Day 28: D&D Blog Hop Lessons Learned

What is the single most important lesson you’ve learned from playing D&D?

Play the game that is in front of you. If you stop complaining, you might actually enjoy yourself. 

Day 27: Regret is Inefficient. All Hail the Computer!

If you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently?

I’d have played less RIFTS. I'd certainly not have spent as much money as I did on Palladium books. Don’t get me wrong, I love RIFTS. It’s a lot of fun in a really gonzo way, but I don't think that anyone will deny that its mostly a steaming hot mess. I blame it all on the XTREMEness of the 90’s

Remember when this was cool? Neither do i.

But I do wish I’d have played wider variety of games. Here is a short list of games that I wish I’d had a chance to play, or have played more of:

Always more TWERPS.

Day 26: Gaming Friends are the Bestest Friends (except when they're Gamey Friends)

Do you still game with the group that introduced you to the hobby?

When I actually started gaming with other people, it was mostly neighbourhood kids. Then they’d bring in other friends and other kids would drop out. It was a pretty random group for long time, but in high school it began to gel around a core group of three guys, myself included. Other people played, but we were the main group that they played with.

Eventually it settled into a group of six and together we weathered through university, jobs, illnesses, girlfriends/boyfriends, spouses, kids, divorces ... once a week for nearly two decades. 

We didn’t stop regularly playing as a group until I moved to Nova Scotia. After that I didn’t play much of anything for a while; some Munchkin with friends’ kids and board games with my wife were about it.

Then I got sick.

Every third week for six months, I would spend five days locked in a room with not much else to do except watch a wide variety of fluids get pumped into my body. Having cancer can actually be really boring.

After some online snooping and scouring a few second hand bookstores, I got back into Game Books and solo Tunnels and Trolls mainly just so I'd have something to do.

It didn’t take long before my gaming group, now scattered across five time zones, to get together on Skype and we together bravely battled out way through ‘In Search of the Unknown’ and then ‘Palace of the Silver Princess’. It was an incredible show of love and support to someone who was both bored and terrified and in need of a little escape. 

That is the kind of friends that gaming gave me. 

Day 25: May the Force be With Yous Guys

What was the longest running campaign you’ve ever played?

It wasn’t D&D, it was WEG D6 Star Wars where we took a group of rebels from a year before Yavin to a few years after Return of the Jedi. It was a truly epic campaign: the Failed Jedi sacrificed himself so that his apprentice could become a true Jedi;  The group’s leader was hunted by a vicious Star Destroyer captain, who also happened to be his mother; The two Wookies in the group squared off against a slaving ring. It was the best campaign I’ve ever had the pleasure of being a part of.

The Naughty Banthas Live!

D&D tended to be one offs and despite some efforts to get a longer running campaign, they never quite gelled into anything we could truly build on. I think with the effort we were putting into Star Wars, the D&D stuff tended to be a pallet cleaner full of old fashioned hack and slash.

Day 24: Never Say Die!

First movie that comes to mind when you think of D&D?

A gang of misfits, each with their own unique talents, making their way through a trap laden maze and solvig puzzles on the hunt for pirate treasure. All the while being chased by a gang of homicidal criminals. How more D&D can you get? They also fight monsters! 

 The octopus was very scary. 

Day 23: The Metal Queen Rocks Us All

First song that made you think of D&D? Why?

Why? Fricking look at it!

Day 21: Is a Metric Shit-Ton a Scientifically Actual Measurement? It Should Be.

First time you ever sold some of your gaming books?

I didn’t even consider selling my gaming stuff until I seven years ago when I was faced with a move half-way across the country. It would have been very expensive to ship them, and I didn’t know if I’d find a gaming group out here.

So I gave away most of my stuff to a few friends and the people in my gaming group. Then I dumped a metric shit-ton of RIFTS sourcebooks off at the second hand shop.  

amateur.

Later on I even sold most of my dice to a woman who sent them to her son’s platoon in Afghanistan, which I thought that was kind of awesome.

The funny thing is that while D&D was never our main game, I did keep all my D&D books. 

Day 22: Well, that sucked.

First RPG novel you ever read?

First and pretty much last. I know this was a big part of some people's formative D&D experience, but did no one else realize that the so-called heroes NEVER did anything worthwhile on their own? I can remember them fighting a dragon and then getting saved by a god, and a battle against a horde of zombies and being saved by the sudden appearance of a unicorn. There were more, I’m sure. 

The exception that proves the rule. 

After about the fourth dues-ex-machina, I completely gave up. 

Unfortunately, the experience kinda soured me on rpg novels and I’ve read very few since. 

Day 20: No Elves.

First non D&D game you played?

'Talis*fucking*lanta,

I discovered Talislanta through Dragon Magazine and ads like this and a glowing review in some issue or another. About the same time, I found The Chronicles of Talislanta* in my LGS and saved up for a month to buy it.The book has no rules, it is simply a travelers' guide to the different regions and I was immediately hooked like a pot head on nachos. The rules were also a revelation. Instead of the randomness of D&D with its THAC0 and %rolls and wonky Stats (Str 18/76?), Talislanta had a nice clean system where everything was rolled on one D20 chart. 

Then in 2005, I was lucky enough to add my own stamp on the lost continent when I wrote two (semi-)offical supplements for the game. The adventure, 'The Weight of Water' even got properly published, which has been the highlight of my gaming career to this point. I'll be the first to admit that the adventure is rail-roady as hell, but I'm still proud of most it. Much to my amazement and delight, it even got a P.D.Breeding Black cover!

Download it free (and legal)!*

The second was a based on more of a sandbox idea, which combined a sourcebook and an adventure for exploring the tropical island of Thaecia during the week of their (not just famous, but) in-famous 'Festival of the Bizarre'. It was never properly published and needs a good edit or six, but I still like to put it out there. 

*Talislanta.com has all old material available for free! 

Day 19: PC Hoppers and Jedi Rapists

First gamer who annoyed the hell of you?

watch your back!

The player I hate most is the guy who can't stick with a character. The one who spent six hours making his Thief, but gets distracted during play by reading the Paladin kit, then wants to bump off the Thief to make a Ranger. 

But the only gamer who ever actually scared me happened  one day at Fandom II, when a buddy and I were looking through the WEG D6 Star Wars stuff, our game of choice back in the day. We were interrupted by some guy who then spent the next fifteen minutes telling us about his Noghri Jedi (small, Jawa sized aliens who moved like ninjas and could take out Wookies. Now make that a Jedi) who would then anally violate everyone he killed. 

True story. 

Day 18: The Captain Carrot Convention

First Gaming Convention you ever attended?

Just after I started playing D&D (mostly solo), I happened to be in a local rec-centre that was holding a comic/gaming convention. I begged my mother for the admittance fee and she relented. I don't know what I was expecting, but it turned out to be a huge disappointment.

A lot of older guys in Iron Maiden t-shirts who took themselves far to seriously and wouldn't talk to an kid, even one that seemed eager to learn. I bought a couple of Captain Carrot comics and bugged out. I think my mother thought I didn't spend enough time in there to justify the entrance fee. She was probably right.  

but the Zoo Crew will forever be, AWESOME!.

Day 17: The Night Tom Hanks was EVIL!

First time you heard that D&D was somehow, evil?

One night I saw Tom Hanks in 'Mazes and Monsters', it may have even been the original airing.

Even as a kid I thought the movie was about a guy who was seriously messed up, not that the game he was playing was in any way 'evil'.

I also have an Uncle who is a fundamentalist Catholic, and I remember that my father would ask me to take down my D&D poster whenever him and his family would come visit. The one time I forgot to take down the poster, my cousin wasn't allowed to sleep in my room, even after I'd taken the poster down.

I was lucky in that my parents never took this sort of nonsense seriously.    

Day 16: On Being a Conscientious Objector in the Edition Wars

Do you remember your first edition war? Did you win?

but come the Metal Wars, we all must fight!

When I was a kid I remember fnding out that my some of my friends had different games than my trusty Red Box. Gamma World was the obvious one, but there was also this thing called AD&D. Being about 9 years old, I honestly thought that AD&D was just regular D&D with 'advanced' rules.

Then came D&D3, which was easier to play (ask me my theory on how D&D3 was influenced by Talislanta's Omni System, sometime). Then D&D4 was a misguided attempt at modelling tabletop rpgs on video-games. Because of that, I drifted back into OSR games and have my preferences on what system I like to use, but I never really engaged in an edition war.

You play the game that's in front of you. Don't like that the DM is running D&D3.5 when you'd rather play Labyrinth Lord? You tell the table you're running the next game.  

Day 14: Love Bugs

Did you meet your significant other while playing D&D? Does he or she still play? (Orjust post a randomly generated monster in protest of Valentine's Day?

-My old gaming group had a number of girls/women in the group of the years. Most have come and gone, but two are core members. Surprisingly, the only ‘significant other’ who ever participated was one of my high school girlfriends. She didn’t play D&D, but she did participate in a RIFTS campaign for a while and actually enjoyed it. My wife doesn’t seem to quite grasp the concept, but has at least offered to try.

In honour of Valentine’s Day, I present the,

 LOVE BUG

This large, biting insect is found in most woodland areas and is notable for its surprisingly human face, and its piecing cry that sounds a lot like the common word for ‘SUFFER!’

They are attracted to the smell of humanoid sweat and other waste products, and seem to possess a perverse pleasure in attacking people who are in various states of undress. This had lead to many painful bites in some very private areas. Guides and rangers who know that Love Bugs are in the area will warn travelers to wrap a blanket around themselves should the need arises to squat against a tree.

Witches, rhapsodists, nymphomancers, and panderers often set traps for the bugs, using the venom of their bites for any number of naughty potions, lotions and oils.

The insect’s bite injects a small amount of venom that is extremely painful, but otherwise harmless once it wears off. However, in some instances, it can produce a severe allergic reaction that will permanently alter a person’s hormone and pheromones.

Scholars have estimated that a person’s susceptibility to the Love Bug’s venom increases by a factor of 5% each time the person has been bitten.

The catch is that a person might not know that they have been affected until months, even years after the first bite. The person’s altered hormones or pheromones simply remain inert until they encounter something they have been altered to affect.

The only consolatory fact is that once a person has been infected, they cannot be infected again. 

If a Hero becomes infected, roll D20, for the result.

 1             Hero falls in love with the first (humanoid) person they see (any sex).

2              Hero falls in love with the first (humanoid) person of the opposite sex they see.

3              Hero falls in love with the first (humanoid) person of the same sex they see.

4              First person (any sex) who sees the Hero falls desperately in love with them.

5              First person of the opposite sex who sees the Hero falls desperately in love with them.

6              First person of the same sex who sees the Hero falls desperately in love with them.

7              Hero falls in love with the first humanoid (any sex) of a different species (elf, dwarf, Venusian) they see.

8              First humanoid of a different species (any sex) that sees the Hero falls desperately in love with them.

9             Pheromones attract wandering monsters at twice the normal rate

10           Pheromones attract amorous monsters at twice the normal rate.

11           Fairies will now look upon you favourably, flocking when the Hero is around and willing to grant small requests.

12           Fairies hate you and will constantly prank, torment, tease and ridicule the Hero when they are around.

13           The next large monster the Hero encounters may (50% chance) will become a loyal follower. It will fight at the Hero’s side, act as a mount( if physiologically possible) and will learn to obey simple commands. However, if the monster sees the Hero as its bonded mate and will brutally attack anyone it sees as a rival.

14           The Hero’s virginity has been restored!

15           The Hero’s perfect match (regardless of gender, species or age) will suddenly glow (visible to the Hero only).

16           The Hero suddenly develops an affinity with all animals (not monsters); gaining bonuses to riding and animal handling skills.

17           Animals will now distrust the Hero. Gain penalties to all riding and handling skills. Familiar’s will flee!

18           Suddenly the Hero is a lot more likeable. Double Charisma score (or equivalent) and all applicable skills (Charm, Seduce etc).

19           The Hero is suddenly a lot less likeable. Halve Charisma (or equivalent) and all applicable skills.

20           The Hero is now incapable of true love, ever.