tank blocks the view of the Allied MG and most of the men behind the sandbags. The Germans at the other side of the tank have a clear view of both, but their weapons have shorter range and the Allied treeline is much further away. You're the attacking German force, what do you do?</div>
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As the Germans in the ruins you have two clear targets the bazooka GI and the grenade GI. Initiative aside, which I'll cover in another article, lets say the MG goes for the bazooka and the rifleman for the grenade GI. </div>
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Basic Example Rifleman vs Grenade GI</h3>
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The basic rules are simple:</div>
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<li>Get a result of 0 or better and you hit.</li>
<li>Skill determines attack roll and distance determines difficulty roll.</li>
<li>Skill and difficulty determine the value on which your d8 dice get to explode. The least skilled and easy tasks explode no dice at all, novice characters explode on 1, experienced characters explode on 1 and 2 and so forth up to legendary, and the same for difficulties.</li>
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Lets say for the sake of this example that the targets are at short range for the weapons at hand. This means the difficulty roll is easy 3d8(1) (the value in parenthesis indicates up to what value to explode on). The German soldiers are experienced and roll with 3d8(2) and thus explode 1s and 2s.</div>
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Rolling for the difficulty I get 18 (6, 4 & 8) and rolling for the grenade soldier I get 18 (7, 1, 2, 4, 1, 3). Since I got ones and twos I added that value and rolled the dice again until I stopped getting 1s and 2s.</div>
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Now this gives a result of 0 (18-18) which hits the target and damage should be dealt with now.The rifle's ammunition does 2d8 points of damage and I get 5 & 7. It is important to keep the values separate for now as damage depends on the point of the body hit. Since I just barely achieved success (got a 0), the success is marginal and the GM dictates its a hit to the arm or lower leg. This provides a -2 modifier to the damage (we'll get back to damage by body area later) and the result is 3 and 5 points (5-2 & 7-2) for a total of 8 points. The hit soldier has a pain threshold of 3 which acts as a buffer and subtracts from the damage leaving only 5 points to be dealt with to hit points. This is one third of the total hit points and the character suffers a serious wound and drops to the ground. It was nonetheless a good shot. Had it been a better roll, say for example a 22 vs 18 the GM could have dictated a hit to the torso with no -2 modifier. This would have produced a total of 10 points of damage and left the GI in a very delicate situation.</div>
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Revisiting Range and Modifiers</h3>
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In the previous example I skipped a lot of modifiers to get the example through and through covering damage as well. In a real life situation the target isn't static and movement adds to the difficulty of the attack. There is also the element of visual range. The same rifle is more effective if optics are added. The quality doesn't change, just the ability to spot the target better. An iron sight is not as good as a scope and although the rifle is good at such short range the soldiers visual precision is not.</div>
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So at such a range the attacker suffers a -2 due to movement and a -2 due to visual range which turns the 18 into a 14. This in turn produces a -4 outcome (14 - 18) which is not good enough to hit the target, but good enough to have the character suppresses and looking for cover. The GM can dictate that characters close to this GI can also come under the effect of suppression even if they're not the target of the attack roll.</div>
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Counter Attack</h3>
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The GI prone on the ground sees the German firing and shoots back. For simplicity's sake let's say the M1 has the same performance as the K98. The difficulty roll is 3d8(1) and the skill roll is 3d8(3), the GI has been on since Normandy and is quite an expert by now. His rolls explode up to a 3.</div>
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I roll for the task (7, 3, 1, 8) getting 19, and then for the GI (5, 5, 2, 3, 5) getting a 20. Notice how I rerolled the 2 and 3 for the GI but only the 1 for the task.</div>
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The result is a 1 (20 - 19), certainly a hit, but the German is behind cover 50% this gives a 4 cover modifier which means I need a 4 or better to hit the German directly. The shot hits the wall and stops there but it generates suppression which will have the German running for cover unless it can be overcome it through a mettle attribute check.</div>
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Now, lets imagine for a moment that the wall is some material the bullet could get through, like wood or thin metal. I'll roll damage and apply the stopping power of armor. </div>
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The damage is once again 2d8 and I get 3 and 7. The wood has an armor 2d4 and I roll getting 4 and 3. The dice are compared linearly against the damage from highest to lowest. The 7 vs the 4 and the 3 vs the 3. Since 7 beats the 4 it goes through leaving 3 points of damage (7-4) and the other 3 totally stops the bullet's 3. A total of 3 points make it through to the target and since the shot was marginally successful (only a 1) the GM dictates once again that it hit a non vital body part like the lower leg. The body part modifier of -2 is adding dropping the damage down to 1. With a pain threshold of 3 the German absorbs it all with no damage going to hit points. It's just a simple scratch not even worth calling a flesh wound. Notice that if the shot had hit the torso which has no -2 modifier the full 3 points would be delivered to the character. Nonetheless this is still not a wound as it is easily absorbed by the character's paint threshold and stamina.</div>
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Damage and Pain</h3>
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Before closing this post I'd like to comment on the damage mechanism. Characters have two pools of points: stamina and hit points. Stamina is a buffer that represents lesser damage and can be replenished quicker than hit points (in a matter of hours). Hit points is serious physical damage that can take days, weeks or even months to heal. The amount of damage that can be absorbed by stamina at any one point is determined by the pain threshold. This is a window below which all damage goes to stamina and above it goes to hit points. This <a href="http://saurondor.blogspot.mx/2014/09/stamina-hit-points-and-pain.html" target="_blank">article</a> covers the mechanics in full detail.</div>
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In the next post I'll go over the scenario in which the MG is used against the tree line and the rifle is used against the bazooka.</div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Diorama source</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.kitshow.net/int/AS_12_Enemy_contact.php</span></div>
Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-53173500056860381512015-11-17T13:05:00.001-08:002015-11-17T13:05:56.980-08:00Metal is so, uh, un-cyber-punkish<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9cn1sZq9M0o/VkuTekzt3AI/AAAAAAAATCo/ueexb9ULi0Q/s1600/5926373__original.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9cn1sZq9M0o/VkuTekzt3AI/AAAAAAAATCo/ueexb9ULi0Q/s320/5926373__original.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Plastics, polymers, and ceramics. These are all the future materials. What are all these metal borgs, androids and air-filter-for-eye-wear things on my sci-fi episodes?<br />
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Ridley Scott nailed it. Ash has no metal parts showing. The future is plastic. Metals are out and organics are in.<br />
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Terminator? Blhahhh!<br />
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Skynet? Double blhahahhaahh!<br />
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When the shit really hits the fan with DNA manipulation, oh you're going to be in for a great surprise!<br />
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Just take a moment to think how much we've moved forward in 3D printing when it comes to roleplaying stuff: figures, tabletop items such as dungeon passage, etc.<br />
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Just imagine 3D printing on a molecular level?<br />
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What will the conventional weapons race look like in the near future as complex armor counteracts weapon systems?<br />
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A metal robot requires a factory and facilities to repair itself. A molecular printable cyborg only needs to touch a tree big enough to supply enough organic material to repair all battle damage.<br /><br />The challenge in creating a cyberpunk setting is making today's fears inconsequential and tomorrow's horrors very, very real.Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-68183528127087898372015-11-16T07:34:00.000-08:002015-11-16T07:34:42.534-08:00Storyline distances<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EOGYb_M24eE/VkiY7LNatoI/AAAAAAAATAc/BLD1-kT4Auw/s1600/F1.large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="135" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EOGYb_M24eE/VkiY7LNatoI/AAAAAAAATAc/BLD1-kT4Auw/s320/F1.large.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Game storylines are quite complex things. You start at some point in the story and begin to move forward. One action takes you to the next and options seem to unfold in front of you. You take one path and then the next and the next. The result is something like the image to the right. A very complex and possibly n dimensional figure of interwoven paths moving away and towards each other.<br />
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Lets look at the following image. Imagine your main storyline going from the top center downward and slightly to the left. Each action you and your fellow players take moves the story a bit forward. This movement process is not automatic, it requires an effort and not all moves are possible. The white space around the path is space your story can't occupy. There are, so to speak, no "viable scenes" there. Let me make a parenthesis here to clarify that this is not railroading, I will get to that in another post, this is just marking a path through a set of options which are not all equally probable or 100% probable.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-md6oRdd-c54/VkiY5waSFXI/AAAAAAAATAQ/t_4UEQrpsuo/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-md6oRdd-c54/VkiY5waSFXI/AAAAAAAATAQ/t_4UEQrpsuo/s1600/download.jpg" /></a></div>
As you can see there are other clusters to the right, these are alternate storylines with interconnected moves. These storylines are separated from the main storyline by white space. A story can't simply move from the main story to these alternate storylines without the action being disruptive (that is tunneling from one storyline to the other).<br />
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Now how do I envision the concept of "rolling for impact" that <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/114162698572145803131" target="_blank">+Brent Newhall</a> brought up. Well that downward storyline I'm talking to you about could be a success or failure streak. In Brent's comment he mentioned failure being certain and we'd only be concerned with the degree of impact, but this could very well be turned around to success. Not all failure is automatic and equally impacting and not all success is automatic and equally impacting.<br />
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Lets revisit the diagram and start from the bottom center on our way up and work around degrees of success. I find that going upwards and talking about success is more inspiring that downward and failure, but the example can be very well examined in the opposite direction by yourself. That being said let me move ahead. If we assume we will succeed and the only important thing to determine is the degree of success we are then placing a mechanism at work to determine this. This mechanism is die based since we are after all "rolling for impact". Each roll adds a bit of information that is quite different from other rolls. That means we can NOT have binary outcomes. As you can see the path upwards is composed of small and large steps, and there is always a step. Some steps move you sideways and hardly forward and some steps are pure forward moves.<br />
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This is what I call the impact of the highly expected. We know we will succeed (or fail), success is expected, what is important now for the story is its degree. It is very hard to obtain a degree of success out of a binary die roll mechanism that signals success (1) - failure (0) as possible outcomes. Unless of course we keep rolling more dice to subdivide the success space into smaller "partial success" spaces, but this is tedious and time consuming.<br />
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A storyline with binary mechanics might look like this:<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gZH--zRuhNc/VkiY7Lx1EuI/AAAAAAAATAY/_21d_4YdYtM/s1600/map-flip-2anv-small.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gZH--zRuhNc/VkiY7Lx1EuI/AAAAAAAATAY/_21d_4YdYtM/s320/map-flip-2anv-small.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
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A storline space with very short and fragmented story segments. You either succeed and move on or fail and get stuck. Every so often you might end up with outstanding success or failure which jumps you to another fragmented storyline. It becomes easier to visualize player uncertainty and loss of narrative control. All those places you want to go as a player are now white space, unreachable, and that which is reachable seems so far out of reach.</div>
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Now let me talk a bit about move-roll and roll-move mechanics. In move-roll you call your move and then roll to see what happens. In roll-move you roll and then do what's best with that roll. Graphically this looks something like the following:</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8oX1iKulJe8/VkntnV5taeI/AAAAAAAATBA/ePn-Uvya504/s1600/storyline%2Bbinary%2Bspace.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8oX1iKulJe8/VkntnV5taeI/AAAAAAAATBA/ePn-Uvya504/s400/storyline%2Bbinary%2Bspace.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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In move-roll I'm in Pi and say I want to move to Ps. If I make the roll I get to Ps if not I don't get to Ps. The green area is called the inclusion zone. It's where I can move to if the roll succeeds and the red area is the exclusion zone, places I can't reach. In move-roll my statements are defining the inclusion zone and then I roll to see if I can reach it. All the other P points on the diagram are outcomes that I didn't choose to reach. I will address them later.</div>
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In roll-move I'm in Pi and I roll, this in turn opens up an inclusion zone from which I can choose a set of possible Ps (portrayed in the image as {Ps1, Ps2, Ps3}). There are still exclusion zones to the left and right they're just defined "a priori" by the dice. I have deliberately selected the roll-move roll to be lower than the move-roll. This to portray the fact that the player is still bound by the die roll. None of the Ps outcomes in roll-move is better than the Ps outcomes in the move-roll, they're just a lot more and the player has the impression of more outcomes to choose from.</div>
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This takes us to the very important question. If I "fail" in the move-roll shouldn't I be entitled to one of the multiple Ps in roll-move? That is, I strive for Ps and roll low, but still within the green inclusion zone of the roll-move diagram. Why do I get nothing instead of a choice between Ps1, Ps2 or Ps3? More so, if I get a way better roll than required to attain Ps, why am I stuck with Ps? Shouldn't I be entitled to P4 or P5?</div>
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Lets revisit move-roll from a roll for impact perspective. In this case all outcomes are within the inclusion zone. The player calls Ps as the goal outcome and then rolls. The roll will determine if Ps itself comes up or if any of the alternate {Ps1 to Ps6} outcomes occur. Some are less favorable than Ps and some are more favorable. </div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q8nKbr4DpmQ/Vknyxao3vuI/AAAAAAAATBQ/LfwRRUeUDrg/s1600/storyline%2Bfuzzy%2Bspace.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q8nKbr4DpmQ/Vknyxao3vuI/AAAAAAAATBQ/LfwRRUeUDrg/s400/storyline%2Bfuzzy%2Bspace.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-md6oRdd-c54/VkiY5waSFXI/AAAAAAAATAQ/t_4UEQrpsuo/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-md6oRdd-c54/VkiY5waSFXI/AAAAAAAATAQ/t_4UEQrpsuo/s1600/download.jpg" /></a>We can now put these little steps together to build the original image and see how these small and sometimes larger steps move the story up the diagram. Sometimes we get a good roll and move upwards a lot, sometimes not so much and we seem to move sideways rather than forward, but we always move, and we do so coherently. No awkward moment when something that should be obviously possible does not happen. No wasting minutes coming up with an action that does not materialize itself due to a bad roll. </div>
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That to me is rolling for impact.</div>
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Thoughts?</div>
Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-78449981048020366602015-11-14T15:04:00.000-08:002015-11-14T15:04:18.943-08:00Huitzi 3021<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RvCLtC-WY58/Vkdj9_XTTFI/AAAAAAAAS_U/D1MtyexQ-4Q/s1600/huitzilopochtli_by_verreaux-d6plo8d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RvCLtC-WY58/Vkdj9_XTTFI/AAAAAAAAS_U/D1MtyexQ-4Q/s200/huitzilopochtli_by_verreaux-d6plo8d.jpg" width="200" /></a>Christopher Columbus never made it across the Atlantic. He drowned at sea or fell prey to mutiny which in turn led his ships astray. Whatever his fate, he never made it back to Spain. Europe never found a short route to the Indies and without the gold that would bring and riddled with towns infested with plague it would fall into another thousand years of darkness.<br />
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Fifteen hundred years into the future the world is a very different place. Mesoamerica has risen as technological and spiritual superpower. Fueled by advanced technology and ancient magic it has forged a world of warring states. The gods were real all along and they are creatures who came here from distant planets. A mixture of humans and extraterrestrial beings has emerged as extraterrestrial technology and human magic intermingle.<br />
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Earth is a very violent and dangerous place. The ancient gods have revealed themselves as powerful beings from other worlds and xenomorphs live among us demanding tribute in blood. This allows for a fragile balance between life and utter destruction. Magic and supernatural powers tops it all, adding to the powerful mix of science and technology.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8lTHlzVQtQw/VkdmlI4Lx4I/AAAAAAAAS_g/o53pbPr2J4Q/s1600/373_09_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8lTHlzVQtQw/VkdmlI4Lx4I/AAAAAAAAS_g/o53pbPr2J4Q/s200/373_09_2.jpg" width="197" /></a>Huitzi (hummingbird) 3021 is a game set in Earth's distant future. It takes place fifteen hundred years after what would have been the fall of Tenochtitlan which never really was. Magic and ritual has forged a path to technological revelation which has opened the eyes of mankind to the creatures that walk among them. These extraterrestrial beings have in turn shared their technology with us and fused sorcery with technology. The terrible creatures from Aztec folklore exist. Such creatures as the Tzitzimime are real. They walk among us and are horrible monsters from other worlds who have imposed rituals of blood and sacrifice that have shaped the very essence of the world's culture.<br />
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The world is divided into various warring city states ruled by powerful kings under the oversight of powerful patron godlike beings. Society is highly stratified and many still see these beings as great gods with unstoppable power. Ancient shaman magic has intermingled with technology to produce powerful forces that war against each other in an attempt to achieve world domination.<br />
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On which side do you stand?<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7xvy0io4otk/VkdoKzKid5I/AAAAAAAAS_s/qQQAD4DBdsA/s1600/9a0605d5874b4693c3af21845e89406c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7xvy0io4otk/VkdoKzKid5I/AAAAAAAAS_s/qQQAD4DBdsA/s1600/9a0605d5874b4693c3af21845e89406c.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Huitzi logo source</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.deviantart.com/art/Huitzilopochtli-405798637</span>Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-25194563976554566412015-11-14T07:59:00.001-08:002015-11-14T18:31:00.864-08:00Huitzilopochtli 3021 AD<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8gM8hzdxNZY/Vkc7pSca2sI/AAAAAAAAS9A/k6AWkNUVn04/s1600/Huitzilopochtli.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8gM8hzdxNZY/Vkc7pSca2sI/AAAAAAAAS9A/k6AWkNUVn04/s200/Huitzilopochtli.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FxaJefsQE2I/Vkc9Cg3tYgI/AAAAAAAAS9I/rg8vfuz0eFc/s1600/coatlicue-diosa-mexicas-monolito-mna-df.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="323" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FxaJefsQE2I/Vkc9Cg3tYgI/AAAAAAAAS9I/rg8vfuz0eFc/s640/coatlicue-diosa-mexicas-monolito-mna-df.jpg" width="640" /></a>Huitzilopochtli, patron god of war to the Aztecs (Mexicas), was born fully armored and armed from the womb of Coatlicue, herself the goddess of fertility, rebirth and goddess of life and death. As with so many things in mesoamerican mythology she's a symbol of duality. A goddess who's head is a pair of snakes, who's skirt is made of interwoven snakes and even her arms are snake heads! A fearsome creature portrayed in the image bellow in which you see all the features aforementioned as well as the necklace of skulls and amputated hands that encircles her neck. Makes you wonder what the goddess of the underworld looks like.<br />
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Legend says she became pregnant with Huitzilopochtli when a beautiful feathered crest fell from the sky while she was sweeping the temple at Tollan. At that time she was doing penance on the hill of Coatepec and her duty was to tend to the cleaning of the temple. Seeing such a beautiful crest she picked it up and admired it, bringing it close to her and contemplating it for a long time. It was when she was laying the crest down to return to her chores that she noticed a feather missing. No matter how much she cleaned and looked for it in the temple she could not find it. This feather was already on its way to become Huitzilopochtli.<br />
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Upon hearing the news of her mothers's mysterious pregnancy her 400 sons, the Centzon Huitznáhuac (gods of the stars), became deeply offended and enraged. Instigated by their sister Coyolxauhqui they decided to turn against their dishonored mother and kill her. It is at this time when confronting their mother with the intent of killing her that Huitzilopochtli is born fully armed and armored. He confronts and defeats his sisters and brothers and dismembers Coyolxauhqui throwing her head to the heavens to become the Moon.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VTnQTEeyqeg/VkdA-60eNYI/AAAAAAAAS9U/OA0771bvxRI/s1600/tumblr_mfcnwhteW71r4vg6ro1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VTnQTEeyqeg/VkdA-60eNYI/AAAAAAAAS9U/OA0771bvxRI/s400/tumblr_mfcnwhteW71r4vg6ro1_1280.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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This is all nice and well. Goes along the lines of one of the most popular legends around the birth of Huitzilopochtli. He is also known as the blue Tezcatlipoca and is one of the four Tezcatlipoca alongside Quetzalcoatl (the white Tezcatlipoca), Xipetótec (the red Tezcatlipoca) and the black Tezcatlipoca known simply as "Tezcatlipoca". The Tezcatlipoca are sons of Ometecuhtli y Omecíhuatl, the creating couple whose offspring also include figures such as Tlaloc (god or rain), Mictlantecuhtli (god of the underworld) and Xiuhtecuhtli (god of fire). As you can see family ties ran deep!<br />
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Now I want to revisit the legend from a more futuristic cyberpunk-futuristic-mecha setting inspired from last nights artwork.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P10fENJCro4/VkdDjUpdXgI/AAAAAAAAS9g/eJQI8q82Au8/s1600/186wwncm4u70jjpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P10fENJCro4/VkdDjUpdXgI/AAAAAAAAS9g/eJQI8q82Au8/s320/186wwncm4u70jjpg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Who are these gods? Who is this Coatlicue? A goddess who can give birth to a fully armed and armored son who defeats 400 fully armed gods of the stars, dismembers his sister and turns her head into the moon. Aside from the physical impossibility of giving birth to an adult, there's the added complexity (not to mention pain) of the armor and weapons!<br />
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An impossibility easy to overcome if Coatlicue is a mother ship and her son Huitzilopochtli is a fully armed mech descending to defeat the armies of opposing stellar forces (Centzon Huitznáhuac, gods of the stars). The dismembered Coyolxauhqui? Some remains of mech technology on the Moon?<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rnFiiXq2W2o/VkdGyq6zA7I/AAAAAAAAS98/b71ErIfFO08/s1600/transformers3-trailer-crashed-ship-on-moon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="140" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rnFiiXq2W2o/VkdGyq6zA7I/AAAAAAAAS98/b71ErIfFO08/s320/transformers3-trailer-crashed-ship-on-moon.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DH2HfQmUeEs/VkdFxWpPTkI/AAAAAAAAS9s/E0KFsvezBYM/s1600/Chromehounds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DH2HfQmUeEs/VkdFxWpPTkI/AAAAAAAAS9s/E0KFsvezBYM/s200/Chromehounds.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
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I want to spin this off into an interesting setting that adds bits and pieces of mesoamerican mythology into a futuristic technology and magic mix. Who are these Atlanteans in Tula?</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CeycB6ymyjk/VkdIVJR27NI/AAAAAAAAS-I/HLZDDQQpiPw/s1600/Tula_06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CeycB6ymyjk/VkdIVJR27NI/AAAAAAAAS-I/HLZDDQQpiPw/s320/Tula_06.jpg" width="320" /></a><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KFKQlPSyqfc/VkdF16CaPbI/AAAAAAAAS90/pzgwdtNdQrY/s1600/186wwngk8mmoqjpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KFKQlPSyqfc/VkdF16CaPbI/AAAAAAAAS90/pzgwdtNdQrY/s200/186wwngk8mmoqjpg.jpg" width="125" /></a>Lets bring these stone monoliths back to life with technology and magic mixed together. Letting the long lost mesoamerican culture jump 1500 years into the future and create an interesting futuristic setting with strange and at times very deadly rituals and values from the past.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qT5Gwrm2LaY/VkdJiREF23I/AAAAAAAAS-Q/3baAv8IklAs/s1600/186wwn6oxmbtnjpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="112" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qT5Gwrm2LaY/VkdJiREF23I/AAAAAAAAS-Q/3baAv8IklAs/s200/186wwn6oxmbtnjpg.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gu8BtFtWEb4/VkdJzHCDuDI/AAAAAAAAS-c/XS3df7KRatw/s1600/apocalypto001ce7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="140" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gu8BtFtWEb4/VkdJzHCDuDI/AAAAAAAAS-c/XS3df7KRatw/s200/apocalypto001ce7.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
A time when this to the left becomes that to the right. A hyper technologically advanced society ruled by fearsome gods of war, life, death and the underworld.<br />
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Let me introduce to you a goddess known as Itzpapalotl. She is the obsidian butterfly, the goddess of war and sacrifice, and of course death. She rules over the paradise of Tamoanchan, a place said to be the origin of man who was created out of sacrificial blood and ground up bones stolen from the underworld of Mictlan. If Tamoanchan is heaven just imagine what Mictlan (the underworld) looks like!<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6eUDDx1tS6k/VkdN4xdnMAI/AAAAAAAAS-0/Gb1TUU5KMlg/s1600/Kodeks_tudela_21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6eUDDx1tS6k/VkdN4xdnMAI/AAAAAAAAS-0/Gb1TUU5KMlg/s200/Kodeks_tudela_21.jpg" width="186" /></a><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_qKl7ORH7WQ/VkdLIvmR9LI/AAAAAAAAS-o/Rpkw_ZBAv7I/s1600/Itzpapalotl.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="136" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_qKl7ORH7WQ/VkdLIvmR9LI/AAAAAAAAS-o/Rpkw_ZBAv7I/s200/Itzpapalotl.gif" width="200" /></a>What is really frightening about Itzpapalotl is her description. She is described as a black skeletal figure with obsidian claws. She's said to be butterfly like with large skeletal wings tipped in sharp blades as well. Also notice the crest on her head! On top of this her neck is said to be surrounded by a necklace of hearts and hands taken from her victims. The image to the right shows a figure of her on top of a temple taking on human sacrifice. It is said she'd also incite men into cannibalism to give tribute to her and gain her favor or pardon.</div>
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Reminds me of a terrible creature that lives in the deepest, darkest, most feared corner of our mind. The dreaded alien queen.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oAKGOrjo3PI/VkdOufCtLfI/AAAAAAAAS-8/KeS5KlUaQ0c/s1600/alien_queen___rip_giger_by_hideyoshi-d7i9tw4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="451" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oAKGOrjo3PI/VkdOufCtLfI/AAAAAAAAS-8/KeS5KlUaQ0c/s640/alien_queen___rip_giger_by_hideyoshi-d7i9tw4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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If this is the goddess what is Tamoanchan? Where is this paradise she rules over? And most important of all who or what inhabits it?</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HbNEfW1CmfI/VkdQDdbV-VI/AAAAAAAAS_E/Z91NBBa63m4/s1600/Engineer_temple.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HbNEfW1CmfI/VkdQDdbV-VI/AAAAAAAAS_E/Z91NBBa63m4/s640/Engineer_temple.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Ahh! Overall a great deal of inspiration to bring together prehispanic mythology and folklore with future technology and beings from other worlds. What role would you play?<br />
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<br />Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-30804163696147184122015-10-22T10:10:00.000-07:002015-10-22T10:10:32.006-07:00Seven temples of the underworld<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_H6kyQVWrQQ/VikEjnd-9QI/AAAAAAAASpQ/Y6GeaAxmr2w/s1600/piramide_sol%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: left;"><img border="0" height="179" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_H6kyQVWrQQ/VikEjnd-9QI/AAAAAAAASpQ/Y6GeaAxmr2w/s320/piramide_sol%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Pyramids in Mesoamerica are not solid rock structures meant to be climbed for the purpose of worshiping some god. They're living structures that grew over centuries and have layers upon layers of lesser pyramids within them. There, are as you would have guessed, tunnels within. Unlike their Egyptian counterparts which are said to be built for the purpose of being a tomb, these pyramids were ceremonial and government centers. The complexity of them is outstanding and no pyramid shows this better than the one in Cholula, Puebla.</div>
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Allow yourself to travel back in time a few centuries. Your party has traveled through a mountain pass between two huge volcanoes and is finally making good way over the grasslands and sparse forests that populate this valley. You quest the famed Tlachihualtépetl, the hand made mill as it translates from the local language. It is said that below the now abandoned abbey is an ancient temple filled with great riches. You're now seeking to reach this abbey and enter its crypts in search of a passage to the temple rumored to be below. </div>
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It is late in the fall and the winter is coming quickly. Already all around you you see preparations in anticipation to the celebrations of the dead. You pass a local cemetery dressed in the classic yellow of the zempoalxochitl flower, the flower of the dead.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tq1Wp3w9skw/VikHiaxNr-I/AAAAAAAASpc/EHVohal_6do/s1600/cemeterio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tq1Wp3w9skw/VikHiaxNr-I/AAAAAAAASpc/EHVohal_6do/s320/cemeterio.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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You pass the cemetery paying respect to the passers by and those in ritual around the tombs and quickly turn down the road to the local town. Once there you find your way to the local market, the center of all commercial activity and a sure place to find information and directions to the abbey.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GIPI_wfgNuQ/VikKWHGBGoI/AAAAAAAASpo/JNTlOnmSX5s/s1600/fig_55.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GIPI_wfgNuQ/VikKWHGBGoI/AAAAAAAASpo/JNTlOnmSX5s/s320/fig_55.jpg" width="320" /></a>The market is packed with merchants lined one next to the other and selling a multitude of products, from flowers, spices and seeds to fish, cloth, pottery, candies and all types of foods. In the multitude of merchants, guards, soldiers, nobles and slaves you find a few who can give you directions to the abbey you quest for. Being late in the day you decide to stay in town and journey early tomorrow morning. Who knows what spirits may roam the roads this night. It is not a good trecena (13 day week) to be out and today's sign favors the west, an ill fated direction that points to the falling of the sun everyday and the arrival of the gods of darkness. Better to journey on a less ominous evening. You find a local house to stay in and settle down for the night.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_E03iF6Znpk/VikMmBP--hI/AAAAAAAASp0/8opFihpYuK0/s1600/20141023220356_21056.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_E03iF6Znpk/VikMmBP--hI/AAAAAAAASp0/8opFihpYuK0/s320/20141023220356_21056.jpg" width="320" /></a>The next day you set off early in the morning and within a few hours you arrive at what you expect should be your destination. You meet a local farmer taking care of his zempoalxochitl. You make small conversation on the matter of his flowers and he expresses his delight at the good season and harvest and the proper time of year to have these flowers for the celebration of the dead, he's hopeful that no external ill will come to this land this time. When asked about the abbey he retracts himself from you and his expression changes to a cold look. He insists you should not be going there, that it is an ill fated place and only harm will come to you and to those who you return to after visiting it. He points at the building to his back and bids you not to return through these roads should you bring bad luck and ill to his land.<br />
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You thank him for his good advice and mention that you only wish to see the place and not actually enter it. He seems to see clearly through your lies and only says, "Yes, like all those who've come before you. Just for a look. Don't come back this way!", he turns and leaves you to your travel. You walk the short distance covering a small forest and come up to an amazing sight as the road leaves the bush.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kaBFxxZ3aHM/VikNoDQ-jSI/AAAAAAAASp8/O-lXtoEFmoM/s1600/cholula09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kaBFxxZ3aHM/VikNoDQ-jSI/AAAAAAAASp8/O-lXtoEFmoM/s400/cholula09.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The amazing sight of the abbey standing on top of a hill, a hill so large it seems impossible to think there's a temple beneath it. If so, if so, what's the size of this beast?!?! What dwells within it?<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i4allDrI30c/VikOz0Ch1vI/AAAAAAAASqE/hZOIrkmPfoY/s1600/Cholula_model.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i4allDrI30c/VikOz0Ch1vI/AAAAAAAASqE/hZOIrkmPfoY/s320/Cholula_model.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The Cholula archaeological complex is a temple built over a millennium. Its construction is estimated to have begun in the second century BC and construction stopped around 1100 AD with the downfall of Teotihuacán. As you can see, compared to the church on top, the temple is beyond huge. It is composed of seven temples built one on top of the other. This lead to the expansion of the base which reaches 450m (1485ft) per side for the 7th and largest temple built on top of the previous six. The overall height is 65m (215ft).<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GBBJHL-Jq0g/VikQkvzsFEI/AAAAAAAASqY/hrBDEI9GD-4/s1600/pc28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GBBJHL-Jq0g/VikQkvzsFEI/AAAAAAAASqY/hrBDEI9GD-4/s200/pc28.jpg" width="162" /></a><br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KUo8xDS68pE/VikRJQ2zcCI/AAAAAAAASqk/SRK57AOpyQY/s1600/cholula07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KUo8xDS68pE/VikRJQ2zcCI/AAAAAAAASqk/SRK57AOpyQY/s200/cholula07.jpg" width="133" /></a>The ceremonial site is a walled behemoth that has various entry points to tunnels that run into its insides. This has the potential of being an incredible dungeon to explore. The site of seven temples built one on top of each other over one thousand years. Rulers, priests, rituals and sacrifices taking place here for the span of a millennium. What type of creatures and spirits have been buried here with the construction of each new temple. What fate awaits those who journey deep into it going back one thousand years in history.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-itDA_XSmbOc/VikSrnZ7vRI/AAAAAAAASqs/6cXJ4dPiubA/s1600/mayan-mural-calakmulmexico.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-itDA_XSmbOc/VikSrnZ7vRI/AAAAAAAASqs/6cXJ4dPiubA/s320/mayan-mural-calakmulmexico.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Imagine dark underground passages covered with images and strange writings. What stories do these murals tell? What magic is at work here? What powers and spirits could be released? What was the purpose of building a whole new temple above the current one? When was this done? Does it coincide with some cosmic timing, the beginning of a new era? Did the old temple become so corrupted and fill with ill spirits the priests required a whole new temple for the next era? What evil has been dormant in here for centuries? Just waiting for an unaware party of adventurers to release them.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rxDvnmjkaFY/VikUO47dCCI/AAAAAAAASq4/2MdLajDvHpY/s1600/Chichen-Itza_El_Castillo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rxDvnmjkaFY/VikUO47dCCI/AAAAAAAASq4/2MdLajDvHpY/s200/Chichen-Itza_El_Castillo.jpg" width="200" /></a>Consider that such cultures built their pyramids with tiers representing different planes or levels of existence. Like the Chichenitza pyramid to the left, whose nine tiers represented the nine planes of Xibalbá, the Mayan underworld.<br />
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It is easy to see how going down a pyramids tier can take you deeper into unknown worlds of existence. Bringing you closer to the demons that dwell these mesoamerican underworlds.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Welcome to the seven temples of the underworld, journey on brave adventurers.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--rrYKGEzLgo/VikVq-_ZHwI/AAAAAAAASrE/PwdMadKCxHs/s1600/sacred_scroll.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="369" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--rrYKGEzLgo/VikVq-_ZHwI/AAAAAAAASrE/PwdMadKCxHs/s640/sacred_scroll.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image sources</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.jqjacobs.net/mesoamerica/teotihuacan.html</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.angelopolis.com/celebrando-a-la-muerte-en-puebla-revive-tus-tradiciones/#prettyPhoto</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.taringa.net/post/info/1168033/Tenochtitlan.html</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.lasbrevesdecholula.com/2922/noticia/cholula-va-por-3-mil-800-toneladas-de-cempazuchitl/</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.corazondepuebla.com.mx/sanpedro.html</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Pir%C3%A1mide_de_Cholula</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://reydocbici.com/blog/2010/07/pichol/</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/3927</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.samsungcntblog.com/2014/12/world-architectures-mexico-country-with-living-ancient-civilizations/</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/time-kingship-and-the-maya-universe-maya-calendars/</span>Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-22432569035688434842015-10-21T11:15:00.000-07:002015-10-21T11:15:33.168-07:00Got and got not in the past 30 years<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CECqkUnf3Rc/VieOXgdpqtI/AAAAAAAASkY/O3Z7khFL8io/s1600/334550-bttf-hover-board.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CECqkUnf3Rc/VieOXgdpqtI/AAAAAAAASkY/O3Z7khFL8io/s200/334550-bttf-hover-board.jpg" width="200" /></a>Today is back to the future day. What did we get in the last 30 years? Well we certainly did not get the hover board which was the one key item I really wanted to have today! The shoes, well that's still to be seen with so much speculation going around. Will we have self lacing Nike shoes today? Will we have it by years end? What do you think?</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5cClmAMOlJ0/VieOFHbg2QI/AAAAAAAASkQ/CnQGasUnAjw/s1600/800px-20090704-1971_StarTrekTOSCommunicatorReplica.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5cClmAMOlJ0/VieOFHbg2QI/AAAAAAAASkQ/CnQGasUnAjw/s200/800px-20090704-1971_StarTrekTOSCommunicatorReplica.jpg" width="143" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sXIEAorm3oA/VieQLJKRpTI/AAAAAAAASkk/wHjxUrjfy_c/s1600/Samsung_concept_may2012_6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sXIEAorm3oA/VieQLJKRpTI/AAAAAAAASkk/wHjxUrjfy_c/s200/Samsung_concept_may2012_6.jpg" width="200" /></a>What we did get is this. Portable devices is what the movie certainly got wrong. No cell phones, no smart phones, no tablets. Mobile communications and the internet is one thing the movie totally missed out. Yes, there was video conferencing, but on the big living room TV, not on some portable device. So I'm thankful for that because we didn't have to wait until the 23 century to get a portable communication device like the one to the right.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ymvFBwmWaVo/VieSjK1VxGI/AAAAAAAASlI/aPsiTQMvMn4/s1600/oil-drill-2col.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="135" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ymvFBwmWaVo/VieSjK1VxGI/AAAAAAAASlI/aPsiTQMvMn4/s200/oil-drill-2col.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZI4RRaIWIBc/VieRUENOT8I/AAAAAAAASks/XckXGBwYC1s/s1600/mrfusion_screencap_101.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZI4RRaIWIBc/VieRUENOT8I/AAAAAAAASks/XckXGBwYC1s/s200/mrfusion_screencap_101.jpg" width="151" /></a>We didn't get this either. Which kinda sucks when you look back and realize we're still using the same energy sources as back then and that little has moved forward in that regard.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uO0WZW6kAx0/VieRnfWqkaI/AAAAAAAASk0/j-FDMblv6EM/s1600/2015%2B-%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="119" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uO0WZW6kAx0/VieRnfWqkaI/AAAAAAAASk0/j-FDMblv6EM/s200/2015%2B-%2B1.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4-UM_FJwsuA/VieSArD1pAI/AAAAAAAASk8/tKi2FFA3u20/s1600/Jar%2BJar%2B%25282%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="157" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4-UM_FJwsuA/VieSArD1pAI/AAAAAAAASk8/tKi2FFA3u20/s200/Jar%2BJar%2B%25282%2529.png" width="200" /></a>We did get the Force awakens instead of yet another Jaws movie. On the downside we also got Jar Jar Binks.</div>
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Mixed blessing. Sure flying cars sound awesome until they crash and fall on your roof. No, as much as I'd like to I prefer to pass on the whole flying thing altogether.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mftviCFTCG0/VieT3MZ8jDI/AAAAAAAASlc/AdLLrLsUo6E/s1600/bclothes.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mftviCFTCG0/VieT3MZ8jDI/AAAAAAAASlc/AdLLrLsUo6E/s320/bclothes.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
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Clothing style. Oh thank goodness we didn't. Nuf said.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4-WlEnRrWhs/VieUPaW-fPI/AAAAAAAASlk/1HZJvOABwgc/s1600/kinect_hh_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4-WlEnRrWhs/VieUPaW-fPI/AAAAAAAASlk/1HZJvOABwgc/s320/kinect_hh_02.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
We got the Kinect. Not exactly mind control, but darn good enough if you ask me. Plus we got 3D TV and video games and online gaming!<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8dmOb50gIPs/VieVvZM-s1I/AAAAAAAASl0/bYmX1z-vvn4/s1600/DocBrownSpecs01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8dmOb50gIPs/VieVvZM-s1I/AAAAAAAASl0/bYmX1z-vvn4/s320/DocBrownSpecs01.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iGiCi3YPvXc/VieVAN7Ga7I/AAAAAAAASls/YLHdxF3cCRY/s1600/Google-Glass-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="111" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iGiCi3YPvXc/VieVAN7Ga7I/AAAAAAAASls/YLHdxF3cCRY/s200/Google-Glass-2.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
We got Google glass which wasn't exactly like the Doc's and it wasn't commercial success either.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1VKOoGYtDtc/VieV8_o9zQI/AAAAAAAASl8/rqp1P0Q7sTM/s1600/340x_geordilaforge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1VKOoGYtDtc/VieV8_o9zQI/AAAAAAAASl8/rqp1P0Q7sTM/s1600/340x_geordilaforge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1VKOoGYtDtc/VieV8_o9zQI/AAAAAAAASl8/rqp1P0Q7sTM/s200/340x_geordilaforge.jpg" width="139" /></a><br />
But at least we didn't need to wait until the 23rd <br />
century to get this. And although it may not be a commercial success today, it should be noted that not many people use Doc's glasses in the future. So maybe it's a niche market in the movie as it is today.<br />
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Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-81577467034846861102015-10-20T14:13:00.001-07:002015-10-21T05:52:13.398-07:00The dungeon within the dungeon<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-65hBcnx3sIw/ViaoWwZUNOI/AAAAAAAASiM/p2fLk0YINBE/s1600/aliens_classicscenes5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-65hBcnx3sIw/ViaoWwZUNOI/AAAAAAAASiM/p2fLk0YINBE/s320/aliens_classicscenes5.jpg" width="320" /></a>"That can't be; that's inside the room.", a epic quote from aliens that reminds us that there can always be something behind the wall or above the roof that we forget to account for when we dungeon craw. How many times do you put service areas, ducts and tunnels in your dungeon? I know I place way less than I should.<br />
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Surely enough I put many "secret passages", because secret passages are cool. Yet aside from being cool and providing a questionable escape benefit, what is their purpose?<br />
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Let's take a moment to think about all the cool things that could be in a dungeon that have a purpose aside from being secret and cool.<br />
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<b>Vent ducts</b><br />
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Deep dungeon sections need to have direct vents to the outside. Otherwise you're just breathing the rebreathed air of all the creatures between here and the dungeon entrance. And that's allowing for good sanitary practices which are seldom the norm in dungeons. Specially after they've been abandoned and take over by orcs, ogres, goblins, bugbears and the like.<br />
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So somewhere, somehow, there has to be a way to connect that room you're in to the outside world. Maybe the tunnel's roof (which you can't see) has vent ducts to the surface.<br />
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What about kitchens and cooking areas? How did they original inhabitants feed themselves? Did the guards go up five dungeon levels to eat or did they cook things locally?<br />
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<b>Drainage ducts</b><br />
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There has to be a way to drain water from the dungeon. Deep underground water may flow out the walls and there has to be a way to get rid of it. Creatures will also produce liquid waste and will want to get rid of it one way or another. Specially the more intelligent and advanced they are. What mechanisms does your dungeon provide for that? Are there drainage tunnels below the main tunnels? Such a drainage system may connect rooms in an unexpected and very beneficial way.<br />
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<b>Water fountains</b><br />
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Water, drinkable water, needs to be provided to the inner parts of the dungeon. Either to drink or to clean up. Where are the living quarter areas? Whoever built the dungeon did it to be manned by some type of creature, human or otherwise, and although they may be inhumane to prisoners they certainly had to have an expectation when it comes to standards of living for the guards and higher ranking staff. Right? How do you provide that if you don't have a nice and reliable source of water. It would be really really really bad to wake up thirsty at night or with a terrible hangover only to realize you have to craw up three dungeon levels for a mug of water.<br />
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<b>Heating</b><br />
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It can get cold in a dungeon (it can also get hot). Some parts may actually be very cold and damp while others warm due to geothermal activity. Does the dungeon have Roman style floors to heat the room and turn the wizard's study into a more comfortable area to spend long winter days in?<br />
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What about baths? I'm sure the great overlord of the dungeon must have enjoyed a warm bath in a pool inside the dungeon. If I spent a fortune making my dungeon I'd at least add the basic comforts of life.<br />
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As you can see from the images the heating system can be considerably more complex and interesting to explore than the dungeon itself. Now that the dungeon has been abandoned, what lives in the pool? Has it made its lair out of the boiler area? What dwells in the crawlspace below the floor? Is the floor sturdy enough to hold a fully armored party or will some tiles collapse dropping party members into the hands of whatever lives down there now.</div>
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<b>Service ducts</b><br />
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So you think they walked the manticore into the dungeon like this? And you actually think it went in on its own free will? Lead by a chain and all?<br />
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I'm quite confident it was more like this.<br />
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And this.<br />
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That spells a great deal of staff and service tunnels to bring those cages in. Because I'm quite certain that thing isn't going to take the right turn down that 10' tunnel very well.<br />
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So the dungeon will surely have big service tunnels leading to the surface through which creatures can be brought into the wizard's rooms, labs and even a coliseum. It's very probable that the passages being explored by the party members now are but a fraction of the whole. Below these narrow passages is a wide set of tunnels providing water, air, heat, and passage in and out for all that is required by the dungeon owner.<br />
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Now what do these tunnels look like? Are they small and only exploitable after using a spell to make a party member small? Are they big enough to craw through? Can someone kneel or walk around half standing up? Will a small character class like a dwarf or halfling fit comfortably? Or are they huge, capable of letting a wagon through it? Who built this and to what specifications?<br />
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So, try connecting all your dungeon levels and rooms with all that is required to provide a sustainable living environment and see it come to life with a complexity that will amaze even the most experienced dungeon crawler.Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-59913446165483342922015-10-20T06:41:00.001-07:002015-10-20T06:41:31.559-07:00Clear and present danger<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-APq1crAfG0c/VL8W78-hDxI/AAAAAAAAP9k/V0t7DTbZcOI/s1600/_64597839_rockyflats.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-APq1crAfG0c/VL8W78-hDxI/AAAAAAAAP9k/V0t7DTbZcOI/s1600/_64597839_rockyflats.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Let's defuse a nuke! Succeed and you're a hero and the story goes on, fail and you TPK and cherry top the pie by royally fucking up a whole city. Roll!<br />
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Tension, thrill, anticipation, dice and narrative control are many times hard to reconcile. Sometimes dice give too high an odd for failure. This makes it hard to keep control of the story. It may simply be too much risk to take a certain action. Would you roll on a 5% chance of failure when failure means a city gets leveled? On 1% odds? Even a 1 on a percentile die may be too much. On the other hand dropping the odds to zero takes the whole thrill out of the game. What is the point in rolling then?<br />
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Even when working with everyday tasks like killing a goblin, it might be interesting to have a absurdly unexpected outcome. A moment when the goblin rolls incredibly well or you roll incredibly bad or maybe the goblin's wife throws a pan at you and scores a one time perfect hit to your head. Who knows, the point is to introduce something that surprises the players, but not to introduce it so often that it seems the dice and not you are in control of the game.<br />
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Looking at this from the angle of dice probability distribution I see two key elements that we need:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Strong central values</li>
<li>Long tails with many very improbable odds</li>
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This way your character should be performing consistently well if the task at hand falls within the character's expertise or consistently bad if it does not. The dice should allow very few failures when the character is good and very few successes when the character is bad at something.</div>
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Lets take a look at fudge dice with a plus and with a minus modifier. The odds should look something like this (with good rolls falling above 0):</div>
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Good characters should have good odds of succeeding most of the time with a few odd events going wrong. On the other hand bad characters should be expected to fail unless they get lucky. The problem here comes around when good characters are too good or bad characters are just crippled as hell. Since the probability curve is caped at -4 and 4 there is no way to roll below 0 if the character enjoys a +5 modifier. Yes, we can consider a roll outcome of 1 to be a very mild good outcome, but there really is no room for failure. On the other hand a character that suffers a -5 to roll will never get above 0. We might consider the -1 outcome to be a very mild failure, but the truth is the character does not succeed. We fall into what John Wick mentioned in this <a href="http://johnwickpresents.com/rants/no-dice/" target="_blank">article </a>as "Yes, but roll dice". A means by which the GM drops the blame of saying "No" onto the dice. "I'm not saying no. (Just making it impossible for you to roll 0 or better)."<br />
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Now let us consider the following distribution curves. They have strong central values, but also very long tails. Characters will generally fall within those values, but they're not totally bound within them. There are small odds of amazing success or outstanding failure. These curves can be achieved with exploding dice and you can clearly imagine the excitement on the table as the values begin to pile up into and amazing success! That OMG moment when you see the dice totally in your favor and the GM's face when the high penalties get overwhelmed by your outstanding roll.<br />
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So back to defusing the nuke. A task so risky that failure means leveling a whole town. How do you roll and how much is "acceptable failure"? Is the dice mechanism you're using allowing too high an odds for failure? Can it be reduced? And if so to which value? Is this value for failure too low now? And if so what is the thrill of rolling?<br />
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This brings me to the topic I addressed in a previous post about the <a href="http://saurondor.blogspot.mx/2015/10/the-value-of-unexpected.html" target="_blank">value of the unexpected</a> and how to recreate this in games using dice. With normal bounded die rolls you simply can't. We tend to see dice as random elements in the game because we don't know what value will come up, but we do know. We know a 3d6 will fall between 3 and 18. There is no magic in it and certainly no great unexpected value. As John Wick mentions, bounded dice allow for "Yes, but roll dice" to be a cover-up for simply saying "No". You can't unexpectedly beat the GM with a 3d6 because the GM knows what the limit is and can adjust accordingly. You can't unexpectedly beat the min-max player with a 3d6 because the player has tuned the character in such a way that there is no way such a bounded die roll can defeat the character.<br />
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On the other hand unbounded die rolls allow you to break away from such a limitation. They introduce the concept of the highly unexpected into the game. There is always a clear and present danger that something can go against "one's plans". Even the most successful character has a small chance of failing and the most unskilled character a chance of succeeding. More important than these extreme situations is the fact that such improbable rolls can happen in everyday rolls. Every once in a while, maybe once per session, you can roll an outstanding roll when fighting our buddy the goblin and you get to narrate something awesome in what would have otherwise been an off the mill encounter. So maybe the goblin's wife does score an amazing hit with the frying pan that knocks you out and turns what should have been an otherwise trivial retrieval of the key into a journey into the tunnels below the goblin's house. And this to me is what great stories are made out of, incredible turn of events that shock everyone on the table, GM included.<br />
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<br />Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-4550645130433217542015-10-13T17:15:00.002-07:002015-10-13T17:15:27.660-07:00Exploding dice on low values<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wnPFx68Amgg/Vh1uoWY6O_I/AAAAAAAASe8/IF5ixpvGZPg/s1600/explodingdie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wnPFx68Amgg/Vh1uoWY6O_I/AAAAAAAASe8/IF5ixpvGZPg/s320/explodingdie.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Why do exploding dice seldom explode on low values? We're all used to d10s exploding on 10 and so forth. Question is, why don't they explode on 1s? More so, what's the value of them exploding on 1s, 2s, 3s, etc.? You get the idea, exploding on low values.<br />
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On the up side it makes a lot of sense to have a d10 explode on a 10 and keep exploding on and on. It really fuels the player's emotions and adds to the excitement. On the down side it keeps the players with the low values. You roll a 1 and a 10 you get to roll the 10 again, but you're stuck with the one. You might turn that 10 into a ten again, but I'm quite confident you'll get some lower value 9 out of 10 times.<br />
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Now, what happens when when what we roll again are low values? Lets say I rolled a 10 and a 1. I get to roll the one again. Obviously it can't get any worse and can only get better, right? I might get a 10 or a 2, either way it's better than keeping the one and I already had a 10.<br />
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Of course it requires me to roll low to get another roll. So I can inch myself up to higher valued rolls by adding 1 at a time. This of course doesn't sound as exciting as leaping across values at a rate of ten points at a time. A d10 that explodes on a 10 adds 10 for every time it does explode, whereas a d10 that explodes adds 1 for every time it does explode. So to add 10 points I'd have to make it explode 10 times. A rather uncommon feat I may add.<br />
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So it begins to become clear why exploding dice don't tend to explode on low values. It's slow and boring to get a bonus from them. Unless of course the value required to explode increases with level.<br />
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Let us imagine a game with five skill levels: unskilled, experienced, expert, master and legendary. Characters who are unskilled at something roll without exploding dice, experienced characters' dice explode on a 1, expert dice explode on a 2, master on a 3 and legendary on a 4. Now lets imagine that all skill rolls are made with 3d10 (you know to have a nice bell curve). While an unskilled character might get a 3 a legendary character can never get less than 15 (3x5) since any 4 or lower value would trigger another roll.<br />
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I ran a small program with low exploding 3d6 on anydice and got the following graph. I used d6 to keep the numbers small and the graphs from scrolling sideways. The behavior is nevertheless very similar with d10.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fVIWmjosVwA/Vh2a1BWwoLI/AAAAAAAASfM/B8CJ1QccHIA/s1600/exploding%2Bd6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fVIWmjosVwA/Vh2a1BWwoLI/AAAAAAAASfM/B8CJ1QccHIA/s640/exploding%2Bd6.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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The four curves on the right are the rolls for 3d6 exploding dice for the master (black, explode on 1,2,3, or 4), expert (orange, explode on 1,2, or 3), experienced (cyan, explode on 1 or 2) and novice (green, explode on 1). It is clear to see how the curves move right as skill increases. The dice mechanism prevents skilled characters from rolling too low, which is something we'd expect out of a skilled character, right?<br />
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The four curves to the left are opposing die rolls using the four skill levels against an expert. As you can see the yellow curve is slightly to the right of zero. This indicates the expected advantage a master should have over an expert. The blue curve is centered on zero and represents the odds of an expert vs an expert. The other two curves (red and pink) land to the left of zero, showing the advantage experts have over the two lower skill levels. Opposing die rolls would tend to fall below zero in a clear disadvantage to the lesser skilled characters.<br />
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So low value exploding dice may not be as exciting as high value exploding dice, but they sure make for a nice and simple skill mechanism that is easy to understand and implement in the game. Thoughts?<br />
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You can see the actual script for the low exploding d6 by following this link.<br />
http://anydice.com/program/6ccd<br />
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In contrast to the low exploding d6 you can see the high exploding d6 here. These explode on values >=6, >=5 and >=4.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9MFr0nTaoEA/Vh2cWPBwDBI/AAAAAAAASfU/ebEMhKgve-0/s1600/high%2Bexploding%2Bd6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9MFr0nTaoEA/Vh2cWPBwDBI/AAAAAAAASfU/ebEMhKgve-0/s640/high%2Bexploding%2Bd6.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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As you can see the curve moves a bit towards the right as the skill increases, but they all start at 3. Meaning that no matter how skilled a character is the odds for a low value are the same as any lesser skilled character.<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><br />
High exploding d6 script<br />
http://anydice.com/program/6ccc<br />
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Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-88711743352429781542015-10-12T15:54:00.001-07:002015-10-12T15:54:38.415-07:00The value of the unexpected<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NbKKDA3ABgs/VL-8ebPB7TI/AAAAAAAAP90/Eeoy_CqCgCA/s1600/unexpected_surprise_on_the_road_640_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="189" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NbKKDA3ABgs/VL-8ebPB7TI/AAAAAAAAP90/Eeoy_CqCgCA/s1600/unexpected_surprise_on_the_road_640_02.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Some game have die rolls that represent really terrible or really awesome outcomes, you know, the dreaded 1 or desired 20. Usually these values are at the extreme end of the game's dice distribution curve, be that a 1 on a d20 a 3 with 3d6 a -4 with four fudge dice, six 10s with four exploding d10s, etc. Yet these values have very different odds of occurring. This begs the question of how much should we grant the unexpected in terms of odds of occurring.<br />
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Let us take a moment to look at really infinitesimal odds of something happening and the value of such out comes in games. Is it valuable to consider a die roll that occurs 0.1% or 0.01% of the time as a significant outcome? Does it make sense to create a rule around a roll outcome that occurs once in 1000 rolls or once in 10000 rolls?<br />
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While it may initially seem ludicrous to contemplate such small odds as significant, personally I believe it does make sense, more so if the odds are adjusted by skill. Lets imagine for a moment that the most experienced character has 0.1% odds of rolling a crit, but the crit odds get doubled by every step down in skill. The next skill level has a 0.2% odds of a crit, the next 0.4%, the next 0.8%, the next 1.6%, the next 3.2% and the next 6.4%. Six skill levels have taken the possibility of a crit form nearly impossible to a bit over a 1 on a d20. What about the progression starting an one in then thousand (0.01%)? Starting level 0.01%, 1 below 0.02%, 2 below 0.04%, 3 below 0.08% (we're awfully close to 0.1% now, not far to go to 5%), 4 below 0.16%, 5 below 0.36%, 6 below 0.72%, 7 below 1.44%, 8 below 2.88%, 9 below 5.76%. That's only 9 skill level drops before the odds reach 5%+ once again. Dividing the odds of the unexpected by 10, from 0.1% to 0.01% only added 3 levels required to bring them back to awfully probable.<br />
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This of course can be written in more human readable terms in the following way. A 1st level character has a 5% odds of a crit and the odds get halved for each level. Thus a 10th level character will have whereabouts of a 0.01% odds of a crit. Something more reasonable because it really sucks to be super good at something and then drop the ball on a 1.<br />
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Next issue of course is actually rolling such awfully low odds. These are rolls that we simply can't achieve straight out on a d20 or even d100. Although some games do have a roll again to confirm which give a 0.25% with a double 1 on a d20 and a 0.01% on a double 1 on a d100.<br />
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Now what about exploding dice? Well certainly rolling 8 tens with 4 exploding dice is very small odds indeed, but achievable. Certainly way more achievable than rolling 8 ones with 4 exploding dice, the probability of this being exactly 0. That is unless you explode low dice values, but that is the topic of another blog post.<br />
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So rolling for the unexpected can certainly add a plot twist to your story. Take the whole adventure down a very different and interesting path, but it presents two challenges. One is actually rolling such low odds and the second is rolling them "easily" and in accordance with character level progression. It makes sense that a 5th level character has lesser odds of a crit than a lowly 1st level one, but how do we adjust this? More so, how do we adjust this easily if at all? A bit more into dice mechanics in the next post in which we try to defuse a nuke.Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-16383505763701023072015-09-16T08:39:00.002-07:002015-09-16T08:39:43.629-07:00Coatmixtitlan the cloud city<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jRnedcWYHa4/VeMYSml8YCI/AAAAAAAASLk/jxh7Rh-rDv4/s1600/SkyCity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="194" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jRnedcWYHa4/VeMYSml8YCI/AAAAAAAASLk/jxh7Rh-rDv4/s320/SkyCity.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
High above the mountain ridges of Itza stands the fabled cloud city of Coatmixtitlan, the city of the snake clouds or to be more precise the matlapallicoatl or winged snakes, known to us as dragons. The city is located nowhere and everywhere as it floats through the skies of Itza. Once an important human city it was abandoned two suns ago by men and taken over by the matlapallicoatl a term used to refer to a group of winged snaked like creatures we in the west commonly refer to as dragons.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-94xgyDe9dNE/Vfdys6Hq7xI/AAAAAAAASTI/eiG-MxPmkfY/s1600/28a28ad80c43d0e8ce2c025907d35752.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-94xgyDe9dNE/Vfdys6Hq7xI/AAAAAAAASTI/eiG-MxPmkfY/s320/28a28ad80c43d0e8ce2c025907d35752.jpg" width="229" /></a>The matlapallicoatl worship the mixkoatl, a powerful group of gods from the northern skies. Among these their strongest deity is Tezcatlipoca, the god of the northern skies, of the night, of rulership, and divination. He is also referred to as the black tezcatlipoca to distinguish him from the white tezcatlipoca known as Quetzalcoatl. After the creation of the current sun, the gods instructed the white and black tezcatlipocas to bring order to the world of men. They brought fire and knowledge to men and all was well, for a while. Eventually though, men sought Quetzalcoatl more than Tezcatlipoca and Tezcatlipoca distanced himself from these new beings and returned to favor creatures of previous suns as well as the few men who still followed him. Among these creatures from other times were the matlapallicoatl, the winged snakes who survived the destruction of the last sun.<br />
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In the land of men Quetzalcoatl's favor among them would not last forever either. As men became more ambitious and war and discord began to plague the land it was Huitzilopochtli who became the most worshiped and revered god. Huitzilopochtli, the blue tezcatlipoca is also the god of the southern skies, the sun and war. As Huitzilopochtli's influence became stronger so did the discord between the matlapallicoatl and these new creatures called men. The former stood with the black tezcatlipoca and the northern skies and the later with the blue tezcatlipoca and the southern skies. To the matlapallicoatl and the few men who live with them in Coatmixtitlan the vast majority of humans are a plague that will bring nothing but suffering and destruction to the land. Coatmixtitlan is heaven, a center of great and ancient knowledge to be kept safe from the all grabbing hands of men.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IPydOqtzwrg/VdtmTV7doWI/AAAAAAAASFk/ZHKvTHPdK-4/s1600/3749b8ffd9472ae1ed066866c6a830b3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IPydOqtzwrg/VdtmTV7doWI/AAAAAAAASFk/ZHKvTHPdK-4/s320/3749b8ffd9472ae1ed066866c6a830b3.jpg" width="320" /></a>The men of Coatmixtitlan are powerful priests and sorcerers, as well as erudite scholars and scribes. They are also great merchants and traders who will not hesitate to enslave the common man to work in their homes, cities and mines. These merchants have something revered and envied all throughout Itza, flying merchant caravans, and during times of war they rule the skies and hold unequal air superiority. Their scholarly ways does not bar them from being great soldiers on the ground and while not being the best foot soldiers they enjoy some of the support available, the fearsome K’i’ix Kaan. A race of blue flightless lizard men who excel in the art of war. These fearsome creatures stand between two and a half and three meters tall (7 to 10 feet), wear bone and stone armor on their upper torso and carry a powerful Macuahuitl as a sword. As if that was not enough their strong tail is usually equipped with spikes or a flail which they use to create a safe perimeter to their sides and back. Together with men the K'i'ix Kaan form a formidable army that defends the treasures and secrets of Coatmixtitlan.<br />
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The city is a focal point for all divination magic as well as magic related to time and change. As creatures from another time the matlapallicoatl also hold ancient magic and long forgotten knowledge. These are well kept secrets not easily shared with the common man. When they do share them it is at a very high cost. Other matlapallicoatl powers are said to come from Tezcatlipoca himself and provide power over the creation of life itself. It is said the matlapallicoatl have power over the creation of men and all that lives under the sun. That they can easily control the magic of shapeshifting and have unprecedented control over wayobs(the animal spirits within men). These powerful dragon sorcerers are said to be able to control the animal that accompanies a man through life. Thus, they are sought after for their knowledge and power by human shamans and wizards wishing to reap the most of their internal animal spirit. They can provide great power to a shaman who wants to come in full contact with his or her inner animal spirit while not letting the animal turn the shaman into a nahual or lycantrope being who succumbs to the primitive animal nature of the spirit. The matlapallicoatl can also enter a man's dreams, thought by many to be a path to divination and the future. In dreams and heal or cause great harm, even posses a human being.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Xza7cFFHpFU/VfmIfNpXLsI/AAAAAAAAST0/iRrOQcwHIgw/s1600/tepeyollotl_by_emonteon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Xza7cFFHpFU/VfmIfNpXLsI/AAAAAAAAST0/iRrOQcwHIgw/s320/tepeyollotl_by_emonteon.jpg" width="312" /></a></div>
The two most sought after wayob powers are those of the jaguar and the turkey. The jaguar aspect of Tezcatlipoca is identified as Tepeyollotl "The heart of the mountain". Tepeyollotl is the Jaguar of Night, lord of the animals, darkened caves, echoes and earthquakes. Sorcerers following this path gain great control over all animals of the land, stealth and secrecy, spying skills and unprecedented power over the element of earth.<br />
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As the jewelled fowl Tezcatlipoca takes the name Chalchihuihtotolin. In such a shape Tezcatlipoca is a powerful sorcerer who can control human minds, set them on a path of self destruction or as easily absolve them of guilt and cleanse their spirit. Shamans who follow this path gain powers of mind control, insight, dream control and nightmares, illusion and even greater powers of divination. Their power power can be so great they can even help men overcome their fate. This is the most sought after power by the shamans followers of Chalchihuihtotolin. The power to rewrite the very fabric of life in Itza, destiny and fate.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image sources</span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">http://sholarijames.com/Du/Newsweave934661-09.html</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">http://indiron.deviantart.com/art/Aztec-Dragon-The-Dreamer-337816791</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.designzzz.com/15-spectacular-mythological-beasts-illustrations/</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">http://emonteon.deviantart.com/art/Tepeyollotl-71111473</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">http://daarken.com/personalconcepts.html</span>Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-47397173796376554762015-08-19T06:20:00.001-07:002015-08-19T06:58:22.306-07:00Fudging dice in times of industrialized warfare<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-63pqGbYU85w/VM5lCScU-0I/AAAAAAAAQGU/UW3S25_DLjY/s1600/bayonet-charge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-63pqGbYU85w/VM5lCScU-0I/AAAAAAAAQGU/UW3S25_DLjY/s1600/bayonet-charge.jpg" width="320" /></a>I've come about a great deal of conversations involving fudging dice, how bad it is and the process of limiting it by mechanical means. For example game rules that explicitly limit fudging by rolling in the open. I want to talk a bit about the impact of these rules in certain genre and settings, namely late industrialized warfare settings, as well as post atomic and futuristic/sci-fi.<br />
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Industrialized warfare brought us the long range rifle and the machine gun. Post atomic developments brought us the shoot and forget missile, the bunker busting weapons and a whole set of long range weapons. Even such thing as the FASCAM (Family of Scatterable Mines) that can be delivered by bombs or shells.<br />
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War was no longer close and personal.<br />
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This means that players must be kept in the dark as to the outcome of some of their actions. To roll in the open is to reveal way too much information. As a game designer I have two options: limit fudging by mechanics, or trust my players and have them trust their GM as well.<br />
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If I limit fudging by mechanics and force all rolls in the open then players will know the effectiveness of the mine field they left behind, they'll know how many targets are hiding in the bush and how many they hit with the machine gun strafe, they'll know how well the outcome of the shelling, etc. They'll be privy to knowledge their character is not, they'll have information to metagame, and I'd have to trust them not to metagame. It seems like I'm solving a problem to get myself into an even bigger one.<br />
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Now, you as reader may say that players could also not metagame. That players can willingly keep themselves from metagaming. True, except it does happen. More so, many games are built so it does happen, it even requires it to happen. Metagaming with this information is so common we don't even realize we are metagaming. It's so intrinsic in so many rules that we don't recognize it as metagaming anymore. Let me explain.<br />
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Take for example the following encounter. Your party is on patrol and falls prey to an ambush. Your party is taking fire from a treeline so your first action is to take cover and fire back. Ok, how? at what? At the puffs of smoke? It's smokeless powder. At the muzzle flares? It's broad daylight and even if you got to see the muzzle flare whoever is shooting is probably using the proven tactic of fire and displace. So the target is most surely no longer where you spotted it.<br />
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Yet the first thing that players ask and GM gives is the location of the enemies. This is usually because the encounter is unsolvable without that knowledge. The attack roll, the range, cover, modifiers etc., all have to get factored in to this roll that is done in the open and dictates if your bullet hits or misses the target. More so, the player gets to roll for damage too. So somehow the character knows the bullet hit and the amount of damage done. All this through the smoke of the battlefield and the thick jungle bush. The character must be some type of borg to see that clearly that far off.<br />
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Now let me make a parenthesis here. This isn't about being overly realistic or simulationist. It's about telling a story. Realism is taking extreme care in representing all the factors in a sniper shot. The barrel length, bullet type, wind, scope, etc. Actually keeping the sniper hidden and damage secret is about the story. This is what makes a sniper so deadly and the story around the sniper so interesting. If the players know the exact location of the sniper (because they need to for the roll) and the amount of damage handled (because they're rolling the dice), well then, a bit of that story dwindles away. It dwindles away no matter how good a player may be at not metagaming.<br />
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So it is my strong belief that game rules and mechanics need to evolve as technology in their settings evolve as well. Industrialized warfare took the "close and personal" from the medieval and pre-industrial encounters we're used to in fantasy settings. Sure there are still close and personal encounters, but also beyond visual range encounters. To really harness the story potential of these post industrial settings we need a bit more trust and a bit less metagaming.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Image source</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>http://www.dublin-fusiliers.com/weapons.html</i></span>Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-91429509791642877062015-08-17T10:28:00.002-07:002015-08-17T10:28:51.463-07:00Metal robots make no sense<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mcyN1tJM7m4/VdITUVa1U-I/AAAAAAAAR94/a2Ojgq2J8j8/s1600/Terminator1001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mcyN1tJM7m4/VdITUVa1U-I/AAAAAAAAR94/a2Ojgq2J8j8/s320/Terminator1001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
We know monsters such as the T-800 terminator unit are made of <a href="http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperalloy" target="_blank">hyperalloy</a>. The hyperalloy is said to be "a durable metallic alloy of unknown composition", but lets face it metal is a rare element on earth. Sure the core is 1220km ball of molten iron surrounded by a 2180km ball of molten nickel iron alloy. If you could drill to the core and extract all that metal it would sure provide for a lot, I mean a shitload of a lot of T-800 units. But that's a very big if, not to mention that said core provides the magnetic field for the planet. Take it away to build a shitload of T-800 and you'd have a whole new set of problems to solve, and I mean whole set of planet wide problems.<br />
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Coltan is an element used to build the higher heat resistant terminator units (vs the titanium based T-600). Using coltan, practical as it may seem for heat issues, is adding scarcity to scarcity. Silicon is also known to handle heat well. A lot of advanced ceramics are very good at handling heat (and can be made superconductive too!). Silicon is <a href="http://www.space.com/54-earth-history-composition-and-atmosphere.html" target="_blank">nearly and order of magnitude more common </a>than iron on Earth's crust. If you're a super advanced computer from the future, doesn't it make sense to use your super advanced technology to build super advanced machines from the more common elements and not the scarcest?<br />
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There's a reason life built itself around carbon and not another element like iron. Carbon is extremely common! It also gives room for a huge diversity in structures and molecules: the soft and brittle insides of your pencils, the diamonds in industrial drills, nanotubes, DNA, the exoskeleton of insects, etc. Maybe the truly advanced robot from the future is a carbon based, ceramic enhanced, nanotube fuel cell powered, quantum computer driven machine more akin to David or Bishop than the T-800.<br />
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Sure, maybe a coltan built robot will be an order of magnitude more durable than an "organic" one, but given the abundance of materials there might be two or three orders of magnitude more organic bots. Numbers do count and ammo runs out sooner or later.<br />
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Thoughts?<br />
<br />Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-59713853360928717652015-02-15T21:27:00.000-08:002015-02-16T06:13:49.003-08:00D&D needs action figures<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wkWeB804k80/VOFjbQZ63gI/AAAAAAAAQQc/IKce90oNhbg/s1600/20150215_153221%2B(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wkWeB804k80/VOFjbQZ63gI/AAAAAAAAQQc/IKce90oNhbg/s1600/20150215_153221%2B(1).jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
WotC needs to sell D&D toys. As part of Hasbro WotC can and should make D&D action figures. Take a look at the image on the right, just a fraction of my Star Wars black series collection. All in all more money there than in the PH, DMG, and MM; that's without counting Luke, Han, R2, and the rest of the less than complete collection I hold so far. It's not hard to see how Hasbro could sell me a lot more tan just the same three books over and over again.<br />
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I'm a Star Wars fan, but not a hardcore one by a long shot. I have the six movies and that's about it. I've never read a book and only seen a few animated series. Still, I don't hesitate to spend good money on good quality Star Wars figures. Why not do the same with D&D monsters and character classes?<br />
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Making the analogy with D&D, the Star Wars movies are like the core books. Once bought that's it, revenue is over. Making more rule books is a demanding task that also complicates the game, but cranking out action figures would be a relatively trivial thing with a good margin for a profit. Action figures would create a revenue stream without necessarily creating a version war.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q8cIj2GMIfc/VOFuN4TvT3I/AAAAAAAAQRE/UTuJBSEPTKY/s1600/ElkhornMOSC1a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q8cIj2GMIfc/VOFuN4TvT3I/AAAAAAAAQRE/UTuJBSEPTKY/s1600/ElkhornMOSC1a.jpg" height="320" width="262" /></a></div>
Back in the TSR days D&D had some action figures (HT to <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115510020610916938538" target="_blank">+Robert Brumbelow</a> for providing the <a href="http://www.toyarchive.com/Dungeons&Dragons/Figures/ActionFigures.html" target="_blank">link</a>). A nice large set of figures, but let me be honest, it's quite a good set of "nobodies". I mean, with all due respect, who the fuck is Elkhorn? A Storm Trooper, even being one in millions is still a "Storm Trooper". There's no strong background, no attachment to Elkhorn. The fact that the quality of the figures is also a bit sub-par also adds up to the not-buy decision. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly reasonable to buy it for nostalgic reasons. Warduke sells for about 25 US on <a href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/Warduke-Evil-Fighter-Vintage-Official-Advanced-Dungeons-Dragons-/391049796318" target="_blank">ebay</a>.There's a market for it, but it isn't growing.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ye_xspSyFwE/VOF0J4bvfkI/AAAAAAAAQRU/RSdAO8DPXF4/s1600/OgreKingHead1a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ye_xspSyFwE/VOF0J4bvfkI/AAAAAAAAQRU/RSdAO8DPXF4/s1600/OgreKingHead1a.jpg" height="178" width="200" /></a>On a side note there's also the less than menacing evil ogre lord face. If I'm going to pop 25 US on a figure I want it to be a kick ass fear instilling figure that generates awe in all who see it! Something that would make me proud of showing off in a private collection at home. Not something that says "look at what I played in high-school, good thing I grew out of it"<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UFzpCwp6kBo/VOFjxZIv1cI/AAAAAAAAQQo/-XeaRCYsDKs/s1600/art164_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UFzpCwp6kBo/VOFjxZIv1cI/AAAAAAAAQQo/-XeaRCYsDKs/s1600/art164_0.jpg" /></a>So what would get me to start cranking out 20 bucks a figure? First of all something I can identify with. Take for example Parkinson's great piece "The North Watch", one of my favorite Dragon Magazines covers. It already sells as a miniature <a href="http://www.miniaturenland.com/en/darksword/parkinson/1112.html#a_b1112_4" target="_blank">here</a> at 45 Euros a piece!<br />
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Now imagine an articulated version of it. The dragon and the rider. Hell fuck yea! I'd jump in and buy it without a doubt!<br />
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Other figures that come to mind are the fighter from the D&D Basic red book. How about the mounted fighter from the Companion set cover? Aleena? And don't even get me started with monsters. A beholder, a lich, goblins, lots of goblins. The list goes on and on!<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qvxXJOmbEqg/VOFjxUhadnI/AAAAAAAAQQk/YotQly1f1a8/s1600/1112_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qvxXJOmbEqg/VOFjxUhadnI/AAAAAAAAQQk/YotQly1f1a8/s1600/1112_2.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-70dHJUkPNqA/VOFjxYYhatI/AAAAAAAAQQs/0yUdnIOxwEA/s1600/1112_4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-70dHJUkPNqA/VOFjxYYhatI/AAAAAAAAQQs/0yUdnIOxwEA/s1600/1112_4.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a></div>
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Think 6" drows, the drow spider queen, a mind flayer; goblins on a 12" dire wolf; the beholder; the rust monster; orcs!, let us not forget the orcs; giants! lots of different types of giants, 8", 10", 12" even 24" giants!; a lich; the owlbear; a huge tarrasque the size of my AT-AT. The options are limitless.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ElrXXwtPNTk/VOF54JLwjKI/AAAAAAAAQRo/R0ztjDkADYg/s1600/star-wars-the-black-series-6-inch-6-inch-action-figure-2-pack-imperial-shadow-squadron-new-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ElrXXwtPNTk/VOF54JLwjKI/AAAAAAAAQRo/R0ztjDkADYg/s1600/star-wars-the-black-series-6-inch-6-inch-action-figure-2-pack-imperial-shadow-squadron-new-2.jpg" height="187" width="400" /></a><br />
Of course I'd expect something like this to the right, and not something like this below.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iNXpqISxdvA/VOF53wkhI6I/AAAAAAAAQRk/JEkQLJ5kQq4/s1600/dd_zorgar_cc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iNXpqISxdvA/VOF53wkhI6I/AAAAAAAAQRk/JEkQLJ5kQq4/s1600/dd_zorgar_cc.jpg" height="320" width="216" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eNPTwaD8-0U/VOF69fzx58I/AAAAAAAAQR0/A0Q5x07g3FU/s1600/star-wars-black-6-inch-series-5-action-figure-darth-vader-new-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eNPTwaD8-0U/VOF69fzx58I/AAAAAAAAQR0/A0Q5x07g3FU/s1600/star-wars-black-6-inch-series-5-action-figure-darth-vader-new-5.jpg" height="175" width="200" /></a></div>
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Evil dudes should have a pissed with life expression! They should make me feel like they could kick some ass and harass my schnauzers if I don't keep a watchful eye, and not look like they're sorry for being evil.</div>
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What do you think? Too far fetched? Would you pay 20 to 30 bucks for a 6" D&D action figure? Maybe 50 or more for a more elaborate piece like the drow spider queen? What would be your dream collection of 10 6" monsters? What about character classes? What would you like there?</div>
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WotC if you're reading this, what's stopping you?</div>
Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18095130.post-79169563386109473552015-02-11T09:15:00.000-08:002015-02-11T09:17:03.742-08:00On a steel horse I ride<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4lGs0bi3isY/VNt5wK6hYDI/AAAAAAAAQMc/nrM1quEqn60/s1600/train%2Bstation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4lGs0bi3isY/VNt5wK6hYDI/AAAAAAAAQMc/nrM1quEqn60/s1600/train%2Bstation.jpg" height="275" width="320" /></a></div>
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I let my steampunkish spirit guide my bike ride this weekend. Took my steel horse (or should I say aluminium horse) for a ride down the tracks from Texcoco to Teotihuacan. </div>
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I ride by Tulantongo, through Chiautla, beyond Chiconcuac and beyond Tezoyuca, making my first stop at the train station of <a href="https://www.google.com.mx/maps/@19.6112183,-98.889013,172m" target="_blank">San Mateo Chipiltepec</a>. Here my horse stands resting against the wall as I take a look inside the old forgotten station. </div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QN3urzc7CtA/VNt-ZmeBvAI/AAAAAAAAQM0/cUrQ9trWAW4/s1600/door.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QN3urzc7CtA/VNt-ZmeBvAI/AAAAAAAAQM0/cUrQ9trWAW4/s1600/door.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vi5gutmiyXg/VNt8tjbH8dI/AAAAAAAAQMo/7jsp9Pv0coQ/s1600/20150208_130515.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vi5gutmiyXg/VNt8tjbH8dI/AAAAAAAAQMo/7jsp9Pv0coQ/s1600/20150208_130515.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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Stepping inside the station takes me back over one hundred years. I leave the town that stands behind me as I cross the portal. The brightness of the fields beyond the window down the passage contrast with the darkness that surrounds me as my eyes begin to adjust.</div>
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I get close to the window and grab the late 19th century bars that protect it. I can feel the age in the texture of the iron. Worn by the years of unrelenting sun, rain and sand, yet still firmly set and standing their ground. I look through them at an entirely different landscape. Vast dry fields for growing corn, separated by lines of trees, nopales and magueyes. Small trails lead up to the hills beyond. I know they'll rise and turn and drop again before finally taking a steep climb into mount Tlaloc, a extinct volcano that stands between me and Rio Frio. I enjoy the bright landscape from the cool comfort of the station before mounting again and riding on.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CxStq59fFLQ/VNt5fatEBjI/AAAAAAAAQL4/xlhTM6xO51o/s1600/old%2Bbridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CxStq59fFLQ/VNt5fatEBjI/AAAAAAAAQL4/xlhTM6xO51o/s1600/old%2Bbridge.jpg" height="229" width="320" /></a>The trail turns gently to the left running alongside the last houses of San Mateo and leading me through the countryside as it slowly rises up into the hills. I go under a bridge, the north eastern entrance to San Mateo, and I stumble upon two men herding their goats. After a courteous hi and good-by I turn north and follow the tracks towards Tenochtitlan. These are the last two people I'll see for a long while.</div>
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The tracks keep climbing and climbing under the unrelenting heat. A sense of detachment from modern life begins to set in. I'm nowhere and with no one near by. Stopping only makes the bike go silent, the last reminder of technology, the humming of the chain, fades into the wind. I'm left with the soft brushing of the trees under the scan wind. Something dashes through the bushes, a lizard maybe? I get off the bike and start walking as a near a bridge crossing. It runs over a creek, as I look down I see nothing but dry grass. It's been months since water ran through here and it will be months before it runs again. It would be really shitty to get stranded here.</div>
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I mount my bike again and keep pedaling. I'm travelling light today, no water, no tools, no spare parts. I must reach the next town to get something to drink before turning back. It's only a kilometer or two ahead, but not having traveled this route before makes it feel like an eternity. It's always like that isn't it? The trip back always feels shorter, there's no unknown, you're headed home, all is well. The trip to, well that is always something else. The sense of exploration, of discovering something new, the sense of risk and danger. I can only begin to imagine what it would have been to travel here 100 or 150 years ago. The same unrelenting heat, but nothing within tens of kilometers.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JOoSqCciGZU/VNt5hEsLfPI/AAAAAAAAQMI/KqB3MzgilpI/s1600/azteca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JOoSqCciGZU/VNt5hEsLfPI/AAAAAAAAQMI/KqB3MzgilpI/s1600/azteca.jpg" height="298" width="320" /></a></div>
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Further ahead the narrow hill passages open to fields and I come upon a forgotten station, aptly called Azteca. I get off the bike and sit on the warm cement, looking left and right, imagining myself waiting for the train one hundred years ago. Shaded from the sun by the roof that once stood there, I would have awaited my fortune. When will the train arrive and who will be on it? One hundred years ago, Mexico was in the middle of a revolution, one of the bloodiest in history. The train is a mixed blessing. An escape from the heat and a quick ride to the next town or an ill fate among "bandidos". I'd roll some dice and find out, but I'm way too thirsty to be thinking such things, I mount and ride off.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-x4dtCxx5Se4/VNuIhR5cd-I/AAAAAAAAQNQ/uS3sO51UN08/s1600/20150208_141823.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-x4dtCxx5Se4/VNuIhR5cd-I/AAAAAAAAQNQ/uS3sO51UN08/s1600/20150208_141823.jpg" height="640" width="368" /></a>A kilometer or so further on I finally arrive at today's destination. The town of <a href="https://www.google.com.mx/maps/@19.640677,-98.8740775,857m" target="_blank">Xometla</a>. I take a right off the railroad tracks and bike up to the caves, park and gotcha field in the hills. I sit down under a tree and enjoy the view of the countryside as I take a refreshing drink I just bought in town. Beyond, barely visible in the horizon, stand both the Moon and Sun pyramids of Teotihuacan. I'm perfectly aligned with the "Calzada de los Muertos" (the avenue of the dead), I could walk my way from here, down the calzada and up the Moon pyramid, but that is a journey for another day.<br />
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For now I just relax and take a moment to close my eyes and rest. It will be quite a ride back home and I'm getting hungry. Next time I'll bring more supplies and take you further down the tracks. We'll see what random encounters await.Saurondorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592286228203662073noreply@blogger.com0