R.I.P Arol Flynn Sweet-Tongue

Well, it finally happened.

After GM’ing for almost four years on and off through several games, the inevitable finally occurred:

I killed a Player Character.

Now, before I get into the hows and whys, let me first explain my position on PC deaths: I’m not a fan of killing off PC’s. See, I’m from the school of thought that, if a player spends the time and effort in rolling up a character and making up an interesting and cool back story then for them to die in the game requires one of two things to happen:

One, they do something despite me advising strongly against it.

Example:
Me: “You find what looks to be a temple. It appears to be holy ground and the resting place of heroes. There are several sarcophagus in the room with carvings along the side depicting the heroic exploits of these soldiers. It appears no other evil has touched this place.

PC: Screw it! I’m going to rip off one of those coffin lids and find me some treasure!

Me: Uh…these were good soldiers who died defending the realm against evil. Don’t you think they deserve some peace?

PC: Not as much as my ass deserves a sweet magical item! BOYAH!


Two, they just do something outright stupid.

Example:

PC: So, I think this guy is the villain.

GM: Why? He’s give you no reason to think this. He’s done nothing but help the team, and is even standing watch in the infirmary over your fallen comrade.

PC: Whatever. He’s evil and I’m not going to stand around until it’s too late to stop his evil ass.

GM: So what are you going to do?

PC: Strap ten grenades to my body, run in the infirmary and bear hug him. Then pull the pin.

GM: IN THE INFIRMARY!?!? LIKELY KILLING ALL OF THE INNOCENTS INSIDE!?!?

PC: I’m not worried…I’ll use the Force to shield myself from the blast.


So…you get the picture. I WON’T let a good PC die because of a crappy roll of the dice. The name of the game is FUN…and losing your PC (unless you have it coming to you) simply isn’t fun, not for me, certainly not for the players.

But damn it can be dramatic.

So, this last weekend I was running my group’s D6 Fantasy campaign “Champions of the North” and things had taken a downward turn for the group.

Two thirds of them were in prison for killing a couple of orc thugs a month earlier while in town before they went on a dungeon crawl. Upon returning to town they were arrested, put on trial and sentenced to death. Turns out the local crime syndicate decided to use them in the main event of the newly built arena, so they could line their pockets with gold at the minor expense of two of their orc footsoldiers.

So, we’ve got two PC’s stripped down , fitted with raiment’s and shoved into the arena to fight for their lives in front of this bloodthirsty crowd. I decided to throw two massive Wood Trolls at them (and in D6 Fantasy, trolls are mean, nasty, TOUGH sumsbitches, and with my own modifications NOT some panty-waists that run at the first glimmer of sunlight)… but there were weapons to be had and even a way to escape…the PC’s merely had to find the correct loose sewer grate that led to the underground tunnels. The game plan they came up with was to split up…forcing the trolls to divide their efforts…not a bad plan.

The two PC’s were a Battlemage Moonelf named Cirith Moonshadow and the other, a half-elf Bard named Arol Flynn Sweet-Tongue (quit your snickering out there, I can hear you!).

When the Trolls were released the PC’s did a good job initially of holding their ground, with Arol dodging and weaving, trying sewer grates and just barely staying out of his Wood Troll’s reach. Cirith was lucky enough to find her magic sword on her first attempt (see, weapons were arrayed in covered alcoves along the arena walls…they were completely random and the local mages guild, who needed Cirith alive, had planted her weapon “The Troll Slaying Bastard Sword of Aundair” among the available weapons-and I’ll be damned if the player, Elfgirl, didn’t draw the freaking sword on her first try…a 1 in 23 chance…go figure)…

So, seeing that this battle was likely to end pretty quickly (barring some catastrophe), I moved my guys in for the kill, just to make things remotely interesting and challenging ….Cirith’s troll of course became sushi thanks to her magical weapon….Arol (who was being played by Country Girl)…well…Arol had some bad luck.

See, Arol was doing fine dancing around, trying the sewer grates for an early exit, and so on…but upon dodging out of the way of his adversary a second too late, the Troll managed to catch Arol just right and land a hit…

Here’s where it gets interesting.

See…when we played Star Wars D6 it used the “Wound Level” system…which to me was a very archaic and abstract way of determining how bad off your character was injured. Instead of hit points or body points, you had “wound levels”…and I hated it. I think it failed to really capture the visceral reaction necessary to convey how bad you just got f***ed up. So, instead of seeing your hit points drop by half you get a lame “Well, you’re Wounded x2”.

Woooo! I really felt THAT!

See, like I said, it just seems to lack the appropriate “zing” that a body point system does.

So, when the newer D6 products rolled out a body points-based damage system, I did backflips.

Now, when you take damage, you actually have a solid idea of how bad your ass just got kicked. It’s great, I dig it and more importantly, it lets players know just how bad off they really are, rather than telling them… “oooh…you really hurt…wow, boy do you hurt…”


So…back to the action…..

Arol has 35 body points.

The Troll connects on his hit, using claws as big as daggers….

And does 34 points of damage.

The players freak as Arol’s midsection gets ripped from his body and flies unceremoniously through the air to splat against the arena wall.

So, as a GM here’s my dilemma.

Arol has a healing potion (don’t ask how he smuggled it in, his name is “Sweet-Tongue” so do the math)….anyway, do I let Cirith make her way over to him, fight off the slaughtering troll and save Arols life?

Or do I do something memorable, something dramatic, something that the group will remember for years to come?

Yeah, I went ahead and killed his ass.

With Arol having only one body point left, Cirith, having taken her troll out of the fight, scrambles, sword in hand, to get to her fallen comrade, who has dropped to his knees, his intestines spilling into his hands as rain pours from above into the arena and as lightning crashes and thunder fights for supremacy over the roar of the crowd…and as Ciriths stumbles and scampers along the wet ground, the troll, an evil grin on his face, draws back, and as Arol looks up, disbelieving, razor sharp claws slice through the air-and his neck- sending his head spinning off into the darkness.

DRAMA!

So that’s how it happened at the table.

Country Girl sat there stunned as I asked her to hand over her character folder and gave her the rulebook to decide what kind of character she wanted to play next. To her credit she accepted it with dignity…didn’t argue or protest and got on with planning her future PC.

The other players moved on as well, with Cirith returning the favor and beheading the killer troll and escaping the arena and Borrax (the teams Dwarven tank) infiltrating the prison and retrieving the teams gear…still, for the next several hours I tried to make Country Girl feel better abut the situation, telling her the new PC might be more fun to play, that it wasn’t her fault, that the troll just got a great roll…you could even tell the other players were still coming to grips with it.

It was an emotional time.

So…the remaining two heroes, Cirith and Borrax finally rendezvous, Cirith reveals Arol’s demise and as both board a ship to escape the town, they go about the grim business of dividing up their fallen comrades goods…

And come across the Mirror of Resurrection Arol found in the dungeon they’d recently visited.


HA HA!!!!!!!!

Stunned and surprised, Cirith uses her arcane knowledge, figures out how it works and smashes it against the floor…the mirror shatters and a flash and puff of smoke later, and a naked shivering Arol Flynn is resurrected right there in the middle of the cabin.

See, what makes this ALL the more sweet is that NONE of the players remembered the mirror! They actually sat there for several hours thinking I had just killed a PC (which technically, I had)…but I remembered the mirror, and knew that barring anything unforeseen they would come across it after the rendezvous and that Arol would rise again.

It’s times like these that makes all of the work and effort worthwhile.

Snacks for the game: $10
Miniatures and props: $10
Convincing a player you just killed off their character for good: Priceless.

Oh, and as a treat for you all, here are two pictures of the Champions of the North. The first is their starting “look” for the game…bright colors, very heroic…Arol Flynn Sweet-Tongue, Borrax Ironhouse and Cirith Moonshadow…. feel free to click for a higher resolution image!



























And the second pic is of the heroes on the run from the law and heading into darker, more sinister territories….












Oh, and some of you may be wondering why Borrax is sporting a thick black beard and shaggy mane of hair in one pic and not in the other.

Well dear readers, that is another story all together.....

I'll take "Where the hell is my update?" for $500 Alex!

Yeah, the much promised Raptor Squad update is coming…it’s just that-and I have NO regrets in saying this-it’s been delayed due to some actual gaming!

See, Country Girl, one of my players comes in to town for a 2-4 week hiatus each year to “find herself” or “get her groove back” or whatthehellever chicks are calling it these days. Fortunately, being the cool and versatile guy I am, I was able to take advantage of this by running three back-to-back weekly games this time around.

Yeah, I do rule. You’re welcome.

The sad fact is that the site update got pushed back while I whipped up my magic.

But don’t worry, when it does roll out you will pee yourself with all of the cool new stuff. Really. Get the Depends ready and a moist towel because it’s going to totally Roxxorz.


Seriously. Sincerely seriously.

Or maybe it’s all hype! Perhaps it won’t live up to the hooplah and expectations and leave you wondering why you wasted the time and energy to even bother with it!

Then I’ll just call it “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”

ZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Size Matters!

Especially when it comes to sizes of gaming groups!

See, back in the day, when the Raptor Squad campaign was at it’s zenith, we had about eight or nine people around the table…and don’t get me wrong…big groups can be lots of fun. It opens the up the doors to larger games with a lot of variety and interesting character interactions…everyone has their own agenda, and everyone is bringing something different and interesting to the mix.

It’s a lot like chili. Lots of different ingredients, all working together to make a really appetizing bowl of good eats.

But, like chili, sometimes, if it’s not cooked just right, you can run into problems. Like one spice might override the flavors of the other spices, or you don’t drain enough grease off the meat, or you use too many peppers and it’s too hot, or, for some folks, not hot enough. Or you like yours with noodles, and there are none to be had.

You get the picture…the more ingredients, the greater the risk of something ruining the meal.

The biggest trouble with large groups is scheduling. When you try to get seven or eight people together at one time on one day of the month it’s hard…hell, it was almost impossible. But trying to get everyone together TWICE in a month?

Now you are just talking crazy.

That’s why I dig smaller groups, like the one I have now. Three really great gamers (though I wouldn’t be opposed to adding a fourth at some point in the future if anyone is interested…drop me a line) works perfectly for us. The group is small enough that everyone gets face time and everyone gets to feel like they are an important piece of the whole.

But most importantly, it’s easier to get everyone together!!!!

This past Saturday we gamed for the second time in as many weeks, and it appears we will be gaming AGAIN this week!

I’m freaking thrilled! I haven’t gamed this much since I was in high school and the players are having a total blast! We gamed for about 10 hours the other night and really got a lot accomplished! Turns out I will have gamed in three weeks what it would have taken FOUR MONTHS to accomplish back in the Raptor Squad days (and thats assuming we were able to game every month, which was rarely the case...so figure at least six months realistically).

Damn I love me some small groups!

Large groups may be like a nice bowl of chili….but small groups are like a delicious steak dinner with a perfectly baked potato and side salad. Delicious, just the right size and if you know what you are doing better than anything else on the table.

Bare knuckled gaming for 13 hours straight!

I can’t remember the last time I gamed for 13 hours straight…might have been when I was in high school or had just graduated. Either way, it was a long-ass time ago.

Until last Saturday.

The second Champions of the North game started bright and early on a Saturday morning and didn’t wrap up until almost midnight. And damn was it a blast.

Generally there is a ton of prep work, props, sets and such that goes into my games. But this time it was my players, some mini’s, a handful of dice and that’s it. And you know what? I think it may have been one of the best games I’ve ever put on ( a sentiment echoed by one of my gamers at the table actually.)

It was just a flat-out good old fashioned dungeon crawl, but you know what? It was a total blast, so much so that the gamers want to get back together this coming weekend to continue. Truth be told two of them laughed so hard they almost passed out from lack of oxygen (I swear- that’s true).

Sometimes, it’s just a lot of fun to get back to your roots. Just a map, some dice and your imagination is all you need to have a fantastic time. Beauty in simplicity as they say. And last Saturday’s game was a beautiful thing.

Of course I was wiped-out Sunday, but it was well worth it.

And I got paid one the highest compliments I’ve ever gotten from a player:

“I felt like I was a teenager again.”

When you get older, have kids, responsibilities, bills and you become an “adult”, you will realize just how valuable something like that is.

It's Huge!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's what she said.

HA!!!!

Sorry...reference for you "Office" fans.


No, what's "huge" or rather, turning out to be "huge" is the upcoming Raptor Squad update. Like so many things I do, it started out as a nice, decent sized update and has snowballed into something that is certainly going to have meat on it's bones.
In addition to some badass fiction that you will be a complete and total loser to NOT read, (yeah, you fanboy), there is going to be:

1. A slew of new character profiles

2. The much anticipated (for me anyway) Locations section will make it's debut.

3. A load of new ships! Dat's right! Thanks to Elfgirl's amazing ability to visualize and reproduce ships and vehicles in 3d with limited resources we will see some new ships and re-imaginings of old favorites. Very very cool if you ask me (but then again so is she- coolest chick I've ever known, that's why I let her marry me...lucky girl!).

And I'm ont going to spill details yet...but there might be a nice participatory event on the horizon soon for all of you SWRPG folks. More details to follow.


No ETA on the update however...basically it will get done when it gets done. Hopefully in the next month, but don't hold me to that. We'll see if life decides to cut me some slack in July-that bastard.

In closing, I'm sooooooooooooooo happy to have a job that pays me for working on my RPG website, it is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up

Old Shellhead & A large slice of Americana

Went to see three flicks at the local Drive-In last weekend (yes, we are lucky enough to have a real, actual Drive-In Movie Theater within 30 minutes of our house- a couple of em’ even) The wife and I checked out Kung Fu Panda, Indy 4 & Iron Man in a triple feature.
We’d never been to the Drive-In together before (which kinda surprised us both since we’ve been together close to a decade) but overall we had a blast.

The food was your standard Drive-In fare, slushies, funnel cakes, etc. Good greasy stuff you shouldn’t eat on a regular basis basically. But on a Drive-In night out? All bets are off.

The movies were a mixed bag. Kung Fu Panda was cute, as expected. Indy 4 was (for me anyway) a letdown. In fact the more I think about it the less I like it.

But Iron man? Well, old Shellhead certainly delivered some standard summer blockbuster fun. I really enjoyed it and actually look forward to a sequel. Well played Mr. Downey Jr., well played indeeeeeeeeed.

But it’s like I told my wife. You don’t actually go to the Drive-In for the flicks. You go for the experience. The weekend of the 7th was the 75th anniversary of Drive-In’s in America, and at the height of their popularity there was more than 5000 in America. That has since dwindled to about 700, which is a shame…it’s a unique experience that I think everyone should have the opportunity to try at least once.

There’ s nothing quite like kicking back on a warm summer night, the smell of Honeysuckle in the air and the buzz of insects dying down as it gets dark, and then seeing the giant screen light up. Our triple feature wound up around 4:30am, and the snack bar was even serving breakfast before the last flick, which was pretty interesting.

We wound up getting home around 5am and crashing…slept most of the next day away in fact. But still, it was a great time and we had a lot of fun.

As a matter of fact I first saw Star Wars at a drive-in theater back in ‘77. Granted I was about six years old and my brother tricked me into thinking an ad for the local electric company was the beginning of the movie (he liked to torment me like that)…but still. great times from what I remember of it.

It’s still early in the season, and if you live anywhere near a Drive-In I encourage you to load up the family and friends and take in a flick. It’s cheaper than going to some sterile, cookie-cutter megaplex with their overpriced soft drinks and stale popcorn, and it lets you actually enjoy the fresh outdoors.

In short, it’s an experience you and your family may not get to enjoy in the near future, and it’s a slice of Americana that is, unfortunately, slowly dying away.

That being said, it’s a shame. So, get out there and enjoy it while you still have the chance.

Days of Future Past

So, let me tell you a little story, which has quite a bit to do with our forthcoming update to the Raptor Squad site, and a lot to do about ambition and over-extending yourself.

See, we opened the doors to the site back in March, 2001. Now, that was over seven years ago and needless to say that is a nice chunk of time. Thing is, when we rolled out the site, we also introduced folks to the members of the current Raptor Squad team at the time, which was comprised of: Vic Palisades, Klux Martin, Baal, Koort Ter’chon, Xander Paddox, Khara Doone and Jonus Kable.

And that was all cool, as, at the time, those PC’s were being played by folks around the gaming table. Now, obviously if you are going to go through the time and effort of rolling out a new website focusing on your current RPG campaign, you are going to want to highlight the players in the game- it just makes sense (Don't be excluding people, that's just rude...).

So cool…we roll out the site and everyone gets their own little bio page.

We also, at the time, had the grand idea of posting “Gamelogs”- these would be small little summaries highlighting the important parts of our gaming sessions. If you’ve ever looked at any RPG campaign site worth it’s salt you’ve seen these write ups. The problem? They usually suck.

Ours was no different.

The Gamelogs, while conveying the appropriate info, also reads like a instructional pamphlet put out by the government on how toothpicks are made. While informative, it’s also boring as piss.

Granted, it would be easier and quicker (and in the beginning it was-sorta) to post the gamelogs and be done with it, but there were a couple of problems that arose when we did this:

First, we had been running this game for two years prior to rolling the website out. Which means for any of the current gamelogs (circa 2001) to make any damn sense, we would have to go back in time and post game logs detailing the games from the last two years- and considering we played at least once a month we are talking about up to twenty-five of these puppies.

Second, as has been mentioned before- writing these things was boring…and not something folks would have any kind of real fun in reading (except for those really, really bored). See, I was in charge of writing these things up, and I realized early on that you simply cannot convey the raw emotion and character interactions that I was seeing played out around the table in this tiresome, lifeless format.

Basically, I felt these boring, by-the-numbers gamelogs were, if anything, doing our wonderful game a major disservice.

So, after posting a few gamelogs, I got the bright idea of “Hey! I’m not a terrible writer, and I’ve got some halfway decent ideas and creativity (and time) - I’ll write fiction instead of just a boring point-by-point synopsis of the games!

So with Gamelog # 7 (I think- we’ve renumbered the sequence since then) I let my writing muscles flex and fictionalized the gamelog…complete with plot, dialog, the whole deal. And while shorter than later fiction I would write, it was nonetheless a vast improvement over the gamelog format.

And it was a big hit.

I enjoyed writing it, our GM really dug seeing his game come to life as an actual story and the players enjoyed seeing these characters live, breath and interact on the computer screen.

There was only one problem. Like I mentioned before, we were easily 2+ years behind our current adventures…and, as I have known for years in dabbling in writing, writing takes a long time. A long time. And while I could knock out a gamelog in a few days or a week, writing fiction detailing the same events, creating plot, developing the story so it fit in with future events…hell that could take months, even years in some cases.

So, you probably see where this is going.

Because the group and myself chose to fictionalize our adventures, I was always going to be way behind in where our game was compared to where the fiction was. And considering that over half of our group (Koort, Khara, Jonus and Xander) hadn’t even joined until a few years in, introducing them in the fiction was going to be a few years out.

Seven years out to be exact.

Now, that’s a long time to wait (and for some too long even). But, being stubborn, part Irish and as hard-headed as a brain-damaged rhino, I’ve refused to compromise the fiction and go back to gamelogs. I have fun writing it, and folks have a good time reading it (now that the fiction is actually read by folks in the SWRPG community, not just our former/current gaming group I feel like I actually have an obligation to all of the readers to keep producing the fiction- to go back to the cheap gamelogs would be lame and quite frankly, below our site’s standards-yay standards!).

So, that brings us to the forthcoming update.

I’m happy, thrilled and elated even! To announce that the forthcoming update will feature the first piece of fiction introducing characters that first graced the Raptor Squad site oh-so many years ago. Yes, Koort, Xander, Jonus and Khara will be getting their day in the sun, and their introduction will actually introduce what the group once came to refer to as “The Golden Age of Raptor Squad”. It was a time when we were having the most fun around the table and the group just seemed to “click”. This was also a time that saw some of the strongest storylines, team drama and introduction of some of the most colorful and lively NPC’s.

Needless to say, I’m excited as hell.

Now, it will likely be this time next year before all of the above PC’s are introduced through the fiction, but I can tell you it will certainly be worth the wait. Over half of the fiction is already written and the stories will be posted in pieces, but it’s some good stuff, and worthy of the characters who really made the game shine.

Oh, and remember I said I started fictionalizing the gamelogs starting with gamelog # 7? Yeah, well that means that 1-6 still haven’t been fictionalized yet. But don’t worry, I’m also working on that concurrently while writing the “current” fiction…so….with any luck you’ll be seeing the “early adventures” of Raptor Squad posted sometime soon (maybe the holidays?) The reason that has taken a back seat is because the group was smaller at its start and writing the current fiction is sort of a priority right now.

So! Keep your eyes open, as the update should be hitting this summer…with more to follow thanks to a loooooong vacation I have planned in a nice, comfy remote cabin out in the woods which will prompt much time writing (as well as hot tubbing to sooth those tired writing muscles). And who knows, I might just post some goodies here for you all to check out pre-rollout. So watch for that too.

It’s a pretty exciting time, and Raptor Squad’s “Golden Age” is on the horizon. You won’t want to miss it!